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Several Planets Have Been Found	By : Casper-Red-Phoenix Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 1681 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale is a work of Rumiko Takahashi, not me. I will make no money on this work, so no one offer any!

Chapter List
- 1-Several Planets Have Been Found
- 1
Prologue: The World of a Still Hourglass
            Several planets had been found, just like earth. They were thousands of light years away, but that was nothing for today’s spaceships, as long as you were willing to pay the cost of time: By the time Kagome and her family could reunite with her father only a few days would have passed for them, but Earth as they knew it would not be there to look back on. Thousands of years were going to pass when Kagome stepped onto that ship, and she was never going to see the pine forests growing in the abandoned highways of Tokyo again. She would never feel the yellow, dusty dirt of the shrine where millions of people had kneeled and prostrated over the course of human history. She lay there on the ground, dirtying her school uniform, cheek on the yellow dirt and turning it to mud with her tears.
            Her mother had told her that she had to come home from school after her lunch period so they could get ready for the launch, so here she was. Teachers said so many kind words to her that she couldn’t keep them all straight. Her friends cried so loud in the lunchroom that the vice-principal had to pull them away from her just so she could leave. She even received her first kiss, from Hojo, the most popular boy in school.
            Kagome felt like she should be crying because she was loosing all these people, but the sad truth was that it didn’t matter to her. She had known this day would be coming for two years now, and had reminded herself, “I won’t know this person in two years,” every time she saw someone supposedly important to her life. It sparked something of a revolution inside her mind: Kagome realized that most of her friends picked at each other maliciously, and went around each other’s back in pursuit of trivial things like a date or more popularity. Even Hojo’s good looks and suave style couldn’t hide the fact that he was as dumb as a golden retriever. Sweet and pretty, yes. The most observant or interesting to be around? Not so much.
            The people she would really miss were her teachers, who she had come to know so well: Dr. Honsho of her Macroeconomics courses, Dr. Tsubasa of her Foreign Policy Analysis courses, and Ms. Gillete, her English teacher. They were all so kind and instructive, and amazing people in their own way… these were the people she did not want to leave.
            “At least… I can work there…” she muttered to herself. “No more school…”
Her father’s position with JAXA and the government (plus her many sleepless nights spent studying and drooling all over her textbooks) got Kagome into a fast-track upper-secondary school and college program. She didn’t have a college degree from the program, but she was going to take the diploma test on the trip, and would arrive, degree in hand, on… on…
            She stared across the vacant shrine plaza, trying to remember the name of this new planet. She was used to its coordinate name: KeplerB.3957.B-OR.e.27.x.9920. But she was told the colonial name just a few days ago…
            “Ibeji.” She remembered. It was named “Twin” in Yoruba since the person who discovered the planet was from the Republic of Biafra. She was told that it was almost exactly like Earth: large continents and great oceans, a relatively docile atmosphere (as compared to some of the other colonized planets where people found out a little too late that perpetual hurricanes dominated the skies), and only basic life forms like algae and bacteria, which would make terraforming very easy. Ibeji was supposed to be the most amazing opportunity for humanity to thrive on beyond the death of the Sun, where everyone else in the world could go when the end times came.
            And her stupid father decided that he wanted in on this project. He wanted to lead it. He wanted to set up the first colony on Ibeji, to be the Colonial Supervisor to New Noto. He wanted to have his name written down in history books. He wanted his family to be the ones remembered as the messianic ones, the people who soared into the stars and wove the new nest for humanity.
            And it worked, Kagome thought bitterly. The Higurashi family was known all over the world now. So many foreign journalists had asked her mother ‘How are you coping with this year apart from your valiant husband?’, or had snapped pictures of her while she was in gym class, or even chased her poor younger brother home from school with whatever questions their gossip laden minds could come up with.
            “Kagomeeee?!” She heard yelled across the plaza. “Kagome! Get out of the dirt, you’re getting your uniform all messy!”
            She sighed. “I don’t care grandpa!” She called back, but she heaved herself up before the old man did it for her. Ji-chan had loved all the extra attention around the shrine. She could understand why - - the place had been run-down and near bankrupt until the news broke about her father. Kagome and her family moved in with him not long after Mr. Higurashi left, leaving his father so many visitors and so much money that the old man soon ran out of things to spend it on.
            Her grandfather gimped his way over to her far too enthusiastically. “Now get up Kagome, you need to look pretty for those nice photographers, its almost time to leave!”
            She glared at him. “For once grandpa I’d like to not have to worry about looking pretty for a bunch of materialistic little mosquitoes.”
            This didn’t seem to phase him at all. Ji-chan patted at her dress and a blouse until there were no more golden stains, muttering about things she didn’t want to hear, and then pulled her by the wrist back into the house. There he tried to convince her to change into a kimono to make the departure more dramatic, which she protested after he had made such a fuss over keeping her uniform clean. Eventually her mother swooped into the back room with them.
            “Gifu,” Mrs. Higurashi sighed, “Please, just let her and Sota be. This is hard enough you and me, but they are still so young. Just let them be.”
            Ji-chan protested for a few minutes, but Mrs. Higurashi stood resolutely next to her daughter until the old man hobbled out of the room, claiming to be in pursuit of the last good pickled turnip he’ll have on earth.
            “Thanks Mom,” Kagome said softly. She looked around her bedroom, now barren except for the two bags she was bringing with her for the journey and the pieces of furniture the government asked not to be removed due to their historical significance. “I guess this is it.”
            “I guess so dear,” her mother replied. “How was school?”
            “Children were children, adults were adults. As always.” Kagome said with a weak smile. She held her breath for a moment before taking her mother’s hand in hers. “Are you still planning on doing it…? The divorce?”
            Mrs. Higurashi’s brows furrowed together, her lips turning into a terse line. “I’m not sure yet, dear. There’s Sota to consider, and Ji-chan…”
            Kagome nodded. The family was so much happier with their father gone, but one year alone was not enough for her mother to regain all the fortitude sapped away by her husband. Kagome took both of her mother’s hands in hers. “It’ll be okay mom. I can work when we get there, we can make it.”
            Mrs. Higurashi squeezed her hands. There were words wanting to be spoken behind her eyes, but Mrs. Higurashi looked at her wall clock on the far wall instead. “It’s time to go dear.”
            Kagome let go of her mother and almost turned around to look at her bedroom one last time. But her heart held her back. It told her that if she turned around to look at her home again, she wouldn’t be able to leave let alone keep herself from crying.
            This part of my life is over… She thought to herself. Its over… its dead. Move on now, don’t look back.
            There were reporters and bright flashes outside the front gate. The wind charged through the street, mixing asphalt, magnolia, and the sea in Kagome’s nose. She pressed through the crowd into the waiting JAXA vans, handed her luggage to someone who’s face she didn’t see, and seemingly out of nowhere she was watching the sun set over the mountainous horizon while the bullet train hurried them south to the Tanegashima Space Center. She awoke when the train made a complete stop in Kagoshima, finding her mother’s blanket wrapped over her. Breakfast was quiet and short, comprising of salty miso soup, steamed rice and pickled turnips. Ji-chan claimed the last time he had good pickled turnips was the day before.
            The sky filled with low, gray clouds the closer the ferry from Kagoshima to the island of Tanegashima came to its destination. Kagome stared out at the sea intently, refusing her brother’s calls to come play with him or her grandfather’s desire to have a sitting meditation session. Eventually she started walking around and found a satsumaage vendor operating a small kiosk on the ferry deck. She bought herself some lunch, but only picked at the deep fried mackerel paste. Hours passed, and soon the launch towers loomed in the foggy distance like skeletal fingers poking out of the island. Kagome tried to stare at them for a while, but they started making her feel sick, so she found Sota and played card games half-heartedly. The ship docked, and she lost herself to the whirl of transportation…
            …Until Kagome found herself walking across a brightly lit, red bridge to the shuttle. It was just like the Shinto shrines she prostrated at before her family moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, with the dozens of red torii gates lining up from the front gate to the entrance of the grounds. Kagome thought back to what one of the old priestesses once told her, that a torii gate separates the world from the impure and the clean, and that the more torii you pass under the more kami will note your presence, and the cleaner the realm you enter will be.
            Kagome took a long breath before taking her first step down the lattice work of red steel, following her family and the few other government officials joining the colony.
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Several Planets Have Been Found