Mirrors of the Fox

Abby Ebon

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Disclaimer; I do not own InuYasha or YYH.

(Once called "Asahi's Mirror")

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Chapter One: Mother of the Morning Sun.

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In the autumn rain, sloshing through the fallen foliage, a woman made her way to the ruins; these were the ancient remains of an even older estate then the main house. Her figure – crouched as it was, could still be made out in the light downpour of rain, for her stomach protruded out with an unborn child.

Her breaths were labored –it was not the rain-like tears that gave way her fear, but the sobs catching in her throat her most hysterical moment. She, youngest – and most powerful of her family, had been made weary by the walk from the main house to the ruins. This had never, in her life, happened to her before.

So this is what a half-demon brat gets me? She thought sarcastically; one hand resting on her stomach, the other leaned against the spider-web like cracks in the walls of the estate. Her nails clenched into the wall – unnoticed by the woman, they left dents. Death, then, is the only answer - to it - and me, for my stupidity…

With the rain fell tears of regret – regret that for the spring celebrations she had let herself be lured to a demon. In the weeks that followed the sordid affair, she had assured herself when he came to her at night, that, he's kind - a demon – particularly, the kitsune (of which he was), she had thought with bitter regret, would not leave its mate or child, human, or half human, not even for another fox-demon.

She had been proven wrong that night, when she had told him of his unborn child, and the night after, he had not returned, and now – near the child's birth, she was alone. She closed her eyes, remembering simpler times.

That - when she had been younger, this simple old room in the ruins had been swept religiously by their mother of the dead leaves that now blanketed the floor, it had been a pretend fort, house, and castle; though she knew now that that was not far from the truth of this place. Memories of the laughter of her older brothers and sisters, echoed, unheard - and eerie in these silenced ruins.

The light rain that had started as she had left the main house had ceased altogether, although she hadn't noticed – lost in her thoughts. Now, as sunlight seeped into the hauntingly silent room, she took notice. A doll – forgotten, with times aid, lay in a corner of the ruins – it had, by accident or design, been abandoned by her – or one of her sisters, in their childhood.

She rubbed the wetness of what she told herself to be rain from her cheeks, turning her head to where the well laid. Her ancestors had made the well the central part of the courtyard, making their estate around it. As a child, her grandmother had told her the well had been build long before the estate – and no one know who, or what, had build it. Or for what reason, for no water could ever be drawn from it, no matter how deep they dug.

Suddenly, as she moved from the shadow of the ruins to the courtyard, fully intending to throw herself over the side of it, she heard… something. A slight frown marred her face, and she considered that –just maybe, her kitsune lover had followed her out here – to beg her forgiveness, shaking the hope away, she made her way over to where the sound had come from

"Hello, is anyone out there?" She called out, her voice echoing oddly through the ruins.

"Ahhhroew!" It was a sound unlike any other, a call of a demon – alike to a cats meow and a child's scream. It came from behind her – from the well. A shadow fell over her, and she spun around, and a deceitfully gentle wind brushed her cheeks. A chill ran down her spine - an unseen danger tug at her senses, desperate for her attention.

Her family had been cursed – or blessed, with the ability to sense the intensions of demons. This one, she knew, did not want to hurt her – but to kill her child, but, she knew, that, in turn would kill her. She had not indented to die by a demon's hands – but it seemed to be what fate intended.

She called her power to her – and another power answered – sung along her veins, pounded through her blood. She had not intended to – but she had awakened something that had been sleeping. Beneath her the ground shook – and the demon she knew to be there paused, startled as she was.

A melody, haunting and alive – like the bone drums her grandfather had played at her grandmother's funeral, echoed receptively through the ruins, calling – tugging at her senses, forward the melody seemed to urge to me, to the well.

The well, the one her family had guarded in some way or another, for over a thousand or more years. The one she had thought dead – the magic and energy of it sealed, broken by the ancestry seal, was now broken.

Unexpectedly, she found herself standing over the well – she did not remember walking to it, but she must have. Her stomach, filled with an unborn child, pressed against the warm and alive stone of the well.

The beating of the bone-drums seemed to grow louder – shockingly so, and she would have lurched away, had not the demon, which had remained hidden until now, lunged at her and – harsh claws grabbed her, pushing them both down into the well.

She woke to the darkness of the well, and the worst smell she had ever scented – blood, her own blood made her gag – it came from between her legs, swallowing down her fear, hysteria tickling the back of her throat, as she was sitting up, she looked around.

Her eyes adjusted to the night. She thought she might throw up, covering her mouth; she looked up, a shudder of both horror and hopelessness running through her. She was in the well. She was trapped. She closed eyes; she did the only thing her body allowed.

She screamed.

For the first time in her life, she cried. She had lost everything- her lover, her dignity. All because of the stupid half-demon brat she carried, now it seemed she would lose her life to exposure, because she could not even choose her own way to die.

She shivered in both fear, and from the cold; she huddled into a protective – if prone, position.

A shadow covered her own – casting her into darkness, seemingly without hope, from what little moonlight that had entered the well – she saw now why it was now blocked. She looked up- in time to see poisonous – and acidic saliva drop onto her shoulder, slowly eating its way into her flesh. She whimpered in pain, and a soft deadly hiss reached her ears- her eyes clouded quickly, she was falling into the darkness of sleep – a darkness she knew she would not awake from.

Snake eyes, that were luminous soft silver, looked into her emerald ones; demon and human stared eye to eye.

The demon hissed, curling its scaled body around hers, and lifting her limp body out of the well. She couldn't muster the strength to move. The poison had done its job well; she was becoming drowsy and tired - despite the pain of it eating through her.

Ever so slowly, darkness claimed her…

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Icy gold eyes watched as the snake demon took the silly pregnant human, who had likely fallen from the well. The sliver coat of the dog demon, glinted in the moonlight, as it prepared to leave, rather then watch the snake feast off of the woman and her unborn pup. A silver tail swooshed back, and the dog demon – a female, prepared to leave them.

Then, as she- known as Tsukiojou, inhaled to locate her mate and pup – instead she froze, and turned back to the ugly sight – the pup that the snake demon forced from the woman was demon – a half-demon fox kit. Tsukiojou's parental instincts stirred, and she knew herself now unable to leave the kit, helpless, blind, and forced from the women's womb before its time.

Whiskered lips came up in a silent snarl – and Tsukiojou lunged for the snake demon, biting cleanly into its neck, and feeling the satisfyingly crunch of its neck snapping. She shook it for good measure and went to the human – and the kit.

Humans, Tsukiojou knew nothing about - but the mother had lost an alarming amount of blood – but, despite its unorthodox birth, the kit was unharmed – if mewling rather insistently for milk. Tsukiojou huffed a breath of her air at its scrunched up and human-like face as it took a breath, forcing it to take in her scent, it cooed up at her, and carefully she shifted into a human-like form.

Tsukiojou was pale under the moonlight, small, barely noticeable silver hairs covering her skin, and a long mane of silver hair covered her shoulders, and fell down to her thighs. She reached out to the infant, her hands were small, and looked soft, and where her nails might be, were claws.

As Tsukiojou held the kit, she was careful to lift the half-human kit with only the palms of her hands, so his delicate and frail skin would not tare on them. Tsukiojou sat there – letting it nurse when it mewled its need, she was torn between taking the infant to raise him as her own, or to wait for its human mother to wake.

Under pale moonlight she nursed him – a keen prang went through her, of missing her own mate and pup, hoping they would understand her need, Tsukiojou waited even longer - just for the human to wake. As the morning sun dawned, and she did not show signs of stirring, Tsukiojou grew frustrated with the waiting; she stood, looking down at the bloody – yet still alive, woman.

What kind of mother does not waken to protect her young? The dog demon thought down at her – sneering, for she would have known if a stranger lay so near her cub, and, even as injured as the human- even with the drugs from the snakes bite, Tsukiojou would have fought till her last breath to protect it – half demon or not.

Tsukiojou lifted the kit to her chest to nurse, and feeling quite disgusted by humans – left the clearing near the well, the kit to her cheat, and her mind cleared to finding her mate and pup and introducing the newest member of the family to them.

She found her mate, in his dog-demon form, pacing franticly at the entrance to the meeting place. Upon seeing her, he too grew into the shape of a human-likeness; he too had pointed ears and the tell-tale streak beneath his amber eyes.

Unlike her, he favored holding back his mane of silver hair into a pony tail, while she favored some of hers in short locks before her ears, and the rest in two pony tails.

"Tsukiojou! Where have you been?" Her mate, the Inu no Taishou, demanded.

I…I shouldn't be alive…The human woman thought as she came to, somehow, she knew she had survived the removal of her child – and now she lay against the edge of the well outside of the well, when she so clearly remembered being inside it– which had returned to its stony coldness, none the less she was outside of it, and so very… tired.

She sighed - exhausted, closing her eyes – knowing it was a bad idea, yet unable to help doing so. The well beside her alit aglow in a soft blue and hummed, and like a bone hitting a piece of steel, its duty done, and the only sign that it was calling the nearby villagers to it.

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Tsukiojou; "Moon-Queen"/ "Queen-Moon", no, this is no way shape or form the name of Sesshomaru's mother. It's an inside joke - sort of. Well, now that we know what Sesshomaru's mother looks like (look it up in wikipedia), I really couldn't help but notice some similarities between… his mother and Queen Serenity of Sailor Moon Change the eyes a bit, twist those side locks into buns, and tilt that crescent moon just so and there you are, a moon queen. I had debated long and hard over if she would just be called "Mother" or nothing, this gives me amusement, thus – it is.

AN: The idea of Asahi is an old one for me. It – like The Shadow Walker started with the idea of an original character, that quickly revealed him self to be not-so-original. The questions of things – like, why is Sesshomaru so cold to InuYasha, and the world in general, when his mother claims his father being alike to being "charming". Clearly, not all Dog-Demons are so frigid with their outlooks. Obviously, he did not have such a bad childhood - so what could have turned him out so?

Then, I'm afraid, comes in the question of "Asahi", of Minamino Shuichi and Youko Kurama. Shuichi claims that his mother, Shiori, taught him to love again. Well, why did he need to relearn it? What had been the demon-child's early life been like? Had he fought his entire life to live like a thief? It seems obvious to me that something outside the norm happened between his old life of being a 'lone' thief and relatively well-off, that led to his teaming up with Yomi to become Demon Lords, and then later taking Yomi's eyes. When I saw Youko Kurama transform – and compared it to InuYasha, he looked like a half demon. What if he had been one?

So I devised my own answer of a sort – that both had had childhood friends, close enough to be brothers perhaps, which had left them between these two critical points in their lives (the Inu no Taishou's death/ Youko Kurama being dismissed by other demons because he was half-demon) . Then other people had tried to step in and take over their lives – so what if 'Youko Kurama' before he was so cold was a Brother-of-Spirit to a young and somewhat lonely Sesshomaru?

Thus, Asahi was born, to be a child-name, of the later self-named Youko Kurama.