As the trees began to thin, Kagome reined in her flat-eared, whinnying mount. At her side, Rin followed suit. Before them a valley stretched, the sky above it unnaturally dark, as though a sinister storm had rolled in from the north. As Rin glanced warily aside, Kagome nodded in affirmation. Even from this distance, she could sense the roil and churn of malevolent youki.

A rush of adrenaline surged through her veins. “Brace yourself, Rin-chan—there’s a mob of them.”

Urging her reluctant horse into a gallop, she led the downward charge into the miasmic valley below, relinquishing her grip on the reins to grasp for her bow instead. With Rin in tow, the combined light of their reiki seared through the demonic haze. Nocking an arrow, Kagome looked to her pale-faced apprentice.

“Do you see that glare up ahead?” she called out, gesturing with her strung bow toward what appeared to be a slick of oil glinting darkly in the distance. “It’s an acid trap—purify it in advance, or you’ll get thrown from your horse!”

“Hai!” Rin said as she fell back. With a sealing hand-sign, she extended the power and radius of her aura two-fold. “I’ll cover us both.”

The miko nodded as she let her arrow fly. In midair, the blazing missile split into ten, each splinter of light arcing brilliantly off toward a separate demonic foe. Too far away to witness the impact, Kagome nevertheless felt it in the raging agony of demons’ youki. Smiling in grim satisfaction, she pressed ahead, arming her bow again.

With Rin providing cover from the noxious ground and air, Kagome was free to focus purely on the offensive. Now in the thick of the demonic storm, she loosed her arrows almost as fast as she could fit them. Creating spiritual links between each successive strike, she cast a glittering net of reiki over the entire valley, preventing the escape of any demons who might attempt to flee.

Closer now, Kagome could see as well as sense the precise forms of her enemies—a horde of fly-like youkai, each one twice as large as a full-grown man. Her eyes flared wide in surprise as she took in the rest of the scene. In the clutches of this demon swarm was a band of armed men, entrenched in the acidic sludge that had spread out over the fields. Most of their horses had already perished—the few poor animals who still lived mired and screaming as their unprotected hides bubbled from their bones, to be siphoned up by the youkai’s long, tubular mouths.

At Kagome’s thunderous assault, the fly demons ceased belching and slurping their digestive venom, taking to the air instead. But for the trapped men this wasn’t much of a reprieve. The corrosive muck held them fast, eating steadily away even at the heavy steel and leather of their armor. Shouting and swearing, they wrestled blindly against their caustic surroundings, their swords swinging out wildly at airborne enemies they could scarcely see through their weeping eyes.

Only one man among them seemed to be faring well. A visored helm obscured his features, his torso and legs armored in mismatched but well-oiled plating. His back to Kagome, he stood freely atop the field’s lone boulder, a wicked grey katana clasped lightly in hand. Before her eyes, he whipped the blade around in a glinting, savage arc, felling a trio of attacking youkai in a single blow.

A flurry of the desperate demons now flew at Kagome. Shouldering her bow, she raised spikes of reiki from the ground instead, impaling and purifying her attackers in a multi-pronged stab of light.

At the explosive sight, a huge brawny man near the base of the boulder exclaimed, “By the gods, Heichou—a pair of mikos!”

Following the man’s pointing finger, the helmed captain turned toward Kagome and Rin, lowering his sword.

By now the rest of the men were similarly crying out in exaltation, as Rin’s cleansing aura dispelled the acid bath in a shimmering mist. Thoroughly routed, the few remaining youkai threw themselves frantically at the net of reiki that encaged them. Their winged bodies scorched on impact, Kagome ending their death throes with a final barrage of arrow blasts.

As the light of her reiki entrapment dimmed and fizzled out, Rin slipped from her horse and went about seeing to the burns of the beleaguered victims. Remaining mounted on her own horse, Kagome watched as the captain sheathed his sword and leapt down from the boulder. With a toss of his head he removed his tarnished helm and sauntered toward her.

Despite his rugged appearance, he was a handsome man, tall and wiry in frame. Shaggy and long, his dark hair was bound by a cord at the nape, his features sharp and wolfish in a way that set Kagome instinctively on edge. But even more so than this was the shade of his eyes, so light brown in color as to be almost tawny in the noonday light.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi