Prompts: "Undress. Your clothes are stained." and Vincent being an ninja set in an AU

If there was ever one thing she'd never expect when she was returning to, what she thought was her future, was that she'd changed it completely. In a sense Kagome supposed she should've expect it for trampling with the past. But, why hadn't she crease to exist? Her family faded from existence because of her actions, yet she was still there, alive and in the flesh.

And being worshipped like some kind of a prophet, or even worse, a goddess.

Murmuring a quiet complaint Kagome tugged on her green and gold colored dress. She did have to give this…alternative era some credit though. She always did like the steampunk fashion, even though they did look uncomfortable. She could do without the terrible air pollution, however.

She nearly launched off her seat, when her carriage stopped suddenly, and barking out a yelp. A strong hand grappled onto her bicep, and she found herself being righted back into her spot, "Lady Blackbird! Are you alright!?"

Kagome pried off the large gloved hand from her arm and rubbed the now-tender flesh, "I'm fine, I'm fine, Vincent-san." She just wished they hadn't insisted on calling her Blackbird–apparently her old surname, Higurashi, was much too old fashioned? Kagome didn't understand the Queen's skewed logic.

Frowning, her guard dog nodded. His lips setting into a firm line, Vincent thudded his cane against the ceiling of the carriage, "What in the world was that, driver!?" He demanded, his voice cold.

She had to bite back an urge to shudder at his tone. For all the time she spent with those with cruel characters, Vincent was perhaps one of the most frightening individual she had the misfortune to meet. He was almost two-faced, in a way that he could flip certain personality so easily to certain individuals. Sweet and kind was one, another was stern and demanding–but both had a sheen of cruelty, Kagome found.

It was hard to try and keep her distance from the guard dog the Queen appointed her, but considering her…role, it was lonely. Her guard dog was her only company. Her only pair of listening ears.

It didn't help that he was so handsome–and Kagome knew he was using his appearance to charm her.

"I'm so sorry, Lord Phantomhive and Lady Blackbird!" The voice of dismayed driver echoed back, "The beasts stopped all the suddenly! I don't know why!" His words sounded pathetic at the following words, though Kagome couldn't blame him—Vincent didn't give mercy often. Kagome was the driver's only blessing, "I just checked them this morning, and my scanner gave away nothing out of ordinary!"

She wished they hadn't chose the machines over the living, breathing animals, but it couldn't be helped because of the air pollution. It would be an instant death for those who are out for more than an hour. Vincent had an expression that told Kagome of his displeasure.

He stiffened.

Kagome frowned at this, before her senses went hay-wired. A threat.

Pulling his hat from a hook behind him, Vincent tilted his torso and beamed a sweet smile at his mistress, "Excuse me. I'll be back in momentarily." He capped on his hat and tipped his head respectfully.

Then, he was gone, with nothing but a click of the door sounding. The carriage creaked with the absent weight. Kagome stared at the man's empty spot, before she shook her head with a sigh. She reclined against the overstuffed cushion at her back. It wasn't quite ladylike for her to slack her posture, but she was allowed and Vincent couldn't scold her.

When the Queen assigned one of Her favorite servants ("Guard Dogs", as many called them) to protect and serve her latest ward, Kagome honestly didn't expect Vincent Phantomhive to be the closest thing of what one may called an Ninja. Instead of a black catsuit, a facemask, and just about everything stereotypical one may imagine for an ninja to have, Vincent takes care of vermin disposal wearing his neat suit with a tie and a top hat to match. She wondered why no one really thought about ninjas outside of their silly catsuits…Vincent Phantomhive, as she hated to say, pulled that role off so beautifully.

And nightmare-like.

If she hadn't (somehow) fell out from the smog-filled sky and was dropped almost literally into the Queen's laps, Kagome might've never met Vincent Phantomhive. She might've been free, if not salvaging through trash to fill her belly and sleep in the bowel of underground pipes away from the poisoned air. But, instead, she was fated to serve the Queen in some ways still unknown to her…Neither this or being a poor pipe rat sounded at all appealing to her.

Often, she wished she had follow the fate of her family and just be erased from the plane of existence.

But, she was never the one to give up, so she made do with the new life she had.

Shaking her head away from her lamenting Kagome rose her head and blinked. Her body suddenly drew tight. Are there threats just outside her door–!?

A deafening cry bellowed right into her ear, and she shot to the window where the driver lingered. The man was dragged out of his little glass barrier, by a pair of mechanical arms. The carriage dipped in weight, before it corrected itself.

THUD! Kagome recoiled when she heard a slam against her side of the coach. She didn't dare to peer through her little window to see who it was outside.

"Blackbird!" growled a guttural voice, who sounded as if he was a very large person, "Make it easy for yerself and come out and surrender! Or Ima bust open this door and drag yer tiny ass across th' dirty pavement!"

She had little forms of protection–both the Queen and Vincent deemed it unnecessary for Kagome to carry a weapon on her person. The Guard Dog was all she needed, they said. Well, she grounded her teeth, maybe I can make a compelling argument now.

Unwillingly Kagome gave Vincent as much time as she could offer, before the bastard outside decided to flip over her carriage. "BLACKBIRD!" So much for that. Kagome reached over to the door and peeled open the latch, allowing it to creak.

She didn't have a time to breathe, when a giant mitt shot to her neck through the gap of the door. Kagome gagged when she found herself being lifted out of her little safe coach, and choked at the gray-tinted air. She clawed into the mechanical hand and glared, the best glare she could muster in her current position, at his round face.

His teeth was a disturbing shade of yellow, when they grinned at her, "Ima make an example out of yer for th' Queen bitch!" The man crackled, when he was flanked by his, much, scrawny followers. Kagome met the bounded and muffled driver's wet eyes, abandoned under a dimmed lamppost, "No one like Her Maaaayesty, for all the fuck ups she did to our country. Offing yer is bounded to be some fair reven–"

A tiny henchmen had half of his face severed off–the piece of it spattered against a cobblestone-wall. The leader stiffened, his eyes mostly white with fear at the unexpected fate of one of his men. His second henchman shrieked out, his voice hammering deep in Kagome's ears, when red blossomed at his knobby knees and soon, it cut to his chest.

His cries ended with a choke.

Kagome wheezed for oxygen, her nails digging deep. She felt pricks of the bastard's machinery into her fingers, but she didn't care.

She needed air!

Her throat burned just as the bastard loosened his grasp, still shellshocked at the deaths of two of his followers. He then craned his head at where a cinched, cool voice came from, "Do put Lady Blackbird down, now."

Vincent was on the top of the carriage, patting the long rod of his cane against his palm. For his soft look, his expression was something from the depth of Hell. Even his silhouette cast by the high moon gave away his anger.

"Fuck ya!" The man barked out and Kagome bit deep into her lips.

Shifting his cane to against the metal roof Vincent tapped it when the villain refused his demand. He gave a disgusted groan and tugged at his hat, "I never did like those who did not listen." He vanished, the short tail of his coat snapping against what it seemed like the moon itself.

Panicking the man tried to tighten his grasp on Kagome's dangling form. It took her muffled cry for him to regret his action, however thoughtless it was, when a thin line of red appeared at his elbow. It was followed shortly with quiet crackling of electricity flying from the snipped wires. Kagome yelped when she was dropped, the bastard's arm literally falling into pieces, with his hand parting from her neck.

Before she could meet the hard pavement, a warm chest thudded against her shoulder and tight hands gripping possessively against her slender form. She was saved. Kagome coughed from her dry throat, wishing for clean air, but glad that she was rescued.

Again.

She didn't have to know that Vincent was thorough with his recent duty, with the man and his sorry bunch of followers already dead. When the familiar bang of the carriage door echoed, Kagome inhaled deep of the purified air and sighed happily at being alive. She barely reacted when Vincent begrudgingly separated her from his arms and settled her tired form into her usual seat, "Forgive me, Lady Blackbird. It seemed that the interference with the beasts were their move to part me from your side." He murmured apologetically, "Forget the party, you are going straight back to your home and rest. This is quite an ordeal." Vincent made a mental note to call and apologize to the Queen soon, a thumb brushing across his mobile phone in his breast pocket.

Kagome huffed in reply, but said nothing further. She could use a nice nap, a nice helping of sweets, and a hot bath. Not necessarily in that order.

She barely heard Vincent barking out at the poor driver, now freed, as he hurried back into his little glass cubby and restarted the horse machines. Any other day Kagome would have shine away from Vincent's warmth, when he took the spot next to her instead of his usual, but now she ravished in it. The one she deemed to be a demon in his own rights, was her safety.

Drowsily she stared out of the tiny slit of window and watched the gold and bronze-colored mechanical world to go by. Lulled by her guard dog's apologetic voice Kagome was almost tempted to just fall asleep right then and there. She didn't feel the heat of Vincent's glare on her chest, but even if she did, Kagome didn't care. Home, even though she didn't feel it was much of one yet, was something she was looking the most forward to.

She didn't remember the journey back home, much less how she ended up back in her room, sprawling across her gigantic bed.

"Bed first." Kagome decided. She can demand dessert for breakfast, she suppose. Without even bothering to kick her high-heeled boots off she curled into a loose ball onto the top of her downy duvet.

But sleep wouldn't come to her. Not when her door was thudded open and slammed close, the light blasting through the darkness, and Vincent glowering at her, the incandescent lamp making a beautiful ha/lo upon his head. Annoyed Kagome peered up at him through her arms, her eyes aching from sudden change in lighting, "What did you want?"

Vincent's lips thinned, and in a blink of an eye he was hovering above her form. He didn't heed her startled cry and tightened his knees over her hips. Tugging at her collar to get rid of the offensive bloodstains from her body, Vincent grounded out, "Undress. Your clothes are stained." He wasn't going to let her to sleep in such filthy clothes, tainted by the one who almost took his mistress' life!

He'd thought Kagome would've peel it off and ask for a bath to wash away her horrid experience—which Vincent had already prepared, but instead she did neither. So exhausted she decided bed was the preferred option. Understandable, but like hell was he allowing her to continue wearing such filth.

"What!?" Kagome finally registered his words, and at that point, her blouse was already undone, "No! Get off of me!"

Vincent sniffed, with disdain, "With this filthy mud on your skin?" His hands didn't pause.

It was like trying to push a boulder! She growled, slamming a fist against his shoulder, "I can get this off myself!"

Sighing at Kagome's infamous stubbornness Vincent grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head. Realizing their position he sniggered–it was a scene straight from one of his many dreams! "No, I think this option," he purred, "is better for both of us, no?"

Her skin was flushed red, Kagome's resistant creased. She turned away her head, now at loss for words. Cool air impacted her bare arms, but Vincent's tight grip loosen her hands.

"I was merely teasing, my dear lady." He separated himself from the bed and resettled on his feet, minding the carpet. Vincent was delighted to know she didn't protest much at the picture he conjured up. But, gathering the dirty blouse into his arms with a disgusted grimace, such ideas would have to wait. "Please do take off the clothes and take the bath–I cannot tolerate the idea of you wearing someone else's blood."

Rubbing her bare arms Kagome didn't dare to ask how Vincent managed to take her blouse off without turning her. She nodded, trembling, "O-okay. Fine."

Her blush darkened when Vincent's chuckling drifted into her room.