Author's Note 8-21-2010: I just now realized that I somehow managed to upload the second chapter of this fic as both the first and second chapter on this site. That mistake should now be corrected and you should be able to read the correct first chapter. I did a little editing, too, to try and smooth out a few irregularities and breaks in continuity that had previously escaped my notice. Please let me know if you spot anything that's out of place and doesn't fit correctly with the story and I'll fix it.
Blanket disclaimer for the whole fic, since I hate repeating myself: Inuyasha and any names, objects, places, or allusions you recognize from the anime/films and/or manga are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her publishers and licensed distributors, and they in no way, shape or form belong to me. If other things that belong to other people appear in the story (such as music), I will do my best to point them out and give their proper owners the credit they deserve.
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Chapter One
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Kagome Higurashi was bored. She sighed and shifted in her seat. Math sucks. She decided, not for the first time. The teacher was up at the front of the room lecturing about multiplying matrices and Kagome wanted nothing more than to jump out the window to her left.
Today was the last day of class before spring break would start and the thought of two whole weeks without school was making her twitch with anticipation. Math was her last class of the day and there was only about a half an hour left. She could hardly wait.
Someone poked her in the back and she twisted her arm around behind her to accept the note from Yuka, one of her best friends. Kagome glanced up at the front of the room and waited until the teacher's back was turned and he was absorbed in writing something on the board before quickly unfolding the note and spreading it out flat on her desk.
'Eri says she knows of this really hot party that's happening tonight. Ayumi says we can use her house to get ready at, cause her parents are out of town for the weekend. You in?'
Kagome frowned at the note for a moment before writing her response. 'I thought there was an activity night here at the school. Why would we go to some party?' She glanced at the teacher again to make sure he wasn't looking then tossed the note back over her shoulder.
A few minutes later it came sailing back and bounced across her desk coming to a halt next to her pencil. She snatched it and unfolded it again, keeping her eye on the teacher.
'Why would you want to go to some crappy high school activity night when we could go to a cool party? It'll be so much better! You have to come!'
Kagome smiled a little bit and jotted down her answer. 'Where is it? How did Eri find out about it?' She lifted her arm as if to scratch the back of her neck and dropped the note over her shoulder.
After a couple minutes the note dropped back over her shoulder. 'Eri knows this girl who knows this guy who's best friends with this other guy whose older brother owns this club. Eri got us in! It's gonna be soooo hot! The club is called The GCP. You've heard of it, I know. It's in Shinjuku District.'
Kagome had indeed heard of it. The Garden of Carnal Pleasures was supposed to be the hottest club in Tokyo. People flocked there on weekends and the line to get in was always at least an hour long, usually longer. They had a restaurant, several dance floors, an arcade, a game room, a bowling alley, snack bars; it was like a Discothèque only a billion times better. But Kagome didn't know how they were going to get in, you had to be eighteen and she was only seventeen.
'I know of it. But how will we get in? We're too young.' She tossed the note onto Yuka's desk.
A moment later it came sailing back. 'Were you reading this note or not? Eri knows the owner! We don't have to be old enough! We're VIPs! No lines! No people! No ID check!'
Kagome frowned again. 'I don't know, we could get into a lot of trouble…' She was about to toss the note back when her teacher cleared his throat.
"Miss Higurashi, was that something you would like to share with the class?"
Kagome shot to her feet. "No, Takahata-sensei. It was nothing."
The teacher merely jerked his head in the direction of a stack of buckets in the front corner of the room. Kagome sighed and got out of her desk, walked up to the front of the room and selected two buckets.
Four minutes later she was standing in the hall holding two buckets of water and grumbling about how she was the only one who ever got caught passing notes.
When the bell rang Kagome stuck her head in the door to see all the students packing up their things. Mr. Takahata beckoned her forward and told her to wait next to his desk until all the other students had filed out. Yuka passed her with an apologetic look and both their school bags in hand, hefting it to let Kagome know she would be waiting outside. Once all the students were gone Mr. Takahata sighed and turned from his task of dusting off the chalk board.
"Higurashi-kun, what's the matter?" He asked. He wasn't angry or unfriendly, merely concerned, and that was why he was one of Kagome's favorite teachers even though he taught her least favorite subject. "You've been having a terrible time concentrating in my class and your work has been slipping. Is there anything you want to talk about?"
Kagome concentrated her gaze on her shoes. There was something that had been plaguing her for a long while now, but she didn't want to talk with him about it. It was just a part of growing up in a Shrine, and one with supposed mystical happenings at that. "No, Sir, there's nothing wrong. I'm just anxious to go for Break and I've been antsy all day. I'm sorry for not paying attention."
He sighed again. "Don't pass notes in my class, Higurashi-kun. One of these days I'll make you read them." He said this in a joking manner and Kagome knew she was forgiven.
She spun on her heel and dashed into the hall where she found Yuka waiting with Eri and Ayumi. The three girls spun to look at her as she jogged up.
"Kagome, did you get in trouble?" Yuka asked, frowning worriedly.
"No, no trouble." Kagome brushed it off. "He just wanted to know what's been bothering me lately."
Ayumi gasped. "You didn't tell him about—"
Kagome clapped a hand over the curly-haired girl's mouth. She looked both ways up and down the hall and eyeballed the distance to the nearest group of kids. Deeming them far enough away to not overhear anything that was said, Kagome removed her hand from Ayumi's mouth and gave her a stern frown. "Don't talk about that in public! I only told you about it because I trust you and I know you'll never tell anyone! If people found out about it, about what I and my family do, we'd either be freaks or a press explosion! No one can know!"
"I'm sorry, Kagome!" Ayumi whispered.
Kagome sighed and smiled at her friend. "It's okay. I guess I kinda over reacted. C'mon." She accepted her bag from Yuka and shouldered it, drawing the others down the hall. "Tell me more about this club you want to go to."
Eri squealed a note that was positively shocking and nearly knocked Kagome over putting her arm around her shoulders. "Oh my gosh! Okay, my cousin Sango is dating this guy whose best friends with the brother of the guy who owns the GCP! Sango said she could get us a couple of VIP passes! That means no lines and no restrictions! We'll have access to all the public areas of the club, even the top floors! It'll be so cool, you have to come!"
Kagome felt somehow uneasy about the whole thing. She set her bag on the floor and pulled out the books she wouldn't need to study from over the break, replacing them with more that she did have to study from. "I don't know, we could get in a lot of trouble…"
"Oh quit being such a wet blanket and have some fun with us, Kagome!" Yuka elbowed her gently in the side. "I know you're a good kid, but honestly it's not good to stay at home all the time and study! If you don't get out more you'll become sick."
"Or socially retarded…" Eri muttered under her breath.
"Hey!" Kagome exclaimed. "I do too get out. I had that date with… with… oh, what's his name? That guy that's stalking me from class 1-D."
"Hojo!" Ayumi told her. "His name's Hojo, and he's not a stalker! He's the most gorgeous boy in the whole school!"
"I don't know why a hunky babe like Hojo asked you out, Kagome." Yuka shook her head. "You're so anti-social."
"I am not!" Kagome slammed her locker door shut. "I just think it's important to study! It's no wonder you guys don't get as good of grades as I do; you're out partying all the time!"
Eri put a finger to the side of her nose. "Ah, such is not the case any longer. Your grades have been slipping lately too."
Embarrassed and angry, Kagome slipped on her street shoes and stalked out the door, her friends fluttering and scrambling to grab their things and catch up.
It really wasn't Kagome's fault. There was only so much one seventeen-year-old girl could do. It was hard enough trying to study for her class placement exams. Now her family had to drop the whole traditional priestess thing on her head. Life in a shrine family was no walk in the park. She was constantly receiving training from her grandfather and mother, instruction in how to use the holy powers she'd been born with to protect the shrine. The Sunset Shrine was not merely her home; it was her job, her birthright, her duty. She was the strongest priestess to be born into the family in many generations and as such she had become the primary guardian of the shrine on her sixteenth birthday. Not only was she charged with maintaining the holy seals on the shrine relics, she was also required to guard the two most precious artifacts they possessed.
The Shikon-no-Tama, the sacred Jewel of Four Souls, was a relic that had survived in her family since the feudal era. It was passed down through the generations to the strongest priest or priestess born into the family. It had been her great-grandmother's. When her great grandma passed away the Jewel was burned with her body to purify it one last time. Her grandfather sealed it in the Shrine with every ounce of his power, which wasn't much. The day Kagome was conceived the Jewel disappeared from the shrine. When Kagome was born her grandfather divined the new location; Kagome's chest. And so Kagome carried the Jewel inside her body every moment of everyday. She was aware of it without being able to feel it, knowing it was there inside her somehow made her feel not so alone all the time. She had to wear a magical charm to help conceal the Jewel's existence, because there were people and… other things… that would want it if it could be found.
The other artifact was unknown to her. It was sealed inside a long slender box plastered with holy seals and surrounded by warding runes and magic sutras. It had a tiny shrine all to itself; that was how important it was. And though she checked and reinforced the seals every single day, she had no idea what was inside the box. She knew that it didn't really belong to her family, that they were guarding it for someone who would one day come to claim it. When he came for the object in the box he was also supposed to claim something else of inestimable value, but beyond the object's pricelessness, no one in her family knew exactly what it was.
On top of all that there was the constant threat of monsters and demons. Though they were much less common in the modern age than they had been in centuries past, monsters and demons were still very real. They lived as a hidden part of society the world over, and society as a whole thought demons were the stuff of mythology. They were able to blend in with normal humans through the use of their magic, and so the average person would never even begin to guess that such fairytales and legends were real and walking along side them every day.
Demons are by their very nature attracted to power, though. And despite the consecrated holy grounds of the shrine and the reinforced holy seals on the artifacts kept there, there had been several attacks against her home. Kagome had repelled each of these attacks since she was a child; then by helping her grandfather and mother, but as she grew older and more powerful, on her own. Each encounter left her heart thundering in her chest…
Kagome's brow furrowed at the thoughts tumbling through her head. 'Why do I have to put up with all of this? I'm only a teenage girl, for crying in the rain! I'm not supposed to guard a shrine and battle demons! It's like my life is a cheesy horror-manga! I should be worried about boys and clothes and make-up, not repelling demon attacks on the shrine and guarding magical artifacts…'
Sighing, she slowed down and allowed her friends to catch up with her. They panted for a while before Eri leaned against a low brick wall and fanned herself with her hand, saying, "So are you going to come with us or not?"
Smiling at her friend's single-mindedness, Kagome shook her head. "I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. But, y'know, I'm kind of sick of being cooped up in my house all the time when I'm not at school. So yes, I think I will come with you."
Yuka squealed and jumped up and down. "Oh, Kagome, this'll be so much fun! You'll see!"
"What time are we meeting at your house, Ayumi?" Kagome asked.
"Seven; the club doesn't open until nine, and no one's there until ten which is when it really starts to hit full swing." Ayumi grinned. "Two or three hours should be enough time for us to get ready. You can spend the night afterwards."
Eri clapped and hopped up and down in place. "Okay, Ayumi's house, seven o'clock. Don't be late, Kagome! And wear something cute!"
"Sure. Bye guys." Kagome watched them begin to walk away before she turned the corner and began climbing the long, centuries-worn flight of steps leading from the streets of Tokyo to the grounds of the Sunset Shrine. The Shrine grounds covered a total area of about fifty acres and encompassed the public shrine grounds, the Higurashi Family residence, and the Demon Wood. The Demon Wood was the name of the remains of the forest that covered most of the shrine grounds, and it was restricted from public access; people had been known to disappear in those woods and never emerge.
Kagome's grandfather stood sweeping at the top of the steps. "Hello, Kagome."
"Hey, Grandpa. I have to hurry, I'm going out tonight." Kagome breezed past him without pausing.
"What? Where are you going?" Grandpa called after her. "Kagome, get back here!"
Kagome ignored him and jogged into the house. "Mom, I'm home! When's dinner?"
"Hello Kagome. Dinner should be ready in an hour or so." Kagome's mom stuck her head out of the kitchen and smiled. "Why? Are you hungry, sweetie?"
"I'm going out tonight." Kagome kicked her shoes off and lined them up along the baseboard with her toe.
"Really? Where?" Mom asked.
"There's a school activity night. Yuka, Eri, Ayumi and I are going to it, and then Ayumi invited us to stay over at her house for the night." Best not to tell Mom about the club, or she'd be nailed to the floor faster than she could blink.
"Well that sounds like fun! When will you be home tomorrow?"
Kagome walked through the living room and started up the stairs. "I don't know. I'll call. Right now I'm going to change and then I'll check the seals for the day. Once I'm done with that I'll bolt down dinner and change into some clothes for the dance. We're meeting up at Ayumi's house at seven."
In her room Kagome closed the door and dumped her bag on the floor next to her desk. Stretching she pulled her school shirt off over her head before rummaging through her drawers for a grubby outfit to wear between now and the time she had to change again. Pulling out a pair of dark grey pajama pants and a pale purple tank top, Kagome shed her nice bra in favor of a sports bra. Before pulling the sports bra on Kagome stretched again and massaged her breasts a bit, hating the feeling wearing a tight shaping bra left in them. Slipping into her grubby outfit, Kagome snatched a pair of black flip-flops and headed back out into the hall and down the stairs to go check the seals.
It was a simple process for her. After having done it so many times she just didn't have to concentrate as hard as she used to. She went through each of the shrine buildings and checked the seals, prodding them with her aura to ensure stability and smoothing over where the magic had begun to fade, bolstering it anew. The shrine holding the box required more of her time and effort. She checked things with her eyes to make sure everything was in its proper place before closing her eyes and sensing the seals to make sure they still held. Satisfied that they wouldn't unravel between now and the next time she repaired them, Kagome slid the door closed and wove a spell on the outside of the box shrine, tying it off with a complicated knot of magic that would take hours to unravel for anyone but her.
Back in the house her mother was just finishing dinner. Kagome helped serve everything, and then ate quickly, keeping her eye on the clock. 'Six-fifteen.' Kagome observed as she excused herself to rinse her dishes. 'I still have time to take a shower.' She did this, sighing as the hot water sluiced over her body, and let the pounding drum of steady water-pressure work the knots out of her neck and shoulders.
Back in her room Kagome went through her closet hanger by hanger trying to decide what to wear. "Ayumi said to wear something cute." She mumbled to herself. "I've never been to a club before. What should I wear?" Glancing at the clock and realizing she didn't have that much time left, Kagome decided on a pale yellow skirt that fell to her knees and a white top that tied around behind the neck and had off the shoulder straps. The empire waistline of the blouse accented her bust without drawing too much attention. She changed back into her nice bra and threw on her outfit, putting her wet hair up so that it wouldn't soak the back and shoulders of her blouse before it dried. She grabbed a pair of white strappy sandals and her purse before heading downstairs.
"Mom, I'm going!" She called while slipping on her shoes.
"Bye, dear. Have fun!" Mom called from the kitchen. "Don't be too late tomorrow, okay?"
"I won't be! Bye!" Kagome slipped out the door and down the shrine steps, heading for Ayumi's house.
Once there she received something less than the greeting she'd been expecting.
"You are not wearing that!" Yuka exclaimed upon opening the door.
Kagome looked down at herself. "What's wrong with it? Ayumi said to wear something cute."
"Yeah. I said cute, not virginal." Ayumi chuckled at the blush that spread across Kagome's cheeks. "Come in, you can borrow something of mine."
Those words would prove to be part of Kagome's undoing.
