WARNING: VIOLENCE AND MATURE LANGUAGE.

Credit goes where credits due, and I own none for the characters in this bit of whimsy. All the respect in the world to Rumiko Takahashi and the astounding amount of creativity that went into the masterpiece that is Inuyasha.

The Day of Damnation

10:50 AM

The pitter patter sound of rain echoed through the halls of Hanabira Academy with eery force. Wind whipped, tossing leaves and papers and anything it could get ahold of. They were, for the most part, deserted. The bell had long since rang, and students were already in class, tuned into their maths lesson, or english lesson, or whatever they'd deemed worth learning that day. All except for the one student who luck would have running late that morning.

Kagome Higurashi's feet stomped noisily as she ran. Not that anyone would be able to hear her over the sound of the wind and rain. Wind and rain that whipped angrily at her umbrella, by the way, which she had to place in front of herself to guard her from the heavy onslaught. Of course, it may not have been the best idea to place it that way, because as soon as Kagome turned the corner, she ran head first into something.

Her umbrella flew from her hands, and she had to catch herself to keep from falling back. Her arms were caught by two very large (very boy) hands. These same hands let her regain her balance before giving her a gentle shove away. "Watch where you're goin'." The voice, unlike the hands, were far from gentle.

Kagome's temper sparked and she tucked her hair (now wet with rain, thanks to her lack of umbrella), behind her ear before glaring up at the boy in front of her. He was tall, at least a foot taller than her own five foot four, and not exactly lacking in the looks department. He had a chiseled chin, and shoulder length black hair. His eyes were black. He was, she noticed, glaring at her. "You didn't give me the chance to apologize."

"Would you have?"

"Sure!"

"Then go ahead."

She huffed, moving her damp bangs out of her eyes and turning to look for an umbrella. "You know what? I don't think you deserve one." And then the rain stopped, and she heard the patter of rain on nylon. Kagome looked up, surprised to see a canopy of black over her head. She followed the silver handle down to the hand that held it, and then from the hand to the boy holding it. "What's this?"

He made a noncommittal sound, something like a, "Keh," in the back of his throat and shoved it towards her hand, "Take it."

Kagome did. He took his hand back quickly, like he was afraid she'd snap at it, and turned around. He only got a few seconds before she stopped him, calling out. "Hey!" He turned, brows furrowed over his eyes in question. "At least let me know your name."

Several seconds passed before he showed any sign of response. Eventually he nodded, giving her a name to place with his person. "Inuyasha."

"Inuyasha." She tested the name on her lips and smiled, "I'm Kagome."

Inuyasha nodded, his black hair sticking to his cheeks and neck, letting water trail down to soak his shirt. "Bye... Kagome."

12:35 PM

"Honestly, Kagome, I don't think you could do much better."

The girl in question sighed, already tired of the ever consistent conversation that her friends never failed to bring up. They were in the cafeteria, avoiding the rain, and trying to enjoy their lunch. Well, Kagome was, anyway. She turned her eyes to the bento in front of her. She didn't feel like eating. "Am I supposed to dignify that with an answer?"

Yuka, responsible for the previous comment, didn't let up. She mumbled around a mouthful of rice, "Yeah, actually. Come on, Kagome." Kagome looked over at her, taking in for maybe the hundredth time her chin length light brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Her expression was set in a glare. "Hojo's head over heals for you and you never give him the time of day!"

She shrugged and Eri, who was sitting on the other side of her, piped up. "She's right, you know." Kagome turned to her. Eri had shoulder length black hair, pulled back by a red band today, and warm brown eyes that filled with amusement. Kagome didn't feel in the least bit amused. "Hojo really likes you. Like really, really likes you. And he's a really, really nice guy. Why don't you give him a chance? I would."

"So why don't you date him, then?"

"He doesn't like me."

Kagome huffed, turning her attention to the window beside them. "It's not like I ignore him. I talk to him. I'm just not interested in dating him." She watched the rain trail down the window. She wondered absentmindedly if the janitors were happy they would have to clean them any time soon.

Yuka shook her head, "You're still leading him on though."

Eri nodded, leaning over to snatch a sausage from Kagome's bento, "Agreed."

Kagome sputtered, "H-Hows that?!" She looked, wide eyed from one girl to the other, "We never talk, and when we do it's about health class! How on earth am I leading him on?"

"You just," Eri touched the tip of her chopsticks to her chin in thought, "You need to let him know you're not interested."

"If I act any more disinterested, I'll be ignoring him."

"Do that, then."

Obviously, Yuka disagreed, because she shook her head, and made a sound somewhere along the lines of, "Mm-mm," around a bite of food. She swallowed. "No, Kagome. You need to talk to him. You need to just lay everything out. Tell him you're not interested and that he would have better luck elsewhere. It's the least you could do."

Kagome glared at her friends. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Yours, of course."

Kagome shook her head, "Funny way of showing it." She put the lid on her bento, no longer interested in eating, and stood. "Bells about to ring. I'm going to head out early."

Eri's eyes widened, "Come on, Kagome, don't be like that. We're just trying to help."

She nodded and gave them a smile, "I know. I've got some things to do, anyway." Kagome gave them each a goodbye hug and grabbed her umbrella. She was so ready for this day to be over.

1:15 PM

Health class was in full bloom. The teacher, Mrs. Atsuko stood at the front of the room, explaining a Powerpoint about drugs to the class. She was a tiny woman with long black hair that she pulled into a bun on the back of her head and a kind face. She wore a white blouse and a brown pencil skirt that went nicely with the brown heels that Kagome couldn't help but admire. She pressed a button on the remote in her hand, and the Powerpoint changed slides. Stimulants was written in big letters at the top. "What can you tell me about stimulants? Does anybody recognize that word?"

A few kids shook their heads. Mrs. Atsuko called to someone in the back. He answered, his voice low and gruff and just a little uncomfortable, "It's something that raises the level of nerve activity, right?"

"Can you give me an example?"

Kagome couldn't see the kid speaking from her seat in the front of the room, so she turned a bit to get a better look at him. She was almost surprised to find Inuyasha sitting there, kicking back in his chair with his arms crossed. His hair wasn't wet anymore, but she could see spots on his shirt where it was still drying. Inuyasha glanced her way. He quickly looked away when he met her eyes. "It's like caffeine, right? Adrenalin?"

Kagome turned back to the teacher in time to see her nodding. "Very good, Inuyasha." She pressed a button and the screen changed. Psychoactive. She addressed the class, " What about this? Anyone know what psychoactive means?"

It was Kagome who raised her hand this time. "It's a drug that affects the brain."

"Can you name one?"

"Ecstasy?"

Mrs. Atsuko nodded, "Absolutely. And Caffeine. And Alcohol." She walked to the other side of the big projection screen. "Psychoactive drugs are used for a number of different purposes for a number of different things. We use them as sedatives. And we use them as narcotics. Have you guys heard about the latest drug trend?" Nobody answered. "No, I suppose you haven't, have you? At least as far as school is concerned. Here. I'll give you a name. Bath Salts."

"Wait," Kagome turned to her neighbor, giving Hojo her attention as he answered. He moved his brown floppy hair out of his face with long, skinny fingers. "Are you talking about that drug that caused the attack in America?"

The teacher nodded. "Yeah. What do you know about it?"

Hojo shrugged, his wide eyes never leaving the teacher. "Not much. I know it's supposed to be the cause of the apocalypse, and that the attack was pretty gruesome. It was all over the news."

Kagome's attention turned to her teacher as she began the real lecture of the day. She pressed a button and Bath Salts appeared. "The name Bath Salts doesn't refer to just one drug. It refers to many with similar chemical properties. Things like Mephedrone or MDPV. They're both related to Khat, which is an Organic Stimulant from the middle east." She turned to the class. "Mostly it came from plants."

"Like pot?"

Kagome couldn't tell where the question came from, but the teacher smiled. "No. Actually, you'd probably use bath salts to help your marijuana grow. Most of the drugs that people call bath salts are plant foods. Can anyone tell me what might be dangerous about a human using plant foods?"

It took a minute for anyone to answer, but finally a girl answered from the back. Kagome didn't bother turning around. "Would dosage be any issue? I mean, like, wouldn't you have a higher chance of ODing?"

"Absolutely!" The teacher grinned like that was exactly what she wanted to hear. "'Not meant for human consumption' is on there for a reason. Do you think they'd put a proper limit on how much a human can take? Absolutely not. So what happens when someone takes too much of this stuff? What does it do to the body? It destroys it." She pressed the button and more information popped up. "Heartache. nausea. Hallucinations. Panic attacks. Violent behavior. They have an increased tolerance for pain and dehydration. But they also suffer from things like the breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue, so it's pretty evened out."

Someone must have raised a hand, because the teacher nodded at them. "If it does all that, why do people take them?"

"For a high." Mrs. Atsuko shrugged. "Why would anyone do anything for something that is bad for them? Why eat fast food if you know it's not good for you? Why jump out of a plane if you know there's always that risk of death? It's the same thing. There will never be any shortage of things for people to experiment injecting into their bodies. This is just the latest trend, I suppose."

The bell rang before the teacher could go on, so she smiled at her students, already zipping up bags and standing, "Page three fifty-four in your text books, guys. Read it. Take notes. Pop quiz tomorrow!" There was a collective groan. "Oh, hush now. It'll be easy if you do your homework."

Kagome shuffled out of the classroom with the other students, unsurprised when Hojo appeared at her side ready to walk her to class. He was tall, at least six feet, and very, very skinny. It was an odd trait, actually, because his face still held all the baby fat the rest of him had shed. His bright blue eyes were wide as they looked at her, and he adjusted the weight of the bag on his shoulder, "That was a crazy lecture, huh?"

Kagome nodded as they turned the corner to cross the parking lot to her next class. "Yeah, it was-" She was cut off by a vicious roar and she snapped her head to the side in time to see someone rampaging around the cars toward them at an awfully fast speed. "What the hell?!"

"Watch out!" Hojo shoved an arm out, pushing her out of the way just as the guy- a football player, she could tell now- barreled into him. The force threw both of them backward onto the pavement and Kagome heard a horrible crack as her friends head connected with the ground. He was stunned momentarily, his face scrunched up in pain. He was tall, sure, but he was skinny and he'd just taken a rather brutal beating from a football player. When he finally regained his bearings a few seconds later, he glared up at the guy on top of him, "Dude, what the hell?!" Kagome watched as his face, already incredibly pale, drained of color, "H-Hey..."

The body on top of him jerked and gave an almost anomalistic growl, diving towards her friends neck. Hojo screamed, loud and high-pitched, and his body convulsed, writhing in pain. Kagome ran forward, throwing herself on top of them and hooking her hands around the football players shoulder, tugging, struggling to get him off of her friend, "What do you think you're doing?!" She screamed, giving up when pulling on him didn't help, and started hitting his back, "Get off! Let him go- You're hurting him!" Hojo's screams stopped suddenly, with a wet choke that spoke it's finality, and the football player went incredibly still.

Instinct had Kagome backpedaling, taking a slow, tentative step behind her and leaning away, "H-Hojo?" Her only answer was the football players growl- moan?- and he picked himself up off of her friend, stumbling, and catching himself on the hood of a car and pushing off. Kagome moved farther away, at loss at what had happened. "Hojo?" It was a squeak this time. More for her own benefit than the actual expectation to get a response from her friend.

Her eyes were locked on the players back. Onigumo was written in white across his shoulder blades above the number eleven. The jersey itself was black. It stretched with his muscles as he moved- slowly, clumsily- to a standing position. His hair was short and black and the bare skin that showed was tanned. He must have come from practice.

Onigumo gave another moan- low. Soft. Like he was in pain.- and turned to Kagome. She felt her stomach drop at the look on his face. A chunk had been ripped from his cheek. She could see tendons and teeth. He was chewing. Blood covered his face, and dripped onto the front of his jersey. It was soaked around the neck, where it looked like someone had taken to digging out the flesh. It was brutal. His eyes were cold, blank. Devoid of any life, but she could see where tears had parted the blood on his good cheek. He took a clumsy step toward Kagome.

And she screamed.

Onigumo didn't slow down. In fact, her fear seemed to attract him as he stumbled toward her, moaning. She continued to back away, her hand finding the cars to her side and using them for support to keep herself from losing her balance.

She was so focused on Onigumo, she almost didn't hear her name called- yelled, really- but she did, and her eyes jerked toward the source in time to see Inuyasha break through the cars and tackle the footballer to the side. He landed on top, moving quickly and throwing a punch toward Onigumo's jaw. Kagome heard a grunt, and then Inuyasha grabbed the sides of Onigumo's head, jerked it up and then slammed it against the pavement in one quick movement. He staggered backward, moving quickly to get off the footballer and then turned to Kagome.

He looked fine, if a little bloody. His hands were covered in the stuff from where he'd grabbed Onigumo's head, and he had dark red stains on the front of his shirt. His pants had a new tear around the knee, and his hair was more than a little messy. But his expression only showed concern for her. "Are you alright?"

Kagome's eyes were wide and her body was shaking. It occurred to her that she might be in shock. Inuyasha stepped forward when she didn't answer and started to put his hands on her shoulders but seemed to think better of it, looking at the blood on them for a moment before taking them back. "Kagome." He met her eyes, "Kagome, are you hurt?" She understood what he was asking, but it was like her brain had shut off. She did manage, however to give her head a little shake, and watch as the boy in front of her seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Her lips quivered, and tears sprung to her eyes as the situation finally caught up with her. "Oh." She gave a startled gasp, "Oh, Inuyasha. Hojo." Poor, poor Hojo. Her eyes were foggy with tears as she glanced over at the boy, laying in a pool of his own blood. "He's-" She cut off with a hiccup.

Inuyasha turned around toward where the scene had started and cursed under his breath. He didn't stay turned long before he turned back to her. "We've got to go. I was just attacked by his buddy Juromaru. I don't know what's going on, but we need to get out of here."

They were both struck to silence as the sound of screams suddenly echoed through the campus. First it was just one- which had Kagome shivering and inching closer to Inuyasha- but then more joined into the awful chorus. Suddenly, they were all over, and the duo couldn't pinpoint where any single one was coming from. It was loud and terrifying. Inuyasha looked at her for a moment, brows furrowed. "Kagome."

Her eyes flashed to him, wide and scared. "Yes?"

"Now."

Inuyasha led her through the parking lot with one hand hovering over her back- Not quite touching her. He didn't want the mess on his hands to get on her back- and the other braced in front of him, ready to defend them if necessary. It was uneventful though, except for the loud screams in the distance, and they made it to the edge of the parking lot without trouble. Inuyasha moved in front of Kagome as they rounded the corner by the football field and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. Kagome smacked into his back before she could stop herself. She tried to lean around his shoulder to look at what had him frozen, but he seemed to snap out of whatever it was, and he turned around, quickly blocking her view and ushering her the other way. "Trust me," He told her, and there was a huskiness in his voice that she didn't like. Something raw and hard. Like he was forcing himself to speak past a lump in his throat, "You don't need to see that." His arm looped around her shoulder. He didn't even bother with keeping his hand away this time, and instead his fingers gripped her shoulder tightly. His face was hard.

She let him lead her down the hallway, her own thoughts blurring together in a vicious circle. They were racing so fast, she didn't know exactly what she was thinking. The day had started off so normal. What on earth was happening? They made their way through the open archway that led into the quad, the place where people gathered around at break, and carefully across the open area. Kagome didn't know where Inuyasha was taking her, but he obviously had some idea of where to go, because his grip on her never let up, and he never second guessed his steps.

They eventually arrived at a big building. It was made of thick stones. The only windows were high up, rimming the roof. A big mural painted the side of the building beautifully. It was a dark contrast to the situation. The screams hadn't stopped. They seemed to be resonating from every direction. New voices taking over when the old ones died down. Kagome was shaking. Her cheeks were stained with tears she couldn't remember crying. Inuyasha walked her carefully around the side of it, stopping at the old metal door around the corner. His movements were hard and jerky. He let go of her, stepping in front and trying the door. It didn't open. "Fuck." He shook it with anger. "Dammit, open!"

Kagome didn't like the frustrated look on his face. She couldn't watch him as he stepped back and kicked at it. It was strange. Almost more upsetting then what had happened only moments ago. Which, she figured, was also probably do to the shock of watching her friend get attacked. So she moved her eyes away, to other things. They were on the very edge of campus, by the street that led to the teachers parking lot. Her eyes caught on a girl across the street who seemed to be struggling to climb over her fence. Kagome's brows furrowed as she focused on the girl. She had long brown hair that got caught in her movements. Kagome couldn't understand why she wouldn't move her hair out of her way. Or open the gate for that matter. The girl's hand got stuck in her hair, at about the height of her shoulder, and she tugged, pulling on the hair. Kagome stepped closer to Inuyasha.

"H-Hey." She whispered as he kept pounding on the door, struggling to get it open. The girl across the street lifted her head, her eyes locked with Kagome's. And Kagome let out a gasp. The girl gave her hand a yank, pulling hair and bits of scalp out and began now to furiously try to get past the fence. Her eyes caught on something else a little ways down the hallway. It was a teacher. Mr. Sai. He was on his back, squirming around. She watched as he wiggled on to his stomach and lifted his head towards them.

"Inuyasha." It was urgent, now. "Inuyasha." She heard a loud moan, and turned her head back to the girl. Kagome's eyes were wide as she watched the girl give up on climbing the fence, which came to just a few inches over her head, and began to throw herself at it, hair still clinging to her wrist like a bracelet. Kagome couldn't understand how she hadn't thrown up yet.

"What!" Inuyasha growled, turning around to look at her. Kagome nodded her head toward the fenced in yard across the street, and Inuyasha turned his to look. They heard another moan, and Inuyasha's eyes found Mr. Sai, who was steadily pulling himself closer. "Fuck." He turned back around and gave three furious kicks to the door, "Open. Up. Dammit!" It did, right when Inuyasha's foot had reeled back for a fourth kick, and the boy tumbled inside, falling right into the darkness.

"Inuyasha!"