InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 283

[ 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 283


While Miroku and Fumio dragged Yoshimi’s body to the wall furthest away from his daughters, and Kaede, tired but committed, bent over the man, InuYasha and the others reached the burning wreck of the burning building.

The building was entirely engulfed, and the fire roared as it consumed the old wood. They could feel waves of heat coming off before they got very close.

“Looks like the gate to hell,” Genjo said.

Kinjiro joined him “Nothing much to do but make sure it doesn’t spread,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

The younger men - Masayo, Susumu, Eiji, joined them and started hacking away at anything they thought that was too close that might burn. From time to time burning bits of debris rolled out, and they slapped the burning material with blankets and farm tools.

“Kuso,” InuYasha said, using his jacket as a blanket to slap at some burning straw. “Why tonight?”

“Noooo...” a woman’s voice broke through the night. The men turned and saw Momoe run up to the burning building.

“I’m sorry, Momoe-chan,” Daitaro said, frowning.

“Why? Why did this happen?” Momoe said, holding her head in her hands. She obviously had been in bed when the building started to burn. Her hair, for once, not tied back in a scarf, and she was only dressed in her kosode, not her wrap skirt. A breeze kicked up by the heat stirred her hair. “Did someone set it? Who...who would have done this?” Her daughter stood next to her, along with her grandson, who watched the fire with large frightened eyes. “All my hemp...so much work...”

Tameo looked at the burning structure. At that moment, the roof collapsed in with a loud roar and a huge leap of flame. He moved over to the distraught woman, and pushed her away a safer distance. “We’ll take care of you, Momoe-chan.”

Daitaro rested a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you go to my place? You don’t need to be watching this. Takeshi, why don’t you take them back?”

“But...” Momoe said, weaving her body from side to side. “All the fabric I was going to weave this year. How will I pay for anything?”

“Don’t worry about that, Momoe,” Takeshi said. “You go talk with Chime-chan and my woman, and drink some tea. It always looks worse when it’s happening. Come tomorrow, and we’ll find out things aren’t quite as bad as they look now.”

Slowly, and with many looks over her shoulder, Momoe and her family let themselves be led away. Right after that, the beam on the front of the house collapsed in a shower of sparks and heat.

“I was cold earlier,” Eiji said, beating at some dried weeds that were starting to ignite. “Not going to complain anymore. This is enough heat to keep me warm all night.”

“Maybe all winter,” Susumu said, joining him.

The burning building was very bright, casting a lot of light over everybody. It was evidently bright enough to be seen from the center of the village, too because someone began sounding the warning gong on the watch tower.

“Sounds like we’re going to get some help, maybe,” Genjo said.

Kinjiro spit. “Or a lot of sleepy fools with arrows and hoes who’ll be expecting a bandit attack and trip over their own feet,” he said, smashing an ember that blew off. “Nothing they can do here, anyway.”

“Maybe make us laugh while they trip,” Eiji replied, wiping his forehead. “There’ll be enough light for everybody to see for a while, anyway.”

Daitaro leaned on his hoe and reached for his jug, but in the rush to get to the fire he had forgotten to bring it. Looking down at his waist, he sighed. “Well, we’ll have some stories to tell about today.”

“Too many.” Tameo moved towards the farmer. “It’ll take me two days just to update the village register.”

“It could be worse,” Susumu said. He had an ashy blanket in his hands. Folding it, he put it over one shoulder. “We’re lucky the barley is still green, or it might take out all the fields.”

“We’re even luckier that there’s no other buildings next to it to burn,” Daitaro said. “I’ve seen whole villages burn. There was that time I went to visit my cousin Shigeo. The village next to his burned three days.”

A few men ran up, and joined the effort, and then they were joined by others, but there really wasn’t much to do except chase and put out spots of hot material.

A chunk of flaming thatch floated down and landed near a wooden cart that rested not far from the burning building. InuYasha slapped it down, but after he did that, his head turned as he leaned against the cart.

“What the hells?” he asked, then shook out his fire rat and slipped the garment back on. He sneezed, then scented the air again.

“What, InuYasha?” Susumu asked, as the hanyou bent low over the cart and paid special attention to the handle.

“Seiji. He was the last person to handle this.” The hanyou tucked his suikan in and fastened the cord.

“You’re sure?” Kinjiro said, joining them.

“No question.” InuYasha touched his nose. “This doesn’t lie.”

Tameo overheard them and dropping his hoe, walked over to join the little knot of men by the cart. “Seiji?”

“How?” Susumu said. “I know Jun and Koichi were watching him.”

Eiji looked up at the headman and his son who were looking at him for answers. “I never did get back to your place, Tameo-sama. I saw the fire before I made it there.” He bowed. “I am sorry”

“Things happen,” the headman said, rubbing his chin. “So all of this...”

“All of this was meant distraction,” Daitaro said, joining them.

The men looked at each other, knowing what that meant.

“We better get up to Houshi-sama’s,” Eiji said.

“You get home, son,” Daitaro said. “Keep an eye on the women. Drag your brother out of bed if you have to.”

“Damn,” Genjo said. He turned and ran off.

“We better head up the hill,” Daitaro said, hefting his hoe. “InuYasha?”

The hanyou bent low and began to look for the scent trail. It was complicated by all the people who were milling around and by the smell of the smoke, but he picked it up. After a moment, he stood up.

Susumu looked up at InuYasha. He was glad the look in the hanyou’s eyes, fierce and intense, wasn’t aimed at anything. “You’re going after him?”

InuYasha nodded.

“Don’t go easy on him this time when you find him,” the village guard said. “Enough is enough.”

The hanyou flexed the fingers of his right hand, and the light from the burning building glinted off the claws. “Enough is enough.”

And with that, he loped off into the night.


As the men at the burning house were realizing just who was to blame, a soft “kuso” sounded in the night air up the hill. The sound, although not loud, echoed out in the woods about halfway to InuYasha’s house. Seiji sat on a rock, catching his breath. “Where the hell am I? I know I’ve seen that tree at least two times.” He shook his head. “I know there’s a trail up here. I used to come up here for mushrooms often enough before that stupid youkai showed back up.”

Yoshio-no-kami sat, unseen, on a tree branch above him. “Kazuo-sama was right,” he said, although there was nobody nearby who could hear him. “I should have done something about you a long time ago, Seiji son of Sadayori. How did your spirit get so dark?”

To the kami’s eyes, the man beneath him glowed with a dark light, like a dying coal. “So much bitterness you’ve wrapped yourself with,” he said. “You’re so full of venom. I bet you have lots of nightmares. Let’s do something different than just walking in circles.”

Yoshio waved his hand. Seiji jumped at the sound of a branch snapping behind him, and then put his hand on his sword hilt as he slowly stood up. He heard another branch break, and then another.

“Could be a deer,” Seiji said. “Shame I don’t have time to take it.”

Another crash followed, louder than the earlier ones.

“Who’s there?” he said, drawing his sword and circling around. He heard a great crash, as if a whole tree was toppling over. “Oni?”

All the noise stopped, and it grew very, very quiet. The only sounds Seiji could hear were his own breathing and his heart beating in his ears. Even the breeze in the trees stilled.

“I don’t know who you are, but I’m not afraid of you,” he said, taking a defensive posture. “I’ve fought worse.”

“This is just as boring,” Yoshio said.

The breeze picked up again, moving from gentle to almost a gale and it and swirled around Seiji. It was a hot wind, and it seemed to him to be filled with the smell of dead things, like swamp water full of sulfur and rotting flesh. The wind sounded alive, full of whisperings.

“I’m not afraid of man or youkai,” Seiji said, although his hand shook slightly as he stood there. “I’m not afraid.”

The wind died, although the pungent scent lingered and the whispers got louder. One stood out in Seiji’s mind. “Why,” it whispered. “Why, Seiji?”

“I wish the others would get here soon,” the kami said. He watched the man turn circles.

“Why, Seiji? Why?” the human heard, although to anybody passing by there would be no noise except Seiji’s breathing.

“Please, Shimame-no-kami,” Yoshio said, leaning back against the tree trunk. “Hurry.”

“Motoharu? Coming to plague me tonight?” Seiji said, peering into the darkness. “It’s been a long time. I thought you gave up on haunting me.”

The whispers were pierced with a wailing call that only Seiji could hear. It made him shudder, but then he coughed and spit.

“You’re dead, Motoharu,” Seiji said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

A shadowy outline appeared in front of him. A tall man in fine armor stood there, an imposing figure of a samurai. As Seiji watched the man grew bestrewn with mud and leaves and grasses, as if someone had dipped him into the middle of a dirty pond. “You left me, Seiji,” the form said. As the human watched, the specter’s armor sprouted arrows, as if he had been under heavy attack, and a spear was wedged into his left side. He pulled out the spear and blood cascaded out in a crimson arc, spattering the ground to land in a hot, steaming pool. The figure stepped forward. “Why did you leave me?” he asked. “Why, Seiji?”

For a moment, Seiji just stood there, taking everything in. Slowly, though, a smile crept across his face and then he began to laugh. It was a hard laugh, with no compassion in it, but strident, mocking, and self-assured.

It took him a moment to catch his breath. “Get fucked, Motoharu, and tell Emma-O in hell that he needs to find a better man than you if he’s trying to scare me. You’re an asshole, Motoharu, always putting on airs. Even when you try to haunt someone you can’t stop doing that, acting like you’re some kind of special thing.” He sheathed his sword. “The hell with any promises I made you. I left you in that damn swamp because it occurred to me that I was supposed to die for a piece of crap like you. Fuck if I was going to try to save you when we got ambushed. You were an asshole of a leader. Got most of us killed, and I wasn’t going to be one of them. You deserved what the Takeda did to you. You don’t even make a good ghost.”

The figure looked shocked. “You...left...me...” Slowly, as Seiji laughed some more, it faded into nothingness.

Seiji picked up his lantern. “I’ve got more important things to do than mess with asshole ghosts.” And with that, he began to move up the hill.

“Well that didn’t work out like I thought it would,” Yoshio said. “Hurry up, Kazuo!”