"Oi, Toga! You had better not be on the roof!" Inuyasha growled as he heard the thump of feet exactly where he thought he would. "Your mom will wring your neck if she catches you up there." His insolent eight year old slouched into view from around the side of the hut.
"Okaa-san wouldn't do that." Inuyasha raised an eyebrow at the boy whom no one could doubt was his son. "She'd just give me a time-out." He flicked the beads at his wrist with a scowl.
"Exactly. You want Hanami to see you dropped on your behind like a pup?" Golden eyes widened and he shook his head. "What were you doing up there anyway?" the older inuhanyou asked.
"Watching Okaa training with Toshi." Both of Inuyasha's brows went up at that. He had suspected his golden-eyed son envied his brother for the connection he and their mother had due to their similar abilities, but he hadn't realized it was making him feel so left out. He yipped for him to come closer, looping an arm around his stiff little shoulders. "What?" he pouted.
"Don't give me that. You know your mom has to help your brother get a handle on his reiki or he's going to keep accidentally spiking energy. It takes time. Just like with your Aunt Rin." His little ears drooped. "Come on, let's go burn off some of that energy. I bet you can't get to the top of Goshinboku in three leaps." Toga's eyes lit at the challenge and he was off almost before Inuyasha realized what he was doing. He easily caught up, but let his son think he was ahead. It took Toga exactly three jumps to get to the highest sturdy branch while it only took Inuyasha two, but his son just grinned as they stood together, looking up at the sky.
"Hey Tou-san?" His father grunted in response, watching a large bird fly overhead. "When the new pup gets here, are Toshi and I going to have to give up our room?"
Inuyasha startled at his question. "Course not. She'll sleep with your mom and me, just like you two did, until she's big enough." He looked more closely, seeing the uncertainty in his little face. "Toga, you and your brother will always have a place with us. No matter how old you get, how many pups are in the house… I'll build another room on. Another house if I have to. But we will always be family. Pack," he spoke the last in inu. Toga's ears perked at the growl. "Your job, just like me, will be to fight to protect this family. We're the ones with the strength for that kind of thing. Your mom, Hitoshi, their strength is in defending."
"Yea. Ok," he breathed, a tiny smile quirking his mouth. "Can I get a cool sword like Tetsusaiga? Or maybe like Uncle's."
"Not until you're older, pup. Your mom would have a fit if she knew you had a weapon. She'd be worried about you chopping your foot off." Toga slumped a little at that but nodded. "Trust me, when the time comes, we'll go see the old coot together and we'll get you your own sword. You aren't gonna like it, though," he warned him. He then regaled his son with the story of how Totosai had yanked out his tooth without explaining when Tetsusaiga broke and how heavy it had been afterward. Toga listened with rapt attention as they moved down the tree to sit at the roots.
Both pairs of white ears twitched at the sound of footsteps in the leaf litter and noses sifted through scents to identify who was coming. "She's gonna need to sit down. Go grab the blanket from the house." Toga nodded, flying off as fast as his little legs could take him, and returning just before his mother and brother entered the clearing. "You should be resting," Inuyasha admonished gently, helping his mate down onto the quilt their oldest had brought back for her.
Kagome tried to wave off his concern. "I'm alright. Just a little swollen. I didn't have this problem the first time," she complained, letting her hanyou lift her feet up onto his lap to help the swelling in her ankles and feet. It wasn't bad, but it was uncomfortable. She patted the round expanse of her belly. "This girl is making sure I know what this whole pregnancy thing is supposed to be like." Inuyasha shook his head wryly. His poor wife, who had such a time with the twins because of the odd circumstances surrounding their conception in this reality, was getting the full experience this time around.
"At least it's just one, Mama," Hitoshi said softly.
"Hai. I don't know if I could do two at a time again. What a handful!" she said with a teasing grin at her boys. Both stood as tall as their mother's shoulders but Inuyasha was sure they would be sprouting up again soon. They are certainly eating like it. Kagome sighed as her mate gently massaged her ankles. The boys play fought for a few minutes, tussling in the leaves before coming to settle by their parents. "I'm glad we waited," she murmured to her mate. There had been repeated discussions about when to expand their family. Kagome had been more inclined to have them closer together, but Inuyasha had insisted they wait until the boys were more grown. The last two winters had been very hard for the whole village and it made her realize how much harder they would have been had she been pregnant or caring for a newborn at the time.
"Keh. Told you." She rolled her eyes at him but smiled.
"Okaa, can we help Otou name her? Please?" Toga's golden eyes, and Hitoshi's violet, in a miniature version of her husband's face giving her the exact same puppy dog look was almost her undoing. She did just as any tired mother does in such a situation.
"You'll have to ask your father."
Sango watched her girls chase after the two inuhanyou boys in the field near Kaede's. They were not up to pace with the much faster twins, but with their mother's compassion and their father's protectiveness, they clearly slowed their feet to let Hanami and Rei keep up. The differences in their development were amazing, considering they were less than a year and a half apart. The silver-haired twins could almost be mistaken for young teenagers, while the dark haired girls looked their six years. "Do you think Toga and Hanami will end up together?" her dear friend joked. Sango smiled.
"She would be so lucky to have such in laws." Sango grinned as Matsu toddled after his siblings and let out a frustrated wail that the older children were too fast for the four year old. Neither mother was surprised to see Hitoshi scoop him up and take off running again, delighted squeals coming from the human boy instead. "He is so good with the little ones. I'm sure he'll be a huge help with the new baby." Kagome smiled and hummed her agreement, hand resting on the swell of where said baby remained in utero.
"He just gets them," she replied. "It helps that his nature is so gentle."
Sango thought a moment before voicing her question. "Has Inuyasha been handling that alright?"
Kagome smiled wryly, glancing over at where her mate was busy helping Miroku till earth to rotate their friends' garden plot. "Much better than you'd think. He's grown up a lot. I know you guys still see that bravado most of the time, but he's so gentle and loving with the pups. Firm, definitely, but they know it's out of love for them." She smiled at a memory of finding her three hanyou boys curled up together when she returned late from helping with a birth. In sleep, they looked identical and there was no question they were father and sons. "Hitoshi worried about it a lot, I think. He thought Inuyasha only valued physical strength. It's been a learning experience for both of us. We have to make sure to show Toga that his strength and resourcefulness is just as valuable as Hitoshi's insightfulness and spiritual ability."
The slayer smiled softly. "I am still amazed that both youki and reiki can reside in one being."
"I know. It amazes me everyday. His ability to see both and the distance he can sense them from is much stronger than mine. We suspected when he was a baby, but this is…" Kagome shook her head. "Toga is picking up Inuyasha's fighting skills almost without practice too. He already can jump almost as high as him and Inuyasha told me he's much faster than he was at that age."
"That may be partially because they both have parents caring for and guiding them. You had no real training until you got here. Inuyasha learned almost everything he knows by trying it and surviving."
"That's true." Kagome sighed and shook her head with a twist of her mouth. "I am so lucky he survived." Sango smiled in response.
"I'm sure he feels the same."
"Keh. Luckiest hanyou ever," her husband teased as he slouched down beside them with the nearly feline grace he was blessed with. Both women laughed. "Never heard of a hanyou with a mate and not just one, but three, pups. Doesn't get any luckier than that."
"I don't know about just luck. Perseverance had a hand in it too," Sango reminded them with a smile. The hanyou and miko couple sat with their friends a little while longer before calling out to their sons that they were heading home and to follow soon. Toga waved a slightly dismissive hand in their direction but whined back his agreement when his father barked an inu reprimand for his attitude. Back at their hut, Kagome settled into the cushions her mate had made for her to support her during this pregnancy and sighed. Her mind was drifting as she watched him stoke the flames in their hearth and start in on the dinner she had planned to make without her saying a word.
"Luck, fate, persistence. Above all it was a miracle. A miracle you were born. That you made it to adulthood. That you were only sealed to Goshinboku. There are so many things that only a miracle could explain with how the odds were against you."
"Against us," he murmured, kneeling beside her. "I don't know what wish on the jewel could have made this my life, but… This. This is more than I ever could have wished for. That I have you, the twins, and this little one," he breathed, kissing her and then the roundness of their growing pup. "I never could have dreamed this."
Kagome let out a happy sigh. He didn't know how often she had woken up with that exact thought, worried that her whole life over the last fourteen years had been a dream. Her daughter reminded her how real it was with a well placed headbutt to her bladder. At her wince, her mate was instantly at her side, helping her to the bathroom. He read her like no one else and she knew that her own understanding of his nonverbals was just as fine tuned. "I love you."
"I love you too, koi." He waited until after she'd finished in the bathroom before smirking at her. "Just remember you said that when you're in labor this time." Kagome huffed at him and the two bickered lightly until their boys returned home and they sat down to a meal together. Though they made each other crazy from time to time, they were family. Pack. And to think we could have missed all of this completely because we couldn't see the signs for what they were. Kagome asked for extra hugs from her sons before bed and kissed her husband multiple times as they fell asleep in each other's arms. She felt that tonight might be the last that they would have their futon to themselves for a while. The last night they would be a family of four.
Just after noon the following day, little Izayoi (with dark hair and canine ears on top of her head) was born. Her big brothers adored her on sight and Toga swore he'd never let anything hurt her. Hitoshi spoke a soft blessing over her which both parents felt wash over them, a warm and calm breath. That night, with their newborn between them and their twins asleep in the room next to theirs, Inuyasha and Kagome gripped each others hands while fighting tears. They felt the almost overwhelming joy, fear and pride in the new phase of their lives they had entered. Together.
"Thank you," Inuyasha breathed as Izayoi nursed and Kagome dozed, brushing her hair from her face. It would never completely express the expanse of his gratitude for the life he had somehow been given, but for now, it was all he could say.
Inuyasha and Kagome lived together another five hundred and seventy years. They had a total of twelve children, seven boys and five girls. Sometime in the early nineteenth century they were forced from the land around the village as Tokyo grew up around it. Knowing the well would survive, but that trying to go through it would be too suspicious, they had to say their farewells for a time to Kagome's family. They had no way, at the time, to hide the canine ears, fangs and claws that adorned father and children and so remaining in the past was their only option. They had to move out of Japan for several decades as history played out and to avoid themselves when they were younger. Eventually, knowing the date when they had stopped going through, they were able to reunite with Kagome's mother, brother and grandfather. Inuyasha was pleased to note that her grandfather was even more in awe of his - so far, eight - great great grandchildren than he was of the few great grandchildren he hadn't gotten to meet after they no longer could access the well.
Even better was knowing that he and Kagome had stood by the promise he had made so many centuries before. Their hanyou pups had known hardship only in the way that children learning who they were and how they fit in the world did. As a family, they found ways to navigate the world until the youkai community created a way to hide their less human features, allowing them a freedom Inuyasha had never known before. Their children were never alone, never knew true hunger, never feared their human nights because their parents were always there. Even after they moved off on their own, met mates and started families, they stayed close to their parents with the knowledge that they could go the world over and still have a place to call home. Kagome's arms were always open and Inuyasha always had gentle hand and a gruff bit of advice for their pups.
As Inuyasha had told Toga once long ago, they would always be family. Always be pack.