Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Half-breeds

"Inuyasha, I realize that those children were grossly out of line, but was it necessary to refuse our payment?" Miroku asked as he pulled the cart behind them that had been intended for their payment. Riding in it instead was a couple of young children who at the moment were completely silent, as though they thought they were in trouble. Inuyasha responded only with a low, furious growl as he kept his eyes straight ahead. He shouldn't have allowed this.

Takeshi and Izayoi had been begging for this for half a year now and finally he told them, just this once. Inuyasha had tried to keep an eye on the two, but eventually his role in the exorcism pulled him away from his self-appointed duty. As Inuyasha and Miroku completed their job, Inuyasha witnessed what he'd been dreading. A group of older kids were taunting them, calling them abominations and half-breeds. A shrill wail from Izayoi had made Inuyasha's blood boil – one of the bigger boys were pulling on her ears. Before he could make a move, Takeshi jumped on that boy, only to be swamped and pinned down by the other kids. Before he got to them, Takeshi had already endured a few punches.

"Dad, it wasn't our fault." Takeshi spoke up as he ran up to walk beside his father. The kid looked so much like him, though his amber eyes had a more human-like quality to them – a byproduct of the diminishing demon blood, some said. His bruises were starting to show themselves, including a black eye. The fact that he was only seven years old only added to the atrocity; most of those kids couldn't have been younger than ten. To say nothing of the attack on Izayoi, who was nearly identical to Kagome apart from her black dog-like ears and the same eyes as her brother. She was only five! "They pulled on her ears! It made her cry!"

"It's fine, Takeshi." Inuyasha said, forcing away the image of his little girl's tears. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. I should have known this would happen."

"It was inevitable, Inuyasha." Miroku said. "They're your children – they would never be content to stay in one village. You know Haru –"

"Shut up, Miroku!" the half-demon barked, feeling bad for it seconds later. Inuyasha knew he meant well, but he simply had no idea what he was talking about. Takeshi flinched – his father rarely spoke in such a way in his or his siblings' presents unless he was seriously angry. Inuyasha forced his gaze to soften at this and fondly ruffled the hair between his eldest son's ears – a frequent gesture of affection between the two. Today, it was meant as reassurance. He sighed deeply. "Takeshi, I'm not mad at you or your sister."

"They called us half-breeds." the boy said, gently pressing on the tender flesh around his bruised eye. Inuyasha had to repress a growl at this – those stupid brats didn't even know the difference. He himself might have been a half-demon, but his children were only one-forth demon, what was so hard to understand about that? And Kagome...they'd called her a – "What's a half-breed?" Inuyasha stopped in his tracks. He could see the hill that told him they were nearing home, but he didn't move.

The child watched with blind excitement as the ball bounce and sored away from a particularly hard kick. Not wanting the villagers' game to be ruined, he was happy to fetch their ball for them, but then he looked back. As the villagers quickly dispersed, Inuyasha could hear one of them call him an unfamiliar word. He echoed the word in confusion, running to his mother when he saw her. She cried when he asked her about the word.

Inuyasha had always known why she cried, but now he truly understood. Eight years ago, when Kagome had first told him she was pregnant, Inuyasha had sworn to himself, to her and to their unborn child that it would never know the hatred he had grown up with. He would not allow his children to be gossiped about, scapegoated for ridiculous things, or mistreated in any way.

Nine. He had been nine when he'd first heard that word. They...they were younger than he had been! And such kind souls. Takeshi might have been headstrong and bold, but he was always so eager to help out anyone who needed it, and Izayoi was often too sweet for her own good – yet another thing she got from her mother – and often spent more time lost in daydreams than in their world anyway. The people of their own village knew this.

Takeshi had been two years old and Inuyasha and Kagome had spent months going back and forth on weather or not to introduce their son to the village, him being fearful of this very thing. The villagers knew that Inuyasha and Kagome had a child, and Kagome was adamant that Inuyasha at least give it a try. This had turned out far better than he had expected; the kids only briefly curious about the child's appearance before playing with him, the women cooing over how adorable and sweet he was, and some of the men even complementing Inuyasha on what a fine boy he had sired. A year later, the infant Izayoi received much the same warm reception.

He'd let himself get his hopes up. Of course the villagers back home accepted his children, they accepted him. They knew him. Heck, some of them considered him a friend, why would they shun his children? Hohaku loved them, Rin loved them, even Sesshomaru seemed to tolerate them, if his constant silencing of Jaken's equally constant bemoaning of their very existence was any indication. More miraculous still was that Takeshi had even found a best friend in, of all children, Koga and Ayame's son Kiba. Inuyasha and Koga had buried the worst of their feud before Kagome had returned, and they privately agreed that their wives had set this up purely to annoy them.

"Inuyasha!" Inuyasha blinked himself out of his trance. Miroku and Takeshi was looking at him questioningly. "We're late."

Inuyasha hummed as he went to the back of the cart, picking up his now sleeping daughter. She snuggled into him and her pained wail still rang in his ears in spite of her now peaceful look. As he rejoined Miroku and Takeshi, he grabbed the cart with his free hand and hauled it up the hill. He unceremoniously parked the thing in front of Miroku's hut, barley stopping his stride towards his own hut, where Kagome appeared in the door. Her bright smile faded when she took in her husband's solemn mood as he carried their sleeping daughter. The unease turned to a mix of terror and outrage seeing their son walking beside him covered in bruises.

"Oh my God!" she muttered as she ran out to them, kneeling before her son and looking him over. "Takeshi, what happened? What did they do? I think I might have some comfrey poultice left –" she paused and looked up at Inuyasha with an almost pleading look. "Inuyasha?"

"Let's just get back inside." he said, seeing the sun beginning to set. "I'll tell you about it tonight."

Minutes later, Inuyasha could hear Takeshi groaning about the poultice his mother was rubbing him with as he tucked Izayoi in. Sleeping beside her was his and Kagome's youngest, Haru. Unlike his siblings, Haru actually looked more like Sota with black puppy ears. If there was any silver lining to this whole thing, it was that Kagome had declared the two-year-old to be too young to go with them. Unlike his rambunctious brother and sister, Haru had always rather timid and sensitive, preferring to stick by which ever parent was closest at any given time; he would never be able to deal with that treatment.

He stood up, needing the company of his wife tonight. He walked towards the fire-pit and saw the fire starting to weaken. He nodded to Takeshi as the boy walked by, looking exhausted from the day. The comfrey poultice was already lightening the bruises as he climbed into the futon with his siblings. It was actually a nice change of pace for Inuyasha and Kagome; since his birthday, Takeshi had often fought to stay up longer, but today had simply been too strenuous.

When he was sure the kids were all asleep, Inuyasha nodded – a cue to Kagome that they were alone. She wanted desperately to speak, but what could she say? Her children had been victimized in a way that she would never be able to understand, a way that had deeply affected her husband. Sensing her inability to speak, Inuyasha extended his arm, silently beckoning her to him. Wordlessly, she moved closer to him and buried her of her face in his chest as wrapped his arm around her.

They held each other as Inuyasha told her everything. About how those older brats ganged up on the kids, pulled Izayoi's ears and beat up Takeshi when he tried to defend her. Inuyasha faltered and growled when he told her about what else they'd said. The children were half-demons and their mother was a disgraceful harlot to bare a demon's young. He calmed down when she began stroking him.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to them." he whispered into her hair. The intoxication of her scent mixed with the fatigue he was beginning to feel gave him the feeling of hazy floating.

"Shhh." Kagome soothed, tightening her grip on him. He moaned, relaxation dripping from his voice. The last embers had died out and it was now completely dark apart from the moon and starlight coming through the windows. "Let's go to bed, Inuyasha. You need to rest." This was a very welcome sentiment to the man.

While Inuyasha generally disapproved of Miroku's borderline robbery of the villages they assisted, the man sometimes named prices too enticing to resist – case in point, a second futon for him and Kagome. At the time it was simply a spare, but then they're kids began growing. It sat near their children, where they could both watch over them and have time to themselves.

The couple climbed into the warm bed and Kagome cuddled up to Inuyasha as he took her back into his arms. He kissed the top of her head and smiled down at her. Today might have reminded him of how he grew up thanks to his blood. Tonight, however, reminded him of how lucky he was to have this in the first place. Jininji and Shiori both had places to live and loving mothers, but how many half-demons had their own houses apart from their parents, a loving wife and even three beautiful children. His spirits lifted for the first time since this morning, before he had reluctantly agreed to take the kids on the extermination. He finally fell asleep to Kagome's scent.

I've got a whole head-canon involving the kids. If they get enough love, I'll turn this into a series of oneshots starring them. On a sidenote; I am really not a fan of the whole 'randomly inserting Japanese words and phrases into a fic just to show I can do it'. Not to be rude, but it looks silly and kind of pretentious. Review.