The House of Guts by Shadow Wolf

The House of Guts

When Kagome wished on the Shikon no Tama, she wanted to be with all her friends in modern Japan. So Midoriko ended up reincarnating all of them with their memories. By this point, Sesshoumaru was on their side and had become a good friend to Kagome. Several of the Inu-tachi decide to go on a roadtrip. Sango stays home to visit with her brother.

Our story begins with a group of unwitting travellers walking up a hill. At the top looms

an enormous house, its windows shuttered, its dark paint flaking. The sky is overcast, and

as the rain begins to fall Inuyasha, being the dense person that he is, makes a very dumb comment.

"It's raining!"

Miroku rolls his eyes at his friend, always the one to point out the most obvious things to everyone else as though they were blind.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Miroku, Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, and Kaggome begin jogging up the hill towards the house. As they reach the cover of the porch they stop. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru shake themselves off suspiciously similar to dogs as the other two wring their clothing out. The rain begins to fall even more heavily. Sesshoumaru looks gratefully at the covering above them.

"Phew, we got here just in time."

Thunder rumbles menacingly and Inuyasha shivers slightly.

"This place is creepy..."

Miroku shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly, not being bothered in the least bit by their surroundings.

"Creepy, but cheap."

Inuyasha shakes his head at a typical comment the houshi makes quite often.

"Leave it to you to find the cheapest place. It's gotta' be haunted."

Miroku looks thoughtful for a moment until finally speaking.

"It's a possibility... But I'm sure we can handle some ghosts. We've faced demons worse than this."

Kagome throughout all of this has been clutching her arms tightly to her body and looking around like she was paranoid.

"I'm scared."

Miroku edges over to Kagome and is about to put his arm around Kagome until he is stopped by a feral growl from the taiyoukai. He quickly steps away as Sesshoumaru takes Kagome into his arms.

"Don't worry, Sesshoumaru will protect you."

Miroku slowly approach the large wooden door. He reaches into hispocket and pull out a large, ornate key. He turns the key in the lock as more thunder rumbles and the door slowly opens before them.

A strange presence is sensed by Kagome's miko powers.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Inuyasha, known to always disregard all of her instincts, rushes in first, sending a sneering glance over his shoulder.

"Aww, it will be fun."

Entering the pitch black house, none of them can see their hand in front of their face. The darkness swallows everything up. Miroku's voice is heard echoing off the walls.

"Got flashlights?"

All at once Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha and Kagome switch on their flashlights and shine them in

Miroku's face. He squints and step aside so they can light the way into the house. Together, the four of them enter.

Miroku:" Wow..."

Inuyasha: "This place is amazing!"

Kags: "I've never seen anything like it!"

Sesshoumaru: "My castle in the fuedal times was bigger."

The front foyer is enormous, and still in remarkably good condition given the exterior of the house. Lush red carpet lies underfoot, and a huge staircase rises to a first floor landing. Huge paintings of unrecognisable historical figures line the walls. Despite the fact that all are holding flashlights, Inuyasha says,

"So there's no electricity?"

All are astounded by the stupid questions Inuyasha always asks, and only Miroku can answer such a dumb question.

"That's right."

Kagome shines her beam about the interior, as though she were searching for something.

"Where are we going to sleep?"

"I think over there looks perfect."

They follow the light of Sesshoumaru's flashlight into a large living area. Most of the space in there is empty.

Miroku's eyes light up in the dark with recognition.

"Ah, the fireplace. The owner told us that we could use it. There's wood in it already."

Upon the mention of 'fireplace' Inuyasha becomes hyper, like a small child.

"Let me! Let me!"

Inuyasha rushes forward and begins tending to the fire. The rest of them roll their eyes and begin unpacking their sleeping bags, while Inuyasha gets the fire started.

Kagome sits down cross-legged and gazes around the room.

"Ano... This place is awesome. Arigato for finding it Miroku."

Miroku is busy digging through his backpack for something, his entire upper body in the bag, but his muffled voice can be heard from inside.

"No problem. Hopefully we'll see a ghost."

Suddenly Inuyasha screams and falls away from the fireplace. A fire is now flickering steadily. Miroku is puzzled to as to why his best friend is now screaming like a girl.

"What's wrong?"

Inuyasha points a shaking finger in the direction of the large brick fireplace.

"The fire... The fire..."

Sesshoumaru, being to his brothers antics, ignores the fact that he is a moron, and notices the fine job he did on starting a fire.

"Hai, you did a good job."

Inuyasha stares at the orange flames leaping from the wood below, he is very pale.

"I didn't start it."

Miroku looks over at the hanyou, questioning the rediculous statement he just made.

"Nani?"

Inuyasha turns to look Miroku in the eye, hoping to convince him.

"I was just about to start it and flames just came out of nowhere! Almost burnt my hands off!"

Sesshoumaru is hardly amused, his brother really is a total baka!

"Riiight."

Inuyasha throws his half-brother an angry look, although he is not surprised since Sesshomaru is natoriously cynical.

"It's true!"

Kagome, knowing that a fight between the siblings was the last thing that they needed, hands Inuyasha a bottle.

"Here, have some sake."

Kaggome and Sesshoumaru begin handing out drinks. Inuyasha's outburst is quickly forgotten as the storm grows louder outside and the alcohol warms their veins.

Inuyasha, have been given time to think, asks an intelligent question.

"So why is this place deserted?"

Sesshoumaru falls back into his sleeping back with a groan as he pulls his pillow over his head.

"Iie, not this story again."

Inuyasha, turning to the head burried beneath the pillow, looks jealous.

"You know it already?"

Sesshoumaru's pillow bobs as he shakes his head.

"Miroku made something up when I first heard about this place."

Miroku looks indignant at this statement, despite that fact that he is known to often make up tall tales.

"I didn't make it up! Well... The owner might have. But that's where I heard it!"

Kagome is now interested as well. Leaning forward, she looks excited.

"So what's the deal?"

Inuyasha is now past the fact that his brother found out before him and turns to Miroku.

"Hai tell us."

Sesshoumaru's muffled vioce is heard, his sentance is laced with sarcasm.

"Go on. Enchant your captive audience."

Wind batters the house as Miroku begins the story...

"A few generations ago, a rich man by the name of Horace K. Longbottom had a vision to create an enormous gothic mansion. He liked horror stories, and even wrote a few that were published in magazines at the time. In his search for a suitable place for the mansion he discovered this hill and knew at once that it was perfect... "

Inuyasha thinks he might know why.

"Indian Burial Ground?"

Miroku shook his head.

"Iie, he just liked it."

Having emerged from under his pillow, Sesshoumaru interupts as he remembers something.

"Isn't there a forest nearby that some bakemono* [monster] lives in or something?"

Miroku contemplates for a moment.

"Oh hai. But that's got nothing to do with the house."

Anyway...

"So he built the house we're in right now. After he moved in, he rarely left. Previously he had been a jovial figure who would often drink in the local bar and had many friends. But the house seemed to swallow him up...Nobody would see him for months at a time."

Kagome, being anxious to know what next, cuts in.

"And then?"

Sesshoumaru takes a long drink from his bottle, wondering why the others actually found this interesting.

"Exciting, isn't it?"

Miroku continues.

"And then... People started disappearing."

Inuyasha is morbid, and likes it when that happens, He makes pleased noises.

"Oooh."

Outside, lightning crashes. Miroku continues the story.

"People were suspicious of Longbottom, but there was never any proof. He stopped going into town at all and everybody forgot about him until an old friend came to visit and found his decaying body at the base of the stairs. He was holding a letter that described the murders of the missing people, but he was clearly mad so it was impossible to tell whether or not the letter was true or if it was another story he had been working on. In the letter he made mention of a hidden dungeon beneath the house were he had kept the missing people, but the dungeon was never found..."

Suddenly Kagome cries out in pain and they all turn.

Kagome pulls her hurt finger from her mouth, revealing a small gash.

"I cut myself on this baka bottle cap."

Inuyasha, although he is on the other side of the room, notices something odd.

"Ano... Kags?"

Kagome looks up at the sound of his voice.

"Hai?"

Trying to be calm about the subject, Inuyasha speaks in an even tone.

"Is your blood usually silver?"

Miroku has also noticed as well what Inuyasha was seeing.

"Now that is strange."

Kagome is a bit hesitant to believe that the boys could possibly be right.

"It's probably just a trick of the light."

Suddenly a new voice speaks from behind them,

"Ohayo."

and they all scream at once, turning to see...

Miroku is the first to recover from shockand speaks.

"Jimi Hendrix?"

The figure answers.

"Hai."

Miroku is puzzled.

"But aren't you..?"

Jimi Hendrix knows what Miroku is asking.

"Dead? Hai."

This makes Miroku estatic.

"You're a ghost!"

Jimi Hendrix nods.

Sesshoumaru is suspicious.

"What are you doing here?"

Jimi Hendrix turns to the Inu-tachi, speaking in a serious tone.

"I have been sent to warn you. An ancient and powerful force lives beneath this house, and it is going to eat you."

Kagome is still quite unsure of what to make of everything. First she was bleeding silver blood and now the ghost of a dead rock star is talking to them. She is also alarmed by the condition of her wound.

"Um...''

They all turn to see that silver blood is now spewing wildly out of Kagome's finger and splattering all over the floor.

Inuyasha knows that she is probably quite frightened by now, and come up with no good answer.

"That's no trick of the light..."

The apparition clears his throat.

"Ahem. Ah... Excuse me. I'm trying to speak here."

Miroku gazes adoringly at him.

"What do we do?"

Jimi Hendrix issues them a severecommand.

"You must leave the house, but you can't use the front door because that will eat you too."

Inuyasha scoofs at such a strange statement, seeing that door do not normally eat people.

"Like Hell it will! I'm out of here!"

Inuyasha stands up and walks straight through Jimi Hendrix towards the main foyer. A moment later they hear a loud scream and Inuyasha comes sprinting back in, clutching at his stomach.

"The door had teeth!"

Jimi Hendrix shows no remorse for the hanyous state.

"I told you."

Miroku notices a spot on his friend's shirt.

"Ano... Inuyasha what's that on your shirt?"

Jimi Hendrix examines it.

"I believe it's spleen."

Inuyasha looks down at the rip in his shirt. Small pieces of spleen appear to be oozing from a shallow wound.

"Oh Kami, I'm bleeding spleens."

Sesshoumaru is finally having a good time.

"Well that's certainly exciting."

Jimi Hendrix speaks again.

"It's worse than I expected. You must leave through a secret passage. Go to that bookshelf over there and pull out that pink book. Follow the passage that opens and you should be safe. Now I must leave you..."

Jimi Hendrix slowly fades away.

Inuyasha is truly a moron.

"Anyone want some spleen?"

Miroku turns away, not being able to stand the sight of organ oozing from his friends stomach.

"Urgh."

Kagome is offically freaked out at this point.

"Let's get out of here."

They all gather their belongings and head for the bookshelf. As they pull the book free the case slides aside revealing a dark passage.

Kagome stops though.

"Wait! What if it's a trap?"

Sesshoumaru, being the pessimest that he is, makes a good point.

"You got any better suggestions?"

Inuyasha is quick to remind the others,

"The front door has teeth, remember?"

Miroku is confident in his rock idol.

"Jimi Hendrix wouldn't lie to us! Let's get out of here."

They all enter the dark passage and the bookshelf slides closed behind them. There is no way out. Together they rush forward, as large chunks of flesh begin dropping from the ceiling.

Sesshoumaru picks up a large piece and delicately sniffs at it.

"I think it's raining kidneys."

Suddenly they come to a large room lit by candles. A strange shape that seems to be constructed of several different bodies stands in the center of the room, next to a large machine. The rain of kidneys appears to have stopped. The weird figure speaks.

"Welcome to... THE HOUSE OF GUTS!"

Kagome is amazed.

"Did you just talk in capital letters?"

The weird figure answers.

"HAI I DID."

Kagome smiles.

"Wow, that's cool."

Surprisingly the figure is putting up with the small talk and responds.

"ARIGATO."

Not to be impolite, but Miroku is tired of the compliments and wants to know what is really going on.

"Right... So who are you?"

The blob has a devious air about it.

"Haven't you figured that out yet? I am... HORACE K. LONGBOTTOM."

Miroku is not aware of the danger he is in.

"Can I have your autograph?"

At this point Horace is no longer amused by the fact that the group is not frightened.

"Excuse me, you are supposed to be COWERING IN FEAR."

Inuyasha is sick of the mess he is making.

"Oi, Horace could you help me out? I'm bleeding spleens here."

Horace strangely reassures him.

"Don't worry, it's not your spleen."

Inuyasha is quite happy.

"Ano, well... That's a relief."

Horace now is at the end of his rope and bellows at them.

"WHY AREN'T YOU COWERING YET?"

Inuyasha is now aware of the current situation.

"Right, gomen."

All four of them start screaming and running aimlessly around the room. A slippery trail of

spleens follows Inuyasha wherever he goes. Kagome's finger, however, seems to have stopped bleeding.

Horace is now pleased.

"That's better. Now if you would be so kind as to walk into my machine so that I can steal your bodies and harvest their organs..."

They all stop running and stare at Horace.

Miroku is hesitant.

"I'm not sure about that."

Sesshoumaru is bold, as usual.

"Hai, why should we let you harvest our organs?"

Inuyasha is clueless.

"I have some extra spleens you can have."

Upon that topic Miroku decides to ask something that has been bothering him all night.

"And how is Inuyasha bleeding spleens anyway?"

Kagome has similar feelings.

"And what about silver blood?"

Sesshoumaru is pissed off about all of this.

"None of this makes sense!"

Suddenly another voice speaks from a dark corner of the room and a bakemono leaps out of the shadows, brandishing a rake.

Miroku knows who it is!

"It's the bakemono from the forest!"

The bakemono speaks in a surprisingly understandable voice.

"I've had enough of your discarded organs polluting my forest Longbottom. It all ends NOW."

Kagome is again awed.

"Wow, the bakemono can speak in capital letters too."

They all watch as the bakemono moves towards the machine and starts beating it with a rake.

Horace is livid.

"Iie! What are you doing!"

The bakemono snarls in rage.

"Something I should have done a long time ago!"

Before things proceeded, the bakemono turns to look at them all.

"The exit is over there."

They all turn to see a flickering green EXIT sign above a doorway.

Miroku is surprised.

"Why didn't we see that before?"

Sesshoumaru is sick of this twisted place.

"Let's go!"

Inuyasha has not moved yet.

"Hold on... Before we leave I need to know the truth."

Inuyasha rushes towards Horace who is too busy watching the bakemono destroy his machine to notice.

Inuyasha has always watched a little too much Scooby Doo. This is apparent.

"Now let's find out who you REALLY are!"

Kagome is worried for his safety.

"Inuyasha don't!"

But it's too late. Inuyasha grabs Horace by the chin and pulls at his head. It comes off easily in Inuyasha's hand, leaving only a bleeding stump.

Miroku turns away, again grossed out by the disgusting gore.

"Oh that's just gross."

Inuyasha is semi-unaware that he just pulled someone's head off.

"So it's true! You were really just a bleeding neck stump all along!"

Suddenly they all realise that the bakemono has stopped destroying the machine and is watching them.

" Why didn't I think of that?"

The bakemono throws away the rake and starts for the exit. Together they leave THE HOUSE OF GUTS.

Sesshoumaru turns to the bakemono as they walk out next to each other.

"Domo arigato bakemono."

He replies politely.

"No worries. Come and visit me in the forest sometime."

They all make your way down the hill towards Miroku's car. As they get in and start the engine

Kagome speaks up from the back seat.

"Wow, my finger has completely healed."

Inuyasha's voice sounds somewhat worried.

"Then why am I still bleeding spleens?"

Being the smart-ass that he is, Sesshoumaru replies,

"I don't know, but I wish you'd stop."

Miroku turns to see a growing pile of spleens on Inuyasha's lap.

Kagome, the worry wart is logical.

"We should get him to a hospital..."

Miroku shakes his head.

"Hai, someone might need a donor."

THE END