InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ On a Leash ❯ Getting Up-to-Date ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Inuyasha. I wish I did but…well, there's that whole legal issue…. ^^; (It's pending. Really it is!) I also don't own Sony.

A/N: Sorry for the long-delayed update. I've been sick a lot and been working on my other stories. Let's just say a lot's happened recently and that I hadn't had a chance to work so, hopefully this one will work and try to get another chapter out after it, ASAP.

Chapter Three: Getting Up-to-Date

The next morning, Inuyasha awoke on his mistress's bed, making a large, tongue-curling yawn. Opening his ocher eyes, the dog glanced over at the spot where the girl laid-should have laid. Eyes springing all the way open, he barked, "Kagome! Kagome! Where the hell did you go?!" Yapping insanely, he leapt off the bed and scrambled on his paws, uncertain of which direction to head. He ran this way, but then the other direction seemed more promising, as he skid across the carpet with fur flapping; the end result, funnily enough, was the hanyou making a giant circle.

Oh, how he proved his intellect.

Coming up the stairs with arms full of clean clothes, Mrs. Higurashi poked her head into her daughter's room. Taking one look at the distressed canine, she laughed. "Poor, thing."

Instantly, the dog stopped his maniacal run. "What do you mean 'poor thing'? That bitch left me alone! I ain't sad or nothing, I'm pissed off!"

Setting Kagome's clothes on top of her dresser, she made her way to Inuyasha and patted his head gently. "You probably wonder where Kagome is, don't you?"

"Yeah! Now, where the hell is she?!"

"She's at school." Mama was a bit surprised when she saw the dog's shoulders sag a bit and a sound akin to a moan emit from his muzzle. "Oh, she'll be home soon enough," she consoled, lightly scratching behind his ear, to which Inuyasha shook his head with a snort and backed away a petite amount. Smiling, the woman exited the bedroom, murmuring to herself, "It's so sweet how much he loves Kagome…."

"H-h-he-hey! Whoever said I love that wench, huh?! I'm just wondering where the fuck she disappeared off to, that inconsiderate bitch," he grumbled in embarrassment. How dare she say he love that stupid girl. He didn't love her, but he didn't hate her either. Hell, he barely even knew her. The only thing that registered in his brain was the fact that she took off without permission. The insolence!

The old geezer walked by, plastering an ofuda on the doorframe of the room. He mumbled something that sounded oddly like, "Eeeeeeviiiil leeeeeeave…" to Inuyasha.

With another grunt, the canine watched as the old priest toddled over to another room. That had to be some form of ass-backwards joke, or that coot was due back to the asylum soon.

Stumped on what to do besides make fun of people without them knowing, Inuyasha figured his best course of action would be to catch some more shut eyes on that comfy bed of Kagome's. The last bed he slept on felt like a rock…oh, wait, wasn't that a floor? In any case, he whirled around to prepare for a jump when… "You! Lard ass! What're doing, you mooch?! Get the hell off!"

Curled up in a tight ball was Buyo. Slowly, the feline opened one eye. "Mind not barking so loud. I'm tired. You hogged the bed with the mistress all last night." His eyelid slid shut again, signaling for the offending mutt to depart. "I can't sleep well on that couch downstairs. It's a bit lumpy for my tastes."

Inuyasha growled, never one to be pushed around. "Well, it's my bed now," he retorted sharply, raising his hackles a bit for emphasis. "Get the fuck off!"

"So, we're going to be playing the whole dog-and-cat game again," the cat murmured warily, without even moving a millimeter. "Here I thought that half-demons would be above such things."

"We are…with the exception of comfortable beds." Tipping his head, as he thought for a moment, he inquired, losing his nastiness, "Say…how is it that all of you…animals know that I'm not a regular, domesticated house pet like the rest of you? Humans and demons don't seem to take it into account, so how do you?"

Buyo opened his eyes again, flipping his position so his head rested on the bed, looking sideways at hanyou. "Every demon gives off youki, which includes hanyou-"

"Yeah, yeah. I know that already!" snapped the dog impatiently.

"Do you want the explanation or not?" tersely responded the chubby feline, yellow-green eyes clearly annoyed."Anyway, we-being non-enchanted beings that were born this way-have been used for the longest time as tellers of the future. Changes of weather, the strange and unnatural, you get the point. Well, any one of us can sense the youki off of you and smell the faint scent of dog-demon."

Gradually, as things started to make sense, Inuyasha gave a canine version of a nod. "So that's all?"

"Pretty much. We're pretty in touch with our sensitive senses. There are certain exceptions with certain people and demons that are considered gifted, but people usually take those premonitions like a grain of salt…." Buyo gave a catlike smirk. "Didn't get out a lot, did you?"

"Nope. That bitch used to keep me inside as a trophy prize. After she enchanted me to this…" he glanced down at his paws and long fur with slight lassitude, "she started to forget that I knew what was going on. If I put a claw out of line, she'd hit me. She probably figured it'd break my spirit or something." He laughed hollowly. "My spirit was so broken by then so she couldn't have done much to it."

"Why would that woman place a spell on you?" interrogated Buyo, stretching one paw out to knead the comforter.

"I wanted to break it off. Our relationship…."

"Romantic?"

Inuyasha didn't respond, merely stared at the carpeting. "It meant nothing…" he said quietly with bitterness lacing his tone. "I was right in doing so…. It wasn't working out…. Even after what she did to me, what she claimed to have felt…. She hadn't really wanted to keep it up…and she cast me aside when…. So she really didn't love me to begin with…. I was just another lonely soul like her. Stupid and lost." That out in the open, he began to turn away towards the doorway.

Sitting up a bit, gut covering his back feet, now interested and forgetting about his earlier dislike of the hanyou-canine, Buyo mewed in utmost snoopiness, "You did love her at one point, huh? How do you know she didn't love ya?"

The hanyou stopped dead in his tracks, but didn't turn around. "She bewitched me---nothing else." He slunk out of the room, leaving his conquest of the bed forgotten, tail hanging rather low and ears in the same state. She betrayed me; that's how I know.

For the rest of the day, Inuyasha shadowed Mrs. Higurashi around the house. (She was a hell of a lot more interesting than the old guy.) She was very nice to him, and so he returned his own by staying out of her way. He'd picked an opportune time to wake up, as Mama was making her lunch. According to the digital clock, it was roughly one in the afternoon.

Inuyasha played up the cuteness for all it was worth, which rendered him a piece of beef that 'accidentally' fell to the floor.

Not much else happened.

He was permitted to lay by the couch and watch the daily news with Mama. There was so much he'd missed out on having been confined to a single, bleak room when in Kikyou's 'care'. "I had no idea that there were so many technological advances. Kikyou stuck to the old standbys of spells and bindings."

"And in other news," the cat-demon newscaster was saying, "Sony's president, S-"

"-and don't forget to add plenty of sour cream to this dish," some chef was saying as he stirred something in a huge metal pot when the channel flipped.

Mrs. Higurashi looked down at Inuyasha, who gawked at her; that looked an awful lot like what she'd been planning on making for dinner. "We all have our little secrets on things. I wasn't born a good cook."

The dog wagged his tail. "You wouldn't believe the one I'm carrying around."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A few hours later, as the clock struck three, the door slid open.

"Hello! I'm home!" a girl's voice called.

Inuyasha, who was raptly gawking the pastry chef pour insurmountable ounces of strawberries on a cheesecake, was brought back at the sound of the young, feminine voice. "Kagome!" Slipping to his paws, the dog scampered to the front landing. That bitch---is she gonna get it! He rounded the corner just as the girl in question was sliding off her shoes.

"Hi, Inuyasha-" Kagome managed to get out before he leapt on her, knocking her flat on her back on the floor.

"You!" he barked in her face. "Who said you could leave?! Idiot!" He touched his black, wet nose to hers.

Blinking, still a bit stunned at the forceful greeting, Kagome stared at him. "You really look angry…. What's your problem, boy?"

"My problem…?" he asked bemusedly for a second before regaining his momentum. "My problem is that you left without telling me, you crazy bitch!"

"Guess I freaked you out, huh?" She pushed him off her gently, knocking him unsteadily to his back paws. "Sorry. Should've let you know I was going to school."

His jaw hung slack for a moment. She actually knew what he was talking about…? Maybe that fat ball of fur was right. Inuyasha wouldn't have been surprised; after all, that thing had to have some worth besides eating, sleeping, and being a walking heater. Maybe he'd be valuable in the matter of what the hell Kagome needed him to guard in that mini-shrine…. At the very least he could say he had a semi-human-hanyou conversation…even if she wasn't fully aware of what he was saying exactly. "Keh, don't let it happen again." Slumping to his rump, he wagged his tail, eyes still clouded in surliness and befuddlement.

Smiling, she got to her feet and patted him on the head. "I'm going to get a snack."

With a dog-shrug, Inuyasha trotted after her into the kitchen.

Grandpa sat chanting things to himself. Upon seeing his granddaughter, he leapt to his feet. "Ah, Kagome, it's you!"

"Hey, Gramps," she said, crossing over to the fridge. "Now who took the soda? Oh well, I'll just get some chips," she mumbled to herself.

"I blessed your room today," the elderly man stated proudly when the girl sat down across from him, a bag of ridges in hand.

"Oh, really?" she asked without much enthusiasm, feeding a chip to the dog at her side. "No terrible beings or anything lurking around, are there, Grandpa?"

Taking a much longer time getting back down to his knees, he sat back down at a sagely pace, eyes closed. Leisurely he opened them, 'wisdom' shining there as he put a hand in the fold of his shirt. "There is a demonic presence lingering in the air here."

At that, Inuyasha froze, wondering for a fleeting instant if the old man was on to him; however, he remembered Kagome's words from the day before about no spiritual power and how easily he left her room without the lightest touch of physical pain. The hell do I have to worry about? That guy probably gets mystified at the market thinking the carrots are cursing him or something….

"I see." The girl popped another chip into her mouth for a moment, her grandfather staring at her with a look that begged for her to ask. With a sigh, she complied. "Well, what was causing it?" she inquired flatly.

"Ah, glad you asked, my girl!" he sounded triumphantly as if she'd asked him such a troubled haste. "It wasn't your room at all, it was him!" In a flash, Gramps had whipped out an ofuda from the inside of his shirt and had adhered it to the hanyou-in-a-dog-suit's head.

Inuyasha blinked his golden orbs slowly in bother, one eyebrow twitching. "Talk about a senile geezer…. If this is supposed to work, this flimsy, little piece of paper ain't gonna be enough to stop me, even if I am a damn cur."

"Grampa," Kagome moaned reaching over and pulling the ofuda carefully off her dog's noggin. "Inuyasha's name may mean 'dog-demon' but he's not a demon, ok?" She sighed, laying the paper with bits of cesium fur on it upon the table. Though, she thought, smoothing the mussed fur with a hand, I do feel a bit of a shiver…almost like when I'm around demons at school. Turning her stormy gaze to her dog. What exactly did I get for a house pet?

~*~*~*~*~*~*

A/N: GOMEN! I didn't mean to take so long in updating. I love the reviews I've been getting. To fill people in on some stuff. No, Inuyasha really isn't out of character if you think about it. He has to betray some of his normal nature because he's a dog. He doesn't really have a say in things like going willingly to the pound and if he's considered hostile, do you honestly think Kagome would keep him around? Ok, next thing. About how Inuyasha got caught by the animal rescue league, all those details will show up later as will certain other things. ^^ That's the basics of what I can remember. Oh! I don't write lemons, so don't ask for any, because one will never come. Thanks for all the reviews and please review more! It totally cheers me up, especially around finals.

Also, on another note, please check out one of my newest stories "The Orphan and the Conman". On FanFiction.net, I've received 2 reviews, and 1 on MediaMiner.org. Inuyasha.net has been a bit more successful. It's a parody to Fox's movie "Anastasia", with Miroku and Sango as the driving force, but Kagome and Inuyasha will not be forgotten. I will admit the prelude sounds a lot like the movie, but the rest of it will be changed in a lot of ways. If you all could please read and review, I'd really appreciate it!

This goes out to fluffy-duck A.K.A. Amanda, who has waited so patiently for this, as have Meera and a few other people.

Inuyasha: You do take a long time do shit, don't you?

Hey, I know how Kagome feels, with missing school and not doing so hot in Algebra 2 this semester, so shut it, dog-boy.

Inuyasha: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Make this damn wench happy by reading not only that fic and this one, but these things too: "On Vacation", "The Mysterious Little Visitor", "Shikon High", "Codename: HANYOU", "Hugs and Kisses (And Other One Shots)", and "My Immortal (And Other Song Fics".

*hugs him* I'm so glad I gave you all that ramen earlier!

If you all review a lot, and check out "The Orphan and the Conman" and review, I just might write another chapter to this very soon! *hint, hint*

Ja ne,

~Moonlight Shadow

Japanese used:

Youki-demonic energy