InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 315

[ 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 315


Tameo had been standing in front of the family shrine for a while now, his eyes closed, as a barrage of thoughts ran through his head – the problem with Yoshimi, how to deal with what happened to Momoe, what Kaede would say about what happened to Kagome, and how to deal with the potential civil war with Michio and Chiya.  He had been rattling off all his worries aloud, hoping Kazuo would be around to listen, maybe even hoping his family kami would manifest to him. He had done it a number of times over the years, and the way he felt at the moment, the old headman wanted something, some reassurance he was doing the right thing.

“There’s that thing about Michio and Chiya, Kami-sama. The longer he refuses to speak to her, the more the women are going to say that he’s being a baka, and they more they’ll side with that stupid woman,” he said, but softly, in case someone walked through the garden. “Not because she’s right, but because he won’t give her a divorce letter.  Keeping her suspended like that, neither free nor his...”

“People are working on that,” a voice said. It sounded like it was behind him. “Give it a few more days before you get too stressed.”

Tameo inwardly smiled, recognizing the voice, although he kept his face serious.  Still, he turned around, but he could see no one in the kami’s garden.

“Maybe I need a nap after lunch. Now I’m hearing voices,” the headman said. He said this on purpose, hoping to flush the kami out.

“Or you could look up here,” the voice said.

He looked up, but all he could see was a flash of light on the roof. He sighed. “I’ll take your word for it, Kami-sama.”

Suddenly he was elsewhere, rewarded the way he had been hoping.  Elsewhere was a pleasant bit of hillside, but not a place he recognized, and he found himself sitting on the grass under a shady tree.   Nearby, he could hear a stream flowing over rock, although he couldn’t see it.  A cup of sake was presssed into his hand.

“I don’t think you’ve brought me here before, Kami-sama,” Tameo said.  “A nice place for a chat.”

“It is, isn’t it? This is what the rise on the hill by where InuYasha lives looked like when I was young. I brought it with me, at least the memory of it, when they plopped me into the August Fields. It’s good place to sit and think.  Or rest,” Kazuo said. “You look like you’ve had better days.”

A bird flew across the sky, a color far too vivid a blue for any of the birds in the woods that Tameo had ever seen. The air was sweeter, too, with a hint of flowers he couldn’t quite make out.  Suddenly, some of the anxiety he had been holding inside just drained out of him.

“You should know, Kami-sama,” Tameo replied.  He turned his head.  Kazuo, sitting there with his own cup of sake gave him a rather sheepish grin.  “These last few days, they weren’t just chance, were they? The thing with Morio thinking Hisoi’s wife was his mother?  The monk rescuing Maeme?  That whole circus with Grandfather Catfish?”

“Not...totally,” the kami said. “Some of what’s been going on was luck. And some that wasn’t, it wasn’t all my doing.  There were other things involved. And I wasn’t involved in what happened this morning to the young miko-sama.  That was a surprise to all of us.” He sighed. “Humans can be so blind and stubborn.”

“Tell me about it,” Tameo said. “I’m the headman.  I know.”

“Drink your sake, Great-grandson.” Kazuo patted his descendant on the back. “It’ll help.”  

The headman took a sip, and let it roll in his mouth. “So now we just have to deal with the after-effects.”

“After-effects. I guess you can call it that. There’s never really a beginning and an end,” Kazuo said. “We just look at it that way. The story always continues, and we just move on to the next thing at hand.”

A deer walked down the path, and lifted its head, looking at the two men for a minute, and then picking up speed, headed down the way towards the water.

“The story just continues, eh?” Tameo sighed. “I’m sorry, but right now that feels like cold comfort when you’re the official in charge of making the right choices, Kami-sama. I don’t mean to sound like a complainer, but sometimes it’s just hard.” He took another sip of the sake. “This tastes like Daitaro’s sake.”

“It ought to. Since he left me some as an offering, I’ve managed to put aside a nice stock of it. That old man does make a good brew.  Not that you don’t brew a good one, too, Great-grandson.”

Tameo grinned at the kami. “But we both know his is better. Don’t tell him I told you that.” He took another sip.

Kazuo laughed. A squirrel in the top branches of the tree evidently got startled at the sound, barked and ran down the branch towards his den.

“Back when that old man was young, I never knew if he’d grow old enough to learn his otousan’s secret, but he made it.”

“Some of us still tell stories on him. I don’t know if the younger ones really believe it.”

“Each generation pulls its own stunts.  For the younger adults, it’s that son of yours they talk about.  It may be that brat of Joben’s who’ll be the watch word.  He surely was working in that direction. Let that be a lesson to you.  Even when things seem off, sometimes what follows is a good thing.”

“Susumu’s turned out better than I ever hoped when he was younger,” Tameo acknowledged. “Shame we couldn’t do the same with Seiji.”

“That is life upon the earth, Great-grandson. The story that plays out, it’s not really a tragedy, even if it has tragic moments,” Kazuo said. “We fall, we stand up, pick up our hoe and begin again. And you have allies in this. Even if sometimes everyone seems to be running you ragged. You’ll see.”

The kami drained his cup, put it aside and leaning on his ever-present hoe, stood up.

Tameo did likewise. “Time for me to go?” the headman asked. Somehow, he felt invigorated, and all the darkness he had felt earlier had disappeared. Briefly, he wondered if the kami had put some magic in the sake, or if it was something more direct his ancestor had done.

“It is,” Kazuo said, rubbing his hat back and forth over his head. “You’re about to have company. Unexpected good news, I think. And it’s time for me to get back to work, too. I have others I need to check on. Until next time, Great-grandson.”  He tapped his hoe once on the ground.

There was a flash of light, making the headman shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing once more in front of the shrine. “Telling me just enough to make me curious. One day, maybe, I’ll get to ask you if you were like that when you were still just a farmer.” He shook his head, bowed to the shrine, and clapped.  Having made the official farewells, he turned and started walking back to the house.

Before he left the garden, his man Jun came running up.

“Tameo-sama! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” the man said, a happy and excited look on his face. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

“My, my,” he whispered, looking back at the shrine, “you were cutting it kind of close there, Kami-sama. Thank you.”  Turning towards Jun he asked, “Well, here I am! What else could have happened on this crazy day?”



As Jun hurried to tell Tameo the latest news, InuYasha lifted the door mat to his house as the monk and Kaede left his yard and headed down the hill.  As he stepped in and the mat clattered behind him, he was hit once again by scents he didn’t like very much, the biting smell of one of Kaede’s herbal brews, and the scent of his own wife’s discomfort.  He wrinkled his nose at it as he stepped  on the beaten dirt entry and past Kagome’s sandals and the wash basin.  “Everybody’s gone.”

The one room of the small house was still dimly lit from the shutters being closed, the main light coming from the fire pit.   To his surprise,  Kagome was  sitting up next to it  instead of laying down on the futon and had managed to put on a fresh pot of water to boil while he was talking to Kaede.

“That’s good.  My head still hurts and I just don’t have what it takes to deal with people right now,” Kagome said. “Thank you for being so helpful today.  I know it’s been hard on you.”

“Keh,” the hanyou said.  “You just do what you need to feel better.  Don’t worry about me.”  He watched her as she set up the tea pot.  A sternness he really didn’t mean to show crept across his face, although he did manage to keep his voice soft and not scolding. “Woman, you should be in bed, not messing around with fixing things.”

She looked up at him and sighed.  Her eyes reflected her pain, half closed against the little light there was. “Don’t fuss at me, InuYasha. I didn’t know how long you would be out there. After Kaede-obaasan gave me that nasty medicine, I needed to have some more tea. I just couldn’t wait any longer. It left such an awful taste in my mouth.”

InuYasha knelt down next to her, his stern worry fading, replaced by a touch of amusement. “That I can understand. Kaede-baaba’s medicines, they can be pretty nasty tasting,” he said, brushing a stray lock of hair off of her forehead. “But I’m here now, and what you need to do is go rest. You don’t have to do anything more today. Just let the Baaba’s medicines work and get to feeling better.  You don’t have to even worry about cooking. Sango is  making us lunch, and if you need it, she’ll probably be willing to do our dinner.”

“That’s good,” Kagome said, rubbing the side of her head.  “I don’t think I could manage any real cooking right now. But I feel...” She dropped her head, and began chewing on her bottom lip.

“You feel?” he asked.  He could smell something new creep into her scent.  It already smelt of discomfort, but now there was something else – unhappiness, maybe, or distress. Sighing,  he reached out and pulled her close, placing his cheek on the top of her head.

“Was I wrong?” she asked in a small, sad voice as she leaned into his shoulder. “Kaede said what brought on my headache was me. If I had been more careful to follow Miroku’s directions...But there was something there that just needed me to do what I did. I could feel the pain.  How could I have not done it? I had to help.”

“I know,” he said, pulling her a little closer.  “You never could turn down a chance to help.  You wouldn’t be Kagome if you could.”  He cradled her, slipping one arm under her legs.  “No, you didn’t do wrong.  You did what you thought was needed. Neither Miroku or Kaede ever expected you to run into problems using your spiritual powers, or they would have been doing something to prepare you for it.  This was the first time you ever got to use it in a way that was hard for you.”

“It was….well, different.  It felt different,” she admitted.  “I never purified anything before that hadn’t been tainted by youki.  And using ki channels is all new to me.”

“Well, I bet Kaede and Miroku are already cooking up ways to help you learn what you need to know,” the hanyou said.  “And Kaede wants you to take a few days off.” InuYasha effortlessly lifted her up.  “She even suggested we might like going off alone together for a few days. No telling what the two of them will cook up while we’re doing that.  More school stuff for Kagome.”

She leaned into his hold as he walked across the room to the futon.  “Miko school.  The stuff they weren’t able to teach me back in my time, because everybody forgot how to do it?”

“I guess,” he said, gently laying her down on the futon.  “I don’t know much about it.” He pulled the quilt over her.  “You still want some tea?”

Kagome nodded. “My mouth still tastes nasty.”

He went back to the fire pit and Kagome’s kitchen area to brew a fresh pot. By the time it was ready, Kaede’s medicine had done its work and she was fast asleep.