InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Inuyasha World Travel, Where the F*** is Greece!! ❯ Jet LAG!!! ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

*~*~*~*~*

Inuyasha sat in the back of the horse-less carriage, arms folded tightly across his chest as the strange contraption sped along, almost as fast as he could sprint at top speed. Every time it passed something remotely close on the road, his tense gaze would follow it along, leaving only when he was certain they were no longer in danger of hitting it. His ears were alert, swiveling upon his head at every bump, every break-whine, and every foreign noise that sounded in or outside the car.

Truth be told, Inuyasha hated this thing, and would never have gotten into it if given the choice. Kagome however, hadn't given him a choice. The second he had asked her where he was she had simply rolled her eyes at him and walked back to the thing, muttering something about being unable to "park" here. The man Kagome was with had simply given him an apologetic, if not somewhat awe-struck look, before nodding and following Kagome's example, opening a door to allow Inuyasha to do the same.

Now, they were just sitting there, stewing in an awkward silence so thick he could have cut it with Tetsaiga. Kagome looked particularly pissed, pouting in the front of the car. Well fine, he thought. If she wasn't going to say anything, then neither was he...even if this whole weird, creepy place was starting to turn his gut.

Not surprisingly, it was Mr. Higurashi who broke the peace. Clearing his throat, he smiled nervously and addressed his daughter.

"Uh, Kagome dear, why don't you introduce me to you're friend?"

"And just what makes him my friend?" Came the icy reply.

Inuyasha wondered what right this wimp had to call his Ka...er, the wench, "Dear."

Mr. Higurashi shot his daughter a disapproving look as he turned off the highway and onto the exit ramp. Inuyasha visibly tensed and flexed his hands, ready to bolt if they came too close to hitting anything. Kagome sighed, defeated.

"Inuyasha, this is my dad. He works here, and I came to visit him." She explained in an exasperated tone, as if he were a two year old. Inuyasha was desperately trying to listen to her while focusing all his attention on the cars that were stopping at the traffic light around them. She sighed and her tone suddenly turned chilling. "Dad," she said, "this is Inuyasha, the selfish, greedy, over bearding, jealous, half dog demon from the past."

Mr. Higurashi caught Inuyasha making a brief face at his daughter's back in the mirror. Then he went back to watching traffic as they moved ahead at the green light. Mr. Higurashi smiled gently. The feudal boy was putting up pretty well with the concept of a modern traffic jam.

"Call me Shinji." he said cheerfully. He watched as Inuyasha's golden eyes shot a glance at him through the mirror and went back to watching cars. Kagome was still busy pouting. Obviously, this argument wasn't going to be cleared up easily. He sighed and drove towards the Plaka district.

*~*~*~*~*

"Alright, we're here!"

Shinji Higurashi cheerfully announced their arrival in the parking lot, stopped the car, and got out. Kagome followed him slowly, giving a full stretch and a yawn as she stepped onto the pavement, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She hadn't slept at all on the whole 9 hour flight over from Tokyo, and being awake for more than 24 hours straight was starting to get to her. Mr. Higurashi observed his daughter.

"Tired? " He asked. Kagome yawned again, covering it politely with her hand. Shinji smiled. "Sorry, but you'll have to stay up for at least another 12 hours, until tonight. If you don't, you'll never get over the jet lag."

Kagome nodded in silence, shook off some of her fatigue and glanced at the narrow streets lined with small shops selling various wares. She blinked. "Is this the Hotel?"

Mr. Higurashi shook his head in response. "I thought we should go shopping first, since you didn't bring any clothes with you for two weeks..." Kagome brought her hand up to her forehead to ward off an oncoming headache. Mr. Higurashi chuckled a bit before continuing. "...and, I'm guessing neither did Inuyasha."

This made sense to Kagome. She couldn't very well go around for two weeks in what she had on, and besides shopping, with her father, in Greece, could prove to be an experience. Who knew what they wore here, compared to back home. She smiled, and grabbed her father's hand, turned to go, and stopped.

"Inuyasha," she said tiredly, "are you going to get out of the car, or are you going to sit there all day?"

Actually, Inuyasha would have been all too happy to get out of the stupid, shut up, cramped little crazy carriage of death, but no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn't get the F*#%ING door to open.

"Here." Shinji quickly walked up and pulled the door handle. The thing swung open with ease and Inuyasha cautiously stepped out onto the pavement, glancing suspiciously at his surroundings, taking in the many new sounds and smells. Mr. Higurashi gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry. I should have told you. You pull this handle here to release the door." He showed him.

Inuyasha nodded numbly in response. Now that he was outdoors again, he was becoming quickly overwhelmed by the millions of new sights, smells and sounds that were completely foreign to him. Well okay, he recognized a few. There were some small animals nearby, a few of those "car" things, and the scent of humans was absolutely plastered all over the place. There had to be thousands of people around here, he could smell them. Sweaty ones, old ones, young ones, flowery ones...and then, he could smell Kagome, which was somewhat comforting.

Inuyasha turned his gaze to her, only to find her staring at him with a small smile on her face. Somehow, it made him angry. Here he was, ready to go crazy with all the new scents and sights around him, having no clue even as to where here was, and she was ENJOYING herself. Of course, it was all completely natural for her, a fact which made him think he must look only totally and utterly STUPID to her right now. And he hated looking stupid, especially to Kagome.

Before he could stop himself, Inuyasha found himself growling.

Kagome saw this, and only allowed her shoulders to droop for a second before puffing out her chest indignantly and turning to walk away. Fine, if he wanted to be a grump, let him. There was no way in hell she was going to let HIM ruin her vacation. This was supposed to be HER time, with HER father. How dare he come along and try to spoil it. She wouldn't allow it. No matter what, she was going to have fun!

*~*~*~*~*

Unfortunately, Kagome's sense of "fun" was slightly warped at the moment due to her extreme exhaustion. It consisted mainly of ducking in and out of shops, smiling and laughing with her father, trying on new clothes, thanking the people who helped her, and looking coolly at Inuyasha every time something went wrong.

For his part, Inuyasha tried to focus on something other than Kagome's mood. It wasn't hard. He was too busy looking wide eyed at the world around him, while the world around him sometimes stared wide eyed back. Everything about this world was different, right from the base up. The ground was constantly covered by some hard type of stone, that seemed to flow and stick, and then freeze like clay. Instead of wood, the houses were built from hard, cold stone, and seemed like palaces until he realized that a great many people lived in one of these buildings, which were sectioned off to separate rooms. More surprising than that, these people preferred to live one on top of each other, instead of beside each other. Didn't those tall buildings ever fall down? Weren't they afraid?

Well maybe not, the people themselves looked strange anyway. They had pale skin, bulging eyes and long pointed faces that made them look snobbish and cold. Indeed they seemed cold, walking along, weaving through thick crowds of people without once hitting or looking at any of them, as if they were simply objects and not actually people. Inuyasha tried it, and almost always got bumped or brushed. The people never even looked back, as if he didn't exist at all. Even more unnerving was how tall they all were. Inuyasha didn't consider himself to be an overly large person, but he'd never thought of himself as short. Here, even some of the women could look down on him from where he stood, especially if they wore those shoes that gave them extra height.

And that was simply what his regular senses told him. To his heightened senses, his nose and ears, the air was positively choked and oily. The scents of the few trees and plants nearby were completely strange to him in every possible way, other than the fact that they were plants. Something was always rotting, especially the piles of "garbage" as Kagome's dad called it. Sometimes, he couldn't help but cough and cover his nose while they walked by, the world tipping sideways ever so slightly. More disturbing than any of that though, the air itself smelled completely strange. It was too salty, too warm, too old smelling, and just completely foreign in every possible way. Even in Kagome's time, he could at least recognize something in the air as familiar. Here it just gave him this constant, liquidy feeling within his stomach. He felt like he was so far away from home he would never be able to get back. Meanwhile, the sounds of a completely new world were swirling around him, made only more incomprehensible by the fact that they were in a completely different language. It was like standing in the middle of a river, trying to stop the water from rushing by with a stick. He stood, they moved, and he never caught any of it.

Truth be told, he had never felt more lost in his whole life. He wasn't about to lose it though, damned if he let Kagome see that. If she wasn't afraid of this weird, tall, cold, stone world, than neither was he. He only wished she would stop acting like such a bitch and talk to him so he could ask her some stuff. It wasn't like Kagome to be so angry with him all the time, even when he knew he deserved it. Maybe she really had been planning on leaving him forever. Maybe she really hated his guts and would do anything to get away from him. Or maybe he was just acting like a wimp. It didn't matter what she thought, he was a half demon, he didn't need anybody! Least of all that sappy, cranky mortal girl...Kagome...

*~*~*~*~*

Mr. Higurashi sighed. It had been a long day so far, and it was barely half way over.

Their first stop of the day had been a shoe store, considering, of all things essential, that was what Inuyasha lacked most. He had been rather surprised to find that the boy was accustomed to running around barefoot all over the place. However, even Inuyasha hadn't protested too much against a pair of shoes after the first garbage heap they had come across. Unfortunately, there was a civil servants strike in the city, which meant that there had been no garbage collection in the whole of Athens for eight days. Thus, the garbage had piled up high on every other street corner in the area, attracting the odd rat and stinking to high heaven. Nobody wanted to be barefoot around that, so Inuyasha had allowed Mr. Higurashi to buy him a pair of shoes. Kagome had also picked up a pair of nice sandals.

After that however, everything seemed up hill. Inuyasha argued that he liked his clothes. He didn't care if he stood out or not, he was used to it. Mr. Higurashi wasn't going to press him, but then Kagome had stepped in and protested until Inuyasha finally caved, sometimes even resorting to using the rosary around his neck. It made Shinji wince. The young man was very proud and spirited, and obviously hated lowering himself to the level of charity. However, the word "sit" added injury to insult, so he stopped.

All in all, as the morning progressed, neither of the young pair spoke to much each other, except when they were arguing. Shinji had tried several times to maybe start up a conversation with the strange, hanyou boy, however, it had proved impossible. While Kagome chatted constantly, Inuyasha seemed to prefer staying back behind, just a few paces. He was obviously very uncomfortable with the number of people constantly milling around him and brushing up against him. He was also confused about many of the things he saw, but he kept his mouth clamped shut like a vice. The only time he opened his mouth was to argue, swear, or grumble incoherently about something. His favorite word to use when addressing Kagome was "wench."

*~*~*~*~*

There had been at least one little adventures in the days shopping so far. It had started when one of the infamous shawl ladies had targeted Inuyasha as her prey. These older, unemployed women were well known around the Plaka, or where tourists were common. Their routine was fairly regular. They'd spot somebody walking by, hobble up to them as pathetically as possible and ask them to buy a shawl/tablecloth/fertility charm (yes fertility charm) that their "Mother" had supposedly hand made. If the victim even so much as made eye contact with the lady, he was doomed. Doomed to walk the next five blocks being chased by this lady selling a hand made shawl for 40 euro, when really it had been bought at a store for about 10 euro.

Inuyasha, of course, would just happen to find the one shawl lady that happened to speak a bit of broken Japanese. And of course, being the innocent, loud mouthed, country boy from the Sangoku Jidai that he was, didn't realise how these sympathy sharks worked. The second the lady addressed him, he'd simply looked at her stunned for a moment while she told her story and then proceeded to barter with the confused hanyou about prices for the shawl.

"No..."

"Then 35$. I sell you for 35$"

"Look. I don't have any mon..."

"25$. Please, my mother make. She very old. Only 25$"

"I said no, now leave me alone!"

"Please 20$ please! My mother! Please 20$!!"

"NO!!"

At this point Inuyasha had turned and hurriedly stalked after Shinji and Kagome who were window shopping in front of another clothes store. He caught up, nodded that they could go now, and then felt something lightly brush against his back.

"Please 15$. 15$ Please you, 15$. My mother..."

"RRrrrrraaaugghH!!" Inuyasha roared and turned around to yell in the ladies face. " NO! I SAID NO, AND I MEAN..."

"Ah!! Inuyasha! SIT!!"

"Bitch, what was that for?"

Kagome ignored him and walked up to the lady. "I'm sorry. He's very rude. I hope he didn't scare you, grandmother."

"Is okay. You buy shawl! My mother hand make it. Please, 35$, Please..."

Mr. Higurashi had stopped her right there, instructing her in Greek to leave them and go away. Realizing she wouldn't get anywhere with an experienced local, the shawl lady had simply thrown him the dirtiest glare Inuyasha had ever seen a baba use, and walked up to a new victim.

*~*~*~*~*

By noon, the morning's shopping had yielded quite a load. Kagome had acquired several new skirts, pants, sandals, shirts, blouses and even a few tank tops, one of which she was wearing right now, along with a pair of capri-pants. Inuyasha had just glared at her when she'd bought them. Okay, so they were a little revealing, even for her taste, but it was hot here! Besides, they were of the modest kind, not the belly high, spaghetti strapped type that most of the other female tourists were wearing. They weren't that bad.

Kagome saw her father check his watch, and turn to smile at her. She smiled back brightly, realizing once again how much she'd really missed him.

"Well, I think it's about time we introduced you to some fine Greek cuisine. What do you say, Kagome?" He asked her. Kagome grinned from ear to ear, and nodded vigorously.

Shinji glanced back over his shoulder to look at Inuyasha, who was standing a few meters behind, arms folded over his chest, an annoyed scowl on his face. He was wearing a pair of slightly baggy blue jeans, a white T-shirt, covered by another loose casual shirt with the buttons undone. They hadn't bothered to cover his ears or eyes, or any of his demonic features for that matter. Being in a big city, people simply glanced at him once, and assumed he was just another punk kid trying to make a fashion statement.

"What do you think, Inuyasha? Ready for some grub?" Shinji asked him light heartedly.

Inuyasha snorted. "Feh! Fine. Let's go eat before you stupid weak humans collapse."

His indifferent tone was suddenly betrayed by the audible grumble of his stomach. Mr. Higurashi raised an eyebrow, amused, while Kagome suddenly realized just how long it must have been since Inuyasha had eaten. It was approximately 24 hours ago, when they'd had lunch in the Sangoku Jidai...or was it more than 30, because they'd switched time zones? Thinking about it made Kagome's very tired head hurt, so she just turned and smiled kindly at Inuyasha.

Inuyasha, of course, took it in completely the wrong way. Was that PITY he caught in her eyes? Shit! Did he really look that pathetic? Clenching his teeth, Inuyasha shot Kagome a threatening glare. He was still a long shot away from being helpless. Even if this world was freaky.

Kagome's anger flared up. So he was still intent on being a jerk? Well fine! See if she gave a damn. And with that, she spun on her heel, grabbed her fathers arm, and dragged him off to a nearby cafe. Inuyasha followed not too far behind.

*~*~*~*~*

Shinji could only pray that lunch would help bring some sort of truce between the two warring youths. He could tell something had just happened between the two of them to, once again, raise their ire at one another. It was almost humorous to watch. The second Inuyasha was ready to forgive Kagome, Kagome did something to piss him off. The instant Kagome decided to be nice to Inuyasha, Inuyasha would make some insulting remark and end up face down on the pavement. How on earth did these two manage to get along together to carry on their quest? It was ridiculous!

Alas, the gods were not merciful, and lunch brought no such reprieve. When they sat down, Kagome had pulled her chair up as close to her father as she possibly could, and began chatting away about everything and nothing, intent on ignoring Inuyasha. Inuyasha repeatedly tapped his fingers against the top of the glass table in an annoyed fashion, decidedly counter-ignoring Kagome's attempt to ignore him.

The arrival of lunch didn't help any either. While Shinji tried to patiently show the ego filled demon how to use a fork and knife, Kagome munched her food quietly. She only leaked out the slightest hint of her sub-zero mood when the demon insisted he didn't need a lowly human to show him how to eat, and promptly tried to turn the utensils around and use the handles of them as chop sticks. Someone at a nearby table had laughed, and even if he didn't speak Greek, the frustrated boy had suspected the laugh was aimed towards him. Inuyasha had almost jumped up and cut the guy in half with his claws. Luckily though, Shinji convinced the hanyou that the man had been laughing at something else.

Sometime between lunch and dessert, Kagome left to visit the bathroom, finally giving the eager historian a chance to converse with the strange dog-demon from 400 years in the past. Mr. Higurashi smiled at him and tried to lighten the mood. "I'm sorry about Kagome, she must be tired from the flight. She isn't usually like this."

A snort. "What do you mean? The wench is always like this!" Inuyasha was slouching in his chair, his arms folded over his stomach, and his eyes lightly closed. Suddenly, Mr. Higurashi realized that it wasn't just Kagome that was tired. Inuyasha too, was suffering from the severe change in time zones. Maybe he should the sight seeing short for today, before somebody ended up hurt, either from a claw attack, or a severe round of "sits."

Before he could think of something else to say, Kagome had returned. Dessert followed, and once again an invisible wall was formed across the center of the table. Inuyasha ate his baklava in silence. Granted though, Shinji didn't think anyone could talk after shoving a full serving of baklava into his mouth with one bite. The kid seemed to like at least one thing from this world.

*~*~*~*~*

Shinji paid the bill soon they were off again, heading back to the car. "I think we've finished with the shopping for now at least. How would you like to do some sight seeing, Kagome?"

"Would I!" came the eager response. "Look, the Acropolis is right over there! I've been looking at it all day, and I want to go see it!!"

Inuyasha lazily directed his gaze over to where Kagome was pointing, to once again see a pile of old rock buildings falling all over each other on top of a high hill. Keh! What was so interesting about them? It was just a pile of funny shaped rocks. Compared to the other stone and glass buildings around here, it was pretty pathetic.

"All right then, let's go."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes and followed the human and the wench back to the terrible "car" thing.

*~*~*~*~*

"Actually, the word acropolis means 'highest point.' There are many acropolis' all over Greece, on the highest point of every ancient city."

Inuyasha wished the old man would stop talking and pay attention to where he was going. Once again he sat in the back middle seat, scrunched up as far away from the sides of the car as possible, ears and eyes listening and watching everything that went by. Luckily, it wasn't a very far drive. The heat in the car and the constant motion had been making him feel ill, or maybe that was caused by the sickening fear that something could smash into them at any time, ending all their lives instantly.

They got out of the car, Inuyasha operating the "handle" thing perfectly and stepping out on his own. What stood before him was a big grove of strange, silvery green trees, surrounded by a carpet of small, pretty white flowers. It looked almost peaceful, Inuysasha thought as they walked along, until a strange tingling feeling began to creep it's way over his flesh.

Inuyasha suddenly stopped, and after a moment, so did Kagome and her Father. Annoyed, Kagome put her hands on her hips before a teasing glint flashed through her eyes.

"Come on you weak demon. What are you waiting for? You can't be tired already." Kagome managed to almost perfectly imitate Inuyasha's usual "we can't stop here" speech.

"What? Why you!!" Inuyasha snapped and took a step forward, ready to give Kagome a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, in his anger, he'd completely forgotten why he had stopped in the first place.

"sssssssSSSSSSNAP!!!"

Without warning the air around him suddenly snapped to life and he was blasted back a about ten feet before landing hard on his back. The shield hummed in warning for a second, and then went silent again. Kagome and Mr. Higurashi stared wide eyed, as did a few other passers by.

"Stupid, damn FUCK!!" Inuyasha swore as he pressed his hand to his forehead where the skin had cracked from the shield's magic. Kagome and Mr. Higurashi came up and kneeled beside him. For a moment, Inuyasha thought he saw that same caring look Kagome's face always had when he got hurt.

"What was that?" Mr. Higurashi stared up the path in disbelief. Inuyasha shook his head and to clear it and quickly stood up, ignoring Kagome's offered hand. He let his hand go from his forehead where the small split in the skin had already started healing. He growled with indignity at having been stopped by this one simple shield. Why the hell was the thing even here?

"Why would a shield be here?" Kagome asked, her mind working in sync with Inuyasha's.

"Shield?" Mr. Higurashi seemed to contemplate this for a moment. "Maybe...the temple at the top?..."

"Temple?" Inuyasha asked. So THAT was what was at the top of this dumb rock. A fucking temple. He snorted and wandered over to sit under a nearby tree, arms crossed, eyes closed.

"Inuyasha, where are you going?" Kagome asked with only a hint of annoyance. Inuyasha grunted, keeping his eyes closed.

"Isn't it obvious?" He grouched, "I'm going to sit here and wait until you go see that temple and come back down. Then we can go home and get back to looking for shards, instead of wasting time here!"

Any sympathy Kagome might have had for the demon vanished at the mention of the word "shards." In an instant even Mr. Higuragshi had to step aside in fear of the flaming aura that erupted from his daughter. She balled her hands into fists and let out a half scream half roar in frustration.

"ARGH!! That's IT!!!" Possessed by her anger, she stomped forward fearlessly and hovered above the cringing demon. He tried to look annoyed, but it wasn't easy. He could feel Kagome's power seeping off of her and onto his chest as she grasped the front of his shirt and yanked him upwards to face her. It pricked and tingled, ready to blast him apart at any moment. He grit his teeth and stared death in the face...

Kagome returned the fierce stare, looking into his eyes a moment, rage plane on her face...and then she sighed. Quick as it had started, the flame in her petered and died, and Kagome just looked incredibly tired. A moment later, she dropped Inuyasha loosely back onto his rump.

He blinked once, and watched her retreating form as she began, once again to climb the path to the top of the mountain. Shinji made a move to follow her, but Kagome stopped him. Somebody had to baby-sit Inuyasha, and Kagome wasn't going to stand for another moment within visual distance of him. Without another word, she turned and walked off alone.

*~*~*~*~*

Notes: No I did not make up the garbage strike at random, it was actually going on when we got there. It was pretty disconcerting, walking out onto Athens pavement for the first time only to run directly into a mini garbage dump on the sidewalk. However, it ended the day we got there, and a week later walking around wasn't a problem anymore.

Yes the shawl ladies DO exist, and they are NOT exaggerated. One poor guy in our tour group ended up buying a tablecloth just to make the damned lady go away. A block later he saw the same type of cloth in a window for less than half the price. I walked away from one, only to turn around and find her still following me several blocks later. To be honest, they look pathetic enough, and if there weren't so many of them, you'd probably be tempted to buy their wares just out of pure pity, but don't be fooled. The tourist districts in Athens are FULL of these types of moochers, and buying from one means that the others are only MORE likely to follow you around.

Remember, sightseeing is no fun to do on your own. It's much more enjoyable to go with someone, so they can listen to your ooo's and aaah's of admiration, and you theirs. Otherwise, you're just looking at funny shaped rocks.

And oh yeah, the first day of travelling is always the worst for jet lag. People should always be forgiven for what comes out of their mouths on that day, they just don't have the energy or attention to realize what their saying. :-P