Author's Note: Well, I'm back with the next chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! Ack, and I'm so sorry for the long wait! Please forgive me…? *looks hopefully at reviewers* *sees the stern looks* Eh, heh heh…..I'll try to do better about updating, okay? *reviewers nod and smile happily before toddling off to read the next chapter* ^_^ And somebody was wondering about why I was picking on Kagome so much. I know it might SEEM like I'm really being mean to her and making her sound ugly and unloved and all that…but I really do like her, and I also really, REALLY hate Kikyou. So don't worry! It's the way this story needs to play itself out. Hope you enjoy!
Mistaken Identity
Chapter 5
Three Questions
Kagome groaned. Her head hurt. A lot.
"Mama?" she called weakly, still keeping her eyes closed. But when she got no response she called again, louder this time. "Mama?!" This time, there was an answer. But it most certainly wasn't her mother…
"I am not your mother wench!" growled a deep masculine voice. See? The voice had told her itself that it wasn't her mother. Well in that case, who was it?
"Souta?" she guessed, her eyes remaining shut with sleepiness. She heard a sigh.
"Geez! You must have really hit your head hard, Kagome!" the voice-that-wasn't-her-mother-and-obviously-not-her-brother-either snorted, but she could sense a hint of concern peeping out behind all of that macho attitude. Kagome slowly opened her eyes and saw that she was in a bed, not her own. Her gaze moved up and she saw wooden, brown planks instead of a solid white ceiling like she was used to.
'Where am I?' she thought to herself. Then she turned and saw the young man sitting next to her. She took in his long, white hair, his twitching doggy ears, and his golden eyes. Suddenly, realization struck her like a slap in the face.
"Balthazar?" she asked groggily while pushing herself up into a sitting position. Inuyasha sweat dropped.
"Who the hell are you calling Balleesar?!?" Inuyasha snarled angrily, folding his arms across his broad chest.
"You," replied Kagome evenly. She was massaging her aching head with one hand until her fingers reached a large bump right at the very top of her head, and a purple bruise just below her right cheek. "Ow!" she cried in pain. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" she chanted.
"You'll just have to put up with it until tomorrow," Inuyasha replied gruffly without even looking at her.
"Tomorrow?" Kagome questioned. "What happens tomorrow?"
"We're going to go into town and get some supplies!" Inuyasha responded. "We're running low on fresh water…and ramen, come to think of it. Plus, since you seem to have clumsily fallen yesterday, we'll have to get some medical items as well."
Kagome smiled. She would get to see people again! Crowds of people! Sure, it had only been, what, three days that she had been in Balthazar's 'custody'. But already she missed seeing bunches of busy strangers going about their own individual business. "What are you working on?" she asked Inuyasha who was busily cutting up a newspaper.
"Your ransom note," he said while snipping neatly around a letter 'u'. Curiously enough, he wasn't using scissors to do the cutting with either. He was using his fingernails! But, now that Kagome had the chance to look at them, they seemed more like claws.
"You should really think about cutting your nails," she recommended conversationally. Inuyasha glared at her. "Just a suggestion!" she put her hands up in defense. He went back to what he was working on. "So, Balthazar," Inuyasha faltered on his project when Kagome mentioned his 'name', "how much am I worth?"
(A/N: Okay guys, I really don't know Japanese money very well. So bear with me please. I'm clueless with what would be a high or low amount of yen, so please don't get mad at me!)
"Well, right now you're at 10,000,000 yen, (A/N: can't go wrong with high numbers!) but if you continue to be so damn annoying then I'll just keep going lower and lower simply to get rid of you!" he grumbled. Kagome was about to argue, but remembered her 'family plan'. Surely if they spent too much money on getting Kagome back, then they wouldn't have enough money to keep Kikyou's huge mansion. Then they would move back to the shrine and be the happy, well…happy enough, family that they had been before Kikyou had been 'discovered'.
"No! Don't lower it! I'm worth more than that you baka!" she scolded.
"Keh," Inuayasha muttered, but kept the price as it was.
Kagome beamed at him before pushing the covers back and sliding out of bed onto her unsteady legs. Staggering slightly she wandered out of the room and towards the front door.
"Oi! Where do you think you're going?!?" Inuyasha yelled.
"To try to get us some eggs for breakfast!" Kagome called back. Inuyasha shook his head and sighed. That girl was very persistent. You would think that she would just give up on those damn chickens…..he shrugged. Oh well.
Meanwhile, Kagome hummed to herself as she strolled out towards the chicken coop. 'Hopefully I'll have better luck getting some eggs this time!' she thought to herself as she neared the small building. As she crouched down and crawled inside, she was greeted by six chickens. Wait…SIX chickens? Weren't there seven? Then the stench of blood reached her nostrils as it drifted off of a pile of scattered feathers. Kagome blinked at the mess before letting out a scream.
"NOOOO!" she hollered to the world. "Why?!?"
Inuyasha heard her yell of distress and ran to her aid. "What is it?" he gasped as he hurtled towards her. "What happened? Are you okay?" he questioned breathlessly. Then he saw the tears in Kagome's eyes. "Er…don't cry," he stammered. Kagome leaped into his arms and sobbed loudly onto his shoulder. Awkwardly, he wrapped a hand around her back and patted her head mechanically. "It's okay. But, what happened? Did something hurt you?" he couldn't smell any of her blood anywhere…although there WAS a smell of blood…
"It's Amy!" she cried tearfully.
Inuyasha's face went blank. "Who the hell is Amy?" he asked bluntly. Kagome glared at him
"The chicken! Baka, the chicken!" she howled angrily. "Poor, innocent Amy was too young to die!" Inuyasha resisted to the urge to break out into a fit of insane laughter. She was this upset over one measly chicken?!?! This was just too much…
"Listen Kagome. I understand that…you and, uh, Amy or whatever were…close…and all. But it WAS just a bird, you know," he explained while keeping an unnaturally strained straight face.
Kagome let out another sob of unhappiness. "Oh Amy! At least you've gone on to a better place!"
Inuyasha couldn't help himself. "Yeah, I'm sure she's up in chicken heaven right now!" he grinned. Kagome glared at him again. "Unless that is," he chortled, "she had murdered any other chickens in her life. Or maybe she had an affair with her sister's rooster or something!" He was in tears of laughter right now. "Then she'd be down in chicken hell with all of Hitler and Hussein's chickens!" At that last remark, even Kagome found it hard to continue her evil glaring at couldn't resist a snort of laughter.
"You're so mean!" she complained between laughs of her own. She hit him over the head rather half-heartedly before surrendering herself to the peals of laughter wracking her body. The two finally collapsed onto the floor in a fit of giggles. Once they had finally calmed down, Kagome sat up and dried her eyes. She sighed happily.
"Are you read for the big adventure of the day?" she asked him slyly. He gulped.
"Kagome…I'm not quite sure I like that look in your eye…" he replied nervously.
Kagome laughed giddily again and headed off pointedly towards the stables. Towards the one horse Sango's farm had. Towards Naraku.
"You're nutty!" Inuyasha ranted as he scrambled to his feet and ran after her. "You aren't seriously thinking of riding that wild horse are you?" he asked her.
"You're gonna try too aren't you?" she looked up at him. "Unless you're too scared!"
Inuyasha growled, "Hmph! Not like some stupid horse is gonna scare me!" he crossed his arms.
"Okay then!" Kagome beamed happily. "Whoever can stay on him the longest wins!" Inuyasha really didn't have a choice.
"Wins what?" Inuyasha asked automatically. Kagome thought for a moment.
"I know! How about this: the winner gets to ask the loser three questions, and the loser has to answer them. No matter what they are," Kagome explained the rules of the prize.
"Fine," Inuyasha grudgingly agreed. Kagome's smile widened. "You go first!" and she shoved him towards the horse.
"What?!" he cried. "This was YOUR idea!" but he still went forward. "What about the saddle and bridle?" he whined.
Kagome shrugged. "I've never ridden a horse before, so I don't know how to put all that fancy stuff on. But it can't be that important!" she assured him.
"Crazy bitch," he grumbled to himself as he sidled up to the big horse. He looked it up and down: from its long, black legs to its huge, white, spider-shaped scar to its dark, knotted mane to its coal-black, glaring eyes.
"This'll be easy!" he called back arrogantly, but inside he really wasn't quite sure. 'Oh well,' he thought to himself, 'I can't back down now!' With that final thought in mind, he stepped up to Naraku's fenced in field and swung open the gate.
Once he had stepped in, he closed the gate with a click and made his way over towards Naraku. As he neared the horse, Naraku snorted and pawed the ground angrily with his foot; his eyes burning with hatred. Inuyasha reached the horse and quickly flung his right leg over the horse's back. He barely had time to grab a fistful of mane before Naraku let out a wild shriek of anger and hurled himself around the field. The horse tossed and turned, spinning in circles rapidly with Inuyasha just barely managing to hang on. With a might rear, Naraku stood up to his full height on his hind legs and shook himself violently, flinging his passenger off of his back very effectively.
Inuyasha soared over the fence and crashed into Kagome who toppled over under
his weight. Inuyasha lay panting on the ground, Kagome a few feet away from him.
"Are you okay?" she asked him while rising from her sprawled position up into a
crouch. Inuyasha glared at her.
"You!" he ground out between his teeth. "You are a nut!" Kagome grinned
nervously. "That horse is berserk! Why does Sango even have that thing?" he raged while jabbing his finger in the general direction of Naraku.
"Well," Kagome began thoughtfully, "Sango said that they had been trying to sell Naraku for awhile now, but nobody wants to buy him."
"Gee, I wonder why," Inuyasha muttered to himself. "And now it's your turn!" he grinned mischievously at her and indicated towards Naraku who was still shooting death-glares at them. Kagome gulped.
"Oh joy," she sighed. 'Me and my bright ideas,' she thought sarcastically to herself. 'Maybe I'll get lucky and only break a couple of bones…' she grimaced.
"What are you waiting for, Little-Miss-Enthusiastic?" he snickered. "Don't you want a turn to ride on the nice horsie? It's the big adventure of the day, remember!" he urged innocently. Kagome glared daggers at him.
"I'm going, I'm going!" she assured him. Inuyasha smirked knowingly.
Kagome slowly neared the giant horse. Now that she had a chance to look at him up close, she could see that he really was a pretty mean looking horse. What with his bared teeth and ears flattened to his head and menacing eyes….
Kagome opened the gate and closed it behind her. She walked up to the horse and carefully laid a hand on his side. She slowly stroked his back, attempting to get the horse to calm down and maybe like her a little bit. Fat chance. The horse only snapped at her and snorted angrily. Giving up, Kagome gently swung her leg over Naraku's back and sat: tense and ready, humongous fistfuls of black mane clutched in her hands.
1 minute went by…
Kagome remained in her crouched position, not daring to slacken her desperate grip on the horse.
2 minutes passed…
Kagome gathered more of Naraku's mane in her hands.
3 minutes…
Kagome squeezed her knees together, urging the horse onward, but Naraku didn't move.
4 minutes…
Kagome reluctantly relaxed her hold on his mane and sat easily on his back.
5 minutes…
"This isn't so bad!" she called happily towards Inuyasha. At that precise moment, Naraku leaped to life and poor Kagome just managed to fling her arms around his neck and hold on for dear life. Naraku bucked and reared and ran like a mad-horse…which, he was. Kagome clung to him like a leech, frozen to his back in petrified fear. Naraku lurched his body this way and that but Kagome's grip refused to loosen its rock-like hold. Eventually, Kagome's legs became heavy and her arms were exhausted. Her body couldn't take this kind of abuse anymore. Without thinking, she hurled herself off of the horse's back and over the fence, landing rather ungracefully on her rump. Inuyasha gawked at her.
"Two minutes!" he announced. Kagome's mouth dropped open.
"That's it!??!" she cried. "I was only on that bloody horse for two minutes?!" Inuyasha cocked an eyebrow at her.
"I'm not going to count those five minutes in which the horse did absolutely nothing," he grinned smugly before Kagome smiled even wider.
"That means," she began, "that I won." Inuyasha's grin faltered before he forced himself to nod.
"Keh," he muttered. Kagome threw herself down onto the soft grass and stared up at the clouds. Inuyasha joined her, their heads meeting in the middle as they gazed up at the blue sky.
"Look!" Kagome pointed at a particularly fluffy cloud, "It looks just like a bunny!" Inuyasha twisted his head this way and that trying to see what Kagome had seen.
"Looks more like a cloud to me," he teased. Kagome mock-glared at him before turning her eyes back up to the sea of clouds.
"You have to use your imagination, silly," she explained.
"Okay then…that one," Inuyasha indicated towards another cloud, "looks like a dead cockroach," he proclaimed proudly.
Kagome laughed. "Very original," she congratulated. Their eyes met and they exchanged happy smiles before Kagome blushed and looked away. "So, I wonder what I should ask you," she mused.
"Let me guess," Inuyasha began, "You want to know why I kidnapped you or something like that," he guessed wildly.
"Well…yes, I do. But that's not what I'm going to ask first. I have a much more important question!" she informed him. Inuyasha looked at her curiosly.
"First question: what in the world is your real name?" she asked. Inuyasha smirked.
"That's more important than something about your kidnap?" he asked.
"Well, I'm stuck with you for awhile, so I'd at least like to be able to call you something other that Balthazar…" Kagome told him.
"'Bout damn time too!" he agreed. "My name," he said, "is Inuyasha."
Kagome smiled happily. 'What an interesting name. I like it a LOT better than Balthazar though…'
"Now for question number two! Let's see," she thought for a moment before snapping her fingers and looking pointedly at Inuyasha's ears. "Why," she asked, "do you have those adorable doggy ears?"
Inuyasha shivered. This was it. She was never going to look at him the same way again. He took a deep breath to steady himself. 'Keh,' he thought to himself, 'I don't care what she thinks!'
"Well," he began, "I…am a hanyou," he declared. Then he winced, waiting for the outburst he just knew would come…except it didn't.
"A what?" Kagome asked, obviously confused.
"A hanyou," he explained, "It means I'm half demon." He glanced up at her, expecting to see disgust dripping from her eyes. But it wasn't. "Aren't you scared?" he asked her.
Kagome shrugged. "No, not really. If you had wanted to hurt me then you would have done so already. And besides, I knew it had to be something like that. Although at first, I had thought you had gotten plastic surgery or something like that. But being part demon is much cooler!" Inuyasha flashed her a happy smile. Kagome was taken aback. She hadn't seen him look this happy yet. She grinned back.
"I suppose it all started with my father," Inuyasha said, "he was a great demon. With his first mate, who was also a full demon, they had my half-brother, Sesshoumaru. But then he met my mother, who was a human. He left his first mate in favor of my mother. Together they had me, half demon and half human. Because of this, I don't really fit in with either crowd." Kagome looked at him sadly, 'He must have been an outcast all his life,' she thought.
"But my dad had a large fortune. He lived in a huge mansion until he died. And in his will he left the house and all of his riches to whichever son had the most money at any point and time. This way, the house would be shifting ownership often, or so he thought. But Sesshoumaru hates humans. And since I'm half human, he hates me. Sesshoumaru is also a wealthy business man, he's doing almost as good as my father did, while I can't get a job any better than a taxi driver! Since he owns the house he threw me out. That's why I planned to kidnap Kikyou," Inuyasha saw Kagome shudder at the mention of her sister's name, "I needed quick money, lots of quick money, so that I could get the house back. But I kidnapped you instead, accidently, but since you ARE Kikyou's sister then you should be worth something…" he trailed off.
After recovering from hearing her sister's name, Kagome smirked triumphantly, "HA!" she crowed, "You told me why you kidnapped me, why you have dog ears, AND gave me a family history lesson all in one question," she winked at him, "I didn't know you could be such a chatter-box!" Inuyasha frowned to himself.
'I can't believe I told her all that!' he scolded himself mentally. 'But somehow, it had felt good…to tell her. Maybe…she's different?' he shook his head. 'No!' he reprimanded himself firmly, 'They're all the same!'
"Well, I don't know what else to ask…so I guess I'll just save my third question for later!" she announced.
"Keh," Inuyasha replied in a flustered voice. He stood up, "I'm going inside, we still haven't had breakfast you know," he complained.
Kagome looked up at him, "I'll be in shortly," she informed him. He nodded and headed inside. Kagome needed to think for a moment.
"Well," she said aloud to no one in particular, "this certainly puts a swing on things. Now I have three perfectly good reasons to NOT run away…One: to worry my family. Two: to make my family lose all of they're money so that we can move back into the shrine. Three: so that Inuyasha can get his house back. Well, I suppose staying with Inuyasha and not making a getaway helps everybody. Well, at least it helps Inuyasha and I." she sighed before smiling brightly. "I guess that means I'm staying!" Then she got up and headed into the house to help Inuyasha make a very later breakfast.
Author's Note: Woah. That's the longest chapter I've ever written! *looks proud of herself* Hope you guys liked it! And because it was so long, I was lazy and didn't go back and look for grammatical errors. So please forgive me if there are any typos! Oh, and I'm sorry to say it, but I'm going to be on vacation in Florida for the next two weeks. So don't expect an update for awhile. But, to make up for the delay, I'll do my very best to get a long chapter out within a day or two of my return! Okay? Thanks for reading! PLEASE remember to review! I love all of the nice advice and praise everyone's been giving me! I love you all! ^_^