InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ New Age ❯ Not Quite Dead ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Claimer: I own what has to be the smallest fraction of Inuyasha possible. So small I can’t remember it. Heh, oh well. Moving on.

Summary: Meet Dr. Kagome Higurashi. She works in a recently developed portion of the Shroud Companies called “Metaphysical Understandings”. What she does is analyze and report the supernatural things she’s given, such as old Japanese Ofugas, Taro Cards, Crystal Balls and so on. And then she was assigned to the biggest discovery of the company: a demon-like creature recently uncovered in a deathlike sleep from under the surface of the Old World.


New Age

Chapter Two : Not Quite Dead


The next morning Kagome didn’t forget to feed her dogs, all four of them. Two of them were husky, one was a retriever, and the forth was a chow. Whenever they had puppies she sold them at two Sets apiece, more as they got older. The night before her dream hadn’t been about that man or neat powers. It’d been about Him, the unknown creature.

It was odd, too. She saw herself doing routine research on him when he woke up and told her, in Old World Japanese, that something evil was coming. The bonds didn’t hold him when he got up, and the field didn’t harm him when he walked through it. He grabbed her and the scene changed, becoming an incredible endless forest like those seen in Old World books. It was beautiful until the sky darkened and the sun eclipsed. But it wasn’t the moon that eclipsed the sun, it was a black star. Everything around her died and the trees turned to dust. When she looked back at Him, he was wearing the strangest red-colored outfit she’d ever seen. He told her that this was where he died, everything looking like this. When the sky darkens again, when the Black Star eclipses the sun, it will happen again.

And then he was gone and she was awake.

Now she was flying her AirCar at the regulated speed back to Shroud Main, back to her research room, back to her job and the strange man that invaded her perfect dreams with a prophecy of evil. He'd completely ruined her thoughts of meeting that shadowed man in her dreams again, and for that she was annoyed with him; dead or not.

She’d set up a briefcase to take with her and now set it down on the desk she assumed as hers. It was opposite Miroku’s, one of the two nearest Him. She stood there for a moment, staring at his image behind the field, wondering what she could do for today. After a few moments she decided it'd be ridiculous to continue to be angry with a corpse and set her anger aside.

“Well,” she decided, “I can’t do anything without him involved.” She turned off the security field and once again looked away. Certainly he wasn’t found completely nude, right? So what did they do with his pants?

She couldn’t possibly poke and prod him like he was. So she went back to her desk, got a roll of measuring tape and measured around his hips. She was blushing furiously the entire time, being so close to that, but this was how one chose the right size of pants. She measured down his leg then and kept running the numbers through her mind as she went to her desk.

She pressed a button on the keyboard and it blinked on the screen. She typed in a request for a pair of pants and sent it to the nearest clothing shop. A reply beeped up saying, “You will have the requested size in two hours. Thank you for your business.”

Now that that was taken care of, she wasn’t sure about what to do with herself. She kept glancing at Him. She wondered what his name was. She wondered if he had a name. She wondered if he had a family still stuck under that wreckage. She wondered if he was married, if his people even had marriage, if he had any offspring and if they would come looking for him.

She wondered why she was still thinking about him and staring at him while she should be working on figuring out what he was. Shaking her head, she got up and grabbed a syringe. The first thing they always tell you to do was to get a blood sample.

She knelt down inside the prison and felt for a vein in his right elbow. She got a little distracted, however, by the feel of his skin. It was soft and smooth, very well taken care of. Surprising in that he’d been under that rubble for who-knew-how-long.

She realized she was fondling him after a short while and shook her head. He wasn’t that great of a man, to be able to seduce her while completely unconscious, if not dead. She found his vein again and took a blood sample, a large one in comparison to how much they usually took, but with this guy, who knew how many times they’d screw up while trying to understand him.

She left him, put up the field again and typed into her computer how much blood she extracted. For a while she was doubtful that a syringe could penetrate his skin at all, after her dream. But that proved it was just a dream, didn’t it? She’d been having the strangest dreams her entire life and they never meant a thing; why would that one be any different?

She started tapping her fingers on the desk and got lost in her thoughts. She didn’t come to until her computer beeped and said, “You have a new message.”

She jumped and sighed. “Alright what do I have?” she said, opening it.

It was from the clothing shop. It read, “Your total is fifteen Sets. Thank you for your business.”

She took a card out of her briefcase and stuck it in a slot. It beeped and fifteen Sets were taken out. She went to the door and opened it. A guard held out the pants and she thanked him.

It wasn’t just pants. A note on the top said, “For being a first-time customer, you receive an extra item in the size and style of your purchase. Thank you for your business.”

It was boxer shorts. She laughed, realizing that she had indeed forgotten that item, and mentally thanking them for it. It would probably be incredibly uncomfortable for Him to wear snugly fitted pants without something soft to keep his. . .parts. . .from rubbing up against the fabric.

Now came the fun part: putting them on. It was against regulation to take off the reinforced straps holding him down, but she couldn’t get them on otherwise. She was supposed to call in guards and have one of them do it for her, to keep her out of danger, but somehow that thought didn’t appeal to her.

Biting her lip and trying to remain professional, she shut down the field and unclamped the straps around his legs. She set down the pants and knelt to put on the boxer shorts. She hardly made it past his ankles before she paused to regain her control.

She took a deep breath, told herself this was for the best and she’d never have to do it again.

In retrospect, it’s easy to think that you could put clothes on an unconscious person. But the actual feat is harder than that. He was heavier than she guessed and it was hard to control the way his legs rolled whenever she moved one. In the end it was a triumph for her to get them on.

And then came the pants. It was definitely more difficult than the shorts, especially because she had to make sure the shorts didn’t bunch once she got them up. That meant tucking them down again. Plus she’d never tried to dress a man before and worried about the zipper and button. She didn’t want to accidentally hurt him while fitting it.

In the message to the shop, she included that they were being made for a man, hence the boxer shorts. Naturally the shop included that in the making, counting for his male genitalia. The problem there was that it was still a bit snug and the thought made her giggle.

To her it was actually quite intimate, although it was a silly way to look at it. But then she didn’t make a habit of dressing men and therefore it wasn’t something she could easily put out of her mind.

Possibly the worst part was his smell.

Kagome had never noticed that people had a smell. She’d never tried to smell anyone, either. But he definitely had a smell. And the closer she was to him, the more alluring it was. After the pants part of her day, she found herself leaning close to him and smelling him.

It was incredible. Animalistic. Almost dirty compared to their clean world and spotless metallic instruments. But she couldn’t stop herself. His smell was so. . .so male that her body was responding on an unconscious level.

She didn’t even notice she was moving until she opened her eyes again and found she was staring at the right side of his jaw, her head beside his, his head still lowered and facing forward. And then another horrible yet wonderful thing happened: she saw his mouth.

His lips were just slightly parted and his mouth looked so. . .inviting that she could hardly keep rational thoughts. And her “rational thoughts” were against her, telling her that he would never know and nobody would ever know. . .it would be just her secret, something for to know that no one else ever would.

After all, who else would kiss an unconscious man that no one knew anything about? Even if the board did decide to use him for breeding, no kissing would be involved at all. Women probably wouldn’t be involved.

So why not?

She hated it when she couldn’t think of a good reason to do or not to do something. Wetting her lips, she moved her mouth to his and very softly, trying not to do anything that could awaken him, she kissed him.

Wow.

This guy must’ve been made instead of born. His lips felt amazing, and he wasn’t even doing anything. What kind of a man could be a good kisser while completely passed out?

None. Not a one.

She kept up the kiss for a few moments more, slowly but surely beginning to feel her heartbeat get stronger but not much quicker. She could almost hear it, and it was working the same way his scent was: seducing her. Her own body was against her in this.

She drew back sharply when she fully realized what she was doing and laughed at herself. This was just stupid.

Well yes, he was remarkably good-looking for how old he must be. And yes, his physique kept up with him flawlessly and didn’t seem to have faded a bit. Yes, his scent was so enticing that she wanted to sniff him again. And yes, his lips felt so incredibly wonderful that. . .that. . .

That she was leaning towards him to kiss him again. This time she also noticed her hands lightly touching his chest, how warm and soft the skin there is.

She really, really didn’t want to accidentally wake him up, but this time she noticed the taste of his mouth and unconsciously made a soft sound at the back of her throat. Her ears picked up a sound much like hers from somewhere close, but it didn’t register for several moments.

When it did her eyes opened and all at once it occurred to her that he’d been kissing her back for quite a while and she hadn’t noticed. She gasped and threw herself back but didn’t make it too far. He wrapped his legs around her waist as she managed to grasp the cell’s opening in her right hand. Her left hand was on his chest, trying to keep a distance between them.

He was smiling at her, but it was a devilish kind of smile. He lifted his chin and slowly licked his lips. And he really did speak Old World Japanese, just like her. He said, “Higurashi Kagome, right?”

She was shaking, scared of what he could do to her, but nodded. “Hai,” she said.

Mr. Bell wasn’t kidding when he described his strength. She doubted she could move a bit unless he let her. But she also had to find a way to get herself out of this position. The door behind her opened and she looked over her shoulder.

All six guards came filing in, police-issue guns drawn and aimed. They said, in unison, “Let her go, now.”

She looked back at Him and waited for him to do so. But he looked confused.

“They said to let me go,” she told him in Japanese.

“Then you tell them,” he said, “that if they lower their weapons, then I will.”

She told the guards what he said and they seemed to be considering it. At length they lowered their weapons and repeated their order.

He let her go and she jerked back so fast that she tripped on the edge of the cell and fell. She heard him chuckle and glared as she got back up.

“Dismissed,” she said over her shoulder. The guards filed out again and she crossed her arms. “What’s funny?” she asked him.

“You tripped.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“Thanks for the kisses.”

She blushed. “You were supposed to be unconscious.”

He shrugged. “I woke up.”

She was angry. Angry at herself for losing her professional demeanor. Angry at him for waking up. Angry at the guards for coming in when they had. Angry for the strange dream she'd had which had disrupted her usual nightly routine.

“Put your legs back on the cushions,” she ordered.

He lifted his chin. “Why?”

“So I can reclamp the straps.”

He put his legs back up on the cushions. “They’re very soft, the cushions. I’m a little disappointed that you dressed my bottom half.”

She blushed again and punched in the number that controlled the straps, and they curved around his legs again and then tightened. When she looked at him again, he was looking around. Something told her that wasn’t a good idea, to let him look around like that. There was a definite wisdom in his eyes that she knew nothing about.

But then she didn’t want to put up the shield again. Still, it was orders, so she took her card out and it went back up.

She saw him smirk through the shield. “This I remember.”

“How long have you been awake?” she asked, sitting back down at her desk and preparing to type.

“I’m not sure. I started coming to when you came in; I remember hearing the door open and close. But I didn’t really wake up until you stuck that thing in my arm.”

“Syringe,” she said as she typed. “It’s called a syringe. Were you conscious at any other time?”

“Yesterday, but only for a little while. You were here with three other people. Fitsunara Ayumi, Minokira Miroku, and Minokira Sango.”

Upon saying those names, she felt unnaturally cold. He was awake enough to know their names. Why didn’t the monitor show that? She looked at it now, the screen above the number pad. It showed slow and steady beats of his heart, how active his brain was, and whether or not he was stable. Everything was normal, not a spike out of place.

“That can’t be right,” she whispered.

“What can’t be right?”

She jumped. “How did you hear that?” She whispered it, and the shield made a constant hum, louder on the inside than outside so as to prevent the prisoner from hearing anything.

He grinned, showing his canines. “You think I would have dog ears and not hear like one?”

She hadn’t thought of that. Mr. Bell had said, “Dog-or-cat-like ears,” and He confirmed them to be dog-like. Is the rest of him like a dog?

She typed it in. “You can hear as well as a dog?” she asked.

“Better, why?”

“I’m supposed to type in everything I find out about you, what I do, what you do, et cetera. How are the rest of your senses?”

He looked right at her, then at the wall behind her. “Two small squares beside each other, the left one with a tiny dot in the center.” She looked behind her at the wall but didn’t see what he was looking at.

“There’s a line above the right one and a jagged line beside it. It connects to another shape, a triangle pointing down. Two lines crossed diagonally is next to it with two dots under it.”

She got up and went over to the wall, trying to find what he was looking at.

“Further right. No, that’s too far. Look up. Higher. Right there.”

Her jaw dropped. This. . .this was impossible. These tiny shapes he just described, they fit in the width of her fingernail! His vision was obscured by the shield and still he saw it, better than she could now, right below it.

What it was is the symbol for Shroud’s main supplier, the four unknown people who run it. It was on the wall because they supplied the metal for the wall.

She spun and walked directly to Him, shutting down the shield and sitting on the edge of her desk. “You saw that earlier.”

“No.”

“You must’ve. There’s no way you could’ve seen that symbol through the shield without a pair of goggles. And even then, you wouldn’t be able to notice all the details about it.”

He grinned again. “Do you know what you smell like?”

She straightened self-consciously. “Smell like?” she repeated.

He nodded. “I’ll tell you.”

She wasn’t so sure she wanted to know. Still, it would show how sharp his sense of smell was. . . “Tell me,” she said after a moment.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t want that camera to hear it. Come closer.”

There was a camera in here?

She could have slapped herself. Of course there was a camera in here! But how did he know about it? “I’m not coming any closer,” she said, firmly.

He shrugged. “Then I’m not telling.”

She didn’t like this. Biting her lip, she came up to the cell but didn’t enter.

“You’re going to have to get closer than that,” he said.

“Either you tell me now or you don’t tell me at all.”

“Alright.” He wriggled, shifted, and leaned his head back. “Your loss.”

Kagome clenched her jaw. She stepped inside the cell, keeping one hand on the number pad as she did so.

He looked up. “You hardly moved.”

Hating that he was molding her like this, she knelt down.

He laughed, once. “Closer.”

You will be punished if you try anything, she thought, leaning closer.

He smiled. “Almost there.”

She understood by now. He wanted to whisper it in her ear. With one hand on his shoulder to keep her balance, she turned her ear towards him and again leaned closer.

Very quietly, hardly a breath, he said, “I smell water, sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine -“

She scoffed. He was naming off the ingredients to her bodywash.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said as she started backing off. “Wait, I’m not done yet.”

“Then get to the point,” she snapped.

He nodded. “Come here. I don’t bite, you know.”

She wasn’t convinced, but she leaned towards him again, anyway.

“You smell like a woman,” he whispered. “On you I smell faint but fresh flowers. Honey. . . I smell sweets and flavor, and. . .desire. . .”

His voice trailed off at about the same time she turned her head to look at him. She could hardly believe that she was back in this position.

“What do you smell on me?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Something. . .something strong and. . .alluring. . .” It was getting harder to concentrate on talking.

“Higurashi-sama,” he said then.

She’d never been called that before. She swallowed. “Yes?”

“Come closer.”

He wanted her to kiss him again. She wanted to kiss him again, too.

But she couldn’t.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She stood up.

“Hey - wait - come here,” he protested as she stepped out of the cell. She heard him growl in frustration.

She got back to work, typing in how well he could smell and see. It was silent for quite a while before he broke the silence again.

“What time is it?”

She looked at the clock on her computer screen. “Time,” she said.

The computer said, “The time is eight forty-four am.”

“I suppose you don’t feed your prisoners, then?” he asked.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Inuyasha, now are you going to feed me or not?”

He went straight from romantic to pushy in three seconds. Kagome narrowed her eyes. “We’re not feeding you until we find out what you can and can’t have and when.”

“I’m half dog; I can have anything you give me at any time,” he snapped.

“Eggs, then? Bacon? Toast?” she asked, faking a sweet voice and doing so badly. “Pick something," she added, flatly.

“Well, what do you people eat?” he said angrily.

“Food!”

“Get me that, then!”

“You get it!”

“I’m strapped to a chair!”

“That’s your problem, not mine!”

“You fucking bitch!”

The wall beeped and whirred. “Prisoner 4-5-2-8-0-0-6. You are fined sixty Sets for swear and improper use of word.” It spit out a slip of paper.

“What the fuck was that?!”

It beeped again. “Prisoner 4-5-2-8-0-0-6. You are fined forty Sets for swear.” It spit out another piece of paper.

Kagome couldn’t help it - she laughed. Not a few giggles or chuckles, either; she dropped her head on her desk and had the laugh of her life while Inuyasha growled impatiently. Or maybe that was his stomach.

She sat up again, waved him to silence and stopped laughing. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. She typed in an address in her computer and brought up a menu of the nearest Japanese-food place. She looked it over and then read them off to Inuyasha.

He stopped her when she said “Ramen”.

“That’s it! I haven’t had ramen in years! Get it, and lots of it.”

“Lots of it? How much?”

“How much can they send?” he returned.

No. . .way. “How much can you eat?”

“As much as I can fit in my stomach. Get it already!”

She read the menu. Ramen: five mis. That was just about equal to eight ounces, maybe a bit more. She ordered three and in fifteen minutes, she had it. With a loss of thirty Sets, of course.

“Know what?” she said, turning to face him with the bag, “when you get out of here and get yourself a job, you’re paying me back for whatever you cost me. I’ll even keep a list.”

“Yeah, whatever, now unstrap me,” he said, eyes only for the bag.

She walked up to him but said, “No.”

“Wha - why not?”

“Regulation. You want to eat, you get fed.” She brought a chair to sit in front of him and opened the first canister. She twirled the fork in it until the noodles were wrapped around the fork enough that it wouldn’t drip, slide or fall into his lap.

As soon as it was in his mouth, he leaned back with a smile. After swallowing he said, “Ah, ramen.”

He really did eat all three canisters. Although about halfway through he said, “This would be easier if you’d let me use one of my arms.”

“It’s against regulation to free any part of you for any reason without armed guards present,” she replied.

He turned his head to the side when she went to give him another bite. “You did it before.”

“I learned my lesson,” she snapped, shoving the fork in his mouth.

He definitely got an angry look at that point, but as she kept feeding him, it kept fading. Kagome was very glad when Ayumi got there, but once she did, there arose more problems without enough solutions.