InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Spring Fever ❯ The Future ( Chapter 9 )

A/N: I'm glad some people are reviewing! I don't tend to update without them, I just keep writing and forget the site is there... I know, odd. Reviews please! Flames and criticism are appreciated, so long as they're constructive and not just bickering... :D

 

Chapter 9

 

The Future

 

Sesshomaru was escorted through town, and was very quickly wondering A: why build something so unnecessarily tall, and B: what on earth are the shinies moving past on black wheels? He had seen them passing from the other side of the barrier, now he would touch them...

 

One of them honked at him when he stopped it with his palm pressed into the front. He only wanted to look it over... The front didn't look too good after that, but the rest was the richest cherry color he had ever seen and it was small and sleek with a hard segmented roof and... It was purring? Why was it purring? The man driving it look mortified when Sesshomaru forced open the top of the front, metal bending and a piece flying off, only to see not-so-shiny stuff working inside. It was fascinating. Spinning, hot, dark objects ran this thing?

 

That experience didn't go over too well, and the girls began talking about 'super-human strength' after they promptly ran away and pretended to not know him. ... Well, on the strength bit, duh, he was a demon. The miko began making up wild tales that the man already had that dent, and that he was slamming on his breaks before getting anywhere near Sesshomaru.

 

The liar... Her scent was panicked as she spoke, so she probably had a good reason based on future laws. He made a note to stop a few more shinies... Actually, that was a very BIG shiny that just went rolling past on large wheels, with a big and long white box following behind.

 

The girls immediately removed themselves from the rock slab path which the glistening carriages kept to, and they entered a clearing with little windowed buildings on either side. He heard one of them call it 'the outdoor mall', and it was apparently not their destinations. He didn't mind walking though, he got to see how people thought sticking decapitated and de-limbed human torso replicas on metal sticks with clothes as a fashion statement. He could help with that...

 

He concluded shortly after entering that place that he should have left that shrine a long time ago... And that he loved corn dogs... And 'money'. Sure, he had seen coins being exchanged by humans before, but only the obscenely wealthy. Here, its management was an art form. Money was regularly traded for stuff in the future, which was brilliant for a human, and thusly, more money meant more stuff, and status amongst the humans was determined without fighting. He also quickly discovered that the infinite source of money, which seemed rather contradictory to having money for status in the first place, was called a credit card, and the first uniformed person to activate it got a demon peering at the screen over their shoulder to see what was happening.

 

“If I could collar you I swear I would!” the miko hissed at him while he ate another sticked meal, walking away.

 

He fondly remembered his half-brother smashing face-first into the floor, and was glad it would never be him...

 

“I don't believe this,” the miko scoffed later on when her friends were off ordering iced cream, which sounded disgusting. “You actually eat, AND you're HORRIBLE in public... At least Inuyasha could wear a hat and call it good. That, and he would listen...”

 

“Things that live tend to eat if they wish to live long,” he stated for the first part, dipping into the yellow and red sauces and taking another bite. He found the end of the stick hidden in the odd 'meat'. “And public is horrible around me.”

 

She rolled her eyes with a scoffed breath of 'Mr. Perfect', using that funny little language of hers, and crossed her arms onto the shaded table they were sitting at. There was a big red and white fabric structure over them, he absentmindedly wondered why they took a good rain breaking umbrella and turned it to a hideously huge temporary shader was beyond him. They could just build a roof that would block the rain. “What changed your mind that you could eat here, then?” she asked. He didn't bother answering.

 

“Sesshomaru, hurry up so the ice cream doesn't melt!” giggled the girl with her hair pulled back, handing a cone of white substance out to him. He accepted it and sniffed it, and the air around it was cold and sugary. Weird... Did it come from a fridge?

 

The girls cringed when he bit it. ... It was good, an- COLD!! GAAAAAAAAAAH!!

 

Of course, he kept a straight face...

 

The miko laughed. “I suppose you don't get brain freezes, either?”

 

Is that what he was feeling? His brain freeze over? It hurt. He hated humans all over again.

 

He swallowed quickly, the cold ball grabbing his throat, and when it passed his hatred melted to its usual level along with the remaining cream in his mouth. The suddenly sugary and cool taste made itself known on his numb tongue.

 

That was good...

 

He had another bite. It took him a little while to learn to lick it, thanks to the miko...

 

“He's so cute!” the girl with oddly wavy hair whispered as softly as she could to the one with her hair held back.

 

“I know!” was the minute squeak of a reply, knees competing all of a sudden for height as she shifted in her seat, skirt riding up. They were both hiding smiles behind their ice cream.

 

“Guys...” the miko began around her own cold dessert. “He can hear you...”

 

All three of the girls flinched.

 

“No he can't!” the brown haired one stated.

 

“Well, he certainly doesn't need to hear you to know exactly what you're talking about,” the miko stated. “Even I can tell...”

 

“... Could you hear us?” the one with wavy hair asked.

 

He smirked.

 

They swooned.

 

The miko sighed into her palm.

 

He was pleased.

 

It was odd how liberated he felt in a land that certainly wasn't his own... With no one to impress, he could be as annoying as he wanted! Truly, that was the saving grace of the future. And as soon as he was back in the past he would try and survive five hundred years of living up to this point just to watch it all happen all over again!

 

An hour after leaving the shrine, when the pack of gigglers said that he needed another ice cream, the peeved miko decided to ask him something.

 

“WHAT the HELL are you DOING??” she demanded through her teeth.

 

“Socializing,” he replied.

 

“You're FLIRTING! With HUMANS!! What the HELL??”

 

He was taken aback. “I am doing nothing of the sort.”

 

“Liar,” the miko scoffed. She noted his slight frown. “Well, come on! You know what you're doing, you can't deny that.”

 

“This Sesshomaru always knows what he is doing,” he stated, hands in opposing sleeves.

 

“Hm, yes, the expert cleaner of cones with one's tongue,” the miko commented, shaking her head with tinted cheeks. What? He didn't know he had to eat the cone to get the rest of the iced cream, and it wasn't his fault that the girls liked his tongue (odd that...), and why did he even care what that annoying wench thought anyway?

 

“It is spring,” he commented, eying the girls who came giggling his way, ice cream in hand. The miko threw him a questioning look until the two girls sat on either side of him and handed over the ice cream.

 

“Mating season... Great,” the miko vexed, snatching her ice cream and taking a bite to give herself a headache. At least she would have a good reason for the one she already had...

 

“You weren't at the high school entrance ceremony, Kagome” the wavy haired girl commented, sitting at the miko's side rather than Sesshomaru's, though he didn't have too many sides left...

 

“Oh, that was... Yesterday?” the miko asked, fingers twiddling on the cone.

 

“Um... No, that was over a week ago,” her friend replied.

 

“Oh!” the miko gave a start. “Wow... Um, must have... Slipped my mind?”

 

“Were you sick again?” the brown haired girl asked.

 

“S-sorta?” the miko stuttered. “Actually, come to think of it, yeah, I was.”

 

There was a pause, the the wavy haired girl made an 'umm'.

 

“Yes?” Sesshomaru's hostess asked.

 

“Kagome, why didn't you bring him home instead of his brother?” the girl asked softly.

 

“Half-brother,” Sesshomaru clarified, the women learning with a wild flinch that he could, indeed, hear them. The miko took an almost unhealthy bite of ice cream. Sesshomaru was left to wonder if women's faces, such as hers, heated to a healthy red when their brains were freezing, and he was guessing not.

 

This was all rather excellent. Until the mall... Entirely too much squealing over entirely unimportant things... Like clothes... And the place was HUGE!! He wanted to prowl, but...

 

“Well?” asked the wavy haired girl, coming out of door number one and twirling with a dress on.

 

He glanced over and arched an eyebrow.

 

She giggled with her hands in front of her mouth, and disappeared again.

 

“What do you think?” asked the girl with her hair drawn back, watching his face as she pretended to pose for herself in the remarkably smooth mirror. Those shorts were a lot more revealing than the green skirt he had seen the miko wear, and the new girl was wearing a small strapless top.

 

He gave no reply, but she seemed happy nonetheless.

 

“Why?” he asked the miko simply, when there was a pause in the opening and closing of doors. She should know he was referring to this feminine torture, although she was browsing a circular display of feminine haoris. Were there so many people that they needed this much clothing? In multiple stores??

 

“It's spring, dummy,” was her reply, perking up at a shirt and pulling it off the circular metal bar. She quickly put it back.

 

“And why are their clothes progressively smaller?” he inquired over his shoulder. He had a very good idea why, but he need to hear it to believe it.

 

The miko rolled her eyes. “It's spring, dummy...”

 

“It's my color, isn't it?”

 

Sesshomaru looked ahead again and could not help but to widen his eyes. Yes. It was DEFINITELY spring time, and the girl with brown hair was modeling her full bloom in barely anything, and that barely anything was black.

 

“That would be a bikini swimming suit, in case you're wondering,” the miko supplied, humored by his complete loss of facial control. The modeling girl turned to show him her backside. “A thong bikini... Yuka, you're horrible.”

 

This lovely specimen, Yuka, glanced over her shoulder with a wink. “You know it!”

 

“You ARE wearing something under that, right?” the miko asked.

 

The girl pulled up an even thinner red strap from underneath the black one. “Yep!”

 

“... Ick,” the miko muttered.

 

He loved the mall... He loved the future... He loathed the fact that they were all humans... If that girl was a strong demoness displaying herself like that then not even 'no' would be taken seriously, and not just by Sesshomaru.

 

The other two girls remained more covered than that, the miko not changing at all, and Sesshomaru got an ear-full of 'YUKA!' from his hostess when the bikini girl came out in jeans to see how a black silk breast holder with minute floral patterns at the top looked on her. And by examining how it looked on her, she was grabbing her chest and adjusting herself in every way 'decently' possible.

 

...

 

The future was not very bashful, was it... Amazingly, the clothes shopping came to a dead halt when he walked out of the store. The miko set aside the two things she had gathered and followed, not trusting him alone.

 

“Girls, we're leaving!” she called to the women still in their rooms. They gave very disapproving gasps.

 

“Hm, glad to see you're not mean just to me,” the miko commented, watching her female companions scramble to clean out the little rooms they changed in.

 

“There are no limitations on who I dislike,” he replied.

 

“Oh?” the miko asked. “You dislike me? Really, if you're going to act immaturely all day, you can use the proper vocabulary.”

 

He found himself smirking again, genuinely rather than to irk her. So, she was calling him immature? “Proper vocabulary? So says she who stomps her foot and crosses her arms with a pout.”

 

“That's perfectly acceptable,” she quipped. “In fact, playing the role of a bitchy woman has guided the hand of fate throughout history. Why, if women didn't act the way they did, none of us today would have ever been born! Just one little difference in the past, one, could change the entire future!”

 

'Way to make sense, miko,' he thought sarcastically to himself. His senses were suddenly overrun by a horrid substance wafting in the air. It attacked his eyes and sinuses, and he was very close to lifting a sleeve protectively over his nose. The miko sniffed the air experimentally with a sickened expression.

 

“Oh! I've been meaning to try that!” the headband girl squealed, pointing frantically to a store. The accusatory party for this affront to decent air was in a little glass bottle and displayed in front of a women's face paints shop.

 

“Eri, please,” the miko began, holding her nose closed. Seeing this, Sesshomaru didn't really mind covering his own. “That stuff reeks. You'll smell like it just walking by the store...”

 

“Oh, Kagome, have a little fun!”

 

“My sense of fun begins with a mild odor, thanks...”

 

To Sesshomaru's dread, each of the giggle-girls decided to try a spray of the prominent liquid reek. Then perhaps a hint of this one, and that one, and they liked the pink one's appearance so it probably smelled good?

 

Sesshomaru was exercising great self-control during his private bodily conniption. It got worse when they came up to the miko and himself, the girl sitting by herself on the nearby bench to wait out the stench contest with him.

 

“Kagome! You should consider this one! It's nice and mild!”

 

“No thanks, Ayumi,” the miko grumbled from behind her hand. “Ugh... This smell could wake the dead...”

 

Sesshomaru gave the briefest silent chuckle, and noticed from his peripheral that the miko was giving him a perplexed stare for it. Well, her lack of attention got her sprayed by the 'mild' perfume.

 

“GAH!!! Yuka!! Oh, kami, this stinks...”

 

Was she going to vomit then and there? She was over exaggerating.

 

“See? This is what happens when you don't hang out with us girls too often!” Yuka stated, hands on her hips, the sales woman snatching the bottle from her and returning it to the sample booth. “You don't wear makeup anymore, you don't try perfumes, and you're still wearing last year's summer clothes!”

 

The miko huddled on herself slightly, touching the quickly drying dampness and bringing it to her nose. “Well, I'm sorry, my bad. YOU'RE the one who stinks...”

 

The girl blanched, and gave Sesshomaru a quick glance to see that he couldn't possibly be less interested in this.

 

“Oh, shoot!!” the one with wavy hair cried. “The movie!!”

 

The women abruptly opened their small ringing button devices, cursed, and bolted in the same direction. ... That was sudden. Oh well. They wouldn't be hard to find with the way they smelled, so he took his time in following.

 

The females ran a long way, and it was indeed a very big building... The miko eventually rounded his corner quickly and actually smacked right into his chest.

 

“Watch it!” she yelled, suddenly realizing it was him. “Oh, THERE you are! Come on, they're saving seats already! Oh, crap, snacks. Forgot snacks.”

 

What? No apology? That was so... So her. It was unforgivable. She was already walking into the building which had the shapes T-H-E-A-T-E-R at the top.

 

“Alright, here we are!” the miko stated, handing over a slip of paper to a young man. She suddenly pointed at Sesshomaru while he approached. “He's with me.”

 

“... He's odd even for the movies,” the bacterially plagued youth regarded Sesshomaru, scratching at his facial misfortune. “... Are those swords?”

 

“Fake!” the miko almost shrieked, looking mortified at Sesshomaru's weapons, strapped at his side like always. “Those are so fake! Yes! Cosplaying! Much fun! Come on, Sessh-y!”

 

He stopped dead. “Sesshy?”

 

The miko offered a brief sheepish grin at the lad, and boldly scurried to Sesshomaru's side. “You can kill me later,” she whispered, obviously knowing he'd hear her over the racket of the room. That's right, she said that a week ago too, didn't she?

 

He then learned why he'd want to kill her, because she audaciously clasped his wrist. That odd feeling from a week ago seeped into his skin again, the same as when she first dragged him into the barrier of the shrine. It was warm, and now that Sesshomaru got over the shock of being bodily grabbed more quickly than last time, he noted that her spiritual powers were glowing slightly in her palm. A warding.

 

Normally, such a thing would start to make his skin boil off his bones, but it didn't... Instead, it just made him immensely uncomfortable and easily pulled along while he stared in bewilderment at his hand. They walked for the small entry point where the young man was posted, and were stopped.

 

“Ma'am, you need two tickets...”

 

Sesshomaru took his wrist back, flexing his fingers experimentally. The twinge left his skin, and everything still worked. That woman needed to learn to control her powers, one way or another.

 

“W...” the miko began, looking at her hand as though staring hard enough would make the ticket divide. “Well, DAMN!” She spun on her heel, him following, and got in the back of a short line of people. They were literally in a line... Why? He was on the verge of asking, but she talked first. “Okay, I'm sorry about that, I know you hate being touched! By the way, 'Sesshomaru' is NOT a name in this time, and would actually be a very weird name for humans. Swords are also VERY illegal and I am NOT putting up with a police riot in the mall! Your whole car fetish was bad enough!”

 

... Fetish?

 

She wasn't healthy for him... It was only fitting he'd return that favor, right?

 

“Explain,” he stated simply.

 

She sighed and looked at the ceiling, as though begging it to come crashing down to meet her. “It's just the law here, alright? You can't walk around armed unless you have license to.”

 

“... That is ridiculous,” he replied, befuddled. Tenseiga woke up for the first time in a week to shiver at his side.

 

“It's to make sure people don't kill one another wildly through the streets,” she supplied.

 

“And that's suppose to counter it's being ridiculous?” he asked.

 

“You're impossible,” she laughed with disbelief. She looked very tired.

 

“And how does this Sesshomaru not have 'license' to wield a blade? I am a lord, not a peasant.”

 

“Yeah, well, here, you're nothing,” she rudely informed him. “Absolutely nothing, and don't you DARE kill me for saying the honest truth.” ... Well... Damn, there went a good excuse. “And you need special training, alright? Usually that's for guns though.”

 

“Training?” he breathed with disbelief. “Think six hundred years would do?”

 

She gave him a very flat stare, then smiled. “Nope! That won't do shit for you! So sorry.” Sorry? She could apologize over that, but running into him was perfectly fine. “Dear kami, I never thought I'd find anyone worse than Inuyasha...”

 

Worse?? How?? Than that family disgrace?? The day was very quickly deteriorating, and right before his eyes.

 

“I mean, he's not as self-righteous as you, so he didn't really get into things that belonged to others. He's also not as arrogant, but when he tried he was at least easy to talk down, or to sit,” the miko prattled. The line shifted, and they moved forward. So, she thought of him as self-righteous and arrogant and hard to talk to? Excellent.

 

“Finally,” the miko sighed, hopping up to the large desk. “I'd like one ticked for the two o'clock showing of Grudge, please!”

 

She had just hopped away like nothing had happened, and he was on the verge of speaking. He felt VERY out of character. Let's slit her in half and call the day good, shall we? No, she still wasn't paying attention to him...

 

“Sorry ma'am, we've sold out of them.”

 

The miko's eyebrows tried to climb into her hair. “WHAT?!”

 

“Sorry ma'am. We do have some for later this evening if you're interested.”

 

“Son of a-!” the miko bit her lip for the rest of that statement, showed her palms to the window with the metal vent and a dipping hole carved under it into the of the desk, and walked away.

 

And that was it. The timing was completely vanquished. That's alright, he'll murder her on the other side of the well anyway... Ruining her day further would have to do.

 

“I must say, standing in line should not have the unique name of 'movie',” Sesshomaru commented.

 

“Cram it, Sesshy,” she grumbled miserably. They were outside the theater, her sitting on a bench and playing with the beeping device which she and her friends all stared at before booking it for the movie. She sighed. “And they already turned off their cell phones for the movie... Sheesh, this is just perfect.” She rubbed her index fingers against her temples in what was suppose to be a soothing fashion, but sorely failed. Fine, he'll let her be miserable, and then when she was happy again he was going to ruin that mood.. “I need a nap... I haven't had a decent night's sleep -thanks to someone- since getting back...”

 

She certainly enjoyed talking to herself... If she wanted to sleep then she could curl up there on the long seat and be done with it.

 

Instead, she stood and offered him a smile. “It's amazing! You can destroy my day without even trying!” With that, she turned around and walked out the nearby push-doors and into daylight.

 

For some reason, her bad moods were more satisfying when he tried.