Inu Yasha ripped his claws into the chair previously occupied by Asano and clamored over it with a colorful series of invectives to pursue the man across the lobby. Not only was Mikoto Asano fast and nimble, he had that same irritating sense of humor that always made dealing with Sesshomaru such a bitch and, like, Brother Dearest, Asano felt he had to share his thoughts with Inu Yasha.
        "Sloppy, Inu Yasha, sloppy," Mikoto smirked as he effortlessly dodged another Claws of Steel slash, leaving Inu Yasha with his fingernails stuck in the polished oak top of the reception counter. As the young demon struggled to free himself, Asano asked with mocking politeness: "Can I help you with that?"
        Inu Yasha loosed his claws with an angry roar, sweeping around in an attempt to use his momentum to rip open his opponent’s belly. Asano jumped backwards out of the way, tripped on a potted plant and almost went down but he caught himself on a post in time to avoid another slash.
        "You have no style, Inu Yasha," he drawled.
        "You just tripped over a fucking plant!" Inu Yasha shot back. "What the hell kind of style is that?"
        "And such language. Honestly." Asano grinned and backflipped over a chair, then shoved it into Inu Yasha’s legs.
        Inu Yasha tumbled over the back of the chair, landed at Mikoto’s feet and planted his claws right in his opponent’s gut—and jammed his fingers. "Ah! Shit!" He screamed and sucked on his hand as he rolled out of the way of Asano’s next attack. "What kind of armor are you wearing, you bastard?!"
        "Mylar," Mikoto told him matter-of-factly. "In the vernacular, it’s called a bullet-proof vest."
        "Sonnovafuckinbitch…" Inu Yasha muttered angrily as he shook the sting out of his fingers and cracked the knuckles back into place.
        Asano sighed and shook his head. "Again with the potty mouth. If you were my son, I’d wash your mouth out with soap."
        "If I was your son," Inu Yasha sneered, still shaking his hand, "I’d kill myself."
        The two half-demons leaned against their respective posts, Inu Yasha facing the elevators and Mikoto facing the doors, and regarded each other. Inu Yasha growled and cursed, Asano looked mildly amused. "I thought you’d be more of a challenge, Inu Yasha," he quipped. His voice, however, betrayed the fact that he was short of breath. He held up a finger and frowned. "I also thought you’d have your jewel shards with you, on the assumption that you’re far to paranoid to let them out of your sight."
        Inu Yasha snorted his agreement with Asano’s assessment of his personality. Yeah, he didn’t trust anybody but that wasn’t why he didn’t keep the jewel shards on him.
        "My mistake," Mikoto continued companionably. "I so hate having to resort to torture to get the information I want, Inu Yasha, I really do, especially when it involves a female." His eyes glittered like jagged glass and he added in a steely voice: "Even you wouldn’t make that girl suffer because you refused to cooperate."
        Inu Yasha heard the doors swing open behind him as Asano spoke, then a lovely female voice asked with deadly courtesy: "Make what girl suffer, Mikoto darling?"
        Asano’s eyes went wide, and his face became as a white as a corpse’s. He gulped. "M-mother?! What are you doing here?!"
        Inu Yasha risked a glance around the post and almost had a heart attack. He ducked back behind the post, squeezed his eyes shut and moaned: "Oh no…it can’t be…"
        "That’s a fine thing to say to your mother!" The tall, elegant woman who swept into the lobby snorted. "Not ‘hello, Mummy, how wonderful to see you’, or ‘Mummy darling, however have you been?’ Just ‘what are you doing here?’ How rude." She stepped around overturned plants and torn up furniture with a distasteful look on her delicate face, careful not to get potting soil on her Italian leather pumps, which flawlessly matched the little bag clutched under her arm. Those accessories looked simply smashing with her yellow and blue raw silk mini dress and authentic Native American turquoise and silver choker necklace (with matching bracelet and earrings). She wore her snow white hair in a cute, little bob, and wore just enough makeup to look pulled together but not enough to look cheap. On her fingers was an assortment of turquoise and diamond rings that glittered every time her hands came anywhere near a sunbeam. Her claws had a French manicure.
        She wasn’t the source of Inu Yasha’s panic. That would be her companion, who strolled in her wake, his beauty undimmed for being in proximity to hers. His suit was virgin linen, with a tan, button down, collarless, linen shirt underneath and canvas deck shoes on his feet. He wore his long, white, fluffy tail draped over his shoulders like a scarf (or possibly a feather boa). On his left wrist was a Swiss Army watch and he had a large gold ring set with a boulder of a diamond on his right hand. His hair was as white as hers and worn short, just below his ears. On his eyes were designer sunglasses, on his cheeks were markings like a tiger’s, on his mouth was an all-too familiar, supremely bored smirk.
        The woman looked Inu Yasha over from head to toe and decided he wasn’t dressed well enough to be worth any further attention, then breezed past him to kiss her son’s cheeks. Asano returned the gesture in a bit of a daze. "Mother," he stammered, "I thought you’d planned to stay in Brazil for at least another week."
        She smiled at them all, then giggled: "I changed my mind! It’s a woman’s prerogative, you know!"
        Inu Yasha locked stares with her companion, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but the other demon spoke first. "Did you lose the Tetsusaiga already, Brother? And after all the trouble you went through to keep it from me. Che."
        Inu Yasha’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut again, speechless. Sesshomaru removed his sunglasses and tucked them into a pocket inside his jacket, then turned a condescending look on his brother. "I see you haven’t bought a new suit of clothes in 400 years, either. I’m surprised those rags haven’t disintegrated by now."
        "Darling," the woman purred to Sesshomaru, "is this Inu Yasha?" She sounded rather disappointed. "I expected your brother to be more…" she waved her hand around as she searched for the right adjective.
        Inu Yasha supplied it: "Conceited? Condescending? Arrogant? Insufferable? Boorish?"
        Meanwhile, Asano was frantically trying to get Inu Yasha to quit while he was behind, making slashing motions across his throat and shaking his head. When his mother looked his way, he struck a relaxed pose and smiled innocently at her. She looked away again, and Mikoto went back to trying to shut up Inu Yasha.
        Inu Yasha snarled at him to knock it off, which got both him and Asano in trouble with Miss Thing. "Don’t tell my son to knock it off, you filthy, tasteless little punk! And just what is he telling you to knock off, Mikoto?" She posed with one hand on her slender hip and leveled an impatient glare on her son, who struggled to find something to say that wouldn’t make the hole he was in any deeper.
        Inu Yasha rolled his eyes. "I don’t believe this," he mocked, turning a smug look on his erstwhile enemy. "I thought you’d call your goons back to help you—not your mommy! I should’ve known a big shot like you would turn out to be a—"
        SLAP!
        Inu Yasha’s head snapped around and next thing he knew he was on his butt in a puddle of potting soil with a palm frond stabbing him in the back, and his cheek sporting a perfect image of her hand. "What the hell was that for, bitch?!"
        She narrowed her eyes at him with a barely audible growl rumbling in her chest and commented to Sesshomaru in a tight voice: "He has no idea who I am, does he, Darling?"
        Inu Yasha’s eyes bugged. "’Darling’?!"
        Sesshomaru wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Not a clue, which wouldn’t be unusual for him."
        "’Wouldn’t be—‘" Inu Yasha sputtered. "Why you—" he struggled to get up, slipped in the dirt and fell on his ass again. Lacking any other recourse, he grabbed a fistful of dirt and threw it at his brother. It missed him and got his date messy instead.
        That was the last straw. Asano collapsed into one of the ruined chairs and buried his face in his hands. Sesshomaru seethed. The woman very calmly removed each of her shoes in turn and shook the dirt out of them, then put them on again. Then she brushed the dirt from her legs, then her dress, then her purse, then brushed her face off and fluffed her hair, just in case dirt had landed there, as well. She straightened her ‘do, carefully arranging the strands with her long, manicured fingers. Sesshomaru took a couple of cautious steps back to give her room to inflict upon Inu Yasha whatever horrible variation of dying miserably happened to strike her fancy. Inu Yasha watched all of this with a growing feeling in his gut that he’d just done something incalculably stupid to someone who could really make him pay for it.
        "Who are you?" Inu Yasha demanded as she handed off her purse to Sesshomaru to free up all ten of her claws. "I thought his mother was human," he jabbed a thumb in Mikoto’s direction, then turned an evil grin on Sesshomaru and added: "and his father was Sesshomaru."
        Asano suddenly found himself to be the sole focus of attention and hastened to talk his way out of his mother’s mounting fury. "I had the kids tell him that to make sure he’d talk to—"
        "What kids?" She demanded, still flexing her fingers in preparation to slash somebody, anybody. "The little bits of fluff that should be hanging about this beach but aren’t for reasons I’m sure you could explain, Darling?"
        Asano gulped. "No, mother. My children, Shunusuke and Yuki. Remember? I left you voice mails when they were born—Kei, too. He’s the youngest."
        "You’ve been breeding again?" She blinked puzzlement, searched her memory, then shrugged. "Whatever. Why do you want to talk to Inu Yasha so badly that you’d claim Sesshomaru was your father? I don’t believe you’ve ever actually met him before today."
        "And that you’re human," Inu Yasha reminded her smugly as he got to his feet and brushed himself off. "Oh, and Sesshomaru raped you. I still didn’t get your name. By the way, if you’re really his mother, maybe you can make him give back my shards of the Shikon Jewel, so I don’t have to kill him in front of his mommy."
        "I’m Hisui Oukami," she told him as if he should’ve guessed it, "the Great Demon of the Northern Lands," then she went back to ignoring him in favor of Asano, so she totally missed seeing Inu Yasha’s jaw hit the floor. "You have shards of the Shikon Jewel, Mikoto?"
        "My shards," Inu Yasha interrupted.
        She stood in front of her nervous son and glared down into his sweaty face. "A greedy megalomaniac like you isn’t responsible enough to handle such power." She stuck out her hand. "Give them to me." When he hesitated, she wiggled her fingers. "Now, Mikoto. I can find them easily enough."
        "They’re in his watch," Inu Yasha told her. With Asano and his mother distracted, Inu Yasha saw his opportunity and reached around her to nick the watch off of Asano’s wrist and stuff it into his coat. He was the only one who thought that was a good idea.
        "Give me those!" Hisui demanded, at the same time her son snarled the same thing, and Sesshomaru sighed: "You’re not mature enough to handle that kind of power, either, Inu Yasha. Give them to Hisui."
        "No," Inu Yasha snorted petulantly, "they’re mine."
        Hisui had just hauled back to claw him when an explosion rocked the building, toppling her off her high heels into Sesshomaru’s arms. "What in the world--?!"
        Inu Yasha screamed: "KAGOME!"
        Asano screamed: "YUKI!"
        Both men headed for the door with Hisui and Sesshomaru hot on their heels. Asano got on his cellular phone and frantically tried to reach Tsurai to find out what had happened. Not to be outdone, Hisui whipped out her phone (color-coordinated with her outfit) and called her own bodyguard. By the time they got outside, Inu Yasha was airborne and heading for a column of smoke farther down the beach. The other three demons took to the sky in his wake.
        Dread filled Inu Yasha as he drew closer to the scene of the explosion and saw the bodies scattered about. Most of them wore dark clothing—Asano’s lackeys. Then he spotted the two girls lying unmoving, back-to-back on an island of sand. All around them was a waist-deep trench, which was where the smoke was coming from. Had Yuki been able to create a protective barrier with her power? Or had that been Kagome’s doing? No, he’d never known her to be able to do that, so it had to have been Yuki.
        "Kagome!" He shouted her name, but she didn’t move. Tears stinging his eyes, he alighted beside her and snatched her up into his arms. He brushed her hair out of her face and desperately searched for signs of life. No blood on her, good. It occurred to him that she might have broken bones but he couldn’t make himself let go. "Kagome…" he choked as he hugged her to him with his heart pounding, completely forgetting who had followed him until Sesshomaru spoke.
        "The same girl?" He wondered, bemused. "How is that possible?"
        Mikoto  gently patted Yuki’s cheeks and begged her to open her eyes. "Yuki, it’s Daddy! Wake up, Yuki!"
        Hisui studied the girl over his shoulder as if seeing her granddaughter for the first time, though now that she thought about it she did seem to recall getting emails with her picture periodically. Her and two boys…an older one and a younger one, she thought. Pretty thing. "Must take after my side of the family," she decided with no little conceit and not very much concern over Yuki’s immediate welfare. In fact, she seemed more concerned with sorting out how to keep her shoes on without the high heels sinking into the sand.
        Asano’s bodyguards were coming around with painful groans, but still the girls remained unconscious. Inu Yasha hugged Kagome and stroked her hair, while beside him, Asano continued to try to rouse Yuki. A dark-haired kitsune in a gaudy shirt appeared at Hisui’s side and surveyed the disaster with a concerned little frown. "No Tsurai," he commented in Hisui’s ear, to which she replied tersely: "Find him."
        "He’s at the condo," Mikoto told them hoarsely and pointed at the house. "He’s with Shunusuke and a little kitsune boy, Inu Yasha’s companion."
        That got a raised eyebrow from Sesshomaru. "A little kitsune boy? You even have a small kitsune friend again?"
        Inu Yasha turned his head to growl at his brother. "What of it?!"
        "What, indeed," Sesshomaru mused. He crouched beside Inu Yasha to have a closer look at Kagome, only to be shoved roughly away.
        "Don’t touch her!"
        He blinked. "Still holding a grudge? Inu Yasha, it’s been four hundred years." Sesshomaru sighed but kept his distance. "I’ve been wondering where you’d disappeared to all those years ago. Have you been in Tokyo all along?" He made a thoughtful noise as he looked at Kagome’s dirty face. "No, she can’t be the same girl…but the resemblance is truly amazing. How did you find a match for her?"
        "Do you ever shut up?" Inu Yasha snapped but he was turning his brother’s words over in his mind. Sesshomaru didn’t know about the power of the well, so his periodic disappearances would baffle him—if Sesshomaru even cared enough to notice his little brother had gone missing. Apparently, he didn’t notice until Inu Yasha disappeared with the Tetsusaiga and never returned. Did that mean he and Kagome would make the jewel whole again at last? Or would they fail? It would seem he went with Kagome to her time at the end of their quest, but as what? Human or demon? He was dying to pump Sesshomaru for information but didn’t want to give away the truth. But what did it matter if Sesshomaru knew about the well? Sesshomaru couldn’t go back in time without Inu Yasha or Kagome taking him, and even if he could, why would he? He’d never seemed to care much about the Shikon Jewel, nor even Inu Yasha, only the Tetsusaiga.
        Just then, Kagome shifted in his arms and her eyelids fluttered open. She smiled into his face, then her eyes fell upon Sesshomaru, and her smile turned into a weak cry of fear and revulsion. "N-n-no! You can’t be here! It’s impossible!" She clung to Inu Yasha and buried her face in his coat, then suddenly she got a puzzled expression on her face and looked at Sesshomaru more carefully, noting his modern clothes and clean-cut look. "You changed your hair."
        He gave her a lopsided smile and replied: "That look went out with love beads and tie dye." He ran his fingers through his hair, then asked thoughtfully: "And how would you know I changed it? I cut it off long before you were born. Hmm…You look terribly familiar, but I can’t imagine you’d be the same irritating little git who was always hiding behind Inu Yasha 400 years ago."
        "’Irritating little git’?!" Kagome trembled with rage and made a feeble attempt to escape Inu Yasha’s arms and pound Sesshomaru.
        Inu Yasha held her back. "Kagome, you’re too weak to—"
        "Lemme at ‘im!"
        Sesshomaru gave her an innocent look. "Was it something I said?"

        In the Asano condominium, Shippo was having a very bad day, which was only worsened by the fact that Tsurai seemed determined to blow his head off while holding him upside down by the tail. Every time Shunusuke tried to intervene, Tsurai would wave the gun at him, then stick it back in Shippo’s mouth. The worst bit was how much the dark kitsune seemed to be enjoying himself, especially after receiving that phone call. Tsurai wouldn’t tell them who had called or what had been said, but Shippo assumed it had been his boss, Shunusuke’s dad. "Probably gave him orders to torture me to death!"
        "Do you know what will happen when I pull the trigger, Shippo?" Tsurai beamed with a wicked grin. "Your brains will blow out the back of your head like hamburger—only wetter—and make a huge mess all over this glass door, here." He nodded at the door, still grinning. "Of course, you’re so little and obviously don’t have many brains, so the splat won’t be quite as large as if I were to, for instance, blow the head off a conceited brat like Shunusuke."
        "I’ll be sure to let my father know you said so," Shunusuke muttered and got the gun pointed at him again. "Go ahead. Kill me. Let’s see how long it takes my dad to hunt you down for murdering his heir."
        Tsurai shifted his grip on the weapon, then stuck it back into Shippo’s mouth. "Che. You’re a very disobedient heir." He showed his fangs to Shippo. "Well, furball, enough chit-chat; it’s time for you to die."
        Just then, an identical dark kitsune in denim cut-offs, red Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops appeared out of nowhere and knocked him out with a neat little thump at the base of his skull. The newcomer grinned at the very startled Shunusuke: "Vulcan neck pinch." As Tsurai went down the new guy caught Shippo, then bent to collect the gun. He rubbed the base of Shippo’s abused tail and asked in a cheerful voice: "None the worse for wear, little brother?"
        "You’re joking, right?!" Shippo looked from his rescuer to Shunusuke, but Asano could only shrug, having no clue who the newcomer was except to say that: "He looks like he’s Tsurai’s twin…I guess." He cautiously thanked the man and took Shippo from him. "I’m Shunusuke Asano. This is Shippo."
        The kitsune sat down at the end of the couch nearest Tsurai’s feet. "I’m Shinai, Tsurai’s—actually, his name’s Usagi, but don’t tell him I told you. I’m his twin brother. He works for Mikoto," he nodded to Shunusuke, "your father, and I work for your grandmother, Hisui Oukami."
        "The daughter of the Great Demon of the North?!" Shippo exclaimed excitedly. "That Hisui Oukami?! She’s here?"
        Shinai cocked his head to the side and chuckled. "Hisui is the Great Demon of the North, Shippo. Her father died 430 years ago. I’m sure Hisui will be happy to hear that her father is remembered by youkai in this age."
        Shippo bit his lip and made a tactical decision not to burst Shinai’s bubble. The fewer who knew about the well’s power, the better. Shinai might have just saved his furry hide, but Shippo wasn’t ready to trust him yet. "Wait a second," Shippo narrowed his eyes at Shunusuke, "I thought you said your grandmother was a human who got raped by Sesshomaru! Which is it?"
        "A human?" Shinai raised a bemused eyebrow. "Who was raped by Sesshomaru? Che! I though that guy was gay." He waved a hand at Shunusuke: "But you were going to tell us why you said Hisui is a human who was raped by Sesshomaru. Carry on."
        Shunusuke gave him a dirty look, then directed his reply at Shippo. "I’m sorry, Shippo. Dad told me to tell Inu Yasha that story, but the truth is," he sighed heavily, "Hisui Oukami is my grandmother. My grandfather was Lord Keiske Asano, a human."
        "You disregarded your father’s orders?" Shinai asked curiously. "What possessed you to do such a foolish thing?"
        Shunusuke closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the chair, letting the tension of the last fifteen minutes drain out of his body and easing himself into a semi-meditative state. The crisis with Tsurai was over, but now he had Hisui Oukami’s chief bodyguard to deal with, so he had to be focused. He’d never met his grandmother and only had his father’s stories about her to go on, but if those were any indication he had a lot more to worry about from her than his dad. Then again, his father had been known to exaggerate if it furthered his agenda. And what had become of Kagome? Was that explosion he’d felt directed at her? Was she even alive?
        At last he spoke: "I didn’t feel right about what he was asking me to do."
        "To lie?" Shinai prompted, sounding somewhat amused. "What’s the big deal about that?"
        Shunusuke shook his head. "It’s not just being asked to lie that bothers me. It didn’t seem like such a big deal until I met Inu Yasha." He opened his eyes and ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. "I had a premonition about him. I guess that’s the real reason I changed my mind about going along with whatever scheme Dad’s running this time."
        Now the kitsune was really curious. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and an eager look on his face. "What sort of premonition?" But that was all Shunusuke was willing to tell his grandmother’s minion and wouldn’t say anything more on the subject. Pressing Shippo for information didn’t prove any more fruitful, so at last Shinai gave up. At least he wasn’t as gun-happy as his brother and didn’t wave the thing at them to force them to talk. "Ah well," he chirped, "Hisui will be here soon, and you can tell her all about your funny feelings."