Chapter Text
“All hands! Batten down the hatches!” Captain Inuyasha Taisho barked his orders to his crew, as he rushed up the main deck from below, gasping as the torrent of rain blinded his vision for a moment. Shaking his head to clear his dog ears from getting too water-logged, he hurried on, shouting instructions over the increasingly loud weather, until he made it to the helm, where Miroku struggled to keep the wheel steady.
“Where did this blasted storm come from?” Inuyasha bellowed over the wind, as he grabbed hold of the helm and pulled with Miroku. The resistance was too strong, and soon both men had no choice but to hold it in place.
“She won’t answer, captain!”
“Damn!”
“We may have to ride her out, sir!”
“Damn it all to Davy Jones’ Locker!”
“Captain!” A call from above, that only Inuyasha’s sensitive ears could hear. He looked up, narrowed his eyes, and could just barely make out Shippo cowering in the crow’s nest. “Captain!” the little fox demon called out again. “There’s a ship just over yonder!”
“Has she run afoul?”
“Not that I can see, Captain! It appears she’s trying to ride the storm out like we are, sir!”
A strange tingle went up Inuyasha’s back. If the other ship hadn’t run afoul or wasn’t trying to escape the storm, it meant they were also too deep into the fray, like Inuyasha’s beloved Siren’s Wing.
Or, perhaps, if his hunch was correct, they were there by fate’s design.
.
.
.
Kagome reached into her blouse, and clung tightly to the small pendant she always wore on her person.
The wind violently whipped about her, tugging powerfully enough to make it feel like any moment she would fly off into the air and be swept into the sea. Not that it would make a difference to the state she was in, already soaked to the bone by the onslaught of rain and waves washing over the sides of her beloved Naiad.
“Jinenji!” she bellowed. “Keep her steady!”
She continually screamed out her orders, knowing most of her half-demon crew would pick up her words, no matter how much difficulty she had hearing her own voice. There were only two other humans onboard her ship, her First Mate and Second Mates, Sango and Kohaku. They were currently preoccupied below deck with some of the younger crew members, securing everything from the wrath of the storm, and keeping the youngest of Kagome’s “children” safe for the time being.
No matter how dangerous the situation was, Kagome always prioritized her crew’s safety above all else.
She gripped onto her jewel pendant one more time, whispered a prayer in her heart, and hurried over to the helm where Jinenji struggled valiantly to hold the ship’s course steady to ride out the storm.
“Captain! There’s another ship gaining on us!” Shiori’s voice called from the crow’s nest.
Kagome’s pendant throbbed in her tight fist.