InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Grudging Loss ❯ Band Practice & Looking Back ( Chapter 7 )

Band Practice & Looking Back

 

“So please explain this to me again Ginta?” asked Inuyasha as he held his hand over his eyes as if he had a headache.

 

Ginta stood next to Inuyasha in confusion as he started to scratch his grey hair that had a black stripe running down the middle. “Um, I have been trying to get us gigs and you know what they have always been saying…,” answered Ginta.

 

Inuyasha didn't know if his headache could get any worse. “That we needed a gimmick. So how is a girl a gimmick?”

 

“They told me that all-male rock bands are a dime a dozen, but if we had a cute girl dressed in leather that we would stand out and get more gigs!” said Ginta.

 

Koga walked forward. “Ginta's right. He's the one who handles all of our bookings and he knows what the clubs are telling him. We need something to give us an edge.”

 

“Shit! We're an all male demon band! You can't add a woman to the mix!” added Inuyasha in frustration. “Besides she couldn't even handle us. Too much demonic testosterone!”

 

“Oh she can handle us alright,” added Hakkaku who had tan skin and a blonde mohawk.

 

Inuyasha stepped in with a sarcastic tone, “Really?”

 

“I've been living with a pack of wolves all my life. You think that I can't handle you guys?” added Ayame as she walked forward.

 

Inuyasha was rarely intimidated by anyone--let alone a woman. But she did have the confidence and bearing to walk toward him without flinching. Few women could do it. She cracked her own knuckles as she stared at Inuyasha.

 

Inuyasha sighed. “OK.OK. But she can't join our band unless she auditions first. Let's play a few cords and see how she sings.” Inuyasha paused as he picked up his electric guitar and looked at Ayame and Ginta's startled faces.

 

“They told me that all I had to do is look good and dance,” said Ayame.

 

“We can turn down her mike so that no one can hear her,” said Ginta.

 

“You've got to be joking,” added Koga. “Band members need to be part of the band.”

 

“Well, she will be,” answered Ginta with some defensiveness.

 

Inuyasha just groaned and started to strum his guitar while he tuned it. “OK Ayame. Do you know any songs?”

 

“Um, I can sing any song by the Pussy Cat Dolls,” answered Ayame.

 

Inuyasha felt that his jaw was starting to twitch. “Pussy Cat Dolls? You've got to be fucking with me,” added Inuyasha. “We're a rock band. Do you know any rock songs?”

 

“Ummm…,” was all Ayame could say.

 

“Do you know any songs from `Disturbed', `Metallica', `Guns n' Roses', `Alice in Chains', `Slipknot', `Lynyrd Skynyrd', `The Cult'?” asked Inuyasha with growing anger as the girl simply shook her head to each new band that he mentioned.

 

Ginta started up a few cords from his bass guitar. “I know that she knows this one,” he added with a smile.

 

The band started to recognize the song and started to play the opening verse.

 

“Fuck, even my grandmother knows that song!” yelled Inuyasha.

 

“Calm down, bud,” said Ginta. “Give the girl a chance.”

 

Inuyasha sighed. She did look the part. She was a demon, so her flaming red hair looked wild and the skintight white jeans and halter top looked good on her. She wasn't exactly what he would want in a female band member, but he conceded that she could look the part.

 

Soon the chords to `Born To Be Wild' by Steppenwolf started to fill their practice room as Hakkaku, the drummer, started to join in with a beat.

 

Inuyasha groaned. “At least there is no way that she could screw up this song,” he thought as he started to move his fingers over the strings of his guitar with his calloused hands. “Come on girl, start singing!” barked Inuyasha as the first verse of song started to play.

 

Ayame nervously tapped her hands to her side as she waited for the verse to start up again. She started to sing while looking at a lyric sheet that Ginta pointed out to her and placed on her stand. As Ayame sang, her words came out as a screech.

 

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

 

Inuyasha winced. She truly sounded like a wolf howling at the moon. “What did I expect from wolf demons?” he thought miserably as he fought the sudden urge to bang his head against the nearest wall.

 

When the song was done, Ginta was the only one who was still trying to smile. “Wasn't that great?” he beamed.

 

“Just shoot me,” thought Inuyasha.

----

 

By the time Inuyasha and his band mates had made it back to their Westwood apartment his mood was increasingly sour.

 

“I can't believe that you want her to sing in our band! Nails on a chalkboard sound better than her!” yelled Inuyasha at Ginta.

 

Koga and Hakkaku simply stood back to watch the fallout.

 

“I'm telling you again. I told the clubs that we had a sexy female singer who looks good in leather. They're counting on it. We'll loose our gigs if she isn't there,” said Ginta sheepishly.

 

“What did you tell them that for?” asked Inuyasha. “She can't sing. She's going to make us sound bad.”

 

“I'll turn down her mike so that no one can hear her. She only needs to look good,” added Ginta.

 

“Just stay the fuck away from me right now Ginta!” yelled Inuyasha as he brushed him aside and stormed into the room he shared with Koga.

 

“Shit! Fuck!” was all that he could mutter repeatedly as he paced across his room. Soon he stopped to look at a DVD that was placed on his computer. Myoga had given it to him when they had met with Sesshomaru and Totosai. It was the broadcast of their last match with USC. All of the team members had been required to watch the match and at their next practice they would be talking about what they noticed. It was a standard procedure that they did after every single game they played. They needed to analyze themselves and their opponents. What did they do wrong and what did they do right?

 

Suddenly Inuyasha wanted to play the DVD. It wasn't because he wanted to analyze the game. He wanted to see what had happened when he was subdued with the sealing spell. And if he could be honest with himself—he also wanted to see Kagome.

 

He put in the DVD and fast-forwarded it to the part of the match where Kagome took out her arrow and pointed it at him. Because of the roar of the crowds he couldn't hear her words on the DVD. But he remembered what she had said. He looked down at the small figure on the screen and then looked as the camera panned in on her as she rose from her feet. Once the camera zoomed in on Kagome he could see her shaking body and the strain that she was in just stand up after he had punched her in the stomach.

 

Involuntarily his stomach started to quiver in knots at the thought of hitting her and he thought about the large purple-grey bruise that she had on her stomach. She didn't seem to upset or concerned about the bruise, but he still felt bad about it. “I shouldn't feel upset,” he thought. “This is a sport and she knows that.” But the guiltiness still clung to him.

 

He then could see her lips moving and he knew from memory that she was saying, “Arrow of sealing!” as her white flaming arrow came loose and imbedded itself firmly into his heart.

 

He looked down at his own chest to see where the arrow had pierced it. The arrow was gone, but he still remembered the stiffness and the blackness that accompanied the arrow. Then he looked back on screen and saw something that he never saw before. His body collapsed on the field and Kagome was walking toward him.

 

“What the hell is she doing?” he thought. “She needs to be looking out for Koga. What's wrong with her?”

 

As the priestess moved forward and the camera was still zoomed in on her, he noticed tears that were coming out of her eyes.

 

“What the fuck?” he thought. “Tears?”

 

The camera then panned away and zoomed in on Koga who was running across the stadium. He dodged yet another attack by the Hiraikotsu as it flew on past him and then turned back to return to its the original owner.

 

Koga was running around the perimeter and soon he was directly behind Kagome. Inuyasha watched in surprise as the camera zoomed in on the two of them. Kagome was standing over him and was not paying attention to the field.

 

“What are you doing Kagome?” he yelled at the screen. “Turn around you stupid chick! You're about to be…”

 

Inuyasha didn't have to finish his sentence. As Kagome had been looking at his unconscious body with a look of concern, Koga was rapidly coming on from behind. He knocked into Kagome's back and she flew forward. Inuyasha was amazed to see that her body fell right onto his and that she was now unconscious as well. He felt his chest again. She had been lying there, right on top of him. He quickly hit the pause button before it panned away from Kagome again. He scanned back a few frames to where she fell on him. Then using his computer he zoomed in even more. Her eyes had tears on them and her lovely head was resting right next to the arrow that she had shot into his heart. He looked at the still shot again. Her beautiful ebony hair had fallen in a pool around her face and a single tear seemed to be dropping down a cheek. She was very pretty he thought. He touched the screen for a second then hit the play button again.

 

“What the fuck was I thinking?” he thought. “Human bitch shot me in the heart.” His hand couldn't help but to touch his left breast where the arrow had been once more as he continued to watch the match that they had lost to USC.

 

He noticed that Koga had paused momentarily after he had knocked Kagome down. He seemed to be checking on Kagome to make sure that she was alright. That was Koga's fatal error. “Koga watch out!” he yelled as Sango's boomerang bone hit him squarely in the back, rendering him unconscious.

 

He then heard the roar of the crowd as the stadium's electronic bulletin boards lit up with “USC Winner”! Inuyasha groaned as he relived the moment when he realized that they had lost. It had been hard to return to school the next day. He had heard far too many snide remarks about how a mere miko had taken him down. Luckily she had also taken down Sesshomaru, otherwise he was quite certain that his older brother would have been joining in on the criticism.

 

He sighed and ran his hand through his long silver hair before he looked down at his cellphone and flipped it open again. Soon he was paging through his contact list and found Kagome's picture and phone number again. He hit the green call button on his cell and waited for Kagome to answer her phone.

 

“Hey, Kagome—it's me, Ash,” he said. “I'm actually staying here in LA longer than I expected…No, my family just wanted me to be around more…so I'm only commuting to UCSB on Tuesday and Thursday…Yeah, well that means I can…Yeah sure, I'd love to see you again…On Monday, right Cromwell field…I'll meet you there…See you later…”

 

There was a slight smile on his face that quickly turned to a frown as he flipped his cell phone shut and then started watching the DVD of the game again on his laptop.