Flowers for My Daughter

Papa

"She's...WHAT?" Inuyasha was completely taken aback.

"She's me, Inuyasha. I should know my own face." Kagome was finally coming back to the present; the color had returned to her face, and she was speaking normally again. "I don't remember this particular festival, or this particular day, but I do remember the way that temple festivals smelled when I was a girl, and the clothes that everyone is wearing belong to those years. It's then. That's me. It all makes sense." She grabbed her head with both hands and shook it. "No, no, no, it doesn't make any sense...no sense at all."

Inuyasha had nothing to say to that, so he turned his gaze again to the temple courtyard. He saw the girls come around the corner of one of the back buildings, trying unsuccessfully to stifle their giggles, their purloined treats hidden from view (or so they thought), and they sat together under the Goshinboku and tucked in. Their mirthful chirping rang across the courtyard, and despite his wariness at the situation, he couldn't help but smile at the sweet sound of his daughter's laughter.

Suddenly, Inuyasha's ears twitched at the sound of the door to the family home being slid open. He turned to see a young man at the door: a slender and handsome man, with a gentle face, who was clearly looking for something or someone. After a few moments, he cupped his hands into a megaphone, and called out, "Kagome! Kagome!" Then, seeing the two girls under the Goshinboku, he headed in their direction.

Kagome's back stiffened. She stood bolt upright, and her face went ashen. She grabbed Inuyasha's sleeve with one hand, and clutched at her chest with the other. "...Papa...?" she gasped; then her eyes closed as she fainted, crumpling into Inuyasha's arms.

When she awoke, she was inside the family home, a cool cloth on her forehead, lying on the couch with her head in Inuyasha's lap. The young man that Inuyasha had seen at the door and that Kagome had called "Papa" was holding her hand, concern written all over his kindly face. "Are you alright?" he asked. "You gave us quite a scare. Are you ill?"

With Inuyasha's help, Kagome gingerly eased herself to a sitting position. "I...think I'm alright," she said cautiously. Papa offered her a glass of water, which she accepted and from which she sipped carefully. She looked around the room; it was exactly as she remembered it from her childhood, except that across the room, there sat her daughter and the child Kagome, their eyes very wide and fixed on her.

"I'm all right, honey," she said to her daughter, who visibly relaxed. Izayoi patted little Kagome's hand reassuringly.

"You must have had a difficult day," Papa said kindly.

"You don't know the half of it," Kagome said, holding her head in her hands.

"Well, then!" Papa said, trying to lighten the mood. "Now that we're all here, perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I am Yasuo Higurashi. A pleasure to meet you." He bowed, then looked towards Izayoi. "Now, who is this lovely little girl?"

Izayoi rose, and in her most polite voice, said "My name is Izayoi Higurashi. A pleasure to meet you." She bowed to Papa, and resumed her seat.

"Delightful! Very well done!" He clapped his hands and laughed. "How polite you are! Your mother must be very proud of you." Izayoi and her mother both blushed, and Inuyasha smiled (although he did grumble to himself, "Her father is proud of her too, y'know.") Papa continued, "Higurashi is a fine name indeed—it's not only our family's name, it's the name of the temple. I wonder if we're all related?"

"I'm sure we are," said Inuyasha, sniggering into his sleeve. Kagome elbowed him in the side, hoping that Papa wasn't watching too carefully. Inuyasha composed himself, then said, "I'm Inuyasha, and this is Kagome."

"Kagome—why, that's my daughter's name!" Papa laughed, and little Kagome rose and bowed just as Izayoi had. "I see you've already met Kagome. She just turned nine this month, you know." It was now little Kagome's turn to blush, even as she puffed up proudly at the mention of her recent birthday. Papa continued, "You look so familiar. We must be related—don't you think so?"

Kagome's mind raced to think of something to say. Damn, she thought, I should have paid more attention to family history. Inuyasha started to say something, but she cut him off. "Why, yes...yes we are," she said, still formulating her story as she spoke. "Inuyasha is from overseas—he's the adopted son of your brother, Haru." Haru was the black sheep of the family, notorious both for his outrageous behavior and for staying out of touch for years at a time—Kagome had first met him long after she had begun to travel to the feudal era, so she thought his name would provide the safest cover.

"Haru's son from overseas...well, that certainly makes sense. Haru always was the traveler, always up to something odd. Oh dear," he interrupted himself, "how rude of me. Please forgive me—I certainly didn't mean anything by that. How is Haru doing?" Papa asked.

Inuyasha shrugged, and said, "I really wouldn't know." Kagome elbowed him again, and quickly added, "He means that we haven't heard from him in a long time either, have we, Inuyasha?" She glowered at him angrily, and he hastily shook his head.

"Well, cousins, welcome! Our home is yours." He heartily shook Inuyasha's hand, and did the same for Kagome. "Now, what can I do for you? Have you been here before?"

"No...no, we haven't," said Kagome hastily, before Inuyasha or Izayoi could say anything that would require too much explanation. "Could you give us a tour? I'd love to hear all about this place...and not the official tour. The real stories. The family stories—after all, we are family, aren't we?" She laughed (she hoped) disarmingly.

"Right you are," said Papa. "Are you sure you're up for it? Are you well enough to walk?"

Kagome nodded vigorously. "Never felt better. Let's go!"

And so out they went, Papa in the lead, Kagome on Inuyasha's arm, and the two girls chattering merrily non-stop behind them. Papa gave them the cook's tour, showing them every nook and cranny of the temple grounds. Kagome already knew all the stories, of course, and had crawled over every square inch of the temple since she could crawl anywhere; but she was deliriously happy simply to hear her father's voice. As they walked around the grounds, she was beaming brightly, and from time to time Inuyasha would feel her grip tighten on his arm and tears of joy would leak quietly from her eyes ("Allergies...it's nothing, don't mind me," she had explained, early in the tour).

She was no less happy to see how Izayoi was enjoying herself with little Kagome; the two had clearly already become fast friends. "She's an...unusual child," Kagome told Papa. "It's not that other children aren't fond of her—not at all—but she's not really...well, she's not really like the other children, and she doesn't have any friends her age who really understand her."

Papa nodded sagely. "It's hard to be unique, isn't it? It's a curse, as well as a blessing."

"Tell me about it," Inuyasha grunted, remembering his own difficult childhood.

The afternoon lengthened into evening, and Papa concluded the tour where they had begun, at the family home. Kagome thanked him profusely: "It meant more to me than I'll ever be able to tell you."

Papa brought them back inside, and they all sat down at the dining-room table. "I'd like to offer you dinner," he said, "but my wife isn't here. Mama's coming home tonight, but when she does, I'm afraid it will be long after dinner time. And, I'm sorry to say, I'm a very bad cook." (Little Kagome nudged Izayoi and scrunched up her face, as if to say "you don't know just how bad." Both girls giggled.)

Kagome leapt to her feet. "Oh please, let me cook! You've been so generous to us—let me thank you by making dinner!"

Papa chuckled. "Well, if that's what you want...I certainly won't say no." He leaned forward and whispered theatrically, "Frankly, even I can't stand my cooking."

Triumphantly, Kagome shouted, "It's settled, then. Izayoi!"

The little girl jumped to attention. "Ready!"

"To the kitchen!" Kagome charged off to the kitchen with Izayoi in her wake, and there was an immediate clatter of pans. Little Kagome ran behind them, breathlessly begging to be allowed to help.

Seeing the flurry of activity in the kitchen, Papa laughed long and loud, and Inuyasha found that the sound of Papa's voice pleased him nearly as much as it did Kagome. Papa's laughter was honest and kind, and his words were gentle, and despite the mistrust that Inuyasha always immediately felt towards new acquaintances, he found that he liked Kagome's father very much.

Papa clapped Inuyasha on the shoulder. "Well, son, it's clearly for the best that we stay out of their way." He laughed merrily again."I see that you're wearing a sword," Papa said. "I can tell from the way you wear it that it's an old friend." Inuyasha cocked an eyebrow curiously at Papa, who continued "Oh, yes--I can see that you're a real swordsman. By the way you carry your sword, and the way you hold yourself, I can see the strength of the warrior within you." Papa rubbed his hands together thoughtfully, and continued, "I've studied the bushido all my life. I did it all—judo, aikido, bow, staff, and of course the sword. I was quite the swordsman in my youth." Holding an imaginary blade before him, Papa rolled his wrists with a smooth and supple motion, as though he was drawing an elaborate figure in the air with the sword's tip: then he thrust forward with the speed of a striking snake, and Inuyasha blinked in surprise to see such a quiet man move with such graceful and deadly accuracy.

Papa laughed and shook his head. "Ah, but that was before the children—but of course, you know how the young ones cut into your practice time." Inuyasha knew no such thing, as Izayoi had been hunting youkai with him since she could walk, but he nodded politely just the same. "I was hoping that the children might like to take up one of the warrior's arts. Souta's a little too young yet, but I took Kagome out to the archery range one day and let her shoot." He looked to be sure that his daughter was out of earshot, and whispered, "She was just terrible."

Inuyasha snorted, and tried vainly to suppress his laughter. Hearing his snickering, Kagome stuck her head in the doorway and asked, "I thought I heard my name. Was someone just talking about me?"

"Why, no, dear, what makes you think that?" said Inuyasha, a look of total innocence on his face.

"No...'dear'? He's got to be up to something..." Kagome muttered to herself. She glowered threateningly at Inuyasha, and returned to the kitchen.

"The temple has a lot of old weapons," Papa continued. "Grandpa has a lot of stories about them and their 'noble heritage' and 'grand traditions,'" he said, mimicking Grandpa's orotund delivery, "but I'm not convinced that any of them are true. Most of them change every time he tells them. And frankly, I don't know where he finds these old things...sometimes I think he's just a sucker for a good sales pitch." He chuckled, then added, "Of course...I do have a few that are really old, and really do have a noble heritage. I keep them in the temple, behind the altar. One of them belonged to my great-great-grandfather, and even he didn't know how old it really was. He called it 'Onikoroshi': the demon slayer. It doesn't look very impressive—it's just an old black halberd...but the family legend says that it has some sort of spiritual power, and that when it is used to save the life of another, it will always strike true." Papa leaned towards Inuyasha, and whispered, "But I'd never tell Grandpa that—I don't want to steal his thunder, and he'd never know what to do with a story that was really true." At that, they both burst out laughing.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Kagome was furiously preparing what she hoped would be a feast fit for a king. The girls were busily peeling vegetables, and she was getting everything ready to make her signature omelets ("Nobody can make omelets like I can...this is going to be a real treat for Papa!" she chuckled to herself.) She stuck her head out the kitchen door again to check up on Inuyasha. She saw that Papa was showing Inuyasha one of Grandpa's rusty old swords, and although she couldn't hear what he was saying, she could see him mimicking the overblown and grandiose gestures Grandpa always used when telling one of his long and dubious tales. And when Papa struck a fierce samurai pose with the sword and the blade fell off and clattered loudly on the floor, both he and Inuyasha howled with laughter.

"Oh, good, they're getting along," Kagome sighed with relief. Even after many years of bringing him to visit the modern era, she was always more than a little nervous about what Inuyasha might do or say. Inuyasha's self-control had improved significantly over the course of their relationship (she had seen to that, at least), but he was always impetuous, and would more often than not say the first thing that popped into his head, without foreseeing or caring about the consequences. She went back to her cooking, and soon was showing both girls the fine points of omelet crafting. She was so caught up in her lecture that she didn't see Papa point to Inuyasha's sword, Inuyasha look around the room at all the precious and breakable objects and then gesture to the door, and both of them walk outside.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kagome thought she might have seen the flash of Tessaiga's transformation through the kitchen window, but she was quite sure that she heard her father's whoop of glee. There was no mistaking Inuyasha's shout of "Kaze no kizu," though. She rushed to the window just in time to see the blinding flash of Tessaiga's mystical lightnings tearing through the chill evening air, and the house shook at the thunderclap as they soared upwards into the sky. She blinked at the flash, and when her vision cleared, she saw Inuyasha with Tessaiga over his shoulder, grinning broadly with unmistakable pride, and her father dancing beside him, shouting "Amazing! Absolutely amazing!"

"Oh no...what has he broken now?" Kagome muttered to herself as she returned to her cooking. Shortly Inuyasha and Papa returned, and Papa was simply beside himself with merriment.

"Oh, is Grandpa ever going to be jealous! I've got a story that beats all of his!" He was grinning from ear to ear at the thought. "And this actually happened!" He clapped and rubbed his hands together with eager anticipation. "I can't wait to tell him!"

Kagome glared angrily at Inuyasha. "What's your problem?" he growled at her. "I shot it up into the air. Nothing got hurt. What's the big deal?"

Kagome sighed heavily. "Just don't do it again, Inuyasha. We have to repair the temple enough during our own time—I don't want them to have to start doing that now."

Papa finally mastered his enthusiasm, and asked Inuyasha, "So tell me again...what makes your sword grow so large?"

Inuyasha said matter-of-factly, "It's one of my father's fangs."

Papa shook his head in awe. "Now...that's got to be a real story. You must mean your birth father, of course," he chuckled again. "Haru had many odd traits, but seven-foot fangs were not among them." He scratched his chin, and said thoughfully, "Although even Haru would have written us about something this unusual. Does Haru know about this?"

With a completely deadpan expression, Inuyasha said calmly, "Probably not."

There was a loud clatter in the kitchen, and all eyes turned to Kagome, who had dropped a pan and was busily mopping the floor where it had fallen. She smiled innocently enough, but her eyes looked daggers at Inuyasha. She got to her feet and said sweetly, "Dinner's ready!" Papa walked past her and sat down at table, but before Inuyasha could join him, Kagome grabbed him by the sleeve and hissed in his ear, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yup," said Inuyasha, with a straight face.