InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 344

[ 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 344

In the second son's house by the river, Chiya gasped as she looked up at her husband.

Her eyes wide with amazement as she took in her husband's face. He looked haggard – worried and tired, but with a touch of something else in the set of his jaw, a determination that she usually only saw when he was very angry. The anger was not there – and that in itself made her uncertain of how to respond. "Home? I...I have a home any more? Something besides this place?" She waved her arm indicating the small room she occupied.

Michio, knowing her well, refused to take the offering to argue. "Ah, Chiya-chan," he said. "We have been playing this game since before we were married. Storm and thunder, then desperately realizing how much we need each other, and then the games of reconcilliation. Today, though, it dawned on me, finally, that it's about more than this game we play. We're not the only players."

Chiya looked up at him, frowning, still off-centered. She crossed her arms in front of her, somewhat between an aggressive posture and a defensive one. "What's that supposed to mean? You just run in here and act -"

Michio put a finger over her lips, hushing her, then walked over to the door and lifted open the door matting. "Let her go, Houshi-sama. She can come in now," he said.

There was a deep sigh of approval, and the sound of Hana laughing, and a child's impatient demand to be let go. That was followed by a child's squeal of happiness and a and a streak of bright red and blue that ran up and jumped in Chiya's lap.

"Haha-ue! Come home!" Azuka wrapped herself around Chiya's middle. "Chichi-ue said it's time to get you. I've missed you so much! It's been so hard! And Inishi-obasan can't chase the dream monsters away like you can." The girl snuggled even deeper into her mother's lap. "Every night, they come back. Monsters and monsters and monsters! Why did you leave me? I've been so scared."

Somewhat overwhelmed by all of this intensity, Chiya wrapped her arms around the girl, almost automatically, and ran her hand over the girl's hair, not yet sure of what to say. Resting a cheek on top of her daughter's head, she looked up at Michio again, who was standing near the door still, looking at the two with some satisfaction.

In return, Chiya frowned at her husband. "What did you tell her? That I chose to leave?" There was an edge to her voice that made Michio wince slightly for a moment, breaking his moment of satisfaction, but did not change the set of determination on his face.

"No, no, only that you had to be gone a little while," he said, walking back over to his wife. "I didn't tell her you chose to go."

"Same thing," Chiya muttered, shaking her head. But she smoothed her face, gave her daughter a gentle smile. "Okaa's here now. Otou said it's time for me to go home. We'll take care of all those bad things."

"That's right," Michio said nodding. He knelt down next to the two of them. "All the bad things. Azuka missed you terribly. This morning she tried to run to Tsuneo-otousan's before anybody else was up, just to look for you."

"What?" Chiya looked down on her daughter. "You tried to go to Ojiisan's all by yourself? Without telling anybody?"

Asuka dropped her head. "I...I…"

Morio patted his daughter's head. "She got lost in the fields between our place and Tameo-sama's place. We were lucky. Houshi-sama found her and brought her home while I was out looking."

"Houshi-sama? What was he doing there?" Chiya brushed a stray bit of hair out of her daughter's face, not meeting her husband's eyes. "I had the feeling he'd never have anything more to do with our family again. After...after..."

Michio took a deep breath and sat back. "After everything that's gone on, and what happened with his woman, I was shocked to see him, too. But he had come by just to talk to me, about getting beyond anger, but found my daughter instead." Reaching out, he patted Asuka's back. "I didn't deserve it. Even I understand enough about the Buddha's way to know that. But still, that's when it dawned on me, between what he was saying and what happened, that this isn't about you and me any more, when we get into these...well, whatever we want to call them. Fights. Tantrums. Games. It's about more than that nowadays, more about you flouncing off to your parents while I cool down, like when we were young. Nowadays, it's about our children. It's about our parents. Our friends. And probably more."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's time for you to come home, and be the mother to your children, the daughter-in-law to my father. Maybe even the wife to your thick-headed husband."

Chiya reached out and touched his hand. "Michio-chan…"

"I will always want you, even when I'm so angry I want to tear the world up." He closed his eyes, turned his head towards the wall. "Everybody the first time told me to send you a divorce letter." His voice grew very soft. "A lot of them told me to do it the second time, too. The third time, me refusing to almost tore the village up. But I...I never wanted that. I will never willingly let you go. And no doubt we will do our stupid game again and get ready to rip each other to shreds, but we can't do that any more. We have three children who each time we do this suffer. My father, your parents...they do. It's time to let our temper tantrums go. If this is too much for you, Chiya-chan, I will cut my heart out and set you free. But…"

She leaned forward and took his hand. "Michio, take me home."

Unheard by either one of them, a kami yelled out a victory cry. In a magic flash, Yoshio no kami ran to tell the others the news.

 

 

Different things were going up on the hill on the other side of the village.

"Yo, Choujiro!" InuYasha said, walking around to the back of his house where the carpenter was working. What he found was an overturned work cart, Choujiro's tools spread around it in a haphazard scatter among the wood chips and sawdust of his work area. Choujiro, limping a little, was pulling a log that had evidently rolled and knocked the cart off balance away from the work area.

The carpenter looked up at the sound of the hanyou's voice and grinned sheepishly. "Oh, you heard that, did you?"

InuYasha flicked an ear. "It didn't require any special hearing. You made enough noise even Kagome heard it. You all right?" He moved next to Choujiro and moved the log the carpenter had been struggling with off to the side for the woodworker.

"I'll live," Choujiro said, dusting off as he watched InuYasha wrangle the log back onto the cradle he had set up. "Glad Aki wasn't around to see me pulling the same stupid things I tell him not to do. Bend the rules, and sometimes they'll bite you." He sighed. "Would be nice if I could bully those logs around as easy as you do."

"Call me if you need a hand next time," the hanyou said. "I don't mind."

"Eh," said the craftsman. "I know you and your woman were busy getting ready for your little trip. I didn't want to bother you, but I guess maybe I chose wrong." Choujiro righted his tool cart, looking it over to see if it too would need mending. Rolling it back and forth, he knocked a board with one of his hammers and nodded in satisfaction. "At least I won't need to rebuild that while I'm working on everything else. I don't want to carry all this iron back and forth up the hill every day on my back."

InuYasha nodded. "Don't blame you. That's a lot of tools. You sure you're all right? I can go get Kagome to take a look at that leg of yours."

"Bah," Choujiro said. "Don't bother your woman. I just bumped my knee a little. I can see she has her mind set on other things than taking care of a silly man who should have known better."

"Oh, she's expert on doing just that," InuYasha said. "Look how she took care of me, even when I was too stupid to appreciate it."

"I sort of remember those days," Choujiro said, grinning. "You two could make quite the stir when your group came back after one of your journeys. But now, this place is such a peaceful place. I have to admit I enjoy coming up here, to get away from all the noise and gossip and drama that happens on my side of town."

He began picking up his tools and putting them back in their slots on his cart. InuYasha bent down and grabbed one of his wedges, a heavy piece of iron used to split wood, and handed it over. "Drama?"

"Oh, my woman tells me that Niko's woman Benika has gotten Sora and some of the other women in an uproar about Michio and Chiya. She's been trying to spread rumors about Michio being not right in the head, or fox possessed or something. Too many of us saw what happened that day for it to gain any traction, I think, but what in the hells does she think it will do to help Chiya is beyond me. She should be trying to get them back together, not make warring camps."

InuYasha shrugged. "Don't ask me. I'm not all that good on people stuff. Just as Miroku or Kagome. They could tell you stories."

Choujiro chuckled. "I don't think some of those old hens are any better, and probably worse. And something else was going on when I left this morning. There were a bunch of people out looking for someone's kid. I guess I'll hear that story when I go home today. My woman, she doesn't like all the foolishness that some of those people get wrapped up in, but she always seems to know what's happening."

"Sure she's not related to Miroku?" InuYasha asked.

Choujiro let off a big laugh and went back to work.

 

 

A small group of women stood in front of one of the smaller houses in the center of town.

Benika, sitting on a seat in front of her house frowned with impatience.

"Hurry up, Sora," she said, as Sora tied Benika's headscarf for her. "I can't believe we had to turn around and go back. Nanami will be busy fixing lunch for that crew at Toshiro-sama's and we'll barely have any time to talk to her once she starts cooking."

"Don't blame me," Sora said "I'm not the one who forgot to bring Sayo-sama's present. After all, wasn't that supposed to be the reason we're visiting today? I'm not the one who knocked over the soup pot and spilled it all over her clothes and had to change before we could go back. I'm not the one who had to search in every box to find the one headscarf that would go with my clean kosode. I was here on time, even with all my brood to look after. That scarf goes so well with what your wearing, though. That's what you should have picked in the first place."

"Dango, dango, dango. I can't believe I left them," Benika said. And I had to make enough for Niko and the rest of my brood. I'm lucky there are any left to bring!" She sighed as she picked up the basket next to her. "I hope all this work is worth it."

The third woman tucked a loose bit of hair back under Benika's scarf. "Relax, Benika! You know Sayo-sama loves your dango, Benika-chan. That was the perfect idea," Kou said. "It should at least get Toshiro to let us in the house."

"Maybe spoiling your clothes was just the kami trying to help you make a better impression," Sora suggested. "They must know we're trying to help. Everything else is going so well, and it was so nice that Yurime agreed to watch all the little ones."

"Well, I suspect she finds her house too quiet with all the time her man is spending working for…for that whitehaired…" Benika started to say as she tugged on the bow of her head scarf.

"Don't even start, Benika-chan. I don't want any of the kami to bring us bad luck today," Kou said. "You look fine, dear. Respectable and fine. Let's just go."

"Yes, let's," Benika said, and shoving the basket of food for Sayo to Sora, she led them outside.

Up on the rafters, unseen by any of them, Kazuo no kami rubbed his hat over his head. "Yes, the kami were involved. I don't think this is going to exactly turn out the way you like, but I hope Shimame likes this little touch. At least maybe now the timing will be right."

And in a flash of light, he was gone.