InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ New Age ❯ Discovering ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Claimer: I own what has to be the smallest fraction of Inuyasha possible. So small I can’t remember it. Heh, oh well. Moving on.

Summary: Meet Dr. Kagome Higurashi. She works in a recently developed portion of the Shroud Companies called “Metaphysical Understandings”. What she does is analyze and report the supernatural things she’s given, such as old Japanese Ofudas, Taro Cards, Crystal Balls and so on. And then she was assigned to the biggest discovery of the company: a demon-like creature recently uncovered in a deathlike sleep from under the surface of the Old World.


New Age

Chapter Eight: Discovering

Mr. Bell sat at his desk in his home and sighed. It wasn’t a good idea, and he’d known that before he started this coup, to send a spy to study what was going on. He didn’t trust the other board members anymore, no matter how they claimed to have not changed. They saw this specimen, Inuyasha, as a tool and not a person. Something that could make them far richer than they already were.

What was the use of such money anymore? All of the board members, himself included, were already the richest people on the planet. Shroud owned or took part in nearly every organization thus far. Mr. Bell himself had seen to it that no one was treated ill, that they would uphold their faith in Shroud and see the company as what it once stood for: the unity of the planet under peace.

Now, he couldn’t describe what it was anymore. Once upon a time he’d been a seventeen-year-old with his own ideas and a team of friends who shared those ideas. The world was strict as he’d been raised, and yet somehow, crimes still happened with as much ferocity as it was before the Fall. It had nearly driven him mad, seeing all the chaos around even as those with good in their hearts tried to right it. And so he’d created Shroud with his friends, named in honor of the Shroud of legend that once covered Jesus upon his death.

They once hoped that Shroud could straighten the lives of everyone, and while it did that to an extent, he wasn’t seeing the results he’d longed for. Shroud began as a council, where people could come or call in, and shamelessly explain their lives. And those around would try to help them. Soon Shroud was taking donations and hiring workers to clean up the town he’d been born and raised in. . .

And the police themselves upped in numbers as more and more people committed to the idea. The idea grew and grew and began expanding to eventually encompass the world, touching the lives of every person who could reach. He and his “friends” became the leaders, the thinkers, the upholders.

Shroud itself was brought into every subject, and soon everyone wanted a job at Shroud, for it paid well, was under control, and always had an opening you wanted. So Mr. Bell had leaned back and watched with prideful eyes as his company became what children dreamed to work with, not seeing how his friends and fellow leaders grew colder and more attached to the money they were receiving.

And so when his eyes opened to the corruption beginning to take place, he’d stood up and tried to control it, never meeting the board members’ heads straight on, until now. . . Now, when he had little choice anymore except to spy and try to dig up dirt. No judge in the world would convict all of the board members at once, no matter the evidence, and so either the company must be disbanded. . . or he had to take them down, one by one, and replace his former friends with people who still believed in the idea, and not what you could gain from it.

However, his spy was only one person, and there were several to watch. He personally kept his eye on the happenings of Inuyasha and the research team assigned to him – most especially Kagome Higurashi. She was the main point of interest, not just to Inuyasha or Mr. Bell, but to many of the lower researchers. Head of a great team at seventeen; she was something.

And it was obvious Inuyasha was very fond of her. He made little trouble when she told him not to, obeyed what she said, spoke to her most of all, argued and then flirted, and had been spending nights at her home.

Perhaps those two were meant to be, but that knowledge – Inuyasha meeting her during the night – had nearly spread to the media multiple times over the past five months, and it was only getting harder to contain. If the public knew their relationship, there would be an uproar about it, and then very possibly many of the workers would quit.

Or worse, they would think Kagome achieved her job as head researcher from giving herself to her subject, and others studying human subjects would try it as well.

From the reports given, Kagome stated that Inuyasha produced a smell that lured females to him with little reluctance on their part, making Inuyasha dangerous to wander alone from the prospect of females trying to jump all over him at every turn. The people of this time had great control over their bodies and urges, but it would only last so long.

Kagome herself had proved that.

He had a recording of the second day in the research lab, how Kagome had gone around regulations to cover the modesty of Inuyasha, and had stayed too long. Their conversation had been translated and so Mr. Bell knew what had happened, though the camera hadn’t been able to decipher that part from its angle.

Another recording Mr. Bell had on hand was the fight of the third day. Without much trouble, Inuyasha had literally clawed and punched his way out of his cell to take on the challenger, but had instead dodged the man and leapt out of the room – breaking the door completely down – and out of the camera’s sight. It had been a shock when he returned on camera, with Kagome on his back.

The reports stated how he had saved Kagome’s life from the faulty elevator and though it had been thoroughly investigated, they couldn’t determine what had caused the elevator to fall. The cable had remained intact; in fact it had stopped short of crashing at the bottom, five levels under the building itself. The emergency breaks had been jammed at first, refusing to catch the elevator until the twentieth level, when it began slowing at last.

Someone had to have been in control of that elevator, which meant someone had tried to kill Kagome directly, while another was after Inuyasha.

What didn’t make sense was the situation itself. The briefcase of samples was a decoy; so was the shooter. The point had been to get Kagome in the elevator, to get Inuyasha distracted, and then cause Kagome’s doom. Had she not been rescued, Mr. Bell was certain the elevator would have crashed instead of stopped.

It had been hard when Mr. Bell ordered Kagome off the project during the investigation, knowing she was by far the most qualified applicant and the only one who could truly control Inuyasha. It was pure luck when Kagura had attacked Inuyasha with a syringe and successfully got herself on suspension without pay, eliminating her from the project and allowing Kagome back in.

By then, Mr. Bell was positive that the only person who could keep her safe was Inuyasha himself, and had battled the other board members about Inuyasha’s freedom outside of the lab. If Inuyasha could go everywhere with Kagome, the girl would be safe, no matter what happened or who attacked.

Probably the most amazing stunt Inuyasha had pulled to date was a second assassination along a building-to-building walkway. Not only had Kagome been with him, but the rest of the team and half a dozen bystanders. One of the fastest aircraft to date had zipped by, releasing a single rocket aimed for the walkway and then disappeared, out of sight before it could be caught.

Inuyasha had been aware of it long before the rocket had been in sight, and ushered everyone out of the way not a second too soon. What he hadn’t taken into account was the gust of air that followed the explosion, which effectively yanked out a mother and her child from the other side. On top of that, the walkway was hanging dangerously from on end of the building.

Not waiting a second, Inuyasha had leapt out of the building towards the mother and child, and not only had he caught them, but stopped the fall by shattering a window and bringing them inside. Cameras caught him telling them to stay back from the window (surprisingly in their own language and not Japanese), and then he had returned to the fallen walkway – by leaping and clawing his way up the side of a building.

Spectacularly, he had broken the other side of the walkway clean off by jumping extremely quickly and yanking on it, twisting it as his claws had dug into the cement, and then he had fallen. Several dozen cameras placed along the outer buildings caught his entire fall to the ground, as he moved under the walkway.

The landing itself shook the ground enough that the camera fizzed out for a split second, then saw him holding the fallen walkway above his head. As heavy as it was, it had split when he landed, with both sides crushed on the ground and many chunks of it scattered around him. The ground beneath his feet had been cracked and compacted, but Inuyasha himself was unscathed.

He’d returned to Kagome after making sure the other side of the walkway’s pedestrians understood the danger of being close to the edge, and Kagome had been hysterical. When asked why he broke off the walkway and fell, Inuyasha had explained that if he hadn’t, it would have fallen by itself and nobody below would have seen it coming.

Microphones were standard-issue after that for all cameras, as not a one had caught his yell for anyone below to move out of the way. His save had become a legend in the net, with headlines such as, “Mutant Saves Dozens” and “Dogboy Protects Innocents”, and had several dozen appearances on the news and talkshows.

He even was called in for an interview, to which Kagome attended and translated for him. Again and again, he was asked why, why did he try to save them, why did he care, and most of all, what was he?

Kagome had translated, “I’m a half-demon. It doesn’t mean what you think it does. It means my father was far supernatural, though my mother was human. You ask me why I bothered to protect the humans, I ask you why did the humans of my time hate me? Because they did; because I did. Because I knew it was going to happen, because I had the power to prevent it from doing what it was meant to. Because the people of this time are supposedly trying to understand, so I’m giving them reasons to understand and trust me. And because Kagome would have throttled me if I hadn’t.”

Kagome had stopped there and blushed, then slapped his arm. Inuyasha had simply grinned back. And the interviewer, a popular man by the name of Clark Toons, had actually coughed nervously and asked about their relationship together.

Whatever Inuyasha had said made Kagome blush redder and punch him on the arm. Clark had asked what Inuyasha said, but Kagome shook her head and replied that it’d been a joke.

Anyone who understood Japanese would know what he said, but it was an extremely rare language to know in this age, much like Latin was a near-dead language before the Fall. His words had been, “Kagome is mine as I am Kagome’s.”

Simple, yet profound. It had obviously struck a cord in Kagome, as for a week afterwards during work, Inuyasha teased her endlessly while she, on the other hand, had few replies.

Looking at the computer screen once more with interest, Mr. Bell eyed the cameras and tried to spot his spy. She was to come for a report today, scheduled at 8 pm, but she was well known for showing up early to all things. To counter, she also had a habit of waiting patiently and totally still for the correct time to approach, unless she observed a better opportunity beforehand.

“Bell.”

He jerked. She was so sneaky, it wasn’t funny. Standing up, he gestured the chair in front of his desk in welcoming. “Please, sit.”

She appeared in the chair more than he saw her move, seemingly melding from out of the shadows to obey the simple order. “Your report,” she went on, pulling a wad of papers from her jacket’s inner pockets. She handed them to him.

“I still don’t see why,” he replied, taking them and sitting himself, “you won’t simply use a memory stick to carry the information, Cardinal.”

“Computers do not like me,” she said offhandedly.

“Or perhaps that is your excuse.” He flipped through the papers, catching an entry here and there.

“Paper can be burned and be gone. Memory sticks can be repaired and saved. Paper is easier to destroy.”

“And if corrupted, paper cannot be fixed, either,” he agreed. “It’s an advantage and disadvantage depending on your view.” Reading the first paragraph, he nodded. “Carson, that old fool. . .”

“You seem disappointed, Bell.” Cardinal leaned forward with conspiracy in her eyes. “Mixed feelings?”

“Carson was once my closest friend,” he replied harshly, biting back a sob at the memories. “For him to have fallen so far, I have to believe that mankind is truly doomed.”

“Not so.”

He looked up at her. “Oh?”

“There is a man I know who remains stoic about justice in this world, and another I have heard of.”

“Who are these?” he asked, intrigued. His mind tried giving him the answers, but he wasn’t listening to his own mind at the moment.

“A man known as Mr. Bell and the other as solely Inuyasha. I have also heard that Inuyasha has a female of impeccable righteousness.”

He laughed. “Trying to flatter me will not bring you a raise, Cardinal.”

“If I were trying to flatter you, at this moment you would be asking to be released from Heaven,” she replied evenly. “I speak the truth for now.”

“And the next moment?”

“We shall see.”

He smiled. “Your work is only becoming more amazing,” he almost cooed. It was too bad that their ages were so far apart. If he were as young as she, he would have asked to be partnered with her. Clever little thing that she was; he loved wordplay with her.

Sadly, or perhaps a godsend, there was a rule upheld very strongly about their new lives in this new age: partners are never more than ten years apart in age. Mr. Bell himself had been married for almost twenty years to date, and had two children from the union.

But his wife rarely stimulated his mind and wit as Cardinal did. Still, he held himself back from making such thoughts obvious; she was an employee and he was her current employer.

“I’ll expect another report one week from today, by midnight.”

“Expecting something big?” she asked, standing.

He tapped his fingers together in deep thought. “Carson is planning something. We shall see.” His eyes twinkled at the slight joke, using her phrase against her.

She raised a brow and then turned around. Within moments she was gone, and once again he was left wondering exactly how she’d left. Window, door, attic, basement, secret passageway, magic? Who ever knew when it came to her?

He smiled. She was definitely intriguing, perhaps more so than Inuyasha.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha himself was fully aware of being watched and judged. It was a kind of sixth, or possibly seventh, sense for him. The sixth sense was one humans dubbed as always knowing where you are and where you’re headed. He didn’t quite see that as a sense, but by simply agreeing he made the humans around him that much more shocked.

He thought of confronting the person who was watching him, but he felt no danger from it to date. Someone was watching and only watching, and seemingly not for ill intentions. Still, he made sure to not show the extent of his abilities; like with full-blooded demons, he was gaining strength and immunity with age. He didn’t know how long he was partially dead, but it added a lot.

Hell, he didn’t know the extent of his abilities yet. He needed to train somewhere and find out. But not now, no, right now he belonged to Kagome.

She was so cute when she slept. Especially when her face was still red from exertion. It was hard to hold himself back when she took the initiative during lovemaking, and it usually ended with a very happy hanyou whose female was often red-faced afterwards.

He reached out and brushed her hair back from her forehead, smiling at her. She smiled in return and stirred in her sleep, cooing softly. Her reactions to his presence only made him grin wider, happy that Shroud had allowed him to stay with her for full nights. Out of ‘protection’ for their ‘property’, or so they said, they refused to allow him to be missing for more than a whole day, which meant Kagome would either work every day, or Inuyasha could pick Saturday or Sunday to stay with her all day.

That was another odd thing about the New World he was living in. Despite what Kagome said about changing mostly everything from the Fall to Now, the days, months and holidays remained – if a few specific days were removed, such as Halloween.

Sad, that. He hadn’t ever participated in that day directly, but watching it was always fun. Trying to pick out the real demons among the pretenders, trying to spot true Celestials in a maze of wannabes; dog-girls. . .

Oh, how often he saw women dressing up as cats, dogs and mice, and pretty much everything. Sexy witches, gangster girls, psychos and murderers, maids and nurses; such beautiful costumes on far more beautiful females, made to make the male mind implode upon itself.

Even so, he couldn’t compare a memory to Kagome. Even her past incarnation, Kikyo, had nothing on her. He wondered if Kikyo realized his and her mistake after death and went on to correct it before reincarnating. Or perhaps Kikyo took her grudge to the grave, yet Kagome evolved beyond it. She certainly had no anger for him, that was true – unless they were arguing.

His mind brought him images of her angry face, with pink cheeks and a fire in her eyes that crippled everything around her. Gradually, those images turned into others of the line: blushing, sighing, cooing, crying out, murmuring; all involving pink cheeks and various solid emotions in her eyes. She was never uncertain.

. . .She was never uncertain.

He sat up as it hit him. Kagome always knew what to do, and when to do it. Which meant only one thing, even if she herself didn’t know it: she was psychic. Perhaps not consciously, but she knew these things. She led him onto a walkway, claiming the building was cold – led him away from a teaming mass of people who would have died if that rocket had struck the building instead.

She chose this job against her better judgement, allowed him freedom when everyone else wanted to bar him in, never left him out of a conversation. . . Perhaps only where he was concerned, but it was working, wasn’t it? They made a perfect team in that sense. Hanyou who as of yet doesn’t know his own powers, and a human who can direct him where he needs to be.

But should he really tell her that?

It was the next morning when he asked her about something that had been bothering him for some time: Mr. Bell. He knew very little of the man, yet Kagome seemed to trust him. He asked her the very simple question of, “Why do you trust Mr. Bell?”

Kagome looked surprised. “I’m not really sure. He just doesn’t come off as a bad guy to me.”

Inuyasha tapped his claws on her breakfast table, two of her dogs napping on his feet. “You sure he’s worthy of trust, Kagome?”

She smiled, walked over to him and promptly sat in his lap. She kissed the side of his face as she answered, “I haven’t been wrong before. I mean, I trusted you didn’t I?” she teased.

“Oy!” he snapped, offended. After another moment the offense went out the window and he sighed, holding her where she was. “Still, I want to meet this guy. Or at least talk with him,” he amended, knowing these Chairmen didn’t like meeting people in person.

She sighed. “I can send him a message, but no promises. I don’t know how busy Chairmen are.”

“On the other hand,” he started playfully, “I could always break into his house. . . capture him. . . and torture him for answers.”

She laughed, knowing full well he was joking. “Inuyasha, really,” she scolded softly. “You need to take a chill pill.”

“Oy!” he snapped, though this time from surprise. “I thought no one talked like that in this age?”

She smiled slyly and slid off him, going back to her tinkering with food behind the counter. She didn’t answer, but gave him a devilish smirk. The kind that hid things. . . such as secrets.

He followed her, the dogs whining as he took his feet from them. Hugging her from behind, he nibbled on her ear seductively. “Oy,” he cooed this time. “Can I have an answer?”

She cooed in response, probably more from the way his hands were scoping out her hips than the nibbling. She giggled nonetheless, replying, “Mayyyybe.”

He growled a little. Just as he was about to “molest” her for information, Eri hobbled downstairs with a yawn behind her hand, effectively halting the fun he had started. Mumbling angry curses at the woman, he left Kagome and took his seat again.

Eri looked at him funny and asked a laughing Kagome what his problem was. He pretended not to understand as Kagome remarked that his “fun” with his most recent “plaything” can’t be had with Eri present. It was hard to fight off the smirk and harder still not to chuckle. She certainly had a way with words when she could think clearly.

Later on, back in Kagome’s room, he brought up the subject of being watched constantly.

She shrugged. “I imagine a lot of people would be watching you. You are the biggest subject on the planet at the moment.”

He smiled and leaned up to her, pausing when his lips were close to her ear. “I’d rather be just the biggest subject in your life, Kagome-chan.”

She blushed and whispered back, “You already are. Can I expect the same from you?”

His smile became a grin. “If you like, I could certainly pull that off.” Leaning back again, he stared into her eyes for a long moment. Just when he was positive that she was expecting a longful kiss, he said, “So about that watching thing. . .”

“Oh Kami-sama,” she blurted, frustrated, and fell back on her bed. “Why do I bother with you?”

Taking full opportunity, he leaned over her and gave her the kiss she wanted. Drawing back slowly, he answered her, “Because I do things like that to keep you in love with me.”

Her blush returned ful force, she smiled, and then she replied, “Right. I forgot that part.”

He dropped his jaw in shock and snarled in mock outrage, “You forgot?! What kind of gorgeous human mate are you?”

She looked truly surprised. “Mate?” she echoed.

Oops. He hadn’t ever used that term to her before. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “That’s usually how demons refer to their life partners, and since the humans didn’t accept me when I was still learning these things, I never picked up their habits of husband and wife.”

She nodded in understanding. “Well, the word was kinda. . . endearing, I guess.” She glanced away.

He raised his brows. “Oy, Kagome-chan. . . are you a little aroused?”

She shook her head and blushed.

But he knew better. He could smell it. Grinning, he went on, “Yeah you are. You keep forgetting, beloved, I can smell these things. Besides which, you already said I’m so damn animalistic. . . and that it’s erotic. . .” He trailed off and lightly took her ear lobe between his lips, licking it before letting it go.

She shivered. “Blast you,” she muttered. Smiling at him, she continued, “You’re just so damn alluring, I can’t resist you; plus you can read right through me, so I can’t deny it in any way, shape or form.”

He grinned. “I refuse to apologize.”

Three days later and he got a reply from the message Kagome sent – a negative. Mr. Bell refused, mentioning loosely that he had more pressing matters to attend to, but promising a meeting sometime in the near future. The actual timeframe he gave was, “perhaps a week; no more than a month.”

Were chairmen really that busy? How strange. Still, he had little else to do but wait anyway. He watched Kagome avidly during the day, sometimes went for walks in the evenings, and spent most nights at her house. The entertainment at her home came from playing with her dogs, rowdy romps under the sheets, and speaking to Eri in Japanese. Of Kagome’s three friends, Eri is the only one who cannot speak Japanese – though she’s getting the hang of understanding it. Yuka, Ayumi, Eri, Kagome, Sango, Miroku – it was almost far too much of a coincidence.

By studying their actions and reactions, he could actually see who they once were: allies. The lot of them, along with Kikyo and himself, fought alongside one another. Granted, Yuka, Ayumi and Eri didn’t have much ability beyond some basic priestess powers, but they could attack just the same. Sango and Miroku were a bit different – they were full demons, once upon a time. As for his brother. . .

He didn’t particularly like speaking of or remembering his brother, since Sesshomaru was such an asshole most of Inuyasha’s life, but he had to wonder: whatever happened to Sesshomaru? He was so incredibly powerful, and quite a bit of a tactical genius, Inuyasha can’t see how he would have died, or could have, for that matter. Sesshomaru had too much going in his favor to have simply disappeared.

Inuyasha did remember, somewhat painfully, the exact day – the hour, the minute – when Sesshomaru discovered Rin had died. The poor girl had lived until her early twenties, and had begun priestess training when her powers were found, but she far too strong of a target. . . When Naraku rose up, he went after innocents as distractions.

Most of these distractions had little to no effect on Sesshomaru, but when he sent an assassin after Rin, Sesshomaru was devastated. Later, Sesshomaru had spoken to Inuyasha about it – since by then Kikyo had already died – and the two of them found a remarkable common ground: pain. They had both let a female human in, got too used to them, and grew to love them greatly. . . only to lose them. Inuyasha’s pain, however, was far worse. . . He loved Kikyo immensely by the time Naraku confused them, and drew out a horrible twist in their minds.

It wasn’t until much later that Inuyasha learned the truth, and then Kikyo had been resurrected as a shell of her former self, somehow strong and alive enough to keep on fighting until the very end. By then, everything had been forgiven and forgotten, and it wasn’t difficult for Inuyasha to let Kikyo go. When she died and left the second time, still looking highly untrusting of him, he smiled and wished her well on the other side.

For Sesshomaru, it was different. He had already revived Rin once. . . he could not again. It had nearly driven him mad, angry enough that losing his arm to Naraku hadn’t stopped his bloodlust – quite the contrary. Sesshomaru’s madness only grew, making him berserk, perhaps a mockery of who he really is, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Naraku died, peace filled them all, and since Rin’s death had been avenged, Sesshomaru simply left. As always, Jakken and Ah-Un trotted after him, but Inuyasha never did spot him again.

From time to time, he would smell his brother, but the scent was often days old and judging by the intervals, it was Sesshomaru’s way of letting him know that he was still alive. And then something happened that Inuyasha never understood: the sun eclipsed and turned black.

Like Naraku’s miasma, the ground around him died, everything turned pitch dark, screams were heard from everywhere, fires died, and ultimately an earthquake shattered the ground. Inuyasha could clearly remember the feeling of being buried, of being trapped, of the air around him growing stagnant until he lost consciousness. At that point things seemed to get warm, and then there was nothing. . .

Until he woke up in that cell, Kagome’s scent filtering into his nose, her soft voice murmuring through the buzzing in his ears. It was the best day of his life, really – smelling Kagome, realizing he was still alive, and the feel of her hands as she tried to dress him.

Granted, every now and again during his “sleep,” he heard a few things, felt a few things. . . small moments of partial consciousness, keeping him somewhat alert of how the world was changing and moving on. Still, these things had not prepared him for the onslaught of the truth – this new world, this new age of mankind. . . almost devoid of demons completely.

“Almost.” Every now and again he scented another, felt the presence of one or two. Nothing too great or small, just a hint, as though those who are demon or half demon are telling him that they still exist. He wondered how they survived, how old they are. . . for surely if there are demons from his old era, then certainly his brother would have managed.

Well. . . perhaps Sesshomaru wasn’t ever powerful enough to take on Naraku and win in a fair fight, but if Inuyasha could make it, then so could Sesshomaru. Where was he, anyway. . ?

“Hey, you’re wandering off again,” Kagome voice broke into his mind.

He blinked and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said in Japanese. He was sitting on her desk, watching her type this note and that, and letting her do whatever she needed to with his body and samples of him.

“Kagome,” Sango called. “Could you translate for me?”

Kagome glanced over. “What is it you need to say?”

Sango toed the ground. “I want to ask Inuyasha about. . . other ‘demons.’ “

Kagome raised a brow. Putting on a show, she translated for him, and he pretended not to understand until she finished.

He replied, “Go on, ask.”

– – – –

Note: Please don’t reply talking about how my info here isn’t accurate. This is an Alternate Universe, and I plan on exploiting that fact. . . Also, Cardinal – you know who you are – you still need to finish some sort of bio, or I’m going to take your character and let her develop on her own.

Maybe she’ll marry Hojo, hehe.