InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Puppet Without Strings ❯ Preparations ( Chapter 4 )

Puppet Without Strings

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Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Pairings: InuKag for now. I won't reveal the rest because that would be spoiling.

A special thank you goes to Akira139 for her encouraging comment.

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- Chapter 3 -

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There were two things in life that Inuyasha despised. One was cheap manual labour and the other; cheap manual labour for free. This explained his current agitated state of mind as he transported boxes upon boxes of paper work up the six flights of stairs to Kaede's office. It just so happened that the only elevator in the vicinity was the one that led straight to the reception area of Inuyasha's intended destination. The same one that Kaede had exclusive rights to and had forbidden him to use.

­- What is this, the fucking sixteenth century? If they're going to rob me of my damn salary the least they could do is install a decent goddamn elevator for the rest of us working individuals. -

A zillion thoughts ran through his head as he scaled the final five steps, most of which consisted various four-letter profanities. By the time he'd reached the top, Inuyasha could have proudly claimed that he had invented a whole page of brand new swear words to add to his steadily growing vocabulary. He continued down the long corridor.

The past four days had been very routine. The same six flights of stairs to be climbed. The same corridor to be walked down. The same dread for the same annoying lecture to be received. He did not know how much more he could take.

Guard duty was the easy part. There was nothing like a couple of rounds and a few dozen poker games to while away the time. It was what came after that that Inuyasha so absolutely loathed. He would get barely an hour of sleep after guard duty, (usually on one of the mess halls' greasy benches) before having to drag his ass up again and report himself to Kaede.

Only then were the true horrors of his day to be unleashed. At first it had seemed bearable enough. He'd been given mundane albeit boring assignments like the one he was doing now. Other tasks had ranged from highly mediocre, shifting Kaede's furniture for example, to highly unpleasant, like when he'd been made to unload toiletries from the provisions vehicle. Stocking restrooms with toilet paper was the most degrading thing he had ever had to do in all his seventeen years, eleven months and fourteen days. And he had gained nothing out of it save for a newfound respect and appreciation for the janitorial staff of Sector So54.

And then, had come yesterday.

If there ever was a moment when Inuyasha could have sworn that he had truly been afraid, the afternoon of Wednesday the 15th… yesterday, would have been that the time.

Learning the true meaning of suffering had been humbling at the very least. When Kaede had informed him of an instructing job, he had jumped at the opportunity. Teaching a bunch of puny youkai whelps how to track a moving target in the forest? Piece of cake! They were youkai. The ability should have been ingrained into them from birth. Besides, anything would have been better than janitorial duties… right?

No, not right. Never right.

Being an instructor for Sector So54's youngest division squad had been, to put it very lightly, pure and simple hell. Inuyasha vaguely remembered someone telling him once, that it was never wise to judge a man by his outward appearance. What that someone had failed to mention was that the advice could pertain to rabid, seven-year-old, full-blooded demon children as well.

In the three hours that his session had lasted, Inuyasha had been ganged up on, cried on, spat on, sat on, pranked, scorned, maimed, trampled and even… God he did not even want to go there. His right wrist still sported slight indentations from when one of the psychotic brats had tried to swallow his fist whole. He'd walked around for a full fifteen minutes with the kid still hanging off him!

He'd also come to realize just how attached young children could become to soft, furry objects. His ears twitched at the memory. He'd stared at himself long and hard in the mirror after the lesson. He'd sworn that his ears had become… longer.

He was sure old lady Kaede had taken a great amount of perverse pleasure in seeing him drag his almost-limp body into her office by the time the afternoon had ended.

He'd fallen asleep during guard duty that night.

Which would explain his current predicament. The load he was carrying had to have been five times the usual amount. The old lady was relentless. No one could have gone through this much paperwork in so short a time. He was certain she was making him do this just for the fun of it. Kaede had an evil streak that was unbefitting for a miko of her caliber.

Over the stacks of folders and paperwork, Inuyasha just barely avoided crashing into the door of her office. He struggled to balance his burden on one arm, using the door as a brace, while he pushed the large grey button on the access panel.

`Yes?' Came Kaede's voice over the intercom.

Inuyasha's voice was strained. The mound of folders looked about ready to topple.

`Open the door old lady.'

It stayed shut for a while as Kaede, not even glancing up from her current focus, let her hand hover over the desk's control panel. She found the right button after a needlessly long moment.

`That's Chief Kaede to you.'

Inuyasha ignored the intercom's message and strode in. He stopped short as a familiar scent reached his nose. A new voice was heard.

`Hn. An errand boy? And just when I didn't think you could sink any lower. If only father could see you now.'

The voice was taunting. Inuyasha didn't need to see its owner to identify him. He scowled.

`Nice to see you too, big brother.'

He placed his massive load down on the filing cabinet none too gently. Then rose slowly to face his older half-brother, who looked mildly amused. Sesshoumaru turned to Kaede.

`You didn't tell him?'

The reply was laden with surpressed glee.

`I thought I'd leave it up to you, Sesshoumaru.'

`I see.'

Inuyasha gaze shifted between the two other occupants of the room, before finally resting on Kaede.

`Tell me what?'

He had a feeling that he wouldn't like the answer. But he wanted to know. He did not like not being held out on information. Kaede turned to face him, eyes like that of a child's. A very evil child harbouring a very evil secret. Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. Sesshoumaru sighed and decided to get this over with.

`Your penalty's been lifted. You're needed for an assignment. I called in yesterday morning to inform Chief Kaede. I said I would be flying in.'

Inuyasha turned an accusing glare on the old lady.

`And just when were you planning on telling me this?!'

Kaede's reply sounded bored. But Inuyasha could have sworn he'd heard her cackle.

`Must have slipped my mind, Taisho. After all, yesterday morning was hectic and the whole issue of getting the children a substitute instructor was so much more pressing.'

Inuyasha's eyes widened.

`I've been let off since yesterday! So the whole instructing thing. It really WASN'T EVEN NECESSARY?!'

His voice had risen to an annoyingly high volume. Sesshoumaru almost cringed at the assault on his sensitive ears. Kaede pretended to ponder this.

`Well, I guess that would be correct, Inuyasha! How very…silly of me.'

She was definitely cackling now.

Inuyasha was appalled. His throbbing fist, the bruises lining his back, his over-stretched ears, his hurting ego, all of it could have been avoided? He felt exploited. Cheated. He felt used.

Why? Why did Kaede hate him so?

Sesshoumaru was intrigued. He did not think it was possible for a person, human or demon, to have their jaws drop as low as Inuyasha's was hanging now. But then again, he reasoned, Inuyasha was neither human nor demon. When his brother's face started to glow an unhealthy crimson, he decided to intervene before things got ugly.

`You do know that hurting your Section Chief is a punishable crime.'

Inuyasha chose to ignore him and continued to glower. His mind entertained a series of very bloody and gruesome images. Sesshoumaru's voice turned serious.

`Enough of this. The situation is urgent. Pack any necessities you might need and be ready to leave at the Helipad in an hour. You will be briefed on the flight. Be prepared to be staying at the capital for a while. From now on, you will be taking orders from me.'

Inuyasha paused in his seething momentarily to throw a shocked glance his brother's way.

`You?'

If it was possible, his eyes had gotten even wider. He must have presented quite a laughable image at the moment, but Inuyasha didn't care. One shouldn't misunderstand. He did love his brother and all. But the man was a proverbial slave driver. `Perfectionist' didn't even begin to describe how relentless Sesshoumaru was! Hell, it was the trait that had gotten him his current position in the first place!

`Yes Inuyasha, me. Now stop wasting time and get ready.'

With that, he turned on his heel, white mane flinging in a low arc, and exited the room. Kaede watched his retreating back for only a moment before turning to face the unmoving youth in front of her.

`Did you not hear him, Taisho? You are dismissed. Do as he says.'

This snapped Inuyasha out of his shock-induced reverie. A low growl escaped his lips, before he too turned to take his leave. The floor seemed to shake with his every step. But even this loud exit did not prevent sharp canine hearing from picking up Kaede's next uttered words.

`Good luck, kiddo.'

The next seventy-two hours had seen Inuyasha delivered to Sengoku City and bombarded with a myriad of assignment details. Sesshoumaru had drilled him weary on what was required of his performance. For the next few months, he would be the unnoticed second shadow to Higurashi Kagome and her brother Souta. He was expected to know every detail of their daily schedules, where they were and who they were with at all hours of every day.

Sesshoumaru had handed him fact after shocking fact of the true details of President Higurashi's death. He'd decided it best that Inuyasha's new guarding duties not be disclosed to the recipients. He needed every little edge on this enemy that he could possibly get. Each of the Higurashi children had a guard assigned officially to them at all times. If the killer did choose to return, he'd only be ready to fend off two enemies. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's intervention would come as a shocker and with any luck, this element of surprise would be the thing that would bring about the killer's downfall.

Since the time he had arrived, Inuyasha had not had an ounce of sleep. He wasn't a vain person by any standards. But still, he wondered if the skin below his eyes would be permanently sagged from the amount of sleep-deficit he had been experiencing.

Currently, he sat in front of the large platinum computer screen of Sesshoumaru's forty-fifth storey penthouse apartment, trying to absorb every bit of information he possibly could on the president's mysterious killer. Contrary to what many of his fellow sector-mates had been inclined to believe, Inuyasha could be very meticulous if he so wanted. He wasn't lazy; he just rather liked to think that not attempting something was far better than just doing a half-hearted job of it. Which was why in most situations, Inuyasha just preferred not to bother.

This case, however, intrigued him. There was just so much obscurity to it that his interest had been piqued the moment Sesshoumaru had finished his first briefing.

Inuyasha scrolled the page down on the computer. There wasn't much information to go by. A few rather worthless physical observations were all that had been provided.

- Name (Full): Unknown

-Height: 155cm/ 5''1

Weight: Approx. 48kg/ 105.5lb

Gender: Undetermined

Age: Undetermined

Eye Colour: Undetermined

Hair Colour: Undetermined

- Blood Type: A-

- DNA Record: Unmatched

The vagueness of the profile was frustrating. He'd viewed surveillance videos from the time of the assassination. The bastard was fast. Too fast. He'd damn near disappeared from view when the guards had opened fire. Practically run head-long into four of them and hadn't gained so much as a scratch. His body suit had covered up every inch of skin. Not so much as an opening for his eyes to see through had been present.

Inuyasha sighed. For the past five years, he'd trained himself meticulously, sometimes even to the point of collapse. He hadn't had any reason to doubt his abilities as a fighter. Until now that is.

The negative thoughts were cut short as his brother strode purposefully into the room. He was carrying something round and metallic. Sesshoumaru stopped in front of the desk and tossed the item at him. He caught it a few inches from his face and held it up to examine. It looked like some sort of electronic wristband. It was several inches thick, with a well-disguised control panel on its underside. Inuyasha raised his left eyebrow.

`And this would be?'

`An invention of Toutousai's.'

He gestured to Inuyasha's left wrist.

`Put it on.'

Inuyasha was skeptical. Toutousai was a strange and wrinkled old prune of a scientist who was as psychologically unstable as he was brilliant.

`That wasn't a request, mutt.'

It was an order. Inuyasha cautiously slipped his hand through the metal band. It seemed harmless enough, if a little too big. He yelped in surprise when the catches on the ends of the device clamped down suddenly on his unsuspecting arm. The metal strips holding the two halves of the device together retracted to secure the band, chokingly tight, around Inuyasha's upper forearm. He felt sometime sharp and needle-like pierce itself into the skin near his pulse.

`Fuck!! What the hell is this?!'

He struggled in vain to remove the offending object from his person.

`That, little brother, is what you will be wearing for the entire length of time you will be watching the Higurashi's.'

He stepped over and yanked Inuyasha's banded arm up to face-level. Twisting it around (while ignoring Inuyasha's pained protest), he punched in some buttons on the control panel of the device before releasing his brother's arm. For the next ten seconds, nothing of importance happened.

Then, to Inuyasha's sheer and utter horror, he felt the change happening. Pointed canines flattened out as his claws retracted and softened to become fingernails. Majestic white mane dulled and greyed before finally turning a deep ebony while his eyes lost their feral golden tint to settle on a lackluster dark brown. Lastly, Inuyasha felt his canine ears shrink back to be replaced with human ones at both sides of his head.

`Sesshoumaru!'

His brother shrugged.

`You as a hanyou would be inconspicuous. This device has connected and familiarized itself with your blood stream. It is able to induce humanness upon you by drawing out your mortal blood.'

`Just how the hell do you expect me to fight a fucking damn-near-invincible murderer in a state like this?!'

Sesshoumaru's eyebrow twitched. Apparently stupidity was not an inherited characteristic. He was quite sure neither his dad nor Inuyasha's mother, Izayoi had had an IQ of lower than a hundred and fifty. Inuyasha had gained the trait for idiocy all on his own.

`Which is precisely why there are key codes to change you back, idiot. Yours is IY239.'

`Keh! You could have told me sooner!'

Sesshoumaru sighed.

Monday morning saw Inuyasha striding down the halls of Sengoku National Institute of Education sporting its uniform white shirt, long dark trousers and a navy blue blazer, as well as a fake name. He felt silly and out of place in a facility of such prestige. SNIE was an institution for the rich and famous. Government officials and people of various other positions of leadership sent their children to this place in the hopes of creating more government officials and people of various other positions of leadership.

Inuyasha now understood why his brother had wanted him to take on a human appearance. There was barely a demon-blooded individual in the entire establishment. His hanyou form would have stood out like a sore, glowing, extremely swollen, red thumb.

Youkai rarely did receive normal schooling. Most of them would have been taken in by the military at the enrollment age of seven. While the army taught their kids how to serve and protect, academies like these prepped their children for future electoral positions.

He'd already reported himself to Jaken, an annoying and wrinkled old geezer with the voice of a dying toad. Jaken had been Sesshoumaru's other choice for the assignment. The old pest had been a comrade of Sess's during the war. He'd been enrolled as a history teacher and dormitory master for the school. He would be the one Inuyasha was to turn to should he require access to special parts of the academy that were not open to students under normal circumstances.

Having made the necessary arrangements (and altered his schedule so he would be as near as possible to both Higurashi children at all times), he made his way down to the school's main doors. There, he positioned himself against a not-too-noticeable pillar and pretended to be interested in his mobile phone while he waited for the Higurashi limousine to arrive.

­- The schedule said 8:30-

Sure enough, at exactly thirty minutes past eight, the limousine of Higurashi Kagome and Higurashi Souta, pulled up in front of the academy steps.

All chatter quieted the minute the car doors opened. Inuyasha would have heard a pin drop even with his diminished senses. The two bodyguards stepped out carrying the Higurashis' luggage with them. The silence became deafening as the next figure emerged from the vehicle.

First a pale leg, then a slender hand. Higurashi Kagome appeared, looking for all the world like she hadn't been happy in years.