Disclaimer: InuYasha is the intellectual property of Rumiko Takahashi, and The Count of Monte Cristo is a product of the brilliant mind of Alexandre Dumas. I own rights to neither and am writing this story for my own twisted amusement, not for profit.


Rising Sun

Chapter Nine—Treasure Sword


Wide brown eyes stared into amber, unflinching in a penetrating gaze. Inuyasha fought the sudden urge to blink as he stared right back, even as his own eyes started to itch and involuntarily water. An unspoken battle of wills raged between him and his opponent, and he had absolutely no intention of losing. He would not... he refused to...

He blinked.

The little girl in front of him straightened fractionally, proud of her accomplishment, and a slight smile creased the corners of her dainty mouth. And yet, she didn't speak, but merely continued to stare as though the game had started anew.

Inuyasha, for one, had grown tired of it. "Is there something you want?" he inquired a bit roughly. He sat sprawled against the side of the ship, feeling the waves surge beneath him in a long-forgotten rhythm and wanting nothing more for the time being than to be left alone to his brooding. The child crouching before him obviously had other plans, though she seemed hesitant enough to state her business.

Instead, she caught her lower lip between her teeth, chewing on it as she mulled over her words. Her brows knit together and her brown eyes gleamed both hopeful and apprehensive.

"Well?" he prompted, impatience lacing his voice.

"Rin wants..." she started, but then paused as her frown deepened. She studied him for a moment longer, almost as though speculating whether she should continue or not. When she finally spoke again, her voice had dropped down to a whisper.

"Rin would like to..." Once again her courage failed, and her sentence dwindled into silence.

"Spit it out, kid," Inuyasha said flatly, never one to tolerate cowardice for long. His command jarred her from her indecision, and she immediately stiffened, her face taking on an expression far too serious for her tender young age.

"Rin would like to touch your ears."

The declaration took him by surprise, but he wasn't about to let her know as much. A scowl immediately blossomed on his face. "Does Rin let strange children touch her ears?" he retorted brusquely.

Her response was a confused tilt of the head as her deep eyes continued to bore into his very soul.

"Rin would like to touch your ears," she said a moment later, emphasizing the pronoun as if to clarify her request. "Your ears are special, not like Rin's."

"Inuyasha doesn't like his ears touched," the hanyou answered, echoing her third person speech with thinly veiled irritation. Again she seemed confused, her elfin face tipping further to the side as she scrutinized him like a bug under a magnifying glass. He shifted under her unblinking gaze and averted his eyes before their staring contest could start up again.

A small, wistful sigh escaped her lips, and he ventured a glance in her direction, only to discover a very despondent expression on her face.

"Lord Sesshomaru lets Rin play with his hair," she pronounced in something very close to a grumble.

"Then why doesn't Rin go bother him?" Half of him desperately wanted to snigger at her revelation, while the other half seemed ready to keel over in astonishment. He still had trouble believing that Sesshomaru kept the scrawny child nearby, let alone that he allowed her to touch any part of him. Rin, though, apparently had no clue that she'd divulged anything out of the ordinary.

"He's busy," she answered with a resigned shrug. Her attention dropped down to the worn ship deck, one small finger tracing the pattern of the wood veins. "Rin would like to touch your ears," she casually mentioned once more, just in case he hadn't gotten the message yet.

Inuyasha's expression fell, his mouth setting into a flat refusal. The words on the tip of his tongue arrested themselves, however, as her eyes darted up to steal a brief glimpse of his reaction. That one small look held such fragile hope, such tentative longing...

Damn, she was good.

A very put-upon sigh wrested itself from his throat as he at last inclined his head in her direction. "Go on," he growled. "Get it out of your system."

Her face broke into a grin then, a muted squeal escaping her lips as she lunged forward and grasped an ear in each hand, rubbing the soft, furry skin between thumb and forefinger. Inuyasha closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, silently reminding himself that he'd endured tortures far worse than this, and all too recently. Actually, the sensation was a bit foreign to him—no one ever wanted to touch his ears; most people in the past had just pretended that the animalistic feature didn't exist, that it was beneath their notice. Even Kikyo never...

A cheerful giggle interrupted his morose train of thought, and he opened his eyes just in time to see the little girl pull away and beam brightly at him. "Thank you!" she chirped.

Inuyasha averted his gaze with a very gruff, "Keh."

"Rin would hug you," the child continued innocently, "but Lord Sesshomaru told her not to. He didn't say Rin couldn't touch your ears, though."

"Sesshomaru told you not to hug me?" he repeated, silently ruing that he had yet another item for which he was indebted to his half-brother.

"Yes," Rin said with a stalwart nod. Then, as more of an afterthought, she inquired, "Lord Inuyasha, what is 'the mange'?"

He couldn't stop the short, bitter laugh that escaped his lips. So much for indebtedness, he thought. "You'll have to ask Sesshomaru about that one," he gestured toward the tall youkai's figure across the deck. "He's had a lot more experience with it than I have."

She eyed him suspiciously but did not challenge his statement. Instead, her attention shifted back to the top of his head, speculation and wonder still warring on her features. She reached her small fingers forward, brushing them against his left ear once again, giggling when it flicked away from her touch. "Rin likes your ears, Lord Inuyasha," she confided, her hand retreating. She stood and primly straightened out her orange-and-yellow-checkered yukata. "Do you like your ears, Lord Inuyasha?" she added with a note of curiosity.

The answer to that one was obvious.

"No."

Still, the little girl seemed disappointed by his pronouncement. "Why not?"

He couldn't exactly explain to a child that his ears had marked him from birth as a hanyou, had served as a constant, physical reminder to himself and everyone else that he was neither human nor demon, that he was part of both but belonged to the worlds of neither. Every other abnormal feature—the claws, the fangs, the strange coloring—could be easily overlooked, as there were many others who bore such traits. His ears, though, set him apart, and he knew that no amount of explaining could make Rin understand that.

"I just don't." The answer was more than inadequate, but she seemed to accept it nonetheless, shrugging and turning to skip away. She paused before leaving, though, just long enough to ask one more question.

"Can Rin pet your ears again, some other time?"

"Does Rin ever take 'no' for an answer?" came his sarcastic response. The child merely flashed him a winsome smile and trotted off to find Jaken or whoever else was supposed to be watching her at the moment. Inuyasha's eyes briefly followed her before flicking back to where his half-brother stood, across the ship's deck.

Sesshomaru was watching him with a guarded expression.

The hanyou, feeling justified in his immaturity, made a wry, distorted face, causing the stately youkai to shift his attention away in sheer disgust. A satisfied chuckle bubbled up in Inuyasha's chest, and he leaned back against the side of the ship, eyes closed, his body soaking up the feel of the sun and the drowsy movement of the ocean waves beneath the vessel.

………

"What news?"

"We've received word from the shipping company. It seems the crew of the missing supply ship—most of them—got stranded on a deserted beach more than two weeks ago."

"Most of them?"

"A handful of sailors stayed on board. They... they swore allegiance to Lord Sesshomaru and remained with him."

"It begins, then."

"Sir?"

"The division we have feared for so long. Many imperialists still live across this land, biding their time for just such an opportunity as this. Word will spread like wildfire from province to province, and they will flock to him. Have we no clue as to where he is headed?"

"None."

"Then we must prepare ourselves. Lord Sesshomaru is, no doubt, amassing an army. We must do the same. We must call upon those who fought in the Revolution, demon and human alike, and summon them to defend their country and their homes against the tyranny that threatens to destroy them."

"You believe it will come to war, Lord Kagewaki?"

"...Yes. Only this time, we will show no mercy to Lord Sesshomaru or his followers. This time we will annihilate them from the face of the earth, that they may never again threaten the sovereignty of the Republic. It is our only option."

………

"Land ho! Land ho-o-o-o!"

Such a cry probably should have emanated from a sailor's mouth, but it was coming from Totosai's instead. The shriveled old demon was swinging halfway up the ship's mast, his mouth flapping in excitement as he gesticulated toward the horizon with overzealous glee.

Granted, the original call had already been made several minutes earlier, but no one seemed very keen on breaking up the ancient fire-breather's enthusiasm.

"Land ho-o-o-o-o!"

"Would someone please shut that old fart up?" Inuyasha demanded as he surfaced from below deck. His order went unheeded, of course, but he hadn't really expected anyone to comply anyway. Instead, he merely shoved his hands up his sleeves and ambled over to the small group clustered near the ship's prow.

"You're just in time," Miroku greeted him. "We're coming upon our destination."

"I'll believe it when I see it," the hanyou snorted, skepticism thick on his voice. "If you followed Totosai's directions, you're probably leagues off course. He couldn't navigate his way out of a wet paper bag."

"I heard that!" the fire youkai's indignant voice sounded.

"Totosai only provided the name of the island," Miroku answered, pretending not to have noticed any interruption. "The captain and crew have done all of the navigation."

Inuyasha's response was an inarticulate grunt as he shifted his attention toward the island in question. Some of the morning's mist had not yet burned off, creating a hazy atmosphere and obscuring the dark rocks ahead. He squinted, trying to discern the island's shape.

"Lord Sesshomaru," Rin's hopeful voice piped up from nearby, "will there be flowers there?"

"Not bloody likely," Inuyasha surprised them all by declaring before his half-brother had the chance to respond. He scowled deeply, his gaze never leaving the gloomy, veiled silhouette of land. "That's Takeshima. The most you'll find there is some sparse grass and a few scrubby bushes. There's no freshwater source to keep anything else alive."

By now, his listeners' attention had shifted away from the fast-approaching landmass, fixing on him instead. "So why exactly are we going there, anyway?" he finished, his gaze flicking over them all suspiciously.

"Have you been there before?" Miroku inquired in response, voicing their collective curiosity.

The hanyou frowned. "Nope. The first ship I ever sailed on ran a cargo route through these waters, though. I've passed by that island more times than I can count."

"So not many, eh?" Totosai remarked with a good-natured cackle, lightly thumping Inuyasha on the back of the head as he joined the group at the ship's railing.

"Whatever, old man."

"Now, now," the demon blacksmith continued in a placating tone of voice, "there's no shame in being ignorant..."

"I ain't ignorant, you decrepit old windbag! And you're hardly one to talk!"

"Ignorance and senility are two very different things!" Totosai huffed indignantly. "You need to learn to respect your elders, boy!"

"When I find any deserving respect, I will! Now what the hell are we going to Takeshima for? It's nothing but a worthless pile of rocks!"

"Worthless?" Sesshomaru's quiet voice cut through the hazy morning air. All eyes turned toward him, watching as his sharp gaze shifted from the island to Inuyasha, then back again. "That's fitting."

"What's fitting?" the half-demon demanded flatly, despite instinctively knowing that he was asking for an insult.

Sesshomaru did not reply, though. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the island ahead, the faintest ghost of a smile quirking one corner of his mouth.

………

Takeshima was much like Inuyasha predicted: black volcanic rocks sporadically foliated with scraggly, sun-bleached grasses. Desolation rode upon the sharp winds that whipped across the land, tearing at the rocks and pulling at the small band of travelers who trekked up the dark shores. The overwhelming sense of emptiness was only enhanced by an utter lack of animal life. Even the ubiquitous gulls seemed to steer clear of this barren place, choosing to frequent the more verdant islands of the sea instead.

The lull of ocean waves crashing against the rocky shore was shattered by an unholy shriek, which was immediately followed by an indignant squawk. Rin had broken free of the group, running among the tall grass even as a frantic Jaken scrambled after her. The others held onto their path as though nothing were out of the ordinary. After all, nothing really was.

"Oi, Sesshomaru!"

Inuyasha pushed his way toward where the tall youkai walked, earning himself a flat—if slightly inquisitive—glare from his half-brother. Up ahead, Totosai babbled incoherently, leading them all like a demented foreign tour guide, rattling off explanations that no one was listening to.

"So what's the story with the brat? I mean," he continued as Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed fractionally, "Miroku already told me where she came from, but I can't for the life of me figure out why you've decided to keep her. After all, everyone knows how much you despise humans."

Sesshomaru's amber gaze wandered over to the little girl, who was turning circles in the sand as the winds danced around her. "You wouldn't understand such a thing," he stated dismissively.

"Try me."

He didn't really expect an answer. The inuyoukai had always had a reputation for being taciturn, and it wasn't as though the two of them had any brotherly bond that would suddenly cause Sesshomaru to open up. Still, Inuyasha had to admit he was curious about the matter. Rin's presence with his brother was an enigma to him.

Besides, it was fun trying to irritate the stoic demon.

Sesshomaru, though, surprised him by elaborating. "I gave her life," he said, his subdued tones piercing through the howl of the wind. "As such, the course her life takes, for good or for evil, rests on my shoulders. She became my responsibility the moment Tenseiga pulled her from the Netherworld."

"Does that mean Seikai is your responsibility too?" Miroku spoke up from nearby, a mischievous smile playing about his lips. He had obviously been eavesdropping on the conversation. "After all, you did restore him to life as well."

The inuyoukai shot him a smoldering glare, his face set in a rigid mask. "That monk is marked for death, should he prove unworthy of the life bestowed upon him. This Sesshomaru will see to it personally."

Inuyasha snorted, disbelieving his brother's arrogance. "Who the hell died and made you a god?"

In return, Sesshomaru quirked an eyebrow and looked down his regal nose at the hanyou. "No one's death was necessary, Inuyasha," came his mild response, whereupon the former emperor picked up his pace, leaving behind two very stunned listeners.

Inuyasha's mouth flapped open and shut a few times, much like a fish out of water, as the other members of their group brushed past his stationary form. "Talk about delusional," he finally managed.

The monk next to him could only shrug. "With a sword like Tenseiga, who can blame him for letting such power go to his head?" He would have spoken further, but a triumphant, slightly senile holler interrupted his words. Exchanging glances, he and Inuyasha hurried to catch up to the rest of the company.

"Isn't it beautiful?" they heard Totosai demand from within the cluster of bodies up ahead. He sounded almost as though he were about to burst into tears. "Never have you seen anything like it, I'd wager! So perfectly crafted and well-preserved, even after all these years..."

Both Inuyasha and Miroku eagerly pushed their way through the small throng to discover everyone staring at... a hole in the ground. Totosai was practically dancing with glee, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he prattled on and on. The sailors of their onshore expedition wore expressions of confusion as they peered into the dark, gaping fissure, while Sesshomaru stared at the demon blacksmith with an odd combination of boredom and impatience.

"What the hell are we looking at?" Inuyasha interrupted the old fire youkai's rambling speech.

Totosai gestured toward the hole. "Only one of the most magnificent rock formations on this earth!" he answered with a sage, almost reverent voice. "Just look at the way the igneous twists around the edge there, as though carved by the hands of a master! The years haven't worn it down mu—ouch!"

The hanyou had cuffed him on the back of the head, effectively stopping his discourse. "What's so significant about a hole in the ground?" he inquired, ignoring the glare Totosai shot in his direction.

The fire youkai rubbed his injured pate. "A couple millennia ago I had a smithy here, back when the island was first being formed and the volcanic bursts were frequent. Some of the most beautiful lava flows I've ever seen were on this island... but then, I suppose you're too much of a simpleton to appreciate such things." Inuyasha raised his fist in a voiceless threat, so the old man hurried on to say, "When your father commissioned me to make a certain sword, he also asked for it to be crafted in an obscure location. So of course we came here, to Takeshima."

"Tetsusaiga lies within this cave, then?" Sesshomaru inquired. "Why exactly are we standing out here?"

"Nature's beauties are obviously wasted on you people," Totosai rolled his eyes. A heavy, despondent sigh wheezed through his crumpled lips. "Anyway, we're standing out here because only one of us is able to go down there to retrieve the sword."

All eyes turned toward Inuyasha, and he had the sneaking suspicion that he had been left out of the loop somewhere. He already knew that they had come here for the Tetsusaiga but had assumed that his own involvement with its recovery was merely peripheral. After all, Totosai had traded the sword's location for their freedom, hadn't he? So the sword itself had nothing to do with him.

And yet, the rest of the small party stared at him as though they expected him to joyfully leap down into the dark, unknown depths of the cavern at his feet and bring back the dubious treasure.

"Keh. Sesshomaru's the one who wants it so bad," he said scornfully. "Let him go down and get it."

"According to Totosai," his half-brother answered in frigid tones, "this Sesshomaru cannot possess the Tetsusaiga. As such, I have settled for possessing its owner. You've already sworn fealty to me, Inuyasha. So go fetch your sword."

Inuyasha scowled. The truth of the matter was that he didn't want to go into that hole. Just looking at it brought back all the years of underground digging, that crippling sense of claustrophobia that had nagged the back of his mind, the barren darkness so thick that it weighed down upon him... A wave of nausea rolled over him, as though he had just been consigned to the demon prison all over again.

But Sesshomaru was watching him closely, and he was surrounded by strangers who were expectantly waiting... Inuyasha had never been one to display his weaknesses. Squashing down his sudden uneasiness, he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, then hopped blindly through the opening.

The ground he landed on was rough and dust-encumbered, something in the range of a ten-foot drop. He looked around himself, eyes adjusting all too quickly to the dimness, his ears picking up the ragged stir of wind scraping its way through the bleak cavern.

"It's about twenty paces in!" Totosai called from above, and Inuyasha craned his neck to view several curious faces straining to see into the deep shadows. He felt a pang of envy within his heart, wishing at that moment to trade places with any one of them.

That was not an option at present, though, so he saw no reason to brood on it. Instead, he stepped outside the pillar of feeble sunlight, his enhanced eyesight amplifying the dimness beyond. The walls of the cavern, he could see, were porous and dry as a bone, hewn in coiling, asymmetrical patterns. The floor was slightly more worn, though its jagged texture scraped at his feet as he walked forward.

The cavern became darker with every step he took, and he desperately wished for the comfort of the tiny lantern back in his prison cell. He hated the darkness, he realized, hated it with every fiber of his being, as though it were his mortal enemy. It was clawing at him, trying to overpower him...

"What's taking you so long?" The fire demon's indignant question shattered the silence of the cave, jarring Inuyasha from his self-inflicted torment.

"Keep your shirt on, old man!" he shouted back. Stalking forward, he fixed his eye on a hunched silhouette at the back of the cavern. Other dark shapes crouched nearby—rocks, perhaps—but he focused on this particular one, catching sight of a dull glint of metal along its surface.

He groped almost blindly in the near-blackness, his fingers brushing against what felt like tattered leather, undoubtedly the sword's hilt. As his grip closed around it, a foreign, electric sensation ran up the length of his arm. At first, the sword seemed glued to its resting-place, heavy as a ton of lead when he tried to pick it up. Then, abruptly, it broke free of whatever had bound it. Inuyasha stumbled backward, landing with a hard, painful "thud" on the uneven ground. Cursing with every vulgar word in his vocabulary, he scrambled to his feet again, feeling a bruise forming on his posterior.

He was still gripping the sword, he realized with an odd sense of deja vu. It was feather-light in his hand.

"Get the damn sword already!" Totosai hollered, never patient when having to wait for others.

"I've got it, you damn senile idiot!" Inuyasha shouted back, tramping toward the shaft of light that marked his exit. "And if you ask me," he added as he stepped into the pale, scattered rays, "it's a rusted piece of garbage!" He brandished the weapon ruefully, showing them its battered blade. Sure enough, the sword looked as though it had seen better days.

"Hold your blasphemous tongue, you insolent runt!" Totosai roared with indignation, flecks of fire escaping his mouth alongside his spittle.

In one powerful bound, Inuyasha leapt from the cavern, glaring at the ancient youkai. "See for yourself," he said, thrusting the handle of the sword at him. "The hilt is tattered, the blade is chipped... unless the real Tetsusaiga is hidden somewhere else, your so-called masterpiece is a complete sham!"

Totosai screwed up his mouth in a stubborn set Inuyasha knew all too well, but what surprised the hanyou more was the hurt expression that entered the old demon's eyes. "Fine," the blacksmith said in a tight voice. "Obviously I've made a terrible mistake. I'll just break my precious Tetsusaiga up for scrap metal!"

He snatched the sword from the hanyou's grip, and immediately found Sesshomaru's iron claws around his arm. Unsurprisingly, Totosai yelped in fear.

"Did you not tell this Sesshomaru that no demon could touch the Tetsusaiga?" the imperial youkai inquired coldly.

"Ehehe..." Totosai forced a chuckle, holding himself perfectly still even as his face crinkled into an ingratiating smile. The look in the dog demon's eyes was murderous. "Actually, what I said was that no demon can wield it," he reminded him, feigning lightheartedness. "There's a difference between touching and wielding. Some provision had to be made for the sword's upkeep—since I'm Tetsusaiga's maker, I can handle the sword for maintenance, but I couldn't take it into battle..."

Sesshomaru released his hold on the fire youkai, who drew a relieved breath of air. "Shall I test your words?" the inuyoukai inquired, holding out one hand as if expecting Totosai to hand him the blade.

"I wouldn't if I were you," the old blacksmith shrugged, "but I'm not." He wrapped his calloused fingers around the rusty blade, proffering the hilt toward the former emperor. All eyes were fixed on the two demons, apprehension rippling through the air. Sesshomaru kept his own gaze locked with Totosai's even as he reached forward to take the sword. When his clawed hand came within a hair's breadth of the handle, a current of energy crackled from the sword, a barrier rejecting his touch.

He drew back his singed appendage with a satisfied grunt. "Take the sword, Inuyasha," he commanded, never breaking eye contact with Tetsusaiga's creator. "It's your birthright, after all. With any luck, there's more to both of you than meets the eye."

The imperial youkai turned his back on them then, fluidly moving back toward the dark beaches, toward the small boats that waited there. A few sailors scrambled after him while the others, Miroku and Totosai included, remained behind, waiting to see the hanyou's reaction.

"Worthless sword," Inuyasha grumbled, snatching it back from Totosai's hands and stalking off in the opposite direction as his brother.

"Funny," Totosai observed with a dour expression. "That's the same thing Sesshomaru said when I presented him with Tenseiga."

"Perhaps the two brothers are more alike than they care to admit," Miroku replied.

………

The tide was turning, signaling that it was time for them to depart. Inuyasha bounded across the black-sand beach, wondering why there were two crates sitting on the shore and why Miroku was gesticulating so angrily to one of the soldiers. Then he came within hearing range of their argument.

"... You can't just leave us stranded on this miserable rock!"

"Those are Lord Sesshomaru's orders," the soldier staunchly replied, "and we've left you more than enough supplies until we return."

"If you return," the monk retorted. He looked past the soldier, fixing an angry glare on Sesshomaru, who was already ensconced within the small boat that would carry him back to his commandeered ship. "Am I being punished?" Miroku demanded. "Why am I to be left behind? Why not Totosai?"

"His services are needed elsewhere," came the bored response. "And you have a habit of attracting unwanted attention in crowded areas. We shall return, monk. You have my word."

"I don't want your word! I want passage back to the ship!"

"What the hell is going on?" Inuyasha demanded, wide-eyed and panicked as he slid to a halt next to the monk. The last soldier had already clambered into the boat, and a couple of sailors began to row shipward, leaving the two figures alone on the barren shores of Takeshima.

"Sesshomaru's leaving us here," Miroku announced bitterly, confirming his worst fears. "He says you need training with Tetsusaiga, that this is the perfect opportunity..."

"Sesshomaru, you bastard!" the hanyou exploded in fury. "You can't leave us here!" He crouched down, building up his strength for a powerful spring toward the boat. No sooner had he left the ground, though, than the former emperor flicked a whip of green acid directly into his chest, knocking him into a backward skid across the sand. "Bastard," he growled again, his skin seared and burning.

Totosai, meanwhile, sat in the boat, grinning like an idiot and waving farewell with a joyful frenzy. "Goodbye!" his voice floated across the increasing distance to them. "Train well! Tetsusaiga's sheath is in the cave, Inuyasha! You should retrieve it as well! See you soon! Have fun! We'll miss you!"

"Traitor," the hanyou muttered as he picked himself up off the ground. Brushing the dark sand from his clothing, he turned a bitter frown in Miroku's direction.

"You know," the monk said caustically, "if you hadn't gone off to the opposite side of the island to sulk, we could have fought our way onto that boat."

"Shut up, Miroku."

"Still, I suppose it could be worse. I mean, we could be miles underground in a stinking demon's prison..."

"Shut up, Miroku," Inuyasha growled again. The monk was right, of course. They were trapped, but it could be much worse. At least this situation had an end in sight. "How long before they come back, anyway?" he demanded grudgingly.

"Three weeks. And Sesshomaru said that if you haven't mastered the Tetsusaiga by then, he'll leave us here for another three. So get training."

Without another word, the monk stalked off toward the setting sun, jamming his staff into the sand with each step. Inuyasha looked down at the naked sword hanging from his belt. The useless, naked sword...

They were going to be here for a very long time.


A/N: Yes, Takeshima is the name of an actual island located in the Sea of Japan. As stated in this chapter, it has no freshwater source, so it's pretty much uninhabitable. However, it's also been at the center of a land dispute between Japan and Korea for centuries, because the surrounding area is really great for fishing. I just picked it for its isolated location. All details mentioned about the appearance, vegetation, etc. are details that I made up, and are more than likely false. That, my friends, is the beauty of fiction.

-Tish

Addendum A/N: Special thanks to Hawk for telling me that I originally had this chapter labeled as "Chapter Ten" rather than "Chapter Nine." Oops.