InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ In Deep Woods ❯ Chapter 14

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

In Deep Woods, 14:


“Why do I have to go see him?  He’s your project!”

“Go—on—in!”  Kagome placed her two hands on Inuyasha’s back and pushed.  Inuyasha stepped through the barrier and stopped, sniffing the air suspiciously.  Kagome waited behind him, arms folded.

The youkai prisoner stood quietly a few feet from the entrance, wearing Trace’s face but smelling entirely different.  Inuyasha sniffed again, and began a low growling deep in his throat.

The other youkai smiled and let his features melt into his preferred form.  “Hello, Inuyasha,” said Fenn.

“What are you doing here?  Where’s Trace?” growled Inuyasha.  He gripped Tetsusaiga tightly but did not take it out of its sheath.  He knew he hadn’t been wrong about his kids coming and going.  Something was going on, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.  Fenn wasn’t his enemy, but he was a trickster, giving even Shippo a run for his money.  Inuyasha should have listened to Shippo when the kitsune called him to complain about Fenn’s return a few weeks ago.  

“Trace is gone,” Fenn said.  “I let him go.”

With a wordless roar, Inuyasha attacked.  Fenn let himself go incorporeal as the great sword Tetsusaiga hissed out of its sheath to come swooping towards him.  Inuyasha was prudent enough to use just the sword’s physical form.  A kaze no kizu would destroy the cave, and they might need the cave again to imprison Trace once they recaptured him.  He wasn’t surprised when his attack met thin air.  “Stay still!” he growled, whirling around to cut the air behind him.  Kagome jumped out of the way, and Inuyasha blinked.  He’d seen her.  She was never in any danger of being struck by Tetsusaiga.  “Watch out!”  He yelled a warning to her.  “It’s Fenn.  He let Trace escape!  Be careful he doesn’t use you to protect himself from me . . .”  Inuyasha stuttered to a stop as he realized that Kagome wasn’t shocked at all by this sudden turn of events.

A chuckle behind him spun him around again.  “I don’t need Kagome’s protection,” Fenn said, smiling broadly.  “Why don’t you put down your sword and we’ll all have a nice talk?”

Inuyasha glanced at Kagome, but she didn’t give him any indication one way or another of what she wanted him to do.  She didn’t smell upset, however.  He lowered Tetsusaiga.

“That’s better.”  Fenn sat down shakily.  “Kagome, did you bring me anything to eat?”

Silently, Kagome opened her ever-present bag and tossed a wriggling rabbit to the energy-stealing youkai.  Inuyasha’s mouth watered.  Kagome didn’t like it when he took his food raw, yet here she was, nonchalantly giving a live rabbit to Fenn.  The other youkai didn’t bite down the tasty morsel as Inuyasha would have done.    He touched it, and the rabbit seemed to shrink in on itself until it was nothing but loose skin and bones, and then even that was gone.

Fenn’s color came back, and he leaned his head against the cave wall.  “Thank you.  I needed that.”

Kagome nodded sharply.  Inuyasha gathered that she wasn’t so comfortable feeding Fenn live game after all.  Somehow, that made him feel better.

“Why did you let him go?” he asked, getting back to the topic at hand.  “Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now.”

“Could you?”  Fenn raised an eyebrow at Inuyasha.

“I wouldn’t mind trying,” Inuyasha muttered, but he subsided, holding Tetsusaiga in a loose grip between his crossed legs as he took a seat opposite Fenn.

“You want the truth?”

Inuyasha didn’t dignify that with an answer, and Fenn sighed.

“We were never meant to walk among humans,” Fenn began.

“What!” Kagome gasped, and Inuyasha surged forward, grabbing Fenn by the front of his shirt, which had changed with him into something modern, and clean.

“You know it’s true,” Fenn said, making no attempt to free himself from Inuyasha’s sharp claws, which shredded the shirt front and narrowly missed shredding the flesh underneath.  “Youkai dealings with humans have brought nothing but sorrow—or great joy.  Things we have no business feeling.”

Kagome spoke up.  “You’re wrong, Fenn.  Inuyasha is half-human.  So are our children.  You’ve said it yourself:  because of our mixed heritage, we have become even stronger.  Our children are born powerful, born because of the human mix in their blood.”

“No, he’s not wrong, Kagome,” Inuyasha murmured.  He let go of Fenn and put an arm around his wife.  But he glared at Fenn.  “It’s too late for that.  We feel—as much as humans—and that ain’t gonna change just ‘cause you say we shouldn’t have let it get this far.”

Kagome craned her neck to look up at Inuyasha in amazement.

“I agree with you completely,” Fenn said.  “That’s why I let Trace go.”

“That’s not the same thing at all,” Kagome said without heat.  It was an old argument, one she’d had with Fenn over and over in the last week.  Inuyasha was uncharacteristically silent.  Kagome squeezed his hand.  “Trace was never human.”

Fenn shook his head.  “That’s debatable, Kagome.  Who’s to say what causes the changes in youkai to make them vulnerable to human emotion?  Inuyasha’s father was never human, yet he loved Inuyasha’s human mother.  The more he felt, the more solid he became, until he was able to make a child with her.  How is that possible, if the Inu no Taisho had not become, at least in part, human?  That’s the danger we youkai face in associating with you.  We are intangible forces of nature, neither good nor evil as humans define those terms.  We learn them from you, and the more we learn, the more we crave, and the more bound to this physical plane.  You do this to us, Kagome.  Trace only went after your family because he was jealous.  That’s a human emotion, Kagome.  Admittedly, not a good one, but he’s had time to think about who he is and what he wants.  Trace no longer thinks like a pure youkai.  It wasn’t much of a gamble, letting him go.”

While he was speaking, Fenn watched Inuyasha’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.  His speech had been for Inuyasha, not Kagome, although he addressed his words to the petite human in their group.  Inuyasha understood.  He saw bits of himself in Fenn’s description.  It had taken Inuyasha a long time to overcome his human half enough to accept his youkai half, and do the opposite of what Fenn had just described.  Inuyasha, born corporeal, had learned to shed his mortal form at will, so he understood all too well how it worked the other way, too.

“Can Trace move around like you just did?” Inuyasha demanded, his eyebrows knit together in concentration.  

“Given enough energy, yes, he can,” Fenn said.  “So can your kids.”  Whom Fenn had taught, in a roundabout way.  “But not for long.  He keeps reverting back to the form you saw me wearing when you first walked into this cave.”

Inuyasha frowned, unhappy at being reminded of Fenn’s blatant deception.  “So he’s thinking like a human, and you don’t know if he’s ‘bad’ or ‘good’.”   He waved away Fenn’s protest.  “You know what I mean.  What the hell did you think you were doing by pretending to be Trace?  Buying him some time?”  Inuyasha missed the brief flash of amusement that crossed Fenn’s features.  “Where is he now?  I don’t care why you let him go.  If he’s stuck in his body, then he can finally be killed, right?  I don’t care if he’s a youkai or not.  I don’t care about his feelings.  If he hurts somebody I love, then he’s dead.”

“What if he hasn’t hurt anybody?” Fenn asked softly.  “Would you let him be?”

Inuyasha paused, mouth open to argue.  This wasn’t his strong suit.  “I’ll decide that when I find him,” he said firmly.  “So where did he go?  How did he go?  You said he needed energy to move around.  How did he get energy when he’s been stuck in this cave for the last—Fenn!  You gave him your energy?  Are you nuts?”

Fenn shrugged, smiling sheepishly.  “Maybe.  He could have drained me completely.  He didn’t.  I made sure he could only travel certain paths I marked.  He was still very weak when he left me, although he could have gathered more energy by now.”

“So you have no idea where he is now.”

“I didn’t say that.”  Fenn glanced at Kagome.  “Ask Kazuki.  He might know.”

“Aha!  Then I did smell him here last week!” Inuyasha said triumphantly, shooting a smug glance at his wife.  His eyes narrowed.  “What do my kids have to do with all this?” he asked Fenn.

“The same thing you are,” Fenn replied.  “Looking for answers.  Now that everything’s out in the open, there’s no point in me continuing this game.   Why don’t we all go out to dinner—maybe that place that serves the pineapple pizza—my treat.  He stood up, a little unsteadily, and dusted off his pants.  “You can give Kazuki a call, and we’ll find Trace.  Then you can make your own decision.” He hesitated.  “If you still think Trace deserves to be locked up in here, I won’t stop you.”

A gleam came into Inuyasha’s eye.  “That’s right, you won’t,” he said, taking Kagome’s arm.  “Energy, huh?  You gave Trace yours, and that rabbit didn’t give you very much, so that means you’re still pretty weak, aren’t you?  Kagome, let’s go.”

He practically dragged Kagome back through the barrier, ignoring the sparks which rose up around him as he did so.  Behind him, Fenn cried out desperately, “No, don’t!”  Inuyasha smiled grimly.  What he had to do next was best done without Fenn’s interference.  Damn youkai was too soft-hearted for his own good.  He stalked off with Kagome in tow, already making plans.

In the cave, Fenn swore in frustration.  Sure, he was weak, but not as week as he had been at the beginning.  He hadn’t wanted Kagome to know that her barrier couldn’t hold him, however.  But it couldn’t be helped now.  He had places to go, and he had ways of getting there that were much faster than Inuyasha’s.  With a pop, he disappeared.




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