I still don't own InuYasha or Young Justice/Justice League.
Clark could speak Japanese now, along with most of Earth's primary languages. But he was currently mild mannered, only-speaks-english Clark Kent as he pretended to be flustered and lost with a tourist map in hand.
Not a difficult thing to do, considering the many narrow roads were easy enough get lost in.
He wondered why he was here. A week ago a translated letter had arrived at Ma and Pa's much the way the letters for PawPaw had been delivered when the man was still alive. Ma and Pa had forwarded it to him in Metropolis.
It had been almost 12 years since Clark had heard from his friend, it made him wonder why she was reaching out now.
He'd called the phone number included in he letter- Kun Loon had insisted that he contact her as soon as possible. The letter seemed frantic and urgent.
When he got ahold of Kun Loon he could hear nothing but panic and relief that he'd responded. She'd refused to say what was wrong but pleaded that he come to Japan as soon as he was able. He'd attempted to reason with her- Clark Kent was not a man who could up and go to Japan on a spur of the moment. Superman on the other hand…
"Clark, please! Please you come soon? Please!" She dissolved into heartbreaking sobs which eventually moved him into promising to come. He'd fly to Japan tomorrow night and return before anyone was the wiser.
"I'll try to catch the next plane out." He lied, no need for a plane when one could fly.
Clark hadn't expected his heart to clench when he saw a familiar figure at the top of the stairs. Her hair was shorter, but she looked as though she had not aged a day. Her brown eyes were puffy and red as though she'd been crying.
Once she realized it was him, there was no hesitation she all but threw herself at him in a grateful hug. It only took him a moment to return the hug.
"Clark! You came! You came!" she leaned back and smiled at him as she took him by the hand to lead him to what seemed to be her home. It was a shrine and the fact did not surprise him at all. It was strange to see her in the city, but the same could be said of country-boy Clark living in Metropolis.
"My daughter, Kagome." She said as she handed him a picture of a smiling little girl, "She is missing."
Clark wondered why he'd been summoned to japan for a missing child case, "I'm not sure why you called me here Kun Loon. Wouldn't your reporters be better at finding her? Here, in Japan? I mean I'd be glad to swing it by my boss Perry but- "
"You.. you no understand. Clark this important!" she begged in her broken English as she put in a VHS tape.
A smiling little girl in a pale yellow tee shirt with a sunflower on it sat with a birthday cake in front of her. Other children were sitting around the table eyeing the cake that had been placed in front of her. A toddler, Kun Loons other child he realized as he spied a picture of the boy in the corner of the living room, stood next to the girl crying about wanting to be the one to blow out the candles. The girl looked irritated as any sibling would be but seemed to reluctantly allow the younger boy blow out half the candles.
Clark only found himself even more lost. What was Clark Kent to do about a missing Japanese child? "Kun Loon, I don't-." He began as she brought a swift finger to his lips silencing him.
Kun Loon shook her head as she pulled out a second VHS tape and loaded it into the VCR.
The film started and Clark had no choice but to watch.
At first Kun Loon's voice could be heard, presumably she was the one behind the camera taping. She was panning around the kitchen taking stock of broken shelves her voice could be heard stating the recording was for filing insurance claims after an earthquake. This went on for a few minutes before a deep rumble sounded again and several more cabinets fell to the floor in a cacophony of shattering china. Even the refrigerator seemed to shake dangerously back and forth with the earthquake.
The sound of something heavy falling came from somewhere off screen that was accompanied by a shrill, high pitched scream of "MAMA"!
It was a younger sounding version of the little girl from the previous tape, Kagome was it? She was screaming for her mother over and over again. The camera became blurry and unfocused as Kun Loon ran to where the cries were coming from. The little girl stood in what seemed to be the master bedroom that had a heavy looking wardrobe that had toppled over from the quake. "Souta-chan's under there Mama!" The child cried loudly in Japanese as her face scrunched up in distress.
The camera clattered to the floor at an angle that showed Kun Loon attempting to lift the dresser with little success. The little girl in the yellow patchwork dress crouched next to her mother and a loud splintering of wood could be heard as tiny hands gripped into it.
The little girl then proceeded to lift the heavy dresser up over her head. The baby boy beneath the dresser was crying but he'd been unharmed thankfully due to a drawer having been open- keeping him from being crushed. Scooping the baby up Kun Loon looked him over before staring at the little girl who held up the dresser easily, "Is my baby brother okay, Mama?"
They were Kobayashi-san's blue eyes he supposed- striking in their sharp deep blue color, she was perhaps a bit paler than the average Japanese child. But the strength was unmistakable.
He had a daughter. A little girl who was now missing. She had been missing for three weeks. Every worst scenario raced through his mind and he almost felt faint. He might even be sick he registered in the back of his head.
She handed him something and he looked down at what he was holding it was a mug with the El shield on it. His eyes snapped up and her own warm brown ones met his in a knowing stare, "You help find Kagome, please?"
She patted his hand softly and assured him before he could even unstick the question from his throat. She knew.
Motioning to the Superman mug she softly told him, "I no tell. Why I do that? You are my friend, Clark-san."
And she meant it, there was no lie in her voice. She would never willingly give up his identity.
"I knew the moment you save Lois Lane from falling off building when it show on news." She gently raised up her hand to her heart, "I knew in my heart it you. My handsome American farm boy."
Then she cocked her head to the side and said, "Swellu."
In that moment Clark was a 17 year old boy once more marveling at the woman before him, her gentle kindness that made him realize all of the reasons he wanted to protect this planet.
He very nearly fell in love with her once again. But to tell the truth he wasn't sure he'd ever truly fallen out of love with her.
He wouldn't lie to himself- he'd been devastated to find out that she'd accepted an arranged marriage not long after he'd visited. PawPaw had gotten a letter about the upcoming marriage from Kobayashi-san and Clark had been crushed.
He'd spent many moping teenage nights wondering if he should have proposed to her before he'd left, or if she had simply used him, even lamenting the fact she'd probably been too sweet to say no to the marriage.
And once he'd started developing his powers he'd entertained the fantasy of flying back to Japan and finding her. In his teenage fantasy he'd imagined he'd find her miserably married to a man she didn't love but was too dutiful to leave. And Clark would use his powers to save her from that, taking her back to Smallville with him. But he never had.
Seeing no need to hide the fact that he could speak Japanese Clark spoke, "Tell me everything you know. Anything that will help me find her."
Her eyes widened at the sound of him speaking before she gave a sad smile, "Kagome had her 11th birthday only the day before. Her little brother said she was playing in the well house with him when a 'Monster' came and took her. I've searched everywhere for her!"
"I'll do my best to find her, Kun Loon, I swear to you." Clark promised as Kun Loon as he enveloped her in a much needed hug.
Every moment he could spare would go into searching for Kagome.
"I'm sorry I never told you, I never even knew she wasn't Higurashi-san's until after he died. How could I? We were only together a short while, I married two months after you left and did not seem to be pregnant at the time. And the doctors told me she was a healthy, normal term baby when she was born. There was nothing unusual when I went to my prenatal appointments back then… if anything they were worried that she was on the smaller side during development.
It became clear when I recognized you in that costume as Superman. I knew you were strong, but thought it was from working on a farm. Boys in my village were strong too from farming and hard manual work, so I never questioned your ability to carry so many heavy suitcases…
But I never realized you were strong enough to catch a helicopter with one hand! And at that point it wouldn't have been safe for you or Kagome-chan. You have many enemies…" Kun Loon said gently, he could feel his heart protest. But his mind realized that yes, if he'd known about a child back when he was just starting out as a superhero, there was the chance he would have given it all up to protect them. And the Earth needed him.
After a lightning fast search of the shrine that told him nothing and a very thorough telescopic scan of the surrounding town with his eyes Clark reluctantly left with a promise that he'd be back very soon.
She'd given him many of the VHS tapes that were of Kagome, in hopes that he'd be better able to find her. It was sound reasoning- if he could recognize her voice he'd be able to listen for it. The video quality prevented him from hearing a good sample of her heartbeat, the best way for him to locate a person really.
He sat in his Fortress of Solitude converting VHS into Kryptonian crystal- a very complex task. Clark watched a happy little girl, feeling what he supposed was parental adoration as the videos played long into the night.
The small jealous part of him wanted to hate the late Mr. Higurashi, hate the fact that the man had married Kun Loon and raised his daughter. But he found that he couldn't. Because in all of the VHS tapes (and there were many) Higurashi had been nothing but a good husband and father.
The sheer attentiveness the man displayed in his videotaping spoke of his love for his family. Everything from taping two year old Kagome playing in a large refrigerator box that had been crudely turned into a little 'house' with uneven windows and door cut from the cardboard to the man's valiant attempts to catch Kagome's first words and steps on camera.
And the way those little blue eyes would brighten as she caught sight of the camera and chirped a sweet, "Hi Papa!" made him almost believe the recorded child was saying it to him.
~~!~!~!~!~!~!
Clark tapped his fingers incessantly throughout the entire Justice League meeting. It was unfair of him and a bit rude, true, but he didn't see the reason he needed to be included in budgeting meetings. That was Bruce's job- he was the man contributing the most capital aside from Oliver. He was just a super powered alien with a degree in journalism if he was brutally honest. And he'd tried to pull that card but as always Bruce called his bluff.
The single raised brow, "Right. With your level of intelligence you've never used it to analyze stock trends. Or track money laundering for the byline."
Damn. But Clark was too proud a man to admit he'd been caught. So he sat silently for the entirely too long meeting. His 11 year old daughter was still very much missing and was likely scared and alone. In all of the videos Kagome acted so much like Kun Loon it hurt his chest to think such a sweet child had been taken. And interviewing the four year old Souta Higurashi was moot.
The toddler insisted that a 'monster' took Kagome- a woman with the body of a centipede. He'd followed up on every known super villain with an even remotely similar identity.
When that lead had panned out to nothing he'd researched all the female entomologists in Tokyo. Nothing.
The child wasn't lying - there were no signs that indicated he was. The boy honestly believed he saw a monster, and in his mind perhaps he did. But that may not have been what actually happened.
Souta's insistence became unreliable to Clark, especially after he witnessed the boy refusing to go to bed alone after accidentally watching a few moments of a children's show called "Mighty Go-Go Rangers" because he was afraid the villain from the show would come out of the television.
For all Superman knew the account of the abductor may not have even been an actual woman, perhaps a man with long hair?
"-Ck. Clark!" Blue eyes refocused to the meeting only to realize he was the last one in the conference room. It was over?
"The meeting has been over for the last ten minutes." Batman loomed in a corner watching him. Great, that meant Bruce had been watching him being lost in thought like a creep. And he couldn't call him out on it without being the dunce who'd sat at an empty table and let himself be watched.
The Batman trusted Superman as far as he could throw him, which was not terribly far considering Superman weighed give or take 230-ish pounds and taller than him. And vice versa. So needless to say, he trusted Bruce an awful lot.
"Mind telling me about the increased Superman sightings in Japan and SouthEast Asia?"
So the Batman had indeed noticed. Superman only wished he were even slightly surprised.
"There's a drought- plenty of accidental brush fires for me to help with." He stated easily. And it was true enough. He'd stoped a few fires in his search for Kagome.
The man was indeed not called 'the worlds greatest detective' for nothing. But this was intensely personal to the Kryptonian. He wasn't about to air the fact he'd found out about a missing daughter. Or the inevitable fact that he'd fathered a child at age 17. There had to be some boundaries for the League. Personal problems needed to be kept just that: personal. As far as he could tell there was no supervillian involvement that would warrant the need to bring in the League.
And Bruce Wayne was one of the worst people to tell. Not because he would tell, but the fact that the man contingency plans for every member of the League. Clark was very much aware that he'd acquired a pice of kryptonite that was located somewhere on his utility belt. How did he know?
Simple really, considering Batman's belt never used to be lead-lined.
Clark wasn't sure how he felt about the fact Bruce felt the need to carry kryptonite on his person. On one hand, it was nice to know that if he ever did go out of control there was someone who could stop him. But it was also a constant reminder that something so threatening was there. Like keeping a bomb in your house- yes, you'd maybe feel some form of protection from other people, but it was still a bomb.
The last thing he wanted was a contingency plan made for his daughter, though it was likely that the kryptonite meant for him would be used on her. And Clark refused to even let himself think on that topic. What if at that very moment she was being tortured by some dark organization with kryptonite?
"Careful, or I might be inclined to ask what Bruce Wayne is up to, suddenly adopting a newly orphaned nine-year old boy." He verbally jabbed the man. The slight twitch of the Dark Crusader's jaw was the only tell that he'd struck a nerve.
While he wasn't as ardent or obsessed as the Dark Knight with knowing everyone's personal business, Clark did have far better eyes than any human along with super-hearing. If he focused he could even hear Ma and Pa's hearts from out here in space.
Sighing he said, "It's personal Bruce. If I need your advice or help I'll ask for it. I imagine you'd do the same."
"…Sure." came the gruff reply. The day Batman needed help was the day Mr. Freeze froze Hell over.
Still he managed a small smile and clapped the other man's shoulder gently, "Have a good patrol."
"I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for, try and be a bit more discrete." Was all the caped crusader said, "Just stay out of Gotham."
A cold sweat trickled down his back, oh he prayed to Rao she wasn't in Gotham.
Unbeknownst to him it would be four long, heartbreaking years before he ever saw his child. Or that a frightened four years old child's tale of a 'monster' was more true than he'd ever know.
Well? So yeah technically Kun Loon had virtually no reason to suspect Kagome wasn't Mr. Higurashi's. The math tallies up to about 11 months- longer than human gestation.
In canon its implied that Mr. Higurashi died in a car accident before Souta was born. And sure Kagome may have broken toys a bit more often than other children, but she'd never displayed a feat of strength until Souta was nearly crushed by the wardrobe.
