Well...it's been a while since I wrote a drabble.

To all who asked, yes I do still take requests! I'm a little more strapped for time, so it will take much time for me to actually get to them. I'm sorry... :(...I'm trying to focus on Fire and Ice and the Disease mostly right now besides beta work.

Just a fair warning, I am not going to respond to whiny reviews below. I don't have energy for whiners. All you people that were posting under anonymous accounts, you can review but no one will see it, because I won't approve it. This is a reminder to move the fuck on and enjoy the other 6,000 sessrin stories on this site. Oh and if you flame under real accounts, I'll block you...so either way you lose.

This section is inspired by 2 things. Having a challenging kid and Fire and Ice being nominated best angst on tumblr. I admit my failure if someone nominated my fluff story as best angst. But if you think that was angst...well read this...

The Children Lead the Way

For the most part, life has returned to normal. After Ka-san and Chichiue returned from seclusion, whatever that meant, they did their best to live life as it had been before Natsuki. Chichiue wakes them early every morning for their lessons. Lessons that begin with breakfast with her mother who nurses the baby and eats at the same time. Every so often Chichiue pinches her bare side and Ka-san throws a piece of fruit at his face in retaliation.

He's smiling again. It took their week away for Chichiue to remember to smile and for the lines on his face to disappear. But while her parents lives have gone back to normal, Yuki's hasn't. "Can I be excused?" she asks, already standing.

"You didn't eat." Ka-san points at her plate.

"I'm not hungry," she lies. She is, but her tummy aches every time she tries to eat. It knots around her middle, making bile rise in her throat. Lying doesn't work on Chichiue. He raises an eyebrow at Yuki and points to her chair. To make them happy, she sits down and pokes her food with a fork, forcing a few bites of raw meat and fruit down.

Chichiue is leaving tomorrow for a week. The borders are stable, the ogres no longer mass against the Southern Border. The Eastern allies made peace with their enemies, which means more peace for Chichiue as he no longer has to aid Ichiro in battles that he had in the past. Their lands are quiet and all that's left is for Ka-san to begin the harvest that will last them through the winter. "Yuki, after your lessons with Jaken I want you to help in the garden."

The world spins as she rolls her eyes. "Do I have to?"

"What was that?" her father's voice comes out coarsely, making her jump.

"Yes Ka-san." She puts on her most innocent face and lying smile. Stupid grownups, always making her do things she doesn't want.

"One day, you'll be glad I taught you how to tend the gardens," proudly Ka-san speaks.

Yeah right, she thinks to herself. "Can I be excused now?"

Chichiue nods his head, this time giving her permission to leave. Her tummy aches again. Her hands are clammy. It's like the walls are closing in on her. She runs out of the dining room, leaving her parents behind and fleeing for the nearest exit. She slams the door behind her and runs as fast as she can. Over the large rock that's just outside the door, into the forest where the pine nettles used to sting her feet. Swinging from branch to branch, she flings her body over and over again until her arms start burning and she can't catch her breath. The last branch closest to the river is slippery. The second her palm hits the slimy wood, it slips. She loses her grip and falls towards the forest floor.

Curling in a ball, she prepares herself for the impact, the jagged rocks of the river, the splashing water and the pain.

It never comes. A striped hand wraps around her waist and flies her back to the river bank. Chichiue's mad at her. She can see it in his eyes. She isn't supposed to leave the house without dogface, but she left him behind. He raises an eyebrow and points towards the house. She doesn't want to listen but she already knows resistance is futile.

He takes her into the garden where Harutoga already waits, bare from the waist up. Chichiue follows suit, hanging his own on the sakura tree. Chichiue teaches them about breathing and stances and how to stand strong. He takes them into the forest to play hide and seek, tag and then begins a new game of how to evade an enemy you can't escape. Yuki learns to climb trees faster, to use branches and boulders as barriers. But all it does is make her mind go back there. To the forest, to Hideyoshi chasing them, to feel of his warm blood, dripping down her hands after she slashed his throat open.

She twists around a boulder, and leaps into a tree. When Chichiue's clawed hand comes flying at her she shrieks, "STOP!" Slipping and falling, she hits two branches, crashing into her ribs, sending shockwaves of pain before her father catches her around her waist. "Let me go!" She slashes at his face.

His grip is like iron. "Stop Yuki."

"NO NO NO!" She struggles. She bites his arm. She slashes his wrist. She sprays him with dokkasu. The skies fill with her cries. "Let me go!" she pleads, sobbing and crying in his arms. She kicks until she has no strength left. Feeling faint, her stomach empties itself, making her ribs hurt that much more, but Chichiue doesn't let go. He pats her back and rubs her shoulders.

"Shh, my little one. Quiet."

"What's wrong with her?" Harutoga asks, but Yuki can hardly hear him.

"Shh." She feels his wind against her ears and his chest against her back.

She cries until she can't anymore, until the world is dark and things become garbled.

When night falls, the air begins to change. It smells like rains even though the skies are clear and an uneasiness settles in the air, like something is about to change but she doesn't know what. She wakes to the smell of herbs on her chest and the whispering of grownups in the hall. She sneaks forward, eavesdropping on their conversation. "Is she okay?" Ka-san asks Nobuatsu.

"She shows no sign of illness," the lanky horse demon answers. "If she develops a fever, send for me."

All the while Chichiue is quiet by the wall. He and Ka-san go into their room and the conversation continues. "Something's wrong," Ka-san says, making Yuki feel guilty for worrying her.

"She did not eat this morning," Chichiue adds.

"She hasn't been eating most morning since we returned," the sound of Ka-san flopping against the futon reverberates off the walls. "She barely smiled at the wedding."

"Tired my heart?"

Yuki presses her head against the turquoise door of her room to hear better.

"I'm so worried. Something's wrong with Yuki. She hasn't been right since we returned. She killed, Sesshomaru and she's only nine years old."

Something's wrong with me?

"She will get past it," Chichiue says. "Although," he adds, his voice becoming quieter, "she is younger than I, when I killed for the first time. But not that much younger than you were."

"That was different. Those youkai did not have human form. I was protecting my village—"

"She was protecting her brothers."

"It's not the same my love and you know it. I don't want you to go tomorrow. Something feels wrong."

On cue the skies flash with lightning, the clouds come and the rains begin. They beat on the ground, flooding the garden, making streams. Yuki runs to her outside door and pushes rags and towels against the crack to prevent water from entering, then goes back to the door to listen but all is quiet.

Rin wakes with a start. Her lover is absent. Setting palms against the ground, she feels the vibrations, the movements of the ground beneath them. At first it's just a tremor, soft rumbles that make the bed feel like it's swimming. It lasts for all of a few minutes and then stops.

But then, it starts again. A rumble. A crack. The ground vibrates so hard she can't stand up. She reaches for Taiyomaru, sleeping in his basket and runs for the children's room. They have to get out of the house. It happened once before that the beams cracked under the pressure of one of the earthquakes that often shake Japan.

Gathering her baby in a bundle of blankets, she reaches for the turquoise door, only for the red one to open. Her lover comes through and pushes her out the door into the garden. "Go to the river!"

It happens too quickly, all of it. The ground sways again, knocking her feet out from underneath her. She lands on her side, cradling Taiyomaru, taking the blow. The wind flies out of her mouth. The branches of the trees in the garden sway, one collapses. A pine's roots fail and the entire thing comes crashing down only inches from where she is laying. Rolling over, she leaps out of the way, then jumps over a log, heading for the river, trying to avoid the forest. It comes crashing down around her. Pines, leaves, branches, stone.

Behind her she hears a crack and then the rumble of breaking stone. The last thing she sees is the roof collapsing to rubble before she crests over a hill, fleeing for the river. "Sesshomaru!"

He was in his study reading when the tremors began. They tickled his toes at first, swaying them back and forth like a hammock, then stopped. In 900 years, he had experienced many earthquakes. One he had been in a cave playing with other boys when it collapsed and his mother and father rescued him.

But as the earth shook, tremored and then cracked beneath his feet, he rushed first for his bedroom, to the one most vulnerable, Taiyomaru. He picked both Rin and the baby up, urging them out of the home to the river, their safe place. He would meet them there.

The earth becomes furious, striking out at him before he can make it to the children's room. He stepped over jagged rocks shooting up from the floor below. He rips their door off the hinges just in time to see only Harutoga scuffling his way to the outer door. The children had been taught since they could talk and walk to leave the house by the nearest exit if it were ever attacked, on fire or when the ground moves. "Chichiue help!" the boys screams. He falls, ripping a hole in his side.

Sesshomaru dashes for his son just as the main support beams above crack. There's no time to think, to leave the room, only to act. The beam is twice as thick as he is, and double his length.

Harutoga screams, covering his head with his hands.

Sesshomaru dives on top of his son, taking the blow. The beam slams into his back, shattering his spine, making him growl in pain and rage. It slides down his back, tearing his skin and lands on his left ankle severing the foot, but he forces his back to stay arched to protect Harutoga from the falling debris. "Yuki!" Sesshomaru sniffs desperately, trying to find his daughter, but her scent is absent.

Rin slips on a log, falling and twisting her ankle. "Dammit!" She forces herself up. The rain is still pouring, making escape from the rumbling earth impossible.

"Rin-sama!" she hears Hisato's voice, just before he lands next to her. He catches her by the elbow just as the tremor hits the ground. Grabbing her around the waist, he flies her into the air, where neither of them can suffer the ill effects of the shaking earth.

"The house!" Rin calls, watching Hisato's gaze shift. "Sesshomaru was in there."

Hisato nods, waiting for the ground to stop moving. When it does he lands next to the house, in the garden, amongst the rubble. "Kami," he mutters and moves towards the large stones that have fallen. "He's in there. I smell his blood!"

"Sesshomaru!" Rin yells, running for the stones, throwing them off as quickly as she can. "Sesshomaru! Hisato get Nobuatsu and some of the other men from the village. Tell Taisho to help Takeshi and the others to raise tents to treat the wounded in front of the house. My children?"

Hisato sniffs again, moving closer to the stones, leaning over them. "Harutoga is inside, but I can't smell Yuki."

"Yuki!" Rin howls into the air, then throws herself into digging her lover out of the rubble. "Is she masking?"

"I don't think so. It's the rain," Hisato joins her.

"I told you to go."

"You can't move this yourself!"

"Please Hisato? The villagers rely on me to care for them. Get your brother and Katsumoto to help me. Kami, Yuki." She pushes the tears back, now is not the time for tears.

Yuki's by the river when she hears the wind call her name. She had left hours earlier when everyone thought she was sleeping, but then the earth began to shake around her. She dodged trees, rocks and falling limbs, and then hung onto the trunk of a strong oak. The river below was angry, sloshing water onto the sides, swelling and spilling.

She cries first for her mother, then for her father and then for dogface, because she thinks this time, her luck really has run out.

"Yuki!" she hears her name again. This time, coming from a younger male voice. "Yuki where are you!?"

"Katsumoto!" she cries, hugging the trunk of the tree, digging her claws in so deep she gets splinters.

"Here little one! I can't smell you. Where are you?"

"In a big oak tree! Hurry! I'm going to fall!" The rains are making it difficult to hold on. Water slithers down the sap soaked trunk. "Please Katsumoto!"

"I'm coming!" She feels the rush of his yoki, the wind of his speed and then arms gather her against a warm chest. The rain is cold. She shivers against him, hugging his neck. "It's okay. I have you now. When are you going to stop running off?"

"I didn't mean to. I couldn't sleep."

"Again?"

"Katsumoto! The house has fallen!" Hisato hovers just above the younger dog demon. "You have Yuki?"

"Yes, Cousin. I have her," Katsumoto shouts through the storm.

"Bring her back to the manor. Sesshomaru-sama was buried in the debris."

"Chichiue?" Yuki whimpers. This is all my fault…there's something wrong with me.

Sesshomaru pants against the weight on his back and the pain pulsing through his body. There are no words to describe what a severed limb feels like, or how dizzy and near fainting he is. But if he moves, the cave of fallen stones around them will fall, burying his son. "Harutoga, wake up." He grunts, feeling a flash of pain fly up his spine. His leg is numb. He's sinking in stone and his own blood. "Wake up!" he shouts firmly, feeling guilt for yelling at the boy.

"Chichiue?" Harutoga croaks. His son has a deep gash in his belly and only lives because of his demon blood.

"Sesshomaru!" he hears her from the other side of the stone. "My love, answer me!"

"Here!" he calls as loud as he can, succumbing to the pain. He loses several inches, sending rocks flying down around him. He sends his whip flying around his back, severing the beam into two, but the larger portion only falls heavier onto his back.

"We're coming for you!"

"No! The foundation isn't stable!" He pants, trying to catch his breath. "Harutoga is hurt!"

He has to get the beam off his back, reattach his foot and somehow move his son. He closes his eyes, drawing on his yoki, but he's already lost too much blood to transform, too much to heal. "My son, wake up."

Harutoga finally stirs more. "My belly hurts, Chichiue."

"Shh." Sesshomaru's chest touches Harutoga's shoulder. "Stay beneath me. Do not move."

"Chichiue your foot!" Harutoga cries out.

"It's fine. Listen to me, you must stay beneath me, until a safe passage is made to get you out."

"Yes, Chichiue," he whispers, hugging himself.

Rin stops pulling stones off long enough to hug Yuki when Katsumoto lands. "We have to get him out. He sounds weak," Rin whispers, hoping her lover won't hear.

"As you wish," Katsumoto intones gravely and begins pulling rocks and stones out of the pile.

"I smell his blood!" Yuki screams and runs for the rocks, helping to clear a path.

Katsumoto goes to lift a large rock, the second he does, the rubble shifts and Sesshomaru howls from the inside, "STOP! It's going to fall!"

"Stop!" Rin commands.

Katsumoto backs away. "What are we going to do? If we shift too much the whole thing will fall."

Rin paces. They are surrounded by rains, by a night so dark it's hard to see. "We need light…Katsumoto, get Akari and Hineko. Sesshomaru are you okay?" She leans against some smaller stones.

She hears coughing from the inside of the cave. "My heart," his tone is pain filled and desperate. "The inside must be stabilized first!"

"The builders," Rin nods, taking in her lovers words. "How can we get anyone in there."

"We find a hole big enough for someone to get through," Hineko, Akari's orange haired husband says as he lands with the hanyou fire cat next to him. He raises two clawed hands, blazing fire. Akari follows.

Rin holds Yuki around the shoulders with one hand, and with the other tries to silence Taiyomaru. The babies sobs from the cold and from the stress he feels radiating off his mother.

Katsumoto, Sato and Hisato land, along with Taisho and Nobuatsu. "Is he alive?" Nobuatsu asks, peeling off a bag full of herbs.

"He's alive," Rin answers. "He's trapped," her voice finally breaks, giving in to worry.

"We'll get him out," Nobuatsu says confidently.

Sesshomaru shifts, trying to escape the pain in his back, to move away from the flinching nerves. "Harutoga," he whispers again, trying to keep his son awake.

"Chichiue, are we going to die?" The little boy grips his belly. It oozes blood.

"No. Take some of my blood and put it on your injury."

"From where? If I go to your ankle, I won't be underneath you?"

"Cut my chest."

"Chichiue?"

"Do it." His muscles tremble beneath the beam.

Harutoga lifts an unsure claw and slices into his father's chest, spreading the blood against the long cut along his belly. "It stings."

"I'm sorry, little one." He would kiss the child's forehead if he could reach it, but all his efforts are in keeping the rest of the rubble from collapsing on top of them. He was meant to die in battle, not under stone and rock.

Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he sees orange flames going back and forth. "Hineko!" he calls when he can see it again.

The light stops, then he sees a hand several meters away from where he lies. "Rin-sama, I can see him, just barely. There's an opening!"

"Where?" Rin runs forward. Taisho and Sato have raised tents to block the rain and stop it from entering the ruins of what was once her room.

"Here," Hineko points through the rubble.

Rin looks into the hole but can't see anything. She shakes her head.

"Trust my youkai eyes, he's there. He's struggling. Whatever we do it, must be fast." Hineko back raises the flames. "Sesshomaru-sama! Can you see me?"

"Yes."

"The opening isn't large enough for an adult." Hineko starts pacing back and forth.

Hisato and Sato come to examine the shaft and carefully begin pulling stones out of the way to widen it. They reach in several feet, but the rocks start shifting again. "Stop!" Sesshomaru calls again. At this rate, they are going to send the rocks crashing down on his head.

"What are we going to do?" Sato glances at Rin and then his brother.

"The builders, Rin says. We need Usagi and Daisuke."

"But they can't fit through this hole. The light Hineko, higher." Hisato lifts the fire cat's hands until he can make out more of the tunnel. "It gets wider at the end, but if we shift too much rubble, it will come down on him and Harutoga. An adult can't fit in there."

"Taisho?" Rin eyes her nephew. The boy is tall and lanky still, only fourteen with a slender body.

"It's too risky. We need someone smaller," Sato eyes Yuki.

"No…" Rin shakes her head. "No, it could collapse with her in there."

"Send her!" Sesshomaru calls from inside the hole. "Harutoga is getting weaker!"

Rin bites her bottom lip and nods her head. "Yuki, Chichiue needs you. Akari take the baby to Atsuko and bring Usagi and Daisuke and their children, and your children."

"Rin you can't—" Akari tries to interject.

"I can. This is my home and my lover trapped under there with my son. Your children will provide the light, Kai and Rei have learned building from their parents. They'll go and stabilize the interior so we can widen this shaft and pull Sesshomaru-sama out."

"You're lucky I love you like a sister." Akari takes the baby and kisses Rin's cheek. "I trust you with my life and the life of my children."

"As I have always trusted you." Rin bows her head and then takes Yuki to the shaft. "Hineko will light your way. Get your brother."

Yuki shivers as she makes it to the dampened shaft. She sizes up the hole. Taisho approaches her with a rope and ties it around her stomach. "Chin up cousin, you'll be fine."

"Listen to me little one," Katsumoto kneels by the opening, holding her shoulder. "Tread gently. If you move too much it could come crashing down on you. Step as if you are flying."

"But I can't fly," Yuki argues.

Katsumoto only ruffles her head. "You can do this Yuki."

She swallows hard and hugs her mother. "I'm sorry Ka-san."

"For what?"

"For being messed up." Yuki's lip trembles and she breaks, sobbing into her mother's chest.

"Oh my daughter. You aren't. There's nothing wrong with you."

"But I heard you and Chichiue say there's something wrong me," Yuki trembles.

"Yuki," Rin glides down to her knees and cups her daughter's chin. "You killed and it's left its mark on you. There is no sin in that. You did what you had to protect your brothers and now you will do what you must to save Harutoga. Ka-san believes in you."

"You do?"

"I always have. Now go. Chichiue needs you."

Yuki nods, pushing her tears back and climbs into the hole. Behind her Hineko holds the light steady. She paces herself, listening to Taisho remind her to tread carefully, to test her foot and hand holds. The shaft goes down, where the earth broke apart and swallowed part of their home. The water makes the stones slippery. But she perseveres, using her toe claws to grip the ground and the claws on her fingers to keep from sliding down the shaft head first. "I need more light!" she calls, regretting it the second she does. The rubble rumbles, and trembles. She winces, waiting for it to stop.

Orange light surrounds her, lighting her way just enough. She opens and closes her eyes and keeps moving. She slides down the last few feet, into the small open space where she finds her father. "Chichiue?" She crawls to him, through the blood and rubble. She sees the stone that severed his ankle and the large beam on his back.

"Yuki," he sighs in relief. "Take your brother."

"What about you?"

"Can you get the stone off my leg?"

"I can try."

"Slowly. If the rubble groans, stop."

"Yes, Chichiue." She crawls around, staining her hands and legs and finds the large stone on her father's foot. She lifts with all her might, but it's too heavy. She tries again, grunting and groaning. "It's too heavy. Can I melt it?"

"Get your brother…out…first…"

"Chichiue?"

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

"You lied…too."

She cries again, burying her nose into his shoulder. "I keep having nightmares and I keep going back there. At night…"

"Shh," he moves his head to nuzzle her neck. "Death happens little one. There is no shame in killing to protect the ones you love. The first is always the worst."

"Did you feel this way?"

"I did. I killed my closest friend. He was offered a reward for my head."

"Were you nine?"

"No," Sesshomaru laughs, but then groans in pain. "Get your brother out. I'll tell you the story when this is off my back."

"Chichiue the rubble is piled high. You're meters below the top of the pile."

"Chichiue is not leaving you little one. Take your brother."

"Come on, Harutoga." She grabs her brother by the crook of his elbow. Harutoga is fevered and barely responsive. "What's wrong?"

"My blood. Slap his face."

Yuki slaps her brother as hard as she can, making him squeal in pain. "Yuki?" The gold and brown eyes open. "Yuki!" He throws his arms around her.

"We have to get out of here," Yuki encourages him. She pushes him towards the shaft.

"I'm so tired."

"I don't care, move!" Yuki pushes her brother butt to keep him going up the shaft. It seems up is harder than down. The rocks are slippery, and it's harder to find safe hand and foot holds. Every so often the rubble shivers and shakes, and pebbles fall from cracks. "Keep going."

"What if it falls on us?" Harutoga laments, stepping carefully up the shaft.

"I won't let you die little brother. To your left, see that opening? Pull on it and lift yourself up."

"My tummy burns."

"It's okay, keep moving. I've got you," Yuki encourages him, giving him her knee to stand on. "Keep going."

He lifts himself up again, weakly moving. All the while Yuki pushes on her brother to keep him moving. She finally stops when they are at the mouth of the shaft, there are cheers and huzzahs and sounds of celebration. "We did it!" Harutoga yells.

"You did it my love!" Rin helps them out of the shaft.

Yuki's eyes widen in shock and amazement, Kai, the hanyou kitsune is there with a torch, Rei-chan her best friend and Akari's twin sons Saito and Mitsuko. They are more than hanyou but less than pure blooded. At a century they are only a few inches taller than Yuki and Harutoga. But they are all there to help free Sesshomaru.

"Listen to me, all of you," Rin instructs the children. "We need to be able to move the rubble, enough to get Sesshomaru-sama out. Mitsuko and Saito will light the cave, Rei and Kai, you will stabilize it enough we can start moving the rubble. Okay?"

"I'm going back in," Yuki says firmly. "Chichiue needs me. There's a rock stuck on his ankle. It cut his foot off. It's kind of gross, but I want to put it back on."

"Then you will take these," Nobuatsu hands her a bag full of bandages and some foul smelling ointments. "Put them on your Chichiue's injuries."

One by one, the children enter the shaft and then spread out inside. Yuki comes last, carrying the bag over her shoulder. Her father has sunk lower into the mud beneath him. "Chichiue?" She touches his neck the way Obasan once taught her to feel his heart beat.

"I'm…still…here," he whispers, face buried in his elbow.

"Hold on," Yuki moves around the stone on his ankle. "Kai, Rei? Can we get this off?"

"There's not much space to move it," Kai answers, "but it doesn't look like it's attached to anything keeping the cave from collapsing."

"We can use it to stabilize that wall," Rei points to the side. "Can we lift it?"

"All of us together," Yuki nods her head, feeling like the boss. This is after all her home.

Together the children pull it off and then push it to the side, until it kisses the top of the cave, making everything groan. "A little more," Kai encourages them, gritting his teeth. "There." They set it down.

Yuki runs back to her father while Kai and Rei discuss what they need to get the area stable enough to move the beam off her father's back. "I found your foot." Yuki holds in front of her father's face. "Do I just put it back on?"

"And wrap it."

"If I cut my hand off will it heal like yours?" she asks him, while she cuts strips of his hakama off around the severed ankle and puts the ankle back on.

"I wouldn't test that theory little one."

"Can I cut off Harutoga's?" She spreads the ointments on the broken skin and then begins wrapping it tightly.

"No."

"Taiyomaru's?"

"No." He laughs, because he knows his daughter is trying to distract him.

The children crawl through the opening of the cave and call for lumber. Yuki cuts it for them, while Rei and Kai hold it in place. Where they can, Yuki and the twins begin to melt rocks and stones until they've cleared enough space to walk around hunched.

Hours later, they have finally finished bracing the sides of the cave and widened the shaft enough for Taisho to come down and make sure that it stable enough to start shifting the rocks above. He's brought water for Sesshomaru and dried fruit for the children. "We're ready!" he calls.

"Chichiue," Yuki takes her father's hand. "We're ready. Hang on."

Outside the cave, the morning sun is rising and the rain has finally let up enough that the rocks don't slip through the hands of those carrying them. The entire village has come to remove the stone and wood. During that time, Rin discovered that their guest bedrooms remained undamaged. Their bedrooms will have to be built again, but it didn't matter, as long as her lover came out of this alive.

The youkai take turns, tugging and pulling, moving stone after stone until they come across the large beam and uncover five muddy children and Sesshomaru hanging on for life. It takes Hisato and Sato together to pull the beam off Sesshomaru's back. Katsumoto flies him out of the hole and into the tent where Sesshomaru immediately loses consciousness next to Harutoga.

Yuki runs to her mother, hugging her around the waist. The other children run to their parents. Rin gazes around at her villagers, her friends, with pride. "We did it!" Yuki calls.

"We did it!" the other children yell.

A week later, when Chichiue is healed, he calls for a celebration in the village. There are bonfires, roasted boars on spits, tables full of fruits grown from their orchard and melon patches. Yuki runs with her friends, playing tag. Kai and Rei boast that the party is in their honor, but Yuki says it's Mitsuko and Daisuke.

Even Soba-sama comes to celebrate from her castle in the sky. She brings a giant ball of sweet rice so big it's carried by four female Inu-youkai in a giant golden bowl. Next to it she places a sweet fruity drink for the children.

The musicians play music, jolly notes that keep everyone dancing. And finally, Chichiue and Ka-san come on Aun's back. Chichiue's ankle still hurts, but it's like he never lost it. When Yuki asked him why he didn't do that with his missing arm after Ojisan cut it off, Chichiue tickled her until she couldn't breathe. Some things just shouldn't be asked.

The music stops when Chichiue gets off of Aun and limps lightly to the platform. He smiles at the children. The first time Yuki has ever seen him smile in public. "One week ago, our village was ravaged by an earthquake. This Sesshomaru was buried with his son. And now," he gazes around at the children, "we celebrate the children who showed no fear. The children who went into the depths to save this Sesshomaru. The children lead the way!"

Please review! Now can we all agree that this is angst and Fire and Ice isn't? LOL...I'm flattered someone nominated it for angst but...I tried to make it not angsty but I fail.

Story rec...I just read a cool one with Kaede and Sesshomaru on AO3. Encounter by Sadladybug

Okay...responses

Smmahamazing: And now I betray you with an angst filled chapter!

Freshlymintedsesnshi: Thank you so much! I've had so much fun writing this series.

Mechine: Trust me I wish someone had healed me down there, especially after baby #4...and I know about the comments. Let's just say some people can't handle my writing. But hey...I guess I can't please everyone. I agree, Rin and Sesshomaru have faced a lot of heart ache, but life has ups and downs. This happy ever after stuff is boring in my opinion. I want real life...to cope with my life LOL

Guesswho: Where are you? Are you okay? You are missing disease updates and I miss you! Oh man I just realized the last time I posted on this was in March right around the shut down. Man how the world has changed.

Melizabeth lover: I loved Chi!

Nightbird: Thank you! I was rolling writing the drunk Sesshomaru.

New Reader: Request will be granted. Morning after the hangover will get written. I just need more time.

The rest of you asinine guest reviewers. Fuck off thank you. :)