If you're reading this then that obviously means that you've decided to give my fic a fighting chance. . . ARIGATO! (thank you) Okay, here's another chapter for your enjoyment. Oh, and I probably should've said this a few chapters ago, but I do not own any of Rumiko Takahashi's characters! I do, however, own all of the wonderful personalities that I think up and put my time into making. There, now with that said, here's my next chapter. Read, Revew, and Enjoy!
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Mayu Kitsune
Japanese Terms
Haha- Mother
Chichi- Father
Naomi
It was mid-afternoon on the day after Suzushi's attack. Moyuru's clothes had been too torn, tattered, and stained to salvage, and, much to her distaste, she had to borrow some of Kaede's clothes while another set was being made for her. The village seamstress had been kind enough to offer her services for free.
The rest Moyuru had been getting seemed to be doing a world of good for her injuries. She was quickly healing, now only the deepest of wounds remained. She had gotten up in the morning, beginning to roam around the village. It had taken her all morning to walk off the stiffness she felt.
It was now afternoon and the feeling had left her, her injuries were now only sore to the touch. She still carried her sais, she never went anywhere without them. She had retired near the edge of the village after getting quite a few quizzical stares from the villagers.
She seated herself in the grass next to a field taken over by wildflowers. A soft breeze blew, offering relief from the heat of the sun as well as carrying the flowers' sweet scent in her direction. Moyuru took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she did so. A fragrance more pleasing than that of any perfume flooded her nose. She exhaled, seemingly at peace with everything at the moment.
She picked a flower, idly twirling it around in her fingers. She admired it for a few moments, noting what kind of flower it was. A certain despair welled up inside her and tears began to fill her eyes. "Why am I pretending?" she muttered to herself sadly, "Everything's not okay. . ." she said to herself, letting the hand she held the flower in drop into her lap.
There was a loud scream as the scent of blood mingled with the flowers' fragrance. Moyuru was to her feet in an instant, scanning the field.
A young human girl ran through the field, blood streamed from a small cut on her forehead. She was followed closely behind by a snake-like demon. It was gaining on the girl quickly!
Moyuru hastily began in that direction.
The girl tripped, falling hard. She looked back in horror as the demon lunged for her, mouth open and teeth glinting with an intent to kill. There was a flash of silver and the snake demon's attack came to a sudden halt.
Moyuru's aim hadn't failed her. Her sai had pierced through the snake's head, pinning it to the ground and ultimately killing it. The demon withered away into dust, blowing away in the breeze.
The little girl stared at where the demon had been, wide-eyed, before shifting her stare to Moyuru.
Moyuru returned her sai to its rightful place, turning her attention to the young girl currently staring at her in amazement. "Are you okay?" She asked, settling down on her heels in front of her.
The girl nodded, still with an amazed expression on her face.
Moyuru noted also that the girl's knees had been scrapped up pretty badly. "You should learn to be more careful." she stated casually.
"You. . .You saved me. . ." the girl stammered. "It was nothing." Moyuru assured her, "Can you walk?" she asked. The girl nodded her reply and Moyuru helped her to her feet.
The girl looked to be only six or so and was roughly a third Moyuru's height, the top of her head only coming up to Moyuru's thigh. She had black hair that was pulled into pigtails on either side of her head, and brown eyes.
The little girl hugged Moyuru around the waist, having to jump to do so, "Thank you!" she exclaimed happily as she hung from her.
Moyuru stiffened, cringing in pain as the girl came in contact with an injury.
The girl immediately backed off, "I'm sorry. . ." she said, looking at the ground.
"It's okay," Moyuru reassured her, "you didn't know."
The girl brightened up at this, "That was awesome!" she said, ecstatic, "How'd you do that?"
"A lot of practice." Moyuru replied simply. "Now come on, let's go get you cleaned up." she said as she began back towards the village.
The girl more than willingly followed, never once complaining about her scratched up knees.
"Hey lady, what's your name?" the girl asked, looking up to Moyuru with her large brown eyes.
"Moyuru." Moyuru replied.
"My name's Naomi." the little girl stated with a smile.
Moyuru smiled back, revealing fangs. Naomi's smile vanished and she stared, now seemingly afraid, "You're a demon. . ." she said nervously.
"Half." Moyuru corrected.
"Oh, you mean like Inuyasha." Naomi said, all fear seeming to disappear. "Well, you do have ears kinda like he does, and fangs. . ." Naomi's gaze shifted to Moyuru's tail, "but I don't think he has a tail."
Naomi seemed a bit puzzled by something, "Why do you have a tail?"
Moyuru just shrugged, not quite sure how to answer the girl's question and feeling a bit nervous as the girl seemed to almost examine her tail.
Soon the girl had fallen behind and was batting and Moyuru's tail as she walked, looking as though she were contemplating something. There was a sudden tug on it.
"Ow!" the hanyou exclaimed, jerking the furry appendage away from the girl.
Naomi put her hands behind her back, giving her the most innocent look she could muster before simply stating, "Yep, it's real."
Moyuru sighed heavily, continuing to walk.
"Lady Kaede!" the girl exclaimed, running to the miko as she came into sight.
"My goodness, what has happened to ye child?" Kaede asked as she noted the girl's scrapped knees and cut forehead.
"Lady Kaede! She saved me from a demon!" Naomi said, pointing to Moyuru who was dragging up the rear, having just reached them.
"She did, did she?" Kaede said, "Well, ye are very fortunate that Moyuru was there." she added. Naomi nodded enthusiastically in agreement with this.
Kaede took her inside the hut to clean and bandage her knees and forehead. All the while the girl was relaying the story to Kaede. Moyuru stayed off to one side sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"I was outside picking wild flowers when this huge snake demon attacked me!" Naomi exclaimed, "So I ran! Then I tripped and fell! Oh, it was going to eat me Lady Kaede!"
"So it was, was it?" Kaede said, mocking incredulousness for the girl's delight.
"Yeah! It had its mouth open an' everything! Then, she threw one of those things through its head and killed it! It was awesome!" Naomi said, throwing her hands up in the air as though trying to emphasize how awesome she thought the simple feat was.
Kaede chuckled in amusement at the girl's enthusiasm. "What a day ye seem to have had." Kaede commented, smiling and having finished cleaning and bandaging the little girl's wounds.
She turned to Moyuru, who was still sitting off to one side of the hut. "Now to check Moyuru's injuries." she said, still talking to the little girl.
Moyuru didn't like these occasional checkups, "No, really I'm fine." she said with a nervous smile.
Kaede wordlessly neared her, putting a hand on the exit wound on Moyuru's back.
Moyuru flinched, gasping in pain.
"Either ye need to be in better tune with ye own body, or ye need to cease pretending." Kaede stated rather bluntly.
Moyuru let out a whimper of pain.
Kaede took off the shirt Moyuru wore, now beginning to unwrap the bandages around her waist.
On her stomach and back were the remains of a wound that refused to heal quickly. Sometime during her first encounter with Suzushi, a sword had pierced her stomach all the way through to to her back. The wound had begun bleeding yet again. Naomi stared wide-eyed at the injury.
"Ye know that ye are not supposed to move around so much." Kaede said a bit scornfully as she applied herbs to it.
"It's my fault Lady Kaede, I jumped on her to give her a hug for saving me." Naomi said, again looking to the ground as she had done before.
"It wasn't your fault, you didn't know." Moyuru repeated as Kaede finished bandaging her up again.
Moyuru pulled the shirt back up over her shoulders, fixing it as she had had it before. The little girl's face lit up as she got an idea. "You've got to meet my chichi!" She said excitedly, running to Moyuru.
Moyuru got to her feet.
"C'mon!" the little girl exclaimed, grabbing Moyuru's hand and beginning to lead her off.
"Not so fast child!" Kaede yelled after them.
Naomi reluctantly slowed her pace to a walk, soon approaching a group of men taking a break from the fields.
"Chichi!" She yelled.
A tall man with short black hair looked to her. He didn't look to be too old. He wore old tattered pants and a shirt. He had broad shoulders and was tan from working in the fields. He looked at the bandages on the little girl's legs in question.
Naomi ran to him and he caught her, picking her up off her feet and spinning around with her. Both of them laughed and smiled before he came to a stop, holding her with one arm. "What happened to you?" he asked her.
"Oh, Chichi! You should've seen it! I got attacked by a demon and she saved me!" She explained. Moyuru was surprised to see that her enthusiasm about it hadn't died at all.
"Who?" her father asked her.
"Her." the little girl answered, pointing to Moyuru who stood off to one side, humble as always.
As she watched the two playing and smiling, a certain sadness had clouded over her features. She quickly brushed the feeling off as Naomi's father turned to her.
He seemed a bit surprised by her appearance at first and regarded her silently for a few moments. Finally he set Naomi down, giving Moyuru a bow, "Thank you for saving my daughter." he said graciously before straightening.
Moyuru, not used to getting thanked, blushed a bit. "It was nothing, anyone else would have done the same." she stated, staying humble and looking to the ground shyly.
A few of the men were conversing off to one side. "Isn't that the hanyou that youkai was pursuing a few days ago?" one of them asked the others, his words not intended for Moyuru's ears.
Her fox-like ears twitched as they picked up on his words, though other than the simple movement, she showed no signs that she had heard.
This was repeated to Naomi's father, "I'm just saying," one of the men continued, "do you really want Naomi to be around her?"
Naomi's father looked as though he were giving this some thought before waving it off. "She'll be fine. Besides, Naomi obviously needs someone to watch her while I work and if this hanyou saved her life then she can't be as bad as everyone's making her out to be." Naomi's father whispered back.
Oh great, now I'm a baby sitter. Isn't her mother supposed to watch her? Moyuru thought.
"Are you sure?" the man asked. "I can't get anyone else to do it, for a while now she hasn't had anyone to watch her and take care of her during the day when I'm working." Naomi's father answered, stating his reason.
The man drew away, following a crowd going back out to the fields.
Naomi's father hesitated a few moments before asking Moyuru if she would watch Naomi. Moyuru agreed to do so and Naomi literally jumped for joy. Her father still seemed a bit nervous about it.
"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to her." Moyuru reassured him. He went on his way back to work with the others.
Naomi began excitedly listing off the things they could do together while her father worked. "We could go to the stream and watch the fish, maybe even catch one! Or we could pick flowers and make crowns and necklaces out of them!" she said.
"Flowers sound nice." Moyuru suggested. In all truth, she had no desire to watch fish swim, and trying to catch them would only further aggravate her injuries. She knew what it was like to find joy in the smallest of things and tolerated the girl, though she had long since outgrown flower crowns and necklaces.
Naomi even began gathering the flowers before they got to the field. She picked out a spot and sat down, setting to work on her flower chain.
Moyuru sat down beside her, idly doing the same.
Naomi finished hers first, standing up and putting her little flower crown on Moyuru's head. Moyuru paused, looking up as though trying to see it.
Naomi stepped back to admire her handiwork. It sat on Moyuru's head, circling about her ears, each flower facing outward and showing its beauty. "Now you look like a princess!" Naomi said with a grin.
Moyuru smiled back before draping her necklace around Naomi's neck.
Lacking anything else to do, Moyuru had gone a bit further than just linking assorted flowers together. She had woven the pattern close together with flowers of blue and white. In the middle of the chain a larger white flower hung like a pendant.
"It's so pretty!" Naomi exclaimed, her eyes widening "Where did you learn to do that?"
Moyuru's smile faded, "My haha taught me." she said quietly. "Oh," Naomi said, "My haha died last year. She got really sick. Did your haha die too?"
Moyuru nodded "Yeah, when I was about your age." she replied. She took in a deep breath, sighing heavily, "I still miss her though."
She pointed to the flower hanging from the chain, "That was my haha's favorite flower," she said, smiling sadly in remembrance, "I used to pick her a bunch of them almost every day they were in season. Now every time I see that flower I think of her."
Moyuru sat quietly for a few moments, looking to Naomi in question when she pulled a necklace with a thin gold chain from her kimono. The chain hung around the girl's neck while the pendant had been tucked away in her clothes.
"My haha gave this to me before she died." Naomi said, fingering the cherry blossom-shaped pendant. "It was the only real necklace she ever had, and Chichi got it for her." she added, holding the piece of jewelry in front of Moyuru, "It's all I have left to remember her by. . ." she said, tearing up and beginning to cry.
Moyuru took the little girl in a comforting embrace, Poor girl. she thought.
Naomi buried her face in Moyuru's front, "I miss my haha!" she cried, her sobs muffled by the cloth of the shirt Moyuru wore.
The hanyou tried her best to be of some comfort, "It's okay, I know how you feel. . . I miss my haha too." she said, beginning to tear up as well. Moyuru sniffled a bit, struggling to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.
Naomi was now sitting curled up in Moyuru's lap, clutching her shirt in her tiny fists and crying quietly.
Moyuru rocked her a bit, "It's okay." she whispered.
It was growing late in the day, the sun was setting and the little girl had cried herself to sleep, still clinging to Moyuru. The men would probably be coming back in from the fields and Naomi's father would be wondering where they were.
Moyuru got up, carrying the little girl, careful not to wake her up. She began to carry her back towards the village.
Kagome was with Kaede in her small herb garden, helping to gather the last of the herbs The old priestess needed. Inuyasha sat perched on the fence that bordered the garden. Shippo stayed near by, just keeping them all company.
"Shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on her?" Inuyasha asked.
"Don't tell me you think she's going to try something, she's fine." Kagome stated.
Inuyasha sighed heavily, sliding down off the fence and beginning to walk away.
"Where are you going Inuyasha?" Kagome called after him, looking to him in confusion. He's been acting kinda weird lately. she thought to herself.
Inuyasha didn't answer her and just continued to walk away.
"What's wrong with him?" Shippo asked, staring off after him.
"Perhaps it is not Moyuru's intentions Inuyasha worries about." Kaede suggested.
"What do you mean?" Kagome asked, looking a bit puzzled.
"Perhaps he is worried for her safety, he hasn't seen her all day and she did push ye out of harm's way earlier did she not?" Kaede stated more than questioned, "She is also hanyou, like himself."
"She's right." Shippo interjected, "It only makes sense that he would want to help his own kind. I mean, who wouldn't?"
"You mean that Inuyasha might actually be concerned?" Kagome asked.
"It is possible." Kaede replied simply, gathering up the herbs and beginning back towards the hut.
Kagome stood, looking in the direction in which Inuyasha had left with a certain fondness. Inuyasha's such a total softie though he'd never admit it. she thought. "C'mon Shippo, let's start fixing something to eat while we wait on Inuyasha and Moyuru." she said, beginning back to the hut herself, Shippo following not too far behind.
Inuyasha searched for a few moments before finding just the hanyou he was looking for, carrying a sleeping child. "I thought maybe you'd left." Inuyasha said, approaching her.
She paused, turning to face him. "Surely you don't think I would leave without my clothes." she stated.
Inuyasha froze, blinking a few times before an indignant look came across his face as he noticed the error in his assumption. It annoyed him that she had been the one to point it out.
He crossed his arms defiantly, "Well, you shouldn't be carrying anything, you're injured." he shot back.
"Shhh!" Moyuru warned, "Don't wake her up!" she whispered.
Inuyasha hadn't heard her, he sniffed a bit, having caught the scent of salt. He was now only inches from her face, "Have you been crying?" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
Moyuru backed up slightly at his invasion of her personal space. "N-n-no. . ." she lied, laughing nervously, "Aren't you a little close?" she asked, changing the subject.
Inuyasha paused, awkwardly backing away.
Moyuru continued to walk in the direction she had been traveling in before, Inuyasha walked beside her. She looked to him questioningly, "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Let me carry her." he said, "You shouldn't be doing too much of anything anyway." he added under his breath.
Moyuru thought for a few moments. She wasn't showing it, but lifting the girl had caused her pain and now Naomi rested against the wound, causing it to hurt badly. She hesitated a bit before agreeing, handing the girl over to him as gently as she could, trying not to wake her.
Inuyasha held the little girl a bit awkwardly, not used to carrying small children, especially small sleeping children.
Moyuru put a hand over the wound, gripping the cloth of the shirt over it, the only sign of how much pain she was in. She quietly thanked him, continuing forward.
"You know, I've never met another hanyou before." Moyuru said, "Actually, I had never even met a human other than my mother until you and your friends came. I thank you again for your help." she added.
Inuyasha stared at her, taking in what she had just said and coming up with a conclusion, "You mean. . . You lived with demons and not humans?" he asked incredulously. He had lived with his human mother and the other ningen had been cruel enough, but this girl lived with youkai?
"Well, yeah. Does it really matter? I mean, neither race accepts you, as far as I see it there's not too much of a difference which one you live with." Moyuru said, sounding as though she seriously meant what she said.
Inuyasha continued to stare for a few moments.
Youkai? She's lived with them for how long? And she wasn't dead yet? Inuyasha knew better than anyone that nearly all youkai hated hanyou, it didn't even matter if they were related by blood, they would still hate hanyou.
Moyuru let a nervous smile form and she gave an unnerved laugh, Why does he keep staring at me like that? she thought
"There you are!" a voice rang out, snapping Inuyasha back to reality. Him and Moyuru both turned around, it was Naomi's father. "So, I see my daughter is fine." he stated, smiling.
Moyuru smiled back, looking to the sleeping girl as Inuyasha handed her over to her father. "Yeah, she's just a little tired." she replied.
"Thank you for watching her." Naomi's father said.
"No problem. She's a sweet girl." Moyuru stated, still smiling.
"If only there was some way I could pay you. . ." Naomi's father started.
"No, you don't need to worry about that. It's okay, really." she said, laughing nervously and waving her hands in front of her.
He just nodded once, thanking her again before continuing home with his sleeping daughter in his arms.
Kagome was right, that Suzushi guy was just lying about her. She seems so. . . nice. Inuyasha thought.
Moyuru sighed heavily.
Inuyasha watched as her smile faded and an almost longing look replaced it. He looked to her in question.
She didn't seem to notice, wordlessly turning and beginning back towards Kaede's hut.
What was that about? Inuyasha questioned in his thoughts. She seemed so sad all the time. Her eyes, while bright, always seemed to hold a certain despair in them. What was it that made her so. . . sorrowful.
Well, there you have it, another chapter and you still don't know much about Moyuru do you? He he he, it's all part of my plot. PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE REVIEW! I would like to know if everything's playing out as I had planned it to and for that to happen you have to tell me what you think of it.
PREVIEW!
Chapter Four: Moyuru's Troubled Past
Seiya? Who's that? Moyuru has mumbled the name in her sleep, Suzushi had mentioned the name earlier. Who is this Seiya person and what is their relation to Moyuru? Inuyasha decides to confront Moyuru on the matter but will he get the answers he wants?
Signing out until next time!
Mayu Kitsune
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