Disclaimer: Inuyasha is mine by right of conquest because I flew to Japan and killed Takahashi. Show of hands - who believed that? OK, just jump over this cliff, there's gold at the bottom….
Author's note: The first chapter of this was supposed to be a one-shot, but it was too much fun getting reviews…. Thanks, biggest anime fan, I love you too. RiverLaithe, I am, as you see, your humble servant.
As the classroom door shut behind her, Kagome frowned at the wreckage of the library book cart, where it had smashed into the wall at the end of the hallway at warp speed.
"I'm wondering what made that necessary." she remarked. Inuyasha looked slightly embarrassed.
"It smashed into me."
"So you chucked it into the wall?" Kagome shook her head. "Baka." She muttered. "You didn't hurt the librarian, did you?"
"If he's the little man who sent the cart into me when I got here and ran, no, I didn't, but I'd like to." Inuyasha replied sourly. It had plainly been embarrassing to realize that he had been attacked by a cart full of books. It would be best, Kagome thought, if they could get out of there before some teacher woke up enough to alert the authorities. They were almost to the door now, and Kagome was feeling nervous. She had cut school a hundred times, but she'd never left in the middle of the day before. Then, following his habit of appearing where you least wanted him, the principal of the school, Takagi, came out of the woodwork. Alright, it was really his office, but it felt like a nasty little imp had popped out of nowhere just to slow them down.
"Higurashi!" snapped Takagi. "Where are you going?" Normally Kagome would have quailed at the fury from her headmaster, but with Inuyasha there, she would have felt very silly caving to an angry head of school after having been through about everything nasty a demon can throw at you. Well, probably not. There was always something new.
"I just need to go to see a friend of mine, Takagi-sama." she said politely. "Inu-" she paused. Inuyasha's name was not an inconspicuous one, given its meaning. She would prefer to avoid Takagi noticing her association with a hanyou, if it was still possible. "Inu here," she continued, "Just came to tell me that Kaede-baba may not have much longer." Takagi considered this, then said,
"You need a note from your mother and an appropriate escort. Here, boy, why aren't you in school?" he queried rather impolitely. He looked Inuyasha over for the first time. "Dressed for a costume ball, are you? And what sort of name is Inu?" Inuyasha was looking dark. The man had obviously ticked him off badly.
"Inu is Kaede-baba's…nephew," said Kagome, trying to signal him to keep quiet, "He's been out of school for the past week sitting with her. He doesn't go here, anyway."
"Damn right." Inuyasha muttered.
"Eh?" said Takagi. "I don't believe you, quite frankly. No one would keep their dying aunt company looking like that. But even if I did, you can't leave school without a signed note. Back to class, now. I'm sure 'Kaede-baba' will still be fine at the end of the day." He folded his arms and looked bureaucratically smug. Kagome almost groaned. What was she supposed to do now? She certainly couldn't go back to class, but she didn't want to openly disobey Takagi. Unfortunately, the decision was taken out of her hands by Inuyasha, who had come to the conclusion that she had no more ideas for what to do within the rules of this time period. The Tetsusaiga was in his hand and pointed at Takagi's throat before the man's eyes had time to finish widening.
"Listen, little man," he said, as Takagi's eyes found his fangs – which were part of the reason he'd been keeping his mouth shut – and stayed there, plainly terrified, "Kagome has to come with me. There's a youkai completely out of control, Kaede-baba is prisoner, and Kagome is needed. Now go away. I'm sure you have better things to do." Takagi nodded dumbly and retreated, and Inuyasha sheathed the blade. Kagome gave him a look as they continued down the hallway.
"That was completely uncalled for." She said.
"Oh, yeah?" Inuyasha retorted. "Tell me what I ought to have done, then." Since Kagome had no idea, she threw up her hands and 'keh'ed under her breath. They left the building in high drudgeon with one another.
"That hag's nephew?" Inuyasha said after a moment. Kagome couldn't help giggling at his tone, as if he was trying to be offended but not succeeding terribly well.
"Oh, shut up. At least I didn't make you her son." Come to think of it…. "I made you Kiyou's." Inuyasha told her what he thought of that with a dire look, which made her giggle again.
"Climb on." he said shortly. As soon as she was on his back they went much faster, reaching the well in slightly less than a minute. Inuyasha dropped over the edge and leapt out again immediately, into the fuedal era. Kagome assumed their destination was the immense pillar of smoke rising to the left, due to the fact that they were eternally in the middle of the greatest trouble to be had, but Inuyasha turned right, heading away from it.
"What's the smoke?" she asked. For some reason she still wanted to head toward it. Must be that primate curiosity gene, giving her the abysmally stupid tendency to run toward trouble rather than away. Of course, Inuyasha tended to do the exact same thing. Did hanyous count as primates?
"Fire," he said, which was nothing but the obvious unless: a) a large factory had been relocated to the Sengoshu Jidai, b) some demon was randomly creating smoke, c) Naraku was melting himself into the ground again, or d) Kouga was running in place. Kagome suppressed a 'No kidding.'
"So what started the fire and why are we going the other way?"
"Fireballs. About an hour ago. Kaede is this way." Inuyasha said. Evidently his patience with full sentences was used up. Kagome sighed. Apparently she wasn't getting any more out of him. She hoped she would actually be useful when they got there. Inuyasha pulled up short suddenly and Kagome jolted over his shoulder and onto the ground.
"What the hell…?" he said. Kagome sat up warily.
Hi, there, me again. Heh-heh, cliffhanger, evil, heh. That wasn't as much fun as the last one; maybe I'll try something new before I work on this again. What do you think? (For 'what do you think?' read 'I am an indecisive idiot, please advise.') Takagi is a good Japanese name; it was the name of one of my mother's elementary school teachers. He acts weird because Kagome's school is composed of the insane. This is clearly why she has not been expelled. It is also clear that their attendance rules must be incredibly lax; hence her not being dragged up before Conduct Review Committee, or whatever Japanese schools have, for missing so much school. Also hence the reason her head of school – principal at most schools, right? – didn't suspend her upon catching her brazenly exiting school grounds with a boy. Makes sense, right? Although maybe going to a girl's school has upped my expectations of teachers' alertness to their charges doing anything with a boy. I don't know why the head of school got threatened with the Tetsusaiga. I actually like mine. Oh, and do hanyous count as primates? Please review. Asking you to read at this point seems kind of dumb given that you just did. Au revoire!