Sakaume brings her to a warehouse far away from the busy city, far enough that no one will come looking if they end up being too loud. The air is stale, the cold something that faintly reminds her of the last winter she spent in the wild. Waiting in the warehouse is an old woman who calls herself Sakuya and watches her through clearly untrusting eyes. There's scorn to each look directed at her, but Kagome doesn't focus on that.
Instead, she turns her eyes to the displayed firearms, small and big, all neatly organized on the back of her truck. The yakuza men are quick to flock around her and her goods, while Kagome and their boss remain behind. Her eyes watch their backs, watch as they point at her and introduce her to the woman. She ignores the scorn coming from her, turning to face the far end of the warehouse.
There are targets spread in front of her at various distances. Stationary ones with the shape of a human being, another round, smaller ones tied to the ceiling beams by thick ropes. It's spacious, too much so. Kagome wants to grab her bike and leave, feeling like she is dirtier than ever before for standing close to the yakuza group.
"Miko-san!" A familiar voice cuts through her inner musings. Kagome turns to face the man who first brought her into this situation, he and his sister grinning at her as he presents her with a wickedly gleaming pistol. "I think this one suits you."
Kagome strains a smile in response, warily studying the offered gun with her eyes and digging her gloved hands deeper into her hoodie's pockets. "Did you bring what I asked?" she directs her gaze to the watchful leader of their group, who answers with a smile, nodding his head to Sakuya. The older woman scowls before rummaging through her truck. She takes a bow, rattly and old, along with a few arrows before marching to them.
She thrusts the ancient weapon into her hands without care. "Useless," she says, crossing her arms. "You must be crazy to even think of going in there with this sort of weapon." Grinding her jaw, Kagome looks down at the quiver and old bow. Her fingers trace the wood, fingernails scratched at the worn grip. Attaching the quiver to her hip with the belt, Kagome takes two steps forward, smoothly falling into position as she grabs two arrows.
Notching one, Kagome falls into a familiar position. She still needs that second of hesitation, that second of doubt where she must hold her breath and look at her target. It's so unlike Kikyou, who'd would draw, notch and shoot, and, in the end, didn't even need an actual physical arrow to hit as her spiritual energy coalesced into a pure sacred arrow.
Kagome breathes, muscles straining after one year without touching a bow. Her fingers itch at the unpleasant and unfamiliar feeling of this bow, at the sleek arrow she holds. It's not familiar, she's not in the past and these are not her weapons. "You — wanted to know," she bits her lower lip, arms shaking just a bit. The tip of the arrow wavering. "What—what I could do." She breathes in, breathes out. Let go, she wills herself.
Hit the mark.
The pink comet sails through the air, leaving a trail of dust as it whips past the targets. The energy loosely held within the arrow pushes the targets it passes by, hitting the ground and exploding.
The boom is astounding, taking her back to another time and truer battles. Kagome gasps for air, eyes wide as she stares ahead and her hair is blown back. The dust settles, revealing a recked field, the path of a meteor made true by her hands and will cutting through it. Her fingers itch, her eyes sting. Her muscles strain for more. Adrenaline rises as she settles her eyes onto a surviving human-shaped target in the distance.
She takes a step forward, notching the arrow as it lights up brightly. The energy concentrates on the tip just as it leaves her bow. Its path is certain, its destruction much lesser than the previous. There's control reminiscent of her past as it sails smoothly through the air and hits its mark. The target absorbs the energy, expanding into a silent explosion and dissolving into ashes.
It all happens in less than a second. Kagome doesn't have time to even think before her hand goes down, draws two more arrows and fires.
One after another, more tightly loaded with energy, surer in its destructions. She hits each target, more surely than the previous one. They are destroyed in different ways that she can't quite control. Dissolved to ashes, pushed back, thrown away or torn apart; Kagome has no finesse to this well of power she had never had full access to.
Finally, there comes the moment where she goes for another arrow but stops; the quiver is empty.
Blinking, Kagome feels like she's slipping out of a trance. Her vision expands where it was narrow before. She sees more than just her target, more than just her goal. The battlefield turns back into the shooting range, its floor destroyed and scorched and it's walls destroyed. Wood, rope and whatever else managed to survive her attack is littered over the expanse of the room.
"There must be a limit," she hears the trembling voice of Sakuya-san coming from behind her. "There must be a limit for what you can destroy."
Kagome feels her giddy power beneath her skin, ready to be used at any given moment. There's sweat on her brow and a strain to her arms and shoulders, but the cool breeze coming from the giant holes she put into the structure soon cool her down while the strain fades on the wake of her own healing.
Kagome doesn't answer, because she doesn't know if it's something either of them wants to know.
•••
"Here," Sakuya-san lays out the firearms on a table facing their new shooting range. Kagome eyes each of the alien pieces of metal with wariness.
"I've shown you; I don't need it."
The woman narrows her eyes at her, tilting her head in a slow and dangerous move that makes Kagome take a step back. "Do you have money to keep your useless supply of arrows?" Kagome shakes her head, dread pooling in her stomach. "Can you afford to make arrows? To maintain a bow?" Gritting her teeth, Kagome looks down, turning her body away from the yakuza and shaking her head.
"I can't afford to eat more than once a day," she answers, bitterness burning strong in her.
Maybe Sakuya-san hadn't been expecting her to answer, maybe she doesn't even know Kagome had been plucked from the streets with nothing but the clothes on her body and the bag on her pack. Whatever it is, she pauses, her soul twirls around and into her, a humming sound only there for Kagome to hear that says much without meaning anything.
"…then, you'll use the supply we can afford," and she pushes a pistol in her hands.
•••
"How many people have you killed?" Sakuya-san is a strict woman with a mean mouth and meaner personality. Kagome is not fond of her teaching methods.
There's no fucking way I can actually shoot a needle.
She takes a moment to think back on youkai and humans and so many other beings that she faced in her short life. She thinks of their bodies disintegrating or blood pouring out of their wounds; all lives that were gone because of her. "Some," she says quietly, focusing on hitting both the needle and the bulk of a target a couple of meters behind it.
"Some, and you're quite good at mutilating some, too, I guess" Sakuya huffs. Kagome frowns, the memory of the police officer being hit by the reinforced telephone going to the forefront of her mind, the sickening sound of breaking bones and his body hitting the wall and falling to the floor. She remembers the arch of the blood pouring out of the stump of that thug, how his scream echoed in the night and how he begged for his life, delusional from blood loss as she dragged him all the way to Sakaume's office. Not now, focus. "And you call yourself Miko."
Kagome thinks of her sacred arrows. How they flew through the air, shining bright with spiritual power that seems to never end, destroying everything she wills them to as they flew by. Armies falling in the wake of her power, arrows that could pierce through just about anything, that could destroy so completely and irreversibly.
She thinks about how easy it is to just—charge something with her power like an extension of herself and destroy. It's easy to imagine the bullet residing inside this modern weapon in her hands, to imagine it overflowing with ethereal energy as it —she— pierces through the target, exploding everything around it as she wills it.
It's a power that has been wielded by many, graciously, carefully. Cultivated for millennia to reach a point of sanctity. Kagome thinks of how the priestesses before her used their gifts, of the careful words and spells and ways that she had never and could never know now. They saved people, they healed and blessed them with an efficiency that matched their holy duty, while Kagome barely knew how to shoot an arrow.
Stumbling about, destroying and killing, does she deserve to be granted such a title? To be called a priestess? She prays for no god, she prays no more. Is she any different than Tsubaki, on the path to becoming a dark priestess, to wreak havoc and control those around her to her will using a bastardized version of the sacred rites?
Kagome cannot know, all she knows about herself is that she is a priestess and has the powers to prove it. It's the only thing that is truly hers now.
She fires at the needle, missing it but hitting the far edge of the target.
"Your aim is a disgrace. Again!"
•••
They give her weapons, they teach her battle, they give her attire suited to survive this insanity.
They ready her to become a weapon.
Kagome swears to not became their weapon and is sure to remind them with each glare of hers, each fist that glows hot pink.
•••
"Again."
Growling, Kagome throws herself at the woman, fist raised in defiance and firing it up with her powers. Sakuya-san redirects her punch with only a touch of her hand to the sidearm. It burns and pushes her away from Kagome, and it saves her life as Kagome's fists hit the ground and leave a small crater into it.
Sakuya rolls and jumps back up, arms poised to defend herself and watching emotionlessly as Kagome gasps for air, chest expanding rapidly and sweat dripping down her form. "You need to know how to punch," she approaches Kagome's hunched over form and, quicker than Kagome expected it, kicks her hard on the stomach. "How to kick," she grabs Kagome's ponytail and brings her face to her knee. "How to fight." Kagome screeches at the pain of having her nose broken, again.
She falls face first on the ground, gasping in pain and crying as she curls into a ball. "Being strong is not enough. Being capable of doing what you do is nothing if you can't bring your opponent down when they get to you. And they will."
Sakuya-san rounds up toward her again as her body heals itself. Kagome hears her steps, senses her approach. She crawls away in fear. "You can shoot your pretty arrow and take down ten in front of you," her foot descends on Kagome's back. "You can heal from a shot on the back," Kagome screams as she steps on her and grabs her ponytail again — you should cut your hair only the strong keep it long you're not strong you're not strong — and pulls her head back. Kagome looks up into the face of cruelty, into the uncaring eyes of the woman who is preparing her to fight. "But the pain will bring you down."
Kagome snarls at her, struggling in her hard grip before screaming to the skies.
•••
"You are not ready," Sakuya-san warns her.
Kagome walks away, gun in hand and the faces of dead children, torn families and crying mothers haunting her mind.
•••
Kagome takes the telephone from her ear, taking out the SIM card as she was taught and breaking it before looking ahead.
She stands exactly where she had that night when she found the children's souls.
There's a silent song in the air. The drums of battle following the beat of her heart, the rhythm of life flowing through her veins. On the other side of the alleyway stands the Yamaguchi facility she had ignored that day, sheltered by the blanket of night and the weight of their name. The high windows show nothing but fogged glass, faint light cutting through the night, faintly illuminating the street.
Two thugs rest against the entrance's wall, talking quietly to each other, secure of their safety and leaving themselves open, exposed. Unseen by them, standing before the heavy door that locked away their dirty secrets, is a child. Kagome looks at the ghost with a heavy gaze. Their empty eye sockets are pointed at her, their skin deathly white and their head shaved clean. There's a wound that goes around their head like a macabre circlet, their hospital gown is light and dirtied.
The two men remain ignorant of the soul standing between them. The child turns their back on Kagome, walking through the door and into the old fabric. Kagome takes a deep breath, wonders if she should follow.
She remembers the children. The people at the shelter. The girls at Senno.
The rumors.
Powers pumps through her veins, lights her skin ablaze and allows her to jump high —soaring through the air, InuYasha's steady hands holding her, Kirara's warmth flying beside them, the treetops beneath their feet and the clouds close enough to touch— and lands between the two of them with legs still concentrated with energy, protecting her from the impact while destroying the pavement beneath her feet. Kagome slaps one across the street while the other's fist connects to the back of her head and makes her stumble for a moment.
She twists and kicks him, her feet heavy with the combat boots she had been given. There's the loud sound of ribs cracking and Kagome spies his chest giving in with panicked eyes before harshly turning away and kicking the door open. Already, she's gasping for air, slightly crazed as she stumbles in. Three are already poised to shoot her. Kagome's body explodes with pink energy so, when she runs, she's fast enough to whip past them before they shoot. Kagome's chest contracts and her eyes feel dry and horrible, but she grabs her semi-automatic from its holster, aims, and shoots a bastardized version of a holy arrow at the door.
The energy it emits as it passes pushes them into the walls of the long entrance corridor. They hit and fall unconscious to the floor. Kagome gasps, blinking, eyes wide and lower lip shaking. Again, she doubts herself, but it last less than a moment as more men come from the corridor from her left. A bullet whizzes past her and another grazes her cheek before she shoots at them, one bullet enough to stop them but, this time, it tears some limbs apart.
Blood paints the corridor red, and Kagome remembers the blood staining the souls' little bodies, the scars littering over their young skin. Hardening her heart, Kagome calms her breath and rightens her posture. Her grip tightens on her weapon and she closes her eyes, expanding her senses. It used to be so hard, something so complicated to pick up on the signatures of humans, beings so similar to herself. Now, it's as simple as breathing. They are alien to her like youkai once were.
She pinpoints them, senses the ones approaching from behind and beyond. She has no means to know who was in this building or the ones neighboring it, but the amassing of young souls in one particular direction is telling enough.
Snapping her eyes open, she turns around, one hand extending with the nuzzle facing the other corridor heading to the right. The bullet is charged pink and passes through just as men turn on the corner.
Kagome enhances her body, squares her shoulders and soldiers on.
•••
It's a lab.
They are held in cages or simply too weak to get up from their resting places. All of them are weak, all of them are bald. All of them are scarred and bloodied and scared and so so young. Kagome cannot tell who is alive and who is dead, save for a few odd ones with gaping holes in their bodies or missing eyes. They look at her, those who can, seeing her black clothing and weaponry, —she's loaded with guns upon guns and magazines and everything she could need— flinching in fear.
There are caretakers spread around that stop to look at her in confusion.
Kagome presses her lips in one thin line before stepping forward. Finally, they notice she's not with them, that she's unfamiliar and carries none of their markings —their branding— and scramble to fire at her. Kagome doesn't stop. "HIDE!" she screams to the children, who scramble to move away from her path. The caretakers—no. The scientists, with their lab coats and medical instruments, back away from her. Two try to fight her. Kagome's skin lights pink as she stops one from punching her. She's surprised the woman actually makes her move an inch back before she throws her to the nearest wall. She punches the next one square on his jaw and he goes tumbling down like a fly.
One of them scrambles to a panel on the other side. Kagome pulls the trigger but it just clicks. Acting quickly, she pulls out the bow they gave her —for emergencies, Miko, don't depend on it— along with an arrow. Already, its tip is blazing pink and Kagome has actual no effort to pull draw, the modern mechanics of the strange bow facilitating her movement. The arrow cuts through the air and hits the screen of the panel, a resounding boom blowing up the whole system and shattering the glass onto the scientist.
The released energy spreads over the room like a wave, touching each soul, each ghost. They glow with life that goes by unnoticed by all but her. Finally, peace is within their reach, their past cleansed, their lives ended. They fade into the same stardust those two kids in that dirty alleyway did, peacefully and beautifully. Those particles of energy are noticed, they spread a feeling of warmth that even calms her beating heart.
People look at her wide-eyed, scared, in awe. The children have a tentative hope in their eyes while the scientists look on with something she knows is greed. The same one in Sakaume's eyes, but heightened.
She squares her shoulders, pulling down the overpriced bow in her hands. "Remain where you are. Police shall soon arrive." And as soon as she said it, they come. Pouring into the room from the wide-open double doors, they stop to stare at the obviously beaten down children, the facility and their state. The cages and the adults wearing the coats and their instruments. The indoor windows on one side that show operation rooms.
Finally, they settle on her figure. Hooded, heavily armed and dressed in black.
Kagome turns to them, breathing heavily through the black vogmask covering the lower portion of her face. Confident that the victims are in better hands now, Kagome nods at them. Stepping back, she uses a second to gaze at the children looking on with wide eyes and jumps high towards the high windows. She grabs on a windowsill, her boots scraping on the exposed brick wall before she barrels through the glass and rolls down the roof.
Shouts come from where she left, but Kagome doesn't look back. Her plan now is to escape. She managed to bring to attention one Yamaguchi hide-out. It's not the only one in the ward, and she can't afford to get caught when she has barely begun to take them out.
•••
Sitting atop one of the highest buildings in the ward, Kagome breathes, alone.
The sunrise is beautiful from up here.
•••
"Today, Japan awakes to horrifying discoveries. Yesterday, around one A.M., on Nishinari ward, Osaka, an anonymous individual reported criminal activities related to the disappearance of children in the last year. The police at first hesitated to answer the call, but not five minutes later they were bombarded with calls reporting gunfight in the same location. Arriving there, they made a disturbing discovery: the old factory was being used for human experimentation, targeting exclusively the development of children of varying ages.
"The facility was confirmed upon interrogation to have a connection to yakuza group Yamaguchi. All members present at the location were incapacitated before the arrival of the police, being taken down by an anonymous individual suspected to be the original caller. They escaped after policy's arrival, after taking out all of the agents of the criminal group in the building. The children's conditions are unknown for now, but it's believed their numbers reach around two hundred."
•••
She takes out ten Yamaguchi groups loitering around Senno in one month.
They are littered with souls, reeking of death and despair. Elders, women, men, children, babies…They are filled with people. People who won't be missed, who owed things. The faces she meets are familiar ones, from the Shelter, from the Streets. Kagome founds bodies and faces she knew.
She finds old lady Amaya's soul. Defiled, destroyed...
Kagome found the Takumi-camps.
•••
Each facility is protected by a small army of thugs. They are altered, some of them. Stronger, faster. They show the results to their experimentation. They fight against her, they protect the place. It escalates to the point where they set fire to the base, activate explosives and go to great lengths to keep her out.
Kagome takes out each one, one by one.
•••
They know it's her.
The people.
Because; the same way she recognized them, they did her.
•••
Yamaguchi's boss is in the area looking for Miko, it's said.
•••
Walking through the busy nightlife of Nishinari ward, Kagome is recognized. Where before, but a few months back, she was nothing more than another nameless face walking these dangerous streets, now she's their savior, their secret messiah. Miko, they call adoringly, passing her on the streets, happy that their lives are now easier for the blood that now stains her hands. Not that it fazes her; Kagome had lived through more violence than any of them could have ever imagined, had cringed from death and gore until tiring and just accepting it as a constant in her life.
The street is full of life despite its slight rundown appearance, at least in comparison to Tokyo or the better wards of Osaka. It's absolutely disgusting when compared to small city Ito and smaller still Shimoda. The people are bundled up and dirtied, greeting her warily as she walks among them. She ignores the fear they feel for her, focusing on the appreciation and gratitude underneath. Sometimes she can picture she's somewhere else, among people who know her truly, as Kagome Higurashi, student or Shikon Miko.
It's a lie that soon fades away as she looks around, noting that she's surrounded not by villagers that one day would form her homeland nor by family or neighbors or school friends. She's not in Edo or Tokyo. Around, there are only strangers.
Disheartening, perhaps, but something she has learnt the hard way to accept. There's no easy way of going back. There's no magical, unexplained solution that shall happen because Kikyou once did a spell, or Kaede had just the right artifact or her grandpa just the right advice.
A family of three walks by her, an old man and two small children. Maybe he's their old uncle, maybe he's their grandparent or their old father. Maybe a trusted friend or a kind stranger helping them find their way back home. There are other titles she could give him, darker ones that are easy to find in these areas, but Kagome doesn't wish to think so badly of such a pure and happy trio.
It's in this second, this short second of contemplation, that she sets her sight upon them.
There's a group of men on the other end of the street, guns directed at her the second she's in full view. Kagome jumps behind a car to avoid the lightning fast bullets. The busy street is soon alight with fear, screams, and gunshots as people hastily enter their shops and homes. Bodies fall. There's a promise in the air — people shall die tonight — that is so acutely like the past Kagome thinks for a moment she's five hundred years back.
Waiting for the gunshots to stop briefly as she loads her gun and switches the safety off, she looks over the corner of the car. A young boy slams into the side of the quiet leader, one of his thugs grabbing the poor boy by his neck. He throws the boy to the street and shoots twice on the pavement between his legs.
Kagome does not fucking hesitate.
She steps out onto the street, gun ready and aimed directly at the boy's assailant. She fires once and misses, but they all duck down and search for cover as the boy scrambles away. Cursing, she whips behind a food cart as more shots fly around her, one scraping her leg by little. Hissing in pain, she readies her gun and breathes out. She closes her eyes and concentrates, pulls in whatever wits she has and gets them to work for a solution.
She can sense their presence, their souls, all spread evenly behind her. Beside her head, a bullet snaps through the food cart's fragile cover. Kagome doesn't flinch, already knowing who shot it so close to her head. The thug is by the sidewalk, closest to her. Kagome holds the gun in one hand, grabbing the metal cart with glowing pink fingers and throwing it on the car he is hiding behind.
It's enough of a diversion, and two scramble away from her as it hits the one who shot her. Bullets fly again and miss her body as she jumps over the car, aims the nuzzle to the other side of the street. Energy blooms and lights the gun ablaze, flowing through metal like blood through veins. All of it is absorbed by the small bullet and— "hit the mark."
The path it takes to reach its goal leaves behind only destruction, hitting home with a deafening boom. Kagome flies back into the shopping window of a store, slamming into mannequins. The car she shot at explodes outwards, dissipating like demons once did to her arrows. The men near it are burnt by the pulsing energy lashing outwards, some losing members and falling with painful screams, others fall silently to the ground and the last few are blown back like Kagome herself.
Blood and debris spoil what was just a peaceful scene —seconds, seconds, all it took was a few seconds and one hit— and all it took from Kagome was one bullet filled with her spiritual energy. Spiritual energy could interact with plains beyond her imagination, it could destroy physically, mentally and spiritually.
Kagome had never let loose such arrows of destruction so brazenly and with so much violence. She kneeled on the ground, blinking owlishly at the crater on the other side of the street. The firearm is held loosely in one hand, her finger resting softly against the trigger. She feels the tips of her hair caress her collarbone, and numbly she realizes her beanie is gone and her hood is down.
Footsteps make her react on instinct, holding the gun and firing at whatever had been heading towards her. The boy she just saved stares at her with wide eyes as the bullet cuts his chubby cheek, almost taking his life.
Behind him, Kagome sees the remaining thugs running into a small alley as the police sirens scream through the dead silence of the night. Screams echo, life pours down onto the pavement as blood drips down the boy's cheek. He doesn't shake in fear, he doesn't flinch in pain. His hand reaches for his wound, touching the wet skin and bringing his red stained fingers down to blink confusedly at.
The weapon falls to the ground, Kagome lets it drop from her shaking hands as if it burned.
The street is illuminated by red and blue that is haunting, hurting her vision and shaping reality with visions she thought gone. Her world shifts again, whispers behind her ear startling her. Police officers scream "put your arms where we can see!"
She runs.
•••
Yamaguchi-gumi declares war against Miko. They say she owes them for each every one of the members she took out, by either death, mutilation or arrest.
People stay clear of her. They are scared and they turn their back on her. She brings trouble and problems as much as she brought fortune and luck. Many are ridden with decease, hunger and poverty, and her good fortune isn't enough when she pits herself and the community against the biggest crime organization in the world.
She understands, she truly does, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt when the Shelter denies her entrance. It doesn't mean she doesn't cry early morning, too tired to properly ride her bike because she had to spend three days awake on the cold streets. It doesn't mean her stomach stops growling in hunger.
It doesn't mean her blood doesn't boil in, in—
Betrayal? Anger? Rage? Bloodlust? Fear?
…
Loneliness?
•••
When she gets to Sakaume-gumi's office, waiting at the door are the two siblings who first brought her to this situation. Kagome never asked their names. They stare at her in silence as she parks her bike and enters the building. She walks through the halls she had visited a few times. It's silent and dark, there's no buzzing of constant work. Standing before his door, Kagome feels doom.
Entering the office is like deja vú. He's sitting sideways on the low table in the middle of the office, alone as he watches the TV. The image displays a reporter speaking to the camera, interviewing a young boy with chubby cheeks she remembers from one day past.
"Miko-san was helping us. She really was! But—I spooked her. She was very scared." The boy looks down, and Kagome wants to cry when the white bandage on his chubby cheek stains with red. He had opened his wound. He had needed stitches. "The yakuza ran away because of me."
"The criminal now known as Miko has been acting on Nishinari ward, Osako, for about three months now, yet none of its residents have reported her whereabouts or appearance to the authorities. Why did the Nishinari community kept quiet and remains so about her identity and location?"
"Because she's not a criminal! She helped my grandpa, so she's can't be evil," he looks at the camera, eyes piercing. She calls him a boy but, truly, is he any older than her original body? Brave young man he is, he takes the reporter's microphone, looking into the camera with fierce eyes. "Miko-san, please, run! We are grateful for your help, but don't let them—hey, give it back!" The camera is cut to the news channel anchor, who chuckles in amazement and proceeds to comment about the situation with the other reporters present.
"Oi, oi, this boy is truly brave but quite naive. Wasn't this Miko criminal who nearly shot his face?"
"Miko thinks herself a vigilante. She's taking advantage of the Avenger's fever that has taken over the world. That's the only possible explanation for such blatant loyalty on the part her poor victims."
"A shame to our country, truly. It's been reported that the now widely sought out Miko is a recipient of unknown strength and power. All of the yakuza she brutalized on the past months have confirmed that she uses some kind of powers to make projectiles as simple as pebbles as lethal as bullets and her fists as strong as a hundred men. The weapon found on the crime scene where five yakuza were blasted to death has been identified and connected to another yakuza office that has been quite inoffensive for years. Authorities promise to dig further into their connection to this rising vigilante and the human experimentation ring as well as the main factor for a possible gang war—" The woman is cut short as the television is turned off. Kagome stares at the black screen, unseeing and unfeeling. Silence reigns heavy, loud in her ears. Enough to drown out the fear growing in her heart like a weed, poisoning her thoughts and taken hold of her limbs.
"Sit," Kagome doesn't feel shame in obeying the command. It's not out of submission. If she remained standing, she'd fall to her knees. Kagome does not turn her eyes down, does not shrink into her self. She meets his glare evenly, hands shaking in her lap but with defiance in her eyes. "You left the gun behind."
Kagome remembers the cold splitting through her cotton gloves and the relief of having its weight gone. "I did." Her answer mirrors another's from not a few months back. Their eyes meet, and she refuses to flinch at the fury sketched in his features. He grinds his jaw, turning to face her fully and dragging a folder towards her side of the table.
Kagome hesitates to take it, but grabs it quickly and opens it and to see fake ID's, passports and everything she'd need for a successful escape. She reads it with a half a mind—
The name written there is like an arrow to her throat. It's like choking on her own blood, suffocated by the very thing that keeps her alive. It's air that is unreachable, happiness that is impossible. Kagome Higurashi is a name that does not belong to the face she wears or the life she breathes.
"The—the name…" She gulps, blinking away tears.
"It's easy enough to connect the dots when you look closely," he nods at her. "That bastard Higurashi seemed to be quite fond of you." Kagome bits her tongue to keep herself from gasping. "Think of this as a gift."
She purses her lips, twirling the ID between two fingers and holding it for him to see. "Kagome Higurashi is way too risky." It's my name, my name, my name, her heart sings. She scoffs at the elation, knowing it's useless to remain attached to this name in her current situation.
"You took the risk when you accepted my offer," he leans back, one hand remaining on the table as he drummed his fingers over the surface. "You pissed me off when you fucking exploded a crater in the street and left evidence behind connecting you to my office."
Punishment, then, more than a proper gift. Kagome clenches her jaw, nodding. She'd make another way out. She would find a way. "So now what?"
He stares hard at her for a long moment, letting dread build in the air before leaning closer.
"Now you run."
•••
Kagome leaves Nishinari ward in a hurry, heading for the port.
•••
Kagome isn't strong enough to react when they grab her by her hair while she sleeps, dragging her through the busy night streets from her little sleeping corner in a shitty alleyway.
It's all too sudden. She hadn't been expecting them to find her. They do it with no warning, she only feels the sharp pain in her scalp and the despair of seeing her cardboard mattress and old comforter thrown around. Men she does not know grab her bag while others kick her bike. The pavement tears at her clothes as they drag her out on the street. People get out of the way, but no one dares to help.
Kagome kicks and screams and digs her feet into the pavement. Her body glows in pink, muscles and bones enhanced by pure energy. She grabs the wrist of the one who is holding her hair and—
Shock.
Kagome screams, writhing in pain as someone shoots a beam of energy at her. It's a dirty terrible thing in tainted blue. Kagome's body absorbs it, pink turning purple as energy cradles over her skin. She stares blindly up at the sky as they return to drag her out of the street, throwing her spasming body into the back of a van.
She scrambles to sit up, twitching involuntarily and gasping for breath when they shoot her again.
Reality shifts as she blacks out, taken somewhere else.
•••
"Wake up!" A terrible pain blooms on her cheek as a snap echoes in the room and Kagome gasp awake. There's a blinding light pointed at her face that makes her squint her eyes uncomfortably, trying to take a bearing of her location. A young man with a white lab coat stands close, his features hidden in the shadow created by the light shining behind him.
"Interesting," he tilts his head. "We can easily keep you asleep with the same amount of drugs as an ordinary young female human would need. So it's not defending you from foreign substances?" Kagome ignores his babbling, trying to look around for a way to get the fuck out.
Something glinting on the tall desk beside him catches her attention. Kagome focus on it, making out the rows of shining cirurgical instruments. Dread settles heavy in her stomach as the light is dimmed down enough for her to look at the young man. She watches as long white fingers fiddle with a clean scalpel, testing its blade with the tip of his finger. Their eyes meet, his mouth forming a comforting smile even as his eyes leer at her.
Spiritual energy floods her arms and legs, enhanced strength tearing her limbs from the restraints tying her to a metal chair. Kagome launches herself at him even as chaos rise around the room. She collides with his body, making him fly to the wall, hitting it with a sickening crunch and a splatter of blood.
The room shines with blue energy as something hits her on the back. Kagome staggers forward, screaming in pain as her muscles spasm. Her powers flare brighter, burning inside of her. Another shot of that terrible blue thing hits her from her front, making her stumble back. Another comes from her sides. They shoot her down until she falls to the ground, shaking badly with her eyes rolled back into her head and her mouth frothing, barely alive.
•••
Cold and despair wake her when they put her head into a basket of water. Kagome screams, bubbles of air coming out of her mouth and rising up. She can't see anything, can feel the water entering her nostrils and there's no air and even as her powers flare to life she can't purify this and oh gods she's gonna die—
"You can transfer your energy into any substance then," sweet sound returns to her, joined by her breathless screams.
Air, precious air, enters her lungs as she coughs out water. They pull her back, the weight of the heavy cuffs around her hands pulling her to the floor. She coughs, water spilling out her mouth as she attempts to crawl away. She bumps into a pair of legs, moving her face up and meeting brown cold eyes. A lab coat adorns the woman's body too, a clipboard in hand. The metal around Kagome's hands heats up, flaming pink fire illuminates the woman's face as Kagome brings it down on her legs legs. She breaks away from its confinement with a battle scream. Slim fingers curl into fists as she attempts to fight away.
She's shot down again.
•••
"At first glance, we theorized her energy enhances her body, allowing for super strength and healing properties," Kagome hears them speak through the daze of the drugs they put in her body.
("It could be a self-defense mechanism.")
"But it's nothing like that. Looking at the past restraints and how she affected the agents and doctors, it's almost like repelling."
("Are you crazy, Cooper?" one of the doctors chuckles, looking at graphics and holograms Kagome can't ever hope to understand. The scepter is close to her, shining like a beacon of hope. "It's internal stimuli! It's answering accordingly to some kind of—something that we can't quite pick up. It's not defending itself but maybe…Bring me the charts from the last two weeks.")
"In a chemical level, it's as if the subject is refining other properties, isolating whatever it considers a threat and converting it to ashes, or something close to it. Physically, it rejects matter away from it. We suspect the subject could control its energy on its own instead of channeling through physical vessels, obtaining something close to plasma or photon manipulation."
Kagome doesn't understand. She doesn't understand. She's too sick, too out of it.
"Energy control?"
"Something more than that. It—Well, it looks a lot like what we see in the serum."
"Serum? That unstable vial…isn't it done with—" the voices fade, both of their sets. Yellow light mingles with her clouded vision, taking the pain away as sleep tightens its grip on her mind.
"Yes—Baron—trade—production—alliance—call Takumi-sama."
Kagome sleeps.
•••
"Wake up."
Water hits her face, frigid cold as she wakes with a great gasp, coughing and blinking heavily against the harsh light cast upon her. Confusion grips her heart, squeezing it hard as it turns to terror when she sees she's surrounded again. Voices that only she could hear but that brought an odd comfort fade away as her grip on reality tightens.
"The Baron is quite adamant on having you in his hands, girl," Kagome blink at the old man leaning on a cane before her. He's dressed in a sharp suit of the highest quality. "But I want to meet this wannabe hero of our nation myself first. You, who gave us so much trouble even when I finally got a hold of you."
She doesn't have any idea who this Baron could be. Most likely someone from Yamaguchi. Kagome spies the armed men surrounding them and thinks; definitely Yamaguchi. "Tell him what I tell you now;" a mockery of a smile taints her mouth. "Go fuck yourself."
The man's lips move in a semblance of a smile. "You've got spunk, girl."
And Kagome laughs, loud and bitterly. She bares her teeth at him, something close to a snarl. "I've been told." Her head is pulled back by her hair, thick fingers gripping her whole head and holding tight, digits pressing against her scalp like hot branding. Kagome grits her teeth and sends her best glare at the man watching her. "Gonna kill me? Pay my debt to your lot with more blood? Torture me a bit more? Open me up and find my secrets?"
"Ha," someone lights up a cigar for him, putting it in his mouth. Kagome tries to breathe as calmly as possible, to concentrate enough to escape. She needs to focus. "That's what we told the small folks, ain't it?" He tilts his head. "We stopped being as simple as that for a time now. After all, why waste such fine…" he stares at her hands, which light up with spiritual power and yet fail to tear her restraints. "…specimen, when I can use you for something just—" he takes one step toward her, the noise from his cane hitting the hard ground sounding like a sentence of death. "So. Much." He leans down, putting the cigaret's hot tip on her forehead. Kagome gasps in pain. "Better!" He grins as he moves the cigarette away, and his silhouette is illuminated by soft pink as her powers flash briefly to heal the wound he inflicted.
"You're simply too unique to be thrown away so quickly."
Kagome pants heavily, eyes wide as she twists to look at her tied hands on the small of her back, thrashing widely against the unmoving simple metal cuffs. Her head is pushed back and she screams, trashing against her bounds with powers turned up to a hundred. The cuffs don't yield to her strength. The man smiles, "I have a friend who knows the best way to lock up individuals like you," leaning towards her and grabbing her chin. He pulls her close, and someone holds her from behind, keeping her in place. "And, you can trust me on this; there's no possible way for you to get out free of these." His disgusting fingers dig into her skin, and Kagome snarls at his leer.
The metal stoping her from moving is cold against her skin while his fingers are like hellish branding. Fear doesn't quite describe what she feels now. This monster roaring in her heart, crying for help as she puts on a brave face, channeling her fury to battle against his words. Her powers rise up in defiance once more, channeling up to her skin and into this man. Touching his body, it turns blue, like flames that lick at his disgusting soul. He flinches away with a painful howl, his cane falls with a loud thud that brings sickening satisfaction to her.
He breathes shallowly, one hand holding the other that had grabbed her face. His skin darkens, dries and cracks like dry soil. His screams echo as his men rush to his aid, but he pushes them away. "Bring me the serum!" They are quick to scramble away from him. Gasping, he straightens himself, looking at her with a hellish gaze that morphs through the pain to something closer to amused curiosity as he meets her terrified eyes. A smirk sets Kagome's heart into a frenzy, "Surprised?" He walks closer to her. "Don't be, dear. I'm just a tad more resilient than your average victim." He is sweating profusely, the drying effect on his hand is slowly rising through the member. Kagome watches the—the infection through terrified eyes.
Her senses go haywire as she watches his arm dry up of life. She can feel her own powers interfering with his spiritual energy, dormant as it was, and to his very bone. His blood is…bitter. His muscles are unnatural. There's something not human at all in his body, something corrupting it and reaching as deep as his soul.
Kagome had never seen such a reaction to her purification.
His body fights against the destruction of her energy, rendering his arm useless but not turning it to ashes, stopping it before it destroyed him completely. All the while, Kagome feels his prodding gaze like a knife twisting her insides. When he comes closer again, Kagome tries to inch away from him, tries to increase the distance between their bodies despite her restrains. He leans down, terrifyingly close to her.
His soul is putrid, Kagome realizes, retching. She turns away from him as he nudges her gently with his nose, grabbing her face again with the same hand that she almost destroyed. It's horrible. Kagome hates the touch of the dammed skin upon hers. She feels the bile rising up in her throat and the tears gather in her eyes as he pulls her close. All of her senses are dominated by him. His scent, his touch, his breath, his soul. It all overwhelms her, making her cower from him.
"You're—ugh, a very interesting one, ne?" She wants to twist his hand away, to turn his whole body to ashes. "You'll do a fine specimen." Kagome's body flares to life, skin burning pink as it attempts to purify his body again. He trembles in pain, yet his wild eyes remain glued to her terrified ones. Every inch of his skin cracks and dries as he shakes in pain. Her powers shine pink light upon his ashen features, and still, the mad man doesn't move away.
She shakes her head, a dry sob escaping when he finally lets her go, stumbling back. Kagome gasps when her head is pushed down from behind. She refuses to lift her gaze as he falls away from her, gasping for breath and cackling madly. Taint, she realizes. His soul is like a taint to the air, infecting it like a miasma.
It affects his mind, just as it does his body and soul. Kagome shakes her head, mind flashing back to Naraku as words escape her trembling lips. "Wh—What…you—" She looks at the man laying on the floor through her eyelashes and fringe. He gets back on his feet, ashen skin falling off his body. His smile is sick, his soul is foul.
Kagome hates the sight of him.
"What am I?" he falls towards her, eyes wide as he grasps her face and pulls it close. His dry lips caress her ear, fingers intertwining with her short strands. "It doesn't matter, dear," he puts his forehead against her. "The only one who matters here is you." Someone gives him something, and he takes a small step back, throwing his head back and drinking a bright blue liquid from a long vial. The serum? He throws the empty vial away with a flourish. Kagome flinches at the loud sound of it breaking, eyes widening as he looks back at her with glowing blue eyes.
The blue liquid travels under his ashen skin, moving through his veins like blue light and healing every inch of his body it passed through. The dry skin falls off completely, revealing pink flesh that is young and hale. His dammed face falls away, rejuvenated and every bit as insane as before. His eyes are strikingly vicious, glued to her cowered form and taking pleasure from the sight. "That's my last vial, you know," once more, he grasps her face and pulls her close to his. "But I think I found my ticket for another batch and, this time—" he caresses her cheek tenderly, whispering to her like she's a precious thing that he loves. Like Naraku would to Kikyou. "—it will last for decades."
•••
Kagome is taken out of that wretched cell, dragged into a car. Her face is covered by a bag, her hands tied tightly. She doesn't attempt to run. There's a cold metal pressed into her side, a threat that she cannot ignore.
She's scared.
•••
She's dizzy when they arrive at the police station, the one near the drug spots and the hospital. The cell is empty, and she put is there without a care. Kagome tries to move her arms and fails. The corridor sounds empty, so she tries to pump her power through her body. It burns her from the insides, making her dizzy and thrown up some blue-black liquid as another vision clouds her surroundings in the worst of moments.
Fuck you, she thinks to the scientist duo that are always around the scepter. The vision makes her dizzier then she already is, and Kagome gasps in pain as her ever-present headache ascends and a high pitch noise deafens her. She falls to the ground, face into the horrible glowing liquid she just expelled from her body with her eyes fixed on the cell's door. Forcing one hand ahead of her to claw at the cemented floor, Kagome crawls to the bars. Long fingers curl around cold metal as she hoists her body up.
Under her palms, pink light pours out. Her whole hands light up in pink and she gasps silently at the burning sensation in her veins. She starts pulling at the bars and—
Shock, terrible pain, makes her spasm widely and fall back to the floor as it recedes, wheezing for breath. Her eyes meet cold blue ones. The woman standing before her is beautiful, foreign. Tall built and coiled muscles under a leather overall uniform in black with a red skull on her left breast, she pulls back the shock stick she had dug into Kagome's neck.
The woman speaks, some language Kagome can't discern. She observes Kagome for a few moments, cold eyes greedy and terrible before she gets up and walks away. Terror, deep in her gut that creeps upon her bones and flesh, captures all senses, changes all thoughts. All ideas of escaping disappear, and, for what feels like a century, Kagome tastes death.
And then the woman goes flying through the corridor like a rag-doll.
The door is tore open from its hinges as a blond woman throws it out of the way. She wears tourist clothes, an Osaka shirt with little cartoonish foods and stuffs and baggy jeans as she casually strolls toward Kagome. She blinks up at the stranger, confused.
"Hey, Kagome," her name is absolutely butchered by her. The woman offers a familiar backpack to her, a cheeky smile on her lips. "Found your backpack."
Kagome kinda knows English, but not enough it seems, since she doesn't have any idea what the woman just said.
"Let's bail you out, eh?"
"What—"
And the woman wraps an arm around her waist, exploding the cell's ceiling with some kind of energy coming out of her fists, flying out into the night.
•••
The night sky so similar to the one she witness in the past is her first clue that something is terribly wrong, and perhaps she's not in Osaka anymore. Have I returned?
She blinks and blinks again for good measure. She's swaying on a boat. She's laying on a boat. She sits on the boat, looks around, feels her hair whipping through the air and hitting her face as the thing speeds through the dark sea.
She's on a freaking boat.
"You're awake? Don't move too much!" atrocious Japanese mixed with English calls her attention. There's a blonde woman piloting the sailboat. She's smiling confidently in the glare of artificial lights, seemingly unbothered by the endless patch of darkness surrounding them.
"Who the hell are you?" The wind is whistling in her ears, and her spiritual energy is quick to answer to her rising adrenaline. Her skin glows pink and then it's all redirected to her clenched fists. Kagome gets on her feet, out of balance with the constant swaying under her feet. The yacht sails over the water and Kagome stumbles forward with a yelp, power disappearing as she slams on the panel beside the blonde.
The woman stares at her with a smirk, snatching her by the collar of her shirt — where's her jacket? where's her kimono?! — and forcing her down. Kagome falls on her butt and blinks at the woman, astonished by her bossy attitude. "Carol Denvers," she screams over the roaring wind. "Your friend!"
Face contorting in annoyance and confusion, Kagome answers back with as much sassiness as she can put into words. "I don't know you!"
The mad woman laughs, throwing her head back and laughing deep and freely. "But you do!" she sends a winning smile at her. "In the future!"
What.
•••
A/N: Marvel at least.
Before any business, I'd like to apolagize for my terrible horrible incapable self: I can't write anything less than M rated solely for my violence. I can't do PG fighting. I can't. It's horrible and one day I will write PG violence, for fuck's sake.
Kagome's powers sound like they are all over the place, but they are actually not. In canon, in various instances, Kagome's sacred arrows interacted weirdly with her surroundings. I believe it has been stated that her powers could only harm youkai, but I may be wrong on that and mix my InuYasha lore with some other fandom. Anyways, in some scenes I've seen her take down hordes of demons, some scenes have her arrows shooting through the battlefield with a dramatic cloud of dust following behind. By this, I take she can, in fact, interact with the physical realm. In this story, Kagome uses her powers blindly, with not a lot of control since she doesn't have any clear goal in mind (AKA, purifying demons or aiming at a jewel shard).
Going through this, I thought on the various ways her powers could affect others, and how they are quite wild. Using the few other aspects in the InuYasha lore I managed to come up with a good enough development of how her powers work that fit the MCU world of science and magic. In this, we see her going at it blindly, but still trying without restraint, since she's by herself. Feel free to argue or point out inconsistencies. With that in mind, I'd like to tell you guys that yes, all of what you read has a point. Everything has a reason. Kagome needed to go through all of this so she could understand her powers on her own for a bit.
All of the priestess shown in the series have their powers connected to tradition, Kagome doesn' and I'd like to explore that part of the fandom freely while keeping it fresh and consistent to the world and plot I came up with.
As for Carol, Happy Captain Marvel week! It's her time to shine and I'm READY for it. I've been so excited to know what y'all think. I'd say that it's all tentatively canon about her. Next chapter may come in the weekend instead of Friday cause I wanna see if I can watch the movie and make any needed adaptations to it if possible.
A lot of OC's in this chapter, but not all. Takumi was an actual historical figure that I took a bit of artistic liberty to include him into this world. Can any of you figure out who he is?
Also, again, of this yakuza situation was made up by me. I have no idea how they are doing in real life, and this is a fictional situation connected to the MCU canon.
Kissus kisssus, use protection in this carnival holiday.
~Mari