Chapter Thirty-Four: The Shrine Bell

Enveloped by the warmth of the early summer evening, Kagome stepped out the front door and into the shrine courtyard. The late setting sun shined gold behind the feathery treetops that peppered the western escarpment, and through them, she glimpsed the first hints of yellow and orange along the horizon.

At the crest of the stairs that led down into the city, she spied her mother and Tora. A smile crept up on her as she watched them chat, which broadened into a grin when they shared a chaste kiss before he waved goodbye. There was something adorable about their budding courtship. Her mother, whose wisdom and confidence ran so deep that they might be endless, was awkward and unsure for the first time that she could remember. It had been one thing to flirt and another to want more than that.

Kagome lingered, watching her fidget and pace, no doubt overthinking everything. For many children, parents lose their perfect luster in the times when they fail or disappoint. But not her mother. Her humanity peeked through here in a nervous chuckle or the shy wave she gave him in reply. It was in the moments when she decided to go outside her comfort zone and do something for herself.

Kagome sighed happily. If she was enjoying anything, it was seeing her unflappable mother feeling the summer breeze a bit.

And speaking of unflappable.

In the long shadows cast by the trees, she spied Sesshoumaru crouching in front of the new steps that led up to the shrine bell platform. A yellow level sat before him on one of the steps, and he watched as the bubble centered between the two lines. Satisfied, he placed it on the next step and then each one after that, checking to make sure they were all level. She approached him.

"It looks good," she complimented, her gaze poring over the youthful blonde of the fresh lumber, "Are you going to stain it soon?"

"It requires time," he explained, picking up his level, "The wood is still green, and the water must leech out before a stain will hold."

"May I?" she asked, glancing back and forth between him and the steps.

As he rose to his feet, he gave her a shrug and moved out of the way.

With zeal, she bounded up them. But as she climbed from the first step to the last, she left behind a trail of gray footprints. If she hadn't spun around at the top, she would have missed his fleeting frown.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, biting her lip.

"Do not concern yourself," he replied. "It was expected. Your grandfather's safety is more important than perfection. Your footprints are merely the first of many until it can be stained and sealed."

Her eyes fell to the trail. The set of stairs had twice as many steps than it had before, and they were broader too. Then she was drawn to what was wholly new and she placed her hands on the railings that ran along each side.

"He's very proud of this place," she admitted, her gaze broadening from Sesshoumaru to the shrine around them. "And his role here."

"It's his purpose. Preserving that is our duty to him. Whether it's at his request or not."

She smiled softly, reminded of a memory when a bundled stack of yen sat heavy in her pocket. "Do you remember the last time we talked out here. You were ringing the bell because he had an errand to do and I had found your duffel bag filled with gambling winnings."

He looked at her expectantly.

"We talked about how you struggled with asking for help and with understanding what it meant to be a part of our family." She chuckled. "And now you're calling family meetings and making dinner. I know that I've said that you're not the same person that I thought I knew from the Sengoku Jidai, but there are times when you're not even the same person that I knew a few months ago. You've changed so much."

"I read a quote recently," he said, slipping the level into its pouch on his toolbelt. "No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main. It has been my hardest lesson to understand that. As you said then, my greatest weakness is relying only on myself." He gave her his best aristocratic sneer. "However, I can transform any weakness into a strength."

She laughed. "That's definitely the daiyoukai that I know."

He gave her the slightest smirk.

Her amusement turned thoughtful. "There was something else I asked you that day too. It came from a place of insecurity, but I think that it was still a valid question."

He arched an eyebrow.

"Are you happy?"

The warmth of his expression cooled, becoming inscrutable as he considered her question.

The breeze picked up and the leaves of the trees rustled above them.

"I don't know," he replied at length. "Old and familiar, I've felt anger and disappointment in brief moments of rashness and vengeance. But it is the numbness that remains."

Sadness tightened in her chest. "Was it from being sealed? From being trapped in the deep or however you described it?"

He sighed, thinking. "No, the more that I dwell on it, the more I realize that the numbness is far more ancient than the seal that bound me. It has always been there. Even in my youth, to be unguarded when it came to emotions was an invitation for rejection. Only anger was permissible, or disappointment veiled as such."

"It's not right," she said, her jaw tight. "To force you into numbness. Into this state of depression."

He snorted. "There's much about human culture that doesn't seem right to me, but I accept it as an approach that works for your kind. The ways of daiyoukai nobility are no different. And there's no point in lambasting that which is already extinct."

"I guess."

His hand slipped down to retrieve the crowbar that hung from his toolbelt.

"For many years I believed that I was entitled to the sword, Tessaiga," he said looking back at her, his body turned in mid-pivot, "Yet what I genuinely envied about Inuyasha was his freedom to be crass. To express every emotion without a filter. It's a willingness to be exposed and vulnerable that I will never be comfortable with, but he was at least able to feel without limitations. If you were to ask him if he was happy, what would he say?"

Blinking, she stared at him, surprised by his question and the steadiness of his gaze as he awaited her reply.

"I don't know," she began and then chuckled wistfully. "He'd tell me that it was a dumb question. We'd probably argue over his attitude for a few minutes, but then he'd say yes. Not because he'd think that it was what I wanted to hear, but because it was true."

He nodded, then turned away, heading for the old set of stairs that lay beside the platform. Mostly intact, they had been pried free and set aside as he installed the new stairs, but now that he was done, it was time for them to be broken down.

Levering the hook end of the crowbar under the plank of the first step, he yanked on it. It split along the seam of the grain where old rusted nails had made it weak. He tugged at each splintering piece, tearing them apart and tossing them aside into a pile.

Quietly, she watched him, her mind dwelling on the two brothers. Inuyasha, who would have simply ripped the old stairs apart with his hands, and his brother, who was every bit his better in terms of strength but preferred the refinement of a tool. The crass versus the aristocratic. The hanyou versus the daiyoukai. And how humanity had intersected their lives in such different ways, forcing them to reconsider their perspectives and change. Perhaps it was time for her to do the same.

"What does it mean to be a daiyoukai?" she asked, taking a seat on one of the platform steps. "I remember your explanation about entitlement being determined by intelligence and personal power. Is that all it takes to be a daiyoukai?"

With the hook of his crowbar lodged under another board, he paused and looked back at her, his expression puzzled.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, "All this talk about aristocratic youkai customs has just made me curious." She grinned. "And besides it's only fair that you have to answer a few of my questions after all the random ones you've asked me about humanity over the past year."

He snorted. "There are times when it's certain that you are your mother's daughter."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"I have mentioned titles and lands in the past," he explained, yanking on the crowbar to pull the board apart, "Our concept of possessing land was less like human ownership of property and more akin to how animals patrol territory. Many species may possess territories that overlap the same area, creating an ecosystem. In my time, different daiyoukai patrolled the same territory and their duty was to preserve balance in that area."

"So, you worked together."

"To an extent. Social stratification, and the status it confers, is inevitable. In your human parlance, our deference to one another was determined by where we were in the food chain. I, as a predator, was in a privileged position at the apex."

"So, ranking was based on who preyed upon who?"

"Which would vary depending upon the ecosystem," he replied, hooking another board.

Nodding, she climbed to her feet. "Did that perspective expand beyond daiyoukai? Is that how everyone was seen? Throughout the ecosystem?"

He paused and furrowed an eyebrow.

She thumped down the steps until she reached the first one. "Animals."

Her eyes still on him, she hopped up to the next step. "Humans."

Another hop. "Hanyous."

Then. "Youkai."

And lastly. "Daiyoukai."

In silence, he watched her, and she started to fidget uncomfortably under his gaze.

"I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying it," she added. "But that's how it always felt, especially the prejudice. The disgust for humans. The destruction of their villages."

His attention returned to his work and he jerked the crowbar up, ripping a chunk of wood free.

"Where…" he asked, tossing it into the pile, "Where do shrine priestesses fit?"

"What do you mean?"

"Allow me to clarify. Setting aside ecological complexities for the sake of this exercise, you have outlined the caste order for the world we once shared with reasonable accuracy. Each step preys upon what embodies the steps below it. So, I ask, as a shrine priestess, what did you prey upon?"

"Animals?" she offered.

"Ah," he replied, "Those were animals that you turned to dust with your purification arrows."

"I was protecting people, humans and youkai, when I used my powers," she argued. "I only ate animals."

"And your youkai exterminator ally? The one who weaponized the bodies of the youkai she had slain. Was that an act of preying? Or was that protecting too?"

"She was protecting people," she said adamantly, then her sureness started to falter. "I mean, it was mostly humans. She wouldn't have killed youkai if they hadn't attacked humans."

"Your food chain," he explained, prying away another piece of wood, "Is based on a perspective: your personal definition of predator and prey. As a predator, I consider shrine priestesses ones as well. You participated in the hunt and employed the power of the heavens to strike your prey down. That you didn't eat them doesn't preclude you from being their hunter. Those who are of the heavens prey upon those who are of the earth."

Frowning, she sat back down on the stairs and rested her chin on her palm. "I hadn't thought about it that way."

"As you stated, this stratification that you've observed is an oversimplification, but more importantly, it's a matter of perspective. Earlier, you mentioned personal power. You possess it. Just as I possess a shadow of the youki that I once wielded."

"So, as a human, I moved from the bottom to the top when I became a priestess?"

"You had the innate talent," he said, parting the last step from the stairs, "And when you were transported to the Sengoku Jidai, you were given the opportunity."

"When you put it that way, then it doesn't sound too different from how society is stratified now, if you remember when we talked about personal power or youki being the equivalent of money. Those with money have more influence and power and they prey upon those who have less. They feed on what little they have and then leave them with nothing."

"Stratification exists," he said, angling the crowbar at a joint that formed the support for the old stairs. The bolts whined as he pried it apart, and when it came free, the planks of wood collapsed into a heap. "Gradations of power and influence, when we think about them only in terms of predators and prey, then tearing them apart seems righteous. But if we consider the steps to be access to opportunity, then it becomes something grayer. Perhaps even acceptable."

"What do you mean?"

"The man who owns the ramen stand. He's satisfied with the step that he sits upon. What he needs is for that step to be stable and broad so that he doesn't slip from it. And what he desires is for his children to have the opportunity to climb to higher steps if they so choose."

Her gaze went past him to the pile of splintered wood that had once been a set of stairs, and then it focused on the new set that she sat upon. She studied their broadness and the easier gradation in height between steps. But perhaps most importantly, she considered the railings that lent support on both sides.

"I think I get what you're saying," she said.

"I don't know the shape of it yet, but I believe that this dynamic is my future. My true purpose. Just as this shrine is your grandfather's purpose."

He sighed and she could hear the steeling of his resolve.

"I squandered my first lordship on entitlement and vengeance," he continued. "This time, I will do it right."

"And you won't be an island," she added warmly. "You'll have help."

His eyes turned to the setting sun and he nodded.