Hanyou in Tokyo
By socchan
Five: Yura of the Hair Salon
The short, fair youkai female smiled and waved as her customer left, a bell ringing. She turned, and the false smile slipped from her face to be replaced by a look of disgust. "Oh, dear." She said, a vicious note in her voice, "What's to be done with all this hair lying about and untidying the floor? I know…" A wicked smile appeared in place of the disgusted look. "I'll just add it to my… collection." The woman pulled a fine bone comb from where it was hiding behind her thick red headband. She held it in front of her and turned it in the air, revealing dozens of nearly invisible hairs caught between its teeth. She manipulated the end of a thick hair free, and teased it into splitting. Youkai magic poured into the scattered hairs on the floor, and it lifted off the ground to attach itself to the ends the woman was holding. She closed her hand around the new clump of hair, stroking it gently. "Tra la la… Such lovely hair…"
Kagome sat attentively in class as the teacher lectured on about the Warring States era when her thought process was interrupted by a piece of folded paper bouncing off her head to come to a rest on the desk in front of her. Frowning, she unfolded it and read the single phrase in surprisingly neat (if old-fashioned) handwriting:
Do you want help with your math work?
-Inu
Kagome frowned and scribbled a hasty reply.
Why are you offering to help me with math if you're going to kill me? No homework was one of the good things about dying.
She waited until the teacher's back was turned, then tossed the paper back. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Inu-Yasha wrote a reply and threw it back to her.
I decided not to kill you after all. You might be useful to have around. Now do you want help in math, or not? If you want to be fair, you can help me catch up in History in exchange.
Kagome bit back a smile. Inu-Yasha wasn't going to kill her. More, he thought she might be useful. Okay, so it wasn't the best, but it was a helluva lot better than dying. A warm feeling started to spread out from her chest at how thoughtful he was being. Quickly, before someone would notice, she wrote down her reply.
Deal.
She bent down, dropped the folded note on the floor, and, making sure no one was watching, kicked it over to where Inu-Yasha was sitting. She watched as he pretended to drop a pencil, picked up the note, read it, and smirked. Thus, he was unprepared for the chalk that came sailing across the room to hit him in the head. "Inu-Yasha!" the teacher barked. "If you can't find it in yourself to pay attention, I suggest you stand in the hall for the remainder of the period."
Inu-Yasha opened his mouth to protest, then shut it and scowled. "Yes, ma'am." He gritted out, rising from his seat. As he passed Kagome's desk, he dropped the note onto it. Then, sparing her a quick glance, he walked out the door into the hall, only stopping to pick up a couple buckets of water with an arrogant smirk. Once the teacher turned back to the board, Kagome opened the note again.
Good. Meet in my room after dinner, and we'll see how much you know.
Smiling slightly at the hanyou's bluntness, Kagome folded the note back up and tucked it into her bag, turning her attention back to class with difficulty.
The bell rang to signal the end of classes, and Kagome sighed in relief. She hadn't been that distracted in class since… Kagome paused in packing as she tried to think of a comparable event, without success. She sighed and shook her head. That jerk brings out the worst in me… Closing her backpack, she picked it up and ran after him.
Much to Kagome's surprise, he was waiting for her with Shippo outside the front door. She blinked; those two must really have hit it off. She slipped on a friendly smile. "Ready to go?"
Inu-Yasha nodded, curtly, while Shippo did so more absently. "Yeah," Shippo said, "I'm ready."
Kagome frowned slightly. "Are you okay, Shippo?"
He glanced at her. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
Her frown deepened. "If you're sure…"
He locked gazes with her. "I'm sure." He said, firmly.
"Alright…" Kagome changed the subject. "Is anyone up for ice cream?" She watched as Inu-Yasha perked when she said this. "My treat."
Shippo smiled. "Sure!"
Inu-Yasha tried to look indifferent. He shrugged. "Keh. Whatever."
Kagome suppressed a giggle. "Great! I know this great little shop by the park. The girls and Hojo are probably already there." She started to walk off, catching the sleeve of Inu-Yasha's uniform so she could drag him behind her. She was surprised when he pulled back a little. She turned to look at him.
"Hojo?" he asked, a deadly edge to his voice.
"Ah!" Kagome exclaimed. "That's right, you don't know him. He's Aiko's boyfriend."
Inu-Yasha blinked. "Aiko's…?"
Kagome nodded. "Yeah. We went out for a little while, but he just wasn't my type. A little too, um, naïve, I guess."
He nodded, unsure of where his relief was coming from. "Right. I'll remember that."
Shippo smirked slightly. "Jealous?" he murmured, too softly for Kagome to pick up.
Inu-Yasha clenched his teeth in an attempt to keep his temper in check. "You're imagining things, Fox-boy." he hissed back.
The amused look on the young (relatively) youkai's face grew. "Whatever you say, Inu-Yasha." He turned to address Kagome. "You said something about ice cream?"
Yura looked up from where she was styling a female youkai's hair; she felt an odd energy signature coming her way. Focusing her energy, she slipped into an almost trance-like state, continuing to work as she searched for the source of the energy. She got a good lock on it, and her eyes widened slightly as she realized it was growing. If the power was that great, and it wasn't even completely in her range, she did not like to think of how huge it could be.
Her scissors almost slipped when the energy pattern finally stabilized: it was enormous! She quickly glanced down to make sure she hadn't cut anything she didn't want to, then her focus returned to the energy signature.
There were three—no, four distinct energy signatures moving towards her shop. There was one full youkai, a hanyou with an impressive power level for being only half-blooded, and two inter-mingling energies she could not quite place. She was relieved to see that the energy she had first sensed came from two sources instead of one, but they were frightening nonetheless. She frowned slightly, trying to pick apart the signatures.
"Is something wrong?" the youkai female asked, slightly irritated.
Yura blinked, then smiled, cheerfully. "Nothing's wrong. I'll be done in a moment, tra la." She concentrated back on the energy.
Yura dropped the scissors when she at last realized what it was she was sensing. "Oh, my." She murmured. The youkai female shifted impatiently. "I just remembered there's something I have to do. Eimi, be a dear and finish this up, would you?" One of the assistants nodded and stepped forward, taking Yura's place.
"You'd better not have messed anything up." The youkai growled.
Yura smiled. "Do not worry about it. Everything is still going well, and Eimi is one of my better stylists." The girl blushed slightly at the praise. "Since I have to leave without warning, I'll also give you a ten percent discount, tra la."
The youkai female shifted, her movements taking on a rather smug air. "All right," she said, "But if that girl miss-cuts one hair—"
"Don't worry," Yura assured her, "Eimi will not fail you. Or me," she said, glaring sharply at the girl in warning. "Now I really must be going. I will see you later, ma'am." Yura turned and marched swiftly to the back stairs. These she took in leaps and bounds until she reached the roof. Once again, Yura whipped out the bone comb, and a network of hairs was revealed. Yura closed her eyes and twisted the comb slightly, sending out a pulse of energy along the web. Within seconds the city was mapped out in her mind, as well as the location of the strange power source. Yura's eyes flashed open, and, replacing the comb, she dashed out along the now invisible hairs to the energy she desired.
Kagome gook a spoonful of ice cream from the dish in front of her and popped it in her mouth, relishing the taste. She, Shippo, and Inu-Yasha were sitting at a different table from her other friends, their excuse being that theirs was already full, though their winks and giggles as she sat next to Inu-Yasha made their story highly suspect. Not that she minded sitting next to him—quite the opposite, in fact—but their less-than-subtle teasing and matchmaking was beginning to grate her nerves. She tried to put it out of her mind by scooping another spoonful into her mouth. Inu-Yasha was eating his with the deliberance of a prisoner who wasn't sure if it was a trick (and didn't want to find out), and Shippo was eating his with a familiar distraction. Noticing this, Kagome set down her spoon with a sigh.
"Okay, guys, enough is enough. Inu-Yasha, it's not poisoned, and I'm not going to take it away. Shippo, your innocence ploy has gone on quite long enough, and whatever it is that's bothering you can't be as painful as you're making it out to be, so I demand that you spill at once." She finished this remark with a sharp glare at each one in turn, to show that she meant business.
Inu-Yasha looked somewhat sheepishly between the bowl and Kagome, then dug his spoon in with more relish.
Shippo had the decency to blush slightly at being caught. Following this, he set his spoon down and pushed his bowl away with a sigh. "Knowing that you know what you do isn't going to make this any easier." He confessed with a slight smile. Kagome blinked in confusion, and waited for him to continue. "First off, Kagome, you're a miko, and a damn powerful one at that. Which is most definitely a good thing if you want to protect the Shikon no Tama and yourself from the less-than-benign powers that are out to cause trouble for one reason or another." Kagome stared at him, openmouthed. "Second, I'm not human; I'm a fox youkai. And third, I would like to openly help you and Inu-Yasha protect the Shikon no Tama."
Kagome stared for another minute or so as she processed what Shippo had just said. Finally, she shut her mouth. "Okay…" she said, slowly. "I suppose I can swallow most of that. But you," she directed a pointed glare at Shippo, "have a lot of explaining to do. Starting by what you mean by 'openly'."
Shippo half-smiled. "You tend to draw a lot of… unwanted attention. For quite a while now I've been diverting it without you knowing. That's what I meant by 'openly'."
"And everything else?"
"Luckily I anticipated this, so I think it's best we start with a short history lesson. But this isn't the time or place to do it—too many prying senses."
Kagome blinked. "Huh?"
Shippo met her gaze, and, while his mouth still smiled slightly, his eyes were serious. "The walls have ears, Kagome. More than just that, too. If we want to talk safely, we should do it around your house."
"He's right you now." Inu-Yasha interjected, licking his spoon. "There's youkai of every shape, size, and kind imaginable. Some, for example, can control and understand insects. So if there was a fly anywhere near here, a demon with those powers could ask it what we said, and the fly would conceivably be able to tell it that you had the Shikon no Tama." He scanned the spoon for any remnants of ice cream. "Which would probably spell more trouble for us. Whereas, at the shrine, for example, the collective magics of priests and priestesses building up over centuries, as well as the power of prayer, would be able to block any listening spells people may try to set up." He set the spoon down and looked up at Kagome to gauge her reaction.
Shippo nodded, appreciatively. "Very nice, Inu-Yasha, very nice indeed. I didn't know you had it in you. Where'd you pull that string of logic from?"
Inu-Yasha shrugged, indifferently. "When you hang around a shrine as much as I did, you kinda pick things up by osmosis. Besides, when I lived, if you didn't at least know the basics, you didn't live very long."
"Yeah, but that's hardly basic stuff." Shippo argued. "While pretty much everything that can sense magic can tell there's a protective aura around a shrine, why it's there is less widely known. In addition, fewer people still know how much power can go into prayer."
"Those were different times!" Inu-Yasha defended. "You had to know stuff then!"
"I lived then, too, and I didn't know half of that until I took it upon myself to find out. Not many demons choose to study human magic." Shippo pointed out.
"Okay, fine, you caught me." Inu-Yasha grumbled. "When I was a kid, a really little one mind you, Dad used to try and find ways of keeping Mom safe. I was a curious little shit, so I ended up picking up a helluva lot of information on magical practice and theory. You happy now, you little fuck?" Inu-Yasha glared daggers at Shippo.
Shippo decided that now would not be a good time to test the limits of the hanyou's temper. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Good." Inu-Yasha growled.
Kagome glanced between the two of them. It was entertaining to say the least, but she had to remember that some of this stuff might actually mean the difference between life and death. Then, she glanced down at her bowl. "Well, if you guys are finished, then I think I know just the place." She said, rising to her feet. "And, if not, I always have studying to do."
Inu-Yasha stood, and caught her shoulder before she could take so much as a step. "Oh, no you don't, bitch." He growled, softly. "We're getting this sorted out, and we're getting it sorted out now, with you present."
Kagome didn't allow her satisfaction to show on her face. She turned to him with as innocent a smile as she could muster on her face. "Whatever you say, Inu-Yasha." She said, sweetly. She waited for Shippo to take care of the trash, then waved 'good-bye' to her friends and walked out the door, males in tow.
Yura watched from the roof of the ice cream parlor as she waited for her quarry to exit. So, the power I sensed was the fabled Shikon no Tama… This should make things interesting… She smiled slightly as a girl with dark hair dragged a boy with surprisingly long similarly colored hair out the door. That must be the miko… and the hanyou… They were followed closely by a boy with red-orange hair swept into a ponytail at the base of his skull. And that would be the fox youkai. A smile touched Yura's lips. I will attack the girl when she is the most vulnerable. Tonight will do. But first, I must make sure I don't loose track of her. Yura teased a hair free from the web with her comb. "Go." She whispered to it, "Follow the girl."
The hair paused for a moment, finding its intended target, then sped invisibly through the air to attach itself to the girl's wrist. Yura smiled, and giggled lightly. "It would be so enjoyable to track this girl myself. Still, I have work that needs to be done, and tonight should more than make up for what's been lost." She giggled again, her eyes flashing ever so briefly red. "Tra-la-la! Oh, this will be so much fun!" Still smiling slightly, Yura dashed back in the direction of her salon; she had to get ready for tonight.
On the streets below, Kagome laughed at Inu-Yasha's antics, oblivious of what the youkai woman had planned for her.
=^-,-^= End Chapter Five =^-,-^=
Yup ^_^! The very phrase 'Yura of the Hair Salon' was what gave me the initiative to go about writing this story. The number one reason. Unfortunately, Skittles seems to have gotten to the idea of giving Yura her own salon first, so I can't take any credit for it, but I refuse to go all 'sour grapes'! It's like I always say: Great minds are susceptible to similar wavelengths.
I didn't mean you couldn't guess, tenshineko. I just meant that if you wanted your guesses concerning Naraku's activities confirmed or disproved, I would prefer you mailed them to me privately. I don't want everyone in on my plans. And for the record, yeah, sure, Shippo's mature. Or adolescent at least. I am not about to go into a huge debate about the theories of youkai aging. Now stop asking already! More will be cleared up in the next chapter. Plus, action sequences. And, just 'cause I feel like it, a shirtless Inu. So be sure to stay tuned. And I do still like reviews. All kinds. I'll try and answer questions, if you have them, too.
*cricket noises *
Right. I'll see you next week, I guess.
Disclaimer: If I owned Inu-Yasha, I would probably have done a much worse job with him and the rest of the crew than Takahashi-san has done. For this, I thank her. But I don't own it, and that means that it is the wonderful story we all (supposedly) know and love. Thanks for listening!
Edit (1-1-04): Not much changed here, either, though I would like to point out that at the time Inu-chan was alive, ice cream had indeed been invented. I was actually somewhat surprised not to get any questions about how Inu-chan didn't ask what ice cream was. Maybe everyone knew that already. Or maybe you didn't notice. Or maybe you didn't care. Whatever.
-socchan