CI

Mens Rea

As the days pass, Kikyou keeps discovering things that don't belong. They're things which lead her to suspect that the magic of the General's influence hasn't quite faded from her sister's house, even if nothing obvious stands out during the day. First, there's a golden hairpin. She finds it tucked under the edge of her futon, so that it rolls over at her feet when she's putting everything away for the day. It's a dangling step-shake in the Chinese style, shaped like a dog, but not a mortal dog. It's an Inu, like the one embroidered at her hem.

The many hanging chimes are good-fortune clouds of the finest mutton-fat jade. The links of the chains that bind them to the stem of the hairpin have been made as a dozen different characters – good fortune, blessings, longevity, happiness, marriage, love – so many words, all with good meanings. She wants to wear it as soon as she picks it up, but she isn't sure how, and Kaede can't help her either. Finally she puts half her hair up and manages to stick it in place, so that the pin dangles prettily and doesn't just fall down her back.

The struggle is worth it; the words and their meanings reflect brightly in Inuyasha's eyes when he comes to find her, comes to tell her he's going to Kamakura now, and won't wait. "The house has to be built, or rebuilt, anyway. And Tessaiga says if I go soon I'll have help."

What kind of help can a sword summon? She's not sure, but neither does she doubt him – and the sooner he goes, the sooner he does his part, the sooner they'll be married and away from here, married and in their own place.

But the morning after he leaves, it's as if someone knew he wouldn't be there to ask questions. She wakes late, deep in shadow, and opens her eyes to find the walls much closer than she's used to – but no. They're screens, not walls. Painted screens, one for each season, very pretty but with too many details, and strange ones at that.

Each snowflake on the winter screen is unique, painted one at a time. They overlap, sitting one atop another like snow really falls, even on the painted hills and branches. The garden on the spring screen is wild and overgrown, ten thousand blossoms tangled with vines and insects. Birds hide on the branches, and snakes in the leaf litter. The tiny threads of a cocoon, broken but perfect, are all but quivering while below them a butterfly dries its wings.

It's not until she's up and moving around that she notices the kimono, one hung over each screen. Summer's robe is blue as sky, embroidered with green ocean and white shore. Cranes fly among the clouds; mandarin ducks land on the water. Like a warning, a dragon circles the hem – just swimming beneath, or hunting in the deep? But it's the autumn robe that's the most magical. Embroidered sunlight comes golden through red-orange-purple-yellow leaves, and it's warm to the touch like real sun on her hands wherever she touches the stiches.

The morning after that, she wakes to find her knees heavy; bolts of silk are weighing her legs down. Bolts are hung on the screens her sister pushed back into the corners, too – bolts everywhere, on every surface that can hold them.

Some of it is raw white and iridescent like the fabric of her dreamed-to-life kimono. Some of them are redder than Inuyasha's robe. There's blue, too, and pinks and purples in many shades. Some of them are colors too young for her, or too young for a married woman, anyway. Some of them are colors forbidden by sumptuary laws, but then… Inuyasha is the General's son. What do the ranks assigned to samurai matter? If he wants her to, she'll dress in imperial yellow.

She brings the fabric outside to look at it in the sunlight, and considers how she might make it into clothes. She knows what it's for, but she can't bear to cut even the thinnest gauze, not knowing exactly how she should cut it.

The village women see her, but they don't offer to help even though all of them have to know the problem. It angers her; how many wedding robes have they sewn for how many girls in this village, and now that it's her turn they pretend not to see her need? How many lives has she saved, for so much gratitude? How many of their parents lived only because she had been here to protect them, heal them, help them give birth and feed their children? How many of them?

But then, isn't that the problem? They knew me and now they think they know me. They knew me, and so they think I belong in hell. She can hear them whispering already. Where did he get it? Did he buy her a new, cursed life with this new wealth? Did he rob some rich man – or worse, perhaps?

"I can hear you, did you know?" They fall silent. "Inuyasha need rob no one. He is the General's son."

"General?" They titter. The sound numbs her brain like the early morning chirping of too many birds. "What general?"

"The great General. The Yokai Army's General. Inu no Taisho."

"No!"

"Yes. Now, I need to decide how to make my wedding clothes. You could help – or you should go." She levels a cold, quiet stare at them, already knowing their choice.

"Wedding clothes!"

"We couldn't –"

"Such fine silk –"

But they're giggling fearfully among themselves again by the time they're twenty steps away, and she sighs, staring at the many bolts of silk. Very beautiful, but very useless. She could make endless hakama, but a wedding robe? And even if she could cut the shape, use this kimono as a pattern, what about the embroidery?

Frowning faintly, Kikyou pets the bridal-red silk. "Oh, well. At least Inuyasha won't care either way."

Many of the women of Edo dream the same dream that night. First, a howl wakes them, but only within their dream.

"Base ingratitude!" The voice of each woman's father or grandfather sounds sharply, following the echoes of the howl. "Petty, fearful bitch of a woman, what have you done? Even after she told you who the boy was! Did you think about the price?" Each of the women who insulted Kikyou are driven to their knees by the pressure of those words and the threat inherent in them. Each of them suffers in a dream so like life it's hard for them to tell whether or not they're awake.

Their families stand around and beside them, aware as the women are aware, except that none of them understand what's happening, or why. But the dream allows them only to observe, not intervene or voice questions. For each woman, the voice becomes the figure it belongs to. They turn in their futons, restless even in this deepest of sleeps, faced with the deceased heads of their households or parents who have long passed.

"Dead is dead, not gone! Did you think of that, woman? The General won't stand for you to disrespect his daughter-in-law! We in hell will suffer even if you don't, do you understand? What possessed you to insult her? To insult him!"

Some of the women understand at once, and try to escape; some of them try to hide from the weight of their guilty consciences. Some of them flee in terror without enough wit to think of something to try. "There's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Be grateful the General agreed to this penalty, and not something worse. Not something equal to what we really owe her; not something equal to your insults!"

Regardless of where the dreaming women go after that a white hound chases them. It's a dog with needles for teeth, and no feet, a dog with amber eyes as bright and merciless as the moon. When it catches them, pins them under furniture or against walls or in the fearful darkness outside, it waits for them to shrink in shrieking horror. Then, it bites only their hands. The long, thin teeth pierce the tender flesh of their fingertips, stab through their fingernails and dig into the balls of their thumbs.

The women wake screaming at dawn, shaking their arms as if they can fling off the beast that troubles them. There's no blood, no dog, not even the whisper of a restless spirit, but many tiny, black marks cover their fingers, and their hands are red and swollen.

The accusatory silence from their families when a few of them complain is enough to tell them that not only the most painful portion of their dream was real. Humiliated, they slink about the village in silence, and not one brings their supernatural wounds to either miko.

That same night, Kikyou alone dreams a different dream. When she becomes aware of herself, she's climbing the stairs of a shiro that seems very far away, and carrying a basket. What's inside? Didn't I bring it with me? Why don't I know? She lifts the cover. In the basket are two bolts of the silk she woke up with, one white and iridescent, one red as blood and cherries.

As she puts the cover back over the fabric, she hears women laughing, the sound neither near, nor far. It's a pleasant sort of laughter, and she wants to see where it's coming from. To her right there's a golden road and a golden gate, gaudy and unappealing. The stairs she's on seem to go on forever, up and up, with no destination but a castle lost in mist. But to her left, there's water reflecting the endless streaming clouds, and green in the distance.

She turns aside from the stairs and passes through a jade-walled pavilion. The water is barely deep enough to wet the soles of her feet, but it doesn't. The hem of her kimono only drags ripples over the surface. But Kikyou hears voices, closer this time, and turns from the wonder to peer ahead. The garden on the other side of this shallow river is so green that at first it hurts her eyes, and the laughter comes from a patch of grass at its western edge.

A lady in twelve-layered robes of red, white and gold is sitting with five attendants around her, their long hair gleaming like streamers of black ribbon in the bright sun. They look at her, but say nothing, and only the lady stops her work and smiles. The rest stay busy, their fingers moving quickly over fine silk, doing the kind of delicate embroidery that Kikyou never learned, but wishes she had.

The lady lifts a hand, and beckons. "Come, sit with us. We'll help you. In return, tell me, what did you learn instead?"

It doesn't occur to her to question how the smiling woman knows what she was thinking. And when she opens her mouth, Kikyou's words don't seem to be exactly what she intended. "How to look where we've always been told there is nothing to see. How to hear what must be known and should not be seen. How to touch beings that have no body; how to taste the offerings we can't eat. How to kill the past. How to destroy the future. How to leave no way out for anyone, not even me."

There's no wind in this garden. The leaves don't move, and the flowers don't nod their heads. The scent of the blossoms drifts thickly anyway, oppressing even a hint of other scents. The women look back and forth between each other, but the lady only pats the grass at her side. "Well said. If only I had confronted my truths so boldly. Come, sit here. Tell me what you think of those lessons, now that you've grown up."

Kikyou obeys, and comes and kneels where she's been told. "I think I learned how to do things that shouldn't be done. I think there was something missing in the teachers, or the lessons. I don't want to kill the past, and I don't want to die. Not even if I'm already dead. I want to see the future, whether that's Kagome's future or something better. That's what she wants, I know it is. Something better. I don't know what that is, or could be, but it seems like a good thing for me to want, too."

The attendants laugh behind their hands, but like before, it's kind laughter. Kikyou smiles back at them. "I want so many things now, what's one more?" Two of them stand and step forward, taking her basket from her hands, but their smiles stay silent.

Only the lady speaks. "Have you brought the fabric with you, then?"

"Yes, I have." The bolts come out of the basket, and the ladies-in-waiting unroll them across the grass, while Kikyou admires the way they shine.

The lady smiles with her, and then hands her a needle and a spool of silvery thread. "Now we will show you how it's done, and by the time we're through you'll be able to handle your dowry and dress your future daughters yourself."

"Daughters would be nice, but I want sons. And I never had a dowry, but my Father-in-Law was very generous with his bride price."

"As he should be. But would your husband know what to do with sons?"

Kikyou laughs. "No. Not yet, anyway."

"So. You see? All things in their time. Now, here is how you twist the threads together. We'll use two threads to start, that's the right number for a bride. This is how you lay the foundation layer, the nuki-jibiki stitches. Parallel, vertical thread lines, but not so close they don't have room to lie flat beside each other. Think of the stitches in the future that will go on top, and how they might pinch, or disrupt a knot."

Kikyou tries; the needle feels clumsy in her hands, but her fingers are steady from many years of archery and healing work, and there's no rush in her learning. Time feels like the missing wind; it doesn't belong here. There are other stitches to try, too, so many different ways of laying thread. Shibe-kake, to pick out the stamens of a flower. Yōmyaku-kake, for the veins of leaves.

Gradually, ten thousand silver pines and a thousand white-and-gold cranes take shape, rising from the hem of the crimson silk. Despite the splendor of the robe, above them, there's neither a dragon or a phoenix, but the great Inu with which Kikyou is now very familiar, and the green-winged pheasant that serves as a messenger for the gods. The moon rises above the Inu on her right shoulder; the sun sets behind the sacred bird on her left.

She wonders, as she's trying it on, when the robe was cut, or measured; did she miss that, somehow, between vertical and flat stitches, between diagonal borders and couching gold thread in outline?

"No, you didn't. Here, some things need only be considered to be as they should be. But I wanted to embroider the robes with you, teach you how rather than let it come into being. The skill will serve you, and I wanted to pass something on, as I could have if I were still living. It's a conceit of the General's position that I can even meet you, so just this once I promised him I wouldn't complain. Here; turn, and I will fix your hair."

The robes are folded and packed into her basket, the embroidered red uchikake and the plain, white wedding robe. Cool fingers reach for her hairpin, pull it down, and begin to comb her hair. She gets a sense for how to shape the bun and what angle to put the pin at from how the lady does it, but by the time a comb of paulownia wood is pressed into her hands, her seed of suspicion has sprouted and grown. "Lady, you are…"

"Very pleased to have met you, Kikyou. I was worried, at first, but now I know I need not be. You will make a fine wife for my son."

Kikyou's eyes fly open. She stares at the lady in her many layers of robes, at the gentle smile on her face and the old-fashioned cut of her hair. "You… are…" She drops smoothly to her knees and bows over her hands. "Mother-in-Law, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Inuyasha never told me what you look like."

"I know." The faint, kind laughter that had drawn her here comes from behind her mother-in-law's hand. "Stand up, isn't this why I hesitated about telling you? But my son will recognize the comb, and perhaps he will remember my embroidery. Why hold back, when now that you know, I can give you the message of my approval? But this dream, this night, has already lasted eight years. Longer than that I can't keep you, so you will have to save your many questions for another time."

"But how can I tell Inuyasha I saw you and spoke to you, when he –"

"The eve of your wedding, I will visit my son. He and I will have our chance to talk, don't worry." With both hands, her mother-in-law cups Kikyou's face. "Don't worry. Have a happy marriage. Live a happy life. Now, you should wake up, don't you think? There's work to do."

It no longer surprises Kikyou to wake and find a comb of paulownia wood in her hands, and the basket she carried up the stairs in her dream at her bedside. The robes inside are exactly as she embroidered them with her mother-in-law, and a silk wrapped package of many ornaments, gold and tortoiseshell and jade, has been left on top with a note in a delicate, wisp-thin hand. "What the General has given is one thing. What I give is up to me."

"Hime-sama has been generous with you, my lady."

The voice comes from the pile of hairpins and kanzashi, but Kikyou has no trouble picking out the one that's more than just an ornament. It's bright to her finer senses, a gilded kogai with a pattern matching the comb still in her hand. "You're tsukumogami? Why did she give you to me?"

The hairpin shivers faintly in place. "Don't purify me, don't purify me! Wouldn't that be regretful? You have no maid or attendant, she thought, nor would you know how to choose one, so I was sent. Won't it be a waste to have all these lovely things and not be able to wear them?"

Kikyou gives the appearance of hesitating, but really how can she deny her Mother-in-Law's gift? "I had planned to hire a girl. More than one, probably. Inuyasha has gone to build a house. There are too many things to take care of even in a small manor, and I don't know how to do even half of them."

"Waka-dono will find he has helpers, and there will be attendants too, my lady, if he wants them. But it's not likely he'll find someone to take care of your dress and grooming."

This is probably true. The chances of Inuyasha thinking of something like that are low, but that isn't what interests her. "Waka-dono?"

"Your husband, my lady. As he's the General's son."

"That makes sense, but isn't he your lord now, if the General is dead?"

"What does dead mean to yokai? His influence is not less just because his spirit is no longer so free to run amok among humans. Even though he has two thousand years of work he avoided waiting in Hell, doesn't he still find time to visit Hime-sama? Can't he still arrange a marriage for his son? Dead." A sort of snickering laughter is partially muted by the clattering of the kogai against the other ornaments. "Dead is just dead, not gone." The voice becomes very sly. "My lady, how do you not know that best of all?"

She smiles, but she's not really amused. Mother-in-Law, what is the lesson of this gift? Idly, she picks up the kogai, draws the length of the wooden hairpin from the gilded sheath meant to keep it in her hair. The wings of the pheasants between the gold flowers and branches are bright and shining blue. There are no stains on the wood, but she senses old blood - and a great deal of it at that. "What a poisonous little thing you are. How many lives have you taken, hmm?"

"The Old Madam wore me for so many years, how could I count?" The voice is quite proud of itself, and not at all afraid. "She used to say I was the most satisfying. No male expects a female to outdo him with a deeper thrust."

Kikyou lets the innuendo pass without comment. She's far more interested in the woman behind his words. "The Old Madam… you mean the General's mother?"

"Given to her daughter-in-law, as Hime-sama gave me to you. Ah, but she was never able to use me."

"No?"

"No. Hime-sama never understood why she was given such a kogai, not until she was dead. And even if she had known, she's not the stabbing type. After, in her current circumstances, what could she do, hmm? Stab her tenko? But that's not how one keeps loyal handmaids, so even I wouldn't recommend it."

"…No, of course not." The voice is taking on more personality and more color the more it speaks, and she's quite sure now that regardless of whatever abilities he possesses, the kogai can't and doesn't want to hurt her. "Can you embody yourself? Do you have other powers?"

Slender fingers pull the pin from her hair and begin to arrange it again in smooth coils before she has time to do more than notice the change. "Yes, and no. A body and many skills, but no powers, not as my lady would measure them."

But even as he says so much, the hairpins and combs are disappearing from the pile in front of her, and she feels the weight shift on her head as they're pinned in her hair. Out of the corner of her eye she sees his face, thin as a rice seed with mocking eyes and a painted mouth. It curves up at the corners more and more until he declares himself done, and suddenly she's quite sure she needs a mirror before she steps out of the house. Does he think she's a noble lady, a princess like his last mistress?

Still – as she tilts her head to the side, the golden Inu chimes prettily, and all the characters with their wonderful meanings drift in and out of her peripheral vision. It also doesn't fall halfway out of her hair. Probably, it's worth keeping him; it might even be fun.

She gets the feeling that he's the type who smiles a great deal, and will cause a great deal of trouble while smiling.

The days that pass on his trip, as far as Inuyasha is concerned, are entirely uneventful. Under the advisement of his sword, he tries seeking out yōkai along the way, so that he can impress his presence on them. None of them are strong enough to be worth chasing after when they run, never mind powerful enough that he thinks they'd risk coming after him.

Pridefully, Tessaiga claims it's because now, carrying it, Inuyasha has the aura of a proper daiyōkai. Privately, Inuyasha thinks it's because he and Kikyou already taught everything within a hundred miles of the village who's boss.

On the other hand, it's nice being top dog for once, even in his current condition, and there's no reason to argue with the sword. He does anyway, of course, or tries, but Tessaiga has an annoying habit of falling silent as soon as it gets off a particularly snappy one-liner, and Inuyasha is too easily annoyed by his inability to provoke a response to keep at it.

South by southwest, he travels by day and night both, stopping to rest only in the brief, quiet hour just before dawn. There's no real hurry, but he feels like there is. Since she woke him, he hasn't been without Kikyou by his side. And before that, too. Right up until she shot him, she was with him whenever she could be, whenever her duties allowed.

But alone, without her, it feels safer to think about that arrow, and he's been meaning to for a while. When he woke from the enchanted sleep it had sunk him in, he'd been enraged and nothing else. Then, he'd brought Kikyou to the village, and they'd talked with Kaede. Both women had made clear that he had been the traitor. That they'd seen him, breaking into the shrine. Taking the jewel. Hurting Kikyou to the point of death.

They weren't lying, either of them – hell, at that point he didn't think Kikyou had even been capable of lying. She'd barely remembered anything beyond his name and her own death. And he had no proof for them, no way to show he was telling the truth, when he told them that he'd done no such thing, would never, could never -

Kikyou believes him, he thinks. If she didn't, would she choose to be his wife? But Kaede… maybe. Maybe she thinks he's telling the truth. Fifty/fifty, that's all, and that's a bad bet on a good day. But who cares? As soon as he finds his land, gets this house built, he has no intention of seeing her again. Kikyou can visit with her sister, if she likes. He'll be happy to have a home away from all that.

The important thing is what he wasn't able to figure out, and still hasn't been able to figure out. What exactly had they seen, since it couldn't have been him?

There are no answers to be found now, fifty years later, especially since no one had bothered to investigate at the time. Who could have? Kaede, a girl grieving her sister? The villagers, terrified and believing they knew all the answers? Nah.

So he'd forgotten about it, or tried, because what else could he do? But it still bothered him, a little. Maybe more than a little. It gnaws at him when he's alone, like now, an itch at the back of his brain that's getting harder to ignore.

Scowling, he runs faster, aiming to cut through the last long section of forest between him and Kamakura. He wants to know the truth, not just for its own sake, but because only by knowing what actually happened will he be able to lay all suspicion to rest – even his own.

Inuyasha hadn't done anything, but they'd seen him, so what if he'd gone crazy? What if he'd been possessed? "Wouldn't that be great?" But he snorts, shaking his head. "Doesn't explain shit though, does it?" Because if he'd gone crazy, then why, or over what? And if he'd been possessed, then by who? He had enemies, sure, but nobody who could pull a trick like that.

The important thing is that whatever had happened, he can't blame her for doing what had to be done. And she'd only put him to sleep, anyway. Hadn't been able to kill him, hadn't been able to really hurt him, even when she was at the verge of death. Even thinking he'd betrayed her. In its own way, that arrow had proved her love, but the new ways she's learning of expressing it are much better. And isn't that a reason to hurry along?

So slowly he doesn't even notice it happening, the scowl transforms into half of a smile.

By nightfall on his third day away from Edo, Tessaiga rattles at his belt, until all the bells on its sheath are ringing in harmony. He doesn't need the alert, though. The land in front of him is familiar, somehow. It's been two hundred years, far too long for scents to linger, but even so. He knows. This is the place where he was born, the place where his father came to die, if his brother can be trusted.

Which he can't. But the charcoal outlines beneath new growth are known to him, the remains of fallen wings and rotted halls. He walks slowly through where the gate should be, then stops and crouches before the collapsed and weathered ruin of the main hall. What now?

"Throw down a bell, the old man said…" Inuyasha stares at Tessaiga's sheath, unconvinced. Which bell? Any bell? Dubious, he plucks the one nearest the hilt, and tosses it at a tuft of grass.

It rings, and doesn't stop ringing, but very soon it's not the bell making the sound. The bell becomes an ingot, and then two, and then many more than that, far too many for him to count. Soon a pile of identical, gleaming gold pieces is sitting in the grass, reflecting his own shocked expression back at him.

Inuyasha stares at the pile and blinks. Then he blinks again when it fails to vanish, and his eyes slide sideways in their sockets until he's looking at the sword again. Why not? It can't really be all of them, can it? Carefully, he pulls a second bell off and drops it.

"Holy shit." Silver. And it's so much silver. His eyes widen as the pile keeps growing, until it's five or six times the size of the pile of gold. Does that mean they're all of equal value, but different? He's tempted to try another just to find out, but the ludicrous gleam of the treasure piled in front of him catches his eye again. "Right. No more bells." It's ridiculous, two piles of gleaming riches in a ruin like this. "And what the hell am I going to do with it?"

Absentmindedly, he slaps at an itchy spot on his neck, and then jerks around with a scowl at the sound of a once-familiar squeal. Easily, he snatches a partially deflated flea out of the air. "You? The hell are you hangin' around here for, Myoga?"

Impatient as he might be, he has to wait for Myoga to get breath back in his body before the little bloodsucker can answer him. "Young master! You have indeed arrived, as was foretold!"

Inuyasha blinks again. His eyelids are getting a lot of exercise today, and he isn't sure he likes it. "Fore-what now?"

"Foretold!" The flea gasps himself into an upright position, but Inuyasha holds him still between two claws to prevent more biting. "Young Master, I had a most shocking dream three nights ago, in which my Lord appeared, as he was in life!"

"Yeah, the old man's been doing that, lately."

Myoga sniffs at him. "Young Master, you never refer to your father with proper respect. It's not befitting of –"

"Yeah, yeah. Lecture later, I wanna know why you're here."

"My Lord required me to come here to the estate of your deceased mother, where I would find you and meet you. He was unsure when you would arrive, but I've only been waiting for two days, and here you are!"

"Yeah. So I got this sword –"

"Tessaiga!"

"Uh-huh. But Sesshomaru got my arm. After a while, the old man's ghost came out of the sword. Or his spirit or… I don't know how any of this shit works, you probably know better'n me." Faintly flushed, Inuyasha scratches at the back of his head and grins. "He came to write a marriage contract for me, you know? Dead or not I guess he's still tryin'a do the right thing… The hell did he send you for, that's what I don't get."

"To be of aid to you, Young Master!"

Inuyasha lifts his eyebrows and rolls his eyes simultaneously. "Right. First thing, stop callin' me that. I got a name, use it. Second thing, you wanna help? Build me a house, here."

"A hou… Young – Master Inuyasha, how should I do such a thing?"

Inuyasha smirks faintly and shrugs. "I don't know or I'd do it myself, wouldn't I?"

"Ah… yes…"

"But that's what I need, a house for my wife. Look, that's two huge piles of money, isn't that enough to find someone and pay 'em and let them figure it out?" He stares at the ruin, not trying to remember how it was, but to visualize how it should be. He can almost see the walls, the sliding doors… "I want a tiled roof, not a thatch one. And a big garden, full of flowers. And… and one big tree, right in the middle of everything. A cedar."

Myoga is nodding frantically, taking notes, but Inuyasha mostly ignores him. A big tree, and a garden… yeah. That will fill this abandoned and empty place. Kikyou needs to be surrounded by green things, growing things. Pretty things, too, all the things he always wanted to give her, all the things she'd been forbidden or wouldn't allow herself to have. "Whatever a woman would want, too. Silk and jewelry, makeup and… and all that stuff. The best there is -"

"Of course, Master Inuyasha. For the General's son, who would dare give less?"

"For the General's daughter-in-law, you mean."

"Yes, yes. Master Inuyasha, does your bride have her own servants? I can find agreeable maids, but I'm afraid, uh…" He covers his mouth as if someone is eavesdropping. "I'm afraid they'd be yōkai, of course. Would your wife be afraid of them?"

"Nah." Inuyasha smirks, and drops Myoga on the pile of gold. "I'm marrying a miko. You think you can find me some maids who aren't gonna be afraid of her?"

A/N: Well, this isn't where I expected this chapter to go! I thought we were going to Kagura and the torture basement, but here we are! Booo village women! Hiii mother-in-law! Taisho has been taking up all the screen time and giving presents to everyone, I think Izayoi was a little miffed. Now all is well again, except for poor Myoga who needs to find someone to build a house. Good luck, little guy, you're going to need it. Oh, and this week's chapter title, "Mens Rea", means "a guilty mind"!

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