"The disappearance of Kikyou and Kaede, my beloved granddaughters, has greatly disturbed me, but what disturbs me more is that two of our finest officers are dead." Gytha Motshuria, Mayor of Sunset, said to the press at the press conference following the death of two police officers in her mansion.
The press had swarmed to the subject of two deaths and the Mayor was making it seem like the two girls were at fault. "My granddaughters, however much I love them, must be found."
Gytha was the perfect image of a distraught family woman. Her hair was slightly disheveled from a night "without sleep", her eyes looked puffy from crying, and her hands shook as though afraid to say what she had to say next. "I hope this is all a misunderstanding," she offered to the press.
"I would love nothing more than my granddaughters to be innocent. I know of their inheritance of priestess powers from their mother, I just would have never thought the girls to...to..." she dabbed at tears that dripped down her face with a handkerchief.
"I'm sorry. It's just...when I found the girls missing and the brave policemen dead in their room, their prints all over the murder weapons... They must be found. We must get to the bottom of this."
The story would be the hottest in the newspaper the next morning, and the press conference was live so many of Sunset's population would be watching.
Raine's hand slipped deftly across the orange holographic computer keyboard as she did what she normally did on a daily basis. She hacked into places, found out information, learned what she could, created programs, and checked her many syna emails for orders of specific things like androids or programs that other hackers and people wanted.
It wouldn't be safe for her if she only had one syna email, so she had created a program router that allowed her to have three syna emails that were 'active' and one syna email that was 'unactive'. The 'unactive' email took all the emails that were sent to the other three and converted them to a code of different squares which made it so that unless the person who read it knew the code, they wouldn't understand what it said.
Raine had serious doubt that anyone who read it would be able to understand, considering she was the one who created the code and only she knew what each square symbolized. She hadn't even bothered to tell Rin about the code, knowing her sister would much prefer to be in the dark about technology any better than a sewing machine.
She had almost forgotten that noon was quickly nearing, but Rin had not forgotten. What with Kaede and Kikyou now unable to ever leave the basement of their home because of Gytha's desire to get a hold of the girls for whatever reason—which was very upsetting for the two when Raine had told them that morning upon their awakening—meals were now taken in Rin's comfortable sewing room.
There were no windows at all to shine into the basement and the only exit out of it was the stairwell. "Come eat, sister." Rin called from the sewing room.
"In a minute." Raine called back. She finished typing the email response to the order and sent it. It would be changed from words to squares on the journey to the particular syna email that she was sending it out of and when it was there it would convert to regular words again and send out to the email recipient.
Sometimes she wondered if she was a little too careful, but she always turned around and said no, she wasn't careful enough. She stood from the computer and went to join the other girls for lunch.
As she sat down on one of the many comfortable cushions that Rin had placed about to give the room more color, she pondered what she should bring to the table for conversation.
She wasn't all that much of a conversationalist unless it included taking technology of some sort, which was basically why she and Relic got along so well. Thankfully, she was spared that menial task by Rin, who took a delicate sip of her tea before setting her glass down and placing her hands in her lap, looking at Kikyou and Kaede.
Kikyou was constantly looking towards the stairwell door as though it would suddenly burst open and someone would come in and demand to see her and Kaede in shackles. Kaede was pale from blood loss, but much better after Raine had given her a dose of Portaculant which was what Raine called the life fluid that raced through Rin.
It worked as a blood substitute for humans, but unlike blood it didn't clot. A small dose of it helped blood to quickly replace itself. There was a handkerchief covering her left eye to keep her from staring at the hole in the center of her eyeball in one of the many mirrors around the room.
"I would very much like an explanation." Rin said calmly. Raine admired her younger twin for her ability to stay calm about the whole situation. Raine wasn't screaming hear head off at Kikyou and Kaede telling them to explain, but despite her outer calm appearances, Raine knew she would like to scream.
Rin had been through so much worse things like the surgery that turned her Cyborg that she just didn't get very upset anymore. Getting upset over her newfound ovaries growth was an exception.
"I don't know much; Kaede is the one who does." Kikyou's hands shook on the teacup and Rin deftly reached over and took the glass, placing it back on the coffee table where they were seated around before it spill all over the nervous girl.
Kaede stayed quiet for such a long time that lunch was nearly eaten before she began her tale, sparing nothing to herself as she spoke. She admitted that she had felt glad to get Kikyou in trouble just as much as she had regretted it afterwards.
She admitted to feeling like she should just go back to bed but curiosity made her want to stay and see what was going on. She told about how she somehow—by God's will or her own she wasn't sure—fell through the wall when she tripped.
When she finished she was shaking. "I was so scared—I thought I was going to die."
"It's so like our parent's murder." Kikyou whispered. "We weren't supposed to see them die, but a nightmare drove us to our parent's room, just like my nightmare drove Kaede to grandmother's room. They were going to kill us then, but we survived by sheer luck, running to find some place to hide in the middle of a blizzard."
Silence filled the room for a moment as all four thought about that seeming coincidence.
It must be here! The woman thought as her anger rose farther and she shook with rage. Her anger was no where near complete as she searched for what she wanted. The boy on the metal bed was but a shallow success, so she wondered what she had done right. She had been looking forward to kidnapping again.
The android that she'd created and given the name L.I. X.E.R.A. was nimble and could blend in with any crowd. She'd created it using the idea of a shape shifter demon so unlike other androids, this one she could change the image of in an instant. Life was so fun when you add a little risk here and there.
She giggled as she found what she was looking for. Now she had the needle and the Portaculant so if she hurried, she would be able to complete the final touches on the boy, take a bath, and leave the lab to get to the studio before the students even finished their afternoon classes and hurried to dinner.
She filled the needle with the blood red colored liquid and the boy's mouth opened in a silent scream as he felt it enter his arm. Tears trailed down his body; it was a wonder he had stayed conscious through the entire surgery but he had.
Blood washed the table around him; his blood washed the table around him and dripped onto the floor. He couldn't speak without his tongue and no amount of anguished pains would escape his tortured soul to be heard without his voice box. His breath just escaped through his mouth in a quick wisp.
As she left the tortured boy on the table to favor a bath in the tub, her aberrant mind turned to what she could do next. She'd finally created a Cyborg. That had been her ultimate goal and now that she was sure she did that, she had no idea what she would do next.
The boy's heart was weak still after the operation. There was a chance that he might not make it through the rest of the day, and if that was so, she wondered what she might be doing wrong. It wasn't like if he died she'd quit trying. She'd certainly continue to try!
Oh, and she would so have had well over fifty new test subjects if only that defiant girl hadn't been pulled to the side by that stupid boy. Three years before she would have successfully managed to secure older children. It was all thanks to that Lea Saeko girl who foolishly sent them all into an area where she knew exactly how to get in without detection.
"Oh poo!" she complained. "It must be the age. I have always done young children. I will have to get someone older and test my theory." Her mind moved to formulate plans. Her little ' School of Ballet' was a secure way to launder the money from the ransom.
Children were sent to her every year by the dozens, but she dare not take one of those children. If one of those children disappeared she would be under certain investigation. The ransom money would pay for the new supplies she needed to create her little monstrosities.
Life was so fun on the edge!
"I've told you, time and again, Toshu. You're going to get yourself in over your head. Do you even know who you're dealing with this time?" A woman stood before Toshu's work space with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
Her bright red curly hair was dyed, Toshu was sure. She had to be a natural black haired girl, though the curls might not have been faked.
"You tell me what time and again? You've only just transferred here three years ago, you hardly know me! Why did you come to Raspuit anyway? To heckle me?" Toshu snapped at the woman, hating with every ounce of his life the fact that she got to him so easily. Her smile told him that he had expected him to snap at her and she wasn't the least bit intimidated.
"You're dealing with Kagome Higurashi." She said simply as though it should have been obvious to him all along. She observed the red nail polish shining on her hands for a moment as though she didn't care a wit about him, and he had no doubt that she didn't.
It was obvious how she liked older men and though he was the same age as her—thirty years old—he, like her, did not have the look of a forty year old that was balding. Both of them looked much younger than their actual age. While she looked twenty five, he looked no older than her.
"And just who is Kagome Higurashi? Why should I give a rat's ass? She's a person who intends to take custody of the girl." He waved his hand at the chair that Kanna sat in, looking dead to the world.
Kanna's dreaming eyes turned in the direction of the woman and Toshu, none of the hurt she was feeling showing in her dark orbs or her expression. She completely looked like nothingness.
A porcelain doll held more expression than she did. Toshu felt a shiver crawl up and down his spine as he saw the look and quickly turned away, but he could feel the young demon's eyes boring into the back of his head. Was she offended? He couldn't help but wonder.
"You'll see I suppose."
"You P.I.'s annoy me. You wander from place to place doing whatever the hell you want and—"
"Kagome is a private investigator too..." Kanna said suddenly and quietly. The two could barely hear her voice over the noise coming from the main part of the department.
She reached into the bag that sat at her feet and from it extracted a mirror that's edges looked to be made of some sort of grey bone. It was a round mirror, about eight inches in diameter, the edges of it looking to be slight tentacles of bone edging out every which way like vines or intestines. The surface of the mirror seemed milky white rather than clear like normal mirrors.
As Kanna turned the mirror in her hands, holding it with her arms seeming to form a diamond around the edges, it faced Toshu and he saw he couldn't see his reflection in the mirror; it was because of the milky surface that he couldn't see his reflection. Whatever it was—mirror or just glass inside a rim of grey bone—it seemed to afford her some comfort being in her arms.
The man in charge of the child services department inside the Raspuit police station was intrigued, even if he was slightly frightened at the same time. He was a human, and he was not in denial that demons existed.
Most demons channeled their energy through something because it made controlling their power easier. Some could simply do the chore without help from anything, and some could not. Some who could simply liked to add a little flare to their life by using something to channel their energy, and some simply could not do anything without the channel.
His eyes could not leave the mirror. His soul felt drawn to it. "Where did you get that?" He was a human and he could feel the power radiating off of it, so he immediately knew she was untrained. He had experience with many young untrained demons; a few of them were not very pleasant.
"My father gave it to me." Her voice was as dead as a piece of brown grass that had been plucked from the ground. "When I was very young...my real father gave it to me."
The woman walked over and sat next to Kanna on the chair beside the white haired girl's. She smiled kindly and held out her hand. "I'm Lea Saeko. What's your name?"
Kanna's blank eyes bore into Lea for so long that Lea began to get uncomfortable. Lea had to force herself not to squirm under the glare of the young girl. She had never encountered a child who looked so sad.
"I will never see you again, Miss Saeko; there is no point to our being introduced..." the girl said wisely, trailing off as her eyes began to stare into space again her arms tight on the mirror. She wasn't going to be letting the mirror go any time soon.
Naraku lay in his bed in the run down Tokyo apartment that he'd rented with the money that Kagome had given him to use. Before that, he'd been working, but the past five months had been hell as he had been unable to even get out of bed without difficulty.
A bright red sheet of paper had been slid under his door. A white piece of paper, a yellow piece of paper, and a pink piece of paper were on the table. They were not Valentines. They were eviction warnings, and the most recent one, the red one, was an eviction notice. The next day someone would come to help him move.
He took a deep shuddering breath and felt the biting cold of the apartment nipping at his nose. His body, what he could feel of it that wasn't paralyzed, was warm under the blanket, but since he'd woken up that morning, he found he couldn't move anything other than his head. He was dying.
His regrets pulled fast into his mind. Pictures of his children—of those who had not been aborted—were on his bedside, staring at him with smiles forever frozen in frame. He had taken care of them all as best he could. He had not shirked them off completely.
His eldest of the four children was in a picture wearing a bright green dress and tiny green shoes with her delicate hair up in a firm bun. She was forever frozen at age three. He hadn't seen her since then, and he doubted she remembered him. She took after her father the most of all his children. They had the same eyes—none of his other children had his eyes.
"Kagura..." He wished he could have seen her again. He didn't know that the feisty woman he'd seen a month before in the hospital with Kagome had been her, his eldest.
He didn't know she'd been the woman he'd seen two and a half years previous when Kagome was going through her transformation. Kagura hadn't been the product of an affair. Naraku hadn't even met Kali until after Kagura was born.
His second child, the second daughter, was wearing bib overalls cut off at the legs to be shorts, her black hair braided into two long pigtails. She was forever frozen at age five, with an innocent smile on her face and her dark blue eyes positively shining with happiness.
She had the eyes of her mother and her father mixed. The dark crimson of Naraku's eyes and the light blue of Kali's had mixed to make the deepest blue for both his second eldest and his only son.
"Kagome..." His heart yearned for his little princess. He wanted to hear her voice, to be assured that everything was going to be alright, but it wouldn't. He would leave the earth before he even got to give his daughter the one thing he'd spent much of the past three years pouring his heart and power into. He'd finished it, but he couldn't fathom how it would get to her.
His third child, his only son was wearing a dress of his mother's, his mother's high heels, and had one of his mother's French hats on. He was dolled up in make up, frozen at age twelve with a big goofy smile on his face.
He'd had a gender complex then, swearing he was a girl just like his big sister. Rather than the tear bringing him laughter and cheer, it made him weep. How much torture had he put that boy through?
"Souta..." He wanted to laugh at Souta's jokes again, one last time. He wanted to tease Souta about how his future girlfriends would get a great kick out of the cross dressing picture from age twelve.
He wanted to see those deep blue eyes blaze with ferocity when someone did something Souta considered was wrong. He wanted to see the boy practicing at the Ichiro dojo fighting for first place in the semi-annual tournament that was held.
The two had been his only children through Kali, but not the only children he had. He had one more: a little girl, the youngest of the four. She was just thirteen months old. She was from the same mother who had given birth to Kagura. She was wrapped in pink, had a fluff of snow white hair as fine as silk thread on her head, nearly albino skin, and the darkest black eyes. The pink didn't suit her.
"Kanna..." He had never got to meet Kanna. It was something he very much regretted. That would be something he could never change. He would die in that bed. He would die before the eviction services came to get him out of the apartment in the morning. He couldn't leave alive if he wanted to.
And the secret would go with him to the grave. Kagura and Kanna would never know that they had a sister and brother, and Kagome and Souta would never know that they had two sisters.
The cold frosty air of the unheated apartment was beckoning to him. It called to his soul; it toyed with his mind; it made him delusional of a time gone by.
He could see Kagura, sweet little Kagura, running frantically around trying to catch a feather that floated on the wind just beyond her reach. She couldn't reach it and she was crying. The gentle wind kept it just out of jumping reach, sometimes taunting the little girl by lowering the feather low and then dragging it back up again. She cried, and Naraku's heart went out to her.
"Please, don't let her get hurt." The woman who gave birth to Kagura begged. "She's headed straight for the road!" Naraku felt bad for her, because were it not for the paralysis she might not have felt so helpless.
He got up from where he and the woman sat, heading swiftly over to Kagura and sweeping the tiny feather from the air, pulling it down to the little girl's reach.
Kagura's sweet laughter filled the air and her tears dried. "Thank you!" she said excitedly and Naraku knelt by her as she took it.
"Someday you'll be able to capture one on your own!" He promised her, deftly reaching into his pocket. He'd intended to give her the present after dinner, but the perfect moment was at hand and he didn't want to lose it. He took out a green hairclip and stuck the feather in one of the ends, buttoning the clip into her hair carefully. He didn't want to mess up her bun.
"Oh! Am I beautiful like mother?" Kagura had asked. She especially liked her new clip and her hands kept moving to it to make sure it was just as he had put it in. Her crimson eyes sparkled with happiness.
"You're especially beautiful." Naraku assured the young girl, picking her up and walking back towards where Kagura's mother sat in the park on the blanket laid out for their picnic.
Tears trickled down his already moist cheeks, feeling like splashes of icy water on their own. Tears were supposed to be hot and consoling, not cold and condemning. His heartbeat began to slow and thoughts of his loved ones: Kagura, Kanna—even if he had never met her, the two girls' mother, Souta, Kagome, and Kali.
Sunset's Shrink. If there was anyone who had ever stolen his heart away, it was Kali. Sunset's Shrink had brought him such happiness; it was a happiness that filled him then as he thought of her and her upcoming wedding.
He was supposed to go back to Sunset the next day so he could lead Kali down the isle. Kali wouldn't leave him be until he had agreed. Thinking of that special woman brought joy to him like nothing else could.
He contradicted himself. He couldn't laugh at the joyous memories, but he could laugh at sad memories. But the memories that were sad for him were happy ones for Kali. She was happy she would be marrying again, and this time in a promising relationship. She would see Kagome and Souta grow older, get married, settle down, and start families. Kali would happily grow old and die with a smile on her face.
Everything seemed to revolve around Sunset's Shrink, he thought. In a way, Kali was something of a source of trouble though she hardly meant to be. Perhaps it was that psychiatrist's air about her, but everything that seemed to happen was some way either directly or indirectly related to Kali whether it was because of family, friends, or patients.
Everything got back to Kali in the end—or everything that happened in Sunset got back to her. She was the most informed person in Sunset.
His last thoughts were not of any of his four children; they were not of past regrets; they were not of past loves or wishes or dreams or hopes. His last thoughts were simply for the happiness of Kali. He recognized it as it was: this was true happiness. He had now found it, when he stopped looking.
"Smile, Kali. It is radiant. You set the earth a-glow with your smile alone, and a smile is the first step to happiness...you said it yourself: if it hurts to smile, you're not getting enough practice."
Naraku exhaled at last, but his chest did not rise again afterwards. His open eyes stared at the pictures of his children. A smile lit his face and it would not be wiped clean. A necklace—a very special necklace—lay in front of the picture of Kagome-the-five-year-old.
He had left the world of the living; the only thing that now lay ahead for Naraku was a body bag, then a morgue, and then a casket which would be lowered into the ground in his family's cemetery.
He was finally free of pain. Free of suffering. Free from the world.
It was said that a spirit could wander the plains of the living for up to twenty four hours waiting for the final ascent. Naraku had never believed in spirits or second chances at life until the instant he had died and his spirit lifted out of his body.
As he stood there looking down on his body, which seemed a strange phrase considering he didn't have eyes, he began thinking about whether or not he would be able to reenter his body. He guessed that if he did reenter his body, the only thing that would happen would he would die again. He knew his body was trashed—there was no point in trying to lie to himself about it.
"It's strange..." he whispered, though he knew no one would hear. "I'm staring down at my body..." when he reached out to touch his physical bodies pale face, he felt like he was reaching into a bowl of cold pudding because his hand went right through the flesh. Disgusted, he pulled back.
When his eyes landed on the necklace he had spent so long creating, he decided he didn't want to disappoint himself by hoping that he could help institute the progress of the necklace back to Kagome. He felt the happiness he had just before death drain out of his spirit. His thoughts were centered on how Kali and his family would take his death and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Certainly after all he'd done to treat them badly they would feel it best to cheer his funeral.
He stood stock still, staring at the window of the room wondering if he should leave. It wasn't long before he was again looking back on the necklace. "If my hand goes right through flesh, what is there to make it so my hand grasps the jewel?" he wondered. "But then again, I suppose I'll stop thinking about reaching for it if I try."
A nervous moment later, he knew his answer and it certainly was nothing to make him rejoice over. It served only to make him far more depressed than he had ever been before.
His tongue stuck out in concentration as he put the blue pen to the white notebook paper and wrote down some more notes that he thought would be interesting to put in his research paper.
"Somobo was a human who lived and fought in the 100-year war. He died shortly after enlisting into the war. Consequentially his spirit wandered the planes of the living for less than twenty four hours before connecting itself to the spirit of a living being in order to prolong the inevitable mark of death from claiming his souls.
"After the 100-year war thousands were claiming they were someone else who obviously was dead. Schizophrenia was one of the many psychological disorders included in the time period because the many spirits were trying to live out the lives they had before they died."
"Oh, Takai!" He groaned as he heard the familiar name of his half-brother coming closer to the dorm room. He placed his face down on the newly written words on the paper before his face shot up again, blue ink letters glued to his face because the ink had not dried.
He wanted to get some work done, not listen to his half-brother and whoever the girl was that undoubtedly the guy was bringing back make out.
He began picking up his things shoving them crudely in the satchel he used for a backpack just as the handsome Medallion Takai walked into the room with a girl sucking on his neck.
Just as soon as they were in the room the girl pulled Medallion down onto the bottom bunk bed, granting a frustrated cry from him and a chuckle from Medallion. "Hey, that's my bed!" Kazuma cried out, dragging on his fire orange hair with his fists. "You're soiling my sheets, Takai!"
Medallion's arm snaked out, though his face was invisible in the line of cleavage the woman's outfit portrayed, and clasped around Kazuma's alarm clock. Kazuma ducked as his alarm clock soared over his head and smashed into the wall behind him.
He felt the primal urge to growl growing deep in his throat as he looked at his broken alarm clock. He was tired of having to buy new clocks because Medallion felt he had to have sexual intercourse with every attractive woman on campus.
He stalked over to his half-brother, wondering what insane notion had ever made him share a dorm with his sibling. Grabbing the girl's upper arm, he shoved Medallion off her and pulled her to the door, opening it and shoving her out despite her protests. After that he slammed the door in her face.
The laughter coming from Medallion surprised him. Certainly he had expected a beating or two, but not laughter. Absently he wondered if Medallion had split personality disorder; a few extra spirits probably wouldn't hurt or at least there would then be something to fill all the extra space inside Medallion's oversized head and cushion his pea-sized brain.
"Kuwabara, you're hilarious, you know that?" Medallion laughed. He lay back on Kazuma's bed and placed his arms behind his head. "You'll never get a woman if you keep throwing 'em out the door."
Kazuma clenched his fist angrily and turned to face his half-brother. "I don't need your hand-me-downs!" he shouted. "You've screwed every girl on campus by now haven't you?"
Medallion smirked and reached into his shirt pulling out what Kazuma thought to be a necklace. On the end was a tiny silver bell that tinkled as he rang it. "No, actually. I haven't done anyone in over three years. I'm saving myself for a very special woman."
"You're lying!"
Medallion dropped the tiny bell onto his chest and his hand went back behind his head again in the same lax position it had previously been in. He closed his eyes and the smiling image of Kagome came to his mind.
The last day he had seen her was the day she'd been leaving for Keysville. She had willingly kissed him that day, but she'd kissed everyone. It had only been a reserved peck on the lips kiss, but nevertheless it gave him hope. He didn't need a picture when the image was burned into the back of his mind.
Before Kazuma could say another word, he shivered. "Hey, do you feel that?" His insides felt cold, but his skin felt uncomfortably hot. Kazuma looked around, trying to find the source of the "tickle feeling" as his high school friends would call it.
It was an inexplicable feeling and he wasn't sure he wanted to feel it. What if it meant something bad? What would he do? He was just a college kid, what more could the world expect of him?
Medallion grabbed an apple from the fruit basket that Kazuma's sister had sent for the two boys to share. He took a bite and was startled into trying to swallow the whole chunk when Kazuma shrieked, "G-g-ghost!"
His face burned and his chest screamed for oxygen. The chunk of apple was lodged in his throat and he felt his awareness slipping away. Vaguely he registered Kazuma slowly noticing him choking and rushed over to try to figure out what was wrong.
He tried to mouth to Kazuma that he was choking but it wasn't working. He felt paralyzed with fear. He didn't want to die; he wasn't ready. He had to grow old, have children, pass on his tough attitude, and marry Kagome.
Ha! He thought in his head. You? Tough? Look at you; you're scared out of your wits!
Is it normal to have a ridiculous conversation in your head while you're dying? he shot back at the strange second voice inside him. Slowly Kagome's face faded away in his minds eye and his body gave a last shudder before it shut down.
The apple slid from his warm fingers to bounce to the floor. He felt his spirit lifting out of his body and was shocked to find himself looking down on himself.
"What is this?" he asked the air, only to hear Kazuma yell, "Another g-g-ghost!" Kazuma shot out the door and down the hall.
Naraku was surprised that the human boy called Kuwabara by his friend had even noticed his presence. He wondered what had brought him to the room he was in at that point in time but he figured it out rather quickly. His father had always said that the soon-to-die called out to the spirits wandering the planes of the living and drew them to one place.
He guessed he was the only one close enough, which would explain why he saw no other ghosts but the shocked one of the boy who had just died.
"Ghost?" the boy called Medallion whispered. "Why am I looking at my body?" It dawned on Medallion then why he was looking at his physical body as though he were a completely different entity.
Seeing the apple on the floor, he kicked at it but was startled to fall back on his behind where he floated an inch above the floor when his foot never made contact.
"That Kuwabara seems rather spineless." Naraku whispered and watched as the boy's spirit face turned to face him. His eyes wandered to the physical body of the newly dead boy. "I know you... aren't you the son of Detective Shino Takai?"
"I don't know, am I? I'm confused because I'm looking at myself and it's not a reflection in a mirror... this room doesn't even have a mirror! What the heck is going on?" Medallion yelped when he felt his hand pass through his deceased body. "Am I dead? Who are you? What are you?"
Naraku sighed. He already couldn't remember if he had been so frantic when he first noticed himself standing next to his body. Standing at all should have been a major feat considering he'd been a paraplegic for over two and a half years.
"You're dead; I'm dead also and my name is Naraku Onigumo." Naraku felt his spirit form glide across the floor as he moved closer to the boy-spirit. "Do you want to live? You could reenter your body, I'm sure."
"Wait, wait a minute." Medallion's spirit was filled with anxiety. "I feel as if time is going far too fast." When Naraku's hand waved to the clock on Medallion's bed, he realized why. Time was going much faster.
It had been three thirty when he had arrived back at the dorms. The hands on the clock were spinning so quickly he was afraid they would fall right off. The minute hand was going steadily in circles faster than a second hand.
"I'll help you get inside your body again and live if you promise to..."
Yuri's head lay on the desk before her, her eyes closed and her arms cradling her head. She sighed, but no sound emitted from her throat. She could remember everything and that was what she didn't want.
Her mind trailed from one memory in her past to another, never really stopping on anything. It was as though her memories were trying to tell her something, though she couldn't fathom what they would want to tell her.
As she opened her eyes she saw the test she was supposed to be working on barely a few centimeters away from her face. She couldn't remember anything about the 100-year war and no matter how hard she wracked her mind, she couldn't recall anything she had spent hours studying with Sango.
This is why my grades are flopping all over the place, Yuri thought in the endless space of memories in her mind. I don't think I'm going to be able to pass History, and I know I won't be able to pass if I don't ace this test.
She closed her eyes again as she heard the beginnings of people talking—it was all whispers really. Those talking were the people who had finished the test. Her jaws immediately pressed together as they usually did. She knew why this was, but she had yet to allow anyone but those first doctors to examine her find out. She suspected Kali had found out, but she wasn't sure.
She sat up and looked at the clock adorning the wall. If the clock was any indication, she had spent sixty seven minutes watching her memories flow through her mind, each one more indescribably painful than the next. She could recall no good memories; all the bad ones blocked them out.
"Pass in your tests please." Mr. Hiatz called from the back of the room where he sat at his desk. Yuri turned in her seat, grabbing the test nervously before walking back to his desk and setting it in the growing pile collecting in his hands. It was completely blank except for a name. "Miss Nokugami, please stay after class." Mr. Hiatz told her and turned to grasp another student's paper.
She nodded and went to collect her things as the bell rang. While the rest of the students filed out of the room, she pulled her books tight to her chest and stuck her pencil in her bun out of nervousness. "Sit down, Miss Nokugami." She jumped at the sound of his voice directly behind her. She hadn't realized he could be so silent, but somehow even with her advanced hearing he had come upon her.
He chuckled at her. "Relax, Miss Nokugami." His large wiry hand waved towards her seat and he sat in the chair across from her, folding his hands together and looking at her with those nearly black eyes. She could see worry lacing them and blushed. She wanted to apologize for the lack of answers on her test and she might have done so if she could speak.
"This is your third blank test, Miss Nokugami. Not only that, you've yet to turn in any of the assignments on the 100-year war. Do you not understand the work?" He watched her for a long moment as she set her things back on her desk and took out her notebook, pulling her pencil out of her hair bun.
He knew he wasn't the only teacher agitated at her for not speaking, but detentions didn't work for her. She still refused to speak and if you took away her means to write she used hand signals and charades to display what she was trying to say or else didn't do anything at all. She hadn't spoken or even uttered so much as a giggle in the few years she'd gone to SPES.
He read what she wrote when she held it up for him and found the answer very unsatisfactory. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he gave her a serious look. "You don't seem very sorry, Miss Nokugami. Quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing those two words—wait, never mind, you don't speak them. I'm tired of seeing them put to paper." He watched her ears—pointed as they were—turn red with embarrassment.
"Not only that, Miss Nokugami, but your constant refusal to speak is becoming quite a hassle amongst the teachers and students. I'm worried for you; is something going on? Has something happened?"
Mr. Hiatz seemed genuinely concerned for her. If it wasn't serious, she was sure he would not have kept her after. The seven minute break was nearly over, and the students were filing into the room. The student who sat in her desk was waiting for her to leave so he could take a seat.
Yuri wrote quickly on her notebook paper, tore the piece out, and shoved it into Mr. Hiatz long fingers. As soon as she was sure he had it, she bolted from the room. The final bell rang, signaling her late coming. She didn't stop running until she had made it to her last period: study hall.
When she burst in through the doors, the others looked at her with surprise on their face. Her flushed face and tousled appearance gave them the impression that she'd spent the day running laps. "Yuri, you okay?" Kohaku asked, waving her over to where they sat in the corner of the room.
Sango was yet again trying to beat Miroku at chess. Rin was writing an essay no doubt for Language class in her tiny hand writing. Souta and Kohaku were arm wrestling, though with the distraction that Yuri brought Kohaku lost. With Kikyou's disappearance, the room had felt rather empty in each class Yuri had with the girl even though it had only been a day since she had last seen them.
Yuri did not by any means think that Kikyou was capable of murder. Kikyou had quickly become Yuri's best friend and was the only one who Yuri had admitted the reason to why she couldn't speak. She already missed Kikyou.
Yuri nodded and took a seat next to Rin, setting her books down on the desktop. "No, no!" Miroku told Sango. "Don't move there or you'll lose. See my bishop? He'd have your king in check if you moved there."
"Hey guys, I'm a bit disturbed about the whole Kikyou thing." Souta said quietly so no one would hear outside of the group. He slammed Kohaku's fist down on the desktop and turned in his seat so he could be facing everyone else. "Don't you think it's a bit odd? For as long as she's been here, Kikyou's never harmed as much as a fly! In fact, she proved to be afraid of just the fact that smacking Miroku for his pervertedness—"
"Pervertedness is not a word, Souta." Rin chided him gently. She looked up from her assignment at Yuri. "How did your test go?" she asked, changing the subject. Rin did not think it was safe to talk about Kikyou and Kaede's disappearance.
Souta frowned. "Rin, don't even go changing the subject on me! It's been bugging me all day—"
"What are you trying to hide, Rin?" Sango swung her ponytail over her shoulder with a casual air, her violet tank top riding up to show her stomach as she leaned back in the chair. "Put the game away, Miroku. I'm bored with it."
"I am," Rin started, but Kohaku interrupted her, going over to her to sling his arms over her shoulders. "Don't bother to try hiding something from Thief." He grinned at her in good nature and smacked a wet kiss on her forehead. "You have my blessing! Who is he?"
Rin was sure her face turned no less than eight different shades of red at the implication of what he was saying. She wiped her forehead on the back of her hand. "There is no one!" she stammered. "Why do you automatically assume that there is a guy?"
Miroku smacked his gum and Sango kicked his shin. "Don't pop your gum. It's annoying."
Yuri took comfort in the usual confusion and reached in her pile of books for her tiny pink notebook that she used as a diary, but she soon found that it was not there. She looked on the floor around her desk for it but found it was not around.
Her worries began to mount. What if someone found it? What if that someone who found it read it? She turned her mind to where she may have left it. She relaxed—the last place she recalled having it was at the shrine in her room on her desk.
"Would Yuri Nokugami please come to the office to pick up a message? Yuri Nokugami, please come to the office for a message."
Inuyasha was horrified by what he was reading, but he found he couldn't put the book down. He felt angry and disgusted sometimes, but other times he felt happy. At one point he could remember feeling sad at the contents of the 'book' as well.
As he turned page after page, reading the contents to suit his curiosity, he found the situation was nearly a repeat of three years before when he had read his brother's journal, only this time it wasn't his brother's. It was his sister's.
Most of the entries talked about how much Yuri missed her brothers but it was the ones that didn't talk about that which caught his eye. Nothing was written to give away where Yuri was during the ten years she was kidnapped or who had kidnapped her, though there were names there. Inuyasha doubted that any of the names were the real names.
Excerpt from the first entry
The mon hoo iz teecheeng me 2 rite gived me a perty book. He wuz not sopos 2 but he wuz not sopos 2 teech me 2 rite eethur. My riteeng iz perty az the book is. Hiss name iz long and I never speel it rite so he toll me 2 call him Cory.
The penmanship became much better after that first entry, and there were still spelling errors but it was much more legible.
Excerpt from the fifteenth entry
The scary lady promiced me if I was good—and I have been good, I swear it!—then she would let me be a ballareena. The lady treets me nice but I call her scary lady becauze sumtimes she is angry and when she is angry she is mad.
Excerpt from the twentieth entry
The lady was mad at Cory when she found out today that Cory was secretly teeching me to read and to rite. Cory promiced that I was a good girl and it wasn't like I could tell anyone where I was or who stoled me from home. The lady finally gave up and tomorrow I'll get to be inroled in the ballareenas! I promice to do good for my brothers. I will be the star.
Excerpt from the twenty-first entry
I promiced I wouldn't stop riteing in you but I met a girl named Raine O. She said I can call her Rainy, and we share a room together. She was not taken from home like me. She was dropped off becauze this is a school. Her mommy, daddy, and sister are in Egypt and she said she dreams of being the best ballareena ever on the world! I hope she becomes the best ballareena ever. I'm cheering for her.
Excerpt from the twenty-ninth entry
I'm sorry, diary. I'm not very faithful to you am I? I've been having such a great time with Rainy that I completely forgot my oath to write in you every night. But Rainy's family died and Rainy intends to run away from here. The headmistress doesn't want her to leave because she's her responsibility.
You know, I feel like running away with her. I might make it home to my family if that happens. But just in case I am unable to make it out as well, I wrote a letter for Rainy to take to Sess. I hope he gets it. If he gets it, he'll be able to rescue me!
Big brother, come rescue me... I want to come home... Rainy's sister is barely alive, the letter Rainy got said. Rainy wants to be sure her sister knows she's there for her. Big brother...Little brother... are you there for me too.
Excerpt from the thirtieth entry
It didn't work! Well, the escape half worked, I guess. Rainy got away and she took my letter. She promised to try to find Sess just as soon as she's sure her sister is safe. I hope she stays safe too. But now I'll never speak again.
How can I without a voice box or a tongue even? The scary lady sliced it right off. She keeps it in a jar in the metal room. After she took my tongue out she began glowing and chanting some weird words in some foreign language.
I couldn't understand anything she was saying but I know I stopped bleeding. Do you know how hard it is to eat without a tongue? I'm a thirteen year old without a tongue. Sess, come save me! Inuyasha, I need your help! Anyone! ANYONE! I'm all alone here now.
I have no Rainy to talk to, and I have no tongue to talk with. I will never open my mouth again because what if someone sees my missing tongue? What would they say? They would laugh at me or they would pity me. Sess always told me that pity is the worst things to have someone feel for you.
I agree, and that's why I'll never tell anyone what happened.
Inuyasha felt sick to his stomach as he closed the book, tossing it on the floor. There was more in it, much more. It went all the way to entry eighty-four but he couldn't read anymore. His head quickly found its way into the toilet in his bathroom and vomit spewed all over the inside of the bowl, splashing the toilet water back up towards him. His lunch was gone; his breakfast was quickly making its way back up.
When his hair began getting in the way of his vomit spewing session, he just let it stay there. His hands were firmly planted on the sides of the toilet bowl to keep him partially balanced or he knew he would never be getting back up again and the vomit would find its way all over the tiled bathroom floor.
He didn't want to be the one to clean it up so he tried his best to get it in the bowl. When he finally stopped vomiting and then dry-heaving, he weakly pushed himself off the floor and turned the hot water on in the shower stepping in fully clothed.
His white polo shirt was quickly drenched through, showing off his muscular chest as the cloth stuck to him. His pants slowly soaked up water at the top and then down to the floor. He let his face be pelted by the scorching water and his ears began to ring as water got in them.
He wanted to curl up miserably in some dark corner and weep as he realized Yuri had kept to her promise. He had never seen her open her mouth, he had never heard her giggle, she had never so much as made a motion to giggle or talk unless it was writing on a notebook paper or using charades.
In some sick part of his mind he found he wanted to know what the stub would look like and then felt so disgusted at himself for wondering such a thing that he picked up the shampoo bottle and began hitting himself in the face with it.
"Stupid-Stupid-Stupid!" he cried, emphasizing each word with a blow from the shampoo bottle. He yelped when the bottle slipped from his hand and nailed him in the eye. Vaguely he noticed he hadn't closed the curtain on the shower and water was spraying all over the floor in the bathroom.
"Inuyasha!" he hardly registered Sesshoumaru calling up the stairs to him. It was three thirty, so Sesshoumaru should have been sleeping still. He slept until four normally, Inuyasha thought. Then he got up and went to his class at four thirty, and went from class to his girlfriend's apartment until it was time to work.
He leaned back in the shower, allowing the superheated water to boil him—or at least that's what he hoped the water would do. Why he felt so bad as if it had happened to him personally, he wasn't sure.
As Kagome stumbled shakily off the plane, she felt a surge of pride flow through her. She had not taken a single Valium (which was obvious considering she didn't have any) and she had stayed awake the whole two hour flight.
Granted, she spent most of the flight in the lavatory vomiting, but that she decided was still a step forward. She was beginning to think she was getting addicted to Valium from the regular plane flights she'd been taking the past three months.
As she turned on her cell phone again, she felt someone tap her shoulder. "Miss, you dropped your wallet." Kagome turned to see who had called her and felt her face light up with embarrassment. She took the wallet from the handsome red-head and gave him a small smile.
She looked him over and took note of the black suit pants and the blood red tee shirt. The red hair of his was almost as long as hers, reaching down to mid-back and his green eyes were captivating. She found she somewhat wished she had her mother's priestess powers still because she could tell just from the feel of the aura whether or not a person was human, demon, or half-breed, but no longer could figure that out.
"Thanks." She muttered, still captivated by his gorgeous appearance. His pale skin made his green eyes stand out even further and it was his eyes that seemed to drag her attention away from the real world. Those eyes reminded her of someone; they reminded her of her father many years ago.
He always had that look of mischief in his eyes and it made her realize that she needed to go visit him too and quit avoiding him. Once she had picked up Kanna, she figured she would call her mother, find out where Naraku lived and go visit him.
The man took her hand and bent over it, placing a kiss on her knuckles. She felt her face flaming even worse than before and wondered briefly if steam was coming out of her ears. That's ridiculous! She scolded herself. Steam can't come out of your ears; this isn't a cartoon!
"You're very welcome." The man said, looking up at her through his bangs. "My name is Shuichi Smith. I apologize if I seem forward to you, but might I know your name?" His deep baritone voice sent shivers up Kagome's spine and she found herself wondering what in the name of all the gods (who might or might not have existed) was the man was doing in front of her, practically wooing her and why she was enjoying it.
In the back of her mind she recalled she was in Tokyo so she could get a vehicle to drive to Raspuit and get Kanna. The insistent ringing of her cell phone pulled her attention away from him and she gently pulled her hand away. "Excuse me." She told him, opening the flip top on her phone and pressing the connect button. "Kagome Higurashi—" You know, she thought angrily, I'm really getting irritated at everyone interrupting me today. This must be a sign...
"Miss Higurashi, this is Toshu again from the child services desk in the Raspuit police department. I've been trying to get a hold of you for the past two hours but only have gotten your voice mail."
Kagome rolled her eyes and set her hand on her waist. She was in West City, barely off the plane, and the guy was already calling her. "Did my lawyer fax you the information regarding—"
She clenched her fist when the man interrupted her again. She wondered if his mother had ever taught him that interrupting a person who was talking wasn't very polite, but threw the thought aside. "Yes, Miss Higurashi."
"Alright then, I assume by now you've started going over it? I've just arrived in Tokyo so I should be there in an hour or two. I just have to rent a car and—"
Her patience for the man on the other end of the line was quickly wearing thin. She ran a hand through her hair before she remembered the braid she'd put it in and nearly screamed her frustration when a clump of her hair came loose from the braid. Her hand snaked behind her back, pulling the hair tie out of the end. She didn't notice her missing wallet—she'd never replaced it in her pocket.
"Yes, your lawyer faxed the information and I have much of the work filled out. It is as you said, there really may not be much left to do. I'm calling though because I'd like to know if you have a significant other?"
Kagome felt the expression fade quickly from her face. She was sure she knew where the subject was going. It always looked good on adoption papers if there were two involved. It both could and it couldn't affect her chances to getting Kanna. She should have guessed it would happen. They probably found something questionable about her that made them ask that.
She saw the red-headed man walking away from her and got an idea. "Yes. I'm going to go now though. I'll be there in a few hours." As she hung up, she saw her watch said it was four o'clock exactly and she noticed the disappearance of her wallet then.
Her face turned red with fury and she recalled how the red-headed man had kissed the hand holding her wallet. She hadn't even noticed him take it!
"Oh, that thief!" she hissed under her breath. Her pace was quick as she went after him and tapped him on the shoulder. Before he could realize what was going on, she had him up against the wall with his hands behind his back in a twist.
"I assumed you were slower than you look," the man who claimed to be Shuichi Minamino told her. "I suppose I had that backwards?" His face was split in a grin.
"I guess so." Kagome told him. "I'm a private detective you know." She hinted at the threat of jail and his answer was a chuckle.
"Oh, I know all about you, Kagome Higurashi. It isn't like a loss of a few million dollars would kill you." He felt Kagome's hand snake into his pocket and the wallet was pulled out. "I've followed your movements for three months and finally had this delightful opportunity to rob you so I took it."
Kagome knew the scowl was prominent on her face but she didn't want to lose the opportunity at hand. If she stepped carefully, she could get this thief on her side; maybe even turn him back to the good side of the law. A thief was useless if not handled properly, or so she'd been told.
"Well, are you going to turn me in, girl?" he asked her when her grip stayed strong against his forearms. "Or are you going to make me eat the wall before you release me?"
Kagome sighed and released him, placing one arm on either side of his body as he turned around, trapping him between her arms, her body, and the wall. Her face was no less angry but she was managing to handle the anger at least a bit.
"Why did you give me my wallet back if you were intent on stealing it then?" she questioned him before he cut her off by pressing his lips to hers. What is it with people and kissing me these days? She thought. Why is everyone so attracted to me?
"You're a beautiful girl, so I thought to give you a chance to realize what I had done. Call it courtesy." She watched his facial expression go from one of disdain to liking in an instant and his deep green eyes seemed to shine with purity whereas just a few minutes before they had shone with mischief instead.
It was like looking at one twin and then another and noticing the similarities and differences except instead she was looking at one person only. "I'm sorry miss, but is there a reason you're trapping me against the wall?"
Kagome noticed that even his tone of voice changed. Where before his tone had been a deep sensual baritone capable of sending any woman's hormones into overdrive, this voice had more of a boyish quality and she realized the man before her was much younger than he seemed.
Originally she had thought him to be in his late twenties despite his young looks, but she figured he could only be in his early teens like his image portrayed.
"What the heck? You stole my wallet, that's why!" she snarled at him. "I really should throw you in jail for playing stupid."
Inappropriately she thought about Sesshoumaru and her thoughts wandered to whether or not the demon had gone to find the rapist. She hoped he hadn't. She hoped he left it to her to deal with.
Shortly after the vehicle entered Raspuit, Kagome thought over what her new companion had said about spirits given the chance at a second life. She was silent in the vehicle while her mind made a list of what she'd heard.
This Shuichi character was two souls in one human body. One soul was that of a demon thief who had sought to combine his soul with a woman only instead the woman had been pregnant and he'd been forced into the child's body.
The second soul was that of a human boy who was nothing more than a sixteen year old who just recently received his driver's license. She knew she would have to find another person to play the part of her significant other but she found she didn't really care.
She found it rather humorous that she'd originally thought him to be ten years older than he really was but she figured anything had to be possible if an insane gold skinned woman was able to kidnap sixty odd students from the Shrine garden.
"We're almost there." Shuichi's voice was quiet and yet it seemed almost like a shout amongst the soft hum of the car. "Thank you for not pressing charges. I'm sorry for what Youko tried to do."
Kagome nodded and her thoughts wandered. Did this mean that anyone would have a second chance at life? Would her father have a second chance at life like Youko did, or was the boy—Shuichi—lying to her?
He very well could be lying. He had taken her wallet from her hand right under her nose so lying shouldn't be too difficult a task. She imagined that anyone would do whatever they could just to get out of jail and stay out of it.
But the story seemed to fit the situation. The voice change, the expression differences, the initial confusion; to her this seemed to fit with multiple personalities. She thought of how she had the impression of looking at twins when she watched his face change expressions so quickly.
"Tell me, Shuichi"—he interrupted her to correct her. "Shuichi is in the back. I'm Youko now."
With a sigh of exasperation at the look of pure amusement on his face she continued, making an adjustment to her words. "Alright then, Youko, if you're sixteen, why aren't you in school? Generally when a child graduates early they're forced to go to a primary school."
Primary schools was often the term used to indicate college. She watched the expressions on his face carefully but could only see half of him considering he was facing the road. The eye that she could see was half-lidded and his lip was curled up in a smile. She wasn't so sure she liked the look on his face.
"There is nothing more ludicrous than sitting in a classroom learning shit that I have already lived through. The 100-year war, I participated in." Shuichi's face—or should she say Youko's face?—was lit up with what seemed to be remembrance as he explained himself to her.
"Even the boy agreed with me. So we took off. Unfortunately, working in the Decoloratio Venalicium doesn't always have perks because we had unlimited information at our access and it was because of that the boy learned of his mother taking ill.
"The initial operation costs approximately one hundred sixty thousand dollars and the two secondary operations that she'll need will cost about two hundred thousand dollars each."
Kagome nodded her understanding. The alien soul— Youko—wanted to keep Shuichi happy and in order to do that he needed to abide by certain rules. Shuichi's mother was obviously one of the boy's happy points.
To allow the mother to die would mean the boy most likely lapsing into depression in which case he couldn't live to his own full potential. After you stripped everything down to the essentials, it could be seen as self-advancement for the demon spirit to keep the mother alive.
"I am guessing the mother took ill only a few months ago?"
With a nod of his head, he continued again in his deep baritone voice. "You guessed it. In came you, recent heir to a multibillion dollar estate. You can guess my thoughts from there."
"It's not hard to guess your thoughts, but it is hard trying to figure out whether or not you're lying to me. If you could simply take my wallet from me right under my nose, I don't know what there is to stop you from making all this up?"
She couldn't stop her thoughts from wandering to her father yet again. She wanted to see him but they were in Raspuit and she had to get Kanna. Her father wasn't just going to pop off the face of the earth just because she waited a few extra days to go see him. She was sure he wouldn't die before he saw her again.
"You seem distracted, Miss Higurashi. Is something the matter," he chuckled then at the irony of his own words, "other than the fact that I am a thief?"
"You're still Youko, right?" At his nod, she took a deep breath and continued as thoughts popped into her head of a woman lying on a hospital bed getting a sheet put over her head. "Are you sure the woman is even alive still? If you can prove it to me, I'll pay for these operations."
His eyes widened but he didn't take them off the road. Kagome saw the remains of many car accidents out of her window and then the police station came into view. Kanna was barely visible in the snow, her long platinum blond hair swaying in the breeze like a drunken fool swaying after a hard night of partying.
She showed no emotion at all on her face but sat as still as a statue on the steps to the police station. "If you want to see the boy's mother, she's at the hospital here in Raspuit. The boy's father died a few years ago so if you could keep the woman alive we both would be greatly in your debt."
Kagome thought of the irony of how unlikely that seemed to be. But perhaps the demon spirit was telling the truth? "I'll let you go on ahead to the hospital then." Kagome checked to make sure she had her wallet and everything in it before shutting the car door.
She was rewarded with a snicker from the boy behind the wheel but it didn't bother her. "I'll catch a taxi to the hospital and if you aren't there, you'd best keep an eye over your shoulder boy because I'll quickly be on your tail's end. Little fox." He seemed to like the nickname she gave him as she closed the door.
"Kagome!" Kanna's voice was anguished and cracked from many shed tears and that bothered Kagome greatly whereas the snicker hadn't bothered her. She turned to find Kanna was running towards her as fast as her legs would carry her and soon had a young teenager hugging her as though she were a lifeline.
She wrapped her arms around the young fifteen year old in a form of comfort and both heard and felt the sobs ring in the air.
"Baby girl, it's okay. I'm here. Shh." She said, trying to comfort Kanna. Her mind went to how different in height Shuichi and Kanna were yet they were nearly the same age. Kanna was barely four feet ten; Shuichi (nearly as tall as Sesshoumaru) was five feet ten.
Sesshoumaru was five feet eleven. But Shuichi was still three inches taller than Kagome and an inch taller than Kohaku and Souta so she figured she should only speak for herself.
"I thought you would never come; I was scared! I don't want to be alone; will you please take me home?"
Kagome had to loosen Kanna's grip or be suffocated and the latter prospect wasn't something she admired. "Calm down, Baby girl. I'm taking you home with me; you're not going to be alone I promise. We just have to go inside and finish filling out the legal documents, alright?"
With a few leftover sniffles, the girl wiped her tears and then clung to Kagome's arm. Kagome looked around. There were definitely the remains of a blizzard in Raspuit with three feet of snow to either side of the pathways.
The snow plow kept going back and forth in the police parking lot, salting the paths and plowing small piles of snow that came off cars. "I'll have to use that hand later you know." She told the girl but Kanna just shook her head in reply. What the reply meant, Kagome wasn't sure but she didn't ask either.
Inside the building Kagome saw policemen and women spattered haphazardly throughout the main room. Several men and women were chatting to each other about either personal business or police business and several were talking on phones.
Some were speaking to people while filling out reports, and some were tossing dirty rags back and forth. Kagome had never found the actual police business very appealing because she would basically be confined to a single building and town at one particular time. She liked her job because she did what she wanted and that was that.
Kanna led Kagome to a small room off the main room and Kagome took note of the disheveled state of the room. There were two desks in the room, both equally piled with paperwork galore and a fax machine in the corner on a small stand.
The dim lighting of the room seemed to brighten as Kanna entered and Kagome realized that it was because the glow was reflecting off the white of her clothing, hair, and face.
A man sat at one of the desks and a woman sat at the other. A bright red-headed curly haired woman stood in front of he man's desk and the man was looking rather annoyed. Kagome found herself confused when she recognized the woman as Lea Saeko, the cousin she still didn't believe she had.
"Wait, aren't you a substitute teacher, Lea?" she asked and the older woman turned to face her. When Kagome saw the Private Investigators badge she blushed. "Well, I suppose that explains something..."
Lea sent a grin at Kagome and shrugged. "Glad to see you follow my footsteps unconsciously, cousin." Kagome felt very subconscious of herself at that very moment. Her outfit seemed much underrated compared to the business suit skirt that Lea wore, though Lea's outfit seemed very unconventional for the job track she'd chosen. "Kagome Higurashi, this is Hamina Toshu. Toshu, this is multibillionaire Kagome Higurashi."
"Thanks for advertising me, Lea." Kagome said dryly as Lea made to leave the room. Her dark blue eyes clashed with Lea's bright blue ones for a moment and it brought a snort out of Toshu. It was clear that his opinion was not very high for Lea. Kagome couldn't blame him of course; she barely knew Lea and her opinion wasn't very high on the fondness meter either.
Kagome turned her attention to Toshu as he spoke in a clear voice. "I don't give a damn who you are or how much money you have. Where's this supposed significant other you said you were going to bring?"
To say that Toshu was annoyed would be the understatement of the century and Kagome could hardly fathom why. Kanna was a good girl; Kagome had no doubt that Kanna would cause as little trouble as possible. That was very different than Shuichi who seemed the type to live to cause as much trouble as possible.
Kagome shrugged. "I never said that, only that I do have a significant other. You've got me here and it only took me nearly nine hours to make the trip. Now, get on with this. I promised my mother I'd be back home tonight." The phones began to ring in the room and the woman picked it up. Kagome ignored her as she talked briskly to the person on the other end and then hang up and leave the room.
The next hour of Kagome's life was spent talking to Toshu and answering questions about her dating habits, parent's lives, and more personal questions than she could even hope to begin to describe. She found herself wondering why in the world she had ever offered to come get Kanna but one look at the sad teens' face made her return her attention to Toshu's questions feeling much different about the situation and very glad that she was doing something for Kanna. After all, it wouldn't do to have Kagura and Kanna separated again.
Throughout the entire ordeal, the tiny Kanna sat on Kagome's lap as though if she moved an inch Kagome would disappear into thin air.
After the second hour had collapsed, Kanna was fast asleep and Kagome heard the movement of people entering the room behind her. She ignored the woman as she spoke to someone before replacing herself comfortably in her desk chair.
Just when Kagome thought the procedure would never end, the man stood and said, "Well, that's it then." He then turned to the woman's desk and put the file of paperwork from Kagome's adoption of Kanna on her desk. After a moment, the two were in deep quiet conversation.
Kagome shook Kanna to wake the sleepy girl. Her legs had fallen asleep but by the time Kanna had crawled off her lap the tickle was endurable. "Get your stuff, Baby girl. We've got a long trip ahead of us. Did you need to get any clothes from home? Anything special?"
"No, mum." The words sent Kagome reeling off her chair from shock and Kanna gave her a weird sleepy stare. Kagome heard laughter and turned to find Shuichi behind her sitting on a chair. "Did you lose your family too?" Kanna asked him quietly.
"Shuichi?" Kagome's eyes were wide and she wasn't sure if she was awake or dreaming. Had she fallen asleep with Kanna? Certainly Toshu's voice had been a boring drawl but had he really been that boring?
"Yes, Miss Kagome?" Shuichi's boyish voice held a hint of sadness in it but it was well hidden behind his laughing expression. "Did you need help getting off the floor?"
Kagome ignored his clever remark and instead sighed. She wasn't stupid; it was rather obvious the reason why Shuichi was in a child services department. "Shuichi..."
" Youko." The boyish voice was gone, replaced by the deep baritone of the demon spirit inside him. Kagome had no doubt any longer of the two separate spirits. She ran her hands through her hair and heard Toshu sit back down at his desk with new paperwork, shuffling papers before turning curious eyes on the woman on the floor. "His mother passed away only moments after he arrived. The boy has no other family... care to help?"
"Mum, I'm ready." Kanna sat down in her seat as though she expected it would be a while before they left. Kagome gave the young teen girl a smile before standing and brushing the dust and dirt from her pants. Help me, any God who might listen. Kagome pleaded in her mind. I'm about to attempt the adoption of a thief...
"I feel old." Kagome muttered, scratching her neck and looking at Toshu. He had gone back to his work and was completely ignoring her. Kagome sighed and gave Toshu another minute to work before slapping her hand down on his desk.
"Do you realize the implications you're giving me? You're not very polite to ignore me and your snapping at Lea earlier was very uncalled for." She had gotten the desired reaction from him. His head snapped up, his brown eyes were on alert, and his attention was all hers.
The woman at the desk in the room was also at attention but slowly she realized the irritation was not meant for her and she simpered before going back to her job.
"You're just as annoying as that Saeko chick is!" Toshu barked at her before standing to be at eye level with Kagome. Kagome was hardly intimidated by the man; she never felt the need to feel inferior to a male just because she was a female.
It was something she learned when she was younger: women would always be and always have been the equal counterpart to man.
"You want annoying, try talking to my mother while she's about to get married." Kagome told him in a quiet commanding voice. If there was anything she was grateful for her mother for, it was her mother teaching her to use her voice to her advantage.
Oh if mama could see me now, Kagome thought wryly. She would never have expected me to use my voice like this, would she?
"No thanks, I'll pass." Toshu growled. "Why are you still here?"
"Now, now, no need to get all hyped up." Kagome grinned and placed one hand on her hip while the other moved to rest just above her navel. She felt a clump of her hair drop over her shoulder and in the corner of her eye she saw Kanna watching her with a sad smile.
No doubt Kanna was thinking of three people in particular but was trying to make the best of what she had. Kanna was strange, accepting Kagome as her mother so quickly but perhaps she was just waiting for an excuse to call Kagome mother?
"Thank you for always being like a mommy to me and Kagura. I know you're younger than Kagura, but I know she looks to you for guidance and a role model just as much as I do..." The words, as she recalled them, startled her as much as they had when she first heard them.
Perhaps Kanna didn't feel the sibling relationship that Kagome had assumed she felt. Perhaps it was more of a mother-child bond she had with the snowy haired girl?
She pulled herself back to the present and gave Toshu a smile. The image of him squirming uncomfortably where he stood was what she was met with and she almost burst into laughter. Just at that moment she had felt like Kagura looked when Kagura was giving a person an "annoyed" glance. "Shuichi Minamino. Where do you intend to send him?" Kagome asked Toshu.
Toshu fumbled for a moment as he tried to settle himself back in his chair. Kagome was intimidating him and she knew she was; she wasn't going to change it either. It wasn't hurting him to be a little nervous of a woman and as far as she had seen, he had tried to intimidate her.
He was the type of person who felt they could dominate over the female gender without even trying. His hands shook and he licked dry lips as he opened a file and quickly scanned its contents.
"He'll probably go to a foster home?" Toshu said, his voice cracking and making the words hard to decipher. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Since he has no family, he'll go to a foster home and if one cannot be provided then he will go to an orphanage."
Kagome quirked an eyebrow at Toshu, "Ah ah," she told him, shaking her head. "Wrong answer."
He bowed his head over his paperwork and nodded. "Okay, I'll fill the paperwork out." He gasped. Kagome felt like a million dollars at that moment. She wanted to laugh but it would be inappropriate considering the circumstances.
She couldn't wait to tell her father all about the good news. She wondered if he'd be proud of her for helping two people and she knew she felt proud of herself for doing it.
Her cell phone began ringing insistently and she answered it after checking the ID on her phone. With a wink sent in Kanna's direction, she placed the phone to her ear and stepped out of the small room. "Interrupt me and I'll scream, Kagura." She said into the phone.
"Um, okay..? Where are you?" Kagura sounded confused.
"Erg! I said I'd scream if you interrupted me, and you did! I couldn't even say my greeting! 'This is Kagome Higurashi, what can I do for you?' Is it that hard to wait until I finish?"
Kagome ran a frustrated hand through her hair, deciding it was definitely "interrupt Kagome day". After all, everyone was doing it! No, she thought with a groan, its conformist day. That's even worse!
"Look, 'Gome, I really am starting to worry. Sammy said you left at like eight or nine this morning or something and your mother said to call you. It's going on nine o'clock and no one has seen or heard from you. Where are you?"
Kagome politely waited until Kagura had stopped ranting before calmly explaining the events regarding Kanna, Shuichi, and Sammy. She knew she could trust Kagura, and since it was getting later at night, she wanted someone to stay with Sammy.
She knew very well she wouldn't be there at all that night. Kagura's silence was one of forced stun. "—and so, considering the events, I'd like you to just stay with Sammy and be patient okay? I've taken care of Kanna—she's in my custody. Basically, I adopted her."
She had expected Kagura to yell about how unfair it was and question why they hadn't contacted her, but Kagura instead was heard to sniffle. "They must have seen how when I was fifteen...I got into doing some dangerous things. I did drugs and hung out with some dangerous people. I was sent to juvenile detention three times and then jail for six months. But thank you, Kagome."
Again, someone was thanking Kagome for something she was doing only because she knew it was the right thing. She believed that fate had a hand in her life and was testing her in times like these. "For what? Why are you thanking me?"
"You're such a great friend. If I lost Kanna, I don't know what I would do. I really admire you..."
"Don't thank me, Fay. Do you want to talk to Kanna?"
"Mmhm. Please."
Kagome peered around the corner into the room. Kanna was hugging her mirror tight to her stomach and looked to be half asleep. As soon as Kagome held out the phone to her, she slid from the chair, holding her mirror carefully as she walked over and took the phone. Kagome hugged Kanna's shoulders before going back into the room.
"Please, all I need is for you to sign the documents. They're exactly the same as the ones for the girl that you signed. I see no reason for you to go through the interview again, since I doubt anything has changed in half an hour's time..."
Toshu was obviously in a hurry. He obviously didn't normally stay so late in the office. The woman was just packing herself up to go home.
Kagome took his pen and sat at the desk to sign the documents. "I owe you a debt of gratitude, Hamina Toshu." Kagome told him as she signed the last of the paperwork.
"If you ever need assistance"—she took one of his business cards from the holder on the desk and wrote her cell phone number on the back of it, her name right above the number—"here's my number." She gave him a grin when he hesitated to take the card. "Relax—unless you rigged the cards, I doubt its going to bite you. About the worst it can do to you is give you a paper cut."
He laughed nervously and took the card. "Um, thanks. I think. But I work in a police station, why would I need your help?"
Kagome shrugged. "I keep my line of work in the type of things that the police won't handle or is to inept to handle." She stood and flashed him a smile. "You might want to rethink how you deal with women. You'll never get yourself a girl if you continue to think you're above them. Practice your techniques on Lea. Ready to go, Shuichi?" she asked, turning to him.
Kanna was closing the phone with a smile on her face. Kagome noticed that Shuichi had grabbed Kanna's backpack and coat and was helping the girl into the coat.
"It's Youko, and yes, we are." Whether or not he was talking about himself and Kanna or the two separate spirits, Kagome wasn't sure but she knew it was getting later and later.
She decided that considering Shuichi's car was much better than Genkai's old one, she'd drive to Genkai's and they would stay there for the night. Then, whether Shuichi liked it or not, they would trade cars with Genkai taking the old one away.
The car ride to Genkai's was silent. Kanna had fallen asleep in the back of the car, Shuichi's attention was drifting from one thing to another and his eyelids kept falling down as though he was having trouble staying awake.
Kagome herself wasn't very tired but her neck was getting sorer and sorer as the minutes ticked by. It had been aching when she woke up and it was just getting worse.
"Baby girl, wake up." Kagome told the sleepy girl, getting out from the driver's seat. Shuichi got out and opened the back seat door, unbuckling Kanna and easing her out. He helped her stand and then lifted her with one hand and arm supporting her knees and the other supporting her back and head.
"Or that works." Kagome muttered. She locked the car up and led the way up the snowy staircase to the temple at the top.
Genkai met them at the entrance, which was no surprise to Kagome. The elderly lady always knew who was there and who wasn't, when someone had arrived and when someone left. It was due to the priestess powers that Genkai harbored. They had diminished slightly but not enough to make it so Genkai was powerless.
"Kagome Higurashi." Genkai said with a small smile. "You never know who you find begging at my door; this much is clear to me now if it had never been before."
"Working on your poetry, are you, Genkai?" Kagome said quietly with a laugh. "Mind if we stay the night?" She ran a hand through her hair and winced when she realized finally that her hair was getting slightly greasy. She hadn't washed her hair the night before, which was probably partly the cause.
Genkai snorted her breath showing in the air. "Come then. And who do I have the privilege to hosting this night?" She led the way into the temple and Kagome wondered how the courtyard had been shoveled. Genkai certainly couldn't have done it herself and the stairs as well or the elderly woman would no doubt have thrown her back out.
That wasn't to say that Genkai was weak by any means, but anyone who shoveled that much snow, three feet of it at a time, would no doubt have killed them whether they were young or old.
"I guess these two would be my children." Kagome watched the familiar halls pass by and slowly the old grandfather clock she remembered to be at the end of the hall to her, Kagura, and Hiei's room appeared.
They rounded the corner and she heard the familiar chime ticking of the grandfather clock. She loved that clock, she really did. It was a source of familiarity and wisdom to her.
"I recognize her. Kanna I presume? Poor girl." Genkai said. Genkai waved to the three doors in the hall and her eyes came to rest on Shuichi. "You may take the far one, Kanna the middle, Kagome you can have your old room. I'd like to talk to you though, Kagome." Genkai walked off, obviously expecting Kagome to follow.
Shuichi gave Kagome a confused look, as though he was unsure of what he should do. Kagome gave him a warm smile. "Just set Kanna in the middle room and then you can go rest in the far room. I'll wake you in the morning when its time to leave." As soon as he nodded his understanding, Kagome hurried after Genkai.
"How is it you come by two children?" Genkai asked her when they were both situated in the temple's kitchen, drinking tea and eating Genkai's homemade cookies. "If I recall, when you left here three months ago you promised me you would not tie yourself down with children."
Genkai seemed rather calm, as though she had known all along that something of this sort would happen. Kagome didn't expect any less from Genkai.
"'The past will come to haunt you; you must always be careful what you say or do.' Doctor Kali Onigumo, researching ties between past and present." Kagome quoted her mother. Genkai nodded when she remembered the book that mentioned that.
Kagome laughed, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment. She needed to be careful what promises she made these days. It seemed some sort of sick twist of fate was making it so she couldn't keep them. "Well, anyway, Kanna's foster family died and Shuichi's mother died. I couldn't just leave them. When I heard Kagura on the phone...her voice...it made me realize I definitely did the right thing."
"Have you visited your own family yet? Or are you still avoiding them?" Genkai initiated the conversation that she knew Kagome would have preferred to leave alone. Genkai's hand went up to run through her thinning soft pink hair. Kagome knew the color was natural. It was just as natural as Souta's eyes were.
He was completely Martian; it was the priest power inside him that gave him the unnatural coloring. Likewise went for Genkai; it was the priestess power inside her that gave her the unnatural coloring.
"Tomorrow I'm going to go visit my father. I've seen my mother briefly for a few lunches..." The pink tinge on Kagome's face matched the pink color of Genkai's hair and Kagome found herself trying not to continue shifting uncomfortably.
"Don't wait too long, Kagome. You never know how long a person has left in this world." After the initial warning, Kagome found herself more comfortable around the old woman again.
The conversation slipped between weather, life in general, Kagome's new adoptive children, Kagome's business, Genkai's temple, and back to the weather and how many accidents there recently were.
Genkai had three new orphans, staying in the same rooms as Kagome and her "adoptive children" were staying. Genkai had figured she would have more company—though how Genkai knew this ahead of time Kagome had no idea—and had lain out futons in the rooms.
"—and so I was thinking you could take Shuichi's car off our hands and give us your old junker." Kagome said after a lull in the conversation. They were both on their third cup of tea and the plate of cookies was nearly gone.
Kagome watched Genkai get up and refill the plate of cookies from a bucket filled with them. A grin spread across her face at the memories. When Genkai cooked, she really went all out. No doubt the big freezer housed at least ten more gallon ice cream pails of the cookies.
"You shouldn't offer me the boy's car. You're well on your way to starting your first family issue." Genkai said wisely. She replaced the bucket back in the freezer once the plate was filled and poured them both some more hot water for a fourth cup of tea. "I remember when I bought that car. It was the hottest car in town."
Kagome snorted into her tea at the thought of the old station wagon being the "hottest car in town". Genkai gave her a miffed look and said, "Well it was!"
Kagome took a cookie and stared intently at it. "I highly doubt that sad excuse for a station wagon was anything except annoying." She muttered. "Besides, Shuichi will have to give up the car either way because I'm not paying to transport it to Sunset. If he wants, I'll buy him a new car when we get to Sunset."
"I heard that, you know." Genkai told her. "I might be old, but I can still hear just fine. It was not annoying." She reached to snatch the cookie from Kagome, but Kagome took a bite out of it, grinning. "Oh, you...you..."
Kagome laughed. "What, cat got your tongue, Genkai?" she asked with a happy smile. "And you know what else? The car has a back seat! You could fit six people in there if you squished in."
Genkai looked to be considering the idea. She knew her old junker car wasn't going to last very long. She'd have to get a new one soon anyway and it would be nice to have a car with a back seat.
With three orphans, she didn't like to have to shove the smallest in the trunk every time they went somewhere together. "Have you talked to the boy about it?" she casually sipped her tea as though she weren't seriously considering the trade.
"Why would I do that? If I'm to be a proper mother, shouldn't I do things without asking my children first?" she chuckled when Genkai gave her a withering look. "No, though, I haven't. And it isn't because I want to make him mad.
"I don't think he'll put up much of a fight for the car though. I think he understands the situation. What I think is really going to tick him off is when I tell him he's going to be enrolled in school again."
Genkai took a cookie and broke a piece of it off. "Why should that bother the child? Schooling is important." She ate the piece of cookie and broke off another.
"Apparently he ran away. I have no clue when it was he ran away and decided to stop going to school, but he thinks he doesn't need a high school diploma or college education. He's going to be sorely mistaken because I'll ground him if he doesn't go. If he runs away from me, I'll track him down and drag him back, then ground him, and make him go."
At this, Genkai let out a peel of laughter as contagious as the flu. Kagome laughed with her, realizing how ridiculous she had sounded.
It was getting very late, nearing two AM, and Kagome wasn't tired at all but Genkai was looking like she could use some sleep. "I'll let you sleep on the idea of the car, Genkai. I'm going to go back to Raspuit and get Kanna's stuff from her foster parents' house. I know there are some important things there still. I'll be back in a few hours."
"Kagome, drive carefully. The last thing those kids need is another dead parent." To emphasize her point, Genkai drew a hand across her throat in a slicing motion.
Kagome gave Genkai a hug. "Hey, no worries. I'm not about to die until I catch a certain gold skinned woman anyway. But don't tell my mother that." She winced at the thought of what her mother would say if she knew.
"If you die, I'll tell!" Genkai threatened with a yawn. "Now go if you must. I realize I'll not be able to keep you here even if I want."
Onyo had pulled her hair out of its perfect bun again. Onyo was one of the students at the Serenity Ballet Academy and he was really mean to her all the time. Rin always said that a boy was mean because he liked a girl, but she could hardly believe it.
She was imperfect. Her hair never liked to stay in the perfect bun, the mask they wore on the stage when they performed never stayed on and almost always fell off during the performance, and her dreams to become a star ballet dancer seemed so far fetched that she wanted to cry.
She pushed her finger farther back into her mouth and forced the food she'd eaten back up into the bowl. That was another thing about her imperfection. She was too fat. She was too pale. Her brown eyes were too dull and ordinary. Boys like Onyo liked unordinary girls and she was everything ordinary.
She rested her head on the toilet bowl, coughing slightly as her stomach pained her from the forced vomiting. She didn't understand why she felt she needed to be perfect but she did. She heard the door to the bathroom slap open and her head shot up. A girl's voice came through the stall wall next to her and Raine could hear sobs.
"I want to go home!" The girl called angrily. "Cory promised he'd help me get home but how can a dead man help me do anything?" Raine heard the tell-tale sounds of claws scratching the stall wall. There was a crack and a yelp.
A piece of claw fell on the floor and bounced to rest next to Raine's leg. It looked like a regular human fingernail, only slightly thicker and deadly sharp. She wiped her face on her sleeve and flushed the toilet, exiting the stall.
Knocking on the other girl's stall door, she quietly called out, "Um, are you okay in there?" Soon the stall door was opened and Raine found herself looking at a pretty young girl with strange markings on her face.
"Sorry I'm crying." The girl sniffed. "I just miss my brothers. I don't want to leave them alone with Nekura, my step-mother, because when I'm not there she"—the dream ended when Raine felt herself startled awake.
She stared up into her foster mother's serious face wondering for a moment if Curinrin had ever harbored such a serious look before bolting upright, narrowly missing her mother's nose in the process. "Mum, you're down here?" she looked around at all the electronic equipment around the room that were so obviously illegal. Her mother didn't seem very disturbed by it.
"Shh, Raine, my dear. You must quickly hide the Motshuria girls!" when Raine would have tried to question Curinrin, the elderly woman placed a hand to Raine's mouth. "No talking, just do it. The police want to search the house for them! They're waiting outside!"
Raine scrambled to her feet, getting tangled in her blankets in her haste. She tripped over several things before grabbing up a small container. Curinrin went to wake Rin up and told her the same thing. She then hurried back upstairs. "Rin," Raine hissed to her sister, "get Kikyou and Kaede into the hidden room." Rin was already doing just that.
Raine was hurriedly opening the container and taking out the few precious inventions she'd made to easily hide large objects. She aimed for her computer workstation and it disappeared into thin air. She did that with several other objects including Rin's bed, the dresser that she kept most of her tools and illegal objects in, and a class A android she'd been working on.
"Hold this and stay quiet." She told Kikyou, handing Kikyou the container with her filled inventions in it. "Neither of you makes a sound...Don't worry, you're safe with us. I promise."
Raine helped Rin replace the hidden door soundlessly and then hurried upstairs. There was nothing Raine or Rin would be able to do about the fact that there were electronics of varying sorts everywhere but at least that wasn't completely condemning.
Raine's mind was not centered on any one thing. The dream was bothering her because she was awoken so abruptly that she couldn't remember it. Her mind didn't stop there. Curinrin acted like she had known about Raine and Rin. "She's normally a ditz." Raine said frustrated under her breath. There was also the fact that the police were coming in the middle of the night to search the house. Did they expect that Kikyou and Kaede had come here? She wondered.
"Rainy, Riny, come sit down by your ol' pappy!" Harvey called from the couch. It was three AM and yet he was still wide awake.
Raine felt a scowl mar her features. "Stop calling me Rainy." She told him. She couldn't remember why, but for some reason it bothered her recently to be called Rainy. She didn't like the tug at her memories that seemed to occur each time someone called her that.
There was a For Sale sign out on the lawn of Kanna's house already. She didn't have to worry about getting into the house. Toshu had given her a key to the house with the instructions to just leave the key on the kitchen counter when she was done. Anything that she didn't take was to be sold with the house.
Kagome marveled at the cleanliness of the house. It was a small two-story house with a tiny lawn and an even smaller driveway. She took her shoes off at the door and hung her jacket up on the coat rack, turning the lights on so she could see where she was going. The light switch was easy to find at least: it was right next to the coat rack.
Kagome easily found Kanna's foster parent's room and looked around for a moment. The room was as neat as the rest of the house. Kanna's room was just down the hall from that.
There was not a speck of dust anywhere but this was expected. Kanna hated dust because it tended to mar a white surface. White was Kanna's favorite color. Obviously?
Kagome looked under the bed and in the closet for suitcases, finding three of them all varying sizes. She picked out a few of the best outfits in the closet and the shoes that matched, putting them in a suitcase.
The rest of the suitcase was filled with Kanna's favorite items such as the white bear that lay on the bed, the photos off the wall, the jewelry box from the desk, and the few books that Kanna owned. Kagome was careful not to pack too much, knowing that there was going to be limited space at the apartment, but that didn't matter. She was sure she knew what Kanna would want.
She was especially careful to grab Kanna's notebooks out of her desk, the thumb drives, and the laptop that Kagome had bought for Kanna only a few months before. Kanna loved to write—Kagome wouldn't be the one to take that away.
When Kagome opened the top middle desk drawer, she was met with a surprise. It was the start to a manuscript of Kanna's, entitled "White Void". The title of the book was catching. It brought many questions to Kagome's mind, one of them being aren't voids black?
She pulled out the chair at the desk and started reading...and didn't stop until she had finished reading the entire thing. The manuscript was not yet complete, of course, but so far Kagome found it was a very intriguing story.
Granted, there were a few places where it got to be rather tedious, some of it was rather corny, and some of it was just using the wrong word at the wrong time but Kagome got a clear picture of what Kanna meant most times.
Every author, especially young ones, could use work. That was what the extra schooling was for: so that children with talents such as Kanna could go to learn what they loved to do. It was obvious that Kanna had potential.
Kagome looked at the clock and sighed. She couldn't say she was the fastest reader, but she usually never took two hours to read something that was only approximately thirty pages long. She carefully put the manuscript into the suitcase and did another check around the room to be sure she wasn't missing anything.
Once she was sure she had every nook and cranny of the room picked over, she went into the foster parents' bedroom and looked over it to be sure there was nothing that Kanna might have wanted.
Seeing nothing of interest, she went back into the hall. She found the bathroom but there was nothing except towels and bathroom essentials. Kagome could buy Kanna clothes and bathroom essentials easier than trying to figure out which toothbrush was Kanna's.
She went and zipped the suitcase, taking it down the stairs. The clock at the base of the stair chimed the eighth hour after morning and she searched the kitchen for some paper and a pen.
As she was finishing off her note to the realtor, she heard keys jingling in the door lock and looked in the direction of the door. In came the realtor in charge of selling the house. She looked as untidy as Kagome felt, which was pretty bad. It seemed to Kagome that the woman had just jumped out of bed, thrown on some clothes in a hurry, and raced over.
Kagome quirked an eyebrow at the realtor and the woman laughed hesitantly. "And you are?" the woman asked quietly, taking her shoes off and extending her hand to Kagome. "I'm Janice, the realtor, by the way."
"I figured as much." Kagome told her. She extended her hand and shook the woman's firmly but not too firm. Both of their hands were cold, but that was something that couldn't be helped. "I'm Kagome Higurashi."
"Ah! You must be Kanna Irrikotsu's new mother. She's a sweet girl. I'm sorry I'm such a mess," the woman murmured while patting down her sleep ruffled hair, "I received a phone call that said someone was in the house though, and I'd hate for a burglar to have come in."
Kagome nodded her understanding. "I assure you, I'm no burglar. Toshu gave me a key so I could get some of Kanna's things." She picked the key up from where she'd placed it on the counter and held it out to the realtor who took it and stuck it in her pocket.
"I may stop by yet again today, just so Kanna can have another look around to make sure there is nothing I missed. Would you mind being here for an hour and a half or so?" Kagome asked with as bright a smile as her now exhausted mind could muster.
"I certainly can be!" Janice nodded exuberantly. Kagome knew that Janice had indeed gotten plenty of sleep.
Kagome knew even before she stepped foot on the steps up to the temple that something was wrong but she ignored the pesky feeling. She had felt the feeling so many times in the past and nothing had happened that she was skeptical it was anything serious. She chalked it off to her nerves at going on a plane yet again later that day, or else she told herself that it was just her nerves about seeing her father later that day. She never expected to find what she had.
Kagome looked from one orphan to the next, from her 'son' to her 'daughter' and back to the three orphans. "Making friends already, aren't we?" she drawled as she felt the feeling subside.
She heard Genkai's laughter and saw the woman come into the room with a bucket of ice and a tray of Band-Aids of varying types. "Genkai, tell me why these children look like they've befriended the makers of orange juice pulp?"
Kagome noticed the discoloration to the five children's faces and recalled the years of black eyes and bloody noses and split lips that she'd had growing up. "You should see the other guys!" one of the orphans blurted out with pride.
Soon Kagome had the whole story and she wasn't sure whether to be angry at Shuichi and Kanna participating in a fight or be proud that the two had apparently defended Kagome when some kids had called her a "whore".
These kids were many years Shuichi and Kanna's seniors being no less than twenty and no older than twenty five, but apparently they remembered Kagome in school and once they heard the news they went to heckle the 'children' that Kagome had adopted.
How the kids had learned so quickly that Kagome adopted was yet to be determined. Kagome couldn't figure out how news seemed to travel so quickly in a small town.
Kagome learned that the orphans were involved in the fight just by being there and thus they too were beaten up. As soon as Genkai had come upon the scene, the older participants had fled and Genkai had scolded the five for involving themselves in the dangers of what she considered to be "cat fighting".
It was a funny notion considering Genkai had run a dojo when she was younger, before she transformed the temple-dojo into a temple-orphanage.
"Genkai, thanks for your help." Kagome said, watching Shuichi load the single suitcase of Kanna's into the trunk of the junker car. Shuichi had not made a single complaint about how his car was going to be the one to stay. She hoped that was a step forwards not a step backward.
Genkai gave Kagome a hug and Kagome returned it. "Don't worry, young Kagome. Motherhood will suit you." She chuckled, inviting Kagome to share the joke. Kagome was far to tired to grasp the joke by the handle and understand it. "Here, cookies for the trip." Genkai pushed a gallon tub of cookies into Kagome's hands.
Kagome gave her a tired grin, taking the bucket and going to join Shuichi and Kanna. Kanna sat in the middle and mutely leaned against Kagome with her mirror stuck fast in her hands. Quickly the three were off and Kagome began the drive to Raspuit.
Kanna went into the house and filled a small bag up with things she didn't want to leave behind and that went into the trunk. After that, Kagome started for West City. It was time to stop avoiding her father and go visit him.