::Author's Note::
First of all, I don't own Inu-Yasha or any of it's characters, my heroine Rumiko Takahashi has that honor. I am making zero profit from this work other than my own amusement and perhaps the amusement of others. ::Bows:: Just thought I'd get all this legal crap out of my way -- the last thing I need is a lawsuit.
This is an Inu-Yasha/Kagome and probably Miroku/Sango alternate universe (ooh, that sounds spooky ^_^) fic set in America, mostly because I know little to nothing (edging closer to nothing) about Japan's legal system. Also, I know Hojou's surname's not Miller . . . if anyone does know the real name, I'd be happy to change it . . . Sorry to inconvenience y'all. ::Bows several more times::
Kagome Higurashi works as a forensic pathologist in a morgue in downtown Olympia, Washington. Her life was quite normal until the day the cadaver of a boy named Kohaku arrived and strange things began to happen. Who's this "Naraku" character demanding rights over the body and what is meant of the "enchantments" Kohaku's sister Sango insists he uses, but refuse to explain? And who the hell do the field agents Inu-Yasha Oniiyoukai and Miroku Ash think they are, moving in on her morgue; and furthermore, can Kagome stop herself from falling head-over-heels for Oniiyoukai before she gets too involved to continue with her job?
Enjoy.
Feh . . . I have to save this as a "text" file and it won't let me use italics, underlining, bold print, etc. . . . sorry about the lack of emotion. ^_^
Fate's Ways
Chapter One
"Bodies"
By Jann
"Well of course there was trauma to the head. What do you take me for, Higuarshi?" Dr. Hojou Miller demanded.
"Good, Hojou, very good," Kagome said. "You want your Beggin' Strips now or later?"
Hojou only sneered at his partner. "I can diognose a cause of death."
" 'I dunno what killed him; I'll look into it when I get back from lunch,' " Kagome mimicked with a roll of her eyes.
"Well . . ." Hojou didn't finish.
"You just take your job way too seriously," Kagome remarked dryly.
"What can I say? When you got it, you got it." Hojou flashed her a grin and put down his scalpel.
"So what'd you think, Hojou?" Kagome asked, becoming more serious. She pulled a cap over her thick, black hair and pushed a few loose strands under in the back. She set her magnifying goggles on her nose and finally, snapped a pair of rubber gloves into place.
Kagome Higuarshi was one of the forensic pathologists at the Fairveiw Morgue in Olympia, Washington, where she'd worked for almost five years. Things had been somewhat slow the past few days and she and her partner, Hojou Miller, had been helping out with the routines. Not that she minded having a few days away from major homicides; not at all. But as much as she loved and admired her partner Hojou, the combination of him and a lack of work were starting to get on her nerves.
"There's not much to think," Hojou admitted. "This is a typical gang case. Someone got hit over the head with something. Further investigation seems to point to something heavy and blunt. It looks like this guy was hit with a lot of force too, Kag. Look at the crack in the skull."
"Yeah, I saw that," Kagome agreed, leaning in closer. "Open and shut?"
"Like a Dr. Suess murder novel," Hojou said.
"Gotcha," Kagome said, lifting her goggles. "And there goes another pair of unused gloves to latex-Heaven," she noted, throwing away her fresh gloves.
"I'm felling the loss already," Hojou murmured. following the suite. "You wanna write it up?"
"Not if you want to," Kagome teased. "Because I know how much you love taking care of paperwork after the episode with Ms. Yura."
The person in charge of the paperwork coming from homicide department in Fairveiw was a woman named Stella Yura. She was an odd young woman who hated when things didn't go her way; needless to say, things didn't go her way when Hojou handled the paperwork. This was due mostly to the fact that his organizational systems weren't what you would call "top-notch."
"Please, Miss Higurashi, let me clean up," Hojou said, bowing deeply.
"Ja ne," she called, tossing her smock into the laundry bin as she opened a door and went through the storage room that led to their office. She sat down at her desk and touched the mouse to turn off the screen saver.
Kagome was barely thirty years old and had worked at the Fairveiw morgue since she was twenty-six, fresh out of college. She was a tall woman with thick, black hair and dark brown eyes. Her mother, her step-father, her grandfather and her younger brother, Sota, still lived in Twinkle Town, USA, also known as Greenville, just outside of Olympia, where Kagome had grown up. Sota was twenty-four and married with a young son that loved Kagome to death. There were days when Kagome envied her brother's happy marriage; but there were more when she was just glad at least where she was in her life, no one would pick up and leave her, like her father had done her mother.
Kagome brought up the death certificate for the man on the table to e-mail to Ms. Yura. "Another John Doe," she murmured, annoyed. That meant she would have to look up his number.
The phone rang, stopping her search before it began, though and Kagome immediately picked it up.
"Fairveiw Morgue, Homicide Department, this is Dr. Kagome Higurashi," she said, riffling aimlessly through a few papers. The file she was looking for wasn't on her desk; she already knew that.
"Ooh, nice etiquette," Hojou teased.
Kagome rolled her eyes. "Hojou, why are you calling me from the next room?"
"We have a body in, Kag, you better get in here. It looks like things are picking up!"
+++
Miroku Ash leaned back in his seat and picked at his fingernails. "You know, Inu-Yasha, if you were to just relax, the flight would probably go a lot more quickly. Here, I'll even let you have the window seat!"
"Nice try," Inu-Yasha growled. "I didn't put you there 'cuz it makes you look pretty. The last thing we need is a sexual harassment charge by a flight attendant. Again."
After a second or two of sulking, Miroku perked up again. "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Hold it."
"Damnit."
Miroku looked at Inu-Yasha thoughtfully for a moment before returning to his fingernails. The in-flight movie was almost over and he figured the plane would land soon. As amusing as he found the sight of his partner clutching the armrests and looking straight ahead, practically burning holes in the seat in from of him, Miroku was getting sick of traveling himself. The day had grown increasingly boring after Inu-Yasha had torn him from the outer-seat, insisting that his antics were "less than honorable." Pfft.
"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Miroku mumbled.
"Me," Inu-Yasha grumbled.
"You, you, you," Miroku muttered.
"Miroku, you're starting to bug me," Inu-Yasha informed his partner, his gold eyes never faltering from the seat in front of his. He had a strong build, long dark hair, a temper and a gun, the latter two being qualities that it seemed shouldn't be mixed. But Agent Oniiyoukai had never failed to complete a case and though he refused to admit it, he and Agent Ash worked well together, despite the fact that Ash was a the biggest pervert in America.
And somewhere in that profile fit a terror of flying.
"Attention passengers; please fasten all seatbelts and prepare to land. Thank you for flying Northern Cross!" came a voice over the intercom.
"There is a god," Inu-Yasha mumbled, putting on his seatbelt. He looked up to see a flight attendant at his side. "Is there a problem with your seatbelt, sir?" she asked over Inu-Yasha's head.
Inu-Yasha turned to see Miroku, his face straight as you please, pressing the call button. "Why yes, ma'am. I can't see to get mine to buckle. Could you help me?"
"Miroku, give it up!" he commanded. "Sorry. He's fine," he told the woman.
"Are you sure?"
"No, he's not sure."
"Yes, I am."
The tall blonde looked rather perplexed. Inu-Yasha reached over and buckled Miroku's belt for him.
"Miraculous! He fixed it!" Miroku cried.
"I hope you had a nice flight!" the stewardess chirped with a grin, turning away from them. Miroku leaned over Inu-Yasha to watch as she walked away.
"Oh, I have now," Miroku said gleefully.
Inu-Yasha whacked his partner upside the head. "Can you stop that for even a second?!"
His cell phone rang, not allowing Miroku to answer the question. "Oniiyoukai. I'm kinda in the middle of . . . Myoga, we're landing right now. Can't you call back later? Right. Sure. Okay -- Miroku; write this down -- Fairveiw Morgue, Fairveiw Boulevard. Southern side of town. Yeah, okay, okay. We have to get a hotel first and . . . Don't give me the details now, call back later . . . Yeah, right." He hung up the phone.
"Fairveiw Morgue?" Miroku asked.
"That's where the body of this kid is, I guess," Inu-Yasha shrugged. The plane was finally landing and they would once again have contact with the ground. Inu-Yasha had never been afraid of heights; in fact, as a small child, he was almost always to be found in the treehouse his dad had built for him and his half-brother before he had died. It was having no connection to the ground that he was tensed by.
"Murdered at twelve," Miroku murmured. "His sister was a witness, right?"
"Evidently, they were playing some game in an arcade and he was shot in back several times with arrows," Inu-Yasha said. "No one knows where they came from and no one saw them shot."
Miroku began to hum the theme from "The X Files." "So how do you figure they did it?"
"I really don't know on this one. We'll have to see what kind of arrows they are. If the arrows are original or really old, they can probably be traced. Cuz really, how many people have arrows from the eighteen-hundreds or whatever? " Inu-Yasha asked.
"Please gather your carry-ons and prepare to disembark. Thank you for flying Northern Cross!"
Inu-Yasha got up and stretched. He reached over Miroku's head to take his briefcase out of the overhead compartment. "Doesn't matter right this second, anyway. Before we do anything, we have to get a hotel and check in again with Myoga. The idiot claimed he was getting ready for a board meeting or something."
"Damn director," Miroku mumbled. "He's the only one who can make a date for the middle of the day and keep it without questions."
"Like that old bag could get a date," Inu-Yasha said as they made their way down the aisle.
"Certainly been a while since you've had one," Miroku pointed out.
"I got my reasons."
"Thank you for flying Northern Cross," the flight attendant said as they were leaving. "Thank you for flying Northern Cross, sir."
"No, ma'am, thank you for gracing Northern Cross with such beauty. I'm in town for a while, if you like, maybe we could --"
Inu-Yasha grabbed Miroku's shirt collar and proceeded to drag him the rest of the way out of the plane.
::Author's note::
Well, there you go. I realize that I cheated a bit; Sango will be about Kagome, Inu-Yasha and Miroku's age, but Kohaku is around twelve. Reviews are appreciated. ^_^
First of all, I don't own Inu-Yasha or any of it's characters, my heroine Rumiko Takahashi has that honor. I am making zero profit from this work other than my own amusement and perhaps the amusement of others. ::Bows:: Just thought I'd get all this legal crap out of my way -- the last thing I need is a lawsuit.
This is an Inu-Yasha/Kagome and probably Miroku/Sango alternate universe (ooh, that sounds spooky ^_^) fic set in America, mostly because I know little to nothing (edging closer to nothing) about Japan's legal system. Also, I know Hojou's surname's not Miller . . . if anyone does know the real name, I'd be happy to change it . . . Sorry to inconvenience y'all. ::Bows several more times::
Kagome Higurashi works as a forensic pathologist in a morgue in downtown Olympia, Washington. Her life was quite normal until the day the cadaver of a boy named Kohaku arrived and strange things began to happen. Who's this "Naraku" character demanding rights over the body and what is meant of the "enchantments" Kohaku's sister Sango insists he uses, but refuse to explain? And who the hell do the field agents Inu-Yasha Oniiyoukai and Miroku Ash think they are, moving in on her morgue; and furthermore, can Kagome stop herself from falling head-over-heels for Oniiyoukai before she gets too involved to continue with her job?
Enjoy.
Feh . . . I have to save this as a "text" file and it won't let me use italics, underlining, bold print, etc. . . . sorry about the lack of emotion. ^_^
Fate's Ways
Chapter One
"Bodies"
By Jann
"Well of course there was trauma to the head. What do you take me for, Higuarshi?" Dr. Hojou Miller demanded.
"Good, Hojou, very good," Kagome said. "You want your Beggin' Strips now or later?"
Hojou only sneered at his partner. "I can diognose a cause of death."
" 'I dunno what killed him; I'll look into it when I get back from lunch,' " Kagome mimicked with a roll of her eyes.
"Well . . ." Hojou didn't finish.
"You just take your job way too seriously," Kagome remarked dryly.
"What can I say? When you got it, you got it." Hojou flashed her a grin and put down his scalpel.
"So what'd you think, Hojou?" Kagome asked, becoming more serious. She pulled a cap over her thick, black hair and pushed a few loose strands under in the back. She set her magnifying goggles on her nose and finally, snapped a pair of rubber gloves into place.
Kagome Higuarshi was one of the forensic pathologists at the Fairveiw Morgue in Olympia, Washington, where she'd worked for almost five years. Things had been somewhat slow the past few days and she and her partner, Hojou Miller, had been helping out with the routines. Not that she minded having a few days away from major homicides; not at all. But as much as she loved and admired her partner Hojou, the combination of him and a lack of work were starting to get on her nerves.
"There's not much to think," Hojou admitted. "This is a typical gang case. Someone got hit over the head with something. Further investigation seems to point to something heavy and blunt. It looks like this guy was hit with a lot of force too, Kag. Look at the crack in the skull."
"Yeah, I saw that," Kagome agreed, leaning in closer. "Open and shut?"
"Like a Dr. Suess murder novel," Hojou said.
"Gotcha," Kagome said, lifting her goggles. "And there goes another pair of unused gloves to latex-Heaven," she noted, throwing away her fresh gloves.
"I'm felling the loss already," Hojou murmured. following the suite. "You wanna write it up?"
"Not if you want to," Kagome teased. "Because I know how much you love taking care of paperwork after the episode with Ms. Yura."
The person in charge of the paperwork coming from homicide department in Fairveiw was a woman named Stella Yura. She was an odd young woman who hated when things didn't go her way; needless to say, things didn't go her way when Hojou handled the paperwork. This was due mostly to the fact that his organizational systems weren't what you would call "top-notch."
"Please, Miss Higurashi, let me clean up," Hojou said, bowing deeply.
"Ja ne," she called, tossing her smock into the laundry bin as she opened a door and went through the storage room that led to their office. She sat down at her desk and touched the mouse to turn off the screen saver.
Kagome was barely thirty years old and had worked at the Fairveiw morgue since she was twenty-six, fresh out of college. She was a tall woman with thick, black hair and dark brown eyes. Her mother, her step-father, her grandfather and her younger brother, Sota, still lived in Twinkle Town, USA, also known as Greenville, just outside of Olympia, where Kagome had grown up. Sota was twenty-four and married with a young son that loved Kagome to death. There were days when Kagome envied her brother's happy marriage; but there were more when she was just glad at least where she was in her life, no one would pick up and leave her, like her father had done her mother.
Kagome brought up the death certificate for the man on the table to e-mail to Ms. Yura. "Another John Doe," she murmured, annoyed. That meant she would have to look up his number.
The phone rang, stopping her search before it began, though and Kagome immediately picked it up.
"Fairveiw Morgue, Homicide Department, this is Dr. Kagome Higurashi," she said, riffling aimlessly through a few papers. The file she was looking for wasn't on her desk; she already knew that.
"Ooh, nice etiquette," Hojou teased.
Kagome rolled her eyes. "Hojou, why are you calling me from the next room?"
"We have a body in, Kag, you better get in here. It looks like things are picking up!"
+++
Miroku Ash leaned back in his seat and picked at his fingernails. "You know, Inu-Yasha, if you were to just relax, the flight would probably go a lot more quickly. Here, I'll even let you have the window seat!"
"Nice try," Inu-Yasha growled. "I didn't put you there 'cuz it makes you look pretty. The last thing we need is a sexual harassment charge by a flight attendant. Again."
After a second or two of sulking, Miroku perked up again. "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Hold it."
"Damnit."
Miroku looked at Inu-Yasha thoughtfully for a moment before returning to his fingernails. The in-flight movie was almost over and he figured the plane would land soon. As amusing as he found the sight of his partner clutching the armrests and looking straight ahead, practically burning holes in the seat in from of him, Miroku was getting sick of traveling himself. The day had grown increasingly boring after Inu-Yasha had torn him from the outer-seat, insisting that his antics were "less than honorable." Pfft.
"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Miroku mumbled.
"Me," Inu-Yasha grumbled.
"You, you, you," Miroku muttered.
"Miroku, you're starting to bug me," Inu-Yasha informed his partner, his gold eyes never faltering from the seat in front of his. He had a strong build, long dark hair, a temper and a gun, the latter two being qualities that it seemed shouldn't be mixed. But Agent Oniiyoukai had never failed to complete a case and though he refused to admit it, he and Agent Ash worked well together, despite the fact that Ash was a the biggest pervert in America.
And somewhere in that profile fit a terror of flying.
"Attention passengers; please fasten all seatbelts and prepare to land. Thank you for flying Northern Cross!" came a voice over the intercom.
"There is a god," Inu-Yasha mumbled, putting on his seatbelt. He looked up to see a flight attendant at his side. "Is there a problem with your seatbelt, sir?" she asked over Inu-Yasha's head.
Inu-Yasha turned to see Miroku, his face straight as you please, pressing the call button. "Why yes, ma'am. I can't see to get mine to buckle. Could you help me?"
"Miroku, give it up!" he commanded. "Sorry. He's fine," he told the woman.
"Are you sure?"
"No, he's not sure."
"Yes, I am."
The tall blonde looked rather perplexed. Inu-Yasha reached over and buckled Miroku's belt for him.
"Miraculous! He fixed it!" Miroku cried.
"I hope you had a nice flight!" the stewardess chirped with a grin, turning away from them. Miroku leaned over Inu-Yasha to watch as she walked away.
"Oh, I have now," Miroku said gleefully.
Inu-Yasha whacked his partner upside the head. "Can you stop that for even a second?!"
His cell phone rang, not allowing Miroku to answer the question. "Oniiyoukai. I'm kinda in the middle of . . . Myoga, we're landing right now. Can't you call back later? Right. Sure. Okay -- Miroku; write this down -- Fairveiw Morgue, Fairveiw Boulevard. Southern side of town. Yeah, okay, okay. We have to get a hotel first and . . . Don't give me the details now, call back later . . . Yeah, right." He hung up the phone.
"Fairveiw Morgue?" Miroku asked.
"That's where the body of this kid is, I guess," Inu-Yasha shrugged. The plane was finally landing and they would once again have contact with the ground. Inu-Yasha had never been afraid of heights; in fact, as a small child, he was almost always to be found in the treehouse his dad had built for him and his half-brother before he had died. It was having no connection to the ground that he was tensed by.
"Murdered at twelve," Miroku murmured. "His sister was a witness, right?"
"Evidently, they were playing some game in an arcade and he was shot in back several times with arrows," Inu-Yasha said. "No one knows where they came from and no one saw them shot."
Miroku began to hum the theme from "The X Files." "So how do you figure they did it?"
"I really don't know on this one. We'll have to see what kind of arrows they are. If the arrows are original or really old, they can probably be traced. Cuz really, how many people have arrows from the eighteen-hundreds or whatever? " Inu-Yasha asked.
"Please gather your carry-ons and prepare to disembark. Thank you for flying Northern Cross!"
Inu-Yasha got up and stretched. He reached over Miroku's head to take his briefcase out of the overhead compartment. "Doesn't matter right this second, anyway. Before we do anything, we have to get a hotel and check in again with Myoga. The idiot claimed he was getting ready for a board meeting or something."
"Damn director," Miroku mumbled. "He's the only one who can make a date for the middle of the day and keep it without questions."
"Like that old bag could get a date," Inu-Yasha said as they made their way down the aisle.
"Certainly been a while since you've had one," Miroku pointed out.
"I got my reasons."
"Thank you for flying Northern Cross," the flight attendant said as they were leaving. "Thank you for flying Northern Cross, sir."
"No, ma'am, thank you for gracing Northern Cross with such beauty. I'm in town for a while, if you like, maybe we could --"
Inu-Yasha grabbed Miroku's shirt collar and proceeded to drag him the rest of the way out of the plane.
::Author's note::
Well, there you go. I realize that I cheated a bit; Sango will be about Kagome, Inu-Yasha and Miroku's age, but Kohaku is around twelve. Reviews are appreciated. ^_^