Chapter 5 (part B)

Kagome waved her hand in front of her face as she passed through a cloud of vomit vapor. Miroku still looked shaken when she stepped up to the table he was sitting at, a glass of water at hand.

"How ya doing?"

He held up his thumb with a grimace. Kagome nodded with a sympathetic smile. As he took another sip of water she sat down across from him, setting the atlases down on the tabletop and opening the top one. On the inside cover she found another world map like the one she had seen so many times before now: the huge continent Asigo in the North, Nafika and Nindiya in the south, and Niraq in the far east. She turned the page and studied the contents of the book before turning to look at the country of Ko. Judging from the legend the Republic of Ko was about the size of Mongolia or almost the size of the eastern half of the United States. She pursed her lips; those places really didn't mean anything to anyone around here, did they?

'I shouldn't focus on that. I need to focus on the bigger picture here - - I can use my past understanding of the world's geography understand this new world.'

The country itself kind of looked like a jumping dolphin if it had been tossed into a blender; The head of the dolphin was at the coast while the top fin jutted north into the country West Mercia, and its tail fin was in the west, making the border with Iguto, Texa Merica, and another place called Caida. Kagome pressed her fingers over the geographic features on the paper, tracing the outline of the Luanda Mountains in the west and the many ranges of the Appach Plateau in the east. It looked like there were many rivers in the country... would trees there look like the ones she saw in Zaba? Orange-ish yellow and crossed between a fern and a pine tree? Or would they be some other foreign thing?

"You said that you work at a college in... in this place, Aplorchard?" Kagome asked, her eyes and fingers still on the book.

Miroku nodded. "Yeah, of Biochemistry and History."

Kagome let her eyebrows rise. "I didn't know you were so well trained. You must know

a lot about this world and how it works."

He smiled weakly. "Heh heh, thank you Ms. Higurashi."

Kagome rolled her eyes, turning them to him instead of the book. "That's my mom. Just call me Kagome."

"Is, uh... is Sango always so vitriolic?"

Kagome blinked once, and then pointed to herself. "English is not my first language, I have no idea what that last word you used means."

"Oh right, I keep forgetting - - Well, I've never known of other languages, but it really is fascinating, I wonder if there are...," Miroku gripped his stomach and winced. "Ow..."

"Sorry..." Kagome said with a soft smile. "I wasn't expecting her to react like that, but I also wasn't expecting you to waltz right into her room like that! But c'mon, what does vit-vitriolic mean?"

"Uh... it means harsh or scathing. It's an adjective."

"Ahh...," Kagome nodded. "Well, no, Sango is usually very considerate and level headed. But after that little escapade she and I talked a bit with Kaede... She seems to have had a bad history with men."

"And thus her biochemistry with men isn't that good either?" Miroku smiled boyishly.

Kagome smiled and leaned back in her chair a bit. "I see what you did there."

Miroku gave a slight bow with his head.

"But enough of that stuff Miroku, the main reason I wanted to talk with you was-"

"I remember why, you wrote it to me in that letter, and sorry Kagome I have no idea what the demons are doing."

Kagome fell out of her seat with a yelp. "WHAT? HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW!" She slammed her palm into her forehead. "Ugh, what is it with everyone on this planet; they all claim that the demons are like this or the demons are like that but in reality you guys know next to diddly squat about them!"

"Hey, I happen to know a lot about demons, thank you very much!" Miroku shot back.

Kagome raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me more than 'they're super freakin' powerful', or 'they have a religion that focuses on the Silver Emperor,'..."

Miroku smiled and pointed his finger up in the air as if he predicted enlightenment to whoever heard his next words. "I know much more!"

Kagome raised both eyebrows.

"They have their own tongue too, demon tongue!"

Kagome's mouth slackened. She swung her arm around to slap him across the face bust he ducked and held up his glass of water shakily.

"Please, I'm just a humble professor!"

"A professor who studied what?"

"History and Biochemistry!"

"And yet he knows next to nothing about the history or biochemistry of a race of super-humans, apparently, who had some kind of civil war in the last few decades and terrorize the living crap out of everyone whose path they cross!"

"Wait!" Miroku peered at Kagome over the top of his glass. "I know plenty about the civil war! That happened when I was a kid, it's what got me interested in history in the first place!"

Kagome tilted her head slightly. "Aoh... so what was the civil war about?"


"Inuyasha, your brother is a cruel person, this is not a fact unknown to ye!"

"Aren't you supposed to use, I dunno, regular talk when you're outside the compound?" Inuyasha retorted to Kaede. He stood with his arms crossed in the doorway of her room, which was simple: a white bed, a small window, and a satchel filled with the old woman's travelling goods.

"I believe I shall be forgiven my transgression considering how familiar I am with that speech while in thoust company, Inuyasha," Kaede replied huskily. "And if we are in sooth to have this conversation, then I believe it most wise if you shut the door before continuing."

Inuyasha spit out an unhappy response below his breath but he walked into her room and slammed the door shut behind him. Kaede sat cross-legged on the floor. "Fucking bastard..." he muttered.

Kaede stomached the language. "Inuyasha, did ye really not see this coming? Ever since the war your brother has been terrified of the forces that want to see you placed on the throne in his stead, not to mention a whole other faction of the demon world that still claims that Koga of the Forest Wolf Clan is still the rightful king."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you old hag! Sessh's mother hated mine because she was human, had her killed and pushed out the wolves so her little doggy boy could sit happy on the throne, I got it, okay!"

"No, Inuyasha...," Kaede looked up at him like a grandmother to her troubled grandson. "I mean this telegram ye received. Can't you see this trap? King Sesshomaru has no intention of ever letting you return to Iguto!"

Inuyasha whirled and glared at her. His stare held as long as his breath. "That's stupid, hag. I'm his brother, I'm the prince, he's just being a dick about requiring me to bring that girl back-"

"And he won't tell you why, will he?"

Inuyasha continued to glare, but Kaede watched his eyes slowly widen. "No..."

"Exactly... Inuyasha, sit down with me, please, this angle ails my neck..."

Inuyasha remained standing, eye ablaze with anger but fueled by confusion. After several moments Kaede sighed.

"Consider the past, Inuyasha. Before the war, the Wolf demons and Dog demons were united in the House of the Dog and Wolf, as they have been for nearly 400 years now. Thou's father... I know ye never knew him, and how I wish ye had, for he was such an example of junzi... He was a reformer,"

"Yeah, I know," Inuyasha shot back hurriedly. "He wanted to abolish the monarchy in favor of a federated republic with the king as just a figure-head. He was weak and stupid, committing suicide instead of facing his-"

"Inuyasha!" Kaede growled at him.

"He was a coward for killing himself! He should have stayed and fought for what he wanted! Instead the bastard just gave up and let himself die so..."

"...So your mother would be allowed to live," Kaede replied angrily. " Not that is worked, but that does not change the fact that love is not cowardice, Inuyasha, and most people who take their own lives do so in desperation. Your father felt there was no other way to save your mother. Nothing in the world is cut and dry, nothing is as simple as black and white!"

Inuyasha glared at her for a long while. Slowly his gaze softened, and he sat down, but he folded his legs under his body instead of Kaede's cross-legged.

"Guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, you old fire witch."

Kaede shook her head slowly. "You have your mother's interpretation of the world, that's for sure. Just like you she was so determined to see the world in only one way... it was no wonder why she was such a renowned abbot of the Daughters of Earth.

"But Inuyasha, listen to me. I regularly speak with the demons in the slums outside of Polis. There are many demons and half demons there who speak openly of their disgust with King Sesshomaru and his actions. They look to you to be king, but the King knows that a rag-tag group of rebels from shantytowns outside of Iguto poses no match to his well trained army of demons deep in the desert. But he also knows that there are still many people within Iguto that would be willing to fight to remove him and place you on the throne in accordance with at least one of the royal traditions."

"...You mean the tradition where the second born child is crowned instead of the first born so that the first born can become an adviser to the new monarch." Inuyasha said plainly.

"Inuyasha!" Kaede shouted. His ears twitched in pain. "Listen to me! Your half brother and his mother know you are popular as a former soldier. They fear ye, they fear the empathy their citizens feel for you! King Sesshomaru told ye that ye are not allowed to return to Iguto without the alien family because he knows it is an impossible act. He had spies in the hospital, just as Kagura and that new attaché from Sokoku did! They know that the Higurashi family is terrified of demons after Kagura's outburst in Prialata!"

"Old woman that's a bunch of-"

"Inuyasha, when did the King send that telegram?"

Inuyasha looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. "The time card says last week. The carrier said they lost the message but recovered it this morning when they brought it on the 'loon."

"Isn't it strange that he would have a message sent to ye saying ye had failed and weren't allowed to return home the day of thoust supposed failure? The message claims that he personally heard of this 'failure', but so soon? What does that mean Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha scrunched his brow and stared at the ground, but after several moments he looked back to Kaede.

"Two things, Inuyasha," She held up her hand with index and middle finger erect. "It means he had a way of learning what happened in detail at the meeting and with Kagura very, very quickly. Quicker than would normally be the case - - ye are the Attaché, the normal way for him to learn that you couldn't bring the aliens to Iguto would have been for you to report that to him yourself!"

Inuyasha dug his nails into the ground and snarled. "AwwwWWW DAMMIT KAEDE, GOD DAMMIT!"

Kaede lowered her middle finger. "And that of course means that if he heard that information and then replied so quickly that he somehow knew that asking you to bring the aliens to Iguto was nigh impossible. And if I remember correctly, Iguto was the last country to volunteer its territory as an abode for them: The Yokai Republic sent their invitation first, then Ko, then Sokoku, and last Iguto. He is using your 'failure' as a pretext to keep you out of the country for an undefined amount of time."

Inuyasha slammed his fists down on the floor, splintering the wood. He roared and threw a plank at the wall behind him, which caught the pillow on the bed and pinned it to the wall like an arrow through a dove.

Kaede breathed deeply. "Inuyasha, Prince Inuyasha... remember your breath that your mother taught you... she too learned that no person is defined their emotions. You feel rage in this moment, but you are not your rage. You have room in your heart for other things. Now breathe and let those other sides of yourself express themselves..."

Inuyasha was crouched on the bed, holding the tattered remains of his green jacket in feral claws. Feathers floated down as his head snapped back at Kaede, his eyes red, teeth bared.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" he roared, and his bloody eyes were suddenly millimeters away from Kaede's. She could barely make out the blue, white slivers of his demon irises, though his snarling breath made it hard for her to focus, as did the talons at her throat.

"I am not telling ye what to do, I am reminding ye of who ye are. Ye are the son of a King and a Priestess, the child of a demon and a human. Ye are strong and brave and considerate and wise, but also so hurt by the undeserved cruelty of so many people encountered in thoust life. And I am telling ye, Inuyasha, that there is room in thou's heart to feel all of these things, to feel thoust rage against thoust brother as well as thoust love towards the memory of thoust mother."

Inuyasha continued to rumble and his eyes remained red, but several moments passed, and Kaede heard him mutter, "...the fire parable..."

Kaede smiled slightly. "Yes, the fire parable. I would love to hear ye remind me what it is."

Inuyasha's shoulder slackened slightly. "Mother... the fire parable, the earth notice, the air gospel, the water way... the fire... the fire..."

"The fire parable dictates, according to the Daughters of Fire, that all emotion is transitory but valid. One must acknowledge one's emotions, feel them, and then let them pass like smoke into the night."

Kaede smiled. "Yes, exactly right Inuyasha. Let the fire of this moment pass as if it were smoke into the night sky."

Inuyasha kept his glare, but slowly his snarls smoothed down to ragged breaths, and his hand dropped away from the wall. Eventually he fell back to the ground, sitting, his irises dilating slowly to their normal, golden size. And for just one moment Kaede thought she might witness him cry, the first time in all her years looking after him since the boy's mother died, but instead his face turned resolute.

"Thous' inner tempests have not improved, have they Prince Inuyasha?"

He remained silent for several moments. "...Sesshomaru is up to something big, isn't he?"

Kaede sighed. "Yes, but I want ye to figure this out. I mentioned the pieces before, so connect the dots. He and his mother are afraid of ye posing a threat to their legitimacy on the throne, but they are more afraid of those people within Iguto who would want to see ye placed on the throne..."

Inuyasha stared at the ground for a moment, then his eyes snapped up to Kaede's, wide like a panicked child. "He's going to kill them all. Political genocide. Anyone who doesn't agree with their rule... he's going to kill them all."

Kaede looked down at the ground, but she nodded. "Yes, I fear this is what King Sesshomaru aims to do. But I do not know for certain - I shall have to consult with the Table of Water to find what is most probably... Ye may want to consult with them too, if ye were to come to Polis."

Inuyasha's teeth were bared again, but Kaede did not see his eyes fading like they did before: he was keeping his demonic pulses under control. "How can I just sit here while he does this to my people, to the entire country!"

"Inuyasha," Kaede repeated. "I am not asking ye to do nothing about this predicament. I am asking you to consider thou's options. Ye cannot return to Iguto, nigh any other demonic country. It makes the most sense to travel with the Higurashi family and associate with them for a while and plan your next move. There are many resources in Polis that may help ye with this predicament, too. We may find a diplomatic way to draw Sokoku's and the Youkai Republic's attention to the internal affairs of Iguto, and thereby prevent anything from happening.

"If anything is to happen. We must remember that right now we are analyzing an odd situation and are coming up with possible explanations - - neither ye nor I are all knowing, and we must consult with others before acting."


"So... let me get this straight," Kagome said, walking along side Miroku as they paced around the lounge, trying to shake off his spazing abdominal muscles and nausea. "The war broke out thirty years ago because of two major violations of the monarchy's internal rules. The first rule is that the crown shall change heads every five years between the Wolf King and the Dog King to ensure fairness and wisdom: this was broken by Meidoseki, the Dog Queen at the time and mother of the present King Sesshomaru. The second rule was that the second child of the reigning monarch should be crowned the new monarch should the first one die: This rule was also broken by Meidoseki and Sesshomaru, who forced Inuyasha and his mother, Queen Izayoi, out of the royal palace after the shady death of the last Dog King, Inutaisho... wow, my head is still spinning from all this information."

"I'll be happy to repeat it if you want, or write it down if you want to be able to read it a few times to help it sink in." Miroku replied kindly.

"No, it's okay, I think I've got it... though, I'm a bit confused about something else. I can understand why the wolf demon tribe tried to fight the power grab by Sesshomaru and Meidoseki, but why was there such a huge civil war in Iguto itself? I mean... most monarchies make the first child the heir to the throne on Beji, don't they? And its not like power grabs aren't all that unusual historically speaking."

"They are common for humans, yes," Miroku replied, edging his way around a chair. "But this was actually the first recorded power grab in the history of the demon states, and that history goes all the way back to the Silver Emperor - - which, if you remember-"

"Yes - - the time of the Silver Emperor was a little more than 2000 years ago. According to legends he was able to unite the entire world in an era when humans and demons lived together peacefully." Kagome replied with a smile. "

"Very good, you get an A -," Miroku replied.

"Only an A -?"

"You neglected to mention that the Silver Empire's reign came to an end at the same time that the Kwisk arrived on Beji, and that began the 200 year period known as the Dark Age."

"Oh yeah, that part..." Kagome murmured. They made another round of the lounge. "How's you're stomach doing?"

"It's not pleasant, but I'll be all right," He said with a smile.

Kagome smirked back. "And how's the boner doing?"

Miroku paled as his shoulders jerked up. "You talk about it like it was an everyday topic…"

"Sex and sexuality are a normal part of life. The doesn't mean that we should be talking about it or pursuing it like a good lunch or something, but that doesn't mean we have to fear it either."

Miroku's shoulders slipped back down to normalcy and his brow furrowed. "I wouldn't expect you of all people to have that attitude. And speaking of lunch would you like some?"

"Sure, let's go to the kitchen," Kagome replied, heading for the back hallway. "I come from a country steeped in Confucian perceptions of the world, but I was never around adherents of that perception of the world long enough to pick it up. When I was younger - - watch the door, it swings both ways - - when I was younger I spent a lot of time with Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist religious followers."

Miroku caught up from behind her and tried to walk along side of her. "So… Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist were religions on your planet?"

"Well, sort of," Kagome replied. "And they're –ism's, not –ists. It is Buddhism and Taosim, not Buddhist and Taoist. And only Shinto I think really counts as a religion as it provided large explanations for the forces in the world and how humans should behave to keep those forces on their side as best they could. Taoism and Buddhism don't really do that… They provide explanations for how life and humans work, and from this information guide how people should consider their place in the world and thereby how to live. Though there are some smaller branches of Buddhism and Taoism that are more religious than philosophical, but that's not really important here I guess."

Miroku nodded slowly and slipped his hands into his pockets. "Well… the boner hasn't really gone away," He laughed.

"You may want to work on that before you see Sango again," Kagome replied, pushing into the kitchen. She asked the cooks hat they were offering for lunch, and after waiting a few minutes received it in a small bowl: A mix of sweet smelling eggs, rice, and savory spices with bits of what looked like chopped broccoli mixed in. She thanked them for the food, received a maroon drink that was supposed to go with it, and started walking back towards the lounge.

"Actually," Miroku started as they walked down the path. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me with that problem of mine?"

Kagome slowed and glowered at the professor's smiling face for only a moment. She held her breath, remembered her training, and responded. "No, no thanks. I said I recognize sex and sexuality's place in life, not that I regularly visit that place with other people. One of the core principles of Buddhism is the Middle Way, and when it comes to sex that means refraining from sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct means refraining from engaging in sexual activities with someone simply for the pleasure of it. Pleasure seeking quickly leads to craving and dissatisfaction for life without easy pleasure, and it also implies that one starts using other people as tools for their pleasure instead of as a whole human being. Such behavior deals great damage upon the world, and from that damage comes more confusion, craving, and destruction."

"You make it sound like casual sex is going to make Beji fall apart," Miroku replied defensively.

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Of course casual sex isn't going to make the planet fall apart. But I can't say the same for people's lives. There are a lot of people who, after having sex just for pleasure and focusing just on that aspect of it, reorient their entire lives to get more of that kind of sex like it's a drug. They never learn what it means to have intimate sex instead of pleasurable sex… well, I guess that's an oversimplification of how humans work, but its not off by much. Long story short I don't engage in casual sex because I don't want to cause myself or other people the pain that comes along with that kind of craving. That's all."

"I can respect that," Miroku replied, following her through the doorway to the lounge and finding a seat. "But there is nothing wrong with two or more people coming together and just having a good time. It can be a great, positive experience."

"That's not the point," Kagome replied. "The point is… how do you feel after you've had sex with those people?… though I'll be upfront when I say the thought of having sex with more than one other person makes me want to puke."

Miroku smiled. "Well, its something different, that much is true,"

"I'm ignoring you now until you answer my question," Kagome exclaimed, stabbing at her egg mix with her *fork.

"How do I feel after sex… I don't know. Tired I guess."

"Not physically, I meant emotionally and mentally, or spiritually even if you can go that far."

Miroku stared up at the ceiling as he crossed his arms. "Hm… depends on the person I'm with. I mean, generally I feel good. It's always felt good afterwards."

"You mean you've never felt any regret for any night you spent with someone? No desire to have a deeper connection with the person, wishing that they you didn't have to feign friendliness after you see them later on having left them with only one night?"

Miroku continued to hum in thought, but eventually he shook his head. "Not really. I do tend to go about the matter more studiously then other men… I don't aim to deceive a woman into thinking I'm offering more than I am, and I deliberately choose to engage with women who are okay with casual sex. It's not like sex is something sacred."

"I wish the catholic priests could pummel your ass," Kagome hissed in Japanese.

"Hm? You say something?"

"Nope. Either way that's my position on the matter. And when I left Earth scientists had isolated the parts of the brain that get activated by sex versus by love and emotional connection, and they overlap. As far as I'm concerned sex and emotional connectedness god hand in hand and can never be isolated: someone can go into sex without the desire for emotional connection, but whether they like it or not their body will force them to feel an emotional connection to whoever they slept with."

"…sounds like you're saying I'm a liar who is living in denial," Miroku said with an angry lilt to his voice.

Kagome chewed on her *fork. "Yeah it kind of did. Sorry, I didn't mean to phrase that in a… in an insulting manner. I just… I get really angry at people who try to use other people as means to an ends instead of as whole, worthwhile people."

"…and I think I can see how you saw my words as exemplative as way of thinking," Miroku replied with a sigh. "Though you should be more careful – most people don't listen to wildly different opinions like I do."

"Believe me," Kagome replied, her *fork in her eggs and her mind in her memories of her father. "I know."

Kagome found Sango several hours later, sounding hoarse for some reason but otherwise ameliorated. Together they worked over the details of demons and the planet to figure out what they knew. There was a demon monarchy that fell into civil war because of the world's first demon power grab. Demons generally were Emprists, believing in the ways set forth by someone called the Silver Emperor. All of the demon countries were united once but they had broken apart, and the two newest demon countries seemed to be treating the world as their play thing and there was nothing any other country could do about it. But there was still one big hole in their understanding.

"Why did they invite us to live there?..." Kagome whined, flopping over on Sango's bed. The two, Ms. Higurashi, and Hanzel had gathered in Sango's room, which was littered from their devoured dinner and dimly lit as the sun had set.

"We're not going to figure that out by asking it over and over again," Hanzel interjected. "We don't have that information, so what's the point?"

Sango nodded once before turning to Kagome again. "Maybe we should talk to that Inuyasha guy. He's on this dirigible. Its unlikely but he may be willing to give us something…"

"I doubt it," Kagome replied. "I had a little altercation with that woman, Kagura. She gave me just enough to not be helpful, and I'm guessing he'll be the same."

The room was quiet for a few moments. "Two important things," Ms. Higurashi eventually said. "I worry about you when we… touch land."

Hanzel and Sango looked up at her in confusion. "Me?" They asked in unified disbelief.

"Yes," Ms. Higurashi smiled, delighted she had been understood. "You and you! Uh… Kagome?"

"Translate?" Kagome inquired without moving.

"Yes please dear."

"Go ahead, I'll do my best."

Ms. Higurashi nodded, and began speaking, though it was Kagome's voice the American's heard.

"I am worried about you two because… Kagome and I have lived with the press for long parts of our lives, and we are used to having some parts of our privacy permanently invaded. But you two have had different lives. Something I think we should discuss is how to prepare you for what may be months or years worth of… I don't know how to translate that last word, but it's something like 'being invaded repeatedly'," Kagome said wearily. "And I want to get off this balloon. She didn't say that, that was me."

"Emergency parachutes are on the main deck, have fun." Hanzel replied dryly. Sango smirked.

"What did he say?" Ms. Higurashi asked. Kagome informed her, and her mother burst out laughing.

Which garnered the bewildered stares of everyone else in the room.

"Mother, how is that so funny?"

"Oh my goodness, wait a moment!" She replied, holding onto her stomach. "It's just- - I said that once when you were little! We were in Kyoto in that one apartment, the one with the gray walls, remember? You were whining about school before your father got home, and I told you that school was important and that you needed to make sure you did't let him hear you when he returned. So you said, 'I want out, tell me how to get out of school and dad mama!', so I said, 'There are emergency parachutes in the closet, have a safe flight.' There were plastic bags stored in the closet, and I remember when your dad got home he was so perplexed by the sight of you running around the apartment with a plastic bag around your arms and another on your head that he couldn't say anything at all. Oh, that was such a good day!"

Kagome smiled warmly, and offered a truncated version of the tale to the English speakers. They smiled in return.

"A little you running around with shopping bags on your head…" Hanzel repeated, chuckling.

"Yes, it's so hilarious I'm willing to forgo the thought of jumping from this aircraft to a watery death," Kagome replied dryly. "Though my mom has a point: you two are going to have to learn at least some of the basics of dealing with reporters. From what I saw on TV in Prialata they are about the same here as they were on Earth: persistent, respectful if you're lucky, and looking for drama."

The troupe ran through some ideas for evading presumptive questions before the lights flickered twice - - the signal that it was ten minutes until lights out in the passenger cabin to conserve power. Sango waved the others goodbye, and then Ms. Higurashi and Kagome parted ways from Hanzel, located on the second tier, while the Higurashi compartment was on the first. Kagome didn't bother inquiring on her lame grandfather when they arrived, instead patting Sota on the head once, brushing her teeth, and then falling flat onto her bed. So many things had happened that day… leaving the hospital, learning basics of dirigibles, Sango's outburst and Kaede's message, the talk with Miroku, the lessons with Sango and Hanzel… she just wanted life to shut up and let her rest.

But as tired as she was sleep eluded her like a butterfly just higher than its catcher's net. Events from the day repeated on her eyelids again and again no matter what position she changed her pillow too. Until,

'All you have to do is try to bring us honor, Kagome! My wife won't say it, but you disappoint her, and me! Put take those things off, stop behaving so selfishly and do your duty!'

She shot straight up in bed sweating. No one else was awake. The room was dark aside from the moons' light in a window, and the engines whirred along with the stratosphere's wind.

Kagome sighed and drew her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and pressing her eyes against her knee-caps. Her eyes hurt so much, just like most other sleepless nights. And like those ones her father made an appearance in this one, or his words and voice via her memory did. She was tempted to look over at her mother and study her sleeping face, see whether the disappointment was really there. But she willed herself not to.

'My dad,' she thought to herself. 'Was trying to control me so I would do what he wanted, so I could be a chess piece in his political game. He used mom as a weapon to get there. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie…'

"It was a lie, it was a lie…" She repeated to herself in whisper. "It was a lie…"

Eventually her eyes opened and she looked at the wall hidden in shadow before her. "Sorry mom, but dad did talk that day, just not to you…"

The second day on the dirigible passed less eventfully as the first. Kagome and Sango poured themselves into memorizing maps of the world and Merica until an announcement came over the ship's intercom that they were moving from traveling over water to over land. The two of them looked out the window to see a boggish brown color shoreline coming into view, just about the time Sota ran in, shoved both of them out of the way and pressed his face against the glass. Ms. Higurashi and Hanzel continued with their language lessons. Miroku remained out of Sango's way. Kaede quietly appeared in the random places Kagome walked around when bored.

"Why do I get the feeling there is more to that woman than meets the eye…?" Kagome said quietly to herself a minute after passing her in one of the ships metallic, rebar hallways.

"Because there is."

"HOLY CRAP WHO'S THERE!" Kagome screamed, jumping over one side of the hall and panting like.

There was a tap-tap above her. Kagome's eyes shot up and to the left, and there she found the man with long silver hair and dog ears, sitting on the top of the metal lattice-work ceiling.

"What the HELL are you doing up there, trying to kill me?" She yelled again.

"Jeez woman, don't you ever shut up?" He replied, pressing his ears down to his head in pain.

"Well don't give me a reason to scream for my life then!" Kagome shot back. It was silent for a moment. "You're Inuyasha right?"

"Prince Inuyasha to you," he replied boorishly.

"I'm not impressed by royal titles," She said back just as caustic.

"Maybe you should be, it'd be more fun."

"More fun…?" Kagome repeated slowly. "What, have you been talking to the professor or something? I'm impressed by the guy, not the length of something between his legs."

"The length of the tail you mean," Inuyasha replied, tapping the rebar again and still not looking at her.

"I…" Kagome hesitated. "Yes, the length of the tail. Doesn't matter if its seven feet long or been nubbed, its still just a tail."

"Keh," was the half-demon's response. He pushed himself up and with a deft lunge and spin he had flipped off the top of the hall, grabbed a support rail, and landed crouching in front of her.

"Okay, I admit, that was impressive."

He didn't say anything. He simply stood up and cleared the wrinkles in his off white button down shirt, though it was slightly teal and buttoned down on the right side as opposed to what Kagome was used to seeing.

"So… I'm bored," He eventually said.

Silence.

"Well… you would know that, I guess," Kagome said cautiously.

"Yeah…" Inuyasha replied.

Silence.

Kagome put her hand together, one on top of the other, and twirled her thumbs.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Just walking around, I don't like being cooped u-"

"What are you doing with you hands?" Inuyasha clarified with plain irritation.

Kagome looked down and then back up. "I'm doing the awkward turtle."

"The… the what?"

"The awkward turtle. You do this when you're conversing with someone and there is an awkward silence."

"Why?" It sounded like an order more than a question.

"I don't know, just to break the tension?"

"Keh, that's stupid," Inuyasha replied and started walking on.

"If you think so, then you don't have to do it," Kagome replied stiffly. She folded her arms and leaned back on one of the hallway support beams.

After a few moments she realized he had stopped walking. She looked over at Inuyasha and saw his back was still turned on her, but he was staring at her eyes impatiently.

"Well, are you coming?" He asked.

"Coming where? Since when was I walking with you?"

He sighed angrily. "Look, you're bored, I'm bored, we might as well be bored together, all right?"

Kagome's brows furrowed in confusion but she stepped forward and started walking beside him in the dark. Silence quickly ensued the walk and after they had passed through the kitchen, starboard lounge and control room did she speak.

"So… I know you're a prince and attaché, and you're a half-demon…"

"Yep," Inuyasha replied. Kagome rolled her eyes.

"What do you like to do?"

"What's it to you?"

"Wow, this is getting far," Kagome blurted out, her hands slamming over her lips a moment too late. But he didn't stop walking nor did he shoot her a dirty look, so she pressed onwards quietly for a few moments. "You may want to work on being a little more… friendly and open to people if you want to spend time with them, fyi."

"You're doing it again," He said bluntly.

Kagome growled. "Excuse my whiplash by your non-sequitors, but what exactly am I doing again?"

"Using demon tongue. It sounds weird to hear it coming out a human mouth."

"I already told you, it's Japanese," Kagome said. "And so what if it is coming out of a human mouth, its still—"

"Beautiful?" Inuyasha replied, catching her eye with an arched brow. She started a moment, caught by the multiplicity in his face.

"No, that's not what I was going to say, but we can go with that."

The two stepped through a set of doors and found themselves in the leeward lounge, which was populated with a handful of people catching an extra late lunch.

"So… the planet you came from is called Earth… what was it like?" Inuyasha asked. He stopped walking in front of one of the small, circular windows in the cabin. Kagome walked on a bit in front of him and turned to face him. His eyes seemed to dart away from her face to the mountains beneath them.

"Well… Earth was an entire planet. It's hard to explain it simply."

Inuyasha nodded once, continuing to stare outside. Kagome frowned again.

"But… the place that I'm from… it's a country called Japan."

"That sounds a lot like Napan," He replied. "Coincidence?"

She smiled slightly at his curiosity. "Not at all. My father was one of the first colonizers of Beji, and he called the colony New Noto. Noto was the city we was born in, it was a town north-west of where I grew up."

Inuyasha nodded deliberately before looking at her directly. "So where in Japan are you from?"

"…Two places, both of them the capital. The first—"

"That's stupid, how can there be two capitals?" Inuyasha said roughly.

Kagome took a breath before answering. "Ah, well… There are… a LOT of ways a country can have two capitals. For Japan… Kyoto is the old capital of the nation, but Tokyo is the capital of the country..."

He was staring out the window, ears perked to the wall. Kagome took it as a sign that he'd lost interest and his mind was elsewhere. After a few moments Kagome rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Okay, well, I'm going to go find my brother. Have a nice day, Inuyasha."

"Prince Inuyasha," he corrected as she started walking away. Kagome let out a sound in between a sigh and a growl before walking on, refusing to answer.


Sjevernasud was a city on the border of a large, orange desert from Kagome's early morning window prospect. This was the second time she had awoken early enough to see the sun rise after a night of horrible reminders of her father's voice and looks.

He stared emotionless at her crayon drawing for a moment before turning and walking out the door.

"You don't know the world. You won't study with those freaky women at the shrines, I won't let you waste your life in a cult."

"Tell me what your mother said about me. I am your father, you owe it to me."

"You're on your way to being a whore, aren't you?"

'No!' Kagome shook her head violently, trying to throw out the rancid thoughts. 'Focus on the desert, the rising sun, the red and light blue sky, the red clouds…'

For several minutes she felt nothing. The whirring of the engines didn't reach her, nor did the slow descent of the balloon, nor the intercom alarm to rouse sleeping passengers. Finally Ms. Higurashi reached out and took her shoulder, telling Kagome it was time to gather their things so they could get right on the next balloon trip to Dulas.

After pushing her grandfather into his wheel chair Kagome wheeled him around the ship until her family found the navigation deck, where she directed the them all down the metal, grated ramp and into the dry, metallic air of this new place. She winced against the abrasive sand carrying gales, which made her wheel Ji-Chan right into Sango's back, who then fell into Hanzel, who then fell into Miroku, who was about to shake hands with the mayor of the city in front of flashing cameras. Kagome hid behind her grandfather a moment before wheeling him over towards the dirigible destined to take the lot to Dulas. She was halfway there when security personnel caught up with her, turning her and her grandfather around to face the cameras and reporters that had been following her like ninja vultures.

The city blurred in front of Kagome's eyes: she was in a car with her hands over her face , being guided by her mother into a moldy smelling building with red marbled floors, and by the time she found herself in a restaurant she had found her 'front page' face. She could hardly stomach the fish with iridescent blue flesh over green rice and black vegetables that tasted like burnt licorice, but not a single reporter was going to know about it.

Kagome helped Sota push their grandfather's wheelchair up the ramp onto the second dirigible as the sky was fading into deep red and violet. She watched her shoes moving one in front of each other, up the ramp, to yet another confine. A wave of sandy wind lashed at her eyes and pressed her on, but when the last of the alien group was on board and the ship was lifting up into the air, she found herself alone at the entry bay. How long had she been standing there, staring at the metal grating beneath her? She blinked her eyes once - - it had been a while since she'd done that apparently, as her eyes stung when her eyelids slid over them.

Kagome looked down both ends of the hallway she stood in. They were covered in draping, cream fabric that rippled as slight blusters swirled around the inside of the ship. 'Very different…,' was all she thought, remembering the bare bone metal of the Zaban ship.

Her feet started moving. Kagome let her eyes linger downward, watching the tops of her shoes turn left, walk a while, pass some people with white boots like most of the reporters in Sjevernasud, and turn a few more times. She looked up; somehow she knew this was not the right hallway to walk down to get to her bed. Kagome let her head turn down to the ground and her feet led the way again, and after another unknown amount of time she heard Hanzel's voice from an open door in front of her. She looked up; the fabric was indigo here for some reason. Sota jumped on a bed in the far corner of this room she found herself in. Her mother spoke broken English to Hanzel, who again tried to say too much too fast. Sango was there, saying something to them… or was she talking to Kagome.

"Please, I'm tired," Kagome said, not sure who to. She walked over to an orange wicker weave chair in a different corner of the small room, closed her eyes, dropped her head into her hands, and waited.

Silence brought peace. Kagome looked up, feeling present. The only light in the room came from a small, cream colored lamp with a lamp shade that looked like a bell. Something twinged in Kagome's mind and she turned her attention away. Sota was asleep in the same bed he was jumping on earlier, snoring next to her mother. Ji-Chan had somehow been moved into his bed too. Kagome looked over at the bed next to her, indigo like the wall fabric in much of the rest of the ship. She put out her hand and felt it; like well worn out canvas draped over a thin water mattress. Kagome cringed, but a moment later didn't know why. 'What is wrong with me…?' she asked herself with no intention to answer. She pushed herself out of the chair, stretched a bit, and watched her arms and hands change her out of her day clothes and into the white slip dress that was provided for her. Her hands guided her into the bed, and then Kagome stared at the ceiling.

It was blue.

It didn't look like it was made of wood. Maybe foam?

The bed wasn't very warm.

There was the ceiling again.

Face on pillow = very hard to breath.

Kagome rolled over to face the wall the bed was placed up against. Tonight sleep was not a butterfly barely escaping the reach of her weary souls' net; no, tonight sleep was way out in the stars. She rolled her eyes wearily before pressing her forehead against the wall, which she then realized was also made of fabric and not at all stable. She shimmied back into the middle of the bed quickly, imagining herself rolling off the bed in her sleep and tumbling down into the underbelly of the ship. She threw the large pillow off the bed in an effort to solidify her place in the middle of the fluid mattress, but immediately regretted it: that pillow was really warm…

For a moment Kagome was aware she was dreaming. She wondered how that had happened, but then the dream took her again. She was in a gray car, which was driving itself through a city with great, tall buildings of glass, steel, and concrete. Trees lined the street, and there were benches and small shop entrances, but no people. No cars. No bicycles. Looking out at the horizon presented by the front windshield, it was a cloudy day, close to rain.

Something darted by in the shadows beyond the car. Kagome scooted over to the side of the car to look out the window, maybe get a better sight at what life was like out there. She leaned on the door, peering into the shadowy alley bared behind a chain-link fence. It looked like a garbage can was on fire farther back.

For some reason she felt she had to open the door and investigate. It opened with a thunk, and Kagome hesitated. Nothing changed outside on the empty street. Kagome carefully opened the door and stepped onto the low sidewalk, hearing a clack beneath her. She looked down: she was wearing heels, and they seemed to keep changing color.

Kagome looked up and there were people. Everywhere. But they weren't moving. They're skin was pale and gray, like the car that took her here, but no was gone. They were dressed bizarrely, one in a fluorescent blue robe and turban while another wore only a long, red and green scarf, and another had a giant copper ring going through her nose and cheek, and—

They turned their heads towards her, sharply. Kagome froze. She didn't dare move, but her heart started galloping, and her eyes whirled trying to watch all of the people. Slowly, each gray skinned, strangely colored person began raising one of their arms above their heads, and even in the faintness of the cloudy day she could see the butcher's knives, the saws, the axes, the screwdrivers and machetes. Her mouth opened barely to try to scream, but she wouldn't dare.

A bang in the corridor with the fire trash can, sounding like an explosion mixed with falling pots and pans, echoed in the street. Before she could stop herself she threw her head around to see what happened and then froze again. But no one else moved. Or it seemed like that for a moment; after a quick sweep she realized all of the people were staring at the corridor as well. It was then she realized they were faceless.

Another explosion in the corridor. But nothing moved in there, or out on the street. A third explosion, and a gray man in flaming clothes charged out from behind a wall at the far end of the alley, roaring like someone screaming with duct tape stretched over his mouth. He ravaged forward, and for a moment Kagome saw herself in his eyes, dressed like a normal woman on a rainy day, but all this mad could think of was …food!

She was herself again, and the man slammed into the chain link, clawing and snarling, blood spurting out where he broke his fingers that caught in the fence. He didn't care. He started climbing.

A woman in the far end of the alley threw her other hand in the air, and let out an explosion sound of pots and pans, and she rushed the fence too. Then another man in the alley. A child in the alley. It was almost at the street. Kagome turned and ran.

She tried to kick off her heels, but they seemed glued to her feet - - bad luck considering she had never learned to walk in heels let alone run in them. She dodged raised blades and weapons, but no one moved. But then she heard an explosion behind her, beyond the fence, and the grunts of other gray people who had been knocked out of the way of the things that pursued her, and the disturbed people screamed their explosions only moments after.

RUN RUN RUN! She screamed in her lungs but not in her throat. MAKE IT TO THAT CORNER! DODGE THAT KNIFE! MAKE IT TO THAT CORNER! I'M TRIPPING!- NO DON'T FALL INTO THEM, DON'T DISTURB THEM! GO GO GO, GET TO THE CORNER, JUST GET TO THE CORNDER, GO, RUN!

It had become a hoard behind her, and it was gaining numbers and gaining on her. A splatter of blood hit her cheek. One second and two evasions later she was at the corner, and her lungs screamed out high and clear,

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

Instantly there was a taxi in front of her and its door swung open. She threw herself inside and closed the door, locking it right as the bloody, gray hands started pounding on the window.

"Where to, miss?" She heard from the front seat of the car.

"Home, take me home!" Kagome screamed, still watching the horror outside her window. She turned up to the cabby, but it was her father, expressionless. He held a gun in his hand. She could see down the barrel.

BANG!

Kagome clamped her teeth together as she screamed. Her shaking hands found the sheets of the bed and she threw them over her mouth, trying to stop the sound. She covered her nose too and rattled with her warbling scream. Her body rocked back and forth and wetness appeared at the edges of her eyes and soon after slipped down her face. She rocked for ages. She shook for ages. There would be no more sleeping tonight.


"Hey… you don't look so good," Sango said worriedly. She sat in the sunny starboard lounge in a plush, red sofa, just across from Kagome who sat with an unopened atlas in her lap.

"Well, that comment sure brightened up my day, " Kagome replied caustically, only giving her friend and passing glance before staring out the window again. White, sparkling clouds tumbled on beneath the ship.

"I'm mean you don't look like you're feeling very well. Are you okay?"

"Yeah…," Kagome sighed. "I didn't sleep well last night, that's all."

"Really? Is there something wrong?" Sango asked. She was interrupted by Ms. Higurashi and Miroku arriving with a tray of food for lunch. It looked like sandwiches: golden, fluffy bread without crusts with a mix of something red, maroon, marmalade yellow, white, and all around gooey in the middle. A medley of orange and purple carrots sliced length-wise lined either side of the tray, along with a small silver bowl of something creamy white and another bowl cuboidal looking grapes.

"Hm?" Miroku raised his eyebrows at Sango carefully, and then at Kagome curiously. Kagome shook her head and waved on the food. Miroku was about to take a seat next to Sango until a death glare informed him that Kagome's sofa was the much safer option.

"What… you have doing?" Ms. Higurashi asked her daughter painfully. She scrunched up her face for a moment. "No. What have you doing, Kagome?"

Kagome smiled, watching Miroku and Sango dodge each other's hands as they both reached for one of the many sandwich halves. "I have been reading this—"

"Aaah! What have you been doing?" Ms. Higurashi repeated in a frustrated huff.

Kagome smiled again and shook her head to reassure her mother. "I have been reading this book, an atlas."

"At-lass…" Ms. Higurashi replied, picking up a handful of diamond grapes. "What is…?"

"A book with a lot of maps," Kagome replied, helping her mother recall the meaning of each set of words while she gathered some food for herself as well. After a few minutes of going over the new vocabulary of Map, Page, Continent, City, and Smart-Ass (when Ms. Higurashi asked to understand what Sango called Miroku and why Kagome was laughing), her mother waved on her daughter to let her study her new words in singularly.

"So what else have you learned about Ko and the Merica's?" Miroku asked Kagome.

"Honestly, at this point I don't even know," Kagome said, picking up one of her sandwich pieces. "I keep trying to read the sections about one hundred years ago, but I get lost in them. I keep reading the same sentence over and over again until I just admit I can't take any more."

Miroku nodded. "Sounds like you're brain has enough stuff to process already and it is telling you not to push it any more."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Sure, maybe, but this is important. I need to know more about the place I'm going to be living. I don't want to show up there and make some giant faux pas with the first person I meet… oh, you don't know that term do you?"

Miroku stared at Kagome, and then Sango, and then Kagome. "Uh… fowl paw?"

"Can you explain it please?" Kagome asked Sango wearily. She then surrendered into her sandwich, finding the gel inside insanely tart at times and bitter at others, and not helped by the presence of large fruit seeds. The grapes slid into her mouth in a slippery, unreal way that made Kagome avoid them all together, eventually resigning herself to munch on the orange carrot slices.

"Okay, so it's a social misstep," Miroku repeated. "Well, Kagome, you don't have to worry about that too much. The people of Ko are very understanding, you don't have to go in there an expert on the region."

Kagome raised an eyebrow at him. She slid down in her seat on the couch, part of a carrot still in her mouth. "I am very wary of such an essentializing statement."

"Wha…?" Miroku replied.

Kagome groaned. "Just read Edward Said or something… Oh, right, you can't… god dammit."

Miroku looked across the table at Sango. "Is… uh… Do I want to know what she's talking about?"

Sango was quiet a moment, as if deciding whether or not to breath fire. Eventually she said, "I'm not even sure I know what she's talking about."

Kagome's head slunk. "A masterpiece of anthropological understanding, down the drain…"

"Yeah, I REALLY don't know what she's talking about…" Sango said, but without any lilt of sharpness.

Kagome sighed again, but didn't bother answering. She was the only person who knew about Edward Said, the person who called out anthropologists around the world - well, Earth - in the 1960's and 1970's on their inherent discrimination when they were investigating the many ways people lived around the planet. 'I'm probably also the only person who knows International Relations theory, or the old economic theories, or the history behind the creation of calculus… So everything I've ever been trained in or learned is pretty much useless now…'

Kagome didn't take part in the ensuing discussion at the lunch table, only helping her mother translate choice terms and words when she couldn't figure it out on her own. Kagome felt herself twist up in guilt at her voluntary exclusion, but there was some part of herself that felt justified in her behavior. She was angry and upset, and did any of these other people notice? Nope. They were all just… just…

'Hold on…,' Kagome said to herself quietly as the sun began to set on the first day in this loon to Dulas. 'Sango DID ask me if I was okay earlier… They are noticing that I'm upset and angry, but they just don't know why…'

At that point Kagome was walking around again. She had found a trap door in one of the hallways, and discovered it led down to a panoramic vantage point surrounded by glass. There were no seats, only a wooden floor and steel support beams, but Kagome didn't mind. She felt much more at peace down here than in the plush, claustrophobic ship above her. Storms raged in pockets beneath her feet, throwing gallons of water into the silver-laden sea thousands of meters below, which reflected the reddening of the sky as another night drew in.

The hatch above her creaked and flipped open. Kagome looked over her shoulder from her place on the floor to see who it was, and a moment later she watched a white haired demon man thing fall to the floor gracefully, clad in a black and mustard yellow jacket. It had the same Kimono/military jacket feel as the one she saw him in when they first met.

Inuyasha's head snapped up, his eyes catching hers. He stood up slowly and crossed his arms. "Didn't know this place was occupied."

"It's not, not really," Kagome said calmly. "Unless you think humans are too far beneath you or some… ugh, there I go again! Why am I so nasty today?...Sorry."

Kagome didn't wait to watch his reaction. She simply turned her head back so her chin rested on her knees, and her eyes took in the windy sky beyond her.

Inuyasha frowned for a moment, then he stared at the ground. His eyes flitted back up to her, but she still wasn't looking at him. "Am I, uh… do you want to be alone."

He watched her give half a smile. "I don't know."

Inuyasha pressed his lips together. He looked out the glass to the same, watery prospect she was focused on. "So what are you doing in here?"

"… I don't know that either," she said. He stood there awkwardly for a few more moments before she spoke again. "I… I just don't know what I'm doing at all… I studied international relations and anthropology and so many other things, and no one seems to know what those are… I never would have said it, but I think I was arrogant enough to think of myself as an expert in those things. And now…"

She smiled ironically. "You know, Inuyasha, it seems like each time you find me I'm just not in a very presentable state. That first time I blew up at you, and then I was terrified in front of Kagura, and then the other day when I was walking around, and now…" She sighed again.

Inuyasha stared at her for a moment, He sniffed, stepped forward a bit towards the glass, and sat down. "So…uh… what were sunsets like on your planet?"

Kagome smiled slightly. "They were beautiful, just like this, though maybe not as much red. There were more colors, yellow, orange, peach, rose… even green sometimes if you looked closely enough."

Inuyasha made a sound of blunt understanding. "The sunsets here vary from place to place. When you're close to the sea, they're… well, they're really red, but the farther inland you go the less red they are… I don't know if the sunsets over Polis are like what you know, but, well, maybe they are…"

She didn't say anything for a while, though his nose picked up the salty scent of tears.

"What about you?" Kagome asked quietly. "What are sunsets like in the desert?"

"Ahh, well," Inuyasha said, leaning back so he was resting on his elbows. "They're not like this, not at all. When the sun starts to go down, the sky goes pale blue for a while, then it turns kinda… pinkish I guess. Then, right when the sun is about to go beneath the horizon, all the air close to the sun goes purple and starts sparkling because of all the sand in the air."

Kagome smiled, not that Inuyasha could see it. "That sounds beautiful… I wonder why the sunset in Sjevernasud wasn't like that…?"

"Their desert has the wrong kind of sand. It's got a lot of salt in it, I think. The Igutoni desert has a lot of silver instead, and it reacts with the light differently."

Kagome nodded. "There is a lot of silver on this planet, for me anyway. It was really rare where we came from, a luxury."

Inuyasha scoffed. "What? Silver? A luxury? C'mon, its shiny and crap but next to that its about as valuable as, I don't know, water or something."

"I don't know, water is pretty important at the end of the day," Kagome said. "Without it we'd all die… well, I only think so. I don't know how half demons work."

Inuyasha hesitated a moment. "If I don't eat or drink eventually I'd die too, it'd just take a lot longer for me than for you."

Kagome nodded again, and said nothing. Inuyasha waited a while, but eventually sighed brazenly. "You're being boring."

"So sorry. I don't think that a terrible offense though." She replied lightly.

Inuyasha watched her again, frowning deeply. "And you're still weird… and a nerd."

"And you're still a Prince. Tell me something I don't know," She said with a shrug.

"You're a nerd. Aren't they supposed to know everything?"

"Haven't you met a guy nerd who didn't know what to say to a girl he liked?" Kagome replied.

Inuyasha crossed his arms again.

Kagome smiled, her eyes still focused on the ocean. "Ha ha, you know I'm right."

"Wha-? I never said that!"

"Yes you did. Body language, dog boy. You crossed your arms," She waved her hands on either side of her head. "Peripheral vision is a pretty cool thing, hunh?"

Inuyasha scoffed again, but stayed put. Kagome continued to say nothing. He caught himself looking her hair and wondering why she wasn't running away from him like most other humans. Even the friend of hers, Sano or Sago or something, shied away from him ever since the Kagura accident. But this girl wasn't moving. She was just staring outside…

"So silver was a luxury for you, eh?"

She sighed before answering. "Yup. And gold, and a lot of other things. I never really paid attention to it though."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean silver is transitory. All luxuries are transitory. It's only valuable because we humans - - which I'm using in a way that includes you Inuyasha, so don't even pick at that point - - its only valuable because we make it so. Yes, it was rare where I came from. But salt was very common, so it wasn't thought to be that important. But there were places called Gujarat and Mali where salt was VERY important because people needed to replenish the salt they had in their bodies. Gujarat and Mali are in the desert, and people sweat a lot and get dehydrated, so they needed a lot of salt. In ancient times on earth, salt was just as valuable as gold… though is gold valuable here?"

"Yeah, it's a luxury here too," Inuyasha replied quickly.

"Okay, well… what I mean to say is that I don't really pay attention to things just because they are 'luxurious'… everything is beautiful in its own way, " She smiled. "And if something is important, it will reveal itself as such, no need for me to covet something as unnecessary as a shiny, malleable metal."

Inuyasha stared at her carefully. Then, for the first time, she looked directly into his eyes, and in the sunset light he realized her eyes weren't brown. Most of her irises were dark brown, but there were several large, flakes of dark, dark blue.

"You're really weird," he eventually said. Kagome dropped her head into her lap, then waving her hand at him.

"Go do Prince stuff, Inuyasha,"

He let out a puff of air, but stood up, stealing another glance at Kagome before turning and heading for the ladder. He walked over, but paused there a moment.

"Hey… thanks, by the way,"

Kagome turned to him, clearly confused.

"For speaking like a normal human. You didn't use demon tongue."

Inuyasha had already hopped up into the ship and slammed the trap door shut before Kagome could scream. "ITS JAPANESE!"


Kagome took hold of her grandfather's wheel chair, bracing herself for the opening of the main entry bay doors. There were several loud clangs, the doors shuttered, and they started rolling up. Kagome peered through the light beyond the doors, her eyes bleary from two more nights without much rest.

For a moment her nightmare was real. People coming at her with one arm above their head, screaming in strange outfits. But then she realized they were microphones, not knives, and they reporters instead of fashionista zombies.

"GIVE US A PICTURE FOR—"

"OUTTA MY WAY YOU DAMN FU—"

"WHATS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT—"

"SHOULD ZABA DO MORE TO—"

"What the hell!" Sango screamed in front of Kagome, pushing the hoard of people off of her. They pushed harder and harder in, knocking Sango to the ground and swallowing Miroku somewhere in the madness. Kagome saw one of them punch another reporter, who then tried to punch the woman back just knock Hanzel squarely in the Jaw.

"Kagome we're in hell," Ms. Higurashi said to her daughter with rising decibel as the reporters came ever closer.

Kagome could hardly understand it. At least the Zabans had some self-restraint! What the hell was wrong with these people! She Sango pop up for a moment when a duo of reporters grabbed her, one grabbing her wrist and twisting it behind her while the other turned on a camera-hat on his head and started yelling questions at her, grabbing her jaw to elicit responses.

"THAT'S IT!" Kagome screamed, not that anyone heard her. "JI-CHAN, HOLD ON TIGHT! MOM, SOTA, GET BEHIND ME!"

With Ms. Higurashi and Sota dodging out of the way of a reporter who had herself chucked over the crowd only to land nose first on the bay ramp, they got behind Kagome who pulled herself back up to the ramp. She took a deep breath in, and screaming at the top of her lungs,

"DUKE TO KUTABARE!"

(***a rough translation would be, "Get out of the mother fucking way and go die")

Only a few reporters had the wherewithal to look up in time to see the bullet-train wheel chair, and the wide-eyed old man upon it, zoom down the ramp and plow into them, knocking over and rolling over some while others flew over the top like water hitting the windshield of a sports car operated by one way too caffeinated man-boy with something to prove. With Kagome cursing at them all with everything she knew in 'demon tongue' she managed to punch the duo reporters abducting Sango while her mother and Sota grabbed Hanzel, and they collectively shoved and steam-rolled their way through the crowd and, once through, bolted down the huge hall of the airport to find the train station connection. As they turned a corner a figure in a red, kimono-military jacket jumped down in front of them.

"D'you forget this?" He asked, plopping a barely conscious Miroku down onto Ji-Chan's lap.

"No! I just-!"

"Don't talk, run!" Sango screamed. The Texa Merican reporters were up and after them.

With Inuyasha leading the way, the troupe ran at full speed and full volume through the complex, running over any man in an obnoxiously huge, leather hat or woman in poofy, pastel dresses that got in their way, the hoard of reporters desperate for THE story on the Aliens arriving in Dulas screaming after them. After Kagome noticed that she had passed the same statue did she realize Inuyasha was leading them in circles, having a ball at the sight.

"DAMMIT INUYASHA, TAKE US TO THE TRAIN STATION!"

"Kagome! Kagome Higurashi, over here!" She heard to her left. Kagome stopped dead when she saw a somewhat trampled looking Kaede motioning her over towards another side hall. A moment later everyone else ran into Kagome and knocked the wind out of her.

"This way to the trains, hurry!" Kaede yelled, turning and hobbling down the hall as fast as she could. Hanzel took over the reins of the train and pushed onwards, with Miroku springing to his feet and getting off the front of the beast.

Kagome watched them run on, picking up Kaede in the wheel chair and screaming as they hurtled down the hall, completely unaware that Kagome couldn't breath or stand, and that the hoard was moments away. Just as she started to be able to make out the reporters' screamed questions she felt herself scooped up by the back of her pants and suddenly she was flying. She opened her eyes and realized she wasn't flying actually, but rather floating in the airtime Inuyasha had as he bounded through the airport with her held carefully in his arms. She tried to wheeze a statement to him, but at that moment he landed and bounded again, and the sudden impact of gravity stole away the little air she'd managed to collect since being squished.

It didn't matter much – in a moment Kagome heard a piercing whizz she used to hear from old videos of trains circa 1950, only this one was right in front of her. After another moment the world was dark and cool, and she heard Inuyasha yell, "Shut the door already!"

CLANG THUD THUD THUD-D-D-D. Kagome could only hear the bodies of numerous reporters slamming into the side of the train, though after a moment she felt unceremoniously dropped to the ground. Sango found her a second later.

"Are you okay Kagome?"

"I… good… air… please…"

Sango helped her to her feet. "You weren't kidding about needing training for reporters, that was horrible! What the hell is wrong with these people, they were like a bunch of barbarians swarming… well, swarming something to kill it!"

"Those… were not… the kind of… reporter… I am used… to…" Kagome managed out, handing the ticket taker her ticket before being hobbled into the entry cabin of the train.

Texa Merican travelers surrounded the 'Aliens' the moment they took their seats.

"Nice to meet ya, I'm-"

"Hey, git outta my way you-"

"Well I guess y'all met our journalists out ther-"

"So why don't you have green skin or third eyes or—"

"ALL OF YOU, BACK. OFF." Sango yelled, standing on top of a table. "Go back to your seats and leave us alone or I will force you to go back to your seats and stay there for a very long time!"

"Uh, miss! Miss! Off o'the table, you can't stand there." A blonde, prim looking train assistant called from the end of the car, shaking her finger at the irate Japanese-Floridian.

"I will stand here and kick your lips off if these people don't figure out to leave us alone!"

"Look here you little—"

"Heheh, she's a fiery one aint—"

It did no good. The prim woman stood at the back of the crowd waving contemptly as the crowd continued to press in around Sango towards the other earthlings. Even the starting kick of train did nothing. From her high perch Sango looked around in confusion, and finally kicked a man in the face to prove her point.

The man cursed and fell back, and there were indignant cries, but after a second people started pushing in even harder, yelling at Sango and at the others. She started kicking and punching wherever she could, but they kept coming again and again.

Inuyasha appeared in the far doorway for a moment, leaped, and he landed next to Sango far too quickly for her interpretation of physics. He leaned down to look into the faces of the people at the front of the crowd, and with a smirk said clearly, "Anatagata wa meiwakudesu."

"DEMON!" some woman screeched. Sango, Kagome, Miroku and the others watched the group of Texa Mericans fly away from them terrified, even two large men who looked like they'd seen long hours in the gym.

Sango looked over at the half-demon. "We need to keep you around us more often."

Inuyasha made a light scoffing noise, hopped off the table, and found a place to sit in the wooden booth across the way from the other aliens.

Kagome began wishing Inuyasha hadn't gotten the aggressively curious Texa Mericans to wet themselves half an hour into the train ride to Polis, as she realized that an eleven-hour train ride was a very different experience than a two day trip in a balloon. At regular three-hour intervals there were chances to buy snacks, but there was no real food. People were not allowed to move between their cabins without official consent, and Kagome soon realized that the prim woman they encountered earlier was the kind to hold a grudge. Eventually she got around to calculating the exact time difference between Polis and Prialata with Miroku; about 8 hours. She also started going over time conversions between Beji and Earth, but after several attempts to equate months to months and days to weeks, each one failing when the duo realized yet ANOTHER iota of time that they measured differently, Kagome gave it up. It was moving from spring into summer in Polis, which according to Miroku was a bit more pronounced than what one would expect on Earth.

Each food break came and went without much enthusiasm in the car. The other passengers were scared to even pass the half demon lest he grabbed them and ate them for his snack (Kagome imagined him snatching them like a frog and had to squelch her laughter), and only Sota had enough energy to have bare a happy smile. Even Hanzel couldn't muster it for the kid. After several hours Kagome got up from her place and started playing pretend with her younger brother, acting as a rocket scientist while we was a space-robot-hero thing which she didn't wholly understand. 'He's almost too old to be able to do this game as well as he used to," Kagome though. 'I can at least try to get it."

That lasted an hour until the last food break, and then Sota's energy burst like a balloon. Kagome worked him through his tired crankiness as the sun set over the many, smoky teal hills of the Ko countryside, draping her arm over his shoulders as she fought sleep in their booth.

Darkness reigned outside the train as Kaede hobbled down the main aisle, the glum flicker of ancient incandescent bulbs above her head acting as her only light. She said down in the same booth as Ms. Higurashi, and gave a wrinkled smile.

"How arr yu?" Ms. Higurashi pushed out of her tired lips.

Kaede smiled with more force and nodded again. Ms. Higurashi smiled politely in return, and looked back out the window. "Is storm?"

"Yes, that is a storm," Kaede replied, though she then looked down at the table.

"^^ It must be hard for you to learn a new way of talking."

Ms. Higurashi snapped her eyes on Kaede's as her mouth dropped. "You know Japanese! This entire time!"

"Oh, well, it is called Demon tongue, and I know enough. There was once a time that I had to talk with demons regularly, so I was given royal permission to learn the peasant form of the language."

Ms. Higurashi smiled. "I see… what you are speaking right now is known as the most informal form of Japanese… but I am glad that I can talk to you… You're name is Kaede, correct?"

"Yes, I am. And you are Kagome's mother, but she never told me your name."

"I am Miwa, Kaede," Ms. Higurashi replied. She gave a small head bob towards the older woman, and then carefully set her hands on the splintery, wooden table before them.

"It looks like there is something on your mind, Miwa. I assure you that we are very close to Polis now, and we have made all the necessary arrangements for you to start finding a new life there."

Miwa continued to look at her hands. "Thank you… though that is not what is on my mind."

"So then, what is?"

"…how do you know the man with white hair? The Half-demon?"

Kaede leaned back in her bench. "How do I know Inuyasha… well that is quite a story indeed. Let's suffice it to say that many years ago I knew Inuyasha's mother. She was a prodigy Daughter at the Mother's Compound in Polis. After she gave birth to him, she was determined to ensure that he gained his education in the Mother's schools instead of the demon Emprists, so she sent for me and I became his teacher up until her death."

Miwa nodded once, noting that the young man they spoke of was in the farthest corner of the car, arms crossed and somewhere between awake and sleep. "He seems like he has had a very rough life."

Kaede raised her eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"

Miwa sighed. "His eyes, and how he carries himself. He is like Kagome. They walk very lightly, very quietly. I expect they both learned that when they were young so that someone violent in their lives' didn't hear them walking around… Kagome's father was certainly… like that."

Kaede frowned. "Do you feel comfortable telling me the history you and your daughter have faced?"

Miwa held back for a little bit, but eventually she shared with Kaede her decision to marry during college, and how soon she realized her mistake. She thought that maybe children would make Tokoku, her husband, calm his temper and his ambitions, maybe turn him back into the gentleman he had been when they had first met. But it soon became clear that he was not going to change, and that he started yelling and beating her and the children, though Sota was spared for the most part as he was a son. But ironically that stubborn, strong nature was given to Kagome, who started fighting back in early adolescence, and became the family's guard against Miwa's husband. By the time he left for Beji, Ms. Higurashi hadn't even spoken with him for a year, and was almost brave enough to send divorce papers head of her instead of going along with his colonization plan.
"But… I couldn't do it," Miwa said softly, staring out the window sadly. "I wish I had my daughter's will sometimes… But, you see, for the time I was in college I studied environmental sciences. I knew that Earth was dying. I knew that Japan was going to be flooded in ten years if we stayed, as would many other places on Earth. So Kagome and I decided that we would take our chances here on Ibeji - - oh, I mean Beji, I haven't gotten used to that name yet."

Kaede nodded very slowly. "…I believe you are more courageous than you are aware of, Ms. Miwa."

Ms. Higurashi expressed slight shock on her face, but it smoothed into a kind smile. "Thank you Kaede, though… Kagome deserves most of the praise. Like I said, she grew up so quickly to take on the roles neither I or my husband could take on. And you can see the weight of that responsibility in her eyes… she is aging so fast. It's all I can do to get her to stop thinking about long-term goals and start thinking about herself. The short, the medium, and the long-term thinking… is all important. … I wish I had done things differently with her, and with Sota, but I was always so dependent on Takoku for money… how could I leave him and let them starve? And how could I take them away from their family?"

"You don't have to explain to me, Miwa, life is complicated, and what is Morally right has to be balanced by what is possible, what is practical…," Kaede replied. "With your husband at least you had a home, money, and solitude for the most part. If you left him, you would have completely removed him from the situation, but you would have taken everything else from your kids and yourself. It would have been a proud act, and a foolish one."

"…thank you for saying… that. Sometimes I think Kagome blames me for everything that happened to us - -"

"We don't know for certain what anyone is thinking, but from what I've caught on to she makes an extra effort to think deeply about what makes people act. Don't worry about that."

Miwa Higurashi shrugged with a light lift of an eyebrow. "That she does. I don't know how, but she does…"

Kaede remained quiet, smiling gently as she looked out the dark window.

"Kaede, I think that boy and my daughter have some kind of shared future together. Don't ask me how I know this, but I feel that kitsune have tied their paths together somehow."

Kaede looked at Ms. Higurashi openly. "Kitsune?"

Ms. Higurashi nodded. "They are fox spirits from our homeland. They are… they are many things. But one thing they do is they serve as messages for Inari, and act on Inari's behalf to see that the… that the fabric of society stays properly woven together. And I think she has woven that boy with the white hair into my daughter's life."

Kaede nodded once and turned her attention back to the outside. "The daughters of water would say that their lives' rivers are dancing towards confluence."

Miwa blinked. "Are you sure you only learned 'peasant' Japanese? That was a very sophisticated sentence."

Kaede laughed wheezily. "Oh, I learned a lot from Inuyasha that the other's wouldn't teach me, hahaha!"

Thunder rumbled once beyond the train, and then again, and twice more following.

"Oh dear, a storm…" Miwa said, looking over to see Kagome beginning to rouse from the sound.

"Polis has many storms, but… have you ever heard of Luanda grasses?" Kaede asked.

"No, not at all."

"They are… actually, wake your daughter and son, and your father in law if you can. You should see this, we are only a little while outside of the city. Bring them to the window."

Miwa Higurashi got up and gripped her daughter's hand, waking her immediately. Kagome carried Sota with her over to the windows Kaede had pointed to, and she noticed that some of the few other passengers who had managed to stay awake this late were doing the same. "What are we watching mom?"

"Something about grasses, I've been told."

Lightning struck a treeless hill in the distance, only seen as a silhouette lit by the electricity's radiance. The world outside the train returned to darkness, but slowly Kagome saw light coming from the hill. Then all at once there was a burst of crimson red and violet and white, a swirl, geometric tessellation, bursting out from the lightning's point of impact. It danced and fizzled and set off small, gray fireworks at its edges, and then died into the darkness.

"What in the world was that! Sota, did you see it?"

"Those," Kaede said clearly from the booth right next to the Higurashi's. "Is Luanda grass. It was transplanted from the Luanda mountains to Polis centuries ago, and it grows all over this region of Ko. Something about the ground here and the structure of the plants makes them light up and dance when they're hit by lightning."

Another flash, a earth shattering boom, and Kagome saw they were passing next to a mountain. A moment later lemon and lime light surged down the slope to the train tracks and down the other side of the train - - she and her family ran over to the other side to watch it swirl out and fizzle. Another struck a distant mountain, and Kagome could just make out a design of deep, deep blue race across cliffside. Another hit a hill they were passing, and the train moved out of the right angle for them to see the design.

"This is an amazing way to see the city for the first time," Kaede said, beckoning the Higurashi's back to the other side of the train car. "I cannot imagine a better night to see Polis for the first time. It's almost here… just a few more moments… aaand… welcome to Polis, all of you."

Sango and Hanzel were jerked awake when a bolt of lightning struck a bridge only a milometer away from the train. It was a huge, stone arch with smaller arches in its side, looking like a mix of brick and steel. Golden light shimmered down metal rods on its sides as it soaked up the energy of the strike, illuminating the train's entrance into the city.

Kagome felt her mouth smile. Tears formed in her eyes and she took her mother's hand. "Oh mama… look at it…"

Three rivers flowed into one, huge lake where the water gathered before descending a cascade of rapids to some other part of the country. Ringing the dark lake were tall buildings, glittering brighter than a new box of crayons, illuminated by the bursts of colors of the storm around them. Rain smacked against the window a few times, and suddenly it was a deluge.

"Oh this is wonderful!" Kaede called out above the roar. Sango and Hanzel pressed up against the window next to her.

"What? What is it?" Hanzel asked her without taking his eyes off the spectacle.

"Just wait a moment, any time now- - -oh! There, look, that strike in those hills!"

The others saw lightning hit the hills behind the city on the opposite side of the lake. Right as color started to form in the Luanda grasses rain and wind hit the area, and suddenly the light was travelling, like a painted spirit racing along the hills. It took on other colors, reds and blues, which swirled around the living firework like moons. After a few moments it slowed and faded, but by that time four others had taken its place, and as the train slowed to a stop at a local Polis station the hills were dancing with colors.

"This is amazing!" Sango cried out, putting her hand on Miroku's shoulder so she could get a better view. He glanced up at her once, blushed, and turned back to the show. Kagome stood next to her mother sobbing.

"We did it mama… we found a better place…" she choked out softly.


Authors's notes:

It'd be easy, I said to myself. Just some character development scenes, I said… the fuck was I thinking?

So… I am living and working in South America now! With classes from 9:30 until 6:00 each day (sometimes I am the student and sometimes I am the teacher), finding enough time to get all of my work done and write this has been… straining. But I did it! I finally did it! I've finished this behemoth of a chapter at 3:00 am after writing two essays, but I did it!... Can I sleep now? Please?

Also, just gotta say I love your guys comments. It makes me want to write all the more when you all/y'all respond so awesomely. Thanks so much for the reinforcement! ^_^

(And you have no idea how much I've been wanting to write that last scene)