InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Total Knockout ❯ Scents and Sensibility ( Chapter 3 )

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Ithil's-tired-so-here's-some-fluff. Rumiko Takahashi writes real-deal Inuyasha and I don't!

 

And because I feel like it and I've been reading a really great annotated version, Pride and Prejudice unravelled!

 

BINGLEY: Hey, good buddy. Why don't you dance?

DARCY: I don't wanna! All the girls here are skags! My shirt itches! The music sucks! I wanna go home!

ELIZABETH: Jerk. (leaves in huff)

DARCY: What a woman. I must have her.

 

Remember, even if it weren't two hundred years old and British, it would still be a romantic comedy.

 

 

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"Hojo just kissed you!"

"How was the ride over?"

"How was Hojo?"

"And what happened to your shirt?"

Kagome sighed. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate their efforts to cheer her up, but they would have managed that just fine by coming along like they'd said they would. When would she get another change to be a teenage girl on a college campus with her friends?

"Some guy bumped into me and spilled the soda," Kagome explained simply, "A real jerk. I thought there was going to be a fight, but Hojo said that they should settle it in the ring."

"Ooooh! Chivalry!"

"How gallant!"

"How romantic!"

"How did he look?"

"It's nothing like that, guys, really!" Kagome answered. "You know how Hojo is with manners. This guy pushed his buttons is all."

Eri smoothed back her hair, "It wasn't your buttons he was kissing, Kagome! What was up with that?"

Kagome spent the next twenty minutes fighting the blush on her face as her friends sighed over the thought of Hojo defending her honor against the spiky-haired rabble.

"He's so brave!"

"He's so strong!"

"He's so going to kick that guy's ass for you, Kagome!"

"Yeah," said Kagome. "I guess he is."

"You're not excited?"

"Not really," she said. "If you ask me, I was more impressed that he was such a gentleman about the whole thing." Kagome's smile dimmed. "After all, there are some guys who couldn't be polite if their lives depended on it."

 

 

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Well... This looked like it might be the place. Inuyasha twisted his head to the side, squinting hard in the glare off those damned white rocks. His reading was a little rusty, but the markings on that big cloth banner looked like they said ...aw hell! This was no good! This place was crowded and noisy and confusing, and it was all Kagome's fault!

Not only did she leave, but she'd left with that boy. And after she'd sat him into the ground for nothing!!

Okay, almost nothing.

Okay, so he'd called her an ugly bitch, but it was during a fight!! If she could call him a selfish, foul-mouthed, crude, demanding, arrogant, stupid, pig-headed turbo jerk just for throwing Shippo and her math homework into the river, then why couldn't he say anything back?

And okay, so he'd also eaten all her shampoo, but it had smelled like food, dammit!!

Inuyasha sniffed at the crowd. It seemed like it was just a bunch of humans here, most of them young men around Kagome's age. Inuyasha barely noticed a growl building in his throat. Why had she come here?

There were so many people, and he had no idea where to start. How was he ever going to get her scent in this mess?

I'll start on the outside and work my way in... That way, she couldn't double back while he was searching different parts of the ...what the hell was this place, anyway?

Compared to the rest of this big blasting block of a city, this etched-out little compound was almost quiet enough for him to hear himself think. There were patches of grass and flowers, and even a stunted tree or too. The buildings were even a little less ugly. It was nothing like home, or even the scanty shrine grounds around Kagome's house, but it still seemed like someone had deliberately—

Inuyasha looked up. Was that...

Hojo!! His ears twitched furiously beneath the hat as the beaming boy trotted by. First he'd tricked Kagome into coming here to goof off while she should have been shard hunting with him, and now he was running around by himself! A low growl built in his throat. Kagome was way too trusting. What if Hojo had only lured her here so that he could feed her to some hidden demon? What if he'd already done it?

Inuyasha inhaled sharply, but couldn't catch any scent of Kagome except what was lingering on Hojo's skin and clothes. He narrowed his eyes and stomped off after the poufy-headed human.

Well... he tried to. He'd turned around, but the crowd kept trying to go the same way. Inuaysha scratched at his cap, perplexed. For the most part, they weren't even looking at each other. How did they do it? Inuyasha could barely pull in a breath without bumping into someone, but everyone else was moving smoothly, like fish in a lake.

Inuyasha looked longingly at one of the scrubby trees, tilting his head back extra far to see in this stupid visored hat. One little hop, and there he'd be in the branches. One hop after that, and Hojo's guts would baste the stinking pavement. The dog demon grit his teeth, remembering Souta's dire warning:

"Whatever you do, don't use your powers! The last thing that you and nee-chan need is for people to find out that demons are real! If they do, they'll send reporters and police and scientists, and they're ALL going to want to touch your ears, Inu-no-nii-chan!"

Inuyasha clapped one hand protectively over the hat, and held back a shudder as he elbowed his way after Hojo. He couldn't seem to find a way to move so that no one was touching him. Why did these people live so close together, anyway? And why was everyone moving so slow?

"Registration, please."

"Huh?"

The crowd parted, and the dog demon found himself in a doorway. The woman at the other side of a low counter adjusted her glasses with one bony hand and looked him up and down. "Are you a fighter or are you here to see someone?"

"Both," he answered.

"Don't joke with me today, young man," the woman snapped.

"I'm not—" Inuyasha raised one hand to flash his claws at the battleaxe, then stopped. The whole point of wearing these stupid clothes was to keep people from noticing that he was a dangerous, powerful, demon. The only problem with that was that people didn't know that he was a dangerous, powerful demon.

"You're holding up the line," she went on. "You are either here to fight or you are here to watch someone else fight. If you are here to watch someone else fight, then you give me ¥ $150 right now. If you are here to compete, then show me your registration paper."

Inuyasha opened his mouth to answer. "I—"

"One of those?" she pointed.

The dog demon turned and looked where she was pointing. The guy behind him in line held up a big paper square with the number - Inuyasha squinted his eyes - "twenty-eight" written on it.

"Oh." Inuyasha's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah. Yeah, I got one of those."

As he turned to leave, he heard the woman mutter, "I swear, after a enough hits to the head, they should just stop letting them compete."

 

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"Are you a fighter or are you here to see someone?" he repeated.

"Um... I'm here to watch my nephew?"

"Crap. Never mind."

Inuaysha hurried out to where the crowd was thin looked around some more. He was pretty sure that the woman from the counter couldn't see him from here, but it couldn't hurt to be safe. "Fighter or are you here to see someone?" he asked a tall man with a big belly.

"See someone," the belly man answered. "Why you asking?"

"Crap. Never mind."

 

"Fighter or here to see someone?"

"I'm here with my son."

"Crap."

 

"Fighter or here to see someone?"

"I'm here to watch the fights!"

"Crap."

 

"Fighter or here to see some—"

"Watch where you're going, asshole!"

Inuyasha looked over his shoulder as someone bumped into him from behind. The boy was maybe an inch taller than he was, not counting his over-inflated head, and he was carrying something bulky in a bag slung over his shoulder.

And wasn't that—

Inuyasha leaned forward and took a sniff. This boy had Kagome's scent on him! It was only a hint, but—

"Hey!" the boy gave a screech. "What'cha sniffing me for, freak!"

Not my personal pleasure, that's for sure... thought the dog demon, wrinkling his nose. Maybe it was the summer heat, but this boy reeked almost as badly as a wolf demon. Finding Kagome's scent on him was like watching a flower petal fall into horse dung.

"I'm looking for Kagome," he said, fighting the urge to cover his nose. These sleeves were too wuss-skimpy to help, anyway.

"Kaga-who?" dungboy started a retort, but then held back a moment, "Oh yeah, the bitch who spilled my soda a minute ago."

Something in Inuyasha growled. "She's not a bitch! I'd better not hear you call her that again!" Inuyasha snapped before he realized what he was saying.

Okay, so Kagome was a bitch, but... but this reeking pimple factory wasn't allowed to say so!

The sniveling weakling shook his head, "What, does that chick have idiot pheromones in her shampoo or something?"

Inuyasha's mouth puckered. Kagome's shampoo just tasted like soap.

"Hate to break it to you, sniffer-boy," he went on, "but she's waxing another guy's ceiling fan. Some whiny headcase named Hojo."

"A sealing fan?" So Hojo was a demon! Why a fan? Wouldn't an ofuda have worked better? "I knew that that boy was trouble," he growled, "but dammit, she was supposed to call me if she ran into anything. We could've knocked him flat together!"

At this, dungboy tossed his head back and laughed all the way from his sagging beltline, giving Inuyasha an unpleasantly adequate noseful of BO and Frito breath. His eyes narrowed. He might not have been up to date on the latest Tokyo slang, but the universal language of Adolescent Male rang loud and clear: he'd been had.

"Listen, human," Inuyasha seethed, "I don't have a lot of time and I sure as hell don't have a lot of patience. You can tell me where you saw Kagome, or I can take it outta your hide."

The boy gave a grin and the shoulder bag hit the concrete. "That's fine with me, freak." He strode toward the twitching dog demon. "The refs just get in the way if you ask me." He brought up one fist. "Get ready for the pounding of a lifetime!"

"Oh, so you're a fighter?"

"You bet I'm a fighter!" the burly young man shot back at him. "I'm the first in my weight division and I—"

"Great. 'Bout time."

"Huh—"

THUNK!

Inuyasha rolled the burly boy back behind some shrubs and poked at the his fallen sack, finally hooking the zipper with one claw. He pulled out a pair of puffy red fists, some cloth, and a big piece of paper with a number written on it.

Inuyasha shouldered the bag, and gave the boy a pat on his newly-lumpy head. "Thanks for the help."

 

 

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(And later, in Bingley's library...)

MISS BINGLEY: What'cha readin'?

DARCY: A book.

ELIZABETH: (reads)

MISS BINGLEY: Can I see?

DARCY: No.

MISS BINGLEY: You're so smart!

DARCY: Okay.

MISS BINGLEY: I'm so pretty! Hooray.

DARCY: Ugh.

MISS BINGLEY: You're a cutie! (huggles him)

DARCY: Get off me!

MISS BINGLEY: No!

DARCY: HELP!

ELIZABETH: (reads)