Once Upon an Inuyoukai

A/N: A few notes, actually.

1.) I was not original enough to come up with my own name for the Inu no Taisho, but I didn't want to type 'Inu no Taisho' all the time because it's annoying and unwieldy. Thus, I am hopping on the bandwagon for once and borrowing 'Inutaisho.'

2.) Ages and dates and things in this are not always quite right. I tend to warp things to fit my twisted vision of how they should be. If you notice something off-kilter, smile and pretend I'm right.

3.) I know that in the movie Izayoi was a princess. By the time I'm through with her, this will be mostly correct, so don't roast me for that 'mistake'.

That is all. On with the chapter.

AFF Note: So sorry to those of you who reviewed. I didn't even see the reviews until today because AFF was being bizarre. Thank you so much for reviewing, and sorry I didn't respond then! I'll work on that tomorrow. Hugs to you all.

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Chapter II: The Color Red

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It is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners... but drowning would help. -Mark Twain


There were few things in the world that Inutaisho loved more than a good bath, and so he was most displeased when his luxurious soak was interrupted by the ungodly shrieking of a dozen babies and nearly as many women. He threw himself under the water and clapped his hands over his ears to try and block the sound. It worked, a little.

What in hell? he mused, holding his breath and hoping their throats bled or they died or something to stop the infernal noise. He held out as long as he could, until the breath burst from his lungs and he was forced to surface. The moment he did, the familiar scent of mountain meadows assailed him and he froze.

Her name was Izayoi, he thought inanely. He could also smell wolves. They were near the border with the north. Kouga's clan were trespassing, but not enough to warrant retaliation. By all rights he should just let the wolves eat them. Would serve them right, wouldn't it? Their husbands had wiped out a whole village of his subjects. But then again, they were only women. What could they have done to stop them? Probably nothing, he admitted. Still! They were human, and therefore no concern of his.

Thus, he was extraordinarily suprised to find himself midthought in midair over their encampment.

Most of the babies were dead. A knot of four women stood back to back wielding knives and barely holding their own.

And on a tree branch above the campsite perched Izayoi. She was grimly picking the wolves off with her arrows, one by one, with perfect, focused aim. Her dark green haori billowed in the wind, and her hair was tied back with a black ribbon. She was almost beautiful. She was not, however, a demon, and so whatever fleeting appreciation he had for her ethereal beauty quickly fled. She was just a human woman, who was going to die.

His tapered ears pricked up. She was talking to herself as she fired. "Damn it, my lord Ryuunomei, this is your fault! I swear, if I ever see you again I'll..."

His eyes bugged. Ryuunomei? Lord of the East? Impossible!

"Why in the heavens did you dump this blasted talisman on me? If I die, it falls into their hands, and then where will you be? Up the bloody creek without a paddle, that's where. Stupid, sourfaced, scaly worm!"

A helpless chuckle escaped his throat. He had never heard a human, or anyone for that matter, call the mighty Ryuunomei a 'stupid, scaly worm.' She had courage to spare. And she spoke of him in such familiar terms! Very curious. And what was this talk of a talisman?

There was also something in her voice, a lonely aching deep within, that was incongruous with her flippant words. It was that more than anything, no matter what he told himself, that made him take action. He felt compelled by his last shred of moral decency. It was a small shred, but it was there and it was noisy.

Before he could think of it too much, he descended on the clearing like an avenging angel. The wolves howled in sudden fear, not understanding how they were now losing what had been a massacre only moments before. Warm, iron-tanged blood flew in strings through the cacophony to hiss into the snow unnoticed. There was fur stuck in his claws. He hated that. So he killed them a little extra, just for good measure.

It took barely three deep breaths for him to completely clear the little meadow of living wolves. He'd leave clearing it of dead ones to the women. Whom he had just saved for no reason that made any sense to him.

There were perhaps five babies left, and three women including Izayoi. The clearing was drenched in blood. He sniffed. His outfit was yet again ruined. Twice in as many days. He hoped it wasn't the beginning of a pattern.

"You," a voice behind him breathed. He turned to confront a rather filthy Izayoi. "Why are you here?" She was blood spattered, pale-faced, and shaking with exhaustion, but her back was ramrod straight as she faced him.

"I do not much care for your tone," he said coolly.

She gaped at him, mouth working soundlessly.

He sighed. "Close your mouth. I was bathing and heard the screams. I came to investigate, and overheard you speak of my....old friend... Ryuunomei, as though you knew him. Who are you, woman, and how do you know Ryuunomei?"

To his surprise, her face immediately went totally blank. She might have been a china doll for all the expression on her face. For a second longer, she looked at him, and he watched the blood drain slowly from her face, until he was sure if he picked her up and dropped her those porcelain limbs would shatter all over his feet. Then, like an automaton, she rigidly turned her back on him and stalked off to help the wounded.

Caught by surprise, for a moment he could only gape at her retreating back, but he recovered quickly. He snarled and leapt after her, catching her arm in his claws. His claws, carefully poison-free, punctured her skin lightly to hold her still. "Do not turn your back on me, woman. Answer the question." By all the gods, that blank face was eerie! It only broke when he called her 'woman', and that was to twist in irritation.

"My name is Izayoi! And I don't want to talk about him." The irritation faded with an obvious effort and her face became schooled and expressionless once again. She looked him straight in the eye, cold and unafraid. "He's not worth the ground he walks on." She tore loose, ignoring the bloody gouges that caused in her arm, and stiffly walked to the survivors.

He was left with runnels of her blood trickling down his fingers and a fog of confusion reigning in his mind.

Unable to make sense of it, he watched her methodically shred her haori and bind her companion's wounds. She had some skill as a healer, though not on level with a priestess or physician.

He was now extremely curious about her past with Ryuunomei and the mysterious talisman. She would answer him, no matter how long it took. He esconced himself in a tree nearby and waited for her to finish.

As he waited, he thought.

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In his time, Japan was split up between four youkai lords, the reigning Taiyoukai. The northern kingdom consisted of the island of Hokkaido and the northernmost tip of the main island, Honshu. The southern kingdom owned Shikoku and Kyushu, the southern islands, and the southernmost tip of Honshu. The rest of the greatest island was divided up fairly evenly between the lords of the East and West, who since time immemorial had been bitter enemies. The borders of these lands were constantly shifting as land was parceled out as gifts or peace-offerings, or taken in blood and conquest, but rarely moved very far. The system was old, deeply established, and change came only with great upheaval.

In the north ruled the wolf king, Kuroga, wild and heathen but traditionally neutral in the wars of the other kingdoms. His lands were untamed expanses of tree and mountain, and followed only the rules of blood and muscle. As there was no viable farmland there to covet, he was rarely bothered. When someone was stupid enough to attack him, they inevitably died in the redblack night, fallen to the ivory fangs of his wolf army.

No one ever threatened him anymore.

A lion ruled the south, Sakenmaru the Old. He was sharp-minded but kind, the diplomat of the Ruling Council. Whenever war broke out, it was always he who stepped in with warm tawny eyes and soothing voice to forge a new peace. Even the humans of his lands respected him, for he was fair and merciful. For a long time now, he'd been a steadfast ally of the Lord of the West.

Which was him. The West belonged to him, to Inutaisho the dog. His great and wise family had ruled their half of the island for millennia, and of the four rulers they were best loved by their people, the youkai at least. And they were the most feared, for they were swift to retaliate to any incursion or insult. Many a demon lord had fallen prey to their vengeance over the years. The Inu line was long-lived, passionate, and the most given to heights of emotion. Rage especially. Most demons were cold and studiously emotionless, requiring great lengths to raise them to anger or passion. Not so with the Dogs. They were fiercely loyal, quick to love and quick to revenge. A vendetta for the inuyoukai lasted centuries at least. Thankfully, they had few vendettas accumulated.

Most of those were small, petty and half-forgotten. But there was one that had endured for thousands upon thousands of years, since nearly the beginning of history. The West belonged to Inutaisho. And the East.... the East lay under the iron heel of his arch-nemesis, Ryuunomei the Dragon King.

Ryuunomei was undeniably a great demon, noble and strong. But within him lay a thick streak of twisted wrongness, a perversion that made him a laughing, ecstatic wraith on the battlefield, reveling in the pain and death and blood around him. Though not physically strong, he was possessed of great spiritual powers that made him every bit as lethal as any other sword-swinging warrior. He lived to cause pain. And so, he was intolerable to Inutaisho, who preferred to avoid and prevent it whenever possible. It had been centures since the last battle, but Inutaisho vividly remembered his flying purple-black hair and mad green eyes flashing as he tore out beating hearts from across the field with magically created claws. Even in his human form, Ryuunomei was the wind of death personified.

And he despised humans.

Which made the woman's muttered declaration of earlier utterly mystifying.

Inutaisho lounged in the tree and waited.

Night fell.

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Izayoi was nearly going out of her mind. Inutaisho's youki was beating on her mind like millions of silver butterflies until she could hardly think. The women were quietly sniffling and burying the babies. Tracks of tears laid themselves down Izayoi's cheeks as well. They were not her children. But they were children, nonetheless, and undeserving of their cruel fate. She wept silently as she gathered the pieces of reality and made them ordered.

That was a woman's way, after all, attempting to make chaos make sense while all the while mostly creating the chaos herself.

She longed to dance, longed to move. Once upon a time she had been bright and shining, rejoicing in all things beautiful. Once upon a time she had been innocent.

There were dark things in the world, she'd discovered all too early. One by one, song and art and cooking had lost their shine for her. All the things that had once brought her pleasure were slain by the force of things that hurt, which was so much stronger to her. If only... if only. There were too many if's. All she had left now was dancing, and she was too tired even to do that now.

Finally, the camp slept. She sank to her knees, beyond exhaustion. She felt filthy, covered in blood. I want a bath. I would give my right arm for a bath. And my left leg. And my hair. Perhaps my future firstborn child?

She certainly did not want to talk to the stubborn demon lord lounging in the tree above them. But there was little she could do about that.

"What is this talisman you spoke of?" he asked abruptly, having apparently determined that the women were all at last asleep.

She cringed. She had hoped he hadn't heard that bit. No suck luck, it seemed... "Oh, nothing much!" she sang skittishly, managing with a truly heroic effort not to wring her hands. "Just an old... family heirloom... thing. Nothing really important. Just has... um.... sentimental value!"

He looked at her askance, unable to keep up with her wildly skittering scent and emotions. She was telling the truth... sort of. Not all of the truth. "Let me see it," he demanded.

She jumped and grimaced. "Well, you see, that's a little difficult." She bit her lip. "He made me swallow it."

He stared at her. "How big is it?"

She made a circle with her fingers about the size of a plum. "It hurt, a lot. Another thing for me to be thankful for."

"What?" he started.

She snorted. "It's called sarcasm. This horrid thing rolling around in my gut is yet another thing I have him to thank for, the utterly heinous bastard."

He laughed. "Your language is most unladylike, especially considering who you are speaking of. By the way, you still have not answered my question. How do you know Ryuunomei?"

In response, she shifted so her back was to him and slipped her haori off her shoulder. Imprinted on her left shoulderblade, behind her heart, was Ryuunomei's clan kanji in purple and green ink. "My father was his servant, a diplomat responsible for relations between the human and demon occupants of the Eastern Lands. I was basically a hostage, to ensure my father dealt honestly with the demons. I was raised among the children of the demon court, and Ryuunomei treated me as a sort of niece." She pulled the haori back into place and refastened it with nimble fingers. "Does that answer your question?"

"Partially. But you still haven't explained why you're in the middle of my lands with a talisman belonging to my ... old friend."

She froze.

"Do I have to tell you that?" she asked quietly.

There was that pain in her voice again, the strange bone-deep ache that made his skin crawl. His mind fogged over and his voice begain speaking for itself without any help from his brain. It was a strange feeling, entirely unnatural and quite worrisome, but he couldn't summon the strength to throw it off.

"Eventually," he said. "What are you going to do right now?" Rationalizations began to float through his brain, and he blissfully accepted them, beyond caring.

There would be time enough to extract the information once she was no longer distracted by these blithering whiners.

She could go free for a while, until such time as he decided he needed the information.

Ryuunomei would never trust a human with something truly important, so it could wait.

She really was a nice girl, there was need to be suspicious of her.

In fact, it would even be a rather clever idea to help her out a little bit. Couldn't hurt.

There was no rush to extract any petty morsels of information.

There was no rush.

No rush...

Just let it go... forget.

The strange fogginess intensified. In other times, he speculated uncaringly, he would have been very interested indeed in the answers to those questions. But here, right now, it seemed unimportant. It sighed out of his mind on the breeze without more notice.

"I... hadn't really thought beyond getting these girls to shelter. Afterwards... I suppose I'll find some new place to live. It won't be the first time." She sighed, then abruptly stood up. "Thank you for saving us. I know the villagemen were in the wrong and you were within your rights, so I'll make sure nobody makes any revenge attempts." She dusted off her hakama and began to walk away. Then she paused and looked back over her shoulder, the look in her eyes deep and unfathomable. "Thank you."

He knew she was thanking him for something else when she said that, and after a moment he realized it was for not demanding she answer him about the talisman and her current state of dispossession. Then she was gone into the shadows, and before he could think too much about why he'd spared her and the others, let alone saved them, he launched for the clarity of the open skies and the stars.

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A/N: About the quotes at the top of the chapters... I'm putting those in with the edits to lighten up on the angst. Some of them will be downright weird, so forgive me in advance.

Concrit if you wish, much appreciated.