KAWAAKARI

"The river that glows amidst the darkness"

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Part II

Chapter XVIII

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Kagome had just left Hojō at the door of the residence. His behavior was not the usual; he seemed more serious and formal than she had ever seen him. After that, she returned to the central part of the house and heard her mother raise her voice to her grandfather. Kagome stood still in the hallway. The ensuing silence was deafening, containing all the noise of their thoughts. For a moment, she didn't know if she was waiting for something more to be said or if she was too surprised by the event to do anything. At that moment, she thought about how her mother had been acting strangely for days now, always stiff, rigid, which was not the norm for her. Today she had shown it in her eagerness for Kagome to change her clothes. While it was true that in her desire to maintain the family's prestige and honor, she could be meticulous, she usually balanced the demand for duties with moments of great joy with Souta and herself. However, even before Hojō's visit, she had noticed some discord between the two heads of the family. She had not forgotten the tense conversation they had after Mr. Taisho's visit. However, she did not remember to have ever heard her mother say something harsh to her grandfather, with the vehemence she had just expressed.

Then her mother came out of the main room and gently closed the shōji despite the intensity in the colors surrounding her energy. Their eyes met, and Kagome saw that her okāsan was worried.

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"What will you name him?" Souta asked while moving a bamboo stick with some straw tied to the end in front of the cat.

"I don't know," Kagome replied while watching the fun both the cat and her brother were having. Despite watching their actions, she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened the day before with Hojō, her ojisan, and her okāsan. Questions kept running through her mind, and although she met her mother more than once around the house, her intuition told her that it was not the right time to say anything about it.

"Look how slow he moves," Souta called her attention again as the kitten stood on its hind legs and raised its front paws, trying to reach the improvised toy. "It looks like he's dancing nihon buyo."

Kagome paid a bit more attention and smiled, noticing that the animal's slow movements resembled that dance.

"We can call him Buyo," she suggested and saw her brother smile in approval before exclaiming a yes.

"Kagome," she heard her name and looked towards the door behind her. It was her mother. "Kaede-sama is here," she announced with her usual softness, although Kagome could still see the colors of her energy clouded by something that kept her uneasy.

"Thank you, okāsan," her words were gentle and meant to bring the peace her mother seemed to need. Her mother smiled at her with a delicate gesture that Kagome accepted as understanding on her part. "Take care of Buyo," she told her brother before leaving the room.

Her mother and she walked down the inner hallway that connected the room where she was with Souta to the rest of the house's rooms. Kagome adjusted the belt of her training clothes, a gesture meant to find the confidence needed to start a conversation with her mother. However, her mother spoke first.

"Ojisan has agreed to let you go to a meeting at Mr. Taisho's residence, at his request," she announced, and Kagome slowed down. "Tomorrow, I will accompany you to choose a kimono for the occasion."

Kagome felt a mix of emotions inside her, feeling anxiety, joy, and confusion.

"Has Hojō agreed?" she asked a question that seemed obvious after the formal visit the day before. Her mother took a deep breath, and Kagome understood that she was holding back her annoyance. Only then did an idea cross her mind that she had not considered as an option. "Ojisan has not approved the engagement."

The words came out calmly despite the euphoria she felt in her chest. Her mother stopped walking and turned halfway to look at her while speaking. Kagome also stopped and gave her full attention.

"That's right. Ojisan believes that you have the right to explore other possibilities," her mother declared with such elegance that probably no one could notice her disagreement with the idea she had just expressed. Except for Kagome; she could read beyond her mother's words and restrained gestures.

Perhaps that was why she decided to remain silent. She did not want to delve into the discomfort her mother showed or the reason she considered Hojō unmatched in her opinion.

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The dungeon area was a place InuYasha approached with equal parts of pleasure and repulsion. He needed the release that confrontation and fighting gave him. However, he thought the stench of blood particularly repulsive, especially when the creatures were weak and succumbed easily. He felt a certain pleasure in sinking his fangs into the opponent's flesh and waiting for the moment when they responded with the fury of a wild animal. What happened after that was too predictable, and he felt the weariness of the years lived and the prison created by youkai rules. Sometimes he questioned the passage of time and his long life. His nature was to survive, a drive that spurred him on, and did not allow to entertain an end. However, each new day was now but another day, it had been so for a long time, and he couldn't remember since when. Humans longed for longevity, even immortality, but this could become dull and meaningless.

He had a reason to exist, at least that's what his brother thought, and that was why he now had a surname that no one had bothered to give him during his first centuries of life. InuYasha smiled wryly at that thought, completely ignoring the groans of the man he was dragging across the stone floor from the hidden entrance to the dungeon.

He had found him lurking in an alley adjacent to the central street of the Yoshiwara district. InuYasha had gone to the area to check if Tsuyu, the youkai who ran the Amadare, was indeed carrying out the order he had given her. The miserable human he was now dragging down the dimly lit corridor with torches had seemed to be waiting for someone in a dark corner. InuYasha had sensed it both by his human stench and the intense smell of cheap sake. However, that wasn't enough to make him one of his prey. So, he continued on his way to the Amadare and confirmed that Tsuyu had fulfilled his request. On his return, the stench of the man's filth and vice had mixed with something even more repugnant: lust.

In response, he decided to hunt from the rooftops of the old pleasure district residences. That space allowed him to move in stealth and understand what was going on. Along with the stench and lust of the man he had seen earlier, he heard the faint whimper of a female voice asking for help weakly. InuYasha crouched on one of the rooftops overlooking the narrow, dark street where the man was hiding and understood what was happening there.

A woman who worked in the neighborhood had been dragged into the gloomy space where the foul-smelling man moved and was being forced and suffocated by the blackened and calloused hands of a person who couldn't conceive the world beyond the basic instinct of his body. For a moment, InuYasha felt moved by the need for life he observed in that obscene act of possession. He understood in a short moment that the man was trying to understand his place in the surreptitious chain of power exercised in the environment to which he belonged; and the way that woman who gave pleasure for money was the weakest link before the rats that roamed the city canals. InuYasha understood that those who are broken are not easily repaired. In most cases, they wallow in their victimhood and become parasitic squanderers who contribute nothing. Nature, even in its most terrible part, uses everything possible to generate new life. InuYasha remembered the decomposed corpse of the only friend he had in his childhood. It was a wild dog that had initially growled at him, showing its huge fangs. It was fierce and, during the time they were together, taught him to hunt more than just fish. However, the man hiding in the darkness of the alley lacked what was necessary to live beyond the mundane, and precisely for that reason, had become prey.

InuYasha dragged him as if he were pulling a lifeless rock. His gesture showed no more emotion than applied to a small creature destined to die shortly. With that idea in mind, the man who was lamenting unintelligibly to him was far from deserving to be heard.

He remembered dropping down into the street where the abuse was taking place, and the rest was part of a story that would end in his dungeon amid the blood the man would shed under his claws.

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Kagome looked at herself in the mirror of the fitting room in one of Tokyo's most renowned shops. She was wearing one of the beautiful kimonos that Yaeko-sama had chosen for her, along with her mother. It was made of a sky-blue night fabric and silver threads. The flowers that decorated the sleeves, chest, and lower part rose to meet the obi. It was a display of bara, white roses with a soft yellow detail adorned with pale green leaves. Kagome looked at the design, appreciating its beauty, as well as the little connection she felt with what the attire intended to convey.

"It's perfect for a young woman of marriageable age," Yaeko-sama observed her work from a certain distance, and Kagome saw how her mother nodded in approval.

"Yes, it is perfect," her mother touched the fabric of the sleeve and then gently moved the bow of the obi on her back.

While the women discussed the best way to tie the obi to highlight the complete piece, Kagome lost her gaze in the red kimono she had displayed. The intensity in the fabric's tone, that reminded her of the color of blood, captured her attention as soon as they entered the store. The flowers embroidered in gold were kuroyuri, a small species of lily whose meaning was love, although it also had a counter-meaning; curse. The design allowed the flowers to blend into long dark gray leaves that could easily pass for black if not observed closely. Kagome tried to understand her mother's reluctance about the visit she would make to the Taisho residence; after all, her family barely knew him. At that thought, she remembered how she had presented to InuYasha, during their last conversation during their stroll around the temple, the doubt she had about his possible romantic intentions, which he did not deny. She also remembered the way the man looked at her. She felt the blush rise from her neck to touch her cheeks and saw in the image the mirror returned how visible it was to anyone who looked at her.

"It seems that Kagome-sama likes her new kimono," Yaeko-sama made a soft bow, interpreting the blush in her favor.

Kagome smiled and mimicked the bow; after all, she wasn't going to mention that her preference was for the blood-red kimono. Her mother seemed pleased with the fact and went back to reviewing the obi knot with a degree of obsession that Kagome did not understand at that moment.

Shortly after, once she was dressed in her komon again, the two women were adjusting the details of the delicate garment's delivery. She took that moment to approach the kimono she would have chosen. She detailed the kuroyuri embroidered with golden, red, and gray threads, giving diverse depth to each flower with a gentle caress. The fabric felt soft and firm at the same time, evoking a sense of security in her. No, it was something more intense than security; it was certainty. Kagome knew that whoever wore that kimono would exude an indomitable aura contained under the layers of fabric. She felt an even stronger desire to try on that garment. Her mind lit up with a memory, and her fingers synchronously touched the fabric of the obi hanging next to the kimono on display. She had a sharp sensation of density that filled her veins and weighed down her bones. She was recalling the day when InuYasha Taisho and she strolled through the Koishikawa garden and the way he had touched her chest over the fabric of the obi she was wearing at that moment. She noticed a tremor at the memory; her body seemed to bring that touch to the present moment. She wished to repeat the caress with her own hand over the fabric she wore and noticed the urge to feel the uncertainty she experienced at that moment, and know what she would feel if she went a little further.

"Kagome, are you ready?" her mother's voice pulled her out of her thoughts and the desire that was forming in her.

"Yes, of course," she noticed a faint reverberation of the urge in her tone, nonetheless nothing her mother could perceive.

That night Kagome explored herself more intensely than ever. In her mind appeared InuYasha Taisho's hands, caressing her over her clothes, and making their way through the seams. She also recalled the sensation of the man's hair tickling her neck when he approached her from behind and the smell of freshly cut grass that he evoked when she had him close, aside from the intensity of his golden eyes when he looked at her.

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To be continued.

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N/A

I loved writing this chapter, because of all the tension it contains and for that feeling of seeing new doors that, once open, can hardly be closed again.

I hope you liked it and that you tell me in the comments.

Kisses,

Anyara

This text is possible thanks to the translation of: Dezart