Chapter Text
Codename: Jewel
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Date: April 13th
Greet. Smile. Serve. Bid goodbye. Repeat from the top.
“Irasshaimase!” she nodded slightly for the hundred time since that morning, greeting the next customer. The people waiting in line stretched to the entrance; there was always somebody coming in through the sliding doors. “What can I get you?” Her mind barely registered what the business woman in front of her was saying - something pretentious for sure - her hand scribbling the order on the side of the plastic cup on autopilot. I need a better undercover job.
She had to lay low after the stunt she pulled with Yura; the demoness was out for blood and she was known as a cutthroat bitch. She would like to preserve her neck, thank you very much. The job in this café was the lowest profile she could get. An undetected employee. Almost complete anonymity. Endless work shifts, ungrateful customers, and pretentious orders were as good as a job if that meant that she would live for another day.
“It will be 540 yen, thank you.” The woman handed her the money and an alarm ringed in her mind. Something really strange: few paid with cash. The lady kept staring at her with piercing eyes. Her mind hyper aware. On one side of the crumpled cash there was something scribbled with blue ink. Code89. Her brain running to the meaning of the code: The spider is out of the hole. Her shoulders squared subtly, her plasticized smile never wavering while giving change to the woman. “Thanks for choosing us; your order is on the way.”
The woman nodded slightly, checked her watch, and freed the line for the next customer. There was no mistaking it. They wanted her out of that place and on her way to the mission as soon as possible. I got to get out of here.
Codename: Good-boi
Location: Unknown
Date: April 12th
How the kit always found a way to contact him was a mystery. He was literally in the middle of nowhere, kilometers away from any form of civilization. This time was a little string of words on his ancient Nokia 3310 (Why are you using a drug dealer phone? You have the most sophisticated technology in the world at hand and you still go around with that thing, Miroku’s voice rang in his ears).
Code Alpha: Spider on the run. Maximum priority.
Fucking finally. That son of a bitch was out in the light again. He’d spent the last two years searching for even the smallest trace of his whereabouts. The bastard was a dead man walking, his name on each of the bullet stored in his guns. After what he put him through, the least he could do was stay put and let himself be killed, to restore his honor and wipe the world from his stinking form. Being accused of Archer’s homicide was the lowest point of his life. They were partners, both in crime and in the sheets, but the woman played for more than one side and the scarce faith she had in him played a big role in her unfair death. He got stuck in the case as the culprit; that shape-shifting shit took his appearance and waltzed in front of every camera of the Headquarter before striking the unassuming victim. How Archer never saw it coming was a mystery in itself: she always spoke about his distinct demonic aura, the flare of red engulfing his figure when he was upset, and the little blue flame of his humanity right in the middle of his chest. His half-demon nature was hard to miss if you knew where to look, and she was one of the few who knew how to. Nonetheless, she was tricked by that sad excuse of demon’s patchwork, wearing his face as a mask. It pained him to no end that the last words he spoke to her were full of sorrow and hate. Despite that, he owed her some peace, and for himself, some closure. Her betrayal burned like all seven hells, but her death left him hollow. His only fuel was vengeance.
Surely, the kit was already trying to forward him the dossier with all the relevant information: maybe it was really time to get rid of that piece of antiquity that he affectionately called his cellphone and switch to a more modern smartphone with wi-fi, Bluetooth, and all that mumbo jumbo his colleagues were always talking about.
He typed as fast as his claws allowed on the tiny keys.
On my way to HQ.
Location: Shikon Agency
Date: April 13th, late night
Kagome entered the conference room, still sporting her job uniform, and assessed the three women seated around the table with a questioning look.
“If we have to pull an all-nighter you could’ve at least brought coffee,” one of them greeted her.
“I resigned to be here on time. Coffee was the last thing on my mind, Kagura.” She was tired and not in the mood to put up with Kagura’s shit.
"Take a seat, Kagome. We’re late; the Taishos are already breathing on his neck," fretted the one-eyed old woman at the head of the table.
“Fucking dogs, chasing after the prey like a thrown ball.”
“So, what do we have?” Kagome asked, stopping any complaint that Kagura had against the Taishos, while trying to get rid of the piercing ache in her destroyed ankle. Curse the eight-hour shift she just ended.
“He was last seen in Ankara, Turkey, boarding a 747 for Beijing, China.” Kanna was showing them a series of footage and of pictures captured by the security system at the Turkish airport. “He never landed in China. There was no trace of him at the gate.”
“Surely he changed his features. He can’t show his face with ease, half the world’s agencies are after him. Ankara wasn’t a slip on his part; he’s playing like the cat with the mouse,” Kaede interjected, while Kanna zoomed on one of the pictures. The bastard was wearing nothing to hide his face, not even a pair of glasses to shade his eerie ruby eyes. He was openly challenging them.
“He’s basically flashing his middle finger at us saying try to catch me,” interrupted Kagome. “Do we have tracks of his past disguises? If I remember correctly, Sango filed an entire dossier with all his masks. By the way, where is she?”
“Removed…”
“What?!” The chair dropped behind her when she jumped up.
“…till further orders,” finished Kaede. Words stern, tone dry.
“Calm your tits, Kagome. We didn’t kill her; she’s on maternity leave,” Kagura shrugged, arching her perfectly shaped eyebrows.
“I didn’t even know she had someone.” A pang of resentfulness hit Kagome square in the stomach. She thought Sango was her friend, and although they had to hide most of their life due to their job, she couldn’t believe Sango could withhold something like that from her. Truth be told, she hadn’t heard from her since last December—they had both been deep in their own missions—but hiding a child!? That was a low blow.
“I knew there was trouble on the horizon when she came back from Bogotá. I chastised her for the poor delivery of the mission and she smiled at me.” Kaede’s lips were pressed in a thin line, a deep wrinkle furrowed her forehead.
“Kaede-sama, she’s human, you know; a smile is not a tell.”
“I saw her fucking teeth, child. She flashed a Colgate smile and didn’t talk back, not even a sigh,” the older woman said, hitting the table with her right palm, stressing her last four words with as many blows.
“Oh.”
Sango's rebuttals were famous in the agency. The fact that she didn’t even tried to justify her actions was something new. Something to worry about.
“These are his last known appearances.” Kanna’s voice draw their attention back. A series of mugshots flashed on the screen. “Kagewaki Hitomi, Onigumo, Muso, Juromaru, and the list goes on. It’s always him: Naraku.”
“Do we have a lead?” Kagome was already committing to mind all his faces. One of those still haunted her dreams since their unlucky meeting two years prior: the marred face of Onigumo made her shiver in disgust from head to toe. She was a walking miracle and the scars he left on her back told the story of someone who came back from the dead. Hell chewed on her for a bit and then spit her out.
“We think he is back in Japan to close an old grudge he has with someone here.” Kaede was arranging the scattered papers in front of her, signaling that their meeting was about to end.
“Who is that?” asked Kagome
Kanna’s voice cut through the silence. “We don’t know; I searched at length, but couldn’t find anything. Whoever it is, they don’t want to be known.”
Location: Taisho HQ
Date: April 14th , early morning
“You are late, as always.” Piercing golden eyes, too akin to his own for his liking, pinned him as he walked through the door.
“Hey, asshole. I just dropped off of a plane, so could you please cut me some slack?” he rebutted, dropping without grace on a designer armchair. “Less than fourteen hours ago, I was on the other side of the planet. I came as soon as possible.”
“That’s Miroku’s sex tape title.” A booming laughter echoed on the glass walls as Shippo high-fived him.
“I will not tolerate this childlike behavior, Inuyasha. We are short-staffed and the time is ticking fast,” Sesshomaru reprimanded him.
“On the subject, where is the lecher? He texted me that he had something to tell me.” His eyes scanned the other rooms through the polished glass, trying to find his partner, his ears swiveling on top of his head, seeking any sound that could gave him away.
“He’s on paternity leave.” The daiyokai’s eyes never strayed from the dossier in front of him.
“What?!” He almost choked on air. He stopped trying to find a comfortable position on those fucking traps his brother called chairs, aka the most uncomfortable things he ever put his ass on. “Are you telling me that someone willingly got knocked up by Miroku?” He turned to Shippo, who nodded yes, trying to hide his giggles behind his hand and failing miserably. “I was away for a few months, what the hell!”
“You where away for almost a year.” His brother, always the pedantic, corrected him.
“Same. The world is gone to shit.” He slumped again, defeated by that news: it was game over for his friend.
“Bogotá was his downfall,” chimed in the fox demon, shrinking away under the stern stare of his superior. Sesshomaru hated gossip and useless chats.
“And who is the lucky lady? Someone we know?” Inuyasha asked, not giving two shits about his brother’s dislike for pleasantries.
“Not a sigh exited his mouth on the matter. As far as we know, she’s a commoner.” Shippo was a chatter box and if even he couldn’t dig a spider out of the hole, then the thing was serious.
That thought brought him back on the most important matter at hand. “Where is Naraku?” he backtracked on the cause of his arrival.
His brother’s attention back on him: a gleam of evident delight shone in his eyes. Sesshomaru knew that this time, the story would end in blood; death would fall like a curtain on the final act of the mission. Either his, or Naraku’s, he didn’t care. For his brother, it would be a win-win situation. Getting rid of his pain in the ass half-brother or his nemesis. Both a good outcome for the operation.
“He boarded a plane in Shanghai in one of his disguises. The flight is scheduled to land in Osaka in about two hours. Jaken is already there.”
“You sent the imp to wait for the most wanted man on the planet? What a misfire on your part; the old man would be very displeased with you.”
“Listen, you shithead.” His brother’s eyes flashing red. How he loved to get on his nerves. “This is your last chance with Naraku; if you fail, I’ll have your head and then his. I don’t care about your honor or your bitch’s death. He has something of value that we want. But fortunately for us, he is still missing a piece of the Jewel. He’s back in Japan to retrieve it, and we must find out where this last piece is.”
Claws ripping bits of leather from the armchair he was sitting on, Inuyasha was almost tempted to rip his brother’s throat out. The bastard spoke of Archer’s death as a casualty that ruined his plans. She really was a two-timing bitch, but he had once cared about her.
“Where do we begin?”
“Tokyo: more precisely, Shibuya,” supplied Shippo, passing him a stack of papers with the location of Naraku’s known affiliated minions.
“It would be easier finding a needle in a haystack,” he huffed, smacking the rolled sheets on his leg.
“Don’t despair, little brother,” Sesshomaru said, not even trying to hide his derogatory tone. “Maybe the Jewel will come to you.”