InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 92

[ 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 91


As Miroku and InuYasha entered Tameo’s office, the hanyou could smell the lingering scent of sake in the room, but neither the cups nor Daitaro’s jug was in plain sight.

“Oh, they’ve made it look like a formal affair,” Miroku said, pausing in the entryway, blocking InuYasha’s way. “Look how everybody’s sitting.”  

Tameo, joined by Toshiro sat on the far side of the room behind the table the headman used as a desk.  There was a scroll and ink resting on it, but nothing else.  The headman was busy writing something.  Hisa sat behind her husband, but leaned forward to pour tea into his cup.

On the right side of the room,  Daitaro sat nearest to Tameo, along with a scowling Kinjiro.  Next to Kinjiro was an empty cushion.  Kagome was settled down next to the empty spot, looking around the room curiously, but not sure what was going on.

“Looks like everybody who had a run-in with the boys is on that side of the room,” Miroku said.  InuYasha nodded and stepped up on the wooden platform.

On the left side of the table, Tsuneo sat down on a cushion, with the two boys next to him. The elder looked tired, but calm as he sat there watching the people around him. His grandson Aki, though, had his head bowed low, not meeting anybody’s eyes as he chose instead to find something interesting on the pattern of the mat he sat on. It was hard to tell if he were tense or bored as he ran his fingers over the design of the woven straw.  Isao had his head propped on one hand as he sat, bruised side of his face tilted up, his eyes half-closed.  In front of him was a small, empty medicine cup, but it was obvious the potion had not yet begun to work.

Susumu, there in his role as head of the village guard, sat next to the boys, his sword ceremonially laid on the ground in front of him.  Even though he was there officially, it couldn’t keep him from trying to cheer up the boys. He nudged Isao, who turned to him questioningly.

“One day when you’re older, I’ll have to tell you about the day I was sitting in your place,” Susumu said, grinning. “You think you’re in trouble?  You should have seen how my Ojiisan reacted.”

“You?” Isao  nudged his cousin, who also looked at Susumu. “You got in trouble, too?”

Susumu nodded. “I survived. You will, too, you know. Be sure you learn what you can from it.  If you do, who knows how well you’ll do later?”

Kinjiro gave his brother a sharp look, and snorted, but his mother, pouring tea for Toshiro, looked up at him.  He took a breath, nodded, and settled down without saying the wisecrack that was evidently on his lips before she caught him.

Tameo finished writing and put his brush down, then looked up across the room. “Ah,” Tameo said to the newcomers. “Houshi-sama, it is good to see you today.  We can always use the Buddha’s blessing.”  He waved to the right side of the room.  “InuYasha-sama, if you would like, there’s a place for you next to your wife.”

InuYasha nodded, and walked across the room to sit down next to Kagome. She gave him a small smile as he settled down and rested his sword alongside of his seat.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

His ear flicked as he stuffed his hands into his sleeves. “I needed to ask Miroku something.  I’ll tell you about it later.”

She gave him a curious look, but didn’t push it, but turned to watch Miroku take a place not next to them but behind them, but not so close to the wall as to be rude.

“Don’t ask me,” the monk said. “I know better to get in the middle. Ever been to something like this before?”

“Feh,” InuYasha said. “When would anybody have asked me?”

Kagome gave her head a little shake. “We did things differently where I came from.”

“If you need to ask questions,” the monk said, “let me know.” He settled back down in his place.

Tameo took a sip of his tea as he waited for the monk and hanyou to get settled. Staring into his teacup, swirled the liquid around took a sip and then rested the cup in his hand.  Hisa left his side to pick up a larger pot of tea off a brazier near the table, and putting it on a tray with other cups, walked around the room, gracefully serving tea to each person. As she returned to her place, her eyes met her husband’s briefly, and he gave her a tiny nod.

“Now we’re all here, so I guess we can begin. Tea is a good way to begin a meeting like this, I think, even if it’s not the first beverage of choice for all of us here.” Several pairs of eyes looked up at Daitaro.

The farmer snorted, and lifting his sleeve, he revealed the trusty jug he had brought with him, and gave it a fond pat. “Damn right.”

“Still, even though everybody here would agree that Daitaro-sama makes excellent sake, tea does give a clearer head when important things need to be discussed,” Toshiro said. “And we can all use a clear head today.”

“Clear heads are good, even with the morning getting started a little shaky,” Hisa said, not looking at anyone in particular.

“Eh, we won’t talk about that now,” Tameo said, keeping his face as neutral as possible as he  waved his hand like he was chasing away a fly from in front of him. Daitaro, on the other hand, snickered, and Toshiro couldn’t resist a small grin. Tameo took another sip of his tea, then put the cup down.

Tameo looked at the man sitting next to him. “Just for the record, let me say that Toshiro here has come, not as a representative of the elders, but mostly as a friend, trying to help his friends figure out how to solve a problem that will leave everybody feeling the right thing has been done.  We all know what a good eye he has for finding a fresh way out of troubles. I hope this is acceptable.”

Daitaro nodded. Putting his teacup down, Toshiro bowed slightly.

The headman looked at Tsuneo. “I could have called the council of elders today, and made this more formal,” he said, “but this is a matter mostly between Tsuneo’s family and ours. Everybody who’s here, except Toshiro and you, Houshi-sama, belongs to one family or the other, and you are InuYasha’s partner, and were put under the protection of our family kami in a quite spectacular fashion, so you belong, too, I guess, an honorary member of our ko, maybe.”

Miroku gave him a nod.

The headman continued. “I hope everybody is agreed to this, InuYasha-sama, Daitaro-sama, Tsuneo-sama.  If we can work things out between us, then there’s no use for more formal consequences, and definitely no need to bring in the magistrates. You know how messy things can get when that happens.”

Tsuneo glanced at his grandson, who had his head down and his arms wrapped around his middle, rocking back and forth.  The older man sighed, then nodded. “Indeed. One family to another.” He turned back to face the table. “We don’t want this to turn out like what happened that time with Iwao-sama. That was a mess.”

“Remember how the magistrate made us pay extra taxes for two years for his efforts? And on top of that, nobody was happy about the outcome,” Toshiro said. “They take so much as it is. It is best to avoid such things.”

There were murmurs and nods around the room.

“There’s no use in letting the behavior of boys make real harm between one family and another,” Daitaro said.  He drained his teacup, but when Hisa made a move to refill it, he put his hand over the top and shook his head slightly. She tried to give him a look, but he intentionally did not meet her eyes.  “We all were young once.  More than one of us,” he said, looking in Susumu’s direction, "have found ourselves at a meeting like this before.”

Susumu grinned. “I’ve heard tales about you when you were young, too, old man,” he said. “Don’t just look at me.”

“Eh.” Daitaro shrugged. “I didn’t say you were the only one here.”

“Well, to business, then. Yesterday was...” Tameo started. He scratched his chin. “Well, unexpected. And long.”

Tsuneo put his teacup down.  “Unfortunate.”

“Irritating and uncalled for,” Kinjiro murmured softly, but loudly enough for his father to hear. Tameo frowned at him.

“Yes, and all of that,” the headman said. “So, we have two boys who have been getting into trouble and causing their grandfather grief, our young miko was attacked, and we have to deal with the outcome of bad magic.  But we will discuss the boys first.”

Aki looked up briefly to catch Tameo, hung his head down, and nodded.

“But we know yesterday wasn’t all the boys’ fault,” Toshiro said. “There was the role of the yamabushi in this.”

“True, and the kami of my family has taken care of that issue, at least for the moment,” Tameo said. “What he did was reprehensible. And no doubt we still have to figure out the best way to  deal with the aftereffects. But these were the ones who let Daitaro’s cow out. This is the best place to start.” He looked around the room. “Besides that, there have been tales of more pranks than this.”

“Someone who looked a lot like Aki ruined my last batch of sake for the year,” Daitaro said, nodding. “But I only got a glimpse of him, so I didn’t lodge a complaint.”

“And,” Hisa said, as she sipped her own tea, “I’ve heard a story of someone’s laundry that was hung up to dry ending up in the mud. There were no witnesses for that, but Momoe-sama was quite unhappy, and had to do her laundry all over.”

Tameo looked at the boys, rubbing his chin. “I’ve heard some other tales as well, but this is enough to start with.” He looked hard at the two boys.  “Aki-kun, Isao-kun, did you do all of this?”

Tsuneo nudged his grandson.

“We...” Aki began. He curled up even smaller, and gave a shudder like a small sob before  mumbled something nobody could hear.  His grandfather sighed.

Isao, elbowed his cousin.  “You need to tell them.” But Aki still didn’t respond.

“He’s gonna take some real work,” Daitaro said. He looked up at Hisa, and seeing her focused on the boys, poured a quick shot of sake into his cup, which he knocked back. “Be a man, son.”

“Like you took, old man?” Kinjiro said, smirking.  “I’ve heard the stories.”

“More than your brother took,” the old farmer said, scratching his chin. “Don’t know how you managed to keep your nose so clean.”

“Hard work,” the young man replied.

“Sure it wasn’t lack of imagination?” Daitaro replied. Susumu glanced over at the two men and grinned.

“Come on, boy,” Tsuneo said, ignoring the banter from across the room. He rubbed his grandson’s back. “Answer Tameo-sama.”

Aki shook with a sob.  “I...I...didn’t...”  

Tsuneo frowned and took a deep breath, and gave his grandnephew a look. Isao chewed on his lip for a moment, then nodded, and turned to the table.

“Yes, Tameo-sama,” Isao said. He closed his eyes a moment, swallowed, and opened them again. “We did all of those things.” His voice was trembling a little, but loud and easy to hear.  “We did more.  After we heard that Miko-sama had returned and was InuYasha-sama’s wife, we came by and waited for them to be out of the house and threw dirt on their bedding. Aki put an ofuda he got from Joban-ojisan on the door to his house.” Aki looked up at his cousin, wide-eyed. “We opened the gate to let out Takeshi-sama’s ox, too. And we told Haname-Obasan that the kitsune ate -”

As Isao talked, Aki stopped looking like he was going to cry, and instead, his hands began to clench and his face grew red. Before Isao could finish what he was saying about Haname, Aki knocked over his cousin and jumped on him.

“You promised!”  Aki yelled. “You swore you wouldn’t tell anybody any of this.” He backhanded Isao across the face, splitting his lip. “All you had to do was look sad and scared. I told you what to do!” He lifted his fist up to give his cousin a really hard punch. “It’s gonna be your fault we get in trouble.  Damn you!”