Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, so do not sue me
Dragondiva88 here! I just thought of this fic when I was listening to a CD. This one is a little different from my other fics, but I think this one is going to be the best one that I have written so far, but that is your call to make. This story has a bit of a tribal flavor, and it is in Kagome's first-person point of view except for the beginning. Anyway, here we go . . .
The Island
Chapter 1: Fire
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"For the last time, Inuyasha, I will NOT loan you the money to go and waste your time at some crummy island." The old crone Myouga slammed open the door to his parlor, his pupil, Inuyasha, hot on his heels. The old man poured himself a snifter of brandy, and waved his hand in the air disinterestedly as he spoke. This was the fifth time this week that Inuyasha had pleaded for him to grant him a loan. It had grown quite tiresome.
"Please, Master Myouga, I need this! My entire research depends on this expedition. I have to prove that they-"
"-exist, right? I have heard it all before, Inuyasha. You HAVE to determine if all of your nonsense about magic creatures or pixies or whatever it is is true and the only way to do that is to go fifty thousand miles to a rock floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."
"Exactly . . ." Inuyasha said, whining. Myouga sipped his brandy, shaking his head.
"I do not understand you, Inuyasha. Why don't you just settle down, marry a nice city girl, do something useful with your life? I hope you know that you are putting me in an early grave with all of this craziness."
"I don't know how early it is . . .," Inuyasha muttered. Myouga gave him a dry look before rolling his eyes and swirling his brandy thoughtfully.
"What exactly do you propose to do? What kind of supplies do you intend to buy? Whom are you planning to bring with you? You have to give me some kind of leeway here, boy. As is, you are lucky if I give you a smack in the head!" He put his brandy down on the table next to his armchair, and walked to the door. He opened it, gesturing for Inuyasha to leave.
"Please think about what your life means to you, Inuyasha. I will not have a smart young man such as yourself wasting your time with false notions and fairy tales."
"But they aren't fairy tales, Master Myouga, they exist-" The door slammed in his face before he had anytime to continue. Inside, Myouga massaged his temples, exhausted from Inuyasha's ramblings.
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Inuyasha took one more look at the door before placing on his hat and coat and walking out onto the busy cobblestone street. A stagecoach passed him by as he turned the corner towards his house.
It had begun snowing, which was yet another thing for Inuyasha to complain about later. His stoop was already covered in snow, and he stomped his feet on his welcome mat.
He walked in to a warm house, and a fire brewing in the hearth. Miroku, his lifetime friend, was sitting in a large armchair in the reading room by the fireplace, smoking his pipe.
"Reading dirty magazines again, Miroku?" Inuyasha asked him. Miroku did not need to turn around, for he knew it was Inuyasha by his comment. He straightened out the newspaper that he was reading before trying to change the subject.
"How did our little talk with our good friend Myouga turn out? I presume he said no again, right?" Inuyasha grunted in answer and came into the room Miroku was sitting in. Miroku put down his paper and his pipe and looked Inuyasha in the eye.
"I told you, Inuyasha. No one in this stinking pile of a city is going to take our research seriously. After all, this is the age of invention, not of exploration. People only respect the Eli Whitney's of the world, not the Magellan's." He puffed his pipe thoughtfully, and then offered some to Inuyasha who declined politely.
"I think I am going to retire for the night." Inuyasha said tiredly. Miroku nodded, and reclined back into the chair to stare at the fire, still puffing on his pipe. There was much to think about that night in the house of Inuyasha and Co.
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Inuyasha walked the countless amounts of stairs up to his bedroom, and lit a candle to show his way around in the darkness. He opened the door to his master bedroom, and the light of his candle spilt out over his bed. There, lay Shippo, Miroku's kid brother, fast asleep under the heavy quilts and blankets that lay there. Inuyasha never really liked the kid, but he tolerated him, much like an older brother tolerates a younger one.
He decided to go sleep in the boy's room instead of disturb him, so he closed the door quietly and migrated to his. The room was much smaller than his was, but it had a cozy quality that fitted a boy Shippo's age.
Inuyasha climbed under the covers after undressing and thought about his trials and tribulations that he had to overcome for his beliefs.
'Maybe this was all just a silly dream. . . 'He thought. 'Maybe they really do not exist and I am just kidding myself. . .' With that thought, he blew out the candle and laid there silent in the moonlight until he fell asleep.
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Miroku was a man who was too careless at times, never wondering what would happen if he did something before he did it. His mind was often on other things. This was such an occasion.
After his little speech with Inuyasha, Miroku promptly fell asleep in his chair . . . with his pipe still in his mouth. This was a classic Miroku thing to do. Before he fell asleep, he had begun to read his paper again. Now it was burning in his lap. The smoke tickled Miroku's nose, but he did not stir or wake up. Now the fire jumped from his lap onto the table, then onto the floor, then onto everything else.
Miroku noticed the change in temperature, and the burning sensation on his leg. He woke up, and instantly sprung up out of his chair to the door, which was now a wall of flames. The kitchen was blocked, and so were the other doors, so he had no choice but to run upstairs.
Another stupid thing to do, for now he, Inuyasha and Shippo, were trapped.
Miroku ran to Shippo's room, thinking that the child would not hold up as well as he or Inuyasha, but found Inuyasha asleep in there instead. That is when he started to panic. He shook Inuyasha, screaming incoherent words into his sensitive ear and trying to pry him out of bed. Inuyasha got up, groggy as usual when he woke up early, but then his hanyou sense of smell brought something to his attention. There was a large presence of smoke coming from the downstairs rooms, and the heat was immense. Inuyasha coughed hoarsely and put his sleeve in front of his nose. It definitely was hard to be a hanyou in 1909.
Miroku was choking on the smoke now, and they could hardly see their hands in front of their faces. Miroku was going limp now from the lack of oxygen, so Inuyasha quickly threw him over his shoulder. The nearest route that was not blocked was a window above Shippo's bed. He jumped through it, not caring if the glass cut him or not. They landed on the land beneath the window, and they both coughed to catch their breath.
"Inuyasha, we have to get Shippo out of there!" Miroku yelled in between gasps. Inuyasha's eyes widened with fear for the boy, and he turned back to the house, the flames reflecting in his amber eyes. His only goal was to save the boy's life, even if it meant sacrificing his own.
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He chose the window again, reasoning that that was the safest mode of entry for him. He put his shirt up over his nose, allowing him to use both arms to navigate. Shippo's room was now completely under siege, and fire was cascading down the walls and all of the furniture was a mess.
Inuyasha ran through the fire without hesitation. Suddenly a beam from the ceiling crashed down in front of Inuyasha, blocking his path to his room. Inuyasha cursed and threw it aside, ignoring the dull burning pain coming from the palms of his hands. It would go away soon. When Inuyasha knocked down his bedroom door, Shippo was sitting up in bed, coughing and crying hysterically. Inuyasha began to panic for him, knowing that if he continued to cry like that, he would be unconscious soon.
Inuyasha had to act quickly, so he jumped onto the bed in one great leap, merely dodging a falling beam and part of the ceiling collapsing. Shippo cried into his shirt as he tucked him into it, and tried to keep him safe. Then Inuyasha's pant leg caught on fire. The flame was moving quickly up the cloth, and Inuyasha found it to be very distracting. Then he realized something important.
The house was running on gas to keep the heat up. If the inferno engulfed the main gas tank that was sitting outside, the whole house would explode. He only had a few minutes to get out of their alive. A window next to the bed that he was sitting on caught his eye, and he aimed for that. Another beam threatened to fall on top of both of them. They were either going to miss each other by a fraction of a second, or they were going to hit at the exact same time.
By the looks of it, Inuyasha was expecting the prior one to occur.
He jumped suddenly, cringing while he did so, and waited for the inevitable collision. However, none came. The window crashed open, and Inuyasha flew out with Shippo in his arms. Then the whole house blew. Inuyasha and Shippo were flung to the ground by the force, and they rolled carelessly onto the snow beneath them.
Inuyasha had hit his head, but he still covered Shippo from the falling debris that the house spewed. Then the firefighters came roaring down the street, and Miroku ran to his fallen comrade's side. Inuyasha woke up suddenly, coughing and hacking out smoke. Shippo did the same, and Miroku hugged them tightly. Inuyasha broke the embrace to stare at his dying house, the flames once more reflected in his eyes.
There would be no more sleeping in his big cozy bed, no more reading a good book by candle light. The only thing left to do was move on and forget this. The only way to do that was to get that loan. He would force the old coot to. Then he could go and prove that they were real. Then he could prove that the Winged Women of Palau were not a fable.
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Inuyasha did not think he had ever run so fast in all of his life. The streets seemed to pass him by as he rushed to Myouga's office space and home on the corner of thirty-second street. His mind was racing the whole way, wondering what would happen in his life if he got his chance. He almost missed the doorway.
Myouga answered the door in his nightcap and robe, still very groggy and cranky. Then he noticed the state that Inuyasha was in and he opened his mouth to say something, but Inuyasha cut him off almost immediately.
"Master Myouga, I need the loan right away if you plan on giving it to me because you see my house burned down and I have no place else left to live and I want to go to Palau and prove my theory so that I can have a job and get more money so that I can buy another house and become a prize-winning scientist so will you give me the loan please?" Then Inuyasha took a breath and grabbed Myouga's hand.
"W-well yes Inuyasha, I suppose I could-"
"THANK YOU SO MUCH MR. MYOUGA! You will not regret this I swear it. We are going to leave first thing tomorrow morning- me, Miroku and his little brother Shippo." He began shaking Myouga's hand roughly up and down, making the old man's entire body shake violently. Myouga pulled his hand out of Inuyasha's grasp finally, and watched Inuyasha ran back to what was left of his house, jumping up and down and cheering as he did so.
"What a strange young man that hanyou is. . ." Myouga thought aloud. He closed the door slowly and everything was peaceful again.
3 . . .
2 . . .
1 . . .
"DID HE SAY THAT HIS HOUSE BURNED DOWN?!"
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Okay, this is my third Inuyasha fic on FF.net and I am very happy. This one will get better, I promise. The story is just a little slow. Anyway, I have not decided if I am going to make the next chapter partially in Kag's POV or if I am going to keep it in my POV until chapter 3. Well, whatever I decide, it will be better than this chapter, I think. Please keep track of "The Island" as well as my other fics too. AND REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!!! (^_^)