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Birthday artwork by the incredible nartista
On Izayoi’s eighteenth birthday, her brother, Takemaru, grabbed her by the arm, and yanked her with him.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her feet faltering as she tried to keep up with his hurried gait.
“To show you what you need to know,” he answered, his voice cold. “I will take father’s place on the front line.” Takemaru yanked Izayoi harder, squeezing so tight she knew her arm would bruise. Toward the dungeons.
“P-please brother, tell me where you are taking me?” Izayoi begged, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. She would find out where they were going when they got there.
When Izayoi crossed the threshold into the building, color seemed to leach out of the world, and an unnatural cold hit her skin, causing her to tremble. She had never been in this part of the manor before. She had been forbidden to enter here since she was a child, but more, she never wanted to go into that dismal place. So walking in with so little ceremony, so little preparation, was hitting her hard. Izayoi swallowed down her tears and concentrated her thoughts. She had come of age. Her brother, who liked to pinch her face tight enough it bruised, and push her so roughly she fell and scraped her knees, was on the way to the war that claimed their father.
“Here.” Takemaru shoved Izayoi down, causing her to lose her balance.
She fell forward, her forearms absorbing as much of the impact as they could. She swallowed down the tears from the new scrapes she was given, casting her eyes around for what Takemaru had brutally insisted she notice, and she saw it. The edges blended so perfectly into the wood below that she would have missed it were she not laying prone upon it: a trapdoor. Takemaru grabbed a bamboo pole with a beveled edge from the corner of the room, whacked Izayoi out of the way, and pried open the wooden seal.
“Go,” Takemaru commanded. “I’ve done my duty to you on your coming of age. Go down and see our secret. And you will not tell a single soul what you discover.” Takemaru kicked Izayoi closer to the now-open hole in the floor, then turned abruptly for the exit. “I will return in a fortnight. Victorious.”
Izayoi nodded, then exhaled the breath she was holding the moment Takemaru faded from view. There had been whisperings of a family secret since she was a child. One she thought that she, as a girl, would never be privy to. Then her mother passed trying to give birth to a second son, and her father died in battle. It left Takemaru, only one year her senior, at the helm of the great clan. A role that he was well suited for, in his cruelty and cunning.
So it was for Izayoi to stay and tend the manor, the last of her line, until Takemaru could find a worthy husband for her. She was not sure she wanted to marry, as watching the way her mother suffered under the hand of her father had always frightened her greatly. It was a sacrifice of women, and she knew that someday, she too would need to be sacrificed. With her mother and father dead, she was spared from that fate, at least for the time being. She was needed as a Yamamoto . She was needed as the mistress of the manor. She was needed… to keep the secret.
As Izayoi looked down at the dank blackness left where the trap door once sat, she pondered. What curses awaited her in that space? Izayoi trembled at the emptiness of the void. Yet, the longer she stared into it, the more drawn to it she became. As if, whatever was down there, had been waiting for her for a long long time. The thought of this steadied her tremble and propelled her forward, into the darkness, and, unbeknownst to her, toward her destiny to be both the savior and the destroyer of her clan.
“Hello?” Izayoi called, her feet molding to the rungs of the ladder, squinting her eyes and waiting for them to adjust to the pressing dark.
In answer, two torches lit themselves at the far end of the room. Izayoi jumped at the sudden change of light, training her eyes on the space. To her surprise, the fire of the torches was not the only thing glowing in that darkened room. Right between them, two golden eyes glared at her, impossibly angry, and impossibly luminous. Izayoi gasped quietly as the rest came into focus. It was tall, nearly as tall as she was, with lush mother-of-pearl fur reflecting the soft glow of the torches. Its head was massive, with an elongated muzzle and prominent fangs, and a big black nose sniffing the air uneasily at her. Izayoi slowly crept forward, as it was clear that whomever this beast was, it was the Yamamoto secret.
When Izayoi was within arm’s reach, she looked more closely at its torchlit face. It had floppy ears that were pinned back in warning, and bright cerulean stripes that lined its face. A ruby red collar surrounded its neck, digging into the fur there. The beast had not stopped baring its teeth at her, but the anger in its eyes had melted, replaced by sadness and confusion. Izayoi wanted to reach out and touch the beast, to know why it was imprisoned in that dark and terrible space. And though the beast was great, with its bulk and fish hook claws on its massive paws, Izayoi could not understand why it was the secret to her family’s rule.
“Yamamoto-sama.” The beast bowed its head low, but Izayoi did not miss the curl to its lips. “You are a woman.”
“You can… speak,” Izayoi whispered, looking now more closely at the bright eyes, the intelligent eyes, of her family’s secret. “I am Yamamoto Izayoi, the daughter of the late Yamamoto Takekasa, sister to Yamamoto Takemaru, the patriarch of our clan.”
“It has been many years since I have been acquainted with a daughter of this house,” the beast rasped. “The line grows thin once more.”
“Do you have a name?” Izayoi asked, her heart filling with pity for the creature her family had imprisoned.
“The only name I am allowed to speak is now the name of the house I serve,” the beast answered, but Izayoi could hear the growl in his words.
“I am… I am a Yamamoto, so I ask you for your name. The one not associated with your… your…” Izayoi stuttered, searching for the courage to say the word she knew was the truth, “ thralldom .”
The beast eyed her warily, surprise laced in all of its— his ?—features. As if her question and her declaration were ones no other Yamamoto have ever uttered.
How could that be? Hundreds of years and not a single ancestor looked upon the creature trapped in endless darkness with anymore other than greed?
“Toga,” the beast answered, his eyes still wide and disbelieving.
“How did you come to—to be in this state?” Izayoi asked.
She could not help herself. Her mind always did race. Her curiosity had been her undoing on many occasions as a child, often causing her to meet the disciplinary end of a lashing. It had taught her to close her mouth, but it had never succeeded in breaking her of the habit.
“Do you not know?” Toga’s amber eyes narrowed.
“Until the moment those torches lit, I was not even aware you existed,” Izayoi answered, now looking carefully at the space around Toga for any sign of a chain upon his paws or ropes around his collar. But, she could find none. “I only knew of a great family secret, kept for generations. A secret that protected us, our way of life .”
“And so it has always been,” Toga lamented, heaving a great sigh. “I am now your secret burden to bear too.”
“I see no trappings of bondage,” Izayoi continued. “What ties you to this place, to us ?”
Toga looked at her incredulously, or at least as incredulously as a dog could look. But when he looked into her eyes, something in his gaze softened.
“Hundreds of years ago, I was a great daiyōkai, the Inu no Taisho. I ran free across the lands, aiding those I could and… I grew fond of humans. One day, Yamamoto Akitoki approached me, asking desperately for my help. His village was being attacked by bandits. And I was the only one who could save the women and children who were even at that moment being raped and slaughtered for sport,” Toga explained. “I raced to his aid. Inu yōkai are known for their sense of justice, to protect the innocent. And I was simply living up to my name. But… I was betrayed. There were no bandits, only monks who’d been bought with promises of great fame. I was bound, and my head cut off.”
Izayoi gasped. She was the child of nobility, and well versed in mythology. She then knew what Toga was, and what her family had done.
“You are an Inugami ,” Izayoi murmured, letting her tears run free down her cheeks.
The Yamamoto clan had convinced Toga, a great Inu daiyōkai, to come to their aid. Then repaid his generosity by beheading him, then binding him to them through the ruby red collar he wore around his neck.
“I… I can take it off,” Izayoi strode up to Toga. “I can free you!”
“No!” Toga barked, his eyes now frantic and scared. “If you remove my collar, I die.”
“But… but you are free,” Izayoi whimpered, not allowing her tears to take away her voice, her sadness, for him . “Do you not want that freedom?”
Toga had paused, speaking nothing, simply looking at her. Considering her offer. Considering her .
“I’m not ready to die,” Toga whispered, audible only in the dead silence of his dark prison.
“Then… what is it I can do?” Izayoi pleaded. “For you?”
She did not know why, but her entire being was now focused on the singular purpose of helping Toga, her family’s Inugami, her family’s shame , escape his wretched fate. And she did not know this, but she had already done more for Toga than any in her family had done before. Enough that, were he to have the freedom to choose, he would protect her with the life he’d been tricked into giving to her family.
“Allow me to see more than this dark room,” Toga answered.
Izayoi nodded, a small smile ghosting her lips. “You may see and explore however you would like.”
And then Toga moved, stretching his great limbs and wagging his curled tail. Had he—had her family forbidden him from moving from his corner? Izayoi could feel the anger in that moment, awakened by the cruelty of her family, the cruelty in the very blood that ran through her veins.
“Can’t… can’t I command you to be free, and you will be free?” Izayoi asked, swallowing down her tears. Maybe there was hope.
“It is more than I could hope for,” Toga said, as he trotted up to Izayoi, his tail still wagging. “But I cannot be freed as long as this collar is around my neck.”
“Then I will figure out some other way to free you.” Izayoi crossed her arms.
She
would
undo what her family had done.
Chasing good fortune through the sacrifice and suffering of another.
It would not stand.
“Go and roam however you please,” Izayoi commanded, though the softness in her voice made clear her affection. “And please Toga—whatever I may do to make your curse weigh lighter on your soul, I will do.”
“To make up for your family’s error?” Toga asked, his golden eyes narrow.
“To make up for what my family has done to you, yes,” Izayoi confirmed. “But also because…” Izayoi tentatively stroked just behind Toga’s ear, relishing in the silken softness of his fur. “It is what is right.”
Toga chuffed, and even though his fangs were bared and his lips were curled, Izayoi knew that he was smiling at her. Then, like an arrow freed from its bow, Toga took off, out of the dark, and up through the trap door and Izayoi smiled as she heard him yip and gallop off. It was the least she could do to start to undo the generations of enslavement of a daiyōkai.
As Izayoi ascended the ladder, and padded back through the Yamamoto manor, she looked around her. Her anger boiled under the surface at what her ancestors had done, and she felt , more deeply than she had ever before, ashamed. But also, for the first time in her life, she knew her purpose. It was not to marry and be a dutiful wife. It was not to further the Yamamoto name. It was to find out how to liberate their Inugami, without taking his life in the process. And it was this purpose that would drive her forward, into scrolls and books, sending couriers to every shrine with information about the subjugation of yōkai, to find the answer.
What Izayoi had not anticipated though, was that her choice to allow Toga the freedom to wander unbound had already set events into motion that would lead to both the doom and the salvation of her clan.
And so she walked to her room, and bowed her thank you to the servants who brought her her meal, set to spend as much time in their family’s library as she could.
In the forest surrounding the Yamamoto manor, a resplendent dog bounded through the forest, sniffing the leaves and howling, feeling a joy he had not felt in hundreds of years. But, he did not stray far. Because for the first time, possibly ever, he desired to protect the Yamamoto in the manor. The bind on his soul notwithstanding.
For the next fortnight, Izayoi followed through on her plans. She sent couriers to all corners of Japan, in search of anything and everything that could help her break Toga’s binds. She often found him wandering the grounds, though he usually returned to his ink-black lair to sleep, even as Izayoi tried to cajole him out.
Toga’s were the only ears that picked up the whispering of the servants: in shock, in shame, in anger and in fear. For it was a taboo to enslave a daiyōkai, thought to curse the family who committed it. Izayoi often beckoned Toga to her in the afternoon, feeding him the tamago and rice off of her own plate, and insisting that he be given treatment as a guest. He knew she was searching for an answer, a way to free him, in all her spare time. And though he knew the way, he could not speak it, for an Inugami is cursed to serve the blood of its masters until that blood runs dry.
“Every scroll I receive only brings me more despair, Toga,” Izayoi lamented, leaning against his fur. “The price always seems to be your life for the betrayals of my family.”
“Then live a long life,” Toga replied. “And teach your children the kindness that you have shown me.”
“I do not want to depend on the blood of my house to not treat you as all my ancestors have!” Izayoi huffed back, her nose still buried in the kanji of a scroll from a shrine near Kyoto. “Another that says to remove the collar is to free the soul from the bounds of the world. Still, the answer of your freedom costs your life.” Izayoi then turned and looked into Toga’s eyes. “But I will not stop searching, Toga. I promise.”
Never in Toga’s servitude had he met a Yamamoto so earnest, and found himself wanting to be in her presence. And as the days wore on, Toga began telling her things of his life before he was made Inugami. He spoke of the demons he conquered, the humans he took under his care, and the moon Inu he courted and begot a son from. The way he used to fly through the sky on his mokomoko, in the human form he so long ago lost.
“You have a son,” Izayoi lamented. “We took you away from your family.”
“He was already a grown man when I… came into your family’s service, and the mating with his mother was not intended to be for love.” Toga’s ears drooped, thinking about the many years he’d lost with Sesshomaru, but the earnest tears that flowed from Izayoi always made him try to downplay his suffering.
Izayoi, for her part, would not hear his assurances. Because every moment he was there, she faced what her family had done. It was enraging. She wanted more than anything else to cry out into the abyss and shame her ancestors for their part in it all.
And that was exactly what she would do that very night.
She bade Toga a goodnight and a farewell, sighing as he bounded back into the forest, and headed into her family’s shrine. She did not know if such a trip would provide her the answers she needed, but scolding the Yamamotos for stealing a father from his family for their selfish purposes felt the only thing she could do at the moment, while the answer of how to free Toga stayed out of her reach.
As she set herself down in front of the small statue, engraved with the ‘Yamamoto’ emblem, Izayoi lit the incense, then rang the gong. She’d never before actually wanted to reach her ancestors, but this was not like all of those other times. This time, it was in her anger at them. This time, it was to rebel against the blood that flowed through her veins. It was the first time she had purpose in that shrine, the first time she wanted it to work.
Izayoi closed her eyes, letting the fog of the incense surround her, waiting.
Izayoiiiii… The voices were no louder than a whisper. Open your eyes.
Her seance had worked.
Murky gray fog pressed on Izayoi’s chest as she opened her eyes. She saw figures, so many figures , dark and sullen surrounding her. Their eyes were sunken and their forms were gaunt, as if their very souls were rotting and wasting away in that place.
Help us . The voices surrounded her.
“Do you deserve help?” Izayoi demanded, realizing that she was the only person in that plane that was glowing brightly against the nebulous dark. “You chose to enslave a god.”
And so we have paid… the voices of her ancestors said together. We did not know .
“ We did not know the price .” A small girl with sunken eyes and the tiniest sheen of light tugged on Izayoi’s arm. “ Our souls cannot rest so long as the Inugami remains bound. ”
Izayoi looked around once more. There were dozens of withered beings, decaying, desperate, weak.
“ We made a mistake .” A man with a proud face sunken in like a skeleton stepped forward from the mist: her grandfather . “ A desire for power during our lives. To pay for eternity in the afterlife .”
“Then why ?” Izayoi cried, looking from face to face, “I cannot be the first who could access this place. Access you .”
“ The first… ” the small girl whispered. “ The first who came with the sole purpose to set the Inugami free .”
“Then tell me. How do I do this?” Izayoi demanded, moved both to wrath and pity.
The little girl in front of her was too young to know the secret. In fact, many of the Yamamotos were cursed to wither away in purgatory because of the selfish decisions of the few. It only strengthened Izayoi’s resolve to free Toga.
Remove the collar . The voices all said in unison, as if they had been waiting for this, for her , since Toga had first been enslaved.
“He will die,” Izayoi countered.
“ He will be free,” her grandfather boomed. “ And so will we. ”
“No,” Izayoi said simply, finally letting herself feel the anger of her blood. “I will not kill Toga when he does not wish it, just to save all of you .”
“ You would choose the Inugami over your own blood ?” Another figure stepped out from the mist. He was the least wasted of the figures, and his eyes were severe and cold: Izayoi’s father .
“The blood in my veins is no more than the blood on your hands. All of you !” Izayoi hissed. “I will not free him by killing him. But…” Izayoi looked each and every sunken figure in the eye, “I will free him.”
“ Even if it costs you your death ?” the little girl asked.
“Yes,” Izayoi said, and it was the truth.
Then there is a way … were the last words Izayoi heard before everything around her faded to black, and she found herself back in the Yamamoto shrine.
Izayoi never knew how she plodded back from the shrine into her room. How she changed into her sleeping yukata. How she braided her hair or fell onto her futon, because the faces of the cursed souls of her ancestors were all that rolled through her mind. The only thing Izayoi did remember saying that night was, “I will find the way to free you, Toga. I will find it. I promise.”
She did not know either that, as she closed her eyes and fell into a troubled sleep, two floppy mother-of-pearl ears heard her solemn vow.
“You stupid girl! ” A sharp blow to her head was the only warning Izayoi got before another and another railed down upon her sleeping body. “You breeding stock whore !”
Izayoi tried to shake herself awake, protect herself from the howls she knew all too well, but she could not. He had caught her while she was helpless and asleep.
“Takemaru! What-what is going on?” Izayoi tried, only to feel her brother’s fist land on her throat, causing her to stutter and cough.
“You let it free ,” Takemaru growled, and Izayoi then knew what this punishment was for. “ It is nothing but a vile beast and you let it out! ”
“Our family enslaved a daiyōkai brother—we turned Toga into an Inugami and—” But that was all Takemaru would let Izayoi say, his hand cracking against her cheek and throwing her back into her bed as she tried to stand up.
“How dare you !” Takemaru punctuated his words with blows. “I told father to sell you off like the common whore you are !” Another blow, this time to her ribs. “I told him that you would be our downfall! A free-minded bitch like you!” This time, to her torso so hard that if she had eaten anything, she would have thrown it up. “But he did not listen. He thought through discipline —” This time, it was a stomp to her ankle. “You could be tamed. But you could not .”
Takemaru’s temper raged on through much of the morning, and he found endless energy to exact his fury upon Izayoi’s body. There would be no explaining the curse. No explaining the doom that awaited them both if they did not free Toga. There was only pain and rage.
It was late afternoon by the time he was through. As his final show of power, Takemaru took a torch, and held it to Izayoi’s bloodied and broken face. “If you so much as breathe near our Inugami again. I will break you far worse than I have today. So badly in fact, you will not be able to escape this .”
And he brought the torch to Izayoi’s hair, singing large pieces of it away as she lay limp, knowing if she were to move even an inch, he would complete his revenge.
“I did not have time to find this stupidity, Izayoi,” Takemaru lectured, still seated on top of her body. “I am needed on the front lines again, and thought that one nice day in the manor would be a balm to my nerves.”
“I—I’m sorry,” Izayoi whimpered, sucking in tight breaths that his weight was allowing her to suck in.
“And you should be.” Takemaru’s voice took on that toxic softness she remembered father’s taking on with mother. “Next time I come home, we will be selling you off to an ally. It’s time someone was able to discipline you properly.”
Takemaru then said no more, retreating from her room for the first time since he stirred her from sleep with a kick to her face. Izayoi finally let the tears that had threatened her flow freely. She had thought— hoped— that she could explain to Takemaru why it was so important to find a way to free Toga. She’d prepared to tell him about her experience with the Yamamoto ancestors. Tell him what awaited them after death if they failed.
She could have done so, but…
Takemaru would have marched up to Toga and ripped off his collar, killing him to free him.
So, even while the blows were raining down on her body, she kept silent, taking his brutal punishment.
When the coast was clear, one of the servants came in, a woman named Kaede with weathered cheeks and a kind smile, bringing her the first food and drink of the day, spooning it gently into Izayoi’s lips, helping her sit up.
“I know it is not my place, Yamamoto-sama,” the maid said, “but keeping the Inugami is bad luck…”
Izayoi nodded solemnly, her eyes still wet with the tears of the day. But then it occurred to her. If Takemaru exacted this level of revenge on her, someone he considered at least to be more than an animal, what would he have done to Toga?
Izayoi pushed herself up, testing her body.
“Kaede,” she queried the maid, “I would ask if you could find me a walking stick. I feel the need for some fresh air after such a harrowing day.”
Kaede looked down at Izayoi’s bruised and broken body with skepticism, then nodded and did as she was told. All servants in the manor knew never to question a Yamamoto.
Izayoi pressed into her ribs, wincing as a sharp pain answered her probe, then breathed a sigh of relief. She could live with the pain, but she would not be able to live with herself if she did not go immediately to Toga, to see what sort of wrath her brother exacted upon their thrall.
“M’lady.” Kaede pressed the bamboo into Izayoi’s hand.
“Please ask the others to stay far away from the path to the dungeons tonight,” Izayoi commanded. “It seems an excellent night in fact, for you to go to the market and pick up some fresh vegetables, don’t you think?”
“Yes ma’am,” Kaede nodded, and the two exchanged knowing looks, though Izayoi was certain that the maid had misread her purpose.
As soon as Kaede left, Izayoi tested her ability to stand, leaning heavily against the pole. Though her ankles did not buckle beneath her, each step shot bolts of pain throughout her system. Takemaru’s motive then was clear: to break her body, if he could not break her soul. A bedridden Yamamoto to sell to the highest bidder, before she could cause more trouble.
As she took step after step, hobbling along the path toward the dungeon, her purpose strengthened her resolve, which in turn quickened her steps. She had to get to Toga, to save him. Takemaru would never break her soul, and in turn, her soul lended its strength to her body. It was her soul that gave her the strength to heave the trap door open. And it was her soul that gave her the strength to climb down the ladder that left her ankles screaming for reprieve.
“Toga?” she whimpered, and saw the familiar torches light at the end of the room.
She could hear his labored breathing, could see his slunked form. Back in the corner as a Yamamoto commanded, back to his secret prison.
“Toga, let yourself be free of whatever bonds my brother tied you with,” Izayoi tried.
Her words had an immediate effect. The second Toga was free he was to her, his yellow eyes wide and full of concern. Toga wrapped his body around Izayoi, acting as the support she needed, letting her lean all her weight into him as the strain of her exertion finally caught up to her.
“He did this to you, didn’t he?” Toga growled, low and threatening.
“He did,” Izayoi breathed, but then she let herself collapse, sobbing uncontrollably into the fur of the Inugami she so desperately wanted to free.
For Toga’s part, something inside was starting to shift. This woman, the last daughter in the Yamamoto line, had nearly broken herself to soothe him. She’d defied her blood and paid the price. And rather than letting her brother’s will stand, had returned to him to ease his suffering.
“Izayoi…” was all Toga said, as he let her curl up against him, and cry herself to sleep.
It was Takemaru’s simple decision—to exact his unadulterated wrath upon his sister—that was his ultimate undoing. Whispered secrets were no longer whispered after his outburst, instead being declared openly for any and all to hear. And so it was that the Yamamotos’ secret was spread throughout the land, a black shame that tarnished their name irrevocably. No clans would ally with one who enslaved a daiyōkai. No soldiers would fight for such a family. And most importantly, a son, who had been searching for centuries for his father, would finally know to whom his vengeance was owed.
Sesshomaru had heard the name ‘Yamamoto’ before, but never could he have imagined that their family secret was that they’d kidnapped the Inu no Taisho and turned him into an Inugami. Never before had Sesshomaru felt such anger. Only when the Yamamoto blood no longer ran through the veins of a single living human would he be satisfied.
It was not difficult to find the eldest Yamamoto, in command of an ever-dwindling army. He could tell that if he simply sat back and allowed the battle to rage, Takemaru would be no more. But that would not sate Sesshomaru’s need for blood. So he stepped into the battle himself, the first ‘human affair’ he had participated in in more than a century.
“Yamamoto Takemaru,” Sesshomaru said simply, pleased to watch the soldiers on both sides of the skirmish shrink away as he calmly stepped forward.
“Who are you to ask?” a wild-eyed man with the Yamamoto seal upon his cap called back.
“Taisho Sesshomaru,” the demon answered. “Here to end those who would betray and enslave a daiyōkai.”
Those were the only words Sesshomaru would ever utter to Takemaru. And they were the last words Takemaru would hear before his head was cleaved off of his body in a single clean ‘snap.’
Sesshomaru cleaned his light whip and took off, heading for the ‘impenetrable Yamamoto manor,’ ready to run the ground red in Yamamoto blood, even at the cost of his own father. What he did not yet know was that there was but a single Yamamoto left.
Izayoi.
Toga had often wondered what would happen if one day, one of his masters had been like Izayoi: sympathetic, with no more desire than to see him free. He’d played that scenario over and over in his mind. Would dying be the answer? To let his soul be free rather than bound? Or was there something else?
In his darkest moments, he hoped he could outlive the entire line of them. Watching as they died, one by one, knowing that the longer he was enslaved, the longer they would suffer and waste away, unable to truly transition into the afterlife.
Now, that time was here: the last of the blood of Yamamoto was curled up in his fur, desperate to free him from his bonds. He knew that the moment Izayoi passed, his curse would be broken. Her blood; the last blood that bound him. But, he could not bring himself to wish it. Not when two weeks ago, she came to him with tears and horror in her eyes at seeing him. Not when she spent every hour she was not occupied with sleeping or eating trying to find a way to break his bond without removing his collar. Not when she’d dragged her bruised and broken body to his prison to make sure that whatever Takemaru had done to him, she could undo.
His bond. His protection. And now, his love ? Could that be what he was feeling? It was a hostage’s love, not true love. Izayoi, whether she herself did it or not, was still his master, still the blood of the architects of his enslavement. But was she? It didn’t feel the same as the others in the past who did not look at him as a tool. It was deeper. It was as if he understood something about Izayoi that did not apply to any other Yamamoto.
Izayoi would give her life to set him free.
Toga sighed, curling into her just a bit more, letting her scent waft across his nostrils, indulging in the pleasant aroma of her: jasmine tea and lotus, for the first time.
“Izayoi…” he whispered, and gave her hand the gentlest of licks.
“Izayoi… We need to get up,” was all Izayoi heard before being jarred awake.
Where was she? It was not her bed, and the voice she heard was not the poisoned murmur of her brother. There was fur nestled underneath her, and the voice she heard was full of urgency, pleading. The voice of Toga.
As soon as she was back to consciousness, Izayoi felt the sharp reminders of what the day before had held for her. She groaned and tried to move, only to feel the touch of a wet nose guiding her body onto the solid trunk of a body.
“All I need you to do is hold on,” Toga commanded, and Izayoi clung to his fur.
As soon as he was certain she would not fall, Toga launched himself out of the dark dungeon and toward her room. He knew the smell that was coming, knew who would be greeting him in mere minutes, and it was all he could do to prepare for the inevitability of seeing his son again.
Toga gently set Izayoi onto her bed and braced. He had trained Sesshomaru himself; he knew that the nickname ‘Silent Assassin’ was apt. Though he imagined, given the circumstances, that Sesshomaru would have some choice words.
What was he to do? Only a fortnight ago, he would have grinned a Cheshire grin and would have gladly watched his son slaughter the last of his jailers, but now… it was so much more complicated. Because the only jailer left was Izayoi.
“What is it?” Izayoi asked, pushing herself onto her elbows with a bit of effort.
But before he could answer, sounds of yelling and screaming reached their ears. Toga could only hope that Sesshomaru would leave those servants and guards who fled with their lives intact.
“Do you trust me?” Toga turned his eyes back to Izayoi, who’d sat up and was looking around, wide-eyed.
“With my life,” Izayoi answered, and Toga knew that it was not the answer of a Yamamoto who depended on an Inugami, but that of Izayoi, who knew him .
He looked into Izayoi’s eyes and gifted her the slightest of nods. It was unlikely that they would both survive this encounter, but at least he could try to protect her, as Toga for Izayoi, instead of as an Inugami for their master.
“Sesshomaru!” Toga called. “Leave the servants and come to me!”
The screams did not abate, but Toga’s nose told him that his son had heard, and listened. Only moments later, a figure in a gleaming white kimono, with a lush fur cape set across his shoulder, was through the door, staring down the Inugami that was his father.
“She is the only one left,” Sesshomaru said, his face still, but his amber eyes, so much like his father’s, were a tumult. “The last of the house that subjugated you, father.”
“Takemaru is dead?” asked Izayoi, looking carefully at the willowy demon with the moonlit hair who so resembled his father, though in human form.
“Yes,” Sesshomaru answered simply. “You are the only one of this shameful house left.”
With his words, Sesshomaru advanced, his clawed hand ready to cut Izayoi down, and end the shame of his father’s thralldom. But before he did, Toga threw himself in the way, defending the last of the Yamamoto clan. His teeth made contact with Sesshomaru's outstretched arm, and threw him out of the way.
“You will not hurt her!” Toga bellowed, jumping back and placing his body between his son and Izayoi.
“No Toga,” Izayoi said, pulling herself up from the bed to face her fate without fear. “I have read the scrolls, and if your son has truly ended my brother, then all it takes for you to be free is the end of the line of Yamamoto.”
Toga turned to Izayoi at her word, watching her limp forward to face the wrath of his son, unable to break from the command of his mistress. Sesshomaru, for his part, studied Izayoi carefully. She did not deceive. She did not have weapons. She was covered in injuries, coming open-eyed to meet her end.
“Izayoi, please, no ,” Toga begged.
But Izayoi would not hear his words. She would not hear his pleas. She would not hear excuses for why she was not to pay the price for her family’s ill deed. So Izayoi kneeled on her swollen knees, then bowed, placing her bruised arms, as low as her body would allow her to go.
“Sesshomaru, Toga, please accept my humblest apology for the great dishonor my family has done to yours,” Izayoi said, feeling the tears welling in her eyes. “If my life is all that stands between Toga and his freedom, it is yours.”
The moment that Izayoi knew that Takemaru was dead, that the line of Yamamoto ended with her , she understood why this was her place and her fate. Why she could speak to her cursed ancestors when no one else could.
Because the price for salvation was simple: it was her . And she would gladly give it. For the small girl’s spirit, caught in a curse not her doing. For a finality on the judgment of those ancestors who did know the family’s terrible secret. And finally, and most importantly, for Toga.
“I want you to live,” Izayoi said, watching as the tears from her eyes pooled on the floor below her. “Toga. I want you to live.”
It was the final command of the house Yamamoto, for the Inugami they enslaved. The command to live . Sesshomaru considered Izayoi’s words, and decided that he would gift her the swiftest death he was capable of. The bravest and best of the Yamamoto clan simply awaited his blow, ready to offer herself as the sacrifice to absolve the sins of her clan. Sesshomaru brought his clawed hand above his head, ready to strike a killing blow. As his hand came down, it was met with flesh.
And fur.
For Izayoi’s command, that Toga
live
, had unforeseen consequences.
Because to Toga, a life without Izayoi was not a life worth living.
Sesshomaru jumped back, horror across his face that he had struck his father. But the dripping red that was emanating from the great dog was not blood: it was the Inugami collar.
Then before their eyes, Toga’s muzzle retracted, his floppy ears melted back into his skin, and his coat became a handsome cape of fur and the long moonlit hair so very like his son.
No one in the room that night knew which had ended Toga’s curse. It mattered not whether it was Izayoi’s sacrifice to end Toga’s suffering, or Toga’s sacrifice to save Izayoi’s life, or if a combination of both was responsible, because the end result was the same. Toga was free. And Izayoi was alive. And in the mists of purgatory, a hundred lost and withering souls finally found their way to the afterlife.
Sesshomaru stood stock still, his eyes full of malice at seeing the way his father stared at Izayoi, with love in his eyes. Did he not remember that this girl was from the same house that thought it wise to enslave a daiyōkai?
“Father…” Sesshomaru pleaded, “Your spell is broken. Why do we linger here?”
Toga ripped his eyes away from Izayoi, to look upon the face of the son who never gave up searching for him.
“Because we do not punish the children of tyrants for their parents’ crimes,” Toga said simply.
“Then what are we to do?” Sesshomaru demanded. “This house committed a cardinal sin, and they must be punished.”
“And so they will,” Izayoi asserted. “I am the only one left of this house. To pay for my family’s sins, I choose to abdicate my name, and bury it with this manor. And in so doing, I am able to curse the name Yamamoto.”
“But where will you go?” Toga asked.
“I don’t know,” Izayoi answered honestly. “I am a well-read woman of sturdy build. Surely my skills could be used in a temple…”
“No,” Toga broke in, kneeling down and pulling Izayoi gently toward him. “Come with me. Be with me.”
“But…” Izayoi’s resolve broke once more, and the tears began to stream once more from her eyes. “My family has caused such harm to you and yours. I don’t want to be a constant reminder of your suffering.”
“You are a constant reminder of my salvation,” Toga smiled gently. “Without you, I would still be imprisoned. My son would still be searching for me. And I… would not know love.”
“Love?” Izayoi sniffled, “But…”
“There is only one thing that could break that curse without claiming a life.” Toga leaned closer to Izayoi’s face. “Love so selfless that our lives were forfeit for each other.” He then took one of his clawed hands and carefully traced her jaw. “Izayoi, if you’ll have me, I am yours.”
Izayoi’s tears continued, but this time for a much different purpose than the last. Tears of joy. Tears of love .
“Would you have a woman without a name?” she asked.
“I don’t have a woman without a name,” Toga answered. “I have Izayoi.”
When Izayoi laughed, Toga closed the last distance that separated them, pressing his lips carefully to the lips of his love. The lips of the woman who set him free with her love.
“We should be leaving,” Sesshomaru interrupted. He was not happy about this arrangement, but even he could not take such a treasure from his father.
“That we should,” Toga agreed, pulling Izayoi into arms as carefully as he could. She brought her arms around him in turn, nuzzling into his neck. “What though, should we do with this place?”
“Burn it,” Izayoi answered, remembering the hot kiss of the torch Takemaru had used to singe her hair. “Let it be a lesson to all that to enslave a daiyōkai brings down the wrath of the heavens.”
And so, the Yamamoto manor burned mere days after the demise of its patriarch and its terrible secret was discovered. All with knowledge of the clan presumed that Izayoi, the last of the Yamamoto clan, had burned with the house.
In a small cottage nestled along the coast of Okinawa, there lived a nameless woman and her yōkai husband. They watched as their small silver-haired dog-eared child toddled toward the ocean waves.
“Inuyasha!” called the man. “Be careful! Waves can get big and scary.”
“But don’t worry, my love.” cooed the woman. “We will be here for you, always .”