UnBound Memories

A/N: luvsjazz, This chapter explains a little more about Katsuro, and as far as Yasashiku (could I have picked a longer name? I'm regretting it every time I type the beast) His full identity will be revealed soon.

Chapter 30

Seeking Answers

On the other side of the well, Shippo, who despite taking on a human form kept his red hair and green eyes into his adulthood, laid the plastic donut down at the desk chair, agonizing having to sit once again, but he needed to get these damned graphics done.

He heard laughing coming from the corner. “You actually have to use a donut!”

“Kouga, I believe this is how they express this in New York, if I remember right.” Shippo extended his right hand, middle finger pointed directly at the wolf before delicately sitting down on the donut. “Keep in mind that in five hundred years, I’m on tail number seven. One more and I’m damned near a god.”

“Such language, Shippo.” Kouga looked over Shippo’s shoulder. “What’re you working on?”

“The cut sequences for the show breaks during the anime hours. I can’t get the swipe of claws right. I lost time when I had to leave the country for InuYasha and Kagome’s wedding.“

“You knew you couldn’t be here. What if the other demons detected two bratty kistunes in Japan? They might have gone after the defenseless little one... or the defenseless big one”

The fox rolled his eyes, groaning at the screen. “The movement still looks awkward. So what are you doing here, aside from trying to annoy me?” Shippo began manipulating the program to try to get the giant dog not to look like he was having a spasm when he clawed through another image on the screen.

“I wanted to see how Mr. Pissy is.”

“Just fine,” Shippo answered, “and just for your own sake, I hope there’s something to distract him in his office. There’s nothing wrong with his hearing, and he may just shred your for calling him that.”

“He’s so moody.”

“Well, what do you expect?” Shippo said, feeling more satisfied with what he was looking at, and resting back on his seat, only to have the seventh tail trying to poke its way through his skin remind him that he couldn’t. Frustrated, he stood, wanting to think of a way to wipe the pleased smirk on Kouga’s face. “I would be nice to me, Kouga, or the next time you need to replace your disguise, I’m making you a woman.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” The two youkai stared at one another, half-glaring. Both knew this was only a good-natured teasing, as it usually was between them. They were essentially family, and there honestly was nothing they enjoyed more than getting to tease and prank one another. Despite being over five and seven hundred years old respectively, Shippo and Kouga preferred the opportunity to act like children every so often.

“Hello?” A voice said from the intercom. “Is someone there?”

Kouga walked to the intercom, pressing down the talk button. “Who is this?”

“This is Miroku. I want to speak to Sesshomaru.”

“Miroku?” Shippo asked.

Wide-eyed, Kouga looked back at him. “Shit! I forgot he did this. Shit! Shit! What do we do?”

“Leave him standing on the street in feudal era clothing with dog ears,” Shippo said sarcastically. “What do you think we do?”

“I’m letting you in.” Kouga slammed the button that opened the front gate and temporarily breached the spell-like barrier around the mansion.

“You broke the button.” Shippo shook his head before he reached up to his hair and pulled out the pinned leaf in it. “You’ll need to take yours out. He’s going to have enough questions as it is.” Kouga pulled his leaf out and stuck it in the back pocket of the jeans he had on, seeming to enjoy moving his tail. It had been one of the biggest gripes for the wolf, as well as Shippo, that their tails had to remain stationary to avoid knocking something over accidentally.

“We might want to warn Kirara to get the heck out of his office, unless she wants to get in the way,” Kouga said. “If I remember right, this didn’t go well.”

Shippo nodded, going to the front door, prepared for the frenzied entrance of the former monk. Kouga knocked at the door to Sesshomaru’s office, asking Kirara to come out. Shippo opened the door, Miroku charging in.

“Where is he?” Miroku demanded of the red-headed demon at the front door. “Where is Sesshomaru?”

“He’s in his office, Miroku,” the demon answered. Miroku’s eyes narrowed.

“Shippo?”

“Yeah.”

“All those tails. I thought it took a thousand years.”

“It should, but I’m going to finish with them in about half the time.”

Miroku felt Shippo’s hand at his back. “Go on.”

They walked in further, finding Kouga leaning against a wall, a strange woman with orange eyes and blond and black hair beside him. “Kirara?” The woman bowed, but didn’t smile or show any sign of emotion as she looked at Miroku.

“She got a human form… what was it, about three hundred years ago?”

Kirara raised her hand and held up two fingers.

“Two hundred. She still can’t talk, not that she doesn’t let us all know what she’s thinking of.” Kirara raised a thin black eyebrow, then turned to Miroku and gestured to the door beside her.

Miroku followed her direction, finding a dark-haired man sitting at a large desk, white dress shirt on, tie loose around his neck. “Has there been any word on where the jet is en route?” The voice was the same. It was Sesshomaru, but was it his Sesshomaru any longer? “Well?” he said, looking up. “What are you doing here?” he asked, brown eyes going wide. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Sesshomaru…” He approached the desk, looking up into eyes that he wanted desperately to see without the disguise. He couldn’t stop the first words out of his mouth, wishing they had been the question he’d originally come to ask. “Are we still… Are you still my mate?”

The head of the man cocked to the side, brown eyes narrowing. “In your time, I am being held against my will and you are here asking questions if we are still a couple? You need to leave. NOW!”

“I wanted to ask you--” Before he could finish, Sesshomaru in a swift move had cracked a less-than-powerful energy whip at him, slightly nicking his cheek.

“GO!”

Miroku felt someone grab him by his collar, and found himself being forcibly dragged from the office by Shippo.
“We need to get you to the well.”

“But, Sesshomaru…”

“I already drew a map showing where your Sesshomaru is. He’s being held by that demon Saruwatari, with the courtesans. He has barriers that won’t allow you to detect Sesshomaru or any of the others. That’s why Katsuro left Sesshomaru there, to keep you from finding him so easily, but try to imagine what it is to be held there in a place where countless demons are being forced to have sex, a place that absolutely reeks of the scent within the barrier.”

Shippo grabbed Miroku, who felt he was going to be sick considering where his mate was, around his waist, jumping from a nearby window and using a cloud similar to that Sesshomaru floated on soared above Tokyo. Under other circumstances, Miroku would noticed that it was strange to be carried around by the older kitsune as he or the others had done so many times before. “Shippo, can you tell me, please what has happened to Sesshomaru?”

“What difference would it make, Miroku? Would you not save him if you found out he was mated to Katsuro, missing your last chance to be with him? Would you go slower, keeping him in that place longer, knowing that you were going to end up together?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. Go and find him. Knowing too much about the future isn’t good for you, Miroku.” As the fox demon deposited Miroku within the Higurashi shrine, the former monk thought for a moment he saw that large man, Gee, from the night club, lingering nearby, looking worried. Still, Miroku didn’t have time to worry about the strange man. Shippo had been right. He needed to save Sesshomaru.

********

“Please, Lord Sesshomaru,” a neko hanyou said, as she held a teapot in her hand, “we know this is beneath you… but if you do not obey…”

“He will punish me, I know.” Sesshomaru looked to the tea service.

“He will punish us as well,” a male ookami hanyou said. “Please, my lord.”

The demon lord looked to the female, seeing tears in her eyes, tears of blood. Kami, what had they suffered? What more would the suffer if he didn’t obey?

Sesshomaru extended his hand, taking the teapot from the neko’s hand, certain he was grinding down his fangs as he clenched his jaw tightly in fury that he was forced to behave in the role of a beta, dressed in a pink kimono. And now, thanks to the bastard demon, he not only had the life of his unborn child preventing him from acting out, but he had those of the hanyous to consider as well.

********

“Where’d that idiot monk get to?” Kouga asked, still hanging off of the female twin.

“My brother will find him. Don’t worry about Miroku,” Takara said, placing a hand on Kouga’s face to push him away. “We need to find Katsuro.”

“Find him and kill the bastard,” InuYasha corrected.

“We cannot,” the taller female, Manami, said, Shippo still on her shoulder. “If we do, it is the same as waging war on the clan.”

“Well, I’d like to,” InuYasha said.

“So would I,” Kagome, much to InuYasha’s shock, added. “They set him up to do this. Your oto-san doesn’t deserve this, InuYasha. No one does.”

“We will find Katsuro,” Manami said, bringing attention back to the issue at hand, “have him lead us to Sesshomaru, if Miroku hasn’t already found him. At a more public ceremony, we can decide what to do with him.” She looked to InuYasha. “As heir, you must lead us.”

“Well, then,” InuYasha said, “let’s find the bastard.”

With Kirara gone, off with Yasashiku trying to find Miroku, the group was left with Ah-Un to provide transportation for the four humans. Gladly, as he had always done, InuYasha gathered Kagome onto his back--she was still trying to master flying or at least floating in the air--the other demons followed closely as he led the way toward a great demonic aura. He could only guess how many demons of all levels of power were there.
He could feel the ground shaking, feel the auras of many demons coming toward them. He withdrew Tessaiga, standing his ground, and ordering the rest to do the same.

*******

“Why do you come to me?” the ancient demon asked. “I have heard you have managed to capture Sesshomaru and are very near becoming Lord of the West. What more do you need?”

“I am seeking answers. I wish to know if there is any way to avoid having to kill Lord Sesshomaru’s child if he is truly pregnant,” Katsuro said, taking in the surroundings of the demon’s heavily guarded fortress.

“And why? No one will rebuke you for doing what it is your right to do. Inu law dictates--”

“I know what inu law dictates,” Katsuro said, running his hand over the pelt that wrapped itself around his left side and down his back. “I just find no honor in slaughtering an innocent child.” His green eyes focused on the woman. “I want to break my cousin, not destroy him.”

“Like it nearly destroyed you?” Katsuro’s usually chiseled face went slack. “Your father kept everything remarkably quiet when you accidentally got that foolish human servant pregnant, but your break-down after he killed your daughter, there were quiet rumblings about that.”

“But how did you--”

“You come to me because I am wise and know much. How can I earn such a title if I am not aware of such things?”