InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dogs in Tokyo ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

As soon as everyone left the house the next morning Inuyasha headed for the well shrine, a long list scrolled up and thrust under the tie of his hakama. He smelled no-one in the vicinity and he was eager to accomplish his project in one day if possible.

He stopped at the work shed and snagged a bundle of tools that stood waiting for him just inside the door. Anyone that saw would have thought he was off after buried treasure. They would have been close but wrong. He smiled a tight, happy smile as he jumped from the top of the well steps clear over the lip of the well and down into the Sengoko-Jidai.

He arrived with a muted clatter and a curse as the inexpertly tied twine that Jijii-Chan had secured the tools with let go. That fixed he made his way by a roundabout route to the back of the shrine complex as it existed in "his time". He and Higurashi-Jijii had agreed on this spot as having been undisturbed since time out of mind so it seemed a safe bet. At least no building or repairs had shown in any of the extant records and Inuyasha agreed that he more or less recognized this strip of wall. Using the pick and a crowbar he began rapidly disassembling it.

Demonic strength and speed can count for a lot if the daemon is clear on what he wants to do. Jijii-Chan's diagram actually came in pretty handy as Inuyasha rearranged the wall to have a cavity in it the size of a steamer trunk with an opening at the top. The rubble fill from the wall he tossed off in various directions and he stowed the tools unceremoniously underneath some brush. He took time to carefully refit the blocks to completely conceal the chamber he had made and dusted off his hands with a satisfied grunt.

Next came what he considered the difficult part. He slipped his hand into the front of his suikan and fished out one of the small, flat stones and chips of wood he had hidden there against his skin.

He regarded the faint tracery of nature's design on the chip of wood he had come up with a flipped it down in front of him. Striding forward he set his foot firmly upon it and kept walking as the world around him was replaced with a faint "pop".

The place he now moved through was his own and, since his mother's death, unshared with and unmentioned to anyone. Until Kagome had turned his world upside down by becoming his mate. Up to that point he had mostly used this place as a way station to shed his long series of ruined outfits and to throw on another suikan-no-hakama of identical appearance which was always there waiting. He had nearly choked himself laughing when he discovered that his companions actually thought his clothing grew back overnight. Other than clothing changes and the occasional new moon when Kagome wasn't there he had largely disregarded this place in preference for the real world of which this would comprise only a scant acre of house and twilit garden.

It was a pocket universe. A bolt hole which was part of every major daemon's magic. Although this one had been created for him by his father for the protection of his mother and himself it was still attuned to him as strongly as Sesshoumaru's own must be.

Kagome's presence now filled the place and her sweet scent was in the air as he entered. There was a low table in the front hall now heaped with seashells that Kagome and he had collected one afternoon along the northern coast. She had said at the time that in her era the shells were all smaller and of fewer types. Inuyasha shrugged as he turned away from the table. He had other things to do.

As he wandered through the silent rooms of his house he picked up a length of silk and forming it into a sort of bag began opening long untouched chests. These were why he was here.

The kami of the place gathered as he worked. Ghostly forms seen best from the corner of the eye they twittered anxiously as he plundered his own possessions. They were part of the magic of the place and maintained the house and grounds in constant readiness for the master and preserved all that was kept there. They appeared to approve of Kagome and the pools in the gardens now included a hot one. Which was why what he was about to do was going to cause a fight.

It was as he was swiftly going through a wall chest containing scrolls that he became aware of the silence. The twittering had ceased. He looked about himself suspiciously. The room was empty, the shoji screen door standing open to the hallway. He could not see clearly into the dimness of the hall but he could hear a heavy rustling creak. Inuyasha dropped a few more scrolls and small objects into his pack and waited with interest

He didn't have to wait long as the doorway was filled with a figure in the shape of a servant made of folded paper and, Inuyasha squinted curiously, red maple leaves. Inuyasha smiled humorlessly, Kagome would think it was pretty if it didn't stand seven feet tall. He turned his back and opened another drawer.

He snapped his head back around as the creature bowed its head and entered the room to drop into a full obeisance with a mighty rustling and groaning creaks which formed themselves into words.

"Oh, Inuyasha-sama, why are you removing portions of the art collections that belong to this place? Long will we have to search to find replacements of like quality."

Inuyasha sighed. He had just known they would come up with some piece of annoying crap. "You never have had any trouble supplying me with my suikan-no-hakama no matter how fast I had them torn to ribbons or melted by acid."

"No, but the fire rats live in your garden oh, Exalted One and the poets and painters do not."

"Does that mean you can't copy any other clothes? No different fabrics?"

The paper figure shifted uncertainly. "We would need samples, Great Lord."

"Can do." Inuyasha grumbled as he shouldered the bag preparatory to moving on to another room. He paused a moment. "This is for Kagome. I'm going to sell it and use the money. I'll need more of the kind."

With a rustle the paper and leaf servant rose to a kneeling position. "Kagome-sama does not wish to live with us here?"

"No!"

A flutter of distress was evident in the maple leaf decorated sleeves. "She is displeased with the accommodations?"

"No, she wants to finish her studies and make a future in her own time." Why she should worry he didn't know but he didn't add that.

The paper creature stood, creaking and swaying to tower over Inuyasha. "Inuyasha-sama, you are her lord and master. This house longs for the presence of your mate."

Inuyasha hunched a shoulder and spotted a two foot tall ceramic horse standing behind a screen. "Ah, that looks old even here!" He hooked a hand under it and moved to dump it into his pack.

There was an agitated rustling and a white paper hand interposed itself between the figurine and the pack. "Lord, this was old when your father obtained it to delight your mother's eyes. It was brought from the great palace of China."

"All the better! And don't put your hand before me!" Inuyasha slashed impatiently and slashed again as the torn paper construct swirled into a clinging whirlwind of scraps and leaves that pulled and tugged at his sack as if trying to make him let go. "Stop that! Do you want me to break this?!" This seemed to make the leaf-like whirlwind all the more anxious, and it began pulling at the sack and his clothes.

Inuyasha gave an infuriated shout and with a final slash burst through the spiraling foliage and crashed right through the paper door and straight up the garden path to suddenly emerge into a torrential downpour in the Sengoku Jidai.

"Chikshou!" He leapt in the rain to the top of the foundation wall and carefully slid apart the covering stones to the cache he made and lowered his slightly damp bundle into its dry interior. He hunched, head between his knees as he added a pre-measured amount of water to the compound he had brought along and shook it up. A quick smear along the edges of the covering stones and he set them back into place to weather the fortunes of the next five centuries as best they might.

The temptation was strong to go down to the shrine steps and visit Kaede-baba, but time was wasting on both sides of the well, Kaede-baba's stew or not. He went back through the well; tools over his shoulder to see the results of his handiwork.

Back in the well house he swiftly pulled off his suikan leaving the white kosode in place. He had noticed that the less dramatic cut of the kosode looked more like the clothing from Kagome's time. A quick shift to a human appearing head while leaving his daemon body in place had him moving from the well house to the rear of the main shrine building with a good deal of smug satisfaction. 'Look human. Do what you gotta do.'

He found himself softly singing as he slowly paced along the back wall of the shrine foundations, running his hand along the top. Here? No, too close to the corner. Here, where the stones seemed a little caved in. He hopped up onto the top of the foundation wall and settled himself on his stomach to pick at the stones with his claws.

It was sunny and warm in Kagome's time and he worked slowly, humming under his breath and delicately easing the covering stones to the cache apart.

"Well? Did you find it? Did it work?" Higurashi-Jijii stood on the ground not ten feet behind him. Inuyasha executed a startled jump that ended in a full back flip and ready stance that would have done Jackie Chan proud.

"Don't scare me like that you old rooster! You could have been killed!"

Higurashi-Jijii waved a hand disparagingly, "Don't you worry, young man, I am not without defenses."

"Come on, old man, this is not some kung-fu action flick."

"And what would you know of kung-fu action flicks, oh, traveler from a distant time?" cackled Jijii-Chan. Actually, Inuyasha didn't know much. Kagome had told the group about them during their travels and the stories made good listening around the campfire being traditional tales with lots of vivid fight scenes thrown in. Inuyasha had always scoffed at them but listened anyway, cuffing Shippou if he interrupted too much.

Inuyasha hissed his annoyance and climbed back up to resume picking at the narrow rim of moss encrusted mortar around one of the sealing stones. In a few moments he had it loosened and was lifting it free from where it had rested for five hundred years or so.

He peered into the dark interior sniffing carefully. Only a faint whiff of ancient mildew, no trace of the rats which had been Inuyasha's chief concern. He could hear Jijii-Chan fuming with impatience as he dropped head and shoulders into the aperture.

"Tadaima." Souta's voice caroled from no great distance. Inuyasha's head snapped up, encountering the lip of the opening painfully. He sat up swearing and rubbing his head.

Jijii-Chan walked to the corner and intercepted Souta. "Ah, my boy. How was school? And where are your mother and sister?"

Souta craned his neck in an attempt to see over his grandfather's shoulder. Inuyasha appeared to be placing flag stones on the top of the shrine foundation walls.

"There're right behind me. Wha…"

Higurashi-Jijii turned quickly and called out to Inuyasha, cutting Souta off. "Come, young fellow, I think we need to get my daughter to look in some old boxes. You will need modern clothing for tomorrow and you may as well take a loan until you can buy your own."

Souta snapped his mouth shut in surprise. Jijii-Chan being nice to Inuyasha? Things were not as he had expected.

The boxes were eventually located by Kagome in the back of a closet. After her father had died no-one had had the heart to send his clothing to charity so the business suits had been put into storage. As if Souta would want to dress in his father's clothes when he went to his first job twelve years in the future. Inuyasha tried them for size and found the shirt tight across the shoulders and the pants loose in the waist but they were wearable. Souta contributed sunglasses and Inuyasha quite liked those and kept them on even after changing back into his kosode and hakama.

The rest of the evening was spent by Inuyasha and Higurashi-Jijii in a most suspicious manner at the rear of the main shrine building. Neither one of them would explain what they were up to beyond stating that they were making repairs. Why repairing the shrine should have Higurashi-Jijii cackling and rubbing his hands was not explained either.

Kagome did make a try at pumping Inuyasha for information but the hanyou neatly derailed the conversation by taking her vigorously to bed and keeping her at it until she was pleading for him to stop as she didn't think she could stand another orgasm. Inuyasha then slept the sleep of the just positively radiating smug satisfaction.

~*~

Kagome wandered into the kitchen looking for breakfast. She had wrapped herself in Inuyasha's white kosode and felt rather daring although she knew the rest of the family was out of the house by now. She opened the refrigerator door and examined the contents humming to her self. "Ah, natto!" she eagerly reached in and pulled out a plastic sleeve with several brightly-colored containers in it. Separating one out of it she took a soy drink and chopsticks to the table and sat down with one leg tucked beneath her. Sighing with anticipation she peeled back the foil lid and set about stirring some soy sauce into her natto.

Inuyasha appeared in the doorway still tucking in his shirt and carrying a leather belt. "Kagome, how do you…" his voice trailed off and his face paled for an instant before he dropped the belt and clapped his hand over his mouth and nose. "Gods, what is that horrible stench?"

Kagome lifted her chopsticks with a lump of soybeans on them trailing a sticky web of slime back down into the container. "It's natto." she said brightly. "Want some?"

"What the hell is natto and what are you doing with that slimy mold? Please don't tell me you're going to eat that fermented shit." He stepped over towards the table, thumb and forefinger firmly pressed above his nostrils.

"Well it is fermented soybeans but it's really good for you and nutritious. Besides it's a quick breakfast. Try it, it's a great delicacy, real Japanese food." She dropped the chopsticks back into the container and passed it to him.

Taking the cup gingerly in his hand he stared at the contents, which seemed to stare back at him. He gave the chopsticks a stir having to let go of his nose to do so.

Immediately the fumes rose up making his eyes water. The stench seemed to be an unholy mixture of rotten eggs and the unwashed clothing of an incontinent old bum.The soybeans appeared to have been cooked but they were covered in a sticky white slime which made a sucking sound as he moved the chopsticks. He lifted the chopsticks and watched as a lone bean slid off to dangle by its own string of goo while many more strands slowly pulled free of the carton to simply dangle.

It was too much. Inuyasha rammed the container into the garbage, chopsticks and all and grabbed the bag out. Two steps took him to the sink and the window above it. He shot the window open with a force that made it rebound closed again. Cursing furiously, he popped the window open more carefully and swiftly wound up with the bag, releasing it at the peak of its arc to shoot out of the window and land, by the sound of it, in the alley that led to the service lot of the nearest high-rise.

Kagome sat at the kitchen table with visions of becoming a closet natto eater dancing through her head. She could just see herself furtively going to the local convenience store to buy single servings of natto and crouching with the bums on the sidewalk to eat it on site. Inuyasha would smell it but she could always say she had taken up caring for the disenfranchised. She could hear him retching over the torrent of water he was running into the sink. Not good. Not good at all.

"You don't have any problems with ripping living beings apart. But then again you do seem to want to survive off of prepackaged ramen stuff…" she couldn't help starting.

He didn't really take the bait. "Ramen cup is something that fills me up quick that I don't have to act all grateful for." he said from the sink, his back still turned. He turned around to face her, his black tee-shirt and silver hair sopping from having turned the spray hose on himself.

'I draw the line at certain things; kills I haven't made myself; fermented, rotting things; human liver." He walked back to her, dripping water all over the floor. Why was she so certain that he was dripping on the floor on purpose?

She was staring pointedly at the puddle he was leaving on the floor when Higurashi-Jijii appeared in the doorway looking like a thundercloud. "Aren't you ready yet? I thought we had agreed to 8 a.m."

"No, we didn't--you just dreamt that up." Inuyasha sounded bored. He turned to Kagome and handed her the belt. She sighed and helped him put it on.

"Where are you two going? I thought I was going to have the day with you."

"Special business snapped Higurashi-Jijii. You can have him back to play with later." Inuyasha rolled his eyes and followed him out the door, picking up a full backpack on the way out.