Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha OR this story. Please refer to the 'Story Note' before chapter 1. Thanks.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 6118 AD, V.E.O. ACADEMY, NEO TOKYO, JAPAN
The next day was only slightly better. Miroku ate with her again, ignoring Inuyasha's darkling looks, and Sasaki only directly insulted her in front of the entire class two or three times. Professor Tenaka was pleased with the studying she'd put in—she'd taken about two more hours to go over all of her subjects after the detention and gone to bed by eleven—and told her that, at the rate she was going, she would be far enough along to take the midterm test in two weeks. After that, another three weeks and she'd probably be caught up with the class. Kagome silently reminded herself to try a book scan—taking in information directly, as she'd done with The Manual—on the textlog, though it took several scanning sessions to completely memorize a book. She'd been lucky to get by on just one when Sasaki had grilled her.
In combat training, Arakawa moved her into the same group as Inuyasha and Miroku, showing her the different drills and exercises they were using. Fortunately, he also sensed the tension between her and Inuyasha and avoided making them work together, despite the fact that they were supposed to be partners.
In AFT, Kagome was left to struggle with the simulation for the entire period, under Toutousai's command. He hadn't been able to come to her first class, but he co-taught with Kaede, and he'd heard about her disastrous first attempt. The boys were sent out in actual Dragonships to work on drills, but she had to stay behind, which deflated what was left of her ego even further. PT Bio was fine; Miroku ate dinner with her again, and Psionics was as fun as before.
This time, without detention, she had an hour to herself. The dock on top of the school wasn't off bounds, and she wanted to go up there again, so there she went.
Winds buffeted her ferociously the minute she stepped out of the transportation shaft, sending her braid whipping to her right like a thick black rope. She ignored them and walked to an edge with a railing, staring out. There were perhaps five other buildings as tall as this one, and then one enormous one in the center of the city that reared far over anything she'd seen before. A domed roof, illuminated by brilliant lights to glow like a golden drop in the dark night, called to mind another dome from another time, but she couldn't remember it at all.
She closed her stinging eyes, feeling the ground so far beneath her, the wind on her face, and inhaled, feeling something run down her face. This flying sensation—it was nothing compared to what she had once felt, she knew that, and yet nothing came to mind. She remembered soaring somehow, climbing into the sky and diving again, the swift, clinging dampness of a cloud, the feeling of nothing but the raw sun on her face, with only the atmosphere and the distance between her and their star. She remembered flying with her sisters, plunging through thick fog and chasing a rainbow, being taken along on lesser emergencies incase one day she would be able to fly too—
There was a noise behind her, and she whirled around, finding nothing. Hurriedly, she scrubbed at her face, wondering if it had been her imagination, then walked over to the transportation shaft, departing.
Inuyasha watched her go from behind a Dragonship, reluctantly noticing the tearstains on her face.
But she'd been at his thinking spot, here on the top of the school, and he'd had to wait for her to go. Part of him pointed out how immature he was being, but he ignored it.
So what if she'd been crying? He didn't care.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20—THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 6118 AD, V.E.O. ACADEMY, NEO TOKYO, JAPAN
The next two days were about the same. She struggled valiantly to catch up, catching every biting retort to an insult or derisive comment and stuffing it under a seemingly calm exterior that was getting closer and closer to cracking. She was getting better at the simulation, but not by much. Constant study of The Manual was helping, as were the two sheets that had to have been shoved under her door. One was a diagram of the standard Dragonship control panel and cockpit, with every switch labeled neatly, the page number where The Manual covered that switch right beside it. The other was a paper that had been folded in half twice, opening to a spread of about three feet long and two feet wide. On it were inked three different illustrations of a standard-model Dragonship, a view from the top, the bottom, and the side, one in each corner. In the fourth corner were close-ups of different parts, such as the main thruster, the gears and levers connected to the steering handle, different weapons, and so on. It now was tacked to the wall of her bedroom, along with the cockpit diagram, and she studied it every night, doing her best to commit it all to memory, because there was no way she could take it to Sasaki's class. His animosity towards her was lessening with all the speed of a glacier, and this would be another way she had an 'advantage' over the boys.
Inuyasha was doing his best to ignore her, other than send her the nasty look every once in a while, but his resentment of her still grew. She had screwed over any chances of him climbing the ranks in the military, and without her he'd still be the best at everything. His mind hadn't registered the fact that she wasn't the best at everything, not yet; he refused to see that most of what she'd known about martial arts had been forgotten; that any psionic spells and methods used past 3080, she didn't know; that when it came to flying a regular Dragonship, at least on the simulator, she was still a klutz; that Miroku was the only one to consent to eat with her; that her lack of knowledge concerning Dragonships was almost frighteningly lacking; a thousand more things that were against her right now, those he refused to acknowledge. Instead, his anger focused on her as the one real problem in his life.
When Miroku was serving a lunch detention and no one was there to eat with her on Thursday, Kagome had an opportunity to let her anger simmer, not just at Sasaki but at her partner who was anything but. They didn't fly together, didn't even talk if he could help it, and he was treating her as if she was a scrap of something old and smelly. At this point, she was getting close to losing it and letting him have it, which was not she wanted and not how partners were supposed to act. But she was going to have to keep her temper in check if she was going to make the best of this situation. She shoved another anger under her emotional shield and went back to stabbing at her food.
Something Kaede had said to her echoed in her mind, stirring something in her. "Not that I'm saying you should just roll over and let him pick at you, but he sees you as having an advantage…" Inuyasha resented her, that was for sure, and she was letting him. She couldn't prove to him that she wasn't competition; all she could do was prove to him that she wasn't going to roll over.
It escalated to near the breaking point in Psionics. Professor Hanesuzu had finished that night's lesson early and decided to let them play a game called 'Lift.' The rules were that someone began by lifting an object psionically, and then the next person either lifted it or was eliminated. After one round, the eliminated players would pick the next object within reason, until only two people were left, and then they would go back and forth, lifting whatever they could until they came to something only one of them could lift. The most one person had done was Professor Hanesuzu's desk. Miroku began, pointing at an eraser on the WhiteScreen and making it float up a bit. Only two people couldn't lift it, and they chose a mug on the desk next. It would take precision and caution—lifting was easy; not crushing it would be difficult, along with not breaking it when they set it down. Miroku, Kagome, and ten others passed that round. Items like binders, bags, and chairs were lifted and lowered, people sitting each round, until finally it was down to Inuyasha and Kagome, the two strongest psions in the school.
Inuyasha started the round by flicking a red-orange gaze over Kagome's shoulder to Professor Hanesuzu's heavy chair, which lifted into the air a few feet, then slowly dropped. Kagome didn't even turn around, eyes narrowing at him, and a second later it floated higher and was lowered swiftly.
He scowled fiercely. She glared back, trying to still the shaking in her knees. She was standing up for herself. It was a good thing.
Next, she lifted an empty desk. He matched that easily, muttering, "That's supposed to be difficult?"
His next choice was a statue in the corner. It was small but heavy, no easy target. Kagome lifted it with ease after he had, then lifted up the Comprojector, a weighty and unwieldy piece of machinery. Inuyasha had a bit of trouble making it levitate, to the whistles of his classmates.
That set it off. He sent a burning look to the Professor's desk, which creaked dangerously, staying in place, and then perilously lifted a few inches into the air, then dropped again. The boys hooted, sending grins at each other. It was about to get good.
Miroku blinked, wondering if Inuyasha had forgotten how Kagome had thrown around big honking pieces of equipment in the hospital room with little to no trouble and certainly no thought.
Kagome didn't even look at it, and it rose a foot, then lazily lowered, touching gently down. Not a pencil rolled off, not a paper fluttered. Appreciative whistles and claps filled the room.
Inuyasha threw an arm out, and all the desks rose into the air, the bags shooting up alongside them, until they came to a halt and hung six feet in the air, then descended after a moment. Sweat had broken out on his face, and even Professor Hanesuzu looked amazed.
Giving her a snide grin, he shot, "Top that."
While he was still watching her for an answer, she spat just as venomously, "I already have."
Inuyasha turned, bewildered, to find the desks floating a few inches from the ceiling, the bags hovering tenuously at the side once more: exactly what he'd done. What he hadn't done was make the chairs and everyone seated in one float near the ceiling as well, their occupants either gripping the edges for dear life or staring, stunned, at each other and grinning foolishly. Miroku himself was watching Kagome and noting the lights beginning to flicker, usually not a good sign.
The Comprojector rose unsteadily, then the professor's chair, then the statue. And then, groaning like an old tree, even the enormous desk rose, until only Inuyasha, Kagome, and the professor herself were left on the floor. Everything else was floating.
Kagome lowered it all, eyes closed, and after a moment everybody sprang to their feet, cheering. Some even had the audacity to come up and clap her on the back, her eyes flying open in astonishment. A smile spread across her face as they congratulated her, more people crowding around her, chattering about how they'd never seen anything like it and how it was no wonder Naraku had to watch out for her.
The crowning moment was when someone—a boy from England, if she remembered correctly, named Lawrence, who was a year older than her—asked casually if she wanted to eat breakfast at his table so she could show him how she'd stopped all that sound that one time, assuring her he hadn't been one of the 'idiot babblers', as he called them. No one had even noticed that class was over and they could go.
Unseen by anyone but Kagome, Inuyasha shoved his binder in his bag and stormed out. Her heart sank as she realized she had done exactly what she shouldn't have in defeating him in front of the entire class and adding another bruise on his already sore pride.
Rolling her eyes mentally, she brushed it off. It was either let herself be trampled on so Inuyasha could feel good about himself, which obviously hadn't been working fantastically well due to his continual insistence on ignoring her and Miroku, or show her mettle at the right time and at the right place and win respect, even if it was only from one class.
Still, deep down, she felt a little bad.
FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 6118 AD, V.E.O ACADEMY, NEO TOKYO, JAPAN
"It's settled," Hime Gohoshi said through the VidScreen, addressing Principal Ginme and the Head Commander. "The Emperor has no time for a full-on Council until a month from now. Hopefully, by then, Kagome will be fully oriented here—"
"And have gained a little more self-confidence," Kaede muttered.
"—and more comfortable in her surroundings, as well as adjusted to the school life," Hime Gohoshi finished amiably. For an elderly woman, she was a lot sharper than her sleepy façade let on, and all three women knew it. "The Council will be called, but only the Representatives of the Planets, the Psionic King, and the Emperor will attend. Kagome's awakening must remain a secret."
Both women nodded solemnly, and Principal Ginme said wryly, "Well, looks like the boys haven't found another way to blow themselves up yet."
Right on cue, a resounding boom rolled throughout the school, followed by distant cheers.
Principal Ginme put her hand in her heads, and Commander Kaede let out a long sigh, gazing heavenward.
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