InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Zero-G ❯ The Porn Star ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Author's notes: A few more bits of FAQ for the curious ones among you at the end of the chapter. And a special note to the person who thinks everyone from Britain is stupid (you may be 70 percent right, but as a Grammar school student, I escaped all that, thankyouverymuch).

---

Zero-G

Chapter Four

The Porn Star

Everything was going according to plan. His bike was parked at a safe distance - down an alley beside the market square - and no one was giving him a second glance as he made his way through the streets to the Riiza plaza. Perhaps it was because, at that moment in time, he looked just like an ordinary human.

As long as you didn't look too closely.

But all the pedestrians needed to see was another black-haired youth with his hair tied in a discreet plait down the back of his jacket, before moving their gazes on automatically. No one suspected that he was on his way to blow up a small portion of their shopping facilities.

However, before the bang, a burger was in order, so Inuyasha meandered his way past the plaza to his destination which came in the form of WacDonalds. The queue was considerably long for 'fast food' and it was uncomfortable standing in line with a bomb in his pocket.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether or not this bomb was particularly stable. Naraku was a bit dodgy when it came to deals, and it wouldn't surprise Inuyasha if his boss had picked up bombs that had fallen out the back of a lorry somewhere. All Inuyasha knew was that there were two gases in this bomb, and when the timer reset to zero, the gases would collide and create a hearty explosion that would put Hollywood stunts to shame. But would the two gases be released if he… say… bumped the bomb a little bit?

Inuyasha tried to move as little as possible as the queue inched forward until he was finally at the till.

"Can I take your order?" the greasy little pimple opposite him droned. "We're doing a special Big Mac today if you're interested-"

"I'm not," Inuyasha said abruptly, careful to keep his eyes downcast in case the youth before him saw the colour. "What's the cheapest thing on the menu?"

"Hamburger. No cheese. With a side order of saliva." The pimple glared at him. "A hundred and fifty yen."

Inuyasha glared back at the counter. "I'll give you three hundred if you don't spit on it."

"Deal."

Inuyasha tapped gloved claws against the desk surface as he let his thoughts drift back to the girl in his flat. He wondered if she was doing ok all by herself. She seemed better than yesterday, and certainly more mouthy, but was it really safe to leave her alone when she was in such great danger from the Coalescence and her own stupidity? What if she'd found a way to escape and was heading back to her family right at that very moment…? Walking straight into the hands of the enemy…

"Here's your burger, sir." The youthful zit handed him a warm polystyrene box.

Inuyasha tossed the money across the desk and instantly turned to walk away, not bothering with receipts or other useless pleasantries.

Without even making the effort to glance around for onlookers, Inuyasha opened the burger tray and held the morsel of food in his mouth while pulling the bomb out of his pocket. He tapped the small green button, noting the little red light that began blinking behind it, and placed it into the box before closing the lid like it was the most natural thing in the world.

What was the point of looking for people who might be watching when he was surrounded by hundreds of them? To look around guiltily would attract attention… but to act natural was to appear innocent. It was as simple as that. Even if a police officer was watching him at that very moment, their eyes would not have registered the action he'd just taken.

Bomb in place and burger in hand, Inuyasha munched as he weaved through the crowds towards the plaza itself. He spotted the bandstand and the large billboard above it showing some kind of cosmetics advert. There weren't a lot of people lingering around the bandstand today, so perhaps that was a blessing in disguise.

Inuyasha mentally shrugged. It was better to not feel hope on behalf of his victims.

It was a simple matter of finishing his burger off as he approached the lone bin set into the concrete beside the raised platform that served as the bandstand. It was already full of so much rubbish that it was overflowing, and the smell had attracted a fleet of wasps. Inuyasha swatted them away as he approached, lifting his hand to position the burger tray above the contents of the bin.

The bomb was dropped.

The sheer weight had the burger tray falling straight to the middle of the rubbish pile, and Inuyasha checked his wristwatch as he moved on, unhurried.

Ninety seconds to get fifty yards away and out of the blast-range. No worries.

Inuyasha didn't even glance back over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the plaza and down one of the side streets.

Inuyasha paused outside a female clothing shop. Black, white and shades of varying grey assaulted him, and he couldn't decide which dress was supposed to be 'nice'. He idly wondered what size Kagome was… just in case she needed new clothing. If he ever took her outside the flat, it was better that she ditched the school uniform and took on a more adult look.

Twenty seconds.

There were three types of girls in this world - the ones who preferred white clothes, the ones who preferred black clothes, and those that liked the varying greys. Inuyasha would have to ask which type she was…

Ten seconds.

Although, knowing this girl's stubborn tendencies, perhaps she'd be none of the above. Perhaps he should just go for black. After all, it was very slimming, and most girls were usually obsessed with their weight-

A sound much like that of a truck colliding with another truck rang off. Almost deafening. The ground gave a heavy shudder, and a gust of hot air blasted past, warming Inuyasha's cheek and making him sway to one side.

The explosion was followed by several resounding crashes and a distant roar of flames. People were screaming, running both away from the destruction and towards it. Odd pieces of shrapnel were raining down, even at Inuyasha's distance.

He only bothered to turn his gaze away from the dresses when a heavy piece of roof tiling shattered by his feet. He eyed the mess with disdain before finally glancing back the way he had come. The bandstand was still visible… or what was left of it. Three of the four pillars on the stand had been demolished, along with the roof, and the fourth pillar was in a very wobbly state indeed. Bricks and concrete lay in smouldering piles while the culprit bin itself had been obliterated completely.

Even at this distance, Inuyasha could count the casualties.

"Help! Somebody help them! Call an ambulance!"

But with traffic congestion as bad as it was these days, the chances of any medical help arriving under an hour was doubtful. And even though there were already a few shrieks and mutterings of, "Coalescence," the police probably wouldn't appear any time soon either.

Inuyasha emptied his lungs with a quick sigh and shrugged. All in a day's work.

However, just as he was turning to leave and put this unpleasant incident out of his mind, he stepped on something.

For the first time in a long time, Inuyasha's heart skipped a beat.

---

Kagome slowly set the receiver back into its cradle. Her mother had yet to pick up, but now she wasn't sure what she could say to her.

It might just be a coincidence, Kagome thought to herself as she continued to stare at the billboard long after the advert had gone. She may have just been inspired and was working on something similar…

But then, why announce it just after Kagome had supposedly died? Why had she never said anything before? Why was the name so similar?

Her head was beginning to ache again, and she carefully pressed the heel of her palm against her brow, trying to will back the pain in order to concentrate. She couldn't have been thinking clearly… because the only way she knew that Kikyo could have produced the exact same product as Zero-G was if she'd stolen Kagome's research.

"You don't think Kikyo is capable of murder?"

"She's not… there's a mistake…" Kagome dizzily pushed her way out of the phone box and stumbled towards the bandstand to sit down.

There was still no reason to suspect that Kikyo had tried to kill her. What if Kikyo was releasing the formula in her honour… despite Kagome's previous wishes? Perhaps the advert had just failed to mention that…

"There's still no backing to what he said." Kagome gasped out as she bent till her forehead touched her knees. And I can't just sit around here while my family grieves. I have to get back to them.

Pain or no pain, she set her teeth and got to her feet. She knew this place and knew the way back home. She also knew that with a little pleading and begging, she could get money off someone for a bus fare. Her mother may not have been answering the phone, but that didn't mean that Kagome couldn't go home and wait for her return. Then she could ask Kikyo was the deal was with 'G-Force'. It was probably just a big misunderstanding…

Kagome headed towards one of the streets branching off from the plaza. There was a bus station down there, and that was where a little whining and a sob story or two could haggle Kagome her ride.

But then there was a crash. The floor tipped beneath her, and she hit the concrete with a winded thud. Heat seared the soles of her feet and the back of her legs while a terrible ringing noise began to deafen her.

Her eyes snapped open in time to see a slab of concrete shatter a few metres away, but the impact sounded distant or like she was standing in a sound-proof bubble. There was screaming, too, but it was all so muffled…

It took a few moments to catch her breath, but when she had, Kagome began to sit up. Slowly, her hearing started to return, and with it, her scattered senses. She looked around at the devastating flames that licked the occasional crumb of wood and litter, and knew that she'd just escaped another bomb. There were victims, too, more unlucky than herself who had been closer to the blast, and they all lay prone or groaning on the ground.

A pram was strewn, overturned only a few feet away from where Kagome had just been sitting. But no child could be heard crying.

"Someone…" Her voice clogged up in her throat as if she was speaking aloud in a dream. "Help…! Somebody help them! Call an ambulance!"

But everyone was too busy rushing around like the frightened sheep they resembled. It was a terrorist attack. No one wanted to hang around to see if another bomb was waiting to go off.

Kagome took an unsteady step towards the phone boxes, only to find to her horror that they had been crushed in the explosion. They lay on their sides, plastic walls broken and metal frames bent. Fractured wires and cables poked out from beneath them…

For a panicked moment, Kagome was at as much a loss as the people around her. She couldn't call for medical help, and she had no first aid training herself.

It lasted only a moment before she managed to gather herself once again. By now most people had all but fled the plaza, while a few of the braver souls had rushed forward to help the injured victims. But not one of them seemed to have time to make a phone call.

Kagome looked around wildly, dismissing the option of going after the cowards who were running away. Then her gaze fell on the one person who stood out like a sore thumb in all this chaos.

While general hysteria ruled, there was one black haired man who stood unperturbed through it all. He was outside some kind of clothing shop, looking down calmly at a heap of rumble by his feet. He was neither running away or helping out… but maybe he had a phone?

"Excuse me, sir." She started running towards him, tripping over pieces of crumbled bandstand. Then he was starting to turn away. "Please, wait!"

He stopped, just when she thought he'd heard her, but instead began reaching down to pick something up. He must have been deaf or something to be oblivious to such an explosion and ignorant to her calls. "Excuse me!" she shouted again. This time he turned-

Kagome staggered to an immediate halt.

If Inuyasha was surprised to see her, he did a very good job of containing himself. He simply gave her a long hard look, dispassionate and hollow, and said nothing. In his fist, he gripped a child's toy: a stuffed monkey with a missing tail.

Kagome knew that the missing appendage was back beside the pram she'd seen.

"W-we," she began breathlessly, made uneasy by his appearance and his stare, "we have to call an ambulance."

"Someone will have done so already," he responded in a monotone.

"Well…" Kagome shifted uncertainly. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here." He finally released her from the imprisoning stare and glanced down at the toy he held.

"What's wrong with your hair?" She eyed him cautiously. "It was white this morning."

"And you were safely tied up this morning," he returned.

Kagome almost balked at his gall. "You think I wouldn't have tried to escape?" she snapped. "I was a hostage - it's well within my right to make a break for it."

"You were in my protection." He looked around. "Look what happened the moment you got loose. You were almost killed."

Kagome's mouth went dry. "W-What are you saying? This bomb wasn't intended for me."

"Wasn't it?" He looked up at her with a strange expression that she couldn't decipher. "It's just a coincidence that a bomb went off here, now of all times, when you just happen to be passing through on your way home, no doubt."

"For all I know - you planted that bomb to kill me off!" Kagome shot back.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now, Kagome." He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Well… I don't know what kind of crazy ideas of protection you have - but I don't need your help." She began moving backwards, away from him. "I have to go home now and let my family know that I'm alright."

She turned to run, but once again he seemed to catch her wrist at an inhuman speed. Something blunt stabbed against her throat and her whole right side went numb. She choked out something incomprehensible as she went down on one knee… but then the same jab was applied to her opposite shoulder, and she winked out like a light.

---

"-explosion today, in Riiza plaza. The Coalescence is the prime suspect, but so far, police have received no confession of responsibility. Fifteen people were injured while three are dead. CCTV footage is being reviewed, but unfortunately, all CCTV cameras located at the scene of the explosion have been tampered with-"

The newsreader's voice had been the first thing to penetrate her consciousness. Before long, Kagome opened her eyes and fixed a glassy stare on the television set opposite her.

A black and white picture.

"Oh no…" Kagome buried her head desolately into her 'pillow', which was in fact a fresh towel. Familiar smells reminded her that she was back where she had started - she could even smell the same chicken soup stain on the mattress that she'd made the night before. The handcuffs were back around her wrists, though this time she hadn't been chained to the bed.

Despair overtook her again, and Kagome fought the bitter urge to cry.

"Awake again, I see." An equally familiar voice arrived in the bedroom, and Kagome shrunk further against the sheets. "You made quite a job of my table, you know. I couldn't even begin to fix it, so now I have a permanently wobbly table. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Kagome muttered miserably.

He sighed loudly. "I know you don't mean that."

The chair beside the bed scraped as he seated himself down again, and the frame beneath Kagome shook twice as he planted his feet against the rail. "You're smarter than I gave you credit for. I doubt any other girl would have had the same ingenuity that you've shown."

"Then you're obviously underestimating girls in general," she ground out.

A splash of water sounded, and Kagome's head shot up to see what he was doing. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

In his lap, he held a bowl of water and was busily squeezing the moisture out of an old rag. "It's for your head."

"I don't need your help," she told him coldly, noting that his curling wet locks were now a streaky kind of grey rather than the jet black they had been before. But why exactly had he dyed his hair in the first place?

"Isn't the smell of blood beginning to bother you by now?" he sniffed absently. "I know that when I get brained, I tend to be smelling the blood at the back of my throat for days - especially when I don't look after myself."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "The fact that you've been smacked over the head doesn't surprise me. You're highly irritating."

"You're not that easy to live with either," he said, as if returning a pleasant compliment. "Now turn your head this way and don't move too much.

"Screw you." Kagome turned her head away instead.

"You were much easier to tend to when you were unconscious," he griped, almost to himself.

The thought that he'd been watching over her and tending her wound while she was sleeping gave Kagome some very mixed feelings. The soft, forgiving side of her was touched; the more prominent and sensible side of her knew that she didn't trust this guy with her unconscious body. She turned her head back towards him. "What else did you do while I was sleeping?"

"Not much," he shrugged. "Drew moustaches on your face… took pictures of you in compromising positions… had sex with you a few times-"

Kagome's foot clapped him over the head with a well aimed kick. "You disgusting, despicable, no-good, sonofabitch-"

"Ow." Inuyasha pushed her foot back down. "You're quite the flexible one, aren't you?"

But now Kagome was gaping at him as if his nose had just fallen off.

He rolled his eyes. "It was a joke," he told her slowly, as if talking to a very stupid child. "I wouldn't touch you in a million years. I like my women to be women."

She still stared at him.

"Unless I really am a paedophile… in which case you're too old."

The penetrating stare continued.

"That was another joke, by the way," Her stare was beginning to unnerve him. "But if you don't stop gawping at me right now, I'll tickle you so hard that you'll piss yourself. Tickling is worse than pain, you know."

Kagome wordlessly lifted her hands and pointed to her head, but the way she was staring at him indicated that she meant to draw attention to his own skull.

"What?" Inuyasha lifted a hand to prod his hair. "What's the matter with my… oh…"

His fingers met a fuzzy triangle of fur poking up between his hair. It seemed that her kick had sprung a few pins loose.

"What… on earth…?" she gaped at him, astounded.

"What?" he demanded defensively. "It's just an ear. You have ears too, you know. Mine are just on top of my head - and far prettier than your own, I might add."

"Can I touch it?"

Inuyasha had to do a double-take. "What?"

"Nothing." Kagome swiftly moved on. "Is that because you're a demon?"

"Half demon," he corrected. Since the jig was already up anyway, he decided to remove the pins hiding his other ear from sight. It was a relief for his poor, abused little ears, and he rubbed them with a wince.

"So you're like a cat-boy or something?" Kagome asked, genuinely interested.

"Dog-boy," he snapped, slapping the rag into the water dish with a sigh. "Wait - forget that. Just dog. I don't want you getting any ideas for nicknames."

"Uh huh. So what breed of dog are you?" she asked.

"I'm not a dog!" he snapped.

"I know, but you're obviously some breed of dog. From the ears, I'd say you were some kind of working dog. Alsatian maybe, or German Shepherd… but the colouring suggests otherwise…"

"A White Shepherd, I think you'll find," Inuyasha found himself telling her before he caught himself. "Now stop analysing me - you're creeping me out."

"Good. It's my turn for a change." She sat up carefully, resting her hands against her lap. "So do you have any other weird appendages that I need to know about?"

"No."

"Now let's see…" She leaned forward to peer around the back of his head, probably looking for antennae or something equally stupid. "Wait - what are these scratches?" She was staring at something on the side of his face.

"Scratches?" He raised his fingers to touch his jaw quizzically. But as he felt the four raised lines against his skin, he dropped his hand. "Nothing. I got them during the explosion…" and certainly not through making out with your cousin.

"Oh, right…" Kagome deflated somewhat. "I can't believe anyone could actually do that, you know?"

"Do what?" Inuyasha looked down at his bowl of water.

"Blow up a square full of people." Kagome pulled a face. "How sick is that? To be so callous to human life that you could even contemplate killing that many people? I mean - there was a baby in that explosion. How could anyone do that to a baby…?"

Inuyasha merely grunted and changed the subject. "You burnt your legs pretty badly," he told her. "I don't have anything here that will help the blisters, so I might go out later to the Chemist."

Kagome glanced down at her legs, and for the first time realised that her calves were scorched to a fine lobster red. "That's nothing compared to what other people suffered…"

"You were lucky."

"I doubt it," she glared at him. "If I was truly lucky, you wouldn't have been in the plaza, and I would have been home by now."

He gave a short derisive laugh. "You still think you're better off there than here? Kagome - your cousin tried to kill you. Why isn't that sinking in yet?"

Kagome ground her teeth and turned her glare on her knees instead.

"I've seen at least three adverts since this morning. Adverts from your cousin's company advertising some new miracle cream that will be on the market within weeks. It's been 'fifty years in the making', apparently. Now that strikes me as odd, considering Kikyo's company has only been in business for five years… anyone would think that she stole the formula off a recently deceased cousin who in turn took it from a long deceased grandmother."

"I'm not listening to you!" Kagome snapped. "You have no idea what you're talking about!"

"How can you not believe that G-Forks, or whatever, is Kikyo's own creation? It's yours. She took it from you," he drilled into her, his words beginning to ring a disturbing truth.

"Ok - I admit that it's a little odd," she huffed, "and perhaps she did take the formula… but that doesn't mean she killed me for it."

"You're naïve, you know that?" Inuyasha gave her a patronising look. "Why is it so hard for you to accept the truth? She stole your formula, she hasn't even credited either you or your grandmother, and she released the news of the new product barely two days after your death. Now that sounds suspicious to me."

"I can't believe it," she said firmly. "It isn't possible."

The porcelain bowl hit the floor with a loud crack. "Then you're an idiot!" he growled at her. "Why can't you accept the truth?!"

"Because I can't!" she yelled back at him. "What kind of girl would I be if I was so quick to believe that my own cousin could be so horrible?! We're family! I love her! I can't just take your word for it and turn against her!"

Inuyasha wanted to tear his hair out. Or hers. Either would do. "You're so stupid! She killed you and you still love her?!"

"But I'm not dead!"

"You will be in a minute if you don't get this simple fact through that three inch thick skull of yours!"

"You're threatening me again!"

"That's because you're stupid!"

"I'm not stupid!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

The argument died when Kagome realised what childishness they were falling into. She shut her mouth firmly and glared at him instead. "Look, if you ever manage to produce some kind of infallible evidence against Kikyo, I will believe you. Until then, don't mind me while I play favourites when it comes to deciding who did what."

"Fine. But you have to promise to stick tight until I find it," he warned her.

Kagome shook her head. "I don't think so. The minute you drop your guard again - I'm gone. I don't place trust in the people who kidnap me."

"That's a shame. It wouldn't be so hard on you if you just accepted what your cousin has done and what kind of danger you're in. If you did that, I wouldn't be forced to lock you up all the time. I might even let you go out." He began to pick up the bowl, despite having cracked it and spilled most of the contents. "Now, do you want me to wash your head or not?"

"I'd rather do it myself," she said quietly.

"Too bad. Your hands are cuffed, and you can't see what you're doing." He grabbed the rag and squeezed the water out again. "Lean forward."

With a sigh, Kagome obeyed reluctantly and winced as he pressed the cool cloth against her scalp. Her matted hair pulled painfully as he dabbed away at the clots, attempting to untangle the locks. "Stop pulling faces," he told her offhandedly.

"You're not very gentle," she informed him, while keeping her vision fixed on the black and white TV that was still going through a news report on pollution.

"You might want to wash your hair some time… but not until you've healed." He rinsed the cloth. "Soap is quite painful in open wounds."

"Beauty and cleanliness comes at a price," she sniffed.

Inuyasha smirked. "Yours was your life."

Walked right into that one, Kagome thought with a roll of her eyes.

"-and in other news, Miroku Hoshi was found hanging by a feather boa in his dressing room yesterday evening after leaving a suicide note," the newsreader was saying. "Friends and colleagues of Mr Hoshi admitted that the young man was particularly unbalanced emotionally and prone to long bouts of depression. The suicide note stated simply that Mr Hoshi was tired of living and despairing with his lot in life, and so felt that death was his only escape. His father, one of the leading district police officers involved in the search for Coalescence mercenaries, has stated in a press conference this morning that he is convinced the Coalescence is responsible for his son's death."

"Miroku Hoshi?" Kagome frowned at the TV. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Uh… he's a porn star, sweetheart." And I certainly didn't say his name over the phone when I was sent to kill him last night… "You watch porn then?"

"No!" Kagome jerked, startled. "I don't know where I've heard his name before, but I don't watch dirty films."

"That's what they all say," he replied loftily, and was rewarded with her heel crushing down on his toes.

"In business and industry news, Kikyo Higurashi is set to release the most innovative cosmetic skin-care cream for a century."

Kagome's head snapped back towards the television, and Inuyasha's hand dropped slowly from her hair.

"This new cream, which has been fifty years in the making, is said to be able to cover any kind of blemish for twelve hours straight. Our press team caught up with Miss Higurashi this morning…"

Then there was Kikyo again - the second time that Kagome had seen her since her abduction. She was sitting in a nicely furnished office that Kagome recognised, and speaking to someone off-camera.

"Yes, G-Force is able to smooth out mild to medium wrinkles, along with scars, stretch marks and other assorted defects. It really is a miracle cream that can do wonders for maintaining beauty."

"You say it's been fifty years in the making, Miss Higurashi," the off-camera interviewer said, "so who exactly began the research?"

"My grandmother. When she died, she passed the research on to me, and I've been working with my scientists to perfect the formula for the last year or so."

"This must be a very difficult time for you to release such a prestigious product, especially with the death of your cousin, Kagome Higurashi."

"Yes…"Kikyo said smoothly, looking down in her grief. "It's a very difficult time, but we must all learn to move on and continue with our lives."

A sharp pang cut through Kagome's chest.

The newsreader came back onscreen with a pleasant smile. "Hopefully, G-Force will be ready to go on sale some time in late Autumn."

"You see?" Inuyasha said quietly as Kagome's chin fell. "She doesn't care about you. She's claimed the formula as her own… you were just in the way."

Everything was beginning to point to Kikyo as a culprit, and Kikyo wasn't doing herself any favours by taking the formula. But did this really mean that her cousin had tried to take her life…?

"-and in baby wombat news, this baby wombat was born in a zoo in New Zealand last Monday…

"That's all the baby wombat news for now."

Next Update: Chapter Five: An Agreement

---

Fackyews (FAQs)

Inuyasha shouldn't have used '-kun' for Kikyo. Isn't that a male suffix?

Yes it is, but it's not exclusively for men. It can sometimes be used for women - especially young professional women like Kikyo. In fact Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma ½ often referred to Akane as "Akane-kun". It's respectful but not as distant as 'san' and not as intimate as 'chan'. So this was the right choice for Inuyasha, considering their relationship.

Soooo… how old is Inuyasha?

Old enough to be involved with a 25 year old Kikyo and young enough to get into an under 13 club.

Are you serious?

No.

What does Kyssan min aers mean?

Kiss my arse. With an R please, as this is old English. ;)

Will you add more secondary characters like Sango and Shippo and Sesshomaru?

Yep. Just give me time to get round to it.

Why Zero-G and G-Force?

Zero-G is a reference to Zero-gravity, and we all know how things tend to head south as we get older... we have gravity to blame for that. G-force is the opposite in which the body is subjected to larger amounts of gravity - usually when travelling at high velocity on a rollercoaster and you leave your brain back where you started - and basically peal the skin back on your face like when Homer became an astronaut. So both Zero-G and G-Force could be considered to have anti-wrinkle properties (and both are the type of names that would sell) whilst meaning near opposite things.

Do you know that all your yen prices are really low when converted to dollars?

Yep. All the price tags in this fic are intentionally. They seem abnormally low, but that's a matter I intend to go into with the following chapters.Product testing takes a while. Kikyo technically shouldn't be putting the cream on the market just yet…

Then it's a good thing that she hasn't. Bear in mind that the formula has been in the makings for 50 odd years and has probably been tested at several points. It's still going to be a while before Kikyo puts the cream on sale.

I've checked the dictionary and various sources and all the words that you use -ARE- incorrect.

Hokie-dokie, you were asking for this droog.

You are quite possibly the most nadmenny nadsat I have ever had the radosity to meet. A nazz if you will. You talk total chepooka. The messel that English is black and white boggles the rasoodock. An oomny veck (and if you are a cheena, I think an appypolly loggy is in order) would poni by now that English is starry and diverse. Slooshy to me when I skazat there is no need to be sarky. It is raz that you poni there is a world outside your own gulliver. Litso the facts that English is a diverse linglehip that has undergone thousands of years of evolkution in different comminents and it's a wonder we even poni one another. Or do we? Read a biblika and expand your mozg - I suggest "A Clockwork Orange" - unless you risk physically oobivating yourself with such strenuous prohibities.

I salute you, wazzko, and hope you one day grow a new mozg synapse or dva. It would be quite polezny.

Write back and tell me that all of the above rugna is total nonsense, and I will be forced to slap you with a wet fish, as this is acceptable published literature by Anthony Burgess. Buy it in a bookshop or google it online and you'll see for yourself.

Now do you understand that not every piece of English literature fits the one mould?