Chapter 3
"Wait a minute." Kagome said. "You know Sesshoumaru?"
I turned to her, just as stunned. "What? You don't mean that you do as well!" I knew him from long ago. At some point, we had noticed that neither of us had managed to die yet. Sesshoumaru was a full demon, and an incredibly powerful one, one that had disguised himself as a human in order to survive in the modern era, though he had held out longer than most. He did not like humans very much, but I had a feeling that something had happened long ago to convince him not to take all humans at face value. Unlike most demons, he could stand the company of humans fairly easily, which was how he had become so successful in business, much like I had. We were not exactly friends, more like acquaintances that had known one another for a long time. The fact that I knew Sesshoumaru made sense from a logical perspective considering the fact that neither of us had managed to change any since the Feudal Era, but why in the world would Kagome know the Lord of the Western Lands?
"I've known him for a long time." Kagome told me, interrupting my thoughts. "I first met him while I was in the Feudal Era." She looked me over carefully with narrowed eyes. "But how do you know him?"
I looked at her with a slightly pained look on my face. "Would you believe that we're business partners?" I asked without much hope. It might have explained our acquaintance we met the businessman Sesshoumaru. But seeing as he had just saved us from a demon, dressed in his traditional robes, and with that crazy demon sword he had picked up somewhere long before I met him, and that I had forgotten to be surprised about any of it, there was no way she was going to buy it.
"Not likely." She returned. "You didn't seem altogether surprised to be attacked by that thing – you knew it was there before I did, and you expect me to believe that you and Sesshoumaru are business partners?" She crossed her arms. "Last night I didn't ask you to explain exactly what you are, but I think now I am going to have to insist."
"You have a problem, Kagome." Sesshoumaru interrupted in his quiet voice. "All the demons in captivity have escaped, and they are migrating toward this shrine in great numbers." Then he turned to me. "What are you doing here?"
"I used to live here, you know." I said defensively.
He raised an eyebrow. "Ho? I should have known that the two of you would find each other eventually."
"What do you mean?" Kagome said in a slightly suspicious voice.
"The demons in captivity have escaped?" I asked him. "How is that?"
"I don't know. Some idiot human probably forgot they are dangerous for his kind. All the demons that were in the underworld fighting pits are now roaming the city unfettered. I have been here all night. The shrine has been attacked several times already." He looked at Kagome. "I assume you're carrying it around your neck like always?" He asked.
"Of course." She answered, "But I don't understand. What's all this about captive demons? And what is he? How do you know each other? And why does he look like-?"
"Why don't you ask him?" Sesshoumaru interrupted her, and looked at me, but I was a little distracted and pretended not to see it. To be absolutely honest, I was avoiding the issue, and using my concern about what he had told me to do it. I still was not sure that he was not crying wolf. How could those demons have gotten out? Could it not just be some random demons that have been hiding out in Japan that sensed the jewel and had come to Tokyo to get it? Outlandish as it sounded, it was still more believable than the idea that the demons held by the underworld had escaped.
"This is serious." I mused, pacing the sidewalk. "How could they have possibly escaped? I've seen the security they've put on the pits. There's no possible way-" I stopped abruptly and my head shot up. "They must have been released. There's no other way."
Kagome was watching me, her eyes still narrowed. She did not seem to be afraid that I was there to hurt her, even though I had mislead her. That was probably partly because, as she had said, her intuition told her that I could be trusted, but probably more because Sesshoumaru knew me, and was not the least bit concerned.
She spoke finally. "We aren't far from my house, why don't we pick things up from there? If we're quiet, we probably won't wake my family up. And if we do…well maybe they should hear this anyway." She looked appraisingly at Sesshoumaru. "If things are as serious as he so obviously thinks they are, the shrine is going to be in even more danger. However, when they see him they might be a little surprised." She looked him over for a moment. "So…is there a particular reason you're dressed so, um, traditionally?"
"A whim." He answered.
"Riiight." She said. She looked from him to me, and narrowed her eyes. I winced, sure that I was about to be assaulted with a barrage of questions. But all she said was:
"This is so weird."
A few minutes later, we were all sitting around Kagome's table, and were about to be provided with tea. "All right." Kagome said, keeping her voice low. "Explain." She directed the question at me. "Who are you, and what is it that you really are? What do you want?"
I winced. "I don't want anything." I told her truthfully.
"Why are you here then?" She demanded. "And why are you impersonating the grandson of our benefactor?"
"I'm not impersonating him, not exactly." I answered, crossing my arms and turning my nose up. The action seemed to take her aback for a moment, as if it was familiar to her. "I am him."
"What do you mean?"
"Your Menachi Genko and Menachi Hideko are one person. Me. I got this shrine protected because it is the first place that I remember. All I'm doing here is checking up on it. I've been alive since just after you left feudal Japan, Kagome. Don't bother asking who I am and where I came from, because I don't know the answer to that any better than you do. The only think I know is that I share the name, and evidently the appearance, of your half-blood."
She looked at Sesshoumaru. "What do you have to do with all of this?"
"Nothing." He answered, looking down his nose at her. "He and I met in feudal Japan as well, and became acquaintances based on the fact that we both lived through the centuries. He's never known who he really is."
Kagome looked like she was not quite ready to deal with this right now. "Whatever." She decided. "What is the deal with the demons then? I suppose that might be a little more important at the moment."
Sesshoumaru looked toward me, wanting me to answer. He never had been a man of many words. The centuries and his role as a businessman had loosened his tongue quite a bit, but he still preferred silence over chatter. "Well, the majority of demons still surviving in this day and age are either in hiding like he is-"
"I'm not in hiding." Sesshoumaru growled.
"In disguise, whatever. It amounts to the same thing, O Lord of the Western Lands." I said mockingly. "Or, they're imprisoned in the fighting pits of the underworld. But according to what Sesshoumaru says, the latter have somehow escaped their captivity and are rampaging the world over."
"I only know that they've been released in Toyko." Sesshoumaru clarified.
"All right." Kagome said. "I'll ignore for the moment that there is absolutely no reason for you to know that, Hideko." When she used that name, Sesshoumaru gave me an amused glance. I glared back at him. Kagome presumably missed all this as she poured tea. "Now my question is, how?"
"I haven't the slightest idea." I answered. "As I said, those demons couldn't have possibly have escaped on their own. I've been to the fighting pits before, and the security on them is strenuous, for obvious reasons. Releasing them on the modern world would cause utter chaos. But the demons in the fighting pits are mostly low-level, so they're not the one's I'm worried about. It's the others."
"The others?" Sesshoumaru questioned, looking surprised. "What are you talking about?"
"You mean you didn't know?"
"I haven't spent much time there myself. Only people like you would find entertainment in that sort of thing."
"We all have our little shortcomings. I have background knowledge, so I can make a lot of money there when I so choose." I said a bit distractedly as I tried to call up all my memories of the fighting pits. Anything that might shed some light on what could have possibly happened. "Well, the underworld has other demons besides the ones in the fighting pits. And these aren't anywhere near the same class as the one you only recently dispatched, Sesshoumaru. They're upper-level, the kind with the power to disguise themselves as humans. Actually, most of them are disguised as humans – only a trained eye like mine could spot the little inconsistencies that you demons sometimes miss. They're preserved somehow in this fluid – I think it's something like cryogenic freezing. I thought they were dead. If we are dealing with cytogenetic freezing technology though, they might be alive. If they were, they were probably frozen or whatever was because the leaders of the underworld were afraid of them. Do you have any idea if they were released as well?"
"No." Sesshoumaru answered.
"In that case-" I stopped in mid-sentence. The memory of the day I'd been in the vaults of the preserved dangerous demons flashed before my consciousness. And with them, a familiar face, barely distorted by the strange bluish fluid that kept her preserved, and unchanged by the many centuries since I'd last seen her. "Sesshoumaru, there's something you should know."
"Ho?" He said, looking vaguely interested for the first time. "What's that?"
"Those demons I told you about, the preserved ones – Sazura was among them."
"What!" Sesshoumaru hissed, a rare expression of utter astonishment flashing across his features. "Sazura?" He whispered.
"None other. Believe me, I thought you'd killed her too."
"Would you two care to explain what the hell you're talking about?" Kagome said finally after fuming silently during our conversation, sounding more than a little peeved.
"If Sazura has been released, all of Tokyo is in grave danger." Sesshoumaru mused to himself, ignoring Kagome.
"Sorry," I said to her. "Just clearing up a little old business." I turned to Sesshoumaru. "Do you think she'd be interested in the jewel?"
"Undoubtedly." He said. "Which means she might be on her way here now."
"Ahem." Kagome cleared her throat. "Do you mind informing little old me just what's going on? Hideko? Sesshoumaru?"
Sesshoumaru finally looked at her, then his yellow irises slid toward me. "You really should tell her your real name." He told me, then addressed Kagome. "Sazura is an old enemy of mine. She's very dangerous, perhaps even on par with our old friend, Naraku. We had it out several centuries ago, and I was sure she was dead. In addition, they seem to have managed to overrule the protection of your shrine. In-He" he looked at me, "Claims that there is no way the demons could have escaped on their own, so, someone released them. And if someone released the fighting pit demons, they would have probably released the others he was talking about. At least, they would have if they had a particular purpose in mind. Three demons have shown up here tonight alone, so I think they did." He looked at Kagome. "Someone's found the only way to override the protection of your shrine, Kagome. Probably someone who wants the jewel, and who has been after it for a very long time."
"What's this protection you keep talking about?" Kagome asked.
"Why, your god, of course. What else?"
"My god?"
"Yes. There is a god for every shrine, and you have one as well. What else did you think was hiding the power of the jewel you wear about your neck?"
"I never thought about it. I didn't think it was very smart to question a good thing. I know we have a god, but I never gave it much thought because we don't know who it is." She narrowed her eyes at the demon lord sitting across the table. "But you know who it is, don't you?"
"Of course I do. I've known for centuries, ever since he was made the god of the shrine of the Jewel of the Four Souls."
"Well?" She said impatiently
"What?"
"Who is it? Who's my shrine's god?" She asked, exasperated.
Sesshoumaru looked at me with a sly look. I stared blankly back at him.
"Your god is the spirit of your little half-blood, Inuyasha – the part that made him a half-blood anyway."
"What?" She looked out the window at the building that was supposed to hold the spirit of the god, clutching her cup very tightly. "Inuyasha is- wait, what do you mean, the part that made him a demon? What about the other part?"
"Why, the other part is sitting right in front of you. Isn't that right, little brother?" Sesshoumaru disclosed with a theatrically ponderous tone.
Stunned silence followed the words of the demon who had just called himself my brother. "Brother-?" I began to ask, but was cut off when I became sure that something was trying to split my head in half – something from the inside. I barely noticed Kagome jumped up and ran to me when I instinctively curled up in a fetal position with my head between my hands. Even Sesshoumaru wore a rare expression of surprise at my reaction to his words.
But after that, my perception of the two beside with me dimmed and was replaced by – memories. Memories that were all at once mine and yet at the same time, another's. They came at a rate impossible to keep up with, but with this terrible pain in my head I was in no condition to appreciate them anyway. There was no relation between the pictures that flitted across my conscious mind, no connection in the snippets of conversation that I heard. I don't know how long complete chaos reigned in my head. Through it all, my head felt as though it was going to explode, as if some kind of pipe had been blocked up in my mind for an eternity and had finally burst, spilling forth memories of a life I never knew existed.
Eventually, I noticed that the storm inside my head had begun to quiet. It was far from over, but the images were slowing, and some of them were even beginning to make sense.
"Do you really have to erase his memory?" This memory was hazy, I could not make anything out except for the voices, as if I had been somehow asleep or maybe drugged. But – that voice. I recognized it, though it had been such a very long time: Sango.
"No, but from what you've told me, he wanted to do this to meet someone in the future. At least this way he will not feel the long wait so keenly. It will help him adjust to his new body easier. Be will remember when the time I right, whether he wants to or not."
What the hell? Erase my memory? A rare violent urge threatened to consume me. Someone had dared to – I forced myself to calm down. That had happened long ago and whoever was responsible was long dead. Besides, it seemed that I had succumbed to whatever she had done to me willingly. But something else was bothering me as well. That violent rage that had almost seized me was familiar: I'd once been quite susceptible to it, but I'd trained myself to suppress the violent urges long ago and had not felt one so strongly for many years. What was suddenly so different? Why had my training abruptly failed me? Forget that, the recurrence of old habits was a very small problem compared to what had just happened to me. Where had all these memories come from? Were these the missing years of my life? What had happened to me in the past? Who was I?
Kagome was knelt next to her unconscious visitor with a worried look on her face when Sesshoumaru returned. Hideko was writhing in his unconscious state, talking in his nightmares, though the cries of pain had ended. Kagome looked up, hearing the door open. "The god has departed." Sesshoumaru announced as he walked back into the room.
"Departed?" Kagome questioned. "What do you mean, departed?"
"It's gone. Your shrine no longer has a spirit to protect it." He looked curiously at the unconscious black-haired man whose head was resting in Kagome's lap. "So he hasn't transformed back. Well, they did tell me that they didn't know what would happen when he found you."
Kagome sighed tiredly. "Sesshoumaru, someday we're going to teach you how to explain yourself. I'm getting tired of asking you to elaborate on your cryptic remarks."
He laughed then, something he hadn't done in a long time. "That idiot lying there is my little brother, even though he hasn't known it for five hundred years. It lessened the strain on our relationship. He can't remember anything before the day that witch cast a spell on him."
Hideko chose that moment to again cry out in his unconscious state. "…no." His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "You can't."
"Cast a spell?"
"I don't know the details. Even though I saved her brother's life, that demon exterminator was still wary around me." Sesshoumaru explained. "But he wished for the witch to bespell him. The same spell that made him human and halted his aging erased his memory."
"Kikyou, don't do this." Hideko – no, Inuyasha said then. "Everything will go wrong."
Kagome looked down at him, but to her companion's surprise, her face held nothing but concern as she drew a hand across the hair that had fallen into his eyes. Then she raised her eyes to look at Sesshoumaru. "Yep. That's Inuyasha all right. Now what's all this about a spell and halted aging?"
Here was something interesting. I was sure that this particular memory was more important than the others. It had literally forced itself upon my mind's eye. It was quite insistent, so I relented and allowed it to show itself. To my surprise, it did not seem to be anything like the others. It wasn't passive, a mere recalling of events past. I was reliving events this time around, and I was lost and frightened – but I was not alone.
I was suspended in a dark, almost liquid like substance, though I was not wet. I was not anything. I did not strictly have a body. Strange as it might seem, this experience was familiar to me. It was just like going through the Bone-Eater's Well, the link between times, to go fetch Kagome. It was the same and yet irrevocably different. The strange yet somehow breathable air that surrounded me had a terrible finality about it that could never be explained, only felt.
"So this is what it's like to be dead." The thought was mine, and yet it was not. I had summoned no such thought, my main concern being on the strangeness of the memory, of the situation I had found myself in. I started mentally when I realized that this memory was absolutely complete, and that I was remembering even what I had been thinking during this experience.
"You aren't dead, Inuyasha." A soft voice came from somewhere beside me. Again there was that same feeling of recognition and strangeness rolled into one. 'Kikyou.' I thought, or thought once, long ago. A priestess in the traditional white and red robes I had seen only during festivals for hundreds of years appeared before me. Her black hair was long and loose, and her face was gentle. Her form was hazy, the details nonexistent as if she were not quite real. 'This is the woman I loved, not the crude rendition of her with the body of mud and bones.' My former self thought with a twinge of emotion, but no more than a twinge. The love was past tense, even then. Two images interrupted the flow of events, one of the girl called Kikyou, obviously alive in a way that the one before me was not and smiling gently at me in a sunlit field, and the other in darkness of the same girl, yet she seemed very cold and almost cruel.
'What are you talking about? Of course I'm dead. I better be. I gave my life so that you could rest, Kikyou.' I snarled, though the harshness was dimmed by the sound of sadness and irrevocable loss that resonated in my voice.
'Yes.' She said. 'You gave your life for the lost soul who tried to kill both you and her own reincarnation. The one who stole your shards of the sacred jewel that she had died to protect, the one who held herself aloof and unfamiliar to you. The one who was responsible for your death.'
'I love you, Kikyou.' I answered simply. It was the truth, or it had been. Yet there was something more.
'Inuyasha, when will you understand? The red string of fate, once cut, cannot be rejoined. Our fate was changed that day fifty years ago. But, I digress. You gave your life for my lost soul, allowing me to rest and the part of –' she paused, as if searching for a word, 'Kagome's soul that I had stolen upon my resurrection to return to her. So I forgive you, for you were never guilty in the first place.' The apparition of the dead priestess who I had fallen in love with so long ago and who had been responsible for my death no less than two times moved forward and touched my face gently with her hands. 'Live Inuyasha.' She intoned and my heart wrenched. She was going to ruin everything.
'…no. You can't-" I began but she hushed me.
'Don't worry, Inuyasha."
'No, you don't understand.' I told her. "Kikyou, don't do this. Everything will go wrong."
"No, it won't. Trust me, Inuyasha, everything will turn out better this way in the end.' Her soft brown eyes dilated in concentration. 'Live, Inuyasha, return to the life that should never have been taken from you, were it not for your generous heart.'
I felt the strange reality around me shudder, and Kikyou's form became more blurred than even before. 'No!' I tried to yell at her, though she and the world around me were fading fast. 'This is all wrong, this is not how it was supposed to happen!' Then a white light surrounded me and the dream ended.
"Damn it!" I shot up into a sitting position. "God damn it." I whispered, looking at my hands. Then I realized that I was not alone, and looking up I saw that both Kagome and Sesshoumaru were staring at me with raised eyebrows. Looking at Sesshoumaru I felt for the first time more than a cursory wariness, but something very different, something like fear and even hate. I immediately pushed both emotions back, as those two emotions had never done anything useful for me in the past. Besides, I had known Sesshoumaru for centuries, and if he'd wanted to get rid of me he could have done so long ago without even breaking a sweat.
"I see your foul mouth has returned." He said calmly in his resonate voice, sipping his tea, seemingly unconcerned. "Now the question is why did not your half-blood form come with it? Weak as it is, it has it's uses. You stole it from the shrine where it's been resting for centuries, and yet you remain human. If it were me, I would be in a hurry to escape that weak form, even if I had to take the body of a half-blood to do it." He paused in consideration of this statement, and upon further deliberation chose to retract it. "Well, perhaps." He looked moderately disturbed at the idea of becoming a half-blooded demon.
"What are you talking about?" I snapped. "Unlike Your Esteemed Royal Highness, I am a human." Then I realized that somehow those words no longer rang true for me. I was not a human, was I? I looked down at myself and found that I was somewhat surprised to see that I looked the same as I always had. I looked back up at him. "What the hell did you do to me, Sesshoumaru?"
"I did nothing. You did it to yourself, long, long ago. When you went to hell with that priestess after Naraku was defeated, she did something unexpected. She apparently forgave you and allowed you to return to the living world. Yet, you were upset about your continued existence for whatever reason, and had a priestess turn you human, cause you to cease aging, and lose your half-demon form. At least that's what I was told. As you probably recall now, we were not the best of friends But I happened by one day, and the boy – Kohaku was it? – told me what had come to pass. The price was your demon blood. I had assumed you would regain it when the spell was broken, but evidently not. What is more puzzling is that despite all the time you've spent far away from Japan, you still managed to find this human again, during her short life span – only three years after you were first parted. Why would you want to find her? She is only a human."
Kagome pursed her lips at the tone of his voice when he said the word 'human.' "I don't know Sesshoumaru," She said pointedly, "I seem to remember a little human girl who used to travel with you in the past. Wasn't it she who convinced you to use the healing power of Tensaiga to heal Kohaku?"
Sesshoumaru's eyes changed briefly. He'd shown more emotion in the last couple hours than I'd ever seen him display in the entire time of our acquaintance, even with the addition of my new memories. So digging up the past had the same effect on the great Sesshoumaru that it had on almost everyone else in this world. For some reason that was comforting. He was capable of emotions, something that had not been altogether obvious before. But what was this about a human girl? Sesshoumaru had shared his views on humans many times with me over the years. I had always wondered why I seemed to be exempt from his contempt. Now I knew. I was his little brother, a dirty half-breed and a mistake of his father in his eyes, but his little brother all the same. Though from what I had seen of my memories, we had not really had what might be called 'brotherly love'.
"We aren't talking about Rin right now." He said in a tone that I had never heard before. Was there just a tiny hint of sadness in it?
"Whatever." I said, letting a tiny smile slip. He glared at me. I realized through these new memories I had only recently acquired that our relationship had changed a great deal from the way it had been. We were able to be in the same room without the tension being thick enough to cut with a spoon. That, more than anything else that I had recently discovered, was a relief. We could now be more than civil. Was it possible that it had been more than a desire to preserve the spell that had been cast upon me that had caused him to keep the truth about our relationship from me for all these years?
"Well that was fun." Kagome sighed. "I find out that there are all kinds of demons roaming around Tokyo and that Kikyou did somehow retain a forgiving heart through all that. What a surprise." Kagome's voice was even, it held no trace of jealousy or anger, only thoughtfulness and a bit of surprise.
"I think she returned to herself." I told her.
"What?"
"When she forgave me, she was again a spirit, and she was more like the girl she had been when she was alive than the girl that you met, the resurrected one with the cold heart. I suppose my sacrifice surprised her, and since, as she put it, 'I was never guilty in the first place,' she 'forgave' me and let me return to life."
"Then what happened?" She asked. I noticed a quick flicker of emotion in her eyes, though it quickly disappeared. But there was no question in my mind that what she had asked me was very important to her for one reason or another.
"To tell the truth, I haven't the slightest idea." I answered. She took a quick breath and leaned back a little, looking hurt. "I'm sorry, but everything up here," I indicated my head, "Is extremely confused just now. I haven't seen more than bits and pieces of this new past I've discovered – and very incomplete bits and pieces at that. The memory of Kikyou forgiving me sort of intruded itself upon me, which is why I knew the details about it – but as for the rest, I can't make any sense of it right now."
"I think what you should really consider doing is finding some way to return to the body in which you were born." Sesshoumaru cut in.
"Why is that so important to you?" Kagome asked him. "You always hated the fact that he was a half-blood, in fact you hated him in general before. What's changed?"
Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "I have, of course. I thought you'd realized that quite some time ago, when I first showed up here and offered to help you out every now and then. Do you think the Sesshoumaru that came after the Tetsusaiga all those years ago would have used his sword to save the life of your friend's brother? Especially in light of the fact that he was not only human, but a demon exterminator – not that the boy would have been any kind of threat to me, but there are general principles to be considered."
Kagome considered this. "Actually, under different circumstances, I would have probably keeled over in shock when you did that, but I was a bit distracted at the time. But then, you'd already been changing. It was first evident when you spared Kohaku's life before when Naraku tried to make him kill the little girl."
Sesshoumaru looked affronted. "I only did that because killing him would have been pointless. He wasn't even smart enough to be afraid."
"Sesshoumaru, he was being controlled. Of course he wouldn't have shown any fear." She rolled her eyes and sighed. Yes, if Kagome would dare to treat him so familiarly, Sesshoumaru had changed. Their relationship was interesting, that of comrades. The other Inuyasha, the one of my memories, was paralyzed with shock at their demeanor. Besides, before I'd regained my memories, I had always seen Sesshoumaru as a sort of sometime friend.
"You still haven't shared the reason for your sudden yearning to see your dirty half-blood brother again." I pointed out.
"In light of the recent crisis that has arisen here in Tokyo – which is the myriad of demons now running amok in the city with this shrine as their destination, in case the two of you forgot already – it would be nice if we had some more firepower. Ineffective you might have been, but you did manage to stay alive up until that moment of apparent insanity in which you willingly leapt into hell, so you must be able to do something with it."
He shook his head in disgust. "Don't worry, little brother, I'll try to be around as much as possible in case someone with actual fighting ability attacks the shrine. We wouldn't want to have to expose your weaknesses, would we? I suppose that if worse comes to worse, we could stick you up on a metaphorical pedestal, threaten all the demons with your unending power, and I could do the actual dirty work behind the scenes, but that seems just a little unnecessarily elaborate to me." Kagome laughed at this.
"I resent the insinuation that I have no fighting talent." I growled at him. He laughed at me.
"Insinuation? I didn't insinuate anything. I said it outright. But who knows, maybe the no fighting talent stage of your life is now past tense. I seem to remember you once mentioning getting some kind of instruction in the fighting arts in order to guarantee your further existence as a weak human. Perhaps you might now be somewhat effectual. But don't worry, I'll still be here in case you get into trouble, little brother."
"If you weren't infinitely stronger and faster than me, I would wipe that smirk off your face." I told him in a severely irritated tone. "But as is, I'll just grin and bear it." I glared at his smirk. "Remember how I once said I wished I had a family? I didn't mean it."
"You injure my heart." Sesshoumaru replied sarcastically.
"Anyway, I won't need your help." I told him.
"Ho? Is that so?" He looked amused and extremely doubtful.
"Well, maybe." I said, rethinking my words. "At least until I figure out how the hell to regain my damn body."
"Do you remember what you looked like?" Kagome asked me.
"Only what you told me." I answered, not seeing what she was getting at.
"Why don't you try picturing that in your mind. It seems to me that something like that would probably be your best bet. Sesshoumaru says that the spirit is gone from the god's shrine, and the only reasonable explanation is that it returned to your body. All you have to do is draw it out."
"It's worth a try." I closed my eyes and brought up an image of myself in my mind. Then I added the traits that Kagome had described to me only last night. Last night – it seemed so very long ago now, but it had only been the night before when I had slunk like the thief that I had on occasion been into the shrine in the darkness of the First Day? "Half-Demon." I whispered under my breath on a hunch, and almost immediately upon saying this word I felt a tingling sensation and Kagome gasped.
"I am so smart." She said lightly, but there was a catch in her voice, and paused before she continued. "All he's missing is his red clothes."
I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw were my hands, which were now equipped with some very impressive claws. "Oh, yeah." I said, cracking my knuckles. "Just wait until the next time someone offends me. Sankontetsu! The cops will be totally baffled." I cackled evilly, swiping experimentally with my right hand.
"They're just claws." Sesshoumaru said in an infuriatingly condescending tone, as if he were talking to a child. "Mine are much better. They're poisonous. Yours can just cut things. Sometimes."
"Bite me, brother." I told him, only vaguely aware that Kagome was staring at me. "I still have my red clothes, but I don't wear them about. That fashion went out a long time ago." I looked at Sesshoumaru. "Though that news evidently hasn't reached him yet."
"These clothes are more comfortable than the new fashions. If I know Tokyo, the only people who saw me this evening besides you were drunk." Sesshoumaru answered. "If the Lord of the Western Lands wishes to dress in his traditional robes, then he shall."
"I've been wondering." I said to him. "You aren't really still the Lord of the Western Lands, are you? Or is that just a title you childishly held on to, like your attachment to the fashions of the Warring States Period?"
He glared at me. Somehow, that glare didn't frighten me as it once would have. "I still retain father's title." He told me somewhat coldly. "And it has all the meaning it once did. I'm still the Lord of the Western lands. The humans of this country think that it's a meaningless hereditary title that's been passed down. I had to relinquish some of my lands during the revolution, but I bought them back. Why?"
I looked at him appraisingly. "Wanna share with little brother?" I gave him my most winning smile.
"Not likely. You were a victim of birth order, the younger son of a Lord. Deal with it. Besides, you have your own empire, Inuyasha." He pointed out.
Being called by that name was still strange. Of course, it had always been my name, but for a long time, almost since the death of Miroku and Sango, there had been almost no one who knew my true name. Sesshoumaru and I hadn't exactly been best friends, and he was the only person across the ages who knew who I really was. We had only seen each other every few decades or so. I realized now that I was going to have to get used to it.
"Maybe so," I allowed, "But I'm always looking to expand. You know how it is. Business is business." I paused, deep in thought for a moment. "Now, back to the problem at hand. How exactly did you find out that the demons escaped?"
"Don't be an idiot." Sesshoumaru said in a biting tone. I wondered what had caused the sudden change in demeanor. Some kind of mood swing, it appeared. Or maybe he thought that I was just asking stupid questions. I did actually have a point. An idea had just occurred to me. "When they started attacking the shrine in unheard of numbers, I made an educated guess."
"So no one told you?" I asked. "You didn't go down there, or anything?"
He narrowed his eyes at me. "What are you getting at, Inuyasha?"
I sighed. "Just answer the question, and I'll explain myself."
"No. I recognized the variety as the demons bred and raised in the pits, and drew the obvious conclusion."
"So, maybe I should go down to the pits and pose some innocent questions tomorrow night." I suggested. "I could get some valuable information. At the very least I could find out if Sazura and the other frozen demons have been released." I looked at Kagome. "Maybe I should bring along a beautiful woman."
She started and blushed. I did not really think she had been following the conversation. "What are you talking about, Inuyasha?"
"For the benefit of those depraved lunatics down in the pits, the ones who run the underworld, the black market.." I told her, shaking my head. She blinked blankly at me.
"What are you babbling about?" Sesshoumaru asked me.
I ignored him. "I hate to have to subject you to the sight of that particular human condition like this, but I could use your help." I said to her. "It would be easier if you came along, and were my date, in a manner of speaking. Women help loosen tongues around there, especially women that aren't theirs yet. If we play it right, they won't even realize what they're saying."
"Aren't you exaggerating, Inuyasha?" My brother asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Well, maybe a little." He continued to stare at me in that unnerving way of his. "Ok, maybe a lot, but still."
Kagome narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. "You want me to seduce them?" She looked disgusted and her hand twitched, as if itching to slap me. "Sorry, Inuyasha, but I remain a virgin, and I'm not losing it to some lord of the underworld, no matter how much we might learn from it."
"That isn't what I was suggesting, Kagome!" I protested. "Nothing of the sort. Besides, if you're going to pose as my mistress, the 'Lord of the Underworld' in question would have to be incredibly stupid to try to go after you. I may not be as well known as Sesshoumaru here, who they do know the truth about, by the way, and I may not be a certified crime lord, but I do have a reputation to maintain."
"A reputation?" She questioned, looking at Sesshoumaru, who returned her glance impassively.
"No there is quite sure what I am, but they know what happens if they touch anything of mine. If they did, I'd have to give them a proper execution involving the disemboweling technique they used to use in the Tower of London. After I ripped his guts out, I would set fire to the remains, all while he was still alive. According to what I've lead them to believe, that's sort of the course I would take against anyone who disrespected me in that manner."
"You have such a way with women." Sesshoumaru told me in disgust.
Kagome looked like she was going to lose control of her digestive system. "Inuyasha?"
"I've never actually done anything that drastic," I reassured her quickly, "but I've carefully cultivated a reputation that says otherwise. They know the truth about Sesshoumaru, and they know the truth about me, at least that I'm a little older than the normal human, and I've always been careful to keep the mystery about whether or not I'm a demon alive. I've sort of led them to believe that I've got a somewhat barbaric mindset buried underneath the businessman exterior. Anyway, all you would have to do is turn up the charm, smile a lot and use the attributes that you were blessed with. We'd have to get you some new clothes though. How about it Kagome? Willing to play the temptress for a good cause?"
She looked doubtful, but there was something buried behind her eyes, something painful. She nodded slowly.
"Is all of this really necessary?" Sesshoumaru asked tiredly.
I grinned, rubbing my hands together. "It's entirely possible that they'll tell me what I want to know without help. It depends entirely on how much they're actually trying to hush things up. But I don't want to take any chances. We need the information, and this is the best way I know of to get it in this situation."
"This is the best you can do?" My brother demanded. Kagome was watching me distantly, appraisingly, as if trying to decide if I was really what I seemed to be in her eyes. I really did not know whether or not I was. "Well," I answered, "they don't always talk a lot when they're scared, but they will sometimes talk a lot to please a woman, particularly because they don't care if a woman hears what they're talking about."
I turned to Kagome, whose eyes widened. "Actually, what I really need you for is to keep up appearances. Men looking for a fight don't customarily bring their girls around, and it's normal to bring a date to the fights, for some reason. Besides, if I went down there and started beating people up, they might wonder why I have a sudden interest in the demons of Tokyo. We wouldn't want anyone to get too curious, after all."
