Disclaimer: No I do not own Inuyasha. That awesome privilage belongs to Romiko Takahashi. Thank you!
Sorry about the wait guys my internet was off and I just got it back.
Chapter 6: Meeting
"This place should work." Kagome said cautiously as she sprayed her bleach in a mist over the windows.
Inuyasha had found an abondoned house on the outskirts of town. It wasn't a demon living space mostly because the sewer system under the ground had exploded and left a gag inducing smell in the air. It wasn't that popular with them either but Inuyasha said he could handle it so they could too and it would be a good demon deterent.
So Inuyasha had made sure no demons were inside the tastfull, fully furnished, home and Kagome had gone in and began spraying all the windows and doors with bleach. It would serve to keep smaller demons from entering.
"It's the best we'll get." Inuyasha said walking behind her and shutting the blinds and nailing sheets over the windows. It would be dark but they didn't want demons peaking in at the tasty humans that might be sleeping.
"Where are Sango and Miroku?" she asked.
"Closing off the garage. They're spreading some gasoline we found in the lawn mower around."
"Gasoline?" Kagome asked checking the locks. They weren't effective but they made her feel better.
"Smells really bad. Demons with good noses wont like it. I don't like it and I'm halfway across the house." Inuyasha scrunched his nose in dislike.
"It's for our protection." Kagome said soothingly spraying the last window. "We're lucky we found any place at all."
"Yeah. That's true." Inuyasha said thinking about the supermarket he had been sleeping in when Kagome found him.
"So uh..." He indicated his chin toward the kitchen where the garage door was as he lowered his voice, "What do you think of those two? Three?"
Kagome shrugged. "Too early to tell. Miroku seems pretty clueless. I'm surprised he survived at all. Kirara is strong. Did you see her tranform when we got back?"
Inuyasha nodded thinking of the huge feline that had turned into a cuddly kitty-cat after being engulfed in flames upon their arrival.
"That was amazing. She would be good at disguise and she's a good fighter. Sango..." Kagome sighed. "I don't like her. But...She's good in a fight. Serious. She guarded my back despite our uh...less than nice feeling toward each other. And besides that...." She paused again as she turned the nozzle on the bottle to off. "Inuyasha, did you see? Before we ran, Sango and Miroku were covered in the same barrier that I have. It was just the same."
Inuyasha nodded again, more gravely this time. "What are the odds, that in a destroyed world three people with that power seem to find each other?"
"What are the odds that they're joined by a sane demon?" Kagome asked back.
"Half." he said automatically.
"We have to talk to them." Kagome said looking into the kitchen. "Maybe they know why we're like this. Our barriers, your powers. She said they've traveled Japan for two years. Maybe they know something."
Inuyasha shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm not interested in the 'why's and 'how's. I'm interested in survival. That's all that matters."
Kagome nodded. "It is important. But you can't say you aren't curious."
Inuyasha didn't speak as he nailed the sheet over the window. It wasn't with a hammer however. He just pushed the nail in with his thumb, as if it was pushing through butter instead of a solid wall.
"You two done?" Miroku asked walking back in and shutting the garage door behind Sango.
"Just finished. You?" Kagome asked as Inuyasha took a match and began lighting candles.
"Almost." Sango said as she began lining the doorway with a sheet. "Hey, uh...What's your name again?"
"Inuyasha." he said looking at her.
"Can you lend a hand or uh thumb." She held up her hand which was full of nails and looked at the sheets blocking the cracks.
"Sure." he shrugged and walked over. It was the first time Kagome had gotten a good look at them.
Miorku was wearing a white t-shirt with a thick black stripe on the bottom. He had ripped the sleeves off. His jeans were faded and ripped and the toes of black combat boots were sticking out from the legs. Sango looked odd. She had on black combat boots like Miroku but you could see all of them because she was also wearing black capri pants. Her breasts were covered by a simple black tube top covered by a black vest but on her elbows were a pair of pink elbow pads. Judging by how scuffed they were she used them regularly. Kagome still felt the bruises on her own elbows pulse with pain when her heartbeat from when she had ducked and dived the ogress and thought maybe Sango was the smart one.
"Alright. Thanks." Sango said after Inuyasha finished.
"No problem." he shrugged.
"Hey." Kagome called over to them as she sat on the flowered couch. She thought the house had probably belonged to an old lady. "We need to talk."
Miroku nodded and walked over, Inuyasha followed with his hands behind his head. Sango shrugged and followed.
Miroku sat on a laz-e-boy and sighed in contentment as Inuyasha sat next to Kagome. Perhaps Sango and Miroku were what they said they were but they might not be. He trusted Kagome though and if they were demons he wanted to be able to protect her so he put himself between them and her. Sango sat on the wooden coffee table and stretched as Kirara lept onto her lap.
"Alright. I guess so. Let's hurry up, I'm tired." she yawned and Kagome's eyes narrowed at her.
"Fine. First: I want to know about your barriers." Kagome said sitting back against the couch. Inuyasha was right next to her, his arm on the back of the couch behind her. Two years ago she would have felt crowded, now she was thankful for the company and the feeling of safety he brought her.
Miroku looked at her seriously and Sango shrewdly. "Yeah," she said, "I am curious about that. How is it you have the same shield we do. We've been touring Japan all this time and never found another one like us."
"I could say the same thing." Kagome said liking Sango less and less. From the look she got she could tell Sango felt more or less the same. "I never met anyone until Inuyasha."
"Yeah, about that." Miroku said looking him over. Not like he was being cruel or judgmental but like a scientist shown a new species, curious and filled with a sense of wonder. "What exactly is he? A demon?"
"Half." Kagome and Inuyasha said at the same time. Kagome giggled and Inuyasha smirked.
"Half. What do you mean half?" Miroku asked as Sango pet Kirara absently.
"Well..." Kagome trailed off not exactly sure herself. "I mean, he has demon qualities but he can also think and remember who he was. No other demon I've seen can do that."
"Part human, part demon." Inuyasha agreed.
"But how?" Miroku asked leaning forward. "What happened to you that day?"
Inuyasha sighed heavily. "Not much." His eyes turned inward as he remembered a day he would much rather forget...
Flashback
"I mean it young man!"
"Yes mom." Inuyasha said getting up out of his bed.
"This room is awful. I want it spotless" Izayoi said as Inuyasha began picking up his dirty clothes.
She left him and he dropped the clothes he was holding and fell back into bed.
He turned his head and forgot that he couldn't see out of his window because it was covered.
His brows furrowed as his vision bent as if he were looking at heat waves.
"What is that?" He asked himself quietly as goose-bumps appeared on his skin.
A cup of water, two days old, began to freeze on his bed side table. Inuyasha jumped out of bed and looked at the slow moving haze. A part of him, an instinctual part, told him that this was thing, whatever it was,was not meant for him to be messing with.
"Inuyasha, I'm coming over there and you better be cleaning that room."
"Mom." He whispered.
She couldn't be near that dangerous thing.
He turned around and ran to the door and slammed it shut.
"Inuyasha! Inuyasha, what are you doing! Open this door! Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha kept a firm grip on the handle and turned around.
The wave had gotten closer.
"Mom, get out of here!" Inuyasha yelled. That thing could travel through the storm guard on his window the door would be no problem.
"What is it? Inuyasha, what's wrong?" His mother picked up the worry in his voice. "Inuyasha!"
He cried out as the wave touched his skin. It was freezing to the point of burning his flesh.
"Inuyasha!" His mother screamed.
The pain was overwhelming but a need to save his mother kept his other hand firm on the handle even as the pain traveled up his arm and into his chest.
He screamed from the pain.
Then a bright orb shot into the room and slammed full speed into his chest.
He was thrown against the door and he cried out again. He heard his mother calling his name but his vision was going gray and she sounded as if she was trying to speak to him from the other end of a long tunnel.
Normal
"Huh..." Miroku said after Inuyasha finished speaking. "That sounds almost like Sango's story. I can't remember mine but Sango knows hers."
"What happened to you?" Kagome asked knowing that, if nothing else, they shared this saddness.
Sango sighed much like Inuyasha had done. "Well..."
Flashback
"Kirara? Kirara, what's wrong?" Sango asked.
She had been trying to sleep, hard to do with such a loud storm going on outside, when Kirara started hissing and spitting and glaring out the window. She sat up in bed and looked at her side where her precious cat, normally so tame and sweet, was acting like something out of Pet Cemetary.
Kirara made a noise Sango could only connect to a growl.
Sango looked out her window.
"What is that?" She asked feeling slightly afraid.
It was creeping in her room yet she couldn't tell you what it was.
It looked like that strange bending of air when it was hot outside. Heat waves.
Yet, as it crept closer, Sango got colder. Not just a flesh chilling cold, but a soul freezing cold. Her breath became visible and she snatched Kirara up and pushed herself against the wall.
"DAD!" Sango called and grabbed the blanket off her bed. She tried to blow the wave away but it passed through the cloth as if it weren't there.
"DAD!" she screamed again.
She looked out her window in time to see a bright ball of light shoot in from outside and slam into her chest.
Sango cried out and the pain made her drop Kirara back onto the bed.
Taking the opportunity as it was presented, the darkness covered the hissing and spitting Kirara.
She began scratching herself and squirming.
Sango collapsed onto her bed just as Kirara's legs gave out.
Normal
There was silence in the room. It was a ringing silence that was louder than than noise somehow.
"So..." Inuyasha said at last, "Your cat," he looked at Kirara, "turned demon but you didn't. How come she didn't go crazy?"
Sango shrugged. "Miroku says it was because we were so close. Her love for me and mine for her preserved her mind." Her cheeks turned red. "Corny huh?" she laughed nervously and Kagome could see she believed Miroku's theory. She cleared her throat. "What uh...What about you? Kagome."
Kagome shrugged. "I could have been hit by a light. There was an earthquake at the time so my eyes were closed and I was focused on not falling. I remember pain before I blacked out but I didn't see anything."
Miroku nodded. "I think that's it then. The blue light. It must have saved us three and gotten to Inuyasha in time to stop the progress of the curse. Saved him but unable to fix the damage already done. No offense." He said hurriedly.
Inuyasha shrugged, uncaring. "None taken. Not that I'm complaining."
Kagome smiled at him. "I guess so. The light, huh. That's only if me and you were hit Miroku."
He shrugged. "Seems like a good theory to me."
Inuyasha yawned then, so big that Kagome heard his jaw crack.
"Look, it's been a long night. A long way too exciting night." Kagome said. "We're tired, unable to think right. We'll talk more in the morning when the demons are sleeping again."
Miroku nodded in agreement and Sango stood up with Kirara clutched in her hands. "Finally."
Kagome's eyes narrowed again.
"We call the master bedroom." Inuyasha smirked.
Sango sighed. "Fine. We'll take the guest." She grabbed a candle and started down the hall with Miroku.
Inuyasha smirked as she and Miroku walked down the hall murmering together. Something about wandering hands and castration.
Inuyasha shrugged and decided he didn't care.
Kagome sighed and crossed her arms. "What is it about her that ticks me off?"
Inuyasha chuckled and stood up. "She's competition." He grabbed the other candle.
"Competition?" Kagome asked standing and following him to the master bedroom.
"Sure." he said. "I'm a dog demon. I know these things."
"Half." Kagome smiled. "And what do you mean?"
He opened the door and let her in before shutting it and locking it firmly. He still didn't trust Sango and Miroku.
"Well..." he thought for a second as he set the candle on the bedside.
Old lady or not, whoever owned the house had excelent taste in mastresses. When Kagome sat on it she nearly purred from the comfort.
Kagome kneeled down and took off her shoes as Inuyasha tried to explain.
"I guess it's like...The alpha. Remember the ogre pack? The alpha male, who I fought, and the alpha female who you fought." he asked pushing the blanket down the matress.
"Yeah?" Kagome said uncertain as she took off her bag.
"Well, you were like the alpha female. You ruled everything and ruled what was best for your pack even if it was only you." he explained.
"But I liked you." Kagome protested deciding to take off her stockings too.
"Because I'm not a female." he said immediatly. "Work with me on the terms, okay? When I joined your pack, as there were no other males, I became alpha male. I don't mind Miroku because I know he's no threat to the position. But Sango? She's strong and willfull like you. You can sense she can fight you for alpha position and you don't like her because of it."
Kagome 'hmm'ed in the back of her throat as she stored her socks in her shoes. "Maybe. It actually sounds right." She chuckled. "I can't believe it. I'm turning into a demon."
"You're not." Inuyasha said climbing into the bed and smiling at the comfort. "Just defending your position as pack leader."
Kagome laughed and laid back and Inuyasha threw the blanket over them both. She didn't know why, but without questions they had both decided to sleep together like before. Nothing but company from a friend. Sighing, content this time, she curled up next to him, happy at his body heat.
"How do you know anyway?" she asked looking into his golden eyes.
He shrugged. "I didn't really like Miroku either until I realized he was no threat to me. Then I didn't mind him so much. I figured the same might hold true for you." He turned around and blew out a deep breath and the tiny flame disappeared leaving only his eyes as tiny lights in the dark.
"Good night, Inuyasha." Kagome said snuggling closer.
"Night." he said yawning again.