Despite his best efforts, the woman hovered in a half-awake state, and had begun to shudder, muttering brokenly. She was going into shock, he knew that much, but he didn't know how to treat it. He was a slayer: he was trained to cause wounds, not heal them.
Not knowing what else to do, Tamaji steeled himself and began to run. The trip back to the village passed in a fear tinged haze, and seemed to last for an eternity, though it probably lasted no more than a few minutes. He only became aware that he was nearing it when his feet no longer encountered a blanket of fallen leaves, but a dirt path.
At last the village of the slayers came into sight around a bend in the path. Birejji no Taijiya was a small village, containing no more than a dozen bamboo huts, and ringed by a study palisade that helped fend off small, less determined demons. Sheltered in the heart of a secluded mountain range instead of on a trade route, Birejji no Taijiya had long ago traded protection from roving human bandits for the threat of marauding demons. So far there were enough slayers in the village to discourage all but the strongest youkai.
As soon as the trio emerged through the town gate, Tamaji was pounced upon by a handful of village women, scoldings and shrieks sending his ears to ringing. Unfortunately, this group was fairly useless. In a pinch they were wonderful at clearing away demon armies, but toss a casualty of war at them, and their intelligence crumbled away in panic.
When he shouted at them, "You flock of harpies! Go get the healer!" They continued babbling at him, at each other, to do something, what should they do, should someone get help? Then, one by one, the voices fell silent as the women on the outer edges of the swarm of womenfolk noticed an authority figure. His father's voice, booming as it did through the silence, sounded like a death knell. "What is the meaning of this ruckus?"
Wordlessly the woman backed away, giving his father an unobstructed view of Tamaji. For the space of a breath, his father was frozen, eyes widening slightly. Then, graying brows drawing down like a thundercloud, the whirled on the cowed women, roaring out, "What is the meaning of this! Get them to the healer!"
Four of the women darted off, but the other two seized his shoulders and propelled him, almost bodily, into the healer's hut. As the flap, made to block sound rather than bad weather closed behind them, the last he heard of his father's voice before it got cut off by the muffling cloth was a bark for water.
Far from freezing, at the emergency, the healer sprang into action. With the clarity of a professional, the healer rattled off a list of items for the two women to procure, and, after the pair scurried off, ordered Tamaji to place the girl on the futon. As soon as he laid the injured girl down, bandages were shoved into his arms, along with terse orders to wrap the wounds on the girl's abdomen.
After a moment of embarrassment when the remains of her yukata were removed, exposing her chest, Tamaji closely followed the healer's gruff instructions: "Cleanse the wound with cold herbal water."
"Wrap the bandages tightly, but not enough to cut off circulation."
"Give her some tea, but not much."
Amid the confusion, the healer gave Sango a cursory examination, which only revealed she suffered from mild dehydration, and dismissed the child to the nearest available wet-nurse, as her mother would be too injured to manage it herself for some time.
After more than two hellish hours, Tamaji was evicted from the hut, with an order to, "Check on the baby. Make sure she's getting enough fluids."
Obediently taking his leave, Tamaji shuffled out of the hut and down the well-trod path to the wet-nurse. A sudden voice to the side startled him into cracking his neck when he sharply turned his head. "Perhaps you should rest. You look as if you have just departed a battlefield." It was the monk, Miatsu. Even as he spoke, the man's eyes did not waver from their stare at the hut containing Sango.
The man was probably correct. When working, he'd barely noticed the blood caking his clothes and arms, but was fully aware of it now. Regardless, Tamaji reflexively opened his mouth to spew out an obscenity, but the monk's arched eyebrow and amused quirk of the mouth cut him off before he could squeak out a syllable. "My, you're an argumentative one." The monk's staff clinked as the man gestured to the ground beside him. "I meant no offense, simply that you should rest yourself before your body does so for you. Sit."
The demon slayer briefly considered arguing, but conceded defeat. The monk was correct: his legs did feel like boulders had been tied to them. Heaving a sigh, Tamaji plopped to the ground in the spot indicated, giving off another sigh, one of pleasure, when his feet no longer had to bear his weight.
Miatsu said no more, and Tamaji was grateful for it. After a time Tamaji took the opportunity to examine his companion. Earlier, when he'd hurled curses at the man, he'd hardly noticed his appearance. The monk was a comely enough man, he supposed. He had the even features women found attractive and curious eyes- one was gray, the other green. The man was usually garbed in unassuming brown robes, and carried a ringed staff wherever he went. Curiously enough, his right hand was covered up to wrist in a heavy glove, sealed at the end with a rope of prayer beads.
When the man spoke, Tamaji jumped slightly. Neither had spoken for at least two hours, and Tamaji had almost fallen asleep. "I have a child of my own, you know. A son."
Tamaji cocked his head slightly in confusion, blinking drowsily. "What?"
"His name is Miroku," Miatsu continued calmly, "and should be a little over two years old by now."
"Why aren't you with him? Shouldn't you be there instead of loafing around here harassing our women?"
Miatsu's strange eyes glanced at him, then returned to their inspection of the hut. Instead of answering, he responded with a question. "Have you ever… tried to protect someone, knowing all the while you would fail?"
"Yes. When Kaa-san left." His own words startled Tamaji. He hadn't thought of his mother in years, since the day she had simply walked out of the village in the middle of the night, without a word to her husband or small son. At the time, it had been completely unexpected to him; his mother had seemed perfectly content before she left.
Then whispers began to circulate around the village of mother's mind not being what it used to be. That she'd insisted voices that weren't hers ordered her to do things, say things, she wouldn't normally do.
Oblivious to Tamaji's musings, Miatsu continued, "Than you understand. I would not return without success and shame my son."
"Shame him?"
"Yes." Without another word Miatsu hauled himself to his feet with aid of his staff, bowed to Tamaji, and strode off in the direction of the small Buddhist shrine.
Tamaji remained sitting for some time. Then he got up and entered the wet-nurse's hut. "How is the child?" He asked, looking up tiredly.
The screen falling shut unnoticed behind him. This was the third bare breast he'd seen today. Perhaps it was a sign from Buddha.
Kasumi, the wet-nurse, had shrugged off part of her yukata and was nursing Sango. At the choked hiss emanating from the door, Kasumi glanced up and spotted Tamaji.
"Oh, hello, Tamaji. She's fine, but they have passed quite a while in the woods before you found them, Sango's been very hungry. She's a very happy little thing, though. Hasn't cried at all."
Cooing down at Sango, Kasumi absently gave Sango a finger to hold. "Poor child," she added. "I wonder what happened, that the mother, unfortunate child, was convinced that traveling in a youkai infested mountain with a newborn was preferable to remaining where they had been."
Very carefully Tamaji kept his eyes aimed at the wet-nurse's face when he replied. He'd been aware, obviously of what feeding newborns entailed, but he'd never actually been a witness to it. He suspected it was revenge of a sort for women, simply dropping their kimono at a drop of a hat in public, watching the face of every male in the vicinity. Ingrates probably got a big, private laugh every time they did so. "There must be some reason. We'll have to ask her when she recovers."
That brought up another concern in his mind. What if the mother never got better? What if she died, and the village raised Sango? Was it truly kind to raise a child, one who would, under normal circumstances, never know of the slayers?
Shifting Sango to her shoulder in a smooth, practiced gesture, the wet-nurse patted her back gently. After a short time the woman was rewarded with a faint belch. Shrugging her yukata back in place, Kasumi placed Sango, who was already fast asleep, in a small cradle at the foot of the bed.
A soft mew at his feet drew Tamaji's attention downward, to a tiny, two-tailed cat demon. "Hello, Kirara," he said quietly, so as not to wake Sango. "Did you come to meet the baby?" Kirara mewed in affirmation.
Kirara's presence in the village was strange, the taijiya villagers freely admitted. In a sensible world, the village would have slain the cat youkai on sight or died in the attempt. Fortunately, the world seemed to overlook their nonsense.
It was hard to say when the youkai had first arrived, as even the most ancient of the clan elders insisted that the nekomata had been present at every birth in the village for at least two generations by that time. Town folklore insisted that Kirara had performed a service for a prominent demon slayer of the past, and in gratitude the slayer permitted the demon free reign of the village. The veracity of the legend was up for debate.
At times, if there was a visitor to the village, there was some confusion over the presence of a demon in the midst of a small army of demon slayers. Claims of insanity were tossed about like blows. And every time Kioutsu, the village headman and Tamaji's father, calmly silenced the arguments by stating that, "Kirara has slain more demons in the name of Birejji no Taijiya than most of our slayers will see in their lifetime. I trust her implicitly, which is more than I can say for most humans."
Tamping down her paws, Kirara leaped, landing effortlessly at the edge of the cradle. Stepping with all the caution and grace her feline form permitted, Kirara picked her way across the bedding to the infant, whereupon she kneaded the blanket with her paws for a moment before curling in a loose circle about the child.
Tamaji averted his eyes from the sight. The image of demon and child only strengthened his misgivings. Abruptly he voiced these to Kasumi. "… Is this the right thing to do? Do we have the right to expose a child to our way of life? The path of a slayer is paved with thorns. Before she sees her seventh summer she will know pain."
A low, growling purr rumbled in the nekomata's chest when chubby fingers instinctively gripped a patch of tawny fur along the demon's stomach. Bending her head, Kirara gently scraped the child's nose with her tongue.
The wet nurse smiled at Tamaji. "Kirara seems to think so."