InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 13 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 13:

 

Sango and Miroku appeared over the crest of the hill, Sango hefting her Hiraikotsu over her shoulder. She still looked good in her slayer outfit, but even at this distance I could see the faint lines around her eyes and the creases at the corners of her lips. Did it bother her, I wondered, to see my mother not looking a day over twenty-five? It might have bothered me, having a mother who looked no older than I did, except Ayame, my mother-in-law and doting Grandma to my kids, looked just as young. I was used to it. It was the way we were, we youkai. Even though Mama was fully human, and not youkai, she was a miko who had chosen to remain on earth. Miko could do that, if they had enough power, and if they had a task too comprehensive for just one lifetime. Mama's task was Papa, in my opinion. She could never die and leave him alone.

Today her task was to search out a certain type of youkai. Over the years, she and Papa, and Miroku and Sango, had taken it upon themselves to roam the countryside searching and destroying one particular kind of youkai. It was suspiciously like Fenn's creatures, amorphous, not completely here, for lack of a better word, moving in a cloud so it was hard to tell if it was one being, or many. It fed on energy, human and otherwise, and it dwelled mainly in desolate, watery areas, although lately it had been venturing further out in search of its prey. That was why Mama was here; she was familiar with Fenn's creatures, and she could sense these youkai as well. There was a similarity that could not be denied, much to my father's ire. He did not want Mama involved, but he could see no other way. Just like the youkai from our time, he could neither sense nor scent these creatures until he was practically on top of them. And just like Fenn's youkai, Papa was sure there was a greater youkai controlling them. That was who they were truly after—this human-seeming youkai who spawned the energy-feeders. They couldn't be sure, but they were afraid it was one creature who, like my family, could transcend time. They had tracked it on both sides, but they never could catch it.

Fenn would not or could not travel along with them to the past. My father used the path which Tetsusaiga could open between the ages, although my brothers and I had learned, indirectly from Fenn's youkai, surprisingly enough, how to go back and forth from our time to this time on our own power. Secretly, I believed Fenn could probably do it, too, if we could, but he would never admit to it, saying he had never tried to go back so far. I wasn't sure I understood; for my family, we could only go to this one place, and we seemed fixed in time precisely five hundred years apart. We could not pick and choose the date when we would go back and forth. What did Fenn mean, `so far?' It irked my father to no end that Fenn was so uncooperative. He as much as accused Fenn of being in cahoots with this mysterious youkai, which Fenn passed off with a laugh and a shrug.

I still didn't understand what the big deal was. Why not let this youkai and his creatures alone? Who cared if he—it—was able to go back and forth between times? What had my parents worried was why. Why did this youkai, these youkai, whatever, go back and forth between these two particular times where we also just happened to go back and forth? What was the significance? I understood the danger of energy-sucking entities. Other youkai also drained their prey of life-force. They were mostly the invisible, to humans, type, who wrapped their essences around their victims and often drank to the point where their host was killed. It was ugly, but it happened. These were the very youkai that Sesshomaru and Kouga and the other slayers went after. The only difference that I could see was that these youkai my parents stalked across time could travel in time as well. Maybe I was still too young—I don't know. Dead was dead. All they had to do was kill it—them—in either time, and that would stop the problem, wouldn't it?

“Auntie, Uncle,” I greeted, as they came down the mountainside. Mama sat beside me, as we soaked our feet in the cool water that pooled beneath a waterfall. It was one of our rare visits when Daichi was off on patrol and Ayame had taken my kids so that I could have a quiet bath, or so she thought. I'd sensed my parents perilously close to the wolf youkai settlement early that morning and had used the excuse of the bath to go see them. That's when they told me they had tracked the youkai to this area. “How are Sachi and the kids?”

“Fine, fine,” Miroku replied. “Little Masashi isn't so little anymore, and the baby is walking already. They both break right through my barriers when they sense their Papa coming home. I'm thinking about asking their other grandma to give me something stronger.” Miroku smiled at Kagome as he spoke.

“Keh, ain't a barrier made that my grandkids can't break,” bragged Inuyasha. Kazuki's children, while ostensibly more `human' than youkai, exhibited an astounding amount of power for being so young. Papa had a right to be proud.

“Papa, are the wolf youkai in any danger?” I asked, getting back to the reason they were here. My children were at the settlement, and naturally I was concerned. I shifted my weight and stood up, trying to get comfortable. This was my fourth pregnancy, much to my in-law's delight at my fertileness. I had a few more months to go, but I was definitely showing and the heat already bothered me.

“Nah,” he began, when my mother gasped.

“Yes!” she contradicted. “There!”

Immediately my father and the slayers sprang to attention, eyes searching the direction my mother had indicated. I saw it, too, a dark cloud of youkai fast approaching our location. In my mind, I felt the first whispers of their multitude of voices. Oh, yes, these youkai were like Fenn's. Miroku and Papa flanked the rest of us, while Sango readied her Hiraikotsu. Even my mother had her bow and arrows. I felt out of place with no weapons but my claws and fangs. Among the wolf youkai, that's all I had ever needed.

“Stay back!” my father ordered. I didn't know if he meant me, or my mother. Probably both. Neither of us listened. I was youkai; I could fight with tooth and claw if it came to that.

“Kaze no kizu!” Papa shouted, and brought down Tetsusaiga in its signature strike. Hundreds of the youkai dissipated in a flash of light, but hundreds more kept coming.

“Inuyasha! Not so close to the wolves!” called Miroku. Tetsusaiga's attack was noticeable, as evidenced by the five scars across the mountainside left in its wake. Sango hurriedly threw Hiraikotsu against the ground to mar the regularity of the strikes. “Use your hands!”

“Fine,” muttered my father, jumping in with both arms raised before him. Attacks with his bare claws would leave no telltale signs. I could do that, too. I jumped forward to help my father, ignoring the horrified cry of my mother behind me. Now she couldn't use her arrows, for fear of hitting either me or Papa in the process.

The problem was, these youkai kept disappearing just as we struck, and both Papa and I found ourselves buried in the middle of the cloud of youkai, slashing at thin air. Well, I could disappear, too. Fenn's youkai had taught me how when I was a little girl. It was part of the same ability that let me travel through time. I closed my eyes and followed one creature's path as it disappeared and then reappeared. Hah! I got it! After that, it was pretty easy to catch them, a few at a time, as they tried their disappearing act in vain. I ignored the sibilant whispers in my brain, some of which sounded almost like my name, and I killed as many as I could until finally they took the hint and streaked off, over the mountain and away from us.

Papa shook his head in confusion. “What just happened?” he asked.

I sank down beside him, suddenly tired, but in a good way. “We got `em,” I replied, and he looked at me suspiciously, since he knew darn well he hadn't gotten any of them with his claws.

“How did you do that?” Miroku asked me, sharp enough to have noticed what happened.

“Do what?” I asked innocently. I really didn't want to have this conversation. Papa never liked it when we used the skills we had learned from Fenn's youkai. This wasn't the best time to remind him of it, either. But Miroku wouldn't let it drop.

“I saw you disappear,” he said. “And each time you reappeared, less of the youkai were there.”

“Ah, that,” I said. “I used my claws like you said. I just followed them so they couldn't get away.”

“You—followed—them.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. Papa's eyes narrowed. He had caught on to what I was talking about, and as I had thought, he wasn't too happy about it.

“How?” Miroku asked.

“Ask Kazuki, I don't know,” I said.

Papa spoke sharply. “Kazuki can do it too?”

I nodded.

“And Koji?”

“Probably.”

Mama came running, dropping her bow and kneeling down in front of me. She touched my belly and my forehead at the same time. “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly.

Sure, I was fine. Why wouldn't I be—oh, the baby. “Yeah, I think so, Mama. Baby's fine, too.” It had just given me one very big, reproachful, kick. Maybe Baby didn't like disappearing, either.

“Please, please promise me you won't do that again until after the baby is born,” Mama begged.

That was an easy promise to make. I let Mama fuss over me for a little while. Papa and Miroku had their heads together `discussing' the situation. Miroku discussed; Papa yelled his opinions. It seemed that they were in disagreement over whether to stay here in case the youkai mastermind was still somewhere in the vicinity, or to follow the cloud of lesser youkai while there was still a trail to follow.

I caught a familiar scent on the air; Papa must have caught it, too, because he looked up suddenly and made a decision. “Let's go,” he said. “Mayumi, you stay close to the wolves until the kid is born, you hear me?”

“Yes, Papa,” I agreed. “You'd better hurry, they're coming.”

Mama and Sango gave me a quick hug, then Mama sprayed some of her odor neutralizer into the air, much to my amusement, and they left, chasing the trail of the youkai who had attacked us.

I sneezed, and so did Ayame when she arrived at the pool below the waterfall with my children in tow. “We heard some noise,” she said, sniffing in an attempt to clear her nasal passages. “Was someone here?”

“I ran into a little youkai problem,” I told her truthfully, taking my daughter, Choko, from her arms. “It wasn't anything serious, but it did interrupt my bath. Why don't you join me and cool off?”

Ayame glanced around the little clearing, her eyes traveling to the hillside just beyond and widening as she noticed the gouges in the earth. She sniffed again, but Mama's spray had sufficiently muddled any scents which might have remained. I smiled sheepishly and shook out my claws, as if I had made the gouges. I was glad Daichi wasn't here; he would have seen right through my deception.

“Come on, let's go swimming!” I said enthusiastically, dipping little Choko's feet into the water. She squealed in delight. Gintaro and the twins jumped right in and started splashing around.

Ayame took Choko from me so I could get undressed. She wasn't totally convinced, but it was hot, and the water looked very inviting. “From now on,” she said sternly, “you will no longer go to bathe by yourself. Either Daichi or myself will accompany you.”

I agreed. Everyone was giving me ultimatums today that I had no trouble obeying. In fact, I was just as happy not to have to go bathing by myself for the next few months. I hadn't told Papa about the voices, but it unnerved me just a little that these strange youkai knew my name.