Chapter Ten

"Ya know, we could just leave him there," Yusuke suggested with a grin. His eyes widened, and he ducked just in time to miss the rock flying straight at his head. "Kidding, I'm just kidding," he amended hurriedly.

The priestess scowled darkly. "Well, it's not funny. If we don't get him out of there before they realize what he is …" Kagome trailed off, not wanting to voice what might happen to Inuyasha should they discover the truth. As soon as they figured out those ears were real it was all over, she knew. He'd be shipped off to some government lab they'd never be able to find and subjected to the Gods only knew what kind of awful tests. She cringed at the thought, choking on the ball of lead she felt drop to her stomach. This was all her fault.

"Hey," he started confidently. "You don't really think I'm gonna let someone else kick him around before I get to, do ya?"

Her expression softened, then, and Yusuke gave a crooked grin that only looked half as ridiculous as it might have before Genkai healed his face. He mentally patted himself on the back at the ease of her smile. He hadn't like the worried expression she'd been wearing since they left the docks. If she was worrying, then she was that much closer to crying, and Yusuke honestly had no clue how to handle crying girls. Somehow, he didn't think a punch in the arm and a "don't be such a wuss" would work on her like it did on Kuwabara.

"No, I don't suppose you would," she agreed, turning back to their intended target. She peered up over the bushes and eyed the entrance once again. They'd been watching the station for about ten minutes, trying to come up with a feasible plan of entry that did not include Yusuke's suggestion to "just walk in and blow some shit up," though so far, they really didn't have anything better than that. Kagome hadn't taken him seriously, but the longer she stood there, the more appealing it sounded.

"Maybe just a little explosion …" she commented, mostly to herself though Yusuke had heard her clearly. He beamed, excited by the fact that someone might actually consider listening to him when there were explosions involved.

"Not necessary," Genkai said a bit heavily as she limped toward them from a nearby phone booth.

The detective's face fell, and Kagome turned, raising a brow in question. "You've got a plan?" She asked hopefully, ignoring Yusuke's overly dramatic pout.

The psychic nodded and winced as she crouched down behind the bushes, motioning for the others to do the same. "Just watch," she whispered.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Kagome inquired worriedly. She did not like the heavy wheezing sound Genkai was making. The young priestess was fairly certain the older woman had broken some ribs. What if she'd punctured a lung, too? Kagome did what she could for minor injuries, but something like that was beyond her ability to heal. She needed real doctors and real medicine for that sort of thing, not herbs and prayers. "Maybe we should get you to the hospital."

"No," Genkai shook her head. "I'll heal myself once we get back to the room. Besides, I've had much worse than this, I assure you. Right now we have more important things to worry about."

"Yusuke and I can handle this," Kagome protested. "You should —"

Genkai brought a withered finger to her own lips, a silent gesture for Kagome to stop asking questions and pay attention. Kagome snorted, ready to chastise the old psychic for not taking better care of herself when suddenly, police officers began streaming from the building in a flurry of guns and curses. Seconds later, they sped away, a whirlwind of lights and sirens.

Yusuke sat wide-eyed. "Damn, Grandma," he sputtered. "What'd you do?"

She smirked, a mischievous gleam in her eyes that told Yusuke he'd never know the half of it. "Does it really matter?"

Yusuke watched, with no small amount of amusement, as his mentor toddled through the front entrance in her best impression of helpless senior citizen. Of course, the policeman at the front desk rushed right to her side, just as she'd predicted, and the detective couldn't help but snicker. Genkai was quickly proving much more devious than he'd previously given her credit for. She'd even had the foresight to use spirit energy to nip the wires of the security camera at the front entrance before entering its line of sight.

If Yusuke didn't know any better, he might think she had done this before.

"What's so funny?" Kagome whispered.

He paused, thinking it over before shaking his head with a smile. "Nothing," he answered in hushed tones. "There's the signal. Let's move," he said quickly, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her through the door and down the hall before they could be seen.

The spirit detective was glad to see that Genkai's little diversion had worked well. The halls were practically abandoned, and though he knew there were bound to be at least a few guards lingering near the holding cells, it was nothing they couldn't work around. At least he hoped so. Aiding and abetting would be bad enough should they get caught, he'd rather not add assault on a police officer to the list.

"C'mon, this way," he gestured to the left after peeking around the corner to ensure they weren't about to encounter any nasty surprises. "They won't have had time to process him yet, so he's probably still in an interrogation room."

He stopped, flattening against a wall and motioning for Kagome to follow suit, which she did. Yusuke peered from behind the wall to examine a set of double doors that led to the interrogation wing. "Looks clear," he whispered, turning back to face her, "but chances are there'll be someone posted outside at the end of the hall where the rooms start, so we'll have to be careful."

She raised a delicate eyebrow at him curiously. "You seem awfully familiar with the layout."

He smiled, though there was no humor in it. "Yeah, well, when your mom's spent as much time in the drunk tank as mine, you kinda get to know the place."

Kagome's lips formed a silent "oh" in understanding, and she said no more as he led her down the dimly lit corridors.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

As far as Naraku was concerned, it was gospel. Hell, he'd practically coined the phrase. It was an art really, and he'd spent 50-odd years perfecting it with foolish human clan lords and overzealous demons alike. Thus, he was quite familiar with his own methods of deception. That Yokoshima wielded them so effectively did nothing to alleviate his discontent.

The demon was cunning, just as cunning as he and twice as ruthless, and while Naraku almost respected him for it, he knew better than to mistake their partnership for anything more than mutual benefit. For now.

The truth of the matter was that Naraku was a pawn, and he knew it well. Once he outlived his usefulness, he would be a liability. Expendable. He knew this just as well.

And Yokoshima knew that he knew. He just didn't give a damn. Naraku almost respected him for that, too.

Yokoshima wasn't the only one to play games, though, and he was no less aware of the fact than Naraku was. No false pretense existed between them, and though they were always cordial, the lines were well defined and understood implicitly. It was simply a matter of which of them became a liability first.

It was for this reason that Naraku was not overly concerned with Yokoshima. Wary, yes. Concerned, no. The youkai was planning to kill him. So what? So was pretty much everyone else he'd ever run across. It was nothing Naraku couldn't deal with when the time came. No, it wasn't Yokoshima that truly worried him.

Sensui, on the other hand, was a whole other story. It had been Naraku's experience that there was nothing so dangerous as a fool with a cause. One look at Sensui had told him that this hadn't changed in the last 500 years. Not that the human was actually a fool, but such crusades could turn the wisest of men into one. The fact that Sensui was a touch mad didn't help matters. No, best to do away with that one first. Right after he took care of business with some old friends.

A gentle rapping interrupted his thoughts, and the hanyou responded without moving. "Enter," he said flatly.

"Master Naraku," the child-creature spoke, his voice a raw, grating wheeze that sounded more like the bitter whine of crushing steel than a once living boy. "He wishes to speak with you."

"Yes," the demon said impassively, "I suppose he would." He turned, approaching the exterminator and casually tracing the line of the boy's jaw with a slim, pale finger. He tipped the child's face up to regard him, almost curiously, before gripping his chin in a painfully tight hold. His claws punctured the skin, and blood, cold and thick like tar, began to ooze from the wounds.

Kohaku did not so much as flinch.

Naraku gave a satisfied smirk and abruptly let go. "Bring me the shape-shifter. I have work for the two of you."

"Now, let me see if I've got this right Mrs. … uh … Roboto," Osamu started, eyeing the old psychic from over the report he'd taken for what had to be the tenth time. "At approximately 10:30 p.m. you were attacked in the parking lot of Sho enterprises by two teenage boys. They stole your purse, and your … dog? Is this correct so far?"

Genkai nodded vigorously, and Osamu checked his watch. 'Shouldn't that shrink be here by now?' "OK. Now, the first was tall, you say, about two meters, brown hair, brown eyes — he was the one with the gun, right?"

"That's right, officer."

"And the other was smaller," he began, gesturing with his hand parallel to the ground to demonstrate the difference in height, "about one and a half meters, shoulder length black hair and dark eyes?"

"Mmm-hmm," the psychic nodded again, smirking inwardly when the officer seemed almost relieved. Well, she'd take care of that. "Yes, he was much nicer than that blonde fellow."

"Blonde fellow?" Genkai looked at him blankly, and he tensed again. "What blonde fellow?"

"What blonde fellow?" she mimicked.

"The one that you were just talking about."

"I wasn't talking about any blonde fellow."

"Yes!" Osamu exclaimed, getting rattled. "Yes you were! I described the second man as smaller with dark hair, and you said, 'yes, he was much nicer than that blonde fellow.'"

She looked at him strangely a moment. "Young man, are you alright?"

He looked positively flustered now and exhaled sharply to gain some semblance of control. "I'm fine," he spoke through clenched teeth. "You said there were only two of them, but then you mentioned a third. Were there two or three?"

"Two or three what?" she asked innocently.

"Attackers!" Osamu was losing patience now.

"Attackers," she gasped. "Who was attacked?"

Osamu dropped his head to the desk with a pronounced 'thwack' and groaned. Some nights, it just wasn't worth it.

Botan didn't like the dark. There were memories there; fragments of a place she could never decide whether it truly existed. Of things she should not know and yet could not reach. Of before. When light and divinity were avenues yet unexplored, and she was a creature of real mortal flesh. Flesh so easily marred, distorted by the things found there in the cold and the darkness of night absolute.

Just like now, in a cave in Spirit World, where the ground was shaking itself apart below her knees, and her fingers were slipping through the cracking rocks, and the rumbling was so loud, it drowned the sound of her voice even in her own head. And she scuttled, clumsy and terrified, across the cavern floor, reaching out into that darkness, desperately seeking one of her comrades before it swallowed her whole.

That's when she felt it, seeping into her veins like a poison that turned her body to stone from the inside out. Her breath went cold, and the inky black that surrounded her filled her belly and flooded her mind until she was nothing but the dark and the silence within.

And there she waited, cocooned in the abyss, as the Gods whispered unto her in the tones of infinity.

Yusuke peered around the corner cautiously, eyeing the guard posted outside the interrogation room, before turning back to face an anxious to Kagome. He gestured silently toward the guard and nodded toward the door at the end of the hall, pulling the rock he'd pilfered from the lot out of his pocket. He turned it over, inspecting it closely. With luck, he could knock the poor bastard cold without seriously hurting him. Now, if he could aim just right …

She caught his hand just before he let it fly. "Wait," she whispered desperately.

Yusuke wrinkled his brow in confusion. "What?" he asked, just as quietly.

"What about Tetsusaiga?"

"We'll worry about Tets…Testtube…Tes-whatever-the-fuck-it is later," he said, exasperated. "He's right behind that door. Let's just get this over with."

"No!" she exclaimed, clapping a hand over her own mouth when she'd spoken a bit too loudly. Yusuke eyed her, taking a moment to check on the guard, who had luckily heard nothing of her little outburst. She flushed, and mouthed a quick "sorry" before continuing on in a much more subdued tone. "You don't understand; bad things happen when Inuyasha is separated from his sword. We won't have time to get it once we've freed him, and you know they've disarmed him by now. We'll have to find it first."

He paused, apparently thinking it over. "What sort of bad things?"

Kagome put her hands on her hips and gave him a look that reminded him entirely too much of Keiko when she meant business. "The kind of things that are going to happen to you if you don't get your head out of your butt and help me."

"Alright, alright. Chill, sister. We'll get the damned sword," he grumbled. "Actually," he amended after a moment of thought, "You'll get the sword." Kagome's eyes widened considerably, and he broke out into a rather goofy grin. "We'll have to split up. Genkai can only hold out for so long up there. Don't worry, this time of night there's usually no one posted in the evidence room."

"But I don't —"

"It's that way," he told her, taking her by the shoulders and steering her in the appropriate direction. "Make a right at the end of the hall. Once you get it, make for the closest exit and don't stop until you're at the hotel."

"I'm not leaving you! Or Inuyasha!" she protested, heatedly.

"Believe me you won't have much of a choice. Now go, I mean it. Don't stop until you get there."

"What are you going to do?" she breathed, suddenly very nervous at the look in his eyes.

"Whatever I have to."

He saw. Even through the dark and the smoke and the ash that scattered in his face when the ground lurched beneath his feet and drove him to his knees, Kuwabara saw everything in stark, horrifying detail. Watched helplessly as things far darker than shadow and night slithered up through cracks born fresh in the earth, worming their way into her flesh as snakes.

And she was screaming. Wailing about sins never committed as she writhed and begged upon the cavern floor, and Kuwabara pawed his way across the ground like a child, praying there would be something left of the grim reaper by the time he reached her.

"Botan!" he cried, desperate to make her hear him, "I'm coming! Just hang on!"

But he knew, felt it thick like tar in his belly; the ghouls of this place were going to swallow her whole. He could see it in the way she began glow black with power — too much for her body to handle — how her eyes grew sightless, as though filled with ink.

"Botan, no!" Her body began to levitate, and her screams subsided.

It was going to kill her.

"Foxfire!" The air exploded with radiant blue light as the earth finally stopped moving, and Kuwabara stumbled upright, footsteps heavy on the ground as he advanced on her at a dead run.

He had to stop it.

"Kuwabara wait!" He didn't know who said it, nor did he care as he lunged forward without thought, grabbing her by the ankles, stealing the power from her body, and setting himself in stone.

And then he saw no more.

'Ooh, that boy!' Kagome fumed. 'If he thinks he can get rid of me that easily, he's got another thing coming!' She rifled through the various keys on the wall, searching for the one to open the locker she felt Tetsusaiga's energy coming from. With a huff, she roughly pushed one set to the side and cringed when they fell to the ground with a pronounced jangle. She supposed it was a very good thing Yusuke had been right about no one being in the evidence room at this hour, because stealth wasn't exactly her strong point.

"Stupid Yusuke," she grumbled under her breath. He had a lot of nerve pushing her aside like that! Kagome wasn't dumb. She knew when they just wanted her out of the way. Like she was made of glass or something. She pulled the appropriate key from the ring, muttering heatedly all the while.

And the thing that made it so damned infuriating was that it was Yusuke who had done it. She was used to such displays from Inuyasha. She expected them, quite frankly, and despite how irritated that little stunt down at the docks had made her, she knew it was just par for the course. But Yusuke, the very same boy who she had just dragged, the Gods only knew how far, through the ocean and saved his life … ARGH! She could just strangle him.

Kagome flung the door open on the locker with a bit more force than necessary and secured the Tetsusaiga in her grasp before heading back in the direction from which she'd originally come. If he honestly thought she was just going to leave them there, then he was crazy. Or stupid. Kagome couldn't really decide which at this point.

She hadn't made it around the first turn when she heard it. Or rather felt it, as it turns out. A rumbling, sneaking up through the soles of her shoes had her eyes opening wide and gave Kagome the distinct impression that she should have never left the detective alone to his own devices.

The all too familiar sound of a very irate hanyou and what had to be an army in pursuit only confirmed her suspicions. They barreled around the corner like a herd of pigeon-toed buffalo, a blinded Inuyasha flung over the detective's shoulder swearing for all he had.

"You've got about two seconds to put me down, motherfucker!"

"Not that I wouldn't love to just drop you on your ass, but we really don't have time to argue about this!" His eyes narrowed in on the priestess at the end of the hall and he growled. "Hey! Didn't I tell you to get the hell outta here?!"

"Didn't I tell you I wasn't leaving?" she retorted, one hand on her hip and oblivious to the shouts coming from just down the hall.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha called.

"Oh Inuyasha, are you alright?" She gasped and then let out a surprised squeak as Yusuke grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her along as fast as they could go.

"Not now, damn it! Let's move!"

"I told you put me down! I'll take care of these assholes!"

"And a wonderful job you were doing of it before we got here, Braille-boy."

"Why you —"

Kagome screeched as the plaster of a section of wall next to her head exploded with force. "I said stop!" a voice from behind them echoed, "don't make me shoot!"

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Kagome cried in rapid succession, ducking her head as they flew through the narrow passages, making for the closest exit as fast as their legs could carry them. Kagome felt her heart stop when she heard the clicking of hammers being cocked from somewhere behind them. "Oh Gods, Yusuke—"

"I don't think so," he said, flinging her through the side exit it had taken forever to reach, and powering up his shotgun. He fired without preamble, directly into the ceiling above their pursuers, bringing tile and dust and pipe down around their ears, and buying just enough time to get out the door and disappear into the night.

Osamu looked at his watch for what had to be the 100th time. Where was that shrink? He glanced up just in time to see the old woman tip the bobble-head Wile E. Coyote on his desk into a rather large stack of papers and send them shuffling to the floor.

'Damn it,' he cursed internally. That had to the fifth time she'd spilled, scattered, pushed, crushed, and/or maimed some previously undisturbed and perfectly harmless office supply since she'd been there. If he didn't know any better he might think she'd been doing it on purpose.

"Oh! I'm so sorry dear," she apologized. "How clumsy of me."

He stooped to begin collecting the pile when he heard the rapid scuttle of feet and raised voices. "Excuse me, young man," she interrupted his cleaning, "could I trouble you for a glass of water?"

'Thank the Gods,' he thought, more than ready to step out for a moment. He might even find out what all the hubbub was about. "Of course ma'am, I'll be right back."

He stepped out to the water cooler, craning his neck to see if he could catch anyone for the scoop as he filled the plastic cup. Just then, one of his co-workers came flying by him, red-faced and hollering into his radio.

"Jiro, whoa, hey — slow down!" he called, catching the officer's attention. "What's all fuss? Where is everybody?"

"Jail break," he rasped, out of breath. "That kid with the weird hair you hosed down with pepper spray earlier. Somebody just sprung him!"

Osamu paled. No way. He ran back toward his desk, oblivious to the water he was spilling all over the place until he set it down and reached into the top drawer for his gun. He froze, hand halfway in, when it finally hit him.

The old woman was gone.