Shangri La: The Darkness' Reign and Holy Gems Hard Rock Type Beat
The air in the room was stale, smelling of mothballs and old cedar, but the moment the heavy wooden door creaked open, the scent changed. It wasn’t the smell of winter coats or dusty shoes. It was the scent of eternal peach blossoms and mountain air—a terrifyingly perfect sweetness.
We weren't in the shrine anymore. We were standing on the precipice of a golden reality.
The Wardrobe to Nowhere
"Shangri-La," Yusuke muttered, leaning against the doorframe of the antique wardrobe we had just stepped through. "Adventure awaits, huh? Looks more like a retirement home for gods."
It was a trap. I knew it the moment I saw him standing there.
Inuyasha stood in the center of a floating pavilion, bathed in a moonlight that shouldn't exist at noon. Standing opposite him was Kaguya, the Princess of the Moon, looking as ethereal and deadly as shattered glass. She held a mirrored chalice out to him, offering him the one thing he always claimed he wanted: a place where he didn't have to fight to belong.
His eyes were glazed over, the gold dull and flat. He reached out, his claws retracting, his hand trembling.
"Inuyasha, snap out of it!" I screamed, my voice cracking against the unnatural silence of the dimension. "You're not going to sell your soul to Kaguya and forget about us!"
He didn't flinch. He didn't even twitch an ear. It was as if I were a ghost and he was the living one.
The Empty Presence
I stepped forward, raising my bow, but a wrinkled, callous hand grabbed my shoulder, holding me back with surprising strength.
"Don't," the old woman said sharply. Her pink hair was hidden under a cap, but her spiritual pressure was undeniable.
"Genkai," I whispered, panic rising in my throat. "We have to stop him. He's going to drink it."
"Look closer, girl," Genkai said, her voice raspy. She narrowed her eyes at the figure of Inuyasha. "Use your eyes, not your heart."
I looked. I really looked.
I watched Inuyasha take another step toward Kaguya. I watched the way the light hit his silver hair. I watched the way he moved. And then, a cold shiver, colder than any blizzard, ran down my spine.
It wasn't that he was overpowered. It wasn't that Kaguya was too strong.
"I think I was afraid of him," I stammered, realizing the truth as the words left my mouth. "There's something dangerous about him... but it's not what I sensed, Genkai. It's what I didn't sense."
Genkai nodded grimly. "Exactly. There is no spirit energy there. No demon aura. No human soul."
"Who I saw wasn't the real thing," I whispered.
Breaking the Mirror
The thing wearing Inuyasha's face smiled—a smile too wide, too smooth, lacking all of Inuyasha's rough, stubborn jaggedness. It was a doll. A hollow vessel created by the wardrobe's magic to lure us in, to make us desperate enough to trade our own souls to save a friend who wasn't even there.
"It's an illusion," Genkai announced, gathering a sphere of blue spirit energy in her palm. "The real Inuyasha is probably still back in the closet, fighting with a coat hanger."
The realization hardened my resolve. The fear vanished, replaced by the spiritual clarity of a priestess.
"Kaguya!" I shouted, drawing an arrow and infusing it with pink purification light. "The show's over."
The false Inuyasha turned to look at me, his face blank and empty as a sheet of paper.
"Shangri-La is closed," Genkai added, firing her Spirit Gun just as I released my arrow.
The blast shattered the pavilion, the moon, and the hollow boy. The world of blossoms fractured like a broken mirror, the shards falling away to reveal the dark, dusty interior of the storage shed we had started in.
And there, tangled in a pile of winter blankets on the floor, was the real Inuyasha, kicking furiously.
"Damn it, Kagome! Who puts this many blankets in one closet?!" he yelled, ripping a wool quilt off his head.
I slumped against the doorframe, relief washing over me. He was loud, rude, and abrasive.
He was the real thing.
Soundbites from Boy Meets World, Inuyasha, Digimon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, Kikaider, Kingdom Hearts & Minute Men With Samples from Juice, Newton, Bad Religion, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Zeppelin,
https://audiomack.com/dj-new-new-dre/song/693aebc77928f
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