InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Changing Lives ❯ A Few Steps Taken Part 1 ( Chapter 26 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

For the first time in a long time, Inuyasha felt himself smirk. A good spar was exactly what he needed from time to time, though that will had disappeared for centuries. Maybe at last, with his past finally being pushed behind him, he was beginning to return to himself.

He rushed Minomi.

~*~ Hisaka ~*~

She was smart and rich enough to hire tutors and catch up with the advanced classes in no time. Hell, she might even be able to teach them a thing or two.

All she needed was an advanced book or two.

~*~ Sango ~*~

Until she stepped outside and saw Kaede sitting in her garden, tending, did she realize that Kaede hadn’t said a word about wanting to check on her herbs at all. Sango’s perplexity ended when she realized that Kaede must have walked in on them and chose to leave them be rather than interrupt. Sango’s earlier will to help out Kaede died fairly quickly, and she found herself quickly choosing another direction to walk.

Damn that Miroku and how much she liked him.

Fifty Seven

It’d been a hard day.

Shippou was panting heavily on the grass, finding that days without Kagome were becoming easier and easier to bear now that Kyou was with them. She was incredibly cute, but also incredibly playful. So far every day she spent with them involved Shippou in some way or form, and she was becoming less shy every time they played together.

Today’s game involved showing off their demon tricks and trying to catch one another, though Shippou was older and therefore better at both. That, and she didn’t have very many tricks compared to his own. She could, however, open her mother’s fan, cover herself with it, then close it and be gone. And the moment he’d looked over his shoulder and then back, the fan too was missing.

Playing tag was fun too, because he found out that while somewhat slow and clumsy in her human form, Kyou was very fast in her dog form. Shippou himself wasn’t sure exactly what her dog form was, and trying to analyze her dog behaviors wasn’t helping him figure it out.

She even admitted she didn’t know.

Nonetheless, she sure knew how to move well in both forms. It made him a little jealous that his second form (a floating pink sphere wasn’t the best power, but at least it annoyed Inuyasha) was mostly useless if not for being able to lift Kagome high. His transformations into other things were going good, though.

At least, his goose was nearly perfected. And he was pretty good at mimicking the others, too, if not for some differences, such as his tail. It made Kyou laugh when he mimicked Inuyasha and ordered a leaf that had taken on his own form to stay away from Kagome. Of course, Shippou had flared Inuyasha’s behavior by picking his nose and scratching his ear with his foot.

Kyou would have laughed twice as hard as she did if she knew Inuyasha better. As it was, she had been laughing rather hard, and shortly thereafter, she fell back on the grass and just smiled. Not done playing, he’d come up beside her and started a tickle fight, which admittedly was improper, but at that point he didn’t much care. He just wanted to play more.

And though she blushed, she played back, leaving them both in the situation they were now, panting and trying to settle their breathing. Currently, he looked at her and grinned. “Oy, Kyou-chan,” he said.

She opened her eyes and smiled back. “Yeah?”

“Nothing,” he replied.

She laughed.

~*~ Miroku ~*~

Not having to fight all the time was taking its toll. He sighed, more than a little annoyed at feeling his own strength diminishing little by little. But he could still beat Sango, and that was the good thing. As he thought about that, he glanced at her. Being late, Sango had fallen asleep a short while ago – though not before Miroku had gotten in a grope and a kiss.

He grinned. From the way Sango had spoken about his “waning muscle” earlier, she seemed to truly think he’d been using all of his ability during that race a few days back. It was true that he’d been training himself earlier, but not enough for that water to be a killer; it had been tiring and that was that. He considered it to be a good thing when he was sore and tired from working himself – it meant that the next time he trained himself, it would take more to make him sore and tired.

If he kept that up for long enough. . . all it really meant is that eventually, once he and Sango married as they promised, he would be able to keep her up at night, and those thoughts kept him grinning and training and seducing the seductive vixen.

He wondered, from time to time, how she’d managed to steal his heart and seal his wandering ways so easily. Is this how it was with his father and grandfather? He knew he received his unruly hands from them; had he also inherited a loyalty – for the right woman – so strong no other could harm it?

He glanced at her again, and smiled again. She was certainly worth it, wasn’t she? An incredible female in every way he could see. He could imagine what amazingly strong sons she could bear, but also, and probably more appealing, the beautiful, unique, brazen daughters she would undoubtedly bring into the world.

And if this world was perfect, he’d be the father of all of them. As many as she wanted, he’d give; he loved her far too much to ever deny her that. If she wanted a dozen sons and a dozen daughters, then by Kami-sama he’d acquiesce. He’d give up everything except his own flesh and blood to fill her needs.

He closed his eyes. That was enough thinking for one night, wasn’t it? But still, Kaede-sama was still awake, and he wanted to talk to the healer. And so he rose silently, crept outside, and found her lightly dozing near her herbs.

Sitting down beside her, he took up a pose of tranquility. She woke a few moments later, feeling his presence there, and turned to him. “Yes?” she spoke.

He smiled. Agile as ever for a sixty-something-year-old. “Good evening,” he started. “I wanted to you ask about, ah. . . Sango and my marriage.”

“And what is it you need my advice for?”

He shifted. In his head, he had a scenario playing, but scenarios were hard to word. “I have visions of the ceremony,” he began, finding the words. “I don’t know precisely how to make it all work, though, and neither do I know exactly what Sango would want to take place.”

“Ah, you wish me to speak with Sango.” It wasn’t a question. She moved to face him. “You want me to ask Sango about her dream wedding in your place, then tell you what she said.”

He felt guilty all of a sudden, when she looked at him like that. He glanced away. “Only to make it as she wants it.”

“Why not ask her yourself?”

He blushed a little. “I suppose it’s embarrassing, to talk to her about the wedding when we haven’t really spoken of it in some time.”

“You’re worried she’ll think you’re trying to rush it.”

“. . .I am.”

Kaede went quiet and thought on that. “So you truly want the wedding to be very soon?” she worded carefully.

He swallowed, uncannily nervous. “Kaede-sama, I wouldn’t ask you to do something impossible,” he tried. “Even the smallest bit of information would help me. I just can’t imagine it being a grain of rice less than perfect.” He looked up at her.

She looked very somber. “I will speak to Sango for you, but you must do something for me in return.”

He straightened a little. Kaede wasn’t the kind of woman to do an eye for an eye. “What would this task be?”

She smiled.

~*~ Sesshomaru ~*~

Thirty days and counting.

With preparations almost complete, he gave himself time to relax. In one month exactly, it was going to be time to visit Chich-ue’s grave again. Every hundred years as a ritual, he and Inuyasha left to visit the grave. Granted, at first Inuyasha was less than enthusiastic, but eventually Sesshomaru won and proved the point of respect and fathers.

On that thought, he flipped open his laptop and scrolled the mouse over to a program shortcut with a claw. Several windows popped open and he picked one, enlarged it: Inuyasha was outside at the moment, and this window showed Sesshomaru what was going on.

A demon fell and admitted defeat, and Inuyasha grinned. It made Sesshomaru smile. It took a lot of incentive on his part, but he managed to get demon after demon to come and spar with Inuyasha. He knew for a long time that Inuyasha’s main usefulness and joy – outside of Kagome – is sparring with those worthy enough to provide a challenge.

In these days, finding that challenge was the hard part. Luckily, the lack of conflict got under most demons’ skins, so initiating a fight wasn’t the problem – finding a demon who was willing to fight Inuyasha, however. . .

About three hundred years ago, Sesshomaru and Inuyasha got into a fight with another demon who wanted all of Japan to rule, and though the fight left its scars on most things except their bodies, the brothers won. Soon after, everyone knew of Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, the sons of the greatest inu tai-youkai who’d ever lived. If that wasn’t enough, the two were often referred to as being a force as deadly as nature when teamed up, and from that, demons began telling stories of them – sometimes exaggerated, but neither brother ever corrected them.

Humans, on the other hand, tended to forcibly forget the old times and stories and move on, leaving only the demons and specific families aware that demons still existed, along with their stories.

When Inuyasha first told Sesshomaru of his plan of protecting Kagome, the first thing he mentioned was that he didn’t know who her ancestors were. So instead he staked out her future residence with demon hands, and Sesshomaru kept a stronger eye on her through his family and close friends. One thing Inuyasha didn’t know was that his great nephew, Sesshomaru’s grandchild, helped Kagome’s family build the shrine they lived in now.

If you call “helping” being killing the hostile demons lazing around and clearing the area of trees. The funniest part is that it was unintentional; the grandson had been training himself and ended up accidentally saving the life of one of Kagome’s ancestors and earning lifetime gratitude. Only himself, Sesshomaru, his wife and his mother knew this story; they were keeping it tight between them.

Speak of the devil, he thought, looking up as a very familiar scent wafted up. “Good morning, Mother,” he called as she entered the room.

She was starting to look old. It twisted his heart to know her life was ending, so he kept up a smile in her presence.

“Good morning,” she said back, easing into a chair across from him and sighing. She kept her hair much shorter now than in the past, and always held up and out of her face. “Watching your little brother again?”

He leaned back. “Yes. He seems to be recovering.”

“At long last,” she spoke as though reading his mind. She waved a finger at him. “Come here, son.”

He stood up and rounded the desk. Sitting on it across from her, he knew she meant business. “Yes, Mother?”

“Are you sure he’s getting better?” she asked with concern in her voice. It had taken a long time for her to get over his father taking a human mate, and longer to come to terms with Inuyasha’s existence, but after so long, she began seeing Inuyasha as a son as well.

“Positive. I don’t lie to you.” He hadn’t said, I wouldn’t lie to you. He knew she understood the difference.

She stood up, again with a sigh, making the lines on her face appear deeper. “Sesshomaru. . .”

He knew that look. She did that from time to time, give him a longing look, sometimes utter his name once or twice. Then she’d look a little saddened and, never finishing her thought, simply leave. Not this time.

He stepped away from the desk and pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. “I won’t let him just die, Mother. And neither will I keel over for no reason.”

He could feel her surprise even as she hugged him back. “This is a surprise,” she commented, leaning into him. “You don’t normally drop what you’re doing to hold your elderly mother.”

He frowned. “You’re not elderly,” he denied. “And yes, I know, it’s unlike me. But not to worry, I still have my facade for those outside of family.”

This had taken a long time as well. From the moment he knew how to speak and brandish his claws, his mother hadn’t been an active part of his life. Standing around hugging wasn’t on their daily activity list. Even during their meetings until the last two centuries, there was rarely any touching or relaxed feelings. Funny how it had taken Inuyasha’s unexpected entry into his life to make him feel for his mother again.

He let her go. “I am sorry,” he said, offhandedly.

She looked confused. “About what? What could you possibly have to be sorry for?” she asked, touching his cheek with a half-smile.

“For being an unemotional bastard for most of my life,” he offered, smiling back and covering her hand with his own. “When was the last time we spent a day together?”

She raised a brow. “My son, are you considering leaving your work to stay with me for an entire day?”

“And night, and possibly tomorrow.”

She laughed. “What’s gotten into you?” she wondered aloud.

His mind wandered back to Inuyasha. For ages, he hadn’t had to worry about Inuyasha’s untimely death, because Inuyasha had a mission to complete in decades’ time. Now he had just another three years left before he would waste away. It got Sesshomaru thinking that not everyone was as immortal as they thought.

Especially not his mother. She had maybe another century in her before it ended. All the more reason to take a few days off and see if he can’t keep her happy.

She must have noticed his expression change. With a gentle smile, she cupped his face and said, “How long are you willing to spend with your dear old mother?”

How does “forever” sound? He shook that thought off. “Oh, a few years, at least,” he teased lightly.

She laughed again. “Three days. I won’t let you waste time for longer than that.”

He could almost hear her tsk. “Wasting time? This Sesshomaru? Never.” He took her hand and gestured the door. “Where would my Mother like to go? The sky is the limit for technology only.”

“I don’t know when you grew so kind,” she said, looking up at him, “but Inuyasha and Rin have my thanks.”

~*~ Kagome, A Few Weeks Later ~*~

She sighed lightly, curled up on her bed. Being late at night, she was prepped for bed and now only had to wait for Inuyasha to return. He was bathing, something he did much more of late, but before that, he’d made sure that Kagome was happy. Which is why she was smiling and still blushing a little. She wouldn’t have thought that she’d be so easily pleased, but she was – at least where Inuyasha was concerned.

A few kisses, a couple nuzzles, and a rub on the hip and Kagome was all grins. She was sure it was feeding his ego, but to his credit he wasn’t showing it. Not that she would have minded, really; in her eyes, he was incredibly cute when he tried to be macho. It’s because she knows how sweet he really is.

More or less alert to his presence made her sit up a moment before he entered her room. She had a smile for him, and as he was doing somewhat often of late, he was dressed in more modern clothes. Sweat pants and a sleeveless t-shirt weren’t all that different from his usual ensemble, so it was his preferred choice.

And he looked damn sexy in it, too. She wasn’t sure why, maybe it had something to do with how he still looked uncomfortable and shy in clothes he wasn’t used to. . . but then, maybe it was the way she looked at him. In the few weeks’ time he’d been spending more often in modern clothes than his own, he told her that she had a “look” which she gave him whenever he was in something she liked.

Maybe it was because of the fact that he was wearing something else, period. Or the first time she saw him in modern clothes. . . when he came waltzing down the stairs with a shirt over one arm and his hair still wet. Sometimes she had pleasant dreams about that instance, such as he tossing the towel away, leaving his hair mostly wet, and ending with her sitting on the table and their mouths locked.

It left her at odds with herself. On the one hand, naughty dreams weren’t exactly a weird thing for someone in a relationship to have. On the other, she was just sixteen. Other factors played in, such as her knowing loosely what their future would be like.

“Welcome back,” she said, moving aside so he’d have some extra room.

He scratched the side of his head as he came closer, looking more shy than uncomfortable. “And this isn’t indecent or anything?” he asked, sitting. “Being in someone else’s house in clothes like this?”

“Well, it’d be more indecent if you weren’t wearing the boxer shorts mother bought you,” she offered, and immediately he glanced away. She snickered. “You’re not wearing them, are you?”

He blushed, his bangs covering his eyes. “They feel weird!” he snarled, keeping his head down and his shoulders hunched. “What do you want me to do, deal with it?!”

“It would help,” she giggled. He glared at her. “Hey now, you’re going to be glad you ‘deal with it’ as soon as you start wearing things with zippers.”

“Zippers?” he echoed, nose scrunching as he thought about it. He paled. “Those could be. . . dangerous?”

“Well. . .” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s very possible that a little something could get caught on the zipper’s way up.”

He jumped up and flailed his arms. “Are you humans crazy?! Who would make something like that?! Why?!”

“The Americans across the Pacific, I think,” she replied, getting up and hugging him around his middle. Smiling at him, she said, “It’s no problem when you’re wearing boxer shorts.”

He looked stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the end he sighed wearily and wrapped his arms around her. “Okay, okay, fine! I’ll start wearing those blasted boxer shorts.” She didn’t miss the venom on the two words.

“Hey, you’re doing it for the safety of all your future children,” she laughed.

“That’s not funny!” he snapped.

She looked up and saw the fear in his eyes, and immediately she knew she’d made light of something he was extremely worried about. Of course, that made her an insensitive bastard, didn’t it? She looked away, feeling ashamed of herself. “. . .Sorry. You know I didn’t mean. . .”

He didn’t reply, making her only more afraid she’d hit a chord too hard. She could feel from their position how shaky his breathing had become, but his arms were holding her tighter. Trying to read his body language was confusing her, so she looked up.

He was hiding his eyes again, his jaw set and lip curled enough to bare a single fang. Venturing out a little, she stroked his back and whispered his name.

He lifted his chin enough to show his eyes. There was a whole slew of emotions running through his eyes, enough that she couldn’t name them, only feel them. It nearly made her blood freeze. He still wasn’t saying anything, so she tried again.

“I’m sorry.”

He pulled her a little closer, and closed his lips over his fang. “. . .I know,” he finally replied.

She dropped her chin and leaned against him, hoping that her obvious want to be close to him would help him forgive her the small accidental comment. In her mind, she was sifting through all the jokes and insults she knew that involved one’s child or parent, and put them in a box labeled “Never Ever Speak In Inuyasha’s Presence,” locking it away and dumping it in a bigger box that read, “Stupid Things To Never Be Done.”

She didn’t know how long they stood there for, but eventually the moment ended and Inuyasha said, “I forgive you.”

How long it took him to say those words made her cold inside, and she clung a little tighter to him. “Thank you. . . We should just. . . go to sleep now,” she offered tentatively.

He nodded, his chin brushing her hair. His arms loosened but didn’t fully let go, calming the blizzard inside her a little. Almost as one, they moved to lay down and Inuyasha let her go to turn off the lights, then they were cuddled close but neither tired anymore.

“. . .Do you have school tomorrow?” he asked.

“No. We can go back and hunt for shards again.”

“Okay.”

She shut her eyes and started counting backwards from a thousand in her head. It would be slow going, but hopefully it would help calm her nerves and put her to sleep. She knew Inuyasha stayed up until after she nodded off, so essentially both of their rests depended on her falling asleep quickly.

In the back of her mind, she went over the recent goings-on of everyone she knew. Sango and Miroku’s wedding date had been set and will commence in four months, during the full moon. Sango wanted it at exactly sunset, so they could watch the stars come out. Likewise, Miroku and many of the men from the village – Inuyasha and Shippou included – began construction of their future house.

Hojo’s obsession with her was finally gone entirely, and she actually heard that he was seeing Hisaka of all people. She didn’t know the whole story, but after lengthy forgiveness and odd conversations, they grew relaxed around one another, and one day at school Eri informed her that Hojo and Hisaka were seeing each other.

On top of that, Hisaka managed to get transferred to their school. She mentioned something about hate between her teachers and herself, buttering up her parents, pulling a few strings, and now Hisaka wore a uniform of Kagome’s school, and even had math class with her. The girl was an absolute genius with numbers and variables and things Kagome could hardly remember, let alone understand, and Hisaka was going out of her way to teach Kagome how to understand it all, too.

The great thing was, Hisaka knew exactly how to translate the numbers into things Kagome could figure out, so it was becoming a little bit easier. Inuyasha, too, tended to lean over her shoulder and follow along. It was embarrassing the first time he figured out an equation that she couldn’t get, but it was useful now that he was helping Miroku build his house.

Every week or so she got a call or a visit from Sesshomaru or his company, and found that he’d been keeping tabs on her, Inuyasha, her friends and family. She still visited Dr. Lanes weekly, and after each session she felt a little more like herself. Inuyasha returned to the habit of going inside with her, which Sarah never opposed to anymore.

Kyou’s crush on Shippou was relaxing a little, allowing her to play with him instead of hide nearby and blush. Shippou, in return, was enjoying having a playmate besides Kirara, who also tended to play with the two pups.

None of them heard a word from Kikyo since her last visit, but just a short few days ago, Kohaku randomly showed up and spoke to Sango. Kagome didn’t know what was said, but he left again shortly after and Sango seemed okay with it. However, she didn’t tell Kagome a word about what they talked about.

Souta went out on a limb and brought his girlfriend home a week ago, and everything the two of them did involved staying close and usually holding hands. When Inuyasha thought she wasn’t looking, he and Souta gave each other a thumb’s up and a grin. She didn’t understand what that was all about, but then she wasn’t trying to understand every little thing Inuyasha did.

She was at five hundred now, and luckily getting a little drowsy. She moved a little, sliding her arm further up Inuyasha’s side. His arms tightened around her a little in return, and she sighed, their earlier trouble almost forgotten. She hoped the entire thing was gone for good, but only time would tell in that category.

Her computer was coming in handy with keeping contact with her friends outside of school and phones, and searching the net helped her with research when she needed it. Inuyasha learned how to work it while she was gone and tended to do little searches about things he was curious about, and every time he learned something interesting, he immediately told her all he knew about it.

She went back to the hospital about two weeks ago and got a check-up physical and some varied questions, finding that not only was she perfectly healthy, but she’s healing way faster than usual and had very little time left at this rate before she’s as close to how she used to be as she can get. But there was an added comment that since this level of healing wasn’t seen in a human before, she might actually be exactly how she used to be by the time it was over.

They were actually suggesting that her hymen was going to heal as well. She didn’t think that was possible, at least not without a year’s worth of time to spare. She wondered if it meant she was healing a year’s worth in less than a quarter’s time, in which case she could safely say that she was far from being a normal human anymore.

It made her think that maybe she’d been steadily changing over her time searching for the Shikon No Tama, now more than a year ago. She wouldn’t go as far as saying she was becoming something else, like transforming or something, but she was certainly becoming more than human. Perhaps it was her spiritual powers taking hold of her body, or some kind of reaction to her rape gone a bit too far.

Or maybe she was so desperate to be perfect for Inuyasha that her powers were fixing her, and fast. That seemed the most likely reason, perfectly possible, entirely probable, and exactly how she’d want it if she’d been thinking of healing that far and that quickly. Even Dr. Lanes mentioned that her mentality was more than where a woman’s usually was after a rape – some women, she said, don’t even make it as far as Kagome has already, let alone how quickly.

She said most victims generally need a whole two years, and for her, the trauma should have been much worse, taking more like four or five years, perhaps more. It made her feel more than a little proud of herself, and very grateful for Inuyasha’s presence – without him, she was sure she’d still be in the stage where random crying was normal.

At this rate, she’d be perfectly normal by Sango and Miroku’s wedding, and that was a very good thing. She wanted to wish them a happy marriage, many well-behaved children, and an exciting wedding night. The latter maybe just to Sango, off to the side. . .

She smiled and reached zero. Her mood successfully refitted for sleep mode, she gave a sigh, relaxed entirely, and called on dreams. It didn’t take long for her to fall into her dreamworld, and found herself having more pleasant dreams of Inuyasha in various types and amounts of clothing.

:End Chapter:

Way too late, I know. New Age is giving me trouble too. It’s like going to college is slowing down everything else; I’m having a hard time drawing as well. To top it off, I officially have a job now, though granted it’s a weekend job. Still, this eats up all my days except Sunday, and that’s usually when I do all my schoolwork/homework.

I’ll try to keep this going, and as you can see, I fastforwarded a bit. I plan on keeping that up, since the bulk of the story is done already and now needs a nice ending, and maybe from there a sequel. . . we’ll see.

On another note, I’ve been trying my hand at animating and comic-drawing. I’ve also developed a huge interest in Naruto, and have been creating a few female characters here and there to pair off guys who I think wouldn’t go well with the girls already shown. I’m up-to-date with Naruto as well, so if you have any questions, ask me or Wikipedia. ;P

Oh, and don’t try to go looking for the Naruto fics yet; I haven’t posted them. Hell, I haven’t done much on them as of yet. I can give any one of you info on the fics, though. If you don’t know what Naruto is. . .

. . .You’ll just have to die. >:D

:Sends out all Naruto-lovers to kill all my readers who don’t know who he is: Seriously. . . at this point, how could you NOT know? He only has over 200 (Japanese) episodes, and over 300 manga chapters. 332, so far, I believe.

So yeah, if you haven’t checked my deviantart gallery in a while, you’ll find Naruto stuff there. Or Naruto-related. I actually have two groups of friends who employed my services in filling holes in three-man teams, so I have two of those. One’s a man! O.o

Hehe, Didi’s so darn adorable. :Insert chibi grin here:

See ya!