Chapter 4 – And the Thunder Rolls

She sat beneath the sweeping branches of a weeping willow, long tendrils of leaves drooping to the ground and hiding her from sight. Feeling the gentle, cold touch of tears behind her eyelids, she tried to brush them away. Crying was for young, weak girls who couldn't control their emotions, who couldn't understand what was happening to them. Crying was for girls who didn't know what to do, who were too weak to take any action. She didn't cry. It just wasn't done. Crying was a sign of weakness. Crying was showing that you were giving up. And giving up was the worst thing one could possibly do.

She resolutely kept wiping away the tears as strands of her thick black hair fell over her face. Pushing them back, she put her forehead on her knees and drew her body inward. It was very strange, to be feeling this weak. Then again, there wasn't much she could do. She had no power, no choice in this. There was no reason for her to be feeling his helpless, and at the same time there were all the reasons in the world.

Clutching fistfuls of the deep blue silk of her kimono, the girl sighed. It was almost over. Just a little more. She could handle it for just a little more. Until then, she quieted the impatience growling in her soul, like quieting a hunting dog, jowls quivering and hair on end in anticipation of the hunt, in anticipation of feeling flesh tear, blood trickle, bones snap.

In tense patience she waited for the sunrise, fingers interwinding with her thick black locks, knees pressed to her chest, eyes barely holding back the tears. All her muscles tensed, ready for the beautiful golden sun to shine once more.

And when it finally came, pushing the darkness back into the horizon, a grin finally split her lips, and she stood up and pushed back the branches of the willow to stand in the light of the sun.

Warm tingles shot through her frame, shooting through the coiled muscles lined up in her body. She smiled, a tiny fang blossoming on the side of her lips. She seized a shock of hair and saw that it was now white as snow, white as the fur of a dog. Tiny claws were slowly forming at the tips of her fingernails. Her tiny humanoid ears disappeared, and tiny perked dog ears unfurled at the top of her head.

This was how she belonged, this was how she was supposed to look. The moonless night was over. Her period of weakness was gone. She was a hanyou again, the most powerful hanyou ever to cross the earth, so powerful, so headstrong she could take any challenge given to her. She wasn't weak anymore. She wasn't a human.

She was the hanyou daughter of the dog demon lord of the West. And though it was a far cry from what she wished she was, it was better than the one night a month she spent as a human.

Her optimism quickly turned sour when the great stone castle came into view. Pushing her hair out of her face, she steeled her reserve for her father's questioning. Throwing her shoulders back, she strode straight over the field and mounted the stairs, heart throbbing with every step.

And there he was standing at the door, motionless as a statue, watching her with those piercing amber eyes. She swallowed. A mad Lord Sesshoumaru was not what you wanted to see first thing in the morning.

"Were you seen?" He asked, in that gruff, emotionless voice of his.

"No. I was under the willow again." She answered, glaring at him.

"Are you sure? You are reckless at times."

"You think I'd want some traveling monk to see me when I'm a human?" She spat, and then pushed past him into the castle. And still he stood there, his alabaster face as devoid of emotion as a statue's.

Storming into the kitchen, she plopped down on the floor, not even bothering to fold her legs underneath her. Her mother turned around with a smile.

"Good morning, Nariko."

She grunted in reply.

"Were you seen?"

"Goddamn," Nariko growled, drumming her nails on the table in impatience, "for the last time, I know how to hide myself. No one would have seen me even if they had a torch in my face."

"I know, sweetie, but you never know. I found a lot of demons who were trying to hide when I went snooping around." She came over, plopping down a plate of vegetables with a large chunk of deer meat. "Eat."

She raised an eyebrow, the tantalizing aroma filtering into her nostrils. "Whoa. Deer meat. That's rare."

"Lord Sesshoumaru went out and got it."

"My father?"

"I told him it was your favorite. He knows you're leaving, you know." Rin said, her soft brown eyes fixed intently on her daughter. "It's not that he's completely tuned out to you."

"Then why does he act like I don't exist most of the time?" Nariko shoveled deer meat into her mouth, ears alert for her mother's answer.

After a minute, Nariko looked up to see that her mother was slowly going back to cooking the vegetables, without giving her daughter an answer. It stung her deep, right in the bottom of her soul, making the tears jump up. Of course. That was a question her mother couldn't answer. That was a question all the scholars of Japan couldn't answer.

Deep down, Nariko, pushing around her veggies, knew she knew the answer. No one wanted to say it outside. She couldn't. The pain would cut too deep, and she could never recover.

She was an accident. She wasn't supposed to be here at all. It would only be purely by accident that Lord Sesshoumaru, the most poised and powerful of all demons, could have slept with a human girl of barely twelve. She didn't know the circumstances under which it could have happened, under which Sesshoumaru could have fallen in love with a little girl, barely out of puberty. Did he rape her? Was she seduced? Did she do it out of free will?

But it wasn't supposed to happen. Sesshoumaru was supposed to cover it up. The girl didn't know what she was doing. But it went all downhill. Nothing was ever right after that.

And nine months later, she was born. A half-demon. A girl who bore her father's hair and eyes. A little child who symbolized everything her father hated in this world.

It was a question not even King Solomon could have said out loud. Why did Lord Sesshoumaru ignore his only daughter, his flesh and blood, born from the human girl he loved most? In the depths of her soul, Nariko knew he despised the very memory of her. The very fact that she existed was a physical presence of what he'd done wrong, of the mistake he'd made. It was a sin to fall in love with a mortal. A hanyou was the very epitome of immortal punishment, of what went wrong between a demon and a human. He couldn't stand mistakes – perfection was his vice. And not only had he had a hanyou child, but she was a girl. Nariko knew he hadn't expected anything out of her since the day she'd been born.

So that's why she went into training when she was so young. Training, day in and day out, to become the strongest hanyou to ever cross the earth, and prove she was her father's daughter. She could take on most demons without a backward glance or even breaking a sweat. She could cut through barriers, annihilate armies, and summon enough power to make a supernova where she stood. And yet once a month she was rendered as helpless as a baby.

And that was why she was leaving the home she'd grown up in to take on the world, make a name for herself and make her father proud of her. She was only thirteen years old, but Nariko knew she'd been training for this her whole life.

When she got back to her room to change out of her old kimono into some traveling clothes, she hardly missed the cold stonewalls. There wasn't much, just a low bed, a bookshelf with some old family scrolls, and a chest with clothes and personal mementos. Nariko donned a thin shift, then a deep gold traveling kimono that was looser in the legs. Underneath it, of course, she had a tightly woven fighting suit of imported cotton and leather. She had to be prepared for battle, right?

Just as she was about to leave, a traveling pack on her back and a thin sword at her hip, she took one last look around the room, amber eyes alighting briefly on the warm, deep cotton sheets of her bed, where she'd cried herself to sleep many a night. Just before she left, on a sudden flash, she threw open the chest and pulled out a tiny amulet made of pure amethyst, carved in the shape of a half moon – the same mark on her father's forehead. She'd had a gypsy carve it for her years ago.

Sliding it down the front of her kimono, Nariko walked out of the room, keeping her eyes focused straight ahead.

In the kitchen, her mother, just as expected, had a bag already made with food to last at least a week. Nariko couldn't help but throw herself into Rin's warm embrace, letting herself lean into her mother. Rin was in her early twenties and had the tiniest body Nariko had ever seen, but that didn't mean she was short on love. She pulled her daughter close to her, rocking her, and whispered in her ear,

"Nariko, baby, if you're ever in trouble, if anything ever happens, you can always come back here. We'll protect you."

"Thank you, Mama," she whispered back, "but I'll be fine on my own."

"I know, I know." Rin handed her daughter the bag and smiled. "Let's go. Your father's waiting."

Waiting for what? She thought surprisingly as they walked to the front door. To give me another lecture about keeping myself hidden? Oh yeah right. He would never lecture. He only has twenty words in his vocabulary anyway.

Sesshoumaru was waiting for them as they reached the front door. He was standing just as aloof as always, eyes fixed on his daughter. It was one of the first times he'd ever looked at her this directly before. Nariko slid her eyes upward and glared right back.

He said, "Keep yourself safe. Don't do anything you know you can't do."

"I know. I'm not a child you know." She replied. "I can handle myself."

His lip twitched up in what could have been a fraction of a smile, and he said, "Good."

Good? Is that a compliment? I'm probably just hallucinating. Her mother gave her one last hug and said, "Be safe, dear. I know you can do it. I love you."

"I love you too, Mama." She said quietly, then turned to her father for a moment before turning and walking away.

She was halfway down the steps when she heard her father's voice call her name –

"Nariko."

Sesshoumaru was walking down the steps towards her, and her breath caught in her throat when he saw him pulling out the great sword of the fang – Tenseiga.

"As your first challenge," he said, "if you choose to accept it, is to master this sword before you return back here. It will heal a hundred souls in one swing if it decides to obey you, but it will not kill. Treat it with respect, for it was my father's. His blood runs in your veins – by birthright, it should be yours."

"Oh my God," she whispered, holding gently in her hands the giant sword. It gleamed in the sunlight, the blade as perfectly sharp as a falcon's talons, and a sense of awe slowly settled on her soul.

"I don't know what to say." Nariko stammered, picking up the sword. "How do I use it?"

"That is the challenge. Now go." He looked at her one more time, golden eyes afire, and then turned and ascended the stairs to where Rin was standing, watching with a smile on her face.

Nariko finally turned and finished descending the stone steps, and as she crossed the plain, she slid the sword into place under her obi, and vowed to the sun, the moon, and all the stars across the sky that she would make her father proud. She would learn to use this sword.

When I woke up, it was late at night, before the sun had even risen. There wasn't a moon tonight either – just the great, black expanse of the night. I turned over and saw that everyone was still sleeping. Shippou was with Kagome, Kirara was with my parents, and Inuyasha was –

"What are you still doing awake?"

I sat up, brushing my hair off my face, and saw him come out of the forest.

"I could ask you the same question."

Inuyasha raised his arms, and I could see a sleeping Kaida. "She was having a bad dream or something." He said softly, sitting down. "I didn't want Kagome to wake up, so I took her."

Inuyasha's hair was black tonight; it was the moonless night, and he was a human. I'd gotten used to his transformations from traveling with him last year, but today it kind of really hit me when I saw how similar he really looked to Kaida.

He shifted positions, gently playing with Kaida's little ears, a crazy sweet grin on his face. She yawned and stretched, showing one tiny little fang. I pulled my knees into my chest and said,

"Hey, Inu."

"Yo."

"Do you have any relatives?"

"Why do you want to know?" He said, giving me a suspicious glance. "You're not gonna try and blackmail me or anything, right?"

"I have enough blackmail on you as it is. I just wanna know."

Inuyasha eyed me again and then said slowly, "Well you know I'm a hanyou. So my father was a demon and my mother was a human. Of course I wasn't exactly what you'd call popular as a kid, so if I had any relatives on my mom's side, I didn't really know. The only relatives I know I had were my father and my brother Sesshoumaru."

"Sesshoumaru? Never heard of him."

"He's the dog demon of the West, I don't expect you would know. He's a full demon. We never really got along, since I got this baby – " Inuyasha patted Tetsusaiga, "and Sesshoumaru was left with a wimpy ass sword."

"Did Sesshoumaru have any kids?" I said on a sudden whim.

"Sesshoumaru? Have a kid?" Inuyasha snorted. "Yeah. Like he'd ever have a kid. He's probably never gotten laid in his life."

"Yeah…" I said absentmindedly, still remembering the dream.

"Why do you care who I'm related to? It's not like Sesshoumaru's somebody important or anything," he said, all snotty-like, like he was somebody super important.

"Just wondering."

"Yeah, well, sometimes your wondering scares me, Kaza." Inuyasha grinned.

"Your face still scares me, so we're even." I shot back.

"Oh, just piss off."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but you're gonna be traveling with me until we can cure my wind tunnel."

"Or you die."

"I'm going to bed." I declared, laying back down. "Good night, Kaida. Good night, puppy."

"Good night, bitch." He spat, putting Kaida to bed in her makeshift crib.

And that night's dream was about two swords, intertwined, and then merging to form one.

Hi everyone. Ok - so I know it seems like a random chapter. But there is an actual reason why the story is called Wind, Thunder and Flowers - OMG - and of course Kaza is the wind part (because her name is derived from the Japanese kanji 'kaze' which means wind, for those of you who don't know). And Nariko is the thunder part, because 'Nariko' is a girl's name meaning thunder. So - Sesshoumaru had a kid, huh? Kind of crazy, and yet disturbingly satisfying to write this chapter. I thought it was fun. And I love the song 'Thunder Rolls' so of course that's the title!! (not Dani California this time lol) Anyway, please review, I appreciate every one! Arigatou! - PVB