InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Puppet Without Strings ❯ Fortune's Fool ( Chapter 7 )

Puppet Without Strings

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Pairings: InuKag, MirSan. Others have yet to either be revealed or thought up. They will probably not be straying too far from canon.

- Chapter 6 -

It was temperature that finally jolted Kagura awake.

Why was it so cold?

The hardness of metal beneath her body brought her fully to her senses. She picked herself up from the dirty ground. The chill in the surrounding atmosphere drew awareness to the damp condition of her clothing. Her temples throbbed with the effort of trying to remember where she was.

She felt goose bumps on her flesh when she crossed her arms with the intent of keeping them warm as her unfocused ruby eyes peered round the dark room, searching for a recognizable shape that they could adjust themselves to. She tried standing up to feel her way around but the pain that shot up from her ankles to her calves made the task difficult. She ran her hands down the offending appendages and winced when she touched raw skin. Her fingers came away sticky and covered with the metallic tang of coagulating blood. She wiped them on her soggy calf-long jeans in disgust, and realised that the action felt different from usual. She examined her fingers again.

Great. Three broken nails.

She huffed in frustration. This was certainly shaping up to be a lovely evening. If it even was evening. She found it hard to tell when the damn room lacked a window where she could see the sky through. Hell, she'd even settle with an opening of some sort. A chip in the wall or perhaps a hole in the ceiling. The sliding of a key through a lock caught her attention.

A door would suffice! She forced herself to her feet, ready to negotiate her way out of whatever situation this was. For some one in her line of work, getting into sticky situations was far from unusual. She smoothed her hair back and straightened her top. It was still damp. Good, a little skin showing here and there would work wonders to her advantage if she were to be dealing with a male. She would rely on her amazing wit and impeccable charm to get her self out of current circumstances. This would be a breeze.

Then she saw who stepped through the doorway. And the day's events came flooding back to her in a single, massive torrent. Her face-colour changed to something between a hot pink and an angry red. If she were a cat she'd have been fully arched and spitting.

"Y-You!!"

Amazing wit flew out the nonexistent window.

"You fucking… son of a bitch!!"

Impeccable charm went bye-bye.

If it were possible with a visage such as his, Sesshoumaru would have deadpanned. As it were, the capillaries in his face had already locked it into a position of inexpressiveness, and so he did no such thing. Reputations needed to be upheld after all. He opted instead for a single raised eyebrow and a well-rehearsed arrogant glare down his nose. He was adept at making people uncomfortable.

- What is wrong with him?! -

Kagura was starting to feel extremely idiotic. She wondered if the phrase `strikingly good-looking' was synonymous with `emotionally dead'. The bastard's lack of reaction was just… spoiling the aggressive atmosphere! When Sesshoumaru finally spoke, Kagura had to check herself lest she sighed in relief.

"Oh I'm sorry. Did you mean that as an insult?" Sesshoumaru quipped. His mother had been of dog-demon descent after all.

"What are you?! Stupid?"

Sesshoumaru was not happy. Jaken had just linked in with vexing news. Apparently, Inuyasha hadn't listened when his brother had ordered him to keep out of the Higurashis' attention radar. Sesshoumaru now had that to deal with and a seemingly impossible murder case to solve, on top of having to prevent a possible breach of classified information that could potentially lead to public unrest!

Sesshoumaru was not happy at all.

"That coming from the wench who tried to run with my energy whip still attached to both ankles? Then I assume the answer would be, `No more than you.'"

Her reply was blurted without so much as a second thought.

"Ha! So you're admitting to being as stupid as I am!"

Kagura could have shot herself. Sesshoumaru responded without so much as a pause.

"And you're admitting to being stupid. Period."

The lights in the room had been lit. Sesshoumaru raised a poised hand and motioned for his men to enter. They brought with them a single aluminium chair and a table of similar design, which they placed at the centre of the room. Kagura found herself being forcefully pushed down by two of the men upon other piece of furniture.

"Get your filthy hands off of me!"

Kagura didn't like being touched. It was a characteristic that had been founded from one prior romantic relationship. Kagura growled. `Romantic' would not be the word she'd choose to describe what the torturous fling had been. The soldiers' forceful grips on her arms had caused unwanted feelings of bitterness and anguish to surface. She felt her heart contract and start to pump faster. Squeezing her eyes shut, she exhaled and slowly counted to ten. It would do her no good to be shovelling up bad memories now. With them firmly closed, she did her best to channel the feelings of utter helplessness and frustration that had emerged from of her superfluous recollections, into pure, unadulterated anger.

Anger was the only potent emotion that Kagura would willingly allow herself to feel. It was a usable emotion, a safe emotion. Anger kept one free from hurt and sorrow for it drove away guilt and pain.

When she'd been lost and alone in the world, it had been anger that had been her sole companion and viable weapon. It had been the need for her anger to be heard that had earned her the title of journalist and reporter. It had been anger that had driven her to live the way she now did. Anger towards the man that had wounded her and anger towards the world that had shunned her.

After all… the one time she had allowed herself to feel anything but, all she'd gotten were shattered dreams and a broken heart. Chipped, painted nails nearly drew blood from their calloused palms. So tightly had she been clenching her fists.

And now, it would be anger that she was to take out on the man before her.

Sesshoumaru could sense the woman's change in mood. She'd gone from calm and composed to profanity-spilling irritated to suddenly impassive in just 2 minutes flat. When she'd been shoved into her chair, the brief glimmer of fear that had flashed across previously fiery eyes had not gone unnoticed either. Violent anger now radiated off her being in forceful surges.

Now Sesshoumaru, being the person that he was, had long grown accustomed to people feeling intimidated by his person. Sometimes, when they'd been unlucky enough to play the rare recipient to his fully unleashed wrath, they could become downright petrified. His demeanour and the way he responded to people had dictated this fact since he'd been a mere child growing up. He remembered, with slight revulsion, a time during his youth when a fellow schoolmate, twice his size, had wet his pants in absolute terror of him.

Sesshoumaru, however, was certainly not stupid enough to have believed that he had at all been the cause of this particular woman's unexpected distress. If she had wanted to be scared of him, she would have chosen an earlier time than now to have shown it.

So, either Miss Fuumie had some serious pent up emotions that needed to be unleashed or he'd be inclined to think that she had something very nasty that she was trying to hide.

Sesshoumaru exhaled quietly.

This was one of the reasons he hated dealing with females. They were so amazingly temperamental; so emotion-driven. Sesshoumaru loathed it. He remembered back in the days when his mother had still been alive, how she'd gotten random bouts of intense emotion that had nearly always driven his father mad with irritation. It had been pretty early in life that he'd reached the decision that females were troublesome.

He figured that getting this over with as quickly as possible would most likely be best. He still had many things on his agenda and having to deal with an irate female was most certainly not one of them.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?! You injure me, you throw me in a freaking box to freeze my ass half to death and now you treat me like shit-"

Two large palms braced themselves on his side of the table as Sesshoumaru inclined his upper body slightly forward. This stance was meant impose an air of threat onto the seated woman before him. All other occupants left the room.

"If you're quite finished with your gibberish, I shall be inclined to proceed. You will answer my questions fully and without restraint on truth."

Sesshoumaru couldn't help the boredom that leaked from his voice. He'd made this speech countless times before, as was regulation.

"Whether I decide to let you go or not will depend on the consistency of your answers so I suggest you give me your utmost cooperation. Do I make myself clear? Now tell me how was it that you came to know about the Genrai Mansion."

Kagura seethed. This was her breakthrough story! In the two years she'd worked as a small time reporter, never had something quite so controversial been encountered before. The recognition and the support she would receive from releasing such a story would be a sure fire way of earning a ticket out of this god-forsaken hellhole of a country. This was her life! God only knew how long she'd been waiting for an opportunity like this! This was the key to being wholly free from him! She was not about to stand back and allow some arrogant, pretty boy prick take it away from her!

"I-"

She stopped herself. As much as she yearned to, yelling her lungs out would do her no good. She would have to keep a tight reign on her anger. She wracked her brains for a way she could get out of this. She remembered something her superior had told her before she'd taken her first assignment. Something about… playing dumb. Kagura sneaked a glance at the impassive face hovering before her. The bastard already questioned her intelligence. Why not capitalize on that misjudgement? It could work.

Pride be damned for now. She needed out.

"I didn't come to know about anything! In case you hadn't noticed mister, today is a Tuesday. Our news station's weekly environmental awareness report is due to be delivered tomorrow."

If his hair hadn't already been the colour it was, it would have turned snowy white now with the amount of restraint Sesshoumaru was putting on his irritation.

"…….Your point?"

Kagura released an overly-dramatic sigh of exasperation. She was convinced that she had the clueless-bimbo-reporter-act down pat. Making her voice sound merely annoyed was a difficult task when all she really wanted to do was kick some serious stuck up demon butt.

"My point, mister, is that I came out here today hoping to finish up my report on how the recent Genrai landslides have affected the soil and plant-growth in the area."

She was making this up as she went along. Her boss would back her up if they ran a check. She'd already told him she was onto something big. Besides, she knew the fat old geezer would do anything for a move up on their channel eight rivals. Plus, the tape did actually have some takes of scenery from previous shoots. She was on a roll. The white-haired dog demon spoke again.

"So let me get this straight. You and your camera man were doing a report about landslides in the bushes, on private property, and on perfectly flat land."

By now, he'd turned round and fixed her with a look of such scepticism and incredulity that she had to stop herself from jumping up and punching him square in the face. She stopped herself just in time. After giving it a second thought, she decided that she could use this to her advantage. The way he was looking at her now told her that the I'm-so-stupid act had been bought hook, line and sinker.

"Hey listen here! It's not my fault that the idiot camera guy went and lost his fucking map. We had to do quite a bit of deep forest trekking for this story and we got lost god damn it! Excuse us for trying to find help from the only semblance of civilization available in the entire god-forsaken forest!"

"That still does not explain what you were doing in the bushes behind……my family's home."

Kagura nearly laughed at the man's attempt at cover-up.

"We were scoping the place out! It's a big house you know. There could have been like… guard dogs or something roaming around. We only ducked into the bushes because you came out. No offence buster, but you don't exactly radiate warmth and hospitality!"

The dog demon, obviously feeling less threatened by the "dumb reporter" turned to prop his back against opposite wall. His eyes were closed and Kagura could vaguely see the slight twitch of his eyebrow due to extreme annoyance. The lids of his eyes remained closed even when he spoke next.

"Why did you run?"

"I told you. I thought there would have been guard dogs. You looked so very angry when you turned to face us. We were just surprised that's all."

Sesshoumaru fished out a dark video cartridge from within his suit pocket. He stalked up to the table and held the device in front of Kagura's face.

"And your video cartridge? Why are there shots of our house in it?"

Kagura was glad. At least her cameraman hadn't talked. She'd sworn him to silence before they had gone their separate ways in the forest.

"Muso was trying to zoom in on your house. We couldn't see much from outside the fence. I don't know! The idiot must have still been recording or something. He's new, you know! Why the hell are you getting all worked up about a few random shots of your house anyway?!"

Sesshoumaru frowned.

"Our family values its privacy."

With that he crushed the cartridge in his strong grip. Kagura wasn't worried. The station's cameras always sent backup shots to the news van. She could just retrieve the video from it later. But of course she felt she needed to play her part.

"HEY! What the- That's my whole report!"

Sesshoumaru didn't give a damn. He was already leaving the room. He was tired and hungry and he did not want to have to put up with the likes of Fuumie Kagura any longer than he had to. He wouldn't have to worry as long as all evidence had been destroyed and he was very sure he'd gotten rid of everything.

He ordered the guards to release her.

Kagura had to keep from flipping the arrogant bastard off in triumph. As she and Muso were escorted away from the dark holding cells, she realised that they had been housed in one of the guards' makeshift barracks. When one of them told her it was a "temporary housing due to renovations being made to the mansion", she pretended to buy into it. They were ushered all the way back to their work van which, unbeknownst to her had already been searched thoroughly by Sesshoumaru himself.

Kagura was elated. She was so close to freedom, she could practically taste it on the tip of her tongue. Only when they were back on city roads, an hour away from the Genrai Hills, far away from the bastard of a dog demon, did Kagura offer herself the liberty of flipping the screen of the van's data processing unit on. While it took its time loading, Kagura glanced at the clock on the cartridge reader. 21:25. Maybe they'd even make it in time for the ten o'clock news. Kagura was hopeful. A prompt came up on the screen for her password, which Kagura impatiently keyed in. Despite this small annoyance, she could not help the rare but genuine smile that her lips had been pulled into.

Muso had had his eyes on the road like every law-abiding driver should when a spine-tingling scream from behind caused him to nearly lose control of the vehicle. The triggering of his seatbelt's automatic locking mechanism had been the only thing that saved the distraught cameraman's head from smashing into the roof of the van above it. He'd literally jumped in his seat from shock. Muso thanked the lord that it had been fairly late on a Tuesday night when traffic had been extremely light. The widely swerving vehicle across several highway lanes might have encountered some pretty nasty damages otherwise. He hastily pulled up onto the side of the motorway and swung his body round to face the back of the van.

"What the fuck, Kagura! What's wrong?!"

The sight of the woman in question caused him to back off. She was hunched over the video screen with both hands braced on either side of it. Her head was bowed and her eyes hidden by fallen bangs. Her shoulders were shaking. Muso caught the slightest whisper of a curse.

"-at bastard. That fucking bastard..."

Her whispering grew louder with each repeat of that phrase and Muso decided that he was feeling extremely uncomfortable now. He nearly jumped in surprise for the second time that evening when Kagura's soft voice, laden with cold malice, turned on him next.

"Muso. Take me home."

"But I thought you wanted to go back to the sta-"

"NOW, Muso!!"

He couldn't argue. The woman was scary enough as it was. This change in attitude made him want to sink as low as he could into his leather seat. He obliged with her request, if only to get himself away from her as quickly as possible.

When Kagura made to unlock the door of her two-bedroom apartment she didn't slide the key into the lock. She stabbed it in, as if she were imagining that the doorknob were a certain white-haired dog demon asshole. When she entered her apartment, she didn't swing the door shut either. She smashed it closed with a well-placed kick. The light switches weren't flicked on, they were hammered on.

An unfortunate flower vase that had done no wrong other than exist close enough for Kagura to reach, found itself sailing swiftly through the air. Creamy porcelain shattered into a hundred smaller bits on the opposite wall, their one consolation being the fact that they would not suffer brokenness alone. One clock, eight books, ten compact disks, and a designer lamp joined the jagged shards in pieces of their own.

Kagura let out another scream.

Why were the fates so against her?! Had she committed some sort of inexplicable sin in her past life? She still remembered what had appeared on the data processing screen when she'd tried to recover the shots of the Higurashi Mansion.

"Requested file, Genrai, not found."

She'd run countless checks to determine its whereabouts. She'd even printed off the computer's record lists. It had been one particular detail on the sheet that had caused her to lose control.

"File Genrai deleted on 02/06 at 20:32"

The dog demon bastard had done it. She knew he had. He'd left her with absolutely nothing! Kagura cursed herself for letting her hopes rise as high as they had today. She thought she'd learned that lesson a long time ago! It was a basic rule in life!

The higher things rose, the harder they fell.

Kagura stood with fists clenched and head bowed in the centre of the living room she had just trashed. Try as she might, the black haired woman couldn't stop tears of frustration gathering at the sides of her eyes. She had been so close! So close…

"What's the matter Ka-gu-ra?"

It was said without an ounce of concern.

- No!! It couldn't be…-

Ruby eyes grew wide and panicked. Their owner whirled round to face what she thought was the source of the taunting voice. She saw naught but a shattered vase and fallen lamp.

"Ka-gu-ra. Are those tears I see?"

How was it possible?!

- Oh God, please no! -

The voice was to her left now. The way it said her name in that singsong manner made her spine go rigid. She hastily scrubbed at her eyes as they paused from their frantic darting around the room. No! Why now?! After two full years, she'd thought that he'd-!

"That's simple Kagura. You thought wrong. I missed you so very much during my absense…"

The voice was at her ear now, their owner seeming to have read her thoughts. She could feel the cool flit of breath across the side of her face. Strong hands on her shoulders prevented her from facing its source. Her breathing had become heavy and irregular. The feel of a taller body pressing up against her back made her frame stiffen in alarm.

"It would seem, Kagura, that you had a little mishap today. How very unfortunate for you."

"Let go of me."

Her voice sounded close to pleading. It was uncharacteristic of her to take so mildly to another's touch.

"I'm afraid not Kagura. After all, I own you."

The fear that'd had Kagura's heart clenched within its unyielding grip was momentarily overridden by newfound anger that stemmed from her hearing these words.

"You do not own me, you bastard! I got away from you once and I can damn well do it again!"

From any other person, the laughter that was emitted could have been mistaken for playful teasing.

"Well, well. It's been two years and you're still as amusing as ever."

One pale hand left her shoulder and hovered in before her neck. Kagura's skin crawled when its fingers applied the barest of pressure to the smoothness of her throat.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Kagura, Kagura, Kagura. You never were the brightest of companions. Did you think that the lack of men guarding your room the day you left was some sort of lucky coincidence? Did you think getting the job you have despite your lack of experience was due to divine intervention? Come now, I thought you'd be more pessimistic than that! Despite what you thought, you never really were free from me. Not then, and certainly not now."

Kagura wanted to whirl round and hit him. But her body would not respond. She hadn't meant it. But her reply sounded weak and unsure.

"Y-you're a lying piece of shit."

"Now, now Kagura. Is that any way to speak to the man who gave you the information about the Higurashi family?"

No! He couldn't have…

"You fucking liar! I found that out myself!"

"Did you now? Well then I suppose you would have done all that research even without that anonymous message telling you of recent real estate sales."

It couldn't be! Her finding out about the mansion had been entirely accidental! She'd placed an inquiry on the information-seeking section of her company's website and had gotten an anonymous tip from a member of the public. Their company paid for reliable information. People wrote in all the time to get free cash! It hadn't been anything unusual. She hadn't given it a second thought even as she'd hacked into Tokumi Real Estate Agency's private files and chanced across the sale documents of the Genrai Mansion.

"I always did have great faith in your skills as an information gatherer. I had all the clues laid out for you. I knew you would eventually find out about the Higurashi case. You made me so proud, Kagura."

"N-no! I don't believe you."

She'd travelled up to the mansion out of mere curiosity after finding out it had been sold to the President just four days before his death. The first time round, that damned dog demon hadn't been there and she'd managed to scope the place out unnoticed. She'd been able to piece together sufficient information for her to realise that the president's death had been more than it seemed. She'd only gone back a second time to get shots of the place on video. But her damnable luck had seen to it that she'd chosen the wrong day to do it. The bastard behind her had to be lying!

But then… how would that explain how he knew of her every move? Or how he knew out about the mansion in the first place? Or how he knew about the tip she'd gotten from the website?

"I was just about ready to sit back and watch you expose the cold, hard truth to the many happy citizens of Sengoku…"

Kagura couldn't speak. If anything, her breathing grew shorter and more laboured. The hand at her throat had risen to cup her chin. It tilted her head to the side. She didn't fight it. She couldn't.

"But then the story never did air on tonight's news and the people remain blissfully unaware of the truth. You getting yourself caught, Kagura… I find that rather degrading, don't you? It makes me rather disappointed in you."

The left side of Kagura's face was facing the ceiling. Cool lips pressed themselves somewhere above her left ear. A slender hand had moved to cup her right cheek while the other had taken its former place around her neck. It ran, with frightening slowness, long fingers past her exposed collarbone. They began to dip lower.

"Stop it!"

Kagura was blatantly struggling now. Somehow, she managed to break free from the figure's embrace and whirl her body around to deliver a sound punch to his face. At least, she would have, had her fist not been caught by his first. The grip round her neck became choking. Kagura found herself being unceremoniously lifted off her feet and slammed into the wall beside her. The face below her was one that she had seen only in nightmares and bad memories these past two years. She clawed at the vice-like hand that held her as her lungs screamed for air.

"I will make myself clear, Kagura. I let you off the first time you escaped because I found that you on the outside would be beneficial to me. I thought that by showing you the Higurashi case, you would help me expose it to the rest of Sengoku. However, I was wrong in assuming that you would be able to accomplish something so significant. You always did have a knack for screwing up your assignments. But I am willing to let you off just once more. You will expose this case for what it is and you will do it without jeopardising me. You will either succeed or face punishment by my hand. Believe me Kagura, there are a lot worse things than death. I will not tolerate another failure from you."

Just as Kagura was sure she would black out from lack of oxygen, the grip around her neck loosened and she fell to the ground in a heap, coughing and inhaling deeply.

"Know this, Kagura. Your life always has and always will be in my hands and nothing you do will ever change that."

Kagura's tears flowed freely now. Her tormentor crouched beside her and ran his fingers through her hair. She reared back in abhorrence.

"Why me?! Why can't you just do it yourself and leave me be?!"

The man above her smiled a frightening smile.

"Because, my dear Kagura. I don't exist."