Dear Faithful Readers, how dare you avoid the review button. I KNOW you're there... Kekeke... Come out and play... And write reviews... Oh, never mind. Okay, well, let's do a review, shall we? Inuyasha is a platypus feeder. Miroku and Kikyou are veterinarians. Kagome deals with giraffs. And... Lord Naraku is actually... An Emu-tamer! Last chapter, in the brilliantly un-reviewed Chapter One of Ten Thousand Yen, we left off with Naraku sedating Kagome and throwing her into an empty pen. I have a bad feeling about this, folks, so lets see where this goes, hm?
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Kagome lay at the bottom of the pen. She flinched and opened her eyes carefully. Fuzzy images fizzled in front of her until she was finally able to focus on what was happening around her. She was looking straight up. The sky was extremely dark, so she figured it was night. Little winking stars confirmed this belief. She sat bolt upright very suddenly. She was outdoors? How on earth did that happen? Glancing around nervously, she started fidgiting and examining her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that she was lying next to fifteen feet of concrete wall. There was no way she was going to climb out. The second thing she noticed was that it was extremely painful to wave her wrist around.
"Owwwww," she moaned, rolling to her feet. "Ow ow ow ow! And OW!"
"If it hurts so much, I reccomend you sit down." The voice was so calm she knew exactly who it was without even looking up.
"...Naraku."
"Oh, you're clever."
She flung around angrily. She was dressed in her usual zookeepers outfit - khaki hat, khaki rolled-up-sleevy shirt, khaki pants, black boots for variety, and plenty of pockets all over everything. Naraku, on the other hand, was dressed in his after-work white cloak. It suited him, in an eerie sort of way. The other difference was that he was fifteen feet above her, sitting on the edge of the fence which kept visitors from plunging in.
"Let... Me... Out," she growled savagely. Naraku smiled pleasantly. "I'm warning you." He kept blinking at her as if they were drinking tea. "FINE! I'll do it myself!" She started walking along the edge, eyes scanning the pen. All she could see was a fringe of bushes and trees at the edge.
"I wouldn't advise you to be so loud, young lady."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"On the contrary. I'm your keeper."
"Don't joke, this isn't funny."
"I... Never joke."
"Har, har."
She examined everything as she walked around the edge slowly.
"You don't want to keep going in that direction," Naraku said flatly.
"Then why am I still going In That Direction?"
"I have placed you strategicly between the lions and the hyenas."
Kagome let out a long sigh. There was just no talking to a guy like this. She kept walking. This was impossible... There was no way up, she realized with horror. A thought occured to her- keepers had to be able to reach the bottom of the pen for emergencies, so there had to be a hidden door nearby, at the end of the pen. She started feeling her way down the wall with her useful hand.
"You insist on heading into a pack of hyenas."
"Shut up. That's not-"
She was about to tell him this wasn't funny - again, but she'd heard something. A twig snapped roughly, somewhere in front of her. A sound suddenly rose from the mass of trees, an immense bleating, almost giggling noise, filled with growls and snorts as something woke up. The sound made her blood freeze.
A huge, huddled mass bubbled from the tree. It rolled like frothing black water, hunched and bleating the horrible sound into the air. In one swift motion, the mass unbent itself, and hundreds of beady black eyes stared at her hungrily. The noise stopped as a pack of hyenas, foaming muzzles sniffing excitedly, glared her down.
"I told you," Naraku practically sang into the pen. "Don't move. If you run they will either eat you or you will run into an angry pack of lions... And we wouldn't want our star attraction to get in that sort of trouble so soon."
"S-star at-attra-cct-ct-"
She couldn't move, but she had most definately heard him. A wave of worries immediately slammed through her. Star attraction, start attraction, we wouldn't want our star attraction to get in that sort of trouble so soon, that sort of trouble, that sort of trouble, so soon, soon, soon, soon... Horror settled in. He was keeping her? In here? Like an animal?
"You..." She gritted her teeth and stared into a pack of hyenas.
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Morning came bright, early and full of loopholes and problems that Inuyasha hadn't expected. The first problem was that Miroku found him before anyone else.
"Inuyaaashaaaaaaaa! Oi, silver-head! Over here! Come here!"
"Oh joy." Inuyasha looked up tiredly. Obviously, his bright hair had given him away. "I'm not a silver-head," he told the vet as he approached, because he had learned from experience it was better to confuse the guy than run away. "It's platinum."
"It's silver."
"Platinum."
"Silver."
"Platinum."
"Silver."
"Silver."
"Plati- wait."
Inuyasha sighed. Miroku wasn't the sharpest tack in the box, especially in the morning.
"Alright, whaddayawund?" Inuyasha asked.
"I assume that means 'what do you want?'" Miroku asked.
"Igunmeeanytin guwund." It can mean anything you want. For the record, Inuyasha was none too awake at the moment as well.
"Ooookay. Well, see, there's this bird..."
"Get Bird-Man to do it."
"He looked busy. I checked on him and he was looking into a pen, so I guess he's working with whatever's in there."
"No, really? I would expect he was just looking at one of our flea-covered beasts which he's seen umpteen times already, just to get some kicks out of it..."
"Anyways, there's this ostrich-"
"Woah, you didn't say anything about an ostrich," Inuyasha blurted out. "I hate ostriches. They're dumb, stupid, angry, bitter, and dumb."
"You said dumb al-"
"In fact... They're probably stupider than an emu's bottom, and I've only seen an emu's bottom once, which was when Naraku grabbed one by the foot and showed me just to make a point of something..."
"I've heard enough," Miroku said quickly. "But anyways, Kikyou asked me to clip its claws, but that's a two-person job and-"
"-And you want me to finish it for you." Silver-Head finished it for him.
"Exactly! No, wait..."
"I might as well, seeing as all I've got planned for today is life with a platypus."
"Platypuses," Miroku said knowledgably, "were origonally created when a mad scientist took a beaver and sewed on pieces of a duck. I read that in a book."
"You never read books."
"I do so read books! How did I get to be a vet without books, hummm?"
"You never read your textbooks..."
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Kikyou was sipping her coffee when two men burst into the office rather loudly.
"Get it straight, Miroku, chocolate does not contain MP3 disc drives," Inuyasha was shouting.
"What does that have to do with my broken clock?" Miroku yelled.
"Absolutely everything!" answered the other.
"I'm nooot going to ask," Kikyou interrupted. Boys were such strange creatures. "But while you two are here, about that ostritch..."
"It's dead?" Inuyasha asked hopefully.
"It's alive and currently sedated for nail clipping," Kikyou replied smugly.
"You didn't...!"
"You didn't think I would ask Miroku to do it with me, did you?" asked the female with a falsely sweet voice.
"You make me sick..."
"Wait," Miroku cut in. "You weren't gonna help me? How did you know Inuyasha would do it?"
"I didn't... I just... Took a wild guess," said the vet innocently, glancing at the ceiling.
"That's greeeeat," Inuyasha answered, and followed Miroku through the office and into the pen behind it. An ostritch sat directly in front of them, looking a little dazed.
"Bottoms up," Miroku shrieked, charging forwards and grabbing its tail. "Get its legs!"
"Get them yourself," Inuyasha growled.
"Get them before she kicks my brains out!"
"That wouldn't be much of a loss," said the silver-haired employee, but he dutifully snagged the ankles of the bird, which was starting to realize something bad was happening to it. "Augh! I thought you said this thing was sedated!" Inu screamed as unhealthily long-clawed feet tried to kick him in the face.
"I didn't! Kikyou did!" Miroku answered, reaching into a white pocket for the clippers. He pulled out a pair of what resembled garden clippers. "Here, catch!"
"Ohhhh, no... You're doing the clipping, I'd rather have the tail end, thanks..."
"Are you sure? Those sedatives are like laxatives, seriously-"
"You look dry enough to me!"
"Don't let go of the-"
The warning came too late. Inuyasha let go and with a violent kick, the ostritch swung a foot into the back of the boy. It was a good thing there was straw scattered all over the ground to soften the landing. He scrambled up from the floor and launched himself at the tail, tackling Miroku in the process.
"What was that for?" the vet demanded, hurling himself on top of the flinging ostritch legs.
"That was for trying to throw me a pair of extended nail clippers while I was clutching the legs of an insane monster!"
"I should kill you! How dare you give me the legs!"
"You're the vet! Merry Christmas!"
It was a long and complicated process after that. Miroku struggled to hold down the feet while he worked the clippers. Inuyasha attempted to hold down as much of the rest of the bird as possible. Finally, Miroku straightened up.
"I did it!" he shouted triumphantly. "I clipped the left back claw!"
"Does that mean you're done?" Inuyasha asked impatiently, while an ostritch wing beat him over the head repeatedly.
"No, that was the first one I managed," his friend(?) replied.
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Do I look like I'm laughing?"
"You look pretty happy to me..."
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Kikyou was just polishing off Time magazine, issue 64, Biggest Issue Ever when a battered pair of workers trudged back in.
"Call that sedated?" Inuyasha complained, flopping into a comfy black chair.
"Kikyou, how much medicine did you actually give that thing?" Miroku asked, collapsing onto the black couch. Kikyou sipped her black coffee in a black mug, hardly looking up from her black desk. The only hint of colour in the room was the slight triumphant red blush spreading on her face.
"None," she said with a grin. "You don't give birds sedatives for nail clippings, Miroku. The standard procedure is to cover it's eyes."
"WHAT?" Inuyasha exploded. Kikyou continued with her coffee, but it was hard to read with the sounds of a scuffle echoing off the darkened walls.
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Well, that was chapter 2, I hope it was good enough for you to REVIEW! You see that little button down there? CLICK IT! I beg of you! Okay, not really, but click it anyways! And your sneak preview... Kagome's stuck in the pen! Get help, Lassie! Erm, I mean Inu! Also, Miroku has a life-changing experience: he's met the most beautiful girl, and her name is... Her name is... What is her name, anyways? And what is the significance of ten thousand yen? Okay, that's enough previewing! Chapter 3 comes out next weekend, be sure to read!