Disclaimer : I do not own Inuyasha or any of its components.
AN : It took a while for me to figure out how to publish a new story -o-;;. Everything changed so much since I published Long Time No See. This fic sucks and thus the no reviews but whatever, I want to finish writing it anyways … or maybe I should just stop writing because it's not like anyone reads this anyways.
So What?
- fallen-anqel -
Chapter One : So What … If Disaster Strikes?
W.B.I. : Way Before the Incident
"Kagome," Souta called. "Hurry up!"
Kagome laughed. "What's the rush? We have all summer."
It was the summer of her second to last year in high school (1). Every summer, the Higurashi children flew back to Japan and stayed over at the shrine with Mama and Jii-chan (2) and with every summer came the dreaded annual family gathering. Every family gathering consisted of staying over at their seaside castle, their rather spacious beach house over at Katase. Uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends of the family flew ( or drove ) in from Hawaii, New York, Europe, or wherever else they lived to make it to the event.
Kagome wasn't particularly fond of The Gathering but lately, she was starting to enjoy them. Since she was the oldest child out of the jumble of kids, she was always stuck baby-sitting. She had no free time to herself and hey, she was only eleven the first time she was stuck with the kids; what kind of normal eleven year old enjoyed having to worry about an armful of disaster magnets?
Well, anyways, now the kids were older and Souta was old enough to take care of the kids so she did have some breaks here and there. And yeah, it did help that now she had a darling niece and nephew to take care of, which she didn't mind at all.
"Okay, kids," Kagome said in an authoritative manner. "It is now 11 o'clock. We will regroup at 3 to eat lunch and we'll go back to the house at 5, okay?"
A chorus of 'hai's came at her wake. "Good. Now, you guys pick who you want to play with; Souta, Nazuna (3), Serina (4), or me. Group off right now!"
Kagome watched as the kids fumbled out of the line and filed into separate little lines behind the designated leaders, counting and recounting each head as they passed. You might call her paranoid but she just couldn't afford to be anything less. Thinking back to all those incidents throughout the past years, chills ran down her spine. Like that time one time when Serina's little sister, Suzuna (5), was left behind at shore and a search party found her three hours later, crying and missing a shoe. And that other time when little Shippou was discovered playing along the shoreline and almost drowned when a wave came … yeah, nobody ever figured out where that shoe had gone to and little Shippou wasn't allowed out for quite a while after that.
"Off you go!" Kagome shouted. "You have less than four hours left!" The kids scattered and three groups of kids could be found running about in opposite directions. Kagome sighed and looked at who she had to play with. Shippou and Shiori (6), surprise, surprise. She was sure she would be by herself if it didn't happen to be a fact that she was their favorite person in the world … besides their mummies and daddies, that is.
"Man," she said as she grabbed their hands. "I am losing my cool."
"No you're not," Shippou said. "You're really cool, Kagome." Shiori nodded fervently on her other side.
"Thanks," Kagome said good naturedly. But coming from two five-year-olds, it didn't feel that great. What happened to the good old days when all the kids wanted to play with her? Well, less work for her had to be good didn't it.
"What do you want to do, guys?" Kagome asked them, swinging their arms as they walked back to their spot of sand.
"I want to make a sandcastle!" Shiori exclaimed.
"That's great!" Kagome fumbled around her beach bag and pulled out a few sand buckets and shovels. "Are you up to it, Shippou?"
"Hmmm…" He put his finger to his chin in deep thought. "Only if I get to destroy it afterwards!"
"Now, Shippou, I don't think--."
"OK!"
Kagome sent a startled glace Shiori's way. She had already started to set the parameters for the castle. What happened to all the sweet little girls in the world that defended their sandcastles and forced the boys to be knights saving them from the horrible dragons (7)? Kids these days were too violent.
"I'll go get some water," Kagome said as she grabbed a bucket and brushed the sand off her sarong. "Don't move you guys."
"Okay!" the kids shouted and continued to pave a good platform for the castle. Kagome laughed as made her way to the water, passing several kids on her way.
"Hey!" she shouted as Souta bumped into her. "Where are your kids?"
"Relax." He pointed to the side. "They're right over there."
"Where?" By the time she had turned back around, he was gone.
"Disrespectful little punk," she grumbled as she scooped up a bucket of water.
"CHARGE!"
"What!" Kagome whipped her head around and saw a bunch of little boys heading her way, Souta at the lead.
'Someone will die today,' she thought as she was pushed into the waves.
Sputtering, she resurfaced and wiped her hair out of her face. "SOUTA!" she shouted. The boys laughed and made their getaway.
"Are you okay, Kagome-chan?" Shippou and Shiori had made their way to the water and stood in front of her.
"I brought you a towel." Kagome took it from Shiori's extended hand and grumbled her thanks.
"Look at Suzuna!" Shippou shouted. "She's swimming all the way out there!"
"Suzuna … doesn't know how to swim!"
In full panic, Kagome looked around frantically and spotted Suzuna off the shore. To an onlooker, it might look like she was singing, but in truth, ever since that incident at the beach, Suzuna didn't really do water.
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!" Kagome rambled around. "Why isn't she with Serina! SERINA!"
By now, a bunch of the kids had gathered around after hearing Kagome's shouts. Among them, Kagome spotted Suzuna laughing with a little girl with pigtails whom she didn't recognize (8), but now wasn't the time to lecture Serina on playing with strangers.
"What's wrong?" Suzuna asked her.
"Why isn't Suzuna with you!"
Kagome was going ballistic; her system was supposed to be foolproof! The kids weren't supposed to stray from their leaders and the leaders were supposed to stay with the kids! How could this have happened!
"She was … right here," Suzuna mumbled off and drew her eyes to the water. "Oh my God! Suzuna! She can't swim!"
"Okay, okay," Kagome reasoned. "We need to calm down. Someone give me a floaty and someone go get a lifeguard. Did you not hear me! Go, GO!" Kagome snatched a noodle floaty from one of the kids and ran into the water.
'This is not happening,' she thought to herself. It was simply just not possible. Every year something just had to happen. Oh my God … what if she didn't make it there on time? What if Suzuna died! No, no; she couldn't think like this. Everything was going to be alright and they would go and eat and then they'd go home, safe and sound.
"Suzuna!" Kagome shouted in-between her strokes. She was just up ahead; just a little further.
"Kag—kagome," Suzuna sputtered. She was frantically flailing her arms about and kicking her feet, trying to keep her head above the water. The waves were steadily passing over her head and pushing her down.
"Suzuna, you have to calm down," Kagome instructed and sent the floaty her way. "Grab onto it and hold on tight! Don't let go, Suzuna!"
Suzuna nodded obediently and latched onto the floaty, tears mixing with the water trailing from her hair.
"Kick to shore, Suzuna!"
"What about you?"
"I'll be fine! Now go!" With a little push, Suzuna got kicking.
Hearing a strange, hollow sound, Kagome turned around and saw just about the hugest wave in the big blue sea. Why, oh why,did these things happen to her? Just when things couldn't get any worse, it did.
"Crap." She lunged towards Suzuna and literally tossed her up and over the oncoming wave. As for her, well … sometimes it just doesn't pay to be the hero.
All she remembered before blacking out was a flash of white and gold … alluring, mystifying gold.
end.
(1) She's going to be a senior
(2) I was going to make it so that Kagome, Souta, and their mother live in the States while their grandfather still lives in Japan but I think he's too old to be alone xP I know that in the prior chapter I wrote that Kagome moved out of her house and … yeah it'll be explained later
(3) She's the girl from the episode with the spider demon and Inuyasha turning human for the first time
(4) One of the girls that wanted to learn how to become a demon exterminator under Sango's instruction
(5) The other girl from prior footnote
(6) The niece and nephew from before and Shiori is that bat hanyou from that episode with the barrier around the village
(7) Thinking of last years games
(8) Will come in play later on
(9) Those long things that lifeguards carry around … kind of like a floaty
AN : Give me some love guys! Reviews would be much appreciated and by next chapter if I have none … I'll just stop writing all together. At least this story anyway.
