Chapter 20
Inuyasha carries Kagome in his arms. He runs as fast as he can to his house. Shockingly, he makes it home in record time. Izayoi is waiting for him at the foyer. "Inuyasha. Oh no. What happened?" Izayoi asks as she sees Kagome unconscious in his protective arms. "Kikyo nicked her neck. But I was able to detect poison in the blood." Inuyasha tells her as he takes her to his bedroom. Izayoi wants to go with him, but then realizes that this is a private moment that Inuyasha needs right now.
Inuyasha places Kagome onto his bed and covers her in a red heavy comforter. He can see sweat forming out of her forehead, as well as breathing rapidly. Inuyasha places his hand onto her forehead to discover that she's having a fever from the poison. He knows that the nick has healed but the poison in her system is going to take a while to wear off. He goes into his bathroom and soaks a washcloth in cold water. He comes back and places the washcloth onto the girl's forehead to break the fever down.
When the cool water touched her skin, Kagome comes to. Even though her brown eyes are open, her vision is blurry. She tries to turn her head to see where she is, but can't. "Kagome." Inuyasha's voice reached out to her. All Kagome could do is move her eyes to see a blur of silver hair and red clothes. She tries to say something but can't either. 'I can't speak.' She thought sadly. Inuyasha takes hold of her cheek. "You've been poisoned when you got nicked. For you have a fever, your voice is out of commission, and you can't move." He explains so far how the poison is affecting the girl. Kagome can tell how upset he is. "Get some rest, Kagome. You need to use your spiritual powers to purify the poison." He presses his forehead to hers, before kissing it. That made Kagome smile and goes back to sleep.
Izayoi waits until Toga comes home. The door opens and Toga enters with Ai Higurashi behind him. "How's Kagome?" Ai asks Izayoi with worry in her voice. "Inuyasha is taking care of her." Izayoi simply answers the question. "Where is she? I need to make sure she's ok." Ai asks as she tries to look around the massive house, trying to find where her daughter is. "She's been poisoned. Inuyasha is taking care of it as we speak." Izayoi tries to calm down the woman. "Poison? I didn't see any poison in her." Ai said.
"Humans cannot detect the poison unless it's in their bloodstream. Luckily, Inuyasha was able to find it and is doing everything in his power to cure her." Toga explains to Ai. "That reminds me. Did you know that Kagome was a priestess?" Toga asks her. "Do you think that she could purify it?" Ai holds her chin. "I think so. But I don't know if she'll be able to do it though. Hearing her being poison can be rather difficult." She answers him truthfully.
Izayoi recommends Ai to follow her to the kitchen to get her some tea to make sure she could calm down and talk to her. Ai quietly follows to the kitchen and sits at the table. Izayoi makes sure that the tea is to Ai's liking. "Can you tell what happened?" Izayoi kindly asks as she serves Ai the tea. Ai gladly accepts the drink. "I was just minding my own business back homeā¦"
Flashback
Ai is doing the dishes from breakfast. A doorbell rings, telling Ai that someone is at the door. Ai opens the door to see a woman she has never seen before. "May I help you?" Ai politely asks the female visitor. The woman smiles. "Ai, It's me. Kikyo." The woman introduces herself. Ai can tell that this woman almost looks like her daughter. "I'm sorry. But I don't know you. How is it that you know me?" Ai asks Kikyo. Kikyo sadly smiles. "It's a shame that it has to come to this." Kikyo said. Ai is confused. "What are you talking about?" She asks Kikyo. 'Before I knew it. Someone appeared behind me and pressed a clothe with chloroform. When I came to, I found myself tied up to a chair in the middle of a cabin.'
End of Flashback.
Izayoi nods. "That pretty much explains why the imposter was behaving irrationally when she came into the office with me and Toga." She states out the observation. Ai looks down in conflict. "I still don't know who this Kikyo person is. And yet she claims that we were best friends before her death." She said to Izayoi. That gave her an idea. "Do you have any yearbooks from the years you've been to Sakura Hills?" Ai nods once. "I have a few since 6th grade. I'll have to look for them though." She answers the question with hope in her tone.
Izayoi nods to agree with Ai's idea. "Why don't we go through the yearbooks to see if what Kikyo said to you was true." She suggests kindly. Ai smiles. "Sure. Come on." She gestures Ai to ride with her to her home. Izayoi happily follows her. "Hold on. Did you get kidnapped at your home?" Izayoi brings up the missing detail. Ai gasps. "You're right. Tell me, did you see a green car with a heart sticker on the back window?" She asks Izayoi. Izayoi holds her chin to think back.
"There was one by my car when Toga and I went to pick up Inuyasha. It was someone else who hijacked your car." Ai nods. "Now that you mentioned it, When I came to, I saw it at the cabin where Naraku abducted me must've used it to do the same to Kagome. If only I knew where it was." She sighs in the end. Izayoi smiles sadly. "Unfortunately, Toga brought you here with his truck. We'll use my car." Izayoi guides Ai to her family garage and gets into a white sedan. When both got into the vehicle, Izayoi drives to Ai's house with the directions.
Izayoi pulls up the side of the street to see a set of stairs going up a hill. "Oh you live in a shrine?" She smiles. Ai smiles back. "Yes. It belonged to my late husband's father. So it's just me and Kagome." Ai explains before they get out of the car. It doesn't take them long to get up the stairs. Izayoi is amazed with the shrine grounds. "It's beautiful." She admits as she admires the layout. "Yes it is." Ai keeps her positive vibe in place and leads Izayoi to her house in the back.
A few minutes later, Ai leads Izayoi to the attic where she keeps her belongings. "You might need to have your hair pulled up so that it doesn't get dirty with the dust up there." Ai said as she gives the other woman a hair tie. Izayoi accepts it and manages to put her long ankle length hair into a bun. "Ready." Izayoi said. Ai pulls down a rope and climbs up the ladder with Izayoi behind her.
Ai looks through a few boxes to see where her yearbooks are stored. "Is this the box?" Izayoi asks her as she opens a lid to see a few books from Sakura Hills. Ai smiles. "Hmm mmm. That's the one." Ai kneels down to pick out her 6th grade book, while Izayoi goes through the 7th grade year. They both go through the pages to see just Ai with her maiden name on it. So far Kikyo isn't in either of the two books. "Let's look through the 9th and 10th grade years." Ai said as she brings out the next two books. They did the same thing to browse through the pages. "Nothing here." Izayoi repeats to find the same results from the previous search.
Izayoi goes to the 11th grade year while Ai went through the 12th grade year. "Look here." Ai said to Izayoi as she placed her finger to the page where Kikyo is on. From the page's layout, it was a memory page. "I didn't know that Kikyo died that year. Any idea what the cause of her death was?" Ai is shocked to make a discovery. Hearing what Ai said gave Izayoi an idea. "Ai do you think that you had lost a particular moment back then?"
Ai thought of something. "If I were to remember this right. There's supposed to be a page where students couldn't get their picture taken. Please pass those books." Izayoi hands over the books they went through. Ai goes to the page where her theory was right. After dragging her finger through the names her finger stops at the name. After each book search, the results remained the same. "Seems to me that she's camera shy." Izayoi comments softly. She decides to see if there's any other pages to see if Kikyo was part of clubs or sports. Nothing. "Did she have any relatives?" Izayoi asks her. Ai shakes her head. "No. Just her."
So far we only have a memory page of Kikyo. What about a picture of her senior year?" Izayoi said to her. They went through the senior year to find nothing about her. "I guess this is helpful here." Ai sighs as she puts away the books. Izayoi can see that there's nothing else they can get here. "What about obituaries?" She asks Ai. "Maybe. We should check that out." Ai agrees as they get out of the attic and go to the living room where her laptop is located. Ai opens up the link where the obituaries are stored. After putting in Kikyo's name on the search list, a few articles show up. Ai clicks the first article.
Student dies from a drug overdose
Kikyo Miko, age 18 was discovered late in the morning by a neighbor who usually takes care of her. The neighbor immediately calls 911 to see how the female died. When the ambulance took her to the hospital, the doctors were able to find her blood system full of opioids. From the neighbor's information, the girl was abandoned by her parents at a young age.
Izayoi is shocked to see this. "I guess abandonment must've made Kikyo go mental. I wonder where she got the opioids from. For what we know so far is that she shouldn't have that kind of money to buy the drugs." Ai said thoroughly. "What about the neighbor that found her. An idea who that was?" Izayoi asks her. Ai clicks the second article hoping it would give her the answer.
A quiet neighborhood shocked by a dead teenager. One late morning, a neighbor who doesn't want to be named discovered a girl dead.
"I guess that didn't help." Izayoi frowns from the result. Ai went through the remaining articles to find the same story. "No. Looks like we can't find anything here either." She closes the laptop and sits back on the couch. "If only I remember the girl. She claims to be my friend. And yet I don't remember her at all." Ai holds her head. Izayoi sits next to her and places her hand on her shoulder to comfort the woman.
