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In this chapter: Sango and Miroku are having to deal with an unusual problem in the city, while Inu-Yasha meets Kagome for the first time.
Guilty Hero
Chapter 5: Trouble Brewing
“Damn it,” Miroku cursed as he and Sango left the Order’s HQ, having only entered it mere seconds earlier. “I just wanted to check up on Inu-Yasha. Why do our agents always send us an emergency call when we’re right in the middle of something?”
“Oh, hush,” Sango berated him, climbing into the passenger’s side of their black car. “You know what can happen if we ignore these calls. Chaos, anarchy, etc., etc…” Back in their earlier days as heads of the Order, they learned quite quickly to make emergency calls priority one in any situation, and it was a rule that still stuck with them today.
“Fine, fine…” Still grumbling, Miroku started the car and pulled into the early morning traffic. “Now, where did Kohaku say he was?”
“Near the quarry on the east side of town,” Sango replied. “Now stop complaining and step on it. The sooner we take care of this, the sooner we can get back to Inu-Yasha.”
Scowling the entire way, Miroku got them to the quarry in record time, and upon their arrival they were greeted by one of their top agents, Kohaku, who was waiting patiently by the fence. He was quite a young boy, just past the tender age of sixteen, and was hardly old enough to be in the Order at all. However, like his sister, he had shown exceptional skill at an early age in demon combat, as well as good common sense, and thus rose rapidly through the ranks. He wasn’t the most courageous or stoic of agents, but he was more than capable, and quite trustworthy.
“Good morning, Miroku, Sister,” he said politely, giving a short bow as the pair climbed out of the car. “I’m sorry to pull you away from Inu-Yasha so soon, but I thought you needed to know about this as soon as possible.”
Cocking her head in confusion, Sango asked, “How did you know about Inu-Yasha? We haven’t told anyone…”
“Rin told me about it,” Kohaku answered, a slight grin tugging at his lips; it was well known throughout the Order that their secretary Rin was quite the chatterbox, and, though well-intentioned, not the best confidant. “She caught a glimpse of him when you carried him through the lobby.”
“Never mind, never mind,” Miroku broke in, trying to keep his irritation at a minimum. “What did you need us for?”
“Ah, yes. Over this way.” Quickly, he led his superiors over to a clearing next to the quarry where construction equipment was stored. Bulldozers and cranes were stationed there, along with piles of rubble and the like. The only thing out of the ordinary was the deep gouges in the dusty, hard earth; no piece of machinery was able to make such deep, precise crevices. Eyeing the fissures, Miroku glanced up at the boy for an explanation.
“I was finishing up an assignment this morning before daybreak,” Kohaku began, playing with his brown topknot as he spoke. “The giant centipede that had emerged from the sewers, remember?” Receiving confirmation from Sango and Miroku, he went on. “I chased it here on its last legs, so to speak, and finished it off right here—“ he gestured at the construction site, “—and then called the cleaning crew to dispose of the body, just like normal. However…”
He turned to look at the two. “I received a call from the head of the crew about an hour later, asking me for the specific area where I killed that centipede. I told him three times, gave him specific directions on how to get here, but he still kept insisting that he could find no body to clean up. Finally, I just came out myself to show him where, but when I arrived—“ He waved a hand at the bare ground. “This is what I saw. No body. Nothing. It just… disappeared without a trace.”
Sango and Miroku stared around the site, concerned. “The body was gone? Why? Are you certain it wasn’t the cleaning crew?”
Kohaku nodded. “Yes. They were just as confused as I.”
“Hm…” After several minutes’ thought, Miroku finally sighed and headed back towards the car. “Come along, Kohaku. We’re going back to HQ so you can give a full account of what happened to our informant. We’ll let him sniff about the city and see if he can uncover the body. If he can’t… Well then, we have a much bigger problem to deal with.”
“What do you mean?” Sango asked, jogging to keep up with Kohaku close behind.
“If there’s no body to be found, then that means someone stole it. And stealing bodies never ends up well.”
Sango gaped at him. “…You think someone stole the body?”
“It’s only a possibility, my dear, not a certainty,” Miroku reassured her. “If our informant can uncover the body, then we have nothing to worry about. Now come along, let’s get back to HQ. We have work to do.”
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Kagome sighed heavily as she lifted her head off her arms, feeling her neck muscles groan from the movement. Sleeping at a ninety-degree angle on her desk at the hospital had not been a good idea, as she was quickly discovering. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she peered at the noise that had caused her to awaken from her dead sleep in the first place.
“Good morning, Ms. Kagome,” Miroku said, flashing her a brilliant smile.
“I-I… um… Oh dear…” Upset to be caught sleeping on the job, she hurriedly got to her feet, straightening her dark hair and adjusting her scrubs. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been sleeping…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sango said tiredly, coming up from behind Miroku. “We know what it’s like to pull 36 hour shifts. In fact, we’re in the middle of one right now.”
“Ah, I see. Rin did mention that something big happened yesterday morning. Is everything all right?”
“Eh…” Seeming uncertain, Sango slowly replied, “For now, I suppose… At any rate, we’ve caught a spare moment, so we came to visit Inu-Yasha. How is he doing?”
Stifling a yawn, Kagome shuffled out from behind the desk and made for the double doors at the side of the room. “Come see for yourself.” Eagerly, Sango and Miroku crowded into the room after her, anxious to get a glimpse of their friend.
“He hasn’t awoken yet,” Kagome began, moving around to the opposite side of the bed. “However, his wounds are already beginning to heal, as you can see.” She peeled away the bandages from his puncture wounds, and, though still gaping and red, they were not near as infected as when Sango and Miroku had seen them two days prior. “Though not quite as fast as we would like them to be healing, I’m afraid.”
Sango looked worriedly at his face, still pinched in a scowl while he slept. “Why not? Is there still poison in his bloodstream that needs to be drawn out?”
“Hm.” Cutting fresh squares of gauze to re-dress his neck wounds, Kagome answered, “If you mean liquor, then yes, absolutely. His blood alcohol levels are still through the roof. I can’t administer antibiotics until we get his BAC down to at least 0.08.”
Though not completely following, Miroku asked hesitantly, “Um, and what is his BAC now?”
Glancing up from her work on Inu-Yasha’s neck, Kagome said, “Lower than when he arrived here two days ago. He arrived with a BAC of 0.4, and in a normal human, that can result in death. He’s at 0.18 right now. That’s nothing to be happy about, but at least the number is dropping. I should think that by tomorrow evening his levels should be low enough to start him on antibiotics.”
Shocked to hear just how badly Inu-Yasha’s binge had affected him, Miroku said quietly, “Well… that’s a relief. I’m glad to hear he’s doing better.”
Softly, almost under her breath, Kagome added, “Of course, he’d be doing even better if he hadn’t arrived so drunk in the first place…” She knew that it was insulting to say that, but what Sango had said two days earlier was still bothering her; Healthy? He hasn’t been healthy for years. Just get him back on his feet and you’ll have done your job. How could his friends be so casual about a problem that was so serious?
“Now, look,” Miroku said immediately, casting a glance at Sango, for she had suddenly tensed at the remark. “That wasn’t our fault—“ Then he abruptly stopped and clamped his mouth shut. In a sense, it was their fault…
An awkward silence filled the room. Kagome was trying to restrain herself from making any other out-of-place comments, and Sango and Miroku were beginning to feel the guilt that had been hovering in the back of their minds, ready to emerge and strike at their consciences. However, before that guilt took control, a low moan brought them back to reality.
Jerking their gazes up from the floor, Sango and Miroku saw Inu-Yasha shift slightly on the bed, moaning again as he tried to turn his head, which tugged at the stiff wounds on his neck and caused him a good amount of discomfort.
“Inu-Yasha?” Sango asked, placing a hand on his arm as her anxiety suddenly got the better of her. “Inu-Yasha, are you awake?”
Slowly, the demon’s bloodshot eyes fluttered open, but he soon shut them again and turned away, groaning from the barrage of light. “Damn it…” he muttered hoarsely, his voice soft and rough after being neglected for over a week. “Where…” As he cracked his eyes open once more, the image of Sango and Miroku’s worried faces swam into view, and a low rumble welled up in his throat. “You two…”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake,” Sango said, relief clearly evident in her voice. “We were so worried—“
“Wh-what the hell are you doin’ here?” he interrupted, his voice rising as he tried to sit up. “Get out. Get out right now, you bastards.”
“Don’t sit up,” Kagome quickly cut in, trying to push down on his shoulders. However, he didn’t even register her presence as he glared unblinking at Sango and Miroku.
“Inu-Yasha, we’ve been quite concerned about—“ Miroku tried to say, but Inu-Yasha wouldn’t stand to hear a word they said. Snarling, he swung his left hand at them, claws and fangs bared in anger.
“Get out,” he growled as they quickly jumped away from his unexpected attack. Although he was obviously weak and not fully awake, it was evident that he had not forgotten the events of that dreadful night, and was not ready to forgive and forget just yet.
A snarl still firmly in place and a furious glare still bearing down on them, Inu-Yasha suddenly dropped back to the pillows, trembling visibly from exertion. He was panting and sweaty, his face pale and gaunt; Kagome decided it was high time she stepped in before his condition worsened.
“I’m afraid you do need to leave,” she told Sango and Miroku regretfully. “We needn’t cause him undue stress; it’ll only put more of a strain on the healing process.”
“But…” Sango stared worriedly at Inu-Yasha, who glowered right back. The staring contest went on for several moments, until Inu-Yasha slowly shut his eyes and rolled his head back, grimacing in pain.
“Out…” he moaned one last time, and it was all the convincing Sango and Miroku needed. Dejected, they both quietly turned and left the room. However, although they were upset over his rage towards them, they felt as though a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders; to see him conscious made all the difference in the world. If only he were conscious and on good terms with them…
The tension in the air dissipated once Sango and Miroku were gone, and Kagome heaved a silent sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure what the dispute was between the three of them, but it was clear that it could have escalated into something much worse had Inu-Yasha been in a fit state to fight. Being a new nurse in the hospital, a fight was the last thing she wanted to break up during her first week.
“Hey.”
The hoarse voice broke into her thoughts, and she blinked and focused her attention on the pale figure lying on the hospital bed. “Hm?”
He was peering hazily at her with his blood-red eyes, an expression of skepticism on his face. “Who’re you? An’ where am I?”
Putting a bright smile on, Kagome replied, “I’m your nurse, Kagome, and you’re at the hospital at the Order’s HQ. You’ve been here for two days now.”
He frowned, his foggy brain slowly processing the information. “…Whafor?”
“Oh, poisoning, blood loss, acid burns, infected wounds… Let’s just say you’ve been through hell. Your two friends brought—“
“They are NOT my friends,” he interrupted hotly, then moaned from the loudness of his voice and lay back on the pillows. “They aren’t my friends…” he repeated, his tone much quieter.
With a small nod of acknowledgement, Kagome said soothingly, “I’m sorry, I just assumed. They’ve been very worried about you, so I figured they were companions of yours.” Her only response was a dismissive grunt, so she continued with her explanation, not wanting to irritate him further.
“When Sango and Miroku brought you here two days ago, you were barely conscious, covered in blood and vomit, all of your wounds were festering… And, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, you were so full of liquor that it’s a wonder you weren’t bleeding booze.” She carefully watched for his reaction to her last statement, but he seemed to be unconcerned, showing no shame or guilt. It appeared to be of no great importance to him, which worried her immensely. He either did not understand the huge impact his drinking had on his visit to the hospital, or it was a common enough occurrence that he no longer cared; she was fairly certain it was the latter.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Anyway, we had Myoga drain the poison from your system so your body could finally begin to heal itself, then we cleaned your wounds and let you sleep. You’ve been out for the majority of the past two days.”
“Mm.” He had a deep scowl on his face, his brow furrowed in thought. He was having a difficult time trying to piece together the fragments of memories swimming around in his aching head. The last thing he could remember was shoving Sango and Miroku out of his apartment. From there, all he knew was that he, in a desperate attempt to block out the events of the day, pulled a fresh bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and went to town. After that, everything seemed to have slipped away from his consciousness. He was grateful, at least, to know why he had suddenly awoken in a hospital room, and to have received an explanation as to why he felt like some demon had chewed him thoroughly then spat him out.
Realizing that the nurse, whose name he had already forgotten, was staring at him, clearly waiting for him to say something, he finally grumbled, “I ain’t s’posed to be here…”
A bit taken aback by the randomness of his comment, she said, “I beg your pardon? You’re in the half-demon ward at the Order’s hospital. There’s no better place to be for a sick demon such as yourself.”
He turned his painfully red glare on her blurry figure once again. “I resigned from th’ Order,” he bluntly informed her. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Even more confused, for Sango and Miroku had said nothing about this, Kagome finally answered, “Well, even if you have resigned, I think the savior of the city should be able to use the top-notch, state of the art facilities here at the Order’s HQ. Don’t worry about it; Sango and Miroku wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”
“Feh.” Normally, he would have been quite infuriated by this woman’s insistence on constantly bringing up Sango and Miroku, the two people he hated most at the moment. But with his stomach churning ceaselessly and his head causing him undue pain, he settled for being a rather annoying patient to her.
“My head hurts, woman,” he growled suddenly. “Get me some medicine.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied apologetically. “I can’t give you any medicine until your BAC is down to 0.08.”
Her statement went clear over his pounding head. “What? What th’ hell does that mean?”
Sighing, Kagome walked around to the other side of his bed and started unwrapping his blistered hand. “It means,” she said slowly, “that you’re still drunk. I suggest you go back to sleep. The sooner you sleep this off, the sooner we can pump some drugs into you. How does that sound?”
Honestly, it sounded fabulous to Inu-Yasha, who was ready to kill for some relief, any relief to his discomfort at the moment. However, seeing that he wasn’t going to get those drugs any time soon, he snarled at her and jerked his hand out of her grasp… or at least, tried to jerk his hand away. He was so weak that this woman’s light grip kept his hand in place, and he only succeeded in irritating several of the tender blisters.
“Dammit, woman…” he groaned. “Stop hurtin’ me!”
Trying to retain her air of infinite patience, Kagome replied softly, “I’m sorry. I was trying to be gentle. Here.” Setting his hand back on the sheets for a moment, she retrieved a jar of ointment and proceeded to carefully rub it on his burns. A small smile crept across her lips as she saw him squirm at first, afraid that it would hurt. But the ointment, she knew, was cool to the touch, and very soothing on his burns, and he soon relaxed, keeping quiet. She began massaging the cream on, working in slow, smooth circles, a technique that was helpful in relaxing a restless patient. And the trick worked quite well, for Inu-Yasha was soon fast asleep once again.
“Whew…” She exhaled in relief. The demon had hardly been awake five minutes, and already he had become a handful.
Still, she was more intrigued than annoyed by him. To be treating the Inu-Yasha… Savior of the city, slayer of the almighty Naraku, most powerful half-demon in existence… There wasn’t a single adult in the city who didn’t recall the day of his triumph over Naraku, nor was there a child in school who hadn’t read of Inu-Yasha’s exploits in their history book. He was practically worshipped as a god for his deeds. So why, then, was he in the hospital, half-dead from, what she was able to gather, wounds from a mere spider demon?
And then there was the issue of his health. The necessary tests she had run while he had been unconscious revealed results of grave concern. They told of years of alcoholism, a disgusting habit of smoking, and the very unwise decision to skip far too many meals. How was it that a demon of such fame and fortune, who should be living the high life, was suffering from many symptoms of depression?
Also, from his fervent insistence that Sango and Miroku were friends of his, she was able to figure that something had occurred between the three, for Sango and Miroku continued to act as worried friends, rather than concerned superiors of their subordinates. It was well-known by all who were employed by the Order that Sango and Miroku had been Inu-Yasha’s sole companions for the past several years. Whatever had happened, it must have been huge for Inu-Yasha to toss aside his only two friends in the world.
Staring at the sleeping demon before her, Kagome absently snagged her clipboard and picked up a pen, tapping it thoughtfully against her chin. Should she attempt to uncover the mysteries behind this demon, or should she simply do as Sango had told her: ‘Just get him back on his feet and you’ll have done your job.’?
Hmm…
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