Bird Caught in Darkness
Chapter 1
It's done Naraku is dead, now all that there is left for me to do is wish on the jewel. After Naraku died I was sucked into the jewel. It kept me there taunting me for what was both an endless amount of time and no time at all. After what was probably days in the abyss, I finally come up with the one pure wish that would ever be.
I wish that it would be as if the Shikon No Tama never existed and that it will never affect the world again.
With that wish I am dragged through the abyss towards a blue light. I am going back to my own time to my family. It takes a while before I reach the blue light but once I reach it, I am taken through the familiar passage through time. I land at the bottom of the well with a crash. I can hear Sota calling out to me from the top before I fall into unconsciousness.
I wake up in my bed with Sota, mama and gramps looking at me worriedly. I try to speak but no sound comes out, my family looks even more worried at that.
"sweet heart can you hear me" I nod my head at her "well sweetie you fell down the well, such a horrible thigh to happen on your birthday. You don't seem to be able to speak so we are going to take you to the doctor, okay sweet heart" mama asks, to which I nod. "do you think you can stand"
In my head all that I can think about is how they don't remember, also my birthday wasn't for another few months.
I stand instead of answering her and make my way to the door. My mama following after me saying that I should take it slow. I am soon at the front door and am making my way down the steps to the car, I sit in the back on the left leaving gramps the passenger seat in the front. Mama has just finished making the appointment on the phone when she reaches the bottom of the stairs. Mama gets in the driving seat and starts to drive to the doctors. When we get there, I get out of the car and make my way inside. Mama, Sota and gramps following me, when we get inside the waiting room mama goes up to the reception and tells the lady there who we are, she tells mama that the doctor is running early today so we will be seen early.
"Miss Kagome Higurashi" the doctor says as he comes into the room, I nod at him before me and mama follow him to his office "what seems to be the problem" he says after shutting the door.
"My daughter fell down the well at our shrine and since waking up she has been unable to speak; we were wondering why as she has no injuries" mama tells him.
"Right well we'll do some tests then" the doctor says kindly "but if she wasn't injured it could be psychological, but we shouldn't rule anything out" After all the tests the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with my body that wasn't known before and nothing that would cause the loss of my voice. "I am sorry Mrs Higurashi but we can't find anything wrong, it must be psychological these things happen" the doctor says while comforting my mother.
"What am I going to do I can't have a member of my family that can't do something as simple as speak" my mama says sounding both disappointed and angry.
"I have an idea, but I will have to talk with miss Higurashi about it first" he says dismissing my mother from the room "now miss Higurashi it would seem that now that you have your speech problems your mother no longer wants you in the family. You would likely be neglected but given that you are a Shinto priestess there is a shrine, the junsui-inu shrine, that helps with problems like yours they do not care about your speech and can help you communicate without it. I believe you would be welcomed there even if you don't stay there permanently, does that sound good" I nod, and he calls my mother in and explains things to her.
"She can stay there if she likes but the one who fished her out of the well should be her official guardian"
"What is their name"
"Sesshomaru Taisho, he said that he would happily take her over the phone as he is not so shallow as I am" I perk up at the mention of his name. "He is on his way here"
A knock on the door distracts us from the conversation, the lady from the reception comes in and says that there's someone to see us. Sesshomaru comes in, he looks slightly older than when I last saw him but pretty much the same, his markings are covered up though. "Hello Kagome, it has been a while since I last saw you. It would seem that you're no longer able to speak"
"Hello Mr Taisho, am I correct in thinking that you are prepared to become miss Higurashi's guardian" the doctor says
"My mother would be happy to become her guardian, as I am currently to young to do so. Our families have had a strong relationship for centuries but the Higurashi family has fallen far to cast out one of their own" Sesshomaru says "my mother should be here soon with the relevant paper work and her lawyer. I assume you have called yours Mrs Higurashi" my mama nods.
We wait for an hour or so before Inukimi arrives with both of the lawyers, as well as all necessary paper work. Although instead of simple guardianship papers she comes with adoption papers which would make me her daughter. "Sign it" she says to the woman who gave birth to me, which Mrs Higurashi quickly does thanks to Inukimis commanding voice. "Now we may take our leave come my son, my daughter, we our going home" me and Sesshomaru both nod at her words as we follow her out the door. We go up to a fancy car and I am told to get in. Inukimi sits in the middle and tells the driver to go to some shrine, the shrines name is the Junsui-Inu shrine.
Once we arrive, we get out of the car and walk towards a well-hidden building, Inukimi unlocks the sliding door. Once inside I follow her and Sesshomaru towards what appears to be a basement. When we get down there Inukimi sits on a few neatly placed pillows on the floor, once sesshomaru has sat on another few pillows I sit on the last pile. We sit in silence for a minute before Inukimi decides to break it.
"Come here dear" she says to me while motioning me to sit on a mat in front of her. Once I sit myself there, she begins plating my hair "my son has told me lots about you over the years, from what he has said I have determined that you will be a good daughter and heiress" I look at her confused, she chuckles "I need a heiress, Sesshomaru will be inheriting my company yes but he is his father's heir. I need an heiress to pass on my fighting skills to, as well as this Shrine as only a female should be allowed to the head of a shrine to help other females. You, my daughter also have the advantage of being a Miko will also help" she says. "Now that all the formal human paper work is done we only need to adopt you the yokai way. We will perform the ritual now as in the next room over we have everything necessary" She says as she walks to the shoji sliding door. Inukimi opens the door for me as sesshomaru goes into the room on the other side to us. Inside the room there are two pure white yukatas, they look slightly different size wise but very similar. "I am going to explain the ritual now so that it doesn't come as a surprise" she says while helping me take off my clothes, once I am out of them, she indicates for me to put on the smaller yukata. "We can only wear pure white clothes at the start of the ritual as they will gain our proper clothing colours by the end. For the ritual we will all cut into the palm of our hand and let our blood drop into three different cups once all three cups contain some of each of our blood, we will all drink from a cup, after this we wait, sitting in a circle for us to absorb the blood. Once the blood is absorbed our colours will appear on our yukatas. Also, we can only refer to each other by the family ties that we wish to share"
Once she has finished explaining we both go back into the main room before going towards the door at the end of the room, once the door is opened, we see Sesshomaru waiting for us inside. He is wearing the same style of outfit that he wore five hundred years ago but without armour and its pure white.
"Hello mother, little sister" Sesshomaru says in greeting. I nod to them in greeting.
"Hello son, daughter" Inukimi says, as per the ritual the parent goes last in the greeting. We all sit around the circular table in the centre of the room, the table has two silver goblets on it and one gold goblet, each of the goblets has a dog on it. "Hold out your hands" Inukimi commands. When me and my brother to be hold out our hand, palms up, she cuts into them using a silver dagger with a gold dog on it, once she is done with our hands, she cuts her own. We all hold out our hand over the goblets and then switch goblets in turn. When all the goblets are half way full we take our respective goblets, nod at each other, Sesshomaru and Inukimi say our familial titles, before we drink the still warm blood. The blood doesn't taste as bad as anticipated, it's like medallic, thick, warm water. Only once we have finished drinking we are allowed to breath as it must be drank in one go. Inukimi, the last to finish, puts down her gold goblet "we take each other's hands now son, daughter"
Once we have taken each other's hands we wait for five minutes before colour begins to show on each of our respective garments. My clothes become a pale blue with pink and indigo sakura blossoms flowing across it from a branch going up my right arm to my neck, one of my other layers is navy, Sesshomarus is pretty much the same as when I first saw him five hundred years ago but the lotus flowers are a pale blue instead of white, Inukimis outfit is an indigo colour but with a stripe type thing going across in pink, one of the other layers is blue and the rest is white. Inukimi gasps when she sees me before smiling, Sesshomaru has a similar reaction except he doesn't gasp.
"Daughter you should look in a mirror" Inukimi says. There is luckily a full-length mirror in the room, I go in front of the mirror and am surprised at what I see. I have an indigo crescent moon the same as Inukimis on my forehead, I also have cheek marks like hers except they are pale blue instead of purple, I have pale pink markings on my eye lids as well and blue eyes with gold specks. Looking at more than just my face I see that I am a few inches taller and am leaner than I was, I have hair so black it's almost blue and a tale of the same colour. I am beautiful. "You are beautiful my dear, now I suppose I should tell you the plan. I plan that you should both have a year out of school to train, after that year you will both be entered into the same school year and the same school"
"Which school mother" Sesshomaru says"
"You will both go to Cross academy"
"Little sister we are almost there" Sesshomaru says bringing me out of my slight daze. It has been a year since the ritual and me and Sesshomaru are going to school. Even though we haven't been in school it has been a busy year. I have finally mastered my mother's style of hand to hand combat and thanks to her ability to enter dreams and given that a night of sleep is a year of dream training I have mastered many weapons as well. Though it's like all I did is train as we had quite a bit of family time, granted some of that time was spent with us all sparing each other but it was fun. I also worked on both my yokai abilities, with mother and Sesshomaru, but also my Miko abilities with the only true Miko other than myself left, that we know about, she is an elderly Miko, probably about 60, and I think she's Kaede's reincarnation partly to because of appearance but also to do with the feel of her aura. "Little sister we are here" I nod at him to show that I heard him, because even though I have regained the ability to speak I find it's hard to get used to. I regained the ability to speak once I had started my Miko training but after half a year of not speaking it is hard to remember that I can.
I wait for the driver to open the door before elegantly getting out after Sesshomaru. Once out of the car we walk through the front gate which was left open for us. We are half way to the principal's office when I smell two beings coming our way, one is human and the other smells partly human and partly something else but not yokai. Sesshomaru and I continue walking until the human comes running towards me it is clear that she is trying to take me down but as I sense no danger, I allow myself to fall with her, so as to not give away my fighting skills.
"Day class students shouldn't be out this late, are you trying to take pictures of the night class boys" the girl on top of me says. A boy comes out of the trees at first, he smells angry before he looks at me and then he turns amused. "who were you wanting to take pictures of, Hanabusa! Hey why aren't you talking!" she says before looking down at me "You're not wearing school uniform" she says dumbly.
"That would be because me and my sister are new students who have just arrived" Sesshomaru finally speaks up "my sister is also not speaking because she finds talking to idiots annoying" I sign some choice words at him, he sighs "she also lost the ability to speak for a while and is just getting used to being able to again". He then seems to think about something else to say "you wouldn't happen to know where the principal's office is would you"
"I do. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'm Yuki Cross and he's Zero Kiryu, we're the school prefects" Yuki says, Zero nods in greeting when his name is said. "I will take you to the principal's office"
"Thank you" Sesshomaru says as she's standing up, He offers his hand to me which I take, and I stand up. "My name is Sesshomaru Taisho and this is my Twin sister Kagome Taisho". After the ritual sesshomaru looked my age and we became twins, while mother expected this we did not. 'are you okay little sister' Sesshomaru says in my head. 'Yes, big brother' I reply. 'Good' he says back. We continue to make our way to the principal's office. It is a ten-minute walk from where we were, once we get there Yuki knocks on the door and receives a come in. We walk into the room.
Once he sees us, the principal says, "Oh, you must be the new students, ah and my darling Yuki showed you here. Here are your uniforms" he says holding out six outfits "there are changing rooms across the hall which you can change in"
"Thank you, head master" Sesshomaru says, as we walk towards the door and across the hall. Once in my changing room I open one of the uniforms packages, I untie the obi and slip of my Yukata. The top is a bit baggy over my chest but I deliberately ordered one a few sizes too big so that was expected, the skirt goes down to just below my knees and the stockings go half way up my thigh. The shoes I was wearing under my yukata go well with the outfit. I believe that the skirt is longer than the normal school skirt, but I prefer it this way. Once I get out of the changing room, I see Sesshomaru waiting for me holding his clothes as I am. We walk across the hall and knock on the door, we receive a come in again this time, so we enter the room.
"Ah, you both look so cute in those. I suppose you are tired from the journey, well not to worry Yuki and Zero will show you to your rooms" he says happily.
"Thank you, head master you are very kind" Sesshomaru says. 'Eccentric is more like it' I say to him telepathically. 'You are most certainly right about that, little sister' he replies. "I have heard that there is a night class and a day class, is that correct"
"Certainly, the girls are all very fond of the night class to you should keep your sister under control"
"I would suggest you do not say that sort of thing about my sister again, she is not interested in ogling boys" Sesshomaru says.
"What could you do" Zero says.
"It is not so much what I would do as what my mother and sister would do, of course, I will if necessary, defend her honour" Sesshomaru warns. 'You wouldn't need to Sesshy, I can do it myself'. 'You would likely decapitate him so it wouldn't be a good idea' Sesshomaru replies snarky. I make an annoyed sound out loud. 'Now they think you're insane' sesshomaru says sarcastically.
"Hey why don't we just take you to your dorms, then you can get some sleep, alright" Yuki says clearly intimidated.
"Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea" the principal says.
"Yes, that is an acceptable idea" Sesshomaru says, to which Zero scoffs.
"Well let's get going" Yuki says talking before Zero gets the chance. With that we start to make our way to the dorms. The walk to the dorm is silent, when we get there Yuki speaks up, "Well that is the boy's dorm over there, and that is the girl's dorm over there" She says while pointing to the buildings in question. "I will show Kagome to her room while Zero shows Sesshomaru to his" when no one else speaks up she continues "well let's get you two to bed" she says. 'we are not children' I say in my head. 'I know little sister but if we just put up with it, it will be over sooner, Kagome' Sesshomaru says breaking into my head. 'ok, big brother' with that I temporarily close of our mental connection. "Are you ok Taisho, you went into a daze there"
"I'm fine" I say deeming speech necessary for the first time in a while.
"Really well I suppose I should tell you the school rules" she continues speaking for quite a while, me just half listening. "Day class students aren't allowed out at night, that's why I jumped on you when I first saw you, sorry about that again. The night class students are all really beautiful that's why all of the girls like them, though there are girls in the night class too. The dorm president of the night class is Kaname Kuran and their vice dorm president is Tamuka Ichijo. Kaname is a super cool dorm president" while she continues to babble on, I think over what she has said. So, Yuki has a crush on this Kuran guy. Not all that interesting for me though. 'this is boring' I say to Sesshomaru. 'What is your guide doing that is annoying you' he asks me. 'She keeps on blabbing on about a boy she likes' I reply. 'ah, the Kiryu boy isn't saying anything, I guess that that is an improvement though'. 'Sure, is' I say just as I'm getting to my room. "This is your room Taisho, your room is a single, so you don't have to share. Here is your key, I'll leave you now" Yuki says as she starts to walk down the hall, presumably to her own room.
I enter through the door and have a look at the small room I have been given. It has a bed and a small set of drawers; it has a door that probably leads to a bathroom. I look behind the main door to see that my suitcase is set there. It has already been brought up here. I go over to my suitcase and get some pyjamas out; the pyjamas that I choose are a pair with pale blue trousers that go down to my ankles and a short-sleeved top that is pale pink with indigo flowers on it. After getting changed and ready for bed. I climb into bed and get comfortable for sleep; I release the charm hiding my demon attributes and wrap my tale around my waist. I slowly drift off to sleep.