I don't trust that Houjou for anything. He's much too fishy to be left alone. And he didn't help his situation any by ogling Gingitsune. I really didn't like that.
"Inuyasha, you're such a pessimist." Gingitsune sighed, shaking her head as she bit into her sushi at lunch.
"Pessimist, hell. You didn't see the way that guy was looking at you."
"Are you actually jealous, Inuyasha?" Miroku grinned.
"No. There's a difference between jealousy and suspicion." Inuyasha huffed.
"I agree." Kirara concurred softly. "I get a bad vibe from him as well. I have third period English II with him, and he answered everything right, even though it was his first day. He never smiles or anything."
"Thanks, Kirara. I can always count to you to be on my side." Inuyasha smiled gratefully, leaning on her shoulder. She chuckled.
"Only when I think you're right."
"Hi, Inuyasha!" Kagura beamed at Inuyasha as she passed by their table, and he mumbled an awkward, half-hearted reply.
"Wow. What's with that?" Miroku blinked.
"Man...I fucked Kagura, like, days ago, and she won't leave me alone. I think she thinks we're dating or something." Inuyasha shook his head.
"I thought it was just a one-night stand, though."
"It was intended to be, but she's been being weird around me. I don't get her."
"See? That's what happens when you go around screwing random broads." Gingitsune whistled.
"Not to me." Miroku said innocently.
"But Miroku, you're a virgin." Kirara smiled sweetly, and Gingitsune and Inuyasha looked at each other before bursting out into hysterical laughter.
"AM NOT!" Miroku spluttered, his face cherry red.
"Nice one, Kicchan." Gingitsune grinned. Once his laughter had subsided, Inuyasha took out his journal and stared at it for a long while, knowing he had something else to write in it.
"Dude, you must be fucking that book or something." Miroku commented. Inuyasha looked at him weirdly.
"What kind of thing is that to say? That was a stupid figure of speech, Miroku. Not one of your better expressions." He shook his head.
"Well, I'm just saying, you protect that thing like a girl."
"Are you implying that I protect it as if it were a girl, or that I have a feminine manner of protectiveness?" Inuyasha drawled evenly, quirking an eyebrow.
"...The first one..."
"That's what I thought." His eyes flickered over to Kagura's table, where Kagome usually sat, but not today. He absently wondered where she was. "Miroku, what's wrong with your cousin today?"
"Oh, she's—wait, why do you care? I thought you hated her."
"I do." Inuyasha defended smoothly. "I'm only conducting a little experiment to find out just why." This seemed to relieve Miroku.
"Oh. Well, let me know what you find; I've been dying to know, myself."
"I think that's very mature of you, Inuyasha, to attempt to overcome your inexplicable dislike of Kagome." Kirara commented in her gentle voice.
"Thanks." Inuyasha grinned proudly.
"In fact, you may even soon find yourself straddled with a feeling a little stronger than like." She added, and Inuyasha groaned.
"God forbid!"
"Kicchan, are you psychic or something?" Gingitsune frowned slightly.
"Why would you think that?"
"I don't know. Just something about the way you say things sometimes, I guess. Like you already know it's going to happen. Like, remember, when you said Inuyasha might kill Kagura?"
"Whoa, whoa, you see her sitting right there!" Inuyasha spluttered in defense of himself. "You make me sound like some Jack the Ripper type of bastard!"
"I'm just saying, you—" Gingitsune shook her head and terminated the conversation like that. Eventually, Kirara's attention strayed back to her book, and Miroku just left the table in pursuit of some pretty girl. "You said it yourself." Gingitsune whispered in an undertone, but Inuyasha heard well. "Sometimes, you get a little...impatient, and you can't control yourself. Who's to say that won't happen with Kagura?"
"It won't." Inuyasha said, firmly but quietly. "My brother would flay me alive if I did some shit like that." He cleared his throat and said louder, "But anyway, it's not as though psychics—real ones anyway—aren't unheard of." Kirara looked dryly up at him.
"You're still on that? I thought Tsune-chan ended that."
"I'm still actually curious about it." Gingitsune shrugged boredly.
"Yeah. I knew a psychic one time." Inuyasha announced proudly.
"Yeah? What happened to them?"
"...He got lynched." Inuyasha mumbled with a sheepish grin. Kirara chuckled, shaking her head. "Oh, come on, though! That was a primitive thing! It's okay if you are; we won't blackball you or anything. Promise." Kirara turned her sarcastic stare onto Gingitsune, who beamed brightly, nodding in agreement to what Inuyasha had said.
"I'm certain you wouldn't if I were, but I'm not, so I see no reason to continue this conversation further." The specific lightness with which these words were spoken let the others know that she was joking, and they chuckled.
"Wouldn't that be some kind of awesome, though, if there were really a psychic among us?" Gingitsune grinned dreamily. "I'd never fail a class..."
"We're talking about psychics, Tsune-chan, not miracle workers." Inuyasha rolled his eyes with a chuckle, and the girl pouted. He idly glanced beyond the entrance to the cafeteria, where he saw Kagome stumbling down the hall, pallid enough to drop dead where she stood.
"I think I'm going to go buy a bottle of water." He got out of his seat.
"Don't bother hurrying back; the bell will be ringing soon." Gingitsune waved him off, and he grabbed his journal before leaving the cafeteria.
"You okay?" He asked the girl slumped against the wall in some oversized hoodie he'd seen once on some boy.
"C-cold..." She stammered, and looked up at him with delirious eyes, her skin a pale blue. Inuyasha stared at her in poorly masked shock, doubting she even knew who she was talking to. He approached her and reluctantly pressed his fingers against her jugular. Dread filled him when he counted her heart rate at only ten beats a minute, irregular even for a vampire's slow-beating heart.
"Come on...I'll take you to the hospital." Inuyasha sighed, startled when she fell unconscious into his arms. He shook his head and carried her out of the building.
An ivory-skinned male peered out of the shadows he lurked in, a curious smile curving his thin lips. "Well, now...this is rather peculiar. Kanna will certainly appreciate this tidbit of information." He began heading back into the cafeteria, perhaps to watch that goddess of a neko some more, then stopped and instead walked out of the building.
"No harm in a little espionage, I'm sure..." Houjou smirked.
Inuyasha had been halfway to the hospital before he realized that it was best Nanako attend to her daughter instead. She was a far more preferable choice than a bunch of guileless ningen who'll either diagnose Kagome with the flu or some other idiotic disease, or send her away with the report that nothing but stressed ailed her. He diverted his pathway for Muroran, having remembered the way, and instinctively knew that even with his inhuman speed, he wouldn't return to school today. He made up a mental note to think up a good lie to tell Gingitsune regarding his whereabouts.
"Why the rush, ten-speed?" Inuyasha refused to be distracted by the kitsune's sudden appearance in the air above his head. "Hey, what's wrong with Kagome?"
"Don't know. Taking her to her mother's house." He grunted, a little peeved that he'd been caught helping the girl he supposedly hated.
I do hate her, damn it!
"Oh..." Shippou bit his lip, worried. Vaguely, Inuyasha himself wondered behind the driving force propelling him; not long ago, he would've been squeamish to even touch her, and now he was rushing to her aid? Certainly his interest in her—or rather, his interest in her so closely guarded secrets—couldn't be that intense...could it?
No, he reasoned mentally, it's not. This is all just because everyone will hate me if I let her die as if she were a stray dog. Even a half-breed deserves a moderately better death than that. Besides, even in the days of my humanity, I was like this; I can't just let someone die as long as I can prevent it. There's nothing else to it.
"It's unusually nice of you to help her like this." His smile belied suspicion, and Inuyasha sighed in annoyance.
"Why is it that every time I do something even remotely uncharacteristic, everybody wants to call the damn SWAT team?" He huffed, using a phrase he'd once heard Gingitsune say.
"Because it's just...not normal." Shippou shrugged.
"Well, ex-cuse me for being abnormal!" Inuyasha mocked.
"Why are you doing this, anyway?"
"Would you rather I just drop her off here and leave her for dead? Because that can definitely be arranged!"
"Of course not! I-I just thought—"
"What? That I had begun liking her or something? Well, think again. I mainly just don't want Gingitsune, Nanako and Kirara to think me a heartless brute or something, that's all." He justified with a scoff.
"Um...okay..." Shippou mumbled. "Don't have to get all defensive, you know."
"I'm not being defensive." Inuyasha replied calmly, knowing he would only contradict himself by expressing his irritation. "I'm just being clear."
"Alright, alright, I got it." Shippou sighed. "I was hoping you'd changed your mind."
"Well, stop hoping." Inuyasha said curtly.
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"This isn't good." Nanako remarked, looking over her daughter's supine form as she lay on the couch Inuyasha recalled sleeping on. After removing the oversized hoodie, she had given Kagome a big dose of something Inuyasha would rather not smell anymore to keep her temperature up. "This is very not good. I'm so glad you brought her here before this got worse, Inuyasha." Inuyasha grunted in acknowledgment.
"What's wrong with her?"
"...Well...it's hard to say, really." Nanako bit her lip.
"Does it have to do with the fact that she's half-human?" The older woman froze and looked up at Inuyasha with something akin to fear in her impassive eyes. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." Inuyasha promised.
"Swear it on your life." She said suddenly, standing straight up. "Do you know what they do to hanketsuki?"
"Of course I know. They kill them." Inuyasha shrugged. "And normally, I would've told already, b—" His statement was cut dramatically short when Nanako clasped him tightly by the throat, shaking him slowly, her expression promising a slow and tortuous death.
"Swear it on your life." She growled.
"I—swear!" Inuyasha gasped, and grunted when he was abruptly dropped on his posterior with a thump. "...I was saying...I would've told already—and I haven't! And I won't! I didn't tell because I didn't want you to think I was some kind of asshole who kills and snitches just for the fun of it!"
"Okay, well...sorry for the rough handling, but Kagome's my one and only daughter. I couldn't bear to lose her." Inuyasha tenderly rubbed his sore neck, wincing at the slightest touch.
"I guess I understand..." He mumbled hoarsely, sitting up from the ground and trying to regain his single vision. All of a sudden, the wind was knocked out of him, courtesy of a flailing arm belonging to the explosively thrashing Kagome.
"Uh-oh. She's rebelling against the medicine! Shippou, hold her arms—I'll be right back." Nanako dashed into Kagome's room, while Shippou grabbed Kagome's wrists and the dazed Inuyasha groaned, blinking furiously.
"Two onions, please...hold the burger..." He mumbled, then shook his head, glaring at Kagome. "Jeez! Control that thing, would you, Shippou?!"
"Oh, sure, Inuyasha!" He drawled sarcastically. "I was just about to get her leash!" Nanako came back and picked Kagome up. Shippou and Inuyasha followed her into Kagome's room, where she put the convulsing girl onto her bed, holding her legs still.
"Shippou, restrain her arms with those manacles at the head of the bed." She ordered, and Shippou dutifully obeyed. Inuyasha stared, fascinated, as Nanako fettered Kagome's ankles, as if she truly were an animal. She raged and snarled in protest, trying her damnedest to escape her bindings. "Inuyasha, make sure she doesn't get loose. She should tire herself out in an hour or so."
"Yeah...wait, what?!" He shook his head, looking over at her. "Where are you going?!"
"There's a treatment for Kagome's illness that should force her into submission for a few days. Shippou and I are going to get it. We need you to watch over Kagome."
"Why me?! Why can't I go with you for the medicine?!"
"It's a secretive thing, Inuyasha."
"What am I, untrustworthy or something?!"
"Just please do this for me, Inuyasha. Please?" Nanako gave him a pleading look, and Inuyasha sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Fine. But you owe me, big time." He crossed his arms childishly, and Nanako beamed brightly, embracing him for a brief moment before she and Shippou left the room. Inuyasha's ears twitched upon hearing the sound of deadbolts shutting on the other side. "Ain't that about a bitch..." He grumbled under his breath, repeating yet another phrase of Gingitsune's, and looked at Kagome, who had begun to glow a faint black.
Peculiar...could this be one of her secrets? He rubbed his hands together with a smirk. This should be fun. His thoughts took an entirely different tone when the intensified smell of pheromones began to fill the room like a noxious gas. His heart began to speed up as his body reacted naturally to the aphrodisiacal scent, but he forced himself to try and ignore it. Nanako was wrong—it looks like she's tiring herself out now.
It was true; Kagome's threshing about had minimized considerably, but the black glow hadn't. In fact, it seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, as did the pheromone discharge. The halfling's clothing stuck to her with the sweat of her skin, accentuating curves that Inuyasha had previously failed to notice in his repulsion of her. Now he himself began to break out in a cold sweat, feeling his pants constrict certain parts of his lower body. This inexplicable attraction grew more powerful as he noticed the taint of her human blood diminishing, being overcome by her vampire blood. Inuyasha's sexual instinct was stirring, and for once, he didn't want it to. Eyes still transfixed onto her incandescing body, he stepped away, trying the doorknob as hard as he could.
Damn! Locked! He panicked, and out of the blue, Nanako's words, unbidden, echoed in his head.
"All right, all right! I swear not to feed from Kagome."
"Now remember this promise, because the moment you break it, I'm slitting your neck."
Where the hell did that come from?! He didn't have much time to ponder this, as the black light faded from Kagome's body, and her eyes leapt open, revealing, instead of her normally brown eyes, a pair of scintillating platinum blacks. She stared at the ceiling for an indeterminable amount of time, then looked at her bound ankles and wrists.
"What the hell?" She quirked a sharp eyebrow, her voice now an alto instead of the soprano tone Inuyasha had become accustomed to. His jaw actually dropped at the caressing sound.
...Holy hell...she sounds even sexier than her mother!
She easily broke free of the constraints and swung her legs over the bed, stretching her limbs. Inuyasha reluctantly looked away from her breasts, which seemed to have gotten plumper than before, but when he turned back, his already pale face went even paler to see that she had stripped to nothing. Kagome sneered at his slack-jawed expression, flipping her platinum-blonde hair out of her flawless face.
"What's wrong, boy? Never seen a woman before?" She taunted. Inuyasha's initial instinct was to snap back that, yes, he had seen a woman before—several, in fact—and all of them sexier than her, but he was unable to convert it into audible speech, especially considering the fact that she had pressed her nude self against his rigid form, looking him over. "From the looks of you, you're probably a virgin." Outraged, Inuyasha was about to retort, but he found himself flying into the wall when she flippantly pushed him aside to test the door. "Hm. Locked."
"Hey, damn it, you're sick! Get back into bed!" Inuyasha finally managed to splutter, but the words had none of the desired authoritative effect. Kagome only ignored him, and yanked on the doorknob until the entire door broke from his hinges, still attached to the knob in Kagome's white hands. Inuyasha stared, awed.
Well...we know she's got her mother's strength.
"Whoa, wait, where you are going?!" Inuyasha obstructed her path to the front door. "What the hell are you, five?! You can't just go jaywalking in public!"
"Well, forgive me, o Master." Kagome snorted sarcastically. "I was just looking for a means of bathing. I stink like a dead otter."
Not so much a stink as a pungent scent... It was true. Kagome's arousing natural fragrance was actually painful to be around. She took his daze for attention and went on, "It's been a good month or so since I last came here, so I'm a little lost."
"Yeah, well...down the hall to the right." Inuyasha mumbled.
"Thanks, kid—you're a real doll." She grinned, and walked away. Inuyasha's eyes were glued to her naturally swaying figure until she disappeared into the bathroom, his hands literally itching with the desire to palm that wonderfully sculpted ass...
He shuddered, suddenly feeling a mite chilly, and looked up at the wall clock. 3:14. Gingitsune was no doubt suffering in fifth period, anticipating the ringing of the bell more than half an hour away.
I wonder if Nanako would mind me using her phone.
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Black Ice: Okay, so here it is! Finally, that long-awaited attraction that everyone's been...well...waiting for!
Blood Rain: ...
Black Ice: (quirks eyebrow) What's your problem?
Blood Rain: (sighs) I'm sad.
Black Ice: ...Okay. Now can we get an answer that's not vague?
Blood Rain: (slumps away, still sad)
Black Ice: Wanna know why Rain's sad? I sure as hell do. Maybe she'll tell if you review! ...
Why did that feel like I was on some interactive kid's show just now? --'