InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Cereal Box Romance ❯ The Chemistry of Elevator Floors ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

 

Edited by thyme_is_a_cat

 

A/N: It's been a while hasn't it? I won't even begin to make excuses, but I would like to thank all of you who sent emails and encouraging reviews to get me to work on it. It really did help, I promise.

 

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Chapter 16 - The Chemistry of Elevator Floors

 

The pulsing of the Miko Receiver in Sesshomaru's pocket was lessening in intensity; not too quickly, but enough to send worry, like droplets of icy water, sliding down his spine. Having been witness to some of the miko's misadventures (and sometimes the cause), he knew that she had not simply hopped the next train home. He blinked sightlessly in the unforgiving darkness, wondering how furious she would be if he simply leashed her to his bed to keep her out of trouble. Probably quite a bit. Ah well.

 

“Check the breaker! The one on the left!” Hoshi snapped into his cell phone, the dim, blue glow of the front panel the only light in the little chamber. That is, until Sesshomaru willed his doukasou into his claws, and they flared to garish, green life.

 

“The one marked `elevator'. Hey!” The kitsune almost dropped his phone when the first drop of glowing poison hit the floor with an acrid sizzle. “Do you know what that will do to the floor?” he hissed in horror, placing his palm over the mouthpiece.

 

Sesshomaru ignored him, flexing his fingers as a steady trickle of the corrosive fluid splattered against the floor, and the elevator began to fill with the smell of molten metal.

 

“I hope she's okay,” Shippo spoke quietly, wringing unseen hands. No one answered, all thinking the same thing.

 

Hoshi's cell squawked, and he shot an unseen glare at the taiyoukai before saying, “Then throw those switches, too! Don't leave my guests in the dark! And find the asshole responsible!”

 

“Hurry the fuck up, Sesshomaru” Inuyasha grated unnecessarily from his corner of the elevator. Only his eyes were visible, glowing in the reflected light of technology and youkai magic. Still seated against the wall, he aimed his foot for Kouga's head. He didn't need to see the wolf to hit him; his faint whimpers revealed his location with more than enough accuracy. Even the kick was unnecessary, as Kouga was obviously beating himself up for his own stupidity. The stupid git sounded like he was mourning a mate, which might have been exactly what he was doing: mourning the mate that he couldn't claim. Inuyasha kicked him again for the audacity of even trying to mate Kagome. Snarling, he kicked him a third time, remembering that the wolf had actually succeeded.

 

What to do with the girl, he wondered as he watched his half-brother's poison melt a smoldering, smoking hole in the floor, the poison now lighting up the elevator like a campfire of raver glow wands. He didn't want her as his mate. To be honest, he didn't really want a mate at all. He enjoyed the company of his females and had no desire to settle down with one female for the rest of his life. Not that he would deny her if she wanted to join his household: far from it. But if he didn't mate her, then some other male would, an idea that set his teeth on edge. Growling, he glared at the hole and wished it would finish melting already.

 

“You're going to replace that, you know. This is a historical building.” Hoshi snapped at Sesshomaru as he flicked shut his phone and stuffed it in his pants pocket. “And I don't know what the hurry is; the power will be back on in a minute.”

 

Inuyasha watched his brother's face tense, a slight tightening around the eyes and mouth, a twitching of the jaw muscle so small that none but the taiyoukai's closest associates would notice the changes in his expressionless face. As much as he was eager to get the hell out of the elevator and start kicking ass, his brother's demeanor disturbed him. He couldn't remember the last time the bastard gave a flying fuck about anything. Was he so intent on winning their five hundred year-old bet that he'd become unhinged?

 

Finally, the hole was large enough to admit a well-built male youkai, and Inuyasha climbed to his feet, stomping over to the entrance. “Yo, bastard.”

 

Sesshomaru gave him a terse glance and then eyed the hole without responding. Inuyasha shivered with a deep sense of strangeness.

 

“The fuck is wrong with you?” the hanyou asked with his usual tact and sensitivity. His ears twitched as he watched the muscle in his brother's jaw knot under the skin. Without a word or final glance backward, the taiyoukai stepped into the hole and disappeared from sight. Taken aback, Inuyasha shouted after him, “Hey! Where are you going? Damn it!”

 

“Down, Inuyasha. Let's go get her.” Shippo laid a firm hand on his shoulder, giving him an odd, pitying look, then hopped into the hole after Sesshomaru. Gaping as he stared into the oubliette of an elevator shaft, Inuyasha wondered if perhaps someone had slipped crazy pills into his drink while he hadn't been looking. If he hadn't known better, he would have said his brother looked worried… but that couldn't be right. And why the hell would the runt be feeling sorry for him?

 

Snapping out of his confusion, he shouted into the dark, “I am! But—”

 

Hoshi chuckled from his corner of the elevator, which was once again engulfed in blackness now that the face of his cell phone had winked out. “Unless you'd rather stay here and go down—”

 

Inuyasha didn't bother to listen to the rest of that sentence before jumping through the hole and into the long darkness of the elevator shaft.

 

Groaning with more dramatics than necessary, a momentarily forgotten wolf uncurled from his less than dignified ball and moved to sit up, but was stopped by an unforgiving foot on his throat. “Ah ah ah, time to let the puppies play,” Hoshi teased in a light tone belied by the force of his heel on Kouga's Adam's apple. “You had your chance.”

 

“But Kagome—” the wolf started to protest and was quickly silenced by a bit of localized pressure.

 

“Doesn't need you,” Hoshi stated firmly. Then, because his favorite subject of harassment was no longer available, he added, “Besides, I think the West has plans for that tasty bite of miko.”

 

“That flea-bitten mongrel, I'll—”

 

“And she could barely keep her hands off him, so I hear,” Hoshi finished with a conspiratorial giggle and a dig of his heel into already abused wolf flesh. To his disappointment, the fight seemed to flood out of Kouga with a low groan. “Buck up, Kouga; you might get another chance! I'll bet money that they have beautiful pups.”

 

Kouga resumed his fetal position.

 

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The thing about ridiculously stupid bad guys, Kagome mused to herself as she bumped around the back of the van on her side, still tied to a chair, was that they made ridiculously stupid mistakes. A fact in which she took great comfort after coming to grips with her own stupid mistake. Granted, it was something that any hormonal teenager might have done if presented with the opportunity to see into the mind of a handsome, admiring dog demon, assuming said teenager would not have run screaming the other way first.

 

Kagome winced as the van's back wheel found another pothole, and she was tossed painfully across the floor of the van, her hair snagging on one of the many unidentifiable bits of junk that were her traveling companions.

 

`What have I done?' Kagome sighed in self-disappointment as she wiggled and slid herself back into position, feeling with her fingers for the jagged piece of metal that she was using to slice through the cords around her wrists. Sakishima had the blank ring that read human minds, obviously. So, she had either found it after Kagome had tossed it over Sango's wall or she'd acquired it from the creature who had. A darkened, blurry silhouette of a snake creature against the fire in the well house rose in her mind, and she shuddered, suspecting the former. The snake-woman could have picked it out of the river, used it to cause trouble for Sango, and then listened to her own thoughts, discovering the origins of the rings and the existence of others. Had she plotted through time, waiting for the final clue of Kagome's passage back to the future and then destroyed it? It made sense, Kagome supposed, as it would effectively remove the threat of her discovering Sakishima's secret and going back to the past to stop her.

 

Then again, perhaps she was giving the snake woman more credit than she was due. She did employ idiots who left sharp objects in reach of bound prisoners, after all.

 

Kagome grinned through the ache in her shoulders as the bindings on her wrists finally slackened. With another mighty squirm, she freed them of the cords and positioned herself so that she could saw through the ropes binding her shoulders to the back of the chair.

 

How had the rings come into existence in the first place? Kagome desperately wanted to know. Apparently, Sakishima assumed that Kagome had something to do with it, if her recent kidnapping and use as a target for a ring toss was any indication. Was it her touch that activated the mind-reading ability?

 

The van swung around a corner, and Kagome slid away from the instrument of her freedom. In a fit of pained, sweaty, frustrated pique, she wished that her captors had used proper demon ropes so that she could have just purified them already. As soon as the thought had formed, she realized she was now nose to a barber's folded straight razor that had somehow fallen out of wherever it had been kept.

 

Stupid, stupid villains. Not that Kagome was complaining. Not at all!

 

Squirming and grunting, she pulled one arm to the front and pushed against the floor of the van with the edges of her feet until the razor was in reach of her hand. Unsurprisingly, she nicked herself opening it, but watched in pleased satisfaction as the ropes at her shoulders quickly frayed under her awkward application of the blade.

 

Paying somewhat more attention to the razor than she had to the jagged metal, she puzzled through her involvement with strange powers being cast on inanimate objects. She could charge arrows (or her purse) with spiritual energy, but that didn't explain how Demon Decoder rings pulled out of a cereal box could suddenly become exactly that…

 

Oh shit.

 

What had she said to Souta that morning? Stilling the progress of the razor, she squeezed her eyes shut and thought back to a morning of an annoying younger brother and surprises in her breakfast cereal.

 

“It's on the box, genius,” Souta tapped the side of the cereal box next to the words, “Demon Decoder Ring Inside!” and a picture of chubby, grinning rabbit holding what looked like a cheap mood ring. “One would think that a girl who spent the last three years traveling to Feudal Japan to fight demons and restore a magic jewel would be less squeamish!”

 

“No one asked you!” Kagome snapped as she snatched up the box to get a better look at the picture. With a small frown, she set the box back on the table. “Demon Decoder Ring, my Aunt Fanny. I wish it were that easy.”

 

And she'd really wished it had been that easy: as easy as decoding the mind of a dog hanyou with whom she'd wanted to move a relationship to the next level. It had been a selfish, careless, wistful sort of wish, but made dangerous by an unpredictable magic jewel lodged somewhere under her ribcage that seemed to have taken the opportunity to fuck with her.

 

Just as it had since the day she'd turned fifteen.

 

Well, Kagome Higurashi was tired of being fate's butt-of-all-jokes. She didn't even want to be rescued, at this point. She would take care of this herself and, hopefully, no one else would have to find out about this messy ring business.

 

With a determined nod of her head, hampered as it was by the waffled metal of the van's floor, Kagome resumed her work with the razor, a grim smile stretching her lips. Yes, she would free herself, soundly punish her captors, destroy each and every decoder ring she could find… except for maybe one dog ring…

 

The ropes around her shoulder finally slackened, and she shrugged them off with an indulgent groan of aching pleasure. Hunching her shoulders in a long, overdue stretch, she sighed. No, not even one dog ring could survive. If she were going to do anything about a certain dog demon, then she'd have to do it on her own. She could do it on her own. That is, if she really wanted to… and if he still wanted to… maybe he didn't, after all this time…

 

A sharp lurch in the van's progress tossed her to the side, interrupting her thread of self-doubt and forcing the blade of the razor against the tender skin of her palm. Kagome hissed in pain as a sticky wetness made the handle of the blade slippery in her hand. Grumbling a series of colorful words that would have shocked Kouga had he been present to hear them, she bent over her knees to cut through the ropes binding her ankles. She had managed to sever two loops when another swerve and the distinctive sound of an engine rumbling to a stop froze her heart mid-beat. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead as she realized the second step of her plan had come much quicker than she'd expected.

 

With renewed haste, she fumbled with the blade to slice through the last of the ropes, the feat made tricky by the blood now coating the razor's handle and most of her hand. She tried to ignore the dark stains smearing the ropes and, damn it all, her cousin's satin dress.

 

One of the two backdoors swung open, flooding the van with bright, yellow light. Kagome had an instant to wonder exactly how long she'd been in her captor's clutches before leaping out of the darkness with a furious roar (she'd been going for tiger but accomplished something more like cat-that-had-its-tailed-pulled) and brandished the bloody, purity-charged razor in the face of The Brain.

 

Squeaking in surprised terror, the mouse demon lunged backward, his tail whipping around to tangle between her feet. Slightly off-balance after her plunge from the van, Kagome yelped (another distinctly un-tiger-like sound) and toppled forward onto the quivering mouse. Unfortunately for The Brain, Kagome was full to over-brimming with adrenaline and spiritual power, and the dim-witted creature burst into glittering, purple dust before he was able to break her fall.

 

“Ow,” Kagome complained in deference to her skinned elbows. Alarmed shouts coming from the front of the van encouraged her to scramble to her feet, the razor held defensively in front of her. Deciding that caution was the better part of valor when kidnapped and outnumbered, Kagome flattened herself against the backdoor that had remained closed and tried not to breathe too loudly, scanning her surroundings with wide, anxious eyes.

 

She was in a bamboo forest at the terminus of a narrow, overgrown, dirt road. A compound of small, traditional houses was tucked away amongst the trunks, their rice-paper walls and shingled roofs somehow managing to blend with the vibrant green of the forest. Several other nondescript, white vans were parked close by, and it was to the nearest that Kagome darted, her body hunched over in a crouch and her hands full of dress as she ran. Skirting the back of the van, she paused momentarily as Sakishima's voice, shrill in anger, rang through the forest, punctuated by the slamming of the van door. Kagome grinned as she sprinted along the side of the van and around the front of the next.

 

A sliding, wooden door smacked open, and Kagome threw herself to the ground, rolling the last few feet of driveway under the low-hanging branches at the edge of the forest. Just in time, too, for heavy feet pounded down wooden stairs as Sakishima screamed for assistance.

 

“Get out here, you idiots! My miko is on the loose! She can't have gone far!”

 

Peeking through the leaves, she watched a number of youkai, many with strong animal features, lumbering toward the incensed snake-woman who was waving her arms and shouting at the rapidly growing, chaotic mob. None of them seemed very bright, if their slack-jawed expressions were any indication, and a couple actually climbed into the van where she had been held.

 

She'd have to make a run for it; there was no helping it. Alone, she could not confront a dozen youkai, and to be perfectly honest, her goal was to escape anyway. She figured that she had a decent chance if she got rid of the dress. Though not enamored of the thought of running through the woods in nothing but a strapless, low-backed bra, panties and hose, the dress was a definite hindrance. As quickly and quietly as she could, she undid the zipper and shimmied out of the clingy material, then slunk backward into the woods, keeping her eyes fixed on the melee on the road and using her hands to feel her way. A group of three youkai appeared to be heading her way, so she crouched down further and tried to use the slim trunks of the bamboo as cover.

 

Faster than she had expected, her view of the road and her pursuers was obscured by foliage. With a silent prayer to any god that might be listening, Kagome straightened and dashed into the woods.

 

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Sesshomaru grinned fiercely into the whistling wind, knowing that no one else could see and enjoying the immense freedom that the skies allowed. This was what a taiyoukai should be doing: hurtling through the morning to rescue his mate, not signing forms in triplicate and faxing them to Marketing. He just wished he had a sword, any sword, which he could use to smite the cretins who took Kagome. His poison-tipped claws would work as well, but there was something ultimately gratifying about wielding a long, sharp piece of metal and skewering one's enemy on the point. He had read something regarding males and poking things with phallic symbols, and he freely admitted it: he derived great satisfaction from shoving his pointy bits into things, in more ways than one. In this case, his claws would have to suffice as the first pointy bits, then he would secure Kagome and make use of his more interesting bits. Not that anything of that size could be considered a bit.

 

That she had been kidnapped he had no doubt. After escaping the elevator shaft, he had led the small rescue party on a brief survey of the parking garage, finding Kagome's purse, but no Kagome. He had also caught the faint scent of a poison that could not have been good for her, and he'd made a point to rub it in Inuyasha's face that the hanyou couldn't smell it. It had helped keep his mind off the needled claws of panic that were playing him like a harp.

 

Flying on his silver cloud as Inuyasha and Shippo leapt from rooftop to rooftop far below, Sesshomaru raced after the signal of the Miko Receiver. Its movement had paused for a while after they had escaped the elevator, and he had been sure that they had been closing in on their prey when it had begun to move again. It was drawing them to the edge of the city, and soon, the two lesser youkai would run out of buildings to vault. Sesshomaru didn't mind if Inuyasha or Shippo lagged behind, would prefer it, in fact, for it left all of the exciting stuff to him. However, he had been unwilling to waste the time convincing those two that they were unnecessary baggage and settled his irritation by reminding himself that Kouga had been left far behind. If it had been possible, he would have condensed his form into a ball of energy and blasted through the ether, but as the Miko Receiver also would have lost its matter, it wouldn't have been much help. He made a mental note to devise a way of knowing her precise location at all times; the chaining-to-the-bed idea was looking better and better.

 

Sesshomaru had just gotten to a particularly steamy part of a fantasy that had begun with a spectacularly bloody massacre of faceless enemies, an eternally grateful (and naked) Kagome falling into his arms and proclaiming her undying affection for his magnificent person, and then worshiping her willing body until he got a cramp in his tongue - when the Miko Receiver went abruptly dead.

 

Sesshomaru almost fell out of the sky.

 

“Oy, bastard! The fuck is wrong with you?” Inuyasha hollered over the wind as a forceful jump brought him level with his brother. To his chagrin, Sesshomaru had fallen a good distance.

 

“Is it the ring? Has something happened?” Shippo shouted up to them, still climbing in altitude and shooting the taiyoukai a concerned glance. Inuyasha scowled, muttering obscenely. The hanyou had not been pleased to learn that not only did he have a way of tracking Kagome, he had been tracking her for some time. The only thing that had prevented a good, old-fashioned, brotherly brawl was the fact that Kagome was quite probably in serious danger. Sesshomaru had then pointed out that it was his Receiver that now allowed them to track her, and no, Inuyasha could not hold it. Apparently, the hanyou was still sulking.

 

“Don't tell me you've lost her.” Seemingly unconsciously, Inuyasha was rolling up his sleeves, his silver ears laid back aggressively.

 

Sesshomaru gave his brother a cold look as his dinner began to curdle in his stomach. He wouldn't tell him that he'd lost her because this Sesshomaru didn't lose his possessions; nor did he misplace mates. He would also not admit to the failure of his device.

 

“I caught her scent,” he finally lied, eyeing his brother with affected disdain that he, inferior hanyou that he was, had not smelled her.

 

Inuyasha frowned truculently and then glared at the trees below them. “I don't smell anything,” he growled suspiciously.

 

“Nor I,” Shippo added, scanning the trees with a bemused expression.

 

“I would not expect you to.” Sesshomaru dipped each word in condescension as he filtered the wind through his admitted superior olfactory glands and hoped that he would catch her scent soon.

 

As luck would have it, the tantalizing perfume of her sweat clung to a tiny updraft, and he honed in on it, rocketing toward it without a word to his posse. With a loud curse from Inuyasha and an indignant squawk from Shippo, they changed their courses mid-leap, chasing after him as fast as they could.

 

Sesshomaru saw to it that it wasn't nearly fast enough.