Family First
Disclaimer:I do not own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho.
"Hiei thoughts" also "everyone else's thoughts as dictated by sentence"
"Yoko thoughts"
"Kurama thoughts"
Chapter 14: The Keeper of Souls
Kagome looked woman, her mind going a mile a minute.
When she didn't speak, Genkai spoke again.
"So kid, ready for a trip to see the toddler?" She asked, a smirk on her face.
Kagome's brows furrowed, but she nodded her head, too uncertain to speak.
Genkai nodded her head back at someone that Kagome couldn't see, and a woman with baby blue colored hair bound out of the tree line with a wooden oar in her hand.
"Lady Kagome! Nice to meet you! I have heard so much about you! My name is Botan and I will be your guide today! So I'm going to be taking you to Lo…"
"Botan! Shut it and just open the portal!" Genkai snapped, efficiently cutting off the fast speaking woman.
Botan shut her mouth with an audible snap and looked at Genkai with hurt eyes.
Kagome reached out her hand to the woman's elbow, drawing her purple orbs back to her. "Nice to meet you Botan, call me Kagome. Let's talk properly later, ne?" Kagome said with a gentle smile.
Botan's eyes sparkled with happiness. "Alright! Leave it to me!" Turning on her heel, she ripped open a swirling portal that made Kagome step back in alarm.
"Don't worry Lady Kagome, it's perfectly safe!" Botan yelled over her shoulder as Genkai strolled through without a glance back at either girl.
Kagome nodded and walked through just like the older woman in front of her, not expecting the free falling she did after walking through it.
Hiei felt Kagome's presence leave the shrine like a void sucked her out of the world. As soon as her life force left the premise, he was on his feet, racing to where he last felt her.
He found himself in the main courtyard, the smell of the old trainer and the grim reaper present with her scent. He growled. He knew where they went.
Yusuke came running out the front door, his hand already forming a gun shape as he looked around for his cousin.
"Where the fu-"
"She went with the old woman and the grim reaper." Hiei cut him off abruptly, before turning and disappearing back to his tree.
Kuwabara came up beside Yusuke. "What in the world did Botan take Kagome and Genkai to the spirit realm for?"
"Hell if I know, but they better bring Kags back or so help me God I will hurt them." Yusuke snarled, snapping out his communicator, although they both knew it would do nothing but ring.
Kagome hit the ground in a crouch, preparing for the worst, her miko powers shielding her body as she mentally evaluated her surroundings.
"Good work Kagome, that wasn't a smart move. Yusuke's mentor or not you just walked through some damn portal with a stranger. Sesshomaru would kill me if he knew…"
"It's okay Kagome, no one is going to hurt you here." A male voice said just in front of her. Her head snapped up at the unfamiliar voice.
A tall man, with shaggy brown hair stood, leaning against a mahogany desk. He wore a cape and a hat, but his eyes spoke of kindness as he looked at her.
"Huh. Even if he is a bit pretentious looking." Kagome thought, standing up tall, determined to be seen as equal and unafraid.
"That portal can be a little jarring, your first time through it. I apologize it startled you. I am Prince Koenma, of the Spirit World. I also happen to be the man that sent Yusuke's team with him to accompany you." He said, bowing at the waist as he introduced himself.
Marginally, Kagome relaxed as he spoke, tales of the 'damned baby' coming to her mind from her cousins stories.
"It's quite alright, Koenma-Sama, it is my pleasure to meet a god such as yourself." Kagome said, bowing at the waist and holding her position out of respect.
"Oh Lady Kagome, please do not bow. If anything, I am more honored by your presence. Please, join me in having a seat, we can discuss the reason you came." He turned, moving around his desk to sit in the high back chair.
Kagome's eyes narrowed. "How long has this been a conversation that you planned on having with me?" She asked, moving to sit in the chair beside Genkai.
Genkai had thrown herself into a chair and kicked up her feet on the prince's desk. "Since a couple days after the nimwit left. We realized after some digging, who you were and what you were destined to be." She leveled a smarting gaze on Kagome with a knowing look in her eyes.
"When we uncovered Yusuke's connection to you, we figured that if you both had holy powers, you must stem from the same line, which logically…" Koenma waved his hand, knowing that neither woman needed him to elaborate further.
"Okay… so now what? Where do we go from here?" She asked, turning her staggering gaze on the demigod.
"Well, I'm glad you asked. Genkai and I have been working on a way to pull out your demon blood without you having to go through the trauma Yusuke did. Now, I can't promise it won't be painful. Pain is how these traits emerge. Are you willing to go through pain in order to test this?" He steepled his hands under his chin, looking her dead in the eye.
"Will it kill me?" She asked without hesitation.
"No."
"As long as I survive, pain is temporary."
Koenma met Genkai's eyes. Genkai smirked. "Girl, you have more balls than most men I know. Let's get to it!"
Koenma smiled and rose, digging into his top drawer. "What is going to happen is Genkai is going to absorb your miko powers into this jar." Koenma held up a clear container, swirling with silver enchantment. "And I am going to inflict my demi powers on your completely mortal body. If we are wrong, nothing will happen. If we are right, you will experience otherworldly pain. It will course through your body and rage, until your demon blood can force its way to the surface… in which time it will retaliate against me with yoki, causing my assault to stop. Our theory is once it has surfaced, like Yusuke's you will be able to call it on command."
Kagome shifted as the demigod walked toward her with the jar, explain the process. Uncomfortable, she played with her sleeves, trying not to fidget at the possibilities.
"What… what if I hurt you guys?"
Koenma smiled gently at the nervous girl. "We thought of that too. That's why we prepared this, to keep you from hurting either yourself or us." He lifted his hand and waved for an ogre to bring in the gurney from outside the doors. Straps adorned it from where her head would be down to her feet. "Great, it looks like I'm about to be shipped to the psych ward…"
Kagome's nervousness grew looking at it. Her eyes found Genkai's who had rose from her seat and now leaned against the farthest wall, observing.
"Don't worry kid. You and I both know that harming you means we should restrain you. You're going to have to trust that we won't kill you and we're only trying to help."
Koenma shifted, bringing her wild blue eyes back to him. "Kagome-Sama, you do not have to do anything you do not want to. We are simply trying to help. You can back out at any time, this is all your decision."
Kagome nodded, ducking her head down as she observed the sleeves she was playing with. "I have to know. If they are right… how could I ever justify not trying? If I can avenge Inuyasha by doing this…"
Kagome raised her head and met Genkai and Koenma's eyes. Squaring her shoulders she smiled and nodded.
"Okay Kagome I want you to bring your spirit powers to the surface. Put all of your energy into it and force yourself until you can give no more." Koenma instructed, as Kagome lay strapped down in the gurney from head to straps had charms on them for extra strength, rendering her completely unmovable. She nervously squirmed, uncomfortable with being tied down.
Looking over to Genkai, who nodded her head, Kagome took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Bringing her spiritual power to the forefront she generated it as rapidly as she could. Almost immediately, she could feel her energy being sapped from her, like she was trying to heal someone. But just as fast as she could generate it, it was being pulled from her. She felt herself weakening and she struggled to keep pushing despite becoming tired more rapidly than she ever thought possible.
Stars swam in her vision and her body rebelled, trying to stop the miko from pushing her life force out of her. She pushed until she could push no more, her body sagging with fatigue under the stress of it.
With an audible snap, Genkai tucked the lid closed, sealing the miko from the powers she had grown used to having. Her body shivered, trying to accommodate losing the strong force that she had always had in her body. She gasped for breath and her vision swam.
"Kagome, I shall now begin." She heard Koenma say, but he sounded muted, far away. She tried to turn her head to look at him but found herself too tired to move even that much.
"Jeesh, is this what it feels to be a normal human?" she thought vaguely. Before she could formulate any more thoughts on the matter, pain exploded in her head. As if someone had dumped fire in her blood, pain coursed through her head, slowly pouring from the source in the center of her her brain, down. It moved out towards her eyes, ears, mouth, and traveled down, following the course of her body as it made it's way with nerve wracking pain.
Screams tore from her mouth unconsciously, her own rushing blood sounding an alarm in her ears. Frantically, she thrashed on the gurney, causing the straps to cut into her tender skin.
For eternity, it seemed, this torment went on. Until Kagome was convinced she had died, and this was hell. Until she forgot she was a human being at all. Until she forgot how to think or have conscious thought.
And then from the center of her core, from the same spot she felt her miko powers come from, something snapped.
It rushed forward with an explosion, her rational mind long gone from the pain. It lunged, pushing back against the pain, slowly forcing it to recede.
Power coursed through her veins, pulling her from madness. Time slowed as she felt her body change as this foreign power tore through it. As if through a haze, she observed as her muscles tightened, strengthening.
Her bones creaked with the pull, her body adjusting in the most painful of manners.
Her jaw cracked under the pressure of her teeth growing and becoming larger, fangs errupting from her upper and lower jaw.
Her nose burned as smells assaulted it, smells she knew she had never smelt before, like her own sweat, the smell of the plastic on the gurney, smells that had never assaulted her dull human senses now burned in her nose so strongly she never wanted to take another breath.
Her eyes burned worse than her nose as they dilated, taking in the sight of the room in four dimensions. She could feel her eyes changing, shifting shape as she took on more animalistic features.
Her face fractured as her cheekbones and eyebrows adjusted to take on her new structure.
The skin on her ears stretched to ripping points as her ears sharpened, ringing with the sound of the ogres outside, alarmed by the noise and her own screaming.
She could feel her hair growing, shooting from her head as it grew longer, framing her face and spilling over the gurney.
She thrashed, feeling these changes all at once, coursing through her body and then spilling out, invading the room like miasma.
And then…
The pain stopped.
Along with Kagome's world. She watched, as if from the back of her mind as she growled at Koenma against her will, snarling and gnashing her teeth together.
She watched the sweat drip down Koenma's brow and smelt the bitter smell of his fear evaporate from him, mixed with false confidence.
While Kagome did not know what these smells were, an unconscious thought drifted through her mind, feeding her new information like she had already known it, all her life.
Fuzzy, she felt as if she was floating, some other being directing her actions and thoughts.
"Kagome.." Koenma spoke, his voice a loud echo in her head. She wanted to respond, tell him that she was alright, but she only growled.
"NO. Pain."
The thought flew her head violently, vibrating through her head so strongly that she didn't have any thoughts after, her mind shook from the foreign invasion of thoughts that were not hers. She wanted to talk, explain that Koenma was okay but she had no control of her own mouth. She felt emotions that were not hers and it scared her. She started to panic, her mind growing more and more fuzzy by the second.
"Miko control it! If you let your demon control you, you lose. Calm down and push back, just like you do with your miko powers!" Genkai called out, her voice ringing painfully in her head.
"Control it? How?"
She wanted to ask, but the fog in her mind was getting heavier.
"Kagome, listen to me. This is what happened to Inuyasha when he lost control, you must fight it." Koenma said, echoing through her head.
Like a lightning bolt, Inuyasha's name cut through her head, bringing her back to reality.
Looking through her eyes, she saw through the tunnel of black that she was staring at Koenma, who looked panicked.
Kagome suddenly felt the need to push back. She felt as if she was swimming, trying to push the demon that had taken over her body, back into the core of her body. Envisioning the chamber where she put her miko powers, she mentally pushed the demon into it, even as she felt the mental agony of her own claws and teeth tearing into her psyche.
When she had successfully pushed the demon down, she opened her eyes.
Sweat dampened her brow, her body sagged tiredly, and she stared at the ceiling, gasping for air.
"Welcome back Kagome. You did really well. How do you feel?" Koenma asked quietly from beside her.
She took a few more gulps of breath before answering.
"That was worse than training miko powers." she gasped out, closing her eyes once more.
"That was tough, but you succeeded." Genkai stated. "Now I'm going to give back your miko powers. I want you to form them around the ball of yoki, to cloak it and keep it hidden." She stated matter of factly, regardless of the exhaustion rolling off the young woman.
Kagome nodded her head tiredly, wanting nothing more than to get this nightmare over with.
But then the cool relief of her miko powers washed over her skin, soothing the ache of her tired muscles, bones and blood. It wrapped itself protectively around the yoki instinctually, the prick of the two powers hurting her soul and causing her to cringe. Until the pain of initial contact between the two conflicting powers died down to a dull ache, Kagome didn't move from her cringe.
After a few long moments, she let out a breath, lifting her tired eyes back to the ceiling.
"Good work miko." Genkai said, her and Koenma undoing the straps, setting her free.
Koenma's hand loomed in her sight and she gingerly raised her hand to take his, lifting herself into a slow sit.
Holding a hand to her head as it spun, she slid from the gurney and stepped softly, balancing herself on her tired muscles.
She looked up to Genkai. "What now?" she asked, her voice hoarse from screaming.
"Nothing. We have done all we can. I suggest you work on controlling it, as you did with your miko powers and then having a few people you trust train you on how to harness it. Now girl, with this comes great responsibility. You lose control of that side of you, and you'll end up hurting the people you love." Genkai replied curtly, staring her in the eye the entire time.
Kagome nodded mutely, her gaze going to the ground as she thought about how powerfully the demon blood in her took control and how hard it was to reign it in.
Koenma placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look at him.
"Kagome-Sama, you are destined to do great things. Please believe in yourself the way we, and all those that you lead believe in you." He said gently,his brown eyes softening in a kind manner.
Kagome snorted and looked to the side. "I don't lead them. If anything they lead me." She mumbled snidely.
Koenma stepped away, turning to his desk. From the top drawer he removed a scroll and set it down, unrolling it gently.
It was old, and fragile, smelling of old wood and ink.
Kagome peaked at it, trying to figure out what Koenma was doing with it.
"Lady Kagome, observe this for me, tell me what you see."
Kagome stepped over, looking at the faded picture.
It was of her.
Well, her pack.
But she stood in the center, blood soaked and in miko kimonos. In her right hand was a bow and in her left was a sword. Over her back was her arrows and on her shoulder sat a fox form of Shippo.
Her face was set in a stern look, her eyes a piercing blue flecked with white. Miko powers circled around her in her trade mark color, mixed with dark blue spirals that she didn't recognize. Her hair was longer, and shaggier, and she had weird markings up and down her arms and neck.
Behind her was her pack. All of them. They stood flanking her, weapons drawn.
Looking back at Koenma, she shot him a confused look.
"Lady Kagome, that is what you look like in your demon form. You were meant to make this choice. They will follow you, wherever you lead them." He said gently, smiling as he looked down at it fondly.
Kagome sat in silence staring at the picture for a long moment.
Genkai finally broke the silence. "Go get cleaned up kid and make yourself presentable, we're heading back before dim wit has a coronary."
Kagome tumbled back out of the portal, tired and sore but ready to return to the past.
Immediately, she was bombarded by Yusuke, making sure she was okay, and yelling at her.
Hiei was also already talking to her in her mind, asking her what happened.
"Not here… We have to be safe."
Kagome thought, her brow scrunching as she put up her mental barriers to Hiei and shrugged her cousin off, pushing past him.
"Nothing happened Yusuke, I just went to visit Koenma to update him on what's happening and ask some questions about Kuronue." she lied, dodging Kurama's eyes as she pushed passed him too.
All three men turned bewildered eyes to each other, not knowing what to do.
Kuwabara however, leaned against the frame of the door, watching the miko walk towards him.
His jaw was set in a straight line as he regarded her until she looked up at him, no more than a foot away.
She turned guarded and tired eyes to him and opened her mouth to brush him off too when he spoke;
"So Kagome. Did they ask the question I've been wondering about this whole time?" He said quietly, cutting his eyes to his demon friends across the yard.
Kagome was stunned for a second, before a mona lisa smile appeared on her lips and a wicked gleam appeared in her eyes. She held one finger up to her lips silently, and winked at him.
His face split into a wide grin and he clapped her on the shoulder.
"Awesome. I can't wait to find out."
With that, they both walked into the house leaving the other detectives in the dark both figuratively and literally.
Later that night Kagome sat on her window sill, staring out at the night sky. Her bags were packed and she had said goodbye to her family. Now she was waiting for the sun to rise. She was exhausted, but her mind was too busy to sleep. She had pissed off Hiei because she blocked him out mentally, so he wasn't there to keep her company and the others would meet her here in the morning to leave for the past.
Listening to the cars on the street, she stared at the smoggy sky and thought about this new discovery. She hefted a huge sigh, shutting her eyes as the wind blew.
The creek of a door alerted her that someone in the house was awake.
"Who the hell is up at this hour?" She thought, listening hard to the pitter patter of sock clad feet across the hall way.
Her door handle turned slowly, and the overpowering smell of teenage boy bodywash floated into her room.
"Souta, what are you doing up?" She asked quietly, not turning around to face her brother.
"I figured you would be awake. I wanted to hang out with you."
"You have school in the morning, you should sleep."
"You have to go save the world in the morning, you need it more than me."
Kagome giggled, leaning her head back against the wall as she listened to him come closer.
Standing beside her he turned around, dropping his back to the wall opposite of her and sat down.
His naturally unruly hair tousled in the wind coming through the window and she reached down, running her calloused fingers through it lovingly.
"Sis?" He asked quietly after a moment.
She hmmmed to show him that she was listening.
"Why do you look different?" He asked, tilting his head back to look up at her.
Kagome froze. "What do you mean? I don't look any different."
"Yes you do. Your face looks different. Like… like you got new bones. Your body too. It's like someone put your skin on someone else's body."
Kagome looked down at him in alarm.
He smiled widely, knowing he had her.
"It's not that noticeable. Gramps didn't notice, neither did mom. I did though. It's like you came back and were a whole new person. Are you like Yuyu?" He asked.
Kagome covered his mouth to keep him from saying more.
She nodded her head silently.
"You can't say anything Souta." She said, staring at him seriously.
"I know, it's top secret. I just wanted to know."
Kagome let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and smiled down at him.
"When did you get so smart, kid?" She asked affectionately, ruffling his hair more.
He grinned, knocking her hand away and turning back to stare off into the darkness of her room.
They say in silence for a long time, just enjoying each other; knowing that it will be a while till they got to be like this again.
Just as the sun breached the horizon, spilling pink and golden light into the room, Souta spoke again.
"You're my hero sis. Remember to come home."
Tears sprung to her eyes as she stared at the golden sun coming over the trees and said nothing.
Hey guys! I know that one was short but I was running into a mental road block! I have lost some of my motivation for this story, I won't lie. :/ Let me know how you guys think it's going! I'll respond to your reviews here in a bit, when I have some more time! Thanks for reading guys!