InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ From Beginning to End ❯ The Task ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Summary: Under the sentence of death, Kagome Higurashi must locate the Shikon no Tama as the one who lost it. In a maze of lies and traps, will she be able to reach her goal when only her friends and a gruff guardian are able to lead her? But it seems to get harder the closer she gets.

A/N: I have up through chapter 8 written of this story and posted on another site and I'll post one chapter a day till it's caught up.

Please review!

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Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, but I do own the computer I'm typing on. I just wish I didn't...::kicks the evil piece of technology::

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From Beginning to End

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Chapter One: The Task

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"Kagome Higurashi, I expect thee to understand thy graveness of that that has come about."

"Yes, Your Lordship, I do."

"As thy protector of the Shikon no Tama, it was thou duty to protect it by all means. With thy sacred item no longer in thou safety, every human and youkai is now in danger."

"What she means," A scarlet eyed woman to the judge's right hissed, "Is that you've royally screwed us over."

"Language, Kagura-san," The High Judge commanded dryly.

"What? Royally screwed us over?" Kagura repeated innocently before sneering, "I thought it was better than saying that this girl has fucked up the entire world."

A frown tugged at Kaede's lips, but she kept her face forward, her eye resting on the slim figure on the floor in front of her.

"I be truly sorry to do this, ye be a good one, but thy first task is over." Kaede ancient voice sounded.

"I understand, Your Lordship," a small voice whispered, tight with anticipation. Ocean eyes flickered up momentarily to meet Kaede's single brown one before falling back to the floor.

"Higurashi, Kagome, I as the High Judge, thy keeper of thy hardest decisions in Tokyo, sentence ye to death by hanging."

Kagome blinked as the hammer slammed down to mark the end of her young life. 'Hanging?' a small voice questioned in the back of her mind, 'Isn't that a little barbaric? I mean, I though we stopped hanging people in the early 1900's...'

Her mind and body stiff with shock, the 20-year-old didn't react as two uniformed guards appeared from a side door. They began to tug her away to her doom, and all she could do was stumble along with their lead.

As the door that led to the cells loomed closer, Kagome felt the tears she'd kept at bay well up. Death...for losing the jewel she'd protected her entire life.

'It was my fault,' she reminded herself, 'I should have kept it under a more watchful eye. I deserve what the council decides.'

"Wait!" An ancient voice demanded while Kaede sat up stiffly.

The two officers, easily afraid of the stern old woman, skidded to a halt and pulled Kagome with them. "Yes, Ms. Kaede-sama?" one stuttered.

Kaede gave him a dry look. "I have one question left for thy girl." Her wise old mind was working furiously for a way to end this disaster with the girl's life and the jewel still in tact.

The policemen wheeled the young woman around. "Yes, Your Lordship?" Kagome muttered.

"Do ye know where thy jewel is?" the elder asked suddenly as she realized that no one had bothered with the most obvious question of all in the entire courtcase.

Kagome blinked.

"...Yeah...I do...er, Your Lordship," Kagome blushed, it was the first time anyone since she'd been arrested that morning had actually assumed she had a brain. No one had wondered if she knew who took the jewel and where it was.

They'd automatically thought that the jewel was missing and that was that.

Kagura sucked in her breath before growling low in her throat, "You idiot!" she roared, "We've been in this damn courthouse for FIVE HOURS! Why didn't you say something earlier?"

Kagome blinked. "Well...no one asked. Plus, when I grew up training to protect the jewel, I was taught never to speak of it in front of demons," Kagome gave a pointed look at the red orbed female.

Kagura leaned back and glared at the girl. "Demons and dark-hearted humans," the wind demoness corrected absently, angry at being blamed for such a large mistake.

Kagome nodded slowly at the 'dark-hearted human' part and flicked a finger over her shoulder, pointing at a young man without turning around to locate him. "My friend, Miroku-sama, is in the seating."

"I'm a pervert, not evil!" the man yelled, a sulk tugging at his lips, as he wondered how his friend was able to spend her final moments with humor. Kagome had always been that way: amazing...and quirky...but mostly amazing.

Kagome ignored her best friend's indignant reply, "Well, Your Lordship, my sentence?" Her ebony locked head tilted toward the door. She didn't like her final moments to be dragged out.

Kaede studied the young miko silently, "Thou sentence has changed."

"What?"

Kaede lifted the gavel and hovered it above the dark wood, "Ye have till thy next new moon, four weeks from dawn tomorrow, to relocate and obtain thy jewel." The hammer fell and pounded for the second time that afternoon before Kagome could interrupt.

"Wait!" Kagome yelled too late and yanked her arms from the guards to run up to the desk. She squeezed the edge with the tips of her fingers, and stood on her tiptoes to see over it. "You can't!"

"Would ye rather die?" Kaede asked sincerely. The only way Kagome could repent for her mistake in losing the most powerful item in the modern world was to get it back. Who was better for the job but the most powerful, and unusual, miko in the country? The protector of said jewel?

Kagome's eyes darkened, but her face was still calm. "Where it is, where the man has hidden it, would be asking for death, Your Lordship. My life will end either way."

Kaede watched her somber face, but didn't ask what the location of the milky pink jewel was. "At least this way ye have a chance," she sighed and let her old eye drift shut. "My sentence is final."

Kagome rolled back on her feet defeated. "Yes, Your Lordship."

Her azure eyes fell to the floor as she thought over this new task that would prove to be harder than protecting the jewel was.

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"We can't let them do this," A worried feminine voice whispered desperately. Her magenta orbs searched her love's violet ones.

Miroku sighed, "I don't know who stole the jewel or where he has it. But Kagome-sama said it was certain death, I can't let anyone drag you into it."

"Houshi-sama," the woman hissed, "Kagome-chan is our best friend."

"I know. But can we really help her?" Miroku's calm face had the slightest bit of desperation and despair floating beneath the surface.

"Yeah, we can." Sango stood up and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Your Lordship! Miroku Yama and I, Sango Umi, ask permission to help Kagome! We were there when the Shikon no Tama was stolen."

"Ye'll purposely bring this upon your self." Kaede questioned, uncertain about Sango's request.

"Yes," Sango nodded determinedly. The brunette picked her way over the knees of all the watchers and stumbled into the aisle, Miroku's hand tucked firmly in her own. They both walked silently down the little hallway between benches to come to the front of the room.

"Are ye both sure?" Kaede pressed, eyeing the young monk who had yet to say anything.

"I go where Sango goes, and I'd do anything for Kagome," Miroku sighed. "I'm a sucker for women," he finished under his breath. Although, he didn't regret helping Kagome in any way she needed, especially if her life was at stake.

Sango flashed her boyfriend a reassuring smile while Kagome looked horrified. They couldn't bring themselves into her punishment! "No! You guys can't do this!"

"Too late," the gavel came down a third time, "Thee sentence is now settled on thee shoulders of Miroku the Houshi and Sango the Taijiya as well as Ms. Kagome.

...As is thee punishment of death if thee task is not fulfilled."

"What have we just gotten ourselves into?" Miroku whispered.

"Something we'll just have to get ourselves out of," Sango drawled dryly as she hopped over the small gate that separated the seating area of the court from the floor where Kagome stood.

"Kagome, you owe us," Miroku quickly followed over and the three friends joined hands in silent prayer that they could win this.

And they could, as long as they worked together and pulled their strengths.

All three, without consulting one another, made their way to the gate that opened the way to the exit. It was time to go and prepare...even if it meant going without the 'okay' from the judges. The three judges that sat at their backs.

All three of which seemed awfully quiet.

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"Kaede-sama, can they do this?" Kagura's red eyes followed the three young adults as they walked down the aisle that led to the courtroom's doors. Several hundred pairs of eyes watched them as well, with either pity or hatred for their situation.

The audience had been huge as the lost of the Shikon Jewel was large news. It could bring about the end of civilization if not in the chosen one's protection.

"They'll have to," A male voice answered from the High Judge's left. Sesshoumaru's golden eyes flashed, "Or we'll have to send out more to retrieve it. Something of that immense power cannot be just anyone's hands."

"What I want to know, is why death looked so pleasing to thee young woman when thee only other option was to go into thee enemy's territory." Kaede interrupted the two-second level judges' conversation.

"What I want to know is how she knows what the enemy's territory is." Sesshoumaru drawled.

"Whether or not they succeed, we gain. If they get the jewel, the world is safe, but if they meet their downfall we'll know where to go and what to expect," Kagura sat up from the uncomfortable chair. Kagome wasn't her favorite person in the world, they'd seemed to be at each other's throat since the young miko was brought in during the morning hours.

"Let's go home," Sesshoumaru suggested as he helped his fellow judge up after elegantly standing himself.

Kaede's chocolate brown eye stayed on the three friends as they finally made it to the tall doors that led out into the city. Something about the way they'd addressed her all afternoon had been pulling at her nerves.

"One more thing!" she barked after them, and they immediately turned to her with questioning looks. "Thy next time we meet, I'd like to be called 'Ladyship' not 'Lordship'."

Kagome jumped guiltily as she realized her slip of tongue, "Yes, Your Ladyship."

"That's better," Kaede grumbled as she lifted her self from the highest chair and started from the room. "I'm getting too old for this..."

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The three walked in a companionable silence down the street. The two women, similar in age, flanked the slightly older male. Happily there were no 'accidents' on the male's part to ruin the serious mood.

"Kagome-chan," Sango looked over her boyfriend's shoulder to her best friend, "You said you know where the, um, jewel is. How?"

Kag sighed and kept her blue eyes forward on the sidewalk of busy modern Japan. Youkai and humans passed on either side of the trio as she thought over the right way to say it. "The man who stole the jewel...he is listed in The Book as The Keeper of the Jewel's greatest enemy."

"The Book?" Sango asked at the same time that Miroku questioned, "Greatest enemy?"

Kagome looked up at the sky, her azure eyes calculating. "My great-great- grandmother created the jewel. After Midoriko died, the jewel disappeared and the world has been waiting for it to resurface. And it did...in me when I was born. I have the same strong and unusual powers as my ancestor."

Sango's eyebrows lowered, "Wait, are you telling me the jewel was inside you? But I thought it was just handed down to you through your family." Sango was curious, she'd admit. She'd known Kagome since they were little girls, just learning to walk.

The demon assassins (who were in the world merely to keep youkai under control, just as the demons themselves had a league of assassins to do the same with humans) and mikos and monks worked closely together. Kagome had never mentioned the origin of the jewel to her.

Kagome shrugged and stated as though she could read Sango's thoughts, "Nope, guess I never told you guys, huh?"

"Wait, 'The Book'?" Miroku looked a little confused. Why hadn't he, as the newest member of the greatest line of monks in Japan, not have heard of such a valuable resource? For the second time in the day, he felt like pouting.

"Midoriko wrote it. I found it near the Go-Shinboku Tree on the Sunset Shrine. In it was the man who took the jewel last night while we were hanging out at home. You know, information and, um, a picture."

"You recognized him?" Sango asked, leading the three in the direction of said home. Kagome's home, but Sango and Miroku stayed there often enough to call it theirs as well.

"It's hard not to when he had to walk up to you and pluck it off the necklace around your neck," Kagome remarked dryly, clasping her hands behind her head as she walked. "I read about him in Midoriko's diary, which is what I call The Book."

"Oh," Miroku sighed.

"His lair is a labyrinth." Kagome muttered, "Which is why we're basically walking to our deaths if we go after him."

"A labyrinth?" Sango leaned forward.

"A twisting and dangerous maze full of traps and riddles," Miroku explained, eyeing her rear end as it was presented nicely right in front of him. As he wondered whether or not to touch, Sango straightened up and the moment was lost.

"Fun," Sango muttered dryly, "I always did like puzzles."

"This is one I don't think you'll get too into," Kagome sighed miserably. Why did she have to leave the living room that Miroku and Sango were in the night before to grab a jacket? If she hadn't gone to her room, that evil wretched man wouldn't have had a chance to yank the jewel from her and escape.

At least she'd seen his face and could identify him in the drawings in her ancestor's sketchings.

'Why did the world have to know about the jewel? Any peace with the youkai and humans living among each other will be ruined if that bastard uses the power of the jewel.' Kagome thought melancholy.

She'd been protecting the jewel in her own home, and then it was stolen so she had to be arrested. Damn the power...it had cost her, her life.

'If I can get it back safely, and put it under my protection again, it'll all be fine,' she reminded herself as she glared at the towering steps to her home. She was too tired from the day to climb that far.

Too bad she didn't have a choice.

Just like with this 'task'.

"Let's go make our game plan," Kagome suggested as she led the way up the steps stiffly.

And so one sulking monk, one worried demon huntress, and one agitated miko ascended the steps to the Sunset Shrine in hopes of finding a way out of the mess their lives had become.

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A/N: It's short because this is basically the prologue. If you read my other stories you know that my chapters are about twice this length, so that'll start up in the next chapter.

I tried to explain the situation clearly, ask questions if you don't get anything and I'll answer them.

Please review!

Ja ne!