Mission Hogwarts
Chapter One: London, Is That Some Sort Of Weird Food?
Kagome rushed up the temple stairs, mumbling to herself that it was truly a miracle that she got out of school that Friday. Everyone had been in a rush, but even worse, she'd had a week of homework to do and excuses to try to live up to. How on earth did her Grandfather come up with so many different diseases?
Souta rushed by her yelling something about InuYasha.
"What?" She asked.
"InuYasha stopped by today looking for you. Mom told him you were at school, but he's waiting for you in the kitchen. Mom made him lunch." Souta said.
"InuYasha…" She muttered murderously.
Hurrying, she tossed her shoes aside and slipped on some slippers. InuYasha was going to have a lot of explaining to do, stay home for the week because I have school work apparently meant nothing to him.
"InuYasha, what are you doing here?" She demanded
"You said a whole week, and that was last Friday. You were supposed to come back today." He pointed out, putting her cat down.
Her eye twitched for a few minutes before dragging InuYasha outside and yelling, "Sit boy!"
He flew down to the ground and twitched a few times before hopping up.
"What'd you do that for!?" He demanded.
"You deserved it! Anyway I was going to go back today. I had to go to school today though. I have a lot of work to catch up on." She said with a glare.
"You should've came back and said something." He glared.
"You should've known that I had work to do!" She shot back at him.
"You didn't say you had more work, so you should've said something." He spat.
Something large and brown with feathers streaked past their line of vision. They exchanged glances and nodded; slowly walking toward whatever it was InuYasha in the lead. The thing had landed in the bushes with a large 'thwack', since it hit the side of the house. A dust cloud was clearing, though whatever it was, it wasn't very big. InuYasha slowly unsheathed the Tetsusaiga and poked the bush with it.
It was a creature of some sort, that they knew because the bush twitched back. It wasn't quite visible yet, so Inuyasha moved the leaves aside. It was an owl.
"An owl?" InuYasha asked.
"It looks like it. What's an owl doing outside in the middle of the day?" She murmured.
"I don't know…" He muttered.
"Pick it up InuYasha, let's get it to a tree or something." She said.
He mumbled something and went to pick it up. It flapped its wings and bit him, then stuck out its leg.
"Why I outta—" He said but Kagome yelled "Sit Boy!"
"Look, it has a bunch of letters tied to its leg, like a messenger pigeon." She said.
Inuyasha snatched the papers from the bird, and went to attack it, but it flew off too fast.
"What the hell was that all about?" Inuyasha muttered.
He stared at the address on one of the levels.
"Kagome…what the hell is on these things?" He asked, staring at the weird letters, each bearing the same writing, except for one envelope that was blank.
"It's writing InuYasha." She pointed out dryly, walking back to her house.
"I know it's writing, but I can't read it." He spat venomously.
"I still have packing to do, once I'm packed we can look at them. Put them on the table for now and help me get down my backpack." She said.
He tossed them haphazardly on the table and followed her. After spending five minutes trying to tug down the large, yellow bag, Inuyasha was thoroughly annoyed. Not only did he not understand something that Kagome was about to explain, the huge bag almost fell on top of him. Not cool.
Kagome swiftly stuffed her brush, clothes and other things like first aid supplies into the bag. She was actually curious to see what was written on the piece of paper. When she'd finally finished packing under InuYasha's watchful eyes, she made him carry the large bag.
"Here," She said.
"Why do I have to carry it?" He asked.
"Because it's too heavy." She said.
He rolled his eyes and slung the bag over his shoulder. They both walked down the stairs and back into the kitchen.
"Now, let's see what those letters say…" She said and took a seat.
She turned one of the cream-colored envelopes over and took a peek at the address.
"InuYasha, you can't read this because it isn't Kanji…" She mumbled.
"What is it? I can read more than just Kanji by the way." He muttered crossly.
"It's in English or something that that uses that type of lettering. I'm not that good at it because of all the school of I've missed." She emphasized that she missed more school than she would've liked to.
"Oh…" He said.
"Well, what about the blank one?" He asked.
"The blank one?" She asked and shuffled through the letters until she found it.
"Yeah, that one." He said.
She opened it gingerly, finding that there was a small note inside as well as a map that you could find at one of the train stations in the area.
"There's a note and a train route map." She said.
"What's the note say?" He asked.
"Kagome and InuYasha," She read, "With this letter I know you've received letters in a writing you couldn't understand. I can tell you what they say down to punctuation in due time, but first you'll have to come to the location marked on the map. You should reach my temple before sundown if you start now. I'll be expecting you both to arrive."
"Signed Genkai," She finished.
"Genkai? Who the hell is Genkai?" InuYasha said.
"No one I know, but she knows us somehow." She said.
"Looks to me like we're going to have to find out on our own, then." He said.
"You're not suggesting taking the route on this map and going to this temple or whatever, are you?" She asked.
"Yeah, I am. Let's go," Inuyasha said, setting down the bag by the door.
Kagome sighed, knowing that arguing with InuYasha would be completely pointless and he'd still win this round anyway. So she followed him out the door after sliding on her shoes. She climbed on his back and he jumped swiftly from building to building while she gave directions from the map. By sundown, just as predicted, they reached a large temple.
InuYasha set her down and smelled the air. It smelled slightly of sweat, tea, demon and human. There was also another smell that intertwined with the air, perhaps hot spring?
"I smell a demon Kagome, stay close." He said.
"Alright…" She said and looked around.
The sliding front door slid open quickly with a 'shwak', revealing a short elderly woman with faded pink hair and large bug-eyes. A cigarette hung lowly out of her mouth and a girl with sea-green hair and red eyes stood behind her, clutching a tray filled with tea cups.
"Come in," The woman instructed.
Kagome looked at InuYasha who was completely on guard as he started to walk cautiously forward. She followed suit, knowing it wasn't that wise to go into a total stranger's house, but this woman seemed as though she might be the mysterious Genkai.
"Are you—" Kagome began to ask.
"Genkai? Yes," She said.
"How'd you know our names?" InuYasha asked, standing protectively next to Kagome.
"Sit down." Genkai said curtly, pointing at a table in the next room.
InuYasha grumbled, but he knew they wouldn't get anything out of the woman unless they complied, so he did. The girl with the sea-green hair set down two tea cups in front of them and filled them to the brim with light green liquid. Green Tea, InuYasha realized after smelling it.
"You've been invited to a school of witchcraft and wizardry called Hogwarts. Not because of ability, but because strings were pulled because your help is needed to protect the student body from an corrupt wizard, Voldemort." She said, taking a sip of her own tea.
"What does this have to do with us?" Kagome asked.
"Not much. Peoples' lives are at stake and Koenma wants you to help. He knows that you and some of your friends would make alright Rekai Tantei, which he's short on for this case." She said.
"Koenma?" InuYasha asked.
"The Ruler Of Spirit World. If you stick around, chances are you'll know some of his many nicknames, like 'The-Concieted-Little-Bastard-That-Bribes-Me-For-My-Help-Because-He-Can't Do-Anything-Himself'. In the pits of hell they come up with much more creative names for him." She said wryly.
"How many and what kind of people?" He asked.
"All kinds of people, and the whole world. You may like to think we're safe over here in Japan from anything that might be going on in other countries, but we're not. Chances are that once Voldemort's done with England, he's going to move on. He'll conquer everywhere otherwise. That's where all of us come in." She said.
"What would we be doing if we chose to help?" Kagome said slowly.
"You would go under cover as students along with my 'students'. I would be teaching, we would all be monitoring the students and observing their actions while making sure they were all safe." She said.
"We can't just leave Miroku, Sango and Shippo behind for almost a whole year…" Kagome mumbled.
"We figured that would be the issue. We've worked on a way to get them from the feudal era, that is if you comply and help with the case." She said.
"A lot of people are counting on us, huh?" She asked.
"Almost the entire world." Genkai said pointedly.
"In that case…I guess that we have to." She said.
"Yeah, we can't just let them all die." Inuyasha grumbled.
"So we should go break the news to them then?" She asked.
"You have until the last week of August, that's when you all must spend a week here. Term starts September first." Genkai said, getting to her feet.
"Alright, I guess we'll see you in a month Genkai." Kagome said, also getting to her feet.
They followed the small woman to the front door that they had originally entered from.
"I'll see the two of you in a month." She said, closing the door afterward.
END