Dune 8
Title: Dune
Series: Naruto & Inuyasha
Rating: PG
Summary: The banners snapped back and forth, back and forth, long trails of red.
Genre: Sand. Adventure? General.
Chapters 1-7: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5102842/1/
"Vengeful spirits," the Medicine-seller tells Miroku over a cup of shared tea in the inn. "They always turn into demons."
It is past midnight nearly a week since Sango, Miroku, and Shippo have traveled to this town so far from the rest of the world that even the humans living here seem to have traces of demonic auras lingering about them, clinging to them.
Miroku has not seen Sango for several days, though he looks the town over so much that the residents know him just by the sound of his voice. They tell him she was probably swallowed up by a sandstorm, but this is no consolation.
The nights are restless for him, and despite lying in bed for hours all he can manage to summon is a stomachache that leaves his whole body sore, and makes him want to throw up.
So he leaves Shippo sleeping in their shared room and heads to the kitchen to find a strange man in a heavy kimono already there, still awake. There is kettle of tea steaming on the table, and the man hands Miroku a cup without saying a word.
This man only introduces himself as a 'medicine seller', and claims to have been just passing through an area that is near no roads.
Miroku responds by simply referring to his own self as a 'traveling monk', and they begin to talk about the aspects of his profession.
The man is peculiar, and his veiled comments seem to hold an underlying experience that is more than mere opinions. His explanations offer no clarifications, and Miroku is wary enough to suspect this person of Sango's disappearance.
But, though he tries all night to grill the Medicine-seller for answers, to slip into the truth he is looking for from careful guarded words, he gets nowhere.
And wakes to find himself jerking into sudden awareness at sunrise, his face sore from being pressed against the table, his body stiff from the awkward position, and splinters in his cheek as he tries to remember just when he fell asleep.
The room is empty but for the sounds of waking patrons drifting through it, and Miroku throws his chair back when he stands.
An hour later, armed with as much water as he can carry, Shippo, Kilala, and a faint sense of lingering demonic chakra to the east, they head into the desert.
The villagers leave things out for the demon in the desert. Trinkets, toys, food.
The inn Sango and Miroku are staying in, the woman whose house this is bakes a fresh loaf of bread every night just to leave out in the sands for the demon.
When they ask, she says Sometimes he comes, and sometimes he doesn't. But she never sees him either way.
Soon, the sun is beginning to set, and Kilala is growing weary. They have made a good amount of distance and so set down in a dark valley between the dunes, where it is sure to be cool.
And Kagome is walking the streets at night, in her hometown, in her own city. The night is full of rain and dimly lit streetlights reflecting off the blacktop. Tiny feet dance across her umbrella, but she knows that were she to throw it aside, toss it away like so much rubbish, there would be no one there.
No one standing at the corner by the bus stop, the bench cold and hard concrete. Dim green plastic distorting the overhead light of the seat. Part of a newspaper left behind, writing on more than half.
And she walks the streets at night, heading home, wanting home. She feels like a broken bell, hollow, one that rings but makes no sound.
There are no demons, no monster cats or flying magic. Nothing either good or bad of the fairytales she learned by heart every night, at bedtime.
She is alone, in the city.
- Cameo from Mononoke, the series. He's a real cool guy.
The Medicine-seller is sort of a demon-slayer and a bit of a demon or god himself, it's impossible to tell. He has seals that demon-spirits can't cross. For our purposes, demons with a body can cross them - Shippo, Naruto.