A special thank you to…
Avelyn Lauren…IYgal44354…Clouds of the Sky…manga-is-my-anti-drug…xxxHallia…Watching Eternity…bdrake07…angelqt1231…Ztatsylime…sweetrosie… Ayjah…TrueBelle…Le Auteur De Fantaisie…thiev…MeiunTenshi…silvekonekotsukari… ffgirlmoonie…iamthefish (What?)…I Laugh at ur Pain…
…
Disclaimer:
Pwale: I don't own the characters.
Everyone (Readers included): …
Pwale: …
Everyone (Readers included): …Not again…
Pwale: RANDOM HIPPO TIME!!!! YAY!!!
Insert Random Rampaging Hippo Here
…
The Stamp Of Gold
Take It Or Leave It
By Pwalefriend
…
Kikyo got down to the point right away, after all, she'd never been one to beat about the bush. I mean, she had been once, but then she'd gone crazy. And she was drunk. So she forgot that she liked to beat about the bush, so she just got on with it.
Just like I'm about to do.
"We want you on our side." Kikyo told Kagome, not speaking in riddles because she was drunk and unlike drunks who slur Kikyo (when she got drunk) just stopped talking in riddles for a blessed little while.
Kagome raised an eyebrow.
"Whose side and what side?" Kagome asked. "No one's been really clear about what the whole deal is. In fact, I don't think anyone's really said it." Kikyo shrugged.
"Basically we all hate each other's guts and don't want to deal, but none of us are willing to move. Well, I am, and most of the people who live down at the Feudal Era mansion are, but neither Naraku nor Inuyasha will ever do it, so that's the rub. So, unless something breaks, the rest of us are all screwed." Kikyo grinned. "Personally, I'd prefer if the thing breaking were Inuyasha. More wine?"
…
Through the Magic Mirror Inuyasha watched with consternation as Kikyo continued to elaborate on his faults, saying he was uncontrollable and unreliable, saying that there was no hope for him, that he'd never go back to the way his was before the incident (the incident being the whole Naraku-Curses-Inuyasha business and the way he was before was mild-mannered and sweet, believe it or not). Kikyo asked how long it would be until Inuyasha's wild rage turned on Kagome, because from this point on the problem would only grow and grow and grow, and even if Naraku was somehow defeated, the curse wouldn't go away because it was tied to Inuyasha's soul, not to Naraku's.
How could Inuyasha deny it? It was all true. Kagome couldn't seem to think of anything to say either; she only stared down at the floor and remained silent.
Then Kikyo went on to say how wonderful Naraku is. How he was a psychiatrist who so many townsfolk could speak for and depended on in times of need. How he was one of the most academically achieved people in the country. How when she had first come to be with him, he had discovered her love of gardens, and had spent nearly a month making one especially for her, with his own two hands. Naraku never raised his voice at her, and he never hit her. She'd never seen him fight with anyone except for Inuyasha and he'd always seen that Kanna and Kagura had been provided with the best of things. He had, for a time, still tried to take care of them even after they'd abandoned him, what a dear!
To his horror, Inuyasha found that was all true as well. Only with a spin.
Naraku was a well-liked psychiatrist by many townsfolk. You could find most of those people in the local prison. He used his social standing to keep his vassals of the gallows.
Naraku was one of the most academically achieved men in the country. Though what he was achieved in was the filthier practices of the stereotypical occult that mothers tell their children about to frighten them into eating their vegetables.
Naraku didn't fight with anyone. He considered it beneath him. He just killed them if he didn't like them.
Naraku had made sure that Kanna and Kagura had been provided with the best of things. Including poppy.
Naraku had tried to keep a hold on Kanna and Kagura after they'd escaped him. The result was that Kagura was unable to bear children.
Inuyasha didn't know about the garden thing, but it was probably seeded with poisonous plants that had no other value or something.
But Inuyasha had to admit, Kikyo hadn't lied. Not once. Throughout the entire ordeal Kagome remained silent.
Inuyasha sighed and turned off the Magic Mirror as Kikyo handed Kagome a card and left. Kikyo had been right. He was a monster. He had no right to watch Kagome's fair visage.
He didn't know that Kagome left the opera after that.
…
Well, he knew about five minutes later when he changed his mind and turned the Magic Mirror back on again, but hey, you've got to give him points for at least trying to be a less creepy and invasive type of pathetic.
…
Kagome walked slowly back to the hotel, mulling over what had just happened.
She had to admit, Kikyo had a point.
And it was also blatently obvious that Kikyo was one of the bad guys.
But did that necessarily mean that Inuyasha was one of the good guys? Kagome knew that it might be cliché for her to say so, but weren't good guys supposed to conquer their inner enemies and not kill people? Weren't the good guys supposed to be all good and perfect and always win in the end? Why did real life have to be like real life when it was so fantastical and story-like. It should just make up it's mind!
Kagome knew that was a pointless hope. As if Real Life would listen to her. If it wouldn't make itself known to Odysseus, who by right should have died if not in Troy then at least at some point on the way home, then there was no way it would leave her alone.
Stupid Real Life. It sucked.
Though, admittedly, if she had to live happily ever after she'd probably die of boredom but be too happy to figure out that she was bored because she had to happy all the time. That would suck too.
Kagome gave her head a little shake, and tried to get back on topic. A glint of shiny yellow in the corner of her eye caught her attention and (because Kagome is human and us humans are compulsively drawn to shiny object, especially if they're pretty metal) saw in the same stationary window she'd looked at her first trip into town the little golden stamp. Kagome stared at the stamp for a moment and then gave it a crooked smile.
"Who knows?" She said. "I keep staring at you. And you haven't been bought yet. Maybe you're my one true love and my only soul mate, reincarnated as a stamp, through no fault of your own. You silly love of mine."
Watching the Magic Mirror, Inuyasha wondered if Kagome had gone insane. Both his and Kagome's left feet agreed.
Kagome's brain informed them all that they could all go to heck. She was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and you could save your concern for someone who needed it. Sheesh. Feet these days.
"They keep asking me to choose a side." Kagome said, kneeling down and continuing to talk to the stamp. "A side in what, exactly? Oh, I won't take the job, but I think I need a vacation." Kagome gave a little disgusted sigh. "Everyone else is always taking vacations! But do I ever get to take a vacation? No. They don't even ask me if I want to go to India or the Bahamas or wherever it was that they were headed! They just take off and leave! My own family! While here I am, working my ass off for their sake!"
Kagome conveniently forgot that she hadn't been able to give the children one of their lessons in over a month and the most exciting her lessons on Witchery got was debating theory with Inuyasha who refused to allow her to try anything else since the first disastrous (and painful) lesson with Kagura.
Instead Kagome's thoughts turned to her little students and she was seized with a horrible longing to see their happy faces. She had to admit it, she missed Shippo and Rin and Satsuki. They certainly weren't bad guys.
And neither was Sango. Sango and Kagome had been best friends since a young age, accidentally meeting in a city brawl and whaling on each other until the realized that they were the only girls and were forever bonded by being the only Girls Who Dared To Play With The Boys (to this title the other girls would later add Those Hussies while the boys would later add Good Chaps, Those Two).
Sango wasn't a bad guy, no more then sweet loveable Kohaku was.
Miroku, for all his faults, wasn't a bad guy.
Kaede wasn't a bad guy.
None of the servants were bad guys.
Kanna and Kagura weren't bad guys.
Sesshomaru, Kagome wasn't so sure of. He wasn't so much a bad guy, so much of I Love To Make My Brother Cry guy.
Koga hadn't been a bad guy until he'd attacked her. Did that mean he was a bad guy now? When he'd been her friend for so long?
Was Inuyasha a bad guy?
Was Kikyo even really a bad guy? It was quite obvious that she was stark raving mad. Could she really be held accountable for her actions?
That left Naraku. If all the others weren't necessarily bad guys, was it fair that he was too? Could it be possible for there to only be one bad guy? If all the other's had another side, was it possible for him to just be evil? Kagome didn't think so.
But then what did that leave her with?
Kagome had by now reached her hotel and was starting to walk around it. The doorman put a hand on her arm and Kagome looked up at him curiously.
"You shouldn't be out here this late, miss." He said. "This isn't the nicest of towns after dark."
"I'll be careful." Kagome told him.
"Still, miss," he said. "If you must walk, do it on this block where I can see you, yes?"
So Kagome paced up and down the block in front of the hotel, thinking.
She had a choice in front of her. And as far as she could tell she had three options.
One: She could go back to Inuyasha, discuss things with her family when the returned, and they'd decide as a group what to do, since her income was also their income.
Two: She could take Kikyo up on the offer, and walk a new path that she just didn't have any idea about. A path that was most likely going to try and eat her every few steps.
Three: She could just disappear and start somewhere new.
Option number Two was stupid.
Option number Three would make her sad and lonely and running away never works because people have this annoying habit of finding you anyways.
That left option number One, but Kagome wasn't sure she was comfortable with that one.
She supposed she could stay at the hotel until her family returned, but that would be asking for trouble from Naraku and she couldn't afford the room for much longer then a few days which means she would be further indebted to Inuyasha and Kagome found that she, at that particular moment in time, was rather uncomfortable with the thought.
Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.
Kagome kept on pacing and pacing, thinking and thinking. At one in the morning she was preparing to go inside when, out of all the totally unexpected and cliché things to happen, out of all the numerous things that could have happened, Kagome tripped.
At first she thought that she was just being clumsy.
Then she heard people waking up and starting to scream, and she heard glass starting to break.
Miles away at the Feudal Era mansion Tensaiga and Tetsusaiga began to scream in equine terror. Inuyasha dove under his sturdy wooden desk and covered his ears and face with his hands as the Magic Mirror slid off the wall and shattered to pieces.
The Earth herself was expressing her annoyance with this continual bickering that mankind is so prone towards.
So she started trying to shake them off.
Kagome looked, in a panic, for cover as the earthquake mounted in ferocity and pieces of architecture began to fall with dusty crashes all around her.
Oh shit. Said her left foot. This is ridiculous!
…
A bunch of drugs can be made out of poppy, some of them opiates. Way back when it was used as a sedative to keep people quiet. I think. This isn't my area of expertise, but I've read a lot of books where that happened, so for the sake of the argument I'll pull a sheep and believe what I read.
…
Well, how do you like that! I updated rather quickly, I like to think.
ROAR!!!
Well, the Review Lion is impressed with how quickly I updated and that this chapter actually has some substance, so she and her Candy Monsters and Helper Ninjas will be working full force this time, so you'd better review…OR THEY'LL BE COMING FOR YOU
…
Hey! That rhymes!
(Jenny, Al and Lia hit Pwale over the head)
Well, till next time!
…
Sincerely
Pwalefriend