Toshiro rose to consciousness all at once.
He was cold, and he was sore, and he wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious. But before he even opened his eyes Toshiro knew several other things. He knew that the Shikon no Tama was safe, could still feel a dormant warmth that had nothing to do with his youki in his belly where he'd swallowed the jewel before entering the Southern Territory. He knew that his hands were manacled in steel behind his back, scraping against wrists that felt slick with blood. He knew that he was propped up against a cold stone wall, and that somewhere nearby a steady drip of water dripped down from a stone ceiling onto a stone floor. He knew that he was in the dungeon of the Keep because of that drip, not thrown in his old room as he'd expected to be.
And he knew that he heard voices.
He kept his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even, barely let his ears twitch as he listened.
"—point of even guarding him? Hanyou are weak, and could never over power either of us." A female voice, soft and lilting and familiar in its cadence. An inu from the South, no doubt under the employ of his aunt. "I see no reason why we should be both stuck here, looking over it, when everyone else is getting ready for the Lady's dinner party."
"Ignorant Inu." A male voice rasped. "You have no idea what that mutt and his pack did to my people, what they did to my Alpha."
A hyena.
So Tadao and his ilk had run here for refuge after his mother had killed Leiko, had joined forces with his aunt. He'd known it, heard it, but in the darkest recesses of his heart he had hoped that the hyena his Uncle had captured those weeks ago had been wrong, had been lying. He should have known better.
He forced down the shiver that threatened to travel down his spine.
He had to get loose.
Toshiro didn't move a muscle, but called up his youki and focused two needle thin strands from his core, down his arms, around into his shackles. He was careful to skirt his youki around the Shikon no Tama where it rested within him, not wanting any other part of himself brushing up against the jewel. He heard the small hiss as the fire in his blood reached and warmed the metal around his wrists and hoped that it couldn't be heard over the jabbering of his overseers.
He was sure that it couldn't be; the female was raising her voice now.
"Do not talk down to me, you flea ridden mongrel. You lot were weak fools to begin with. How could such an abomination overcome you otherwise?" An arrogant scoff. "Lady Katsumi and all who follow her would never allow such a thing to happen."
A loud bang, a heavy boot kicking out in outrage at what no doubt were the bars to Toshiro's cell. He used the noise to cover the sound of him sending a sharp jolt of youki into his restraints to melt it further, and forced down a smug smirk when he felt the metal finally starting to give.
"Have you ever even seen battle, dog? Have you ever even stepped a foot outside of your privileged life, sheltered by your ridiculous Lady as you are, and seen how the world really works outside of the Southern barrier?"
There was a loud crash, and Toshiro finally dared to crack open his eyes and saw that the inu female had thrown the hyena against the bars of his cell. She had him by the neck, up on his toes and gulping even though he towered over her in height and bulk. The pup could not see her face, but he could see where her thin hand wrapped tightly around a furred throat, and could hear the quiet menace in the inu's voice.
"Insult me all you like, beast. But know that to insult my Lady is to ensure that you know what true suffering is."
The male growled, and Toshiro watched as his hand reached behind him to where a dagger was sheathed at the small of his back. His voice was shaking in anger.
"You can't harm me, bitch, just as I can't harm you. The agreement between our Alphas forbid it. But I'll make an exception if you don't release me in the next two seconds."
The female chuckled, low and sultry, and Toshiro watched in muted amazement as the male's skin started to smoke, as sparks of electricity began to play about the female's light brown fingers with white hot crackles and pops. Toshiro flexed his own, felt molten steel that would have otherwise burned away his skin melt off of him like coolest mud.
The electricity, the lightening, at her fingertips began to intensify. Flickering streams of blue-white light traveling along her wrist and arm like a living thing. The hyena groaned a low growl of pain, his inching hand wrapped around the pommel of his dagger now. Toshiro smelled ozone in the air.
"What's one less cretin scuttling around my Lady's keep?" she was whispering, cooing at her captured prey. "I'm sure she would forgive me for doing away with you."
Toshiro struck before either of them could do so much as take another blink at the other.
He snapped through the rest of the pliant metal around his wrists, and shot those same thin, concentrated streams of youki he'd used to free himself through two pointed fingers, between the bars of his cell, and into the chests of both of his so-called guards.
They didn't let out a single sound as his fire tore through them, as the combination of his youki and the inu female's overloaded their systems and sent them tumbling into unconsciousness. They dropped like heavy stones to the floor, their bodies humming and smoking.
Toshiro panted for a moment in the quiet aftermath, his ears erect and searching for the sound of other guards. When he heard none the pup rose, not wasting a second more, to quickly take a mental inventory of his injuries. The wrist of his left hand was broken, and he had a nasty lump below his eye that was split open and still leaking blood down his chin. He was aching and bruised, as if someone had beat him black and blue why he'd slept. The small bones of a few of his toes throbbed slightly, a telltale sign that they´d been broken at some point and were freshly healed.
But that all was hardly noteworthy, the injuries were nothing; he'd sustained worse during training.
He snapped his wrist back into place with barely a wince of pain, mind already racing ahead. How long had he been unconscious? Why had they put him in this cell instead of his old room? Where was his sealing sword? Were his family outside the barrier yet?
He cast his mind and senses out, and though he couldn't tell if there were more guards, he was shocked when he found that he could still feel the barrier that surrounded his aunt's hidden city, could still sense Shippou, Moeru, and Ah Un like little flames of warmth on the edge of his consciousness. He could tell that the bigger, cool green flame in his mind was Ah Un, and that the little red flame that paced back and forth was Moeru, conscious again and no doubt furious with him. There was also a dull blue flame, twitching and fighting to awaken; his brother.
Why hadn't Katsumi attacked them yet? Could she not sense that they were there, or was she waiting for their parents to arrive? Toshiro had spent hours traversing the South, and Kami knew how long he'd been unconscious. He had to believe that though he couldn't sense the rest of his family outside of the barrier, that they'd either found some way to cloak themselves, or they were close by.
He didn't let him even consider another possibility.
The Shikon no Tama inside of him pulsed in interest at his tumultuous thoughts and he pushed both them and the jewel's calling aside, willing himself to keep calm. He would not resort to using the jewel, to letting himself be ruled by fear, not after he'd made it so far. Everything would be fine. Shippou and Moeru could defend themselves for now, and Katsumi would no doubt be keeping her attention focused on him now that she believed that she'd captured him. He just had to focus on the task at hand; distracting his aunt and her people until help arrived.
But first he had to find Akakaen.
He could easily sense his sealing sword, a faint flickering of himself and his family calling to him down one of the endless dark, long corridors.
He squeezed through the bars of his cell with little fanfare, thinking offhandedly of how silly it was for them to keep a child prisoner behind bars he could basically walk through. Were they that confident that he wouldn't break free from his bindings? Did they think him that weak?
They do. A voice that was not a voice at all whispered in his head. We could show them.
He snarled and pushed the aura of the Shikon no Tama away from his mind again.
The pup glanced down instead of listening to the jewel, at the prone faces of the adults he'd taken down without a second thought. The female was beautiful; skin warm and smooth like an almond, thick, coiling hair a blue black like the ocean at night. She had white inu markings that arched across her cheekbones that reminded Toshiro of the lightening she wielded, or of snapped bones. The male was in his human form now, his skin pale and his ears pointed and his nose crooked as if it'd been broken many times. There were deep purple and red burns in the shape of the inu female´s fingers around his throat. His lips were still pulled back in a snarl even unconscious, and one of his fangs was chipped.
Uncle Sesshomaru would have been proud of him, Toshiro thought. Even though he'd held back in his attack, he hadn't hesitated when the opportunity had arisen either. He'd been swift, and clinical, and he knew for certain that he could have killed them if he'd put just a little more heat into his youki. He knew that Uncle would not have thought twice about killing them. Singed and smoldering as they were, Toshiro watched their chests expand minutely with life, and allowed himself half a second to acknowledge the relief that coursed through him at the sight.
Then he tramped that relief down with steel toed boots and moved on without sparing either of them another glance. There was no time and no point to lingering on it, he thought, and he wasn't naive enough to believe that he wouldn't end up killing someone before the day was out.
0:0:0:0:0:
Inuyasha thought he knew fear.
He thought that watching the woman he'd once loved die twice, and watching his pack harmed, and watching his intended mate burned by his heart's child was fear.
He was a fool.
They'd taken off from the village not an hour after they'd awoken, his miko on his back and his brother a guiding ball of light just ahead of him.
Kagome had been silent the entire time; as they ran through the night, as they stopped for rest through a clearing that smelled faintly of their sons, and as they kept on as the sun made its accent. Silent as death, or a promise of one, her eyes far away and her miko's aura unconsciously stinging him in its intensity and agitation.
He took each lash of it without complaint; he understood her frustration and pain.
Inuyasha had never known his father, and what he remembered of Izayoi was fuzzy and painful to think about at best. But he remembered the times when Kaede, proud and steady as a river, would finally lose her patience with him and declare that he'd one day be blessed with children who would send his blood pressure just as high as he did hers.
The old hag was probably laughing at him from the Otherworld.
Kagome's aura twitched against him again and he winced, tightening his hold under her knees at the burn.
"Breathe, woman." He murmured to his mate, letting the instinctive rumble in his chest rise unbidden, trying to sooth her. "Breathe."
She didn't speak, didn't shift a muscle upon her perch, but he sighed in quiet relief when he felt her aura lighten just a bit around him.
They'd made it into the South proper hours ago, and Inuyasha felt himself becoming more and more frustrated the longer they traveled. He kept his senses pointed southern, kept a hard pace behind his brother's energy form, but everything in him was rebelling. On more than one occasion he'd found his body turned in the opposite direction without his permission before he realized what he'd done. His mind would be muddled and confused each time, puzzled over why he'd been going South in the first place, insisting that he had no reason to be there, until Sesshomaru barked his name or Kagome tapped his shoulder to redirect and focus him.
Whatever magic bullshit Katsumi had around the Southern Barrier was fucking with his senses, even from so far away, causing him to trip up and waste time they didn't have. As if the damn thing sensed him coming.
Another reason on a long list of reasons that he was going to tear into her, slowly.
By the time Inuyasha smelled the South Western Ocean it was nearly mid-day, his children had been gone for more than twenty-four hours, and the journey had taken too damn long. Too long to traverse through the West, to follow Sesshomaru and that ever faint flicker of the jewel into the South. Too long without knowing whether or not his brats were safe.
Kagome dropped from his back the moment he skid to a stop in the dirt, walking numbly to boulder and sagging onto it like a puppet with its strings cut. He hated seeing her this way. She was so withdrawn that her chest barely moved when she breathed. It was like she'd burrowed into herself, like she was afraid that if she let herself feel the fear for their sons, let herself even think about what might be happening to them, she'd shatter.
He understood how she felt completely, but he couldn't afford to let himself withdraw, to let himself even entertain the thought that they were hurt. Inuyasha knew without a doubt that they'd gotten into the city by now. He knew that Toshiro had figured out a way. His brat was too resourceful, too smart for his own fucking good. He and his brother could be anywhere within the Southern city, for who knew how long, fighting who the fuck knew who, by themfuckingselves.
He wanted to roar, he was so angry. He wanted to shake Kagome until her eyes cleared and she raged with him. He wanted to ruff his fucking sons until they hit puberty, and ruff them some more until they were Settled and his height just so they could understand how fucking stupid they were being. He was so sick with worry and fear that he felt like he would never feel okay again.
Inuyasha was ripped from his thoughts when a ball of black suddenly shot for Kagome from the brush. By the time the hanyou had even blinked however, he found that his brother was standing over her. Sesshomaru had moved before Inuyasha could even think to, stepping in front of Kagome with the canid instinct to protect. The Dai Youkai had snatched what appeared to be a squirming saber by his tails, eyes hard and cold with murderous intent.
Inuyasha's hackles lowered immediately. "Relax, jackass. It's Moeru."
Sesshomaru raised a brow at the saber who was glaring back at him from his dangled position. He released the cat with a careless, faint huff.
Moeru transformed as he dropped into the grass, nearly as large as his mother as he shook out his fur. His red eyes were livid and narrowed, the scar above his eye shiny in the midday light. The saber tromped forward to butt his head in greeting against Inuyasha's torso, and then skirted around where Sesshomaru still stood over Kagome to wrap his body around where she was still seated on her boulder. She hadn't moved an inch when the saber suddenly appeared, but she leaned into his weight as if she didn't have the strength to keep herself upright on her own. She made no other move or expression, and Inuyasha felt a shiver travel up his spine.
The hanyou ground his teeth and looked to the feline. "Where is he?"
Moeru swiveled his head southwestward, beyond the trees and toward where the ocean was a quiet rumble in the distance. He growled low in his throat, his ears angled back. Dread and realization suddenly filled Inuyasha's stomach like poison.
"Wait. He… he didn't take you with him."
A massive shake of his head, his eyes bright and ripe with anger and betrayal. Moeru snarled, wrapping himself tighter around Kagome. The miko buried a hand in the longer fur at his ruff in response.
"Shippou?" Inuyasha croaked.
The saber shook his head again, the anger dimming to hurt, to worry. He took pointed steps away from Kagome and back toward where he´d come from, a low warbling sound leaving him. Inuyasha understood him just fine.
Toshiro hadn't taken them. He hadn't taken them?!
Did he have a fucking death wish?!
"Does he have a fucking death wish?!" Inuyasha's frustration and fear broiled over until he bellowed so loudly that birds fled from their perches in the treetops.
Kagome stood robotically from her boulder and Inuyasha tensed. He watched helplessly as life flared, briefly, in Kagome's eyes. Sesshomaru had been silent and pensive, watching the whole exchange from the shadow of a tree. Moeru growled and flick his two tails, urging them toward the sound of the ocean.
Kagome moved first to follow the saber, her shoulders set and Inuyasha and Sesshomaru falling into step at her flanks.
Rest be damned.
They were close.
They were so close.
0:0:0:0:0:
Toshiro knew that it was a trap.
He'd barely fought his way through the keep corridors, only running into three other inu and one other hyena along the way. And knocking them each unconscious had been suspiciously easy. He wasn´t arrogant enough to believe that he was that well trained.
He'd found his sword propped up against the wall of some forgotten corridor soon after, the air cold and damp and the deep red crystal in the pommel of Akakaen winking and calling to him like an old friend.
The moment he touched it he was ambushed.
Two, four, half a dozen youkai came at him from nowhere before he could even pull his sword free of the scabbard. He cursed under his breath as Akakaen was knocked away and skid down the hall, lost to his sight under a dozen feet as a dozen hands all grasped at him. An inu female with a grin like madness, a male with wild thick hair that defied gravity, another inu whom he had to duck when they slashed their claws out at him. Even as prepared for an ambush as he was, there were too many of them. Determined to keep him away from his sealing sword, slashing and cackling at him as he fought to give himself breathing room.
He managed to take down, to kill, two of them before he was pinned to the cold corridor floor by too many hands. His frustration bubbled over and he roared, calling up his youki and engulfing himself in flame. His fire would make them jerk away at the very least, would make them let him go. In his panic he forgot to direct his youki around the shikon no tama in his belly, and the jewel pulsed inside him at the feel of his power passing through it.
Such rage, little hanyou. I can help you. Let me help you.
Toshiro had barely the space to force the jewel's voice from his mind, because he realized that the hands pinning him hadn't snatched away for fear of being burned when he let himself flare up, they'd tightened instead. He glanced down on a strangled gasp and found that the hand wrapped around his throat was now coated in a strange metal, that the inu whom that hand belonged to had that same metal spreading along the rest of his arm and protecting him from Toshiro´s flames. Another of the inu holding down his arms had youki that manifested as flames as well, buffeting his own, another´s as ice, another some glowing shield that kept Toshiro´s own from touching her.
Katsumi had been clever.
The male holding him by the throat squeezed his metal hand, a malicious grin on his face as Toshiro fought for air. The pup's youki flickered like a candle in the wind, black spots dancing along his vision as the male pressed and pressed until he was on the very edge of unconsciousness. At some point his flames were smothered out, he knew, but he was barely aware of it.
The pup could hardly get a growl out as he felt the oppressive hands on him slack, as he distantly felt himself pulled from the cold ground. The relief that should have come with being able to breathe never came, because he felt old fear rise in him as he was dragged through hall after hall. Blurry figures kept him up by his arms, his head throbbing with each bark they spat harshly at one another. Their voices seemed far away and Toshiro couldn't make himself see straight let alone focus on their words.
The past mingled with his present as his sagging body was dragged along, memories of him padding through these corridors at his aunt's every behest and whim, of how the stone of the floor had scalded his bare feet in the height of summers and caused his toes to turn purple with cold in the winters. He remembered dragging his body, beaten and bloody for whatever entertainment Katsumi saw fit, back toward her bedchambers to his little room. He remembered how he'd get beaten for being too slow or two quick to complete a task, and beaten again later for daring to drip his filthy hanyou blood on her gold lined floors.
He was hardly conscious of the whimper that slipped between his bloody lips.
The pup was brought from his sullen, disoriented musings when his overseers stopped before a male in familiar green clothing. Outside of towering red doors that Toshiro had spent hours staring at, forcing himself to dissociate. Consciousness slowly found him again, and rage and hatred began to eddy in his blood, pushing down the bitter taste of his fear.
He met the green eyes of his old tormentor, and Orochi sneered at him in victory.
The remnants of their last meeting had been permanently etched into his skin it seemed, an ugly mottling of burned skin marring the right side of the inu's perfect face.
One of the men who'd dragged Toshiro into the room leaned over to murmur in the snake's ear, and Toshiro took a grim sort of joy in the surprise and wariness he saw flash in Orochi's eyes.
"You killed two of my men. . ." He nearly whispered almost to himself. "I don't remember you being so bold."
Toshiro's world was still spotty around the edges, but he found the will to snort, calling up the flem and blood that crowded his shattered nose before hogspitting at Orochi's feet.
The youkai's eyes widened, and then he was snatching the pup up by the face.
"I will enjoy watching Katsumi peel this new tough skin from your bones, I think."
Beaten, bloody, and broken as he was. . . Toshiro smiled. He smiled as Orochi's words washed over him like harmless water, as he imagined the ways he would enjoy watching the male die. He grinned and grinned some more when he saw his hanyou blood leak down his chin and stain the sleeve of Orochi's pristine hakama. As he watched the skin of the bone deep burn he'd inflicted on the male twist and shine as he scowled.
"Tch. We match now." He chuckled in a raspy, tired voice, an ugly sort of adrenaline overcoming him. "I got you good, huh?."
Orochi's face curled into an even uglier sneer, the brown skin on the right side of his face twisting in on itself. The male shoved Toshiro's face away in disgust, a growl he couldn't control slipping through his fangs. Pure hatred shone in his eyes as he looked to where Toshiro dangled again between two guards.
"I can't wait to watch Katsumi take you apart piece by piece."
Only a coward would use another's name when his own presence fails to strike fear, Toshiro felt his Uncle´s words in his head as if he were there, as if the Lord of the West himself were looking down his nose at Orochi in distaste. Toshiro had a sudden, almost unhinged desire to laugh.
The snake sensed it, he thought, because then Orochi snatched the sword from Toshiro's waist and the hanyou pup let out a wet cackle when the other male yelped. Akakaen burned the youkai's hand down to the meat, immediately rejecting him. The inu cursed harshly, clutching his injured hand around the wrist as his palm began to blister and bubble. Toshiro hoped that the burn would leave a scar to match the one on his ugly face.
Orochi didn't take kindly to his grim amusement, because no sooner than the inu drop Akakaen was the pup ripped away from the guards holding him. There was a booted foot on the back of Toshiro's neck in the next second, pinning him to the ground and grinding steel lined soles against his bones.
"You think that's funny you wretched—"
"Have some control, sentinel."
Toshiro froze.
The weight at the base of neck disappeared.
"Apologies, my lady."
Toshiro dared to bring his eyes up, and felt ages old fear skitter just under his skin.
She was as beautiful, as cold, as the night he'd disappeared.
Lady Katsumi was lounging upon her throne, appearing there between one breath and the next. She wore a jeweled kimono of deepest red and brightest gold, letting it hang from brown, bare, shoulders. Her dark, coiling hair was piled atop her head, stabbed into a neat bun with a dagger who's blade glinted in the warm lantern light of the receiving room. The hyena Tadao was standing at the foot of the dais, regaled in Katsumi's customary colors like a pet. Toshiro barely registered glare.
He could never force himself to forget Katsumi's face, not even in his next life. Toshiro knew the lines of her like he knew the beat of his own heart. He remembered Katsumi's soft face splattered with his blood, her laugh manic and nightmare inducing as she clawed into him for some reason or other. He remembered her venom filled stories regarding his dam, and the fable that was the long dead Lord Touga. He remembered the games she'd play; luring him into false senses of safety and security with promises of change and a warm bed, only to break him down again when he dared to believe her. Her nose, same as his, would scrunch just slightly when she was disgusted with him. Her eyes, bright green like acid, were on him now.
He had never loved and hated someone so much.
"Nephew."
His youkai began to roar in his heart at the sound of her voice, his blood singing for vengeance for Kaede and his village. She had ripped into his new life, had laid someone he held dear low. But even still he would be a liar if he didn't admit to himself how much his hands trembled as he pushed himself up from the ground. How his knees quaked when Katsumi made a gesture with her hand that was as familiar to him as his own breath; lazily beckoning the pup forward.
He did, ignoring the grinning Orochi at his back as he came further into the throne room. His heart was thumping uneven and unsure in his chest, the short hair at the back of his neck sticking to him with sweat. The closer he got, the wider his aunt's smirk became. When she spoke again he nearly flinched.
"How sweet of you to join us, after all this time. Did you get my message?"
Toshiro swallowed and nodded his head once, keeping his eyes down. He'd told himself these weeks and months that he was no longer afraid of her. That his triumph over Orochi, and his training, had beat back the sheer terror that gripped him at just the memory of her. But he was still afraid, deep down in his bones. He wondered if some intrinsic part of him would always quail when it came to Lady Katsumi.
But even still, with all of the fear that still lived inside him, bowing his head to her made him want to rage.
He'd long outgrown this skin.
Tadao snarled at her side. "Don't play meek and petrified, boy. Show her the beast who did this to me."
The hanyou pup's head snapped up of its own accord, the dangerous growl that had been forcing its way up his throat finally hissing through his teeth. The blood red tunic Tadao wore was missing a sleeve, leaving the lump of his shoulder bare. The hyena gestured angrily to the scarred flesh with accusation, barking something to Katsumi that the hanyou did not hear. He was just as ugly and heinous as Toshiro remembered.
And Toshiro had done that to him, had ripped the flesh and bone and meat from the hyena for daring to lay a hand on his blood. The savage thought gave the pup the confidence to school his face into boredom, to turn away from Tadao and finally meet his aunt's gaze.
There was a glint in her eyes. "You did do this to poor Tadao, Maggot?"
An unconscious, furious shiver traveled down his spine at the name, the word, but Toshiro did not rise to the bait. He felt it grate against his ribs regardless. The Shikon no Tama inside him pulsed in glee at his struggle, whispering offers of assistance and revenge against the confines of his mind. But he didn't respond, didn't react at all. He was no maggot, and he would not let these people convince him otherwise.
He took a centering, subtle deep breath through his nose and the jewel calmed beside his heart inside him.
Kaede would have been proud of his control.
He nodded at his aunt, straight faced and unrepentant, unapologetic.
I'd do it again if I could, he thought darkly to himself, savor it this time like I couldn't when I was lost to the haze of my youkai.
Katsumi was looking at him as if she wasn't sure she knew who he was, head tilted slightly in confused familiarity. Toshiro half expected her to flip into a rage at his indifference, but her voice was still soft and curious.
"You're different."
He cleared his throat, hated the way his voice broke. "I-I am."
"Why?" A blunt, honest question.
Toshiro imagined that Katsumi had never understood what the love of a family was. Uncle Sesshomaru said that her own parents had known she was twisted even as a pup, and had been cold and indifferent toward her. The only person who'd loved her was Toshiro's mother, and Katsumi had murdered her. Toshiro understood why Katsusmi had clung to him, had refused to let him leave her eye for more than a few hours, had beat him bloody one day then hugged him to her chest another. There was true fear there, of being alone and being abandoned, under all that hate and rot. But it was not his responsibility to be the punching bag to someone who could not face their own demons.
"I found a family when I left you. People who helped me learn that I was born to do more than sit at your feet and beg for scraps." He'd never said so many words to the Southern Lady in his life.
Katsumi's laugh burst out of her, as if she was surprised that she could make the sound. She spoke around a confused looking smirk, "Family. You're a hanyou, maggot. You mutts aren't worth the dung we use to fertilize our gardens. You should be grateful I even gave you scraps! Those stupid humans do not care for you, they do not love you. Look at what calamity you brought to their village, all because you suddenly believe that you deserve more than the care I have provided you all these years. I am your family. I am the only one who can love you as you are, and you don't make it easy, darling."
Inuyasha shared with him one night the story of half a century ago, about how he had been so insecure in himself that he had sought to change and to use the Shikon no Tama to do it, that the woman he'd loved wouldn't have him unless he did. It was Kagome who helped him feel whole again, and now he walked through life unbent, his head high and his eyes forever free of guilt at his own existence. Even when people, youkai and human alike, still whispered and pointed at him he knew what he deserved of this world, he knew who he was. Inuyasha was strong, and Toshiro would not be worthy of being his son if he did not have that same faith within himself.
"Your opinion on how I should live my life doesn't matter to me anymore."
This time, his voice did not shake.
Toshiro felt the foundations of him shiver just a little though as a bit of the easy humor bled out of Katsumi's body language. She sat up straight on her throne, when she spoke again her voice was a dangerous hiss.
"It should, maggot, because you belong to me. You are mine just as my sister was mine, before she let that filthy human male defile her. I could have your tongue ripped out for even daring to suggest-"
"I have a proposition for you."
Katsumi blinked in surprise, as if she still had not come to the terms with the fact that he could speak, let alone cut her off. She leaned back in her overly adorned throne, her eyes hardening dangerously.
"What could you possibly give me that I would want?"
"My mother taught me kindness, and compromise." Toshiro watched her eye twitch at the use of the word 'mother'. "I will honor her in this. I want you to leave my village alone. I want you to swear on Misa's memory that you will leave them, and my family be. I willing to come back to you for this in exchange. And once you swear, I will also give you the Shi-"
The air was punched from Toshiro's throat before he could finish, and he yelped at the impact of a stone wall against his back before he could even recognize what hit him. He pulled himself up on a low groan, bits of pebble and rock littering down from the crater his body had made in the wall. When his vision righted, he found Katsumi standing where he had been a moment before, her leg still poised where she had kicked him across the middle sent him flying. Her expression was one of pure hatred, Hell itself given shape.
"Just who do you think you are? You dare to return with this new confidence, commanding me as if I am not your Lady and sovereign? You dare to hold your head level with mine?! I spared your pathetic little life, when I should have made gloves from your skin the day you were born, and you have the gall to look me in my eyes and attempt to bargain?"
The pup ached so badly he felt his chest would cave in. She'd certainly fractured a few of his ribs again if nothing else. When he spoke again, it was between shallow gasps.
"I. . . dare. . . nothing. I... merely wish... to-"
She closed the space between them with a jump that was equal parts graceful and deadly. The heel of jeweled sandal landed hard in his gut and Toshiro gagged, spittle and bile fighting its way up his throat. She grabbed him up by his throat not a second after, pressing him into the crater in the wall, and Toshiro forced himself to meet her eyes. Her own was livid.
"I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?"
"You. . . gave me. . . nothing." He gripped around the wrist holding him aloft, his eyes and his heart defiant. He'd spent so much of his life trying to please her, trying not to incur her wrath. He was done. "You are. . . a coward, Auntie. . . Alone. . . and afraid. I am neither."
She roared in his face, then tossed him back across the room like a straw doll. He body bounced and skid across the stone floor, and when he stopped he spit blood and a tooth from his mouth.
The jewel was urging him now, a constant thrum inside his belly that said; I am here. Let me help you. Let us show her who we are..
He had half a mind to give in. This woman, this inu who shared his blood, held no love within her. Why should he wait for his family, if the power to be done with her was at his fingertips? Why couldn't he just accept the jewel into him, finally show Katsumi that he was worth more than she thought of him? He was tired of her misdirected hatred, tired of people taking pleasure in hurting him. He was tired of feeling weak.
No sooner had the thoughts crossed his mind did the double doors at the far end of the room exploded inward, and both Toshiro and Katsumi froze where they were.
The guards who'd been stationed at the doors were out cold, and smoldering. Half of their armor was melted into their clothing. Orochi in a pile on the floor, fighting to pull himself out of a stupor. Standing amongst the dust, scratches and blood dotting her skin, was Kagome.
She was wearing a short blue skirt and a white cropped tee, and high, sturdy boots. Her hair was free, blowing on a phantom wind. Her eyes were glowing, a pink as bright and alive as the aura whip she let dangle at her side.
And those eyes were directly on him.
Toshiro swallowed, and Kami as his witness. . . even the jewel stopped its murmuring inside of him.
He barely noticed the way that Katsumi looked back and forth between the miko and hanyou pup in bewilderment. Hardly noticed when she turned her back on him to growl at Kagome and call up her own youki to cover her claws in poison.
"You must be the human who thought she could take my maggot away from me." Katsumi was saying, a satisfied smirk in her voice. "How foolish of you to come here. Now you will die before him, and he will know that it is his fault."
Kagome's glowing eyes finally, slowly broke away from Toshiro's own, and met those of his aunt. He fought the urge to take a deep breath. The pup had never felt fear or pity for the Lady of the South a day in his life, but he almost pitied her in that moment.
Kagome's voice was as soft as death. "You're Katsumi."
"Obviously." A snort.
Katsumi walked back into the middle of the room until she was standing over Toshiro, a clear act of possessiveness. One that Toshiro's mother tracked.
Kagome's eye twitched, and she took a single step into the room. Toshiro had to force himself not to scoot back across the floor on his bottom. Because he knew that look. Kami he knew that look.
"You're the youkai who killed my mentor, the bitch who hurt my son."
"He belongs to me, you wretched—"
Kagome had fashioned her aura whip into a bow as Katsumi was speaking, and then an arrow was flying, and embedding itself in Katsumi's shoulder, and Katsumi was crashing into her golden throne with an undignified screech. Gold and stone and jewels went crumbling in a cloud of dust, the Lady of the Southern Inu lost among the rubble.
Before Toshiro could pick his jaw up off of the floor, Kagome was before him, glaring down at him with a glowing fury like a goddess.
He shivered.
"H-hello, mother."
The glow began to fade from her eyes, but before he could release a sigh of breath, she snatched him up by his nose and pinched.
"You are in SO much trouble young man."
"Wait! Wait! Okaasan, please listen—!"
"No, you listen! Do you have any idea how much you've made me and your father worry?! Do you have the slightest clue how much trouble you're in?!"
He chuckled nervously, wincing as the action caused his rips to tweak and looked up at her through his lashes. "Where-where's dad?"
"Your father is—"
A startled yelp, like an animal being scruffed.
Kagome spun with Toshiro still in her grip and they found that the man in question was responsible for the sound, that Inuyasha had indeed scruffed Orochi by the back of his neck without him noticing, forcing the grown man to his knees. The hanyou didn't seem to see them at all as he growled down at the other male, uncaring of his struggling.
"You and I have business, snake."
"You dare to scruff me you hideous, filthy—"
Inuyasha tossed the male from the room, unsheathing Tetsuiga and releasing a wind scar in the direction Orochi had stumbled. Screams, many screams, could be heard following the move.
When Inuyasha turned back to the throne room his eyes went immediately to his wayward son.
"I'll deal with you when this is over."
And then he marched from the room.
Toshiro knew that it was more promise than threat.
Kagome turned back resuming her righteous fury with her son by shaking him around by the hold she had on his nose, cursing his name and grounding him until his children's children had children. She paid no mind to the youkai who were coming to by the door, or the hyena that had watched on silently from the shadows, or the Lady who had begun to pull herself from the rubble of her throne. They were all staring at them in bewilderment.
Toshiro, unbelievably, felt his cheeks heat at their stares.
"Mom you're embarrassing me!"
"Embarrassing you?! Oh, I'll embara—"
A whip of violent purple shot at them before either could react, or so Toshiro thought. His mother blocked the strike of poison with a wakizashi he hadn't known she kept in her boot, her reflexes almost youkai-like in nature. Gods above, sometimes she was terrifying.
She turned to the source of the attack, to Katsumi, as if the youkai had lost every bit of her mind.
"AND YOU!". She still had her thumb and forefinger pinching Toshiro's nose closed. The pup hissed against the sting and swallowed down a wad of blood and spit. "I have never in my life truly hated someone, but Missy you take the cake!"
And then Kagome was shooting off like a bat out of hell, releasing Toshiro to dart to where Katsumi was still righting herself, her wakizashi in one hand and her aura fashioned into a matching one in the other.
Katsumi managed to fend off the initial blow of Kagome's blade with her own, holding the miko back with the dagger from her hair. Her dark curls fell in rivers down her back, some of it in her face as she growled.
"I'm going to enjoy ending your pathetic, human life."
She lost a step to Kagome, who's body again began to shine with that inward, sacred light. "Not if I kill you first."
And then followed a series of blows and deflects, parries and lunges for the throat. Katsumi caught Kagome's arm with her dagger, Kagome straight up elbowed the inu woman in the throat as she dodged another hit. Their back and forth was close, and personal. Katsumi kicked out at the Miko's middle, and Kagome quickly changed her aura dagger into a whip, wrapping it around her opponents ankle and slamming her to the ground. Then that whip was back into a pink aura wakizashi, and was being stabbed down into Katsumi's thigh. The inu howled, and then headbutt the miko so hard in the face that Toshiro could hear the crunch of bone as Kagome went down. But she didn't stay down. She rose from her crouch with a very Inuyasha like grin, blood sliding down her face from her shattered nose and her blades poised for another attack. She was on Katsumi again in a second, as if the blow had barely inconvenienced her.
Toshiro had never seen his mother fight in such close quarters, or with such savagery, and he cursed his battered body for not being strong enough to help her.
He felt his ribs stitching back together, slowly. The thick trickling of blood from his mouth had finally dried dry up, the pain in his throat from being choked so many times had finally dulled to a manageable ache. His youki and the jewel within it was frantic, thumping along with the pounding in his head.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
They had come. His mother to his side, his father no doubt raising hell throughout the keep. Even though he'd lied to them, stole from them, they had come running to his aid. He'd known they would. Despite what Katsumi thought, he was not the same child he was so many months ago, afraid of a gentle hand or a soft voice, worried that those who cared for him would only turn around and shun him when they saw fit. They'd fought for him time and time again, and now he would force himself to fight for them as well. He'd lured them here with the intent on ending this nonsense, with getting revenge for Kaede and Misa and Himself so that he could finally move on.
He would not sit idly by while he mother fought his battle for him.
He would end Lady Katsumi's life himself.
Instinct alone spared him from the claws that swiped at him from nowhere.
Toshiro back flipped, putting space between himself and what turned out to be Tadao, finally taking a step into the fray.
The hyena had shifted into his partial form so that rounded ears sprouted from his head, his protruding lips were curled back from his teeth in a snarl. Corse fur covered every inch of skin that showed through his borrowed clothes. "I'm going to finish what I should have months ago, you worthless wretch."
The pup glanced quickly to where Kagome and Katsumi still fought, just blurs of pink and red at the top of the dias now. He cursed under his breath.
"I don't have time for this, Ugly."
Tadao extended his clawed hand, cracking the knuckled there. The lump of his amputated shoulder shifted too as if he'd tried to do the same with the missing hand.
"You will make time for this. You owe me a life, boy."
And the hyena lunged at him with a roar. Toshiro would have had the advantage over him easily had he not been so tired, his body already so worn down from the beatings he'd received.
I can help with that.
No, Toshiro shoved back at the jewel in his mind, while he ducked under another wild swipe of the hyena's claws.
Toshiro pulled Akakaen from the sheath at his back, grateful that the blade pulled his youki from him on its own so that he did not have to straight to pull the flames free himself. He cut at Tadao in an arc, his movements smooth even with his fatigue. The male barely dodged it. They swiped and clawed and growled at one another until Toshiro saw an opening, and took it with little mercy. He had no time for games, and he knew that if he were at his best he could have killed Tadao without using his youki at all. There was no surprise in him, no joy, when Tadao's hand fell from his wrist, smoldering at the joint.
"You filthy half-breed!"
The male fell to his knees, yowling in pain and fury. A tear of frustration fell from his one eye, and he glared up at Toshiro where the pup had his flaming sword poised at the male's neck.
Toshiro's voice was cold, and tired. "This half-breed has bested you twice, Tadao. One would think that you'd have learned your lesson by now."
"I will end your miserable life!"
"Tch."
Toshiro raised his sword, intending on putting the other male out of his misery, when his very world shifted on its axis. Again.
Up on the dias, where his mother and aunt were still coming to blows, there was a small gasp. Almost a sigh. For all the sound the exhale made, Toshiro rightfully shouldn't have heard it. But he did, as if something in his very soul knew to listen for it.
He turned to the two women, and found Katsumi ragged and sweaty. Her kimono was in tatters, there were slices along her arms, her legs, burns where Kagome's miko aura blade had seared and sliced at her. There was blood dripping from her mouth as she grinned, and covering her wrist like a sick glove and she plunged her hand hand into Kagome's stomach.
There are many points of horror in Toshiro's life, many points wherein somewhere in his mind he thought 'This is it. This is the worst my life can possibly get.' Like the time Katsumi had starved him for six days, had barely let him drink water. Then made him kneel beside her chair during a dinner with her and her innermost circle, purposely dropping scraps of food of the floor to tempt him to eat. And he had, even knowing that to move from his kneeled position meant another bone to be broken later. He'd savored each scrap and piece he'd scooped from the floor. Or like the time she'd been entertaining a descendant of Ryukotsai, and had allowed that dragon youkai into his hidden bedchamber to beat him within an inch of his life for something he had nothing to do with, for reminding him of a demon dog lord who'd died long before Toshiro had ever been born.
But all of those instances, all of them, were absolutely nothing compared to watching Kastumi's hand go through Kagome's abdomen.
Someone was screaming.
And as Katsumi yanked her hand back, his mother's blood spraying brightest red, Toshiro realized that it was him.
He watched Kagome's brown eyes widen, as if she were surprised. The miko looked down at the gaping hole from where Katsumi had wrenched her wrist, and blinked as if she couldn't quite understand where the missing piece of her had gone. Her hair hung in sweaty, tangled locs down her back from the fight. Her clothes were ripped, and her eyes were already glazed as she met Toshiro's own across the great expanse of the stone room.
And then she dropped to the floor in a tumble of pale limbs and dark hair, eyes fluttering closed.
He dropped Akakaen where he stood and ran to her, his ears burning and his body aching and his tattered heart near shred. Toshiro he would rather suffer at Katsumi's hand for millennia than to watch his mother hurt, he'd rather rip himself to pieces with his own hands. He'd become whatever he had to, do whatever he had to, to protect her. He'd tear down the world itself to see her whole and safe.
This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.
Would you? A detached voice Toshiro recognized, but focus on with his with his broken heart. Would you become anything? Do anything?
He was kneeling over Kagome now, crying and screaming and shaking her. Her blood was soaking his hakama. The wound Katsumi dealt her the size of a fist, fluttering along the edges as she tried to breath. Her chest was barely moving, her lips already had a blue tint to them. The pup knew that if he dared to look closer he would be able to see clean through her to the ground beneath. No. No. Yes. His soul responded to that voice inside him, as if the parts of him capable of speech or thought had been ripped from him when his mother crumbled to the ground. Yes.
He turned in slow motion to wear Katsumi stood smug over them. Her green eyes were full of pride, and victory, and mocking, as if to say, Did you expect anything less, Maggot?
He stood and he didn't fight it this time, the jewel's call, didn't fight the rage and anguish that consumed him until he wasn't himself, until he wasn't a hanyou at all.
Toshiro felt himself transform as if from a distance, his eyes full of hatred and trained on Katsumi, his heart bleeding out like his miko mother on the floor of the throne room. He could distantly hear Kagome moaning his name, pleading for him. He could see Katsumi's shock as she watched him grow larger and larger, could see her own body shift until they matched. Until their Inu bodies broke through the stone walls and stone ceiling of her keep and opened the dank room to the sun and sky above, as pieces of wall and stone were sent tumbling into the ocean below. He could see, and hear, feel everything. But he couldn't think.
His mind was somewhere else entirely.