Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not now, or have ever owned Inuyasha!

A/N: Well reviews have slowed down a little, but I'm not worried. Eat all the sugary candy in your house and try to be worried about reviews. Ah ha! You can't, point made! I'm bouncing off my walls, wee! Any way, any review is a good review! This is another short chapters, but my next ones are LONGER. Trust me!

-Chocolatedragon15

The tepid sun rose in the east just as it always did, but somehow today, it didn't give Sango the feeling that all was right with the world. No matter what kind of dilemma Sango was in sunsets and sunrises always seemed to melt away her problems. Add to the fact that there was a dreadful knot in her stomach screaming to tell her that something was afoot.

None of the four girls could sleep last night, for they all felt it. Kagome received the least sleep of all due to her dream. In Kagome's dream Mariko came to her in ceremonial clothing and she had her hair pinned up into a tight bun. Her cheeks had been stained with salted tears and at first she seemed as if she were unable to talk.

"Kagome, I need your help Mark isn't who he appears to be. His real name is Merrick, and he knows that I know. If I'm not saved soon… " Mariko faded out.

The dream was way to real to be a dream. Kagome headed towards the main guest room around three in the morning to find it completely turned around, and it had new furniture too.

To add on to more suspicion, the order to stay out of the room had been lifted.

Kagome was worried, and she searched throughout the palace, but could not find a trace of her friend. To make matters worse Merrick was M.I.A. claiming that he had important meeting that would last all day, and he didn't specify on when he planned to return, or even where he would be.

Inuyasha paced back and forth in the cave unable to wait any longer. The waiting was like an itch that he could not reach to scratch; the worse part was not the itching, it was the fact that he could not do anything about it.

Everyone prepared for the battle in their own way, Miroku tried meditating, Shippo practiced his transformations, Inuyasha was pounding his fists into the cave walls, and Khali was staring out of the mouth of the cave toward the castle to get a layout of the land.

Around noon, strange people started showing up and proceeded up to Merrick's conference room. They came in groups with a leader or two, and about 3 guards. Something about these men was just not right, for all of the troves of people who appeared. The conference room never seemed to fill, in fact it didn't even seem that the room was occupied at all.

Sango, Shaneal, Johanna, and Kagome were in the garden when the arrivals had finally died down to a trickle.

"Is it just me or do these people don't seem exactly human?" Kagome asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" Johanna asked.

"I mean that to me, the quest don't seem entirely human." Kagome answered.

"They certainly look human to me." Shaneal answered.

"No, Kagome's right. Something seems a bit odd about these 'guest'." Sango added.

Just then four men and a young woman appeared from the front gates, "We're looking for Merrick."

"First floor, last room on your left." Shaneal replied. The group waited till the men where inside the palace to follow. They were a good distance behind, with weapons underneath their clothes ready to fight.

They watched the guest go into the conference room. For some time all was quiet until the hallway exploded in a bright blue almost white light. All four girls fell to the ground. In 5 minutes the light was gone. And they got up and looked at each other.

The girls got up and entered the room. To his or her shock and misfortune no one was there.

"Where could they have gone, is it possible that they went into another room, we were so far behind them sometimes we didn't see them." Johanna responded.

"No, they came in here; I'm sure of it!" Sango stated.

"Then where did they go?" Shaneal asked frustrated.

"I can't believe I didn't think of this before!" Kagome exclaimed, "There must be a trap door or something."

Kagome's three companions looked at her as if Kagome had just told them that Santa was real. It took Kagome a while before she realized that they had no idea a trap door was.

"A trap door is a door that is hidden. You have to use something that seems to be ordinary like this trophy here," Kagome said pulling on the trophy on the fire place," and it would open up the trap door."

Just then a blinding light came from the fireplace, which was followed by a gust of air that blew out the fire in the fireplace.

"You found it." Shaneal answered.

The four girls headed into the fireplace and down winding stairs.

"I don't get it," Sango replied discouraged, " Shouldn't they be here?"

A big guy grabbed Kagome, while three others grabbed Shaneal, Sango, and Johanna, and forced them to drop their weapons.

"For all your futuristic knowledge Kagome, you couldn't have guessed that things would turn out this way." Merrick said as he landed on the ground. All of his associates seemed to have materialized around the four-trapped girls.

"What, how do you?" Sango yelled.

Merrick cut her off, "You'll be surprised of all the things your wife will wait to tell you until after your married."

With all of the hullabaloo, and action Kagome had not processed the information just given to here, "Married… married to whom?"

Just then a woman in walked in wearing a ceremonial gown and her jet-black hair pulled into a tight bun. She had her head up high, and she walked over to greet her husband. It wasn't until she finished kissing her husband, and walked over to Kagome, that Kagome and Sango realized who it was.

"Hello Kagome." the sensuous voice called.

"M… Mariko?" Kagome called.