InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Present Perfect ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Chapter 3:

 

 

“Sesshomaru, you bastard!” Inuyasha flew across the room at his brother and punched him square in the face. Or tried to. Sesshomaru was not where he had been a moment ago. Instead, he stood just to the right and glared at Inuyasha for making him dodge so suddenly in a roomful of humans. Keh, thought Inuyasha, as if the humans would even notice.

 

Sesshomaru gripped his arm and leaned in close. “Is there a problem, Inuyasha?” he asked in a deceptively mild voice. Then he sniffed, very unhumanlike, and said tersely, “There's something different about you. What is it?”

 

Inuyasha wrenched his arm out of his brother's grasp and pulled back. With effort he kept his lip from curling to reveal his fangs. “Wouldn't you like to know?” he taunted. “Yes, there's a problem, Sesshomaru. You.” Inuyasha lowered his voice.

 

The other patrons of the restaurant went back to their meals as Inuyasha's raised voice died down and he sat across the table from Sesshomaru. They spoke Japanese, fairly confident that none of the humans around them would be able to understand. Sesshomaru had agreed to meet Inuyasha for lunch at the same mall where Inuyasha had bought his cell phone last Christmas.

 

“What did you do to my youkai?” Inuyasha demanded. “What did you do to my forest? I come back, all set to take up my duties as a youkai Lord, which you asked me to do in the first place, and I find out you've been going behind my back.”

 

“What are you talking about, Inuyasha?” asked Sesshomaru in a tired voice.

 

“You know damn well what I'm talking about!” Inuyasha growled. “You've been coming around here while I was gone, stirring up trouble. . . .”

 

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed. “Trouble? What trouble have I caused? You'd better be more specific, Inuyasha.”

 

“You were at my house. You met with Mr. Rinks and the others when I told you I would handle them, and you drove my youkai away from my forest. Did you bring the humans there too, or were you trying to stop them?” Inuyasha took a breath, ready to continue his tirade. Sesshomaru didn't give him the chance.

 

“Idiot.” He slapped an envelope full of papers on the table in front of Inuyasha. “Take a look at the trouble I was causing.”

 

“What is it?” Inuyasha grasped the envelope between two claws and shook the papers inside free. They were drawings.

 

“You said you wanted that place,” Sesshomaru said. “I told you I would see what I could do. The forest and that mountaintop now belong to you—in the human sense. I thought you might want to build a house for your miko -isn't that what you wanted to do?”

 

Inuyasha sank down in his seat. He didn't know what to say. He had misjudged his brother. “Sesshomaru,” he murmured, “uh, thanks.” He knew he should say something else, something to make it better, but instead he said, “Why did you drive away the smaller youkai?”

 

Sesshomaru asked, “What youkai?”

 

Suddenly Inuyasha didn't feel quite so guilty for his earlier remarks. He sighed, then explained about the fox-girl, Valynne, and the others who had manifested after meeting Inuyasha. “They kind of look up to me,” he said awkwardly.

 

Sesshomaru guessed that the youkai had reacted to the presence of humans and the destruction of some of the forest. He advised Inuyasha to reassure them that their forest would be safe, and acclimate them to the occasional presence of humans while his house was under construction.

 

“So what're these?” asked Inuyasha, fingering the drawings. “Plans?”

 

They're sketches by EJM. Look them over and see which of the ideas appeals to you. Then you can meet with him to finalize the designs.”

 

Inuyasha turned the papers round and round so he could see the sketches from different angles. He already had a few ideas of how he wanted his house to look.

 

When Kagome met him an hour later, Sesshomaru was already gone. She held up two plastic bags. “I bought you some clothes,” she said with a big smile. Inuyasha was underwhelmed.

 

He showed Kagome the plans for the house when they got home. He wanted her to help him decide which options to pick. After all, it would be her home, too. He didn't want to let the others know about it, though. Not yet. Kagome agreed with him, to his relief. She thought Inuyasha's youkai were too fragile to be exposed to too many humans. Fragile. Youkai. The two words didn't seem to go together, but it was true.

 

“What did Sesshomaru say about meeting Mr. Rinks and the others?” asked Kagome, as she laid out two new shirts on the bed for Inuyasha to try on.

 

“He really was checking up on me,” Inuyasha said. He picked up one of the shirts, sniffed it, then shrugged it on and struggled with the stupid buttons. Why did she always pick shirts with buttons when she knew it was hard for him with his claws?

 

“And you're Ok with that?”

 

Inuyasha scowled. “No,” he mumbled, shrugging the first shirt off and going through the same routine with the second one. This one pulled over his head, so he didn't have to fight with the buttons. “I'd be more furious if Mr. Rinks and the others didn't tell him to f—`' The rest of what he said was muffled as his head was inside the shirt, but Kagome could guess what he'd said.

 

“They did?” she asked, eyes shining. She would have liked to have seen that.

 

Inuyasha nodded, and stripped off the second shirt. “I'll keep this one—I don't like the other one,” he said. “He told me they wouldn't even talk to him, that he wasn't their leader, I was. That's all. He still wants to meet them. Maybe I'm stupid, but I told him I'd bring him to our meeting next week.”

 

“Are you sure that's wise?” asked Kagome.

 

“No. But I still want to talk to Sesshomaru about what went on after we left the Sengoku Jidai. He's gonna tell me what happened to us back there sooner or later. I'm throwing him a bone, that's all.” He pulled his fire rat robe back on and wandered out into the living room to watch TV.

 

Kagome was impressed. Inuyasha was using reason to solve a problem. She folded the pullover she'd bought for Inuyasha and put it in his dresser drawer. Then she picked up the dress shirt, surveyed it critically for a moment, and hung it in the closet.

 

 

They met him and his brother at the top of the mountain, stony-faced, these youkai who ordinarily kept to themselves. Inuyasha didn't know if he and Sesshomaru were solving their youkai problems, or causing them.

 

Mr. Rinks and the others had grudgingly agreed to the meeting, at Inuyasha's request. In a way, Inuyasha found it gratifying that they were so suspicious of Sesshomaru. He still found it puzzling that they accepted him instead.

 

Sesshomaru knew there was something different about him. Inuyasha caught him glancing over at him frequently, nostrils flaring slightly as he attempted to categorize the change in Inuyasha's scent, as they made their way up the hill to the meetingplace. It was only a matter of time before he would figure it out. Inuyasha needed to establish his position among these new world youkai before that happened.

 

The youkai sat on the same rocks as they had before. Fenn, amused as always, with his leather jacket and black jeans; Skye in the flowing gown of a bygone era, Amber of the pale hair in an incongruous housecoat, and Mr. Rinks dressed in casual sweats, much like Sesshomaru wore. Only Inuyasha, red-clad as usual, had brought his sword, although he knew Sesshomaru's was somewhere about. For all he knew, all the youkai could have hidden weapons about them. Hell, he could have done it too, with Tetsusaiga, except that he didn't want to let Sesshomaru know he was able to do it—yet. They all, even Skye with her old-fashioned outfit, had cell phones.

 

“I'm back,” Inuyasha announced, as if they hadn't already known it, as if he hadn't been in communication with many of them since he'd stepped through the well. “Some of you already know Sesshomaru.” He indicated his brother, who stood next to him, just as stony-faced as the others. “Anything you want to tell me, you can say in front of him.” It was a bluff. Inuyasha prayed they wouldn't mention his transformations.

 

“You called us here,” another youkai, this one with hair black as Inuyasha's on his moonless nights, but with eyes an inhuman shade of pale purple, addressed Inuyasha. The youkai bristled with resentment at being summoned, and he made his feelings clear in his stance, in his scent. That was unacceptable.

 

Inuyasha saw Sesshomaru stiffen beside him. He'd just have to wait his turn. Inuyasha would deal with this youkai. “You are the ones who need me—I don't need you,” he told the dark-haired youkai matter-of-factly. Unconsciously he had moved in closer, so that his face was inches from the unhappy youkai in front of him. “You can leave if you don't want to be here. But if you leave, you're done. I won't call you again.” Inuyasha turned away and folded his arms.

 

The youkai half-stood, uncertain, then sat back down again. “I'll stay,” he said quietly.

 

“Here's the thing,” Inuyasha told them, “I'm here, at least for four years, so you can come to me with any youkai problems, like the one at the library. Amber nodded. She had been the youkai who had first alerted them to the problem back in December. Inuyasha continued speaking. “I realize that I seem to be causing the lesser youkai to manifest, though I'm still not sure exactly why. So I'm taking responsibility for it. Sesshomaru explained some of it to me. You should listen to what he has to say. He's been through this in Japan.” Inuyasha was guessing at a lot of what he was telling these youkai. He only had what little knowledge Sesshomaru had imparted in this time, combined with what he had seen when he went back to the Sengoku Jidai in December, and what connections he had made from those two disparate bits of information. He had guessed the middle part.

 

“Why should we care what happened in Japan?” Fenn asked it. He felt comfortable enough around Inuyasha that he was reasonably sure Inuyasha wouldn't bite his head off for asking. “What did happen, anyway?”

 

Sesshomaru uncharacteristically glanced at Inuyasha, as if silently asking for permission to answer. He was acknowledging Inuyasha's position of leadership, and they both knew it. Inuyasha nodded. Besides, he was interested in hearing the answer himself.

 

“Humans,” said Sesshomaru. “Humans happened.”

 

Inuyasha was disappointed. He knew all that already. The youkai in front of him were nodding their heads, however. He settled back to listen. Hopefully Seshsomaru would go into some detail and he would find out what had really occurred during the past five hundred years.

 

“Their settlements, and their squabbles, and their sheer numbers took over the wild places, driving those of us who dwelled within them away. Like you, many of us withdrew from the physical world. Unlike you, some of us were prepared for what was happening, and we adapted.” Here Sesshomaru looked at Inuyasha, who was startled. Had his little hints on the other side actually helped? It was strange to think that his actions in the past had a direct bearing on what he was doing right now. Which came first? His hints to Sesshomaru in the Sengoku Jidau? Sesshomaru's revelations to him before he went back last Christmas? Inuyasha shook his head. It was too confusing.

 

Sesshomaru had the attention of the seated youkai now. “Like you, many of the greater youkai prefer to remain solitary. Even those of us with ties to our animal, like myself, kept to our own places and seldom interacted with other youkai. We are spirit. Youkai like Inuyasha, however, remain truer to their physical aspect. Dogs are social creatures, and so my brother surrounded himself with other beings, both human and youkai. And he thrived.”

 

Inuyasha blinked in startlement. Him? He himself was Sesshomaru's shining example of survival?

 

Sesshomaru continued. “Long ago, when the youkai in Japan first started withdrawing due to the encroachment of humans on their territories, I noticed that not all youkai were affected. Those who maintained contacts with other youkai and humans had a more solid connection to the world around them, even though the wild places were shrinking. I followed my brother's example and actively sought out youkai groups and humans who had some awareness of youkai affairs. In other words, I surrounded myself with others and thus I survived.”

 

“So you're saying we should keep contact with each other, and become more visible in the human world, too?” asked one of the youkai. “I thought we're already doing that.”

 

“You are here because Inuyasha commanded it,” replied Sesshomaru, ignoring the outraged looks his statement generated. “If neither he nor I had sought you out, would you have bothered to gather together like this?”

 

“Maybe not to this extent,” answered Mr. Rinks, “but we knew about each other. We communicated, when it was necessary.”

 

“It is necessary if you want to survive,” Sesshomaru said.

 

Inuyasha could tell that the surrounding youkai were not buying Sesshomaru's story. No wonder. He didn't explain things, he just said that's how it is, end of story. He had never liked it, either. Maybe he could turn this in another direction. “So how do we change things here?”

 

“These youkai need to get more involved in human affairs, not less. They need to work together with humans to preserve open spaces. If that means joining some green organizations, then that's what they need to do. Quite simply, they could buy tracts of land in the human way, and use them as camps or parks or wildlife refuges—things they are doing already on a small scale, just much more actively. They need to function as humans for the good of youkai.”

 

“Is that what you did in Japan?” Another youkai spoke up.

 

“In a way. There are entire youkai villages in Japan, but you wouldn't know it because they blend right in with the humans. And someone has to act as go-between for them. There are humans who perform that function, humans like Inuyasha's miko.” A fleeting look of regret crossed Sesshomaru's face. “But I oversee them all, since I was there from the beginning. It's what I tried to do here, also, but it's just as well that Inuyasha has agreed to take over this territory. It isn't easy.”

 

“Didn't Inuyasha help you in Japan?” asked Fenn. Of course Fenn would think to ask that. Inuyasha wondered how Sesshomaru would answer. Inuyasha hadn't been around for all those intervening years. He did not know who the surviving youkai in Japan were, or where their villages might be. Although he had his suspicions.

 

“No.” replied Sesshomaru. Nothing more. The other youkai looked questioningly at Inuyasha, who was annoyed at Sesshomaru for having thrown it back in his lap.

 

“I helped,” he defended himself. “Sesshomaru doesn't know everything I do.” There. Put it back on Sesshomaru. Unfortunately, his brother didn't care. Typical. “Anyway, I agree with Sesshomaru. You people seem scared of getting too close to humans. This is what I suggest. You each find one human whom you trust, and tell that person you are youkai. It doesn't have to be today or even this year. We live a long time. But that's your homework.” Inuyasha thought he was clever, with the homework reference. If he had to do homework, then he could dish out homework to his youkai, couldn't he?

 

Fenn grinned. “I already got mine,” he said. “Jen.”