InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Kagome's Return (sequel to Kagome! Where are you!? ❯ kagome & Sesshomaru in New York ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Kagome's return chapter 1

New York, New York . . .


Authors' note: this is a post sept. 11, 2001 world, so . . .

Also . . . Language. Kagome and Sesshomaru, in public will be
speaking English. If they are in a, what they consider a private
conversation, they'll speak Japanese.

********


She points between a couple of large buildings. "That,
Sesshomaru, is the Empire State Building." She swallows, "We must
be in New York City."

"Hey!" A group of young men, with a couple of young women
approach. "You two going to some sort of costume party!" one of
the calls out.

Kagome and Sesshomaru look at each other. He raises an eyebrow.

"Just follow along, please," Kagome whispers.

"Yes!" Kagome smiles, "An anime costume party!"

"Cool," one of the young women replies. The group of about a
dozen young people gathers around Kagome and Sesshomaru.

"Where," another says.

"Well . . . " Kagome replies, "That seems to be the problem. I've
gotten lost." She smiles, "Could I borrow a cell phone. I've
seemed to have lost mine."

A couple of them look at each other. One of the boys, smiling as
his eyes search Kagome's legs. "What's your name?" he asks.

"Higurashi Kagome." Kagome replies, smiling. "Please, I'll only
need it for a couple of minutes."

The boy hands Kagome his phone.

"Just a minute." Kagome smiles. She flips the phone open and
dials . . .


The phone rings . . .

The answering machine picks up.

"If someone is there, please pick up!"

"Kagome!" Sota yells.

"Sota!" relief colors Kagome's voice. "I need to talk to mother."

"Yes. She's in the well house. I think that Inu-yasha is there!"
Sota replies.

"Hurry!" Kagome calls, "Get him or mom on the phone!"

As she can hear Sota run to the well house, Kagome thinks, ‘we're
in the states. Neither Sesshomaru nor myself has any identity
papers. Nor, do we have any money. And we've got to get to Tokyo
. . . '


"Kagome!?" her mother's voice sounds excited and strained in the
cell phone. (The conversation with her mother is in Japanese)

"Mother! This is Kagome!" she says as Kagome tries to move behind
Sesshomaru, so her phone call can be somewhat private.

"Where are you?!"

"New York, New York."

Static . . .

"Kagome." "Mother." They both say at the same time.


"You go first, mother." Kagome continues.

"You need to get home as quick as possible." The strain on
Kagome's mother voice is very evident.

"What's happened?" Kagome asks, as goose bumps travel up her
spine.

"Something's gone very wrong. Inu-yasha just left."

"Great. I wanted to talk to him." Kagome says under her breath.

"But, he just dropped off Shippo and Rin."

"How? They can't go through the well. I've tried, many times, to
take Shippo with me."


"I don't know." Mrs. H says, "But let me finish, I don't have
much time."

"Ok."

"They are both covered in blood and badly hurt. I've got to use
the phone to call Chika, you know,"

"That nurse that lives down the street, yes." A pause, "How
badly?" Kagome's voice is ghostly silent.


Static . . .

"If Shippo's healing powers are similar to, Inu-yasha's he'll be
ok, eventually. Rin." Static. "She's hurt, badly."

"What did my younger brother do?" Sesshomaru growls into the
phone.

"Who?" The startled surprise in Mrs. H's tone is obvious.

"This is Sesshomaru, Mother." Kagome grimaces.

"How badly hurt is Rin?" Sesshomaru demands.

"She is bleeding. She is unconscious. I think that her skull is
broken."

"I'll talk to you later, mom. Call that nurse!" Kagome orders in
voice full of suppressed emotions.

Kagome flips the cell phone closed.


"Bitch!" Sesshomaru growls at her.

Kagome glares at Sesshomaru, tears in her eyes. "Do you think
that I wanted to hang up that quickly, Sesshomaru?" She demands,
in Japanese. "That's the first time that I've spoken with her in
more than two months!"

Sesshomaru opens his mouth. He closes it.

"She needs to use the phone to call a nurse that lives nearby.
Rin needs that help more than I need to talk to my mother, or you
need to bug her about Rin."

"Hey!" the boy whose phone Kagome borrows interrupts, "What
happened?"

"Yeah, you two are too excited for that call to be normal," his
girl friend adds.

Sesshomaru turns and glares at the human teenagers.

They all step back, at least a couple of steps, from the force of
that glare.

Kagome moves in front of Sesshomaru. "It's ok." She hands the boy
back his cell phone.

She grimaces, "it's just, that something bad has happened at
home." She nods to Sesshomaru. "His daughter fell down a flight
of stairs and she's hurt."

"How bad?" comes out of at least of a couple of the teenagers
mouths.

Kagome grimaces again. "It sounded pretty bad. That's why I hung
up the phone. My mother needed it to call a nurse that lives
nearby."

"Good. And call 911, too." Someone remarks.

Kagome nods. "Yes."

‘I hated lying, but,' She thinks. ‘But mother can't call 911. How
can she explain Rin? And Shippo isn't even human. Luckily, Chika
is a family friend, so she'll probably help without talking about
it, I hope.'

"So, you'll be headed home, right." Says the young woman that
earlier was excited about Kagome and Sesshomaru going to an anime
costume party.

"Yes. As soon as we can." Kagome replies.

"Well, where is the party that you were going to?" She asks.

"Hey! What about the party we were going to?" the boy standing
next to her asks.

"It'll be boring, Mark." She replies. "Someone turns on the TV,
plops in some movie that no one pays attention to, or they pop in
a porno, that everyone watches. We drink, play some music, dance,
and . . . "

Mark, her boyfriend, puts his arm around her, "And what's so bad
about that, Rose?"

"It's boring! An anime costume party is different, exciting! I
want to see if we can crash it and have some real fun!" Rose
replies.

A couple of the girls in the group add in a couple of "yes, let's
find out where it is and crash it," as they gather around her.

Mark's male friends gather around him, as he replies, "Anime
costume party?" he shakes his head. "I don't know the first thing
about most of those things, and we don't have costumes. Let's
just have a normal party."

"Yeah." "You said it." A couple of his friends backs him up.

While the group of teenagers is talking among themselves, Kagome
whispers into Sesshomaru's ear. "Fly us to the top of the
building, Sesshomaru. We need to talk and plan."

He nods, "We've got to get to your house as soon as possible." He
whispers back.

She nods. She wraps her arms around him. He, in a flick of an
eye, flies up and away from the teenagers, without their
noticing.

After a couple of minutes . . .


"Hey!" One of the girls yells, "Where did they go?"

‘I wanted to see if I could slip up next to him and get a feel.'
She thinks.

The group of teenagers looks around, neither Kagome nor
Sesshomaru can be seen.

‘That was close.' One of the boys thinks, ‘I saw a look in Mary's
eye. I was wondering if she was going to jump that guy's bones .
. . '

‘What was his name?' Mary thinks. ‘Yes. Sesshomaru. Hmmm. I
wonder, that doesn't sound like a common Japanese name, I wonder
what a web search for it would show? And if I looked it up in the
white pages, could I find his number? But . . . how to spell
it?'

She rubs her thighs together, knowing what her fantasy for the
next couple of nights will be . . .

‘Those two were weird.' Mark thinks. He sighs, ‘the guy was
obviously disguised, so the girl probably was as well. I'd bet
that the names they were using were fakes for the party, too.' He
shrugs.

The boys and girls begin a full scale argument about what type of
party that they want to go to tonight . . .

On the roof . . .

Sesshomaru and Kagome separate, once he lands them on the roof.

"This is your world, Kagome. In which direction is your house. I
will fly us there." Sesshomaru demands.

Kagome looks around the sky. The bright lights of the city drown
out most of the stars, so she cannot tell the direction from
them. "Which direction is east?"

Sesshomaru concentrates, feeling the earth around him. "What are
these building made of? The sense that I use to find my direction
doesn't feel right."


Kagome blinks. ‘What? Hmm. His senses are sharp. Is he feeling
the earth's magnetic field? Probably. And, if that's the case . .
. '

Kagome replies, "The buildings are full of iron and steel,
Sesshomaru. And, that's probably confusing your senses."

He grunts. He points in one direction. "That direction feels like
north."

Kagome nods. She points to the east, assuming that Sesshomaru is
correct, "Japan is in that direction, Sesshomaru. And, we're more
than 10,000 kilometers from home."

Sesshomaru purses his lips, "you've used that term before,
Kagome."

"Yes. Let's see one RI is about four kilometers." (Ri: from the
old, pre-1860 feudal measurement system.)

"2,500 RI'S then." Sesshomaru murmurs.

"Probably more, Sesshomaru." Kagome replies. "That assumes that
we know the exact direction and stick with it. Which we don't
know."

Sesshomaru grimaces, ‘Kyoto to Edo is well over one hundred Ri's.
So, assume thirty times that distance. That'll take days to fly
that, even if Kagome lends me power, and when we arrive, we'll be
exhausted.'

"How long would it take you to fly us that distance?" Kagome
asks.

"Days, at least. The problem isn't my speed when flying. It's
that my training emphasizes combat speed. Sprinting, in other
words, not long distance running."

"You'll sprint a distance, and then you'll have to rest up."
Kagome states. "And if you borrow my power, or the jewel?" she
asks.

Sesshomaru shrugs, "I'll recover faster, at least at first. But,
once you get tried."

Kagome grimaces, "I don't recover that fast."

He nods. Sesshomaru growls and looks around. He bends over and
rips off a chunk of the roof. He proceeds to twist the metal
girder into a ball, working off his anger.

"Rin?" Kagome whispers as she places her hand on his shoulder.

"When I found out who hurt her." Sesshomaru growls. His eyes are
red.

Kagome squeezes his shoulder. "Kick him in the balls for me.
Nobody hurts a little girl like Rin and gets away with it."


Sesshomaru looks at Kagome. "This is your world. Do you have a
way to get us to your home quickly?"


Kagome grimaces, "well . . . There are airplanes that travel
from here to Tokyo. It'll take most of a day." She looks up. She
points to the running lights of a jetliner flying over the city.
"That is one of the airplanes that I'm talking about."

Sesshomaru looks up, and nods. "Good." Sesshomaru smiles, "Much
faster than if I can fly us there."

"Not good, Sesshomaru." Kagome shakes her head.

"Why?"

A pause.

"If you travel via a ship, you have to pay a passage fee, right?"
she asks.

"Of course." Sesshomaru replies. He frowns. "Do we have anything
that can be used as money or barter?"

"No. paper money is used here."

His frown increases, "that is not a sign on a good ruler. The
daimyo's that print paper money is not a ruler that one trusts."

"It's different here in my world." Kagome replies. "Everyone uses
paper money." She grins, "unless they use electronic money."

"Electronic?"

"The money exists inside of computers, only. No coins, no paper.
It's just on a computer scene."

"Similar to what we saw on that Star war's world?"

Kagome nods.

‘Idiotic. How can that money be real, if you can't touch it?'
Sesshomaru thinks. ‘hmmm, you can't touch ghosts, but they are
real, so maybe, something like that might work. But, I'd never
trust it.'

Sesshomaru growls, "And I assume that the humans here are so
stupid that they would not recognize my innate superiority and
give us a free ride, as a gift for not killing them?"

Kagome grimaces, "I'd like not to kill people, or cause a scene,
Sesshomaru."

"That is expected, Kagome." Sesshomaru stares into her eyes,
"but, Rin is hurt. And that." Kagome places her hand on his arm.
He stops talking.

Kagome nods, "I know. But, if we don't plan and think, first,
we'll get into a lot of trouble and it'll take even longer to
reach her."

He growls, louder, "I know, Miko Higurashi Kagome. That is why I
am standing here, listening to you, instead of flying off. Our
trips to various worlds have, at least, taught me to plan first."

Kagome removes her hand from his arm and bows, deeply to him. "I
am sorry, Lord of the Western Lands. Shippo is also hurt, and I
am trying to think of ways to get us home, as fast as possible."

Sesshomaru takes a deep breath and lets it out.

He nods. "Very well, my consort. We don't have money to purchase
a trip home. Is there a way to acquire that money? Or are there
other ways to get home?"

Kagome looks around. She shakes her head. "Getting the money is
one problem, Sesshomaru. There is another problem."

"Which is?"

She purses her lips, thinking about a way to explain this to him.
"Many daimyo's have toll booths on the roads that he controls."

He nods.

"At those booths, the soldiers, in addition to collecting the
toll money, also ask questions about who is traveling, why they
are traveling, etc., right?"

"Common practice." Sesshomaru replies, "I believe that there are
hundreds of such booths between Kyoto and Edo."


Kagome nods, ‘Inu-yasha and Shippo always slip around those
booths, and Miroku can normally talk us through them without
problems.' She thinks.

"Well," She says, "they do something similar here. We'll be asked
to show who we are and why we are traveling before they let us on
a plane."

"And we don't have anything that they would recognize as proof.
I take it." Sesshomaru remarks in a dry voice.

Kagome shakes her head.

"Bribes?" Sesshomaru starts to ask. "But, we don't have any money
to bribe with. Hmmm."

"And they hire honest people to ask those questions, Sesshomaru.
So you can't bribe them."

Sesshomaru's eyebrow raises, "humans can be bribed, Kagome." He
raises his hand to stop her, he can see that she's was about to
open her mouth.

"But, we don't have the money. And, differing to you and since I
don't want to waste more time as you try to explain how bribery
doesn't work here, I won't mention it."

Kagome growls, "And they expect people to have paperwork with
them. That paperwork proves that you are whom you say you are."

Sesshomaru thinks, ‘that's even easier to get around. Just
because you've got a scroll saying that you're working for the
shogun doesn't mean that you are the person mentioned in the
scroll.'

"Is there a way to get us home faster than this Sesshomaru flying
us there?" he demands, "that we can use, given our resources, of
course."

Kagome grimaces, "give me a minute to think, ok."

He nods.

Kagome thinks, ‘how to get home? The JEDI mind trick helps, of
course, but it only really works on one person at a time. And
they'll be people watching on security cameras.' She pauses.

She looks around, this time at the piece of metal that Sesshomaru
smashed into a ball. Then she looks around at the skyscrapers
around them.

"Sesshomaru?"

"Yes."

"Pay attention to your senses. It is possible that people are
watching us via machines. And they could send people up to find
out about us."

Sesshomaru nods. "There are a large number of different noises
below us, Kagome. I am not familiar with most of them."

Kagome nods. "I know, just be prepared in case we have to move
quickly."

He looks around and begins to pace around the roof of the
building. ‘I don't want to be surprised.' He thinks.


As he walks around, he suppresses a sneeze. ‘The air here is
fowl. I know that human's don't have a sense of smell, but surely
they can smell this?' He thinks. ‘And the noises . . . I'm
having to ignore most of what my ears are telling me, just so I
can concentrate on what is happening close to us. I hope that any
foes here do not take advantage of that.'

He glances at Kagome. ‘But, she seems comfortable in this
setting. Hmmm. I've always known that her upbringing was unusual,
but, this puts a different perspective on that. In many of the
worlds that we've traveled she's enjoyed the wilderness. I
wonder, is that because she lives in a world without such areas?'

He shakes his head, ‘I've got to think about Rin. In case she
can't find a quick way to travel, I've got to.' He thinks.



Kagome thinks, ‘well, that's one thing out of the way. Now, let's
concentrate on the real problem. Can we bluff our way onto a
plane? Probably. Between his speed and the mind trick it should
be possible. But. It takes hours to reach japan. Will there be
soldiers waiting for us when we get off? Probably. And even if
there isn't, sooner or later, my face or my fingerprints will pop
up in some security check. I know that my mom has given mine and
Sota's fingerprints to the police, as part of one of their
finding lost children drives.'

She growls. ‘By boat? I don't think that the security checks are
that close on boats. Sure. That will work, but Sesshomaru can fly
us there faster.' She allows a small smile on her face, ‘we'll
have to get an atlas, so we know where to fly.'

She purses her lips, ‘what other way? By train? Hmmm. Maybe. I'm
sure that the mind trick will work. And the security checks are
very loose on trains, I think. Take a train to Los Angeles, and
then fly home? No. Same problem.'

"Anything?" Sesshomaru asks.

He frowns, ‘my ears are hearing something below us. A group of
men gathering? Maybe. There is too much noise to be sure.' He
stretches his hands and places one of them on the hilt of
Tokijin.

"Sesshomaru?"

"Something, Kagome, but answer my question."

"Maybe." Kagome replies. "I think that if we take a train, we
could use that to move, at least to the other side of the
continent."

Sesshomaru grunts.

Kagome thinks, ‘have Sesshomaru fly us from LA? No. he doesn't
have the endurance. Maybe fly or take the train up to Alaska.
Then fly to Siberia, or better, yet, use the Aleutians and fly
down them to the Kuril islands and reach Japan from the north?'

Kagome nods. "I think that I've got something Sesshomaru."

"Good." He replies. "You can explain later, however. A group of
men is gathering below us. I am smelling gunpowder."

"Police or security." Kagome replies. She looks up in the sky.
There might be a helicopter in the air near them, but, if it is,
it's at a distance.

‘The lighting up here isn't that good. So, hopefully they're just
going off some motion sensors,' Kagome eyes the nearby
skyscrapers, ‘and reports from people in those buildings.'

Kagome steps into Sesshomaru's arms. "Fly us to the ground, in a
dark area. WE can adjust our clothing, and I can see about
explaining my plan."

Sesshomaru nods, wraps his arms around her and flies off the
building.

A couple of minutes later, a group of police officers open the
door the roof and look around. Nothing, but Sesshomaru's waded up
piece of steel.

On the ground . . . in a dark alley.

Sesshomaru lands and releases Kagome.

Kagome step back, concentrates, and changes her clothes into a
black pantsuit. "Do you still have those sunglasses?" she asks
him. He nods. "Ok, good. Just change your clothes into something
like the suits that inu-yasha was wearing."

Sesshomaru blinks, then realizes that she means the Inu-yasha
that he killed. He changes his clothes into a stylish suit.

"Change the color to black, please." Kagome asks.

She smiles, ‘Expect for the white hair, he looks just like that
movie ‘Men in black'.' She thinks.

"And what is humorous?"

Kagome's smile widens, "the clothes, Sesshomaru reminds me of a
movie I once saw."

He grunts. "What is your plan?"

"I need to find a map of the United States and the world so I can
explain it to you." Kagome replies.

"Where we will find such a map?"

Kagome licks her lips, "a book store. We'll have to ask for
directions to one." She replies. ‘If it's open, I'll use the JEDI
mind trick.'

Sesshomaru nods. He frowns, his head swings to the opening of the
alley.

A group of men, maybe half-a-dozen has entered the alley.
Sesshomaru can smell the alcohol on their breath. He can also
smell something similar to opium on a couple of them.

"Hey!" one of the says. He points deeper into the alley. "There's
a couple in here." They walk closer to Sesshomaru and Kagome.

"Yeah!" one of his friends says. "An old man and a girl."

Sesshomaru growls at the old man reference.

"your white hair." Kagome hisses at him. "Let me handle this."

She steps in front of Sesshomaru. "If you'll excuse us. We need
to leave the alley." She politely half-bows to the men.

"I don't think so, whore." The first man says. Kagome is close
enough now to smell the alcohol on his breath and the see that
the man's clothing is leather, with spikes on the shoulders. A
quick glance at all the men, tells Kagome that they are all
dressed in spiked leather.

‘A gang.' Kagome thinks. ‘Great . . . '


"You want to get down on your knees, hole." One of the men orders
Kagome, "once you've given us the same thing that you've given
the old man, you can go."

One of his friends pats him on the back, "yeah! Free blow jobs
for all of us!"

Sesshomaru places his hand on Kagome's shoulder. "Let me." Kagome
shakes her head.

Kagome looks at the men. She waves her hand in front of her. "Let
us go, please."


The men look at each other. They pause. One of them burps,
loudly, which breaks the hold of Kagome's mind trick.

The leader shakes his head, then says, "Girl, you've been
watching too many Star Wars movies." He pats his groin,
unzipping. "Now. On your knees and suck."

Sesshomaru moves in front of Kagome. "In diffidence to my
consort, this Sesshomaru will allow you scum to live, if you
leave, now." He growls at the men.

They laugh. "Listen to the old geezer!"

One of the men, who is taller, thicker and heavier than
Sesshomaru reaches out and shoves Sesshomaru, "Go away, old man,
and we won't hurt you."

Sesshomaru grabs his wrist. He twists, the sound of breaking
bones is heard in the alley. The man screams in pain!

Sesshomaru shoves the man against his friends, smashing three of
the gang into a concrete wall. His fists pound a couple of other
men into unconsciousness.

Kagome pretends to kick the man closest to her. He bends down to
grab her leg, but, she strikes him on the forehead, while he
looking down. He falls to the ground unconscious.

"Humans." Sesshomaru sneers as he looks at the unconscious men.

Kagome sighs. She frowns. ‘I've been around Miroku too long. But.
It does solve a couple of problems.'

She bends down and begins to search the men.

"Kagome?" Sesshomaru asks.

"Sesshomaru, they'll have on them some money, maybe a credit card
we can use. I hope that one of them will have a cell phone, so I
can call my mother again."

He nods. "Useful items."

Kagome sighs, "I don't like looting, Sesshomaru. It reminds me
too much of Miroku, but."

"They attacked us, so they will pay." Sesshomaru bends down and
begins to search the men, showing Kagome anything that he finds.
He also watches Kagome and removes anything similar to what she
removes.


Sesshomaru looks at the entrance of the alley. He whispers, "I'm
hearing talk about police from outside the alley."

Kagome looks up and looks around, the alley is dark, but someone
could have noticed the fight. "Fly us to the top of another
building, Sesshomaru. Getting involved with the police is not
something that we want to do."

Sesshomaru gathers her into his arms. "Wait!" she cries. She
scrambles up near the entrance of the alley. She reaches down and
grabs something on the ground and runs back to Sesshomaru.

"What?" He says as he starts to fly.

"A newspaper, Sesshomaru." Kagome replies. "It'll help update me
on what's happening, I hope. And, especially, if there's a travel
section in it, there might be a map that I can use."

A few minutes later, on a different rooftop.


Kagome begins to flip through the newspaper, trying to locate a
map that she can use.

"Where is the location of the place that the airplanes leave
from?" Sesshomaru demands. ‘I know we need to plan, but, Rin . .
. '

Kagome reaches out and grabs his hand and squeezes, she looks at
him, "what are you thinking about, Sesshomaru? Just barging in,
and taking a plane?"

‘The thoughts of Rin's injuries must be getting to him.' She
thinks.

He nods. "Your world, from what you've said, is only human. I can
defeat any group of humans."

Kagome grimaces. She sighs, "Sesshomaru. As a last resort, I can
see us doing that." She holds up her hand, preventing him from
speaking, "but, only as a last resort."

"Why?"

"Three reasons: one, the army also has airplanes and they will
use them to shot down any airplane that we steal. Unlike in the
world with Inu-yasha, we'll be trapped on that plane for hours,
and they'll know exactly where we are. How would you like to
shoot down over an ocean, like we were on Gilligan's world?"

He nods.

"Two: Even if we get to japan, there will be forces waiting on
us, when we land. And, they could be waiting for us at my house.
Do you want Rin to be in the middle of that type of battle?"

He grimaces.

"Three: this is my world, Sesshomaru. So, unlike all the other
worlds, what we do, can affect myself, and my family." She stares
into his eyes. "If we need to get to Rin quickly, I won't care
about that, but, I would like it, if we possibly could, get there
without the world knowing about you and your powers."


Kagome lays down the paper. "Here, let me show you what I've
thought about." She points to a map of the US and Canada. It does
not show a lot of details. The article is about security
checkpoints along the border and how many people cross them on a
daily/weekly/monthly basis.

She points to New York. "This is where we are, Sesshomaru." She
points to the scale at the bottom corner and explains how to read
it. "My plan, I think, is travel across the country." Her finger
goes across the map. "Then travel up this coast." Her finger
traces the west coast.

Kagome grimaces, "I didn't see a map, so just follow along,
Sesshomaru, please. The coast continues north, then it curves
like this. There are a couple of strings of islands that we can
fly from island to island. And eventually, we'll end up in
Northern japan."

Sesshomaru grunts. "That will be much longer than what you said
earlier."

She nods. "That distance assumed we flew in a straight line,
Sesshomaru."

"How long?" He asks.

Kagome sighs and folds the newspaper. "I don't know. There will
be trains that we can take. I suppose. We can even use the JEDI
mind trick to convince people to drive us in their cars."

"To long." He growls.

"It's the best that I can think of." Kagome whispers.

Sesshomaru can smell the tears begin to form. He bends down and
hugs her. "I know, my consort." He sighs. "I had been hoping you
could come up with something else, but, it looks like we'll have
to use my idea."

Kagome looks at him. "Stealing a plane?"

He shakes his head, no. "No. not that. It is something else."

Kagome's eyes widen in surprise, "What?" she thinks, ‘What can he
be thinking about?'

Sesshomaru stands up, "You do know that I'm a demon, of course.
And you do know about the various hells."

Kagome nods.

"My plan is to open a portal into hell, and then, from hell, we
can open a portal near your house."

Kagome blinks in surprise. "Are you sure we can do that?"

Sesshomaru pauses, "It should be possible. If you open a portal
to hell, no matter where you are in japan, you open it up at the
same location in hell. So, the locations in hell are not tied to
the locations on earth."

Kagome nods. "Ok. I can see that."

"And if they are tied together, and we have to travel in hell,"
Sesshomaru grins, showing his fangs, "Well, I'm sure that you
won't mind if I force them to follow my orders."

Kagome swallows. ‘I suppose it'll work.'

She frowns, "Why didn't you think about this earlier?"

Sesshomaru raises his eyebrow, "each universe that we've traveled
to are unique Kagome, this plan would not allow us to travel
between universes. And on the various world's that we've been on,
we've never needed to travel a long distance."

"What about that vampire world?" Kagome asks.

Sesshomaru shrugs, "you came up with a plan, which I thought
would work, that did not require this. So, I never mentioned it."

"Oh."

Kagome looks around, "ok, do we need anything to open that
portal?"

Sesshomaru looks around. "Since I'm going to assume that you
would dislike me to use a human sacrifice."

"Sesshomaru!"

"A horse will do, or some other large animal." Sesshomaru says.
"A dragon, lion or tiger would be better, even better than a
human in some respects, but they are harder to find."

Kagome slumps. ‘Where?' she blinks, "central park. I've seen
horse drawn carriages in movies." She whispers.

"Where is this ‘central park'?"

"Fly us up high, Sesshomaru. It should be visible." Kagome says
as she steps into his arms.

‘I hope that all this flying around won't be noticed.' She
thinks, ‘but, trying to walk around would take longer, and I
don't think he'll like that. Hopefully, in the dark, my face will
not be visible.'

A few minutes later. In Central Park.

Sesshomaru frowns, ‘I smell a lion?'

"Can you see or smell some horses, Sesshomaru?" Kagome asks.

"I can. I can also smell a lion."

"Ahh. There might be a zoo in the park." Kagome frowns. "But
let's find a horse, instead, Sesshomaru. If there is a lion it
will be in a zoo, and there'll be additional guards."

He grunts. "There are horses in this direction." He points.

"Let's go." Kagome says, as she grabs his arm and drags him in
that direction.

In a few minutes, they find a stable with some horses. "Just
knock out the guard, Sesshomaru." Kagome whispers, as they look
around.

He sighs. He vanishes in a blink of an eye. A few seconds later,
the door opens, and Sesshomaru waves her inside. He closes the
door once she enters.

"Hang on, a second, Sesshomaru." Kagome writes down the address
of the stable. ‘Once we get home, I'll see about sending
something to pay for the horse.' She blinks, "Wait." She takes
out the cash that they looted from the gang and places it down on
one of the desks.

She shakes her head. "No. This might have my fingerprints. I'll
find a different way to pay them." She picks up the cash.

While Kagome is puttering around the office, Sesshomaru is
drawing a magical symbol on the floor.

He takes a horse out of the stable and walks it into the middle
of the symbol. "I'm ready."

Kagome walks out of the office. "What will we use in hell?"

"Some of the demons, of course." Sesshomaru replies.

She grimaces and nods.

They stand in the symbol.

Sesshomaru begins to chant.

He slashes the horse's throat.




The end . . . chapter 1.





Author's note: feudal Japanese measurements: A basic unit: KEN
the length of which varied from town to town. In Kyoto it was 1.9
meters. In Edo it was 1.75 meters. (Or 6 foot 3 inches to 5 foot
9 inches)

Then, increasing in size, was CHO, which was 60 KEN's. (which
varied remember.)

Then, increasing in size, was RI, which was 36 CHO's. (Or about
3.80 kilometers to more than 4.1 kilometers. Or about 2.5 miles,
+ or -)

thank you for reading
jeff shelton