Crossover Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Journey to the City of Endless Night ❯ Chapter Thirteen ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter Thirteen

 

Kagome straightened her dress out again as she sat down onto the deck. She knew she had to be blushing furiously. Glancing towards Inuyasha, Kagome smiled slightly before looking back down at her clasped hands. She hadn't intended to answer his question, it just came out, and before she knew it she had said yes. Now that they were up on deck with everyone else, she sat across it from Inuyasha.

She turned her attention to the discussion as Belgarath said, “Well, Beldin, how long do you think it will take for you to get to Riva and meet us in Mal Gemila?”

Beldin scratched an arm pit. “Well, if I fly fast enough, I'll get there in about three days. How much longer do you think it'll take to get to the coast?”

Belgarath rubbed his beard. “I expect about three to four more days on sea. So you'll let the Alorn Council know that we've had some issues with a resurgence in the Bear Cult and that a Grolim is posing as a High Priest of Belar.”

“Yeah. Then I'll meet up with you in Mal Gemila. Wait for me. It shouldn't take me too long to catch up with you. If you're going to be on the sea for about four days, and it'll take me three to fly to Riva, it'll take me about three to four to fly back and meet up with you. That make sense?”

“Sounds good. I'll see you later then, alright?”

Beldin nodded, flexing his large hands into claws. He shimmered, a blue-banded hawk in his place. He beat his wings, soaring up above the ship until he was only a speck that remained in view.

“Now that's settled. Pol, what do you think the Grolims are up to?”

“I don't really know, father. I think, though, that the Grolims are using Naraku or Naraku is using them. One way or the other. Either that or they're both using one another. It doesn't make any sense to me as to why they'd send a Bear Cultist to attack Inuyasha, though. Until now, we were the only ones really aware of their arrival here at all. Excluding that sorceress, we haven't met anyone who knew who they were and none from our world.” She shook her head. “It just doesn't make any sense. Why attack Inuyasha? Why say he's going to be the new Dark God?”

Belgarath stood, pacing with his hands behind his back. “Maybe, and I'm going to take a leap here, maybe there are two groups of Grolims in action. One works for this Naraku and the other against. Obviously he's holed himself up at Cthol Mishrak, which is still a very holy place for some Grolims who wouldn't want it profaned by demon worship. Even if Torak's dead, they still adhere to their faith and that means no demon worship.”

Kagome looked from one to the other. Her brow furrowed in confusion, and she asked, “If these Grolims still worship their God, why would some want to go against his teachings on demon worship?”

Belgarath stopped mid-pace. “Impatience. They want to find retribution for what Garion did to their God. Not only did he kill him, he possesses Cthrag Yaska.” He pointed towards Garion's sword. “Garion, take the Orb off. Let them see it.”

Garion sighed, sliding the huge sword to the deck. He placed his palm onto the hilt, and an audible click could be heard as the stone came off. He held it in his hands, showing it to the group.

 

Belgarath said, “That is Cthrag Yaska to the Angaraks. Zakath can tell you that. You must never touch it because it only accepts those who are pure of heart, Garion, and those of his line.”

The azure glow covered the cupped palms of Garion as he moved to place it back onto the sword.

 

Belgarath continued, “I have a funny feeling that Naraku seeks the stone and wishes to use it to become a God himself. It still doesn't explain why they'd send a Cultist after Inuyasha.”

Kagome glanced over towards Inuyasha. He had a sneer on his face, his ears pinned to his head slightly as he watched the sea from his seat by the railing. He looked toward her for a moment before turning to face the sea completely, one ear turned towards the conversation. She sighed. Apparently he was still grumpy about having to be on deck in the first place.

Kagome looked back at her hands, a blush covering her cheeks again as she thought of how Inuyasha had kissed her before they had come up on deck. It had felt good to feel his touch. She felt herself become distracted by the thoughts, focusing less and less on the conversation going on. Glancing back towards Inuyasha, she sighed, crossing towards his position on deck and sat down next to him.

Inuyasha jumped, glancing towards her before he slid down away from her slightly, staring at the sea. His expression had reached a full out pout, his bottom lip sticking out slightly and his ears drooped.

 

Kagome sighed. “We'll be down below deck soon. Don't be so grumpy.”

“Feh.”

Sesshomaru interjected to the conversation the others were having, his quiet voice asking, “You said that Naraku would like to possess this Orb. But if it is only accepting of those of pure heart and the Godslayer and his kin, wouldn't Naraku be rejected?”

Garion blushed from his seat on the deck. “Just Garion will do. And yes, I have a funny feeling if the Orb sensed that this Naraku was going to do something bad, it'd punish him. The Orb has a mind of its own a lot of the time.”

Kagome put a finger to her chin. “So, your Orb is choosy about who can have it. Naraku has a large part of the Sacred Jewel or the Shikon no Tama. It can be used by anyone essentially. Why would he want something that might harm him?”

“The Orb can do anything you ask of it.” Garion smiled ruefully. “Once I told Zakath here that if I really wanted the Orb to, I could ask it to put my name in the stars, but I thought Belgarion across the night sky would be a bit over the top.” He sighed, shaking a finger at the small stone. “No, don't do that! I don't want that! It was only an example.”

Belgarath sighed. “You shouldn't yell at the thing. It might take it personally.” Turning, he looked at Kagome and said, “Tell us more about this jewel. It's labeled as the Jewel of Good and Evil Intent in the Prophecy.”

Kagome nodded. “Well, anyone at this point can pick up a shard of it and use it for what ever they wish. Naraku just has the biggest portion of it right now. The jewel is supposed to be purified. If one is like Naraku, it gets tainted.”

Inuyasha turned around, his arms crossed. “Basically, any demon too weak to fight on their own merits wants the damn thing, and any human who wants unlimited power seeks it.” He turned back around, glaring out to the sea.

Kagome nodded. “He's right. Most demons seek it to increase some power of theirs and pretty much anything that can be imagined can be wished with one shard. It all depends on what they're looking for in the jewel.”

“I see. Well, we've pretty much talked about what might be going on as far as we're aware. I figure, once we can reach the coast, we'll hear more about what is going on and figure out what all fits.” Belgarath stood. “I'm going to go below deck. I'm tired.”




Sesshomaru headed towards his cabin when he overheard his brother's miko remark, “Inuyasha, that is strike one.”

“Strike one?” Inuyasha was looking over her shoulder as she read something in her lap. Their door was slightly ajar, allowing Sesshomaru to see what was going on within the small cabin.

“You know full what I mean.” She elbowed him away from herself. “I'm trying to study and you are not helping.”

Inuyasha's ears drooped as he sat down on a different section of the bunk, out of Sesshomaru's view. “Strike one, I get three like in that game you mentioned, right?”

“Baseball. Yes. You remembered.”

“Why wouldn't I remember?”

Sesshomaru wondered what this game was, this baseball. He hadn't meant to stand so long by their door, but the issue of strike one and two of them remaining intrigued him. Just as he was about to continue on his way, Kagome said, “Yes, in my time baseball is very popular.” Her time? What did that mean?

“Well, your time smells and is loud.”

“Inuyasha, be nice. You like ramen and the microwave---and television.”

“Yeah, but I still don't understand how you future people fit into it.”

The little miko let a sigh escape. “They really don't put people into the box. They use film that records their images onto the screen.”

“They put their souls into it?”

“No, Inuyasha. Nothing in my time really works that way.” She flipped the page in the book in her lap. “It's just an image, kinda like a drawing except it's an image of them as they really are, alive.”

“Feh. Whatever.”

Sesshomaru mulled over this mention of the future. He knew they had been lying to him for some time about something, hiding at every turn what was really going on. Mention of the future and her time let some of the pieces fall into place. She had such strange objects. Could it be because of this time of hers? He shook his head and muttered under his breath, “It does not concern me.”

Inuyasha's voice growled out, “Who's there?” A few seconds later he shouted, “Sesshomaru, I can smell you.”

Sesshomaru entered the doorway, coolly staring. He did not feel the need to explain himself. He retorted, “I was on my way to my cabin. It is none of your concern.”

Inuyasha snorted. “You don't have to get all defensive.”

Kagome sighed. “Inuyasha don't fight with your brother.”

Inuyasha crossed his arms. “Let me guess, strike two, right?”

“No, Inuyasha.”

Sesshomaru looked from the miko to his half-brother and back again. It was plainly obvious who had more power in their relationship, and it didn't have anything to do with the prayer beads. “Miko, what is baseball?”

Kagome froze, her book thudding onto the floor. She sputtered before she replied, “Uh, it's a game, that's all.”

Inuyasha stood, his hand on Tetsusaiga's hilt. He glared at him, a low growl in his throat. “Don't you have something else to be doing right now, jackass?”

“I only asked a question. There is no need to grow defensive.” He coolly looked from Inuyasha to Kagome. They were hiding something for sure and he wanted to know what that was.

Kagome sighed, picking up the book that had clattered to the floor. She pretended to read it before placing it back onto the bunk, pulling her bag out. She struggled to put the book back into her backpack when she groaned. “Great. I can't find my math notebook.”

“You mean that weird symbol and spell thing?”

“Yeah, that, but they're not spells. Oh never mind.” She threw her hands up. “I'll just have to do them all over---again.”

“Miko,” Sesshomaru began again, his curiosity getting the best of him, “what is a math notebook?”

“Oh no, not you, too. Who ever said curiosity killed the cat never knew a dog demon.” She sighed, placing a hand over her eyes. “It's Kagome, by the way.”

Inuyasha gripped his sword hilt tighter, staring at Sesshomaru. He snarled, “Go find something else to do. Don't pester her so much.”

“You two are hiding something. You forget I hear very well. What is this about the future?”

Kagome looked horrified. “The future?”

“I think you phrased it as---your time.”

Kagome stuttered. “I think you must mean where we all came from, which isn't here.”

Inuyasha shoved into his face, his nose inches from Sesshomaru's. He snarled, “I said get the fuck out. Don't pester her so much. It's none of your damn business.” He drew Tetsusaiga out, intending to transform it into the full form and start a fight, regardless of the implications of sinking.

Kagome shook her head, sighing. She looked towards Inuyasha then Sesshomaru, both glaring at one another. She said, “Inuyasha, don't.”

Inuyasha turned one eye towards her. “He's making an ass of himself asking about things that have nothing to do with him. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't lop that other arm of his off.”

Kagome clenched her fists at her sides. “You're out of strikes, Inuyasha. Sit boy!” She looked over at Sesshomaru, and she stepped over the prostrate Inuyasha, standing with her arms crossed. She sighed.

“What are televisions?” Sesshomaru sat down, awaiting an answer.

Kagome looked towards Inuyasha as he struggled to get up, then bit her lip before replying in a rush, “I'm not from your and Inuyasha' s time. I'm from five hundred years in the future.”

Sesshomaru blinked before allowing his unemotional mask to settle again. “How is it that you are with my half-brother, then?”

Inuyasha, now that the truth was out, sat down in a corner. He glared at the two of them, his arms crossed around Tetsusaiga. He pinned his ears back, baring his fangs as a warning not to pull anything and Sesshomaru turned his attention onto the young miko, not wishing to instigate another fight. He sat down on the bunk, listening to her answer to his question.

“I, uh, I travel back and forth through the Bone Eater's Well. It's kinda hard to explain.” Kagome's eyes grew wild.

“You never answered my question. What are televisions.”

Kagome groaned. “They're impossible to explain. Basically, it's a box that receives a signal that shows people moving and talking in it. And, no, as many times as I've tried to tell Inuyasha, the people are not sealed inside the box.”

“How is it possible?”

“I'm not a technology expert, I just live with it.” She dug in her bag. “I suppose, since you are so enthralled, I'll let you look at a book of mine. It's the history of the twentieth century.”

“Twentieth century?”

“Just go with it, please.” She handed him a book, allowing him to look through it. “Now, I must do my homework. Again.” She slumped. “I'm so far behind that it's hopeless.”

Sesshomaru flipped through the book, noticing the pictures of different events, inventions, maps, and people. He stopped at the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He asked, “Humans were capable of such destruction? How?”

Inuyasha shrugged. “Something about atoms or something. I didn't get it.” He glared towards the wall, grasping Tetsusaiga tightly. “You should see the strange horse they have.”

Sesshomaru turned some pages, locating the strange contraption in the section on transportation advances. He looked at the diagram of the automobile, seeing how it operated and moved through the engine. “How odd.”

“Yeah. Don't ever be near one when it makes noise. They smell awful and make so much damn noise.” Inuyasha joined his brother on the bunk, pointing to the picture of the microwave on another page. “This, this cooks food and fast. It takes no fire or water to do it, either.”

Sesshomaru looked over the odd contraption, seeing that the book described these as waves that allowed it to cook food. He looked over towards Inuyasha, asking, “You have seen this?”

“Yeah. I've been to the other side of the well. I've used it and it worked really well. No hunting or anything. Those TV dinners are fast.”

“TV dinners?”

Kagome stifled a giggle, causing Sesshomaru to look in her direction. She looked back down when he caught her gaze, trying to do what she had called “homework.”

 

He looked back towards the book when Inuyasha said, “Yeah. They're what you're supposed to eat when you watch television. The box with pictures and sounds.” Inuyasha laid a clawed finger onto the picture of the television.

“I see. Are you allowed to eat other things?”

“Yeah. I don't think the box will stop you if you eat something else.” Inuyasha eased it into his lap, flipping through for a map. He pointed to it. “This is America, or so the book says. A lot of things happen there.” He opened the book to a chapter about their leaders. “They don't have lords. They have these guys for four years.”

Kagome gasped. “Inuyasha, did you read my history book?”

Inuyasha looked from the book towards her. He smiled sheepishly. “I was bored once when you went back for those tests of yours and you had forgotten it.”

“So that's why I couldn't find that book last time I went to class.”

Inuyasha nodded. He turned saying, “Anyways, they elect them every four years.”

“Why would they yield their power?”

“Something about democracy or something like that.”

Sesshomaru grew captivated by Kagome's history book. He remarked, “That is a lot of land for one ruler.”

“Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to me either, but that's what the book said.” Inuyasha flipped to another page with another technological advance: the video game console. “This I've also used. It's an interactive television thing.”

“Interactive?”

“Yeah. Kagome's little brother made me use it. I didn't do very well. Sota said that I died or something.”

“Died? But you're sitting right here.”

“That's what I told him.”

Kagome burst out laughing. Their eyes both locked onto her as questions danced in them. Sesshomaru asked, “What is so amusing?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Inuyasha didn't die. His character on the screen did. That's all.”

“I do not understand.”

Kagome sighed. She set her pencil down, crossing to the two. “See this black box here with this cord? It's a controller that goes into this bigger black box that's hooked up to the television. You make them move and do what ever the game asks you to do to win. Inuyasha didn't do so well because he hadn't seen something like it before. When the character resembling what you're controlling loses we say that you've died but not you the person.” She sat back down, picking up her notebook.

“I see. But why would you do something like that?”

“Full of questions. It's entertaining.”

Inuyasha shook his head. He flipped through to another page. “This item here is more amazing than that video thing, though it's loud.” He pointed to a stereo. “This makes noise, kind of like the television but without the picture. You take something and put it inside and it makes noise.”

“Why would anyone want such an awful contraption?”

“I don't know, but it is amazing how they get the sounds in the small thing.”

Kagome dug through her bag. “Inuyasha, you can actually show him the real thing. I have my CD player with me, my portable with speakers.” She withdrew the small silver item.

“You do?” Inuyasha shoved the book back into his brother's lap. “Why did you bring it with?”

“I don't know. I must have forgotten it was there when I packed things. When I was at home last I stayed over at a friend's and I brought the player with me.” She opened the top, looking at the shiny object inside before nodding and closing it again. “Here. Just don't play it too loud. We don't need the whole ship knowing.” She then pulled an odd looking black item. “On second thought, why don't you use the headphones.”

Inuyasha nodded, hooking them in where Kagome pointed. He then fumbled with the item trying to get the round black objects to line up with his ears. Then, he pushed the button Kagome identified, smiling in satisfaction as faint sound came. Inuyasha slid the object off his ears, handing them to Sesshomaru.

Sesshomaru placed them upon his ears, his stoic expression changing into one of wonder. The music was soft, a strange instrument playing a slow melody that flowed like water in a fountain. The fact that it could be contained in this small object attached now to his ears from a time that had yet to happen astounded him. This music was pleasing to the ears. “How did human mortals accomplish such feats?”

Inuyasha crossed his arms. “Now that you know, there's gonna be some rules.”

Sesshomaru slid the headphones off reluctantly, handing them to the little miko. “Such as?”

“We can't let this secret escape this room. Kagome's time is very different than our own.”

Kagome nodded. “We don't have any means to protect ourselves from demons in my time, mainly cause they're essentially unknown. What demons might live in my time must conceal themselves because most of what we know of demon kind is myth.”

“I see. What are these rules?”

“Well, for one, if Naraku were to find out that Kagome can travel between our worlds he'd probably find a way to raise hell in her time where no one can stop him really. We can't let that happen.” Inuyasha re-sheathed Tetsusaiga. “The fact is, we can't let too many people know Kagome's secret. That means you can't let this secret outside of this door.”

Sesshomaru nodded. “I understand.”

Kagome sighed. “It's possible that what Naraku might do in my time might affect your time. Because he's originally from your time, his actions might then also affect anything and everything in yours. I don't want to find out that because he does something in my time that certain whole things disappear. Not to mention the fact my family is there.”

A knock came to the door, disturbing the group. Polgara's face peeked inside. “Someone was looking for you, Sesshomaru.” She opened the door slightly, letting Rin inside. Rin ran to Sesshomaru, hugging him lightly.

Sesshomaru nodded towards the sorceress. “Thank you.” He looked towards the little girl. “Rin.”

The little girl looked up at him. “Yes, Sesshomaru-sama?”

“Go to our cabin.” The little girl started to walk towards the door, Sesshomaru following.

 

Inuyasha grabbed his hand. “You will keep this quiet, right?”

“Remove your hand from me, half-breed. I have no need to disclose the miko's secret.” He exited the room, following the child down the narrow hallway of the ship towards his own cabin before entering. Sesshomaru would have to mull over what transpired just a few moments ago. It certainly explained a lot of the occurrences that he had seen since joining Inuyasha and his miko.