InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bottled Genius ❯ Where your Loyalties Lie ( Chapter 8 )

AN: I'm sad to say that unfortunately, Miroku, Sango and Shippo won't be appearing in this fic. I miss them already, but I can't work them into the plot. Maybe next time. (though everyone seemed to think that maybe Miroku was Inuyasha's master (?!) It could be Kaede - no one thought of that one… anyway, you'll find out in a minute or two who it really is.)

And did you know that Inuyasha's clothes (in the manga and anime) are derived from the festive clothes worn by Shrine priests? Something called the Kariginu. I only found that out yesterday (God bless the Inuyasha art book!).

Bottled Genius

Chapter 8

Where Your Loyalties Lie

It looked like the weather was finally beginning to change, because when Kagome opened her eyes the next morning the light streaming through the dusty old window was bright and blinding. She covered her eyes with her hands as she quickly tried to adjust to the bright light. When she was safe she dropped her hands and smiled mildly to see that there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was such a blue sky that it could make the Thomas the Tank Engine skies jealous.

The birds were enjoying it as well by the sound of it. They were twittering excitedly in the tree outside her window, their small bodies flitting from one branch to another in the morning chorus.

It was probably their racket which had woken her up.

Hang on…

Kagome stiffened in her bed, listening intently. Bird song? The small crystal sweet notes were muffled slightly by the closed window, but she could still hear them. A surge of excitement launched her out of bed in seconds - the squeak of rusty old bed springs complained beneath her and the blankets rustled as she threw them back. Downstairs she could hear Souta talking to someone loudly over the phone and the sound of banging pots and pans as her mother prepared breakfast.

She scrambled over to the window and threw it open, the bird song hitting her full in the face for the first time in over two months. "I missed you guys!" she told them, her voice sounding odd to her own hears and scratchy and brittle as if she hadn't used it in a while. Which she hadn't, obviously. Immense relief and joy welled up inside her and she took a deep breath and released it in the best way she could.

She screamed at the top of her lungs.

The little birds in the tree stopped singing at once and scattered every which way and Kagome broke off her scream, laughing. She shouldn't have been taken by surprise like this - after all she'd been counting down the weeks and Inuyasha had told her the night before that her senses would return the next morning. Of course, she hadn't really been paying much attention to such trivial matters last night.

"Inuyasha?" she turned back into her room and looked around. "Hello? Inuyasha I want to talk to you! I actually can talk to you!"

The room remained empty and quiet. Kagome's smile faded only slightly as she began to wonder where he was. She'd never had to really ask for him to come to her - every time she thought she needed him, he'd always just popped into view. She'd never really had to even think about asking him over… he'd always be there.

"Inuyasha?" she called, a little louder this time. "Where are you? I thought you were supposed to come when I called you?"

Like a dog in that way. But a little disobedient dog right then, because he wasn't materialising before her.

She paused a moment, frowning in concern, before quickly forgetting her confusion as she remembered she could hear and talk again! "Yes!" she crowed as she leapt down off the bed and stomped her feet repeatedly on the floor. "About bloody time!"

She set about getting dressed in the noisiest way she could manage. Slamming the doors of her wardrobe and snapping the drawers back into place as she retrieved her clothes, savouring the sound of each echoing bang. She could get used to this.

She hummed happily as skipped along her way to the bathroom and even more happily washed her hands for nearly ten minutes, not being able to get enough of splashing her hands in the soapy water. She swore and vowed that she'd never take her hearing for granting again, and she'd never take the gift of gabble for granted either!

When she went downstairs and greeted her family, screams of happiness, not unlike her own, went off.

"You can talk! You can hear us?!" Mrs Higurashi hugged her daughter happily.

"Ugh… tighter Mom, I think I still have a little oxygen left in my lungs…" Kagome gasped against her mother's surprisingly strong embrace. Mrs Higurashi pulled back and kissed her on the forehead. "It's a miracle! It must be!"

It was Souta's turn next as he hugged his older sister around the middle. "I knew it! I knew you were faking it all a long!"

Kagome laughed and tweaked his ear teasingly. "Yeah, just to annoy the heck out of you guys."

Grandpa patted his daughter on the shoulder. "I told you my charms against evil would come in handy one of these days. I had a feeling the evil presence in this house left last night."

Kagome set Souta aside to give him a great big hug. "What would I do without you Grandpa?" She pulled back and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Talking of an evil presence - has anyone seen Inuyasha around?"

"Inuyasha, your friend?" Mrs Higurashi smiled as she shrugged. "Should we have seen him?"

"Well… he usually hangs around…" Kagome sobered slightly as she glanced at her mother. "I expected to see him this morning…"

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled to find you can talk again." Mrs Higurashi told her. "What a nice young man. So polite. And really complimentary about my cooking."

"Right…" Kagome laughed and shook her head. Praise for Inuyasha? Hah… at least some kind of miracle had occurred.

But as the day wore on, Kagome was starting to get slightly worried about Inuyasha's lack of appearance. She went up to her room numerous times, because that was the place she usually bumped into him… but he never showed up. She called his name a few times and even made a risky gamble at one point.

"Inuyasha… at the risk of sounding like a postcard… I wish you were here… now…" She tapped her fingers nervously together and looked around cautiously, wondering if it was such a good idea to throw away a sixth wish like that. But nothing happened, no one appeared and she was alone as ever. She felt a little sad… had he run away? Was that possible? Was he angry at her for what happened last night. He'd pushed her off him and disappeared. Had she offended him by offering to comfort him… he was a proud kind of person… he didn't want compassion offered like he was some kind of weakling - she understood that. But was he still angry and upset at her? Was that why he was avoiding her today?

Or had something worse happened?

Great… now she was actually beginning to miss the gas bag. With a sigh she went back downstairs to go watch some Tv (without subtitles this time!) and finally settled on some boring game show that made lots of noise and had lots of people cheering in the background to keep her ears entertained. But at some point she lost track of what she was watching in favour of wondering where Inuyasha was… and what he was doing right then…

"Hey Kagome!"

She blinked back to the present and sat up as Souta came running into the living room holding what she thought for a moment was some scrap cloth in his hands. "What is it?" she asked as he reached her side.

"Ain't this the dog-boy's?" he held up the cloth in his hands and Kagome's breath caught in her throat.

She quickly snatched the coat from Souta and held it up higher to scrutinise it. It was Inuyasha's alright… that dark red haori that was so old and battered that it now looked closer to brown. But what worried her most was the long rip that had practically torn the coat from the sleeve, all the way across the back, to the other sleeve. What on earth had he done to this coat… or what on earth had something else done to him?

"Where did you find this?" she asked Souta without looking up at him.

"By the oil tank outside." Souta told her. "He must have left it last night. What do you think happened to it?"

"It got torn." Kagome said flatly.

"Well, we're all glad to see your using speech to its full potential." Souta rolled his eyes and started to leave. "Maybe now you can buy him some new clothes as a present. He might like you even more."

Kagome didn't really register what he said as she fingered the rough material of his haori… this meant something was very wrong. Inuyasha wouldn't just disappear and leave his ratty old coat lying around… if he'd left he would have taken it with him.

So what if someone or something had taken him instead. Kagome's hands stiffened and clenched the haori close to her chest as she contemplated. All sorts of scenarios and situations ran through her head. Most of them involved government spies and officials and sometimes helicopters…

What if the government had captured him and were now dissecting him piece by piece, ear by ear, to discover what he was and how he did the things he did.

"Oh…" Kagome whimpered slightly and brought her hands to her mouth, forgetting she still held the haori in her hands. The result was that she got a very strong whiff of his clothes. She blinked and looked down in surprise as she took another sniff. "Wow… he smells like…" she sniffed his collar again to be sure. Yep, there was a very subtle humid smell… the way the damp air of the forest smelled in the morning in warm weather. Of course… that could be because the coat had been lying outside all morning and the weather was very humid today… but she'd vaguely noticed the similar smell last night when she'd put her arms around him and found her nose touching his sleeve.

Kagome's face heated up slightly. Wonderful. It was bad enough to appreciate his appearance, it was one step worse to start appreciating his personal smell. But it was so… so drinkable… she held the material up to her nose and inhaled deeply. Over the past two months, with her hearing blocked and her voice useless, she was certain that other senses had become more acute. Like her sense of smell for instance…

If she closed her eyes she could just imagine herself in a forest, dampness present in the air after a storm and some musky scent of masculinity that seemed mixed in with the sweet smell of the forest.

And oh dear god she was turning into a pervert. She hastily dropped the haori onto her lap and looked around to check no one had seen her antics. She was lucky this time… because usually Inuyasha had the annoying habit of popping up when she least needed him, usually at a time like this.

Kagome sighed and shook her head. "Next I'll be rummaging through his underwear drawers and sniffing the contents…" she told herself irritably as she folded the haori on her lap and ran a finger along the very prominent rip. Maybe he'd accidentally ripped it on a tree branch or something and had been so upset that he ran away crying.

She really hoped that was the real explanation for his disappearance… even though she knew how unlikely it was that Inuyasha would cry. But it was better than the more logical explanation that he was angry at her and was refusing to see her. How long could Inuyasha hold a grudge?

She'd have to wait and see.

^_^

"Well this seems an awfully cheerful place…" Inuyasha said flatly as he looked around. "In a maniacally depressing sort of way."

"Shut your mouth." His master tottered precariously to sit down on a worn out armchair.

Inuyasha cast him a dirty look and levered himself up to sit on what looked like it had once been a washing machine, but was now more like a rusty grey box. In fact the whole house was just one room filled with all kinds of junk and crap that looked like it had fallen off the back of garbage lorry. He wrinkled his nose and distaste as he leant back against the wall. "And the smells just keep getting better and better…" he sighed and rolled his eyes towards his master. "You ok? You look like you're about to drop dead." He laughed a little cruelly after saying that.

"Didn't I tell you to shut your fucking trap?" A beer bottle sailed Inuyasha's way. Though he didn't even need to bother ducking or moving to avoid getting hit. The bottle smashed a few feet from his head against the wall and Inuyasha's smirk widened and he whistled. "Well. Your aims a lot worse than it used to be."

"Happens when your body starts betraying you like it has for me…"

"My heart bleeds for you." Inuyasha drummed his fingers against the washing machine he was sat on. "And so on a lighter note, what do you want me to do about it? Fix you up I suppose…"

"Hardly. You'll probably twist the wish and make it worse." His master's breathing was heavy and laboured.

Inuyasha's smirk faded to something more towards pity. "You poor bastard… how about you wish for me to kill you. Trust me, I think it'll be for mercy."

"You'd just love that wouldn't you."

Inuyasha just shrugged and averted his gaze.

"I was a fool… wishing for immortal life. Yes… that's what I got… but I still aged didn't I? I've been shot six times in the chest and I should be dead… and blood still pours into my lungs everyday… but I never die. I've been run over twice and my legs have been shattered three times. I heal… but never completely. I should be dead… but that will never happen."

"Onigumo…" Inuyasha hopped down from the washing machine and approached the arm chair. "If that upsets you so much, why don't you wish for some anti-wrinkle cream? But you'll be doing us all a favour if you just let me end it for you."

A harsh laugh ripped from his master's throat, Inuyasha raised an eyebrow when he noticed a few blood splatters. "You! You're just out for revenge against me because of Kikyo. You can try and hide behind a genial mask of pretending to not care - but you just want to kill me because-"

"SHUT UP!" Inuyasha lashed out at him heavily, hitting his old crippled master around the jaw and sending him and the chair sprawling backwards. But the moment his fist connected, a horrible bolt of what felt like electricity shot threw him and made Inuyasha double up in agony. He gasped and drew away from the fallen chair and Onigumo as spasms wracked his muscles and felt an odd burning sensation on the flesh of his right arm… the arm which had punched Onigumo. "D-Dammit…"

The pain gradually faded until he could straighten again. He tentatively touched his burnt arm and picked at the singed holes in his shirt sleeve. He looked up when he heard Onigumo beginning to laugh.

"Did you forget?" Onigumo slowly picked himself up off the floor, shoulders hunched and gnarled hands gripping the edge of a nearby table. "My second wish. Anyone who intends me harm to get a nasty surprise…"

"I never forget a wish." Inuyasha clenched his right fist, willing away the soft searing pain that still ran through it.

"Maybe you should think twice about striking a master." Onigumo jerked his chin towards the chair. "Put it back."

Inuyasha clenched his jaw tightly and used his foot to kick the arm chair back to an upright position. "Happy?" he snapped.

"Ecstatic." Onigumo sat back down with a weary sigh, but a sneer still playing on his thin chapped lips. "Though… it's probably my fault. I shouldn't tease you about Kikyo. You were always overly protective of her. I suppose your still overly protective to her memory as well."

Inuyasha forced his temper back down and shrugged as he turned away. He wasn't going to let the asshole get to him.

"Now… I found you for a reason…" Onigumo started evenly. "I want my last four wishes granted."

"Whatever." Inuyasha turned back to him. "You probably need them. So just get on with it."

"For my sixth wish… I want Kikyo… bring her back to life and bring her to me." Onigumo rasped.

Inuyasha stared at him a moment before laughing. "You're more of a fool than I thought. Your head is just something you keep your hat on isn't it? You have four glorious wishes at your fingers - you could regain your youth and your health and you wish for a dead girl to walk again? And then what? She wouldn't look twice at a shot up twat like you. Besides, I can't bring dead girls back to life. Or did you forget that rule? It's been fifty years after all."

"You speak with too much cheek to your master."

"You're not even worthy to be a master." Inuyasha told him snappishly. "The only reason you ever got involved was because of your lust for Kikyo. She wished to find love - and she found your love! She despised you but you couldn't keep nasty little thoughts about her out of your head. And when you discovered me, you stole my container and by fluke gained ten wishes for yourself."

"I do remember you know…"

"You were pathetic. You blew five wishes on petty things, like being able to evade the police. Getting revenge on old pals. Shooting people with bolts of energy if they ever touched you with malicious intent. And then you finally got some sense and used your sixth wish to make Kikyo yours."

"A wish that never came to pass." Onigumo narrowed his dull hooded eyes. "I was cheated."

"Only because she made her sixth wish the very same day… to die a happy woman. She would rather have died than submit herself to you." Inuyasha clenched his fists. "You were sick… it was a miracle I never came across you again after that…"

"Until now."

"Believe me, I'm not happy about it." Inuyasha touched his injured arm tentatively.

"Well… if you can't bring Kikyo to me then I wish for you to bring me her replica. Bring me the girl who looks the most like Kikyo… she was a very beautiful woman… a cold kind of beauty… I want to see her face one last time." Onigumo grinned to himself.

"And what would you do with her?" Inuyasha scowled, feeling the fine hair at the back of his neck bristle anxiously.

Onigumo laughed. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

"Sick pervert…"

"Now grant it." Onigumo told him sharply/

Inuyasha took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the ground. "As you wish." He dissipated to begin his search. He already knew of one girl who could match Kikyo's description to a T… but there was no way in hell that he would hand her over to Onigumo.

There was a girl in Tokyo, Taito to be exact. She was at the check out in a supermarket. He must have scared the hell out of her when he materialised behind her and grabbed her shoulder to turn her around. She gave a sharp cry and the shoppers around them, having witnessed his sudden appearance also cried in alarm. Inuyasha scrutinised her face a moment before releasing her and dissipating again. A close match… but so far Kagome was still more similar in appearance… he had to keep looking…

A girl in the swimming baths in Nerima was the next suspect. Actually, more of a woman than a girl. She screamed and attempted to slap him when he dragged her out of the water to see her face. He knocked her hand down and scowled at her. Too old. There were lines of her face already - Kagome was still the most prominent candidate.

He dissipated again and tried elsewhere. A girl in Hino… but she was too young. Maybe in five years or so she'd look like Kikyo, but she was only eleven. He tried somewhere else.

He found six girls in total over the whole country, all similar in appearance to Kikyo, or similar in the shape of their body… but none were as bang on as Kagome. But now he'd reached the end… there were no more girls who looked like Kikyo. He searched desperately but found no one. He extended his search to nearby countries, but found even less girls that looked like her in those. In sheer desperation he pushed the search further, extending his reach across the face of the earth and back again.

One girl in a place named Russia looked like her… or more like a gaijin version of Kikyo… but she was foreign and even less suitable.

There was no one. He could find not one girl who looked more like Kikyo than Kagome did. Maybe if Kagome had a beauty spot on her face, he could have picked the girl in the supermarket… but there was no use.

He had no choice.

He materialised outside the old house and looked up to Kagome's window to make sure she was alone before relocating himself behind her desk. She was sitting at the wooden structure, studying some new subject he didn't recognise. He resolved his conscience and moved forward ever so quietly, reaching out to touch a sleeping point… she didn't need to be awake for this.

But seconds before his fingers got within reach she turned, about to fetch a new book, but cried out and jumped when she saw him standing there. "Inuyasha!" she seemed a little surprised to see him. More surprised than normal. But she quickly got over it and pointed to her throat. "See - I can talk! And my hearing's back! And where were you all day - I was worried sick about you, especially when I found your ripped coat outside… well actually Souta found it, not me, but it was found, that's all you need to know. I was worried you might have been hurt and…" her gaze slid from his face down his right arm and her eyes widened. "Oh god - you're covered in burns - what the hell happened! Did you try to cook yourself?!"

Oh yes, her voice was definitely back, unluckily for those around her. He sighed and moved himself out of her reach when she attempted to touch him. She turned doubtful at this action and looked back up at his face. "You're not still… mad are you… for what happened last night?" she asked hesitantly.

He lowered his head and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"What for? For disappearing? For being gone a whole day… and… uh… what do you think you're-"

He pressed against a point behind her shoulder, close to where her shoulder blade ended near her neck. She gave a startled jolt as a new sensation evidently shot through her, before her lids slid closed and she pitch forward. He caught her carefully with his uninjured arm and her weight forced him to the ground on his knees, her body draped across his lap and over his arm. For a moment he stared at the back of her head, trying to find a loophole in Onigumo's wish. He tried to find another way to interpret the wish… but Onigumo had long ago figured the trick to making wishes. First you explained exactly what you wanted in your wish. And then you basically said 'wish for all the aforementioned stuff' and you got more or less exactly what you wanted. Onigumo wanted Kagome… and Inuyasha was powerless to prevent that.

He was stalling… delaying the completion of a wish he really didn't want to grant. But it was like a machine trying to override its own programming… it just couldn't be done. He had to take Kagome back to Onigumo. End of the matter.

Though he hated that Onigumo was about to destroy another girl's life with his base desires and wishes.

"I'm sorry." He whispered again and stood, dragging up over his shoulder as he did so and dissipated with her.

The bedroom melted away and he found himself standing in Onigumo's dingy little hut, Onigumo was still sat in his armchair. His master was looking at the watch on his wrist. "Point five seconds. You're getting slow…"

Inuyasha didn't dare release Kagome.

"Well. Let me see her face." Onigumo ordered.

Inuyasha clutched Kagome tightly to him for a moment before he lowered her slight frame from his shoulder and turned her so she faced Onigumo, her head lolling to the side.

"A near perfect match I think. Though not exact…"

"I assure you… there is no woman in the world who looks exactly like Kikyo." Inuyasha carefully placed Kagome on the floor, sitting her back against the washing machine by the wall. "I looked. I made sure. Though it's been fifty years and my memory of her is a little fuzzy."

"Bull."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes and checked Kagome was still asleep. He didn't want her to witness this atrocity that was Onigumo. He finally straightened and turned on the old man. "Now make a wish that makes sense. Wish for eternal youth."

"If I do that you will make me a baby for eternity."

Inuyasha smiled secretively. "You know me too well."

"But you have a point…" Onigumo rose shakily from his chair. "When that girl wakes she'll be repulsed by me. I'm old and frail… she'll make all and any attempts to get away from me in this condition. And with my knackered body I wouldn't be able to stop her."

"Oh… stop it, you'll make me cry." Inuyasha pretended to sniff.

"Restore me to my prime. Make my body fit and healthy again… restore my youth and heal my injuries. That is what I wish." Onigumo told him.

"So you do have a brain in there, however shrivelled and useless like the rest of you." Inuyasha shifted his weight and folded his arms. "As you wish, master."

Inuyasha didn't bother watching as he turned his back on Onigumo and watched Kagome's peaceful face instead. Behind him he heard muffled grunts and gasps of pain. Inuyasha kept his expression blank and schooled as he turned his gaze down on the stained concrete floor before him and beside Kagome. There was nothing pretty about regressing in age. And there was nothing pleasant sounding about healing bones that cracked and shattered to rearrange themselves and then heal again.

It was nothing Onigumo didn't deserve. Inuyasha just sat there for a nearly full ten minutes staring at the floor whilst listening to the sounds of a man losing fifty odd years off his life. He glanced quickly to Kagome when he heard her sigh inaudibly and wrinkle her brow as she began to stir. He clenched his fists and prayed she didn't wake any time soon.

"Aren't you done yet, bastard?" Inuyasha snapped, glancing angrily over his shoulder. "You're taking a long time!"

He pushed himself to his feet and moved over to where Onigumo lay sprawled on his stomach. "Though with all those injuries to fix… no wonder. Didn't you bother taking care of yourself for those fifty years?"

A hand shot out, making a grab for his ankle but Inuyasha quickly spun away to a safe distance and looked back down. "Ah… you can move I see."

"Bastard…" Onigumo began to rise unsteadily. "You did that on purpose."

"I'll tell you what I tell everyone I meet." Inuyasha scoffed. "Not my fault."

"I'll destroy you…" Onigumo raised himself up off the floor and stood up straight, glaring down at Inuyasha angrily. Inuyasha glared back just as fiercely.

"Damn, I forgot how butt ugly you were back then too."

Onigumo's hand lashed out to strike Inuyasha, but the boy ducked and dissipated, reappearing in a crouch on top of the washing machine above Kagome who still stirred gently. "Don't abuse the delivery boy or you get no more pizzas." Inuyasha hissed angrily.

Onigumo chuckled darkly. "I suppose… I'll be saving my last wish to wipe you from existence then." He squatted down with the new-found ease of a younger body, and gently stroked a hand down Kagome's face. "With you dead I'll enjoy this girl for myself."

Inuyasha glared daggers at him.

"But I have a more pressing wish I need granting." He stood and looked Inuyasha in the eye. "I want ultimate power. Power that could equal a hundred demons like you. That's what I want."

"Oh, really?" a sudden grin spread across his face. "You want to be as powerful as me then." That could easily be arranged.

"Except," Onigumo held up a finger wisely. "I do not wish to become a Wishbringer like you. I'm not stupid."

"Fuck…" Inuyasha cursed angrily. He'd surpassed the one loophole that Inuyasha had been dying to use on him…

"So give me the power. Now. That is what I wish." Onigumo smiled slowly.

Inuyasha flashed an angry glare from Kagome to Onigumo. "You want ultimate power? Power that could equal a hundred demons. Well that's what you get."

"Say the magic words, Inu." His master taunted him.

Inuyasha gave a nasty little grin. "As you wish."

He was going to enjoy this…

AN: Yes, I seem to have noticed a small trend that I always end the chapters the same way. Uh… I'll probably start getting superstitious soon and make them all end that way. Dammit…