InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 327

[ 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 327

Up at Miroku’s place Haruo grinned at the monk and Masayo.  “Some guard, just sitting there relaxing.”

“You’re a fine one to talk, Haruo-kun.  When I got here, you were on the ground being climbed on by two children.”  Masayo stood up.

“The twins have rather active imaginations,” Miroku said, smiling.

“You weren’t seeing me, the man,” Haruo said, crossing his arms.  “You were seeing me, the mighty Dragon Mountain.  A massive thing.  It would have broken the earth if I was standing up. The girls should have told you that.”

“Oh, be assured, they did.” Masayo covered his left ear, where there was a small scratch, barely visible.  “They checked my ears and my mouth looking for the dragon girls.  But alas, they had already flown away to go back to their dragon people.  Have a good lunchtime?”

“It was fine, and I thank you.” Haruo rubbed his stomach. “My wife and I joined her sister and my brother.  In fact, I brought a whole group of my lunch companions back with me.”  He pointed down the path where Koume and the others were almost to the clearing.  “The whole group is here to see Maeme.”

Miroku stood up and brushed off his robes.  “It might do her some good.  Today...well it might be the first day of a new life, but she’s got a lot to deal with before she can accept it.  She feels...maybe the right term is unanchored.  Adrift. Any word about Yoshimi?”

Haruo shook his head. “Nothing definitely. Only that they think he might have slunk off to Morimura.  Susumu, InuYasha and Eiji are off to see if they can trace him in the woods.  But at least it’s starting to look like there isn’t going to be any trouble coming from that corner, at least.”

Miroku sighed.  “That is...well, that would be for the best, I think.  We all know what a good worker he is.”

Masayo coughed into his hand at that comment.

“This little family didn’t need a fight over the property,” Miroku continued.  “They’re going to have enough to worry about and cope with.  Just learning to live without fear can be a surprisingly hard thing to do.”  He rubbed his hand, looking at his wife. “I have a bit of experience with that...”

“And that’s why we’re here, Houshi-sama,” Koume said, coming up to the men.  Nahoi, Teruko, Kimi  circled around her.  Behind them were Fujimi, who was Eiji and Haruo’s mother and Akiko, who was their sister, along with Kichi, mother of Rin’s friend Iya.

Miroku surveyed the sea of female faces surrounding him.  They were looking at him with open, pleasant faces, but he knew from experience that several of these women had wills of steel, and he knew they were planning something, just from how they were watching him expectantly.  He swallowed.

Smiling at him sweetly, Koume began to walk towards Maeme. The other women followed.



“How come you come out here, Eiji?” Susumu asked as they followed a path through the forest on the edge of the village. “Most people besides you and Daitaro try to stay out of the woods between the villages as much as possible.”

“I used to come this way to hunt mushrooms.  And sometimes, I just needed some quiet.  I must have been ten or eleven, when Haruo pushed me one time too many.”

“He was a rotten kid at that age, if I remember,” Susumu said.  “Some say, after listening to his jokes, he still is.”

InuYasha grinned at this, trying hard not to laugh.  Susumu returned his smile.

Eiji mostly ignored that and continued.“I think he drove my okaa to her wits end.  You know my otousan doesn’t do well with a lot of yelling and rowdy behavior.  He was spending less and less time at home until it got quite late in the day. She decided to take matters into her own hands.”

“I learned a long time ago to never underestimate Fujime-obasan,” Susumu said, stepping over a large piece of stone in the road.

“I remember a time or two before you got that wise.  I’m sure Tameo-ojisan and Hisa-obasan helped you to learn that faster.”  

“Indeed,” Susumu said, rubbing his backside at the memory.

Eiji stopped and  looked up a moment as a squirrel began barking at them, then continued. “Haha-ue got Haruo to go to work for Tsuneo.  Me, she put to work for Tatsuya-ojiisan, chopping firewood, fetching water, and running errands.  Even in those days, he looked like he was old as the hills, but he got around a lot. He liked to go mushrooming, and he’d take me with him.  He would go deep into the woods, beyond the boundaries.  I spent three years working for the old man, and he taught me a lot about woodland ways – tracking, and what type of mushrooms were good,  how not to get lost.  Then he got too frail to go out, and his son moved him into his own home.  Then I went back to helping my father.  But I never lost my feel for the woods.  When things got tense, I’d go out.  And of course, bringing home good mushrooms never was seen as weird.”

“Daitaro must approve of you,” InuYasha said.

“As long as I stay away from his parts of the forest,” Eiji said.  “You know how mushroom hunters are.  They don’t trust anybody who comes near their favorite places.”  He shrugged.  “Anyway, I tried to show Haruo how to do it, but he could never stop cracking jokes.  Plus, I think the quiet gets on his nerves.  Hard to believe we’re twins, eh?”

“Twins aren’t mirrors of each other,” InuYasha said.  “Even though they look alike, Miroku’s girls are different.”

“And Haruo and I don’t even look the same.”

“Not all twins do,” Susumu said.  “So, InuYasha, what do you think about the woods?”

“Spent more time in them than villages,” the hanyou said.  His ear flicked as he tried to put his thoughts in words.  “They can be dangerous.  There are animals that can hunt you, and there’s youkai, sometimes, but not a lot of the monster types, mostly things like tanuki.  The bad youkai like to hang around humans.  Oni, though, now they like deserted places away from humans.  And bad humans find places out in them sometimes, especially if they’re hiding or planning to do things, like rob or raid.  But for me, they’re safer than most cities.”

Susumu chuckled.  “Maybe if I had your talents, InuYasha.  But for me, a nice shelter from the wind and rain, a good bed, a hot meal...I’d rather spend my time in the village.  Even farming.”

Eiji laughed hard at that.  “Never thought I’d hear you admit that farming was better than something.”

“I do my share,” he said.  “But village defense and weapons work are part of my job, too.  And maybe yours if the Hojo ever decide they need us for one of their little escapades.”

“Here’s hoping such days stay far away from us,” Eiji said.

 The group of three searchers reached a place on the path where a weathered stone stood.  It had a carving of a seated figure on it; who it was supposed to have been had disappeared over the years.  Who it was supposed to have been had been stolen by the wind and the rain.  It was barely possible to tell that it have been a person.  But it radiated out a warmth that was more than you would expect if it was just being a piece of rock.

“What’s that?” the hanyou asked.

“One of our Dosojins, boundary marker gods,” Susumu said.  “Most of the paths out of the village have them.”

“I’ve seen the one on the main road,”  InuYasha replied.  “It looks like an old couple hugging.  This one though...I’m not sure what its supposed to be.”

“They come in different forms,” Eiji said.  “This is one of the oldest.  Every now and then, someone decides the ones on the main paths need to be replaced, but this one...well, people don’t take this path very often.  They forget, even though the kami don’t seem to forget us.”

Eiji  moved off the path to stand in front of it, then clapped his hands twice, and bowed to it.  “Thank you for guarding us, Dosojin.  Keep our village safe while we step beyond,” he said.  Clapping again, and bowing, he returned to the others.

A warm breeze passed over the three men, suddenly.  It lifted the ends of the hanyou’s hair, and he turned around like he expected to see someone.

“See?” Eiji said.  “They remember.”

The hanyou, already having several run ins with the local kami, just nodded. “Do you always do that?” he asked.

“It never hurts to have protector kami on your side,” Eiji said.

InuYasha thought about his dealings with Kazuo.  “Maybe you’re right.  Maybe.”

At Miroku’s house up on the hill, Sango, hearing new voices, stopped her clothes folding for a moment and  looked up to see  the group of women heading to where she was working and Maeme was sewing. Stretching up from where she was bent over the clothes basket, she took the last towel off of the clothes line and began to fold it.  “Looks like we have company again, Maeme-chan,” she said as she neatly put the folded cloth with the others in her basket.  “A bigger group than last time.”

“So many...” Maeme said, looking up from the neat stitching she was doing.  The tone of her voice was a mix of surprise and anxiety and awe.  “I haven’t seen this many people in the same day in so long, so long.”  She looked up at Sango.  “Is...is it wrong that its...scary?”

“No, not at all” Sango said, resting a hand on her shoulder.  “Let me know if it gets to be too much for you.  They want your best; they’ll understand.”

Nakao, noticing the group, got up and came and stood behind his mother, resting a hand on her shoulder.  She reached up and patted his hand.

“It’s all right, son,” she said.  “These people...They...care for us.  I need...I need to learn to be with people again.”

“You’re looking better, Maeme-chan,” Koume said, sitting down next her.

Maeme, for a moment, met her eyes before dropping her face to stare at the sewing she was doing, as she tried to find something to say.  “I...I feel more rested,” she finally said.

“Nahoi and the others wanted to see you, child.  Is it all right?” Koume asked.

Nahoi stepped forward out of the group smiling.

“Nahoi...” Maeme looked up and gave the young weaver a hesitant smile in return.  “You sent that fabric over this morning?”

“I did.” Nahoi sat down next to her.  “Did you like it?”

Maeme dropped her eyes once again.  “It’s beautiful cloth.  It’s been a long time since I had beautiful cloth to keep.  I...he...I had to sell all the cloth I wove.”

“Every woman deserves to have some beautiful clothes, especially when they weave as beautifully as you do,” Koume said.

“That’s the truth,” Fujime said, sitting down next to Nahoi. “Look at my wrap skirt,” she said.  “Do you recognize the fabric?”

Maeme’s eyes widened.   She reached out and brushed the fabric gently, then met Fujime’s eyes with a wide-eyed look of her own. “I know that cloth.  The weave pattern and warping...they were tricky.”

“It was so beautiful that when it showed up on Market Day I bought it right away, so quickly my husband didn’t get a chance to say no,” Fujime said.  She patted Maeme’s hand.  “If you can weave something like this, you should be wearing beautiful clothes.”

“You have been in a dark hole for a long time, Maeme-chan.  We want to help you get out of that hole.  Will you let us help you?” Kimi asked, sitting next to Fujimi.

Maeme looked at each of the women who had come to visit her.  She was close to tears again, beginning to feel overwhelmed. “Help...” she said.  “Help me?”

“Yes.  Once we weren’t allowed to help you,” Koume said.  “But there’s no person left who will stop you from letting us help you, no person left who will keep you alone.  My husband has a big hammer, and he’ll go after anybody who tries.”

“Fumio-sama is a good man,” Maeme said.  She let out a long, deep breath.  Suddenly her world seemed a little brighter.