This is an introductory tale about Kumari, my Inuyasha fancharacter. His first appearance was at my fanfiction “Hunting Night”, and I decided to write this small story, telling what happened a few months before. Also, it’s my entry for the “Your Amazing OC!” challenge.
DISCLAIMER: This is a fanfiction centered on the “Inuyasha” universe, which belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, and it was written for entertainment purposes only.
The scorching sun was announcing the summer’s arrival. Usually that would be a time of joy, with the harvest approaching, but the servants were sad as they worked. With the heat, an infestation of lizard-demons arrived at those lands. An entire village was destroyed and half of its habitants were devoured by the monsters. Now, the men were chopping down trees, gathering wood to rebuild their houses, and maybe their lives. Still, it never seemed to be enough of it to shelter all the families that lost their homes.
A boy, ten years old at the most, went to the woods to help his father, but he was too weak for the job, and ended up with the task of gathering firewood for the night. As he collected the smaller branches left over by the lumberjacks, he found a huge oak tree, with very healthy wood.
“Hey! How about this one?!”, he yelled to the other villagers.
“Not bad, Soji! Do you want to cut it down?”, his father shouted back.
“Can we? It would be enough wood to build an entire village! Maybe even a castle!”
The other servants laughed at him, not with despise, but really amused by his optimism. His father smiled and approached him.
“It’s true. But look at the size of this trunk. It would take us days to chop it down.”
“Is that a challenge?” A young voice sounded behind them.
Kumari, son of the lord of those lands, arrived to inspect the reconstruction works. However, he came with his kimono’s sleeves tied up to his shoulders, ready for work, and he carried a big axe.
“My young lord?”
“How about until the sunset?”, he proposed, looking at his servant.
The man smiled back. As well as all the other villagers, he knew that the young noble and his father were demons, but they were used to it. That fief had always belonged to a lineage of bear-demons that maintained good relations with humans. The present lord was feared for his constant bad mood, but he respected his family’s tradition of protecting humans.
And his son, who was almost an adult, was already very similar to him. He inherited the light brown skin, the dark brown hair and the imposing physique, but apparently not his father’s temperament.
“This tree won’t come down easily”, one of the peasants said.
“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge”
Kumari approached the tree, looking at it with great reverence, like a warrior paying respect to an adversary before the beginning of a duel. Then, he firmly gripped the great axe, swung it back and, grunting with the effort, hit the tree deep enough to make the boy’s chin drop, and the rest of the peasants yell with excitement. Thrilled by the demonstration of strength, all of them ran with their axes to help their young lord in the task.
