A/N This is your updated Chapter 11 readers! Have fun!

Chap. 11: School Starts…and So Do Feelings

For the rest of summer vacation, Sango, Ayame, and Rin brought Kagome to the shopping mall every day to get what she needed for school. One day, when they were all seated at tiny little café, Sango said, "I think we should seriously introduce our selves properly. Just saying our names when we picked up Kagome on the road isn't good enough."

Ayame started first, "Obviously, you should probably know that my name is Ayame. My full name is Ayame Okami, and as you know already, I'm fifteen."

"You know, you could've spared the useless info that we know already…Say something about yourself that's not so obvious…" Sango rolled her eyes. She introduced, "I'm Sango Taija, ditto Ayame's age. I like martial arts, verbally abusing Ayame, beating the crud out of my brother when he annoys me—"

She stopped when she saw the shocked face on Kagome. Rin and Ayame both slapped their foreheads in embarrassment at their friend's overly open profile. Sango smiled, sweatdropped, and said, "Heh…umm…I'm kidding? But I do like martial arts. And my trusty Hiraikotsu weapon."

"I'm Rin Aidoru, same age as Sango and Ayame!" Rin squeaked, smiling widely. "I really like to sing, and one thing I'll bet you didn't know about us, Kagome, is that Sango and Ayame have the same birthday as me!"

Ayame nodded, bobbing her head up and down furiously. "Yup, and we were all born on the same time!"

This piqued Kagome's interest. At least it was something other than, "Oh, my hobby is blah, blah, blah…" Her newly found friends were essentially triplets.

"And the coolest thing is," Ayame continued, "Is that we were all born on midnight."

Kagome sat up a little straighter, nodding her head a little. She still wasn't used to talking a lot—adjusting after years of abuse took time. But one thing that Kagome learned to do if she didn't speak was listening very well, and remembering many things. Midnight? Wait a moment…what day?

Before Kagome could even attempt a question, Sango said, "Yea, we celebrated our birthdays quite some time ago on the fourth of July. At our old school, the kids used to call us the Liberators—partly because we were so rebellious, and partly because that's when the country of America that's so far away from us was freed."

"Hey, you were the one that forced us to be rebellious…" Rin whined, slightly pouting. "Hey Kagome, when's your…"

She stopped at the reaction of Kagome's face. Kagome was wide-eyed, and she finally said, "I was born on July 4th too…at midnight."

"Ho. Ly. Crap." Sango worded, her jaw wide open. "Don't tell me that you were born at Osaka Hospital as well, OK?"

"I was. Room 203," Kagome flatly replied.

"OMG! You're just like our soul sister! That's so cool! She's just like us! Only that Sango was born in Room 200, Ayame in Room 201, and me in Room 202!" Rin exclaimed, a big smile stretched over her face.

With that, the childish girl sprang up and gave Kagome a huge hug. Kagome gave a small smile. The jewel that her mother had left behind for her seemed to pulse just the tiniest bit.

Soon, the guys began to come along with them too. They claimed that loitering around the 7-11 was getting really boring—so they accompanied the girls to the mall. Over time, they began to split into guy-girl pairs to walk around the mall. The teens were becoming the best of friends…a little more than friends.

Rin and Sesshomaru were caught holding hands at the pet store, with Rin snuggled into his "boa" (as she liked to call it). Miroku and Sango were hugging each other on a bench, until Miroku was slapped because he touched Sango in the wrong area. Ayame and Kouga weren't that obvious, until the friends caught Kouga kissing Ayame on the cheek at the eye doctor's office (they didn't need glasses after all). But there weren't a lot of sparks between Inuyasha and Kagome yet, although they did exchange a few smiles now and then. No matter how many times Sesshomaru took pictures of them, no matter how many times Inuyasha denied it, and no matter how many times the hanyou would rip apart the pictures, no one could get a confession out of Inuyasha. The same went for Kagome.

Everyone paid more attention to Kagome, for they knew that if Kikyou and her posse appeared again, they would have to be more prepared. Kikyou probably would want revenge after a while…

The First Day of School

RING!

"Ok, class, settle down, settle down." the petite English teacher, Myouga-sensei, said, waving his arms in a futile attempt to calm the class down.

Miroku had won over the daydream seat. Sango was next to him, then Koga, Ayame, Sesshomaru, Rin, Inuyasha, and Kagome, all through the back row. Kikyou sat in front of Inuyasha, and consistently gave little glares to Kagome.

"Who can tell me what parallel structure and infinitives are?"

All the friends groaned. They were too smart for this class and the rest of the classes that followed…until Pre-Cal.

"Good morning guys," Bankotsu Sansu said. "Since I'm only eighteen, you guys can just call me Bankotsu. So don't call me Bankotsu-san, or Bankotsu-sensei. You don't have to call me Bankotsu-kun or anything. Just Bankotsu. 'Cause I'm cool."

"Show off," someone in the back said.

"But anyways, as we all know, or we are supposed to know…" Bankotsu looked directly at Inuyasha, Miroku, Koga, and Sesshomaru. The latter four snickered. They knew the information—it's just that they didn't apply it on tests. After hearing about Inuyasha's predicament with Kikyo, Miroku, Koga, and Sesshomaru had drawn nudes all over their tests and deliberately handed them in to Bankotsu just to show him what a terrible teacher he was. They'd given Bankotsu such a hard time last year that Bankotsu purposely failed them. "The ellipses and hyperbolas intersect with…"

And the lesson dragged on, and on, and on. They did a practice test. Kikyou and her friends failed…43. Inuyasha and his friends got the same grade…89, the best scores in the class.

"Well, well, not bad, Kikyou!" Bankotsu said. "We just need to polish things up a bit, and then you'll be getting A+'s." He gave a wide smile at Kikyou. Kikyou simpered. Inuyasha and his friends looked away in disgust, and spent the rest of the period making the smallest barfing noises.

RING!

"Finally, lunch time, indeed!" Miroku said.

"We should start a food fight!" Rin said. "I feel sooo rebellious against Brainless Bankotsu that I need to release some steam."

"Great idea!" Ayame said.

So the eight friends took their places at the corners of the room. Once the food fight started, all would go to where Inuyasha and Kagome were, lift the trap door, and sneak into the quad.

"BONZAIIII!" Sesshomaru screamed. He flung his bowl of ramen (Inuyasha whined over the waste of good food) towards Kikyou. Kikyou was hit, looked around, saw Sesshomaru, and flung her plate of sushi at him. When he dodged, and it hit another kid, and another kid, and another, and the entire food fight went underway. Kagome slightly unscrewed a soda bottle, and threw it toward the center. The fan on the ceiling somehow caught the bottle, and sprayed soda everywhere.

"Follow me!" Inuyasha called out to Kagome, and they secretly filed away under the cafeteria. Seeing that Inuyasha and Kagome had disappeared, the rest of the friends also fled in their boy-girl pairs.

Love in the Quad

"Ok, we're here in the quad!" Inuyasha said, as he pushed aside the statue, and stepped out of the wall. Kagome followed. Because the four corners of the cafeteria joined in one big tunnel, the rest of the friends soon came out.

"Now we just have to wait for sixth period, which would be our special training class."

They just loitered around. Kagome and Inuyasha strolled along the grass. They were very quiet, and everyone else started to spy on them silently. Sesshomaru brought out his camera and set it to "Quick" just in case anything happened.

Kagome and Inuyasha sat down on the grass. Kagome ventured, "What really happened between you and Kikyou, Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha was silent. He knew the question was going to come. "She cheated on me…."

Flashback: Shikon Boarding School, Last Year

"Kikyou, do you wanna go out with me to the movies today? Saw II is coming out today." Inuyasha asked. Seeing his girlfriend's scared face, he added on, "If you get scared, you can hug me. I wouldn't mind."

"Sure," Kikyou blushed, going deep red.

Inuyasha was happy. Going out with Kikyou was the best thing of the day. He had been going out with her for three months, and they already planned which college they were going to together.

After school, Inuyasha went over to Kikyou's dorm to pick her up. But it was eerily silent. Normally, Kikyou would be talking to Kanna and Kagura. Inuyasha opened the door, wondering if Kikyou was hurt, and only saw the idiotic Pre-Cal teacher Bankotsu pinning Kikyou against the wall, deeply kissing her. Inuyasha gasped, and Kikyou gave him a super cold look. Then, she resumed kissing Bankotsu. Inuyasha ran out the door.

Back to the Quad

Kagome saw pain in Inuyasha's eyes too. They were so…so similar. Kagome wanted to relieve his pain. She couldn't resist her own conscience now…the days at the mall where she longed to just completely let it all out had built up, and were waiting to be released.

She had been shy all her life. It was time to get over it.

Kagome leaned over and kissed Inuyasha. Inuyasha's eyes widened, and then closed, enjoying her kiss. Sesshomaru took his camera, and snapped a picture of them. Then, Sango, Miroku, Koga, Ayame, Sesshomaru, and Rin started clapping. Inuyasha's ears turned redder than the ripest tomatoes in Japan, but he completely ignored it.

The one person that seemed to care was Kikyou, though. She snuck out of the cafeteria, covered in ramen, nori, and imitation crab meat. In addition to the power of the jewel that Kagome unknowingly had around her neck, she could feel the power of love.

A/N Well, here you go. Chapter 11 has been updated. I'll go and correct other chapters if I feel like it. But I dunno.