In The Dark

“Speaking”
‘Thought’
: Telepathy :
Italic sections – Past events

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Inuyasha and that makes me sad 8(

~* Flashback *~

Chapter 11
In The Dark
Facing the past

Twilight had followed dusk and darkness wrapped itself around the walls of the Higurashi home. The silence was eerie. No light flickered in the windows, no warm laugh echoed from the house and spilled into the courtyard of the shrine. Nothing, just a hollow darkness that had invaded the home. Head lights glinted quickly against the broken panes of glass as the motor of a car presented the only sign of life in the dark. Fingers clad in smooth black leather cut the life of the motor and relaxed against the steering wheel, momentarily tightening against the comfort of the rubber in anticipation to its task. The empty courtyard echoed the opening click of the vehicle’s door and the first sharp sound of a foot against a cold pavement. A shadowed figure made its way up shrine steps and slowly it arrived to the front door. The hands lightly push against the door; it was already open, inviting the stranger in.

The sound of footsteps lightly echoed down the empty hallways of the home, bouncing off the debris everywhere. Despite what seemed to have been a powerful explosion, the home still stands proud in the night despite its disheveled insides. A woman stands amongst the fallen pictures, the turned up couches, the broken tables, she steps casually over broken glass and searches the darkness for her objective. She enters the remains of the living room, her red eyes glinted lightly in the somber atmosphere as they searched the floor and locked on three distinctive lumps on the ground. A slow and excited smile crept on her face as she neared her target. She bent down slowly and her fingers extended to the white strands of hair spread before her and followed them to its owner.

“Hello Inuyasha … seems you have been busy …” she whispered to the unconscious hanyou. She let her fingers flicker off debris from his face, bits of paint and dust from the soul expansion. She sighed. ‘Too bad our reunion is so bitter sweet.’ She stood up over the body of Inuyasha, pulled a small cellular phone from her black leather coat pocket and dialed quickly, her eyes never leaving him. Before the person at the other end of the line could say hello she spoke slowly into the receiver “I’ve found him. Seems he has begun to remember his lovely stay with you Naraku.”

“Excellent work Kagura, bring him to me.” He responded. His voice held a certain malice even Kagura knew to be fearful of after all these years.

“What about the others? There are two humans here with him.”

“Leave them, I have no interest in humans. He won’t even remember them after I am through with him so don’t bother.” his voice held slight disgust as he hung up the phone. Kagura put away the cell in her pocket and passed a hand through her hair in frustration. She should get rid of them, it could be trouble but if he says no, he means no. Who knows what he has planned for Inuyasha. She picks up Inuyasha’s limp arms and begins to drag him behind her hurriedly. She had to get out of here. His companions were bound to wake up.

In her hurry to remove Inuyasha, she failed to see Kagome stir from her place. The miko opened her eyes lightly, stirring from her prolonged sleep. She felt exhausted. Inuyasha’s memory of those years under Naraku’s control still burned in her mind and she felt the tears prick her eyes, but thankfully she was too tired to cry. Suddenly, she felt Inuyasha being pulled from her. She tried to grab him but her body was too tired and slow to respond and she didn’t manage to keep a hold of him as he was being dragged crudely on the ground. The female grunts and huffs was what caught her attention. She tried to roll over, and get up but her body wasn’t responding, she felt panic rise in her. Some one was taking Inuyasha and she couldn’t help, she was motionless… even paralyzed. She heard a car door open and the woman barked an order. She heard a heavy thump, another door being slammed shut and she felt a tear fall from her eyes as the car was turned on and drove away.

She looked out into the dark and a cold chill ran down her spine as she realized that she had just lost Inuyasha. She closed her eyes and her brows met together in concentration. ‘If he can talk to me… I can talk to him maybe…’ Her body began to shimmer a light pink and blue as she concentrated on Inuyasha’s fading presence. She grabbed a hold of … what ever that was and yanked it tight, letting herself be part of what seemed to represent Inuyasha in her mind. And she thought as loud as possible with as much urgency and belief she could muster in her state and proudly told her lover : I’m not going to leave you, I will find you : She didn’t know if it worked or if she had just done a very insane thing, thinking he could hear her thoughts but that was all she could do before she lost consciousness again. Her miko energy had drained everything from her.

***

Far from the Higurashi’s, in the back of a van laid Inuyasha, shackled and weighted down. He suffered from the same paralysis as Kagome and was semi-conscious at this point when he heard a loud and deafening sound inside his mind that sounded just like Kagome. He smiled as he felt her love and worry through her voice. He worried when it suddenly stopped, like she had been snuffed out and he made a small whining sound, which caught the attention of Kagura.

“Well, well. Seems that our master’s favorite pet has awaken.” She purred to him as she leaned over to the tape player and took out a CD. She let her fingers run along the cover of the plastic contraption before she coolly added “Technology does wonders you know that Inuyasha?” He opened his eyes and stared at her for a moment. ‘Is that really…’ He was shocked to see her and an eerie feeling overcame him.

“K..K…ra……ra…” was all he could manage to say, more like whisper. She cocked her head a little to the right, eyes narrowing down at him deciding what to say to him. “The Kagura you knew at that time is no more. I’ve lost my free will and so will you.” She took out the disc and installed it in the car player. She pushed up the volume and hummed along a very familiar tune to the hanyou. He felt himself being pushed back as his youkai was screaming to be free. “Technology is beautiful Inuyasha, at least I don’t have to sing anymore” She stared at the changing hanyou and she laughed as he struggled with the music, his golden eyes turned to a crimson red and two purple stripes formed on his face. Inuyasha could only lay there, still paralyzed from the soul expansion and all he could do was watch himself disappear once more. Something was different about his transformation this time. As he slipped behind his youkai self he sensed a presence within himself, warmth that had never been there before and it gave him a bit of hope, some inner strength. All he could do as the darkness took over his mind was silently pray that it would somehow save him.

***

The sun was high in the Tokyo sky as the busy streets filled with traffic as the lunch hour of the business day progressed but unfortunately for those working at the Higurashi home, no rest seemed to be plan for today. The once quiet shrine crawled with working on the remains. Mrs Higurashi had nearly lost it when they found Kagome in the debris four days ago. It was shocking to see the home in that state. ‘So much for that cup of tea I wanted after that trip…’ she mentally sighed. She couldn’t think on her daughter’s state, it distressed her too much and she needed to see how the work was progressing. She was growing restless in the hotel and craved the comforts of her home.

Kagome’s mother rushed about in the ruins of their home, she knew her daughter had strong miko powers but this was ridiculous. Her whole house had nearly fallen apart. She sighed to herself as she looked over the workers that invaded her home like rats, scurrying about in her space, she frowned darkly at the thought of Inuyasha’s disappearance. Kagome hadn’t been the same since he had disappeared a few days ago. They had no idea where he had gone. Kagome still hadn’t quite recovered from this… what ever it was exactly that happened. Her father had mentioned something about a soul expansion… but it confused her. She wasn’t one to believe in such things but looking at all this made her consider what her father had told her this morning.

~ * ~

“A what?” Mrs Higurashi asked carefully. She placed her teacup slowly on the table and gave her father a long and considerate look. Had he finally lost it?

“A soul expansion caused this.” He repeated. Her father looked up to her, his face holding concern and a hint of fear for his granddaughter. “This…” his arm swept the photographs of the trashed rooms, cracked walls and broken windows in a large dramatic motion “… was caused by your daughter’s loss of control.” His daughter blinked in disbelief.

“What made her lose control?”

“I’m not sure. Inuyasha’s brother may have some answers to the soul expansion but it happened very quickly. So fast in fact, it nearly killed them but thankfully Souta remembered that Miroku practiced the monk’s traditional magic and called him while I tried feverishly to control their energies. Inuyasha put up a solid fight against her miko energy but he was also overwhelmed by the sheer power of it.” He paused, his old wise eyes traveled the photos that held the grit and smear marks of the shield’s cracking energy when it finally gave out. He sighed. Miroku was also missing but from what they had seen that morning, when they had returned to the ruins of the home, evidence showed that only one had been dragged out of the house. Kagome had been untouched but Miroku had been nowhere to be found.

His thoughts paused on Kagome. He was worried; she wasn’t faring well at all. She had nearly died from the energy used and she seemed haunted by something. Her eyes seemed to be filled with fear and sorrow. She hadn’t said a single word since waking just four days ago. He still wanted to know about Inuyasha’s physical state also. It was a nasty surprise to see him transform into a demon while struggling against the miko energy. But now was not the time to ask her, he had gone missing and he had a terrible feeling nothing good would come of it.

“Should we expect more of these?” His daughter’s voice brought him back from his thoughts and shook his head slowly. “I’m … not sure. Like I’ve mentioned before, Sesshomarou would be the best one to answer this at this time. He seemed to understand what was happening to them when they first began the soul expansion.” She looked at her father, narrowed here eyes slightly at his explanation. She would have to meet this man. She wanted to know what was happening to her daughter.

~*~

“Mrs. Higurashi!” a loud voice boomed to her right, bringing her out of her mental daze and she looked over to see a worker… one of the painters she mentally checked, wave at her frantically about something. She sighed impatiently… the noise was starting to get to her and it wasn’t helping her sort things out mentally. All these events lately had made her worry for her daughter. This man she was seeing seemed to cause a lot of chaos. She briskly walked over to the man and mustered a little smile and began to look and listen to what he had to say about the new paint they were going to put up… once the walls were rebuilt.

&&&

Sesshomarou pressed his hand lightlyinstinst his forehead in frustration while Rin sat across from him, books were spread all over the study from her husband’s search into what was happening to his brother. Now that Inuyasha had disappeared, it became more urgent to find a solution… or even pinpoint the problem. They couldn’t find anything. Sesshomarou had begun to look to history books to see if they could find anything about the years that Inuyasha had disappeared and on the death of the powerful miko Kikyo, his first mate.

So far, the history books only spoke of the legend of the Jewel of Four Souls and the journey of a half demon and the priestess. It was getting frustrating. Rin suddenly had just about enough and growled lightly in frustration and slammed her fists on top of the table, which brought an amused laugh out of Sesshomarou.

“You are not one to growl Rin. Although it is rather charming to see you try.” Rin gave her mate a subtle angry look and began to open her mouth to say something that would get that smile off his face when her eye caught a ledger on the table, under loose paper. Her fingers reached for it cautiously and her eyes twinkled in wonder for a moment.

“Have you looked at this one yet Sesshomarou?” Her husband lifted his amused gave from her and looked at the old worn book she held in her delicate hands. “I don’t believe so, it’s a book of myths and legends about an evil youkai. I was concentrating on real facts rather than myths.” He responded, his voice cool and uninterested. She rolled her eyes at him. Typical of him to not care or disregard something. She opened the worn leather clad book and her eyes traveled over the fading letters of the book.

It spoke of a half demon man that had control over hordes of demons, a man that was hungry for total domination of the species and used a spell to control them. The demons would lose all sense of self, they obeyed his every command. He had a favorite amongst them, a dog demon with silver hair and was the most vicious and destructive of all. He almost seemed mindless. What grabbed her attention was the description of the silver haired demon that proclaimed him as a royal demon, a prince of some kind and he was powerful. She felt a chill run down her spine as she began to suspect this story was about her brother in law. It was even mentioned that the tyrannical man both feared and loved his pet and for half a century they ruled Feudal Japan, throwing it into utter chaos. The demon’s destruction had barely been noticed due to Feudal Japan’s own turmoil at that that time, it was in the throes of civil war. Rin felt like her heart stopped. She continued to read about the bloody destruction of the dog demon and she felt like cement had been poured into her belly.

Sesshomarou noticed the change in her and quietly asked her what she had discovered. Her eyes filled with tears as she slowly confirmed that this was about her lover’s brother, she was reading whathad had forgotten, and his misery and pain were all in this faded book. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the accounts of his slaughter, his reign of terror with this man and she knew so well that this would kill Inuyasha if he would find out. She dropped the book as a tear slipped down her cheek and she turned her gaze towards her husband who was eyeing her in concern, unmoving, waiting for his wife to say something. “Well? What is it?” she pointed to the book on the floor and said in a whisper “Your brother’s forgotten past and it should remain that way.”

Sesshomarou blinked at her and stared down to the book on the floor and frowned in thought. “Does it say anything that we should be worried about?”

Rin wanted to laugh, they should be very worried. If this man or demon were to find him, things could only get worse but she had a sneaky feeling that he was already on to them. That night Sesshomarou received that note and was driven Youkai mad seemed to be suspect to this evil youkai. There were similarities between what happened to him and the descriptions of what happened to the demons of this story. Either he mistook her husband as Inuyasha or he wanted to test out his ability to control. She shuddered. What if that man turned brother against brother in a struggle for power over the species like in the past? She didn’t want to think about it. She was worried that Inuyasha may already be in the hands of that man. A sense of dread and urgency overcame her and she took a step towards her husband slowly.

“We need to find him Sesshomarou. His life depends on it.” Seshomarou looked at his wife and bent down to pick up the book. She placed her foot lightly on the book, keeping him from picking it up and she shook her head. He gave her a soft but warned look as he tugged at the book beneath her feet. “I need to see what happened Rin if I can help him in anyway.” She bit her lip in worry and nodded slowly. “This could change everything…” she whispered barely loud enough for her mate to hear. Sesshomarou gave her a suspicious look as he watched her turn and walk out of the study. He frowned slightly and opened the book began to read what his brother had been forced to forget.

Rin closed her eyes and leaned against the wall of the hallway. Suddenly she heard her mate let out a possessive and angry growl from down the hall. The crash of the table as he threw it against the wall of the study in a rage so powerful caused by the grief of what his brother had been forced to do. She staggered as she heard her mate cry loudly into her mind : This man will pay for this treachery! : She could only nod in response as she let herself slip down to the ground and cried for her husband’s unshed grief.

***
o.O