Time Traveler Katsumi

The White Child

"It's been three days, huh...?" Kagura said aloud, feeling incredibly bored. After Naraku's white infant accidentally got split in half by that old monk, Kanna had showed up to take one of the halves away somewhere safe. For some reason, Kanna had then given her instructions to take care of the remaining half of it... Kagura glanced back at her half of the infant's corpse. It was still lying on the ground further inside the cave, just where she had left it. "... So, what should I do with this part? It's not like it's breathing..."

"Nngh..." a small sound came from the bundled up remains as it started to roll around, catching Kagura a bit off guard.

"Hey. Did you come back to life?" she asked it as she walked over to kneel down beside it and take a closer look at the squirming bundle. She should have known something freaky like this would happen, seeing as this thing was Naraku's infant, after all...

TH-THUMP...

"..." Kagura narrowed her eyes slightly when she heard the faint beat of its heart restarting. 'He's frickin' alive...' she thought, frowning a little with disappointment. She had been more than half hoping that if this infant died, then maybe it would weaken Naraku somehow... Although, come to think of it she hadn't seen nor heard from him for a few days since even before the infant had been split... She had actually been half expecting him to show up in person to scold her for letting his precious infant be damaged like that. Could it be something really had happened to him? She hoped so. Kagura continued to watch as the infant's white hair grew longer, until it was peaking out of the cloth she had wrapped  it in.

TH-THUMP...

Its heartbeat was getting stronger, steadier...

"!" Kagura gasped in surprise when a larger, more mature hand and arm suddenly rose up into the air from within the bundled cloth. 'This guy...'

TH-THUMP...

{Meanwhile...}

The Inu-tachi were in hot pursuit of a rampaging horse youkai that had been set free when its seal broke after the death of the monk responsible for splitting Naraku's infant in half.

"The Youba's scent is...!?" Miroku asked, a bit taken aback by what Inuyasha had just said. Since when had their luck ever been this good...?

"Yeah. It's nearby, all right!" Inuyasha confirmed, furrowing his brow slightly. They had managed to catch up to its trail of destruction a lot faster than they had anticipated.

"A village!?" Kagome gasped as they came over the hill and saw the all of the destruction awaiting them below. You could barely even tell what used to be what anymore amongst the trampled rice paddies and the scattered debris from ruined buildings. "!" Inuyasha gasped too once they got closer. There were fresh corpses everywhere... This village had been reduced to complete wasteland in minutes.

"The houses and the villagers... have all been trampled down..." Kagome said, shocked. A bead of cold sweat slid down her face. How horrible...

"Th... This is..." Shippo said, gulping nervously, as gripped Inuyasha's hakama and stared at the giant hoof print embedded in the soil before them.

"A hoof print, huh...?" Inuyasha said thoughtfully. As he thought, it was that damned horse did all of this...

"It's huge," Sango remarked, a little surprised. They hadn't actually seen the youba up close, and had mostly been following its scent from the shrine it escaped from... If this was the size of it's hoof, then she'd hate to see how monstrous the rest of it was in proportion.

"It can't be that far away from here! Let's follow it!" Miroku said urgently. There wasn't a moment to lose—they needed to find this thing before it could lay waste to yet another village!