Last Time…

Dirt was under their feet, instead of tile or stone. Or even carpet. That meant that this must be the lowest bowels of the school. It had a musty smell, like it had been closed up for quite some time now or simply rarely visited. It also smelled a little bit… rotten. The strangest thing was, there were lockers along the walls. As well as doors for classrooms, and walls for hallways. There were doors at the end, but Sesshomaru could see that they were chained shut. As they looked, they felt awful confused. The stairway leading down into this was obviously stone, but there was nothing else to do with it anywhere else along this floor.

Taking a whiff out of instinct, Sesshomaru loosed a low growl. "We are not alone."

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Kagome gasped in a little, "Not alone..?" Everyone around her tensed, some drew weapons out. All demons in the group were sniffing at the air, doing their best to figure out what this demon was.

"It smells like some sort of kitsune demon, no blood…"

No one replied to Sesshomaru's last comment, but they weren't surprised at the lack of blood. There was no one down here after all… well, except for them. None the less, no one innocent was hurt. Kagome jumped slightly when she saw a dark shadow move quickly across the hall, it must have been the kitsune. She was hiding… hiding from them. Hearing a loud bang of what sounded like metal on metal, she figured that the kitsune was banging against the lockers, trying to startle them perhaps. All held their ground.

The banging came closer, then a bizarre scraping sound. A 'shing' announced that a blade was being drawn, a second blade maybe even. Kagome watched as the stranger walked out from the shadows into the musty daylight. A small flick was heard as a switch was flipped and dull fluorescent lights lit across the middle of the ceiling, the figure became visible. It was indeed a kitsune demon, a SHE kitsune demon. She was wearing a dark, army green spaghetti strapped tank top, and baggy black jeans that nearly covered her combat-booted feet. She had chains hanging from the front belt-loops, connecting in the back. Two sheaths hung from her hips, and she had long brown hair with natural blonde highlights. She was a full demon, it wasn't hard to tell, but she couldn't fully masquerade as a human it seemed. She was covered in fur and had a long, heavy tail with a dark tip. Some of the fur on her chest was white, as well as the fur around her muzzle. Her ears had dark tips, and one of them had a characteristic flop.

"Welcome to my dungeon," she announced, "I am Keya, I shall be your host," she cocked her weight onto one leg, jutting out her hip and extending an arm to hold up one of her very sharp swords, "Are you prepared to play my little game?"

"We do not play games, mutt," was Sesshomaru's icy and quick response, "We're here on business. Who sent you?"

"I will ask the questions!" Her voice was loud, harsh, commanding. It instilled fear in Kagome's chest, causing her to become nervous. This kitsune girl said she was playing games, but obviously was a business of her own, "Now, what are you all doing here?"

"For nunya," inserted Jaguira, with a slightly cocky air.

"For nunya… what?"

"Nunya business, bitch!"

Kagome watched as Keya became pissed, she was standing straight now with her fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes were bleeding red, she was obviously getting pissed at the insolence. Without warning, she threw one of her blades aiming directly between Jaguira's eyes. She turned her face and caught the blade in her teeth with her amazing cat reflexes, glaring back equally. Kagome could feel the tension sparking in the air as if it were Naraku's electricity. Suddenly the blade was ripped from her teeth by an unseen force, flying back into Keya's hand. Jaguira slapped a hand over her mouth, blood gushing down between her fingers… the blade must have cut open the corners of her lips.

The bitch in Jaguira had hardly come out, yet, and Koga was getting incredibly pissed to top it off. He moved in front of Jaguira and held out one arm, the other clenched in an offensive fist, "You'll never touch her again and live," were his simple yet icy cold and deadly words.

"Feh," Keya spit on the ground in front of her, "I doubt that, wolf boy."

Kagome watched as seemingly from nowhere a large spotted Jaguar jumped over Koga and into the front of the group. It's back near reached the ceiling, and the tail was almost long enough to reach the stairs. Six inch fangs hung far below the chin, and the eyes were a deadly looking blue and red. The black tips on the large fuzzy ears gave it away… Jaguira had transformed. A rumbling growl shook her form, and blood was pooling slightly under her mouth on the ground from the cuts into her cheeks.

The kitsune woman smirked, "I don't think that I like you one bit, Jaguira."

The cat rouffed in a rather surprised manner and immediately sat down with a loud thud.

"That's right… I know every single one of your names. Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, Kagome… Sango, Miroku, Koga… Jaguira, Holly. I know all about you, your pasts, I know you to the very school schedule you follow every day. I know when your absent, when your late, and when you cuss at your parents. I know all your secrets, all your deep and dirty little secrets."

Her smirk seemed to grow with every single word she spoke, and now the whole group seemed at least a little bit uncomfortable. She continued to speak, "Now… are you ready to play my game? Or will you risk losing your dignity, or maybe your lives… by declining my challenge?"

Sesshomaru looked back at the group without loosing sight of Keya, checking everyone's expressions and feelings. He then turned and looked directly at the kitsune woman, "We'll play your… game. But what's in it for us?"

"Freedom," she replied simply, "And maybe a little bit of information, maybe."

"And if we lose?"

"You must give up on searching out the meaning of the prophecy, and you musn't speak to each other anymore. You know damn well that I know every thing about you, including how many hairs there are on your dumb little heads. I'll know if you betray this… trust me. So are you ready?"

Sesshomaru unleashed a low growl, and so did every other demon and half demon on the good side, "Yeah… fine. What are the rules?"

"The rules are very simple. You can not use your powers, and any of you with demon senses will have them dulled to that of a human. No transformations," at that Jaguira instantly poofed into her human form, still sitting like she had been as a cat, "and you have a time limit. Forty-five minutes; to find me, hidden somewhere in this basement. Every ten minutes you will get a hint, which means that you will only get two. All of you will receive the same message, at the same time, telepathically. If you find me, we congregate here… at a safe distance, and if you don't? You follow the contract."

The whole group nodded or made a spoken agreement in some way, then Sesshomaru spoke again, "Any other rules?"

"Just one. You are not allowed to use your weapons. Just one suggestion to start you off with…you better work as a team."

With that, she simply disappeared. Inuyasha immediately began scratching at his ears furiously, "I feel like I have cotton in my ears!" He was talking loudly, obviously he felt like he couldn't hear himself. She'd done something, cast some sort of spell, dulling all the excelled senses that the demons had.

Kagome sighed a little then turned to the rest of the group, "I don't like this… not one bit."

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BC: OH my god I am a terrible, terrible person! DDDDx I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN AGES. –cries- I'm so sorry everyone. / 3 But here you are, new chapter… better quality than the others, I hope. Please no tomatoes for me being such a terrible updater, and I'm getting better. I was so clogged last year with school work I didn't even have time for my friends… it was bad, very bad… but hopefully, I'll update on a more regular basis now and I'll get more chapters out at a better pace. 3: Love you guys! Thanks for reading and reviewing!