InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Foreign Tastes ❯ Settled ( Chapter 1 )

Foreign Tastes

One

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It took them a while to get out. It wasn't that they got lost, because Sesshoumaru was able to trace their scents (and Fuji's continued to confuse him, because while it was definitely human it was also definitely not), but that he was in too much pain to move quickly. Fuji had offered to carry him, and although she was nearly as tall as he was, he declined - politely - because although a god's whims must be indulged, respect must still be due them, and such an offer was probably more a wish to test than a wish to help. Since she had merely shrugged and continued on as before, he assumed that he had passed it.

So the pace remained slow. After a while, he could distinguish the scents more clearly, re-familiarized himself with Kagome's smell, picked out the hints of her magic in it, and noticed one other thing: that while Fuji had been leading Kagome, they had gone straight to him, but before that, when Kagome lead Fuji, they had been frequently lost and wandered around quite a bit. He cut out the meanders as much as possible, in the interests of being able to sit down again all the sooner.

At one point, Kagome stopped walking. As she still carried the bright-light-source, which they called a flash light (which made sense, in a way) Fuji stopped too, and Sesshoumaru, perforce, followed their example. He made her pay for it by leaning on her, though,

She didn't seem to notice. "What are we going to say when we get back?"

Fuji smiled, as though she had been anticipating the question. "Well, we can either tell a lot of bold-faced lies that will make Sesshoumaru seem like a total idiot, and us as well, if they were discovered to be lies, or we can avoid confrontation completely by taking advantage of the fact that we drove out by ourselves, separately from everyone else. I'm sure Sesshoumaru will be willing to lie down in the back seat, and as far as anyone knows, we will leave as we came."

"But… the car, the speed, the different clothes!"

"Sesshoumaru, when you are at your best, how fast can you travel?"

"How does one measure that?"

She stared a moment. "Ah, right. Let us say, then: if you were to travel at your top speed from Kyoto to Edo, how long would that take?"

He thought about the distance of those two cities, wondering why she chose them in particular. "Not long; maybe a count of 30 or 40 in measured speech."

She nodded. "We won't need to worry about speed. Clothes, as you see, have changed. I think I know what I can get you that will approximate what you wear now, without seeming out of place. Things don't fasten the same and may be a bit more… snug… in places," she said, glancing with meaning at his hips and shoulders. "You'll have to deal. As for cars, they are the product of science: the common human's answer to magic. They are noisy, smelly, and dangerous, but they can travel faster than you at times, and they don't involve much to operate beyond sitting down. Once you get used to them, they can almost be described as very strange carriages; in any case, they developed from them. You got that?"

"You mean: do I understand?"

"Yes."

"I do."

"Alright. Kagome didn't think about this, but I did. Once they reach maturity, humans often live separate from their family, sometimes together, sometimes alone. Since the invention of reliable birth control, sex is very common, and rarely means anything to either of the participants, but rape remains a crime. Killing anyone is a crime. Women are the equals of men. And," again, she glanced significantly at his hip "to carry a sword or any other weapon without the government's permission is a crime."

"I will not give up my swords."

"Then you cannot carry them."

He stared at her. Had Kagome told him this, he would have… done something unpleasant. Since it was Fuji, he could not. One did not attack gods. One did not disbelieve gods. His eyes dropped to the floor.

"They can be concealed," she reminded him gently. "The punishment for carrying concealed weapons is higher, because the crime is not only of carrying them but of seeking to escape discovery - yes, I know, it doesn't make much sense, but that's the way it is. However, since very few humans believe in magic, and even fewer have any control over it…"

"I do not at this time have the strength to do that."

"Then I will carry them for you."

He felt Kagome shift, but stopped her by standing upright and untying his sash, handing it and his swords to her. "Tokijin is-"

"I know." She took them and bound them around with the sash, then leaned them against her shoulder. "Shall we go on?"

The overall pain was beginning to lessen, though that meant he was becoming increasingly aware of his hunger. He nodded, and returned his attention to the trail.

"Fuji," he heard Kagome say quietly, after a little while longer of following their old steps in silence, "where will he stay?"

"With me."

"Will you be okay?"

"I will."

They did not speak again until they reached the entrance.

Sesshoumaru was glad to lie down in the back of the car, to sleep as best he could and try to block out the hunger pains. He firmly ignored the sounds around him, the weird pull of the car, and only roused when he felt a deliberate touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked up at Fuji.

"Tadaima," she said. [1]

"Tadaima," he repeated.

Her smile softened a fraction. "Okaeri."

She stood up and helped him extract himself from the car, then closed the door after him and pressed a button on a little black thing she held. Shouldering his swords again, she led him up a set of steps attached somehow to a cliff, then up some more steps to a small standing space, where she got out something metal and inserted it into a small hole in what looked like the doors he'd seen on the occasional foreign ship. A twist, a push, and the door gave way. She went inside and stepped up again, leaving behind her shoes. He followed.

"Will the humans attempt to charge you with the crime of carrying weapons?" he asked.

"They might try, but they will not succeed."

Accepting that, he looked around a room that seemed to be sharply divided between Japanese and.. other. On one side was a table and several cushions, a side table containing scrolls, a few books, and a writing set. The walls were white, the floor was tatami, an elaborate kimono, a painted silk screen, and a wall-hanging in the Chinese calligraphic style were the only decorations. On the other side were seats and a table on stilts, a high counter built against the wall, and an indentation into the other wall, with a grate in front of it. There was also something that looked like cushions on stilts, with a low back, and padded and covered with some fuzzy fabric. A branch of cherry blossoms, a stand of bamboo, and a very haughty, if small, black cat had been somehow been captured behind frames and hung above the counter. It made him uncomfortable.

Fuji moved across the room, still carrying his swords, opened a hidden door next to the indentation in the wall, and pulled out an elaborate stand and three more blades. These she carried back to the Japanese side of the room. She placed the stand next to the screen, put her three blades on the front, lower part of the stand, his two on the bottom sections of the higher, back part, and draped his sash across the very top. The sight was mostly pleasing, but she shook her head after a moment, disappeared through a sliding door, and returned with a white sash, embroidered with bamboo and cherry blossoms, and replaced his sash with it.

"This will be washed," she said, "and I will put it aside with your other clothing. Until we get something that stands out less, I have a few yukata that should fit. Through here, please."

Once he had changed, he returned to find her sitting on one of the elevated seats, reading a book, but when she saw him, she smiled, got up, and moved to the lower table. "Douzo."

"Thank you." He sat.

"You do not like the Western side?"

"That is not Western," he said firmly. "It is barbaric." Remembering himself, he started to apologize, but she waved it off.

"These days it is called Western. Those barbarians succeeded in opening trade with Japan some 250 years ago, and in 1945 eidi successfully invaded and forced a new government." She looked at him through her lashes. "It may or may not please you to know that the emperor is no longer divine."

His eyebrows drew together. "How did they manage that?"

"They blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she said, colorlessly. "The residue continues to affect those who live there today."

"Barbaric!"

"Oh! Well, they were trying to end a war that spanned the entire world, and they were attacked first. They say, too, that the total death count would have been much higher if they had not done it." She shrugged.

A girl in strange clothing that he identified as possibly having origins in the Chinese entered through the sliding door Fuji had pulled the white sash from, and presented the tea tray to Fuji. When she thanked her, the girl blushed, bowed, and retreated.

He watched as she poured the tea, noting that this ceremony, at least, had not changed much. He accepted the cup with both hands and a bow, and waited for her to sip first, noting with puzzlement that the drink in hers was cloudy.

She noticed his gaze and smiled. "I like it so," she said, and drank.

Tea became dinner as she instructed him in what had happened since he was sealed, and as night came on, the lights on the Western side of the room and the fire in what he now learned was the fire place drew them to the place before it, seating themselves on the rug with cushions that they brought with them. After a while, she saw him to his room and returned to the main room. He lay in the darkness that was not really dark at all after his forever underground, letting the unfamiliar noises keep him awake as he went over what he had been told. Finally, he heard a click, and the darkness became darker; he heard footsteps, the slide of a door, rusting fabric, and a sound similar to rain. He fell asleep before it stopped.

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[1] There are certain everyday ritual phrases that don't really have a translation in English. I am leaving them in Japanese, but I will give the situation/approximate translation for them if I'm requested to do so.

AN

A bit short, but this seemed like a good ending, and I didn't want to bore everyone by going over things we've already learned more than I have to. Once everything stops being new to Sesshoumaru, we can start moving at a faster pace, and things should get more interesting.

I now have two questions for everyone: (1) What is Fuji? and (2) Should this be a crossover or not?