"Will you hurry it up already?" Inu Yasha nagged as Kagome continued to fill her enormous backpack with food and other necessities.
"Look," Kagome nearly growled, annoyed with his impatience. "You're the one that said we were going on an extra long trip this time, so it's better to be safe than sorry by bringing along extra supplies."
"Which I'll probably wind up carrying anyway!" he snorted.
"It's not that I ASK you or anything!"
"You're too slow when you carry it yourself!"
"Well, EXCUSE ME FOR BEING HUMAN!!"
"You're not excused, wench."
"Ooo! Osuwari!"
*CRASH*
"OW! Bitch!"
"Serves you right!" Kagome turned away from him sharply. "Now why don't you go do something other than bug me for a change, hm?"
Inu Yasha peeled himself off of the floor and grumbled, sulking off to wherever Kagome wasn't. As he entered the living room, he spotted Souta playing one of his countless video games. Inu Yasha noted that it wasn't one of the boy's usual beat-'em-up games; rather it seemed much more focused on the music it was making, though there appeared to be a battle of some kind taking place behind the series of curved lines slithering toward the center of the screen.
"What in the seven hells is that?" the hanyou asked.
"Inu-no-niichan!" Souta beamed. "This is a new game that I got for my birthday the other day. It's called 'Gitaroo Man.' Wanna give it a shot?"
"What the hell is a gitaroo?"
"In this game, it's a musical instrument that looks like a guitar, but also serves as a weapon. To win, you've gotta play in time with the music, hitting the right buttons when the lines get to the ball in the middle of the screen."
"Keh! Weird..." Inu Yasha snorted, but continued to watch Souta play anyway. The tunes were catchy, and the hanyou soon caught himself twitching his ears to the beat. He growled inwardly to himself, but even with restraint, his ears still moved slightly to the melodies.
Inu Yasha had to admit to himself that the game did look rather fun to play, and when Souta finally completed the level he had been working on, the hanyou looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching and knelt down and whispered in the boy's ear.
"Lemme give it a shot."
Souta was all too willing to hand the controller over to his role model and idol. He pointed out the different buttons on the controller and explained what they did in the game. Taking a deep breath, Inu Yasha started on the first level.
Little did anyone know that lurking about the house, nearly invisible to the naked eye, was a demon. But this wasn't just any ordinary demon. No, this one had been, oddly enough, created here in the modern times, a combination of a 'modern' demon and an ancient one... In its forehead glowed the faint light of a Shikon shard.
As it peered out from TV at the gaming hanyou, it could not help but chuckle to itself.
"This ought to be fun!"
Kagome finished packing her bag and hauled it as best she could into the living room to find Inu Yasha. She probably would have broken down laughing at Inu Yasha's attempt to play a modern day video game if her miko senses hadn't picked up on the presence of the other demon in the room.
"Inu Yasha, there's something in here!" she darted her gaze about room, but saw nothing. "Inu Yasha! Are you listening to me?"
"What?" the hanyou irritatedly paused the game.
"There's a demon in here---I mean besides you!" she spat out. "And... I think it's got a Shikon shard!"
The controller dropped immediately from Inu Yasha's hands and he jumped up, ready to draw the Tetsusaiga at the drop of a feather. His ears twitched and he sniffed fervently to pick up the demon's scent, but the only smell he could pick up, besides those of Kagome and her brother, was the scent of electricity coming from the TV. Souta leapt behind his sister, trembling as he recalled the last demon he and his sister had had to deal with here in the present day.
It was dead silent in the room except for the occasional bit of static from the TV. As Inu Yasha listened, the sound of the static increased in volume.
"It's coming from the picture-box!" he growled, baring his fangs.
At that moment, the static noise erupted into laughter, and the TV screen turned fuzzy white.
"About time you noticed me!" an electric-sounding voice uttered. "I was beginning to think I'd never get any attention around here!"
"Where are you?" Inu Yasha drew his weapon, his ears swiveling to find the source of the voice.
"In the game." it replied icily.
"What!?" Kagome's heart skipped a beat as her gaze darted towards the Playstation 2 system on the floor.
"Let's play a little game, shall we?" the unseen stranger continued. "The winner gets my prized possession---a shard of the Shikon Jewel!"
"I knew it!" Kagome breathed.
"Come out, you coward!" Inu Yasha bellowed.
"No, no, no..." giggled the voice. "I must insist that you come IN!"
The TV fuzzed and crackled violently with electricity. Terrified, Souta ran out of the room, but not before watching as his sister and Inu Yasha were pulled into the television set. The screen fuzzed a moment more before resetting and displaying the title screen of "Gitaroo Man."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is Chapter 1. Where would you like to go next?
