Author's Note: Footnotes are at the end of the chapter.
***** There and Back AgainChapter Ten: A Youkai's Mother
From her perch on the rock, Ruri watched the menagerie disappear in another direction into the forest. She hopped down and helped Inuyasha gather their belongings together, still wondering where they were going to stop for the night as darkness was fast approaching. To her relief, the youkai appeared to have some idea of where to stop.
"If I remember correctly, there is a hot spring not far from here. We should stop near there for the night."
Appeased, Ruri decided to walk the last leg herself instead of being carried. Apparently the youngest Inutaishou had listened well as a child. Less than a half hour after resuming walking she could smell the slight smell of sulfur indicating a hot spring could very well be nearby. Of course, knowing her senpai's nose, it was possible that he'd smelled it all along, but no matter. They were here.
******
Bathing was gratefully uneventful. Inuyasha had perched on a rock within her sight but kept his back to her the entire time she bathed. They hadn't even been in Sengoku Jidai for 24 hours and they'd already gone through two battles. Was this entire excursion going to be this rough? Probably, she thought to herself. He hadn't given her training in blades just to kill time. The water slowly wore away the last aches left from that torturous day. A week ago she was trying to resume life as close to normal as what she had before boarding the rollercoaster known as Nadesico. Then she received a call asking her to participate in a study concerning the Chulip Crystals. It was actually Yurika that encouraged her to take the job, and Akito had pointed out that while Nergal was never up to any good when it came to the blue crystals, if she was involved there was a better chance at preventing them from carrying out anything nefarious. That led her to meeting Inu-kun. She still had one question left that she had no way of answering yet - was she glad she had met Inutaishou Inuyasha?
"Ruri-chan, you should finish up soon. It's getting late. We should eat and get some sleep."
"Hai" she said to the back of the youkai's head. She shook off most of the water and climbed back into the fire-rat kimono. When she approached Inuyasha, he held up a string of fish.
"The pool that I was facing had some great fish in it," he explained as they returned to the small clearing where they had left their packs and traveling cloaks. Inuyasha built a small fire and cooked the fish while Ruri went ahead and spread out the sleeping mats they had brought with them.
They sat and munched their fish quietly. Ruri reflected that it tasted completely different than how Akito cooked fish. But, then again, the only open flames Akito ever used were from a gas oven or maybe a grill, definitely not a campfire. It just kind of highlighted the difference between Inuyasha and her family. Yurika was a seemingly endless fountain of energy, and though he sometimes had trouble doing so, Akito always managed to keep up with her. They tended to let their passions consume them. Inu-kun's father, Sesshoumaru, was the opposite. It was very easy to refer to him as "Lord", since he carried himself as the perfect gentleman, meeting both Japanese and Western descriptions. The exception appeared to be with his brother, based upon the ferocity with which he attacked Inu-kun earlier.
"Ruri."
Inu-kun. She regarded him while she finished her fish. He was in some regards the opposite of herself. For her, restraining emotional outbursts and remaining logical were quite easy, but she often strove to be able to express her emotions. Inu-kun was different. From what Sesshoumaru-sama said, he inherited it from his uncle, whom she expected to meet soon. Inuyasha-sama was apparently very much a hothead, not bothering to contain any emotion. Inu-kun obviously had the same swelling tides of emotion within him, yet he obviously tried to keep everything as in control as his father did. Despite all of that, even though he had the ability to be extremely crude, when he addressed her it was always... brotherly. Perhaps that's why she could call him Inu-kun. He certainly didn't seem mind it and reciprocated the title. She suddenly wished that she knew more about the girl she saw, Rin. Jaken-baka and Inu-kun always described Sesshoumaru-sama during this time as a fearful lord, but that girl attached herself to him as if he was a warm father to her. Sesshoumaru-sama also didn't seem the least bit surprised at her actions and didn't even try to stop her.
"RuriRuriRuriRuriRuri."
Ruri blinked and responded without thinking. "Baka."
"Baka yourself. You were completely zoned out then. What's going on in that head?"
"Nothing, baka."
"Oookay," Inuyasha said, smiling. He walked over to the tree where the gear was piled and retrieved the cloaks as well as the light blankets they had packed, tossing Ruri hers. Ruri looked like she was about to say something, then blushed slightly. He sat down on his mat she had laid out before speaking. "Ruri, what is it?"
"Nothing, baka."
"Hmm. Two sentences in a row, must be something. Besides, there's no point in not saying what's on our minds right now. We either talk or play the console and kill its batteries."
She unfurled the blanket, laid down and wrapped it and the cloak around her. The youkai followed suit, deciding it'd be her that broke silence next.
"Promise not to laugh, baka?"
"Hai. I saw you kill that fucking centipede. I'm not about to mess with you."
She couldn't help but smile a little at the response. "It's just... Yurika-san started doing this weird... thing, and I got in the habit of it, and... I guess I miss it, even on the first night."
"Story?"
She rolled onto her side facing him, and nodded slightly, the blush spreading a little farther across her face.
Inuyasha propped himself up on his elbow. "Ruri-chan, there's nothing for you to be embarrassed about, even demons tell their children stories to help them sleep."
"Your mother, too?"
A cloud crossed her friend's face, and Ruri was afraid she'd crossed a line with him until she saw the cloud pass. "While she was my mother, yes, she did."
"While?"
The youkai slowly sat up and looked towards the stars. "I guess I did say we should say whatever's on our minds. It's not normal bedtime story fare, but I guess it will do if that's what you want."
Ruri nodded, and he turned to face her. "I guess you've figured out that Inuyasha ended up coming back through the well to Kagome-obasan's time. Otou-san, on the other hand, got there the hard way, so to speak. If he had allowed it, Rin-sama would have married him as soon as she became of age, but at that point in time otou-san was still very strongly against humans and demons mating. He saw her married off to a great human lord, and continued to remain in her life as her father, even to the day she preceded him in death. For hundreds of years Sesshoumaru-sama mourned her loss. Until she died, he didn't truly understand how much she meant to him.
"Ages passed, and eventually my father met a beautiful mizu youkai [1] shortly before World War II. My father is never one to rush things - I was born in 1996, shortly before Kagome-obasan went to Sengoku Jidai for the first time. As you're aware, during the search for the shards of Shikon, Otou-san and Inuyasha were at odds, so he didn't even realize that he was practically neighbors with the Higurashis. Yes, the entire time the Higurashis have been in possession of the shrine, Sesshoumaru-sama has had held the lands we still reside on.
"It was 2016 or 2017, I don't remember exactly, when we first found out that we were practically neighbors. Inuyasha-sama never gave up wearing the kimono you now wear, and mine purposefully mimics his. It was on one of my attempts to get Jaken-baka to ride in a car with me that I actually ran into them, figuratively. I had stopped to get gas, and at the pump across from me I saw a man who looked amazingly like me, wearing kimono like mine only brighter, and with black hair as long as mine.
"Otou-san, having forgiven Inuyasha-sama many years ago, was eager to make amends with his brother, and the two brothers quickly grew back together. Otou-san had mellowed much over the years, but didn't fully approve of Inuyasha's decision to become human. He accepted it, however, and all was well.
"At that point in time, Otou-san and I were still speaking with Ofukuro [2] rather frequently. When father told her about my finding his brother accidentally, she immediately asked about the Shikon no Tama. Otou-san had never spoken of the jewel to her, for he never cared to possess it and Ofukuro had never asked about it before. Demons don't survive millennia by trusting everyone, and Otou-san suspected something. When Ofukuro asked to meet Inuyasha-sama and Kagome-obasan, he agreed but made sure that he and I were both there. His fears, unfortunately, were justified."
Ruri's ever-wide eyes grew wider. "She was after the jewel?"
"Hai." The sadness was plain in his eyes. "Demons have a way of boasting about their accomplishments when they think they're close to their goal. When she met Inuyasha-sama, she flew into a rage immediately because it was obvious he had decided to use the Shikon no Tama to become human, purifying it and killing its powers. She then confessed that the only reason she had spent any time with my father at all was to get the Shikon no Tama. She even bore me to try to increase her chances of getting the jewel."
"Do you still see her?"
Inuyasha's eyes locked with Ruri's and were filled with grief. "In my nightmares," he whispered. "In her rage she attacked my father so ferociously he was knocked unconscious, which isn't easy. It... it was me that was forced to kill her."
Ruri picked up her bedding and placed it next to Inuyasha's. She sat down next to him and put her head on his shoulder.
"It's strange," Inuyasha continued. "Despite everything she did, she was still my mother, and so it grieves me still that I was forced to kill her. However, I bear no shame for my actions. The choice was to die and let the evil live or to live and kill the evil."
"I'm sorry you had to do that, Inu-kun," Ruri felt that the sadness around them was almost palpable.
Inuyasha stroked her hair. "Ruri-chan, there is no need for you to be sorry. Thank you, though." He smiled at her. "You really should sleep now, you know."
"Hai." Instead of returning to her own mat, Hoshino laid down next to Inuyasha and curled up against him. She looked up to see him blushing. "Baka, it's getting cold."
Inuyasha wrapped his cloak around her as well as himself. He couldn't tell that it was getting that much colder, but his insensitivity to heat he got from his father and insensitivity to cold from his mother. Well, whatever.
******
Footnotes:
1. Mizu youkai – water demon.
2. Ofukuro – mother. Though there are multiple words for mother (same as mama, mommy, etc), this is the one Inuyasha always uses for his mother.
