Obi Land

Nightmare

Chapter One: Tattered Dreams

They walked, and they walked, and after that, they continued to walk. There was no destination; there had been no starting place. They would simply wander eternally until they all withered away, unable to move any longer. There would be no feeling, no caring, no existence at all. With blank eyes, and equally blank hearts they would walk as they always had, as they always would. Not knowing one another, not even knowing themselves. They were one soulless, mindless being in the form of six. Not all human, but not all demon, different, and yet the same. The world was black, the mountains seen only from a distance and never becoming any closer. And they would continue to walk, they're direction never changing, never altering, strait, but nothing resembling true. Nothing awaited them, and they awaited nothing. They wandered, never hitting an obstacle, though never hitting a helpful something either. The black world, with a dull sun, and no other creature that could ever be seen, or touched, or notiticed, not even one to be ignored. This world had no sound, no scent, no taste, or feeling, it lacked even sight. No one was meant to be there, to endure it, yet they walked in the black world, enduring it though not being there at all. Not knowing of its existence, or the existence of anything else. Alone, and defying existence, they walked, walk, and forever will continue their walk of nothing.

Miroku shot up in his bed, covered in cold sweat. His robes were drenched and he could feel a cold draft whistling through the room he shared with Inuyasha and Shippou. With short ragged breaths he desperately tried to regain his breath, not knowing why this odd dream always terrified him so. Looking around he saw his roommates still sleeping, dull blurred forms across the room, curled up in their rough brown blankets and envisioned them on the walk, blind to all, and he could not bear it. Despite Inuyasha's manners, or lack there of, and Shippou's annoying childlike antics, he cared for them dearly, and would much rather that he were the only character in his dream. Then, knowing sleep would not come again that night, he rose, leaving his room, and it's sleeping inhabitants.

Before reaching the refreshing air outside, and the cold rain beckoning him, promising to wash it all away, Miroku was approached by Kaede. "You had the dream again." It was a statement, not a question. Miroku had been awoken by the same nightmare every night for the past few months. He simply nodded his head and continued into the night. Kaede watched him go, but returned to sleep once he had reached his spot, under a nearby tree. Miroku would sit there on the nights when they were at this new building. His dreams had begun when they moved in, only at first, they had walked happily, determined to reach a destination, one known to them, this new home being their starting place. That dream had warped slowly into the nightmare he remembered clearly; despite the rains hallow promises from only a few minutes earlier. He leaned his head against the rough bark of the tree almost wishing it would harm him in some way that would give him a small pause from his current thoughts.

The morning after, Miroku sat, dry, eating as the others wandered into the room. Kagome entered slowly, shivering, not as if cold, but as though she had seen a ghost. Shippou suggested this, concerned for her, but she shook her head and sat before giving any other reply. "…I had this terrible dream right before waking up…these people were walking, they weren't going anywhere, but they would keep going anyway, as if…as if there was nothing at all to live for, or care about…" Miroku started as she said this. He had never describe his dream to any of them, only Kaede even knew of it's existence, so how could Kagome have just given a rough description of it?

Then his eyes widened while still staring at his breakfast as he listened to Inuyasha's reply. "I had a dream like that too. There wasn't anything. No life, no feeling, no reason…or being. They couldn't have even been real, because life just could not exist there…"

"I remember that everything was empty, including, no especially whoever it was that was walking, and there were six of them, but I think they were a mixture of human and demon…" Kirara curled up in Sango's lap, as if to say she had also experienced the dream.

Shippou looked at them each in turn before saying anything. "It wasn't a dream, nothing that terrible could be a dream…" He gave a small sniff, and Kagome pulled him into a light embrace. "What I remember most is their eyes. They were blank, like th-they were, like they were d-d-d-dead…" He then proceeded to cry into Kagome's dark hair. Miroku looked up at them far too calmly, as if he had not been at all frightened by the nightmare that had terrified even Inuyasha enough to open himself and reveal something that scared him. "I remember it too." He said no more, just finished his food and began to stand.

"Aren't you going to tell us? Maybe we could figure out why we all had the same nightmare." Kagome spoke while trying to comfort the still sobbing Shippou. "I remember that the sun was dull, mocking life by its refusal to give any light to it. How the grass seemed to crunch under their feet, while at the same time it seemed not to exist. And the mountains were black, like the rest of the world, as they walked towards them, but never became any closer at all. That where they were going existed no more than where they had started. I remember how they walk like zombies not caring, much less remembering anything at all…" He gazed past the others as if seeing something very far off.

Inuyasha looked at him strangely. "You could recite the whole thing in detail, couldn't you? So, who are they Miroku?"

"Yes, I can. Their names are Inuyasha, Kagome, Sango, Shippou, Kirara, and Miroku." His eyes still seemed unable to focus on anything in the room.

The others had seemed to be in shock starting the moment he said Inuyasha's name and regressing further from reality with the mention of each new name. He watched as Kaede stared at him, he watched as the others slowly returned to the real world, yet his eyes were no more focused than when he spoke. "That is the dream, isn't it Miroku." Again, Kaede spoke to him stating a fact, rather than asking a question, and again Miroku gave no more response than to nod his head.

Miroku returned to his spot under the tree, and once again leaned his head against it. A cold rain still pored, soaking quickly through his robes. Inside the others talked, trying to unravel the mystery around their nightmare. Inuyasha soon followed Miroku's lead, leaving the others to go sit in the rain, but he went to a different tree, and sat in it, rather than under it. Inside Kaede told Kagome, Sango, and Shippou how long Miroku had been having the nightmare, though she admitted it would be better to get this information from Miroku, seeing as how he could gave more accurate facts, and probably could describe the dream for them as mentioned before. Once the had spoken all they could remember, and felt they should wait to continue, Kagome lay Shippou to sleep and Sango went outside to find Miroku. She arrived at the tree he sat under and rested beside him, with her head lying on his shoulder. Sango moved her arm around his shoulders, almost not realizing what she was doing. The two of them simply sat there, without speech or any recognition beyond Miroku resting his own arm around Sango.

They sat that way for hours. The rain continued to hammer down on them, soaking easily through their already drenched clothes, and threatening rather than promising, to wash their lives away. The threats were no more substantial than it's earlier promises, so they continued to sit, thinking of their nightmare, wishing they could think of anything but. A spider, weakened by the rain, crawled to a spot between Miroku and Sango, wishing for a dryness that it seemed would never come.

A similar spider crawled to where Inuyasha lay in a tree and rested beneath his right leg, which was bent so his knee was level with his head. Yet another made it's way onto Shippou's pillow, while one more crawled onto Kirara's back as she napped nearby. A last spider was soon on Kagome's bare foot as she gazed out the window, the pounding rain deafening her to anything else.

Far away a pulsing drum with a black spider mark upon it was beat by a black-eyed yokai, the steady beat flowing through the air, it's sound so soft, no human could hear it. A steady thump, deep, and resonating, its beater strong, and determined, a spider mark on the back of each large, pale-skinned hand. This beat was meant to reach all of his spider servants; they would obey this call, and attack those they were sent to annihilate.

The small spiders positioned near each of the people who had dreamed the nightmarish dream began to grow, bulging hideously, enlarging their bodies to deformed things only imaginable in the darkest part of the human mind. They continued to add to their size until each one was as large as an average sized house in Kagome's time. They wrecked the new home that Inuyasha and the others had moved into only four months earlier, but their purpose was to destroy their lives, not their part time home.

Miroku and Sango jumped, startled, as a tiny spider swiftly transformed into a giant mass of long hairy arachnid legs with a body about three times the size of either of them. Looking around they saw four more of these giant spiders, most likely attacking their friends, this was soon proved as they heard Kagome's terrified scream. Followed by "I HATE SPIDERS!!!!!!"

Realizing they would not have a chance to retrieve their weapons from inside, Miroku and Sango took up a fighting stance, knowing they wouldn't be able to fight the terrifyingly huge spider without weapons and hoping Miroku's kazaana would suffice to defeat this horrendous beast. The thing brought its leg down upon them forcing them to dodge, something they accomplished only at the last instant. Sango proceeded to run around on its left side, drawing its attention to her. Once the monstrous spider's back was to him, the monk opened his kazaana sucking the spider in, but it cut it on its way in. Miroku screamed in pain, thinking it shouldn't be this agonizing, that spider couldn't have made too large a rip.

Inuyasha ran to the house, leaving a large, dead spider in his wake, and hoping he wasn't too late to save Kagome. Upon reaching the house, he saw her cornered by one of those horrific spiders. Crying out to her, Inuyasha leapt at the monster killing it easily with one blow. The dead spider fell, and a black smoke Inuyasha recognized seeing as it had also arisen from the last spider he had killed rose from the corpse and flew away in the direction he had heard a soft drum beat coming from immediately before the spiders attacked.

Miroku and Sango arrived as Shippou rode into the room on Kirara's back, fleeing from two of the giant arachnids. "AAAH! Help! There are giant bugs trying to kill us!" Shippou cried out as he saw the others. A gigantic hairy leg puncturing through part of the little remaining ceiling closely followed them. The rest of the spider quickly followed, with another waiting behind it.

"Inuyasha! You'll have to take care of them!" Sango yelled after seeing her damaged hiraikotsu. It lay in three pieces scattered across the room.

"Why can't any of you do anything?" He yelled, already slashing at the thing's legs. "My hiraikotsu is broken, and one of them already damaged Miroku's kazaana." "It did what?" Kagome asked, concerned for her friend.

"You heard her." Miroku said, obviously disturbed by the pain in his right hand, as Inuyasha finished off the spiders with his Kaze no Kizu.

"What's wrong with your hand?" Inuyasha nonchalantly sheathed his sword, obviously very happy with himself.

"I think one of those spider things cut it…" He winced in pain, clenching his right hand into a fist. "But, I don't think it should hurt this much." Miroku staggered to where his staff lay, still in one piece.

"I think more than just his hand is hurting..." Kagome spoke so softly only Inuyasha could hear her; Shippou and Kirara were on the other side of the room looking for any surviving items in the rubble.

"We should go find whoever sent those spiders." Inuyasha said, his voice slightly louder than it needed to be, but not enough so that anyone would think it strange. "He might have a jewel shard."

"We should have Miroku's kazaana looked at first, Inuyasha." Sango's voice was very soft, and it held a large amount of concern for the monk leaning against the wall.

"Feh." Kagome and Sango both gave Inuyasha 'the look', but he refused to be affected by it, so he turned away.

Shippou and Kirara returned empty handed, claiming to have checked everywhere only to find nothing.

They set out the next morning, Kaede traveling in the opposite direction as the rest of them. It was damp, the air far too cold, and spirits were even lower than the temperature. None of them, including Inuyasha himself, were sure of why he didn't wish to go visit he old monk who would repair Miroku's hand, but luckily for Miroku, they were headed on their way to visit Mushin. Though, not a single one of them felt at all lucky.

"You failed." Naraku spoke to the pale skinned yokai before him. "I do not approve of failure."

"I assure you, Master, that I have not failed. It simply takes time for me to have control over another."

"You had better be right, Sitsokan, for your sake." He turned to face the figure watching from the doorway. "What is it now, Kagura?"

"I can take care of that half demon, Inuyasha, Naraku. Why is it you keep me confined to the castle? I am not a child!"

He smiled. And she winced, knowing it was not a good thing to see. "Maybe, you would wish to cease to exist. Would that suite you?"

"No, of course not." She left hurriedly, impatiently awaiting the time when she would be able to destroy him. It mattered not that she was made from him; they were still separate beings. He held her life in his hands. That was something she couldn't stand.

Arriving at the home of Mushin, Inuyasha and the others could see no signs of life outside. The hanyou said as much, but was ignored by the others; he was still seen as a villain for not wanting to come.

Miroku walked inside, and awakened the drunken old monk lying on the floor. Sango, Kagome, Shippou, Kirara, and Inuyasha all waited outside, not sure of what to do, or where to go. They expected Miroku to be inside for a long period of time, and therefore expected to have to go inside at some point. Just as Sango was approaching the door, Miroku walked out bearing an odd expression on his face. Behind him stood Mushin, solemn and quite obviously sad. He watched Miroku as someone would a being about to die.

It took all of a few seconds for Sango to decipher what must have been discovered within the building she stood before. Kagome realized the same thing, and tears came to her eyes, for the monk seeing as he was her friend. Shippou did the same, as Kirara nimbly hopped onto his shoulder. Inuyasha however, paid no attention to the others; his back was to them as he sat dejectedly on a large boulder. He did, however look back as Sango cried out, throwing her arms around the lecherous monk.

They moved on soon afterwards, not wanting to waste any time. The group was solemn as they slowly made their way towards Naraku's castle. That night, they all had the nightmare again, but it was different.

The same hopeless people from the walk were now slaughtering thousands. They showed no expression, they felt no emotion. All they knew was to kill. A black-eyed yokai stood beside Naraku, overseeing the destruction of the human race.

Miroku awoke gasping for breath. His heart pummeled against his chest, threatening to break free of its barrier. Instantly his hand began to throb. But the pain did not simply allow itself to remain in his hand. It spread throughout the whole of his body. His throat constricted, and he made to gasp for breath, but could not. There was no air, none that he could find. His body writhed in pain, convulsing both from the ache and from lack of air. He could make no sound to bring notice of his peril to the others, and he had lost control of his body. Without any visual cause, he ceased to move, to need air. His eyes dimmed, the life drained from his body, and he was no longer himself.

When the others awoke at sunrise, he was already up, preparing to leave. He hid his face from them, and moved in an odd, silent way. His friends were not yet fully awake, however, and did not take note of any peril nearby. They all soon set off, Miroku walking in the back, but making no movement at Sango, who walked just ahead of him. At first she was relieved, but by noon, she had become worried about the monk.

"Inuyasha…" She made her way towards the hanyou, looking behind her every few steps. "I think there is something wrong with Miroku."

"What? What is it, Sango?" He looked over at where Miroku was sitting; the monk leaned his head against a boulder, and closing his eyes, slept.

"I'm not sure, but he isn't acting like himself, something's wrong."

"She's right!" Shippou called, hopping onto Sango's left shoulder

"Shippou and I noticed too." Kagome walked towards them at a slower pace.

"It could be his hand, guys. He's probably just upset that he's gonna die." Inuyasha spoke, almost sounding sad.

"Inuyasha!" Sango yelled at him, obviously angered by his attitude towards the monk's death.

"Maybe we should rest for a while, let Miroku get back to normal?" Kagome suggested.

"No need; I'm fine, Kagome. You guys don't need to worry so much about me." Miroku walked up to them, smiling.

"B-but Miroku…." Sango took a step toward him, stopped, stood as though unable to decide what to do.

"Look, Sango, I'm juts still a little tired. That's all, really. And since it's only a little, it won't hurt to continue."

"But, Miroku, you're going to die! Doesn't that bother you?" Kagome cried, motioning furiously with her hands.

"No."

Sango began to weep.

"What?" Inuyasha nearly fell to the ground in shock.

"I've been faced with my death my entire life. All I need worry about now that it is inevitable to come about soon, is Naraku's destruction. I've no time to worry about my life anymore."

"Miroku…" Kagome spoke sadly.

"Feh! I think you're just lying to us! You've always been terrified of you death, Miroku. I saw you after you were fooled into thinking your wind tunnel had fully opened and begun to swallow you!" Inuyasha nearly drew Tessaiga as he yelled at the monk.

Miroku smiled, a sad smile, a fake smile. "I remember, Inuyasha. And, I must destroy Naraku! We don't have tie to waste just sitting around!" Miroku was now yelling as well.

"Miroku, why are you being so mean?" Shippou piped up from his spot on Kagome's shoulder.

"I'm not being mean, Shippou."

"Well you must be! You made Sango cry!" Shippou yelled, effectively causing Kagome to slam her hands over her ears, knocking Shippou to the ground.

"Not so loud, Shippou!"

"Sorry, Kagome."

"I…. I made Sango cry?" Miroku looked over to Sango, saw the tears streaming down her face. Pretended to care. Pretended to comfort her.

Everyone bought his act.

"Master Naraku, I have the monk in my control."

"Good, now. Kill them all." Naraku grinned, an expression of pure evil. "Yes, Master Naraku."