Chapter Three:

Surviving Saturday

o0o

Kagome groggily reached out a hand and slammed it onto her alarm.

The noise continued.

"Argh!" She hit it again.

More shrill ringing.

She groped around, her face in her pillow, grabbed the alarm, yanked it from the wall and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the ground, and yet still the ringing continued. Her disheveled head shot upward from the pillow and her eyes glared in sleepy frustration at the apparatus.

"ALARM FROM HELL! What do you want from me? My soul? You got it. But for the love of all things good and green on this earth, stop ringing!"

The ringing stopped. She let out a long, relieved sigh and let her tousled head fall back into the warm comfort of her bed and pillow.

Riiiiiiing.

She shot out of her bed and grabbed the closest thing to her, which was her portable phone on her nightstand, and held it threateningly, ready to chuck it at the defenseless alarm clock laying harmlessly on the ground.

Riiiiiiing.

She looked to the phone in her hand, and back to the alarm, before slowly turning her narrowed and confused gaze back to the phone.

"Oh."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed the 'Talk' button. "Higurashi residence…"

"What the hell took so long?"

Not quite fully awake, the young woman pulled the phone away and stared at it in confusion before putting it back against her ear. "Um…who is this?"

"Inuyasha. I'm outside your apartment. Come on, time to go."

She shook her head in confusion and then, realizing he couldn't see her, swallowed and answered, her voice still scratchy from sleep. "Inuyasha? Wait, who are you, and why are you calling me on a Saturday at…" She glanced at where her clock used to sit before realizing it was now in a heap of tiny electronic parts next to her wall, and looked to her wristwatch instead. "Eight in the morning! Argh! What kind of sadist are you?"

"Oi, shut up, and answer your door." She heard a loud pounding echo down her short hallway. "Come on, Sesshoumaru's expecting us. Not that I care about him, but the police are expecting us too. So move it. Open up." He pounded again.

Kagome heard a click, signaling the abrupt end of their brief conversation, and she replaced the phone in its cradle.

She yawned, pulled on her blue terry-cloth robe, and shuffled out of her bedroom and toward the front door.

She pulled it open, still trying to grasp exactly what was going on, and moved back quickly to avoid being run over by a very irritated looking man.

He stormed in and turned to look at her. Noticing her robe and disheveled appearance, his frustration seemed to grow. "What are you waiting for? Let's go?"

Something in Kagome's brain clicked, then, and the entire previous night came rushing back to her.

"Woah."

Kagome swayed slightly and Inuyasha moved toward her jerkily before stopping himself. "You look like you're gonna hurl. Are you ok?"

She leaned against the closed door behind her and held a hand to her head, her eyes closed against the images flying through her memory. Walking in the dark, a man being shot, running…lots of running, being chased, throwing a briefcase, running again, being helped by…a silver haired man.

"Oh." She looked up at him suddenly. "It's you."

He narrowed his eyes and gave her a dry look.

She shook her head to clear it. "I mean…I came back and fell asleep and…ugh, I can't function without caffeine and…I couldn't remember who you were, but now I do, and you're here and…yeah, it's you."

He rolled his eyes. "Hurry up and get dressed. They want to question you, and somehow I got stuck playing delivery boy. So come on…I have to get you to the office."

Kagome nodded and shuffled back toward her room. "Just so long as we can get coffee on the way…otherwise anything I have to say will be completely worthless."

He grunted and turned to go sit and wait in her living room. "This I can see…."

o0o

Kagome sipped quietly at her steamy coffee mug, and let her hooded eyes drift warily about the room. It was fairly dark, thin misty strands of sunlight filtering in through the tinted glass and the half closed blinds. But it was just light enough to make out most of the figures seated around the long wooden table.

She sat at the very end of the conference table. On her right there was a woman with long black hair, brown eyes, wearing a crisp suit. She had introduced herself as Kikyo, the detective in charge of the case. Across from her, on Kagome's left, was her assistant, a rookie detective with rusty hair, pulled back in a low ponytail. While Kikyo wasn't mean, the young man, Shippou, was far friendlier and much warmer than his boss, and Kagome felt much more comfortable around him than the serious woman beside her. Next to Shippou and Kikyo sat a few of the Taiko employees: the Head of Security, Kouga, as well as a few of their lead scientists. At the opposite end of the table was an empty leather chair, and the entire room seemed to be waiting for whoever would fill it.

Inuyasha, who refused to sit down with the rest of them, paced restlessly behind her, stopping occasionally to stare out of one of the darkened windows at the city far below them.

Kagome stared at him for a moment, squinting at his hair. She stared at the top of his head for a moment in confusion, before shaking her head and taking another sip of her coffee.

While she could have sworn she saw something on the top of his head, she knew it must have been her imagination. There is no way she could have seen what she thought she saw.

She was startled from her thoughts when the door behind her opened. She felt almost as though she was being knocked over by the sheer force of energy that had suddenly entered the room. She clutched a hand to her heart and braced herself against the overwhelming feeling of power.

At her sudden movement, the footsteps stopped directly behind her, and all the heads at the table turned in her direction.

When she had finally collected herself, she opened her eyes to find everyone staring at her in speculation. She turned to see Inuyasha leaning against the glass window panes, staring at her and nodding his head slowly.

"I knew it."

She crinkled her brow in question, but he didn't say anything further, but raised his gaze from her face to a point some few feet above her.

A very calm and cool voice spoke softly from above her head. "She feels it?"

Kagome turned slowly to stare at the man behind her. He too had long silvery hair, thought it was longer and smoother and straighter than Inuyasha's. He had the same golden colored eyes, though his were narrower, and older. He wasn't staring at her, however, but at Inuyasha.

She turned to look again at Inuyasha and he flicked a brow upward. "Ain't it obvious? I knew there was something not right about her. Don't tell me you can't feel it."

She heard a soft rustling behind her and turned just as Sesshoumaru moved to her left side. He was looking at her now. "Miss Higurashi?"

She gulped and nodded. "Yes, sir."

He held out a hand to her and she took it. "I am Sesshoumaru Taisho. I believe we have some important matters to discuss."

She nodded mutely, her hand still in his.

He stared at her in silence for a few moments before finally opening his mouth again to speak. "Tell me what you felt when I walked in the room."

She bit her lip and tried to pull her hand away, but his grip tightened and she stilled. "Um…like I was being…overwhelmed. With some very strong…presence." She shook her head in confusion and looked at her lap. "I don't know…I've never felt that before."

He turned over her hand so that her palm was facing upward. He held it there for a moment, staring at it. Without looking up to her face he asked, "Miss Higurashi do you notice anything about the people in this room?"

She looked around the room in confusion. "I…I don't understand."

"Just look at each person very closely and tell me if you notice something…unique about them."

She let her eyes drift over the faces around her before letting them rest on Inuyasha. She let her nervousness and confusion show in her eyes, and he had pity on her. He shoved himself away from the window and made his way toward her, kneeling down beside her chair. He took her hand from Sesshoumaru and held it in his own.

"Kagome, look at me. Do you see something…different about me?"

She took in his features and shook her head desperately. "I don't understand."

He lifted her hand to the top of his head. "Look again." He moved her hand away, but not before she felt something warm and soft twitch beneath it.

"Oh…oh my." She shook her head in fascination at the man before her. She pulled her hand from his grip and reached it out to touch one of the triangular appendages perched atop his silvery head.

"You…you have cute little puppy ears!" She rubbed it gently between her fingers before he twitched it away, scowling at her.

"Yeah, yeah. Now, what else do you see."

She looked at him again, and looked to his hand that gripped the corner of the table where he was kneeling.

"Claws. You have claws."

She looked around the room now, noticing things she hadn't seen before. Shippou had pointed ears, though they weren't like Inuyasha's. They were on the side of his head. So were Kouga's, and so where the scientists'. Shippou was grinning wildly at her, and his pointy white fangs showed just past his lower lip.

She looked over to Kikyo, only to find her staring at her in silent, dubious appraisal. She lifted her eyebrows at Kagome. "Don't look at me. I'm human."

She heard someone clear his throat behind her, and turned back to look up at Sesshoumaru again, only to gasp. He was perhaps the most changed. Deep magenta stripes graced his high cheekbones, and a violet crescent moon showed on his forehead. She looked to his hands to see his claws, and saw that matching magenta strips also showed from his wrists.

Kagome swallowed. "What does she mean…she's human? Does that mean you're not?"

He quirked a brow at her before moving smoothly to the other end of the table, taking a seat in the chair placed there.

"Miss Higurashi, I'm afraid you are now more caught up in this than I would like. But since you are, and since you seem to have certain…abilities…I believe that rather than killing you to keep you silent, we can have you work for us instead."

Kagome's eyes grew wide in panic and she looked about the room for help. "Killing me? What do you mean killing me? And what do you mean 'work for you?' I can't! I have my own business! My own life!"

She made to stand up. "Listen, I didn't do or see anything. As far as I'm concerned you're all as normal and normal can be, and I'm still in bed dreaming. Yes, that's right. Let's just say we've never even met, and I can just get out of your hair." By the time she was done with her stuttering session of hysteria, she was out of her seat and out of the door.

Sesshoumaru raised a brow at Inuyasha, who sighed in exasperation and followed the rambling woman out the door.

He caught her frantically jabbing at the elevator button and leaned up against the wall beside her. "And just where do you think you're going?"

"Home."

"No you're not."

"Oh yes, I am. I want out of here. You people are crazy if you think I'm going to come work for you. What, did you all go out and get cosmetic surgery together? Because that's sick! What are you, a cult? I don't want to be a part of it!"

She turned back to the lit "Down" button on the wall and continued to jab at it.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "You know, poking that thing ain't gonna make it come faster. And when it gets here, and you get downstairs, you really think they're going to let you leave?"

She looked over to him in fear. "What are they going to do to me?"

"They? What, you're not worried about me?"

She looked confused for a minute. "Well…no, I guess I'm not."

"Why?"

"Because…because…" She looked him in the eye for a moment before answering very calmly and seriously. "Because I trust you. Don't ask me why, or how, but I do."

He nodded slowly. "Well, then, you're going to need to trust me enough to go back in that room." He gestured his head back toward the conference room she had just escaped from.

She followed his motion and looked at the closed door. She could almost feel the power seeping out of it. She could feel it on Inuyasha too. She looked back at him. "You won't let them kill me? You'll protect me?"

He smirked at her for a minute. "They're not going to kill you. Don't worry about it. I won't let 'em hurt ya."

The elevator pinged behind her and they both turned to watch as it opened.

Inuyasha looked back at her. "So… what'll it be?"

She swallowed once, gathered up her courage and turned back toward him. She nodded fiercely. "Ok. Let's go."

With that, she followed him back into the darkened room, leaving the elevator to close behind her and begin its descent downward without her.

o0o

Kagome shook her head at the woman beside her. "No, I got a decent look at him, but I didn't recognize him."

Kikyo nodded, jotting quick notes in her notebook. "Can you give a description then? To the best of your ability?"

Kagome thought back, her eyes closed in concentration. "He had short hair. It was dark, but I don't know if it was black, or just dark brown. And…" Something bright flickered at her from her memory. "Oh! He had a gold tooth. This one." She pointed to her front right incisor.

Kikyo nodded again, asked for a few more descriptions, and looked over to Sesshoumaru after Kagome had exhausted her memory of the killer. "Your turn, I suppose."

Sesshoumaru gazed steadily at Kagome for a few minutes while she squirmed in discomfort.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he finally opened his mouth to speak. "Do you know what we do here?"

She shook her head. "No."

"We are a research facility. Research and development."

He tapped his claws on the tabletop before speaking again. "We, as you probably know by now, are not human. Well, rather…some of us are, but most are not. Most of us are youkai. What you felt when I came into the room…most humans cannot feel that. You felt my youki…my power. Each of us in the room have it, save for Kikyo, but they were probably already here when you arrived, am I correct?"

Kagome nodded shakily. "Yes…they were all seated here when I arrived."

"And…did you feel uncomfortable when you walked into the room?"

She gave him a half grin. "Well, yes, but I don't think there needed to be a room full of youkai to make me feel uncomfortable."

He remained stone-faced, though she could have sworn she saw a small twitch at the very end of his lip. Shippou, however, chuckled outright, and Kouga smiled at her.

"Well, you are obviously not used to the powers that you have. You obviously can't control them…I can feel them sparking off you at random."

He looked to Kikyou, who nodded. "Yes, she is untrained, but that is typical. She probably had no way of knowing. Most don't, these days."

Sesshoumaru nodded and looked back at Kagome. "You, Miss Higurashi, have miko abilities. You can feel the presence of youki, and you have the power to fight it, and to purify youkai…though you are not trained to do so."

She shook her head blankly and saw Kouga chuckle. He turned toward Sesshoumaru. "I think you better just stick to the basics right now…she's looking confused."

"Indeed," he replied dryly. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Miss Higurashi, did you perhaps see whether or not the scientist handed off anything to someone else before he was killed? Was anyone else around?"

She shook her head and bit her lip. "No, but…what the killer was after…what the scientist took…I, um…I think I found it."

She had slipped it into her pocket that morning before leaving with Inuyasha. She reached in and took it out, placing it on the table in front of her, the glowing orb inside the velvet bag thunking slightly against the table.

Sesshoumaru sat up in his seat. "You had it? This whole time?"

She cringed and hunched her shoulders up protectively. "I'm sorry! After I passed out I…I didn't remember everything right away. I didn't realize I had it until late last night after I had already gotten home."

She bit her lip again and looked around worriedly. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to keep it from you."

Sesshoumaru looked at her but said nothing. One of the scientists, an elderly gentleman with gray hair pulled back tight against the base of his skull, cleared his throat and spoke up for the first time. "My dear…did you touch it?"

Kagome nodded again, looking miserable. "I'm really sorry."

He shook off her apology. "Now, now, calm down. Just tell me what happened when you touched it."

She looked at the ceiling in thought. "Well…it just kinda…went all swirly and pink…pinkish white."

The room filled with murmuring then, as a few of the scientists leaned together.

"Take it out of the bag."

Kagome looked up sharply at Sesshoumaru before doing as he requested.

She lifted the black velvet bag with trembling fingers and let the orb roll out onto her palm. She stared at it for a moment before looking around the room.

The orb glowed innocently from her hand and one of the scientists smiled. "She's the one. Unbelievable."

Kikyo was scowling at her slightly, but remained silent.

Kagome turned to ask what exactly they meant by that comment when the orb in front of her suddenly pulsed, sending out large rays of blinding light.

Everyone at the table pushed back in the chairs and stood, alert and poised for action, while Kagome shielded her eyes with one hand. When she pulled it away, she turned to see that the orb was glowing intensely now, and no longer in her palm, but a few inches above it, hovering in the air.

"What…what did I do? I didn't do anything! Why is it doing that?"

"Just… hold still and shut up, would ya?"

She felt Inuyasha move to her side slightly. "It's not gonna hurt you. If anything, it'll hurt the rest of us, but not you. So just calm down, already."

Kagome nodded and had just begun to let her shoulders relax slightly when she felt an immense pain in her chest. She clutched at it with her free hand but the burning was intense and she felt her legs buckle beneath her.

She looked to her other hand only to find that the orb was no longer there, but the light hadn't faded from her vision. She felt blind, trapped in the glowing white light.

She felt as though she had been shot in the chest, and that the bullet was still lodged there, pulsing with heat and energy.

Her last thought before she hit the ground was, 'Inuyasha, you lying jerk, you're wrong. It hurts like hell.' And then it all went blank.

o0o

A/N:

I'm such a pansy. That's the longest chapter I've written, but it has nothing in length compared to many others that I've read. And yet I still thought, "Dang, I'm never writing one that long again!" Wuss.

Ah, but I wrote it all in one day. And I just couldn't stop till I'd gotten a few things explained, and a bit more of the storyline set into place. See? Now we know it's gotta be the Shikon jewel, and we got some more characters in there and… yeah, ok so the rest of the plot isn't set up yet. But it will all be more clear in the next chapter. I'm still explaining things. It'll be ok, I promise. Patience is a virtue.

And now I'm gonna post it.

Huzzah for updating.