AN: I accidentally edited chapter eleven, thinking that was what I was updating. Then I realized it was chapter ten. I felt all sad, and then I realized… this whole chapter is pretty much about Miroku. Isn't it grand? Six pages devoted almost entirely to our favorite vampire. ::sighs:: It's just what you need when you feel lonely. (My boyfriend just visited me for the weekend, and he just left… I feel sad… but he left me his shirt to wear so he still seems close. ::smiles stupidly::

… Wow. I just made this thing do a happy face... Word rocks! ::Is easily entertained::

Furu Iku: I can't say I hate her, but I hate what the media has done to her and what she has allowed to be done to herself. I'm sorry, but just because you don't want to put out a "childish" image it doesn't mean you have to screw chairs or wear very little clothes. And yes, I can guarantee that when they get together, it will be very hot….

Fireblade: Wait till chapter eleven! It proves to you how many CSI episodes I've seen.

Siren: I love Latin dances as well. There's something about them that makes women look beautiful, mainly, I think, because the moves that they have are designed for women. I mean, just the basic three step makes hip move like… like butter on a hot knife!! ::rereads what she wrote and sweatdrops:: I really do need to work on my analogies.

Starzki: You know, that is a very good point. A bit of Kouga fluff could very well lighten the scenario when things get dark.. ::starts fooling with the plot to see if its possible::

Aamalie: Yes… sexxah bizzotch… :;wonders:: I realize that this story might not be as fluffy as DW, but hopefully the plot twists and the drama will make up for it.

Lily Thorne: Meh, I'd tell you about chapter nineteen, but I got writer's block. Hopefully I can fix it. My school library rents Buffy, so maybe I'll rent a whole season or something.

Ninalee-chan and her office: I love all of you! ::giggles: You guys are all so cute! And don't worry. After much discussion with some of my creative friends, we have come to a conclusion that involves everyone being in character and coming to a happy ending. (And thank you for the congrats… hopefully my other ones will be just as good as I need to maintain a 75 average and that 68 really isn't helping.)

Liz ou: He did get beaten up in the end of the last chapter by Sango and Kouga. ::smiles::

Enjoy, everyone!!

Chapter Ten: The King of the School

Saturday, September 23rd, 11:12 pm

Miroku rubbed his tired eyes as he sat hunched over another book, the jade box sitting in front of the large book Inuyasha had borrowed from Kagome. Miroku would have liked to spill his heart to his friend, but Inuyasha was not around lately. Miroku didn't know where Inuyasha had gone, although he could pick up colors of distress and apprehension whenever their paths crossed. What was so deeply troubling Inuyasha, Miroku knew not.

He sucked at a blood pack, wishing that he could go off and hunt, but the books that Inuyasha had brought were just as good as blood. He just wished that the blood packs tasted a little bit better. Yawning, Miroku tried to ignore the memories that had been surfacing lately, since he had started hunting for information on the jade box, and had been dancing—both literally and figuratively—with Sango.

---

"Father!" Miroku was barely able to run in the sandals he wore. They were generally made for walking, not for running frantically. The rocks and sticks being thrown by the mob around them stung him, slapped him, bruised him, crushed him. He ignored them all, and wrapped his arm around the fallen old man, trying to protect him from the projectiles.

The old monk had tried to warn the villagers. There was an evil cloud hanging over the village, and the reason why the children were dying was because of that evil cloud. But the people of the village didn't believe him. They were scared to believe him. 'Everyone knows that demons which suck the blood of humans to stay immortal don't really exist!' they had cried. 'You're insane, old man!'

Miroku gently patted the cheek of the old man, worried at the stream of blood running down from his master's head. "Father? Father?!" His voice cracked, and so did the sound of his own skull when a rock struck him. Miroku blazed to life. Some of the more intuitive members of the crowd began to walk away when they felt his power rush forth, hot and heavy, like a monstrous breath.

He grabbed two of the rocks they had thrown and stood up. His dark robes matched the shade of his eyes, making Miroku look more demon than man. His voice was loud, chaotic, ripped straight from his lungs, cracking with the pain he felt. He threw the rocks back at the crowd as hard as he could, not caring if he aimed for man, woman, or child. They had all helped to hurt his master, and so, they all deserved to be hurt. "Leave him alone! Leave him alone, you bastards! He's an old man! He was just trying to help you!"

Something grasped his wrist when he bent to pick up another rock, and he looked down to see the man using the last of his strength to stop him from throwing anything else. Never had the man Miroku emulated look so frail. "Don't," he gasped, his other hand clutching his aching body. "Miroku, don't. Never. Never, hurt, Miroku."

It was the last thing he could say before he expired, his body unable to heal or keep the blood flowing with all of the bruises and cuts his body held. Miroku stared at it, at the body, and for a moment, he thought that he should never like to be so old. Dying like that, it was a waste of life. If the old monk had been younger, his body would have been able to heal the wounds, and he would have been able to do more, to help more.

And to watch them suffer when more children died because they had not heeded the old man's advice.

The people left Miroku alone. He was just some apprentice, some novice, not a real monk, not yet. They didn't care what happened to him. Alone, Miroku picked up the body. Alone, Miroku prepared the body for death. Alone, Miroku buried the body, and alone, he forsook the oaths he had taken and instead swore that his master would not be alone as he went into the afterlife.

No, there would be a whole village of souls going with him.

---

Miroku was so lost in his memories that he almost didn't see it until the page was turning. 'Jade'. 'Box'. He turned back to the correct page, and read what he had missed. Miroku could scarcely finish before he was standing up, feeling hungry in a way that made the desire for blood seem like nothing.

The jade box is so old, it has almost been forgotten in history. Its roots develop from Egypt, where the sun was worshipped as a god and the heat is so great that it is like walking through fire. The jade box contains the first piece of a spell, which, when performed, it will fill vampires with the power of Ra, enabling them to walk in the sunlight and withstand heat as powerful as the surface of the sun.

Sunlight! The idea of walking in the sunlight filled Miroku with excitement. Sunlight; warmth; flowers; bird song, how long had it been since he had been able to feel grass on his skin as he listened to the day birds and felt himself be warmed not by alcohol or blood, but by sunlight?

He and Inuyasha could stand sunlight briefly, but not the direct sun. It was suicide to actually step outside during the daytime.

There are three other artifacts which hold the other pieces of the puzzle: a statue of Ra, and a canopic jar said to hold the liver of a god.

Slamming the book shut, Miroku rushed downstairs to see what else his sanctuary held. He didn't care if he had to give up his business and fly to Egypt, fly into the rising sun, he'd do it all, so long as he was able to see the sun again.

Sunday, September 24th, noon

Sango rushed into the room as soon as she had heard the news. Saturday had passed by uneventfully. Her mother had never found out about Sango sneaking off, nor had she gotten caught on Saturday night when she went out and did her rounds of the city, making sure that her fellow human beings could sleep peacefully. But then on Sunday, she got a phone call from Kouga.

During their escapade out, Kagome had met up with Kuranosuke. Sango had thought that she would have been safe with Inuyasha. Kagome felt so assuredly about Inuyasha, that Sango had felt that if Kuranosuke had shown up, Inuyasha would be able to protect Kagome. Vampires were always so territorial! Besides, who would have thought that Kuranosuke actually would go after Kagome after she and Kouga had beaten him so badly at school? Shouldn't he have been at home resting?

It had been bad.

Kouga had made that clear over the phone. Bad enough so that his father had lifted his punishment and given him a ride to the hospital, where Kagome had been recovering. He didn't know exactly what the details were, but Kagome's mother had actually phoned up Kouga and asked him to come and stay with Kagome in the hospital while she had to work on Sunday, and in turn, Kouga had phoned Sango.

It wasn't that her mother didn't want to stay with her daughter. As it was, she had closed the shop on Saturday to stay with Kagome, but Mrs. Higurashi needed to open the shop if she were to have enough money to pay for the hospitalization, or the house they lived in. Besides, she would be getting out of the hospital later on in the afternoon, so it was best that Kagome go home with her friends instead of being pampered over by her mother. Teenagers didn't like feeling like children, after all.

So Sango had told her mother, and was allowed to go and see her friend. What she found as she skidded around the corner, was not what she had been expecting. Kagome lay on the bed, wide awake and smiling as if nothing had ever happened. Her arm was in a sling, but no cast, so whatever happened, it had only been a sprain. She had a black eye, and there were little cuts all over her face and arms. Luckily, she hadn't lost any teeth, but her lip was still split, and two of her fingers on her left hand were broken. She moved her torso stiffly, and one of her legs was still. Sango could pick out the injuries as easily as she could if they had been pointed out to her. She had at least one cracked rib, and a sprained ankle. Sango didn't doubt that her legs were as bruised covered as her arms, but Kagome's legs were covered with the thin blankets of the hospital.

She turned to Sango when she entered. Her blue eyes were a little hazy, and Sango wondered just how many painkillers they had given her to allow her to sit up with a hurt rib cage. "Sango!" Kagome giggled loudly. "San-go. That's a pretty name. It's so musical." She shook her head, and for a brief moment she seemed to be able to concentrate more. "Hi, Sango. Don't look so worried. I'm really okay."

The beeping sound of her heart monitor filled the room, and Sango studied the two men sitting in the chairs beside Kagome, facing her. For a brief moment, it was funny. Both of them wore the exact same expression. Both of them were filled with the deep worry of a man who was losing someone he cared for greatly, the most important person in their life. It was the face that gave away who the other man was, the first of them being Kouga. The second man, the one with the unbound black hair and brown eyes that held Kagome's hand, was obviously Inuyasha.

Sango was surprised that he cared about her as deeply as she did him.

Was it all a trick?

Even more surprising was the fact that he was outside of his den in daylight, and that he looked horrible. He looked as if he hadn't slept in ages. When he looked up, hearing her enter, there was a flicker of fear in his eyes, worrying that Sango was going to fight him in front of Kagome, worry that she was going to start something. Instead, Sango looked away, and approached Kagome's bed cautiously.

"How are you doing?" she asked quietly.

Kagome smiled, her face as bright as ever, and her grip on Inuyasha's hand tightened. "I'm doing good. The people here are really nice, and it's great having my friends around me, although I'm afraid that I still haven't had time to get Friday's homework done." Her joke made everyone laugh nervously. It was a stereotypical Kagome thing to say.

Her other hand covered her mouth when she yawned. "I'm just really sleepy. But Mom already said I don't have to go to school tomorrow, so I have plenty of time to sleep then. Right now, I want to enjoy being with you guys. After all, I won't get to see you two at school tomorrow."

Kouga and Sango went bright red. "Ah," he said nervously, leaning further into the bed. "Ah, actually, Kagome, Sango and I were kind of expelled for the next two weeks. Same thing with Kuranosuke. Though if you come forward and tell people that he was the one who did this to you, I think that we can get him expelled permanently."

She looked at Sango and Kouga. "You two were the ones that beat him up?" She stared a moment longer and then giggled a little. She wiggled her hand out of Inuyasha's and sat up straighter in bed. Grabbing them, she dragged them forward and gave them the biggest hug she could at the same time. "You two are wonderful friends."

'Wow,' Sango thought. 'They really must have given her a lot of drugs…'

Sitting back down, Sango thought a moment. "Kagome, Kuranosuke wasn't hurt, was he? He's just going to keep coming back after you. Next time, it will be worse." She saw Inuyasha nodding, agreeing with her, and she wondered why he would care. Sango still couldn't believe that vampires could care for someone. They were soulless creatures. "I'm expelled, Kagome. But you know that I'm a fighter. I can show you how to fight so that he'll never hurt you."

Inuyasha agreed completely, but he felt the anger still boiling inside of him. He was angry at everything: angry at the best friend that sat beside him and thought he was Ranma from Japan visiting an old friend, to the Slayer he thought would attack him at any second, to the woman who had used a spell to keep an enemy from getting hurt. It was his fault that she was hurt, as far as he was concerned.

And then there was the matter of her attacker… Inuyasha was mad at him because Kuranosuke had hurt Kagome, but the vampire in him was furious because Kuranosuke was capable of accomplishing what he, a hardened killer, could not do. Kuranosuke was prepared to kill Kagome, and the immortal side of Inuyasha was jealous.

When an enemy threatened a mate or food or territory, there was only one logical response.

Kill your enemy.

His brown eyes flashed with gold as he lifted his head to look at Sango. He saw a brief moment of satisfaction on her face, as he had revealed to her the animal she knew was lurking somewhere. His voice was nearly a snarl. "Don't worry about Kuranosuke. He won't hurt her anymore. I can guarantee that. And I always keep my word, Sango."

"Good." Sango stood up, and they glared at each other over Kagome's hospital bed. "I always keep mine, dog-boy! I swear to you that if you hurt Kagome, I will kill you."

"Then why don't you do it right now, girl?" he snapped.

Sango very slowly sat back down. "That's none of your fucking business."

For some reason, after that, there was a lot more tension in the air.

-

As hard as Inuyasha had been thinking, he had come up with no way to get himself invited into the house. The red brick house sat on the corner, the rusted wheel of a bike spinning lazily, the flowers drooping, close to death. It was a sad looking house, but the light from the forty inch TV screen blatantly proved the house owners were not as unfortunate as they seemed. It was disgusting to Inuyasha.

It only meant one thing. The owner of the stench that Inuyasha had been tracking, his prey, the one Inuyasha would kill, needed to come outside. For that, he needed Miroku to implant the thought into his prey's head. He turned to his older companion sitting in the tree across the pitted street, his gold eyes blazing. "Do it! Do it, will you!"

Miroku said nothing. This game was boring. He wanted to get in on the kill too, but Inuyasha had told him that he wasn't allowed to. Inuyasha refused to listen, refused to acknowledge anything that Miroku had discovered about the box or get more books from Kagome until he had fed. He crossed his arms and swung his legs over the large branch. "Maybe I changed my mind," he snapped.

Miroku then decided to change his mind again. The sounds of fighting caught his ear. He looked up in time to see the shadow of someone fly across the window. The yelling was not loud enough to be heard by human ears, but Miroku did not have human hearing.

"Where did you get this?" a male voice demanded. There was the sound of something heavy hitting a wall, followed by the sound of shattering glass. A younger, female voice screamed for someone to stop and to get out of their room. "How many times do we have to tell you? This is not right! You're not allowed to have this type of stuff! Do you want to go to hell? Do you want to be covered in sins? Do you want to burn for the rest of your life?"

"No…" the softer voice said in the midst of sobs.

Inuyasha had heard it too. His ears stood at attention, and he looked anxious. He recognized the voice. It was the same voice that had yelled at Kagome that she was a witch, a bitch, a whore, a slut, as the owner of the deep voice beat her. Now Kuranosuke was beating someone else. He went to bolt to the tree that was across from the window to see what was going on, but Miroku beat him there. He cursed. "What do you see?" he demanded.

Miroku could see a very cute little girl, her frizzy hair hiding most of her face, but her freckles popping out against her pale skin, huddling at the foot of her bed. The man that Inuyasha had told him about stood over her, looking furious, both from the tightness of his muscles and jaw and because of the rolling aura. Miroku focused his eyes on the girl, looking deeper and deeper, and found a shimmer deep within her.

It was the same shimmer he saw when he looked at Kagome.

He looked down at his friend, his dark violet eyes pointed. "Your plan won't work," he said blatantly. "He's not alone, and I don't want to scare the girl he's with. But if we don't do something right now, then she's going to get beaten. I don't want to see that."

The compassion Miroku was showing made Inuyasha chortle. "You actually care about what happens to a little human girl, Miroku? Since when do you care about that? Or are you just starting to turn out like our maker and prefer younger prey now? It can be just like old times! I'll kill Kuranosuke, you can kill his sister, and then we'll wait for the parents to get home from work and take them too!" His eyes were hungry, his mouth salivating as he spoke, remembering fondly the way they had devoured whole families purely for amusement. He could almost hear the parents screaming as they drank their children dry in front of them…

"I want to teach her," Miroku growled. Is eyes narrowed further, and he leaned out of the tree to grab one of Inuyasha's ears and pull on it slightly. "You're an idiot! Kuranosuke's sister can do magic, like Kagome! Like me! I want to teach her. It's been centuries since I tried teaching someone. And if I really like her, if she's talented, I think I would like to make her like us." His expression softened slightly, looking longing. "I like it being you and I, Inuyasha, but don't you think it would be nice to have a girl with us? It can be like your sister, my daughter. We'll have a family again."

He thought for a long time, and then he began warming up to the idea. Inuyasha would like a family. Though every vampire was descended from Sesshomaru, the idea of a close family was intoxicating, and next to impossible. Many vampires tended to prefer being on their own, and if Inuyasha had not grown up with Miroku, he doubted that he ever would want a pack of his own. The longer he thought about it, the more interesting it seemed. "So, how do we get him out of the house so I can eat him and still leave her wanting to come with you so you can teach her?"

Miroku reflected on this question for a long time. "Do you have your cell phone on you? Good. Call up his house. Tell Kuranosuke you want to meet with him." Miroku grinned and shifted in the trees, sitting precariously on the balls of his feet as he leered at the house. "Then I'll take care of our little friend."