Time for a little InuYasha/Miroku friendship fic, yes?
I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi
One Night on the Road Home
InuYasha sat under a tree, looking up at the moon that peeked through the branches. It was almost full and very bright.
They were camped off the main road. It would be another day before they would make it home back to their families and homes. Miroku tended the small fire they had made, getting ready to bank it for the night. Even as he worked, he could feel the agitation in his friend’s aura. Finishing his task, he went to sit next to his friend.
InuYasha said nothing, but his ear flicked in Miroku’s direction as the monk sat down.
Looking up at the moon with his friend, Miroku broke the silence:
“In a moonlit night,
piercing through the whole cosmos
the voice of one frog.”
InuYasha turned towards the monk. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s part of a famous poem,” Miroku said. “Once a monk was sitting in the latrine, thinking about the teaching his master had given him, and he heard a frog croak, and suddenly it all made sense. He had his enlightenment.”
“In the latrine,” the hanyou said. “Miroku, you’re full of shit.”
“I didn’t make it up. Mushin showed it to me when I was a boy.” He turned and looked at his companion. “You look like a man who’s trying to make sense of things. I don’t know what frogs will make it all make clear.”
InuYasha’s ear twitched. “I was just thinking. We went off to stop a youkai that was snatching children of one village, and go and find another village soldiers had just about wiped out. Hell if I know which is worse, brat-eating youkai or brat-killing soldiers.”
“I don’t think you can say one is worse or better than the other,” Miroku said. “Evil actions are evil.”
“That’s what Kagome says,” the hanyou replied. “Must be true. Both tried to kill me often enough. You think we chased them far enough away?”
“Enough to let the survivors get away, I suspect.” Miroku scratched the back of his neck. “You did give them quite a show.”
“Keh,” Inuyasha said. “They deserved more. Surprised me when you let what was left of the village have half the payment we got from the extermination.”
“Rumor to the contrary, I do understand the Buddha’s teaching on compassion. Rich landowners profiting on the sweat of the poor are one thing. Hungry and traumatized women and children are something else.” He sighed. “It won’t get them through to harvest, but if they’re like most villages, they have some supplies hidden away for times like this, far from roving bands of bandits or soldiers.”
Miroku turned back to the hanyou, who was staring up at the moon again. “This isn’t about that poor village, is it? You’re thinking of our own village, aren’t you?” the monk said. “You shouldn’t worry. Inumura is way off the beaten path, and besides, the village is in good hands. Even if the war headed that way, we’ll get back before they could. And your brother’s there.”
“Yeah,” the hanyou said. “I just…” He let his voice drop, not completing the thought.
Neither spoke for a while. Miroku glanced back up at the moon one more time, and then he moved back to the fire and his bedroll, and decided, with a grin, to give breaking his friend’s dark mood one more shot. “Get some rest, InuYasha,” he said. “It’s two days until the full moon. We’ll be back in plenty of time.”
“In time for what, Bouzu?” His ear twitched again.
Miroku rolled back his blanket and stretched out, grinning at his friend. “I suspect we’ll be watching Atae that night, unless you send him to your brother’s.”
InuYasha whirled around and glared at the monk. “You know, Miroku, you’re such a letch. Still don’t know how Sango puts up with you.”
“I rather think that I understand how the world works,” he said with a smile, then wrapping his blanket around him, settled down to sleep.
