Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi
Joker/Clover/Heart no Kuni no Alice© QuinRose

Setting down the white mug on the clockmaker's desk the following morning, Kagome moved to sit down at the round table in the room with the map that Julius had set out for her to look at. She was able to come to the conclusions of where what was and just what the map had on it by the shapes. Her blue eyes made their way back to the aerial view of the Clock Tower.

It really did look like a clock..

"Eighty-six points."

Kagome gave a smile at the score, it wasn't much of an increase, but she wasn't going to complain at how small it was.

Hands abruptly covered her eyes, making her brow tick once before she turned her head to look at the likely culprit.

Those cat ears were calling to her.

Karma gave an awkward smile, "Hello."

The fuchsia-haired male moved to her side and crouched down, looking up at her curiously, "Hi. I don't believe I got your name.."

Karma offered him her hand, "Kagome. Higurashi, Kagome."

He grasped her's in a firm grip, "Boris Airay~"

"Shouldn't you be at the Amusement Park?"

The two looked over at Julius who was watching them, having looked up from his work to take another sip of his coffee. One of Boris's ears gave a twitch as he gave a lopsided grin to the mortician, "I should be, but I wanted to introduce myself to Kagome."

"What led you to believe that she was here?"

Gold eyes looked to the ceiling, a finger to his chin, "An assumption. I mean, the Clock Tower is the only neutral territory in this Country, so why not reside here if one's a foreigner?"

Sipping his coffee again, the long-haired man gave a deadpanned stare over the rim of his mug, opting to stay silent at the answer. Kagome turned to the punk-fashioned cat, "Would you like anything?"

His attention off of Julius, Boris gave a wide smile to the black-haired girl, "I was wondering if I could bring you to the Amusement Park, show you around and all that. Take a burden off of the clockmaker's shoulders, if you will."

"That does make sense.." Kagome tumbled the idea around in her thoughts for a moment before turning to the landlord if you will, "Would that be all right?"

"Why are you asking?"

"It's polite and you've allowed me to stay here."

"You don't have to ask.."

She gave him a smile, before turning to the guest, "I'll go~"

Boris stood and stretched, "Good! Why don't you bring the map so I can explain it to you on the way?"

Blue eyes glanced at Julius quickly as she stood, her only answer being a shooing motion of his hand, not even looking up from his work that she translated as 'go ahead.'

Following the cat out of the tower, they only paused so that Kagome could retrieve her shoes. She tugged on the skirt of the dress that she was wearing, still wondering why there was clothing in the dresser in the room that Julius had let her use.

Her eyes moved to the map that Boris dramatically opened from it's rolled-up form it had put in moments before when they were leaving, "All right!"

He pointed to what she could only presume as their destination, the closest one to the Clock Tower, "Here is the Amusement Park. It's run by my boss, you could say, Gowland."

"What's he like?" Kagome couldn't hold her tongue, finding it easy to talk to Boris as he went out of his way to introduce himself after their horrible meeting the first time.

He scratched one of his ears with a hand, "Don't let him play any instrument for you.. He's kinda horrible. Also, don't mention anything close to or resembling the name 'Blood Dupre.' That'll have bad consequences as well."

She nodded her head, "I have a feeling that I'm going to end up pestering you with questions, but whose that?"

Boris held up the a finger on the hand that he had scratched his ear with, "Don't worry about the questions~ That's the next part of my explanation."

He pointed to what looked like a manor or something along those lines, "This is the Hatter Mansion. The twins that were with me when we first ran into each other are the Gatekeepers there; Tweedle Dee and Dum are their names - the Bloody Twins. Blood Dupre is a mafioso, the boss to be exact. His right hand is the March Hare, Elliot March."

"There's a mafia here?"

"Yup."

"I'm glad I hadn't run into them then.."

Boris readjusted which hand held the map to pat the girl on her shoulder, "Well, you met the Gatekeepers, but they visit the Amusement Park like I attend tea parties held at the mansion."

Kagome looked up at Boris, "You make it sound like the Amusement park and the Hatter Mansion are enemies."

"We're in a power struggle." The cat-eared individual pointed to a heart-shaped structure, "but let's not forget the Castle of Hearts, also involved in the power struggle."

The oriental female nodded, staring at the map, "Who resides there?"

"That'd be the Queen of Hearts-Vivaldi-along with the White Rabbit Peter White, Ace and the King." Boris paused briefly before resuming talking, "Peter is the Prime Minister, while Ace is the Knight. White had also been the one to bring the previous foreigner here, Alice Liddell is her name."

"Alice?" Kagome blinked, "That reminds me of hat one book about an Alice falling into Wonderland after chasing after a white rabbit."

"Really?" His pierced cat ears perked, "Well, the Alice who'd been here before was brought here against her will. She didn't have much of a choice, evidently."

"That reminds me of what happened to me back home."

His cat-based curiosity was piqued, "What happened to you back in your home?"

Kagome sheepishly poked at one of her cheeks, "I was forced into something that put a large responsibility on my shoulders, is all."

"I see.." He really wanted to know more, but held his tongue.

Blue eyes looked at the map, "How come the Clock Tower isn't apart of this power struggle?"

"That's because the Clock Tower is neutral in all of this."

"Oh right.. You mentioned something about that earlier to Julius."

The cat nodded, "So you were paying attention~"

As much as she wanted to feel the tiniest bit insulted, Kagome gave a small smile at the teasing tone of voice that Boris used with her, "So how close are we to the Amusement Park?"

"Not that far," Her male companion took one of her wrists in his hand, tugging on it to speed up her pace, "Come on~"

It reminded her of the amusement parks back home; however, being approached by faceless people slightly irked her. Being stopped by them was slightly daunting as she didn't know where to direct her eyes, especially as they asked her if she was she new foreigner and a few other passing comments about her appearance.

Boris looked back at the park attendees, "Getting more than one foreigner in a game must be really something.."

"Game?"

"Yeah, currently we're in a game. There has been previous games before this one."

Kagome blinked, "That's.. rather odd, to be honest, but that's normal here, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Is that part of the reason why the people that came up to us didn't have faces?" There was so many things here that were different than back home..

"Mhm~ Only Role Holders have faces, as we're important to the game."

"So you're a Role Holder." Kagome stated, staring at Boris's face as they stopped walking at this point, "But what if you were to.. die?"

"I'd be replaced."

"Replaced? But people can't just be fixed like toys."

Boris rubbed the back of his head, "He didn't tell you, did he?"

"Who?"

"Julius." Boris gripped the girl's hand in one of his, "I might as well explain for him."

"Wha-?"

Boris rested her palm on his chest directly over his heart, inquiring her to rest her head next to it, feeling like this was important.

Tick. Tock.

"A.. clock?"

"Yeah."

Kagome took her head away from Boris's chest, silent as she allowed herself to be lead to a nearby table near a food vender. Her other hand came up to rest on her own chest, feeling the steady pulsing beneath skin, muscle, and bone. She took her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it, "Is that why I'm a foreigner? Because I have an actual heart and not a clock?"

She looked up to Boris's face in curiosity, "I'm surprised you're taking it so well, but yes. Foreigner are rather endeared to the people here because of that fact though! So it's not a bad thing to have a heart."

"I see.." Kagome reach both hands up, startling the cat, and taking a firm hold of his ears - stroking and tweaking them as a small blush dusted her cheeks in excitement as Boris settled after a few moments. Inuyasha never really liked having his ears touched, and the only time she ever was when he was still pinned..

Kagome paused as she noticed his tail in her peripheral vision, before childishly reaching for it with one hand, but not quite read to relinquish her hold on the one ear.

"P-perhaps we would go on a ride?" Blue eyes didn't lose their shine with the distraction, and she found herself agreeing without really thinking it through.

"What ride shall we go on first?"

Oh, the horror!

Kagome felt as if her ears were going to start bleeding soon. A break from riding roller coasters and other miscellaneous rides led to her and Boris being found by Gowland, and the excitement of meeting another foreigner had him playing a song on what seemed to be a fiddle.

She wasn't the only one feeling this way, Boris was suffering just as much as she, if not more.

The torture went on for who knows how much longer before the so-called song Gowland was performing was over and he was looking at them expectantly.

Kagome gave a weak smile, not quite sure what to say other than good. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to tell him the truth to his face, and would have felt bad at insulting.

A little white lie never drastically hurt anyone, right?

She really hoped so. Her ears wouldn't stop ringing and she felt marginally more deaf than when she had entered the Amusement Park.

"Sorry 'bout him. Want me to walk you back to the Clock Tower?" Boris asked some time after Gowland left, one hand rubbing the back of one of his animalistic ears.

"I don't want to make you go out of your way.."

He gave a nonsense wave of his hand, "I brought you out here, so it's the least I could do. Can't have you getting lost now can I?"

Kagome gave a quiet sigh, not able to fight his reasoning, "Sure."

Leading her out of the park, the silence between the two was comfortable. Kagome now held the rolled-up map in her hand, as Boris had been in possession of it earlier. Looking over her shoulder, she blinked at the flash of what seemed to be the top of a head-with two brown furry things on either side-before it ducked behind a tree.

Well, wasn't this the interesting day.

As much as she wanted to give Boris a hug, Kagome felt her molesting his ears and tail earlier was more than enough for one day, "Thank you for shown me the Amusement park and explaining about this world to me."

The taller of the two patter her on her head, "You're welcome~ You're welcome at the park anytime, so don't hesitate to drop by."

She closed her eyes as she flashed him a smile, "All right! And thank you again."

"You're welcome!"

She watched him leave, before he did a disappearing act once he reached the shadows of the trees in the setting sun-almost melding in with them, only his eyes showing before they too faded.

He really was the Cheshire Cat, just like in the book..

Making her way up the Clock Tower, and taking her shoes off at the entrance out of habit, Kagome made her way to where Julius was sure to be working, bent over his desk as he fixed the clocks brought to him.

She poked her cheek when she arrived, catching sight of him sleeping, head on her folded arms, tools still in his hands. Sighing, she made her way over to the desk, and shook the man awake.

"I'm not sure he'd be happy to be shaken awake."

Freezing, the oriental female looked over her shoulder at the gray-haired incubus.

"What are you doing here?"

EDIT: Fixed some very minor things, added some things as well

I can't stop writing chapters for this on my phone~ At least on my phone, there's no word count. Time keeps getting away from me.. Sad. Yes, more characters will be introduced since they were talked about in this chapter. Boris is a wonderful breaking-the-ice kind of character~ There is a reason why Kagome's dialogue is no longer italicized, but that shall be discussed later.