InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Irresistible Force or immovable Object? ( Chapter 36 )

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36. Irresistible Force or Immovable Object?  

The tall inuyoukai looked from the scroll in his hand to the youkai who had brought it to him in pure disbelief. At the flicker of curiosity that crossed his features, Kagura explained, “I was told to wait for an answer.”

Sesshoumaru paced back and forth across the clearing in which she had found him on one of his endless patrols of his territory. “My idiot brother must finally have lost what little sense he had to begin with. Did he really expect that I would agree to attend this…farce?”

Kagura turned to go. “I’ll pass along your answer,” she said simply. Then, in a blast of wind that would carry her to her next destination, she was gone.

The youkai lord shook his head at this strangest turn of events. He didn’t for a second doubt that this had all been instigated by that witch his brother had taken up with. That thought nearly made him change his mind--the woman seemed to possess an almost youkailike spirit: he could not in all honesty sat that she was the same as the humans he sometimes had to casually destroy when they impeded his progress or otherwise inconvenienced him.

Shaking his head at the pointlessness of these thoughts, he returned to the campsite in which he had left his entourage.

Kagura rode the winds to her next destination, cursing the tall, cold youkai under her breath. She would certainly not be repeating his exact message to the hanyou--even to her, who had never known the warmth or affection of a family, her new lord’s deep love for his mate was a truly amazing thing. How, she wondered, had such a thing come to pass?

Returning the feather on which she had traveled to its place in her hair, Kagura walked into what appeared to be a large cave set into the side of the mountain. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer, yellowish light of the dozens--if not actually hundreds--of torches lining the large space, she realized that she had an escort of sorts. “I wish to speak to your leaders.”

As one of the wolves ran ahead, the other took her left wrist in jaws that could crush the spine of a wild boar and led her to a smaller chamber near the rear of the cave.

She didn’t have a very long wait. As she had expected, the male half of the undeniably striking pair did not look at all happy to see her. “What the hell do you want?”

She bowed her head, fully aware that he had every reason to distrust and even hate her. “Only to deliver this message,” she said, holding out the scroll, “And to return with an answer.”

Kouga took the scroll and scanned it quickly, his eyes widening in surprise, before passing it along to the female at his side. “What do you think?”

Ayamae nodded. “It’s real enough. He gave it to this youkai himself. There’s another scent on here that I don’t recognize. A human woman--an older woman, I think--but she possessed the scroll before he did.” She flashed emerald eyes at her mate. “Do you want to go?”

He considered briefly. Without Naraku’s interference their tribe was prospering--they were well fed and content, and had even been able to store quantities of food for winter, when hunting would be difficult. In a moment of complete self-honesty, he admitted that he had been growing just the slightest bit bored with the daily business of managing their tribe’s territory. “Why not?” he said. “Things have been quiet enough.”

Kagura nodded slowly, then turned to go. “I’ll tell him when I return home.”

Before she could leave, the red-haired youkai had one question. “Why didn’t they just send the messenger we left for them?”

Kagura shrugged. “My way was faster, and this is supposed to be a surprise.” Before leaving the wolf youkai Kagura made certain that they understood exactly when the event would be taking place--it would hardly do for the few invited guests who agreed to attend to miss the ceremony because they weren’t able to translate the twenty-first century dates into a more meaningful form.

Her third and final stop was also a disappointment, though for a different reason than that Sesshoumaru had given her. Although Jinenji and his--student?--would very much have liked to attend, there was a very practical reason why they had to decline: the plain truth was that Jinenji was simply too large to fir through the well. Instead, they asked if it would be possible to meet the couple when they returned from the ceremony.

Kagura returned to her new home with a lot to think about. Although she could never hope to find the kind of relationships she had seen while delivering her messages, the wide variation in the people she had met was beginning to give her hope that she might one day find someone who could care for her in the same way that….

She viciously squashed that thought, remembering that her origins were more than a little unusual, something that would make finding a mate of her own difficult if not actually impossible.

In any case, she thought, she had a job to do, and she would dearly love to slice Sesshoumaru into small pieces as part of it. She was not looking forward to informing the hanyou that his only living relation had absolutely no desire to attend the ceremony: even though Sesshoumaru had brought her back from the other world, it was Inuyasha and Kagome who had accepted her into their household and into their lives.

The hanyou listened to the report in silence, nodding slowly. He hadn’t really expected any positive answers, but now that Kouga was safely mated to Ayamae, he found that he was rather looking forward to seeing the wolf youkai again--they really did have quite a lot in common, not the least of which was a love for the human girl.

Since he had finally overcome his insecurity about Kouga, he could face the prospect of Kagome spending time in the youkai’s company without the slightest distress. There was no longer any need to prove that he was Kagome’s final choice: that would become apparent in time.

He must have still been wearing a sour expression when he emerged from his meeting with Kagura. The woman glanced up from where she was writing a letter to one of her friends from school. “Affairs of state not going well?” she asked.

Unlike the old days before they finally revealed their feelings for each other, he could no longer maintain the grouchy façade he had cultivated so successfully over the years he had lived alone. “Nothing important--just a few minor irritations. What,” he said, peering over her shoulder, “Are you up to?”

She laid down her pen and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Just writing to a couple of my old friends. Mama will be coming back tomorrow, and I want to send a couple of these letters back with her.”

He shook his head. He couldn’t believe the change in her in just a few days’ time: without the debilitating nausea, she seemed even more vibrant and alive than ever. Enfolding her in a snug embrace, he inhaled the pure fragrance of her hair unadulterated by any of the preparations even women in this time used. “You know, we have to stop meeting like this.”

She could feel his growing need and smiled. “Why would I want to do that? I don’t ever want to stop.” Pulling his head down to within easy reach, she moved her lips against his right ear. “Why don’t we take a break for a while?”

A slow smile started to grow across his features. “Exactly what did you have in mind?”

“This is completely unacceptable!” The hanyou recoiled in surprise--he had never seen her so angry.

“I did as you asked. I had an invitation delivered to him.” He would have gone on to say that he had warned her that Sesshoumaru would refuse, then decided that an “I told you so” probably wouldn’t be the single best possible course of action at the moment.

“Who delivered the invitation?” she demanded. “I want to talk to him.”

Rather than trying to talk her out of confronting the wind youkai, he pointed her in Kagura’s general direction. He had no doubt that she would be more than a match for their former adversary.

He was utterly shocked when he noticed Kagura and Kagome’s mother leaving the grounds via feather. Fast as he was, there was no way for him to catch the windborne travelers, much less track them by scent. At this point, all he could do was hope that Kagura would be strong enough to protect the woman he had come to think of as a second mother.

“Isn’t that my mother with Kagura?”

He jumped at the sound of the voice speaking right behind him. “Geez, Kagome, don’t do that!” At her suddenly contrite expression, he softened immediately. “Yeah. I guess she wanted to get a look at the area around here. She didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Well, she should be safe enough with Kagura.”  

“You should be ashamed of yourself!”

The encounter was growing both extremely refreshing and more than a little irritating. The refreshing part was because no one that he generally interacted with would ever dare to disagree with him, especially not so vehemently. The irritating part was because that disagreement centered on something whose existence he had spent the greater part of his life trying to forget. His expression never varying in the slightest, he looked at her coolly. “Why would I interrupt my activities to attend such a function? As you have no doubt been told, I have little desire to involve myself in my mongrel brother’s life in any way.”

The human woman was not at all impressed by either the power or dignity of the youkai lord. “As I understand it,” she said, her voice very much like that of a parent disciplining a disobedient child, “Much of your activities since your brother’s revival have consisted of involving yourself in his activities.”

Despite his centuries-old hatred of humans, he was beginning to admire this one for her courage and determination. Or was it simply that he could see in her what he thought that Rin might one day become? Still, he could hardly allow himself to be bullied by a human, let alone a human woman. “My idiot brother chose to take a mate without consulting me as head of the family. I am under no obligation to acknowledge this union by attending.”

The woman smiled. It gave her a slightly predatory look. Now, she thought, we’re getting somewhere. She nodded in something like sympathy. “I understand. They didn’t actually ask me either--they just told me how it was going to be.” Although she knew that Kagome would have respected her wishes had she forbidden the match--no matter how much pain it caused her, she realized that there was no need for Sesshoumaru to know that: the image of the two lovers as willful, disobedient children just might give them a small bit of common ground.

Sesshoumaru very nearly smiled. “Then you understand my position.”

She nodded. “I do. However, it is obvious--at least to me--that they have been… intimate, so it might be best to treat this as an accomplished fact. Besides,” she continued, “This isn’t quite as unsuitable a match as you might think--not only are we descended from a long line of very powerful mikos, but we also have some youkai blood in our history.”

He looked at her with a little more interest. “I’m sure that there’s very little youkai left in your line by your time in history.”

She shrugged. “You would think so, but it seems to run stronger in some of us than in others.” She watched him closely without being obvious about it.

The youkai paced briefly, then turned back to the woman. “You realize that this will change nothing. No matter what he may do, my brother is still a disgrace to this family, and I will never permit him to assume control of our lands.”

She looked at him coldly. “He doesn’t need your lands--he’s building quite a nice little holding of his own without any help from you.”

The tall youkai nodded. “Very well, you can tell him that we’ll be attending. However, there will be no fighting at this event, out of respect for your family and your traditions.”

“Excellent,” she said. “There’s just one other thing….”