Chapter Two: A Normal Day in the Life of Rin
"That insufferable imbecile, he can tend to his wounds himself." I growled. I angrily crushed herbs together to make a fine powder that worked wonders on high fevers especially for infants. It was easier to make as many medicines beforehand then risk the patient's life by taking time to grind herbs. I took out a little brush and began to pile the powder into a little vile which I then placed in the medicine cabinet that was adjacent to my sleeping quarters. I untied my sash and began to shrug out of my nightwear. I pulled out a dark blue kimono with white cherry blossoms embroidered all around it. I slipped my nightgown off completely and searched for the matching obi which seemed to elude me.
Instead of leaving the village like I had assumed he would Kohaku scouted around the area from more threats. I wasn't there when he came back. I was trying to convince Lord Sesshomaru that I was alright. Despite popular belief he was actually a really kind and caring person. After those reassurances were made to his satisfaction he decided to head back to Master Jaken and Ah-Un but not before telling me to be careful and that Kohaku had returned to the village. I didn't run to treat him like I normally would instead I let Sango fuss over him.
"Rin are you in here?" Kagome called. She knocked on the door to get my attention. I lifted my head up to see her smiling. I'll bet it was because there were no casualties.
"Yes do you need something?" I said with a little too much attitude. She raised her eyebrows and immediately I felt bad.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to take out my frustrations on you." I said quickly. She laughed and waved my apology away. I offered her a place to sit down and immediately pulled out some things I would need to make some tea.
"So do you want to talk about it?" She asked. I sighed and placed the tea kettle over the fire I had just barely poked back to life a few seconds ago. I looked at her skeptically.
"There isn't much to tell Kohaku got angry at me for ignoring him and attempting to fight a demon." I said. She sipped her tea and nodded.
"I know Kohaku wouldn't stop whining about it when I was treating his wounds. You coddle him a little too much he kept whining that I wasn't treating him correctly as I tended to his wounds. Inuyasha actually knocked him out because he kept asking for us to go and get you." She sighed. I rolled my eyes I wasn't particularly surprised Kohaku was very picky as to who treated his wounds. While he trusted Kagome he was more comfortable with me.
"He is just really picky about who takes care of his wounds." I said. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"You weren't there believe me if you were you wouldn't say that." She said. I snorted. I really didn't want to talk about Kohaku anymore so I decided to change the subject.
"So how is Yuki? I was meaning to stop by Inuyasha told me she had a fever." I said. Kagome chucked sympathetically. Yuki was the youngest daughter Inuyasha and Kagome had. She would turn three in a few more weeks because she was so little Inuyasha had a tendency to worry about her getting sick.
"She's alright the fever is beginning to come down. I was a little worried when she developed a really back cough but thankfully she's on the path to recovery." She said. I smiled by the relief in Kagome's voice I could tell she really loved all her children.
"I'm glad she's alright. I have some herbs for that work miracles on coughs if you want them." I said. She looked up from her tea with grateful eyes.
"Yea please." She said. I held up my finger and went to my little cabinet where I kept all my remedies. I knelt down and gently skimmed my hands over all the vials to find the one I wanted. I pulled out a tiny vile with a green powder inside. I walked over to Kagome and handed it to her.
"Give her one pinch of this twice a day and that cough should go away." I said. She nodded and placed the vile in her pocket. She seemed to remember why she came here in the first place as she motioned for me to sit down.
"Talk to Kohaku, Rin trust me it's not good to let things like this go unresolved. I'll admit he could have handled himself a lot better than he did but his intentions were good. To be honest you gave us all a heart attack because of how recklessly you acted." I opened my mouth to argue but she held up her hand for silence. I closed my mouth in dejection.
"I know you can defend yourself very well with either a sword or a bow and arrow. However you haven't fought demons before and for you to jump into a fight without any thoughts of the consequences is why Kohaku got angry. It was a lucky thing that Sesshomaru showed up when he did or else you could have been killed." She scolded me. I sighed and hung my head. I knew what she was saying made perfect sense but if placed in the same situation I would probably do the same thing.
"I understand that what I did was reckless but I couldn't just sit there and watch like that. If Inuyasha was in Kohaku's place can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't do the exact same thing?" I asked her. She nodded her head.
"That's a good point. In answer to your question yes I would have done the same thing." I opened my mouth to chew her out for scolding me but she gave me a pointed look and I clamped my mouth shut. She thought hard about what she was going to say next.
"What I'm trying to say is next time don't let your emotions rule your actions. I'm not going to lie to you that rash behavior actually got me into unnecessary trouble that Inuyasha had to get me out of which means he got injured more. That's the point I'm trying to make if you make rash decisions in a fight like that your loved ones will be the ones to suffer. Unlike Inuyasha Kohaku won't be able to bounce back the next day." She cautioned. I sighed she had a point there. She reached out and placed a hand over mine.
"Does he know how you feel?" She asked. I shook my head. She gave me a sad smile of understanding.
"It's alright but I think you should tell him." She advised. I looked at her in alarm.
"Of course I can't. Do you see how he treats me? It's like I'm made of acid and nails for heaven's sake! Whenever I tell him or ask him anything do you know what his response is? He grunts!" I said. She laughed at my frustrations.
"That sounds somewhat familiar. Well I'd better go before Inuyasha misses me too much." She giggled. I couldn't help but smile at that. I walked her to the door with my pack of herbs in hand I still had to go and make my rounds.
As I was walking down the lane Kaita one of the village boys came running up to me. Kaita was handsome to say the very least. He had dark blue eyes the color of the sea after a storm, his build was strong not as strong as Kohaku's of course but Kaita could handle his own. He was a passionate farmer I remember at festivals he would constantly bore the girls to death with talk about the harvest.
"Rin my wife she's gone into labor we need your help." He said breathlessly. Immediately I put my hair up in a red ribbon and was running toward him.
"How far apart are the contractions?" I asked him.
"They aren't far apart they're just one after another." He said. Mentally I sighed that doesn't help me much but it wasn't his fault. Most new fathers don't know what to look for to judge how critical their wife's condition is. We sprinted to his place I was careful to watch my footing I couldn't afford to injure myself at this point. Thankfully Kaita's house wasn't too far from mine. Reina, Kaita's wife, was lying on their bed breathing heavily when we arrived. Thankfully Sayo her sister was there watching over her and stroking her hand reassuringly. Sayo was about three years older than Reina and I and she had birthed four healthy children. She would be able to assist me better then Kaita can. It wasn't right for me to kick him out if he wanted to be here so I'd leave the choice up to Reina.
"Sayo I'm going to need hot water and fresh towels. Reina, do you want Kaita to stay here and hold your hand?" I asked. She nodded weekly and Kaita rushed to her side telling her it would be alright that he was here with her. I ran to wash my hands. After that I pulled up a chair and lifted the bed cloths to see how far along she was. She was definitely ready to push. Sayo had returned with what I asked for. I lifted up my sleeves and tied them with some spare string I always kept in my pockets for whenever I need my sleeves out of the way.
"Reina it's time to push." I told her sternly.
I silently thanked the heavens that the birth went so smoothly. While I was good at my job as a healer for the village unfortunately even I lost patients. I was cleaning up a beautiful baby boy while Sayo removed all the blood stained sheets. Kaita was coddling his wife telling her how happy he was. I smiled over at the happy couple as I wrapped the baby in a blanket.
"You did very well Reina." I said. I gently placed the baby in her arms and immediately her eyes lit up as she drank in the sight of her new baby. Kaita was just as absorbed so after I finished helping Sayo clean up and I had scrubbed my hands clean I stubbornly decided to set off on my rounds again. Before I could leave Sayo caught me at the door. I was surprised when she threw her arms around me.
"Thank you Rin for helping my sister and my new nephew." Sayo said cheerfully. I patted her back and I couldn't help but smile at her.
"Of course, I'll stop by tomorrow to check up on them or Kagome will if I'm unable." I said. Thankfully I wasn't the only healer here. Lady Kaede and Kagome were also healers and were ready and able to help me whenever I had too much on my hands. Sayo smiled and thanked me before she went back into the house.
I sighed and whipped some sweat off my forehead. Despite how easy the birth went it took a lot longer than I thought it would. It was already noon judging by the suns position in the sky and by the rumbling in my stomach. I shook it off and began to walk toward the village. My first stop was an elderly lady named Kyoko she lived with her daughter in law and four grandchildren. Thankfully it wasn't a far walk from Kaita's house. However my luck would run out my other patients were on the far side of the village so it would take me a little longer to get there.
When I reached my destination I saw Kyoko sitting down on the porch watch her grandchildren play. I could see Kana through the window baking while singing a merry little tune. When the children noticed me they squealed and sprinted toward me. I knelt down and stretched out my arms and let each one embrace me. When greetings and pleasantries were done I sat next to Kyoko and began to examine her arm. I smiled her arm was healing nicely I took out my packet and grabbed a salve made of herbs to help the bone along.
"I want you to apply this salve every night to help the bone heal. Make sure to wrap the arm in clean bandages too." I told her sternly.
"Um about the money…" I cut Kyoko off.
"Never mind that, I want you to focus on is getting better." I said kindly. To emphasize my point I gave her my most winning smile. She looked at me in awe I blushed and went back to bandaging her arm. To me money was never a priority my patients usually paid me in trade or manual labor. The second one was rare I think the only time that happened was when I was treating the carpenter's daughter and my roof had hole in it thanks to the tree that grew not too far from my house. In my opinion that was more than a fair trade but he insisted on repaying me that way since things were going a little slow for him.
"So how is Reina?" Kana asked from the doorway in her hands bless her, were seven rice balls. She offered me one and I took it with a nod of thanks. The children scrambled for theirs and went back to playing. Kyoko and Kana took theirs and looked at me for news on Reina.
"She is now the mother of a healthy baby boy." I announced happily. Kana clapped her hands excitedly. Reina and Kana were good friends so I was happy to tell her the news.
"I'll have to make sure to stop by." She said. I smiled at her. Kana was always so cheerful and strong even after she lost her husband to a bandit raid. After I finished my rice ball I stood up.
"Thank you so much for the rice ball Kana. I'd better go I still have more patients to see." I said. Kana and Kyoko nodded and waved me off.
I began walking down the lane humming to myself. So far today was a good a cheerful one. It was good to savor days like these because it was just as easy for everything to go wrong. I closed my eyes and took a deep cleansing breath. When my eyes opened all the happiness drained out of me. Kohaku was standing up against a tree trunk with his arm in a sling and a bandage over his thigh. He was looking up at the clouds his facial expression betrayed nothing but boredom. I took a deep breath and started toward him. With every step I took I calculated how far I could run before he would catch up to him.
"I would just drag you back." He said indifferently.
"How do you do that?" I snapped. He smirked and pointed to my face and made a small circle with his pointer finger.
"It's written all over your face that you want to run. But I digress, so Kagome said that you wanted to talk to me." He said arrogantly. In the back of my mind I promised to strangle Kagome later. I sighed and looked at him defiantly.
"Yes well I don't have time to talk. I still have to make my rounds." I said. He raised his eyebrow and I began to walk away from him.
"Kagome said to tell you that she would finish your rounds so you don't have to worry. I'm surprised she didn't tell you." He said. I shrugged.
"She probably meant to but I distracted her by giving her some medicine for her daughter. It's also a big village so she probably started on the other side of town." I admitted. I turned in the other direction and shrugged.
"If that's the case I still don't have time to talk I need to gather the herbs that I meant to pick yesterday." I admitted. Kohaku snorted and walked up next to me.
"Since when does picking herbs interfere with conversation?" He countered. I sighed he was not going to give me time to come up with what I was going to say I might as well get it over and done with then, I thought.
"Come on than I have to drop of my pack and the house. How are your injuries, from what Kagome told me you were acting like a real baby." I said. He made an outraged noise and glared at me.
"I was not acting like a baby! Not that there is anything wrong with Kagome as a person but she was so pissed at me for yelling at you that it seemed she was intent on making the process as painful as possible." He admitted with a huff. I snorted that I could believe Kagome is infamous for being terrifying when she is angry.
"So how are your injuries?" I asked again. I wasn't angry with him anymore not really anyway Kagome was right he had good intentions.
"I'm fine I think you have treated worse." He said. I kept my eyes trained on the road in front of me.
"Probably, you're giving me gray hairs." I said. He turned to examine my hair for gray hairs. I looked at him and glared.
"I'm joking." I said exasperatedly. After that we were silent as we made our way back to my house. With a heavy sigh I stopped in the middle of road and looked at Kohaku. He turned to face me and waited for me to say something. That was one of Kohaku's redeeming qualities he could be patient when he wanted to be.
"I'm really sorry for acting rashly." I said abruptly.
"I'm sorry too I know you had good intentions and I should have taken that into consideration before I lashed out at you like that." He said honestly. I raised my eyebrows in shock and lifted my head to look at him. I could see the remorse in his eyes and I felt bad for being the cause of it. His eyes narrowed and he glared at me.
"What you look like I've never apologized to you before." He snapped. My expression turned to one of weariness.
"Never mind now that we've said everything I'm sure you have other things to do." I said with a hint of exhaustion in my voice. Before either of us could say anything lightening stuck the ground and Totosai appeared riding on top of Momo.
"Hello Master Totosai!" I called. He inclined his head to acknowledge me and turned to Kohaku and held something out to him. Although it was covered with a cloth I could tell it was a sword.
"I have the item you requested Kohaku." He said absently. He tossed the sword to Kohaku who caught it without a second thought.
"Thank you Totosai." Kohaku said. With that Totosai was gone I wasn't surprised he wasn't a very sociable demon to begin with. Kohaku tossed the sword to me and I looked at him in shock.
"Know that the map has resurfaced you'll need a stronger sword. Heaven knows what kind of demons will come back here while I'm trying to destroy that stupid map. I asked Totosai to make a blade sharp enough to cut through any demon's skin. You won't be able to do it with that little pick that I gave you when you turned eighteen." He said. I unwound the cloth and it revealed a Tachi. A Tachi is a sword that is slightly longer and more curved than my katana. Kohaku taught me how to use both effectively. The handle was sensibly made and the sheath was plain and didn't attract much attention but I loved it.
"Well take it out and see if you like the balance." He demanded. I unsheathed the sword and was surprised at the weight it was like I was holding a feather in my hand. I swung it a few times and then placed it back in its sheath. I looked up at Kohaku and smiled.
"Thank you it's absolutely perfect." I said animatedly. He scratched his neck with his left hand and tried to conceal his blush.
"No problem I mean a sword is a necessity these days what with demons popping up everywhere." He said. I caught him off guard by trying to hug him. He stepped out of the way.
"Be careful with that thing." He said. I put the sword down and tried to hug him again but he sidestepped me again.
"Stop trying to hug me and let's go and get those herbs. When we get far enough into the forest I want to try destroying this stupid map. I can't even read it only a pure heart can read the damn thing." He growled. I looked at him and rolled my eyes.
"Maybe that's a good thing. Something that dangerous shouldn't be easy to find." I said logically. He shrugged.
"You're probably right." He admitted. I put my hand on his forehead.
"Hmm no fever, but I got an apology and you admitted I was right. Maybe you hit your head harder than I thought." I said. He slapped my hand away and I giggled. I was only teasing him but he glared at me anyway. We continued walking and when we reached my house I quickly ran inside to put away my pack and pick up my herb basket that I always left next to the doorway. I ran back outside to see Kohaku waiting for me impatiently. I walked up to him and we awkwardly walked together in silence.
The sun was falling farther and farther into the horizon as Kohaku tried different ways to destroy the compass. I sat on a nearby rock with a basket full of herbs watching him grow more and more frustrated. He tried attacking the thing with his sickle chain the compass didn't even crack. He tried crushing it with a rock and so on. Currently he was building a fire to see if he could burn the stupid thing.
"To bad we don't have Miroku's wind tunnel. He could just suck it up and then problem solved." I said. He raised his head and glared at me.
"That is not helping me Rin." He snapped. I didn't bother to retort all I wanted to do was go home and get something to eat. With the exception of the rice ball that Kana gave to me I hadn't eaten anything all day and to be honest I was just as cranky as Kohaku was.
"Maybe the tessiaga can break it?" I suggested. Kohaku mulled that statement over in his head for a bit.
"We'll try that if this doesn't work." He said. He was able to coax a tiny little flame out the tiny little pile debris. He began to blow on it to make the blame bigger. Before long he was feeding the flames logs to make it bigger. When Kohaku deemed it to be fit he took out the compass and tossed it into the flames. We held out breaths for a few seconds and waited.
We didn't have to wait long the compass flew out of the flames and landed completely unharmed in front of me. Kohaku roared in frustration and he quickly stomped out the flames. I picked up the compass and then something weird happened. A bright white light lit up the sky and suddenly an image appeared in front of us.
It was a beautiful lady. She was dressed in a white kimono to match her pale skin and hair the only colorful part about her was her light blue eyes. Kohaku and I stared in wonder. She circled us and then bowed respectfully.
"Greetings great warriors my name is Arina and I am your guide." She said. I was about to acknowledge her greeting with one of my own but Kohaku pushed me behind him.
"We don't want to be guided to a device that could lead to the world's destruction. We only want to destroy the compass so that no one can find its hiding place." He snapped. She looked at us and blinked I looked at her sympathetically Kohaku could be scary sometimes.
"I'm afraid there is no way to destroy the compass. You can only follow it to the device and destroy that." She admitted. I stepped to the side to watch Kohaku's reaction. I knew it he was glaring at the poor girl. She didn't look to be much older than I am. I gave her a sympathetic look and stepped forward. Kohaku glared at me so I stayed where I was.
"So let's have the directions so I can be on our way." Kohaku murmured. She glared at him it was clear on her face that she didn't like him nor did she trust him.
"That is not how this works unfortunately. Now that I am free I pass on the knowledge of the compass to the one pure of heart and it is her responsibility to guide you." She snapped. Kohaku's scowl became more defined as we came to the implications of the statement. I ignored him and took another step forward.
"Um once we find it will I become you know." I gestured to her. She blinked once and then laughed.
"Oh no this was voluntary. Someone had to stay behind to pass on this knowledge to the one pure of heart." She told me reasonably. I nodded and gave her a small smile judging on pure instinct I could tell that we could trust her.
"You can't actually be considering this Rin." Kohaku exclaimed. Arina and I ignored him and continued to talk.
"Well if you could tell us where to go we'd be grateful and you can go to your final resting place." I said. She nodded.
"Please kneel down child." She said. I didn't appreciate being called a child but considering how long she was in that compass I can see why she would consider me a child. I kneeled and she touched my forehead. I felt a burning sensation running through my head I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes Arina was gone and so was the compass.
I turned to look at Kohaku who looked absolutely livid. If looks could kill I'd be a pile of dust right now.