Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any of its characters. I DO, however, own a small, secluded piece of Asia called China. BOW, Peons!
Reviewer Comments:
Cara the Mord Sith- I'm glad you think so. .
BeccaPatty- Haha, glad you're so enthusiastic. You'll get your questions answered!
ShortPoet- As far as Rin goes, in all technicalities her situation doesn't directly effect Kagome, but in essence the same thing could be used on her in the future if she and Inuyasha chose to be together. I've yet to explain, but I'm getting there. Thanks for the great review, as always!
kimi- Please no dying. It's just not good.
Steph- No trick, I just love what I do. Find an idea that you really love, and just run with it. It's fun, and other people seem to enjoy it. Half the effort is just liking what you're doing.
Golden meliades- Aww, thankee! I'm glad you like it so much, that means a lot! It's good to know I have devoted fans to storm my story chapters and write awesome reviewers. Lol. Makes me feel loved!
delarom- Sorry about that. Life happens, and I literally had no computer access after I left school for break. But I'm back now! Thanks for being patient.
Lexa- More torture to come! ::cackle::
Sari15- Thank you very much! I'm pleased to hear it when people think my writing it good.
Sneaky Wench- Still going! Promise!
To Everyone- SO SORRY for the delay, everyone! I'm been computer deprived since I left for vacation, and I've only recently gotten back home where there's internet and all that jazz. Thanks to everyone who's been so incredibly patient! I REALLY appreciate all your support and loyalty, and I'm happy that I have such great readers! Again, my DEEPEST apologies! I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Warning: There's some language in this chap, so if you don't like it, sorry about that! Inu-chan has a potty mouth… .
Chapter 4
"Bitch!" The word was out of his mouth even before he hit the ground, face smashed into the pavement as the prayer beads dangling from his neck pulsed and fervently obeyed the command of their 'master'. In his anger he was already attempting to peel himself from the ground before he looked up and found her watching him. Her expression was truly indescribable, but in his own opinion he found traces of surprise and disbelief and… relief? …Happiness? …All smothered in a deep, seething rage that reflected through every pore of skin.
Oh, Shit…
He saw it coming before she even opened her mouth, and simply stopped trying to get up altogether before the words came pouring out.
"OSUWARI! OSUWARI! OSUWARI! OSUWARI! OSUWARI!" The last hurt the worst, and Inuyasha was sure he felt something crack as he was repeatedly beaten into the ground by the prayer beads. Damn her! Damn him! Why had he not just allowed her to remove the wretched things when she had offered so long ago? Damn, damn, damn!
Ow…"What was that for, bitch?" Again, the words flew out of his mouth before he could restrain himself. The glare she sent his way was enough to kill babies before she spun on heel and all but stormed into her house, slamming the door behind her. Inuyasha, still stunned and hurting from all his 'sit'tings, struggled to stand as Kotan looked on in pure astonishment and a flat-out laughing Shippou followed Kagome like a puppy after its mother… or a fox…
"Oi! Runt! Where do you think yer goin'?!" The excited kit turned with an expression asking if he was insane.
"To see Kagome-mama, where else?" And with that he disappeared inside the house without invitation, Kotan caught between helping his uncle and following the kitsune. Inuyasha, on the other hand, was still plastered to the cement and slowly rising to his feet, perhaps just as angry as the flustered miko. Sharp hanyou ears could already hear the distant, but clear sounds of her and Shippou reuniting.
With a huff he pushed fully to his feet and stomped his way to the door, opening it and slamming it again as he stepped inside. The force of the slam caused the entire house to shake. Sniffing his way through the house, he found the two poised happily in the living room, Shippou having dropped his guise and resumed his youkai form. The enraged hanyou was only vaguely aware that his nephew had entered after him and was now watching the entire scene in bewilderment.
"Oi! Wench- ah… err…" It was like stepping into the realm of hell when Kagome turned her attentions to the loud-mouthed hanyou, the room going from cheery and overjoyed to boiling over with blood running down the walls. Shippou was all but clinging to the woman, and the sight might have been funny had he seen it at any other time- as the young kitsune was now almost as tall as Kagome herself and certainly could no longer fit in her arms. But at the time Inuyasha had focused his own golden eyes on the human at hand, rushing forward in alarm to clamp his hand over her mouth before she could utter that terrible word again. "Kagome, shut up!" Wrong answer. Fuck.
The feeling of her slippered foot hitting his shin was like an explosion of pain, causing him to yelp and release her all at once.
"Don't tell me to shut up! You're the one who came to my house and started calling me 'bitch'! Where do you get off doing that? You never showed up for FOUR YEARS, and then all of the sudden, here you are, looking totally different, with Shippou all grown up and some silver-haired kid I don't know, and you tell me to SHUT UP?" She was pissed, to say the least, but he took his chances and bolted forward as he saw that dread word forming, his palm once again resting over her mouth; gentle, but secure.
"What I meant was… Would you let me speak?" She glared her baby-killing glare, but seemed to acquiesce with his wishes. He eyed her a moment more before slowly removing his hand. She returned the look. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, only to realize that he had no idea what to tell her. What did he say to a girl he had not spoken to in over five hundred years? What did he tell her? 'I've been watching you for the past twenty-four years, but you weren't supposed to know I was still alive.' …Yeah, only if he wanted to be permanently ingrained in the floor of her living room. Strangely, the time he had spent without her had taught him to put a bit more thought into his words- when given the chance, that was.
While trying to think of the right words, she decided to speak for him.
"Well, if you're not going to talk, can I ask you something?" Slowly, he nodded. "Why do you look… human?" He blinked, then looked down at his appearance. He had never removed Shippou's glamour, but was surprised it had not disappeared beneath her horde of verbally physical abuse.
With a snort he shook himself free of the spell- quite literally, as his entire form shook like the very dog he was- and then glanced back at her, dressed fully in haori and hakama with his silver hair and golden eyes as obvious as ever, not to mention his ears. Inuyasha could see her sudden urge to rub the twitching triangles of skin and fur atop his head, but huffed to himself and blatantly decided not to give her the pleasure. "Happy, wench?"
She scowled and stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest. "I didn't ask for a display, baka. I don't care what you look like!" He could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise, instinct taking hold and kicking pride into high gear.
"Keh! Well, who needs you! It was the runt who wanted to come here in the first place!" He mimicked her stance, both glaring at the other through the corners of their eyes.
"Well, if you're so opposed to being here, why don't you just leave!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
And that, as was characteristic of the couple, was that. With an indignant huff and a series of muttered growls, he was out of the door and up in the trees, falling back on old habits that he had not enjoyed for a good many years.
The room was dead silent after Inuyasha's departure, Kotan still awkwardly standing near the doorway, shifting back where he stood. Shippou was frowning lightly behind a silent Kagome, directing the look towards the closed doorway. There was only a moment, though, until the smell of salt water filtered into the sense of both kitsune and inuhanyou.
"K-Kagome…? Are you alright?" Shippou stepped forward tentatively, still young by way of youkai, and therefore concerned as to his adopted mother's crying.
"…Stupid Inuyasha… Who does he think he is?" Both boys heard a distinct series of sniffles between sentences, causing the feeling of depression and upset to spread. If it had been possible, two sets of youkai ears would have drooped at that moment.
"I'm sorry, Kagome. It was my fault, I wanted to come and see you." The apology seemed to snap the crying woman from her tears, brown eyes shifting as she lifted her chin to look in shock at Shippou.
"No! No, that's not it at all, Shippou. I'm glad to see you, I really am… I… I reacted badly…" Hastily, she wiped away the tears that had begun to stain her cheeks and moved to envelope the kitsune in a hug. She paused when she realized that he was neither small nor short anymore, blinking in confusion. How had he grown so much in four years? "You're…. You're so tall…" She blinked again as she looked the kit up and down, truly taking in the sight of him now that she was no longer arguing with Inuyasha. Indeed, he had shot up like a skyscraper from his original, childish size as was now on level with her, if not growing with every second. He laughed sheepishly under her scrutiny.
"Yeah, I guess I'm growing…"
"Onii-san has always been that size." Both sets of eyes turned to meet the sight of Kotan as he spoke, both seeming to finally realize that he was even there to begin with. Instantly, Kagome was next to the boy and inspecting every inch of him, the fight forgotten entirely. Kotan merely eyed the strange woman that he had heard to many stories about.
"You don't have ears?"
Blink. "…Ears?"
"Yes, ears… like Inuyasha's…. You're his son, aren't you? I mean, you could be anyone else's kid, and I don't remember ever meeting any other inuyoukai. So why don't you have ears? Or are you wearing a disguise too?" Kagome agonized over Kotan's features as she spoke, and soon Shippou was all but rolling on the floor with laughter as the young hanyou grew even more embarrassed, irritated, and insulted… much like his uncle.
Huffing and crossing his arms, a very flustered Kotan soon stepped back from the curious woman, chin held high while defiant golden eyes looked over a puzzled Kagome. "Miko, you are mistaken. This Kotan is not the child of such low blood," Shippou was almost dying in his attempt to gasp for breath now, knowing full well the pup would have been beaten raw if Inuyasha had still been present, "and is furthermore disgusted to think that one might possess such atrocious features as the half-breed you deem worthy of comparison." Kagome blinked, Kotan trying his best to look both imposing and superior while his 'onii-san' sat laughing hysterically in the background.
"Well, you look just like him…"
"Well, I'm NOT!" Kotan shouted, glaring daggers at the unaffected woman before him. Both Kagome's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the outburst, and Shippou only laughed harder. Finally, after a staring contest, Kagome turned away with a skeptical glance.
"…Could have fooled me…"
"I'm not-"
"Kotan is Sesshoumaru's son, Kagome," Shippou interjected quickly, now attempting to contain his laughter as those golden orbs shifted towards him in challenge. Full youkai or not, and older nonetheless, Shippou was not foolish enough to anger the hanyou, knowing full well the strength of the Inuyoukai. …Not that Kotan would really try to fight him… But better safe than sorry, as he had learned from too much traveling with Inuyasha.
"Sesshoumaru's? Sesshoumaru had kids?" More blinking on Kagome's part, and a shocked expression that renewed Shippou's laughter.
"Two."
"Two? There's another one?" Kotan was growing silently angrier by the moment as the pair conversed.
"A girl. Aya."
"A girl?"
"YES! A GIRL!" Both turned to look at the pup as he experienced his second outburst, Kotan receiving both surprised and skeptical looks.
"…You sure he isn't Inuyasha's…?"
"NO!"
"Grr… Stupid Kagome…" Inuyasha was still growling to himself as he burst through the doorway to his brother's home. Having jumped, hopped, and run the entire way back, he was now more energetic than ever, if not even angrier than before after being given the chance to think over the situation. After all, it was Shippou's idea to visit the shrine, and Kotan's fault that Kagome had thought to use the "sit" command in the first place. He was simply following the wishes of his charges.
Not that it mattered, of course. Why did he owe her anything anyways? She was the one who closed the well. She was the one who forgot about him for four of her own years. So what did he have to account for? The thoughts boiled in his mind as he stomped his way through the house, not realizing in his anger that Sesshoumaru had suddenly appeared out of one of the branching hallways.
"Inuyasha, where is this Sesshoumaru's son?" The hanyou scowled at the sound of his half-brother's voice.
"Keh. Probably still at that wench's house. How should I know?"
He could almost hear the chuckle in Sesshoumaru's response. "I see she has seen past your disguise." He paused, stern and solemn as always. "Go and retrieve Kotan." Inuyasha's response was his usual scoff, causing the taiyoukai to narrow his eyes. "Go and retrieve my son, or I will go myself, and I assure you the miko would not be pleased."
The threat, though normally rather effective, seemed to not phase the hanyou as he threw a deadly glare over his shoulder before continuing to stomp off in a direction that was opposite the front entrance. As he disappeared down the hallway, a low rumble could be heard in the depth of Sesshoumaru's throat- the closest he would ever come to a growl.
"Don't be too hard on him, Sesshoumaru-sama." Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the dark-haired woman standing there, watching him. He frowned. "He hasn't spoken to her in five hundred years, and her to him in four, and in either case it seems a lifetime. They both need to heal from the scars of time."
"Rin." The mention of her name was neither command nor askance, simply an acknowledgement, and the woman who had grown up beside the taiyoukai knew this truth well. In response, she continued, lips curling in a small smile.
"I'm just a woman, like Kagome-sama. I understand that it must have been torture- to have expected a person to come and take you home and back again for so long, to watch over you night and day, and then suddenly lose that by choice of the greater good. I'm still just a girl compared to all of you, but I know that it couldn't have been easy for her. And, over time, misplaced bitterness begins to build up as well. Seeing Inuyasha-sama again was surely a disaster waiting to happen. And, from the stories I grew up on, those two have always been stubborn when it comes to their feelings for one another. Just… give them time. I'm sure he means no insult, m'lord. He's simply upset and confused." Having said her peace, the woman known as Rin turned away from her lord and mate, prepared to return to her own affairs of the house. She stopped when Sesshoumaru spoke.
"…I see you have come to understand much after all this time."
He could sense the heat rise in her face, but she responded with a clear, strong tone. "M'lord has taught me many things, and given me even more. It is only right that I do not waste these gifts." And then she was off, returned to the courtyard to attend to her daughter.
Sesshoumaru stood silently for a time afterwards, eyes closed in contemplation of Rin's words. Much had changed since the Feudal Era, and he now found that it was valuable to listen to the words spoken by those around him. Arrogance and pride, though still strong in his mind and blood, had eased over the years to give way to greater acceptance and simple understanding that could only accentuate his previously vast pool of knowledge. Having a mate, he discovered, was a great asset.
Finally, with a sniff and something that might have been a chuckle, he turned and gracefully left his home, intent on his destination: the Higurashi Shrine.
AN: O.o FINALLY! Evil paper- and computer-deprivation… I'll be back to normal weekly updates when I get back to school this coming week, so no more worries! Hope you liked the chapter!