13Author's note: Thank you SOOOO much to kag-san on Tumblr for drawing the cover art for this fic! I love it!
It hadn't taken Miroku long to become worried. Inuyasha usually took around two hours to scope out each venue, and he was diligent about making timely calls. So diligent, in fact, that Miroku never failed to tease Inuyasha about his perfection in his job.
Miroku teased, but he knew that Inuyasha had to work four times as hard for half of the recognition and respect as the other police. If it hadn't been for the former chief of police, the kind flea youkai Myouga, Inuyasha would never have been given a job in the first place. Miroku didn't know much about Inuyasha's father, but he did know that Myouga had great respect for him. As a hanyou, Inuyasha may never have been hired without Myouga's help. But ever since the flea youkai's retirement, Inuyasha had a very difficult time holding onto his job. The new police chief, Hakudoshi, seemed to have a special piece of resentment for Inuyasha. When Miroku pointed this fact out to Inuyasha, he just scoffed and boiled it down to the regular discrimination he faced. However, Miroku suspected that there was something more to Hakudoshi's mistreatment of his friend, though he didn't have any evidence to back up his theory.
Miroku waited until 3am before he felt a full on panic. He wanted desperately to go straight to the club where Inuyasha had visited, but he couldn't abandon his shift. He had a difficult time making ends meet, especially since he had to care for his great uncle Mushin, who couldn't resist a woman or the bottle. Miroku often had to clean up Mushin's messes, but no matter what he did, he couldn't abandon the old man. Mushin was the only family Miroku had left.
Unfortunately, the club would be closed before he would have the chance to scope it out anyway. And if Inuyasha were in any danger, he would only make it worse if Miroku were to go over to a closed club to look around. Mob bosses had eyes everywhere, and many of the police officers in the city had been suspiciously disappearing or dying on the scene. If Miroku wanted to help his friend, he had to tread very carefully. He would have to do everything perfectly from here on out if he wanted to help his friend, if he could ever do so.
Miroku just prayed that Inuyasha was simply having a good night and had forgotten to call.
After Kagome had called for her father's henchmen to clean up Inuyasha's body, she went upstairs to the change room of the club to clean herself off. When she walked in, none of the dancers flinched at the sight of Kagome covered in blood. After all, every dancer in her father's employ doubled as a trained killer. Kagome herself was a very good shot. She was trained in archery when she was a child, and after the death of her family, she was adopted by her employer and trained with guns. Kagome could shoot a hole through the middle of a penny from kilometers away.
Her best friend Sango was also a trained killer and a dancer. She was raised in a youkai slaying clan and her weapon of choice was a giant boomerang. Of course, Sango was handy with a gun. Every dancer had a specialty weapon, but could shoot the wings off of a fly if the situation demanded it.
Kagome sighed and sat down next to her friend who was on her break. She began to remove her bloody clothes and threw them in the garbage.
"Jeez, what a mess Kagome. You shoot someone right in the jugular again?" Sango asked.
"No," Kagome responded curtly. She didn't feel like discussing what had happened for whatever reason.
Sango was not one to pry. "Father is looking for you, by the way. He wants you to go into his office once you've washed up."
"Thank you, Sango." Kagome removed the rest of her clothes, grabbed a towel, and walked to the washroom. The dancers all lived together on top of the burlesque club. It wasn't fancy, but they didn't have anywhere else to go.
On her way to the showers, Jakotsu noticed her walking by. Jakotsu was the only transgender woman who worked for her father. Kagome never liked Jakotsu; she was the only dancer who seemed to really enjoy murder. She especially liked to slice up her victims, much to the chagrin of Shippou and Kouga, the handymen cleaning up the messes.
"I saw the man you killed Kagome. Such a shame. Those adorable little ears on top of his head looked delicious. I have to say, I'm jealous!" Jakotsu purred.
Kagome tried to hide her repulsion. "Nothing to be jealous of. I'm sure there will be plenty of 'adorable' men that you'll be tasked to kill."
"One can only hope," Jakotsu responded dreamily.
Kagome didn't let out a shiver until she was safely in the shower, away from anyone's eyes. It didn't do well for her to show any form of weakness to the other dancers. Some she trusted, but most she didn't. It didn't help that she was her father's favourite. It made the dancers despise her even more.
Her father had a tendency to find girls who had suffered terrible fates and adopt them into his care. She didn't know how he found them, but then again, her adopted father was a mysterious man.
It's… freezing. I'm freezing. What's going on? Where am I?
Inuyasha felt a cold wind across his body. He was chilled to the bone. He tried to look around, but had a difficult time moving. It was dark and he was in severe pain.
"W… water?" he mumbled to himself. Indeed, half his body was submerged in a river. Inuyasha's body was stiff, but he immediately recognized that he was in danger. He was in the middle of a river; his body had been caught on a shoal. He would have to swim against the current to make it to shore, and he felt very weak. His knife wound was already mostly healed, but his chest wound caused him greater concern.
I must be the luckiest damn bastard on this entire planet, he thought. The girl who'd shot him had been stupid enough to miss his heart, and the rock his body had been caught on prevented him from drowning. Not to mention, the people who'd disposed of him in the river hadn't taken many precautions to make sure his body wasn't found. That wasn't a tremendous surprise to him. It's not uncommon for the police to find the bodies half demons, and even less common for their murders to be looked into.
Inuyasha sighed. Now was not the time to think about that woman. He needed to get out of the river before it became his tomb.
Inuyasha reached out his arm to feel the strength of the current. It was no wonder the mob disposed of their bodies in this river, it would only take hours for them to be washed into a larger body of water. And usually it takes days or weeks before investigations even begin.
The memories started flooding back. He remembered taking a shot point-blank in the chest. Fuck, I am an idiot. Inuyasha cursed himself. Of course, the only time he breaks his own rules is when he finds the goddamn daughter of the mafia boss. If I get out of here, I am going to murder that idiot Miroku. After all, he had been to one who'd encouraged Inuyasha to let loose. Though truly, he knew it was his own idiocy and lack of judgement that had gotten him into his predicament.
His body was getting a little stronger. He could feel adrenaline coursing through him. This is gonna hurt, Inuyasha thought as he thrust himself into the stream and began to swim. Even though he'd used all of his strength to push himself towards the shore, he had already been brought back several meters. He swam as hard as he could, and a lot of coughing and sputtering, he finally reached the shore.
Phew, he thought, though he knew he wasn't completely in the clear. His chest wound needed attending, and badly. He could tell that he'd lost a lot of blood. Luckily, the hole in his chest had already begun to close up. He looked up at the night sky and noticed the full moon. As he lost all his youkai strength on the night of the new moon, he felt that he was strongest on nights when the moon was full. At least, that's what he told himself to make himself feel stronger. He already felt weak as a hanyou, and doubly so because he knew he had one night of humanity every moon cycle. He knew many people who would prefer to see him dead. Not even Miroku knew of his night of weakness.
Inuyasha knew it would be smarter if he could get medical attention, but he could already feel his eyes becoming heavy. He wasn't even certain that moving around would help, since it would likely open up his wound again. He drifted off to sleep on the riverbank, with thoughts of the beautiful woman who tried to kill him dancing through his head. He felt as if he could sleep for 50 years.
Author's note: YUP! Some of you guessed it, he ain't dead! As adorableears7 said, InuYasha can most certainly take a shot to the chest. In the manga, he's taken a vine straight through his chest, so I figure a well-placed bullet wouldn't take him down.
Anyway, I wanted to pre-write most of this story before I started uploading chapters. Updates should be more frequent!