Kiss From a Rose
By Mystical Star
A Kitty-Chan Production
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Mostly because if I did, I'd have a whole lot of money and I could speak Japanese! But I only know a few words and I'm broke, therefore I can't own Inuyasha or any related characters. So there!
Author's Note: A small dictionary of the Japanese words that appear will be provided at the end of the chapter for all you folk who don't know them :)
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Chapter Five ~ Sweet Dreams
Night fell in Sengoku Jidai, forcing the villagers into their homes to sleep. Kaede had offered Kagome, Inuyasha, and their children a place to stay for the night in the back room of her home. With much hesitation, Kagome accepted, her only alternative being a tree branch.
Almost immodestly after being offered a place to sleep next to Kagome, Shippou settled in and started bagging "z's", tired from all of the excitement of having his surrogate mother back.
Just as they were getting the children ready for bed, Kagome decided to make herself scarce so Inuyasha could tuck them in. She thought it would be a good experience for him to bond with Hikari and Hikaru, so she made up a quick excuse to go out of the room.
"Inuyasha, I have to go," She said.
"Go where?" Inuyasha asked skeptically.
"I have to go," She reiterated. Her mate thought for a moment, then nodded his head.
"Ooh…but what about the - "
"You can tuck them in, you are their father," Kagome said, kissing him on the cheek.
"Okay," He said, not sounding all too confident.
"I'll be back in a minute," Kagome said, walking from the room.
Inuyasha looked at Hikari and Hikaru, who were staring expectantly up at him with their big, golden eyes. This is ridiculous, He thought. If I can fight Naraku and live to tell about it then I can put a couple of kids to bed. Piece of cake. The hanyou told himself.
A feeling of incompetence fell over him, never having had to tuck children into bed before. Or not, he thought.
"Um," He began, sitting down next to his pups' futons. "So, how do I do this?" He asked out loud. His children laughed.
"You don't know how to tuck us in?" Hikaru asked.
"Well of course I……no," Inuyasha admitted, feeling rather embarrassed.
"Tousan, you're silly!" Hikari giggled. Inuyasha smirked at his daughter, happy that at least someone was amused.
"Hey, it's not like I've done this before, I didn't even know that I had kids until today," Their father pointed out.
"Why didn't you know?" Hikaru asked, looking at his father expectantly.
"I…because I sent your mother back to her home so she'd be safe," Inuyasha sighed.
"Safe from what?" Hikari inquired.
"Nara…a bad youkai named Naraku,"
"So it's safe now?" asked Hikaru.
"…yes," Inuyasha said, even though his heart told him he was wrong.
"Why didn't Kasan come back here?" Hikari asked.
"She couldn't. See, there's something called the Shikon No Tama, and the only way to go through the well is to use it. I took it away from your mother so she couldn't come back," Inuyasha explained.
"Is that why she always cried in the well-house?" Hikaru questioned.
"I don't…wait a minute, what?" Inuyasha asked.
"When Kasan got sad she went into the well-house and cried. We found her there once, but she got mad and told us that we weren't supposed to go in there," Hikari explained.
Inuyasha's heart skipped a beat. He felt even more horrible now than he had when he first found out that Kagome had been raising his pups for five years. His conscience was heavy with guilt. The hanyou felt as though he may scream with all of his self-frustration. Needing an outlet for his emotions, he embraced his pups tightly.
"I'm so sorry that I wasn't there," He admitted softly. "I should have known, I should have smelled the difference in Kagome then," Inuyasha lamented.
Neither child quite understood what their father was talking about, but they felt sorry for him all the same.
"It's okay, Tousan. I love you anyway," Hikari said.
The hanyou's heart stopped at his daughter's words and tears trickled from his eyes. He hugged his children closer.
"I love you too," He choked. I'll never leave you again, any of you, he promised his family silently.
In the meantime, Kagome had busied herself with talking with Kaede, rather than using the little girls' room like she had told her mate.
"I don't understand how I was able to come through the well," Kagome admitted. "Or Hikaru, for that matter. None of us has a Shikon shard," She added.
"Well, Hikari and Hikaru are not of your time, or this time. They are of both. It's only logical that they are able to travel freely between the two," Kaede said, poking the burning wood in the fire pit with a wet stick.
"I suppose that makes sense," Kagome said, watching the flames dance before her eyes.
"How has everybody been since I've been gone?" Kagome asked.
"Shippou, of course, has been most depressed. He stayed here with me, but was sick often. He didn't eat a lot," The elderly miko sighed, turning her attention to her sister's reincarnation, who looked quite worried.
"Miroku-sama and Sango-sama both left for a while and went their separate ways. Sango-sama went to look for her younger brother, Kohaku. What Miroku-sama did, no one knows. But we all can assume it probably had something to do with women," Kaede continued. Kagome laughed, knowing that Kaede hit the nail right on he head with her assumptions of the lecherous monk.
"What about Inuyasha?" The now twenty-year-old* girl asked.
"Only the Gods know where he went off too. He wandered off for a while, probably wanting to take on Naraku by himself. He came back every once and a while. I saw him sitting in Goshinboku's limbs. But he never stayed for long. It was like he was coming back to see if you had returned, Kagome," Kaede observed.
Kagome chuckled, finding it odd that Inuyasha would see if she would come back when he knew that he had her return ticket with him.
"But it's strange," The elderly miko continued, poking the fire with her stick again. "Everyone returned just yesterday,"
"How is that strange?" Kagome asked, giving Kaede a skeptical look.
"It's as if they knew you would be back," Kaede chuckled.
Kagome was silent. Was it a coincidence? It had to be. That was the only way to explain it. But then again, hadn't Hikari said that her brother saw something down the well?
"Kagome, you connect us all," Kaede added. "You and Inuyasha and now your children keep us together. We all knew it was time for you to come back, so we all gathered here."
"Is that…is that what was calling me?" She gasped.
"Hm?"
"When Hikari told me that Hikaru fell down the well, I looked down it and felt something was calling me," Kagome explained.
"It was your soul, Kagome. It was calling you back,"
Kagome sat silently for a few moments, contemplating what the elderly miko had just said. Try as she might, she could not understand how her soul was connected with anyone else's, with the exception of Inuyasha, Hikari and Hikaru. She frowned and looked down at the floor, as if she may find inspiration there. Suddenly, thinking of her family, she realized just how long she had been speaking with Kaede.
"Ah! I have to get to bed, Inuyasha's probably worrying that I was kidnapped or something!" Kagome exclaimed, knowing how badly her mate jumped to conclusions. Kaede laughed.
"Konbanwa, Kagome,"
"Konbanwa," Kagome said, bowing respectfully before hurrying into the next room.
"Inuyasha, Gomen, I - "
What she found was completely unexpected. Instead of a furious and worried mate, she found a sleeping puppy, his arms wrapped around his children, who were snuggled close to their father. Kagome could not help but smile as she saw Hikari's leg twitch in a canine-like fashion and scoot closer to Inuyasha.
Her heart melted as Inuyasha let out an almost purr-like noise from his throat. Deciding that she was not about to be left out, she pulled her futon close to her mate and children carefully so as not to wake Shippou.
Just before lying down to go to sleep, she kissed Hikari, Hikaru, and Shippou on their foreheads.
"Sweet dreams," She whispered to the children.
Then, she kissed Inuyasha lightly on the lips and whispered in his ear.
"Aishiteru,"
To be continued…
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Notes/Japanese Words
*Think about it. If Kagome was 15 during the series, moving forward five years would make her twenty. Wow, Kagome's gettin' old!
Goshinboku – Literally, "The God Tree". The tree that Kikyou sealed Inuyasha to fifty years ago.
Konbanwa – Good night.