InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dogs in Tokyo ❯ Chapter 19 ( Chapter 19 )

Chapter 19

Inuyasha completed a spring and was in midair when he perceived it. A renewed stench of blood assaulted his nostrils. None of it was fresh. He slowed his steps. "Kagome, how 'bout you get off now."

Her hands tightened on his shoulders. "W-why, Inuyasha?"

He gave off a short huff and shrugged his shoulders in a meaningful way. "Off, Girl. Can't you see it? The portal is there."

Jaken was silent as he slid down the Hanyou's body to the ground. The presence of the staff was there like the twang in the flavour of musty tea. He could see the little miko casting about her in search of a clue to the portal's location.

A dimly vibrating spot hung about shoulder high in midair. They were in a short side street lined with parked bicycles and small houses. Jaken shook his head, pity they couldn't choose the site better. Property damage was nearly unavoidable and years of having to manage in the human world had made him leery about it.

They stood, watching the vibrating spot with attention.

~~~~~~~~~~

The universe swirled with a green sickish blackness. One breath not taken, two, three…

Houjou gasped and staggered as the girl loosed him. "Whaa." His feet carried him a few meters before catching in the long green grass and bringing him to his hands and knees. He slowly lifted his head, aware of the cry of gulls and that he was on the top of some sort of cliff.

"Where is this?" He murmured as the surrounding mist blew clear for a moment and he could see down to the ocean pearling at the base of black rocks far below. It seemed to be a land of sea, wind and foam, chill and lonely. But his fingers curled in lush green grass that was moist with dew.

"Oh, damnit! Wrong again!" exclaimed a woman's voice.

He looked over his shoulder to see the girl gripping the staff in one hand as she twisted her head about surveying the scene. Beyond her he could just make out what appeared to be a farm set on a rising hill. Low rough stone walls surrounded a pasture where some rather round-looking grey ponies were grazing. And he could just make out the lettering on a red-sided van parked on the lane. "Donnelly's Meat's, Cloughneely, Co. Donnegal" it said in large gold roman letters. Houjou sounded them out with his mind focusing on them with desperate intensity. They didn't seem to mean a thing.

The girl sighed and lowered the staff, walking towards him a briskly determined step. "Sorry about this, but I need more juice. It is really nothing personal." She laid her hand gently on the back of his neck.

A piercing cold sensation made him shiver and, before he could jerk away, answering warmth flamed in the area of his chest. "Oww," he squawked and scrambled forward before leaping to his feet. He grabbed at the area of his shirt that was so hot and found himself clutching his breast pocket. He could feel the hard shapes of the two charms he had bought at the apothecary only an hour ago. Back when things were normal.

He tore them out of his pocket and held them up to stop her.

She did stop. "What are those?" She asked, blinking at their glitter.

"Anti-daemon amulets fresh from China. Take that!" He waved them menacingly in her general direction.

Her eyes widened and she and she reached forward, "Ooh, pretty."

"No, no! Stay back!" He took a few sliding steps in a semicircle to the right. His plan (such as it was) was to distract her with the swinging amulets and make a break for the lane and the farmhouse that stood on the next rise. "You're not fooling me! You're just trying to get them away from me."

She smirked and twirled the staff a bit in her fingers. "So? It's not like I'm a daemon."

Houjou sighed in puzzlement. "No. Can't you please tell me what's going on?"

A shake of the head was his only answer as she took another step towards him. "Sorry, the only ones who can answer that are these heads on the staff itself." She reached towards his wrist with one hand. "If you feed them, maybe they'll talk to you."

With a gasp Houjou suddenly wobbled and dropped in a senseless heap at her feet.

She withdrew her hand and fisted it on her hip as she bent over to examine him. "Then again, maybe not…"

A short time later a greenish flare sparkled over the grasses and the little headland was left to the wind and the gulls.

~~~~~~~~~

Jijii-Chan saw Jukuryo waiting outside of the Silver Rain Pachinko Parlour leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. The glow from the lit end illuminated his face briefly as he took a deep puff and caught the crimson glitter of his eyes. His bony four-fingered hand moved up and gave it a practiced flick as he tossed the spent end into the gathering night.

Jijii-Chan slowed in the street for a moment as he considered the odd appearance of his old friend. He had always known Jukuryo as a well-disposed contact. They had become friends late in life when he himself had been a disappointed fifty, newly widowed and at a loose end. Jijii-Chan's youth had been misspent hanging with the fringes of the Yakuza before he married and returned to care for the family shrine. After his wife's death, he had gravitated back to some old contacts in what was (admittedly) a search for mischief.

The Yakuza have a long tradition of self-mutilation and Jukuryo was a powerful and well-respected member. The renewed acquaintance was pleasant to both and Jijii-Chan had simply never before questioned his old friend about his past. The mental image of his own hand slapping an offuda against Jukuryo's chest only to have it fizzle into ash replayed in his mind.

Inuyasha's mocking voice sounded again in his ears, "You wouldn't know a daemon if it kicked you in the butt!"

Jijii-Chan shrugged and advanced to meet Jukuryo as the other spotted him. "Kids were home from school today." He said by way of greeting.

Jukuryo grunted in acknowledgement and turned to lead the way to the small concession counter to purchase a couple of beers. "Any other visitors?"

"No, should I have been expecting anyone?"

Jukuryo looked self-conscious and dropped into a seat waiting until Jijii-Chan settled next to him. "Well, you know that the creature Jaken had something that I had been hired to find."

Jijii-Chan made a vague sound. "About that. Was that little monster one of the creatures that have been invading the city?"

"No, that was a daemon. Your own offuda removed the weak disguise spell he was under." Jijii-Chan swelled in pleasure at the thought.

"Yes it did. Didn't it?"

Jukuryo chuckled a bit at the old man's reaction to success. "The creatures attacking Tokyo are not as natural as daemons are. They are arriving some other way."

His companion turned and seemed about to say something as Jukuryo hurried on. "I need to know something from you. Has young Nishigawa ever mentioned any relatives?"

"He hasn't spoken of any but Kagome has mentioned an evil brother of his, Sesshoumaru. They have never gotten along and Inuyasha seems just as happy to ignore his existence." Jijii-Chan tuned slightly in his seat and set his beer on the counter with exaggerated care. "What's all this about?"

The clattering roar of the pachinko parlour behind them seemed locked out of their own bubble of silence. Jukuryo sighed and tapped out another cigarette. "I have good reason to believe that my client, Nishigawa Sesshoumaru, is Inuyasha's older brother. He hired me to locate a rare item of his. A two-headed staff last known to be in the possession of Sesshoumaru's servant, Jaken. That girl, Ryosei, appears to have been playing a deep game. She was working both for Sesshoumaru and me and had established some sort of a deal with Jaken. I don't know what she was up to, beyond spying." He lit his cigarette and drew a thoughtful breath.

"That didn't distress me particularly. I expect some sort of scrutiny and Ryosei was both efficient and of real use to me in my business." He smirked, tapping ash onto the floor. "Easy on the eyes too."

Jijii-Chan gave an agreeable belch.

"Anyway, Jaken has absconded with the staff and Nishigawa-Sama contacted me last night after I returned to my apartment from your house. He had seen the news report and demanded information on Jaken and his missing staff. He felt the incidents on the report were associated with his staff and he had recognized Inuyasha. I tried to hold him off but he's very quick on the uptake and was asking a number of uncomfortable questions about shrines and old local shrine families. I should think he would be showing up on your doorstep any time now."

Jijii-Chan shrugged and stole one of his companion's cigarettes.

"I don't think Inuyasha is at the shrine. I thought I heard them passing the shrine store in a group shortly before I left to meet you. Those kids can sound like a herd of elephants, you know?"

Jukuryo nodded and finished his beer. "What's to worry about then? Sesshoumaru will just have to be disappointed." He took out his palm pilot and activated it. "O.K. Machine number thirteen, the one over in the corner. Between fifty and seventy more plays should have it paying out."

Jijii-Chan clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Well, better get busy."

The roar of the pachinko parlour surrounded them and welcomed them in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inuyasha tensed, blocking Kagome's line of sight with his shoulder. She could feel the downy hairs on the backs of her arms and legs lifting in response to worms of static electricity as the greenish globe of the gate expanded to fill the available area.

Jaken could be heard on the other side of the glowing globe cursing a blue streak as the distant image of a stony hillside appeared within. "She's fed it again, the wench! She's not controlling it at all. At this rate she'll be opening permanent gates for sure!"

An echoing, "Whop," sounded and Ryosei appeared dragging the inert form of Houjou by one arm. She dropped him with an exhausted grunt and ignored her audience as she raised his wrist and brought the head of the staff to it.

"What are you doing?" Kagome gasped. Ryosei didn't respond and angled the staff to touch it to a slick red spot that trickled sluggishly.

"She's feeding the staff again! Stop her!" Jaken's voice was shrill in response.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Inuyasha growled and flexed his claws with a snarl on his face. In another moment he was up in the air his claws extended towards Ryosei and going in for a slashing swipe to knock her aside.

"Kya! Get away!" Ryosei shrieked. She dropped the unconscious boy to cover her face with one arm as the hand holding the Staff of Heads came out and made a lacerating swipe at Inuyasha with the fangs of the open puppet mouths.

Inuyasha just barely dodged the attack and dove in to grab Houjou from under her feet. Thinking he was going after her legs, Ryosei took another slap at him this time smacking his head hard with the blunt end of the staff. "Bitch!" Inuyasha cried, falling back for a moment or two, rubbing his head.

"YouKeepAwayFromMe!" Ryosei warned him all in one word brandishing the staff at him again.

"Inuyasha! Houjou-kun!" Kagome called out from the side, pointing at the inert body of Houjou with a look of worry on her face.

"I know! I know!" He called back irritably and reached out to grab the boy by the back of his shirt from the ground.

At that moment the amulets in Houjou's hand began to glow with some kind of power that rapidly got significantly brighter. "Watch out you hanyou fool!" Jaken cried out. Having spotted the suspicious glow immediately, but Inuyasha noticed it a split second too late.

The amulets reached an incandescent white and exploded. The shock sent Inuyasha careening away a good fifty meters back right through a bike rack and landed him in a tangle of bent bike wreckage against a brick wall. Before he had time to regain his breath the wall teetered from the force of the impact and collapsed all around him in a monumental crash.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried running to the cursing lump of bricks.

Jaken flinched "I hope no one heard that, otherwise that's going to cost me…" Jaken muttered, and looked around for Ryosei and the Staff of Heads. But both were nowhere in sight. All that was left by then was the rumpled Houjou and his bloody fist of amulets. "Uwaa!! Gone again!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buyo shifted gently within the concave bowl of the bathroom sink. The coolness of the white porcelain slid against his back as he repositioned himself slightly and sank again into a gentle slumber. Mice scattered impossibly through his dreams as claws raked though them. 'Nibble they tiny feet…'

The dreams of even the fattest cats are not for the weak…

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