A/N: And onto the first real chapter I go…I KNOW I said I wouldn't do this, but I've been writing little lately, and this was already written, and I wanted to update.I haven't written anything on this story, not on Runaway, and not on I Miss You either It's a dryspell since my battle with my boyfriend which has been resolved but apparently my creativity is still reeling from it. Class work doesn't help either... With any luck my writer's block will be broken in a matter of days. Wish me luck! In the meantime this is sorta meant to appease you, tho it's not Runaway.
A thought: Inuyasha and Miroku's (or is it Sango's in that case?) households are very close emotionally, physically they are some distance apart. A day or two of travel by foot. Although the families tend to train their children together and often visit with each other, months can go by, even years, between their visits. A gap of two years would be unusual but not impossible if Miroku and Inuyasha deliberately kept Koinu and Kasai from interacting. Her brothers might've trained with Koinu in the two year gap, but she would be kept away from that.
Disclaimer: Nope, I only own the kids
Last Chapter: Two years ago, on one of their first real outings acting as demon slayers, Kohimu and Tisoki (Miroku and Sango's oldest children) killed a salamander successfully. Kasai (their only daughter) got distracted by groping Koinu (Inuyasha and Kagome's son). Koinu has trouble handling Tetsusaiga, and feels like he's too human to please his father. Later, Miroku caught Kasai kissing a very astonished Koinu and asked Inuyasha to keep the two separated. Inuyasha took offence and left in the same instant with Koinu.
Two Fathers
There were many days when Miroku wished, out of embarrassment, that the hole in his hand had indeed sucked him into the nothingness. Age, and especially the births of his children, had cut his wandering hand short, for the most part. Yet the perversion within his family hadn't stopped—it continued on relentlessly in his children. There were many things that made him beam and spill over with pride, but today he would remember mostly the embarrassment.
It began simply enough. A messenger arrived searching for Sango and Miroku, seeking their expertise as demon exterminators. The clients were rich samurai lords with a recurring problem involving a mysterious nightly visitor to their palace. This apparition—for no one ever witnessed a physical creature involved with the trouble—left muddy footprints about the palace floors. With a massive wedding ceremony and banquet planned within the month, the family was understandably eager to be rid of their messy night guest.
When a payment was set for their services, Miroku set off for the palace, bringing along his daughter Kasai and second-born son Tisoki. Kasai and Tisoki had been gifted with his spiritual powers while the other children lacked the ability. In some ways, Miroku was thankful that it was limited mostly to Kasai and Tisoki because the strength of the trait was inexplicably linked with their perversion.
Lord Tanjintsu, a portly, balding man with a thin, starkly black beard, greeted them warmly in his large, grandiose audience hall. "The wedding is only days away, the bride's family is on the road even now, as we speak. I must have this apparition apprehended and you come highly recommended."
Miroku bowed, smiling coolly. "As a teenager some years ago, my wife was considered the best. She has apprenticed our children to her since before they were weaned. I have also imparted my knowledge as a monk."
Sitting just behind Miroku and to the left, Tisoki's breath was hitching, as if he were trying not to cough. Miroku's jaw tightened as he worked to ignore his son's reaction. He was sure, because it would've been how he thought when he was the boy's age, that Tisoki was hearing weaned in his father's words and immediately thinking of breasts of course. Never mind that the breasts in question were his mother's, he could follow that tangent away quickly and think about any random village girl instead. The difference between Miroku and his son was that Miroku had learned to hide his reactions a little better because he was beaten as a youth when he revealed himself in such a way. Tisoki had learned only the basics from his father, and received far less beatings.
He could add one more to that count as soon as they were alone. Tisoki's sniggering could lose them a job, or worse.
Fortunately Tanjintsu was more interested in Kasai on Miroku's left. His eyes flicked to her continually, his expression was wary, as if Kasai might be the apparition that was muddying his floors, not one of the exterminators to fix the problem. At last the lord pointed his decorative fan, a bright, shining gold thing, at Kasai and grunted. "You bring your…daughter with you on this journey, monk?"
None of them were dressed as demon slayers currently. Kasai wore a simple blue and green kimono in the samurai's court. Her ankles were dirtied from their journey to the palace, as was her face. In spite of her great beauty, Kasai always managed to get dirty, more like a boy than a girl. She was as fierce as her mother, but Tanjintsu would be able to see that she was Miroku's daughter without any doubt because she was his mirror image, but in a younger, feminine form.
Having a beautiful, now sixteen year old daughter had been one of the largest influences on changing Miroku's perversions. Now, as hypocritical as it was, he could punish Tisoki and deal with Sango's teasing remarks with a stone face because the thought that some hentai would come along and touch or abuse his daughter…
To Tanjintsu's question, Miroku nodded. "Yes, this is my only daughter, Kasai."
Tanjintsu nodded, smiling with open admiration and perhaps lust. "A shame, monk. She is too beautiful to be the only one."
Miroku and Tisoki shifted uneasily, both uncomfortable with the samurai's inappropriate attention. Kasai, meanwhile, failed to lower her eyes from him, and refused to blush. She stayed like stone, her nose pointed in the air, her face impassive.
Amazingly, Tanjintsu wasn't finished yet. He sat back and touched his beard with his golden fan, grunting thickly again. "Why, monk, would you bring this gem with you?"
Miroku bowed tensely. "Kasai is as gifted as my wife, Lord Tanjintsu. She also possesses my spiritual powers, which is why I have brought her to aide you in this extermination. My lord, perhaps we could discuss the details of this case, I have a few questions to—"
Tanjintsu waved his fan at Miroku irritably. "I wouldn't know anything about it, the maids deal with the mess before I'm awake. You'll speak to them and I expect it dealt with in two night's time." He had not removed his eyes from Kasai yet, and when he spoke it was to her directly now. "Girl—Kasai—I wish to hear you speak. Tell me; didn't your mother ever teach you it is proper to avert you eyes from a powerful man?"
"Mother taught me that, yes. When I see a powerful man, I'll avert my eyes." Kasai answered, dully.
Miroku closed his eyes and held his breath. Tisoki made the sounds in his throat again, trying very hard not to laugh.
Tanjintsu was silent for a moment, and Miroku was certain that he would call for the guards and have Kasai punished or arrested or any other number of horrible things for her rudeness, but just as Miroku opened his mouth to plead Kasai's case, Tanjintsu burst into laughter. As Miroku dared to stare into the samurai lord's face again, he saw the fat little man's belly rippling, even through the rich fabric of his robes. "You are well named, Kasai. An excellent, clever response." (A/N: Kasai, as I recall, means fire.)
He dismissed the slayers while still grinning, but Miroku felt his skin crawl when he saw it. The samurai lord's eyes had a darkness in them, a gleam of something that unnerved the monk.
Their room was beautiful, even though it was only one of the lesser guest rooms. Well-lit, with bright, golden braziers burning. Maids dressed in identical kimono served the three of them. Tisoki watched them come and leave again hungrily—but not for the food. Miroku kept an eye on his son, throwing him glares every time the young man opened his mouth. Each time Tisoki spoke, however, it was surprisingly well-mannered and perfectly behaved. He asked for more food or water or sake without incident and met his father's hawk-like eyes every so often, smiling smugly.
When they were at last alone, Tisoki took a sip of his glass, emptying it, and then faced Miroku directly. "You look worried, Father."
"I am." Miroku sighed, sitting back and adjusting his sleeves. "You are both exceptionally talented—but so much trouble, and undisciplined."
Tisoki sighed and rolled his brown eyes tiredly. "Oh no, not this again."
"You've been fine tonight." Miroku told him, though his tone was harsh and clearly insinuated that the evening was young, Tisoki had plenty of time to get into trouble still. He turned his violet eyes to Kasai and his shoulders sagged. "Kasai—how could you be so foolish?"
"Foolish?" the girl blinked, looking up. Their eyes were identical, father and daughter. "Father—that samurai pig was…"
"That doesn't matter." Miroku interrupted her, frowning with frustration. "You cannot dare to be so rude, especially to someone that is employing us."
"He started it; I was trying to make him stop looking at me like a piece of meat." She stabbed at her food with the chopsticks and made a face.
"That doesn't matter. You cannot be rude to a lord."
The argument might've gone on, but in that moment all three of them froze, turning inward. It was Tisoki that spoke first, echoing all of their thoughts. "It's here."
"Yes." Miroku agreed, nodding sternly. He looked to his son and asked, "Do you feel anything particular about it?"
Tisoki paused for a moment before frowning and shaking his head. "No, I can feel it, but nothing else." He pursed his lips, trying to concentrate further.
Kasai spoke, hurriedly almost interrupting. "It's a kitsune."
Miroku gazed at his daughter across the table with renewed warmth. There was a reason why Kasai was often his favorite—so far not only had she inherited his appearance, but she had also taken a firm grasp on the spiritual energy flowing inside of her. Her powers might've even surpassed Miroku's own. They certainly overshadowed Tisoki's.
"Yes, I sense that as well. It is entering the palace gardens about now…"
Tisoki rose to his feet, moving toward the corner where their weapons were stored. "What are we waiting for then?"
Miroku claimed his staff and a bundle of sutras that he had prepared before they'd journeyed to the palace. Tisoki tucked a sickle into his belt and looped the chain around him as well. There were also a few daggers that he hid around inside his clothes. Though it was rude Tisoki hadn't shed those daggers for the dinner, it saved him precious time now. Kasai had only one weapon—Burikko, the woman's sword.
The maids had already told the slayers what hallways were left dirtied by their nightly visitor, and, to make sure the slayers were in prime territory for it, they'd placed them in one of the guest rooms in one of the apparition's favored hallways. As the slayers donned their weapons, a few maids slid open the doors and entered, only to stop and gasp as they saw their guests putting on their weapons.
"Ladies—I'm sorry to startle you." Miroku was the first to speak, gesturing apologetically, trying to usher them in. "We are preparing for the extermination. It seems your apparition begins his nights early."
The maids were holding sleeping mats, ready to be spread for their guests. Cautiously they moved deeper into the room, setting up the beds. Then they attended to the plates left by their guests. Tisoki followed after them, asking if he could help. The maids were understandably skittish of a young man in his prime wearing a sickle on his waist. They finished clearing the table and left hurriedly. In their wake Tisoki pouted noticeably.
"You didn't think the weapons would impress them, did you?" Kasai teased him, smirking.
Tisoki glared at her. "Shut up."
Miroku shushed them both. "Douse the lights, calm your breathing. This room must appear dark. This hall is normally abandoned—presumably the apparition favors it because of it."
Kasai moved around the room, putting out the braziers and candles. Tisoki left the screens on the windows open, letting in the cool night air into the stuffy room. Miroku slid open the doors to the room, as it would be while not being used, then the three slayers moved to the corners of the room and knelt. They waited that way, unmoving, for the apparition to come inside.
Time passed. Miroku had taught each of his children the art of meditation, which allowed them now to pass the time silently and without worry. When the kitsune—the apparition as the maids and samurai lords deemed it—entered the palace, all three slayers opened their eyes again, searching out one another in the darkness.
The hall outside was silent. Air moved through the passageways, an occasional wind stirred the slayers' hair from the open windows. The temperature was dropping swiftly, falling away.
And then there came the faintest creaking sound from the hallway. In his corner, Miroku lifted a sutra in one hand and slipped it into the hand that was already grasping his staff, readying it for usage.
A shadow passed by one of the open sliding doors. It was lithe, long, and gray, like a cloud of smoke given form. It paused before the doorway and the leading part of it twisted around, peering it seemed into the guestroom. Twin spots of green light lit up inside the gray of the shadow, searchingly.
Tisoki struck first, throwing a dagger at the beast through the open space of the doorway. The dagger hit its mark with a small thumping sound and the shadow let loose with a high pitched keening. It leapt away, running out of the doorway, still shrieking.
"Stop it!" Miroku shouted, jumping to his feet.
Tisoki rushed for the door, another dagger already in his hand. The creature had left a sick, tar-like muck in a trail that was impossible not to follow—but now mixing with the muck was red-black blood in wet dribbles, sprayed on the fine sliding doors and screened walls, as well as the rich wood floor.
Miroku reached the next doorway, trying to head off the creature. It was still screaming, the noises changing, warping as they listened. The thing had not escaped out of their hallway yet, it hadn't even gone beyond their room completely. Miroku would be able to work with Tisoki to trap it in the hallway and kill it on the spot.
"Head it off!" Tisoki shouted as he reached the hall and darted into it. His feet caught and stuck in the tar-like mess the beast had left behind.
Miroku reached the hallway as well. He found himself staring down a long, straight stretch of it. Some twenty feet away at the first doorway into their guestroom, he saw Tisoki stumbling in the muck. Halfway between them he saw the shadow creature, pulsating before him. Its eyes, the green lights caught within the shadow, were pinned on Miroku, taking him in.
"Kitsune!" Miroku addressed it, shouting. "This is not your place! I will give you this one warning: leave this place now and never return to trouble these people again! If you do not I will be forced to bind you and purify you." As he spoke, Miroku snatched the sutra from where it was clasped in the hand that held his staff and held it out for the beast to see.
"Monk," The creature hissed, "You will pay for my wounds…"
Miroku took that as a negative answer to his attempt to get the creature to leave of its own will. He lifted the sutra and opened his mouth to shout the incantation to bind the creature, but before he could vocalize it, the kitsune slammed its body into the screen walls beside it.
Blood spurted, coloring the golden screens. The black muck followed as well. Some of it coated the walls and the floor, the rest came alive, oozing and rolling and crawling over the floor, grabbing at Miroku's bare feet. Down the hall Tisoki began to shout and scream.
"It's acid!" Miroku's son collapsed, crying out.
"No…" Miroku had a moment to realize that the muck was blocking his path back into the room. The kitsune had forced its way inside, straight through the screened walls. Kasai was inside, guarding the screen-less windows that still stood open to the night, a waiting exit for a desperate kitsune. "Kasai!"
The wraith-like kitsune bounded through the room, rushing for the window, not planning to stop even though Kasai stood firmly in its way, her sword unsheathed and at the ready. The black slime and blood flowed after the creature, trickling and oozing over the floor.
Kasai faced the monster and shouted an attack as it leapt at her. She saw a flash of white teeth, the sickly green glow of its eyes…
Burikko thrust upward, Kasai felt a weight on the blade as it hit home. She twisted, spinning flexibly, using gravity and her heavier weight to swing the kitsune free of her blade and across the room, away from her. It howled, screaming, and fell heavily on one of the unrolled, as yet unused sleeping mats.
Kasai gasped, pawing at the blood and black slime that had dribbled onto her. The substance burned her, stinging fiercely. She gritted her teeth and grasped her sword, crouching to regard her quarry.
The kitsune was slowly rising to its feet again. Its shape had become visible now, no longer indistinct and smoke-like. It was a gray fox the size of a large dog. It shook its head and blood dribbled out of its mouth, frothing. Burikko had pierced a lung. Blood pooled beneath it from where Tisoki's dagger had caught the beast in the side as well.
The black slime hadn't stopped its attack. It burned into Kasai's clothing, scalded her skin where it made contact. She could hear Tisoki screaming for help and her father calling out to both of them in desperation.
Kasai moved forward aggressively, making up her mind. The creature was struggling to breathe, already it was dying. Before it could recover any further, Kasai shouted again and brought Burikko down with as much force as she could muster on the animal's neck. It had no chance to cry out before its head fell to the floor, rolling away. Its body staggered for a moment before falling at last. Blood pumped fiercely, hissing, out of the body and the head for a few moments, then dissipated, fading.
The black slime stopped moving. It had been under the creature's power, and without its master, it now fell away, becoming water, thick, rich droplets of it, like dew in the morning.
Miroku was on his feet in a second and hurrying to help Tisoki. Kasai took a moment longer before going to her brother. Instead she closed the last foot or so between herself and her kill and stared down at it. The beast appeared truly dead but one could never tell with a demon. Kasai raised Burikko high and drove the sword into the kitsune's chest, aiming for its heart. There was a small hiss of air from its chest, but nothing else.
When she looked up she saw Miroku propping Tisoki up on his shoulder. Her brother's face was creased with pain, but both of them gazed at her—and at her kill—with pride.
"It's a fine kill, Daughter." Miroku smiled and handed her the sutra, now dirtied with the black tar and a little of the kitsune blood. "Place this on its body. You know the words to say?"
Uncertainly, Kasai nodded, "I think so…"
"What about the head?" Tisoki asked tightly.
"That we will take to our employers to ensure payment." Miroku nodded, taking a deep breath and stamped his staff on the floor once, making it rattle. "The spell, Kasai…"
She nodded and leaned forward, shouting the incantation as she slapped the sutra onto the kitsune's bloodied, matted gray fur. There was a bright light and all three of the slayers shielded their eyes from it briefly. When it had cleared the body had vanished, though the blood and the black tar had remained.
Kasai cleaned Burikko on the soiled sleeping mat and sheathed the blade once more. When she looked up she saw Miroku smiling at her, beaming silently with pride.
"Well done, both of you." He grinned, using every one of the new lines and wrinkles he'd gathered in the two decades since he'd survived the battle with Naraku, married Sango, and started up his family. He was no longer the perverted teenager he'd once been, he had aged and changed many, many times over. His face showed the wrinkles to prove it, but in that moment he knew pride equivalent to any warrior's victory, or any artist's completed project. One day, though he would die, his children would live on, and they had learned what they knew from him.
It was the closest any mortal could ever come to immortality on earth, and he had reached it.
In the early, golden light of dawn, a loud, metallic ripping sound resounded through the valley around what had once been known as Kaede's village. In the not too distant future it would be called Tokyo. For now the meadow was nameless and uninhabited, except by the birds that were startled from their roosts in the trees and bushes. They took wing, shrieking their alarm. Other creatures stirred as well, the first gnats and flying bugs, a few frogs and lizards. Even a squirrel darted from one tree to another, its body rippling in a wave-like, undulating motion as it ran.
The source of the racket so early in the morning came of course from a white-haired, dog-eared figure dressed—not in red, but a dark blue haori and hakama. He held the Tetsusaiga, massive and transformed, and pointed it at the distant trees as if aiming it.
Then, instead of using any attacks, he lowered the sword, plunging it forcefully into the ground so that it stayed upright. He let go of the hilt and stepped away, watching dispassionately as the blade shrunk, becoming the unimpressive, dull katana. Over his shoulder he turned and said, "Your turn now."
From behind him a shorter, lithe figure emerged, this one female. She was caught between girlhood and womanhood and hadn't reached her adult height just yet. Her clothes were a lighter, baby blue color. Although she wore a short kimono, barely reaching her knees, more in the style of a child than of a young woman, she wore leggings underneath it. Her eyes were a rich, golden honey color, like amber, and as she stepped forward to grasp the hilt of the Tetsusaiga, her fingertips were clawed.
With an indelicate grunt, the girl pulled the blade out of the ground and lifted it high, aiming it and mimicking the other's stance. The sword didn't transform, it remained dull and thin and utterly useless.
The girl sighed disgustedly and pushed the sword back into the dirt. "Koinu, it isn't working!" she griped, glaring at her brother as if it was somehow his fault that their father's sword refused to transform when she handled it.
Koinu walked patiently back over to his sister and took her hands in his own, guiding them around the hilt again. "When you hold it, don't think about needing it to transform, Aki. Instead think about using it, think about Mom and Father."
Akisame scowled, shaking her head. "This isn't going to work." Her tone was higher because she was female, but otherwise it was identical to one Inuyasha would've used. She might've looked human with her long, straight black hair, but Akisame had more of their father in her sometimes than Koinu could ever dream of having.
Calmly, Koinu moved away from her, crossing his arms and watching his sister critically. Akisame, grumblingly, grabbed Tetsusaiga again and lifted the sword into the air, wobbling a little. The blade flickered, trying to transform, and then, as if rejecting her, slipped from Akisame's fingers, clattering clumsily onto the ground.
"Ugh!" Akisame growled, her hands curling into fists.
"That's okay—you just have to keep trying, Aki." Koinu started to walk forward to help her, but Akisame was finished with the exercise. She growled and pushed him away, reaching for Tetsusaiga herself.
"Take it, I don't want to use it." she snarled.
Koinu shook his head reluctantly as he accepted the blade from her and sheathed it slowly, respectfully. "Father won't like hearing you say that."
"Like I give a…"
"Don't say that." Koinu scolded her at once, ears flattening in warning.
His sister had turned her back on him, beginning to walk back toward the village, but now she glanced back at him, scowling. "You're not Mom; I can say whatever I want."
"And you're not Father. You're not even a boy—you shouldn't talk like that." Koinu tied the Tetsusaiga to the sash around his waist and followed after his sister at a short distance, heading for home.
"Whatever." She growled, irritably. "I just want to go home. I don't feel good."
Koinu's ears pricked, coming to attention. "What's wrong?" unconsciously he started sniffing the air, trying to pick up her scent.
"I don't know!" she snarled. She was walking awkwardly; her hands were clasped over her middle.
With growing concern, Koinu leapt ahead, landing evenly at her side and taking hold of her forearm. "Aki? What's up?"
She frowned, her lips pinching in on themselves. Her arms stayed clasped over her middle. "I already told you, I don't know. I feel like maybe I'm going to be sick."
"Well there's plenty of trees for that—what did you eat?" Koinu tried to laugh, to cut the tension. Akisame was stiff; her face was paler than he'd seen it in some time. She pulled her arm away from him and took off, leaping.
After a pause, Koinu followed after her, the cool morning wind catching his hair and his clothes. Akisame was lighter and somehow faster than him, in spite of the fact that she was clearly feeling ill. Her scent had changed lately, acquiring a more female stink to it, but Koinu hadn't spent much time considering that change.
The siblings scaled the hill that their parents had built their estate on. They avoided the main path by way of tradition, mostly because that was the route their father took. They leapt through the trees, taking great joy in disturbing the birds from their roosts. At least Koinu did, this morning. Akisame had only one goal in mind, and that was getting to her mother.
They entered their parents' estate by leaping the fence bordering it. Koinu hesitated, keeping his balance on top of the gate and then rising to his full height. He squinted, trying to see over the house, searching for their father. Inuyasha was certain to be awake at this point. Like Koinu and Akisame he was an early riser because of his youkai blood.
Below, Akisame was already on the verandah, beyond the small lawn and gardens that Kagome had set up in front of the house. She was dusting her feet off and sliding the door open, hurrying inside.
"Mom?" she called, moving through what amounted to the kitchen, with the fire pit for cooking, through the sitting room with the table where the family gathered at least once a day to share a meal and conversation. She reached her parents' bedroom and paused at the door, listening. The sounds of only one person reached her ears and, breathing a sigh of relief, Akisame slid open the door and passed into the room. "Mom?"
Kagome was waking up at her daughter's voice. She sat up in the bed, rubbing her eyes blearily. "Akisame? What is it?"
"I don't feel good, Mom. I'm sick." Akisame walked forward and sat heavily on the bed beside Kagome. She had adopted a pouting look, her golden eyes were dull, her face unanimated, and her hands still resting over her middle.
Kagome drew in one short breath and sighed tiredly. "Is it cramps?"
"Cramps?" Akisame repeated, blankly.
"You're holding yourself." Kagome motioned toward the way her daughter was sitting awkwardly. "Does it hurt?"
Akisame swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, but only a little." She couldn't hide the signs of discomfort though; it was as plain as the paleness in her skin tone, and evident in her hunched, stiffened posture.
Kagome nodded slowly, still partially fighting sleep. Over the years she'd watched Akisame grow and change, and over the last year or so she'd seen the transformation in Akisame's body shape. The development of hips and breasts along with her latest growth spurts. She'd been waiting for a time like this, but she hadn't expected cramps, she'd expected Akisame to come to her panicked about blood in her underpants. Cramps she imagined were an entirely human ailment, but her children always surprised her with their mixed traits.
"Well, there are some painkillers in the medicine closet." Kagome kept an assemblage of medications from her time period in a closet in the hallway. It had come in handy more times than she could count. "You can take some of those to ease the pain for now. We can just hope they get better in the future."
Akisame stared at her mother, utterly baffled, but she didn't question Kagome. Sickness wasn't something she liked in the least. Unlike Koinu, who required a disguise whenever he was sick and was, therefore, more of a hassle when it came to doctor's visits, Akisame was almost human in appearance. Whenever she'd had the slightest hint of illness Kagome could drag her precious daughter into the doctor to be poked and prodded and ogled over. Since becoming older and getting her own say in things, Akisame had grown more stubborn about it, and had started refusing to see the doctor at all. If Kagome thought that the pain she was suffering was nothing, then Akisame wasn't going to fight her on that at all.
Akisame left to get the painkillers as Kagome had instructed. Almost the moment her daughter had left, Inuyasha entered the room, pausing only a moment to look down the hall as he spotted Akisame walking away. He shook his head as he approached Kagome. "I thought I sent her out to practice." He grumbled.
"You did, Inuyasha." Kagome replied, yawningly.
Inuyasha shrugged off his haori, but left on the inner, cream-white robe. With surprising care—it was a family heirloom after all—he folded it, albeit sloppily, and set it at the foot of their futon before sitting beside Kagome. "Why is she back so soon then? Is Koinu here too now?"
"Akisame isn't feeling very well." Kagome sighed, resting her chin in her hand and leaning backward, letting Inuyasha support her weight for a moment as she relaxed.
Inuyasha grunted. "Aki? That girl's made of stone. What's eating her?"
Without thinking, Kagome answered him frankly. "She's probably about to start her period."
If she had known the expression she was missing, Kagome certainly would've turned to look at her husband and longed for a Polaroid, but fortunately for her hanyou she missed it completely. First a blankness of shock overtook him. His mouth fell open slightly, his amber eyes widened. Then a second phase started fast on the heels of the first. A deep scowl covered his face, and then a small growl in his throat.
The growl at last tipped Kagome off. She moved away from him, turning to stare at Inuyasha worriedly. "What is it?"
"No fucking way!" he snarled, ears turning backward. "She is not fucking old enough!"
Kagome blinked, startled at Inuyasha's outburst. "Inuyasha…she's older than I was."
"No! She's like fucking nine!" he shook his head frantically, as if he could turn back time by denying the facts, if only he could find enough passion to do it with.
Kagome rubbed her face almost with exhaustion. "She's thirteen, almost fourteen years old. I was twelve when I started mine."
Inuyasha pulled away from her as if she'd bitten him. "What the hell?"
Now Kagome was awake and as Inuyasha got up and circled the bed irritably, snatching up his haori and putting it on again, she frowned. "What's wrong with you, Inuyasha?"
Akisame stepped into the room then and stopped in her tracks, realizing that her parents had managed to have an argument in minute or so she'd left. She watched them concernedly, expecting them to start bickering again as usual, but instead her arrival cut the battle short. Her father glared at her as if she'd done something horribly wrong until Akisame felt her cheeks heat up and actually began asking herself if she had done something worthy of this fuss. Unfortunately she came up empty.
"What?" she demanded, scowling much in the same way as Inuyasha might've.
Inuyasha growled, crossing his arms, and stormed past Akisame, leaving the room altogether.
Helplessly, Akisame felt childish tears trying to well up inside her eyes. She sniffed them back fiercely. "Mom? What's going on?"
Kagome sighed with frustration and waved one hand dismissively. "Nothing, your father is just moody, that's all. I've always wondered if hanyou get PMS."
Akisame made a face, confusedly. "Pee-em-ess?"
"Nevermind." Kagome patted the bed at her side, "Come here, sit next to me, I have to talk to you about something. I should've done it sooner…"
A/N: Because I have the next chapter ready and waiting for my writer's block to DIE…
Concernedly, Kagome stepped into the room and knelt at her husband's side, reaching out to tweak his ears. He responded by moaning thickly in the back of his throat and leaning against her, nuzzling into her neck more like a child than a lover. Kagome sighed and wrapped her free arm around him as she continued to stroke his ears. "Inuyasha?" she asked softly, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." He murmured, touching his lips to her neck, inhaling deeply. "You smell like fish and fire smoke."