InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Spider's Web ❯ Chapter 3

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

Higarashi Shrine, Tokyo, Japan, September, 2004

Kagome slid the door open and walked in, enthusiastically greeting her family by kissing her grandfather on the forehead and her mother on the cheek. "Don't make too much for dinner. I won't be here. My trigonometry teacher is way hard and is already planning a major exam. Sango, Miroku and I are crashing with pizza and math problems in Sango's dorm all night. I may stay with Sango if it gets too late. Her roommate went home sick yesterday, so there's a free bed."

Her grandfather made a face. "What? I thought that the boys weren't allowed in the girl's buildings."

Kagome giggled. "You're so old fashioned, Jii-chan. The boys can't go into the girls room at the all girl apartments, but Sango is staying in the co-ed dorm. She thought it'd be an interesting experience or something."

Her mother laughed when the old man walked off muttering something about society going down the drain. "So how'd your appointment with Kaede-san go today?" The elder woman fixed a glass of milk and handed it to the girl who was already diving into the fresh baked cookies.

"Same as usual, I guess. We really just talked about school. She's really glad I'm going into child psychology; even offered me an internship at the retreat. She said I was really good with the kids last summer. Of course I was. I used to be one of them."

Keiko smiled and took a cookie herself. "That's great honey. How many people get offered jobs before they ever really get started in school?"

"Not many," Kagome agreed around a mouthful before taking a drink of milk. She swallowed and broke off another bite. "Oh, and Kikyo-chan came by while I was there. If she calls, give her my new cell number will you, please? She said she'd take me out to lunch next week." She finished the cookie and the milk before starting to the stairs and her room to pack an overnight bag. "

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T okyo University

"Ugh!" Sango's exasperated groan woke her with a start and she sat up straight. She had been laying on her stomach on the opposite bed from where Miroku and Sango sat. She was supposed to be reading over the instructions to a particularly difficult equation, but her eyes had drifted closed and the mattress had felt so good...

The sound of a loud thud woke her fully and she saw Miroku lying on the floor with a slightly shocked look.

"I swear if you can't learn to keep your hands to yourself, I'll -" She broke off, still fuming. "Ugh!" She threw her hands in the air and tried to count to ten...it wasn't working.

Someone next door banged on the adjacent wall and yelled for them to keep it down. All three had the decency to blush as they called out apologies.

Kagome yawned and stretched out closing her Trig book. "I say we call it a night. We're never going to make it through our morning classes if we don't get some sleep soon."

Miroku gave them a mischievous grin and stretched out on the floor. "I'm quite comfortable here. Perhaps I should stay and keep you ladies safe while you sleep."

"No!" Kagome and Sango exclaimed in unison and received another knock on the wall. "As if we'd be safe with you in the room," Sango added, shaking her head. She grabbed his arms, trying to drag him from the floor while Kagome helped. After a few moments and Miroku's eventual cooperation, he was dragged from the floor and roughly pushed out of the door, enjoying every second of it. The girls giggled as they shut and locked the door.

"You like him, don't you?" Kagome asked as she changed into a t-shirt and crawled into bed.

"What's not to like?" Sango pulled a tank over her head. "Besides his infatuation with girl's asses?"

Kagome grinned and propped herself up on her elbows. "The only ass he seems to be obsessed with, that I can see, is yours."

"Ugh! Go to sleep, Kagome-chan."

**************************************************** ***Two Weeks Later

Dark blue eyes widened again and refocused so she could see the body that lay limp and covered in a thick red liquid just in front of Nimetsuki Kaijuu; the creature of her nightmares. “…Pa…pa…” It was barely even audible, just a mouthed word that hitched in her throat when those innocent eyes unclouded and saw the ghastly sight before her.

Blood...there was so much blood...it covered her...it covered him...everything was coated in it. Everything was red...just like those eyes...

She woke to her own screams and Sango shaking her. Surely the moan and grumps from next door indicated that she hadn't woken just her roommate. She sat up, breathing hard and wiping away a few stray tears from her cheeks. As Sango sat on the bed next to her, she choked on another sob.

"Geez! Doesn't anyone sleep around here?!" Could be heard from next door.

"Don't worry about them. It was time to get up anyway," Sango said softly, putting her arms around her friend. "What's going on with you? This is the fourth time this week."

Kagome opened her mouth to speak, but the phone rang instead. Sango answered and she could hear Miroku's worried questions on the other end. "What's going on? Was someone hurt?" He asked. "It sounded like someone was being murdered - is that Kagome crying? What's wrong?"

"She had a nightmare, but everything's okay now."

"I could come up and comfort her...."

Sango's eyes narrowed and her grip on the phone. Kagome got the impression that whatever Miroku had said, he was lucky he was not in the same room as they were at that moment. "Can't you be serious for one minute? This hardly the time for your ecchi comments."

"Was Kagome the one screaming?"

She sent a sideward glance at her friend before answering quietly in the affirmative. When he said he was coming up, Sango began to argue until Kagome stopped her. "You wanted to know what's going on and I only want to explain it once."

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When the scream resounded through the halls on both the first and second floor, Inuyasha sat up, ears twitching, nearly banging his head on the ceiling as he was in the top bunk. It rang in his sensitive ears and brought back painful memories of the screams that had haunted his past; screams filled with terror and the sensation of death as the people emitting them ran within the dark corners of their minds trying to escape some unknown and unseen predator. Those days were over, he told himself. He was in the land of the living now, forced from his short lived peace and into this harsh reality of everyone who'd ever wanted him or loved him having been taken from him before his very eyes.

He emitted a low sounding whine and swore under his breath when Ashi's sleep filled command reached him from the bottom bunk. "Go back to sleep, mutt-face. Just some girl upstairs. Prob'ly dreamed the mall burned down or somethin'."

Inuyasha laid back, hands laced behind his head. What the hell was going on upstairs? How many times this week had he heard that same scream? Why'd he have to apply for the co-ed dorm? These girls were going to be the death of him. Great. Just great.

The sun was already starting to stream in through the curtains and blinds, alerting them that it was indeed morning and a glance at the clock told him that if he was going to attend his morning class, he had better get moving soon before the showers were all occupied. Well, he had nothing better to do. He'd might as well go to the Chemistry Lab...they might let him blow something up. That'd be cool.

As he descended the ladder and dug through the closet for his towel, robe and other bathing supplies, he heard the wolf shifting in his bed. "Pull the shade down, will ya? s'too bright in here..."

Inuyasha yanked the shade down and walked out, grinning wickedly as the door slammed shut behind him.

*******************************************************
< br> The girls had made sure to dress long before Miroku made it upstairs to their room. The three of them sat on Kagome's twin sized bed while she explained how her family had lived in Osaka until just after her fourth birthday when someone had broken into their home and murdered her father. She managed, just barely, to make it through the first half of the story before breaking down into sobs. Sango hugged her for several minutes while Miroku lightly rubbed her back until she'd calmed down enough to finish.

"I was out of it for about two and a half years. Mama says my eyes were open and it was like I was awake, but I wasn't there. I'd kick and scream and cry, seeing things that weren't there. She said it was like I'd lost my soul. Kaede...I mean, Dr. Tanreino, that's my psychologist...She says that it's called a catatonic coma. Anyway, I stayed at the retreat until I was ready to come home to my grandfather's in Tokyo. It was actually her older sister, Kikyou, who saved me that night."

"Dr. Tanreino Kaede, the psychologist who runs Tani no Niji Clinic and retreat?" Miroku asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yes. I was at Tani no Niji Iori throughout my treatment and rehabilitation. I still meet her once a month at the clinic here in Tokyo. How do you know about her?"

"I read about her my first year. She's the most published expert on catatonic stasis. It's very interesting work she does." Miroku leaned forward, legs crossed Indian style, wearing only Scooby-Doo boxers and a blue robe. His short hair, usually pulled back, hung loose around his face in a messy mop. "Most experts don't even classify it as a valid condition. Most don't even believe it exists."

Kagome snorted under her breath. "Visit the retreat and you'll have a very different opinion."

Sango chewed on her lip. "I remember reading a little about it, but there isn't much on the subject. From what I've read, no one seems to know what happens during what they call the darkened period."

"I'll write a book one day. Hey, I might be a rich afterwards.

"But you'll need proof." Miroku leaned closer to her and she instinctively leaned back, tugging at the neckline of her shirt. He was, after all, still a pervert.

"I'll donate my brain to science and maybe they can pull out my memories or something."

"I just think it's amazing that you remember being under when most coma patients say their last memory is of the thing they experienced just before blacking out," Sango mused with the same I want to study you look Miroku had been giving her earlier.

"Stop looking at me like that. I feel like a freak." She sighed and stood, stretching. "I know what I experienced and I know now how much time elapsed between my 'escape' and my 'return', but in that place it was just one or two really long days. I was four when it happened. My body grew, but when I woke up, I was still four years old."

"If you don't want to talk about it, we'll understand, but it is curious," Sango said giving Miroku a warning look. He nodded in agreement. Their friendship with Kagome was more important than their curiosity.

She shrugged. "I talk about it every month with Kaede-san. There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you guys. I usually don't say anything because I don't want people to think I'm weird. Do you think I am?"

"Of course not!"

"No more so than Miroku," Sango said, winking.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, it is true."

Kagome cleared her throat to end the argument she knew could go on for at least an hour if allowed. "Besides, there's not much to tell. I don't know how I kept from getting bored to tears except that I was just too afraid to notice..." She glanced at the blue flower shaped clock on Sango's wall. "But right now I have to go. I have Chem. Lab in like half an hour and I look like crap."


****************************************************** *

"Glad you could finally join us," Professor Aino greeted the white haired hanyou as he entered. Kagome only briefly glanced up from her doodles to regard him, not really taking much notice of him. "Now, if you would take a seat, I'll continue with class." Once the students seemed to give her their full attention again she cleared her throat. "As I was saying, we spent our first class meeting reviewing the assignment outline and what I expect of you this semester. Today you'll be given our lab partners. I want no arguments, no complaints, and no asking for trade offs. In the medical field, as well as any other field you may be going into, you will have to deal with many kinds of people..."

She'd lost Kagome's attention by that time. Her fitful sleep the night before had given her little rest and the fog engulfing her brain very little was allowed to penetrate it.

"Ahem...Higarashi, would you like to go meet your lab partner or just continue to sit there, staring out the window all morning?" Professor Aino's voice brought her back and she blushed brightly.

"I'm very sorry, Aino Sensei," she stuttered, gathering her things. "Umm...."

"Kyousei, will be your partner. Raise your hand please, Kyousei."

He just barely did so and she practically ran to the station where he sat, falling into the stool next to him. "Good morning, I'm Higarashi Kagome," she greeted quietly but with a bright smile...until she got a look at his face and ears. Then her eyes widened and she gave him a nasty, scolding look. "You!" she hissed. "You're the boy from Kaede-san's office! You could've at least apologized, you know."

"For what?" He obviously hadn't recognized her. "What'd I do?"

"You shoved me into the wall, practically ran me over. Most civilized people would have waited for me to step aside or even held the door open for me."

"Keh."

She gave him an indignant look and turned her nose up at him. "That's not an apology."

"Keh."

"I'll make lab a nightmare for you until I get an apology."

"Fine. Whatever. I apologize."

She scrunched up her nose in a way he couldn't help but find himself thinking was cute. "That wasn't very sincere."

He shrugged. "You wanted an apology. You didn't say anything about sincerity. You should really work on being specific...not that I'd ever really mean it."

"Well, that's nice to know. You know, I get along with almost everyone. I can't think of one person that I haven't liked or at least respected...till now. I really don't think I like you."

"The feeling's mutual." It was going to be fun, he realized, annoying her all semester.

She rolled her eyes and picked up a beaker the professor was indicating. This was going to be a long semester.