The Smell of Gunpowder

Disclaimer: I own nothing, Inuyasha and all characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi. All brand names are owned by their own owners. Once again, I own nothing.

Summary - Kagome, Sango, Rin, and Ayame are all moving from the small town to the Big City for their new jobs at Taishou Defensive Technology and Weaponry. Who would have thought they would be entering a modern day war for power?

"speaking"

'thinking'

Chapter 2

Kagome woke up to new surroundings and began to stretch. 'reminder, don't fall asleep in car if you can help it next time'. She looked to her left and saw Ayame behind the wheel. "How long have I been out?"

"About 2 hours. You fell asleep just after the last pit stop. We are almost there."

Kagome looked out at the city and couldn't help but stare at how much larger all of the buildings were here than in her home town. She looked in the back seat to see Sango curled up on the seat with her head resting on Rin's lap and Rin looking out the rear window with a shocked look on her face. 'probably thinking the same thing I was'. Kagome looked back at Ayame and saw she was listening to the radio. 'It's strange to think the 4 of us, so different, would be so close. I know with all of the bad in our lives. Me losing my dad. Sango losing her parents. Ayame's being complete assholes and even Rin's had problems. Who would have guesses after all the time together that we would be moving in together in the same town and working at the same place? Too bad I don't know what the job is.'

Kagome was brought out of her thoughts by Ayame's hand waving in front of her face. "Yo Kags you in there?"

"Yeah sorry, just thinking about all this. It really is amazing we haven't killed each other by now. We have been through so much together."

"Yeah well. With your mom adopting all of us and all, it is kind of expected I guess. Though I can't believe Kaede found us all Jobs that go with our degrees from Tokyo U. That women is a miracle worker."

Kagome shook her head in agreement as she noticed Sango had come back to this plane of consciousness, though she hadn't removed her head from Rin's lap yet.

"You guys remember Ayame's first game cheerleading?"

Ayame blushed deeply at this as Rin and Kagome giggled quietly. "Yeah I remember it. You were so excited Ayame."

"Well, how was I supposed to know I had to wear those short things under my skirt, I thought everyone was just wearing their underwear." She blushed even darker as the other three girls, Sango now sitting up, burst into another fit of giggles. "Since you brought it up Sango, how about your first Volleyball game, you remember right. The one where Kagome set you up a perfect Spike and you hit the ball right into their coaches' face."

It was Sango's turn to blush this time. "I didn't know my own strength, besides; he shouldn't have been so close to the line, he was practically in the game anyway!"

"Not quite Sango, I remember that game, you hit that ball quite a distance from the line." Kagome began laughing at her own comment.

"You are supposed to back me up on this Kagome. How about at our first Swim Meet where your suit rid up between your butt cheeks and you didn't realize it until you got on the board and bent over to take your dive?" Sango fired back at Kagome, trying to get her in on the joke as well.

"I had forgotten about that until now. Thanks Sango!" Kagome was as red as a tomato and not so happy about that particular embarrassing moment.

"Don't worry Kagome I got your back on this one. Hey Sango, how about at your first Track Meet when you went to push off the blocks they put for you and instead of you going forward your blocks went back?" Ayame not wanting to be outdone fired back at Sango.

"Hey, That was not funny. That really hurt."

"I'll say it did, you went straight down on your face." Rin said to herself. All of the other occupants turned to look at her as she felt their eyes on her. She turned from the window to see them all grinning, even Ayame, who was currently driving the vehicle. "Hey, I didn't have any of those embarrassing moments in high school like you did. I didn't play any sports. I enjoyed the stage and danced." She looked at them triumphantly.

Sango had a sly look on her face before she spoke. "That is true; you didn't have any of those in High School. But at Tokyo U was a completely different story. Hey Ayame, remember when Rin was first doing drawing classes and she had her first nude model. Even though the professor told her not to, she still drew him in the full." Sango grinned widely.

Rin turned 10 shades of red remembering that day. She really hadn't known she wasn't supposed to draw ALL of him. She thought it was for a grade.

Kagome sensing her distress called an end to the game. "Alright girls, let's not get too into this. I think we are close to the house. "As she said this, sure enough the house came into view from a couple blocks away. The moving truck was still outside and it seemed like the movers were still carrying in boxes.

"Well it looks like they are a lot slower at unloading than loading up huh?" Sango joked at the girls.

"Who knows, I fell asleep half way through the drive, and knowing how fast you drive. Were lucky you didn't beat them to the house" Kagome said looking pointedly at Sango.

Sango looked away as they pulled up to the house. As they pulled the car into the driveway at their new house, they couldn't help but stare at it. It was lucky they got a house like this. It wasn't overly large, but more than large enough for their needs. About 2000 square feet. 2 stories. The upstairs had the 4 bedrooms with 2 of the bathrooms. Each set of 2 rooms shared a bathroom. They had agreed that Sango and Kagome would have one set of the bedrooms and share that bath while Ayame and Rin would have the other set and the other bathroom upstairs. The only other bathroom was downstairs and it was decided to be the guest bathroom. Not that any of them planned to be bringing many guests around; especially with the jobs that Kaede had promised them. It had a kitchen, a single car garage, as well as a laundry room, living room area and a den/ dining area as well. Overall it wasn't anything fancy, but it was homely and cute. Exactly what the girls had wanted when Mama had bought the house to begin with.

They all got out of the SUV and proceeded to stretch and yawn. Kagome and Sango walked over to the movers. "Hey guys, how is it going so far?"

"Well we are just finishing with the last few boxes now. Not bad, oh here is your key back" he handed the key to Kagome. "Nice place. Per your Grandfather's instructions we went ahead and set up the beds in each of your rooms we didn't know where the sheets were but we figured you all would take care of that." He then looked over at his men walking out of the front door and giving him a thumbs-up gesture. "Well that is it ladies. Everything is in the living room and waiting for you. Will you be paying us in cash or check?"

"Mama should be covering that, we will be sure to let her know to give you something extra for the extra work. Thanks for setting up the beds, you really didn't have to."

"It's no problem really; we get requests like that all the time. Well, we will get out of your way, have a good night and be safe." He shook Sango's and Kagome's hand while the others were waving goodbye to the other girls.

As the truck drove off Ayame backed the SUV into the garage and they began the long task of unpacking everything that they had brought and trekking it upstairs to all of their rooms.

After all of the unpacking they had found the sheets in a box labeled "Sheets" yet none of them could remember packing that. "Must have been Mama" Rin said to the girls smiling softly. They had all gone and put the sheets on their beds for later that night and then they had all gone around the house moving little things such as tables and lamps, small furniture that they knew where it would go no matter what. After that they had all gone up to the bathrooms and began organizing things. When Sango checked her watch again it was 1130.

"Hey guys, what do you say we call it a night, get some sleep and start again in the morning?"

"Hell yes I am beat." Kagome called from her room. "Dibs on first shower!"

"Darn you Kagome" All of the other girls groaned, and then Rin remembered they had 3 bathrooms.

"I call our bathroom" Rin called out.

"I call the one downstairs!" Ayame called out just before Sango did.

"I hate you all." The other girls made their way to the bathrooms to shower and wash up. Sango decided to head downstairs and check out the backyard, despite the fact it was pretty small and fenced in, she was more than happy to have it. At the Shrine she had always loved being outdoors and playing sports. It wasn't that she didn't like being inside and comfortable, but she loved having some form of nature around her and would do anything to protect it. She walked out the backdoor and onto the back porch, down the steps and onto the freshly cut grass. She remembered hearing about the phone call from Kaede to Mama asking if they would be interested in a job in a high paying business, It wasn't the best job in the world, but it was a great place to start and would put them with some of the greatest minds in the history of Japan. They would begin working Monday morning at Taishou Defensive Technology and Weaponry. They had always heard about it growing up. It was owned and run by Inu no Taishou, the founder of the company. In the many years since it had been running, It had developed and created many weapons and defensive technology. Both for human and demon kind. Sango shivered at that thought. This would be all of their first real contact with demons. Sure they had heard of them growing up, but in their town, demons were a rarity. Here in Yukata, it was completely different. Demons flocked here to get work and be around others like themselves. 'I wonder if we will be able to tell them apart from humans, I heard that some of them look just like humans.' The thought disturbed Sango more than she would dare say, not because she was afraid of them, but because she couldn't rely on her eyes alone to tell a human from a demon. She was brought out of her thoughts by Ayame coming out the back door.

"Hey Sango, Kags is out of the shower if you want to go grab yours." She looked down at Sango, who seemed to be deep in thought. "you alright there sis?"

"Yeah, just thinking about how different the city is from our little town we grew up in. I am happy we at least have a tree in our backyard." She looked over at the large Tree that took up a corner of their backyard and looked at it fondly. Suddenly feeling chilly, she hadn't realized how cold it got at night around this town; It was going into Fall after all. They had gotten the phone call from Kaede at the end of July and now, just over a month later they were in the house their Mama had bought for them all without even blinking. Sango smiled at that thought and stood up.

"Well, the city may be different, but different doesn't mean bad right? Plus we just got here, give it a little time, we haven't even explored it yet." Ayame put an arm around her sister and walked her into the house once again. "Now go get your shower and let's get some rest, we have some serious unpacking to do tomorrow if we are going to start work on Monday. Okay?"

"Alright Sis" Sango walked into the house and went upstairs to take her shower.

Around midnight all of the sisters had settles in for bed and shortly had all fallen into deep slumbers of excitement and nervousness about the next several days of their new lives.

Ayame awoke the next day to sound of working downstairs and the sweet smell of coffee being brewed downstairs. She sat up in bed and stretched. She proceeded to change into a set of grey sweats and a white tank top; she also put her red hair up in a high ponytail. Ayame made her way downstairs and saw her sisters busy in the kitchen. Rin was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt, her black hair was loose and stopped just before her shoulders. Rin turned her chocolate brown eyes onto Ayame's green ones and smiled brightly.

"Morning Sis, I just made coffee so help yourself, Kags and Sango are in the living room moving some of the furniture around and looking into getting their personal affects moved up into their rooms. We decided it would be fair if everyone carried their own boxes to their rooms alright?"

Ayame's smile faltered a little 'why did I have to pack so many boxes again? I'm sure Mama could have kept most of my stuff.' Sigh 'oh well'. "That is fine Rin, and I think I will take that cup of coffee."

"There you go" Rin handed her a fresh cup of coffee made how she liked it. Sugar and no Cream.

Ayame blew lightly on the coffee before thanking Rin again and walking into the living room. She was slightly shocked to see Sango and Kagome had already set up the living room, right down to the throw pillows on the couches and the throw rugs on the floor. Ayame was happy they had hired that cleaning and landscaping companies to come and trim the grass and clean the house the week before they came to move in. It made things a lot easier moving into a freshly cleaned house. "How's it going? Need any help?"

"Oh hey Ayame, good to see you up." Kagome greeted Ayame; she was wearing black shorts and a white tank as well. Her long raven hair pulled into a ponytail. She turned her eyes to Sango who was wearing blue sweats and a black t-shirt with her black hair in a ponytail as well. "Anything else we need to do before we start unpacking our personal stuff?"

"Well we still have to unpack all of the kitchen ware and utensils. Why don't you and Rin take care of that Ayame while Kagome and I focus on getting the boxes upstairs and into each of our rooms to unpack tomorrow?" Sango glanced over at Ayame who had a questioning look on my face.

"Rin said I had to carry that stuff upstairs by myself though. She said you all had decided on it."

Kagome lifted her head up from the box she was currently rummaging through. "We never decided that."

Just then Rin came around the corner holding 3 cups of coffee, one for Kagome, Sango, and one for herself. She looked at Ayame and beamed with delight "gotcha". She grinned wider when all of the girls just looked at her awkwardly. Sometimes she could be really special.

The girls spend the rest of that Saturday morning setting up the house furniture and moving all of the boxes that needed to go upstairs up there. They had set up the living room with their set of vanilla leather couch, love seat, and recliner set as well as a flat screen plasma on the wall. They had also set up their DVD player and the Wii they had for the group. They didn't play a lot of video games, but all of the girls valued staying in shape, plus what is more fun than Wii Bowling right?

The girls had also set up their individual rooms and had begun unpacking their personal affects and clothes into their closets and dressers. Each of their rooms had their beds, dressers, bedside tables, desks and lamps. They each also had their own personal laptops and cell phones that they kept charged in their rooms. Overall at about 3 in the afternoon, they were more or less done.

Kagome came walking down the stairs and saw Sango lounging in the living room with a bottle of water. She went to the kitchen and was happy to see it had been set up like they had wanted. She grabbed a bottle of water and walked into the living room. She plopped down onto the love seat and looked at Sango. "Any more that needs to be unpacked or are we done?"

"We are done with the general stuff." Sango said tiredly. "We just need to go shopping somewhere now and buy all of the necessities for the house. Groceries and toiletries and such."

Ayame walked in stretching lazily. "Well my room is as done as it's gonna get for now." She sat down next to Sango on the couch. She was followed by Rin shortly and she sat down in the recliner and looked at her sisters and roommates.

"Well, we still have a lot of day light left, want to go get cleaned up and go find a local store to buy the things we need.?" They all agreed and headed upstairs to get changed.

30 minutes later they were in the SUV heading down the road. They were pleasantly surprised to find a full shopping center about 10 minutes away from their house. Complete with a Domino's Pizza, as well as a grocery store and other various stores around the vicinity. The girls did their shopping for groceries and such and headed back to their house.

"Well, maybe this place isn't so bad after all; back at home it would have taken us twice as long to get to a store." Rin said happily as she carried stuff in through the garage door into the kitchen.

All of the girls brought in their necessities and put it away. They had decided to get a pizza and have it delivered. The girls surfed the channels until they found a movie on and when the pizza came. They paid the delivery man and enjoyed their first real meal in the house together.

Several hours later, the girls decided to call it a night and retired to their rooms for a good night sleep to relax the next day before their big day Monday morning.

TBC

That is Chapter 2. Hope you enjoyed it. Feel Free to Review. Next Chapter coming soon.