InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Home Economics ( Chapter 12 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Dropping off the top of the building into the cover of the alley below, InuYasha paused a moment, casting his gaze around the area to make sure no one had spotted him before slowly standing upright.

He made a face, wondering vaguely if they'd realized that he'd left since he hadn't bothered to tell anyone where he was going.  It'd be enough for all of them that he didn't head for Kagome's home, though he'd be lying if he tried to say that the idea hadn't crossed his mind.

Still, it was better than sitting around, waiting for the test results for the damned exams he'd had to take.  Kagura had said it wouldn't take long, but that was three days ago, so his idea of 'not long' and hers were apparently vastly different.

Besides, after the microwave fiasco, he'd pretty well kept himself confined to his room, figuring that there was no way in hell he could possibly get into trouble in there.  That, and there were a number of men in the house afterward—men who had been hired to repair the damage caused by the smoke and water as well as the electrical components that had to be replaced, too.  Sesshoumaru had been more than happy to explain in great detail, just how much money it was going to cost to repair the kitchen, much to InuYasha's overall chagrin.  It wasn't like he'd planned it, right?  And considering that the bastard's cook seemed to loathe InuYasha, then whose fault was it that there wasn't anyone else around at the time to help him figure the stupid microwave out?

Of course, explaining the entire thing to the firemen who showed up because Sesshoumaru's house was rigged with some kind of alarm that was tied into the city's infrastructure, so when the automatic alarms went off, a team of the firefighters was dispatched, was yet another exercise in exasperation.  Most of them had given InuYasha the weirdest look, like they thought he just might be stupid or something, which had his hackles rising again.

But the worst of it, as far as InuYasha was concerned, was that Toga seemed to be avoiding him, too.  Whether he was told to steer clear of InuYasha or if the child was genuinely afraid that InuYasha might be angry at him, he didn't know, but he had to admit, at least to himself, that he honestly hadn't minded having the pup underfoot, either . . .

All in all, he kind of hated this time, and with his quest to get back to Kagome, to get her to remember him, at a dead impasse, he was having distinct trouble recalling exactly why he had chosen to be here, in the first place.

The thing was, he knew, didn't he?  He knew that, in the end, being with Kagome would definitely be worth the effort.  What he didn't know was when or if he'd ever be allowed anywhere near her again—at least, if Sesshoumaru and Shippou had their ways about it.

Heaving a sigh, InuYasha scowled as he stepped into the hazy sunshine that had enveloped the city.  It was never quite as bright as it had been back in his era—smog, he guessed.  A thick layer that prevented true sunshine from reaching the earth . . . The people of this time didn't seem to realize that it was there, and if he were to stop and consider it, he'd have said that it was probably because they'd never actually seen true sunlight, and for some reason, that bothered him even more than he could credit.  It wasn't the first time that he'd thought that the people now lived in a weird kind of illusionary fishbowl, content to accept their existences as status quo, ignorant to the idea that all of the fabricated comforts that they clung to was offered at a cost.

Which was all neither here nor there, as far as InuYasha was concerned.  He had bigger fish to fry, as it were, and standing around, trying to consider the pathetic lives of those who never bothered to question it, wasn’t even on his list of priorities.  At the moment, he had a bigger mission, one that he'd decided upon last night, after finishing the old book the shopkeeper had given to him.

His scowl darkened as his grip upon the old tome tightened unconsciously.  Those tales—all different stories of the Shikon no Tama—bothered him.  There were a couple in there that were fairly close, and, given that they were all put to paper well after the actual event, he supposed that maybe the real story had just not been kept.  After all, the ones who knew best . . . They wouldn't have taken the time to commit it to paper, and certainly not for such a reason, either.  Kagome was the only one that might have done such a thing, but more in line with a passage in her diary, and she . . .

Unable to control the slight wince as the electronic doors of the high-tech mall retreated into the walls at his approach, InuYasha had to grit his teeth and force himself to step over the threshold.  It wasn't the first time he'd dealt with those things, but he never liked it.  Somehow, he had to wonder if he ever really would.

The unnatural and vastly annoying beep of the cell phone he had been given made him grit his teeth.  He hadn't seen the need for such a stupid device, but they'd insisted that it was important nowadays.  Seeing no way around it, he dug it out of his pocket and flipped it open without bothering to read the small display screen to see who it was.  As far as he could tell, it wouldn't matter, anyway, since every last person who could be on the other end of the connection annoyed the hell out of him . . .

"What?" he growled, holding up the phone where they'd told him to so that he wouldn't appear strange to anyone else since his ears weren't where normal humans thought that they ought to be.

A longsuffering sigh greeted his surly question.  "That's not a very friendly way to answer your phone, now is it?"

InuYasha snorted.  "What do you want, Shippou?"

The kitsune chuckled.  "I wanted to let you know what the results of your exams were, but you aren't in your room, and you're not in the mansion . . . So . . . where are you . . .?"

That he'd asked in an overly-neutral tone irritated InuYasha just the same.  After all, he wasn't some pup who needed constant supervision.  "Out," he replied curtly.

Shippou chuckled.  "I gathered as much . . . and where would 'out' be . . .?"

InuYasha snorted.  "Keh!  I'll be back later, all right?" he grumbled, hating the feeling that he was expected to clear his every move with any of them.  That said, he snapped the device closed and stared at it for a long second, trying to decide how much trouble it would cause if he accidentally on purpose dropped the offensive thing into the nearest trash can.­­­

Except they'd all have a collective fit, now wouldn't they, and dealing with any more of their demands or admonishments was just a little more than InuYasha could take.

Like it mattered, anyway.  He wasn't anywhere near Kagome, and that was about the only concession he was willing to make.  He'd been on this side of the well long enough that he was truly starting to wonder if he'd ever really get the opportunity to see her, to be with her.  Every day that passed made it feel like a more and more impossible dream, and it was that sense of melancholy, of complete and utter desolation, that was the hardest to bear.

Heaving a deep sigh, InuYasha stowed the phone back into his pocket once more before scowling down at the ragged book in his hand, and he started moving again.

The hazily lit store was empty of people, despite the incense burning on the counter near the cash register.  InuYasha sneezed, feeling his ears flatten just for a moment in reaction to the dusty smoke filling the air.  A moment later, however, the wizened old man stepped out of the back, smiling when he spotted InuYasha and bowing quickly in welcome.  "Ah, it's you!" he exclaimed quietly, holding out his hands as though to beckon InuYasha closer.  "Did you get a chance to read the book?"

Extending the volume slowly, InuYasha nodded.  "They're all wrong," he muttered.

The man laughed but didn't take the book.  "It's a legend," he replied.  "Scholars say that it never happened—that it couldn't have happened, of course . . . Mononoke, youkai . . . hanyou . . .? They cannot believe in what they do not see, but I . . . and perhaps you . . .? You seem like someone who believes . . ."  Gaze clouding over, his expression taking on a far more philosophical lilt, he scratched his chin as he stared at InuYasha.  "What do you think?" he finally asked.

"About what?"

The old man chuckled.  "About the legend," he clarified.  "Is it all just made up, do you think?  Or do you think that it could have happened?"

"Anything's possible," he muttered, careful of what he gave away.

"Yes, yes, of course!  The hanyou, the miko . . . Even the shattering of the Shikon no Tama . . . But did she do it out of spite?  To keep it out of the hands of the one who would use it for his own gain?  Was there more to the tale that we can only wonder about?"

InuYasha wrinkled his nose, gave a curt shrug.  "She didn't break it out of spite," he said, his voice barely audible.  Most of the stories seemed to gravitate toward the idea that the jewel was broken out of anger, out of a desire to make the hanyou suffer for wishing to become full-youkai.  Most of the tales in the book that had mentioned the broken jewel at all seemed to say that she'd broken it to either keep it away from the hanyou or to hurt him because he had somehow scorned her, and InuYasha . . . He knew better.  "It was an accident," he went on quietly.  "She never meant to shatter it."

"You think?  But why?  She didn't want him to have it, right?  So, what better way to keep it from him than to break it?  To send it, scattered on the wind to all the corners of Japan?"

"She didn't mean to do it," InuYasha ground out again, finally lifting his gaze, glaring at the old man in abject defiance.  "You're wrong about her.  You're wrong about him."

Again, the man chuckled.  If he noticed InuYasha's irritation, he made no indication.  "It's your belief that the Shikon no Tama was broken, then," he mused, considering it for a long second before he finally nodded.  "I  believe that, too," he allowed, quite pleased that InuYasha apparently agreed with him on that point.  "Interesting, isn't it?  That there are references to two hanyou in some, and yet others only mention the one."  Suddenly, he shook his head, waved a hand as though to dismiss the entire tale.  "Fanciful tales for those of us who still dream of those times, I guess.  Still, I wonder . . . Don't you?  Those things that could never really be explained by the scholars who try to apply their science, their logic, to the world . . . Whether the earth was formed over time and space, and who is to say that the dinosaurs aren't the same kind of legend that the Shikon no Tama has been relegated to, as well?  Fossils and the like . . . Men are the ones who have decided that these things belong to those creatures, aren't they?"

InuYasha wasn't sure what to say to that.  Sure, he could understand what the man was saying.  Those things that could only be explained as this or that, but he'd seen for himself, hadn't he?  The huge skeleton his father had left behind in the world between this realm and the next.  It didn't really matter, no, but it did make him wonder, just how many other tales were taken and changed, shifted into legend and discounted through the ages into little more than a bedtime story for children . . .?

"Have you visited Higurashi Shrine?" the old man asked suddenly, turning his wizened old stare upon InuYasha once more.

Just the mention of Kagome's home was like a physical blow, right to the gut, and InuYasha couldn't help the sharp breath or the involuntary step backward.  "H . . . Higurashi . . . Shrine . . ."

"Yes, yes, that's where the hanyou was said to have been sealed," he went on, too wrapped up in his own train of thoughts to notice InuYasha's reaction.  "To Goshinboku . . . If you go there, you can tour the grounds.  You can see for yourself, the scar where the sacred arrow bound him."  Abruptly, the small man laughed and waved a hand dismissively.  "If you believe the legend, that is."

InuYasha's scowl darkened.  No, he really didn't have any desire to seek out the scar where the arrow had held him.  It wasn't to say that he disliked the tree.  He found that particular tree to offer him quite a bit of solace when he needed it, but to look just for that spot?  It hadn't really occurred to him to do that, not ever.  Goshinboku was special to him for a number of reasons, and most of those led back to Kagome, after all . . .

"What do you think happened to the Shikon no Tama in the end?"

That question drew InuYasha out of his reverie, and he blinked quickly as his gaze returned to the old man's face once more.  "What happened to it . . .?" he echoed, slowly shaking his head as a fresh wave of anger roiled up deep inside him.  He knew damn well what had happened, didn't he?  And considering he still wasn't entirely sure how it had managed to blank Kagome's memories, it wasn't exactly something he wanted to discuss, either.

"Some legends say she buried it where no one would ever find it," the shopkeeper mused, pacing back and forth slowly, folding his arms over his chest, idly scratching his chin once more.  "Some say that she purified it, that she wished it away forever . . ." He shrugged but didn't stop moving.  "I wonder, though . . ."

"Wonder what?" InuYasha demanded when the old man trailed off.

He blinked and glanced at InuYasha, and for a moment, he must have forgotten the hanyou's presence.  Then he smiled again, flicked his hand casually.  "Well, it was a balance, wasn't it?  Good and evil intention—the war that was waged within."

"So?"

"So . . . So, if good offset the evil inside it, then it was purified, as they said, but . . . But what became of that malcontent?  What became of the malignance that should have also been released?"  With a sigh, he resumed his pacing once more, and he didn't seem at all concerned that InuYasha hadn't replied.  "Oh, listen to me, going on and on . . . You young people these days don't have the time to stand around, debating the ancient legends, now do you?"

"It ain’t so bad," InuYasha muttered, ears flicking under the concealment that hid his hanyou nature—the concealment that Kaede had placed upon him.  "I mean, didn't have nothin' better to do, anyway."

Another bout of airy laughter escaped the old man as he clapped his hands in happy delight.  "Arigatou gozaimasu," he said, stopping suddenly, offering InuYasha a low bow.

InuYasha blinked.  "What for?"

The man looked like he found InuYasha's question amusing.  But he nodded again, bowed a second time, his smile widening.  "It seems no one usually has the time to discuss anything with this old man," he explained.  "But you took the time, and time . . . It’s precious."  Then he seemed to finally notice the book that InuYasha still held.  "You keep that," he said, waving a hand in his general direction.  "You keep it, and you read it again in ten years, in twenty.  Read it, and see if what you think has changed, if your interpretation is different than it is now."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the shopkeeper that he wouldn’t need to, that it wouldn't matter, that nothing in the world was going to change what he already knew, the things that the book never said because the ones who had written down these legends simply hadn't known, but he did.  He knew the story better than anyone, and it was a story that he'd never, ever forget . . .

In the end, however, he only nodded, sparing a moment to stuff the old book into the sleeve of the fleece sweater he wore.  Then he turned on his heel to leave.

The legend of the Shikon no Tama . . .

The reminder was enough to send a vicious stab right to InuYasha's heart as the echo of Kagome's laughter resounded in the recesses of his mind, as a sharp ache opened up, deep inside him once more.  She was near enough to him that he knew he could reach her in a matter of minutes, couldn't he?  Yet it meant nothing at all, at least at the moment.

'Do you think he knows something?'

Scowling at the question that whispered itself in his head, InuYasha made a face.  'What could he possibly know?  He's human . . . just a loony old man; that's all.'

'Maybe, but . . .'

'But, nothing.'

'Yeah, but maybe he does.  Maybe he knows something about that wish—about why Kagome forgot about you . . .'

Stopping abruptly before stepping out of the old shop, InuYasha pivoted on his heel, his mouth opening to ask the old man one last question, but that question died on his lips as he stared at the empty room once more.  Oh, the baubles still hung from the racks, the smell of incense still lingered in the air, but for some reason, the feeling of the man's aura . . .

It was gone.