The Storm

By: AniuLonewolf

Chapter 15 – Kagome's Era

After answering several more questions about common household items from the curious group, Kagome came up with the idea to show the group around the city where she lived. Her family wasn't going to be back home until later in the evening and Kagome couldn't think of anything else to do to pass the time.

With the plan decided, she took her friends upstairs to find normal clothes for them to wear. After hiding everyone's weapons away in a safe place, Kagome went to digging through her drawers to find something for Sango to wear.

While Kagome was rooting through her clothes, Sango busied herself with looking around Kagome's room at all the different present day items. She had a mirror in her room where there were several pictures of other people and they were all wearing the same green and white outfit that Kagome always wore. They were friends from Kagome's school.

"Ah ha! I found it!" Kagome exclaimed as she pulled out the certain combination of clothes that she thought would look nice on the demon slayer. It was a pair of dark blue fitted jeans with a button down pink blouse t-shirt. Kagome quickly explained how to put on the clothes and then found her own outfit of jeans and a soft blue t-shirt to wear and the two got changed.

After changing into normal era clothes, the girls walked out of Kagome's room to see the guys standing by the stairs waiting for them. Shippo had used his fox magic to transform himself into a boy while Inuyasha had changed into the clothes that they had gotten him the last time he had come to Kagome's time. Kagome had to show the half demon again how to button up the shirt. Miroku was wearing an old outfit that used to belong to her father; a pair of khaki coloured pants with a dark purple polo shirt.

"Those clothes look great on you Miroku." Kagome commented as she fixed his collar.

"Are you sure your mother won't mind me borrowing them?" Miroku asked.

"Oh not at all. We can always get you guys new clothes since I'm sure you will be spending some time here once in a while." Kagome smiled and led everyone down the stairs and out the door to head off to the nearby shopping centre.

o-o-o-o

"Miroku don't go on the street! That car was going to run you over."

"This is a light post. At night time, it turns on so people can see where they are going. No, you cannot climb it Shippo."

"This is a stop sign. It tells people in cars to stop so that people on the side walk can walk across the street safely.

Kagome felt like a tour guide leading a bunch of kids through the city. They stopped at every little thing the group came across on the road and Kagome had to explain what it was and what it was used for, followed by a series of questions the group had about the said item.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining brightly. Everyone else in the neighbourhood was out and enjoying the sunlight, walking their dogs or riding their bikes along the street.

At one point a man walked by who was walking his dog. The dog looked up at Kilala who was being held in Sango's arms and barked at the cat demon which caused Kilala to bristle her fur and hiss. Something about the cat demon's hiss made the big dog whimper and whine, putting his tail between his legs and hide behind his owner. The man looked as the group with a questioning look but before he could ask a question Kagome pushed her friends along the side walk, trying to get away from the weird looks.

When they finally got to the shopping mall, the group was amazed by the building, all the sights and sounds and instantly wanted to pull Kagome in different directions to ask her about everything they saw. Kagome tried to keep up with all the questions as they went into the building to look at all the different stores.

"Slow down with the questions guys." Kagome laughed as she tried to keep her friends within sight. It wasn't the biggest mall around but it was difficult trying to keep four people from the Feudal Age from getting lost. "Don't worry, we can always come back another day and I can show you more stuff."

They looked around in several different stores; a gardening store, book store, chocolate boutique, sports centre store, shoe store and others – each store came with another series of questions from the bunch as well as some odd looks from people around the mall.

As they made their way through each store, they wound up in the middle of the mall were the food court was and Kagome decided it was time to take a bit of a break and get something to eat. They walked around each of the food kiosks and decided to try bento boxes from one of the restaurants. They sat down in a booth and ate their meals, the whole time asking countless questions about everything around them.

Kagome was in the middle of answering Miroku's question about the fake trees in the food court when she suddenly heard her name being shouted from across the food court. She turned to see three girls dressed in green and white school uniforms like hers rush up to her.

"Kagome?" All three girls asked together in their loud voices as they looked at everyone that was sitting with the raven haired girl. They were Yuka, Eri and Ayumi; three of Kagome's friends from school.

"What are you guys doing here?" Kagome asked, sweatdropping as she looked at her friends from school. Oh great – what was going to be her excuse this time? How was she going to explain why she wasn't at school and why she was at the mall instead with a bunch of people from another era? "Guys," She addressed her Feudal Era friends. "This is Eri, Yuka and Ayumi. I go to school with them." She then turned and introduced each of her Feudal friends by name but 'forgot' to say anything about where she knew them from.

Sango was about to say something when the three weird looking girls suddenly yanked Kagome out of her chair and dragged her over to them.

Kagome didn't know what was going on but all of a sudden she was pulled from her chair and suddenly three girls' faces in front of her, asking her a million questions a minute about her friends.

"Who's the silver haired guy?" Yuka asked as she looked over at Inuyasha.

"Yeah, he's really hot. "Eri said as she followed Yuka's glance.

Kagome couldn't help but roll her eyes; her friends would never change. "That's Inuyasha." She answered; watching as her friends looked over at the half demon sitting at the table – of course, Inuyasha was wearing a hat so they didn't know he was half demon. But she saw a look in the girls' eyes and knew that they were checking him out and she stepped in front of their vision. "He is my fiancé." She said as if telling them he wasn't theirs to look at.

It took the three girls a moment for what Kagome had said to sink in. But when it registered in their schoolgirl minds, they freaked and screamed "WHAT!" and caused several people in the food court to look over.

Well it was technically true right? Inuyasha said that in demon terms they were mates – so that was pretty much the human equivalent of fiancé.

The group from the past looked over at where Kagome's friends had dragged her over and watched as Kagome made her way back to their table, her weird friends following hot on her heels. While they chased after the raven haired girl, they threw question after question at her like 'why didn't you tell us?' and 'what about school?' and 'does her mother know?'

"Of course my mom knows!" Kagome answered when she sat back down at her seat with her friends. "I didn't tell you because I was busy and I knew you guys were going to react like this." She explained as she took a drink from her cup. What was with all of the questions today!

"How can you get married right now, Kagome?" Yuka asked, pulling up a chair to sit beside them at the booth, Eri and Ayumi following suit. "You're still in high school."

"I could always go to the community college by my house. I still don't know if I'll even pass this school year or not with all the days and tests I have missed." Kagome shrugged. But as she answered her friends, her mind was running through the small percentage of her even continuing school. What use would it be when she knew she wasn't going to be getting a real job in this time, she was most likely going to be living in Inuyasha's time and training to become a stronger priestess.

"But what about Hojo?" Eri added.

At the sound of that name, both Inuyasha and Kagome growled. Inuyasha remembered that boy from when he had visited Kagome at her home when she was sick and he knew that the boy really liked Kagome. But his quiet growl was cut off by the surprise of hearing Kagome's growl. He and the rest of the Feudal Era group stopped and looked at Kagome for they never thought they would ever hear her growl.

Kagome stood up, her chair being pushed out too fast that it fell over. People in the food court were looking at her now but she didn't care, she was too upset. "You know what? I don't care what you say. I'm sick and tired of you guys trying to set me on these stupid dates with Hojo. Stop trying to run my life." Kagome said as all of her friends looked up at her. "If Hojo were here right now, I'd tell him..."

"Tell me what?" A voice asked from behind her.

Everyone turned to see who the voice belonged to and the group from the past didn't need to be from Kagome's era to guess that the person behind Kagome was in fact this Hojo person. But Kagome was too angry to realize who it was. She spun around, her eyes closed in anger and let it all out. "I'd tell him that I'm getting married and I don't care how old I am or what anyone else thinks because I'm in love with him and that's that!"

Kagome's friends from the past just sat there and watched Kagome seethe in anger and her friends from school sat in their chairs with their mouths open in an 'oh' expression.

Kagome let out a content sigh, feeling much lighter from getting out her anger but when she opened her eyes she let out a choking sound as she realized who was standing in front of her. "H-Hojo!"

"Hi Kagome." He said calmly, showing a smile even though Kagome just sort of yelled at him. "I'm happy for you Kagome, getting married and everything. It's quite a surprise though; I just talked to you on the phone the other day and you mentioned a boyfriend and now you're getting married. That's great."

Kagome's mouth was moving but there were no words that came out at first. She didn't expect to have to tell everyone so quickly about her relationship status and to have just blurted out her feelings in front of the entire food court made her blush. "Umm…" She tried to say but couldn't think of anything.

"Well I just wanted to say that I'm happy for you Kagome. I hope you two are happy." The schoolboy smiled and then without saying anything else, said his goodbyes and walked off smiling and waving back at the group.

With Hojo coming up suddenly and leaving, the group was left in silence as the school girls were shocked out of their words. Kagome looked down at the table, her head starting to pound with the beginnings of a headache and her friends from the Feudal Era sat their quietly eating their bento boxes. Everyone else in the mall's food court had moved on from the school girl outbreaks and went back to eating and carrying on with their lives.

"Well I guess we should get going." Ayumi sighed, getting up from her chair with Yuka and Eri following her. "We're sorry to barge in on you like this Kagome, we'll be leaving now. It was nice meeting all of you." She smiled, pushing the two other girls away from the booth.

"Invite us to the wedding." Eri called over her shoulder as she was being pushed away.

"Keep in touch!" Yuka added as Ayumi forced them away.

And with that, the weird friends from Kagome's school were gone.

'Memo to self: Thank Ayumi next time I see her.' Kagome thought to herself as she let out a long sigh and turned to her friends still sitting at the table. But when she looked at them, she saw that they were giving her weird looks. "What?"

"Kagome, I've never seen you that upset before. Not with Koga or Miroku – or even me." Inuyasha said where he sat.

"Hey why drag me into this?" The monk questioned.

"Nah, I still think you make her the most angry." Shippo said, popping another potato chip into his mouth.

Kagome looked down at Shippo and giggled but looked back up at everyone. "I don't know what came over me. They do that to me all the time; setting up dates with me and Hojo. He's a nice guy but I just don't like him that way and I never had time to go out anyway with all the traveling back and forth between times." She explained as she took another drink to keep herself from not getting angry again.

"Well now that your friends are gone, maybe we should head back to your house. You look kind of tired." Sango suggested. Kilala who had been hiding in a messenger style back that they had brought along.

"Maybe you're right. I can feel a headache coming on." Kagome signed, placing a hand on her forehead to try and keep the headache from coming.

And so the group got all their stuff together and left the mall. Along the walk back, Kagome's headache had gotten worse so Inuyasha carrier her on his back the rest of the way back to her house. He knew the way; all he had to was follow his nose. When they got back to the house, Kagome's family still wasn't home.

Kagome went into the kitchen and took some pain killers for her headache and went into the living room to lie on the couch. Sango and the others were out exploring the shrine grounds and she had explained to them enough times not to get into trouble so did wasn't too worried about leaving them for a little while.

She closed her eyes for a moment and then exhaustion suddenly took over her body. She could feel the pain killers working and soon she fell into her dream world.

o-o-o-o

The first thing Kagome registered when she woke up was her headache was gone. The second thing she realized was that when she moved, she wasn't in the same spot that she was when she fell asleep. She was in her room and saw that Shippo and Buyo were sleeping at the end of her bed.

Looking over at her corner table where her clock was, she saw that it was almost 6:00. Her family would be coming home soon.

Slowly getting up from her bed, she tiptoed to her door quietly. She didn't want to wake up the sleeping fox demon and Buyo. She opened her door very slowly but when it opened, it squeaked. She froze in spot as she looked over at Shippo, to see if the door had woken him up.

But the fox kit continued to sleep soundly, his tail wrapped around him as Buyo was curled up beside him. Kagome smiled and turned around, walking backwards out of her room to be able to close the door without a sound. As she closed the door, she continued to back up but stopped when she bumped into something. Turning around, she saw that it was Inuyasha that she had backed up into.

Inuyasha had changed back into his fire rat haori and pants and had his hands hidden in his sleeves. "I was just coming to check on you." The dog demon smiled down at the raven haired girl. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." Kagome smiled up at Inuyasha. "Where are the others?"

"Sango and Miroku fell asleep on the couch shortly after I took you up to your room. When I took you up to your room, Shippo was already sleeping up there." Inuyasha explained as they walked down the stairs where Kagome saw the monk and demon slayer sleeping on the couch. "It's just been me and Kilala here." The dog demon said as the two tailed cat mewed from where she was perched on his shoulder.

Kagome smiled up at the kitty demon and led Inuyasha outside to the shrine courtyard. Before the dog demon could ask where they were going, they stopped under the shade of the God Tree.

"Why did you bring us out here?" Inuyasha questioned as he looked up at the tree. Kilala had gone off to chase a butterfly around the courtyard.

"I just wanted to enjoy the evening air before my family came home." Kagome said as she closed her eyes, feeling the warm evening wind blow through her hair. "Sorry about my friends earlier today at the mall. They're always like 'up in your face'."

Inuyasha just huffed which caused Kagome to look up at him. "You know, if you want to finish your school stuff you should." Inuyasha said as he looked up at the tree.

"What?" Kagome questioned, not really registering what the half demon was saying. During the four years of travelling in the Feudal Era, Inuyasha and Kagome had gotten into so many fights about the girl having to go back to her time to study for a test or exam.

"I know how important that school of yours is and your friends brought it up today at the mall." Inuyasha looked down at his mate. "You should at least finish your studies."

Kagome was quiet for a moment, contemplating the options. The school semester was going to be over in a few weeks which gave her some time to try and cram for the upcoming exams. She knew that her mom and grandfather were supportive of her travels to Inuyasha's time but she was sure they would be happy to see her at least finish highschool. "Maybe I'll give it a try." She mumbled to herself and was about to say something when she saw Inuyasha's ears perk up at the sound of a car. "That would probably be my family; we should go back to the house. We can talk about school later."

With that said, Kilala skipped back to the half demon and priestess and the couple walked back to the house to welcome the family home and introduce the newcomers to Kagome's era.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

The Storm by AniuLonewolf