A/N: The song used at the end here is Billy Joel's "River of Dreams." I love that song. This is the chapter that I've chosen to have the same name as the entire story. I tried to find another title, and I thought "River of dreams" for the song and for Kasai's part would work nicely, but so does Innocence as a title because it's an example of multiple characters and their search, or attainment of innocence (kinda anyway?). This was my favorite chapter I think. Kasai's part isn't yucky, Koinu's felt beautiful to me, and Saya is here being cute. Yay! To New Fan: I missed you! And Adrea: All shall come clear as far as Return is concerned. Either later in this story in some further hints, or in Return itself of course.

Disclaimer: I do not own them

Last Chapter: Miroku, Kagome, and Masuyo faced off against Sesshy and Shiroihana. Shiroihana agreed to help them herself, but at a rather expensive price. Sess questioned her about why she did it but she led him around in circles without answering. A typical move for her. Kasai and Kenpo decided to drown themselves in their next bath because although they are adjusting to their cannibal soup and Master Dani's cruelty has lightened a little as of late, they're feeling his little Master Danis starting to take over and they all agree that can't be allowed to happen.

Innocence

The next day dawned too soon for Kasai. The other Chosen arrived and pulled them out of their beds with their usual dark, unhappy moods and moved in slow motion. Kasai stared at the others out of the corners of her eyes. Kenpo, Hato, and Osore all kept their eyes lowered pathetically as they went through the motions of life and obedience.

But that day was not like the past two with the gentle monotony of bath, food, and cannibal soup. Instead when the other Chosen brought Kasai and the others into the main hall there were no large tubs filled with warm water. The bath was skipped completely. The other Chosen separated them into four different rooms as if they had just finished their baths and pulled on their outer kimono robes, brightly colored and patterned with kanji. They combed Kasai's hair and pinned it up with small, sharp metal pins. Kasai took note of the pins and wondered if she had the courage to use them as the tool to end her life. She closed her eyes in defeat when she accepted that she did not have that courage.

Finally the other Chosen brought Kasai, Kenpo, Osore, and Hato out to the main hall. Master Dani was seated on his small platform like a true master monk. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be mediating. His position made Kasai recall her father meditating. She remembered the bright, beautiful gold of his staff and how it reminded her of something else—golden eyes…

Kasai sat on a cushion in the rich red and black kimono with the grass-stained white robe underneath and faced Master Dani's platform alongside Hato, Kenpo, and Osore. The other, uninfected Chosen disappeared after they had taken their spots, though Kasai didn't see where.

It was a long time before Master Dani opened his tiny eyes and started speaking with a deep frown. "My children, I am disappointed in you. I have seen your plans and they trouble my heart. After the great work that your Chosen brothers and sisters go to in preparing your baths each morning and dressing you for each worship ceremony—how could you plan such a cruel thing?"

Hato burst into tears and fell forward, sobbing into her hands unabashedly.

"Please Master Dani," Kenpo stammered, bowing as he begged, "I ask you not to force us to…harm someone else…"

"My son," Master Dani murmured, "you are the source of the problem. Have you no appreciation for the life I have given you? I have exalted you above the others here. You will live many times over your natural years, but you would gladly throw this gift away." With a grunt, Master Dani got to his feet and awkwardly stepped down from his platform. He walked up to Kenpo and stood over him.

Kasai, no more than two feet away from Kenpo on his right, tensed. Her hatred swelled inside her, growing astronomically, but her body was detached from her will. Her head moved, jerking from side to side as if she were dizzy while her fingers and legs twitched. The thing inside her, and the ridge on her neck, worked to keep her still even as she felt Kenpo's death approaching. She was powerless—weak. What good was a demon slayer that could not slay a demon? What use was a woman with spiritual powers who could not purify a monster threatening her and the people she cared about?

"My children are growing fast," Master Dani said, sighing, "but their human minds resist."

Abruptly Master Dani stepped to the right and reached with lightning speed, wrapping his meaty hand around Kasai's neck. Pain exploded up through her skull and down into her shoulders. Kasai screamed and fell forward, writhing with pain as her body quaked around her.

"I know you now, my daughter. You are strongest and fastest, like fire driven by the wind. You appear obedient, but I know your mind. You are the same as your ancestor, the man that killed my master so long ago. How beautiful that his descendent should come to me with the powers of a priestess and that she should carry my finest progeny inside her." His words were gibberish to Kasai, meaningless. She fought to sit up, grinding her teeth together with effort and agony.

Master Dani slipped past her, moving back to Kenpo. As he had with Kasai the parasite reached behind the young monk's head and rubbed his fingertips over Kenpo's neck, over the ridge in his cervical vertebrae. Kenpo's body fell limp and he screamed with pain, just as Kasai had.

"I have given you the life you longed for, my son. You wished for a break from your family's life in the fields. You wanted peace and quiet away from a village filled with bustling children. You wanted a life of silence and respect and knowledge, but a mortal's life is too short for such dreams. It is only with my progeny awakening inside you that you will be allowed to attain such a wish. I will choose you to run this temple and the shrine grounds in my stead…"

While Master Dani went on with his strange speech, Kasai sat up and stared at the parasitic demon, gathering her strength and her will. In the beginning of her time as one of the Chosen, Kasai had faced agony, sickness, and weakness. Now physically she was recovered though the thing inside her was growing stronger with her. She tried not to think as she readied herself, as her hands curled into small, hard fists like rocks. Let's see if he can read my mind right now…

Kasai hollered an unintelligible battle cry and launched herself at Master Dani. She was stunned when she felt her body impact his, and even more amazed when she felt him wobble and start to fall. Breathing hard, Kasai searched her mind for a weapon as she heard Master Dani snorting, trying to catch himself with one hand on his platform.

My hair…

She reached up to her head and pulled the pin out, clutching it in her fist. Kasai advanced on him, crawling over the floor, slapping her palms on the hard surface, slipping on the silk of her kimono. Master Dani had not fallen completely, but he had caught himself on one knee. He twisted his thick, round head and stared at her through his shiny, beady black eyes. His bulbous lips curled up in a sly smile.

Pain tore through Kasai's head and her arms and legs jerked, giving out. Crying out as she sensed her inevitable defeat, Kasai used the last of her momentum and her hatred to lash out with the hair pin. It stabbed into Master Dani's robe, tearing the fabric and then it hit something hard and stuck. Flesh! Even as Kasai's vision tried to fade out with her pain she felt triumph.

Then her body fell abruptly numb all around her. Kasai blinked. Her cheek was pressed against the floor, her arms and legs lying uselessly around her. Master Dani moved in front of her, regaining his composure.

"An excellent demonstration of your defiance, my fire! They say that the greatest rewards stem only from the hardest work. It seems you are determined not to make it easy for me!" Master Dani bent down with difficulty and pulled the hair pin from where Kasai had stuck him in the calf.

Watching him move, and feeling her own inability to do anything, Kasai tried to speak and when she found that she could she yelled, "Kenpo! Get him! Stop him! Osore, Hato!"

"You waste your breath, my daughter," Master Dani told her, laughing lightly. "The time has come for them and for you."

"You bastard!" Kasai screamed. "I'll kill you!"

"Certainly one of you will," Master Dani said, matter-of-factly. "Demon slayer, haven't you realized it yet?"

Kasai ground her teeth together and ignored his taunting. "Kenpo! Please! Fight him!" She couldn't see him and she couldn't force her body to roll over to face any of the Chosen. When she twisted her neck and rolled her eyes up she could just make out Master Dani's movement as he shuffled up the line of his Chosen, reaching out to Hato or Osore. She heard the children, both of them now, whimpering and crying pathetically. Yet there was nothing from Kenpo.

Master Dani spoke out then, loudly and with triumph ringing in his voice, "You see? Watch him rise. My son—Kokushi."

Kasai heard a shuffling sound like bare feet stumbling over the hard wood floor, and then a faint moaning sound. She recognized the voice as Kenpo's. "Kenpo!" she cried, "Kenpo! Fight him! Fight it!" Something was growing inside Kasai, a darkness, a foreboding. Something had happened or was still happening…

Kenpo at last answered her in a quiet, raspy voice. "Sister…"

Osore cried out, "Kenpo…?"

"I am not Kenpo. I am Kokushi." The voice was Kenpo's, but the words…

Kasai felt pressure building behind her eyes, mirroring the one growing in her chest. It was defeat and despair. We were too late. We let him win! Now there are five blood-sucking, priestess and monk enslaving parasites. "Kenpo," she choked on his name, aware that the boy possessing that name had died, replaced by the parasite.

Master Dani's words taunted her as she understood them days too late: Demon slayer, haven't you realized it yet? She had envisioned herself as the carrier of the next parasitic demon. She had imagined that it would use her body, suck it dry and then hatch out of her like an egg, splitting her apart like an overripe melon. In reality the parasite was smoother and cleaner than that. The tingles in her hands, arms, legs, and feet should've told her all along. The parasite used her. It controlled her.

She was not the host, she was the parasite.

Master Dani smiled in her mind as the fullness of the realization hit her. Master Dani was immune to spiritual power because his body had begun as a monk or priest. Over time he had transformed, losing his human hair to make insect bristles, and he had grown a second pair of arms that he kept hidden beneath his robes. He had become an ugly parasite, but walking on the street he could've still passed as human because he was partly human. The youkai parasite had always used its human partner as a shield, making it impossible to purify…

And when her parents arrived to rescue her they would find her living as a priestess and her parasite lips would lie to them as the youkai within her preserved itself and they would believe her. If it was her father that came Kasai and the other Chosen could feed off his blood, or her brother Tisoki's, or any humans if they felt like it.

"No," she sobbed and the tears fell. "No, please no…"

"You see?" Master Dani asked, speaking to Hato and Osore. "The boy has become my son and accepted his new name. You will all be initiated. It was a difficult road but now Kokushi has arrived and one by one the rest of you will follow. The boy would have asked you to die to disobey me, as would this faithless girl," Master Dani paused long enough to nudge her harshly with one foot. "But you see that obedience brings you into my family, into my home and you will know happiness my children, you will know peace that you never could've known as a mere mortal…"

"Kenpo," Kasai cried, sobbing pathetically as she saw his face in her memory in the dark, crying as he asked her to die with him so that he wouldn't be alone. It hadn't mattered in the end. He had died alone inside his own mind and body.

She began to feel abruptly dizzy and sleepy. Kasai fought to keep her eyes open. She was aware of her chest rising and falling erratically, of the sensation that she really was drowning. She tried to shake her head. "No…not yet…" I can't let go, if I do I'll be just like Kenpo. If my family finds me they could be enslaved here too—I can't fall asleep!

"See young ones?" Master Dani asked, addressing Hato and Osore. "Soon your ringleader will join Kokushi. She will grow still and then she will rise and be renamed Kisei, my first daughter, the beauty of the temple…"

His words grew dimmer until she could no longer hear them. The fierceness of Kasai's will had kept her from succumbing before Kenpo though her parasite was the strongest as deemed by Master Dani, but now not even that could keep her from letting her eyes drift shut.

She swam away into a pleasant dream where her memories enveloped her.

Her mother moved her small child-hands over Hiraikotsu when she was five years old. Sango whispered into her ear, "Someday you'll be a great demon slayer."

Miroku cuddled her in his lap while they stared into the cooking fire and hummed songs for her. She could feel his fingers combing through her hair, tickling. "You're growing up so fast, Kasai…"

Kohimu and Tisoki raced with her and played tag under the sun and under the rainclouds. They laughed loudly to pretend they couldn't hear their mother's voice when she called for them to come inside and eat. She stood over Masuyo while her younger brother held her sword Burikko awkwardly for the very first time. She laughed with him when their poles clanged together and she lost her grip or he stumbled and fell. Kasai held Koudo and Riki for her mother, she helped feed them and felt their small hands wrap around her fingers.

Interspersed with the uncountable memories of her mother, her father, and her brothers, Kasai saw Inuyasha, Kagome, Koinu, Akisame, and Shippo. The fox's puffy tail and his broad smile. Inuyasha's strong arms, his red haori and the legendary sword at his hip. Akisame's wild, messy black hair, the way her fangs gleamed in her mouth when she smiled. Kagome's gentle hands, her magic pain-killing pills, her warm laughter. And Koinu's face appeared time and time again, smiling warmly, holding her hand, hugging her when Kohimu or Tisoki had refused to play with her, and his soft voice when he spoke of anything that mattered to him, anything that he found beautiful or reverent. She saw his blushing cheeks in the dark after she had forced her kiss on him years ago, his drooping ears, and his shy, adorable eyes.

She felt a soft warmth close around her hand and in her mind's eye it was every one of her loved ones all at once. She did not think of death or dying, and she didn't think or realize that she was leaving control of her body behind. Her lips tugged in a smile and she closed her hand around that warmth, accepting it.

Master Dani had hold of the teenage girl's hand. For a moment it lied there limp and warm, alive but unmoving. Then it flicked with movement and closed around his hand. Master Dani smiled and pulled her up. The teenage girl rose unsteadily to her feet, using the platform that he had been sitting on earlier to foist herself into a half-standing, half crouching position. She was breathing hard, catching her breath. Her long black hair fell loose around her as she lifted her head and opened her violet eyes to look at the other Chosen.

Hato had her mouth covered with one hand in shock and terror. Osore called her name in a wavering voice, "Kasai?"

"No, this is Kisei, my daughter! Kisei," Master Dani said, patting her arm, "greet your brothers and sisters now, don't be shy."

Kisei parted her lips in a tiny, coy smile. "I am Kisei."

Kokushi, sitting on his cushion beside the trembling Hato and Osore, nodded at her pleasantly. "Hello Kisei, I am your brother Kokushi. I am fond of your face, sister. You are very beautiful."

Kisei looked away and blushed. "Thank you, brother."

After Saya escorted them to a large room with plush matting on the floors and walls with gold-flecked ink paintings, she stayed with them while they waited for servants to bring appropriate bedding. In the years that had passed since Miroku, Kagome, and Masuyo had last seen her, Saya had grown several inches higher and her hair had lengthened and at some point the front had been fashioned into a long line of straight, even bangs. The style was similar to Shiroihana's and of course the resemblance between grandmother and granddaughter was startling.

"Father told me that Akisame is well. Father saw Uncle too and he's fine," Saya said, offering reassurance to her aunt swiftly. "I asked Father if he fought with Uncle Inuyasha and he said no, so everyone is okay." She looked between Miroku and Kagome and bit her small lip. "Kasai is with a parasite?"

Miroku nodded solemnly but didn't say anything. Saya watched him expectantly for a time but the monk avoided her gaze, lost in his own worries and inner turmoil. When Saya turned her attention on Masuyo her expression fell with sadness. The young boy, barely a teenager, sat like his father with his head bowed in misery, thinking of his sister, his sick mother, and his missing sister. He was wondering which of his siblings Shiroihana would demand as payment for her aid.

"Everyone is so sad," Saya murmured. She pulled on her hair absently and focused on the floor. "Mother always says chin up and smile but everything's so heavy when I'm sad, sometimes I just can't."

Kagome smiled at last, sensing Saya's need for establishing a connection with them. She clung to them now not only because she liked them, but because she felt guilty for what had happened. Kagome pitied the girl and reached out to touch Saya's face and feel her smooth, silky white hair. "Wow Saya!" she exclaimed. "Your hair is so beautiful. If Akisame was here she'd be jealous of you for sure."

"Thank you very much, Aunt Kagome," Saya said, dropping into a deep bow as if the Emperor himself had complimented her, but after a pause she sheepishly looked up and added, "But Mother's hair is prettier than mine. And Father's too. And I wish I had black hair like you, Aunt Kagome. It's shiny when it's black."

"Saya," Miroku said, suddenly looking up at the hanyou girl.

Saya shifted to face him more directly and fell into another unnecessarily deep bow. "Yes monk Miroku?"

"The lady of this palace said that she would take us to the place where Kasai is. How does she plan on doing this?"

"Lady Shiroihana uses the sky," Saya answered in a solemn, deep tone. She was mimicking Shiroihana's voice.

"She uses the sky?" Miroku asked, seeking clarification.

"I'm sure Lady Shiroihana is assembling the flyers now." Saya sat up and made a face. "Lady Shiroihana calls them with the Meidou-seki. They scare me but they're really, really fast. Lady Shiroihana can leave for the continent at sunrise and be back before the sun rises again."

"Like an airplane," Kagome said, startled by the news.

"You mean that we will be able to truly rescue Kasai tomorrow?" Miroku asked. His expression had lightened with relief; his shoulders were a little higher. Suddenly it seemed that Shiroihana had offered him a better deal than he'd realized.

Saya nodded. "But don't look down, monk Miroku. It makes me dizzy and the flyers stink." She held her nose to demonstrate.

"Who is this lady going to take hostage?" Masuyo demanded sourly. "She can't take Kasai, not after what she's been through and not with Mom sick."

Miroku turned toward his son, suddenly alarmed. "What? Sango was—your mother was sick?"

Masuyo blinked as he realized that in the bickering about a destination and in their constant worry for their mother and their sister, Masuyo and his brothers had never told their father that Sango had seemingly been ill. "Uhh," he stammered, abruptly nervous, "Mother was sick to her stomach a lot the last time I saw her."

Kagome shook her head and sighed. She too had forgotten this detail. "Sango told me she was pregnant. She was really worried about it. If what Sesshomaru said is true and she's with Inuyasha then she's safe but Inuyasha won't know what to do with her at all…"

Miroku fell silent. His jaw squared, snapping taut with the weight and pressure of yet another worry. They had hoped that Sango had gone past her primary fertile years. Every pregnancy was dangerous, but the older Sango became the more dangerous each child that she carried was. Even the miscarriages could kill her. And yet at the same time Miroku always welcomed the prospect of another child, especially if the baby was a girl.

Masuyo had blanched at the news about his mother. He stared down at his hands in his lap, embarrassed. "I wondered about it, I mean Kasai and me, we talked about it once. It was her idea and I said I thought Mom couldn't be but…" his head drooped lower and his chin trembled as he fought tears. Without warning he looked up and glared at Saya. "That lady of yours," he snapped, trembling, "can't you stop her? If she asks for my sister Mother won't have anyone else to help her with a new baby! Kohimu and Tisoki are always busy, I'm supposed to be training, Koudo and Riki are too young…"

Miroku reached out and laid a restraining hand on Masuyo, shaking him slightly. "Masuyo, stop yelling. Don't be upset. The decision was not within Saya's power to control and for what the lady is offering—Kasai will be safe, even if she does not go home with us."

Saya stayed frozen, staring at Masuyo's teary blue eyes and his messy, disheveled brown hair. Slowly she blinked and scooted backward a little to bow in front of Masuyo. "I apologize for Lady Shiroihana, Masuyo. Father calls Lady Shiroihana manipulative. He says no one can outwit her and everyone falls into her trap—but Lady Shiroihana would never harm your sister here. I promise you."

"We know, Saya." Kagome reached out and touched Saya's shoulder, trying to get the girl out of her bow. "It's okay, we are really grateful that she will help us." Kagome glanced to Masuyo and Miroku for backup on that statement and found that although Miroku tried to appear genuine as he nodded, Masuyo made no attempt at all. The young teen crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at the floor. His face was deeply troubled, dark with his brooding.

The door to their room slid open then and four short creatures waddled in. They were geckos, all of them colored brightly in oranges, reds, and yellows. Wrapped in their curled, prehensile tails the geckos carried the sleeping mats and blankets that the humans required. Saya turned at the sound of the opening door and the sucking, plopping sound of the geckos' feet on the floor. She took a last long look around at Kagome, Miroku, and then finally sadly at Masuyo.

"I have to go now; Sister will be looking for me."

"Really?" Kagome asked cheerfully, still trying to lighten the mood and make sure Saya left them on a positive note. "I've never met your sister before. Can she come and say hello?"

Saya shook her head. "Little Sister is shy. She's still like a little baby." She hopped off the floor, revealing a surprising suppressed energy. As the geckos slipped past her, Saya bobbed her head in a last bow at the door. "Goodbye and good luck monk Miroku, Aunt Kagome—Masuyo. I will try and help you if I can."

The hanyou girl disappeared in the mahogany hall in a flash of bright, white hair. Masuyo looked up at the last moment as she bounded away. His brow furrowed as he concentrated, thinking hard.

They had at last found a real lead. With barely any sleep in two days of steady, heated traveling, they had passed through Niigata and picked up information concerning a massive shrine and temple that had a dark reputation. Demons coming and going, human bones littering the trail leading up the mountainside to the location of the shrine and temple, and sometimes dying, starving monks or priestesses would stumble down the slope and wander into the flat plains of Niigata, asking for a healer.

And, most promising of all, they had seen the massive bird pass through.

From their spot outside of Niigata Inuyasha and his group could reach the temple and shrine in less than twenty-four hours. They slept for a few hours on the banks of a large, sluggish river. River boats passed by during the night and the lights of their lanterns and torches, as well as the sounds of their paddles, afforded Inuyasha, Akisame, Shippo, and Koinu little sleep.

In the final haul of their long journey of rescue, Koinu found himself up and awake, restless as he stared north and smelled the wind, picking out the stink of the distant saltwater. He kept a spot beside Akisame, an assignment given to him by Inuyasha while the hanyou bedded down near Sango. He was like her car, waiting to be started in case of emergency. Every day the group expected Sango's body to miscarry the baby inside her under the stress of their journey. Inuyasha repeatedly told her that she should stay in Niigata with Nobe and her sons while he, Shippo, Koinu, and Akisame went on. Sango always refused.

As a boat passed by on the river, with a man onboard singing in a warbling voice like a bird, a ballad of war and honor, Koinu started humming his own song. It was one that Kagome had taught him and it would not be uttered again for about five hundred years.

"In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep, from the mountains of faith, to the river so deep. I must be looking for something, something sacred I lost. But the river is wide, and it's too hard to cross…"

Akisame stirred next to him and kicked him in the calf with a grunt. "Shut up."

"You weren't sleeping," Koinu pointed out blandly. He cleared his throat quietly and began the song again: "In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep. Through the valley of fear, to a river so deep. I've been searching for something taken out of my soul. Something I'd never lose, something somebody stole…"

"You're going to give me nightmares," she whined, covering her ears and closing her eyes again.

Koinu ignored her and lowered his voice into a humming as he pictured his mother's face smiling and Kasai's openmouthed laughing. But other darker images crept into his mind: Bones littering the trail to the shrine and the temple. Talismans that turned away spiritual attacks and crumbled into chalky powder. Monks and priestesses that wandered onto Niigata plains delirious and dying. He turned and watched his sister as his humming faded and failed. Akisame was dressed as a priestess still, in white and red. Presumably they would find Kasai in similar clothes, but she was a demon slayer, not a priestess. She was not quiet and reserved or shy. She was loud, she was uncertain, she was strong.

He stared at his sister's face, slackening as she fell asleep. "I miss you," he moved his lips to make the words but didn't give them sound. He was speaking to his sister, but also to his mother and Sango, but especially to Kasai. "We all missed you," he stopped, blinking hard as pressure built up behind his eyes, the desire to cry when he tried to imagine the horrors that Kasai had gone through, unable to escape and trapped by her spiritual powers, once a great source of pride for her. He sighed, looking at his hands sitting useless in his lap and whispered, "But I've missed you a lot longer than that."

He recalled Kasai's clumsy attack two years previously, her sloppy kiss. Koinu brushed his lips, tapping them faintly to mimic the pressure of her touch. It wasn't the same, but his memory of the event was tainted with embarrassment and buried. What had it meant? Would he ever know? Was it too late now?

Koinu did not know what romantic love was, he had never given it much consideration. He understood devotion to his parents, his sister, to Shippo, to Sango, Miroku, Kasai, and all of her brothers. The kiss Kasai had given him was an unwelcome, forced introduction to that world of romantic love. It had gotten in the way of what he did feel for her, what he had always felt for her. Up until that kiss she had been as constant as Akisame in his life. He had never gotten over that kiss, yet he had missed her, she had always lingered in the back of his mind, beautiful, fascinating, and infuriatingly confusing.

And the last thing he had said to her before the seabird had taken her away was: "Damn you Kasai! You bitch! Get off me!"

He lowered his head and sniffed at his tears, trying to banish them as he started to hum once more. "In the middle of the night…I know I'm searching for something. Something so undefined that it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind. In the middle of the—"

Inuyasha hefted himself up then in his spot next to Sango and glared with only one eye at his son. He growled, "Koinu—shut the fuck up already."

Koinu's ears lowered with acute embarrassment. Akisame could tell him to be quiet and he had the chance of ignoring her, his father was a different story. "Sorry, Father."

"Go to sleep," Inuyasha told him, gentler now. "I ain't stopping tomorrow."

Koinu nodded. "I know."

Across the other sleepers, Kohimu was also awake, listening to Koinu's song and remembering his father's words concerning the pup. How did Koinu treat his sister? Kohimu heard it over and over again in the pup. The answer was patience and Kohimu had very little of it. While he didn't think all that highly of Koinu's more thoughtful, gentle nature, it certainly effective in creating a close-knit family while Kohimu's harshness and teasing had alienated him from Kasai and Masuyo, and he doubted that Koinu thought much of him for all of the teasing he'd put the pup through concerning his sword Izoukago.

Patience, Kohimu thought as he tried to close his eyes and imagine his sister smiling at him rather than frowning or staring at him with hurt or bitterness glittering in her eyes. Patience…

A/N: Okay Kasai is NOT dead. As you clearly saw she got right back up—but now she's Kisei, just like Kenpo is Kokushi. (Both those new names are terms for parasites btw)

I want to leave a special note about Kohimu. I feel an attachment to his minor subplot because I have two younger sisters and like Kohimu I mistreated my youngest sister. I was "best buds" with my nearest sister, with three years between us the difference was miniscule, but as we were growing up my youngest sister was six years away from me in age and I was a bitch going through adolescence. The result is that now that she's sixteen and I'm 22 I look at her and see that I screwed it up. Me, my fault. A lot of it came out of the fact that she and I are a lot alike, we're both left-handed, creative, smart, bad with directions, blah-blah more and more and we didn't like being alike. As gentle of a person as I have been told I am I can be a real bitch and I was and she didn't deserve it and now there can be this stupid awkwardness between us like she's afraid of me or resents me because I was supposed to have been her caretaker and role model and I spit in her face instead. So enough sob-story. I see Kohimu and Kasai and that is myself and my little sister Holly. Patience, Shilyn, patience. Lesson here is be nice to your brothers and sisters, they're freaking awesome and you'll regret not being best buds with one or all or both of them later.

Next time:

Saya/Shiroihana: They walked through the halls, Saya in her short night robe with her bare feet pattering over the hardwood boards and Shiroihana in her long floor-dusting kimono. When Shiroihana wasn't looking down at her, Saya reached her free hand over and stroked the long white train of her grandmother's fluff.

Without looking down at her, Shiroihana murmured, "Saya, do not touch that."

Masuyo/Shiroihana: "I suppose you're going to say they like to eat humans a lot," Masuyo muttered, glaring at her.

Shiroihana's smile changed, rippling with real amusement at last. The boy had taken her bait. "On the contrary, these dragons are herbivorous. They rather like bamboo actually."