AN: I wouldn't worry too much about Fushi right now, he's just toddled off like usual, no kidnappings as of yet. The main thing to worry about now is who's the one returning home. Jakotsu or Inuyasha? Or (a slightly harder question) how far will Jakotsu get with Inuyasha before he gets chopped up by a very mad little Hanyou?
Life Exchange
Chapter 14
Return Home
Whoever the hell had managed to engineer a sword to move the way Jakotsutou did must have been a pure genius. There must have been at least six actual blades, held together like a chain with a pin through each end of each blade. It made for an impressive display as Jakotsu whipped the blade out of its scabbard, allowing it to arc through the air like a coiled snake, bending and flexing with impressive speed that Inuyasha found hard to follow in the near pitch black of the night. The only light which allowed him glimpses of his opponent were the distant flashes of lightning over the trees, and even then, it wasn't particularly helpful.
"Nice sword." Inuyasha called, somewhat weakly as he slipped out of the saddle and snapped the horse's rear with Tessaiga to get it moving out of the road, along with Shippo on its back.
"Back at you." Jakotsu smiled slowly at the rusty old blade in Inuyasha's hand. He stood poised with his own weapon resting lightly on the ground beside him… the slightest twitch would send it slashing towards Inuyasha.
"It's a little unfair don't you think?" Inuyasha complained just for the hell of it. "You with 'Wonderblade Mark One' and me with this junk, a broken arm, a cracked skull and a sprained wrist."
"You are half Youkai." Jakotsu pointed out.
"Do I look it right now?" Inuyasha scowled, just the way the guy was looking at him put him more on edge than any enemy he'd ever faced.
"You're human, I'm human. That's fair enough, isn't it?" Jakotsu reared his sword back. "Shall we begin?"
Without waiting for Inuyasha's permission he swung his sword forward, sending the long chain of blades screaming towards the currently human Hanyou like a whip. Inuyasha barely dodged the top-most blade slicing his ankle off. No sooner had he dodged that attack but the blade rebounded almost instantly, lancing towards his mid-section.
Desperately he blocked with crummy Tessaiga, and it worked… until Jakotsu's blade curled around him in true snake fashion and bit into his back. He would never have felt such pain in his normal form, and so couldn't help but cry out as he felt a warm liquid ooze into his clothing and down his back.
"Are you sure you're this legendary King everyone's talking about?" Jakotsu gave his sword a light tug, bringing it away from Inuyasha and giving him a chance to recover.
He was toying with him…
Inuyasha fell to one knee as pain shot through his body, he couldn't block these long range attacks… he had to get closer.
"Is this it then?" Jakotsu started forward on the kneeling young man. "I thought you killed the dark miko Tsubaki? She was a little menace wasn't she? She was the one who supposedly killed your father as well, wasn't she? Want to know a secret?"
Inuyasha tried to steady his breathing…
"She killed me too." Jakotsu stopped a metre away from him. "In fact she killed all of the Shichinin-tai. Even Bankotsu…"
"So why do you all still live?" Inuyasha screwed his eyes against the pain.
"Because, Inuyasha…" Jakotsu closed the distance between them and crouched down before him, his weapon braced against his shoulder. "An Inu Hanyou named Lord Inu… your father I presume… came along with a mercy sword and revived us all."
Inuyasha raised his gaze slowly to meet Jakotsu's.
"And he did that for nothing more than to ask us directions." Jakotsu snorted and cocked his head as he examined Inuyasha's face. Suddenly he brushed his hand gently along the Hanyou's cheek. "You look just like him. Same shape of face. Though I reckon he had the stiff's eyes."
Inuyasha couldn't hold the weak act any longer. That little tender touch to the cheek had sent all sorts of disgusting feelings crawling over his skin. Without so much as a warning, he swept Tessaiga out, straight for a clean swipe to the neck. Jakotsu was no amateur swordsman, he saw the clumsy, heavy blow coming and merely ducked. The blade only shaved a few hairs.
"Oh that's not very nice." Jakotsu put a hand to his hair and sighed in annoyance. "I didn't try to cut your hair off did I?"
Inuyasha rose unsteadily to his feet, right hand holding Tessaiga across him in a defensive stance. "I'll cut more than your hair off!"
"Really?" Jakotsu smiled again. "I do prefer it when they put up a fight… so much more satisfying in the long run."
"Sick bastard!"
Jakotsu's sword lashed out again, fastening around Inuyasha's broken arm and biting hard into the flesh. Inuyasha gave a choked grunt as he was suddenly dragged forward by his broken limb, and flung straight into the dirt of the road at Jakotsu's feet.
"Feel free to stay down there." Jakotsu circled around him, pulling his sword back from its grip on the Hanyou's arm. "Now where was I… oh yes! Your father… did you know what he did when we wouldn't tell him where Inaki was?"
"Told you… my life story and went on his way?" That seemed to be the recurring thing his father liked to do around here.
"He killed three of our members. Kyoukotsu, Ginkotsu… Mukotsu…" Jakotsu snapped his sword against Inuyasha's leg, cutting a deep gash. The young man didn't allow himself to cry out, he just fought his way to his feet and backed away with a certain limp. "Three of the most powerful humans ever I think. Of course, they were the most stupid and weakest."
"The stupidest was you, dumb ass." Inuyasha bit out.
"Stupidest isn't a word." Jakotsu corrected before raising a hand to his chin. "No… I think it is… beautifulest isn't a word… I can't remember what Renkotsu no aniki said…"
Inuyasha pressed a hand tightly against the one wound he could reach, on his leg… the blood loss was enormous…
"Anyway, that's beside the point." Jakotsu shrugged off his wonderings and prepared to attack Inuyasha again. "So do you know what we did once he sent him on his way to Inaki?"
"Went for tea at an inn?"
"Well, after that." Jakotsu nodded. "We went to Tsubaki, the dark miko… we told her about the Shikon no Tama that she yearned for, the jewel her rival, a miko named Kikyo, was in possession of. We told her that an Inu Youkai from the island of such demons was now in possession of the jewel."
Inuyasha stiffened. "You told her…"
"We told her where to find him." Jakotsu beamed. "Pure genius of elder brother Bankotsu to do that. Because do you know what happened after that?"
"She took my father… she held him for six months…" Inuyasha said numbly. "I found them… I killed her… and I effectively killed my father too…"
"Really?" Jakotsu looked mildly intrigued. "We thought they both destroyed each other… never mind. Well now we want compensation for our losses and since Lord Inu isn't around to serve it up – we'll just have to take it from you!"
The snake sword lashed out again, curving this time around Inuyasha's chest. He snarled and twisted, breaking free, but not without suffering the damage. "You did this! You were the ones who started this mess! You killed my father!"
"No – you killed your father. You just said so yourself!" Jakotsu swept his blade out again, slashing Inuyasha's body repeatedly and several different places at once, and detracted the blade before it could be blocked. "And you are the last piece of the puzzle, little Inuyasha! The miko – your father – and now you! You all must fall under the vengeance of the Shichinin-tai!"
"Stop squawking chicken legged bastard!" Inuyasha shot forward with a new speed and strength born of determination and anger. "You're the one who's going to pay for my vengeance!"
Jakotsu barely registered his movement. One minute Inuyasha was charging at him, the next he was gone. And the next moment after that, one arm locked over his shoulder and pressed Tessaiga against his throat, a rusty blade, but still deadly nonetheless.
"Oh look – you came to me. And here I thought I'd have to force you." Jakotsu jeered.
"Say your prayers!" Inuyasha hissed and prepared to make the final cut.
But with incredible speed and hidden strength, Jakotsu suddenly had him pulled clean into the air and right over his shoulder to land hard on the ground at his feet. Jakotsu knelt down above his head and brought Jakotsutou to rest just above Inuyasha's heart. "Now you say yours, pretty boy."
Inuyasha looked around for some miracle escape, but found none. The sun wouldn't rise for many more hours, and there was no one nearby who could come to his rescue. The sword pressed against his chest prevented any movement, but he knew he wasn't going to die anytime soon… Jakotsu didn't seem the type who would end it quickly.
"Look at you." Jakotsu said smoothly, getting to his feet and moving around Inuyasha, but keeping the folded up blade of Jakotsutou against his heart. "You're bleeding to death in the middle of some unknown dirt track in the middle of nowhere. Miles from any town. Miles from anyone living… and even more miles from your friends and home…"
"You can't kill me."
"But my sword is right above your weak human heart."
"I need to live…" Inuyasha panted, his right arm trembled with cold whilst his right remained wet, limp and unresponsive as ever. "I need to help them…"
"Oh you'll live. For a while longer at least." Jakotsu grinned and reached down to lift Inuyasha by the nape. "You were too beautiful for this world you know."
"You weird sicko…" Inuyasha managed to twist away, only to fall back to the ground with a thud, it hurt more than he let on.
Jakotsu spied Tessaiga resting loosely in Inuyasha's hand. "I think I'll take this, just to be safe." He wrenched the blade from his grip and pressed a finger to Inuyasha's lips as he started to protest and move. "Hush! It's ok, I just don't want there to be any unexpected surprises while we play."
Inuyasha shuddered, completely revolted by all the thoughts probably running through Jakotsu's mind. He needed help… an accomplice… some sort of distraction. But once again all thoughts of miraculous saviours were thrown back to thoughts of disgust and anger as Jakotsu's hand trailed from his lips down his body. "Not bad for a Hanyou… it's better as a human… the blood runs less thickly from the wounds. The dizziness setting in yet?"
It had set in five hours ago, what was he talking about? Lethargy was just about setting in though… Inuyasha had one ace left up his sleeve, but it wouldn't work… Jakotsu was too skilled and experienced to allow for it to work. Inuyasha just needed one distraction…
"Hey!"
Jakotsu turned in mild surprise at the child's voice behind them. "What the-"
A sudden explosion a few metres away nearly bowled the Shichinin-tai warrior over. He turned and started to stand, pulling his sword away from Inuyasha as he prepared to face the new attacker… he'd underestimated Inuyasha's ability to function.
Now!
Inuyasha rolled onto his stomach, out of sight behind Jakotsu's back grasped the hilt of Toukijin, the sword he'd wrapped up tightly with spare material so that it barely resembled a blade just to look at it. Almost as soon as he held the hilt fast in his fist and pulled it from where it had been tied to his back… the dark power and unsurpassable evil seemed to soak into his arm. It was so strong that even Jakotsu felt the aura of the active weapon and started to turn in curiosity… but too slow… too late.
Inuyasha rolled to his feet and in one smooth motion, had thrust the blade right through the zombie's chest and lacerated the cloth that had wrapped it tightly. Jakotsu didn't seem to notice at first… he looked down and blinked at the weapon protruding from his chest… looked back up at Inuyasha with that same slightly confused expression before tilting back and falling down to the road.
"Where did… that…" he managed to mumble his last few words before his life leeched away completely and he sagged slowly. Inuyasha watched with grim fascination as the flesh seemed to turn to dust and dissolve away like sand… soon there was nothing left on the ground but one perfect white skeleton, odd assortments of clothing and armour and Toukijin.
It had all gone very quiet all of a sudden and Inuyasha blinked with dim awareness as he turned his gaze on Shippo who hovered in the ferns at the roadside. He'd been the one to provide the distraction that had saved him.
"Thanks…" Inuyasha breathed before crumpling into an organised heap in the middle of the road. The lost blood finally allowing to take affect on him.
^_^
"But you saw the body, how can he still be alive?" Bankotsu reasoned with his new wife, late into the night of their wedding night.
"I don't know what's going on!" Kagome fretted as she paced the length of their royal suite. "All I know is that what I saw couldn't have been a vision of a past event! How could it? Inuyasha has never killed me before! The only other explanation is that it was a premonition! He's alive and he's going to come back and kill me!"
"I think we need to calm down and go over what we know now." Bankotsu said calmingly. But he was beginning to feel on the edgy side himself… he needed to calm this woman down… and curse her and her visions. "What exactly did you see in this 'premonition'?"
"It was in the throne room." Kagome stopped pacing and stared off into space with a slightly horrified look on her face as she remembered the details. "He – I – he was kneeling over me – he'd stabbed me with a dagger. But there was blood everywhere… like he'd dragged it out… like he'd drawn the blood out of me and splashed it all over the room…"
Bankotsu knew exactly what she'd seen. It wasn't a premonition… she'd just witnessed the little illusion that Renkotsu had cast in order to drive Inuyasha just off the brink of sanity and off the island completely. But just as long as she didn't realise it was all an illusional trick… maybe he could work around this… convince her it was just a hallucination.
"You're under a lot of stress, Kagome dear." He stood and managed to bring up a sympathetic and worried look for her. "Perhaps the grief is giving you hallucinations again – like at the wedding."
"No – this was too real – it was definitely like a vision – but I was seeing events of the future." She clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white, she started to pace again. "He's alive somewhere… and he's going to come back… some time soon and he'll still be insane and he'll still want to hurt me…"
"I really think it was just an hallucination." Jakotsu would have finished the King off by now and was probably on his way back with Tessaiga in hand as they spoke. "He isn't alive, Kagome, he isn't coming back."
She gave him a pained look as she turned in her pacing toward him. "It looked so real… how could it have been a hallucination?"
"Kagome – you saw the body of Inuyasha in that coffin yourself. You know he's dead. We all do. There is no other Hanyou that looks like him on this island – so who else could we have cremated?"
"I don't know…" Kagome frowned and chewed her lip. "But his face… his face was lacerated – what if it wasn't Inuyasha – we don't know for sure!"
"But the ears-"
"His arm!" Kagome suddenly cried as if in realisation. "You said his sword arm had been lost along with Tessaiga out in the ravine – how could it?! The body was missing its left arm – Inuyasha isn't a left handed fighter!"
Bankotsu stared at her in creeping annoyance. "What?"
"Inuyasha uses his right hand when he fights – and the man in that coffin was a left handed fighter – it couldn't have been Inuyasha!" Kagome looked amazed at herself. "I knew there was something odd about it…"
Bankotsu proceeded to slap himself mentally and repeatedly. He'd been such a fool… he'd never seen Inuyasha in action – so he'd never gotten to know what hand he'd used when he fought. But he'd assumed since Inuyasha wrote with his left and hand and ate with his left hand that he was of course a left handed person in all areas…
"But he writes with his left-"
"I know!" Kagome nodded quickly. "But he's ambidextrous – one week he'll write with his left and then the next it will be his right. But he always fights with his right hand!"
A silence descended on the pair as they both contemplated on the enormity of their new revelations.
"This means…" Kagome said quietly at last. "He's alive… he really is alive…" she smiled a shaky smile of dawning relief and joy… until she swallowed it with dawning fear. "He's still insane though… he's going to kill me."
Bankotsu clenched his jaw before forcing a placating smile and ushered her to the bed. "I don't think we need to jump to conclusions. The future is always uncertain, and mystics and seers and oracles have never been able to successfully tell the future, it changes too much. You won't die, Kagome. I'll make sure of it."
He meant that. He needed Kagome alive. No screwball of an Inu Hanyou was going to mess up his plans now.
"Thank you, Bankotsu." She whispered with a sigh, relaxing slightly for the first time since the vision.
"Just rest now. It's well past the hour of the tiger." He told her, giving her cheek an affectionate stroke, just for show.
She seemed uncertain by the contact but smiled nevertheless and slid down quietly under the covers. "Will you be ok?" she asked, "Where will you sleep?"
"I don't need sleep." Was his breezy reply as he quietly left the room.
^_^
"Inuyasha!" Shippo frantically darted over the human's chest, shaking any available jiggling body part. "Wake up – don't fall asleep – you're losing too much blood."
"Shh…" Inuyasha batted at the annoyance brat that kept disturbing his nap. He just wanted to curl up and fall asleep. His body was tired and damaged… it repaired itself when he slept, so sleep was the natural conclusion.
"Idiot!" Shippo bashed his small fists against the Inuyasha's face. "If you fall asleep you won't wake up!"
"It comes from beneath…" Inuyasha mumbled with semi-consciousness.
"What?" Shippo paused to listen.
"The madness… from below…" Inuyasha vaguely pointed downwards. Shippo looked where he was pointing but saw only a muddy dirt track road.
"Just stay awake till morning you stupid Hanyou." He shivered slightly against the cold drizzle that was still falling… in the distance the thunder storm had died down, and they were now completely without any kind of light. Only Shippo's eyes could make out the shape of the King below him… but even then, without the moon for some small semblance of light, things weren't very clear.
"Morning always comes…" Inuyasha yawned.
"Yeah, and with it your blood comes too." Shippo quavered, huddling beside Inuyasha's neck, half to stay warm and half to keep on talking into his ear. "I mean, off all the nights to turn human – yours is the new moon? You're like a… a… reversed werewolf."
"Not reversed… when the full moon rises… my human blood usually fails… or it used to…" Inuyasha frowned in thought. "Where's Tessaiga?"
"It's lying beside the skeleton guy." Shippo told him. "You can get it in the morning."
Inuyasha grunted and started to fall back to sleep. Shippo began to panic and quickly kicked his neck. "You want to go back to your island, yeah?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, in the morning, when the sun's up and we can see again, and when you've healed and everything, we can go swim to it."
"Stop talking about the morning." Inuyasha grumbled.
"Ok." Shippo chirped. "Let's talk about… um… Kagome! Yeah – tell me what she's like again."
"She's like… dead…"
"Ah…" Shippo frowned. "But you can save her right – you got your brother's sword right?"
Inuyasha sighed angrily. "No… She's dead for good… I got the wrong sword… the mercy one's been broken."
"Clumsy bastard…" Shippo grouched.
"Right. Sesshomaru the clumsy bastard…" Inuyasha gave a harsh laugh. "He was always the perfect one… Daddy's favourite."
"I thought you said that you were your father's favourite?"
"Oh yeah…"
The conversation began to lag, and Inuyasha's head began to loll.
"Hey!" Shippo started suddenly, making Inuyasha snort. "Will you miss her?"
"Who?"
"Your friend. Kagome."
"No…" Inuyasha shook his head slightly. Shippo watched him with a degree of surprise. "I won't miss her… because I'm going to die…"
"Really?"
"Yes."
"And why is that?"
"Ever heard of the catapult theory?" Formerly known as the rubber band theory, but of course, rubber bands didn't exist in such a time, so it had to be renamed.
"Let's not talk about dying." Shippo said slowly. "So… what's your favourite colour?"
"Red."
"Favourite time of Day?"
"Sunrise…"
Wow, this dying thing was like a truth serum. "And what's your favourite food."
"Mocha…"
"Uh-huh and…" Shippo huddled closer. "Do you love this girl?"
"What girl?"
"Kagome. Do you love her?"
"You always talk about her don't you." Inuyasha nudged him. "Maybe you're in love with her!"
It was going to be a long night.
^_^
Earthquakes… small intermittent ones that kept shaking the foundations of the building. Kagome staggered along the corridors of the dank palace as she heard creaking and snapping in the building above her head. She didn't know what was breaking… but she didn't like the sound of it very much… Hopefully nothing too important was caving in…
The quaking stopped and the corridor was once more steady and stable. She started to hurry onwards, still trying to find her way out of the god forsaken hell hole.
"Kagome!"
She stopped short and turned ever so slowly, expecting to find him standing behind her somewhere… he wasn't there.
Ah – this was where she turned around and found him in front of her instead! She turned slowly back the way she was facing… but found no one there either. She looked around her in confusion, wondering where he was after all…
She started to run on – just when the big one hit. The small quakes had been leading up to it… but now the real deal struck. Two resounding booms could be heard in the distance as the corridor suddenly started to throw itself side to side, the walls rattling and splintering as the ceiling started to dip and cave in.
"No!" she screamed as she found herself thrown against the floor on her back and looked up to see a chunk of the timbre holding the ceiling up come crashing down on top of her.
But then time froze.
The corridor stopped shaking, the walls held fast and the ceiling, whilst still falling, had stopped mid-air, a few feet above her head. She stared, breathing hard and trembling in panic and fear. Maybe this was what it was like before you died… people said that time stopped and your life flashed before your eyes. She expected the life story any time now… or at least the ceiling to continue falling on her head… neither happened.
She heard his footsteps behind her… and she froze, like everything else around her seemed to have done. Maybe if she kept very still, he wouldn't notice her lying there…
No such look.
He stopped, standing just beside her head and smiled down at her with one ear cocked up like an inquisitive dog…That smile was so good-natured and pleasant, it was so hard to believe that in these dreams they were just the same as malicious smirks.
Dreams… oh yes, this was definitely a dream.
"Nice day." He squatted beside her and flicked one stray strand of hair out of his eyes. Why had he done that to himself… cut it short and wear it like some samurai…?
But in a way he was, by birthright, a samurai… considering his mother had been of that particular class of warriors.
"Is it…?" she breathed, glancing warily from his warm face to the ceiling above that still loomed like it was about to start falling again.
"What does this mean?" Something materialised into his hand and he held it above her nose for her to see. It was a note… scribbled, old and torn in several places. The writing was still visible… but it wasn't in any language she knew.
"I don't… I don't recognise those characters…" she glanced at him, and his still smiling face. For some reason… this dream seemed out of odds with the others. "What is it?"
He just smiled and the note evaporated as his hand moved back. "They'll take you. And they'll ask you what it means. You have to be ready for them. You have to know."
"Know what?" She whispered.
"Where we are."
"The… the Northern Palace… Sesshomaru's palace?"
Inuyasha shook his head slowly, his smile widening slightly. "You have to know what it means."
"The note?"
He nodded slowly, only once.
"But I don't understand…"
"Then you'll die." He said simply and walked away.
The roof resumed its fall and she was crushed instantly.
Kagome's eyes opened slowly as she woke from the nightmare, her eyes at once staring at the canopy above her bed, waiting for it to fall in on her too… but no such thing happened.
Outside she could see the sky was already beginning to lighten. The sun was shining strong through a cloudless sky… the storm the previous night seemed to have drained all the bad weather due for a while now. The birds were starting up their dawn chorus and all seemed right in the world …
He was alive… and he was coming for her soon…
^_^
The broken arm had healed in a snap, as it were. The sprained wrist was now only a memory, and the previous wounds sustained from Jakotsu's sword were now as thin as paper cuts.
But it still hurt like hell to swim through salty waters with a thousand cuts still fresh over your body like that.
And it certainly didn't help when he started developing an old familiar headache as he got about half way to the island. He ignored the dull throbbing pain in his head and continued on relentlessly, one arm pushing through the water after the other…
No, not the doggy paddle.
Shippo had probably saved his miserable little life last night. And whilst he had been annoying and intrusive for hours on end, he'd probably been the one thing that had kept him alive through all his human weakness… he'd lost a lot of blood, and while he still didn't feel a hundred percent right now, he was alive, and that was more than what he could say for Jakotsu and Kagome.
Had they dealt with her body by now? Was she just a pile of ash or a body buried a few feet under?
Thankfully by the time they reached the beach of the island, the headache was beginning to wear off, and Inuyasha pealed off Shippo who had plastered himself to Inuyasha's head. "You can get off now."
"That was a long way…" Shippo breathed, still trembling slightly as he looked out over the water again, unable to make out the coast of the main land anymore.
"Has to be. Or humans find us. And then it would be work, work, work, kill, kill, kill." Inuyasha shook his hair out and glanced over his clothes. That long swim still hadn't removed the set in blood stains in his now fairly dirty white underclothes. "Maybe I should have mugged someone after all…"
"So which way's your palace, highness?" Shippo scrambled up onto Inuyasha's shoulder.
"Um…" he waved an arm around with a vague sound until he eventually pointed in the rough direction of south. "That way I think."
"Let's go then!" Shippo had never been one to pass up an opportunity for quality royal grub. This palace or whatever was probably full of delicious morsels.
They started their way through the trees, the branches over head giving them relief shade from the sun overhead. They were just passing a small brook when suddenly Inuyasha laughed, more to himself.
"What's so funny?" Shippo asked with a frown.
"They were so right…" Inuyasha smirked, kicking aside a fallen log that was on their path. "The perfect scenario…"
"Oh…Kay…" Shippo frowned even more and shifted ever so slightly away from Inuyasha… a difficult task when he was sat on such person's shoulder.
"Wait!" Inuyasha stopped suddenly and held up his hand for silence. Shippo listened but heard nothing.
"What?"
"Don't you hear that?" Inuyasha asked.
Shippo still heard nothing, "I hear nothing."
"Bleeding wretches… you're too young that's why." Inuyasha shrugged and moved on. Shippo was staring at him with unease.
"Are you ok, Inuyasha?"
"Oh I'm fine… I'm better than ok…" Inuyasha smiled slowly as he continued on his way through the trees. "Ah-hah – there we go!"
He pushed past a large bush full of small blue berries and stepped out of the trees all together. Shippo forgot his concern over the Hanyou as his eyes trailed across the downward sloping grassy plateau… past the two extensive lakes and fixed on the large, ever so white and shiny palace sitting against the trees on the other side of the basin.
"That's all yours?" Shippo breathed. "Wow."
"Right." Inuyasha suddenly picked Shippo off his shoulder by the tail and dropped him on the ground. "Now you go play with that Fushi shaped person over there and I'll go deal with grown-up business."
Shippo shrugged mildly. "As long as I can dig grub later, right?"
"Dig as much as you want. The gardeners fill in the holes… stupid Kiroi…" Inuyasha muttered as he started down the slope towards the palace.
A short distance away Fushi stopped playing with his dice in the dish and looked up past his group of friends to see Inuyasha striding back towards his home as if he owned the place still. He looked knowingly at his friends. "See? I told you he'd be back."
AN: You all seemed to think Fushi had been taken by Renkotsu… sorry, but not this time. He just went walkies again. Next chapter – 'A Dream Come True'