AN: My god, I can't think of anything to say. That must be a relief for you guys. ^_^ Anyway enjoy the next chapter.

Conflicts and Tests

"Okay, Kagome, at first I thought it was only a crush, but now you're just freaking me out," Miroku said during lunch. His lunch group, though small, was quite interesting. Across him as always was Kagome, who was glaring witheringly at the person beside him. That person, Inu-Yasha, was sending equally deadly glares at Kagome while stuffing cafeteria mystery meat in his mouth at the same time.

            "What's he doing here?" Kagome asked tightly. "I kind of pegged him as a brooding loner." And a bloodsucker, she added in her mind. A vampire. Like the one who killed my brother. Like the one who killed Kikyo.

            Miroku shrugged. "I invited him over because you kept staring at him throughout the day, and I figured I'd give you a push in the right direction. How long as it been since you were dateless?" He jabbed his fork at Inu-Yasha. "And you could be nicer."

            "Me?" Inu-Yasha raised an eyebrow. "She's the one who's got issues with me. She looks like she wants to skewer me."

            Heh heh. You have no idea. Kagome was positive that her huge wicked grin with all her teeth bared would not betray her feelings. Inu-Yasha thought differently.

            Kagome switched her expression of maniacal pleasure to an injured one. She crossed her arms. "That's not true. What's with the evil glare you gave me this morning?"

            Inu-Yasha's face darkened. Then he sniffed and looked away. "'Coz you were staring at me like some freak." He ignored Kagome's indignant squawk and turned to Miroku. "Not very popular with the guys, is she?"

            "Actually, almost every guy here—except me—has probably dreamt of her some nights, but her attitude scares them away." Miroku smiled slyly. "It's like she drives a stake through their hearts."

            "Miroku! When you get out of that chair you are so screwed…"

            "Are you always this violent?" Inu-Yasha flicked his eyes back to Kagome.

            Kagome felt her face growing red with anger. "If you don't like it, then leave!" she snarled angrily. She had to keep her hands under the table in case she felt the urge to punch him.

            Inu-Yasha sneered at her. "No way! Miroku's a pretty cool guy. Aside from the fact that he hangs around with you."

            "I admire anyone who can swallow mystery meat and survive," Miroku added. "Seems like you're stuck with him a bit longer, Kagome. Inu-Yasha and I are becoming pals." He caught Inu-Yasha's eye and grinned. Inu-Yasha grinned back.

            His best friend shot up, disgust written all over her face. "Ugh. Get a room!" she stalked off, leaving her lunch behind. It consisted of untouched mystery meat.

            Both men eyed it. "You take it," Miroku said. "The last time I did I had to get my stomach pumped."

            "What's wrong with her?" Inu-Yasha's gaze lingered in the direction Kagome left, then went back to the mystery meat. "She's so weird."

            A soda can and a lunch tray flew out of nowhere and crashed into his head, one after the other. Inu-Yasha growled and stood up, a big bump throbbing on his head. "That little…!"

            Miroku grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down. "Bitch that she is, Inu-Yasha, you don't want to mess with her. Not while she's angry." Inu-Yasha just snarled and bared his teeth slightly. Miroku noticed that his canines were small fangs, short but fangs nevertheless, overlapping his bottom teeth.

            He frowned. Could it be Kagome saw something that he'd missed? Well, he isn't exactly normal, he mused as Inu-Yasha cursed Kagome for eternity and a day in between gulps of mystery meat. I mean, what kind of normal person eats mystery meat?

*          *          *

            Kagome was all set to prove that Inu-Yasha was a vampire. She'd made a list of all the things she could prove. Never mind the fact that he didn't exactly explode in sunlight, Kaede said there were weird vampires in every bunch. He could a) burn his flesh when he touched silver b) walk past a mirror and have no reflection or c) spontaneously combust when he came in contact with garlic or d) that was all she could think of at the moment.

            Just before gym class, Kagome showed Miroku her list, cackling evilly as he read it. She had a couple of defending arguments in case Miroku wasn't convinced and tried to talk her out of it, but surprisingly he agreed.

            "He has fangs," Miroku said dramatically as the class milled around, dressed in gym outfits and waiting for the PE teacher. Inu-Yasha was still in the locker rooms. "And he ate mystery meat. Everyone knows mystery meat's as raw as chewing into a live cow."

            Kagome made a face. "Miroku, you could make foie gras sound gross."

            "It is gross!" he said. "It's the exploded guts of a fat goose…"

            "Okay, class is starting!" the gym teacher yelled, bursting out of his office. "We're starting off with basketball. Everyone grab a ball and start doing set shots!"

            "Yay, basketball!" Kagome flashed a grin. She placed a hand at her neck, where several silver necklaces were wrapped around her throat, including Miroku's heavy silver chain band that he lent her ("Don't get it all sweaty, or you're gonna buy me a new one."). "I'm all set for Plan A."

            Finally Inu-Yasha lumbered out, looking distastefully at his gym uniform. "This sucks," he muttered as he approached the two of them. "Where I used to go we didn't have to do gym."

            Kagome dribbled a ball and began weaving it between her legs. "Yeah, well where we come from we aren't lazy rebel slobs. One on one?"

            Inu-Yasha gave her a once over, then snorted. "You'll bite the dust."

            "We'll see who bites who," she grinned knowingly, shooting past him towards the basket.

            Miroku's mature comment: "Ooh, Kagome, you pussycat you…"

            While everyone else was doing set shots, Inu-Yasha and Kagome played a rough game of one on one. In the end, Inu-Yasha won. It was really no contest, although Kagome put up a good fight. But now that they'd both exercised, Kagome actually had a reason for her 'rash excuse'.

            She began scratching at her neck irritably. "Damn, my rashes started again," she complained within ear shot of Miroku. "Hey, Inu-Yasha, can you see if I've got rashes on my neck?" She tilted her head and continued scratching at the silver necklaces.

            "Ewwww. Do I have to?"

            Miroku approached them. "Checking out Kagome's unsightly skin disorders is a sort of initiation for new students, Inu-Yasha. It separates the men from the boys." He tossed in a grin of complete innocence.

            Inu-Yasha looked extremely doubtful, but then Kagome began clucking and making chicken noises. Finally he went up to Kagome and moved her hair out of the way, forcing her head down. Kagome waited for the howl of pain and the smell of burnt flesh, but all she heard was the clink of silver as he put his fingers on her neck. "No rash," he said, rearranged the silver back into its place. "And thank god."

            Kagome was too stunned to say anything. He didn't react to the silver. Plan A seriously crashed and burned.

            Well, there were three more to go, two if you excluded Plan D.

*          *          *

            Twitchy Eye Homeroom Teacher glared around the room. "I hope all of you have been treating Inu-Yasha nicely." The look on his face was as if he would strangle anyone who hadn't been treating Inu-Yasha nicely. Everyone looked in Inu-Yasha's direction. His face was tilted away from the sun, muttering that the sunlight shone directly into his eyes.

            "Inu-Yasha!" the teacher's bark made him glance up. "Have you found your way around school yet?"

            He shrugged indifferently. "Just the main building. And the PE gym."

            "Do you need help finding your way around the rest of the school? The varsity gym?" Inu-Yasha didn't seem to care. Somehow the teacher mistook his unconcern for extreme eagerness and nodded, pleased. "We all work together here, boy. I'll ask a student to show you around during this period. We're only delving into the finer points of cultural anthropology and the beginning of civilization, anyway."

            Almost every hand shot up after this remark A silky, innocent voice broke through their pleading and begging and bribing—"I'll do it."

            All eyes fell on Kagome. One hand was lifted calmly into the air, and a slight smile was on her face. "I know the gyms pretty well. I'm on the track team, so I go there a lot."

            Miroku wondered if he'd ever see Inu-Yasha alive again.

            "Fine. Higurashi, you and Inu-Yasha go now. Just the gym building," he warned them as they exited. "Don't try anything funny."

            Kagome grinned slyly. Everyone giggled, thinking it meant something romantic. But Miroku smacked a hand against his forehead. "Great. In about thirty minutes I'll saying to anyone who cares 'Hi, my best friend murdered the new student. What happened to you today?'"

*          *          *

"There are two gyms. One is used by the normal classes, the one we just used. The other is used for varsity and competition," Kagome said. "Although it's not strictly divided, so a class can use the varsity one and vice versa. We also have a field for outdoor sports." Inu-Yasha looked bored out of his mind, not even bothering to look up at the several trophies their school had won, which lined the corridors.

            Kagome stopped at a large door. "This is the door to the coachs' offices," she said. "Do you play any sports? Or are you too cool for school?"

            "Feh." Inu-Yasha finally looked up and saw the trophies, gleaming in their cases. "Soccer," he muttered.

            "Soccer. That's our worst sport. Coach needs people like you." Kagome opened the door and shoved Inu-Yasha in. "Just say you're new and you want to try out for varsity!" she shouted, shutting the door behind him.

            "You—" the door slammed shut before Inu-Yasha could finish. Kagome chuckled wickedly and sprinted down the hallway, where the PE locker rooms were. On each door were signs saying, very clearly and in big letters, Male and Female. They kept getting bigger because Miroku kept insisting he couldn't read the signs and always mistook one for the other. 

            She removed the signs from their hooks. The hooks were tightly curled, and she had to work at the metal to slip the signs out. When both were out, she switched signs, putting the Male sign on the female locker room and vice versa.

            I'm so evil, Kagome sighed happily.

            It wasn't long before the coach's door burst open, and Inu-Yasha emerged with the soccer coach patting him eagerly on the back. "I can't believe you're that star player from Meian High School!" he was saying. "This is definitely going to turn things around for us." They walked down the hall and Kagome waited patiently for them.

            Inu-Yasha was holding a soccer uniform and cleats. "Put those on!" the coach said. "You said you had the whole period free? That's great! I wanna see what you can do! I'll wait at the field." Giving Inu-Yasha a slap on the back, he jogged off down the hall, giving Kagome a wave and shouting, "Hey! Good job at the inter-school championship!"

            "Here are the locker rooms," Kagome said, gesturing at the 'male' door. "You can get changed there. I'll wait here and show you to the field."

            There must have been something on her face, because Inu-Yasha glared at her suspiciously. She couldn't stand having eye contact with a vampire for long, so she turned her head away. Inu-Yasha considered it a victory and went through the door.

            At the first screams, Kagome burst through the door. Several girls were grabbing towels and articles of clothing and either covering themselves with it or sprinting off to the shower area. From the full length mirror, which Kagome had a good view of, Inu-Yasha didn't know what had hit him—

            Wait. The full length mirror? Kagome rubbed her eyes and glanced at the mirror again. What she saw was a very ticked-off Inu-Yasha reflection glaring at her. A hand grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around, and she was face to face with him. "Y-you…" he sputtered, his face beet red. He looked absolutely furious—not to mention totally embarrassed. "You are so…"

            Kagome was contemplating whether to duck and run for the toilets or to plead for her survival when a life-saving hairbrush thrown by a towel-clad girl whizzed through the air and conked Inu-Yasha's head. While his eyes spun in dazed spirals, Kagome saw her chance and bolted. She left Inu-Yasha to the mercy of half-naked angry girls and sprinted back towards the classroom, wondering what she'd gotten herself into.

*          *          *

            She was tapping her toe impatiently by the school's entrance and checked her watch for the hundredth time. Miroku was half an hour late. Of course, he'd probably had detention and forgotten to tell her, which was normal, but she was feeling irritated at the day's events. Kagome huffed and began walking briskly. If that was the case, then he could walk home by himself.

            A few blocks away from school she heard someone calling her name. She turned around and saw Miroku sprinting towards her. "Geez, can't you wait?" he puffed, stopping when he reached her and catching his breath. "I was almost done."

            "I've been waiting for half an hour," Kagome said icily. "Hurry up, I wanna go home. Why'd you get detention today, of all days?"

            "You know, that's an interesting question," Miroku said lightly. His sideward glance towards his best friend told Kagome that she was going to be squirming for the next few minutes. "I realized I'd forgotten my gym bag in the locker room, so I decided to go get it. As much as I was tempted to take a peek into the female locker room, I fought that urge because I wanted to turn a new leaf and become a truly good man."

            Kagome, who'd been nodding absently throughout his whole story, suddenly stopped nodding and raised a suspicious eyebrow. Something didn't seem to flow right… "No really, Miroku, why didn't you peek in the girl's locker room?"

            "Okay, mainly because the principal threatened to suspend me—or worse, make me clean his bathroom." Miroku shuddered. "So I entered the guys' locker room. Or so I thought."

            It took awhile for his words to click in Kagome's brain. Then she realized that in her hurry to leave, she'd forgotten to switch the signs back. Whoops…

            "I did not know guys wore bras," Miroku continued, pretending that he didn't notice her sudden discomfort. "I didn't know they screamed, 'Eeww, it's that pervert Miroku again!' in voices so high not even castrated could they manage it. I didn't know they used hair dryers—one of which was hurled into my eye, thank you very much. I did not know—"

            Kagome shot her hand out, grabbed Miroku's shoulder, and gripped him very, very hard. "Okay, I've got your point! I've got it!" She sighed and shook her head, her grip on his now-cracking shoulder not lessening. "How do you know it's me anyway?"

            "If you let go I'll tell you," Miroku said in a tight voice. Kagome relented, and he rubbed his shoulder. "Guess who was in detention with me?"

            "Uhm…the grandfather of all knowledge?" Kagome guessed.

            Miroku shook his head wildly. "Lord forbid! It was Inu-Yasha. He had an interesting story to tell."

            "Hey! I was going to tell you about it!" Kagome protested. "Man, he steals everything from me! My friend, my lunch, and now my story?" Grouchily she folded her arms and walked at a brisk speed.

            Her best friend coughed. "So explain why you'd play such a trick on a guy you hate, huh? I mean, from the way he said it, sounded like he had a lot of fun…"

            "That's a load of crap!" Kagome exploded huffily. "Anyway, I didn't know how to get him to walk past a mirror, since they don't exactly line the halls, and I couldn't exactly follow him into the guy's locker, so I did it the easy way." She smiled. "Plus, I wanted to see him suffer under my power."

            An eyebrow shot up. "The easy way. Huh. So did it work? Did he have a reflection or not?"

            His question punctured her spirits. "Yeah, he's got a reflection. I just don't get it. Aside from the mystery meat and the fangs, which any person could have, there's not a single proof that he's a vampire."

            Mirok, in typical guy fashion, slung an arm around her neck. "In my opinion, I think you became a bit paranoid. The new student comes up and gives you the evil eye, and instantly he's a vampire. Maybe you've been taking your training too seriously?"

            "Oh sure. Who's the one who told me, 'He has fangs!'?" Kagome imitated Miroku's dramatic tone from before. Ignoring Miroku's affronted look, she mused, "But seriously. Why else would he be so mad to see me? We've never met. I must be reeking of vampire hunter smell." She lifted her arm and buried her nose into her shirt, sniffing experimentally. "But I don't smell anything…except deodorant, of course."

            He rolled his eyes. "No wonder you're single."

            This earned him an elbow in his face and Kagome storming ahead, muttering about why Miroku even was her best friend and how she was going to be late for her training, which was a much better way to spend her time.

*          *          *

            "Kagome, I'm really impressed by your skills," Myouga said, wiping his brow. The two of them had just finished an extensive practice.

            She stood in the middle of Myouga's dojo, panting heavily. In one hand she held a bow, and in the other a medium sized silver arrow. A normal vampire killer usually armed herself with a stake, but the best carried more unusual weapons. Myouga had been training her to reach Kikyo's level. Kikyo had not been a normal vampire killer, she'd been the best. She'd had purified arrows that could dissolve strong vampires and vampires in large numbers with one arrow. It was a sign of how much power she had, since she purified the arrows herself. Myouga said that Kikyo had been able to do it at fifteen. Kagome had managed to do it a year later.

            "It seems to me you worked extra hard today," Myouga said lightly, bouncing around the room and picking up debris from the holes Kagome had created in his walls. "You don't usually puncture my dojo like this."

            With an angry puff Kagome blew the hair away from her eyes. "Just needed to burn off some anger," she muttered. "Sorry about your dojo. You should get some stronger walls."

            "Yes, because vampire killing is such a high-paying profession," Myouga said sarcastically. "You think silver for those arrows is cheap?"

            The girl shrugged. "You can just loot the treasure rooms of all the vampires you defeat." She walked over to the door of the dojo and picked up her bag. "I'm going to bring Kaede's bow back," she called over her shoulder. Kaede lived with Myouga in the house just next to the dojo. "Then I have to go. It's Souta's anniversary, and Mom wants us all home." At once her face darkened.

            Myouga knew what she was thinking of. The vampire with black hair, the one who'd taken her brother and taken her blood. He watched as her hand crept up and touched the two tiny scars on her neck, where the vampire had bitten.

            "Fine. You did a wonderful job today. I think you can go home on your own now, Kagome-chan?"

            Kagome made a face. A few years ago Myouga had still had to walk her home because she was so young. Now she hated it whenever someone called her Kagome-chan. "I can. See you tomorrow." With another wave, she left.

            After dropping off the arrows at Kaede's, Kagome started for the walk home. At this time, just after dusk had fallen, the subways and trains would be packed. She'd found a short cut some months ago, but she rarely took it because it was so narrow and dark. Kagome had had her share of bad experiences in narrow and dark places. Today, though, her mother wanted her home soon. It's not like a vampire's lurking behind every alley, she mused. And I can take on a normal guy easily. She decided to take the short cut.

            Her shoes splashed on the damp ground. Even though it was just the beginning of night, the alley was swamped in shadows. Kagome thought she could make out some shapes rustling against the walls, but that could just be her paranoia.

            A teenage girl walking alone in a dark alley… it was the perfect target for dirty men…or hungry vampires. Within minutes a group of them swarmed around her and cut her off.

            Kagome stopped in her tracks. At first her blood froze, but then she realized it wasn't the black haired vampire. They were lower class—that meant brainless, horny, and incredibly easy to slaughter. Any vampire hunter could take them on easily. She quickly reached into her bag and pulled out a wooden stake.

            Immediately they burst into laughter. There were many of them, most of which were concealed in the shadows. The one closest to her, who happened to be the ugliest, laughed the hardest, showing his yellowed fangs. "Aw, what are you going to do? Pull a Buffy on us?" he sneered.

            She gasped in surprise. "I didn't know you had cable TV in your evil vampiric lairs!" she said half-sarcastically. She looked at the stake in her hand. Although wood was almost useless against even the weakest vampire, she could purify wood till it was good as silver. "Actually, Buffy doesn't know jack schnit," she said as she lunged at the vampire. She thrust it into his chest and squinted as he exploded.

            They scrambled on her. Kagome ducked, kicked, punched, flipped over, and somersaulted her way out of untimely death. Vampires exploded around her, leaving her dusty with bits of ash. She was doing flawlessly…coolly and calmly like Kikyo had done. Six years of hard training were seriously showing tonight.

            Suddenly, the vampires stopped. They lifted their heads and sniffed the air. All of a sudden they ran—streaking towards Kagome's side of the alley, pushing her to the wall as they fought to run away.

            Kagome squinted in the darkness. In the scramble of vampires, she thought she'd seen a flash of gold. It caught her eyes again and she saw.

            Her eyes grew wide as she saw Inu-Yasha running with the vampires, his amber eyes glowing and his fangs bared in anger.