InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The House of Mirth ❯ My Son ( Chapter 7 )

The House of Mirth

By: RedHerring

 

Chapter 7: My Son

 

A young boy sits on the floor behind a coffee table, avidly watching Power Rangers. He looks completely unaware of anything around him. Distractedly, he raises a fruit roll-up to his mouth and takes a bite, his eyes always trained on the over exaggerated movements of the actors on the screen.

 

The front door of the beautiful, suburban house slams, but that still can not distract the boy's attention.

 

“Inuyasha!” shouts a furious voice, and the child looks up in apprehension.

 

“I-I'm in the living room!” he tells his father, knowing that his father does not have a nose as good as his, and therefore cannot locate him by scent.

 

Heavy, angry footsteps make the boy look at the doorway to the living room in fear. What could he have done to make his Daddy so mad?

 

Daddy now stands in the doorway; his face is red, his hair is messed up, and his shirt is un-tucked.

 

“D-daddy what—” the little boy starts to say, but cuts off in surprise when his father advances on him. He picks up the little, white-haired boy by his shirt and brings the small child close to his furious face.

 

Inuyasha tries to squirm away, frightened by his father's uncharacteristic behavior, but is harshly shaken until he stops movement.

 

“What the hell have I told you about tracking mud into the house?” The man demands, spittle flecking the frightened boy's cheek.

 

Why is he so mad about that? It is only a little mud, and mommy is always sure to make him clean it up.

 

“I'll fucking teach you to not leave mud in my house,” Onigumo growls. He moves his grip to tangle in the ivory tresses of the young boy, and proceeds to drag Inuyasha to a destination across the house. Every time Inuyasha tries to get to his feet, to ease the tension on his tortured scalp, Onigumo knocks him down again; ignoring his cries.

 

“Daddy, stop it! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” He cries, only to be given a painful jerk on his hair.

 

They reach a small door in a hallway adjacent to the front corridor. Without even looking inside, one can tell that it is a closet made to hide a boiler. The little boy is violently shoved into the tiny, stifling space. Without a word, Onigumo slams the door shut and walks away, too lost in pain and anger to concern himself with the desperate cries of the child in the boiler closet.

 

“Daddy! I'll clean up the mess, I promise! Please let me out! Daddy!” the young Inuyasha screams in anguish. The room feels really hot. His bangs already stick to his forehead, and it is hard to breathe.

 

“Where's Mommy? Mommy! Daddy, I'm sorry!”

 

Mommy never came home.

.o.

.o.

.o.

 

“Inuyasha!” Dayu whispers, and shakes my shoulder.

 

“Go'way,” I grumble and sigh, turning over to lie on my side.

 

“But, Inuyasha! You have to look out the window!” he insists. What is he doing up at this hour? What time is it? It is pitch black, and for a moment I think I have returned to the boiler room.

 

“It's so cool! The train is going really, really fast and there are cows outside!” he says, jumping as high as he can inside the very short sleeping compartment.

 

Oh right; we are on the train; on our way to Boston and a new life. That alone puts me in a good enough mood to humor Dayu because now I can forget everything; just forget everything that happened and take care of Dayu.

 

“Okay runt. What have you been up to?” I ask. There is obviously no window in the compartment, so he must have wandered off in boredom while I was asleep.

 

“Well, you were sleeping, and I didn't want to wake you up, so I went outside and I wanted to go to another train car, but the doors were too heavy to open, so I turned into my pink bubble and I saw out the windows at the top, and there were cows!” he exclaims in a massive run on sentence, flinging his hands up in excitement.

 

“Really now?” I say with only minor interest, yawning hugely after. He gets so exited at the smallest things.

 

“Yeah! Inuyasha, can we go and get something to eat, and sit near a window?” he pleads. My stomach grumbles, complaining loudly that I have been neglecting it.

 

“Sure, but you have to do one thing first,” I tell him, sitting upright. He is not in the habit of calling me Nuya. He has to be. People might get suspicious if they hear him call me one name, and then see that my ID has another name. I know it's only paranoia, but I do not want to take any chances that Dayu or I will be dragged back to that rotten hell hole.

 

“What?” he says, plopping down in front of me. There is a small fluorescent light behind me, just above the pillow. I turn it on then seriously fix my eyes on Dayu.

 

“First, you have to promise me that you won't go wandering off when we get to Boston. It's a big city, and all the fumes from factories and cars make it hard to smell. You might get lost, and I might not be able to find you again, and you might get lost,” I tell him.

 

He nods. “Sure thing. I'll stay close,” he says.

 

“Secondly,” I pause, making sure I have his full attention. “You have to promise to call me Nuya,” I insist. He makes a sheepish face, and glances away.

 

“Sorry, I forgot,” he replies.

 

“That's fine, because no one was around. But you shouldn't be in the habit of calling me Inuyasha. From now on, I'll only respond to Nuya. Got it?” I say, and he nods his head.

 

“Got it.”

 

“Good. Now let's go and get something to eat. I'm starving,” I say, bending nearly in half getting out of the compartment. I glance at my blood-caked shirt and shudder, feeling completely filthy. For now I can change clothes, and after breakfast I will take Dayu to get cleaned up.

 

After I change my shirt and pants, which have disturbing amounts of blood on them, I tie back my hair. My hair is matted with blood as well, but there is nothing I can do to get it out right now. Sliding open the door to leave, Dayu follows me, crawling up my leg to cling to my shoulder in a half piggy-back style.

 

According to the map of the train, beside the door leading to the next car, we are in the fifth car from the caboose. Bathrooms are at the front end of each car, and there are six more cars that have box-beds in front of us. Then there are cars where one can just sit, and then the dining cars, and then the storage cars where they probably keep all the food.

 

Unthinking, I try to open the door with my injured wrist. The pain streaks up my arm and, for a moment, makes me dizzy. The bones shift, returning to their original positions, as I flex my hand. Moving it is difficult. It hurts like hell, and for all the pain, I can barely force my hand to twitch….

 

I shrug it off; it is probably still healing. It should be fine once it's done healing. When we walk from car to car, there is a jumpy kind of bridge and it is covered securely with a metal skin. The noise is abominably loud, so we're lucky that it only takes a few seconds to pass through each part.

 

Few people remain in the sleeping cars. Not that there are many people to begin with, anyway. The train probably left very early in the morning.

 

A clock indicates that it is noon, so the dining cars are probably filled. No one looks at us as Dayu and I pass by. They are immersed in their own conversations and worries. To them, we are practically invisible.

 

Lunch on the dining cars couldn't be called a feast. Someone set up a buffet table with trays of cold cuts, bread, muffins, fruit, and salad. What space is not taken up by the table, is filled by booths that hold up to four people and a narrow walkway.

 

I grab a chocolate muffin to eat. Although I am still tired, and not very hungry anymore, but I have to eat something in order to have the energy to heal.

 

Dayu gets very excited over making his own sandwich. He piles something of everything on a plate, and holds it over his head as he caries his food over to the closest booth with a window. As he carries on about the cows, I look out the window and nod every once in a while, just so he thinks I'm listening.

 

“Aww, Onigumo,” she coos. “Isn't he cute?” She circles around me, and now that she's in front of me -- and not trying to trap me with rosary beads -- I can see her fully. I haven't seen more provocative and revealing on prostitutes.

 

“Nuya!” Dayu's shout jolts me out of that random flashback.

 

What the hell was that?

 

“What is it Dayu?” I ask quietly, still shaken from that flashback. It was like I was back there again.

 

“Are you not gonna eat your muffin? Because I'm done eating, and I wanna go play now. Can we go play now? Maybe we can play cards, or color, or space ship destroyer!” he finishe3s enthusiastically and pumps a fist in the air.

 

I star at the picked-apart muffin. Even though I should be hungry, I am not.

 

“No, I'm finished. Let's go get cleaned up before we go play,” I say. He pouts as I pick him up to bring him to the bathroom in our train car.

 

Dayu is a monster during his bath. The bathroom is very small, and there is only a shower head in the wall. To avoid scaring Dayu with my injuries, I have him get cleaned up first, and then lock him in our `room' while I take a shower. H's a smart kit; he will be fine alone for half an hour.

 

It hurts to move my head. It hurts to move my eyes. I can't even move my ears. I can barely breathe. I can barely sense the world around me. I almost feel like crying, but as I continue to wake up my head clears and the world comes into sharper focus. It's some how... colder that before. I can't stop shivering. There's something warm in my lap though.

 

Damn it! The porcelain tiles crack and grind under my fist. Why can I not stop remembering it? I don't want to remember anything about it, because then I will remember what they did to me. I hate feeling this dirty and violated.

 

There is nothing to stop the scenes from playing out in my head, nothing distracting enough to keep my attention, and the images force me to my knees. I'm a pathetic mess of weakness. I lay, curled into a ball, and brokenly sobbing into my arms, punctuated by dry heaving. The uncomfortable pain, from… what that bastard did, is gone, but I can still remember the chafed burning, and the slimy sensation of my blood and his seed running down my leg as I escaped.

 

I shut off most of the cold water to get it scalding hot. The slimy feeling won't go away. I have no soap, and only a ragged wash cloth, so it is difficult to get clean My skin is raw when I am done. I have to stop myself from scrubbing anymore, or else I would rub the skin right off my body. No matter what the dirty feeling will not go away!

 

I return to the room, dressed in a sweatshirt and long, baggy jeans. I am limping slightly due to the scathing pain in my leg, and my clothes chafe my raw skin. Dayu sits on top of Myoga on the floor, using him as a booster seat to reach the top of his pile of toys. His colorful backpack droops behind him; empty and deflated.

 

“Nuya!” he shouts, eyes flicking excitedly from me to his tower. “Can we play now?”

 

My jaw hangs slack, eye twitching in bemused annoyance. Certainly that tower contains every toy that Dayu owns. Not that he owned very many to begin with. Tsuyo and I were the only people to ever buy him toys, but the fact that he was able to stuff all of that into his child-size backpack is baffling. Maybe it's some type of kitsune magic.

 

“Come on! You can be the professor!” he tries tempting me, waving a white-lab-coat-clad figurine.

 

Pain, again, throbs throughout my injuries as I hit the floor and slump against the wall. My movement is inhibited by exhausted muscles in my effort to shut and lock the door. After a painful and tiring struggle, it gets shut and half way locked.

 

“Here you go,” says Dayu, handing me the G.I. Joe action figure and a toy helicopter. “We are going to play `rescue mission,'” he informs me bossily. I nod and try to look a little more energized for his sake. Having been the victim of Dayu's energy and imaginative games before, I know that depression and a lack of energy are out of place.

 

Somewhere in between needing to be rescued by Dayu's helicopter -- involving a complicated catch of my helicopter in mid air; Dayu's G.I. Joe being captured by the evil overlord of the kingdom: “Train;” and random, worrying fits of Dayu coughing with labored and congested breath, I noticed the time.

 

We are due to arrive in Boston at 3:00 P.M. tomorrow. It is 5:00 P.M. now, and after I do what I need to, Dayu will need at least fifteen hours of sleep to recover. Then there is just enough time to be able to pack and eat before the train arrives.

 

“Dayu,” I interrupt his excited commentary.

 

“But no! The evil overlord of Train shoots his laser bolts and burns the Heroic Dayu! But Dayu dodges to the right, just escaping death. The laser reflects off of the mirror that Dayu secretly worked on setting up the entire battle. The rest of the laser beam is reflected back and - AHHHH! Bchwooooom!” The overlord of Train is now dead and has been turned upside down to signify his death.

 

“Dayu!” I try to interrupt again, but Dayu keeps on with his game.

 

“Nuya! Professor Poochie has to -”

 

“Dayu!” silence....

 

“What now?” he pouts crabbily, crossing his arms while still holding his toys, and sitting back on his tiny paws.

 

“It's dinner time. We should go eat,” I answer, covering a yawn while offering him my other hand.

 

“But we were just going to rescue Professor Poochie!” he whines.

 

“Dayu,” I say warningly, reaching over to tap him on the nose. “That's enough. Do as I say.”

 

“Fine,” he concedes, taking down his constructed scenery and shoving the whole pile in the far corner of the room.

 

My legs are like wood when I stand up. I am unbearably stiff, due to sitting in very few positions over several hours.

 

“You know you're cleaning all of that mess up in the morning, right?” I ask.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, climbing onto my shoulder once again.

 

My eyebrows draw together in annoyance. I reach up and grab him almost roughly by the back of his neck.

 

“You've been a fresh little Jerk for a while,” I growl, lightly digging my fingers into the scruff of his neck.

 

“Hey! Ow!”

 

“I think that you're going straight to bed after dinner. You're getting cranky,” I tell him. The abominable noise in between the carts halts any protests of Dayu's while we pass.

 

“That's not fair,” he pouts once he can hear clearly again.

 

“You barely got any sleep the night before. And you're still sick,” I add, pausing pointedly when he succumbs to another coughing fit. “Don't tell me I'm being unfair.”

 

“But I don't need to go to sleep!”

 

“Dayu, if you keep arguing, you're not going to get any dessert.” I warn, using a special treat against him. We hardly ever got dessert - or sweets of any kind - back with The Bastard.

 

His little body looses all tension in my arms as he goes limp in submission. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and turns around to give me a brief hug.

 

“S'alright runt. Just behave; at least until I can deal with you being a pain,” I tease. He turns around and sticks out his tongue, turning his nose up in mock arrogance.

 

There are more people than I expected on the train. The booths are crowded with families eating, children screaming, babies drooling, and one or two birds chirping. Random limbs hung in the walkway, requiring some awkward maneuvering on my part.

 

Humans and demons alike chatter at the tables eating a variety of foods. Salad, lasagna, fish, potatoes, and mixed vegetables. Trays of cake and brownies lay in crumbles with gaping chunks missing. I feel sorry for the poor S.O.B who has to clean up the mess on the floor.

 

“Oh my God. Look there's one now!”

 

“Don't tell me to look at one of those! I'm eating!”

 

“Hey, look; a hanyou,”

 

“Don't see too many of those,”

 

“I think it's just disgusting. I mean, it's bad enough that a demon and a human can get married, but when they have children that's just crossing the line too far,”

 

“Janice, shut up! He's listening to us!”

 

“I wonder who's little boy that is?”

 

“Poor boy,”

 

“No self-respecting mother would let a hanyou look after their boy,”

 

“I bet he was kidnapped to get money. I'm calling the police once we get to Boston,”

 

I hate it when people whisper shit about me! Do they have nothing better to talk about than my parents and what a freak I am? And now Dayu will be dragged into it.

 

Instead of retaliating, I ignore every whispered comment. I've grown used to it, but Dayu has not. He has gone very quiet and still, burying his face into my chest and trembling. He can hear their whispered words as well as I can, and it probably confuses him.

 

Somehow it is different now. It's like their words have a sharper edge to them. In my hometown, everyone already knew about me and was used to my existence. I was old news, but now it's like I can feel their eyes trying to cut me apart. It's like I'm defective and shouldn't even be alive, and should be torn apart.

 

By the time Dayu and I get to a booth with food my hands are sweaty and shaky. I look everywhere but at the people surrounding me and whispering. It's like their suffocating me while at the same time pushing me away in disgust.

 

I eat quickly, stuffing mashed potatoes, vegetables, and fish in my mouth without even tasting them. I have not eaten since the night before and my stomach has been gnawing at my insides all day.

 

“Dayu,” I motion for his attention -- which has been focused on a hole in his seat for a good ten minutes - in between bites of food. “You should eat as much as you can. I don't know when we can get food next,” I say softly. He silently picks up his fork and starts to eat slowly, looking around a lot. He tries to look out the window, but is only met by his reflection. In the window's reflection, he meets my gaze and I make a face, pulling down one eye while moving my food-filled mouth into a grotesque shape.

 

His loud shrieks of surprised laughter ring through the cart, earning disapproving glares from all the whisperers. I barely give them notice as I try to keep water from coming out of my nose. Dayu has stuffed his face with food and is making faces back at me.

 

The food-face war continues until both of us are stuffed with enough food and sweets to make us sick. It is Mission Accomplished, though. Dayu ahs forgotten about the stares - and we did get quite a few during the war; most of them weren't hostile - and ate a ton of food.

 

Granted, a good deal of food ended up on the table, floor, and his face and hands too, but it was worth it.

 

It's just so disturbing and wrong, and filthy, and it's made all the worse by the noises coming from the deviant man who raised me.

 

I can actually feel the individual waves of disgusted shivers that run from my scalp and down my back. Why now? I was having fun, dammit!

 

That overwhelmingly dirty sensation crawls across my skin. I'm not talking about the “I tripped and got my cloths all dirty” feeling, I'm talking about the “I walked through a rain storm; then a foggy, sweltering bog. Followed by a roll in some horse shit, and topped off with thirteen loaded fly traps sticking to my face and arms and legs, and then some bird droppings dumped on my head” kind of filthy. The kind of filthy that gets under my skin and feels like I'll never get it off; even when I scrub my skin bloody, it will still be there, and I'll feel it there, even though it's not.

 

I start to panic. My heart speeds up and I really, really, hate this weird feeling. My hands get sweaty again, and my eyes dart around restlessly. I feel like clawing at my arms and screaming, and growling and yelling, anything trying to get the dirty feeling off.

 

I can't tolerate the food on the table and flecking my hands. Trying to keep my face straight and my scent steady, I grab napkins and start to clean up the food littering the table. Dayu looks at me worriedly. I am reacting like there is a threat around. But the only thing that is setting me off is all the food and the dirt and the memories; making me paranoid. Dayu does not understand it, and it makes him nervous. But for the life of me, I can not calm down.

 

He sees what I'm trying to do and starts to help. I start to calm down when the table is clean, and even more when we leave the dining carts. The dirty, permanently filthy feeling stays, though. Even when we leave all the people and food, and my panic lessens, I still feel that filth covering me.

 

“Nuya...”Dayu whispers fearfully. I barely notice, rushing as I am to our room, until his sniffles penetrate the fog of panic and reach my ears. His tightly curled form shakes and trembles in my arms. The suppressed cries give me pause and I hug him close once I am able to sit down on the bed in our cabin. His wails and sobs eventually rise in volume until his is chest is heaving, his face is red and streaked with tears and snot, and his lungs have a disturbing raspy rattle.

 

What just happened here? Is this my fault? His hands tug at my shirt while his tears soak through the fabric.

 

“Shhhh,” I gently try to console him. I don't know how. I'm not used to it. He hasn't cried this hard since Kyara died two years ago. Even then, I didn't know what to do. He's not my pup. The only attachment I have for him comes from my human side. The only thing my demon side is concerned with is Dayu's protection and health.

 

“Shhhh, Dayu, it's okay. There's nothing to hurt us,” I futilely try to comfort him. What do I do?

 

***

“What's wrong?”

 

“...”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“...no,”

 

“You'll feel better if you tell me what's wrong,”

 

“...”

 

“You know you can tell me and I won't think any less of you,”

 

“...I'm scared,”

 

“Of who, Inu, dear?”

 

“...Dad,”

 

“Oh.... Come here darling,”

 

“He's different. It's scary Kyara. I don't know what he's doing....”

* **

 

“Dayu, I want you to tell me what's wrong, please?” I futilely ask, resting my hand on his head. His sobs and hiccoughing continue. A great, pained sigh escapes as I change position to lean against the head board and pull my legs inside the compartment. I'm so tired. For another fifteen minutes Dayu is so upset that he can not stop crying. I think it's best if I let him cry himself out, and then make him talk. It's what Kyara always did with me, and she fixed me up from what I was pretty well.

 

When Dayu calms down the only noise in our compartment is his soft, shaky breath, and the odd bursts of quick breathing you get after crying for a long time.

 

“Shippou...”

 

“I tho-o-ought that that wasn-nt my na-ame anymore,” he grumbles half-heartedly.

 

“You know, I think I'd miss my name if everyone only ever called me Nuya, so how about this: we can call each other our real names when we're alone. Okay?” I ask calmly. It's nice and quiet in the compartment after the noisy dining cars. Dayu will probably fall asleep soon, and so will I.

 

“Y-yeah, okay,” he says, smiling through his tears. I take out a tissue and clean his face, and toss it onto the floor outside the bed, rather than get up to throw it away.

 

“So, now that you're calm, do you want to tell me why you were so upset?” I ask gently.

 

“I was scared,” he whimpers, but makes a valiant effort not to cry.

 

“Of what?”

 

“You were acting scary. You freaked out after we ate, and then you had this really scary look on your face. And before, people were saying mean things about you. I was sad,” his efforts to not cry fail, and he starts to sniffle again.

 

“Shippou, some things in life are scary, and it's okay to cry. But you have no reason to be afraid because it's my job to make sure you are safe. Those mean people can go to heck,” I tell him. Horribly sappy, but still true, and it visibly makes him feel better.

 

Eventually, Dayu's breathing becomes slower, deeper, and his heart slows down. He is finally asleep.... Now...

 

What I have been dreading, and anticipating for hours. I wonder what Kyara would have to say about this. I hope she wouldn't be angry. After all, Dayu is her son, and to mark him as mine....

 

Carefully moving Dayu so his head rests on my shoulder, I expose his neck. If I remember what that book said, I have to make a small cut in his neck and mix a little of his and my blood at the wound. Then I think I'm supposed to use my youki to alter his scent to resemble mine in a way that a person's scent resembles his or her father's. However, I read that book a year and a half ago. I wish I could have reread it before we left, but because I was so careless I had to depart sooner than I wanted.

 

Quickly, so the pain does not wake him, I make the cut. It is so tiny he probably will never notice it. It only bleeds a little, and I have to make it deeper before I can start.

 

Once a small drop of blood has gathered at the wound, I use a fang to dig a wound in my thumb. The sharp pain seems to clear my head, and I concentrate intensely on my task at hand. The blood connects and mingles, and I can feel a ripple in my youki. I encourage that ripple, flaring it and making those ripples bigger.

 

Eventually my youki is swarming tightly around me, active and waiting. I can't tell, but in the dark everything looks red. Shippou's youki looks like a yellow speck in my swirling mass of red energy. It looks afraid and weak, and for a moment I want to squash it and overpower it. I want to see it squirm in pain before that yellow light is snuffed out like a lantern on a stormy sea.

 

NO!

 

Fine.

 

A small strip of youki reaches out to the yellow dot. The yellow flares and attacks the red. The red pokes at it again, and the yellow reacts, batting my intruding energy away, but less harshly this time. Eventually, my Youki can rest around Shippou's yellow glow and his youki rises up to respond to mine. An inexplicable feeling of pride surges from the pit of my stomach and up through my throat. From the point of blood mixing, I can see his energy following the thin stream of red - almost being escorted - to the depths of my crimson cloud. In turn, the yellow - almost gold and flashing green - speck of youki opens to allow a small portion of my youki to rest, comfortably surrounded by Shippou's energy.

 

On my side, red surrounds and protects yellow; on Shippou's side, yellow surrounds red. The branches of youki thin off to a barely visible line, yet still connecting us. I have no idea how much time has passed. One hour? Five? Eternity? It is too hard to tell. The serene atmosphere signals me to the fact that I must be in some kind of trance, but I do not want to pull out of it, nor can I take my eyes away from the thin band of red and yellow. I need to protect it. Nothing can disturb it, but for the life of me I can not figure out why.

 

For a long time I watch that band. Gradually, infinitely slowly, the spheres of alien light in Shippou's and my youki lessen. Did I fail? Why is his youki going back?

 

Panicking, I feed more of my youki into Shippou's yellow—

 

Wait. Wasn't it yellow? It is now very much less yellow, and very much more green. Where did the yellow come from? Is that green....

 

Kyara?

 

Following my youki's lead, the beam of green youki flows back into my aura. Confusion hits. Where it comes from, I do not know. Then there is that pride again. Overwhelming, suffocating, I love it. For Shippou, it's like a tangible thing in my stomach, welling up my throat and pulling my face into a grin.

 

Almost without my notice something happens. It scares the shit out of me. My color changed. Once red, now a deep, deep red russet color. Dark ruby and amber, almost like the color of rust or blood. Shippou's is different too. Copper. Bright, shiny copper; a little darker than a new penny.

 

What have I done?

 

Fearing harm to Shippou, I pull back my youki. His retreats too and flows back into himself.

 

What have I done?

 

I never meant to change his color. It wasn't supposed to change. The book never said anything about that. I don't remember it saying anything about a lot of what just happened.

 

What have I done?

 

What will happen? I changed his aura, his youki. The energy that defines him. In turn, I let my aura adapt to his. Will I change?

 

What have I done!?

 

Exhausted, I can only sink down onto the pillow. Shipp—Dayu. Why did I start calling him Shippou again?

 

My aura fully retreats back into my mind, and Dayu's copper glow fades to nothing. So cold.

 

I pull the blankets to cover us. I feel like I am floating. The horror and guilt that gripped my gut is gone, but so is that amazing feeling of pride.

 

My movements are mechanical. Settling Dayu in the crook of my arm, I make sure he is covered well. Shivers wrack his shoulders and his tiny jaw chatters. My arm tightens and brings his cold body protectively closer to me.

 

I am so tired; I don't even wonder why I want him wrapped in my arm instead of curled up next to my head like usual.

 

AN: FINALLY!! I am so frucking tired of this stupid chapter. The only parts I really liked writing was the first flashback/dream and the last marking part. Oh, the panic attack was fun to write as well. Also, new plot changes. Ohhh the plot changes. It gets kind of twisted. I hope it doesn't turn into a soap opera. Although some chapters will be centered around character relationships once other characters are introduced. To people who are bugging me about Kagome: Stop. I don't like it, and your pestering (kudos for the politeness. Not one of you was rude) will not get her in any sooner. At this point, I can't threaten to not put her in the story because she plays too big a part later on, but let me tell you that she will not be appearing for a while yet.

However, characters, that you know and will appear in chapter nine, or maybe ten are: Manten, Koharu, and maybe Hiten. But only near the end. Miroku appears in Chapter eight.

 

A big thank you to MechanicalRUN, my newly acquired beta. Now my sentences won't sound so awkward.

 

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-o. Mis-A day, mis-A day, mis-A day, mis-A day, mis-A daaa-aaa-aaa-oooooo. Daylight come and me wan' go hooo-OOOOOME! (Because I felt like it!)

 

Disclaimer:I do not own Inuyasha or any related characters.