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The castle’s audience room is a big open room, with beautifully nature-painted walls, and a comfortable tatami floor. It has a raised platform with colorful cushions around a tea table. Today it had more cushions than normal, making the table seems a little crowded, after all the entire family was present, besides the customary Inu no Taisho, the youkai lady of the west Inukimi, and the newest addition the named heir Sesshoumaru, the youngest Inuyasha, and his mother were there as well.

Sesshoumaru reached the proper age of 12 recently thus he was nominated as the named heir, he took his new apprentice status very seriously and presented himself to the court with a regal figure, watching diligently the way his father was conducting business, he was a perfect picture of an heir. Today, however, he had to deal with a very annoying distraction, his little brother Inuyasha.

Inuyasha didn’t have the patience for business, he didn’t want to hear about the difficulties of lesser youkai with day-to-day life or their squabbles, but he wanted to be as important as Sesshoumaru! Why could his brother be in this room and he not? Wasn’t he also a son of the Inu no Taisho? No! No! No! He would be in there too!

To achieve that he would do anything, so weeks before he concocted a plan, a very simple and efficient one. He would scream top of his lungs and annoy his father for days about the subject until he gave up, he was smart enough to avoid doing that in front of his mothers but he could convince his father.

And so he did, the plan worked perfectly! Now he was in the all-forbidden room, unfortunately, that means that he now had to be very quiet, very regal, very Sesshoumaru-liked to his taste or his mother would eat his head off. And he didn’t mean the youkai mother. The problem is that he thought that the room would be exciting, or at least interesting, but it wasn’t, so now what?

Sesshoumaru sensing the restlessness growing inside of his little brother looked up to Inukimi “Mother why did you let that little monster inside the room?”

“Sesshoumaru do not speak of your brother like this, and you know how he is, today was an impossible day with him and your father needed some peace, let him be here for a little while and soon your mama will take him out and everything will be fine”

“we shall see” he side-eyed his brother squirming clearly uncomfortable in his seat

The servant announces the entry of a new delegation in the room, the yorouzoku of the east, commanded by Garo, they are a small group of 6 wolf youkais, the leader, 4 warrior-looking men, and a wolf cub.

Touga leaves the raised platform breaking all the protocols to greet the newcomers “Garo my old friend! I haven’t seen you for too long, come let’s sit together and talk” he says gesturing to the servants to bring a cushion and more tea for his guest.

“Thank you Touga, the trip was indeed difficult, and I appreciate your hospitality, but first let me introduce you to my prodigy son, Kouga, he is only 9 but is already the fastest wolf in our group and is learning very well how to fight, he’ll be a fierce and strong leader to our pack in the future. Son introduces yourself properly to the Inu no Taisho and his family.

Kouga sticks out his chest, all proud of himself “I’m Kouga prince of the east yorouzoku, thank you for receiving me Inu no Taisho, I’ve been learning how to fight since I’m young and I’m proud to say that I am the fastest wolf in our pack, I can put the birds of paradise behind easily and made my first kill of one them last year!

Inuyasha looks suspicious at the new boy a snarl in his face thinking “How can he be that good if he is my age? They must be lying! Only big brother was that good at my age, that stinky wolf can’t be that good too”

Touga notices that Inuyasha is timid towards Kouga and decides to help “Come here son, you two have similar ages, he’s 9 and you 8, you two should play together when we adults speak of boring stuff, what do you think?”

“I think he’s a liar!” Inuyasha says as he descends the platform with a jump.

He got close to Kouga, and they start to circle each other, both noses going crazy trying to grasp the most information possible, they do 2 full circles and at the same time both pointed a finger at the other growling and yelling “You stink!!”

“I don’t stink! You smell like a wet dog that someone threw away in the street!”

“WHAT? You dumb Wolf, your stink is so bad that I want to throw up, I bet you don’t even know what a bath is, do you have any in the cave that spat you?”

“You mutt!”

“You can’t call me that” Inuyasha screams jumping on Kouga and punching him with all his strength.

Kouga tumbles a few paces and tries to cut Inuyasha with his claws

Inuyasha dodges but he lost his feet when Kouga tripped him over dropping to the ground and hitting his head, he tries to get up but Kouga is on him pounding him so he rolls with him in a mess of limbs, and claws, both trying to be on control

In the middle of all that growling and chaos, Sesshoumaru calmly put his teacup on the table and ask Izayoi “Mama let’s make a bet on who will win?”

“Sesshoumaru, darling, we can’t both bet on your brother that’s not how betting works, besides it is something beneath a person of our station to bet in a children’s fight and..” Whatever Izayoi would say was interrupted by an excited Touga

“Ten bucks on my boy!! Go Inuyasha you can beat that wolf cub”

“Hell no you old dog Kouga is clearly faster! 20 on my boy!”

Soon after the bets are put Inuyasha cuts Kouga’s arm with his claws at the same time that Kouga hits his face with a punch, with the strength of the punch Inuyasha dash a few paces and they start to circle each other again, Inuyasha massages his face and Kouga holding his arm.

At the exact time they are in the air jumping to continue the fight Inukimi suppresses a groan with an audible sigh and yells with authority “STOP you two”

They both try to but lost in the momentum rolling to the floor and stopping at her feet, when they manage to rise both are trembling and looking terrified at her.

“Boys, with me,” Inukimi says standing up and leaving the room, while Izayoi and Seshoumaru take their tea judging everyone else in the room for not being composed enough.

Kimi takes the boys to the peach orchard, she walks with them in silence until the middle of the woodland, she floats until she grabs a perfect mature peach, returning to the ground she looks to both of them and says “We are going to play a game, I want the kitchen to make me the perfect peach wine, and for that, I’ll need fruits exactly like these, you two will compete to see who will bring me more of the fruit, but there must be only the perfect fruit like these, you can see by the smell when they are ready”

“But my lady there are so many fruit too ripe and mushy in here, the smell of them is too strong, how can we know?” Kouga tries to argue

“Yeah, Mother! My nose can’t work well here!”

“That is not my problem, is it? I expect a good harvest from you two, you’ll have until sundown, there are baskets under this tree, now go!” Inukimi orders

Inuyasha jumps to the first tree he can reach and start trying to scent for the fruits but his nose is overwhelmed and he starts to sneeze uncontrollably

Kouga runs around the orchard but his nose is also overwhelmed and starts to snot needing to stop to clean it frequently

Every time they meet they provoke each other trying to annoy the other the most to the point they almost forgot what they are supposed to be doing in the orchard

In the end, the boys come back to Inukimi in the center of the orchard smiling and talking happily about how much fruit they got.

“Are you two done?”

“Yes, Mother! I’ve got a looooot of good fruit! Sure more than the stinky one here!”

“Language!! What would your mother say if she heard that?”

“Sorry….” Inuyasha says kicking some dirt

“I’ve got more fruit than you anyway puppy!” Kouga says showing the basket full of fruit

Inukimi takes the baskets from the boys and spreads the fruits on a table beside her. “You two had the exact same number of peaches, and both of you need to improve picking them, none is exactly right the way I want, so it’s a draw. Now both of you go inside to get ready for dinner, and I don’t want to see you two break anything in the castle! Fight outside!”

After the dinner when Izayoi was putting Inuyasha to sleep, she sees how happy he is “It is so good to see that you made a new friend today baby. Will you play with him tomorrow?”

“MOM!” a disgusted Inuyasha squirms in bed

“What?” She asks rearranging the covers.

“He is not my friend I already said that to you”.

“Okay baby, will you play with your “not your friend” tomorrow?”

“Yeah! Can I show him the lake tomorrow?”

“Yes, puppy you can”.