InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Lucky Ones ❯ Chapter Thirty-Four ( Chapter 34 )

The Lucky Ones

By Terri Botta

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Sole copyright belongs to Viz and Rumiko Takashi. I'm poor so don't sue.

Rating: R for later chapters.

Pairing: Inuyasha/Kagome, Miroku/Sango

Summary: Sometimes Fate hands you a gift you never thought you'd ever get, and it's up to you to accept it for what it is.

Feedback to: tci100@psu.edu

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Chapter Thirty-Four

There was a catch. With the Shikon no Tama, there was always a catch. In Inuyasha and Kagome's case, there were three. The first they found out that evening when it was discovered that the well had indeed closed, and not even Inuyasha could pass through any longer. This came as a bit of a blow, but Kagome wasn't completely surprised, and she'd already said her good-byes to her family in anticipation of not being able to return. She comforted herself in knowing that the reason there was no message in the well was because she and Inuyasha were still alive in Modern Japan, and they would probably be visiting her mother at the shrine some 450 years in the future. For her it would be almost five centuries. For her mom, it would probably only be a few weeks.

Inuyasha finished the house and the two of them were married in a simple ceremony officiated by Kaede and Miroku. The ritual was a primitive version of what would become the traditional Shinto wedding, but not the actual ceremony Kagome had come to recognize as the norm in Japan. That ceremony would not be performed until the early 1900's when it was standardized by the Shinto priests as the official wedding ritual. Still, she was dressed in a white Shiro-maku and headdress that had been made with loving care by the village women, and even Inuyasha had been coerced out of his fire-rat and into formal wedding attire made from midnight blue fabric with gold trim that was a gift from the daimyo and the village headman. During the ceremony they exchanged vows and cups, but no rings. The giving of rings was a modern custom and did not exist in the Sengoku Jidai. Inuyasha pledged his unfailing fidelity and love, and Kagome couldn't help but cry as she added her name to the marriage promises.

The ceremony was attended only by their core group and Yukio of course, who was given the honor of holding his mother's wedding fan during the ceremony. He was a dutiful little angel dressed in a brand new set of fire-rat clothing that matched his father's normal clothes almost exactly. The resemblance to Inuyasha was uncanny and no one could tell that the boy wasn't Inuyasha's biological son. Afterward, they attended a wedding feast held in their honor and Kagome made the last of the ramen noodles she had from their final shopping trip back in the Modern Era. Inuyasha fretted that he would have to wait almost five centuries before he could have the treat again.

That night was the first night they spent together in the brand new house. Inuyasha had refused to cross the threshold with her until they were lawfully husband and wife, maintaining some small semblance of propriety if only for the benefit of the villagers. Kagome had seen the house while it was being built, and had often toured it with Sango or Miroku, but never had she and Inuyasha been inside it together. True to his word, it was a veritable palace by the village's standards. It had three decent-sized bedrooms with their own sliding shoji, two common rooms, and a bathing room with a huge tub and an adjacent boiler. It even had a quasi-toilet that could be flushed and refilled with a bucket that was kept right next to it. The waste was sluiced down a wooden tube that emptied into the house latrine located a short distance away. The house was the marvel of the village and even the daimyo himself wanted some of its design for his own palace in Edo, thus Inuyasha's skills as an architect became highly prized and desired. In exchange for his building talents, Inuyasha brokered a gift of land that would eventually become the grounds of the Higurashi shrine.

After the wedding feast was over and the newlyweds were escorted to their new home with smiles and well-wishes, Inuyasha and Kagome settled Yukio into his brand new bedroom, on his own brand new futon, with brand new blankets, pillows and yukata. Then they closed the shoji on the forlorn little figure sitting all alone on the huge new bed, eyes blinking sadly as they abandoned him, and Inuyasha carried her to their own bedroom at the other end of the house to celebrate their wedding night.

Hours later, after they had finished consummating their marriage and they had settled down for some much needed rest, they heard the tell-tale shick of a shoji and the patter, patter, patter of little feet hurrying towards them, then the shick of a second shoji and the patter, patter, patter of little feet until Yukio plopped down on the futon with them and began burrowing under the blankets.

"Oi!" Inuyasha had complained. "What do you think you're doing, pup?"

Yukio had looked confused and rather put out. "What? You got quiet. I'm allowed now."

Kagome had gasped then groaned as she flushed beet red and buried her head under the covers. Never before had it been so clear that their son not only knew what they were up to, but had actually been waiting for them to finish so he could join them. Inuyasha had just fumed, then sighed and gave his son a pat on the head. Yukio spent the rest of the night with them.

The second catch they would learn about a few months after the wedding when Inuyasha was gravely wounded during a surprise attack on the village. What they had thought to be only one youkai had turned out to be two, and the second managed to get behind Inuyasha and take a chunk out of him. Kagome, who had been fighting her own battle with the first youkai along with Sango and Miroku, suddenly collapsed and could not be revived. It was then that they discovered that the youkai souls in the Shikon no Tama had been serious when they fulfilled the wish `for as long as they both shall live.'

Inuyasha, close to death, was placed next to his mate who also clung to life by a thread, and it soon became clear that Inuyasha and Kagome's lives were intrinsically linked and one would not live without the other. As soon as Inuyasha began to claw his way back from the brink, Kagome improved as well, and soon it was as if she had never been near death at all. The incident shook both of them to their very cores, and Inuyasha spent the better part of a day cursing and ranting about how this was why he wanted nothing to do with the Jewel or its twisted wishes.

In the end, however, it meant two things. One: They had stopped aging and would forever be the physical age they were when the wish was made. And two: If one died, they both died, and Inuyasha had to learn the hard lesson that to protect Kagome he also had to protect himself. This severely curtailed much of his recklessness which, in the minds of everyone but Inuyasha himself, was a welcome change.

The third catch they wouldn't discover until almost two years later and it wasn't so much a catch as it was a cruel twist of fate. It had nothing to do with the Shikon no Tama or its warped wishes, and everything to do with hanyou physiology.

When Yukio turned two, they decided that it was time to give him a baby brother or sister to play with, and Inuyasha made a great show of burning their remaining condoms, vowing to never wear the hated sheaths again. But after almost a year of trying to conceive a pup with no success, it became apparent that hanyous, like so many mixed-blood cross-breeds, were sterile.

Inuyasha actually took the news harder than Kagome, and he mourned silently for weeks. One of his dearest desires was to raise a family with Kagome and the reality that he might never sire his own pup weighed heavily on him. He had known from his own travels that no one had ever seen or heard of a hanyou having a child, but he had always thought that was because hanyous weren't supposed to find mates and have families in the first place. He had never realized that the real reason there were no hanyou-sired children was because they couldn't have them.

His infertility did not mean, however, that their home lacked children. The opposite was actually true because word spread of the hanyou Inuyasha and his village, and their house became the place to bring unwanted hanyou pups. The raising of these abandoned lostlings would become their primary task over the next 450 years.

The first came still in the womb. A gruff man arrived with his daughter who had been raped by a bat-youkai much like the ones who had terrorized Shiori and her mother. Discrete inquiries had confirmed that the child was indeed a product of rape and not the indignant assumptions of a prejudiced father, and the young woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy three months later. Kagome and Kaede were present at the birth and acted as the woman's midwives. At the mother's request, they took the newborn away immediately and removed him from the hut. Four days after her child's birth, she and her father left the village. The girl hadn't even asked to see her son. Later they would learn that she had killed herself by jumping off a cliff on the way home.

Inuyasha named the boy Tomo and they took him as their own son. Kagome induced lactation by letting him nurse and her milk came in within a week just as it had done for Yukio. Yukio, then almost three, was overjoyed to have a baby brother to look after and fussed over the infant almost as much as his mother did. The boy had silver-white hair that looked like his big brother's until it was seen in sunlight, then it became apparent that the hair wasn't silver or white, but pearlescent and reflected subtle hues of blue, lavender, pink and peach depending on the lighting conditions. He was very fine boned and delicate looking like Shiori had been, and he had the same dark skin and white irises. His personality was mild, although he had a temper when sufficiently pushed, and he was lithe, quick and loved the wind. Inuyasha took a special trip to see Shiori and her mother in order to learn more about the unique powers and qualities of a bat-hanyou so they would know what to expect when Tomo got older.

The next hanyou came when Yukio was five. This one was the offspring of a human man and a water-sprite, and he came by way of the river flowing next to the village. He washed up on shore one morning, a babe of four to five months wrapped in a blanket and placed in a floating basket. There was a note from his mother explaining that he could not live in his mother's watery world and life on land was too dangerous for him where he was. She had named her son Jounou, but Inuyasha changed it to Kawaro which meant 'river son' and they accepted him as their third child. The boy loved water and his adoptive parents were hard pressed to keep him out of it. They discovered that, while he could not actually breathe underwater, he could hold his breath for much longer than a normal human and he could see, hear and navigate in water much better than a human. His most striking features aside from his pale blue hair were his webbed fingers and toes.

When Yukio was six he got his first little sister. Unlike his other two siblings, however, this one was not a hanyou, but a full blooded neko-youkai kitten. The kitten's parents had been killed in a dispute over territory, and the humans who killed them apparently had no stomach for murdering helpless infants so they brought the baby girl to Kagome. The kitten looked very much like the red-headed neko-youkai who had been with the group of neko-youkai who had attacked Sesshoumaru. She had the same flaming red hair that was redder than Shippou's and bright green eyes.

Kagome named the kitten Eri in honor of her junior high school friend and proudly presented her to her brothers. When Yukio sniffed her she hissed and took a swipe at him with her clawed hands. He growled at her and jumped back in the nick of time. It was love at first sight. Over the years the inu-hanyou and the neko-youkai would take great delight in tormenting each other as they grew older, and often the villagers would see the spry redhead running, giggling manically, as she was being chased by a very angry inu-hanyou pup.

For all their bravado however, the two were siblings and fiercely protected each other. Years later when some neko-youkai who had heard about the kitten came to take her to live with her own kind, Yukio had been the one to raise the alarm. The neko-youkai had thought they were doing Eri a favor by offering to take her with them, but she had caterwauled so loudly and had been defended so viciously by her adopted family, that they left her with those who obviously loved her very much and whom she also loved a great deal.

More unwanted, abandoned and orphaned hanyous would come to them over the decades that they were married, and all in all they raised thirty-three children over the course of three centuries, thirty-two of which were hanyous. The children came from all corners of Japan and were all manner of cross-breeds. There was a bird-hanyou, Mariko, with feathers instead of hair and a beak in the place where her nose and mouth should be, and a monkey-hanyou, Ranma, who was covered in hair and could leap from tree to tree as easily as breathing. There were two more inu-hanyous, a boy named Miroku in honor of their dear departed friend and a girl named Izayoi after Inuyasha's mother, and a delicate but strong and fierce neko-hanyou was named Sango in memory of the taijiya who was Kagome's best friend and sister in the Sengoku Jidai.

Most of the children were brought as babies or toddlers, but one wolf-hanyou, Ryoukan, came as a six year-old. The boy had witnessed the slaughter of his entire pack at the hands of humans and he never felt comfortable living among or even close to them. When Ryoukan was twelve and it was obvious that he was very unhappy in spite of the fact that he loved his adoptive mother, even though she was human, Inuyasha sent word to his once rival, Kouga of the Northern Cave. The wolf-youkai lord had mellowed quite a bit with fatherhood and maturity, and had reconciled with Inuyasha and Kagome over the years. He agreed to take the wolf-hanyou boy and raise him with the northern pack. It was the greatest sacrifice his adoptive parents could make for their son's happiness.

In addition to the children, older hanyous who had heard of Inuyasha's village came seeking a place to belong. Inuyasha allowed them to stay as long as they agreed to protect the village and live in peace, and soon there was a thriving community of hanyous adding color, talent and enrichment to the little village that wasn't quite so little anymore.

The villagers, under Kaede, the village headman, and the revered miko Midorikyou's direction, accepted the newcomers as long as they lived peacefully, and the village benefited greatly from their presence. Soon it became the norm to have a hanyou as a neighbor and the two groups became a diverse whole. There were friendships, cooperatives and marriages that came from the melding of the two worlds, but of course there were no children, providing more evidence to the belief that hanyous were incapable of reproducing.

Through it all Yukio grew in mind and body. He stood taller than his father and was of a lighter build, but he possessed the same strength and easy grace. He had both of his parents' intelligence and quick-thinking, none of his father's gruffness, and all of his mother's all-encompassing ability to love. Inuyasha taught him how to track and hunt, fight, strategize and negotiate while his mother taught him tolerance, patience and the importance of listening. And while his life was not completely without prejudice and hate, he always had the safe haven and love of his family to ease his wounded heart. Of all of the children, he was the one who stuck closest to home, and always visited often even when he no longer lived in his parents' house.

He loved and accepted each of his siblings, and was Aniki to all of them, even Eri who would rather pull his ears than pay any attention to him. Firstborn and the undisputed beta of the pack, all the children looked to him if their parents were not available, or if they needed an intersession on their behalf, especially with their father. Yukio, of all of them, had Inuyasha's ear, and if anyone could bring the elder inu-hanyou to reason and agreement, it was him. His siblings would rally to his cry and follow him anywhere because he always protected them as fiercely as their father.

When he was eleven, Inuyasha gave him his first sword. It was a lightweight katana made by a hanyou sword-smith in the village and imbued with protective youki. His father taught him how to use it, instilling in him a respect for the blade and the damage it could do. At this time he had four siblings (Tomo, Kawaro, Eri and his mother's newest baby, a moth-youkai girl his parents had named Yuka) and he practiced his moves with eight year-old Tomo under Inuyasha's watchful eye.

When he turned sixteen, his father disappeared and his uncle Sesshoumaru came to act as the village protector in Inuyasha's absence. The reserved taiyoukai would not set foot in the village so Yukio went out to the forest where the inu-youkai lord stayed, but Sesshoumaru refused to tell him where his father had gone. Finally after ten days, Inuyasha returned and the reason for his unexplained absence became apparent. In his hands he held a sword forged by the great youkai sword-smith Toutousai with a sheath made from a branch from Bokusenou. It was Tessaiga's equal and was made from Inuyasha's own fang. It was named very simply Kenshuga- Dog Protecting Fang and had powers and attacks similar to Tessaiga forged into it.

Yukio's hands shook when he accepted the gift and he held the sword close to his chest. Of all the things his father could ever give him, Kenshuga was the greatest and most telling. He gave his old katana to Tomo although the slight boy would probably make a much better archer than a swordsman, and kept Kenshuga by his side day and night. For weeks no one, not even Eri, could wipe the proud grin from his face.

The years passed and the children grew. The humans around them grew and aged as well, as was to be expected. Kaede died a scant six years after Inuyasha and Kagome were married, but thankfully the old miko had passed on the vast majority of her knowledge to Kagome and she was able to step in as the village doctor. Miroku took over the shrine duties, and Midorikyou came down from Zenko-ji to train two new mikos to assist him. The once undead miko who was now the merger of two powerful holy women was revered by youkai, hanyous, and humans alike and she ministered to all of them equally. What some had once feared would be the creation of a schizophrenic monster had become a beloved icon for peace, purity and love. Once the new mikos were ready, she returned to her home in Zenko-ji and they wouldn't see her again for a number of years.

Miroku and Sango had five healthy children: two daughters and three sons, all of whom inherited their parents' good looks and intelligence. Miyoko and Sakura became mikos of the shrine when they came of age, while the boys Hiroshi and Jiro became demon exterminators like their mother and Yasuo, the youngest son, followed in his father's footsteps and joined the monastery. Years later, Inuyasha would gift them the land he was given by the daimyo to preserve it as a shrine after the unification of Japan when he moved his family to the Western Lands during Oda Nobunaga's attempts to bring Japan under one sword.

The ambitious, ruthless general from Owari attacked the holy Buddhist monks of Mt. Hiei in 1571, destroying their monastery and killing thousands. Yasuo was not of that order, but he was affiliated with them, and Miroku feared for his son's life. Inuyasha took the boy and three Mt. Hiei monks who had managed to escape Nobunaga's clutches to Sesshoumaru where the Lord of the Western Lands was still respected and feared. History would say that Nobunaga had been successful in completely destroying the Mt. Hiei monks, but that was not entirely true. The three Inuyasha took to safety would go underground and continue to fulfill their duties quietly, waiting for a time when their order would rise again. The hanyou would not move his family back to Musashi until after Nobunaga's successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death in 1598.

Thanks to Kagome's schooling, they knew the history of Japan and had foreknowledge of who would be victorious and the outcome of major events. This allowed them to forge alliances and avoid disaster as the Sengoku Jidai came to an end. Numerous times Inuyasha would seek refuge in the stronghold of his father's house where Sesshoumaru, recognizing the advantages of fostering someone who knew the future, would benefit from Kagome's knowledge even as he provided his brother and his growing brood with sanctuary. Their secret allowed Inuyasha and those closely associated with him, to quietly rise in the ranks of power and influence. Later Kagome's knowledge of businesses and brands popular in modern Japan would guide them towards shrewd investing and the accumulation of significant wealth.

As for the other members of their extended family, life proceeded for them in much the same way it had. Sango and Miroku, being human, were limited to the span of their mortal lifetimes, and while Kagome missed her friends dearly, Inuyasha knew she was secretly glad to be among youkai and hanyous who did not age as quickly. Being practically immortal as she was, she had to reconcile herself with the reality that humans withered and died, but sometimes it was difficult for her when she knew the person. Thankfully she was spared watching the houshi and taijiya age for the majority of their older lives because she and Inuyasha were in the Western Lands. By the time they were called back to Musashi in 1599, Miroku and Sango were already in their seventies.

Sango's brother, Kohaku never fully recovered from his ordeal with Naraku, although he did marry and father two beautiful children. Masumi did much to heal the young man's tortured soul and he loved his sons very much, but his life was fated to end in tragedy. When a youkai-led gang of bandits attacked the village, the leader must have known Kohaku's history and sought to use it to his own advantage. Believing the young man to be easily controlled, he tried to seize hold of Kohaku's mind, but rather than be enslaved against his will and forced to hurt those he loved, Kohaku turned his chain scythe on himself and slit his own throat.

Sango, in a murderous, grieving rage, was the one to bring the youkai down at Inuyasha's insistence, and Masumi and her sons became part of Miroku's family until the monk's death of old age in 1604. Sango followed him two years later in 1606. At that time, Inuyasha stepped forward and vowed to look after all of the descendants of the houshi, Sango, and Kohaku. In the mid-1800's Miroku and Sango's great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter married Higurashi Kaemon and they became the first caretakers of the Higurashi shrine in the newly renamed city of Tokyo that had expanded over the years to assimilate the once little village. It shook Kagome to no end to know that her family was the direct descendants of the monk and taijiya she had known and loved.

Shippou grew up and stayed with Inuyasha until he found his own mate when he was close to a century old. He mated with a lovely kitsune vixen who had no prejudice against hanyous, and the two built a den near the village and raised a family there. Their kits played with all of Inuyasha's adopted children, as well as all the human children in the village. He and his brood did much to foster goodwill and relations between kitsunes, humans and hanyous.

In the mid-1700's the attitude towards hanyous, at least in the youkai communities, began to change. It became apparent that the time of the youkai was waning and being replaced by the Age of Man, and if youkai wanted to survive, they would have to learn how to get along and assimilate into human culture. Hanyous served as a bridge between the two worlds, and the children who were once considered abominations were now prized. As a result, Kagome and Inuyasha received their last hanyou orphan, the rarest of all the hanyous- a dragon-hanyou- in 1785.

Tetsukazu was his name, and he came with it. He was a toddler of two, out of diapers and already showing great power. His dragon father was dead, as was his human mother, and his human relatives were terrified of him. They were afraid to kill him, and afraid to seek another dragon to raise him so they brought him to Inuyasha and Kagome and left him on their doorstep.

The boy was frightening in his intensity. He looked alarmingly human except when you looked closer and saw that instead of skin he had miniscule little scales along his neck, chest and abdomen. His nails were black claws and his hair was a jet black that cascaded over his head and ran down in a ridge to the middle of his shoulder blades. His face was human, but his eyes were a striking violet and his thin lips hid a set of deadly reptilian fangs. His physical appearance, however, was not what struck fear into the hearts of men. No, it was that he was born with the Sight of dragons and the power of their ancient blood. From the time he could speak he was looking into the hearts of mortals and telling them their Fate. He could also conjure a fireball at will and control thunderstorms and lightning. He was by far the most powerful of all the hanyous Inuyasha and Kagome had raised, and yet the one who needed their unconditional love and acceptance the most.

To say that Inuyasha and Kagome were model parents was not entirely accurate. Like all parents, they made mistakes and regretted them, but they did their best to do right by all of their children, a task that was no small feat considering the staggering diversity of the hanyous they had raised. What could be said about them was that they were completely and totally devoted to each other and to their family, and it was this unwavering love and support that set them apart. Both of them were adored by all of their children, even Ryoukan, and every single one of them could be counted upon if the call went out to rally the family.

No one doubted that Kagome would be an excellent mother because she took to child-rearing so naturally. It was this ingrained predisposition towards children and medicine that led her to become one of the most respected youkai and hanyou pediatric doctors in the world. Her knowledge and experience from raising so many hanyous of so many different lineages gave her a significant advantage in treating hanyou patients, and her skills were in high demand in the secret, underground world the youkai had created within human society.

The biggest surprise to anyone who didn't really know him was Inuyasha. Inuyasha, while firm and strict at times, loved each and every one of his adopted children as if they were his own flesh and blood, and he protected them as viciously as any alpha male defending his pack. He was a wealth of support and comfort to all of his "pups" although overt physical affection was usually limited to his wife. Gruff and easily irritated, the children grew up knowing their father was a hard task-master but fair, just and honorable. They knew he would never lie to any of them, and would always tell them plainly exactly what he thought they should do. His punishments were handed out swiftly, but were never excessive and he never once beat any of them. Still, the children held a healthy respect for his temper, and their mother's ability to soothe it.

Like any good leader, he made sure that all the members of his "pack" were fed, housed and cared for. His generosity was legendary, and he had been known to give away his last bit of food or drink of water to anyone who needed it. He gave aid whenever it was asked for, provided the cause was just, and defended those weaker than himself against youkai and ambitious humans with evil in their hearts. He stood behind each of his children, a respected patriarch who would step in only when asked, and woe betide anyone who hurt any one of them. For a hanyou who was incapable of siring children, he had fostered more lostlings and was called `father' by more individuals than any other hanyou in the history of Japan.

To each son he gave a sword made from his own fang and customized by Toutousai to fit the unique needs of each boy. The only lack in the swords was their names. Inuyasha, never very creative, simply named them Kenshuga and then the number of the sword, so Tomo received Ni-kenshuga, Kawaro got San-kenshuga, Seto was given Shi-kenshuga, and so on all the way up to Kenshuga the fourteenth, which was gifted to Tetsukazu when he turned thirteen.

The dragon-hanyou received his sword three years earlier than any of his other siblings because no one needed a sealing blade more than he did. When he reached puberty, which was a very dangerous time for hanyous because the stirring of the sex hormones could awaken dormant powers that could kill or cause madness (another reason why many hanyous died young), his Sight soared and he could not shut out the visions and voices. Inuyasha, realizing that his son would be driven insane by the Gift, raced to Toutousai and had him forge a sword specifically designed to silence the voices and temper the Sight. Now with Jyu-shi-kenshuga at his side, Tetsukazu could turn the Sight on and off at will. The sword didn't do much else, but the dragon-hanyou was so powerful in his own right that he didn't need anything other than the relief the sword provided.

To each of his thirteen daughters he gave a necklace of protection made from prayer beads and one of his fangs strung on a braid of his hair. Midorikyou blessed each necklace and imbued it with miko power to shield and guard his girls from harm. He had the immortal miko do the blessings because she was still the most powerful in the protective magics while Kagome was fast becoming the most powerful in defensive ones. Her arrows were known to waste an entire legion of youkai in a single strike, and had a destructive power almost equal to that of Tessaiga. The necklaces could create a barrier around the wearer that would protect her from attack, and because they were linked to him through his fang, if the barrier was activated their father would know and come running. More than once an over-amorous suitor would suddenly find himself staring down the blade of Tessaiga as the protective hanyou seemingly appeared out of nowhere to defend his daughters' honor. Gruff and irritable he might be, but no one laid a finger on his girls; not unless they wanted it cut off.

It was his complete dedication to his wife and family which earned the inu-hanyou the respect and affection of all of his surviving children. None of his fourteen sons ever challenged him for leadership of the pack, and all deferred to his word when he laid it down as law- which wasn't often. At some point in their lives, he had shed his blood for each of his pups, and none of them took that lightly. Of the thirty-three children he and Kagome had raised twenty-seven remained alive, twenty-six of which were hanyous who made it out of puberty. Their success rate was unprecedented and was a direct result of their exceptional commitment to the children's safety and well-being.

Still, the six that had died weighed on their hearts, and they thought of them often, especially in the misty memory of night or a gray-sky morning.

Two that had been lost died of natural causes.

Takako and Hansu were both cross-breeds of youkai whose life spans were much closer to that of a human's. They'd lived long, happy lives and died peacefully of old age with their parents present. Hansu's sword, Go-Kenshuga, was returned to his father and he kept it in a place of honor at their Canadian house.

Two had been murdered.

The first was a rare kitsune-hanyou, near and dear to them because he reminded them so much of sweet Shippou. He died protecting his adopted mother from a youkai mob that attacked the village. Kagome had been nursing the latest of the littles they would raise from infancy and was extremely vulnerable as she tried to protect the baby. He was only fifteen, but he showed more bravery in the face of terrible danger than most grown men twice his age.

Akihiro had used his kitsune magics to take on the likeness of his mother and drew the youkai attacks upon himself. Inuyasha and Yukio, who was full grown and near maturity by then, were unable to get to him in time and he sustained mortal wounds. He died in his father's arms. Inuyasha shed no tears for him, but the mourning howls of the inu-youkai joined the wails of grief that rose above the village that night.

The second had been killed by a human mob, and it took all Inuyasha had not to visit retribution upon them. In the end, he didn't have to because humans from his own village exacted their revenge on the ones who killed his eighth son, and brought Inuyasha back the hand and severed head of the man who slew Hiei. Hiei's sword, Hachi-Kenshuga was refitted and given to Inuyasha's twelfth son, a bull-hanyou named Isato.

Two had been killed by Inuyasha's own hand.

The first was a fire-youkai hanyou who had always been a trouble-maker, but when Hiro entered puberty he lost control of his youkai blood and went berserk. Inuyasha tried to reason with him, but not even the pleading of his mother or his aniki reached him in his wild youkai haze, and he set everything in his path ablaze with his rogue powers. Inuyasha had no choice but to cut him down before he destroyed the village and all the people in it. He hadn't wanted to do it, and he did everything he could to bring the boy back to his senses, but when Hiro turned his deadly fire on Kagome and the children, he did not hesitate and took him out with one blow from Tessaiga.

He'd done the right thing, even though the decision was heart-wrenching. If he hadn't, he would have lost everything and many more would have been killed. Knowing that hadn't made it any easier though, and he shook afterward, his face blank and eyes staring at what was left of the boy. Kagome had to come and take his arm to gently lead him away from the broken body that was burning itself to ashes in its own cremation pyre. By the time the fire finally went out, there was nothing left to bury.

Inuyasha's only comfort was in knowing the boy died quickly and didn't feel any pain. He sequestered himself away in the den with Kagome for almost two days after the dust had settled and the mess cleaned up to grieve in private and find solace in her arms. No accusations or recriminations ever left her lips for his choice, and that was exactly what his already broken heart needed. Hiro had been a challenge, but the boy hadn't been evil, just irresponsible and mischievous. His demise was a tragedy, but Inuyasha knew that if anyone had had to kill him, it was best that he die at the hand of the father who had loved him and would not let him suffer.

Thankfully no one else died that day, but he wasn't able to save the house he had built Kagome and it burned to the ground, thus explaining why it did not exist in the modern age. It was the first time any of the children had ever seen their father in a full-blooded battle rage, and none of them ever wanted to see it again. For Inuyasha, however, he had gotten a frightening glimpse of what could have happened to him if his father had not sealed his youkai blood with Tessaiga.

The second was the hardest loss of all. Sai had been a reptilian hanyou, although exactly which species of reptile-youkai had spawned him was unknown. It was known that his mother was the youkai parent and that he had been birthed from an egg. He was an odd hybrid of incongruous reptile and human traits, and his parents often marveled that he had even survived conception and birth.

He was a sickly child, weak of limb and constitution. His cold and warm blood had never melded well and stunted his growth. He could barely walk and his limbs were twisted at odd angles at the joints, making it impossible for him to stand fully upright. His skin was a sickly whitish-green that looked a lot like a fish's underbelly, and what little hair he possessed was found in grey, stringy wisps on his head. His eyes were crocodilian, yellow-gold with slits for pupils and a third eyelid that was disturbing to look at when you first saw it. His webbed hands and feet had stubby fingers and toes with claws instead of nails.

What he lacked in physical strength, he gained in intelligence and he was easily one of the smartest children they had ever raised. He had a quick wit and a dry sense of humor, and an uncanny ability to see right through people. He was a bright light who could make almost anyone smile and everyone's lives were enriched by knowing him. Kagome likened him to the Dickens' character Tiny Tim from `A Christmas Carol' and he would occasionally repeat the line, "God bless us everyone." just to get a few extra laughs.

He needed to be kept warm and almost every day his father would carry him to a place in the sun where he could bask. In winter, fires constantly blazed in his room to keep his temperature high enough to prevent him from hibernating for weeks at a time while his body wasted away. Regulating his body temperature was a continuing challenge that his parents struggled to meet, and they were so grateful that none of their other children who were living with them at the time were resentful of all the extra attention Sai required. Quite the contrary; Sai's siblings did everything they could to help their brother, and during the years that Sai was with them, Yukio even came home to live in the new house Inuyasha had built closer to the den and took over much of his father's daily responsibilities, thus freeing Inuyasha to look after his boy while Kagome cared for the other children.

Sai was a blessing who taught Inuyasha patience. For all that he was gruff and harsh with his healthy children; he was unfailingly gentle with Sai, often carrying the boy on his back for hours. It was not uncommon to see them walking around town, the slight child clinging to the fire-rat clothes. Inuyasha would go slowly and keep his pace smooth to make it easier for him to hold on, and anyone who came close could hear him talking to the boy, his voice calm and even. Inuyasha never lost his temper while he was carrying Sai, and he never risked dropping him for anything. The two of them would often go off together for entire afternoons as Inuyasha sought new places to take his son to bask.

Sai called himself the "useless son" knowing full well that Inuyasha valued strength and he had none, but no words of disappointment or admonition ever left Inuyasha's lips and he never once gave credence to the boy's self-recriminations. He refused to compare the boy to his healthy sons, and never let him think that he was a burden.

He was an artistic child, and he would sit for hours, slowly drawing with the brush clasped oddly in his stubby hands. Inuyasha traded for art supplies and gave him paints and paper, and kept him supplied with everything he needed to create his pictures. To this day one of their most prized possessions was a portrait of his parents that Sai had painted.

When Sai reached puberty something went horribly wrong inside his small body, and he broke out in huge sections of callous scales and lost all of his hair. Then his lungs changed and he developed a set of gills that were only partially functional, making it impossible for him to breathe in air or in water. He lingered for days, gasping and struggling for breath. His parents were horrified and helpless as they watched him cling to life. Kagome did everything she could for him, everything she knew how to do to try to ease his suffering, but nothing helped. In the end they were left with no choice but to do the merciful thing.

They spoke gently to him explaining that they were going help him the only way they could and to not be afraid, although by this time the boy was incoherent and they had no way of knowing if he could understand them. Then Kagome gave him a doping medicine that he absorbed through his skin and after he'd slipped into unconsciousness, Inuyasha painlessly ended his misery. It was only the second time in her life that she had ever seen Inuyasha openly weep, and the first time any of the children had seen their father's tears. His ashes were placed next to Akihiro and Hiei's in the Higurashi shrine. Kagome recognized the markers for the graves from her childhood, always thinking they contained the remains of ancient relatives long dead. She'd never dreamed that she had been looking at the graves of her own sons.

In 1728 at the age of 180, Yukio took a mate. She was a human girl from the village whom he had known since she was a little child. He shared his blood with her thus extending her life far beyond what would be the normal lifespan for a human. It was known that full-blooded youkai could do this for human mates, and Sesshoumaru had done it when he mated Rin, but no one knew it was possible for hanyous to do the same thing for their mates until Yukio tried. It was just one more thing about hanyou physiology that had gone unknown because no one had ever bothered to try. Of course their marriage was childless, but Miaka had known about his sterility before she married him and did not care. Unfortunately hanyous could not provide their mates with the near immortality that full-blooded youkai enjoyed and Miaka died in 1962 after 234 years of marriage. Yukio was devastated and moved back in with his parents to grieve.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when commoners in Japan were allowed to create or assume existing surnames, Inuyasha adopted the surname of Fushikenwa, although not all of his children accepted it. Many created their own surnames; all of which would soon become associated with some of the most powerful families in Japan. By this time, Inuyasha and Kagome were quite well off and Inuyasha was able to secure the property rights for a large tract of land surrounding their current house that encompassed the forest around their old den which Inuyasha had rebuilt, and butted up against the back of the Higurashi Shrine grounds. Part of it would be seized via eminent domain for the building of a road, but the vast majority remained untouched.

Over the course of the passing centuries, amid childrearing and surviving in the tumultuous, changing world that was Japan in the 1600, 1700, and 1800's, there was one star that Kagome held close to her heart, and that was the knowledge that she would see her family again in the Modern Era. Many plans and possible scenarios were entertained on what would be the best way to reveal the truth of her extraordinary life, and all of the children knew that their mother looked forward to the turn of the millennium with eager anticipation.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, plans began to solidify and the pieces in an elaborate game of time-travel chess were put into place. Kagome and Inuyasha left Japan for the New World and settled in Canada. They knew what was coming in the early 1900's, wanted to avoid it, and it seemed that Canada was the best choice. Canada was colder than Japan, but still had the large tracts of undeveloped forest that Inuyasha loved so much. The rampant deforestation of his native land was a wound on his heart, and he hated to watch it. A number of their adult children, Tetsukazu included, went with them and they began to build the North American branch of their business empire.

They also wanted to avoid direct contact with the Higurashi family, although individuals had been left in place to take care of the family and see to its needs. Miroku also took up residence in what was now known as the Tokyo House, and it was he who had found and returned a toddler Kagome back to her mother in 1986.

Inuyasha's youngest inu-hanyou son had no idea he was returning his own mother to her home. Long before Inuyasha and Kagome had decided not to tell the children the whole story of their mother's life in order to protect her from youkai who would seek to use her knowledge of the future. As a result, the only ones who knew everything were Yukio, because he had gone through the well with his parents, and Eri. Eri had only found out because she was a horrible eavesdropper and knew something was up. The rest of the family would not be told the full story until Inuyasha and Kagome called everyone to their Canadian estate in 1997. At that time a date three years in advance was chosen for the reunion in Tokyo and the final wheels were set in motion.

Another exciting thing that was happening in the world of youkai and hanyous in the late 1900's was the emergence of modern medicine, and with it the study of infertility. Lack of heirs had been a growing problem for the remaining youkai races. With hanyous unable to breed and pure-blooded youkai becoming rarer and rarer, many bloodlines were facing extinction within another two generations. Even Sesshoumaru, who was mated to Rin and had three hanyou children with her, had been forced to enter into a contractual marriage with another inu-youkai family in order to beget a pure-blooded Heir to the Western Lands. Thankfully the arrangement had been amicable and was dissolved once two sons were conceived and delivered.

With the advent of fertility treatments and advanced obstetrics, eyes once again turned to the hanyous as the hope of the youkai bloodlines, and Inuyasha was one of the first hanyous to present himself for study on why he was unable to father his own pup. As it turned out, while low sperm count was a problem, Inuyasha did possess sperm that should have been viable. The issue was that they had no sense of direction, or as the youkai fertility doctor put it: "The wigglies need a road map and some sex education."

When put in a Petri dish with a viable egg, the sperm just wandered around aimlessly, bumping into the egg every now and then but pretty much ignoring it. Kagome likened them to his sword style, "Just keep swinging it around and eventually you'll hit something."

Due to the miracle of modern medicine however, it was believed that, with some fertility drugs aimed at increasing sperm count and some intense wiggly hand-holding, in vitro fertilization was highly possible. As a result, after nearly fifteen years of trying and waiting for the technology and techniques to improve, Kagome was finally pregnant with their first biological child in the first pregnancy out of five attempts that had made it to the third trimester. The couple had kept it a secret, not wanting to disappoint the family, or the many youkai and hanyous who were intensely interested in a successful hanyou-human birth, in case the pregnancy ended in another miscarriage. The only other person who knew, beside the doctor who performed the in vitro procedure, was Yukio since he still lived with his parents and they wouldn't hide something like that from him.

Once Kagome passed the dreaded five-month milestone and it looked like she might actually carry the infant to term, they began to get excited. The only problem was the timing. If she held to her gestation timetable, she would be seven months pregnant when the date of the reunion arrived. Inuyasha wanted to put it off until after the baby was born, but Kagome refused. She had waited 452 years to see her mother again and she didn't want to wait any longer. Besides, she wanted Mama there when she gave birth, and Inuyasha, who had never been able to withstand her pleading tears, agreed.

Since it was deemed too dangerous for her to fly from Canada to Japan, it was decided that they would travel overland to California then take a privately chartered yacht the rest of the way. The trip would take weeks, but it was deemed the safest way for her to travel. If all went well, Kagome would return to her native Japan two weeks before the reunion.

On May 29, 2000, Kagome Higurashi stepped onto the deck of the chartered luxury yacht and began her long journey home.

******

Only 2-3 more chapters left to go. Maybe 4, we'll see. :)) Next up... Yukio! (and Eri)