Gradually the morning sun begins to emerge from the horizon, letting its light and warmth spread across the entire archipelago of Japan.
Certainly there are areas that will never be illuminated by the sun, either naturally or by supernatural factors, though that is not the case with the red meadow beneath the blue sky.
"Master pretty, did Inuyasha make all this mess?"
Avoiding the pieces of arms, internal organs and half mangled corpses, Jaken the imp and faithful servant of Sesshōmaru, walks carefully behind his master.
"Jaken, do you think only Inuyasha can do something like this..."
"But, but, if it wasn't him, who could make those huge cuts?"
Turning the face that could easily make any woman fall in love, Sesshōmaru watches Jaken with a cold stare, though he finally explains his thoughts a bit.
"Besides Inuyasha I can feel the traces of all the members of his team, also Asahiko and an unknown human woman"
"Ohh, that explains everything. Hump, clearly it was impossible that that half-dog could do something like that, who must have done it must have been Asahiko-san, because…"
Easily in less than two minutes Jaken gave dozens of reasons why Asahiko is the culprit, some rational like he is a pure demon and others as irrational as he is an acquaintance of Sesshōmaru.
"You talk too much, Jaken"
"Ahh, sorry, sorry, sorry, master Sesshōmaru"
"Be quiet at once, otherwise next time I'll leave you with Rin"
Letting out an ultimatum, Sesshōmaru crouches down on the ground and takes some of the dried reddish liquid, then rubs it between his fingers, before his eyebrows are forced to furrow.
"This power... It can only belong to Clouded Fang"
"Eh, so they were fighting again between them, Asahiko-san and Inuyasha?"
"No, Clouded Fang had never given this feeling in Asahiko's hands before, besides that the traces of all of them are intertwined, it's obvious they were from the same team"
Ordering his thoughts with surprising speed, Sesshōmaru leaves little range of action to Jaken, basically the poor imp doesn't know what his master is talking about.
"So... Are we going to keep looking for those cats?"
"Yes, though I was thinking of ignoring this energy before... From the looks of it, it's not a very natural thing"
"Aghh... Master Sesshōmaru, his lady mother, asked him to put an end to those invading panther cats, so. Ahh, sorry, pretty master!"
Running desperately after Sesshōmaru who was already leaving him behind, Jaken can only beat himself in his mind for having spoken too much, though that probably matters little to Sesshōmaru.
...Christopher/Asahiko pov...
"Diu, diu, diu... How fucking gross!"
Thank heavens Kagome seems to be a visionary and has a small personal cleaning kit, otherwise I'd already be traumatized by the filth all over my beautiful body.
It may be an exaggeration, but I've never been this dirty since I got here, literally my demon body doesn't seem to release bad odors and with a quick wash everything becomes sparkling.
"Stop crying already, aren't you a, Aghk!"
"Next time it won't be just the soap I throw at you, Inuyasha"
Ignoring the idiot dog that is now floating half dead in the river, I took with one of my tails the soap and I gave myself another pass all over my body.
There is never enough soap, better to have too much than not enough soap, if there is no soap there is no life... Hahaha, Hahahahahahahahaha.
"Miroku, do you think he's okay?"
"Not at all, Shippo. For someone as proud of his appearance as Asahiko, to have looked like a demon out of a river of blood for a few hours must have been quite a shock."
"Um, um, it's true he was so full of blood that you couldn't even notice his distinctive blonde hair and Onmyōji clothing, he almost looked like a yokai made of blood or something."
Do these idiots think I can't hear them or what? Calm down Asahiko, think of nice things, such as Kikyo or Janis... God, now besides being angry I'm depressed.
Letting out a sigh at the surprised look on the faces of those three, since apparently they all thought I was going to kill one of them, I just keep washing my beautiful body until I'm satisfied.
"Are we going to talk about how weird last night was?"
"Hey, what was weird about it, Sango. She said, it's already normal for us to always get attacked... The flea is a trouble caller and Asahiko doesn't help much."
I was going to help the tanuki, but he had to mess with me again, so... Go Inuyasha, hit that fake fox!.
"Ahem, the problem was that they didn't seem to want to defeat us... Like when in the middle of the night the Hitomiko priestess barrier fell"
"True, I was watching with my bow in hand and it was the perfect time to finish us off, but they only seemed to go after Asahiko and Inuyasha"
Both Miroku and Kagome have a good point, I too felt like those creatures didn't wish to defeat us, but only wanted to die by our hands.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the battle would have been several times more difficult if they hadn't acted like vegetables to cut, but I don't think Clouded Fang made them act like that just out of kindness.
"Tsk, I actually felt like I just had to wave the sword and they would gladly jump towards it"
"Heh, isn't that what you always do, Inuyasha? No kidding, I felt the same way... Almost as if they wanted to be killed by us"
...Elsewhere...
The once silent forest has disappeared, hundreds or maybe thousands of souls in sorrow float and scream around, making it a sight of pure horror.
Perhaps if someone from Inuyasha's group were here or Asahiko himself were, they might notice that these souls look just like the ones who fought against them, they even have the wounds in the same places.
"Ahh... So much pain, despair, resentment and anger, Hahahaha, so many negative emotions"
Laughing with an extremely distorted voice, Menōmaru who has his arm completely devoured by tentacles of flesh, lifts Clouded Fang towards the sky.
This time the crack in the sky was ten times bigger than the previous one, revealing to the other side of the portal, plus the force that previously managed to prevent its opening no longer seems to be able to do anything.
[The Meido Stone was created from one of my horns, it's not something that can stop me here and now]
"Fa, fa, Father!"
"Scream, scream louder, may his soul in the afterlife hear you!"
Along with Menōmaru's screams being guided by Clouded Fang, the view inside the portal begins to change rapidly, finally stopping at a giant yokai moth.
This thing was extremely huge, easily over 60 meters tall and monstrous in appearance. Its wings were all broken, its internal organs were completely hollowed out and its head was only half of one.
[While your flesh and power dwell these lands, your soul has been taken by the afterlife... Now open your eyes, great lord Hyoga, open them and complete the rite of succession!]
Under the cries of Clouded Fang, the remains of the huge moth begin to be crushed and a red liquid begins to rain down upon the forest, while an enormous power begins to awaken from the depths.