THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Kagome. These characters belong solely to Rumiko Takahashi and Viz.
Oh, and the SVU characters belong to Dick Wolf's company!
I do however own my own creations.
Chapter 22
Inuyasha walked up the crumbling steps into the ancient Tadahisa shrine. He remembered when this shrine had formed in the mid 1800's. The Tadahisas had been a highly respectable Shinto clan in the City of Edo. The shrine was dedicated to Inari ... the kami of rice. Although war torn and battered, standing proud at the front of the shrine under the Torii, stood a huge fox statue - Inari's messenger. Inuyasha looked on the ground. Torn and decaying, a shimenawa from the Torii laid discarded. Inuyasha shook his head. The once magnificent shrine was now a pile of ruins.
Heading further in, he sniffed for clues as to the location of the meeting. With the shrine in ruins, it wasn't easy to decifer where the basement might have been. Inuyasha shook his head again. All he could smell was gunpowder and decaying corpses along with pollution. It was the Sengoku Jidai with filth.
Something caught his eye. Just like on the streets, the image was only peripheal. He felt his arm jerk slightly. Looking down at the slit in his hitoe, he saw another note. Picking it out it read,
"Greetings friend. The basement is located approximately 15 feet to your left, inside the priest's house. Thank you for coming to join us. Shuichi."
Inuyasha followed the directions to the priest's house. At the rear of the building was a shouji. Opening the shouji, Inuyasha saw a set of steps leading down and to the right. Following the steps, he was plunged into darkness. His eyes quickly adjusted and at the end of a hall he saw another shouji. Opening this shouji, he entered a huge room filled with tables, chairs and a stage. Here sat about two hundred people. No ... not people ... his nose told him otherwise. They were all demons of some sort.
'Why hadn't I picked up their scent?' he wondered, when he realized how many were gathered.
"I can tell you're confused, my friend." came a voice behind him.
Inuyasha twirled around, "Who are you?" he inquired.
"I am Shuichi, my friend. I am glad you have joined us. We can use more allies."
"Shuichi, you say. Can you please tell me what is happening outside?" asked Inuyasha.
Shuichi stared at Inuyasha and blinked hard, "Whaddya mean, tell you what is going on outside? Have you been in a coma for the last thirty some odd years, my friend?"
'Thirty some odd years?' he thought, then said, "Yea, I guess you can say that. So what is going on?"
Another demon approached them, overhearing their conversation, "Shuichi ... do not trust this man. His feigned innocence could be a trap for the government to find us rebels."
"You fool!" bellowed Inuyasha, "I just wanna know what the fuck is going on outside. Why can I only see you out of the corners of my eyes outside and why the fuck couldn't I smell a huge group of gathered demons when I was a mere 40 feet away from you people?"
"Inuyasha????? Is that really you?" came a voice from the other side of the crowd.
Inuyasha turned back towards the crowd, which had now become silent. He knew that voice ...
"SHIPPOU!" he called.
"INUYASHA! We thought you were dead! When you didn't return to us!" cried the fox demon, running up to his old friend, "Shuichi, you can trust him. This is Kateitenma Inuyasha, patriach of the great Kateitenma clan!"
Shuichi turned back to Inuyasha and stared, then bowed deeply, "Kateitenma - san. I apologize. I did not recognize you. As Shippou has said ... you were believed dead."
"Yea, well, I can assure you, the news of my demise has been greatly exaggerated. Now, Shippou, can you tell me what is going on here?" Inuyasha demanded.
"Of course, Inuyasha. Come with me. Shuichi, carry on with the meeting." said Shippou.
"But, Shippou-san, where are you going?" asked Shuichi.
"Simple. I know quite a few people who are interested in seeing Inuyasha again." said Shippou, motioning Inuyasha to follow him.
The two old friends headed to another room. Upon entering, Shippou handed Inuyasha a long, black cape,
"What the fuck is this for?" asked Inuyasha.
"You wondered how you could only see us in passing and how our scents were masked. This is the answer."
"A cape?"
"Not just any cape. It produces the strongest magic spell I have ever seen. Izayoi created the spell that permeates these capes." said Shippou.
"Izayoi." Inuyasha breathed, "My pups are still alive? And Kagome?"
"Inuyasha. You need to know. After you went through the well, things changed. The Tenseiga went missing. Without the Tenseiga, Sesshoumaru seemed to have lost his way. Sousson-Pannan was able to get a hold of evil to rule the world ..." Shippou began explaining all of what changed.
"Wait. Wait. If you are saying time changed when I went back through time, then how do you know all of what happened in the previous existance?"
"Yasha."
"Ok, now I'm really confused."
"The pups went into the New York underground searching for the time portal. Azarni was pulled in because she is mystic too. Then the human detective, Olivia Benson, touched Kagome's bow and arrow. That is when something strange happened. Olivia disappeared into the vortex. Yasha said that is when he heard a voice. A young male voice. It told him to take all the pups back to the New York co-op and gather. Sesshoumaru heard it too. He gathered me and his family and we flew to New York. A few days after we all gathered, something strange happened outside. The sky went dark and the air began to swirl. It last for what seemed like days. When it finally let up, it was a whole new world ...a world torn apart by war. It was like the past 30 years hadn't happened. Fundamentalist Islamics had taken over the world, thanks to Sousson-Pannan. But we ... were unaffected. We had been protected. Although we saw the changes to the world, we still had our memories of the previous world. To us, our past remained the same, yet altered. It was as if we had two pasts."
Inuyasha listened carefully, "So are you saying there are two of all of us out there?"
"Yes. Essentially. The true us are hidden. The fake us ..."
"Are not. Shippou ...what about Azarni, Juliet, and Kagome ..." Inuyasha's voice trailed off at his wife's name.
"They are fine. Protected, just like the rest of us."
"Where are they?" asked Inuyasha, excited.
"In Canada ... at the compound."
Inuyasha breathed a sigh of relief, then asked, "So, Shippou, do you know who protected all of you?"
Shippou nodded, "Yes. It was Zachary ... and Olivia ... the human detective."
Inuyasha's eyes grew wide, "HUH?"
"Olivia ... she's not human after all ... none of us knew it ... not even her." said Shippou.
"Not human ... she's demon?" asked Inuyasha.
"No ... she's mystic. PURE mystic." said Shippou.
"Pure mystic? Mind explaining Shippou?"
Another voice joined the conversation, "Pure mystic ... as in born asexually through a regenerated uterus. Using only the blood of the mother."
Inuyasha spun around, "YASHA!" he cried in joy, hugging his son tightly. As the two hugged, Yasha felt tears well up in his eyes. Pulling away, Yasha looked at his father,
"Dad, do you inderstand what I just said?"
Inuyasha looked at his oldest son, registering what Yasha had just told him,
"Olivia ... she's ... that can't be ... she's ..." Inuyasha stammered.
"Olivia is the child Mama was carrying when you left." finished Yasha.
Inuyasha stared confused at his son, not comprehending what Yasha was really saying.
"Dad. Olivia is from the future. She is the Mystic Queen."