Chapter Five: Hall-Searching (Or, The Parody That Would Not End)
"Sesshoumaru? Hey, Sesshoumaru! You around here?" Kagome rounded the corner and peered along the empty hallway. The others were still searching the first story, and the upstairs halls seemed curiously quiet and empty. The girl peered at the doors along the walls.
"Let's see… Literature, World History, Advanced Math… I guess the universe doesn't care much about these classes. And Sesshoumaru's probably not here."
A strange noise drifted toward her from one of the unused classrooms down the hall; feeling a bit silly, Kagome tiptoed over and peered inside. Then she screamed. Sesshoumaru, impeccably dressed in a dark suit, seemed to be playing tonsil hockey with a girl, who was not-so-impeccably dressed in a black tube top and miniskirt. They both whirled to face Kagome at the sound of her scream. The girl caught a glimpse of Sesshoumaru's partner's face and screamed louder.
"Oh my God! Rin! Oh, eww, that is so nasty! Oh, God, my eyes! Nasty eww!"
"It's okay!" Rin yelled, as Sesshoumaru wiped lipstick from his face with a handkerchief. "I'm eighteen! I'm legal!"
"Oh, eww…" moaned Kagome, leaning against the wall. After a few deep breaths, she opened her eyes again, tried not to imagine Rin as the little girl she knew, and turned to Sesshoumaru.
"Okay, you're a teacher, so this will get you fired. However, I might be less likely to tell anyone if I got, I don't know, a pad of Hall Passes and the keys to every door in the school. What do you say?"
The obviously false Sesshoumaru grabbed the pad and keys from his desk, gracefully handed them to Kagome, and pushed her into the hallway. "You saw nothing," he announced before slamming the door in her face.
Kagome stared at the wood for a few minutes before backing away. "Okay, Kagome, calm down. They're not the real Sesshoumaru and Rin. Mental bleach, Kagome." After a few moments, the girl reopened her eyes, calmer and ready to continue her search.
"Well, he's obviously not around here," she muttered, continuing her muttered conversation with herself. Where would he be? Um… I'll try the gym. Maybe he's beating someone at sports or something." She paused briefly. "Oh, eww! I'll never manage to scrub that image from my retinas!"
"Sesshoumaru," Kikyou said blankly, peering into the open classroom. She paused and listened for a reply. When one was not forthcoming, the priestess closed the door and moved on to the next room to try again. "Sesshoumaru."
A few doors down the hall, the dead priestess finally received a reply, though not from her intended target. The door she'd opened had been a supply closet, and the two people she'd found inside were certainly not Sesshoumaru.
"Kikyou?" a black-clad Kagome asked in surprise, trying to untangle herself from a similarly dressed Inu-yasha. "What are you doing here? You're not supposed to attack our relationship until much later!"
"Oh, is that so?" Kikyou asked emotionlessly, examining the scene before her. Kagome's clothing chains had apparently become entangled in Inu-yasha's clothing chains, tying the two together. They had been sitting on the floor of the closet when Kikyou had opened it; the two were currently trying and failing to struggle to their feet.
"Yes, it's so," answered the false Kagome. "Right now we're still in the 'hating each other' stage. We've ended up in this closet through a series of hilarious misunderstandings, and of course he wound up on top of me when we innocently fell over. Romance is happening! We need this time, without your interruptions, to build our fragile relationship."
"I see," said Kikyou. She knew, of course, that the logical choice would have been to just leave the two; not only was the scene painful for her to watch, it was also rather nauseating. But some kind of morbid curiosity dragged her onward. "I find that civilized people tend to begin a relationship by talking with each other."
The couple on the closet floor burst out laughing. "Talking?" asked Inu-yasha. "What kind of romance has two people who can actually stand to talk with each other?"
"Then I'll leave you to your closet," the priestess said, closing the door with just enough force to send a shelf of boxes crashing down onto their heads. Leaning against the door for a moment and listening to the bickering from inside, her eyes took on an almost sad expression. Then she straightened up, face once again cool, and kicked the closet, listening with satisfaction to the sound of the final box meeting skull.
Cautiously, with the expression and bearing of a rabbit being hunted, Kouga poked his head out of the classroom door. The coast was blessedly clear and the wolf sighed with relief. Behind him, the teacher cleared his throat.
"Mr. Wolf, do you mind? I am trying to teach chemistry in here."
Kouga turned around to see the entire class staring at him n boredom. "Oh," he said to the tiny, trembling man who'd spoken. "Sorry about that. I'm leaving now."
"Yes, yes. Very well. It's not like I have any real power anyway," the teacher muttered, more to himself than Kouga. He sighed, and then flinched violently when a false Kagome called out from behind him.
"Hey, Mr. Myouga!"
"Oh, no," he muttered again, face almost frenzied. In spite of himself, Kouga felt sorry for the man. "I took my eyes off Kagome. When will I learn?"
"Mr. Myouga, I think I may have mixed the chemicals you told us not to…" the girl called gleefully. Silence briefly blanketed the classroom, and then cacophonous noise blossomed outward from Kagome's table. Following his instinct, Kouga dove for the door and managed to get out at the same time Myouga and the rest of the class hid beneath whatever they could find. An explosion rocked the classroom.
Breathing heavily, Kouga could hear a voice shout from inside the room, "Oh, man! We just blatantly disregarded safety procedures and disobeyed the direct orders of an authority figure that knows far more about chemistry than we do, resulting in a violent explosion, which could have caused untold harm to others and ourselves! We're so cool!"
Shaking his head to clear it, Kouga glanced around the hallway. The ringing in his ears would probably take a while to subside, but his vision was fine, and the hallway was free of Ayame, who'd caused him to escape into the classroom in the first place. He sighed and continued his search. He'd never find Sesshoumaru at this pace.
"How dare you say that! I'll kick your ass!"
"Another fight?" Kouga muttered to himself. Already he'd had to shove through three Kikyou-Kagome fights, one Inu-yasha-Houjo, one Miroku-Sango, though it had been rather one-sided, and one random melee. "I thought Kagome said this was a place for learning."
The wolf rounded the corner, and was surprised to see his clone fighting with an Inu-yasha clone. He was even more surprised to see his clone faring terribly, unable to land even a single punch.
"This," the false Inu-yasha yelled, punching out at the Kouga-clone, "is for Kagome!" He struck again. "This is for calling me a worthless half-breed!" Another punch. "This is for stealing Kikyou!" He grabbed the unfortunate Kouga by the collar of his polo shirt and nailed him in the face with a vicious uppercut. "And this is for killing my mother!"
"But I didn't kill your mother," the false Kouga spluttered out. Inu-yasha dropkicked him.
"Shut up! Maybe now you stupid preps won't mess with us punks anymore!'
He stormed off, muttering expletives to himself, leaving the false Kouga lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood. From his vantage point, the real Kouga finally managed to close his gaping mouth and step forward. The wolf pulled his doppelganger up, shaking his head in disbelief, and shook the boy until he came to.
"I don't want to go to school, Mommy…" he moaned.
"Shut up," said Kouga, giving him one more good shake before setting him down. His clone, still dazed and clutching his face, took a moment to examine Kouga's black clothing.
"Oh, no… Not you, too."
"I said shut up! You're pathetic and a disgrace to my name! You're going to learn how to fight!"
"Kouga," Inu-yasha growled, heading for the black-clad wolf demon at the other end of the hallway. Whatever the wolf was up to, it couldn't be good.
"You're supposed to be searching the other hallways, you mangy wolf!"
Kouga turned to him eyes widening in surprise. Too late Inu-yasha realized that his face was littered with piercings; this was a false Kouga. The wolf raised a thrice-pierced eyebrow.
"Are you okay, Yash?"
The half-demon snorted. "Why do you care?"
"Um… because we're friends? Yash, are you okay? You turned white!"
"Fr-frie-friends? Are you insane!"
"Yeah, friendly rivals. Why wouldn't we be friends?"
"Ka-Kagome!"
The false Kouga gave him a strange look, which didn't come close to comparing with the complete shock and terror on Inu-yasha's face. "Your girlfriend, Yash? Why would we fight about her? I'm perfectly happy with Ayame, and have no interest whatsoever in attacking your relationship with Kagome, whom I respect greatly as a person. Therefore, I can be one of the 'good' characters."
Inu-yasha stared at him blankly, lips moving silently. Finally he said, "You don't want to take Kagome?"
Kouga nodded.
"You're sure?"
Another nod.
"Why don't you come with me for a minute?" Practically dragging the Kouga down the hall and toward the designated meeting spot, Inu-yasha had to stop short to avoid running into Ayame and Kagome.
"Hey, Yash," the false Ayame said, smiling at him. Her skintight green shirt, whose artful rips Inu-yasha was trying to tear his eyes away from, read "wolf," and she wore a wolf pendant and green and black plaid mini-skirt. Her face, the half-demon soon found, was no better to look at; she wore black lipstick, green eye shadow, and various other products.
"Hey, Inu!" the false Kagome laughed, "I'm over here! Aren't you gonna say hi?" She waved a hand in front of his dazed face.
"Um, yeah, hi Kagome."
"That's better. Hey, what do you say to ditching school and hanging out at the skate park?"
Inu-yasha, reluctant to lose the false Kouga but sick of dealing with various girlfriends, began to subtly back away. "Actually, I need to stay after school for…" he thought wildly, "a prank I'm pulling. Yeah, a big prank."
(a/n: omg, I forgot 2 say wat kagoem was wearing!)
"Oh God, no," Inu-yasha muttered, eye twitching.
(a/n: so she had on a tight balck tee with…)
"And so I dumped my soda in his lap, and I punched him in the face, and I told that (censored) off! Can you believe what a (censored) he is?"
Sango, who had been nodding along, realized that an answer was required. "Um, no, no, I can't."
The false Kagome punched the air to illustrate her point. "I know! That (censored) Inu-yasha is such a (censored) player! He thought he could say hi to me!"
"That did take some nerve," Miroku encouraged, careful to maintain his distance from the false Kagome. "Now, we were wondering if you might know where Sesshoumaru is."
"Sesshoumaru?" Kagome punched in a locker door in disgust. "He's so (censored) full of himself, thinks he's such a player and popular and all. Almost as bad as that (censored) Inu-yasha. Did I tell you—"
"Yes, but about Sesshoumaru," Sango interrupted. "Do you happen to know where he is right now?"
"Probably surrounded by his group of idiotic followers. God, I hate him. And Inu-yasha. The other day, he said I was pretty! Pretty! Well, of course I beat the crap out of him—"
She abruptly stopped walking; beside her, Miroku and Sango shared weary looks. Approaching them from the other end of the hallway was what looked to be an Inu-yasha. This one, unlike the others they'd seen, wore jeans, a red polo shirt, a red bandana, and an expression they'd never seen on Inu-yasha before. As the boy drew closer, Sango realized that he looked the way Miroku would probably look if women actually took him up on his offer.
"Hello, Kagome, Sango," the false Inu-yasha said, grinning at them both, and Sango began to understand the false Kagome's urges to punch him. Beside her, the Kagome was shaking.
"Damn sexy son of a (censored)," she muttered under her breath before shooting him a fairly unimpressive, at least in Sango's opinion, death glare. "What the hell do you want?"
"Nothing at all. I was just passing through here before I meet my girlfriend, Kikyou."
"What, do you think mentioning that (censored) bitch-whore (censored) (censored) skanky girlfriend of yours will make me jealous!" Kagome roared, socking him in the stomach. He wheezed out a smug laugh.
"You know, Kagome," he continued after regaining his breath, "You always act like this. You never let any guys get near you, and you wear that baggy black clothing—somehow we all know you've got a gorgeous figure, never figured out how—and your only friend is Sango. Could you possibly be a lesbian?"
"How dare you call me a (censored) lesbian!"
Their conversation was cut short when a voice, which sounded like Inu-yasha's, could be heard screaming from across the school. "No, I'm not okay! I just thought the words SEX BRACELETS!"
In the silence that followed, Sango hoisted the false Inu-yasha into the air with one hand and yelled, "Where's Sesshoumaru? Now!"
"In the gym. Have I told you that you look lovely today?"
Kikyou pulled open another door, called Sesshoumaru's name, and was once again disappointed. The priestess continued her march down the hallway, pausing at the sight of a false Inu-yasha standing alone in the hallway, apparently lost in thought.
"Damn, she's sexy when she's angry," he mused to himself; Kikyou all but rolled her eyes. Unaware of her presence, the boy continued. "And those punk clothes look really hot on her. Wait, what am I saying? I'm a prep! I can't fall in love with a punk! Besides, I'm dating Kikyou! Actually, Kagome's a lot hotter than Kikyou…"
At that point Kikyou did roll her eyes and resumed her search. As she didn't want to become distracted form her current mission, and was already depressed enough, the dead priestess chose not to reflect upon the way she may well have been the only one she knew with any character depth.
Her hallways, Kagura was rather relieved to find out, were fairly quiet and blessedly free of people. She walked past row after row of lockers, opening doors and looking for Sesshoumaru. Although several boys did proposition her, at the end of the first hallway the wind sorceress was no closer to finding the demon lord.
"Hey, is Sesshoumaru in here?" she asked, pulling open another door. A girl who resembled Sango looked up from where she'd been strangling a purple-faced boy who looked similar to Miroku.
"Nope, sorry. I don't think he's in this hallway."
Behind her, a girl Kagura didn't recognize returned to stomping on the boy's stomach with her steel-tipped combat boots. "Yeah," she added, brushing her red-streaked hair from her face, "My boyfriend Sesshy's a year ahead of us."
Kagura raised an eyebrow. "Sesshy?"
"Uh huh."
The boy, purple polo shirt stained with blood, reached a trembling hand toward Kagura. "Please… it hurts… just kill me…"
"Shut up!" the other girl yelled, kicking him again. Kagura smirked and shut the door.
A ruckus from down the hall drew her attention; she turned to see two girls preparing to fight. Upon realizing that they were another pair of Kikyou-Kagome clones, the sorceress rolled her eyes.
"Give back my Inu-baby!" the Kikyou-clone screamed at the Kagome.
"It's too late, preppy. He's left your cheap ass and joined the punks."
Kagura walked over to the sidelines of the fight, where one of her own clones was waiting with a short, white-haired girl who proved upon closer inspection to be Kanna. Surprisingly enough, she found herself not bothering to examine their clothing in detail.
"They do this often?" she asked her clone.
"All the time," the girl replied, sighing.
In front of them, the fight had escalated to scratching and hair-pulling.
"Do you know why they call me Kikyou? Because I'm gonna Kikyou ass, bitch!"
"Do you know why they call me Kagome? Because… shut up, that's why!"
Kagura turned to her doppelganger, who had become engaged in painting her nails. "Hey, why does Kikyou look like that?"
"You mean similar to Kagome but hideously ugly?"
"Yeah."
"To show very clearly which is the right choice for Inu-yasha to make," the clone explained, moving on to applying eye shadow.
The wind sorceress sighed and stuck out her leg, tripping the combatants. "Men are assholes."
The false Kagura glanced around before surreptitiously slipping a business card into Kagura's hand. "Yeah. Come to this address sometime tonight. It's Tsubaki's… special bar. Girls only. Tell them Kagura sent you, and don't breathe a word of this to anyone." At the sound of screaming from in front of her, the girl rushed to free Kikyou from Kagome's stranglehold and reassure her of her superiority.
The hallway finally clear, the real Kagura walked past, rolling her eyes as Kagome spat out expletives. Her doppelganger winked at her before returning to tending Kikyou's wounds.
The next hallway, Kagura soon found, was blocked by a different fight; Inu-yasha and Kouga were squaring off. The wind sorceress felt her eye beginning to twitch.
"To hell with this," she muttered, and then bellowed, "SESSHOUMARU!" at the top of her lungs. When no answer was forthcoming, she shoved her way through the surprised pair of fighters and headed back to the designated meeting place, staring curiously at the business card in her hand.
"So what if he comes at you like this?" Kouga yelled, lunging toward his terrified doppelganger, fists clenched.
"Dodge to the side like this!" the clone squeaked.
"And then?"
"Um…" the clone mused, scratching his head. Kouga sighed and shook his head in disappointment. He'd been teaching the thing his best moves and it still— The wolf, shaken from his thoughts, managed to dodge just in time, the clone's punch flying harmlessly past his head.
"Good job! Catch him off-guard and don't let him know what you're thinking. I think we're ready to fight the mutt again and avenge my honor."
Grabbing his clone's arm and dragging him from the empty classroom they'd been using to practice, Kouga pulled the unresisting Kouga along. "Inu-yasha!" he called, voice echoing through the hallway. "Inu-yasha!"
A boy, white hair held back by a red bandana from which dog ears protruded, poked his head out of a classroom door. "What the hell do you want?"
Kouga grabbed the false Inu-yasha's arm to pull him from the classroom, and had to duck to avoid the boy's first swing. "Hey, save it for him," the wolf muttered, pushing his captive toward his clone. This was all that was needed to set the two off, and they lunged for each other, spewing expletives. Kouga sighed contentedly and leaned against a wall to watch the fight.
Although luck was definitely on Inu-yasha's side, and he got in several hits purely by chance, the tide of battle slowly turned, and the false Kouga drew closer to victory. By now a crowd had formed around the two and began chanting the word "fight."
And then, because—as with Miroku—there are some things that cannot be changed no matter where in the multiverse you travel, a high and feminine voice could be heard screeching Inu-yasha's name at the top of its lungs. Kouga whirled around to see a punk Kagome heading for the battle at high speed. At that moment, a cheer rose up from the crowd as the false Kouga finally knocked out the false and bloody Inu-yasha.
"INU-YASHA!" Kagome screamed. Both Kougas ran to her side, the clone grabbing her hands and gazing into her eyes.
"Don't worry, Kagome," he began, "I'm here now. I think that you're extraordinarily hot, despite being a punkette, and now that I've defeated that disgusting half-breed we can finally be together. You belong to me now. You are my girlfriend, my woman, my goods, my chattel…"
"I'M NO ONE'S PROPERTY!" screamed Kagome, turning several shades of angry red. Before she could do anything, however, the false Kouga was violently pulled away from her punched in the stomach, and sent flying across the hall by an irate wolf demon. That being done, he turned beseechingly to her.
"Kagome, I respect you, and when I say you're my woman I don't mean it in the sense that you're my property—"
"You asshole!" the girl screamed, eyes glowing red and cat ears sprouting from her head. "So, you hate hanyous? Guess what? I am one! And you just broke my concealment spell!"
Kouga scratched his head, utterly baffled. "Wait, what now?"
"When my true love's archrival defeats him in battle on the third Tuesday of March between the hours of nine and eleven, the spell will be broken and my true form will be revealed! And he," she pointed accusingly at the groaning Kouga lying a heap at the end of the hallway, "called me his property! So now I'm going to go into a demon rage and destroy the building in a fiery explosion!"
"Don't you think you're overreacting a little bit?"
"Shut up, you (censored)(censored)!"
The crowds had mostly dissipated at this point, leaving the hallway quiet enough for the two to hear a weak cough from behind them. "Ka…Kagome?" the false Inu-yasha managed to gasp out.
The girl was at his side in an instant. "Inu-yasha! Inu-yasha! Can you hear me?"
"Kagome… You're a hanyou… like me."
"Yes. I'm sorry I kept it from you, but people are trying to exterminate me for being different from them."
"You look beautiful. I know we've only known each other three days, but I love you."
"I love you, too. I'm going to use my healing power to keep you from dying."
"But when you do that, you absorb my pain and it hurts you terribly."
"I have to. When my whole family was slaughtered, I couldn't help them. But now I can help you, Inu-yasha."
"Okay… But what about that Kouga person who was here?"
Both teenagers turned to look behind them, but the hallway was empty and silent.
Kouga finally stopped to catch his breath a few minutes later. He hadn't run, as such, he told himself. Rather, Sesshoumaru was obviously not there, so it just made sense for him to leave the area. The wolf glanced around at the doors and lockers in his current hallway; he was fairly sure he'd be able to find his way to the meeting place from there.
At that point, Kouga's senses detected three stimuli simultaneously: a flash of red hair, the scent of an iris, and a female shriek that nearly burst his eardrums.
"Kouga, so there you are! I was so worried about what happened to you! I'd heard there was a fight, and…"
"Oh, crap," the wolf muttered to himself, preparing his legs to run again.
This room, Sango decided the instant she stepped inside, was not a pleasant one. The first thing she noticed was the noise. Or, more specifically, the deafening roars produced by the masses of students. The next thing she noticed was the weapons flying through the air; an arrow nearly took her ear off. The final thing was the room's sheer size; at least five medium-sized huts could fit in it. It was open as well, offering no protection in case of attack.
"I don't like this 'gym' at all, Miroku," muttered Sango, hand flying reflexively to where Hiraikotsu would normally be on her back.
The monk dodged a flying weapon that bore a strong resemblance to the aforementioned Hiraikotsu. "Look at that," he muttered, pointing around the gym. "They're offering training in fighting with bows, boomerangs, swords, and staves. Exactly the weapons our group carries. Interesting."
"Stupid is what it is," muttered Sango. "Those are real arrows and real swords they're using. To train obvious novices! Are they trying to get someone killed?"
A sudden hush fell over the gym, causing the already-suspicious demon slayer to spin around, evaluating the area for threats. Beside her, Miroku sighed.
"A sudden silence. I hate those. You know something is going to happen now to waste our time."
A voice rang throughout the gym. "Everyone! Kinky ho, ahem, I mean Kikyou, has just challenged me to an archery competition to decide who's best, once and for all! I expect everyone to maintain a reverent silence during the contest! Cease all subplots!"
Miroku and Sango stared at each other for a moment before rolling their eyes in unison. "I do not need this right now," whispered Sango. "Let's keep looking for Sesshoumaru."
The pair walked across the eerily silent and motionless gym, being careful not to draw too much attention to themselves. Off to their side, arrows could barely be heard whizzing through the air. A few minutes later, the gym returned to life as Kagome's screams of victory could be heard, and Sango and Miroku once again found themselves having to push through the crowds of people.
Finally they reached the other end of the room, eyes still peeled for any sign of Sesshoumaru.
"It looks like they're having sword practice here, Sango," said Miroku. "This is where he would probably be… Right there!" The monk pointed over toward a sparring pair of boys. As they watched, one smacked the other backwards with the flat of his blade and held the sword's tip at the opponent's throat.
"Surrender, Inu-yasha."
"(Censored!)"
The monk and demon slayer hurried over to where the false Sesshoumaru was waiting for a new challenger. He barely spared them a glance before turning away in disgust.
"Hey, Sesshoumaru!" Sango said. "Do you remember anything about Feudal Japan?"
"Only what they've taught us in history class," he replied with distaste. "Although this is obviously an American high school, we have spent a great deal of time covering Japan in history class. Most of our learning has been centered around the Shikon Jewel, but we've also covered demons and 'The Legend of the Hanyou and the Miko.' These being, of course, the only truly important parts of Japanese history. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm waiting for Kagome to challenge me, so she can defeat me in combat, thus forcing me to become utterly obsessed with making her my girlfriend. What is it at which you two are staring?"
"False?" Sango gasped out.
"False," confirmed Miroku, and the two turned and headed for the door with identical shocked expressions. All of the clones were disturbing, but Sesshoumaru's was simply wrong in some indescribable way. As the pair neared the doorway, Kagome entered the gym, looking around wonderingly.
"Hey, Sango, Miroku. I finished up my halls. Why do all those students have edged weapons?" Two shrugs were her only reply. "Um, okay. Did you find Sesshoumaru?"
Sango and Miroku exchanged glances. "No."
"Hey, Kikyou? Kikyou!" Kagome poked her head into the library, coughing a bit from the dust in the air. Unlike the rest of the school, this room was faded and blurred in several drab shades of gray. Still wearing her black outfit, the undead priestess was a slightly darker spot on one of the ancient couches.
"Kikyou, you have to come with me. Everyone's back together and no one found Sesshoumaru. We're leaving."
Kikyou calmly closed her book and got to her feet, walking out the door and past Kagome without a second glance in her direction. The girl pouted for a moment before running to catch up.
"So, did you search?"
"Yes."
"Have any fun?"
"Three attempts were made on my life."
"Oh…" Kagome thought for a moment, her well of conversation momentarily run dry. "What were you reading?"
"Poetry."
"What kind of—," the girl stopped as they turned the corner and shook her head. Kikyou said nothing, although her expression very clearly communicated her disdain for the entire affair. Kagome finally clapped her hands and began yelling. "Oh, for the love of… Inu-yasha, Kouga, act your ages! Miroku, apologize to her! We need to work together now!"
The assembled males, staring guiltily at the tiled floor, mumbled their apologies. Kagome nodded, placated.
"Okay. What should we do now?"
Miroku tentatively spoke up, gaze shifting back and forth from Sango to Kagome. "I think the only option available to us now is to get back into the car and search for Sesshoumaru somewhere else." He held up his hands as the rest of the group began moaning. "I don't want to, either, but what else can we do?"
"Okay. Are there any other ideas?" Kagome asked, still on edge. Inu-yasha considered protesting her taking command of the situation, but took one look at her face and thought better of it. No one responded.
The schoolgirl sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, then. Let's head back to the car, why don't we? This will just be peachy."