Chapter 8 – Talk
Birds were starting to wake up and sang in the numerous interior gardens at the castle of the Lord of the Western Lands. Inside the castle, everyone was still sleeping peacefully; but one of them was in pain because of battle wounds.
As another grey day was going to show itself, it was going to be dull again and this will put weight again on the shoulders of the healers of the castle; Chikara wouldn't heal very fast at this rate.
°°°
In the bedroom next to the lord and the lady's room, lay two dog demons asleep on a large bedroll. Inuyasha woke up. He stretched before looking at the young demon in his arms.
His ears perked up as he heard as several voices were arguing in the room next door.
He got up, looked outside; it was cloudy again, for two days in a row.
Inuyasha decided to go see in the adjacent room to see what was going on with all that quarrelling. Forgetting about the door he saw last night, he got out by the other door; when he arrived in the hallway, he looked around. There was a lot of servants, going everywhere and working like bees. He walked around the corner to get to his destination, when he bumped into someone.
The little girl fell on her bump. She looked up and recognized Inuyasha: "Oh! It's you uncle. I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."
"Don't worry about it kid, I wasn't paying attention either, so it's also my fault" he smiled. "Tell me then, where were you heading like that?" he asked.
"I was going to the gardens to take care of my small flowers that I've just planted. Where were you going uncle Inuyasha?"
"Well I'm going to see how Chikara is going. You want to come with me?"
She made a sad expression. "Well Lord Sesshoumaru has forbidden me to enter that room, so I can't go to see her."
'Well that's understandable. Chikara is not in a good shape and that could traumatize poor little Rin' Inuyasha thought. "Then if he decided that, I'm sorry, you can't come with me Rin. Well then have a nice day, even though it's grey again."
She nodded: "Okay, see you later uncle Inuyasha!" She continued her run while waving him good-bye.
Inuyasha too resumed his journey to the master bedroom. When he opened the screen-door, the sounds that assaulted his ears were incredible; there were about twenty healers in the bedroom.
They were blocking his view; then when one of them moved, he saw who was near the bed. His surprise was to see the lord, sitting beside his wife's bed, a sad expression on his face; he looked like he was about to cry, but with his personality, he wouldn't. Inuyasha was shocked to see this; his brother never showed that kind of emotion before. He then remembered what had happened the night before: 'That's right, the love goddess came and then Sesshoumaru started to act strangely.'
He looked at the goddess resting on the bed. She looked so much in pain that it could break anyone's heart, even the cold one of Sesshoumaru.
Inuyasha made his way through the mass of healers populating the room. One of them even tried to push him of the way; Inuyasha glared at him so intensely that the healer almost peed in his pants.
The half-demon finally reached his goal; seeing how Sesshoumaru is affected, he put his hand on the lord's shoulder, only to be rejected. "Stop messing around, Inuyasha… it's not the moment- and please bring the baby somewhere else, I don't have the time to take care of him…I…" Sesshoumaru sighed. "Since last night, Chikara had a light fever. This morning we found out that it's worsening…"
Inuyasha saw how much his brother was tired of waiting for everything to get back to normal: 'Heck, he doesn't even yell at me or even threat me anymore. It's really serious' he thought.
He looked down at Chikara; he had to act now and tell Sesshoumaru. "Listen, Sesshoumaru…"
"Inuyasha, are you stupid or what? I told you to go play somewhere else."
"No! Listen to me! Forget about the healers; I have a solution" Inuyasha insisted.
Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrow; he wondered what Inuyasha was talking about. "Talk. I'm listening little brother."
"Look Sesshoumaru, there is too much people in here; I want to talk to you alone. They must go away," Inuyasha said, pointing the healers.
"Are you sure you got a good solution?" Inuyasha nodded to answer the question. Sesshoumaru sighed again: "Very well." He got up and gained the attention of the healers in the room. "Listen to me, I need to talk in private, and you are not concerned, so I want everybody to leave," questions and discussions started to flourish, "I said: NOW" the demon lord insisted.
It took about a few minutes for each one of them to leave.
Now that they were alone, Inuyasha felt a bit nervous, as his older brother never did what he asked, in general. He played with his fingers, tugging at his clothes.
Sesshoumaru finally spoke first: "Well Inuyasha, what did you wanted me to hear?"
Inuyasha hesitated. "Well… you know, Chikara, in order to heal, needs to be exposed to her elements."
The lord was starting to get impatient: "Yes… go on, I don't have all day, you know."
Inuyasha took a deep breath: "Okay, I know who could make those clouds go away. Look, when we were travelling, we met the water goddess. She controls clouds and water, so I'll go see her and ask for the sky to get clear again."
Sesshoumaru thought a bit. "But what if you don't remember where she is located? What if you don't come back before dusk? You know what happens…" he implied.
'What! How come he knows about my secret?' Inuyasha thought.
"Inuyasha, don't make that face. Did you honestly think I didn't know about your secret?" Sesshoumaru chuckled. "Anyways, I'll go at your place. It will be faster that way; I can transform into my full demon form."
"No. First, you don't even know where she is, and you can't find her by smell Sesshoumaru, she's a goddess, which means no scent. Secondly, I don't think she'll listen to your request, she doesn't know you… and…"
Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrow. "And?" he repeated.
Inuyasha wasn't sure if he should continue. "And… well she could take you as an enemy or be afraid and disappear."
Sesshoumaru lifted his eyes in sign of indifference.
Inuyasha continued: "I know her, I know where her shrine is; she'll listen to me. Anyways, I'm sure Chikara would be happier to see you than me, when she'll wake up." Sesshoumaru added nothing to Inuyasha's comment.
Inuyasha sighed. He looked up in Sesshoumaru's eyes: "Okay, the earlier I start, the sooner I'll back." He turned away to leave the room, but he remembered something. "Oh, here I almost forgot: take good care of Takato." He handed him the still-sleeping child.
"What? But I don't know how to take care of him!" Sesshoumaru answered.
"SHH! You'll wake him up. Be lucky he's still sleeping. When he'll wake up, he'll probably be hungry, so…" Inuyasha looked at the floor, "you'll have to feed him yourself because with all those things I said to Ayashii, I don't think she'll want to take care of the kid…" Inuyasha looked away.
"Ayashii, huh?" Sesshoumaru thought for a second, "Was she old and ugly?"
Inuyasha frowned, not sure where his brother was going: "Yeah, so what?"
"Oh it's just too bad, yesterday in the evening she… was attacked and she died of her wounds."
"Feh, are you implying you killed her?"
Sesshoumaru didn't answer.
"Well enough talking, I have to go" Inuyasha said.
"Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru stopped him, "… be careful."
The hanyou turned away and ran out of the bedroom, so the older one wouldn't change his mind.
Sesshoumaru realized something: "Inuyasha! Come back here. You didn't tell me how to take care of Takato!" he yelled, but alas, Inuyasha didn't turn back.
°°°
Far away, a gang of Shikon shards hunters were trying to find Inuyasha.
A young priestess of modern times was checking at the landscape; she sighed. 'Another long day without the sun' she thought. Every member of the gang was ready to go; they had decided that they would return back to Kaede's village, to wait for Inuyasha.
Shippo looked at Kagome; he saw her worries all written in her face, so he decided to cheer her up. "Kagome, do you know what is small, yellow and square?"
Kagome knew very well the answer, but she wanted Shippo to be proud in knowing the answer: "Mm, let me think. Nope, I don't know. Do you know the answer Shippo?"
"Of course," he said proudly, "it's a small yellow square!"
"Wow little man," said Miroku, "I didn't know you were so smart."
Shippo smiled, then frowned. "Hey, that was mean Miroku! You just told me that I was stupid." The young fox demon crossed his arms, pouting.
Everyone was laughing when a whirlwind came by and stopped right beside Kagome.
"Hello dear Kagome. How are you today?" Koga asked, holding her hands in his.
Kagome forced to smile and answered: "Oh I'm fine, thanks. So…" she didn't actually wanted to see him, but she tried to be at least polite. Plus, she didn't love him and she was sure he came only to declare his love to her.
Koga looked around. "Hey the mutt's not around?"
Kagome was a bit surprise at that question; she didn't think Koga cared about Inuyasha. "Well actually, no-"
"Good! So I'll be able to claim my woman then" he said proudly.
Kagome's behaviour changed and Sango saw that so she said: "Look Koga, it's not funny. We were attacked and now Chikara and Inuyasha are missing now."
Koga drop his mocking smile and said: "What? You mean the mutt was kidnapped or something? You're kidding me right! He can't!"
Everybody looked at him. He regained his composure. "I mean, as stubborn as he is, he can't have been kidnapped. He must simply be somewhere recovering or something, or else he would have been back already."
Kagome looked about to cry. Koga made a serious face: "Look Kagome, if ever I see Inuyasha, I'll tell him that you are searching for him."
Miroku spoke: "Well actually, we're heading back to Kaede's place to wait for him. So if you see him, could you please inform him that?"
"Sure no problem. See ya next time, Kagome… A good-bye kiss?"
He was waiting but Kagome had already started to walk away. "Oh well. Next time then Kagome!" he looked at the others "See ya!"
Koga left as fast as he had arrived and the gang left for their journey toward the village.
Oky, shorter chap this time, since there wasn't much action in it. Next chapter is almost done and I can't wait to get into later chapters Anyways, I just wanted to say that if ever you see grammatical errors in this text, please tell me... and don't forget to review!
