Disclaimer: you know the drill, i don't own anything.
Chapter Nine: A HUGE Mistake
As night drew ever closer, a figure sat in a tree outside an open bedroom window, waiting for his moment to strike. He had just seen the love of his life wake-up from a seemingly endless sleep after he managed to track her scent all over the place to this very house. He watched her talk with her friends before falling back asleep as her friends left the room, then waking up a few minutes later to open the window to get some fresh air into the room before going back to sleep. After what seemed like ages, the other inhabitants of the house finally went to sleep and, smirking to himself, he quietly slipped through the open window and into the room to stand beside the bed in which his love lay sleeping. Sniffing around, he realized that everything here smelled different than what he was expecting. Shrugging it off as being the product of a slight cold and the innumerable amount of smells in this place, he gently picked the girl up out of the bed and walked back over to the window. Making sure his love didn't awake, he readjusted his hold on her, jumped out the window, and disappeared, with the girl, into the night.
"Sakura," Kagome called, knocking on her cousin's bedroom door, it was almost time for school and Sakura still had not surfaced, she was usually the first one up. Even though Kagome's grandfather had made excuses for them, Kagome decided that Sakura shouldn't miss too much school. "It's almost nine, are you still asleep?" When no answer came, Kagome decided that she would have to wake her cousin by force. "Sakura, I'm coming in," as she said this, Kagome opened the door to Sakura's room, and shrieked.
"See you all later!" Rini called as she and Hotaru ran out the door to meet Amara who was giving them a ride to school.
"Have fun girls!" Trista said as she packed her briefcase for work.
"Can you ask Amara to make sure my teacher knows that I'm going to be late?" Michelle asked. She was usually never late for school, but she wanted to make sure Sakura was alright before she left.
"Sure thing!" Hotaru said. "And if she forgets, I'll make sure as well. It's one of the benefits of us going to the same school."
"Thanks Hotaru," Michelle said, smiling at the younger girl as Hotaru and Rini left the room.
"Where's Kagome?" Kikyou asked as she pulled on the skirt of her new uniform. "Not that I really care, but she's the one who's forcing me to go to her school as a transfer student while I'm here."
"I believe she went to go wake Sakura up," Madison said, fiddling with her video camera. Madison had decided to go to Kagome and Sakura's school as an exchange student since she would obviously be helping Sakura quite often, a feat that was somewhat difficult if Madison stayed at her school which was all the way across town from Sakura's.
Just then, the four that were still left in the house heard a shriek that sounded suspiciously like Kagome coming from the upstairs hallway. Shooting each other worried looks, the foursome stopped what they were doing and raced upstairs as fast as they possibly could.
"Kagome!" Kagome heard Michelle call her name as she ran up the stairs, followed closely by Michelle, Trista and Kikyou.
"What happened?" Trista asked as the foursome gathered around the frozen girl.
"Is it another Demon Card?" Madison asked, taking note of Kagome's lack of responsiveness to Trista's question.
"No…" Kagome said, her eyes glued to Sakura's room.
"Then what is it?" Kikyou asked, already getting annoyed with her reincarnation.
"It's Sakura," Kagome said, turning her face so the other four could see her panic-stricken expression. "She's gone."
"What do you mean 'she's gone'?" Michelle asked, starting to worry.
"See for yourself," Kagome said, moving out of the way so the other four girls could see the interior of Sakura's room. What they saw made two of them frown and the other to go into panic-mode. Sakura's room was in complete disarray, as if a tornado had blown through it, and her bed was completely empty.
"What happened here?" Michelle asked, stepping into the room, followed by Madison who was getting everything on film (she hadn't put her camera down when she ran upstairs).
"It looks like there was a struggle," Kikyou observed, also stepping into the room to look around.
"That's not possible," Kagome said, entering the room with Trista. "We would have heard it if there was a fight."
"How else do you explain the mess then?" Kikyou asked. "Sakura is quite a neat person, no way would she leave her room looking like this."
"Maybe it was the wind and the rain from last night's storm," Kagome said, remembering that she had woken up to thunder and lightening the previous night.
"Do you guys smell that?" Madison asked, stopping any further debate between the two priestesses.
"Smell what?" Michelle asked.
"I don't smell anything," Trista added, smelling the air.
"I know what it is, I just can't place the scent," Madison said, putting her finger on her chin in thought.
"In any case, Sakura didn't run away, she was obviously taken by someone, or something," Kikyou said.
"I'll call Amara and get her to bring the others over, maybe they might be able to help us solve this," Michelle said, while everyone nodded in assent.
A few hours later, all the Sailor Scouts, plus Darien, Kagome, Kikyou and Madison had congregated in the living room of Sakura's house to discuss her mysterious disappearance.
"I did a scan of her room," Amy informed the others. "Besides the mess and the empty bed there was nothing unusual about it…"
"Told you there wasn't a struggle," Kagome muttered to Kikyou, who merely ignored the comment.
"…except for a paw print beside the bed." Amy finished, grabbing everyone's attention immediately.
"A paw print?" Rini asked, confused.
"Yes, like that of a dog," Amy answered.
"Dog…" Madison mused to herself. "WET DOG!" She suddenly exclaimed, jumping up from her seat.
"And that has what to do with our conversation?" Rei asked, looking at Madison as if she had two heads.
"That smell," Madison said, "remember that I said I smelled something odd in Sakura's room earlier?" She asked the other four girls who had been in the house at the time.
"Yes," Michelle said, not quite sure what the other girl was getting at.
"You said that you recognized that smell, but you couldn't remember what it was," Trista said, also remembering the incident.
"Wet dog," Madison said, nodding her head in affirmation to Trista's statement. "I couldn't figure out what that smell was because I haven't smelled it since I worked at the pet store in junior high, but it was wet dog!"
"Wet dog?" Mina asked, scrunching her nose in disgust.
"And a paw print beside the bed," Lita mused.
"So you're saying that Sakura was kidnapped by a dog?" Serena asked, thoroughly confused.
"Maybe, or maybe a demon that resembles a dog," Madison said, shrugging her shoulders to indicate that it really was just a guess on her part.
"A demon that resembles a dog…" Darien said, thinking.
"There aren't very many of those around, even in my time frame," Kikyou said.
"She's right," Kagome added, "I don't know of very many dog-demons. The only ones that I am aware of are InuYasha, his half-brother Sesshoumarou, and their mutual father. InuYasha would have no reason to take Sakura against her will without talking to me first and Sesshoumarou doesn't even know she exists."
"What about their father?" Hotaru asked.
"Their father is dead," Kikyou explained. "Killed the night InuYasha was born."
"Oh," Hotaru said.
"Could it have been one of Naraku's minions?" Rei asked, attempting to keep everyone from going silent.
"I don't think so," Kagome said. "The demons Naraku usually sends against us are Kagura, Kanna and Kohaku, none of which resemble dogs in any way, shape or form."
"Unless he created a new one," Kikyou suggested, "but that is also highly unlikely."
"Why is that?" Amara asked.
"Naraku prefers that those under his control appear mostly human," Kikyou explained. "Also, he really despises InuYasha so there really would be no cause for him to create a new demon that appears to be dog-like, as that is what InuYasha is, though InuYasha is also a half-demon rather than a full-demon."
"This conversation is really getting us nowhere," Kagome complained.
"Indeed," Trista agreed.
"All we have to go on are guesses and some clues that could mean anything," Amara said as the rest of the group lapsed into the silence of thought.
"Well, shall we review what we know then?" Madison asked, breaking the silence as everyone looked at her like she was crazy. "What?" Madison asked, taking note of the weird looks she was getting. "Simply sitting here isn't going to help us find Sakura any faster, so let's review what we know and then maybe somebody will have some sort of epiphany or something."
"She has a point, looking at everything we know all at once might help us out more," Amy agreed.
"So, since you're the expert, tell us, what do we know?" Mina asked leaning backwards in her seat.
"So glad you asked Mina," Madison said, her eyes gleaming before she pulled a large notebook out of nowhere and started pointing at things she had written on it. "One: Sakura woke up and went back to sleep in her bed last night. Two: There was a storm last night with wind and rain. Three: Kagome goes upstairs to wake Sakura up only to find that she is missing. Four: the smell of wet dog, most likely due to the rain last night, permeates Sakura's room. Five: There is a paw print beside Sakura's bed that resembles that of a dog or some such beast. Six: Sakura's room is a complete mess and looks like a tornado has blown right through it. All of this leads us to ask the question: What happened to Sakura?"
"Well, that really helps a lot," Rei said, rolling her eyes sarcastically.
"Actually, it does!" Kagome said, eyes lighting up.
"Okay…how?" Lita asked.
"Amy, are you sure the paw print was a dog's?" Kagome asked, ignoring Lita.
"Yes, although it was larger than average," Amy answered.
"More like a wolf's?" Kagome pressed.
"Yes, it is quite possible that it was a wolf's paw print," Amy conceded.
"What difference does it make?" Mina asked.
"A huge difference," Kagome said.
"And how is that?" Trista asked.
"When we were talking about the print and the smell, we were only talking about dogs," Kagome said.
"Yea, and?" Rini asked.
"Well, there is a difference between dog-demons and wolf-demons," Kagome said. "When we were talking about dogs, I was only thinking about dog demons, it never occurred to me that a wolf-demon might have been the culprit."
"And your point is?" Amara asked.
"The point is, I know of way more wolf-demons than I do dog-demons," Kagome said.
"Wolf-demons are more common than dog-demons," Kikyou added, putting her two-cents into the conversation.
"So, a wolf-demon took Sakura then?" Serena asked.
"Yes, but I don't think it was on purpose," Kagome said, nodding her head.
"Do we know who took her?" Hotaru asked.
"Yes," Kagome replied, "at least I think I know who."
"Well, we know the who at least, but we still don't know the why," Michelle pointed out.
"I know that too," Kagome said.
"Really?" Madison asked. "What is it? Why would a wolf-demon take Sakura?"
"Because," Kagome answered, "someone made a very big mistake."
A/N: Hey guys! Miss me? yea... about the not updating for months thing... i'm really sorry! i've been so busy since finals were over cuz i started working right away and im going to europe for two weeks (i leave next week) and then i have my sister's exchange student coming over from tasmania and then school starts up again and im freaking out cuz its grade 12 and i need good grades for uni and musical rehearsals start up again and im so terrible with writers block for this story and...yea. anyway, i hope you guys like the chapter. i was really mad at my computer because i was halfway through this chapter and the computer deleted it so i just spent the past two and a half hours re-typing the whole thing (this is how much i love you guys) even though i couldnt remember what i had written before. its more of a filler chapter so i do apologize, but hopefully the next chapter will have more action for you all. does anybody (besides me) know who kidnapped sakura? personally i think its obvious, but if you have ideas on who it could be, drop a review and say so. R+R and hopefully ill update soon!
PS: You all owe a HUGE "THANK YOU!" to MXKM cuz he's the one who got me back on track with this story (yet again), without him, i wouldnt have updated and you wouldnt have this chapter. so make sure you say "THANK YOU!"