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Guilty Hero

Chapter 12: Assistance

After their breakfast of champions at McDonald’s, Kagome took them both back to Inu-Yasha’s apartment and sent him back to bed, hoping to rectify his foul mood with some rest.  He certainly didn’t fight her on that order, and slunk quite willingly under the covers.

Four hours later, he emerged from the bedroom, blinking sleepily.  Shuffling down the hallway, he peered around, but saw no trace of his nurse anywhere.  A deep sniff from his demon nose proved what his sleep-blurred eyes told him, and he realized that he was alone. 

“Finally…” he mumbled, absently scratching his side as he went into the kitchen.  “Damn woman’s like a second shadow.  Can’t get away from her.”  Glancing at the clock on the microwave, he saw it was only eleven, and sighed sadly.  It was still too early to partake in the liquid lunch that he really wanted, particularly after the addition to his coffee that morning; it had left him with a slightly queasy sensation, so he decided not to push his luck.

Filling a glass with water, he took a seat at the kitchen table and pulled the newspaper towards him; Kagome must have retrieved it from the hallway earlier.  He pulled a slightly crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tugged one out with a bit of difficulty, then lit it as he scanned the front page.  However, he barely got through the first paragraph of an article about the upcoming mayoral elections when the front door opened and Kagome tumbled inside, dragging several bags with her.

“Ah, good afternoon!” she panted, red-faced and out of breath as she lugged her bags into the kitchen and heaved them up on the table.  “I’m glad you’re up.  I was almost afraid I’d have to wake you like I did this morning.”

Glaring around at the scattered remains of the paper he had been reading, Inu-Yasha growled, “Back so soon?”

She blinked at him in surprise.  “I’ve been gone almost two hours; I guess you’ve been sleeping the whole time.”  Shrugging out of her coat, she hung it over the back of a chair and then started digging through one of the bags, humming merrily.

“What the hell is all this?” he grumbled, picking distastefully at the white plastic.

“Groceries,” she replied, pulling out a tub of margarine and a bag of shredded cheese before walking towards the refrigerator.  “I’ve finished my observation days, and have come up with a plan for you.”

“Oh, really?” he sneered, leaning back in his chair and taking a long drag from his cigarette.  “What, pray tell, do you have in mind?”

Smiling back at him, undaunted, she continued to stock the bare fridge with food.  “Well…” she began slowly, “I’m going to try and give you three meals a day.  For the first couple weeks, we’ll keep you on a high fat diet to put some meat on your bones, then we’ll go into more well-balanced meals.  Meat, fruit, vegetables, that sort of thing.  Hopefully, you’ll be doing much better after that.  It’s amazing what a good meal can do for you.”

Inu-Yasha continued to sit quietly and smoke, waiting for her to finish.  She was inevitably going to bring up her restriction on his liquor consumption, and he couldn’t wait to shoot that policy down.  No nurse had ever conquered him, and he certainly wasn’t going to allow this slip of a woman to do what no other had done.

The only problem was, her ban never came.  He waited for her to keep going, but she had fallen silent and was diligently putting groceries away; currently she was shoving packages of ground beef in the freezer.  He stared at her, his eyes narrowing into a glare.  Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he drummed his fingers impatiently on the table, the sound catching Kagome’s attention.

Looking at him, slightly confused, she asked, “Yes?”

He scowled at her.  “Is that all?”

“Well… Yes…  Were you expecting more?”

He remained silent, staring daggers at her until he finally snorted and turned away, gathering up the scattered remains of the newspaper.  Hiding a smile, Kagome went back to the groceries; she knew exactly why he was so grumpy.  But she refused to give in.  She did have a plan to tackle his drinking, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t any way that his previous nurses had tried.  However, she did choose not to inform him about it, for he was certain to resist if he knew. 

A few minutes passed uneventfully, and Kagome finally managed to put all the food away, filling up cabinets that had been bare for years.  It took longer than it should have, for a thick layer of dust covered every shelf, which she had to clean, and she often came upon forgotten whiskey bottles with only a swallow of the drink left in the bottom.  Covering her nose, for the smell coming from them was quite powerful, she poured them out in the sink, then tossed them in a garbage bag.  As she knotted the bag tightly and set it in a corner to take out later, she glanced over at the demon, wondering why he was so quiet, and realized he had gone back to the newspaper.

“You know, I didn’t really peg you as the newspaper type of guy,” she said conversationally, breaking the silence.

His ears flicking irritably at the second interruption, he grunted, “I’m not.  But there’s a few articles I need to read.”

“Such as?”

Heaving a sigh and wondering if he was ever going to finish what he had started, he replied with a touch of annoyance, “The city’s mayoral elections are comin’ up.  Because the Order works so closely with the government, and in particular the mayor, we need to keep a sharp eye on the elections.  We can’t allow some demon fanatic to be elected, or anything like that.”

“You mean you fix the elections?” she asked in disbelief, rather shocked at the news.

He allowed a small grin to cross his face at her expression.  “We’ve never had to; the city doesn’t want a fanatical mayor elected just as much as the Order doesn’t.  But, if it ever came down to that, we would fix it.  Anything to keep the city safe,” he added sarcastically, going back to the paper.

“Oh…  Well, why are you looking into it now?  Mayoral elections aren’t until the spring, right?”

Smacking the paper down on the table and turning in his chair to glare at her, he snapped shortly, “If we see a candidate we like, support from select members of the Order can garner enough popularity for that candidate to have a fighting chance.  Can I go back to reading now?!”

“But who in the Order has that kind of sway with the public?  Or do you have someone hired to campaign for whomever you choose to support?  And why does—“

“Dammit, woman!!”  Slamming the table as he got to his feet, he snatched up the paper and stomped into the living room, flopping onto the couch with a huff.

Peeking into the living room after him, Kagome shrugged and let him be.  She knew he wasn’t used to being  around someone else all the time, and was likely to be prickly for a while until he got used to her company.  Retrieving her bag from and armchair in the living room, and making certain to ignore Inu-Yasha, she returned to the kitchen and pulled out a folder, which contained a meal plan.  She began to browse through it at the table, going about her business as quietly as possible, and the two were able to tolerate each other’s presence well enough for the rest of the day.

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“Well, this is just great,” Sango sighed in distress, sinking down into her desk chair.  “We have a superdemon growing more powerful day by day right underneath us, and we can’t do a damn thing about it.  Oh, and he might have more than one Shikon shard in his possession.  Because he needs more power.”

“Now, Sango…” Miroku said soothingly, placing his hands on her shoulders.  “We have things we can do—don’t sound so hopeless.”

“Stop it,” she snapped, brushing his hands off.  “Now is not the time to coddle me.  We have work to do, and we need to do it fast.”

“Well, where do you suggest we start?”  Miroku was doing his best to remain calm and cool in front of Sango; obviously, she was upset about the confirmation of a terrible threat against the city, but she had been strangely agitated after she joined them at the quarry after her talk with Inu-Yasha.  He was very curious to know what had transpired between the two, but knew better than to ask.  She could pose a frightening figure when backed into a corner.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled a list of their agents towards her, rubbing her temples.  “We need to set up a perimeter around the quarry, to make certain nothing comes in or out.  However, we can’t use any demons, for if this superdemon is absorbing them, then our agents are at risk themselves.  We certainly don’t want this threat to gain the powers of Koga or Inu-Yasha.  But, the humans we put around there need to be well-equipped  for fighting demons…  And they need to be inconspicuous.”

“What if we got them hired at the quarry?  They would be very inconspicuous if they were workers.”

“Yes.  Good.”  Nodding in approval at Miroku, Sango quickly scribbled a note on a blank sheet of paper and passed it off to him.  “Fax that to Rin.  She can come up with a list of workers for that.  Now…”

The rest of their day passed in a similar manner: Myoga’s report needed to be recorded, the mayor and the police needed to be informed of the threat, the other agents in the Order had to be told—the list went on and on and on.  In fact, it wasn’t until nine o’ clock that night before they had the chance to breathe.

“What a day…” Miroku groaned, stretching as far as he could, causing his back to pop painfully.  “I’m so sick of staring at these four walls.”

“You need to stop complaining,” Sango sighed in reply, her voice slightly muffled for her head was in her hands.  “That won’t make this day any better.”

“Hmph.  You know, I never realized when I accepted this job that there would be more paperwork than anything else.  Had I known, I don’t think I would have taken it.”  Suddenly, the ringing from the fax machine interrupted his griping, and he groaned as he pulled the incoming paper out.  “Speak of the devil.   More paperwork.”

“What is it this time?” Sango asked tiredly, slowly sitting up.

“Demon assignment.  Myoga’s found a giant rat causing trouble in an alley nearby.”

Groping for her well-worn list of agents, she ran her tired eyes over it.  “Does it say how powerful this rat is?”

“It’s not terribly powerful.”

“Hm…  Would one of the wolves work?”

Suddenly, Miroku stood up, quite excited.  “No… no, I think I know who can handle this.”

Sango raised an eyebrow.  “If you’re going to say Inu-Yasha, no.  I definitely do not want to bother him today.”

“No, not Inu-Yasha.  Us.”

She didn’t move.  “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, my dear.  We need to get out of this cramped office.  And we haven’t gone demon-hunting in years—it could be quite fun.  We’d get a little fresh air, some exercise…”

“Oh, Miroku, we still have plenty of work to do here, I really think we should get someone else…”

The fact that she had not flat-out told him ‘no’ spoke wonders.  He grinned impishly at her, then pulled open his desk drawer, removing a stack of rectangular sheets of paper and waving them suggestively in front of her.

“I can’t believe you still have those,” she said in disgust, pushing them away.  “Do they even work anymore?”

“Sango!  What little faith you have in my abilities!”  He pulled the papers back to his chest, looking quite wounded.  “These sutras will stand for a thousand years without losing their bite!  I’d like to see that rat try to withstand one of these.”

“Miroku…”

He went over and knelt onto the floor by her chair, taking one of her hands in his own.  “Please, Sango, just this once…  For old times’ sake?  There’s no need to disturb our other agents when we can handle this perfectly ourselves.  We both could use a little action.”

Hesitating one last time, she finally sighed and stood up, tugging her hand from his grasp.  “I can’t believe I’m doing this…”

A wide grin crossing his face, Miroku quickly got to his feet and ran over to the closet, tossing Sango’s coat at her before reaching back inside.  Finally, after a moment of rummaging, he emerged victoriously with a long wooden staff and a double-barreled pistol.

“Here you are,” he said, handing her the pistol.  “Your ‘Boomerang Bullet’.”

“It’s called Hiraikotsu,” she said irritably, snatching it from his hands.  “Respect the name.”

Shrugging into his own coat, he tucked the sutras into his pocket and swung the wooden staff a couple of times for good measure, getting the feel of the old weapon.  “Ah.  This feels good.”  Then, taking her hand, the two left the building, smiling innocently at Rin as she stared when they walked by with their odd weaponry.

Despite the chill in the air, they decided to walk, for the alley was only a few blocks away.  Sango kept her pistol tucked into her coat pocket, and Miroku did his best to pretend his staff was a walking stick, and they managed to avoid too many stares.  It helped that the streets were almost devoid of people.

“So…” Miroku began conversationally as they huddled close together, for the wind was biting at them.  “What was wrong with Inu-Yasha today?  He seemed to be more out of sorts than usual.”

Sango sighed deeply.  She had been trying to avoid thinking of the poor demon all day, but the look on his face was burned into her head.  “The fool…”

Something in her tone made Miroku look down at her, concerned.  “What is it?”

A small smile tugging at her lips, she looked up at him and said, “You better not let Inu-Yasha know I’m telling you this.  He’d have my head.”

“Of course not, but what happened?”

“Well…  Myoga’s report got him scared.  Terrified, actually.  He may be a drunk, but he’s not a fool.  He knows that if this new threat makes itself known, everyone in the city is going to turn their eyes to him for aid, and he thinks he can’t give them the man they want.”

Miroku gripped her hand a little tighter.  “And what do you think?”

She kept her eyes on the ground.  “I don’t know.  I want to have faith in him, but that may just be desperation trying to take control over rationality.  Inu-Yasha was our best fighter, but now…  I’m afraid he’d show up at the last battle with a cigarette in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other.  If he showed up at all.”

“Well…  We do have Kagome this time around.  Perhaps it would be best to put your faith in her.”

Sango shrugged.  “I find it difficult to do so when every other nurse before her has failed.  But still…  Even if she did, somehow, manage to cure Inu-Yasha, curing just his body isn’t enough.  His heart is still broken.  You should have seen the look on his face, Miroku, when he was talking; he can’t take another fight like that.  That would be the end of him.”

“I say again, Sango: Have faith in Kagome.  You’re passing her off as any other nurse, when she has already proven herself otherwise.  Just give her time.  She only started working with Inu-Yasha a mere five days ago.”

Sango turned to look up at him, studying him carefully.  “How do you do it?”

He smiled back at her, though a bit confused.  “Do what?”

“You’re so calm and relaxed.  We’ve got a new demon out there that can potentially lay waste to the city and our only offense is bailing on us, and yet all you can say is ‘have faith’.  You don’t even look worried.  How do you do it?”

“Well, it helps to have such a lovely woman by my side…”

“Ugh, forget it.  Let’s just get to work.”

Miroku hung back a bit as Sango strode ahead.  He had been quite honest in his statement; her presence kept him in control.  Except for his hands, of course.  Those two seemed to have a mind of their own concerning Sango.

“Miroku, I’ve got the rat in sight.”

He quickly jogged a couple steps to catch up with her, peeking down the alley she was crouched outside of.  Something furry, grey, and as big as the trashcans it was rummaging through was down there.  Its long, thin tail whipped around, bringing another can down with a crash as it searched for food.

“All right,” Sango whispered, pulling her pistol from her pocket.  “I’ll shoot it, then you paralyze it with a sutra so my other shot will hit, got it?  If it’s still alive, end things with a blow to the head.  That’s the best way to kill these vermin.”

“Yes sir.”

Shooting him a look of reproach, she dove into the mouth of the alley, Miroku following a mere step behind.  Brining Hiraikotsu up as the rat screeched at them, she fired one shot, which caught it in one eye and drove through the rest of its body with incredible force.  It started to cry out in pain, but Miroku had jumped in right after the bullet and slapped a sutra in the middle of its head.  Sparks flew off it as the rat struggled to move, but to no avail.  In the meantime, Sango’s shot, worthy of its nickname ‘Boomerang Bullet’, had swung back around, piercing the rat above its left thigh and bursting through the head, soon coming to rest in the opposite barrel of Sango’s gun.  Having long since collapsed to the ground, it gave a short struggle, which Miroku quickly put an end to with a sharp stab of his staff through the top of the skull.

“Well.  The deed is done.”  Turning back to Sango, who was blowing a wisp of smoke off her gun, he said, “You know, I’m a little disappointed.  That was far too easy.  However…”  A grin broke his features.  “We’ve still got it.  Perhaps we don’t need Inu-Yasha to save the city.  You and I make quite the formidable opponent.”

Sticking Hiraikotsu back in her pocket, Sango couldn’t resist grinning back at him.  “Yeah, right.  But, I have to admit--that was fun.  I needed it.”  Then, surprising him to no end, she walked up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.  “Thank you.”

The two walked away from the scene hand-in-hand, Miroku with his staff slung over his shoulder.  “Say, would you care for some dinner?”

“My goodness, you do know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you?  A demon-kill, then a meal.  I just feel so special.”

“You should.  I don’t think I’ve ever given another girl such an evening like this.”

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Well, I hope you enjoyed the latest installment of Guilty Hero.  Stay tuned for the next chapter, when Kagome’s mettle and dedication are put to the test.  Thanks for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you think!