InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Nikanaru ❯ Bad Days and Silver Bullets ( Chapter 5 )

 

 

Previous Chapter Illustration(s):

 

 

www.deviantart.com/view/21453765/

 

There's Max, all shirtless and heroic. And there are the onlookers, all confused and wide-eyed. I screwed this up a little when I drew a concrete railing as opposed to a think railing, but I had already finished it before I could correct that mistake.

 

BONUS!

 

www.deviantart.com/view/21453552/

 

Yup. The DDE machine scene. With certain bits a-bouncing unashamedly away. I'll probably get some angry e-mails over this, but what the hell.

 

 

 

Nikanaru

 

Chapter 5

 

Bad Days and Silver Bullets

 

Or

 

Unidentified Flying Angst

 

 

He was in shit. Deep shit. The deepest kind. Proverbially speaking, if there were a thousand gallon septic tank somewhere in the city's sewer systems, he'd be wallowing shamefully right at the bottom of it.

 

It could have gone a lot worse, but it also could have gone a hell of a lot better. Max had saved the lives of the people who were in that car, and that was most important thing, at least in his mind. What he hadn't counted on, however, was that some jackass with a cell phone video camera handy had been filming the whole horrific scene for whatever morbid amusement. The guy probably wanted to get a video of the poor souls plummeting down to their doom so he could sell the footage for some quick cash to some sensationalist news program.

 

Asshole. Well, whoever had shot that footage had gotten a hell of a lot more than he (or she, in all fairness) had bargained for when Max, stripped down to just his jeans, leapt onto the bridge, pulled the car to safety, and leapt back into the shadows of the night. He had done it all fairly quickly, but those brief couple of seconds he had been there were now being prominently covered all over the evening news. As of this point, all over the damn city, everyone and their dog were probably asking themselves “What in the name of hell was THAT??”

 

Luckily, no one seemed to specifically recognize him as Max Higurashi. Having removed his Toku crystal and most of his clothes, all anyone had seen was a platinum haired, fluffy-tailed, elf-eared, red-striped, claw-handed… um… thing perform a heroic deed. After he'd gone back to the ditch to put back on his crystal and his clothes, Kina had seemed none the wiser. Innocent as possible, he walked her the rest of the way home. If these had been any other circumstances, he'd have likely kicked himself for not even at least getting a goodnight peck from her. However, circumstances were not any other, and they'd both been pretty freaked out by the incident.

 

Kind of a game killer, those near-fatal car crashes. Walking home down the streets, people were looking at televisions in storefront windows, streaming the footage to their laptops, and text messaging each other like crazy. The news had caught on at the precise alarmingly fast rate that Max didn't want it to. Luckily, though, no one so much as batted an eye at him as he walked as nonchalantly as possible down the street. With his clothes and the crystal back on his person, Max, at best, had the same haircut as the creature that had captivated the city's collective attention span. That was some measure of relief to him.

 

Unfortunately, there were exactly three people who would recognize Max in that form. No doubt that by now they'd seen the footage, and also no doubt that they weren't very pleased. Which was why Max now found himself just standing outside him home, somewhat afraid to go in.

 

“Somewhat”, my ass.

 

**********

 

 

Ten Years Ago

 

The cosmic adventures and the fantasy violence in the comic book were incredibly engrossing: Explosions, magic, laser blasts, martial arts and the whole shebang. How ironic that Max's focus on such explosive violence would be batted away by a soft knocking at his bedroom door.

 

“Yeah?” He called out, inviting whoever was knocking in. The door opened, and there was Grandma. Max was tempted to smile at her, but he immediately noticed something was amiss. Not a trace of her ordinary warm smile could be found on her face. For that matter, there was no sign her usually sunny disposition whatsoever. She looked downright frigidly at him, her face utterly emotionless. He did notice, however, that she was carefully breathing deeply and rhythmically. He'd never seen Grandma like this before, and truth be told, it was just a little scary. Max stared at her like a deer at headlights, some basic instinct telling him to make no sudden movements.

 

A few moments later, Sakura sat down beside him on the bed. Max scooched over and sat up from his laid position. She took a deep breath.

 

“Max.” It wasn't a question. Although her tone was perfectly even, betraying her neither as angry or happy, she spoke it with an authority that she, as a parent, had rarely ever used.

 

“Yeah?” He was definitely scared, and it showed in his barely audible tone. What he was being confronted with now was the polar opposite of the Grandmother he knew and loved. Silence followed again, much to the chagrin of Max's anxious heart. Whatever it was she wanted to say, it seemed like she couldn't get it out. Or didn't want to. Instead, she finally decided to simply reach into her pocket and show him.

 

Max's heart didn't beat… it boomed when he saw her take out the broken lock to the well house.

 

In his horror, he looked up from the lock to her to find that she was staring right down at him, fully confrontational. Max instantly lowered his head, unable to look her in the eye; his gaze averted to his hands, as if that somehow alleviated the incredibly rotten feeling he now had.

 

“You went into the Well House.” She stated. Again, it wasn't a question. She wanted to hear him confirm what he had done.

 

“Yes.” There was absolutely no sense in lying. He'd been caught, and deceit was only going to make things worse.

 

“Did you…did you go in the well?” That, on the other hand, was a question. She didn't know for sure…or did she? Maybe she was still trying to see how honest he was willing to be with her. Maybe he left some trace of evidence at the bottom of the well. It was too risky denying it.

 

“I…I was just looking in it…and I slipped in.” That was true enough. He hadn't gone in completely on purpose.

 

“And what happened?” She asked.

 

“Nothing.” He squeaked out. “I just…just hit the ground. That's all.” With another deep breath, she balled up the lock in her hands, letting another moment of gut-wrenching guilt tear the little kid up on the inside.

 

“Max, look at me.” Hesitant to say the least, Max gritted his teeth and looked up to face his Grandmother. Gone now was the emotionless stare, now replaced with something far more horrific: eyes brimming with tears, lips clearly struggling to hold in sobs, eyebrows twitching. Max had always known his grandmother to be a woman who had a nearly infectiously happy disposition. Even on occasions where he'd seen her sad or crying, had always maintained herself with a certain dignity. Now, however, she looked as though she was on the verge of breaking down. “Why?” She spoke in a voice that threatened to crack under the quivering sobs emerging from her throat.

 

Max felt his heart sink, and his body go cold as though the blood flow in his veins had stopped entirely. Seeing grandma like this was quite possibly the most horrible thing he'd ever seen in his young life. And he was responsible for it. Now threatening him were tearful eyes and sobs of his own.

 

“I…didn't w-ant you to be sad anymore.” Heaved his voice. “I though maybe I could go f-find Kagome and bring her back. So you…” He never got to finish his explanation. Sakura wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tightly against her. By now she was crying freely, and up against her Max could feel her body convulsing with each spasm in her throat.

 

“Max… I lost my husband over 20 years ago. It was… it was excruciating then, and it still is today. When I lost my daughter those eight years ago, I just wanted to crawl up into a ball and die.” She sniffled again. “Max, if I lose you too, I just couldn't take it. You and Souta are the last good things I have left in my life. I don't care what the risk is, it would KILL me if I woke up one morning and knew I'd never see you again either.” Max clung to her even tighter than ever.

 

“I'm sorry, Grandma, I'm sorry!” He kept hugging her, kept sobbing into her shirt. “I promise, I won't ever do it again. I promise… I…”

 

They stayed that way, just holding on to each other for several minutes afterwards, weeping into each other's arms.

 

 

************

 

Present

 

 

“Congratulations. Your face is going to on the front page of every newspaper in the city tomorrow.” Souta admonished.

 

“Well, if you want to get technical, that's not my real face. Officially, anyway.” Max tried. Humor, however, was not going over well with him, or Great Grandpa and Sakura either.

 

“And meanwhile, I'm probably going to end up somewhere in the gossip column.” Souta grumbled, having learned only too late that some fucker paparazzi had taken a few shots of him freaking out at the Ritz.

 

Yeah, I can see the headlines now: “Demon sighting shocks city” followed by “Psychotic soccer star terrorizes local restaurant.” Despite it all, Max couldn't help grinning at the thought of something like that hitting the newsstands.

 

“I'm sorry, is this funny to you??” Apparently, Souta caught his grin.

 

A little.

 

“No.” He said, wiping said grin off his face.

 

“Max, what were you thinking??” It seemed that Grandpa was equally perturbed by these events. Despite Max's tendency to try and ease tension in any given situation, he was having a horrid time dealing with the series of accusatory glares and words being thrown his way.

 

“I was thinking that those people in that car were going to DIE unless I did something!” That reply was given with a firmness that left no room to imply that he was at all ashamed of what he'd done. It was enough to silence the castigations of carelessness and stupidity, if only briefly.

 

“I…I get that, yes.” Souta conceded, admitting Max had at least one valid point. “But now the whole city, hell, the whole country knows about you. Did you ever stop to consider that?”

 

“Yes, I did!” Max was getting increasingly frustrated. “You'll notice that I took off the crystal and my clothes before I went out into the open!”

 

“And are you certain that will be all it takes for no one to recognize you?” Grandpa carefully asked, making sure it sounded like an honest question and not some condescending patronization. It seemed to work, as Max calmed down a little.

 

“I'm sure.” He confirmed. “When I put my clothes and the crystal back on, Kina, or anybody on the street didn't recognize me.”

 

“Kina?” Grandpa queried.

 

“My…my date.” Clarified Max.

 

“DATE?! You've been going out? Since when??”

 

“Can we PLEASE focus on what's important here, Grandpa!” Souta moaned, returning attention to the issue at hand.

 

“And besides,…” Max continued. “…that video of me isn't even that clear or close up.” True enough. Despite the rapid pace at which cell phone technology was advancing, the footage was still pretty pixilated.

 

“Well, that's all great, but…” Souta was also trying to maintain calmness. “…even if no one recognizes you, the fact still is that people all over the city think that some…inhuman being is lurking around. Authorities are probably going to investigate this.”

 

“No, they'll forget about it.” Max argued back. “Because I'm NOT going to expose myself in public like that again. Eventually, this'll all blow over, and people will just think that whole thing was all some sort of hoax, like Bigfoot or…uh, the Loch Ness.” The room came unto silence again, as all took a moment to ponder that assessment.

 

“And what happens if you see another accident like that?” Tension was briefly undone when surprise struck. Sakura had been sitting silently in her chair the whole time, and the sudden reminder of her presence struck everyone, particularly Max. “Are you going to do something like this again if you come across another…accident?”

 

“I…ugh…” He buried his hands frustratingly in his short mane of silver hair. “…I…I don't know. But for Christ's sake, what was I supposed to do??” Sakura took a seat beside him on the couch, placing her hand on his shoulder.

 

“Max, no one is saying that what you did was wrong.” She consolingly spoke. “If anything, we're proud of you for what you decided to do.” Feeling a little better, he smiled at her. She smiled back, but only briefly before a look of seriousness returned to he face. “But Max, I know this world. I've lived in it a long time, and I know that sooner or later, you're going to be confronted with another decision like the one you made tonight. And when that happens, you need to be able to stop yourself, and you need to be able to tell yourself, `no.'” Max had certainly not expected THAT out of her. In shock at her words, he began to argue.

 

“What? But…”

 

“Max.” Tears were now appearing in her eyes. The sight of that stopped him cold.

 

Oh, God, no. Not again. Please, not this.

 

“I'm not saying that you can't ever save a life if you have the chance. Of course do it when you can.” Listening to her, Max felt his heartbeat increasing as trails of tears began moving down her fragile face. “But what you have to be able to do is know when the risk is too great, and to be able to tell yourself that enough is…just enough. That… that you're not going to be able to do anyone any good if you take too big a risk, and end up losing everything.” The way she was speaking, it almost seemed as though Sakura was now talking about something else entirely. But Max knew that she was simultaneously alluding to both the possibility of him being discovered, and the circumstances under which she'd lost her daughter.

 

“No, Grandma, c'mon. Don't cry, please.” He pleaded as he tried hugging her in hopes of heading off her emotional breakdown.

 

“I know, Max. I know what it's like to want so desperately to do the right thing, no matter what.” She wept as she hugged him back. “But, God, I also know what it's like when you go one step too far, and it ends up costing you more than you could ever imagine.” Max clung to her desperately, her every word hitting into his heart like a coronary. He could never stand to see her like this, and whatever prideful front he'd put up fizzled away at the sight of it. “I know that you're a smart kid, Max. I know that you can tell the difference between a situation where you being caught if you expose yourself is high or low. I'm not asking you to never do something like this again, but, please, please, promise me that when you see a situation where the risk is just too great, don't take a chance. Just… walk away.”

 

“Okay, okay.” He said quickly, soothingly. “I promise. I won't.” They held onto each other for a few more moments as the grief and emotion washed over Sakura, Grandpa and Souta stood silently in respect for the two. Eventually Sakura was able to detach herself from Max, wipe the remains of tears from her eyes and smile at him.

 

Max gave one back, even though it was a little forced.

 

*********

 

The Next Day

 

Getting up early this morning, for some reason, had been absolute murder. Max had actually hit the snooze button a good five times before finally dragging himself out of bed. That was odd, considering that he required very little sleep, if at all. Apparently, something about being a demon also meant that you require a lot less beauty rest than the average human. In fact, a few years ago, during summer vacation, he'd experimented to see how long he could go without any sleep whatsoever, and had gone a whopping week and a half before he'd started hallucinating from sheer exhaustion. Usually, he did nod off for at least a few hours a night out of habit, but he could also easily go without.

 

Last night, though he hadn't gotten so much as a wink seeing as how thoughts of the flurry of recent events in his life kept him up all night. That shouldn't have affected him so much, but now he was laying his head down on his desk, using his arms for a pillow, in hopes of somehow warding off the heaviness in his eyes. The class had completed their work ahead of schedule, and had the next ten minutes free, time Max intended to spend napping.

 

Fat chance.

 

“Dude!” The agonizingly unignorable voice boomed from overhead, and Max was forced to open one eye in response. In no time at all, he had been surrounded by his friends.

 

“Dude.” He replied, trying to sound as hoarse and near-death as possible in hopes that that would earn him some empathy and he'd have the remaining nine minutes of homeroom in peace.

 

Fat chance.

 

“Hey, so how'd it go last night?” Dai interrogated, pulling up a seat next to Max.

 

“Oh, it was lovely. Movie, dinner, dancing, all that shit. Now go `way.” Before he could even shut his eye entirely, the screeching of other chairs against the ground secured his presence in the land of consciousness. Joe, Kato, Dai and Ciro all sat around him. “Oh, for fuck's sake.”

 

“Don't give me that!” Said Kato with the determination that only an hormonal adolescent eager for lurid tales could. “How far d'ya get? Did she put out?”

 

“What?! No!”

 

“So then what happened?”

 

“Nothing! I told you, it was… stereotypical, I guess. We went and saw a movie, then went to the arcade for a while, and then I walked her home. That's all. Christ.”

 

“So you gonna go out with her again?” Came Ciro's inquiry.

 

“Uh…maybe.” He shrugged, suddenly reminded that before the `incident' occurred, she had been hinting towards wanting to go out with him again. He would definitely have to find her and follow up on that. “We kinda got waylaid at the end with that whole thing that was all over the news.” The others looked at each other in incomprehension.

 

“What thing?”

 

“Y'know that…” Max had to try and act like he didn't know that much about the subject he himself was about to bring up, but if it silenced these lechers, it may very well be worth it. “…thing were that guy with the tail saved those people on the bridge.” Max instantly realized that was a mistake when their eyes lit up even more so than they had been when discussing his sex life.

 

“Holy shit, you actually SAW that thing?” Joe exclaimed, leaning in closer, as if being reasonably within earshot was insufficient.

 

“Uh, sorta.” He cringed. “We were below the bridge when it happened, and… well, Kina saw more than I did.”

 

“Oh, man, that was so cool!” Kato prattled on. “I can't believe there's some sort of bonna fide mutant in the city.”

 

Mutant?! You son of a…

 

“I'll bet it's, like, some government's genetically engineered super-soldier that escaped or something!”

 

“Oh, come on, you can't seriously believe that bullshit. It was all probably some stupid stunt a bunch of jackasses were pulling.” Dai argued.

 

“I agree.” Ciro chimed in. “Remember Rebirth of the Swap Thing?” Recognition struck all five boys. “I'll bet anything someone's trying to pull of the same gimmick.” Two years ago over in England, a supposed “innocent bystander” out camping with his family shot a home movie of some man-beast lurking around in the woods. Major news networks around the world aired it and briefly created an international buzz. It was later revealed that a new Swamp Thing sequel was in the works, and the man had just shot a scene they were rehearsing. But this wasn't revealed before a good amount of hype had been built up among the public. Furthermore, some time after the film had been released, it was also discovered that the man who shot the footage had been paid to do so and to report it to the networks. But in any event, the scheme had worked marvelously, as Rebirth of the Swamp Thing had been one of the top grossing movies of that summer.

 

It worked on us, anyway. We were dumb enough to go see it.

 

“Probably.” Max fraudulently concurred, now wondering if spreading rumors of that sort would probably discourage anyone from taking last night's mishap seriously.

 

“Eh. Well, it's been a slow week in the news anyways.” Joe shrugged. “Still, if that were real, that would be so awesome.”

 

OK, time for another subject change.

 

“Anyway, you guys wanna come over to my place tonight? We just got some swords on loan from a collector in China. Some pretty badass looking ones.”

 

“Swords?” Once again, their respective eyes beamed in delight. Thanks to their common love of martial arts action flicks, the whole gang had a passion for ancient weaponry, swords and blade weapons in particular, in what was otherwise a total apathy for world history. However, tonight was a busy night for them all, so they had to politely postpone it.

 

With both topics of conversation Max didn't want to engage in buried, the rest of the class went on casually, all three minutes of it. The bell rung, and students all headed out for their next classes. As luck would have it, though, Max was stopped at the door by the teacher.

 

“Higurashi, I just received a call from the office. Ms. Nagasi wants to see you as soon as possible.”

 

“Eh?” A most confused expression crossed Max's features. “What for?”

 

“She didn't say. Now go, she's expecting you.” His dental work grinding against itself in aggravation, Max forgoed his usual Thursday afternoon trek to math class and headed in the direction of the principal's office.

 

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fucko.

 

Principal Nagasi was, and Max was not at all being subjective in this assessment, the veritable definition of the word “Bitch”. Fuck the original context in which the word simply meant a “female dog”, that woman had taken the notion of what it meant to be a proverbial bitch and single-handedly popularized it to the point where dictionary had been forced to change it to suit her. Max had actually had her as a professor in one of his history classes a year ago before she was promoted to principal. She was absolutely zeroshit. She demanded nothing short of army-soldier-like behaviour on the part of her students. If your answers in her classes were incomplete or only half right, you fail outright. If the spelling or grammar on your answers was wrong, despite it not being English class, you fail outright. If you some much as twitched in your seat, you were out in the hallway, you had detention, and you failed outright. So naturally, Max had had the hardest time of anyone else. He couldn't sit still to save his life, his facial expressions gave away any smartass comments he was keeping to himself, and barely a day went by where he hadn't gotten screamed at by her. Max ordinarily tried to be excruciatingly friendly with just about anybody, teachers included, but with her it was `Go in, get your work done, and get out without ever making eye contact'. It wasn't long before Max just gave up. Even Al wasn't that horrible.

 

But despite her insane level of unpopularity among students, she was one hell of an administrator. So naturally, when the position of principal had opened up at the end of last semester, it went right to her. Now not only was she the bitch whom all other bitches looked to for inspiration, but she was in a position of greater power than anyone else in the school. Expulsions and suspensions had risen dramatically since she'd taken office. And now even most other teachers in the school were ragging on her behind her back.

 

So what the hell could she want with me? God, someone please shoot me in the face.

 

Max was usually the chipper one who tried to liven things up, but you'd never guess that from the way he sulked down the hallways like a prisoner to his execution as waves of students passed him by. Between all the fake identities, appearances on national television, domestic dramatics, gabbing ninny friends and the fact that he also had to twist his invisible tail about like crazy to keep it from being felt by the multitude of passerbys,… well, sufficed to say, he was getting to be just a bit uncharacteristically bitter.

 

There was one more thing, too. Someone was staring at him. Intuitively, he quite literally felt a pair of eyes following him throughout the hallway. Ordinarily, he'd just let it slide, but in his somewhat foul mood, he turned confront whoever it was.

 

Oh, for Christ's sake…

 

It was Al. And gone was the usual lids-half closed, bored/depressed look in her eyes. Instead she gazed at Max with them wide opened, although her mouth was pursed shut almost forcefully.

 

“What??” He snapped, despite holding most, but not all the curtness from his tone. To his surprise, she lowered her head and turned around almost shamefully.

 

“Nothing.” Hurriedly, she disappeared into the crowds.

 

Terrific. On top of everything else, she's acting weird… Well, weirder. Shrugging it off, he turned and made his way to the office, introducing himself to the secretary.

 

“Go right on in.” She instructed him. Max took a deep breath of courage, and dared to enter the bureau of one of his worst nightmares.

 

Okay, c'mon Max, just lighten up. Don't let all this ruin your day. You're a funny, happy guy. And if you let these turdsuckers get to you, then the terrorist have won. A forced friendly smile made its way across his face.

 

“Higurashi.” Miss Nagasi stated flatly, not even looking up from her paperwork as he entered to room and closed the door behind him. “Sit down.” Max did as he was told, and stayed there quietly for almost half a minute before she finally looked up at him. “Wipe that smirk off your face.” He again ruefully did as he was told. “Higurashi, I do not take kindly to criminally related activity being brought into my school.”

 

“Uh?” He waited a moment before clearing his throat. “Beg pardon?”

 

“You can imagine my dismay when a police officer came in this afternoon asking to speak with you.” The eyebrows on Max's head went WAY up, then quickly settled down.

 

“Um…what for?”

 

“You tell me.” She fixed him a head-boring glare as if she expected him to confess whatever horrid crime this situation was all about. Once again, the only thing Max could think of was yesterday's drama, but there was no way in hell that could be what this was all about.

 

“Miss Nagasi, I don't know.” He maintained. “Where is the, um, officer?”

 

“She's waiting in the vice-principal's office.”

 

“Then why are we…?”

 

“I just wanted to let you know that if you've been caught doing anything remotely illegal, and I will be asking if you did, don't bother coming back here. I don't permit criminals in my school.” Max did his absolute best not to growl at her.

 

Criminal? CRIMINAL?! Where the fuck do you get the nerve?! I slaved away on that after-school charity program all last semester, and you have the balls… yes, BALLS, seeing as how I can only conceive that a creature like you could must have been assembled in Dr. Frankenstein's lab while the good doctor was drunk, incompetently making you up of organs that shouldn't be there, balls inclusive!! The only “remotely illegal” thing I can think of doing right now is taking a mirror and forcing you to witness the horror that lies in the depths of your own eyes so that you'll scream in absolute terror until your GODDAM HEAD EXPLODES, SPATTERING CHUNKS OF PURE EVIL ALL OVER THIS FUCKING OFFICE!!!!

 

“Yes…Ma'am.” He muttered quietly taking a moment to close his eyes and exhale before he got up from his seat and proceeded to the adjacent door leading to the veep's office. Opening it up, he found himself now facing the back of another woman, dressed casually rather than in any recognizable police uniform. He supposed she must be a plainclothes officer. The vice-principal was nowhere in sight.

 

Responding to the sound of the door opening, she turned and gave him a long stare before offering a smile that reeked of insincerity. Max was a little taken aback at how young she was. She looked as though she couldn't be barely any older than him. Usually, officers who had enough stature to interrogate people had at least a few features on their face indicating some seniority.

 

“Higurashi…” She said slowly, motioning for him to come in. Max did so, closing the door behind him. “Please, have a seat.”

 

“Hello.” He greeted. “So, uh, what's this all about?” He asked, taking a seat as she leaned against the desk. This woman was just downright eerie. Something about the way she spoke was dripping with a bizarre seductiveness, as though her mouth was making careful love to each syllable. Ordinarily, that might be kind of hot from Max's perspective, but somehow it repelled him. Sort of like how he might feel if a homosexual man were coming onto him at that moment, despite that this was a woman.

 

“This concerns the…incident last night…I'm sure you've heard… the demon?” Apprehension became evident in Max's eyes for but a brief moment, not only for the reason that this was being brought up again, but the specific use of the word `Demon'. No other news reports he'd heard of had used that term. They'd always used vaguer terms, like “Creature”, “Being”, “Non-Human” or “Guy with a hell of a makeup job”, and it comforted Max that the ambiguous labeling meant that they were far off from the truth.

 

That comfort had now just gone out the window. Still, Max quickly suppressed his expression of shock and hid it as fast as he could. Seeming not to notice, the officer continued on. “You were sighted at the scene of the incident last night, but you didn't give any testimony to the police officers when they arrived.” Keeping his cool, Max swallowed and replied evenly.

 

“Yeah. Well, I was in a bit of a hurry, and since no one got hurt, I didn't think it was all that important…”

 

“That was a demon there last night, in the middle of our city. You don't think that was important?” This was getting creepier and creepier.

 

“Um, begging your pardon, but why are you calling it a `demon'?” She let loose a chuckle that was just as eerie as her speech.

 

“Oh, demons are most distinctive. I suppose to an unseasoned eye they might appear to be just a strange-looking person, but several things give them away.” Max's mind was racing furiously, trying to think of how any ordinary, innocent, ignorant human would respond to these kinds of statements.

 

Play dumb. Play Dumb. Play Dumb. Play Dumb.

 

“E-excuse, you think this thing from last night was an actual… demon?”

 

“Oh, I know it was.” She smiled at him.

 

“I mean, like, a real demon? As in something that spawned from hell and came to bring terror to mankind?” He layered his speech with an obvious tone of mockery.

 

Yes, feign mockery. Anyone else would think this sounds ridiculous. Hell, hearing it out loud, I think this sounds ridiculous.

 

“Common misconception. Demons, or most of them, do not derive from hell. They are actually natural creatures, put on this earth just the same as any other life form.”

 

“Uh…right.”

 

“One thing to look for is these pointed ears they have. That is almost always a certain sign that a creature is demonic in nature.” This had gone from creepy to outright scary in no time flat. The entire world was, as near as Max knew, completely ignorant on the subject of actual demonology. He knew what she was saying was right, but only because of what he knew about himself. Now he knew that at least one other person in the world did know about real demons, and Max was having a horrible time keeping the panic out of his person.

 

Stay calm. Keep acting natural. Just get out of here.

 

“Listen, um, if you're going to talk to somebody, you should talk to Kina.”

 

“…I beg your pardon, who?”

 

“Kina. The girl who was with me last night. You guys spoke to her too, right?”

 

“No. Not that I've heard of.”

 

“But…you said I was spotted last night. And Kina was right next to me.”

 

“Oh?” She raised a brow at that information, as though it were new to her. This was making less and less sense. Max started to rise from his chair.

 

“Look, I haven't seen anything different than anything else that's been playing over and over again on the news. So if I can just get back to class…”

 

“Just a moment.” She reached out her arm to halt him. “There is something else you should know about demons. Just for future reference.” Max sighed.

 

“Okay, what?”

 

“Rarely, but it occasionally, they will use Toku crystals to disguise themselves as humans.”

 

Before he could react, she suddenly whipped out, with inhuman speed, a silenced berretta from her jacket and pointed it right at Max's abdomen. The oxygen in his lungs didn't even have a chance to make a sound when a bright, pink flash emerged from the gun's muzzle and Max was instantaneously overcome with a pain unlike anything he'd previously conceived.

 

His lungs seized up, preventing him from screaming. His body convulsed horribly as a he felt something small and powerful punch right into his gut. But beyond even the utter shock at being shot and the intense pain that alone brought, he also felt an unbelievable burning sensation rip in waves throughout his entire body. His body was thrown backwards out of the chair and onto the floor, the crashing being the only sounds of any struggle in the room.

 

Clutching his gut and convulsing on the floor, Max began a desperate struggle to breathe. With his throat seized up, he had to literally force a gust of air down his into his lungs, the sound coming out as though he were choking. A moment after the utter shock of the pain registered in his mind, his survival instinct kicked in and he was writhing away from the woman as fast as he could. It did him no good. It was a small office, and he soon hit wall. There was nothing else he could do except keep trying to breathe, desperately try to maintain consciousness, and look up fearfully at his assaulter.

 

She hadn't moved an inch since firing at him. Rather, she continued leaning against the desk, apparently amused by Max's throes. Her smile was sadistic.

 

Just then, the adjacent door opened as Miss Nagasi entered to see what all the commotion was about. She only had time to gasp at the scene before her as the policewoman lunged at her and pistol-whipped her on the temple, knocking her out cold. She then turned her attention back to Max, stalking towards him slowly.

 

“You see,…” She went on her voice just as disturbingly calm as before. “…demons in this world apparently went extinct under mysterious circumstances. Something, despite my best efforts, I have never been able to discover since I arrived here.”

 

“Wha…ahAAARRR…wh…” Max couldn't even speak; the burning sensation was too intense. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

 

“But I knew that there had to be at least one here. The same one I followed through.” As she stalked ever closer, he could swear her voice was now becoming ethereal, like two people speaking out of the same mouth. The second voice was male, much more suited to her disturbing style of speaking. “The problem was that he was obviously well hidden. Even though I was using the body of a holy priestess so that I could see through such crystal illusions and sense demonic auras, I still couldn't seem to find him.” Max coughed violently as he struggled for more air. Coming closer, he began to see a light enveloping her eyes…a despicable purple haze bleeding over the white and the pupil. “Until last night, when I actually saw him all over television. In Tokyo. With that narrowed down, it almost became pathetically easy to track him down.” Gurgling, he could now begin to taste his own coppery, black blood.

 

“Grrr…kragh…b…burning…hahhhrrgh. 221; He didn't know why he told her that. Maybe the pain had made him desperate enough to beg her to help him. Instead, she chuckled again.

 

“That burning sensation you're feeling? That's holy energy eating away at your insides.” She held up her gun proudly. “Demons could ordinarily shrug off regular weapons, but holy power is like fire to them. It used to be that priestesses would use swords and arrows as vassals for their miko energy when they confronted demons, but it seems this world's bullets work quite effectively as well.” She was kneeling down next to him, getting closer still, and Max could now make out several disgusting, dark veins in several places underneath her thin, paling skin. “Don't be too worried. It wasn't enough to kill you, but it will be more than enough to incapacitate you while I infest you.” Another sadistic laugh left her lips. “Well, that and I would like to see you suffer a little for all the trouble you've given me.”

 

“Whar…what??”

 

“Oh, don't tell me you've forgotten about me.” She was now closer than ever, her face mere centimeters from his pained, sweating one. “I was there with you when we first entered this miserable world. Though I suppose you might not have noticed since I was only a small aural presence back then.” Suddenly, the smile was gone from her face, and she was now frowning angrily. “Do you have any idea what it's like to float around, blind, deaf, bodiless and incapacitated for over a decade before regaining enough strength to even see again?” She harshly grabbed his hair and forced him to stare at her. “To separated from your former glory, only to become some invisible vegetative? The pains I had to go through to regenerate enough power to infest even one pathetic human body?! What I had to go through to learn how this disgusting world operates?! How Goddamn long it took before I could find a miko body in this wretched, ignorant, reprehensible world?!!” Despite his pain, Max found enough strength to jerk his head free of her grip and spat at her.

 

“WHO…TH'FUCK…A-GR…ARE YOU!?!?” She leaned in again. He saw very clearly as a renewed, dark smile found it's way across her face.

 

“Why, Nikanaru…I am Naraku of course. And don't worry if you don't remember me, we're going to be spending a long time together…”

 

End Chapter 5

 

***********

 

A/N: Woo!

 

Yes, I know Naraku rambled on a bit, but he always tends to do that, right? Seriously, it's one of the weirdest things about super-villains. And it's also extremely advantageous for writers, as it sets a precedent that allows us to use cheap exposition.

 

…Okay, okay, I'm just being a dick. Once again, that's something I overwrote several times in hopes of making it seem plausible. It's pretty fucking hard to give out just enough plot revelations to make some sense of the immediate moment, but not so much that it gives away too much later on. It's like a fine wine you gotta let age a little bit before you uncork it for all to bask in.

 

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I'm only supposing that the modern-day setting for Inuyasha is in Tokyo. To my knowledge, the exact city has never been named officially, so I just went ahead and made it that.

 

Soooo… whatd'ya think? I personally felt this chapter came off a bit iffy, seeing as how I don't write angst very often. How'd that come off?

 

Rock on, folks.

 

Koday.