Author's Notes: This chapter was revised on January 24, 2006.
And if you can't remember who Chiyo and Yuuta are- they are the little girl and boy that are with Suikotsu in his village at the base of Mt. Hakurei. Chiyo being the girl that always carries the small baby on her back and Yuuta the young boy that Suikotsu attacks when his personalities first switch back.
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-June 8th-
Entry at 1:45PM
Kaede excused herself, "Well, if you need help finding your way down there, just ask someone. I've got to get back to other patients."
"Okay, thank you," I replied, watching the elderly nurse leave.
With a sigh I looked about the room. I was just about to let everyone else know that I was going to go see what information this young boy could give us when a cell phone rang. Reaching down, I checked my phone- but it wasn't mine. Kagura had also glanced to hers, but it was Sango's that was the one being called.
"Hello?" She answered, "Ah, hello Dad, what's up? Last minute call into work? Okay, I understand, I'll come watch Kohaku until you get back from it. No, Kagome and the others will be fine as long as I can catch back up with them once you're finished. Okay, bye."
Finishing up the call, she turned to me, "Kagome, I…"
"It's all right," I replied, deducing the situation from the half of the conversation I could pick up, "How long do you think it'll take?"
"It's just a standard termite problem. Shouldn't take over two hours," Sango replied.
"Termites?" Kagura questioned.
Sango nodded, "My Father is an exterminator. He takes care of your typical household pests, and sometimes the unusual wild animal problems."
Nodding in understanding, Kagura looked over to Rin.
"I can take her with me if you think it'd be best," Sango spoke up.
"Sesshoumaru?" The dark-haired woman asked, looking up to her partner for the answer.
"She can go," He stated simply.
Rin looked up from where she was coloring and over to Sango, "I get to go back and play with Kohaku?" She questioned hopefully.
Sango smiled, "Yeah, come on, I'm sure Kohaku's bored right now."
"Okay!" The young girl said cheerfully, pausing to jump up onto the bed next to Sesshoumaru.
He raised an eyebrow at her, and she carefully hugged his less-injured side.
"Get better soon, Mr. Sesshoumaru. I'll let you use some of my pretty flower Band-Aids if it'll make you feel better faster," She said with all sincerity.
I had to refrain from laughing, due to the mental image of Sesshoumaru with one of those pink-floral patterned bandages made for little girls, and I could tell Inuyasha was just about to say something about it himself when Rin jumped down and came over towards us.
"Inuyasha, don't worry- there are enough of the Band-Aids for you to have a few too. Mr. Sesshoumaru just has a big cut."
The tips of his ears twitched and he frowned, finally muttering, "No thanks kid. Sesshoumaru can use them all if he wants."
"It's so nice of you to share," Sesshoumaru's calm voice retorted, an edge of sarcasm to it.
Rin looked back over towards Sesshoumaru and then turned to Kagura, going over and hugging her legs. "Miss Kagura can have some too, and I'll draw a pretty picture of you and Mr. Sesshoumaru doing business."
Kagura laughed nervously, "Sure kid. You do that."
Sango waited as Rin gathered up her things and walked over to her, and then turned towards me, "Okay then, I'll be at home if you need me, Kagome. Don't hesitate to call if something comes up."
I was about to say something, when I noted Miroku edging his way behind Sango towards the door.
"Keh, and if we need you Miroku, I suppose we can call Sango as well?" Inuyasha noted aloud.
"Eheh," He nervously rubbed the back of his head, "I just figured she might need some help with the kids… yeah, that's it."
Inuyasha and I both narrowed our eyes at the lame excuse.
"Then I suppose you can clean up any messes they make," Sango replied, heading out.
"Hey…I…uh… wait! Sango!" Miroku stammered running out after her.
I shook my head- those two would never change.
"Kagome?" I heard Kagura question.
"Hmm?" I glanced over in her direction.
"Sesshoumaru and I will take Kanna back to Mr. Takeda once we change our clothes. We have some more questions to ask him now that his distraction isn't here." She explained, looking to the pale child as she quietly stood there looking into the mirror that hung around her neck.
"I should be down in the children's wing seeing what we might be about to find out from that Kisai boy," I said in return.
"All right, we'll probably run into you down there since Takeda was headed that way as well," Kagura said, picking up the clothes from the chair.
I turned to go out, pausing to tug at Inuyasha's sleeve, "Come on- you too."
"Keh, whatever. I don't want to deal with the annoying brats."
"Fine then," I said walking out, him following me, "Then you can go buy some candy and meet me in room sixty-eight."
"Candy?" He asked blinking.
"A little bit of persuasion if the boy is hesitant to open up to us."
"Whatever," He muttered, sticking out his hand.
"What?" I paused, and looked to him.
"I need some cash for it, I'm not using mine."
Sighing, I handed over some change and we parted ways.
Going down the halls of the hospital I entered the children's wing. It was then that I noticed Bankotsu sitting in the play area with a small girl and boy.
Seated in front of a television with some sort of game system hooked up to it, it appeared that the two children were playing a racing game.
"Man Yuuta, you're falling behind," The brown-haired girl said with a laugh.
The short, black-haired boy stuck his tongue out and retorted, "That's just because you had Mr. Bankotsu help you."
"He offered to help you too, but you said you could handle it."
"Hey now, don't fight…" Bankotsu intervened, picking up the third controller, "Because I'm going to enter the race late and beat you both."
The two children protested, and the Kotsu gang leader just laughed. Sure enough, moments later, he'd beaten them both and the game was over.
I was just about to speak up and call out to Bankotsu when another child came up behind him, tugging on his braid.
"Come on bro, Mr. Takeda's looking for you."
Mr. Takeda? I questioned to myself, wondering how a child knew the Police chief.
Bankotsu turned, blinking in confusion, "Excuse me?"
The child released their hold on his hair, "Oh sorry- I thought you were my bro."
He smiled, "Oh, I see. Are you lost? Should I get a nurse?"
"No. Hiten's just gotten himself lost," The young dark-haired child replied.
"So you're looking for someone that looks like me?"
"He's got long black hair like yours that he always wears in a braid."
Smiling, Bankotsu replied, "Okay, if I see him, I'll let him know you were looking for him. What's your name?"
"Souten."
"Okay Souten, are you going to keep looking?" Bankotsu asked, tilting his head a bit.
"Just tell him I'm visiting Shippou if you find him."
With that, the child ran off down the hall.
Figuring having someone that knew Shippou with me might help; I quickly followed and caught up with them.
"Excuse me, little boy?"
Glaring, the child defiantly crossed their arms, "I'm a girl, thank you very much."
I offered a nervous smile, "Sorry. You know Shippou Kisai right?"
"What's it to ya?" She retorted.
"Well, I need to speak to him. I'd heard that he had something to do with Naraku, and since my detective agency has just turned Naraku over to the police, I wanted to…you know…um…" I paused, trying to figure out how to word this.
"Oh, so you're one of the detectives. The whole hospital is talking about it practically. Well, I'm in a good mood, so come on. I'll take you to Shippou's room."
Following her down the hall, she paused and knocked on a door, calling out, "Hey, Shippou you awake?"
"Souten? Sure, come on in!" He replied.
She went in and I slowly peeked my head into the room. There was a young boy with reddish-orange hair and it appeared that he was being hospitalized for a broken leg and maybe some other broken bones from the cast and gauze I saw. Seemingly pleased to the see the other visitor, I cautiously entered.
"Is this a friend of yours Souten?" He asked seeing me come in.
She nodded in the negative, but explained, "It's one of the detectives that just caught Naraku. I think she wants to talk to you."
Shippou looked as me suspiciously and I offered a nervous smile.
"Did you really catch him?" He asked skeptically.
"He's being handled by the police right now," I replied, a bit confused at why the boy flinched when I said 'police.'
"Then you didn't solve anything. The police will just screw it up and let him go free," The boy muttered.
"Shippou, I told you those two cops didn't mean it. It was an accident," Souten spoke up, placing a hand on his.
He pushed it away, "They killed my Father and still couldn't capture Naraku. I don't trust them at all- the pathetic blundering idiots just work for the system."
I blinked, not only caught off guard by the situation, but also by his highly advanced vocabulary for a child his age. Concluding that his issue was with the police and not us, I quickly came up with a strategy to get what information we needed.
"Well Shippou, you see that's why I need to talk to you. We think Naraku's being controlled by someone else, but the police aren't buying it. And I'd really hate for them to end up locking him away or killing him if he's truly innocent. He does have a young daughter that he'd be leaving behind if the police charged him falsely."
Shippou narrowed his eyes at me, obviously trying to see if I was telling the truth or not.
"What's your name, Miss Detective?" He asked.
I blinked, not used to being the one interrogated, and answered, "It's Kagome Higurashi."
"Kagome…" He paused and then smiled, "I like you. So what do you want to know?"
I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that the boy bought the story and risked walking further into the room.
"Okay, I'd over heard the police chief saying there was a young boy here that might have some information, so when I asked Miss Kaede about you, she sent me here. I just would like it if you could tell me anything you know about Naraku."
He nodded and motioned to Souten, "Would visuals be helpful?"
Not knowing quite what he meant by that, I nodded in agreement just in case.
"All right," He took the crayons and notepad as he spoke, "About eighteen days ago, my Father was apprehended by this guy and left me tied up at my house."
Quickly sketching, he showed a picture that I quickly recognized as Musou. Nodding for Shippou to continue, I made a mental note to ask Musou about all of this.
Switching colors and flipping pages on the notepad, he spoke as he drew, "Unbeknownst to the captor, I was more than capable of freeing myself from my bonds. Once that task was dealt with, I called up the police. At first, they said they couldn't do anything until forty-eight hours had passed, being as it was a missing persons case. Seeing that they weren't going to be of much assistance, I decided to try my luck at something else. I knew, unless the captor was looking for it, my Father should still have his palm-computer with him, and if so, I could contact him via that and have him tell me his location. That is when it began."
"Keh, Kagome why are you letting some brat tell you a bedtime story," I heard the distinct voice of Inuyasha mutter from the doorway.
I frowned, "Hey now, be nice to Shippou. Where's that candy I'd asked you to get?"
Standing, I walked over and confronted my partner, who was attempting to hide the half-eaten chocolate bar behind his back. I sighed, and turned back to my current source of information.
"I'm sorry Shippou, I was going to have him bring you a treat, but apparently he got hungry on the way over here," I said, glaring back at Inuyasha.
"That's all right; I prefer a more mature form of a snack anyways." Shippou said with a shrug.
"Okay, your loss kid," Inuyasha retorted, pulling out the remaining half of the candy and biting into it.
"Was that a…caramel bar?" The young boy inquired.
"Yeah, what's it to you?"
"You mean to tell me, that this nice lady here was going to give me that and you went and ate it? Oh that was very mature..." Shippou said sarcastically.
And, as I expected, it was a matter of seconds before Inuyasha had stormed over and awarded the boy a hit to the head.
"Inuyasha!" I fumed, storming over.
"He started it!"
"You're the one that ate my candy, you oaf!" Shippou yelled back.
"Oaf? Hey, kids shouldn't be using such language!" Inuyasha muttered, crossing his arms.
"Well pardon me for using words above your intellectual capacity!"
I quickly got between the two, and separated them. Then glaring at Inuyasha, I pointed over to the chair and gave him a firm order, "Inuyasha- sit!"
Grumbling, he went over and plopped down in the chair.
I sighed and looked over to Shippou, who was currently smiling smugly at defeating Inuyasha in this war of wits. Souten just blinked, not quite sure what to take of the situation. I shook my head; "This is just what I need- my over-grown child of a partner getting into a fight with the boy that might have the clues to solve this."
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Preview for Chapter 23-
Shippou holds the answers Kagome has been looking for about Naraku, but if the police step in too soon, the young boy might not be willing to say much more. Can they resolve the tension there and get the clues?