InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity ❯ Tetsusaiga ( Chapter 47 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

InuYasha flopped down in the chair with an apparent air of dejection. Sesshoumaru wisely hid his amusement behind an otherwise bored expression. "You gave up?"

Pinning his brother with a murderous scowl, InuYasha snorted in response and flexed his claws. "I went to every jeweler in Tokyo, Sesshoumaru. There weren't any that suited her, so yes, I gave up."

Shippou wasn't so kind as to hide his own humor. Having been dragged all over Tokyo with the volatile hanyou, he wasn't about to hide the fact that he found this particularly entertaining. "He's not kidding. We did go to all of them," he remarked to Sesshoumaru.

"Shut up, Shippou," InuYasha growled.

"What was wrong with all the rings you looked over?" Sesshoumaru asked, cutting in to stave back the inevitable head-thumping he knew was brewing in InuYasha's mind.

InuYasha sat back with another glower directed at the kitsune youkai. Shippou laughed. Sesshoumaru shook his head. "They weren't big enough," Shippou remarked before InuYasha could answer. "And we looked at some seriously huge rocks."

"It wasn't that," InuYasha grumbled. "There weren't any . . ." He sighed, gripping his forehead in his clawed hand and rubbing furiously.

Sesshoumaru hid a small smile behind a thoughtful hand to his mouth. "Let me make some calls. I have a few favors due me, and I know some gentlemen who may be able to help you."

InuYasha shook his head. "I want to do this," he replied. "I don't need your help."

Shippou and Sesshoumaru exchanged What-Can-You-Do? looks. InuYasha, luckily, missed them.

He'd thought about what Rin had said. Her comment that Kagome might want to get married reminded him of the day she'd spent with her school friends, of the wistful look on her face when they'd all discussed their future weddings. Kagome had said she wanted something small, with only family and maybe a few close friends in attendance. He figured he could do that, for her. But this elusive thing, this diamond ring, was the trouble now. He wasn't joking at all. Shippou and he had spent the greater portion of the day trekking from one jewelry story to another in hopes that InuYasha could find the ring that he thought would suit Kagome. He was starting to think there wasn't such a thing.

Common logic told him that it wouldn't matter. Kagome would be thrilled, no matter what he offered her. But InuYasha wanted her to know, wanted her to understand, just how special she was to him. For that reason, none of the creations he'd looked at today were quite what he had wanted.

It just figured. It really did.

"Too bad you didn't keep any of the diamonds you made when you used the Kongousouha before," Shippou said with a chuckle. "You could have used one of those."

InuYasha was about to retort when he realized that Shippou didn't really have that bad an idea. "I've got Tetsusaiga," he remarked a little too casually.

Sesshoumaru's expression turned grave. "Do you think that throwing around the Kongousouha is a good idea? You'd destroy half your forest."

"Keh!" Unfortunately, he had to concede Sesshoumaru's point on that. Another idea occurred to him.  He shot Sesshoumaru a surreptitious glance. "Your yard's big enough."

Shippou snorted. "Are you kidding? Kagura would kill him."

Sesshoumaru cast the kitsune a dark stare. "This Sesshoumaru fears not his mate."

It was InuYasha and Shippou's turn to exchange doubtful looks. "He's lying," Shippou remarked.

InuYasha nodded slowly. "He is."

Sesshoumaru actually looked slightly irritated, which meant that he was very much so.  "Fetch your Tetsusaiga, InuYasha."


" Kongousouha!"

"Damn!" Shippou breathed, shielding his face as the diamond spears and shards flew from the Tetsusaiga. InuYasha stood back, proudly observing the wreckage left in the wake of the explosion.

"Pathetic," Sesshoumaru commented in a drier-than-usual tone. "I could have created ten times the desecration your puny attack did."

InuYasha jammed Tetsusaiga blade down into the nearly-frozen earth and paused in his task of picking through the diamonds left behind. "Be my guest, if you think you can."

"Sesshoumaru can't touch it," Shippou remarked. "The last time he tried, it nearly burned off his arm."

"Yeah, but Toga did the other day, and it didn't hurt him. Wonder why . . . ?" InuYasha commented, still distracted as he sifted through debris.

"What do you mean, Toga did? Why were you allowing the child to touch Tetsusaiga when you knew it should have burned him?" Sesshoumaru asked, anger infiltrating his tone.

InuYasha straightened up enough to stare at his brother. "I didn't let him. You make it sound like I handed the damn thing to him. He slipped. He grabbed the hilt before he fell. It was only for a few seconds, and I checked him right afterwards. It didn't hurt him at all, though, which was sort of strange."

Sesshoumaru didn't answer though he looked no less pleased with InuYasha's confession.

"Maybe," Shippou said slowly, drawing the gaze of the other two, "the barrier on Tetsusaiga was rendered useless when you went through the well, InuYasha. Maybe your father only meant for it to be effective for a certain time, since he probably didn't know what sort of mate you'd have. If you had a full youkai mate, your children would be youkai, you know? Surely he hadn't meant to make it so that you couldn't pass down Tetsusaiga down to your own son."

InuYasha thought that over. He had to admit that it made sense. The barrier could have been destroyed in the passage of so many years. It would make sense as far as why Toga hadn't been hurt at all when he'd touched it. "Could be. Or it could be that Tetsusaiga knows just how much of a bastard Sesshoumaru is and hates him because of it."

Sesshoumaru didn't answer. Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and grasped the sword's handle. Satisfied that he wasn't about to lose another arm, he jerked Tetsusaiga free and held it up. "Watch and learn, baby brother," Sesshoumaru commented as the blade transformed into the fang. Grasping the hilt, drawing back the sword, Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes as he gazed off into the distance. "That yon tree," he said, nodding his head toward a lone tree on the distant horizon.

"You can't hit that," Shippou scoffed.

"I should have gone with my first instinct and cut you down when you asked to marry Rin," Sesshoumaru commented, which only served to widen the kitsune's smile.

Sesshoumaru brought the sword down. InuYasha had to admit, at least to himself, that he was impressed with the brilliant diamond shards that flew from the sword. The spears flew over the land. Moments later, the bright explosion as the spears struck echoed in their ears. When the dust settled, the tree that Sesshoumaru had indicated was gone. The tai-youkai nodded once at InuYasha and stuck the sword back into the ground.

"I can do that," InuYasha insisted, grabbing his sword. He scanned the horizon to find a suitable target and grinned when he found it. "There," he said, pointing Tetsusaiga's blade at the object in question.

"Highly doubtful, baka," Sesshoumaru taunted.

"Hide and watch," InuYasha said with a snort.  "Kongousouha!"

Shippou grimaced as the light burst from Tetsusaiga again, this time brighter than InuYasha's initial strike. Sesshoumaru took the sword from InuYasha and picked his next target.

The brothers were well matched. Sesshoumaru had finesse with the sword. InuYasha had pure brute strength. Time and again they outdid one another. Shippou winced as he stared at the havoc the two were leaving in their wake. No doubt about it, Kagura was going to have both their heads. He grinned. His father-in-law was going to end up on the sofa for at least a few months for this display, and that, in Shippou's opinion, was well worth the ringing ears he'd get from Rin for `letting them' destroy the yard.


Kago me sank down at the table with Rin and Kagura. Toga stomped through the room, inconsolable since his mother had forbidden him from going outside with the men. Kagura had maintained that it was much too cold for him.

"InuYasha tells me you're taking some courses at the junior college," Kagura said over her mug of tea.

"History mostly," Kagome remarked. "That sounds kind of funny, doesn't it?" She sat up straighter. A clap of thunder had sounded in the distance. "Strange," she commented. "Pretty late in the year for thunderstorms."

Rin nodded slowly. "It is, isn't it?" She sighed. "Has InuYasha changed his mind about having a family?"

Kagome visibly stiffened at the reminder. "No, and I don't really expect him to. He wouldn't have said it to start with, if he hadn't thought about it. He's not like that."

She stifled a sigh. If she wanted to be completely honest with herself, that was the only thing that wasn't wonderful about her relationship with InuYasha. There had been a few times recently, when it had seemed as though he was trying to ask her something about children, about a family. Kagome had been too scared to hope, too worried to listen, and, in all those cases, too angry at him afterward to think about it at all. She'd cut him off any way she could, because . . . It was too much to hope, that he would have changed his mind. Though she had made the choice to stay with him, she didn't know if she could forgive him, if he was the reason she let herself hope only to be disappointed in the end.

"Maybe if you talk to him about it," Rin said, carefully keeping her eyes averted. "Maybe he has changed his mind."

Kagome shrugged, hoping for nonchalance and realizing it fell well short when both Rin as well as Kagura made sympathetic noises. "I'm just happy that he came for me." That wasn't a lie. She was very happy with him. There were just moments when she found herself wishing . . .

`Stop that, Kagome! You agreed, you know. No one made you do it.'

"If it's meant to be, then it will be," Kagura said. "Though I must admit, it surprises me, how good he really is with children."

She smiled. "I know . . . He said he wanted to get his certificate in elementary education."

"You know, Nori thinks the sun rises and sets in him. I'm not sure what he said to her when she was having trouble at school, but she says InuYasha was the one who made her feel better."

Another rumble reverberated outside. Kagome frowned. The other women glanced toward the window but said nothing about the noise. "I have to admit," Kagura said as she refilled cups, "when Sesshoumaru suggested having InuYasha teach, I thought he had lost his mind. Maybe he knows his brother better than InuYasha would like to believe."

"It was Sesshoumaru's idea? I thought it was yours."

Kagura smiled. "Sesshoumaru gives me far too much credit, as far as InuYasha is concerned. It's hard for him to express his feelings, after all, and given the history between the two, it's understandable."

"Why did InuYasha want Tetsusaiga, anyway?" Kagome asked to change the topic as she lifted Aiko into her lap. Aiko kissed her cheek.

Kagura frowned. "I don't know. Sesshoumaru just came in and asked that I call you to have you bring it."

Kagome jumped as another dull thump sounded but this one was much louder, and it certainly wasn't thunder. The noise was vaguely familiar, something she ought to know. "What is that?" she questioned suspicion ebbing over her as she started to rise out of her chair. She did know that sound. But surely InuYasha wouldn't . . .

Rin stared out the window. "I don't know. I don't see . . ." she trailed off, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened in disbelief. Her gasp was audible.

"What?" Kagura asked, her tone indicating that she was probably better off not knowing.

Toga hopped up and down happily, pointing at the window. "Tou-san and Yasha-jiji are blowing stuff up!"

"What?"

Kagome and Kagura both ran to the window though Kagome was slower since she was still holding Aiko. What she saw made her gasp, too. InuYasha brought down Tetsusaiga as diamonds exploded from the wave of energy that shot out of the sword. They streaked across the ground, looking like nothing more than a firefly in the summer. She flinched at the even larger explosion as the spears hit whatever target InuYasha had chosen.

Kagura looked fit to kill. "Of all the stupid . . ." She drew a deep breath and turned away from the window, dragging Toga away, too, despite the child's protests. Toga wiggled free from Kagura and ran out of the room. Kagura shook her head as he disappeared from view, likely to find a window with a better view of the action.

Kagome was at a loss. "Kagura, I'm so sorry . . . I have no idea what they're thinking . . ."

Rin snorted—a sound that was wholly out of character for the delicate woman. "What they're thinking? How about `if' they're thinking?"

Suddenly, Kagura chuckled. "Maybe they'll kill each other and save me the trouble."