InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Knots ( Chapter 43 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

Chapter Forty-Three: Knots

 

 

“Ha, I knew it,” the old man announced proudly, flashing a sparingly toothed grin at his unimpressed wife stooped out of sight. “His name is Momotaro.”

 

“Of course it is, dear,” she remarked disinterestedly amid the sounds of her bustle as she busily checked on the food. Bubbling eagerly while it cooked, it hung in an iron pot over the popping fire nestled in the blackened hearth. “It is always Momotaro. Who else would it be after so many years?”

 

“Well, it wouldn't do you any harm to be surprised once in a while, wife,” he grumbled cantankerously, eyeing her answering charming smile with a marked scowl. “The boy just popped out of a peach pit. How often is that supposed to happen?”

 

“Only once.”

 

“Then pretend as if it's been only once,” he growled, crossing his lean, age spotted arms against his chest in his obstinacy. “We only have one role to perform here. It would be nice if you would do it right.”

 

“Yes, yes,” she acquiesced sweetly, returning to his side with a black lacquered bowl brimming with rice and accented with a few pickled vegetables. “My child, here is your dinner should you be hungry.”

 

“Wait,” Kagome said abruptly, her momentary sheepishness besieged by her innate curiosity, “You both know this story is repeating over and over? You both know about the poem and the scroll?”

 

“Naturally, child,” the elderly woman replied, “We have been aware of it for many years now.”

 

“So, then are you prisoners of Susanou? Like Shiro-sama and The Dragon King?”

 

“No, no, we are not anything so fancy as former enemies or disparagers of the great god of storms. We are only conjurations of the scroll he created and nothing more.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Do not be disappointed, young man,” she reassured with a gentle smile, setting the dish of rice on the table. “I am sure there is a prisoner within this tale and an inquisitive soul like yourself will indeed find out whoever it may be. Until then have some supper to give you strength for your long journey ahead.”

 

“That's too much,” the school girl objected while she carefully began to ease the rest of her body out from beneath the still slumbering demon lord. Biting her bottom lip anxiously as she slid away, her wary sight focused on his peaceful expression as he sank further into the dished pit. Finally free of her heavy and warm youkai blanket, Kagome unsteadily rose to her sharply tingling feet. While she was certain Sesshoumaru continued to sleep, the bitter barbs of her nerves painfully told her that her legs however had just awoken. Wincing in her discomfort, her eyes rose to the massive and inquisitive couple overhead, reminding her of the glaring frustrations she had once experienced as the tiny adventurer, Issunboshi. “I don't want to be ungrateful, but it would take me months to eat all of that. I would be honored and satisfied with one kernel. Two at the most.”

 

“Child, this is less food than you believe.”

 

“How do you mean? To you it is a small supper, but for someone as tiny as me, it's well, huge!”

 

“Do not debate it, young man. Simply step out of your pit and you shall see.”

 

“All right, if you say so,” Kagome whispered moodily, begrudgingly lured into prickling movement by the mystery in the old woman's request and her unrelenting sweetness. Minding the tails of her hapi coat with one hand, she gingerly stepped over the rim of the pit and onto what she had expected to be the worn smooth and rippled grains of the wooden table. In a shimmering flash of blue sparks, the school girl disappeared, enveloped by a swirling burst of light. The radiance grew as it sparkled and a moment later she emerged from its brilliant glitter, tumbling gracelessly in her restored height from the low table and onto the hard packed dirt floor. There she lay, coughing lightly on the dusty air that her impact had stirred up and indulging in the rare peace her passing daze had brought.

 

“He is indeed a son,” the old man announced proudly with his checkered smile and a newly acquired pipe at his lip, nodding toward the boy his eyes saw and beneath the slightly unfurled folds of the now open coat.

 

“Eep!” Kagome squeaked, flushing hot in embarrassment as her hands scrambled for the garment and she quickly wrapped her burning humiliation in the cool silk.

 

“There is nothing to be ashamed of, lad,” he chuckled at the fluster and then at the well-earned, hot glare swiftly leveled at him. “And there is nothing you have that hasn't been seen countless times in our company. At any rate, you should take pride in being a man. It's privilege to be born one, you know.”

 

“I don't know about that,” she huffed under her breath.

 

“I'm sorry, my boy. My ears are not what they once were. You were saying something?”

 

“Oh, it's nothing. Never mind,” she quickly replied with a weak smile, nervously straightening and smoothing the undercoat she wore with her fingers. Inwardly, she was relieved that what remained of her modesty had in a strange way been preserved by the thin shroud of magic. However, that same veil would conceal little from the gaze of the eventually waking demon resting in the small, cleaved pit on the table. “I'm not one to shirk the obvious gift of being a boy, but would it be possible to have some clothes appropriate for more than just your company?”

 

“What?”

 

“I believe our son would like some more suitable attire, dear,” the old woman spoke gently, her hand patting her husband affectionately on the shoulder before she approached their awkward child who had since risen cautiously from the dirt floor. “I think there might be a few relics about from when your father was still young and fit.”

 

“Bah, woman,” the elderly man objected coarsely, rubbing the rounded belly at his waist with one hand as the other cradled his pipe. “If you didn't like me softer, you wouldn't cook what you do.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Dark and heavy were his dreams, cunningly dungeoning the demon's mind under the guise of restful sleep. They appeared as an insidious, purple fog to his dreaming eyes, entombing his body within its impenetrable vapor while its tendrils seeped into his chest. There they coiled in their menace, seizing his lungs of the air he could not breathe and straining his racing heart to pump the blood he did not have.

 

Despite the needling pain coursing through him, the tai youkai remained focused amid the exploits of the sinister smoke, unwilling to acknowledge it as anything more than an illusion. Ultimately, he knew this dream was only a figment of his caged mind and the indignity of cowering before a nightmare disturbed him more than the tortured memory it conjured. At least, he would have appreciated it if it were that simple.

 

He snarled through gritted teeth as a wet wave of agony washed over him. His arm firmly pinned within the vise of fog, Sesshoumaru found he was sincerely pleased that he could not give into the temptation of rending his chest apart as he had done before. Then his growling frustration paused as a strange thought slipped through the hazy plumes of his prison, lingering while he contemplated on the bloody stains he had awoken to on the beach not long ago. Here in the imaginings of his dreams and away from protective barriers that shielded his flesh, he wondered. If loosed from the binds of smoke, would he rip away his incorporeal body until only an empty husk of himself remained? In a disconcerting way, did he need his claws to achieve such a notion?

 

“The curse is what it is. Your anger will not change its fate. Your actions will not change its fate. There is nothing that will change its fate,” a voice echoed, its warmth outweighing the sternness of the words. Through the glowing spots of white that dyed the youkai lord's vision, the vapor took shape. Harnessing the shadows born of the smoke and the light born from the pain reflected in his sight, a silhouetted image of a smirking great grand-sire emerged before him. Again it spoke, eliciting a scowl from the great grand-pup with every mirthful and yet serious syllable. “I feel no shame for the sacrifices I have made or the squandered gifts I have given away for there is true honor and pride in every action.”

 

“Hn, it is not so simple. What I feel is not what I wish to.”

 

“Matters of the heart and the soul can affect even the most disciplined of warriors, pup. A swordsman or an army is easy to fight. Your enemies are your enemies and he who is better with the blade or has the most luck on his side will win. Simple. A curse however, is a far more powerful thing, especially when shame is concerned. How insidious our minds can be, spoiling us without even drawing a sword.”

 

“And your remedy?”

 

“Remember your pride and your honor. Remember what it truly means to give. If you do, then the curse will never claim you again.”

 

“How I desire for it to be as effortless as you have said. I heeded your words once and felt the weight of shame lift, but what I have done now is more than gift an undeserving man a wooden mortar. This trial has struck far deeper.”

 

“This rice is so good! It just melts in my mouth. Do you have any more pickled plums?”

 

“What?”

 

“Are those rice cakes for me too? Oh wait… those are for the journey, right? You both are the best imaginary parents ever.”

 

A feathery halo of ivory light welcomed the golden hued sight of the waking demon lord. The warm radiance filtered through the soft pile of his pelt, its downy length wrapped comfortably around him during his former slumber and contentedly over his face to block the uninvited rays of the persistent sun.

 

“Hn,” he grunted while he laboriously untangled the fur cocoon, its fond embrace subtly reminding him of the sinister coils of purple fog that had mired his dream. Slowly freeing his body, the tai youkai sighed lightly and wearily as the cause of his nightmare grew more apparent while he unraveled. Between his long pelt and the binding weight of his heavy armor, he had been inadvertently imprisoned by little more than himself. A scowl of disgust furrowed his brows and faintly frowned his lips at the obvious result.

 

Then with another sigh, he easily dismissed the torments exacted within his dreams as unfortunate consequences of his exhaustion, another cost of his momentary fatigue. Their suggested importances were soon lost as he purged them each from his mind until only a lingering knot remained. Unwilling to be forgotten, it tightened in his chest. It was a strange and foreign sensation to him, this tangle of dread. This snarl of doubt. Intrigued, the youkai was slow to notice the dark shadow that fell over him.

 

“Sesshoumaru-sama?” a loud, feminine and familiar voice called out to him. His tired gaze rose up, discovering the broad plane of the concerned miko's face. Silently, he noted it was much larger than what his memory recalled. “You're finally awake.”

 

“Indeed,” he remarked disinterestedly, also noting that her knack for acknowledging the mundane still remained the same and equally unimpressive.

 

“Wow, I think you look worse now than you did before you fell asleep.”

 

“Further comments are not necessary or desired, miko,” Sesshoumaru cautioned icily, his sharpened nails already sorting out the knots that plagued his disheveled hair.

 

“Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that I thought you might like to know--”

 

“Enough.”

 

“Right. Got it,” Kagome acquiesced softly; her usual, indomitable enthusiasm tempered little by the unpleasant speck of demon slowly rising to his feet within the split fruit.

 

“It would seem that we still reside in the elderly couple's shack,” he observed before leveling his gaze on the almond-like contours of the school girl's sepia eyes. “How did you remedy the matter of your size?”

 

“Well, it was really simple. I just stepped out of the pit.”

 

“That is all?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Very well.”

 

“Wait,” she yelled abruptly, however as her warning left her lips the sparkling flash of blue surrounded the tiny, youkai figure, his black boots having already met the smoothly sanded tabletop. The dazzling radiance pulsed and grew, its swelling, iridescent form resembling the tall demon in glittering silhouette. Then it dissipated in a burst of light, revealing him within and he landed gracefully before the miko on the uneven floor of the hovel.

 

“What was your warning?” he asked and then furrowed a brow in puzzlement at her ensuing scowl.

 

“It's not important. It seems like you can't have a rough landing, injured or not.”

 

“Hn,” he snorted, before his eyes drifted over her person and the foreign clothing that graced her figure. “You have found new attire.”

 

“Yeah,” she replied, brushing away any lingering dust that clung to the fitted, blue tunic before her fingers rose to adjust the tight mandarin collar curving around her neck. Her cotton robe ended with calf-length, beige pants and high upon her head, her ebony locks were gathered in a wavy ponytail. “I think I look more the part now. Oh, here's your undercoat before I forget. I'm sorry, but it might be a little dusty.”

 

“So it would seem,” the tai youkai replied, raising a brow as he accepted the proffered garment whose white hue did appear more mottled than he remembered.

 

“Ah, your first companion has arrived,” the old woman interjected warmly, drawing the sights of the two travelers upon her, “And he is a fine, loyal, white dog to protect you and fight at your side. With his arrival, it is time for you to depart from our company, brave son.”

 

“Don't I need to convince you to let me go?” Kagome asked in confusion avoiding the youkai lord's expression and the dissatisfaction it likely held at his role. “Don't I need to promise that I will return one day?”

 

“We may be only magic, be time has made us both ancient and wise, my boy,” the old man replied, puffing wisps of gray smoke from his long pipe. “You will not return and any other theatrics have already been spoiled by your mother.”

 

“Here are your cakes,” the elderly wife offered after a sigh, placing a small, reed box in the school girl's hands. “Share them well and may you find all that you seek in your travels ahead, my dearest Momotaro.”