Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

The Lucky Ones
By : isilwath
Category: InuYasha > General
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Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.
Chapter List
- 33
- 34
- 35
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
Website: http://www.wordsmiths.net/Botta
*******

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 brotto lto 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 thme dme 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
namee kie 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,ity ity
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 in 1571, destroying their monastery and killing thousands. Yasuo was not of that
order, he whe 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 toild-ild-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-shnshunshuga 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 tgh hgh 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 of 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 cl to 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 reed ted 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 vuableable 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 willeilled 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 swas 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 to tto 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 there sre 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
aftens ans 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 hel 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 recognithe 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 wed wed 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 Kagwerewere 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
i>
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. Miroalsoalso 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
arraarrangement 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 viablg, tg, 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.

*****

Next up... Yukio! (and Eri)
- 33
- 34
- 35
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The Lucky Ones	By : isilwath Category: InuYasha > General Views: 10828 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

The Lucky Ones