The Lies That Bind Us – Part Eighteen: Terminus

Disclaimer: See some other chapter, darnit.

A/N: (sings) I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, deedly deedly…

Kikyou paused, one hand on the doorknob of a particularly unobtrusive door. The distant crash had raised her defenses, though she knew that it was most likely the work of Sesshoumaru. She waited a moment, the others watching her uneasily. They were all perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but this mission was turning out to be much more complex than rushing in and kicking butt. There was strategy involved; if Naraku got a hint of what they were really up to, it was altogether possible that he would have the casebook removed and hidden in a safer place. This was all the more reason for them to move quickly and quietly.

A while passed before Kikyou pressed the button on her earpiece again. “Sesshoumaru.” There was no answer. She tried twice more, though she knew that his lack of response meant that something had gone terribly wrong at that end. “Let’s move,” she snapped to the others, pushing her way through the door. They were sure now that no more guards were waiting for them. At least temporarily, they had all scattered to investigate the noise.

The room that they entered next was a spacious kitchen. It was immaculate, almost sterile, and the sink in the middle of the room was seemingly adorned by hanging pots, pans, and large metal utensils. It was almost as if it had never been used, but was there for show. Across the kitchen and through another door, Kikyou found what they’d been looking for.

Two couches were in the middle of the room. Between them was a large, glass-topped coffee table.

“Took long enough,” Inuyasha groused, stepping over to it and kneeling beside the unremarkable piece of furniture. “Where did you say that switch was?”

“Under the right side. Near the-”

A blaring alarm cut her off. The sound lasted but a moment before dying out, but Kikyou knew full well what it was. It was Kagura, however, who voiced the situation aloud. “Son of a bitch. He bugged the table.”

Inuyasha took his hand away from the table. “The switch is busted,” he said with a shrug, knowing that that was completely untrue. It worked exactly as it was supposed to, after all.

Kikyou mentally kicked herself for not thinking of this sooner. Of course Naraku had noticed that she’d found the casebook before; he was the type who noticed every detail, especially if something seemed to be out of order. It made perfect sense for him to have installed this system, even though he knew that the chances were slim of someone bursting in who knew where to find his little secret. Unfortunately for him, they were much better organized than he’d realized.

Striding over to the table, the ex-agent smashed the glass top of the coffee table with the butt of her gun. As the other three looked around warily at the doors that led into the room. Sliding the gun along the jagged edges, Kikyou cleared the debris enough to reach into the table and extract the book. Though she wasn’t sure if Sesshoumaru was still on the other side of their link, she attempted to contact him anyway. “Objective accomplished. We’re evacuating.”

Kanna and Kagura shared a look. She meant to just leave the others behind, unsure of whether they needed aid? Kikyou caught this look and was utterly disinclined to debate the matter. “If you’d rather stay here and die, by all means, be my guest.” Clutching the heavy casebook at her side, she stepped back through the door that led to the kitchen. Shouts were clearly audible again; the guards were returning.

The other three didn’t wait for them to arrive; they followed on Kikyou’s heels.

“I must admit,” Naraku said, slowly rising to his feet. “I expected more of you both. Entering a room without first gauging its security? The mistake of a novice.”

The group was frozen, the minds of all four trying to assess their situation. Sesshoumaru was the only one who was holding a gun with any sort of usefulness; the dart guns of the others were efficient when dealing with muscle-headed guards, but Naraku was a true combatant. Plus, darts were heavy and nowhere near as fast as bullets were. He’d have them on the ground bleeding before they could raise their arms.

Sango was viewing the scene with a much more optimistic eye. There were four of them, after all, and only one Naraku. As she watched her former employer, she noticed that the gun in his left hand was slightly below the one in his right. This showed that he wasn’t truly proficient in shooting with both hands, but he could probably hit something if it stayed still long enough. Besides, even if he managed to wound one, maybe two of them, the others would still be able to take him down. The only problem was, he wasn’t moving to fire.

In fact, no one in the room was making any move to attack. It was like a game of chess, where each move had to be carefully planned out… Before moving, you also had to consider what your opponent would do, and how you would react to that course of action.

The sound of an alarm going off made them flinch slightly. “Ah. It would appear that your friends are no more intelligent than you are,” Naraku said with a sneer. He moved one foot back slightly, and there was a faint click. The alarm died out, and activity was once again perceptible in the hallways. The door behind Naraku burst open, and in came about half a dozen guards. “It would seem that my odds have improved.”

Kouga had had it. He’d had enough of that bastard and his smugness. Naraku had destroyed so many lives, forced so many into jail when they’d done nothing wrong. Hell, Kouga himself had been driven into hiding when he’d done absolutely nothing wrong. He was fairly sure that, if he moved quickly enough, he’d be able to get to Naraku before anyone could react. They wouldn’t expect a direct ambush, after all.

Sango turned quickly as she felt movement beside her, and saw Kouga break from the group and dart right toward Naraku. “What the-?”

“Fool!” Sesshoumaru snarled, but both statements were far too late to stop him. Kouga had chosen an opportune moment; Naraku’s weaker left hand had dropped rather low. He veered slightly to the left just as Naraku shifted that hand to try and cut him off. The guards all reacted as well, raising their weapons to point at the attacker.

Sesshoumaru was next to move, darting toward Naraku’s other side and firing a shot into the mass of guards. Sango and Miroku were just behind him, swiftly changing out their weapons while they had the chance. The bullet merely chipped harmlessly off the doorframe, but it got the guards’ attention. Their weapons shifted to Sesshoumaru just as the three dove behind a table and upended it, forming a makeshift shield.

Kouga, meanwhile, had grabbed hold of Naraku’s left arm and twisted it at the wrist, causing him to drop the gun. He went for the other hand as well, and soon, both of them were trying to wrestle the remaining weapon away from the other; Kouga’s tranq gun lay dormant on the floor.

Bullets pinged off the polished mahogany surface of the table behind which Miroku, Sango, and Sesshoumaru were taking shelter. Each time the firing paused for a moment, they took turns returning fire. One of Sango’s bullets hit a guard’s ankle, and he went down screaming. This unfriendly exchange went on for about twenty seconds until a gunshot sounded that was not from the exchange.

“Kouga!” Sango shouted, feeling instinctively that something was wrong. How right she was. Kouga’s blue eyes were wide with shock, and as she looked on, he fell to his knees. Blood matted his right shoulder, and he touched it with his left hand as if in disbelief. Miroku shifted as if prepared to run to his aid, but Sesshoumaru seized his sleeve to stop him just as another barrage of bullets peppered their table.

With a crooked smile, Naraku raised his gun and aimed it at Kouga’s forehead. Kouga looked at the gun, not seeming to understand what it was. He was pale and probably in shock. Sango shouted his name again, but neither of the three behind the table could do anything at all; the table blocked them from a definite shot at Naraku, but if they stood, the guards would gun them down without remorse.

The door behind the guards swung open again, more uniformed men entered, and a single shot rang out.

Kagome paced in front of her desk, her hands clasped behind her back and her mouth a thin line. Every now and then, she glared over at Shippou, who was sitting at his own desk and staring at a pen. “What are we waiting for?” the woman asked finally, though she didn’t expect an answer.

“There’s nothing we can do now,” Shippou said simply, snapping out of his daze and leaning back in his chair. Linking his fingers behind his head, he sighed. “We just wait… if there’s something wrong, rest assured, we’ll know in no ti-”

A red light near the front of the office began to flash and an alarm began to ring. “What’s that?” Kagome asked, alarmed. The place had sprung to life. Though it was late, there were still several people around, and they immediately jumped to their feet and headed for the door.

Shippou stood as well, half-automatically. “I’m not surprised that you don’t know… It never goes off.” He grabbed at the handle of a drawer and began to rifle through it, shifting stacks of post-it notes and mounds of small gadgets aside.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Kagome pointed out, stopping her pacing in favor of watching the others hurry from the room and toward the elevator.

“Alarm. It means that something’s going on at Naraku’s. It also means that this place goes on complete lockdown – no one goes in, no one gets out, no one even walks by until everything’s secure. Everyone who’s here at the time is supposed to secure the premises.”

“I… didn’t know that,” she said uncomfortably, rubbing her upper arm and glancing around at the vacated room.

“You wouldn’t have. You’re a tech, after all. Not required to fight and all that.”

Kagome looked at him curiously. “So are you.”

Shippou chose to ignore this statement, finally coming up with a small black cell phone and slamming his drawer shut again.

“Aren’t we going to… help out, or something?” Kagome asked next, trying to force some conversation out of the teen.

He didn’t reply right away; Shippou flipped the phone open and dialed a number quickly. “No. We have other business.” Someone obviously picked up on the other line, because Shippou suddenly launched into conversation. And Kagome understood.

The guards were all prostrate on the ground, their hands over their heads. Several of them were also wearing a foot on their backs, guns aimed steadily down at them. Naraku, meanwhile, was lying on his side on the ground, a rather neat hole in his right hand.

Sango’s mind stuttered to a halt. It would appear that they had allies with someone, though with whom, she couldn’t quite figure out. Slowly, she climbed to her feet, and she felt Miroku and Sesshoumaru do the same. It was now clear that the people who had just entered were most definitely not on Naraku’s side. Shiny silver badges on their chests identified them as feds of the same sort as Sango and Sesshoumaru.

One of the men stepped out of the pack and walked further into the room. After making a quick survey of the situation, he raised two fingers and pointed them toward Kouga. Immediately, three of the agents broke from the group and made their way toward the man who had, at some point, collapsed. Two of them took on the task of handcuffing Naraku, who howled in pain quite satisfyingly as they wrenched his hands behind his back.

“You three. Taijiya and company. C’mere.” The man who’d stepped forward motioned to them, who made no move to comply with his wishes. It wasn’t as if they were ungrateful for the intervention, but at the moment, they had no idea who to trust. These people had come out of nowhere and saved their collective ass, but it wasn’t clear whether they were still in danger. “I ain’t got all night,” he urged impatiently.

“Who are you?” Miroku finally asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“That’s what we call a long story,” a voice said. Quite unexpectedly, it came from the door through which the foursome had entered. Even more unexpected, Sango found it quite familiar.

Shippou shoved the door open, a grin on his face. “Things went according to plan, I assume,” he said to the front man, who nodded.

“That guy over there was injured when we arrived, but he’ll live.”

Shippou looked over at the three people who were tending to the injured man. One of them nodded to confirm the front man’s story, and the teen seemed satisfied. “Good job, Biku. You move quickly.”

Biku grinned and put a hand across his chest, bowing slightly. “My pleasure, Marshal.”

Sango had watched this exchange, perplexed, but when this word was uttered, she could contain herself no longer. “Marshal? Shippou, what the hell is going on here?”

“That’s the same thing that I was wondering,” Miroku said idly, perceiving that there was no imminent danger and holstering his gun. “Shippou… We haven’t seen you in months. I was sure that you’d been captured.”

Shippou grinned self-deprecatingly, holding up both hands. “All right, you two, I can explain…” He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ve lived a sort of triple life for quite a while now. You see, it’s really hard for the government to keep an eye on everyone at once. My true position, of course, is FBI Marshal. My assignment was to supervise Naraku’s actions. Believe me, everybody else thinks he’d just as much of a bastard as you do, Sango,” he said with a laugh. “In my spare time, I also became one of Naraku’s ‘hunted’, just so I could see firsthand the kind of stuff that he put people through.”

Shippou walked further into the room until he was standing beside Naraku, who was facedown on the ground. Looking down scornfully, he casually placed a foot down on the hand that had been shot through. Naraku shrieked in pain, and Shippou removed his foot. “Once I’d become acquainted with Inuyasha, Miroku and the rest, I knew that I had to do something about Naraku. Sadly, I lacked proof. Though I could have gone to the FBI head at any time without any trouble making him believe me, without proof, there’s no way Naraku could have been implicated. So I had to wait…

“Imagine how surprised I was, Sango, when I heard of Miroku’s plan to lure Naraku out by reappearing in public.” He glanced at Miroku. “Idiot. Anyway, I figured that he’d be assigned to you, Sango, so I began to take precautions. Once they began to plot Miroku’s reappearance, I vanished from Chateau Chantre. I expected that Naraku would put you on the case, and it’d be awkward if you were to see me running around with outlaws.”

Sango nodded slowly. Even though his story was amazing, Sango believed every word. It explained a lot, after all, and Shippou was certainly smart enough to figure it all out.

“My hand in your case was pretty clear. When Naraku ordered for a gun to be sent to you at that place where you and Miroku were having lunch, I was the one who loaded it and gave it to the drop-off lackey. Of course, I loaded it with fake bullets. I didn’t think you were stupid enough to shoot him, but just in case you were, it wouldn’t do for you to kill him. Even if you did shoot him, it would have looked like the bullet had been real, and Miroku has good sense-” Shippou paused. “-most of the time.”

Miroku grinned sheepishly. “Shippou…”

“Right, right. He would have played dead, of course, and gotten away. I’m surprised that Kouga didn’t name me as the maker when he found out about the fake bullets… I fashioned them while I was spending my nights at Chateau. As soon as you vanished, I knew what had happened… and two cars of agents have been following you since you’ve been missing.”

“What? How?” Sango asked. “I destroyed the phone, and that’s where the tracking device was-”

Shippou grinned and held up a finger like a schoolteacher correcting a child. “That’s where Naraku’s tracking device was. Mine was in the gun. Kouga took it from you, like he always does for visitors, and he put it in his holster. It’s still in there. They followed it here. When the alarm went off back at headquarters, I knew something had happened, so I called my men in. They were parked half a block from this house, and when they got the call, they came in… End of story.”

Miroku rubbed his face. “Shippou… you scare the hell out of me.”

The teen grinned. “Thanks.”

Sesshoumaru, who had remained quite silent throughout all of these revelations, finally spoke up. “Is the objective complete? Where are the others?”

Shippou shifted his green eyes to the pale-haired man. “They’re safe with the second car. The casebook is already en route to main HQ. Naraku’s going away for a long time.” Now that he’d remembered that Sesshoumaru existed, he remembered that he had some news for him. “Ah, and Sesshoumaru? I was supposed to tell you… From now on, you’re in charge of the branch that Naraku previously ran. Rule well, hmm?” He winked.

Sesshoumaru studied the teen for a moment, then nodded curtly. “Very well. I will set off for headquarters, then. The staff is still on high alert.”

“A car’s outside for you,” Biku spoke up helpfully. Sesshoumaru didn’t even acknowledge him; he moved from the room and his footsteps gradually faded.

In the ensuing silence, Sango’s legs suddenly decided that she was very tired. She slumped to her knees, dropping her face into her hands and sitting on her feet. The person who was indirectly responsible for her parents’ deaths would soon be behind bars… she was no longer a fugitive… it was… finished. She’d been running on adrenaline for a long time, and now, she no longer had to.

An arm curled around her shoulders. “Are you all right, Sango?” Miroku asked, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Tired,” she muttered. “I feel like I haven’t slept in a week.”

“More like thirty-six hours, but I see your point.” He studied her, then cheerfully slid his hand downward from her shoulders to her mid-back, then lower…

Sango promptly slapped him into the upended table, then hopped to her feet. “I’m not that tired. Pervert.” She stalked angrily to the door, then weakly slumped against the doorframe. “Ach. I feel like shit warmed over. Three times.” She looked back at Miroku, who was rubbing his cheek and grinning widely.

As tired as Sango was, she couldn’t help it.

She smiled, too.

Epilogue, coming up!