FicWad

Author Note: Hey, IY fans! (or people who are just reading this fic to kill time; hey there are people like that, you're listening to one...) I hope this story is capturing at least some of your interests! And I have to thank RoseCrystal for giving me her feedback and opinions on the fic... reviews are greatly appreciated! Oh, if some of you are wondering how, in chapter 3, Miroku knew Sango was in Naraku's barrier? That and hopefully all the rest of your current questions will be answered here... also, I'd like to know how I'm doing grammatically, too, so if you see any errors or anything please let me know!

Arigatou!


OK, enough ranting by me.... on to the story.


Chapter 4 - Drawn In

Meanwhile, away from the action, a group of people meet in an old, abandoned cave...

"Kohaku..." a voice said softly, and the young demon slayer slowly turned in that direction, to see Kagura glaring at him, although it was not hate or anger that mirrored in her eyes; it was a strange kind of curiosity. She took him aside for a moment, separating them from Kanna, Naraku's Infant (coughheartcough) and Hakudoushi, who looked on curiously.

"Now, Kohaku... I just wanted to tell you (and I know that you can hear me, too) that I have been watching you for a while. You seem to be following Naraku's every command like a well-trained robot, yet I always see in your eyes... something else... something that was not there before you attacked that village a while back." The village she was referring to was the one in which the Infant was hidden, located next to a castle, before Abi-hime's birds ransacked the place. At that time, Kohaku was ordered to protect Akago from any pursuers (namely Inuyasha and his friends) and then he was ordered to kill all of the people surrounding him and the baby; even though he did do away with some of the villagers, it was at this moment that Kohaku's memories suddenly came flooding back to him. At that moment, he remembered everything, from his sister, to his father and fellow villagers, up until the day he murdered everyone at that castle... the day he had first fallen in Naraku's devious trap.

Now, standing here, and even then, after he had left the village Abi's birds had practically destroyed, pretending to continue following Naraku's command, Kohaku was now taking a large risk. If he tripped up even a little in his playacting, it would be all over for him. Naraku would extract the jewel shard from his back, he would die, and he would be one less pawn in the demon's operation. Whatever it took, he would not let that happen; his goal in life now (or can you say limbo?) was to destroy the one who had put him through all of this torture. Now that Kagura (who at least had some sense enough to betray Naraku) knew his little secret, or rather, thought she knew his secret, he had one more way to get out of this. But even with her, how could it be done, and done right, before he was discovered?

Kagura continued.

"Boy, I know exactly what happened at that village, and don't you dare refute me... I may have been the second of Naraku's children, but I am not as stupid as he! He may not have noticed your little actions at the village, but I was watching you the whole time he was telepathically commanding you... you refused him again... you've done it before. That is proof that you have regained your memories (not to mention your senses...), and you have to be very careful about it now, because if he were to find out..." Her voice trailed off, but the boy knew exactly what she had been about to say, or pretty much knew.

Back at the barrier...

The Hell insects buzzed around Miroku, threatening him to close off his wind tunnel... it was always like this when Naraku was around; he was still too cowardly to take everyone on on his own, so he always sends in the stupid insects. Damn! Why did everything always have to be so complicated? And Kagome-sama in this condition...

"Houshi..." Naraku called from inside his barrier, "I hope you are not thinking of a way to rescue Sango, here, because no matter what you do think of, it is futile. This barrier cannot be broken by the implements you mortals possess!" At that last comment, Inuyasha's ears went up, and his heart began to beat insanely again. Leaving him with the mortals, eh? He drew his sword with a flourish.

"Naraku, you bastard!" he yelled, thoughts of Kagome and many other things rushing through his head, further quickening the flow of blood throughout his body. This was too much... Sango trapped in some weird barrier with the enemy, Kagome out cold on the ground, probably close to death, Shippou paralyzed with sorrow on her chest and Miroku surrounded with his own little enemies. Today, Naraku had to die!

"Take this!" he shouted. "Kaze no Kizu!" The blast of energy slammed from his sword, and into the barrier.

"Do it!" he urged, but as Naraku said, it was useless. But he could have sworn that a part of the barrier gave a little bit, pushed inward... weakening. Was his control over the sword's power a little more focused? Not now. The barrier remained as it had before, and the air was filled with Naraku's laughter.

"It shows how dull you are, Inuyasha! That little act of false heroism that probably sapped some power from you that could have been used later, I'm sure!" He continued to laugh, and then, all of a sudden, he started to rise into the air, emerging from the barrier's protection a few seconds later. His laughter quickly died away. It was as if he had no idea he was now no longer within the shield.

"Naraku!" someone yelled, and Inuyasha, Miroku and Naraku all turned to see Sango rising from the barrier, as well, atop Kirara who looked a little drunken, as if the barrier had been giving off some sort of sleep-inducing chemical. With a large flash of light and a noise like an explosion, the barrier faded away.

"How... how is this possible?" Naraku exclaimed, his voice low and almost fearful. "How did you break the barrier?" Sango looked confused for a moment, but then she answered.

"I used your distraction to my advantage, of course. I waited until you were busy, not looking at me or anything, then I just went for it, and made it through. I have no idea how... but I did."

Inuyasha knew how, he thought. When he used the Wind Scar last time, it weakened the shield enough for Sango to find a way through, and Naraku was so busy laughing at him, that he did not realize that the barrier was no longer there. And since no one was in it, its master gone, the barrier vanished.

"Well, you certainly have become smart, Sango, I commend you for your courage to defy me... however..." He raised his left hand, closed it into a fist, and then opened it again, to reveal the almost completed Shikon Jewel.

"Dear Kagome's life rests here in my hand." He laughed like he had before, and it seemed to go on forever...


Now back at the cave...


"Kagura..." Hakudoushi said softly, from within the barrier that had appeared around him a few moments ago; he now hung suspended inside it, like a sort of marionette, waiting to be controlled by a puppet master. And as usual, the way he spoke was with such arrogance that he sounded much like Naraku himself, even though he looked nothing like his creator.

"What?" Kagura mumbled, in response, her face turned toward a wall opposite the barrier, so that her voice sounded muffled when she spoke. "I know I can't see you, but I am listening to you."

"Kagura!" Hakudoushi snapped. "Turn toward me when I talk to you! I may not be Naraku, but I can still order you around!"

Now Kagura was a little pissed.

"Listen here, you little brat! You may not be Naraku, you have that much right, but that doesn't mean that you can threaten me like that!"

The kid looked a little nonplussed. "I didn't threaten you; I just wanted you to know that I can order you around if I wish."

During this little argument, the boy named Kohaku just sat sedately in one corner of the small cave, next to Kanna, who held the Infant. But, for just one second, barely noticeable except to those that knew to look for it and when... Kohaku twitched when Hakudoushi enunciated the word threaten. Now, Hakudoushi looked like he was in his own little world.

Now, for those of you who don't really know what that means right there, it is this. Before Kohaku regained his memories at that castle a little while back, he was like an empty shell, kept alive by only a Shikon Jewel shard (which he still is, by the way), always under the immediate command of Naraku, who had salvaged his life in the first place when he was felled by those arrows at the first castle, where it all started. In other words, before he had reclaimed his memories, Kohaku had no emotion at all; he would just go by what was told to him; he felt no sorrow, no anger, no pain... absolutely nothing at all. At one time, he even tried to take his own life by stabbing his back with his own weapon (a sickle used by demon slayers), and then extracting the jewel shard from his body. Although all of this was probably set up by Naraku, anyway, to make it look like Kohaku was back to his former self.

Now, of course, the boy had to literally watch his back.

"Kagura..." Hakudoushi continued, apparently coming out of whatever reverie he had been in a few moments before, "I have something I want you to do... come here for a moment."

Kagura turned her head around very slowly.

"Kagura!" Hakudoushi snapped, his anger apparently surfaced again. "Do as you are told!" The wind sorceress sighed in defeat, considering that maybe now she did not have much of a choice in the matter.

"Okay, okay... I'll come. What do you want?"

She got up from the cave floor, walked over to the kid's barrier, where he was still floating like a rag doll, and looked impatiently in. Hakudoushi's eyes were shining with malice.

"Now, wind sorceress, if I were Naraku, I would have crushed your heart long ago because of your constant refusal to listen... even to me! Even now... I could ask him to do it... I'm sure he wouldn't mind..."

Kagura's eyes filled with instant fear.

"No!" she cried, her voice shaking. "I won't do it again! Please do not kill me yet..." She collapsed onto the floor, to her knees, almost as if begging him not to do it... which he did not... yet.

"Fine, Kagura... get up and stop groveling... you look like some sick puppy dog." Kagura immediately rose, unstable for a moment on her legs, then righted herself and stood upright, like a soldier at attention, eyes fixed on the boy.

"Good, Kagura. I see that you are perhaps finally coming to see reason. Now, are you listening to me now? Good. Because soon we have to get moving. Stage one of Naraku's plan starts at noon."


Back at the vanished barrier...


Naraku's laughter continued to resonate through the area, and even now that there was no barrier, it sounded even worse than it would have been, were it still there. The nearly completed Jewel glowed in his hand, and even though Inuyasha, Miroku and the others were a good distance away from him, they could see it as clearly as if it were hovering in front of each of their faces.

He picked it up from his hand on lifted it into the air, waving it around, as if taunting them to come and claim it.

"Now, I wonder if any of you would want this Jewel that I have in my hand right now... I know you would, Inuyasha. Don't try to hide it; I know what your heart's desire is, and if you believe that the girl who now lies unconscious at your feet has changed what your heart believes, think again, because I know, as well as you, that you care nothing for this girl. You would just leave her here to die, were I to give this Jewel to you right now... wouldn't you? Your one chance for ultimate power, to be what you have always wanted to be from the moment you first set eyes on this Shikon no Tama. Am I not right, Inuyasha? Don't try to deny it."

If Inuyasha was angry before, it was nothing compared to what he was now... he readied his sword for another blast; hatred and disgust burned in his eyes.

"Be careful!" Naraku warned, still holding the Jewel in the air, teasing them with it. "If you do not want that girl to die, to be separated from you forever, you will not strike me!" All the while, he thought, this is going right according to plan, now let's see if Inuyasha takes the bait...

"Do you hear me?" he continued. "If you don't want Kagome to lose her life so uselessly, then do not use your sword!"

At the moment, Inuyasha did not hear any word that came out from that guy's mouth; one emotion flickered in him now: revenge. Whether or not Kagome was dead, he would avenge whatever the hell happened to her, and he would do it quickly. He raised his sword high up into the air.

He prepared to unleash the power within... then...

"No, Inuyasha! Don't use your sword! This is exactly what he wants!"

It was Miroku's voice.

Inuyasha looked around, hating to pause in his revenge, but he had to see what the blasted monk wanted; damn, he sure had a way of manipulating you!

"What's exactly what he wants?" Inuyasha yelled, even though Miroku was only feet away from him. "Hell, I have my chance to kill this bastard once and for all, and you're telling me to stop, when you have to kill him, too, to fix your hand?" Miroku was silent for a moment, and then...

"This is probably all part of his trap! You know how he is, Inuyasha. Just think! Why would he want you to strike him with your Wind Scar, when he has the Jewel with him? Why is Kagome lying on the ground, unconscious? Just think about it! This is similar to what Tsubaki did that one time! Remember?"

Yeah, Inuyasha thought. I remember that old bitch. The dark priestess that once tried to curse Kagome by infecting her with some shards of the Jewel, so that she could kill him, in turn. And there was one segment in their little confrontation where Kagome was lying on the ground, dead to the world, just like now, with Tsubaki's shikigami trying to kill her in the process. Wait! That was similar to now! Why didn't he think of it before?

Naraku watched all of this with his smile growing wider and wider. They were falling into his trap little by little, playing into his hands more and more; it always worked in his favor... always. His little traps never failed him... never!

"Naraku," Sango called from above him, still flying on Kirara, "just what are you planning?" He looked up at her, his grin wider than ever, and simply said, "Why, Sango, didn't I tell you before, in the barrier?" She started to reply, but then suddenly screamed... screamed in pain... it was as if she were being tortured right here and now, by invisible enemies.

"Sango!" Miroku and Inuyasha shouted in unison (Shippou was still sobbing morosely on Kagome's chest; he hadn't spoken a word since she was cursed).

"What happened, Sango?" Inuyasha yelled up to her, but she did not seem to be able to hear him. Naraku called to him over the noise.

"Inuyasha, I forgot one important detail! The reason why Sango is screaming so torturously like that is because I gave a little something to her as well! But the only difference between hers and Kagome's is that one of them may turn out to be a little more lethal than the other! It's up to you, now, to decide which one that is, and who of the two of them you want to save!" He began to laugh again, and suddenly... a noise like an explosion rocked the surrounding countryside. He stopped, and looked around. Inuyasha and Miroku did the same. Sango had fallen down in her pain on Kirara, and was now silent.

"What was..." Inuyasha began, but he could not finish, because another huge blast rolled across the plains, and just then a colossal something began to take shape far away. It looked like some sort of funnel cloud, a purple one, similar to the ones that Naraku uses when he makes his random escapes. It quickly began to move toward the little group.

"Feh!" Naraku cursed. "They're early... oh well."

He looked in Inuyasha's direction.

"Inuyasha, I am sorry that I have to leave you all now, but I promise you, I will not disappear forever! The fun is not over yet... on the contrary, it has yet to even start!"

He closed the hand holding the Jewel, and then opened it again; the Jewel was gone. Then he reached up and tugged away the mask hiding his face, revealing it for the first time since they had met that day. His long black hair fell down about the costume, having been bunched up in some sort of tight bun with the mask on; his red eyes glared out at the group.

"And, so I part!" he exclaimed, his last words, as he suddenly started to dissolve into a cloud of poison gas.

"Wait, dammit!" Inuyasha raged, readying Tessaiga for the Wind Scar, but it was no use; Naraku, his fated enemy, quickly vanished from his sight; the cloud of poison gas that he had dispersed into faded away, the laughter echoing into oblivion, all the while, the huge purple funnel cloud in the distance was gaining on them.

Shit! Inuyasha thought. What can I do? He thought for a moment, but at the moment, all he could think of was tailing Naraku and beating the crap out of him. Then it hit him, almost literally.

He narrowly dodged an incoming piece of boulder that was being whipped around by the funnel, and readied his sword once again. The Bakurryuha could work, but then again... this cloud wasn't another demonic aura he was up against... or was it?

"Miroku!" he shouted to the priest, who was staring, as dumbstruck as he, apparently, at the approaching storm. "Get Kagome and Shippou the hell out of here! I'll try to stop this cloud!"

Miroku was still staring, entranced, at the cloud. Running over to him, Inuyasha smacked him hard across the face, finally rousing him. He looked at Inuyasha, then at the cloud, back to the hanyou, then down to Kagome, unconscious on the ground, with Shippou still screaming his eyes out on her chest.

"Get them out of here!" Inuyasha pressed, motioning hurriedly to the funnel. It was about 500 feet away now, and getting closer all the time. Now that it was closer, a strange ringing sound could be heard coming from it; it sounded like a sort of siren from the top of an ambulance, but this one was much more annoying; it just went on in a high-pitched wailing tone, one that wanted to make all the hair on your body stand up from it.

Miroku said, "But what about you, Inuyasha? We don't know for sure of what that weird cloud is... maybe it's like a portal to another dimension, or something..." But when he got no response from the stoic half-demon, he nodded to him to show that he understood and then quickly grabbed up Kagome and Shippou, who had for some reason passed out... probably from extreme sorrow or fear...? That would be remedied later, though, when Kagome woke up... if she woke up. Inuyasha hoped with all of his heart that she eventually would... and what was this weird plan that Naraku was hatching? One that Sango seemed to know something of? And speaking of Sango...

She was still riding on Kirara, floating inches above where the barrier previously had been, and was staring, in the same, transfixed fashion as Miroku, at the approaching funnel cloud.

"Sango!" Inuyasha shouted up to her, over the noise of the storm; it was making quite a racket, now. "What are you doing? Get over here!" His words, however, appeared to be falling upon deaf ears, as the taijiya continued to stare off in the opposite direction.

When he could not take it anymore, Inuyasha leaped into the air, separating himself from Miroku, who was escaping as fast as he could in the other direction, disregarding the debris which was now flying all around him (he would be safe for a while in his fire-rat robe, anyway) and approaching the girl on top of the cat (doesn't that sound like some sort of children's story?).

When he reached her, he leapt atop Kirara next to Sango and extended his hand and slapped her across the face, yelling her name right into her ears. She screamed, aimed to retaliate, missed and almost toppled off Kirara. Now she appeared to be back to her usual self. But she began to look in the direction that Naraku had escaped from again.

"Sango, hurry up! We have to escape this storm!" Inuyasha probed. "If we don't, something might happen to us! We don't know what kind of sorcery Naraku has planned!"

Sango, however, was thinking of what Naraku had said when they were inside his barrier before...

The answer to solving my riddle will lie with you, Sango... you will find all of the answers you seek at twelve noon tomorrow, when the sun has reached its highest point... then all will be made clear to you. But what in the world was he talking about? All the answers you seek?

"If you don't move, you will be sucked in! And don't you think that you can be brave by having me leave you here, because I'm staying with you no matter what happens. Comrades do not abandon each other, right?"

And it was these words, more than anything, that made Sango turn her head and look in his direction.

"You care about me that much?" she said softly, and it was done so softly that she could barely be heard over all the other ruckus going on around them. "You care about me when I abandoned you all, thinking it was Kohaku, and then getting you all involved in Naraku's schemes once again? You don't think me low at all?"

Inuyasha would hear nothing of it.

"I don't care about that! What matters is that you are alive, and unharmed, and Naraku hopefully did nothing to you! He didn't, did he?"

As soon as he finished asking that, a sharp pain rolled down Sango's left arm, in exactly the same spot where that mysterious hole had appeared when she had pissed Naraku off earlier, in the barrier. She cried out and gripped it tightly, teeth gritted against the momentary agony.

"Are you all right?" Inuyasha asked, leaning over her arm. She jerked it away quickly. "It's nothing," she said hastily, "I just scratched it on my way here." Something in her words made Inuyasha disbelieve her, and he persisted.

"What are you talking about? Considering the way you're acting, you are in more pain than you are letting on. Come on... what's wrong? You can tell me."

And with a motion that completely shocked Inuyasha, Sango violently reached out and shoved the hanyou hard off of Kirara, her eyes full of a furied frenzy he had never before seen. But her action rivaled that of something he had seen before from Naraku and his minions.

As he crashed to the ground, caught completely off guard so that he could not catch himself and land safely, one thought occurred to him, the only thought that really made sense: She's being cursed, too.

His last thought before he blacked out was that the funnel cloud, which had looked so far away before, now seemed blindingly close. And before he could get up or make any sort of reaction to rouse himself, he was drawn in.


Far away from Inuyasha, Sango and the twister, Miroku staggered forward with Kagome-sama and Shippou slung across his shoulders. He was breathing heavily from the effort, and felt he could not go much farther.

Inuyasha, he thought, his mind backlogged with all sorts of ideas of what had befallen him, the hanyou, Kagome-sama, Shippou and Sango since Kagome-sama had sensed the Sacred Jewel, I hope you escape that thing, and reach us safely, so you can see Kagome-sama again... and protect her like you always do.


Back where the funnel had since absorbed Inuyasha and drawn him into its depths, Sango calmly watched from above as the debris swirled around her, yet never making any contact with her body; she was completely unharmed by anything. As she watched, the funnel started to shimmer, as if it were an illusion, and then it slowly faded away, disappearing into nothingness.

When it was completely gone and the random crap it had picked up had settled to the ground, Sango started to float away from the scene.

And as she departed, one thought ran through her mind: One down, 3 to go, then it will be complete.

If someone were there and could hear the girl as she left, they would have heard, faintly, the sound of her laughing... and it wouldn't have been ordinary laughing... it would have been cruel laughter... laughter that knew no mercy.

And someone was there... someone who had hid during the whole confrontation with Naraku, his barrier, Sango and Inuyasha... someone who had heard the whole thing, and was now terrified by what it prophecied.

Myouga the flea heard all of it and was greatly worried.


Well, how was that chapter?
The next one will detail Inuyasha and his account on what he discovered inside the strange world he is now in. What will happen to him there? What is wrong, exactly, with Sango? And just what is Naraku hoping to accomplish?

I hope you guys are all enjoying this, and I will try to update soon... but in the meantime... be sure to review and tell me what you think! Then I might be inclined to continue... if all of my sanity is not drained before the weekend (heh heh).