Disclaimer: No I don't own any of them, except for my own original characters.
A/N: I wrote this in about 8 hours. Wow. So as usual I'm going to tell you that it sucks. In the end you're the right and proper judges of that. But hey, at least I'm updating, eh? Work tomorrow, I'm tired as a dog. Party with computer games at my boyfriend's house this upcoming friday. I may be writing throughout the rest of the week, so soon you may expect another update, hopefully on I Miss You so that the updates will be fair. Make sure you tell me what you think!
WOAWO Review: Last chapter Shimofuri ran into some sentries sent by his great uncle Nishiyori who rules the Isei province. They wanted to detain him, Shimofuri refused and made a run for it. Nikimi was almost killed by crazy Taikokajin. She fled the castle and spread the word of Taikokajin's madness. Taikokajin tried to take Koinu by force, but Garou stepped in, taking Kagome as a host using her desire to protect Koinu. Kagome escaped the castle after battling Taikokajin, leaving her very ill, potentially dying. Inuyasha and Tsukiyume are traveling for Sesshomaru together while Shimofuri was supposed to stop Taikokajin from hurting Kagome.
If you have any Qs as usual, I am always here and waiting to answer when I have time. For updates on my status here, you can always check my profile. I do update it from time to time, usually before I update the stories. On with the tale!
Weakness
Shimofuri ran through the night, reaching his mother's lands a few hours before dawn. It was nothing short of shocking to him to realize that Nishiyori's sentries hadn't stopped following him at the border. In what should have been his territory, his home turf, Shimofuri was being chased like a fugitive.
He was the heir to the Middle Lands—running like a pup—but there was no other choice.
Near dawn the sentries fell behind, tiring. Shimofuri's body ached; the wind had left his lungs and the bare skin around his eyes, mouth, and nose into a biting, stinging cold. Snowflakes continued to fall during his journey. The ground was just chilly enough that the flakes stuck, coating the world like a topping of powdery white sugar. He stopped to bite into the stuff every few hours, trying to quench the burning thirst in his throat, made raw by the wind. The icy water made his mouth hurt, and it only seemed to make the pain in his throat worse.
As the sun came up, dawning dimly through ugly, gloomy clouds on the horizon, Shimofuri risked revealing his location to howl out to the sentries patrolling his mother's province, Nanka, seeking their help. His first calls received no responses. When he followed those first calls with a series of further calls, pleading help and proper escort, he was still met with silence. The entire province seemed silent as the snow falling out of the morose, somber skies.
Something was terribly wrong.
Shimofuri pushed his body to the extreme, but by midday he realized that the sentries had the upper hand. Without patrols to guard the Nanka province from Nishiyori's people, the leader could send in his spies and fresh sentries to replace those that had first tried to detain Shimofuri. Shimofuri was certain that this was just what had happened when the first sentries tired and fell behind the night before. Their calls had echoed dimly through the hills during the dawn hours, but Shimofuri had been so exhausted he'd hardly paid hem any mind. Now he was sure that they'd been coordinating a meeting, a replacement of the tired troops with fresh pursuers.
They would run Shimofuri into the ground, but he refused to give in. The castle grounds weren't far off, only a few hours. Shimofuri could make the journey, even if he was exhausted when he reached the place. If he could only stop his mother from harming Inuyasha's mate and pup son…
And then, even as Shimofuri could see the last hills between himself and his mother's castle, the howling started up behind him. The young heir of the Middle Lands crossed into a wide, open expanse of crop fields. It was abandoned and covered by a faint layer of snow, some of it new and powdery, the rest of it old and crusty. Shimofuri paused in this place, snapping up bits of the snow to cool his throat. As he chewed the stuff and swallowed it his throat convulsed, so raw and tired from his continual panting that it refused the freezing liquid.
Shimofuri choked and coughed up the water. The first spasms lead to a hacking choke that brought up stomach acids. The sour stink of it sent him staggering away, his mind reeling and his muscles quavering.
It's just a little further. Just a little further…
There was a loud, piercing howl from behind him. Shimofuri lifted his head, blue-gray eyes suddenly wide open. His ears were perched upright sharply for attention. The sound had come from somewhere nearby, no more than a mile or so away.
Adrenaline swamped his system. Shimofuri turned and ran like a fugitive in a prison break, like a rabbit from the wolf. He ran wildly, like a big, bushy greyhound. He leapt over the wide grooves and ditches that the human farmers used for irrigating the crops in the warmer months. Occasionally he slipped, wetting a paw or splashing his entire body into the icy, sluggish canals.
The howl came again from behind him, wavering in its high voice, but Shimofuri was sure he could pick out a triumphant, excited note in it. These were fresh sentries, likely hidden deep within his mother's lands already, lying in wait for just this moment.
Just as Shimofuri reached the center of the field, wet and panting raggedly, another cry rose up, the sound of one of the sentries pursuing him, for they were using the same call, identifying themselves as Nishiyori's servants. Shimofuri stopped running, stumbling and falling face-first into the irrigation channels mid-leap.
It was not the call that made him stop, it was where the sound came from.
It was coming from in front of him. It was blocking his path to the castle, to his mother.
Shimofuri's heart pounded wildly, he barely noticed the ice chunks floating past his legs, or the steady dribbling his bluish pelt made as the ice water trickled off him. He was doomed. The sentries had invaded his mother's land, breaching every code of conduct he could think of within the Inuyoukai clan. They were going to catch him, maybe even kill him. Inuyasha would lose his mate and his son, and as a result the enraged hanyou would execute Tsukiyume. Then he would come after Taikokajin and Shimofuri, on a wild rampage for revenge.
Shimofuri's expression hardened. His dog's eyes narrowed, his ears flattened and his tail bristled and drooped. He lowered his stance, ducking into the little valley of the canal until his chest and his chin touched the icy water. He'd fight them, however many there were, and he'd kill them if they refused to let him pass.
He'd come this far for Tsukiyume, he wasn't about to let her die now.
The sentries entered the clearing, panting their excitement. Their tongues lolled, their breath fogged in the air around their mouths like wreaths of smoke. They were warm and fresh, eager to flush out and capture the young heir of the Middle Lands like a fox hunting a rabbit. For them, mere servants and lesser youkai, to be allowed to chase down and conquer the heir of the Middle Lands, it was an honor beyond their wildest imaginings. They were ecstatic.
Two approached from behind, one male and one female, siblings—twins in fact. They were both mottled brown, looking almost like a pair of mutts. They were small demons, only about the size of Great Danes. From in front of Shimofuri there were two males, large but lithe runners. They leapt easily over the canals, noses to the ground but straining their eyes upward, searching for any sign of the young heir.
The sentries from behind would reach his hiding place first, Shimofuri thought, listening to their footsteps drawing steadily closer. The male was leading, steady and confident. He yipped under his breath, hardly able to contain his eagerness.
Shimofuri tensed, preparing to spring out and rip the male to shreds.
Suddenly the female gave a sharp, braying call and all the sentries paused. Silence descended, allowing Shimofuri to hear the gentle wind, dragging the snowflakes downward from the gloomy heavens. The water in the irrigation channel around him hissed as it passed, chugging along ever so slowly.
"Leave peasant." A woman's voice spoke now, gruffly. Shimofuri realized that the sentries had stopped and changed form, becoming bipedal. He strained his ears, trying to learn all he could and trying to think past the cold and exhaustion that plagued him. He didn't dare lift his head to look beyond the canal.
"You have no business here." The male sentry spoke now, also in a rough, tense voice. "Unless you've seen a massive beast pass through here—this very field—a blue-gray beast…"
There was another silence, a heavy, deep one, crushing like the pits of the oceans. The wind picked up howling with the voice of a banshee, perhaps announcing a late winter-early spring storm—or more likely heralding certain doom.
One of the men from in front of Shimofuri, the males blocking his route to the castle, cackled under his breath cruelly. "Stupid bitch—a mute. Humans are so useless."
His companion snorted. "They make good eating."
Shimofuri snarled silently. It was a law within the Middle Lands that Inuyoukai were supposed to be lords and rulers, guardians and masters. They were not the wild, uncontrollable demons that roamed master-less and immoral across Japan. It was true, like all youkai they were inclined to act as animals, wild and uncontrollable from time to time, but the order was explicit—humans were not to be killed as wild fodder. They were not to be eaten. They were instead like dairy cows or crops, nurtured and cared for, watched over so that they could colonize the land and grow the crops, like slaves. Even Inuyoukai, after all, were fond of rice cakes and plums, sushi and chicken. Why kill humans for meat when the humans could be used to provide such fine treats?
"Leave woman!" the brother sentry spoke again, snarling and threatening now more than bored or disgusted. "Leave or we'll kill you!"
"Brother," the female demon's voice was cautious, "She's not…"
In the silence between the female's words and her brother's realization of what she was trying to say, Shimofuri heard a baby's whimpering cry.
"She's not quite human." The brother finished in a quiet, almost awed voice.
The males in front of Shimofuri remained obnoxiously oblivious. One of them shouted, "Kill her already Ku, dammit, what are you waiting for?"
Shimofuri heard a few footsteps thumping over the ground. Unlike a normal human, the demon sentry, despite his bipedal form, leapt over the canals easily. Soon both the males were approaching the sibling couple, grumbling under their breath the whole way.
"Stop!" the brother hissed out a warning, sounding distinctly alarmed. "You idiots, stop!"
They halted, the thumping footsteps ceasing. Shimofuri remained crouched where he was, unmoving and waiting.
"The child—it's a pup." The female breathed, gasping.
"Speak!" one of the males ahead of Shimofuri shouted, growling. The siblings hissed out another warning, ordering silence, but this time the woman, creature, beast—whatever it was—that they were speaking to finally obliged their request.
"Stay away from me, demons."
Shimofuri felt a ripple of something approaching horror race through him. The voice was small and gentle, a young woman's, but deep inside it he could hear a second voice, aged and gravelly. Both voices were familiar to Shimofuri, but neither voice was where he expected it to be. One was supposed to be human and in mortal danger at the hands of his crazed mother, the other was supposed to be dead.
"She's a miko." The female said, distressed.
"Kill her!" the other, distant males shouted yet again.
"Ane—run!" the brother yelled, frantic.
There was a sudden rumble of many feet tumbling over the ground. A whirring sound that Shimofuri couldn't identify sent his body shivering anew. The hair all over his dog's body stood on edge. He sensed the strange creature's presence and felt his mind reel.
It was familiar. Shimofuri knew the aura that this creature bore. It wielded dark magic, deep and ugly, grating on his otherworldly senses. It was not identical to what he'd known before, there was something else mixed in, but it was close enough.
It was Garou.
A shriek echoed through the air, the brother sentry, Ku, had been hit, injured or killed somehow. Shimofuri smelled the blood in the air sharply. His empty stomach squeezed in on itself, but Shimofuri pushed the sickness away. The whirring sound was rising again, growing more powerful. It made Shimofuri's skin prickle just as it had before.
The males that had blocked his approach to the castle howled and ran, snarling. They'd taken on their dog forms again. They leapt over the canals, their paws tumbling over the earth, thumping for Shimofuri to hear. They were going to leap right over his spot.
Shimofuri sprang out of the canal just before they reached it, snarling immediately. He saw the males for the first time, gray and lithe bodies slick with sinuous muscle. They were runners, hunters, but their teeth were large and vicious as any guard dog's.
Startled at his abrupt appearance, the sentries swerved, snapping at him. Saliva flew wildly, frothy and slimy, but their jaws snapped on air. They stumbled, one of them falling into the canal that Shimofuri had been hiding in, the other rolling a little further away, head over paws.
Shimofuri shook out his pelt, freeing it of the ice water, and then paused, staring with his wide blue eyes at the creature that had distracted the sentries. The moment he saw it he froze, his entire body stiffening with shock and horror.
It was Inuyasha's mate, standing brush against the snowy breeze. Her skin was a sickly gray; her eyes were too dark and heavy with rings of exhaustion beneath them. Yet, in her arms, a baby was embraced almost crushingly close to her body. Only its bright silver-white hair was exposed. Occasionally a tiny dog ear flicked this way and that against the wind.
Her eyes narrowed and her face twisted as she took him in, it was a foreign expression of hatred, one so powerful that her young mortal woman's face couldn't quite contain its ugliness. It was the fierce snarl of a demon.
"Shimo-chan!"
Despite her long stay in the ancient demon's possession, Tsukiyume was strong and able-bodied, as Inuyasha was relieved to discover. Their journey after Shimofuri had left them was kept up at a surprisingly swift pace. His initial impression of the hanyou girl was one of weakness. Her fingernails were neat and trimmed, her teeth straight and white. Her clothes were a terrible mess, but underneath the dirt and the tears Inuyasha was sure he could see that the fabric had once been made of fine silks. It was a kimono worthy of a princess certainly.
The girl carried herself proudly, even with her bloodstained, dirt-covered clothes, even with the rips in it that half revealed her young body. Inuyasha had torn part of his under robe away and given it to her wordlessly. She was a bright girl, she didn't need to think long before she'd found an impromptu way to use the sliver of fabric as a belt or a tie to keep her clothing from gaping open where it'd been torn across her chest.
They hardly spoke a word to one another. Inuyasha was busy fretting over Koinu and Kagome, quietly trying to keep himself sane while they walked through the edge of the Western Lands, searching for his brother. He didn't know whether the girl respected his unspoken wish for silence, or if she merely had concerns of her own that weighed her down. Either way it left a thick, cloying silence between them. Inuyasha was both relieved by it and bothered at once.
It'd been years since he'd had to travel in just such a way, walking across the different lands, trying to keep his friends safe while collecting the Shikon Jewel Shards. But in those days there had always been someone talking. True, it hadn't always been talk aimed at him, but often just background noise of any kind was a filler, a wonderful thing to distract his weary, worrying mind.
He missed Kagome now more than he had ever thought possible. If the unthinkable happened, if he lost them…
He spent half a day fingering the hilt of Tetsuseiga, considering the next night he would be human. How many days and nights between then and now? If she really was gone, every one of those days would be agony, a slow, tortuous wait until he was mortal and weak, vulnerable.
Even with such heavy, dreadful thoughts, it was barely sunset of the second day when Inuyasha and Tsukiyume found themselves standing outside the great wall that bordered Sesshomaru's castle. Inuyasha scowled at the thing and let the girl deal with the guards that came to challenge them at the doorway.
"We've come to speak with Lord Sesshomaru." She told them; speaking with a clear, firm voice. Inuyasha sneered at the ground as he realized that the voice reminded him of the pink-eyed bitch, Tsukiyume and Shimofuri's mother. It was the same voice she'd used many times to negotiate with him.
Had she ever really negotiated with him as if he were an equal? No, she'd always been trying to deceive him, use him. Only her children had really stepped in and spared him. the politics were disgusting.
Little did he know it was only going to get worse.
"Lady Tsukiyume, daughter of Lady Taikokajin." The guard grunted, glancing between the girl and the disgruntled, depressed hanyou. "You brought Inuyasha with you."
Tsukiyume looked back at him, revealing a slight surprise in her otherwise warm, sincere eyes. "Yes, Lord Inuyasha is with me."
Inuyasha looked up, at last dimly hearing his own name. "What do you want?" he snarled.
"I don't want anything." The guard looked too pleased with himself, too smug. Inuyasha wanted to tear his teeth out, one by one. He frowned miserably and looked up at the sky, gray and gloomy.
"Lord Sesshomaru though, he's been waiting for you to come back."
Inuyasha blinked with surprise, but he refused to show the guard his reaction. Instead he turned his frown from facing the sky and redirected it to the dirt. The snow was crusted and heaped around the gates. The fresh snow was mixed with the dirt, making a cold, rough mud. It was pitted with horse hooves.
"Does he wish to see us?" Tsukiyume asked, still speaking with her adult's negotiating voice, the diplomacy voice that made Inuyasha sick to his stomach.
The guard led them inside, talking jovially as he lead them. He was apparently in a good mood. He was a human, in service to the inuyoukai clan most of his life. Dog demons, therefore, didn't frighten him. If he'd served in a different household, hanyous might have made him uncomfortable, but because this was Sesshomaru's estate, he'd run across Inuyasha before. In fact, the way he glanced back at the hanyou from time to time seemed to reveal a sort of admiration, but he said nothing and only rarely addressed Inuyasha directly.
It was probably a wise move on his part. The hanyou was more than a little sour and for good reason.
It wasn't long before Inuyasha found himself waiting for his older brother to meet them in the audience room again, only this time, instead of waiting with Shimofuri he was with Tsukiyume, another hanyou—and this time he found it was impossible for him to stand still. He paced the room like a caged animal, squeezing Tetsuseiga's hilt with one fist, while the other clenched and unclenched at his side.
Tsuki remained quiet, calm and serene. She stared at the floor, as any good and patient woman of her time was expected to.
Inuyasha cursed the delay—and his brother—up one side and down the other. And he desperately tried not to think about Kagome or Koinu and what this delay could be costing them all.
At long last the door to the audience room slid open. Inuyasha's ears flicked backward at the sound of rustling robes. Sesshomaru entered the room, tall and somber, his expression cold and stoic. His clothing was unadorned, even bland. The kimono was white, only a few kanji characters crept up one shoulder, saying his name and his heritage. Behind him Rin emerged, also wearing a very simple kimono, but hers was red, startling to Inuyasha's eye. In the otherwise bland, brownish-colored room with its squeaky floorboards and unadorned walls, Rin was stunning, like an orchid sprouting from a clump of dandelion weeds.
Tsukiyume bowed immediately, so low her forehead touched the matting she was sitting on. "Lord Sesshomaru. Lady." She didn't use Rin's name, and Inuyasha had to wonder if she even knew it. How well trained was the hanyou girl in politics anyway? How many rulers did she know and recognize by sight?
"Taikokajin's daughter." Sesshomaru responded, his voice almost bored. "I see you are well."
Inuyasha snorted, ears lying flat. Tsukiyume handled herself as a lady, in spite of the fact that her hair, her clothes, and her skin were all filthy and untended. How could she have presented herself any other way, considering she'd been a captive up until Inuyasha and Shimofuri had come and rescued her?
"So you're still the same old asshole, aren't you, Sersshomaru?" he scowled, still pacing. He'd never once bowed to his brother, whether it be in battle or in court, he refused to show respect to his brother. At this moment he felt thoroughly empowered by his brother's rudeness.
"Little brother," Sesshomaru didn't lift his golden eyes to follow his pacing sibling, "Calm yourself. As long as you do not cause trouble, this will not take long."
Inuyasha snorted but said nothing. Partly this was because it was in his interest to let things head along at a good speed, but it was also because a certain scent had caught his attention in the past thirty seconds while his brother had been speaking. The scent shared between his half-brother and Rin—the scent of mates, tender, loving, and trusting—made his innards wrench up, like a fist squeezing his guts together like the hamburger meat he'd seen Mrs. Higurashi mash up for Buyo once. The tough as nails hanyou suddenly found himself fighting a lump of grief in his throat, his eyes burning with potential tears.
He stopped pacing, frowning furiously, and kept his back to his brother and to Rin and Tsukiyume, slowly regaining his composure and praying to whatever deity he could that Sesshomaru wouldn't notice a change in his scent.
"There is a situation in the Middle Lands, currently." Sesshomaru began, bored. "The Isei province, Nishiyori's lands, have moved to overtake Taikokajin's."
Inuyasha cocked one ear, listening not so much to his brother's words as to the tones and the lack of titles his brother was using. Instead of calling the ruler of the Isei province "Lord" such and such, he called him simply Nishiyori. He treated Taikokajin the same way. It could have been a simple matter that Sesshomaru truly didn't care about their titles, but it could also denote Sesshomaru's lack of respect for the rulers and the entire Inuyoukai clan.
"My mother would never allow it." Tsukiyume responded, apparently alarmed to hear of Nishiyori's uprising. "She knows how to deal with Lord Nishiyori…"
"Your mother is a fool." Sesshomaru said, coldly. There was a pause, and in it Inuyasha heard Rin clear her throat, wordlessly telling her mate that he was being too harsh with the hanyou girl. When Sesshomaru spoke again his voice was softened slightly, but still uncaring and remote. "Taikokajin is reputedly out of her mind—and dying now as well."
Inuyasha cursed, "Damn."
"You wish to add something, little brother?" Sesshomaru asked. There was a quiet tone to his voice that told Inuyasha that the proper answer to that particular question was NO.
As usual, he ignored that suggestion. "I wanted to kill that bitch myself!" even as he said it he twisted around awkwardly, aware that he was talking about young Tsukiyume's mother.
To her credit, Tsukiyume said nothing, merely bore his words stoically as a proper Inuyoukai should have.
"Contain yourself, brother." Sesshomaru murmured, with a noticeable amount of disgust in his voice.
"How does this Nishiyori guy have anything to do with me?" Inuyasha demanded, at last feeling confident enough to whirl around and face Sesshomaru and the others without giving in to his feelings of grief.
"He will be searching for young Shimofuri. He will also not take kindly to unknown trespassers, especially not half-demons." The Inuyoukai lord's golden eyes narrowed, but his voice remained unchanged as he spoke. Even so, both Tsukiyume and Inuyasha twitched and squirmed at his words, uncomfortably.
"What do you want us to do, Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha growled, scowling at the floor and flattening his ears. As almost an afterthought he added quietly, as if to himself, "I just want to go home."
Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed down to horizontal slits of gold, like the sun peeking over the horizon. A rare full expression transformed his face into frown that was not unlike Inuyasha's. "I trust you both to slip through and reach Shimofuri in time, nefore Nishiyori tries to imprison him or kill him. When you find him, tell him that I will be coming to visit him soon."
Inuyasha snorted, "Why's that so important?"
Rin shifted uncomfortably from her corner by the door, bowing slightly. "What my lord means to say is that he will support Lord Shimofuri in this war. He will provide young Shishi-sama with troops and supplies to defeat Nishiyori."
The mood in the room was abruptly tense; the silence between the four for of them was full of thought. Inuyasha thought of Sesshomaru's lack of titles, and the sudden alliance with a young lord in the clan. Sesshomaru hated the Inuyoukai clan—why suddenly would he step into a civil war? Why was he supporting Shimofuri? He might've asked why Sesshomaru was choosing sides, but again Rin's female scent reached him, reminding him painfully of Kagome.
Struggling with his emotions again, the hanyou turned away from the others, snarling, "Can we get the hell out of here now? I'll tell that stupid kid whatever the hell you want me to, Sesshomaru."
"Inuyasha."
"What the hell is it now, Sesshomaru?" the hanyou blustered, still without turning to facing them.
"You're worried about your mate, and the pup, are you not?"
Inuyasha's ears flattened, his fists tightened into thick balls of rage. His muscles shook, quivering as he strove to keep himself restrained. Somehow, through nothing short of a miracle, he didn't say anything.
"There is no need for your worry, Inuyasha. The word I've received from the Nanka province is that the one that left Taikokajin on her deathbed was a human woman, a miko that Taikokajin—the fool—was keeping captive." Sesshomaru was almost smug, amazingly, "She has escaped, with a child."
"If you're lying…" Inuyasha's voice was low, dangerous, rising out of his chest in a deep, throaty way that was more of a growl than actual language. He was a wronged father and mate, desperate and afraid to risk hoping.
"Believe what you want, brother, but it is best that you be on your way." He bowed to Tsukiyume and they began exchanging formal goodbyes, in her corner Rin was already crouched again in a bow, sliding open the door for her mate as he passed through.
When she was alone with them both for a moment, Rin stared out unabashedly at the emotional hanyou and the cold, stiff Tsukiyume. Her face was soft and warm, full of a would-be mother's gentleness and empathy. "I am dearly sorry to you both—Tsukiyume, for your mother, for the trouble your brother must face, for the pain it must cause you."
She looked then to Inuyasha and bowed. Her hair, loose and long around her shoulders, slipped forward and shrouded her face like a black curtain. "Inuyasha—I wish you the best of luck in finding your mate and your son, alive and well. May it be then that all this trouble between us is over."
With one last, timid smile, she slipped through the sliding screen door and closed it behind her, leaving Tsukiyume and Inuyasha both to their separate grievances and urgencies.
"Shimo-chan!"
It spoke with a voice that was not the woman's, but Shimofuri recognized it as being Garou's easily. His fur bristled and bushed all over his body.
The males, having gotten back onto their paws, stared between Shimofuri and the strange woman with the impossible demon's voice, perplexed. Which one should they kill now?
The female demon was in human form, kneeling beside the battered, burned, and bloody form of what had once been her brother, some distance away. Her face was pinched terribly, but she didn't cry. Her eyes were not even moist. None of the demons watched her or took note as she looked between her fallen brother and the strange miko woman that had destroyed him.
"You should be most pleased, Shimo-chan." Garou smiled viciously using the young woman's features, "I've just promoted you."
Shimofuri moved slowly, his paws crunching the snow as he moved further away from both Inuyasha's demon-possessed mate, and the sentries that had been chasing him up until moments ago. He tried to keep himself from listening to the thing's taunts, but a part of his heart seized up, anticipating the demon's words.
"You would kill this little human bitch to get at me?" the thing leered and held the pup in its arms a little tighter. "You can't touch me and you know it. You're so wrapped up with obligations, rights and wrongs—weakness…"
The sister to the fallen male sentry, Ane, suddenly leapt for the thing, snarling in her true form. Inuyasha's mate lifted one arm, palm facing the leaping inuyoukai, and a whirring sound began at once. Bright, glowing purple-black energy formed there, in the human woman's palm. It burst out from her, smashing into the leaping inuyoukai woman, coating her. Ane fell away, yipping and shrieking in pain. Her body was alight with the purplish flames, it flickered, half in and half out of her true and bipedal forms. At last she fell to the frozen earth, silent. The glow of purple fire around her diminished almost at once.
The males, seeing this, turned tail and ran away without looking back. They howled frantically with a retreat call. Their paws kicked up snow and hard, chilled dirt behind them. In a moment they'd made it to the tree line and had vanished into it, no more than shadows.
Shimofuri paced along the edge of the groove he'd taken refuge in, staring at the abomination before him. Neither human nor demon, and holding Inuyashas's child in its arms. He knew if he tried to run Garou would use the miko's power, alongside his own dark magic, to strike him down in his tracks. If he stayed Shimofuri could barely dream what the monster would want or what it would say.
"Poor little fool," Garou cackled, but midway through his following words the voice changed, becoming feminine and softer. "You're trapped while I'm free. But don't be sad little Shimo-chan." It smiled now, and sickeningly the expression was almost human. "You have what you want, and I have what I want."
It lifted the pup into the air and tweaked the tiny white dog ears lovingly.
Shimofuri stopped his pacing and closed his eyes, reaching deep within himself to dredge up his bipedal form. In a moment he was standing tall and proud, fully robed in his blue-gray kimono before the tiny, sickly woman.
"Why are you doing this, Garou? You must have more honor than this. You've lost, why make the miko suffer? Why the pup?" he was proud of how calm his voice was, how the words, though they made no sense really, would possibly slow Garou enough to allow Shimofuri to come up with a plan.
The beast answered with both its normal, masculine voice, and the feminine voice of Inuyasha's mate. "We will do anything to survive!"
Shimofuri narrowed his eyes on the woman, watching the way her fingers worked over the baby's ears, gently, smoothly. She moved and held the baby like a real mother. Could Garou understand how to care for a child? Could he be gentle enough to still the child's crying? Shimofuri doubted it. The demon had left the miko partially in control of her body, partially still trapped within her crazed, weakened mind.
He searched his memory, finding woman's name as Inuyasha had told it to him. "Kagome," he called, and was rewarded when the woman's head jerked spasmodically, quirking to listen. Her eyes seemed to lighten, focusing on him more clearly. Her grasp on the baby tightened down more protectively. "You love your pup, do you not?"
"I do." It was the woman's voice, quiet and hoarse that responded, "She was going to take Koinu away from me."
"I know," Shimofuri sighed, feeling his innards sink, "She won't anymore. Inuyasha is coming for you. You remember Inuyasha, right? Your mate, you remember him, right?"
Her face rippled and Shimofuri saw a few muscles spasm throughout her body. She was fighting for control with Garou. She said, almost breathlessly, "I remember Inuyasha. He left…"
"He's coming back, he sent me here to help you…"
A jolt seemed to pass through the miko, her face pinched up, as if she'd tasted something sour. When she spoke her voice was marred by Garou's again. "How can I believe you?"
"I have no reason to lie to you, Lady Inuyasha. Inuyasha is my cousin, great and powerful, I—"
A sneer stole over Kagome's once pretty face. "You have reason enough. I killed your mother."
Now it was Shimofuri's turn to feel a jolt pass through him. "You…killed my mother?"
The sneer turned to a vicious smile. "Why so upset, Shimo-chan? I've handed the Middle Lands to you on a silver-platter! All this—" Garou gestured with Kagome's hands to the bitter, snowy wind that covered the abandoned little rice field, "is now yours. Home sweet home."
Shimofuri was almost frightened by the stillness that settled over his bones, heavy and cold. "You killed my mother?"
"Did I say kill, Shimo-chan? Oops, I meant left her to suffer and then die." it seemed impossible, but somehow the thing's grin leered still bigger, "Go, hurry. Maybe there's still time for you to say goodbye to her before she goes back to hell."
He stared at the thing, speechless, torn up inside with how to react to this news. Desperately he searched himself, looking for some inward twinge of pain that would whisper of his mother's suffering out there, somewhere, alone.
The thing grinned sadistically and turned its back on him, ready to leave the field and continue its journey. "You can thank me later, Shimo-chan."
Inuyasha's mate started to walk away, slowly, on dainty feet. She stepped into the canals and crossed them carefully, always at the narrowest part. Shimofuri watched her go, torn apart inside. He had to watch after Inuyasha's mate or he'd have to face his cousin's wrath, and the death of Tsukiyume on his shoulders. Yet, at the same time, he didn't dismiss Garou's words. Taikokajin was in her castle, alone, dying.
In spite of all the craziness around him, the whole of the Middle Lands crashing and burning to bits it seemed, Shimofuri was helpless to deny the fact that for all her faults, Taikokajin was his mother. She'd loved him all his life, nursed him as a pup, sung to him after his nightmares as a very young child…
He was a slave to his emotions, caught forever by them, trapped by them the same way that an ancient bee is caught by tree sap and doomed to die as it swallows him whole. The same as Kagome's very own need to survive and keep her child alive and with her had at last driven her into Garou's clutches.
At long last, Shimofuri turned away from Kagome's receding form and face the castle. He fought the bitter sting in his eyes, unshed tears. How weak he was, just as Garou had said.
In a moment he'd retaken the form of the dog and was bounding through the field, leaving a trail of scuffed snow behind him.