InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 298

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi


Chapter 298


InuYasha and Susumo walked up to Kaede’s house, where Miroku and Kagome were waiting outside.  Miroku was leaning up against a fence post.  It was hard to tell if he was meditating or just tired as he stood there, looking out at the fields on the other side of the fence.  Kagome was looking at the contents of a basket that the old miko must have sent with her.  Looking up, she waved as the two headed their way.

“Are they getting impatient to get this over with, or did Kaede-obasan kick them out?” Susumu asked.

“I think Kaede-babaa had just gotten up.  She might have kicked them out,” the hanyou said.  “She can be grumpy before breakfast.  And I took longer than I expected.”

Susumu chuckled. “It must run in the family, grumpy before breakfast.  Chichi-ue does that.  And please, don’t listen to what Emi says about me.”

InuYasha snorted at that,  then waved back at his wife.

“Ready to get to work?” Miroku asked as the pair caught up with them.

“If you are, Bouzu,” the hanyou replied. “Surprised to see you waiting outside.”

“It seemed the right thing to do,” Kagome said, nodding.“We talked to Kaede, fingured out what to do, and then came out here to let her get her breakfast all while you were gone.  She looked like she could use some peace, and you did ask us to wait for you. I almost headed to Tameo-sama’s, though. You took longer than I expected.”  

He shrugged.  “Wasn’t my fault.” He looked at Susumu.  “Ask him.  Blame him and Tameo.  Wouldn’t let me go earlier.”  

Susumu gave a little bow.  “Indeed, cousin.  Between my father and Eiji being so reluctant to turn over the baton...”

InuYasha choked on that one.  “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t decide to skip a turn after this ten day.”

“We’re all pretty tired.  Last night took a lot out of all of us. Me, Houshi-sama here, Kagome-chan,” Susumu said.  “But we have duties that need to be done.  Eijji’s a good man.  No matter what he said, if something comes up, he’d be angry if we didn’t call on him.  But I’m going to try not to bring him in for a few days.”


“And the sooner we can get Maeme’s house ready for her to go home, the better,” Kagome said.

Miroku moved his staff, tapping it into the ground.  “Agreed.  And the first thing to make sure of is that there isn’t anything in the building that will make her melancholy worse.  I know we’re all tired today.  Once we get this done,  we can rest easier.”

InuYasha gave him a nod.  “It felt really dark there yesterday, at least to me.”

“That goes perfectly with what I need to do,” Susumu said.  “Chichi-ue sent me to see if Yoshimi went home.  His house is right next to the main house.  This way, you get my wonderful company, Houshi-sama.”

The banter flew past Miroku in the frame of mind he was in, but Kagome smiled.  “Recovered from last night?”

“Alas, not fully, but enough for the job, I think,” Susumu admitted.  The look of his eyes and the set of his jaw gave some of it away.   He rubbed the side of his head. “My dear Emi had the headache medicine ready when she so rudely woke me up this morning, so things could be worse.  Although there was no escaping her laughing at my morning miseries, even though a good bit of it wasn’t from the wedding but what happened afterwards. At least she didn’t get out the pots to bang them.”

“She’s done that?” Kagome asked, a bit amused.

“Not...yet.” He shrugged but grinned.  “It’s the threat she keeps at the ready.  I think she learned it from Haha-ue.  I usually heed it.”    

“Also, Houshi-sama, besides my wonderful self to help you with what I can, I would not be surprised if  Fumio-ojisan will be coming to inspect the house.  We might see him if this takes very long. He went home to tell Koume-obasan the news.”

“What news?” Miroku asked.

“The village elders have appointed Fumio to be Sukeo’s guardian.  He’ll be there to help until Sukeo’s old enough to handle making decisions about their lands and property.”

Miroku nodded.  “That sounds like an excellent choice.  He’s taken a strong liking to Sukeo.  I saw how they gravitated to each other yesterday. What will that mean for Yoshimi? Will it make him cause trouble?”

“It’s possible,” Susumu said. The lands that Seiji owned will go to Sukeo as the eldest son.  As second son, he had no claim to owning them, and even though he might want The elders decided that unanimously.  Sukeo’s only a few months away from his coming of age, anyway, and nobody thinks Yoshimi would be fit to be the boy’s guardian.  Yoshimi will have to make some decisions.  I don’t think he’ll have enough people backing any dispute over that, what with the elders in agreement and how mad most of the villagers were at him yesterday.  It takes a lot of friends to appeal something like this, and both friends and money to get the Daimyo’s authorities involved and right now he’s a bit low on either.  I’m sure Fumio won’t see him kicked out of his house yet, but I heard there was a woman in Morimura that was supposed to be interested in him.  He really ought to consider it.”

“Doubt if Fumio will let him get away with spending all his days playing at gathering wood, and coming home with one bundle,” InuYasha said.  “He’ll expect him to work.”

“And he better not think about anything to make Maeme’s life worse,” Kagome said, picking up her basket.  “Neither Fumio-ojisan nor Koume-obasan will put up with that, I’m sure.”

“I’ve heard how he’s talked about her.” Miroku nodded.  “There’s a lot that’s going to have to change.”

Susumu nodded. “We can’t begin to solve them until we find him.  First things first. Shall we go?”  



“Amazing how much got done, considering this last week,” Michio said, looking over his beanfield. “Roofing parties, stupid women, sake...”

Michio was working  in the beanfield alone, having sent Katsuo, his farm worker, off to work on getting the soil ready for the eggplants. The planting was mostly done, in spite of the chaos of the last few days, thanks more to his father and Katsuo, and it gave him a pang inside.

“Bad wives are a misfortune,” he muttered.  “She couldn’t have pulled this stunt after the rice harvest, could she?  No, she had to do it when there’s all this work to do.

He was finishing up the final rows by himself, having chased off his farm workers to get other things done.  After the last several days, and the anger and fear and a terrible hangover, he was just enjoying the feeling of the hoe in his hand and the bag of bean seeds across his body, and the repetition of the work.  He ended preparing one row, dropped in the beans at regular intervals, and covered them  up.

Finishing that, he moved his guide string and stood tall and stretched, dropping his hoe for a moment.  Pushing back his wide brimmed hat, he wiped his forehead, then grabbed his water jug and took a big drink.  Closing the jug back up, he looked at his work.

“The land.  Yes, this makes sense, even if nothing else does,” he said, preparing the start of another row for seeding.  He worked the hoe in a steady rhythm.  “ Chiya here, no face, no choices and decisions.  Just work.”   He started hoeing the next row, singing a snatch of song:

“Beware of pretty faces,
Yayoi, ya ya,
Soft voices in the morning
Scolding in the afternoon
Cold rice at night.  

“Cold rice at night
Yayoi, ya ya
and a hard bed
when the wife acts like an angry ghost
eating all his good.”

Arimasu, his father, dressed in his better clothes and an eboshi instead of a rush hat, walked over to where he was working, and stood there watching him without saying anything for a moment, just listening.

“So is that what you think, son?” he said.  “Chiya is like an angry ghost?”

Michio straightened up for a moment then looked at his father standing there, arms crossed, his face touched with some sad emotion.   He shrugged.  “Maybe not.  Not all of the time.  We live under your roof.  You tell me.”

“She is willful,” Arimasu said.  “And she knows how to make you angry.  And she is the mother of your children.  And you married her for love.”

“You’re back from the elder’s meeting already?” Michio said, changing the subject.  “That was quicker than I expected.”

Arimasu nodded, smiling at his son. “I am.  It went surprisingly well.”

“What happened?” Michio asked, getting back to his work.

“They made Fumio the guardian for Sukeo.”  

“Fumio?  But he’s in Toshiro’s ko.” This surprised Michio and he turned to look at his father.  “Toshiro was all right with that?”

“Oh, more than all right.  He sort of suggested it.  Evidently, the boy and Fumio hit it off well lately.  Fumio was talking about bringing him in to help in the forge.”  He scratched the back of his neck.  “And I think Koume-chan feels a special connection to Maeme that Seiji tried to break.  Maeme’s okaasan and she were very close once.”

“I remember there was a time when Maeme visited her a lot,” Michio said, nodding.  He rested a minute on his hoe.

“And it’s nice when boys find someone who can help them grow up.  Like Isao with Susumu.  But it’s a big job.  He’ll be managing two sets of fields this way and his forge.”

“Sounds like a lot of work to me,” Michio said, shaking his head.  Lifting his hoe, he smashed a dirt clod. “I hope they know what they’re doing.”

“Tsuneo and Toshiro have pledged manpower help.  They both have enough farm hands to help pick up the slack.  And to be honest, it wasn’t like Seiji and Yoshimi had been doing much of the work lately.  That poor woman and her boys have been running their farmlands themselves for the most part the last two years.”

“I’ve heard that,” Michio said.  “Not surprising.  We both know what a piece of trash he was.  Anyway, it sounds like he’ll be wanting to look out for the boy’s best interests.”

“I think so.” Arimasu took a deep breath and gave his son a long, thoughtful look, like he was ready to bring something up, but was struggling to find the right words. “Everybody’s going to be talking about last night for a long time.” He scratched the side of his nose.

“I bet. You don’t get to see the one person more people in a village hate than anybody else get eaten up by a river kami every day.”  Michio shook his head. “That’s some serious bad karma.  The man hated us.  He beat me, threatened you, tried to burn down our house, and then threatened to steal Chiya.  I just can’t feel sad at his passing.  But it’s not the way I’d wish any man to go.”

“I want you to think about something, son,” Arimasu said.  “Everybody’s going to be talking about this for a long time.  Nobody will remember why you kicked Chiya-chan out of the house.”

“But I do.”  Michio hit the dirt with extra vehemence. “And she does.  And with that...that...that piece of trash gone, her immediate danger is gone.”

The old man shook his head.  “If you wait too long, they’ll remember everything.  And probably make up new things to add to the gossip.  Remember last time.”

“And if I don’t wait long enough, I could turn into the next Seiji,” Michio said.  “And she won’t have learned anything.”  He looked at his father, and took a deep breath. “Let me work, Chichi-ue. Sometimes I think of smart things while I work.”

The old man sighed, but nodded.  “I’m going to the house.  Come in when you find something smart that you thought of.”

He turned and walked off.

Unseen by Michio or his father, two invisible shapes had watched the entire scene.

“Well, this headache’s not budging,” Kazuo said.

“He’s more stubborn than Toshiro,” Yoshio said. “What do I do, Kazuo?  You’re better at these things than I am.”

“You might try making him remember a good day that ends well,” the kami said, after a moment’s thought.  “Look at his mind.  What do you see?”

“A lot of anger, and some fear,” Yoshio said.  “Shame.”

“You need to help him cut through that.  Sometimes happy memories can start them wanting to do that.”

Yoshio tapped Michio on the shoulder.  The farmer stopped hoeing, paused and looked off in the distance several moments.  A brief smile touched his eyes, then regret. Suddenly, he hit the ground hard with his hoe.  “Chiya, you bitch!”

“It’s a start,” Kazuo said.  “This time, at least he was mad about feeling trapped, not at her.”

“If you say so,” the less experienced kami said.