Chapter Six: The End to End All Ends
The procession heading toward the black convertible was a dismal one, its faces gloomy with the prospect of more searching and squeezing back into the car. Kagome, the only one with the energy or inclination to be cheery, fell into step beside Kikyou and attempted to strike up a conversation.
"So, how was it you were reading the English in that book?"
Kikyou glared at her, more out of habit than malice. "A convenient plot device."
"Oh? How do you make those work?"
"I simply do."
In front of them, Miroku stopped and closed his eyes. "Is it something like this?" A rock appeared suddenly in front of Sango; the demon slayer tripped and fell backward into the monk's arms.
"Oh, I see how it works," Sango said. A rain cloud materialized above Miroku's head, soaking him before shocking him with a miniature bolt of lightening.
Even further in front of them, Kouga was concentrating. Kagome stumbled over the pebble that had just appeared in her path, but regained her balance. Inu-yasha laughed mockingly.
"No, you stupid wolf, this is how it's done." With that he concentrated, and Kagome tripped again, this time falling backward with a scream… and landing in Kouga's arms.
"Thanks, Inu-yasha!"
"I'll kill you!"
"Put me down and quit fighting!"
Miroku and Sango, who had drawn closer to Kikyou, just sighed in unison. Kagura, who had caught up to them, watched the fight with unconcealed impatience.
"How do you people put up with this?"
"We just sort of do," Sango said, shifting her weight impatiently.
Beside them, the dead priestess spoke up. "It will soon happen. I can sense it."
"What?" Kagura asked, smiling as punches began flying in front of her.
"Three… two… one…" Kikyou counted.
On cue, the convertible's door swung open, spilling two people onto the pavement. They were entangled uncomfortably, a condition probably not alleviated by one's apparent attempts to kill the other.
"I did it!" squealed Kagome, jumping up and down. "I made the convenient plot device work! Woo-hoo!"
Kouga and Inu-yasha rushed over and pried the couple apart. The girl collapsed, weeping, into Kouga; the boy pulled himself out of Inu-yasha's grasp and rose to his feet, stalking toward his partner.
The girl whimpered and clung to the wolf. Enough strands of her black and almost ankle-length hair fell into her face to appear artfully disheveled without concealing her icy blue eyes or pale and perfect features.
"Oh, it was horrible! My name is Rayvvynn (a/n: isnt it gr8, thats the name i want, so cool). I just moved here, and I thought I'd found my soul mate, who understood my pain, but he just attacked me when I tried to kiss him! This kind of thing has been happening all my life! I'll never be happy! It all started when I was little and they beat me at the orphanage…"
Before the livid boy could reach her, Inu-yasha grabbed his arm and yanked him so they were facing each other. The half-demon took a step back in shock, but maintained his grip on the boy's arm.
"Sesshoumaru? The hell! You're human!"
Sesshoumaru regarded him with a cold and regal glare that had lost nothing in his change of species. Pushing back his long, dark hair, the lord spoke.
"It would seem that you are a human as well, Inu-yasha. I suggest that you do not instigate a fight."
"And my (censored) ex-boyfriend beat me too, and then I was expelled for standing up for myself against him…" Rayvvynn complained from Kouga's arms.
"So," Kagura all but laughed, shoving past Inu-yasha to examine his brother, "You're the real Sesshoumaru. That's a good look for you, by the way."
Sesshoumaru's glare could have frozen the Sahara. He said nothing as Kagome pushed past Inu-yasha and began explaining the merits of joining the group to him, merely began the trek back to the school with an expression that clearly said, "Fall to your knees and worship me, for I have deigned to grace you with my presence."
"And then they wouldn't let me have a puppy!" Rayvvynn wailed. She sniffled and gazed up soulfully into Kouga's eyes, a single crystalline tear running down her face. "But you rescued me from that abusive monster… And you're wearing black… And you're hot enough to be my love interest…" She batted her eyes, which Kouga noticed had shifted from ice to crystal blue.
"Wait, what's the difference?" the wolf muttered.
Rayvvynn frowned. "Ice is paler. Now love me!"
Kouga craned his head to yell after the group, which was already heading back. He gently but insistently shoved at the girl clinging to him as well, though she refused to loosen her grip.
"Hey! Wait up! Kagome, don't leave me!"
"Love meeee!"
"So you've decided to join us," Inu-yasha said, tone mocking, when Kouga stumbled back into the main hallway. The wolf adjusted his torn shirt and scowled at him.
"You're lucky that I'm human right now."
"Keep telling yourself that, fleabag." The half demon turned to Kagome, growling in impatience and boredom. "Kouga's here. Can we go now?"
The schoolgirl sighed and nodded. "Yes, now we can go. It won't kill you to be patient once in a while." She walked over to Kouga, smiling a bit sheepishly. Behind them, Inu-yasha began cursing and was ignored.
"Sorry we left you. By the time I noticed, we were here," Kagome admitted sheepishly, then brightened up. "But I made them wait for you."
Kouga grasped her hands and gazed soulfully into her eyes. "Thank you, Kagome. I promise I won't forget how you waited for me."
"It, it was really nothing," Kagome laughed, surreptitiously trying to pull her hands away. "How'd you get rid of the girl, anyway?"
"Oh, I passed her off to one of my clones. She just scampered right off 'cause he had bigger chains on his pants."
"Wonder what that could symbolize," Sango muttered before loudly proclaiming, "Okay, Voice, we brought Sesshoumaru. Please open the portal and get us out of here."
"Very well," the mysterious voice rasped. With an ominous slurping noise, the fabric of the universe tore open again, revealing a black vortex in the center of the hallway. One by one the group members were sucked in until only Kikyou and Sesshoumaru remained in the hallway.
They exchanged an "I'm really far too cool for this, and neither one of us saw one another" look before setting their faces from "blank" to "firm resolve" and stepping unceremoniously into the black rip. It disappeared as though it had never been. For a moment, all was peaceful in the hallway.
A false, ugly Kikyou, body spray-painted pink, ran to the spot where the group had been standing and fell to her knees, weeping.
"INU-YASHIEEEEE!"
Dust ballooned outward as a red blur landed on the floor of the cave with a thump. It shook itself off, white hair whipping back and forth, before glancing up with an expression of desperation and diving to catch a falling green-and-white blur.
"You okay, Kagome?"
"Yeah, I guess so. My hair's a little messed up—ahh!"
Inu-yasha, who had until then been standing still, suddenly grabbed hold of Kagome with one arm and dove to catch Kikyou with the other. The undead priestess looked up at him blankly.
"Inu-yasha, do you mind?"
"Oh," he replied, "yeah, sorry." He set her down gently; there was a moment of silence before Kikyou removed an arrow from the quiver on her back and drew back her bow, aiming at Inu-yasha's head.
"Hey, wait, Kikyou, what are you doing!"
Kagome, squirming in Inu-yasha's grip, screamed, "Kikyou, what's wrong with you!"
The priestess said nothing, only let the arrow fly. It whizzed past Inu-yasha's head, severing a lock of hair, and crashed through the barrier at the cave's entrance. Shards of the shattered magic rained across the floor. The pale, white-haired figure that had been examining the entrance nodded to her and stepped out.
"Oh," said Inu-yasha and Kagome simultaneously.
With a last cold glance in their direction, Kikyou stepped past them and headed for the entrance. Inu-yasha, with a fleeting guilty look at Kagome, bounded after her. "Wait, Kikyou!"
"Don't you have companions to which to return?"
"Yeah, but…" The half-demon slowed to a halt, kicked-puppy expression in his eyes, and the priestess simply walked past him.
"Whoa, tough luck there, mutt," laughed Kouga, who'd walked up behind him and was brushing dust from the fur of his skirt. The half-demon launched himself at Kouga and before long the fur—and dust—were flying.
Kagome sighed, shaking her head sadly, as she watched the fight. The void ripped open again, and Sango landed, catlike, beside her. A moment later the demon slayer caught the falling Miroku in her arms.
"It never changes, does it, Sango?" the schoolgirl asked.
"No," Sango agreed, dropping the monk in a heap amidst his protests of a cursed hand. "Nothing really changes."
"Ah, well," Kagome sighed. "Inu-yasha, sit! Kouga, behave yourself! Honestly, I cannot believe the both of you sometimes!"
Another room, dark and barren, housed two children. One of them had pushed a flat rock to the room's center and sat smaller rocks around it for chairs. Various fractured pieces of human bone, wrapped in colorful scraps of cloth, "sat" at the chairs; young girls also occupied two. The livelier of the pair smiled at the other, a ghastly vision in white.
"You're so lucky, Kanna!"
"How so?"
"Oh, you've got all kinds of things to make dolls out of, and I don't get any dolls. Master Jaken says they're super… super… super-flooy or something, which I thought was good but I guess it's not. Lord Sesshoumaru lets me pick flowers, though, and sometimes I get to decorate Jaken! Oh, aren't tea parties fun?"
Kanna stared blankly at her.
"Would you like more tea, Kanna?"
"I don't know."
Rin beamed. "Okay, then!" Her childish hands grabbed for the skull in the center of the rock and poured imaginary beverage into the skull sitting in front of the other girl. Behind her, a door smoothly slid open; another white figure, taller and prettier, strode into the room. Kanna stared toward him with an expression that was almost relief.
"I see my message was received."
The demon lord ignored her, turning instead to the other child. "Come, Rin."
"Yay, Lord Sesshoumaru! Can I have a play date with Kanna again?"
Sesshoumaru's eyes scanned the room, from the gloom and darkness to Kanna's eerie presence to the skeletal tea set. "No."
"Oh, well. Bye, Kanna!"
"Hey, Inu-yasha?" Kagome asked as the half demon pulled her up and through the cave entrance, "Do you remember seeing Kagura before we left? I don't think I saw her. Or in the cave, either."
Inu-yasha pondered the question deeply before responding with his usual wisdom. "Feh, who really cares?"
Glancing at the address on the business card, Kagura pulled into the parking lot in front of a dull gray brick building. The sorceress pocketed the card and stepped out from her by now nearly dead convertible.
The building's inside, when she entered, was considerably more lively than its outside. It was fairly dark, and a woman was singing somewhere in the background. The bar, though not particularly busy, was populated entirely by women; Kagura spotted a clone of hers dancing with Ayame. The wind sorceress smiled and took a seat at the bar.
Tsubaki looked up from polishing a glass. "Hey, stranger. What'll it be?"
"Not sure. Is this what all the minor characters do in this place?"
"The minor females at least. The authoress never really pays attention to us except when we're backing up Kagome or Kikyou. Even serious breaches of the Fourth Wall, like just now, go pretty much unnoticed."
"I see." Kagura glanced around again, smile broadening. "In that case, I will have a drink. What do you recommend?"
"For you? (Censored)(censored)(censored) on the Beach."
"As long as that's a drink."
Tsubaki smirked again, and after a moment, passed the glass to the wind sorceress, who sipped it. "Hey, alcohol's not bad."
The bartender laughed slightly. "Never tried it?"
"Yeah, Naraku's usually drunk on his own power, so we never get any—hey, is that supposed to happen when you drink?" Both women stared at the black space-time rip that had opened in the air next to Kagura.
"Sometimes, I suppose," Tsubaki began slowly, "but I'm sober and I see it, too."
Kagura sighed and downed the rest of her drink. "Ah, hell."
Darkness and silence reigned over the castle, blanketing the skeletal remains on the floors and mingling with the faint tinge of miasma that hung in the air. Finally, for the first time in what seemed an eternity, one of the castle doors slid slowly open and a solitary figure stepped inside.
The woman's red and white attire contrasted sharply with the castle's dullness, and the eye could not help but be drawn to her as she made her dignified way through the corridors. At last she came to a door that seemed no different than the others in the hallway. The priestess paused outside it, and then turned to see another woman reclining against the wall next to her.
"He's in there," Kagura said almost dejectedly, nodding toward the door. "He said to let you in." The sorceress's façade broke down for a moment and she suddenly clutched as her heart. After a minute she straightened again and her breathing slowed don; she turned to look at the priestess, almost daring the woman to say anything.
"A kudzu tonic used daily will help with that," Kikyou said quietly, and then pushed open the door and stepped into the room.
It was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the castle, and except for the dark blob in one of the corners, could have been empty. The priestess wasted no time in aiming an arrow at the figure; it chuckled evilly.
"Why are you here, Kikyou? You escaped that universe, did you not?"
"Send them back, Naraku."
"Why, Kikyou. I'm afraid I don't know of what you're speaking."
"You know perfectly well, Naraku. Send them back."
Further conversation was cut off by the loud slamming open of the sliding door. A herd of false Kikyous, in various states of undress, poured in and situated themselves around Naraku, cooing and making insipid conversation amongst themselves.
The true Kikyou, face terrible to behold, shot them all her very best Death Glare.
"Send. Them. Back."