InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dogs in Tokyo ❯ Chapter 36 ( Chapter 36 )

Chapter 36

He sat up that night watching Kagome from across the room. He wanted the opportunity to think about the last few days and the discoveries they had brought. If he let himself sit on her bed, surrounded by the comfort of her scent, he’d probably drop right off without even realizing it. At least in her time, sleep wasn’t a problem for him.

Things were different on the other side of the well. He’d spent too many moonless nights being an attractive target for that and had only staid in the open instead of going to the refuge of his house on his human nights because Kagome would be without his protection. Not that she had ever seemed to appreciate it. She had always insisted that he hide and would often go with him to sit in some abandoned shrine or other in a perfectly useless attempt to stay out of trouble. Trouble had followed them like iron filings to a magnet on those nights anyway.

It would’ve been better if she’d slept easier. But when did Kagome ever sleep easy? Kagome tended to sigh and mutter to herself in a faint running monologue that had become one of his chief nighttime entertainments. Amazing what you can find out about a person that way. That and watching Shippou kick the living hell out of everybody near him had occupied many a long night. He didn‘t need much rest and watching over them combated both his eternal boredom and his need to protect what was his.

At first, she had annoyed him with her murmurs; they drew him and resisting them made the tickle that he felt when she was near all the stronger. As he got to know her, he started to believe that obligations to her schooling and the need to find all the shards ate at her. Although why many of her dreams seemed to include ordering food at some sort of mental restaurant was past him. Later, he began to think that she rested uneasy because of the split in her personality; that some part of her was walking around powering Kikyou on her relentless journey. That frightened him and made him more intent on completing their own journey while keeping a weather eye on Kikyou.

Miroku and Sango both claimed that they always knew when he left the camp at night because Kagome would get louder and more agitated, waking the others while remaining asleep herself. Whatever, even if he left her alone briefly, it would be to come back. He would be the one keeping watch over her and he resented their lack of understanding about his motives. They had made him even more closed-mouthed, keeping his suspicions to himself.

He now knew from her mother that she had always had vivid dreams all her life and that his presence seemed to quiet them down to a murmur. That was more satisfactory so far as he was concerned and removed much of the guilt and fear that he had labored under.

So, it was nearly peacefully that Inuyasha rocked his head back against the wall and looked beyond the spindly legs of Kagome’s desk and out into the night. The window was open and he could see the darkened circle of the new moon. He could feel the ebb and flow of his blood and pulled up yet again the power to control his youkai and his humanity. His senses re-sharpened and he knew that, although Sesshoumaru had said his goodbyes some hours ago, he was still on the grounds of the shrine. What’s more, he knew why. With a silent rush, he was out of the window to meet his brother at the foot of the Goshinboku.

/////(0)\\\\\

Sesshoumaru stood waiting quietly in the shadows, an erect figure holding a narrow black-lacquered box. Inuyasha stopped in front of him and nodded towards it. “So, you don’t want it?”

Sesshoumaru gazed at his brother for what appeared to be a flummoxed moment and slowly extended it on his palm, “Why would I want it?”

“Why wouldn’t you want it?“ The two stared at each other in a sort of conversational impasse. The wind picked up, bringing a smell of exhaust from the road and they both sneezed. Inuyasha flicked his ears in annoyance while Sesshoumaru glared with slightly watering eyes. Inuyasha picked up as best he could, “Well, how else did it get here? I figured the snake youkai infesting the Kabuki-za Theater either mistook me for you and gave me Kagura’s fan or that you were here expecting my delivery of it. You do know that they’re all snake youki that had Kagura‘s fan, don’t you?”

“Would I care?” His hand was again extended with the fan in its palm.

Inuyasha took this as a good sign, “No, you’re not the kind of guy to care even though you brought this fan forward in time…”

“I didn’t bring it.”

Inuyasha blinked at him, “No?”

“No.”

“So, then why…” The fan case was dropped suddenly and Inuyasha caught it in a lunge before it could hit the pavement.

“I never saw it after the end. I don’t know why it’s here. Additionally, I also don‘t know why it would have survived Kagura‘s dissipation; there was very little left.”

Inuyasha flipped the case back down the neck of his shirt and completely ignored his brother’s disdainful sniff, choosing to see it as the effects of a runny nose, even though he knew better, “Fine, then, Kagome can use it for the wedding after all. The theater guy seemed to think her carrying a fan was important. I just thought you would lay claim to it.” He shook the front of the t-shirt lightly and allowed the case to settle again against his stomach, not caring if it poked out or not. “So, what brings you here to visit if I wasn’t playing delivery boy for your fan.”

“You do. I intend to take care of certain affairs. I feel a need to tidy up my house.”

Inuyasha tensed and sent him a suspicious glare, but Sesshoumaru was dressed in one of the suits he affected in this era and there was no sign of either of his swords. He eased his stance slightly and gave a humorless grin before replying, “I would understand the need. It‘s a little cobwebby.”

“This Sesshoumaru sees nothing in this that warrants light treatment. There is little expectation of you understanding anything.”

Inuyasha hitched up a brief sigh and elucidated, “Look, Sesshoumaru, I can tell you haven’t mated Rin. I don’t mean to be nosey.” He responded to his brother’s renewed glare and gave a slight flick to the end of his own nose. “But there is no way to miss it.” He suddenly caught his breath at his own line of thought, “Is Rin OK? Did she have a relapse? I’ll call Kagome…”

He was prevented from leaving by Sesshoumaru’s suddenly lifted arm. “That is not necessary. The Rin-child is safe and at my apartments under the watch of Jaken. As she should be.”

Inuyasha turned back in surprise, “Under the watch of Jaken, at your apartment? Now, didn’t we just get through all of this? I haven’t seen Rin in a long time but she is no longer a child. You can’t do that to her.” His voice was gaining in volume and cracked across the empty shrine pavements.

“What I do and what I do not do is by my will alone!” Sesshoumaru’s voice had deepened and increased its force.

“Oh, really? Wanna bet?”

Sesshoumaru’s head snapped to the side and Inuyasha realized that some one was coming. Sesshoumaru suddenly sprang up into the air and formed his ball of light to zing off into the distance.

Inuyasha shook his fist after his brother’s retreating back shouting after him, “You get back here! She turned you down, didn’t she, you loser!” Inuyasha thought there was a hesitation in his brother’s vanishing form but it continued out of sight. He was gathering himself to follow when a voice broke in on him.

“Leave it be, Inuyasha.”

Inuyasha looked over his shoulder disgustedly at the two who approached him, coming from the forecourt of the shrine. “Don’t you two have anything better to do than to barge in on other people’s business?”

“Are you so ready for tomorrow that you can spend time shouting in the courtyard where everyone can hear you?” Jijii-Chan returned with a belligerent stare and folded his arms to wait for an answer.

Inuyasha blinked between him and a fiendishly-grinning Jukuryo in dismay, “Tomorrow? What about tomorrow?”

“The auguries were cast this afternoon, Boy. The most auspicious day is tomorrow, between 10 and 11:30 in the morning. Best to at least get some rest. We are out here to prepare. We must check on a few last things and then I must purify myself.” Jijii-Chan’s tone of voice was a fine meld of smugness and self sacrifice that was lost on the confused hanyou. “Shouting young men wandering around the shrine precincts at this hour is just not what’s appropriate.

“Prepare, for what? What the hell is this old goat talking about?” Inuyasha looked to Jukuryo for explanation.

“What else could it be but your wedding? Indeed,” Jukuryo nodded affably in Inuyasha’s shocked face as if he had asked a question, “You’ll be delighted to know that I, myself will be keeping watch over your esteemed grand-father-in-law as he readies himself to conduct tomorrow morning’s solemnities. The shrine staff, the good offices of your noble brother and, in some small part, my own company have combined to make this wedding possible at the earliest auspicious time. Surely you noticed the augury that was cast in the shrine this afternoon?” He paused expectantly but, Inuyasha was shocked into speechlessness and could only gape at them. “All those crowds when you arrived, the burning of the shrine rope, they were all part of the purification ceremony. With all the monsters gone it seemed a good time to cast the augury.”

“I, I was busy with something.” Inuyasha could not bring himself to admit that he had been barely able to see from the pain of the poisoned wound in his arm. It had only been Kagome’s mulish insistence and his own sneaking enjoyment of the attention that had ever permitted him to admit to such things in the past.

“Well, your brother Sesshoumaru has been very helpful and you owe him a debt of gratitude. Go and get some sleep now. Tomorrow’s a busy day.” Jijii-Chan waved him off with a flicking motion of his sleeve and was never to realize how fortunate he was that he was old and frail and Kagome’s grandfather.

Jukuryo had a pretty good idea of it though and kept a close eye on Inuyasha as the hanyou grouchily beat a retreat back to the house and Kagome’s side to contemplate weddings and tomorrow. The claw tracks down his right arm hadn’t looked many hours old and bore the faint greenish glow of poison. There was only one youkai around who was likely to have left such a set of marks as that and it made Jukuryo wonder about just what had gone on in Sesshoumaru’s apartment after he had left.

He knew that Sesshoumaru had a wedding invitation and now carried one or more of his own tucked into his belt. He thought they would prove useful in the long run. Jijii-Chan had trundled off towards the storage buildings and was at the front of the storage shed pulling awkwardly at a rope. Jukuryo wandered over and saw that it was attached to a low wooden cart which held a pair of the enormous wooden buckets filled with sake that was a mainstay of traditional weddings. Jukuryo chuckled at his friends efforts and helped with the rope to tow the creaking cart across the shrine’s pavement to an open air pavilion at the edge of the main court. There, as the autumn mist rose about them and blanked the city in a damp fog the two companions, one an old man and one a very old youkai first tested and then blessed the butts of sake, sealing what virtue of luck they could into the still wine.

Jijii-Chan then went off to meditate alone in the Haiden among the sacred relics of the shrine and Jukuryo went off to keep a rather sterner watch in his own way. Jijii-Chan was old and frail and would eventually doze during his purification ritual only to start guiltily and rub at his stiff neck to ask pardon and resume his prayers. The shrine priest was pure enough for all intents and purposes and there was little doubt that his prayers would be heard.

He, himself picked up the large dipper of sake he had purloined out one of the butts and carried it with him to the head of the shrine steps. He paced down them deliberately, muttering to himself, and stopped at the bottom to pour a careful line of the stuff across the bottom step. He studied the wet mark carefully and added a few sloshes for good measure to seal up some thin spots and then retreated up the steps to about midway and took a seat on one with a grunt. The moonless night was darkening and a chill mist was curling through the trees about the shrine. All in all, it was not a bad spot to sip the remainder of the sake and smoke a cigarette.

He had not been sitting there long, in fact, only long enough to start on his third cigarette, when the streetlamp visible at the foot of the shrine steps flickered and went out. Jukuryo promptly stubbed out his cigarette and flicked it off into the surrounding bushes. Picking up the dipper he drained it in a hearty swallow, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked that way comes.” He misquoted to himself whimsically as swirls of jaki gathered around him..

There was a faint sound approaching up the slope of the street. It seemed to be the slow, steady, beat of a padded drum and the muffled clank of a hand bell. Jukuryo turned his head in interest and watched as a small group of individuals appeared at the foot of the steps. It seemed almost a nobleman’s procession from times of yore for out in front came a youthful figure, that of a young man clad in a loose jacket and carrying an old-style lantern dangling from a pole. Several of the walkers appeared to be old men wearing overcoats buttoned up tight against the chill of the night and a couple of them appeared to be mendicant monks of the sort can be found still occasionally in country places where old traditions die hard. It was they that carried muffled drums and bells hung low in their robes.

The line drew up at the base of the steps and one of the fedora-hatted ones walked forward and looked up. The hat kept his face in shadow and his hands were in the pockets of his dark coat, “Ah, Jukuryo-Sama, you pick an odd spot to enjoy a fine evening.” The voice was deep and slow.

Jukuryo stood up and bowed before reseating himself with his hands upon his knees. The figure at the base of the steps bowed in response and made to place a foot on the first riser. The foot did not come down however and, after an uncertain moment, the owner of the foot replaced it on the pavement of the sidewalk. “I cannot enter, Jukuryo-Sama. Something prevents me.”

Jukuryo nodded, “So, I see, Koencho-San. An odd circumstance, that.”

“Yet you sit upon the very steps of this shrine. Why is that?”

“Why? This very afternoon this shrine was re-consecrated. The surrounding spells have been renewed. I was witness to the occasion as I was here at the time by invitation.”

“By invitation? Inside the perimeter?”

“Even so. There is to be a wedding come the morning and I am to be a guest.”

There was a stir among the listeners and another one, seeming by his straight stance to be somewhat younger, spoke up, “Jukuryo-Sama, what wedding is this? How is it that you are a guest?”

“I am a guest as are some others. The young daughter of the house, a miko of no little power, marries one of our own.”

Again there was a stir among the watcher and another spoke up with a voice as cold as old stone, “And yet you give it countenance? You are ancient and well-respected, Sama, but your penchant for associating yourself with humans has been noted. It is bad enough to treat with the humans but our purity must be preserved lest we disappear from the face of the land.” There were assenting sounds from the group and the faint tap of a drum.

Jukuryo appeared uninterested and shrugged his narrow shoulders. “We were nearly wiped out altogether once, long ago. We have slowly rebuilt in numbers. Very slowly. And we are neither as weak or as great as we were in previous times. We needs must explore different paths.”

“What of the snake clan then? They work the closest of all with the humans and scarcely one of them can claim pure blood. And they are weak.” The cold voice was insistent.

“They live well in this time and their days are spent productively with much to lend interest to every endless hour.”

“At human works!”

“And what of this inu clan?” Called out another, “One upstart appearing a few years ago and taking up with some useless malcontents and humans is one thing. Even with the occasional mysterious death of some weakling. Surely, after this recent infestation of monsters it’s bad enough! Now, there is another, and he a hanyou by all accounts. And now you say there is to be a wedding of all things at this shrine. Not only mating a human but on that human‘s terms!”

Jukuryo grinned and the group fell silent for Inuyasha had appeared at the head of the steps behind him. Jukuryo had no need to turn and look to tell him that he was half-transformed for the youki swirled about them all, “There are hanyous and then there are hanyous, gentlemen.” He finally turned his back to the group at the base of the steps and looked up, “Good evening, Nishigawa Inuyasha, These visitors were just passing by to pay their respects. “

“Who are they?” Inuyasha’s voice was filled with snarling menace. He took a couple of swift steps down, red sleeves flowing and silver hair floating on some errant breeze. The group at the foot of the stairs backed away an equal amount. His face began to darken further, “What are they doing here?”

“They were here to meet a scion of your ancient and humbly-respected house, Nishigawa-San. No matter, they shall not enter.”

Inuyasha glanced at Jukuryo and the mad blue light in his eyes dimmed a bit, “They have come and seen and that is enough.” He declared with finality.

“Indeed, and so now they shall leave.” Jukuryo agreed equably, “Gentlemen, we bid you goodnight.’ he said, turning and bowing before mounting the steps to Inuyasha’s side and drawing the hanyou away by an elbow.

“That was very nice, how much did you hear?” He murmured under his breath.

Inuyasha’s eyes flicked a surprised look at him. Jukuryo was pleased to see their even golden color. “Just about the whole thing. I felt them coming up the street. What were they? The youkai town watch?”

“Just some concerned citizens. Nice outfit.”

“Um, thanks. It’s fire rat.”

“Very effective. You show good timing.”

Inuyasha shook his head. “Keh, I’ve dealing with this kind of crap with humans for years. First time just intimidation ever worked on a fucking group of youkai though. Then again, the others were always drawn by the Shikon-no-Tama.”

“Then they couldn’t help themselves. Times are changed, that’s all.” Jukuryo clapped a hand to Inuyasha’s shoulder, “Go back to your mate and get some rest. I don’t think we’ll be disturbed again tonight.”

Inuyasha prepared to go but Jukuryo held him back for a moment, “Just one more thing.” Inuyasha looked back. “You aren’t planning on wearing that to the wedding are you?”

>>>>o0o<<<<

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