Ebb and Flow
Beginning
It all started with a witch…
Because that’s how it always starts: with a witch, a seer, a crazy, magical hag or some sorceress hell-bent on revenge and destruction. This time, it wasn’t really the witch’s fault but InuYasha couldn’t help but try and shift the blame to someone other than himself. Really, though, it was his own fault—and Sesshomaru’s too but no one mentioned that—that he was pathetically trying to growl in a human voice from a human body in the middle of a particularly beautiful afternoon underneath the speckled shade of a shredded forest canopy.
Kagome had just ducked out of the cave, smiling brightly at InuYasha. In her hand was a newly-purified shard. The sweet hag that lived in the old cave had absolutely no desire to keep the fragment but knew of its danger. She had “saved” it—and herself—from corruption by picking it up with twigs and storing it in an old clay pot. When the young priestess and her friends arrived she willingly handed it over, practically throwing it at them. The little group thanked her profusely and were about to leave when InuYasha swore and pulled out Tetsusaiga. He shoved Kagome behind him, and into the cave incidentally, as Sesshomaru calmly strode into the clearing.
The young woman landed roughly on her backside, crushing some herbs on a drying rack.
“I am so sorry!” she apologized as she gained her feet, desperately trying to fix the broken rack and salvage the herbs.
The woman tutted and shook her head. “No matter. I will have my son make a new one and will gather some more herbs tomorrow. It is nothing that cannot be replaced.”
Kagome still tried to help the old woman, even as InuYasha rose to Sesshomaru’s bait and swung at the older brother. The inu simply stepped to the side and struck the boy in red with his whip. The brothers continued to feud, tearing up the surrounding area.
Sango called out to the hanyou. “InuYasha! Stop! You’re destroying Obaa-san’s herbs!”
The hanyou ignored her, letting loose a Wind Scar that rattled the old woman’s cave and set a few stray rocks tumbling. Pottery fell off carefully measured and hewn shelves, crashing and shattering on the stone floor. The old woman scrambled to cover the pot of her latest potion, sighing in relief only to cry out in despair as a particularly large bolder rolled over the pot and scattered the contents.
Sesshomaru ignored the damage, continuing his fight with his brother. He eyed the coveted fang with displeasure. It wasn’t the focus of his visit today but that didn’t mean he didn’t notice it. The taiyoukai gracefully leapt over the deadly lines of wind, landing atop the suddenly unsteady cave. With a little burst of youki he alighted on the grass, nary a hair out of place.
Two sets of golden eyes turned to the cave when an old woman’s garbled shriek of rage echoed off the rock walls.
“You! You foolish children!” Sesshomaru arched a brow. He was far from being a child anymore so the message must not be for him. The old women trembled with a suddenly large amount of magic. “I could have forgiven the herbs and drying rack. I could have forgiven the pottery that my late husband crafted himself. I could have forgiven the shelves my son made for me. But I cannot forgive the destruction of something that has taken me twenty-five years to make!”
Kagome coughed and stumbled out of the ruined cave, leaning heavily against Sango with a worried Shippou at her heels. The fluffy little fox turned and frowned thoughtfully at the old woman, his tail twitching in unease. Something wasn’t right and he didn’t think that something was the two scowling brothers.
“It took me twenty-five long years to make that potion!” She seemed to wilt slightly. “That potion would have brought my husband back and given us eternity together again.” Her dull brown eyes blazed to life from an unseen fire. “Because of your foolish fight I have lost my last chance at happiness. So you will pay! You!” She pointed a gnarled finger at InuYasha and the hanyou was suddenly struck with a numbing paralysis. Something struck his soul and he lost his breath. “And you!” Her hand flew to the taiyoukai next and, though he fought valiantly, he was affected in the same manner.
“You two will learn what it means to have your last chance at happiness so close but torn from your grasp at the last moment! Taiyoukai,” her hand fanned out and that insistent tugging at his soul increased. “You will learn why your brother needs that sword you covet!” Everyone’s breaths hitched in their throat as InuYasha sank to his knees and Sesshomaru’s features were obscured by a torrent of his youki.
“And you, hanyou,” her other hand fanned in the kneeling half-demon’s direction. “You will learn your brother perhaps better than you ever wanted to or thought you would.”
Everyone’s eyes widened when InuYasha’s own wild, untamed youki flared to life. His hair lifted in much the same manner as his brother’s often did and his eyes became red before he closed them. Dust, leaves and grass became a tornado around the younger brother, swirling along with his youki to conceal his features. Long, long minutes passed and the friends were left to watch in helpless fear and begrudged amazement.
When the hanyou’s dust settled and the taiyoukai’s cloud dissipated, the group was left in shocked awe and fear.