Inuyasha pursed his lips. Drawing Tessaiga from its sheath with a soft hiss, he held it out toward his starry-eyed nephew blade-flat.
Shin eyed the chipped and rusted sword over, then frowned. “That’s your sword, oyaji? It looks like an old piece of crap.”
“Shin,” Kagome said sternly.
Shin tossed her an apologetic glance. “An old piece of junk,” he amended.
Inuyasha’s brow twitched. “Like that makes it any better,” he grumbled, scowling. “And who’re you calling ‘oyaji’?”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Kagome put in mildly to Shin, as Inuyasha huffed.
Shin nodded, smiling. “Yeah, Kaa-san, I know that.”
As Kagome smiled back, Shin turned to Inuyasha and said, “It’s a youkai sword, right? So what can it do?”
Inuyasha shrugged. “Lots of stuff, I guess.”
“Okay, but like what? What special powers does it have? Can it shoot out laser beams of kenatsu?”
“No.”
“Can it eat through flesh? Or raise the dead?”
“No,” Inuyasha said, annoyed. “You’re thinking of Bakusaiga and Tenseiga. Those are Sesshoumaru’s swords. This one is different. It takes on the power of defeated foes.”
“But that’s even cooler!” Shin said excitedly. “The more tough guys you kill, the more powers you get.”
“Now, you’re catching on,” Inuyasha said, smirking.
“Where’d you find a sword like that?”
“In my old man’s skull.”
Shin’s eyes lit up all over again. “Awesome.”
With a self-satisfied smile, Inuyasha puffed out his chest. “This sword is a fang,” he said importantly. “My fang—and its name is Tessaiga.”
A subtle rumble underscored the name, which Kagome found curious.
“Tessaiga,” Shin pronounced, rumbling curiously back.
Inuyasha nodded, in clear understanding of it all. Kagome looked between them, confused.
“Uh, did you two growl at each other just now?”
“He told me the sword’s name,” Shin explained to her, “you know, in ‘beast speak.’”
“Oh,” Kagome said, feeling a little left out.
Picking up on this, Shin gave her a conciliating smile and then said to Inuyasha, reaching, “So, can I hold it?”
As Inuyasha handed Tessaiga over hilt-first, Kagome couldn’t help but recall the nasty shocks it had given Sesshoumaru on their first soiree. “I don’t know…”
“It’ll be fine,” Inuyasha said with a wave. As Shin took the sword eagerly—and harmlessly—in hand, Inuyasha turned to her, folding his claws into his sleeves. “See? Anyway, it’s not like he’ll be able to—”
“Shit!” Shin yelped in surprise, as a heavy, cleaving thud hit the ground behind them.
Inuyasha and Kagome reeled with a start—both too astonished themselves to even think of scolding Shin for his potty mouth. There, sunken into the earth before Shin was Tessaiga’s fully-transformed blade, broad, white and gleaming, and swirling faintly with youki. Shin’s startled green eyes were as wide as saucers as he stood clutching the furred hilt in both hands. Gritting his fangs, he hefted the blade up clumsily from the ground.
“How the heck can you swing this thing around, oyaji?” he panted out to Inuyasha. “It’s huge!”
Inuyasha smiled smugly. “Yeah, well. When you’ve got a big one, you get used to it.”
Kagome arched a brow at his innuendo, crossing her arms at the chest. “Really, Inuyasha?”
As Inuyasha smirked on, Shin furrowed his brows. “Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Inuyasha said, retrieving Tessaiga single-handed before it fell back cleaving to the earth again. Scrutinizing the resplendent blade, he asked Shin narrowly, maybe even a little jealously, “How the hell did you know how to wield it, just like that?”
Shin met his eye and held it. A gust of wind breezed between them, tousling their silken hair. Then a moment later, Inuyasha’s face fell. He turned partly away, the look in his golden eyes inscrutable.
“What is it?” Kagome asked impatiently from the sidelines, glancing between them with her hands on her hips. “It’s rude to speak in another language in front of someone who doesn’t understand it, you know.”
“Sorry, Kaa-san,” Shin said, turning to her. Screwing up his face in concentration, he translated haltingly, “When I held Tessaiga, it…spoke to me, sorta. It wanted to know…” He trailed off, scratching at his chin. “Well, it all kinda happened in a flash, because it saw the answer as soon as it asked.”
“But what did it ask?”
Shin looked at her, his green eyes bright and warm. “All it wanted to know,” he said, smiling crookedly, “was if I had someone to protect.”
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi
BYEEE THIS KEEPS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER OMG.
Flashback of that one scene between Sesshomaru and his father 😭😭😭 I’m obsessed
Also Inuyasha is definitely feeling ashamed… since Kagome was that person he was supposed to protect. He definitely had flashbacks of his own. 🥹 it’s okay inuyasha we love your glo up now
Now Kagome’s son sees her as someone to protect instead of InuYasha 🥲
Aww 🥹
All his life he’s protected her, since before he was born even. Shin inherited the Inu no Taishou’s final legacy in truth.
Shin is WORTHY!!!
Kagome can probably get the gist of their secret conversations through their furry antennas 😂
Tessaiga trusts him 🥹 That makes me less worried about the lore behind Shin’s red bloodmark.
Both Sess and Inu are put-out with this kid 🤣🤣🤣
I just realized Inuyasha, Kouga, and Sesshoumaru may have been slinging unholy insults to each other in beast speak throughout their whole acquaintanceship and only Kirara and Shippo knows about it.
Oyajiiiiii 🤣 It feels like Shin immediately adopted Inuyasha as an uncle before Inuyasha could adjust to seeing him again hahaha
the way shin smiles at her 🥰
he’s always smiling at her like she’s his whole world 💞
I love Shin so much 😭
Shin’s got a looong way to go before he can fill in his dad’s shoes but in terms of character growth he’s already there where Sess took centuries to figure out 🥰
Char you have no idea how much this update made my day!!! I accidentally stumbled upon a Kagome bashing fic in the HARRY POTTER fandom and it made me so mad I wanna crash myself into a wall 😭
I love Kagome and her little green eyed handsome baby. I can’t wait until they can reunite with Sess 💕💕💕💕