Chapter 9 - A Father's Heart

The soft breathing from Seika was the single-minded focus that kept Shippo linked to the present during their flight back to the shrine. He pushed past Kagome's mom and rushed up the stairs to the room he'd been using and quickly bundled up the little girl under the thick blankets. He rushed downstairs and rummaged through the kitchen to find a knife. Back upstairs in a flash, Grandpa and Mrs. Higarashi were baffled at the behavior. They tried to question him when he reappeared on the stairs but he dodged past them with a few muttered apologies.

By the time Souta and Kira returned, he had ransacked the kitchen and the storage shed and was boiling something that looked and smelled nothing short of foul. The gray goop churned and bubbled in a thick ooze making Mrs. Higarashi rush to open all the windows in the house.

"Ugh… what is that?" Souta gagged at the smell upon opening the door. As soon as the smell hit Kira she fell back out the door retching.

Grandpa sat at the table clearly trying to act as if it didn't bother him, though the tears and redness in his eyes told another story. "Something for that little one, I'd wager. He hasn't said a word to us the whole time though, so good luck getting through to him."

Souta held his nose and entered the kitchen. Wrappers and old linen lay scattered on the table, with some smaller scraps remaining on the floor. Evidently, his mom had given up on trying to clean up the mess until after Shippo's monstrosity was completed.

"Uh, hey Shippo, what are you doing?"

Shippo didn't respond. His eyes stared into the viscous liquid as if he was looking at something else entirely.

"Shippo?"

Still nothing.

Souta blew out all his air and then inhaled deeply. He cupped his hands around his mouth aiming at Shippo's ears and-

"That day was so chaotic. I honestly was so scared that I made Paku take Seika and leave for the mountains." Shippo spoke quietly, as if afraid that noise would mess up his concoction. It caught Souta so off guard he started to cough, choking on the air he had inhaled. Shippo continued as if he didn't notice.

"It was Kagome's plan, and we weren't even sure if it would work." He shook his head causing his long brown hair to fall over his shoulder. His ribbon was missing and Souta spotted a lock of hair that had been cut to an odd length.

"Inuyasha didn't like it… well… neither did the rest of us but we couldn't think of anything else to do. Rin was pregnant and couldn't move from the village so that's how we got Sesshomaru on board."

The air felt so heavy that the stench lingering in it was all but forgotten.

"We saw it coming from miles away. The land turned black as it just ate away at everything. A whole mountain forest, decayed into nothing." He paused thinking; reliving that day which seemed both only a week ago, and an eternity behind him.

After a few minutes of waiting for more, Souta asked, "So what happened?"

Shippo took his eyes off the pot for the first time since he'd started the mixture, glancing only briefly at Souta. The boy looked so much like Kagome. His eyes wandered to their mother next but quickly darted away. The resemblance was uncanny. Kagome had been like a mother to him all those years. He needed her warm guidance now more than ever.

"He was approaching a castle. The nearest one to our tiny village. Kagome was worried that if the whole army was wiped out, we would be next." He returned to silence, watching the pot boil. Kira entered the room with a thick towel covering her nose and mouth. She dragged a chair to the doorway closest to a window and sat.

"Everyone we knew with even some degree of ability in them joined us. It had…" he paused and squinted thinking of the right word for it. "Spectors, that it summoned. Ghosts of those it had consumed. When injured it could take on a new healthier body by devouring and stealing the form of another."

"It can shapeshift?!" The idea that there was an ancient demon which even Inuyasha couldn't kill was wandering around Tokyo was bad enough, but now it could appear as anything?

Shippo shook his head. "It's not like that. It can't take on a new form at will. We only saw it with two forms. The first was an unknown woman, we think a Tsushima demon, based on her looks." He shrugged and stirred the pot some more. "When the battle dragged on it managed to get a hold of a human samurai and took on his form."

"The humans in the castle were worse than useless. And we weren't strong enough. It… it made Kagome furious when Inuyasha said we were abandoning them. I had two human girls that I carried out of there. Sango rode Kirara with the client. Miroku was grabbed by Seshoumaru." "He did have a soft spot for Miroku after the kids became friends, didn't he…" He returned to silence, watching the pot boil.

"Any idea why?" Kira had entered the kitchen but stood far from the bubbling liquid. She had been looking towards the window while holding the towel over her nose but her eyes were looking back at Shippo.

"Kagome thought it had something to do with being injured, or looking for a new tactic to fight us. The brute strength just wasn't working so it found a new form that was faster… more precise."

"What happened when it turned into the samurai?"

Shippo must have decided his concoction was done, as he pulled the pot off the burner and set it to the side. He stared at the knob for a moment before turning it and watching the flame die down. He didn't turn it far enough so Souta hopped up from his chair and turned it off.

"Thanks." Shippo said. He stirred the pot a few more times and raised a flame with his hand not holding the spoon. It appeared for a moment that the flames were being sucked into the liquid before it squelched, releasing a large, rancid air bubble, then turning from an ugly gray to a lightly glowing blue. The smell in the room dissipated and was soon replaced by the smell of a mountain forest. Kira finally released her nose with a deep breath and a sigh of relief.

They all looked at Shippo waiting for an answer.

"Gomera takes the strengths of a person and amplifies them. The warrior it took might have been a human but his blade was incredibly fast. If it hadn't been for Inuyasha I would probably be dead now, an attack came that close."

Taking the ladle out of the pot Shippo blew on it then slid his finger across the handle, swiping some of the strange liquid off, its consistency now more like that of a cream or lotion. Smelled vaguely like one too. He rubbed it around between his thumb and forefinger then pointed up at the ceiling.

A bright glow and a flame erupted from the pointing hand and spread up at the ceiling. Kira fell back off her chair; Souta and his grandpa gasped and jumped from their seats. A vibrant swirling and alien-looking blue flame spiraled, threatening to consume them all.

And just as fast, it fled downwards into the pot and vanished with only a small puff of smoke. The room burst through the silence as every one of them shouted at Shippo.

"Give an old man a heart attack-"

"That won't leave any scorch marks on the ceiling right?"

"What the heck were you thinking!? What was that?!"

Shippo ducked his head and vanished much the same as his flames had. Kira and Souta followed the footsteps thumping up the stairs, leaving mom and grandpa to search the kitchen for damage.

"Shippo, you can't just run away without explaining," Kira said, pushing open the door.

Inside the room, Shippo sat on the edge of the bed with his daughter, barely conscious, leaning against him. Despite the blankets she shivered from a fever. Her tiny hands clasped tightly around the blue ribbon from Shippo's hair. She was small, maybe 5 years of age? But then again she was a demon like her father. How old even is Shippo? Kira wondered.

The girl sniffed at the air and slowly lifted her arm to the pot, but what little energy she had drained out and she flopped onto the bed. "Easy there." Shippo pulled her back by the shoulders and supported her, helping her to sit upright. He scraped the bottom of the ladle on the pot to make sure nothing dripped, then slowly moved it to her lips. She drank slowly. Souta preferred to imagine that it was the consistency of yogurt, rather than think of the sludge it had been only minutes ago.

"Will she be alright?" He asked.

Shippo nodded. "Her fire is weak right now so she'll have to rest. This is a medicine that was taught to Kagome by a demon medicine man. It allows a demon to transfer some of their power to another. It won't help much for adults, but for a weak or sick demon child it can be the difference between life and death." He stared long and hard at his daughter's face. "Seika," he spoke softly, "can you drink anymore?"

Seika nodded, but started coughing right after, so Shippo set the pot aside. He laid her down and pulled the blankets up to her ears. "Sleep. I'll be right here when you wake up." Seika nodded. She fell asleep almost immediately.

Shippo sat down on the floor next to her, stroking her hair gently. He spoke, but never took his eyes off her. "Paku, her mother, should have taken her and been far away by the time the battle started. I don't understand how she's here."

"Could they have returned during the fight?"

"I don't see why they would. They went with Inuyasha's youngest two and Old Man Miyoga. We would have sent Jakin and Rin, but Rin couldn't be moved by that point. Also we needed Seshoumaru."

Kira and Souta exchanged glances as a few names were repeated, but they still didn't know who they were. They watched him in silence for a few moments.

"I was thinking," Souta said slowly. "Why were you surprised to see Tetsaiga when we first met you?"

Shippo's brow furrowed, and his eyes went out of focus as if he was looking at the past. Finally he sighed, "I was wondering about that too. You said Inuyasha's sword was the one that held the seal right?" Kira nodded. "That doesn't make any sense. That wasn't the plan."

"What plan?"

"Kagome designed the seal when it looked like we were going to lose. She based it off of Tenseiga. Sesshoumaru's sword; the other sword made from their father's fangs. Tenseiga is a sword that can't cut the living. Rather it cuts down the denizens of the underworld which carry the dead so that the dead can be restored to life."

Kira and Souta's jaws hit the floor and they both exclaimed, "It can bring people back to life!?"

Shippo nodded. "For a short time after their death, before their soul is taken into the afterlife." It was unbelievable. A power the modern era only fantasized about had once actually existed.

"So what was the seal meant to do," Kira asked, staring at the sword in her hand. By now it was like an extension of herself. She never put it down, and could imagine that her ancestor felt the same.

"Like I said. Tenseiga kills the denizens of the underworld." His hand curled into a fist as the implications of his words sunk in for the teens.

Souta spoke first. "Oh god… Are you saying that Gomera is a creature from hell? How do you even beat something like that?"

Kira's hand shook and she clutched her chest. Stories from the past suddenly made sense to her. The news story of the attack on her home. The images of the black smoke and a hand reaching out at her. The cries of thousands of voices on that night. They weren't hallucinations… "They're all still there?" Her voice shook and she looked with desperation at Shippo.

He met her eyes as if setting a finality to the question.

"Who's still there?" Souta looked back and forth between them as Kira sank to the floor.

Shippo sighed. "Everyone. Every soul that Gomera had ever consumed. Is trapped within him."

A/N: Been having art block and saw a request to continue this so I decided to try and get back into the creative writing side of my arts. Jay and Luis, I'm glad you're liking the story. Thanks. Means a lot.