Woo! TEN CHAPTERS! Woo! This chapter has been complete since I uploaded number nine!

Now that the fanfiction people have included the "hits" to my story, I can really see how well this one's doing! I've reached over a thousand! WOO! But you just keep those reviews coming!

I'm sorry I failed at the airport thing. I guess I should have looked it up… but I was too lazy and went with something that might be real. Though, I did think "Chicago Airport" was a bit… I dunno… blah, but I'll fix it and redo the chapter with that airport's name you mentioned, Chicagoians! Thank you for your help! I really need it since I'm a Texan and don't know about Northern ways. :smile:

Oh, and even though you probably don't care, I have begun band camp. :less enthusiastic woo: Ugh. Two-a-days… and on Saturday, there's a three-a-day… I don't get to watch my cartoons… And school has started! YAY! (Behold the sarcasm!)

Shoot me…

Into the Fray

Chapter 10

School and 1337

It had been about three days since I moved back in with Stepmother. I didn't see much of her, since I had no real reason to. What could have been called my "meals" were sent up to me, since she didn't want to see me. They were mostly leftovers, scraps -stuff the family dog would receive on his bowl along with his food as a treat.

Needless to say, I was more than a little hungry. My stomach had gotten used to Mrs. Higurashi's huge portions and delicious food, but now that I was dining a little more different, it was giving me some problems. But every now and then, the Saki girl would find ways to get me more food -which helped.

However, Stepmother kept her word when she had said I would be attending school again. I was surprised at first -but then again- it was a way to get me out of the house. Although, I wasn't looking forward to going back. What, with how bad it used to be, I really didn't want to see the horror of what I remember of school at a high school level.

The limo pulled to the side of the road three blocks away from the school. Edo turned back to me and said, "Out you go," dismissively, waving me out the car like a fly. I didn't really expect anything more, so I took my pack and climbed out of the limo. It was still bitterly cold, and the near howling winds blowing past my bare arms, face and ears weren't helping. The limo drove away as I headed to the gloomy school that lay before me.

The walk wasn't really that long. The wind had died down about halfway and the traffic jam in front of the school let me pass without too much care. I took a look at some of my new possible classmates as I made my way to the double doors. Since this school was, I could safely say, in the ghetto, I wasn't surprised by all of the gangsters, potheads, hookers, and whatnot. There were a few people making out in front of the school, not caring who saw. I sighed and wished I were back in my apartment.

I stepped inside the "new" school and almost had a coughing fit from all of the fumes. There were more people smoking pot, making out, having sex, and even more disgusting, health-threatening things going about. I wondered if there was actually any schooling going on when a man in his mid-forties came up to me. I didn't smell any cocaine or alcohol on him, so I deemed it all right to speak to him.

He was near bald -he had wispy white fuzz on the very top of his head, and fading gray on the sides. His face was square-shaped, with day-old stubble lining his jaw. (Actually, he kinda reminded me of Willie Nelson). His eyebrows were thin and greying as well. His eyes were a messy green and weary… but kind. He must be a teacher, I figured.

"Please tell me you aren't addicted to anything," he said with a slight smile. "Because if you are, you're not allowed in the lab."

I kind of laughed at this, and he introduced himself while shaking my hand amiably. "I'm the Chemistry teacher, Mr. Irving. You're the new student, are you not?"

I cocked my eyebrow and tilted my head. I was about to reply in Japanese, but I forced myself to speak English -something I hadn't done fluently in a while. "How did you know?" I asked cautiously. "Do I stick out that much?"

He laughed. "Well, for one thing, you looked lost. And another, you don't reek of pot. Now, I'm going to be your 'homeroom' teacher, and even though it's in the middle of the first semester, you still have to start every day in homeroom. Come along, fresh meat."

I followed him out of the dismal foyer that he and I were just in to a dank, narrow, off-white hallway. The smells I encountered there should never be smelled by any living thing again. It was ghastly. The mix of urine, pot-smoke, and things I didn't even know existed were mingled together in a horrid mass of stink. I felt my stomach give a lurch and Mr. Irving laughed softly.

"Ah, the newbies in the crack hall… It always makes me laugh," he muttered softly. "You get used to it eventually, like the nursing home smell. Except this one takes a matter of weeks, not minutes. Quiet now, we don't want to disturb the sleeping crack-hos."

I swallowed the bit of vomit that had come up and followed him still to his room, number 104, and went in after him. His room was small, didn't smell as bad as the hallway, and was white-walled. Various skulls and other bones adorned his room, including… I strained my eyes to tell whether or not I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.

Apparently, Mr. Irving knew what I was looking at. "Yes, that is a prosthetic leg. You aren't hallucinating."

I looked at him incredulously. "Why in hell do you have that?" I looked to his legs, which seemed to be all flesh and bone, when he laughed again.

"Well, it happened… I think three years ago now. One of the hookers here had one, and she liked my class so much, she insisted I have it. I… really didn't know what to do with it, and it would be rude to refuse that kind of gift, so I took it and hung it up on my wall." He turned to me, where he began to laugh again, (probably at the expression of mixed horror, confusion and amusement on my face) and added, "And it's been up there ever since."

I sat on the top of a vacant desk, and asked, "So, it's Mr. Irving, right?"

He nodded. "Yep."

I tilted my head. "So… I take it you're not one of the common pushover teachers that are just here to get their measly hours for their paycheck, but one of the rarer ones that actually give a damn about the kids?"

He smiled, revealing bright, white teeth. "Nope. I consider myself one of the even more rare that actually enjoy teaching, even if it is to a bunch of drunks and stoned teens." At my skeptical look, he shrugged. "Actually, they laugh a lot more at my lame jokes if they are inebriated, so I don't mind all that much."

A smirk grew on my face. This "Mr. Irving" reminded me of Takegawa. That was good. I looked to his faded blue door and wondered, "Are there other kids here? I mean, ones that aren't busy altering their consciousness or getting laid."

The Chemistry teacher laughed. "A few. I'd say about ten throughout the whole school. Fortunately, since I am the only competent 'science' teacher in the school, I get them all." At this, he smiled brightly. "Oh, and here comes one now. Logan! How are you today, this fine, dreary morn?"

I turned to the door again and a boy my age walked through it. He had short-cropped, sandy blonde hair, his complexion was muddled by freckles and acne, and his face was a bit oval. He was taller than me by a mere inch. He had large hands and feet, long arms and legs. He also had a long torso. He saw me and smiled.

"So!" he cried loudly. "You're one of the new kids aren't you?" He held out his hand for me to shake and shouted, "HI! I'M LOGAN! NICE TO MEET YOU!"

I took his hand and replied, "I'm not bloody deaf, you know." He seemed shocked by this and turned back to Mr. Irving. "So he's not a Clan Folk?" When the teacher shook his head, I narrowed my eyes.

"What's a 'Clan Folk'?" I asked softly. I didn't know if I wanted the answer or not. However, Logan turned back to me, smiling. "Those under the influence of something addictable and conscious-altering -from cocaine to helium to Advil- are 'Clan Folk'. I'm happy that you're not one of the Clan."

I nodded, unsure of exactly what he meant by that. Mr. Irving, however, began talking again.

"I feel so stupid, but son, I don't know your name." He picked up a few sheets of paper that had previously been lying scattered on his organizationally challenged desk. "Inu-Yasha, are you? Inu-Yasha Shirosenshi?"

I nodded and Logan's smile grew to the point where it bordered on insane. "You're from my favorite country, aren't you!" he cried in delight. Before I knew it, he was inches away from my face and holding my hands like I was a god of some sort. "You're from Japan! Are you? Are you!"

I looked to Mr. Irving for help, but he was just watching, sitting on the top of his own desk, legs crossed, head in hand. "I suggest you answer him or he'll put you through the Chinese Water Torture. I forgot to tell you he's a gamer. Sorry."

I looked back to Logan, and, knowing that I was somehow sealing my fate, nodded slowly. "Yeah… I was… born in Tokyo…"

Logan's eyes grew larger, and suddenly, he let go of my hands and began groveling at my dangling feet. "My Liege!" he cried as he continued to bow. "Forever do I pledge to serve and worship you! You are from the Sacred Land of Japan! You shall be adored! You shall be worshipped!"

I heard the door open and close again and I looked up to see a girl, somewhat gothic in apparel, looking in disgust at the still groveling Logan. "Why do I always walk in the moment your ass is in the air? It would make one want to commit suicide after a week."

Logan, seeing as how the girl had entered, turned over his shoulder and wiggled his butt. "Oh, Clara, you know you like it. It's just your instinct to come in whenever I- OOF!"

Clara, who had been fermenting since Logan began to talk, kicked him in the stomach. My eyebrows elevated, and she turned to me. She held out her hand and said pleasantly, "I'm sorry. He does that a lot. Judging from his insistent bowing and groveling, I assume you're from Japan or work at Bioware, Namco or Square Enix?"

I chuckled and took the offered hand. "The former."

She laughed as well. "I pity you. He's going to be trying to tend to your every need, so you might as well take advantage of it. The previous 'Liege' mooched a total of $176.57 off of him. But then, he turned out to be Chinese, not Japanese. Logan beat the shit out of him in front of the whole school. So, for your own safety, please say your true ethnicity before you wind up in the hospital."

I shook my head. I was beginning to feel comfortable around them already -possibly because they were so much like Sango and Miroku. "Alas, I am Japanese."

She nodded approvingly and turned to Mr. Irving. "Well, teacher, I'm ready to learn." She took her seat second from the front and a row away from Irving's desk. Said teacher laughed.

"Well, pry Logan off of the floor and I'll start."

………………………….

Class went by quickly. Too quickly. Homeroom went by, and then, I stayed because I had Chemistry right after. Then, I was ushered by the herd to English, (where I shared a class with Logan), Pre-Cal, (which, oddly enough, the teacher was absent), Government, (shared with Clara), and so forth. Lunch was a bit of a pickle, since everything the lunch "ladies" served reeked of vinegar, but I did find Logan and Clara sitting with people that didn't seem to be high, so, taking my large bag of Cheetos with me, I sat down and was welcomed readily.

A boy, dark-haired, pale, and possessing large, oblong glasses spoke to me first. "So you must be Logan's new god. Welcome to Clemen High School! I hope you don't plan on eating any of the on-trays that are served here. It's all expired stuff, saved for anything bagged. They smother it in vinegar to hide the other smells." He looked to my bag of Cheetos and said, "Wow, you've already picked up on it."

I nodded gravely. "Yeah… plus, I wasn't too keen on eating lasagna that was green…"

He laughed and held out his hand. "I'm Max." I shook the offered hand, and then, when the shake broke, signaled to the few people sitting with us. "You see before you the only people within these walls that actually care about something else than Windex and markers. We few are the only thing standing in the way of this school's destruction." The others who were sitting with us nodded amiably, to which I returned.

Max began talking again. "You don't have much of an accent," he said with a bit of awe. "It's actually not detectable to those not looking for it. How did you learn to speak English so well?"

I shrugged. "I've lived here before, from ages five to thirteen. I… went back to Japan after that, and now I'm back here by order of my Stepmother."

Clara, who was sitting beside me, nodded slowly. "I see… So… why did you come back? Was it too expensive to live in Tokyo anymore? I doubt that you actually wanted to come back to a trash heap like this."

I scoffed. "Hardly. I… Well…" I didn't want to divulge my life story. It was too complicated, and was not something to recite in a school cafeteria that reeked of pot and vinegar. "I was living there by myself when… my Stepmother came and brought me back here."

Clara's eyes narrowed. "You speak too properly when on the subject of your stepmother. Do you hold no love for her?"

For a moment, I was struck dumb. No one ever looked into my speech pattern that well to make an assertion like that. With my mouth hanging open like a gutted fish, I tried to reply, but fortunately, Logan saved me from the need to do so.

"Clara, that's just rude," he chided, folding his arms as he did so. (He sat across from Clara and I, consequently sitting beside Max.) "Don't play mind games with him -it's his first day!"

Max nodded. "Yeah, go easy on him."

In response, she simply "hmm"ed and sat back in her chair, eyeing me from the side of her vision. I sighed and opened my bag of Cheetos as I listened to Max and Logan ramble about various Playstation 2 games, among which were Dynasty Warriors 5, the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 2, and an old favorite of both, Final Fantasy VII.

Lunch was over and then I found my way to my next class, band, which I was very surprised that it even existed here. I walked into the band hall and almost began crying. Every instrument was in disarray, bent, broken. I saw four timpani -lacking wheels- pushed to the corner. I looked at them more closely to see tears in the heads. I shook my head sadly and then went over to the marimba, and I feared the worst.

I ran my hand over the broken low F key, and took a look under to see the resonators. Again, they were bent and scratched beyond repair. It was terrible. The poor instrument should just be shot and put out of its misery. As I was looking at more of the injuries the marimba sustained, a hand gripped my shoulder.

"Sad, isn't it?" I turned to see Clara, holding an oboe. "The band director here lost the will to try and keep kids from playing on the percussion instruments. That's how everything got broken. Now the timpani are seats. The snare over there is a hat, and this marimba is used for ammunition when the potheads fight. You see pieces of the frame and keys missing?"

I nodded. "So… why don't they just shut down the band program?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they're waiting for us to completely destroy everything…"

I looked around the brown-walled band room to try and find some kind of authority figure. "Speaking of which… where is the director?"

She looked at me as if I was an ignorant fool. "He's probably in his office, in the fetal position, trying to convince himself that the day will be over soon. I suggest you don't go in there at all while you're here. He might attack you in one of his angry rages."

I nodded slowly. Why did everyone here have to have something wrong with them? I felt as if I was in an insane asylum. I shook my head and sat down on a plastic chair, and Clara did the same.

"This is wonderful," I muttered. "I was hoping that there would be a decent instrument that I could practice on. I guess it was too much to hope for -especially in this heap of shit."

Clara nodded as she fingered her oboe. I looked at it and was somewhat shocked by the fact that it was whole, much less not mutilated. It was actually in really good condition. She saw the question in my eyes and said, "My parents bought this one. It doesn't belong to the school. And, to make sure no one takes it, I always keep it in my backpack."

"Smart move," I replied, and she smiled a bit.

Then, I felt a little bit of something light and scattered fall onto my arm. I looked down to see bits of black and said, "Wow, this school sure is filthy. I didn't even do anything and it's falling on me."

Clara's stoic expression didn't falter. "That's… not dust."

I blinked and looked at her. "What else could it be?"

"Asbestos."

My eyes widened. "Oh dear…"

………………..

After I had made sure I hadn't gotten anything from the asbestos, I went to the last class of the day, gym. Oh, the wonders of an all-athletic class. Back in Tokyo, however, I didn't have to take gym because marching band accounted for my P.E. credit. But since the band program here was a bloody joke, I had to take something of a P.E. class. So, I sat in the dank, sweat-saturated gym with about thirty other people on the bleachers, which were probably the victims of termites, as I waited for the coach to arrive. Surprisingly enough, Logan and Max came and sat beside me.

"My Liege!" the gamer cried as he sat beside me. "I am so happy that I share this class with you as well!"

Max rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm gonna work on my Pre-Cal homework."

I cocked my head. "You mean… the coach isn't gonna show up?"

Logan shook his blonde head. "Nope. The coach here quit and they haven't been able to sucker another teacher into being a coach. It's the job with the highest rate of murder. Next to math teacher, of course."

My eyebrow cocked. "What do you mean?"

Max shrugged. "Sometimes gang wars erupt in the gym, and the coach has to be the one to stop it. It's no secret that we've lost four coaches in one term that way."

I grimaced. No school in Japan was this bad… Dismissing the murders as part of the school, I turned to Logan to see him writing a note. When I tried to read it, however, I found it was in some kind of code -it was nothing but numbers and letters. Confused, I asked him, "What the hell are you writing?"

Logan looked up at me, then back down to his paper, then back to me again. "You don't know Leet?"

"Leet?" I asked, still confused.

Logan's pencil dropped to the floor as both his hands rushed to cover his mouth. "My Liege does not know Leet! This is an outrage! You, of all the people here, have to know Leet!"

I was angry now. "What the hell is Leet!"

Max chimed in. "It's a hacker language, used to talk to each other without anyone finding out what they're doing. A lot of computer geeks know it, and gamers too, since they play online. It's pretty easy to read and write once you have the hang of it."

Logan shoved his piece of paper in my face and cried, "Say it isn't true! My Liege must know how to read Leet!"

I looked at it, and all I saw was this:

h3y m4x!

h0w b3 j00? 3y3 7hink 73h r47z 4r3 g377ing 7o 73h c4f373ri4 m0r3 0f73n n0w. i7'5 54d, r34lly. 73h 1unCh l4di35 7ry 50 h4rd.

Under it, another little paragraph, probably Max's response, read:

3y3 kn0w. 7h0ugh, 3y3 d0n'7 7Hink 7h4t 7h3y'r3 14di35.

I looked back at Logan and said, "I have no idea what this says. It's just a bunch of letters and numbers to me."

Right then, Logan began to cry. Max took the piece of paper back from me and said, "It's all right. Don't' mind Logan for right now. He thinks everyone associated with Japan should know Leet. But for now, I think tutoring would be best. After all, you never know when Leet will come in handy."

He scribbled something else on the paper and said, "A little hint -it's English."

I looked down to the new paragraph on the paper, which read:

h3y iNuy45H4! W31c0m3 70 73h w0r1d 0f 1337! Ju57 50 j00 kn0w, l0g4n h45 4 cru5H 0n C14r4. 101

I sighed and then folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I was never going to get this stupid code anyway. Of course, Logan read the note before I put it away and then began to strangle Max for some odd reason, screaming, "You little twirp! I do not!"

………………………..

Yay for 1337! I love it. Alas, I consider myself a novice still.

I'm sorry for any of you who are not fluent in 1337, the numbers and letters above will be translated in time. Wo07. However, the server on won't do some of the symbols, so I have to go to the real letter. How depressing.

Ja!