InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Truth About Cats and Dogs ❯ Sesshomaru's Castle ( Chapter 16 )

Recap: As Sango and Miroku shared a tender moment and Inuyasha and Shippo fought over the last bowl of ramen, no-one noticed that Kirara was ill until the next morning. Unconscious and suffering from the effects of a poisonous bite, the gang took Kirara to the nearest place they could for help, which just so happened to be…

 

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Chapter 16 - Sesshomaru's Castle

 

The gang ran across a field of flowers, barely noticing the beauty around them as they headed for the front entrance to the gargantuan fortress ahead of them.

 

“There's just one thing I don't understand,” Miroku said as they ran.

 

“What's that?” Sango asked.

 

“Well, surely Sesshomaru has noticed that someone has broken through his barrier,” Miroku replied. “Why hasn't he rebuilt it yet?”

 

“I'm more worried about why we're still alive,” Inuyasha said darkly. “Never mind about the barrier, Sesshomaru must be able to sense us by now.”

 

“And yet he hasn't done anything,” Miroku pointed out. “Don't you think it's unusual?”

 

“I don't really care right now,” Sango said. “Let's just concentrate on helping Kirara.”

 

“I wish Kagome was here,” Shippo sighed.

 

“Yeah, if she'd come back with antidote, it sure would have made things a lot easier,” Inuyasha mused.

 

“How ironic that it was Kirara who lost the antidotes in the first instance,” Miroku added.

 

“This isn't Kirara's fault!” Sango hurriedly pointed out. “This is all Sesshomaru's fault! The least he can do now is help her! He was the one who stopped Kirara returning with the antidotes, and he was the one who caused her to act the way she did when she got bitten. And if he comes out here, I'm going to tell him that to his face!”

 

“Do you mean that Sango?” Shippo asked.

 

“Yes I do!” Sango stubbornly replied.

 

“Because here he comes now!” Shippo said meekly.

 

“What?” Miroku gasped, skidding to a halt.

 

The others stopped around him, tilting their heads upwards as the two-headed dragon demon Ah-Un swooped down through the air towards them.

 

“He's going to attack us!” Sango said, grabbing her Hiraikotsu.

 

“Wait Sango, that's not Sesshomaru,” Inuyasha said hurriedly. “It's too weak to be him.”

 

Sango lessened her grip on her weapon, but did not release it completely. Ah-Un landed softly in front of them, and a small, slender female slid off its back, walking around to stand in front of the dragon. Inuyasha sniffed at the air, eying her over curiously. She was obviously a demon, but a very, very weak one. Her small stature and slight build seemed to reflect her poor power level. She was dressed in what looked like several layers of silk kimonos, all of which were far too big for her. She had thick, russet-blonde hair, which was tied up on the top of her head, and small, delicate blue eyes.

 

“Lord Inuyasha!” she cried suddenly, opening out her arms and stumbling over to Inuyasha.

 

“Huh?” Inuyasha squeaked as she gripped her hands into the material of his haori, pressing her cheek against his chest and closing her eyes, a large, content smile spreading across her face.

 

“You know this woman, Inuyasha?” Sango whispered to him.

 

“No!” Inuyasha wailed, his face turning red.

 

“Oh my Lord, I thought I would never see you again!” the female demon gushed, stepping back from Inuyasha to kneel before him.

 

“Something you want to tell us, Inuyasha?” Miroku asked, folding his arms.

 

“Um…” Inuyasha began nervously.

 

“Forgive me, my Lord!” the demon continued, rising to her feet and wiping a tear from her eye with one of the many sleeves of her multiple kimonos. “I am just so pleased that you have finally returned to the Royal Inu Palace!”

 

“The what?” Inuyasha muttered.

 

“And you've brought all your friends with you!” she squealed, clapping her hands together in delight. “Master Jaken has told me all about your friends, Lord Inuyasha! Oh, how I have longed to meet them!”

 

“She's starting to scare me!” Shippo whispered, tugging at Miroku's robes.

 

“You!” she said, pointing at Miroku. “The philandering monk with the hole in his hand!”

 

Miroku laughed nervously in response.

 

“And you!” she continued, pointing at Sango, the tip of her finger barely visible at the end of her sleeve. “The last surviving demon-slayer from the demon-slayers' village!”

 

“Yes…” Sango said slowly.

 

“And you must be the naughty little fox cub!”

 

Shippo yelped, leaping behind Miroku's legs in fear as the woman bent down and reached her hands out towards him.

 

“But where is your human mate, Lord Inuyasha?” she asked, straightening up once more. “And who is this creature?” she added, pointing at Kirara, who was still slumped over Inuyasha's back.

 

“Listen lady,” Inuyasha began. “I don't know who you are-”

 

“This is our friend Kirara,” Sango interrupted him, stepping forwards to confront the demon. “She has been badly poisoned, and she desperately needs help.”

 

“Oh, how terrible!” the demon said, her eyes widening. “Then you must take her inside at once! I have just the cure!”

 

Inuyasha grumbled under his breath about her having more than just the cure, but the others ignored him.

 

“Follow me!” she said brightly, turning and walking back towards the castle.

 

“So…” Miroku began as they walked on. “You live here?”

 

“Yes dear,” she replied with a nod of her head. “My name is Rinko.”

 

“Rinko?” Inuyasha muttered, leaning forwards to study the woman's profile.

 

On closer inspection, he could see that, despite her almost childlike demeanour, she was an aging demon. Her hair was tinged with dull hints of grey, and the edges of her eyes and mouth were crinkled and worn.

 

“I remember that name…” Inuyasha mused.

 

“I was employed by the late Lord Inutaisho many years ago as a nursemaid for his firstborn son,” Rinko explained. “And I remember the day that you were born, Lord Inuyasha, just like it was yesterday!”

 

“Can you stop calling me Lord Inuyasha already?” Inuyasha grumbled.

 

“Miss Rinko, is the Lord of the castle at home?” Miroku asked politely, casting a glance at Sango as he spoke, who nodded her agreement with his choice of words.

 

“Oh dear me no!” Rinko replied, letting out a small laugh. “His Lordship is so rarely at the castle of late! He has been pursuing the demon Naraku, perhaps you have heard? Although Master Jaken has told me that our Lord will be returning shortly.”

 

“Jaken's here?” Inuyasha asked.

 

“Oh yes,” Rinko replied, her smile unfaltering as she spoke. “And Ah-Un, and of course, the young Miss Rin.”

 

“So where the hell is Sesshomaru?” Inuyasha asked.

 

“Oh, I believe he was making preparations for the union ceremony,” Rinko replied.

 

“Union ceremony?” Sango echoed, her eyes widening in alarm.

 

“Oh yes.”

 

“Sesshomaru's getting married already?” Inuyasha asked.

 

“And what a happy day it will be for us all!”

 

Sango paled, casting a glance at Kirara, almost relieved to find her still out cold.

 

“It has been too long since there were young pups in the castle!” Rinko bubbled, oblivious to the disgust she was causing around her. “What a joyous time it will be when our Lord returns with his Lady!”

 

“We have to move faster!” Sango said urgently. “Miss Rinko, we are searching for Naraku too, and our friend Kagome will be looking for us, we just need an antidote for Kirara, and then we'll be on our way. We don't want don't want to trouble you.”

 

“Oh but you must stay!” Rinko replied. “It's no trouble at all!”

 

“Stay? In the castle?” Miroku asked, a glimmer of greedy optimism passing over his eyes as they began to ascend the steps to the grand entrance doors.

 

“But of course!” Rinko replied.

 

“I don't wanna stay here,” Inuyasha grumbled.

 

“Nor do I,” Sango hurriedly added.

 

“Surely one night won't do any harm?” Miroku asked. “We could get some food, have a good night's rest, and then leave in the morning. Sesshomaru won't be back before then, will he?”

 

“Oh I don't think so dear,” Rinko replied, a small frown appearing on her face. “Master Jaken told me that our Lord was having some difficulties with his Lady. Do you know, I think she even refused him at first!”

 

“Just the antidote!” Sango blurted, her voice unnaturally loud. “We'll just take the antidote and leave immediately!”

 

“Here we are!” Rinko said cheerfully, bowing politely to the two armoured demons who opened one of the two giant front doors for them.

 

“Oh…” Miroku gasped.

 

“Wow!” Shippo said, his high-pitched voice echoing around the hall.

 

“This is where Sesshomaru lives?” Sango asked, her eyes slowly moving around the grand entrance hall they stood in. “But it's so beautiful and welcoming!”

 

Sango again cast a glance at Kirara, silently wondering if her friend had any idea just how rich the man she had refused really was.

 

“Ah yes, this poor young girl has been poisoned,” Rinko said as two more demons hurried over to greet the gang. “Please, take her to the recovery wing and see that she is taken good care of.”

 

“Recovery wing?” Sango yelped, turning to Rinko as the other servants lifted Kirara from Inuyasha's back. “Just how big is this place?”

 

“Come now my dears, you must be tired,” Rinko said. “I shall show you to your rooms, you can stay in the visitors' wing. And once you have rested, you can join me for lunch in the staff dining hall.”

 

“The staff have their own dining hall?” Sango asked weakly.

 

“Oh yes,” Rinko replied. “The servants serve us there.”

 

“The staff have servants?” Sango asked, almost choking on her own words.

 

“Of course,” Rinko calmly replied. “The servants have their own dining hall and sleeping quarters.”

 

Sango whimpered, looking around the serene, white marble hall, her face twisting.

 

“Come on, Sango,” Miroku encouraged her, touching a hand to her shoulder.

 

“Miss Rinko?” Shippo asked.

 

“Yes, my dear?” she responded.

 

“Are you a fox demon too?”

 

“Yes my dear.”

 

“Cool.”

 

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Kirara groaned, recoiling from the cold object by her face instinctively. But it came at her again. Again she groaned and turned her head to one side, her top lip quivering as a small growl rumbled in her throat.

 

“Kirara?” she heard a voice say.

 

“Hm?” she growled, reaching up a hand to swipe away the coldness by her head.

 

“Kirara, you're awake!”

 

Kirara opened her eyes, blinking several times as she tried to collect her thoughts.

 

“Oh Kirara, how do you feel?” Sango asked her, reaching the cold damp cloth towards her forehead again.

 

“Stop that,” Kirara replied, swatting at Sango's hand.

 

“I was so worried about you, Kirara!” Sango said, obediently retracting her hand.

 

“What happened to me?” Kirara asked.

 

“You were bitten by a poisonous serpent,” Sango explained. “But you're going to be alright now!”

 

Kirara frowned, poking at the heavy layers of animal furs lying over her body.

 

“Where am I?” she asked, looking around the room she was in curiously.

 

“You've been unconscious for almost two whole days, Kirara!” Sango replied. “When we woke up back at our camp yesterday morning, you were out cold. You had been out all night. You didn't wake up all day yesterday day, you slept all night last night, and you've slept right through this morning! It's halfway through the afternoon already!”

 

“What's that smell?” Kirara asked, sniffing at the air as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

 

“If you were a human, you would have died from that bite, Kirara,” Sango replied, again ignoring Kirara's question.

 

Kirara straightened her back, the furs slipping off her torso. She paused, before looking down at herself. Kirara let out an indignant mew at what she saw, grabbing the furs in her hands and pulling them up to her shoulders.

 

“Where are my clothes?” she demanded.

 

“Miss Rinko burned them, she said something about you being too dirty for…” Sango quietly replied, her voice trailing off. “She insisted on making you new clothes,” she recovered.

 

“Miss Rinko?” Kirara echoed. “Who is Miss Rinko?”

 

“She's the nice lady who helped you recover,” Sango replied.

 

Kirara narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and Sango promptly turned her head away, hiding her guilty expression from her friend.

 

“Has Kagome come back yet?” Kirara asked.

 

“No,” Sango replied without turning round.

 

“Then we should go back for her,” Kirara said decisively, raking the furs from her body. “Hachi has probably gotten lost, or is too afraid to come all this way.”

 

Sango turned back as she heard Kirara's bare feet thump against the wooden floor.

 

“Kirara, you should be resting,” she advised.

 

“I'm going to look for Kagome,” Kirara replied. “After all, it's my fault that she's not here right now. I sent her back alone with Hachi. I should have gone with her myself we would have been back by now. And I wouldn't have been poisoned. I've caused enough problems for you all and held you all up long enough. I must do this.”

 

“Kirara, you can't go looking for Kagome dressed like that,” Sango said firmly, rising to her feet.

 

Kirara turned to face her, tilting her head in confusion. Sango folded her arms, her eyebrows lowering into a motherly frown. Kirara looking down at herself, noting that she was wearing nothing more than a length of white cloth wrapped around her torso and a thin, white silk skirt that hung on her hips and fell to barely below her knees.

 

“What else can I do if Miss Rinko burned my clothes?” Kirara asked matter-of-factly. “And I hope you saved my armour and sword from her.”

 

“Yes,” Sango replied. “But I took them to my room, I didn't trust you not to try to run away.”

 

Kirara frowned at Sango's remark, but again Sango avoided her eyes.

 

“Here you are,” Sango said, trying to change the subject again. “Miss Rinko had this lovely kimono made for you.”

 

Kirara hissed, curling her top lip as Sango held out a soft pink silk kimono towards her, the collar, one shoulder and both sleeves of which had been embroidered with an unusual emblem.

 

“I can't wear that, I'm a warrior,” Kirara said.

 

“Alright, but you should be resting in bed for now anyway,” Sango replied. “Why don't you lie down, and I'll get you some food? You must be hungry!”

 

Kirara paused, looking thoughtful for a moment before smiling sweetly.

 

“Alright,” she said. “Thank you, Sango.”

 

Sango nodded her head, walking out of the room and closing the door softly behind her. Kirara waited until Sango's footsteps had faded from even the range of her demon ears before grabbing up the pink kimono Sango had left for her and hurriedly pulling it on.

 

“Miss Rinko must be blind…” she muttered, looking down at herself in her new clothing.

 

The sleeves barely covered her elbows, and the bottom of the kimono was only a little longer than the under-skirt she was wearing.

 

Shaking her head and trying to ignore the grogginess that still hung around her, Kirara crept over to the window, pushing open the shutters. Without a second thought, Kirara climbed out of the window, dropping down to the roof of a long, low building below. She then slid down the slope of the roof, jumping off to land on a pile of hay.

 

Kirara paused, trying to ignore the fact that she was still a little weak and tired. She was too curious to learn more about her surroundings to let her poor health slow her down; and again, she brushed aside the idea that curiosity was deadly for cats.

 

Stepping up out of the hay, Kirara started to walk away from the building behind her, becoming both confused and captivated by what she saw. She was in the grounds of an impossibly large fortress of some sorts, the sheer size of which even dwarfed any of the castles she had visited during her days as a demon-slayer. Walking further away from the castle, Kirara soon found herself in a grassy field that rolled over the slope of a hill, at the bottom of which was a wide, shallow pond.

 

Kirara started towards the water, tensing as she began to sense a demonic aura. As she walked, Kirara began to realise that the demonic aura was getting closer to her, as if something were chasing her. As it was a slightly larger demonic power than she usually encountered, Kirara began to sniff cautiously at the air, tensing her muscles in preparation of having to either fight or run.

 

A sudden roaring sound caused Kirara to mew, stopping short and almost falling over from shock and her generally less than fit condition. Once she had recovered, she turned around to find a two-headed dragon demon standing behind her. Frowning curiously, she reached a hand out towards it, starting in alarm as it moved closer to her, pushing one of its heads affectionately against her palm.

 

Kirara smiled softly as she realised that the creature was no threat. It reminded her of the dragon demon Ah-Un that Sesshomaru kept as a servant; but, she told herself, there was no way that this could possibly be the same creature.

 

For lack of anything better to do until she had figured out where she was, Kirara followed the dragon down to the pond, frowning at the stitching on the sleeves of her kimono as she walked. The stitching seemed to form hexagonal shapes with flower-like symbols in the centre of them, an image she was certain she knew from somewhere. Kirara briefly wondered if the emblems held some sort of clue as to where she was, but again she dismissed the idea.

 

The dragon demon lowered both its heads to the water, drinking softly, the light lapping sound becoming oddly soothing to Kirara. She closed her eyes, relaxing as she concentrated her attentions on just the sounds of the dragon's heads drinking and the sweet smell of flowers in the air.

 

Kirara was shortly awoken from her reverie though as a sudden blast of cold water hit her in the face. Blinking and shaking her head to clear the water from her face, her indignant frown gave way to a smile as she saw the dragon demon spitting water around playfully. Kirara ducked down as the dragon spat at her with its other head, failing to see its tail swinging around towards her. Before Kirara could stop herself, the dragon's tail whipped her feet out from under her and she landed in the shallow pond, splashing mud and water all around her.

 

Kirara laughed, looking down at the now drenched and filthy kimono she wore.

 

“That will teach Miss Rinko to commission such an impractical garment for a warrior like me…” she mused.

 

Kirara slyly scooped up some slimy mud from the floor of the pond, standing abruptly and flinging the contents of her hands at the dragon. It growled, bucking playfully before splashing more water at her with one head. Kirara laughed again, turning her back to gather up more mud from under the surface of the water. Behind her she heard the dragon snort and leap up, obviously in an attempt to fly out of her reach.

 

“Oh no you don't!” Kirara said, spinning around and hurling a handful of slimed mud at the point where the dragon had last been standing.

 

Kirara gasped in horror as her mud-ball hit a woman hard in the face, splashing down over her clothes. Kirara began to cringe as she took in the woman's appearance: she was obviously a demon, and dressed in the finest clothing Kirara had ever seen, obviously a sign of her exceptionally high rank in society. Kirara glanced over the woman's shoulder, her face twisting further as she saw the dragon demon flying away from her, flying low to the ground.

 

Deciding she should really explain herself, Kirara turned her attentions back to the woman before her, ready to apologise profusely. However, Kirara suddenly become aware of a shadow by the woman's side. Turning her head, Kirara's jaw slowly fell open at what she saw. Although he was not wearing his usual armour or carrying any weapons, the man standing by the woman's side was definitely Sesshomaru.

 

“Damn…” Kirara breathed, closing her eyes and hanging her head.

 

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Next Chapter: Kirara is devastated to learn that she has been recuperating in none other than Sesshomaru's home, and she wants to leave immediately. However, when she confronts her friends, her demands are met with an unexpected response. Chapter 17 - Jaken's Jealousy.

 

A/N: Please remember to review your comments help me develop both my writing skills and the plot of this story. Thanks!