Five years and four months had passed since that day Rin came to stay with the dog demons. Her daughter, who she fondly named Kagome because of the friend she long missed, was now five years old. Things had been quiet these past five years, and her half-demon child had grown up just as quickly as a human child had. Perhaps that was one of the most unique things about demons that helped them to last longer. They grew up faster but stayed at their physical pique for a much longer time.
Kagome was also very intelligent and curious about everything. Most of the time it bothered her little and she indulged in the child's curiosity, but when Kagome started asking about her father she would often get sad and try to change the subject.
The peace and quiet of the Sunday morning had been interrupted by the arguing in the street in the front of the house Rin had bought only a few months before. Kagome rushed to the window and announced to her mother, "Mama, Daiske and Isamu are fighting with some guy outside."
Rin walked over the to the window and bent over to take a look. Outside was quite a sight as she saw Ginta and Hikaku for the first time in five years. She straightened back up and then ran outside in hopes of stopping the fight. "Stop!" she yelled over and over trying to yell over the shouts. Ginta and Hikaku were the first to stop having recognized the woman in front of them.
When Isamu took a cheap shot Boksano yelled from the porch of his home, "Cease this fighting, all of you. You are going to bring about all the wrong attention. Now get inside before the neighbors call the police." He hobbled back into his house and the four men followed behind him. Rin went back home to get her daughter and bring her over to Boksano's.
Once she got there Ai decided to take Kagome to play with her own daughter, who was only a year younger than Kagome. Rin walked into the middle of Boksano's speech about the importance of keeping quiet profiles. Ginta and Hikaku interrupted the sensei to give their full attention to Rin. They took turns asking her questions without giving her a chance to answer, "Why did you run away?" "How did you know they were here?" "Do you want to come back with us?"
Isamu's outburst cut off the two wolf demons' questions. Rin smiled at them but said not a word because Boksano was clearly interested in questioning the wolf demons. "Excuse me, gentleman, but I would rather know why you are here."
Ginta and Hikaku looked at each other and then sat down again as Ginta explained, "I'm sure Rin's already told you that the immortals had to move to an island in the Pacific because we were discovered in Japan." Boksano nodded his head in acknowledgement. "We travel to port cities along the Asian coast every few months to restock supplies we are unable to produce ourselves. The first trip over five years ago Rin left us. Every time he come back to Hong Kong we always send a small search party to look for her to make sure she is at least still okay at Inuyasha's request."
Hikaku then started talking in place of Ginta, "The last time we were here we did not pick up her scent, but we came across another dog demon in disguise. We went home to inform Lord Sesshomaru. He doesn't show any shock, but Inuyasha said later that Lord Sesshomaru was very shocked to hear that there were still dog demons out there. You see, Akura had assured both of them that the dog demons had all perished in a fight with the panther demons about 20 years prior to the date that she came to Tokyo from Hiroshima. Since the brothers had been in Toyko for over a century they were unaware of what had happened to the dog demon clan."
"But Lord Sesshomaru knew they had moved to Hong Kong," Rin rudely interrupted them. "I've seen the letter."
Ginta looked at her with complete understanding behind her anger without understanding Akura's real personality. "We found out after her death that she was forging documents in Lord Sesshomaru's name without his knowledge. She had even perfected forging his handwriting and signature. It is likely that this so-called letter was not from Lord Sesshomaru but from Akura."
Rin looked rather ashamed for not having faith in the man she loved. "No one knew until after she died," Hikaku explained. "Not even Lord Sesshomaru."
"How did she die?" she asked almost too eagerly. The look on both men's faces was filled with grief. "What happened?" she asked in a rather grave tone.
Ginta sighed before saying, "Lord Sesshomaru killed her because she killed Kagome." His eye contact with her immediately switched to everywhere else in the room.
The room was silent except for a gasp from Rin. No one knew what else to say in response. After giving a minute of silence Boksano asked the wolf demons, "Are you sure that Lord Sesshomaru had no idea of our whereabouts?"
Hikaku assured him, "His half-brother Inuyasha told us that he was not aware. I'm sure you already know that the brothers don't get along with each other, and Inuyasha certainly wouldn't give undue credit in regards to Lord Sesshomaru where credit is not due."
"Then, perhaps, we should also join them. Do you have enough space for 60 or more demons?" Boksano asked them. They were assured by the wolf demons and Rin that there was more than enough room for all of them given the size of the island and the small portion they actually inhabited at the moment. It was then decided that the boat would make the trip back to the island and then return for the dog demon clan within the next couple of weeks.
As they were getting ready to leave Kagome ran up to her mother and hugged her leg as she nervously asked, "Who are they, mama?"
Ginta and Hikaku looked at each other and then at the little girl. From what they could tell, she was a half-dog demon child, but from there they knew very little but assumed that Rin had mated with a dog demon during her time in Hong Kong. "They are old friends of your mother's," Rin said as she bent down to pick up her daughter. She pointed at the demons as she told the girl their names. Both smiled and waved at her but thought it best to be going on their way before too much time slipped past them.
As soon as the wolf demons got home they told Lord Sesshomaru about the dog demons' decision to live with them in their Pacific hide-away. They made sure to also slip in that they would be bringing Rin back home with them. Sesshomaru's heart skipped a beat hearing her name but was crushed when he heard the words from Ginta's lips, "It seems that she's mated with one of the demons. We didn't see a mark, but she has a young daughter with dog ears."
"Thank you," he said with an emotionless voice. At this he turned and left the men for the shelter of his own home. Once inside he allowed his face to show all emotions he had been trying to control for years. His soul mate, his Rin, was mated to another. He knew that she had assumed that he would mate with Akura, but she had said to him that night after he made love to her that she would give herself to no one if she could not have him. Had her words been a lie, or was he really not her soul mate? The tears slipped from his eyes as he sat in the dark room until sleep overtook him.
The boat carrying the 60 plus dog demons arrived on a cool morning. The ground was still fresh from the rain that fell in the earliest hours of the morning. Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were both waiting at the docks for the boat to arrive. Boksano was the first off of the boat, so Sesshomaru greeted him first. The both of them walked to Sesshomaru house to talk in his office.
Boksano was careful not to mention anything about Rin and her daughter figuring that it was her place to tell him the news, and he was glad that Sesshomaru was professional and kept it strictly to how to help the clan get settled in with the settlement. After their meeting Sesshomaru dared not go outside. The last thing he wanted to was to run into Rin.
Rin was one of the last people off of the boat. She had been hoping that Sesshomaru would be waiting for her since he was now free to be with her now that Akura was dead and there were more dog demons, but she was sadly disappointed to see only Inuyasha. Not that Inuyasha wasn't worth the attention, and indeed she did want to give him her condolences however late they were, but now more than anything she wanted to see Sesshomaru. She also wanted to introduce him to his daughter. Had't the wolf demons told him about her daughter?
Inuyasha walked up to here in hopes of helping her carry her bags and then noticed a young child, around five-years-old, following her. The child clearly belonged to Rin since she had most of Rin's features, but she was a half-demon. A dog half-demon to be exact. She had dog ears perched atop her head just like his, and her eyes were a wonderful golden color that was the same as his and Sesshomaru's. What tipped him off that this child also belonged to Sesshomaru was the crimson colored crescent moon on her forehead like Sesshomaru.
He stopped in his tracks and stared at the child as the child stared back at him. "Are you related to me?" she asked him. "Are you a half-demon too?"
Inuyasha looked at Rin in puzzlement. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "She's really smart for her age." She put the two suitcases she had been carrying down and started introducing them, "Inuyasha, this is…"
Before she could finish her sentence he finished for her, "my niece. What is her name?" His eyes were once again fixated on the child.
"I named her Kagome, after her aunt." She watched his face drop in remembrance of his late wife. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to cause her death."
"She knew you were pregnant with…"
"She did."
Kagome slowly approached Inuyasha and held her hands out to him in a gesture that meant that she wanted him to pick her up, so he granted her request. She reached up for his ears but he instead started stroking hers and she started purring. When she opened her eyes again he said to her, "Well, kid, I'm your uncle. You can call me Uncle Inuyasha. If you're really good, you can come over some time and play with your cousin Sango. She only three years older than you."
"Do you know my daddy?" she asked him innocently.
"I do," he told her. "He's my half-brother."
She turned her head to look at Rin and asked her, "Mama, what's a half-brother?"
Rin took her daughter from Inuyasha and he went up to the men unloading the boat and took her remaining bags while she explained to Kagome, "They had the same father, but they had different mothers. That's why they're called 'half-brothers'."
She put Kagome back on the ground and picked up the two suitcases again and followed after Inuyasha. "I'm going to put you up at Sesshomaru's. I don't know why the bastard isn't here, but he's done nothing but mope around here since you left."
"Has he really?" she asked him hopefully.
"Well, he hasn't said it, but I'm sure he does. He's always going to be happy to hear that he has a daughter." He opened the door to the mansion but was stopped abruptly. "What's the big deal?" he asked his brother he had slammed the door in his face.
"You are not allowed here," the voice said on the other side of the door.
"I was just moving Rin in here," Inuyasha explained through the door.
"She can live with her mate." The words sounded venomous.
"What makes you think I have a mate?" she called out to him, but not a word was said. Inuyasha tried to open the door but found it locked. Rin's heart fell to her feet. Had she pushed him away too much that he now assumed that she had taken another? How could she even get him to listen to her?
"You're staying at my house until I get the bastard to listen to reason," Inuyasha yelled out loud so that Sesshomaru could hear it through the door. They picked up her suitcases and walked to his house only a few buildings away.
Once inside Rin saw his children remaining at home. They had grown so much since she had last seen them, but they very much still remembered her. As Rin got established again at her old job, which Shippo was all to happy to give back to her, Inuyasha's teenage children helped Kagome get to school and with her homework after.
