"Shunusuke…" Inu Yasha squeezed his eyes shut tight and concentrated on Shunusuke, trying to wield the Jedi Mind Trick through the pain. What the hell kind of sorcery did Sesshomaru put into those weapons that they’d do this much damage? He winced as a fire shot through his veins from a dozen bullet holes in his body. The puddle of blood in which he sat had spawned a trickle that was making its way toward the dip in the middle of the alley through which rainwater was supposed to drain. Inu Yasha watched it in absent minded fascination and imagined Shunusuke’s name going out of his brain, through the air to the condo and into the young telepath’s brain. "This sucks," he mumbled. He leaned his head against the dumpster and closed his eyes. "Come on, Shunusuke! Where the hell are you?"
        "I’m in my truck, cruising around Tokyo, looking for you, you idiot!" Shunusuke grumbled as he drove through the streets of the big city, using Inu Yasha’s persistent call as a homing beacon. He was getting close, he could feel it. The other thing he could feel was how weak Inu Yasha was becoming, which he found horribly distressing. Feelings of excruciating pain came to him in Inu Yasha’s thoughts along with his name. What had happened to him? And why hadn’t Sesshomaru’s operatives been able to protect him? As soon as he thought that, Shunusuke knew the answer: Inu Yasha had probably done something incredibly reckless and put himself right into the heart of danger. In the short time he’d known the demon, Shunusuke had learned that fights drew Inu Yasha like a moth to a flame. He probably hadn’t been able to resist "lending a hand" at the well and had wound up getting in over his head.
        Shunusuke realized he’d found Inu Yasha just as he drove past the alley in which the demon was hiding. He slammed on the brakes, backed up and pulled into the narrow side street. Inu Yasha was a little more than halfway down the alley, huddled against a dumpster in a pool of his own blood. By the time Shunusuke jumped out of the truck to check his condition, Inu Yasha was unconscious, and Shunusuke had his explanation for the weakness he’d sensed. One, Inu Yasha was shot up pretty badly and two, he didn’t feel much like a youkai. His experience with his father told him what was going on and why Inu Yasha had to get away from the resort so badly: It was his time of the month to turn human.
        "You could’ve told me," he griped as he returned to the truck to get his phone. "Sesshomaru isn’t going to be happy with you."
        Sesshomaru answered on the first ring, and Shunusuke told him without preamble: "I found your brother in an alley. He’s been shot numerous times and will probably bleed to death if he doesn’t get treatment soon."
        "Where are you?"
        Shunusuke hesitated, then decided to tell Sesshomaru he knew the truth instead of answer the question. "I know it’s his time. I can feel it," he told the demon lord bluntly. "I don’t think you want anybody but your people taking care of him tonight."
        Silence for a few heartbeats, then Sesshomaru said: "I’ve traced your location. Stay there and watch over him. I have a team on the way."
        Shunusuke gave his phone a sour look, as if it had allowed itself to be used to track him. "Right. I’ll do what I can for him in the meantime, but I’m no paramedic."
        Sesshomaru sighed, then asked in a steely voice: "What will you do with what you’ve learned, Asano?"
        Shunusuke had to laugh a little. They still didn’t trust him. Well, maybe that was to be expected, all things considered. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing unusual here. It’s just Inu Yasha."
        That seemed to satisfy Sesshomaru for the time being. "Is he conscious?"
        "No, and I’m standing in a puddle of his blood."
        Sigh. "Shit. I should have known he couldn’t follow orders." With that, Sesshomaru hung up.
        "Nice family you have, Inu Yasha," Shunusuke joked as he put the phone back into his truck. "That Sesshomaru’s a regular Teddy Bear." He squatted beside his friend and started removing his blood soaked kimono. "Let’s see how bad this is…" he muttered. He gently pulled Inu Yasha’s shirt off of his shoulders and had to look away for a moment at what lay beneath. He was aware of the damage youkai-specific ammunition could do to demon flesh but he’d never seen it first-hand. Inu Yasha’s chest had eight bullet holes in it, three of which seemed to be from bullets that had entered through his back and exited through his chest. The chest holes also went straight through. However, the wounds were growing, seeming to melt the surrounding tissue into a sickening mess of blood and gore. The stench was so terrible that Shunusuke had to hold his shirt over his nose to deal with it. No bullets to dig out, at least, not that he would’ve known how or had the tools to do it.
Further inspection turned up dozens of boiling wounds on Inu Yasha’s arms and legs. No bullets in any of the holes. Whether that was a property of the ordinance, or just dumb luck, Shunusuke couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter, though. The damage was done…and was continuing to be done. He hoped Sesshomaru’s "team" would get there soon, or he feared they’d lose Inu Yasha. He repeated Sesshomaru’s sentiment with a heavy, worried sigh: "Why can’t you just follow orders? You live longer that way. Hell, I’ll bet you had to be a hero, didn’t you?" He ran his fingers through his hair, then realized Inu Yasha was shivering and pulled the demon’s clothes back into place. Didn’t help. "Now look at you: Dying in a stinking alley in a puddle of your own blood. Very melodramatic, but not exactly a glorious way to go. I mean," he leaned his back against the dumpster and mused, "what’ll Kagome think of you going out like this? She’ll just die. You know how she feels about you—she probably had her whole future planned around you being in it, and here you are, disintegrating behind a trash bin. The son of the Great Demon of the Western Lands, bearer of the legendary Tetsusaiga…dying in an alley with the garbage." He chuckled nervously and added: "And I don’t mean me."
        He felt the humans before he heard or saw them. They ran into the alley, and one of them pulled Shunusuke out of the way while the other stuck a syringe into Inu Yasha’s arm and injected several cc’s of a yellowish liquid into his vein. The other man plopped down a small, black, leather bag, ripped it open and pulled out a bottle of liquid the same color as the stuff in the syringe and a packet of surgical gauze.
        Shunusuke gaped. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. No way were these guys Sesshomaru’s "team"! There was just no way! First of all, they were human…but that aside, they were—"Chow Yun Fat?! And Jackie Chan?! No way do you guys work for—"
        "Sesshomaru," Fat grunted. "We need your truck."
        Shunusuke hesitated. "Uh…sure…but I’m driving."
        They glared, Shunusuke glared back. He surmised that the liquid was an antidote of some kind, since the flesh stopped boiling and melting as soon as it got doused with the yellow stuff. While Shunusuke was watching Jackie Chan doctor Inu Yasha, Chow Yun Fat pulled a gun out of his jacket and stuck it in the young Asano’s face.
        "No. I’m driving. You get a taxi."
        Shunusuke held up his hands in surrender. "I’m on his side! I won’t leave him."
        Unimpressed, Fat waved the gun to indicate Shunusuke should divvy up his keys. The idea of fighting Chow Yun Fat crossed Shunusuke’s mind very briefly, then good sense got the better of him and he indicated with his head that the keys were in the truck. Fat pocketed the keys but tossed Shunusuke the phone. "Call a taxi."
        "Will I ever see my truck alive again?" Shunusuke asked sarcastically as he caught the phone. "Or should I have my father bill Sesshomaru for it?"
        The only answer he got was an amused snort and a shove to get him out of the way while Fat went ‘round to the back of the truck to lower the tailgate so Chan could lay Inu Yasha in the truck bed. "Blankets?"
        That was when Shunusuke remembered his swords were in the utility box near the cab. He jumped into the bed, then remembered he no longer had the keys. "I want my swords out of here before you drive off into the sunset with my hard-earned wheels," he told them coldly and held out his hand for the keys.
        Fat gave him the keys and allowed him to remove his swords from the box. Shunusuke also took out a blanket, which he spread over Inu Yasha before closing and locking the utility box. He then returned the keys to Chow Yun Fat and jumped out of the truck bed. "Sure you won’t let me come with you?"
        Glare.
        "I’ll take that as a ‘no’," Shunusuke sighed and stood back to watch his truck drive away. The first person he called was Yuki to come fetch him, then he called Sesshomaru to bitch about his truck and demand to know where Inu Yasha was being taken. His question was left unanswered when Sesshomaru got sick of his griping and hung up on him. "Asshole."
         It was only after he’d settled himself against the wall of a building to wait for Yuki that he realized there wasn’t any blood in the alley anymore. "Damn! What was that stuff?!"

        Back at the condo, Kagome was wigging out. "Shot?! How many times? How bad is he? Where is he? Why does Shunusuke need a ride from you?"
        "Because Sesshomaru’s boys took his truck to take Inu Yasha somewhere Sesshomaru better tell us about," Yuki snapped back as she angrily punched numbers on her cellular phone while she and Kagome jumped into her Beemer.
        Sango, Miroku, Shippo and Myouga were hot on their heels, demanding to be allowed to come along.
        "We’ll be right back! Just sit tight!" Yuki fired up the car with an unnecessary punch on the gas pedal and spun out of the drive, leaving them in her dust.
        "How dare she?!" Sango growled and threw a rock at the departing car. "What if he needs our help!" She screamed. "You bitch, come back here!"
        Miroku’s hand on her arm stopped her from chasing the car on foot. "You’ll never catch her. Come on, let’s go down to the hotel and see what we can beat out of Sesshomaru."
        The others followed the priest, though no one really thought they could beat anything out of the demon lord, and anyway, he seemed to respond better to reason in this time. Maybe if they just got in his face…

        "Don’t give me ‘it’s none of your business’, you conceited asshole!" Yuki screamed into the phone as she pealed onto the main highway, headed for Tokyo. "You tell us where your boys took Inu—DON’T HANG UP ON ME YOU—son of a bitch. I hate that guy!" She hit redial. It rang five times, Sesshomaru answered and hung up. She did it again, he did it again. This went on for two more times before he switched off his phone. "Oooh that mangy, good for nothing, low-life, scum-sucking—"
        "—rat fink, stuck-up—"
        Together: "JERK!"
        That made them feel only marginally better, so they spent the drives describing all the terrible things they planned to do to Sesshomaru as soon as they had his fluffy-tailed backside in range. Inu Yasha would’ve been proud.
        "I have an idea!" Yuki dialed Keiichi’s number at the hotel.
        He picked up after more than ten rings, sounding out of breath and not very happy with her. "What?!"
        "What’s your problem?" Yuki retorted indignantly.
        "I was in the shower, Asano!" Then he realized Yuki sounded like she was in the car, which struck him as odd considering she should have been getting primped for the dance. "Are you in your car?"
        Yuki briefed him super-fast: "Inu Yasha got shot, and some of Sesshomaru’s little creeps took him somewhere in Shunusuke’s truck. I’m on my way to pick up Shunusuke. Sesshomaru won’t tell us where they’ve taken Inu Yasha, so I was wondering if you’d—"
        "Sesshomaru?" Keiichi repeated thoughtfully, "which one was he?"
        "Duh! The white-haired demon lord with the furry tail and expensive clothes! The guy with stripes on his face. Remember him now?"
        Pause. "Yeah, I remember him. Just calm down, Yuki, and tell me how Inu Yasha got shot."
        "Never mind that now!" Yuki all but shouted back, then took a few deep breaths and tried it again. "I need you to find Sesshomaru and make him tell you where he sent Inu Yasha."
        "You must be joking," Keiichi snorted. "He’s a demon lord. Hello! I don’t think he’s going to cough up information for me if he wouldn’t give it to you. What about those other people Inu Yasha was with? Where are they?"
        They were mad at her just then, actually, which was why Yuki had hesitated to call. Anyway, they weren’t at the hotel, and Keiichi was. That explanation didn’t hold water with Keiichi. "Asano, I can’t help you. I’m just this human guy with no spine. He’ll growl at me, and it’ll be end of conversation. Demons scare me, ok? Demons lords even more so."
        Sigh. "I just want you to talk to him," Yuki pleaded, "make him take my call."
        "As if…" Kagome muttered.
        Yuki glared at her though she knew Kagome and Keiichi were right. "Sorry. You’re right. I’ll, um, see you tonight I guess. Things could get hot, Kei’. Just warning you."
        "Lovely," he chuckled and hung up.
        Yuki tried the condo but got no answer, which she actually found heartening since she could guess where her friends were: On their way to the hotel to have a talk with Sesshomaru. Too bad she couldn’t ask any of her father’s minions to do the job, since any of them might have been among those who’d shot Inu Yasha. From Shunusuke’s description of the young demon’s condition when he’d last seen him, Inu Yasha’s prognosis didn’t sound too good. However, that miracle yellow stuff was interesting. It sounded like it was some sort of antidote to whatever went into youkai-specific ammo. The fact that it had eliminated all evidence that a bleeding man had been in the alley was most disturbing. She’d always known high tech was an integral part of her father’s secret business but what the stuff did, exactly, remained a mystery, since her father didn’t seem inclined to ever let her join the firm. Just because she happened to have been born a girl. As if that made any kind of real difference!

        Shinai appeared in his mistress’ path between the bathroom and her closet. She was wearing nothing but a towel wrapped about herself, which Shinai thought rather suited her but would look better over a chair at the moment. Before she could claw him, he grinned and chirped: "I know a secret about Inu Yasha…"
        She paused with her arm raised, then slowly lowered it with a look that was mixture of curiosity and mistrust. "Go on."
        "What will you give me in exchange for this information?" He countered, tugging at the front of the towel with a claw.
        She smacked his hand away with a growl. "I’ll spare your life for being so cheeky. Now spill it, I’m busy."
        The kitsune coughed and dropped the attitude. "Tonight’s his night to be human. I smelled it on him at the Shrine."
        Much to Shinai’s surprise, Hisui wasn’t in the least bit impressed. She waved a dismissing hand at him, then opened the closet to make her wardrobe selection for the evening. "I guessed as much," she drawled, holding up a red dress, then making a face and putting it back. "Why else would he need to get out of here on such short notice when the Jewel and his woman are here? And why would his darling brother go to so much trouble to help him escape, if not to ensure his secret was kept? Honestly, Darling, it was so obvious a child could have sorted it out." She held a green dress that sparkled with crystal beads against herself and asked brightly: "What do you think, Darling? Is it too much?"
        Shinai looked like he wanted to die. She knew? "Why did you want to keep him here, Lady?" He asked, then added at her impatient glare: "I like the green. It’s very flattering. Brings out your eyes."
        "You don’t think the beads are too much?"
        "Well, it is a black tie affair, isn’t it?" He told her irritably. "So, no, the beads wouldn’t be too much. Why not just let Inu Yasha go? Do you have any idea how many good people we lost today?"
        "Seventeen," she replied coolly and let the towel drop to the floor. Shinai was disappointed to discover she wearing panties and a strapless bra under it, the little tease. She went to the dresser and pulled out a garter and a pair of silk stockings, pulled on the garter then sat on the edge of the bed to put on the stockings. All of this drove Shinai positively insane. "How good could they be if they didn’t survive," she went on blithely, ignoring his steamy stare.
        "I survived," he reminded her absently, his eyes glued to her long, pale legs.
        "I noticed that," she stood up and twisted about to make sure the seams in her hose were straight, then stepped into the dress and turned around for Shinai to zip it for her. "You’ll find a little something extra in your paycheck this month. Now go away and find out where Inu Yasha is now."
        "Dead, probably," Shinai purred as he adjusted the spaghetti straps on her dress and enjoyed the fact that he wasn’t getting swatted for it. "He was shot numerous times though the torso with anti-youkai bullets, then slunk off after me. Probably dead in the middle of a street somewhere."
        Hisui’s mouth twitched with the effort of forcing a bland expression to stay on her face. "Find his body, then, and bring it to me. I think I’ll give his head to Sesshomaru to teach him not to challenge me again. Now go." She waved her hand at him.
        He dropped a quick, daring kiss onto her bare shoulder and disappeared before she could claw him for it.

        "Do you people have a death wish?" Jaken squawked when Miroku declared their determination to make Sesshomaru tell them what he’d done with Inu Yasha. "Inu Yasha’s working for him. You’re not. Now go away while you can still do so with your hides attached to your bones!"
        Miroku picked up the little demon and gave him a really good, hard shake, then reiterated his demand. "Take us to Sesshomaru now."
        "Or we’ll throw you into the sea and go find him ourselves!" Sango added through bared teeth.
        Jaken struggled in Miroku’s hands and snarled: "So what? I can swim, and you’ll never find him if he doesn’t want to be found!" Then his expression suddenly brightened. "My Lord! I’m so glad you’re here! These horrible creatures—"
        "Put him down, Priest," Sesshomaru’s quiet voice growled in Miroku’s ear while his sharp claws dug into the base of the priest’s neck. Miroku opened his hands and let Jaken fall to the patio deck with a plop and curse.
        The claws were traded for a firm hand that turned Miroku around and pushed him through the tables to one overlooking the beach. On the table were an open laptop computer, a cell phone, a beeper and a Midori and soda with a little pink paper umbrella in it. There were four chairs, and Sesshomaru shoved Miroku into one of them, then sat across from him in front of the computer. Sango and Shippo took the other two chairs, with Myouga on Sango’s shoulder. They looked a lot less brave than they did while threatening Jaken.
        "I wouldn’t tell Yuki where Inu Yasha is because she’s Mikoto’s daughter," Sesshomaru told them tightly. "My operatives are taking him somewhere safe while the antidote does its work. Inu Yasha was shot by anti-youkai weapons, which use a poison that acts like an acid to youkai flesh. As you know, the poison will become less effective anyway as this night wears on, but at this time Inu Yasha’s life is still very much in danger." He took a sip of his drink. "Don’t worry. I won’t let him die but I think his secret is out. Someone I have yet to identify smelled him at the Shrine, then disappeared. That would be a kitsune trick, but it doesn’t narrow the field very much since both Hisui and Mikoto use many kitsune."
        "It was probably one of the twins," Myouga thought aloud, nodding sagely to himself.
        Sesshomaru shrugged. "Perhaps. Regardless, the enemy now knows my brother’s secret. However, they most likely also believe him to be dead by now, since their operative would have told them Inu Yasha had been shot many times. My men informed me they arrived just in time to save him. He’ll recover." Sesshomaru checked his watch, then looked up at the hotel with a weary sigh. "I need to get ready for the Ball." He shut down the computer and put the phone and beeper into his jacket pockets.
        Shippo hopped onto the computer to stop him. "Wait a minute! You can’t just leave like this! Where’s Inu Yasha? How do we know he’ll be safe from whoever shot him before?"
        Sesshomaru favored him with an irritated growl and brushed him off the laptop with no effort. "Because the people who shot him are dead, and I don’t believe Hisui or Mikoto will waste any more people on hunting him down. The point was to keep him from leaving this time, and they’ve succeeded in doing that. Now go prepare yourselves for the dance and leave Inu Yasha to me."
        "But—" Shippo started but changed his mind at the look in the demon lord’s eyes.
        They watched Sesshomaru until he entered the hotel, then reluctantly returned to the condo to wait for news of Inu Yasha and maybe still get ready to go to the Ball. Right at the moment, they didn’t feel very much like partying.

        Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat turned down the road to one of Sesshomaru’s safe houses only to find their way blocked by a teenaged girl in a sequined sailor fuku, holding a sparkling crystal wand with a pink, crystal star on the end of it. They didn’t stop for her, so she flipped up over the cab and into the truck bed, landing with her feet to either side of Inu Yasha’s body. It was at that very moment that Inu Yasha came to and found himself looking up some strange girl’s skirt.
        "By the power of the ancient dragon gods, I Sailor Pretty Rei Rei punish you!" She shouted and brought the wand down onto the cab hard. The roof disintegrated in an explosion of shrapnel.
        That’s when Chow Yun Fat decided it was time to stop the truck and deal with pretty little Miss Thing. He and Jackie Chan jumped up to fight, but their quarry somersaulted over their heads onto the hood, then into the road, where she spun her wand around in the air, then struck a valiant pose. The Chinese looked at each other in puzzlement, then shrugged, sat back down, threw the truck into gear and floored it.
        Inu Yasha was just plain confused. His eyes told him he’d just ogled some strange girl’s sparkly underwear, but his brain told him underwear wasn’t sparkly. It was silky and came in pastel colors. No sparkly things, though. He also seemed to recall that the entire girl sparkled, which he figured was just as absurd as her panties sparkling. Therefore, he reasoned, he was still delirious from the poison and should try to pass out again. But why was the truck swerving around like that? And had he imagined an explosion? Hm, he thought, better investigate. That was easier thought than done, he discovered when he tried to sit up to see around him, only to be thrown into the side of the truck bed when it cornered on two wheels then slammed back down again onto all four.
        "Hey, you assholes!" He shouted in the general direction of the cab. "You got wounded back here! OW! SHIT!" He was slammed backward into the truck box, then he skidded all the way to the other end of the bed and crashed into the tailgate. "WILL YOU CRAZY MUTHER FUCKERS QUIT—OOF!" And into the truck box again. He grabbed hold of the top of the box and cringed from the pain of ribs he was convinced were broken, or at least cracked.
        Then the magical girl landed on his back, which didn’t help his body or his temper at all. Fortunately, she backflipped into the cab before he could figure out how to hang on and still claw her legs.
        "Evil minions of Mikoto Asano," she announced while dancing out of the way of blows to her legs and ignoring the pistol that got pointed at her, "I will punish you for depriving the world of—"
        Fat slammed on the breaks, throwing her onto the hood of the truck and Inu Yasha’s head into the truck box. Both victims had unpleasant words handy to express their feelings, but Jackie Chan spoke first.
        "We don’t work for Asano, you crazy freak! We work for Lord Sesshomaru. Asano is at the Green Mermaid hotel." He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the resort.
        "Liar!" She shouted as she clung to the windshield wipers. "This is his son’s truck!"
        "We borrowed it," Chan explained with an innocent shrug.
        "At gunpoint," Fat added, displaying his pistol to illustrate.
        She thought about that. "Where’s Shunusuke, then?"
        They shrugged. "He called a taxi to take him back to the resort," Chan told her.
        She didn’t like that answer. Her face purpled with rage as she screamed: "You let him live?!"
        Inu Yasha was just regaining consciousness from having his head rammed into a truck box when he heard the exchange about Shunusuke. He shook the cobwebs out of his brain and pulled himself onto the utility box so he could look at the homicidal sparkle girl while he talked to her. "He better not be dead, bitch, or I’ll take your little fairy wand and shove it up your ass!"
        She didn’t find him convincing in his ripped up pink kimono, puppy dog ears and messy white mop of hair. "What are you supposed to be?"
        "Look who’s talking!" Inu Yasha started to climb into the cab, but got shoved back into the truck bed by Chan and Fat. So he went over the side, instead, landed flat on his face with a painful moan, which was as far as he could get before passing out again.
        Chan sighed and got out of the truck to put Inu Yasha back into the bed. "Listen, lady," he told the magical girl as he brushed dust off his hands then leaned against the side of the truck to regard her with much impatience, "we don’t have time for this. I told you where to find Asano, so why don’t you run along and—"
        "Don’t patronize me!" She shrieked and let herself slide off the hood. Being a magical girl, she struck a pose as soon as her feet hit the ground. "And stop lying! Why else would you have a demon for an ally if you weren’t working for Mikoto Asano?"
        Chan shook his head and got back in the truck. "Someone needs a clue," he joked to his partner. "Let’s go."
        And they drove off again, leaving the irate magical girl coughing in a cloud of dust. As she angrily brushed off her costume, Rei Rei swore: "That’s it. They’re goin’ down!" She posed, closed her eyes, raised her wand and cried: "Magical Soul Power of Love Convergence!" Pastel colored light burst forth from her wand and shot out toward the truck like a comet. It hit and engulfed the truck, its exasperated occupants and the magical girl in a bubble of pretty, sparkling clouds of pink, lavender, yellow and baby blue. Silver and gold stars glittered and swirled through the bubble and danced on the hood of the truck.
        "Shit," Chow Yun Fat swore, "it’s a Pretty Space Bubble. I hate these things." He exchanged a look with Jackie Chan, then they turned around to look at Inu Yasha, whose expression was part nausea and part amazement. His furry ears drooped, and his jaw hung open as he watched the pretty stars zip around his head.
        "Hey demon," Chan asked and thumped Inu Yasha on the shoulder to get his attention. "Do you have any magic to get rid of a Pretty Space Bubble?"
        Blink-blink-blink. "Pretty Space…?" Inu Yasha’s expression darkened and he pulled Tetsusaiga forth from its scabbard with a disgusted roar. "WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ATTACK IS A PRETTY SPACE BUBBLE?!"
        "It’s keeping you from going anywhere, isn’t it?" Rei Rei mocked and stuck her tongue out at him. She floated over his head in a swirling cocoon of stars.
        Inu Yasha slashed at her, but she dodged. Tetsusaiga refused to transform since she was human, so Inu Yasha had to endure her hassling him for having a crummy sword. Then she laid into her opinion of men who wore pink, which made Inu Yasha’s overactive macho mojo really shift into overdrive.
        Jackie Chan sighed an shook his head at his partner. "I don’t think he knows any magic. Think the phone works inside Pretty Space?"
        "One way to find out," Fat produced a phone from inside his jacket and tried to call Sesshomaru. He got a recording telling him his mobile service was temporarily out of order and to please try to place his call later. He put the phone away with a resigned frown. "Guess we’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way."
        Chan didn’t look terribly enthusiastic about beating up on a cute, teenage girl in a silly costume, but he got out of the truck with his partner and prepared to fight.
        Meanwhile, Inu Yasha was turning every shade of red trying to whack the magical girl to bits and missing every stroke. Finally, he ran out of juice and collapsed to his knees to catch his breath. He was painfully aware that the afternoon was rapidly waning, and soon he’d start to show human traits. If this magical girl saw him like that, there was only one thing left to do: Kill her before she could tell anybody else. Hell, he decided, kill her anyway for being such an annoying bitch.

        Back at the hotel, Mikoto was feeling terribly pleased with himself. One of his spies had witnessed the Pretty Space Bubble attack and reported to his boss that Operation: Magical Girl was in full swing. Letting Rei Rei have her wand back was, in Mikoto’s humble opinion, a stroke of genius. Of course, Sesshomaru’s operatives borrowing Shunusuke’s truck to transport Inu Yasha to safety had been pure luck, not planning, but it had all worked out much better than he’d imagined because of it. He only wished he could see what was going on inside the Bubble. Two of Hong Kong cinema’s biggest stars and one mortally wounded half-demon battling a ridiculous magical girl in a pastel bubble. Damn fine comedy, that.

        "I can feel him!" Shunusuke insisted. "It’ll be easier to find him if you let me drive!" He pushed his sister away from the driver’s side door.
        She pushed back. "Just get in the back seat and give me directions, Shunusuke!"
        Kagome snatched the keys out of Yuki’s hand with an angry snarl and pressed them into Shunusuke’s palm. "Yuki, let him drive. We don’t have time for this!" With that, she opened the driver’s door and got into the back seat, leaving the passenger seat for Yuki.
        Shunusuke gave his sister a smirk, then pushed her aside and got behind the wheel. "Trust me. I’m a really good driver."
        "You’ve rolled every truck you’ve ever owned!" She argued but got in on the passenger side, anyway.
        "But not one, single car!" He shot back with a triumphant grin. He turned the key, floored the gas pedal, took off the emergency brake, then lifted his foot off the brake and rammed the car into second gear in a shriek of burning rubber.
        The girls screamed and hung on for dear life as Shunusuke fishtailed on the turn onto the main road, then wove through traffic like a maniac. "This thing corners like it’s on fuckin’ rails, Yuki!"
        "If you total my Beemer, Shunusuke," Yuki wailed as she fought to get her seatbelt on without getting tossed into her brother’s lap on another turn, "you are so dead!"
        In the back seat, Kagome was praying with the passion of a saint.