A/N: Progressing slowly and painfully… Thank you to those who read my story and those who reviewed (Frozen Lighting, TetsuoTsubushi, & Flashgriffin). I'm deeply honoured.

Disclaimer: If I do own Inuyasha, I won't be writing a fanfic here.

Chapter 2

"Come on, Kagome. We're going to be late for gym class!" Yuuka urged. She was half-running down the hall, pulling Kagome along.

"Okay," Kagome followed. Then she stopped and looked back. There was something nagging on the edge of her mind, but she couldn't quite grasp what it was. It felt as if… as if she was being watched.

"Kagome~" Yuuka called some distance down the hall.

"Coming!" The girl took a step or two, then stopped dead once again. A thought had crossed her mind. Could it be…? No, it was simply not possible. This sort of thing had never happened before. "Probably just my imagination," she muttered.

Yuuka was getting impatient and tapped her feet. "Kagome you slowpoke, if you don't hurry I am SO gonna leave you behind."

"All right, all right, I'm moving!" Kagome called back. She glanced behind her one last time, shook her head, and ran down the hall to her waiting friend Yuuka.

It was a beautiful May afternoon. The sun was shining brightly. The sky was cloudless and of a clear blue like that of a refreshing mountain spring. The weather was nice and warm, as the sakura season had just recently ended. All was serene whilst every creature carried out its normal life activities.

Out on the high school field, class 2-A was having gym. The guys were playing baseball while the girls were running the 100m.

Inuyasha was up for bat next. His teammates were cheering him on. He could feel the tension and excitement in the air, because their team had two strikeouts already. Miroku was standing on second base, waiting for the perfect chance to steal. Inuyasha practised swinging as he walked out and moved himself into stance. "Okay, I'm ready when you are."

The ball came at him fast as a bullet and he swung with all his might. This had better be a homerun, he thought to himself.

The ball soared, far and away from the field. Just when everybody, including Inuyasha and Miroku who were running like mad, gave a loud cheer, the ball seemed to have acquired a mind of its own and took an unexpected turn.

"Kagome watch out!!!"

Kagome, having finished her race, who sat by the track chatting amiably with her friends, looked up just in time to see a flying object coming fast and furiously at her and dodged.

The round, white object had dug a hole in the spot where she sat before the moment she had enough strength to gather herself and look up. Her face turned pale.

"Oh my goodness! Are you all right?" Someone helped her up.

'Yeah, I'm fine." Kagome gave her a weak smile.

"Is everything alright? Kagome, are you hurt?" Mr. Toudou, the P.E. teacher, rushed to her side along with the rest of the boys, the baseball game forgotten.

"Yes, yes, I'm quite all right. Nothing broken nor a scrape in sight. I'm perfectly fine." Kagome managed to put on a bright smile and assured every concerned individual.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Toudou asked again, still dubious.

"I'm positive. I'm not hurt, really."

"If you say so…" Mr. Toudou sighed, giving in to Kagome's persistent reassurance. "'Tis most strange, to see Inuyasha's homerun fly and turn at such an odd angle and aim at Kagome. What an unfortunate accident."

"Hey! It's not like I meant for it to happen!" Inuyasha exclaimed, sounding exasperated.

"Oh really?" Yuuka looked at him suspiciously.

"What's your problem, wench? Are you suspecting me for something that I didn't do?" Inuyasha glared at her, amber eyes flaring up.

"That's enough, you two." Mr. Toudou said sternly. "Don't blame Inuyasha for this. Besides, Kagome is not hurt. Anyways, it's time for you guys to pack up your equipments and go get changed."

All the students murmured their agreement and gathered up their stuff. Kagome and Yuuka brought in the stopwatches. Before Kagome enter the building, she turned around and searched the school ground for something, but apparently to no avail. Shaking her head, she trailed in after Yuuka.

"Is she looking accusingly at me?" Inuyasha wondered aloud when he caught and misunderstood Kagome's departing glance. He was most displeased at being "falsely accused" by Yuuka earlier on, and now thought of Kagome with resentment. How dense is this girl? Does she think I can achieve the impossible by willing the ball to turn around and hit her? Girls are such idiots.

He fumed within and bent down to pick up his baseball bat. Jut then, a loud shattering of glass followed by the most ear-piercing scream sounded from inside the school building.

Flinging the old wooden bat aside for the second time that day within 15 minutes, Inuyasha sprinted inside to find a terrified Yuuka, a couple of broken windows, a ground littered with shattered glass, and a strangely calm Kagome leaning against the wall, holding a bleeding left arm. He goggled at the scene.

"Please inform the teacher that someone had thought it funny to break the windows and that I've gone to the nurse's office to get my wound treated. Oh, and would you kindly ask the custodian to clear up the mess here? I'm sure it will be most unfortunate if someone accidentally steps on the sharp edges." Contrary to her previous paleness, Kagome seemed unusually unperturbed and collected. Before leaving, she nodded to Inuyasha who gawked with such blankness on his face that one would think he was the one in shock. Or maybe he was.

He was totally, absolutely, supercalifragilisticly confused, dumbfound, and…lost! What in the name of Buddha, Jesus, and any other God was the matter with that girl? Was her shock so sudden that she had not registered what had happened yet? Or was she simply too dimwitted and thick to even realize what could have happened to her? For Christ's sake! Why couldn't she act like that Yuuka who was scared senseless, like a frightened chick, or like… like how a woman was supposed to act!

Ahhh!!! He just couldn't figure her out, like he couldn't figure out Miroku's obsession with pretty girls; like he couldn't figure out his brother Sesshoumaru's unnerving arrogance. One of these days, he swore, he was going to go nuts with all those weirdoes around him. Whatever happened to normal life?

"Such an eventful day," Inuyasha heaved a sigh as he walked out of the store, grocery bags in one hand. "First I lost a bet because KAGOME had to be 20 minutes late, not 10. Then I didn't get to finish the baseball game because KAGOME had to stand in the way of my homerun. Afterwards, I almost lost my sanity because KAGOME didn't seem slightly bothered by her injury and by the fact that she could've been pierced by a thousand pieces of glass. Damn! Nothing related to Kagome ever comes to any good!" He complained out loud, getting angry with Kagome each passing second for unexplainable reasons.

"See what I mean?" He exclaimed, shaking his fist and waving his grocery bags, oblivious to the odd and sympathetic looks that passers threw him. "The mere thought of her affects my mood for no darn reason!"

After glaring venomously at no one in particular (all the while scaring off a couple of stray dogs and making a few children cry), he sighed again and continued walking home from running errands.

He strolled silently for a few minutes before lifting his head up. That was weird. He was almost sure that he heard an incantation of some sort nearby, but now it was gone. He strained his ears, finally picking up the source of the faint noise.

It came from a shadowed alley to his left.

Curious, Inuyasha approached the dark place just in time to see a figure jumping up high into the air, seemingly to be dodging a kick.

Kagome did a back flip, landing behind the attacker. She made a symbol with her hands, then lashed out at the figure. The incantation coming from her mouth hadn't ceased. The figure stretched out a clawed hand to slash at her, but she ducked and pulled out a seal, sticking it on the figure's abdomen with quick precision. The figure screeched in excruciating pain and turned to white smoke a second later.

Picking up the seal that had fallen to the concrete floor and carefully placing it back into her sleeves, Kagome stood up. She patted her somewhat tattered and torn school uniform, wincing when she touched a few cuts and bruises.

She soon located her schoolbag that lay some paces off from the place of battle. Feeling weary and tired, she slowly walked out of the dark alley just to run into somebody.

Startled, she looked up, and brown eyes stared into the clear golden eyes of Inuyasha.