A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I love all of them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions.
"What?" Inuyasha asked. He felt the banked flare of slow rising anger, and the particular sharp edge that frame of mind lent his thinking. He was insulted. The cafe where Kagome worked was his territory, he realized in the back of his mind. Somehow, being associated with Kagome had made it so. 'Next I'll be protecting the fox,' he thought sardonically, but anger pushed the thought aside.
"I don't know exactly. That was Matsui Kenjii--the boy who works the same shift as me--and he said the place was just wrecked. The windows are all broken, the inside is trashed, and there are weird burn marks everywhere." Kagome relayed the message expressionlessly. "He said some people are saying it was a rogue youkai."
"A what?" the hanyou asked, his brow lowering in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"A rogue youkai," Kagome repeated, then blinked repeatedly, focusing on his face. "Oh. I suppose there weren't too many stories about rogue youkai fifty years ago." Inuyasha shook his head and waited for the girl to continue.
"Rogue youkai are youkai that have gotten around their basic codes somehow," she explained.
"Unregistered?" Inuyasha asked, concern coloring his tone. Unregistered youkai were dangerous; their owners had generally hacked into their innate commands and disabled the safeties that prevented youkai from attacking humans with out provocation, destroying property, et cetera. "Are there many unregistered youkai in this time, Kagome?"
"No," Kagome said quickly, "not unregistered. Rogue. There's this whole conspiracy theory about youkai that turn wild and operate without humans telling them what to do. It's just an urban legend."
That made him remember something Miroku had said. "Wasn't that activist saying her family was killed by rogue youkai?"
"Yeah," the girl agreed.
"You should have told me about this," Inuyasha told her sternly. "How am I supposed to protect you if I don't know you have berserk youkai in this time?"
"It's just an urban legend," Kagome repeated. "It doesn't matter. Besides, I'm sure you'd be able to protect me anyway."
The hanyou was not pacified by her answer, and he felt a rumble building in his chest. It wasn't quite a growl, not yet anyway, and like sighing and scowling, he wasn't precisely sure what inspired it.
"So what are you going to do now?" he asked.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "Kenjii thinks I should come down and gawk at the damage, and I should probably talk to my boss. . . The cafe was insured, but it will still take a while to fix."
Kagome sighed mournfully. "Now I'll have to borrow money from Mama just to make rent."
"Keh. That old bitc--" a glare from the girl changed what Inuyasha mind at the last moment, "--ah, Kaede isn't going to kick you out." He stood deliberately. "Let's get going then. Might as well get this over with as quick as possible."
For a second or two Kagome looked like she was going to argue, but then she just nodded and stood herself.
"What?" a high-pitched voice surprised both of them. "Hey, where are you going?"
Shippo stood in the kitchen doorway, his bright eyes shifting from human to Companion youkai, then back again accusingly. The little fox was frowning childishly.
"Shippo," Kagome answered gently, "you know I have to work today."
"But I heard you say the place you work was blown to little, tiny pieces," he protested. "You can't go there now."
"I'll be fine," she assured the youkai kit. "Inuyasha will be with me."
Immediately, Inuyasha realized Kagome had said the wrong thing. Hearing the hanyou's name, Shippo's wavering expression dropped. "Why does he get to go with you? He follows you 'everywhere,' and I hafta stay here. It's not fair."
"Life's not fair, brat," Inuyasha broke in, lifting Shippo by the back of his shirt so he could look him straight in the face. "If I were as useless as you, I'd have to stay here, too."
"Inuyasha! Be nice to Shippo, or you will stay here."
"But Kagome. . ."
"Not buts, or I'll leave you behind."
"Keh," Inuyasha grumbled, dropping Shippo to the ground. If she thought he was going to admit defeat that easily, she had another thing coming. She couldn't leave him behind. They had that argument before, and he'd proven then. . .
"Thank you Inuyasha." And somehow, simply as that, the girl squashed everything he was about to say. 'How the hell does she do that?' he wondered.
Kagome's attention was already back on her old fox youkai. She smiled at him and said, "You're right Shippo."
"I am?" Shippo piped, eyes going wide in shock.
"He is?" Inuyasha said at the same time.
Kagome nodded, still beaming at Shippo, making the fake child puff up proudly. Inuyasha wanted to bop the kid on the head, either for the look on his face, or because Kagome was giving him that smile of hers.
"You can come with us, this time," Kagome told the kit, who burst into an infantile display of affection, throwing himself into the girl's arms and laughing into her shoulder, his fluffy tail waving behind him wildly.
Inuyasha's ears flatted against his head, and it took an act of will to make them relax again. 'Oh, the kid's going to get it when I get him alone. . .' The hanyou turned away, letting his thought trail off into all the happy possibilities of damaging Shippo.
*~*~*
Kagome didn't understand Inuyasha's mood as they rode the bus downtown. But then, when did she understand what went through his head? He'd been so close to opening up to her before the phone rang. She still felt a little swell of pride that he had been comfortable enough with her to share his nightmare with her. But what about it had upset him? Unfortunately, the chance that he would explain now that the moment was past looked slim to none. Especially with him shooting her dirty looks through his bangs. What had she done to deserve those?
Shippo was still bubbling happily. The girl listened with half an ear while watching the city go by outside the bus window.
She was startled back to reality when Inuyasha poked her arm. "Hey, this is our stop," he said, standing deliberately against the momentum of the bus as it pulled to a stop a block and a half away from the cafe.
Kagome stood as well. Shippo clung to her shoulder rather than walk himself, and she let him. After ignoring him for the last week or so, she figured he deserved to be spoiled a bit. She tweaked his tail, enjoying way the soft faux fur tickled her fingers.
She heard Inuyasha scoff quietly, and shot a curious glance at the hanyou's back. What was the matter with him, anyway? First he yelled at her for not telling him about rogue youkai, and then this sophomoric display. If she didn't know better, she would have said he was jealous.
The sound of many raised voices didn't really register on Kagome until she turned a corner and found herself confronted with the crowd that had gathered in front of the cafe. There were at least a few hundred people milling around in front of the half-burnt out structure, and they didn't have the confused air of sightseers. Instead, they all seemed to be pressing forward against the building, giving off a dissatisfied murmur.
Here and there Kagome caught sight of placards bearing the slogans and insignias of the AYC.
"Ah, Inuyasha," Kagome whispered, though there was no way she could have been heard from that far away. "Maybe we should come back later. This doesn't look good."
Inuyasha nodded his agreement. Shippo was trembling in her arms. Both of them had enough sense of self-preservation to know this was not a good place for them to be. Not with rumor of the alleged youkai attack bringing all the die-hard youkai haters out of the woodwork.
It was too late, though. Someone had seen them, and a ripple went through the crowd as they turned their collective attention to the girl with her youkai. A few shouted insults and catcalls, which made Kagome blush and Inuyasha's already stern face hardened, but mostly the murmur grew to an unpleasant grumble.
Kagome felt as though her heart shrunk seeing all those people staring at her with undisguised malice. She tried to swallow, but found her mouth was suddenly dry.
Inuyasha stepped in front of her protectively, shoulders braced for a fight.
"What have we here?" A feminine voice said above the general cacophony. Instantly, the crowd grew still. Not quiet. That many people would be hard pressed to be completely quiet, but the aggressive buzz of their voices died down to a low hum. Slowly the press of bodies parted, allowing the speaker out.
The woman who emerged was no more than a year or two older than Kagome, with long, straight black hair pulled back into a sensible looking ponytail. She was not as tall as she looked in her pictures, though she was still a few centimeters taller than Kagome herself.
Hiraikotsu Sango leveled the trio with a disapproving, flint-hard gaze, and walked toward them at a quick, confidant pace.
"What have we here?" she asked mockingly as she drew nearer. Kagome watched the older girl approach from around Inuyasha's shoulder, wishing she could think of anyway out of this without a conflict. She saw her hanyou's ears flatten against he skull, and heard the first stirring of a growl in his throat.
"Let's see, it looks like a little girl with a couple of toys. What are you doing with a kiddy toy like that?" Sango asked, eyes flickering momentarily to Shippo before settling on Inuyasha. "I can imagine why you have this one. You know, you should get some help. Fetishes like this are usually indicative of serious mental illness."
Kagome backed up a step, stung by the young woman's casual attacks. The growl Inuyasha had been suppressing bloomed into a warning snarl. Kagome couldn't see his face, but she imagined his eyes were all but glowing with anger.
"Don't talk to her like that," the hanyou said in a low, controlled tone.
"We should get out of here," Shippo whispered in Kagome's ear urgently. "This is going to be bad." Kagome didn't answer, watching Sango eyes narrow as she stepped up to Inuyasha and jabbed him in the chest with one bold finger.
"Don't tell me what to do, mongrel. Your kind shouldn't even exist." She raised one eyebrow archly. "You're what happens when science doesn't know where to draw the line. Look at you. You're just a fake human."
'How can she say things like that?' Kagome wondered dumbly.
Sango went to poke Inuyasha's chest once again, but this time he caught her wrist in one strong hand. Kagome remembered Eiji with a sick twist of dread, and was about to protest when she saw that Inuyasha wasn't hurting the young woman at all, but neither was he letting go.
"Control your youkai," Sango told at Kagome, a slight tension around her eyes the only indication that she was scared of the hanyou that held onto her firmly.
Kagome straightened, moving around Inuyasha to get a better view of the scene. "I don't see why I should," the girl said slowly. "'You' were the one provoking 'him.'"
A scream from the other side of the congregation broke into the tense moment that followed. Then all hell broke loose.
*~*~*
A/N: I finally got Sango into the story. Yeah! I rule! And it only took twice as long as I planned. . . Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. See, I didn't forget about Shippo.
Alright. I'm done now. Please review. It will help me get the next chapter done quicker.
Until next time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions.
"What?" Inuyasha asked. He felt the banked flare of slow rising anger, and the particular sharp edge that frame of mind lent his thinking. He was insulted. The cafe where Kagome worked was his territory, he realized in the back of his mind. Somehow, being associated with Kagome had made it so. 'Next I'll be protecting the fox,' he thought sardonically, but anger pushed the thought aside.
"I don't know exactly. That was Matsui Kenjii--the boy who works the same shift as me--and he said the place was just wrecked. The windows are all broken, the inside is trashed, and there are weird burn marks everywhere." Kagome relayed the message expressionlessly. "He said some people are saying it was a rogue youkai."
"A what?" the hanyou asked, his brow lowering in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"A rogue youkai," Kagome repeated, then blinked repeatedly, focusing on his face. "Oh. I suppose there weren't too many stories about rogue youkai fifty years ago." Inuyasha shook his head and waited for the girl to continue.
"Rogue youkai are youkai that have gotten around their basic codes somehow," she explained.
"Unregistered?" Inuyasha asked, concern coloring his tone. Unregistered youkai were dangerous; their owners had generally hacked into their innate commands and disabled the safeties that prevented youkai from attacking humans with out provocation, destroying property, et cetera. "Are there many unregistered youkai in this time, Kagome?"
"No," Kagome said quickly, "not unregistered. Rogue. There's this whole conspiracy theory about youkai that turn wild and operate without humans telling them what to do. It's just an urban legend."
That made him remember something Miroku had said. "Wasn't that activist saying her family was killed by rogue youkai?"
"Yeah," the girl agreed.
"You should have told me about this," Inuyasha told her sternly. "How am I supposed to protect you if I don't know you have berserk youkai in this time?"
"It's just an urban legend," Kagome repeated. "It doesn't matter. Besides, I'm sure you'd be able to protect me anyway."
The hanyou was not pacified by her answer, and he felt a rumble building in his chest. It wasn't quite a growl, not yet anyway, and like sighing and scowling, he wasn't precisely sure what inspired it.
"So what are you going to do now?" he asked.
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "Kenjii thinks I should come down and gawk at the damage, and I should probably talk to my boss. . . The cafe was insured, but it will still take a while to fix."
Kagome sighed mournfully. "Now I'll have to borrow money from Mama just to make rent."
"Keh. That old bitc--" a glare from the girl changed what Inuyasha mind at the last moment, "--ah, Kaede isn't going to kick you out." He stood deliberately. "Let's get going then. Might as well get this over with as quick as possible."
For a second or two Kagome looked like she was going to argue, but then she just nodded and stood herself.
"What?" a high-pitched voice surprised both of them. "Hey, where are you going?"
Shippo stood in the kitchen doorway, his bright eyes shifting from human to Companion youkai, then back again accusingly. The little fox was frowning childishly.
"Shippo," Kagome answered gently, "you know I have to work today."
"But I heard you say the place you work was blown to little, tiny pieces," he protested. "You can't go there now."
"I'll be fine," she assured the youkai kit. "Inuyasha will be with me."
Immediately, Inuyasha realized Kagome had said the wrong thing. Hearing the hanyou's name, Shippo's wavering expression dropped. "Why does he get to go with you? He follows you 'everywhere,' and I hafta stay here. It's not fair."
"Life's not fair, brat," Inuyasha broke in, lifting Shippo by the back of his shirt so he could look him straight in the face. "If I were as useless as you, I'd have to stay here, too."
"Inuyasha! Be nice to Shippo, or you will stay here."
"But Kagome. . ."
"Not buts, or I'll leave you behind."
"Keh," Inuyasha grumbled, dropping Shippo to the ground. If she thought he was going to admit defeat that easily, she had another thing coming. She couldn't leave him behind. They had that argument before, and he'd proven then. . .
"Thank you Inuyasha." And somehow, simply as that, the girl squashed everything he was about to say. 'How the hell does she do that?' he wondered.
Kagome's attention was already back on her old fox youkai. She smiled at him and said, "You're right Shippo."
"I am?" Shippo piped, eyes going wide in shock.
"He is?" Inuyasha said at the same time.
Kagome nodded, still beaming at Shippo, making the fake child puff up proudly. Inuyasha wanted to bop the kid on the head, either for the look on his face, or because Kagome was giving him that smile of hers.
"You can come with us, this time," Kagome told the kit, who burst into an infantile display of affection, throwing himself into the girl's arms and laughing into her shoulder, his fluffy tail waving behind him wildly.
Inuyasha's ears flatted against his head, and it took an act of will to make them relax again. 'Oh, the kid's going to get it when I get him alone. . .' The hanyou turned away, letting his thought trail off into all the happy possibilities of damaging Shippo.
*~*~*
Kagome didn't understand Inuyasha's mood as they rode the bus downtown. But then, when did she understand what went through his head? He'd been so close to opening up to her before the phone rang. She still felt a little swell of pride that he had been comfortable enough with her to share his nightmare with her. But what about it had upset him? Unfortunately, the chance that he would explain now that the moment was past looked slim to none. Especially with him shooting her dirty looks through his bangs. What had she done to deserve those?
Shippo was still bubbling happily. The girl listened with half an ear while watching the city go by outside the bus window.
She was startled back to reality when Inuyasha poked her arm. "Hey, this is our stop," he said, standing deliberately against the momentum of the bus as it pulled to a stop a block and a half away from the cafe.
Kagome stood as well. Shippo clung to her shoulder rather than walk himself, and she let him. After ignoring him for the last week or so, she figured he deserved to be spoiled a bit. She tweaked his tail, enjoying way the soft faux fur tickled her fingers.
She heard Inuyasha scoff quietly, and shot a curious glance at the hanyou's back. What was the matter with him, anyway? First he yelled at her for not telling him about rogue youkai, and then this sophomoric display. If she didn't know better, she would have said he was jealous.
The sound of many raised voices didn't really register on Kagome until she turned a corner and found herself confronted with the crowd that had gathered in front of the cafe. There were at least a few hundred people milling around in front of the half-burnt out structure, and they didn't have the confused air of sightseers. Instead, they all seemed to be pressing forward against the building, giving off a dissatisfied murmur.
Here and there Kagome caught sight of placards bearing the slogans and insignias of the AYC.
"Ah, Inuyasha," Kagome whispered, though there was no way she could have been heard from that far away. "Maybe we should come back later. This doesn't look good."
Inuyasha nodded his agreement. Shippo was trembling in her arms. Both of them had enough sense of self-preservation to know this was not a good place for them to be. Not with rumor of the alleged youkai attack bringing all the die-hard youkai haters out of the woodwork.
It was too late, though. Someone had seen them, and a ripple went through the crowd as they turned their collective attention to the girl with her youkai. A few shouted insults and catcalls, which made Kagome blush and Inuyasha's already stern face hardened, but mostly the murmur grew to an unpleasant grumble.
Kagome felt as though her heart shrunk seeing all those people staring at her with undisguised malice. She tried to swallow, but found her mouth was suddenly dry.
Inuyasha stepped in front of her protectively, shoulders braced for a fight.
"What have we here?" A feminine voice said above the general cacophony. Instantly, the crowd grew still. Not quiet. That many people would be hard pressed to be completely quiet, but the aggressive buzz of their voices died down to a low hum. Slowly the press of bodies parted, allowing the speaker out.
The woman who emerged was no more than a year or two older than Kagome, with long, straight black hair pulled back into a sensible looking ponytail. She was not as tall as she looked in her pictures, though she was still a few centimeters taller than Kagome herself.
Hiraikotsu Sango leveled the trio with a disapproving, flint-hard gaze, and walked toward them at a quick, confidant pace.
"What have we here?" she asked mockingly as she drew nearer. Kagome watched the older girl approach from around Inuyasha's shoulder, wishing she could think of anyway out of this without a conflict. She saw her hanyou's ears flatten against he skull, and heard the first stirring of a growl in his throat.
"Let's see, it looks like a little girl with a couple of toys. What are you doing with a kiddy toy like that?" Sango asked, eyes flickering momentarily to Shippo before settling on Inuyasha. "I can imagine why you have this one. You know, you should get some help. Fetishes like this are usually indicative of serious mental illness."
Kagome backed up a step, stung by the young woman's casual attacks. The growl Inuyasha had been suppressing bloomed into a warning snarl. Kagome couldn't see his face, but she imagined his eyes were all but glowing with anger.
"Don't talk to her like that," the hanyou said in a low, controlled tone.
"We should get out of here," Shippo whispered in Kagome's ear urgently. "This is going to be bad." Kagome didn't answer, watching Sango eyes narrow as she stepped up to Inuyasha and jabbed him in the chest with one bold finger.
"Don't tell me what to do, mongrel. Your kind shouldn't even exist." She raised one eyebrow archly. "You're what happens when science doesn't know where to draw the line. Look at you. You're just a fake human."
'How can she say things like that?' Kagome wondered dumbly.
Sango went to poke Inuyasha's chest once again, but this time he caught her wrist in one strong hand. Kagome remembered Eiji with a sick twist of dread, and was about to protest when she saw that Inuyasha wasn't hurting the young woman at all, but neither was he letting go.
"Control your youkai," Sango told at Kagome, a slight tension around her eyes the only indication that she was scared of the hanyou that held onto her firmly.
Kagome straightened, moving around Inuyasha to get a better view of the scene. "I don't see why I should," the girl said slowly. "'You' were the one provoking 'him.'"
A scream from the other side of the congregation broke into the tense moment that followed. Then all hell broke loose.
*~*~*
A/N: I finally got Sango into the story. Yeah! I rule! And it only took twice as long as I planned. . . Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. See, I didn't forget about Shippo.
Alright. I'm done now. Please review. It will help me get the next chapter done quicker.
Until next time.