Right Kind of Wrong by Archangel's Requiem
The First Spark
Archangel's Requiem: Hey all! Look, it's another story. -grins and giggles- Maybe I'll update this one more often than the other new one.
Kagome: Yeah, and maybe we'll catch Sesshomaru trying to potty train a little chibi InuYasha.
AR: ...
InuYasha: That's very funny...
AR: Actually, I think it's kinda creepy, don't you?
Sesshomaru: No comment.
Sango: You know what? I think that hanging around with AR has gotten to Kagome's head. She never used to say anything like that before Don't Fall Away.
AR: Yeah...I still have to finish that story...but I should at least put out a chapter of this before I forget that I was even working on it. Maybe it will do better than Don't Fall Away.
K: Don't you think it would be smarter to finish some other stories before starting a new one?
AR: Yes, but that's not the way I work.
Se: Clearly.
AR: Okay...moving on! Since it's the first chapter, I'm going to cut this off right here and tell you that I really hope y'all like this one. In case you don't remember...it was number one in the poll I held a little while ago. Just for the record, I know they didn't have doors, among other stuff...you'll get me when you read the chapter.
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Right Kind of Wrong
Chapter One: The First Spark
Kagome looked from InuYasha to the village in front of them. Every single instinct was telling her that it wasn't the safest place to be, and, by the looks of it, she agreed. There was no moon, so InuYasha was in his human form.
The door to the nearby pub burst open, shedding a column of light onto the dirt road in front of it, and a man was thrown out, drunk by the looks of him. He stumbled, regained his balance, and looked past Inuyasha and at Kagome, grinning stupidly. Kagome gripped the sleeve of the hanyou's haori.
"InuYasha, I don't like it here." she said quietly. "We should leave. We can always find another place to stop."
"Feh. Nothing's going to happen. Stop being a wimp and follow me."
"No, I'm serious. I really don't want to be here." Kagome objected, but InuYasha just rolled his eyes, took hold of her wrist, and pulled her behind him. "Ow! Inuyasha, that hurts! Let go, I'm leaving. There's nothing here, but I can meet up with you somewhere else if you want to stay."
InuYasha said nothing and led her into the building. The drunk man stared as they passed by and Kagome hoped that the people inside were mostly sober.
It wasn't bright inside, but the sudden change in lighting made Kagome cover her eyes until they adjusted. She hadn't realized that InuYasha had let go until he started walking away from her. She hastened to catch up and stayed close behind him as he reached the counter and struck up a conversation with one of the patrons. About what, however, she couldn't tell over the noise.
The room smelt of alcohol and body odor, and it was going to make Kagome sick if she didn't leave soon. She leaned against InuYasha to keep herself steady and closed her eyes.
"You alright, sweetheart?"
Kagome jumped and opened her eyes, staring blankly at the person who had spoken to her.
"Are you...talking to me?" Kagome asked; he nodded. "Um...yeah, I'm...fine."
"You look ill, darlin'. Let me take you outta here. This is no place for a pretty little thing like you." He reached out to grab her upper arm, but Kagome moved.
"No, I'm fine." she insisted weakly. "I'll be okay."
"Come on." he pressed. "Look, I'll get you something nice while we're out."
"I already said no." Kagome said through clenched teeth. "Now, go away and leave me alone." She knew she was agitating the hell out of him, but she wasn't stupid enough to leave with him, either.
"Let's go, I won't hurt ya." Kagome shook her head and turned away. She was taken completely by suprise when he reached out, with suprising speed for a drunk guy, and took hold of her upper arm, pulling her toward the door. She quickly reached out and grabbed Inuyasha's shoulder, effectively getting his attention. He turned around and quickly took in what was going on.
"Hey! Let her go, you bastard!" he yelled, landing his fist square in the center of the other guy's face. He fell backwards into a group of other people, and, before Kagome knew it, she was on the ground, leaning against a wall. Inuyasha was nowhere in sight, probably somewhere in the middle of the huge fight that had broken out after he had punched out that guy.
There were a few loud cracks, resulting in broken tables, and the sounds of shattering glass. Kagome stood up and tried to spot InuYasha in the crowd, but she couldn't see over the heads of the majority of the people stuck in the fray. She decided it would be better if she left and waited for InuYasha to meet her outside.
InuYasha fought his way towards the wall and looked around. He caught the door open and watched Kagome stumble outside. Only a few seconds later, somebody yelled and jumped back, crying out in pain and trying to put out the fire that had engulfed his leg. The flame quickly spread across the floor, forcing people against the walls and out the door.
Kagome breathed deeply, relieved that she was finally out in the fresh air. She heard a yell and turned back to the pub, watching as people rushed out the door, followed by clouds of billowing smoke.
"InuYasha!" she cried when he didn't come out. She pushed past the panicked patrons and rushed inside, into the smoke and fire. The back door was hanging wide open and the pub was empty.
InuYasha had gotten out.
There was the loud sound of splintering wood, then nothing.
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"Look, Sesshomaru-sama! Smoke!" Rin exclaimed, pointing one of her chubby little fingers over the glowing tree line. "It's lots of smoke."
"Shut up, you silly girl." Jaken chastised. "Sesshomaru-sama doesn't need you to point things out to him, he can find things out on his own."
"Jaken, watch Rin." Sesshomaru ordered. He was going to leave it alone, but Rin had noticed and he knew that she expected him to go and save whoever was in trouble. So, he ran off and left a smiling Rin in his wake.
"Sesshomaru-sama is so brave, right Master Jaken?" she declared proudly.
Sesshomaru calmly walked towards the crowd gathered around the flaming pub and found himself wondering how it had started. He surveyed the group of humans before him and spotted his half-brother, stuck in his human form, but the girl that normally followed him around was absent.
"Sesshomaru-sama!" somebody called. Sesshomaru turned his head and raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "There's somebody in there still. She rushed in calling some guy's name and she didn't come back out."
InuYasha tensed when he heard his half-brother's name and watched from the corner of his eye as he listened to one of the men and walked strait into the flames. He, however didn't care what Sesshomaru was up to. It was more important that he found wherever Kagome had gotten to. He watched her walk out, but even after searching the crowd, there was no sign of her. Somehow, it never occured to him that she might have went back in.
Sesshomaru walked through the cloud of thick smoke and immediatly started searching for a female body, since the human he had listened to earlier said 'she'. Through the curtain of haze, he spotted a dark figure, half covered in fallen boards from the cieling, lying on the ground. He knelt next to her and pushed the debris to the side, revealing the small frame of the human girl that he knew to follow InuYasha around.
'Irresponsible half-breed.' Sesshomaru thought to himself as he gathered the girl in his arms and started toward the door. The front entrance, however was blocked by fallen debris from the cieling. It wouldn't have bothered him, but after going through the trouble of getting the girl out, there was no point in doing something that could potentially hurt her.
Sesshomaru exited the burning building through a large hole in the back wall and laid Kagome down on the ground. Her eyes started to flutter open and he disappeared.
Kagome opened her eyes and found herself outside. A small flash of white just outside the forest caught her attention and she stared, but it didn't show up again.
"Kagome!" Said miko jumped and turned around. InuYasha and the others were walking toward her, InuYasha looked slightly agitated and Sango seemed more relieved than anyone else, since Shippo was with Kaede.
"InuYasha! How did you...?" she started, seeming a little bit disoriented.
"Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you." Sango announced.
"When did you guys get here?" Kagome asked.
"They showed up around two minutes ago. We could have left by now if you hadn't wandered off."
"Wandered off? Hey, I went back inside to find you." Kagome said. "Besides, we shouldn't leave, anyway. It was our fault it caught fire, so we should stay and help rebuild. It's the right thing to do."
"I believe Kagome is right, InuYasha." Miroku declared. "From the information I've gathered, you got violent with one of the patrons and knocked him into somebody else, thus starting the whole affair."
"He was hitting on Kagome!"
"Well, it wouldn't have happened if you would have taken my advice and left when I told you to." Kagome retorted. "What were you doing, anyway?"
"I was trying to track down Naraku."
"Well, that's fine, but you could have done it on your own. There was no reason to drag me along with you."
"Hey, you wanted to go."
"Yeah, maybe at first, but not after I saw where you were going." Kagome retorted. "If you don't remember, genius, I told you I wanted to leave."
"Anyway," Sango cut in, eliminating InuYasha's chance to retort. "Did you find out anything?"
"Nothing we don't already know." Inuyasha said. "Now, let's get moving before something else happens."
"Hey, wait! We can't leave." Kagome objected. "It was our fault that this happened, so we have to at least stay and help clean it all up."
"No, we're not staying."
Later...
Kagome watched as the fire burned, eventually turning what used to be a pub into a smoldering pile of embers and ashes. It took hours for it to completely burn out and it was well into the night by the time it had completely extinguished itself. Only at that point could anything be done to start cleaning up. Naturally, it had only been a short while before InuYasha started to complain, mostly about how far behind they already were and how much further behind they would be whenever they finished playing maid.
"InuYasha, I've already told you why we're still here." Kagome said, not even bothering to look up from what she was doing - which just happened to be treating a small burn on her leg that InuYasha failed to notice. She had spent around an hour earlier, with the person who had first noticed the fire, cleaning and bandaging the horrible burn before it got a chance to become infected.
InuYasha huffed and walked off to the other side of the ruined structure as Sango made her way over to where Kagome was sitting.
"What are you doing?" she asked, plopping down next to the young miko.
"Nothing, just cleaning this up really quick before I get up and find something that I can help with."
"Kagome, what exactly happened after you went back in?" Sango asked. Kagome looked up and shrugged.
"I don't remember." she admitted. "Part of the cieling fell in on me and I guess I passed out. To tell you the truth, I don't know how I managed to avoid anything worse than a bump on the head and a small burn here and there. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure how I got out."
"You can't be serious."
"Don't worry about it, Sango. Let's just say I have a hunch." Kagome said, the flash of white coming back to her mind for a second before she stood up. She dusted herself off and walked away, leaving Sango sitting and staring after her.
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AR: -dancing around the room- I stuck my weenie in a bottle, baby. Come on and break it out.
DAG: AR...I thought you were a girl.
Kim: Or so she says.
K: That is way too much information.
Twister: -runs in and jumps on the bed-
Kim: Puppy!
IY: Good, now she'll stop trying to walk me.
Kim: -smirks and pulls out two leashes- InuYasha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AR: I bet if he had a tail it would be between his legs. -mimmicks a scared dog and yelps-
IY: -glares at AR-
AR: -grins-
Ka: Y'all are mean, you know that?
AR: Yeah, I know. That's why you love me.
Se: That depends on your definition of 'love'.
AR: Now that was mean...Anyway, I'm out people. Toodles.