Okay, hello again and thank you to my consistently wonderful reviewers. I'm glad that you're sticking with me on this. I'm also glad that things are still somewhat mysterious, they'll clear up but I just think it's more interesting this way.

Anyway, what I really need to say this time is that this chapter might be a bit of a bore to some of you. I'm introducing a new character, and I don't know how that'll go. I've never written an original character before, but I'm giving it my best shot. I think she's turned out all right, but feel free to give me your opinion, good or bad. Believe me, the last thing I want is my OC bringing the story down, the way I know a new character can. However, for the story I have planned I'm afraid that new characters are inevitable. Also be prepared for some familiar, but probably OOC, characters. Not everyone has been oblivious to time passing, so it'd be strange for them to stay exactly the same. I will do my best to keep their changes reasonable though.

Wow, that was a whole lot of nothing. By the way, I'm sorry it's been a bit long since my last update. My family is puppy-sitting. We already have two dogs and to make a long pointless story short, if you've ever had two slightly neurotic dogs and then thrown in a golden retriever puppy, well, you'll understand how crazy my house has been. Luckily, they are all napping. The point…I'm trying to spoil you all now (and get out a lot of the story)  before I go back to school August 21st and the updates really have to slow down, so I'll try to keep the updates coming quick.

(Disclaimer) I am not Rumiko Takahashi. Sadly I am a very poor artist and a mediocre writer. I don't own Inuyasha.

Chapter 2: Her Legacy

Mouth set grimly, she smoothed a hand over the curved edge of her weapon. Even in the early morning, the heat of the workroom was unbearable to most people. The fires were constant, the bright blue flames never allowed to die out. At their highest flame, as they were now, the flames kept the room blazing hot, the heat almost palpable as it swirled around the room. She knew it was only because the fire had been created by a kitsune that it could burn endlessly in an enclosed room without her suffocating or burning. And it was something that was a necessity to keep her weapons in order and herself hidden and unsuspected. In a detached sort of way she would have liked to meet a kitsune, or any of the demons of her family lore. Setting aside her weapon, and sweeping a rag across her dirty and now sweaty forehead, she extended one hand into the iridescent flames. The heat was almost painful there, but never quite burned her flesh, nor even her sleeve, she noted as it slid down her wrist and dipped down into the flame. She had never seen a demon like a kitsune. She had only seen the barely self aware demons that comprised the lower ranks of the army. She was pretty sure that some existed though, unless they had all been exterminated in the long ago demon purges. She knew for sure of only one higher level demon. Naraku. With a smooth, pale hand she tightened the harness of her weapon and stood, slinging the Hiraikotsu on to her back. The other hand she curled into a loose fist, prayer beads clacking together over purple cloth, around the Kazaana. With her curse spurring her on and an heirloom to fight her battle Uzura Noroibushi faced another day.

Her days were growing regular. When she had dedicated herself, earlier that year, to fighting Naraku, for which she had at last deemed herself prepared, it had been new, exciting and frightening. But now it was familiar and routine. Which wasn't so bad. Uzura wasn't someone who disliked order. Her father had had a reputation for being unpredictable, someone who took great joy in living. She thought he had really just been afraid of dying. She was trying to accept.

What was depressing in her private crusade was the lack of impact that she made. Her targets were small outfits of human soliders, or small weapons caches, or patrol booths near the edge of town. Logistically, they were the targets that she could attack and beat in battle. No matter how good a warrior she was, she did not yet have much actual experience, and she was still only one person. Not enough to take on Naraku's more elite forces, or more prized targets.

Today, as everyday for the past few months, she started out early, just before dawn. Her target today was a good one, for her. Naraku was in the midst of building a small training ground. It was mid way through construction, but the force guarding it had been attacked couple days earlier by a strong force of demon renegades. New forces wouldn't be sent until later today, and the previous force was mostly injured and entirely human. It would be and easy, but strategic, hit.

It was just as she expected it to be and infiltration was unnecessary. She attacked all out and finished the complete destruction that the demon forces had not carried out. Every building and every living creature she destroyed, as was her way. After washing her body, clothing and all in a handy stream just outside town (killing the guard to get out of course) and then reentering at a location sufficiently removed from the scene (another guard to kill) she enjoyed the bright sunlight of mid morning as it dried her. She was not too worried about encountering trouble. Naraku was not hunting for her. She was not wanted at all. And as much as it hurt she knew it wasn't just because she left no survivors, because he had other ways of finding those that he sought. It was because she was not yet (would she ever be?) a threat or even a nuisance enough for him to waste time killing her. Especially when she would be dead in a few years anyway. So she killed hundreds of his men. Naraku cared even less about his human lackeys than he did about his demon ones, which such an insignificant amount that it was laughable.

It was a depressing fact, that she mattered little to her worst enemy, but one that she could not help. It was one that was sometimes nice too. She was allowed to live above ground she could live fairly normally, even if normally was in misery and oppression. She did not need to fear the regular purging of the underground. She had only even been to the dismal sewers a couple times, and that had been years ago.

So Uzura tried to enjoy the filtered sunlight and walked what she considered slow reflecting on her life. It was a routine with her now. Except today her musing was interrupted by the tingling of her senses that told her she was being followed.

Shippou moved seemingly unnoticed behind the pale short haired figure. He flitted in and out of shadow, darting from high to low vantage points with all the grace natural to a full grown kitsune, as he now was. The girl was unassuming enough, though if she knew how to use the Hirakotsu then he knew it was best not underestimate her skill as a warrior. But she moved more humbly than he had expected, coming from the family line from which she did. Shippou knew for a fact that no descendant of Miroku had ever married a plain woman. He allowed himself a smirk at the thought that they always seemed to marry strong willed women as well. Yet this girl, the only daughter of her father's side of the family, and who, in his mind should have all the calm confidence of his old, old friend Miroku and all the cat-like grace and warm strength of his equally old friend Sango, was of no great beauty that he could see and exuded no air of strength either. Her hair was short, shorter than Miroku's had been, and shorter than he had ever seen hair on a girl.  She was pale, not sun-kissed and tanned as both Sango and Miroku, had been. Paler even then Kagome (but not Inuyasha), he thought, but he pushed it away.

Shippou was still young by youkai standards, only just entering the prime of his life. 700 years had not yet eased his sorrow. It still hurt after over half a millennium. Shippou was the last of his old band of friends, who to him still seemed so recently departed. He had watched Miroku's family line pass by him in what seemed like just a few years. It had hurt whenever one of the members of Miroku's family died, especially in the last 200 years when the curse had returned and the, up until now, male heirs died early of the curse, and the wives died of heartache, or Naraku's sporadic extermination of the underground opposition to his rule, or being sucked in with their husbands, or simply the oppressive cruel world Naraku had made for them to live in. The children had always been left to fend for themselves, bearing their curse and the burden of continuing the family line. And he had left them to do this truly alone.

Frowning at his traitorous thoughts for bringing down what he meant to be a happy occasion, Shippou turned his mind back to the girl he was trailing. She had a small frame, and walked with her shoulders up proudly but somehow lacked in a sense of real pride. Instead she seemed detached seemed…to be stopping. Quickly, Shippou darted behind a building and concealed himself in the shadows. The next moment, a calm, carefully articulated, and commanding female voice called out to him.

"You may as well come out. I know you're there; I know you've been following me. I may look like a weak target but let me assure you that if your tracking ability is any sort of indicator, I have been followed by people who were stronger, more skilled, and more cunning than you. And they have not enjoyed being beaten into the ground by what they mistook for an innocent girl with a weapon too big for her to handle." She had not turned around and there was a hint of scorn in her voice. Her voice was heartbreakingly similar to Sango, surprisingly so. Yet the tone, the calm, amused, cockiness, that was like Miroku's, tinged with bitterness and loneliness that must have been her own. From the shadow Shippou responded,

"A little confident aren't you. Though I suppose you would be. What with your father being the idiot he was, and your mother, well I never knew her but I'm sure she was just as stubbornly idiotic. A great fighter, wasn't she? Was she from the underground like your grandmother? Though I heard Naraku wiped them out not long before you were born." The part of him that delighted in trickery enjoyed the slight widening of her eyes just before she turned to face where he had been a moment before. There had been a saying among demons a long time ago about kitsunes and travelers on the path of life, and Shippou tossed it idly in his head before giving up his foolery to say,

"Anyway, I wouldn't hurt ya. I'm Shippou. And you're Uzura, right?"

She spun with a grace that she had not demonstrated before this point, and leapt nimbly backwards swinging Hiraikotsu off its harness to a position protectively in front of her.

Shippou held up his hands in a placating gesture as he stepped out of the concealing shadows. "I'm not here to hurt you. Relax, girl."

But what happened was quite the opposite of relaxation. "Y-you're not human!" she backed away, now looking stiff. Her knuckles were white where he could see her hands gripping Hiraikotsu like a life preserver. "A- demon? You're a demon!" And then, in an eye blink Hiraikotsu was back on her back and she stood firmly, looking only a bit nervous now, with one hand extended toward him. To most the gesture would appear to be only the foolish antics of a frightened and desperate girl. Shippou knew better.

"Damn it, woman! You've never seen a demon!?" This fact frustrated him more than it should have. He would later reflect that it hurt him more than a little. After all, she should have been practically family too him. All her family before her had. From the time he was a small pup mourning the second devastating loss of his life, their family had cared for him, raised him. And he left for a few short years (well almost a half century but still!) and now this girl retreated in fear and threatened him with her family's most deadly, and rarely used weapon? It wasn't fair.

"What's wrong with ya? You shouldn't just go sucking people into the Kazaana at the drop of a hat. Like I said, I'm a friend, I been a friend of your family's for ages and I don't mean to hurt you. I'm here to help." The more refined voice that Shippou had adopted when he was playfully testing her nerves had vanished, and he spoke roughly, in a boyish sort of familiarity and comradery that tempted Uzura to drop her defenses and smile back at his now expectant face. He was strange, sounding cold one minute, then cursing angrily, now friendly and open. And part of her was excited to meet a kitsune.

"How can I know I can trust you? I mean, you look sincere enough, but you wouldn't be the first good actor I met. I've never been tricked, never been caught off guard, and I've never been beaten, so if you think…"

"Stop being so stubborn, woman. If I wanted to hurt you," and suddenly he was at her side pinning her arms down. Wincing, Uzura, spun in his arms. He was taller than she had thought, more than a head taller than her. Had she let her guard down?

Her eyes darted upwards and met his fearfully. He saw defiance in them too, and pride, but the fear struck him. She looked vulnerable and innocent, seeming to shrink as he regarded her. He released her hard, pushing her away so that she stumbled ungracefully backwards before catching her footing.

"Stupid girl. Your family was the only one I had for centuries. Their home was mine. I even made them a fire to repair their weapons after Naraku took over. It's still lit, ain't it? Didn't ya ever wonder where I went? Didn't your father ever talk of me?"

"I'm…I'm sorry. My father, he did not speak much of serious matters. He-he might have mentioned you when I was little but I-I don't remember. I'm sorry." Uzura was surprised to find herself forcing a smile at him, something she rarely did. She believed him. Heavens help her, she trusted him.

He heard her take a step toward him then another, then pass him.

"Well," she said. "Are you coming?" Shippou grinned.

"You better have food, girl, I'm starved." Shippou's grin widened as she sighed a much burdened sigh. He was home. And she looked cute when she sighed like that. A wicked grin came to Shippou's face. After all, he was not only a kitsune, but a kitsune brought up by Miroku, and while he had not taken to the monk's more lecherous ways, Miroku had only strengthened the part of Shippou that delighted in 'harmless fun'. Especially when it involved cute girls.

But just then an ominous sounding alarm broke through the midmorning air, over the din of machinery and hopelessness, accompanied by an earth shaking explosion. Uzura gave Shippou a wild-eyed look of disbelief as both their eyes shot to the source of the explosion. They knew where the sounds had come from, without the glance they both spared. Someone had just openly attacked Naraku's strong hold. Other people were now venturing into the street, awed and terrified at once. Shippou and Uzura slipped into the shadows a sped toward the center of the city. Shippou could tell she was preparing herself for battle. He was shocked; no one had openly attacked Naraku in a hundred years. But as they drew towards their destination, his shock grew until it nearly blinded him. The smell! Faint but…Oh, Shippou could never forget that scent. He was slowing, now trailing a bit behind the girl. It couldn't be, and yet…he couldn't deny it.

"Inuyasha?" Shippou choked out, not noticing as the girl turned to him questioningly, a building in the distance behind her, at the center of the city, lit with flame and gun fire and demon attacks. He didn't know how it could be. Inuyasha had just attacked Naraku's center of power, 200 years after he died.

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As usual, I am ravenous (too much?) for reviews. But this time if you could do me one extra favor. I have a question about chapter length for you all. Is the chapter length right now good? Would longer chapters be a good thing or a bad one? What is too long? I really do want your opinion on this, and I will go with what you say.  It doesn't really matter to me, and I personally like long chapters so I lean towards that. Please respond to these questions, though of course feedback on this chapter is still the most important thing to me.

And yes I am very rambly this time, and no, it probably won't be the last or the worst.

Til next time, Thank you for reading!