AN/ Shayla is an OC of mine, you can read about her in my Shayla's Story saga which is going to be revised just as I am doing for this fic.
Gema's Personal Disclaimer: I'm putting this in front of every chapter I write, so no one can miss it.
First, the obvious, I don't own anything trademarked or copyrighted.
Second; These are my fics, so y'all will have to deal with my writing quirks. Do not bother telling me about my spelling choices, like Yu-Gi, Joe, Millennial, or whatever else they may be. These are not mistakes, they are intentional. Therefore, I don't want to hear about how they are other wise spelled. If spelling bothers you that much, then leave.
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Now, most of you aren't the problem, but this is for the few that are. This might come across as crabby, and I'm not really like this, but I've been pushed to my limit because of certain reviews.
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Chapter 3: Bone-Eater's Well, Japan 2000AD
"Naraku's going to be even more aggressive now," commented Miroku, five hundred years ago.
He sat on his knees on a large picnic blanket that Kagome had laid out. Sango was beside him, just out of arm's reach. Inu-Yasha, Kagome, and Shippō were present as well, all seated around the various snack foods that Kagome had brought with her from the future. They ate as they talked and planned, occasionally commenting on the strange taste of Kagome's food. The Bone-Eater's Well was only a few yards beyond them as they sat underneath the shade of an older tree. The sun was warm and just about directly overhead. Clouds drifted idly by—it was a pleasant day.
"But we've got the last shard; that's good, right?" chimed Shippō.
"He still has a large piece of the Shikon Jewel," reminded Sango as she tasted some of Kagome's bottled green tea. "That means we'll have to confront him—and soon at that, before he targets Kohaku's shard." She glanced down sadly, but strained herself not to show her concern—no one was fooled. "His and Koga's are the only other ones out there and soon Naraku will go after them..."
Kagome perked when she heard this, "That reminds me, I sensed a shard today in my era."
"You what?!" exclaimed Sango and Miroku in unison.
"I lost sight of it when Inu-Yasha interrupted me though," said Kagome with a slightly biting tone. She disdainfully jerked her thumb to point in the half-demon's direction.
"So it's my fault?!" shot Inu-Yasha. "You're the one who wouldn't let me charge in and take it!"
"You can't just go swinging swords in my era!" Kagome shouted back.
"And you'd rather let a shard run loose in just anyone's hands?!"
"I was trying to get it! Tactfully!"
Sango and Miroku merely continued to sip their drinks as the two continued to bicker, saving their questions for when the couple wasn't fighting. They didn't look up; they didn't have to. They all knew precisely where this argument was heading—in the same direction as all the ones before it. Within that same minute Inu-Yasha's rosary necklace glowed and he came crashing to the ground while Kagome continued to stand, fuming.
"Ka...go...me!" growled Inu-Yasha as he struggled to lift his head.
"For a dog, you can be so pigheaded!"
Sango turned to Miroku as they continued to block out the quarreling. "If shards exist in the future—does that mean that the Shikon Jewel was never reunited in our time?"
Miroku sighed, "I don't know. But if Kagome brings shards from her time to ours, I have wondered if that won't alter events from her time." He paused a moment and peeled back the wrapper further on an energy bar. "But all we can do is our best, resist Naraku and the other demons, and bring the pieces of the jewel together. If it's Buddha's will, things will all work out in the end."
"Well, maybe the shard she saw today is a shard from her time...so maybe we don't have to worry about it," commented Shippō.
"But she told us that she already brought one shard from her time to ours, that one from the Noh Mask," replied Miroku, thinking deeply.
Sango nodded slightly, "So, Miroku, you..."
Her comment was cut off by Kagome shrilling, "Sit and stay!"
Inu-Yasha hadn't fully picked himself up when he was pulled to the ground again, a small crater forming beneath him. One of his hands was in the air, reaching towards Kagome to stop her as she spun around on her heel.
"I know I need to find that shard and I will find it!" shot Kagome. She marched towards the well. "I'm going home, and I'll find that shard. Don't come after me until you can act civil Inu-Yasha!" As she spoke she swung her legs over the edge of the well and prepared to jump down. Before she did, she mustered the best pleasant tone she could. "Enjoy the food everyone!" With a wave she vanished back into the present.
"That...little!" fumed Inu-Yasha.
"You know you owe her another apology," stated Miroku as Sango and Shippō nodded in unison beside him, which only provoked his temper more.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Although the sun was bright, little of it reached through the thick canopy in the dark, ancient forest that Kikyo was in. She still worked in the ruined library, pouring over scrolls and texts. However, now the dirty floor had been cleared. The shelves, tables, and pots of scrolls had all been pushed to the corners. Several candle stands had been set up and lit, creating ominous shadows in the dark corners. Kikyo was on her knees, drawing a perfect circle within a circle on the ground and then carefully lining it with runes. She'd occasionally check an open scroll to make sure she was getting everything exactly right.
Through the holes in the roof and the broken windows her soul skimmers drifted in and out. They'd infrequently deposit a new soul which her body quickly absorbed. However, that wasn't the only thing they brought in on this day. One drifted in with a ruby red talisman dangling from its needle-like legs. Another brought in stubby candles made out of an odd colored wax.
Kikyo accepted these items too and placed them carefully around her double circle. Then, she carefully sketched a three-way symbol of infinity in the center. She couldn't help but smile slightly as a soul skimmer brought in the item she needed most—a splinter from the Bone-Eater's Well. She carefully placed this in the very middle of her set-up, then walked over to the scroll with the Eye of Horus on it to confirm everything once more.
"It's time," she murmured to herself.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The bell signaling the end of the the school day finally rung and the students flooded out of the Domino High School. Just inside the gates, Yu-Gi waited as his friends joined him from their afternoon classes. A few minutes later he was there with Joe, Tristan, Téa, Bakura, and Duke. They looked and acted like the other students, but their conversation was anything but average.
"So let me get this straight, you think there's another Millennial Item out there?" asked Joe as soon as Yu-Gi was done explaining what happened that morning.
"It seems unlikely. There's only supposed to be seven and they're all accounted for. But Bakura's ring definitely sensed an item," answered Yu-Gi.
"My Millennial Ring doesn't make mistakes," added Bakura. "It tracks Millennial Items and Millennial Items only."
The group continued to walk forward, heading towards Kame Games, Grandpa Motou's store, and Game World, Duke's shop, were they usually hung out. Their feet carried them in this direction automatically, out of habit, which allowed them to process the newest problem that had just presented itself.
Duke ran his fingers through his long, dark bangs as he thought for a moment, piecing together what he knew about the Millennial Items. "Describe this girl again."
"What? Interested in her?" teased Tristan while maintaining the distant hope that Duke's attention would waver from Serenity.
"I just think it's important to who we're dealing with," Duke snapped an answer.
Yu-Gi immediately answered in a voice louder than usual to get their attention and break up their developing argument. "She looked like an average high school student, just from another school. Long black hair, green and white uniform..."
"Could it be a trick?" asked Joe.
"The guy with her looked more suspicious than she did," answered Bakura with some thought. He fiddled with the points on the Millennial Ring out of a slight case of nerves.
"But do you think she really has a Millennial Item?" asked Téa. "Like Yu-Gi just said, we know where all seven Millennial Items are."
"Then, she stole it from someone else!" exclaimed Tristan, rather suddenly and forcefully.
Bakura shook his head as the group walked by a convenient store at the corner of a small intersection. Téa waved at a group of their female classmates who were inside buying Pepsi and gossiping. Their group acted perfectly normal while the other students were watching them before turning back to their somber conversation.
"It's not that easy to steal a Millennial Item," continued Bakura, sounding slightly dejected. "And when it happens, everyone else with a Millennial Item knows. Yu-Gi and I haven't sensed anything like that lately."
"You would be the one to know..." murmured Tristan, sounding vaguely sympathetic. Bakura's head bobbed a few centimeters lower.
Duke noticed this and glanced between Tristan and Bakura before asking, "What do you mean?"
"Er...well," stammered Tristan, wondering where to start explaining and noticing that Bakura had no intention of helping with the answer. They stopped at a corner to let traffic pass while Tristan groped for an explanation. "You remember that freaky duel between Bakura and the pharaoh during Battle City?"
"Who could forget?"
"That wasn't Bakura, that's an evil spirit that lives inside the Millennial Ring and likes trying to steal the other Millennial Items." Tristan rubbed the back of his head out of unease as he explained and Bakura nodded slightly in affirmation.
"That...explains a lot," Duke murmured at length.
The light turned red and traffic stopped in front of them. They continued across the crosswalk and onto the sidewalk, passing a store with large furniture displays in the window. An old flyer advertising the Kaiba Corp. Grand Prix hung on the side of the building, its corner torn off completely. The group of friends carefully walked around a family with two small children as they continued to walk and talk.
"Sure you should even be carrying that thing?" Joe interjected, referring to the Millennial Ring that Bakura still held in his free hand.
"I...don't have a choice," sigh Bakura. "No matter how many times, no matter where I throw it away...it always returns to me. But, as long as I don't put it on, that spirit can't control me." He held the ring up higher, allowing them all to see that he severed the neckstrap.
"Isn't there any way you can get rid of it?" asked Téa. She involuntarily took a step away from the Millennial Ring and closer to Yu-Gi.
Bakura shook his head sadly. "Just watch..." He discarded the Millennial Ring in a trash can as they passed by it and continued walking. Joe and Tristan asked why, but Bakura told them to wait and continued walking down the sidewalk without looking back, causing the other five to hurry to catch up with him. Téa glanced back at the trash can but nothing remarkable had happened.
"This is what I mean," said Bakura, trying to keep his accented voice level. He reached into a side pocket of his backpack and pulled out the Millennial Ring. As he did so, a rectangular piece of paper pulled out as well and fluttered to the ground.
"No way!" exclaimed Joe, Tristan, and Duke all at once as he revealed it to them.
"I can't be free of it," Bakura stated, his distress apparent in his tone.
Yu-Gi, although deeply concerned by this, wasn't surprised. Ever since Battle City, the pharaoh had had suspicions about the Millennial Ring and this merely confirmed them all. He paused a moment to pick up the piece of paper that Bakura had dropped. It was decorated in strange symbols and kanji in a rather ornate pattern.
"Bakura, you dropped this," he said, handing it back.
Bakura instantly snatched it back and clung tightly to it.
"What is that thing?" asked Tristan, with some incredulity over his friend's actions.
Bakura suddenly got sheepish. "It's...well...It's...a spell tag." He averted his brown eyes. "It's supposed to ward off evil spirits." Much to his own surprise, no one openly laughed at him.
They turned onto another, smaller street, one that was about two blocks from Kame Games. The crowd had completely thinned out, allowing them to walk and converse unhindered. A transit bus drove pass them going in the other direction, but other than that the traffic was also lightening up the further they got from the main intersections.
The points on the Millennial Ring rattled together softly, creating a bell-like noise. Then, in unison, they all began to point to the left. Yu-Gi, Téa, Joe, Tristan, Duke, and Bakura all stopped walking at the same moment when they noticed this, looking between the ring and the direction it pointed.
"What's happening?" asked Joe, trying to conceal his alarm.
"The ring...senses another Millennial Item nearby," answered Bakura.
Yu-Gi answered after a pause and a nudge from his alter-ego. "I think it's pointing at the girl. It did the same thing in class today."
"It's tugging me," said Bakura as he gripped it tightly, turning the ring so that all of the points were hanging straight forward.
"Then let's follow it," suggested Yu-Gi. "It's the only clue we have and we need answers about why there's another item present."
"On it!" exclaimed Joe as he took off running. "Nothing's gonna escape me!"
"Wait! Don't you need me to lead?" asked Bakura as everyone else sprinted after him.
Joe raced around another corner and after glancing left and right took off to the right. Tristan and Duke were close on his heels followed by Bakura and Téa with Yu-Gi trailing on account of his short legs. Joe nearly collided with an elderly couple, leaving the friends behind him to apologize for his rashness. Bakura shouted ahead several instructions and they turned down several more side streets until they were in the middle of a residential section.
"It's here!" called Bakura while he tried to catch his breath.
By this time, Joe, Tristan, and Duke had long since passed the building that Bakura stopped at. They had to backtrack in a rather comical way. Téa stopped beside him and Yu-Gi nearly collided with them, not expecting the race to be over at that moment. The building was actually a Shinto shrine complete with stairs, arch, and a towering tree. The Millennial Ring was pointing directly up the stairs and tugging urgently in Bakura's hand. The vertical sign by the entrance read 'Sunset Shrine'.
"I know this place," commented Bakura. "This is where I bought my spell tag."
"There's something about this place..." murmured Yu-Gi as he took the first steps forward under the arch, his friends following after him.
They walked in relative silence, both out of respect and observation. The shrine itself was rather small and part of it had been converted into living quarters. The grounds, however, were clean and rather spacial with wooden signs labeling various sacred objects. The group began to fan out slightly as different objects caught their attention in different ways. Bakura, however, walked in a straight line as directed by his Millennial Ring. It pulled him all the way to the back, aiming right at a spring house set up on the edge of the property.
"It's in there," stated Bakura.
"But what is in there?" asked Duke. "Do we have any idea what to expect?"
"And please don't come back tomorrow, either!" a girl's shrill echoed from inside the well house. The group of friends outside was startled by this. It was followed by a male voice protesting and a loud thud. The Yu-Gi-Oh! cast sort of blinked outside. Before they could question each other about what they just heard, the door slid open and Kagome stepped out.
She immediately tensed up and it wasn't from her fight with Inu-Yasha. She sensed the Shikon Jewel shard moments before she processed the fact that a group of strange people were standing immediately outside the door.
"Um….who are you and why are you here?" Kagome managed to stammer. "Why do they show up now, right after I send Inu-Yasha back?! I'd better be careful. I definitely sense a shard. No, two shards! But why are they here, now?!" Her eyes quickly locked on one of their locations—inside the pendant on Yu-Gi's neck.
Bakura quickly stepped behind Tristan and turned his back to her. The Millennial Ring had nearly leapt out of his hand when she stepped forward. Now, all of the dangles were pointing strongly at her. He fumbled with his Millennial Item, trying to get it to deactivate so not to attract attention. However, it had a mind of its own.
"I'm Téa Gardner," Téa introduced, cheerfully despite the awkwardness. "We just want to talk. This is Tristan Taylor and Bakura Ryou and..."
"And I'm Joe Wheeler. I'm sure you've heard of me," interrupted Joe. He strutted up a step towards Kagome, his chest puffed out as he still wore the invisible label of second place in Duelist Kingdom. It would have been more serious had he not caught his foot on the board and stumbled. At the very least this forced Kagome to take her eyes off of the Millennial Puzzle.
"Can't say that I have…" murmured Kagome.
"I'm Duke Devlin," Duke interjected as Joe face faulted. "Nice to meet you." He tossed his black hair back in a carefree manner and placed a hand in the pocket of his uniform pants, looking every bit the essence of his 'cool' image.
"And I'm Yu-Gi Motou," finished Yu-Gi.
"Now that name sounds familiar," said Kagome, trying to act friendly despite her suspicions. She thought a moment. "Aren't you really good at cards or something?
"Um….yeah," stammered Yu-Gi, blushing slightly.
"So, who's that in there with you?" Joe asked, leaning over Kagome's shoulder to look into the well house.
Kagome's eyes wavered a moment and she sweat-dropped. "Who?" Her voice squeaked slightly. "There's no one in there. Go see for yourself if you don't believe me." She folded her hands behind her back and took a step backward, subconsciously anticipating a quick escape.
"I think I will," said Joe as he pushed his way into the well house. Because there were no electric lights on the inside, he quickly disappeared into the shadows, although they could all hear his footsteps on the old boards inside.
"Ignore him, he doesn't think…at all," said Téa. "Er...what's your name again?
"It's Kagome. Kagome Higurashi," Kagome answered. "And trust me, I know what it's like to be with some stupid guy who doesn't have a brain between his ears." She spoke with surprising terseness, knowing that she probably was overreacting due to not sleeping. After letting out a frustrated breath to refocus, she continued, "So...what did you want to talk about? If it's about the shrine my grandpa has all the answers." She tried to continue to act casual but once again her attention was slipping back to the Millennial Puzzle.
"Well...actually...it's about..." stammered Tristan. "Er...know much about Egypt?"
"Egypt?" echoed Kagome incredulously. Tristan shifted under look and rubbed the back of his head with his hand as he trailed off completely. She glanced around at every else's expressions but they also seemed hesitant. She focused on the Millennial Puzzle again. "Nice necklace...where did you get it from?"
"Um…My grandpa gave it to me," answered Yu-Gi.
He was saved for the time being from Kagome's follow up question by Joe stepping out of the well house again. Some cobwebs clung to his blond hair and he seemed baffled and frustrated. Once again, the interior of the well house was too dark to peer into clearly from the outside, especially since it was a brightly lit day, making the shadows seem all the more thicker.
"That's weird. There's no one in there," he reported.
"No way!" exclaimed Tristan. "We all know we heard two voices!"
"You must be hearing things," lied Kagome as she again shifted nervously.
It was Yami who noticed her position and prompted Yu-Gi to ask, "But you were with a guy earlier today. He had long white hair and a red kimono."
"W-who?" Kagome asked, again struggling to bluff. "Do you think I'm into compensated dating?!" She did her best to sound indignant.
"Not at all!" exclaimed Bakura, hiding the still active Millennial Ring behind his back. He quickly looked for something to deviate the topic. "So...your grandpa does run this place? I bought something from him. Is he a priest or a...?"
"If you bought something here it's junk," Kagome said dismissively.
Bakura's face greatly fell as his fingers loosened their grip on the spell tag concealed within his pocket. However, Kagome didn't notice this. She had finally noticed the location of the second Shikon shard that she was sensing. Although he had hidden the ring, she could feel its presence on him. She tried to visually search him without making it apparent that she was doing so to figure out where the shard was hidden.
To make the moment even more awkward, in that silence Kagome could hear the door to the well house slide open immediately behind her. She knew instantly by the expressions of the group in front of her who was behind her. The barking voice a second later confirmed it without a shadow of a doubt.
"Hey, Kagome! What are you still doing standing here?" greeted Inu-Yasha.
Kagome couldn't reply. Her whole body went stiff with tension and her tongue refused to move. She knew if she attempted to say anything that it would all come out in a jumble anyways. Unfortunately for her, the group in front of her had absolutely no problem commenting.
"Where'd he come from? I know that building was empty just a minute ago!" exclaimed Joe.
"What's with those ears? And that outfit?" commented Téa.
"That's the guy we saw outside of school this morning!" chimed Yu-Gi.
"Kagome, who are these people?" asked Inu-Yasha, eying them all up suspiciously, as if they were the ones who were out of place.
"We could ask the same thing about you!" shot Tristan.
"My social life...is over..." Kagome lamented.
Through it all, Bakura didn't say a single word. The only one to notice this, though, was Yu-Gi, since Inu-Yasha's appearance held everyone else's attention. Yu-Gi glanced back at Bakura and noticed the Millennial Ring still pointing at Kagome outside of her line of vision. Furthermore, to Yami it was apparent that she had been hiding something. He opened his mouth to voice his suspicions but at the same moment both of their heads bobbed up. A very faint but rapidly growing power started tugging at them.
"Now what?!" exclaimed Kagome.
"You sense it too?" questioned Yu-Gi.
"What are you talking about?" asked Duke and Inu-Yasha at the same time.
Yu-Gi and Kagome both started to answer, then they stopped. Their eyes locked and for that moment they knew that they were sensing the same thing. The Millennial Puzzle and Shikon Jewel shards started pulsing warmly around their necks—the same with the Millennial Ring. A breeze picked up around their ankles, swirling around the ground, shaking the door of the well house, whistling through the cracks in its boards.
"I have a bad feeling," Bakura said in a near whimper.
Unknown to them at the time, the Millennial Ring and the Millennial Puzzle were not the only ones affected. The other five Millennial Items were also surging with power, much to the extreme surprise of their bearers wherever they might be. Likewise, all the shards of the Shikon Jewel were glowing with the very same aura, no matter how far into the past they were.
Joe, Téa, Tristan, and Duke were all giving them strange looks. Inu-Yasha tensed up and gripped the hilt of Tetsusaiga. However, a moment later an icy wind ripped through them, whipping their clothing and chilling them to the bone. A bright light flared beneath their feet as a three-way infinite symbol drew itself in the dirt, surrounded by a magician's ring complete with ancient runes that none of them recognized. They all let out cries of surprised which were virtually drowned out entirely by the roar of magic.
"What is this?!" gasped Joe as the shards and items flared even stronger.
"I have no idea!" answered Duke.
WOOSH! The well house door was ripped open. The well itself had started to act like a cyclone, a whirling vortex forming within it. It began to reach out for the magic that had called it. The shingles creaked and rattled, some of them coming off completely. The strange wind whipped into the well itself, tugging on everyone outside to follow. Somehow, the very essence of time and space had been torn. Unable to resist any more, they all screamed as the magic caught hold of them and threw them into darkness.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"What the...?!" exclaimed Sango, grabbing her bone boomerang as if this was an enemy that she could fight.
The wind ripped through their picnic, scattering it everywhere. Their hair and clothing whipped behind them as they did their best to shield themselves from the gale-like forces. Their eyes teared up from the force of the wind and they leaned close to the ground to keep from being thrown off of their feet. Shippō had rolled several yards away from Sango and Miroku and was now clinging to the trunk of a tree to keep from being picked up all together.
"This does not bode well," Miroku said, above the roar of the wind.
"But what is this?!" exclaimed Sango.
Miroku couldn't answer. A moment later the wind surged stronger, rushing into their lungs and making it hard to talk. It ripped around them like a cyclone, pulling them in all directions. It howled like a ferocious demon and then everything went black.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"What gives?!" demanded Koga. He had been in his den with the rest of his pack when suddenly everything had changed. He was somewhere far out in the middle of a strange woods. It did not smell like home. His pack was nowhere to be seen. And most important, the shards in his legs were glowing strongly. He could feel their magic surging almost to the point of burning.
"Who's ever idea of a trick this is…..they are going to pay!" he growled and ran off, branches and leaves whipping behind him as he raced through with all the speed that he possessed.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"What just happened?!" demanded Seto Kaiba the moment the wind had died down.
"It was some type of magic," answered Shayla as she leeched onto his upper arm out of fear. Her sixth sense was working in overdrive, flooding her system with adrenaline.
"There's no such thing," Kaiba automatically replied, although by now it was hard to deny.
Surrounding them was far from the plush Kaiba Corp. lobby. They were in the middle of a large grassland, surrounded by bright, spacious sky, high humidity, and large stones. Crickets resumed chirped and birds flew by, not giving the out-of-place couple a look.
"I have a bad feeling..." groaned Shayla. "What happened? ...Where are we?"
It took Kaiba a long moment to reply. Once he recognized the surroundings he couldn't help but gape for a minute, processing what he was seeing and trying to explain it rationally, without using anything related to magic. But either way, there was no mistaking the large stone structure that now surrounded them.
"It's Stonehenge! Impossible!" he exclaimed.
"But that's in England!" remarked Shayla.
"There's something different though," continued Kaiba, describing what she could not see. "It's whole...like it was made recently."
Shayla was was quiet for a moment, processing what she had sensed and what she was being told. "Seto, I know you don't believe in magic, but either way we have to be careful."
-x-x-x-x-x-
"What the heck just happened?!" demanded Marik as he frantically looked around. He was not at the museum with his sister like he had been a minute ago.
"Calm yourself, Marik," said Ishizu, who was also looking around curiously.
The two of them, along with their adopted older brother Odion, had suddenly found themselves far from the Domino Museum. The Millennial Rod and Millennial Necklace were only just starting to cool down from the surge that had claimed them. They now found themselves standing on a street paved with blue-grey stones and surrounded by buildings made out of sandstone. It was a narrow side street, but they could hear many people walking and talking not far away. The air was warm and dry, very different from the mugginess of Japan.
"Have we returned to Egypt?" questioned Odion.
"I want to know what happened with my rod!" grumbled Marik.
"Patience," Ishizu said to both of them. She cupped her hands around the Millennial Necklace hanging around her neck and closed her grey eyes in concentration. A moment later they snapped open in shock. "Oh my!"
"What sister?!" asked Marik.
"The present as we know it is far away! This is the past in the time of Octavius!"
-x-x-x-x-x-
"Strange," muttered Shadi as he walked through the crowds unseen. "Something has disturbed the balance of the Millennial Items. As their guardian, I must investigate."
The Egyptian crowd parted, allowing him enough room to pass by and vanish without attracting any attention. Above him the massive palace of the pharaoh loomed, a reminder to him of where his duty lay.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"Master, what was that disturbance?" asked a young girl with pale hair in a quiet, monotone voice.
"Show me your mirror, Kana," said a man with evil red eyes and pure dark hair.
Kana quietly and obediently stepped across the woven bamboo rug toward him. The room they were in was dimly lit and covered with darkness beyond shadows. There was almost no furniture there worth noting and the walls of this feudal castle were unremarkable. Once Kana reached her master she held her silver mirror steady, facing him so that he could see its surface that reflected everything except what was in front of it.
"What is it, Naraku?" asked another lady approaching from the shadows, noticing him gazing into the mirror's surface.
"It appears we have fallen into a time warp, Kagura," said Naraku with an evil smile.
"Is that so?" she asked. "But how?" She opened her fan out of habit, expecting to be ordered to take immediate action.
"The remaining Shikon Shards are behind it," he smiled even more evilly and rested his chin on the back of his hand.
"And what is your planning for obtaining them?" she asked.
"We will wait," he said.
"Wait?"
"There is something else involved here. We'll just let them play themselves out before we take action," he stated, calmly, as if the whole situation was nothing more than a slight source of amusement for him. "Everything is still within my control."
-x-x-x-x-x-
"Why did you bring the baby back here?" asked what appeared to be a toddler with a kwandao. "What is Naraku planning this time, Kohaku?" Hakudōshi leaned against his weapon, more focused on the infant the young boy was holding than the fact that they were suddenly standing together in the reeds near a river bank.
"I..." Kohaku trailed off. Not only did he not know the answer, but he was using all his self-control to hide his shock and surprise in order to conceal the fact that his memories had resurfaced. He glanced down at the baby in his arms—it was Naraku's heart and the key to destroying him. But Kohaku knew he had to be careful; if the baby touched him it could read his heart and know his memories were back.
"This is not Naraku's doing," the baby said, talking despite its apparent age. "Someone else...is toying with us."
"Fools then," retorted Hakudōshi. "I think it's time we show everyone who's really in charge here!"
