I hate it when I do stupid stuff. I was halfway through editing and forgot that I wasn't in Word, and hit an evil button. Urgh...So now I have to remember what I wrote before, dang it! Uh, let's see. Oh, yes, I wanted to apologize for taking so long with this chap, but life and school were getting the way, and my muse decided to take an unauthorized vacation. As a result, this chap is about twice as long as normal, b/c I wanted to leave it a cliffhangar, b/c I am an evil writer, as evidenced by the cliffhangar. As a result of that, I am going to try to update soon, b/c I think you guys are going to come after me, and I don't have enough reader-repellant to keep you all from glomping me. :)
Inuyasha...
Shippo somehow manages to swallow the dry lump in his throat, coughing a little in the process and tasting the tangy scent of blood in his mouth. Strangely--and possibly morbidly--thankful for the liquid so that he can wet his parched tongue, the fox swallows again, then raises his dull emerald eyes back to his friend.
Inuyasha is directly across the room, strapped down by the same metal that circles his neck. He's stiff as a board, his body rigid and arched slightly upward, his jaw locked and his eyes squeezed shut so tightly that it must be physically painful. The hanyou's claws are digging into the sides of the table, and sweat and blood are sliding off his body.
It's obvious that the boy is doing everything he can to prevent himself from screaming in agony.
Shippo shifts his gaze briefly to the man beside the hanyou, who is wearing a long, white coat and a mask of some sort over his mouth, a hint of a sneer crossing the fox's face before a twitch from Inuyasha draws his eyes back to his friend. He slides his gaze slowly over the square machine that is connected to the boy, then shudders as his eyes land on the bag hanging from a metal rod standing on Inuyasha's other side, it's contents slowly emptying into the half-demon.
The kitsune feels his stomach turn over as he moves his gaze from the bag down a piece of tubing connecting it to Inuyasha. The deeply-red liquid doesn't just vanish when it enters the other boy's arm. Shippo can see every single one of the his veins and arteries, standing out starkly beneath the hanyou's tanned skin, courtesy of the deadly liquid. His arms, legs, forehead, chest...
"Incredible..."
Shippo turns his head slightly to look at the coated man next to him, seeing a combination of awe, fear, and disbelief on his face while he watches the other pair, his hand and the pen between his fingers shaking slightly as it hovers over a clipboard.
"That solution is concentrated enough to bring down a fully grown elephant..."
The kitsune frowns, having learned what an elephant was, but not entirely sure he liked the words: bring down. It sounded too much like they were trying to kill his friend.
Oh, Kami... the fox thinks, sudden horror stabbing painfully through his mind and heart. Are they...? They can't be... No! Not yet!
"Inuyasha!"
Shippo ignores the man beside him when he jumps, apparently not realizing that the red-haired demon strapped to the table next to him still had enough energy to yell across the room and begin fighting his restraints. He stares blatantly at the youkai for several seconds, before realizing that Shippo was going to invalidate his results if he kept up his frantic movements.
Cursing under his breath, the man reaches for a similar bag hanging from another metal rod, somehow managing to connect it and it's deep-blue contents to the needle and small amount of tubing protruding from the kitsune's lower arm.
"Inuyasha! Hang on! Hang..."
Shippo stops his struggling after several minutes, turning disbelievingly eyes, first, to the scowling technician, then the bag hanging above his head, then the liquid making it's way into his arm. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, struggling to understand the strange, calming, almost detached feeling that's making it's way up his arm and across his chest.
The fox forces himself to swallow again, biting back the bile rising in his throat as he hears his heart slow to barely half of it's normal beat, and his breathing shallow dangerously. Shippo forces his eyes up to the man in the white coat,as his hearing and vision becoming muffled and blurry, respectively. The kitsune makes a last effort to use his magic--despite Inuyasha's warnings not to--but finds that he barely has enough energy to keep his focus on what the man was saying.
"Majo! This one will be out for several hours. Help me take him back to the cell while Nieru finishes with the silver-haired one."
The technician that had been called nods to his collegues behind the orange-glass wall, then leaves the observation room and enters the testing room that was currently housing the two demons. He gives a nod to the technician beside Inuyasha, a somewhat malignant smile crossing his face before he begins helping the other remove the straps on Shippo--one Haka, by name. The two men hold the barely conscious kitsune between them as they exit the room, momentary chills running down their spines as the half-demon finally breaks, and a horrifying, ear-splitting scream echoes in the corridor before the sound-proof door closes behind them.
Shippo--now unable to do anything but listen to the dying cries of his friend--fights the tears welling behind his green eyes, somehow realizing in his disconnected mind that if he begins crying now, he'll most likely suffocate to death before the blue solution is removed from his system.
The fox-demon is so far gone by the time he's dropped unceremoniously on the floor of his 'room,' that he only just registers what sounds like an explosion before he slips into unsciousness.
OoooOoooO
Three hours earlier...
Kagome virtually growls to herself, slamming open the back door and stomping into darkened yard, heading for the Sacred Tree. She glances briefly back to the house, where she, her mother, brother, and Gramps had been finishing up in the kitchen, the last of the debris from the break-in finally being swept away. She exchanges a heated, frustrated glance with her mother through the brightly-lit window, seeing the older woman sigh before turning away.
Why is her friend so important, anyway?! She's had so little contact with mom over the years, that Sota and I have never even met her, and Gramps can only describe her as being, 'tall, with light hair.' Why is she so important?
Kagome makes her way quickly to the Goshinboku, pacing back-and-forth in front of it a few times before she stops, leaning her forhead against the rough bark to try and draw some strength and serenity from the ages-old tree. It doesn't work.
It's been almost a month! Tomorrow is the night of the... Night of the...
The girl clenches her fists, not daring to think about what will happen if the Hisashi no Shorai find out about the half-demon's human night.
If he's even lasted this long... she thinks, immediately making herself focus on her anger with Inuyasha's brother, instead of what might be happening to her hanyou and Shippo.
I thought that when Sesshomaru said we could return to the Shrine, that he'd call for me within a few days! It's been almost a week, and we haven't heard anything from him at all! Even Tsuyosa and Tsuyoku, who have been staying with us, haven't been told anything. Mom said that her friend in Osaka knew they were coming, and that's why she returned with her, while Sesshomaru came back almost as soon as they got there. What has he been doing for 10 days?! By the time we get to Inuyasha and Shippo, they'll...they'll...
The young miko cuts herself off again, refusing to let her mind finish that thought. She turns away from the Goshinboku, pacing to the top of the Shrine steps, hesitating a moment before heading down them, her right hand automatically reaching to pat the over-sized pocket of her cargo pants, momentarily gaining some reassurance from the solid object beneath her fingers.
I need some time to myself... Just a few minutes...before I snap. Mom...and Sota...and even Gramps and Youpai... They all have complete faith in Sesshomaru... They don't understand the...the...waiting. The...the...not knowing. The very real danger that Shippo and Inuyasha might not...
The miko's thoughts are suddenly cut off as her name is shouted from somewhere near her house, and the loud squealing of rubber coming from up the street. Kagome steps onto the sidewalk below the Shrine, finding herself staring as an unmarked van identical to the one that had taken her two demons barrels down their road, skidding to a stop in front of the semi-alarmed teen.
The girl gasps as several men exit the vehicle, raising their guns at her as she hears her name shouted again, this time much closer.
"She saved us some rounds. Grab her!"
The young priestess takes a few steps back, not even turning to run before three sets of hands grab her arms and legs, lifting her off her feet as another set slides some kind of cloth bag over her head.
"Hey...!"
Kagome tries to yell for help, but her cries are muffled by the cloth. Something that feels like rope is wrapped around her wrists and ankles, and the girl feels the solidity of the floor of the van before the sliding door is closed, and the vehicle's engine revs in preparation to flee.
Before it can move a dozen feet, however, the van is suddenly stopped, the sound of screeching tires testament to the fact that the vehicle was still trying to move, though only shuddering can be felt along it's frame, and no actual movement in the forward direction.
"What the...?"
Kagome struggles against her bindings for a moment before the screeching sound of metal being twisted about itself reaches her ears, and the vague realization that a human could not do what it sounded like was being done to the van.
Sesshomaru...?
Wondering if the taiyoukai had finally made his move--after she had been kidnapped, the girl ironically thinks--Kagome forces herself to stay quiet as muffled curses and yells sounds from her captors. She also hears what can only be like amused laughter floating through the confusing air, before what is obviously gunfire echoes through the small space.
"Get her! Bringing in another demon would...!"
Kagome doesn't hear the rest of the man's sentence as something small, hard, and metal bounces off the floor of the van close to her head, and a burning, acrid, nauseating smell fills her nostrils. The miko coughs several times, trying to call for help but unable to force any words past her flaming throat, wondering if her eyes, nose, and tongue were melting off her face.
Almost as soon as she finishes this thought, though, a pair of hands hauls her out of the van, yanking the cloth off her head and quickly slicing through her bindings.
"Give her this. I need to catch those two before they can report."
Kagome rolls onto her hands and knees, coughing hard and wiping at her running eyes as something soft, cool, and damp is placed over her face. She immediately tries to push it away, but the sound of her mother's voice helps her to calm down somewhat.
"It's to help with the gas, dear. Kaji didn't mean for you to get hit with it, but she needed to stop those men."
Kagome struggles to open her eyes, the sounds of muffled fighting and punches being landed echoing from somewhere in the street.
"Wh...what?" she manages to gasp, sitting up onto her knees and taking the cloth in her own hands. "Isn't Kaji your...?"
The priestess takes a strangled breath that has nothing to do with the gas she'd just inhaled, but which sends her into another coughing fit. She holds the soft linen tightly over her mouth and nose as her mind tries to grasp the implications, her brain quickly coming to the obvious conclusion. She takes several deep breaths of the slightly sweet-smelling substance that was counteracting the effects of the noxious gas, regaining some control over her senses before raising bleary eyes to the newcomer.
Kaji is...is...a demon?!
Kagome finds her jaw slackening as the youkai walks toward her, dragging two men across the street by the collars of their black fatigues, the bruises slowly darkening on their unconscious, now mask-less faces. The demon-woman drops them on the sidewalk, snorting in distaste before she turns to the miko, who finds herself on her feet almost instantly.
"It...it can't be...," she mutters, ignoring the dizziness that makes her head swim.
The youkai before her is approximately Kagome's height, and looks to be a few years older in age, with long, very light, almost blonde hair pulled high in a ponytail, short bangs and slightly longer wispy strands framing her thin face. The woman is wearing capri-length black pants and a matching sleeveless top, that just barely shows her mid-rift. A sword is strapped to one hip; a gun and a small, black pouch to the other; a knife tacked onto the outside of her right calf. She has pointed ears; deep-ruby colored eyes; and identical black stripes that slash their way across her arms and legs, from her wrists to her shoulders, and her ankles to somewhere beneath her capris. And although a thin, gold piece of metal winds it's way around the upper part of her right arm, and a pair of golden studs pierce her ears, both her hands and her feet remain bare.
"Hello, Kagome. Long time, no see."
The miko's mouth drops all the way open, as her chocolate eyes bug out of her head at the youkai smiling at her. She struggles for a second to get her voice working again, finally whispering her suspicions to the woman.
"Ki...Kilala?"
The demon smiles, nodding once before she steps forward and hugs the shocked girl, placing a quick kiss on her cheek.
"We don't have time for proper introductions right now, hun. Sesshomaru..."
"Where is it?"
The miko turns to her mother--and Tsuyosu, who she hadn't noticed until now--who were standing slightly behind her on the sidewalk, as the sound of the taiyoukai's voice carries from the direction of the Shrine. Sesshomaru lauches himself from the top of the stairs to the bottom, looking for all the world as if he's only hopped in place, and not just jumped more than a hundred feet. Kagome can see Sota, her grandfather, and Tsuyoku standing at the top. Though she's not actually sure that she's not gotten the twin bodyguards confused with one another.
"It is time, Kagome."
The young priestess forces herself to focus on the dog-demon, idly taking in the fact that he's not wearing either the colorful robes she had seen him wearing in Feudal Japan, nor the professional business suit he'd been wearing when she and Sota had been to his estate.
Now the youkai was sporting something like Kilala was: black, casual, probably cotton pants and a plain shirt, though his has sleeves and was not showing his stomach area. A pair of heavy-duty boots completes the ensemble, while a dark-brown bag is slung over one shoulder. Kagome can see Tokijin and Tenseiga resting in their customary places, a gun on his opposing hip, like the nekomata.
"Where is it, Kagome?"
The girl blinks, suddenly realizing that the inordinate amount of time she had been waiting was over, and that it was finally time.
Time to fight. Time to rescue her friends. Time to kick some evil researcher...
"Er...right," she says, wiping her eyes again so that she can actually see by the light of the street-lamps, retrieving the blue box from the pocket of her pants.
"I do not know how long it will take," Sesshomaru suddenly says, stopping the girl before she opens the lid. "Shiori, you come with us. Souten, you stay and help Tsuyosu and Tsuyoku... clean up the mess and guard the grounds until Jazu arrives. If any more come before then, retreat and send Risuto."
Kagome does a double-take as two women...no, two demons, appear out of the night, one of them with bluish-silver hair and deep-violet eyes, the other with midnight-black hair and red eyes. Both women flash quick smiles at the miko before nodding assent to the taiyoukai's orders.
"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama."
The dark-haired woman immediately begins moving the prone bodies lying on the sidewalk and in the street, carrying three of them back in the direction she had come. The other continues to watch the scene, her expression now carefully blank.
"Kagome."
The girl turns slowly to the silver-haired demon, her brain still trying to catch up with everything that was happening. She sees Tsuyosa slowly ushering her mother up the Shrine steps, whispering quietly in her ear.
"Uh...right," she says again, moving the hand not holding the box so that she can open the lid, sending Sesshomaru a quick, confirmatory glance and waiting until he nods before lifting the lid and removing the small, glittering, deeply-blue orb from inside.
Kagome instantly feels her hand begin warm, though the sensation isn't at all painful. More like her skin had been very cold before, and now the feeling was starting to return, her fingers and palm tingling. The small ball is somewhat heavy, but the miko is sure that she could toss it into the air, and it would all but float back down to her.
Again casting a wary glance at the demon in charge of this mission, Kagome lifts the sphere...
...and places it into her mouth, swallowing it.
The girl has the vague idea that the ball is essentially melting as it slides down her throat, not at all what she thought would happen. The two demon-women standing around her cast the girl half-approving, half-worried looks, before moving to stand in the middle of the street. Sesshomaru steps close to the girl's ear, whispering quickly before he joins Kilala and Shiori.
"Do not fight it."
The miko nods, but the taiyoukai is already in the street. Kagome feels her eyes starting to bulge from their sockets again, as all three youkai were beginning to transform into their true forms, right here in the middle of the city.
Before she can utter a protest, the priestess feels her hands beginning to...fade. There was no other word for it. One minute she can feel the breeze passing over her skin, and the next... nothing. It was like they weren't even there.
Kagome glances down, surprise and alarm making her heart rate speed up, at the fact that her body was slowly vanishing before her eyes. Well, not exactly vanishing. It was more like she was becoming the night itself.
The girl's skin was now shades of deep-blue and black, and shimmered slightly when she moved. Her clothes, also, had merged along with her, and where before there had been a distressed teen in green cargos and a grey tee, there was now only an outline. Kagome had blended almost perfectly with the darkness.
"Kagome?"
The girl turns toward her mother, hearing the distress plainly in the older woman's panicky voice.
"Don't worry, mom," she says, finding that her voice barely seems to be louder than a leaf as it falls from a tree. "We'll be back soon."
The girl's mother seems to take very little comfort from this statement, and suddenly, Kagome knows--knows--exactly how her mother feels.
She knows that her mother's fear for Inuyasha and Shippo was greater than she ever let on, but that it's only because she already loves them as if they were her own...
She knows that Tsuyosa only shaves his hair because his brother--Tsuyoku--was in an accident when he was younger, and can no longer grow any of his own...
She knows that Sota--the little twit--used to hide Ramen for Inuyasha during the quest, so that she'd have to buy more when she went shopping...
...that Kilala has had a secret crush on Sesshomaru, for more than two centuries now...
...that the man who ran the fish market two blocks over was actually allergic to salmon...
...that Youpai was having an argument with her mother over just who exactly shot J.R. ...
...that her teacher, Mrs. Yohomana, who lived more than a mile away, was a closet thespian, and always wanted to visit New York, and be on Broadway...
...that the President of Tokyo University was having an affair with his secretary...'s husband...
...that the Emperor has a secret obsession for gummi bears, and has his own, private shipment sent from Germany to the Palace the second Wednesday of every month...
And on and on...
All these thoughts came to the-barely visible girl in rapid, picture-like flashes, or vague, almost-forgotten memories. Trying to sort them out had absolutely no effect whatsoever, as millions of them were fighting their way into her head, making what was physically left of her brain hurt all the more.
"Focus."
Kagome glances up, her gaze landing on the fully-transformed dog-demon standing in the street, a two-tailed cat with blue-white flames licking at her feet beside him, a surprisingly pretty, lightly-silver bat floating several feet above their heads, helping to blocking the streetlamps.
Not bother to wonder how Sesshomaru managed to speak to her when he was in his true form, the girl takes a deep breath, holding the taiyoukai's amber gaze for a moment before she closes her eyes--she thinks--and tries to focus on the few thoughts that might tell her where to find her demons.
Almost as soon as she puts her mind to it, Kagome finds that she knows exactly where Inuyasha and Shippo are being held, and glances in that direction, now wondering how she's going to get there. Should she ride Kilala? Or Sesshomaru, even?
"Go."
Frowning slightly, the miko turns back to the demons, seeing Sesshomaru nod his extremely large head in the direction she had been looking a moment before. Finding herself now slightly annoyed with the youkai, she rolls her eyes, thinking that the demon-lord was going to look like an idiot for telling her to start walking, when she was still obviously just a human, with human reflexes, even though she could now blackmail everyone within a 100-mile radius.
Forcing back an irritated sigh, Kagome takes a step off the sidewalk, pushing lightly with her other foot to miss the pile of leaves that had collected against the grate...
...and finds herself slammed into the side of a car the next block up.
"What the...?"
Kagome hears a faintly amused chuckle from the enormous white dog now walking serenely toward her, while an untransformed Kilala kneels beside her.
"Are you ok? The arrogant mutt should have warned you before now... Can you stand? I don't think I can actually touch you..."
Kagome mutters something about teaching an old dog some new tricks, taking a moment's satisfaction from the growl floating toward her before she slowly gets to her feet. She nods at Kilala that she's ok, and the nekomata steps back, changing back into her now much-larger form.
The miko shakes her head to get the dizziness to pass, then turns to face the North, taking a few small steps and lightly hopping forward, in awe of the fact that she just essentailly jumped a distance that would have normally taken her at least ten minutes to walk.
Feeling a hugely satisfactory grin crossing her face, the girl turns to the three youkai tailing her, flashing them a toothy smile reminiscent of Inuyasha before she bows deeply to them, trying to keep from laughing outright at their puzzled expressions.
"Do try to keep up."
And with that...Kagome is gone.
Instantly, and without a trace. Well...almost.
Sesshomaru and Kilala immediately take to the sky with Shiori, who has a few meters lead because of the fact that she was already airborne. The bat is flying about a hundred feet off the ground, just barely keeping the almost-invisible, now super-powered miko in her sight as Kagome sprints through the city streets, quickly becoming bored with the roads and taking to the building's rooftops, like Inuyasha would do when he came through to this time.
"How long can she keep that up?"
Sesshomaru is quiet for a few seconds, keeping one eye on the speeding miko, and the other on the humans below them, making sure that none of them sees anything more than a passing blur.
"It depends. On how far we have to go. And her own powers."
Kilala growls lightly to herself, following the flowing silver-white fur just in front of her as she, the dog-demon, and the bat-demon ahead of them make a slight turn to the left, entering the downtown district. The nekomata sees Kagome launch herself almost straight upward, gaining height from the towering skyscrapers so that she can get more distance when she jumps. The cat feels her heart jump into her throat.
"Is it safe to let her do that?"
Again, the demon-lord remains quiet, though he does manage to send the feline a slightly condescending glance before looking forward again.
"Yes...woman. She is immortal while the orb is inside her. Only when it's power is used completely will the girl again be vulnerable."
Kilala doesn't know whether to comment on the fact that Sesshomaru's tone was implying that she should have already known this information, or that he had referred to her as a woman, which he'd never done before. Granted, they had only seen each other a few times since his brother had been sealed to the tree the second time, but still. It was an improvement over just her name, or barely being acknowledged at all, which was the usual with the dog-demon. Maybe she was finally beginning to make an impression on him, though not likely, considering who the nekomata was referring to.
"Then we'd better make sure she's not alone when she finds their hide-out."
Without waiting for a reply, the feline surges forward, leaving a trail of blue flame for the other two to follow as she comes within a few paces of the almost-flying miko, flashing her a wink when Kagome looks over. The girl glances behind her, biting her lip to stifle the laugh at the shock on Sesshomaru's elongated, canine face.
OoooOoooO
"Here?"
Kagome nods, peering over the mound she and the three demons were currently hiding behind, to the broken-down, almost-doorway set into the ground more than 200 feet on the other side. The miko had led their small group to what seemed to be an abandoned mine just inside the Niigata Prefecture, a little more than a hundred miles almost directly north of Tokyo.
"Find the other entrance-ways."
The girl turns, catching Sesshomaru's intense, heated gaze, before he tilts his head to his opposite side.
"There must be more than one access point. It would be foolish to think otherwise."
Kagome looks around to the two women standing slightly behind him, frowning slightly in concentration as they nod at her. A few seconds later, another memory-like flash comes to her, of at least three more 'doors,' though the girl is sure that there's even more than those.
"This way."
The miko turns to her right, preparing to sprint toward the next door, when a clawed hand rests lightly on her shoulder before being shocked. Kagome turns to see the taiyoukai hissing under his breath, as the hand that had touched her smokes lightly, the flesh of his palm now bright red.
"Didn't I tell you?"
Kagome finds herself staring as Kilala pulls a cloth from one of her pockets, removing a small vial from her pouch and pouring half of the contents onto it before placing it to Sesshomaru's burn. The dog-demon gives her a scowl, but doesn't move otherwise, as the miko and the komori watch in confusion.
"What happened?"
Kilala looks to the two other women, giving them a forced grin as she wraps the cloth tightly around the male youkai's hand, tying it off.
"Kagome is...volatile to demons right now. The orb she swallowed increases specific miko abilities more than a hundred times. If any of us touch her, our auras are instantly purified; that's why this...dog was burned," Kilala says, ignoring the light growl coming from beside her. "It only allows certain expansions of her powers, though. Speed; healing--though only something on par with Tokijin's Dragon Strike, or Tetsusaiga's Wind Scar could even scratch her. The ability to feel others emotions is increased so that she can almost read their minds, which is how she knew to come here. Almost everything else is unaffected. Her senses: sight, hearing, smell; none of those change; neither does her level of strength. Stamina increases, though, to keep up with her increased speed..."
"Enough. We are wasting time. Explain later."
The girls turn to see Sesshomaru facing the direction Kagome had been heading a few moments before. He flexes his hand a few times, cursing not-quite-silently under his breath.
"...days to heal..."
The demon-lord snorts loudly before turning back to face the other demons and the semi-powered-up miko.
"Shiori. You will stay here and take Piman and 3 others when he arrives. Send Oushi and the rest after us."
The bat-demon nods, giving Sesshomaru a slight bow before crouching behind the hill to await their reinforcements. The other three give a last glance to the far doorway, heading back in the direction they had come before Kagome turns almost directly East to find the next entrance point.
"Where did you get the orb?" Kagome asks after several minutes, aiming her question mostly at Sesshomaru, but turning to her other side when the dog-demon does nothing but stare straight ahead. The miko hears Kilala give a soft laugh before she answers the question.
"Before she died, Kikyo had a vision that you would need help, sometime after you woke Inuyasha and Shippo. It did not tell her when, or even why, but the miko was so convinced that it wasn't simply a dream, that she commissioned Miroku into helping her make the Sphere of Akumu."
Kagome turns to the cat-demon in shock as the three of them start to slow down, a dozen questions running through her head as the trio comes within sight of a large drain that empties into a shallow stream. They stay well away, though, not wanting to alert their prey to their intrusion.
"Questions later," Sesshomaru says, seeing the miko about to open her mouth. "Stay here, Kilala, until Oushi arrives. Leave him, Furea, and ten of the humans, then follow us to the next door."
The nekomata nods, not bowing to the demon-lord, but giving him a smirk instead, before he and the miko take off again.
"Infuriating wench..."
Kagome bites her lip to keep from laughing, pretending that she was concentrating too hard on finding the next door, as the inu-youkai obviously didn't mean to say that out loud. In actuality, she had far too much confusion whirling around in her head to really give the amusing pair much more than a passing thought, anyway.
Miroku and Kikyo made the orb... The Sphere of Akumu? Nightmares? I bet Miroku had something to do with that name, but why nightmares...? And why are there humans helping us? I saw a few of Sesshomaru's demons as we ran through the city... I bet he had them stationed so that they weren't all in one place, and that it would be easier to alert the others once one saw which direction we were heading... And not having a huge group of demons flying through downtown Tokyo would have been a big plus, too...
Kagome takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her nose as the first hint of fatigue starts to press itself on her.
"The Sphere is starting to lose it's powers. We must hurry."
The miko glances to her left, giving the demon-lord a silent nod and increasing her speed so that they arrive at the next entrance a minute later. The small shack looks like it hasn't been touched in years, and is likely to fall in on itself any second.
"Go to the next one. Wait for me there."
Kagome nods, turning slightly west and disappearing into the night. Within a few minutes she comes upon a what looks like a dried-up well. The girl rolls her eyes, wondering if the researchers inside knew of the irony before she settles herself under a peach tree, just resisting the urge to snack on one of the fruits. About five minutes pass before she feels the pull of Sesshomaru's aura and stands, turning in his direction.
The girl thinks she should be surprised, but starts to feel the seriousness with which Sesshomaru has planned his attack when she sees Kilala following close on his heels, at least six more demons trailing some feet behind them. A larger group of what are probably humans can be seen in the distance.
"Next."
The girl takes another second to stare as the unmistakeable silouette of semi-automatics reaches her eyes, before she turns away, going from stock-still to full-out in less than a second.
He's not taking any chances. I would say that he's not even going to take prisoners... What happened to the men at the Shrine, then?
Kagome doesn't want to think about those men at the moment, and continues moving forward, increasing her pace again. They find the next door--an abandoned car, of all things--sitting in the middle of a rice paddy.
"Anyone else feel ridiculous? We're staking out a car, for Kami's sake."
Kagome turns a grin to the nekomata, but stifles her laugh at the narrow glare Kilala is getting from Sesshomaru.
"Do these things seem connected to you?"
The feline seems to consider the question for a moment before shrugging. "I suppose not," she says, half-rolling her eyes before the three of them head out again.
The next doorways they find are a grouping of silos, which Kagome spends several minutes pacing in front of before she discovers the one with the actual entrance to the underground facility; a cave at the base of a small mountain, which was farther away than the others had been, and irritated Sesshomaru to no end by the time they finally reached it; a village-- surprisingly modernized--though the entrance was hidden in the horse's stable, behind a wall of hay and the group had to be extra careful not to attract attention to themselves, lest one of the villagers give them away; and finally, a boathouse on the edge of a lake, the dwindling group silently thanking Kami that the door wasn't actually underneath the water itself. Sesshomaru orders the men he's leaving to find and quietly destroy all the watercraft before they attack, however. He doesn't want any of the perpetrators to escape.
"This is the last?" the demon-lord asks after the remaining men--all of them demons, and not all of them actually men, come to stand resolutely behind their leader. Sesshomaru frowns as he takes a soft whiff of the air coming off the water.
"Shiori and her group are less than a minute in that direction," Kilala says, pointing somewhere south of their current position, while giving Kagome a wink. "Once they have the signal..."
The miko tunes out the female demon as she turns to face the direction each of the far-off entrances lay, feeling a frown similar to Sesshomaru's pulling on her face just before another image of another gateway, this one larger than the others, jumps to the forefront of her mind. Kagome takes a few steps away from the group, also trying to concentrate her wearing powers on something that had been pulling on her mind, so focused as she was on simply finding the access points to the facility. She gasps suddenly, drawing the eyes of the demons, though a pair of deep amber ones had already been watching her for several minutes.
"There's one more. In the center of this...circle, I suppose," she says, pointing east. "It's larger than the others. Near...uh, koi, actually."
Sesshomaru gazes silently at the miko's puzzled expression for a second or two before he speaks, an almost amused smirk on his lips.
"There is a large farm that produces some of the best in the country about a mile from here. I imagine they are using it as a front."
The young priestess glances at the demon in surprise, but doesn't say anything more about it. Instead, she voices their other problem.
"Is there at least one human at each...er, station?"
"Why?"
Kagome turns to Kilala, who is wearing a slight scowl. She catches the taiyoukai's gaze as she looks back at the last entrance-way, but notices that the demon hasn't commented on her strange question.
"There are...wards...around the doorways. Well, not exactly wards, I don't think, because I couldn't feel any spiritual powers coming from them when we passed each one," the girl says, frowning as she thinks. "They're probably more like sensors that can measure a youkai's aura, and they're set to alert the compound if tripped. If a demon passes into their range before they're disarmed, the Hisashi no Shorai will know we're coming."
The miko looks back to Sesshomaru when she finishes, but the demon-lord is already addressing his men.
"Each of you return to a portal. Make sure that there is at least one human in the group, who can cripple the sensors. We begin the assault in ten minutes. You have nine before I destroy the fishery. Go."
Each of the demons gives a swift bow before high-tailing it back around the mock-perimeter they had set up, half heading toward the small village, and half aiming for the abandoned mineshaft.
"Come with me."
Kagome and Kilala follow the taiyoukai as he sets off in a swift lope toward Shiori's station, but angling slightly so that they head toward the koi ponds. Kagome feels her powers starting to drain more quickly now, and thinks that in less than 20 minutes or so, she'll only be able sense the auras of the demons in front of her, and nothing more.
"Slowing down, hun?"
The miko nods to the nekomata as Kilala slows her pace to run beside her, flashing a grim smile at the female demon.
"You'll be able to hug me again soon."
The feline grins widely, uttering an amused chuckle very reminiscent of how Miroku would sometimes sound. Kagome makes a mental note to question the woman endlessly when Inuyasha and Shippo are safe, and the evil researchers have been...taken care of.
"Here."
The two women slow to a stop as Sesshomaru comes to halt. Kagome can see the spires of a few buildings in the distance.
"Once we are inside, stay close to me, even if the Sphere has not entirely worn off."
The miko nods at Sesshomaru's back, wondering why he seemed to have unconsciously taken it upon himself to watch out for her.
Probably because he'll never hear the end of it from Inuyasha if anything happens to me...the girl thinks, hesitating a moment before sticking her tongue out at the demon. She sees a quick movement from Kilala, and turns to see the nekomata holding one hand over her face, silent laughter making her shoulders shake.
"Something amusing?"
The women turn back to the dog-demon, shaking their heads and giving him what they hope are innocent grins. Sesshomaru narrows his amber gaze, but doesn't respond, and turns back to face the tenth entryway, beginning to change into his true form again.
"Er...right," Kilala says after a moment, following the inu's lead.
A few minutes later, the miko hears a soft growl from the canine of the group, and nods her assent, launching herself toward the fish farm, idly feeling sorry for the poor koi whose fate had already been decided.
OoooOoooO
"What was that?"
Haka turns to his companion, who just shakes his head in response, his dark eyes wide. The two technicians sprint into the hallway, forgetting to even close Shippo's door behind them in the wake of the explosion that had rocked the entire facility's foundation. The men glance at each other for a moment before heading for the main offices, sprinting up two flights of stairs and down several hallways, seeing many of their collegues exit the rooms they had been working in, puzzled frowns on each of their faces.
"What's going on?" a fairly pretty, dark-haired woman asks, stopping Majo by grabbing his arm.
"We don't know. We were..."
Suddenly, another louder--closer--explosion rocks the hallways, sending small objects crashing to the floor, books to toppling from shelves, and the overhead lights to flickering in their casings.
The scattered technicians mumble among themselves for several seconds, before the sound of whooshing reaches their ears, followed by a woman's scream.
"RUN!"
Before anyone can move, a frantic tech rounds a far corner, her grey eyes wide as she continues to yell at her white-coated friends. A second later, a wall of water containing dozens of brightly-colored koi barrels down the corridor after her, finally catching up and knocking the girl off her feet before taking the majority of the people in the hall with her and sweeping them deeper inside the compound.
The few who manage to keep their positions, either by dashing back into their rooms or holding onto something bolted to the white walls, such as the case holding a fire-extinguisher, drag themselves to their feet, desperately wish they hadn't when they see the apparition glaring at them from the other end of the hall.
Sesshomaru doesn't even have time to growl threatening before the technicians start screaming, running helter-skelter in odd directions, some of them knocking each other unconscious, and even a few thinking that a locked door will keep an angry youkai from breaking it down.
"Oh, this is entertaining."
Kilala holds back a laugh, pushing her soaked bangs out of her eyes before she sprints forward, taking pity on the terrified humans and knocking them all unconscious. Kagome and Sesshomaru follow, the demon-lord simply pushing the metal doors open, restraining his strength greatly so that he doesn't kill the men and women outright.
"They're not fighters, Sess. We destroyed their helicopters and the armory, and killed those guards, but these people are mostly just researchers."
"You think I should let them live, then?"
The nekomata frowns as she turns toward the inu-youkai. Sesshomaru's expression is something between controlled fury and berserker-rage, his golden eyes having switched over to red the minute they set foot inside the compound. He could smell the more than two-dozen demons within it's walls.
"Would you sink to their level, my Lord?"
Kagome lets her eyes switch over to the almost serene gaze that Kilala was sending the taiyoukai, watching him intently as he considers her words. She keeps silent, though, neither commenting on the honorific or the nick-name, or the challenge the other woman had set the demon-lord, though she desperately wishes that she could simply leave and begin searching for her friends.
A stabbing pain had lanced through her heart just before they had entered the building, crippling the girl so much that she tumbled out of her run and nearly took a dive into the nearest pond. Ignoring the two demons circling worredly above her, the miko had forced herself to her feet, dashed to the doorway of the small, almost pristine building housing the fry, headed for another opening on the far side.
Picking up a shovel that was standing with some of it's fellow farming implements, Kagome had knocked down the door, smashed the small, square box just inside it, above the stairs leading down into darkness, then run back outside, giving a wave to Sesshomaru before the two youkai had destroyed the building, using some sort of combined attack.
The sound waves, from each demon's roar and howl, respectively, completely flattened the structure, and the small cavern beneath it, taking out a few more buildings and crushing two helicopters, and several jeep-like vehicles below them. Kagome was thankful that they hadn't seen anyone in the buildings, but with so much debris, she wasn't exactly 100 percent positive that someone hadn't been buried beneath the destroyed farm.
The attack had also made most of the structured ponds collapse in on themselves, thus flooding the research compound below. Of course, more than one had waited until the three of them had descended inside before they burst, thus the reason the trio was soaked.
Cursing up a storm that would make his brother proud, Sesshomaru had led the sloshy way, keeping Kagome between himself and Kilala as the three of them came upon what was most likely the facility's armory. Back-up arrived a few seconds later, and then 6 demons and more than a dozen humans made short work of the outfit that had been aiming deadly weapons at them, a few even managing to fire off some rounds, though no one was hit.
The miko fights the urge she has to run through the hallways, screaming her demons' names at the top of her lungs, possibly alerting the enemy to one of the main reasons for their presence. Instead, she makes herself wait, as the two noses before her were more likely to lead her straight to Inuyasha and Shippo than if she had a full day to search the compound.
"Their level is worse than mine."
Kilala raises her brows, giving the youkai a small smirk.
"True. But wasn't there a time when you did not hesitate to kill any human that happened to cross your path? Is it such a stretch to think they can reform, when you yourself have done exactly that? Well...mostly, anyway."
Sesshomaru turns his full glare on the spunky feline grinning at him, his nostrils flaring momentarily as he tries to control his flash of anger. Clenching one fist tightly around Tokijin, the demon turns on his heel, heading toward the stairwell, where the light scent of a fox was concentrating.
"Meddling feline..."
Kilala gives Kagome a wink as they proceed to follow the irritated inu, the neko pausing a moment to knock out a technician that had hidden himself in broom closet. Their group didn't need any stragglers making a getaway.
"The Ministry of Defense has promised to take care of the...uh, survivors," Kilala whispers, after heading down the stairs after the sulking demon. "Sesshomaru doesn't trust the Monarchy right now, as they were the ones who started all this, over a hundred and fifty years ago. It helps that the Minister is a horse-demon that he has been in contact with for almost that long." Kilala refrains from saying 'friends.' By his choice, Sesshomaru didn't have any of those.
Kagome finds herself nodding, then almost immediately clutching her wet tee afterward, the pain in her chest getting infinitely worse. She struggles to keep her feet beneath her, to keep breathing, feeling a moment of horror when Kilala places one hand underneath her shoulders and virtually carries her after the dog-demon, who had paused at an intersection to wait on them.
"You...you can touch me now?" she asks, forcing her words past her pain.
"Yes. The Sphere's influence on you is almost complete."
Kilala looks up, sending a sneer to the inu-youkai. "I feel a little queasy, though, so it's not been completely absorbed by her yet," she says, helping Kagome around the corner and coming up short.
The trio can see several of their comrades at the far end, Souten--of all people...er, demons--sitting against one wall, holding an unconscious man with bright red hair.
"Shippo!"
Kilala immediately lifts Kagome into her arms and dashes up the hallway, almost skidding to a stop in front of the collected group. They all jump when the sound of gunfire, yelling, screaming, and at least one explosion sounds from somewhere below them.
"He's alright. We found him on the floor, in there," the thunder-demon says, pressing her lips tightly together for a moment to keep her voice from shaking. "They gave him something that slowed his senses and vitals, but he should be okay in a few hours."
Kagome finds that are tears in her eyes, and kneels beside her friend, placing a lingering kiss on his cool forehead. She finds that she doesn't really care about the fact that most of the beings standing beside her are staring quite openly.
"He's not here."
The group turns to the taiyoukai, who has walked past the group and knocked down the door to a room on the other side of Shippo's, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly through his nose.
"He's been out for several hours."
Kagome finds that she doesn't like the implication in Sesshomaru's tone, and sends him a scowl before the demon turns toward her. She immediately fights down a gasp, at the quick flash of worry that had crossed his face. She'd never before seen that emotion on his face.
Suddenly remembering the feeling she had gotten while she and Youpai had been studying in her room all those months ago--the time Inuyasha had been injured by Naraku--the girl surges to her feet, fighting down the panic and horror rising in her throat as a strong arm wraps itself around her waist.
"Fan out. Find the others; there are at least two dozen more being held here. After you clear a section, bring it down."
The youkai mumble words of assent, but Sesshomaru and Kagome are already gone. Kilala hesitates a moment before following them, deciding that the miko will need her if they should happen to find...something she desperately wishes they wouldn't.
OoooOoooO
After several minutes of winding back and forth down wet corridors, some lit, some not, and strange, not-in-the-least-bit-comforting sounds and smells coming from several of the rooms, the trio finds themselves at a circular cross-roads, four doors set into the walls, and another hallway leading in opposite direction from which they came, what looks like another door and an intersecting hallway at the far end.
"You can't find his scent?" Kilala asks, stopping beside the priestess as Sesshomaru finally sets the girl on her feet. Kagome leans against the other woman for support, her knees feeling so weak that she wonders how she can stand at all.
Did the Sphere do this to me? Or something else...?
"It's been washed away. It was strong in the room, but he's not been back in it for several hours. They use powerful disinfectants. And the air exchanges must be set to more than the standard 10 per hour," Sesshomaru says, walking to one door, only to find it filled with rows and rows of large, black computers. He enters the room, returning less than a minute later, after destroying everything inside with Tokijin. The lights overhead flicker momentarily, before the back-up generators kick-in, plunging the group into semi-darkness.
"How do we find him, then? Kagome can't use the orb anymore," Kilala says, leaving the miko against one wall and opening another door, seeing a sort of storage room for lab coats. She searches behind and between the racks, finding an assortment of face masks, goggles, gloves, and boots as well, using some of her fire to flame the room before she exits, shutting the door forcefully and ignoring the melting doorknob. Kagome just stares.
"I suppose we must search all the rooms," Sesshomaru says, fighting to keep his irritation in check. Kilala gives him a shrug, moving to the closest of the other two doors, while the male demon does the same.
Kagome watches them for a second as they open the doors, a strange sort of high-pitched wailing seeming to coincide with their openings. The miko frowns for a moment, thinking that the noise was coming from one of those rooms, but the source sounded much farther away than just a few feet.
Feeling dread wash over her, the girl raises her eyes to the long hallway, seeing a man at the far end pointing and shouting in her direction, having apparently just left the room behind him.
Kagome, however, isn't watching him, but is instead focused on the still, silver-haired figure lying on a table inside the room, a small box above his head, a flat green line scrolling across it.
"INUYASHA!"
The priestess is moving before she even hears Kilala shout her name, sprinting up the hallway as fast as she can, ignoring the protest of her lungs and muscles. She vaguely sees several dark objects enter her path, before she's suddenly flattened to the ground, the sound of bullets flying over her head, and what can only be the snap of Sesshomaru's Energy Whip. Kagome also hears the several dull thuds from in front of her before she struggles from Kilala's grasp and darts up the hallway, essentially ignoring everything around her, and running full-tilt into another guard just before she gets the room containing Inuyasha.
The man grabs her arms, pins her to the ground, and points a gun to her temple, but Kagome screams in his face before he can pull the trigger.
"GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!"
Strangely, the man goes flying upward as the girl knees him in the stomach, connecting with the ceiling before he falls to the the floor, unconscious. The miko scrambles to her feet and dives into the room as more bullets fly behind her, the sounds of fighting beginning as Kilala and Sesshomaru reach the intersection and tackle the guards.
No... NO!
Kagome virtually slams into Inuyasha as tears begin flowing freely down her cheeks, yanking the sensors off his torso and knocking the evil machine to the ground to silence the infuriating wail it was still making, missing one on his hip in her frantic rampage.
She gently cups his face in her hands, her pain increasing when she feels the coolness of his skin, and sees the blue stripes on his cheeks and the warped metal that was still holding his wrists and ankles to the table.
Lowering herself slowly to the boy's bare chest, the girl sobs against him, feeling herself slowly dying, her rationality already beginning to slip away, though her pain was getting worse.
It wasn't supposed to be like this... You aren't supposed to...to... Come back! You come back right this minute, you baka! I can't do this by myself! I don't want to! You can't die! You can't, not yet! I won't let you! You have to live, Inuyasha!
The miko suddenly sits up in shock, as a heat begins burning in the middle of her chest. She stares down at her drying tee, her eyes getting wider as what can only be descibed as 'light' begins shining from just below her ribs.
Before she can process what's happening, the sound of thunder echoes around the room, and Kagome finds herself flying through the air, feeling the faint echo of a heartbeat in her chest before she slams into a wall and falls into oblivion.
Er... Am I evil? ;)