InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 93

[ 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 92

For a moment, the room fell silent except for Aki’s yelling and the resounding sound of the slap he gave his cousin. All heads turned in the direction of the two boys.

“You shit!” the boy yelled.  “I ought to...”

For a moment as Tsuneo watched, everything felt frozen in time, in slow motion. Not yet able to move, he watched Susumu lurch toward the boys, reaching for Aki’s hand to stop the blow that he was about to give Isao. Before the village guard could reach him, there was a red blur and a yelp as InuYasha leapt across the room, moving at faster than human speed.   

The hanyou pulled Aki off of his cousin by his collar, his black brows knitted together as he glared at the boy he hauled to his feet. “What the hell, brat? Aren’t you in enough trouble? What the hell are you doing?”

Anger draining from his face to be replaced by a look of fear, Aki screamed as he realized who had grabbed him. He became a sudden windmill of arms and legs trying to hit and kick as he struggled to get away. “The monster has me! Let me go!”

Not wanting the boy to slip way by ripping his clothes, InuYasha picked him up, sliding his hands under Aki’s armpits, lifting him off the ground in a bear hug. Flailing wildly, the boy faced Isao and his grandfather.  

“You can kick all you want,” the hanyou said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

That must have been the signal that unfroze the rest of the room. Hisa and Kagome began moving to the injured boy.  Kagome, passing her husband glanced up at the boy he was restraining and shook her head.  Even frightened, his face was filled with anger.

InuYasha watched his wife move to help, then turned his attention back to the struggling child in his arms.“So, brat, you were just going to act all sad and scared to get people to feel sorry for you, were you?  You think that would have kept you out of trouble? What were you going to do?  Blame the yamabushi for why you did it?”

“Shut up!” the boy said. “Ojiisan!”

At the head of the room, Toshiro stood up, unsure of what to do. “Well, this is an interesting turn of affairs.”

“This whole thing has been one interesting turn of affairs after the other,” Tameo said wearily, choosing not to stand up and join the crowd. He picked up his brush, and dipped it into the ink. “I’m more than ready for it to calm down and go back to being boring.”  He made a note on the scroll in front of him.

“You’re not the only one, Otousan. I’ll get some rope,” Kinjiro said. He watched the scene with InuYasha calmly, assessing things like he would when getting ready to turn a field. “At the rate he’s kicking, we’ll probably need it if we don’t want him running off. I don’t think he’s going to calm down on his own.”

His father nodded.  “You’re probably right.” He watched Aki try to pry InuYasha’s hands off, the hanyou shifting his burden to keep his fingers out of the reach of the boy’s mouth.  Aki kicked backwards, but InuYasha just stood there. “Good thing InuYasha-sama has youkai blood. That boy packs a mean kick.”

“Found that out yesterday,” Kinjiro said, then headed to the door and  slipped out of the building.

For the moment, Aki stopped struggling, realizing his tactics weren’t working. “Ojiisan! Don’t let the monster hurt me!” He reached out his arms toward his grandfather. “Help me!”

Tsuneo glared up at his grandson.“He can have you.” Putting an arm around his grandnephew’s back, he joined Susumu in helping Isao sit up. “Right now I wouldn’t stop him if he tried to eat you. Not after what you did to your cousin. Not after how you lied. A boy who acts like you deserves it!”

Aki shrieked, and renewed his struggle trying to get out of InuYasha’s hold. “Ojiisan!”

InuYasha growled, which for a moment made the boy freeze. “Only person been hurt here today is your cousin, and you did the hurting,” the hanyou said. “I’ve never hurt a human child, but the way you’re acting, you might be the first exception to the rule.” He looked around the room. “Anybody got anything we can tie this wild thing up with before I forget that he’s a boy and not some rat youkai I need to get rid of? ”

“Kinjiro went to get some,” Miroku said, moving near the hanyou. “I do believe as stupid as that bakeneko we just took care of was, this boy has less sense.”

“Shut up! Ojiisan!” Aki tried to kick the monk, but Miroku deftly got out of the way.

“Feh,” the hanyou said, tightening his grip. “Both about the same to me. Both turned on the people who tried to help them.”

Aki spit at the monk. Miroku, in turn rapped him on the head with his staff gently. Aki tried to grab the staff, and howled. “You can’t do this to me!”

“It looks like we can,” Miroku said, moving his staff out of harm’s way, the rings jingling as he shifted. “I see your point, InuYasha.  But a bakeneko has an excuse.  That’s its nature.  I’m not sure what this boy’s is.”  

While Miroku and InuYasha dealt with Aki, Susumu held Isao’s chin in his hand.  “Let me see your lip,” he said. “We need to keep you away from that brat,” Susumu said. “You’re getting too beat up being around him.”

Susumu turned the boy’s  head a little as he studied the injury. There was a small trickle of blood on the boy’s chin and a mark on his cheek that was probably going to bruise. As Susumu rotated Isao’s head, he moved it to a place where the boy had to watch Aki struggling in the hanyou’s hold. For a moment Aki caught his eye and looked down at him in rage.

“I hate you!” Aki said. “You just wait.”

“Don’t listen to him, boy. I’m not going to let him hurt you,” Susumu said.

Isao broke out of Susumu’s hold. “I’m all right.” His voice got very soft and questioning. “I did the right thing, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Isao-kun. You acted like a man,” Susumu said, patting his shoulder. “More than I can say for your cousin.”

Kagome kneeling down next to him, took a handkerchief out of her sleeve. “You did a brave thing, I think,” she said, cleaning the blood off of his chin and daubing at his lip. “It’s not easy doing the right thing sometimes.”

Hisa came up with a bowl of water. “Let’s get some cold compresses on that lip of yours, boy. It’ll help the swelling. I can make you some more of that special tea if you need it. If you want to lie down, I’m sure Tameo-sama won’t mind if I’ll take you back to the house.”

Isao gave a small nod, and let the women doctor him. Tsuneo patted the boy on the back, but took a moment to glare at his grandson.

“Where’s Kinjiro?” InuYasha asked, obviously getting tired of his charge.  

“I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment,” Miroku replied. “But I bet I have an ofuda here that would calm him down.” He reached into his robes and pulled out a packet of papers.

Aki’s eyes grew wide for a moment, and he slumped in InuYasha’s grasp. “Don’t...” he said.

“Don’t like ofuda, do you?  Maybe you’ll think twice before putting them on someone’s door,” the hanyou said. Aki lay quietly in the hanyou’s arms and nodded. For a moment, InuYasha thought he had given in. “Ready to behave like a man?” he asked, loosening his grip.

That was enough for Aki. In a surprise move, the boy lurched forward and slipped out of the hanyou’s arms, dashing around the monk as he made a quick attempt to run out of the building, only to slam hard into Daitaro’s chest.

“Going somewhere?” the old man asked, wrapping his arms around the boy. “I don’t think Tameo-sama’s quite done with you yet.”

“You’re right,” Tameo said. He had gotten up from his place when Aki broke loose and walked over to the two of them. “We’re a long way from done.”

“Let me go!” Aki cried beating at Daitaro’s chest. “If my obaasan were here, you wouldn’t do this! She wouldn’t put up with you, you old drunk!”

InuYasha grabbed the boy again. “Don’t think you’re going to fool me again this time. Old drunk, huh?  That old man’s got more honor in his right hand than you can dream of ever having, brat. Not if you keep acting this way. You won’t live long enough to get a chance to learn it.”

Aki looked over his shoulder, trying to see InuYasha’s face. “What do you know about stuff like that, monster?  My obaasan said -”

Kinjiro hurried back in with a length of rope. Before Kinjiro could get to InuYasha, Tsuneo walked up to him and gave Aki a hard slap on the face.

“Don’t you talk about your obaasan like that, boy. If she were here to see what you did, she’d be tying you up herself,” Tsuneo said. “You shame her.”

Aki stared up at his grandfather with unbelieving eyes. “But...but...”

Kinjiro walked up next to Tsuneo, holding the rope. The older man nodded, and Kinjiro grabbed Aki’s hands and began tying them together.

“Your obaasan would never put up with this type of behavior from your otousan,” Tsuneo said. “What makes you think she’d put up with it from you?”

Once the boy’s hands were secure, InuYasha let him slide to the ground. Aki tugged at the rope, but Kinjiro was read for him.

Tsuneo took a deep breath. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell her how you behaved today. After everything that happened yesterday and everything that yamabushi did to her, this is going to be a bitter pill.”

Tsuneo  turned towards Kinjiro. “Better make sure he can’t run. He’s already tried once.”

“Tsuneo,” Tameo said, stepping forward. “Can I...”

“Do with him as you and Toshiro see fit.” The old man’s back was straight and proud, but his face lined with his disappointment, and his eyes looked like the eyes of a person who just buried a child. “Now I know how my own ojiisan must have felt. But at least I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. And I didn’t beat up my own family trying to get out of trouble.”

“Ojiisan,” Aki whimpered.

Daitaro walked up to Tsuneo, and wrapped an arm around him.  “Come on, old friend. It’s hard, but we’ll figure out something to do that’ll help him grow up right. You’re not the only one who was a brat as a kid.  My parents were ready to kick me out there for a while, but look how I turned out.”

Tsuneo barked a short, bitter laugh. “I seem to remember a time or two.  But even you...”

“Let’s go outside and get a breath of fresh air. Sunlight and fresh air, among other things,” Daitaro said, patting the jug on his hip, “always help a man get a better perspective. Maybe we can come up with an idea.”

Hisa looked up from where she was holding a cool wet cloth on Isao’s face, nodded at the old farmer and gave him a brief smile.  Daitaro nodded back, and led Tsuneo out of the door.

By now, Kinjiro had wrapped his rope around Aki’s arms, restricting his ability to hit. Aki, though, watching his grandfather walk outside, made a sudden lunge at InuYasha, trying to knock him over with his shoulder.

“It’s all your fault!” the boy yelled. “Chichi-ue said you cursed our family with bad luck. Morio told me you would destroy us all if we didn’t make the villagers drive you out. Now my ojiisan hates me and it’s all your fault. If you hadn’t been here...”

Aki crumpled to the floor and began crying. InuYasha squatted down, yanked the boy’s head up and looked him in the eyes. “I’m the least of your problems, boy.  If you don’t start making some better choices about what’s the right way to do things, I don’t know what’s going to happen to you. You don’t have anybody to blame but yourself.”

Aki evidently ran out of words to say, and just lay there on the floor, crying.

InuYasha straightened up. His face was stony, unreadable. “I need a breath of air myself. Call me when you need me.” And with that, without even a glance at Kagome or Miroku, he headed out of the office.

As he watched, Isao pulled away from the compress Hisa had on his lip. “Is InuYasha-sama all right? Aki can be so mean.”

“Shut up,” his cousin said, trying to get up. “I ought to - ”

“That’s enough out of you, Aki,” Kinjiro said, tugging on the rope wrapped around the boy. “You’re making your hole deeper every minute.”

Kagome started to get up. “Maybe I better go check on InuYasha.”

Hisa grabbed her hand. “I’m sure he just needs a moment to cool down. It can’t be easy for him, people telling him over and over he’s the blame for their bad luck, when he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It’s not,” Kagome said, nodding. She looked towards the door.  “I just...”

“I know,” Hisa said, patting her hand. “Sometimes, though, we just need to give them time.”

Toshiro walked up to Tameo. “So what do we do now?”

“Think,” Tameo said. He looked at Miroku, who was standing by the door, frowning. “And maybe, Houshi-sama, you might say a prayer or two that we have the wisdom to do the right thing.”

Miroku turned back to the room and nodded. “That might not be a bad idea. Although, perhaps, it’s a shame that Daitaro took his sake bottle with him. After all of this, I’m not sure if tea is a strong enough drink.”

Toshiro snorted, and Tameo patted the monk’s back. “Don’t think we’re without resources.  Let’s go sit by my desk. There’s something there I can share with you.”

For a moment, Hisa frowned as the men walked past a weeping Aki and bemused Kinjiro to the other side of the room, and then sighed. Susumu looked up at his mother.

“Some days are just not what you expect,” he said. “They have a certain twist to them.”

“So they do,” Hisa said. She gave her son a half-smile. “Throwing my own words back at me? Sometimes, I say more than I should. Go help your brother find a place to put the boy. He’s looking at him like Aki was an unruly calf.”

Nodding, he went off to lead Aki to the left side of the room not far from the table, where he tied the rope to a pillar. Together, he and Kinjiro went to join Tameo and Toshiro in sharing his father’s secret stash of sake.

“Here’s to wisdom,” Toshiro said, raising his cup. “May Monju Bosatsu, Lord of Wisdom, guide us well today.”

“The Buddha knows we’ll need it,” Miroku said, and drank down.