AN: I've had a head swarming with ideas lately, and I had to get it out. Both of my YYH/IY crossovers will lead to basically the same place; the back-streets in the demon city where the Dark Tournament takes place. I have no idea what happens after the tournament, so I'm gonna be working slowly with that. Umm... That's 'bout it! If you haven't read my one shot, do. I'm not going to re-explain anything that you might find out by reading it so.. hey!
"During the seventeenth century a Lord by the name of---" The door to art classroom 502 creaked open slowly. Every students head turned towards the door, expecting to see maybe the gnarly old woman who delivered messages between the teachers, or maybe the gray haired janitor who sometimes made his way into an active classroom by accident, or even an older student who had been late because of work. But every pair of eyes showed amazement when instead of any of those people, a young girl strode in.
It took about thirty seconds for everyone to get a little uneasy.
In the doorway was a girl with raven-black hair pulled into a bun held up with chop-sticks. Over her shoulder was a rough looking army bag that matched the baggy pants she wore perfectly. There was a patch over the left knee seemingly made of regular denim, and one on her left heal made of something silvery. Her eyes were chocolaty-brown and filled with an innocent look you usually found in small children. Normal lip-gloss shined white on her lips to match the arrow on the chest of her other-wise army green Tee-shirt. There was a little scar on the left side of her forehead the was highlighted white when she nervously smiled.
Everything about her screamed innocent teenager, except that all those who looked close could see the white scars that could not quite fade into the weathered tan of her skin. And anyone who was particularly sharp could see thick calluses on her hands that were probably (she wore tennis-shoes so this could not be verified) mirrored on her feet and thick indents on her right middle and trigger finger.
"Um... I'm sorry?" She tried. A couple of the students snickered. The professor scowled.
"You're free to be late here, Higurashi, but I'm also free to kick you out of my class whenever I please. Don't disrupt my class again." the so dubbed 'Higurashi' smiled again.
"Gomen ne, Professor. It won't happen again."
Kagome's POV
The pinched-face Professor just scowled again and turned toward his class. After blowing a quiet raspberry at him I walked over to an empty seat and took out my recorder. After putting in a fresh tape I pulled out a notebook and wrote down little notes about what was on the chalk-board and anything else that came to mind. It took me a moment to realize that I'd written down most of the public exit's I'd passed and the descriptions of some of the people that were grinning and/or glaring at me.
I guess for you that's not normal. But that's pretty much my life now. After I left home with a youkai child and a pre-teen demon-slayer from the past to take care of, you start paying a lot of attention to ways of taking care of them. And when they're as strange as my new family is and probably always will be, you tend to look out for their physical protection as well as financial.
That's pretty much the only reason I'm here. I moved to a new city when I left and changed my first name. There are a lot of Higarashi's down South, so all I had to do was change my other name to Kikyo. If my blood-relatives need me enough, they can find me. For now I need to protect the secrets of the two kindred spirits I now live with, and pay the schooling charges of.
That took severe studying (to which still brings me nightmares) and two-jobs. I got into a delinquent school a little ways from our apartment buildings, but only just barely. I just started this year really. I guess all this starts at the real beginning of my new life. A life where going home means checking the locks and making sure nothing inside our apartment's been messed with.
Sighing, I again take the paranoid feelings at face value and inspect the other students. I have enough nightmares in my past. I shouldn't have to deal with this. After... that... happened, I learned that you never take anyone for granted. Sometimes life can't hold you up anymore, and you have to hold up your life, and whoever else you don't want to let go of.
It's pretty funny how karma takes big bites out of your backside, huh?
I guess I've changed a lot since last year. One, I don't go helping everyone anymore. I've got two kid monkeys on my back already, I don't need anything else. I guess that's selfish of me, but there's another change. I don't really care. I don't really care about a lot of things. I don't really care if that skinny kid six rows down from me is getting enough to eat. I don't really care if that guy three seats to my left is going to come after me after class. I might have once wondered if he could be changed. If maybe something happened when he was little to make him this way, and he just needed a little help.
But 'once' was a long time ago for me.
After what I've been through I've begun to think that maybe everyone else needs to pick up after themselves. If they want to help each other, fine. But I've got enough on my plate not to help some gangster who could have grown up better if he'd tried. My uncle's parents died when he was ten, and he had to raise himself as a inn-cleaner or whatever most of his childhood. He enrolled himself in the navy, eventually retired and married the girl literally next door. He turned out to be one of the best people I know. He made the choice.
Now if that skinny girl is worried about her boyfriend or her parents or something, she needs to look at her life and wonder how she would feel if everyone she knew were dead, and everyone else were after the little kids she'd chosen to taken care of. To wonder what it would be like to work two jobs while crying yourself to sleep every-night when guys with corny pick up lines try to pick you up for a one-night-stand when you leave work.
But am I going to tell her that? Nope. She'd just cry or yell or say I don't understand or something equally as ignorant. It may make me selfish, but with my problems I don't think anyone has the right to say I 'don't understand' something like a confidence issue.
I guess I haven't changed a lot in other ways though. I still wake up sometimes wondering what type of Ramen I should pack for the Feudal Era, or what tests are coming up. Then my hands sting and everything comes back to me like a train rolling over the tracks after they haven't been used for a while. Then all I can do is hold back the tears and go wake up the kids.
I still can't help but spoil Shippo. And Kohaku now, too, really. Whenever they give me that puppy-dog look I just melt. I guess anyone who was in my heart before it froze over still has access to it. I still get hyper in the mornings and I still hate coffee. I still laugh at the strangest things and fight the cashiers over how expensive chicken is. And, call me corny, but I still watch romance movies every Saturday night.
The old me is still there.
But there's a new me too. The demon me. Pretty literally actually. I'm actually part demon now. I guess my underage roommates aren't the only ones with weirdness.
"... that quote, Higurashi?" Kagome jumped, barely keeping herself from growling, and brought wide, innocent eyes to her glowering Professor.
"Um... I'm afraid I didn't catch that, Professor."
"I don't want to repeat myself in my own classroom, Higurashi. I don't like slackers." He glared again. Opening his thin, cracking lips to reveal stained, cracking teeth, he continued, "I don't know how someone as disrespectful as you managed to get into this school. I don't know why they even let in dirty little beggars like you. I tell you now, Higurashi, that I don't like irresponsible, lazy little brats coming into my classroom acting as if they really belong. Just because you expect to be treated like royalty doesn't mean you deserve it. If you did you'd have someone there for you to provide you with some decent clothing. What do you have to say for yourself, girl?"
I was shocked.
I glanced around at the other students, but they continued the work like it was normal. A girl a couple seats down passed me a sympathetic look and shrugged. That must mean this was normal. They must just all sit here and take it. The human side of me considered doing the same while the demon side cruelly remembered that in the past this small man would have pissed off someone just like her early in life and found himself in two or more pieces. The demon wondered if she could get away with that here. The two sides decided to compromise.
"Bob... can I call you Bob?" Without waiting for a reply I continued, "I have to admit some of that hit's right on the mark. When I'm not kissing somebody's ass or working one of my two jobs or going to some crappy school or taking care of my son and brother or looking for some way to afford Christmas presents I do the selfish thing and go somewhere to sit on my ass. Yeah, I'm not as clean and primped as I could be, but hey, look on the bright side. At least I smell better then you do! Yeah, it probably is my fault no one's there to get me to buy expensive clothing for your benefit. I might suck up to people to make sure my brothers get fed, but at least I don't stick my entire head up their ass so I can get fancy food and clothes." I was standing now, glaring the little man in the face, then I turned and started to stuff my things back in my bag.
"You know, Bob, I worked my ass off in school to go to college and get some sort of degree so I could spare my family from the lack of respect the little mutant rat's such as yourself tend to have towards us 'dirty little beggars'. I worked my way here, damn it, and I deserve to be here! And don't you pinch your pointy face at me, Professor, I've stepped on thing's bigger then you and it's not exactly what I'd call intimidating!
"And now that you've given me a thorough list of what is wrong with me I think I should return the favor! I don't know how a rat-faced, ass-kisser found his way into the teaching business, but don't be surprised if your bad teaching skills, bad breath, and temper tantrums get you fired! I usually don't judge people so would you forgive me for saying that small men with smaller minds need to find their way out of the gene pool!"
There. Much better. I'd ripped off his proverbial ego and blown some long collected steam at the same time. I felt my entire body relax in the sudden stunned silence of the classroom. I scanned the classroom to see each of the students staring at me with looks ranging from awe to shock to disgust. I finally turned to look at the teacher who'd probably dismiss me from the class. I was not disappointed.
The pinched-face rat-like Professor stuttered, turned red, shook, stuttered some more and then shouted for me to get out of the class. I sighed and left, wanting fresh air and yet beating at myself mentally for loosing my cool. It was out of character. But then again, I had been approaching a touchy subject.
Something else had happened a year ago.
Something that I have yet to tell the kids.
Something that put all the problems of those kids in there to shame.
Priestess and demon can't live together. The two people I am are killing each other. Soon there will be nothing left.
My two sides will keep fighting each other until both of them, until all of me, ceases to exist.
My hands are hurting again...
AN: I'm posting to chapters, so no one can accuse me of leaving on a cliffie here. Btw, her hands hurt because that's where she's always focused her miko energy in the past, and where she's begun to channel her fire energy as well. A brief surge of inspiration told me I should not make her go after the inu crew, because that's been done to many times before. I'm going to do something a little different, and that I hope you guys like. Thanks for sticken with me!