InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 306

[ 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 306




“Let me know if I’m going too fast,” InuYasha said as he started home with Kagome in his arms.

 “I will,” Kagome said. She closed her eyes against the sunlight and rested her cheek against the fabric of his suikan. “Are you sure you want to carry me this way? You know, I could probably just ride on your back. It’s not like I’m wounded or something.”

“I don’t think so, woman. Every movement you were making seemed to make your head hurt worse.  And I can keep from jarring you better this way.” He bent forward and kissed the top of her head.  “And you’d have to concentrate holding on. This way, all you have to do is let me do the work.”

Kagome sighed. “It just makes me feel...well, one moment I’m doing these things I never even knew I could do, and then it’s just too much for me. I felt drained after helping Haname, but this is worse.  When I stood up, my head started pounding and I got dizzy. I love being able to do what I’ve done.  I just don’t like the aftereffects.”

“I don’t blame you. Why’s that happening?” he asked. Carefully, he stepped around a pothole in the path.

“I don’t know.” She looked up at him, uncertainty in her eyes. “Maybe Miroku’s right. Maybe it’s because I’m using my powers in ways I have to learn about. Ki channels and how to touch just right and doing it to things that might not have been youki. I don’t have to think about anything to make sacred arrows. I just know how to do it. But this... I didn’t feel any youki at all in the house. Maybe it’s harder to do this type of thing. I’ll talk to Kaede about it.”

“Your scent says you’re exhausted,” InuYasha said.

Smiling just a little, Kagome reached up and touched the tip of his nose. “I think your nose is onto something. It’s been a hard couple of days.”

“Yeah it has,” he said. He carefully stepped over a rock in the middle of the path. “Time to ask Kaede for some time off.”

“Maybe you’re onto something,” she said. “Talking hurts. Let’s just get home. When we get there, you can roll out the futon for me, and then go see if Kaede’s at Sango’s.” She raised a hand to rest along his collar. “And if Choujiro is out back working on the boards, maybe you can ask him to come back later.  I don’t know if I can take the sound of him hammering today.” She sighed. “Maybe if I took a long nap...”

“A nap might help a lot. You didn’t get enough sleep last night.” He kissed the top of her head again.

“Neither did you,” she said.

“Feh. I’ll worry about me after I take care of you.” He gave her a little smile. “But maybe after we talk to Kaede-baaba, I’ll take that nap with you.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Kagome said. Closing her eyes once again, she snuggled a little more against his chest, and letting the conversation drop, let him carry her as she closed out the rest of the world.

They passed beyond the line of trees that surrounded Seiji’s farmstead and InuYasha carefully tread down the path that would lead them between the paddy fields and towards the main village road.  Isamu, the husband of Yaya, who had lands nearby, was heading towards Seiji’s place, attracted by the activity that had been going on.  His eyes grew wide when he saw the hanyou carrying the miko.

“Go ask Miroku,” InuYasha said, using his head to point the way back to the house, and didn’t stop.



Miroku stepped out of the now blessed house to find a perplexed Susumu standing outside. “There are no ghosts here for you to see, Susumu-sama,” the monk said.  “Why are you looking like you just saw one?” He looked around the front of the building. “InuYasha and Kagome left?”

“Just after you went inside,” the village guard said. “She’s feeling pretty, well...she said her head hurt and wanted to go home.”

“Probably not a bad thing. She expended a lot of energy in ways she’s not trained to. I’m not surprised at that,” he said. “I need to talk with Kaede-obaasan about that. Kagome-sama’s something like a farmer who has been hoeing all of his life suddenly doing a lot of sword practice. The farmer might be strong, but he’s using his body in a different way.”

Susumu smiled, and raised his right hand, and made a fist. “Oh, I remember days like that. I went to bed a time or two and wondered if I would be able to use my arm for anything the next day.”

“And you were doing that under a sensei who knew how to train,” Miroku said.

“Or torture the new recruits,” the guard said. “Oh, he loved to push us hard. Not everybody in our group made it.”

“Well, I can assure you neither Kaede-sama or I are out to torture our young friend. But it looks like we need to work on how to keep her from hurting herself more than necessary.”

“I suspect InuYasha would prefer that as well,” Susumu said, nodding.

Miroku rubbed the back of his neck. “If she didn’t need him to take care of her right now, I suspect he would have given me a much harder time about what went on today.” Miroku sighed. “Sometimes, even I can’t anticipate what others do.”

“Especially if there’s no gossip to clue you in,” the guard replied.

Fumio stepped out on veranda. “He has you there, Houshi-sama.”

Miroku turned and looked at the smith. “You, too?”  

Isamu rounded the trees and walked towards the men. “Yo, Houshi-sama! What happened? I saw this huge flash of light while I was working and just passed InuYasha-sama carrying Miko-sama away.”

“Ah, my young cousin is just tired,” Susumu said. “Although she did put on quite a show there for a moment.”

Isamu spotted the mess from where the wards blew off the house. “It must have been something spectacular.  I was working in the bean field and thought the house was on fire or something.”

“Just Kagome-sama purifying the nastiness hanging over the house,” Miroku said. “She has some potent reiki.”

Isamu walked up to the house. “I’d say she does. I was over here last ten day. Seiji’s place always seems so dark and brooding...but now...What did she do to it? It feels as good here as the Shrine does.  Is this like she healed Haname-sama?”

“Something like that,” Miroku said, nodding. “We’re just trying to get it ready so Maeme and the boys can come home.”

“Come on, man. Let’s round up Sukeo, help him get what his okaa asked for, and head back to those women of ours. There’s no telling what they’ll plan for us when we’re not looking,” the smith said.

“It sounds like you have some experience with that,” Susumu said.

“Every bit as much as you do, too,” Fumio replied, stifling a laugh.

“You would too if you had my okaasan.” Susumu shrugged. “And she’s teaching Emi everything she knows.”




While the hanyou and the miko made their way to the hill where they lived, the group of four kami found themselves standing above a small clearing in the forest between their village and the village of Morimura.

“Our last task today, I hope,” Shimame-no-kami said. She seemed tired, and her clothing was out of the perfect array she normally presented. “No, this will not do,” she muttered. She lifted her fan, but before she could invoke it she was interrupted.

“You brought us out beyond the boundary lines?” Hitoshi said, looking around.  “I...I...feel….disconnected.  It almost hurts.”

She turned around and looked at her entourage. The three family kami looked a little paler than usual.  Kazuo was looking at his feet. From the way he was clutching his hoe with both hands, Shimame realized he was trying hard not to touch his eboshi hat. Yoshio was straightening out his robes, as if they were binding somewhere. But Hitoshi seemed the most affected, and wiggled foot to foot.

“You are in no danger,” Shimame said, slightly exasperated. “Kami don’t melt because they get a little far from their shrine.”

“But you’re a land kami. I’m just the protector of my ko. I’ve never been so far away from the ancestral shrine since their August Powers woke me up and gave me this work,” Hitoshi said, wringing his hands.  “It...it feels...disorienting.”

“We’ll only be here a little while,” Yoshio said, patting Hitoshi on his shoulder.

Hitoshi pulled away from the touch. “Easier for you to say than me.  At least one of your ko members is nearby.”

“Yes, but what a member,” Yoshio said, sighing.

Shimame frowned at the whining kami. “Do you want me to go fetch Joben?” she asked. “He’d probably start making petitions the moment he found himself here. You know how he reacts at the least touch of the not normal.”

Hitoshi tightened the strings to his rush hat, and almost trembled. “No, no, that’s all right. These last two days where he’s been too busy to sit at my shrine have been...refreshing.  I had forgotten what it was like to be able to work without his constant nagging.”

“How long before it starts?” Kazuo asked.

“They should be here any moment now,” Shimame said. She opened and closed her fan, and a brilliant light briefly engulfed her.  When it faded, she was standing there in robes of twelve layers, exquisitely color-coordinated and a veiled travel hat upon her hair. The air surrounding them grew fragrant with the best incense. Taking a look at the three ancestral kami,  she turned her head and pursed her lips. “No, that won’t do.” With a flick of her wrist and her fan, she transformed them from simply dressed farmer kami into something more noble, with tall eboshi and fine white linen robes.

“Now that’s more appropriate,”Shimame said. “We need to give our best impressions.”

There was a sound of music on the wind, drums and flutes.

“Ah,” the land kami said. “I believe our company is coming.  Are you ready, Yoshio?”

“I am, Kami-sama,” he said, bowing towards her.

Suddenly, on the other side of the clearing, another group suddenly appeared. It too was led by a woman wearing the robes of nobility, dressed in a multilayered gown whose topmost layer was a shimmering pink, the color of cherry blossoms.  Unhatted, her long hair trailed almost to the ground, and her face was a fashionable white with finely painted eyebrows.  Behind her trailed four attendants, dressed in tall eboshi caps and white linen.  Like Shimame’s attendant kami, each clutched a farm tool as a staff.

“Ah, Miyoko-no-kami, how lovely it I that you grace our presence today,” Shimame said, bowing slightly.

“Ah, Shimame-no-kami, how happy we are to accept the gift you are ready to give us,” Miyoko said, with the same slight bow. She held a flat fan, decorated with a forest scene instead of a folding fan like Shimame.

“It is still his decision to make, dearest cousin,” Shimame said. “He is no slave; he must decide.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Miyoko, waving her fan. “Still, we have looked into the scrolls of his destiny, and it favors us.”

“You know, he has not proven of much value in his years here,” Shimame said.  

“Because he had not yet reached his proper place,” Miyoko said. “Once he is under my care…”

Shimame ignored the small dig at her skills as land kami. “Yoshio-no-kami,” she said.

Yoshio stepped up.  “Yes, Kami-sama?”

“If, and only if, this child of your ko chooses to go elsewhere, will you relinquish him to the good cares of my cousin Miyoko-sama and her ko kami?”

He bowed low. “With pleasure, gracious one. May he enjoy the protection of the guardian of his new path.”

“Well, then,” Shimame said, nodding at the other land kami.  We relinquish our rights to him if he chooses to go.  Shall we watch and see what he decides?”