Kaya's Story (An InuYasha Fanfic)

Chapter 66: The Battle Wages On

After well into my battle with Ko, I could feel the barrier around Mt. Hakurei start to weaken. Miroku and Sango were alive and whatever they were doing was assisting in our battles. I started to feel stronger and fired another arrow at Ko striking her arm and destroying it. My vision was still blurry, so my aim was off but it certainly caught her by surprise. A moment later, I felt the barrier disappear altogether and my demonic powers returned. "What were you saying about killing me quickly," I growled. Ko put her weapon away and began to morph. Her hand became a scaled claw and her body elongated, soon revealing a large bronze colored dragon with glowing amber eyes. I put my bow away and pulled Tenkari from its sheath, getting into a battle position. She wasn't playing around anymore, especially since my arrow had taken out her right arm. I had to win this, not just for my own life but InuYasha and his friends' lives, as well. I watched as my sword began to turn blue again as it did the first time I fought Ko. My thoughts wandered to what Master Totosai had told me. That's it then, I swung my sword and a massive amount of blue energy left my blade. Ko screamed out in pain but did not fall. She had blood gushing from where the attack had struck, and that's when I heard my mother's voice in my head. She was telling me to draw her bow, so I did after sheathing Tenkari. The bow pulsed as soon as I touched it and I watched as a faint glow formed in Ko's forehead. I notched an arrow and fired at the glowing spot. Ko disintegrated immediately, leaving only a, now purified, Jewel Shard behind. Before I could grab it though, a saimyosho swooped in and took off with it. I chased after the poisonous insect but lost it in one of the many adjacent caves. This did, however, help me catch InuYasha's scent and by the smell, I could tell he had been badly injured, so I took off after his scent.

As I ran through the caves, I caught Naraku's scent coming from ahead of me. It seems InuYasha and I are headed in the direction. I also caught the scent of the wind scar, which meant I was approaching InuYasha who had been leaving demon corpses in his wake. At least, I have a good trail to follow if I happen to lose his scent. By the time I caught up to InuYasha, he was in a battle with Bankotsu. I could actually see his Jewel Shards, which was a first for me, and he had nine in total. That meant he was the last remaining member of the Band of Seven. Considering InuYasha's weakened state from fighting Jakotsu as a human, Bankotsu was much stronger than InuYasha; which had me worried. If InuYasha dies, Kagome and the others will never let me hear the end of it. I was going to jump into the fight, but InuYasha must've known what I was going to do because after he blocked Bankotsu's attack, he told me to go find Sango and Miroku. I took off running down a side cave and ran into a small hoard of demons. I took care of them quickly using Tenkari. It seemed the demons had decided to leave the mountain, so I was going to have to cut my way through them. I had run through a lot of caves and side caves, but it was all just darkness until I heard distant screams up ahead of me. I picked up speed only to fall down a hole a few feet in front of me. I plunged Tenkari into the wall of the pit and started looking around. My sword wouldn't hold me like this for long, so I had to find somewhere to jump to. There was a small outcropping about ten feet below me and I figured that was better than nothing. About that time, the walls of the pit began to pulse and rumble causing my sword to dislodge from the wall. I hit the outcropping and rolled into a cave, just as the outcropping crumbled. The cave was only about three feet tall so I had to crawl through it, at least there weren't any demons. As I crawled through the cave, the floor and walls started to feel less like rock and more like flesh, which was strange. I reached the end of the cave and it led to another giant pit. There was light coming from the pit. I figured out it was where the rumbling originated and looked around. I stuck my head out from the cave and got hit in the back of the head by a flesh-colored something. "Oh, that's so gross," I yelled aloud while pulling my head back and kicking the thing into the pit. I looked into the pit again and I caught InuYasha's scent suddenly as if he had just appeared out of thin air. A moment later, tentacles appeared from the darkness below and InuYasha's scent became stronger. I jumped back as the tentacles passed the small cave, but there was no sign of InuYasha. This next part was stupid, but I didn't want to sit there anymore. While sheathing my sword, I lunged at the tentacles and grabbed on for dear life.