May 2008
Title:How It Could Have Been; ch 59, Nasty Notes
Author:petalears
Universe:AU
Rating:PG
Summary:Problems come to a head
Quote:"Why is it that every time I think I know the answers, someone goes and changes the questions?" - The X-Files
"You are only a hanyou Inuyasha; I am your Alpha, so you should do as I tell you."
"You will not be my Alpha ever, even if you beat me and so far you haven’t, and anyway what’s me being hanyou got to do with it?"
"Well Xing-fu says a hanyou can’t ever be Alpha to a youkai, ‘cos you are weak."
"I’m not weak Hiroto, and in any case you don’t know if you are going to always be Alpha, you have to be grown up first. What else is Xing-fu saying about me?"
"Nothing." But Hiroto’s reply was too quick to be convincing. However he wanted to change the subject, he loved Inuyasha, but he also liked Xing-fu and he knew the other two boys didn’t see eye to eye. He was positive that the panda only said things to wind Inuyasha up and he thought his brother was too sensitive when he reacted. Not that Inuyasha had ever started a fight with Xing-fu, but he did moan a lot about him to Hiroto.
Then when he got nowhere with his younger brother, Inuyasha had voiced his concerns to The Tiger, asking that Xing-fu be separated a little more from Hiroto. But The Tiger had declined, there was no reason to split the boys up, and in fact the tutor felt that perhaps it was a touch of jealousy creeping in from the slightly older brother. He had voiced this to Inuyasha, at the same time warning him not to cause trouble in the class. Inuyasha though didn’t understand, he was fundamentally an honest boy and felt that everyone was ignoring his concerns.
But Inuyasha was bothered that Hiroto might also think that he was jealous of Xing-fu’s influence over the younger brother, which was not the case. So he told Hiroto what he’d said and The Tiger’s reply to him; then stressed that he was not jealous, only worried, that Xing-fu might be teaching him wrongly. Of course this did not go down well at all with Hiroto, who felt Inuyasha was treating him like a baby, interfering with his life when he had no right to do so, and as if he had no intelligence to choose his own friends. Inuyasha realised too late that he should not have told Hiroto of his meeting with The Tiger.
The verbal argument gained the attention of everyone eventually; neither of the boys were exactly quiet, or trying at the time to keep their disagreement private, even if they were in their room. This though was excellent ammunition for Xing-fu who was proving to have a sly side to him. From then onwards Xing-fu had pushed the notion of Youkai and Alpha supremacy with not only Hiroto, but with the other youngsters while they were at play or sparring. But he smiled a lot and nobody took offence, because he was never a bully and only seemed to be aspiring to make the others achieve their potential.
Even the few who had not yet settled into natural pack order and wouldn’t until they were adult, were not pushed into the background, they were youkai and understood instinctively that their positions in life were not set in stone. Only Inuyasha felt disturbed by all the innuendo, not realising that his mainly human heart didn’t always think in the same ways that a full youkai heart did. He alone had sentimentality warring against his pure instinct and was often confused; youkai did have feelings but they were usually tempered with instinct in a way that Inuyasha’s weren’t, almost diametrically opposite, his feelings more often than not won in their battle.
Inuyasha then gave up fighting with Xing-fu and ignored him; if nobody else, including the instructors saw what the panda was up to, it was more than likely that Inuyasha was the one misunderstanding. The Tiger had tried to help the boy by taking Inuyasha’s humanity into account, but he was getting tired of complaints too. On the other hand to be fair to the stern but kindly male, if Inuyasha had told him that Xing-fu was sending him nasty notes, he might have taken the hanyou more seriously. But Inuyasha kept that information to himself; he didn’t want anyone else to know and give Xing-fu the satisfaction of knowing that he had found a weapon that did upset Inuyasha.
The notes only came spasmodically and had started when Hiroto started school, with one that hinted that now Inuyasha had proper protection with his full youkai brother in his class. Others were just of one or two words; sneak, cry-baby, friendless hanyou, etc; but where others would have ignored and destroyed them, Inuyasha had kept them all in his desk in his room. Some he didn’t even understand and just assumed they were rude; for instance, what was a whore and why was his mother one?
Inuyasha tried not to pay the notes much mind, it was only name-calling in the written form and he wasn’t a baby or a tattle-tale like the notes said; besides he had plenty of his own names to call Xing-fu if he wanted to. Although if he remembered the insults he felt hot and angry inside, and felt that the panda knew exactly how annoyed he was, if the knowing smirk that was often on Xing-fu’s face was anything to go by. Which brought them back to where they were today and Hiroto had once again failed to beat Inuyasha at sparring and the older boy had refused to concede that the younger one was his Alpha or had the right to tell him what to do.
As they departed the arena, the rest of the class applauded them for an entertaining fight, most were cheering for Hiroto, willing him to defeat his brother and claim supremacy. None of the children realised that it was their individual youkai who were cheering for Hiroto to win, instincts were high, wanting the purebred youkai to gain the upper hand over the hanyou. Inuyasha though was resigned, one day and probably soon, it would happen that Hiroto became champion; but Inuyasha would not acknowledge him as Alpha, only his father and Sesshoumaru had that right, unless Hiroto managed to beat either of them. Inuyasha chuckled as he thought of the likelihood of that scenario.
It was time to clean up before the evening meal and Inuyasha and Hiroto went to the bath house, the older one giving pointers to his younger brother, but not giving away all of his own secrets. Hiroto was more relaxed now that Inuyasha seemed to have given up his tendency to warn him all the time about Xing-fu. At dinner that night everyone was talking about how Hiroto would soon show Inuyasha that he was the better fighter and as the hanyou didn’t seem to be bothered by the good natured rivalry, The Tiger didn’t stop it and let the boys chatter after they’d eaten.
In the morning, Xing-fu managed to catch Inuyasha alone and whisper that all the boys liked Hiroto; they couldn’t wait until the half-breed was put in his proper place. Did Inuyasha realise yet that he was alone and had no real friends? Finally Inuyasha snapped and elbowed Xing-fu viciously hard in the ribs, making the panda catch his breath, before marching off to breakfast feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself for losing his self control.
When they met up again for lessons, it became obvious to everyone that Xing-fu was in great pain, and although Inuyasha was sure he was making a mountain out of a molehill, he was doing a good job. Of course it wasn’t long before The Tiger saw the bruising on the cub’s ribs and Inuyasha had admitted to the deed. Xing-fu admitted to saying something unwise, although he couldn’t remember what had upset Inuyasha and the hanyou wasn’t forthcoming either. So with a sigh, The Tiger informed Inuyasha that he would have to help Xing-fu during the morning lessons until the bruise was healed.
That meant picking up pencils that the panda dropped, or fetching and carrying anything that was required and Inuyasha did all with good grace because he truly hadn’t meant to cause harm. The rest of the children were appalled at the bruise, which caused Xing-fu to wince a lot and drop many items; but they didn’t feel sorry for Inuyasha having to pick them up, because he was the one at fault. Then a few days later when the panda set his pens and inks ready to work he found that his best brush was broken, snapped clean through the handle.
It was his favourite, the brush had worn exactly right for his work and he lamented loudly that it had been given to him by his father. Everyone commiserated with him, some offered him the choice from their own brushes, but when the next day he found that all of his inks had been mixed and were now useless, it seemed to all that it was no accident. Over the next couple of weeks other personal items of the panda were broken and some were irreparable; someone it seemed had a nasty streak in their nature and had taken vengeance on the panda cub.
It was not hard for everyone to put a name to the guilty party and although there was no proof at all, Inuyasha found he was being shunned by all of his school mates, and worse Hiroto too asked to move out of his room. The Tiger called for calm during lessons and mealtimes, there was nothing to suggest that Inuyasha was the arbitrator of the badness, but he too felt that despite the lack of evidence, Inuyasha was guilty. The young hanyou found the time at school start to become intolerable, nobody was speaking to him, let alone playing with him outside of their lessons and Hiroto wouldn’t even look at his brother.
The Tiger didn’t think that the time was right yet to bring in Inu no Taishou, this was a school matter and these things usually found their own level. But when Inuyasha got up from his cushion one morning to present his homework, he knocked over Xing-fu’s inks, all over the boy’s writing. The Tiger told him that one more incident and he would be reported to his father for all the mischief that had been happening. Inuyasha said nothing, his face was aflame as the eyes of everyone were on him and he could feel the scorn as if it were real heat.
The Tiger wasn’t finished and told Inuyasha that he must make amends by re-writing Xing-fu’s homework and any other writing that had to be done that day, apart from his own. That meant there was no social time for Inuyasha because he had to do two days worth of writing. Not that playtime was very happy for him at the moment, but he did like to be outside during the free periods. That night no one came near him, even his maid was seeing to Hiroto and didn’t bring him his supper or a drink. Inuyasha was very tired and miserable by the time he got to bed that night.
The final straw came for Inuyasha’s patience in the morning; Hiroto came to collect his things for lessons and once again ignored his brother. But Inuyasha had one more try, he categorically stated that he had done none of the horrid things to Xing-fu, and it hadn’t been his fault that the ink had spilled, he had felt the panda pull on his sleeve, deliberately making it look like Inuyasha’s fault. Hiroto looked at his brother with scorn and sneered at him, not bothering to answer until Inuyasha said;
"Can’t you tell by my scent that I am not lying?"
"Who’d want to get close enough to you to scent you and your dirty blood?" Hiroto said nastily before leaving Inuyasha alone again. The young hanyou didn’t know what to think, what did Hiroto mean by dirty blood? Did he think that Inuyasha was ill or something? He remembered that one of the notes Xing-fu had sent him, called him filthy hanyou, was it something like that that Hiroto meant? Inuyasha was still pondering when he reached the breakfast table and handed over the assignment he’d been given to Xing-fu.
The panda smirked and slipped another note to Inuyasha who didn’t give him the satisfaction of reading it, but instead ripped it up in front of the boy. He then sat and ate his breakfast alone without wanting to talk and was the first pupil in class, only giving a nod to The Tiger when he was asked if everything was alright and had he done the extra work. As the rest of them filed in, Xing-fu put an opened note in front of Inuyasha so that he couldn’t help but read it, before he folded it and put it in his sleeve; dirty blooded son of a whore. Inuyasha still didn’t understand what was written and was sure that neither did Xing-fu, but he knew it had to be an insult.
Inuyasha was very angry by now, he had been trying to ignore the panda and not let his meanness affect him, but he couldn’t tolerate his mother being insulted and once again he turned on the horrid child to give him a piece of his mind. But Xing-fu anticipated this and called the attention of The Tiger who asked for the homework that Inuyasha had done for him, only to find it smudged and blotted in many places. With a severe headache already forming, The Tiger held up the shoddy work and called Inuyasha to task once again.
"I am tired of all this posturing between you all, but especially I am disappointed in you Inuyasha; youkai do not behave in this way, you are here to learn and to be corrected to make sure you understand your future duties. If it is your humanity that makes you disobedient, I shall have to treat you differently from the others; and this is not what your father wishes. You must learn my child, that your actions are not to be tolerated in a civilised class and I shall inform your father of this latest rebellion. You have always been a model student; it is a shame that you cannot overcome your jealousy and that it makes you a sullen and sly boy."
The Tiger was sure of his words and the reason behind all of the problems; he’d had boys before that took a while to settle down together. Youkai blood was strong and instinctive and caused many differences, before it was put in its place, even more so when a lot of potential alphas were together. But it was almost unheard of for a natural Beta to be so, and Inuyasha had acted almost true to type before he and Xing-fu met; in fact he was the nicest pupil The Tiger had ever had and the change was upsetting. The only solution the tutor could come up with was to let the father deal with the son.
Looking at Inuyasha now The Tiger was pleased that he’d reached the right conclusion by the use of his stern words, the pup’s face was beacon red and his eyes were brilliantly shiny with the tears than flowed down his cheeks. He was the picture of shame and now he would be ready to knuckle down again as he should; of course the public telling off was humiliating, but it should never have come to this and hopefully, Inuyasha would in time understand. Therefore it was surprising to him when the boy raised his voice to his teacher, shouting out that he was wrong and so was everyone else. This assertion was emphasized by Inuyasha’s swinging arms, before he bowed quickly and left the classroom.
This sort of upheaval was never pleasant to witness and most of the boys were subdued, a fact that enabled The Tiger to regain control in welcome routine work for them all. Hiroto was very upset and so were a couple of the others including Kouga, who had so far kept out of what he’d thought were petty squabbles. Xing-fu was delighted though, he’d finally beaten the stuck up, goody two shoes hanyou. The Tiger however was not pleased with the outcome, he hadn’t wanted to drive Inuyasha to this point and out of class, but he’d forgotten how sensitive the boy was to criticism. So he decided to leave him alone for the morning to calm down and then welcome him back to class in the afternoon to accept his apology and discipline him for his deplorable temper.
Meantime in his room, Inuyasha was in despair, no one believed him; all he wanted now was Sesshoumaru, but he was not in the Palace. The son and heir of the West was in his further education, and for the last three years had been spending time learning in situ around the Western Lands, and only came home two or three times a year. Inuyasha knew it was important for Sesshoumaru to know how the West was run, and all about the different offices around the land, but it didn’t help the lonely hanyou who wanted his bonded brother.
It was no good going to Inu no Taishou for this, his father was adamant about education and he would believe The Tiger’s version of events, because he was another grown-up. Izayoi was out of the question because she was not very well and Inuyasha didn’t want to bother her. Then, like a light shining in his brain he knew he could go to Yori, his brother would understand and at least listen to him and Kaoru too was a very understanding lady; she would give him a cuddle and would make him some sweet cakes.
So he took his rabbit and left the school grounds, and made his way to an astonished Yori who immediately let him in. He noticed the red eyes and the rabbit with concern, as did Kaoru who went to the pup and pulled him close in a hug, finally giving Inuyasha what he had needed for many days. Yori meanwhile went and told the guard who had followed the hanyou, to let Inu no Taishou know that Inuyasha was with them and was welcome to stay, at least until his problem was sorted.
Back at the school the class was still working quietly and The Tiger was thinking about what to say to his errant pupil, when he noticed a slip of paper he didn’t recognise. Once he looked at it and saw what was written, he was furious; he swiftly realised that it must have come from Inuyasha’s sleeve when he’d raised his arms in anger, no one else had been near the desk. He also recognised the pen work and he glanced at Xing-fu and his smug expression, and suddenly he had to face the fact that all his assumptions had been just that, and he was very wrong.
The Tiger sent Hiroto to go and tell Inuyasha that he was going to come and speak with him as soon as he’d called an assistant to sit with the class. Hiroto came back to say that Inuyasha was not in his room and that his rabbit was gone. Everyone knew that his rabbit was Inuyasha’s most prized possession and that he wouldn’t have gone anywhere without it, which meant that Inuyasha had run away. Hiroto felt terrible and burst into tears; he’d felt guilty all day at what he’d said to his brother and now Inuyasha had left. Suddenly though, a familiar youki signature was felt approaching and as Inu no Taishou came in, Hiroto flew into his father’s arms.
TBC
Author:petalears
Universe:AU
Rating:PG
Summary:Problems come to a head
Quote:"Why is it that every time I think I know the answers, someone goes and changes the questions?" - The X-Files
"You are only a hanyou Inuyasha; I am your Alpha, so you should do as I tell you."
"You will not be my Alpha ever, even if you beat me and so far you haven’t, and anyway what’s me being hanyou got to do with it?"
"Well Xing-fu says a hanyou can’t ever be Alpha to a youkai, ‘cos you are weak."
"I’m not weak Hiroto, and in any case you don’t know if you are going to always be Alpha, you have to be grown up first. What else is Xing-fu saying about me?"
"Nothing." But Hiroto’s reply was too quick to be convincing. However he wanted to change the subject, he loved Inuyasha, but he also liked Xing-fu and he knew the other two boys didn’t see eye to eye. He was positive that the panda only said things to wind Inuyasha up and he thought his brother was too sensitive when he reacted. Not that Inuyasha had ever started a fight with Xing-fu, but he did moan a lot about him to Hiroto.
Then when he got nowhere with his younger brother, Inuyasha had voiced his concerns to The Tiger, asking that Xing-fu be separated a little more from Hiroto. But The Tiger had declined, there was no reason to split the boys up, and in fact the tutor felt that perhaps it was a touch of jealousy creeping in from the slightly older brother. He had voiced this to Inuyasha, at the same time warning him not to cause trouble in the class. Inuyasha though didn’t understand, he was fundamentally an honest boy and felt that everyone was ignoring his concerns.
But Inuyasha was bothered that Hiroto might also think that he was jealous of Xing-fu’s influence over the younger brother, which was not the case. So he told Hiroto what he’d said and The Tiger’s reply to him; then stressed that he was not jealous, only worried, that Xing-fu might be teaching him wrongly. Of course this did not go down well at all with Hiroto, who felt Inuyasha was treating him like a baby, interfering with his life when he had no right to do so, and as if he had no intelligence to choose his own friends. Inuyasha realised too late that he should not have told Hiroto of his meeting with The Tiger.
The verbal argument gained the attention of everyone eventually; neither of the boys were exactly quiet, or trying at the time to keep their disagreement private, even if they were in their room. This though was excellent ammunition for Xing-fu who was proving to have a sly side to him. From then onwards Xing-fu had pushed the notion of Youkai and Alpha supremacy with not only Hiroto, but with the other youngsters while they were at play or sparring. But he smiled a lot and nobody took offence, because he was never a bully and only seemed to be aspiring to make the others achieve their potential.
Even the few who had not yet settled into natural pack order and wouldn’t until they were adult, were not pushed into the background, they were youkai and understood instinctively that their positions in life were not set in stone. Only Inuyasha felt disturbed by all the innuendo, not realising that his mainly human heart didn’t always think in the same ways that a full youkai heart did. He alone had sentimentality warring against his pure instinct and was often confused; youkai did have feelings but they were usually tempered with instinct in a way that Inuyasha’s weren’t, almost diametrically opposite, his feelings more often than not won in their battle.
Inuyasha then gave up fighting with Xing-fu and ignored him; if nobody else, including the instructors saw what the panda was up to, it was more than likely that Inuyasha was the one misunderstanding. The Tiger had tried to help the boy by taking Inuyasha’s humanity into account, but he was getting tired of complaints too. On the other hand to be fair to the stern but kindly male, if Inuyasha had told him that Xing-fu was sending him nasty notes, he might have taken the hanyou more seriously. But Inuyasha kept that information to himself; he didn’t want anyone else to know and give Xing-fu the satisfaction of knowing that he had found a weapon that did upset Inuyasha.
The notes only came spasmodically and had started when Hiroto started school, with one that hinted that now Inuyasha had proper protection with his full youkai brother in his class. Others were just of one or two words; sneak, cry-baby, friendless hanyou, etc; but where others would have ignored and destroyed them, Inuyasha had kept them all in his desk in his room. Some he didn’t even understand and just assumed they were rude; for instance, what was a whore and why was his mother one?
Inuyasha tried not to pay the notes much mind, it was only name-calling in the written form and he wasn’t a baby or a tattle-tale like the notes said; besides he had plenty of his own names to call Xing-fu if he wanted to. Although if he remembered the insults he felt hot and angry inside, and felt that the panda knew exactly how annoyed he was, if the knowing smirk that was often on Xing-fu’s face was anything to go by. Which brought them back to where they were today and Hiroto had once again failed to beat Inuyasha at sparring and the older boy had refused to concede that the younger one was his Alpha or had the right to tell him what to do.
As they departed the arena, the rest of the class applauded them for an entertaining fight, most were cheering for Hiroto, willing him to defeat his brother and claim supremacy. None of the children realised that it was their individual youkai who were cheering for Hiroto to win, instincts were high, wanting the purebred youkai to gain the upper hand over the hanyou. Inuyasha though was resigned, one day and probably soon, it would happen that Hiroto became champion; but Inuyasha would not acknowledge him as Alpha, only his father and Sesshoumaru had that right, unless Hiroto managed to beat either of them. Inuyasha chuckled as he thought of the likelihood of that scenario.
It was time to clean up before the evening meal and Inuyasha and Hiroto went to the bath house, the older one giving pointers to his younger brother, but not giving away all of his own secrets. Hiroto was more relaxed now that Inuyasha seemed to have given up his tendency to warn him all the time about Xing-fu. At dinner that night everyone was talking about how Hiroto would soon show Inuyasha that he was the better fighter and as the hanyou didn’t seem to be bothered by the good natured rivalry, The Tiger didn’t stop it and let the boys chatter after they’d eaten.
In the morning, Xing-fu managed to catch Inuyasha alone and whisper that all the boys liked Hiroto; they couldn’t wait until the half-breed was put in his proper place. Did Inuyasha realise yet that he was alone and had no real friends? Finally Inuyasha snapped and elbowed Xing-fu viciously hard in the ribs, making the panda catch his breath, before marching off to breakfast feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself for losing his self control.
When they met up again for lessons, it became obvious to everyone that Xing-fu was in great pain, and although Inuyasha was sure he was making a mountain out of a molehill, he was doing a good job. Of course it wasn’t long before The Tiger saw the bruising on the cub’s ribs and Inuyasha had admitted to the deed. Xing-fu admitted to saying something unwise, although he couldn’t remember what had upset Inuyasha and the hanyou wasn’t forthcoming either. So with a sigh, The Tiger informed Inuyasha that he would have to help Xing-fu during the morning lessons until the bruise was healed.
That meant picking up pencils that the panda dropped, or fetching and carrying anything that was required and Inuyasha did all with good grace because he truly hadn’t meant to cause harm. The rest of the children were appalled at the bruise, which caused Xing-fu to wince a lot and drop many items; but they didn’t feel sorry for Inuyasha having to pick them up, because he was the one at fault. Then a few days later when the panda set his pens and inks ready to work he found that his best brush was broken, snapped clean through the handle.
It was his favourite, the brush had worn exactly right for his work and he lamented loudly that it had been given to him by his father. Everyone commiserated with him, some offered him the choice from their own brushes, but when the next day he found that all of his inks had been mixed and were now useless, it seemed to all that it was no accident. Over the next couple of weeks other personal items of the panda were broken and some were irreparable; someone it seemed had a nasty streak in their nature and had taken vengeance on the panda cub.
It was not hard for everyone to put a name to the guilty party and although there was no proof at all, Inuyasha found he was being shunned by all of his school mates, and worse Hiroto too asked to move out of his room. The Tiger called for calm during lessons and mealtimes, there was nothing to suggest that Inuyasha was the arbitrator of the badness, but he too felt that despite the lack of evidence, Inuyasha was guilty. The young hanyou found the time at school start to become intolerable, nobody was speaking to him, let alone playing with him outside of their lessons and Hiroto wouldn’t even look at his brother.
The Tiger didn’t think that the time was right yet to bring in Inu no Taishou, this was a school matter and these things usually found their own level. But when Inuyasha got up from his cushion one morning to present his homework, he knocked over Xing-fu’s inks, all over the boy’s writing. The Tiger told him that one more incident and he would be reported to his father for all the mischief that had been happening. Inuyasha said nothing, his face was aflame as the eyes of everyone were on him and he could feel the scorn as if it were real heat.
The Tiger wasn’t finished and told Inuyasha that he must make amends by re-writing Xing-fu’s homework and any other writing that had to be done that day, apart from his own. That meant there was no social time for Inuyasha because he had to do two days worth of writing. Not that playtime was very happy for him at the moment, but he did like to be outside during the free periods. That night no one came near him, even his maid was seeing to Hiroto and didn’t bring him his supper or a drink. Inuyasha was very tired and miserable by the time he got to bed that night.
The final straw came for Inuyasha’s patience in the morning; Hiroto came to collect his things for lessons and once again ignored his brother. But Inuyasha had one more try, he categorically stated that he had done none of the horrid things to Xing-fu, and it hadn’t been his fault that the ink had spilled, he had felt the panda pull on his sleeve, deliberately making it look like Inuyasha’s fault. Hiroto looked at his brother with scorn and sneered at him, not bothering to answer until Inuyasha said;
"Can’t you tell by my scent that I am not lying?"
"Who’d want to get close enough to you to scent you and your dirty blood?" Hiroto said nastily before leaving Inuyasha alone again. The young hanyou didn’t know what to think, what did Hiroto mean by dirty blood? Did he think that Inuyasha was ill or something? He remembered that one of the notes Xing-fu had sent him, called him filthy hanyou, was it something like that that Hiroto meant? Inuyasha was still pondering when he reached the breakfast table and handed over the assignment he’d been given to Xing-fu.
The panda smirked and slipped another note to Inuyasha who didn’t give him the satisfaction of reading it, but instead ripped it up in front of the boy. He then sat and ate his breakfast alone without wanting to talk and was the first pupil in class, only giving a nod to The Tiger when he was asked if everything was alright and had he done the extra work. As the rest of them filed in, Xing-fu put an opened note in front of Inuyasha so that he couldn’t help but read it, before he folded it and put it in his sleeve; dirty blooded son of a whore. Inuyasha still didn’t understand what was written and was sure that neither did Xing-fu, but he knew it had to be an insult.
Inuyasha was very angry by now, he had been trying to ignore the panda and not let his meanness affect him, but he couldn’t tolerate his mother being insulted and once again he turned on the horrid child to give him a piece of his mind. But Xing-fu anticipated this and called the attention of The Tiger who asked for the homework that Inuyasha had done for him, only to find it smudged and blotted in many places. With a severe headache already forming, The Tiger held up the shoddy work and called Inuyasha to task once again.
"I am tired of all this posturing between you all, but especially I am disappointed in you Inuyasha; youkai do not behave in this way, you are here to learn and to be corrected to make sure you understand your future duties. If it is your humanity that makes you disobedient, I shall have to treat you differently from the others; and this is not what your father wishes. You must learn my child, that your actions are not to be tolerated in a civilised class and I shall inform your father of this latest rebellion. You have always been a model student; it is a shame that you cannot overcome your jealousy and that it makes you a sullen and sly boy."
The Tiger was sure of his words and the reason behind all of the problems; he’d had boys before that took a while to settle down together. Youkai blood was strong and instinctive and caused many differences, before it was put in its place, even more so when a lot of potential alphas were together. But it was almost unheard of for a natural Beta to be so, and Inuyasha had acted almost true to type before he and Xing-fu met; in fact he was the nicest pupil The Tiger had ever had and the change was upsetting. The only solution the tutor could come up with was to let the father deal with the son.
Looking at Inuyasha now The Tiger was pleased that he’d reached the right conclusion by the use of his stern words, the pup’s face was beacon red and his eyes were brilliantly shiny with the tears than flowed down his cheeks. He was the picture of shame and now he would be ready to knuckle down again as he should; of course the public telling off was humiliating, but it should never have come to this and hopefully, Inuyasha would in time understand. Therefore it was surprising to him when the boy raised his voice to his teacher, shouting out that he was wrong and so was everyone else. This assertion was emphasized by Inuyasha’s swinging arms, before he bowed quickly and left the classroom.
This sort of upheaval was never pleasant to witness and most of the boys were subdued, a fact that enabled The Tiger to regain control in welcome routine work for them all. Hiroto was very upset and so were a couple of the others including Kouga, who had so far kept out of what he’d thought were petty squabbles. Xing-fu was delighted though, he’d finally beaten the stuck up, goody two shoes hanyou. The Tiger however was not pleased with the outcome, he hadn’t wanted to drive Inuyasha to this point and out of class, but he’d forgotten how sensitive the boy was to criticism. So he decided to leave him alone for the morning to calm down and then welcome him back to class in the afternoon to accept his apology and discipline him for his deplorable temper.
Meantime in his room, Inuyasha was in despair, no one believed him; all he wanted now was Sesshoumaru, but he was not in the Palace. The son and heir of the West was in his further education, and for the last three years had been spending time learning in situ around the Western Lands, and only came home two or three times a year. Inuyasha knew it was important for Sesshoumaru to know how the West was run, and all about the different offices around the land, but it didn’t help the lonely hanyou who wanted his bonded brother.
It was no good going to Inu no Taishou for this, his father was adamant about education and he would believe The Tiger’s version of events, because he was another grown-up. Izayoi was out of the question because she was not very well and Inuyasha didn’t want to bother her. Then, like a light shining in his brain he knew he could go to Yori, his brother would understand and at least listen to him and Kaoru too was a very understanding lady; she would give him a cuddle and would make him some sweet cakes.
So he took his rabbit and left the school grounds, and made his way to an astonished Yori who immediately let him in. He noticed the red eyes and the rabbit with concern, as did Kaoru who went to the pup and pulled him close in a hug, finally giving Inuyasha what he had needed for many days. Yori meanwhile went and told the guard who had followed the hanyou, to let Inu no Taishou know that Inuyasha was with them and was welcome to stay, at least until his problem was sorted.
Back at the school the class was still working quietly and The Tiger was thinking about what to say to his errant pupil, when he noticed a slip of paper he didn’t recognise. Once he looked at it and saw what was written, he was furious; he swiftly realised that it must have come from Inuyasha’s sleeve when he’d raised his arms in anger, no one else had been near the desk. He also recognised the pen work and he glanced at Xing-fu and his smug expression, and suddenly he had to face the fact that all his assumptions had been just that, and he was very wrong.
The Tiger sent Hiroto to go and tell Inuyasha that he was going to come and speak with him as soon as he’d called an assistant to sit with the class. Hiroto came back to say that Inuyasha was not in his room and that his rabbit was gone. Everyone knew that his rabbit was Inuyasha’s most prized possession and that he wouldn’t have gone anywhere without it, which meant that Inuyasha had run away. Hiroto felt terrible and burst into tears; he’d felt guilty all day at what he’d said to his brother and now Inuyasha had left. Suddenly though, a familiar youki signature was felt approaching and as Inu no Taishou came in, Hiroto flew into his father’s arms.
TBC