Complete the Circle
Chapter Nineteen: Omori-Sensei
"I'm going to school now!" Kagome shouted as she headed out of the house, taking an umbrella with her. Outside, the sky was dark and the rain was coming down in torrents. She opened her umbrella and waited as Shippou and Souta each wore their raincoats. Souta opened an umbrella and he and Shippou walked under it, both trying to keep from getting wet. The group headed down the steps. Kagome saw someone walking on the sidewalk near the steps looking like a cream puff. The person had no umbrella, but had the hood of their raincoat up, and was walking with some difficulty for he had too many layers of clothes on. Kagome decided to help the person by offering to share the umbrella with them, so walked quickly down the steps.
"Err, excuse me," Kagome said, trying to get the person's attention. The person's face was lost somewhere beneath the hood.
"Huh? Kagome?"
"Who are you?" Kagome asked, wondering how the stranger knew her name.
"It's me, Inuyasha," he replied, pulling the hood back enough so that she could see his face.
"Inuyasha? Why are you wearing so much?" Kagome asked, gesturing to her brother and Shippou to come quickly down the steps.
"My mom," he grumbled.
"Inuyasha!" Shippou cried out, trying to hug the Inuyasha beneath the layers of clothing.
"Inuyasha no nii-chan?" Souta asked, walking next to them with his umbrella raised, trying to shield Shippou from the rain. "I thought that he—"
"Ah," Kagome interrupted, closing Souta's mouth with her hand. "Inuyasha, I would like you to meet Souta. He's my brother."
"Hi, Souta," he said in greeting, sounding a bit muffled by his hood and by Shippou, who was still trying to get a good grip on him in order to hug him. "What were you calling me before?"
"Nothing!" Souta said a bit too loudly, realizing that he was not the Inuyasha from the Sengoku Jidai.
"Okaay," Inuyasha responded. "Are you guys going to start walking? You're going to be late if you keep standing there."
"Oh," Kagome said, "I was just wondering, would you like to share this umbrella with me?"
"If I stood under that umbrella, I would squeeze you out, and you don't exactly have a raincoat on," he answered, starting to walk to school.
"Oh," Kagome answered before following him. Souta kept on trying to see Inuyasha's face, and Shippou was trying to keep himself under the umbrella when Kagome saw a familiar scene: Sango slapping Miroku.
"Sango-chan, what happened?" Kagome asked as Inuyasha helped Miroku out of the gutter.
"That pervert tried to grope me!" Sango said, walking off to the school quickly with her umbrella.
"I did not!" Miroku protested, putting the hood of the raincoat over his head. "I merely asked if she would share her umbrella with me. I had no idea that she would react so violently to so simple a request." Inuyasha was giving him shrewd looks. "What?" Miroku asked innocently.
"You groped her," Inuyasha stated calmly, then left his friend there as he followed the girls to school. Souta and Shippou quickly ran after Inuyasha.
"I was about to slip and fall. There was nothing to hold on to," Miroku grumbled to himself as he started to head for school again.
Kagome and Sango entered the classroom before Inuyasha and Miroku, the warmth of the classroom a sharp contrast from the cold rain outside. Inuyasha was still taking off his numerous coats, and when Sango gave him a weird look when he took his third coat off, he simply said "mom."
"Hey, Kagome," one of her friends called out to her. "Did you know Musashino is back again?"
"She probably didn't," another one of her friends said. "You know she never pays much attention to guys."
"But Musashino's so cute!" someone else said. "How can Kagome not notice such a hot guy?"
At that moment, Inuyasha entered the classroom, his raincoat and other coats off, but he still had one jacket on and he was sweating slightly.
"I guess he's hot literally," Kagome whispered to her friends. They just giggled in response.
"Inu—err, Musashino," Sango said, correcting herself, "if you're hot, then just take off your jacket."
"No!" he replied quickly, taking out his math binder and shifting through the numerous pieces of paper in it. Sango noticed that the stack of paper he took out were all homework.
"Err, why is your homework not graded at all?" Kagome asked, looking at his papers. "And this assignment is from five months ago!"
"Yeah, well, I had to finish nearly six months worth of assignments in three weeks, so forgive me if some of them haven't been graded yet," he said sarcastically.
"What? Why?" Kagome asked. He scowled, and her friends suddenly pulled her away.
"Musashino's been in the hospital because of a coma," one of her friends said.
"Yeah, happened around the time you started getting sick," another injected.
"He couldn't make up his assignments while he was in a coma, so he had to do his faster, otherwise the school will flunk him," Kagome's friend said. "I don't think he likes people to talk about the coma thing, though."
Kagome blinked in shock at her friends' information, watching in awe as Inuyasha placed the stack of papers on the teacher's desk. She looked at his backpack and saw that it was bulging with the assignments from other subjects. So that's why he looked like a puffball this morning. All the assignments on his back made him look so round, and the number of coats his mother piled on him were no help, either. And did he do all of his homework in three weeks?
Miroku arrived a few minutes before the late bell, smiling pleasantly at Sango and Kagome as if nothing had happened in the morning. Sango ignored him and took her seat. The bell rang, and soon, math class started.
"I'm going to fail!" Kagome wailed during lunch, stabbing her food viciously with her chopsticks. "The test is this Friday, and I don't get the lesson at all!"
"I'm sure we'll understand the material by this Friday," Sango said, trying to be reassuring, but she didn't sound too sure herself.
"Should we ask Inuyasha?" Kagome asked, watching Inuyasha as he tutored Miroku while eating his lunch. Sango looked over there too, but her eyes became dark when she saw Miroku.
"I'm sure Miroku won't do anything inappropriate when others are there," Kagome said, smiling nervously when Sango turned her glare on her. "Great! So I'll ask him right now," Kagome said, not waiting for a reply from Sango.
She walked to where the boys were sitting and cleared her throat.
"Ah, Inu—uh, Musashino," Kagome said, trying to get his attention. He turned to her. "Would you, err, that is, would you mind tutoring Sango-chan and I for the test? I know you don't really know us that well, because we've only met, like, what, two times? But would you please tutor us anyway?" She waited for his reply anxiously. If he said "no" she would have no where else to turn to for help.
"Sure, why not?" he said, shrugging as if it was nothing. "I'm tutoring Miroku anyway, so tutoring you is no biggie."
"Really?" Kagome asked, surprised by his answer. The Inuyasha she remembered would never help anyone willingly. But he's not that Inuyasha, she reminded herself.
"Where? What time?"
"How about my house? After school," suggested Kagome. Inuyasha nodded his agreement.
"Okay, since your house is a little closer to school than mine is," he said. The end of the lunch bell rang, and Kagome thanked Inuyasha and headed back to her own table to collect her things.
"I can't believe you just talked to Musashino!" her friends said as soon as she reached the table. "And we thought that you were a shy person!"
"What are you talking about?" asked Kagome nervously.
"So you're really dumping Hojo-kun for Musashino?" her friend asked. "Well, I have to say, Musashino is a better catch."
"What?! It's not like that!" Kagome said, getting very red. "I just asked him to tutor me."
"Sure," one of her friends winked.
"It's not like that!" Kagome shouted, getting all heads in the cafeteria to turn towards her. Her face became even redder, if that was possible. She quickly gathered her things and hurried to class, not waiting when Sango called out to her.
Sango finally caught up to her, and they both were about to enter the classroom together when a voice shouted out.
"Hey! It's the new history teacher," her friend said loudly, causing Kagome to jump. The three girls quickly rushed into the classroom, taking their seats and whispering to each other, leaving Sango and Kagome at the door. Snatches of comments of the teacher's looks reached Kagome's ears, and she decided to enter the classroom herself and see what her friends were fussing about. She never prepared herself for the sight before her.
"Se—Sesshoumaru?" Kagome asked in shock. The silver haired teacher turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing slightly when he saw her, but no other gesture of recognition was given. Kagome saw that he still had his hair long and was still wearing a kimono, but the strips on his face were missing and he had human ears. His customary armor and swords were missing, too.
"You will call me Omori-sensei," he said calmly, then pointed to her seat. She wondered how he knew where she sat until she saw the seating chart on the desk. She took her seat quietly, wondering why Sesshoumaru would appear in a school, teaching humans history. Sango looked suspiciously at Sesshoumaru, but took her seat quietly, too. Little by little the classroom started to get filled, and Kagome was growing increasingly nervous under Sesshoumaru's gaze. She could hear her friends busily chatting away on how cute the history teacher was.
"Onii-chan?!" a familiar voice asked, surprised. "What are you doing here?" Kagome turned her head towards the door and saw Inuyasha standing there, gaping. Did Inuyasha remember Sesshoumaru from the past? Does Inuyasha remember now? Her hopes were dashed away when he suddenly ran to Sesshoumaru and hugged him tightly. Kagome felt her jaw hanging open, but she couldn't close it. What on earth?
"Don't hug me in public, Musashino," Sesshoumaru's cold voice rang out, but Kagome could see that he was smiling slightly. Okay, what just happened here? Am I dreaming? Did I fall into the wrong world?
"Hey! You never told me you were going to teach here," Inuyasha said accusingly.
"You never asked," Sesshoumaru replied calmly, ruffling Inuyasha's hair.
"Hey!" Inuyasha protested, batting Sesshoumaru's hand away.
"Get to your seat before I have to give you a tardy," Sesshoumaru said, getting out the attendance book.
"Feh! I don't care," Inuyasha said, but headed back to his seat anyway. Miroku arrived a few moments later.
"Eh? Sesshoumaru? You're teaching here?" he asked, just as surprised as Inuyasha.
"Go to your seat, Miroku, class is starting," the teacher replied, starting to write his name on the board. Miroku obeyed quickly. Kagome and Sango were still in shock as they watched the entire thing happen. Their confused eyes met each other, but neither were able to answer the other's questions.
"My name is Omori Sesshoumaru, but you will call me Omori-sensei," he said, his gaze falling on Kagome once more. "Does anyone have any questions about me before the class starts?"
"Yes!" Kagome's friend said, raising her hand high in the air.
"Yes?"
"Why are you wearing a kimono to school?" she asked. Kagome sensed that her friend wanted to ask something else, but withered under Sesshoumaru's cold glare.
"I'm the history teacher, so in wearing the traditional costumes, I hope that you will have a better feel of history," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Any more questions?" The rest of the class were afraid to raise their hand, even if they did have a question. "Good." Then he promptly began the lesson.
Kagome had to admit that Sesshoumaru was a good history teacher, though it was probably because he lived through most of the things that occurred in the history books. He kept the class interesting, and even the students that usually fell asleep during history were awake for the entire lesson this time, although Kagome wasn't sure if that was because he was a good teacher, or if they were afraid of the new teacher's wrath. It had been weird to hear Sesshoumaru talk about things other than getting Tetsusaiga or killing Inuyasha, but overall it had been an enjoyable lesson.
Kagome stood by the school's gates, waiting for Inuyasha to come. He had said he needed to ask Sesshoumaru a few things, so would be delayed a bit. Finally he came.
"What took you so long?" Miroku asked, starting towards the Higurashi Shrine.
"Just had to ask Onii-chan to pick up Rin," Inuyasha replied, waiting for the girls to catch up to them.
"Who's Rin?" asked Sango, walking as far away from Miroku as possible. Kagome thought that it was a good thing the sun was out now, or else Miroku might have another excuse for groping. She felt kind of sorry for Inuyasha, who was holding all the coats from the morning and still wearing that one jacket that he refused to take off.
"Rin's my little sister," Inuyasha said, trying to see over all the coats he was carrying.
"You have a little sister?" Sango asked, surprised.
"Yup."
"And an older brother?" asked Kagome, wondering what other surprises this Inuyasha had.
"Actually, Sesshoumaru's not really my older brother," Inuyasha said. "I wish he was, though… But anyway, he's my dad's friend, and when I was born, my parents decided to make him my godfather, but as it turns out, I feel more comfortable calling him brother. Oh yeah, Rin calls him 'Onii-chan' also."
Kagome didn't know what to say to this. It seems as if though Inuyasha really loves his former brother. And isn't Rin that little girl that followed Sesshoumaru around? This is just so strange. But it's also kind of…nice. It was nice to see Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha getting along together for once.
She watched as Inuyasha raced Miroku up the steps of shrine, taunting him all the way. She smiled to herself. Even if they are not the same people that I met in the Sengoku Jidai, I feel happy to see them live like this. They actually look happy in this life. Kagome felt the smile fall from her face. Do I have the right to interrupt their life by forcing them to remember the past?
Author's Note: "Omori" means big forest. Yay! Sesshoumaru finally appears! There'll be more of him later. Other characters that will definitely appear are Kaede, Myouga, Inuyasha's mother and father, and everyone's favorite character, Jaken (just kidding!).