14: Stereotypical Jinx

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need."

-Kahlil Gibran

Men always had her running away from them.

"Maybe it's just me…" She thought bitterly. "Maybe I'm just doomed to meet guys that are total self-absorbed jackasses! I can't believe him! That pompous, contemptible, insipid, caustic old goat! How dare he treat me like that. And I saved his life!"

The girl was angrily making her way from the still stopped limo and through a small market street that was between her home and where they dropped her off. She needed to stop being so nice to people - she never ended up getting anything but insulted and hurt for her trouble. Getting more frustrated as her list of adjectives to describe her temporary 'teacher' started to run low and she wasn't ready to quit insulting him just yet.

She was pondering looking up words in her thesaurus when she got home just to find more things to call him. "I don't care if he's the damn king of his little world…he still shouldn't be a dispassionate prick! Having some sort of title doesn't give him the right to act like he does."

She was fuming to be sure, if her emotions could take physical form she probably would be giving off heat with all the fury coming from her. Even onlookers that took note of the small high school girl gave her leeway, glancing after the stalking woman as she moved through the streets and toward her house.

She started to ponder to herself that at least things couldn't get any worse. But that was a jinx of grandly stereotypical proportions; the moment her thought ended she heard a crack of lightning and rain started to fall again - even the weather hated her.

As the rain fell it seemed however too cool her rage, washing it away and replacing it with threatening tears of frustration. She was biting her lip as she walked and doing her best to ignore the fact that the limo was pulling along next to her and following her slowly. She was a stubborn woman if nothing else and she would rather face a hurricane than talk to the man that had been plaguing her sense she first found him in similarly bad conditions.

She heard a car door close and just moved to walk faster, she wouldn't give him the justification of seeing her cry - she wouldn't!

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That new piece of information threw a few more wrenches in his plan.

"Are you certain?" Aizen asked seriously, knowing though that Ulquorria rarely made mistakes in his observations. "A priestess…that changes much."

"It shouldn't." the green eyed arrancar shook his head once negatively. "The hollow I sent to spy on her said she has made no progress in her studies and in fact that she seems disturbed and confused by them."

"It's a dangerous thing to let her be at a time like this." Tousen commented in, standing with the two in an empty hall in the new abode they had taken on. "I can go and deal with her if you need me to Aizen. My presence is not necessary for the final battle."

"Byakuya is not a weak opponent." Aizen commented, considering the blind ex-captain's offer. "There is also the issue of her not being weak. Ulquorria still has a hole in his shoulder and somehow the man that was defending her other than Captain Kuchiki was enough that he was barely scratched in his battle with such a high-ranking arrancar. By yourself you could not take on three opponents, even if one only has limited training."

"Then what do you suggest we do with her?" Tousen asked, his tone somber. "It seems unwise to simply hope she doesn't figure out her powers in time to be an interference."

"We'll continue to observe for now…if her progress seems to hint that she will become an issue then I will allow you your request to deal with her yourself." Aizen nodded, satisfied with his answer. "The wisest course now is to not watch after her too closely, if they don't realize that we know what she is then her position shouldn't change. We don't want to draw ourselves too far out…we want them to believe we are still licking our wounds as opposed to moved to another plan for as long as possible."

"Understood sir." Tousen bowed slightly. "I will return to monitoring the collection of energy."

Aizen nodded back and waited for the blind man to be away a distance before taking in Uliquorra again. "I want you to make contact with our agent still within soul society. We need to keep our information from there updated. That is all."

The Arrancar also bowed and flickered away, leaving Aizen to return to his office and the piles of old papers he'd stolen from the office of 47. He still had to unlock all the keys to the ritual that would be taking place.

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Kagome hadn't planned on turning to face her pursuer and then when he appeared in front of her she was still moving so briskly she slammed right into him and would have fallen over if he hadn't reached out and steadied her.

"Why is it all these grandly powerful noble demon people have to be so fast?" She pursed her lips and resisted the urge to slap him again, instead managing to sound livid in a single word. "What?"

Byakuya was watching her with his usual impossible to read face, the noble a bit at a loss as to what set off this newest temper tantrum and unwilling to ignore his orders just because she was acting like such a child. He was so used to getting wet lately that he ignored the rain, and was still watching her.

"What is the matter?" He finally asked, at a loss for any other words.

"Men are such…" her mental insults continued a moment before she closed her eyes to breath and count to ten. Byakuya was starting to wonder if she'd lost her mental facilities completely when she responded very suddenly.

"Oh what a question! Where do I start!" She snapped and poked him harshly in the chest. "You are unbelievable. I saved your life…found you bleeding and fixed you and tried to be nice to you all along the way! I told you about my past history and when I asked if you could teach me you pushed off the idea like I was dirt under your feet. Wait, make that trash…trash is worse than dirt right?"

His eyes widened a little and his mouth moved to interject but her tirade went on.

"Then you called me a damn prostitute! But let me tell you Mr. Holier than Thou…I bet there a lot of streetwalkers out there with far better personalities than your petty one! And then here you show up at my school and get half the new class to alienate me or glare me all day in class and then now that you've been ordered to teach me it's okay for you to step down to my level. When I try to ask you what I should tell people so I can possibly have some resemblance of a normal social life you blow it off completely. I shouldn't be surprised though, why on earth would you care about a common pathetic stupid girl you were forced to come teach."

Now it was starting to make him angry but she didn't slow down long enough to give him a word in edgewise, had his public verbal beating had a witness they would have wondered if Kagome breathed when she was this angry.

"And you know, maybe I'm having trouble with training but you don't have to act like I'm the dumbest person you've ever met! I wasn't born into all this and the gods only know I'm glad for that - I wouldn't have wanted to end up anything like you! You don't care about anything or anyone but yourself and you aren't gonna convince me any differently so why don't you just let me walk hope and get the hell out of my way!" She pushed at him lamely but then just went to storm off around him, huffing indignantly.

Though now that she'd finished her angry speech she found that he caught her hand and she was nearly tugged off her feet when she attempted to move away or tug herself from his grip.

"Are you done?" He asked, years of practice keeping most of the anger out of his voice. "There is much that needs to be accomplished and like it or not I am the one that was sent to teach you and that is what I will do."

"I'm not learning anything from you." She kicked at his leg and continued to try to pull away. "Let go of me."

"Don't be an idiot." More irritation had creped into his deep voice and he was fairly frightening when angry, though she was stunned into a short silence that he'd actually called her that directly. "What if you don't learn how to use your abilities…what about when the hollows decide to target your family to get to you? Do you expect that someone will always be there to save you?"

"Once there was…"

It made her stop struggling at least.

"He's right…I'm stupid…I didn't even think about the fact that this isn't like the well…my family isn't as separated from the danger as it once was…" She turned to face away from him. "Inuyasha…"

She didn't want him to see her cry but the tears were there already, why had the half-demon made it so hard on her? Why had he chosen Kikyo over her? All the recent activity made her remember those days more than she had in months and the unearthed scars still burned.

"Is she crying?" Byakuya blinked some at that, unsure of how to respond. Certainly he was still angry she was so disrespectful but perhaps he shouldn't have taken such an approach with dealing with a mortal. They were obviously much more fragile than the people in soul society.

"Some man." His subconscious only served to mock him further. "Making the poor innocent mortal cry."

He wanted to convince himself that it wasn't his problem, but somehow that seemed to ring hollow.

"Do you want to get back in the limo before you get sick?" He couldn't think of anything else to ask, she just nodded wordlessly and moved back before he could…leaving him to consider her still.

He followed after a moment, keeping his eyes out the window as the vehicle moved off again. It seemed a way to offer her some privacy after the awkward argument - he could still hear her crying just a little and was fighting the compassion he felt with the irritation at her insults outside.

Thankfully it wasn't long before she managed to stop.

"I'm sorry." She offered about the time they drove up to his estate. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that…" Adding under her breath. "…even if a lot of it was true." Then speaking normally again. "I know you are still helping me."

He resisted - yet again - the urge to sigh this girl brought on. If someone would have done that in soul society a warning would have been generous before he cut them to pieces - but he couldn't exactly attack the girl he was tasked to protect. Though the fact that she would be an ignoble target was starting to mean less and less… "Come on, I'll have the help find you something dry to wear. If you stay in those clothes you are bound to get sick again."

She nodded again at that and got out, she was pretty soaked even still and with the air conditioning in the large empty home she was shivering within moments of entering. "Go upstairs…second door on the left…there should be a connecting shower if you want to clean up. I'll have something brought to you."

She paused a moment at that, glancing up the steps and back toward Byakuya. "I'm sorry again Kuchiki-kun…" She hesitated then dashed up the steps toward the room he sent her toward.

He watched her run off, only vaguely wondering what else she thought about saying. Moving to get a servant to give them orders.

Kagome was still shivering as she looked over the expensive bedroom. A four post canopy bed with the largest mattress she'd ever seen was settled in the middle of the room - which was decorated in dark forest greens with black and white highlights. There was a desk with some papers on it, a dresser, a table on either side of the bed and two open doors, one lead to a closet and the other to a bathroom that was also the biggest she'd ever seen with the same theme in decoration.

There was a shower and a Jacuzzi and as tempting as being able to actually soak in a warm bath was she knew better and was shivering so much that she started to get undressed after turning the shower on and getting the water to a good warmth.

And while she was always more prone to bath's she had to admit the warm water felt good in general as she lathered her hair with the shampoo that was in there. She wasn't going to skip cleaning her hair - lord knows with the Nazi soul guy's schedule when she'd get a chance again.

She tried not to linger for what he would consider too long and turned the water off again, picking up a towel from a pile nearby and working on drying off before stepping free of the shower. Starting to tie the towel around her as she moved back into the room where she first came in, then pausing to blink at Byakuya, who had come in carrying a dress a moment before she walked out, shrieking and ducking back into the bathroom as she felt her face go a deep red.

End Chapter

This chapter was sorta difficult as I was trying to keep folks in character but not get Kagome killed after her 'fuck you Byakuya' speech. And yes I did use a thesaurus to come up with various insults after a while - my chars always have more wit than I.

-Aura

P.S. Thanks for all the reviews and support. I apologize if you are waiting for me to work on other fictions but I want to finish shattered before I switch to finishing one of my other longer ones. This one was a project I started more out of curiosity but I really enjoy writing it. Which is why it is the other one I'm updating while pondering where I'm going to take shattered.