Disclaimer: Sesshoumaru belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. I own everyone else in this story.

 

Living Exhibit

 

“What? Stop it!” she protested. “You can't do this to me!”

 

“Oh yes we can,” the priest explained through his drunken stupor. “You're too much of a threat; we have deemed it necessary to neutralize you.”

 

“No! I haven't done anything! Get away from me! Anyway, this is my home! You shouldn't be here in the first place!” she exclaimed frantically, gesturing around past the circle of monks surrounding her.

 

The head priest, Ungai, laughed with disdain and his young trainees suddenly stopped running around the fair inuyoukai and began the purification chant. Ungai joined in, but then bellowed, “Why isn't this working? You should be ashes by now!”

 

“Hey!” the demoness exclaimed. “Just because I'm not Sesshoumaru doesn't mean I'm not strong! I am royalty, you know. Not somebody to be looked down upon and purified!”

 

The monk threw her a look saying shut up; I don't care and tossed down a sutra while she was being immobilized by his acolytes and chanted a word. Immediately, a pearlescent barrier sprung up around the silver-haired woman and surrounded her, cutting off all sounds of protest. The monk grinned satisfactorily - proud of the strength of his barrier - while the creature attempted to punch through it. Heh. Much more of that and it's going to give her a good shock. She deserves it, the filthy demon. He smirked and decided that he'd inform her of her fate. “You, demon, will never escape that barrier. You are doomed to stay there forever unless I unseal you - which I can assure you is most certainly not going to happen. You are stuck there to listen and watch, but never be heard.” He could tell she was screaming at him from behind the barrier, but he couldn't hear anything. “Meanwhile, we'll use this palace to our liking, won't we?” he asked his apprentices.

 

“Yes, Master Ungai,” they chanted together, drunken smiles on their faces. It was amazing that they had been able to run in circles without falling over from their overwhelming inebriation.

 

Setsuna cursed. Damn them. If I get out of here before any one of them are dead, I'll kill them and then curse their bones for putting me here.

 

 

 

Time skip of 500 years. In this time, land surrounding the palace has been developed and built up into a bustling city named Tokyo. Present Day: 2002. The palace has been maintained throughout the years as an intensely popular feudal-era museum.

 

 

 

 

“Wow, mister! What's that?” a youth exclaimed enthusiastically. His name was Hirotsu - most called him Hiro - and he had just recently turned 13. His passion for the sengoku jidai was rivaled by none in his seventh-grade class of thirty. He was enthralled by this palace-turned-museum, and had been begging his mother for months to bring him here. He'd been researching the exhibits online, and he loved the fact that it had been preserved in its original state, and in almost pristine condition. He had even written his class report on it last month! The moment he had stepped past the solid wooden threshold, he had been enraptured by the ornate carvings and beautiful rice-paper screens. Some of them looked as if the painter had spent years on them, attempting to achieve perfection. Most of the rooms their tour group had passed through had been on the website, so he already knew about them. But there was this one room was mentioned on the website but never elaborated on. The Great Hall. This was the room that the group had just walked into, and he could already see open mouths throughout the tourists. He pulled away from his mother to get a better view at what they were all looking at, and then asked the guide what it was. The guide chuckled and waved toward the point of interest.

 

“This is the most famous part of our museum. We call her `Tsuki', or `Moon'. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why?” he questioned, looking over the group with a smile.

 

“Is it because of the crescent moon on her forehead?” Hiro asked, his eyes glued to the statue next to the far wall. It was a beautiful woman sitting cross-legged with her hands on the ground in front of her. She appeared to be draped in silks, and if it weren't for the solid sheet of glass surrounding her like an exhibition case, the boy would swear she was alive.

 

The guide seemed surprised for a moment, and then grinned. “Wow, little man, you've got great eyes! Most people don't see the moon on her forehead or the stripes on her face until we get a lot closer. And once they notice those, then they see her pointed ears!” Hiro smiled in pride.

 

“So I got it right then?”

 

“No, sorry. But it's okay; most people don't get it. Turns out the original director of this place - the one who first turned it into a museum - was trying to bust open the door we just came through because it was sealed. So apparently when he finally got it open, he looked in and saw this beautiful, ethereal woman bathed in a swath of moonlight through that window over there. Hence, `Moon'. Must've been the surprise of his life, huh?” the guide chuckled again. “But you know what's even cooler? It turns out that she's alive or something. Whenever we come in and open up in the morning, she's always in a different position than the one she was in when we closed up the night before. And sometimes her eyes are open. They're this awesome gold, you know? Real pretty. The only thing she's never done is stand up. I've seen her in fifty different positions on the ground, sitting, but we don't know how tall she is because she's never stood up. Isn't that weird? And there's no food or water in there, ever. It's the museum's current and only mystery. Well, aside from that dark staircase downstairs, beneath the dungeons…” he grinned. “But that's a story for later. Come on, let's go and visit the pretty girl that moves in the night.” He walked toward the far wall and the rest of the visitors followed him, not wanting to miss out looking at the mysterious woman. Maybe her eyes were open today?

 

Hiro made his way between the adults and managed to make his way to the front of the pack, but was stopped by the little cord strung around about three feet from the case. Oh well, he sighed. At least I can see her better here. Wow, her ears are pointed! So cool! I wonder how she survives? Maybe she's an ancient demon like the ones Grampa tells me about! That would be so cool!...I hope she's not mad about being sealed away though. Wait. Scratch that. Even I would be mad if somebody sealed me up for years. He laughed at himself and then twisted around to see if his mom could see this.

 

“Ack!” he said, trying to catch himself from falling. His foot had gotten caught on the hem of one of the tourists' skirts. “Help!” he exclaimed, teetering on the verge of falling over the cord and into the case. Oops, he whispered to himself. “Oof!” His breath whooshed out of his lungs when he fell against the glass and broke through the thin case…and then fell against something hard…that didn't feel like glass. What? He braced himself and stood back up with one hand on the thing that had stopped the rest of his fall. “What is this?” he wondered out loud. “I can't see anything, but there's something stopping my hand! It feels kinda springy, like an old rubber band or a beach ball. Mr. Kuroka?” he turned to look at the frantic guide, but the man seemed incapable of words. Hiro wondered why, and then followed the young man's gaze to a place just above him. “Whoah! When did that happen?”

 

The woman was standing - something that Mr. Kuroka had just said she had never done - and staring at him. At him! Her hands were pressed against the mysterious substance and she was mouthing something...Hmmm..I think she's telling me to…break? Oh! Break it? “But how?” he wondered. “How to break something that I cannot see?” He looked up at her pleading gaze and made up his mind to break the thing and free the mysterious lady.

 

“Ugh...” he pushed at it, leaning into it. Why won't it give? Darn it! BREAK! I need to get her out of there! At his furious thought, his hands began to glow a faint blue. The tour group looked on in awe and the guide wondered what kind of mother was she to leave her son pushing against an invisible wall amidst broken glass and do nothing about it.

“BREAK!” Hiro muttered, and then felt himself falling, the invisible cage gone. “Umph!” What? Somebody caught me? He looked up and brown eyes met gold as the woman looked down at him. She's free! Great!

 

…Now what? He questioned himself. The woman sighed and put him back on his feet, looking disdainfully at their audience. By this point, everyone in the palace complex filled the great hall.

 

“Many thanks,” she declared in a lilting voice. “I was beginning to think that those monks were right when they told me I'd be in there for eternity.”

 

Hiro was dumbstruck. Monks? What? Wait… “So you were imprisoned in that by monks? Why would they do that?”

 

The beautiful lady frowned. “I don't really know. It's not like I killed their friends or anything. I think they were just drunk and wanted to inflict some pain upon some poor demon, and they just happened to choose me. Trust me, I would've been just happy to let them rest for the night - the palace had been deserted by everyone else, anyway - and then let them go on their way, but no. They cornered me here and decided that I was better off purified. And when they couldn't do that, they just stuck me here under that stupid barrier.” She tossed her head in the direction of the shattered case and sighed. “I was stuck there for at least three hundred years, doing nothing but listening to silence. Very boring, indeed. And then that treasure hunter came along and decided to open up a museum using this place. It got a little more interesting after that.”

 

“You're telling me you're a demon? Are you serious? And that switching positions every night was just a game to pass the time?” Hiro asked her.

 

“Well, aren't you a bright young boy. Yes, I'm a demon. My cousin was the Lord of the Western Lands, in fact. Ever heard of Lord Sesshoumaru? That was him.” She smiled wistfully, lost in thought for a moment. “But yes, I changed the orientation of my legs every once in awhile. It was fun seeing their reactions. And look here, you liked looking at me so much that you needed a closer look! You broke both barriers, too!” she grinned. “Now tell me that that wasn't just to get an eyeful of me.”

 

“Hey!” Hiro admonished. “I'm only thirteen! Shouldn't you be going after guys your own age?” She looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then started laughing.

 

“Oh, that's great! Ha! Guys my own age?” she snorted. “If there were any of them left they'd be so decrepit they couldn't get out of bed! Oh, that's just great!” She was almost doubled over laughing, but once she quieted, she looked at Hiro and said, “Do you have any idea how many years I've seen in my life?” Hiro looked at her and thought about it. She couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and yet he had already heard her say three hundred years of silence and then the first director, whom he knew established the museum sometime around 1819. So…

 

“At least five hundred? You don't look it though…”

 

“Five hundred? Five hundred? Aha! I love it! Five hundred!” she started laughing again, drawing mutters from some of the assembled. “Oh, you're just a laugh riot, aren't you, my boy! Ah, for the days when I was but five hundred…Nah, by this time, I've gotta be at least…Wait, let me think about this…” she paused for a moment, her forefinger tapping against her chin in a gesture of deep thought. “By this time I'm probably around nine hundred, but I can never be sure. I stopped counting around six hundred; it was hard to keep track of the years in this place.” Hiro stared at her, his mouth open, and then shook his head.

 

“So what are you going to do now? I doubt anyone you know is alive, so-” he was cut off by the entrance of the museum curator. The man was red in the face and breathing very hard as if he had run all the way from the other side of the complex…which, on second thought, he probably had.

 

“Oh my goodness. He was telling the truth! My god! You're alive and out of there! So, do tell: Who are you? What events have you witnessed in your extended lifetime? What's it like being a demon? Please tell us! In fact, since you have nowhere to go, how about you stay here at the museum? You can dress in your old- uh, regular clothes and be a kind of interactive exhibit, if you will! Won't you accept our offer?” the man's face was an interesting shade of purple at this point; he appeared to have said everything in one breath.

 

“Calm down, sir. We haven't even learned her name yet,” a perceptive older employee reassured the man. “What is your name by the way?”

 

The director interjected into the question before the demoness could answer. “What! What are you talking about? Her name is Tsuki! We already know tha-”

 

“It's Setsuna, actually,” the woman said coolly. “`Tsuki' is just the pet name the first director gave me. He was quite an idiot, you know. Always blundering about everywhere, just like you.”

 

“What! Don't insult me when you don't even know me!”

 

“You seem to be under the impression that I was blind, deaf, and mute while imprisoned in that barrier. Trust me, I could hear every word that was said and see every person that was saying it. Do you know how many times I have heard some guy across the room mutter something like `I'd tap that'?” she replied harshly, almost spitting the words out in her disgust. “Sometimes I really regret having the enhanced senses of an inuyoukai.” The director was in shock, his mind processing her words. Inuyoukai? Dog demon? And she deserved an apology. She was right. They had regarded her as an unseeing, unhearing fixture to mock or praise at will.

 

“I'm sorry…Setsuna. But I would still like you to stay here as a part of our museum - and that way, you won't have to try to live outside in an unfamiliar environment. Please?”

 

She contemplated his offer. He presented a good point; she had seen the countless beeping contraptions that the visitors had wielded like little pets, and she didn't really want to become part of that world just yet. “Alright. I shall stay here. Thank you for the kind offer.” The curator sighed in relief, glad that they would get to keep her. Now that she could actually talk, the museum would gain even more popularity - everyone would be eager to see this new development! And the stories! The history! The archaeologists would have a field day with this one!

 

As the crowd began to disperse, Hiro stared at Setsuna. She'll be here from now on, free to come and go as she wishes. Free to enthrall more people with her smooth movements, her unusual markings, and her expansive knowledge of the past. She'll always be known as a relic from Japan's history - the living exhibit.

 

He sighed. Living exhibit, huh? He'd have to come in a few years to see how she was doing. He was the one to have released her, after all. Hiro smiled to himself and turned around to retrace his path back out of the building, determined to become the next curator of the Palace of the Moon museum.