InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Present Perfect ❯ Chapter 9 ( Chapter 9 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Chapter 9:

 

 

Sometimes Inuyasha just felt the need to run. By mutual consent he and Kagome had taken to leaving the restraining beads off. Sesshomaru was in Japan, and the local youkai all knew he could transform anyway. There was always a possibility that he might need to transform in a hurry and Kagome was not always readily available to remove the beads from around his neck. So they sat in her top drawer, next to the folded up miko clothes.

 

Today the weather was warm. Green things poked out of the ground and the smell of new life was overwhelming. Inuyasha blew off his business class and went for a run instead. He picked a new direction this time. South. Sooner or later he would hit the ocean, but in the meantime there were lots of back roads, rolling hills, and open fields to explore.

 

He let his hair stream out behind him, counting on his speed to hide him from human eyes. Kagome had finally bought him a pair of gray sweats, and he had to admit they were particularly comfortable for running. He smelled lots of small animals, and the occasional domesticated dog would bark at him as he passed by. He avoided the dogs because he knew that humans would be nearby and he didn't especially want to have any dealings with humans right now. It was too nice a day.

 

Eventually Inuyasha ran out of land. He tore up over a small rise and came face to face with the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately for him, there was an entire human village—no, what was it that Kagome called it, oh yeah, town—in between. Inuyasha stood at the crest of the hill and looked down on the town in dismay. He could smell the salt air from the ocean. But he would have to go through the human town to get to it. Oh, well. With a shrug of his shoulders, he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt to hide his ears, and started walking down the hill.

 

It was a typical coastal town, geared towards tourists, but on this spring day it was mostly deserted. The few locals who didn't work in the big city manned a handful of restaurants and boutiques that lined the shore road.

 

Inuyasha wasn't interested in them. He wanted to see the ocean. The town beach was closed and barred, but that was a minor inconvenience to Inuyasha. He vaulted over the gate with one hand and landed on the soft white sand beyond the parking lot. As soon as he was out of sight of the main road, he took off his shoes. Grasping them in one hand, he hastily shoved up the gathered legs of his sweatpants with the other, and waded into the water. It was cold. Where the waves churned it up, the water appeared gray. Farther out it looked black.

 

He filled his nostrils with the scent of the sea and thought about home. It was a different ocean, a different country, a different world from what he remembered, but there was something calming about the salt sea smell. He breathed in deep.

 

“Hey, you!” An official-looking man scrambled across the sands towards him. “The beach is closed. You aren't supposed to be here!”

 

Inuyasha scowled. In his hooded sweatshirt he looked like any young punk, but the eerie glow of his amber eyes made the local constable take a step back.

 

“Oh, you're one of her relatives. Why don't you go sit on Misty's beach then?”

 

“Where?” Inuyasha had no idea what the man was talking about.

 

“Misty's place. The shop on the corner.” The man pointed down the street. Inuyasha figured, why not? He'd go sit on Misty's beach if that's where he was supposed to go.

 

The shop was a combination gift shop and snack bar. From the outside it looked exactly like all the other little touristy shops that lined the street. He felt it the moment he opened the door, an otherworldly aura which pulsed gently at his senses. It wasn't terribly strong, but stronger than the auras of his own little youkai. This belonged to one of the greater ones.

 

A figure sat behind the counter at the back of the store. She looked up when Inuyasha walked in. She felt it, too.

 

Amber eyes met amber eyes. Now Inuyasha understood what the man on the beach had meant. A youkai girl with short, choppy white hair and golden eyes in a pixie face regarded him solemnly from behind the counter. “Ah,” she said. “It's you.”

 

“You know me?” Inuyasha was surprised. He had never seen this youkai before. She was in human form, which meant she had power, yet she had not been among the youkai he had met previously. It seemed there were more of them than Mr. Rinks had led him to believe.

 

“I know who you are,” she answered. “You are the one who is going to lead us into the 21st century,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. Inuyasha took in the cash register, the goods for sale lining the walls, and the coffee steaming behind her, and he smiled back, getting the joke.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm Inuyasha.”

 

The youkai girl smiled too, and stuck out her hand. Inuyasha knew what to do—he shook it. “I'm Misty,” she said.

 

Just then Inuyasha's cell phone rang. It was Kagome. He flipped it open.

 

“Where are you?” she asked. He was supposed to be in class.

 

“I'm having lunch,” replied Inuyasha. “I'll be home soon. Yeah, you too.” He snapped the phone shut. “My girlfriend,” he explained.

 

“Ah, the miko,” said Misty, surprising Inuyasha again. Why was it that everybody else knew his business but he didn't know theirs?

 

“You run this place?” he asked.

 

“I own it.” She looked like she was a teenager. Then again, so did he.

 

“And do people know . . . about you?”

 

She snorted. “What do you think? Of course, there are some that wonder.” A twinkle came into her golden eyes. “Especially the old men who remember me from when they were kids. I tell them it was my mother, or my grandmother, depending on who's asking. I see the doubt in their eyes, but no one has ever called me on it.”

 

Inuyasha frowned. It seemed this youkai was doing quite well interacting with humans without his help. “Are there more of you?” he asked.

 

Misty's eyes twinkled again. “Maybe,” she replied. “Would you like me to make you a sandwich? You did tell your miko that you were having lunch.”

 

It wasn't ramen, but it was food. Inuyasha nodded, and Misty prepared him a rare roast beef open-faced sandwich, which actually tasted pretty good.

 

“That will be $5.95,” she told him. She stood up and shook out her short, silvery whilte hair, revealing glimpses of her elfin ears. So she was full youkai. Inuyasha had been pretty sure she was, but her power level was very low, just like all the other pure youkai he had met in this country. He wondered why that was.

 

Inuyasha sat munching his sandwich, gazing out the back window at the rolling ocean. Occasionally the front door would chime and someone would stroll in to look around the shop. Two pairs of unblinking amber eyes would greet the customer, who usually didn't stay very long.

 

“Why are you here?” asked Inuyasha, meaning this place, this shop.

 

Misty shrugged. “It's my home. I prefer to stay near the ocean,” she replied. “I keep watch over the changes in the human world. Our kind know there is a safe place here if they ever should need it.”

 

“Aren't you lonely?” Inuyasha asked, guessing that despite her earlier intimations there were no other youkai nearby.

 

She smiled. “I am very old,” she told him. “Sometimes I regret I never had children, but it wasn't meant to be.” She tilted her head up and regarded Inuyasha seriously. “That's why our kind are so fragile,” she told him. “We don't breed well.”

 

Inuyasha shouldn't have been surprised. Even in his time, there were very few full youkai children. Most of the young ones were hanyou, like him. Kouga and Ayame were an exception. He had never really thought about how rare their full youkai baby would be. He hoped it had survived. Of course, the hordes of lesser youkai more than made up for the lack of greater youkai children, possibly because they weren't often born in the natural way. His presence here seemed to be stimulating some of the lesser youkai into taking on physical form, which meant that they would begin to reproduce naturally. He sighed. It would be nice if he and Kagome could have a baby soon, instead of waiting four years until school was over. He shook his head. It must be springtime making him feel this way.

 

Later he walked with Misty on her stretch of beach, and he promised to bring Kagome with him next time.

 

“Don't come in summer,” she cautioned him. “It's really crowded then. You wouldn't like it.”

 

She was right. The rank smell of all those humans so close together would drown out the soothing smell of the ocean. Anyway, he and Kagome had planned to go home in the summer—well, back to Japan. They still were unsure about using the well to go home.

 

Speaking of home, he'd better hurry. Kagome had sounded excited about something and he'd promised to come right home. He waved good-bye to Misty and let his physical form dissolve right on the beach. She watched him streak away, shading her eyes with one hand.

 

 

Inuyasha started growling halfway up the stairs. Kagome met him at the landing, a false smile pasted on her face. “Inuyasha!” she greeted him. “You'll never guess who . . .”

 

Inuyasha pushed past her and stomped over to the sofa. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

 

Kouga smiled widely. “Inuyasha! I thought you were dead.”

 

Kagome took his hand and tried to calm Inuyasha down. “Aren't you surprised? It's Kouga, after all these years.” She kept trying to tell Inuyasha something with her eyes, but he just stared at her, wondering what the hell all the blinking was about.

 

“Do I look dead?” he asked.

 

“I couldn't believe it when Sesshomaru told me you were still alive, so I just had to see for myself. Kagome here assured me you were fine.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I didn't think anything survived that blast. And Kagome,” he turned towards the puzzled girl, “how is it that you are still alive too?'

 

Obviously Sesshomaru hadn't told him about the time slip. “What blast?” Inuyasha wanted to know.

 

Kouga looked confused. “You know, when you destroyed the well. When you—disappeared, I guess—everyone thought you had died.”

 

Kagome and Inuyasha glanced at each other in concern. Is that what had happened? “What about me?” she asked.

 

“What about you? You weren't with Inuyasha when he—when he blew up. I looked for you for years after, but no one had seen a trace of you. Funny thing, Sango and Miroku weren't all that upset about your disappearance, now that I think about it. Sango kept saying you went back to your home village. I figured maybe you had heard about the mutt's death,” he glanced sideways at Inuyasha, who scowled. “and maybe you didn't want to come back.”

 

Suddenly Kouga leaned forward and sniffed. “You smell funny,” he said to Inuyasha.

 

Immediately Kagome started pushing Inuyasha towards their bedroom. “Oh, he was out all day. He probably got into something he shouldn't have,” she said. “He just needs to freshen up.” Hastily she shut the door behind them, and dug out the restraining beads from her top drawer.

 

Inuyasha quirked an eyebrow. “Got into something I shouldn't have?” he questioned, as he bent his head so she could slip the necklace on.

 

“Shh!” she cautioned. “He'll hear you.”

 

Inuyasha stripped off his sweats and put on his traditional red clothes. He sniffed himself, but he didn't think he really smelled bad. He didn't sweat like stinky humans. When he walked back into the living room, Kouga laughed out loud. “You're still wearing that?” he asked. “You look like you belong in the past.”

 

Inuyasha started. He did belong in the past. “What's wrong with these clothes?” he asked belligerently. Inuyasha wasn't too pleased to come home to find Kouga sitting on his couch, in his house, putting his damned wolf scent all over everything. He glanced at Kagome and gave a subtle sniff. Damn. Kouga's scent was on Kagome, too. He made a point of putting his arm around Kagome and drawing her close to his body, so that he could cover the offending scent with his own. Kouga just grinned.

 

Inuyasha flopped down in the chair, pulling Kagome on top of him. She didn't protest too much, although she did still try to play the gracious hostess. “So how is Ayame?” she asked Kouga.

 

“Yeah,” said Inuyasha. She should have had her kid right about now. “What did you have, a girl or a boy?”

 

“What?” Kouga wasn't following the conversation. Kagome realized that for him it had been five hundred years since the birth of his child.

 

“Inuyasha means, the last time we saw you and Ayame, she was going to have a baby. Of course, the baby would be quite old now,” Kagome rambled on, feeling the need to explain without sounding like a total idiot. “Did Sango give Ayame the bracelet for the baby?”

 

By this time, Kouga was staring incredulously at Inuyasha. “What do you mean? Don't you remember? You saved my son and Sango's son the day you—you—well, we all thought you had died protecting them. That's why I wanted to see you, to thank you, now that I found out you really are still alive. And yes, Kagome, our family and Sango's family each has a bracelet that is passed down from first son to first son. Over the years we've intermarried back and forth, so I'm not sure which one is which, but the tradition is that one is for the youkai child, and one is for the human, or hanyou child.”

 

Inuyasha was still stewing over the information that apparently he had met both Kouga's and Sango's children. That meant he must have gone back fairly soon. Why the hell hadn't Sesshomaru told him about this, especially after all the times he had specifically asked him what had happened to them. Unless it was because he really did die, and Sesshomaru knew it and didn't want to tell him. Inuyasha glanced cautiously at Kagome. She had realized the same thing. The color had drained from her face, and she clutched his hand fiercely.

 

Kouga shook his head again. “Something serious must have happened to you, man, if you can't remember that day. Kagome, what did you do? Save him with your miko powers? Bring him to your home village? I don't think even Sesshomaru thought you were alive until just recently.”

 

“It was something like that, I guess,” murmured Kagome. Inuyasha could still hear her heart thump rapidly. She was upset. He was, too. Obviously Kouga was talking about something in the past that hadn't happened to Inuyasha yet.

 

“I need to talk to Sesshomaru,” he said abruptly, standing and nearly spilling Kagome to the floor. He yanked out his cell phone. “Kagome, don't get too close to him,” he said. “I'll be right back.” He opened the front door and sprang over the railing into the branches of the nearest tree to make his phone call in privacy.

 

On the sofa, Kouga pulled out his wallet. “Would you like to see my kids?” he asked.

 

Kagome ignored Inuyasha's command, and scooted next to Kouga. “Oh, yes!”