Disclaimer: I do own it. I'm NOT insane…I think. All royal members of Japan are real, meaning their real names are used. However, their personalities are probably a far cry from what I've wrote of them.
Story: Due to the jewel shards on their necks, the last four members of the Shichinintai were somehow able to travel to Kagome's time. Unfortunately for her, the well has sealed up. At least they don't have their weapons!
Set after Ginkotsu's death.
Spoilers: After Ginkotsu's death, no.
Warnings: Eh, maybe…this is anime after all…
Pairings: No telling! Secret, secret!
A/n: Hahaha! I bet the Emperor of Japan doesn't really have this jeweled crown! You can so tell I'm making it up as I go(I know nothing of Japanese royalty, that means I don't know what the palace looks like except for a few pictures from the outside, and I'm tired of looking everything up… ). And geez, there's probably no such thing as a 'rare golden gem'. Feh, what am I thinking?
P.S. I'm sorry for the long wait! Not only was I distracted by another fandom, Star testing came up this week (I think I did horrible for biology and going to do horrible on math/geometry tomorrow) and the week before this I had to prepare for the testing...so much work! I need a break and a nap...
Kagome Higurashi! No Need for Shichinintai
Chapter Eleven: Kagome and the Emperor (With a Side Order of Shichinintai)
It was a very uncomfortable breakfast the next morning and Kagome couldn't figure out why. But then these men seemed to always be tense and angry, or at least a lot of the times.
"Um, it's the Emperor's Birthday today. You guys want to check out the palace again? They're going to let us into the inner palace…" Kagome tentatively broke the silence.
At that, the men perked up. Eerily they grinned, almost calculatingly, at her.
"That's great. We'll get ready right away. Of course, after you. Why don't you take a shower, Miss Higurashi?"
Kagome nodded and was halfway out of her seat before she sat back down and looked at them strangely.
"You know, it's kind of weird how it's been how long and all of you are still calling me that? I mean, I guess…we've grown closer. And I'm calling all of you on a first-name basis. Just…call me Kagome. It'll sound less weird when my family comes back or anyone else like my friends happen to be around."
She abruptly stood and left for the showers, leaving them surprised.
Jakotsu shrugged. "Beats having to remember being polite. I've been calling her Kagome in my head for awhile now…actually slipped a couple times and said it aloud…"
Everyone agreed but then a confrontation was needed.
At Suikotsu's side, Renkotsu was seemingly calmly sipping his tea, his eyes close.
"So Suikotsu, since when did you stay up with Kagome?" Renkotsu started, an edge to his voice.
"If I remember right, then again of course I do –it was the first time, Wednesday the fifth at night."
From across him, Bankotsu drilled, "When we were still sparring outside? Why?"
Suikotsu rolled his eyes. "You do remember that day, don't you? Despite her teaching Renkotsu and everything else, she looked…well, she looked depressed and lonely. That night, she was sitting on her windowsill and I was the first one back –"
"Which was unusual," Jakotsu cut in.
Suikotsu responded by shrugging. "I had just wanted to come inside early that day but when I sat with her I decided to keep coming in early for her. I guess, it made her feel less lonely."
"Well, you two were both a bit touchy feely…" Jakotsu retorted.
"Touchy feely? Okay…I don't think that's a problem. I mean, earlier that day we're took a nap in the same bed."
Silence.
"You did what?" Bankotsu asked, disbelievingly.
Renkotsu sighed. "Okay, I think we need to have a discussion later. A very long and very serious one. But right now, we need to focus on what we've been planning for ever since we went to the palace last time."
Everyone mumbled an agreement grudgingly.
As soon as Kagome went out of the bathroom, Renkotsu went first and then Suikotsu, Jakotsu and then Bankotsu to take a shower. After all, less hair means less time inside.
They waited patiently until it was time to go and then their nerves were alight. Of course, if they were caught and when Kagome found out, they'll be in a helluva lot of trouble.
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They were surrounded by an enormous crowd of people, all waving the Japanese flag. It was 10:10 and the five of them were getting ready to see a rare glimpse of the Emperor and the royal family.
Everyone cheered as Emperor Akihito and the Empress Michiko appeared first on the balcony, followed by the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess. The other prince and princesses arrived afterwards. The Emperor started talking behind the bullet proof glass and everyone hushed up to hear. After the usual happenings, the general public was finally allowed inside.
The Shichinintai rejoiced.
With anticipation, they stayed close to Kagome until it was a convenient time to 'accidentally' get lost. Then they would come to achieve their goal. Stealing the Empress's elaborate ivory robe and a large rare golden gem off of the Emperor's crown.
Sneaking pass the guards and then they were in the great hall. They moved quickly, trying to get to the throne room as quick as possible before they could get caught. And they were quite lucky in their find. They had only expected the crown but the robe was hanging over the back of the throne.
They grinned at each other before they were going to move up and capture their prize. Unfortunately, things happened that they didn't expect.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" A middle-age man appeared and leant against the back of the throne, only the back of his dark hair showing.
"I see four men trying to make off with very valuable trophies." A woman answered, appearing next to the man and leaning on the throne as well, only on her side. Half of her face was hidden but the other half was only vaguely shown.
The Shichinintai didn't have time for this. For one thing, those things could be very useful things that they were in need of. Like adorning Kagome's body instead. It was too bad they couldn't just kill the two and get it over with.
"Mom, Dad! Quit being so weird!"
An uncouth youth jumped into the scene, shifting in between the two leaning against the throne and pushing them to the side. The grown ups were a bit unbalanced at first, trying to keep steady on one foot before they could place their other foot down.
"Kiko! I'm trying to act intimidating here! And that's no way to act like a princess!"
The father yelled, finally on both of his feet and taking an angry stance with his feet spread apart and his arms alternating between waving angrily and staying stiff. It looked quite comical actually.
A fan appeared from nowhere and right into the mother's hand. She flapped it opened and then began fanning her face lightly from the front.
"Akihito, we should be dealing with these four instead of Kiko. We can deal with her later. And dear, you never look intimidating."
The Emperor huffed before turning his glare towards the men. "You were after these, eh? We should call the guards now and have you arrested. Tut, tut. What a shame. And I do believe a little miss is out there panicking at the loss of her charges."
"Kagome?" Renkotsu ventured.
The Emperor's smile widened.
The Shichinintai flinched.
"Um, you're not going to tell her, are you?" Despite the fact that if they were to be imprisoned, of course she would find out why.
His Majesty raised an eyebrow. "You are more concerned about what she thinks rather than the knowledge of you're to be arrested?"
The four of them shuffled their feet and averted their eyes to the ground.
"Interesting. Perhaps, if you explain why you covet our assets then I might be more lenient."
Bankotsu gave out a light chuckle nervously and put one of his hands at the back of his head. "Hehehe, it's actually a funny story. See, we came here the other day and everything was really nice. Kagome had to keep reprimanding us to keep our hands to our selves. And then when we were leaving we, uh, saw Your Majesties walking, through a window. And we saw the robe and the crown and we just had this great idea.
"We, uh, wanted to give it to our guardian. I mean, we wanted the robe but only the golden jewel on the crown. After all, she's spent all this money on us and we can't exactly pay her back. We're…not from here."
The Empress laughed. "Ah ha! A gift to a girl. How amusing. Perhaps, you're in love with her? 'After all', to get the idea to steal from royalty to pay a girl back is quite extreme."
Their faces started to get red and they began stuttering out denials.
Kiko giggled.
"Enough." The Emperor commanded. His smiled turned into a smirk. "Ah, young love. When I was you're age, Michiko here thought I was an idiotic and pompous fool."
"Thought? Love, you still are."
"Ahem, anyway. What were you planning on doing with just the golden gem?"
Suikotsu shrugged. "We thought it would've been nice to have made it into a bracelet fashioned like the beads around her neck. The necklace is special to her and so is the color of the gem. It's the color of the eyes of someone very…close to her."
"Oh! An old flame? And the necklace must be from –"
"Michiko! Stop trying to embarrass these young men."
Emperor Akihito grabbed his crown. "I'll have the jewel fashioned into that bracelet of yours."
The Shichinintai were stunned and almost showed it.
The Empress squealed. "Dear, let me oversee it! Maybe I can even make it more feminine. Oh wait! Here!" She tossed them her ivory robe. "Give that to her as well. Oh, this is so romantic! Akihito, how come you never tried to steal from royalty for me before?"
"Because I am royalty."
"Haha."
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It took two hours, weirdly enough, for the jewel to be made into a bracelet. In that time, Kagome had confusedly let strangers measure her wrist and measure her overall height and length. That being said, the Shichinintai were still away from her.
In fact, they were still in the throne room, waiting for the finished robe to be altered and the jewel to be broken down into beads and fangs. Their anxious wait, because they really wanted to get back to Kagome, was laid to rest when the little girl princess, Kiko, had come back and she had the robe all neatly folded up with the gleaming bracelet on top.
It really resembled the beads Kagome wore but there was indeed a touch of femininity in it. The bracelet held Japanese characters engraved on the beads and jade filled in the characters. The last touch was it being held together on an adjustable string with tiny gold beads at the ends.
"Okaa-san says to give this to her whenever you feel it is right and that unfortunately, they couldn't be here because they have to greet the crowd one last time before they close off the inner palace. Also, to hurry to Miss Higurashi because she's panicking very badly and she's not reacting well to having been measured for some odd reason by people she doesn't even know when she could be out looking for you."
"Thanks!" They yelled, taking the gifts from her and hurrying out the door to find their disarrayed handler.
They found her at the East Gardens screaming at a guard.
"Look here! I don't have time to be kept here! LET ME GO AND FIND MY CHARGES!"
The guard was already shaking in his boots. The Shichinintai ran faster before he could be flayed.
"DAMMIT! I NEED TO GO FIND THEM! I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE HELL THEY'RE AT! WHAT IF THEY GOT LOST OR SOME STUPID IDIOT DID SOMETHING TO THEM? WHAT IF THEY'RE SOMEWHERE, HURT? FIRST I HAVE TO DEAL WITH WEIRD PEOPLE ASKING TO MEASURE ME AND DISTRACTING ME FROM FINDING THOSE FOUR FOOLS AND NOW I HAVE YOU TO DEAL WITH! DO YOU WANT TO FEEL PAIN, LITTLE MAN! BECAUSE I CAN GAURANTEE IT IF YOU DON'T GET OUT MY WAY!"
"Kagome!" Bankotsu yelled out.
Her head whipped around to face them and her eyes were wide open. They could've sworn they heard whiplash from the speed her head moved at.
"You! All of you!" Her voice had lost some of its frightening quality but now she was just plain pissed.
"Follow me!" she stomped away from them, heading away from the palace and towards the car. They left, hearing the echoing cheers of the crowd, who were left behind, to die in their ears.
In the car, it was so silent and tense that no one dared break it in fear of instigating Kagome's wrath. Suikotsu gripped the gifts tightly, wondering if it was really worth it. Although, because of her anger, she had been blind to seeing what the four men now had with them.
They heard her swallow thickly and started worrying. No one was sitting in the front seat next to her so no one saw what her face looked like. They had no idea what was going through her mind and they couldn't possibly see the emotions flitting through her.
Her head flashed in a moment to move to face them and they were treated with her angry and tearful face. Now that they could see her face clearly, they could see her eyes were red, meaning she's been crying for quite awhile.
"Do you know how worried I was? What if something had happened to you or you couldn't find your way back? God, I thought I had lost you. This world is dangerous to the likes of you. You don't know everything yet and there are so many things that could've gone wrong. Don't ever do that again. Don't scare me like that!"
They nodded their heads ashamedly and she turned around and started the car. For the rest of the ride home, she ignored them. She even went straight to her room and locked her newly fixed door, without speaking another word to them.
"Kagome? Please, we're sorry. Come out now." Renkotsu asked behind the door. Jakotsu had been knocking his head against the door lightly for some time now, but they had been there for longer. Bankotsu was on his stomach, lying parallel to the door. Suikotsu was somewhere.
There was no answer but then they heard shuffling. There were muffled voices inside. The door opened and they peeked inside. Suikotsu was grinning at them from his seat at the opened window and Kagome was glaring at him from her bed.
"Snuck in through the window. Scared the crap outta her and then threatened to jump if she didn't open the window." Was all Suikotsu explained.
The others shook their heads amusedly but then turned back to Kagome.
"We're really really sorry, Kagome. We didn't mean it, honest." Renkotsu pleaded with her.
She sighed. "It's alright. It was a big crowd and easy to get lost in. And I'm not the easiest person to stay with. I was shorter than more than half of those people there. And the place was huge and there were so much to look at. I guess I overreacted."
They all felt guilty because they intentionally left her.
"Why don't you guys say we watch a movie or something? Oh, I know! Let's watch Fushigi Yuugi."
And they spent that night watching all the seasons of Fushigi Yuugi before they realized how tired they were and went to bed. Of course, Kagome insisted on doing the newly revived practice, in which Suikotsu was happy to oblige.
The others merely grunted in response, narrowing their eyes at Suikotsu before going underneath their blankets on the bed and taking off most of their clothes. Throwing them to the side, all of them decided they should just sleep and bother Suikotsu tomorrow when they all had to talk.
And talk they will.
Started 11/23/05 –Completed 11/25/05
