Author's note...

My apologies in advance for this chapter. Had a pang of conscience over the language so that got scaled back. Hence, one of the big jokes for the chapter kind of falls on its face. But anyways. If anybody wants the, er, fouler, chapter, shoot me an email at the profile in my address. You know, it's kind of ironic that I scaled back the language in this chapter but the violence coming up in 8 doesn't bug me at all. Whatever. Just consider this a warning for that bit coming up. :)

// \\

The Lackeys in the shuttle bay had been getting a little impatient for the other half of their group to show up. Greg watched as Inu, Ruri and Kagura finally came floating in. The youkai each held a drive array in tow, and Ruri carried a shielded case that Greg assumed were a set up backups of Omoikane in the event something screwed up with the drives. "Oi, Dean, get Tenkawa-san up. Showtime."

In the shuttle, Dean leaned over Akito's face lightly and rapped the younger man's skull with his knuckles. "Yo, Tenkawa-san"

Akito's mind lazily dragged itself back into reality, and his half-opened eyes discerned a figure leaning over him. His mind wished that it were either Kagura or the blue-haired beauty he saw in his mind's eye. Reality was unfortunately harshly different, causing Akito to yelp as soon his eyes focused which resulted in both men jumping half out of their skin.

Greg stuck his head back in the shuttle. "Glad to see you're finally awake again." The Lackey draped himself over the back of the shuttle couch Akito was laying on. "I hear you're one helluva pilot, care to fly this rig outta here for us?"

"Er, no thanks."

"You sure? She doesn't look it, but this box is hella fun to fly." Greg shrugged. "Your call though. You're welcome to the pilot's seat if you want it. Dean, get it in gear, I gotta bad feeling about Nadesico right now."

The two Lackeys moved outside of the shuttle, leaving Akito alone for the moment. The pilot stood up, against the opinions of his inner ear and headed towards the shuttle door. He was greeted with the typical chaos of departure preparation, which was surprising when he considered the fact that there were only six people on the deck including himself.

Akito watched as, despite never having packed two IPSCSI arrays into a shuttle, Kagura was rendering her opinion to Inu and Ruri as to how to get the units into the shuttle. Dean was bouncing like Myouga the flea over the craft doing the paranoid pilot thing. Greg was headed towards the control booth, ostensibly to manually seal off the bay with the ship's AI in a state of non-existence. A seventh person was-- seventh?

"Kanchou! Inutaishou-san!"

The lovers and Kagura turned towards Akito's voice. The new arrival was out of Kagura's line of sight, and Inu's view of him was blocked by Ruri's swirling hair. Ruri, however, did notice in her periphery the seventh party and immediately recognized the shape of an automatic weapon pointed in their direction. She didn't think nor did she wait for her beloved's guidance; she merely reacted. She dove towards the intruder and let her left hand drop the long-unused wakizashi at her side. As she pulled the weapon out with her off hand and held it dagger-style she felt the blood surge in her veins and fire fly into her eyes.

The intruder was shocked at the display before him, never having seen his captain like this before. He stared dumfoundedly as she coiled her right hand against her shoulder. When she was within arm's reach of her opponent she sliced back-handed against the weapon he was holding, carving off the barrel and knocking it from his hands. The would-be assassin raised his hands in fear as Ruri slashed forward with her now-canine claws.

Pain seared through his shoulder and he dropped to his knees as hard as is possible in such weak gravity. His victim-turned-attacker stood before him, her right hand still raised near her face and ready to either attack again or defend. Small droplets of his blood floated in the air around them as small currents carried her hair around her, lacing it through and around her clawed fingers.

Ruri replaced Hanyou's Protector in its home, never taking her eyes off of the fool in front of her. As her blood returned to normal the fire left her eyes and was replaced by deep sadness at what she had just been forced to do.

"Do you really hate him that much?" She asked.

Grinding his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, he snarled his reply. "He's taking you from me, what do you expect me to do?"

Ruri welcomed Inu's presence as he gracefully floated up beside the two and cut into the conversation. "Baka. She is not property. She is not a prize. This is not Sengoku Jidai. We do not fight for mates."

"Hari, you are indeed a fool. I would suggest you clear out of here now, because not even youkai can stand the vacuum of space." Both turned and walked away from him, letting Hari decide for himself if he wanted to live or die.

When they returned back to the shuttle, they found Greg had left the booth to rejoin them and saw Dean headed towards the control booth instead. Inu raised an eyebrow and looked at his Lackey, awaiting explanation.

"Um, nii-sama, nee-sama, we would like to beg a favor. Tenkawa-sama is a pilot, and accomplished one as well, and... er."

The Chairman of Nergal's eyebrow lifted a notch higher. "I suppose it would make sense to leave someone here to aid the crew which hasn't taken after the Botany Bay. Oi, Dean!" He raised his voice at the last part.

"Ha--hai, nii-sama?"

"Drop the 'sama' crap. Which one?"

"S-sir?"

"Answer the question, and then don't ask my permission, ask nee-san's. It's her ship and if you're leaving me to become her crew, she damn well better approve it."

"Uh, Williams Haruko, sir. Captain Hoshino Ruri, I request permission to board the Nadesico as a member of her crew, sir. Sir."

Despite the pain of Hari, Ruri managed a small laugh that only Inu managed to catch. 'Maybe you were right about cracking down on fraternization. Looks like you're going to have to find someone else as a date for otou-san at the wedding.'

'Hai. Well, make the call, Kanchou.'

Ruri took a step towards the control booth. "I accept your offer, and request that you take care of Hari and his wounds as your first duty. Your second duty is to retrieve the file I left on the bridge about Akito-san's and Yurika-san's kidnapping. Try to co-ordinate with existing crewmembers to reclaim the ship with minimal losses."

Dean, who had never spent a day in the military, fired off an over-dramatized salute and walked over to collect Hari's still-bleeding-and-headed-towards-unconscious form. He dragged Hari with him back to the control booth in order to seal himself and Hari's slumped form in against the impending vacuum as Akito begrudgingly mounted the pilot's chair next to Greg in the craft's nose.

// \\

Sesshoumaru looked up from his screens when the doorbell sounded. Grateful for the reprieve from hours of unproductive digging on the subject of Naraku, he headed for the front door. The doorbell impatiently sounded again as he reached the door. Upon opening the entry he was unsure as to what the proper reaction should be. Whomever it was had leaped at him the moment the door was open and wrapped itself around Sesshoumaru in a vice-like embrace. Herself, Sesshoumaru corrected, based upon how things were pressing against him. This was either a very well-formed woman or a very malformed man. His guest's scent finally wafted up to him (3 seconds can be an eternity to a glomp's unwitting victim), and The Lord of The Western Lands chided himself for thoughts running through his head. It was the adoptive mother of his soon-to-be daughter.

The Laws of Icy Youkai required that Sesshoumaru disengage himself from her expeditiously and with poise. However, two things caused him to disregard the code he helped create. First, he was the only one in the house, so the transgression could be easily denied. Second, she was crying. The line of Inutaishou was one of the strongest to ever grace the face of the earth. Yet a crying female, particularly one who had been welcomed into the family, had the ability reduce any of the men of the family to putty. Luckily, it seemed that none of the females welcomed into said family caught onto this fact. Upon reflection, Sesshoumaru decided that Hoshino had indeed caught onto this fact, but doubted she'd abuse the ability.

Thus the mighty Sesshoumaru somewhat uncomfortably let his arm wrap around the woman to comfort her, showing a facet of his capabilities as father he had not shown since Rin was alive. He held her there until the tears subsided and she was able to regain control of herself. He led her to the smaller of the two living areas in the house and prepared tea for his guest. Safely seated across a table from her, he sought for a way to ask the reason for her visit.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, I don't know where to turn to for help on this, so I've come to you. Ruri-Ruri and your son are in trouble."

Grateful for directness, Sesshoumaru relaxed and sipped his tea. "Not yet, Naraku will take time to reform after being imprisoned for so long, and--"

"Sesshoumaru-sama, what are you talking about?" The confusion on Yurika's face was plain. Sesshoumaru stopped, cup in mid-air, realizing that his absorption in his studies may have missed a more immediate threat. Returning himself to motion, he placed the tea back on the table.

"I see. Then perhaps we both have something to tell each other. When did you last speak to Hoshino-san?"

Gratefully, Yurika told him of their children's engagement. That was one bit of news he didn't want to have to break. Wisely, he avoided acknowledging that he knew of the impending marriage before Yurika did. Fear clouded back into her face however, when she moved onto the next subject.

"A report was handed to me this morning that I wasn't supposed to see, but I apparently still have friends in the U.E. forces. Yesterday, the Nadesico docked at a station and disembarked most of the dignitaries who had gathered onto it. The report says that the Captain and Chairman had dinner offship with someone Nergal had rented rooms from, first name Kagura, no last name given." Sesshoumaru's head jerked up and his eyes widened in recognition but he held his tongue to allow her to finish.

"Shortly after Inuyasha and Ruri-Ruri made it back to the ship, the Nadesico abruptly undocked itself without permission from local control. The ship apparently left using engine full power, as when the emergency beacon was picked up the ship was too far from the station for it to dispatch personnel, and the nearest battleship is still two day's flight from there." Yurika paused, not wanting to continue but having to. "The report and command believe that it was Ruri-Ruri and Inuyasha who mutinied against Nergal, and they're already calling for his resignation and hers. They believe the two of them and some of her command crew intend to sell the ship parts on the black market. They finally made contact with the ship through Hari, and he said they'd stolen the ship's experimental drive cores and shut down practically everything but life support, and... and..."

Sesshoumaru could tell she was about to break down again and decided to make an attempt at being re-assuring. "We understand our children better than anyone but they themselves. Do you believe Captain Hoshino is capable of such mutiny?"

Yurika shook her head no, and he continued. "I agree. Therefore, this 'Hari' is lying."

"But Ruri trusts him like a brother! He wouldn't! He wouldn't lie about Ruri-Ruri!"

"Woman, pull yourself together. He is either telling the truth or lying. Ruri-san and Inuyasha are incapable of doing what is attributed to them. Therefore, Hari is a liar."

Yurika was unable to argue. "What do we do now? I've tried to contact Ruri several times but there is no answer."

Sesshoumaru in his centuries upon the earth had not mastered technology, but did have some understanding. "You said that most of the ship was shut down. Would it make sense that the system which can track down individuals would also be shut down?"

Yurika understood less of technology than Sesshoumaru. However, from Ruri she had a decent grasp of Omoikane's abilities and she nodded. "So how do we contact them?"

Sesshoumaru stood and headed for the door, indicating that Yurika follow him. "We do it 'Old School'."

// \\

Kagura looked down at the sleeping form of Akito, and wondered for the hundredth time what happened to him to lose so much of his memory. Before today their lives were simple. Making sure there were enough guests to cover expenses and enough hungry people to keep the ramen shop open were all that concerned them. She had always wished for his memory to return so that he could be happy. The loss of memory had always brought pain to Akito, and Kagura understood love enough to know that she could not be happy while her lover was in pain.

However, now that she was face to face with Akito awakening to his past, she found that she was afraid of losing him. If she had to fight to keep Akito it wouldn't have been a problem, but the actions of the youkai in front of her were causing her to worry. He had intimated that despite how much he apparently cared for the weakling next to him, it was up to the weakling who would be her taker. Perhaps the son of Sesshoumaru was correct and there really wasn't a place in this era for the strong only mating with the strong.

The thoughts of the shuttle couch in front of Kagura were much less contemplative yet every bit as important to the thoughts' owners.

'Blue.'

'Baka. I know already that if blue isn't one of the colors I'll get endless grief because of my name. What other colors?'

'I thought Yurika-san and you already covered this,' Inuyasha said, but focused on the issue just the same. 'Purple seems pretty predominant in my family's markings.'

Ruri reflected for a moment. 'Blue and purple. I guess that's not so bad.'

'Hime-chan, something's gnawing you. Speak up.'

Inu listened as thoughts sorted in her head. 'It's just... I don't understand why Akito lost his memory. In the incident with the Martian Successors, he had all of his memories but his body was... damaged. Now he seems much more like the Akito I first met.'

'His senses must also be returning to normal if he has opened a ramen shop on the station. Once Dean recovers the file we may have more answers.' He paused for a moment before continuing. 'Baka ourselves.'

Ruri sighed aloud. "It was very foolish of us not to read it when we had the chance," she whispered. A thought hit Ruri and she sat up and turned around to face Kagura as well as Akito's sleeping form. "Kagura-san, where is Lapis?"

"Who?"

A light on Greg's console flashed and a harsh beep emitted from the speaker system, interrupting the conversation. Inuyasha quickly moved to lean into the nose, recognizing the signal as heralding an incoming audio stream which used the older military channels. Greg answered the channel after a nod from his boss.

"Identify yourself," Greg demanded, ignoring protocol.

"Put my son on."

"What is it, Sesshoumaru-sama?"

Sesshoumaru with commentary from Yurika filled his son in on the claims made against the younger youkai and his fiancee. Once the details had been given, they were faced with the decision as to what to do next.

"Return home and we'll sort things out here," was his father's reply. "Going to a U.E. or Confederate ship will just get you arrested."

Inuyasha rejected the idea. "Home is the first place they'd look. This is the last time I make such a public power play. No land registered in any of our names will be safe to hide in. Not Inutaishou, not Tenkawa, not Misumaru, not Hoshino."

"So where can you go?" was the concerned question from Yurika that the speakers emitted.

"Mey-hi-ko" was Inuyasha's response. "Specifically, El Ray. There are some... colorful... friends down there who can help. Do you have any information regarding Naraku?"

"I am afraid not, although hopefully by the time we meet I will have more."

Inuyasha looked to his love before he continued, waiting for her approval. She gave it, and he continued. "I have one item to add. You mentioned that whomever wrote the report knew that we had dinner with the proprietor of a boarding house Nergal rented rooms from for its big wigs."

On earth, Sesshoumaru looked at the mic, remembering Yurika's words. "She is the same?"

"Hai," came the reply with the slight crackle inherent to this bandwidth of communication. "She is with us, as well as... Akito."

Yurika's eyes opened wide in shock. There was no mistaking the meaning of her future son-in-law's words. She didn't listen as father and son finished the conversation. For lack of a better target, she simply stood staring at Sesshoumaru in disbelief of the words she heard.

Sesshoumaru, unaware of Yurika's temporary catatonia, shut down the old-fashioned Radio and rose to leave the room. Not paying strict attention to his surroundings, he collided with the major. Had it not been for demonic reflexes, the two would have landed in a jumbled mass on the floor. The collision, at least, brought Yurika back to reality, who looked up at the slightly taller man. "When do we leave?"

"'We' do not. 'I' leave immediately."

Yurika placed herself in the doorway and braced herself against it, clearly intending to win before allowing the youkai to leave the room. "Ruri-ruri is a daughter to me, and Akito is my husband, and I'm going with you."

Sesshoumaru, deciding that it would be wiser to not point out the fact that she stood no chance against him in a fight, responded with trademark coolness. "El Ray is not a place for someone as fair as yourself. There are many things there you had rather not know still exist in this world."

The implied compliment wasn't lost on Yurika, but she wasn't backing down. "If it's no place for me then it's no place for Ruri-chan. But she will be fine because Inuyasha will protect her, and I will be fine because you will protect me until Akito arrives and then he will protect me."

// \\

Several overly-long hours later, Sesshoumaru found himself staring at the ceiling of the airliner they were on. Had he been traveling alone, he would have been able to catch a much earlier flight. He was packed in five minutes. A toothbrush in one pocket of his robes and a towel in the other and he was good to go. Wrap Toukijin and Tenseiga for traveling and he would have been out the door.

His traveling companion, who was already asleep shortly after the plane left the ground and whose head had rolled over onto his shoulder, was an entirely different story. He had planned on only taking one of smaller cars, perhaps his M3, to the airport, but after seeing everything Yurika intended to bring he quickly changed his mind and brought the Suburban out of storage. It had taken three baggage handlers to help him check everything at curbside. All that for just a few days outside of Japan. How did she ever handle being aboard the Nadesico? Sesshoumaru had lost count before they arrived at the airport the number of times he wondered why he indulged human females so much. Perhaps Yurika's innocence reminded him of Rin. Rin, however, tried to behave like a proper youkai would. She had worked hard to keep her human blood as cool as his demon blood. Yurika, however, was not the type to be kept in check. He sighed and raised his head from the headrest to stare at the papers he'd brought with him as an afterthought. It was certainly going to be an interesting trip.

// \\

Akito stretched in the pilot's chair then punched in the sequence to let the engines fire for a few more seconds to align them for entry into earth's atmosphere and to punch through the big barrier. The past several days had been nothing but floating and chatting, but for the third time in twenty minutes (so far he was able to keep count) he cursed under his breath at the stupidity of what they were about to do to finish the last leg of the journey. Seated next to him Greg laughed for the third time in twenty minutes.

"Tenkawa-san, this is the first time you've run contraband, isn't it?" Greg chided.

"N-nani?" The pilot stared in shock at the man beside him. "Contraband!"

"Guess it's good to see there are more people in this world than nee-san who manage to keep their hands clean. Well, to over use a phrase and use it incorrectly at the same time, here's the naze nani." The Lackey pointed at an overhead two-dimensional display of their course. "The Big Barrier as those morons have chosen to call it is still operative. However, what no one's ever corrected is that at very specific and regular points the field is weaker than others."

He zoomed in on the point they'd selected to cross the barrier at and continued. "Specifically, between 200 and 250 meters from each power plant the field is magnitudes weaker than anywhere else. Firing one 50mm round into the barrier causes enough disruption to allow a ship to punch through. The beauty of this phenomenon is that they have the sensitivity for the alarms the barrier can set off high enough to ignore any size meteorite that will burn up on re-entry. While a shuttle's big enough to set off the alarm, if you strike it with a 50-round it pops up and says 'Oo! Meteor! I'm going to ignore the next 30 seconds since there may be more of them!', and then, you just glide on through."

"Why haven't they fixed the weakness?" Akito asked, deciding he really didn't want to know why his navigator was so familiar with these facts.

"Because everyone who knows about it avoids talking about it around the kinds of people that would want to fix the problem. If you want a more practical excuse, which is still an excuse, correcting the problem would require the entire barrier to be down for too long a period of time for the muckety mucks who DO know about the problem AND want to fix it to be comfortable with. In other words, the U.E.S.F. brass is damn well aware of this and ain't gonna do shit about it."

An alarm flicked on at Greg's console, indicating that showtime was upon them. As he grabbed the sticks at his sides, he was once again grateful for the indulgences nii-san allowed himself and Dean. The shuttle had been customized to their own tastes in flying, and Akito was lucky that Dean shared Tenkawa's preference of the clean cockpit layout an Aesti used. He, on the other hand, preferred sticks and switchgear, and his side was a maze of single-function controls.

At the appointed time, Greg launched a singe round into the barrier. Akito watched as the barrier flared to life. They were going to dive into that? Too late to back out now, he thought to himself as the shuttle plunged into the wake of the shell. The craft rocked violently but held intact as Akito felt their momentum slow briefly as the barrier gave a go at holding them out. Greg had been correct, as a second later Akito felt himself pushed back in his seat as the shuttle's engines overcame the barrier and they snapped past it and towards the blue earth below.

Once their trajectory was close to set, Akito let the shuttle roll so that its aft portion was pointed in the direction they were going. At first, Akito hadn't seen the logic in this, but Greg had once again taken over Inez's position as head Naze Nani. The shuttle, which in a previous life had been strictly for running contraband, was built in a vague wedge shape which held two purposes. The front of the craft was the knife-like edge of the wedge, and was designed specifically for punching through the big barrier on a regular basis. The rear of the craft, which was slightly rounded, gave the craft some aerodynamics, if you made atmospheric entry backwards. The craft's "wings" were little more than engine mounts and were pretty useless for maneuvering. Landing was essentially a controlled free-fall. Thus, if you fell "backwards" into the atmosphere, you could use the engines as massive brakes to slow your descent. It didn't make for a pleasant landing, but it did do minimal damage to goods and personnel on board.

Minimal, of course, is a relative term. Ruri watched as Akito wrestled with the craft, gravity, and inertia all at the same time. For her part, Ruri was wrestling with her stomach contents.

'Baka.'

'What? I didn't say anything.'

'Say, no. Think, yes.'

'Gomen nasai, hime-chan. You can't deny the irony of the famous captain of the Nadesico being space sick, even if, truth be told, nine-tenths of your crew would be too under these conditions.'

"I hate inertia!" Akito yelled to no one in particular as if to punctuate the chairman's words.

"Baka, we know you do." Ruri and Inuyasha responded, blushing slightly at echoing each other's words.

Akito barely had time to listen to the two's words, because the craft was headed into the atmosphere at a fairly steep angle. In a pleasant descent, Akito would have chosen a low angle of entry, and made the better part of an orbit in landing. However, since there was a price on their heads, he was going to be forced to land the craft as expeditiously as possible. That meant entering the atmosphere over South Africa and being at ground level over Mexico. Not a problem unless this was your first atmospheric entry as well as your first engine-braked entry. Thus, Ruri was exposed for the first time in her life to someone who could curse more than both Inuyashas combined.

Less than five minutes later, Akito was panting and staring out the front viewscreen at the scorch marks he had left on the runway in El Ray. Grateful for the cessation of shaking, the shuttle's occupants collectively stood and stretched. A bit ironic considering the fact that atmospheric entry had confined everyone to their seats for only a few minutes. Ruri and Akito stared in surprise when the next thing Greg and Inu did was check their sidearms.

'Is that gong to be necessary?'

'Probably, hime-chan.'

"El ray isn't exactly a tourist attraction," Greg offered, apparently answering a similar question issued from the pilot beside him. In response Akito and Ruri checked their own weapons, both blade and otherwise.

Stepping from the craft, Ruri realized Inu's paranoia may not have been unfounded as a line of vehicles headed towards them. If this were a landing strip in Tokyo or some other metropolis, one wouldn't immediately assume a vehicle was headed for your craft. Here, however, where the "landing strip" was a simply a large stretch of half-heartedly repaired tarmac and concrete with a few scattered buildings around, if you saw a vehicle it was most likely headed in your direction. She saw from the corner of her mind her love thumb the hammer strap away from the ancient revolver he carried and heard leather and metal scraping leather as Akito and Greg apparently prepared for anything. She wrapped her hands around Hanyou's Protector and prayed that everyone was over-reacting.

'Do you know who they are, Inuyasha?'

'No. Too much dust to see or smell anything. They're not neutral passers-by though. Everyone here is either your friend or your enemy. No middle ground in this town.'

They didn't have long to wait, as the group of three trucks and two exotics quickly encircled them. Looking at the trucks' occupants brought no ease to the group and caused Kagura to flick her fan open menacingly. Well, menacingly to anyone familiar with fans used as weapons. The riders mistook the gesture and showed their misplaced appreciation of it. It looked as if each individual was more heavily armed than the entire shuttle party combined, but with her knowledge of her love's and her assumptions of Kagura's abilities, Ruri wasn't worried about the firepower, just the numbers.

The vehicles formed a half circle around the side of the shuttle the group disembarked from. The driver's door of the dusty red Porsche that had led the pack opened and from it stepped a man in a slightly battered three piece black suit over a white T-shirt, all layers of which seemed as dusty as the car was.

Ruri felt Inu relax ever so slightly at the sight of the ringleader but noted that he was still fighting tense. Inu stepped slightly away from Ruri, his mind sending clear signals for her to stay near Greg for the moment. She turned to face her temporary protector and saw him holster his weapon and light a cigarette. Ruri worriedly looked back to her love, who was squaring off against the other man, both obviously placing themselves where if they shot at each other, stray bullets wouldn't strike anyone.

It was the ringleader who "spoke" first. He pulled out a snub-nose similar to the one Akito had favored as the Prince of Darkness and fired a shot which caused a lock of Inu's hair to flick through the air in its wake. "I thought I told you to stay the fuck out of my town."

Ruri started towards Inu but felt a hand clamp on her arm. She turned to see Greg, the lit cigarette still wavering from his mouth. "Trust him, nee-chan. He probably knows this town better than I do."

Ruri's eyes steeled and Greg immediately removed his hand from her arm. She turned back to what was apparently a gruesome sort of custom. Whether her love's opponent was a good guy or a bad guy, she didn't know yet.

Inu had not said anything yet, just smiled at the man before him. "And I see you're still as annoying as ever."

With the speed only youkai can have he drew his weapon and fired a round which split the left shoulder of his opponent's coat on the seam. The suit scowled and returned the shot at the same point on the fire-rat kimono, which did no damage to whatsoever to the fabric.

"I'd have thought you'd learned by now how this kimono works, baka."

"Shove off, it's been a few years." The opponent shrugged and Inu took the opportunity for his turn, neatly splitting the shoulder seam on the gun arm.

"Godammit, would you lay off the suit already?" Taking his turn, the suit let his bullet graze past Inuyasha's hair again.

"How about you lay off the hair?" The chairman retorted. "Geez, Seth, be a little original will ya?" He fired, grazing the hair of Seth's close-cropped head.

Ruri stared at the two, unwilling to believe two grown men were playing chicken with each other. Inuyasha was well aware of the constant stream of 'baka, if you get hurt you're never going to be forgiven for this nonsense' aimed square into his head. Ruri wasn't sure what was going on in her love's head at the moment. It was one of the few aspects of him that she still found slightly frightening, when his mind, normally completely open to hers, suddenly locked itself down. Even if she was standing right next to him, it was harder to sense his presence at those moments in time than it was when she was in deep space and he on earth.

Ruri's mind snapped back to the scene before her in time to catch Seth smile for the first time since his arrival. "Damn, you've gotten a helluva lot better at this than last time."

"Maybe you've gotten worse and it just seems like I've gotten better, or I gave you a break last time." The human's smile disappeared at the youkai's comment, and he fired his next shot which grazed one of the buckles on his opponent's boot, causing the youkai not to flinch, but smile.

"Your shit is most certainly not together. You should have taken that clean off." The youkai placed his next shot at his opponent's wrist, which had been carelessly placed in such a way that he could cleanly destroy the wristwatch on it.

The shot enraged the human. "You prick! That was an antique!" He fired at the youkai's hip, leaving powder burns on the holster.

"And that shot should also have taken it clean off. You really have lost your stuff, haven't you?"

"Fine." The human donned sunglases. "I dare you."

"Too easy." The youkai no inu took his fifth shot, hitting the frame at its left hinge and snapping off the earpiece without shattering the lens.

The human ignored the shot as it passed his head and fired at the youkai's bokken, knowing that the stick was a weak point for the youkai. Seth was counting on Inuyasha flinching to keep the weapon from being struck. However, instead of flinching and losing, the youkai bent the rules.

"Son of a bi- How did you catch a fucking bullet?"

"I guess maybe I have gotten better since we last did this."

"Maybe you're just pumped that you're about to get laid for the first time in God knows how many hundred years."

The youkai's eyes steeled as Ruri blushed at the other human's coarseness. The human smiled slyly at the youkai, knowing it would enrage the youkai. The entire house of Inutaishou seemed to have a predisposition towards being innocent in one area and one area only. A member of that house may have the blood of thousands of youkai and humans on his hands, but would remain purely innocent towards females. Seth played against this fact, knowing that if he could enrage the youkai he'd make a mistake. He glanced over at the group still standing by the shuttle.

"Funny though. Your father seems to approve of your bride, but she looks like she's got plenty of demon blood in her, if not wholly demon. I'd have thought after that mess you had with your last bitch you'd stay the away from your own kind. Nice kimono though. She as deadly with that fan as she looks?"

Inuyasha, who'd let his mind cloud in anger, blinked owlishly and snapped back to something akin to reality. "Fan? Aho, that's a wakizashi, not a fan."

Ruri stared at her beloved and somewhat suppressed a laugh at his temporary stupidity. 'Baka baka. He's got it wrong, and you've misunderstood him as well.'

Inu stopped staring at Seth to stare at his fiancee. Ruri let him hang for a few moments, then spelled it out for him in his head, which caused him to laugh. "Seth, you really are a dumbass."

It was now Seth's turn to be confused as he looked at the group before him. Realization slowly came upon him, and he shook his head. "Well, she's human, which I guess is why your father doesn't care. I guess if your tastes swing that way who am I to judge, but why would you choose such a pale, weak little bitch over the other one?"

Ruri felt Inuyasha's blood suddenly boil in his veins. She felt more than knew that he was being protective of her, as it was clear that Seth had crossed a line. She watched as Inuyasha fired his last shot at Seth, letting the bullet graze his opponent's face, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake. Without explanation the youkai leaped forward, flicking open his weapon's cylinder and throwing the spent cartridges in the human's face. Seth raised his gun and started clicking past empty chambers. The enraged youkai batted the weapon out of the human's hands with his own and lifted the man one-handed by the front of his clothes with his free arm. The coolness left Seth's face and was replaced by genuine fear.

"You may address me any way you please; I don't care. However. Do not, under any circumstance, treat Hoshino-san with anything other than absolute respect. Is that absolutely. Completely. Clear?"

The human nodded and the youkai returned him to his feet. Seth shrugged his suit back into place and regained some of his composure. "You've gone soft, youkai."

"Damn straight, mortal," Inuyasha sneered, pausing to punch the human in the jaw before turning to return to Ruri's side. Ruri felt that her betrothed had over-reacted, but at the same time was somewhat grateful for the display of chivalry on her behalf. She was well aware she was a sucker for such things. She remembered that it was one of the qualities which had caused her to care for Akito so much back on the first ship to bear the name Nadesico.

The son of Sesshoumaru turned that fact over in his head as he watched the occupants of two of the three trucks disembark to load Omoikane's drive cores onto the vehicles. He felt a hand slip into his and looked down beside him at the face of his beloved.

'Are you upset with me, hime-chan?'

'No, not really. I think I understand your motives, even if I don't like your actions.'

'I don't really like my actions, either. Have you sorted through enough of my memories to come to El Ray yet?'

'I haven't yet. I know some unpleasant things happen here and I've always known you'll bring them up when you're ready.'

'There's plenty of unpleasantness in this town, certainly. It was several years after Kagura and I had separated the first time I came here. At that point in time I was certainly just my father's puppy. He thought, correctly, that kicking me out of the house for fifty years or so would be good for me.'

'What did you do here?'

'This entire town is a power struggle. I started out as a hit man, of all things, then made the right friends and within three years had pretty much taken control of this town. I beat Seth's grandfather for control, because at the time Seth's father was more interested in senoritas than business. He was too young to lead this place, as well. Once he screwed his head on straight and grew up I forced him to challenge me for control of the town. Do you know how difficult it is to make it look like someone beat you fairly when your abilities are light years ahead of their own?'

Further conversation was interrupted when Seth tossed a set of car keys at the youkai. "You two lovebirds gonna stand there staring at each other all day or are we going to get the out of this heat?"

Inuyasha and Ruri looked up to see the other three members of their party climbing aboard one of the trucks and that the drive cores were nestled safely with the other two trucks. Noticing the three-point star on the keychain, Inuyasha started for the Mercedes only to find Ruri ever so gracefully cut him off and relieve him of the keys. Ruri turned and headed for the driver's door not missing the bemused look on her love's face.

"Baka," she called over her shoulder, more for everyone else's benefit than their own, "I've ridden with you before. I'm driving."

"In my defense, I can say that you rode with me on a motorcycle under conditions where speed was more important than ride comfort. I could also point out that you've never driven a left-hand drive before. Come to think of it, have you even driven before?"

"I, however, have the keys," she said simply, smiling back at the youkai and waving the article in question in the air.

Greg took a final drag off of his cigarette and tossed the butt onto the runway. "Sometimes," he said, looking at Akito and Kagura seated across from him on the truck bed, "they are so cute, you just want to puke."

// \\

Next up, an El Ray festival and rumblings of Naraku. Oh, and Fluffy sings.