READ THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE THANK YOU: This chapter contains explicit spoilers for Fruits Basket chapter 97, especially the one concerning the character Akito, the head of the Sohma family. Yes, that spoiler. Sorry to spoil it for those who haven't gotten that far in the series. Those of you who do know what spoiler I'm talking about, now you can make a very good guess about the events of this chapter.

Chapter 3: Mystery

He couldn't stop the sentence. It said itself. It was out there, hanging in the air.

"The Truth," by Terry Pratchett

Inuyasha's hands lightly grasped the edge of the gate wall, feet dangling. He had been pretty bored during the morning and had spontaneously leapt up on the gate. It was actually pretty comfortable up here, and he had a great vantage point from high above. Although, people tended send bewildered stares at him more often than not as they passed through, but that was all right.

"Well, look who's coming out into the sun again," Inuyasha noted. He had spent enough time at the guard post to recognize little inconsistencies of this nature, like which Sohma went outside everyday, who only went out to buy groceries, who only went out when forced, little useless things like that. And he was accustomed enough to Kakashi's presence to voice those little useless things.

"For the third day in a row," Kakashi added, standing on the ground, leaning, his head a yard away from Inuyasha's hanging calves but still level with them.

They watched as the Sohma family head, Akito, stalked toward the gate, surrounded by a flurry of fawning attendants.

The surly, pinched in look on the family head made Inuyasha shifted in his seat and look more closely. Well, then again, Akito always seemed pissed off, with that pouting, childish grimace and sharp, narrowed eyes. But today, Akito was lashing out at the maids twittering about him, slapping one in the cheek and backhanding another in the jaw, blood sprinkling at his fingertips.

Hiko had mentioned to Inuyasha and Kakashi a few weeks ago, the second day of the job in fact, that Akito was often prone to violent displays akin to bloody tantrums. He warned them that although the chance that they would see such displays was small, in the event that they did witness them, they were not to interfere with Akito's aggressions. It was not their place, he told them, to get in the way of the family head's affairs and actions.

Inuyasha found it hard to follow those particular instructions. One of the beaten maids had begun to cry, but they still followed Akito, pulling at his arms.

"Akito-san, Akito-san!" they cried. "You mustn't go out today! You are not well, and Hatori-san insisted that you spend the day resting."

"To hell with Hatori! I'm going to do whatever the hell I want," Akito snarled. His breath wheezed haggardly, but he continued his brisk pace.

"But Akito-san—"

"Get out of my way!"

Inuyasha heard Kakashi heave a slow sigh as Akito yanked his arm out of their grasp, causing some of the maids to fall to the ground.

"Damn Hiko," Kakashi growled.

"Yeah," Inuyasha mumbled.

At one point during the centuries, Inuyasha spent a long, tedious period of watching others in pain, during the Second World War when he happened to stop in Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb dropped, and he had developed a numbed, desensitized state as a reaction, which he tried to tap into as another maid began to sob. It was difficult though, even during the war. Inuyasha had enough self-discipline to check himself from potentially job-threatening actions, such as leaping off from the gate and grabbing Akito's arms and shoving his knee at the family head's crotch, as he felt like doing. But he hadn't made his heart stone enough to not sympathize with the maids as Akito kicked at them. That, in itself, was enough for Inuyasha to feel guilt, too much guilt, and he didn't like it one bit.

To compensate, Inuyasha flared his nostrils and sniffed for the current of scent whiffed from Akito's direction, just to see if his scent would give any clue as to his anger. Inuyasha knew it wasn't enough to upside his guilt, but at least he was making an effort. Besides, Hiko had commanded them not to interfere, but he had never specified what kind of interference was restricted.

"Is something wrong?" Kakashi asked.

"Nothing at all," Inuyasha replied. "Why?"

"It seems like there's something wrong with your nose."

Inuyasha shrugged and continued sorting through the various currents whispering at his nose. The thought that Kakashi had remarkably observant eyes flickered in his mind, but he discarded it for later contemplation.

Ah. Here it was. Inuyasha closed his eyes and took another breath and grabbed on to the scent.

His eyes flew open at what he found, and he inhaled again.

When his nose discovered the same thing, he leaned forward on the gate and sniffed.

It was ridiculous, not to mention just plain unbelievable. Inuyasha knew very well what women had to go through once every month. He'd sniffed it on Kagome often enough, as well as all the other women he had encountered over the centuries.

But that he would find this humid, sticky smell of blood on a guy was just… well, it shouldn't happen. It can't happen. It wasn't physically possible. Men didn't spurt out blood from their lower regions every month.

His nose didn't lie, so Inuyasha pondered how he could possibly smell this.

One, the good ol' family head had a marvelously active night with some chick whose time of the month came a bit too soon and thought it was kinky and didn't wash it off. Not likely, and considering his current display of interaction with females, Inuyasha would be very shocked to hear of action Akito ever got.

Two, a girl had an accident in the bathroom and forgot to clean it, and Akito accidentally got it on him when he was taking a leak. Again, probably not, and even if just a little blood got on him, it wouldn't smell as potent and thick as it did.

The last option was the most logical and the most absurd at the same time:

Three, Akito was a woman.

On one hand, it made sense. Only women get periods, and Akito apparently just got it; thus Akito is a woman. Women also tended to – what was the modern phrase? – PMS during their periods, and if this wasn't a case of PMS behavior, then Inuyasha didn't know women. And considering the length of time he'd spent with Kagome, and then all the other casual encounters he'd had over the years, he did know women. To a degree, at least.

But on the other hand, if Akito was actually a woman, then why was she (he?) masquerading as a man? Why the effort? The Sohmas didn't appear to mistreat their female members, if you excluded the scene below.

Damn Sohmas for making life that much more confusing! Even the effort Inuyasha used to switch Akito from male to female in his mind was numbing.

Inuyasha sneezed and rubbed his nose as Akito completely shook off the maids and stomped past him and Kakashi. He (she?) stopped just outside the gate and turned to glower at them.

"What," she (he?) snapped, "The hell are you two looking at?"

Before either of them could reply, Akito glanced up and roared, "And what do you think you're doing up there, looking at the birds? I'm paying you to guard this forsaken place, not to admire the scenery!"

Inuyasha stared at Akito for a long moment before slowly climbing off the wall. He glanced slightly at Kakashi when his feet touched the ground, just to see what his reaction might be, but Kakashi merely regarded the family head with the patience and tolerance he did everybody.

"Get back to work, you bastards," Akito screeched, balls fisting.

"Yes Akito-san," Kakashi replied complacently. He crossed his arms languidly.

Spitting, Akito whirled around and left them with a growl. A car pulled up at the road and she (yes, a she) slammed the door closed as he climbed in.

Inuyasha shook his head ruefully. This was definitely the behavior of a menstruating female, all right.

"What a temper, huh?" he remarked to Kakashi.

Kakashi leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his one uncovered eye following the progress of the family head. His facial expression didn't appear any less calm than it usually was, but Inuyasha had observed his work partner enough to recognize the sharply concentrated tension between Kakashi's two brows, burrowed in thought.

"Something the matter?" Inuyasha prompted.

Kakashi swiveled his eye quickly around to Inuyasha, who tried not to double take at the speed. His chin tilted down, and he asked, with slight hesitation. "Did you know that Sohma Akito-san is actually a woman?"

Inuyasha blinked and arched an eyebrow. "So you noticed too? How did you know?"

"Acute observation, with my eyes to be exact."

Inuyasha rolled his own eyes. Apparently, Kakashi was capable of making jokes, albeit bad ones. "Sure. How did you really find out?"

Kakashi seemed to smirk underneath the mask covering his lower face. "How did you know?"

A couple nights before, Inuyasha had considered telling Kakashi about his youkai heritage, just in case the situation in which he would need to use it ever arose so he would have to waste time explaining his hidden abilities. He had come to the conclusion that, however laidback Kakashi appeared, Inuyasha would need more time to decide if he was comfortable enough with Kakashi to share his secret and to determine if Kakashi was trustworthy enough.

"Followed my nose," Inuyasha answered innocently.

Kakashi blinked his one eye. Then, to Inuyasha's considerable surprise, he made raspy sounds that soon turned into heavy laughter.

Shrugging, after checking to see that Akito had really gone, Inuyasha hopped back onto the wall and settled in for another long, boring day of work.