Chapter 4: Welcome Back Part I
~*~*~*~Five years later~*~*~*~
"Dad please, please, please don't make me go it's so boring." Mari begged.
"I swear she's gonna make you go if she has to so just let her skip this time, Sesshomaru and Inuyasha haven't seen her in over a year." Izayoi said.
"Yeah an I miss my big broders." Mari pouted. Inu-no-Tashio looked back and forth between the two females in the room before slumping in defeat.
"Yes, yes alright, go play with your brothers." Inu-no-Tashio said from his slumped over position.
"Thank you thank you thank you daddy!" Mari cheered. She ran over to him and grabbed his head placing a kiss on the crown before running over to her mom. "Thank you mom for the help." Mari said with excitement still eminent in her voice. She then ran out of the room shouting something like "The dog girl is back and ready to play!"
"Hm, that girl and you will be the death of me yet." Inu-no-Tashio joked.
"Maybe, but not likely." Izayoi said as she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him. "Don't worry. If you let her she'll end up with the best life she could ever want." Izayoi comforted.
"Yes but she's my baby and I can't help but try to do whatever I think would give her the best in life." He said.
"Well, that doesn't seem to be the best in her eyes. I think she would rather be doing something like, sword fighting, or hand to hand combat, or something like that." Izayoi told him.
"You know, I hate it when you're right." He said and hugged her.
"I know, but, It's my job to be right, I'm the mom remember?"
"Yes I do."
---Out with Mari---
"Yasha! Fluffy! Where are you guys?!" Mari shouted. 'Oh yeah stupid, use your nose.' She thought and did a head-palm before pointing her nose in the air and sniffing around. She spun around and stopped pointing towards the garden. "Damn those stupid, idiotic, buttheads." Mari mumbled. She walked out into the garden to find, not the usual purples and pinks, but a large area with a lot of red flowers. "What in th-Hey!" She shouted as she was lifted off the ground. She looked over her shoulder to find Sesshomaru holding onto her. "Fluffy! What the hell are you doing?!" She asked angrily.
"Showing you something." Was his simple reply.
Mari crossed her arms and huffed something about "Eldest brothers" and their "Moronic antics."
"Mari just shut up and wait until we get high enough." Came a voice from behind Sesshomaru.
"Yasha? You're here too? This cannot be good for my heath." Mari said with a twinge of fear in her voice.
"Is that any way to greet us after over a year?" Inuyasha asked.
"No but the greeting you two gave me wasn't all that pleasant either." Mari countered.
"So, you'll like it in a little bit. Aye Fluffy, we almost high enough yet?" Inuyasha asked.
"First, why do you two insist on calling me that, and second, we will be momentarily." Sesshomaru answered.
"A, cause it's faster than calling you Sesshomaru, an two, because of your tail." Inuyasha replied.
"Yasha don't pick on Fluffy about his tail, I think it's cute." Mari scolded.
"Oh joy, now my tail is 'cute'." Sesshomaru said sarcastically.
"Shut up Fluffy." Mari scolded.
"We're high enough." Sesshomaru said ignoring her last statement.
"Mari," Inuyasha said.
"Look down." Inuyasha and Sesshomaru said in unison. Mari looked down at the flowers she had seen previously.
"Wow." She said breathlessly. The flowers below had been arranged to look like a painting of her with her sword and below it said:
"For Mari,
Our little sister,
Welcome back,
We've missed you so,
Now that you've trained,
Don not die for a nonsense reason."
"Gee thanks for the last part Fluffy." Mari joked. "Who's idea was this?" She asked.
"Believe it or not little sister, it was Inuyasha's." Sesshomaru said.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Inuyasha asked angrily.
"Thanks guys. You know I've really missed you." Mari said.
"We know, we've smelt it throughout the palace." Sesshomaru said.
"Dad wouldn't let me visit you." Mari said.
"That explains the anger." Inuyasha said.
"I wasn't mad at just him, I was mad at my teachers too." Mari said.
"Now that, is something we expected." Inuyasha said.
"Why? Your teachers taught you girly stuff too?" Mari asked snidely.
"No but the classes were a hella boring." Inuyasha joked.
"Ain't that the truth." Mari said.
"If you two are finished." Sesshomaru cut in before any more comments on the subject could be made.
"Yeah, yeah, alright Fluffy. We'll cut it out." Mari said. "Now what? You gonna drop me in the flowers or something?" Mari asked.
"Now why would I do a rude dastardly thing like that?" Sesshomaru asked.
"To piss me off." Mari said simply.
"Now would I be the one to do something like that?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Maybe not you, but Yasha might." Mari said mentally smirking at the bait she just laid.
"Hey! I had the bright idea to do this for you, and you go an rip on me right a way? What kind of thanks is that?" Inuyasha asked.
"I already thanked you. But really, what's going on next?" Mari asked.
"Well, we were hoping t-" Inuyasha started but was made silent by Sesshomaru wrapping his tail around his head so he could not speak.
"That, little sister, is our little secret." Sesshomaru stated with mischief in his voice.
"When will you come up with a better nick name Fluffy? I tire of being called little sister constantly." Mari mocked him and put her hand to her head as if she were going to faint.
"When I see more of your personality that isn't just joking around all the time." He told her.
"Are you sure you can't tell me what's going on after this?" She asked trying to get him to give her the slightest bit of a hint.
"Yes. What is happening after this is a, secret, secretly secreted and kept secret from all secret hounds in the palace, especially, you." Sesshomaru whispered tapping her nose to emphasize what he said last.
"Humph, you two are no fun." Mari huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, yeah, but you'll definitely like what's gonna happen better if we don't tell you." Inuyasha told her. Mari turned her head to look at the two inu-brothers behind her and stuck her tongue out angrily, to which she received a mirrored look from Inuyasha, and surprisingly, one from Sesshomaru, to that she was shocked limp and Inuyasha looked at the back of his head like he had just grown another.
"What? Can I not play along as well?" Sesshomaru asked and chuckled at the silence that responded to him.
"You can, we just wouldn't expect you to do something so 'childish, disrespectful, and strange'." Inuyasha mocked.
"What? You would rather I keep emotionless the rest of my life without knowing what the reaction of you two would be when I did act childish at points in time?" Sesshomaru asked.
"No! Fluffy, it's fun having you act childish at times, then I have more than one brother to pick on and get a response out of." Mari chuckled.
"Ya better watch it goofball or I'll make Fluffy here drop ya." Inuyasha threatened.
"You wouldn't dare." Mari said angrily.
"Try me." He teased.
"Enough. You two can really ware on a guy's nerves ya know that?" Sesshomaru interrupted.
"Woah…you never talk like that Fluffy, how come now?" Mari asked in her stupor.
"Because, I'm not exactly sure why, but it was, fun." Sesshomaru said reluctantly. Inuyasha put a hand on Sesshomaru's fore head.
"Are you sure you aren't just sick Fluffy?" He asked before testing the temperature on his own fore head.
"Relax Yasha, you know he's not sick. Just roll with it an live in the moment, it's not very often we see his playful side." Mari said and waved him off drifting into her thoughts to ignore any more talk of the subject.
"Why I augh-" Inuyasha began to say.
"Shhhhh, she's thinking and you know what happens when we pull her from her thoughts." Sesshomaru whispered to him.
"Yeah, she gets scary." Inuyasha said remembering the last time he distracted her from her thoughts, the memory made shivers run down his spine.
"Exactly, and we don't want her to be that way when we give her the other part of her welcome back." Sesshomaru told him trying not to say anything that would tip Mari off, knowing full well she could hear them when it was something she wanted to know about.
"Come on Fluffy at least give me a little hint." She said unknowingly.
"No." Was his simple answer before he started to lower them to the ground.
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