Going Back to School

By Yashira

Chapter 2 Waiting for the Bus

"I look stupid," Inuyasha stated flatly as he glared down at the navy-blue uniform that appeared black in the sunlight. The two piece outfit, not counting the white shirt beneath, made him uncomfortable. He was use to flowing, baggy pants and a loose fitting jacket, not this tight outfit that clung heavily against his muscular flesh. "And I don't see why I have to wear this stupid hat," he gestured frustratively at the black baseball cap which hid his ears from the eyes of the world. Right on cue, a barrage of curses, enough to make the sun blush, spewed forth from his angry lips. "Damn hurts my ears."

"If Kagome wants you to wear it, there has to be some reason for it," Miroku, in the same identical uniform, was adjusting his hand glove as he spoke while his violet eyes concentrating on the ivory beads he entwined about it. "Please bear with it."

"I didn't get a hat," Kouga, his tone instantly suspicious and coloured in jealously, glared at Inuyasha with narrow eyes. "Give it to me! I'm sure Kagome meant for me to have it…"

Inuyasha's amber eyes glinted like ice fire as he crackled angry knuckles. "Go to hell, Kagome gave it to me!!! Just make me!!!"

"I will! No Inu-kuro will tell me what to do!" Leaping forward with claws extended as Inuyasha, with self-confident and cold-eyed stance in turn, stood taunt and ready for battle. It was just that moment when Sesshomaru decided to let out a deep chuckling laugh.

Kouga and Inuyasha, mere inches from giving each other a severe injury, turned in unison and shouted, "WHAT!"

Sesshomaru was actually grinning, his teeth glinting brightly in the daylight, as he innocently mocked, "What? Did you stop on my account?"

"What the fuck are you thinking, you bastard," Inuyasha adjusting his cap as it slid back; he knew there was more to that laugh than Sesshomaru was letting on.

"Would I hide anything you?"

Miroku, Kouga, and Inuyasha all gave Sesshomaru that look of "and you had to ask?"

"Ha, far from it that Kagome and Sango return to find the two of you fighting and ruining your uniforms that she went to such pains to buy… with her own money I might add…" Glancing at his nails as if they were of more importance than the scum he knew as his half-brother and wolf-youkai rival, Sesshomaru looked away. "I'm sure you've thought straight through about the consequences…"

"Errr…" said Kouga.

"Um…" replied Inuyasha.

"Actually I think your older-half brother has a point," Miroku reluncantly agreed as he ran a hand through his black hair nervously. Both boys glared at him, mouths curled to revealed sharp fangs, but Miroku struggled to continued on, feeling the need that he had to say these next words. "I think Kagome made a point about fighting earlier.." Kouga's and Inuyasha's glare darken, but Miroku who raised his hands innocently to hold off their comments, didn't stop, "You were both there… I remember something about her saying 'osuwari,' if that helps ring a bell…"

Inuyasha paled a bit, but recovered quickly by cursing darkly. "Damn it, that woman is just mad about me not following after her. Just because I said I wouldn't-" He trailed off abruptly and was surprised to see the three of them looking at him patiently.. waiting for him to put his big foot in his mouth.

"YESSSS?" Inuyasha glared at the three of them, determined not to admit he had been wrong in telling Kagome off when she had made that a specific trip to come get him. "Shut up!"

Miroku gave an exasperated sigh, knowing that if they didn't let up Inuyasha would start to get violent the more they embarrassed him, and changed the topic. "Say is it just me, or are they taking a long time?"

"It's just you," Sesshomaru murmured flatly, his tone bored, as his gaze drifted off towards the house behind them. Like the others he wore the same uniform, but his hair had been tied into a low pony-tail and he wore a white bandana across his forehead. His sidemarks (you know the two red marks) had been left as they were, the excuse they had all decided to use was that he had been involved in a grudge match and was searching for the six-fingered man who had killed his father.(Anyone seen Princess Bride?) "Look here comes Jaken…" He didn't seem excited at seeing the return of his running servant as he tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

Jaken, one of the few of hadn't changed out of his "old" clothing, was running like the wind as if he'd just seen his death by Goshinki's blade again. "Sesshomaru-sama!" Bowing respectfully at his indifferent master, Jaken instantly began giving his report in a hurried manner. "The ladies are on their way, they sent the children off into the stomach of some great serpent called 'Bus,`" with teardrop overhead he rose up shakily and added, "I managed to escape, but I fear Rin and the others are lost!"

"What, not Shippo and Kohaku too?" Miroku whirled around in alarmed, his voice tinged in shock, "What of Myoga?"

"I haven't see him," Jaken answered back seriously, his frog like eyes looming big in his face.

"Why am I not surprise," Inuyasha replied shaking his head in that

"I should have known better then to leave a lousy retainer like you to watch over Rin," Sesshomaru slapped his servant hard in the face, the force of the hit, sending Jaken reeling backwards. "Oh, and I'm sure you let her get eaten, am I right? That's it Jaken, you don't eat for a month, and the month after that, and-"

"My Lord, you don't mean-"

"That's just the beginning," Sesshomaru, his golden eyes lit like flames, reached for his sword.

"What are you guys doing?" Kagome, running forward with Sango behind her, were gasping and panting from the sudden run. "We're going to be late."

"Kagome, please tell me you didn't feed Shippo and Kohaku to Bus," Miroku asked, his tone of alarm fading quickly into sudden interest as he noticed that Sango wore the exact same style of clothing that Kagome did. He was instantly between the two, his hands entwining about Sango's in that predictable motion he always used when asking women to bear his child. "Sango will you-"

Sango, promptly hitting him on cue, sent him flying backwards with a shock look in both face and limbs. "We're late for school and all you can do is hit on me? You're a houshi, for heaven's sake. Behave like one, damn it."

"Sango…" Miroku croaked with eyes that said, "how could you," but with hands that made that snapping, "darn" sound.

"Look woman, what's this business of feeding Rin to a bus?" Sesshomaru, his tone sneering, as he stepped towards her with as threatening a manner he had faced Jaken just a moment before.

"Bus? What's wrong with a bus?" Kagome looked confused.

"Jaken told us the whole story," Inuyasha added as Kagome looked between them in bewilderment. "He said you fed the children to some monster called a bus?"

"Fed? Monster? Oh I see," glaring at Jaken with a look that said, "baka, baka, baka," and "even more baka, baka, baka," Kagome quickly explained. "A bus is like a carriage, but it holds a lot of people and has no horses…"

"Yeah, do you think I'd let my brother get eaten?" Sango added for emphasis when the guys were still standing there looking rather dazed.

"Look, there's our bus, now!" Kagome pointed eagerly as she took quick steps forward, "I don't always use the bus, but if I'm late and I happen to catch it, I do… come on lets go…" Sango and Kagome were gone in a whirl of short skirts, both heaving school bags over their shoulders and disappearing down the temple path towards the half-empty road ahead in mere seconds. In the semi-distance, the rumble and groan, of the public transit bus, was hastily making its way towards them.

"Should we go?" Kouga asked questionably. He was staring after Kagome, but his superfast feet hadn't decided to start moving yet. The appearance of that bus… worried him.

"Jaken, go back to the house and help Kaede," Sesshomaru order flatly, "and pray that when I come home that I may have forgotten your punishment for bringing me false news."

"H-hai, Sesshomaru.." Jaken bowed so low that his head touched the floor before his clothes did. "Your humble servant will be praying for your forgiveness throughout the whole day."

Miroku, who was mystified by the way both Kagome and Sango ran, especially by the way the light glinted off their bare legs turned with one accord and said, "Better eaten and be in heaven with the women, then alive and stuck with the men." He was gone in two blinks, instantly between the two girls, and chatting with them as if they had all left together.

"Oh well, if I must go I must go.." Sesshomaru began indifferently as he sped off after them.

"That pervert," Inuyasha scowled angrily, his face going dark and his eyes crackling in anger.

"I know," Kouga growl deeply, his tone matching the darkness equally in Inuyasha's scowl.

Both Inuyasha and Kouga abruptly looked at each other as they realized they had not only agreed on something, but that they were the only ones left behind. "Shit," Kouga cursed, "I'm not getting stuck with you. I'm going to be with my woman." Taking a running start, Kouga leapt ahead as Inuyasha, his face holding a sour look of anger through out a barrage of cursing.

"Your woman?!! If you think I'll let you get close to Kagome, think again, you bastard!!" InuYasaha was off and running and cursing Kouga every step of the way.

v v v

The bus squealed to a halt just several metres from the stop, as Kagome's frantic wavings followed by the group chasing after her, finally registered in the driver's thoughts. (I think we all have had this happen to us where the Busdriver, not paying attention to the passengers waiting, misses the stop by a gap, exactly the size of the bus!) Running to the open doors as if fearing the Busdriver would decide to take off (I've had this happen to me.), Kagome jumped the steps immediately and began depositing the fare quickly as Sango and Miroku climbed up after her. Sesshomaru followed after the two, calm collect with no sign whatsoever of breathlessness, as he entered the great "bus" and looked about the interior with great disdain.

"Bah, not even its guts, are suitable for me," he sniffed the air in disdain, had the look of turning about, when Inuyasha and Kouga squished through behind him. Sesshomaru was roughly knocked forward into the bus, as both Inuyasha and Kouga, neither letting the other the chance to go first, pushed in together like a square peg being forced through a circular hole.

"Let me through you bastard," Inuyasha cursed angrily, as he was wedged roughly against the Bus' window. "I have to go in first…"

"Go to hell, you Inu-kuro, there's no way I'm going to let you sit beside my Kagome. No way in hell!"

Kagome who had taken a window seat and had Sango sitting beside her, while Miroku sulked in the empty seat behind them, looked quite embarrassed. "Hey, you guys, I'm already sitting beside someone, so just get in here and pick a seat. You're making a scene."

It wasn't the sight of crowd in the bus staring at them, but the fact that Kagome sent a half-hearted smile from her spot by Sango that sent both Inuyasha and Kouga into that classic expression of falling over with v-outstretched fingers. Pushing forward, so that Kouga fell flat on his face, Inuyasha stormed down the bus aisle, his eyes narrowed on Kagome as if, "what the hell," before he took one of the single seats that stood across from both of them. "Feh, like I'd want to sit beside a girl who stinks.. hmmpt.." Jerking his face away, his scowl was reflected in the window he looked out of.

Kouga, who'd peeled himself from the ground came charging after him, "You are so dead when we get off this bus." He eventually ended up finding himself sitting beside Miroku. He glared at Inuyasha the whole time. "And he's just mad that he lost to my superior speed."

"Your superior speed? Ha, don't make me laugh," Inuyasha's tone was sour as he scoffed at Kouga. "I made it on the bus first… so there…"

"You…. Why I…"

Then the bus started to move.

"This beast is moving?!!!!!!!"