The ensuing days were unbearable to Kagome. 

While the new Shinto shrine was being built for consecration, time seemed to slow to an interminable crawl. She was restless, beyond anxious to put an end to her and Shin’s obligations here in the village and be on their way to resume their search for his missing father. As devastated as her dream of Sesshoumaru had left her, there was a kernel of fresh hope she had now because of it—now she at least had some inkling of what had befallen him, and of where he might be found.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. More clues to his whereabouts than she’d ever had before.

Shin shared her renewed enthusiasm for the quest—but not her restlessness. He wasn’t in such a hurry to leave this quaint little village as she was. True to form, his infatuation with ‘Mei-chan’ hadn’t lasted very long. All his gushing over her had started to dwindle by the two-day mark. He’d become simply chummy with her instead.

No, Shin’s latest infatuation was of a different sort—and with Mei-chan’s father ‘Yoshi-san,’ of all people, at the center of it.

Yoshi-san was a former captain of the guard, a swordsman who’d lost his arm defending his family and fellows in the flight from the sacked, burning wreckage of their homeland. He had put down the sword after this, and had taken up the plow instead. But somehow, by hook or by crook, Shin had convinced him to reconsider, recruiting a posse of fellow kids—including Mei-chan’s own brother—to wear the old swordsman down into teaching them a thing or two about sword-fighting.

Shin and the kids spent a good chunk of their day swinging sticks around and whacking at one another with them. Shin got the most whacks in—or so he boasted to Kagome, afterward.

“My dad’s gonna be so impressed when we show up to save him, doncha think?” Shin grinned as he slashed out and down with his ‘practice sword’ in a wicked diagonal. “He’s gonna go, ‘Wow, so you’re my son.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, Tou-san. It’s me. Long time, no see.’”

The ‘long time, no see’ was said in English, which made Kagome laugh out loud, picturing Sesshoumaru on the receiving end of that. She didn’t know what was funnier really—imagining him being spoken to in English, or imagining him saying ‘wow’.

She also didn’t know how to feel, sensing that now that this was a rescue mission instead of a manhunt, Shin was on board in a way he hadn’t been before. How deeply had he been nursing his hurt, that his father had abandoned him? Now that he understood that Sesshoumaru had been petrified instead, unable to be with him, his whole attitude had changed.

Kagome was afraid of her son getting his hopes up too much.

In truth, she was afraid of the same for herself.

As Shin continued to whack away through his katas, Kagome trailed along behind him down the winding village road. A western breeze stirred through the green trees around them, and something uncanny in it made Kagome pause and turn.

“Kaa-san, what is it?” Shin asked, calling back to her.

“Nothing,” she said, after a moment, and continued after him down the road.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi