Chapter 16

Toga goes to his office to make a personal call. "Hello, Mr. Takahashi. How may I be of service?" A male voice speaks to him from the other side of his phone. "Hiroki, I know how skilled you are to track down DNA samples." Toga speaks with him confidently. "Simply the best in our world." Hiroki smiles in return. "Do you have something that I can track down?" He asks coyly. Toga chuckles. "As a matter of fact, I do. I have my son's friends get a hair sample that she just gave to them willingly." He explains to his associate. "Hmm interesting. I'll be over in 5." Hiroki said before hanging up.

Toga sets down his phone onto a charging pad since he was able to see that the battery is almost dead. He sees the hair sample just sitting next to the mouse of the computer. Soon enough the phone chimes to let him know that Hiroki is at the house. Toga shakes his head to secretly admit that he needs to be more decisive about his associates. He walks out to the front door to see Myoga greeting Hiroki into the manor.

Hiroki looks a bit younger than Toga. He's a dog demon like him but his eyes are soft green, with red stripes on his cheeks. He even has long brown hair reaching to his shoulders. He is wearing a simple black pollo shirt with black slacks with a brief case in his one hand. "Hello, Mr. Takahashi. I'm here." Hiroki bows to him in respect. Toga smiles to him. "Welcome, Hiroki. It's been a while." He gestures his visitor to follow him to his office. Hiroki happily enters the massive office. "How long has it been? Ten years?" Hiroki asks playfully as he places his brief case onto the table. "Do you have the sample?" He asks Toga while he unlatches the clips on the brief case to open it up. "Pretty much. Inuyasha was just a kid the last time you saw him." Toga responds as he hands over the sample. Hiroki puts on rub gloves to prevent any tampering on the sample. He pulls a plexiglass capsule and puts the hair sample in it.

"Any idea how long this will take?" Toga asks him curiously? Hiroki takes of the rubber gloves. "Maybe a few days. Normally humans doing this kind of thing would take more than a week to determine the results of their samples. But I'm more efficient thus making it finished by a few days. From what your son's friends managed to achieve is quite intriguing." Hiroki said as he looks at the hair sample more closely. "Could you tell me who this individual is?" He asks Toga as he closes the brief case.

Toga gives Hiroki the information so far from Sango and his son. "So, this girl is supposed to be deceased and somehow she's alive and hasn't aged for the last decade?" Hiroki asks to confirm it. "Yes. I was baffled to know about this. Something doesn't add up." Toga nods to him. "What doesn't add up?" Hiroki asks him. "Like I said earlier this Kikyo is supposed to be dead but is somehow alive." Hiroki holds his chin. "Do you think that someone revived her?" He gives an idea. Toga shrugs his shoulders. "All we know for sure was that she's human. But humans have such short life spans than us demons." He gives his fact. "You're right about that. Anyway, I'll get back home to get data on this hair sample. I'll get back to you and soon as possible." Hiroki gives his word and leaves the manor.

Kagome is in the middle of her studies until a pebble taps onto her window. Kagome looks outside before opening it. "Inuyasha? What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be home?" She asks him tilting her head. Inuyasha leaps onto the windowsill. "What about it? You're my future mate and as such, it's my responsibility to be with you at all times." He informs her about the mating thing. Kagome shakes her head. "We were apart for an hour and you just come here?" She teases him.

Inuyasha smirks. "An hour is too much to me." He hops in and places his sword to the wall. Little does Kagome know is that the sword pulsates throughout the room. "Well as you can see, I'm busy studying for our tests for the end of the week. Just make yourself comfortable. It's going to take me all night to get through." Kagome said as she is about to sit back to her desk chair, but Inuyasha isn't going to do any of that. "No way I'm listening to you. Screw the studying." He wraps his arms around her stomach from behind as he whispers into her ear.

Kagome tries her best to get out of his grip, but Inuyasha's iron hold just wouldn't budge. "If you think you want to do some studying, you're going to be somewhere else." Inuyasha smirks even more. Kagome takes a deep breath and screams from the top of her lungs. The shrill noise forces Inuyasha to release her, and flat his ears to block out the noise. Kagome runs to the door to realized that won't open. Just seeing Kagome trying so hard to get the door open, Inuyasha laughs at her. "Inuyasha, what did you do here?" Kagome asks as she keeps trying to get out of her bedroom.

Inuyasha casually walks towards the door. "What are you talking about? You should know by now that I did something when I came in." Kagome turns to see him with his arrogant smirk, but then glances behind him to see the sword that he brought with him. "It's your Tetsusaiga, isn't it?" She crossed her arms in annoyance. "Yes. You see here, the Tetsusaiga isn't any ordinary sword. Remember when you put your hand on the hilt?" Inuyasha reminds her while he walks over to the sword, picked it and holds it horizontally in front of her. "What does it have to do with me?" Kagome is clueless at this point. Inuyasha grabs her hand quickly and places it on the hilt like last time.

Little does she know that the hilt is pulsating in anticipation. "It knows you. As such it will allow you to do something useful here." Inuyasha whispers to her. Kagome is about to let go of the hilt, but Inuyasha stops her. "What does it do other than knowing me?" Kagome asks him impatiently for once. "You see Kagome, if there's a chance that I'm not around, all you need is the sheath and it'll put up a barrier to protect you." Inuyasha explains as he pulls out the sword.

Kagome can see that the sword is so worn out that it couldn't even cut wet paper. "Looks can be deceiving, Kagome. It's just its original form. But watch." Inuyasha said as he concentrates his demonic power to activate the sword's true potential. Kagome widens her eyes to see the sword glow in a warm yellow hue. The rusty looking sword grows and changes into a fang of some sort. She even sees the hilt is furry around the sword and handle.

"Please don't do anything stupid in here, Inuyasha!" Kagome begs him. Inuyasha can see that Kagome is worried if one wrong move, she'd be in deep trouble. And that is something he doesn't want her to go through. He reverts the sword back into its rusty look and sheaths it back in. "Don't worry about it. I'm just showing it how this works. The barrier has its limit though." He slightly frowns. Kagome looks at him curiously. "How?"

Inuyasha sighs and sits on the floor. "The sheath can only withstand other demons, but once it takes it in, then the barrier is gone. So you only have one chance to protect yourself." He explains to her as she sits next to him. Kagome can see how determine Inuyasha is about this whole 'mate' thing. 'He's just looking out for me. He thinks that I can't handle myself.' Kagome thinks in awe. She had never expected him to be this serious. "Alright then." She said as she leans onto his shoulder.

Inuyasha turns his head to see her smile for real. "Alright about what?" He asks her. "You pretty much proved that you're capable to take care of me. I'll be your mate." Kagome admits her resolve. That alone made Inuyasha smile in happiness and gratitude. "I promise that I'll protect you with my life. I won't let you down." He wraps his other arm around her shoulder.