InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 313

[ 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

A/N: After today I will only be updating on Fridays.  Life happens! I hope to go back to the twice a week schedule in December


Chapter 313


Inside InuYasha’s house, the examination was over.

The air in the little house was filled with a pungent smell of herbal medicine. At the table where Kagome usually prepared her cooking, there was a mortar and pestle and a collection of herb bags.   

“Katazutsuu is a painful affliction,” Kaede said.  “Have you ever had one before?”

“A headache like this?” Kagome said.  “No, never.”  She was sitting on her futon, the quilt draped over her lap, her eyes half closed and her face drawn from the migraine she was suffering.

“Sometimes, miko in training can trigger them while they are learning the techniques of channeling their spiritual powers.  Doing too much, too fast, before you understand what’s going on,” the older miko said.  “It’s like running and twisting your ankle.”  She added a pinch of herb from several of the bags on the table to the others in her mortar and began to grind them together.  “I did that a time or two when I was learning.”

“You did?” Kagome tilted your head.  “But you’ve always seemed to be so careful about how you do things.”

Kaede looked up from her work and back on her ailing apprentice. “There are reasons, some based on experience more than training about why that is so, child.”  She smiled.  “Even I had to learn the hard way sometimes.”

Pouring the contents of her mortar onto a square of paper, she readied her medicine strainer.  “I was not as gifted as my oneesan was with the gift, although I am not without them, and I felt I had to try extra hard when I was being trained,  to uphold her honor.  It gave me a number of headaches before I realized that I am who I am, not just a copy of her.”

“That’s a hard lesson sometimes, isn’t it?” Kagome said.  She drew her knees up and rested her head on them.

“It can be.”  Kaede divided the herbal preparation in half, and carefully scooted half onto its own paper.  This she carefully folded.  “And then there’s the lessons to make about assuming.  You, child, were so natural at dealing with jyaki, purifying the jewel shards and making sacred arrows that I didn’t even consider using your gifts in new ways could cause such a strain on you.  Otherwise, I would have warned you about the dangers to your own self about overusing your powers.”

She poured the rest of the herb mix into her medicine strainer, which was resting in a bowl.  Carefully she filled the bowl with boiling water.

“You didn’t know,” Kagome said.  “I once had a teacher who knew that I was doing well in my history classes.  He just assumed I’d do as well in my math classes.  But math was never as easy.  It took me a lot of practice.”

“That’s the way we all are.  Some things come to us easily, without trying.  Some things take some work, some things take a lot of work, and some things we might never quite master.  I would have never been as good at purifying the jewel shards as well as you or Ane-ue could, but making barriers came easily to me, even as a child.”

“And I haven’t even started doing that.”  There was a note of disappointment in her voice.

“We’ll get there with time, Kagome-chan.  There is a lot for you to learn, and you haven’t been working with me a full month yet.  But look what you’ve managed, both with Haname and the house.”

“Well, I’m paying a price for that last one,” Kagome said.

“But you accomplished something with very little training.  It’s still something noteworthy, child.  And it shows that if we train you more thoroughly, you will have the potential for great things.”  Kaede lifted the strainer out of the bowl, and then poured the liquid into the medicine cup.  Taking a small vial, she added a few drops of a milky liquid into the cup and stirred it with a chopstick.

Getting up, she walked over to her young assistant. “Here, drink this child,” Kaede said, handing the medicine cup to her. “It will ease the pain, and probably make you sleep.”

“It sounds like what you were give Maeme yesterday,” Kagome said.  Her head was still pounding, but the dim lights and the quiet of her own house made it a little easier to bear.

“Not exactly, but there are some of the same herbs in both medicines,” the old miko said.  “There are some other herbs that I will use in my next dose for you that can help even more, but I didn’t have them in my basket right now.  This is more like what I gave to Nakao when his head was injured.  I’ll go over exactly what’s in it later, when you’re feeling better, and why I used each thing.”

Kagome nodded.  She took the medicine cup in one hand, tasted the liquid, and made a face.  “It’s very...”

“Nasty tasting.  Bitter.  Tastes like poison,” Kaede said, smiling.  “I have heard it described by all those names and more over the years.  I’ve also run across a few people who chose to live with the pain instead of drink the medicine.  Alas, a lot of what can help us is just like this, unpleasant but getting past it means there’s relief on the other side.”

“I can believe that,” Kagome said.  “I’ve seen what your medicines do.  And what life does, too, sometimes.”

Kaede patted her hand.  “I can give you a sip of sake for afterwards, if you’d like and if you have some.  It can help chase the bitter taste out.”

“There’s a jug of it on the shelf over there.  Daitaro gave it to us,” Kagome said, pointing to the kitchen area.

“Ah, his is always mellow and a bit sweet.  Perfect.”  The old miko got up and poured a little of it into a tea cup.  “One thing with drinking sake with this medicine is that it does intensify the drowsy effect, but in your case, I think getting some sleep will help a great deal.”  She walked back and sat next to Kagome.  “Your body is the container for your spiritual powers, and when your body is too tired, it cannot channel them as well.  Things happen.”

The young miko dutifully drank down the medicine, making a truly nasty face as she swallowed it down.  “Now I understand why the boys made the faces they did when we dosed them with this stuff.”

Kagome handed the medicine cup back to Kaede, and in return, Kaede handed her the cup with a little sake in it.  “Never give much more than a mouthful of sake after this medicine.  It intensifies the relaxing properties of the draught,  And too much can cause a person troubles, especially if anything’s wrong with their lungs or heart.”

Kagome nodded, drank the sake, then laid her back down on the pillow.  “It does help clean out that nasty taste.  Some.”

“Some.  But in a little while, you’ll find the pain backing off, and that’s worth a little bitter taste,” Kaede said.  She got up, and put the cup over by the wash basin.  “And now, before the medicine makes you too drowsy, I’ll go fetch that husband of yours.  As wound up as he was, I was surprised I didn’t hear any trees fall.”  She began repacking her things back into her basket.

“It’s been a hard day for him, too,” Kagome said.  “Don’t be too hard on him.  And you remember how protective he’s always been towards me.”

“That is true,” the old miko said.  “And he did leave the house without too much fuss.”

“He told me his mother used to get headaches sometimes. He was trying very hard to not make mine worse.”

“Ah, that would explain some of it,” the old miko said.  She put the last items in her basket,  and grabbing it securely, she went to the door and let herself out.

While Kaede was treating Kagome, Kazuo no kami watched Tameo walk up to the front of his family shrine.

“I’m sorry, old man,” the kami said.  “I really...”

“You really what?” said Shimame, materializing next to him.  They both hovered in the air over the shrine, watching as Tameo rinsed his hands and mouth.

“Eh, I thought you were off to take a rest, Shimame-sama.” He rubbed his hat across his head, and ignored her disapproving look at the action. “I thought you were thinking about a trip to that special onsen in the Heavenly Fields.”

“I was.  I am...I just wish to speak with you first,” she said.

“Am I in trouble?” Kazuo said.

Shimame laughed.  It was a pleasant sound, not an angry laugh at all.  “Yesterday, I didn’t understand why you wanted to do so much meddling with the village, and yes, that did make me unhappy at first.  You know understanding the lives of these humans really isn’t what I’m good at.  My work is the care of the land, the growth of the crops, the fertility of everything here.  I bless weddings and births, but I leave the everyday lives of the villagers to you and the other family kami.”

“That is how it traditionally works, Kami-sama,” Kazuo said, nodding.

“But I am learning that the lives of the villagers are so tied up with the life of the land that it is hard to not watch both the growth of the crops and the lives of those who plant them.  When the young miko reappeared, I was a little cross with the kamis of the well and the Goshinboku for arranging it.  After all, it has only been three years since that awful youki tossed shouki bombs into the village.  I know she was key to defeating him, along with the hanyou, but...”  She let her voice trail off.

“You were afraid that there hadn’t been enough time for healing?” Kazuo asked.

“And then you decided to use her arrival to try to heal all the festering sores in the village at once,” Shimame said.

“I was not responsible at all for the yamabushi coming in.  That alone set up the first chain of events.”

“I don’t know if I would put it that way,” Shimame said, tapping her fan to her cheek.“I suspect the first item in the chain of events was planting the seed in Tameo, to have them adopt the miko into his family.  And you took very little time to introduce yourself to her, either.”

“Such a sweet child she is, carrying the soul of my poor Kikyou who I couldn’t do a thing to save.  I couldn’t not do it.”  Kazuo sighed.

Shimame nodded.  “Kikyou’s fate was very hard, and as for InuYasha...well he turned out better than I would of hoped for.”

“Did you ever see his father?  A noble being he was,” Kazuo said.

“And handsome,” Shimame said, hiding her face behind her fan.  She sighed a bit.  “Anyway, with all that happened today, and the servant of Inari released from that awful bondage she was in, maybe I have been a bit too harsh.”

“Oh?” Kazuo said.

“I received this a few minutes before I came for you.”  She handed him a scroll worked in ornate golden calligraphy.

“A summons from the court of Inari?” Kazuo said.

She shook her head.  “An invitation.  To have tea with Inari-sama.  There is no higher honor for a land kami such as I.”  She positively beamed.  “And it was all because of what your little miko did.  I take back every harsh word I said about you, Kazuo-no-kami.  I do not exactly understand all the human things the way you do.  But your intuition here has been impeccable.  Continue, if you wish, and you will have my support.

“But I do believe your humans, and even the hanyou, might need some rest.  Keep that in mind.”  And with a happy laugh, and a flick of her fan, she was gone.