A/N: Thanks again for the reviews everyone and as I promised Im posting today after posting three chapters yesterday! Phew! Anyway, please review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any of William Gibson's ideas!
Chapter 8: Entering the Feudal Web
The gang all walked together to the large room where the game set up was after breakfast next Friday. Kagome took a sick day so that they could complete the finishing touches on the game and finally enter. Miroku walked around the room slowly looking at the console that Lain will man when they enter Feudal Web. Lain wasn't really a fighter and was good with computers so she would be the go between. The room looked like a mini NASA station room. There in the center of the room were four beds facing away from each other in the shape of a red cross. Above the beds, hanging suspended, were mysterious thin rectangular metal machines that were like upside down boxes. The insides of the boxes looked like matrix grids.
Inuyasha and Sango inspected these machines while Lain went to a large computer monitor and pressed the power button on the CPU next to it she pressed a button on a box and a projection appeared on the opposite wall of what was on the monitor.
Kagome was no where to be seen, and this left Lain to start the explaining. Lain opened a program on the desktop of the computer and suddenly a window appeared with four figures slowly revolving in separate boxes and beneath them were options for what to do with the figures. They looked 3D and had the matrix grid look while they spinned in their boxes.
Upon closer look they found that the figures looked alarmingly like Inuyasha, Kagome, Sango, and Miroku. They weren't clothed so the grid look they had hid their…essentials. Lain turned to the other three who leaned against anything close to them being mindful of buttons.
"The first step me and Kagome had to do to create your characters was to get a scan of you bodies, it is possible to skip the step but if we did we would have to go by the way you see yourselves in your mind and with Inuyasha he might end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger." Said Lain shooting an angry Inuyasha a sarcastic smile. Miroku and Sango snorted back laughter.
"Oi, shut up!" Inuyasha growled. Lain's face went back to being impassive and she turned back to the monitor.
"We then used the pictures we took of you to complete your standard characters." Lain pressed a button and the figures appeared normal and solid, they also had plain white underwear on to hide anything that was inappropriate; the girls had bras and panties and the guys had boxes. The figures looked exactly like their corresponding real life people. Miroku grinned a perverted grin at Sango who blushed and sent a death glare at him. Lain pressed another button and they appeared in clothes. "Kagome did some altercations on your characters from this point on so she will have to explain."
"Where is the wench?" asked Inuyasha and he was promptly hit in the back of the head by a shoe. Inuyasha scowled and looked around for his attacker. He noticed Sango and Miroku looking up and he did too to see Kagome up on the rafters of the gym like room. She stood on the walk way and glared down at him, she wasn't directly beneath him and if she was they could all see up her uniform skirt. Of course Miroku realized that and slowly began to sidle over to the spot beneath the rafter but Inuyasha took hold of his collar and growled.
"Hold it right there Monk!" Miroku laughed nervously and quickly ran to hide behind Lain, because Sango also didn't look pleased.
"I'll be down in a minute guys and I better get my shoe back Inuyasha! No chewing on it!" Kagome giggled and headed along the rafters to a door. Inuyasha trained his glare at her.
"Keh! Im not a dog! Im a dog DEMON!"
"Half!" Lain spoke up not wanting to feel left out of the teasing fest.
Inuyasha hmphed and leaned against a console. Kagome suddenly appeared walking awkwardly without her other shoe so she picked it up and put it on. She then walked up to the monitor and moved the pointer to press another button.
While the characters all began to do different fighting moves over and over Kagome turned to the others. "The Lo Techs have created a machine that will read your brainwaves and take what you 'imagine' and make your character in the game do it as long as it is within the realm of your physical abilities, so you cant imagine yourself flying and make your character do it. After watching you three train I was able to adjust your characters so fighting comes natural and is flowing. All also worried that that might not be enough of an advantage so with some twisting of rules here and there I was able to add some things to your characters." She pressed another button and Sango appeared as the only one on the screen she was in the special fighting outfit she trained in. It was an outfit that was recreated from her ancestors, who were demon slayers.
She also had her weapon Hiraikotsu and was doing a bunch of moves with it that were like what she did in training. "Sango…along with your specialty weapon I gave you a katana, poison powder, and a mask to keep from breathing it in. I also didn't think that would be enough so I also created a companion for you, Kirara." On the screen a tiny little kitten appeared with black markings and two tails. She then transformed in a swirl of flames into a ferocious saber tooth tiger like cat. Everyone looked impressed by the additional member of their team.
Kagome pressed another button and Miroku appeared alone on the screen. He was dressed in blue monk robes and had a staff. "Miroku, I was able to simulate your spiritual powers but I thought you might need a weapon so I got you a staff to channel power into. I also thought you needed a powerful weapon to kill many enemies at once so I put in your characters right hand a wind tunnel. It is a dangerous weapon so be careful and don't remove the prayer beads unless you plan on using it." The Miroku on the screen showed them the use of the wind tunnel and the real Miroku looked intrigued.
Kagome moved the cursor again and pressed a button under Inuyasha's character. He appeared in a simple red kimono. Inuyasha's character of course was him in his half demon form. "Inuyasha, don't let this go to your head but youre a really good fighter." Inuyasha looked proud of himself and everyone rolled their eyes at him. "so I thought it would be a good idea to give you protection. Your haori is made of the fur of a fire rat in the game and it is very good at protecting the wear just like in real life. I was also able to make your character so the strange named attacks you do, and I gave you a weapon. There was a powerful demon in legend in the game and he died so I took that demon's fang and had the game make a powerful sword called Tetsuiaga. It will transform from a wimpy rusty sword to a huge fang. Im not sure what else it can do so you'll just have to figure that out." Said Kagome. The Inuyasha on the screen drew the sword and did some slashes with it.
"Wow this is amazing! She's are such a great help, isn't she Inuyasha?" said Miroku looking at Inuyasha who glared at him and shrugged. Miroku smiled secretively and looked back to Kagome. "Now what does your character do?"
"My character…" she clicked another button and Kagome's character appeared on the wall. She wore simple priestess garbs for priestesses trained to fight in Feudal times. She had an bow in hand and a quiver of arrows on her back. Her character didn't do any martial arts moves like the other's did for their standard fighting and simply shot arrows. "My character has the standard powers of a priestess and I had it scan my power levels, but since Im not trained yet my powers are limited. I can shoot purifying arrows and can purify tainted auras. I can also sense the shards. My clothes don't really fit the time the game is set in, more like a little in the future, I did that because it would be easier to run in the hakamas of that time (A/N: She's talking about the miko garbs of the time in Fushigi Yugi. Ill describe her clothes better next chapter I promise.)." finished Kagome and her character disappeared off the screen.
"So is everything ready for our first time into the game?" asked Sango.
"Yes, we need to go over some things first. The game is set up so that there is an automatic default system for getting out of the game, you set a time table before going in and if the go between doesn't take you out before that time you automatically come back no matter where you are. The go between can extend the time if they want, but there is no telling where we will end up in the game and we need to find each other before we leave so we can set a team. If we are pulled out of the game before we meet each other in it when we go back in we might end up where we started before. Once we come together Lain will send us the object. She knows what to do." Said Kagome.
Kagome went to a computer off to the side and it was one of her computer monitors from her original computer she did something and soon something was printed out on a near by printer. She held it up for them to all see. "This is the email I got from my friend Shiori last week."
She read to them:
To:HottMikoGrl16
Subject: I found the guy your looking for! The one collecting the shards!
Kagome,
I went into the game again! Sorry! Well I found him! His character's name is Naraku. From the rumors he's a demon but no one knows what kind. He is very powerful and has followers. He also has been going around and killing other players! He tried to kill me because he found out I had a jewel shard. If you ARE coming into the game then you can find me in Akemi Village. I will gladly give you a safe place to hide your object!
Bye! Shiori
They all had serious looks on their faces and looked down at the floor. "So…" Miroku said, breaking the silence. "Are we still doing this?" The others looked at him and with weak smiles they nodded. With everything agreed upon Lain went to the console and the other four went to lay on the beds in the center of the room. When they all were laying down relaxed Lain began to press buttons and the suspended machines lowered so that the rim of the box like things was just above them. The insides of the boxes began to glow and scanners fell on them and moved up and down their bodies.
Inuyasha laid on the bed with his eyes closed and felt the closeness of the machine. Suddenly he felt like he was suspended and away from his body. He imagined opening his eyes and found him self to be in a endless world with no horizon and he floated their with lights shooting up from whatever was beneath him. The lights suddenly stopped and all went black……he then, could hear birds.