InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Family Affairs ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: I only own Mitake, Sazuni, and Taki. I’m still working on the rest.

  6. Family Affair  

The hanyou looked at Miroku in disgust. He had learned early on that it was no coincidence that, any time they approached a village in the afternoon, the most affluent household in the area would invariably be troubled by evil omens or minor youkai.

Naturally, the grateful villagers would insist on providing the visitors with a meal and a place to stay the night.

In this case, however, Inuyasha knew that no phony exorcism would help the situation. A strong scent of youkai lingered about the village, especially at the eastern end. Without waiting for Miroku to make his regular pitch to the village leaders, the hanyou stepped forward. “There’s a youkai nearby. Stay back, and we’ll take care of it.”

Following Inuyasha’s nose to the small house at the easternmost edge of the village, each of the members of the group looked around carefully, alert for any sign of the destruction that usually signaled the presence of a youkai.

What they found, however, was something distinctly different. A man in his late twenties sat by the door of what was obviously his home, repairing a small basket used for storage. A young boy of ten or eleven years sat nearby, pulling weeds from the small vegetable patch, his face hidden in the shadow of the broad hat he wore.

Suddenly aware of the presence of strangers, the man jumped to his feet. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The monk raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through the area hunting youkai.”

Sango stepped in front of Miroku. “Don’t mind him--we never intended to startle you. Have you seen any sign of youkai near here?”

His eyes darted toward the woods for a fraction of a second, then he shook his head. “There’s nothing like that around here.”

Inuyasha shook his head. “Feh! I could smell that youkai all the way across the village. Now,” he said, stepping forward and reaching for his sword, “Where is it?”

Several things happened at once. The man threw himself at Inuyasha, who stepped back to avoid accidentally injuring a much weaker human opponent. As he charged ahead, he shouted for the boy to get into the house and stay there. With the instant obedience of long years of warnings, the child leaped to his feet and sprinted for the small structure, losing his hat in the process. The sun seemed to go out as an enormous white-feathered hawk with brilliant red eyes came out of the woods halfway up the nearby mountain with an ear-shattering scream of rage. The huge bird folded its wings and shot toward the strangers, talons extended. Sango ran forward, unslinging her Hiraikotsu.

“STOP!”

Inuyasha turned to see Kagome rush into the path of the diving youkai, arms outstretched. “Don’t do this!” she yelled. “We didn’t understand! Give us the chance to show you that we mean no harm to any of you!”

The hawk youkai spread its wings to brake its descent. One wing tip hit the ground and it lost control, flipping over to crash into the woods behind the small house.

Before anybody else could react, Kagome ran back to the trees. As the rest of the onlookers followed, she dived into the brush. The others had only reached the corner of the house when Kagome emerged from the woods, half-supporting a tall woman with what looked like a relatively minor injury: she was holding her left shoulder as though she had had a bad fall.

Despite her injury, the woman was a striking figure. Unusually tall and lightly built, the woman had the perfectly clear, almost translucent skin that Kagome was coming to recognize on sight. Her hair was very long, an almost luminous silver-white, and worn loose. Her eyes were perhaps her most unusual feature--a bright orange-yellow, they darted from face to face, giving her a cautious, almost hunted, look.

Even though Inuyasha’s hanyou senses told him perfectly well exactly what the situation was, he had to ask, “What the hell is going on here?”

Kagome ignored him for the moment, turning to the man who lived there and now looked absolutely stricken. “You can tell your son to come out now. We don’t want to make any trouble for your family--we just want to understand.”

At the man’s nod the boy, who had obviously been watching from inside the building, emerged. The rest of the group, who had been focused on other things, finally noticed what Kagome had seen when the boy lost his hat while running for the house. Though it was cut short, his hair had the rich silver color and uncommonly thick texture of most of the hanyous they had met. While not the amber color of Inuyasha’s, his eyes were a warm red-brown shade very like the color of polished cherry wood.

Clearly, they had stumbled into a family situation that--while not exactly common--seemed to occur more often than most people would prefer to believe. Always the peacemaker, Kagome broke out her first aid kit. Although the woman was not badly hurt, Kagome insisted on a sling. “After all,” she explained, “If the arm doesn’t heal right, what good will the wing be?”

For the first time, the three villagers took a good long look at the group that had dropped into their lives. Although the village saw its share of travelers, none of the residents had even seen a group like this one: three humans--a Buddhist monk, a youkai taijiya, and a very strange miko--two very small youkai, and a hanyou.

While that evening’s meal was perhaps not the most lavish the travelers had ever enjoyed, it was certainly one of the most interesting. Miroku was more than a little curious about the situation in this village. “I’ve never felt an atmosphere like this place before. Most of the hanyou children we’ve encountered have either been orphaned or live alone with their human parent. In either case, they are usually victimized by the humans around them. It seems to be different here.”

The woman, who called herself Sazuni, nodded. “It is. Most hanyou children lose their youkai parent very early. Because these particular youkai associate so closely with humans, they are easy targets for human hunters or enemy youkai. So many of the human parents--those who survive the loss of their youkai mates, that is--are unable to survive the isolation and abuse inflicted at the hands of their own kind. Only the hanyou children seem strong enough to live through it.”

Mitake, the farmer, picked up the thread of the story. “It must have been fifteen years ago. When I was a boy I used to set snares to catch rabbits, a few birds, and maybe even a wild pig now and then. One day I was out checking my traps when I found Sazuni at the bottom of a cliff. I was only twelve, but I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Once she regained consciousness, I helped her back to the village. She didn’t remember how she’d been hurt. She stayed with my family, and we started doing everything together. As you can probably guess, we made a great hunting team. It was only natural that would spend our lives together. We never thought of her as being youkai--she was just Sazuni.” He stood and paced briefly. “When I found out that we were expecting Taki here I started to worry: I’d talked to travelers and heard all kinds of horror stories about hanyou kids being killed just for being born.” He shook his head in wonder. “There was never the slightest hint of a problem. Everybody here knew Sazuni, you see.”

Kagome shot a quick glance at Inuyasha. She wondered just how different his life would have been if he had had the good fortune to have grown up in such an accepting atmosphere. It would have saved him a tremendous amount of pain, but she wasn’t all that sure it would have been a good thing: just maybe, all that hardship so early in his life was what had made him so strong.

She shifted her full attention back to the conversation at hand. “But what about outsiders? With all the fighting all over the countryside, either thieves or armies must have found this village at least once.”

Sazuni smiled, an unexpectedly predatory-looking expression. “Like everybody else here, I do whatever is necessary to protect my home and family.”

Despite a sometimes grim content, the conversation was fascinating. Until now, none of them had ever suspected that a place like this existed. Was it possible that other places might exist where the occasional hanyou might not only be tolerated but accepted as a friend and neighbor as well?

Just before their departure, Kagome gave Taki some of her limited supply of snack food. She also made sure that both Mitake and Sazuni knew the location of the village that they had made their base of operations. “Just in case you ever need us,” she explained.