InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ New Age ❯ Testing ( Chapter 3 )

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

Claimer: I own what has to be the smallest fraction of Inuyasha possible. So small I can’t remember it. Heh, oh well. Moving on.

Summary: Meet Dr. Kagome Higurashi. She works in a recently developed portion of the Shroud Companies called “Metaphysical Understandings”. What she does is analyze and report the supernatural things she’s given, such as old Japanese Ofugas, Taro Cards, Crystal Balls and so on. And then she was assigned to the biggest discovery of the company: a demon-like creature recently uncovered in a deathlike sleep from under the surface of the Old World.


New Age

Chapter Three : Testing, One, Two, Three, Testing


Ayumi very nearly jumped out of her skin when she found out.

“He-he’s awake?!” she yelled. “He can’t be awake! What’d you do?! Kagome, what did you do?!”

Kagome waited for her to finish. “Are you done now?”

Ayumi looked at Inuyasha and sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’m done.”

“Good. Now, I did nothing. He woke up. People do that.”

“Well wasn’t he like. . .drugged or something to stay asleep? Wouldn’t they do that?”

“There are six guards standing just outside the door and a camera monitoring the room every second. You need to calm down. We’re perfectly safe.”

“Safe?! He’s the most. . .most dangerous thing we’ve ever seen! None of our machines can even compare! And how do you know there’s a camera?! Who told you that?!”

“He did,” Kagome replied with a gesture towards Inuyasha. “And don’t call him a ‘thing’.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s an intelligent thing.” She went back to her desk and straightened the mess Ayumi made when she backed into it.

“So what, I’m supposed to say ‘intelligent’ before I say ‘thing’?”

Kagome thumped her fist on the table and stood up straight. “You’re not being professional, Ayumi, and you know how they treat unprofessional employees.”

“Well, yes, but. . .” Ayumi didn’t seem to know how to finish.

Turning towards her, Kagome went on. “Maybe you should stop thinking about him like something we just uncovered. Shroud gave him a prisoner identification, and they don’t do that to ‘things’, now do they?”

“I just don’t get it,” Ayumi confessed. “He was supposed to be unconscious throughout the entire project. This changes everything.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Kagome argued. “So far he’s been cooperative, if a little. . .fiery. And, let’s not forget, he’s right there,” she finished with a gesture towards the cell.

He had his head down, but it looked like he was laughing.

Ayumi edged closer to Kagome with her eyes on Inuyasha. “Why is he laughing?”

“I don’t know, ask him,” Kagome told her.

“No way.”

“What’s so hard about asking a question?”

“He’s dangerous!”

“He’s held down and barred in by our strongest security measures; tell me how he’s dangerous now,” Kagome said impatiently.

“Well if you’re so alright with him, you ask him.”

“I’ll do that.” She walked right up to the cell, lowered the security field and said, “Would you tell us what’s so funny?”

Ayumi squealed. “What’re you doing?! Put the field up!”

“Would you relax?” Kagome hissed at her.

“You probably wouldn’t understand,” Inuyasha said.

He was looking up now. Kagome sighed. “Wouldn’t understand what?”

“What I’m laughing about.”

“Try me.”

He tilted his head. “Unstrap me.”

“Now, I told you the rule about that.”

“Don’t let him out!” Ayumi hissed.

“He can hear you, Ayumi,” Kagome told her.

“I’m not telling.”

“You have a bad habit of that.” Sighing, Kagome brushed her bangs back from her forehead. “Alright. I’ll unstrap you.”

“You can’t!” Ayumi snapped, grabbing her arm. “You know better!”

“Ayumi, sit down and relax,” Kagome told her, forcefully. “I’m smarter than that and you know it.” Ushering Ayumi into her chair, she heard Inuyasha laugh a bit more. She went back to the cell, enabled the security field, and punched in the numbers to release the straps.

He stood up and stretched with an incredible amount of flexibility. Kagome heard a large amount of cracks as well, most of them from when he flexed his fingers. Grinning, he looked at her and said, “This is much better. Thanks, Higurashi-sama.”

“Now why were you laughing?”

“I don’t remember you being all business earlier today.”

She blushed. “Get on with it, if you please.”

“The time I was born in was filled with creatures we called Demons.”

“Of which you are one, right?” Kagome asked.

“Close. My father was a demon, yes, but not my mother.”

“I suppose she was an angel then.”

“I thought of her like that, yeah, but no. She was human. Making me. . .”

“Half-demon and half-human.”

“Right. Back then, being half-demon was the last thing you wanted to be. You get picked on by demons and often hunted. And humans are hardly better to you. So this situation is just like when I was a kid, but also exactly the opposite.”

“Now that part I didn’t understand,” Kagome interrupted.

“Half-demons are underestimated and spoken about like we aren’t really intelligent,” he explained, tossing a look at Ayumi upon the last word. “You are overestimating but still talking about me like I’m not smart.”

“I’m not,” Kagome argued, getting angry. “I was taught fairness and-and manners and. . .everything that makes a good person,” she stated proudly.

Ayumi blushed. “I was too, it’s just. . .well. . .”

Kagome gave her a sympathetic smile. “We’re all not sure what to think of you,” she told Inuyasha. “We know so little of you and -“

“It’s in human nature to fear and even hate what you don’t understand,” Inuyasha finished.

“Which is exactly why we’re working so hard to understand that which we couldn’t years before.”

He smiled, a soulful type of smile and that made her giddy. She wondered how he made those looks.

Ayumi was glancing between the two. “No. No, no, no. . .No way. Kagome!”

“What?”

“I saw that look!”

“What look?”

“Between you two! Oh. . .if the. . .If Mr. Bell knew that you two were. . .were. . .”

“Were what?!” Kagome snapped. “Listen to yourself, Ayumi! You’ve gone paranoid! Nothing’s happened between us and nothing’s -“

“Nothing?” Inuyasha laughed. “I’m hurt. Two kisses were nothing?”

She blushed while Ayumi almost literally flipped.

“You kissed him?! Kagome, how could you kiss him?!”

“He was unconscious!” Kagome said.

Ayumi opened her mouth but Inuyasha interrupted, yelping and then swearing repeatedly.

Kagome jumped and saw him plop back down on the chair, holding his hand and hissing out swears. The machine on the wall beeped repeatedly and kept spitting out slips of paper until it jammed, hissed, whirred, and blew out a puff of smoke.

Kagome looked back and forth from Inuyasha to the machine while Ayumi openly stared at Inuyasha. Both of their jaws had fallen open.

“What happened?” Kagome asked, going over to the cell and shutting off the field. Ayumi was right behind her.

“What was that?” Inuyasha asked.

“What do you mean? What did you do?”

“I wanted to know if that green thing was. . .I wanted to know what it was,” he explained.

“You touched it?” Kagome asked.

“Yes, I touched it! What is that thing?”

“So much for intelligent,” Ayumi muttered to herself.

“Shut up, Ayumi,” Kagome said. “Intelligence and ignorance are two different things and one requires teaching. So let’s teach.” She held out her hand. “Let me see your hand.”

He didn’t hesitate in putting his hand in hers. She examined it as she explained.

“That green field is a wall of pure heat. We have it heated up to one thousand degrees celsius -“

“How do you measure celsius?” he interrupted.

“Thirty-two degrees fahrenheit is equal to zero degrees celsius. The normal is about twenty-five degrees celsius, or eighty-five fahrenheit. It’s regulated by a series of harmonics used to keep the temperature following the desired path. The Security Field itself is a precaution, should the prisoner, you, manage to get himself out of the reinforced straps. Understand?”

“That’s one hell of a paragraph,” he said.

She dropped his hand and shook her head. The machine on the wall gave a tired whir but nothing else. “Lean back,” she ordered.

He tilted his head. “Why should I?”

“Because I’m head of this team -“

“That are analyzing me when I could just answer questions.”

“And my orders are final. Lean back now or we’ll have to put you to sleep.”

He smiled. “I’ve heard that threat before. But that’s still not a very good reason.”

Ayumi tugged on Kagome’s arm. “That’s true, Kagome. Remember, most of the machines used to measure him were off the charts.”

He laughed. “I didn’t know I was so well-endowed. Thank you.”

This was getting exhausting. Ayumi blushed at his reply while Kagome stepped back and put up the field again.

“Your choice,” she told him.

“Yes, I think it’s a good one.”

She sighed. “Whatever.”

“Been dealing with me for four hours and already you’ve had enough?” he teased. “Not very patient, are you?”

“Not for you, no. For my friends, yes. For my family, yes. For my house-mate, for my boyfriend, for my dogs, even. But not for you.”

He got unusually quiet then. Kagome welcomed the silence and continued her work, and Ayumi finally calmed down and did her designated part in the study. They went undisturbed until Sango and Miroku showed up at two in the afternoon, and they, too, nearly flipped when they found that he was awake.

Although two calm researchers could easily convince one ecstatic one to relax, it was a bit more difficult with two ecstatic researchers.

It got worse when Miroku noticed that Inuyasha wasn’t strapped down and loudly protested it. After several minutes of this Kagome began getting a headache and sat down at her desk, rubbing her temple. Her left hand was clenched in a fist on the desk and the unrelenting yells weren’t helping any.

After several moments they all heard the Swear Detector machine spark and blow again, and they all jumped. It did wonders in helping them regain control. . .right after getting their heartrates up.

Ayumi laughed nervously while Kagome leaned back in her chair and relaxed. In the back of her mind she could hear Sango and Miroku talking quietly now, calmly.

“Higurashi-sama,” Inuyasha said.

“What is it now?”

“Could you take down the field now?”

Ayumi heard that. “Don’t, Kagome. It’s against regulation.”

“What’s against regulation?” Sango asked.

Neither Sango nor Miroku knew Old World Japanese, so naturally they wouldn’t understand a word Inuyasha said or Kagome’s replies to him.

“He wants me to put down the field,” Kagome said.

“He’s already unstrapped; don’t do it,” Miroku said firmly.

Kagome stood and walked up to the cell. “You’re going to need to explain yourself.”

“I want you to put down the field,” Inuyasha said.

“Don’t make me repeat the rule.”

“You did it when I hurt my hand.”

“Because you hurt your hand. You’re not to be harmed unless it’s orders.”

“Well that’s comforting,” he said sarcastically. “Look, I’m sitting. You can strap me back up.”

She gave him a measuring look and nodded. “Lean back.”

“I don’t want that one on my neck again,” he told her.

“I can bypass it if you give me a good reason.”

“I don’t like things on my neck.”

That wasn’t a good enough reason and she knew it, but for her it was plenty good. “Still, you’ll have to lean back.”

“You won’t put it around my neck?”

“No.”

He leaned back and settled his limbs where they belonged. Kagome pressed buttons and the straps went around him, not counting his neck as promised. Then she took down the field.

Sango stared at Kagome for a moment. “How’d you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked, sitting down and sending the progress report to Mr. Bell.

“You got him to sit down and get strapped down. Nobody likes that.”

She shrugged. “He offered to be strapped if it meant the shield would go down. I accepted. We have to do some tests, anyway.” She looked up and noticed that nobody had moved yet. “We have tests to do,” she repeated.

The three of them agreed to that and settled down in their desks.

It was going great until Inuyasha sighed frustratedly and said, “Will every day be this boring?”

“Yes, get used to it,” Kagome replied.

“Can I at least get up and. . .explore?”

“No,” Kagome and Ayumi said.

“Why the fuck not?”

The machine gave another tired whir.

“Because it’s against -“

“Regulations,” Inuyasha snapped. “Rules. Laws. Orders. Ever do anything against the law?”

“Yes, but if I said them I’d get prosecuted,” Kagome said and Ayumi giggled. “Now either be quiet or do something constructive.”

“I would if you would let me up!”

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Ayumi,” she whined.

“The only way we could let you out,” Ayumi said, “is if you were proven harmless. In Shroud, nothing is harmless until we’ve made it that way. So you can imagine how long it could take.”

“Aw, fuck this,” he sighed, dropping his head back. “You’re telling me that I’m going to sit here, strapped in, or pace the cell with the shield up while you guys poke and prod me until you figure a way to control me?”

“Bingo,” Kagome said. “You can sit there and be good about it, or you can sit there, be difficult and get drugged on a regular basis. Your choice.”

He was quiet only for a moment. “Why don’t you try asking me questions that I can answer?”

She pushed the keyboard aside. “Alright. What’s your normal body temperature? In degrees celsius.”

He blinked. “Um. . .twenty-five.”

“That’s the average outdoor temperature. Try again.”

“Thirty?”

“Wrong. We’d need a thermometer to figure that out. So how tall are you?”

“Five foot nine.”

“We don’t use that scale anymore.”

“So translate it.”

She rolled her eyes. “This is going to be a very long day.”