In Time, Death
By Alesyira
Summary: A few details are revealed. Like usual, they answer a few questions, but lead to a whole bunch of new ones. Who do we really know?
Platform
-1988-
'The mountain?' she wondered at Angara's strange introduction. It sounded like they had some kind of school here, but for what? Kagome did a little mental dance in recognition of her name. "I might be here to meet with you specifically."
Gatai cocked his head. "What do you mean, might? Don't you know why you're here? Who sent you our way?"
Kagome shot a glance at Angara, then reached for her pouch again with cautious fingers, relieved when no one stopped her. They watched as she withdrew the little silver device and peered down at the illuminated display.
Error. Bridge components overcharged. Try again later.
"Well," she murmured. "This sent me here, I think."
"That little thing? Wouldn't be the first time we've seen someone use weird objects to hop from place to place. I'm surprised one could get you in here, though, unless…" He trailed off, tapping the tip of a sharp claw against his nose. He shrugged and waved at the door. "If you're done in here, let's get back out there and see what you've got for us."
Kagome draped her stained haori over her arm and followed him through the doorway.
Angara pointed at a linen bin along the wall as they passed. "Laundry."
She grimaced and dropped her garment inside, hoping she'd get it back sometime soon. Turning back to Gatai as he stepped into the more spacious main room, she said, "I'm not sure what you mean. The trip was kind of unexpected, and so I didn't bring anything with me." There was a small streak of blackened ash beside a pile of neatly stacked training mats. It looked like she had appeared in a spot partially hidden from the room and might have been able to remain undetected if she could have seen well enough to step three feet to the right (and hadn't puked all over the floor upon her arrival).
"Your magic," Angara clarified, turning toward her once they reached the center of the training room. "The only reason we get new visitors is if someone has problems using and controlling their abilities, or if they know someone who needs help. Is it you or someone you know?"
"It's definitely me," Kagome answered, unfastening her bodysuit to make a small gap to reach the seal. "I have to wear this seal, and once I take it off, my time breaks. Either I'm moving ridiculously fast, or everything else is moving slow. There's more to it, but this part is easiest to demonstrate."
Angara nodded. "How long have you used a seal?"
"Not very long. Time has been weird for me lately, so it feels like it's been a few months, but it may have been less." She paused before peeling it away, glancing at the entrance to the training facility.
Gatai looked over his shoulder in the same direction. "If you're worried about showing off in front of the wrong people, this place is going to be pretty dead for the next several hours."
The seal dissolved. Time broke. Kagome shuddered against the influx of power as it brushed away the lingering fuzzies from her unexpected hop through time and space. She took a deep breath and brushed her hands down her face, taking a moment to clear her mind and think. The two standing nearby watched her, stuck in their molasses moment.
She'd seen Gatai a handful of times but had never spoken with him before. He had seemed trusted by those that knew him in Baikal's community, but that had been… hundreds of years ago. How much could time change a person? His magic was a burning sparkle against her senses, familiar in its nuance to the two she had spent most of her time with recently.
She glanced at the female. More than a few people had mentioned this woman, Angara, as someone she needed to meet. She looked so much like Baikal. She couldn't be certain, but she must be related to him. Her magic though… what Kagome could feel was strange. It didn't have any hint of similarity to what she could remember from Baikal's magic. It had a subtle shimmer with threads that trailed outward, and it felt like looking at a kaleidoscope of change, nothing and everything at once.
She paced a little as she looked between them. Gatai could follow her movements with his eyes, but she wasn't sure he was fast enough to keep up with her besides that. She was curious how many youkai had reaction speeds capable of such a thing.
She approached the pair and touched Angara's arm to bring her into her weird time, then waited to see if everything Shippo had claimed she could do would apply to her situation. She wasn't sure if she could trust this woman with more of her magic, so she held back from reaching with the power of the jewel. Maybe she'd trusted too easily in the past, but something about this place made her just a bit nervous to overshare.
Angara seemed surprised for a few seconds, then her expression softened with understanding. "A relic," she murmured.
Angara closed her eyes and tilted her head, tinkering with the pieces she could immediately sense. Kagome felt energy shivering around them and rubbed a hand over her arm to dispel a wave of goosebumps.
Without opening her eyes, she whispered, "You are perceiving time and reacting to it much faster than humanly possible. This only affects you, and uncontrollably so."
She twisted the fingers of her free hand and the magic shuddered, rippling out around them to fill the room. Angara let go of Kagome and paced around her in a circle, a fingertip to her chin.
Gatai, suddenly included in the time-broken bubble, glanced around at the odd silence filling the large space and whistled low. "That's a pretty neat trick." Another flick of Angara's fingertips sucked the edges of the magic in around Kagome, returning the sound of birdsong and the wind whistling through the trees to the two onlookers. Gatai asked, "So, the time thing affects what she can hear, too?"
Angara nodded and circled a fingertip in the edge of Kagome's time, and the two watched as her actions slowed and then seemed to freeze in place.
"This magic allows her to experience time differently. She has enhanced speed in its unmodified state, but this adjustment," she waved her hand in Kagome's direction, "has slowed her time to a crawl. She could essentially capture enemies without touching them by stopping their time."
"Not bad. Sounds like we could come up with a whole battery of defensive techniques. What about offensive capabilities?"
She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, looking the girl over with a critical eye. "Even if we discover no additional threads to this magic, merely compressing the sphere of effect around a target's heart or brain would be enough to kill any of us that rely on biological processes. However, this is not her natural magic, and it exists outside of the rules we normally associate with such things."
Gatai nodded in understanding. "You should refrain from further work until she's on the platform," he cautioned. His primary concern was to keep her safe and ensure she didn't take unnecessary risks with the students that came to them for help, especially with rare instances of magic such as this.
"There is something more alongside that magic that we must be concerned with. It feels familiar, but I won't be sure until I've spent more time with her. The other students should be kept away, just in case." Angara tweaked the time magic again to fill the room, pulling threads until the time inside and outside its range flowed at the same pace. Kagome blinked at the two of them with confusion. She'd seen them begin to move impossibly fast and couldn't understand what had happened between that moment and the next when things had balanced out.
"Can you feel the state of your magic, constrained within a small area and the flow of time matching your surroundings?"
Kagome tilted her head, trying to get a feel for what had changed. She shrugged with one shoulder. "I'm not very familiar with it yet."
Gatai clapped his hands together. "Sounds like you need to stay a bit and get things figured out."
Kagome wanted to say she didn't have the time, but that might be a lie. She might have all the time in the world if the vesper remained silent. "I'd like to learn more. I'm not sure how long I can stay, though."
Angara nodded and gestured for her to follow. "We will put you in the dorms on the platform. With the students out today, we'll have some time to get you settled in without announcing your presence."
The three of them left the training hall and walked quietly across a simple stone courtyard surrounded by wide deciduous trees and carefully maintained flower beds. Kagome spotted a few empty sidewalks leading away into the trees, but no other buildings could be seen through the dense foliage.
"You'll be staying in an area that most students avoid, so I don't expect you'll see anyone else for at least a few days, depending on how long you expect to stay," Gatai said, glancing back at Kagome as she followed him up a narrow set of stairs that wound along the hillside. They seemed to go up forever, and Kagome grinned a little, thinking that this pathway might even put the shrine's steps to shame.
She was a little thankful that she'd been able to leave off the seal. The extra energy flowing through her made the never-ending stairs much less arduous.
They stopped at the top of the stairs and he gestured to the small clearing before them. A cabin was built directly into the stone face of a sharp, rocky incline. An open-air training platform that looked like it had been carved from the mountain itself jutted out over a cliff's edge.
Kagome swallowed nervously. Who would train at the edge of a cliff with only a waist-high set of posts to stop someone from just pitching over the side? She wasn't so sure she wanted to see how far that drop might be.
Gatai strolled toward the cabin door. "It's not just the stairs that make people avoid the platform, it's also the knowledge that anyone staying up here has trouble controlling their magic, and no one wants to trip over a surprise manifestation of power."
Kagome nodded, her gaze drifting around as she took in the small details. A sturdy-looking pulley system was installed near the cliff, and she wondered what it was for.
The cabin door creaked from disuse as he pushed it open. "Sorry, we haven't had any students up here in about a year. I'll grab some maintenance supplies when we put in the order for your meals. Any food allergies?"
She shook her head and stepped inside the dark interior. A thin layer of dust covered the flat surfaces, but most of the furniture had been draped with fabric.
"It gets cold up here after the sun goes down, so there's a fireplace. There are a few rooms down that hall, and a washroom with passable facilities at the end. Meal baskets are sent up at dawn and dusk." He twisted the knob over the small kitchen sink. "There's running water in here, but the pipes have been a little neglected, so I'd recommend boiling for the first few days until I can confirm everything is clear for normal use."
He led her back outside, where Angara was waiting by the edge of the platform. "You'll need to step up there. She's going to key the platform for your use."
Kagome eyed the steps leading up to the wide stone surface with mild trepidation. Without her seal, she was pretty sure that falling off the cliff wouldn't kill her, but her time wasn't currently busted either, so she might not be as safe as she'd want to be. "What will that do?"
"It'll start up a containment barrier to keep your magic from flowing outside of this clearing. Works well with young halflings that lose control of themselves too easily. When you practice with your magic, it'll help to dampen the effects so that you and Angara can work on unraveling its mysteries and discover the safest outlets for power."
"Does that mean I cannot leave?" she asked, feeling a little more hesitant about what she might be getting herself into.
"Nah you can leave, but you'll want to keep using your seals. Once Angara and I head back down, the hold she has on your magic right now will loosen and you'll be back to however it normally is."
The hold someone else has over my magic. Kagome bit her lip and nodded once.
Gatai gave her a sheepish grin, easily picking up on her hesitation. "It's safe. Hasn't killed any of the new kids, yet."
Kagome grimaced.
He propped a hand on his hip and gave her a crooked smile. "Would it help to know that Shippo helped build this place about a hundred years ago?"
That helped. A little. She climbed up the few steps to stand in the center of the wide platform.
"Close your eyes and relax. If you can feel the platform's magic, that's even better. It'll be over in a minute."
That's not ominous at all, she thought.
But she did as instructed and cast her focus into the solid stone beneath her feet. It felt kind of like the community anchor, that humongous white pillar of stone that had hummed with the magics of countless people. This one had traces of young magic, wild and fresh, as though children had stretched their limbs to run fast and free, as crazy as they pleased, with no worry to hold back and be careful.
She smiled, thinking of how rambunctious youkai children could be, especially that one half-youkai teen she'd known, once upon a time. A lot of energy could be let loose in a place like this.
"Done!" Gatai announced. "You can step down, now."
She turned to look at the two strangers that had escorted her here. She was glad they'd offered to help, and Angara seemed nice enough, but Kagome wondered if there wasn't a tightness to her smile, that maybe she was being a little quiet for someone in a leadership position. She couldn't get over the odd juxtaposition of Angara's familiar appearance with her unidentifiable magic.
"Are you…" she hesitated, feeling silly about asking, "…related to Baikal Khan?"
Gatai laughed, and Angara smiled a bit wider, glancing away.
"That's his only daughter you're looking at," he grinned.
"I don't mean to sound weird, but your magic feels nothing like his. Your mother must be someone extraordinary."
Angara hummed quietly. "She was, but she died a long time ago."
Gatai cleared his throat, glancing between the two. "We'll be back up in a little while with some supplies. Feel free to make yourself at home, for however long that might end up being."
Kagome watched the two of them walk away, and as they rounded the bend and disappeared from sight, she felt the tiny barbs of Angara's control snap and slide away from her energy. She suppressed a shudder. The rustling of trees fell away into silence as time slipped into a crawl, and she released a long sigh before turning to look at the platform and the little cabin with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.
What new things might she learn? Would she be able to finally go without a seal? She fished out a fresh slip of paper, noting with relief that she still had a few dozen with her. She wasn't sure she'd be away from home that long, but the idea of running out and then being stuck living outside of normal time sounded lonely.
She sat on the stone step at the edge of the platform and leaned back, tilting her face to the sun as her mind wandered over the events of her last few hours. Maybe she'd been a bit too hasty, a bit too desperate to forget what she'd seen. She didn't really regret having sex in the little well house, did she? Did she regret having that experience with someone she'd known for such a short amount of time? Someone she'd only recently been comfortable enough to kiss? It had been so sudden, but it had felt amazing. And it definitely helped soften the harsh memories from the day before.
With the things he'd done in that short time they'd spent together, she wondered what more they might do once they managed to take their time instead of rushing right to the end. And the thoughts he'd shown her… he had such a vivid imagination. Her face turned pink and she pressed a knuckle to her teeth. She should get her mind out of the gutter.
She puffed out her cheeks with a long sigh. Maybe it had been a bit of a bad idea in the heat of the moment, but she'd lived through a lot of snap decisions over the last few years. Maybe she wouldn't live long enough to see a ripe old age of seventy. It seemed like she just had too much danger and adventure in her life to be certain of anything, anymore.
Having these stupid (amazing) moments to just be lifted her spirits. Sometimes she felt like her life revolved around duty and responsibilities, whether she wanted to do them or not. Especially after she'd just been whisked away from that elevator at such a moment.
At such a moment, she thought, biting her lip as she thought back. She'd held on to the front of Shippo's disheveled shirt like the fabric had been a lifeline. She'd had never imagined kissing him like this, but when she'd been with Hiei, he'd shown her flashes of possibilities during their heated moments, entwining his ideas of more as he'd held back from giving her the last little bits she'd wanted from him.
She'd asked for more with that clawing, nearly overwhelming desire, and he'd shown her how much more it could be.
That tiny seed of thought had taken hold too easily, and Shippo's joking smiles and ease in her presence had been her undoing.
He'd died. She'd never forget the horror of that moment, and reassuring herself that it had happened in the past and his wounds had long since healed went a long way toward easing the pain in her heart. But as she touched his skin, she had new things weighing down her thoughts. She'd thought about the kitsune's jokes, about playing and teaching her things, the number of partners he'd had over his long life, and the misery she'd put him through when she'd come back from her last trip with broken self-control. He wasn't a teenager looking for a quick fix. He seemed intent on being some kind of permanent companion, but he was lonely. Despite spending most of his time with her family, he'd been careful to keep himself in check, to enjoy the little things he'd been offered without asking for something that might be too much.
What would be too much for her to give?
What would be too much for her to take?
If she died next month, would those things have mattered in the end?
The three of them had formed some kind of tenuous alliance. A balance of trust. He'd offered to back off, to give her space to enjoy a new relationship with Hiei, but she didn't want less of him. She felt selfish and wanted to keep everything that brought her joy and comfort. Maybe she shouldn't have kissed him, but she had wanted to. She had wanted him to kiss her back, to stop being so careful with his reactions.
She remembered the day he'd found her again amongst the roots of the great god tree, his lips peppering her face with dozens of kisses. His enthusiasm and joy and lack of personal boundaries had been a gust of fresh air in her suffocating loneliness. She wanted more moments like that, and she was willing to bet he'd be happy to comply if she could ever get over her awkward insecurities from being so inexperienced.
She grimaced a little and pressed her hands to her face. She had to figure out what to do about the other men vying for her attention. Like Kurama's curiosity about her, was it some kind of game or competition? She knew she had some interesting qualities with her history of adventures with bad guys, magic relics, life-threatening dangers, and narrow escapes. She wasn't really sure how much he knew about her, but something kept him curious.
What would it take to clear up his curiosity and dissuade him from pursuit? Did she want him to stop asking her on dates? He was lovely to look at and didn't seem boring by far. She'd been a little nervous around him and distrustful of his intentions because of how easily she'd fallen into his arms during their brief time together. She was afraid of repeating such a loss of control and that it would be too easy for him to take advantage of her. She didn't want to discover an ally to be a wolf in (sexy) sheep's clothing, and there was the strange behavior between him and Shippo. They didn't seem to get along nearly as well as Hiei and Shippo had, and Kagome wasn't sure if that was because she was nervous or if he had some foxy territory conflict going on.
And Koenma? She sighed again. He was insistent on dating her, too, though she couldn't figure out why. He'd made it sound like he'd seen her a lot over the years, and that she kept turning him down. Persistence like that over a short period of time could be kind of creepy and a huge red flag, but did it mean the same thing when you hadn't seen that person for a decade? A hundred years? What made her appealing to him? Was it her tendency to pop in unexpectedly, or the magic she possessed? Was she more of an asset to someone trying to lead, or was she an escape from the boring?
She stood with a huff of exasperation. She was thinking too much about this. She didn't know any of these males well enough to be sure of anything. She forcefully reminded herself that she wasn't looking for a forever partner to marry and settle down with as they picked out some white picket fence.
There was today and tomorrow, duty and responsibility, and hopefully a few things for her in between. Little moments. Firsts. She would take what she could get.
She brushed her hands off on her red pants, glancing back at the stairs that trailed down the hillside. She wasn't sure how long those two might be gone, but it was still early in the day. It seemed like a waste of time to continue sitting around while doing nothing.
She turned toward the cabin, intent on making the dusty, neglected space comfortable for at least one night's stay.
AN: check out my profile for notes on writing progress and occasional teasers for upcoming chapters