InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Racing Hearts ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

~Prologue~ The Introduction of Chi

 

This school was big, bigger than the one that she had attended last year in the States. And that was saying something, considering that she didn't even know if she could count as high as there were students in her old school. She didn't even want to try this one.

“Here it is, your new school,” her father pulled the Mercedes-Benz over to the curb and shifted into park, “Now, I've set everything up for you already. All you have to do is go into the office and give them your name and someone will escort you to your classroom, okay sweetheart?”

The 8-year-old girl nodded, grabbed up her little pink back pack and opened the door. She stood on the curb, staring at her father through the open passenger window. The light autumn breeze blew at her little school uniform of blue and white. It also tugged at her two lopsided brown ponytails that her father had pulled up for her especially for the first day of school.

“Oh, sweetheart, don't look so upset,” her father reasoned, “You'll have fun here. The Japanese kids aren't as mean as the American ones. You'll make lots of new friends,”

She blinked her big black eyes at him, “Can you walk with me in?” she asked for the millionth time. And each time was a different excuse.

“No, honey. Daddy has to go to work. He's late already,” he checked the clock in the car, “Now, do you have money to take a taxi home?”

She nodded.

“Good. Don't lose it and call me the moment you get home, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy.”

“Have a good day,” and he pulled away from the curb to join the rest of the traffic leaving the school grounds.

The little girl sighed and turned around to face her school. It was a lot more intimidating from outside the safety of her daddy's car.

“Oh, no…” she mumbled, holding her back pack tighter and following the crowd of chatting kids to the front doors. Looking around, all of them had on the same uniform and most of them had dark brown or black hair. Occasionally though, she noticed a weird hair color like silver or purple among the crowd. She bumped into one girl in the hall who had orange eyes. That was so odd; the Japanese must let their children start dying their hair and coloring their eyes at young ages… maybe her daddy would let her dye her hair pink…

Everything was labeled in Japanese, so it was a good thing that she knew a thing or two in that language. Her daddy was fluent and her mommy had been too, before she died that is. It had been her mommy's last wish, Daddy said, that she grow up in the Japanese society, because it was more cultural and safer than the American one. Mommy had been a foreign exchange student through high school in Japan and she loved it and wanted her children to live there. And that was why her daughter was here.

`Why do this NOW, though?' she wondered to herself, pushing open the door labeled “Main Office” and walking up to the counter, `Why couldn't we just wait until I was older and going into the big high school or something? Then I could make new friends…why did you make me do this, Mommy?'

“Can I help you, little miss?” a woman leaned over the counter and smiled at her.

It was time to test out her Japanese, “Yes, I'm a new student. My name is Chi Hartford,” well that was pretty basic and not too hard.

“Chi Hartford? Welcome to our school, little Chi. Let me look up your classroom for you,” the woman disappeared from view.

Chi stood there, biting her lip and staring around. It was so big… she was never going to find her classroom all by herself. She hoped that this lady would take her there.

“Hartford… Hartford… ah, yes!” she heard the woman come back, “Your classroom is on the first level, the third grade corridor, 3A114. Everything is clearly labeled; you should be able to find it,”

Chi nodded slowly, unable to shake the feeling of fear and nervousness inside her. This school had levels? And special halls for different grades? She was definitely going to get lost.

“On second thought…” the woman mumbled, her eyes following something, or someone, “I'll have someone bring you there. Inuyasha-chan!”

Chi followed the lady's eyes to a student who was walking through the office. She held in a small gasp. He had to be a sixth grader and was really a lot taller than she, but what was so startling was the silver hair that fell almost to his waist, his golden eyes, and something that looked like… dog ears on the top of his head.

“Yeah?” the boy asked, stopping and cocking an eyebrow.

“Inuyasha-chan, we have a new student. Could you be a doll and escort her to her class? She's in 3A114.”

The boy looked down at her, “Sure,” he shrugged, “What's your name, kid?”

“Chi,” Chi mumbled, looking at her feet. This boy was so different looking and the woman wasn't even blinking at it. Weird…

“Alright, Chi, come on, follow me,” he commanded, walking out of the office. She followed.

The halls were deserted, the bell having rung already. Chi glanced around, trying to look everywhere but at the boy's ears, which were right in front of her. She got the feeling that if she stared, he'd notice.

“Am I making you late for your class?” she asked quietly, trying to break the awkward silence. It felt weird, talking to a sixth grader. She didn't remember ever talking to one in her life.

“Feh, ain't no biggie,” he retorted, “I'm late all the time. Teachers are used to it now, and if they ain't, too bad,”

She frowned at his dialect. His sentence structure was odd, but she still understood him well enough.

They turned down a couple of halls in silence, Chi watching everything, before he spoke to her, “You from overseas?” he asked.

“Yes, the States.”

“Cool. And Chi ain't your real name, right?”

“No. My mommy used to call me that all the time. It just stuck.”

“What's your real name?”

“Jesalyn.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Is Inuyasha your real name?”

“Yep, sure is.”

“Oh.”

They stopped in front of a classroom. Chi looked up and saw that it was labeled 3A114. It was her classroom.

“Here you go,” Inuyasha said, “Have fun,”

“Thank you.”

He shrugged and took off down the hall at a jog. She noticed that he was a really good runner, probably on the track team or something. Heaving a sigh to calm her jangling nerves, Chi reached for the door knob and opened the door.

 

* * * * *

 

The door to the classroom opened and she looked up from her conversation with her best friend to see a girl with lopsided ponytails standing in the door way, looking like a frightened piece of flesh among a pack of hungry youkai.

“Is that the new student?” she asked her friend, tucking a piece of black hair behind her ear.

“I think so,” her friend replied, “Do you think she's youkai?”

The girl with the black hair shook her head, “No way. She's too scared-looking to be a youkai,”

Her friend shrugged as the teacher walked in from his office on the other side of the classroom.

“Class, I want to introduce to you our new student. This is Chi Hartford,” he beckoned the ponytailed girl forward, “I want you all to stand up and give your names and perhaps a little something about you as well,”

One by one, each third grader stood up and introduced themselves. After each one, Chi would wave and mumble hello or something to that effect.

The girl with the black hair stood up for her turn, “My name's Kagome Higurashi and I was the youngest member of the Archery Team last year and can shoot a mean arrow,” she gave a small smile and sat down in her seat. Chi mumbled a hello, glancing down at her feet.

Kagome's friend was next, “I'm Sango Taijiya and I have a pet cat named Kirara and she has two tails,” Chi gave an alarmed look that caused both Sango and Kagome to dissolve into giggles.

After the whole class had introduced themselves, the teacher opened up a small discussion, “Does anyone have any questions for Chi about where she came from or her culture? I'm sure she would love to talk a little about herself,” the teacher gave the girl a smile in which she returned shyly. Kagome thought it looked as though the girl would rather have eaten youkai guts than talk about where she came from. But that didn't stop her from standing up to ask a question.

“I have a question,” she stated loud and clear, “Do you speak fluent Japanese?”

Chi nodded.

Sango gasped and stood up too, “And English?”

Again, Chi nodded.

Kagome thought that that was impressive. This girl spoke two languages? And she was in third grade with them? She caught Sango's eye and they both nodded in agreement. Yes, yes that was cool.

Another student stood up, “What's your dad's name?”

“Robert Hartford,” Chi mumbled.

Another student gasped right loud and stood up so fast out of his chair that the thing fell over, “Is he that politician guy that's always on TV and has loads of money?”

“Now, Koga, that is impolite,” the teacher scolded.

“So? Am I right?” Koga asked.

Chi nodded again.

The buzz of chatter in the classroom escaladed. The teacher had to restore order and then sat Chi right in the front row, “Class, could you please take out a piece of paper and copy down these words on the board. They are going to be your new spelling words this week…”

As the class began to copy down words, Kagome looked over to Sango, “So, what do you think?”

“Of the new girl?” Sango whispered back, half copying her words and half listening.

“Yeah, she's kinda…” Kagome drifted off, because over Sango's head, she caught sight of Koga. He blew her a kiss. She rolled her eyes. That wolf youkai had cooties and she had proof, “… ummm… yeah, she's kinda odd, huh?”

“Mm… I don't know… she looks a little scared of us…” Sango replied, finishing up her words and absently drawing on the corner of her paper.

Kagome shrugged, “Somebody told me all Americans are,”

 

* * * * *

 

Any other American exchange student to Japan would have spent their lunch period examining the odd food-like substance on their plate. Chi however, was a little more worried about where she was going to sit in this lunch room.

The teacher instructed which lunch periods people would be having. She caught that people on the first level would have second lunch out of the four lunches there were. As she looked around, she realized that there were a lot of kids on the first level.

So, Chi began to walk around slowly, nervously, hoping that maybe someone would jump up and offer her a seat somewhere. Doubtful, because kids were already looking at her weird and quickly dumping back packs onto available seats so that she couldn't have sat with them if she wanted to. And her daddy said Japanese people were nicer than Americans…

She looked around the room again and saw, strangely, that there were a ton of kids with the weird hair all sitting together in one area. They were all so different looking and no one yet had given her any slight clue as to why they were like that. But, among the purples and oranges, golds and reds, she saw a flash of silver and two cute, dog-like ears…

`That's that boy, Inuyasha...' she mused, `Maybe I could sit over there with him…' never, back in the States would she have even considered sitting with an older student. Then again, who else did she know?

She had barely started walking over there when someone called out to her.

“Hey! New girl! Chi!”

She turned around to see that girl from her class, Kagome, and her friend Sango beckoning her away from the area of strange kids, “Yeah?” she asked upon arriving in front of them.

“Were you going to sit over there?” Kagome asked, tilting her head towards the weird kids.

“I was thinking about it… why? Am I not supposed to?” Chi asked nervously, glancing over her shoulder. Some of those kids were giving her odd looks.

“No, those are youkai. You can't sit over there,” Sango supplied, nodding to emphasize her point.

“Youkai?” Chi asked, confused. That was a new word. What were youkai?

“Yeah, youkai,” Kagome repeated, “You know what youkai are?”

Chi shook her head.

Kagome and Sango exchanged a look, “They're kinda like magical people,” Kagome described slowly, waving her hand in front of her as if she didn't know how to explain what exactly youkai were.

“Yeah, like, sometimes they're dogs and cats,” Sango added.

“Or monkeys and foxes,” Kagome put in.

“Or bugs and frogs.”

“Or lizards.”

“And sometimes fire and water and stuff like that.”

Chi stared at them. These girls… were they serious? Those kids with the funny hair and eyes… they were like animal people? Like… demons? That was insane. Sure, she was a new girl and from another country, but they didn't expect her to believe that, did they?

“You're not serious,” she stated, a small smile creeping up her face, “Magical people?” What a joke…

“We're serious!” Kagome exclaimed, “Wait, look! There's your proof!”

Chi whirled around just as someone screamed and gasped at what she was seeing. That boy, Inuyasha, was standing on a lunch table facing another boy with red-brown hair and probably around the same age as him. Both of them were staring at each other with hate and another scary emotion that Chi couldn't name.

“I don't care who the hell you are, I'll still kick your ass!” Inuyasha screamed at the other boy, flexing his fingers, which, Chi noticed, had claws on them.

“I'd like to see you try, stupid dog!” the other boy yelled.

Chi gasped at their language just as Kagome leaned over her shoulder, “That is what we call a kitsune and a hanyou,” she explained.

“Kitsune? Hanyou?” Chi asked in a whisper, not taking her eyes off the pair.

“A kitsune is a fox-youkai and a hanyou is half-youkai, half-human,” Kagome replied.

“But just because Inuyasha's a hanyou doesn't mean anything. He's really tough,” Sango added on Chi's other shoulder.

Chi has barely enough time to register this thought when the two boys charged at each other, the kitsune boy throwing what looked like green-blue fire at Inuyasha and Inuyasha sending yellow blades at him from his claws. Chi eeped and closed her eyes.

It was over as soon as it started however, because teachers came in and began to separate the two students. Kagome and Sango each latched onto one of Chi's arms and steered her away from the gathered crowd.

“Don't worry, that happens all the time,” Sango said, interpreting the horrified look on Chi's face.

“That kitsune boy was freaky…” Chi whispered.

“Yeah, they're all like that. They're really common,” Kagome said off-handedly, “My brother just started preschool and there's a really cute one in his class named Shippou,”

“Are youkai bad?” Chi asked.

“No, not all of them. Most of them don't really like humans, but we get around that. Sometimes you can be friends with them. I know a lot of youkai,” Sango said, “You didn't have them in the States?”

Chi shook her head, “Nope… unless they're really good at hiding,” she replied. Wow… what an intense lunch…

“Well, you can sit with us over here from now on,” Kagome offered, pulling up a chair at a table for Chi to sit in, “We sit with normal people,”

Chi smiled, setting her tray down and beginning to examine her food. What a strange school. Weird people, weird food, weird classes… youkai, hanyou and kitsune…

Maybe she was going to like Japan after all.

 

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A/N

Just a little introduction to keep the later storyline smoother. Enjoy! ^_^ ~Jesachi

All rights to Inuyasha and Co. belong to Rumiko Takahashi and I take the credit for any new characters that are introduced. Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.