The room fell quiet as Kagome glared angrily at the white-haired child. Tony sighed silently, honestly the tension had just bleed out of the room and now it was back full force.
"What do you mean no?" Kagome asked again calmly yet everyone could hear the edge in her voice.
Hakudoshi let out a sigh, "It is not safe to bring you where my lord is being kept. To bring you there would be putting both you and your child in danger. Lord Sesshomaru told me that your safety was to be my top priority when we found a way to get back to you. Taking you to him would go against my orders. We can go and retrieve my lord after the baby is born and you have full access to your powers once again."
"I don't care. We'll put together a good team and I'll stay safely in the back. We need to get him before the baby is born. The sooner the better!" Kagome argued. She knew that at this point her surviving the birth was less than ten percent at this point. It was honestly a miracle that she was still as sane as she was this long after parting from her mate. If she didn't get to Sesshomaru before the baby was born then she would die and Sesshomaru would never get released from his barrier and her baby would grow up an orphan. That was unacceptable. Not while she had other options available to her.
Hakudoshi stared calmly at the frantic Miko, she seemed determined to try and get to Sesshomaru. Not that he was surprised, he had learned a bit about mating the few years he was alive. However, she needed to see that it was too dangerous, "Where do you think Inukimi of all people would put her most precious thing in the world? Where would she keep him to keep him safe while he is unable to defend himself? Think for a moment."
Kagome fell silent for a moment, what was he trying to get at? If she knew where he was, she would have been going for him a long time ago. Then it suddenly dawned on her and her mouth gaped a bit as she deflated in her seat, "Oh, well that is pretty smart of her."
Hakudoshi nodded, "Indeed."
Thor frowned at the unnecessary secrecy; it didn't really help that he didn't know what was going on. However, this was like entering a conversation with Loki without knowing what his brother was after, "What do you speak of?"
Kagome sent the god a tired look, "Oh, right… sorry." She gave a small sigh, "Inukimi is more than just the leader of the west. She is also the guardian of hell, well the demon version of it I guess. The has control over the Meido stone which gives her reign over hell. Inukimi most likely put Sesshomaru's barrier in a safe corner in hell itself." As much as she didn't want to admit it, Hakudoshi was right. This was far too dangerous a mission to drag her baby into. At the same time, she didn't really have much of a choice. And, well, she had survived worse.
"Correct, and the only open entrance to hell is at the bottom of a cave system swarming with feral demons." Hakudoshi explained.
"Well shit. What do we do now?" Clint asked worriedly.
Kagome stood up, "Koga, Ayame, Hakudoshi could I speak to you three alone for a moment?"
Koga stood up immediately, pulling Ayame up with him, "Of course Gome, lead the way."
"Why can't you say what you want to in front of all of us?" Natasha asked with a raised eyebrow.
Kagome sent her a sad smile, "Demon business I'm afraid." Then she smirked slightly and winked, "It's classified."
Hakudoshi silently followed after the three, making sure that none of them were planning on following them.
Kagome led them to the kitchen area, it was well enough away from the sitting area that nobody would be able to overhear them. Once they all settled down Kagome addressed the first point, "Jarvis please enable the privacy setting. I don't want anybody being able to listen in or look back at the tapes."
"Of course, Mrs. Taisho." Jarvis answered and put the entire kitchen in blackout mode.
"Well that is convenient." Koga chuckled before turning serious. Kagome was usually pretty open with everything, not liking secrets as a general rule. So, if she was keeping whatever this was a secret to the rest of her human friends, then it had to be something big.
Ayame walked over to Kagome and rubbed a comforting hand on her back, "What's wrong Kagome?"
"We have to try and get Sesshomaru before the baby is born." She turned and looked Hakudoshi straight in his eyes, "At least once, we have to try." She took a calming breath and looked down; this was something that Jaken already knew as they had talked it over a few days ago. He was in agreement with her, "If Sesshomaru and myself are not reunited before the baby is born, my chances of surviving the birth are extremely low. Less than ten percent. If by some miracle I do survive I don't think I would last long afterword. I definitely wouldn't be in any shape to try and get him back after that. If I die, then Sesshomaru and Rin will stay locked in that barrier for all of eternity. Which will leave my baby all by itself." She looked up to see that the three of them finally completely understood her circumstances. They all had serious and determined looks on their faces.
"Fine we will try, once, and on a few conditions. One, you stay in the middle of the group so you are protected on all sides. Two, I will personally test the group that will be on the rescue mission. We will only proceed once I think the group will be strong enough to fight their way all the way down to the portal and keep you safe at the same time. Three, if we fail then we do not try again and throw our resources into trying to keep you alive through the birth." Hakudoshi relented. He knew the bonds between canine demons were strong, but he didn't think it was a co-dependent life expectancy. He would admit to underestimating the seriousness of the situation. He thought she would be fine to do a rescue mission after the birth, but that was now showing to not be true.
Kagome nodded in agreement, "Deal." She said happily. She didn't think he would give in that easily and had been preparing herself for a long argument.
"We will pull together an elite team and have them ready by the end the of month to help you. That should still give us enough time, you'd only be into your ninth month of your pregnancy by then so you'd still be able to walk well enough. The last two months are always the hardest." Ayame said with a knowing smile.
Kagome sent her a thankful smile before it dimmed, "There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you two about." She said to the two wolves. Both and Koga and Ayame gave her their full attention, she seemed more serious than normal, "If we fail, and don't manage to save Sesshomaru. If I die during or after the birth, I don't want my baby to be on its own. Don't get me wrong, Clint and Natasha would take my baby in without a second thought. They are human though, and my baby will be a full demon. My baby would only reach ten at the most before they died of old age. I don't want to do that to them. So, if the worst-case scenario comes around, I want to ask you two to take in my baby. I've talked it over with Jaken and he seemed to agree with me, thinking it was a good idea. Finding Inukimi and getting my baby to her seems impossible at this point. So, the next best option is to have my baby raised with the eastern lord and lady, so they'd know what to do when they got old enough to take over the west."
Ayame was dumbfounded and Koga was left short of breath. Kagome wanted them to do what?
"Please." Kagome asked desperately.
"Of course." Koga answered as soon as he was able to get control of his breath. It physically hurt him to see Kagome like this, but Kagome was his woman. She was part of his pack, and always would be. An honorary wolf sister, and wolves looked after their own.
"We would be honored; however, we hope that it doesn't come down to that. We've dealt with worse in the past. We'll get you your mate back, sweetie, keep looking forward." Ayame said while pulling Kagome into a hug. Kagome returned it desperately.
"Thank you." Kagome cried out.
Koga gave a grim smile and joined the hug, "Don't you worry, we'll get through this."
They stayed in the kitchen a few more minutes to dry tears and get control of emotions before making their way back out to the group. Ginta, Hakkaku, and Bankotsu could smell the remnants of tears coming from both Kagome and Ayame and made their way over to comfort their pack. Ginta hugged Kagome while Hakkaku made sure Ayame was alright. Bankotsu smirked and messed up Kagome's hair which she tried to smack his hand away for, Bankotsu was faster through.
"Secret meeting over with?" Tony asked with a small scowl. He really wanted to know what they had been talking about, but he knew that respecting Kagome's privacy was a big thing he had to watch out for. He was nosey and he knew it, she was one person he had to watch himself around if he wanted to stay on her good side if he ever planned on telling her about the whole being her father thing.
"Yeah, everything is good now. Hakudoshi?" Kagome prompted. At the moment his job was pretty much being her general, and he would be leading the rescue team. Might as well let him lead the conversation as well.
Hakudoshi sighed in irritation, "Fine. In one month's time we shall attempt a single rescue attempt for my Lord. Lord Koga and Lady Ayame have said they would lend some soldiers to help out. Only those who pass my expectations will accompany us, if not you shall stay behind. This is the only mission we will attempt so it is all or nothing, that is all." Hakudoshi finished. He really, really wanted to get away from these humans. He hoped that none of them passed his test, the less humans he had to be around the better.
"Well you heard the kid, so we better get going and pick which people to send with. With how peaceful it's been it'll be hard to pinpoint whose kept up with training and those that have been slacking off. We'll be back in a month, however if it's alright with Kagome we'd like to leave Bankotsu with you. Just some extra protection now that we know Naraku's around again." Koga said.
Bankotsu gave a feral grin, "Oh yeah, I'd love to get my hands on that manipulative bastard. Payback has been a long time coming. My baby has been wanting to taste his blood since I reunited with her."
"Baby?" Bruce asked in confusion and concern.
"Ignore him, he's just talking about his sword." Kagome said offhandedly.
"I don't see any sword on you." Steve said with a raised eyebrow.
"Well ya can't exactly walk around with swords now a days. People tend to get jumpy. She's just sealed away, wanna meet her?" Bankotsu grinned at him.
"Ugh…" Steve said uneasily.
Bankotsu didn't even give him a chance to answer as he snapped the bracelet he was wearing off of his wrist. With a flash of Yoki Bankotsu was holding the biggest sword any of the avengers had ever seen. Honestly, it didn't even look usable with how big it was.
"How do you even fight with that? It's bigger than you are." Tony asked flabbergasted.
Bankotsu shrugged as he leaned Banryu against his shoulder, "It's nothin' now. Now when I was human wielding this was quite the feat. You should see Jakotsu's sword, it detaches into more than fifty chain linked blades. He had complete control over its movements, it makes him really deadly even if he's an idiot."
Kagome let out a groan in agreement, "Weirdest person I've met, and that is saying a lot. His acrobatic skills matched up with his sword skills was impressive though. Inuyasha had a really hard time keeping up with Jakotsu."
"We'll make sure to bring him along, he is one of our best fighters." Ayame said, "We really should be going though. Is it alright if Bankotsu stays?"
"Um, its fine with me. But; this isn't my house, I'm just a guess. It's up to Tony really." Kagome said looking to Tony.
Tony pursed his lips a bit, what was with all these people suddenly staying here? First there was Jaken and the Neko. Then Hakudoshi appeared out of nowhere. Now there is this Bankotsu guy? He knew absolutely none of them, and trusted them even less. However, Kagome seemed to trust them and she seemed to have a good sense of character. So, "Yeah I guess it's alright with me."
Natasha frowned slightly and tapped Clint on the shoulder in irritation. Clint got her hint immediately as his thoughts were going along the same wavelength, "Wait a minute, they can totally stay. But they aren't staying on our floor. We don't mind Kagome, Kirara, and Buyo at all. We barely tolerate Jaken cuz he helps look after Kagome. Those two however you're going to have to find somewhere else for them to stay."
Tony frowned thoughtfully before saying, "Well it's not completely finished yet, but its livable. I know where I can put them." Kagome's floor, which he was naming the Taisho floor. The bedrooms were finished, as was the kitchen and bathrooms. The library/study was nearly finished but needed a bit of work yet. The nursery was barely even touched as he was sure Kagome would want to do that with her husband when they were finally reunited. It was a good thing he had given them an entire floor, as a whole family would be moving in. With some of the others he had split the floor in half. Kagome seemed to adopt people into her family left and right though. He would have to expand the number of expected bedrooms, but that wouldn't be a huge problem.
"Perfect, thank you. See you later Gome. Bankotsu has our numbers which he can give to you later. Call us or text us whenever you need." He pulled Kagome into a hug, "See you in a month, keep fighting."
Ayame pulled her into a hug as well, "We'll get through this sister, just you wait and see." She kissed her cheek before following after her husband.
Ginta and Hakkaku tightly hugged their sister before following their pack leaders out of the building.
"So… now what?" Bruce asked. So much had happened in the past few hours that it was hard to keep track of everything.
Whatever their answer was going to be was interrupted by Jarvis' announcement, "Sir, Miss Foster and Miss Lewis are on their way up."
"Ah, right, my future science buddies. Almost forgot they were on their way." Tony said.
Thor got a huge grin on his face as the elevator doors opened back up, "Jane!"
Jane scowled at him, "What the hell happened out there?"
Everyone looked at each other, right the fight with the kid. That seemed like a century ago at this point.
Darcy walked around her boss and looked at all the people in the room. When her eyes caught Kagome they lit up, "Ohh, baby bump!" she exclaimed before making her way over to Kagome, the only person who seemed to be around her own age. Might as well make friends, Darcy thought. Darcy grinned up at the expecting mother, "May I?" she asked eagerly.
Kagome laughed slightly, this girl was a breath of fresh air, "Go ahead. Everyone here seems to be afraid of them."
Darcy cackled as she looked behind her to the confused heroes and rolled her eyes. She held her hand on the baby bump and started cooing to the baby, "Well hello there little one." A huge smile broke across her face, "Oh, I think I felt them kick."
Kagome chuckled, "Yeah, they've been doing it for a while now. They've become much more active in the past week though."
The rest of them looked absolutely lost as the two started talking about the baby and ignoring everyone else around them. Bankotsu however looked amused, this was the Kagome that he remembers from the past. This girl might be just what the doctor ordered.