Disclaimer: I don't own Inu Yasha. And now, on with the story ; )

I know what you are

The door opened and Kagome and Kirara peeked into a dark corridor and she immediately knew dressing up in formal clothing had been a total waist. The air was stall and Kagome had to strangle a sneeze in disgust when she entered. "Alright Kirara, show me the way but please don't let me loose the sight of you, I don't see as well in the dark as you and Inu Yasha do."

Kirara nodded and mewed softly while Kagome closed the door, making it even darker.

"It's so dark in here, why can't people have descent lighting, we left the medieval ages for a reason!" Kagome snorted.

Kirara shot her a glare before she began leading her towards what turned out to be the staircase. The doors they passed were all closed and didn't seem to be in use, the only window in this corridor was also barricaded, letting in only enough light to make the world black and grey. From the bottom of the staircase, Kagome looked upwards and tried to listen for any sort of noise or voices that could betray the presence of others. The only thing that greeted them however, was eerie silence. Kirara began jumping up the stairs, Kagome took a last glance behind herself before she followed. Although one could hardly say Kagome was girl who afraid of the dark, she couldn't shake off the feeling that something in this building wished to be unseen.

They crept slowly upwards and Kagome froze each time the stairs creaked under her shoes. The feeling of something not quite right increased the higher up they went. Kirara took her past the second and third floor and, Kagome allowed herself a quick glance into each of them to reassure herself that nobody was there, the same went for the fourth floor but now Kirara also seemed to be on high alert. The air that had already been bad downstairs was downright foul up here, something was definitive rotten, if not decaying, but was it just the house itself or something else? At the sixth floor, Kirara stared hard into the corridor, her ears twitched intensely as she tried to listen for something. Kagome listened too, but eventually the nekomata stopped and took her up yet another floor. This time however, Kirara left the staircase and stepped into the corridor after she had been listening. She then went from door to door, pushing an ear on each of them to listen before she finally stopped at the last one and gave Kagome a sign to follow. Kagome walked over and pressed her own ear against the door.

"Somebody is weeping," she whispered. "Is it Kentaro?"

"Mew" Kirara purred softly and pushed her paw against the door.

Kagome took the cue and tried to open it, "It is locked," she whispered. "I think I will try the same trick again to open it. If it worked once, it will work twice!" She put her hands on the lock. It opened with a soft click about two seconds later.

"Hello," she said and peeked inside, "Kentaro, are you there?"

The silent weeping stopped abruptly when Kagome caught eye of the child lying on the bed. "It is me, Kagome. We met a little while ago when Kirara took for a flight over Tokyo, do you remember?"

"Kagome?" the boy said and looked up at her. "Kitty was gone when I woke up, did she leave to find you?"

"Yes, she did," Kagome smiled, walked inside and closed the door. Kirara rushed over to the bed and jumped onto Kentaro's lap while he tried to push himself to sit up. Kagome followed suit and sat down on the bed beside him.

"Kentaro," she began softly and let her hand gently sweep over his cheek. "You aren't hurt are you?"

"No," Kentaro sniffed and wiped his tears. "I am fine, but scared. I want home to mom and dad."

Kagome gave him a motherly smile and wrapped her arm around him, "Don't worry, Kirara and I will get you safe home, but how did you end up her? Did someone kidnap you?"

"I was outside, sitting in the garden. Mom and dad was inside to prepare dinner together when an ugly man suddenly stood behind me. He pulled a sack over my head and put a hand over my mouth so I almost couldn't breathe, and then he put me into a car and took me here. It was yesterday. Do mom and dad know I am gone, or are they looking for me?"

Kagome looked softly at him, "Sadly, I don't know, but I am sure they are worried and are looking everywhere right now. It was Kirara who came to warn me, and I came as fast as I could. Do you have any idea of why someone would kidnap you?"

"When I came here, I still couldn't see anything because of the sack, but the bully who took me met someone else. They were talking, but the other person who talked, spoke to me and said that I wasn't allowed to scream or say anything, and they would return me if dad did as they said."

"And what did they want your dad to do?" Kagome asked.

"I don't know, they didn't say that, but he is a judge and meet a lot of important people I believe. Maybe he want something from them?"

Her eyebrows shot up when she heard this, "Your father is a judge," she said as her thought raced. "Do you happened to know about any of the cases he's got now?"

"No, I am sorry, dad never speaks about his job, he is saying it is confiba… conforb, eh comfortable."

"Confidential," Kagome corrected. "Your dad's work is confidential so he isn't allowed to speak about it, that's what he meant. Listen here Kentaro, I think I know what's going on. You see that a little while ago, a friend of mine was almost attacked by three bad guys but Kirara protected her so she got away, and not long after that they were caught. Now she is going to stand witness against them in court and I strongly suspect that those who took you also have a connection to those guys. And they want to use you to press your dad to let them free. It must be him who is the judge."

"Hhmm, does that mean those who did this will get away with it?" Kentaro asked.

"Don't worry, Kirara and I will take you back to him and he will put them and those who did this to you in jail. How does that sound?"

Kentaro squirmed and hugged her. "Come, let us get out of her," Kagome whispered into his ear. She got out of the bed, lifted him up to hold him in her arms and walked to the door. She opened the door carefully, stepped into the corridor and turned around to close the door.

"Hello!" a silent but creepy voice said and Kagome spun around.

Suddenly, standing in the middle of the corridor stood a man. Both Kagome and Kirara had been so busy with Kentaro that they hadn't sensed him approach and linger outside the door.

The man before them was tall and clad in old-fashioned black clothes, his head was almost bald, what little hair he had left was white and under his nose sat a long, thin mustache. His skin was pale, bordering to grey, something Kagome was sure had nothing to do with the poor lighting. In fact, the only thing of any color Kagome could see on him was his thin red lips.

"Who are you?" Kagome said with a stern voice and took a cautious step backwards. The smell of decay amplified and filled her skin with goosebumps, this was no ordinary man, but she could sense he wasn't a demon either, yet he had an air of deadly elegance around him. "Or should I say; What are you?"

The grey man stood still like a statue and stared scrutinizing at her with his sharp, sticking eyes. And for a moment Kagome could swear he was going to melt together with the shadows that surrounded him.

Time stood still as they both stared at each other like this, Kagome felt herself unable to tear her eyes away from him while Kentaro held hard onto her, too afraid to say anything at all. Only Kirara made a loud hissing noise from the floor beside her. Abruptly he took a step closer to them and the floor creaked. Kagome took also a step; backwards, further into the corridor. She felt a sense of dread fall over her as he kept on smiling, unnerved by her last statemen. Instead his thin lips stretched even thinner, giving her a glimpse of two sharp and pearly white teeth. "Who are you, what are you and what do you want!" Kagome demanded sharply.

"An interesting question, most people who see me ask your first and third question, not the second. Then again, most people unfortunately doesn't stay around long enough to realize they should have asked that first… and you seem, despite your fierce attitude like a sweet an innocent girl, I like those. Perhaps I should humble myself into telling you?" he said with a slick voice.

Kirara had enough, she hissed and jumped in between Kagome and the foul creature. Nobody would harm anyone under her protection. She was about to start her transformation but before she even got time, the man lunged out at her, kicking the nekomata right into the wall. She hit it hard and fell down to the floor, hearing the priestess cry out for her in worry. Kirara didn't even got time to get herself back on her feet before yet another strong and painful kick almost left her unconscious.

"Foolish of you thinking that keeping a puny demon cat around can keep you safe. I am far more than a wild demon," he smirked coldly.

Mustering her willpower, Kirara opened her eyes again as Kagome shouted, "Stop that!" But the deathly pale man moved past them with inhuman speed, picked her up in his hand and threw her with great force back into the room they just had left. Kirara flew through the air, smashed the barricade on the window and continued outside. She mewed in agony from the impact and all sense of time and place suddenly became lost to her. All she knew was that seconds later she crashed into something new, adding more pain to her opening cuts and wounds. What happened next was lost for her.

"Noo, Kirara!" Kagome yelled as she saw her feline friend being thrown through the window and collide with the building on the other side. The sound of breaking windows from the neighboring building was soon followed by the dump crash when the wooden barricade Kirara had been thrown through, hit the ground seven stories below. "Why did you do that?" Kagome shouted angry, forgetting about her nervousness.

Making him turn his attention back to her was probably not the right thing to do because he span around, grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up from the floor, pinching his sharp nails into her skin. "So you thought you were brave coming her to rescue the little boy, how stupid. No one cross my territory and leave alive without my permission," he hissed and made a jerking motion to throw her. Kagome acted fast and at the same moment he extended his arm, she dropped Kentaro down before she herself was sent crashing through a door on the opposite wall. The wooden construction splintered in a thousand pieces and tore up her clothes, leaving her body with gashes and wounds as she brutally hit the floor. Fortunately, she had experienced a lot of beatings in the feudal era by now and had learned how to suppress many sorts of pain in order to fight and survive.

"Aaaarrghh" she gasped while white hot pain shot through her. Kagome opened her eyes and shook her head, realizing she now lay on the floor in another room. But before she could manage to get back on her feet, the mysterious man suddenly stood bended over her with his terrifying grin.

It was with a sore whisper Kagome addressed him again.

"I know what you are…"

Yet another chapter done and I really hope you will come back next week as well to see what happens. Please leave a review also and tell me what you think, constructive critic and comments are highly inspiring you know^^. And by the way, have anyone of you figured out what sort of creature Kagome has met?