InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Stealing Heaven ❯ Suspicions ( Chapter 17 )

Chapter Seventeen

Suspicions

Kagome sat back from the computer, blue, brightness-blurred eyes slowly closing as she lifted a hand to massage a knot of tension from the back of her neck. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she watched Sango pouring over their umpteenth hardcover book for a long, quiet moment.

"Any luck yet?" she finally whispered across the table.

They'd been back on their native soil for a few days and- after settling back in, as well as sleeping off their jet lag- the girls had embarked on a mission to the local library to begin their long awaited research. Utilizing the campus library hadn't seemed a wise decision after some conversation on the matter. For one thing, they didn't need logs of such study materials associated with either of their scholastic records. Given the cultural and religious background of the society they'd been immersed in for these last two months, it could be misconstrued that they lacked a very necessary ability to move on after their duty on the excavation was finished. What one professor might brush aside as healthy curiosity, another might frown upon as obsessing.

They also didn't relish the notion of any of their fellow students spying the titles of the volumes the were perusing and begin some ridiculous, annoying whispered rumors about the possibility that they were witches. That, in and of itself, seemed quite likely to bring its own myriad of adventures along with it.

Propping an elbow on the table, Sango tiredly pinched between her brows as she- surprisingly quietly- slammed the book shut with her free hand. "No . . . this is just so stupid! It's like . . . anything that starts out seeming like it's going to be in-depth turns out to be some unbelievably ridiculous hokum cooked up by a complete crackpot and anything that seems like it might actually be genuine turns out to be so . . . so . . . ."

"Vague?" Kagome offered with a shrug.

Sango nodded, pursing her lips in thought for a few moments. "Well . . . and you know how I hate having to revisit an idea that was good and plausible the first time around, but we are home again, maybe this is a good time to remind Professor Taisho about that old spiritualist guy he wanted you to meet."

Logging out of her internet session, Kagome silently pushed her chair back and stood only to shake her head in an oddly defeated manner as she rounded the table and began scooping up some of the books to replace them on the shelves. "I don't know. I mean . . . yes it is starting to look like that's the only avenue we have left, but . . . ."

Sango rolled her eyes a bit as she dropped her chin against her palm while she waited for Kagome to return from the shelves and finish her statement. She was well aware the girl grasped that it was their best course of action- and that it really was becoming increasing obvious that it really might be their only course of action- but, then, this was Kagome, and Kagome would have to second guess this decision until the last possible minute. Yet, she was also aware that Kagome's constant re-thinking was usually not unfounded, therefore Sango could only wait and see as to whether or not the next words to tumble out of her friend's mouth would be logically sound.

Returning for another armful of books, Kagome paused, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, causing her long hair to spill over her shoulders in dark, gleaming waves. "I'm concerned about bringing this . . . mess to the attention of someone that is the professor's friend. What if this guy decides he has to explain the situation to Professor Taisho? That would just . . ." her brow furrowed as she thought over how to express the jumble of words clogging her brain at the very idea, "it would be absolutely . . . I can't even . . . . Okay, I don't really know what would come of that, but I have this sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be pretty!"

Frowning thoughtfully- of course it had been a valid concern and not one that Sango, herself, had considered- Sango gave a small shrug, scratching at the bit of scalp beneath her ponytail. "Alright . . . if you maybe I don't know, illustrate for this guy how dangerous that knowledge might be for the professor? OH, I got it! Nah Rah Ku has access to Professor Taisho's thoughts, doesn't he?"

Blue eyes darted around in a hint of confusion for a second- Kagome had thought that that was sort of a difficult to aspect of Professor Taisho's predicament. "Uh, yeah," she said slowly.

"Right, so what if telling the professor leaves open the opportunity for Nah Rah Ku to learn that you're trying to get rid of him? We don't know how the . . . spirit, entity, whatever you want to call it would take that, which could put the professor in danger, explain that."

"You make a good point," Kagome agreed, chewing on her lower lip for a moment.

Sango shrugged again, flashing a relaxed grin. "Those are the only kinds of points I know how to make, apparently."

"Do you ever get tired of patting yourself on the back?"

"Hmm, let me think . . . nope."

"Alright," Kagome scooped up the remaining bundle of tomes, "I'll meet with this guy and talk to him and . . . if it feels like I can trust him, then I will broach the subject with him . . . hypothetically, probably."

Sango sputtered out a cough of disbelief before all but bouncing out of her chair to follow Kagome back to the shelves. "Are you kidding? Like what? 'My friend knows this guy who's possessed by a demon?'"

Dusting her hands off, Kagome turned and tapped a finger against the tip of Sango's nose. "That is technically true, but no. Just . . . I don't know, maybe leave the professor's name out of it and see what this guy says I should do."

"And if he says he wants to meet the possessed person?"

Kagome's shoulders slumped once more as she considered this idea. "I'll just . . . cross that bridge when I come to it."

Sango snorted at that. "Great plan."

Cracking a little, amused-at-her-own-expense smirk, Kagome responded in a light, airy tone, "Well, we haven't exactly been stellar at coming up with 'great' plans thus far, no reason to start now."

* * *

Their first week of the new semester had seen to a presentation of some of the hands-on work they'd done, as well as an explanation of the hiccups the research team had experienced. Professor Taisho had assigned a paper on the matter, which, of course, had slightly different perimeters and expectations for those that had taken part in the excavation.

Knowing no other subtle way to go about it- as she didn't want to start rumors by being seen speaking privately with the professor if it wasn't strictly necessary- Kagome had stuck a post-it to the center page of her voluminous paperwork before handing it in. It was now that they would get their papers back and- she hoped- a reply.

Miroku was bustling about, handing the assignments back and, nearly like that day which now seemed so very long ago when she'd dreaded checking the list of internship candidates, she was reluctant to skim through the papers before her in search of his possible response. She did, however, feel eyes on her. She already knew it wasn't Professor Taisho, he'd been quite convincing in treating her as though absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened between them- as had she, though she hated the forced distance and the platonic, impersonal exchanges that took place in class between them, she knew there was simply no other way for things to be at the moment.

Glancing to the desk beside hers, she saw brown eyes trying to get a glimpse of her returned assignment. Quirking a brow, Kagome lifted the edge of the top page, flashing Sango the bright red A+ and giving a what's new? shrug. Sango frowned, narrowing her eyes into an almost mean expression as she subtly tipped her head toward the papers again. She, too, knew what Kagome was expecting to find in there and she also knew that Kagome wasn't particularly anxious to look.

Finally, Professor Taisho's back was turned to the class and Sango held out her hand. Giving a cursory glance around the classroom, Kagome noted that all the other students were looking over their returned assignments or jotting down whatever the professor was saying- though some were, as she should have expected, wistfully watching Professor Taisho's broad shoulders as he scribbled something on the board. She repressed a frown of her own. What she'd once only found annoying was now threatening to make her blood boil.

Kagome handed the paper over and watched the class cautiously as Sango flipped through the pages. After a moment, her friend nodded, dog-eared a page and pushed it lightly back onto Kagome's desk. Shoulders slumping, Kagome picked up her pen and slid it between the pages to carefully lift them and peeked inside, all the while ignoring Sango's vehement eye-rolling.

There, on the very same post-it just beneath where she'd written Would like to meet with the person you suggested was the quick response, in Professor Taisho's oddly elegant penmanship, of Will email time and place. Nodding herself, Kagome let the pages drop back into place and squared her shoulders, sitting up straight in her seat again. This wasn't unusual, considering that the teachers had the emails of their students for things like last minute additions on assignments or the fast delivery of announcements. No, what bothered Kagome was the notion that the message could have been left by Nah Rah Ku and not the professor.

She knew he thought ahead, but that sort of blindside would just be a nightmare.

Shaking her head- she didn't want to think something like that- she returned her attention to the front of the classroom where Professor Taisho was setting up some of the excavation footage for the class to watch. It was his preamble to hitting the play button that caught her a little off-guard.

"This is a copy of some footage sent to me by the current research team. There was- as seemed the theme of working this particular site- an unexpected discovery."

Miroku switched off the lights to allow the class to give their undivided attention to the large flat screen television. An archeologist Kagome recalled meeting in passing when they'd been handing off the site to the next team appeared. Harper was his name . . . ? No, Henley- she felt certain that was it. He wasn't in the temple, however . . . or even stationed in front of it. She shifted a little uncomfortably and cast a glance toward Sango without her head. Her friend's fingers, which had been drumming with a dull, quiet thud against her desktop had stilled.

As Doctor Henley explained to an imaginary audience that sometimes the most significant discoveries were stumbled across quite by accident the camera was zooming out in slow increments to show more of the craggy, subterranean rock face of the cavern behind him. It should look like all the other walls, but something about the pock-pattern of the surface tickled at Kagome's memory. The camera panned out further still to show that he stood atop the little plateau where she'd discovered Lyka's ashes.

She felt cold suddenly in the pit of her stomach and the tips of her fingers went numb against the cool, smooth surface of her desk. It was in an odd, detached autopilot that she continued to watch a reenactment of how they'd sectioned off the plateau with large plastic tiles to keep the water at bay until they could extract any artifacts. As he began once more painstakingly working through the muddy surface to start delicately sliding free items that she, herself, must have bypassed in her drive to locate the ashes, he explained that it was only by sheer happenstance that he'd followed a piece of equipment that had been knocked into the water and carried by the current to wash up there.

She heard the light sound of a pen scribbling from the desk beside her and briefly dropped her gaze to see a small scrap of paper get slipped into her unresisting hand. Frowning, she turned her hand over, squinting in the dim lighting to read Sango's chicken scratch.

Accidental my ass! WTF?

Letting out a miserable, soundless sigh, Kagome crumpled the paper and shoved it into her pocket as she shook her head. Turning her attention back to the screen she instantly felt her heart drop into her stomach. Henley was sliding Lyka's urn out of the mud. Sango was right, there was no way this stumbled-upon discovery had been an accident.

She felt sure she'd explained to Sango that it was only a fragment of Lyka's consciousness that she'd be infected with, but pointing that out again would be too much writing for a quick, tiny note. She'd been hoping that anything left behind would be dormant, but now with Henley's team having uncovered something no one else- save for Sango and herself- had even noticed, she had to accept that the rest of Lyka was still out there and, unfortunately, awake.

The rest of the recorded lecture passed by Kagome in a disjointed daze. When the class ended, Professor Taisho only hit the pause button. Kagome could only assume this was to preview the rest of the footage after the students had left. If she could tell anything from what little of his expression ever, really, said anything, it was that he didn't entirely approve of his colleague's methods. Their next class would likely be a review of points and aspects to which he would have taken a different approach.

"I would like everyone to write a quick essay- it needn't be expansive, but it must fit the qualifications you all know I expect of an essay on where Doctor Henley might have gone about this procedure differently."

Kagome only give a nod, folding her lips inward to keep from chewing her lower lip to pieces. She'd had him pegged on that one. In an odd way, it was comforting to know that though their environment had changed, she'd not lost her ability to read him.

Sango tilted her head toward Kagome as they gathered up their books to start off to their anthropology class. Sadly enough, the lecture room that had initially be used for that class had been reassigned to one across campus and they would have to hurry to not risk getting singled out- and perhaps utterly humiliated- by Professor Tamaki.

"Yeah," she whispered, "you really need to talk to that spiritualist. We don't know enough about how spirits work, what if she can get to you here now that she's going to be out and about?"

"I don't know, I don't know, maybe she doesn't actually remember about me 'cause that was only a fragment of her?" Kagome muttered back in a thin breath of sound.

"Okay, again," Sango was going on as she dragged Kagome toward the classroom door by way of a hand around the strap of the girl's worn yellow backpack, "we don't know enough. Even if she doesn't remember or she can't affect you, I still think it's best to find out how to guard yourself. Understand?"

Kagome nodded, forcing a small gulp down her throat. She'd just have to add spirit shield to her list of ridiculous-seeming questions she planned to fire at this guy.

"Ryoushi," they heard suddenly and both girls halted instantly, quickly forcing their mortified expressions aside.

Was it possible he had noticed their fidgety behavior during the screening? Kagome was already thinking up excuses- it made her feel like . . . they hadn't done enough if this had escaped the notice of their team, that seemed plausible enough.

The professor caught them off-guard once more as he simply extracted the disc from the DVD player and placed in its case before holding it out to Sango. "Um . . ." was all she managed, quirking a brow as she took the square of plastic from him and turned it over in her fingers.

"I think Henley's on-site AV tech is slipping, there are some anomalies I'd like you to look over. See if you can scrub them, if not . . ." he shrugged, "I'll just have to explain environmental visual anomalies to the class . . . again." He almost cracked a tiny smirk. "I swear, I don't know why I try."

"Don't you need this, though?" Kagome asked, not bothering to wonder if she had any place in this conversation or not. Though it did raise the brief, flickering question in the back of her mind of whether it was simply because their close work together on the site had led to the natural acceptance of their small unit as a cohesive team.

"No, I have a separate copy. I made this one for this purpose, actually. I still have a bit more of the original to review."

"Sure, I can . . . go over this after lunch, I think."

"Good, let me know tomorrow what your conclusions are. And Higurashi?"

Kagome gave a bit of a start. "Yes, Professor."

"You looked over your paper?" He asked as he moved back to the board to begin erasing it.

She immediately caught his meaning. "Yes."

"Good. Now off you go before Tamaki publicly skewers the two of you."

"As if," Sango grumbled as they exited the room, finally, "it's his fault if we're late, how is that fair?"

The reality didn't prevent either of them from breaking into a run the moment they hit the hallway.

* * *

"I don't see anything yet," Sango said over her shoulder.

They were back-to-back in one of the currently, and thankfully, deserted AV rooms. Kagome was checking her email while Sango was diligently combing her way through the first half of the footage.

Kagome only gave a vague nod, quiet for a moment as she clicked on what must be it. The sender's email wasn't the usual faculty address they normally received class-related notices from, but she took the unmistakably familiar last name worked into the email address as a glaring indication of the sender's identity. She guessed he had already thought over the scenario of one of his colleagues stumbling over an email from him to a student suggesting a place and time to meet up.

She brushed aside a light, giddy tingling at the fact that Professor Taisho trusted her enough to let her know his private email address.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Kagome at last replied, "Yeah, um . . . there's an address and a time. Sunday afternoon, he's going to meet me in the lobby of the old guy's apartment building and call the him down to meet us and . . . then after introductions he's going to leave so we can . . . talk medium to medium, apparently."

Sango turned in her seat, brown eyes darting from the back of Kagome's head to the screen over her shoulder and back again a few times. "He's not going to stick around?"

Giving a shrug, Kagome turned a bit to meet her friend's gaze. "Makes sense if you think about it. If he's introducing me to the old guy and then just walking away, it could be seen as maybe I'm helping out the elderly or something along those lines, but if he sticks around or . . . like were to take me up to the apartment himself, it wouldn't look right."

"Assuming anyone sees you," Sango flicked a finger in the direction of the screen. "That address is in a crap-old part of that district no one ever really goes to."

Kagome rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably. "Maybe he doesn't want to chance being alone with me after that moment we had in The Thief's chamber?"

Sango formed a perfect little O with her lips. "Right, okay."

Turning back to her viewing, Sango had lifted the remote control automatically to rewind the frames, having forgotten to pause it. The sight that greeted her made her jump, nearly dropping the remote before she managed, with trembling fingers, to finally hit the pause button.

"Kags . . . um, Kags?"

"Hmm?" was all the response that was offered as Kagome finished going through the remainder of her emails.

"Can you look at this?"

Something in the tone of Sango's voice pulled Kagome's spine up straight. Feeling her hands threatening to go numb once more, she quickly exited out of her session and turned in her seat to peer over Sango's shoulder at the viewing screen.

At first, she wasn't certain she noticed anything at all. "What . . . um, what am I looking at?"

Mutely Sango lifted a finger, pointing to a bit of out-of-place seeming shadow along the craggy wall behind Doctor Henley. She rewound it and Kagome watched, unable to ignore the itchy sensation of her skin crawling as the shadow darted backward toward the plateau with jittery motions, as though the footage was skipping, despite the smooth motions of the man in the foreground.

"Just . . . watch . . . ." Sango said, hitting pause as the specter seemed to sink into the muddy ground.

She hit play and Kagome felt her jaw go slack, her shoulders bunching of their own accord as she watched the shadow slowly pull itself up from the damp, over-turned earth like something half-dead that was struggling to stand upright. For just a moment it appeared to face the camera, the backdrop, in that second, of the lighter plastic tiles giving more depth to the image than the cavern walls had allowed.

Sango hit pause again, breaking the silence with a breathless whisper. "Is that what I think it is?"

Kagome nodded stiffly, raking her gaze over the mottled, barely visible face peering back at them. It wasn't wholly clear, but those eyes . . . those wide, upturned eyes she knew in a way that made her stomach lurch. Propping an arm over the back of her chair, Kagome rested her forehead against her hand as she let her own eyes drift closed.

After what had felt like forever, she murmured back, "It's Lyka."

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