roses and the tulips have withered away, they had their day

[distrustful]

The priests at the shrine have started to trust InuYasha a little more. Ever since the start of the new year, when InuYasha helped with mochi tsuki, they've actively greeted InuYasha whenever he comes around to spend time in the quiet forest behind the shrine. Even though there's always a slight lump in his throat that forms in response to the purity of the air by the shrine, the peace and quiet the shrine offers is well worth the discomfort.

Unfortunately, spending so much time around the shrine also means that InuYasha gets asked to help out with chores. Most of them aren't too much trouble — he's fine helping to sweep, or even cleaning out the trough to make sure the water's clean for use. But today, there's some type of murkiness inside the shrine itself, they tell him, and they suspect that it's some type of lingering youkai.

It'd be less of a problem if it weren't for how all of the workers are starting to fall ill, rashes spreading over their body.

A few hours' worth of time in the shrine makes it clear what the problem was: susuwatari hovering in the corners of each room, lurking in the darkness. Tessaiga clears them quickly enough with a few spiraling wind attacks, but InuYasha doesn't escape unscathed. Some of the soot ends up in his nose as he stumbles out of the shrine, coughing and disgruntled.

The priests offer him payment, but InuYasha refuses, choosing to walk out towards the forest instead and flop in the grass.

His head hurts.

Comments

[phosphor]

"'Taku," Rin says when he approaches, catching the sight of smudged, black and gray soot on InuYasha's face and, standing out even more, in his pale hair. Rin lifts a hand to scrub at the back of his neck as he crosses the grass, still dry and yellow from winter.

"What were you doing? You look like you got in a fight with a grill and lost. Were you helping the temple out?"

The temple is why Rin came, more than InuYasha. He didn't have school during the day on weekends, and often found himself at a loss for what to do, if Nuriko was working and Yukio was on a job that he had neglected to invite his brother along on.

[distrustful]

InuYasha grunts, feeling no need to elaborate further than that, although he does raise his head enough to look Rin in the eyes. Because, why not. He might as well have something to distract him from the already building headache in his temples from all the acrid smell lingering still in his nose.

"There were susuwatari lingering in the shrine. And none of the geezers knew what to do about it. So they called me in," explains InuYasha, pushing himself up with some effort before simply rolling onto his back. He's really weak to things like this. Fortunately, he's not too worried about showing that weakness to someone like Rin.

"You would think that a temple would want to hire a miko capable of purifying this shit. They're lucky that I've learned many ways to use Tessaiga."

[phosphor]

"Susu ... " Rin trails off, before finishing with a flick of his tail. " ...watari." He's heard the term before, but not many times, and it's difficult to picture what InuYasha is talking about and how it looks. "You should call me or something next time, I'll help. I'm never going to learn if people don't give me the chance to watch or whatever."

Which might not work on InuYasha, especially in combination with Rin's childish pout. It certainly nearly never works on Yukio. It's just easier to follow Yukio anyway.

"I wonder if there's even any miko in the city ... "

[distrustful]

Frustrated with the continual burning in his nose, InuYasha sits up with a grunt, taking in a deep breath before starting to beat the sleeves of his robe and patting down the front of it, trying his best to dislodge any remaining ash and soot. Bearing the pain of the air for an hour is one thing; if he carries this back to his apartment, it is going to be a pain in the ass. One that he'd rather not deal with.

Only after the dust kicked up by the beating is almost nonexistent does InuYasha take another breath, fighting the urge to lay back down in the grass.

"I'll call you to help if I think you can be a help. Wailing about it isn't going to make people want to bring you along any more than they do right now, you know. Sometimes it's more believable to ask and watch than to ask and involve yourself from the start. And yes, there's a miko in the city. Don't know how good she really is, but." InuYasha scrubs at his cheek with a disgruntled look.

[phosphor]

"Who's wailing?" Rin said, sounding deeply disappointed more than resentful, and he settled himself down on the grass with a plop, shoulders hunched over his lap as he ran his fingers through the bright green of the early spring turf. He plucked a weed out of it and shredded it with frustrated fingers, tip of his tail giving lazy flicks.

"Does she have a hime cut? And the eyebrows?" he asks, before miming at his eyebrows. He remembers Izumo being sensitive about her own.

[distrustful]

"Never going to learn if people don't give you the chance to watch? Sounds like wailing to me," InuYasha points out, watching as Rin settles himself in the grass and makes quick work of a weed. (Which happens to be another aspect of Darrow that InuYasha doesn't understand — the citizens' obsession with grass.) "If you go looking for opportunities, you'll have plenty you can watch. I guarantee it. There's enough shit that happens in this place, as long as you look closely enough."

Caving to his laziness, InuYasha settles back in the grass again, nose twitching only briefly as he stares up at the sky. "She doesn't have the cut. Or the eyebrows. I don't think that's as common anymore these days as it was in my time. But that's what happens to traditions, isn't it? They wear down with every generation, whether you want them to or not."

[phosphor]

Rin frowns. Maybe that's true. He could always ask Dean if he could follow along with him whenever he's doing his stuff. Even if Yukio shakes him off often enough, he's willing to bet Dean will find it more difficult to do the same -- not that he plans to use something like that to his advantage. But he really does want to learn more, and for Rin, that doesn't involve sitting in the library with his eyes glazed over in front of a stack of books.

"I don't actually know any miko," he admits. "I know a girl who's from a family of them, but she's just an exorcist candidate like me. She doesn't work in the shrine. It sounds like a lot of responsibility to me, though. The priests at this shrine are pretty friendly, though." At least, they've been tolerant of Rin -- and apparently, tolerant enough of InuYasha to ask him for favors.

[distrustful]

"I've known a couple," InuYasha says quietly. 'Know' doesn't even begin to cover how deeply he became involved with Kikyou and Kagome, but even now, months after arriving in Darrow, InuYasha doesn't feel any more inclined than before to share his emotions on the matter. He doesn't care to expose the fact that his heart still aches over all of it. That the long, frenzied existence of his came to an end without either of them still being in his life.

The days ahead of him seem impossibly heavy, and it forces InuYasha to take life day by day instead of even remotely trying to plan for the future.

"It was a very hard job back in my time. The miko would often be a village's only defense against all kinds of malicious youkai. But miko fight with a purity that requires that their souls be serene in spite of that. Not many people could do the job."

[phosphor]

Rin frowned, leaning forward a little further to peer across at InuYasha's face. It was strange. He was private about some things, and freely shared others, and not always in the combination that Rin might lean toward himself. In fact, if anything, InuYasha was his opposite in that matter.

"I know it was a very hard job," he said. The protest felt a little empty, though. "There are people I've worked with at home that've given up everything to be in a position like that, and all out of faith. Even their lives. They were all good people, at heart Even if some of them . strayed, I guess."

[distrustful]

"What're you starin' at," InuYasha mutters, raising his chin almost aggressively when Rin leans in close. Rin reminds him of Shippou more often than not. Always poking his head into the wrong places, always demanding to be included for things that his involvement doesn't make sense for.

But Rin sinks back on his legs before long, and InuYasha stops bristling, stuffing his hands back into either of his sleeves.

"There's always someone who strays. Doesn't matter what kind of person they say they are, there's always someone of that type who betrays someone or something. So you're bringing it up, why? Because you know someone who did?"

[phosphor]

"Oi," Rin says defensively, when InuYasha asks him what he's staring at. He isn't staring at anything. 'Except an idiot,' he almost wants to say, but he can't bring himself to. The gap between his own wisdom and InuYasha's is just too much of a gap. Even Rin can't make a joke about it without feeling disrespectful somehow.

"There was this girl. I don't really remember her name. A Honjou girl, a priestess. Something happened that made her really resentful, so she made some bad decisions that could have hurt a lot of people. She was being manipulated, though. By a-- well, it's complicated. By a guy she used to trust who became a demon. Sort of."

[distrustful]

The tale rings too familiar, and InuYasha's right ear gives a slight twitch as his gaze grows distant. Kikyou, who had been manipulated by the newly demonized Onigumi, and made to believe that the person she loved most was ready to forsake her entirely.

InuYasha draws in a long, slow breath. What happened to Kikyou is no longer something that he likes to linger on, the regret having no point now that her soul has passed on. But he bears the memory heavily on his shoulders.

Just a reminder to look twice before drawing conclusions.

"I'm familiar with the idea," he says simply, lips pressed thin. "Both of resentment and with becoming a demon. You can't let either of them shirk blame fully. Temptation and manipulation will always be present — but falling to weakness isn't an excuse. Though if you don't remember her name, maybe you aren't seeing the full picture anyway."