Chapter Twenty-Two

"You're still worried about something?"

The timid question had Kimiko looking over to her nervous protégé's. The three of them had been in the process of recording their thoughts on their visions, and Kimiko was startled to realize she had been ruminating on the dreams she had been receiving while at home. Running a hand through her hair, and stalling for time, Kimiko let out a sigh at the decision she was about to make.

"Nothing that our visions have shown us in our reflection pods has me worried." She stated simply and stood from the comfortable chair she had been sitting in. "Now come along girls. I think it's high time the both of you went shopping for clothes."

Ami looked down at her clothes as if not understanding what was wrong with the shirt two sizes too big for her and the sweatpants she had on underneath it. Eri, not one to be distracted from the main issue, narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders.

"You're not worried about the visions seen in the pods, but you are worried about a vision you have seen."

Ami shot a look to the girl she had started to think of as her own sister and then glanced to the stiff expression on the woman who had taken them in. Kimiko straightened from the lean she had been in to scoop up her coat. Her eyes met with the stubborn gleam in Eri's, and allowed a crooked smirk.

"What makes you think I'm not just having a personal problem?"

Eri swallowed back her nerves and took a deep breath. "Frankly, Lady Kimiko, you're too smart to let things in your personal life get away from you enough to stare holes in the ground thinking about them. The only thing you would have no control over would be your visions." She trailed off as she mustered all the courage she had for her next accusation. "You still see visions when you go to bed, don't you?"

Ami covered her mouth to keep the startled gasp from escaping, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. Kimiko kept her expression neutral as she searched the uncertain and bruised look hiding within the younger girl's eyes.

Many years ago, it had been decided that a precog that still saw visions, outside of the reflection pod, was mentally breaking down under the strain of their own power. They were to go in for immediate check-ups. Supposedly, they had medication you were to take to tone down your visions before they drove you mad.

A lot of bullshit, if you asked her. Kimiko had always known she could handle whatever her own power could dish out, and she wasn't about to let some snub-nosed idiot scientist tell her he knew more about her than she herself did. What she did know, was that the medication eventually killed your power all together and rendered you useless the older you got.

Staring now at the scared teenagers in front of her, Kimiko had an epiphany she was ashamed to not have seen before then.

"You have them as well, don't you?"

Eri stiffened in panic over the soft question and tried her damnedest to affect a neutral look. She could feel the cold sweat on her neck and back as she thought on how she could dig herself out of the hole she had jumped into. A hand, lightly resting on her head, had her mind blanking and tears forming in her eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner. Let's go to my office and have a proper talk, shall we?"

Ami, still tugging at her overly large shirt, felt a sense of relief now that Lady Kimiko knew their secret. She followed in step, as Kimiko reached over to lay a hand on her shoulder as well, and guided both of them to the enclosed room she used as an office.

As the door closed behind them, Kimiko lead the two to the couch off to the side of the room.

"In answer to your question; yes. The visions I have been having outside the reflection pod is bothering me. Now answer mine. How long have the both of you been having visions outside the pods?"

Eri and Ami looked to the other, both gathering courage and permission to confess something they swore never to tell anyone. Nodding at the same time, it was Eri that spoke first.

"We've been having them since the moment we met." She paused to swallow again and realized her mouth was dry. "But we only have them when we are together."

Kimiko nodded slowly as she took in the way the both of them acted together. "I see. Well, then." She crossed her legs and sat back in the opposite couch facing them. "I shall tell you what I have seen and you shall tell me what you have seen."

Eri and Ami blinked at the brush-off their confession was getting before allowing themselves to sink into the cushions in relief. They should have known that Lady Kimiko would take it all in stride. She was the one they looked up to, after all.


Kagome stood in front of her pod, staring pensively at the seat she would be laying in in just a few moments. Miroku glanced up from the adjustments he was making to his own suit and quirk a brow.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Kagome shot a glance to the other psychic and let out a sigh.

"What am I going to tell Taisho?"

Miroku's brow creased in slight irritation. "Why do you have to tell him anything? It's not like he can change the situation."

Kagome turned to face him fully, her own scowl of irritation marring her pretty face. "That's a stupid question, Miroku. I'll be linked to the guy for several hours! The whole thing from yesterday has completely mixed me up. Especially because the 'official' report says that Yuka was just a psychotic druggy with bombs! Not a medically altered experiment that had developed weird, dangerous psychic powers!"

Her voice was a harsh whisper and Miroku was faintly impressed with the high octaves she was reaching as she went on.

"Honestly, I don't know why you aren't wondering about what you are going to say to Sango-chan! It was her brother that had gotten mixed up in all of this! And I know for a fact that they haven't notified anyone off-ship about what transpired."

"That's because no one died." Miroku let out on a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back on his pod behind him. "And I'm not telling Sango anything."

"What?!"

Miroku frowned down at the floor, not wanting to see the baffled accusation in his best friend's eyes. "Look. She doesn't know what happened, right? Telling her now, when we are about to embark on a dangerous mission, would be like me trying to commit suicide." He held up a hand at the incredulous look that got him.

"Sango's an emotional person. Telling her that her brother was critically wounded by a medically altered psycho psychic will do nothing but keep her mind distracted. I can't afford to make that kind of gamble with my life, Kagome."

Kagome paused as she thought on Miroku's words. He was right. This certainly wasn't the best time to tell Sango-chan her brother was in the hospital due to a psychic attack.

"Ok, fine. I see your point, but that doesn't solve my problem. What am I going to tell Taisho?"

Miroku let out an aggravated sigh and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Do you have to tell him anything? Can't you just say you had a bad dream or something?"

Kagome frowned at the floor, thinking through her feelings. Finally coming to a decision, she raised her eyes to lock with Miroku's. "I won't lie to him."

Miroku placed a hand over his eyes, not wanting to see the determination glaring back at him. "Fine. Just tell him what you want to."

Kagome crossed her own arms across her chest. "I'm asking if I can tell him about your secret organization."

Miroku froze and allowed his hand to move so he could take in her expression.

"I had already made the decision to tell him about the attack. I wanted to know exactly what I should say about the solution we came up with. I don't want him involved in this mess, but I know he's going to worry."

"Him?! Worry?!" Miroku stood up straight, taking his turn to stare at Kagome in incredulousness. "Captain Taisho? Mr. I-don't-need-anybody. Mr. All-psychics-are-useless. You don't want him to worry?!"

Kagome rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air. "He's a human being too, you know! If you were stuck with a partner like Hojo, wouldn't you think psychics were useless?"

Instead of throwing out the fact that the captain had gone through numerous psychics before Hojo; Miroku took in what he understood about the situation. Taisho was now linked to Kagome. Trouble magnet and supposed future savior-of-the-human-race, Kagome. It was possible the man had developed human emotion while linked with her.

"Fine, alright. Tell him what you want to, Kagome." He allowed a troubled smirk as he reached over and rumpled her hair. "Besides, he won't be able to find out anything about our organization. Who do you think we are?"

Kagome smiled at the arrogant swing Miroku put in his words and let out the anxiety she had in a breath. "Thanks, Miroku. What would I do without you?"

"Well, you'd be a hell of a lot more boring, I'll tell you that much."

Miroku climbed into his pod the exact moment Wallace came bustling through the door. "Oh, wonderful! The both of you are ready to go! Let's get this show on the road then!"

Kagome climbed into her own pod and relaxed as the top dropped and the stasis gel filled the small space.


He could tell something was wrong the moment the link was fully initialized. Her energy felt anxious and her voice sounded strained.

'Morning, Captain Taisho.'

'What happened?'

Sesshomaru cut off her greeting as the whole of his attention focused on his partner. He felt the emotional equivalent of her jerking back in shock before a wry chuckle met his "ears". His hands clenched into fists at the way she sounded, not liking the premonition it was giving him.

'How much time do we have before the mission starts?'

'Thirty minutes until we reach the first point of interest.'

Kagome let out a shaky breath and asked for something she never thought she ever would to anyone. 'Can I share my memory with you?'

Sesshomaru paused at the question. He had learned at an early age that a psychic put up barriers when they linked with another person. These barriers kept the two linked as individuals; only connected by the strands necessary to work together. What Higurashi was asking, was whether he would allow her to drop those barriers or not.

Most battle-link partners took years to amass the kind of trust it took to contemplate dropping those barriers, seeing as it exposed parts of yourself you kept hidden from others. The fact that Higurashi trusted him enough to ask, considering the short amount of time they had known each other, caused something within him to shift.

'If you are willing.'

She didn't say anything back, but he felt the change in the link. If he had to describe it in words, it was like feeling a flower unfurl behind you and suddenly she was wrapped around him. Not changing, but more.

He closed his eyes as images started coming to him, as if reliving his own memory. Hands, too small and delicate to be his own, reaching out for a bio scanner. A glance into an empty room. The door to the seemingly empty room opening and getting pulled into it against his will. The feeling of helplessness as he was held against his will under a strange psychic attack.

He watched, felt and heard as Higurashi was confronted with a changed childhood friend and the fallout that proceeded. He felt her panic as she tried to help the young guard pinned to the wall and finally her pity and sorrow as her attacker's life ebbed away. Thinking it was done, he started to pull away, but stopped at the sensation of something pressed into her palm.

The image faded and Sesshomaru found himself back in the debriefing room sitting before the table once again. 'What did she give you?'

'A vid-chip detailing the process and experiments she went through.'

He could sense the emotional upheaval the chip caused within her and stopped that line of questioning. Just as he was trying to think of a way to ask his next question, she answered it for him.

'The detective sent to question me after the attack didn't believe anything I had to say. It was reported that Yuka was just a psycho with explosives and left at that. At the time, I hadn't seen the vid-chip yet, so…'

'You watched the chip after. Why didn't you give it to the detective?'

'I…He didn't…feelright.'

'Hn.'

Kagome let out a slight giggle over his usual response, letting her nerves settle with the sound. 'Miroku came to my rescue soon after and the both of us watched it at his place.'

Sesshomaru's fists clenched tightly in his lap, not liking the emotions another male around Higurashi made him feel.

'Miroku.' He not quite asked and Kagome felt this was a good segue into the next bit of her story.

'Yeah. A friend of mine on board Eden.He's Sango Taijya's partner.'

Sesshomaru's teeth clenched as he remembered Taijya mentioning her partner before. The fact that she had labeled him as a raging pervert stuck out vividly.

'Turns out he's part of an organi-'

'You went to his room. Alone.'

Kagome blinked as Taisho cut her off, not understanding where his line of questioning was going.

'Uh, yeah. He's my friend and I-'

'Your friend.'

He cut her off again and Kagome felt the sparks of irritation ignite.

'Yes, Taisho, my friend! I have those, you know! Now would you stop interrupting me so I can tell you about this secret organization?!'

Sesshomaru let out a slow breath, beating his jealousy back to deal with at a later time. 'Proceed.'

'Thanks, oh great one. Now where…oh yeah. So, it turns out that Miroku is a part of this secret organization that handles this kind of thing. We got in touch with his…superior? He's looking into the drugs now.'

'How convenient.'

It was all Taisho said and Kagome felt the stirrings of trepidation. Before she could think of what to say, Butch sauntered into the debriefing room and all attention went to him.

"Alright. We're approaching the asteroid field and the scanner is being put to work. As the mission stated earlier; we have no real objective. We don't know what we're looking for, but there is weird shit going on around here. Keep your guard up."

Inuyasha snorted as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head. "And if we don't find anything? This whole thing seems like a waste of time."

Butch scowled at the brash soldier. "Then ya get a cookie for a job well done." He answered snidely crossing his own arms across his broad chest. "The hell you think this is? Your job is to investigate the shit higher ups tell you too. Welcome to the front lines, moron."

He ignored the angry insults coming his way and looked to the others in the room, taking in their expressions and pausing on the rather dark look coming from the normally stoic captain. When his gaze locked with molten amber, he raised a brow in silent question. The cooling of the dark emotions and his usual frosty look was his answer, so Butch turned back to the center of the room.

"If that's all, get your asses into the transport room. We're coming up on the first point of interest."


Kagura wasn't worried about the mission. Truth be told, she had no real emotion towards it to begin with. However, she was starting to rethink her stance on that due to the emotions she was getting from Hadani. He was paying an extreme amount of attention to everything showing up on the scanner.

Normally, Naraku Hadani only paid enough attention to their missions to get through it. He always had something else he was focused on while they were linked, and Kagura preferred it that way. The guy was creepy, and had weird notions on how the universe worked. She didn't want him more invested then he was while in her head.

This time, unfortunately, he was focused in on everything with laser accuracy. When the scanners had picked up an entrance to the large asteroid they were hovering by, his interest had piqued but he had shown no signs of amazement. He had known from the beginning that something was here.

Kagura kept her observations to herself, not wanting to tip the guy off with her thoughts. When they had been transported to the entrance and quickly infiltrated the place, she had been disappointed that there weren't swarms of enemies coming at them. Hadani had not been. In fact, his focus had sharpened when there weren't any signs of the enemy at all.

"Geez. Betcha this was something they were using and they just abandoned it." Inuyasha's voice carried over the mic's and Kagura nearly jumped when Naraku seemed to answer him.

'Of course it's not abandoned. They're waiting.'

'Who's waiting? What are you talking about?' Kagura stopped walking forward as she demanded answers from her partner.

'Oh? Finally going to ask, puppet?' His chuckle set her teeth on edge and Kagura called the rest of the team back to where she had stopped.

'Spill it, Hadani. What do you know? And so help me…'

'Yes, yes. Threat this, threat that. I would have told you if you had asked earlier. You think I hadn't picked up on your curiosity?'

"Yo, Kaze. What's the hold up?" Wolfe asked as the team came back to stand around her, both Taisho brothers still facing the way forward.

"Hadani says he has some information about this mission." She spat out caustically, aiming the emotion to her partner.

"What?!" Wolfe got out before exclamations from the others drowned him out.

'My, my. What an excitable bunch we are teamed up with.'

'Start talking, Hadani.'

Kagura listened as Hadani went on to explain, voicing out his words to the others.

"Hadani says he was recently recruited to this 'secret' lab. Apparently, your dad," Here she shot looks to Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, "thinks that the council is hiding a traitor." She blinked. "A traitor?! A traitor to what?! Someone's selling out confidential information to the Baasratu?!"

The other five team members watched as Kagura seemed to have a one-sided argument with herself, though knowing she was yelling at Hadani. Inuyasha took a step closer, physically trying to draw Kagura's attention.

"What the hell is this about a traitor? Who the hell would think it a good idea to team up with those bastards?!"

"Hold on, Inuyasha! I'm trying…Hadani! Stop your maniacal laughter and explain!"

There was a short pause and Sesshomaru heard Kagome murmur, 'So glad I'm not Kagura. Hadani is really creepy.' The relief he felt at hearing her say something other than mission related information was rather ridiculous. Since the awkward tiff they had had before the mission neither of them had said more than a few words to the other.

"So, according to Hadani, a traitor has been sending encrypted messages to the Baasratu through strange energy tied in with soldier's armbands." Kagura turned to Sesshomaru, propping her hand on her hip as she cocked it to one side. "Remember the one we found on the meteor base?"

"Yes. Speed up this explanation, Kaze." Sesshomaru intoned, turning back to keep an eye on the corridor before them.

"Right. Well, they asked Hadani to come in to decipher it. Long story short, Hadani says the last message they received had to do with this asteroid field. Apparently, the traitor is dropping something off here for the Baasratu to pick up."

Kouga froze before wild excitement rose within him. Ignoring the groan coming from Hakaku, he rubbed his hands together in the universal sign for glee. "Hell yeah. At least now we know the bastards are here! Let's go hunt 'em down!"

Inuyasha was the first to jump on the bandwagon followed by Ayame and a surprisingly reluctant Sango. Kagura let out a sigh and ignored the cackle coming from her partner. She wasn't sure how it happened, but she seemed to have been surrounded by idiots when she wasn't paying attention.

'Why would someone help the Baasratu?' Sesshomaru ignored the question posed by Higurashi and instead turned his full attention to the whole of the asteroid before them. The facility cut into the asteroid was a lot like the one the meteor base hidden behind the trick door had been. Turning his back to the noise behind him, he began his cautious trek forward.

'Are you picking up anything?'

Kagome mentally shook her head and gave Taisho the negative. 'Like I've been saying; the way they built this place, I can't get any accurate energy readings from more than a couple hundred yards in front of us. From what I can feel, there is nothing. If what Kaze said is true, then I won't be able to tell if the Baasratu are attacking until they are nearly on top of us.'

'Hn.'

Sesshomaru drew his saber and Kagome took it to mean they were to be on constant alert. Her curiosity spiked as she thought over what would drive a person to betray their race, and what exactly they would have delivered to their enemy.


Bankotsu clicked his tongue as he stood by the doors leading into the battle-link sector. They had high security and no amount of hacking was going to get him in there. Why did the freaking botanist have to also be a battle-link?

He had to hand it to her though, it was smart of her to stay the night with her boyfriend. Told him she had been tipped off that things were getting too dangerous for her. He could respect that, after all, the best prey was those smart enough to know they were being hunted. Giving the doors one final glance he turned back to the lift at the end of the hall.

He'd just have to wait for her to be alone. He smirked cheekily at a female tech passing by and chuckled at the blush that stained her cheeks. He'd just have to be patient, that's all.


They were a good half hour into their exploration when they realized that the corridors only branched off into other corridors. There were no rooms and Sango made the off-hand comment that it seemed they were stuck in a maze. After an hour of their search they came to realize that if it was a maze, it was far more complex than they thought.

They were just starting to feel that it was all a trap when the inevitable attack began. Kagome's swift indrawn breath and rushed warning was all Sesshomaru had to go on before he was raising his saber and decapitating the first of many rushing toward them. Amidst the wild slashing, the howling screams, and piercing energy attacks; Kouga managed to shout over the mics for them to spread out.

Sesshomaru had already been pushing through the onslaught to get a safe distance from the team to have full maneuverability in the tight corridor. He would not like to be the one to take down one of their own. The flurry of movement and attack from the Baasratu kept them all from thinking about anything except survival; running on instinct.

When it died down and Sesshomaru was severing the last limb of the last of the enemy, the corridor was dyed a garish orangey-yellow with tints of green and red.

"Holy Mother of-. Sons of bitches came out of nowhere!" Inuyasha shouted and Kikyo winced as she went over the wounds they had received. A small gash on his bicep had her a little worried.

"Everyone alive?" Kouga asked after catching his breath, relieved when he saw five human beings still standing. "Anyone critically hurt?"

"Fucker stabbed me in the arm. We got stuff to patch the suit?" Inuyasha answered immediately as he looked over the bleeding wound. Sango stepped forward with the small kit she kept with her. Ayame joined them, showing them the slash in her leg.

Kagura checked herself over, grateful all any of them got out of that were small wounds. The silence coming from Naraku had her worried.

'What?' She questioned in exasperation, wishing he would just spit it out.

'So now you wish for me to speak my thoughts, Kaze?' The way he curled his voice around her name had her shuddering.

'No. I don't. But you know more about this than the rest of us and I want to survive, Hadani.'

'This is a strange setup. They have lured us deep into the asteroid and for what?'

His musings seemed half completed, as if he was still working it out for himself. Before she could think of an adequate line of questioning, Kouga straightened from his lean and Inuyasha and Ayame appeared to have been patched up.

"That'll hold for now. I'll do a better job once we're ready to leave this crappy maze."

Sesshomaru again took the lead, ignoring the feel of Kagome's energy as she worked on the knotted muscles the sudden movement had caused. If their assassin training had been good for something, it was the increase to their speed. Kagome was sure they would have been toast if anyone else had been in the lead. They wouldn't have been able to react fast enough to keep the bulk of the enemy from blindsiding the team, as Sesshomaru had done.

It was ten minutes after they had set off again that they were, once more, attacked. In much the same fashion as the first time, the Baasratu came out of nowhere, hitting hard and fast, but were dispatched with relative ease. While Inuyasha and Kouga took this to be in their favor, inflating their egos with the thought that "they were just that good", Kagura and Sesshomaru were facing the grim thought that there was more to this than random attacks. This was strategy.

By the fifth time they were attacked in this similar manner, none of them were thinking optimistically. It was now that Hadani seemed to grasp it.

'They're wearing us down.'

Kagome, not knowing she was thinking along the same lines as Naraku, murmured something similar to Sesshomaru. 'They're building up to something bad. I don't think we should go on, Taisho.'

She was immediately ashamed of her thought, but couldn't hide the fear building with each step they took. Sesshomaru took in her thought but paid it no heed. They had to finish this. It was the mission they were given, and they were aware of it being a trap. Sensing his resolve, she let out a sigh and sent her energy forward once more, cautiously exploring before them and startled to realize she could push further than she could before.

'There's a room ahead! Something like thirty…maybe forty Baasratu.'

Sesshomaru relayed the information and they got ready for another battle.

The fight in the large room had been rather anticlimactic and Inuyasha was loudly complaining about it even as they looked around the place. It seemed to be a large cavern, probably built in the heart of the asteroid. Kagome figured the tunnels built around the asteroid all lead to this one room. 'Maybe a secret meeting place?'

'Possibly.' Sesshomaru rumbled back, still on high alert though there were no further signs of the enemy.

"What about this thing the traitor was supposed to drop off for the Baasratu?" Kouga asked out loud, speaking the thoughts of many of them in the room. "I don't know about you guys, but I haven't seen anything but alien guts and long tunnels this whole time. I don't see anything in this cavern either. You guys picking up any hidden doors?"

Kagome, who had been searching for that very thing let out a sigh of frustration. 'Nothing! Not even any traces of the usual residual Baasratu energy. It's like this place was wiped clean!'

A thought struck Sesshomaru, and just as he was fully forming it in his mind, a movement from a curve in the room had him turning, but too late to stop the thing coming at him. A piercing pain, hot like hellfire, shot up his back and he let out a hiss, never stopping the motion of his saber as he struck whatever had attacked him down. He grit his teeth as he realized he had only clipped it, knocking it back from him in the process. Before he could lift his arm for another attack, another saber was stabbing through the thing and Sesshomaru was left with the fierce expression on his half-brother's face.

"Dammit, Ice-pop! The fuck is that thing?!"

Sesshomaru swung his gaze to something that was small, dark red, and spikey. Before he could take in anything more than that, the piercing scream of his partner hit him like a blow to the gut. Turning his full attention to Kagome, he was alarmed to realize that the energy embedded in the attack to his back was working its way through his link and to his partner.

A wave of dizziness slammed into him and he realized Inuyasha was now holding him up from the ground. The noise of the others shouting took a back seat as he tried to stop the malignant energy from reaching Kagome through their link.

Things, he would later describe as black ooze, slithered along their link, moving fast. The screams coming from Kagome were near deafening and for the first time in his life, Sesshomaru felt helpless. The more he tried to stop the energy, the further from him it got. With an upsurge of frustrated fear, Sesshomaru felt his consciousness slipping and the last thing he heard before he slammed into darkness was her desperate call.

'SESSHOMARU!'


Miroku ripped at the electrodes strapped to himself as he kicked the pods top up and off him, ignoring the stasis gel splashing out and onto the floor. Ten minutes he had had to wait to get out of the pod, making sure Sango was back on board the ship and Taisho's unconscious body was taken care of. His eyes swung about the room, landing on the tearstained face of Wallace.

Stumbling out of the pod, his knees slammed into the ground but he ignored that in favor of grasping onto Wallace's shoulders.

"Kagome?! Where…what happened to Kagome?!"

He was shouting in desperation, frustrated that all he was getting from the woman were strangled sobs and blubbering answers he couldn't decipher. A pair of hands grasped onto his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Miroku looked up into the stern gaze of a very masculine nurse.

"They took Higurashi to the emergency room. She was unresponsive."

His breath whooshed out and sucked back in so fast he made himself dizzy. "I-I gotta…!"

"You need to get checked out first." Waving aside any argument he made, the nurse hefted him up and dragged him out of the room. "Med-bay first, then a shower."

Knowing he wouldn't be able to get away from the hulking man, Miroku slumped, his mind still going in circles over what had happened in the last five minutes of them being in the asteroid. As they came to the med-bay doors he swore the first chance he got he was going to find Kagome and he prayed she would be alright.

xXx

Woohoo! We are finally at the parts that I have been DYING to write. This is the start of the original idea that sparked this story. I am so excited! Ahem…I hope you all enjoy it as much as I am. Thank you for reading and please review.