A/N: I'm worried about this chapter and really ticked
cuz the website ate the whole bunch of crap I'd just did to this
chapter. :-(. Anyway, I am worried about this chapter b/c I'm afraid
IY's outburst at the near-end it too harsh. I'm posting it anyway with
that warning. That and language. Inuyasha is pretty frustrated. I dunno, write in and tell me if I'm wrong so I cna change it for further readers.
Disclaimer: I do not own him.
Chapter Review: Last chapter Tsukiyume stopped Kagome's mad, possessed rampage. Inuyasha and Tsukiyume took her to Miroku, who did as much as he possibly could, which amounted to keeping Kagome in control of her body, but leaving Garou's pesky soul still inside. As a result he is slowly killing her and making he life miserable like he promised. Like a cancer. Shimofuri is worried about his sister, his uncle Sasugainu has sorta given us the impresison that maybe she is dead. Taikokajin is still dying, she's waiting for Tsukiyume to return. Sesshomaru has decided he will support Shimofuri in the civil war against Nishiyori.
Scorn
The screen door slid open with a crash, knocked clean off its track by the force of the energy behind the blow that had opened it. Healers and maids stopped as one, staring at the door with widened, frightened eyes. They were all human, employed by rich clan families to tend the sick or old or dying.
The healer woman, a Shinto priestess of some kind, who'd greeted Shimofuri and Sasugainu earlier when they'd visited now scurried over to the door, half-blocking the newcomer's entry. She bowed apologetically, "This room is contaminated by sickness and blood—"
The tall, proud form of a male inuyoukai shouldered uncaringly past her. "Silence."
A few of the maids, knelt solemnly at the bedside of their dying matriarch, scooted forward on their knees, half-bowing. They spoke all at once, trying to convince the unannounced visitor to leave. They had been in the middle, in fact, of wrapping Taikokajin's burned, bleeding and scalded body.
"Shishi-sama, please, Lady Taikokajin is not fit for guests at this time—"
The gray-blue eyes of the young heir narrowed angrily. "Get out."
The Shinto healer again appeared in front of him, bowing. "You cannot see her like this…"
"She's my mother, I'll see her however I wish." Shimofuri snarled and, with little warning, he pushed the healer aside, so forcefully that she stumbled and fell to the floor with a cry.
The bed maids cowered now, seeing his fierceness. They moved away, letting him through, in favor of going to aid the fallen healer. Shimofuri ignored them and moved to his mother's bedside.
She was covered now only by a thin sheet. Small water bowls lied alongside her bed, sponges or clothes draped over the side saturated with water. The servants had been giving her a sponge bath before he'd interrupted them. The water was laced with minerals and herbs, things to hopefully fight infection. Linen bandages were also strewn about here and there, some partially unwound. Taikokajin's arms were spread wide. The crackled, blistered skin there was moist and covered by bandages in places. They had been bathing her arms and rewrapping them…
Slowly Shimofuri worked up the nerve to look at his mother's face. It was bandaged heavily, leaving only the narrow spot for her eyes open. The bandages, white linens before they were wound around her head, were now a wet, sickly gray. The burns covering her skin were weeping, oozing some substance that the bandages absorbed. Whether it was a good or bad sign for his mother Shimofuri couldn't say.
He turned away and looked back at the maids and the healer. "Leave us, get out."
The healer protested, staring him brazenly in the eye. "She has not spoken in hours, shishi-sama. You will get nothing from her! You must leave this room—unless…"
He growled aloud, knowing what she was trying to say. If he'd come to end her life then by all means he was welcome in the room, but if he was there for any other reason and allowing her to live…
"Get out!" he roared, surprising even himself with the fullness and power in his voice.
Even as the healer and the maids cowered at his order, and tried shuffling toward the door obediently, Taikokajin made a gasping sound where she lied on the bed, drawing Shimofuri's attention immediately. He paused, tense, waiting for the maids and the healer to go, running down the hall crying to themselves, before he at last went back to Taikokajin's side.
"Haiseishoku!" she choked his father's name out, frantically. Her arms moved on the bed, trailing half-wound bandages. Her fingertips were bandaged; she touched Shimofuri's face and neck with one of these hands. It made Shimofuri scowl to think that at this moment he would not be able to tell by texture the scrap of the linen bandages from his mother's own scorched flesh.
"It's me," he murmured quietly, "Mother, it's Shimofuri."
Her pink eyes were wide and unseeing in the narrow strip of her face that wasn't bandaged. "Haiseishoku…" she whispered again.
"No, it's Shimofuri." He closed his eyes and pressed his face into her touch, hoping perhaps that she would somehow know him by touch to be different from his long-since dead father.
"You asked to see Tsuki again." he told her, his voice starting to crumble, "The scouts can find no sign of her. She may be dead, Mother. Our cousin, Inuyasha, he might have killed her." Pressure was building behind his closed eyes. "You were so foolish! Mother, why did you bring him into this? Why did keep his mate, his child here? Look what it's done to you—and you haven't even saved Tsukiyume!"
"Haiseishoku!" she said it more loudly this time, her fingers on his face moved with more speed, probing his lips as he spoke, his nose, his eyes.
"This is Shimofuri, Mother, this is your son…" a few shameful tears at last broke out, slipping down his cheeks. His mother's bandaged fingers touched on the moisture, the linens absorbed the moisture. "Please!"
Her fingers lost their energy, slipping away from his face to rest momentarily on his shoulder. When she spoke again it was quiet and almost lost in the muffling that the bandages gave her already thin voice. "Haiseishoku…"
Anger twisted and marred Shimofuri's handsome, young face. His chin and lips trembled for a moment as he fought with himself internally, and then finally lost control.
"You killed him, Mother! You killed Haiseishoku! He's dead, just like you will be soon! Just like everyone in our family is dead because of you!"
Blindly he slapped his mother's hand away from his shoulder and opened his clouded gray eyes to glare at her helpless, senseless husk of a body. He froze, however, when he saw that her pink gaze was no longer fixed and unseeing, she had focused on him firmly. He stared back at her, as if momentarily their positions had reversed and he was the one on his deathbed, but then he made an involuntary choking sound in his throat and fumbled, searching for her hand again.
"I'm sorry, Mother, so sorry…"
"Forgive me." Taikokajin murmured, faintly. Her eyes slid closed and then opened in slow motion, as if weighed down with a heavy burden. "Haiseishoku."
"I can't forgive you for him." Shimofuri muttered, allowing the bitterness to creep into his voice. "But you have to tell me, Mother. Please. Tell me you will allow me to end your suffering…"
"Tsuki…" Taikokajin moaned her daughter's name; her eyes were wide again, unseeing again.
"She's dead, Mother." Again Shimofuri closed his eyes, his face twisted with anger. "You can't wait for the dead…"
To his shock she answered him. "I can."
Silently, Shimofuri stared at his mother, his chin quivering with grief, his eyes alight with frustration and rage. His tears had vanished at last, suppressed with the darker more acceptable emotion of anger. "Let me release you."
The pink eyes drifted shut. "You cannot."
He gripped her hand in his, hard. His shoulders shook with emotion. "You will suffer then, Mother. You'll suffer this way, humiliate yourself and our family until the sickness from your burns takes you. You'll be mad with fever; you'll thirst and hunger but never be satisfied. The sickness will take you, slowly, and add threefold as much pain to your death as an honorable death…" he dropped his head, almost as if he were praying. "Please, let me do this, let me help you."
He struggled with the pressure behind his eyes, the lump of ice that seemed to choke him in his throat, the writhing, heavy pain in his chest when he thought of her lying as she was as the hours passed, suffering. And yet the thought of killing her, of driving his blade into her, that too sickened him with heartache. No choice was an easy one for him, but he would gladly suffer a little and take the way out that released her from her torture the swiftest…
Her next words froze him once again with shock: "Tsuki will do it."
"Tsuki…?" he stared at her closed eyes, mouth agape with shock. He fought with his shock, his wild emotions—and failed. "Tsuki would not have the strength to do it. And she is dead!"
Taikokajin's head moved minutely on the bed, the tiniest fractional movement. "No, she lives."
"The scouts can't find her; there has been no sign of Inuyasha—"
"She lives." Taikokajin insisted. "Find Inuyasha. She is with him."
Shimofuri frowned, withdrawing from his mother slightly. As bizarre as her words sounded, Shimofuri could not disobey her and kill her. Some sons might've believed Taikokajin was insane, babbling deliriously, but Shimofuri, even at his wit's end and at the verge of a mental breakdown himself, could not bring himself to kill her, no matter how crazy she sounded.
Her hand fell limp on the bedspread then, the eyes squeezed tightly shut. She cried out, "Kokoro!"
The sound of footsteps reached Shimofuri from the hall. He stiffened and brought one arm up to his face, using the sleeve to wipe away his tears. Carefully, he composed his features into a cold mask. Anger he used as a crutch and let it show through in his gray eyes.
"Shimofuri!" it was his uncle's voice, worried and hurried.
"What do you want?" Shimofuri answered, without turning away from his mother's bedside. He made sure the tone he used was irritated and almost rude.
"Sesshomaru has arrived to see you."
It was after dusk when Kagome awoke, slowly. Her vision was blurred, her head pounding. She moaned weakly and rolled over, blinking to try and see where she was. There was something that niggled in her mind, something very much not right. When she moved her arms, running them feebly along her own body in an exploratory manner, it dawned on her what that thing was…
Koinu wasn't with her.
"Koinu!" she shrieked, pushing herself bolt upright in the dark room. Then she fell back, hissing and crying with the pain that swarmed in her skull. It was everywhere, reaching from the back of her eyes up and over the dome of her head and then down to her neck. When she tried to see through that pain there was nothing but a white blur, she saw stars.
But she could hear a baby crying, her panic eased slightly.
"Kagome?"
The voice was Inuyasha's, she realized, worried and hesitant.
"I'm here—Inuyasha? What's happened? Where are we? Do you have Koinu? Is he hungry?" she frowned at how weak her voice was, how hard it was to say those things, how hard it was to even think clearly through the pain in her head. As she breathed, in and out, in and out, it slowly lessened until it was only a faint ache in her temples.
"We're home." Inuyasha's voice was guarded, that troubled her.
Kagome opened her eyes again, narrowing them and trying to see the room more clearly. He was telling the truth. It was their bedroom, small but still specious. A lacquer dresser in one corner, the smell of some scented candles she'd brought through the well years ago, their shared futon below her tired, aching body.
She grunted with effort, twisting herself around and rolling over again, trying to find the source of Koinu's cries and Inuyasha's voice. When she found him she frowned, troubled. He was sitting as he had while they were hunting Naraku and the Shards of the Shikon Jewel: against a wall, knees drawn up to his chest, honey-colored eyes narrow and brooding. Koinu was perched between his father's knees and his chest, facing Kagome and reaching for her frustratedly with his tiny clawed hands.
"Inuyasha?" she queried, worried. "What's going on…?"
The hanyou's white ears flattened. "You're…sick, Kagome. What do you remember?"
She searched her mind, drawing mostly a blank. At any rate she couldn't think clearly at all with Koinu's screams. She frowned and tried to push herself up to her feet again—only to cry out and fall back to the futon, holding her head.
Koinu's cries rang shrilly in her ears, magnifying her pain several times over. When at last the wave of pain was over she was shivering and sweaty. Nausea rumbled in her stomach. Inuyasha's right, I am sick…
But thoughts of herself were still outweighed by Koinu's desperate screaming. She thrust out her arms, "Give him to me!"
From her hanyou there was only silence. She tried to peak at him again and saw that he was staring at her warily. There was a tight set to his jaw that she didn't like. Real fear began to awaken within her. "Inuyasha…?"
"What do you remember?" Inuyasha demanded again. He shifted Koinu, cuddling the pup and stroking him. Koinu's cries quieted slightly.
Kagome took several long, calming breaths, searching her memory. "I remember…Mom. I remember Momma and Gramps and taking Koinu to see them." She smiled into the mattress, sighing with nostalgia for those memories. Somehow, though she couldn't remember anything clearly, she knew that those memories were weeks old, not from a day or two ago as her mind seemed to want to believe…
"Do you remember being attacked?"
Kagome stared at him again through the darkness of the room, but her eyes weren't really seeing him. She was remembering, slowly.
Hojo had come by. She'd tried to hide Koinu's ears from him, but the pup had hated the cap she used. Hojo had seen the ears, remembered Inuyasha…she'd tried to tell him the truth. There'd been a presence in the well house. A strange magic that had called to her. She'd gone to find out what it was and then…
Something burst out of the well, seeming to fly. It was like a raven or a crow, dark as the nighttime and foul, she could sense death coming not far behind it. There'd been pain in her head, she remembered choking, feeling her feet lifted off the ground, and Koinu's screams, always screaming…
Her body started to shake involuntarily at the memories. "Yes, I remember..."
Inuyasha's ears drooped where he sat against the wall several feet away. "I wasn't there to save you."
Kagome didn't hear his words; her mind was fast rushing, replacing the memories that had been pushed aside, buried. She'd been living in a dream for so long—she was still at home, sleeping with Koinu, talking with her mother, her brother, or Gramps…but in reality it was a fabrication her mind was forced into when the shadow in the dark had leapt into her body…
Lying, suffering, dirty, starving, and in pain. Buried beneath white furs that might as well have been her funeral shroud. Koinu was always crying in the background, calling for her, but she was too weak to respond. Then the dark creature had come, circling her like a shark, baiting her. It lied to her, telling her things about Inuyasha and the pink-eyed she-demon—Taikokajin. She could remember fighting Taikokajin, fighting to save herself and Koinu—and then there was the beast in the shadows again, promising to save Koinu, to set her free. She'd refused but it had taken her anyway…
The pain of that event took hold of her, making Kagome cry out and whimper with shock and fear. Her body quivered, her fists clenched spasmodically. Tiny mewling sounds of agony started in her throat.
Inuyasha called after her, and dimly she heard his feet pound over the floor until he was beside her. His touch on her was hesitant, cautious. And as the pain finally subsided, she was full of a different kind of hurting as she realized what had happened and why Inuyasha was so wary of her…
"I tried to kill you, didn't I?" she choked, letting the tears come. "I'm so sorry, Inuyasha."
His arms at last closed around her, she felt his shuddering sigh, his warm breath. There was infinite comfort and love in his touch, and Kagome was grateful. She clung to him crying softly into the dirty and very familiar red haori.
Koinu was crying, crawling across the floor from where Inuyasha had left his little son by the wall. As Kagome slowly registered his cries another terrible thought gripped her heart, making her chest constrict with horror.
"Did I try to hurt Koinu?" she demanded, grabbing old of Inuyasha's arms and pushing him back, searching for his face.
The hanyou was frowning, but he shook his head slowly in response. "No. He was the one thing you tried to protect."
She sagged, deflating with relief and exhaustion. "Thank you," she whispered, but it was not certain who she was thanking, whether it was Inuyasha or some higher power. "Let me hold him, he must be hungry…"
Inuyasha stiffened at her words and Kagome felt her stomach tighten with dread. She asked, "Inuyasha? Why won't you trust me with our son?"
There was a bit of a pause before he at last heaved a sigh and answered her, "As long as he was with me you couldn't kill me. You didn't want me to have him."
She squeaked, a tiny noise of misery in her throat. "My baby…" she stretched out one arm towards Koinu on the floor and the baby clambered over to her eagerly, reaching out for her.
"He…uh," Inuyasha stammered a little, sounding mildly embarrassed, "Sango tried to feed him but he won't—it didn't work."
Koinu clambered, with a little help from his mother, onto the futon. His crying had ceased but he had only one thing on his mind: food. Kagome tried to sit up once more, this time slowly—but the pain came on nonetheless, stealing her breath and knocking her flat to the futon again. She moaned and writhed through it, holding her head with both hands. Koinu watched her with wide, fearful eyes. After a moment when she didn't recover immediately, he looked to his father and began to howl again.
When the pain had diminished, Kagome was left breathing roughly, shaking. "What's wrong with me…?" she choked on the words, nearly crying.
"You're sick." Inuyasha answered, his voice was deep and cold. When Kagome twisted her head to look at him—slowly so as not to bring on the strange pain—she saw that he was staring ahead with unfocused, angry eyes. There was a lot more that he hadn't told her, she realized.
Although she felt like crying, or perhaps shouting at the hanyou until he explained everything at length and in detail, Koinu came first. She reached out and pulled the pup close to her. Without sitting up she brought Koinu onto her stomach—only to nearly drop him out of her weak fingers.
Despair might've been the reaction one would've expected from the young mother, but instead of giving in as she stared at her shaking fingers and hands, Kagome cursed with anger. "Dammit!"
This seemed to at last draw Inuyasha out of whatever strange mood he'd been in. The hanyou reached for Kagome's clothes—they were filthy, torn, bloodied, ragged—and he started to rip them off her. At first Kagome squeaked, a little surprised, but as she her eyes focused on the clothes she realized that they weren't hers. She tried to remember how she'd gotten them but her mind drew a blank.
Koinu needed no encouragement or help for that matter when he saw what had finally, finally been exposed. He nuzzled into his mother and immediately began to nurse. Kagome touched his tiny ears, examined his hands and feet. As she stroked his hair the pup made eye contact with her and his ears perked up, coming to attention. He stretched a little, reaching for her face while he suckled. She offered him one of her fingers to hold and he took it, squeezing with surprising strength.
Inuyasha left her side momentarily, tossing aside the ripped and dirtied clothes he'd stripped off of Kagome's body and digging out a winter blanket to throw over them. His expression softened at last as he watched his wife and son interact normally, but when he scented Kagome's tears again his ears turned backward unhappily.
"Pain again?" he asked, frowning.
She shook her head—slowly he noticed with a pang of concern. Whether she admitted it or not she was always in pain…would always be in pain…
"I'm not normal yet, am I?" she asked, meeting his amber eyes with tears in her own warm brown.
His ears drooped hopelessly, but when he spoke it was with anger. "That damned thing—it won't die!"
Kagome's eyes were glazed, reliving a memory. "The thing in the dark, the thing that took over me…" her voice choked a little and grew weaker as she finished her thought, "The thing that made me try to kill you."
Inuyasha scoffed, trying to make her feel better. "I'm fine. It's gonna take more than that to kill me." He hazarded a grin, revealing his fangs glittering dimly, "You were hardly trying Kagome!"
She tried to laugh but it sounded more like a choked sob. "How did you…?"
He scowled. "The hanyou girl—the pink bitch's daughter—she stopped you. We brought you here then and Miroku put some spells on you…but—" he broke off, looking away. His face was remarkably stony in that moment, frightening Kagome, until she made out the tiny quivering in his chin, some sign of his grief.
"Inuyasha? What is it?" she knew from his demeanor, from some unspoken signal, that whatever was still wrong with her—it was a great distress to him. That meant it was serious. The pain would never go away. Perhaps it would even get worse.
"It isn't really gone yet." He blustered, reacting again with anger. "Stupid fucker!" but when he looked back at her his eyes were too bright. And in that moment she knew that whatever was wrong with her, Inuyasha had been told it was fatal and he believed it. "We'll find a way—don't look at me like that!"
Despite his harsh tone, Kagome smiled, though she was still crying. "I know you will, Inuyasha. I know you will."
The household suffered from a chilly atmosphere. It especially didn't help that the night outside was miserable and cold. Wind shook the screens, invading every crack to make the occupants shiver.
Kohimu and Tisoki huddled together with Shippo, watching the adults with wide, concerned eyes. Tisoki had finally managed to contain his crying, but he appeared always at the edge of erupting into tears again. Kohimu and Shippo were the most focused, listening intently to the troubled adults.
Kasai, barely old enough to walk, was toddling about near Sango who watched her daughter carefully while her ears were tuned entirely to Inuyasha and Miroku's conversation. Their "hostage" the hanyou girl Tsukiyume, sat opposite Sango. Her hands were folded into her lap and she stared resolutely at them, scowling.
"She's awake?" Miroku was asking Inuyasha, quietly.
"Yeah—and she's in pain. She can't even sit up in bed." The hanyou's ears were tucked tightly on his head, his mouth set in a frown and his eyes weren't truly seeing, they were glazed and troubled.
"You left Koinu with her." Miroku observed aloud.
Sango turned her head at that. "Is he nursing?"
Inuyasha nodded. "Koinu's fine. Even the thing didn't want to hurt Koinu." He frowned, trying to understand why that was. Had it just been the deal he had half-struck with Kagome? Inhabitation of her body in trade for Koinu's survival and wellbeing? Or was there more? He knew Garou wanted him dead and it fed on hanyous. Taikokajin had originally told him that Garou was after them because a prophecy had foretold that a hanyou from Inutaisho's line would be the one to kill him, but Inuyasha had long since concluded that to be a lie.
Tsukiyume cleared her throat then, timidly. All eyes turned to her, with the exception of Kasai who was gnawing on the small, wooden leg of the table in the sitting room.
"The demon that possessed her was looking for the impossible—a male inuhanyou. To make it even more impossible he was looking for one that was from a specific clan—our clan, Inutaisho's line." She turned her orange eyes toward Inuyasha and her own white dog ears flicked uncertainly. "Male hanyou are very, very rare. They almost always die before they are born or just after. But he had his chance—he still has it, he won't give up."
Inuyasha began cursing colorfully for a moment so Miroku asked, "Why does he need a male inuhanyou?"
"And why the fuck does he keep telling me I can make Koinu immortal?" Inuyasha snarled, scowling.
Tsuki stared at her hands in her lap again. "It wouldn't be Koinu that was immortal. Koinu's soul is young, he would push it out of his body and take it for his own." She looked at Inuyasha squarely, without expression, "He is probably the only child of a male inuhanyou ever to exist. That uniqueness would draw Garou to the child as his next host."
"Like hell!" Inuyasha shouted, and at once began to pace, muttering to himself.
"Why has he done all of this? And…" Sango scowled, "How do you know this?"
"He is cursed, his whole kind are cursed. The animals they represent no longer walk this world." She shuddered and looked away, suddenly appearing very small and fragile. "He survived by stealing the souls of hanyous. I would've been one of those if my mother and brother hadn't come after me—that's how I know. To break the curse he needs Inuyasha or his child. And now that we've destroyed his original body he'll take Koinu as his new host…" she started to shiver and blinked rapidly, fighting tears of remembered horror. "I've seen the inside of his mind…"
"How the hell do we get rid of this bastard?" Inuyasha demanded, staring pointedly at Tsuki. "You've helped before…" he challenged her silently with his eyes.
Tsukiyume turned her face away, her voice shook a little. "I am merely a tool for my father's spirit. He was a powerful monk named Kokoro." She sighed, "I was visiting his grave when that thing took me. His spirit has traveled with me ever since, stepping in to help. I have no control over it."
She shifted and faced Miroku, Sango, and Inuyasha now more directly. "I must go home soon, please." Her eyes were full of tears, "Lord Sesshomaru gave us the message we were to bring to Shimofuri—and Mother, he said she was dying…"
Although Miroku and Sango all looked sympathetic, Inuyasha had no pity. He pinned Tsukiyume with a hard, firm gaze. "Tough."
Sango and Miroku both frowned but they made no move to object just yet. Inuyasha saw their expressions and his ears flattened, his face twisted into a dangerous, bitter snarl. "My mother was murdered in front of me, Tsukiyume," he spat, "And she was killed because she was my mother. And now my mate is dying and it's your mother's fault. So you know what? I don't give a fuck."
Tsukiyume flinched at his words, biting her lip and staring into her lap. She made no sound but tears fell into her lap and her shoulders shook slightly.
Silence reigned in the room, thick and heavy. The children were the first to break it with Tisoki making a choked sound in the back of his throat. Shippo wore an unusually hard expression on his face, staring between Tsuki and Inuyasha. Kohimu was staring at the floor, his warm brown eyes, just like Sango's, were sad and grief stricken.
On the floor Kasai sat up clumsily and a little too fast, slamming her head into the underside of the table. She fell over and at once began to bawl. Sango reached for her daughter and scooped her into her lap, shushing her.
Miroku sighed, burying his face in his hands. "Inuyasha?"
"What?" the hanyou snapped, clearly still in a vicious, cruel mood.
"It is wrong to blame this girl…"
Sango looked up from her screaming child, nodding her agreement. "Miroku's right, Inuyasha. Blaming her will do nothing to help anyone."
Tsukiyume stayed like a statue, frozen. Only the occasional careening teardrop, shining like a jewel, revealed that she still lived.
Snarling, Inuyasha turned his back on all of them. "Fuck it." he muttered and stomped off, heading for the bedroom where he'd left Kagome and Koinu. He was too angry, too bitter, too helpless to think clearly. Tsukiyume was not to blame, but in his rage she was a symbol, a target. And he was desperate, hoping above all else that she would suddenly step forward, possessed creepily again by her father's spirit, and cure Kagome.
So far it hadn't been happening.
Sango pushed herself up off the floor, still holding Kasai. She looked pointedly at the other children, Kohimu, Tisoki and Shippo and sighed. It was a shame, she thought, that they were introduced so young to such terrible things, such terrible words…
"Time for us to go to sleep." She ordered them. As she passed Miroku she touched his cheek, a small sign of her love and affection, and then she and the children were gone, leaving Miroku sitting with the hanyou girl in the sitting room. The wind howled outside fitfully, rattling the roof tiles and the screens on the windows.
Finally Miroku sighed. His violet eyes were dark and troubled. "You can stay here tonight, if you wish—or you can leave right away. The decision is yours."
Tsukiyume's ears drooped. She spoke in a tiny, childlike voice. "I'll stay here."
"You don't have to, Inuyasha is just…not in is right mind this night. Go to your family." He tried to smile at her, to offer her something other than unfriendliness. "It's the right thing to do, and you're not a hostage here."
Tsukiyume's shoulders slumped even lower, pathetically. "I don't know the way home." She whimpered.
Miroku once again covered his face with his hands. Oh no…
So here we are finished again. Was IY's outburst too extreme or OOC? Consider his situation and stress level and get back to me if it seems wrong.
We are nearing the end of WOAWO. That means I get to start thinking about what else I get to do. "I Miss You" is still continuing, as it may for some time. BUT here are a few "Hanyou" world ideas I have.
One-shots--these would be short and perhaps pointless bits of entertainment. They would allow me to flesh out original characters. I might do a Shimofuri piece, or more likely, a bit about Kohimu, Tisoki, Kasai, Shippo, or of course Koinu. Could be fun.
Spin-off AU--this idea came upon me recently. I reread "So Much for the Hanyou's Happy Ending." And I remembered that before I made anice happy ending I had planned to strand a pregnant Kagome in the Modern Era for a while. I liked the thought of the reunion eventually between IY, Kagome, and the child (Koinu???). If the baby looked like IY then imagine its troubled childhood, unlike other kids, forced to be kept alone b/c of that. And then the amazement as father and child (son??) met up again. I dunno, I await your reviews.
Sess/Rin--This one I already have mostly planned out. It would examine the Sess/Rin relationship and explain little tid bits I've thrown into the story in WOAWO. For example, no one's wondered about this so I'll point it out b/c it was VERY deliberate: WHY is Sesshomaru interested suddenly in the civil war in the Middle Lands? He hates the clan, why is he helping Shimofuri? Why not Nishiyori? Nishiyori is more powerful...what's he got against him?
I will flesh each of these out more if you ask it. But now I bid you farewell!