Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
Chapter Eleven
Kagome and Takumi: Patchwork
Inuyasha hadn't expected quite that reaction from Kagome, but he briefly managed to explain his encounter with the boy to her. She had stumbled from the room then, grabbing something she called a 'phone' and saying that she had to 'call him'. With her gone, Inuyasha eased himself back down on the bed, and rubbed his shoulder.
His mind wandered. He thought of Onigumo, the name that Takumi had mentioned. Was there any possibility that there was a connection there to Naraku? What had really happened between himself and Kikyou and Naraku? Where did the jewel fit in? Was Kagome right about the reincarnation thing? If it was true, and that boy really was his reincarnation, then did that mean he, Inuyasha really had died?
And if he had, then how was he alive here?
Kagome fumbled with the phone. What must Takumi think of her, finding a strange boy in her room? And how did she think he was going to react to all this? It seemed as though the whole world, already topsy-turvy, was going even more insane. Kagome finally managed to dial his cell number, and waited impatiently for him to pick up.
"Hello?" The battered voice picked up, startling Kagome.
"Takumi?" She said hesitantly.
"Miko?" His voice was more alert now, and slightly panicked. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but I think you saw something this morning, and I think we need to talk..." Kagome felt her voice trail off, cringing at the cliche phrase. The silence on the other end of the phone wasn't helping matters. But finally, finally!, a deep sigh indicated he had heard.
"Alright. I'll come over to your house." Kagome was about to open her mouth to suggest a better place, but figured it would be wise to not.
"I'll be waiting." She waited, ready to play the little game of goodbye tag they always played, but he hung up without saying goodbye. Sitting in her darkened living room, unaware of the pale light of the fading moon, Kagome felt tears streak down her face.
She wasn't quite certain why she was crying.
When Takumi came, she was smiling and waiting for him on the porch, as if nothing was wrong. As if it wasn't nearly midnight, and he probably had to sneak away to come see her. As if she couldn't feel the intense gold gaze of a hanyou from her bedroom window. He came up to her porch, and Kagome involuntarily shivered at the recent memory it brought up.
"Are you cold?" he immediatly asked, taking off his coat and wrapping it around her. She smiled in thanks, and then sighed.
"So you found Inuyasha?" she said, not looking at him.
"The hanyou in your room? Yeah. There's something going on little miko, something bigger than the both of us. I'm not sure what it is, but things aren't making sense at all."
"I know Takumi. Let me tell you though, what happened to me." Takumi's eyes lifted in alarm at her statement.
"What happened...?"
"At first. Last night, I was outside, waiting for you. There was this strange feeling, it was so cold, and the wind, and my side hurt, so I went to the well house, and then there he was, at the bottom of the well. I don't know how I did it, but I got him out of the well and upstairs in my room. He wasn't dead, so I cleaned him off. Inuyasha, that's what his name is. He told me about this girl he loves, no loved, he says she's dead now. The important thing is that she and I look alike, just like you and he look alike. Takumi, Inuyasha is convinced he died, and I think you are his reincarnation, just like I am the reincarnation of the girl he loved." Kagome paused, looking at the boy before her nervously.
"Miko, I have to ask you a very important question," Takumi finally spoke. "Were you attacked today, by a being with tentacles?"
"You mean Naraku? Yeah, how did you know?" Kagome thought she had hid her wounds fairly well.
"He attacked me today as well." Takumi sat heavily on the porch steps and Kagome sank down with him.
"Takumi, what's going on?"
"I asked my dad about it today. He told me some, and also said I need to talk to my uncle."
"The business man? He's not very nice, and he looks kind of odd."
"Miko, that's not exactly the point here." Kagome blushed under Takumi's words as he continued. "There's a legend in my family...it's hard to understand it, sometimes. But here is how it goes. There was a very powerful miko who fell in love with a hanyou. At the time in feudal Japan, such a union was unacceptable. The miko guarded a very powerful jewel, and believed that a good wish would make the jewel vanish, and the miko could live a normal life. The hanyou agreed to become human for the miko, and to live happily ever after. There was a bandit who wanted the miko to be his wife also, but the hanyou killed him. The wish was made, the hanyou became human, and, several generations later, here I am."
"That's..." Kagome realized it was almost exactly like what Inuyasha had told her about himself.
"That's not the end though. Apparantly the almost dead bandit made some sort of deal with a demon, who took over the body, intending to kill the two lovers. However, the brother of the hanyou killed the dark demon. Listen very importantly to this part, miko. The hanyou was named Inuyasha, the miko was named Kikyou, the bandit was Onigumo, but then turned into Naraku, and the demon brother was named Sesshoumaru."
"Wait..." Kagome felt her head spinning. "The hanyou I found...is Inuyasha. The girl he loved was called Kikyou...and Naraku, that was who attacked us. And Sesshoumaru, isn't that the name of your uncle? Why didn't we know any of this?"
"I only knew about Inuyasha and Kikyou. My father told me the rest today, about Naraku and my uncle."
"Then something has gone very wrong," Kagome said softly. "If Naraku killed Kikyou and Inuyasha, how is Inuyasha here today? Not to mention, wouldn't we be somewhat related, if neither one of us is supposed to be a reincarnation?"
"I don't know," Takumi shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. That's why we've got to talk to my uncle. If he killed Naraku originally, perhaps something was done to the remains...or something."
"Should we take Inuyasha?"
"Maybe. I'll call you in the morning. Go get some sleep, miko. I have the feeling we'll need it." Takumi kissed Kagome's forehead lightly, before pressing something into her hands.
"What's this?"
"The last part of your gift. It will help you against Naraku, should he attack you again." Kagome looked down at the tattered sword sheath in her hands. When she looked up, Takumi was gone. With a sigh, she headed inside, and upstairs. Inuyasha appeared to be asleep, so she curled up in her chair, and tried to make her confused mind sleep.
Kagome waited sleepily outside the shrine. Takumi had called early, telling her not to go anywhere without him. He also told her to bring all the gifts he had given her. She had asked about Inuyasha, but he told her not to wake him.
"Hey miko," Takumi called out the window of the limo that pulled up. "Uncle S sent a nice ride." Kagome smiled, and waited as Takumi got out and held the door for her. The ride was long enough, but made longer by the lack of communication. Takumi seemed lost in thought and Kagome didn't want to bother him. She felt so muddled she didn't know what she would say anyway.
"We're here." Takumi broke her out of her thoughts, and together they got out of the car and stared at the giant office building. Then Takumi led her inside to the receptionist's desk.
"I have an appointment with my uncle," he said.
"Sure," the red head nodded. "You can head right up." Takumi turned towards the elevator, and Kagome followed quietly along. And once again, the ride felt much longer than it really was. But they made it, and stepped out into the posh office of the great Sesshoumaru.
"Hello, uncle!" Takumi called out.
"In here," the gruff voice replied from the balcony. The young couple followed the voice and stepped out to observe the world, just heading into the early morning frenzy. Kagome looked in awe at Takumi's uncle. The man looked somewhere in his forties, and was just starting to gain lines on his face, though his body was very thin. He had long white hair, and strange amber eyes. His lean face had odd tattoos, a wild childhood was the story. He normally wore white suits, and was always very aloof and quiet. He was missing an arm, from some sort of an accident.
"Good morning," Kagome politely said. There was a graceful nod, indicating she had been heard, but then attention was on Takumi.
"Your father said you had some questions for me."
"Yeah," Takumi took a deep breath. "It's rather strange actually. I asked him about the story of our family, you know, about Inuyasha and Kikyou. He told me a part he had never mentioned before, how the brother of Inuyasha killed an evil being named Naraku to prevent him from killing the pair. When I asked him about Naraku, he said I needed to talk to you." Both Kagome and Takumi looked questioningly at Sesshoumaru. The figure in question sighed.
"There is something you don't know about that story." Sesshoumaru looked at Kagome, directly looked at her, holding her grey eyes in with his intense amber gaze. "That is not a story. It actually happened. I know this because I was there. Inuyasha was my brother. I was the one who killed Naraku."
"What?" Takumi asked, but Kagome stared at the man.
"Do you know, Takumi, you look exactly like him on his human night? And the girl here, looks exactly like the miko he gave up his life for. I told him he was a fool for doing so, but he thought he loved the girl."
"He did love her," Takumi pressed.
"She did not love him," Sesshoumaru answered. "She did not love anyone but herself. She tricked him into becoming human so that she did not have to do something she hated. After they married, she treated him like...a dog." His face twisted at the term. "And Inuyasha let her, because he thought he loved her. Yet even so, when I heard about Naraku, I had to kill him."
"But you did kill him, right?" Kagome spoke for the first time since Sesshoumaru began his explanation. "You made certain he was dead?"
"There was no life in the body when I left it," Sesshoumaru said. "That does not mean he was dead. Devious demons are tricky."
"Naraku attacked me yesterday," Kagome said softly. Sesshoumaru whirled upon her.
"What did you say, girl?"
"Naraku attacked me yesterday. And the day before that," Takumi elbowed her hard, but she continued, "I found Inuyasha in the well on my family's shrine."
"Inuyasha is here...?" Sesshoumaru looked as though he couldn't breathe. "Impossible. I saw him dead."
"Because he was old, right?" Takumi suddenly felt this knowledge was very important.
"No." Sesshoumaru looked a little flustered, something that was unusual for him. "Strange things happened in that life time."
"What happened?" Kagome asked gently.
"It was as though there were...combined lives. My brother as a human, living with that miko, but then later, sometime after the baby, she was dead, and he was by the well, a hanyou again, and he had been murdered. And before that, I would see him once as a human, then as a hanyou. It was like there were two of them... I sacrificed my left arm so that I would seal the evil soul of Naraku. It must have been a lie." The very demon eyes of Sesshoumaru flashed red.
"That doesn't make sense," Takumi objected.
"You're too logical," Kagome told him. "Nothing about any of this makes sense."
"I need to talk to Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru said. He gripped the balcony tightly. "There are things that he needs to know."
"I don't think you should," Kagome said.
"And why's that?"
"Because...I don't think he's really there. I mean, he is here, and there is a physical body, but I don't think he is really...here. There's just something wrong with...all of this."
"So he's here, but not really? Like, he could just vanish at any time?" Takumi raised his eyebrow at Kagome.
"Not that, I mean, he's here but he's not supposed to be. He was put here because something happened that should not have happened. He's here to fix something. Maybe it has to do with that jewel."
"The Shikon no Tama?" Sesshoumaru looked at Kagome, who nodded. "That disappeared when Inuyasha wished to be human. Although...I could have sworn I also saw a dead Kikyou being burned with it."
"Maybe you lived through two different timelines? One, with a happy outcome, and a second with...a not so happy outcome?" Takumi looked as though he expected contradiction, but Kagome nodded.
"Something happened with the time," she said slowly. "Someone...changed what was supposed to happen. Is that possible?" She looked at Sesshoumaru.
"There had always been rumors of a place where all the records of time were kept. If, at some point in time Naraku found this place, who knows what he might have done." Sesshoumaru suddenly looked alarmed. "You must go to Inuyasha. You must stay by his side. It is very important that he does not die by Naraku's hand here. If Naraku did do something, he must be trying to kill Inuysha somehow. You must not let that happen."
"Then we'd better go," Takumi said. He's already attacked both of us, no doubt he's looking to attack Inuyasha now." Kagome nodded, suddenly fearful.
"Go." The word was a command. "Takumi, call me when Naraku attacks." The boy nodded, and the pair left, headed for home.
"I don't understand," Sesshoumaru said softly. "It didn't make sense then, and it doesn't now. He was alive, but he was dead. I saw him dead. I told Jaken to bury him." As he pondered this line of thought, Sesshoumaru suddenly thought of one person who might be able to help him. He decided to leave, telling his receptionist he had important matters to attend to.
"But your meeting!" she called, watching his tall form enter the elevator. "Maybe the entrance girl will catch him," she muttered.
"Come and get me, Sesshoumaru," grinned the red eyed monster. He snarled at air, excited at the possibility of a good fight. "They seemed to have figured out my secret. But the same mystery that stumps them eludes me as well." Naraku sat by himself, his mind pondering the impossibilities caused by his own meddling.
Author's Notes: And so, Sesshoumaru is back in the picture! Updates only on Sundays, sorry kids, it appears I actually have a life, lol.
