Disclaimer: Not my characters, only my insanity.
Author Note: 'Hanyou' is both plural and singular in Japanese, which drove me crazy while I wrote this chapter. Next, a huge thank you to patient, supportive fans. Christmas and Finals are over! On with the story!
Chapter EDITED... I'm shortening the story somewhat.
Chapter 10: Sympathy for the Devil
It was a beautiful day as they traveled south, tracking the scents of those who had destroyed the human village. Even though it was early winter, the southern half of the country was warmer, and no snow had fallen yet. The trees had lost their leaves, and rice fields were barren, but there was still a touch of green, here and there. And the clear, blue sky allowed the landscape to be more sunny and enjoyable.
If only the crisp, sunlit morning could have been enough to lift her spirits. Still worried about meeting a hanyou and possibly fighting one, Kagome kept sneaking surreptitious glances at Inuyasha out the corner of her eye. He appeared unconcerned yet focused on the task at hand. At least the scent was fresh enough that he didn't need to crawl in the dirt to follow the trail.
After an hour of traveling, they came upon a small valley and heard voices on the wind, raised in song. From the sound, it was a bawdy song, being sung quite loudly. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Kagome peered into the valley. A group of men were gathered around a campfire, and sure enough, she could make out their smiling, singing faces from here.
Inuyasha marched straight into the field, never stopping to pause. It seemed they had found their bandits. Quickly running after her hanyou, Kagome tugged on one sleeve. "Inuyasha!" she whispered. "What are you going to do? You can't just kill them all."
Brushing off her hand, the white-haired boy grunted, "Not gonna kill 'em yet. We'll talk first."
It was not the most reassuring statement he could have made. With a sigh, Kagome readied herself to subdue him, if necessary. These people looked entirely too happy to be evil. Bandits wouldn't drink and sing after murdering hundreds, right? Although judging by the demon slayer's dark expression, this was exactly what she believed. Sango tightened the straps on her bone boomerang and resolutely followed her leader.
They had crossed half the hill, before the group below noticed anything amiss. "Who goes there?" slurred one of the party, obviously intoxicated.
Close enough to make out their features now, Kagome gasped at the face turning her way. It was horrific. The first character seemed doubled over, his spine curving inward, and the next one had such a prominent jaw that it unbalanced his entire face. She was surprised he could even close his mouth. Another creature slowly faced them, with furry ears atop his head and a long, whiskered nose.
Obviously, Inuyasha had been right all along; these were definitely hanyou. She didn't even need to hear Shippou's whispered confirmation in her ear. And compared to these poor souls, Inuyasha had been truly fortunate to have triangular ears as the only evidence of his heritage. Perhaps it was because of his strong blood – the more powerful the parent, the more humanoid the resulting hanyou. In any case, she masked her expression, to avoid letting her horror show. Half-demons were not at fault for such disfigurement and she hated the way many people gaped at those less fortunate than themselves.
"I should ask you all the same," Inuyasha replied gruffly, ever on the defensive.
"Hey! Hey, look! He's hanyou too," exclaimed the long-nosed one. "Well, would you look at that… Come have a drink w'us." A chorus of cheers met this idea, and the hunchbacked hanyou guffawed.
Wrinkling his nose, Inuyasha stared. Their pronouncement didn't make any sense to him. These were the same people he had smelled in the village, yet they acted calm and peaceful. He had dreaded coming upon a crazy, uncontrolled hanyou, trapped in the hold of its demon-blood. Yet these guys were offering to drink with him, friendly in the way only truly wasted people could be. "Drinking so early in the day doesn't suit me," he finally stated, his words tense and scornful. "Do you do this often? Sit around a fire in the middle of the day with sake? Keh."
Ignoring his insinuations about their behavior, the large jowled hanyou moved to stand. Inuyasha drew his blade and immediately backed up, and the group gradually ceased chatting and singing, staring wide-eyed at the inu-hanyou in red robes with a giant sword. The large jawed one spoke again, his speech more nervous than inebriated now, "No, no. We just found this sake in this field here, so we thought… you know… why not drink it?"
Found it? wondered Kagome.
The other hanyou chipped in too, affirming their friend's statement. "Ya, and it was suddenly such a nice day and all. So Jiro made a fire, and we sat down. You can too. I've never seen a hanyou like you…"
"Don't start thinking," growled Inuyasha, narrowing his eyes, "That I am anything like you."
Deciding a tense standoff was a bit uncalled for, given their friendly disposition, Kagome reached out and tugged on Inuyasha's ear. "I thought you said you were going to talk to them first," she reminded him, "Before drawing your weapon."
"I did!" the white-haired inu whimpered, as she pulled on his ear. This was totally uncalled for! First of all, he had spoken to them, and second… he hated having his ears yanked.
Luckily, Miroku stepped forward to smooth things over, responding to the group. "Ah! What good fortune. I, myself, have never had the experience of finding sake that did not already belong to someone else."
Okay, perhaps playing nice was beyond the monk as well. Kagome rolled her eyes. But the strange hanyou group never noticed his slight, and the hunchbacked one smiled and answered jovially. "Happens all the time. You just walk along, and then, its like suddenly, you're somewhere else."
The others nodded in agreement, and the miko creased her brow in confusion. Really, this had to qualify as one of the strangest conversations she had ever heard. Closing her eyes and reaching out with her holy aura, she tried to sense any Shikon shards in the area, or anything else that might explain such odd behavior. But she sensed nothing. These creatures had no evil-aura, and there was no sign of shards anywhere.
With a sigh, she opened her eyes once more, then blinked rapidly, as she perceived a new piece to the puzzle. After using her powers, she could make out a thin web of purple light, surrounding the members of the opposing party. Light similar to the Shikon shards stretched from one hanyou to the next, in tiny cords of color. Even more mystifying, several strands vanished into the distance, over the horizon, at exactly the same point. Curious to know what the purple light meant, and where the disappearing threads went, the miko motioned to her hanyou protector and whispered this new information in his ear.
"I think I need to talk with them some more," Kagome murmured, after explaining about the light. Inuyasha's ear flicked in irritation. (The same ear she had tugged on a few moments ago, incidentally.) Crowding closer, Sango and Miroku looked at their leader expectantly, waiting to hear what their miko had discovered.
"Oh, great. Just great!" Inuyasha angrily relented, returning to the group of tipsy travelers, dragging Kagome in tow. "Okay, I'll have a drink."
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It took almost an hour to sort everything out, between the catcalls over her skirt, the general drunken rowdiness, and the excessive awe all these deformed hanyou felt upon meeting another like themselves. Evidently a few had heard of him – the inu-hanyou traveling Japan with demon-slayer, monk and miko, on a quest for power and revenge. They had invited him repeatedly to join their group, and each time, Inuyasha's face had darkened.
To make things worse, Kagome seemed to be the only person actually willing to speak to these hanyou. Several of them were very deformed, so she tried to make allowances for her friends' biased actions. But really, the way Sango refused to look at the beasts, averting her eyes instead, and the way Miroku plastered that fake, pleasant smile on his face, refusing to converse at all… It was really getting on her nerves. She had thought her group was kinder than this. More compassionate. What was going on?
And in the end, her efforts were to no avail, since these hanyou clearly had no idea what she was talking about when she mentioned a purple light that touched their chests. Nor did they have a clear picture of how they had come to be in the field. When she inquired if they had passed by a human village, a day ago, none of them could remember. Most of them just gave her a blank look, and several remembered they had been heading that way, but didn't think they had passed a village.
With a sinking feeling, Kagome understood. Even if they had gone to the village, then they didn't remember it… because they had destroyed it. Just like Inuyasha did not remember his bouts of madness, when his youkai blood overcame him, so too these victims of circumstance were unaware of their violent rages, and anything they did during that time was lost forever.
Perhaps this was why Miroku's smile seemed so strained, or why Sango was ignoring the whole proceeding. Perhaps the others had figured it out sooner than she had. But absolute pity was all Kagome could bring herself to feel. It was impossible to hate such a merry group, and they obviously weren't lying when they said they had no memory of passing by a human settlement. She found herself hoping against hope that they were innocent, and everything was just as it seemed.
If only the nebulous web of purple light hadn't reminded her of the tainted Shikon no Tama, then she might have believed it too.
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"I agree with Sango-sama," Miroku stated, once they had left the travelers in the field and returned to the road. "This bears investigation. If they are joining up with a larger group later, then you should join them and investigate."
"I ain't leavin' you alone. Stop asking," replied Inuyasha, glaring pointedly at Kagome. Ironic, since she hadn't said anything yet. Although, she was the one who always got into trouble, whenever her inu-hanyou protector went away for a while. Maybe his accusing look was justified.
Personally, she wanted to continue tracking the hanyou soldiers until they met up with their 'general' in a few more days. And because she was the only one who could see the mysterious purple light, she felt she had to go along for the journey. Yet Inuyasha insisted the half-demons would sense if they were followed, and he didn't want to put his friends at risk.
The only other option was the very one these soldiers had suggested. Explicitly stating all hanyou were welcome (and thereby implying humans were not), they had invited Inuyasha to join their band. For the first time in his life, Inuyasha had been accepted, while everyone else was excluded from the group.
The inu-hanyou seemed very uncomfortable with the idea though, and when Sango had indicated her approval of such a plan, he had exploded with anger. It had taken a full five minutes to calm him down. At which point, Miroku had chimed in with his two cents, and Inuyasha's stubborn nature had taken hold, full-force. Feeling rather put out that no one had asked for her opinion on the matter yet, Kagome finally decided to enter the conversation. "Technically," she said, "You would be the one going into a dangerous situation, not the rest of us. Maybe there isn't anything to worry about…"
"Who says I'm worried!" fumed the hanyou, temper instantly flaring up again. "I didn't say I was worried. I said I am not going. I'm not going anywhere with those freaks."
With a tiny gasp, Shippou jumped onto his surrogate mother's shoulder, and a heavy silence settled over their group. But no one was as startled by his pronouncement as Kagome. For a moment, she forgot to breathe, while she wondered why he would say such a thing about his own kind. Wasn't he happy to have met others like himself? She stared at him, concern written across her face.
Cheeks flushed with discomfort, Inuyasha frowned while studiously ignoring his friends. True enough, under normal circumstances, he would have been glad to meet other half-demons. In this case though, he had uncovered a group of killers, who didn't even understand the danger they presented to society. After the destruction he had seen in that village, he had planned to take swift revenge on the bandits. And yet, once he found them, seeing their guileless faces and blank looks had reminded him of Jinenji. The half-horse demon had always been slow and stupid, and everyone had hated him too, even when he did nothing wrong. It made him feel sick.
In human years, these hanyou would have been fourteen or fifteen – barely of age, obviously young and inexperienced fighters. Every fiber of his being cried out to distance himself from them, to show he was different, he was better. Still, he knew he wasn't. The only reason he kept a fragile hold on his sanity was the Tessaiga. These hanyou, like Jinenji, hadn't been lucky enough to have loving parents, willing to sacrifice to save their children's souls. And unlike Jinenji, they were dangerous! Each of the creatures in the field was born of a predatory youkai.
So, naturally, it didn't sit well with him that Kagome was gazing at him with pity and drawing unwanted comparisons. Turning toward the miko with a snarl, he snapped, "Stop looking at me like that! I know what I'm doing!"
She flinched, alarmed by his anger. What was happening here? Was one small argument all it took to break apart their group? Admittedly, this was a charged, contentious issue; most of the time, everyone avoided discussing Inuyasha's hanyou heritage. It wasn't because they were ashamed of him though! It was because he never broached the subject. The closest he had ever come to discussing his past was the day he visited Jinenji with her. It had been like pulling teeth, getting Inuyasha to admit people had mistreated him too, when he was young. She recalled being so surprised that she actually thanked him for acknowledging it. Yes, it was weird to thank someone for admitting he had been abused, but such conversations were never easy.
What was bothering him this time? "I…" she began softly, "None of us think that you are anything like them, Inuyasha. You promised to protect me once, and I trust you to do just that. All of us do."
The sympathetic gaze remained, except now her eyes were filling up with tears. Clenching his fists, the half-demon felt like screaming. Somehow it never failed – he would do something stupid, and she would misinterpret everything, either subduing him or crying. It was enough to make a boy crazy. "It's not like that… Okay, maybe it is… Look, I just…"
Looking into her eyes, he saw nothing but acceptance. And it bothered him. How could anyone be so damn forgiving? He wasn't. He couldn't afford to be. This morning, he had wanted nothing more than to kill those damn hanyou, and then Kagome had to gush about how they were sweet and innocent, because they didn't know their own sins – and now he felt all conflicted. If he attacked her, in a demon rage, would she defend herself? Or would she just forgive him? It had happened once before, but he couldn't remember…
"Fine, I'll go," he grumbled, "But I want Myouga-jiji with me, in case I have to send back a message or something."
"I think he ran away," Shippou noted philosophically, "the moment you said that."