Author's Note: Remember that "INUYASHA" is a break for his POV.

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. I do not profit from this story.

How to Kill Me

Chapter Eleven: Badbye

"Oh, oh and she's buying a stairway to Heaven. There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure 'cause you know sometimes words have two meanings. In a tree by a brook, there's a songbird who sings: sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven."

-Stairway to Heaven, Led Zepplin

I ignored the comment, watching in horror as two cars stopped dead in front of us. What do I do? Slam on the breaks or drive right through? Shit shit shit. My foot was edging on the accelerator, undetermined as to what it wanted to do.

"Wench, stop!" Inuyasha barked, and I slammed on the brakes, trusting him for a reason only God knows why.

I looked at him. "What?" I tried to take in deep breaths, but I knew this shit was going to blow up in our faces sooner or later and I had just been hoping it was later when a) we solved this damn thing and b) I had my date dammit.

He nodded his head at the sheriff, who was already out of his car and running towards us. The expression on his face was nothing like I expected, and a knowing look from Inuyasha made my heart slow down. This wasn't about us. They hadn't figured the scam out yet.

Thank god.

"Special Agent Katsuki," Sheriff Yanaka said; his voice was laced with the mixture of fear and desperation. "There's been another. We just got the call a couple minutes ago."

"We'll follow you," I answered with a nod, trying not to show just how remarkably relieved I was that he wasn't here for another reason.

Sheriff Yanaka got back into his cruiser and he sped off, my Corvette not too far behind. "How did you know?" I whispered, stealing glances at my half-demon companion.

"I could hear him inside the cruiser," Inuyasha answered, leaning back in the seat. "He was screaming at his officer. It's not that hard."

I frowned, following the speeding cars easily. "How far away can you hear?"

"Depends. Right now, I can only hear buzzes outside since the wind is carrying literally everything away. When we were stopped though, and his door was open, I could hear him pretty clearly."

"So far away," I sighed. "You still haven't told me what Sango and Miroku said when we were at their place."

Inuyasha frowned. "They said something?"

I sighed again and ran my hand through my black hair. I really needed to get it cut. "That's what I thought." We turned down several streets, and I struggled to remember my way around. If we needed to make a break for it, I was going to definitely need prepping time. Wadsworth didn't seem to follow any smooth order when it came to streets, and it was hard to determine where the hell you were when all you saw when you looked out the window was sand. "Another attack," I started, wanting to talk about something instead of listening to the uncomfortable silence in the car. "Any idea yet on what's doing this?"

Inuyasha tapped his hand on the dashboard. "There're a lot of demons that focus on the heart. It's like the very being of the person. Some demons live off the organ."

"Any of those a potential target?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "They only work through possession and I would've smelled the sulphur on the bodies."

"But there was a smell," I reminded him. "That still doesn't bring anything to mind?"

"Not a fucking clue," Inuyasha replied. "Smell is usually attributed to the demon or the human vessel, not the victim."

"Okay," I said, trying to process the information. It was nothing I didn't already know. "What did it smell like? Compare it to other human smells. Can you think of anything?"

Inuyasha scrunched his nose, and I watched in amazement as he seemed to recall whatever scent came from the body. "Like here," he murmured after a bit. "Sand, dirt... Only stale. Really stale."

Great. Just peachy. The smell off of our victims is stale sand and dirt. Can sand and dirt even be stale? "Awesome, I think." This may have just complicated things, not made it better. "So what smells like stale sand and dirt?"

Inuyasha looked at me. "You really think I know?"

"You can smell things as well as a dog, apparently!"

Inuyasha shrugged. "A bit better actually."

Way to prove my point. I don't even know why I try.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha yelled; his voice edging panic.

I looked out my windshield and realized with slight horror that I hadn't been paying attention. The cruiser in front of me was stopped completely and I slammed on my brakes, jerking the car to the side and shifting gears. I landed just on the curb, the right side of the car lifted up and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

"Nice wench."

"Bite me," I shot back, even though I didn't sound in any way angry. It technically was my fault. I put the car in reverse until I was back on the steady ground, cutting off the engine and jumping out. Cops surrounded the body, putting up road blockers and setting up tape. We quickly made our way to where Sheriff Yanaka was standing, face grim and mouth tight.

"Who is it?" I asked, looking down at the body of a young woman with long straight black hair. She was lying in a ditch, just off the side of a driveway. I turned around to take in the scenery, to try and figure out where we were in Wadsworth. Nothing but endless sand could be seen but as I turned to a small house a few feet away, I saw a woman sobbing and a man hugging her. "Who are they?"

"They found the body, right here. They just got back from a weeklong trip," the sheriff responded. "They're good people."

"Who's the girl?" Inuyasha repeated, leaning down and subtly smelling the body. He looked at me, and I could tell that the same smell we were talking about earlier was on her as well. Another victim of the demon.

Fuck, we needed to catch this bastard.

"Tsubaki. Her name is Tsubaki Mizuna. She's a student at the University of Nevada, a city over," Sheriff Yanaka finally said, sighing.

"Then what is she doing here?" I asked, bending down to Inuyasha's level and studying the body. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was sleeping. Peeling my eyes away from her pale and almost perfect face, I looked down to her hands.

"Her father and I are good friends," the sheriff replied. "He...god, he doesn't ever stop talking about how proud of her he is. After everything that poor girl went through her freshman year..."

"Same defensive wounds, I'd say this is for sure our demon," I whispered to Inuyasha, careful to make it low enough so only he would hear. Clearing my throat and looking at Sheriff Yanaka, I frowned. "What happened to her freshman year?"

"Tsubaki," the sheriff started, taking a deep breath and sighing. "Well, she partied too hard. One night she was out drinking and one of the guys there was blasted out of his mind. She was raped."

I looked at Inuyasha, wondering if this could potentially mean anything for our case. His expression and eyes gave nothing away, not even a hint of acknowledgement, so I let the information drop. "Does she come back here then? It's mid-October. Shouldn't she be in school?"

The sheriff nodded. "I assume she came back."

"Well," I said, standing up. "We'll know for sure when the coroner arrives. It's Saturday so if the ETD is within twenty-four hours–"

"Then we have a local doing this," Sheriff Yanaka muttered. "Fucking perfect."

"Inu– Hiten?" Sheriff Yanaka was right beside us, and I made my way apart from him, waiting until he was gone before turning back to Inuyasha. Inching closer, I noticed how intently his eyes were focused on the pale body. He seemed to be lost in thought, maybe carefully thinking what demon could be responsible. "Inuyasha?"

The half-demon jerked and flashed golden eyes at me. "What do you want wench?"

I rolled my eyes at the nickname, but at this point I assumed it to be a term of endearment – or something like that. "I'm going to make a quick call okay? I think the coroner's coming so listen up and see if anything stands out for you."

For a moment, Inuyasha's eyes darkened and I could see the frown etch its way into his chiselled features. "You're calling Hobo, aren't you?"

"Hojo," I said automatically, expecting this. "Yes, I'm calling him. I was supposed to meet him for dinner and obviously I can't now. This is going to take awhile. They're going to process the scene and we'll need to observe what they find. Forensics tend to not think what's truly relevant is relevant – demon speaking, anyways. Then we have to talk to the Mizuna family, find out how she was doing and if she was acting strangely. Then–"

"Yeah, wench, I think I got it," Inuyasha snapped, turning away from me instantly and standing up. "I'm going to take a quick look around, see if I can smell anything out of the ordinary. When the coroner comes to inspect I'll be here."

I took a step closer, frowning because it was beyond me why he was so pissy when it came to Hojo. He had been like this from the start. His upfront comment about not liking the guy was understandable, but there was nothing that connected him to these murders or anything else that was evil. There was no reason for him to act this way.

The sudden flip of my stomach made me halt, and I wondered why it bothered me so much that he was even acting this way. Rationally, it had to be because we were just starting to get along again...kind of. That had to be the reason why the daggers he was shooting through my face with his eyes were hurting.

"I can take care of myself," I whispered, knowing he'd hear before I turned on my heel and stalked away to somewhere more private. Not that anywhere near here was actually private because all there was to hide behind was sand, dirt and more sand.

Not much choice.

I pressed the call button on my phone when I scrolled to his number in my cell. Two rings later, and I heard the extremely cute voice of McYummy.

Fucking demon ruining my only chance at a normal date.

"Hey Hojo? It's K– Suijin – yeah, can I get a rain check for tomorrow?"

The Mizuna family tore my heart open and when it was finally time to walk out, I had to take a couple shaky breaths to calm myself. I had seen many families torn up and broken down because of what happened to their family or friend. But this... This was a whole new level of pain.

Tsubaki had younger siblings and when they heard...

"You okay?"

The warm hand on my back made me take in another deep breath, relaxing into the touch. Inuyasha still hadn't been the nicest towards me since my phone call to Hojo, but the moment we stepped foot into the Mizuna's home, he understood that this was hard.

I had a family. I knew the pain.

I knew how my mom used to stand at the window and just look. How my little brother, Souta, would walk to school, eyeing the brushes to see if I would just pop out and yell "surprise!" It never happened.

It's why I left.

"Yeah," I said after a long delay, processing my thoughts and pushing them as far back on the back burner as I possibly could. This wasn't the time to start the self-pity movement. "I'm fine."

His hand fell from my back and I missed the warmth, wanting to feel comforted again. "I think I have an idea," he murmured, turning around to face me. "We need your laptop though, and internet."

I nodded and unlocked the car, getting in with a small wave to the sheriff and starting the engine. Talking to Sheriff Yanaka hadn't been fun. The coroner determined she had been dead less than a day and the Mizuna family had sworn she was out with friends. She was supposed to stay with them overnight. The friends said they never saw her. Her cellphone was off, so they figured something important had come up.

"I don't like it," the sheriff said after the news. "The media is going to be all over this soon. That's the third victim."

"And now we've got a serial killer," I had agreed.

The thing was demons were always serial killers. They never just killed once for the fun of it and decided that it wasn't worth their time. Demons killed because it was their nature to destroy life and make suffering. In all honesty, this probably wasn't the demon's first three victims. There were probably hundreds of people who died at the hands of this monster.

"So what are you thinking?" I asked Inuyasha when we were driving off, going back to the conversation at hand.

Inuyasha wrinkled his nose and shrugged. "It's just a hunch but I feel like thisdemon is following a pattern. He's not killing these women for no reason. They were picked."

I raised a brow, having no particular feelings towards his idea. "Where did you even think of that? What makes you think that they were picked?"

Again, Inuyasha shrugged. His amber eyes looked at me carefully and I felt that odd clench in my stomach that happened every time he did something strange. Like alarm bells in my head, only they were telling me how gorgeous he was rather than dangerous. "I just think that everything happens for a reason. Demons don't always pick random victims. There's usually a pattern, even if a pattern is not having a pattern."

Great. "Alright. I'll go with it, but it's late. We should get dinner and spend the rest of the night researching whatever your gut is telling you."

Inuyasha nodded and smirked. "Can we go to another diner? Maybe you can bitch at another poor waitress."

I scowled. "If you want a hooker, you can find some money of your own and pay for it yourself."

"But she was offering for free," Inuyasha replied, blinking innocently at me with big golden eyes.

I looked at him for a moment, feeling that pull again towards such uneasy trust that I forced myself to look back at the road and the darkening landscape that settled as the sun fell.

Something told me that when this was all over, we'd have more problems than we started out with.

"I think I've got it."

Rushing out of the bathroom with mascara in my hand, I fanned myself to stop the tears from flowing. Clearly it had been awhile since I applied any makeup heavier than bronzer and eyeliner. Fucking brush. I'm probably blind now.

Do you think Hojo will mind if my right eye is swollen shut?

Wait, he's a doctor... Mm. Yum.

McYummy.

"What do you got?" I asked, praying that the twenty minutes of solid painstakingly horrific labour of applying makeup didn't go to waste.

Inuyasha stared at me in utter horror, frowning. "What the fuck are you doing wench?"

"Performing what most would call self-inflicted torture," I muttered. "Just, please, tell me."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes at me and ran his clawed hands through his black-dyed hair. "Well it took for-fucking-ever. I've been searching this shit out since we got back last night, but I think I found a pattern."

I raced over to his bed, sitting down on the side and looking at the laptop. I tried not to cry when I saw the million-plus-one pop ups and the multiple "WARNING!" signs all over the screen. "Have you ever worked a computer before?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "Never. The screen blacked out several times but poking it enough eventually brought it back."

Ah. Solid.

"So this pattern."

Inuyasha clawed at the touchpad for a long while until the box scrolled down and I tried not to smack his hand away. He was damaging the only solid piece of technology I owned. "Look here," he said, tapping the screen and making me cringe. I couldn't watch this torture on my poor old laptop. "This is a news article from...two-thousand and seven. It says here that Momiji Kikuchi, our first victim, got in a car accident with a drunk driver. She managed to make it out okay, but the drunk died on impact. And here –right here, look. Botan Nishimura was involved in a bar fight last year. She wasn't the cause or the problem but she tried to stop it. She struck out at a man in self-defence, wounding him and putting him in the hospital. He was fine but needed stitches."

I nodded. "Good work. You only managed to blow up my computer to find it."

"It's still in one piece," Inuyasha mumbled. "There's a pattern here though."

"And what's the pattern?" I asked, feeling my eye start to twitch as the makeup started to stick. Was this stuff like expired or something? Was it going to go into my bloodstream and kill me?

"The hell if I know," Inuyasha replied, smirking at me. "So what the hell are you doing to your face? Are you trying to do that weird revitalizing crap women do? Make yourself look ugly in black shit and then wake up the next morning pretty?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You should just stop talking," I said snidely. I was trying to make myself look pretty alright, but the makeup was supposed to be helping not making it worse. For his sake, he'd better be lying.

"Why? What the hell are you getting all done up for anyways? Are you going to another diner? There could be a male hooker for you, you never know."

I sighed. This was not going to be good – again. I could already feel the stare burying me twenty-five and a half feet under, and god the growling he was going to do. Looking at the cheap motel clock, I figured I could leave early if Inuyasha was too much of a pain in the ass. "I'm going out for dinner, remember? That's why I ordered you food...gave you money..."

"With Hobo, isn't it?"

"Hojo." I had corrected him more than once and I had a sneaking suspicion he was saying it wrong on purpose. Why he would do something so immature was beyond me. "And yes, we're going to dinner. Remember? I cancelled last night and got a rain check for tonight."

And there it was again. The daggers. The wishing I was dead. The growling.

"Oh come on," I said, throwing my hands in the air and glaring right back. "I can take care of myself Inuyasha. I'm not sure that you're aware but I've lived this life perfectly fine before you arrived. Just because you're here, doesn't mean I'm going to change doing what I want. I'm still a demon slayer, and while I can't purify you with my powers or salt, I can do many other torturous things."

"Ooh, I'm shaking."

"Bite me."

"Wench, you're pushing it. Stop talking to me like I'm a dog."

"But you are."

"I'm a dog demon. Totally different."

"Woof woof."

Inuyasha growled and his amber eyes pierced through my own. Pushing off of the bed he stormed towards me, crowding into my space and making me take a step back. This close, I could see his eyes in little golden flecks.

Then again, I could also see the rimmed red. The terrifying colour seemed to bleed into him and I felt the drop in my stomach, the feeling that something wasn't right. With him. With this entire situation.

"Back off," I warned, feeling threatened. I never felt threatened and this new feeling of worry seemed to bleed into me like the red in his eyes. "Back the fuck off Inuyasha."

Inuyasha growled and took a step back, still too close. "I don't trust the bastard."

"There's no evidence he's even involved," I hissed, trying to calm down and take a deep breath and get whatever the hell I was feeling out of my system. "You find evidence, I'll do what I have to do but you have no right to come into my face and into my life demanding shit from me when I'm doing you a favour."

"Me a favour?" Inuyasha barked a laugh at me, finally turning around and slamming the laptop shut. "Whatever wench. If that's how you want to think of it, go right ahead."

I could feel the words hang in the air and I knew that this was about whatever Sango and Miroku had said earlier. I still didn't know what it meant, but I had a pretty damn good idea what it was. Regardless, he had nothing on me and powers or not, I could still blast his shit to pieces in seconds.

Yet, my stomach was flipping over and over and my heart was beating fast. Was I actually scared? Disappointed? Upset?

I stormed into the bathroom and finished my makeup, so pissed off now that it was fuelling me to move faster, get changed quicker. I had two options of attire and while previously I wanted to wear casual jeans and a low cut blouse, I decided my little black dress was needed. Fuck it, fuck him and whatever. I'm going to enjoy myself tonight, live some actual normalcy that I deserve. I haven't had a date in years. Eighty year-old women date more than me, and I'm twenty-one.

Slipping into my little black dress, I smiled in the mirror, messed up my hair, put on my high heels and walked out of the bathroom with so much pride, rainbows were probably shooting out my ass. I didn't look at the half-demon growling at me on the bed while I picked up my wallet. I didn't even say anything until the last second when I was half-way out the door and feeling so overly smug and prissy that I called over my shoulder a "don't wait up, goodbye".

Although, when you think about it, it was more of a badbye than a good one.

INUYASHA

Inuyasha couldn't believe his fucking eyes.

The bitch had walked out of the bathroom wearing something that would've made the diner hooker jealous. She didn't even have the decency to look at him. Was she really that arrogant? Inuyasha did his research before getting into this shithole of a mess. He talked to other demon slayers (before killing them) and learned that Kagome Higurashi was sweet, too good for the life she got and above all, she trusted way too easily.

Point proven when it literally took moments for her to agree to work with him.

Point further proven when Miroku and Sango chalked it up to her desperate need to have company and a little bit of socialization.

Flipping open the laptop and waiting for everything to reboot, he rolled his eyes at how she thought he was a total failure at the computer and managed to wade through files and bookmarks, finding the information pages she had tagged online to sort through potential demons. Even though she wasn't going to solve this thing, Inuyasha sure as hell was. He needed to get this ball rolling in order to get his way. Heaven needed to show its fucking ass dammit.

And yet, this fucking Hobo. He was ruining everything, drawing her away and taking her mind off this case. Yeah, she cared alright, but she was more focused on being human than being a demon slayer, and that's not what he needed. Inuyasha needed kickass Kagome the demon slayer in order to get his plan into action, to obtain– Well, it didn't matter now. Hobo was a fucking dick, and while Inuyasha felt a burn he would refuse to call jealously, there was something not right with the entire situation.

Hours went by, and when Inuyasha finally thought he was going to explode one of the bookmarks caught his eye. Elegant script covered the page, ancient designs painted and bordering the website. The demon was familiar to him, but he hadn't thought of it for a reason. Scrolling down the page, Inuyasha read the list provided, feeling the pieces click into place.

There was a reason he didn't think this demon was the demon responsible.

Inuyasha growled, feeling his chest tighten and the familiar scent he knew all too well haunt him. The reason he was so uptight. The reason this Hobo guy grated his nerves – more so than just adding a detour to his master plan. Kagome was in danger.

"Jesus fucking Christ."

He was going to Hell anyways, might as well make it classy.