Disclaimer:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your Miranda rights?" a policeman said, having just caught feathergriffin who had made a valiant effort to escape.
"No! Wait! Me and Tsubasa really do not claim any right to Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho! Please!" feathergriffin says, struggling slightly with the rather grim looking policemen.
"It's a little too late for that ma'am," one of them said, "do you understand your Miranda rights?"
feathergriffin sighes. "Yes sir. But I swear, I haven't missed a disclaimer yet! I'm getting a lawyer! Sorry, folks, there might be a slight delay in the next chapter while I get this cleared up!"
Meanwhile…Tsubasa Kya watches with wide, innocent eyes as she hides behind a convenient bush.
Lost Enroute to Fate
Chapter…Six, Right?
Koenma looked at his odd crew of spirit detectives. Hiei leaned against the wall of the paper-strangled room, picking at his nails as if he could think of many better things to do than wait for the last member to arrive. Surprisingly it wasn't Yusuke who was late this time. Yusuke was already there, snoring even while standing up. Kuwabara was feeding his new kitten treats--there would be no separation between Kuwabara and his miniature "Yukina-chan," according to Kuwabara. Instead of Yusuke being late, it was Kurama and that worried Koenma a little bit.
Granted, it was far after midnight in the Human world, so Koenma probably should just excuse the tardiness, but he generally didn't promote "tardiness" amongst his subordinates. 'Not that they'd agree to my calling them subordinates,' he thought wryly, chewing his pacifier irritably.
"Well, I don't want to wait any longer." Koenma stated finally. He handed Botan three copies of the same manila folder. In turn, she passed them to each of the present three spirit detectives with a smile. According to the spirit world employment regulations, George had off on weekends so Botan was filling in. Botan shook Yusuke awake gently.
"The folders you now have in your possession are your new mission. We've been having some strange disappearing acts taking place at this shrine; the people we send in to investigate the disappearance of a girl four years ago keep going missing. I suspected demon involvement from the beginning."
They opened the folders--Kuwabara doing so with slight difficulty because of the kitten in his arms--and saw pictures and paperwork. There were photos of a girl who looked no older than five and a tall man with very long black hair and brown eyes. A woman with curly hair held a snot-faced young boy while the man held the little girl. The man and woman seemed to be joking about something with the little girl. They were standing in the courtyard of what looked to be a shrine, with an old, angered man rushing toward them with a piece of paper.
"That man there might have been the cause of the disappearances, but he disappeared himself thirteen years ago. His daughter, the little girl in the photo, and the young girl in the next photo--" he was talking about the fifteen year old picture of the little girl that was also in the file "--was the one who disappeared four years ago. She reappeared periodically and to this day her family continues to claim that she has just been sick, or at least that is the excuse they give her school."
"Why are you investigating this?" Yusuke asked sleepily, a yawn escaping him. "If it's...just a sick girl... what do you need us for?"
Koenma ground his teeth into his pacifier and Botan hastened to reply, "Because sick girls' auras don't vanish for weeks at a time."
"Well, that makes sense," Kuwabara said in agreement. "I mean, Yukina-chan has been teaching me all about auras and how to sense them better. She said that only the dead's aura disappears completely."
"That's right," Koenma nodded. He was glad that Kuwabara was learning from Yukina. It made him more valuable to the team. A big asset. "And then, one of our spies came back. They hadn't been coming back before, but he did and he managed to say 'The return of the Kagemusha,' just before dying."
Hiei stared at the picture with a frown on his face. Koenma noticed that Hiei had more interest in the picture than his normal attention. Did he know something Koenma didn't?
But Yusuke grumbled, "So you'll send us into a possibly extremely dangerous situation just to sate your curiosity?"
"No!" Koenma said irritably. "But if a Kagemusha is coming, then I want to know about it yesterday!"
"What the hell is a Kagemusha anyway?" Yusuke demanded. He'd never heard the term before.
Hiei was the one to respond, strangely enough. He barely ever joined the discussions. "It is a shadow warrior. A very important one, generally powerful enough to level this city with minimal effort…" Everyone was looking at Hiei and he shrugged. "I met one once. She could be considered clinically insane."
"Coming from a guy that tried to turn the world into walking zombie-slaves…" Koenma grumbled.
"It's true." Hiei shrugged. "Except I don't suffer for it…" A rather sinister smile spread across his features, sending shivers up and down the spines of the others.
Yusuke stuffed the folder under his arm in annoyance. He'd learned long ago not to toss the files at Koenma. The last time he did that was just before the Dark Tournament and the next thing he knew he was fighting to win a competition he didn't want to be in. "Keh. Whatever. We'll look into it, and if we find anything worth mentioning, maybe we'll tell you."
Of course, Yusuke was usually the only one who ever ended up telling about the successes or failures of the missions to Koenma. Hiei couldn't care less and the only reason he ever tagged along was so he didn't have to go to jail. Kuwabara didn't like being singled out and Kurama also didn't seem to care more or less if a mission passed or failed, as long as he lived through it.
Koenma knew that was as much as he'd get from them. "Fine. Botan, you go ahead and send them back. Then go look in the archives for anything you can on this man. I know I've seen him somewhere."
Botan nodded and opened a portal for them before waving to them in departure and exiting through the room door to the hall.
On the other side of the portal, Yusuke yawned widely. "I don't know about you guys," he said, "but I'm bushed! Yukina's training is almost as bad as Genkai's."
"Yukina-chan's not an old hag, though!" Kuwabara stated with blind love shining in his eyes.
Hiei's eyes narrowed, and his mouth fell into a frown.
To avoid the subject of Yukina, Yusuke hastily said, "I'm going to go home. We can all meet at the shrine tomorrow at noon. And let's not tell Kurama about this mission; at least he can enjoy the next few days."
Hiei nodded slightly in acknowledgement to both Yusuke's diversion tactic and to his statement and left, walking away in a different direction, opposite of Yusuke's and Kuwabara's. He wanted to take a look at this shrine before tomorrow, and night would be the best time.
Yusuke looked at Kuwabara with annoyance. "You're an idiot and you're gonna get yourself killed." He told the orange haired boy with the kitten.
Kuwabara nuzzled the kitten's nose with his own. "Yukina-chan, you're so cute!" he said, blatantly ignoring Yusuke.
"Whatever," Yusuke grumbled and walked off in the direction of his mama's apartment.
"He just doesn't understand," Kuwabara said comfortingly to his kitten, "I love you. Yusuke must have been a rat or dog in his former life 'cause he just doesn't appreciate you."
Kurama, meanwhile, was listening to Keiko's rather elaborate explanation about her conversations and observations with and of Kagome.
If it wasn't about Kagome, he would have already have made an excuse and gone to his meeting with Koenma. However, though he hadn't seen Kagome in ages, they had been very close as children and Kurama did not like thinking about Kagome going down the wrong path.
"Keiko, I really appreciate you telling me this, but what do you expect me to do about it? I can't go over to my aunt's house and watch her all the time," he said.
"I know that," Keiko said, "but I was thinking we could get her to come visit here for a while. You could keep an eye on her, and find out what she's hiding."
Kurama thought about it a moment. "That is actually a good idea. I'll talk to mother about it tomorrow. I wouldn't want to go barging in trying to convince her at this hour."
Keiko blushed, and twisted her shirt a little. "I'm sorry! But I was worried, and I know that," but she was interrupted.
"I know it, and I really appreciate you telling me. I was supposed to go meet with Koenma, but as he hasn't sent Botan after me I guess it's a smaller case and they don't need me. I'll start trying to figure out the details, and you can go home. If Yusuke hears about you coming over this late at night," and Kurama trailed of pointedly.
Keiko jumped a little. "Oh, right! I'll just be going now!" Suddenly, Keiko was gone. Kurama would have smiled, but he was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with Kagome. Maybe he should go see if he could find out about this 'Inuyasha'.
Kagome sighed. She was just sitting down to dinner with her family and things were almost normal. Souta had apparently been up in his room playing games with his friends when she came home, so he missed the entire segment where Kagome met Sesshoumaru and he turned out to be her dad. Now that Sesshoumaru was trapped in some book world, she almost felt that justice had been served.
He could have at least told her she would meet him five hundred years ago, which at the same time of not making sense, did make sense if she really thought about it.
Inuyasha was also there with her, sitting at the table and blushing furiously. She figured he was probably thinking of the--very few--times they had kissed. Like the time that he'd been transforming and she'd kissed him to stop it.
Kagome smiled a little. "Uncle Inu, would you pass me the wasabi?"
Inuyasha, unused to being called "uncle" by her especially, jumped at the title. "What the fu--" he changed the word he'd been about to use as Kagome's mother Ai glared at him darkly. She did not like swears, and Souta was VERY impressionable. "Why would I do that?" he grouched, shoving food in his mouth with as much manners as he'd learned in the wilderness.
Souta and his friend--who had stayed for dinner--gaped at Inuyasha. Then Souta grinned brightly, "Man! Inu-onii-san is my UNCLE!" he cackled, secretly amused because he'd known of Kagome's affection for the hanyou. Because Souta's friend was over, Inuyasha was wearing a bandana on his head though such contraptions at the table were deemed rude. It was just as well that the family was very lax in their standards.
"Souta, your family is weird!" Souta's friend Hokoru said under his breath, though everyone could hear it even with Ojii-san grumbling tales of demons. "He's not even OLD and he's got white hair..."
"It's not white!" Inuyasha huffed. "It's SILVER."
Hokoru retorted, "My great-great aunt used to say that too, then she died!"
"He went prematurely gray," Kagome said, trying to cover up the fact Inuyasha was a demon along with her laughter.
"I already said it's silver!" Inuyasha protested.
"Now now, children." Ai hushed.
"How OLD are you anyway, old man?" Hokoru asked in a snipped tone.
Inuyasha looked like he'd love nothing more than to hit the boy, though the table did not warrant for it without some intense acrobatic skills and a rubber arm. "I'll have you know I'm only eighty-si--"
Ai hastily corrected him, "He's only in his early twenties." She was converting human years to demon years, of course.
But Hokoru wrinkled his nose. "Eighties sounds like it more!"
"Kid, if you don't shut up now!" Inuyasha half growled.
The door to the kitchen slammed open, startling them all. A furious looking man with silver hair and tattoos on his face stood in the door. "...Ai..."
Something seemed out of place on his person...
Kagome couldn't stifle the giggle. He was wearing a suit and tie now, and his collar was bent up, the whiteness smudged with ripe red lipstick. His face was covered in the strange substance too.
Souta chirped, "Dad!" Then he paused. "Dad, are you cheating on mama?" Apparently by the way Souta seemed familiar with Sesshoumaru, Sesshoumaru must have been around for the past four years while Kagome was in the past. Which meant he disappeared when she was around. Which meant he'd been avoiding her. Which irked her to no end that her 'father' would do that.
Ai had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop from laughing. Her eyes were twinkling with tears of mirth.
"You landed in that world, didn't you?" Ai's eyes were shining with suppressed laughter.
"I'm so very close to exploding with severe irritation that it's not even funny." He closed his eyes and appeared to be trying to stop breathing all together and that would stop his heavy, heady breathing. "Why, why did my wife have to be obsessed with romance books of all things?" he muttered under his breath.
"I thought you enjoyed some of the things I get out of those stories. You've admitted as much several times," Ai said, smiling, "Though I would like it if you wiped the lipstick, dear, it's really not your color."
Hokoru was looking from between Ai to Sesshoumaru. Then he said, "Cool, you're dad's got tattoos, Souta!"
Souta grinned. "I know! Isn't it awesome? Hey, mama, can we be excused? We're meeting Chiko and Tomo at the movies!" Adolescent love...
Kagome couldn't take it anymore. Looking at Sesshoumaru's irritated face, it was strange. It seemed so... light... after what she'd seen three weeks before when she'd nearly been decapitated for merely such a small thing as accidentally stumbling upon his bathing glory-- Don't think like that, Kagome, she warned herself.
"All right, that's it! Start acting normal again! Like the Sesshoumaru I used to know!" she said rather loudly, pushing away from the table as she stood up and pointed a finger at Sesshoumaru.
Sesshoumaru looked suddenly taken aback at her outburst, but he wasn't the only one. Even Ojii-san had stopped muttering and stared with wide eyes. "Kagome..." Ojii-san said in a whisper that everyone heard.
Determined not to let everyone get involved, Ai said, "Souta, you and your friend are free." The two boys looked now like they wanted to stay but one look at Ai's face said 'stay and be reprimanded'. They darted off. Ojii-san made some excuse of polishing his artifacts and wandered off.
Ai grabbed Inuyasha's arm. "Come. It is time for you to return through the well. I will seal it myself."
Sesshoumaru stared openly at Kagome, both proud and not with her. Only Ai had ever had the guts to stand up to him. When Kagome was little, she always agreed with every thing he said, never considering other options to exist.
Inuyasha was dragged out of the room, though his yelling and protesting could be heard for a long time afterwards.
Kagome sat down, running her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long day, and three weeks ago you seemed ready to gut me cause I accidentally fell over the cliff into the hot spring while you were bathing, and now, and the day I've had, and," her voice trailed off.
Kagome looked up at him. "And you've visited while I was away, didn't you? Souta was too young when you left to have already made him comfortable with calling you dad. Why didn't you tell me? I could have kept a secret." Her eyes, big and watery, were having a serious effect on Sesshoumaru.
Sesshoumaru went to shove his hands in his pockets but the realized that he didn't have any pockets anymore. Damn slacks. "Inuyasha." he said, as if the answer would be simple and obvious.
"Inuyasha what?" Kagome asked.
Sesshoumaru shook his head as he instead started pulling the tie off. He then began to undo the buttons of his jacket and the cuffs of his sleeves. "His nose. He would have smelled me on you. I'm lucky he didn't smell me on Souta and Ai as it was. We've never been on proper terms, and I'm rather impressed at his will not to attempt to kill me right now—not that he could."
Kagome's shoulders slumped. "I guess. It's not fair, though. I've missed you."
Sesshoumaru looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'd completely forgotten that you'd seen me naked that day." He chuckled. "That was the first moment I realized that you were the Kagemusha the Book of the Prophets had talked of--consequently, also my daughter. I wasn't mad that day--simply embarrassed."
"So you show your love by nearly strangling me to death?" She nearly shrieked, strangely disgusted by his affection. Demons were so weird.
"Um, well, yeah." Sesshoumaru said, in response to her cry of alarm. "Granted, I was young then. I'd hoped for a brief moment that if I could kill you, then you couldn't possibly be my daughter. But my hand froze, and fury gripped me when the humans came for the jewel that was MY DAUGHTER's."
Kagome stood abruptly from the seat she'd fallen into. She glared at him, not comforted very much. Her dad was an extremely gorgeous male, a youkai, and she'd fantasized of him many times in secret after meeting him in the past. How could she have forgotten his face? Why wouldn't she have known him when she saw him in the past? Where was the murderous intent he'd often held in his eyes? Why did her father turn out to be him?
"Excuse me." She hissed, bowing stiffly to him in a mockery of the king he used to be, and she stalked toward the patio door leading out of the house.
She needed some fresh air. Seriously. This was almost overwhelming.
His voice stopped her hand from flipping the lock only momentarily. "Kagome... be careful. Someone has been sending demons to the shrine for four years now. All of them are weak, but eventually they won't be. I didn't give you permission to die."
"I wasn't aware I needed permission from a father who was never there..." she whispered callously before stepping out into the night.
Sesshoumaru winced slightly. He didn't really have any reply to that. He might have to start diplomatic relations with his own daughter.
Translated into normal father terms, his daughter would have to be bribed.
Outside, Ai was having an almost as difficult time. "I ain't goin' back! You can't make me!" Inuyasha was holding onto the top of the well, refusing to be pushed in. Outside, a frustrated and upset Kagome decided to save her friend (and uncle).
Kagome stepped into the small well house. "Mother..." She'd never called Ai "mother" before. It had always been "mama". But Kagome was furious at her apparently non-existent father now.
Ai looked up, and Inuyasha took the chance to get up and leap behind Kagome, who put her hands on her hips. "Mama, you can't force him to go back now! It's his choice, and even then you did it without giving him a chance to say goodbye to everyone!"
Ai frowned. "Kagome, you know he can't stay here! Aside from the fact that he BELONGS in the past, your father would never allow for it."
"Does dad even remember seeing him again in the past?!" Kagome said. "And that doesn't excuse the fact you didn't even let him say goodbye!"
Inuyasha smartly kept his mouth shut, realizing that he would be no help to the situation and the rosary around his neck still presented a problem. With Kagome this mad, she was bound to take her temper out on something, and he might be that something.
Ai whispered softly, "He has to go back, Kagome. There is no point in drawing out long goodbyes..." She stepped around Kagome, every inch of her face lined in her barely contained temper. "He had best be gone by the time I wake in the morning. If he is not, I will not be pleased with you." Her mother always woke at dawn.
Kagome glared at her mother. "Whatever," she mumbled, "come on, Inuyasha," and she turned and left the shrine, leaving her mother speechless at Kagome's ill manners.
'Ello ev'rybody. Uh, I guess... it's just me, TK, here now... um, Feather's been detained and incarcerated for copyright infringement... I guess... it's up to me to be the poster-girl. Not that kind of poster-girl... Just review and remind me to post, or I'll forget... Thanks a lot!