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Scroll Fourteen
Lose Control: Part I

Kikyou was pushed into an enormous room where only four candles were lit, each arranged in a corner of the room. The light of the candles only illuminated those four corners, so the room she stood in was mostly dark. She stared at the empty room, annoyed. How were she and her partner supposed to dance if there was no music and if she couldn't see a thing? She turned to ask the servant who had escorted her what was really going on, but the servant had left long ago.

She stood there, in the dark, waiting for someone to come back into the room. She really hadn't counted on winning, much less considered dancing with a man she'd never met before, but what was she to do now? Leave and defy the lord of the land she lived in? No. It would be the same as telling him she, Kikyou, had lied about her identity and won a beauty contest to dance with is son. All she could do now was stay and get everything over with.

While waiting, she thought about a certain fourteen-year-old girl with short brown hair and big hazel eyes. Kaori was a strange girl and the most persuasive person Kikyou had ever met. That girl had managed to get Kikyou to accompany her to the festival, enter a beauty contest and convinced her not to "miss the chance of meeting a rich guy." Sighing, Kikyou wondered whether she was indeed a gullible person when it came to children.

She was interrupted from her newfound knowledge when she heard the sliding door reopen. She couldn't distinguish clearly the two silhouettes that entered the room and were standing (more or less) ten feet from her, but she assumed the shorter person was a girl while the taller figure was a man.

"Lord Tomonori, I present to you the winner of the beauty contest, Miss Ayumi," announced the maid, her voice bouncing off the walls of the room. The man simply nodded his head. "Miss Ayumi, I present to you the eldest son of Lord Kusakabe, Lord Tomonori," she said. Kikyou bowed, wondering if it was even necessary since she doubted they could see her. "Lord Kusakabe will be here shortly to welcome you properly Miss Ayumi," said the girl, and she walked away swiftly, closing the sliding door behind her.

For a moment they simply stood there, neither making a move. 'Oh no! Lord Kusakabe will surely recognize me! He personally asked me to guard the jewel!' thought Kikyou, suddenly terrified of reuniting with her 'boss'. She stared at the wooden floor, trying hard not to fulfill the sudden urge of running away. Closing her eyes, she cleared her mind, and thought of all the positive things...which was extremely hard since she couldn't think of any.

"Uh...you do know how to dance right?"

Kikyou's head slowly raised to look at Tomonori. For a moment, she thought the voice had sounded familiar...like...She shook her head to rid her mind of the silly idea and smiled. She was just thinking crazy now. Inuyasha would never enter this castle, and she doubted anyone would let him anyway. But her mind hatched up another idea. Since the room was so dark, perhaps she could disguise her voice! Then Lord Kusakabe might not recognize her!

"No? Yet you still entered the contest knowing you have to dance?"

Kikyou looked puzzled for a moment, wondering if she had responded to his earlier question. Then she said, in an attempted imitation of Kaori's squeal-like voice, "Yes..." and the word echoed eerily throughout the room.

She was sure she had seen his shoulders twitch, as if he was terrified of her voice, and she accidentally let out a giggle but silenced it quickly by putting a hand over her mouth.

She heard the sliding door open and watched as Lord Kusakabe walked in. "My, it's dark in here!" he cried. "My apologies, Miss Ayumi, but we really couldn't afford more oil lamps or candles for this ballroom."

Tomonori snorted and both she and the lord stared at him. "Yeah...we apologize," he said after a while.

"It's alright," said Kikyou in her squeaky voice. "Thank you for allowing me to be present at your castle tonight." She pursed her lips. Was that too prudent?

"Uh, well, thank you for your discreetness Miss Ayumi. Now, if you and my son will just wait for the orchestra to start playing, you can start dancing!" he said cheerily. He headed for the exit and paused a moment to look at his son. "I told you those herbs would help you grow taller."

His son snorted again and walked to stand next to him. He whispered something to his ear, to which Lord Kusakabe responded, "She's not here yet. I thought you said you'd wait until a servant comes to tell you she's here when you're in your room." Tomonori seemed startled for a bit and whispered something else to his father. "Fine, I'll tell the maid you'll be here all night." And then Lord Kusakabe left.

Kikyou could feel her heartbeat gradually slow down after it was beating incessantly in her chest in fear of being discovered.

Almost instantly she heard a clash of strange noises coming from the other side of a wall.

"Well, that's the music," said Tomonori as he walked straight to her. He stopped suddenly and stretched out his hand. "Give me your hand."

Kikyou hesitated, but extended her hand for him to take. He pulled her to him, almost roughly, and put one hand on her waist and with the other held her right hand.

"Put your other hand on my shoulder," he ordered.

She silently obeyed him, waiting for the next set of instructions. Still, the sudden act of physical contact unnerved some.

"Just follow my lead," he grumbled indifferently and moved his foot back in tune with the strange music.

The miko, eager to get everything over with, started to move her foot forward, but the Lord Tomonori had suddenly shifted to the side, causing her to crash straight into him.

"Dammit! I thought I told you to follow my lead!" he screamed, which in other circumstances, she wouldn't have minded, except he was screaming straight into her ear.

"I apologize, my lord," she mumbled, trying to hide the irritation in her voice.

Tomonori merely grunted and again he pulled her toward him as he stepped back once more. Their awkward dance had not lasted five seconds when Tomonori stepped on her foot. "Dammit, woman! Show a little bit of grace, will you?" he yelled into her ear again.

"But you stepped on my foot," reasoned Kikyou, to which the angry lord responded, "Only because your a clumsy fool!" Kikyou sighed; realizing it would be useless and unwise to keep arguing. 'This will be a long night...' she thought miserably as Tomonori found yet another reason to yell at her.

-

Inuyasha was glad those hours forced to attend social parties in his childhood years were finally paying off. While he had forgotten all of the "manners" his mother had tried to teach him, he hadn't forgotten the long, boring dances his mother and he attended. In those types of social events, people from far and near attended merely to represent their province and make treaties with neighboring countries. Inuyasha had always found them boring however, and could always be found pouting in a corner of the ballroom or pouting outside.

The times he spent pouting inside, he, out of sheer boredom, had observed and memorized the different ways foreigners had danced. The most intriguing, however, were the westerners. They danced very closely together, and the man was in complete control of the dance. They called it, he remembered, a waltz.

If this girl was to be seen dancing a waltz with him, she might as well know the basic principles before going out in public.

But he was not a very patient person, and his attempts to teach her the steps quickly served to no avail, because no matter what he did, he would either step on her foot or they would painfully bump into each other. It was bad enough every part of his body felt weak, but to have this clumsy woman (Ayumi, was it?) slam into him was sheer torture in his vulnerable state.

"Don't be so stiff girl!" he bellowed, and even through the layers of robes on him he could feel the sharp fingernails of the girl torturously dig into his shoulder as she mumbled an apology.

He bit back a moan of pain and continued dancing with her, pulling her this way and that way, leading her into the melody of the loud music playing in the next room.

Sooner than expected, he and she were placidly dancing around the dark room, and for the first time since he entered the room, he had curiosity as to how the girl's physical features were. What color was her hair? Her eyes? Was she really the most beautiful eligible woman tonight? Somehow, he doubted it. He was sure not everyone was able to attend, like Kikyou for instance. If she had entered the contest, she would surely be dancing with him at this instant. Hmm...A dance with Kikyou, eh?

If it were Kikyou dancing with him tonight, he would be much gentler, lest she unleash her wrath upon him by stabbing him with an arrow. She would probably never scream at him, or complain, but her stares were more intense than her words. He didn't know how she did it, talk to him without saying a word. He could talk for hours and hours to her and she would say nothing, just listen to him. At first he couldn't tell if she was just too shy to talk to him, then he figured she was simply bored of his constant blabs but was being nice by pretending to listen. In the end, he figured she was just real quiet, otherwise she wouldn't keep going back to meet him at night.

So, knowing the kind of girl the miko was, he knew she would never attend any sort of festivity, much less enter a beauty contest. That was just one of the many things that would never happen.

The seven hells had to freeze over first.

Then again, who would have ever thought she was engaged?

"Hey, did you really want to dance with me tonight?" he suddenly asked out of the blue.

The girl didn't look up at him, but looked to the side, and all he saw was her shadowed face. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"I mean, why else would you have entered the contest?"

She didn't say anything for a long time and continued to look to the side, seemingly musing over his question. "I wasn't planning on winning," she finally said.

Inuyasha looked hard at her. "You know how you look, so you must've had a pretty good idea about your chances," he explained, suddenly sensing she was hiding something. "If you were judged on your beauty, you must've known you'd have a good chance, considering you won," he continued. "Where you thinking of getting somewhere with me tonight?"

He knew he had disturbed her thoughts when she sharply faced him and pushed him back slowly. "Nothing like that had run through my mind."

"Does that mean you wouldn't sleep with me?"

At that, the girl pulled her hands off of him and stepped back. "I'm sorry my lord, but I'm not that kind of girl."

Inuyasha looked at her silhouette indifferently. He hadn't meant it like that. 'Tomonori wouldn't have gotten very far with her then, unless she's just putting up this act of an innocent girl,' he thought. "Look, I don't care. I just—"

Before he could finish his sentence and assure Ayumi that he didn't mean to suggest she should sleep with him, the sliding door opened. "Lord Tomonori, excuse me, but..."

It took a while for Inuyasha to figure out it was he whom the maid was talking to. "Oh...what?"

"She's here."

That was all she had to say. He knew exactly whom she was talking about. "Okay," he said, and the maid closed the sliding door again. He turned to look at Ayumi's outline.

"Uh, you know how to dance now so we have to go and introduce ourselves," he said hastily, hoping she wouldn't ask him any questions.

He grabbed her by the wrist and walked with long strides to the sliding door, dragging Ayumi behind him. He heard her tell him to wait, or something similar, but he was too busy trying to figure out what he'd do when he saw her.

After walking down the dark hall for a few seconds, a large amount of voices started to drown out the music, and they grew louder as he came upon a long, velvet curtain. Without thinking twice, he grabbed the bottom of the curtain and pulled it up, and stepped into the party.

The sudden presence of light pained his eyes and he squinted as he tried to make out the enormous room he'd just stepped into. He looked back at Ayumi and saw that she was still on the other side of the curtain, so he pulled her violently onto the scene. As soon as his eyes started to adjust to the light, he saw hundreds of people in the enormous room. On one corner of the room, opposite to where he was standing, the orchestra was playing a fast, almost fun, melody, and many of the western foreigners were happily dancing all over the dance floor. There were long tables with chairs, and on the tables were endless amounts of delicious-smelling food. Inuyasha scanned the room many times, but there were way too many people to quickly find the one person he was looking for. He never regretted not having his powerful sense of smell as much as he did that night.

He would have probably stood there all night if he hadn't noticed people were starting to stare at him. "C'mon..." he commanded as he walked to the dance floor, not once looking back at the girl he had imprisoned by the wrist.

Inuyasha pulled the girl close to him, looking at everything and everyone in the room except Ayumi. "Dammit...where are you?" he mumbled angrily.

For some minutes he danced placidly with Ayumi, but he never paid much attention to her, being too busy looking for a certain miko that was supposed to be there. He did notice a sudden dampness in the hand that was holding Ayumi's, but he figured she was just nervous for being seen dancing with a prince. However, a sudden gasp from the girl forced him to look at her.

And he couldn't believe his eyes.

End of Scroll Fourteen

Reasons why this ends in a cliffhanger:

1. I feel bad for not updating in so long.

2. None of you guessed correctly to what's happening (not that I want you to, though...I want to surprise you!)

3. I have run into writer's block once again.

4. I'm still revising scroll two of this story. (I will not post any of the revised scrolls until I'm satisfied with all of them.)

Yup. Pretty lame excuses, but they're the truth. I swear I'll update as soon as I find time and ideas.

Adios!

And please, no more death threats.