Yohko's Note to the General Public:

Hello again. Despise me for giving you an extremely short prelude to feed off of? Yeah, figured you might be. So I'm not going to make you wait for this chapter. Have fun.

XD -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCROLL 2: A Demon's Sweet Freedom

"Darnit! I'm gunna be late!"

Kagome scrabbled furiously through the halls of her house, where she still lived with her mother, her grandfather, her younger brother Sota, and her cat Buyo, gathering all that she could think of into a large black book bag. The Shikon no Tama jangled about her neck, secured by a loose silver chain.

Her mother sighed. "I did try to wake you up."

"TRYING ISN'T ENOUGH MOM!" Kagome closed her book bag, hoping that it had everything in it that she would be needing at her first day as a senior in undergraduate-college. She had been attending Ao no Sora University for four years now, and had an extremely high grade point average, although she had horrible attendance because of how often, in previous years, she had gone back to Feudal Japan to see InuYasha and the rest of her friends. But now that the Shikon no Tama was complete she had vowed to have perfect attendance.

She ran for the door and ripped it open. "I'm picking you up today Sota!" she hollered back at her younger brother who was standing in the hallway, stroking a sleeping Buyo. He nodded just as she slammed the door and caused a miniature earthquake inside the house. In a minute, Kagome had hopped into her red sedan (not bothering to buckle her seatbelt) thrown her book bag into the back seat, and floored the gas.

She got to school right on time, only to discover that she had a much bigger problem than being late to worry about. She had forgotten the school announcements of renovations. She had been gone the entire summer, so she had forgotten about it. Meanwhile, the homely little building she had known so well had turned into a gigantic skyscraper with elevators, and stories of sky-high learning space. The only real problem was, Kagome realized, her own cluelessness at where she needed to go. She nearly fainted from distress but grabbed a map of the school and began to plot her course of direction.

For fifteen minutes, Kagome wandered through the neatly tiled halls, with students hustling and bustling all about her. But soon they had all disappeared into their designated classrooms, and Kagome was left to search alone. She rode the elevators up and down, searched through almost all of the classes, but she could find none of her classes. There was just too much to search. She sighed, knowing that there was no way she would get to her first class (Advanced Calculus) on time.

Suddenly Kagome glanced up from her map and found herself meandering through the largest multi-purpose room she had ever seen. The ceiling had to be atleast 20 feet high, and it was very dark because the lights were so high off of the ground, and because (as Kagome saw when she glanced down at the map) it was 3 stories underground. A wooden stage was at the far end of the room, and the room was split into four areas. Gymnastics equipment crowded out the space of the upper left corner. A row of basketball courts were lined up in the upper right corner. Batting cages surrounded a large ball diamond to the lower right. Kendo equipment and soft mats were laid out in the lower left. The center was bare and empty.

Kagome sighed, softly, in complete awe, and as overtaken with amazement at the hugeness of the room. And then she looked up.

Impacted in the ceiling, Kagome could just barely make out what looked to be the mold of a teenage girl's head. It was graceful and slender, with short bobbed hair...and what looked to be a set of dog ears.

"Kagome?"

A voice from behind her shook Kagome violently into the world of reality. She whirled around to face the young man who had spoken. Hojo was standing there, looking as bewildered and confused as Kagome felt, but relieved to see a familiar face. She looked back at the ceiling, but the cast had dissapeared without a trace.

"Hojo!" she said, full of relief herself. "I'm sorry, I didn't notice you come in!"

Hojo waved a hand politely to impose that it didn't matter and gave her a warm and comforting smile. "That's okay. I didn't know anyone else was still in the halls. Do you need any help getting to your classes? I helped with construction so teachers have been sending me out to round up students who can't figure out where to go."

Her savior!

"R-R-Really?" Kagome was not half ready to believe her good fortune. "You...could really show me where my classes are?"

"Well certainly." Hojo leaned over her schedule, reading it flawlessly, even though it was upside down from where he was standing. "So, you need to get to Calculus, right? That's my next class too. We can go together."

As they walked to the elevator, Kagome's conscience was cheering so loudly she could've sworn it echoed through the MP room as they left it.

The rode in the elevator, the annoying chimes slowly and quietly playing in the background. Suddenly, Kagome was the reflective glimmer of the Shikon no Tama in Hojo's eyes, which were shining brightly. The doors opened, but he continued to stare at the jewel instead of leaving the elevator. "Hojo?" she asked loudly. "Ah...!" He seemed to snap out of a trance. "We're here aren't we? I'm sorry...it's just that jewel of yours. A gift?"

"Umm..." Kagome thought as quickly as she could. "...Well..." She flushed, mind blankening just when she most needed an idea.

"Oh. I see. You...ARE...seeing someone else...I see." Hojo looked extremely sad and disappointed. Kagome flushed again. She had 'officially' broken up with him before summer break, ending a relationship she had never really seen to exist, but had obviously meant the world to Hojo. She had broken his heart - shredded it, ripped it, chewed it to a pulp, spat on the ground and rubbed it into the grunge with her shoe - and she knew it. Whether she had meant or not really didn't matter any more. Hojo's depression was all her fault, and it made her feel horrible to see him this way.

But he looked up and put on a smile. "Well, better get to Calculus eh? Shant be good if we're late the first day."

-----

Kagome nearly ran from her last class of the day (Home EC) and hustled onto a crammed elevator as it lowered itself almost painfully to the first floor. Then she heaved herself out, wrestled herself through the jam-packed exit lobby. But with her own strength she couldn't make it. She was pushed and shoved this way and that in the endless stream of students and suddenly found herself in yet another down elevator. She through herself at the doors but was shoved into the corner by the pupils pouring in and out of it, and could only watch as they closed.

As the elevator went further and further down Kagome found herself immobilized and unable to move. As more and more students filtered out she was left alone, traveling to an unknown destination that she was somehow drawn to. She felt like a positive magnet being drawn to a much large and much more powerful negative force. In the middle of the tension she could feel an extremely evil presence burrowing into her mind. It was huge and immensely formidable, but it was also limited...held captive within its own physical bonds, it was unable to envelop her.

She wobbled to her feet and emerged from the elevator just as it 'ding'ed to basement level 3. The multi-purpose room. She stared, once again in awe, about the gargantuan room, but this time felt her gaze drawn to the cement ceiling. Her eyes drifted it over it and were, in turn, constantly being pulled back to the same spot: the center, where she had seen that dog girl's head. But no matter how many times she looked, no matter how she perused it, she could see that there was nothing to be seen. There simply wasn't any variation from it in opposition to any other part of the ceiling.

"But...I'm drawn to it somehow," Kagome whispered to herself, voicing her thoughts to no one.

Slowly, she turned and walked away, and despite the screams of her soul, clambered into her sedan and drove to pick up a grumbling Sota who clambered into her car without a word, but shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose much more violently than normal.

-----

Kagome got to school early the next morning, waking before any of her family, but her second day as a senior was just as much a flight through hell as the first had been...and it ended, once agin with Kagome standing, staring up at the concrete ceiling. "I just don't understand it...why am I drawn to it - how can I still feel an aura - of something that simply isn't there?" she mumbled to herself.

"Something the matter Kagome?"

She spun around to, once again, find Hojo staring at her.

"Where--"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing." He smiled, but Kagome noticed that something was different about him. "They're closing the school. I'm here to get anybody left out of the building."

"Oh--so you're kind of here to kick me out, huh?"

Hojo's smile widened. "Yes..in a way. I'm kind of here to make sure you don't get locked in."

"Oh...okay. Thank you."

Hojo chortled. His eyes glimmered. "No...truly, I have much more reason to be thanking YOU."

"What...what're you talking--" And that's when Kagome figured it out.

His laugh. His eyes. They were both so cold.

He continued his low, cold laugh and walked slowly towards her. "Hehehehe..." His voice had changed. This one was high-pitched, cold and cruel and viciously evil.

"You...you aren't Hojo!"

He...IT...stopped. "Hehehe...Oh of course I am, darling..." The voice changed again, mocking that of Hojo. "Darling. Dear darling Kagome. Can't you see it's me?" The cruel laughter came again and the cruel voice as well. "Hehehe...not for long though. Not if that is what I think it is about your pretty little neck...and not if there's no one here to protect you from me...little darling...little darling Kikyo...you are such easy prey in your reincarnated form..." And he lunged for her.

Kagome screamed and dodged. Just she did she saw it's eyes glint as it whirled about to face her and lunge at her again. Clawed hands missed her throat by meer inches. A sudden blow to the gut left her impacted into the cement wall of the building, the wind knocked out of her. Swift, strong arms pinned her there.

"Hehehe...pretty little darling did you really think you could win against Jidoku?" He gently licked a cut on her cheek.

"RAA!" Kagome lunged out, revolted, with her foot but hit nothing but empty air. The demonwas now hovering above her. She could see that whatever Hojo had been, he was no longer. Instead, he had been replaced by something resembling a crocodile in a ninja costume with rubber limbs that stretched endlessly and effortlessly. It's eyes glowed red and it lunged at her once again snapping its teeth. Again she dodged, knowing she couldn't avoid those shining jaws forever.

And then she saw it. The dog-girl's head. And body for that matter.

A blow to her chin sent her flying upward, her backside impacted into the ceiling. She tried to move but couldn't. Jidoku made for her, and she closed her eyes waiting for it to end, wishing she hadn't told InuYasha not to come after her just before she was, killed wishing she'd left the Shikon no Tama with him, hoping it death would come quickly...

But nothing happened.

With a huge 'ZAP'ing noise the crocodile joukai was sent plumetting into the floor. Kagome wished she hadn't open her eyes for the height made her dizzy. But what suddenly scared her the most was not the height, or the joukai flying at her once again, but the slender, gracefully clawed hands, wrapping themselves about her face and entwining themselves in her hair.

Suddenly the joukai was shocked and sent to Earth once again. Kagome caught sight of a force feild surrounding her, and became aware of a female body of short stature being pressed into her own. "Girl," a deep, glossy, feminine voice whispered in her ear, "you look as if you could use some help."

Kagome shuddered and tried to turn and look at the speaker, but she could not. She was still too far impacted into the ceiling. But slowly, steadily, she could feel the speaker's body pressing into hers and worming them out.

"Do not try to see me. You will only loosen us further." The speaker openly voiced her suspicions. "Now listen to me girl, and you will save us both. Do you feel my hands? Just say yes or no."

"Y...Yes. They're...around my face."

"Good. Now, if you would please offer me your hand." The right palm gestured for Kagome to obey, but she hesitated. "Do not worry," the voice said, sensing her displeasure, "Hurting you is the last thing I'd want to do in my situation." Kagome put her had in that of the speaker and felt it being pressed against a small indentation.

"Do you feel that, girl?"

Kagome nodded. "Yes."

"Now," the voice said calmly but briskly, "take the Shikon no Tama and put it in there. Trust me, it'll come right out."

Kagome gasped and pulled her hand away. "No! Never!"

The voice laughed in her ear. It was warm but still as cruel and taunting as Jidoku's. "Then you have condemned us both to death."

Kagome looked it over. She was so scared. Was it really necessary? Could this thing really save her if she freed it? But the Shikon no Tama...this might be just a trick in order to obtain it.

"There are no tricks. I will protect you if you free me. You can trust that. I also have no use for the Shikon no Tama...at the moment. Other than this. You can truat that too."

It had read her mind. "How--?!"

"Better hurry and decide what you're going to do. We'll be faling soon."

And all of Kagome's doubts vanished. She ripped the Shikon no Tama from her neck and jammed it into the indentation.

The was a huge glow and she was ripped from the concrete holding her. She had just barely begun to cry out when something caught her and they crashed through the barrier, landing with a 'tmp' on the wooden floor.

Kagome looked up, into the face of her savior: a demon girl, with bobbed white hair, black dog ears, and slitted pupils. As she was dropped carelessly onto the floor she saw that the girl was wearing a black 'Yura-style' shirt, red poofy pants and no shoes.

The girl laughed loudly, triumphantly.

"AHAHAHA! FREEDOM!" she cried.

"FREEEEEDOM!!!"