InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Carpe Demon ❯ The Kick-boxing Kid ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Chapter 4: The Kick-boxing Kid

‘This was a heck of a lot easier than I anticipated’ thought Kagome as her grandfather welcomed her and her pack with seemingly open arms. When he had hugged her in welcome she had felt an overwhelming urge to check for a knife in her back. She, InuYasha and Souta were crowded on the couch watching him as he rushed here and there making sure everyone was comfortable.

A slue of drinks, sweets, and snacks sat before them on the coffee table. The wide array of choices was fit enough for a Saturday afternoon cartoon-fest. Grandpa Higurashi was nothing, if not all politeness and Kagome admitted, to her chagrin, that to her memory, she had never been treated this well by him; even when she was in his good graces. If she had ever been in his good graces. And frankly that huge smile on his face was beginning to really weird her out.

She thought back on the day she had told her grandfather of what Miroku had imparted to her during their meeting. When you live with someone your entire life you would think that you would be able to predict their reactions. That was so not the case this time. When she walked into the home that she had shared with him for her entire life she had no idea that it would be for the last time.

"I will not have that orphaned urchin in my home!" Kagome sat shocked at her grandfather’s extreme anger at her news. She had no idea that he would behave this way. He had always seemed so disappointed that he’d had to train a girl. She thought for sure that he would be elated to have a ‘proper student’.

"Grandpa, he’s Ichigo’s son . . . "

"Precisely" he interrupted her with so much vehemence that her eyes immediately found the floor as she cringed. It was a moment of excruciating silence before she could find her voice.

"He may be his son but what happened before has nothing to do with him."

"It has everything to do with him," he bellowed. "He is the product of your brother’s thoughtlessness and careful disregard of his legacy. You actually want to take in a child that your brother put before you, before his family, before his duty? Think on it Kagome, where would you be today if that boy hadn’t run from his responsibilities? That boy abandoned his family with no thought of the consequences."

It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t heard this particular lecture before but she’d heard just about all that she could take and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

"What consequences? That you had to put up with training me, huh?" She paused as she tried to hold back the tears that always came when she came to face her grandfathers obvious low opinion of her.

"A worthless girl with no discipline or strength worth noting?" She threw the words he often uttered during her training back at him. He tried to interrupt her but she steam-rolled over him her voice becoming more and more shrill with every word. "I did my best. No, I did better that my best. I bled , I cried, I would have died just to prove my worth. I guess, now I see that nothing I do will ever be good enough for you. "

She had no idea when she had gotten to her feet but she stood there now her chest heaving and fists balled at her side. She had shocked her grandfather into silence and turned to leave with one final message. "All I ever wanted from you was your approval. But, I’m tired of tilting at windmills.Just remember while you’re rattling around in this house all alone, you brought this on yourself."

After storming from the main house to her small satellite apartment, she’d informed InuYasha that they would be leaving. She’d let out a little derisive laugh when she wondered how big the old man would have blown-up if she had ever actually gotten around to telling him about InuYasha. Kagome wondered if Inu would have been so welcome if her grandfather were to find out about his former state of existence.

She hadn’t even been in the neighborhood since then.

She had to admit now that her grandfather was not the imposing figure he used to be. Bent and stooped with age he was no longer the spry old man that demanded more than perfection from her.

---

He was getting on in years and just maybe with his aging, he realized the folly in ousting everyone who did not follow his every want, needs and desires to the ‘T’. Grandpa Higurashi knew that he had not too much longer for this world and perhaps it was time to let go of his long held prejudices. Well most of them anyway.

He perhaps had found he could make his amends to his grandson through the child he left behind. And there was still time yet to get Kagome to forgive him for turning his back on her. Since his daughter’s passing she and the boy were all that was left of the Higurashi clan. If Kagome got married that would be the end of that, at least the boy could carry on the family name.

It was possible that, given time, she could forgive him, even as he thought this the harsh words he’d said on her last day here rang in his ears. He had to earn her forgiveness if he had not already crushed the part of her that had always forgiven so easily. Besides, she was back with him now and obviously if her appearance was any indication, back in the business. And giving her that first season DVD of ALIAS that he had recently and fortuitously acquired couldn’t hurt either.

He accepted InuYasha, no questions asked. Not that he didn’t have questions; there oh-so many queries floated around in his head. It would take a while just to get his thoughts in order. He knew that Kagome had never had much time for friends when she was with him. He had made sure of that. He’d run those three tittering harpies she called friends away from the shrine; and with good reason too, enough to know that.

He assumed that it was not a romantic relationship between them. But, then again, he never was too good when it came to interpreting the matters of the heart. Ichigo’s departure had confirmed that. However, he did make sure that this newcomer’s sleeping quarters were quite far from his granddaughters just in case something or someone felt the need to go ‘bump’ in the night.

It was always better to be safe than sorry.

---

The room was dark, dank and smelled slightly of the urine and excrement of more than one species. The walls, which once were white in a more hopeful former life, were now covered in grime and mildew stains that wouldn’t come out and stains no one bothered to try to remove.

This was a room full of dark corners for doing dark deeds. Dark deeds that had been carried out in this room before and would continue to be done long after its current occupant finished his own shady business.

Sesshoumaru sat in this room staring at an oddly clear space on the wall. That clear space most likely had a very interesting story behind it, but it was one that he had absolutely no interest in. He showed no signs of even noticing the world around him as his babbling retainer yapped his ear off while bandaging his blackened arm and chest. His skin had a four inch radius around the puncture, that had been graciously given to him by that little bitch of a slayer, could give leather a run for it’s money on the toughness scale.

Due to the holy power which clung to the knife as it impaled him, he would not heal at his body’s usually rapid rate. It was fate’s choice that he kept his arm at all. To lose a limb to that slayer, a mere human, would have been the end of him. It would have been even worse to lose a limb for the sake of his worthless half brother.

He was still whole but despite that mark in the plus column he still lost. He mulled over his defeat. It may not have been a full defeat as the slayer had been forced to retreat. But, again, there he was wounded; due to a folly of his own, while she ran around unharmed. He had underestimated the slayer. He had not given her what little respect was due to her.

His father had told him time and time again that to underestimate your opponent was to place them a step above you and it gave them a deadly advantage. As usual his father was right. He would not make the same mistake a second time. He would do all that he could to assure his victory in their next battle.

It seems some reconnaissance was in order. Unable to accept defeat in any form, he would break the slayer and any other until none could offer resistance, of any kind, to him. For Sesshoumaru there could be none who could or would dare oppose him. As Sesshoumaru carefully planned his next move, his door slammed open and rattled on its hinges.

An amalgam, whose head was filled with lofty dreams of power, stood seething in his doorway. Sesshoumaru’s anger was veiled behind a mask of indifference only expressed when he lifted a brow in his nonverbal impression of ‘why should I not kill you on the spot?’.

"Ha! The slayer retreated to the shrine; you’ll never get near her now that her guard is up. You’ve failed me!" Surely, that was not a statement that granted a long and full life. Sesshoumaru let it slide this time but his patience for this sort of ‘thing’ was wearing thin.

"Failed you?" He let out a dark chuckle, "You seem to be under the false impression that I act on anything other than my own interests."

Sesshoumaru stood regally and walked through his door, his muttering retainer following quickly in his wake. The demon he left behind smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ he thought. ‘The great Sesshoumaru is not so prodigious after all.’ He laughed darkly walked from the room and closed the door with a quiet snick.

---

After an few days rest, relaxation, and enough ALIAS to renew her never ending love, Kagome dove back into work. Her extra class was small but she was sure that enrollment would buck up when the word of its forming got out.

"Welcome to intermediate shoot boxing, I will be your instructor. You can call me Kagome." She smiled cheerily. "This is a small class so we can be extra friendly. Why don’t we introduce ourselves?" She nodded at a fairly muscle bound man as a signal for him to start.

"Daisuke," announced the muscled man with a voice that did not belong with his body.

"Chiaki," came from a timid tomboyish teenager.

"Rihito," enunciated a Rico Suave type man who obviously had more confidence than height.

"Masahide," stated a man who was all business

"Hideka," purred a woman whose make up and a skintight leotard shouted sex kitten.

The last man, who was perfection in every inch of his being as stated in the Kagome book chapter two paragraph four, answered locking his molten brown eyes onto Kagome’s steely grey. He smirked as an embarrassed flush grew in her countenance.

"Sesshou."