InuYasha leapt into the clearing quietly. The well was only two feet away from him, and he could make it down easily without anyone hearing, but… the hanyou scoured the clearing left and right to make sure nobody was watching anyway.
Once he was satisfied, he disappeared down the mystic portal, snickering at his own cleverness. Wouldn't the others be surprised when they woke up with Kagome among them again!
About five minutes after InuYasha had left, Miroku, Shippo, and Sango all dashed out from different corners of the clearing.
Miroku looked at the other two. "You had the same Idea too?"
Sango crossed her arms at him. "You know," She said, "I could have sworn that you were the one who is always saying we shouldn't spy, because InuYasha's shy."
Miroku suddenly seemed to get very nervous. "Well…" He stuttered. "You misunderstand! I was simply coming here to make sure everything went right. I'm a monk, so naturally I am above such worldly things as spying."
Shippo also crossed his arms as well. "And perversion?" He asked.
Miroku cleared his throat. "Well," He said in an overly loud voice. "I'm ready for a midnight snack!"
Sango and Shippo sighed in unison.
~~
InuYasha leapt out of the well silently, and made his way over to Kagome's window. He rapped on the glass slightly, hoping against all hope that Kagome had already forgiven him. There was no response. Growling in annoyance, he slid open the window, and peaked inside. She wasn't in her bed. That's weird… He thought. HE removed his head from the window, and sniffed at the air. Her scent still hung heavy, and it was very easy to pick up, but it wasn't fresh. He dropped to all fours, and sniffed at the ground expertly.
Rising back to his feet, he nodded slightly, and took a massive running start then leapt into the night sky.
His hanyou speed and strength carried him easily over the weird, bright city that Kagome lived in. She called it something like To-Kee-Oh, or something like that. Not that it mattered. InuYasha couldn't understand why the girl was so concerned with this place. Her role was back in the warring states era, with the rest of them.
He followed her scent through the night sky, leaping from building to building, looking left and right for all possible signs of her. Finally, he arrived on the roof of a strange building made out of red, stone, rectangles. The place had the scent of Kagome all over it, along with the scent of hundreds of other kids. Was this the horrible place called "School" Where they forced Kagome and all her "Classmates" to take "Tests?"
InuYasha almost immediately decided he didn't like this place. And besides all the horror stories Kagome had told her about it, it was too bright. At the front of the building had a big white horseless carriage with red and blue lights whirling on and off on it, and it made an annoying whistling, howling noise.
His sensitive dog ears could pick up a bit of conversation here and there. "Do you think she'll be alright?" One voice asked.
"I hope so." Another said.
"I hear Hojo's already over at the hospital." Said yet a third. "He's such a good guy. She should do better to just dump whoever else she's seeing, and go with him."
InuYasha frowned. This wasn't doing any good. Who did they hope was alright? What was going on? And who the hell was Hojo? InuYasha leapt down to a lower floor right below the three talking girls, so as to be able to hear over the whistling carriage.
"I'm going over there as soon as I can." On girl said. "Her family is already there."
"I didn't think she should go to school today." Said the second. "She was looking pretty beat up, walking on those crutches."
Looked pretty beat up? Who were they talking about? No! It couldn't be Kagome… could it?
A man approached the three girls. He wore a white suit, and looked very practical. "Girls, I know this comes as a shock to you." He said. "I'm sorry this had to happen. As it happens, I'm heading over to the hospital now, so you can come with me and look in on Kagome."
InuYasha winced, feeling guilt build up in his stomach again. If she was hurt because of him, then he would never forgive himself. As the three girls loaded into the odd white coach, he lightly jumped from the roof of the building to the top of the car, making next to no noise.
~~
Ayame, Suzume, and Koaru walked into the hospital waiting room silently. Already there was Hojo, all of Kagome's family, and several other students from their school. Almost immediately, Hojo rose and courteously offered his seat, and (After some prompting from his mother) Souta followed suit.
"Do they know what's wrong?" Said Ayame worriedly.
Hojo shook his head, and glance at the E.R. room nervously. "There was some mention of internal injuries."
Suzume gasped, and sat down in her chair, hard. "Oh, God." She said. "What happened?"
Before anyone could answer her question, there was a scream from outside the wasting room, and the door literally burst off its hinges. Filling the space where the slab of wood had been, there was a boy… or at least he looked like a boy. HE had long silvery hair that was definitely not in style right now. His clothes looked to be extremely dated as well, and he wore no shoes. The oddest thing, however, was the fact that he had, on the top of his head, twitching every witch way, a pair of dog ears, the same color as his hair.
Hojo on the rest of Kagome's schoolmates shrank back in horror, but Kagome's entire family seemed almost relieved. The boy stalked over to Mrs. Higurashi, and put his face right down one inch from hers. "Where's Kagome?" He demanded. How did this odd dog-boy know Kagome?
Mrs. Higurashi amazingly looked at the threatening boy with total calm. "She's in surgery right now, InuYasha." She said. InuYasha? Who was InuYasha? "You should wait out here until she gets done."
The odd boy growled. Literally. It was a low, deep, guttural sound deep in the back of his throat. "What the hell is ser-jeree?" He demanded. The boy didn't know what surgery was? Where did he live, in the woods?
Mrs. Higurashi retaliated smoothly. "The doctors are just trying to see what's wrong with Kagome. You should wait here until she gets out." She gestured kindly to the only vacant seat… or at least it was vacant by the time the dangerous looking boy turned his head to it. As he walked over and sat down, a very pale nurse walked in, and regarded InuYasha cautiously.
"Excuse me." She said meekly. "But if you insist on keeping your sword in here, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
The boy, InuYasha, as Mrs. Higurashi had addressed him, looked up sharply, and glared at the nurse with fierce, molten golden eyes. The nurse paled even more and promptly gave him a little bow. "However!" She said hurriedly, "If you behave yourself, I'm sure we can let you stay." And she disappeared.
~~
InuYasha was quickly growing impatient. All the girls that wore the same outfit as Kagome kept staring at him and whispering. Normal people couldn't hear, but he sure could.
"Do you think those ears are real?"
"It looks like it. What do you think he is?"
"Do think it's the boy that Kagome likes?"
"I don't blame her! Even if he does look a little weird, he is really hot!"
"Yeah! I mean, he makes Hojo look like yesterday's meatloaf!"
"Maybe if we can convince Kagome to go out with Hojo one of us can have him."
InuYasha turned to them, having heard quite enough, and fixed them a long unfriendly glare. "They are real, and I can hear very well." He said, with murder in his voice.
The three girls turned to him surprised, and began to blush.
InuYasha returned to sitting in silence, gazing about the room. There were several other people staring at him as well, including Souta. Granted, Souta starred at him whenever he was around, so that was no big deal, but he found that he didn't like that one boy, standing in the corner. He was tall, and had black hair, and was obviously wondering what business the hanyou had here. InuYasha didn't like the boy in the least. Was this Hojo? What was going on between him and Kagome?
InuYasha rose to his feet, and began to pace around the room, his inpatients growing by the second. Kagome's mother had explained that when the little light above the door went off, then that meant the surgery was over… what ever a surgery was.
As he paced, every eye in the room followed him: Left, then right, then left, then right, then left again. So on and so forth, until one of the girls shyly approached him. He whirled on his heel and brought his face down level with hers. The girl was so pale she could have passed for death herself, but she bravely carried out her mission, under close supervision of the other two. The girl deliberately reached up, and grabbed on to his ears.
The action surprised InuYasha so much that the hanyou stood strait up too fast, overbalanced, and toppled over to the ground, falling hard on his butt. The girl backed up again, and ran back to her group, giggling. "They're real!" She squealed.
InuYasha growled slightly as he got to his feet and started over towards the girl. However, before he could do anything, there was a slight "ding," and the light above the door went off. Almost immediately, the tension in the room lowered, and The Higurashi family got to their feet. Everyone was already standing at the door when the doctor cracked it slightly.
"Only the family of the girl, please." He said. A lump sank in InuYasha's stomach. His voice was very apprehensive.
The Higurashi's filed in, but InuYasha was stopped. "Only the kin of the patient please." Said a nurse. InuYasha briefly considered whipping out Tetsusaiga, but turned that down as a bad idea. Instead, he pressed his head up against the crack in the door, and cocked his ear strait up against it. The doctor saying something, but it was garbled. InuYasha listened for a moment more, then his eyes widened. Before the nurse even knew what was happening, InuYasha embedded his hand in the door, and pulled it off its hinges as if it were a toothpick.
He dashed into a room full of sober-looking adults, and one crying Souta. Briefly, he noticed that Kagome was lying, semi-conscious on a bed in the corner of the room, strapped to all sorts of odd metal gadgets and such, but he paid her no mind. He strode right past the objecting nurses strait up to the doctor. The hanyou pulled himself up to his full height, and stared straight down at the doctor. "What was that?" He demanded. The doctor seemed to shrink before his very eyes, becoming smaller and more timid by the second. He looked to Mrs. Higurashi, and she nodded.
"InuYasha…" Came a weak voice from the corner of the room. Momentarily forgetting the doctor, InuYasha stalked over to Kagome's bed, snatching her hand. "Kagome." He said, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm sorry." He said, a tear falling from his face to the side of her hospital apron. The tear said volumes between them.
The doctor nervously approached InuYasha. "Um…" InuYasha turned to the poor doctor demandingly. "What's wrong with her?" He demanded. In his peripheral, he saw the three girls, and the boy sticking their heads through the door.
"Kagome has suffered sever internal hemorrhaging, a large amount of infection due to an unidentified agent, and has only made her situation worse by partaking in strenuous exercise."
InuYasha's eyes widened in horror. Shippo had said that Kagome had run all the way to the well, and jumped down as if nothing was wrong.
"We probably could have patched her up had she not been so hard on herself, but as it is, I'm not sure if there's anything we can do."
InuYasha starred at the doctor intently, horror and rage turning his amber eyes to the molten color of melted gold, the pain of them radiating to everyone in the room. "Meaning?" he said, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.
The doctor swallowed apprehensively. "Kagome has two weeks to live… at most."
**
Okay, it's finally there. From here on out, there's gonna be about one chapter for every day for a little while. If there's a really action pact chapter, I might make it two, or mabey even three, until we get to the last two days. Those will be longer. See ya later. And remember, more reviews means faster and better updates, so please, if you take the time to read this chapter, you could at least review it. It only takes two seconds!
