InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Solitary Loneliness ❯ Insanity ( Chapter 2 )

Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, its manga, or any part of its anime series.

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews…this one was posted on my site for a long time (and my site is like a closet…it's where I store all of my ideas and stories that I have not yet presented to fanfiction archives because they aren't finished or they are getting revised), so I had finally gotten around to putting it on both ff.net and mediaminer.

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The clock's alarm woke her with a feeling bordering on homicidal rage, and Kagome was very tempted to toss it to the floor and watch in satisfaction as it became a heap of plastic, silicon, and wiring. Grumbling in her half-awake state, she threw off her covers and made an attempt to start another day. It was her fault really, she had been so worried last night, attacked by anxiety and nervousness of her upcoming algebra test that she kicked it into high gear and studied her ass off. She didn't think that it would take its toll on her the next morning, though. "Well, at least I'll be prepared," she said , yawning wide and stretching her limbs. As soon as she shook the last remains of sleep away, Kagome headed into the bathroom for a nice, hot shower.

Afterwards, she stuffed all of her school books and materials in her canary yellow book bag and pulled her uniform from the closet. Dressing quickly, she headed out of her room and down the steps, blindly following the delicious aroma that flooded her nostrils and ignoring the rumbling in her stomach that agreed that the smell of the air was indeed appetizing.

"Hi honey," her mother smiled at her the moment she set foot in the room. "I was just about to check on you to see if you had gotten up. I know you studied so hard last night."

Kagome answered with another yawn at the reminder and watched her mother set a plate loaded with food down in front of her. "Well, there's no reason that I should fail today's test," she said, picking up her chopsticks. "The material finally made sense to me about the fifth time that I read the chapter."

"Then you will do well, I know you will," her mother assured her, giving her another heart-warming smile to make sure her daughter understood that she was trying to offer comfort and reassurance. Kagome smiled back and continued to make short work of the meal on her plate.

"Sis, are you ready to go?" her brother yelled at her from the front door.

Kagome sighed and was about to tell him that she didn't even finish her breakfast yet, but her eye caught on her watch and she gasped in shock. "Man! I'm going to be late if I don't hurry!" In a flash, she was up from the table and grabbing her wrapped lunch from the kitchen counter. "Sorry Mom, gotta go!" She all but ran from the kitchen to catch up with her brother.

"Bye, Kagome!" her mother called. "And good luck!"

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"A D?!"

Kagome held up her paper in disbelief as she stared at the red mark, eyebrow twitching. "I studied for at least 6 hours last night, and I get a D?!" She fisted her hand, causing the paper to winkle as she shook her fists. "This is so unfair!"

"I don't know why you're that upset, Kagome," her friend, Yuka spoke up. "You had an A-average in this class, the most it will do is bring you down to a B."

"I would kill for a B average," Ayumi (okay, did I spell that right?) groaned. "If I don't get at least above a C in this class, my parents will take away all of my privileges, including not taking me to the dealership on my birthday for my new car."

"I don't mind a B," Kagome explained. "But if I had known that I would get a D, then I might as well have just given up studying!"

"Well, there's always the finals," Eri's helpful voice chimed in. "If you do well on that, then you'll pull your grade back up."

Kagome sank in her chair. "Yeah, I guess. But I still spent a lot of time studying last night, nearly falling asleep in the crack of my textbook and all to get a D!"

The bell rang, signifying that school had just ended and the students had been granted their freedom from the brick walls of the building. Kagome returned her books to her bag and waited for her friends to do the same. "It's Wednesday, so I'll walk you guys to WacDonald's and go to work."

"Alright." Yuka took a few steps until she was standing next to Kagome. "Are you sure that you don't want a job working with us? We know the manager, and we could get him to pull some strings…"

"Yeah! It's fun working there. You should definitely take the job!" Ayumi said as she and Eri joined their friends.

Kagome smiled at the group. "Thanks for the offer, but I love my job. It doesn't require much skill except for reading and it's fun there too. I don't have to take down orders from people all day either."

"Oh well, but we'll ask our boss if you change your mind."

Kagome nodded as they walked through the doors of the school to the outside. "Thanks. I'll remember that." They walked in silence for a few seconds before her three friends gasped and halted their tracks as if time had stopped and left them standing in the same place frozen and inert. Kagome looked at them in confusion before following their gazes.

"Higurashi-san!"

A smile materialized on her face as the owner of the voice met up with the group of girls. "Hojo-kun. How are you?"

"Never better." Hojo returned the smile before nodding to the three other girls beside her. "Hello Yuka, Ayumi, Eri."

"Hi, Hojo," Yuka said ecstatically, pushing Kagome in front of her so she would be face-to-face with the tall boy. "We were just leaving for work. See you later, Kagome!"

Kagome's feminine brow spasmed at her friends' antics. Okay, she did like Hojo, but did they have to make it so dang obvious? Making a mental note to brutally injure Yuka tomorrow at school, she turned back to him, her grin wavering slightly.

"Were you walking home?" Hojo asked as he wheeled his bike alongside him in order walk beside her.

She shook her head. "I was just going to walk to the station to go to work."

"Ah…" Hojo said thoughtfully. "I've seen Eri, Yuka, and Ayumi working at WacDonald's but wondered why I never saw you."

"No, I work far from here, which is why I have to take the train."

"Oh…so, where do you work…?"

They talked all the way from the schoolyard to the train station, about various things: family, friends, high school. Their conversation never wavered; both of them could understand one another and contribute something of their own. Hojo was such a nice guy, smart and caring. He was also handsome, and many girls in her class had claimed that he had taken their breaths away.

…For the first time since they talked, Kagome felt that there was something missing.

She couldn't pinpoint it, but something inside of her told her that this boy was not what she wanted and that he would never be. However, she couldn't tell what it was exactly, and so she tossed the thought out at the moment. She would look more into it when she had the chance.

They reached the station and they said their goodbyes right before she got on the train. Hojo was so sweet…why wasn't she attracted to him? She sighed as her back hit the plastic seat and closed her eyes.

There must have been something wrong with her.

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"Kagome!"

She smiled as she pushed open the glass door of the library. The children were already sitting on the floor waiting for her with their choice books in their laps. The girl dropped her heavy bag on the ground next to a chair and sat down in front of the group. "Well," she said to the kids. "What do we have today?"

"Here!" All of the children held up their books. Kagome laughed as she scanned the titles, trying to chose at least one of them. "Ah," she said, taking one from a pair of tiny hands. "I haven't read this one to you in a while." She opened the cover and began to read, allowing the youngsters to become absorbed into the written world.

Only about a half-and-hour passed before her aunt came out of the office, calling her. Kagome set the hardback on the seat's cushion and followed the older woman. "Yes, Aunt Taiyo?" she asked, just then noticing the young girl standing beside her aunt.

"I would like you to meet Sango, my husband's niece," Aunt Taiyo introduced. "You two haven't met before, right?"

Kagome shook her head. "No, I wasn't even aware that Uncle Akinori had any brothers or sisters." She held out a hand to the young girl and grinned. "I'm Kagome Higurashi."

"Um, Sango Chishu," she said, taking Kagome's hand.

"Sango just moved into the city, and is going to be working with you, so I thought that you might want to show her around after you're done reading to the children," Aunt Taiyo suggested.

Kagome nodded. "That's a good idea. Maybe the kids will want to skip the story and come with me while I give the tour." At her aunt's frown she added, "I promise I'll keep them quiet."

"Alright, but just be sure that they don't disturb the other people." Aunt Taiyo left the room to return to her office.

"Come on, you can meet the children," Kagome said, leading the way into the reading area. "Hey guys, this is Sango, and she'll be with us from now on."

"Hi Sango!" the children chirped happily at the young girl, causing her to flinch from the volume. Kagome laughed.

"They are a little energetic, but you'll get used to them. Alright guys, we're going to give Sango a tour of the library, and we need to be quiet. Otherwise, Taiyo-san will be angry at me and force me to read the dictionary to you tomorrow."

The group moaned at the idea, making both the girls chuckle at the sight. "Alright, come on, and be on your best behaviors."

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The pencil fiercely hit the paper in her frustration. Kagome leaned back in her desk chair, massaging her temples from the stress of her homework. Math. It was a torture thought up by the most evilest of beings, probably by people who had nothing better to do than to replace actual numbers with letters. When she was a kid in preschool, she was taught that the numeric system and the alphabet were two entirely different things. Who would have ever thought that some wacko would merge the two together in a practically useless form only to be used in high school and the years of college. There really was no point in forcing the students to learn it, more than half of them wouldn't use it in the future. Come on, who in their right minds would go to the grocery store saying, "If 'x' cans equal 'yn' amount of dollars, then how long will I be here in the middle of the aisle trying to figure this out?"

There was a sound above her that sounded like scrambling.

She looked out the glass pane of the window. Surely something couldn't be out there…?

Kagome shook her head and returned her attention to her work. It was probably a branch or something that hit the roof. Or perhaps it was a bird or some furry little woodland creature that scurried its way to its nest in the large tree in the backyard. It most likely was a branch, since it was pitch black outside and most animal did their moving in the daytime. That was it. It was a branch that hit the roof.

--A branch that strangely felt like a pair of eyes.

"Ookaay…" Kagome said, closing her book. "We're done with the math." Her eyes searched the windowpane from her seat but could find nothing. It was still pitch-black and difficult to see.

"Give it up, Kagome," she said to herself. "There's nothing out there." She pressed her hand to her forehead and sighed. "Man, I need to go to bed." She removed herself from her desk and stretched following up with a wide yawn, confirming her statement. She dressed quickly and darted under the sheets before turning out the lights and shifting her body into a more comfortable position. After about ten minutes, she managed to succumb to sleep's spell and drifted off to slumber land, unaware that her previous paranoia was in fact correctly placed.

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How could he have been so stupid?

He had almost made his position known, almost made her conscious of him. Inuyasha had no intention of doing exactly what he nearly achieved by accident: blowing his cover. This girl was not to know that she was being protected, there would be too many questions--he knew all too well about the questions from all of Kikyo's incarnations in the past--none that he would prefer to answer. Well, what could he say? 'The reason I'm stalking you is because you have the same soul of someone who was very important to me…by the way, that was five-hundred years ago…' Sure, she would understand…perhaps after she ran and filed a complaint to the cops about having a dog-demon stalker that watched her from the colossal tree in her backyard. Yes, that would go splendidly…

His back hit the trunk and he folded his arms. At least he had finally found her. After Naraku had killed her last re-embodiment, he had to start from scratch--waiting six years for the soul to process in the after-life and following the powerful scent of her miko energy. Surprisingly, there were a lot of strong mikos in the present--a good amount of them were like this girl, oblivious to the fact that they even had the power. However, Inuyasha knew how to distinguish her soul from all of the others.

The Shikon no Tama.

In all of the years that he protected Kikyo's spirit, the smell of the great and supreme crystal could not be washed or diluted from her essence. Kikyo was the true protector, it stuck to her like flypaper and refused to leave her without it. It made her a hell of a lot more easier to find.

But, it also worked as a disadvantage because he would use the same tactics to find her as well. A frown formed on the hanyou's mouth at the thought. He would not let him get to her after all of his hard work. He would not start over again after failing.

Naraku, over the years viewed their competition as a game, a race to see who could reach the miko first, Inuyasha to preserve and Naraku to destroy. The sick bastard saw some sort of amusement within this somehow, obviously believing the entire situation like a chess game; to him, Inuyasha was the pawn and Kikyo's soul was checkmate. They had played many matches, and Naraku would force a draw, killing off their goal whenever he was unsuccessful of seeing any progress, or whenever Inuyasha had managed to get to her first, waiting in the shadows until his back was turned and delivering a killing blow to the young girl.

Inuyasha sighed in relief as he saw her turn out the light and go to bed. Finally…he could go back to his house and change his clothes. He had been out in this tree for nearly seven hours, watching her and making sure that there were no signs of the youkai anywhere. He would go home, take a shower, and resume his watch. Yes, a shower would do him quite nicely, he thought as he leapt off of the thick branch.

There was no way in hell that Naraku would touch this one.

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"Even when surrounded by acquaintances, you are all alone."

Coffee colored eyes shot open in shock then explored the environment.

Kagome gasped as she realized that she was enveloped in a shroud of white blinding light. Her eyes winced against its radiance as a hand rose to shield the luminosity. She examined the light further and realized that she was still inside of her room, still snuggled under the pink comforter and sheets of her soft bed. What in the world was going on? Did the moon and stars outside of her window suddenly combust into a supernova of sheen and brightness? Was she ascending in a beam of heavenly light towards her afterlife?

Her eyes narrowed. Somehow she could tell that this light was less than holy, almost as if it was corrupted by darkness, despite its brilliance. She could make no sense of it; in some way, she knew that this was no dream--even if she would probably tell herself that in the morning, that she had only imagined the deep voice and the light and was suffering from a mere lapse of sanity and a lacked sense of reality.

Then the light materialized into a figure towering over her form. Kagome could do no less than analyze it, the way the long, shadowy locks tumbled over his broad shoulders; the way the dark silk of his robes fit his muscular structure; the way the symmetry of his gorgeous face made him appear blessed, almost angelic in his guise. His own brown eyes gazed down at her with a manner of complete understanding and compassion.

Her eyes widened when one of his delicate hands swept back the hair of her bangs in such a gentle fashion. A slight smile broke his countenance as she again began to hear the resonant tone of his voice.

"Why do you suffer? You have done nothing to invoke this punishment, and yet you seem to bear the weight of it. "

"W-what…are you talking about? Who are you?" Kagome asked, gripping the upper seam of her blanket and pulling it up to her chin protectively. The mysterious man kept the grin on his lips as his palm turned to knuckles to move to stroke the supple skin of her cheek. His other hand tugged the coverlet out of her grasp and pushed it away from her nightgown-clad body.

"There is no need to conceal anything from me, Kagome."

A splinter of fear pricked her insides and melted under her heart, spreading the unpleasant emotion like a thick layer around her lungs causing her breathing to become short and ragged. Her brown eyes bore into his, noting the way that his own dark ones made the pang of restlessness inside of her increase. "How do you know my name?" she demanded.

The way the two slashes of black above his eyes sliced downwards made her wonder why she had first thought that this man was an angel when in only a few seconds, his face had transformed into that similar to a devil's. "I know all about you, Kagome. Everything. From your favorite color to all of your past lives." His thumb moved across the skin below her nervous eyes, sending sparks of dread and panic down her spine…

And yet, there was quite a lovely feeling that pooled below her stomach, an intensity that she had never experienced prior to the present. Adrenaline streamed through her veins--she was certain that almost every hair on her body had stood up, triggering the awareness of every touch, every caress of the enigmatic man before her. A sigh escaped her lips, neither of gratification or of discomfort.

The dark haired man chuckled as his free hand moved down, while never touching her, towards her abdomen, his eyes even more devilish than before. Her own anxious eyes followed the path of that hand, wondering where all this was leading to. She gasped as she saw a flood of violet surged from his palm and into her body. Kagome tensed, eyes closed, expecting pain to come.

An even more delightful sensation washed over her as the dark energy pulsed into her. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp as the waves of pleasure flowed into her. This feeling…it was not something that she could have imagined. Her brown eyes went to his and in the daze of bliss she noted that she was wrong about the colour of his eyes. Instead of brown, they had faded into a crimson shade, somehow increasing his unbelievable beauty.

The hand over her tensed, and then was pulled away. His eyebrows lowered as he closed his eyes and turned his head away from her, a smile on his lips. "I'm afraid you're too late, Inuyasha," Kagome heard him mumble. He moved back, keeping eye contact with her the entire time. "I will be back, Kagome. The love of evil will taint the jewel," he told her as his figure faded away in the same blinding light he had appeared in.

Kagome stared at the same spot for at least ten minutes, then pinched herself. "Ouch…" she said rubbing her arm. It wasn't a dream, so what the hell was that? She shook her head, deciding that she wouldn't be able to make any sense of it now, even if she tried. Pulling the cover back over her body, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.

Perhaps she could talk her mother into seeing a shrink tomorrow, since she was certain she was going crazy.

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Okay, I wanted to say that the "encounter" will most likely be in the next chapter, for all those who have asked, so be patient! And remember (even though it is clichéd…), the more reviews, the more incentive I have to write, even though I will keep going regardless. But it's going to be a hell of a lot faster with more reviews, I'll tell you that much…