A/N: Hi guys!! Thank you A LOT for your reviews!( I squeaked out of joy when I saw them)
Here it is, I present proudly : Chapter four of When the rain falls.... I hope you like it. I forgot to mention that at the beginning, so I'll just do it now: I'm sorry for all the mistakes I make (if I do), and I hope they're not too drastic, but English is not my native language.. And by the way, flat is just an other word for apartment.
Now enjoy!
Chapter four
Old factories
Inuyasha heard a quick "Goodbye Inuyasha!" and then the door closed with a small click. Finally, that annoying little girl was gone.
Sango had taken half an hour to arrive, and during that time an oppressive silence had fallen over the scene until his secretary had interrupted it by hauling him over the coals for leaving her in the rain clueless.
Inuyasha had silenced her by smacking his credit card into her hand and saying that the girl would explain everything as soon as they had left. His secretary had repined a bit, but she'd given in after a hard glare from his direction.
He plopped into his cozy armchair and stretched his hands around its armrests. Inuyasha sighed and ran his hand over his face. What was he supposed to do with the whole situation? He looked up and let his eyes slide over the room until they met his jacket. He'd worn it last night and he'd put something into its pocket.
That guy's passport.
He rose and walked over to the jacket. He rummaged through its pockets and pulled the passport out of it with a victorious smirk.
"Payback, asshole" he commented, ambled over to his laptop and switched it on. Inuyasha opened a hidden file on his computer, which wasn't stated in any index, and which to find would have even cost a lot of trouble and effort for a real computer expert. Inuyasha had to enter three passwords to access the file.
It contained programs people would kill for. Alone the possession of them could bring him into jail for five years with ease. Thereby was that, which appeared on his monitor, initially completely harmless. He was now connected to the host system of Tahiko – petrol- corporation, and the screen showed nothing but what every other normal terminal in the Tahiko-building showed.
He reached for the passport and clapped it opened to read the name inside "Moginou Karanu – what a crappy name" he scoffed and tipped the name into the keyboard – now opening some no longer that legal programs.
He didn't find much about Moginou Karanu – except the fact that he didn't exist.
He furrowed his brow and tipped in the id – number after a few seconds.
The data processor would lurk around a few passports, simulate access authorizations, which he didn't have, or intrude through backdoors into strict protected programs, which partly even the programmers didn't know of.
Every single of those programs was illegal. And every single one worked very effective. Inuyasha understood little to precisely nothing of what he did at all, but the hacker-software operated excellent. The processor would need time to go through that tremendous amount of data, maybe an hour, maybe more. So Inuyasha decided to take a nap. He stood up, switched the monitor off, set his alarm clock and went to bed.
Of course it came just as he had expected it to become: The alarm clock tore him right out of a stage of deep sleep, and he woke up as if he hadn't slept at all, but at the same time already so psyched that it would have been completely futile to turn around and try to steal one or two more hours of sleep away from the day.
Inuyasha shuffled over to the desk, blinked at the monitor out of still half billowed eyes and needed a few moments to remember that he'd switched it of an hour ago. He switched it back on with an abundantly uncoordinated movement and gazed at the letters on the screen for a moment, which refused to make any sense.
Of course it wasn't the computer's fault, but rather the fact that he was simply not really awake yet. Against his habit, he showered ice cold and very long and examined his face afterwards. An ugly blue-reddish bulge began to grow where the wench had punched him. He pulled a face and went to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, got comfortable in his chair and looked at the screen once more.
"Ah, very interesting – your real name isn't Moginou Karanu..." he mumbled to himself as his fingers glided faster over the keyboard. "Hello, Mr..."
Inuyasha went pale and stiff as an ice block and the glass fell out off his shaking hand, shattering to pieces on the ground. "Can't be...." He aspirated. Inuyasha stared at the screen for a solid minute, his mind processing what he had just read.
The hanyou flounced out of the apartment, grabbing his mobile phone on the way.
"SHIT!!!!!!!"
Sango and Kagome sat in a small bistro at the roadside, each drinking a Latte Macchiatto, and ten shopping bags were piled up on the chair next to Kagome. Kagome shot a solicitous glance at them and asked for the which seemed millionth time, with a disbelieving frown,
"Do you really think Inuyasha won't mind that I bought that much...? I just couldn't help it – I'm addicted to shopping....."
Sango gave her an insightfully smile and padded her hand with a motherly gesture,
"Don't worry, Kagome. I'm sure Inuyasha won't mind. He has money to burn!"
"You think so?" she replied joyfully, but then the happy smile got wiped off her face, and got replaced by a sort of regretful one, "Probably you're right. I mean, he'll be glad to get rid of me. I think he wasn't comfortable with me beeing in his apartment."
"Yeah, that's true..."
Kagome's head jerked up in surprise and Sango eyed her out of the corner of her eye.
That comment had seemed to hurt her. She was such an innocent girl, and the idea of Inuyasha being that dry seemed to be inconvenient for her. Sango had taken an immediate liking to the girl, and she hadn't meant to upset her, but it was the best way to be honest from the beginning. Inuyasha wasn't a friendly person, more rude, stubborn and quite blasé when it came to other's people business.Sango snorted and emptied her cup with a last big gulp, "Shall we go then?"
"Yep." Kagome retorted and it still sounded a bit disappointed. The girl snapped her bags with an accomplished grip and clattered out of the café on her brand-new high-heels. Sango put the money on the table and followed her, putting her umbrella up.
The girls got into Sango's car, a pink Fiat Uno, and Sango reversed the key. She drove off so fast, that the water spattered out under the wheels of the car. They drove back in the direction they had come from; Sango switched the windscreen wiper faster, without the sight getting considerably better, and accelerated far beyond the permitted speed-limit.
Kagome clung to her seat and squeezed out a fearful, "Would you drive a bit slower, please?"
The only thing she got was a casual "Why?"
Great. She was trapped in a pink Fiat Uno with a freaked out woman. Her life couldn't get any better, could it?
Suddenly Sango's cell phone rung, and she pulled it out of her purse, taking her hands from the wheel.
"Sango, watch out!!", Kagome squeaked horrified.
Sango just retorted calmly, "Calm down Kags", opened the deck of her phone, clamped it between her shoulder and her ear and put her hands back where they belonged.
"Yes?.......oh hi Inuyasha." Sango said disappointedly and gave her a meaningful look.
Kagome only heard one side of the conversation, but she picked up her ears and listened intently to every word.
"Yeah, she's perfectly fine – why do you ask?", Sango shot her an other, this time inquiring glance.
Her voice suddenly sounded anxious when she asked, "What happened?......At the moment, we're on Daiichi Keihin street .....okay, bye."; Sango hung up and fixed her eyes back on the road in front of them.
Kagome pulled up an eyebrow and asked curiously, "What did he want?"
The other girl seemed nervous, but she just shrugged and stated, "I don't know....he sounded kind of strange,...almost worried, I would say....and he told me to stop and wait for him."
....
Sango turned into an empty alley and parked the car. "I wonder what-" Something hit the rear end of he car with such might, that both of them got flung ahead into their seatbelts.Glass shattered.
Sango screamed out of fear and surprise; Kagome instinctively pulled up her arms to absorb the impact.
There was no impact – the safety belts of the small cart worked reliably, but she got thrown far enough ahead to bruise her wrists. She panted and for a moment, she only saw varicoloured light points, but she could hear that the vehicular started to turn on its own axis, and now a different noise accrued – like a fist smashed into an empty cardboard box.
Sango screamed something she didn't understand, and then she opened her eyes. The car grinded to a halt, and the second the spook had lasted, was over.
"Everything alright?" Sango stared at her for two solid seconds, as if she had to seriously think about the meaning of that question, but then she exploded, without warning, but therefore so much the worse.
"Everything alright?!" she brawled. "Damn! Nothing is alright!!! That blithering idiot drove into my car!! I must be dreaming! That guy could have killed us!!"
She pulled completely useless at her seatbelt, finally got the glorious idea to exert the clutch, pushed the door open with an angry gesture, and continued cursing outside in the rain.
Kagome detached her safety belt and stepped out of the car, and sucked her breath in with shock as the cold rain hit her face.
The first thing that attracted her attention was the darkness. They where situated in a deserted area, where only darkness and falling rain seemed to exist. The street consisted of crude bowldering, most of the buildings were unenlightened and there were no streetlights. An industrial zone, she thought grumpily. One of those, where business had been dull for a long time, so that nobody worked in the evenings.
The perfect place for a car crash.
"Now look at that bullshit!", Sango's voice penetrated into her ear. "I don't believe it!!"
Kagome turned around horrent and blinked through the rain, which seemed to get harder with every minute. The street behind them was as the dark as in front of them, but indeed not as empty. In fifteen or twenty metres distance, a single headlight silvered the rain. The second headlight must have been broken during the crash. The engine was still running, but the driver didn't step out of the vehicle.
"Damn!" Sango yelled, "I don't have any insurance!" Kagome was by her side with two quick steps. The rear end of the Fiat was indeed a despicable sight. The plastic-bumper had been shattered like an eggshell, and the metal above it was so heavily impressed, that she could have put both her fists into the dent. Both backlights were broken, but strangely, the illumination of the licence plate was still intact. A dark liquid dripped out of car and mixed with the rainwater, but it didn't smell like gasoline.
"Brake fluid", she pointed out. "Or oil, but I don't think that we can still use this car.",
"That bastard!" Sango blustered, "Why the hell did he drive into us??!!!"
"Maybe you were too slow." Kagome realised herself, that that hadn't been outstanding funny.
Actually only to avoid Sango's angrily glistening eyes, she turned around and looked back at the other car. It still stood unchanged in the same place. Kagome could hear the windscreen wipers running, but nothing else moved. "I wonder why he doesn't get out,"she murmured.
"Maybe he's afraid that I rip one of his eyes out", Sango said gloomily. "Or he wants to lop off! That's all I needed!
"Or he's hurt." Kagome said, now slightly worried.
"I'll better walk over and check," Sango said, still pissed. "Stay here!"
Kagome leaned against the car and watched Sango intently.
She saw her walking over to the car, her shoulders slightly downcast, and bending down to the window. She asked," Is everything okay? Are you hurt?"
Instead of an answer, the car backed up about five meters. "Hey!", Sango yelled, now infuriated "What's wrong with you! It's no good to lop off! I've got your number!!"
The car backed up again.
"You wanna play, huh?!!! Fine with me!!!" Sango shouted and ran after the vehicle.
.......
Somewhere in her head, Kagome heard a warning bell shrill. " Sango – Stop it!!!" she shouted and took a few steps towards the other car.The car was big and its outlines square-edged, and she could spot the chromed bumpers. A Jeep or a Landover, some kind of off Offroader, that was for sure. No wonder that the Fiat looked like an elephant had stepped on it.
The engine of the car howled, and it hurtled towards Sango. "Sango!", Kagome screamed, her voice shrill, nearly cracking. Sango wouldn't have stood a chance if the driver would have had the serious intent to run her over.
But he rushed right past and headed towards his real goal – Kagome. Her eyes widened in realisation, but it was already too late.
Kagome saw the car hurtling towards her, but she couldn't move. It seemed as if her limbs had turned into iron. Suddenly, everything seemed to happen in slow motion, and her surroundings turned into a colourful whirl, and all noises were dull and far away. She heard a familiar voice scream her name, but she wasn't able to react. This was it. She would die. She squeezed her eyes shut and prepared herself for the impact. But it never came.
She felt the weight fade away, and she took a deep, greedy breath to fill her lungs again. Kagome didn't dare to open her eyes, she just remained pressed to the wet ground and panted, until a deep, rough voice interrupted her with anxiety "Are you okay?"
Wait – she knew that voice! Kagome opened her eyes and looked straight into a pair of golden ones.
"Inuyasha?" she whispered warily.
"Whom else did you expect?" he scoffed and pulled her up with one arm.
"But – how..." Kagome looked over to the Fiat – or what had once been the Fiat – and gulped.
The impact had crunched the car like an empty tin. It had been downright folded like a piece of paper – little flames flickered out under the wreck. There was nothing left of the car that could have been squashed, but the maniac behind the wheel of the other car seemed dead set on integrating the Fiat Uno into the mulecularstructure of the wall, for he still accelerated.
Kagome continued to look bewildered at the sad remains of the car, her mouth snapping closed and open again without letting a single noise escape.
"Damn, what are you waiting for? Do you want him to kill you?" Inuyasha's voice was a faint, agitated whisper and came from somewhere out of the darkness. She looked for him, but wasn't able to make him out. "Come here!" he fizzed, "The door on your right side. Quick!" Kagome didn't see a door, just a rectangular shadow. Her knees were still so tottery, that she had to shore up against the wall to walk the few steps over there. When she'd almost reached her goal, a sinewy hand reached out of the darkness and dragged her ungentle towards its owner.
Inuyasha stemmed against the door with his shoulder, which was still a part of the darkness for Kagome. Finally, it opened with a slow, unwillingly creak.
The heavy metal door shut with a dull noise. Kagome could hear how Inuyasha's hands glided over the rusty metal, then a relieved "Very well then!" and a heavy, metallic click.
"What did you do?"
"A bar. That should hold them up for a while."
"Hold them up? Who are "they"? Tell me what's going on – immediately!" she demanded.
"I don't think that's the right moment for..."
She cut him off and hissed dangerously," I decide when the right moment is – and that's now!"
"Wench, that's a pretty long story – I don't think that we have the necessary time at the moment!" he snarled at her.
Kagome pointed insinuatingly at the bar and stated, "We have time - They'd need a cannon to get through there!"
"Or a car with an integrated battering ram and 200 HP.", Inuyasha added.
He could see her frown contemplatively. "You're right", she said. "Let's get out of here."
She wanted to start walking, but Inuyasha quickly stretched out his arm and stopped her. "Not so fast", he said. "Do you want to break your neck? -You can't see anything inside here.""And you can, huh?" she snapped.
"Yeah, I can. I'm a hanyou – forgotten?!"
"Oh. Sorry.", she whispered excusatory.
"Doesn't matter. Take my hand, I'll lead you." He said in a forgiving tone and grabbed her hand. "By the way, you're the first to forget that I'm a hanyou."
Next to them, a small iron staircase led upwards. On its upper end, there was some kind of gallery, which vanished into darkness in both directions.
"Up there!", he ordered.
"Aye, aye, captain." Kagome answered tauntingly. Inuyasha asked himself if she really took it that easy or if that was just her way to deal with it – she'd just escaped from a pretty nasty death after all.
His estimation had been right – the gallery met a separate floor, where most likely once had been the offices.
"Luck or knowledge?" Kagome asked.
"Somehow, all of these old factories are the same", Inuyasha said. After two seconds he added: "Luck. But we can hide here."
"Hide? The strong, almighty Inuyasha wants to hide?"
He ignored her comment and continued walking. They reached a big room, from where you had an excellent view over the hall. The room was empty except for a single chair and the dust of at least two centuries. Although Inuyasha only hesitated for a moment, before he entered the room. "You call that a hideout?" Kagome asked
"Stop complaining, wench! At any rate, from here, we're going to see them before they see us!"
"You really think that they're after us?" Kagome sounded more irritated than frightened. "Where is Sango, by the way?" she added, as if she was afraid of an answer.
"Don't worry, she's safe. Stay here. I'll look for a window."Inuyasha left the office again, looked around undetermined for a moment, and then stepped into a narrow corridor, which was glazed on both sides. Inuyasha approached to the window, which was so heavily incrusted with dirt, that he had to rub for almost a minute to get a little peephole. His efforts got rewarded. He couldn't only see the street, but the Jeep too. The heavy cart was neatly parked about five meters away from the wrecked Fiat, with switched off lights and windscreen wipers.
Inuyasha looked at the Jeep with growing concern. Its windows were obscured, but he was sure that the car was empty. Its occupants had gotten out of the car, and it didn't need much imagination to figure out what they were looking for.
It was time to get back to the girl. She was probably about to die from fear, even though she would never admit it. He hurried back and found a very nervous Kagome.
"Yes", Inuyasha answered, but he was uneasy about it. He could sense that something was wrong. "But let's get out of here nonetheless."
The girl seemed relieved. "Good idea.", she asserted. "Don't ask why, but something is out of place here."
"Why? It's cosy, isn't it?"
The girl chuckled.
A red glowworm shooed over the window and bounced on her shoulder.
Inuyasha lost valuable seconds by standing there and staring at the red laserpoint. It began to ramble up her neck with shaky movements, caressed her cheek for a short moment, circumvented her eye, so not to blind her, and made its remorseless way to her forehead.
Inuyasha reacted without thinking. He didn't waste any time for a warning scream, for the lethal bullet would probably reach her sooner than the sound, but threw himself in front of her. During the fraction of a second his muscles needed to perform that move, a nasty little voice in his head began to scream and ask if he'd lost his mind. He was risking his life for a girl he'd just met the day before.
Kagome didn't move, and if the attacker pulled the trigger at the same moment, then there was a good chance that the bullet hit him. Then he finally ripped Kagome off her feet and buried her underneath him.
Something banged;
In the window Kagome had just looked through a moment ago, a tiny hole with milky edges appeared, and splinters of wood and lime rained down on them from the ceiling.
"Have you gone insane?!" Kagome got her speech back. "You're such a PERVERT! That's neither the right place nor the right time to do something like that!"She tried, without much success, to shove his weight off her. Inuyasha rolled off her and pointed wordlessly at the whole in the window. Kagome blinked. "What....."
The red glowworm was back again and hurried hectically trough the room.
"Oh.", Kagome remarked, "Does that mean...?"
"Yeah, that's what it means" Inuyasha snarled.
"If so, than it would probably be a good idea to run now." Kagome mumbled. Her voice sounded weirdly flat, as if it cost her a lot of effort to formulate the words. Inuyasha stemmed himself up with his arms and knees and helped the girl. He pointed at the window. Kagome furrowed her brows and looked at him enquiringly. He grabbed her hand and started running towards the window.
"Hey!!!", the girl protested. "Shut up!" he whispered. "Or do you want them to see us?!" Without an other word, he pulled her closer and jumped through the window. Glass shattered, and he heard the girl scream.
The landed on the ground, saved.
Kagome brushed a wet strand of hair out of her face and looked demandingly at her opponent.
They were in a bedraggled taproom, and the air was so smoky that you were hardly able to see anything.
Inuyasha looked around agitated, before he answered, "Okay, listen. That guy..... which tried to... hurt you last night wasn't just some ordinary guy."
Kagome lifted an eyebrow.
"His name is Naraku, and he's the boss of Shikon insurances."
"That means.....?" Kagome waved one hand, urging him to continue.
"Me and my....company already had problems with him. Shikon insurances isn't just a normal business establishment. It's connected to the underground and therefore, Naraku is a very powerful man. He has to protect his reputation and he won't let the matter rest that he didn't get what he wanted from you and that I beat him senseless. And he certainly won't leave it at that one attempt to kill us."Kagome swallowed, "This sounds like a bad action movie. You're kidding me, right?"
"I wish I was.", he responded dryly.
There was a long silence, till she said, "So......what are we supposed to do now?""Do you have any relatives you can ask for help?" She shook her head, "None."
Inuyasha sighed, "Then I suggest you stay with me till this is over. I mean, I can't let you run around unprotected....and it's kind of my fault too..."
"Now what does that mean?", she hissed.
"Uhh..." the hanyou winced, "you know, Naraku loathes me with all his heart... because of some stupid incident with a girl..."
The girl on the other side of the table fumed, "Great! Just great! Thanks a lot!"
"What!?" he snapped. "Would you rather have liked to be raped?!"
The girl flinched, but then she bend forwards and poked a finger into his chest. "Maybe that would have been better! Since I met you, you only caused me trouble, you arrogant, rude jerk!"
"Now wait!", he yelled and pushed her back into her chair, "You only caused me trouble since I met you!! I saved your life, remember? Three times! You should be a bit more grateful, bitch!"
She stiffened, eyed him disparagingly and hissed "Asshole." Then she plastered a fake smile on her face and whispered high-pitched, "Shall we go then, honey?"She swiped out of the tavern, leaving an infuriated Inuyasha behind.
A/N: The time has come............................ to push the review button and tell me what you think!