Last chapter was interesting... I guess... The first part was much more interesting... I think...
Sorry that I haven't been updating much, lately. The weekends seem to take forever to get to, and that seems to be the only time I get writing. Not to mention last week I was doing whatever for Easter, and I got KINGDOM HEARTS II FOR EASTER! W00T! I've been working on that a lot lately, too. But I went to a Twins game at the Metrodome. That was fun.
But, I'm making up for my break with an extra long chapter. Hope you all like it!
A Change in Our Future
Chapter Seven: InuYasha's Rescue
Well, I'm here.
In front of the Demon Hunter's building.
I'm supposed to be delivering my mother's dinner to her, according to the cop I just met.
Of course, that isn't true.
Now what?
Well, it's no time to chicken out. I parked my bike (I mean, Hojo's bike) in the bike rack next to the building and walked towards the building. I was slightly startled when I saw the doors open automatically. I guess I've been in the Feudal Era too long.
I walked inside and adjusted my backpack a little bit.
The lobby was huge! The floors were marble and shiny, and the walls were white with gold trim near the floor and ceiling. There were plants all over, but none as big, or as beautiful, as the middle plant. It was a giant tree, bigger than the Go-Shinboku, and around it was tons of beautiful spring water, coming from holes in the tree. In the pond around the tree was numerous plants, like lily pads and flowers, and some weeds under the surface. There were also a bunch of koi fish in the water, too. The lobby was beautiful. You seemed to be able to see through spots on the tree because of knobby holes that had grown into it, and you could see a secretary on the other side of the tree.
I walked around the beautiful tree and looked over to the secretary's desk. She was too busy answering phone calls to notice me. Next to the elevator, which was near the secretary's desk, there was a sign naming all the floors in the building. I went over to the sign and started to read all the different floor names.
- - -
Floor B2: Technology Testing Facility
Floor B1: Dangerous Demon Testing and Hold
Floor One: Lobby and Help Desk
Floor Two: Available Demon Adoptions
Floor Three: Pig Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Four: Cat Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Five: Dog Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Six: Fox Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Seven: Raccoon Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Eight: Horse Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Nine: Insect Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Ten: Frog Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Eleven: Snake Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Twelve: Dragon Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Thirteen: Monkey Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Fourteen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Fifteen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Sixteen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Seventeen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Eighteen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Nineteen: Other Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Twenty: Half-Demon Testing and Hold
Floor Twenty-One: Demon Health Office
Floor Twenty-Two: Employee Offices
Floor Twenty-Three: Employee Offices
Floor Twenty-Four: Employee Offices
Floor Twenty-Five: Vice-President's Office
Floor Twenty-Six: President's Office
Floors B2 - B1 and floors 3 - 26 are off limits to non-employees unless escorted by an employee.
- - -
I stood there, reading the sign until I figured out where to look. Obviously, I didn't read well enough. Though, I did manage to read the bottom.
I needed to have an escort. No one was going to escort me around this building. I needed another plan.
I looked over to my right and saw a door. On the door it said, "Employee Locker Rooms - Employees Only." I smiled. That was perfect. I stood outside the rooms and waited for anyone to come out for a while, and then I walked inside.
Well, now I just needed to find an open locker with a uniform or something. Ugh. This would take forever. Well, fortunately, I was in luck. Right away I spotted an extra outfit in the back and went to put it on.
After changing I looked around for a name tag or something. Holy crap these guys were messy. I found one on the floor. This was too easy.
I walked out of the room, still carrying my backpack. I walked towards the elevator as calmly as I could, and pressed the button.
Now I had to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Ding!
FINALLY! The doors opened to reveal another person standing in the elevator... Crap.
I stepped inside and recalled what floor InuYasha was probably on. Floor Five: Dog Demon Testing and Hold. That one was my best bet, and the only one that I was sure that he was on. I pressed the 5 button and saw as the other person pressed button number 12.
The elevator jolted a little bit and went up.
"So, you work with the dogs?" he asked. Holy crap, he memorized the floors?
I nodded.
"I haven't seen your face around here. Are you new?" he asked again.
I nodded again. "Yes," I answered, smiling slightly.
"I work with the dragons. Nice bunch, but really hard to handle. I suppose dealing with the dog demons is probably just as hard. There are a lot of them," he said. He was sort of weird.
"Yes, there is," I said, not really wanting to say much.
He laughed a little bit. "I actually don't approve of enslaving the demons. But, you gotta live with it," he said.
"Yeah, I guess you do," I answered, sweat pouring down my face.
He looked at me. "Hey, are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm just nervous. It's my first day," I answered. Oh, man, Kagome. You're going to be the queen of lying by the time you reach the age of 17. But, if it saves your friend, you gotta do it.
"I remember my first day. Ha... It was pretty scary. The demons were so intimidating," he recalled. "You look pretty young."
Oh, crap. I have to make something else up again. "Plastic surgery," I answered simply.
Ding!
Great! It was my stop.
"Well, this is your stop," he said. As if I didn't know that. "I hope to see you around."
Doubt it. I waved good-bye to him and walked into the room. It was huge, like the lobby, but it was so much bigger. The ceiling was just as tall, if not taller, and the floor area was much, much bigger. You couldn't tell, though, because of the cages that kept the demons. There were tons of dog demons here, some in a human form, and some in their dog form. Most of the cages were large, with three or four dog demons in it, but some cages held only one demon in them. These had different types of plants in them and at least one small pond each. I half expected to see Sesshomaru in one of them, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. He probably wasn't even alive still, or was too strong and well hidden to be caught.
Though, I noticed, every single demon had one of those collars on them.
I started walking down the isles of demons, looking for InuYasha. I don't know how many isles I went through, all I know is that I couldn't find him. All I found were sad faces looking at me. My heart ached at the horrible things they must have gone through. In the back of the room I also found some hallways. Curious, I went through them, finding out that these were the testing rooms. These rooms were all white, unlike the other cages that kept the other dog demons, and had a large window in the hallway so you could see the demon.
These demons were chained up by their arms and legs. Their arms were chained to the ceiling and suspended above the ground. The chains were so tight that they couldn't move at all, even with demon strength. It was horrible.
Some of the dog demons had no clothes on, or only some clothes. I looked away whenever there was a demon like that. I bet those rooms were cold, too.
I walked back towards the elevator, avoiding anyone who was human along the way. I sighed and rested my head on the wall once I reached there.
InuYasha wasn't in this room. I closed my eyes and sighed.
Though, wen I looked up, I noticed another sign saying what floors there were. The floor I was on was underlined, and I looked down the list from there. Then I saw it.
Floor Twenty: Half-Demon Testing and Hold
Crap. I'd been looking on the wrong floor the whole time. I was fifteen floors off!
Well, I'd better go to look on floor twenty.
I went in the elevator and hurried to the twentieth floor.
Once there, I noticed it looked almost exactly like the last floor I was on, except for much different demons. Before, when it was only dog demons, they all looked either dog-like or human-like... That wasn't very surprising. But these demons were more like the demons that I usually fought in the Feudal Era.
There was a mixture of pretty or cute demons, and then there were ugly ones.
I saw him.
No, not InuYasha.
I saw Jinenji, the half demon InuYasha and I met when we went to get herbs for Kirara. Tears came to my eyes as I ran over to his cage. He lived this long? I couldn't believe it.
"Jinenji?" I asked as I put my hands up to the cage. I looked at him sadly, my eyes filling with tears.
He looked at me for a second, and then gasped. "Kagome...?" Jinenji said, looking at me with his big, blue eyes.
I smiled. "Yes, it's me. How did you get in here, Jinenji?" I asked.
He smiled slightly. "They caught me."
I looked at the cage door. "Can't you get out?" I asked.
"No. The cage is resistant to demons," he said to me.
I ran over to the cage door and started to figure out how the door unlocked. I pulled off my backpack and started to dig through it, trying to find something to unlock the door. Soon enough, I found a bobby pin. Smiling, I started to mess with the lock, and soon I had it undone.
I opened the door and Jinenji stepped out. He smiled at me.
"Thank you, Kagome. I appreciate it," he told me.
I smiled. "No problem, Jinenji. Just tell me something... Did you see InuYasha being dragged around here, anywhere?"
Jinenji looked down at me. "I'm sorry, Kagome. I haven't." I frowned.
"Oh. Well, I need to find him. Good luck getting out... Maybe you can go through a window?" I suggested. "Kneel down, I'll get that collar off of you."
He did as I said and soon I got the enormous collar off. It fell to the ground with a clang, and soon Jinenji was off, waving goodbye. "I'll figure out a way to get out, you go find InuYasha," he said. I smiled and then started to run down the isle, looking in every cage for InuYasha.
Just like before, I looked down every isle and then in the back rooms before going back to the elevator with no luck. I sighed. There were so many more floors... How long was this going to take?
And just like before, there was a list of the floors that I looked at. Then, one caught my eye.
B1: Dangerous Demon Testing and Hold
I gasped. What if InuYasha was considered a dangerous demon because he fought with that man instead of just going with him? I'm sure that's why he's not in the half-demon holding place or the dog demon holding place, I thought, looking at the board in worry.
I pressed the button for the elevator and got inside as soon as it reached my floor. I went in and pressed the button for B1.
I had to find InuYasha.
I was so nervous by the time that I reached the bottom floor. The doors opened and I quickly went out of the elevator. This room was dark and had weak lighting. All around there were small cages, each with one demon, almost all of them growling or making fearsome faces. Some demons were gruesome and had blood all over them, and other demons would wait until a human was close before trying to get out of the cage and attack them. I clutched the white coat that I had disguised myself in.
I was afraid.
If InuYasha was with these guys, who knows what would happen. This is the dark underbelly of the demon world. Demons that have turned into monsters because of this horrible world. What happened in their past to make them like rabid animals?
I scurried around the place, trying to find my way through the isles and see if I could find InuYasha. Often I had to pretend to be looking at a demon and hide my face with my hair when a person passed.
My heart was pounding against my chest and I was sweating badly. I kneeled down next to a demon who didn't seem as vicious as the others and cleared my throat. The demon looked at me with red eyes. He was obviously a bird demon, I could tell that much because of the feathery hair and the feathers on the bottom of his cage.
"How old are you?" I whispered, sounding seemingly innocent.
"Well over 700 years old, why?" he said. It wasn't easily heard by anyone nearby because of the growls, shouts and other things by other demons.
"Did you see a dog demon go by here a while ago? He would have been wearing something from about 500 years ago," I whispered.
"I'll tell you what I saw if you give me something to eat," he said out loud.
Now I'm sort of glad I ran into that cop, otherwise I wouldn't have remembered about my food. I took off my backpack and took out my untouched lunch and opened it up. The smell instantly made him drool. "How's this? It was made this morning, so I'm not sure if it's exactly fresh or not," I explained.
"It's perfect!" the bird demon said. I smiled.
"Now, tell me what you saw," I said, holding the food right outside the cage.
"I saw an unconscious half-demon being dragged into the back rooms. That's where they do the testing and stuff... He musta done something really bad to get in there," the bird demon explained.
"He got in a fight with a Demon Hunter," I answered.
"What? No wonder he's back there. They're probably gonna kill him with drugs... I mean, regular demons who are just really vicious go in there, but the ones who fight humans never come out," he explained.
I gasped and bit my lip. "InuYasha... They're going to kill him?" I said, fat tears forming and rolling down my cheeks.
"Now, don't cry... I'm sure you... Wait, did you say InuYasha?" he asked. I nodded. "I remember him. He was the demon who got pinned to that tree..." I nodded again.
"Here, take the food, I won't need it," I said, squeezing the box of food through the bars of the cage.
"Thanks... I appreciate it," he said.
I smiled. "Don't mention it." I started walking off towards the back rooms, making sure to check for humans at every turn.
This part of the building was much bigger than all the other parts. They probably didn't let these demons out for a long time, and there's probably so many in here... I stopped once I reached the back rooms.
Holy crap.
There were hundreds of windows to rooms with demons in them, all of them chained up by their hands and feet. I gasped and started looked down the hall. Well, at least I started at the very end. That way, I knew there was only one way to go.
I walked down the hall, my feet echoing against the wall... This hallway was oddly quiet, the wall separating it from the main room blocked all sound. I had started counting the windows that I passed, looking in at the demons who were in there.
134...
135...
136...
My legs were starting to get tired. I hadn't sat down since school ended, or at least since I rode on that bike. I wish I had a watch on me. School has been out for at least two hours. I know that much.
189...
190...
191.
I stopped and looked through the window. There, in room 191, InuYasha hung, chained by his arms and legs. I couldn't see his face because his hair was blocking it, but I knew it was him, it was so obvious. His ears twitched slightly on top of his head, and he still wore the red pants that he always does... But they took his haori off, probably to clean the bullet wound in his arm.
I walked to the door to his room and it opened automatically, letting me in. I felt the hot tears run down my cheeks as I walked over to InuYasha, stunned that I actually found him.
"In- InuYasha?" I said, trying to make sure it was him, even though I knew it was.
InuYasha's head moved slightly, and his ears went back at the sound of my voice.
I was greeted with a low growl. InuYasha slowly brought his face up, and I gasped as I saw that InuYasha had changed into his full demon state.
"InuYasha!" I cried, running over to him. His blue and red eyes followed me and he kept growling at me, but I went over to him anyway. I hugged him tight around the waist and started muttering small things that I can't even remember now.
"K-Kagome?" InuYasha said, his voice back to normal. I gasped and backed up, looking at him carefully. He looked around, and suddenly he remembered where he was. "How did you get here, Kagome?"
"I followed you... I'm here to save you, InuYasha," I said proudly. I stood on my tiptoes and started to take the collar off InuYasha, my hands trembling. I didn't know why I was so afraid, I just kept shaking.
Soon I got the collar off and he smiled.
"Thanks, Kagome," InuYasha said. I looked him in the eyes and smiled.
"Your welcome," I answered, going over to his arm and unshackling it. I went to his other arm and he fell to the ground, hard. I giggled a little bit as I went to his feet and unshackled them, too.
"Kagome... Can you go get my shirt over there?" InuYasha asked. I turned around and quickly went to get his haori, sitting on a chair in the corner. I brought it to him and started to help him get dressed. "They did something to me... I feel weaker than normal," InuYasha complained.
I smiled. "Don't worry, I'll help you," I said, and I went to help InuYasha to his feet. Right after InuYasha got up, we froze.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" a shrill voice said to me. I slowly turned around saw a female Demon Hunter pointing a gun at me. She was young and was wearing a tight black outfit, as were the two other women behind her. I looked at her face carefully and gasped.
"Ayame?" I asked, really surprised to see this person in front of me.
"Don't make me laugh. Ayame was my mother," the woman answered. That surprised me, since she looked exactly like Ayame. "I'm Sakura. Now, tell me what you're doing in here!"
"I'm bringing him home," I said, pointing to InuYasha.
"He's a dangerous demon! He can't be trusted! And you can only bring him home if you're his master," Aya-- I mean, Sakura said.
I smiled. "I am his master... This is my slave."
Though almost unconscious, he was still feisty. "Now wait a--"
I covered InuYasha's mouth with my hand. "I know you don't like to admit it, but you're my slave, right?" I moved my hand up and down to make his head nod and soon InuYasha was moving his head by himself, realizing what I was doing.
"Well, if he is your slave, then I guess you can leave," Sakura said.
People are really gullible.
She didn't even ask why I was wearing a uniform, or why I had a school uniform underneath this white coat.
I started walking out of the room, InuYasha leaning on my shoulders. By the time I was half way down the hall, I was stopped by Sakura. "Hey, did you know my mother?"
"Well, there are many different Ayame's out there... the only one I know was a wolf demon with red hair the same color as yours," I said.
"Kagome, this woman is a wolf demon," InuYasha said. I smirked.
"I didn't notice... Yeah, we knew your mother," I said, leading InuYasha out of the building. We left Sakura there, watching us walk away.
That was sort of weird, meeting the daughter of a demon we knew back in the Feudal Era. I led InuYasha through the area, avoiding all the men and women working there as to not cause trouble. InuYasha was really heavy by the time that I got to the elevator.
I pressed the button for 1. At least we only had to go one floor up.
- - -
Once we were outside I led InuYasha to an alleyway. He could pretty much walk by himself now, except he was a little unbalanced. I threw the outfit that I was wearing over my school clothes down in the dirt and looked at InuYasha.
"Can you explain to me what's going on here?" InuYasha asked me.
I sighed. "InuYasha, something happened... We must have changed the past or something, because now demons and half-demons are kept as slaves and pets here in the modern era. It's horrible! We have to find a way to change it back to the way it was!" I started crying; tears were falling down my cheeks for probably the fifth time today. I was really emotional lately, ever since I killed Kane.
"Demons aren't even supposed to exist in this era!" I shouted, wiping away the tears that were falling down my face.
InuYasha growled. "We'll figure this out... We'll get rid of these demons, and we'll change everything back to normal," InuYasha promised me. "This will all be over soon, Kagome."
Man, I've been writing all day. I'm tired. Gah. I'm really tired... Yawn... Hey, I've got an idea. Maybe I'll get some fluff in the next chapter!
Next Chapter: InuYasha and Kagome head home, exhausted by their day today. Though, will they get rest, with more news of the Demon Hunters?