InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Prophecy ❯ Mating Season Business ( Chapter 23 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: mshutts 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Psychological / Hentai | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 01.29.2006 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 2.1K | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Psychological / Hentai | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 01.29.2006 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 2.1K | Status: Work In Progress
The Prophecy
By: mshutts
WARNING: incest
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any other characters here-in
* * * * *
Chapter 23: Mating Season Business
Inuyasha had awoken abruptly from his sleep to a high-pitched scream. His sleeping mind had already placed it before he was even entirely awake and he had run to the source of the sound. The only thought running through his head at the time was that he had to protect his pup.
Reaching the clearing with the well, he had seen Shippo cowering, waiting for the bear youkai to take a chunk out of him. Enraged at the idea, Inuyasha jumped in between the bear and kitsune without even pausing. It saved Shippo from harm, but cost him a nice gouge in his back.
Shoving the baby kitsune towards the well and out of harms way, he turned his attention back to the youkai who had dared to try and harm someone under his charge. Sizing up the youkai, he realized that this demon was barely worth his time and defeated it rather easily.
He had sensed the presence of his brother just outside of the clearing while he had been fighting the youkai, but since he had a dim recollection of waking in his brother’s arms before leaving, he decided it was probably best to table that issue until the bastard decided to show himself. Besides, he had other things to deal with at the moment.
Asking the kitsune if he was okay, he purposefully kept his face blank even when Shippo jumped onto his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the matter. He was happy that the kitsune had not gotten eaten but very upset that he had not stayed with the others and thus gotten himself into this situation in the first place.
He was a little shocked that Shippo had come to the well specifically to seek him out because he was worried, but tried not to let it show. He did not want a repeat performance after all. It was his job to worry about the others, not theirs to worry about him.
As soon as the kitsune started smelling him, he knew that part of his secret would be out. He knew the feminine scent that was apparently becoming part of his natural scent would be enough to tell the kitsune that something was different about him.
However, he doubted that with his mostly untrained nose, the kitsune would be able to pick out the scent of his brother that was most likely covering him like a cloak to those who knew where to look. He was very glad for that fact. What would he say to a question about why he smelled like Sesshoumaru? He didn’t even want to think about it.
The shout that he was still sick confirmed his initial assumptions and, while showing anger to the kitsune, he was inwardly sighing in relief. The kitsune didn’t know about his brother, yet. If he could only get the runt back to the others before his brother decided to make an appearance, he wouldn’t need to know about him either.
Hoping that his brother would just wait until he had finished his business with the kitsune, he tried to answer a couple questions the kitsune had come up with about mating season as quickly and succinctly as possible so that he could get the kitsune back to the others faster.
Just as he was beginning to think that maybe his elder brother was not going to come out until he had managed to get rid of the runt, he heard the bushes behind him part and could feel his brother’s youki get closer to his. Unfortunately for him, the rustle caught Shippo’s attention.
As he heard the frightened gasp, Inuyasha turned around with an angry, “What do you want, bastard?” He figured he might as well get it out of the way seeing as his brother was not going to give him a chance to get rid of the audience.
“Is that any way to speak to your better, half-breed?”
“Better? I don’t see no ‘better’ around here.”
“I was not aware you had lost your sight.”
After the night and previous days that the hanyou had been having, he was not in the mood for this discussion at the moment, Inuyasha decided to cut to the chase. “Why did you come back?”
“Back?” Sesshoumaru asked and Inuyasha could see the almost look of confusion in his eyes.
“Yeah, back. Remember? You took off all the sudden and left me standing all alone with Bokusenou asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions?”
“I didn’t run away if that is what you are implying.”
“You said it, not me.”
He saw Shippo on his shoulder looking back and forth between him and his brother looking incredibly confused. He had almost forgotten the runt was there. “I don’t get it. Why aren’t you trying to kill each other?”
“Who said we weren’t trying to kill each other, runt?”
“You haven’t drawn tetsusaiga yet, dog boy.”
With a bit of a shock, Inuyasha realized that not only had he not drawn tetsusaiga, he had not even moved his hand towards it when his brother appeared. He had just assumed that he was not going to be attacked this time. When did he start assuming things like that about his brother?
Although, given that his brother had apparently held him for at least part of the night, he supposed a better question would be, when did his older brother start holding him while he slept?
“Umm…”
“I am not here for a fight.”
Inuyasha took a step back and looked at his brother warily. “If you don’t want a fight, what do you want now?”
“Why would you assume I want something, little brother?”
“You don’t want something?”
He saw his elder brother had no response to that. “Have I struck you speechless, big brother?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t have time for this conversation. If you don’t want to get to the point, we’re leaving. Sango and Miroku are probably wondering what happened to us by now.” With that, Inuyasha turned and walked out of the clearing towards Kaede’s village.
He could see Shippo turning to look back at his older brother out of the corner of his eye. “Are you sure walking away from him is a good idea, Inuyasha?” Shippo whispered in his ear, although Inuyasha was quite sure that his brother could hear the kitsune’s question loud and clear.
“Keh. What’s that bastard gonna do?”
He could sense the nervousness coming off the kitsune in waves. Not being able to ignore it any longer, Inuyasha decided to try and calm Shippo’s nerves. Ignoring that his brother could still hear what he was saying, he told the kitsune, “Sesshoumaru isn’t here to kill me or you. We have mating season business to take care of. It doesn’t really concern you so, after I drop you off with the monk and slayer, I’ll be taking off with him.”
“Mating season business? What kind of mating season business?” He now had Shippo’s full attention which was good because he was no longer nervous, but bad because he wasn’t so sure he wanted to answer the questions that were being posed, especially since he wasn’t entirely sure what his elder brother wanted himself, he was just assuming it was mating season business.
“You don’t need to know.”
“You’re not going off and getting a mate chosen for you, are you, dog boy?”
Inuyasha hesitated. Technically the mate had already been chosen for him before all this business had even begun, but he knew that was not the real question the kitsune was asking.
He saw Shippo’s eyes widen almost comically, “You ARE going to get a mate chosen for you, aren’t you?”
Inuyasha sighed, “It’s not that simple, Shippo. Remember when you asked about how you find your mate?” At the kitsune’s nod, he continued, “I told you that your youki would choose who your mate was going to be, right?”
“Yeah. But I thought you had chosen Kagome as your mate.”
“If I had chosen her to be my mate, don’t you think I would have marked her by now? We have been traveling together for over a year, after all.”
“I thought you were just waiting for Kagome to accept the mating first. Wait. Does this mean she’s NOT going to be your mate?”
The look of crushed hopes on the kitsune’s face almost did him in. He knew that he couldn’t be with Kagome because his youki refused to accept her as his mate, but hurting Shippo cut through him. He had tried so hard to be what the baby kitsune had needed, even if it was not what the kitsune or the other members of his group thought he needed.
However, despite how much it hurt the kitsune, he knew he couldn’t go against his youki, especially not after what his dream had shown him last night. Like it or not, it looked like he was going to be stuck with mating his older brother. But, even with this knowledge, he felt the need to alleviate some of the upset he could feel coming off the kitsune baby.
Stopping where he was, Inuyasha found a tree and jumped up into it. Pulling Shippo down off his shoulder, he deposited the kitsune into his lap. He supposed that the kitsune had a right to know what was going on, he was practically his son, after all.
“Shippo, I know you wanted me and Kagome to mate, but I can’t do it. I can’t do that to her.”
Shippo looked at him, worried and confused, “Why not? Why can’t you take her as your mate? Don’t you love her?”
Inuyasha shook his head. “This has nothing to do with love, runt. It has to do with who my youki wants as a mate.”
“Doesn’t it want Kagome?”
“No,” Inuyasha answered, eyes downcast. He knew it was not something he had control over, but he still felt guilty for the fact that his youki did not find Kagome to be a suitable mate.
“But I always thought that your youki would want to mate with whoever you loved.”
Seeing a chance to perhaps clear a few things up for the kitsune before he had similar problems in a couple decades, Inuyasha explained, “Actually, your own emotions have little to do with who your youki picks to be your mate.”
“But my mom and dad loved each other,” he said defensively.
“I’m sure they did, but their youkis most likely chose each other the first time they met. They, how does Kagome say it? Oh, yeah. Fell in love at first sight. Or at least, their youkis did.”
Shippo still looked confused, “So is that why you can’t mate with Kagome? She has no youki?”
The hanyou looked at the baby kitsune, shocked. That idea had never even occurred to him. Was that the only reason his youki did not want Kagome as a mate? “I-I really don’t know, runt.”
“If that was the case, father would never have mated with your mother, little brother.”
They both jumped and looked down to where the voice had come from. Inuyasha inwardly cursed, how could he not have noticed his older brother’s approach? He must be really out of it.
“Okay, if you know so much, do you also know why my youki has no desire to mate with her?”
“Most likely it has realized that she would not make an appropriate mate for you. It figures that your youki is more intelligent than you.”
“What’s wrong with Kagome?!” Shippo shouted, momentarily forgetting who he was talking to in his rush to defend his adoptive mother.
“What isn’t wrong with her?” the elder youkai scoffed. “She’s human. She’s weak. She’s still a child even though she has the body of an adult.”
“Don’t talk about her like that! Inuyasha should mate with her! He loves her!”
His elder brother’s eyes turned to him, “Is that so, baby brother? Do you love this human?”
‘Great, the one question I don’t want to answer,’ Inuyasha thought. Even though he supposed it had some level of relevance to the situation, he really didn’t like to think on his feelings for Kagome too much. He knew that he cared for the girl, but love? He wasn’t entirely sure about that.
His desire to mate with her had come from more of a sense of obligation than anything else he supposed. She was the alpha female in their little almost-pack and the alpha female was always mated to the alpha male, at least she was in every case that he was aware of.
Then there was the fact that she accepted him as he was, human and demon side. She didn’t want him to change. She was also a very good friend and he spent the vast majority of his time protecting her from everything under the sun, but did he really love her? He didn’t know.
“I asked you a question, brother,” came the voice that was suddenly a lot closer to him than it had been previously. Looking up, he realized that his brother was now on the branch right next to the one that he and Shippo were occupying and the kitsune was once again shaking.
Ignoring his brother for the moment, Inuyasha turned his attention to Shippo. “Come on, runt. You can’t let him scare you. Besides, I’m right here, nothing’s going to happen. Got it?”
He waited until he got a still-nervous nod from the kitsune before turning his attention to his older brother who had been watching the interaction intently.
“Why do you care if I love Kagome?”
Apparently that was the wrong answer for he once again found his neck being crushed by his brother’s poisoned claws. He heard the gasp from Shippo but kept his eyes on his brother. As he watched, the golden orbs flashed to red and back again.
Realizing that being in a tree, sitting next to his adoptive son was not the best place to get into it with Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha tried to calm the irate youkai. He reached out and tentatively touched his brother’s hair. Ignoring the light snarl, he began to run his fingers through it again like he had back when talking to Bokusenou.
When he felt the grip around his neck loosen enough for speech, he said as calmly as he could, “I do not love her. I care for her, but I do not love her.” That calmed him considerably, but Inuyasha could tell that his brother’s youki had still not given up its grip entirely.
His brother snarled at him, “She cannot have you. I will not allow it.”
Still trying to sooth him, Inuyasha decided to let one last piece of information slip in front of the kitsune. If the child had not yet figured out what was going on, he was certainly going to soon. “She will not have me. I am not hers. I am yours.”
* * * * *
All right, I’m going to stop there. Poor Shippo, getting caught in the middle of this mess.
Please forgive the semi-out-of-character comments that I am sure most of them made. In any event, thank you for reading and/or reviewing as always. They are both very much appreciated. Until next time.
By: mshutts
WARNING: incest
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any other characters here-in
* * * * *
Chapter 23: Mating Season Business
Inuyasha had awoken abruptly from his sleep to a high-pitched scream. His sleeping mind had already placed it before he was even entirely awake and he had run to the source of the sound. The only thought running through his head at the time was that he had to protect his pup.
Reaching the clearing with the well, he had seen Shippo cowering, waiting for the bear youkai to take a chunk out of him. Enraged at the idea, Inuyasha jumped in between the bear and kitsune without even pausing. It saved Shippo from harm, but cost him a nice gouge in his back.
Shoving the baby kitsune towards the well and out of harms way, he turned his attention back to the youkai who had dared to try and harm someone under his charge. Sizing up the youkai, he realized that this demon was barely worth his time and defeated it rather easily.
He had sensed the presence of his brother just outside of the clearing while he had been fighting the youkai, but since he had a dim recollection of waking in his brother’s arms before leaving, he decided it was probably best to table that issue until the bastard decided to show himself. Besides, he had other things to deal with at the moment.
Asking the kitsune if he was okay, he purposefully kept his face blank even when Shippo jumped onto his shoulder. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the matter. He was happy that the kitsune had not gotten eaten but very upset that he had not stayed with the others and thus gotten himself into this situation in the first place.
He was a little shocked that Shippo had come to the well specifically to seek him out because he was worried, but tried not to let it show. He did not want a repeat performance after all. It was his job to worry about the others, not theirs to worry about him.
As soon as the kitsune started smelling him, he knew that part of his secret would be out. He knew the feminine scent that was apparently becoming part of his natural scent would be enough to tell the kitsune that something was different about him.
However, he doubted that with his mostly untrained nose, the kitsune would be able to pick out the scent of his brother that was most likely covering him like a cloak to those who knew where to look. He was very glad for that fact. What would he say to a question about why he smelled like Sesshoumaru? He didn’t even want to think about it.
The shout that he was still sick confirmed his initial assumptions and, while showing anger to the kitsune, he was inwardly sighing in relief. The kitsune didn’t know about his brother, yet. If he could only get the runt back to the others before his brother decided to make an appearance, he wouldn’t need to know about him either.
Hoping that his brother would just wait until he had finished his business with the kitsune, he tried to answer a couple questions the kitsune had come up with about mating season as quickly and succinctly as possible so that he could get the kitsune back to the others faster.
Just as he was beginning to think that maybe his elder brother was not going to come out until he had managed to get rid of the runt, he heard the bushes behind him part and could feel his brother’s youki get closer to his. Unfortunately for him, the rustle caught Shippo’s attention.
As he heard the frightened gasp, Inuyasha turned around with an angry, “What do you want, bastard?” He figured he might as well get it out of the way seeing as his brother was not going to give him a chance to get rid of the audience.
“Is that any way to speak to your better, half-breed?”
“Better? I don’t see no ‘better’ around here.”
“I was not aware you had lost your sight.”
After the night and previous days that the hanyou had been having, he was not in the mood for this discussion at the moment, Inuyasha decided to cut to the chase. “Why did you come back?”
“Back?” Sesshoumaru asked and Inuyasha could see the almost look of confusion in his eyes.
“Yeah, back. Remember? You took off all the sudden and left me standing all alone with Bokusenou asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions?”
“I didn’t run away if that is what you are implying.”
“You said it, not me.”
He saw Shippo on his shoulder looking back and forth between him and his brother looking incredibly confused. He had almost forgotten the runt was there. “I don’t get it. Why aren’t you trying to kill each other?”
“Who said we weren’t trying to kill each other, runt?”
“You haven’t drawn tetsusaiga yet, dog boy.”
With a bit of a shock, Inuyasha realized that not only had he not drawn tetsusaiga, he had not even moved his hand towards it when his brother appeared. He had just assumed that he was not going to be attacked this time. When did he start assuming things like that about his brother?
Although, given that his brother had apparently held him for at least part of the night, he supposed a better question would be, when did his older brother start holding him while he slept?
“Umm…”
“I am not here for a fight.”
Inuyasha took a step back and looked at his brother warily. “If you don’t want a fight, what do you want now?”
“Why would you assume I want something, little brother?”
“You don’t want something?”
He saw his elder brother had no response to that. “Have I struck you speechless, big brother?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t have time for this conversation. If you don’t want to get to the point, we’re leaving. Sango and Miroku are probably wondering what happened to us by now.” With that, Inuyasha turned and walked out of the clearing towards Kaede’s village.
He could see Shippo turning to look back at his older brother out of the corner of his eye. “Are you sure walking away from him is a good idea, Inuyasha?” Shippo whispered in his ear, although Inuyasha was quite sure that his brother could hear the kitsune’s question loud and clear.
“Keh. What’s that bastard gonna do?”
He could sense the nervousness coming off the kitsune in waves. Not being able to ignore it any longer, Inuyasha decided to try and calm Shippo’s nerves. Ignoring that his brother could still hear what he was saying, he told the kitsune, “Sesshoumaru isn’t here to kill me or you. We have mating season business to take care of. It doesn’t really concern you so, after I drop you off with the monk and slayer, I’ll be taking off with him.”
“Mating season business? What kind of mating season business?” He now had Shippo’s full attention which was good because he was no longer nervous, but bad because he wasn’t so sure he wanted to answer the questions that were being posed, especially since he wasn’t entirely sure what his elder brother wanted himself, he was just assuming it was mating season business.
“You don’t need to know.”
“You’re not going off and getting a mate chosen for you, are you, dog boy?”
Inuyasha hesitated. Technically the mate had already been chosen for him before all this business had even begun, but he knew that was not the real question the kitsune was asking.
He saw Shippo’s eyes widen almost comically, “You ARE going to get a mate chosen for you, aren’t you?”
Inuyasha sighed, “It’s not that simple, Shippo. Remember when you asked about how you find your mate?” At the kitsune’s nod, he continued, “I told you that your youki would choose who your mate was going to be, right?”
“Yeah. But I thought you had chosen Kagome as your mate.”
“If I had chosen her to be my mate, don’t you think I would have marked her by now? We have been traveling together for over a year, after all.”
“I thought you were just waiting for Kagome to accept the mating first. Wait. Does this mean she’s NOT going to be your mate?”
The look of crushed hopes on the kitsune’s face almost did him in. He knew that he couldn’t be with Kagome because his youki refused to accept her as his mate, but hurting Shippo cut through him. He had tried so hard to be what the baby kitsune had needed, even if it was not what the kitsune or the other members of his group thought he needed.
However, despite how much it hurt the kitsune, he knew he couldn’t go against his youki, especially not after what his dream had shown him last night. Like it or not, it looked like he was going to be stuck with mating his older brother. But, even with this knowledge, he felt the need to alleviate some of the upset he could feel coming off the kitsune baby.
Stopping where he was, Inuyasha found a tree and jumped up into it. Pulling Shippo down off his shoulder, he deposited the kitsune into his lap. He supposed that the kitsune had a right to know what was going on, he was practically his son, after all.
“Shippo, I know you wanted me and Kagome to mate, but I can’t do it. I can’t do that to her.”
Shippo looked at him, worried and confused, “Why not? Why can’t you take her as your mate? Don’t you love her?”
Inuyasha shook his head. “This has nothing to do with love, runt. It has to do with who my youki wants as a mate.”
“Doesn’t it want Kagome?”
“No,” Inuyasha answered, eyes downcast. He knew it was not something he had control over, but he still felt guilty for the fact that his youki did not find Kagome to be a suitable mate.
“But I always thought that your youki would want to mate with whoever you loved.”
Seeing a chance to perhaps clear a few things up for the kitsune before he had similar problems in a couple decades, Inuyasha explained, “Actually, your own emotions have little to do with who your youki picks to be your mate.”
“But my mom and dad loved each other,” he said defensively.
“I’m sure they did, but their youkis most likely chose each other the first time they met. They, how does Kagome say it? Oh, yeah. Fell in love at first sight. Or at least, their youkis did.”
Shippo still looked confused, “So is that why you can’t mate with Kagome? She has no youki?”
The hanyou looked at the baby kitsune, shocked. That idea had never even occurred to him. Was that the only reason his youki did not want Kagome as a mate? “I-I really don’t know, runt.”
“If that was the case, father would never have mated with your mother, little brother.”
They both jumped and looked down to where the voice had come from. Inuyasha inwardly cursed, how could he not have noticed his older brother’s approach? He must be really out of it.
“Okay, if you know so much, do you also know why my youki has no desire to mate with her?”
“Most likely it has realized that she would not make an appropriate mate for you. It figures that your youki is more intelligent than you.”
“What’s wrong with Kagome?!” Shippo shouted, momentarily forgetting who he was talking to in his rush to defend his adoptive mother.
“What isn’t wrong with her?” the elder youkai scoffed. “She’s human. She’s weak. She’s still a child even though she has the body of an adult.”
“Don’t talk about her like that! Inuyasha should mate with her! He loves her!”
His elder brother’s eyes turned to him, “Is that so, baby brother? Do you love this human?”
‘Great, the one question I don’t want to answer,’ Inuyasha thought. Even though he supposed it had some level of relevance to the situation, he really didn’t like to think on his feelings for Kagome too much. He knew that he cared for the girl, but love? He wasn’t entirely sure about that.
His desire to mate with her had come from more of a sense of obligation than anything else he supposed. She was the alpha female in their little almost-pack and the alpha female was always mated to the alpha male, at least she was in every case that he was aware of.
Then there was the fact that she accepted him as he was, human and demon side. She didn’t want him to change. She was also a very good friend and he spent the vast majority of his time protecting her from everything under the sun, but did he really love her? He didn’t know.
“I asked you a question, brother,” came the voice that was suddenly a lot closer to him than it had been previously. Looking up, he realized that his brother was now on the branch right next to the one that he and Shippo were occupying and the kitsune was once again shaking.
Ignoring his brother for the moment, Inuyasha turned his attention to Shippo. “Come on, runt. You can’t let him scare you. Besides, I’m right here, nothing’s going to happen. Got it?”
He waited until he got a still-nervous nod from the kitsune before turning his attention to his older brother who had been watching the interaction intently.
“Why do you care if I love Kagome?”
Apparently that was the wrong answer for he once again found his neck being crushed by his brother’s poisoned claws. He heard the gasp from Shippo but kept his eyes on his brother. As he watched, the golden orbs flashed to red and back again.
Realizing that being in a tree, sitting next to his adoptive son was not the best place to get into it with Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha tried to calm the irate youkai. He reached out and tentatively touched his brother’s hair. Ignoring the light snarl, he began to run his fingers through it again like he had back when talking to Bokusenou.
When he felt the grip around his neck loosen enough for speech, he said as calmly as he could, “I do not love her. I care for her, but I do not love her.” That calmed him considerably, but Inuyasha could tell that his brother’s youki had still not given up its grip entirely.
His brother snarled at him, “She cannot have you. I will not allow it.”
Still trying to sooth him, Inuyasha decided to let one last piece of information slip in front of the kitsune. If the child had not yet figured out what was going on, he was certainly going to soon. “She will not have me. I am not hers. I am yours.”
* * * * *
All right, I’m going to stop there. Poor Shippo, getting caught in the middle of this mess.
Please forgive the semi-out-of-character comments that I am sure most of them made. In any event, thank you for reading and/or reviewing as always. They are both very much appreciated. Until next time.