Bankotsu merely observed the intricate seal that was etched against his skin, which caught Jakostu's eyes once again.
He then ventures over to where his older brother settles in on the raise wooden platform and teases, "So how long are you going to be morose about the seal?"
His eyes were close once he deeply sighs, casts his sights on to the scenery in front of him, and clarifies, "I am not morose more like…irritated but not morose."
The raven hair male's response earns a chuckle from his younger brother, who manages to quip, "Her husband is a bit of a…dog. Besides, he's rather quite overprotective of her."
Bankotsu tightly clenches his fists and mutters, "He has interrupted our fight twice. That stupid mutt won't let me finish what she started."
"Why don't you go interrupt her training session?" He suggests while a bird captures his sight once it lands in a nest to feed her chicks.
"A little birdie told me that Kirara had snuck off to do some training in order to fight you." The feminine male mentions with a smirk on his face.
'Training, huh?'
Jakostu watches as Bankostu stands to his feet, which prompts him to challenge, "And just where do you think you are going?"
He hops down on the ground, ambles a couple of feet away, peers over his shoulder and proclaims, "If she's planning on putting her best foot forward then I shouldn't disappoint her."
'You're just afraid that you will actually lose to her.' Jakostu ultimately concludes after he reads between the lines of his statement.
Bankostu then directed his sights back on to his intended destination when he asserted, "I'll be back when I feel that she will be ready for me."
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"Why did we leave?!" Hakudōshi annoyingly complains.
He then leans on the side of the white feather before he adds, "I didn't even get to slaughter everyone in the town."
Kagura merely rolls her eyes at the boy's complaint, which prompts her to think, 'No matter how mature he acts, he still has a childish nature.'
She watched in slight amusement as the young boy grumbled, kicked and groaned at the fact his massacre had been prematurely cut short.
The youkai cracks a smile as she witnesses the ever so calm Hakudōshi act like a pure child, which was quite a refreshing sight if you ask her.
Her red eyes soon land on the other passenger in her feather, the ever so quite Kanna. 'I guess Naruku doesn't have any qualms about our little journey to the west then.'
Kanna simply remains mute while her eyes carefully observe the new scenery that they fly over in Kagura's feather.
'We're about a day's away from the West Kingdom. I wonder if anything has changed since my last visit.' She quietly wonders to herself.
She then focuses on the current of the winds.
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Kosei dutifully patrols his portion of the castle when he eventually encounters one of his comrades in arms.
"Itsuki," He calls out to the parti-colored hair young man, who soon directs his focus on to his second in command.
"Oh Kosei," Itsuki quietly returns the greeting with a quaint smile right before he mentions, "It's rare for our patrols to cross like this."
The sable hair inu-youkai nods his head in agreement. He then discloses, "First, it was Akio and now I ran in to you. I wonder what that could mean?"
"You always tend to have the luckiest routes, Kosei-san." The younger of the two honestly admits with a nod his head.
He includes, "You even got to escort Lady Kirara and her comrades to their training grounds."
'He does have a point.' He finds himself in agreeance with Itsuki, "I guess you're right. I think we should also have some type of training as well."
Itsuki's eyes light up at the word training. He adamantly nods his head in agreement to the idea.
"It would give us a chance to see who is the strongest….that is between you and Akio."
"Training does sound like a wonderful idea but we have an important task at the moment and that is to guard the castle from intruders." Koseu reminds him of their duty at the current moment.
"Well let's keep up the hard work then." Itsuki happily mentions as he proceeds forward on his patrol route.
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"…and this ends the exercise!" Kirara loudly shouts as Kenichi, Yoshinori, and Makoto since they were able to land a couple of hits on the neko-youkai.
"Good job you three! You all displayed excellent teamwork and resourcefulness in a new environment." She compliments the trio in front of her.
The blonde then directs her focus on to the others, "Dai, Hiroki, Toshi and Satoshi, I cannot stress how important it is to constantly be aware of your surroundings. Youkai have the bad habit of ambush attacks when you least expected. Understood?"
"Understood, ma'am." The quartet unanimously agree before the group execute a bow.
Kirara briefly peers up at the sun to see that it was no longer at its highest peak, 'I guess I could give them a break. That exercise should have drained them a little.'
"We will take a ten minute break. Then you will start back up with hand-to-hand combat with new opponents." She discloses what the group needs to do next.
'I wonder how much of the regime we will be able to cover in a manner of two days.'
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Sesshomaru leisurely strolls throughout his castle for the umpteenth time, simply because the inu-youkai was rather quite bored.
'The castle is actually quiet for once.' He notes as he bypasses the East Wing where Kirara and her men currently reside.
The daiyoukai releases a breath when his sensitive hearing picks up on footsteps that belong to none other than Rin.
"No running in the castle corridors!" Jaken shouts out to the brunette girl after he catches her running down the corridor.
Rin simply ignores the warning and dashes off faster than ever until she skids to a halt in front of the white hair male.
She exhales a deep sigh in order to catch her breath before she asks, "Where is my onee-chan?"
'She didn't even tell Rin where she was going?' He notes from the question that the little girl just poses to him.
"I am so sorry Lord Sesshomaru for Rin's impudence." Jaken apologetically shouts after he approaches the girl and repeatedly glances between the pair.
Sesshomaru merely ignores the toad imp and remains focus on the little girl in front of him.
"Training camp with her subordinates," He discloses to the little girl, whose frown morphs in to a small smile.
"Training camp?" Rin repeats more to herself as she wipes some tears from the side of her eyes.
"Hopefully, she will come back with some manners and etiquette of a Lady of the Lord of the West Kingdom." Jaken mutters to himself.
A wide smile soon replaces the small one when she proclaims with enthusiasm, "She'll come back stronger!"
'We will have to see once she gets back.'
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'Where did that idiot go?' Ayame wonders as she searches high and low through her family's home for her younger brother.
She soon spotted her mother in the calligraphy room, where it appeared she had just finished up with some manuscript.
"Mom, have you seen that idiot Isamu?" Ayame directs her question to the matriarch of their household while she folds her arms underneath her chest.
"Oh good afternoon, Ayame," Lady Kimiko politely greets her eldest daughter with a small smile as she slides the scroll inside in a wooden cabinet.
"Your brother is on a little errand for me." She discloses after she faces and approaches the hallway.
"Are you sure he didn't make up an excuse to go out on one of his demon hunting missions again?" Ayame challenges since she would routinely cover for the brash young man's unpredictable nature.
"You will do well as to watch that tone you use with me young lady." Her mother sternly advises once she slides the shoji door and locks it.
The blonde woman swiftly apologizes for being disrespectful toward her mother before she explains, "The reason I asked is because father is thinking about having the boys start receiving suitors."
An expression briefly was passing over her face at the thought of her sons courting young woman, "I should go have a talk with your father."
"Ah so you disagree with the idea too?M" Ayame excitingly poses since she completely disagrees with the idea.
Her mother unknowingly halts in the middle of the walkway, slightly rotates to face her daughter and admits, "I personally don't have a problem with courting. However, I think Noaki is the only one ready for that kind of commitment."
"Also," She suddenly speaks, "You're behind on the curve yourself. We will chalk it up to how would Isamu describe Kirara's situation? Ah…oh yes, a misfortunate circumstance."
'Did she just use sarcasm?' Ayame inwardly weighs as she follows behind her mother once she starts to move forward again.
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A day later…
Isamu casually leaps the walls of the West Kingdom with relative ease since he did not want to announce his presence via the security guards.
He manages to land in a relative empty space before he recalls the path they took to arrive at the castle.
'This path looks familiar…' The blonde recalls as he rapidly sprints down the path once he spots a stone marker.
Isamu constantly checks his pocket for the invitation that his mother had personally handwritten for the silver head inu-youkai.
'I still can't believe she wrote that idiot a letter! Why can't they see that Kirara hates that man?''
He then releases a deep sigh right before his focus returns on to the path in front of him. A sudden unfamiliar scent grazes across his nose.
'What's that smell?' Isamu wonders to himself as the sight of the West Kingdom's gate soon enters in his view.