Sesshoumaru sat in a quiet corner of the fortress grounds, two swords laid out on the grass. By thinking of Kagome, Bakusaiga came free easily and without an attacking demon, so for the first time, he was looking at both blades with his brother's ghost looking on curiously.
He didn't know what the name of the other blade was, or even if it had another name. Based on Toutousai's warning, the timing, and the fact it was exactly like Bakusaiga in appearance, he knew this had to be the dark half.
Like Bakusaiga, the blade had a number of unreadable characters on it. Considering that no one seemed to know anything about either sword, those words were the only real clues that existed and they were completely illegible.
"When you go inside of Bakusaiga, what is there?" Sesshoumaru asked.
Inuyasha shrugged. "I think I'm not actually going inside of the sword. I'm going to a place. It's strange."
"What is there?"
"Not a lot that I've found, but I have run into other things that make me think that Naraku was involved with darker stuff before and we didn't know about it. You know he cursed the monk with some ancient dark magic that made the wind tunnel. Where I go, there are Saimyosho nests and I've met demons he sucked into his wind tunnel," Inuyasha explained.
Sesshoumaru listened to Inuyasha's description of the strange world he went to and had little to say other than, "Huh."
Inuyasha continued, saying, "How does a person go from being a piece of shit thief to being what Naraku was? He gained access to some sort of very dark magic, and that must have been what he used against me."
Inuyasha's thoughts started a process in Sesshoumaru's mind, and the taiyoukai tried to come to some sort of understanding as to when Naraku went from being a thief to being an epic villain. If there was some sort of dark source behind Naraku's powers, they played the game so well not even Sesshoumaru had been clued in to something being behind Naraku. The demon puppets, the wind tunnel, the addition and subtraction of incarnations, and Naraku's barriers were not small time sorcery.
"Onigumo's associates will all be dead by now if he was running only with human criminals," Sesshoumaru said.
Sesshoumaru knew Onigumo was thrown off a cliff in Edo after his attempted murder, which meant he was probably a criminal local to that area. If any of his guards would have a first-hand account of his thievery ring, they would have been the ones that patrolled Edo, which massacred each other so recently.
Sesshoumaru sheathed the sword when they were done talking and entered the massive underground complex inside of the mountain. Navigating familiar pathways and climbing down staircases, he eventually came to a huge room that was several stories tall inside and made up completely of scrolls and string-bound books.
Inside was the most complete and in-depth history of Japan that had ever existed. Everything was documented, going back for centuries. As a teenager, he found an ancient scroll that detailed the discovery of peculiar new mortal creature with the ability to speak and learn. The rise of humanity was recorded, every accomplishment and failure present.
When he realized how monumental of a task he had ahead of him, he enlisted a few trustworthy people to assist him in digging up information in the mountain of information related to the decade before Naraku's 'birth.'
A full twelve hours later, Sango, Miroku, Rin, Kohaku, Kagome, Kin, Gin, Ren, Kyo, and Sesshoumaru were all picking through the papers and scrolls, looking for any information about Onigumo. Considering that they didn't even know his family name, the task was monstrous.
Rin, now an adult, came to a point where the stack of papers she was supposed to scan through actually blocked her from seeing across the table where they were all sitting, and protested. "I think it's bad for pregnant women to be…bored."
"Is that bad for the baby?" Kohaku asked in panic.
"It would be unfortunate if she died from boredom before the baby came," Kagome answered in agreement.
Sango and Miroku chimed in with their own words, and Sesshoumaru glared down the table and realized with much amusement that the humans were on one end of the table, and the demons were on the other. Kyo was right between the two.
"It does not surprise me that the human half of this table is complaining," he said.
Everyone suddenly noticed the layout of the table and Kyo suddenly felt very embarrassed. "I only sat here so I can catch Ren-sama off guard."
"I don't get your obsession with attacking her. She's an adult, you should be more respect, Kyo," Miroku said, ready to lecture the boy.
Kyo slammed his palms down and said, "It's personal!"
"Be quiet and go back to work," Sesshoumaru ordered.
Kagome went back to her pile of scrolls and was thumbing over a list of thieves suspected in the kidnapping of a warlord's daughter when her finger slipped over the magic word. She screamed a little and jumped up, slapping at the scroll.
"I have something! Hayashi Onigumo. Someone broke into a warlord's house and stole a bunch of items, and then took his daughter. His is the only name listed. It says next to his name that he and a pack of thieves stayed in the warlord's area for almost a month, supposedly planning it. The name they used at the inn where they stayed was Hayashi Onigumo. The only reason this was even reported was they skipped out on their bill," Kagome said.
Kin got up and went to a shelf and took a long scroll. "The Hayashi clan is pure trash. They run a whore house in my area, which is just north of where this Onigumo was last seen alive. Thievery is a popular career choice for the sons of whores."
"It could be a different Onigumo. We need to find something that says we've found the right one," Miroku said.
More curious than some of the others, Kagome walked to the other side of the table and sat in the tiny space between Kin and Gin, scooting closer to Gin since she knew him better. Gin blushed immediately, but Kagome was busy looking at Kin's book.
Kagome flipped the page for him and read a series of names, fingers thumbing over the page of a clan's history. "There's a name on this page that's been marked out, like it brought too much shame even to this family. What can a person do that's so bad his prostitute family is ashamed?"
Kin pointed to one name and said, "This one is marked as a mass murder, and the only thing I can think of that shames a family more than that is extreme sexual deviance. Any sexual deviants linked to your Onigumo?"
Kagome flipped the page over and tore it free from the string bindings to hold it up to the lamp. Under the ink blot, the imprint of the original writing was still readable. "It says Hayashi Jakotsu. Jakotsu is Onigumo's nephew. Cousin. Something. I don't know how to read these."
"Nephew," Gin said, leaning in toward her to read the page.
"That links Onigumo to the Shichinintai, but they were assassins, not thieves," Sesshoumaru answered.
Sango thought for awhile and said, "They were very supernaturally powered though, and we don't know where they got their powers. Inuyasha said Jakotsu told him he and Bankotsu were like the founding members. Maybe Naraku gave them whatever they got a boost from."
"The Shichinintai consumed demon flesh. They primarily worked in my territory, assassinating minor lords, decimating armies. Humans that eat demon flesh get a certain scent about them. It was unmistakable on them," Ren said.
Sesshoumaru started to write on a blank piece of bamboo paper, trying to piece together pieces of information.
The fact that humans were mortal was far too inconvenient. It was as if the entire human world that existed when Onigumo did was gone. All that was left was the paper trail that proved they existed in the first place.
There was a huge gap in the information they had, and he was starting to feel discouraged that they would find it at all.
Onigumo-?-Naraku
He continued scribbling down details about what they knew, but the critical link was somewhere between Onigumo and Naraku.
After another hour, Rin rubbed her belly. "I think I'm going into labor."
"Women who go into labor do so because their body secretes a chemical half of the people in this room would smell," Sesshoumaru said as she let out a dejected sigh. "Go rest."
Kagome tapped her fingers on the table and groaned. "So all I have to do to get out of here is get pregnant?"
She looked up to find everyone staring at her strangely, including her son.
Kyo too sighed sadly and turned back to the papers.
Gin leaned over and whispered in Kagome's ear, "I think I can help you out with that."
Sesshoumaru suddenly heard a strange noise and turned to see Kyo had knocked Gin over and punched him in the face. Inuyasha's son had gotten along very well with Gin and Kin up until that moment, but Kyo looked absolutely irate at Gin for his comment.
"You don't talk to my mother that way!" he shouted.
Kagome stepped over Gin. "Calm down. Everything is okay."
Expression darkening, Kyo said, "If my father was alive. He'd kill you. We won't be staying with you anymore. Sesshoumaru-sama wouldn't want my mother to be disrespected either, would you?"
Miroku moved in with his trademark suave and tried to talk the situation down, but Kyo was angry that he'd just heard a man he trusted imply he'd fuck his mother in a room full of people that could hear.
Sesshoumaru just leaned forward to rest his head on his hands, wondering how the situation had blown up so quickly. Kyo was incredibly upset about what had happened, and Sesshoumaru wasn't sure if that was because of what had been said or what was said implied his mother would be moving on to someone else. He hadn't considered how a new mate for Kagome would affect Kyo, and listening to the chaos that disrupted the afternoon, he realized it was a critical detail.
The situation deteriorated further when Kagome continued to try to calm Kyo down.
"It's not a big deal. It was just a joke," Kagome said.
Kyo bit back with, "Do you like what he said? Is that what you want? Dad's only been dead for four months! You know how he would feel about this!"
"I would never disrespect your mother. I have the purest of intentions where she is concerned," Gin said.
A strange truth came to Kyo at that moment, and he digested some critical information that his senses provided to him. "You are lying. I can smell it!"
Ren stood and grabbed him by the collar. "I'm going to take puppy for a walk. You all stay here and have awkward conversation."
Kagome started to go after them, but Sango stopped her. "You should stay until he calms down."
"You can all go. We'll start to work tomorrow," Sesshoumaru said.
Everyone left except Kagome, Gin, and Sesshoumaru, who pretended to focus on the work at hand while Kagome tore into him about Kyo's unexpected detection of his less-than-pure intentions. Gin never said a word about the deal, but the damage was done and there was no way Kagome would ever trust him or even try to with Kyo so angry. At that point, Gin's refusal to talk about how duplicitous his intentions actually were only protected Sesshoumaru.
After profuse apologies and a promise to make alternate lodging accommodations for Kagome and Kyo, Gin walked out and left Kagome and Sesshoumaru alone. Kagome promptly sat down at the desk and started bawling her eyes out.
Sesshoumaru worked until the papers that served as a wall between them shrunk to the point that he could see her, and found his handiwork was ugly. She was resting her head on the table, a numb look in her eyes.
"I'm a traitor," she whispered.
