Title: The GF Mage
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I own neither the "Inuyasha" universe, nor the world of "Final Fantasy". AU Inuyasha, AU FF8 (mainly because I'm not following FF8's story line).
YES—I am aware of how many stories I have going. I write what I'm interested in, and obviously I can't randomly stick Squall and company in any of my current stories so… Enjoy!
Chapter One
It was well after dark. The majority of the populace was already tucked away in bed with all the lights out. Even the taverns had sent their drunken customers home for the evening and put out the lights.
However, there was always the exception here and there. The most unnoticeable exception was the solitary light shining from a window of 44 Hargrave Court in Esthar's capital city. The mansion was home to one of Esthar's top engineers, Tohiro Higurashi, so when a light remained on in the mansion into the late hours of the evening no one would really think twice.
What the citizens didn't know was that window belonged to the third bedroom on the third floor, and the person who lived in that generously sized room was none other than Tohiro's four-year-old daughter.
As far as children could be described, Kagome was very ordinary. If one were bold enough they might even call the child unsightly, but they would then risk the wrath of Tohiro's wife, Ai. Kagome's arms and legs were barely more than skin and bones which sometimes made citizens wonder if she might be underfed until they saw her face resembled a plump radish and her belly still had plenty of baby fat.
Kagome was a very ugly baby; her skin always looked like someone had sponge painted it with various shades of white and tan, and her lips naturally plump though they were seemed to belong on a much older person instead looking much like a ripe cherry on her face when her mouth was closed.
Even Kagome's eyes did nothing to offset her ugliness as those wide eyes colored like the blue sky of midnight were much too large for her tiny little button of a nose. Teasing from the neighborhood children should have caused the four-year-old to be rather shy around others but instead the ugly child had grown a fierce temper just like her mother.
That temper was now being used to its full potential as the ugly child beat at a helpless doll with her father's wooden three-foot ruler which had been snatched secretively from his work room earlier in the day and hidden under her blankets until night.
Such aggressive behavior was not usually considered 'ordinary' but in the Higurashi family, at least as far as the child went, it was very usual. It was ordinary behavior because unlike other little girls at her age who played tea party with their dolls, Kagome played games of good versus evil.
Looking at the treatment from the doll's point of view, one might think the behavior to be violent and unnecessary. But when looked at from the child's point of view, one realized it was not a doll Kagome was fighting but instead it was an evil T-Rexaur with a jaw full of sharp teeth and a mean tail. When she hopped around on the floor and climbed onto her bed only to jump off and land in a heap on the floor it wasn't because she wanted to but rather it was because she had to in order to get away from the evil fiend's charging head. When the wooden yard stick broke, it wasn't because she hit it too many times and too hard on various items in her room but instead it was because the T-Rexaur had snapped it in half with his gaping maw.
With her 'sword' broken, the child had to dodge another attack from the imaginary fiend. However, Kagome wasn't about to throw in the towel yet. She had a battle to win and a princess to save—said princess being a small, cuddly looking cotton stuffed bear—before she could let herself go to sleep.
So, with a mighty shriek emitting from her chubby cheeks, Kagome climbed up onto the T-Rexaur's back (a plush couch in her rather lavishly decorated room) and innovatively crushed the T-Rexaur by belly flopping on it. With her adversary defeated at last, Kagome screamed with excited cheer and raced to the stuffed bear, hugging it to her with all her might.
That was, of course, until the door to her bedroom opened up and she heard her mother say in a tired voice, "Kagome, what are you doing out of bed? It's three in the morning!" Her mother then clucked her tongue, "Papa isn't going to like this."
That was when the rather unsightly child dashed to her bed and hid under the covers. Her mother sighed and flipped off the lights. "Goodnight, my princess," her mother chimed.
Kagome called out, "I'm not a princess! I'm a warrior!"
The next morning as always, Kagome was the first one awake despite her late night battle. Kagome was not allowed to use the stairs or the elevator on her own. They had locks to prevent her from doing such. These prohibitions didn't stop her from going to another floor, however.
Her father—engineer that he was—had installed a set of slides going from her room to the first and second floors of the house. One led into her playroom on the first floor, the other led into her playroom on the second floor just as in the second floor playroom there was a slide leading to the first floor playroom.
She'd always been told very firmly that slides were one-way paths only, but she had also learned through recent trial and error that slides also go up. With a happy shriek, Kagome practically flew down the slide to the first floor, landing with a poof on a plump cushion.
With her tummy growling, the ugly little child set off for the kitchen. There she found a servant who made her a bowl of oats for breakfast. Kagome was barely able to stay still as she ate. She was smiling and kicking her feet, excited for the day ahead.
Ordinarily her day followed the same basic pattern in the recent months. She would get up, slide downstairs, eat breakfast, and then prowl the first floor of their house for fiends to defeat until it was time for her father to go to work. She had come to learn that when she heard nine consecutive loud rings—which was the sound of the church bell down the road—then it was time to meet her father in the foyer for a kiss, a hug, and a brief, "Have a nice day."
After her father left, her ordinary day would then resume with more fiend hunting which had been limited to the first floor until she learned how to slide up. Once she learned to slide up, she opened herself up to a world of new fiends to battle because only when she was on the third floor—the floor her bedroom was on—could she battle T-Rexaurs.
She wouldn't get much fiend hunting in before her mother found her and kissed and hugged her and then told her to be good for Maria the nanny while her mother was off at work. Maria seemed to always be around the house from the moment Kagome woke up to the moment she tucked in at night. She never said much, but she followed Kagome around the mansion even if Kagome wasn't sure why. The only place Maria wouldn't go was Kagome's father's work room which made Kagome certain there had to be some really mean fiends in there, though Kagome had yet to find any.
After lunch, Maria would read Kagome a story of Kagome's choosing before nap time. Kagome always picked the same one: Kikyou, the Warrior Priestess. It was a true story, but Maria never told Kagome it wasn't the whole tale. Someone had, at one point in time, decided to take the true story and boil it down into a child's illustrated story book.
The ordinary day would pick back up after naptime with a trip to the store with Maria and when she arrived home she would help Maria put away the groceries which always made her feel like a hero because Maria couldn't stand on the counter to reach the high shelf on the cupboard.
When the groceries were put away, Kagome would retreat to one of her playrooms to scour through her toys for something to beat up fiends with. More often than not, this task only resulted in making a mess but the four-year-old didn't notice. All she knew was that when morning came, her toys would all be back in the toy chests and the only thing she could imagine would move all her toys where she couldn't get at them without searching would be fiends.
With her playroom sufficiently messed up and some soon-to-be-broken toy in her hands, Kagome would resume the search for fiends. Eventually her mother would return from work and locate her. Kagome would play with her mother until the servants said dinner was ready.
After dinner, her mother would help her take a bath—so that fiends would not smell her approach and would be caught unawares, of course—and they would play games or read stories until bedtime. Kagome would hug and kiss her mother goodnight, and her mother would tuck her into bed. However, what usually happened after her mother left was that fiends would appear and Kagome would simply have to defeat them. Most often Kagome's mother caught her up before she could defeat the fiend, but fiends always ran away when either of Kagome's parents was around and they wouldn't come back until morning.
That morning, however, even the four-year-old knew her day wasn't going to be ordinary. She would be going on a special trip with her father and not even her mother was going to be there.
Kagome was very happy to spend the whole day with her father, so after breakfast this morning, Maria took her upstairs in the elevator to her room and dressed her in a pretty blue outfit comprised of shorts and a bell shirt. Kagome's long, ordinary hair was tied back with a white ribbon which was bobby pinned to stay in place. Lastly, Kagome's outfit was complete with adorable stockings and buckle shoes.
It was unfortunate that even such a cute outfit did nothing for the ugly child except display exactly how unsightly she really was. Maria took the excited child downstairs in the elevator (strictly refusing to let Kagome slide in her special outfit).
In the foyer, her father was already waiting for her. Kagome didn't even blink at the fact that her father was dressed in his work clothes: a nice dyed blue wool sleeveless sweater, a crisply ironed white dress shirt, black slacks, and a white lab jacket. She also didn't notice the tension in the air between her mother—who still stood in her nightgown and bathrobe—and her father.
All she knew was that the day was going to be very special. Her father reached out a long fingered hand to her. Kagome reached up and clamped her tiny, twiggy hand on his.
They were about to leave when Kagome's mother cried, "Don't you dare let anything happen to my baby, Tohiro!"
Tohiro said nothing, but he pushed his thick glasses up his long nose and sniffed. Kagome waved to her mother. "Bye-bye, Mama!" she said.
Father and daughter left the house and walked the few paces to her father's car where a servant was waiting to buckle Kagome into a temporarily installed child safety seat. Kagome was so busy trying to look at everything inside the strange vehicle she unintentionally made the servant's job harder. She had never been in a car before. Maria always walked with her to the store.
With her buckled in, Tohiro got into the backseat with her and began reading some papers he kept in a folder under his arm. This went unnoticed by the child who was too busy trying to figure out how to get out of the uncomfortable seat that she was sure was a fiend and trying to eat her. The servant who had buckled her in got into the front of the car and drove them away from the house and through the front gates at the end of the drive.
"Stop that, Kagome," her father ordered, so Kagome was forced to obey.
Being the innovative child that she was, Kagome found a new way to occupy herself in a very stereotypical fashion. "Where we going, papa?" Kagome asked.
"We're going to the museum." Her father responded.
Kagome looked out the window of the vehicle and pointed to one of the many large buildings they were passing. "MUSEUM!" she screeched, startling her father enough that he dropped his papers.
His lips pursed in displeasure but the child did not notice his irritation. "That is the church. I will let you know when we are there."
"Oh. Okay papa," Kagome said. Tohiro was able to have about thirty peaceful seconds to organize his papers again before Kagome asked, "Are we there now?"
"No." Tohiro said.
Kagome asked, "Why?"
Of course, Tohiro would never have known it with as little time he spent with children, but he would never—no matter how intelligent he was, or how great an engineer—be able to answer that question satisfactorily. He spent the rest of the car ride floundering for an answer that didn't result in another 'why'.
He never made it.
They arrived at the museum and spent the morning there. Kagome was a bundle of joy when they arrived in a section devoted to the anatomy of fiends. Tohiro was very happy she was taking an interest in biology at such a young age because to him that said she wanted to know how things worked.
What he failed to realize was her true interest in the creatures. Before the trip to the museum, the only fiends she knew to exist were T-Rexaurs, Bite Bugs, and CaterChipillars. Just like learning to slide up, this had unlocked a whole new world for her.
"What's that one, papa?" Kagome asked over and over. Her father would read to her about the fiend—its name, the region of the world it could be found in, and he would read to her all the biology of the creature as it was listed on the information boards. Most of the information was generalized, but nevertheless, she did enjoy her time with her father at the museum.
She didn't want to leave the museum at lunchtime, but her father promised she would like the next place even better than the museum. On the drive to the Renaissance festival, he told Kagome about his days in Engineering School, though he really didn't get to say much as she always interrupted with silly questions that weren't on topic.
The four-year-old asked things such as, "Did papa battle any T-Rexaurs?" when he was telling her about Drafting and Design class. Because she kept asking him questions, he didn't have the opportunity to pick up the small black folder and organize it.
Instead, he had to tell her, "No, but I did dissect a Fastitocalon-F in Biology my first year at the university."
At that point, Kagome looked confused because he had used several big words—things such as 'dissect' and 'biology' and 'university'. Aside from that, she had no idea that Fastitocalon-F's were water fiends. Tohiro had forgotten he was keeping company with his daughter who was only four and not the intern he had hired recently whose voice was exactly the same as Kagome's (though it should be obvious since his intern would never call him 'papa'…).
Tohiro's driver stopped at the entrance to the festival and got out to unbuckle Kagome. With the child gripping several of Tohiro's fingers, the driver drove off and father and daughter entered the festival grounds.
Kagome enjoyed herself quite a lot as her father took her around. She got to play all sorts of games involving number guessing and balloon popping and even fish catching, though her balloon popping game ended quickly when the dart veered course and poked the game attendant instead.
She did win a toy sword in the number guessing game which she stuck through a belt loop on her shorts with pride. They ate festival food and Kagome quickly found out how yummy hotdogs were. Maria and the other servants never made hotdogs. They always cooked from scratch so it was Kagome's first time for hotdogs.
They left the festival at half past two, though Kagome wouldn't know unless someone told her. Tohiro had learned that Kagome wouldn't talk if she had something to occupy herself with so he bought her a ridiculously large lollipop. That way he could reorganize his very important papers which he would need shortly.
It took them half an hour to get to their next destination: the Presidential Palace. When Tohiro looked up at his daughter, he expected to see her still eating her lollipop, but all he saw was her chewing on the large stick. "Where did the lollipop go?" he asked his daughter incredulously.
"Candy all gone!" Kagome chirped with a bright blue smile. He winced as he looked at her. Her face, hair, clothes, hands, and even her legs had sticky blue sucker remnants on them.
"Candy all over," Tohiro amended in a soft, mildly horrified tone.
The servant (much to Tohiro's relief) was already prepared for such an event. Tohiro made a mental note to make sure his driver got a pay increase after this day because Tohiro would not have managed this situation on his own. But the servant had wet wipes and a fresh yellow shorts-and-shirt outfit which quickly fixed the messy child up. Kagome wouldn't let her outfit be complete without her new toy sword.
Kagome and Tohiro went inside the Presidential Palace. They barely got three feet past the front door when Kagome suddenly started whimpering. Tohiro looked at Kagome, sure there could be no more surprises after the candy. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"Potty!" Kagome whined.
"Can't you hold it?" he asked her, unaware that asking such a question to a four-year-old only made them need to go even more.
"POTTY!" Kagome cried. "POTTY, NOW!"
Tohiro felt slightly frustrated at the sudden attention being drawn to them, but he supposed she might be due for a bathroom break. She hadn't gone all day, after all. So Tohiro was forced to locate a restroom for his daughter, which was harder than it should've been because he had no clue where the public restrooms were. He never used them.
Soon he was running through halls, carrying his ugly child in search of a bathroom. They barely managed to find a bathroom, but Tohiro was just glad they did find one. If they hadn't, he knew there would be no recovery from the disastrous event—at least for him. She might be able to get over it, but the embarrassment he would suffer would be too much.
He recalled his wife's instructions to make sure Kagome washed her hands after going to the bathroom so he did just that. Afterward, the two made their way back to through the halls and Tohiro used his security clearance card to open a hidden door in the wall that led to an elevator only certain authorized people had access to. This elevator went down into the depths of the earth.
Tohiro began to ignore his daughter in favor of reading his file. He clearly didn't know much about children because he didn't think Kagome could get in trouble in such a small space. In turn, Kagome decided she was going to use her new sword to push the buttons on the elevator. It was partly her mother's fault for showing Kagome how to push the buttons on the elevator.
Soon the elevator was stopping on each floor, and all the lights were lit up. Kagome tugged on her father's lab coat. "Papa, papa, look! I pushed all the buttons!" she said proudly.
"Mhm," her father murmured. Tohiro never noticed how strange it was that the door would keep opening.
Kagome watched as the door would open on a new floor, each time showing something different than before. Then the door would close again and they would move slowly but surely toward the next floor down. Sometimes there would be people, and sometimes there would not be. Sometimes there were just long halls, sometimes there was just a big room with stuff in it.
And Kagome's father had forgotten her, though she would never really know that because she was four and these things were not obvious to her. However, anyone who looked at him would realize Tohiro was currently more involved in that black folder of his than the fascinated child who was watching the doors open and close before her.
Because Tohiro wasn't paying attention, he didn't notice when Kagome's childish curiosity took her away from him and she got off the elevator on floor B12, leaving her father's side to go fiend hunting with her new sword.
Floor B12 began as a very long hall with doors lining both sides. There weren't any adults in sight, and only the lights above her lit up, causing darkness further down the hall. Completely unafraid, Kagome headed down the hall and tried to open the first doors she encountered. It wasn't hard; all she had to do was stand in front of it and the door would slide open on its own.
Ultimate curiosity carried her into the room to her right. When the sensors picked up motion, the room's lights came on. Walking around the room, Kagome began searching for fiends. She couldn't find any in the room, even after searching under the bed and the potty.
Finding nothing in the boring room to attract a curious four-year-old's attention, Kagome moved on to the next door which opened up just the same onto a boring room with a bed and a toilet.
Finding nothing in the first two rooms might have deterred an adult from going further, but Kagome was only four and finding nothing only resulted in being more curious. She kept trying room after room until finally when she stepped in front of a door, the door never opened.
So, she did the next best thing and took out her sword and began banging on the door. Very quickly the evil door had become a Blitz fiend, one of those new fiends she just learned about at the museum which had a skeletal body covered in metal armor.
However, no matter how hard she hit the Blitz fiend, it wouldn't be defeated but it did disappear and leave the door in its place. She wasn't the type of four-year-old to give up on her quest though, so she tried to think of a way to get the door open.
The way her four-year-old mind imagined it, she could bang on it some more to get it to open, although an adult would have seen that banging on it the first time didn't do anything so banging on it a second time would likely also not do anything. Since the door was so tough to open in the first place, she knew there had to be either really good fiends to battle, or else a treasure chest inside. Kikyou the Warrior Priestess was always finding treasure chests, after all.
She was going to pound some more on the door but the sound of scratching stopped her. Scratch-scratch-scratch, the noise went. For a moment she listened to the scratching of whatever-on-metal.
Then, like any four-year-old would do if they were as brave as Kagome, she asked, "Hey! Are you an evil monster?"
She heard amused laughter though she never registered how mocking it's tone was. "Hey! Are you an evil monster?" the unknown thing inside the room said back to her in a voice identical to her own.
"I asked you first!" Kagome yelled.
The identical voice called back, "I asked you first!"
"NO, I DID!" Kagome screeched and banged on the door with her sword.
"NO, I DID!" the voice echoed, but responded with a scratching noise. Scratch-scratch-scratch. Kagome didn't notice how the second scratching pattern was the same as the first, with long scratches and short scratches.
Finally deciding that anyone who sounded like her could not be evil, Kagome asked the voice, "Can I come in?"
There was a brief pause before the voice said, "Why?"
"I'm hunting for monsters," Kagome replied. "I'm gonna be a warrior."
"There is a control panel all the way at the end of the hall in the last room. You'll need to find the switch for my room to unlock it, otherwise the door won't open."
With those words said, Kagome asked, "How come the door won't open?"
"Because it's locked."
"Why?" Kagome asked.
"Because someone flipped the switch while I was in here."
"Why?" Kagome asked again.
"Because they're paid to."
"Why?"
Clearly annoyed, the being on the other side of the door banged on it. "GO FLIP THE SWITCH!" they yelled.
"Why?" Kagome asked.
There was a pause before the voice said, "Because you…want to come in here, right?"
"Uh-huh!" Kagome said.
"Well all you have to do is flip the switch."
"Okay!" Kagome chirped and she went to find a switch she could flip. Her quest was turning out to be a pretty exciting one, of course. She wandered off looking for a switch but ended up getting distracted after only a few steps. Any adult who truly wanted to be in the room would have immediately followed the instructions given and found the switch, flipped it, and then returned.
Kagome, however, completely forgot her mission by the time she encountered a door which was—as it would happen—the next door down the hall. Four-year-olds weren't known for their incredible attention spans, after all.
She stared up at the taller-than-her sliding door that wouldn't open. However, this time when she got frustrated at the door that was locked and began banging on it, she wasn't met with a voice identical to her own speaking to her. Instead, the inhabitant of the room let out an angry roar that shocked her into tumbling backwards.
Ordinary little girls would have run crying to their mothers at a sound like that which shook the walls. The ugly little child wasn't normal though, and she—instead of being afraid—got up and screamed as loud as she could in a war challenge and persisted in her banging on the door, making the inhabitant of the room more and more agitated.
"GO FIND THE SWITCH!!" she heard the voice from the first room scream from just down the way.
She walked back to the first door and stared at it, ignoring the roaring elsewhere. "What's a switch?" she asked.
"Arg," the being moaned before banging on something within its room. "SHUT UP YOU STUPID PEST!" Unnoticed to the child, the creature in the next room over stopped roaring, obeying the command of the being who sounded like Kagome.
"I'm not stupid, Stupid!" Kagome yelled, banging on the door between them.
"Don't call me stupid!" they snapped.
"You are stupid anyway!" Kagome stuck her pink little tongue out at the door.
"I'm not the one dumb enough to ask what a 'switch' is! How is it you don't know?"
"Well, I could have papa tell me…"
"God, humans are such morons," the being muttered before calmly explaining, "The switch you're trying to find is a red button. Push it and all the doors will open."
Kagome paused for a moment before asking, "Why?" having already forgotten why she was to find a 'switch' and push it.
"I'm doomed," the other person moaned. "Doomed to spend an eternity in this damn tiny hole."
"Do you like being in there?" Kagome asked.
"You aren't that new intern are you? From floor B13?"
"I'm Kagome!" Kagome chirped happily.
"Well, that answers that question… but man, you sound just like her! Though, I guess I should'a known you weren't her."
Kagome promptly ignored the being on the other side as her attention was caught by the sound of adult voices down the hall. "Papa!" she cried in excitement and took off down the hall. As a child, she was fully certain that one of the voices would be her father, though her father was still several floors beneath her.
"Wait, come back! Find the switch!" the being called out to her, but the plump little girl never registered the words. She came to a 'T' intersection of halls and came careening to a halt, her bouncy raven curls fluttering about her head as she looked down both halls for the adults.
She didn't see her father, but that wasn't as surprising since the hall was completely dark beyond six feet in either direction of her. However, lit up like it had a halo was a metal door different than the others she had encountered, being that this door had a green light lit up where normally one would find a doorknob.
The child's interest was perked and she went to touch the light. This proved a useless effort as the door snapped open, the motion sensors kicking in and opening the door. When the door opened, the lights in the room came on and Kagome walked in with wide, excited, innocent eyes that—if one faced the truth—was not going to assure a safe ending for all involved.
The room she had entered was filled with monitors, gismos, and gadgets of all sorts. Keyboards with multi-colored lights on them stood in many places, and there were chairs on wheels seated neatly against the desks. There weren't any adults present, but apart from the security guards (who had yet to come across the small child) no one was working on floor B12 on that Saturday.
Kagome darted eagerly across the room, launching herself onto a chair. The room with all its levers and buttons looked like it would be more entertaining than sneaking into her father's workroom at home and pushing the keys on his computer! Of course—her father's computer was always turned off when she did it, so in general (except the potential stickiness going from child-finger to key which her father could never explain as to its appearance) no damage was ever done.
Letting out a loud squeak as the chair rolled across the room and bumped a panel, Kagome started pushing all the keys in, crawling half on top of the panel when she couldn't reach buttons. Unnoticed to her, the monitors mounted around the room started going crazy as she pushed button after button. Lights turned off and then on, and in one of the monitors, two security guards were paused in confusion, their severe looking guns moving from their shoulders to their hands.
"BUTTONS!" Kagome cried and shoved herself away from the panel, sliding across the floor to another panel so she could play with those ones. In the monitors as she started pushing buttons and flipping levers on that long panel she failed to notice how the doors were opening and closing and opening again.
The two security guards began shooting as fiends came from doors around them, though still—with no sound—Kagome never noticed the havoc she was wrecking. Once she'd pushed all those buttons, Kagome grew bored and spun on the chair. In her spinning, she noticed the mother of all buttons and squealed. It was big, blue, and the only one on a large panel.
The four-year-old excitedly pushed her chair over to the panel, climbing up on it to stare eagerly at the button. It was the only button that she knew of in the room she hadn't pushed. Being a four-year-old, she obviously didn't think about whether or not pushing it would be a good thing.
Instead, she just pushed it. A loud voice boomed from somewhere Kagome couldn't find. At first, all she heard was, "WARNING! WARNING!" The voice was accompanied with a loud noise that was a mixture of a buzz and a beep. Then the 'warning' changed to, "Experimentation Fiends Escape On Floor B12. All Personnel Report To Elevator For Immediate Evacuation. Ten Minutes To Dispersal Of Sleeping Gases."
Kagome, of course, had no idea what the voice was saying. Having grown bored of the room already—but not the chair—Kagome walked the chair to the door. Outside the room, the lights were flashing sporadically as all sorts of fiends went from their room into the hallway. Kagome watched as a mean looking fiend attacked a Bite Bug, leaving the Bite Bug in a pile of its own goop.
Even the unordinary child squeaked in revulsion at the sight of blue juice oozing all over the place. Her squeak attracted the attention of the mean fiend and as it turned to her, she recognized it as a T-Rexaur. It was only a baby one, but it was still pretty tough looking.
Kagome got over her disgust at the blue goo and made ready with her new toy sword, prepared to defeat the T-Rexaur. After all, it was just a baby one, and she'd beaten several mama-Rexaurs, right?
The baby T-Rexaur charged at her with mad eyes, its head lowered to head butt her.
"WHAT ARE YOU STANDING THERE FOR?" Shrieked a voice as she was tackled out of the way of the Rex. The Rex crashed into the chair and tumbled into the panel room. Similarly, Kagome tumbled to the floor in a mass of chubby body parts with—strangely enough—herself, although she didn't notice the strangeness of this fact.
As she and herself stood up, Kagome gaped at… herself. "There are two Kagomes!" Kagome shrieked, pointing at the new Kagome.
"Ah, great." The other Kagome groaned in irritation Kagome didn't notice. Fiends down all three halls around them were attracted to her screech and began zoning in on the two Kagomes. Kagome number two grabbed the ugly child by the hand and darted down the left hall, mostly because all they could see down that one was Bite Bugs—by far the least of the fiends they would need to concern themselves over, as compared to the baby T-Rexaurs and young purple Behemoths, both very vicious creatures no matter how often Kagome imagined she beat a T-Rexaur back home.
As the Bite Bugs noticed them a fraction of a second too late, dipping to sting them as they passed but just missing, Kagome yelled, "I can take them! I'm a warrior! I don't need to run!"
It quickly became obvious which Kagome was which as the newcomer, still dragging Kagome away from the fiends for reasons unbeknownst to either of them, manipulatively stated, "These aren't your ordinary fiends! They're genetically enhanced."
Huffing slightly from running and—with the help of the other Kagome—dodging the enemy fiends, Kagome asked, "What is genticly inhensed mean?"
"It means these ones are super powerful. You're a warrior, right?" Kagome number two asked, to which Kagome chirped 'yes'. "Well, warriors have to level up. Right now, if we try to take these fiends on, we'll be eaten and then it'll be game over for us!"
"So are we going to level up?" Kagome asked excitedly.
"Uh, yeah, sure." Then Kagome number two winced slightly, internally wondering why they bothered with the ugly little girl. They came to a corner in the hallways and could now hear the sound of popping noises as gunblasts went off somewhere ahead. "Okay, not that way… Then where?" Kagome number two asked no one in particular before glancing around.
The real Higurashi child had disappeared, however, and Kagome number two panicked before noticing the popped off vent cap behind them. They knelt down and saw the chubby child crawling in through the vent. Deciding it was as good a plan as any other, the other Kagome followed the ugly girl in, replacing the vent cap behind them. "Wait up!" Kagome number two said.
"Nyah nyah!" Kagome said and then crawled faster still.
They could hear the overhead warning, "Two Minutes Until Dispersal of Sleeping Gases. All Personnel Must Evacuate. All Personnel Must Evacuate."
In the vent shaft, they could hear a grinding noise up ahead. Kagome crawled through what Kagome number two thought was a part of the shaft that was getting smaller. Indeed, there was what looked to be a closing door. Kagome number two barely made it through the thing before it sealed, and with it shut, the shaft became very dark.
"Keep going forward," Kagome number two told the ugly girl.
Kagome crawled a few feet forward and then tumbled down a sloping vent shaft, with her look-alike following after. They landed right next to a vent grate which, with the added pressure, popped off and left the two in a heap on the floor.
Kagome's distracted father looked up at the irritating noise. Kagome would never know it but he had not even noticed her absence for the past hour. "Kagome, don't make a mess over there," Tohiro said. It was truly a miracle that they had landed right in Tohiro's office; a stroke of luck, though Kagome could indeed be considered excessively lucky.
Upon seeing two Kagomes, however, Tohiro had to pause and he took his glasses off to clean them, checking them to make sure there were no more smudges. When he put them back on, there was only one Kagome, so he shrugged the double vision off and started to pick up a rather large model and his black folder. "Come along, Kagome. We don't want to be late for my meeting with the President."
Instantly forgetting about everything that occurred on floor B12 (the fact that she was four and as such not constantly brooding on one particular event need not be mentioned) Kagome skipped after her father as he grumbled things like, "B12 is always causing a raucous. They should just close them down already—they're getting nowhere on their research, and the space could be used for more useful projects!"
"Papa!" Kagome chirped as they again entered the elevator. "Can I carry something?"
Her father looked down at her, frowning thoughtfully. "Where is your toy, Kagome?" he asked her, at last noticing something about her.
"I think T-Rexaur ate it," Kagome said. "But it's okay, 'cause I'm gonna level up and then beat T-Rexaur, just like Kagome said!"
Her father looked at her for a long moment before saying, "You really like fiends, do you?"
Kagome shook her head vigorously. "No! I'm gonna be a warrior, papa, and beat all the monsters like T-Rexaur and Bite Bugs. Just like the great Lady Kikyou! She beats all the monsters in dark closets and under the bed so little girls and boys can sleep safe, you know!"
"I see," her father said dubiously before they got off the elevator on the first floor and Kagome had to follow her father's brisk pace.
When they got to the meeting room where Kagome's father was to meet with the president of Esthar, Tohiro was early. He set his proposal model on the table and began setting up, once again leaving his four-year-old to her own devices as he fiddled with a small computer that would project a presentation onto a larger screen.
Kagome, being the curious little thing she was, decided to climb up onto the table and peer down at the model. The colorful little pieces looked like they would be fun to move around. She plucked one off the board and bit it, but gagged at the taste. "Yucky," she complained, and tossed it behind her. The round cylinder bounced on the carpet before landing under a chair.
Next she plucked off the piece that closely resembled a person and stuck it on top of the small model of the presidential palace, though she didn't know that was what the large thing was supposed to be modeled after. Several round disks were attached to the model. Kagome pulled one off and dragged wires with it. When the wires wouldn't let her remove the disk, she moved on to a new target: the tiny model of a car. She yanked the car off the model and began banging it on the little person standing atop the presidential palace.
That was the precise moment Tohiro turned to look at the raucous his daughter was creating—and the precise moment that President Loire decided to walk into the room. Tohiro paled and quickly rushed to stop his daughter from terrorizing the model of the city. "M-Mr. President!" he said, wondering what was wrong with his daughter. His wife had said Kagome was a perfect angel…
Of course, what Tohiro failed to realize was that Kagome might indeed be a perfect angel when she was watched properly, but if left to her own devices for too long, she—like any other child—would find something to humor herself with.
To Tohiro's absolute surprise, the young President didn't scowl or growl or ask why Tohiro would waste his time with what was obviously a ruined presentation (like the impatient Sorceress Adel used to do), but instead President Laguna Loire laughed.
And even more surprising to Tohiro was Kagome's reaction to the President's presence. "'Guna!" she cried joyously and raced across the table, literally leaping from the edge to be caught by the grinning President.
Tohiro was confused, and found it easy to be angry as well, at the new discovery. President Loire walked around the table, the soldiers who had come with him standing back by the door. "Hello, Mr. Higurashi," he said cheerfully. "Hello, little warrioress!" he said to Kagome.
Kagome giggled and blew a wet kiss on the young President's cheek. "Papa got me a lolli, and we saw lots of monsters. I beat lots of 'em too, but one ate my sword," she added.
The President chuckled. "I'll bet they did! But you're a tough nut to crack, aren't you?" he tickled her, eliciting a series of giggles from her. Tohiro wanted to know how the President knew his daughter, but he couldn't think of any way to broach the subject without sounding accusatory, and he had to be on the President's good side.
"Uh-huh!" Kagome chirped. Then, in a voice that only a child could manage, she asked innocently, "When are you gonna come see mama again?" After that, Tohiro no longer felt like doing the presentation. However, despite his spiraling anger at the innocent—yet obvious—suggestions, and despite the fact that his daughter wrecked his model, Tohiro persevered.
"Shall we begin?" Tohiro questioned in a clipped voice before the President could respond.
"Uh—sure," the President said.
When Kagome got home with her father, he ordered Maria to take her upstairs to her room and put her to bed for the evening. He was ignorant of her grumbling tummy, and her complaints for food went on deaf ears as far as he was concerned. Maria tucked Kagome into bed and read to her, leaving a sipping cup of water nearby as she always did.
After Maria had left, Kagome crawled out of bed and slid down the slide to the first floor, intent on finding a snack in the kitchen. She walked by her parents bedroom on the way to the kitchen and heard their argument, but didn't understand any of it.
She did understand the intent of it—her parents weren't happy about something. Was it her? Did she do something wrong?
"So how long has it been going on, Ai? Been sneaking around behind my back, huh? While I make money so you can live comfortably!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Like hell you don't! You know exactly what I'm talking about!"
"What is your problem, Tohiro?"
"My problem is that you've been sneaking around behind my back—with the president, no less!"
"And just who told you this?"
"What other reason would he have to 'come visit you'? You aren't getting out of this one. Answer the question!"
"You were at work with her, weren't you? I told you not to take her there!"
"And why not?"
"You work seven days a week; she barely even knows you. And the one day you do take her out, its just so you can go to work! What did you think I wouldn't know?"
"That presentation was important, Ai."
"Well, I hope you did well, because as far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over."
When Kagome started crying, that was when Maria showed up and picked her up, holding her close and rubbing her back. Maria took Kagome to the kitchen and settled her down with a bowl of sweet cream before tucking Kagome back into bed.
In her quiet voice, Maria asked, "You know your mother and father love you very much, right?"
"M-mama a-and p-papa are m-mad a-at m-me," Kagome sobbed, rubbing her eyes with her twiggy little hands.
"No, good heavens no they're not, child… They're just insecure." Kagome's wide blue eyes displayed her confusion. "You see, when two people love each other very much, they become afraid that someone else will love them better. So while your mother is so much younger than your father, your father fears that someone younger will catch your mother's eye and he will lose her. But don't you worry about a thing. They'll work things out on their own."
Kagome made a face. "I won't ever fall in love. That's for princesses anyway," Kagome said. Maria chuckled. "Maria?" Kagome asked.
"Yes, dear?" her nanny questioned.
"Do you love anyone?"
Her nanny looked thoughtful before nodding and tapping Kagome's nose. "I love you. That's why I always tell you to drink your milk and eat your vegetables." Kagome giggled and Maria tucked her in one last time. "Now, you stay in bed and get some rest. I'll take care of the fiend hunting tonight, but you'll have to pick back up tomorrow."
Kagome nodded and snuggled into her blankets. "Night-night, Maria."
"Goodnight, little warrioress."
First of all, I have nothing but pure love and respect (hearts!) for Cross of Blades by Striking Falcon. Other than the fact that Kagome's name is Kagome, and I'm starting out with her at a young age, the similarities stop.
In The GF Mage: Kagome is complete and fully human, she wants to be a warrior, and she's a walking nightmare, quite obviously.
In Cross of Blades: Things are different than in this story.
This story (if you haven't guessed) starts to take place (around) 5 years after the downfall of Sorceress Adel. That means that I get the great joy of rewriting FF8... Even though the story will have something to do with guardian forces, I have a different aspect or view of it than Striking Falcon.
I hope you enjoyed chapter one. Please review!