A/N: As this story has been written it has evolved and I'm starting to hate my initial description. The plot is just so massive it's hard to describe in such a small space. Anyone have any good suggestions? Feel free to share them. I like the idea of Inuyasha having a midlife crisis, and I think after this adventure he kinda still is (he can't deal with Aki growing up and by way of denial really wants another baby) going to have a midlife crisis. Though perhaps this whole deal is a midlife crisis. If it isn't midlife anyway it sure is a crisis.
I think you will like this chapter, though it's also possible everyone will feel upset or disappointed. As I was writing it I felt immense pressure to keep Sess in character, as I always do. Aki-Sess interaction is a LOT like IY-Sess interaction. Sess has a heart, we've seen it in the manga and in the anime, but he's like an onion as Shrek said famously. There are a LOT of layers. So although I think he does care, his interaction with his niece is a lot less pleasant than IY-Saya. Also Aki is not Saya, she inspires irritation rather than Sess's sympathy.
Oh! And I had a question as to whether Return and Innocence are actually connected. YES! All the characters here in Innocence know what happened (for them it was about 6 years ago). So there are hints here as to details of what happens in Return like obviously Sess will survive and regain his demonic powers (but we all kinda knew he was indestructible like that). Anyway...enough blabbing.
Disclaimer: I do not own them, but the kids are kinda mine.
Last Chapter: Master Dani turned his Chosen into cannibals, starting with the rebellious Kasai. Akisame met up with a wolf that spied on her while she was naked and then tried to pick a fight with her. But the wolf ran off after something scared him. He accused Aki of orchestrating the event, of ambushing him. Why? Because the youkai that scared him off was her uncle, Sesshomaru. Sesshy raced in with style and pinned Aki to a tree.
Otooji
The youkai stared at her through narrow, slitted eyes. He turned her one way and then the other as his golden eyes roved slowly from side to side and then down over her body. His gaze was cold, assessing her as if she were a hare caught in a trap he'd set.
Akisame stared back at him, her mouth open and gasping for air. His hand was powerful. His grip crushed her windpipe, closing it off. Yet because of his scent Akisame's hands had closed over his wrist. Her claws flexed into him, breaking the skin, but it was feeble. His scent confounded her. She knew that somehow he was her uncle. Her sharp nose could taste their relation, delving into it, picking it out. It stayed Akisame's hand, keeping her paralyzed with a counterproductive instinct as well as simple shock.
And then, suddenly, the youkai released her and took a step back as Akisame collapsed limply to the ground. She coughed and pawed at her throat, trying to breathe clearly again. She watched her uncle's shoes, steely-gray boots that managed to be immaculate in spite of the dust and the grass. The full breadth and magnitude of her uncle's power began to settle on her, making the hair on Akisame's neck stand on edge.
Through her rough, harried breathing, Akisame heard the youkai address her. His voice was distant and calm, like water running smoothly down a mountainside. "What are you doing here? Where is Inuyasha?"
She knew that name—and yet she did not. Akisame gathered her strength and her courage and scrambled back from the youkai. She got to her feet but her head swam dizzily. She leaned on the tree and kept it between herself and the youkai. "Who?" she asked, panting.
The youkai turned and looked at her directly for a long moment. His golden eyes were crinkled at the corners, his lips had thinned slightly. He was thinking about what she'd asked, hard. Finally he said, "Your father. Do not attempt to deceive me."
The white hair, Akisame stared at it, long and flowing down her uncle's shoulders. Her memories pushed at her. She saw the white haired man and the white haired boy. The man had her golden eyes…My father.
"Why are you alone in my lands?" the youkai demanded. His eyes had not left her.
"Your lands?" Akisame asked, genuinely baffled. "I must've missed all the signs!"
The youkai's expression soured. Apparently he didn't appreciate her humor, but her words brought on a change in his stance with a small turn of his hips to regard her full-on. He even leaned to one side to stare at her around the tree trunk that she used as a flimsy barrier. "You do not know me?"
Akisame frowned and sniffed loudly, checking the inuyoukai's scent once more to be sure before she risked answering. "You're my uncle…?"
The inuyoukai's face blanked, and his eyes dulled, losing interest in her. "You do not know where Inuyasha is?"
Akisame's claws dug into the tree bark. She stayed motionless and looked away from the inuyoukai, pursing her lips. She tried to give him the impression that she was avoiding answering to keep Inuyasha's whereabouts hidden. It was becoming clear to her that the inuyoukai had known her, so he expected her to know where Inuyasha was. At the same time Akisame could still feel the pressure of his hard, strong hand around her throat. He could've killed her in the time it took him to draw a single breath. He might've been her uncle but he wasn't very friendly.
These are his lands, she recalled. Perhaps he was as territorial as the wolves.
"Very well," the inuyoukai said. He started to turn his back on her but paused to ask her another question over his shoulder. "What is your name?"
He's my uncle but he doesn't know my name! Some uncle! Akisame growled out her answer quickly without thinking. "It's Akisame—otooji." (A/N: I think that's informal for Uncle. I usually use English but here I wanted Aki to rub Sess's nose in there a little and having her say Uncle didn't sound right. The Japanese term has more forms than ours and it sounds a lot less formal, which was what I wanted.)
The inuyoukai had begun walking away from her at a slow, smooth pace. "So you know your own name, I see. Yet you have managed to forget your father's name. Impressive."
Akisame's mouth fell open in astonishment. Then she bared her teeth in anger and embarrassment. "You did know my name." She pulled her head back to hide herself behind the tree and picked furiously at the bark. "Asshole," she grumbled.
"You are incorrect, I had forgotten it." The inuyoukai turned and pinned her with his sharp, narrowed golden eyes. "Follow me."
"No way," Akisame snarled. His power made the hair on her arms stand on end and he clearly didn't know her. He hadn't been an affectionate, close uncle. Was it possible that he was responsible for her memory loss? Was it possible that he had separated her from her family? Was he an enemy?
"I should have known," the inuyoukai murmured from the edge of the stream, some twenty feet away. Akisame had to strain her ears to hear it.
"Should've known what?" she growled.
"You are as stubborn as Inuyasha. The only thing you understand is a threat…"
His back was toward her but Akisame saw her uncle's arms move as he reached for his waist. She heard the slicing, ringing sound as he drew his sword.
She backed away from the tree, shaking her head in consternation. "Aren't you supposed to be my uncle? What the hell's the matter with you?"
"I cannot protect you if you will not follow me." He lifted his sword up so that Akisame could see it over his shoulder. It shone brilliantly, bright and white like a tooth in the sun.
"Where are you going to take me?" Akisame demanded.
"To your father," her uncle replied, short and simple.
Akisame frowned. "I thought you didn't know where he was. How do I know I can trust anything you say, asshole?"
The inuyoukai sheathed his sword with a slick grating sound of metal on metal. He turned his head and his waist a little to be able to peer at her over his shoulder with one golden eye. "I owe your father a debt. I am repaying it now. If you follow me, we will find him—if he is still living."
"What the hell do you mean by that?" Akisame blustered, paling with alarm. "I—I think I'd know if my family was dead. I'd remember shit like that!" The truth was that the idea struck her as likely. How else could she have ended up in a kitsune brothel? Yet somehow giving voice to the possibility that her family was dead made it more palpable. It set Akisame shaking and brought on a tightness in her chest.
"You do not know my name. You have no memories, just your name." The inuyoukai's words were like shrapnel, cutting into her, making her bleed.
"Shut the hell up! I'll never follow you anywhere, otooji. I'd rather claw out my eyeballs than listen to your shit!" Akisame growled and turned away from him, running back the way she had come, away from the little river. She had underestimated her uncle's powers of perception and he had managed to see right through her at every turn. He knew that she didn't really know who he was; he knew that she didn't know her father's name without his help. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know who she really was.
A white streak flew up at her side, parallel to her at first but then it darted closer and collided with her. The blow tossed Akisame sideways. Her body flew into a piney bush that clogged her nose with its strong cedar scent. She coughed and sputtered. Between the green and brown branches covered with their spiky needles, Akisame saw her uncle's large blue-gray boots and the billowing pant legs of his white hakama.
"Bastard!" she hollered, spitting out the needles in her mouth and clawing at the debris in her long, wet black hair.
"You possess none of your mother's common sense," her uncle observed.
"What the fuck's your problem?" Akisame screamed, beginning to shake with her rage. "Leave me alone! What the fuck do you care about me? If my father is dead your debts don't mean a thing! Just do me a favor and get lost!"
"I owe your father only one debt," the inuyoukai corrected her, stiffly. "And if he has died I will fulfill it by protecting you."
His words gave Akisame pause. She sniffled and snorted, trying to clear her nose while she thought. Her brain was scrambled, troubled. The inuyoukai was her uncle and he had known her as well as her family. She already couldn't stand him but the idea of spending her life wandering alone; looking for her family for an eternity left her feeling empty and helpless. If they had died and she had forgotten it somehow, Akisame could search the entire Japanese archipelago in vain. And she would do it alone, vulnerable.
When she spoke again her voice was quieter, cautious. "What do you mean protect me?"
There was a pause and then her uncle answered, "I will adopt you."
"Adopt me?" she repeated, astounded at the idea. Her first thought was: He'd make a horrible father!
"Yes," he murmured. His boots shifted, moving to point in the direction she had been running before he'd tossed her into the bush. "Now follow me, Akisame."
His feet moved through the grass and disappeared from her view. Akisame blinked for a moment and then pawed at the pine bush's branches, clawing her way out. She brushed herself off when she emerged, taking the time to crunch on an ant that had crawled up her leg. When she had finished she glanced after her uncle and saw that he wasn't waiting for her this time. The inuyoukai's white robes and brilliant hair moved languidly through the shadows of the forest, pressing on along the path that Akisame had originally taken to find the small river. He was heading back the way she had come.
Akisame cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at him: "I already went that way!"
Her uncle didn't slow and didn't look back. Apparently he was aware of it and wasn't concerned.
Akisame sighed, grumbling to herself in a singsong falsetto. "Okay, otooji. I'll follow you anywhere, otooji."
The next meal that came in the late evening, the same red-brown cannibal soup brought no resistance from Master Dani's children. The parasite lingered over each of them, walking by and praising them as they drained the bowls, crying and gagging with terror and repulsion. They didn't dare try Kasai's plan of defiance again and Kasai didn't suggest it. The dethroned leader of the condemned Chosen sat in a corner on the filthy, blood-spattered floor, running away into her mind.
After darkness had fallen, sometime late in the night, Kasai woke groggily when she felt someone touching her hair. Alarmed, Kasai lashed out, snatching the arm. When she sat up she saw Kenpo in front of her. His mouth was surrounded by a halo of blood. A few spots of gore had been streaked by the passage of tears as they rolled down his face. The young monk was dry-eyed as he faced her now.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
The darkness inside Kasai, the insecure, doomed child, rose up to greet Kenpo bitterly. "None of us are okay. We're going to die."
Kenpo blinked once, hard. Then, in a shaking voice he said, "I know, but everyone dies."
Something in his tone, in the look on his face, told Kasai the deeper meaning behind Kenpo's words, the whole reason why he'd crawled over to talk to her in the middle of the night. Kasai released his hand and suddenly found herself shaking. Nausea grew in her gut, but it wasn't a physical illness, it was a blight of emotion, pounding into her stomach and her heart like a nail. Kenpo was right but Kasai resisted. "No, we can't do that."
Kenpo drew a long, ragged breath and closed his eyes. "My parents were gentle farmers. I left them because I was dissatisfied. If I had just stayed where I was I could be happy and safe with them. I never should've left. Now I…I've eaten human flesh. There's nothing I can do to redeem myself of that crime…"
Kasai shook her head vehemently. "No, it wasn't our choice. We were forced!" Her shoulder shook and she fought to keep herself from gagging. "I'm not a cannibal—none of us are. We are not monsters like Master Dani."
Kenpo stared at her through tired, hollow eyes. He said nothing and the silence propelled Kasai onward. She bit out the words defending herself and her soul, curling her lips with her bitter passion.
"We—we can't die here. If we die that bastard will just do this again and again until one of his Chosen hatches like a fucking egg. Then he wins. We can't let him win. We can't. I'm a demon slayer." She closed her eyes and repeated the words, trembling. "I'm a demon slayer!"
Her cursing had startled Kenpo into staring at her with attention, but his mood was unchanged. "If we stay alive he'll win."
Kasai's nostrils flared, she bit the insides of her cheeks. She kept her eyes closed.
"I saw it in your face when I woke you up. I saw it today when—" Kenpo stopped and choked, starting to sob. "When he made you kill the boy, I saw you make up your mind. Please, I don't want to die alone."
It was true. Kasai had accepted the idea of death in that moment, retreating into the chaos of her mind. But now she was contrary and stubborn. She wanted to see Master Dani die before she did. She wanted to leave the world knowing that the others were free and that she had succeeded as a demon slayer even while she was utterly alone and helpless. She had often been afraid of battles before an event, she had often wanted to turn away and run from an obstacle, but now she was in too deep and the coward in her had lost his strength, leaving just her will behind.
Kenpo in turn had succumbed.
"Don't do it," she told him, quivering. "Not yet."
"But there's no way out," Kenpo cried, shamelessly burying his face in his hands and letting his shoulders heave with his sobs.
Kasai leaned her head forward against his hair, smelling his sweat. She grimaced as she fought her own tears. "We just have to wait a little longer. We can't do it yet, Kenpo. Promise you won't?" Her voice began to shake, "I don't want to be stuck here suffering alone. Stay with all of us a little bit longer."
His answer was raspy like a dehydrated cat trying to meow. "Okay. I promise."
Kasai wrapped her arms around him and let her tears come as she steeled herself to that same resolve. On her closed eyelids she saw her father's face with his violet eyes and her mother with her brown hair and gentle, loving face. If we wait just a little longer. She thought of Kagome and then of a different image: white hair and dog ears, open and caring blue eyes and a smile that somehow made his canines appear cute.
I'll see them again, she promised herself. It isn't over yet.
Sesshomaru backtracked over where his niece had traveled. His keen sense of smell and tracking knowledge guided him easily over the paths she had taken. Occasionally he paused to glance over his shoulder and wait for a sign or sound that Akisame was following him. The girl followed him at a great distance, literally hundreds of feet. It was a point of independence and authority apparently. She wanted to accept his help, but in a way that reminded him strongly of his stubborn younger brother, she was too proud to make it easy for either of them.
It was only a matter of hours before the sun had set and Sesshomaru was leading his niece through the dark. With the benefit of sight missing the girl had been forced to give up her stubborn distance. Now she followed him only about fifty feet back. At that distance they could see one another through the foliage and the dappled moonlight. They could also hear each other.
Half an hour after the sun had set, Akisame spoke, shouting to him, "How did you find me, otooji?"
Her voice startled Sesshomaru into blinking and stopping for a moment. He glanced up at the underside of the canopy and caught the starlight. The wind was picking up, moving in from the southeast. Sesshomaru sensed rain on it, perhaps a typhoon brewing in the southernmost parts of his land.
"Do not use that title," Sesshomaru ordered her.
"What?" Akisame asked, "You don't like it?" She snorted and started rambling wildly, "I'm not going to start calling you Father. Even if my dad is dead. You can't replace him. I can't remember him right now but I know that…"
"Silence," Sesshomaru commanded her, allowing a note of irritation to enter his voice. She truly was just like Inuyasha, a fact that was beginning to make him pray that his brother wasn't dead. That way he could get rid of the girl. If he had to adopt her…he stopped himself from continuing the thought. Ridiculous.
"Well then what am I supposed to call you?" Akisame demanded.
"Lord Sesshomaru," he told her and began walking again at a steady pace, picking up the trail.
They traveled on in silence for a time before Akisame repeated her earlier question, this time inserting his proper title, a detail that pleased him. "Lord Sesshomaru, how did you find me? I can't believe it was an accident."
"A fox came to me with a rumor that a close relative was imprisoned on the west coast."
Akisame made a huffing noise, apparently unhappy with his answer in some way, but Sesshomaru made no attempt to find out why. The fox that had delivered the message had been a foolish, opportunistic beast. He had served Sesshomaru's youngest daughter Hanone as well as his mother in the Kosetsu. That experience with Sesshomaru's close, blood relatives had given the kitsune the authority to identify a relative like Akisame by scent. He'd seen her and left immediately to draw payment from Sesshomaru for the news. Normally Sesshomaru might not have wasted much time with the news because all of his daughters were accounted for.
But he owed Inuyasha a debt, undoubtedly.
He paid the fox for the location and had set out less than a day ago, only to encounter his niece already escaped and inside his lands. Now he couldn't wait to find his brother and get rid of her.
The wind shifted after they descended a steep hill. In the depths of the valley the airflow brought Sesshomaru the scent of what was ahead of him. Before, while they had traveled in the higher elevations the wind had swept their scents northward, in the general direction of their traveling. Normally, like a predator, Sesshomaru kept the wind to his front side if he could, sweeping his scent backward and bringing him the smells of the world ahead. While he walked with Akisame, however, he'd worked to advertise his presence by keeping the wind at his back.
His hope was that Inuyasha was not far behind his daughter. If that suspicion proved accurate than Inuyasha would've surely picked out their scents using the wind. He would follow it, drawn by both Sesshomaru and Akisame's scents. If Inuyasha failed to appear that meant he was not within a certain distance and Sesshomaru would have to change tactics.
He would take Akisame back to the Western Lands and house her in one of his castles while he sent out hired servants and searched more extensively on his own. The idea of taking Akisame back to one of his castles disturbed Sesshomaru. He didn't want Saya exposed to his brother's daughter. She was bound to adore Akisame and she would probably mimic her when she heard the way Akisame talked. And of course there would be no way he could keep Saya from her cousin short of hiding the other girl…
Sesshomaru stopped when the scents in his next inhalation reached him. Relief made the muscles around his mouth flicker. He turned at the waist to stare back at Akisame to see if she had noticed the wind change. The girl had stopped where she was in a patch of darkness. Her face was lost in the blackness with her already very dark hair.
"What?" she asked.
"We will wait here," Sesshomaru told her.
"Why?"
Sesshomaru turned slowly back to face the wind, inhaling again. He picked out more details and his face rippled with a mixture of displeasure and relief. "Your father is coming."
"Really?" Akisame rushed forward, snapping twigs and brushing loudly against saplings and drooping tree branches. She paused a few feet from Sesshomaru's side and stared up at him. A narrow patch of moonlight fell over her right eye, wavering as the shadow-leaves that intercepted the milky light moved in the breeze above in the canopy. Sesshomaru saw his niece's eye compress as she smiled. The white of her teeth also showed out starkly against the nighttime. "Thanks," she told him.
"Do not leave yet," Sesshomaru warned her. He wasn't ready to turn his niece over blindly. Something had disrupted her memory. If Inuyasha had been similarly affected or brainwashed he might actually kill his daughter.
She hesitated, frowning. Her golden eye, illuminated by the moon, glowed like coals in a fire. Sesshomaru was surprised when she didn't ask why and didn't disobey him.
Sounds came through the forest. Branches and leaves rustling at first, then feet pounding the earth. Figures appeared. Two shapes leapt through the tree branches like giant squirrels. A third figure was a fox, light gray in the dark with an uplifted, fluffy tail.
The fox lifted its head and its eyes glowed bright yellow.
At Sesshomaru's side Akisame made a small noise as she inhaled sharply, staring as the shapes drew closer. Sesshomaru watched her out of the corner of his eye, lightly amused.
"Aki!" Inuyasha's voice rang out, hoarse with his desperation. "Aki!"
At a certain distance, about fifteen feet, Inuyasha came to a halt. The fox came a little closer, daring as most foxes were. The second shape, a smidgen shorter than Inuyasha but otherwise identical from their distance and in the cover of the dark, Sesshomaru recognized as the elder of his brother's children. What was the boy's name? It was something silly that barely seemed fitting for the grandson of Inutaisho, but as Sesshomaru recalled the boy was very gentle, rather like his mother the miko and that made the name appropriate…
"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha shouted, growling. "What the hell's going on here?"
Akisame started to step forward but Sesshomaru moved with amazing speed, putting himself between Akisame and her father. His hair was a flash of brightness in the dark. Akisame cried out in surprise and then started growling. Except for the feminine pitch of her voice Akisame's growl was identical to Inuyasha's. "What's wrong with you?" she demanded.
"I must ask a few questions," Sesshomaru said, answering both his brother and his niece with the words.
"Aki!" Inuyasha yelled, "Fillet his ass…"
"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said, lifting his head and narrowing his eyes. "I must determine that you are in fact yourself before I can allow the child to go to you."
"I am not a child!" Akisame snarled, bristling at what she perceived as an insult.
Inuyasha's ears laid flat as he lost his patience. He lowered himself to the ground and Sesshomaru saw a shape detach itself from him. It was a lithe form, a human woman with a long ponytail running down her back. Sesshomaru had already known that the demon slayer was with them by scent, but seeing her relieved him.
"What the hell are you talking about, Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha demanded once he had gotten back to his feet. The demon slayer at his side had shrugged off her boomerang weapon, readying herself and it for a potential fight. Inuyasha, however, made no move for Tetsusaiga and his ears flicked nervously when the slayer prepared her weapon. Any strike at Sesshomaru could also harm Akisame.
"Several years ago," Sesshomaru began in a calm, bland tone, explaining himself. "You rescued my daughter. You would not relinquish her to anyone but myself. Today I am repaying that debt. Before I allow her to leave my protection I must be sure of your identity."
"Fuck this," Inuyasha growled. "Did you get dirt in your nose? Or did you lose your sense of smell back when you lost your kid too?"
Sesshomaru stiffened at the insult but held himself firmly. He had little doubt that Inuyasha was truly himself, but he wanted to make a point of being sure and of letting his brother know that they were even. The score had been settled.
Akisame butted her head into his knees, momentarily making Sesshomaru step forward, wobbling. In that second she made a mad dash for her father. "Dad!"
Inuyasha lurched forward, low to the ground, sprinting like a greyhound after a rabbit. "Aki!" Though the demon slayer maintained her distance, Inuyasha's son moved forward with the same desperation that drove his father and the fox winked out of existence, teleporting.
Sesshomaru regained control of the situation before any of them could reach Akisame. He leapt over Akisame before she had traveled more than ten feet and gently knocked her backward with one leg. Akisame squeaked with surprise and fell over into the thick grass, coughing. The kitsune materialized in front of Sesshomaru in his boyish form and gaped up at the inuyoukai lord with shock. He'd intended to catch Akisame and teleport her back to Inuyasha and the others, but he hadn't moved fast enough and Sesshomaru had gotten in his way.
The kit scrambled backward and collided with Inuyasha's son. The two adolescents fell in a heap, shouting and squabbling comically. Inuyasha halted just behind them and cursed, tense and growling.
"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru called, calmly. "The child cannot truly remember you. She did not even know your name when I found her."
"Hey!" Akisame cried, immediately embarrassed by her uncle's words.
Sesshomaru ignored her. "Now that I have returned her to you I have repaid my debt to you."
"Is that your beef? Whatever you old bastard, we're even," Inuyasha shouted. "Just let Aki go."
"Of course," Sesshomaru said. He sidestepped, leaving Akisame's path open.
The girl briefly looked to Sesshomaru, glaring cautiously, then she sprang forward, closing the distance between herself and Inuyasha's group. Sesshomaru watched their reunion with a dispassionate gaze. Inwardly his brain skirted around a fragile memory, unclear and disturbing. The joy he heard and saw as Inuyasha wrapped his arms around his daughter, crushing her to him, forced him to recall the power of his own emotions, once upon a time…
Inuyasha's ears were quivering atop his head. His son moved in and joined in the hug, but the boy was openly making a sound that was somewhere between light laughing and crying with relief. The fox moved around them with his puffy tail twitching, grinning.
Then the demon slayer lifted her voice, shattering the scene, tossing them all back into reality. "Lord Sesshomaru," she called, addressing him formally and catching his attention immediately. "Your debt to Inuyasha may be filled but my family helped return your daughter to you as well. You owe us a debt too. Akisame was not the only victim here. My daughter has also been taken, and Kagome is still missing too." She stepped forward, slinging her boomerang over her shoulder as she approached. She knelt and started to bow while Inuyasha and the others stared at her with surprise. "I plead for your help. Please, honor your debt to my family too and help me search for my daughter and Kagome."
Sesshomaru paused, fighting a frown. When he'd set out after Akisame he'd counted on a swift resolution and he'd gotten one. Now a different journey laid before him and his obligations to it were flimsy. As much as he admired the demon slayer for her audacity, he wasn't interested in helping her and the claim that he was indebted to her family too was absurd.
"There is no such debt between us," Sesshomaru told her, coldly.
She pressed on, looking up at him with desperation. "Without my family's help your daughter would've died on the coast. Inuyasha never would've gone if not for my family's presence. You owe both of our families, Lord Sesshomaru."
Sesshomaru bristled at the growing authority in her tone. "There is no debt. The pact between Inuyasha and my wife concerned our family only. I am not bound to protect your kin."
"But Kagome is missing as well—" the slayer stammered, but Sesshomaru interrupted her.
"She is Inuyasha's mate and his responsibility. She is not my kin."
The slayer shook her head, refusing to give in, "But—"
Inuyasha got to his feet and called to her in a rough, solemn voice. "Leave him alone, Sango. He's right. Rin made him promise to protect my kids, and me to protect his."
Akisame suddenly asked, "He has kids? Wait! Did you promise to adopt his kids if he was dead?"
Inuyasha nodded with a frown. "Yeah, that was part of it."
Akisame growled and turned to glare at her uncle. "Asshole! And I thought you were actually a nice guy!"
Sesshomaru ignored her and turned to leave. When his back was turned on the group he paused to call in a gentle voice to Sango. "Slayer, go home and rest. You should not be traveling in your condition. My little brother will surely find your daughter if she is with his mate."
He started to walk off, ignoring the grumbling he heard behind him. It had never been in his nature to become unnecessarily involved in his brother's life. Part of him regretted turning down the demon slayer, but it was not his problem and not his fault and he had no obligatory ties to it. He had saved Inuyasha's daughter from the wolf youkai and repaid his debt. Now he had the Western Lands to attend to, rounds to be made. He had to bring Saya to visit the Kosetsu to see his mother and Hanone and Ginrei too if she was there—to see how her pregnancy was going and whether the child was healthy…
Miroku and Kohimu split apart the group. Kohimu, who was more than old enough to be considered an adult, led Tisoki and Nobe heading due west. Miroku changed direction and headed southwest with Masuyo and Kagome.
Kohimu used Tisoki and Nobe to question villagers and passersby, searching for any news of a giant seabird or of the missing women. Their lead, in fact everything they had to go on, came from Kagome. Kasai was seemingly north on the west coast, near the human city of Niigata possibly. They headed that way and passed through the villages, asking everyone they saw about all the nearest shrines and temples.
Though Tisoki had a wandering eye and often singled out young women to question rather than men, the group made no detours and wasted little time. Kohimu drove them on with as much ferocity as Inuyasha. In their first night on the road, sleeping under the stars, Kohimu initiated Nobe into the demon slayer's oldest trait: carving youkai bones into valuable figurines, combs, and weapons. After a small meal of bland rice they bedded down and tried to sleep for the few hours that Kohimu would allow.
Nobe nursed a few scrapes he'd given himself while trying to carve. He faced Tisoki while they lied still, trying to sleep. After a time Nobe whispered to Tisoki, making the older youth open his eyes and blink at him. "What?"
"Tell me about who we're going to rescue?" Nobe asked. He'd tried to find out from Kohimu but the eldest of Miroku's sons had no time to explain it to him yet.
"Well," Tisoki began, lowering his voice, "there was Kagome but you met her. We need to find Kasai, that's our younger sister. And then there's our mother, the best demon slayer of them all and a girl named Akisame, Kagome's daughter."
"What happened to them all?" Nobe asked, utterly perplexed.
"We killed a half-demon named Iruka on the east coast. It turned out her father, the whale demon Hakugei decided to punish us for it. He sent all of the girls to the opposite side of Japan."
"Why just the women?" Nobe asked.
"The half-demon only killed and ate men and boys. It was no match for my mother and the other girls though. That was why Hakugei punished them," Tisoki sighed heavily, his shoulders moving with the effort.
"Is that why Kohimu's so grouchy?" Nobe sat up a little, peeking over Tisoki's form to where Kohimu was sleeping, motionless and silent several feet away.
Tisoki chuckled. "Big Brother is always grouchy. It's mostly because he is our big brother, but right now I think he feels bad about Kasai, our little sister. He was always mean to her because Dad likes her so much."
"He's jealous," Nobe guessed.
"Probably but it's stupid really. All it does is make everyone feel rotten about it." Tisoki yawned loudly and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep, Nobe. Big Brother wants to reach the coast tomorrow and pass through Niigata by sundown."
Nobe nodded. "Okay."
A few feet away, Kohimu was awake, lying as motionlessly as he could, scarcely breathing. How foolish could his brother and Nobe be to assume that he was sleeping? Kohimu tried to work up his anger, but the effort only fatigued him. Tisoki was right about everything—almost. He had spent a good deal of his life jealous of Kasai because their father adored her as his only daughter. But in the more recent years he had lost a lot of his jealousy as he realized that he had a lot to offer, he was talented, and he hadn't inherited his father's lechery. His view of Kasai had changed from a simple spoiled brat to a confused girl more worthy of his pity and nurture. Yet changing his behavior was hard to do. The only way he knew to nurture his younger siblings was to be harsh with them, to show them how it was done.
He ended up crushing them more than anything else. Before they had parted, Miroku had taken a moment to offer Kohimu a last bit of advice: "When you see Koinu again you might try observing the way he treats his sister…" As much as Kohimu resented the idea, he had to admit that Kagome and Inuyasha's children could fight and pick at each other and still turn around moments later to share a fear or a secret or a laugh. It was the relationship Kohmu had with Tisoki, but it existed between brother and sister with their polar opposite personalities. If Koinu could do it, Kohimu could, right?
But if Kasai was dead, he would never have the chance…
Next time:
Lurching toward the shutters, Kasai forced them open wide. It was a small space but Kasai knew she could fit through it. She hauled herself up into it and threw herself over. The priestesses were rushing after her, their feet pounding the tatami matting. Kasai let gravity take her to the ground.
She landed hard. The blow knocked the air out of her lungs and she coughed, trying to catch her breath. There was grass under her palms, against her calves, her feet, and her cheeks. Kasai's eyes stung with joyous tears.