Chapter 1
Prelude to the Moon
“Where the hell am I?” Kagome mumbled as she took another hesitant step in the darkness.
The night had been clear minutes ago, lightened by the full moon that lazily hung from the sky. But now she couldn’t see anything. Maybe she had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Not that she could tell. To her, this forest looked like any other she had passed through.
“Damn it all,” she cursed as she stumbled over a root and fell face first on the muddy earth. The mucky substance stuck to her face and clothes making her feel dirty.
Why? She wondered as she got up and unseeingly cleaned the dirt away.
Why did I have to follow Inuyasha? I know where he is. But I had to be sure. Knowing that didn’t help her when she was lost in a dark forest. It certainly didn’t help her distinguish one shadowy lump from another. And yet, she opened her eyes wide in hopes of seeing something as she continued on. Her goal not longer was to catch Inuyasha in the act, but simply to make it back to camp alive. It didn’t keep her mind from thinking about the half-demon and his sudden departure, though. If anything, it made the wondering more of a mystery than it really was.
This is ridiculous. Everybody saw the white snake. Everybody heard the stupid excuse. It’s not that hard to figure out where Inuyasha went. But I just had to catch the fool in the act, didn’t I? She laughed humorlessly. “Look where that got me.”
The cheating, two-timing, brawns-and-no-brain half-demon had left after dinner to… What had been his words? Hunt.
Nobody believed him. It was fast approaching midnight. Only predators and very small preys were awake at this hour. Not mentioning that they had restocked two days before. There was no need to hunt. Kagome, however, wasn’t going to win a Smart Grammy either. Not when she was supposed to be gathering herbs. At present she was going myopic trying to find her way back. There was no way she would be able to differentiate between common grass and hikiokoshi in the darkness.
“Brilliant, Kagome, really brilliant.” She couldn’t find a way to can the sarcasm that came out in dire situations. “Maybe I should embrace the Feudal life completely. At least Inuyasha would have to actually hunt something.”
That wasn’t one of her greatest moments. She wanted to rest but being in the middle of nowhere without protection kind of thwarted that idea. She certainly wanted to forget she had gone demon hunting; but being where she was also put a damp on it. She wasn’t so sure if it also damped her stupidity. Once she made it back to camp, she would consider the notion a little bit more seriously.
Stumbling and silently cursing for what seemed hours, she managed to cover some distance until the forest became clearer. She could actually make out the shape of some of the roots and scurrying animals within minutes. There were fewer trees. She assumed she had entered a denser part of the forest at some point allowing zero visibility.
Still, she wasn’t sure of where she was. With some crude calculations on her part, and silently praying they were right, she ventured northeast.
It took her a while to recognize her surroundings, but she was sure she had passed the grayish-white rock before getting lost. Letting out an easy breath, she walked on knowing she was closer to camp than she had originally guessed. She remembered passing the springs and walking several minutes before seeing the huge lonely stone embedded to the forest floor. Now, all she had to do was to follow the same directions and, at the same time, to ignore the spooky shadows that appeared and vanished from her view within seconds.
Then, more than ever, she felt how alone and vulnerable she could be. The forest itself looked forbidding. The darkened leaves and limbs of the monumental trees pressed together by the winds made strange noises that gave her goosebumps. The soft moonlight highlighted the shadows into disproportionate figures with life of their own. And the scuffling noises of the night wild life sounded more and more like the steps of the stalking stranger. The oppressing atmosphere was charged with unusual energy and high demon activity. Yes, for the first time in her life, Kagome considered a walk in the forest to be nerve-wracking.
Any other night she was sure she would have survived the adventure. This night, she wasn’t so sure. She had felt stalked more than once but no sense of immediate danger had assaulted her and she hadn’t been attacked. She assumed her scent had helped. As a priestess, her scent was a unique, delicious aroma that attracted demons to her like the Venus flytrap. But, thanks to the spell she had cast, she smelled like any other stinky human from that era. The scent would have fooled Inuyasha long enough to catch him in the act. What the act entitled, Kagome didn’t know yet and she didn’t care to find out either. If she had learned anything that night, it was that the feeling she had for Inuyasha would get her in more trouble than it was worth. She loved him. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to pay with what was left of her fragmented heart for the loving illusion his feelings toward her appeared to be. It was best she moved on and let him be with Kikyo. It was rather obvious the undead priestess was his first choice; otherwise Kagome wouldn’t be walking a dangerous forest at midnight. She would be with him, comfortably sleeping under a blanket.
A hard shake of some bushed to her back made her forget Inuyasha and the problems he created as she stilled and her heart followed the wild rhythm of apprehension. The forest had fallen quiet in seconds confirming there was something else in the area. Kagome didn’t want to run even if she felt like it. It was a sure way of attracting undesired attention. When a stick broke some distance away, she turned around hoping to catch a glance at whatever was making the noise but the slightly illuminated forest only allowed her a field of vision of a few feet. When another twig snapped, she zeroed in that direction. She didn’t see anything at first. But a ghostly silver silhouette she had thought to be a reflection of the moon on something proved to be moving farther away. The silvery thing floated and moved with the wind suspiciously like hair.
It was like a shock to her system when she realized that was hair. There were a handful of people she knew with that hair color. “Inuyasha.” The half-demon’s name was pronounced quietly but the promise of retribution was hidden within. Her first inclination was to scream sit. Hard. Fast. Consecutively. But the punishment seemed soft. And her curiosity was certainly picked. Inuyasha had no business there. So, then, what was he doing wandering the forest?
Kagome didn’t have time to think of an answer, the owner of the silver hair kept moving on, as if unaware that he had been spotted, and if she didn’t act fast she was going to lose him. Without further consideration, she gave chase.
*****
Inuyasha strolled into camp with ideas of silently slipping into one of the tree branches without the others knowing and resting a few hours before they had to begin the ever tiring hunt for the shards. However, he was surprised to find that neither was possible. His companions, the monk Miroku and the demon-slayer Sango, were wide awake and on guard, almost waiting to be attacked. Shippou, the little fox demon, slept in Kagome’s strange bag without worries. The priestess, on the other hand, wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Where’s Kagome?” he asked without even thinking. His relaxed stance disappeared and his eyes widened when his brain caught up with him mouth. He growled out the question again. He didn’t like what he was seeing and coming up with. “Where is she?”
The silence that had followed his entrance now seemed more profound. Nobody dared to move a muscle or say anything that would put the volatile half-demon into a worst mood than he was going to be in. But the unreal calm that was slightly disturbed by the shuffling leaves had to end. And there was a time limit to Inuyasha’s patience.
It seemed Miroku decided it was time his friend came face to face with the truth. He knew Inuyasha’s lies were a hopeless and screw up way of protecting Kagome and it was time the half-demon found out it had never worked. “Isn’t she with you?”
The question startled Inuyasha. Now, why would Kagome be with him? As he considered the situation, he suddenly thought the young priestess should have been with him. Why wasn’t she?
Summing up the day in his mind, he remembered that his original plan had been to romance Kagome, possibly into his bed. Then Kikyo’s soul stealing snakes appeared. The dead priestess had called him and he went to her without question. He knew he shouldn’t have gone, but he needed to tell the undead version of his ex-lover something important. Between this and that they ended up in a tangled mess of limps until minutes ago. Still, that didn’t explain why Kagome wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Shaking his head in disappointment, Miroku thought it was better to enlighten the half-demon. “She followed you when you left. I thought you would have scented her before something happened,” he informed his friends in a tired voice before mumbling to himself. “I’m beginning to think we weren’t so lucky.”
“Wha… What the heck are you talking about, Miroku?” The understanding of the mess he was in escaped Inuyasha. “Why would she follow me?”
“Look Inuyasha,” Sango jumped in. She had had enough of the half-demon’s idiocy and ignorance. “We knew were you were going. Hell, we have known since the beginning. But more important than that, Kagome knew and it hurt her. Each time you went to “talk” to Kikyo killed something inside her. And you know what? She never said anything. She thought one day you wouldn’t lie about meeting Kikyo. That, one day, you wouldn’t go to see that zombie bitch because you loved her. Because you cared enough for her to let your past rest,” she screamed, her eyes burning with contained fury and fear for her friend. “And now we don’t know where she is!”
Kagome had never let Sango bent her rage on the half-demon. The priestess kept claiming that they were only friends and there was no reason to tell her who he was meeting with and what they were doing. Sango, however, knew differently. Kagome loved Inuyasha. But what Kagome didn’t know was that the half-demon considered her a possible mate and had been warding off any potential competition. It was most likely that Inuyasha’s instincts were warring with his human nature and even he didn’t know what he was doing.
It didn’t matter though. As of this night things would change. Something had to give. And they were sure it was Kagome. They just hoped her disappearance didn’t mean she had run away. That would devastate them. It didn’t make the experience less dangerous if she was lost, especially during this night when the moon would turn red in the night sky. Blood moons, as they were commonly known, had a very bad reputation within the human culture. Nights such as these caused fear and vigilance in the heart of men. The most superstitious lot swore the dark gods descended upon the earth and enticed demons into a lustful frenzy during which they kidnapped and raped women. Sango knew that things weren’t as savage and deprived as many humans liked to think but, facts remained facts.
It was a fact that for the duration of those nights many females disappeared from their villages only to appear the next day or never return home. It was known that the disappearances had to do with demons popping up in villages and taking them. Why? Humans had no clue. But, once more, facts said that many of the returned females gave birth to half-demon months after the Blood Moon. Was it rape or one lover seeking another? There was no way to know. In her opinion, a little bit of both. And that was taking Inuyasha’s account into consideration. The half-demon swore that the Blood Moon was the night to celebrate creation. Demons did it in a very carnal way while humans did their fancy rituals with incense, food and stiff people in uncomfortable clothing. She didn’t care at that point about anything else except Kagome returning safe and sound. She feared something might have happened to the priestess and she had no one else to blame except Inuyasha. The idiot still looked stunned, trying to come to grips with the new reality he had been thrown into.
“Kagome knew.” That statement explained so much to him that it was painful to consider and, at the same time, he didn’t believe it. “How the fuck could she knew?”
“Oh, poor Inuyasha,” snapped Sango not even bothering to be surprised by the denial. “He thinks everybody is just as stupid as he.”
“Now Sango, we have more important things to discuss than what Lady Kagome knew or not. Finding her is our priority,” intervened Miroku before things got out of hand.
“Sorry, Miroku, you’re right.” The anger wasn’t gone, but the slayer knew how to prioritize and, better yet, when to pick her fights. This wasn’t one she could easily win.
“Now, Inuyasha. When you left did you noticed anything unusual?” asked the monk planting his staff firmly in front of him.
“I smelled a human following me. But it wasn’t her. I would have known if it was her.”
“Gods, the spell, Miroku. She mastered the spell Lady Kaede was teaching her,” cried Sango in realization.
Miroku combed his hair with his hand, a sure signal that he was stressed and worried. They were royally screw. While the spell was very good for hiding one’s identity and trail, it wasn’t that great for hiding one’s presence. And it had a time limit.
“I remember the human’s scent. I can find it,” said Inuyasha.
“No, you can’t. After a while the scent just disappears. You have to catch it right away or you won’t be able to track it,” announced Miroku.
“I know where I lost the scent, though” added Inuyasha, frowning as he remembered what he had been doing there. “It’s near the border of the West.”
“Could she have gone into Sesshoumaru’s land?” Now that was a worrying thought.
“Ah, come on, Kagome is not that stupid,” scoffed the half-demon.
“Kagome it’s not from this time, you idiot. She doesn’t know how to navigate in the dark,” cried Sango.
“Don’t underestimate our friend, dear Sango, Kagome is quite capable,” affirmed the monk. “I’m sure she can make it back here as long as she isn’t distracted.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Miroku. I’m sure she’ll be alright,” conceded Sango. “But we should look for her.”
“Of course, dear Sango, we should find her before she attracts any problem. Our friend can attract the most unusual dilemmas,” agreed Miroku.
“We have to hurry, monk. Get Kirara to help search. Sango, you stay in case she comes back. We will be checking back every hour or so to see if she has returned,” organized Inuyasha with precision.
He was desperate to find Kagome now. They were too close to the West as it was and crossing an imaginary line was easy enough when you didn’t know where the boundaries stood.
Trespassing into Sesshoumaru’s lands wasn’t that much of an issue. Inuyasha did it once in a while knowing his brother would be pissed off when he found out what his hated half-breed brother had dared to do. However, Inuyasha trespassed when he was certain Sesshoumaru wasn’t nearby. It wasn’t the case that night.
“What is going on, Inuyasha? What is the problem?” asked Sango noticing the sudden change in the half-demon’s demeanor.
“Sesshoumaru is near,” was the answer.
