A child in scrappy clothes awakes in his family's modest home a little ways away from a certain village that was once host to a powerful jewel. That village is famous for many things: from being the second homestead for a family of monks and demon hunters; to its historical burial site of the late High Priestess Kagome; and by having the indefinite protection of a certain notoriously hot-headed hanyou.
The boy rushes through his chores and inhales his meager breakfast before addressing his family and running towards a trail in the forest.
His mother laughs. This has become a routine ever since they migrated here.
The boy carries his rucksack over his small shoulders as he makes his way to a very familiar clearing surrounded by trees with branches that look comfortable enough to sleep on.
Yet the child finds the object of his search sleeping akimbo near a dwindling fire, his sword clutched to his chest, and white hair tangled almost opaquely covering his face.
The boy smiles gap-toothed, running towards the fabled hero as he reaches into his sack and pulls out his mother's breakfast gruel and two well-sized fish his father caught in a nearby river.
He settles his inventory, noticing how tired the demon must be to have not already heard him coming, as he walks off to gather firewood and stronger twigs to tie together so he can better roast with.
By the time the child is back, Inuyasha is beginning to stir so he walks briskly, dropping a few stray twigs along the way.
As the hero's face gets closer and closer, the boy notices something strange. There's clearly something different about the man but what?
Everything seems to be in place until Inuyasha lifts his head groggily and squints at him.
And there it is.
The boy giggles and points at the hanyou's face. "Nii-chan, your face looks funny today!"
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Inuyasha scowls, confused, but waves it off as just the kid being silly.
Afterall, it takes a special kind of stupid to walk in the woods every morning just to make sure a demon eats breakfast.
The kid gets to work, trying to blow the fire back to life, until he blows too hard - sending ash into his face.
Inuyasha grimaces as the kid immediately starts to cry. He scoops the kid up and comforts him, wiping tears and soot of the kid's fat cheeks and tiny nose with his fire rat robes.
As the kid settles into his hold and the cries turn to whimpers, the hanyou can feel a rumbling in his chest as warmth radiates through him. It's strange that before now he would never think of sharing skinship with the brat but the sound of the child in pain suddenly pulled him into instinctive action.
As alien as that instinct is, the hanyou can't put it in him to reject the kid now to save face. All he manages to do is grumble and scold the brat for trying a task too big for him, the fire slowing into a tendril of smoke.
After Inuyasha finishes off the last fish, he instantly regrets hugging the kid.
It's like the floodgates have opened and now he can't do anything without the kid wanting to go piggyback.
He walks towards the village with the kid in his arms, babbling on about this rabbit his mother is letting him keep or it might be about his dream last night that had Inuyasha getting married to a Prince from a far away kingdom.
Really he stopped listening after the first mile, if he's being honest.
"Nii-chan, how come your teeth are so sharp?"
"So I can better scare twerps like you." Is his monotone reply.
"That's silly, Nii-chan. You're not scary. You're pretty!" The kid giggles and plants a gross kiss on the hanyou's cheek.
Inuyasha frowns but keeps any outrage to himself. There may be a slight blush on the inside of his dog ears but who's to say?
The village has much of the same charm it held when his ragtag group of warriors assembled for the first time. Only culture has changed to some extent.
The people are much more welcome to the hanyou. He's some kind of novelty. A walking story book character from the legacy Kagome left behind. If adults aren't revering him to an untouchable pedestal, they're children are invading his personal space.
At least he isn't on the same level as Kirara - once the companion to a demon hunter, now treated like a beloved mascot/unofficial royal. He can understand now why Shippou long decided to dedicate himself to gaining tails, becoming a fabled scholar and illusionist.
It's been awhile since his last visit, about twenty human years, but now Inuyasha is realizing time passes differently for him.
His face has yet to harden with young adulthood; it took Shippou of all people to tell him he was still considered a child to almost all demon standards.
He would have had no problem with that if his immunity for time's effects was not so contrasted by the humans who have cared for him.
But for all he minds and quietly suffers, he is by all accounts his father's son; his love for humans has always been a habit he has yet to shake.
Even now, the hanyou watches as the child he carried to the village is carrolled towards morning lessons and he knows the child will die before him.
Which is why he never uses the kid's name; why he stopped keeping up with Sango's descendents; why he hadn't allowed himself to love Kagome as anything more than a friend.
It's why he stays lonely.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
The child tries his hardest to pay attention to the village elder but sooner or later his mind wanders; his body fidgets and he ends up drawing on his paper.
His muse is fairly obvious. There's no mistaking who the man with dog ears is.
The elder has already come to terms about how the child's brain is wired differently than his other students. He doesn't mind the extra attention this one requires nor is he shocked that stories of the hanyou's past are the main motivators for the child to learn.
As the elder ends this morning's lesson, he smiles at the child, who asks for "more drawing paper, please."
By the time the child is satisfied with his masterpiece, it is noon and the mighty half demon has returned, never really having drifted far to begin with.
The elder would almost call Inuyasha a mother hen if he didn't value his peace.
"Nii-chan, look it!! It's you!" The child launches his chubby body into the air for Inuyasha to reluctantly catch yet, the elder does not fail to notice the hanyou's smile.
The man chuckles as he retreats back into his home. If only the high priestess could see her friend now…
"Listen twerp, I'm not insulting your skills but at least get my face right."
"What are you talking about Inuchasha?" The kid asks from his seat on the half demon's shoulders, who is way too used to the kid's weird aversion to pronouncing his name right to start caring now.
"What's this shit on my face, kid? They better not be whiskers…"
"Its this stuff, Chasha! It's been on your face all day!" The boy slaps his hands lightly on the hanyou's cheeks.
"Oi, stop that or I'll start chomping." The hanyou carefully inspects the child's rendition of him. It's not far off. The kid even tried to add color and only the Gods know how the little twerp managed to find red ink.
Inuyasha scoffs at how enormous the brat drew his eyes, how the drawing has no nose and the permanent scowl etched in black.
What he can't shake off though are the scar like patterns on the drawing's face. Two scars (if he could put a name to it) run from the right side of his face to the outer edge of his cheeks. If Inuyasha didn't know any better, he'd say they were similar to his father's markings and by extension, Sesshomaru's.
Inuyasha hands the paper back to his passenger and continues onto their hike back to the kid's home before noon. He'll excuse the wannabe cat whiskers as an example of the boy's overactive imagination.
And if the right side of his face starts coincidentally itching...then it's just that.
He'll worry when it becomes a problem.