InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Fool's Redemption ❯ Rise and Fall ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3 - Rise and Fall

Sango led the way back out into the large hall. “You probably just want to get something to eat and go to bed, so we'll save the tour for tomorrow.”

“Food and bed sound wonderful, actually,” Kagome said as they headed toward the largest archway. The combination of the five-hour truck ride from Eona to Belle Drift and then the four-hour flight to Alduray had left her exhausted, and feeling much older than her twenty-four years.

“Boss!” someone called out from behind them, and the women turned to find Adem standing at the top of the landing that led down to the tower's entrance.

“What's up?” Sango asked.

“I just wanted to let you know that Ohanna is going to cover the cams for me tonight.”

“Did you put it in the system?”

He nodded.

“No problem then. Enjoy your night out,” she waved, and then seemed to remember something. “Oh, hey! Can you have Salito send an order of whatever he's making tonight up to room 1690?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” and she turned again to head through the arch with Kagome in tow.

“Boss?” Kagome asked curiously.

Sango smiled as they passed under the elegantly decorated passageway and into the towering atrium. “I'm the chief of security for this tower,” she explained.

“Really? Your head isn't shaved like the others,” Kagome mused as she looked up. The tower seemed to stretch up forever. She couldn't even begin to guess how many stories there were. The atrium itself was wide and completely round, the ground floor paved in polished concrete. She had been expecting to see more people wandering around, but there was surprisingly little activity, at least on the ground floor.

Sango laughed. “That's their own thing they like to do. They think it makes them look tough.”

Kagome smiled up at her. “I see.”

The older girl turned to the left and headed toward a pair of glass elevators. There was one waiting at the bottom, but as they got closer, Sango quickened her pace and trotted the last few feet toward it. Just as she arrived, the doors began to slide shut, but she was fast enough to catch them before they closed. “Not this time, you bastard,” she growled. “Every time I try to grab these elevators they take off just before I can get to them,” she explained.

Kagome chuckled and followed her inside. The doors slid shut and Sango pushed the 49th button on a panel of sixty, and the elevator smoothly started its ascent up the inside of the tower.

“I hope you don't mind heights,” the older girl said as they rose high above the ground floor.

Kagome placed her hands firmly on the elevator's handrail and peered out over the atrium. Now that they were higher up, she could get a better idea of its size. If she was guessing right, it was almost seventy yards in diameter. Directly across the atrium, she noticed the last rays of daylight fading through a long window that ran from the ground floor up the entire height of the building.

As she followed it up with her eyes she found that it connected to a glass dome that crowned the top of the atrium. “Not really. Elevators bother me more than heights, actually. I've never been in a glass one before, though. It's not so bad when you can see out.”

As they traveled higher, she noted that the long, door lined corridors of each floor encircling the atrium were all decorated the same—run with deep blue carpeting lined in fiery red and gold designs, the walls painted in a rich ivory-yellow tone. Alternating white and blue spheres floated in place along the walls, providing distinctive light along each corridor. Here and there, a few people idled about, walking through the halls and leaning over the solid balustrades to look out over the atrium. The elevator moved too quickly for her to get a good look at any of them, but from the quick glances she was able to get, she noticed that most of them seemed eclectically dressed in rich colors and unusual styles. Several unnatural shades of hair color caught her eye as well, and she remembered the comment her uncle had made about Inuyasha fitting right in.

“So, how much did Kaede tell you about Alduray?” Sango interrupted her silent observations as the elevator continued its ascent.

Kagome turned to her, remembering the feisty older lady who had helped her escape from Eona. “When I asked, she said that it was a `sanctuary of indulgence'. But she laughed when she said it, so I don't think she meant it in a mean way.”

Sango smiled. “That sounds like her. She likes our ideals, but she could never really deal with our society. She's just always felt more at ease helping the city from the outside. Not everyone can be comfortable living here.”

The city of Alduray was well known for its 'unrestrained' atmosphere, its drinking, its drugs, its sex, and its citizen's `work hard during the day and play hard during the night' mentality. “I've heard the stories,” Kagome said.

“And probably none of them good. The outside world still doesn't understand us very well. We have our own ways of living our lives that a lot of people on the outside would view as… excessive. It's because of that we have a bit of a notorious reputation. We've always been open about what goes on here. We don't try to hide anything. People are just going to think what they want to about things they don't understand.

“When someone first comes here, I tell them to forget everything they've ever heard about this place, to expect nothing, and just experience it for themselves. If they can't let go of the preconceived ideas and the gossip about our culture that the rest of the world has put into their heads, then they probably don't belong here anyways. Most people appreciate the advice. It normally makes the decision of whether or not this is the place for them much easier.

“But if you've heard the stories then you probably already know that we don't have many inhibitions here. So if you see people screwing around in the hallways, it's no big deal,” she said with a teasing smile. “Really, no one cares what you do here, so long as you're not hurting anyone or breaking an oath.” That last bit had Kagome giving her a quizzical look. “The first one is pretty self explanatory, and you'll find out about oaths tomorrow,” Sango explained as the elevator slowed and gave off a tiny chime. The doors opened and the two women stepped out, Sango heading to the left down the corridor.

They passed door after door, finally stopping at one with a silver mounting that displayed the number 1690. On the wall right next to the doorknob was a small, nondescript black dome. “This one is yours,” Sango said, pulling a rectangular device from her pocket. She pulled a thin wire from the top and plugged the other end into the side of the dome. After pushing some buttons on the device, she said, “ Place your hand on this, please.” She motioned to the thing on the wall, and Kagome did as she was asked.

After pushing a few more buttons, the lock in the door popped open, and Sango reached out to turn the knob. “It's programmed to let you in with your hand print now.” She opened the door and stepped inside, and Kagome followed, looking around curiously. Just inside the door, on the right, was a small kitchenette, complete with cabinets for storage, a half-sized refrigerator, a sink, and even a small counter top oven. To her left was the bathroom, and glancing in she found it wasn't as small as she was expecting.

“Damn!” she heard Sango exclaim, and she pulled her head out of the bathroom and walked further into the apartment.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

Sango sighed, shaking her head and looking at a pile of linens stacked on a bed that rested against the left wall. To the left of the bed, set against the inside wall of the bathroom, was a closet with double sliding doors. On the bed's right was a small nightstand with a lamp, and next to that a set of chairs faced the large floor to ceiling windows that made up the far wall of the apartment. The only other thing in the room was a table with a couple chairs standing against the other end of the window.

“I completely forgot to put these on for you. I wanted this place to be livable for you the moment you got in, but I was so busy today I totally forgot. I'll do it now,” she said reaching for the stack of linens.

Kagome smiled. “It's alright. We can do it together,” she said, and reached to help her. The two of them worked together, and before long the bed was completely made. As they finished, a knock sounded at the door and Kagome answered it to find that her dinner had arrived.

“Tell Sal to bill it to me!” Sango shouted to the young delivery man.

Kagome closed the door and walked back to sit on the bed with the large box of food. “You didn't have to do that. Thanks, though. I'll pay you back,” she said gratefully.

But Sango waved her off. “It's no big deal. My treat, to welcome you.” Kagome opened the box as she continued. “Salito has a small cafe on the third floor. He makes the best food. I thought you'd enjoy it.”

As Kagome ate her dinner, which turned out to be fried dumplings stuffed with pork and chive filling, the two continued talking, and Kagome began to feel as if she had found a good friend already. “How long have you lived here?” she asked.

“I was born here,” Sango said, swinging her feet along the side of the bed. “My father was part of the original crew who built this tower. My mother came with him. I was born shortly after the tower was completed. It's the only home I've ever known.”

Kagome chewed thoughtfully on a dumpling. “It must be nice to have had such a stable life. Are your parents still here?”

Sango shook her head. “My father travels now, working as a foreman for your uncle. He oversees the building of new domes for outlying cities. My mother goes with him. They haven't been back in a few years.”

“You must miss them,” Kagome said, closing the box of food and walking to the refrigerator to place the leftovers inside. She returned to the bed and reached for her bag, opening it and taking out the few things inside.

Sango shrugged. “Sometimes. They keep in touch, and I have my job here. That keeps me busy, so I don't have a lot of time to think about it.” As Kagome turned to her closet with an armful of clothing, the older girl asked, “Is that all you have?”

Kagome looked down at the little pile of clothes and nodded. “I lost everything else in a fire a few days ago.”

“Oh God, Kagome. I'm sorry,” Sango said sympathetically.

“It's alright. I managed to save most of my important things. I lost all of my clothes though. This is all stuff Kaede bought for me before I left Eona.”

“I guess we'll just have to take you shopping as well then, won't we?” Sango said encouragingly. “There are plenty of places here that sell clothes. Pretty much the entire second floor has…” She trailed off suddenly, and Kagome turned to see why. The older girl had bent over to pick something up off the ground. “Something fell out of your clothes,” she said. Kagome blanched a bit when she saw what it was.

It was a small photograph that she had managed to swipe from the lab before it had been shut down. The young man in the photo had long, matted white hair and two strange feral ears that sat on top of his head. His golden eyes stared out from the picture defiantly. It was the photo that had been kept with Inuyasha's file, and it was all she had to remember him by.

“This is… the red prince,” Sango said quietly, staring at the picture.

“Red prince?”

“Inuyasha.”

“Oh. Yeah, that's him.” Red prince? Kagome wondered.

“He looks younger. And thinner…”

“It was taken awhile ago.” He had never been the picture of health while he was imprisoned in the lab. His hair had always been a mess, and his bones had protruded severely when he refused to eat.

“So, you knew him before he came here then.”

Softly, hesitantly, she replied, “Yeah.”

Sango glanced up at the younger girl when she didn't continue. Thankfully, she seemed to understand that Kagome didn't want to talk about it. “I see. I can take you to him, if you want.”

Kagome shook her head. “Thanks, but I'm not ready to see him again just yet.”

Sango cocked her head to the side a little, looking as if she realized that there was a world of things that she didn't know about the situation, and nodded. “I understand. If you ever need to talk about it, you can talk to me.” She placed the picture on the nightstand.

Kagome smiled at her gratefully. “I appreciate that.”

“No problem,” Sango nodded. “You should probably get some sleep now. Tomorrow's gonna be a really long day for you. I'll show you around, and show you where you'll be working, and if you're feeling up to it, we'll go out in the evening.”

Kagome nodded, and after telling her to make sure she was ready to go by ten the following morning, Sango left, leaving her in the silence of her new apartment. It was only then she realized how truly exhausted she was. She quickly shed her clothes, brushed her teeth and crawled in between the brand new sheets of her bed. She reached over to turn out the light on the nightstand, but instead picked up the small picture of Inuyasha. As she stared at his image in the dim light, she thought about how strange it was to be within the same walls as him once again, and she wondered what he was doing at that moment.

*****

They had accosted him the moment he stepped into the elevator. But it was all right. He knew both of these women well, so he didn't try to stop them when they began their advances. Now, as the elevator descended down the side of the atrium, they stood one on each arm, talking excitedly about their plans for the night, hinting that they would be happy to spend the evening with him, if he liked. The blonde on his right had brushed back his white hair to begin playfully nibbling on his neck, her hand moving to trace lines along the front of his shirt as her friend on his other side continued to talk about things he found he wasn't interested in. He leaned his head back against the glass wall of the elevator and stared up through the clear ceiling.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the attention. It helped to provide a distraction from his troubles. Women enjoyed being around him, and he enjoyed having them around. That's just the way it was with people here. But lately, the normal diversions weren't working as well as they used to, and he found himself becoming bored easily. He felt stagnant, as if he had gotten stuck in a rut. The city was constantly changing and evolving around him, and sometimes he wondered if he was being left behind, if he was the only one who remained unchanging.

He had come so far from his miserable past, but he still felt as if he couldn't shake it completely. He loved living here, and was grateful for the chance he had been given to show himself as more than just a pitiful victim of irresponsible science. He had a place here, he was popular, and the things he did were appreciated. But even with all of that, there was still something holding him back, something he hadn't quite let go of—if only he could figure out just what the hell that “something” was. The return of these troubling thoughts caused him to frown up at the retreating dome of the atrium as the elevator continued its descent.

He was distracted from his brooding as the blonde ran her tongue through the hollow of his collarbone. Her friend had asked something, but he hadn't heard it. “What?” he asked. But she didn't have time to repeat the question before the elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened to reveal Sango standing on the other side.

“Hey, Inuyasha,” she greeted him lightly as she stepped inside.

Inuyasha nodded and returned her greeting as the doors shut and they continued downward. He knew her well. She'd been a friend of his ever since he had arrived in the city. She had been the one to find an outlet for his pent up anger, putting him to work with the crew building the new greenhouse. She had been the one who had worked so hard to introduce him to everyone and made sure he felt like the city was his home. Their relationship had always remained platonic, and he saw her as a sister more than anything.

Evidentially, the question the other girl had asked wasn't something that she wanted to share with Sango in the elevator. So instead she joined in the blonde's ministrations, her hand creeping down to his waist and lower. Inuyasha suppressed a cynical smile. She was too shy to ask a question but not shy enough to refrain from feeling him up.

He noticed Sango staring at him from the corner of her eye. Her expression was strangely unreadable, and he found it annoying. “What?” he snapped at her.

“Nothing,” she replied evenly, turning her eyes back to the elevator door. “Getting started a little early tonight, aren't we?” she asked nonchalantly.

He stared at her as if she had asked the question in another language. “What's with you? Is there a problem with that, officer?” He accentuated the last word sarcastically, knowing that she was used to his attitude and wouldn't take offense to his tone.

“Yeah, officer?” the blonde on his right arm chirped with a giggle. Inuyasha shot the girl a warning look, and then looked back at Sango, who gave him an appreciative smirk.

“No problem at all,” she replied as the elevator chimed that it had arrived at its destination. The doors opened and Sango stepped out with a little wave. “Enjoy your night.”

Inuyasha stared after her suspiciously, until the doors closed and the elevator began its descent once again. What's with her? he wondered.

“Hey,” came the small voice of the blonde. “Did I make you mad?”

Inuyasha sighed, and assumed his respectful, model-citizen persona. “It's alright. It's just that we're friends, so it's ok if I give her a hard time like that. But you shouldn't. She's chief of security, after all.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, returning to his neck and whispering seductively, “I'll make it up to you.”

“I'm sure you will,” he said, forcing a slight smile to hide his boredom with the idea.

Continued in Chapter 4 - Throughout the Halls of Wonderland