D.G.: ….Hi? Ahh, thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter! It's very encouraging.
And I am extremely sorry for the unexpected(ly) long hiatus…our English teacher is merciless when dealing out projects…she's dealt another one out as we speak x.x
Legend: "talk"
'thought'
disclaimer: well, if I owned these, I wouldn't be writing a FANfic now would I?
Chaptre 3 (A Chance Encounter--part 2)
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Kurama looked where Kuronue was pointing and noticed that Kagome was indeed going to the center square. They moved toward her and saw her watching the dancers and looking around. Kurama looked at Kuronue, grinned, and went off to speak to hanyou beauty walking in front of him while Kuronue, who had experienced this type of thing before, went off to find a good place to watch as the fun began.
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Kuronue decided to seat himself on a nearby shop roof. 'Heh…this ought to be interesting.' He smirked to himself as he watched his long time partner and friend attempt to hit on the raven-haired hanyou.
Kagome continued to look around her, until a sudden flash of silver caught her eyes.
'Inuyasha..?' Was her first thought. Then she got angry at herself. 'No, can't think of that jerk again.' Then calming, 'Besides, he's too tall, and it certainly can't be Sesshoumaru because of the ears on his head.' Then she lost herself in thought and forgot all about the silver-haired youkai who had come to stand in front of her.
Kurama came to stand in front of the hanyou woman, but she had taken no notice of him and had a distant glazed look in her eyes, which were focused on the ground before her feet. He looked curiously at her, and finally trying to catch her attention, he cleared his throat.
"May I ask you to dance?" (A/N: cheesy! xDDDD) He asked, offering his hand.
Kuronue chuckled. He watched as Kurama tried to get the girls attention, and clearing his throat when he failed. The girl had looked startled and almost fallen on her rear (and what a nice rear it was...) as she stepped back. Luckily, Kurama had caught her, but then…
Kurama sweatdropped as he saw her almost fall and quickly reached forward to catch her. At the same time, she grabbed for the nearest thing in an attempt to right herself, which was Kurama's extended arm. This only succeeded in unbalancing Kurama too, who had been surprised at her grabbing at him so suddenly, and she fell backwards, while he fell forwards…onto her.
Or he would have. If Kuronue hadn't chosen to grab the back of Kurama's shirt to stop both of them from falling over. Kurama looked over his shoulder and glared at a grinning Kuronue.
After he righted the two younger demons, Kuronue took it upon himself to make his name known. He turned to Kagome and bowed with flourish as he spoke
"I am Kuronue."
Kagome blushed slightly at the gesture. Kuronue grinned, and asked
"And you are?"
At this point, Kurama realized that he didn't know her name either.
"Ah…I'm Kagome…" she replied, somewhat hesitantly.
"A pleasure to have met you, dear Kagome." Kuronue said. He glanced at his partner "And I see you've already met my friend Kurama here? Well then, I'll leave you two then." Turning to Kurama, "I'm heading back to the lair. See you there." and disappeared from sight, only to appear on a nearby rooftop to look over his shoulder to raise a hand in farewell, and flit away again.
After staring irritably at his friend, he turned back to Kagome who was looking back curiously after Kuronue; he examined her features (her facial features) and noticed her eyes were an unusually brilliant shade of blue-gray. He was so engrossed by her eyes that he didn't notice her look back at him.
"Um…"
Kurama was brought out of his thoughts by a hand waving in front of his face and came to. To cover up for his fault, he brought up the most charming smile he could and said to her
"Ah, my apoglogies." He glanced at the moon's position, now nearly at it's peak in the sky and continued "but I'm afraid I must be going. My partner will be waiting for me."
And with that he swept a bow, stepped forward to deliver a swift, chaste kiss to her lips, and fled to the top of a nearby light post, bathed in an ethereal glow by the almost-full moon for a moment, then vanished into the night.
ooooooooooooomgscenechangeooooooooooooooooo
'Partner? Oh that's right…I remember the dark one…Kuronue? saying that they were partners who ran something together…' thought Kagome as she watched Kurama make his exit.
Shrugging this off, she decided to explore. Feeling quite awake all of a sudden, Kagome made her way through the crowds of people, still as thick as when the festival first started, grabbing a couple of bread loaves from a food stall and tucking them away into a separate compartment in the bag she had received from the shopkeeper who had also given her her new set of clothes. She made her way to the edge of town, and walked on through the forest she had passed straight through earlier, and reentered.
Kagome traced her steps back to the lake she had found earlier, and kneeling at the edge, decided to wash her dirtied school uniform there. Leaving her laundry out on a flat rock for the warm night air to dry, she decided that the water was warm enough to bathe in, and did so.
After drying herself off, she found her uniform had dried for the most part, then packed it away.
' I wonder what's around here? I don't see anything but forest.' Upon these thoughts, she began to explore.
-sigh- "Trees, trees, and more trees! And oh wait, bush!" she sighed in frustration as there seemed to be no end to the lovely but tiring greenery. "Isn't there anything else in thi—ahhHHHHH!" Kagome shrieked as she fell through a hole that suddenly appeared out of nowhere under her feet. She slid down through the hole that opened up into a chute to land in a heap on a bed of soft moss.
"Oww..." Kagome winced as she righted herself and tried to figure out where she had landed. "Hope there's nothing in here that eats me. Knowing my luck though, I'm probably not gonna be that lucky."
As she looked around, she found that she was in an underground room, so she made her way to the exit, which had no door. Finding that it opened up into a larger tunnel, and not really wanting to stay where she could be found and eaten, she attempted to find her way out.
After a bit of wandering, and discovering that the place seemed to be deserted (at least for the moment), she began to explore with more enthusiasm. The further she went, the more the halls began to show that someone did indeed live here. Polished wood doors and furniture, fresh flowers in vases delicately arranged. At one point she stepped into a room that seemed to be the storehouse of the place. Raising an eyebrow at this, she left the room and went on to discover a set of larger oaken doors with intricate carvings and throwing all caution to the wind, decided to enter (Apparently, she had once again realized that she was a demon and would stand a fighting chance against something if it were to attack her, especially with her miko powers still in her control).
Kagome, tired from the looooonnng walk that she had taken and from lack of decent sleep in the past few days, opened the doors hoping for a place where she could rest. Instead, she found something else entirely.
Actually, it was a many someone elses entirely. She had walked in on a whole dining room of demons, all who chatting cheerfully with their neighbors, yet had a rather hardened look about them. The realization that they must be thieves dawned upon her, and she tried to back out of the room slowly, but it was too late. She had been spotted, and the band of thieves turned to look at her, some already beginning to rise, and they looked angry. But you know, it was just from her point of view.
Avi: Ok, it looks like this chapter will be 3 parts long. And it's just getting to the best part! (awww!) I'll plug away on the next chapter and hopefully I'll have it up by the end of next week, I'll try my best! We don't have any more projects coming up, so I hope I can post again soon! Once again, sorry for the long delay! –bows-
