Okay firstly, I can confidently announce that there are only four or five more chapters left in this story! I can also announce that I have been outlining a sequel, if you guys are interested in me continuing with Toshiro once this story is finished. If you guys have been following this story, I appreciate you, because I know how long I take in between updates. I just want to make sure I'm giving you guys the best content that I'm able, and I have no beta reader so editing each chapter takes me some time.

Secondly, please be warned. I have not failed to notice that I have a flair for the angsty and, as such, this chapter is one of my more triggering. I've never shied away from the darker aspects of this story, the horror that Toshiro has dealt with and how it has effected him, and I will not shy away from it now. If you guys are uncomfortable continuing to read once things take a turn, please skip to the end of the chapter, I will sum up what happens in it the best I can without all the gory details.

Love you guys, always

They left the Western Palace when the moon was high in the sky, the night air warm and buzzing with spring and insects.

Sesshomaru himself had walked them to the gates, going on in his somber voice to Toshiro and Shippou about how to better their defensive stances, and how they should carry secondary weapons, and how, if they wanted to be effective warriors, it was important that they consumed more fresh meat and less sweets. Shippou had groaned with each new instruction, but Toshiro was grateful that his uncle cared about them getting stronger. So when the Inu no Taisho said he wanted them to run through the set of drills he'd written down for them at least three times a week Toshiro had quipped at the youkai with a smirk, "Why don't you just come to the village and oversee some of our training yourself, then?"

Shippou had glared at his brother in outrage, but the hanyou pup only stared up at the dai youkai. When Sesshomaru only gave a quiet, "Hn." in response Toshiro had beamed.

Inuyasha and Sesshomaru planned for the latter to come in a weeks' time, the former's hand securely in Kagome's as he barked at his older brother to train his sons right, and not to be late. Even growling and glaring at each other, Toshiro was sure it had been the calmest conversation yet he'd seen transpire between the legendary Brothers of the Fang.

Jaken had screeched at Toshiro and Shippou not to embarrass his Lord and master, Rin had squished Shippou to her chest in a hug so tight that the kit's face went red, Ah Un had nudged and snuffled at Toshiro's hair in a happy, snorting hello and goodbye. And then they began their travel home.

The five days back to Musashi was a leisurely endeavor. They were in no rush to get back to the bustle of the village, and taking on jobs, and combat and miko lessons, and plotting to infiltrate the Southern inu. The pup was sure that all the planning and scheming would resume when Sesshomaru visited their home in a weeks' time, and that he and Shippou would not be allowed to participate in said planning and scheming. But despite his parents' determination to keep him out of it, he knew that he had to find a way to help, and that was the very reason was why he doddled alongside his pack. Toshiro was in no hurry to make the decisions he knew he'd have to make when they got home. He didn't want to think about facing Katsumi after all this time, or fighting Orochi again when the male had so thoroughly broken him the last time they'd encountered one another. He just wanted a few more blissful, ignorant days of travel with his family.

He knew that Kagome and Inuyasha felt the same. Toshiro knew that they kept their pace slow whilst getting back to Musashi because they wanted time with just themselves and their pups. Kagome and Inuyasha had spent their journey home almost always pressed together, the hanyou's nose almost always sniffing about the scabbing mating bite on the miko's shoulder, Kagome always kissing his nose, or cheeks, or even his lips just because she could. Shippou had pretended to gag and gripe at the public affection, but Toshiro knew that the kitsune was just as happy as he that the two were intended now. While Kaede and Miroku and Sango and their unborn pups were indeed pack, the five of them were their own little family. When Kagome accepted the mating bite it meant that she intended to start her own family with Inuyasha one day, that she fully accepted not just the male, but Toshiro and Shippou as her blood and that she would one day bear Inuyasha more pups in the future.

Toshiro couldn't wait until then.

The hanyou pup had been happy to watch them, happy to witness the love that was so painstakingly obvious in how they looked at one another. It was in the gentle way that Inuyasha picked up Kagome around the waist to help her over a fallen tree, and in how she softly ran her fingers through his hair when he laid his head in her lap each night. It was in the way he sighed and like a lovesick fool when she read the boys stories, and when she blushed with pleasure and pride when she watched him run the their sons through mid-day trainings. They were happy, and in love, and it filled Toshiro with a strange, bittersweet sort of warmth.

The way they looked at each other reminded him of the red haired woman who'd given birth to him, who'd stared with such love in her eyes at the faceless human man who'd painted her picture before Toshiro was ever born.

He ached for that tattered old photo of Misa sometimes.

He'd always felt in his gut that his father was the one to paint that picture, he'd always known it in his bones. Because who else would the previous Lady of the South have looked at with such adoration in her green eyes, who else would have brought that crinkling smile to her warm brown skin in such realistic detail? That photo was the only connection he'd had to his birth parents, the only reason he knew he got his nose from his mother, and why he had always assumed the blue eyes he sported on his human nights and his love of art had come from his father.

He felt a bit bad that now most times when he imagined his mother, he saw brown eyes in his mind instead of dark green, long black hair instead of a bright red that reminded him of things like strawberries and fall leaves, porcelain clear skin instead of a sun kissed, freckled umber. Misa had sired him, and would always be his mother, but Toshiro had never known her. He had never gotten a chance to learn about his family and culture from her, to learn to fight, and lead, and love. Kagome was the only true mother that he had ever known. And though he in no way regretted loving the miko as he did, Toshiro could admit only to himself that he sometimes felt himself a traitor to Misa's memory for his attachment to the human woman.

To honor Misa's memory he had to go South again. Even if the that meant Toshiro would again face the monsters who'd tortured him, he owed it to his birth mother to at least try. Toshiro knew that he had to find a way to convince Inuyasha and Kagome to let him go. He knew he had to do something. It was terrifying to think about, but it was his duty. Though he didn't want to be he was, by right and blood, the Lord of the Southern Inu, and that meant that he had a responsibility to help free his people from Katsumi and her cruel ways in any way he could. If that meant risking his life to let his pack cross into the Southern city, warded and hidden and protected by his blood, then so be it.

"Watch where you're going woman!" Inuyasha was barking at Kagome,

Toshiro came out of his head as his father righted the miko where she'd tripped over a tree root. She could have easily caught herself, but the pup knew that Inuyasha would take any chance to touch her that he could. He smiled at the two of them fondly.

They were only about half a day away from home now, beams of sunlight breaking through the forest's cover every now and then to warm Toshiro's face and neck. Shippou and Moeru were roughhousing a few feet ahead, the kitsune and saber chasing and tackling each other around the trees and shrubs and rocks.

Toshiro kept pace beside the lovebirds.

"So," he hummed conversationally. "when are Shippou and I getting a sister?"

"Hah?!" Inuyasha exclaimed.

Toshiro smiled at his father, oblivious. "I think a sister would be good for us."

"I don't want no dang sister!" Shippou called back from where he dodged a swipe of Moeru's paws. "Girls are gross."

The saber pounced, knocking Shippou into the dirt and sending the two into the forest in a ball of red and black fur.

"Excuse you!" Kagome called after them in indignation.

"Not you, mom." Shippou's head popped out of a bush, his grin sheepish and leaves in his har. "But little sisters are . . . well, gross."

"I think baby girls are adorable." Toshiro sighed dreamily. "They're soft, and sweet, and smart. We could teach her to fight and protect her."

Kagome smiled and pinched his cheek. "That's very sweet, Toshi."

"That's very gross, Toshi." Came Shippou's voice from somewhere in the wood. Toshiro growled and Shippou's responding chuckle bounced off of the trees like a specter.

"Who the hell said we were having another pup anytime soon anyway?!" Inuyasha had finally found his voice again, though it was hiked up three octaves.

Toshiro shrugged. "I was just saying, it would be nice."

Kagome grabbed Toshiro's hand, squeezing it lovingly as they walked along. Her hand was so small, the pup thought as he watched the way her fingers curled around his own. He was only half her height and his hands were nearly as big as hers. He felt strangely protective of her because of it. Toshiro knew that in a few summers he would be taller than her, maybe even Inuyasha's height. He would be strong, and trained well, and able to protect his chosen mother and any brothers and sisters that he'd have in the future.

He squeezed her hand back.

"One day, it really would be nice." Kagome regained his attention. "But for now, Inuyasha and I would like to focus all of our effort on making sure you and your brother have a good home. Okay, Toshi?"

Toshiro could sense that she and Inuyasha were a little uncomfortable about his line of questioning by the heat creeping up their necks, so he smiled in adoration up at his mother. He reached up on his tip toes to plant a kiss on her cheek before letting out a, "Yes, ma'am." and jogging forward to join in brother and partner in their romp.

Toshiro took off into the trees with a smirk, leaving the two adults stuttering and blushing at one another. He followed the scents twirling about the forest and found the other boys a whiles ahead, on the forest trail now, their eyes far away and their noses twitching. Toshiro trotted closer, cocking his head at their tense stances.

"Shipp? What's wrong?" Toshiro waved his hand in front of his face.

Shippou's eyes fluttered before focusing on his brother, his nose still expanding and contracting like he was trying to catch a scent on the wind. Moeru was doing the same, his brow furrowed and his eyes still glassy and distant.

"What's with the stupid looks on your faces?"

Moeru's tails were twitching in agitation, his whiskers quivering. Shippou's hand was clenching and unclenching around Aokaen, his own tail sticking up in the air like a dog at point. Toshiro began to feel uneasy.

"Okay. . . you're freaking me out now. Kitsune, what is it?"

The kit in question just gazed passed his brother again, his eyes looking beyond the trees and into the distance. A pinching fear began to form on Shippou's face, his lip trembling and his green eyes tearing up.

What in the world had gotten into them?

Toshiro followed his brother's line of sight and looked out into the trees, cast his senses out into the forest with a sense of trepidation. Then he felt something, smelled something faint. The hanyou cut his eyes above the trees, toward their home, and could just see tendrils of black staining the blue sky.

Something was wrong.

"Inuyasha, what's that?"

He and Kagome were coming up the trail now, and Toshiro knew it was only by Inuyasha's hanyou hearing that he heard Shippou's whispered words at all.

"What's what, runt?"

Shippou raised a shaking finger and pointed at the horizon, where Toshiro could now clearly see curls of black swirling in the sky from the direction of their home, where he could just scent the smells of burning wood. . . and blood.

His heart dropped.

They had to be miles away, miles, but the smell was unmistakable. Inuyasha's face curled up a second before he snatched up Kagome and took off without missing a beat, racing ahead to the small village they called home. His bare feet ate away what should have been hours' travel, Toshiro and Shippou Moeru struggling to keep up with him the whole way.

The rest of their journey home was a blur of green, and fear.

The hanyou pup could hear Kagome already weeping from her place on Inuyasha's back.

Something was wrong.

The closer they got, the more Toshiro began to feel what Shippou and Moeru must have first sensed. He could feel it in the air, in the way the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, in the way that his youki was lashing about in his veins. Something was very, very wrong.

Toshiro's mind ran a mile a minute, while his feet urged him after the red clad back of his father. What had happened? Who was hurt? Was everyone okay? For a wild, split second the hanyou believed the flames he smelled to be his fault, but he quickly dismissed it as impossible. They were gone for two weeks, and his youki was controlled and contained in his veins, even with his growing upset. Even when the small tendrils of smoke in the sky soon became gigantic, billowing clouds. Even when the faint smell of woodsmoke soon became the overwhelming stench of burnt wood and burning flesh.

They were nearly to the village, the smell of smoke suffocating, soot and ash stuffing itself up Toshiro's nose, pluming in the air and clinging to the trees and grass. Shippou was sobbing, his tears blurring his eyesight. He stumbled and cried out and Toshiro instinctively latched onto his brother's hand, willing him to keep up. Their father was already far ahead, already into the thick of the smoke and cinders that used to be their village.

They came upon their own home first, and Toshiro and Shippou and Moeru skidded to a stop.

An entire wall of their wooden hut was smashed in, their belongings broken and strewn about the shards of wood and burned grass. Shippou's toys were broken, Toshiro's picture books were ripped into colorful shreds. Their bedding, and food, and extra clothing was either burned to crisps or destroyed by what looked like a dozen pair of claws. The home that Inuyasha had built himself was half crumbling and destroyed.

It had taken Toshiro weeks to call that hut home, longer still for him to be comfortable in it. He had learned to read there, had learned his alphabet and how to write his name there. He had been told dozens of bedtimes stories, and been awoken from hundreds of nightmares by gentle hands. He had learned to trust in that hut, had learned to accept and love his family. And someone had demolished it.

Shippou was bawling as he looked on, his chest heaving as he struggled to get in air around the fumes and his tears. Toshiro coughed through the smoke, his eyes burning from both the smoke and his helpless rage. He shielded his nose with his haori, tugging on Shippou's hand where he still held it, urging his brother on from their crumbling home.

They had to find their parents. They had to find the rest of the pack.

Inuyasha hadn't stopped to take account of their belongings, hadn't stopped to see what personal possessions had been wrecked or stolen. He'd raced straight through to the heart of the village as his sons stood stock still at all of the destruction, past the many piles of cinders and wood the villagers had once called homes, past the marketplace down the dirt road smashed to bits of fabric and glass with Kagome held securely on his back.

The taste of soot and tears in the air clogged Toshiro's nose, choked him. The black clouds of smog that rolled through the village looked like angry, roiling black oceans. He could barely see three feet in front of him, he could smell nothing but fire and fear. Toshiro looked to Moeru for help and the saber nodded grimly before turning around, letting Toshiro grip one of his tails to lead the way through the dust and wreckage.

The hanyou pup looked around as his saber used his nose to find their pack, his other hand still clasping desperately onto Shippou's. The sight of the decimated village was like a scene straight out of one of Toshiro's nightmares.

The rice fields and gardens were trampled and uprooted, all of the villagers' summer harvest destroyed. Almost every wooden home they came across was smashed to hell, some no more than smoldering, black piles of rubble, belongings and possessions shredded or torn to ribbons or thrown carelessly into the river. Freed livestock moved around the wooden planks and rocks thrown into the roads in a frenzy, croaking and baying in anxious abandon, some calling over the lifeless bodies of their kin laid out in the open.

Toshiro followed his saber deeper into the village with a sense of horrified shock, wondering who had done this to his home, hoping to kami that Miroku and Sango and the pups were okay. Shippou was sniveling at his side, his eyes tracking the pattern of black clouds in the sky, his lips moving in silent, frantic prayer.

There were no one running about, Toshiro realized belatedly. There were no frantic villagers, or human bodies laid out in careless display. Beside the baying of the freed animals, and the smolder and pop of still burning homes, the village was eerily quiet. Any relief Toshiro might have felt at that was immediately swallowed by confusion. Before he could fear that his human villagers had been kidnapped he realized that Moeru was leading them toward the smell of the residents of the village, that through the haze and soot he could smell the humans of his home nearby.

He wondered if they had gathered together for safety.

He fervently hoped that every man, woman, and child was unharmed.

He realized how wrong he was when he got to their destination.

The saber led the brothers through toward the thickest of the smoke, toward the convoluted smell of men and women and tears, down a path that Toshiro had walked hundreds of times and hardly realized he was walking again until it was too late. His throat was paper dry from all the dust and gas, but still he felt seconds from throwing up his insides when they finally found their parents and the villagers in a tight crowd around Kaede's hut. One woman had a bloody, bandaged stump where her arm used to be, one little boy had a makeshift patch around where his left eye once was.

Many of them were bandaged, and burned, and bruised, but the villagers hardly made a sound. They just looked into the half destroyed hut where their miko lived. They stood in a circle around the smoldering wooden house, their backs to Toshiro and his companions, quiet, desolate sobs and the odd cry the only sounds beside the hanyou's own pounding heart and the distant sound of crackling wood.

His parents reached the hut and the crown well before they did.

Inuyasha had his head down, his hair covering his eyes and his fists clenched so firmly that his claws cut into his hands, thin lines of blood running down his tightened fingers unheeded. Kagome had been staring at the hut in shock but started and took a step forward, as if she were coming out of a stupor, then let out the most heartbreaking wail that Toshiro had ever heard. The villagers turned in alarm at the scream.

He prayed to the Gods that he never had to hear her make the sound again.

He knew only something unbelievably terrible would ever make Kagome sound so broken.

No. Please, no.

The miko let out another heart wrenching, fractured cry, as she shoved her way through the villagers, Inuyasha silent and weary behind her. Toshiro rushed forward to move at his parents' heels, his eyes darting to the faces of all the heartbroken humans he passed. All of their eyes looked empty, all of their faces pinched in grief.

Please, he thought uselessly as he pushed on, please . . . no.

They burst through what was left of the door and found the hut in ruin. Blood splattered the splintered wood like paint, piles of youkai dust littering the floor like rain. Broken arrows stuck out of the walls and were strewn about the floor, some of them bloody, some of them charred. The pottery that Toshiro had spent so much time painting were in broken shards all over, as if someone had taken special pleasure in taking Kaede's belongings and smashing them against the walls as hard as they could, then danced and stomped on the broken ceramic for good measure.

Miroku and Sango were curled on the floor and crying uncontrollably, Kirara and all three of the saber kittens curled around them. Toshiro couldn't even release a breath of relief that they were unharmed but for a few burns and scratches before he saw what made them weep, before he saw the heap on the ground beside them. The body.

Kaede.

The old woman. The legendary miko. The female who spent her life healing the people of this village, helping them. The mentor who trained Kagome, who'd surpassed the miko Kikyou in power and knowledge, who helped Toshiro control his youki and face his emotions. . . was dead.

She was lain on her back, surrounded by broken arrows and blood stains, her hands folded together under the sheet someone had covered her in. Though her face was smooth in peace, it was mottled with black and blue bruises as if someone had engaged her in a fist fight before they ended her life. The eyepatch Toshiro had never seen her without was gone, the scarred tissue that had once been her eye exposed to the world. The knowing, small frown that had always adorned her face was still there, the scrunches that were always on her forehead from concentration were smoothed away.

Toshiro could have believed, want to believe, that she was asleep. He could have convinced himself of it if it were not for the gaping, horrifying slash to the miko's right shoulder. Four long, deep, ragged claw marks tinged a sickeningly familiar purple cut through the old woman's bones and meat and tendon, her haori torn to tatters and still smoldering where the poison still clung.

No.

Everyone was crying openly. Inuyasha let his tears track down his face unbidden, and Toshiro distantly remembered when his father told him that men didn't let people see them cry, a howling Kagome was held securely in his arms, her arms banded around his waist and her tears soaking his haori. Sango had her arms thrown around her husbands neck, Miroku's own wrapped around her and her distended belly in protectiveness and mourning. Shippou was wailing loudly, crumpled onto the floor beside Kaede, her withered, cold hand grasped in both of his. Moeru was surrounded by his sisters, his eyes haunted as he tutted and comforted the other sabers.

Toshiro did not cry, could not cry.

He only stared at Kaede, and at her death wound.

He remembered the burn of that poison on his ear night after night, day after day. He remembered how, when Katsumi traveled and left the south and he was kept in his room, the pain of being without the toxin for days was more agony than receiving it every day, as if his body had become accustomed to the pain and craved it. He remembered when he stopped feeling pain on his ear there all together, his hanyou healing and nerve endings finally giving out after years of being fried over and over again. Toshiro stared at the bright purple poison clinging to Kaede's haori, knowing what pain she must have been in as she died, knowing that the poison would have seeped into the human's skin and stopped her heart in minutes that felt like an eternity.

The sight of that sick, violet color was like a signed note.

The knowledge that Katsumi had done this, destroyed the village and laid low his packmate, kept the force of his tears back. Because Toshiro had done this too. He'd been stupid enough to love these people, he'd been lonely enough that their words of friendship and family had made him forget what his aunt had always whispered in his ear after she burned it with her power, that he was the reason his mother was dead, that he would always be the reason people he loved moved on from this life.

There was no rage, his youki was as silent and cold as an abandoned hearth. There was only blame, and sorrow. He had done this. He had loved Kaede, trusted Kaede, and she had loved and trusted him too. And died because of it. Katsumi had come to his home, sniffed her out, and ended her life because he'd loved her. Katsumi had destroyed the only place of peace the hanyou had ever known, tainted it, knowing that Kaede was this village's heartbeat, and to take her away meant that Toshiro, and his family, and his village would never be the same,

Toshiro felt it, physically felt it, as his newly healed heart shred to pieces as he looked at the old miko's still face. Toshiro felt it as Katsumi reached all the way across Edo Japan and into his chest, gutting him like a fish and leaving his heart to flop around uselessly at his feet.

Kagome let out another deep, tragic cry and Toshiro felt himself retreat into the dark place in his mind at the sound. He had hoped that the dark corner would disappear over time, but now he knew that it would always be there. And he was glad of it. There he felt no agony, or anguish, or guilt. There he was not a runaway lordling or a grieving boy. There he was no one, nothing. Anyone, anything. There he could pretend that this day had never happened, there he could not hear his mother crying the shards of her heart out, and or see his brother fisting his head so tightly as he wept that auburn strands rained down from the strain, or smell the herbs and medicine that still clung to Kaede's cold skin.

Toshiro fell to his knees where he stood.

And stared without seeing anything at all.

So, here's the quick summary. As our main characters travel home they find the village on fire and destroyed. Their home, along with nearly all of the villagers' homes, are half demolished, and their belongings have all been ransacked and ruined. They find all of the villagers, harmed but not dead, surrounding Kaede's hut, where Toshiro and his family go inside to find Miroku, Sango, Kirara, and the saber kittens unharmed, but Kaede dead. She was killed by Katsumi herself, who used the same poison she used to mutilate Toshiro's ear to end the old miko's life. Toshiro, as per his character, feels completely awash with guilt and begins to dissociate. If you haven't realized yet, this is a habit he developed when in the South to deal with trauma or emotions he couldn't handle.

Now, I'm sorry I killed off Kaede, but not really cuz it had to happen.

xoxo