Part I: Witness Protection
Chapter 1: Old Friends
A/N: This story is divided into two parts. The first chapter was the prologue. This is the beginning of Part I, where the action begins. Their will be some surprises and plot twists along the way. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them!
Thanks to by beta reader, Foxy Lady! You're the best!
Special thanks to my reviewers!
DB-Explorer Thank you for being my first reviewer! I'll leave it up to you to decide if Kagome is having a break down. It's all part of the experience. As for Inuyasha's career, well, we'll just have to wait and see if and why he's six feet below ground level.
lizziekiss Thank you for the kind review. I plan on posting many new chapters over the course of the summer. I hope you enjoy them.
Modern Era, Present Time
Late Tuesday evening Kagome returned to the shrine from work. The week had gone well until today. Every time that she nursed a patient back from the doorway to the afterlife, she felt triumphant. Each patient she cured was a victory over the death and separation that had parted her from him…Inuyasha. While her attempts to triumph over their own separation had failed, she still gained a measure of solace in the knowledge that while all partings were inevitable, they didn't have to happen now. She could push back the parting for her patients.
However, she had failed to push back the parting for her latest patient. Her six-year old patient had quietly slipped away in her sleep last night at the hospital. The loss hit Kagome like a blow. Her failures brought home her own failure to keep him with her. As she entered the courtyard, she felt the pull of the well. On days when she lost a patient, the temptation to try the well one more time was almost overwhelming. She normally tried to resist, but today she headed straight for the door of the well house and stepped inside. The sutras from ten years ago were yellowing and rotting, lending the well the grisly appearance of a gaping maw with crooked, rotten teeth. She was almost afraid to jump today, afraid that the well would swallow up what was left of her after losing Inuyasha. Inuyasha…longing, keen and sharp, propelled her to the mouth of the well and over its edge.
She came back to reality with a jarring halt as she reached the bottom of the well, landing on her hands and knees. She rested her cheek against the cold wall of the well as hot tears tracked mascara-muddied trails down her face.
/\/\/\/\
Later that night, Kagome stood in front of the mirror and looked at her reflection. Sometimes it scared her to see how much she looked like Kikyo. The aura of sorrow and loss that defined Kikyo during their brief association now clung to her. Would he even recognize her now if he saw her? Or would he think that Kikyo had traveled through time and stolen her life? Maybe Kikyo had. Or maybe she hadn't, but it didn't make a difference. Blurrily, she scrubbed her face and headed to bed.
After turning off her bedroom lights, Kagome sat on her bed and reclined against the wall, angling her body so that she could stare into the inky darkness outside her window towards the Goshinboku tree. Her failed attempt to leap through the abyss of time earlier that night had resulted in a successful plunge into the abyss of misery that was the permanent home for her heart. Her heart might leave misery behind for a while, just a person can leave their home, but her heart's return to misery was guaranteed as much as a person's return to home. And like a home, misery would wrap itself around her heart and offer her the cold comfort of the familiar.
Sighing, she crawled up onto her knees to check her window, ensuring that the latch was open and the window slightly ajar. Just as she has always left the window open for him, she has also left her life open for him. His lack of presence in her life didn't stop her from carving out a space in her life uniquely crafted for him. For so many years, she had defined herself through him. Kagome, the girl who loves Inuyasha. Kagome, the reincarnated, but not quite as good miko that fights at Inuyasha's side. Kagome, the girl who lost Inuyasha. And now she's Kagome, the woman who can't forget him. Her heart was a loyal colony of Inuyasha's - subject to his rule, but forever bereft of his presence. Her clothes were a visible manifestation of his claim. She always wore white, a signal for her friends, families and possible suitors that she was grieving his loss and did not intend to marry. In a society which valued conformity, this action would usually have led to censure and social isolation. But Kagome was saved from that fate by her family's reputation as the keepers of the shrine. Her eccentricity was seen not to stem from any desire to thumb her nose at society, but from the excess of her spirituality.
It was that misconception that made the rest of her nonconformist behaviors more easily accepted by her neighbors as well. Unlike most young ladies of her age, she had never moved into an apartment of her own, preferring to stay at the location he would associate the most with her. Any thoughts of getting her own apartment ended as soon as she thought of him bursting through the well and finding that she had moved. The bittersweet bonus was that the shrine was also the place that held the most memories of him. Living here, where if she was tired enough or imaginative enough she could almost feel him with her, allowed her the comfort of still defining herself as part of his world. Once again, her neighbors attributed her actions to her surfeit of spirituality. She always felt slightly ashamed of the unintended deception she had perpetuated on her neighbors, but the truth of why she stayed here was so personal and so painful that she didn't correct them.
Their perception of her spiritual abilities, when coupled with her medical knowledge, had the natural consequence of her earning a reputation as a spiritual healer. Unfortunately, aside from a few isolated incidents, she had never shown any spiritual healing capabilities. Fortunately for the people who sought her as a spiritual healer, her medical training more than equipped her to deal with their ailments. She had always considered their expectations of her spiritual abilities to be a burden, but she found a reason to thank Kami for their superstitions that night when a young boy was brought to her house. It was the night that would change her life forever and send her careening on a collision course with destiny.
/\/\/\/\
Kagome was trying to sleep while thoughts of her lost patient and her lost friends floated through her mind like ghostly apparitions, so very clear and precious in her mind but so equally impossible to reach. A knock sounded on the door. Groaning, Kagome rolled over and buried deeper into her covers. Less than a minute later, Kagome heard the steps of her mom coming up the stairs and the door to her bedroom thrown open. Kagome's protest at the intrusion died as she turned and saw her mother. The tension around her mother's mouth and the tense set to her mother's shoulders told her all she needed to know. A patient was downstairs who needed immediate attention. Not the usual scrapes and bruises, but something much more serious. Kagome drew on her robe and grabbed her medical bag as she rushed out of her room and down the stairs.
As Kagome reached the end of the stairs, she paused briefly to survey the room. She was momentarily stunned to see Hojo kneeling next to a body on the couch. Approaching the body, she realized that the body was that of a young boy who looked to be no more than five. He was unconscious and covered with scrapes and lacerations. One particularly deep laceration was located at the junction of his neck and shoulder, as if someone had been aiming for his neck and missed. Kagome shivered. It had been a close call. A centimeter higher and the blow would have been fatal. The beginnings of twin bruises around his eyes told her that he had been hit hard on his head from behind. Kagome seethed at the thought of the abuse the young child had suffered. Whoever had attacked him had been brutal.
Kneeling next to the young man, Kagome reached for his arm to check his pulse. As soon as she touched him, her powers spiked, a pink aura surrounding her. Working quickly, she searched for any demonic traces in his aura. Finding none, she decided that a more thorough examination of his aura would have to wait until his physical condition was stabilized. The shallowness of his breaths and the fast tempo of his pulse worried her. To prevent any further blood loss, Kagome decided to treat his shoulder wound first. She began by cutting off his shirt and carefully peeling it away from his wounds where the congealed blood acted like a glue, binding the shirt to his torso. Studying the injuries on his torso, she noticed that all his wounds were new. The lack of old scars and bruises told her that he was not habitually abused in this manner. She let out a sigh of relief, then thanked Kami he wasn't awake as she started to clean his injuries. At least he would be spared that pain.
Once she completed stitching the wound on his shoulder, she removed his pajama pants and examined him for other wounds, treating the more minor lacerations and scrapes with antibiotic ointment and bandaging them. Once she was finished, she rechecked his vitals. While his breathing was still too shallow, his pulse had dropped to a more normal level. Her patient stabilized, she turned to Hojo to get some answers.
Only, she found herself at a loss as to where to start. What did you say to Mr. Too Perfectly Nice from high school, who you had dated briefly in an attempt to get over the loss of your soul mate, when he's standing in your living room ten years later with blood smears on his police uniform and a look on his face you never in your wildest dreams thought would ever grace his face? The last time she had seen Hojo was at their high school graduation. He was slightly taller and older than she remembered him. The years had been kind to him, his boyish cuteness had matured and morphed into the handsomeness of a man. In addition, his stance and the slant of his eyes conveyed a sense of confidence and watchfulness that had been absent in his younger years. In a small way, it reminded her of Inuyasha. But mostly, it reminded her that she would give anything to have him here instead of Hojo. Kagome from ten years ago would have quickly squashed that uncharitable thought. But now she just acknowledged the truth of her thoughts as she buried the hurt deep inside her, safe and sound where Mr. Nice couldn't find it and try to remove it. Ironically, it was Mr. Nice who solved her original problem of where to start the conversation.
"Higurashi-san, how is he?" Hojo nodded towards the young child.
"He's stable now. Let's call an ambulance so that he can be taken to the nearest hospital." Kagome was shocked by the next thing he said.
"We can't take him to the hospital. It would be too dangerous." Kagome's eyes widened at his words.
"It might be too dangerous not to take him! His head injury could be causing permanent brain damage as we speak. Unless we get him to a hospital, there is no way to know the extent of the damage or how to best minimize it."
"Higurashi-san, if we take him to hospital, there's a good chance that he won't make it out alive. Have you heard of the Nihonshinsei?"
Kagome had heard of Nihonshinsei on the news. If they were involved, then the young boy really was in trouble. "Isn't that a yakuza?"
"Yes, their goal is to establish what they call 'The True Japan'. Complete economic and social isolation from the rest of the world. They believe that the Japanese race is superior to all others, and that the influence of other cultures pollutes the minds of the Japanese people. They have been implicated in several instances of what they term 'ethnic cleansing'. My partner and I have been tracking their attacks in an effort to apprehend the perpetrators. We are part of a larger task force at the police department assigned to combat the Nihonshinsei."
Kagome's face drained of color as she gazed down at the young boy and his red hair. She knew what Hojo would say next, and the knowledge of it was making her nauseated.
Waving towards the boy, Hojo continued, "This is Shikyo Tamahashi. His mother is a Japanese national, but his father was American. His family ran an import company that specialized in American and European furniture. We believe they were targeted by the Nihonshinsei because of their mixed marriage as well as their import business which the Nihonshinsei would see as polluting our culture."
"Oh, no! Don't tell me…his parents?!" Kagome cried.
"Were both dead by the time I arrived. I was able to save Shikyo, but he was already unconscious when I found him. The two assassins escaped before I could apprehend them. It was obvious that Shikyo had attempted to protect his parents. Most likely, he witnessed both of their deaths. They know that he's wounded, the hospital will be the first place they look."
"You had mentioned that the perpetrators had escaped. Did you know who they were? Will you be able to catch them?"
"We don't know who they are specifically, but we do know them by their modus operandum. The two assassins that attacked his family always work as a team. One, nicknamed 'The Butcher', is a brutal killer. He likes to torture his victims before he kills them. The other is nicknamed 'The Shadow'. We are not sure what his exact part in the assassinations is, but we believe that he is present at every assassination performed by The Butcher. Shikyo is the first person to survive an assassination attempt by these two. That makes him the only living witness that can identify the assassins."
"Then Shikyo is in very real danger! What can I do to help?!" Kagome asked. Kagome didn't add that she suspected that The Shadow might be some type of demon. She didn't want Hojo to think that she was crazy. Something was definitely wrong with Shikyo's aura, and she needed more time to find out what it was and how to fix it.
"Higurashi-san, I don't want you involved. These are professional, cold-blooded killers we are talking about. And, what they do to you before they kill you is even worse. It's not unusual for them to rape the wife or daughter in front of their husband of father before killing them. Shikyo will be fine. We'll place him in protective custody. But, I don't want you anywhere near this!"
"But I'm already involved!" Kagome protested. She stood up to look Hojo square in the eyes. "What if they find out that Shikyo was here? My whole family could be in trouble. Also, Shikyo's condition is serious. If you want him to come out of this alive, he'll need medical attention. And you said yourself they'll be checking the hospitals."
Hojo's voice was firm when he answered. "Higurashi-san, it's too dangerous for you to stay with Shikyo! The safest thing for you and your family to do would be to leave town for a few weeks."
Wow, Kagome thought, who would have ever believed Hojo could be as stubborn as Inuyasha. But Kagome could be equally stubborn. "Fine, send my family out of town, but let me go with Shikyo! You need your witness to be alive, I can keep him alive. His wounds could get infected without proper care. I can give him that care." Kagome punctuated each sentence of her fiery protest by poking Hojo in his surprisingly solid chest.
Kagome was startled out of her tirade as he gently cupped her hand in his own, flattening her palm against his chest. Five seconds ago Kagome would have sworn she was too old to blush. But the vermilion hues suffusing her cheeks would have revealed those words as a lie. She could feel his heart beating strongly underneath her palm. Looking up, she blushed deeper at the look in Hojo's eyes. Oh, how she had missed that look, that tender, protective look. But it was the wrong eyes that held it, and the wrong hand that held hers. Shame and longing pierced her. Pulling her hand away, Kagome stepped back and dropped her gaze to the carpet.
"Higurashi-san," Hojo's voice was soft and deep, creating a feeling of intimacy despite the distance separating them. "Be ready to leave in two hours. Tell you family they should be prepared to leave by that time as well. I'll be back in two hours with my partner. He will leave with your family, and Shikyo and you will come with me."
Stunned by his sudden change of mind, Kagome looked up to see him walking out the door.
Kagome spent the first hour packing for Souta, then for herself as her mother packed hers and Ji-chan's bags.
Ji-chan had been grumpy about the disturbance to his normal routine, loudly proclaiming that he would stay at the shrine and guard it. Her mother put a stop to his foolishness by pointing out that it was much more important for him to travel with them and help guard Souta and herself.
Souta had looked at it as a grand adventure. He had always envied Kagome and her ventures to the past. Now, he saw this as his chance to have his own. After all the excitement was over, he could complete his college degree and settle into the family business without any regrets.
Finished with Souta's packing, Kagome opened her closet door and set about choosing which outfits to pack. While her room was decorated in rosy shades of pink and yellow, her closet looked like it belonged in a mental institute. A sea of white dresses, white skirts, white shoes, and even white pajamas and white bath robes greeted her. She was glad that she hadn't given in to her friends' demands to purchase some more colorful clothes. The look in Hojo's eyes earlier worried her. Her clothing would serve as a reminder to him of her intent to not marry, not date, not snuggle or even not hold hands. She wished that a certain hanyou in a red haori would be serving as her stop sign instead of her wardrobe.
Her packing completed, she dug into her closet to find one last item. She paused as her eyes settled on the worn and tattered yellow backpack sitting at the back of her closet. Kagome fingered the fabric with her right hand. Pulling it out of the closet, she brought it over to her bed. Sitting down on her comforter, she cradled the backpack in her lap. Running her hands over the straps where his hands had once held it, she contemplated opening it. She hadn't opened it since the day she had returned over ten years ago. She imagined if she opened it, she would still smell the fresh air of the Sengoku Jidai. Sighing, she rolled over on her bed and hugged it to her chest.
Looking out the window, she gazed towards the Goshinboku tree. She saw a flash of silver in the moonlight. Startled, she jumped up from her bed and threw open the window. With hope and her heart pounding furiously in her chest, she tentatively called out, "Inuyasha?" The quiet humming of katydids was the only answer she received. She called out again, more strongly, "Inuyasha?" She was sure she had seen that glimpse of silver. So she gave up caution and yelled, "Inuyasha! If you here, please come back! Inuyasha!"
She continued calling until her mother and Souta burst into her room with twin looks of concern written on both of their faces. "Mom," she started, "I saw him! I am sure it was him."
"Kagome, don't," Mrs. Higurashi said. It had been six years since her daughter had last thought she had seen Inuyasha. For several years after her daughter's separation from Inuyasha, she'd woken up to hear Kagome calling his name as her daughter leaned out her bedroom window or searched the shrine's grounds. She was worried that the traumatic events from the evening had caused another episode. She often thought that Kagome was hallucinating, her subconscious desire to see Inuyasha producing ghostly manifestations of his image while her daughter hung between sleep and wakefulness. But this time was different. Her daughter had seen him while she was fully awake.
Oh, no!, Kagome thought. I'm doing it again. Her mom looked like she was about to cry, and Souta looked both scared and protective. Their obvious alarm acted like a bucket of cold water on Kagome's burning hope that she would actually find Inuyasha on the premises or even in her time. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her.
Souta quietly exited the room as her mother sat down on the bed next to her. Her mom reached up and brushed her bangs out of her eyes, before enveloping her with a hug. Sinking into her mom's embrace, she let the tears she had been holding back spill over her eyelids and pour over her cheeks. "I know, sweetheart" her mother whispered, her voice choked with emotion, "I still miss your father too." Kagome and her mother continued to hold each other, sharing their comfort and sharing their pain.
/\/\/\/\
A good cry and a pep talk later, Kagome headed downstairs with her luggage to check on her patient. His breathing and heart rate were steady and calm now. She suspected that he would be waking up on his own within the next hour or two. She had scrounged up some of Souta's old clothes for the Shikyo, but she was afraid they would swallow him. She carefully dressed him in the smallest set of pajamas she could find, taking care not to jar him.
Dressing accomplished, she kneeled beside him to examine his aura again. She gathered her powers and concentrated them on their conjoined hands. She felt her powers slowly flowing down her arms, through her hands, and over into Shikyo.
Once she felt her powers surround him, she probed at his aura. It was then that she noticed a slight puncture in his aura, as if someone had blown a hole through it. Alarmed, she checked to see if his soul was still intact. As she scanned his soul, she felt a sense of déja vu, as if his soul was familiar to hers. She felt a great sense of joy fill her soul.
Continuing her search, she was relieved to find that his soul was whole and unharmed – not even the bitterness of the night's events had marred its purity. On the heels of her relief came surprise as she noticed that his soul was trying to mix with hers, as if seeking solace in its embrace. Thinking quickly, she meticulously separated their souls and wove the fabric of his aura together to seal the hole. Once she was done, she gently cut the connection. Opening her eyes, she gazed down at the still sleeping boy. Oh, Shippo, she thought, I wish you had been spared the pain of your parents' deaths in this life. I'll protect you and help you bring your parents' killers to justice. And this time, I promise never to leave you. Only death can separate us this time. Kagome's vow was ringing in her mind as Hojo returned to the shrine.
/\/\/\/\
Well, that's all for now. In the next chapter, Kagome sets off with Hojo and Shikyo. What will happen when Shikyo wakes up? Will anything happen between Kagome and Hojo? And, was that Inuyasha at her window? New clues will be revealed in the next chapter!
Japanese Terms:
Nihon – Japanese
Shinsei – true
Yakuza – gang
Haori – Japanese formal coat – Inuyasha wears a fire rat haori in the manga and TV series.
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