Author's Note: Dadada, presenting... My brand new fanfic! Hope you love! And yes, for those of you who have read it, this fic is slightly like Rosefire's 'The Price of Freedom', which is one of my all-time favie fics, but I actually had this idea floating around in my a looong time ago. It was just the matter of catching it in a net and forming it into an actual story. Okay, I'll stop yammering now... On to the story!
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Disclaimer: I own Inuyasha... grins insanely and holds up a paper cutout of Inuyasha
Genre: General/Romance/Humor/Drama/Action... Oo;
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Inuyasha sighed, gazing at the sunset with eyes half-lidded with boredom from his position lying on the floor. The sun was stretching out its lasts rays to grasp the heavens, soaking the sky and its clouds in blood. The waves crashed against the horizon, and a spray of seawater, red from reflecting the bloody sky, speckled his clothes and skin with droplets of water, causing Inuyasha to shift his weight to lie on his back. Raising his hands cushion to his head, the teen absentmindedly picked splinters out of his hair that were digging into his head.
He wondered why everything reminded him of blood. Maybe it was because the said liquid was gathering in a pool around his abdomen... or it could be because just a few days ago he witnessed the slaughtering of his family. Perhaps even because of both.
When the sun finally sunk under the waters, Inuyasha rolled left, back on his stomach, and hung his arm over his watercraft, dragging it through the water. If he was lucky, maybe a shark would come along and bite his arm off... at least that would ease the boredom one found stranded in the middle of the ocean. He sighed again. Maybe it would be simpler and less painful to try and remember...
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Merman by sh00ga
1: Beach House
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"I can't believe it! Why do I have to stay here alone for a week?!"
Kagome's mother sighed impatiently and set down her luggage, a sign that it was time for another one of her famous 5-minute lectures. It was unlike her daughter to whine all day, but whine all day she had, and the older woman was coming to the end of her patience. Fixing a motherly smile on her face, Ms. Higurashi ground out, "Because, sweetie," stressing the 'sweetie' to show that that was something Kagome was not at the moment, "I'm going away with Eichi, Souta has summer camp, and Grandpa is ill and residing at the hospital for the moment. Besides," she continued with a lighter tone, motioning out the window, "It's nice place to be alone. I mean, look at the fluffy clouds, white sand, blue skies, and... uh, blue... waters..."
Kagome rolled her eyes and plopped down on the couch nearest to her, coughing when the action sent up hordes of dust mites that settled in through the winter and fall. "How about deceivably fluffy clouds that pour down rain randomly and waters that house deadly sharks and octopus?" She choked out, still coughing.
Her mom just laughed. "Oh you silly, sharks may be deadly but all octopuses do is attach to your skin and suck out your blood until you writhe in pain and maybe die leaving a bloated corpse." The taxi waiting outside honked, starting both mother and daughter. Ms. Higurashi leaned over and tweaked Kagome's ear affectionately, then gave her a quick hug. "Well, that's my cue. Bye honey, take care!" And with that she picked up her bags and ran out the door to the taxi, yelling out over her shoulder, "Don't talk to strangers!", before boarding and zooming away on the car, leaving Kagome in the darkening house a bit dazed, alone with only her thoughts for company.
Kagome sighed, and walked over to the door to lock it. (You never know... some stray octopus might come and strangle her in her sleep.) Ever since her mother married Eichi... Kagome scowled. Ever since she married Eichi, her mom had been up in Loolaland, even going along her new husband's proposal that Kagome stay at the beach house while they went on their honeymoon.
"More 'getting away with Eichi'," Kagome exclaimed out loud, parodying her mother's words. Sigh... moms. Can't live with them, can't live without 'em.
What woke him up was not a shark feasting on his limbs, but a rather different sensation of something rough on his skin. Inuyasha groped blindly around, but all his hand met was gritty, loose ground. The boy froze. Maybe it was... no, it couldn't be, after all those days living upon the sea, he couldn't have finally arrived... On land? Inuyasha yelped and, in the blind stupidity that usually followed joy, sat up.
Suddenly Inuyasha doubled over, curling up shrimp-like and groaning. "Shit..." he grunted, realizing that sitting up whilst one has huge gashes on his stomach is not a snappy idea. "No... I can't faint, not when... I'm finally... on..." He opened his eyes from their squeezed shut point and glimpsed a violet sky and a few seabirds, and heard them scream as if they were in greater pain then him.
"Land..." Releasing a rather peaceful exhale, he fainted.
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"Sesshoumaru! Give it back!"
The older boy laughed as cruel as an eight year old ever could, and dangled the object in front of Inuyasha's eyes, farther then the younger brother could reach but not far enough that Inuyasha could not see the rivulets of dripping red. He smirked. "Why, if you want it so bad, come and get it, little brother!"
Tears gracing the bottom lids of his young amber eyes and a pout gracing his lips, Inuyasha cried, "Why are you so mean to me? You know that I was going to show that to him to ask if I can keep it!" His eyes could not blockade the salty liquid in anymore. "Why did you do that?"
Sesshoumaru sighed as maturely as he could. "You were always the sentimental idiot, hanyou. As for this..." He lazily lifted the mangled body of the dead bird pinched between his two fingers higher. "Like I said earlier; if you want it, you can have it." And with a with a simple flick of the wrist he tossed the carcass into Inuyasha's face, which made a sickening 'plop' as it hit on target. Inuyasha stared straight ahead as the blood dripped down his face, down his shirt, to the ground, mixing with the urine when he wet himself.
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A few phone calls complaining to friends, an hour of TV reruns and a bag of potato chips later, Kagome was full, and a bit dizzy from watching the ancient TV screen, the reception as fuzzy as underneath the couch, but still bored. "Maybe I should do some house cleaning..." she mused to herself, then sneezed, as if the dust was protesting against this thought.Kagome looked around. The depressing maroon drapes were sagging with grime and the dust bunnies were multiplying quite kinkily like real rabbits, scurrying across the cracking hardwood floor once in a while giving an old western movie effect. Only her bedroom out of the 4 rooms seemed to be clean enough to serve as a living quarter.
"Or I'll maybe just go outside," Kagome concluded hastily after the somewhat ghastly look around, and toddled toward the veranda doors by the kitchen.
As soon as Kagome took a step outside the house, it felt she had walked in on a parallel universe. There was no dust clogging the air, no oily potato chip crumbs that escaped the bag to cross-mate with the dust bunnies and produce hideous, greasy offspring. All that existed in this world was a fresh breeze that stirred up the darkness and moonshine, both elements that united to make everything glow.
Kagome drew the blanket she brought along around her shoulders tighter. Even though it was summer on the ocean-side, the ocean wind still chilled her bare arms and legs. She was just enjoying the serenity of it all, when she saw it.
"Oh my God," Kagome whispered, staring saucer-eyed at the object. "Is that an... octopus?!"
The focus of her stare was a pale... thing, the size and shape distorted by the glowing moonlight and Kagome's fear. From the disheveled and wet looks of it, the thing was most probably washed up on the beach from somewhere beyond the gentle waves where strange sea creatures, such as, say, octopus, dwelled.
Wide-eyed and straining to keep from running away, Kagome hoisted up her blanket and crept toward the mysterious silvery object, a million pessimist thoughts scampering through her head. What if it was a beached albino dolphin? What if it was a blood-sucking zombie ghost thing? And worst, what if it was... a person?! Her worst fears were confirmed when from about a few feet away Kagome saw that it was indeed a person... an old lady it looked like from the mass of white hair sprouting from her head. A psycho chainsaw-toting grandmother escaped from a nearby nursing home, perhaps?
Another foot closer saw that of boyish, unlined features, confirming that it was a male, not an elderly woman, just a boy with unnatural hair. At that second another wave of 'what ifs' washed across her mind. What if it was a killer, an escaped one from the looks of the makeshift raft by him? What if he was dead, and she would be accused of murdering a boy that she had never seen in her life? What if-
Kagome never got to finish her latest what-if, because the white-haired boy suddenly groaned and moved his arm from its position draped over his stomach, displaying his blood-splattered clothes for the entire world to see. The girl stood frozen for a moment, then, her innocent eyes sighting of the bold crimson, she fainted.
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Ending Note: First, before anyone says anything about why did she faint when Kagome always sees slaughtered demons and humans and such, I made her a bit protected in this first chapter to go along with the storyline. " Sorry 'bout that. Well, there was the apologically short first chapter... PLEASE REVIEW! Reviews are like sugar... they drive me to accomplish things faster then humanly possible! Such as, say, write new chapters! w