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A Parallel Dimensional Fairytale	By : Zoid Category: InuYasha > General Views: 3984 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
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Inuyasha
– A parallel dimensional fairytale

Chapter 2

Wicked wenches, wounds, weaknesses and
wine.

Disclaimer: IF I owned Inuyasha,
seriously, do you think I'd still have the time to write this shit?
Or would even bother?

AN.: My first action scene ever... and
something that a twisted mind (like mine) might consider WAFF... Oh
and anyone who might feel offended by descriptions of alcohol abuse,
back off! There might be some...

Kagome ran a while, her speed fueled
by the fear of the girl chasing them, and Inuyasha, who was still
trembling with slight giggles, let himself be pulled along.

She stopped under the tree where they
had met a few hours before, leaning against it. Finding that even
after that sprint she was only a little bit out of breath - Aww that
girl's body sure rocked, though she wouldn't want to have to go
working out every day to maintain it - she realized that she was
still holding Inuyasha's hand and peevishly loosened her grip so his
would slip out of hers. But to her surprise it stayed where it was,
because, as she now saw, Inuyasha was holding her hand, too, rather
firmly. She looked up from where they connected to search for a
reason in his eyes, but he was not looking at her, he was glancing
around frantically.

"Errr.."

She cleared her throat. His eyes locked
with hers. She lowered hers to their hands and his followed. When he
saw what she was so hesitatingly hinting at he blushed madly - to
Kagome's surprise, he hadn't struck her as someone who'd blush that
easily - and demonstrably ripped his hand out of hers, mumbling
something incoherent, then stepped back and folded his arms.

" - confusing wenches, damn it
anyway, that's not the point. We lost her!

"What?"

"The god damn girl who fucking has
the shard, who else!?! While you were busy feeding that bitch the
most unbelievable excuse I've heard in my life, that wench got away
with the shard."

"Aww darn! What do we do now?
I can't sense the shard anymore, you're right, we lost her."

Great! Now they were going to have to
spent another school-day looking for the shard, because there was no
way they'd find a girl they didn't even know the name of in a city as
large as this one appeared to be, judging by the faint, constantly
humming noise of metropolia that imbued the silence of the now empty
school yard.

And Inuyasha didn't look overly pleased
either, no surprise there, still, that was a shame, when for a moment
it had seemed that he had somehow let his guard down, holding on to
her hand, for a reason she yet had to figure out.

She’d meant what she said
earlier, she wanted to get along with him, but that seemed impossible
with a person who was as closed up and defensive they’d not
allow anyone to even touch them. He didn’t particularly seem to
mind touching her, though, her hand at least, so maybe that meant
that he was loosening up a little around her..? Kagome’s
wandering mind was caught and brought back to reality by the boy in
question, who, after some brooding and moping finally seemed to be
willing to effectively focus on the problem at hand and unfolded his
arms to stuff them into his pockets.

“And what do you suggest we do
now? Pretty much seems like we’ll have to wait 'till tomorrow
to get the shard. Not that I care, really, but I recall you fearing
for our body-landlords scholar career.”

Kagome wretched her mind for any way of
finding the girl with the shard today.

"Maybe if we just walk around in
the city a little, we'll find that girl? I mean, I can sense that
shard from quite a distance. And perhaps she's still around here
somewhere or doesn't live that far from this school..." , she
offered at last.

Inuyasha studied her silently for a
while, then agreed.

“Yeah that might work, it’s
only about three right now, so we have plenty of time... It’s
not like we have anything else to do anyway.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

„Sooooo...“

After they had walked around aimlessly
for what Kagome felt must have been an eternity without even the
slightest tingle at the back of her mind indicating that the shard
was somewhere near she decided it was about time that she interrupted
the thick silence they trotted in, side by side, in favour of any
kind of conversation.

Inuyasha kept on staring ahead but
countered with a careful:

„Sooooo...?“

„So, how's it you knew about the
Shikon no Tama? From what Miroku told us it must have been banned
from our dimension centuries ago, so what could you possibly have had
to do with it?“

This time Inuyasha did turn to face
her, but only to shoot her an irritated glare.

„That is just as much none of
your business as my death is! Why would I tell you?“

„Well -.“

Kagome reminded him calmly in an
attempt to hide her growing irritation at his stubborn refusal to
even the score and tell her something about him when he already knew
all sorts of things about her from that letter.. or that was what she
chose to believe her motives were.

“- As we're going to face a shard
of that Tama in the near future I'd say we should both know as much
as possible about it so that we're prepared. And if you know
something I don't then you'd better tell me, right?“

Hah! He could not deny that, especially
not when he'd been the one who pointed out the probability of the
attempt to gain the shard turning into a fight over it.

But he still hesitated and while he
just kept silent Kagome felt her irritation slowly fading.

She wasn't even sure why, except maybe
out of a general nosiness, she was so eager to learn more about that
boy.

He seemed to have taken her silence as
a sign that she had finally given up, because he started scanning the
area again... yeah what about that, it wasn't like danger actually
did lurk behind every corner, they had passed dozens of them and
nothing had happened, but Inuyasha sure acted like it was. He seemed
to be on the edge constantly, paranoid almost.

'I'm a godamn
hanyou, fighting is the only thing I've ever done in my life.'

That sentence
returned to her now, when he'd said it, she hadn't spared it a second
thought, but now she realized that it offered a very reasonable
explanation for his behaviour.

'... the only thing
he's ever done... '

What kind of a life
made you fight constantly? Was it just his nature to do so? He had
quite a temper, maybe he just kept on provoking these kinds of
situations? But as as she watched his rigid back, and his head
twitching at every foreign noise, she couldn't quite believe that.

'Maybe he just had
to... '

Maybe he'd just
been, kind of, cast out his whole life, or followed, maybe he really
had had to fight in order to defend himself.

Kagome sighed. Why
was this bothering her so much? Why did he bother her so much?

Maybe, she managed to admit silently,
she just wanted to get to know him. He was just... fascinating her in
a way, She didn't really buy the whole apathetic asshole scheme, she
couldn't help but wonder what was behind all this... she probably
really wanted to get to know him. Whatever her motivation might have
been.

'Well he's kinda cute, for instance.
Remember the ears? Will you just shut up? '

Sometimes Kagome
wondered whether it was actually normal to have voice's in one's head
that were among other things taking delight in mocking her just by
being brutally honest. It was hard enough to be honest to all the
rest of the world already, and Kagome really liked to think of
herself as a honest person, but she kind of wished she had at least
herself to lie to sometimes. Whee...

Back to the point,
though: So she did want to get to know him, whatever her
motivation might have been... that didn't give her the right to
keep on prying into his affairs, or however it might have seemed to
him, but then again that knowledge didn't fell like it would actually
keep her from doing it... and she was right, before she was able to
stop herself that stupid proposal left her mouth.

„ How 'bout that, then? If you
tell me I owe you a favour?“

'Really, girl, just how weird does
that sound?'

„ A favour?“

The expression on his face that he had
turned in her direction again was unreadable, but Kagome was
convinced she'd seen a spark of interest flickering through his eyes.

„Yeah a favour. Like, I don't
know...“

When she saw the beginning of a blush
forming on his other wisely neutral face she felt her face heat
simultaneously. She stopped to jump away from him.

„No not that kind of favour you
hentai! What kind of a girl do you take me for!?!“

His hands shot up defensively.

„No! That's not what I-“

he started to defend himself when
Kagome suddenly lifted a finger to his mouth to hush him and with a
distant look in her eyes said:

„It's back again, I can feel it,
faint but there.!“

Probably thankful for that
distraction Inuyasha dropped his hands.

„Yeah? You sure? Where's it?“

„It's -“

Kagome closed her eyes to concentrate
on the strange, tingling feeling that tickled the back of her ...
mind, she couldn't think of way to describe her ability to sense the
shards any better.

„It's... coming towards us!?!“

„What? Are you sure?“

She opened her eyes again to find
Inuyasha frenetically scanning the area, again. They had been about
to round a corner, stepping out of a narrow, empty street aligned by
tall buildings onto a slightly broader but just as vacant one. The
sun had begun to set and painted the brick walls ahead of them a soft
Indian yellow and reflected from the windows of a few parked cars and
the houses, dazzling her as she exited the smaller street to point
out where she felt the shard approaching from.

„I think the girl with the shard
is coming down that street, towards us.“

„Well then, let's go intercept
her.“

Inuyasha immediately stomped ahead.

Kagome followed shortly after him, but
despite her hasty departure her thoughts trailed behind a few minutes
and she silently wondered whether he really had thought of that kind
of a favour... because, even though she really had been rather
appalled by the idea at first, she figured that had been more out of
a reflex of modesty she'd been brought up to possess than any heart
felt disgust. Somehow the thought that someone thought of her that
way was not wholly unpleasant, especially if that someone happened to
be able to evoke similar thoughts in her... She mentally slapped the
back of her head.

'Quit that, stupid! Concentrate on the
shard!'

But still, while she sped up to catch
up with Inuyasha she found herself staring at the top of his head and
sighing when she once again was reminded of the absence of any
twitching fuzziness.

'Those ears sure were cute...
Shut up! The shard, concentrate on the -'

Realizing the tingling feeling had
intensified a lot while she had been caught in one of those weird
battles of herself and the other self that seemed to enjoy alerting
her to her more... carnal urges, she told Inuyasha:

“It really feels kinda near now,
I think we should be able to see her now!“

Her soon to be partner in crime pointed
to a group of people across the road, a few hundred meters ahead of
them.

“Yeah I know, she's over there, I
recognize her from before.“

Now Kagome, too, was able to make out a
group of teenagers on the road that seconds ago had been empty,
though how Inuyasha recognized the girl without being able to see the
pinkish glow of the shard she emanated she didn't know, they'd only
seen her for but a few seconds before her 'girlfriend' had attacked
Inuyasha in an explosion of jealousy.

The group consisted of a few girls,
four to be exact, probably some of those who had eagerly surrounded
the one with the shard back in the school corridor, but also of six
boys, none of which Kagome remembered having come across yet.

And yet again all of them eagerly
crowded around the one girl in a way that made Kagome wonder just
what kind of power that Shikon no Tama shard gave to her.

But as she silently took in the sight
of the animatedly chattering group that reminded her a lot of those
times when she herself had been out with her friends and some guys,
she remembered what Inuyasha had told her about the likeliness of a
peaceful shard exchange:

„Uhm Inuyasha?“

Inuyasha went from staring ating the
teens to staring ating her.

„Yeah?“

„You do realize that they are
ten of them and only two of us, right? You said we were going to have
to fight the girl about the shard, but what do we do now? We are a
little outnumbered I would say.“

He stared at her bewilderedly.

„We'll fight her about the shard
of course, what do you think? You are the one who is in such a
hurry to get this over with so that our counterparts won't fall
behind on their studies. So we do it now, before we loose her again.“

And with that he started marching
across the road.

Kagome stood dumbfounded as she watched
him coming to a halt a few meters away from the group, hands on his
hips, and with a loud

„OI!“

gaining their attention. When each and
everyone of them fell silent and looked at him in surprise he
announced their options to them in a way that had the more humorous
part of Kagome comment 'Well no, it certainly weren't his negotiation
skills that they had him accompany me for... '.

„ Hey bitch, yeah you, the one
with the blue shirt, I want that necklace you've got there. Give it
to me or I'll take it!“

As Kagome started walking towards
Inuyasha, inspecting the girl with the shard more closely she
realized that, how ever he managed to figure that out, he was right.
The pink glow surrounding the girl had it's source in a tiny splinter
of pink glass that she wore as a pendant on a silver necklace around
her neck.

Inuyasha seemed to grow inpatient as by
the time Kagome had arrived by his side none of his supposed
opponents, not even the girl in question had graced him with a
response yet, they just kept on staring at him as if he had suddenly
fallen out of the sky in a bunny costume and had demanded that they
accompany him to his home planet... or at least that was what Kagome
considered appropriate with the amount of total bewilderment that
showed on their faces. Surely a guy trying to mugg them was not that
much of a surprise?

Inuyasha had grown impatient, indeed.

„So which is it, bitch? You gonna
give me the goddamn thing or not?“

This time the girl did respond, though
probably not the way Inuyasha had expected her to. She laughed, a
surprisingly light hearted and girlish laugh. Secretly Kagome had,
according to Miroku's descriptions of evil hearted humans and youkai
misusing the Tama for their purposes, imagined the girl to be more...
intimidating and obviously evil. But she just smiled sweetly.

„Keichii, really, you had me
there for a second. What is this about? A joke? A bet?“

When Inuyasha just sighed impatiently
and folded his arms over his chest her face soddenly dropped and the
glow of the shard intensified slightly.

„You know I told all of you
suckers that I am not to be joked with, so piss off and leave me and
my friends alone, before I decide to waste my precious time on
thinking of a way to remind you where your place is, you scum.“

'That's more like it, really'

the humorous part of Kagome, never
short of a superfluous comment, observed, while Kagome actually
flinched and turned to look at Inuyasha. If he reacted as harshly
every time she insulted him in some way then just how would he react
to this? But she found him calm and collected, with a stony glare
fixing the one of the girl when he repeated:

„Hand over the shard or I'll take
it!“

And, to prove he really wasn't joking,
he started walking towards the girl.

It wasn't until then that Kagome became
aware of the obvious logical mistake in his reasoning a few minutes
ago, and while she mentally fended off a bunch of grinning 'DUH!'
monkeys she grabbed his shoulder forcefully, this time ignoring the
fact that he hated to be touched without his permission, pulled him
back and bowed to whisper into his ear in a voice low enough to keep
anyone else from overhearing.

“Inuyasha! We didn't have to face
her now, are you really that stupid? We could just as well have
followed her until she parted with the others and take the shard when
she was alone! Why are you endangering yourself in that way? Have you
forgotten that you are human in this dimension?“

She figured with the body of a hanyou,
if it was half as powerful as what myths said about that of a youkai
to be, facing ten teenage humans would have been no problem, but he
was human for Christ's sake, and more that a little bit on the skinny
side! But he just glared and snapped conceitedly:

“One or ten that's no fucking
difference to me! In my original body, as a hanyou, I used to take on
more that fifty humans one- handedly-“

He interrupted her as she tried to
protest

“And when I said fighting was all
I ever did, I meant it! I've been forced to defend myself just about
since I could walk, and believe me I was way weaker than this body
is, back then! Fighting is mainly about technique not about actual
strength!“

At this surprising piece of something
about himself Kagome closed her protesting mouth and searched his
eyes through which just for a moment the hint of a feeling akin to
hurt had flickered, but now they were as stony as before.

'Since he could walk? Who would intend
to hurt a small child? How cruel is that?!'

But she was ripped out of her musing by
the hands that roughly shoved her away from Inuyasha while he was
gripped by another pair of those, pinning his arms to his sides.

Obviously the girl had grown mad enough
with Inuyasha, who in the body of Keichii, a boy she seemed to know
somehow, had offended and threatened her, to send the boys to teach
him a lesson of some kind, or in her words remind him where his place
was.

Kagome immediately shot forward to help
him but the boy who had shoved her away and another one held her
back. Meanwhile the three boys left gathered around Inuyasha and the
one who held him still and positioned them self for the classical,
teenage-bully, four against one defenceless victim beat up. Kagome
struggled half heartedly, there was no way she'd be able to shake off
two boys at once, but to her surprise their grip on her upper arms
loosened.

' Riight, I forgot, my counterpart's
body!'

And with a barely suppressed squeal of
glee she ripped her arms out of the boy's grip, rushing forward to
Inuyasha who was just about to receive the first punch, or maybe
already the second, aimed at his stomach.

Suddenly the girl with the shard spoke
up again:

„Hey you morons! Take down the
girl first, she's the actual danger here! Keichii isn't going to take
but one of you to be held back, but she, you know her, she's that
maniac, gay rambo chick!“

The boys turned immediately, except for
the one who held Inuyasha and all but fell over each other in an
rushed attempt to comply and get a hold of Kagome. She shrieked and
Inuyasha, perhaps heroically trying to regain their attention
taunted:

„So you're not only ganging up
against one single man, but also willing to fucking hit a woman? You
are even more of a bunch of fucking honour less cowards than I first
thought!“

But the boys ignored him and advanced
on Kagome who stepped back with every step they took towards her,
until she, suddenly, found herself locked in the grip of the
remaining two again. Before Inuyasha was able to throw the next piece
of his mind at the boys Kagome was, without a further word or hint
from her attackers, hit by two fists, one snapping her head to the
side as it connected with her jaw and the other one ramming into her
stomach so forcefully that all air was pressed out of her lounges and
she sank to the ground, suddenly deprived of the power to hold
herself up any longer when the boys holding her released her arms.

She groaned as black seeped into the
edges of her view and curled up as if that would somehow prevent the
pain from robbing her conciousness. She closed her eyes only to open
then again as she heard an almost bestial scream of utter rage that
echoed through the street. Was that Inuyasha?

If the sight that presented itself to
her within the following minutes told her anything those were
basically two things: Firstly Inuyasha had been right when he said
that fighting was more a question of technique than anything else,
she saw that now.

But Secondly he had obviously forgotten
to mention what kind of , well, positive ? effect anger and feral
aggression could have on the strength department.

Within seconds after the boys had
punched Kagome he had bent forward and thrown the boy who clutched
his arms across his back to the ground. He regained his footing
immediately and brutally jumped onto him, knocked the air out of his
lounges, then crouched down and with a well aimed punch against the
solar plexus knocked him out completely.

He sprung up and leaped towards the
rest of the boys, who were only just about to understand what was
going on there behind their backs, and tackled the one who had
punched Kagome's jaw against the brick wall behind him, drew up his
knee, rammed it where no man wants to have another one's knee rammed
into, set his foot back on to the ground, swiftly grabbed the boy's
head when he doubled over in pain and pushed it down to meet his
other knee. By the time the boys nose broke with a sickeningly loud
and wet noise the others had only just finished turning around to
face Inuyasha, mouths hanging open in surprise.

„Kagome!“

It took her a few seconds with her hazy
mind to articulate a cracked voiced answer.

„Yes?“

„Get the hell away from here, you
don't want to be hurt more than that, right?!“

„Oh, ok.“

And while Kagome crawled away from the
wall and over the boy with the broken nose to be out of the way,
silently wondering how much she was allowed to interpret into that
comment, or the fact that he had actually called her by her name,
Inuyasha waited for the remaining four boys to attack.

Kagome managed to lean against the tire
of a car parked at the pavement and watched in awe as Inuyasha
fought. While he did that she found it surprisingly much easier to
picture him the way she knew he really looked like, his wild and
deadly stile of fighting somehow reminded her of that aura of
untamedness and underlying aggression he had emanated back in that
weird soul store room.

The way he fought was no martial art,
at least if 'art' meant to suggest that there should be something
aesthetic about it. His movements didn't look as graceful or
regulated as those of the TV fighters, or even live tournament
fighters Kagome had seen so far.

Every move he made was to inflict the
most damage possible, not to look good, and he fought in wild
abandon, not with stoic control. Efficiency was his concept, not art.

Kagome felt a strange shiver of
sympathy surge through her as she realized that she could only just
begin to imagine what kind of a life he must have lived to learn to
fight that way. But as the fight went on she found herself unable to
focus on that feeling. A more amoral part of her took over and
decided that among other things watching Inuyasha fight was also damn
entertaining.

When the boys charged onto him, all at
once, he waited until they were just entering punching range, took a
step to the side in what looked like an attempt to escape but then,
with an almost wicked grin playing on his features that made Kagome
wonder whether he actually enjoyed this, turned and send the boy
closest to him to the ground with a quick, forceful kick against his
kneecap, that was once again accompanied by a loud cracking noise.

He jumped across his latest victim and
behind his next, the tallest and toughest looking guy of the group,
grabbed his left arm, twisted it against the boy's back, at the same
time in a blur of motion forcing his knees bent with two quick kicks
into the hollows of his knees. When the boy lost his balance and
began sinking to the ground he shoved him forwards, grabbing his
other arm in the process and jumped onto the poor boy's back to
increase the impact his face hit the ground with. He lost his footing
for a split second, standing awkwardly on the back of the guy, and
the remaining two used that second to finally get their hands on him.
One grabbed him by his arms and twisted them behind his back and
before Inuyasha could hurl him over his back like he'd done with his
comrade the other one began hitting him with anger fuelled force.
Inuyasha took a few punches struggling only slightly, so that Kagome
wondered whether they had him now and immediately tried to lift
herself off the ground to help him, but the slightest movement sent
jolts of pain through her body and she collapsed again with a groan.

She dared not actually make that
connection but a uselessly (and twistedly) romantic part of herself
pointed out that somehow her pain seemed to give Inuyasha the
motivation to fight, he hadn't started to do so until those boys had
hit her and now again, as soon as she groaned in pain he seemed to
come to life again.

He suddenly tensed, then threw his legs
high up into the air, slinging them around the neck of the boy
hitting him and with a twist of his hip threw him off balance. As the
boy fell he set his legs back onto he ground again and bent to throw
the boy holding him over his back, ripping his arms out of his grip.
As the two boys lay on the ground before him he staring ated them
with disgust for a second.

Then he turned and left them to
scramble to their feet and do the first reasonable thing since that
girl had somehow made them attack Inuyasha: They stumblingly hurried
away with tiny whines of panic.

Inuyasha spared the scene before him,
the other fallen boys, a quick glance, then went to crouch down next
to Kagome.

“Can you get up?”

“Yeah, I think I can.”

Kagome slowly pulled herself up with
the aid of the car behind her and managed to stand on shaky legs. She
touched her aching belly and groaned, then smiled slightly, despite
her discomfort.

“So it's really all about
technique, eh? That rambo body of mine really was no use at all...“

Inuyasha looked at her a little
surprised, then reached out to carefully touch her jaw, which sent a
jolt of pain through it despite his tenderness.

“That's gonna be one hell of a
bruise tomorrow, your counterpart will freak as soon as she sees
herself.”

But Kagome just gawked in surprise,
dumbfounded by this completely non characteristic, at least non
characteristic for what she'd seen of him so far, display of badly
hidden concern. And he was probably even worse off than her, his lip
was split awfully and had yet to stop bleeding, as did his nose, and
there was a sore spot on his cheek that seemed to swell while Kagome
looked at it.

As if he'd read her thoughts Inuyasha
abruptly dropped his hand and turned around again. He stiffened
suddenly, probably because he just realized what Kagome did that very
moment:

The girl was gone again!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Gods who would have thought that
shard hunting could be that exhausting?”

Kagome struggled to even her breathing
as she leaned against the tall brick wall assumably surrounding a
large garden. And somewhere inside that garden there stood a house,
and somewhere inside that house there was a girl and around that
girls neck there was the shard of the Shikon no Tama, which she was
intend on finding now more that ever, and if only to be able to leave
this aching, worn out body.

Yes, to Kagome's absolute
delight she had, after a few seconds of total shock, realised that
the girl with the shard, despite her obviously hasty departure, was
still within the range of her 'shard radar'. So they had been able to
follow her and initiate 'plan B' that actually was 'plan A': follow
and corner her when she's alone, not accompanied by a bunch of
guys.

But,
they had, due to their, well, kind of wrecked means of transport,
their bodies, not been capable of running any more, or at least
Kagome was, and so when they arrived at the gate leading to the
assumed home of the shard, eh girl, she'd already gone inside.

“I would.”

“Huh?”

During
her recapitulation of the last hour or so, Kagome had forgotten that
she'd posed a question, though, actually that had been a rhetorical
one, anyway.

“Well, I would have
thought that shard hunting would be that exhausting, cuz' when that
fucking jewel is concerned, things just won't go easy.”

Inuyasha
had, obviously just as worn out as Kagome felt, simply dropped to the
ground besides the gate, from where he now avoided her stare as soon
as he realized that he had clumsily reminded Kagome of the fact that
he knew something about the Shikon no Tama that she didn't know.

Kagome
just slid to the ground along the wall and sighed.

'Oh
well, if he's so reluctant to share that info... I guess that's
alright, probably it's just something very personal, or he wouldn't
make such a fuzz about it.'

Or maybe
he would, just to spite her, but anyway, right now she was just to
tired to bother.

For a
while they just sat in a somewhat comfortable silence but the longer
Kagome let her thoughts trail unhinderedly, the further back they
travelled, until she found herself unable to keep a neatly buried,
nailed shut realization from surfacing.

She was
dead. She had, by her very own stupidity been ripped out of her life,
a life that by any one else's standards might have had to be called
insignificant, but to her it hadn't been, cause there had been people
that loved her, more importantly people she loved, her friends, her
family, her Mama... gods, how she missed her Mama... and to think
that maybe... in case they did not manage to recollect the shards,
she was never going to see her loved ones again, she would be reborn
and would just forget about them,would never get the chance to tell
them all how much they meant to her...

And now
that she thought about it, she was dead, that meant that they would
grieve, would mourn, that people would cry because of her, that her
Mama's heart would break another time, like it had when she lost her
husband... And she herself, she would never get the chance to live
her life to it's fullest, she had died before she'd fallen in love
for the first time, a few crushes, yes, but love... She had never
been so engulfed in the thoughts about that one person that even
breathing seemed unnecessary compared keeping that picture floating
around your mind. Right now she even longed for the pains that
feeling brought along with it, she would have liked to believe the
world had ended just because of what she felt for someone before her
world ended for real.

Nostalgia
mingled with longing and wrapped around regret as hope suddenly stood
to hurriedly leave the room and she felt like a surge of energy left
her as her arms dropped to the ground.

Kagome
felt a flood of tears waiting to break free from her tightly closed
eyelids as grief manifested in her the way it always did when it
became to much for her mind to bear: her insides clenched into a
tight cramp of agony and she doubled over as her lower lip started
trembling along with her shoulders.

She was
well aware that she was drowning in self-pity, acting stupid and
weak, and she normally knew better than to give up on things before
they even started, she had been called strong willed more than once,
but right here, in this foreign world, caught in a foreign body and
with no-one around to offer her comfort except for Inuyasha (who,
considering his closed-up-ness, really counted as no-one), she simply
was unable to drag herself out of that whole she knowingly spiralled
into.

So she
just let it all out.

“I was after it
myself, once.”

“Huh?”

As the
first tears spilled from her eyes Inuyasha's voice suddenly cut
through the hypnotic hum of the blood pounding in her ears and she
lifted her head to find him looking at her with a strange kind of
intensity, his eyebrows drawn together in an almost reproachful
frown, that eased and turned into one of insecurity and maybe even
fear as soon as he saw the tears, now unhinderedly falling from
Kagome's eyes in a steady, salty stream.

Yet,
casting his eyes away from hers again and staring at something behind
her, he repeated what he said seconds ago, explaining his words.

“ The Shikon no Tama.
I wanted to have it for myself once, long time ago.”

“But how?”

Between two shudders that
brought forth new eruptions of salty liquid from her tear glands,
Kagome managed to choke out that that question through her slimy
throat, glad to have something else to focus on except well... what
she didn't want to focus on.

“You don't appear to
be much older than I am, and Miroku said the Tama was banned from our
dimension centuries ago! Just how... “

Hanyou.
The word suddenly appeared in her mind, in a way of answering her own
question.

“I'm a -”

“Hanyou. Is it cause
you're half youkai? Do youkai live longer than humans?”

His
eyebrows drew up before he answered, and he went from staring at that
something behind her to glancing up to the sky that was turning
anthracite as the sun had sunk a while ago.

“Yeah, youkai are
immortal in a way, they don't die, unless they are killed that is...
about Hanyous I don't know... I never heard of any of them growing
older than what could be considered an average human lifespan, but
none of them died naturally so...”

Kagome
all but gawked at him as he spoke, dazzled by this sudden exposure of
his, and of course the implications of what he told her.

“How old are you
then?” She dared to ask.

“That's a little hard
to tell... but by Christian reckoning I was born in 1204.”

“You were what!?!?!”

Kagome's
tears ran dry as she stared at the boy in disbelief.

“1204? But then you're
actually...”

she
quickly did the maths but he was faster.

“Seven hundred years
old, yeah, or I would have been nearly that old, I died in 1984,
that's twenty years before I would have reached that age.”

She had
to crane her neck to even make out his words, he was mumbling almost
incoherently, speaking slowly as if he rolled every word around his
mouth before uttering it, carefully weighing the impact it might
create.

“But that's not
actually true either, you know my life used to be a little
complicated once and... well you could say that I spend 'round five
hundred years in some kind of an artificial coma, y' know, banned 's
all you need to know, and so in my head I'm really only about two
hundred years old.”

'Only
two-'

Thoughts
stumbled over one another inside Kagome's head as she tried to
process what she'd just been told in that nonchalant way, ' y' know,
banned 's all you need to know' hah! Was not!

She stared at that strange
boy - or should she be saying old man really? - stared at him so long
that the tears on her face dried into an itchy film, which she rubbed
away with the sleeve of her blouse absently while she thought about
what to say.

Thought about what to say
very carefully, because she realised that if a guy who thought that
everything that concerned him did just that and nothing more, a guy
who might be diagnosed almost anti-social, well no, more like
social-phobic tendencies, if that very guy suddenly chose to expose
himself to an almost stranger, then no matter his possible motives,
you had to handle him with caution so you didn't provoke him into
taking it all back and closing himself in again.

A technical question was
probably better that a comment, so:

“You've been banned
for 400 years? When did you wake up again, then?”

In the meagre light she
couldn't be to sure, but she had feeling that he was watching her out
of the corner of his eye, all the while pretending to watch the sky.
But when she spoke again he actually turned to face her, staring
ating her curiously, as if that had not been what he'd expected her
to ask, and reluctantly answered.

“I woke in 1927. I
later figured that I had been banned in 1454, so it lasted actually
only 473 years.”

Wow. He actually told her
something about himself. Weird that he did that just when she'd been
about to cry, but oh well, coincidences wouldn't be coincidences if
they just happened, they happened at a good time or a bad one. And
then he didn't just tell her anything but this, the most unbelievable
thing she'd heard in her life. The ears, the eyes and the claws she
had almost no problem to accept... but that jerkish, immature...
well, jerk actually was 700 years old? Or 200, that was just as
unbelievable.

She was about to ask
something else when suddenly her stomach rumbled so loudly that a
bird that must have been sitting on the wall over them, flew away
hurriedly.

“You hungry?”
Inuyasha asked, maybe amusedly.

Kagome grinned peevishly, as
she felt the pressure of that moment seconds ago ease, along with
Inuyasha's willingness to talk, but oh well, she knew something now.

“I didn't realize
until now but it figures, I haven't eaten a thing since we entered
this dimension. You haven't, either, actually.”

“Yeah I know, I'm
kinda hungry, too. Just doesn't bother me that much... well then.”

He suddenly stood and dusted
off his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

He looked at her like he
thought she was mad.

“I'm going looking for
something to eat, what else? There's no way we're gonna make it
through the night and will be up to facing that bitch tomorrow
without it.”

“Well I'm coming with
you.”

She
began to rouse carefully.

“No you're not! “

“Am too! Who knows
what you'll do when I'm not there to think for you? ”

He
ignored that insult, she hadn't really meant for it to be one anyway,
it was just true, and kept on arguing.

“Someone has to stay
back here and watch the house, what if that girl leaves again?”

“So what? She lives
here, she'll return eventually.”

“We don't know that!
She could be at a friend's for all we know!”

“I can sense those
shards from quite a distance, if we stay close enough I'll realize as
soon as she moves and we'll be right after her again.”

When she
saw him already struggling to counter that she added:

“Please Inuyasha?
Please, I really just don't want to be alone right now... “

He
looked a little scared now, what of though... anyway, he suddenly
turned and walked away. Kagome followed, catching up easily despite
the state she was in.

He
didn't look like he was about to converse, but still, just not being
alone would hopefully keep her thoughts off all those things lurking
at the back of her awareness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You still feeling
that shard?”

Inuyasha
broke the silence as they neared a small shopping mall.

“Huh? Oh yeah, hasn't
moved an inch since we left.”

Kagome,
who had been busy humming a weird medley of some of her favourite
songs because she had found that to be the perfect way of keeping her
mind off of... certain facts, assured.

They
entered the mall and marched towards a grocery shop in front of which
Inuyasha stopped and turned to her.

“Ok. I'll go in there
and organize us something to eat and you'll stay right here and keep
an eye – no your mind... whatever on that shard. I won't be
long just wait.”

And
before Kagome could respond the automatic doors had already closed
behind him again. She figured that she would survive a few minutes
alone as long as she kept up the humming so she spared herself the
useless going after him and engaging into yet another discussion of
the 'is not' – 'is too' kind.

As she
stood there humming she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her
skirt she suddenly realised something essential.

They
were empty. ...well, except for a used handkerchief, a few of those
thingies you open cans with, a small pocket knife, as well as
something squishy she didn't want to identify, but the point was,
there was no purse or anything that would contain money in it and she
knew for sure that there hadn't been a similar thing inside
Inuyasha's pockets. (Not that she had been checking out his ass or
anything... ) So the million dollar question was... How was he going
to 'organise' something to eat – no scratch that, she could
very well imagine how – but what on earth was he thinking!?!
If he got caught Kagome would have to go after that shard alone, and
that was not something she'd chose to if given the choice,
considering around whose neck that shard hung. And he would also get
his counterpart into serious trouble, not a very nice thing to do,
either.

She was
about to storm into the shop to prevent that catastrophe when the
doors parted and Inuyasha stepped out, concentratedly unwrapping an
energy bar of some kind and motioning with his head for her to follow
as he walked towards the exit of the mall.

When he
passed her Kagome saw that he was now wearing a backpack she'd never
seen before and the only thing that kept her from screaming abuse at
him was that she really did not want to face that girl alone.

Which
did of course not mean that she'd let that slide just like
that. So as soon as the automatic doors had closed around them she
took a deep breath and... was, before she could verbalize her hurt
righteousness, grabbed by her hand and with a low voiced

“Keep walking and shut
up!” pulled along by the culprit himself.

About to
protest vehemently she was interrupted yet again, this time though by
a slightly muted cry from inside the mall that sounded suspiciously
like

'There
it is! That's my rucksack!”.

At the
very same time Inuyasha broke into a sprint, whatever he had stolen
clunking inside the backpack, and she had no choice but to join him
as he was still holding her hand.

'Nooooooo'
her muscles and most of all her still hurting stomach screamed. 'No
more running, pleeease!'

But it
couldn't be helped, when they rounded a corner she threw a brief look
back and saw that there were at least three people following them
now, people one of which was a bulky security guy.

She ran
as fast as she could, hardly paying attention to her surroundings,
but Inuyasha did, she realized, because shard feeling grew stronger
the more they ran, which meant that they were, despite their hasty
flight, returning to the shard-girl's house. It was definitely not
bad having someone like him around. Though, then again each of the
situations where his... survival skills had proven useful were
completely his very own fault...

They had
managed to enlarge the distance between them and their persecutors a
little, their bodies were even in this rather wrecked state still
those of two very sportive teenagers. That and the fact that it was
completely dark by then, heightened their chances to escape
successfully, Kagome noted, allowing herself a careful bit of relief.

As they
slithered around another corner they entered a road Kagome remembered
them having walked along before, and somewhere on the other side of
that road there stood an empty, old house that had caught her
attention because it looked so romantically haunted.

“Hey Inuyasha.”

she
panted as soon as she saw the house in the bright light of the street
lights, pointing towards it.

“Let's just hide in
there and wait until they pass us!”

“No. Come on.”

Instead
of crossing the road and doing the logical thing Inuyasha pulled her
behind a large public garbage container.

“Why not? Behind here
they're gonna see us as soon as they pass us.”

“No. They are going to
go looking for us in that empty house as soon as they find the street
empty cause hiding in there is just the cliché, adolescent
thing they'll expect us to do. Now hush!”

She
planned to tell him to go screw his paranoid reasoning and just hide
inside that house without him, but she was to late, she heard voices
nearing, angry voices, and then fragments of a agitated conversation
along the lines of:

'... are
they... hiding somewh... must find... kill... 'king bastards'

When
their followers stopped only a few meters away from their hiding
place and in perfect hearing range, Kagome, who felt the beginnings
of a healthy panic gripping her, overheard them discussing the
optimal course of action, and when she was just about to release the
breath she held in anxiously they suddenly agreed to try – the
empty house across the road because it was “just like those
doped and fucked up teenage muggers to think that's a brilliant
idea.”

And with
tears in her eyes (from holding her breath that long not from being
so relieved.) she glanced around Inuyasha and watched them cross the
road and enter the building in question.

She
didn't need to look at his face to imagine the smuggedysmug
expression on it.

“Ok so you were
right... thanks I guess.” she forced forth, hoping to pacify
his boosted self-opinionated urges as well as her own hurt ones.

She
stood and started walking down the street until Inuyasha caught up
with her. When she faced him then his grin had almost faded.

“Come on we don't have
that long until they'll realise that we're not in there.” and
he sprinted off yet again.

After
they had ran along a few more roads, entering the villa-area that
girl lived in, they allowed themselves to slow down into a slight jog
until they stood in front of the very same wall they had sat by some
time ago.

Inuyasha
struggled a little to calm his still unsteady breathing.

“I don't think it's
that good of an idea if we spend the night here, in front of the
house. Let's ... “ He glanced around, then pointed to something
behind her. “ Let's climb up that tree there.”

When
Kagome turned around she saw what he was talking about: a few meters
behind her, inside the garden surrounding the house but close to the
wall stood a large tree, some of it's branches reached over the wall,
one even stretched almost across the whole pavement. But the wall was
rather tall, and so were the branches, so that Kagome, who couldn't
even recall the last time she had climbed up a tree, was bound to
protest.

“There's no way I'll
manage to get up there, and what if I fall asleep on it? I'll fall
and break my neck again – no thank you!”

Inuyasha
sighed impatiently.

“About the climbing
up: I'll show you how, it's easy. About falling down: I've spent more
than a century of my life sleeping in trees, it's no problem as long
as the branches are thick enough, and these are. That tree is just
the best hiding place around here, and we have to hide
somewhere, cause if someone sees two kids in their school uniforms
hangin' around in front of a villa in the middle of the night they
won't just walk on by and those guys from the mall might still
be around.”

That
sounded almost sensible, but still, the tree looked awfully tall and
unwelcoming.

“Well, I don't care
what you'll do - “ He briskly walked past her, “I'll go
up there now”

And he
jumped, grasping the lowest branch, slung his legs around it and then
acrobated himself on top of it. He balanced towards the trunk, across
the wall, and went to climbing further up, then suddenly halted and
looked down to her with a grin.

“Besides, I still have
all the food...”

Ohh the
nerve of him! That teasing, arrogant prick! ...But she was almost
starving... or so she felt. And he probably wouldn't throw something
down for her.

'Looks
like I don't have a a choice. Just wonderful!'

Well she
wasn't too eager to meet with those guys Inuyasha obviously had
stolen the backpack of, either.

'But god
help me if I let that prick tell me how to climb up there. I'll do
that on my own.'

And so
she determinedly stepped under the branch he had used to mount their
assumed lodgement for the night.

After a
few dissatisfying moments of dangling she decided that it would have
been for the best had she stopped being a child a few years later
because then she'd now remember how on earth she was supposed to
bring her legs over her head and around that branch.

A few
more seconds passed during which her arms seemed to gain a few inches
in length until it occurred to her to just use the wall right in
front of her to help her up and somehow, once she koala beared the
branch, with the wall the rest was fairly easy, so she climbed after
Inuyasha, through the thick tangle of twigs and leaves, her already
rhythmically grumbling stomach urging her to hurry.

She
found him sitting on an almost comfortable looking, broad branch,
leaning against the trunk, the backpack on his knees about to
retrieve something from it.

Before
he could utter any comment, either about the fact that she had
climbed the tree although she didn't want to or that it took her so
long, and that comment was sure to come, she sat down on the same
branch, straddling it, and reached for the backpack.

“So what did you
'organize' there? I'm starving.”

“Well, “ he
obviously would be able to do without a comment and instead began
digging things out of the bag.

“Choice is yours, I'd
say. I got some fruit- “ he briefly lifted a net of oranges
then dropped it again “One more of those energy bars, though
they aren't that tasty, I also have bread and some cheese, some
chocolate and oh yeah, if you want to drink something I got water,
juice, and red wine... and some weird yoghurt drink stuff. And you
can have some of that artificial crab meat, I took some of that, too.
If you want something warm, I have some very suspicious looking self
heating instant ramen.”

Kagome felt her mouth
slightly gape open as he continued to enthusiastically list the
things he had in that bag.

“How on this earth did
you manage to steal that many things in that short amount of time? Do
they employ only blinds in that shop? Why didn't anyone notice? That
shop was full of people!”

He shrugged.

“I just am a very
experienced shoplifter. And most people don't really care whether
anyone steals something or not, they just look away, or whatever.
Well and in case someone does alarm the security, that's why I always
use someone else's bag, you can still claim that you found it or
anything, after all you can prove it's not yours. Now what do you
want? I think I'll try that ramen.”

“Are you saying that
you just walked in there, took someone's backpack and walked around
openly putting things in it? And then what? You just passed the
checkouts with that backpack and no-one suspected a thing? With that
beat up face?”

“No, I did the old
'buy something cheap, which was that awful energy bar, and behave
naturally while you bags are full of stuff' trick. I found a little
change in my pockets.”

Kagome briefly pondered
whether she ought to lecture him about shoplifting being amoral and
such, but she was so very hungry she couldn't quite staring at the
strength to care, and so she just took the package of ramen Inuyasha
offered and hurriedly twisted the thingy that started the chemical
reaction heating the soup.

They didn't have chopsticks,
so it got a little messy when she tried to taste it, but after a
first sip she decided anyway that she couldn't imagine herself being
hungry and desperate enough to be willing and able to eat this. It
tasted like a lot of things, chicken among other things, but not the
good chicken, the 'chicken' everyone who ever ate meat of a strange
animal claimed it tasted like. Who knew just what they put in there
to create that taste. She just offered it to Inuyasha who took it
gladly, he seemed to actually like that crap, a lot judging by the
way he devoured it.

She ate bread with cheese
and some of the crabby stuff instead, drank one of those yoghurt
drinks and then began to peel an orange. More out of habit than
anything, she and her brother often shared – no used to...
share oranges while watching TV, she gave half of it to Inuyasha who
was now exterminating the rest of the fake crab. He accepted it
surprisedly, he probably thought she was still mad at him or
something, and she would have been normally, but he even brought
chocolate, Kagome just couldn't hold a grudge against someone who
gave her chocolate... so she generously forgave him his teasing and
overall arrogance.

Or would till his next
lapse.

Miraculously Inuyasha had
also managed to 'organise' a blanket, it was actually supposed to be
a tablecloth and had a incredibly ugly fish pattern on it, but it was
better than just a summer school uniform, it had gotten kind of
chilly the longer there was no sun to heat the atmosphere.

As soon as she leaned
against the trunk on another branch a little above Inuyasha's,
happily letting chocolate melt on her tongue, she realised that
Inuyasha must have been making the stuff about sleeping in trees up.
There was no way she would not fall out of it as soon as she
fell asleep, even if she weren't a person who trashed around a lot in
their sleep, which she happened to be. But climbing down again seemed
out of question, too, she was so tired now, her arms felt like they
would just rip off the next time she'd use them to lift something
heavier than a bottle of water, leave alone support her full
bodyweight. She'd fall either way. She decided to at least try
sleeping right here, and hope that if she fell she wouldn't
fall deep, maybe even onto Inuyasha to punish him for insisting that
they sleep here. So she wiggled around a little until she was about
comfortable, snuggled into the blanket and closed her eyes.

“Fuck!”

Kagome
had been about to doze off slightly when suddenly Inuyasha cursed
loudly. Lazily she looked down to see what was up with him and found
him frowning at a dark green bottle, probably the wine he'd been
talking about earlier.

'Yeah
'bout that. Why did he bring any in the first place?'

“What is it? Got the
wrong year?” she half joked.

He shot
her a short glare but she was taken aback anyway. His eyes screamed
of angry frustration, he really was very upset about something. The
wine for some reason, obviously, judging by the way he continued to
glare at the bottle.

“I took this wine but
in my rush to get that useless blanket I forgot to take a corkscrew.
I can't get the fucking thing out!”

“Jeez so what? We
still have plenty of water and yoghurt drinks. It's not like wine
tastes good or anything. Just leave it be.”

But he didn't really seem to
be listening, just poked at the cork sealing the bottle.

Suddenly he began murmuring,
in a way of asking her but probably talking to himself.

“... Now, which is
better, pushing the cork inside, though then it tastes awful and gets
in the way all the time, or chopping the neck off, though that might
cause splinters...? well this isn't my body anyway...”

Kagome could not quite
believe what she was hearing.

“Are you out of your
mind? Just because this is not your body doesn't mean you can just go
and waste it like that! Eating pieces of glass might even kill this
body! Gods, are you really that desperate?”

She suddenly remembered the
pocket knife she had found earlier and all but threw it at him.

“Here.”

He caught it swiftly,
unfolded the corkscrew device and began screwing it in immediately.

“How about thanks?”

Se really was about to get
irritated again, big time, she didn't even fell particularly tired
anymore. He graced her with a short nod, interrupted himself when he
managed to open the bottle. He sighed happily, leaned back against
the trunk and began gulping down the wine hurriedly. Then he set the
bottle into his lap and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Dear god, what are
you, an alcoholic?” Kagome inquired, slightly disturbed.

That snapped him out of his
happy trance like contentment. He glared at her, obviously enraged.

“I'm not an
alcoholic! I just can't fucking sleep without having drunk at least a
few beer, nothing more!”

Kagome
glared right back, wondering whether she should be laughing or
beating him over the head. Both perhaps.

“You know, that is
usually one of the most obvious hints that someone has an alcohol
addiction! Does that mean that you were drinking on a daily basis
when you were still alive?”

“None of you
business.”

He took
another swig from the bottle.

That
again. Well she knew now that there was no way she'd get anything out
of him he didn't want to talk about, but maybe he would do so by
himself if she just didn't pry, like before.

What a
strange boy he was. One moment he was plain immature and jerkish, the
next he was all subdued, almost melancholic and one could easily
detect that he must have been hurt a lot during his life, then, when
it came to fighting or anything he was suddenly frighteningly calm
and wild at the same time, and deadly efficient, experienced, and
then there were these rare occasions where it seemed like he, beneath
all that, actually did care about someone other than him.

And now,
on top of it all, he also was some kind of an alcoholic. It would be
sooo fun working with him... No she shouldn't be thinking that way,
she scolded herself. He wasn't all bad, he probably really was a lot
more thoughtful and concerned than he let on, he had, in fact,
brought her chocolate and even a blanket and had actually,
although in mid fight, taken care that she wouldn't be hurt further.
Alcoholism was, after all, a disease, a mental and physical illness
and was to be taken serious, she knew that because one of her uncles
had had the same problem, with the unpleasant addition that he was a
drinker of the aggressive kind, the ones that tended to loose their
temper so fast under the influence of alcohol they would even beat up
their loved ones. He also, much like Inuyasha, had been in denial
about his addiction, unwilling to accept help until one night in a
drunken frenzy he had hit his wife. He had sought help then, and was
still in therapy but things went well...

Kagome
gulped as she felt the familiar lump build in her throat, she'd let
her guard down for a second and immediately the cleanly suppressed
and ignored memories of her family, her life back when she still was
alive, sneakily found their way back into her awareness, and she was
but one step away from the familiar spiral leading to self pity and
eventually tears.

She
fought the draw of that spiral for a while, she even fell back on the
stupid humming thing but now every song she mixed into her medley
seemed to remind her of something that only fed the spiral, increased
the suction of it's current.

In the
end she gave in, what was the point fighting it, anyway? She knew all
to well that suppressed feelings didn't just disappear, they just
became a constant part of your personality, thus making you even
weaker than you could ever be in the very moment you gave into them.
So she allowed herself all the pessimism and sadness that crowded her
mind.

They'd
never ever collect all jewel shards, she was just plain useless,
couldn't defend herself properly, even with such a body, Inuyasha was
just way to impulsive and had a serious drinking problem. What
a team they were. But if they didn't collect the shards she wouldn't
be given back her life and she'd be reborn to forget all that once
held her heart, just like they would eventually forget about her...

Shoulders slumped, insides
clenched, lips shook and tears began to spill as Kagome pressed the
blanket against her mouth to mute her sobs.

“It's the only way...
“

Again - was she allowed to
see a trend here? Inuyasha's slurred voice snapped her out of her
despair, or managed to keep her mind of all the things causing it, at
least. Glancing down through watery eyes she could make him out
sitting there, looking up to her. She blinked until her eyes were
tear free and staring ated him silently for a while, wondering
whether he actually did this on purpose, whether he somehow knew when
she was about to cry and this was his way of comforting her. Oh yeah,
he had said something, too, something weird actually.

“... The only way?”

“Theonly fucking way
ta make idall go away... to calm me ... no-one can sleep withese
things in their head, b'lieve me... It's been like that 'ver since...
no maybe it's always been like that... once ... once when I was
takin' a pause withall the shit I didn't sleep fora whole month... no
34 days exactly ...y'know with humans the delusions startafter 52
hours or so... with hanyous it's 29 days exactly...”

It took her a while to
figure out that he was talking about drinking, about why he drank, to
be exact. He had obviously drunken the whole bottle of wine, at least
he didn't seem to have it anymore, and was now seriously plastered,
probably his dimension counterpart didn't share that hobby with him,
at least his body didn't seem to be used to alcohol at all.

He was still looking at her,
was trying to, more like, but he seemed to have trouble focussing
sometimes, his eyes were watery and reflected the moonlight breaking
through the leaves and his cheeks were slightly tinted.

'He looks like an innocent
child now... well if it weren't for the bruises he would... at least
he's not an aggressive drinker... at least that seems so...'

When he began talking about
delusions she actually focussed on what he was telling her.

“You mean you
spent...” He was, even in this state, faster than her when it
came to calculations... what a disgrace..

“...5 days seeing
things... feeling things... yeah...” He snickered. “ To
think that some people pay to expir- expp- exp'rience that shit...”

“And then?”

34 days of insomnia. She'd
once spent 34 hours awake, on a sleep over party that just
wouldn't end, totally hyper on all the coke she'd drunken... but 34
days? And then delusions? Seeing things? She'd once read that
the delusions caused by sleep deprivation could get as fierce as
those of withdrawal or serious mental illnesses, that one actually
died after more than 60 or so hours without sleep.

“I gave in, drank and
passed out in the bar.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Someone threw
me out when they wanned to close 'n couldn't wake me up... I dunno
what happened then, but I woke a full hour train ride away near the
Wannsee... I slept wonderfully, though...”

“The Wuannosae..? “She
struggled with the foreign word.

“That's near Berlin.”
He explained.

“That's in... Germany.
What were you doing there?”

“Living since the late
seventies.”

“You lived in Berlin?”

She'd always wondered when
on earth she'd ever need all that information of her endless History
classes on the Cold War; had she been told back then that some day
they would make her able to converse with a drunken Hanyou whilst
sitting in a tree in another dimension... she would probably not have
believed that.

“Western Berlin or
Eastern Berlin?”

“Western, I wasn’t
that muchofa socialist to willingly live under a fuckin' total-
totallyt totalitarian regime... “

Yeeha,
she actually knew what he was talking about! (A.N.: If you don’t,
but want to, I'll leave a link to a site explaining it at the bottom
A.N.s... if I find one that is neutral and not totally non liberal,
that is.)

“But how did you end
up there in the first place?”

Kagome
inquired, silently thanking Inuyasha for being of the talkative
drinker kind... he would probably hate her tomorrow, if he remembered
what he'd told her... but oh well they weren't actually discussing
anything intimate or anything so there was no need to feel bad about
it.

“I fled... couldn't
stand it any longer...”

He shut
his eyes and shivered, obviously, whatever had made him flee somehow
still haunted him.

Oh.
Maybe they were discussing something intimate.

“I had to escape it...
they were everywhere... a new one each day...”

He drew
his knees to his chest, curling into himself as to protect himself
from whatever drove him away back then.

Kagome
felt her heart swell with sympathy. Life had obviously never gone
easy on him. She dared not ask what it was that still scared him so.

“To think thadonly a
few years before, I'd been practically livin' in my personal
heaven... everything was fuckin' perfect...”

He
suddenly straightened again, a fierce expression on his face.

“Those goddamn disco
motherfuckers! I wish I'd known back then who invented that fuckin'
shit, I would've gladly killed that bastard! Stain' alive my ass!”

Her jaw
dropped.

“When you’re
saying that you fled you mean you did it to escape disco music?”

“Damn right! It was
fuckin' everywhere! Can you imagine that? Every shop you passed
played the crap, dozens of tha very best radio stations just changed
their fuckin' program, or just stopped... though...”

He
seemed to calm down a little. Kagome couldn't help but silently laugh
about herself, about the whole situation. There she was, five seconds
from patting his head to console him and he'd been this haunted
because of disco...

“Though.. to be
honest... 'twas really all over already... prolly wasn't really their
fault... they'd all been fucking selling their souls ever since
Woodstock anyway... Born to be wild my ass!”

He was
now sullenly staring off ahead, and a little bit of sadness flickered
over his face, or so it looked like in the rather meagre light.

There
was a Rock fan in the throes of nostalgia, Kagome thought amusedly,
she wasn't all that ignorant when it came to music, she liked all
kinds, also the older kinds, and she knew, once again, what he was
talking about: The over all commercialisation of the rock music that
had gotten so popular throughout the mid and late sixties, first an
expression of the youth movements, the protest, some liked to claim
the revolution against the overly conservative society, record firms
had all to soon realised just what amounts of money could be made
with that and had taken over the scene, slowly depriving the movement
of it's spirit. That really must have been tough for such a die hard
fan as Inuyasha seemed to be one. Oh well...

Looking
down to the boy in question she saw that he was still sitting and
staring, and she decided that it'd be best to leave him alone now, he
didn't look that talkative anymore and she wasn't about to test her
luck and ask him another question.

Besides
that she really was awfully... tired now...

A.N.:
There, a brand new chapter, I'm terribly sorry that it took me so
long, but a few things came up (I won't deny though that one of those
things is my laziness... )

But it's
extra long to make up for that, 29 pages, with my typing speed it's
no wonder actually that it took me 5 weeks or so to write it.

Yeah and
here's something about the whole Cold War thing I mentioned, for
anyone who's interested, just remove the spaces and there you go,
it's not actually a very good site or anything but the point is
brought across and it's not too prejudiced:

w w w.
rp fuller.com/ gcse/ history/ 9.html
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A Parallel Dimensional Fairytale