InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of Dog Gods & Mortals (new version) ❯ Chapter 13

DISCLAIMER: I'll make this short and sweet. 'Inuyasha' and all characters involved belong to Rumiko Takahashi and not to me. Any questions? No? Good, now on with the story.

 

Author's Note: This chapter takes place late autumn.

 

CHAPTER 13

 

Days went by, and slowly life in Ergos began to return to normal, though there were some obvious changes made both in the temple and the town itself.

 

Upon being exiled from the temple, Kikyo had also left Ergos. This had not been surprising; even though Ergos had been the only home she had ever known until that point. She had alienated all of the villagers and so had no friends, and she had no skills that would be useful in getting a job anywhere else in the village. Besides, her feelings of anger were not only directed at the temple but at the village itself. She felt that the villagers had wronged her by not respecting her the way she believed they should and by taking Kagome's side. She wanted nothing more to do with anything involving Ergos or Inuyasha's temple anymore, unless it involved her somehow proving them wrong about how wonderful she was or getting her revenge over her humiliation, and she had no idea how to do either right now anyway. So she left with as many of possessions (mostly those that came from temple offerings and were very expensive) as she could carry and left. She was last seen heading out of town in the direction of Lorinth, but no one in town could say for sure where she was going or even really cared enough to find out.

 

As Inuyasha had suspected, Sango got feed up her brother and Miroku fussing over her all the time and forced them to return to the temple the next day. However, she could not keep them away completely. Kohaku's habit of sleeping more often than not at his family's home was for the moment at least changed to always. He sometimes went home early enough to have dinner with his sister too with Miroku often accompanying him. The High Priest and the Guardswoman had become that much closer during the whole ordeal and were spending a lot of their free time together, much more than before. Rumour going around the village was that it likely wouldn't be long until Miroku made their relationship official and asked Sango to marry him. Inuyasha didn't doubt that the two would get together some day, he suspected that it would be at least several more months if not longer before that happened.

 

Inuyasha's own relationship with Kagome had been going great as well. Since that first night after the bandit attack when Kagome snuck into Inuyasha's room, there hadn't been a single night that the two had slept alone. Every night Kagome would sneak out after she was sure that the other temple staff were asleep and meet Inuyasha in the garden. The two would spend some time talking like they did when they first started to get to know each other, only now they would take a break from talking every now and then when they gave into the urge to kiss each other, and inevitably ended up in Inuyasha's bed and each others arms. Both loved their nights together, and both the talks and the lovemaking reassured them both that they would not grow tired of each other anytime soon. During the day however, they were still keeping up the act that they were nothing more than God and Priestess. After the whole `Kikyo Incident' as some of the villagers were calling it, both agreed that now was most certainly not the time to bring their relationship out into the open. While Inuyasha still longed to let the whole world know that he was in love with the most amazing woman to have ever existed (in his opinion), he better understood now what Kagome was afraid of and as such was willing to keep thing quite for a while longer.

 

Kagome had fully returned to her duties as a Priestess the day after that night, as well as started seriously training with both Kaede and Miroku to harness her newly awakened spiritual powers. It should not have come as a shock as anyone after her initial display that Kagome was something of a natural. Within a week she had mastered how to project a powerful barrier around herself and was working on expanding it. She also quickly picked up the offensive power of purifying arrows, although she would need to practice her archery itself and work on her aim for q while before she could get much real use of out that. She could easily blow up a wall with her arrows, but she still needed to hit the wall, and so far that part was still somewhat out of Kagome's reach. Fortunately, now that Sango was feeling better she was more than happy to help Kagome out with that part, and the two were getting together whenever they had some free time to practice. Without the emotional distress she had been under during her first use of powers she was not able to fully tap into her powers to their fullest extent, but the truth was it was unlikely she would ever have to. Even the fraction of her powers she had been able to use since ten put her on the same level as some of the most powerful Priestess out there.

 

However, as quickly as Kagome was learning to use her newly unleashed powers, there was one that she still had not been able to figure out; the healing power. Although Kagome had somehow instinctively known how to use it the day of the attack, since then she had not been able to tap into it again and she didn't know why. Neither Kaede nor Miroku had ever even heard of a spiritual power like that, and as such were unable to help her, although they truly wished they could. Even Inuyasha was of no use in teaching Kagome to unlock that piacular power. Although he knew that such powers existed he had never really known anyone who had them. In fact, the one he had any real knowledge of at all was his father's old High Priestess from five hundred years ago Midoriko, and even her he had only met once, briefly when he went to visit his father at the temple where she was stationed over something. Most of what he knew about her was gleamed second hand from his father in the years before and after her death, and as far as Inuyasha knew the question of how she unleashed that power had never come up. Inuyasha knew that it was important that Kagome learn to fully control all of her powers now that they had been released, and that her healing power by virtue of being undeniably her strongest was the most important for her to learn, but he had no idea as to how to help her do that. The only thing Inuyasha could think of was ask the other Gods for help, but in his exile he had no way to contact them unless they came to see him. Jinenji had shown up the evening of the attack, concerned about what had made his friend return to Earth in such a hurry, but it hadn't occurred to Inuyasha to ask for his help back then and he hadn't seen Jinenji or any of the other Gods since. He could kick himself for not thinking about it when he had the chance.

 

All this was going through Inuyasha's mind as the last of the worshipers shuffled out of the temple at the close of the morning offerings two weeks after the attack. It was the third day since the temple at reopened and each day was busier than the last. As Inuyasha had feared, in the wake of news of what had happened with the bandits, Kagome and Kikyo, there had been a new flood of travellers to Ergos in the last week. The idea of seeing a God who would protect his people with his own hands, and Priestess who some said was powerful to be a minor goddess herself, was to much for many people to ignore and so the crowds had been just rolling in. The villagers were ecstatic as this was great for their economy, but it was a lot of work for the temple staff and rather a big pain in the butt for Inuyasha. The only good news that Inuyasha could see about the whole thing was that so far he had been wrong in that he hadn't yet been forced to deal with a mass of wannabe priestess looking to fill Kikyo's spot yet. Remembering the nightmare he had been forced to go through before Kagome turned up, Inuyasha could only be grateful for this. It did mean more work for his remaining staff, and Inuyasha was sorry for that, but when weighed up against what he could be facing he just couldn't bring himself to be that unhappy about it. Kohaku had suggested a breakfast that morning when Inuyasha had mentioned his surprise at the lack of priestess applicants that maybe news of how he had told off Kikyo scared all the wannabes away. Who knows, maybe he was right. Either way, Inuyasha wasn't going to question it, and instead just be grateful that at least he'd been able to avoid one annoyance for the time being. He knew eventually he would have to find a replacement for Kikyo, but he figured that could wait until he found someone who he knew was suitable. After all, that's what he did with Kagome and look how wonderfully that turned out.

 

“Finally,” Miroku said with a sigh, coming back from showing the last of the worshipers out the doors and bringing Inuyasha out of his thoughts. “I was starting to think they'd never leave, it's almost lunch time.”

 

“It was a big crowd.” Kagome agreed with Miroku as Inuyasha stood up and stretched to work out the kinks from sitting in once place for so long. “Hopefully it should die down once people find something new to talk about, and no longer find us so interesting.”

 

Inuyasha snorted. “Yeah, sure, it's been two weeks already, so hopefully we should only have to put up with another three months or so. Six, tops.” Kagome and Miroku made a couple of sour faces, but they didn't say anything against Inuyasha's statement. They knew chances were he was right.

 

“Speaking of lunch, any idea when it'll get here?” Inuyasha asked.

 

“Hopefully within a few minutes, I saw a couple of the serving girls from the village's best inn heading this way when I was showing people out. They seemed to be carry quite a bit of food with them.” Miroku answered.

 

Inuyasha nodded. “Then I guess we better round up the others and get ready to meet them. Nice timing, if I was mortal I'd say I was starved by now.

 

***

 

Inuyasha and his priests and priestess were just finishing there lunch and were about to get back to their duties when their was a loud knock on the temple's main door. Wondering who would be seeking entry to the temple at this time of day, Miroku went to answer it after quickly looking to Inuyasha for approval.

 

Opening the door, Miroku was surprised to see a decent sized gathering of priests. From the slightly different cuts and styles of robes, Miroku quickly concluded that they most likely came from two different temples, both well off as shown by the very good quality of cloth they were made of. He also quickly deducted by the various embellishments on said robes that most of them were high-ranking members within their temples. However, it was the only priest who appeared to be of low rank that drew Miroku's attention.

 

“Hermeros, I did not expect you back here so soon.” Miroku said, surprised to see Kagome's grandfather here although thinking about it he supposed he shouldn't have been. No doubt the man had heard about his granddaughter's sudden increase in power.

 

“I did not expect to come back so soon either, High Priest Miroku.” Hermeros said with a bow to the younger but higher ranked priest. “But apparently the fates had different plans.”

 

“You are the High Priest of this temple?” One of the priests from Hermeros' temple asked, looking surprised no doubt because of his age Miroku thought. The priest looked even older than Hermeros, yet in surprisingly good health. His robes were the most highly embellished out of all those from his temple, this showing that he was a highly ranked priest, yet still seemed rather elegant with a somewhat understated style.

 

“I am.” Miroku said, not taking any offence to the other man's surprise. Even he was somewhat disbelieving of the fact that he could be a high priest at his age, even after all this time.

 

The old priest bowed his head slightly. “It is a pleasure and an honour to meet you then, High Priest Miroku.” The old man said, surprising Miroku with how quickly he accepted Miroku's right to such a rank. “I am Aeneas, High Priest of the Temple of Taisho in Lorinth. This is Baste, one of my most high-ranking priests, and Kasen, the priest in charge of our temple library. I believe you already know Hermeros, one of our temple's most loyal priests. We are here for an important task, and must request an audience with your God as soon as possible, if we may.”

 

“Of course, Priests of the Great Taisho are always welcome here.” Miroku said, stepping back slightly so that they could enter. “May I ask who these other priests are?” His eyes were trained on the two priests whose robes said that they were from another temple. While all of the Priests wore the more traditional white robes, the second set of priests were much more elaborately done and not nearly in such good taste. While the Priests from Taisho's temple looked elegant and refined, these priests somehow despite the absence of colour looked gaudy, especially the second one who in what was clearly a poor attempt to look important had done his robe up with so many embellishments that there didn't appear to be a single square inch of plain fabric left on the robe. The whole effect was rather stupid looking.

 

“I am High Priest Chrysostom.” The Priest with the ridiculously overdone robe said, his voice haughty and scornful, like Miroku should have somehow known this. “This is my second, Spiro.” Chrysostom said, gesturing at the overly fat priest behind him. “We came from the Temple of Inuyasha in Lorinth, the esteemed first temple build to the God of Protection. Why he would choice to stay in a backwater temple like this instead of our holy temple is a mystery to me.”

 

Miroku raised an eyebrow, annoyed by the priest's holier-than-thou attitude. The man was younger than Aeneas, maybe fifty, and was a rather unassuming and ugly looking man. His head was too big for his body, but his face only took up about a quarter of it giving in a pinched in look. He was scrawny, with dirty fingernails and a horrible smell surrounding him.

 

“Inuyasha choose my Temple because this where you are standing was the first Temple build to Inuyasha, not yours.” Miroku said, delighting in taking the man down a peg or too. “It is here, in this very town that worship for the God of Protect first began in our land, and only spread to the rest of Greace(1) after that.

 

Chrysostom was shocked speechless by Miroku's claim and it took a few moments before the priest shook off his shock enough to follow the other group of priests into the temple.

 

By this time Miroku lead the group of priests into the temple, Inuyasha Kaede and Hojo had already left the main chamber. Kagome and Kohaku were still in the room over by the meals area cleaning up the remains of lunch. The two of them looked up when Miroku lead the visiting priests in. Kagome's face displayed surprise quickly followed by delight as she recognised her grandfather in the group.

 

“Grandpa, what are you doing here?” Kagome cried as she ran over to hug the old priest. Miroku looked on with a smile, vaguely noticing when Kohaku left the room to give the group some privacy.

 

“Kagome, my dear, you look as wonderful as ever.” Hermeros said happily, as he stepped back from the hug to look at his precious granddaughter. “You don't seem to be any worse for the wear after such a huge awaking if power.”

 

“You should have seen me two weeks ago.” Kagome said, making a slightly rueful face. “It was three days before I could walk more than four steps unaided I was so worn out.”

 

“If even half of what we heard about your newly awakened powers is true, I would say you had a good reason to be worn out.” Aeneas said stepping forward with a smile on his face. “Kagome, dear, it has been too long. It's wonderful to see you well and happy. I must say I was almost as delighted as your grandfather when he told me of your appointment here. I always knew you would make a wonderful priestess, Inuyasha is a lucky God to have you.”

 

Kagome smiled fondly at the old priest as she bowed to him slightly. “You flatter me as always, High Priest Aeneas.” Kagome said. “In truth it is I who am lucky, to be blessed enough to be of service to such a wonderful God.”

 

“That, is the truth.” Chrysostom suddenly said rudely, as he pushed angrily up to the startled Priestess who evidently hadn't noticed him before now. “No woman should have the honour of serving any God. A woman's place is in her husband's house and bed, serving him. Not here in a holy place such as this, where no woman should ever be fit to thread. If it weren't for you so called powers - if they are even real - I have no doubt that Inuyasha would not even decline to look upon you.”

 

“Chrysostom.” Kagome said dryly. “You have not changed your opinions I see, despite the fact that Inuyasha himself feels that women do in fact have a place outside of her husband's house.”

 

“Yes, and how brilliant a move that has been so far, I see.” Chrysostom said scornfully. “I heard about that other woman Inuyasha tired having work as his `priestess', and how he had to kick her out when she disgraced him. He'll do the same to you to you know, once he realises that his experiment was doomed from the start, and he will no doubt go back having only priests to serve him, as it always has been and always should be.”

 

“As I said before, Chrysostom, this was the first temple ever dedicated to Inuyasha.” Miroku said somewhat angrily, rather pissed off that this man was speaking down so to Kagome who he had grown rather fond of over the last several months. Not to mention insulting about half the world's population with his ridiculous ranting. “And ever since the Temple has opened, half of those who served here have been priestess. Kikyo was the first and only one of them who it has been exorcised from the temple.”

 

“He's right you know.” Inuyasha said, making the entire group jump, aside from Kagome who since the awaking of her power was never surprised by Inuyasha's surprising stealthy entrances anymore. The God was glaring at Chrysostom as he stalked over, making the jumped up priest visibly sweat. “So you're the High Priest from my temple in Lorinth. I believe I sent you a letter requesting you come and see me about some problems I had about how you were running my temple months ago, why are you only turning up now?”

 

Not looking nearly so sure of himself as he had just a few minutes ago, Chrysostom stuttered his answer. “My Lord, I had been busy with various important temple matters…”

 

“For two months straight?” Inuyasha asked dryly. “You now what, never mind I don't care. I had intended to give you a strong warning about things I wanted you to change about how you've been running my temple, but after what I just heard I think the whole idea would be wasted. You're obviously not going to change your views on women, and I will not stand for even one of my temples to be run by a man who thinks that way, not to mention one who insults my Priestess and myself in turn. I learnt my lesson about giving undeserved chances with Kikyo. So let's just cut to the chance shall we? You just lost your job as my High Priest, I suggest you head back to Lorinth and start looking for a job in a different area.” As Chrysostom stood there giving a very good impersonation of a landed fish, Inuyasha turned to the fat priest who had come with him. “You, stay a while, I've got some changes I want made to my temple in Lorinth as soon as possible, and you get to take them back with you. I trust you won't have the same problems with women that this fool did?”

“No my lord.” The priest said quickly, bowing while trying to keep the delighted smile off his face. Apparently Chrysostom wasn't well liked even with his own followers.

 

“Good, then we'll have much to discuss later.” Inuyasha said, seeming to take the man at his word. “But that I'm afraid will have to wait for a little bit. What can I do for priests' of my father at this time?” He asked, turning to look at Aeneas who looked a little taken back but not at all unhappy about Chrysostom dismissal. The former High Priest in question was in so much shock that he was allowing Miroku to show him to the door without a fight.

 

“My Lord, it was your father himself who requested we come here.” Aeneas said, no small amount of awe in his voice. “He appeared in the middle of our temple during mass two weeks ago, and ordered us to find some certain scrolls from our library and bring them to you. I am sorry it has taken so long for us to arrive, but I'm afraid it has been so long since anyone has had reason to look at the scrolls in question that they were somewhat misplaced.”

 

At a gesture from his High Priest, the priest Aeneas had introduced as Kasen and said was in charge or their library stepped forward and bowed to Inuyasha as he held out two obviously very old yet well looked after scrolls.

 

“My Lord, these scrolls were written by the great High Priestess Midoriko herself.” Kasen said reverently. “They describe in detail how she accessed and used her healing power, and as far as we know are the only known record on such in existence.”

 

Inuyasha was shocked. Although he apparently managed to thank the man, he couldn't have told you what he said to save his life. Almost all of Inuyasha's mind was set on trying to figure out why his father had sent these to him when he hadn't even asked. Then again, it wasn't the first time his father had stepped in with something involving Kagome. He was the one who sent Kagome's family here months ago when they still had no idea what had happened to her. At the time he hadn't thought much about it, he just assumed that since Hermeros was one of his priests he'd simply answered the old man's prayer in his own way. But now add this in, sending exactly what Kagome needed to master her powers, or at least as close as they could get the way things currently stood, directly too them. Apparently his father was keeping a much closer eyes on him than he thought. But if that was true, why didn't his father say anything to him? His parents had barely even spoken to him since he was sent to Earth, now they were keeping tabs on him and sending him presents? This didn't track. Something else was going on here, Inuyasha was sure of it. But what that something was, he had no clue. He just hoped he could figure it out before it was too late.

 

 

 

AUTHOR'S NOTES

 

Hey people, I'm back. See, I didn't abandon you all, it's just that I've been too caught up in other things to write for a while. Sorry about that, really, I'll try to start writing more, but if it takes a while before I post anything else please bear with me. I promise I don't plan on abandoning this or any of my other stories any time in the foreseeable future, but sometimes it takes a while before I have the time or inspiration to write too much.

 

1 = Greace is the new name I will be giving to the country my story is set in, as apposed to `Greece'. This is not a typo.