Inuyasha Gender Bendered Ch. 5

CHAPTER 5

It peeked in on Souta and the jewel from the window. But Inuyasha spotted its three-eyed self from her spot on the fence and tossed a stone at it. As it flew off into the night, Inuyasha said to herself, "So, the first of the demons has sniffed out the jewel. And a crow demon, too. That means trouble."

At some time the next morning, Souta had snuck off back into the forest. He reasoned that since he had ended up in this era through the well, maybe he could go back to his own era by going back through it. But he couldn't make it just yet. He was knocked to the ground by someone or something behind him, and then knocked out cold.

Meanwhile, in the village, the villagers and Kaede were very worried - it had occurred to several of them that Souta was clearly no longer there. This caught the attention of Inuyasha, sitting nearby. She took off immediately, cursing Souta for running off with the jewel.

Souta woke up in a small, run-down house... somewhere. He was surrounded by ugly guys - bandits, by the looks of them.

"But boss, I don't understand why we needed to bring this boy here. If we were gonna kidnap someone, that village had a few desirable females in it!" one of the bandits said.

"Unless, maybe, the boss wants to..." another trailed off, looking at Souta uncomfortably.

Souta looked up, to see the ugliest and biggest of the bandits. He had an incredibly dumb-looking face. His eyes were unfocused, and he kept burping and drinking sake. Souta figured this was the boss. "The jewel..." he said. "I want... the shikon jewel..." Souta nearly hit his face on the floor. Not another deranged monster that says nothing except "jewel" all the time!

The boss then hoisted himself up using his sword. Then he pulled Souta up by his shirt collar and pulled out the shikon jewel.

"Hey! Give that back, jerk!" Souta said, struggling. He managed to shove the boss-man a little, but not nearly enough to do any real damage. Or maybe... the boss stumbled and fell backwards. By the time he got himself back up, two of the bandits were holding Souta back. The boss held up his sword and swung down. Souta thought for sure his head would soon be rolling across the floor...

...Except that the boss hit one of the bandits in the neck. "Oops," he said. The other bandits around Souta backed up a bit. As the boss brought his sword up again and said, "This time I'll get you," Souta took the opportunity and ran out of range. The boss still lunged, and hit another one of the bandits. The other bandits, now very distressed over the fact that their boss seemed to be taking them out one by one, simply gazed on in horror.

Souta figured that he wouldn't be able to outrun or overpower the boss, and picked up a spear he spotted. He pointed it menacingly at the boss, who promptly chopped it in half. Souta, in a corner with very few options, took a second to reflect on how many times in the past two and a half days he thought death was coming, and considered this might be the final time. But that sword never made contact with Souta's flesh. When he heard a weird clanging sound, he looked up at a flash of red and white.

Inuyasha had made it at the last second, and it seemed that the boss' sword had broken when he hit her cloak. "Inasha?"

Inuyasha bristled. "Don't use that name!"

"You came to save me? Ha, you were worried, weren't you!" Souta teased.

"No, idiot! I came to save the jewel! And you..." Inuyasha said, turning towards the boss, "...I hate the smell of you. The smell of half-decayed flesh!"

"What?" Souta smelled the air. Now that she mentioned it, it did smell pretty bad, beyond the unbathed man smell.

"I knew you'd be trouble! Show yourself, crow demon!" Inuyasha shouted, swiping at the armor over the boss' heart. When the armor fell away, she, Souta, and all the bandits saw that in place of a very important organ, a three-eyed crow had dug itself a nice little hole in the boss' chest. Some of the bandits screamed and ran off, and Souta decided this might be the grossest thing he'd seen since he got here. Inuyasha simply reprimanded the crow for being too weak to fight its own battles and having to possess tubs like that guy. Then she lunged for the crow, sticking her hand into its little hole.

The crow escaped out the back of the boss, and Inuyasha saw that it had the jewel in its mouth. Then it flew out a hole in the hut. Inuyasha, faced with the fact that she couldn't catch something flying so high in the air, then spotted a bow and some arrows - left by one of the bandits. "Come on!" she yelled at Souta, handing over the bow and arrows. "We can't let him get away!"

"Wait, what do you intend to do?" Souta asked, looking reproachfully at the weapons.

"Hop on my back. I can keep up with it on the ground, but only an arrow can reach it."

"No way am I riding on the back of a girl," 'at least not in these circumstances.'

"The crow demon eats humans to get stronger. Do you really want it feasting on all the people of the world?" Inuyasha glared.

"Just one problem, though," Souta said, riding uncomfortably on Inuyasha's back. He was uncomfortable for two reasons. One, Inuyasha moved with a series of runs and hops, which, when combined with the unpaved and untamed ground, made for a very bumpy ride. Two, Inuyasha proved to have a surprisingly small figure under all that bluster and robes, and Souta didn't completely fit on her back, so he had to angle himself so that he didn't fall off. The problem he spoke of, though, was this: "I don't know anything about archery. I've never hit anything straight on in my life!"

"Well, you'll have to start now. Look," Inuyasha said, turning her face upwards. The crow demon, which they'd been able to keep up with pretty well all this time, had swallowed the jewel and was transforming into something that barely resembled a crow - or anything, for that matter. "One shot is all you'll need to take down the crow. Tsuta was a master at archery," she added nonchalantly.

"I told you, I'm Souta!" Souta said, angry and exasperated. 'Still, I'll have to take it down,' he reasoned. "Here goes nothing!" and with that, he fired his first arrow.

And missed terribly. The peak of the arrow's flight was probably 2 full meters below and 1 behind the crow demon. They didn't see where the arrow went down, but it didn't really matter. "Geez, you really are bad at this!" Inuyasha yelled at Souta.

"I told you!"

The crow demon, Inuyasha, and Souta approached a village. The crow demon swooped down and grabbed a small boy. Luckily, the added weight of the boy both slowed and weighed down the crow, so it couldn't immediately soar back up to the sky. Giving Inuyasha the perfect opportunity to attack. As she took a swipe at it, Souta jumped off and grabbed the little boy from the crow. As the two were falling down the earth, the crow opened its enormous mouth wide, about to devour them. But Inuyasha used her claws just in time and ripped it to shreds, just like she had done to Mistress Centipede in chapter 3.

Souta and the boy finally landed on the ground, and Souta pulled a demon foot off the boy's arm. As the crow's body started reassembling itself, Inuyasha asked Souta if he could see the jewel, but Souta was too busy awkwardly trying to comfort the little boy to hear.

As the little boy was returned to his mother, Souta then spotted a glowing circle under the crow's wing and pointed it out. Inuyasha swiped, but the crow was too far out of range. It had completely assembled itself - except for its foot that Souta still had - and was flying off.

'Man, what do I do...' Souta thought worriedly. 'Wait... maybe...' he pulled a head-kerchief out of his pocket, fumbled with something, and aimed another arrow at the crow demon.

"What are you doing, idiot? You'll never hit," Inuyasha said.

"No," Souta said, pulling the arrow back. "This one will hit!" and he let the arrow go. Inuyasha saw that the crow's foot was tied to the arrow Souta had just released. "Hey!" he said happily, as the arrow pierced the crow.

Then the crow's body was completed surrounded in a pink light. A faint, but ominous, cracking sound came from where the crow had been, and many, small beams of the same pink light went off in every direction. 'Whoa... I have a bad feeling...' Souta thought.

Souta once again rode on Inuyasha. "You're sure the jewel landed over here somewhere?" she asked, irritated that she had to run in yet another direction for the jewel that had almost been hers not too long ago.

"Yeah, positive," Souta asked. He still had a funny feeling about the jewel, but he also felt its presence in the direction he had pointed out.

Suddenly, from above, the crow demon's head attacked them. "Man, what a pest!" Inuyasha growled, and she pounded its head into the ground. Something small and pink popped out. "The jewel?" Inuyasha asked, sounding a bit excited.

Souta went over to it and picked it up. He remembered the jewel, it had been a little smaller than a classic superball. But this.. it was barely bigger than a grain of rice. "I... guess..." It had the same color, glow, and feel of the shikon jewel, so maybe... "...it could be a piece of the jewel..."

"What?!"

Back in Kaede's village, Inuyasha was distressing over the jewel.

"But why?! How in hell could this have happened?!" she moaned.

"Calm down. I suppose that when Souta fired his arrow, it must have hit not only the crow demon, but the jewel. I suspect that there are many other pieces like the one you found, scattered all over. Who knows how many pieces it could have broken into," Kaede said, calm as ever.

"But this little piece... it gave enough power to just the head of that crow to let it move around and attack on its own..." Souta said, holding up the little piece.

"Yes. And now, with many pieces like it scattered all about, more and more evil creatures will have the same sort of powers," Kaede continued. "It is up to the two of you to gather all the shards and put the jewel back together."

"Pff. Are you sure that's wise, hag? I'm one of the evil creatures wanting the jewel, remember?" Inuyasha scoffed.

"Yes. But for now, there is no other choice."

For Souta, the prospect of this situation was less than ideal. Traveling alone with a dangerous, constantly irritated girl, gathering little pieces of a pink jewel from equally if not more dangerous creatures? What he really wanted was to go back home, see his family, sleep in a real bed, eat real food... And his favorite show was coming on soon, too!