Jaded Skye
Chapter One – Accident Prone
The word itself wasn't much, certainly not something you would find in a dictionary. The tone, however, implied dissatisfaction, annoyance, and perhaps a bit of anger.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE OUT OF RAMEN?"
Scratch that, a lot of anger indeed.
Kagome Higurashi looked irritably at the half dog demon standing in front of her. "We…are…out…of…ramen, Inuyasha." She glanced at the clock, "Oh no! I'm going to be late!" She started to bolt for the door.
In one swift movement, Inuyasha leaped in front of her, blocking her, and in the process, knocking over a table lamp that happened to be in his way. It was a feat, considering how low the ceiling was. The crash sought attention, and in a few seconds, all the members of the Higurashi residence was in the room, just in time to hear Inuyasha say grumpily, "I came here to fetch you. I wouldn't even have come if I knew I was going to wait for a whole day!" After a brief pause, more agitatedly, "How can you be out of ramen?"
"I didn't tell you to come here!" Exclaimed Kagome, her own temper rising, "It's not my fault I have a huge Math test today! We don't have an infinite supply of ramen you know! You think we sell this stuff?"
Before the argument could continue, Souta wisely stepped in, "Why don't you just buy him ramen, sis?"
"I'm really going to be late!" Cried out Kagome tensely, "If I don't pass this Math test I have no chance of passing this course!"
"Inuyasha can buy ramen for himself," suggested Grandpa, "Just give him some money, Kagome, and you can be on your way." He then muttered some excuse and went on with his schedule.
"What a great idea!" Mrs. Higurashi commented, smiling.
"Inuyasha can't buy ramen!" Kagome argued passionately, "What if he blows his cover? We're going to have a national crisis on our hands!"
"Are you saying I'm stupid?" Inuyasha fumed.
"Do you even know what a grocery store is?" Kagome questioned.
"KEH!"
Souta sighed as he stepped in once again. Did he always have to be the peacekeeper? He pushed Kagome out of the door—around Inuyasha of course—reassuring her, "We'll teach Inuyasha everything. After all, it can't be harder than slaying demons."
"But—"
"You're going to be late, sis." Souta cleverly reminded her.
"You're right!" Kagome bolted out of the house without a backward glance; her mind fully occupied with formulas, rules, theories, etc—generally everything Math related. It would be after the crisis when she would finally find space in her mind to worry about other things.
Mrs. Higurashi fished a 1000-yen note out of her purse and held it out Inuyasha with a grin. "Here you go. This should get you about 10 packages of ramen. You can go to the supermarket east of here. It's about a ten-minute walk. Not far, not far at all."
Inuyasha stared at the money, clueless. "What's this suppose to do? Who's the ugly guy on it? What is a supermarket anyway?"
Souta sighed, "It's money." Inuyasha still looked clueless. Souta thought for a second and elaborated, "It can get you ramen." Inuyasha stopped looking confused and started looking doubtful. Souta continued, "Trust me. And that 'ugly guy' just so happens to be Natsume Soseki. He was a very famous writer you know!"
Inuyasha stared. "So? You mean he's dead? Why is a dead guy on this paper then?"
Mrs. Higurashi giggled. Deciding to ignore Inuyasha's comment, she answered his last question, "A supermarket is a place where you can get all kinds stuff like ramen."
"Oh," Inuyasha finally began to understand, "How am I going to recognize this supermarket?"
Mrs. Higurashi replied, "There's a sign."
"Ten minutes you said? I bet I could make it in three." With that, Inuyasha was off. Somehow, in the mere seconds that Inuyasha went out of the door, Souta managed to put a baseball cap on his head, covering the dog-ears. Sure they were cute, the ears, but the main goal was for him to blend in, not stand out.
"I hope nothing goes wrong," Mrs. Higurashi remarked, looking troubled for a few seconds. Then she brightened up, "Come on Souta! If you don't hurry, you're going to be late too!"
A groan could be heard as the excitement of the morning wore off and the normal boringness took over once again.
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Sesshoumaru walked amid the crowds. His sensitive nose protested against the everlasting human stench. The inferior race was always the same. Always in a hurry, thinking their selves as important when they don't know any better.
Sesshoumaru absent-mindedly blocked out the stench. He still couldn't believe the humans' naivety. How could they, throughout the generations, forget about the demons—the obvious pointy top of the food chain? He could single-handedly wipe out those pests, even if they were scattered all over the world. Sometimes he wondered why didn't, why he stopped killing just for fun. The train of thought brought him to the only human that he deemed worthy: Rin.
Rin was unique. She stood out from all the others. She approached him when others would run away as fast as they were able. Her innocence was like a light in the utter darkness. She was brave as she was optimistic. She could see no evil. She stirred something in his heart that no other was able to do. He cared for her.
Sesshoumaru was lost in reminiscence. Rin brought him back a long ways—500 years to be exact. How he missed that age: the thrill of the hunt, the satisfaction when he slaughtered hundreds without ever batting an eye, and the delight fighting a worthy opponent…and winning. (He had long since grudgingly accepted his half-brother Inuyasha's skill.)
His only regret was that the bastard Naraku had not felled by his sword. He even regretted Naraku's death sometimes. Naraku did cause him a lot of grief, that was sure, but he was a worthy opponent. His existence provided a reason, a purpose for his life. Everything turned relatively dull after his death.
Inuyasha provided the necessary entertainment once in a while, but once he realized that he could not kill him even if he could, most of the fun was taken out of the sport.
Then there was, of course, the inevitable. Rin grew up, found a mate, (after Sesshoumaru himself approved—that took two years) created her own family, and eventually, she died. Such was the fact of life of humans. Rin had, before she died, requested that he didn't use the Tenseiga to revive her. Her reason being that she lived a satisfactory life, and that she was happy. She would miss her Sesshoumaru-sama, but it was her time to pass on, to whatever lied beyond death.
He had mourned for her in his own way, but she would always remain in his heart and in his memories. He stopped killing humans for no reason; Rin had given him too much for him to go back on his word to her—he had promised her to only kill for a reason.
Sesshoumaru turned a corner, his long and silver hair floated after him. He thought he figured out why he was bored these past years: the lack of challenges. He had surpassed all the challenges the human world could offer. He had first decided to blend in with the humans for lack of anything else to do. Now that he's overcame all of the challenges of 'becoming a human', he felt, once again, bored.
He wondered if his half-brother, Inuyasha was still alive. It wouldn't surprise him very much if he were; weirder things had happened. Maybe he should seek him out. It would perhaps, cure his boredom.
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Souta looked up in surprise. He usually didn't pay that much attention to the teacher, but something had caught his attention.
"…She's from a school in Canada," the teacher was saying, "and she's quite fluent in Japanese. I want you all to be nice to her." The teacher looked at the clock impatiently, "She should be here by now…" she said, more to herself than to the now interested class.
After a lengthy pause, the teacher sighed and prepared to go back to teaching, when suddenly, loud and hurried footsteps were heard. The door swung open and revealed a young black-haired girl. She wore the issued school uniform and Souta would never have guessed from the look of her that she was from Canada.
"Gomen! Gomen!" She was apologizing, "I'm so sorry about the delay. It won't happen again, I promise!"
The teacher forced a smile and told the class, "Give a warm welcome to Lindsey everyone!"
"Welcome, Lindsey," the class chorused in monotone as she give a smile.
Souta grinned. She would probably be a nice person to get to know…
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Inuyasha was, though he would never admit it to anyone, utterly and completely lost. Truth to be told, he could not read. If he could not read in his own time, what hope did he have in reading modern Japanese?
As he walked among the crowds, he looked around aimlessly. What is it now? Ten minutes? He thought, Shouldn't the supermarket be around here now? It had not occurred to him, at all, to ask someone. It was by sheer dumb luck that he saw a picture of ramen by a window, advertising a special price of 100-yen. With an excited yell, he entered the store.
It was bigger than he first thought. There were aisles and aisles of things he had never seen before. So what else was new? He hated almost everything about modern Tokyo.
Strolling along the aisles randomly, he chanced to hear a passing conversation between a mother and a teenage girl.
"Mother would this do?" The girl asked as she held out a package.
"Yes, dear, I think it'll do perfectly for that time of the month." The mother answered as she took the package and put it into her quarter-full shopping cart—of course, our dear Inuyasha thought it was some weird three-sided cage with wheels.
Inuyasha all but sprang to where the two human females were a moment before. Did I hear them correctly? Did they just say 'that time of the month'? Thought Inuyasha with utmost confusion, were they half-demons like myself?
He looked at the package. It showed a semi-circle white thing with flaps. It was strange to say the least. "Keh! How is this supposed to help that time of the month?" Inuyasha exclaimed loudly, causing a couple of shoppers to look at him strangely, not that he cared at all. "I'll have to ask Kagome," he grumbled as he took it and walked on.
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Kagome wrote feverishly. The test was hard, yet at least some of the materials she crammed into her brain was becoming useful. All of her hard studying did pay off.
Kagome shook her writing hand, and rested it a bit. It was hurting from the amount of writing. The moment she stopped writing, her mind skipped to wonder about Inuyasha. How's he doing? I hope he doesn't get in trouble. But he always gets in trouble! I sure hope no one gets on his nerves! I don't trust his hot-tempered nature. What if… what if… what if he kills someone? Before her mind could contemplate the consequences, she shut it down. She threw herself into the test. She would worry afterwards.
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Inuyasha looked at the endless stack of ramen hungrily. He was almost drooling as he took all of the ramen that he could hold in record speed. The pile was covering his face as he tried to find his way back to the entrance. The top of his pile was certainly wobbling as he paced, but it didn't topple.
It was a miracle, or sheer dumb luck that he was full of, that he didn't manage to bump into anyone in the way. The shelves seemed to miss him on purpose. Perhaps it was some seventh sense that demons had? Whatever the reason, he was just about out of the door when…
"Hey you! Did you pay that?"
Inuyasha turned around, lowered his pile, and glared at the person behind the register. His yellow iris pierced and burned with agitation.
The man, who had the unfortunate luck of this particular shift, shifted uncomfortably. Trying to recover his composure, he tried to speak reasonably, "You have to pay for your purchases you know?"
Inuyasha looked blank for a second but he seemed to remember what Mrs. Higurashi and Souta had told him. Something about money, he remembered. He put his load by the cash register, stifling all the complaints from the lined-up shoppers with a single scowl in their direction, and took out the 1000-yen note that Mrs. Higurashi had gave him. "Here," he said as he prepared pick up his items again.
Looking at Inuyasha's pile and the 1000-yen, the man argued, "it isn't enough, mister! The ramen costs 100-yen, you have 15, and not to mention the 500-yen female pads!" He seemed to blush at the last few words, but he continued, "that adds up to 2000-yen!"
Getting angry, Inuyasha reached for the man behind the counter, grabbing him by his clothes collar. "Look human," he scowled again, his time showing his fangs, "I'm not having a very good day. Someone, most likely you, will get hurt if my mood doesn't improve soon." He brushed his sharp claws against the man's collar, applying enough force to rip the cloth but not enough to draw blood. "Understood?"
The man was a very sensible man. He didn't look for trouble and he certainly didn't want trouble. He nervously nodded and took Inuyasha's 1000-yen note. It was worth his own 1000-yen if he could get rid of this strangely dressed and sharp-nailed stranger.
Inuyasha paused to glare one last time at the bewildered on-lookers, and left with his 'purchases'.
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Kagome sighed in relief as she handed in her paper. She thought she did reasonably well, even though she mostly guessed to answer some of the harder questions.
Now that the test was over, she had space in her mind to worry. She forced a smile when one of her friends flashed her a thumbs-up. They would probably think she was nervous about how she did on the test.
She forced herself to forget everything and listen to the teacher. It wasn't working.
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Inuyasha decided to explore the city after dropping off his 'purchases' at Kagome's. Even though he hated Kagome's world—the smell, the people, the unfamiliar customs, everything—he admitted to himself that anything was better than staying at the temple with…with…Kagome's grandpa. The old man didn't like him that was for sure.
It was probably the half-demon part of him that the old man detested. It was a difficult situation being a half-demon. Never truly accepted by either demons or humans. That was why he sought the Shikon Jewel of Four Souls, to become a full-fledged demon—originally. Now he wasn't so sure anymore. Kagome had said that she liked him as a half-demon…
Inuyasha purposefully shook off that train of thought. Even thinking about it made him confused. He would figure everything out soon or later. Now he had things to do, well sort of. He didn't know where he was going, but just followed his nose to interesting places—mostly just food stands.
After getting caught red-handed by a food stand owner, Inuyasha finally felt a tiniest amount of guilt and started back for Kagome's. The said food stand owner was now nursing his wounds at the nearest hospital, Inuyasha was sad to report.
As Inuyasha walked along, something shiny attracted his eye. The only thing that shined like that was the Shikon Jewel, Inuyasha thought excitedly. With a leap, he was in front of the strange machine… well, almost. He couldn't really push a female child out of his way.
The girl was staring intensely at the machine, as she seemed to be controlling the claw-like metal thing inside the glass. Inuyasha just stared at what was inside—shiny jewels, lots of them. Inuyasha's eyes swirled at the sight of the sparkling jewels, wondering if any of them were a Shikon shard. After all, it wasn't totally impossible for Kagome's world to have a Shikon shard, right?
The girl left with her prize—a pretty necklace, no resemblance whatsoever to the Shikon shards—and Inuyasha stepped up to the plate… figuratively, that is. He stared at the machine again and tried to see if anything looked like a shard. That was when a young boy tugged his red robe impatiently and asked smugly, "mister, aren't you going to put coins in? You have to, or else it wouldn't work. Why do you want anything in there anyway, it's all just girly stuff."
Inuyasha was in a bad mood indeed, and being told by a human youngster—reminding him that he has no money—was the last spark. He growled, he hissed—or he would have if he was a snake demon—, and he shook the machine like crazy. The boy, being not entirely senseless, ran, but Inuyasha continued on shaking the machine. It was actually a good way to vent out his anger, Inuyasha discovered as he stopped momentarily. He was no longer as angry as before.
All the commotion had brought out the park manager and boy was he shocked when he spotted the mess our dear Inuyasha had made. The stuff inside the machine was no longer inside; they were scattered all over the place, and no one, except for a longed-haired punk was there. That was NOT good for business, and the manager feared for his job, and that was making him angry.
"WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU DO?" Inuyasha was assaulted by the loud scream. He turned and spotted a human who was furiously trying to make his way across the debris. "YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY FOR ALL THIS!!!"
Reminded, once again, of his lack of this "money", Inuyasha twitched. His hands were dangerously near the sheath where he kept his Tetsusaiga. Then he thought better of it—he would never hear the end of it from Kagome if he as much as touched one strand of this puny human's hair—and leaped easily over the debris. He jogged out of the scene, and headed back to Kagome's.
After all that exercise, he was hungry. It would be the perfect time to devour the ramen he had so difficultly bought. His sensitive ears caught the sounds of the park manager's screams of agony. Inuyasha smiled. He should be thanking me that he's not in pieces right now, Inuyasha thought, satisfied with what he perceived as his good deed for the day.
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Kagome threw open the door. It was a very tough afternoon as she continuously tried in vain to forget about Inuyasha. She was sure that her friends worried about what she was thinking about, but it was not as if she can tell them—that she wondered if a half-demon that she knew would kill anyone. Yeah right, who would believe her?
It was with relief that she found Inuyasha sitting idly in front of her TV, watching a cowboy western—with her grandpa. Taking the control away from her grandpa, she shut off the TV. She ignored the protests and raised her voice to ask, "Did you manage to buy your ramen? You didn't kill anyone, did you?"
"Yes I bought ramen. You think I'm an idiot or something? No I didn't kill anyone. Oh yeah," Inuyasha replied, and blinking he took out the package that he bought along with ramen, "Some humans were saying that this is used for that time of the months. Can this really help me with—?"
Blushing, Kagome took the package away from Inuyasha. "No of course not," she assured Inuyasha, "it's nothing really, nothing you'll understand. You know, a thing of the future. No, no, it doesn't help with you turning human. I'm mean, I'm sure there's no half-demons in this time…" She backed out of the room little by little as she ranted on.
She sighed as she went out of the room and ran up the stairs. It was an exhausting day. It was not a very good idea leaving Inuyasha by himself for a whole day, especially… She didn't want to know exactly how Inuyasha bought the ramen. Ignorance was bliss, people said. .
Disclaimer:
If I owned Inuyasha, do you think I would be writing no-pay fanfics? I would make this story a movie or something! I would be rich and... sighs
Author's Note:
Ha ha ha. Next week, more like a few months. Didn't feel like writing, and of course Gaia. Yep, I found that addicting forum, now I can't stay off it. XD Oh well, at least I finally updated. This chapter was suppose to be longer, but I decided to take some scenes out of it. Maybe I'll put them in the next chapter, maybe not. I don't know. Questions? Suggestions? Constructive critisism? Feel free to leave a review!