Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha OR this story. Please refer to the 'Story Note' before chapter 1. Thanks
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3:45 PM, FRIDAY, APRIL 23
Kaede had debated with herself long and hard. She'd seen Kagome fly with her own eyes, and understood what was going on with the simulation, but Toutousai had still hesitated. Finally, today, he'd given in, and now they were going to see what, after the battle, Kagome was really capable of.
There was one more thing that she had conveniently forgotten to tell Toutousai, and that was that she was going to send Kagome out in the DA-001. She'd just received word of a DA-002 that was being shipped over to them, so it was safe, but nonetheless the old geezer would have an ulcer if he knew everything she planned.
Kagome's good mood had dimmed somewhat when she'd gone to the hangar. Breakfast with Lawrence and his friends had been great, with Miroku joining them—she'd taught them the basics of the silence trick and they'd joked and laughed; Lawrence's friends had been a bit wary of her, but they'd relaxed once they'd realized that she was not out to kill them and not that much different from their sisters, only going to a different school.
Sasaki had just flat-out ignored her, which hadn't been too bad except for when she'd known the answer to a question no one else did for once and had raised her hand. He, of course, being Sasaki, had pretended not to see her. Then history had been okay, and her math class about as boring as usual, and in Professor Arakawa's class she'd learned a new combination of moves, getting it down fairly well. Now, though, things were probably going to take a turn downhill. At least Sasaki wasn't teaching this too, or she'd have gotten in a Dragonship, run him down, and flew it into a wall herself.
"Wait up, kiddo." A hand tapped her shoulder before she could automatically head over to the simulators while everyone else flew out. "You're not doing that today." Kaede turned from her to the rest of the class, ordering, "Everyone do a run on the battle simulator—Toutousai, level five—and Inuyasha, come over here." She returned her attention to the wide-eyed girl. "Listen, I know the problems with the simulator compared to actually flying, and I know what I saw you do. I'm going to give you a test run on the DA-001, with Inuyasha flying with you in his ship. If things get out of control, all you'll have to do is hit the emergency switch, and it'll go into autopilot and return to the hangar." Kaede took a deep breath, then held a helmet out to Kagome. "I know you're a lot better than what the simulation says; all you have to do is prove it to everyone else. Now go put this on and get into your ship."
Kagome took it, hands shaking, and nodded after a second, heart racing. This was her one chance, her one real opportunity to show her stuff, her ticket out of spending the next three years in a stuffy simulation cockpit that felt too much like an arcade game.
The DA-001 stood a little apart from the other aircrafts, its sides still new and wings still razor-sharp and sun-bright, despite the amount of use she'd put them to. The blood had been long since rinsed off and the steel polished bright. The hatch was open, and she carefully climbed into the cockpit, settling the helmet over her head and not noticing the worn chinstrap or the initials KT etched in the back.
The windshield snapped over her, the straps shooting out and locking her in place, and her hands settled comfortably on each of the steering handles. This was what she was used to, this was what she could handle. She ran a quick mental check and found nothing had been damaged and all the ammunition restored and grinned a hunter's grin.
Reaching forward, she flicked the fuel switch and felt the engine's hum under her seat, then turned on the smaller boosters under the wing with a mere touch of her psionic power. Slight pressure on the steering handles made the ship roll forward, smooth as cool lemonade. Kagome felt more at home here than she did at just about anywhere else. No one to bother her, no one to sneer at her, no truly strange devices, nothing but her and her Dragonship.
"Take her out, Kagome, and go through basic maneuvering," Kaede commanded, voice crackling in the speaker by her head. In the background she could hear Toutousai demanding what she was doing in the DA-001, but the transmission ended before he said anything she didn't want to hear. The different view-screens picked up another Dragonship following her, and she remembered Kaede had said Inuyasha was going with her.
She came to the aisle between the rows of Dragonships that served as a runway for individual ships and revved the engine, grinning at the thought of getting out in this ship again. Gripping the steering handles tightly, she shoved forward on them, psionically supplying more fuel to the engine and thrusters at the same time. In response, the DA-001 shot forward and cleared the hangar in less than a second, soaring into the cloudy sky beyond the school.
The basic maneuvers were slowing, turning, and flying at an angle, all of which she completed in less than ten seconds, then went into her own maneuvers, flying upside-down, going into a corkscrew, doing a barrel roll, diving dramatically and then pulling out of it to shoot up, almost perpendicular to the ground. It was almost as good as her limited memories of flying, and she'd missed it.
Unbeknownst to her, not only was everyone in the hangar watching her from a VidScreen trained on the DA-001—it was barely keeping up with her—but, for the second time that week, Sasaki had come out to watch and let his class follow along.
"Who's the pilot?" he asked Kaede.
"Well, the one in the regular Dragonship is Inuyasha Dairei," she said tonelessly, trying to keep a humongous grin off of her face and actually succeeding. "And then the one who's on the VidScreen is Kagome Higurashi." At his blank look, she pretended to mistake it for non-recognition rather than shock. "You know, that girl who was woken up from under the school and has been enrolled here. I'm sure she's in at least one of your classes."
Sasaki silently stalked back to the Mech Shop, class in tow.
Grinning widely now, Kaede picked up the transmit-microphone and said, "Okay, very nice, Kagome, bring her on in now. We've got some talking to do."
In the cockpit, Kagome nodded, then realized Kaede couldn't see that and said into the speaker, "Okay, coming on in." She wheeled around, a huge smile on her face, and pointed the ship in the direction of the school—
Just as something huge and unseen slammed into the side of the DA-001. From a muffled string of curses over the radio, she gathered something had hit Inuyasha too, but at the moment she was too occupied by the fact that she was spinning wildly out of control. The steering levers were moving on their own, jerked by the force that had thrown her off and away from the school.
A youkai the size of the hangar suddenly appeared, one fist around her ship, the other around Inuyasha's. Inuyasha was firing at it, but if he killed it now, it would fall on the school, and that couldn't happen.
In a flash of inspiration, Kagome hit the incinerator switch. Searing heat ran over the craft, forcing the youkai to drop her, howling and shaking its pudgy fist. A moment later, it released Inuyasha as well, now making twice the noise.
"Follow me," Inuyasha commanded over the transmitter. "We'll lead it to the abandoned part of town in the east—it's not walking on anything, just floating."
"Got it." She checked her compass, ducking under a wildly swinging fist, and hared off after Inuyasha, deliberately going slower than she could. It lumbered after them, a low, gurgling cry emerging from a misshapen throat. It was forced to fly higher, clearing the buildings, in order to swat at both Kagome and Inuyasha, who had led it higher on purpose.
Eventually the buildings thinned out until they were crumbling ruins, and there Inuyasha turned to face it, Kagome following suit. Both simultaneously opened fire, and it bellowed, waving at them frantically. She launched a missile at it, which struck its enormous white belly, and a moment later a puff of smoke came from within the folds of flesh, but there was no visible result otherwise. Inuyasha let out another string of curses, barking to her that they'd probably have to cut this thing up with the wings and the laser whiskers, and flew straight at its neck.
Through sheer luck, the thing caught his craft, seizing it in a soft white hand that had already healed from its earlier burn. After a moment, it began to squeeze, but by then, it was doomed, because Kagome had begun to lose her temper.
She hit the anti-gravity thrusters and the DA-001 halted in midair, hatch popping open after a moment. Climbing out to the top, she planted her feet as firmly as she could on it and held her hands in front of her about a foot apart, arms extended. A crackling ball of blue-white light formed there almost immediately, a halo of less intense power wreathing her figure, and she let the power between her hands swell, then loosed.
A beam of light speared the sky, coming right next to the thing's neck. And then she swung right, the feeling as the power cut through flesh and bone vibrating down. She stolidly ignored it until it had been decapitated completely.
The hand gripping Inuyasha's ship fell limp, releasing the crippled machine, which plummeted towards the ground, the thrusters half-heartedly slowing the fall. She didn't see the other fat hand coming toward her until it struck her left wing, bending it like foil as it passed and jarring her badly. She leapt into the cockpit, hatch slamming shut over her head, and seized the steering handles, trying to land somehow, but the ground was rushing up and one wing was useless…
Yanking on all of her power, she slowed both her and Inuyasha's falls the best she could, which meant hitting the ground at not quite full force, though it was far from as soft as a fluffy bunny. The impact was going to leave more than a few bruises, and she didn't even want to think about her ship. Kaede was going to kill her.
Inuyasha had fallen about fifty feet from her, hadn't he? She released the straps, pushing her way out of the mangled cockpit, and stood shakily, looking around. The cloudy sky overhead offered no help, and the landscape was mostly crumbling, old buildings. She'd landed in what could have been a docking lot for a skyscraper, or something… The ancient, skeletal structure was behind her, with Inuyasha's crumpled ship at its base, and as she watched, he slowly climbed out, looking a bit rough around the edges to say the least. She probably didn't look like the epitome of feminine beauty herself, but that didn't matter.
The thing's arm flopped over, striking the building as she had begun to walk over to him. It teetered perilously for a moment, swaying, then fell with a crunch on both of them. Blinding darkness and choking dust filled the air, and she pulled her shirt over her nose and mouth, clenching her eyes shut and trying to suppress a coughing fit.
Somehow, she'd been caught in a crevasse of debris that had made something of a pocket of air, but how long that was going to last, she didn't know. If there was a vent to the outside that would let in fresh air, that would be good, but if not…
If not, she'd worry about it later. She would have cast a light, but she was close to drained and already the exhaustion was wearing at her. "Inuyasha?"
"What?" There was something of an 'oh-darn-you-didn't-die' tone to his voice.
"Are you okay?"
"If I wasn't, you'd know." He sounded about twenty feet away or so.
"I can't see in the dark and I can't smell blood," she retorted. "So no, I wouldn't know." When no response came, she asked, "What are we going to do?"
"I don't know." She could swear he'd crossed his arms and had a scowl on his face, even if she couldn't see him. "I've never been trapped under a building before."
"I have." Kagome got to her feet, tested her reserves, and found she'd regenerated enough power to cast a small light. A flick of blue-white bloomed into an orb, throwing shadows into relief, and she spotted Inuyasha sitting among the debris, running a hand through his hair. "I'm about drained, and even if I wasn't, I don't know if I could lift an entire building," she said wearily. "I don't think I could."
"They'll find us in a few hours." He refused to look at her, a scowl on his face. "There's a tracking device in every ship, incase someone decides to go for a joyride or something like this."
"Works for me." She held in a yawn, eyelids dragging. "I'm going to sleep."
"Why?" He snorted.
"I'm near-drained." Kagome found a slab of debris that would have to work and sat on it. "I said that already."
"Didn't think you'd ever get drained," he muttered darkly just as she laid back.
That made her sit up again. Her sleep wasn't the priority of he was going to openly challenge her again. She didn't want to dominate him; she didn't want to beat him; all she wanted was a little honest respect. "Why do you hate me so much?" He didn't answer. "What did I do?" she asked again, getting angrier. "I mean, first you're throwing trays into people on my behalf, and then all of a sudden I do something right and you're like 'I hate you! You're good at something! I eat your soul!'"
"You shouldn't be here," he snarled. "You don't belong here—"
"You're acting like I want to be here!" she yelled, finally losing it. "You're acting like I wanted to be separated from everything I knew! You're acting like I'm enjoying being pushed around by most of a school that thinks everyone like me is automatically weaker! You're acting like I'm happy that everything I knew, everyone I cared for, is gone! Well, let me tell you something: I'm not!" She took a deep breath, and he cut in.
"You throw around your abilities like they're toys!"
"Oh, so now I can't be good at anything?" she demanded.
"I never said that!"
"You said that I'm a show-off!"
"I said that you throw around your abilities!"
"That's the same thing!"
"No it's not!"
"Explain to me how that's not the same thing!"
"I don't have to!"
"You mean you can't!"
"Yes I can, I just don't want to!"
"No you can't, or you would have!"
"I can!"
"You can't!"
"Can too!"
"Can not!"
"Can too!"
"Can not!"
"Can too!"
"Grow up!" She was so tired; all she wanted was to sleep, but she couldn't until this was resolved. "I'm not here to make you look bad, whether you want to think that or not!"
"Why do you have to be here, anyway?" he fired back.
"Because the people making the big decisions are the ones that want me here! Not in another school, not in another city, here!" She laid flat, hands behind her head. "There's nothing I can do to change that, even if I wanted to. Now, like I said before, I'm going to sleep." She closed her eyes, and silence met her words.
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