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A Parallel Dimensional Fairytale	By : Zoid Category: InuYasha > General Views: 3984 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
A parallel
dimensional fairytale

Chapter 9

Of smiling and self
respect

Disclaimer: I never
claimed I owned Inuyasha, what's there to disclaim, I wonder?

OOOO

OOO

OO

O

OO

OOO

OOOO

Third time around,
the feeling of exiting her counterparts mind was beginning to lose
its thrill, Kagome thought, or she was just too mad to really delight
in it.

'How dare he say
those things to me? And there I thought he was beginning to make an
effort to be a little nicer but nu-uh!'

She mentally shook
her head and didn't even realize when that imaginative motion became
real as her body began manifesting again. But when her sight
returned, all thoughts about insufferable hanyous and their antics
where pushed aside to be replaced by giggly gibberish. She squealed
when she saw Sango sitting on yet another armchair right in front of
her.

“Hi,”
she greeted hastily, completely forgetting that Sango was a goddess
for all she knew and that she'd been rather scared of her not so long
ago, and greedily began glancing around the setting said goddess had
come up with this time.

And as if Sango knew
Kagome had been deprived of her eyesight for almost a week and would
be desperate for a little sensory overload (which she probably did,
if she was as omniscient as she said she was) she had conjured them
right onto a tower overlooking a sea into which a blazing red orange
sun was just dropping, painting the few clouds ahead rose. Beautiful.
Kagome sucked in as much of the picturesque scene as possible, then
turned back to Sango to ask her about it but instead she almost
collided with a half transparent Inuyasha.

The fact that he had
yet to materialize fully did not hide the immensely
disgruntled expression on his face. Kagome seethed again. What right
did he have to be mad at anything?

“You!”
she started, as soon as he was solid enough for her to poke him. “I'm
not done with you yet! I -”

But he just flipped
her off and took in the sight she'd just been awed by. Kagome was not
going to tolerate that.

“Hel-lo?
I'm talking to you!” she tugged at his sleeve and he whipped
around.

“You!”
he hollered, and Kagome took a step back instinctively. Well, at
least he was acknowledging her now...

“You and your
fucked up plans! Mind explaining why each of them seems to end up
with some girl totally freaking out on me? First that bodybuilding
part time lesbian throws me a punch that probably broke my jaw and
now that hysterical little princess throws a fit and falls straight
off the fucking tree house that you had me build on a streak of
genius!”

Immediate concern
for her counterpart’s wellbeing briefly overrode the urge to
strangle him for mocking her ideas again.

“She fell? Is
she all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,
calm down, I caught her... although-”

“What?”

“Well, I
was still pulling her up when I was beginning to um, fade away, so I
don't really know what my counterpart will do...”

Kagome closed her
eyes in resignation.

“Did you at
least get to explain things to her?”

Her eyes opened just
in time to see him tense before he shrugged, “'Course I did.”

She scrutinized him
suspiciously.

“Well, kinda,”
he qualified after a short staring match and shrugged again. “She
freaked out before I was getting to the main part, but I told her
when I felt myself fading. I'm just not that sure she paid
attention.”

Kagome groaned.
Things really weren't going her way since the very beginning of
this... adventure, why would they have this time?, Kagome tried to
console Kagome. But, that hardly made it any better.

“Don't fret,”
Inuyasha patted her shoulder. “I told you it was a crap idea.”

Now that really did
it! “I don't believe you! I haven't seen you coming up with any
better ideas, or actually caring about what happens to our
counterparts for that matter. All you seem to be capable of is
mocking mine and screwing it up! I bet you didn't even make an effort
to explain things to her properly!”

“What?”
Inuyasha ripped his hand from her shoulder so fast it collided with
his own. “You hypocritical little bitch! Really, I don-”

“THAT'S IT!!!”

Kagome peered past
Inuyasha who whipped around at Sango's yell and then really wished
she hadn't. And there she'd thought she'd been scared of Sango
before... the probable godess was massaging her temples and seething
like a tea kettle forgotten on the fire.

“I'm not going
to put up with you another second!” she hissed at them
and made an ominous gesture with her hand. “You're going
straight into that next dimension. I don't want to hear another word
from you, let alone be forced to participate in your over-boiling
emotions any more! The shard is in the possession of the director of
the pharmaceutical factory on the outskirts of the town you'll find
yourselves in.”

“Wha-”
Inuyasha attempted to protest but was effectively stared into
silence.

And before Kagome
collected her courage to try and demand more information herself she
already felt herself fading.

OOO

OO

O

OO
OOO

Laughter and singing
was the first sound that met her ears when she started taking over
her counterpart's body, the carefree laughter of children to be
exact. And indeed, as soon as her eyes started working, she breathed
a sigh of relief just because they actually did, she saw herself
surrounded by children of all ages, from toddlers to those at the
brink of puberty. Kagome realized immediately that she was taller
than most but still smaller than a lot of them. Which meant that she
was a child yet again...

The children were
forming a circle around some children in the middle and were singing
a children's song of some kind to which the children in the middle
performed a cute kind of play that seemed to involve hats. They were
standing in the middle of a room that had large windows at the far
end and miniature furniture obviously designed to be used by small
children, as well as slightly taller chairs and a table. She was
probably in some kind of day care center, Kagome reasoned.

It was when she took
notice of the two adults surveying the play that she realized the
first oddity. She was smiling without really feeling the fuzzy, happy
fluttering in her stomach that normally made her smile in the first
place. She had actual trouble pulling her face straight and in the
end decided not to bother with the strain in her cheeks and just keep
smiling even if she rather felt like frowning confusedly. When the
song finished she saw that everyone seemed to be smiling around here,
each of the children, and the adults in the back, too.

Maybe people were
really happy in this dimension?

Well, at least she
would have no trouble finding Inuyasha that way. She'd just have to
look for the only one who was not smiling. Kagome snickered at that
thought and eased out of the circle of children to go looking for her
grumpy and jerkish companion but she only managed a few steps before
one of the adults, a lanky young man actually, crouched down in front
of her.

“Nuh uh uh, we
don't leave the circle before we have all said our little prayer,
Morgaine. You really should know that by now.” He gently shoved
her back in line with the children that were now staring at her
bewilderedly.

Great, there she'd
promised herself to be a lot more careful with how she acted inside
the dimension lest she wreak serious havoc in her counterparts' lives
again and now she was standing out after a mere minute.

The children grabbed
each other’s hands and closed their eyes to pray, obviously,
and so Kagome just played along, although the prayer they mumbled in
perfect unison was not familiar to her. In a way, she was glad about
that, it was a little freaky after all, and a little stupid. So
stupid in fact, that she wondered how some of the older children
could recite it with a straight face

They were indeed
allowed to entertain themselves by themselves after the prayer and
Kagome sneaked out of the room into a large corridor paved with
colorful pictures and long lines of wooden coat racks. She opened the
next door a few paces down the corridor and looked inside. The room
behind was similar to the one she'd come from and held about as many
children who were all busy playing. However, none of them, nor either
of the two adults surveying them behaved really Inuyasha-ish, so
Kagome closed that door and opened the next one. Inside that room the
group of children still seemed to be gathered in their circle,
although they were sitting on chairs, and were not singing. Instead,
they were all turned towards the two adults who appeared to be a
little uncomfortable, despite the smiles fixed on their faces.

“-so where do
they come from, then? I asked mommy when she brought my new brother
home but she wouldn't tell me.” a little girl was asking just
as Kagome stuck her head inside.

“Well,”
one of the adults drawled. “That's an interesting question.
Where do the babies come from?”

Kagome suppressed a
giggle at the increasing discomfort of the two educators. She still
vividly remembered the priceless expression on her mother's face when
five year old Souta had come home one day asking what a 'hooker' was.
Wherever he'd learned that word anyway...

“Maybe one of
you has an idea?” the educator continued.

Mumbling arose among
the children as each of them seemed to be contemplating that
question. A tiny voice rose at last.

“Maybe our
Lord makes them?”

The adult nodded
enthusiastically. “Wonderful, Clodarch, that is - “

“Keh!”
another voice suddenly interrupted. Kagome perked up and scanned the
circle of children for a scowling face. However, some of them were
sitting with their backs to the door; the boy who'd just spoken up
was among those.

“That's
fucking ridiculous. I knew that much when I was your age.” The
boy turned towards the girl who'd brought up the matter. “Your
father knocked your mother up, and voila, you got your baby brother,”
he explained matter-of-factly.

Inuyasha.

Kagome failed to
suppress a groan that briefly distracted the totally baffled
educator. But only briefly.

"Who told you
... that?" he asked the boy who, in a matter of seconds,
had become Kagome's first choice candidate for possible Inuyasha
counterparts of this dimension. She slipped into the room as soon as
the circle of children was the center of attention again.

"It's not true,
of course - " he explained to the rest of the group wile his
smile grew in confidence again, and Kagome wondered why he'd do that
now that the cat was out of the bag anyway, " - and whoever told
you this must be awfully misled, the poor one, so why don't you just
tell me who might have said such a wicked thing?” his smile
briefly changed into a 'we're buddies, you can tell me' grin of some
sort. “Then perhaps we can all go and help that someone back
onto the right path again."

Kagome reached the
boy she suspected to be Inuyasha the moment he snorted at that.

"Yeah right...
" he drawled and now Kagome was sure that is was Inuyasha
sitting there in front of her. No child of ten should be capable of
drenching two words with that amount of sarcasm and arrogance.

"Inuyasha,"
she hissed, effectively shutting him up when he was about to
continue. He finally turned and looked at her and yup, he was
definitely frowning.

"Kagome?"
he whispered.

"Yes. What are
you doing?"

"Huh?"

"I thought we
agreed to try to not mess around with our counterpart's lives
any more!” she huffed.

“Nice
definition of an 'agreement' you got there, where one person decides
and the other is the asshole if they don't play along,” he spat
back.

Kagome opened her
mouth to retort – and closed it again. That was kind of true...
but still, they just couldn't go on like this! Conformity and
precaution were required here!

“Who is your
little friend, Meiron? Isn't that Morgaine from group four?”

... so much for
conformity on her side. But all was not lost yet. She turned to the
teacher and brandished the most syrupy sweet smile she could manage.

“Yes, that's
me, Morgaine. I wanted to ask Meiron if he'll come out to play.”

There, she was
slowly getting the hang of that whole acting thing... at least when
it came to playing dim witted little girls...

“Can he
pleease?” she added, tilting her head for good measure. She
felt a little manipulative now...

But it worked. The
adult who seemed to feel in charge, rather than the other, nodded –
with a smile.

“Of course you
can, Morgaine, but you see our mass has not finished yet. You'll have
to wait a little, dear.”

“Ooh.”
Kagome smiled what she hoped looked like a slightly disappointed
smile, “All right..”

“But if you
like, you can join us!”

“Yuppee!”
she squealed and felt like an utter moron. The other educator fetched
a chair for her and she sat down beside Inuyasha. He was staring at
her as if she'd just declared her undying love for hairy, overgrown
spider youkai. Which was close, in a way; she felt equally appalled
by her own behavior.

But, she'd obviously
stunned him out of smart arse retorts because when the educator
explained that he would like to have a word with him about those
nasty things he'd said later on Inuyasha just nodded - and frowned.

After the prayer and
a short wordless argument about whether Inuyasha should put back his
chair or not they were actually allowed to go 'play'. They slipped
out of the room just in time to avoid a boy who was approaching
Inuyasha with a puzzled expression and into the bathrooms across the
corridor.

“All right -”
Kagome started, but at the sight of Inuyasha's frown, or rather, er,
increase in frownage, she interrupted herself. “What?”
she asked warily.

“These people
are fucking nuts. I don't know what they were doing where you came
from but in my group they were... it's like they want to turn the
children into morons, really. Did you hear that stuff about where the
babies come from and that? What use is there in telling them that
kinda crap? And before you came, someone was asking about when they
were going to be allowed to go to something called... cong-whatever.
Something like that anyway, and from what I understood that's where
they, like, get a life partner from, like with those Omai back in
Japan, you know, but kinda worse cause you hardly know more than each
other’s name when you move in together. But you're expected to
'contribute offspring' once in four years. And at the same time they
say 'The Lord' wants people to live freely and happily in each of
their stupid songs. Kinda hypocritical if you ask me.”

It was all Kagome
could do not to go looking for the real Inuyasha somewhere.

“Why –
what – You care?” she stammered, totally
forgetting that she had meant to hurry up with the shard here and at
least try to be back by the time their counterpart's parents would
come to fetch them.

Inuyasha, oblivious
to her shock, shrugged. “Well, I guess once you get used to the
whole democratic, liberal idea everything else can't win anymore.
It's nice having a choice, at least in some places -”

“Who are you?
What have you done to my dimension travel-partner?” Kagome
blurted out.

“What?”
Inuyasha glared, immediately suspicious. “Did you think just
because I'm hanyou I'd be too stupid to know about that?”

Kagome had to blink
before she processed how he'd come to that conclusion. “What
would that have to do with you being half youkai? I was just
surprised that you suddenly sounded like you care for people other
than yourself.”

“I don't, I
didn't say that, did I?” he snapped back, obviously only half
appeased.

“Well, caring
about their personal freedom is a beginning, I guess...”

“I don't care,
I... whatever,” he huffed. “Let's go find out where that
factory is!” and turned on his heel.

Kagome rolled her
eyes. Coming out of the mouth of a freckled boy his whole attitude
became even more unbelievable. Who was he trying to kid, anyway? And
what to prove?

Inuyasha stopped at
the door and turned again. “Where do we find that out then?”

OOO

OO

O

OO

OOO

They didn't, in
fact, find out the exact location of the factory since asking the
adults only led to suspicious questions about why they wanted to know
that. As for the name of the factory, Inuyasha had the admittedly
good idea to sneak a look at the first aid kit, since they'd probably
only stored medication from that factory.

When they were
stopped from just taking it from were it hung on the wall by the
educator though, she had to restrain him from going the Inuyasha way
about it, which was hurting some child and wait for ”the brat”
to be treated. Before she'd finished her lecture, he'd grabbed a
rather blunt children's scissors and hurt himself, which was not
really any better, since it demonstrated just the same disregard for
human life. And even though he could just as well have claimed to
have a 'tummy ache' or something and try it that way, it worked and
the wound wasn't deep, so Kagome didn't let him know that.

'Pharmavaltion' was
the name, and with that information obtained they agreed it should be
possible to ask someone in the streets for directions. They sneaked
out into the play garden of the center their counterparts were
visiting. According to the large clock in the corridor, they were
nearing four P.M., and their parents were likely to show up sometime
soon. On their way out, Kagome spotted some bikes standing in a rack.

“Wait,
Inuyasha!” she yelled, and Inuyasha, who was already busy doing
the rabbit thing around the street turned back to her.

“Let's borrow
some of the bikes, we'll be a lot faster that way!” she
gestured towards the parked vehicles.

Inuyasha gave them a
once over and then said: “No.”

“What? But why
not?”

“...they're
locked.” he explained, but the answer came a few seconds too
late.

“That's not
really gonna stop you, right? I mean, you built a tree house in two
days, you're handy like that,” she was still kinda impressed by
it, even thought she had never actually seen it. (Souta's and her
tree house had taken them a week to build and in the end, it only
supported one of them at a time. It was Buyo who brought it down in
the end, when he jumped onto her lap while she was up there.)

Inuyasha actually
looked like he was blushing for a moment but with the lessening light
it was hard to tell. His answer stayed the same, though. “No.
You were the one to insist that we don't mess with our
counterparts' lives any more. Stealing bikes is going to get
them into trouble, don't you think?”

“Well, yes,
but staying away over night might even be worse. They're just little
kids; I think their parents would worry about that rather than about
them taking some bikes without asking.”

Inuyasha opened and
closed his mouth a few times. “Well, tough, I'm not gonna do
it!”

Kagome scrutinized
him, from his impatiently shifting feet to the eyes that refused to
meet hers. “There's more to it, isn't there?” she half
guessed.

“No!”
Inuyasha turned away. “We're losing time, now come on!”
he called over his shoulder. Which was, in its way, as good as a
'yes'.

“Why don't you
want to take those bikes? You must be just as keen as me on getting
out of this dimension as quickly as possible... unless...” But
that was ridiculous. With a balance like his, he could probably cycle
with his eyes shut. Nevertheless, he'd tensed when she'd trailed off,
and so she just asked anyway.

“Unless you
just can't - ?”

“Of course I
can!” he interrupted, which was as good as an open admission.

“It's OK.”
Kagome stifled a giggle. “I'd just have thought with the way
you rode that horse and stuff... “

“I can
ride bikes! No problem at all. I just don't like it, OK?”
he explained decidedly, ruining the effect when he refused to turn
around and face her while saying it. “Now come on, there's a
car pulling over over there, might well be one of our parents.”

“Then let's
just take one. I'll ride and take you up on the rear. You look
scrawny enough, we're about the same height,it should work alright”

He finally turned,
glared, then rolled his eyes. “Oh whatever. You're not gonna
leave this alone until you get what you want, right?”

Kagome smiled, a
real smile. “Yup.”

“You're
impossible,” he snapped, even while he was already examining
the different locks.

“Yup.”

“Whatever.”

~* *~

Inuyasha could
indeed not cycle, it seemed. As to what the reason might have been
Kagome had no idea, since he refused to talk about it even when she
threatened to steer the bike into a bush at the side of the road.
Soon after that, she was way too exhausted to keep on interrogating
him, so she stuffed that question into the overflowing parcel of her
mind she had reserved for the constant source of her curiosity that
was her hanyou dimension-travel companion.

The factory was not
hard to find because the city was brimmed with signs pointing the way
to a 'up to 70% reduced! to clear' sale and they managed to arrive
there just when the sun, dimmed by the thick carpet of clouds that
had been overcasting the sky since their arrival, began to disappear
behind the skyline of the city. The factory area was surrounded by a
fence at least two meters tall, crowned with mean looking barbed wire
and had no apparent entrance except for the main one, which was
guarded.

“So how are we
gonna get in there?” Kagome asked, slumping to the ground to
catch her breath. “I can definitely feel the shard, it's inside
there somewhere, but how do we get over that fence?”

“Well, I can't
carry you this time, so I guess I'll go alone first, find something
to cut the fence open with, and let you in.”

That sounded
reasonable, even if Kagome didn't like being left behind. “Ok.
But hurry up, please.”

She looked up to
catch him looking at her with a strange expression, but before she
could ask he tore his gaze from her, leaped onto the fence and
started climbing up. Reaching the top he asked her to hand him her
jacket, threw it over the barbed wire and carefully eased over the
top of the fence, cursing when he apparently cut himself on it. He
jumped down on the other side and disappeared into the dusky shadows
between the huge storage houses.

Kagome leaned back
against the fence and closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax a
little before chaos would most likely ensue again. Somehow, this
world left her more ill at ease that any of the previous had, even
the one she knew was crowded with giant spiders and snakes. And
Inuyasha must have felt the same, she guessed by his baffling
outburst in the bathroom. Why was everyone... smiling, for lack of a
better word, all of the time? Even now, having spent more than an
hour in this temporary body she had only begun to get a grip on that
stupid smiling reflex; as soon as she wasn't concentrating on it her
eyes squinted and her mouth curved on their own. Spooky.

Inuyasha returned
after a while with a spade and began digging out the part of the
fence that reached underground, then managed to pull it up enough for
Kagome to crawl through. When he helped her up she spotted dark
stains on his jacket and when they started sneaking towards the main
building she saw that he was limping slightly. She opened her mouth
to ask when he suddenly pushed her into the doorway they were just
passing and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“A guard's
coming.” he explained “With... oh crap, a dog.”

He closed his eyes
for a second, then stepped away from her, gripping the shovel
tighter.

“Stay right
here and hold perfectly still. Don't even breathe if you don't have
to.”

He was about to slip
away when Kagome reached out and grabbed his hand. “Don't kill
them, please.” she asked, knowing full well that a spade for a
weapon didn't leave too much of a choice about that.

He gave her that
strange look again, then nodded slowly and disappeared into the now
completely dark grid of warehouses. A few seconds later she heard a
bark that ceased with a whine, then a scream that just stopped dead.
A minute passed, then Inuyasha came back, limping even harder, the
spade over his shoulder and his jacket torn.

“Bound and
gagged him. Gimme a minute.” he huffed and sat down in the
doorway.

Kagome squinted her
eyes to search him for injuries other than the obvious one on his leg
but it was too dark already. She hated people getting hurt in
general, but with Inuyasha, it was even worse. And that was only
partly because he was usually wounded whilst doing what he thought
was necessary to ensure her safety. What made it so hard to bear,
Kagome guessed, was more the way he reacted to it. Like it didn't
matter at all whether he was OK or not, as if his own life and
wellbeing really meant nothing to him. At first, she'd thought he was
just being that reckless because it wasn't his own body he risked,
but a sane person would still do anything within his might to avoid
being hurt for fear of pain. He didn't. It left her feeling, well,
curious, as usual, since she couldn't help but wonder what a person
had to have experienced to feel that way, but mainly it left her
feeling sad. Because no matter what the reason really might have
been, it couldn't have been anything she'd wish for anyone to have to
go through.

Inuyasha caught her
glare and returned it offendedly. “Fucking quit pitying me! I
can still fight all right, 'tis just a sprained ankle or something.”
He jumped to his feet as if to prove her worries wrong but she heard
him hiss when he landed. “Now come on, let's get this done
quickly, before anyone finds our friend over there.”

They didn't meet
other guards on their way to the main building and found an open
window. Sneaking around the ground floor they looked for a way up,
which was where Kagome felt the shard, but found the door leading to
the stairway locked. Inuyasha insisted they try find another way up,
like up the facade outside, or through the production area they'd
found behind another locked door that happened to have a glass
window.

“But that's
needless and dangerous. That guy has to go home sometime; we might as
well wait for him down here. If he's got the shard with him we're
lucky, if not, we might still find a better way up as soon as he's
down,” Kagome countered, and Inuyasha grudgingly agreed.

They hid behind a
door left slightly ajar opposite the one leading to the staircase. An
hour or so passed, but the shard did not move a single inch, which
might have been because the factory owner did not keep it on himself.
Kagome was thus not even sure there actually was someone up there,
but she kept her mouth shut about that for the time being. There had
been light behind at least one window up there, that was for sure.
Still, knowing Inuyasha, no, not knowing, since that was what
frustrated her so, but having some kind of idea of his patience or
lack thereof, he'd probably insist they pull some awkward stunt to
get up there. And Inuyasha's counterpart's body was already hurt bad
enough as it was. But, as if she'd said that aloud, Inuyasha turned
from peering out in the corridor to look at her.

“Is the shard
moving down yet? Is it moving at all for that matter?” he
whispered.

“Uhm...
Yeah... ” Strangely, lying to random people to keep up some
kind of act as her counterpart was so very much easier than lying to
Inuyasha, especially when he was watching her with such a reproachful
expression on the freckly and large eyed face of his counterpart.

“... yeah.
It's not moving at all?” he sighed. “You could have told
me earlier, you know. You said you wanted to do this as
quickly as possible.”

“Well, I just
had that inkling you'd have us do something stupid if I did.”
she snapped, totally nailed.

“What do you
mean, I'd have us do
anything? As I recall we've only ever done what you wanted us
to, or rather, I only ever did what you told me to.”

“That's just
not true!” Kagome jumped up. “What about...”

“Hah, ya see?
What about the tree house, huh? And the whole making up with the
offended 'friends' shit. I don't recall me telling you to
kiss... whatever.”

“Well, but
that's all just because you never have any ideas!” Kagome
defended herself, ignoring the strange twinkle in Inuyasha's eyes she
hoped she'd imagined and her suddenly very warm face. She'd just
about managed to ban that particular... incident from her memory.
“All you ever do is complain about pretty much everything I
suggest. Just because you don't give enough of a damn about anything
to give it a second thought, doesn't give you the right to bitch
around if I happen to!”

Inuyasha pinched the
bridge of his nose annoyedly. “Woman, we had that already. I
don't give a damn about anything all right. That's none of your
concern.”

“Did I just
say you don't care? Scratch that. It's rubbish. I know you
care, you wouldn't still be participating in this shard business if
you didn't. Yeah, I know - “ she interrupted him when he opened
his mouth to counter that. “There's that reward, but that can't
really mean all that much to you, you haven't even come up with
something to ask for yet, not even asked what is possible and what’s
not. You do all this...“ Harsh words were called for here “crap
without even knowing what's in it for you, don't tell me you don't
care about anything. You must at least, like, feel responsible for
the, well, the universe and its inhabitants. You're kinda saving it
right now, after all. And what about that personal freedom stuff back
in the kindergarten? It's obvious you care about some things,
you just must have told yourself that you don't too often, is all.”
That had to be it, Kagome was
sure.

Inuyasha opened and
closed his mouth a few times, struggling to find a smart way to
react. In the end he chose the probably most familiar one, which was
getting angry.

“You stupid
brat! It's not because of the fucking universe that I'm doing this
crap! It's 'cause I... it's because of-”

“Now, now,
what do we have here?” a voice interrupted him, and just when
it got interesting, too.

A man had stuck his
head through the door and was smiling down at them. Although that
probably meant nothing, since everyone seemed to be smiling around
here, no matter the circumstances. Inuyasha was obviously thinking
along those lines too, because before the man had the chance to utter
another word he threw himself against the door, catching the man's
head in a heavy blow that knocked him into a groaning heap on the
floor. Kagome was horrified and about to voice that, but Inuyasha
grabbed her hand and pulled her over the man, another watchman,
judging by his uniform, and out into the corridor. The door leading
to the staircase was now open and Inuyasha dragged her right through,
kicking it shut behind him.

“Why'd you do
that?” Kagome huffed as they hurried up the stairs. “He
wasn't even threatening us!”

“He'd gripped
his truncheon already. And he was tensing. I wasn't gonna risk
anything.”

“Well, all
right, but you - “

“Shut up,
we're almost there.”

'- could have killed
him. That's what I call risking something. And we're just children
right now, who'd want to harm us?' Kagome thought, but kept it to
herself as they had indeed reached the first floor. Inuyasha pushed
her behind him and carefully opened the door with the large “1”on
it. A voice carried into the staircase, but Kagome wasn't able to
single out any words. Slowly, they edged through the door and into
yet another corridor. The shard tingling had gained strength all the
way up the stairs and was now almost buzzing in her head. The shard
was on this floor.

She tapped Inuyasha
on the shoulder and nodded when he turned to her. He seemed to
understand what she was getting at, answering with a nod of his own
and mouthing what might have been the word 'where'. Kagome pointed to
the only door that had light shining out from the gap beneath it and
from behind which the voice sounded, because that was where she felt
the shard was. Inuyasha sighed almost inaudibly, and she shared his
feelings. It would have been a lot easier, though unlikely, if the
shard had been inside one of the obviously vacant rooms behind the
multiple doors in that corridor.

Only when they
reached the door in question was Kagome able to properly hear what
the person behind was saying. He, his voice told as much, was talking
to someone on the phone.

“- coming up
here? But why would- wait a minute... “

And, steps began
creaking on the floor inside. “Come on up right now!” the
man barked.

Kagome opened her
mouth to shout a warning the very second Inuyasha grabbed her hand
and dashed along the corridor towards where it crossed with another
one. Behind them Kagome could hear a door burst open and the man
stomped out into the corridor just when they slithered around the
left hand corner.

But, the legs of
children were not made for outrunning grown-ups, even large ones like
this. He caught up so quickly they might just as well have stayed
where they were. Inuyasha cursed, shoved her aside and spun around;
gripping the spade he still carried with him tighter.

The first thing
Kagome realized about the man coming at them was that he was carrying
the shard now. The second thing was that he was the first person
she'd met in this dimension, save for Inuyasha, that was not, by
her interpretation of the word, smiling. His face was drawn
into a furious mask involving lots of teeth and... well, on a second
thought, maybe he did feel that this expression qualified as a
smile. Which was more than just creepy. Inuyasha was apparently not
going to ponder that, as soon as the man was in reach he swung the
spade. But, the man evaded with surprising agility, considering his
sheer hugeness. Inuyasha tried again to hit him but this time he just
caught the instrument with one hand and hurled it, with Inuyasha
still attached, against the wall.

Kagome screamed when
she saw her partner slide to the ground and remain lying there, not
stirring, and even more when the man then turned to her.

“What are you
two doing here, I wonder?” he said while advancing, in a voice
of a calm and friendly quality that contradicted the expression on
his face as well as the now groaning heap of Inuyasha he'd left lying
behind him. Kagome scrambled backwards as he chatted on.

“Knocking down
two of my watchmen and killing one of my priceless watchdogs, my wor
- “ a scrape of metal had him turn just in time to have
Inuyasha's shovel hit him in the chest instead of his back. He
stumbled backwards but caught himself alarmingly well. Inuyasha stood
there, or rather swayed there, clutching the spade, one eye closed
because blood was running into it from a cut on his brow. The man was
on him before he could raise the his makeshift weapon a second time
and ripped his it from his arms. Kagome came to her feet and jumped
to intervene but was suddenly snatched out of the air and tucked
under someone's arm.

“I got the
other one, sir.”

The man who was by
all appearances the chief of the factory, about to hit Inuyasha,
stopped and tilted his head friendlily. “I would not move
another muscle if I were you, little man, or your friend might have
to pay.”

Inuyasha said
nothing and dropped the spade he'd picked up again.

“Let her go,”
he demanded menacingly, but coming from the mouth of a ten year old
it just sounded cute, for lack of a better word.

“You're hardly
in the position to be making any demands here, little man. Quite the
opposite, I demand to know what possessed the two of you to
break in here.”

He looked from
Inuyasha to Kagome, who was still uncomfortably and rather
humiliatingly tucked under the watchman's arm, expectantly. When
neither replied - well, what could they have said anyway? - he
sighed.

“Look, kids, I
know 'Pharmacreation' is onto us about those new 'joy-pills' we're
about to launch and would do anything to get their hands on the
formula. I do believe they are eager or plain stupid enough to
send children to spy on us in hopes that I would be lenient if they
were caught, seeing as all their previous attempts at infiltrating
our laboratories ended in the... inexplicable disappearance of their
spies.”

Kagome felt her jaw
drop and her heart clench. Abuse children as spies? Inexplicable
disappearance? It was obvious that this man was just as ruthless as
the picture he'd drawn of his rival factory, if not more so. And very
clearly very insane.

“I'm telling
you this because if you do happen to be two of those spies now is the
time to tell me so and to tell me exactly what you’ve already
found out,” the factory owner continued. “And that, I'm
afraid, is the only way there is for the two of you to leave
unharmed,” he tilted his head again “I take business
quite seriously, you know,” and poked Inuyasha in the chest.
“Now tell me, little man. What kind of game did they tell you
to play? Where did you go before you came up here? Huh?”

And Kagome sighed
when she saw Inuyasha kick the man's shin in an answer 's stead. It
wasn't like he could have told the man what he wanted to hear
because then they'd be screwed for sure, no matter what he wanted
them to believe, but there was always the option of being more ...
subtle in one's refusal.

The man let go of
Inuyasha and stepped back, tapping his nose. “Well you do seem
to know something, given that fierce resistance,” he paused for
a moment, thinking. “There are ways of getting it out of you.
Mulier, take the girl to the high security storerooms, lock her up
and come up to the laboratory.” His smile grew even more
unpleasant as he turned his gaze back on Inuyasha. “I've been
itching to run a few first tests on that prototype inquisiative.
You're gonna be my mouse, little man.”

Off they went.
Inuyasha didn't look at her when they passed him but she thought she
saw a hint of fear in his frown. That might have been wishful...
seeing, though, since she so desperately wanted him to be
scared at the prospect of maybe even being tortured for all he knew.
There was nothing heroic in being that reckless about himself, but
something very worrying and disturbing. Though she was twisting
kicking and squirming under the watchman's arm she couldn't catch
another glimpse at his face.

The watchman settled
her on the ground as soon as they'd reached ground floor again.

“I'm not going
to take you down there, stop crying already!” he said, and
Kagome realized that she was indeed crying, not for fear of being
imprisoned, but for that idiot up there somewhere.

“Chief's a
tough guy, I know, but this is going too far. You're just children,
even if you've given Morus and Metor a hard time. I'm going to drop
you in front of the gates and you'll hurry on home as fast as you
can, all right?”

“But my...
friend. What about him?” Kagome croaked.

The watchman shook
his head. “I'm risking enough by letting you escape, little
lady. I don't think I can do anything for your friend. Come on now.”
And he picked her up again, carrying her out to the main gates as
he'd promised and all but shoved her outside there after a few words
with the watchman there.

“Stay away,
don't try anything stupid, like rescuing your friend.” he
yelled after the gates had closed behind her again, and hurried off.

Kagome ran, down the
highly illuminated road until she was sure the watch at the gate
could not see her anymore, which was quite far, then plunged into the
shadows besides the road and ran back, twice as fast, to the hole in
the fence she'd squeezed in through the first time.

There were no
watchmen around, which meant they hadn't found it yet, or hadn't
cared.

Kagome hurried
through the labyrinth of warehouses and lost a few precious minutes
when she took several wrong turns, her sense of orientation had never
been great to begin with, but she arrived at the main building again
after what she guessed to be about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes
during which quite a lot could have happened.

She shook her head
to shake the pictures of medieval thumbscrews and stretching benches
and less medieval electroshocking devices and truth serums and found
the window they'd sneaked in through before now securely closed.
Circling the whole building frenetically she found absolutely no
entrance whatsoever on ground level, but a small window about two
meters or more high up on the wall behind which the production area
lay. She fought down the tears that threatened to rise again and
rushed to fetch some crates she'd seen somewhere on the way, all the
while successfully praying that no watchman come along. A few rather
large stones found their way into her anorak's pockets since she
figured some kind of weapon might come in handy at some point. She
thought her arms would fall off and her lungs might explode when she
mounted her little pyramid of wooden boxes at last, but there was no
helping it. She peered through the half opened window to find the
insides even blacker than the night outside. But the handle was on
the inside and the window wouldn't budge, no matter how hard she
pressed.

Inuyasha would
probably have known how to open it... but that was stupid,
co-dependent, and not emancipated thinking and would stop this very
instant! She sat down to think and her behind had barely touched the
box when she'd come up with something. She tugged the cord out of the
hem of her anorak and tied one end into a small sling. Then she
dangled that sling over the handle on the inside until it caught,
pulled it through the small gap below the window, and with many slips
and careful tugging managed to turn the handle into the horizontal.
(It works. I opened a window that way, once.) The window, hanging
only half on its hinges then, slid open and she eased through. The
floor on the inside was higher than the ground outside, thankfully.
Kagome landed with a clank on an iron balcony thingy that seemed to
circle the whole hall, from what she could see in the dark,
interrupted by only a few red lights on the monstrous shadow of the
machinery and the moonlight filtering through the few dust encrusted
windows. She pressed to the ground and waited anxiously but no one
seemed to have heard her.

The multiple limbed
creature that was really only was a conglomerate of different large
machines seemed to move in the corner of her eye as she hurried along
the balcony towards some kind of exit but that was probably just her
fear of the dark speaking up. Kagome reached the very door Inuyasha
and she had stood on the other side of few hours ago and did what she
had not wanted Inuyasha to do back then, she smashed the glass with
one of the stones and hid up on the balcony again; it stopped a meter
or so before the doorframe. But, no one appeared to have taken notice
so she fetched a stool from one of the assembly lines and climbed
through the dangerously sharp edged opening without greater damage,
except to her hands, which bled from several cuts. But she had
neither material nor time to take care of these wounds now. She ran
through the corridor ahead, praying for the door to the staircase to
still be open.

Her prayers were
heard for the second time that night although she certainly still did
not feel particularly graced by the gods right then. She passed the
door to the first floor and dashed further up; the factory owner had
told his watchman to come up to the laboratories, which meant
they had to be somewhere above. That and the shard was up there, too.

She was but a few
stairs from the door to the second floor when she heard a door bang
somewhere up high and hurried steps descend right towards her. She
turned on her heel and hurried down the stairs herself, taking care
to make as little noise as possible and was about to try the door to
first floor when the person above her spotted her.

“Kagome”

She heard that
broken whisper and turned stupefied, just in time to see Inuyasha
stumble over the last steps and fall towards her. She did her best to
cushion his fall but in the end, they landed as a tumbled heap on the
landing. Inuyasha remained lying on top of her a little too long and
she found that odd at first, but he was simply just an inch from
unconsciousness. He came to his senses when she shook him though, and
scrambled to his feet staggering. Kagome stood, too and only then
found her tongue again.

“What happened
to you?” she whispered, unsure whether it was safe to speak
aloud.

But she really
wished she hadn't asked when Inuyasha lifted his face and she saw it
was a distorted mask of something between a smile and an
expression of naked horror.

“Lots,”
he explained, his voice as raw and weak as he looked. He extended a
hand. “Come on.”

“What?”
she asked absently, while she searched him for injuries, but the only
new ones he had were on his lower lip, which looked savaged and was
still bleeding.

“The shard,
we-”

“We can't go
after the shard now!” she hissed. “You're wrecked, face
it, and I'm a state too,” she showed him her still bleeding
hands. He looked at them and sighed, then carefully snatched her
wrist and pulled her down the stairs and into the restroom there.

A thought suddenly
occurred to Kagome, up to that point shoved aside by the sheer relief
of having found Inuyasha alive and the sorrow at seeing him anything
but well, whatever the cause might have been.

“The factory
owner! Won't he come after you?” she whispered, panic squeezing
her insides.

Inuyasha shook his
head. “Not for a while, he should be well out of it.”

“What the heck
did he do to you?” Kagome asked urgently.

Inuyasha started to
shake his head again but then he suddenly dropped the wet piece of
his shirt he had been dabbing her wounds with and a tremor went
through him. He bit onto his still bleeding lip and uttered the most
horrifying sound Kagome had heard in her whole life and beyond, a
squeal of pain mixed with a throaty groan of anguish and a muffled
scream of agony. His hand squeezed her wrist unbelievably tight but
she hardly felt it. Then his grip suddenly loosened as his knees
seemed to give away under him. She caught him and carefully leaned
him against the wall between two sinks.

“What did he
do?!” she all but yelled at him, feeling those needless
tears prick at her eyes again.

It took a minute
until Inuyasha was breathing normally again and he opened his eyes
very carefully.

“Dunno,”
he shrugged, then winced. “Gets worse with each attack. Some
stuff... for interrogo -” he breathed in, “interrogating
pris'ners er war. They're developing it for the milit'ry he said.”

“By attack you
mean, bouts of pain?”

“Yup.”
He tried to stand but gave up when his arms wouldn't even push him
off the ground. “And damn, that's a pain that is, I tell you. I
don't mean to brag or anything but if there's one thing I'm really
good at it'S ignoring pain but the last three bouts... whew.”

“Stop it!”
Kagome hissed.

“First he'd
force-fed me some stuff that makes you smile. That was crazy, I mean,
I was going blind with pain but smiling all the time-”

“Stop it! Stop
talking about this that way!” Kagome yelled at last, tears
springing from her eyes.

“What do you
mean, 'that way'? You wanted to know what happened, I-”

“Stop talking
about that as if it doesn't matter that you've just been tortured.
You can't be this nonchalant about something like that, you just
can't! It's neither heroic, nor macho nor whatever else you think it
is, it's just sick! You, you - imagine that had happened to me, would
you talk about it like this? Would you want me to?”

“Well, with
you that'd be different.” Inuyasha replied meekly. “What
with you being a-”

“It's got
nothing to do with me being a girl or with being used to it! You've
been tortured. That's taking away everything that makes you
human and-”

“I'm not
human, that's what I was going to say.”

“You're human
right now.”

He shrugged. “Even
so, human standards don't apply to me, I know that. There's no human
rights for me, no 'The dignity of man is inviolable' stuff. ”

“Rubbish.
Being only half human genetically doesn't make you any less of a
person, and that's what matters. You're not worthless just
because-”

“I didn't say
I was worthless!” Inuyasha rose and did manage to stand this
time.

“But you're
acting like it,” Kagome said, her tears dried away by the heat
of her anger. Didn't he see?

Inuyasha huffed and
turned towards the door. “Well, we've got no time for this now.
We need to get up there before that bastard wakes up again.”

Kagome followed him,
grudgingly. “Just take a little more care of yourself,”
she added when they slipped out into the corridor again but Inuyasha
just shrugged.

The shard hadn't
moved for while and so they thought it safe to enter the laboratories
again. Inuyasha had another attack on the way, and she pulled him to
her and held him as he shook; it was the only pitiful attempt at
comfort she knew to offer. The factory owner was still lying on the
ground where Inuyasha said he left him, his head in a corona of blood
and the now broken stool Inuyasha must have – repeatedly - hit
him with scattered beside him. The 'interrogation' had taken place in
a room that was less of a laboratory and more of an office, separated
from the main area by a wall of windows one of which was now broken.

Kagome located the
shard and snatched it from the man's pocket when he suddenly stirred.
A squeal escaped her and alarmed Inuyasha who had been about to leave
the room, but it was already to late. A hand clung like a vise around
her ankle and the man dragged himself up with an inarticulate groan.
Inuyasha rammed into the man full force and he fell over, onto
Kagome, which was little improvement, although he did let go of her.
Instead, he grabbed Inuyasha, who was, as far as Kagome could see
through the stars in front of her eyes, trying to scramble away, and
hurled him against the glass wall across the room. The glass split
but didn't break and Inuyasha was once again out cold. The factory
owner came to his feet, staggering and clutching his once again
bleeding head.

Kagome did not
bother with trying to stand, since air had yet to find a way into her
forcefully emptied lungs again, and scrambled over to Inuyasha, the
shard clutched firmly in her hand. All the while, she prayed and
prayed for it to fuse with her and get them out in time, but to no
avail. Her hand only just brushed Inuyasha when she was seized by her
collar and dragged up to face the bruised and blood smeared face of
the factory owner.

“I don't care
who you two are anymore, you are going to die by my very own hands!”
he screeched.

And Kagome prayed
and prayed, even as he staggered over to the large window across from
the door and opened it. They were on the fifth floor and outside was
the concrete ground of the storage area. She was terrified to tears,
which ought to have qualified as one very intense emotion but the
shard stayed where it was. That is, until the factory owner suddenly
glowered at her white knuckled fist and began prying it open
forcefully. Kagome struggled but with her collar cutting into her air
pipe, she just didn't have any strength left. He extracted the shard
and proceeded to open the window.

Kagome was numb with
dry ice cold panic but then, suddenly, she dropped as the man groaned
and staggered dangerously close to the low window sill. She lifted
her head to see Inuyasha swaying backwards, wondrously revived yet
again, although he looked half dead, and clutching one of the stool
legs.

The factory owner
turned with a scream of something intelligible and Inuyasha retreated
into the laboratory beyond the door. After a second of
indecisiveness, the man turned on her again, bending with a groan to
reach her when Kagome had the sense to scramble out of his reach,
although her mind was buzzing with near panic confusion. Had Inuyasha
taken her words from before that serious and was now leaving her to
her own devices?

Suddenly there was a
clatter followed by a scream and Kagome thought Inuyasha had another
attack until he came storming into the room again at a speed that
should have been impossible with the way he'd been limping before .

“Stay down
Kagome!” he yelled and threw the stool leg so it hit the
factory owner square in the face and barged into him. The man,
stunned by the hit already, never stood a chance. He staggered,
taking a step back, except that there was no room to step back into,
reached out when he overbalanced, neatly cleared the window frame and
fell out.

Kagome pushed
herself over to where Inuyasha had fallen, blood thundering in her
ears and shook him. He didn't stir. She turned him over and saw that
his eyes where open and blood was all over his face, more of it
oozing out between his lips.

“Inuyasha,”
she croaked around her chokingly tight throat.

“Wake up, we
did it. I'll just fetch the shard -”

“Shut up,”
he mouthed more than said, then coughed up a handful of blood.

“Inu-I'll get
the shard, don't move!”

And before he could
think of answering she was in the staircase again, running past the
same watchman who'd let her go before, who might or might not have
said something to her. She had already dug into the man's pockets
before she realized that she was actually pillaging a corpse here,
and then she was already beyond caring. She put it down to shock that
stepping on a piece of... brain? didn't even faze her and snatched
the shard from the soaked pocket of what used to be a cream colored
suit. And up she raced, past the still puzzled watchman, to find
Inuyasha coughing more blood onto a telephone he was holding for
whatever reason. Kagome didn't care; she yelled for that blasted
shard to fuse with her and cursed that Sango person for being unable,
or unwilling to beam Inuyasha up before her.

Then, finally,
finally, finally, she felt herself fade from her counterpart's body.

AN: Whew, this
chapter was... drastic, or something. Hard to write. (And not very
much thought through at first I must admit... thanks, Alvida.)

Yeah, well I changed
the title of the story temporarily, mainly because I'm paranoid and
chicken, and don't want people who know me personally to read this
story (The anonymity of the Internet has lotsa
appeal for people like me, I guess... )

'Omai' are those
Japanese official dates, it's really a bit like what I described in
the chapter, where two people meet for dinner, often bringing their
parents along, and get to know each other to decide whether they want
to marry. Sometimes there may even be several suitors present, and
more often than not, like with most marriages that are not based on
love, the whole thing's primarily about money. It's not that common
anymore today, of course, but back when Inuyasha last stayed in Japan
in my story most marriages were settled that way. Omai is the way I
know it to be romanized (does this word exist? My stupid spellchecker
doesn't seem to think so, but it also doesn't know the word
spellchecker, the poor, confused thing, so I'll forgive it.) , I
didn't look it up in a dictionary, though.

On a random side
not, has anyone of you read 'Everything is illuminated' by Jonathan
Safran Foer? That was the best book since 'Howl's moving castle' and
most definitely the Saddest (Yes, with a capital S) book I've ever
read. I would have cried if I still could, it's heartbreaking.
Read it, if you think you can bare it, because it's also very
beautiful.

Oh and leave a
review on the way, if you got the time...
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A Parallel Dimensional Fairytale