Kagome was thinking how to get rid of all the hair at once, and came up with a solution. "Hang on, Inuyasha! I'll be right back!" she shouted, rushing out out of the well-house.
"OI! COME BACK HE—!" Inuyasha shouted back. Kagome cut him off as she closed the door to the well-house.
"Kagome, what's going on in there?" Grandpa Higurashi asked earnestly.
Kagome didn't have time to explain in detail. "Bad stuff! Just don't go in there!" With that, she rocketed off to Grandpa's workshop.
The workshop was a moderate-sized wooden shed on the grounds, but it was a fully equipped machine shop, built by Grandpa to give him a place to work on her and his own wacky projects. In that machine shop was the piece of equipment she was looking for: an acetylene blowtorch. She lifted the tanks onto her back and gathered up the tubing. Kagome allowed herself a short check on her oden bowl still perched on her head. Satisfied, she raced off to the well-house again, full tilt.
Kagome was only gone a minute or so before returning to the well-house. "Kagome! Why do you have my blowtorch?!" asked Grandpa. He didn't get an answer, as Kagome set the tanks down, opened the tank valves, unwound the tubing, threw open the door, opened up the torch valves, and clicked the flint against the nozzle of the torch. "KAGOME! TOO WIDE!!!" came Grandpa's panicked yell.
"Eh?"
*FWOOOOSH!!!*
"KIIIII!!!" Kagome screamed, as a large orange fireball exploded before her, spewing into the well-house.
"OWWWWW!!!" came a scream inside. Inuyasha, who was protesting being burned by an oxy-acetylene flame.
Keeping the nozzle trained on the entry to the well-house, and her oden bowl resting on her head, Kagome frantically closed the valves on the torch. The fireball ceased from the nozzle, but inside was still an inferno… a rather rank inferno, considering that the principle fuel in there was hair. The hair burned nicely, including the vital control hairs. The hair of Yura of the Hair dissolved into nothingness, leaving the inside on fire.
Kagome sprang into action again, oden still on her head. She raced to a nearby firehose (with mostly wooden structures, a handy firehose is a must), turned on the valve and dragged one end to the well-house. Kagome waited only long enough for the hose to fill up with water. Then she pulled the handle atop the hose and gave everything inside the house a thorough dousing.
"Whew!" breathed Kagome as she closed the valve on the hose again. She looked within the well-house and found surprisingly little damage. The walls were a little singed, the well itself was a bit black with carbon, and Inuyasha glared at her, looking a little singed and very soaked to the bone.
*drip* *drip* *drip*
His slightly carboned pink kimono (Inuyasha: "Seriously, dude! Not pink!") hung sodden on his shoulders. Inuyasha's white, singed locks drooped limply, dripping drops of water. The bangs hung in front of his eyes. Those eyes that glared at Kagome wordlessly and hotly, and none too pleased. Kagome figured as much: it couldn't have been pleasant to be in the center of a raging inferno, then at the front end of a flood, even if he was a half-demon.
"Er… gomen, Inuyasha…" came Kagome's plaintive apology as she stepped down into the lower level with the dog-boy, who continued to glare at her. "Things got a little out of hand there," she continued. Inuyasha's glare was unaltered. "I can't believe how much Grandpa souped up that silly thing." Again, Inuyasha totally failed to react. Kagome wove her hand in front of her face. "*whew!* Burnt hair and wet dog don't go well together," she declared, half-jokingly. Glare. "No reaction."
Actually, that assessment was a little premature. Inuyasha did react, stepping toward her. He stepped within a foot of her. Then, with only a grin for warning, he began vigorously shaking like a dog.
*pa-pa-pata-pata-pata-pata-pata-pata-pat-pat*
"KYAAAAHHHH!!!!" screamed Kagome in protest, suddenly finding herself being blasted with a hail of droplets from the half-dog demon's shaking to dry himself. Just as quickly, it was over. Inuyasha was reasonably dry, with only residual dampness in his hair and clothes. Kagome, on the other hand…
"Ewwwww… Wet dog water…" whined Kagome, a disturbed fret on her face. Her clothes were quite damp, and she was dripping from the cast-off water she was sprayed with. "And I just took a bath, too!"
She ran her hand through her damp hair, and winced as a wound on her hand stung. This reminded her of what she was doing here in the first place. She got to thinking about the encounter she'd just had with Yura of the Hair. She still wants the Shikon jewel, and now she's found the way in to my world! "Inuyasha, we're going back!" Kagome declared.
Inuyasha, batting his hair to work out the rest of the dampness, stared guilelessly at Kagome. "Why? A while ago you were running away from this war."
Kagome glared at him. "But you wouldn't let me, would you?!" she snapped. If I stay in the present, my whole family might be dragged into this too! Just then, something settled onto her head, on top of the bowl of oden she still was balancing there. It was Inuyasha's pink kimono top. (Inuyasha: "Light red, dangit!")
Kagome glanced at Inuyasha, who was facing away from her. "It's cloth spun from the fur of a fire rat. It's stronger than any suit of armor."
*THU-THUMP!*
"Th-thanks…" Kagome answered uncertainly. Inuyasha wanted her to be protected? Her maiden circuit was feeling hot again.
"You'll need it… with skin as weak and frail as yours," finished the dog-boy. "Can't let my hair-detector get chopped up, right?"
*newwwww…*
Way to kill a complement, Casanova! "You always know just what to say…" said Kagome, her maiden circuit going stone cold, and her voice dripping with sarcastic venom. "And only my skin's like that," she added. Composite plating protects the important parts. It stood well enough against Mistress Centipede's fangs, after all. Kagome was confident that she'd be protected well enough against anything Yura could throw at her.
Speaking of taking hits…
"Wait. I just thought of something," Kagome said, then disappeared out the door.
"Hmmm?" murmured Inuyasha. He let out a sigh. What a fickle girl.
No sooner had she'd gone, though, she returned. She just finished slipping on a carrying strap to haul something on her back. She was also carrying a big thing that Inuyasha had never seen the likes of before. It was made of metal, two pieces hinged together in the middle.
"What in the world are those?" asked Inuyasha, pointing at the big metal thing.
"Garden shears," replied Kagome. On the side of this particular pair of garden shears was a legend, [Gramps Higurashi's 100% effective, heavy-duty titanium-alloy Snip-O'-Matic™ with ForeverEdge™ technology]. "And before you ask, they're very useful to cut things with," continued the marionette, as Inuyasha had that look in his eye.
She twirled the Snip-O'-Matic™ and slipped it, snips first, into the carrying pouch she'd strapped to her back. "Let's go!" she announced, descending the stairs.
The two leapt into the abyss, together.
Inside her nest, Yura of the Hair held up a skull with wisps of hair still attached to its crown. She looked lovingly into its empty eye sockets. "Alas, poor Yorick…" she began, then stopped. "I wonder where that came from," she wondered aloud, but shook it off.
"I wonder if they're coming yet. We'll show them a grand old time, won't we?" she asked the skull.
It did not answer.
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(Posted Tue, 28 Dec 2004 06:55)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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