Kaya's Story (An InuYasha Fanfic)

Chapter 88: The Castle

The next morning, we set out to search for the nest of demon birds. We passed a couple of villages, but they were thriving. That meant we were back to square one, even if these villages had heard of the birds. By nightfall, we came across yet another thriving village just down the hill from a large castle. We talked to a couple of the villagers there, but still no luck. Miroku decided it would be best to find lodgings in that village for the night. Granted, he was more interested in the beautiful women of the village than actually finding lodgings. When will he learn?

Once we found lodgings, Kagome requested to have a bath and the rest of kind of did our own thing. I went out, got on the roof of the inn, and looked up at the night sky. It was peaceful, even though I hadn't turned human. I decided to stay in my normal half-demon form for this village, which was something unusual for me. I was even more thankful for that decision when I caught the scent of Princess Abi and her birds. By the time I had gotten off the roof, they were passing by the inn and heading in the direction of the castle. Kagome and Sango were outside, too, and had seen them as well. We ran inside to grab our weapons and get the boys before taking off towards the castle.

When we had almost reached the castle, Kagome informed us that she had sensed a singular Sacred Jewel Shard; meaning it was Kohaku's Shard. InuYasha told Sango that when we reached the castle, she was to go after Kohaku, and we would take care of the birds. We reached the castle in time to catch Princess Abi. InuYasha and Princess Abi began to battle, leaving Miroku, Kagome, and I to deal with the birds. Honestly keeping the demon birds at bay was not as hard as I thought it would be. InuYasha's battle was much more difficult because Princess Abi was still in possession of that trident. We learned the hard way that it could do more than just put up barriers; when it cuts something, it releases a miasma. We continued to take out the birds until they quit attacking us, but InuYasha's battle continued. The Tetsusaiga just bounced off the barrier as it had with Naraku's, plus the fire from Princess Abi herself. Kagome and I got a good idea, but when Princess Abi caught on she threw a fireball in our direction. This caused Miroku to grab Kagome and get her out of the way while I picked up Shippo just before the fireball struck where we had been standing. Just after that, the demon birds swarmed behind their master and Princess Abi began to retreat. InuYasha attacked again only to get pushed back by a cloud of miasma and another fireball. Soon the bird woman was gone, and we were on our way to find Sango.

We found Sango, she was staring up at the sky and was surrounded by dead guards. The hadn't been killed by the birds, but none of us wanted to name the culprit until Sango told us it was Kohaku who had killed them. Sango sounded so broken and there wasn't much any of us could do. We began to leave the castle and as we were walking, a group of male villagers burst through a door of a virtually untouched hut. We were all relieved to see that some of the villagers had survived the attack. What surprised all of us was that they began calling Kohaku's name. Sango ran up to the men and they explained that Kohaku had saved them from the demon birds. Sango began to cry, and the men became confused and concerned until Sango explained that Kohaku was alive. Kagome and I went to stand with Sango, hoping to be there as a comfort. Once Sango had calmed down a bit, we said good-bye to the villagers and left. Not too far from the village we stopped so Sango could change out of her armor and we could figure out where to go next. After a bit of coaxing from Miroku, Sango explained what all she had seen at the village and one piece of information, in particular, caught our attention. She told us that when she caught up to Kohaku, he was about to kill a woman holding an infant. The infant looked exactly like Naraku's incarnation, so that explained why Kohaku was in that castle. He was there under Naraku's orders to guard the infant at all costs. That was a good thing, sort of. After our conversation, we decided to begin the search for the demon birds' nest again. We were all hoping it would lead us to Naraku and maybe this time it could all be over.