When the worlds collide

Chapter 9



The silent beeping of the monitor was the only noise in the sizeable hospital room. The surgery had been performed, and Sakanami was expected to make a full recovery. He had been wheeled into a recovery room. The other officers had waited around for a while, but some of them had to go back on duty, and others left after they learned that Sakanami would make a full recovery. The funeral for Deputy Saji, and the hunt for the elusive killer and the girl that was with him, demanded their attention as well.



Presently it was just Miss Higurashi sitting in the room with him, with a couple of police officers standing guard outside the room. Suji was about to fall asleep in her chair, when Sakanami began stirring. He opened his eyes, and glanced about the room, taking the sight of flowers and other objects, before his eyes came to rest on Miss Higurashi.



"Miss...Higurashi...," breathed Sakanami, his voice coming out ragged and dry. Suji went to work, helping the Lieutenant to take a sip of water from a cup at a nearby table. After he had digested some water and wet his throat, he tried again.



"I need...to find...your daughter...," said the police man, looking her straight in the eyes. Suji couldn't look at him though, and averted her gaze. But she did answer him truthfully.



"I don't know where she is right now," replied Miss Higurashi.



"But you must have some idea of where she goes to get away from things, or where that...beast likes to hang out at," said the Lieutenant, his voice getting stronger now, and a little colder as well.



"I...I don't know," replied Miss Suji, afriad of answering and realizing a little too late that she had stammered somewhat while answering. But she didn't exactly trust the police or what they would do to Inuyasha and her daughter when they found them.



"Very well then. Deputy Sato?" called out Lieutenant Sakanami, getting the attention of both police officers on guard duty.



"Yes Lieutenant?" one of them, identified as Sato on his badge, asked, poking his head into the doorway.



"Please take Miss Higurashi into custody, list her as a person of interest in the current case, and interrogate her to see what she knows about the suspects and their possible whereabouts," ordered Lieutenant Sakanami, feeling guilty while knowing that, in the case of a slain police officer, all stops would be pulled in finding out the truth.



Miss Higurashi looked up in alarm when the Lieutenant announced her fate, as the police officer roughly jerked her up, and lead her out the door. He watched her departing form, and silenty begged her for forgiveness, even as he didn't feel too guilty, considering what had happened to his partner.



* * *



"I...I don't know where they are...," sobbed out Suji, her right cheek inflaming after the backhanded blow delivered by one of the three interrogaters in the room with her.



"Really? Because I happen to think that you do," replied the one who had slapped her, a big burly man by the name of Kokonami. With a startling suddeness, he reached across the table and backhanded her across the other cheek, this time with such force that Miss Suji was thrown to the ground.



With a nod from Kokonami, one of the interrogaters left the room to go fetch something. The other interrogater came up from behind Miss Higurashi and yanked her to her feet, placing a blindfold around her mouth before laying her on top of the table. The other interrogater came back into the room, carrying a bucket full of cold water, with a towel swirling around in it.



"Last chance, Miss Higurashi, where are Kagome and Inuyasha hiding out at?" asked Interrogater Kokonami with a sneer on his face. Not being able to verbally answer because of the pain to her cheeks, Miss Suji merely shook her head side to side in a gesture of 'no'.



Sighing to himself, the Interrogater plucked the towel from the water, and laid it across Miss Suji's face, pressing it to the table around her head. Like most people do, Miss Higurashi panicked and inhaled quickly as the cold towel hit her, sucking the wet fabric taunt against her nose and partially into her mouth.



She began thrashing about on the table, the waterboarding technique making it feel like she was drowning. After another moment, Interrogater Koko removed the towel, allowing the Missus to regain air in her lungs.



Putting the towel back into the water again, he looked down at her shivering form.



"One more time, where are they?" asked Koko.



"They...they are...in the past...," began Miss Suji, but Koko, believing it to be the beginning of another denial, plucked the towel from the water, and again applied the waterboarding technique. This time though, he motioned to another interrogater, who moved in close and applied a taser shock to her flank. With the double agony of simulated drowning and shock therapy, Miss Suji thought that she was going to die, but they removed the towel quicker this time.



Interrogater Koko allowed her some time to recover, before he asked again.



"Where are they?" he asked, this time his voice was almost calm, but with a hint of menace added in. He was considering comitting suicide now as he was forced to do this to this poor sweet woman, but they needed answers, and needed them now. But kami how he hated his job.



"I'll tell you...," began Miss Suji, and two of them whipped out tape recorders. She proceeded to tell them the whole story, and when she was finished, all three looked up with disbelieving expressions on their faces.



Koko motioned two of them outside the room, and followed himself.



"Well?" he asked when he was outside the room.



"She didn't appear to be lying, but it sounds too incredible to be true," said one of the interrogaters, the one with the taser, a short thin man that goes by the name Fyuku.



"I concur. She may be still holding something back, but it sounded like the truth. Proposals?" asked the second interrogater, tall and thin, his name being Ryu.



"Okay, here is what we'll do," began Koko, Kami have mercy on my soul for this, "You two head back inside and continue with the waterboarding and tazeing techninque. See if you can learn anything else from her. I'll take a squad to the homestead and try to see if the story is true or not. Let's proceed, every minute counts."



"Yes sir," both of them saluted, before heading back into the interrogation room. As the soft cries of Miss Higurashi resumed, Kokonami left the room at a hurried pace, stopping by a phone to call a SWAT team to meet him at the Higurashi shrine.



* * *



The SWAT vans had arrived at the shrine by the time he arrived in his car. Getting out, he had a vest and helmet strapped on over his uniform, and carried his five gauge sawed off shotgun. Twelve heavily armed SWAT members, carrying even more extensive armor and M-16 Assault carbines, headed up the stairs with him to the shrine grounds, where an old man and a young boy waited for them.



"What are ye doing here? Where is Miss Higurashi?" inquired grandpa.



"Miss Higurashi is in police custody, listed as an accessory to the current case. We have learned the apparent hiding location of the two fugitives from her, and are proceeding to apprehend them, alive," replied Deputy Kokonami, although he wouldn't mind if they got a chance to gun down the one boy, as a personal bit of revenge. He had known Saji for the past year, and was, or had been, good friends with him.



Grandpa knew enough about police custody and interrogations to know how they had probably gotten the information. The old man couldn't help himself, he was just too angry at the police men when he thought about the torturing of his sweet and innocent daughter.



"You bastards," breathed the old man as he took a foot forward torwards Koko. One of the younger SWAT team members took a step forward of his own, and crashed the butt of an M-16 rifle into grandpa's chest, collapsing the old man to the ground.



"Enough!" yelled Kokonami, batting away the SWAT member's rifle. First torturing an innocent woman, now beating a defenseless old man? What are we coming to in this day and age? thought Koko to himself sadly.



The thirteen of them proceeded to the wellhouse. Koko nodded for four of the men to stand at the ready with their assault carbines, then kicked in the door. A quick flashbang followed, before the four men entered into the room and swept around with flashlights attached to their guns.



"Clear," came the call of the leader.



"Okay, let's do this thing. I'll be the first one down. If I come back okay, or even if I get in okay, I'll come back and we'll hold hands while going down this well. Kami but this has to be the stupidest, or most incredible thing I've ever done, depending on whethe or not it works," muttered Deputy Koko as he removed the evidence bag from his pocket and extracted the 'Sacred Jewel Shard' from the pouch. It sure doesn't smell like meth or any other drug..



Holding the jewel shard carefully in his hand, the deputy proceeded to jump into the well, and disappeared in a blinding flash of bluish light...