InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 53

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

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi


Chapter 53

The next morning, Kagome, InuYasha, and Miroku stood in front of Kaede’s house.  It was still early.  A few farmers were heading toward their fields or garden plots and one ambitious wife was already hanging up some clothes to dry, but most of the village was at breakfast still.

InuYasha rested his hands on Kagome’s shoulders. “So, you’ll wait at Sango’s until I get back?”

“Yes, InuYasha.  If I’m not there, I’ll be with Kaede,” Kagome said, smiling at him.  “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be safe.  And you even told me Daitaro’s going to keep an eye on the house.  Everything’ll be fine here.”

A rooster nearby crowed, as if agreeing with it.

Miroku rested a hand on the hanyou’s back. “We should be getting started, InuYasha.”

“Yeah, I know.”  InuYasha let his hand slip off his wife’s shoulders, but he took her hands.  He was about to say something, but  then the bamboo mat door to Kaede’s house lifted, and Shippou bounded out.  

“It’s all right, InuYasha, I’m here,” the kitsune said, jumping onto InuYasha’s shoulder.  “I’ll make sure everything’s all right.”

“Right, brat,” InuYasha said, lifting him up. “You stay where Kagome can find you.”

“Indeed, Shippou-chan,” Miroku said.  “We’re depending on you in case there’s a problem.”

The kitsune jumped into Kagome’s waiting arms, beaming. “I promise.”

“But, if all goes well, we should be home somewhere near nightfall, maybe a little later,” Miroku said.

Kagome ruffed the kitsune’s head, but looked at InuYasha. “You have your lunch?”

InuYasha patted a little bulge in his jacket.  “Right here.” He gave a nod  to Miroku. “I guess we’ll be going.”

“InuYasha-sama!  InuYasha-sama!”

The hanyou turned.

Hiseo, coming out of Kaede’s house, ran up to InuYasha. “InuYasha-sama! I was afraid you had left,” he said, bowing. “ Are you really going to take care of the youkai that made my sister sick?”

InuYasha looked at him, both curious and  impatient. “Yeah, kid. We talked about that yesterday, remember?  That’s why I’m going.”
 
“Here,” the boy said. “Take this.  My father gave it to me to keep me safe on the way here.  I’m thinking maybe it’ll help you when you get there.”  He held out his hand.  It was a small carving of Kintaro, the strong boy who was able to kill monsters and bend trees like they were twigs.  

InuYasha ran his fingertip over the little figure. It looked like  a fat child dressed only in a long bib with the word for gold written on it in black paint. “Kintaro?  He was my favorite story when I was a kid,” InuYasha said. “You’re sure you want me to have it?”

“Yes,” the boy said, bowing again. “He’s my favorite too.  Maybe he’ll bring you luck.  He made me feel safe enough to do the walk here.” He looked up at the hanyou. “Yesterday, I was rude to you.  But you’re doing a good thing, trying to save my village.  I hope the same luck I had getting here will be with you when you go there.”

InuYasha, a bit surprised, nodded and stuck it in his jacket. “I’ll bring him back to you.”

The boy nodded back. “I can feel it’s  going to be a good day.  My father’s name is Masu.  Please let him know that my sister is doing better.  She’s been up this morning and eating breakfast.”

“That’s good,” InuYasha said. “We’ll make sure it’s safe for her to go home again.”

The boy nodded, then bowed, and hurried back inside.

“That was a surprise,” Miroku said.  “I think somehow, you’ve become someone’s hero.  I wonder if anybody told him something?”  He looked at Shippou.

“Not me,” the boy said, shrugging. “I told him a story about my uncle and a greedy merchant.  Maybe Kaede said something.”

“Whatever,” the monk said.  He leaned on his staff.  “We really need to get going.”

“Shippou, go tell Kaede I’m here,” Kagome said, letting the boy down.

“But -” the kitsune protested.

“Just do it, runt,” InuYasha said, giving him a look that made the kitsune sigh, but he turned around and went back into the house.

Kagome took his hand.  “Hurry home, and be safe.”

He squeezed it back.  “I will.”  Turning to the monk, he said, “What are you waiting for, Bouzu?  We’ve got a monster to kill.”  

“Take care, Kagome-sama.  Have a quiet day.  I’ll get him home as soon as I can,” Miroku said, then bowed.  Lifting his staff, he tapped InuYasha.  “Who’s slowing whom?”

Together, they headed down the road.  Kagome stood there watching them for a few minutes, until they reached a bend in the road, and then picking up the workbasket she had brought with her so she wouldn’t need to go back to the house,  she headed inside.

“Good morning, everybody,” Kagome said as let the bamboo door mat fall shut and she slipped  off her shoes.

The room she entered was almost crowded. Rin sat by her place at the fire pit, eating her rice and soup.  Shippou sat next to her, eating his own breakfast. Yume, Hiseo’s sister was indeed sitting up, using her bedding for a sitting mat as she ate a bowl of rice porridge. For someone who wouldn’t come fully awake the day before, she looked amazingly alert.  Hiseo was sitting cross-legged next to her.  His empty bowl rested on the floor in front of him, and he had his elbow propped on his knee, resting his cheek in his hand as he stared into the fire.

Yume tugged on her brother’s sleeve “Who’s that?” she asked.

“You missed a lot when you were asleep,” Hiseo said. “She’s the wife of the youkai guy I told you about, the one who’s going to kill the monster so you can go home again.”

Yume’s eyes grew big.  “And she’s a miko?”

“Yes, Yume-chan,” Kaede said from her place by the fire pit where she was lifting a bunch of herbs out of a pouch.  She smiled at the girl  “Kagome-chan is my apprentice.”

“A good one, too,” Shippou said.  “She took care of me after my father died, when I was a little kit.”

“You’re still little, Shippou-kun,” Rin said, laughing.

“Not as small as I used to be,” he said, crossing his arms and sticking his nose in the air.  

Rin giggled again, and this time, Yume giggled as well.  “I was always told kitsune were scary. I never knew they could be  funny too,  Shippou-kun,” she said.

“Feh,” he said in perfect imitation of InuYasha, which made Rin giggle even more.   With a sigh, he went back to his breakfast.

“Good morning, Kagome-chan.  The men get off?” Kaede said.  She put the herbs into a mortar, and began crushing them.  

“Yes, they did,” Kagome said, kneeling down by the older woman. “That smells familiar, Kaede-baachan.  Mint?”

The old miko nodded as she took the lid off of a small pan sitting near the edge of the fire and began to slowly add the herbs into it.

“We will go up to the shrine in a little while and say a prayer that all goes well.  But first,” she said, handling Kagome a wooden paddle, “stir this pot while I finish adding the ingredients.  Hisa-sama’s joints are aching again, and we are almost out of the ointment I give her for them.”

“What goes in it?” Kagome asked, taking the paddle and scooting to where she could stir the pot more easily.

Kaede said, taking out another container of herbs which she measured out and put into her mortar.  This time it was pieces of dried root. “Mint, meadowsweet, angelica root, marsh parsley, orange peel.” She crushed them.  “After we get all the herbs in, we’ll keep the pot on the edge of the heat until this afternoon. Later, we will add camphor and wax and put it into jars.”

“Haha-ue makes something that smells like that,” Hiseo said.  He looked into the fire and sighed.

Yume rested her hand on his.  “Like what she makes when we have colds.”

“You’ll get to go home soon,” Rin said.  Having finished her meal, she began going around the room and picking up the empty dishes.

“When?” Yume asked, pulling on Rin’s sleeve.

Rin looked at Kaede, who smiled their way. “You’ll get to go home soon as Miroku-sama and InuYasha-sama take care of the monster who made you sick.  If you went back right now, the monster would start making you sick again.”

“Oh,” Yume said, letting the older girl’s arm go. “I miss my mother.  Will she be all right?”

Rin gave her hand a little squeeze. “InuYasha-ojisan and Miroku-sama are very good at what they do.”

“That they are, child,” Kaede said.  “I would imagine you might get to go home in a day or two.”

Shippou handed his bowl to the girl and scampered over to where Kagome was.  He climbed up on her shoulder, looked into the pot while Kaede added the herbs she had just crushed. Suddenly, the kitsune sneezed.

Kagome turned her head, trying to see the kitsune.  “Are you all right, Shippou-chan?”

“That stuff smells,” he said.  “It makes my nose itch.” He sneezed again.

“Perhaps, Shippou-kun,” Kaede said, looking up from where she was crushing dried orange peel, “you might need to go outside and get some air until we’re finished.”

He sneezed, and wiped at his eyes.  “Makes my eyes water, too. Maybe you’re right.  Getting crowded in here anyway.” With one last sneeze he jumped off of Kagome’s shoulder and headed outside.

Everybody heard him sneeze one more time when he was outside.

“I didn’t know kitsune could sneeze like that,” Hiseo said.

“Oh yes,” Kagome said.  “I remember one time when we were in a place covered with flowers.  He started sneezing as soon as we got there.”

“My obasan does that in the fall,” Yume said.

For a moment, the little house was quiet.  Rin had put all the dishes in a tub and was washing them, humming quietly to herself as she worked.  Kagome stirred the pot as Kaede poured in the orange peel.  With a small oomph, the older miko got up and began putting her herbs away.  Outside, two boys yelled for Shippou to go play, but he refused.  A woman nearby called for her daughter.

Yume sat there, hugging her knees watching the two miko work but then got up and walked up to where Kaede was putting her medicines on a shelf. “Can I go outside, Miko-sama?”  Yume asked.  She looked up at Kaede with big, hopeful eyes.

“You know, yesterday, we couldn’t even wake you up,” Kagome said.  “You’ve certainly started to get better.”

Hiseo followed her, and tugged on her sleeve. “You sure you feel up to it?” he asked giving the girl a hard look.  “Miko-sama’s right.  Yesterday, you were totally out of it.  You think you’re strong enough?”

She nodded. “Please? Just out in front of the house?”

“It’s nice outside,” Rin said, drying a bowl. “Rin would like to go outside, too.”

Kaede looked at Yume with a calm, skilled eye for a moment, judging how well the girl actually was. “If you feel well enough to, child, it might do you good to get some sunshine,” she said, smiling gently. “But I don’t think you should push yourself or play too hard.  And you’ll almost certainly get tired after a little while.”

Hiseo, frowning, had his arms crossed, not happy with the idea.

“That’s where you come in, Hiseo-kun,” Kaede said, giving the boy an encouraging nod.   “Please, stay with her.  Don’t let her run off. Bring her back in once she seems too tired.”

The boy sighed, knowing he had lost, and nodded, then stood up.  “Come on, Yume.  But you tell me if you feel bad.”

“Wait a moment, children,” Kaede said.  

The two siblings turned to look at her. “And you, Rin, you go with them, too.  While you’re out, you can take some medicine to Hisa-sama. Why don’t you take Yume and Hiseo over there with you?  I was going to go there today, but this will save me a few steps.”

The girl, wiping the last bowl dry, nodded.  

Kaede plucked a small jar off the shelf. Rin stood up, and took the jar from the old miko, smiling.  “Maybe Hisa-sama will have some of those rice cakes she gave Rin last time.”

“She might,” Kaede said.  “But if she doesn’t, don’t bother her.  She wasn’t feeling well yesterday.  You don’t have to stay there, but you three, don’t go further than Tameo-sama’s house. ”

The girl nodded, and joining the others, headed out of the house.  Not long after the door mat rattled closed after them,  Kagome could hear Yume laughing and Hiseo yelling at her to slow down.