Chapter Text
It was early morning in Edo when the samurai general - Kazuya - was stirred from his rest rather abruptly.
Pain - intense pain - far worse than anything that he had experienced in battle was what stirred him, flooding his senses all at once. Pain radiating from the side of his face and across the rest of it, over one side of his chest as well.
The claws of a demon were sharper than the blade of a katana , and the gashes that they left behind were more like tears than slices. The scars that they left promised to be permanent, and ghastly. He thought of his mother…how she’d looked in her final moments-
“Kazuya…you mustn’t move, my dearest...”
Despite the blinding pain that rang across Kazuya’s senses, the soft, soothing voice was enough to offer a small bit of comfort to him. Love had a tendency to be a natural painkiller, he was finding.
“Hana…you’re safe…”
He hadn’t wanted her to fight or even be present the previous day. She had been terrified. Miya, who could convince her to do anything, had insisted. Miya, who wasn’t nearly as strong without Hana’s spiritual abilities present, had insisted. Hana had given in.
Hana, who revealed to Kazuya that she had never been interested in a miko’s lifestyle despite her natural abilities, had given in.
“I am not the one whose safety you should be concerned with,” Hana admonished tearfully, pulling Kazuya from his thoughts.
It prompted him to finally open his eyes and find her kneeling beside him, her soft eyes exhausted and worried. She was not in her miko robes like usual, he noticed, but instead, wore a pale pink kimono of silk, adorned with lighter pink brush strokes along the skirt and sleeves.
They were in his quarters, at the daimyo’s estate in Edo. It was a rather large, spacious room, lavish, and decorated with various woodblock-painted tapestries, ornate chests of dark, lacquered wood, delicately painted tables of the same wood, shining with their gold detailing. The floors were lined with thick, green tatami and the dark-wooded walls were decorated with several ornate mounted katana . Beautifully painted byobū * stood in the corners of the room, one carrying the weight of heavy samurai garments coated in drying blood. The blood that had dripped from the garments trailed down and dried over the scene that was painted there - one of a royal maiden, seated in a long boat on a peaceful lake, surrounded by falling maple leaves. Standing oil lanterns at each corner illuminated the space in warm light.
Kazuya lay in his plush futon, his head supported by a bolster, his tense form covered with soft blankets.
“Hana-”
He winced at the sting that just speaking brought, and he could tell what the source was - a gash beneath his left eye, extending all the way down the side of his face to his jawline. Kazuya also took note of the pain across his upper chest on the same side. That demon’s claws had gone further than just his face, he realized.
“Akemi-sama says that you mustn’t speak if it is not necessary, Kazuya. It will disrupt the stitching,” Hana said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the small bit of linen that she held. She set one hand flat on Kazuya’s chest, taking care to avoid the gash below his collarbone that rested, stitched, beneath his blanket.
“Stitching…” Kazuya trailed off, his expression hardening. “Show me.”
Hana sighed, her eyes softening with empathy. To Kazuya, it read as pity.
“Perhaps you should wait until-”
“ Hana . Show me,” Kazuya gritted out, his brows furrowing in pain when the stitches complained a bit.
At his rough words, Hana relented, nodding and rising to stand. Kazuya was a determined person, and she was not interested in trying to keep him from getting up and harming himself further by doing whatever he wanted.
No more than a minute later, she returned to his side, holding an ornate, golden hand-mirror, as well as a small ceramic cup, filled with a clear, but hazy liquid.
“I cannot keep you from doing what you please. That I know,” Hana said, scooting closer to him. She set the mirror down on the ground behind her, her soft features set into a determined look. “But I do ask, as someone who cares for your well-being - sit up so that you can drink.”
She set the little cup down beside the bolster that supported his head. It held water, mixed with a tincture that had been prepared by a man who worked alongside the miko as a doctor for the estate. A painkiller, allegedly.
Kazuya winced and groaned as he pushed himself to sit upright, his pale blue blankets falling around him, revealing the stitched up gash on his chest, running lengthwise down his pectoral muscle. His inky black hair was loose from its usual topknot, falling messily around his broad shoulders. He was mostly bare aside from a white robe that was hanging open, revealing everything other than what his fundoshi** covered, he realized. It explained the slight blush that he noticed on Hana’s cheeks when he turned his head and their eyes met. He wished that it was under different circ*mstances.
“I do not want any of that old man’s disgusting medicines. They are largely ineffective,” Kazuya muttered, his words coming out a little muddled as he tried to limit the movement of his facial muscles.
Hana sighed. “Miya-sama says that the act of taking medicine can trick the body into feeling better, even when the medicine itself may be ineffective. The mind is strong in that sense,” she said softly, picking up the cup and scooting closer. “Now drink.”
“Miya- sama says many things,” Kazuya muttered sarcastically, just before Hana brought the cup to his lips and titled it slowly, allowing him to take his time.
There was an immediate flash of pain when the bitter liquid found its way to the interior side of the stitching, where the gash had gone all the way through to the inside of Kazuya’s mouth, and he tried to remain strong and swallow the liquid down, at least for Hana’s sake.
The young samurai general took a deep breath in preparation once the beverage was gone and Hana was satisfied, for she finally pulled the mirror from behind her and passed it to him hesitantly. He noticed the worried look on her face.
“I assure you, Hana, it is nothing that I am unprepared for,” Kazuya said, brushing a soothing thumb over the back of her hand as the mirror transferred from her fingers to his. She nodded despite her little sniffle, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
She watched carefully as he lifted the mirror to look at himself, his bronzed complexion lightening a shade almost immediately once he caught sight of his wound.
The cut extended from the top of his left cheek down to the side of his jaw, pausing at his jawline and resuming just below his left collarbone, all the way down his pectoral muscle. He remembered jumping backwards a fraction when the youkai had struck, and wondered, briefly, what would have happened had he not acted as quickly.
Both gashes were stitched shut with thin, black thread that Kazuya had experienced before, with prior wounds. The stitches were neat, the work of the estate doctor, or possibly one of the miko. The cuts that they held shut, however, were red and angry, especially the one across the side of his face, stitched shut extremely tightly.
Kazuya grit his teeth in his anger as he studied the wound. The cut had gone all the way through, essentially leaving a hole in the side of his face. The skin there would always be warped, pulling slightly towards the center of the scar, even when it healed. He would look different forever, because of him .
The hanyou .
“Kazuya…”
Pulled from his thoughts by Hana’s soft voice once more, Kazuya sighed and set the mirror down beside him. He wasn’t interested in sitting there, wallowing.
“Who survived the attack? Was the daimyo spared?” he asked, his tone taking on something a bit more official as he tied his robe shut and slowly rose to stand.
Hana’s eyes widened when he stood and trudged over to the chest that stored all of his clothing that he wore outside of his work as general, for more casual settings.
“The daimyo…he is safe, but…wait…are you sure that you are alright?”
“What’s done is done,” Kazuya said firmly, kneeling to rummage through the chest. He pulled out a red kosode and black, floor-length hakama . “There is no sense in lying about doing nothing simply because we have failed. I take it that Kagome-sama has returned to her village?”
“Yes…the hanyou left with her.”
Kazuya scoffed bitterly. “Just as I’d predicted…”
Hana stood then, approaching him carefully from behind. She rested a hand on his shoulder, prompting him to pause.
“I…I understand your haste, Kazuya, but…I must speak to you first…about what occurred after the attack. Before you take action.”
“What needs to be discussed will be discussed with the daimyo. Aside from any information that you can provide to him, for your safety, you will not be involved in this any longer…”
“But…I need to tell you…about that hanyou -”
She was cut off when Kazuya quickly stood once more, turning to face her, his expression aggravated. Hana immediately noticed the reddening of the skin around his facial stitches, indicating irritation. His determination was part of why she loved him, but she needed him to rest, and to be less hasty. She needed him to know that things were not as they seemed. She needed him to listen .
“That hanyou …that thing …will die. I will see to it,” Kazuya said firmly, “Now - how many of my men were spared?”
Hana took a deep, shuddering breath, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall in response to his sudden coldness.
“Those who remained in Edo live. Those who came with us, tasked with keeping him from Kagome-sama…they were not spared by the hanyou . I-”
Hana whimpered and shook her head, looking shamefully down at her bare feet on the tatami.
“What happened to them…what happened to you …it was my fault, Kazuya. Had I been stronger…more focused…”
Kazuya immediately softened up a bit at that, the tension in his shoulders falling a fraction. She felt responsible… guilty . In reality, he knew that their failure was predetermined, regardless of how strong or weak their reinforcements had been. By the time it happened, he had mostly resigned himself to following orders. Not that he didn’t share in the sentiment of hatred towards youkai , but he could accept their differences in power. Unfortunately…Kazuya’s life had belonged to the daimyo since his youth. He had a job to do.
Shoving propriety aside for the moment, the young general wrapped his arms around Hana and pulled her close against him, ensuring that her head was pressed up against the side of his chest that wasn’t stitched.
“This plan relied heavily on that miko’s compliance. Her power . This is not your fault, Hana,” he assured her. “It is mine. I allowed for this to continue, knowing the risks. Tatsuo-sama…he was so sure of his ability to sway her…I should not have allowed you to participate in something so doomed…”
“Kazuya…”
“Regardless of our failure…we have a new mission to attend to, Hana. We still have our secondary plan in tact. That demon-”
“ Kazuya ,” Hana said firmly, pulling back to capture his attention. “ That is what I must speak with you about. That hanyou…”
“Hana?”
“He spared your life, Kazuya. Purposefully .”
“That does not-”
“And the damiyo…” Hana continued shakily, her tearful eyes boring into his with a seriousness that forced him to stop and truly listen. “I must tell you what I have learned…I must tell you where no one else might hear.”
—
Kagome found her way to consciousness slowly the day following her abduction, her senses immediately locating the comfort of Inuyasha’s warm, familiar arms holding her close. She felt his hand coasting tenderly through her hair, and his nose, nuzzling gently against the top of her head.
They lay on their sides, cuddled up in their futon beneath multiple layers of blankets. Kagome felt the familiar fabric of his suikan wrapped around her, shielding her from the slight chill in the air. Briefly, she took note of the pattering of rain against their roof, and a warm smell in the air, like something was cooking nearby. Rice?
She identified the sound that had initially stirred her to wakefulness despite the rain - a deep, vibrating sound - no - humming… a tune that she thought she’d heard somewhere before.
“Inuyasha?”
His name left Kagome’s lips quietly, little more than a hoarse whisper as she finally allowed her eyes to flutter open. The humming stopped. In her grogginess, Kagome briefly wished that he would continue forever, given how soothing the sound was, how new it was for him to do something like that.
“Finally awake, huh? That’s good. I was gettin’ worried…”
Although she could really only see the beads that rested against his chest, laid against the panels of his beige kosode , Kagome felt her eyes immediately welling with tears as she began to wake up all the way.
She was home.
“Inuyasha…”
Inuyasha sat up halfway and propped himself on an arm, his expression immediately worried as she finally raised her head to look at him, sniffling.
“Are you okay? Does anything hurt-”
He was cut off when Kagome sat up rather quickly, throwing her arms around his chest and pressing her cheek to the warmth of his skin. She took in the warm familiarity of his scent, as he often did with her.
Cypress…cedar wood…a sunlit forest…
“Home,” Kagome whispered, ignoring the slight stinging sensation that she felt at her neck as she tucked herself closer to his warmth, sighing in relief when he wrapped his arms around her in return.
“How do you feel?” Inuyasha asked. “You’re not in any pain, are you?”
Kagome shook her head, pulling back to look up at him. “Not really. Just a little sore,” she said, running her fingers lightly over the bandage that was wrapped around her neck. She winced at the stinging sensation there. “And my neck…”
Inuyasha nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead before standing and stretching a bit. He tried to keep his eyes off of the purple bruising across her cheekbone for the millionth time that day, lest his anger resurface. It was darker than it had been the evening before, hinting at the amount of force used to put it there.
“Stay here. Kaede told me to check on it when you woke up.”
He located the tub that held what Kaede left for them the evening before - tea, a container of salve, and a few spare linens. Just as he grabbed that tub and leaned down to balance their water bucket in his other arm, Kagome caught his attention.
“Inuyasha…” she trailed off, scooting to turn around a bit so that she could see the fire pit near the front of their home, lit, with a lidded pot resting above it. Her guess had been correct. “You’re cooking?”
Inuyasha nodded, sitting down in front of her again, with little space between them. “Kaede said it’s important for you to eat when you’re ready. It’s okayu. Should be done soon.”
He leaned forward and cut away her current bandage with his claws in one quick, easy motion, pulling it gently away from her neck.
“ Okayu… how do you-”
“Tilt your head back,” Inuyasha interrupted, dipping one of the linens in their water bucket. When she complied as much as possible without too much pain from the stretch, he gently cleaned the old salve and blood away, taking note of how her breathing and heartbeat quickened. “Does it hurt?”
Kagome shook her head despite her wince when he ran the rag over the little cut a second time. “No…it just stings a little…”
“I’m almost done.”
Kagome let him continue, taking a deep breath as he applied fresh salve to the wound. She started to become a bit more aware of her senses as she woke up all the way, feeling the deep soreness in her muscles, the slight throbbing sensation over one of her cheekbones, and, most present of all suddenly - her stomach gnawing at her. How long had it been since she’d had any type of sustenance? She couldn’t really tell what the time of day was on account of the rain.
“Inuyasha…how long was I asleep?” Kagome asked as he tore a new strip of clean linen to use as a bandage.
“Pull your hair back,” Inuyasha requested before answering her question, leaning forward again when she did as was told so that he could fasten the fresh bandage around her neck, twice, as Kaede did the previous evening.
“If it was a normal day, you’d probably be gettin’ back from Kaede’s place about now,” he said, leaning back once he was satisfied with his work. “So…a while.”
Kagome’s eyes widened at that. “A whole day?”
Inuyasha sighed, something flashing in his eyes that she couldn’t really place. “You needed the rest,” he said, placing the salve and linens back in their tub. “Anyway, are you hungry? It’s been a while, right?”
Kagome noticed it then - the way that Inuyasha was acting. There was a lot that he was shoving down at the moment, and he wasn’t really allowing his eyes to settle on her face for longer than a few moments at a time. He hadn’t even asked her about what she had been through yet. She could feel it in his aura, though. He was really anxious, trying to keep his emotions at bay for her sake.
Though, knowing her husband, she knew that he would scold her for trying to comfort him when she’d gone through what she had, so she obliged him the opportunity to take care of her.
With a nod, she gently took one of his hands in hers. “Help me up? I think I might be a little wobbly right-”
She squeaked in surprise when Inuyasha almost immediately scooped her up and stood, cradling him against her.
“Inuyasha, I have to walk at some point,” Kagome said, feeling more amused than anything else as he sat her down beside their irori and took a seat next to her.
She realized that he had already planned for this, as she felt a folded up blanket beneath her, set there for her to have a comfortable place to sit whenever she woke up and decided to eat.
“Not until you’ve at least had food,” Inuyasha grumbled, using the iron set of tongs that were typically used for coals to remove the lid from the iron pot that sat above the fire pit.
The smell that wafted towards the hanyou from the pot was nostalgic…in all of the worst ways, taking him back to those final months with his mother…
The question that Kagome asked didn’t exactly help in that respect.
“Did Kaede-baachan show you how to make this?” she asked, leaning forward to get a better look. The okayu that she was used to her mother making wasn’t as dark in color, and didn’t have any of the bits of negi mixed into it.
Inuyasha sighed, stirring the mixture with their long pair of cooking chopsticks. It looked to be about done, so he grabbed one of their bowls and ladled a generous helping into it.
“No, uh…it’s…my mother’s recipe,” he said hesitantly, passing her the bowl along with a pair of chopsticks. “She showed me how.”
Kagome was not unaware of the shyness in his eyes when she took the bowl from him. He looked genuinely nervous.
“If it’s not, uh…y’know, if it tastes bad or whatever, don’t worry about my feelings. I can get Kaede to bring somethin’ else…”
Kagome smiled and scooted over a bit so that she could lean up and press a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t write yourself off so quickly,” she said, bringing the bowl to her lips to gently blow on it first. “It smells good.”
It was the truth, too. It smelled warm and earthy, like miso and something else, though that paled in comparison to the way that it tasted .
When Kagome tilted the bowl back to get a good mouthful of the porridge, she nearly moaned in response to how good it was, not just because she was really hungry. It was genuinely delicious, boasting a depth of flavor that was a bit shocking given the era that they were living in. She was used to okayu being rather plain, meant for times of illness, but this recipe was something that she would likely be requesting regularly when their lives returned to normal.
“Inuyasha…this is amazing ,” she beamed when she finished her first bite, smiling at him.
Inuyasha sighed in relief, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in the last several minutes.
“Good,” he said. “There’s a lot more, so make sure you eat as much as you can…I’ll make tea, too.”
“You’re not eating?”
Inuyasha wrinkled his nose. “Nah…not really into that stuff,” he said, shrugging.
A lie. He didn’t mind okayu.The memories that it brought, however…
“Sango brought some leftovers earlier, anyway, so I'm fine.”
“Sango-chan was here?” Kagome asked.
“She came with Kaede and Shippou to check on you, but you weren’t really ready to wake up yet…told ‘em we’d stop by when you’re ready. Sango took your miko robes to wash ‘em for you, too. You might need new ones, though…”
Inuyasha smiled a little at the way that Kagome practically wolfed down her meal as she listened. Her bangs were sticking up in every possible direction, and his robe was tied a bit loosely around her, like she’d just had a really great sleep.
It comforted him a little to see her this way, offering some normalcy in the tumultuous two days that they’d had. Every part of him was anxious at the moment, especially since he still didn’t really know what happened to her in his absence, but it was clear that she was mostly okay. The bruises, marks at her wrists and ankles, and bandage at her neck weren’t his favorite, but seeing her happy and comfortable still helped to quell his panic a bit.
All night and throughout that morning, Inuyasha had been restless, pacing their hut, trying to keep the images that his mind was creating at bay. His brain kept showing him scenarios of what happened when she was alone in that place. What had they said to her or asked of her? What amount of physical force had been used? The worst thoughts were of men, with their filthy hands on her. He couldn’t think about that aspect for too long, otherwise he would have asked Kaede or Sango to take care of her while he found and tore the rest of those men apart.
Fortunately, his more rational, human half had eventually calmed him enough to resort to laying down and holding her in between cleaning all of the old blood off of himself and preparing the okayu. It had helped to be close to her, to hear her heartbeat and have her scent wrapped around his senses, to hear her mumbling in her sleep like she always did, his name popping up a few times throughout. He had even started humming in the way that his mother did when he was a child, a comforting, familiar tune. He wasn’t sure if he had been humming for Kagome or himself at that point.
“Inuyasha…”
Inuyasha blinked, knocked from his thoughts by Kagome. She smiled cautiously at him.
“You can ask me about it, you know,” she said knowingly, setting her empty bowl down beside her. “About what happened yesterday…”
Inuyasha sighed. Of course, she could almost always see right through him, though he likely wasn’t concealing his anxiety well, anyway.
“Last night…you were so scared you woke up and thought I was someone else. I wasn’t there for everything, so I didn’t know how much time you’d need…” he trailed off, taking one of her hands in his. “I want you to feel better…then we can worry about that. If you’re ready tell me now, I’m fine with that, too.”
Kagome smiled gently in response to how considerate he was being, her mind briefly flitting back to the things that the daimyo had said about him.
Demon…creature… monster …
Descriptors that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“I’ll tell you about it, but…I need you to stay as calm as possible, and remember that I’m here, safe, okay?” she asked, squeezing his hand. She knew that it was going to be difficult for him to hear some of the things that had happened to her, but they needed to be level-headed if they were going to make it out of this productively.
“I’ll try,” Inuyasha said, taking a deep breath in preparation.
With a deep breath of her own, Kagome began recounting everything that had occurred, from beginning to end - Kazuya and his men kidnapping her in the morning, their journey to that house in the middle of the woods, her conversation with the daimyo, and eventually…the way that it had ended. She told him about the daimyo’s sister, and what appeared to be her ghost manifesting at the last second to keep him from taking her life, how the daimyo had reacted. She told him about the visions that she’d had, so rapidly that she could hardly decipher them.
Inuyasha had pulled his hand away from hers at some point as she spoke, for he needed to clench his fists in his lap to remain calm as he listened to the way that she had been treated. He couldn’t care less about how these people felt about him , but to handle Kagome so roughly…to hit her…
To nearly take her life…
“Inuyasha!”
Kagome was staring at him, wide-eyed, and she quickly scooted closer to grab each of his hands in hers. He had been clenching his fists so hard that his claws had dug in, causing him to bleed.
“You’re bleeding-”
“That daimyo…” Inuyasha interrupted, the dark, rough tenor of his voice causing Kagome to return her attention to his face. He looked nothing short of furious, and his jaw twitched as he took another deep breath. “That was him? The man in that room…the one that cut you… that was the daimyo?”
“Inuyasha-”
“I let him live ?” Inuyasha gritted out, his eyes flashing with even more anger. “He could’ve….and I…”
Kagome immediately took note of how words were beginning to fail him, the way that his youki was rising, and, most concerning of all, the purple markings that appeared across his cheekbones, growing more pigmented by the second.
She quickly moved to climb into his lap, her hands finding either of his cheeks.
“Inuyasha…”
The hanyou took a deep, shaky breath as his eyes searched hers, for realization was beginning to dawn on him all at once.
“If she hadn’t showed up…you…you wouldn’t have…”
He swallowed back whatever else was getting caught in his throat. Had the daimyo’s sister not manifested at that moment…
“You would’ve been gone…”
Kagome blinked back the tears that threatened to fall, for she caught the look in his eye. The purple markings were gone. The anger had quickly receded, replaced with very clear guilt.
“Inuyasha…it isn’t your-”
“Kagome…I…I promised you,” Inuyasha breathed, raising a trembling hand to feather his thumb over the bruising across her cheekbone. “I promised…”
‘ I’ll protect you with my life .’
What made it worse for Inuyasha was the fact that these weren’t even demons that had been after her. He had been able to rescue her easily. There weren’t any difficult battles with strong demons, there wasn’t any magic at play. These were human men that had been so close to taking her from him forever. He had been too trusting… careless . He left her at home knowing that this was a threat that loomed over them.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her close, his arms holding her securely against him with virtually no space between them. “I didn’t keep you safe…”
Kagome shook her head, cradling his head against her. She pet one of his snowy ears with the intention to soothe. She wanted to comfort him, but in her own mind…they didn’t have time to be too upset over what had occurred.
“We can’t change what happened, Inuyasha,” Kagome said softly. “We just have to move forward now.”
Inuyasha pulled away to look at her then, a determined look in his eye. “I already know what I’m gonna do to that-”
“That’s exactly what we shouldn’t do,” Kagome said firmly. “That daimyo…and I’m assuming whatever shogun or emperor that he reports to…their plan is to make sure that everyone in these lands is so terrified of youkai and anyone who spends time near them that they’ll support his plan to start some sort of war against them. Do you really think that killing a powerful lord with no explanation will help our case after what happened with his sister?”
“So what, then? We just let these assholes keep going after what they did to you?!”
Kagome sighed. “That’s not what I’m suggesting, Inuyasha. I agree that we should do something before they go after any other innocent people or youkai, but…what happens when these men find out that their daimyo was murdered by the person that he was so set on killing himself? They’ll show up here, and all of the villagers will be at risk.”
“Keh, like I couldn’t take on a bunch of human samurai,” Inuyasha scoffed.
“And how many villagers would have to die or be wounded until you can get to them?” Kagome asked honestly. “What if they attack from every direction? These men are lords in Edo , Inuyasha, the place that is going to be the center of everything one day. They probably have a lot more soldiers than just the ones at that house that I was in. Any way that we look at this, it doesn’t make sense to just do to them what they want to do to us. Killing them with no explanation will only make the people in Edo hate us more.”
Inuyasha didn’t have to say anything further for Kagome to see the clear frustration in his eyes, the question there - What now?
“I think that the solution is in what happened before you rescued me - Aoi, his sister. If she was just acting with kindness to save me, then I don’t think that she would have given me all of those memories. Like I said, I don’t remember them well, but…if I were to try to revisit them, like I did with my dreams…I think that I might find answers there,” Kagome said. “I need to know what really happened….”
“I’m guessin’...you think he killed her, right?” Inuyasha asked. “The daimyo?”
It was the obvious conclusion that Inuyasha came to when she’d initially told him the story, given his own parents’ history…
Kagome nodded. “I’m sure that the people around him and all of the people in Edo see his mission against youkai as some sort of way to honor his sister’s memory if they think that Tsuyoshi killed her, but…if they learn that it was him …if they learn the whole story, people might see things differently. People might change their minds.”
Inuyasha sighed a bit deeply as he realized what her intentions were. It was a nice thought, but…
“Kagome-”
“When they locked me in that place…after I spoke with the daimyo, I couldn’t stop thinking about so many people. Shiori and her mother, Jinenji and his, your mother...I thought about the life that you’ve lived. Inuyasha…” Kagome trailed off, her eyes tinged with tears. “I’m tired of hearing about innocent people suffering so much just because of who they love or what they look like. I don’t want someone like that daimyo holding a place of power and making it even worse with that sort of ‘mission’. Someone who is so evil that he’s willing to murder his own sister.”
Inuyasha sighed again, and he gently squeezed one of her hands. He loved his wife’s heart, how kind it was, but he knew firsthand how rare it was.
“Kagome…I get what you’re saying…what you wanna do , but…it’s not just Edo where people feel that way. It’s the world we live in. I’ve told you before, our village is different from most places. What you saw… that’s the way things are anywhere else. I lived with those kinds of people.”
Inuyasha paused, his eyes averting hers as he dared to delve into a part of his life that he was typically more comfortable keeping locked away. Kagome listened intently, allowing him to share in a manner that was rare for him.
“When me and my mother were in that house…the way they treated her or even anyone who was caught being close with her, even if they were family who had known her her whole life, it was like both of us had some sickness. She was human… royalty , and still…we lived in one corner. People didn’t talk to us unless they had to. People threatened both of us just for talking to someone we weren’t supposed to. When I got out of that house…I was a kid, even smaller than Rin is now. I won’t tell you what happened the one and only time I got so hungry it made me brave enough to go into a village to ask for help. What those people tried to do to a kid . I realized that no matter where I went, that’s the kind of world humans have for youkai or anyone who accepts them. Why d’you think I was so serious when I told you to not make it obvious what we are to each other? Even with Miroku…when we’re working, I’m just the inugami …someone Miroku can keep them safe from if I snap out of my spell.”
He sighed and held her against him when he felt Kagome lean forward to lay her head on his chest, her arms wrapping around him in a clear comforting gesture. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, the scent of her tears making his chest feel tight, for he knew how hard it was for her to think about how he had been treated as a child despite how he’d moved on from it.
“It’s just the world we live in.”
“Inuyasha…I’m not saying that I can change everything . I know that that’s impossible, but I want you to think about what you just told me. If you could make it so that less people…less children could go through what you did, wouldn’t you?” Kagome asked.
She kept another concern to herself - the sort of future that would be laid out if they were to ever have children and something happened to them that kept them from being present. Surprisingly, it was a thought that flitted quickly through Inuyasha’s mind as well, contributing to his answer.
“Of course I would.”
Kagome managed a small smile at that, pulling back to wipe at her eyes and look at him.
“I don’t want to just resign myself to a world like that anymore, Inuyasha. Even if we don’t change anyone’s mind about being more accepting, keeping that daimyo from staying in power by revealing what he did would at least end the mission that he put in place. I have no doubt that he’s done more than just murder his sister, that his men have already killed innocent people. Stopping their plans is a start.”
Inuyasha found himself in a mild state of disbelief as he listened. He wondered how he’d gotten so lucky to have such a strong, determined person at his side, even after all that she’d been through just one day before. Her determination to stand up for him and others like him was still unwavering.
Breathing a little laugh, Inuyasha shook his head. “Strong, stubborn woman. You really are crazy, y’know that?” he asked half-teasingly, running a thumb over her hand.
Kagome smiled brightly in return, the responding soreness high up on her cheekbone only reinforcing her determination to stop someone so evil. She reached up and cupped his cheek, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
“You deserve to live in a world that sees you the way that I do,” she said softly, smiling at the little blush that appeared on his cheeks. “I’ll do my best to make that happen.”
“What’s your plan, then?” Inuyasha asked, “These people aren’t just gonna believe that their daimyo did this because we said so…especially not after what happened yesterday…”
Kagome nodded, dropping her hand from his face. “Of course not, but after what happened there…I do have a theory…”
When Inuyasha just stared at her expectantly, she continued.
“We need to talk to everyone else. There’s something that I want to try.”
—
“ Okaasan , where are you going?”
Sango looked up and over her shoulder at the little voice behind her, coming from Gyokuto, who sat by the fire pit in their little home, a bundle of flowers that she and her sister had collected with Kaede sitting in front of her. Kin’u was paying far less attention to what her mother was doing as she sat beside her father on his other side, watching him as he wrote a letter to Mushin with one of their brush and ink sets on a rolled out scroll, weighed down by a few empty sake cups at each corner. Behind him, Hisui was sound asleep in his basket cradle, unaware of everything that was going on around him.
Sango was changing from the plain, beige kosode and blue wrap skirt that she wore for chores into her usual green and pink garments, as she had plans to leave their home for a while, for a very specific purpose.
“I’m just going to talk to one of our neighbors, remember?” she asked her daughter, offering her a sweet smile as she turned and completed the tie to her wrap skirt. “When I come home, I’ll have you help me to shine up hiraikotsu , like I promised.”
Gyokuto pouted a bit as her mother kneeled between her and her father. “I want to go onsen with Kagome-oba again!” she said firmly, with what limited vocabulary a two and a half year old had.
Sparing Sango the effort, Miroku cut in. “The onsen wouldn’t be much fun in the rain, now, would it, my heart?” he asked his daughter, smiling. “Why don’t we ask Kagome-sama about it when the sun comes back?”
Gyokuto sighed a bit dramatically at that, looking down to fiddle with one of her flowers again. “Okaaaaaay.”
Sango smiled and looked up to catch Miroku’s attention. A knowing look passed between them and he sighed a little. “You’re sure about going alone? It’s raining.”
Sango nodded. “We can’t both go with Kin-Gyo and Hisui here. I’m sure that Kaede-sama has her hands full, too. I’ll be okay. He’s in the same place as before, right?” she asked.
“Yes…” Miroku trailed off, his eyes turning a bit more somber. “He remains as lacking in remorse as ever…”
Sango nodded in understanding. “We’ll see if our conversation changes anything.”
Miroku breathed a little laugh at that. “I’m certain that Inuyasha will be grateful regardless,” he said.
Sango smiled in return, leaning forward to press a quick kiss to her husband’s lips in parting before rising to stand.
She bid her little family farewell at that point, making sure to put on the wide-brimmed straw hat that kept her mostly shielded from the rain before she left. She wore her long socks and black boots that she typically only wore for demon slaying beneath her green wrap-skirt, just for the sake of not having to deal with muddy feet later.
The village was fairly quiet as she made her way to her destination - a lone storage shed that sat at the edge of their village, typically used to store farming tools. It was pretty large, around the size of Kaede’s hut.
It had been cleared out completely the day before, and Rikichi had employed Miroku along with a few of the stronger men in the village to fashion a sort of locking system to the sliding door that held it shut - one board nailed to the jamb on the side that the door closed, with a smaller piece of wood attached to it, acting as a latch. Another piece of wood was nailed to the sliding door itself, fashioned to secure the latch piece in place. An impossibly tight knot had been tied to reinforce the whole thing, though a few of the villagers, including Sango and Miroku, had been tasked with checking on it every so often to ensure that it was still locked.
Not that the person within the shed had the sort of strength required to escape at the moment. Miroku and Sango had made sure of that.
Within reason, of course, for information was a valuable thing given the situation that they were currently in.
Sango rolled her eyes as she got closer to the little shed, for she could hear a bit of whimpering coming from within. She wondered if he even realized that actions did indeed have consequences.
She sighed and began untying the knot that secured the latch to the door with a swiftness that could only come from years of demon slaying and unlatched the door before sliding it open a bit roughly.
The man that lay in a heap on the ground looked up at the loud, sudden noise, his tear-filled eyes widening when he saw Sango standing there, glaring down at him.
“Genji,” she greeted coldly, stepping forward and shutting the sliding door shut behind her before removing her straw hat and setting it on the ground beside herself.
She wasn’t worried about him shoving past her in an attempt to escape. Most of their village had seen her fight. Anyone was wiser than attempting that in front of her or any of her friends. That, and, he was in no condition to do so.
He wore his usual pale blue kosode and mid-calf length beige hakama, both of which were a bit tattered from everything that he had been through the day before. He looked pretty exhausted, given the limited sustenance that they had provided to him over the last day - a couple of individual servings of rice and water. His only bed was a few thin blankets, spread out over the ground, leaving him alone and likely pretty cold in the rain-soaked shed.
There was a dark bruise high up on one of his cheeks and around his eye, and his arms and legs were peppered with bruises as a result of the amount of man-handling that had occurred to get him locked in in the first place.
It had been quite the journey for Miroku to get him back to the village the previous day, as he’d essentially had to act quickly and knock the man out with physical force. He had taken quick action and removed one of the ties of his monk robes to tie Genji’s hands behind him before waiting until he’d woken up.
From that point, Miroku had essentially had to make it clear to Genji that their differences in strength made any attempts at running useless, which eventually made it easier to walk him back to the village as a personal prisoner.
He had attempted to get as much information as he could from Genji on the walk home - why he’d revealed Kagome’s identity, why he’d allowed for the samurai to kidnap her, what more information he’d given to those men about their village. His primary fear was any knowledge being spread about Kagome being from a different time entirely, though, fortunately, Genji didn’t seem to know that about her.
In return, he’d really only received endless talk of how tainted Miroku and all of his friends were for allowing their village to deteriorate in their acceptance of youkai, how they’d ’poisoned’ his father with the same acceptance…how Kagome was a dark, tainted version of her previous incarnation. Miroku wasn’t interested in hearing any of it.
Upon returning to the village, Genji was held in his father, Rikichi’s home until the decision was made to keep him locked away until they knew more about what was happening. They couldn’t have him run free and risk him returning to Edo to work with those samurai further.
Sango had immediately attempted to fulfill her favor to Inuyasha when she heard that Genji was back in their village, and she’d almost been successful, managing a fairly solid left hook to the man’s already bruised face before Miroku held her back, reminding her that they needed to make sure that Genji was coherent enough to answer their questions. Not that Miroku wasn’t smiling inwardly upon seeing the black eye that his strong wife had left behind.
Now, Sango was making her second attempt at getting Genji to talk, to give them some kind of information about how much those samurai knew about all of them, and whether they should expect them to return to the village. Inuyasha hadn’t given them much that morning, claiming that he wouldn’t know for sure until Kagome woke up. He’d said he hoped that he scared them well enough, though.
Regardless, Sango wasn’t interested in waiting any longer. She had a family to protect if these samurai had any plans of returning to retaliate, and a best friend to avenge.
“So, are you ready to tell us what you know?” Sango asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Or would you prefer that I make your eyes match?”
“Do what you’d like, you vile, tainted woman,” Genji retorted, returning her glare. “You and your disgusting youkai will face your consequences soon enough. This imprisonment means nothing to me. I will only be truly free when our village is clean of your sins against the kami. ”
Sango rolled her eyes. “You forget that me and my ‘disgusting’ friends are the ones who saved this village from Naraku,” she retorted. “If you really hated youkai that much, you’d be thanking us.”
Genji scoffed. “Say what you’d like. You will not change anything,” he gritted out, his eyes meeting Sango’s with an emotion that even had her feeling a little uneasy. “You and your friends…you don’t know what you’re getting into. That hanyou and his kuro miko will die. You will die. Your treacherous husband and your filthy children -”
The man’s vision went dark before he could continue further, as Sango’s leather-booted foot connected firmly with the side of his face.
“That’s for Kagome-chan, you traitor.”
