InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Kagome! Where are you?! ❯ explanations ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter five: Explanations.

Technical note: The traditional Japanese Koki calendar begins counting at the founding of the Japanese imperial house in the year 660bc. By that calendar it is the year 2663. This would be the only calendar that Sesshomaru will be able to recognize.

Corrected by Angelica Birmingham. Thank you

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Kagome shivers as she wakes up. She opens her eyes and stares into the golden eyes of Sesshomaru.

She twitches 'what?' She thinks in the confusion of waking up.

"Oh, sorry." She blushes, "Good morning, Sesshomaru."

He grunts.

A gleam of light shines through the opening of the sleeping bag. "Morning, huh?" she deliberately shivers. "I'm going to hate getting out of this bag." She smiles, "Thank you for the warmth of your body."

"Staying in here is not getting this Sesshomaru any closer to home. Now that it is morning, the cube will be examined and its secrets revealed." Sesshomaru says. "Open the bag."

"Let me grab my clothes first and put them on, ok." Kagome says as she wiggles her arm out of the bag and into her backpack. "It's cold . . . " She grabs her clothes and brings them in. "They're cold."

"Of course, human."

"What about you, Sesshomaru?"

"Do not concern yourself, human."

Kagome puts on her clothes. "Ready."

They both exit the sleeping bag. The morning light filters through the ice above them.

Kagome quickly drops a flare into the pot and tries to clean up the mess she made last night. 'I was so tried, I didn't realize how big a mess I made. Also, this means I don't have to watch Sesshomaru dress.' She thinks.
Sesshomaru flips his clothes before putting them on. This causes the ice that had encrusted them to fly off. So his clothes, once they warm up, will be damp, but not wet.
'She's cleaning up, without me having to order her. Good.' He thinks.

Kagome digs into her backpack and takes out her night clothes and a roll of duck tape. She puts on the bottom half of her pajamas. She takes out a roll of duck tape and starts to apply it to the clothes on her legs.

"Why?" Sesshomaru asks. "And what is that you are using?"

"I'm going to need to get something around my legs to protect them. My pajamas are the only clothes I have that protect my legs. But they are too thin. So, I'm using my duck tape to help protect my legs." She looks up and holds out the roll of tape.

"This is called duck tape. It is a very good general purpose object." She smiles. "Duck tape fixes' everything."



"Can I at least finish? And there is a book I need to get out to help you, ok?" Kagome says as she goes back to wrapping her legs.

"Woman. This Sesshomaru expects to be looked at when addressed." He says in a low threatening voice.

Kagome looks up at him. "I am sorry, Sesshomaru, sir. I was trying to finish this as quickly as possible, ok."

His eyes narrow. "What is this term, 'ok'?"

"Oh, sorry, 'ok' is an English slang term. It generally means something like, 'acceptable. That I agree. Something like that." She thinks, "I was trying to finish this as quickly as possible, is that acceptable? How's that?"

He nods.

"English? You have mentioned that several times."

"English. It is a language. I suppose you'd consider it a western barbarian language. It's required to learn." She says as she opens her Swiss Army knife to cut the duck tape. "There. I'm done." Her mouth twitches, "Ruined these pajamas." Her head shakes, "Explaining this to mom . . . "

She looks at Sesshomaru, who she can see is about to lose his patience, and says, "I'm ready, Lord Sesshomaru."

He nods.
"You may not believe everything I'm going to say, but, I will be saying the truth." Kagome says. "It'll probably go better, if you hold your questions until the end, then I'll answer them to the best of my ability, Ok?"He raises his eyebrows. "If it's necessary, I will interrupt."

She sighs and digs out her history book. She holds it up. "This is the history of Japan from the years 2250 to 2500 approximately."

"It has only been about 2200 years since the human calendar began." Sesshomaru says, a short pause as he thinks about human calendars.

"I am from the year 2663." She looks into his eyes.

He narrows his eyes and sniffs. 'She is calm. She believes this.' He thinks. "So, you are from the future?"

"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru."

A pause. He slowly nods. "Over the years I have noticed humans and their equipment to change as the year's pass. Armor, swords, and other objects slowly change and generally improve as time pass."

He nods. "Tell me of the future."

Kagome gives Sesshomaru a history lesson. 'She is telling me, what she believes is the truth. But, I will not blindly trust her or her explanations. She, being human, is, no doubt, wrong.' He thinks.

She explains about the well.

"I see . . . I will reserve judgment, but for now, I will accept your explanation." He says.

"Thank you for not calling me a liar." Her mouth twitches.

Sesshomaru glares at Kagome.

She glares back.

A pause.

He pulls out the cube from his robes. "Now . . . we will examine this."

He hands her the cube, nothing happens when they both touch the cube.

Kagome sighs, brings the cube close to her eyes and starts to examine it.

"The light isn't purple, but red."
"Yes, this Sesshomaru noticed that last night."
She nods. "It is probably a power indicator. The light will probably need to change back to purple before it'll work again. It better be able to recharge itself, because I don't know what we can use for batteries . . . "

"This Sesshomaru doesn't see why that is so."

She sighs and digs into her backpack and pulls out a camera. "See this Sesshomaru." She points to the power light on it, "When it's green, it's ready. When it's not ready, the light is red. The light on the cube probably works the same way."

He grunts.

"Do you remember the color of the light when Rin found it?"

"It was red, like it is now."

"How long before it turned purple?"

"Hmm . . . Two days." He nods as he says this. 'And it was then, that I really started to feel the wrongness of the cube. Before that, it was unusual, but did not upset my senses. Once the light changed, my mystical senses started yelling at me that the cube was wrong, unnatural.' He thinks.

"Good. It recharges itself, then. In all likelihood, tomorrow afternoon we'll be able to leave this place."

She sighs, heavily, "But, you see all these smaller cubes." She points to the patterns of the cube "each pattern is a different location, I'm sure. The pattern on it is the pattern to get here."

"Then change it to the pattern to return home, woman."

She glares at him. "I don't know that pattern. The writing on the cube is something I've never seen or studied. " She grits out in anger. "There are thousands, millions of different possible patterns. And I'm sure Rin played with it and changed it, right?"

He nods.

She sighs. "Which means we are reduced to trial and error."

"Explain."

"We wait a couple of days, change the pattern of the cube, and see where that takes us." she sighs. "We do that time after time, hope to get lucky, and get to go home. Or maybe a pattern will emerge and we can figure out what the patterns on the cube mean." She holds up the cube.

"You are a Miko. Ask it what the pattern to return is."
"Huh?" she looks at him, confused.
"You should know this. Everything has a spirit in it. Part of the standard miko training is learning to talk to spirits. Talk to the spirit within the cube. Demand it tells you the pattern this Sesshomaru needs to return." he says, speaking like he is talking to a child.

She rolls her eyes at Sesshomaru. "Sesshomaru, weren't you listening to me? I've only had occasional formal training with my Miko abilities. Most everything I do . . . is instinctive."

"Then learn, now."

"Ok, Ok. I'll try, but don't expect much." she says. Sitting Indian-style, similar to Inu-yasha, with the cube in between her legs, she closes her eyes to concentrate.

Minutes pass . . .

'She's incompetent.' Sesshomaru thinks, his patience wearing thin. 'I'm lost somewhere with only a human for company. I must return home and if she fails, I will try more drastic measures.'

The cube begins to glow and it raises a couple of centimeters off the ground. Kagome moans, her eyes fly open, a wild glare in them.

"No!" She throws the cube across the chamber, puts her head in her hands and she cries into her hands. "Chaos . . . "

"Talk, woman." He demands.

"Whatever created that . . . worshiped chaos. It tried to possess me." She shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. "No doubt that's why its existence upsets you."

"Explain."

Kagome looks at him, "You are a person of order and tradition, not chaos."

"Of course."

"You felt the chaos in it."

"And that's why, this Sesshomaru dislikes it." He nods.

Sesshomaru reaches over and starts to squeeze it. "Cube, change to the pattern this Sesshomaru needs, or this Sesshomaru will destroy you." He growls at it.

'I will force it to bow to my will.' He thinks.
"NO!" Kagome yells and strikes Sesshomaru's wrist. His claws scrape across the cube as it goes flying out of his hand.

Sesshomaru turns on Kagome. He reaches out with his hand and grabs her by her throat. "Bitch. Do not interfere with this Sesshomaru." he growls at her, their faces are within centimeters of each other.
She stares at him in anger. "You idiot! If you damage that . . . we cannot return home!"

"This Sesshomaru is aware of that. I was threatening it, only." he says in voice as cold as the air outside.

"Think, you muscle-bound idiot, if someone threatened you and you had to give them directions. Would you direct them to safety or danger?" The anger in Kagome's voice is hotter than a furnace.

A pause . . .

Sesshomaru releases Kagome's throat. She rubs it and she feels drops of blood sliding between her fingers.

"I might have been able to get it to tell me something." Kagome still glares at him. "But, now?"

"You said it was possessing you."

"It tried, even though it's weak. But, that's been done before and I've got mental defenses now." Kagome shakes her head and twists her neck, working out the stress.

Sesshomaru retreats to the edge of the chamber and sits with his back to the ice, watching Kagome.

Kagome plucks the cube from the ice where it landed when it left his hand. She goes over to her bag and takes out a couple of pencils and some paper. She places a piece of paper over the cube and starts to rub it, tracing the slightly raised patterns.

"You are doing what exactly?"

"We need to keep records of what has been tried."

Pause.

"This Sesshomaru's impression of you did not include the seriousness he sees now."

Kagome looks up from the tracing and stares at him. She flips out the necklace with the shards on it. She starts speaking in a hard voice. "You see this? When I first found out about it, I treated it as a joke. I didn't seriously believe Inu-yasha or Kaede when they told me about it. Because of that," her voice catches, and she continues in a soft voice. ". . because of my mistakes . . . all the death and destruction caused by the hunt for the shards has occurred."
Her eyes catch his and he can see the fire in them as she finishes. "I'm not going to make that mistake again. I will treat this seriously. I will return home."

Sesshomaru nods his head, slowly.

"Since I have no idea how long it'll take, we will need to see if we can find something to burn. So I can save my stuff. And, since for some, no doubt, stupid reason, you won't eat my cooking, you need to find some food." Kagome says in a lighter voice. "Why don't you make a new entrance and see if you can find something, while I trace the cube and see what else I might be able to find out."

"Who are you to give this Sesshomaru orders?"

Kagome closes her eyes and counts to ten. "Fine then. What do we do now, Lord Sesshomaru?"

A pause.

"This Sesshomaru will scout out the surrounding area. The blizzard yesterday prevented him from doing that simple, but, necessary precaution. You, woman, will clean up this area and use any of your abilities to learn about the cube."

Kagome shakes her head. 'Men.' she thinks in disgust.

'I wonder where we are at.' she thinks, 'hmmmm. A cold planet . . . maybe. No way, but . . . what was the name of that planet in Empire? Hoth.'

As Sesshomaru begins to dig out of an entrance, Kagome says, "Oh, Sesshomaru, if you see any large metal four-legged machines, yell."

"Why?" he says as he glances back to her.

"I'll know where we are then. We'll be on the planet Hoth." End chapter five

I have had reviewers ask where they are. What I've told them is still correct. Kagome is making her best guess, based on her knowledge. Wherever they are, she'll try to figure it out, sometimes, she'll be correct, sometimes she won't.

Oddly enough, Sesshomaru is the one that is in a totally new situation here. World hopping is something Kagome is familiar with. So, if Sesshomaru, might act a bit O.O.C., remember he is trying to adjust to a new situation . . .

thank you for reading

jeff shelton