Prejudice

Written By: France Gamble

Chapter Twelve

He shoved forward pushing the hanyou away from him. His arm hurt, a lot; looking at his left paw he could see the blood trailing from a wound hidden underneath his shinny coat. Yes, that is going to take a long time to heal…well, a lot time for him. He jumped out of the way again as another tendril of some sort of octopus kind of leg came out at him. This was getting redundant, and every time he cut one of Naraku's tendril things it grew back. He needed to go for the head. He had to stop this and save his little brother.

"Sesshomaru, you have no spirit left. Give up!" the evil bastard said to him. His words enraged the youkai.

"Shut up and fight!" Sesshomaru yelled back. His white fur flowed behind him as he lunged forward for another attack. His claws slashing at a few of the tendrils again, before finally hitting his mark; his left paw went right through the hanyou's throat. "Die."

Naraku started laughing. "I don't die so easily," he gloated.

"Let's see about that," the older youkai pulled his paw up, slashing right through the guys head. Pulling his paw out and jumping back to stand about ten feet away from the kidnapper, he continued, "Regenerate that."

Naraku gurgled something, then fell forward. His body became a normal looking youkai's or humans. Blood seeped from various wounds Sesshomaru knew he didn't inflict upon him.

He quickly turned back into his human looking form. Grabbing his arm, he turned away from the dead corpse, and walked into the building. His eyes adjusted immediately as he stepped into the warehouse. "InuYasha?" he asked out loud as he scanned the box ridden building.

A small moan caught his attention and he turned a corner to see his brother tied to a chair with a cloth over his face. From where he stood he could smell the chloride coming from the material. It was a small amount, not enough to knock a human out, but easily put a very sensitive nosed youkai, or in this case hanyou, out into unconscious land. 'So his wounds aren't what are keeping him under,' Sesshomaru thought as he walked to his brother. "InuYasha, are you awake under there?" the older brother asked as he pulled the cloth away from his brother's head. No, the hanyou was out and dreaming. Nothing could ever be easy, could it? He looked down at his arm, bleeding slight still, knowing that if he carried his brother with one arm it would be uncomfortable. "InuYasha, wake your lazy ass up!" he screamed at his brother.

"He won't…" a voice said behind him. He turned around to see a human standing next to a huge crate a few feet away. It wasn't the human that got his attention though; it was the amount of explosives strapped to the human.

"Now don't be rash," he said tensely as he walked forward towards the said human. "I think you should calm down, and think about this. Do you really want to kill yourself for some lowly youkai?"

"I didn't put this on me," the human said. "He did. I can't take it off…"

Sesshomaru understood immediately what had happened. Naraku had over powered the human and had strapped the bomb to him. Obviously Naraku knew he wouldn't survive the battle between him and Sesshomaru, so he was going to take all his cookies in one box. Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat he scanned the room for something to use to remove the bomb from the human.

The boy let a tear slide down his face. "He said that I could have her, and so I helped him. I don't want to die. I just wanted her." He was going to go into hysterics soon, it was obvious.

Sesshomaru saw nothing that would be used to dislodge the bomb safely from the boy, but did notice something new about his surroundings. They were in a fireworks warehouse. "Oh you've got to be kidding me," he whispered as he read the Chinese words on the side of the crates. "Figures."

He went back to his brother and lifted the boy out of the chair. He wasn't strapped down because they knew he wouldn't wake up to escape. Looking back at the human Sesshomaru briefly wondered if he should save him somehow too. There must be a way to remove the explosives, right? No. He looked over the boy; there wasn't any way to get them off without blowing them up. His brother took priority over any human, besides his Rin of course. Leaping to the highest point he could, he reached one of the top windows and leapt out into the setting sun's light.

A few seconds later the building exploded in a tremendous bright light of fire and heat. Sesshomaru felt a slight pain for the crying human, but then again, the human did kidnap his brother and his brother's girl. The pain in his conscious was reduced to nothing at that thought. Two saved and two dead. Sounded like a fair trade to him.

OO

He could hear soft whispering coming from the other room. Was he still in the warehouse? How the hell did he get in this dark room? He wasn't in a dark room, his eyes were closed! Feeling stupid, he opened his eyes to a bright light. Nope, he's not doing that again. He shut them tight again. That hurt a lot! He groaned slightly against the pain that inflicted his poor golden eyes.

"I think he's waking up," he heard a female say. No, not just any female, it was Kagome. He could hear her coming closer to him, his triangle ears swiveled to listen better as she approached him. "InuYasha?" she whispered next to him. Her hands pulled his bangs from the top of his forehead back.

He groaned slightly. His head hurt, but she was making it feel better. "Kagome…" he whined.

"Shh, it's okay now. We're safe," she sat down next to him. He was lying on a bed, not a large one, but a twin sized one. Slowly he opened his eyes to look at her. She was cleaner than when he had seen her in the warehouse, and wearing new clothing; a pink t-shirt and sweat pants. She was overall very comfortable looking.

"I'm sorry," he said. He couldn't look at her long.

"For what now?" she asked him. "I don't think of anything you should apologize for."

"I couldn't save you," he answered sadly. Slowly he turned away from her, so that she wouldn't be able to see the angry tears that were starting to fill his eyes.

"What? You at least tried to save me. You went in bravely, that's all I could ask for. Please don't think that anything would have gone differently if you had done something different. You can't change the past InuYasha, just learn from it," she ran her fingers through his hair as she talked, trying to sooth him. "Just rest for now; the stuff that knocked you out was strong."

"Thank you," he said after a little bit of silence. Slowly he closed his eyes as she continued to pull her fingers through his silver hair.

"That's my candy bar!" Shippo yelled at the hanyou the next day as they walked down the street.

"You weren't paying attention so you don't deserve it!" InuYasha said as he shoved half of the said chocolate into his mouth. Shippo paled as he watched the rest of the candy disappear.

"MOM!" Shippo whined to Mrs. Higurashi.

"Stop fighting you two," she said sweetly as she continued her shopping in the market. Kagome looked over at the three boys. They were obviously bored with shopping, and it was getting them antsy. When they got antsy they fought.

"Why don't you take them to the park, InuYasha?" Kagome asked as she pointed down the street. "Mama and I can meet you when we're finished. Here's some money for the vender on the corner, get some ice cream, okay?" She had successfully broken up the fight and had made them all happy again. She held out 20. InuYasha slowly took the colorful money from her.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked.

"No, just stop getting bored and watch them carefully," she smiled. "I'm doing this because I know how bored I used to get when mom shopped. Don't worry."

He smiled back and took the money. Picking up the young kitsune, and grabbing onto the human boys hand, they started their way through the throng of people towards the park.

"Kagome isn't mad, is she?" Souta asked. InuYasha shook his head. "Good, let's have some fun!" He started to pull on InuYasha's hand and guide them through the crowds.

"How's Kaede?" Mrs. Higurashi asked her daughter as they stood in front of the fish stand.

"She was shaken up a little bit, but luckily they had placed her in another warehouse then the one that blew up. She should be fine in a few days," Kagome answered as she sorted through some of the fish to determine which one would be the better buy. "Are you upset with what happened?"

"Of course, but I do trust InuYasha to protect you. I know he wasn't completely there this time, but I know if you screamed right now he would be here quicker than a moth to a lantern," she sighed and draped her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "I trust you and him."

"I can't believe I was prejudice against him, mom. It seems like a million years ago when it was just last week we left Japan. Are we ever going to return home? I miss grandpa," Kagome picked a fish and showed it to the lady.

"5 dollar," the lady said.

"4," Kagome answered back.

"4 and half!" the lady said and shook her head.

"Deal," Kagome grabbed out a couple coins. It had taken her only a day to get used to the haggling that happened in China, but it was worth it. She made sure the lady didn't switch out the fish as well, because a lot of places hated it when foreigners got a lower price then what was being asked; most of the time, though, they raised the price just for the foreigners.

They started walking back to the park where the boys were waiting.

"Kagome, don't think that because you were prejudice that he holds anything against you. He's going through a rough time too, remember that. He probably misses Japan too, just in a different sense," Mrs. Higurashi smiled and continued to escort her daughter through the crowds.

He watched them from the hill high above. "Higurashi, you'll pay for this…"

A/N:

Just a note to people out there. I am writing this, but things are hard for me to update. I am out at sea a lot, and am unable to get online to update this. I do have it all set for every time I hit ports. If I'm not able to update within a months time I will ask my wonderful cousin, SailorBlack666, to update it for me. I'm sure she would love to, right SailorBlack666? Yeah, she said yes.

If you wish to receive every chapter by email then please email me at my new email address located on my profile page or leave a review WITH your email address in the review. I will send you the completed chapters as I type them out. That will also include my new stories that are being written at this moment in time. Anyway, it will all make sense once you sign up for this new mailing service. The chapters will still be placed on ff. net for those of you who can't email me, or don't have an email service. I am not going to abandon ff. net for the least. When you email me please put in the subject line "Prejudice email list" so I don't delete your email on accident. Thank you.

Of course, keep checking ff. net for stories I won't send to people. I am going to be writing a lot while out to sea.

Well, so much for my blabbing right now. Check back soon for another chapter!

France Gamble