InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Mayumi's Story ❯ Chapter 16 ( Chapter 16 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Mayumi's Story, Chapter 16:

 

You'd think Daichi and I had nothing better to do than make babies. But that wasn't so—we did plenty of other things, too. The wolf youkai had been so decimated in the past that children were a priority, although they didn't come as easily to the full youkai women as they did to me, thanks to my human blood.

 

So I didn't have the heart to tell Daichi I really wanted our own place, away from the main wolf settlement. Maybe when the kids were older . . . .

 

Daichi knew how I felt, however, and he built us a small house in the clearing not far from my secret cave. We didn't live there, not yet; it was more of a vacation home-away-from-home, for when we wanted to be alone. My in-laws didn't really understand this need I had for time to ourselves without the extended family all around, but they never protested, even when we brought the children with us. Kouga and Ayame would have been happy if we left the kids with them every time we went on these little vacations, but I felt it was important for my growing family to spend time together as a single unit. Dammit, I was their Mama, not Ayame, much as I loved her! It didn't seem to bother Daichi as much as it bothered me. Once, when I let something slip, he'd looked at me in amazement and said, “Of course they know you're their mother. They've got your scent.”

 

How could I be so stupid or so insecure? That's why Daichi wasn't jealous of Kouga or any of the other wolf elders who routinely took our kids under their tutelage. He knew they knew he was their father!

 

In retrospect, looking back I'm glad my kids and Daichi had the support of the entire wolf youkai tribe when I disappeared from their lives.

 

As I said, my human blood was a mixed blessing. I could mingle among the humans if I was careful, so I was the one who got to go on trading excursions every so often. The wolves, following Daichi's lead, had actually built some structures and our little settlement was slowly but surely turning into a village. We were still off the beaten path, but now if some unsuspecting humans stumbled upon us, they didn't immediately start screaming for their lives.

 

It was good practice for my kids, too, who were a little wilder than their slayer cousins, never having had to be gentle around humans before. I would bring them home human food after one of my trips, and after sniffing at it warily, they would try a little bite. No junk food junkies here! I had to practically beg them to try human food. Eventually they learned to like it, and I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The more we youkai assimilated ourselves into human culture, the more we lost our true selves. I suppose it was inevitable, though. I'd seen what happened to youkai who couldn't adjust—they lost their hold on the physical and eventually faded away. Like it or not, we were connected—human and youkai, and I was a bridge.

 

Rin and Kohaku occasionally visited the wolf youkai settlement on their rounds. Kohaku left the scouting to the younger generation and accompanied his wife on her miko journeys to various human, youkai and hanyou villages. Wherever Rin went, Jaken was never far behind, usually watching over one or the other of their children. Sesshomaru seldom crossed paths with them anymore, although I had no doubt that he still kept a watchful eye on them from afar. What must he have thought to see his beloved Rin growing older? Although she had an awesome responsibility as a miko to youkai, she chose to grow old with her husband and leave the tending of youkai to future generations. Mama had to make the same choice and she, too, chose to stay with her husband, my father, Inuyasha. The difference was, my father's lifespan was that of a youkai, not a human, so Mama would live for a good long while. I was glad. I couldn't bear the thought of losing Mama.

 

Rin and Kohaku's second son, Eiji, spent time in the slayer village with Miroku, learning Buddhist teachings and incorporating them into the simple religious practices of his home village. Eventually, he became the resident priest of Kaede's old village and my direct ancestor. He knew something about us, too. I had a suspicion Uncle Miroku had told Eiji some family secrets, because Eiji rebuilt the old well that my parents had used to travel through time. Now, when Tetsusaiga brought them through, it was to the enclosed well-house that looked suspiciously similar to the one at Grandma's shrine back in the modern age. So that's how it had gotten there. It made sense now.

 

Rin's youngest, a girl named Aiko, accompanied them on their latest round. She was a miko in training and looked startlingly like her mother. Jaken hovered around the girl, to her annoyance, as she considered herself quite grown up at fourteen and not a baby anymore. One of Daichi's younger brothers found her irresistible, and when Rin and Kohaku left our village for the coast, Aiko stayed behind. Unfortunately, so did Jaken. He ignored the other wolf youkai children, who were mostly mine anyway, but he doted on Aiko's babies when they were born. Because she was human, she turned out to be as fertile as me.

 

Marriages abounded in those days. Sango and Miroku's son, Hiroshi, became a frequent visitor to our village, too, and after his first wife died, eventually he took my Choko to live with him at the slayer village, tightening the web of relationships even more. But that was later, much later. A lot of things happened in between.

 

The first time I witnessed a higher youkai's death, I was stunned. I had become so used to thinking of us as quasi-immortal, immune to death, that I had a moment of total panic when I realized one of my own beloveds could indeed die. Were youkai reborn, like humans, or did they just fade into the fabric of existence, never again to see and feel and be? I feared it was the latter.

 

It happened suddenly, in the heat of a battle that should have been won easily. We were on our way home from visiting the nearest human settlement to our south. Daichi and I had gone in, but we had taken two other wolf youkai with us for the journey. My particular scourge of youkai had all but disappeared from our area over the last few years. I like to think it's because I scared them off when I transformed, but I couldn't really be sure. Papa and Kazuki still caught traces of them all across Japan, and I'd heard they still made appearances in our time, too.

 

However, this time still had its share of malevolent youkai, and so, when we traveled like this, we went in groups for safety. It had been a trading mission. We brought the human village meat and animal skins, and took back cloth and metal, and a few sweets for my kids; we also took back news from the outside world.

 

I always kept my hair under a kerchief, dyed black for the occasion. Daichi, whose hair was already black, could pass for human even with his otherworldly beauty, if he tried, and that's what these excursions were really for, to try and blend in with the humans without being noticed. The other two youkai remained in the forest outside the human village. No sense in tempting fate by having several youkai show up at once. People might begin to notice things about us—our sharp nails and sharper teeth, for instance. Two of us were easier to hide.

 

Our trading was done and we were halfway back to the wolf youkai village when a giant boar youkai struck. Daichi immediately pushed me behind him and attacked, as did the other two wolf youkai who had accompanied us. I drew my sword, eager to get in a few good strikes myself, but before I had a chance, the boar veered to the side and charged at our group from a different angle. Takeo had no chance. He was gored right through the stomach and tossed high into the air, landing down on the same preternaturally sharp tusks of the boar. Daichi immediately ran to pull him off, but it was already too late. With a sigh, the wolf youkai exploded in a burst of dust and was gone, just like that. We didn't even have time to mourn his passing, as the boar attacked again.

 

We had his movements down now, however, and between the three of us, we managed to finish him off without too much trouble. Daichi kept trying to push me to the side, which was not acceptable. I wanted to avenge our comrade, too! This should never have happened. That boar youkai was mostly animal, acting on instinct, and shouldn't have been able to catch one of us off guard, but he had.

 

When it was over, there weren't even any bones for us to take home to Takeo's family. I felt awful about that, and guilty that my mind kept superimposing Daichi, or Gintaro, or Papa over the last image I had of Takeo, right before he disintegrated into dust. Was it so easy to snuff out the life of a youkai? I shuddered. Nothing was truly safe in this world. I wanted to go home and hug my kids.

 

“What were you trying to do?” Daichi shouted at me. “You could have been killed!”

 

“So could you!” I retorted. “I can fight! You had no business trying to keep me out of it!”

 

“No business?” Daichi stopped his ranting, brought up short by my comment. His eyes got a faraway look in them, and suddenly he got very busy adjusting our packs and making sure nothing was damaged.

 

“I didn't mean it like that,” I tried to say.

 

He glanced up at me, a wry smile playing about his lips. “It's fine. Let's just go home,” he replied.

 

I always put my foot in my mouth. I took after my father that way.

 

 

Not long afterward, I spied a lone youkai on the cliff above our village. He was too far away for me to get a proper scent, but I could tell it was a `he.' I assumed it was Papa. I made some excuse and slipped away to meet him. It must be important if Papa would risk being spotted like this. I wondered where Mama was, since I had only seen one figure up on the cliffs.

 

When I was almost there, I sensed the other youkai, the strange ones who whispered in my mind, and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Mayumi, Mayumi, Mayumi,” I heard, over and over. My hand clenched on the hilt of my sword and I swallowed. I probably should have gone back, but at the time it didn't occur to me. Cautiously, I continued to the spot where I had seen the figure. I could `hear' the strange youkai but I still didn't see them. I didn't see the higher youkai, either. By this time, I was pretty sure it wasn't my father. There was no scent whatsoever.

 

“Did you enjoy the pig?”

 

I spun around at the voice, aghast that I hadn't sensed anyone approaching me. There stood a human-seeming youkai, neither young nor old, dressed, as my father had taken to dressing, all in white. He smiled brightly at me and repeated his question. “Did you enjoy the pig I sent you?”

 

“Who are you?” I barked, drawing my sword. I could sense the other youkai gathered all around him, still invisible. “What do you want?”

 

“Mayumi,” he said with that false smile. “You know the answer to that already.”

 

“How do you know me?” I asked. Behind him, his youkai, so like yet unlike Fenn's, began to take shape, and as they did, I caught their scent. Come to think of it, I could smell the higher youkai now, too. He smelled like his youkai.

 

“I know all of you,” he replied. “I know all your secrets.” His grin faded. “Go home, Mayumi. You don't belong here.”

 

I paled. “Or what?” I asked, afraid to hear his answer.

 

“That pig was just a warning,” he said, and, smiling mockingly, he disappeared.

 

Oh no. I wasn't going to let him get away with that! How dare he threaten my family! I followed him. He took a path through time but he couldn't shake me. I had him! I wasn't sure what I was going to do once I actually caught him, but I'd figure that part out as I went along. He turned, and I turned right along with him, and then we were out in bright sunlight again, although not on the top of a cliff anymore. I glanced around me in amazement, but I was careful not to let the higher youkai out of my sight. I knew we hadn't gone home to my time. We had traveled a different path. But I had never been here before. I didn't know where—or when—we were.

 

“I want some answers,” I growled, advancing on him. “Why are you stalking me?”

 

He laughed. “Why? You are ruining everything, you and your family. Over the centuries, you show up where you don't belong and things change. We can't have that.”

 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I answered. As far as I understood it, time was exceedingly difficult to change. It was why my family was able to go back and forth with such impunity.

 

He chuckled and shook his head. “And therein lies the problem,” he said. He gestured with one hand, and his youkai descended upon me. I struck out with my sword, but just like before, it wasn't enough. This time, I held on to my sword so I didn't transform, but I felt their little stings draw my energy right out of me. Were they killing me? Would I burst in a spark of dust like Takeo had? My eyes began to close and my grip on my sword loosened as the darkness swept over me.

 

“Kaze no kizu!” I heard faintly, and a bright light pulsed on the outside of my eyelids.

 

“No!” I heard the higher youkai gasp, and then I felt him disappear, but I was too tired to follow him. The smaller youkai who had been feeding on my energy also disappeared, those who were still left. I felt the wind of the kaze no kizu as it passed over me. Thank goodness! Papa had found me. I sniffed, and opened my eyes in time to see a figure walk slowly towards me.

 

“Are you all right?” he asked, reaching down a hand to pull me to my feet.

 

I nodded, although my heart was pounding. That was Tetsusaiga, for sure, but the youkai who was holding it was not my Papa!