InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 241

[ 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 240


As Kagome was putting the lunch dishes away on a shelf in the kitchen cupboard, InuYasha walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around his wife. Kagome turned her head to give him a quick smile, and then tiptoed up as she put the last bowl in its place.

“You look tired,” he said.

“Maybe.” Her task done, she let herself relax into his hold.

Snugging her just a little closer under the fabric of his voluminous sleeves, he gave the top of her head a little kiss. “So,” he said, his voice soft, but not suggesting anything in particular. “What shall we do until it’s time to go to Daitaro’s?”

Kagome rested a hand on his encircling one. She tilted her head up, and to the side, so she could get a glimpse of him. He watched her, pleased with the look of contentedness he saw there. “You could just stay there and hold me like this for a while,” she said, leaning back against him.

“Is that all?” he said, resting his chin on the top of her head. “You don’t ask a lot.”

“Feels good.” She leaned further into his embrace. “I don’t need a lot.”

“Oh, I think you need more than you’re asking for,” he said. “You always were like that.”

“Was I?” Her fingers played with the edge of one of his sleeves.

“All the time, trying to hide what was going on inside of your head, like you thought it’d hurt me, or one of the others, or something.” He loosened one hand and brought it up to the top of her shoulder. “It’s not like I would have ever bit you or something.”

Kagome laughed. “It was more your bark, sometimes, than your bite I was worried about.”

“Feh,” he replied, gently rubbing the top of her shoulder.

“Sometimes...well, I just didn’t feel right...hitting you up with my feelings,” she said, dropping her head forward. “Fifteen-year-old girls are really insecure.”

“Maybe you were right. Not so sure I was that secure, either.” He bent forward and gave a tiny kiss to the area he had rubbed. “Not so sure I’m that I’m that good about talking about feelings now.”

She turned around, but didn’t move out of his hold. “You’re way better now than you were when I first met you.”

He sighed, and almost winced. “I was really a jerk then, angry and confused.” He pulled her close, resting her head on his chest. “I’ve always been amazed how you put up with me. And why you kept coming back.”

Kagome looked up at him and gave him a crooked grin. “At first, there were times I wondered that, too. It’s a good thing we had the shards to gather up. It gave us time.” Leaning her head back against his chest, she played with the tie that secured the neckline of his jacket. “But there was a point, even before you tried to block the well, that I knew I just wanted to be with you. And after that...I knew it was where I was supposed to be.”

“Kagome,” he said, slipping a finger under her chin and tilting her face up to look at him. “I...I...” He struggled to find something to say, but failed. Instead he kissed her, a long, slow, tender kiss, which she returned with equal enthusiasm.

“Maybe there’s something else besides me holding you that you’d like to do before we go to Daitaro’s,” he said, breaking off the kiss. His fingers reached for the ties of her own white jacket; her hands slipped into the slits of his hakama.

“Maybe,” she said.

As he pulled the tie open, there was a crash outside.

“Damn it,” Choujiro’s voice said. "Stupid log. InuYasha, are you there? Can you give me a hand?”

The hanyou sighed.  

“Or maybe not,” Kagome said. With a serious frown in the direction of the noise, she let go of InuYasha and retied the red cord of her chihaya.


As Kagome and InuYasha worked out their afternoon plans, Toshiro’s plans were being thoroughly interrupted by the arrival of Hisako, daughter of Daisuke, who looked at the elder with a deep scowl.  

“Can a ghost be frightened by a living woman?” asked Sadayori.

Kazuo, still invisible to the humans in front of him, chuckled. “Just watch, friend. You may enjoy this one.”

Toshiro removed the end of her walking stick from his shoulder. “Hisako-obasan? Is something wrong?”

She tapped her walking stick on the ground with some irritation. “Is something wrong?” she repeated. Behind her were several other women - Benika, one of Chiya’s friends, Teruko, the wife of Haruo, and Yaya, the wife of Isamu, who had helped Kimi the day of the roofing. She turned to the women behind her. “Is something wrong, he asks.”

Benika covered her mouth, trying to hide a nervous grin.

“I would say so,” Yaya said, crossing her arms in front of her.

Hisako turned back to face the elder. “It’s a good thing that Sayo-chan’s still in the birthing room, or she would be telling you a thing or two herself,” Hisako said. “Maybe you’d listen then.”

“Bah,” Kazuo said. “Even Sayo-chan’s never been able to budge Toshiro on this one.”

“Steadfastness was always one of his qualities,” Sadayori said, His ghostly fingers scratched underneath his ghostly chin, a nervous habit he had developed while alive and that had followed him into the afterlife. “Never could figure out if it was loyalty or just bullheadedness.”

Toshiro, luckily unaware of the commentary being made about him, was free to concentrate instead on the group of women who stood there ready to give him a piece of their mind.  He brushed the dirt off his knees, trying to figure out why they were here, hiding his confusion for as long as he could. As they watched, the look on his face went from confusion, to concentration, to finally, surrender. He took a deep breath and straightened up, meeting the elderly woman’s eyes, who tapped her walking stick once more, harder than before, impatient for a response.

“Hisako-obasan, you may be right about my lack of sense,” he said at last. None of the women looked ready to disagree with him. “But I have no idea what I might have done to cause you this unhappiness. I have been rather busy the last few days. There is a new infant in the family, as I’m sure you know. It’s captured a lot of my attention.”

From the main house, a boy’s voice gave a shout, followed by a girl, calling his name. Yaya looked idly in that direction, but none of the others acted like they noticed.

“You haven’t heard?” Benika asked. She looked at Teruko. “Maybe Furume didn’t stop here on the way home. She must have told half the village.”

Teruko shrugged. “I didn’t hear from her, either. Choujiro told Haruo. That’s who told me. And from what you told me, Benika-chan, Choujiro knew a lot more.”

“I always hated when a group of women would corner me this way,” Sadayori said.

“It is...nerve wracking,” Kazuo replied. “Toshiro’s handling it well, though. Some men would have tried to hide their nerves by yelling by now.”

Toshiro, though, didn’t yell, although his brows knit together, and his irritation was beginning to show. “Told you what?” He brushed his hands off, a small scattering of straw falling as he did so.

Hisako tapped her walking stick again. “That man of yours,” she said, lifting her stick to point at the elder. “It’s all his fault. She’d never have done something like that if he acted like a real man.”

The elder sighed. “It would help to know which man you are saddling me with, Hisako-obasan. Outside of the fact I know you can’t be talking about Yasuo, I’m rather confused.”

“She means Seiji,” another man’s voice said, coming up to the small group.  

“You’re really going to hammer him this time, aren’t you, Kazuo-no-kami?” Sadayori said. “First the women, and now...”

“If necessary,” the kami said, rubbing his chin, as he studied the group of women.

“I kind of feel sorry for him,” the old ghost said, sighing. “He was my best friend. But stubborn. Still, if he wasn’t so hardheaded...you would think after what happened last winter. I was sure with the bandit attack...”

The old kami shrugged. “He’s got a good heart, if a thick head. You know what they say. You can get some people’s attention just throwing a pebble. Hisako’s like that, surprisingly. With some, you have to put their head on an anvil. Today, all these,” he said, waving his hand, “are his anvil. Especially that one.” He pointed to the newcomer.

Toshiro turned around to see Tameo, looking rather troubled, walk up and join him.

“Seiji?” Toshiro said, sighing deeply. “Has he done something else?”

“When hasn’t he?” the headman replied.

“When hasn’t he, indeed?” Benika said.  

Yaya gave her a nudge, and a disapproving look.

“Well it’s true. I thought for sure he was going to beat up my husband yesterday when he got so drunk.” The younger woman crossed her arms, unashamed

“He got drunk?” Toshiro asked.

“More than that,” Tameo said, moving next to the elder as if that would give Toshiro some protection from the women’s glares. “He pushed Kagome-chan to the ground, too. And in front of InuYasha-sama.”

The elder shook his head, and rubbed his hands over his face, then turned around to pick up his hoe. “What in the hells gets into that man? Is he ever going to learn?”

“I heard that InuYasha-sama pulled his punch,” Teruko said. “Eiji said he could have easily crushed his skull as strong as he is.”

“I bet.” Yaya nodded knowingly. “I’ve seen him knock down a tree with a single punch.”

Benika shuddered. “I’m glad he didn’t. My children were down there and saw the whole thing.”

“It was ugly enough for those who saw it,” the ghost said. “That InuYasha...I was surprised he didn’t take his head.”

“He’s a better man than some,” Kazuo said, rubbing his hat back and forth across his head. “Now let’s see how Toshiro handles this news. I’ve gone as far as a kami can to soften him up. Now we’ll see if we’ve prepared the soil good enough.”

“So what happened next?” Toshiro said, putting his hoe over his shoulder. It was obvious he had given up on the weeding.

“We put him in the lockup,” Tameo said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s staying there, too, until at least after Shinjiro’s wedding. I....I just wanted to make sure nothing happens until after the wedding. I could see him go hunting for InuYasha.”

“He’d be a fool if he tried,” Yaya said.

“So when did that ever stop him?” Hisako shook her head. “How many fool things has he done over the years?”

Tameo held his hand up, requesting silence from the women. “It’s been quite a day at my place. He repaid us for the inconvenience of the lockup by serenading us with every dirty song he knows.” The headman scowled. “Some I think he made up as he went along. I never knew a man could know so many raunchy songs.”

This made Hisako snicker. “Bah,” she said. “You should hear my otousan on a day he takes too much medicine and it loosens his tongue. But go on, Tameo-sama. You know that’s not the whole story. Or haven’t you heard the whole tale yet, either?”

The village headman nodded and looked at the ground for a moment. “Oh, I have, maybe more than you know.” When he looked up, he rubbed the back of his neck again. “Today, Houshi-sama and InuYasha, they pulled Maeme-chan out of the river. She had tried to drown herself. I was told he had been beating on her pretty badly. Our little problem just got a good bit worse. The hanyou was over at my place ready to take his head.”

Toshiro stood there, struggling for something to say. Hisako pointed her cane at him one more time. “It’s time, Toshiro-sama. I know you’ve been protecting him. I don’t care what promises you’ve made. He has to go!”