Chapter 009: Yura's Nest
Sitting in an undistinguishiable place, Yura talks lovingly to a horde of skulls, telling them that she will give them life once more. With a sweep of a comb, she rakes the hair left on one skull, magically extending it to an unimaginable length and sweeping it to an unknown place.
InuYasha and Kagome, who is hiding under InuYasha's fire-rat robe, creep out of the well as Kagome explains to InuYasha who they're after. She slips out that Yura has already stolen the Shikon no Tama, alarming InuYasha. Before he has a chance to argue about their situation, a field of hair comes from the air and crashes down. InuYasha dodges the hair and carries Kagome on his back deeper into the forest. Being the only one able to see the strands of hair, Kagome quickly decides that they should follow the few strands that seem to be glowing because she believes that those are the main strands that are controlling the rest. Before she can tell InuYasha anything, they notice a campfire and go over to inspect it.
To Kagome's horror they find a small band of warriors brutally murdered in a tangle of hair. Kagome looks on, shocked to find the decapitated warriors are human. InuYasha lightly strums one of the hairs that are covered in blood stating that the warriors got caught in the hair. As InuYasha goes to inspect the warriors, Kagome suddenly feels guilty, realizing that the slaughter must have happened while she went home. He turns from a headless warrior to find Kagome crouching. With annoyance he tells her that he doesn't want to hear that she wants to go home because she's scared. Instead, Kagome shows him a bow and a quiver of arrows. She wants to borrow them. Surprised, InuYasha says nothing.
As night falls, Kagome tells herself that if they don't stop Yura soon, more innocent people will die. InuYasha looks back and asks why she has the bow and arrow in the first place. She won't hit anything. Aggravated, Kagome begins to tell him with some practice; but he immediately cuts her off and asks if she's been practicing. Annoyed, she shouts back that she will after Yura is defeated. InuYasha continues on, thinking about how unreliable and useless Kagome is, but how she has more guts than what he first thought. Kagome shakes him out of his thoughts and tells him that they're getting closer to Yura.
A horde of hair suddenly attacks them. InuYasha dodges one attack. Kagome screams that there are too many hairs for her to keep track of and that he should use his intuition. InuYasha looks at her and screams that she's not helping the cause when suddenly a fleet of hair grabs his arm. Kagome is pushed off as the hair pulls him into the sky. She suddenly looks up to see a huge ball of hair: Yura's hideout.
Floating high above InuYasha in the moonlight, Yura comes sweeping down and carefully balances herself on one of the hairs. She looks over at him and gloats about what a splendid prey she's caught. She asks him if he's InuYasha. Struggling in the hair, he asks how he knows of him. She tells him simply that he's garnered quite the reputation among demons. Kagome looks on from behind a rock, surprised that the girl before her is a demon. Yura continues to tell him that he's InuYasha, the half-demon that became a lapdog for a reincarnated priestess and that he intends to collect the shards of the Shikon jewel. Angered from her remarks, InuYasha tells Yura to screw herself; Yura however ignores the comment and instead asks if he and Kagome are going to kill her. She takes out the fragment of the Shikon jewel she stole from Kagome and tells the two of them that she's going to kill both of them so she can collect the fragments at her leisure. InuYasha and Kagome are both surprised to see it. Spurred on from her threat, InuYasha begins to tear from the hair that has bound him in place and slashes at her. Yura gracefully dodges the attack, takes out her comb and combs more hair to grab in place. InuYasha is stopped short of attacking her again and Yura slices his chest with her sword. Kagome looks on, unable to scream or do anything as Yura balances herself gracefully on another strand of hair before InuYasha.
Though bound and wounded, InuYasha still tells her that she has a nice sword. Yura licks some of his blood off the blade and tells him that she was wondering what she's do if her blade didn't cut him. She explains to him that her blade, the Crimson Mist, is a demon's treasure that can cut through flesh and bone without damaging the hair. She jumps up and begins to swing on her hair to attack once more with her sword when two arrows come flying at a couple strands of hair. Her leverage gone, Yura merely hangs in the air. Surprised that her hair was destroyed, she looks over to where Kagome is standing at the edge of the cliff with a bow and arrow. With bad aiming, Kagome launches another arrow, hoping to hit Yura. Instead it nearly hits InuYasha who has to lift his legs up from his binds as the arrow flies and hits the ball of hair. Kagome screams as horde of skulls burst out of the ball. Yura screams too, horrified that she's losing all of her trophies. A few hang down, revealing freshly severed heads. InuYasha quickly recognizes them to be those of the warriors that he and Kagome had passed by earlier. Yura leans in and tells him that his head will join theirs as well and twirls some of his hair, telling him that all of his hair would be a pleasure to control. She straightens back up and flicks out her comb once more, eyeing Kagome. Yura quickly sweeps a fleet of flaming hair toward Kagome, telling Kagome that she's going to die for scaring her like that. Kagome screams and covers her body within InuYasha's fire-rat robe. Yura looks on with pleasure, asking the screaming girl how she likes her demon-fire hair. The intense heat and flames will burn Kagome down to the marrow of her bones.
