Chapter 3: A Normal Day: Part 3
Damien landed hard on the ground and, as if the hard ground breaking his fall was not bad enough, he thought that he had broken a few ribs. He lay there, squirming in agony, wondering what kind of person could inflict this much pain that easily and to him nonetheless.
Damien realized that if this person had gone out of their way to attack him so viciously that they would not just hit him once and leave him, they would want to finish the job.
Damien, set on not going down without a fight, very painfully got his feet. With his left arm holding his gut, he was ready for what this person could dish out.
Getting ready to fight, Damien bared his fangs and got his nails ready. The man was standing there in an over-sized trench coat and floppy hat that covered most of his face. Although Damien could not see his face, he knew that the mysterious man was smirking. Angered by his cockiness, Damien charged at him ignoring all pain.
The man effortlessly dodged Damien attack and jumped up, higher than the great tree. Shocked by this amazing feat Damien watched him gracefully land on his feet and charge towards him.
Trench coat billowing from the wind he was creating, the man, all of a sudden, multiplied into five trench coat wearing freak shows. Damien knew that he was no man but on of the creatures his father boasted about destroying. Feeling a need to defeat this creature and to show his father he was as good as him, Damien leaped upwards just as the five of them would have pulverized him if he had not gotten out of the way.
Seizing the opportunity, Damien bounced off one of the branches of the great tree and came hurling down on the five men. However, just as he was about to hit them, they disappeared.
Sensing that there was now only one man, directly in front of him, Damien did not even stop to consider the pain in his side, he just charged towards him, full speed, full anger. As he was running he had raised his hand, high in the air. He was doing this so that he could capture the wind in his hand and pulse his power up into his hand. With the tremendous force of the wind and his own power, this attack was quite strong.
When he reached his target, Damien slammed his open hand down, now pulsating with energy, onto the enemy. However, his hand was stopped by a mighty grip grabbing his wrist.
Damien was ready to tear his assailant apart with his left hand when he looked up and saw none other than his own father, Inuyasha, holding his wrist.
Erika slowly opened her eyes. She was dizzy and had a terrible headache. She did not know where she was. She sat up and the damp cloth that was on her forehead fell off. She winced from the pain that was caused while sitting up. She lay back down.
The ceiling spun around and around in front of her eyes. The ceiling was familiar, the bed was familiar, and the lamp on the side table was familiar.
She sat up slowly, looking around, taking in her surroundings. At first she could not comprehend why everything was so familiar and then she realized that this was her room. This was her ceiling, her bed, and her lamp. But how did she get here?
She took the risk of getting up and walking around. After every step she had to stop because there would be a shooting pain in her head. After what felt like ten minutes, she had finally gotten to her bedroom door and slowly opened it. She looked down the hall towards her parents' room and towards Damien's room. She was relieved that the hallway had doors.
All of a sudden, a door slammed nearby. The slamming was so ferocious that it shook the whole house. The shaking of the house shook her and made her head feel like it was splitting.
She stopped moving for what felt like another ten minutes. Finally, the pain subsided and she felt ready to move again.
She heard murmuring coming from the kitchen downstairs. She could hear the scream of the kettle signaling that the water was boiling. The scream, like the door, made her head feel like splitting.
Her room was situated in the middle of the upstairs hallway to get to the stairs she had to pass by Damien's room. She did so very cautiously. She took everything step by step. Never too fast, nothing was too fast.
She finally got to the stairs and, looking down from on top of them, it looked as high up as Mount Everest. She could think of going down the stairs.
From out of nowhere Damien's god awful music started blaring. All it was was just a whole bunch of people screaming incoherently. How anybody could listen to it was beyond her.
The music, which was probably ten decibels higher than what could be consider safe for the ear drums, felt like someone was putting a jackhammer to her head. Her vision went blurry and she started stammering around.
She fell forwards and down the stairs. She could feel nothing except the pain in her head. To her, the fall down the stairs was painless. Lying at the bottom of the stairs, she could feel someone trying to help her up. When she looked up at who it was she saw the man in the trench coat and floppy hat.
She could not believe it. He was here. How did he get here? How did he get past her mom and dad? How? How? How?
She could think of nothing to do but scream and so, that is what she did: scream.
Damien looked on at his father in disbelief. Why would he restrain him from ripping this intruder to shreds? Did he not know that he had attacked him? Did he not know that he, most likely, cracked a few of his ribs and this, not being an easy task, proved him to be a threat?
"Let go of me!" demanded Damien, struggling against his father's ferocious grip.
"Calm down!" Inuyasha ordered. "He is…a friend."
Damien, taken aback by this new information, stopped fighting against his father. "A friend?" Damien asked wondrously, "What kind of a friend attacks your child without even a simple 'hello'?"
"A friend who has come to test you're ability." Spoke up the mystery man, "A friend who has waited 500 years to see if you are ready. A friend who desperately needs your help." At this he took off his hat, revealing two somewhat fox-like ears and snout.
"Oh, Shippou you sly fox!" Inuyasha said with a smile. Inuyasha noticed that Damien looked immensely confused and tried to offer an explanation. "Me and your mother have told you about this little nuisance. In my era, at least the era in which I was born and your mother traveled to, we met this youngin'," and at this, Inuyasha looked him up and down, "or at least he used to be a youngin'. Well anyway, although he usually just got in the way, he did in his small way, help us defeat Naraku and there must be something very important to tell us if he waited for 500 years to tell us."
"Yes, there is, I-"
"Save it, Shippou, I think the best thing to do is for you to come in, have some tea and then me, you and Kagome can talk this out." Inuyasha said.
Inuyasha walked towards the house and Shippou followed leaving Damien outside, mouth wide open, still completely confused about what just happened.
Right when Inuyasha and Shippou were about to go inside Damien yelled, "wait!" and started to walk towards them. "So, this…thing is just going to come in here, attack me, maybe break some of my ribs, which I can't really go to the hospital for, and all you're going to do is invite him in for tea?"
"Yes." Inuyasha said and walked away with Shippou, once again leaving Damien looking thunderstruck.
Damien stormed in moments after and yelled, "This is bullshit!" and stomped upstairs and into his room, slamming the door behind him.
He was pumped full of energy, pumped full of anger. He needed to blow off steam. Just as he thought the word steam he heard the kettle downstairs. Apparently Kagome had a kettle on already. Either that or, in his flurry of anger, he lost track of time. No matter which one it was the screaming kettle made him even angrier. He needed to drown it out so he went to his stereo, found his loudest and hardest CD and played it, full blast.
Just then, he heard a series of random thumps, like someone falling down the stairs and then a scream.
He opened his door and looked out and saw, at the foot of the steps, the Shippou creep loaming over Erika. Damien decided to ignore this display and kept right on with his loud music playing.
Now the odd thing is, most people would look at the events of this day as odd or out of the norm, however, this is just a normal day in the Higurashi household.