InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Metamorphosis 2: Legacies ❯ Kuro ( Chapter 5 )

~Chapter Five~

~Kuro~

~*~

InuYasha stomped into the hut, ears twitching, expression scrunched up with his infamous scowl firmly in place. "For the last damn time, I said fucking no!" he bellowed, seemingly at no one in particular as the mat fell back into place again. "Go the hell away before I gut you!"

"Please, sensei! I'll do whatever you ask!"

Sitting up a little straighter, Jirou frowned at the closed doorway at the voice that had drifted through the bamboo mat. "Sensei?" he echoed as Marisaiko quickly ducked her head, but not before he saw the smile on her face, too.

"InuYasha, who's out there?" Kagome asked as she casually sipped her tea.

He snorted. "Keh! An annoyance, that's who," he growled.

Jirou intercepted Marisaiko's questioning gaze and gave a little shrug.

Kagome made a face and started to rise. InuYasha snorted indelicately, jerking his head to tell her to sit back down again. She complied, despite the foreboding frown on her pretty face. "InuYasha . . ."

He plopped down with a huff, face screwing up in a pout as he drummed his claws on the floor and shook his head stubbornly, "Some brat," he finally stated. "Wants me to teach him how to fight."

Kagome looked surprised at InuYasha's admission. "He wants you to teach him how to fight? Who? Someone from the village?"

"Keh! Never seen him before in my life."

"You helped to train me," Marisaiko pointed out reasonably.

That earned her a sidelong glower. "That's totally different," he pointed out in a growl. "It was that or let that monk teach you crap that don't fucking work."

Kagome rolled her eyes since she knew well enough that InuYasha really did respect Miroku's abilities, even if he wouldn't ever admit as much. "Why don't you want to teach him?" she asked as she got up to fetch her mate a cup of tea.

"Are you kidding?" he grumbled. "Pup damn near tripped over his own feet—standing still. If he can't even stand on his own, then there ain't no way I'd ever put a sword in his hands, either."

And there wasn't really anything else to say to that, either. If the guy really was that bad, then Jirou couldn't blame InuYasha for feeling the way he did.

Blinking suddenly, InuYasha deliberately sniffed the air seconds before his gaze lit on Kiri and stuck. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.

The girl in question flushed as Jirou opened his mouth to answer. Marisaiko was faster. "Jirou and I met her near the shrine we were checking out," she said quickly, smoothly, and with a smile. "She's coming back to the village with me."

InuYasha considered that then nodded as he slowly got to his feet.

"InuYasha, where are you going?" Kagome asked as he pivoted on his heel and headed for the door again.

"Better go fishing since I only brought back two earlier," he tossed casually over his shoulder. "C'mon, Jirou."

Jirou hopped up and followed his father.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Kiri blinked as Kagome stuck a wooden board with a bowl of strange-looking vegetables under her nose. "Could you cut these up for me?" she asked sweetly.

Marisaiko shot her an encouraging smile when Kiri glanced at her, only to find her with one of the wooden boards and more vegetables that she was cleaning, too.

"Oh, uh, okay," Kiri replied as Kagome handed her a small knife. "How do you want them?"

"Just in bite-sized pieces, please. They'll be perfect for fish stew."

She made a face, mostly because she wasn't very good at this kind of thing, but for some reason, the idea of helping Kagome felt somehow comforting.

"I hope you girls are hungry," Kagome went on as she worked on some vegetables, too. "Knowing InuYasha, he'll come home with more fish than we'll eat in a week . . ."

"Tadaima," another hanyou called out as she stomped into the hut and let the mat fall into place behind her. She, like Jirou, was silver-haired, and she, like Jirou, had those cute little, fuzzy ears on top of her head. She was a lot smaller than Jirou, however, and her clothing was entirely bizarre. Wearing a strange short skirt with a tight-fitting pink shirt with no bindings at all, she paused long enough to kick off her odd shoes before stepping onto the wooden floor. "Hi, Mari-chan . . . Who's this?"

Kiri tried to summon a timid smile, but couldn't quite manage it. Given how many times she'd had to introduce herself in the last few hours, she figured it wasn't really surprising. Before she had a chance to answer, though, Marisaiko spoke up. "This is Kiri," the taijya said. "Kiri-chan, this is Ai, Jirou's sister."

Ai's grin widened. "Jirou's older sister," she added.

Kiri slowly shook her head. She wasn't entirely sure whether or not Ai was joking, but it almost seemed like she was. Her confusion must have showed on her face because both Marisaiko and Ai both burst into laughter.

"They're twins," Marisaiko managed to say between giggles. "Ai-chan's older by five minutes."

"Yeah, but Jirou likes to pretend that he's the tougher, stronger twin," Ai added for good measure.

"He's kind of a jerk," Kiri muttered.

"He's really not," Marisaiko assured her.

Kiri gasped, dropping the small knife when she realized a moment too late that she'd spoken out loud. "O-Oh, I didn't mean—"

To her surprise, Kagome laughed softly. "I got the impression that the two of you didn't exactly meet on the best of terms," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "The first time I met InuYasha, he saved my life—then he tried to knock my block off."

"You know, oba-chan, it's kind of a miracle that you married him," Marisaiko remarked.

"Mama loves Papa," Ai cut in.

Kagome heaved a sigh, but smiled. "I do," she allowed. "I must, anyway . . ."

Marisaiko laughed. "Well, if that's how it's done, then I guess Jirou will end up marrying Kiri-chan, too."

"Oh, don't do it!" Ai lamented. "Jirou's not nearly as much fun as he could be! You'd be bored out of your mind!" Tapping her chin with a tapered claw, she seemed to be deep in thought for a moment before finally shrugging. "Unless you like poetry and stuff, that is. Then he'd be perfect for you!"

"All right, that's enough," Kagome interrupted briskly. "Kiri-san looks like she's ready to bolt."

Ai giggled, waving a hand at Kiri. "I'm sorry; I'm sorry," she insisted between bouts of laughter. "So, I'll change the subject. What's for dinner, Mama?"

Kagome smiled at the girl. "Fish stew," she said, tilting her face to the side when Ai leaned down to kiss her cheek. "Are you eating here or did you just stop by for a change of clothes?"

Laughing softly at the teasing censure in her mother's voice, Ai shrugged as she yanked a sheathed sword from a large black bag that she let drop to the floor. "Well, I was planning on going back tomorrow," she said, leaning the sword against the wall as she headed toward one of two doors on the east side of the hut. "Jiji offered me a little job."

"Nothing dangerous, I hope?"

"Not really dangerous, no. I mean, there's nothing that dangerous on the other side, Mama," Ai called, her voice muffled by the wall. "Kei is going to go talk with the representative of the neko-youkai about renegotiating the present treaty, and he asked me to go along, just in case."

Kagome frowned. "But the treaty's still active, isn't it? No one's broken it, have they?"

Stepping out of the bedroom in clothing that closer resembled Jirou's outfit, Ai shrugged. "No, but I guess there have been rumors, so jiji just wants them to give their word that they're not going to cause trouble . . ." She made a face, wrinkling her nose. "Actually, he wanted to know if Papa would go along, but I volunteered. Besides, Papa's not very good at being the voice of reason."

"And you are?" Marisaiko challenged mildly.

The girl broke into a rather smug smile. "Well . . ."

Kagome let out a deep breath. "The neko-youkai aren't exactly fond of your father or your uncle, so be careful, Ai."

"I will, Mama," she insisted, gently taking the board from Kagome before settling down on the floor to take up the task of vegetable preparation. "Promise."

~*~*~*~*~*~

" . . . He's still there."

"I know."

" . . . I think he thinks you'll change your mind."

"Keh! He can keep thinking that."

Grabbing a very large, very unhappy fish, Jirou tossed it onto the shore, sparing a glance at the poor and rather unfortunate human who was trying to hide behind a smallish tree and failing miserably. "You could always teach him a few little things so he'll go away," he suggested in an overly-nonchalant tone.

Before InuYasha could respond, the guy tripped over a tree root that stuck out of the ground as he tried to move in a little closer. He smacked his forehead against the trunk with a sharp hiss of breath.

Jirou intercepted his father's telling look. "You just saw that, right?" he asked as he grabbed a fish and chucked it onto the bank.

Jirou sighed and nodded, figuring that InuYasha's initial statement about the guy's clumsiness wasn't far off.

"So, what's the story?"

Blinking at the abrupt change of topics, Jirou slowly shook his head. "I dunno," he allowed with an offhanded shrug. "I've never seen him before today, either . . ."

"Keh! Not his story! That girl Mari brought with her—who is she?"

"She's . . . She was hungry, so we gave her some food," Jirou replied.

He nodded. "You catch the youkai in the shrine?"

Jirou made a face as he grabbed another fish. "There wasn't one."

"Then who was stealing?"

Giving what he hoped was a casual shrug, Jirou shook his head. "We, uh, we didn't catch the thief."

InuYasha caught another fish and straightened up. "That should be enough—unless someone else shows up for dinner, anyway," he remarked, heading for the shore with the struggling fish in his hands. "Leave it to your mama to invite half of Musashi to a simple meal."

Smiling slightly at his father's disgruntled tone, Jirou slowly followed behind him, only to settle down on the bank to help clean the fish. Everyone knew that InuYasha's bark was definitely worse than his bite, especially when it came to Kagome, and, though he may not say as much and tried to act like the proverbial tough-guy, they also knew that InuYasha never turned anyone away, either.

Well, except for the guy who wanted InuYasha to teach him how to fight, that was . . .

Dragging his claws over the skin of the fish to remove the layer of scales, Jirou frowned as his thoughts wandered. He wasn't entirely sure why he wasn't telling InuYasha the truth about Kiri. Well, that wasn't entirely true. InuYasha tended to be far more outspoken, and if he had said how they had really met her . . .

'Yeah, maybe, but why do you care what your father thinks of her, anyway?'

He didn't, not really. Of course, he didn't. Why the hell would he? She'd done something wrong, and that was hardly something he was trying to cover up. It wasn't that, and even if InuYasha did offer up his opinion on the matter, Jirou doubted that he'd really hold it against her.

'Or maybe you've decided to cut her some slack?'

Letting out a deep breath, he frowned to himself. Had he done that? Was there a place in the back of his mind that had decided maybe he was being too hard on Kiri? To be fair, he supposed, he normally wasn't that quick to condemn someone, even if the whole situation really had been pretty cut and dried, or maybe Marisaiko's relatively quick acceptance of Kiri played a part in it, too. After all, Marisaiko was a damn good judge of character and always had been. Maybe it was a part of her spiritual power that allowed her to discern people so quickly. Jirou had been told often enough that he, too, was decent at the same thing—a trait that he'd inherited from his mother. Even so, there was something unsettling about Kiri, too, even if he couldn't rightfully say why.

"You gonna gut that fish or are you just gonna stare at it all afternoon?"

It took a moment for InuYasha's question to register in Jirou's preoccupation. When it finally did, he slowly shook his head. "Oh, uh, sorry. I was just . . . just thinking, I guess."

He could feel his father's gaze on him, though he didn't look to verify it. "About anything in particular?"

Somehow, he still couldn't quite bring himself to putting a words to it. "Just . . . Just about that guy," he lied, hoping that InuYasha wouldn't call his bluff.

InuYasha snorted. "Keh! What about him?"

Relieved that his father wasn't going to make an issue out of it, Jirou shrugged. "You going to feed him?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the human who was still trying in vain to hide.

InuYasha shot Jirou a foreboding glance. "And encourage him? Hell, no."

"I don't really think he needs much in the way of that."

His answer was a longsuffering sigh. "No—and don't suggest that to your mama, either."

That drew Jirou's smile. "Did he tell you why he wants you to train him, sensei?"

InuYasha balled up his fist and thumped his son soundly.

"Ow!"

"'Sensei', my ass," he growled.

Rubbing the soreness away on his head, Jirou's grin didn't falter. "Can't blame him from wanting to learn from the best, oyaji."

"Keh!" InuYasha retorted, dropping the entrails from the last fish onto a small pile of leaves before scooping up the cleaned fish to rinse in the stream. "Whatever. It still ain't happening. Now, get moving. Your mama's probably already hollering for these."

Following InuYasha, Jirou made quick work of rinsing the fish he'd cleaned, and the two of them headed back down the trail that led to the house once more. The young man ducked back behind some dense bushes, and InuYasha shook his head, muttering something about stupid pups under his breath.

It struck Jirou as a little pathetic, all things considered. Either he really was stupid or he was beyond desperate, but why in the world was he so set on learning how to fight, in the first place . . .?

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A/N:

Tadaima: "I'm back," basically. It's common for people arriving home to call this out upon entering the house.

Because of Purity, I needed to change the names of two of Sesshoumaru's children, so Morio became Kei, and Nariko became Chiasa. Isamu remained the same.

Oyaji: literally, "old man" and considered a disrespectful way to address one's father, i.e., "my old man". Jirou doesn't always call InuYasha this. Most often, he would use 'papa', but when he's being a bit more flip, he would use it. Ai is more likely to use this term for her father, though she also uses 'papa', as well.

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lianned88 ——— cutechick18

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Final Thought from Kiri:

What a weird family …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Metamorphosis 2: Legacies): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

~Sue~