InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 284

I do not own InuYasha or any character created by Rumiko Takahashi


Chapter 284

While Seiji wandered around on the hillside, getting angrier and angrier as Yoshio-no-kami made sure he kept walking in circles, Sukeo, his eldest son, stuck his head out of the back room at Miroku’s house.

“I thought I heard Ojisan,” the boy said, looking into the room.

Fumio and Miroku were standing next to Kaede, who was kneeling on the ground next to a stretched-out figure. Sango was digging through a chest. The twins were still, miraculously, asleep.

“Who’s that?” Sukeo asked.

The adults turned in the direction of the teenager. Miroku sighed, and started to say something, but before he could, Koume stood up from her place by the fire pit and began walking towards the youth. “You did hear him, son,” Koume said.

“Yoshimi-ojisan?” Sukeo said. “But why? And what happened to him?”

Koume put her finger to her lips, a sign for him to keep his voice down. “Unfortunately, he’s not in very good shape now, and won’t be able to answer your questions.”

Sukeo stepped out of the sleep room and slid the door behind him, his eyes full of questions.

“Is your mother still asleep?” Sango asked, finding what she was looking for, long pieces of black leather which she placed on the ground next to her.

“Yes, and Nakao, too. He’s snoring,” the youth said.

“That’s good,” Koume said. “We want them to stay that way.”

Sukeo walked over to the monk and the blacksmith and looked down on his uncle. Kaede was washing the man’s face. He had obviously been battered, and with a darkening set of bruises on his head. His shirt was torn and dirtied, and Kaede had opened it up to reveal more bruising, and a small cut.

“What...what happened to him?” the teenager asked.

Miroku rested his hand on Sukeo’s shoulder. “Your ojisan...well...he made a mistake, but then was brave about it. But I think the whole thing has been too much for him.”

“Bah,” Fumio said, hefting his hammer over his own shoulder. “Yoshimi’s been the fool like usual. He might have done the right thing in the end and warned us, but he let your otou out of the lockup while everybody was at Shinjiro’s wedding. Got beat up pretty good for his troubles, from the look of things. Your otousan...” The blacksmith sighed and shook his head.

“He let...Chichi-ue...out?” Sukeo said, drawing out each word, his voice trembling by the last one, his face growing pale at the thought. He looked up at both men, Miroku first, and then Fumio with wide eyes. “Does...does that mean he’s coming here?”

“He might be,” Sango said. Her voice, in contrast, was calm and matter-of-fact, as if getting ready for men like Seiji was an everyday occurrence. “We should have at least a few minutes to prepare.” She took her leather items and walked behind a privacy screen, where she began to change clothes.

Sukeo swallowed hard, then turned and looked back at the sleeping room. “He’s going to try to kill Haha-ue. I bet he’ll go for Nakao, too. Whenever he’s mad at anything, he goes after my little brother.” Turning back to the monk, he said, “He’ll try to hurt you, too. And maybe even me, for never coming back to bring him his medicine.” The boy hung his head. “He always tries to hurt anybody that tells him no.”

The old miko sat up straight, and tugged on the boy’s sleeve. “Don’t panic, son. Your otousan might find that to do that is easier said than done,” she said, looking at him with her single, calm eye. “You don’t know what Houshi-sama and Sango-chan have faced over the years. I think he may have forgotten that he’s not the only one who has been a fighter.”

Sango stepped out from behind the privacy screen, having donned her armor. She walked over and picked up her sword.

“He’s never seen my dear Sango in a fight,” Miroku said, smiling. It was not an amused smile, stern and serious, but with strong appreciation of the Taijiya’s form and ability. “If he thinks we’re a weak target, he might have a thing or two coming.”

“But...but...” Sukeo said.

“We can deal with him,” Fumio said, nodding. “Would you like to help us keep watch?”

The teenager took a breath, looking down at his feet while he warred between filial piety and the need to keep his mother and brother safe. He looked up at the men. “Is it wrong? To keep watch when it’s my father?”

“What do you think?” Koume said. “Is it right for him to hurt them? Your mother, your brother, your ojisan?”

Sukeo swallowed. “I’ll help,” he said at last.

“Good boy,” Fumio said. “You and me, we’ll watch the back.”

Taking the lamp Koume handed them, the two of them went outside.

Sitting on the rafters, the ghost Sadayori looked at the retreating forms fondly. “Ah, grandson. If only your father could have been like you.”



While Miroku and the others got ready, a ball of bright light, invisible to human eyes rose above the hillside, then hovered. A pair of graceful hands clapped, and time froze.

Within the ball, several kami looked over the landscape, assessing the moment with care.

“I never really like observing from this height,” Kazuo-no-kami said. “I might be a kami, but I’m not a bird.”

Daikoku the luck god laughed. “But the view - you have to admit it’s rather lovely.” His eyes briefly met those of Shimame-no-kami, the land kami of the village, dressed in resplendent garments of red and gold. The kami smiled, coloring just slightly, then dropped her eyes and hid her face behind her fan.

“Think of it as a game board, Kazuo,” she said, pointing to the base of the hill and beyond. “Look - the fire Seiji set is beginning to burn low. Look how many people showed up.”

A crowd of villagers, maybe twenty-five, were gathered around the smouldering ruins of the building.

“As a distraction,” Kazuo said, “it worked pretty well, but not quite the way Seiji would have liked, I suspect.”

“Luck,” Daikoku said, “was on your side.”

The ball of light settled down on the ground, and they joined Yoshio, where he was standing watch. He, unlike the mortal life forms around him, was not caught by the frozen moment in time, and watched with growing relief as the group of supernatural beings settled on the ground.

“I was beginning to wonder when you’d get here,” the kami said. He bowed low to the land kami. “Please, Shimame-tono, if someone needs to watch that one again, find someone else to watch him. His soul...I called up the ghost of a man he betrayed, and he laughed at him. I never saw anything like that before.”

“He’s one of a kind,” Kazuo said, nodding.

Shimame brushed off Yoshio’s request, and instead, focused on the frozen-in-time form of Seiji, walking around him slowly where he was crouched in the grass.

“How close are we to the monk’s house?” she asked.

“Just beyond those trees is the path that leads between the temple and the monk’s house,” Kazuo said.

“He thinks,” Yoshio said, “that he is at the base of the hill.”

“If he reaches the path, he’ll recognize where he’s at, I bet,” Kazuo said.

The kami shrugged. “I tried.”

“Let’s check out the others,” Kazuo said.

The group rose back up into the air.

“Look! The monk is going to have reinforcements!” Yoshio said.

Scurrying up the road, their lanterns frozen flames in the moment of no time, Susumu, Eiji and Kinjiro drew close, within sight of the monk’s verandah.

“Of course,” Daikoku said, grinning. He tapped his hammer, and more luck sparkles drifted down on the village guardsmen. “I left a lot of luck with him.”

“Protecting Seiji’s wife and children is an essential part of this play, after all,” Shimame said, leaning towards Yoshio. “It wouldn’t be a proper story if they didn’t have enough defenders, not after a rescue like she had.”

The ancestral kami shrugged. “If you say so.”

“She does,” Kazuo said.

“But where is the hanyou?” the land kami asked.

“Not far,” Daikoku said. They drifted back in the direction of Seiji. Not far away from the fugitive, InuYasha bent down, sniffing the ground.

“So close...” Shimame said. “You must have really had Seiji walking in the most round about of paths, Yoshio, if he can be that close, and not realize it.”

“I did try, Dono,” Yoshio said, nodding at the land kami. “We must have circled around this area twenty times, in every way I could think of.”

“Good job, man,” Kazuo said, nodding.

“Anybody else we should be aware of?” Shimame asked.

“I think - yes, look there!” Kazuo pointed to a spot on the road between Daitaro’s house and the monk’s. Kagome was walking with Daitaro. She was obviously angry, and he was obviously highly amused. “Our young miko must have decided that she needed to come join the party.”

“From what I’ve seen of her,” Shimame said, “it would have been a surprise if she hadn’t.”

Fully oriented at where all the major players were at this moment in time, they let the ball of light come to rest in front of the monk’s house. Kazuo was about to move them back into time, when Shimame rested her fan across his wrist.

He turned to her. “Dono?”

“Your play ought to be nearing its climax,” Shimame said. “It looks like all your pieces are together. So how are you going to conclude this little play of yours?”

“You really want to know?” he asked. “Won’t it spoil it for you?”

She shook her head. “I really want to know. It seems...well, chaotic.”

Kazuo rested his hand on his hat, started to rub, then dropped his hand back down. “What I wanted,” the old farmer kami said, “was to run him down to the river, and let Grandfather Catfish eat him. That old justice-giver would appreciate a snack like that, and it seemed fitting.”

“How so?” Daikoku asked.

“It’s local legend,” Yoshio said. “Grandfather Catfish is said to eat the bodies of wicked men who swim in the river, while letting the bodies of the innocent pass through. He did not bother Seiji’s wife.”

“But if he took Seiji, it would be a fitting conclusion to the local legend, and absolve everybody of blood guilt,” Kazuo said. “It would be the judgment of heaven upon the evil-doer, and nobody would have to shed that man’s blood. He would basically be giving it up himself by his actions.”

Shimame fanned herself, contemplating the scenario. “Yes, you do have a flare for the dramatic. But...” She sucked on her bottom lip, contemplating

“But what?” Kazuo asked.

“Something’s missing,” Shimame said. “Do you feel it too, Daikoku-sama?”

The luck kami tilted his head to the side, considering, while Kazuo, hand back on his hat, rubbed his hat back and forth across his head, thinking. “Justice, a fitting end, a meal for a deserving village guardian, a reinforcement of the importance of the virtues...” The old farmer kami looked up at the land kami. “What am I missing?”

“Ceremony,” the land kami said. “Who would be there to witness it? The night?” She touched her fan to her chin. “I might not understand humans all that well, but the rituals...what good is one that goes unseen?”

“Exactly. Witnesses would make it better,” Yoshio said, agreeing.

“Even if he was being chased to the river’s edge,” Shimame said, “It’s dark.”

“I see,” Kazuo said.

“Are they even going to see much more than him going underwater?” she continued. “How will they know it’s Grandfather Catfish?”

“So, Dono,” Kazuo said, irritated, but at the same time, interested how Shimame had gotten caught up in the events of the night, “What shall we do?”

She fanned herself three times. “I have an idea.”