Protector by Mystic Miko

Enter the Hunters

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, but this plot is mine.

A cigarette butt hit the side of a rust red brick wall filled to the brim with graffiti. Thick grey smoke was released from a mouth, full red lips opening into a small oval to release the toxic smoke one last time just before the butt hit the puddle scoured alley way with a subtle hiss as it drowned in a particularly large expanse of dirty water.

The woman closed her mouth after the last vestiges of the smoke left her lungs, her shoulders straightening and her hands brushing away a few stray black hairs off of her face. Her deep blue eyes turned when the sound of echoing footsteps entering the alley met her ears. A tall young man with bright red hair and sparkling green eyes stepped into view. He wore dark washed blue jeans that hung low on his hips and a green shirt that almost matched the same vibrancy of his eyes, its sleeves rolled up to allow faintly muscled forearms to show though.

He frowned when he got closer to the woman, his nose scrunching up slightly.

"Kami Kagome, do you have to do that? You know those things will kill you right? Plus, the smell of cigarette smoke is worse than the smell of death, especially to a youkai, you know that!" Kagome snorted and waved a hand that faintly glowed a light lavender colour through the air.

"Is that better Shippou? Jeez, you'd think you'd have gotten used to it by now. I mean really, how many cases have we worked together on? Hundreds? Plus there's that whole thing where we live in the same place." Shippou snorted and looked down at the blood covered cement and gore splattered brick walls before looking back at Kagome. Kagome sighed and looked down at her flared blue jeans, navy blue top and black trench coat with a sigh when she noticed that the blood had already somehow managed to soak into the bottoms of her overly long jeans.

"Fuck I hate this job sometimes, I mean really, I just washed these today!" Shippou shook his head, by now knowing that Kagome's way of dealing with their job was to make ridiculous comments on unimportant things.

"Come on Kagome, the cops aren't going to like it when they find out that you've been stepping all over their crime scene." Kagome scoffed and tightened her messy bun of thick black hair.

"Please Shippou, they don't care, the only reason they get pissed is because they know that we're the only organization that can deal with demon killings. It's not my fault that the guys take some sort of offence to a female showing them up." Shippou snorted, something that sounded very familiar to Kagome's way of voicing things.

"Ya, well that may be true but we still only have an hour to case this joint before some human figures out what's going on. Shit man, is it me or do these killers get more violent as the days go by or what." Kagome shook her head and sighed.

"Che, I think so. I mean, remember when crazed youkai used to be easy to track down, they'd stay within a foot of their kill because they wanted to show of what they'd done. And now look at us, we have to track down psycho youkai who find some intense pleasure with ripping their victim to shreds and painting the remains all over the walls and flood for us to find without leaving a trace behind."

Shippou grimaced at Kagome's little spiel but said nothing, opting instead to lower his large silver case to the ground, open it, and take a clear glass vial out. He then took a sample of blood and started to take pictures of the wounds. He didn't need to do much else, they didn't track youkai the same way the police tracked a human killer, mostly because youkai --even the simplest ones-- left no trace of themselves behind after their kill.

No, the only way to track a youkai was to see if the way they killed was in the database and if it could be narrowed down to a specific breed of youkai. Then they had to see if it was a specific type of prey or stretch of territory that the youkai killed on. Of course, that wasn't all, there were always operatives on the lookout for any suspicious looking youkai. And, if you were lucky enough to have a miko or monk on loan from the Holy Council on your team you could easily track them by getting the miko or monk to trace the youkai's power signature and lead the rest of the team straight to the youkai.

Which was why Shippou was immensely thankful that he always worked with Kagome on cases. She was a miko, a very powerful miko too. Usually the Holy Council only sent their people to work on cases with youkai Hunters if the youkai proved to be hard to track and highly dangerous. Bet there were a few operatives of the Holy Council that didn't get assigned, they were allowed to help whoever they wanted. Those people were rare and always powerful and respected, allowed to do what they would and only having to report to the Holy Council because the Council trusted them enough to do what was best.

That or there were those Holy operative that somehow managed to piss the Holy Council off enough that they were allowed to do what they wanted just so that the Council didn't have to deal with them so long as they put their powers to good use. A monk named Miroku and Kagome herself were a few of those select people. Kagome and Shippou had lived together before Kagome had been given free reign from the Council. They had met through Kagome's old boyfriend named Inuyasha and had been friends ever since. After Kagome was given free reign she had decided to work with Shippou on all of his cases, not that he minded in the slightest. It meant that less people were killed and his cases took far less time. Plus he got to work with his best friend and roommate every single day.

"So Shippou, tell me again why the police even bother casing a crime scene if it was a youkai killer, I mean, they never do anything to help us anyway, and I'm not even sure if they actually put the evidence through the system." Shippou sighed.

"Kagome, you know as well as I do that they do it so that it looks like they actually do something, some humans still think that just because most of the operatives in the Hunter organization are youkai that we won't try our best to kill the youkai who's responsible. They feel better if they think that the police are there too, looking in on it and all." Kagome gave a snort of distain.

"Idiot, honestly, sometimes I wish I didn't share the same race as them." Shippou shook his head.

"This coming from the immortal miko who protects one of the most dangerous objects ever created so that humankind can continue living."

"Hey, I said sometimes didn't I? Besides, if anyone ever got their hand on the Shikon I doubt that humans would be the only species to suffer, no doubt youkai would die too." Shippou nodded and then sighed in relief when he was done taking pictures of the dead man's wounds.

"I'm done, did you already get the youkai signature?" Kagome gave him a slightly scathing look.

"No, I've just been standing here looking at the lovely shade of red on the walls. Come on, if we hurry we can probably catch this bastard before nightfall, he doesn't seem to be that far away." Shippou nodded and packed his case up, grabbing his keys from his back pocket and falling into step beside Kagome. As she walked her black trench coat caught on a slight breeze a flailed behind her like an ominous black cloud, a testimony that something would die that day.

Thanks for reading.

Mystic Miko