InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 119

[ 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 118


While InuYasha was dealing with the activity at Tameo’s compound, Kaede and Kagome made their way to Kaede’s next stop in her morning rounds.

“Daisuke is probably the second oldest person in the village,” Kaede said, as they walked past Tsuneo’s house. “He says Tatsuya’s older than he is by two years, but they are both very old and hardheaded, and helping them when they’re in need can be hard work. But perhaps that stubbornness is why they’ve made it this long.”

“Maybe,” Kagome said, nodding.

Hana, Joben’s sister-in-law, a young woman about sixteen and still unmarried, was hanging laundry out as they walked by.

The woman hung up a striped kosode, evidently her last item, on a wooden rod to dry. Kagome noted the difference in quality between the clothes dancing in the wind here and what Sora had hung up on the line. The clothes drying there were more colorful and not nearly as worn out. For some reason, it never dawned on her before how some families in the village were barely making ends meet, and others were doing much better. She sucked on her bottom lip and thought about this, but that line of thought was broken by Hana’s cheery greeting as the woman waved and picked up her laundry basket.

“Ah, Miko-sama! Are you coming by this morning?” Hana asked, walking towards the two women.  

“Indeed we are, Hana-chan,” Kaede said, shifting her basket. “You’re here helping out today?”

Hana nodded. “Chichi-ue decided to send me here to help as long as they need someone. Ane-ue has her hands rather full, between Haname-obasan and that weird man,” she said, putting the empty basket down. “Otherwise, I’d probably be working in the bean fields.”

“Ah,” Kaede said, nodding. “But first, we need to check up on Daisuke-sama.”

This made the young woman smile. “Oh, I hear he was giving Hisako-sama fits yesterday. He came wandering down the path here yesterday, but I got Hiroki-kun to take him home. He’s almost as much trouble as...”

There was a loud sound coming from the house behind them, and yelling following it. All three women turned to look, but whatever it was happened out of sight and nobody came running.

“What was that?” Kagome asked. “It sounded like something big fell.”

“Morio?” Kaede said.

Hana sighed, and nodded. “Probably. I better get back to see what he got into this time. I’m afraid Tsuneo-ojiisan’s going to kick both Joben-niisan and that...man out of the compound and down to the hut by the river. Nobody's lived there for a while, but Haname’s not sleeping well, and this noise just makes her worse. If they do, I bet Ane-ue will try to get me to go down there to take care of them.” She shook her head. “I hope it doesn’t come down to that.”

The old miko nodded. “We’ll be by in a little while. You can tell Joben I brought that medicine I was talking about. It might help that poor man to calm down some.”

Hana nodded. “That would be a good thing.” There was a repeat of the noise, and more shouts. She picked up her basket and gave a quick bow. “I better go see what’s going on.” With that, she ran towards the house.

“Whatever was the old kami thinking?” Kaede said, shaking her head. With a shrug, she began walking to her next stop.


Meanwhile, at Tameo’s compound, Susumu and InuYasha walked in the general direction of the headman’s house.

“You don’t think he’s going to be inside?”  InuYasha asked.

“Not really,” the guard said. “I heard him say once to do that is to invite being rolled up in the bedding and put away in a cabinet.”

InuYasha snorted. “Nobody said your father was a stupid man.”

Several of the younger children were playing a game under the watchful eye of a teenaged girl who sewed as they tossed a ball back and forth. Aomi, Susumu’s youngest, saw her father and toddled over to him.  

“Chi-chi!” she said, raising her arms to be picked up. He picked the child up.

“Have you seen Ojiisan?” he asked. The girl shook her head. “Obaasan said go.”  

“I guess that answers that,” Susumu said. He let his daughter down. “You go play, Aomi. Otou needs to find Ojiisan.” He watched her walk back to the circle. One of the other children tossed the ball to her, and she soon forgot her father.

“I guess we should start at the office,” Susumu said, but just then,  Emi stepped outside on the veranda, carrying a floor mat and  gave them a wave.

“Looking for Chichi-ue?” she asked shaking out the mat. When Susumu nodded, she gave the mat one final shake and began to roll it up.“Last I saw him, he went around the back towards the cattle shed. If you’re busy, don’t come in. Haha-ue is looking for someone to move the big cabinet.”

“Ah, Emi-chan, you always treat me so well,” Susumu said. “Don’t let Haha-ue know I’m here, all right? I’m supposed to be out spreading straw.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know if she’d be more irritated that I wasn’t doing what I said I was going to do, or more happy to find something else for me to do.”

Emi laughed. “Then I’d hurry if I were you. She was just in the bathing room cleaning the floors. You might miss her if you’re quick.”


While Susumu was talking with Emi, Kaede and Kagome reached Daisuke’s house.

Daisuke’s house was just a little bit down the road. It, too, like Sora’s house, was small, and obviously older, but the grounds around it had been planted with some low growing herbs and amulets and charms hung from the eaves. A stack of wood was neatly piled on one side of the building, split and ready to use. A bobtailed calico cat sat on the wood stack, sleeping, and a vegetable garden was planted behind it. Already some early things were tall enough to harvest.

“Does Daisuke live here alone?” Kagome asked as they neared.

The older miko shook her head. “After the last of her brothers and her only son passed on, Hisako-obasan moved back in with him to keep house for him, and, I think, because she was lonely, and liked her father more than her grandchildren. It was probably a good thing,” the old miko said. “As sick as he was this winter, he might have died if he had been left on his own.” She turned to Kagome and sighed. “Sometimes, the very old get childish, and stubborn, and don’t eat or drink enough for their own good.”

“Is he like that?” Kagome asked.

“You’re about to find out,” Kaede said.  

“Chichi-ue,” a woman’s voice said. “Are you going to be like that today, too?”

The two miko began walking towards the voice, which seemed to be coming from the side of the house.

“I don’t want it,” an old man’s voice proclaimed. “You can just take it away.” It was followed by a long, hacking cough.

When they rounded the corner, they saw the old man sitting on a stump along side of the house. Frail looking and thin, he was bent over, his shoulders stooped from long years working in the fields. He glared at his daughter with a face well lined by time and work and the sun. What little hair he had left was very white, stray wisps of it poking out from underneath his eboshi hat. His beard, long and untrimmed, was just as white.

Hisako, his daughter, returned glare for glare. Kagome remembered meeting the woman going into Tameo’s compound three days earlier. This time, though, the elderly woman had no teasing smile. In one hand, she had a medicine cup. In the other she held a walking staff. From the way she was gripping it, Kagome wondered if she were nearly ready to use it on the old man.

Kaede stopped short of making herself known. “Let’s watch a moment.”

The younger woman nodded, and as she watched, Hisako held the medicine cup under her father’s nose. Her tone was exasperated.

“Please, Chichi. Drink this. You know you’ll feel better,” she said. “Kaede-sama said you need to if you want to get rid of the backache.” He turned his face, refusing the cup, and the shrillness in her voice went up. “It’s bad enough you don’t want your cough medicine, but you can’t even stand up straight today.”

The old man spat. “I’ll stand the way I want,” he said petulantly. “ Besides, what does she know?” He shook his head. “If it was any good for me, it wouldn’t taste like it was poison.”

Hisako rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. “It doesn’t taste like poison, Otousan,” she said. “But maybe I should go find that kitsune and get him to turn it into sake. You seem to like that well enough. Maybe if you hadn’t drunk so much last night, you wouldn’t be feeling the way you do today.”

“Wouldn’t work,” he said, scratching at his tummy. “It tastes so bad, I could still taste it through the magic. I don’t think the kami from the August Fields could make it not taste bad.”

“Otousan, that’s not true.” Hisako tapped her walking stick into the ground. “It may taste strong, but it doesn’t taste like poison.” She gave her father a hard look. “I take the same medicine every day, just so I can walk around and listen to you complain.” She tapped her stick again. “Sometimes, I don’t know why I bother. Maybe I should just move in with Mitsunari. It’d be better than trying to get you to help yourself.”  

“Then why don’t you go? And take this nasty dose with you,” he said, glaring at his daughter. “Then we can both be happy.”

The old woman shook her head. “The wolves would get you, and you’d probably poison the whole pack. Maybe I should just ask Kaede-sama for a charm that would keep you from moving. Then you’d have to take it.”

“Bah,” Daisuke said, crossing his arms.  

Kaede decided it was time to move forward. Kagome cautiously followed behind her.

“So, still trying to avoid your medicine, Daisuke?” the old miko asked, gazing at him with one solemn, disappointed eye. “And giving Hisako such a hard time while you’re at it.”

“Doesn’t he always?” Hisako asked, frowning at her father. “Every day it’s the same thing.”

The old man looked up at the miko. Besides the irritation on his face, his face was drawn from obvious pain. But obstinately, he shook his head. “You two are always trying to get some noxious potion or other down my throat. I don’t want to.”

Kaede sighed. “It is, Daisuke-ojisan, your choice if you wish to keep hurting. But if you want to be able to move again, you need to take your tea along with using the ointment.”

He ignored her, and looked at Kagome, instead. “And who are you, pretty woman?”

“You remember me telling you that InuYasha took a wife?” Hisako said. “This is her.”

He looked at her, his old eyes taking her in appreciatively, almost to the point of rudeness. Kagome shifted her feet, feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Heh,” he finally said. “You married that silver-haired guy? The one who comes by sometimes and leaves me wood, even when I try to chase him off?”

“I guess,” Kagome said, looking at Kaede and Hisako. For some reason, Hisako found all this rather amusing. “He told me he brings you wood sometimes. He never mentioned you trying to chase him away.”

“He’s a strong one, that young fellow of yours.” Daisuke scratched under his chin. “He can carry a bigger load of wood than I ever managed. Looks kind of different, too. I’ve always wondered about him. How a young one gets hair that silver that young in life...”

“He was born that way, Daisuke-sama,” Kagome said, bowing slightly. “And yes, he is my husband.”

“Well good for him, getting a pretty thing like you to keep his bed warm,” Daisuke said, nodding in appreciation. “If I had such a pretty thing to keep me warm at night, maybe my back wouldn’t hurt so bad, either.”

Hisako tapped her stick on the ground, and frowned at the old man.“Otousan,” she said. “Now why would a pretty young thing want to keep your bed warm at night?”

He shrugged his head. “Age and experience, maybe? A lot to be said for experience. Your Okaasan, she never complained.”

Kagome coughed, and Hisako snorted. “At least not so you’d hear, old man.”

The old man scowled at his daughter. “What - ”

“Maybe you should just take your medicine, Daisuke-sama?” Kagome said, interrupting. “You’d feel a lot better.”

He lifted his head up and looked at the sky. “Why, Heavens? What are you doing, sending three people to pester this old man! Don’t you think at my age, I deserve some respect?”

“You’d get more respect if you took your tea,” Hisako said.

“She’s right, you know,” Kaede said. “We wouldn’t keep pestering you if you’d just take it.”

“Bah. Give me that,” he said, grabbing the medicine cup from his daughter’s hand. He swallowed it down.  

Trying very hard not to giggle, Kagome looked up at Kaede, who gave her a small nod. The older miko handed Hisako the jar of ointment. “I thought you would probably need a fresh batch of this for your otousan today.”

Hisako nodded. “When he won’t take his tea, that’s about all he’ll let me do.”

“Bah. After that, you ought to give me something to drink,” the old man said.

“What you need is food,” his daughter said. “Remember what happened to your stomach yesterday after you took your medicine?”  

“More of your damned rice gruel, no doubt,” he said. Slowly and painfully, the old man stood up.

“There’s fish if you can keep that down, Otou,” she said. “Come on.”

Kagome and Kaede got ready to walk off, but the old man turned to them. “Come by more often, pretty woman. Tell that husband of yours I’m too old to do anything to make him worry.”

Hisako rolled her eyes, and led her father inside.

“Is...is he always like that?” Kagome asked.

“No, not always,” Kaede said. “He was being...well..well-mannered for him.”

Kagome shook her head.

“But, like I thought, he behaved better around you. We may have to visit him together more often.”