Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-chan.. But, I -do- own his haori and all the OC's packed into the strip club.
A/N: I'm sorry it took so long to get this update out. I meant to, I really did.. But I kept getting distracted, and so many things went on, what with the holidays coming up.. I'm sorry...
I sigh, and for you, I sigh,
For I know the flames are nigh.
And the moon pendant in the sky fell,
Because the world knew your soul was bound for Hell...
"Okay, Kagome-chan.. What's been going on?" Sango asked, sitting at Kagome's desk, while Kagome sat on her bed. Miroku was still posing as an agent with Agent Smith, who was still in that form so Kagome's family wouldn't question it.
Kagome figeted, not sure where to begin.. Not sure how far she wanted to remember. Every memory was like a rusted dagger pointed at her heart.. "Well.. where do you want me to begin?"
"From when you left.. Inu Yasha wouldn't tell us what happened."
Kagome sighed, filling her lungs with a shakey breath. "Umm... I saw Kikyou and Inu Yasha together.. He said he loved her and.. they spotted me.. We had a confrontation.."
An image of Kikyou standing behind Inu Yasha on the field with the wind billowing in their clothes flashed behind Kagome's eyes.
"He said he was going to Hell with her..." Sango gasped.
An image of Inu Yasha's pain-filled golden orbs flashed in her memory.
"I ran.. I took of his rosary and ran blindly.. I went down the well and sealed it.."
Memories of her tired legs pushing their limits, covered in blood from low branches and stumbles, and finally lodging an arrowhead into the bottom of the well flashed through her mind. Kaede had been the one to teach her the sealing arrow.. Although, it was supposed to be used to seal demons.. 'Like what happened to Inu Yasha...' Kagome thought.
"I had thrown his rosary at the Goshinboku in rage along the way.. But it returned." Kagome fingered the cracked beads around her neck, pressing her index finger into a sharp tooth strung on there, the slight pain causing her to wince. "I found it a couple of days ago.. And Inu Yasha's haori..."
Kagome rose, making her way to her closet and pulling out the haori, preserved in plastic, even though she had slept in it only the night before. Sango's eyes widened.
"I was wearing it at the time.. It still has his blood on it.."
Sango's eyes softened. "Kagome-chan..."
Kagome only shook her head, tightening her grip on it slightly. Suppressing memories, she returned the haori to its residence in her closet, then leaned her back against the door. "Ii desu, Sango-chan. A month or two passed, and I seemed to sink into a deep depression.. Well, 'seemed' isn't really the word.. I 'did' would be better. That would explain my appearance, as well as my working at Erotic Pleasures. I did it to forget him.. I wanted to forget it all.." Kagome swallowed and Sango rose to wrap a comforting arm around her best friend.
"Go on, Kagome-chan.." Sango urged, interested in hearing what transpired to get them to this point.
"... Well, I.. I was on my first day when I met Agent Smith. He saved me, and I thought he was Inu Yasha.. It was even a New moon.." Kagome stepped out of Sango's comfort to stand in front of her surrogate sister, her mouth curved in a half smile. "And well, I found out that if he- or any of you- takes off the badge, you become the friends I know from Sengoku Jidai. I guess I should be asking your agent forms if they've had any weird dreams. Agent Smith is recovering his memories.." Kagome blinked. "And this all sounds weird. They -are- you.. Not reincarnations. Yet, I'm making it sound that way."
Sango only smiled. "It is weird.. I never expected it to turn out this way.."
Kagome nodded, then looked off towards her bedroom door. "Naze, Sango-chan..? I mean.. Why.. Why would you all give up your time for mine?"
Sango laughed softly, shaking her head. "Why not? You're what held us all together, Kagome-chan.. And if we could be together, all of us.. then why not? Time doesn't matter.. It'll just take some getting used to. I just didn't expect us to really -be- other people here.."
Kagome looked back towards her best friend, her eyes thoughtful. "..It's because by all rights, you don't exist in this time."
"Hm?" Sango tilted her head slightly.
"You guys already had lives here because the wish would've messed up the space-time-continuum otherwise. You'd have no records of existence, no education in the fields of today.. It would've been a big mess-up."
'It still is...' Kagome mentally berated, 'They still screwed up.. It can't be the same.. Nothing can ever be the same again.. All of our travels were five-hundred years ago!'
And that hurt..
Where had things gone so horribly wrong?
Agent Smith looked over at 'Agent Bates' suspiciously. He noticed that his fellow agent kept looking around at things in puzzlement and sometimes awe. He didn't even remember how to turn on the television, and then gasped when he saw the 'miniature people' stuck in a 'spell'...
It was all so strange..
His eyes suddenly widened. Hadn't Agent Smith seen a picture of a man that looked exactly like Agent Bates? And didn't the back of the picture say "Miroku-sama"?
Hm..
Agent Smith leaned back casually on the couch, staring at Agent Bates instead of the television. After he had met Kagome, things had become so complicated. Now, he had to solve a rapist case, in which he was assigned because... well...
Because the same gang had raped his mother to death years ago...
So, when word of them arising again in a streak of terror and horror reached him, he had pulled the strings to get his team on the case.
So, he had his job to deal with, bills to pay, his team acting strangely, 'waking dreams' driving him to the brink of insanity, and he hadn't gotten his statement from Tsubii and Kiki to file yet.
Not to mention the fact that he was currently living under the same roof as the girl that haunted his dreams, awake or no, and had pictures of him with dog ears.. And was currently an innocent schoolgirl by day, pole-dancing stripper by night.
Agent Smith grinded the heel of his hand into his eyes. How did life get so complicated so fast? And why did he feel so drawn to the girl that was obviously a slut?
Slut? Part of him seemed to tear at his head for saying that, inciting a migraine. He winced, digging the heel of his hand into his eye harder. Kagome wasn't a slut.. But he needed to find out why she had become one. It would help him figure out his case.
Or maybe it would just satisfy his curiosity.
"Youkai!" Agent Bates/ Miroku shouted, jumping back as a commercial for the latest horror flick flashed on the screen. Startled, Miroku grabbed a broom stick, preparing to strike the television.
Clunk
The broom flew from Miroku's hand in mid-strike as Agent Smith hit his target- Miroku's hand- with the remote.
"Miroku.. Watch what you're doing. Kagome wouldn't like it very much if you destroyed her television.." Agent Smith calmly interjected the name on the back of the photo to see if it drew a response.
"Gomen, Inu Yasha.. It just startled me." Miroku replied, forgetting all about the hanyou's form. Only a few seconds after he saw Agent Smith's calculating gaze locked on him, did he stiffen, remembering that the man with the long, dark hair and the violet eyes was not Inu Yasha.
'Matte.. How did he know my real name..?!' Miroku wondered.
Inu Yasha... He had been called Inu Yasha by a partner of his.. It scared him, to think he was going insane. It also scared him that Agent Bates had responded to the name Miroku with no weird stares.
"How did you.." Miroku began, causing Agent Smith's headache to kick up a notch. What did Kagome do- place a spell on him to make him hallucinate? So much ran through his mind..
"Maybe you could answer some questions of mine.. Miroku."
Miroku audibly gulped.
"Please bare my child."
Miroku held Kagome's hands in his, while a certain hanyou looked on in shock. The lecherous houshi had only met them just recently and already he had the gull to ask such a thing?!
Kagome had a weird, apprehensive look to her features. "Why should I?"
Miroku only sighed. "If by some freak chance I cannot complete my revenge against Naraku, when I die.. It is essential that I entrust the family duty onto a child." He seemed serious..
Inu Yasha had seen all he needed to and inserted himself between the two, angrily. "Oh, give me a fucking break, you lecherous Bouzu!"
"I am a houshi."
Inu Yasha twitched. "If you dare to bother Kagome with those bloody strange requests-"
Miroku cut him off. "Sorry to intrude. She appeared to be just a companion but.. Inu Yasha's fallen in love with Kagome-sama. Gomen.." He looked slightly embarrassed.
"Y-you stupid fool! I'm only using her as a device to find the shikon kakera.." Inu Yasha's face matched his haori.
....The shikon kakera..
That's all I care about, right?
....No way Miroku could be right...
I'm not in love with... with...
"Errgh..." Agent Smith rolled over, falling off the couch in the process. "Oww, my head.." He rubbed at the small lump, then shot his gaze to Agent Bates, seeing 'Agent Holmes' and Kagome sitting beside him.
"Have a nice nap?" Kagome asked, smiling slightly. He hated how even now, her smile lacked something.
'Maybe it's the fact that her eyes look so painful... Like she carries something deep down that she holds on to.. Something hurting her.. Could it be this Inu Yasha guy..?'
It was then that Agent Smith remembered his dream. His eyes shot from Miroku, to Kagome. His head throbbed. Had someone knocked him out..? It felt like it. And why was he dreaming about Inu Yasha so much? For now, he decided against asking what had happened.. He didn't want to be locked away with the marshmallow walls
"I think it's time you two get home.. It's getting late." Agent Smith said to his partners. Kagome looked sad for a moment, then clipped on their badges in unison, so they'd at least know where they lived. Both of their eyes flashed momentarily, before they looked around in confusion at their being in Kagome's house suddenly.
"Okay, so you guys get that statement from Kiki and Tsubii and have it on my desk first thing in the morning. We'll do some more tracking around the alleyway, since it seems to be a keen location for these types of hits. And Kagome here seems to attract it.." He sighed, while Kagome blinked. "We might use her as bait."
"Nani?!"
"Joking. It goes against regulations." He scoffed. Kagome only muttered, looking down.
"Okay, now get home." He commanded the other agents, who rose, bowed, then left.
Kagome sighed, watching them leave. She was wondering how they managed to take showers all these years without taking off their badges.. She assumed it hadn't always been like that. Maybe it had to do with memories that triggered the transformation back to their feudal state. There had to be more to it than just taking off a badge.. And with Agent Smith constantly having memories of Inu Yasha as of late, she couldn't tell.
Kagome silently left the room, aware of Agent Smith's gaze on her back, but uncaring. She padded up the steps, then turned into her room, shutting the door behind her with an audible click. Mulling over the possibilities of the badge, she turned on her desk lamp, only to catch a glimmer of something in the tree beside her window. This caused her to raise an eyebrow and tilt her head, trying to see it better. It glimmered slightly, though she didn't think it was metal.. She saw specks of a golden color.
Kagome opened her window and stepped out on the roof, her leg shaking violently as she tried to steady herself. Ignoring her nerves, she held on to the side of the window, then leaned over, stretching her free arm out as far as she could to no avail. Feeling drawn by this object, she moved out of the window, onto the ledge, holding onto the side of the window pane for balance. Slowly, she moved forward, trying to stop her legs from shaking, and leaned until she could feel the rough bark beneath her fingers. She moved her other hand quickly to join the first, grabbing ahold of the tree, so she was stretched out between the ledge and tree. Taking in a deep breath, she stretched further, until she could feel the smooth surface of the glimmering object. She gave it a yank forward, into the light coming from the lamp in her room behind her...
And screamed.
Agent Smith slowly walked up the stairs, trying to figure out the meaning of his strange dreams. First things first, though.. He wanted to ask Kagome how she ever ended up being a stripper. That Inu Yasha guy, who he seemed to be confused with so often, had broken her heart. A youkai? A trip through the well? What were the rest of the pieces of the story? The one person that could tell him was the heart-broken stripper whose house he currently resided in.
Suddenly, he heard her scream and froze half-way up the stairs. 'Kagome!' He bounded up the stairs and just about kicked down her door, only to find her frozen on the ledge just outside her window. "Kagome! No!" He cried out, sprinting the short distance from her door to her window and lunging for her. His arms went around her waist, yanking her forcefully back into the room, both of them ending up on the floor. As he panted to calm his racing heart, he tightened his grip on her. 'Did that idiot try to commit suicide? And why is my heart beating so fast..? Why am I so worried about her safety?'
"You idiot.." Agent Smith whispered into her hair, before realizing she was rigid and staring at the long object in her hand. "What is that..?" He questioned suspiciously. 'Oh gods, she really -did- try to commit suicide!'
Kagome opened her mouth a couple of times, then swallowed hard, holding it out to him. He blinked, then wrapped his fingers around the slender object, his eyes automatically becoming glazed over.
"No crying!"
Inu Yasha felt a pang of guilt for making the schoolgirl from the future cry. Her tears built in her eyes and slowly seeped down her cheeks, yet she still responded to him in an angry tone.
"Should I be laughing, then?!"
"No," he responded to her sarcasm with narrowed eyes, "You should shut up, and let me protect you!"
Her tears instantly dried up as she looked at him questionably. Next thing she new, he had unlocked the object's transformation power and severed his own half-brother's arm, ending the battle. He had successfully protected her...
And he did so many times later in their journey. He unlocked several new techniques with the powerful item along the way as well, including the Kaze no Kizu, Bakuryuuha, and Kongou Souha.
It was his father's legacy to him...
Agent Smith zoned back in, shaking his head slightly to clear his thoughts as he heard Kagome's voice.
"It's-.." She began, but Agent Smith cut her off.
"My Tetsusaiga."
A/N: Okay, there it is. I know, I know.. I owe you guys a longer chapter. But the next chapter will involve all his questions of her journey and shit, and who knows.. He might just turn back into the Inu Yasha we all know and love. shrugs You'll have to wait and see, because not even I know!