Chapter 9

The TAC Meets

          Momiji was practically flying with nervous energy.  She only had 15 minutes till everyone was due to show up or conference in with the video phone and she still did not feel ready deal with everything.  Momiji nearly hit the ceiling (literally) when she heard the door bell.  “I must have been activating my mitamas unconsciously” she mused as she ran towards the door.  Hastily, Momiji looked herself over to make sure her bracelets where in place before she opened the door to reveal a smiling Matsudaira.

          “Mrs. Matsudaira, you’re the first one here.”  Momiji chirped brightly.

          “I just came a little early to get your latest readings as well as to give you your depo provera shot while it is convenient.” 

          “Come on in” Momiji said while opening the door wider.  “Oh, I already took the readings this morning.  I will go get them for you.”

          With that said Momiji led Mrs. Matsudaira to the lab and then ran to her office to grab the forged lab sheets.  Briefly Momiji looked them over before racing back to the lab with them.  “Here you go” Momiji chirped, hoping that her slight unease did not show thru.  She tried hard to not fidget while Mrs. Matsudaira looked over the data sheets for the past three months.

          “Well, you seem to be running completely normal.”  Mrs. Matsudaira commented, making Momiji smile broadly.  “I’m surprised all the stress from the past incidences has not changed some of your stats more.”  She mused.  “Well give me your arm for your shot.”

          With a grimace Momiji pushed up her sleeve and offered her left arm to Mrs. Matsudaira for the shot.

          “What are you injecting into Momiji!?”  Kusanagi exclaimed from the doorway, making both Momiji and Mrs. Matsudaira jump in fright.  “Well, what are you doing?”

          “The same thing I inject her with every third month.”  Mrs. Matsudaira said matter of factly.

          “Nothing you need to be concerned with,” Momiji broke in.  Mrs. Matsudaira looked at Momiji with an eyebrow raised in question.

          Before Kusanagi could interrogate them, Momiji heard the doorbell.  “Oh, Kusanagi would you please get that for me?”

          With a glare and a quiet growl Kusanagi left to go open the door.

          “Kusanagi do not know you are on birth control Momiji?”  Mrs. Matsudaira questioned.

          “Well…  Kusanagi is barely comfortable with kissing me.”  This statement caused Momiji to flush with the memory of this morning’s kiss.  “How do you think he would take it if I said I was taking depo provera just in case he ever decided to get romantic with me?  I don’t want to pressure him and have him run from me.”

          Mrs. Matsudaira smiled a sly smile.  “Well, I think a certain someone is thinking very strongly about getting intimate.  So much he is finally letting me make a guinea pig out of him.”  Mrs. Matsudaira turned to put away her lab supplies.  “That is a very good reason to keep taking your shots.”

          “Among other reasons,” Momiji quietly whispered as she turned to greet whoever had just come in.

          “Hello!  Mr. and Mrs. Kunakida, I’ve missed you.”  Momiji chirped brightly while avoiding making eye contact with Kusanagi.

          “Hello!  What about me.”  A feminine voice demanded.

          “Sakura!  What are you doing here?”  Momiji yelled in surprise.

          “I heard a silly sacrifice girl once again got herself into trouble and I decided that it was the duty of a beautiful and extremely talented priestess, such as myself, to pull her scrawny ass out of the fire,” preened Sakura.

          “Well cherry blossom, I always enjoy watching you mess up” Kusanagi teased.

          “At least I will be there when I’m needed” a pissed off Sakura shot back.

          Momiji quickly jumped in before things got out of hand.  “Well everyone is here now and we need to get this meeting started.”

          “So Inda will not be joining us?”  Ryoko asked.

          “I know everything Inda knows right now and she will learn everything you tell me.”  Momiji responded.

          Everyone seemed to except Momiji’s statement since Kusanagi had not been one for joining in the TAC’s meetings when they first met him.  Everyone settled down into their seats and dialed up Kome and Yaegashi on the video phone.       Once everyone was ready Momiji went into a more detailed version of what had happened to her.  Though she tried to leave out that she had been looking for Kusanagi since almost everyone knew that anyways and Momiji didn’t want to drag her and Kusanagi’s relationship out into the open.

          Momiji took a breath and began her story.  “Well, about six weeks ago I was actually in Tokyo.  I had gone to the subway tunnels under Susano-o Park.  When I reached to spot that Kadea had first disappeared from and later Susano-o manifested I felt a strange energy.  It was like two energies trying to harmonize.  Since I had some of Mrs. Matsudaira’s equipment with me I decided to get readings.”

“Those readings were quite interesting and I would like to get Sakura to look at them to see if she can tell us anything.”  Mrs. Matsudaira broke in.

“Anyways,” Momiji continued.  “While I was taking the readings it got very late.  When I noticed this I started to pack everything up.  However, before I could leave a bright light filled the cave and I got momentarily blinded.  Before my eyes could clear, I was grabbed and heard Murakumo’s voice say that he was glad I saved him the job of tracking me down.”

“Murakumo’s not dead!?”  Kome burst in.  “I thought Kusanagi and Susano-o destroyed him.”

“In our dimension yes.  But, this Murakumo is from an alternate dimension.”  Momiji calmly responded.

Everyone sat in stunned silence as the absorbed the idea of alternate dimensions. 

“Multiple dimensions?  How did they do it?”  Yaegashi broke in excitedly.

“I will get to that later.”  Momiji responded.

Pulling out the file on Murakumo, Ryoko asked “was that Murakumo exactly the same as the Murakumo from this dimension?”

Momiji pulled out a photo of Murakumo.  “He acted the same as far as I could tell the only difference was his mitamas were green instead of blue.”

“Interesting, does Inda have green mitamas as well.”  Mrs. Matsudaira queried.

“Yes she does.”  Momiji replied.

“I wonder how Inda’s reading will compare to Kusanagi’s.”  Mrs. Matsudaira mused.

“Kus boy is finally letting you examine him Matsu?  Things must be heating up between you two huh Momiji?”  Kome broke in with a sly grin.

Kusanagi growled and glade at the video phone.

“Actually, I do not think Inda will let you examine her anytime soon.”  Momiji nervously put forth.  “Anyways, back to the story.  Murakumo took me back to his dimension so he could resurrect the Arigami.  It turns out that in the other dimension my grandmother decided to never have children for fear of losing them as sacrifices.  Because of this the Arigami as a whole did not awaken.  However, Murakumo was awake since he had been the protector of a previous Kushinada.”

Momiji paused and waited for the noise to die down as everyone exclaimed in unison.  Finally Kusanagi’s voice won out.  “There is no way in Hell he was a protector of a Kushinada.”

“Well at least he was not a very good protector since his Kushinada died.”  Sakura chimed in.

“Well it actually makes sense.”  Yaegashi commented.  “Murakumo was able to sense where Momiji was and only when he learned Kadea was betraying him did he attempt to harm either Kushinada.”

Sakura looked thoughtful.  “Plus Murakumo and Kusanagi are both names for the same sword, the sword supposedly retrieved from the original Orochi.”

As everyone sat in stunned silence Momiji quietly began narrating her story again.  “Murakumo was the only awake Arigami in his dimension till he found a priestess that was able to awaken one Arigami at a time.  However, that was not enough so with the combined efforts of the priestess and his scientist they found a way to our dimension to bring me back.  Their intent was to use me to awaken all the Arigami.”

“How were they going to do that?”  Ryoko queried.

“Um…  You would have to ask them.”  Momiji stuttered a little nervously.  “The scientist did talk to me a little about mitamas.  Apparently, Murakumo let him experiment on some mitamas.  He told me that he had crafted two mitamas to be embedded the new Kushinada’s protector.  Somehow he managed to amp them up where those two mitamas are about equal to seven.  Murakumo did not want the protector to be stronger than him.”

Kusanagi chose that moment to snort derisively.

Momiji just smiled and continued.  “Well to make a tiresome story short I was in a bit of distress, thinking no one could help me.  Somehow the two mitamas which were not currently embedded sensed my distress and activated on their own, choosing a host.  I believe Murakumo has no idea who the host is and Inda wishes to keep it that way.  Anyways she grabbed me and we got to their dimensional machine hit a bunch of random button and managed to get back here.”

Everyone was poised to list a barrage of questions when Momiji’s mom, Moe entered the room.

“Momiji, I thought we were going to have dinner tonight.  Why is the TAC here?  Does it have something to do with why you were gone?”

Momiji started to try to explain when she noticed her mom was no longer paying attention to her.  Moe was looking intently at a picture of Murakumo that had slipped from his file.  Moe picked it up and turned back to Momiji holding the picture for Momiji to see.

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