Back again! Woohoo! Hope ya liked the prologue, depressing though it was.
So sad, so sad. But it's essential to the story to have her entire family
die, really! Otherwise she wouldn't go through foster homes and therefore
wouldn't meet our favorite dog demons! (although they're not demons in the
story... but they look the same. Sesshoumaru even has the stripes and stuff;
they were tattoos and junk, you'll see when you get there!)
Chapter One: Tokyo March
Kagome stepped, scowling, out of the cab, dragging her single suitcase with her. She had been kicked out of the last foster home because she was "too intense" for the other children. As if.
She didn't bother looking herself over. She knew what she was wearing. No makeup to touch up, her hair was in a ponytail as it always was. She wore straight-legged, tight, light-colored jeans with rips in the knees. Her right knee had a scab on it from where it had skidded on the pavement during that last brawl outside the Kwik-E-Mart. She had on a black T-shirt with blue flames at the bottom hem and a jean jacket that matched her jeans. A silver chain was around her neck and connected to a silver dog-tag with a black rubber edging. On closer inspection, it read, simply, "Kagome." But the other side had a tally of every gang leader she had beaten the crap out of, and the tally so far (she had started two years earlier, when she was fourteen) was nine. Her tally of losses would number fourteen... but really, at her age, her score was doing pretty damn well. Especially when all of the gang members were males well more than five years older than she.
She worked out a lot, and took kick-boxing, and knew she was probably the toughest girl in Japan, or at least among their ranks. She took great pride in her strength and speed, which had taken a lifetime to accomplish. And there were only so many gang leaders in Tokyo.
This last thought brought a slight smirk to her lips. She paid the cab and it sped off. She turned, slowly, to face intricately created iron gates about ten feet tall. A lovely green estate and a mansion loomed beyond the tall iron fence, intimidating those it considered its inferior.
The smirk turned into a sneer, baring sharp, white teeth. Rich folk. She thought the term with all the nastiness a sixteen-year old girl with a life full of problems could muster, and that was quite a bit. She spat her now- tasteless gum into the sculpted bushes on one side of the gate and slammed her palm against the buzzer.
When a crackling voice inquired as to whom she was, she interrupted with a snarl, "Kagome." There was a pause of consideration, then the gates slowly swung inward. She scowled.
"For a group obviously intent on making first impressions, you'd think they might've come down to meet me. But there's your rich bastards for ya," she muttered in a slight sing-song voice, taking her time walking up the long driveway.
Her sneakers touched the pavement with barely a sound; something she had perfected a few years before, having been caught in quite a few gang rivalries that involved a certain amount of stealth and improvised strategy.
She deliberately took fifteen minutes to make it to the door, meandering aimlessly all over the walk with her free hand in her jeans pocket. She knew they would be waiting anxiously on the other side, and got a perverse satisfaction from annoying them before she even met them. The doors swung open slowly, for a more dramatic effect, she supposed, when she got within five feet of them. They were double doors. Sickening.
And, waiting anxiously on the other side of the door, was the family.
What was probably the mother was a pretty woman of about thirty or so, looking eager to please and worried at failing. The father was a tall man with long white hair and amber eyes, with what looked like ceremonial tattoos on his face, which matched those of the elder son. Purple stripes on each cheek, and a blue crescent on the middle of the forehead. The younger son didn't have any stripes, and had a tough, rogue-ish aura about him while the other men were obviously elegant and considered themselves "well-bred."
She could see the younger son was itching to get out of there, and he had no apparent trouble hiding his feelings. His arms were crossed and he was standing on one foot impatiently, frowning. The elder son looked at her in an apathetic expression that, for some reason, really pissed the hell out of her.
The father's eyes had widened slightly, as if surprised at her appearance. His mouth fell open a little, then his teeth snapped shut in a slight grimace that he pretending was a smile.
InuTaisho recognized her. The girl with blue-gray eyes... from the days when he ran what was called the Mob... Higurashi! Why hadn't he noticed that name when his wife told him about it?
He quickly replaced his expression with a wider, more welcoming smile when the girl shot him a nasty glare. He felt a shock of sympathy for her. He hadn't bothered with her after the authorities had come that night, but now that she was here, in front of him, he couldn't begin to imagine what she had been through.
Sesshoumaru watched this silent exchange with his usual stoic expression, although like InuYasha he couldn't wait to get away. He had things to do. People to meet. ...Well, things to do, at least.
The mother stepped forward suddenly, her eyes hopeful and beseeching. Like a Cocker Spaniel's. Kagome wiped her face of any expression, remaining completely composed, her face a statue. Much like the elder son's.
Which Sesshoumaru noted with a passing interest. And the mother with increasing dismay.
"I am Mariko," the lady introduced herself. She looked at Kagome shyly. "Although I wouldn't mind being called Mom."
Kagome said nothing, merely moving her expressionless gaze to the father, who was next in line, a direct dismissal of the woman. The younger son narrowed his eyes at her and uncrossed his arms, looking ready for a fight. 'He doesn't have much of a stance... though probably a lot of brute force, the moron,' Kagome thought absently, stowing the thought away into the back of her mind to sift through later.
Feeling the rejection acutely, Mariko's eyes grew slightly teary. She bowed her head and stepped back into the line, biting her lip pathetically.
"InuTaisho," the man offered, his voice rumbling in a gentle manner, like distant thunder.
His voice... Kagome's eyes narrowed in thought... then widened incredulously. 'It can't be....' She continued to regard him suspiciously for a moment, and it was not lost on anyone in the room, including the servants. Finally finding her voice, she spoke. "...You. Of the Mob... It's you." She found, to her surprise, that her voice was strangely calm. It mismatched the rising anger in her stomach... a boiling fury that soon reached the eyes, clouding her vision with a slight red. Numbly, she noticed her teeth were clenched.
Her voice was resonant, low-pitched and strangely pleasant on the ears. Sesshoumaru found himself wondering how she could possibly know about his father's earlier... employment. He waited patiently for his father to brush her off as he did everyone who accused him of being involved with the deadly gang.
Instead, InuTaisho stepped forward, his head bowed slightly. "Kagome Higurashi," he acknowledged, then paused awkwardly, a small, apologetic smile on his lips. "It wasn't until I saw you that the name clicked. I remember your eyes quite well. I trust---" he stumbled a bit over the words, which he hadn't quite formed yet, "---I trust your life has been... well?" His family looked at him in a slight shock. You could hear the unspoken words tumbling through their minds.
Kagome Higurashi? Her eyes? What?
Kagome looked at him with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. A small, chuckling breath came through her lips as they formed a mocking smile. Then, she exploded. "Well? Yeah, it was just peachy. Right after you killed my family when I was five, I got to go through the joy of spending four years in a mental institute to regain my mind, which was left in tatters by the sight of my brother's blood-dripping cradle and de-throated mother. Then, oh joy, I got to go through innumerable foster homes, was beaten into a bloody pulp on a daily basis, and now I've walked into a snob's home to find my father's murderer and OH---I imagine I'm just going to spend the rest of my life walking over rainbows and juggling the fucking stars."
Most everyone was looking at her, mouth agape. Only InuTaisho, who was looking shamefaced, and Sesshoumaru, who only reacted to her outburst with a slight widening of the eyes, kept their mouths firmly closed.
"I don't believe this," Kagome continued, turning to walk out, grabbing her suitcase in a series of angry tugs. "I don't fucking believe this. What the hell did I do? What the hell did I do?" she screamed, kicking the doorframe, then started down the driveway, her suitcase in tow, muttering. "I'm so done with this. I'm so fucking done with this." She left a sizable dent in the doorframe with her boot.
"Sesshoumaru," InuTaisho said wearily. "InuYasha. I will have the gates closed. We are responsible for her; please retrieve her and bring her safely to her room. Oh, and boys," he called as they started out the door. "Do not harm her or bring her against her will. Got that? For God's sake, work on those people skills you're supposed to have."
InuYasha rolled his eyes and left, Sesshoumaru following at a leisurely pace.
They caught up with her fairly easily. As was common with his moron of a brother, Sesshoumaru waited for InuYasha to yell something rude.
"Hey! GIRL!" InuYasha roared at her back. As usual, his voice carried far and both Sesshoumaru and Kagome imagined that people in London were reeling from the sudden ringing in their ears. Her response was to raise her hand and flip them off. Growling, he stomped right up to her, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her around. "I'm missing TV because of you, wench!"
'Oh, Lord. Even InuYasha couldn't say something so completely idiotic and tactless,' Sesshoumaru thought with a mental sigh.
Kagome cocked her head and mustered up the most apologetic look she could. "Oh, no. Heaven forbid!" Her expression became rage-filled, and she snarled, "Get a goddamned life, you fucking pansy." Whirling, she continued towards the still-open gate. She stopped short when it swung closed. She tossed her suitcase down and kicked it. "For the love of GOD."
"You got a problem with me, bitch?" InuYasha growled loudly.
Sesshoumaru, standing a good ten feet away, was quickly becoming bored.
Kagome stopped rubbing her temples and turned slowly towards him, her hip cocking arrogantly. "You? No, so far you've been a real goddamned prince, Albino. What the hell do you think?"
Seeing Sesshoumaru smile slightly at that, she turned her head, her eyes focusing on him in a way he found immensely uncomfortable.
"What're you laughing at, He-She? Are those real boobs down there, or are they padding? Nice hairdo, by the way. Auditioning for Juliet, you moronic piece of shit?"
InuYasha's eyes were widened, as if he was looking at her with a newfound respect, while Sesshoumaru's expression remained as stoic as ever. Quickly regaining his composure, InuYasha crossed his arms and glared at her. "Get your ass in the house, wench."
"Go to hell."
InuYasha's face twisted into a threatening snarl. He walked stealthily over to her, reached for her shoulders or hair to yank her up---
---and was on the ground cradling his bleeding nose.
Sesshoumaru, startled, whirled on his heel until he had a good view, his eyes wide and his mouth positively agape. Kagome glared hard at InuYasha, grabbed her suitcase, and stalked up to the mansion, her shoes never making a whisper over the pavement. Sesshoumaru heard her crack her knuckles in self-satisfaction as InuYasha slowly got up, doubled over funny.
"What's wrong?" Sesshoumaru asked, although he certainly didn't seem interested in what was wrong.
InuYasha clutched at his stomach with one hand, his nose with the other, his mouth tightening as he watched her toss her suitcase at a baffled servant, who then showed her up the stairs to her new room. "That... bitch punched me in the stomach and the nose." InuYasha's yellow eyes were round with wonder as his gaze slid over to Sesshoumaru. "And I never even saw her do it."
The elder brother's only reaction was a slight furrowing of the eyebrows as he turned to survey the mansion, which he had called home since birth. There was no way, he thought.
His thoughts were echoed by his brother's.
There was no way.
Simply... impossible.
END OF CHAPTER ONE!
I know, I know, everyone's swearing in this! But I had to do it to get the right effect! Kagome's swearing will tone down as she gets more comfortable in this new atmosphere, and InuYasha's... well, his might continue. Sesshoumaru never swears, though. He considers himself too perfect. Next time: InuTaisho is convinced that he must right the wrongs he did Kagome when he killed her family. Intent on making it up to her, he enlists the help of the household to make Kagome stay. Happy reading!
Chapter One: Tokyo March
Kagome stepped, scowling, out of the cab, dragging her single suitcase with her. She had been kicked out of the last foster home because she was "too intense" for the other children. As if.
She didn't bother looking herself over. She knew what she was wearing. No makeup to touch up, her hair was in a ponytail as it always was. She wore straight-legged, tight, light-colored jeans with rips in the knees. Her right knee had a scab on it from where it had skidded on the pavement during that last brawl outside the Kwik-E-Mart. She had on a black T-shirt with blue flames at the bottom hem and a jean jacket that matched her jeans. A silver chain was around her neck and connected to a silver dog-tag with a black rubber edging. On closer inspection, it read, simply, "Kagome." But the other side had a tally of every gang leader she had beaten the crap out of, and the tally so far (she had started two years earlier, when she was fourteen) was nine. Her tally of losses would number fourteen... but really, at her age, her score was doing pretty damn well. Especially when all of the gang members were males well more than five years older than she.
She worked out a lot, and took kick-boxing, and knew she was probably the toughest girl in Japan, or at least among their ranks. She took great pride in her strength and speed, which had taken a lifetime to accomplish. And there were only so many gang leaders in Tokyo.
This last thought brought a slight smirk to her lips. She paid the cab and it sped off. She turned, slowly, to face intricately created iron gates about ten feet tall. A lovely green estate and a mansion loomed beyond the tall iron fence, intimidating those it considered its inferior.
The smirk turned into a sneer, baring sharp, white teeth. Rich folk. She thought the term with all the nastiness a sixteen-year old girl with a life full of problems could muster, and that was quite a bit. She spat her now- tasteless gum into the sculpted bushes on one side of the gate and slammed her palm against the buzzer.
When a crackling voice inquired as to whom she was, she interrupted with a snarl, "Kagome." There was a pause of consideration, then the gates slowly swung inward. She scowled.
"For a group obviously intent on making first impressions, you'd think they might've come down to meet me. But there's your rich bastards for ya," she muttered in a slight sing-song voice, taking her time walking up the long driveway.
Her sneakers touched the pavement with barely a sound; something she had perfected a few years before, having been caught in quite a few gang rivalries that involved a certain amount of stealth and improvised strategy.
She deliberately took fifteen minutes to make it to the door, meandering aimlessly all over the walk with her free hand in her jeans pocket. She knew they would be waiting anxiously on the other side, and got a perverse satisfaction from annoying them before she even met them. The doors swung open slowly, for a more dramatic effect, she supposed, when she got within five feet of them. They were double doors. Sickening.
And, waiting anxiously on the other side of the door, was the family.
What was probably the mother was a pretty woman of about thirty or so, looking eager to please and worried at failing. The father was a tall man with long white hair and amber eyes, with what looked like ceremonial tattoos on his face, which matched those of the elder son. Purple stripes on each cheek, and a blue crescent on the middle of the forehead. The younger son didn't have any stripes, and had a tough, rogue-ish aura about him while the other men were obviously elegant and considered themselves "well-bred."
She could see the younger son was itching to get out of there, and he had no apparent trouble hiding his feelings. His arms were crossed and he was standing on one foot impatiently, frowning. The elder son looked at her in an apathetic expression that, for some reason, really pissed the hell out of her.
The father's eyes had widened slightly, as if surprised at her appearance. His mouth fell open a little, then his teeth snapped shut in a slight grimace that he pretending was a smile.
InuTaisho recognized her. The girl with blue-gray eyes... from the days when he ran what was called the Mob... Higurashi! Why hadn't he noticed that name when his wife told him about it?
He quickly replaced his expression with a wider, more welcoming smile when the girl shot him a nasty glare. He felt a shock of sympathy for her. He hadn't bothered with her after the authorities had come that night, but now that she was here, in front of him, he couldn't begin to imagine what she had been through.
Sesshoumaru watched this silent exchange with his usual stoic expression, although like InuYasha he couldn't wait to get away. He had things to do. People to meet. ...Well, things to do, at least.
The mother stepped forward suddenly, her eyes hopeful and beseeching. Like a Cocker Spaniel's. Kagome wiped her face of any expression, remaining completely composed, her face a statue. Much like the elder son's.
Which Sesshoumaru noted with a passing interest. And the mother with increasing dismay.
"I am Mariko," the lady introduced herself. She looked at Kagome shyly. "Although I wouldn't mind being called Mom."
Kagome said nothing, merely moving her expressionless gaze to the father, who was next in line, a direct dismissal of the woman. The younger son narrowed his eyes at her and uncrossed his arms, looking ready for a fight. 'He doesn't have much of a stance... though probably a lot of brute force, the moron,' Kagome thought absently, stowing the thought away into the back of her mind to sift through later.
Feeling the rejection acutely, Mariko's eyes grew slightly teary. She bowed her head and stepped back into the line, biting her lip pathetically.
"InuTaisho," the man offered, his voice rumbling in a gentle manner, like distant thunder.
His voice... Kagome's eyes narrowed in thought... then widened incredulously. 'It can't be....' She continued to regard him suspiciously for a moment, and it was not lost on anyone in the room, including the servants. Finally finding her voice, she spoke. "...You. Of the Mob... It's you." She found, to her surprise, that her voice was strangely calm. It mismatched the rising anger in her stomach... a boiling fury that soon reached the eyes, clouding her vision with a slight red. Numbly, she noticed her teeth were clenched.
Her voice was resonant, low-pitched and strangely pleasant on the ears. Sesshoumaru found himself wondering how she could possibly know about his father's earlier... employment. He waited patiently for his father to brush her off as he did everyone who accused him of being involved with the deadly gang.
Instead, InuTaisho stepped forward, his head bowed slightly. "Kagome Higurashi," he acknowledged, then paused awkwardly, a small, apologetic smile on his lips. "It wasn't until I saw you that the name clicked. I remember your eyes quite well. I trust---" he stumbled a bit over the words, which he hadn't quite formed yet, "---I trust your life has been... well?" His family looked at him in a slight shock. You could hear the unspoken words tumbling through their minds.
Kagome Higurashi? Her eyes? What?
Kagome looked at him with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. A small, chuckling breath came through her lips as they formed a mocking smile. Then, she exploded. "Well? Yeah, it was just peachy. Right after you killed my family when I was five, I got to go through the joy of spending four years in a mental institute to regain my mind, which was left in tatters by the sight of my brother's blood-dripping cradle and de-throated mother. Then, oh joy, I got to go through innumerable foster homes, was beaten into a bloody pulp on a daily basis, and now I've walked into a snob's home to find my father's murderer and OH---I imagine I'm just going to spend the rest of my life walking over rainbows and juggling the fucking stars."
Most everyone was looking at her, mouth agape. Only InuTaisho, who was looking shamefaced, and Sesshoumaru, who only reacted to her outburst with a slight widening of the eyes, kept their mouths firmly closed.
"I don't believe this," Kagome continued, turning to walk out, grabbing her suitcase in a series of angry tugs. "I don't fucking believe this. What the hell did I do? What the hell did I do?" she screamed, kicking the doorframe, then started down the driveway, her suitcase in tow, muttering. "I'm so done with this. I'm so fucking done with this." She left a sizable dent in the doorframe with her boot.
"Sesshoumaru," InuTaisho said wearily. "InuYasha. I will have the gates closed. We are responsible for her; please retrieve her and bring her safely to her room. Oh, and boys," he called as they started out the door. "Do not harm her or bring her against her will. Got that? For God's sake, work on those people skills you're supposed to have."
InuYasha rolled his eyes and left, Sesshoumaru following at a leisurely pace.
They caught up with her fairly easily. As was common with his moron of a brother, Sesshoumaru waited for InuYasha to yell something rude.
"Hey! GIRL!" InuYasha roared at her back. As usual, his voice carried far and both Sesshoumaru and Kagome imagined that people in London were reeling from the sudden ringing in their ears. Her response was to raise her hand and flip them off. Growling, he stomped right up to her, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her around. "I'm missing TV because of you, wench!"
'Oh, Lord. Even InuYasha couldn't say something so completely idiotic and tactless,' Sesshoumaru thought with a mental sigh.
Kagome cocked her head and mustered up the most apologetic look she could. "Oh, no. Heaven forbid!" Her expression became rage-filled, and she snarled, "Get a goddamned life, you fucking pansy." Whirling, she continued towards the still-open gate. She stopped short when it swung closed. She tossed her suitcase down and kicked it. "For the love of GOD."
"You got a problem with me, bitch?" InuYasha growled loudly.
Sesshoumaru, standing a good ten feet away, was quickly becoming bored.
Kagome stopped rubbing her temples and turned slowly towards him, her hip cocking arrogantly. "You? No, so far you've been a real goddamned prince, Albino. What the hell do you think?"
Seeing Sesshoumaru smile slightly at that, she turned her head, her eyes focusing on him in a way he found immensely uncomfortable.
"What're you laughing at, He-She? Are those real boobs down there, or are they padding? Nice hairdo, by the way. Auditioning for Juliet, you moronic piece of shit?"
InuYasha's eyes were widened, as if he was looking at her with a newfound respect, while Sesshoumaru's expression remained as stoic as ever. Quickly regaining his composure, InuYasha crossed his arms and glared at her. "Get your ass in the house, wench."
"Go to hell."
InuYasha's face twisted into a threatening snarl. He walked stealthily over to her, reached for her shoulders or hair to yank her up---
---and was on the ground cradling his bleeding nose.
Sesshoumaru, startled, whirled on his heel until he had a good view, his eyes wide and his mouth positively agape. Kagome glared hard at InuYasha, grabbed her suitcase, and stalked up to the mansion, her shoes never making a whisper over the pavement. Sesshoumaru heard her crack her knuckles in self-satisfaction as InuYasha slowly got up, doubled over funny.
"What's wrong?" Sesshoumaru asked, although he certainly didn't seem interested in what was wrong.
InuYasha clutched at his stomach with one hand, his nose with the other, his mouth tightening as he watched her toss her suitcase at a baffled servant, who then showed her up the stairs to her new room. "That... bitch punched me in the stomach and the nose." InuYasha's yellow eyes were round with wonder as his gaze slid over to Sesshoumaru. "And I never even saw her do it."
The elder brother's only reaction was a slight furrowing of the eyebrows as he turned to survey the mansion, which he had called home since birth. There was no way, he thought.
His thoughts were echoed by his brother's.
There was no way.
Simply... impossible.
END OF CHAPTER ONE!
I know, I know, everyone's swearing in this! But I had to do it to get the right effect! Kagome's swearing will tone down as she gets more comfortable in this new atmosphere, and InuYasha's... well, his might continue. Sesshoumaru never swears, though. He considers himself too perfect. Next time: InuTaisho is convinced that he must right the wrongs he did Kagome when he killed her family. Intent on making it up to her, he enlists the help of the household to make Kagome stay. Happy reading!