Manipulated – Part Nine:  Guilt

Note: Phoenix is now a ‘he’. Writing ‘it’ all the time was getting tedious.

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Inuyasha: *very loudly* What’s going on here?

Aki: You have to- *stares at the top of Inu’s head* Er...

Sesshou: *glances at the top of Inu’s head and snorts*

Aamalie: *sighs* Here... *holds up a sign that says "You have to kill this guy that looks like you."*

OOC!Inu: *reads the sign* HEY!

Kouga: *reads as well* Oh. That means I have to kill that guy, huh? *points at OOC!Kouga, who is picking flowers*

Corisu: *nods*

Kouga: Hmph. Fine. *dashes forward, disembowels OOC!Kouga, and returns to the others* Can I go now?

Kei: O.O; That was fast...

Kouga: *smirks*

Kunoichi: Aaaand... you can’t go until Inu kills his counterpart...

Inu: WHAT?

Kouga: -.-;;; Do you know how long that could take?

Aamalie: Sadly, I do...

Inu: *yells, pointing to Corisu* Wench! If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll KILL you!

Kouga: *cough* Yeah, right! *cough*

Aamalie: ^^; He can’t hear you anyway...

Kouga: ^_^ Oh yeah! *shouts* Yeah, RIGHT!

Sesshou: That was juvenile.

Kouga: Thank you.

Corisu: *glares at Inu, then cuts a portal to the real world and yanks Kagome in* Sit him!

Kagome: o.O? Why?

Corisu: *crosses arms* He threatened to kill me...

Kagome: Oh. Okay then! Osuwari!

(Nothing happens.)

Inu: WHAT?

Everyone except Inu: Oh... crud.

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Inuyasha was nothing more than a red blur as he wove between the trees; they seemed to be moving directly into his path to impede his progress. Now that his nostrils were not being drowned in Kikyou’s scent, he became aware of the tang of blood on the air. "Damn it..." he hissed, pushing himself faster.

As he neared the source of the blood-scent, he noticed that he was very near to the home where they were supposed to be staying for the night. What if it was Sango who had been attacked? ‘Or Kagome...’

The thought made his skin feel cold. His pace quickened and the trees sailing past him became little more than green smudges in the air. The scent of blood was getting stronger, almost stifling. He berated himself once more about his carelessness. ‘I can’t believe I let my guard down so much...’

It was then that he reached the body. She lay face-up, her eyes wide and unseeing. Blood saturated the cloth at her neck and stomach. Inuyasha felt his stomach turn.

"Damn." Koharu. The human side of him overflowed with pity, and he immediately attempted to quell it. He tried to view her death as a part of life, as he had with the others, but he found it impossible. He couldn’t just accept this so quickly. Not when, just hours ago, he had heard her voice... he had seen her nervous flush when she talked to Miroku... She had been so alive...

Inuyasha took a few steps closer to her body, trying to sort through the scents on the air. Primarily, there was blood. Then, he detected the various odors from the village, but there was nothing that betrayed the killer’s identity... ‘Wait...’

In the overpowering scent of Koharu’s lifeblood, there was something else. Something different. He leaned over her body, trying to locate the disturbance-

There was something clutched in her hand. Something that smelled of violent storms.

"Shit... Miroku!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Phoenix mulled over the recent events, pondering his strange behavior. The damn monk. Everything traced back to him.

The newly dead... Koharu... hadn’t been a target. He had been planning to finally take the young miko, and use the power of her blood to regain the power that he had lost over the long centuries. So, why...?

Just as quickly as he formulated the question, he came up with an answer. It all led him in a circle. Back to the monk.

The girl had obviously been close to the monk. There was no other explanation. Though the feeling of ‘care’ was foreign to him, he had to come up with something. The bodily contact that she had initiated had been the last straw. She had been a threat. The threat had now been eliminated.

Even as he thought, his mind wandered to another subject. ‘If the young girl was a threat, could the taijiya be the same?’

He remembered his limbs’ resistance to slaying Koharu, and he remembered the same reluctance when he had followed the taijiya - Sango - on the forest path. But... that feeling had been different.

It was as if the monk’s will still roared strong when he saw this Sango. Though the monk’s will was now merely a thread, it still held the power to keep Phoenix from slaying the taijiya.

‘Why?’

As much as he thought, he could not come up with an answer. The explanation hovered just outside of his understanding, but one thing became increasingly clear.

Sango was a hazard.

She therefore had to be eradicated.

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Sango rushed through the woods. ‘I knew I didn’t imagine it... that was a scream...’ She vaguely heard the crunching of leaves under Kagome’s feet from behind her, but the miko utterly failed to keep up.

As Sango ran, she heard the shifting of branches ahead of her, and breathy words. She immediately halted, then began to creep forward at a more cautious pace, straining her eyes to peer through the limbs that were stretching into her line of vision. She held her breath as a form moved in front of her, but she relaxed as she caught sight of a red haori.

"Inuyasha!"

The hanyou turned as Sango stepped from the woods, her cheeks slightly flushed and her breathing heavy from exertion. "Sango..."

She scrutinized his face. There was some unreadable emotion flickering across it, but she couldn’t decipher exactly what it was. "What is i-" She cut off as her eyes flickered to the stretch of earth behind him. "No..."

Sango took a few steps forward, then trotted the rest of the way to the girl’s body and dropped to her knees. She heard Kagome stumble from the trees, but she didn’t turn. Instead, she reached out a hand as if to brush Koharu’s scattered bangs from her face. Before she got there, however, she noticed something white sticking out of the girl’s clenched fist.

Kagome, meanwhile, had momentarily frozen up at the sight of Koharu’s body. When her paralysis ebbed and her eyes were brimming with tears, she turned and abruptly buried her face into Inuyasha’s chest, sobs racking her small frame. Inuyasha looked temporarily bewildered before his eyes softened and he placed a comforting hand on her back.

Sango pried the object from the girl’s cooling hand, then slowly smoothed out the crumpled places, knowing what it was before she did so. The parchment was marked with three large kanji.

An ofuda.

Sango’s hand fisted around the small paper and she closed her eyes, her mind whirling. ‘Why didn’t I notice? I could have saved her... But there’s no doubt now...’ She pushed herself slowly to her feet, her eyes still closed. ‘Houshi-sama...’

She now understood the look on Inuyasha’s face. He’d thought that this realization would hurt her. How right he was.

When the whirling of her thoughts ceased, she clenched the ofuda in her hand and opened her eyes. She realized that Kagome had seen nothing that would betray Miroku, and she found that she didn’t want the miko to know. It would make what she had to do that much harder.

"Inuyasha. Could you take her back to her relatives’ home? We can do that much for her."

Inuyasha gently stepped away from the young miko, whose face was still streaked by falling tears, and strode to Koharu’s body. He knelt and gathered her form into his arms, then stood effortlessly, as if she was weightless. In the close proximity, he became even more aware of the stench of blood that covered the corpse. The smell was thick on the air, curling upward like palpable waves.

"Let’s go," he finally managed. "I don’t want you two going anywhere alone."

Both of the girls nodded slowly. Sango put an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders and led her from the site. Inuyasha brought up the rear, his ears straining to pick up any foreign sound that might betray a dangerous presence. His gaze repeatedly flickered down to the body in his arms.

‘Damn it, I could have been there! If I had just stayed at the house instead of-’ He paused in his thoughts. The wounds... they smelled completely different... The one at the stomach was slightly older; it hadn’t been the killing blow. The injuries were as much as five minutes apart... If he had been at the house, he would have had the time to reach the scene... and save her...

Inuyasha’s shoulders slumped as much as the weight of the body would allow. ‘I may not have delivered the blows... but I still killed her. It’s... It’s all my fault!’

The house of the dead girl’s relatives came into sight. Lost in his guilt-ridden thoughts, he had fallen behind the girls. He could hear their voices from the interior of the house, explaining, no doubt, what they were about to see when Inuyasha entered.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside, already catching the aroma of tears on the air.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Phoenix wiped his blade rather rudely on the man’s yukata, trying to avoid the bloodstains from the chest wounds that he had inflicted. "Thank you..." he whispered softly. "You have provided precisely what I needed."

He left the dead man propped against a crude wooden fence, then took the path that would lead him to the house that the man had come out of before being ambushed. A smirk stretched Phoenix’s face as he reached the large dwelling, then stepped inside, eyeing the trapdoor at the far end of the room.

Without pretense, Phoenix took hold of the cool metal ring on top of the door and pulled, removing the square of wood and revealing a deep black pit. There was a rope ladder lying against the wall nearby, and two small hooks near the trapdoor told him where to attach it. Within seconds, he was standing on the earthen floor of the reasonably large underground cellar.

Since it was summer, there had been no need for the man to store food here, to keep it from aging too quickly.

But Phoenix would find a use... It would store something much more precious...

A malicious laugh tore from his throat as he ascended the ladder once more.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Mwaha! A cookie to those who know what he’s going to store... though it’s rather obvious, ne?

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Corisu: Ok, here’s the plan: We make up flashcards to tell Inu what to do so he’ll kill his counterpart, then we send all of the originals after the OOCs while we hunt for the ears!

Inu: WHAT?

Corisu: -.-;; Eheh. First, let’s get rid of him ‘cuz Kagome can’t subdue him while he’s deaf... *pulls out index cards* Anybody have a Magic Marker?

Aamalie: *sighs* Why don’t we just do this... *snaps, and Inu pulls the Tetsusaiga and throws it at OOC!Inu, who drops dead and vanishes in a puff of smoke* See? Simple!

Kei and Aki: Now why didn’t we think of that?

Aamalie: ^^; I’ve been practicing.

Corisu: *groans* Yet again: Show-off. Kuno-chan...?

Kunoichi: *wakes up from a drooling sleep leaning on the shoulder of a wide-eyed Kouga* Yeah?

Kouga: O.O; Why... won’t... she... move?

Corisu: Take these two back for me, ‘kay?

Kunoichi: Suuuure... *uses Scythe to cut a portal to the real world at her feet, then drop-kicks Inu in*

Kouga: And what makes you think I wanna go in there?

Aamalie: --; *quite calmly pushes Kouga to the edge of the portal* FURRY!

Kouga: URK! *falls Inu-style into the portal, which closes with a sound like a flushing toilet*

Kei: A toilet? o.O;

Kunoichi: SFX rule!

Corisu: Riiiight... Hey, what’s that? *points off into distance, where a tree just went up into blue flame*

Aki: I dunno, but I think you’re gonna make us find out...

Corisu: Darn right! Onward, warriors!

(The gumi trek towards the oddly flaming tree.)

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Review Responses:

Wakadori Ramen: ^^;; *eyes her DIE KOHARU DIE poster* Eheh. Well I’m glad the sadisticness (is that a word? o.o;) made it okay! I agree that she wasn’t that big of a hindrance (in fact, she made Sango show her feelings) but she still annoyed the heck out of me.. Thank you for the review! ^__^

Kei: Eheh. No clue why the review thing’s taking so long... Ooh! Hoodie... *grins* I should start my own clothing line... ^_^ You know, I find myself reading things out loud and doing the voices, too... o.O;; Erm... we’re all weird! *small party*

HJO: Well, it’s nice to know that you always review... and also to know that you are a fairly good driver. ^^; *jumps away from whip* ACK! I’m workin’, I’m workin’... Sheesh.

Vamps: *raises eyebrow* Hm. That is a rather odd typo! Thank you for telling me about it! There are some things that aren’t caught by beta or writer, and I don’t feel grr-ish at you for pointing it out. ^^

Nishigirl: *does the cliffie dance* I knuuu... mean cliffie. And yeah, Sango is rather on the ball, isn’t she? As for if they’ll catch him... *opens mouth, but TV flares up suddenly in background and drowns out her words*..... okay? ^_____^

Manofmanyfaces: Eheh. My exact words, I believe, were ‘Darn you America, why can’t we just watch the subtitles?’ ^^; It wasn’t really a bash on the country... more like a bash on the TV stations that air anime. And I’m glad you found what you were looking for! ^^;;;

Kin103: *sighs and wiggles nose, shattering the boombox that’s playing the soap opera music* >.<; Yeeesh.. it’s a Feudal Young and the Restless... I hope this chapter was fast enough for you!

GinHasa: O.O;;; *sloooooowly backs away* Hmmm... so you wish to help us in Chocospace? Hmmm... I’ll see if I can fit you into the next chapter then. Nice to know you’re interested, and thanks for the review! ^_^

Noki-san: Thank you! I hope I didn’t leave you hanging for too long!

Aamalie: You already knew that you were right about the Koharu hugging thing... ^____^ You’re good. *surreptitiously adjusts foil hat* *sighs* Yes, Margo no baka, I DID update my bio... about two months ago... -.-;;; SNAPPLE?! WHERE! *yanks out camera* Gossssssip... ooooooooh....

Teletha: Don’t worry. I’m not a total Kikyou hater and I won’t make her out to be absolutely intolerable! Oh, and I’m working on a happy ending... Love conquers all! *peace sign* O.O;;;;; I shouldn’t have told you that...

Kyoko Kasshu Minamino: *bursts into giggles* Yes... Miroku is a killer... a naive one, but a killer nonetheless... *wiggles nose and chainsaw pops out of Shortz’s hand and into hers* Hmph. No chasing Kyoko-chan. ‘Tis not nice. Kenshin: *appears* That it isn’t! ^^

Lily Among The Thorns-89: I know... *bows head pitifully* I’m a chronic cliffie-leaver. I’ve tried therapy, but the psychiatrists all quit when they couldn’t stomach the wait between sessions. ^^;;;

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Coming soon - Chapter 10: A Lone Hunter

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~Why don’t you click the button and make sure it’s working? ^_____^