Assassination

A/N: Oh, god. Iloveitiloveitiloveit. They sent the cheating bastard home!
Sorry, that was football/soccer related.
Anyways, I couldn't help myself with the Sess/Kags angle. SO cliched of me, I know.


Disclaimer: If you think that I own Inuyasha, but am not right now spending obscene amounts of money on bribing my country back into the World Cup, some things in this fic might be a little beyond you. Like maybe...the written word...

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Reactions


*CRASH*

She was sure that Sesshomaru’s highly sensitive ears were probably stinging like the very fires of hell right now, but at his heart-stopping statement, Kagome had no other recourse but to drop the phone.

It lay there, waiting patiently for her to regain her brain and pick it up.

Squawks chirping from the phone punctured the thick fog of shock clouding her brain and had her scooping it up and pressing
it to her ear.

“Are you there?”

“Uh, yeah, Sesshomaru. Did you just ask me out on a date?” she tried to see if she had hallucinated. But of course, not even her active imagination could have ever reached this far, therefore it had to be reality because it was too damned weird.

“Yes, I did. And your response is?” Kagome laughed at his dry tone.

“Yeah, sure. You do know that you have some explaining to do, don’t you?” she asked, deciding ‘what the hell’.

“I somehow gathered that. I shall come over at around seven.”

Kagome murmured her assent, then hung up gently.

Then shrieked like the very hounds of hell, complete with blood-sucking bat companions, were hot on her heels.
Shippo and Souta burst into the room, breathing heavily, Souta armed with an ancient sword, Shippo with balls of foxfire at the ready.

They had obviously been sparring.

“Godsdammit, sis. What the hell?” Souta snapped, lowering the sword.

She jumped on him, kissing him loudly on the cheek, before grabbing her son’s hands and swinging him into a swirling dance.

“I have a date!” she sang, spinning Shippo away, where he slammed into Souta, both boys tumbling into a confused pile of bodies.

“A date? Someone asked you out? You said yes?” the boys asked simultaneously, each question growing in incredulity.

“Yes, yes and yes, my duckies.” She sang, still dancing.

“Who?” Shippo asked, eyes narrowed, as both boys clambered to their feet and dusted themselves off.

“Sesshomaru!”

Both boys keeled over in shock.

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

“So, Sesshy baby. Who are you going out with?” Inuyasha smirked, savoring the bemused expression on his brother’s face.
Sesshomaru, apparently occupied with gently replacing the receiver onto the cradle, did not immediately answer.

Inuyasha was, quite frankly, fed up of being mired in the muck of his life. He was tired of grieving, tired of worrying his brains over Kagome, tired of the sick parody that was his existence. He would focus on something that was not directly affecting his life, that is, Sesshomaru’s love life.

“Oy, Sess. I’m talking to you. Who’re you going out with?” Inuyasha repeated, smirk widening. This had to be some special lady for Sesshomaru to be lost in thought.

Or to have a thought.

When Sesshomaru still stared at the phone, and did not answer, Inuyasha took his life into his hands and crumpled a blank sheet of paper, then fired the ball at his brother’s forehead.

Sesshomaru still snatched it out of the air, but instead of forcing it down Inuyasha’s throat, as usual, he tossed it over his shoulder, and looked Inuyasha right in the eye.

“Do you really want to know, Inuyasha?” Inuyasha’s smirk faded at the quiet, almost gentle tone of his brother’s question.

“What…who is it, Sesshomaru? It can’t really be that bad. Don’t tell me you’re going out with that crazed woman obsessed with hair, are you? I can’t have nephews and nieces like that.” Inuyasha said jokingly, trying to figure out why his usually toneless
brother was suddenly inserting gentleness into his repertoire.

“No, it isn’t her. Inuyasha, it’s Kagome.”

Inuyasha’s feet fell off the table, and he leaned forward unconsciously.

“It’s Kagome, what?” Inuyasha asked, eyes shuttered as they always got at mention of her name.

“The date. It’s with Kagome.”

Inuyasha stopped breathing.

As Sesshomaru stared at him, no humour or gleeful evil in his eyes, Inuyasha stared back, eyes wide and jaw loose.
Sesshomaru and Kagome? His brother was going to go out with his best friend? His best friend that looked exactly like his dead fiancée? His best friend was going out with his brother?

What the hell?

“You…you’re going out on a date with Kagome.” His statement, quiet and reasonable as it was, had Sesshomaru wincing.

“Yes, it is. Are you alright with that?” the irony of Sesshomaru asking Inuyasha for permission was not lost on him, but he could not particularly appreciate it.

Instead, the most curious feelings of rabid jealousy and possession were suffocating him, and he gratefully fell back on his
customary, blessedly familiar growling behaviour.

“Feh. Why the hell would I care if you date her? She ain’t mine, or anything. Geez.” He growled, standing up swiftly and scowling at his brother, who still sported his almost pitying look.

Fuck it all, he didn’t want Sesshomaru’s godsdamned pity!

Inuyasha turned on his heel and strode out of his brother’s office, fleeing the demons that surrounded him at the image of
his brother and Kagome together.

He did not need this SHIT.

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

Sesshomaru reflected, as his brother stormed out of his office, that that encounter had gone well, considering.

He had no inclination to hide his activities from his brother, and no intention of sneaking around with anyone. It was truly beyond his abilities. Besides, Inuyasha had had several opportunities to treat Kagome as more than a friend, and the idiot had squandered them all.

And, truly, it was not a date as much as it was opportunity for Sesshomaru to dispel all the confusion he increasingly felt around Kagome, who was well on her way to normality. Sesshomaru could not force his younger brother to get over Kikyo, but that did not mean that everyone had to sink into despair with him.

Kagome was an interesting individual, and sharing a meal with her would be no great inconvenience.

Besides, she was special to him, a friend of Inuyasha’s that had become a friend of his. Inuyasha’s constant rejection and the hurt he caused her were not acceptable. Perhaps an outing with a civilized Kingreaves would do her a world of good.

He was, after all, Sesshomaru.

Who wouldn’t feel better after sharing a dinner with him?

He couldn’t think of anyone.

*******************
Sango stared as Inuyasha went barreling down the corridor, face thunderous, completely ignoring Miroku’s ‘hello’. They both stood, startled, as Inuyasha continued his rampage, stomping into his office and closing the door with a tooth-shaking crash.

“What the hell is his problem?” Sango asked her boyfriend, who now stood at her side.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him this angry since before Kikyo’s death. It’s more emotion he’s shown in about a year.” Miroku commented.

“What got him that mad? Think Sesshomaru will know?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because he came that mad out of Sesshomaru’s office.”

They both turned as one to stare at Sesshomaru’s office on the opposite end of the corridor.

The door stood wide open, and they both crept towards it, peeking in slowly.

Sesshomaru sat at his desk, one hand fisted around a ball, squeezing slowly and absently as he stared out of the wall of
windows to his left.

“Uh…Sesshomaru? Is something wrong with Inuyasha?” Sango asked hesitantly.

Sesshomaru turned to her slowly, then shook his head.

“You would have to ask him.”

Sango and Miroku shrugged, before heading for Inuyasha’s office, which was conspicuously silent. Usually, he would be yelling at someone, for something, anything.

Miroku knocked, before poking his head through the door.

“Inuyasha, is everything okay?”

Inuyasha, standing by his vast desk, turned to look at Miroku, who gasped at his expression.

Anguish, anger, pain, confusion all warred in his eyes, and Miroku stepped in, now truly worried.

“What is it?” he asked gently.

For some reason, this sent Inuyasha in a rage.

“Why the fuck does everyone use that fucking tone with me? Am I a godsdamned orphaned pup to be fucking pitied and coddled? Do I not have a fucking pair of fucking legs on which to stand on my own? Why does every-fucking-body assume I need PITY?” he shouted, eyes flashing dangerously as he advanced on a shocked Miroku and Sango.

“We don’t!” Sango exclaimed. Inuyasha turned furious eyes on her, but his voice was deceptively quiet when he responded.

“Oh, really? Then, why are you now biting your real response back? Why is he speaking gently? Why is everyone skulking around, not saying what they want, and treating me like a child?”

“Because you’re obviously upset, and we don’t want to upset you more.” Miroku said.

“Fuck that! It never fucking stopped you before.” He snarled.

“Before was different, you overbearing asshole!” Sango shouted back, ignoring Miroku’s warning hold on her arm.

“Why?” he shouted, face twisting in anguish.

“Because she wasn’t dead then.” Sango screamed back.

All the fight drained out of Inuyasha and Sango as her words echoes throughout the office, and through their minds.

“So because she’s dead, I have to be treated like I am too?” he asked quietly.

“No, because she’s dead, and you loved her.” Sango replied softly.

The heavy silence that filled the room pressed down on all the occupants, causing Miroku to wince and Sango’s eyes to film over with a thin sheen of tears.

Inuyasha stood, still as a staue, not moving, barely breathing, eyes trained unseeingly to the floor.

‘Did I?’

*********************
A date.

Even she hadn’t seen that one coming.

If anyone were to make friendly with the opposite sex, she had had her money bet firmly on Inuyasha Kingreaves and Kagome. Definitely not Inuyasha’s older brother and Kagome.

She decided to postpone her plans for murder, just to see how this scenario would turn out. Her ‘employer’ had sent a slimy messenger, demanding to know why the hell she hadn’t killed Inuyasha Kingreaves yet.

She had sent the messenger back with parts missing and a note, stating that she was not to be rushed or harried, she would do her job on her own damned time, and if he had a problem with that, he could kiss her ass, because she frankly didn’t care.

Her employer had been gratifyingly silent since.

She found herself dangerously interested in the lives of her targets, but could not seem to find the strength to step back.

They reminded her of her past life, a life devoid of the current pain, blood and death she saw daily. The little ones, the teenagers, reminded her of her lost sibling, and she had not lost enough of her former feelings to ignore those memories.

She smiled at their antics, and even felt her heart clench with the pain of the one whose sister she had murdered.

This strange family had her feeling, and she found herself incapable of letting go.

It gave her a dangerous hope that she was not as far gone as she had once believed.

And if she was not as far gone, perhaps she would no longer have to live her life in this hateful way.


A/N: A tortured soul, that assassin. She was originally Kagome in my first draft, y'know. Then, I realized I could put so much more drama in it if she wasn't. Anyways, ummm...the next chapter is coming soon. I just have to help it suck less. That, and I was busy today watching Germany spank Sweden. And tomorrow, I have to hope Ecuador spanks England.
Bear with me, please. World Cup comes but once every 4 years.
Next up: THE DATE!!!