InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Tomorrow ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five

 

“Kiki, have you seen my pearl hairpin?” Kagome asked, wandering out of the hut.

 

“No, mama,” Kiki squeaked, but the sudden involuntary flattening of her ears gave her away.

 

“Kikyo...” Kagome said menacingly.

 

“Busted, Kiki-chan,” Isamu said as he walked into the hut. Kagome only ever used his sister's full name when she was really pissed off. Habit, he supposed...

 

“What's the pup done now?” InuYasha said, following Isamu over to the hut, but lingering by the door instead of going in.

 

“Kikyo,” Kagome said again, “Where is my hairpin?”

 

“Um...” Kiki looked up at her mother and deflated. “I gave it to Hitomi-chan, mama. When we were doing each other's hair. I'll go get it back now.”

 

“Good girl,” Kagome said, tweaking her daughter's adorable little puppy ears- something she did at every opportunity, considering how embarrassed InuYasha got when she tweaked his in public...

 

“In future, ask before you borrow my things,” Kagome said, “and maybe I'll let you use them. Now go get the hairpin, and when you come back we'll have dinner.”

 

The girl scurried off, ears still drooped. Kagome walked into the hut and slapped away Isamu's hands as he reached for the rice cooking over the fire. “Wait until your sister returns,” she admonished.

 

“But I'm hungry!” Isamu complained. InuYasha growled at him.

 

“Patience, pup,” he said. “What are you, five?” he suddenly stopped and turned, sniffing the air slightly.

 

“What is it?” Isamu asked, following suit. Then his mouth dropped. “What a blood-scent!” he said. “Hey, isn't that-“

 

InuYasha was already out of the door, watching SesshoMaru descend into the village. InuYasha covered his nose. “What the hell did you do, chop off your arm again?” he growled. SesshoMaru was pale but steady as he walked towards Rin's.

 

“Silence, baka,” he said calmly. “You and the miko had better come. I have grave news.” InuYasha frowned at his tone. What was so serious that SesshoMaru would actually admit that he could make a contribution?

 

***************************************************************** **********************************

 

Kazeko scrubbed the last of the bloodstains from the pallet and walked from the hut. “There,” she said, “Now that hut's free for use.” There were several families whose huts had yet to be rebuilt, but none of them made a move towards the one where SesshoMaru had been. “What's wrong?” she asked, frowning. The villagers looked at each other before one elder hesitantly spoke up.

 

“We daren't move into a youkai's home, Kazeko,” he said. “Ain't none of use'll be safe usin' it `till a priest come purify it.” Kazeko almost growled in annoyance.

 

“Then stay sleeping on the ground,” she said. “SesshoMaru-sama is no danger to use.” She stomped back home, fighting with her seething temper. He'd saved them! And just because he was a youkai, they all assumed that he was evil! Even the “peaceful ones”, as SesshoMaru-sama had called them. The youkai who had no desire to fight. They just wanted peace to raise their families, like anyone.

 

“There's supposed to be an elderly miko living in the next village over,” Kazeko's mother commented as she re-entered her home. “Perhaps someone will go fetch her. I'm certainly glad you got it to leave, Kazeko. We shouldn't be helping those things. Besides, you're seventeen now; you should be looking for a husband, not healing youkai! What man will want a youkai-lover, I shudder to see...” Kazeko's temper boiled over again.

 

“He, not it, Okaa-san,” she said through clenched teeth. “He left because he was healed, I didn't chase him away. And any man who can't see that SesshoMaru-sama wasn't evil, just a person in need like any of us, isn't worth marrying!” She stormed back out of the hut again, ignoring her mother's calls and dire warnings, before she really lost it. She wandered down the forest path to the edge of a little cliff. It only perhaps twenty feet up, looking over another path heading south. She sat on a boulder by the edge, staring to the north and quietly seething. SesshoMaru-sama's friends lived further north, he'd said, in a human village that accepted the youkai and hanyou who lived there. She dropped her head onto her knees. “Wouldn't it be wonderful,” She thought, “to live in such an accepting place...”

 

***************************************************************** **********************************

 

Rin turned pale when she saw SesshoMaru's injuries. Despite his accelerated healing process, his stomach still bore a strong resemblance to some small animal that had gotten trapped in a blender. In Kagome's opinion, anyway. No-one else actually knew what a blender was...

 

“What happened?” Kohaku said, staring in some horror at the injury.

 

“I came across some decommissioned army that had turned to banditry,” SesshoMaru said. “They had new weapons. I had thought that they had merely thrown a rock at me until it exploded.”

 

InuYasha growled again. “Damn it,” he said. “As if there weren't enough bandit hordes around, now they're getting that bastard Renkotsu's old toys...”

 

“Renkotsu had a hand cannon, but he never had anything like this,” Sango said. “This is something new.”

 

Kagome suddenly ran from the hut and returned a few minutes later clutching a book of prophecies that she had referred to as the “History Textbook”. The book's uncanny accuracy never failed to make them a little uncomfortable, but no arguing it had been useful.

 

“Early 16th century, I'm sure of it...” she muttered, flicking the pages back and forth. InuYasha looked at the others and shrugged. “Here it is!” she said suddenly. “ `Tokugawa Ieyasu brought over 250 years of peace to the land, but despite the peace huge armies were still maintained for a time and were furnished with new firearms and other foreign weapons, such as crude explosives. It is unknown whether this was to look impressive, if there was warring that continued unrecorded, or if they had some other agenda.' Look, there's a picture of an early type of grenade- that's a small explosive that you can set off and throw a good distance away before it explodes.”

 

“That does look like what they used,” SesshoMaru said. “Worse, I have been told that armies are amassing and slaughtering youkai in the south and steadily moving north to wipe out all youkai. They are even attacking the peaceful youkai, those who have integrated into human society with no ill intent. It is intolerable that they should be punished for the actions of lowlifes like Naraku.”

 

“Never known you to care about anyone,” InuYasha said boredly, glancing over at Rin. “And those you do, I've never understood why. That's an insult to him, not you, by the way.”

 

“As it stands, I seem to have little purpose beyond ensuring their safety,” SesshoMaru admitted, ignoring InuYasha. “They have already killed many and are moving this way. I wonder if there is a safe place for the youkai to stay that would not be searched.”

 

“Well, it says that such military advancement did not take as much hold in Hokkaido, which was largely uninhabited at the time,” Kagome said, pointing at the map in case Hokkaido wasn't known as Hokkaido yet. “If you told people to go there, they probably wouldn't be found. There's no-one there to notice the influx of youkai.”

 

“Then I will pass on that warning,” SesshoMaru said.

 

“Tomorrow,” Rin agreed pointedly. “Invincible youkai or not, SesshoMaru-sama, you still need a bit more rest.”

 

“I have healed sufficiently,” SesshoMaru said, though he made no move to leave.

 

“Not fully, however,” Rin replied. “You must stay here tonight.” SesshoMaru finally nodded in agreement.

 

***************************************************************** **********************************

 

“So what're they talking about?” Kazuki asked. Isamu waved a hand at him and leaned back towards the wall.

 

“Well, they've stopped talking now,” Isamu said, “But from what I gather, oji-san got wasted by new weapons that immense human armies are using to sweep across the land to kill us all, and our only hope is a little island of kami-forsaken nothingness.”

 

“Nice,” Kazuki said. He reached out to grab Kiki as she ran towards the hut, clutching the hairpin. “Whoa there, kid. Let them have their grown-up talk for now.”

 

“But I don't get dinner `till I give back the hairpin!” Kiki wailed.

 

“You won't get dinner anyway, `cos I at everything when Okaa-san and Otou-san left,” Isamu deadpanned, and probably would have fooled his sister had his stomach not growled loudly at that point.

 

“I heard that, pup,” InuYasha said, walking past Isamu without looking. “And I didn't have to put my ear to the wall to do it.”

 

Isamu ignored Kazuki's laughing as he followed his father home.

 

***************************************************************** **********************************

 

Takumi widened his eyes as he stared at the bowls of colour. Yoshinori laughed in triumph.

 

“See!” he said as his mother returned to the hut. “Look what I found for Ototo-chan!”

 

Rin smiled warmly and walked over to the chest where she kept “nice things”, as Yoshinori often said. She came back with a writing brush in hand.

 

“It's the only brush I've got,” she said. “Would you like to draw, Taku?”

 

Takumi stared in awe at the brush, then the colors, then the piece of old kimono that Michio had donated as canvas. Carefully, he dipped the brush in the red and started to paint. Yoshinori smiled and stood up.

 

“I'll be back later,” he said. “Michio found fireflies last night, and I'm gonna catch one to bring back!”

 

“Careful not to crush it,” Kohaku commented as his elder son ran from the room. Takumi didn't notice. Rin put a little bowl of water next to him and walked over to Tsukiko, who had woken up grizzling and, Rin knew, would begin to howl if she'd been awake five minutes without food. She was a far more patient baby than her brothers had been...

 

“I'm glad SesshoMaru-sama's all right- as in, alive,” Kohaku said, “but what could that mean, that armies are moving against the youkai?”

 

“I guess with no more wars, their choices are that or... unemployment,” Rin said hesitantly.

 

“Bandits,” Kohaku murmured. “I know how you feel about their kind. It's quite a choice, isn't it? Slaughter of youkai or humans...”

 

“I'm glad they're not turning to banditry,” Rin said, “but the alternative... you heard what SesshoMaru-sama said, what that girl passed on. Families... children... it's not right, is it? No matter what species they are...” She looked down at the suckling Tsukiko, over at the painting Tsukiko, and towards the forest where Yoshinori disappeared. “...children shouldn't have to suffer like that.”

 

Kohaku nodded gravely, leaning down to kiss her cheek as he walked over to kneel down next to Takumi. He knew. They both did. They both knew how it felt, as a child, to have your whole world torn out from under you, and how easily it could happen. Kagome's book had said that these were to be times of peace, and after the bloodshed of Naraku's days, that's all any of them really wanted.

 

Would it ever happen?

 

***************************************************************** **********************************

***************************************************************** **********************************

 

Yeah, Isamu and Kazuki heard `The Discussion Of Doom', but they're not taking it seriously. They can't believe that it would really happen. After all, despite their age they're still kids in a lot of ways, which I fully intend to eradicate by the end of this fic. That's the point of the fic, really.

 

InuYasha is the property of Takahashi Rumiko-Sensei, and I claim no ownership of any of it. All couples not involving original characters will be strictly canon. Aside from Haruka, Yuki and Kazuki, I made up all of the kids, though since birthdates other than Kazuki's were never really stated in the manga, nor names, I've made these up as well. This fanfic will make little sense if you have not read the entire manga, and I'm afraid that to read the last twenty or so volumes you will have to (at the time of writing) venture into the internet, but I strongly suggest that you do buy the Tankoban volumes for yourself, so that Takahashi-sensei can afford to continue gracing us with her imagination. Anyway, hope you enjoy the fic. ^_-