Disclaimer: I do not own Inu-Yasha or other associated characters. Original character Ayame Yokokama copyright belonging to me. You would not want to know what I would do with either half-brother if they belonged to me. Now, leaving you with those thoughts to chase each other and torment the living hell out of you, I give you my Fan fiction.

Fumetsu no Fushigi

Immortal Mystery

Chapter One

Inu-Yasha stopped, dropping Kagome from his back. He glowered slightly as Sango, Shippo, Kirara, and Miroku slowly caught up with him and Kagome.

"Inu-Yasha, why are we stopping? I thought we just took a break not too long ago."

He sniffed. "I hate that."

"Wha-." Sesshoumaru smirked, coming out from the trees. The group stared at Sesshoumaru uneasily, not knowing his intentions. Only Inu-Yasha actually glared at him.

Sesshoumaru cocked his head to the side, puzzlingly amused, "What is it, little brother? Have I done something to offend you?"

Inu-Yasha growled, then leaped at Sesshoumaru. The half-brothers battled on, throwing insults and taunts at each other. A woman with soft, white skin, silver hair and odd glowing blue eyes stood at the edge of the clearing, shaking her delicate-featured head slowly.

Miroku was, as usual, the first to spot the beautiful woman. He started forward, but stopped, an odd look on his face. "What's wrong, Miroku?" Shippo, having spotted the woman and Miroku's hesitance.

"That woman has an aura I've never seen."

"When will they learn?" The strange woman's voice floated over to them, soft melodious, and strangely melancholy.

"Sesshoumaru, Inu-Yasha. Kōru."

The two half-brothers froze, as if they had never been moving, or as if they were posing for an artist. Not a muscle twitched; only their eyes moved. The strange woman with strange aura walked from the shadows of the forest to the area of the fight. Sesshoumaru's eyes widened in first shock, then recognition. She touched first him, then Inu-Yasha. Sesshoumaru, knowing what to expect, caught his balance fairly quickly, but remained silent. Inu-Yasha, having no knowledge of what was to happen, fell flat on his face. The others stifled giggles.

"WHAT THE HELL! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!"

Inu-Yasha jumped up and, Tetsusiaga in hand, marched over to the woman. Sesshoumaru insinuated himself between the two.

"No, Inu-Yasha. You don't want to do that. Don't you remember her?"

There was a pause.

"No. Should I?"

Kagome had inched her way to Inu-Yasha. She laid her hand on his arm.

"Why don't you introduce us, Sesshoumaru, since we don't know her and you seem to know her?"

The woman smiled, nodded and tapped Sesshoumaru's shoulder. She nodded to him. He sighed, stepped aside and motioned to her.

"This is Ayami Yokokama, my mother."

Stunned silence followed that proclamation. They stared at the two. It dawned on them and they noticed small similarities between the mother and son. A mark here, a mark there; the delicate arch of a brow; the tilt of their heads; the soft, white of their skin. The only major difference was height. Ayami came up to only his mid-stomach. She smiled benignly up at them, looking more and more like a nymph, or fairy… Some sort of faerie creature. Inu-Yasha got so close to her, looking at her, that their noses almost touched. He had to bend down slightly, of course.

"Why do you look familiar?"

Ayami reached up and tweaked his nose, then scratched behind his ear, sending him into subliminal bliss. Sesshoumaru and Kirara rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Sango and Miroku tried to keep from laughing while Shippo rolled on the ground, howling with laughter. Kagome looked thoughtful, then mischievous, like a little devil in modern times.

"I took care of you when your mother was otherwise … detained. It took her a while, but she learned that I didn't want to harm you. She thought me the jealous cast-away until InuTaishou informed her that I had left him. After that, I became surrogate mother to you. Until I left, that is."

There was a crash, the sound of something large moving through the forest; something very large. Ayami and Sesshoumaru looked over their shoulders; the former looking languidly, the latter curiously.

"Hm. It seems we have company."

Her voice sounded languid, bored. She turned and encompassed then all in her clear blue, piercing gaze. From behind her, the forest erupted, literally, to reveal the creator of the noise. It was a large, dragon-shaped youkai.

"I smell dirty hanyou. Heh heh heh … I guess I get the chance to exterminate two dirty-blooded hanyou." His voice grated like scales on stone; deep, rasping, and nerve-rending to the humans, especially to the hanyou and youkai.

Ayami closed her eyes in aggravation. Blood-red coloring stained her silver hair, spilling out from her scalp. Dark, black thunderheads rolled in, changing the beautiful day to night. The humans, Inu-Yasha, and Sesshoumaru backed away. Sesshoumaru remembered clearly, more than Inu-Yasha, who was struggling to bring his memory into sharper focus, the last time something like this happened.

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Flashback from Sesshoumaru

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Ayami, Sesshoumaru, and Inu-Yasha were walking through the youkai city. Inu-Yasha had, at first, visibly had his "doubts," verbally too. Sesshoumaru glanced at his little half-brother, holding onto Ayami's hand. Mother says I'll come to hate him. When will that happen, I wonder? I'm not sure it's all that possible.

"Auntie Ayami! Can we get some sweets? I wanna give okaa-san something good after dinner."

Ayami laughed, "Okay. We'll head that way later on. Just remind me."

"Hey!" It was a youkai, one of the residents. "Hanyou aren't allowed in the city. So you and the brat will have to leave."

She turned around to face the youkai, tilting her head innocently, while red tainted her silver hair.

"Did you just call me a hanyou? The pup is hanyou, but he's under my protection, so he's allowed in. You called me hanyou, didn't you?"

He looked a little worried, but was confident. "Yeah, now get out. Your kind isn't allowed in here."

Ayami took a slow step forward; masked anger and undulated, unrestricted power flowed off her, in the ways of auras.

"And what is my kind? You've never encountered us before, because I am the first to leave. Look, now you've made me angry. Time to pay."

She advanced, hair half blood-red. The overconfident youkai jumped at her, seeing a fight on its way. There was a brief flurry of movement, and then the youkai was slammed against a wall, several bits of skin and blood lighter.

"If you ever, EVER threaten me, the pup, or call me a hanyou, you won't get off so easily." She threw him into the building opposite; it went down, becoming nothing more than a pile of rubble. She looked over her shoulder as she walked away, all the youkai except a little girl, the beat-up youkai, Sesshoumaru and Inu-Yasha, had backed way off. "Next time, you won't live to tell the tale of our encounter."

The little girl timidly asked Ayami to fix her house. Ayami smiled, nodded, patted the girl-pup on the head, and walked over to the rubble. The subject of attention moved; the youkai that had been thrown into it got up and, seeing Ayami, scrambled off. An instant later, it was good as new.

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End flashback

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Lightning flashed, bringing Sesshoumaru out of his reverie. He looked up in time to see his mother turn around and send a clumsy air rend to the ryuu youkai. He dodged it and whipped around to laugh at the puny little weak "hanyou", but only to find she wasn't there. High above them, Ayami floated, seeming to radiate white light.

"YOU DARE CALL ME HANYOU! I AM NOT EVEN YOUKAI! OR HUMAN!"

"Then what are you!"

Ayami smirked. "I am your worst nightmare and fear embodied. I am power incarnate. Good bye."

"Wha-" Lightning struck him, not normal lightning, but a large, green bolt of sizzling power. Ayami landed lightly on the ground as the clearing and surrounding forest was blanketed by soft, fine, white ash. Ayami smiled sweetly, looking as she did before, when they first met. The clouds dispersed, revealing it was later than everyone thought.

"Well. Who's up for something new to do? Anyone got any ideas?"

"I… have Munchkins. This game we play in my time," Kagome peeped up.

Ayami looked excited and eager at that prospect. She clapped.

"Any objections? It's settled then. We'll stay here for the night and play Munchkins."

Sesshoumaru chuckled and shook his head while Inu-Yasha groaned. Sango looked indifferent, Miroku curious and Shippo excited. Kirara had disappeared. Sango looked around for a moment, curious as to where Kirara had gotten off to, frowned and shook her head as she and the others went about setting up camp. Ayami and Kagome stood aside, whispering in a conspiratorial way. It seemed as though they were conspiring to play a joke on someone, or several some ones.

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A/N: Kōru, for those of you that don't know, means "freeze." I just want all the readers to know that this story is definitely not going to be one-shot. I like throwing all these goody little things to mess with them in the mix. I know, I'm an ebil person. XD