Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sealed Past ❯ Chapter 23 ( Chapter 23 )

Chapter 23

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Stopping to catch her breath, Akane rested at the top of shrine's strenuous staircase. Just how many steps had there been? She'd quit counting at two hundred seventy-six. Squaring her shoulders she marched up to the house and pounded on the door.

 

An immaculately dressed, russet haired young man in a dark business suit opened the door, his eyebrow quirking upwards when he saw the odd-ball crowd gathered outside the door. “Yes. How may I help you?”

 

“I want to talk with Saotome Ranma.” Akane said through gritted teeth.

 

He opened the door wider and stepped back, “Please follow me, I'll see if he's available.” As soon as they had all filled in, he shut the door and turned down the hall, gesturing for them to follow.

 

Pausing he motioned for them to wait as he entered a room, from within they could hear him speak. “Father, some people are here to see you.”

 

“Oh,” Everyone heard Ranma's voice answer in annoyance. “Well come in than.”

 

Stiffly they entered the room. The occupants re-seated themselves to make room for the new numbers. A stunningly handsome man, wearing glasses with short-cropped white haired in a charcoal suit sat beside an equally beautiful woman who was dressed in a soft pink blouse and skirt, her long black hair elegantly restrained atop her head in a chignon.

 

Beside the woman was the youngest Higurashi child, the boy Souta. A rather ordinary teenager wearing the navy coloured uniform of a private high school. Too his left was his grandfather, in his usual Shinto priest garments, as well as his mother. Matching dark brown hair and dark eyes, she wore a blue sweater and floral print skirt.

 

Beside the eldest Higurashi woman was her daughter, the young woman named Kagome. She was wearing a green turtleneck and black slacks. Beside her was Ranma, in his customary kung-fu pants and Chinese-style shirt.

 

It was at Ranma's side that the man who'd answered the door seated himself beside another lovely black haired and eyed woman whose hair was confined in a single long braid that hung down her back. She was dressed in a woman's business suit that was a warm golden-brown.

 

“Good evening,” Mrs. Higurashi greeted cheerfully, giving them a smile reminiscent of Kasumi's.

 

“Good evening,” Akane returned stiffly, “I am Tendo Akane, and this is my father Soun and my sister, Nabiki. With me are Hibiki Ryoga, Kuonji Ukyo, Shampoo, and Mousse, as well as Kuno Tatewaki and his sister Kodachi. And this is Saotome Genma.”

 

With each introduction, a name was attached to a face in memory, and a thorough and brutal inspection made. Each member of the Nerima Wrecking Crew had to fight the urge to fidget when they were evaluated in turn.

 

“As I'm sure you already know,” Ranma drawled as he looked pointedly at Nabiki, “This is Seibuinutaiso Sesshoumaru and his wife Rin. This is the Higurashi family, Higurashi Asami, her father, and her two children Kagome and Souta. And these two are Toyota Shippou and his wife Souten.”

 

“Excuse me for a moment,” Kagome murmured as she stood, “I have to go make a phone call.”

 

Ranma gave a brief nod as he continued to eye his visitors. “Well what do you wish to talk about?”

 

“You're disgraceful attitude and recent actions my son!” Genma began angrily. “It's time you come home and do your duty!”

 

Ranma merely gave a humph of amusement as his lips almost twitched into a smile. His answer was bland and toneless, “I have done my duty.”

 

“How dare you make such a claim! You—”

 

“Well if it isn't `father abuse',” Sesshoumaru interrupted smoothly as he leaned forward, the room in the temperature seemed to drop visually. The martial artists quelled beneath the most brutal Soul-of-Ice Technique[1] they'd ever had the misfortune to encounter.

 

“Enough,” Ranma said softly, his demeanour unruffled as he flicked a sudden rim of hoarfrost from his glass.

 

“As you wish… brother.” The man settled back, his frozen gold eyes never leaving Genma's face. Giving the man a definite hunted feeling. Everyone else blinked at the man's deliberate statement.

 

“Thank-you. I have no wish to clean up your mess.”

 

“Ah… but that's what one's employees are for,” came they very urban reply.

 

Kagome chuckled softly as she re-entered the room and took her seat beside Ranma once again, as she had caught the last of the two brother's comments. “I think that a more detailed explanation is needed by many of them. Ranma's never been really good with words and that seems to be the problem here. Now where to begin? Three months ago… or five hundred years?”

 

“I think you better start with your first meeting,” Shippou suggested, eyeing the confused expressions before them, “I don't think they're really ready for the extended version but there doesn't seem to be much choice.”

 

“Okay, here goes. One day on a girl's fifteenth birthday she fell through a magical well located on a shrine grounds. The well was a time travel portal between two periods, Japan's Feudal Era and the present day 20th Century. While there she meet a half-breed dog demon named Inuyasha and learned she was the reincarnation of a priestess. Also during her first visit she broke a magical item and soon she and Inuyasha had to travel about Japan collecting all of the pieces. During their travels they were joined first by a fox demon, than a Buddhist monk, and lastly a demon exterminator and her two-tail cat demon hunting companion.” Kagome took a sip of water before continuing.

 

“They had trouble along the way though, as a half-breed Inuyasha was ostracised, especially by his pure demon brother. The brother was after the sword their father had left Inuyasha because it was capable of slaying a thousand demons with one blow. There was also an evil demon that was seeking the pieces of the magical item and he would stop at nothing to collect them. Soon, their quest became more of a battle between the friends and the evil demon than a search of the item's pieces. But in the end they managed to kill the evil demon, reassemble and purify the item and fall in love in the process.”

 

“Who did?” Mousse asked eagerly, he rather enjoyed this rushed story and wanted to hear the detailed version.

 

“The girl from the future fell in love with Inuyasha. And trust me, that was really bizarre than, as religious people and demons were constantly trying to kill each other. It took her a while to convince him she was telling the truth. However, she was from the future and thus had no place among the past so the gods sent her home. But not before promising the two lovers they would be together again.”

 

“That's so sad,” Kodatchi murmured as she passed a tissue to her snuffling brother.

 

“Yes well,” Kagome said with a dismissive shrug, “Three months ago I bumped into Ranma on the street and when he returned my purse to me we actually started talking about his Jusenkyo Curse. Anyway I mentioned an exorcism and started talking about performing one for him—”

 

“I'll just bet you did you bitch!” Akane snapped, angry at the woman's pointless story and craving to take a swing at both her and Ranma.

 

“Pardon me?” Kagome said with a surprised blink.

 

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Footnote:

[1] Soul-of-Ice Technique: one extreme end of the “Hiryu Shoten Ha” or “Dragon's Heaven Blast” technique which was taught to Ranma when he became weak due to Happosai's Moxibustion technique. The manoeuvre is executed by allowing the opponent to have a "hot" battle aura, while Ranma's aura remains “cool.” Ranma then draws the opponent in a spiralling path and executes a punch. The resulting collision of hot and cold plus the spiral creates a tornado. (Cited from “Ranma 1/2: Perfect Edition.”)