IYFF Drabble 47: Teammate
Title: Waning Crescent
Author: marishaten
Genre: Dark
Prompt: Teammate
Word count: 495
Universe: Canon
Rating: K+
Summary: Houki laments her loss of powers as Inuyasha advances through the Corridors of Darkness.
A/N: Follows The Other Ghost.
Houki rested her head on her hands.
“Someone has entered the Prison of Darkness,” she announced wearily.
The trainee priestess waiting upon her looked up, her face drained of colour.
“Someone is helping that odd-looking priestess? Then let’s send our assassins -”
“It’s useless, Momiji. Even if the assassins are sent, they’d only get lost in the Corridors of Darkness and die.”
“But, Houki-sama…”
“I shall have to personally attend to her.”
For a moment Momiji wavered, as though fighting conflicting emotions. For years she had been the sole devotee, the loyal team-mate and confidant of her mistress. But now Houki-sama was planning to go ahead without involving her - she was filled with a sense of foreboding.
Houki, at the same time, was thinking about the far off past. Her father had been scared of her spiritual powers; had tried to separate her from her mother, had her confined and then poisoned. That was over two hundred years ago. The day she broke out of her prison, she had killed the old man.
“So you will let her escape from the Prison?” Momiji asked with a touch of spite.
“Let her escape from the Prison of Darkness?”
Houki laughed out harshly, causing a scar to appear upon her youthful face. Even within the body of the young priestess, moving so much as a single muscle was becoming more and more difficult for her. Over the period of two centuries she had nearly used up all of her powers. No, she needed more than just a body now. She needed a vast storehouse of spiritual energy that would replenish her emptying reserves. Kagome was just perfect for that - she had realized it the moment she set her eyes upon her.
“My, how time flows…”
Houki smiled self-deprecatingly. Up until now, she had not thought that her power was waning. Perhaps she had been overconfident.
Momiji wept: “If I had supernatural powers, I would offer my body to you this moment.”
Inside the Corridor of Darkness, Inuyasha was trying to keep as close to the floating ghost as possible. Wriggling presences of spirits and ghosts were sliding in the dark corners, nipping at his heels, trying to slither up his legs. The cave was silent as death. A strange fear gripped Inuyasha’s throat.
“Are you sure Kagome is still…” he couldn’t summon the courage to finish his sentence.
“Likely, yes. If Kagome becomes empty, then Houki will make use of her body. However, if her head is cut off, she cannot do that.”
“What will she do to Kagome’s body after possession?” Inuyasha noticed that his throat was dry.
The lips of the priestess twisted in a wry smile. “Same as what she did to mine - she will use up all her spiritual powers, over the next fifty years or so, and then cast it aside, leaving it to be eaten up by crows and vultures.”
Inuyasha did not feel like asking any other questions after that.