Koinu (offscreen): Once again, I had a nursemaid—not like my cheerful youkai nurse, but a sharp-tongued human woman who didn’t like little boys much and didn’t like me at all—except for my hair, which she loved combing. Mostly, I think, she liked being able to sit undoing tangles and listening to court gossip. I can’t say I enjoyed sitting there hour after hour, getting slapped in the head if I moved. I don’t think my mother enjoyed it much, either. Sometimes I think she died of boredom.

Koinu (offscreen): One day nurse dressed me in my best clothes and my mother and I walked down the long gallery to Grandfather’s rooms.

Koinu (offscreen): He was propped up on cushions. The young ladies sat a bit away from him now . . . He looked so terrible, so yellow and—like a skeleton. At first I thought he was a ghost, and I was afraid of ghosts, but I recalled I was to be a samurai and did not run or scream or cry, but only stood quietly. The smell was—unbelievable. I noticed the young ladies were breathing oddly. After a minute I realized they were trying not to breathe too deeply, trying to keep from breathing that scent . . .

Koinu (offscreen): I tried to breathe as they did. It helped, but only a little, and it made my head hurt. Then my mother moved to his side and kissed his head . . . his foul, dreadful, death-smelling head.

Stylized close-up of Koinu, his face almost blending with that of the (young adult) hanyou Inuyasha. Koinu looks serious, Inuyasha looks tragic. To the right is a close-up of Kikyou—the undead version—looking serious and carrying her bow and arrows. Kikyou’s long hair trails across the page to wrap around both Inuyasha and Koinu. (Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight a long time . . . )

Koinu (offscreen): It was . . . many years before I understood . . . how she could bring herself to touch him . . . how she could hold in her mind what he once had been . . . what she once had loved . . . and ignore . . . that terrible smell . . .

Koinu (offscreen): Then he called me forward in a very weak voice. I bowed very low, trying to breathe air off the floor, to breathe my mother’s scent. "Inuyasha," he said. "So you are to be a samurai in my son’s army." I was confused. "In your army, milord," I said. He laughed—a terrible, wheezing laugh that smelled like a cesspit.

Koinu (offscreen): Then he looked away from me. "You are an unfortunate creature," he said.

Koinu (offscreen): I couldn’t understand what he meant . . . not yet . . .

Koinu (offscreen): That night he died. My mother kept vigil for him with the others.

Koinu (offscreen): I lay alone in our rooms listening. The house was full of the sound of weeping.

Koinu (offscreen): It was only a few nights later that I heard my mother cough, and smelled the scent of blood. That was the first time . . .

Kagome: You don’t have to tell this part. I know this part. I did this part, too. Go on. She died.

Koinu: . . . It took about a year. She got weaker and weaker. I sat with her and did my lessons, waiting to begin training . . . to be a samurai.

Koinu (offscreen): Well, as you said . . . she died, finally. On the last day, she said, "Oh, my poor little child . . . what will become of you here?"

Koinu: Do you understand how it was, Kagome? Her family had given her to the youkai when she was still a child. Given her away to be . . . mated, to be eaten, to be used . . . and when the youkai sent her away, her people ostracized her. And me . . . they called me the beast. They called me the abomination. They called me the monster.

Koinu: When the adults weren’t looking, the human children threw rocks at me. When they felt like it, the adults spat on me. Other than that, they ignored me, and told each other what a terrible . . . humiliation I was. I said to her: "I am to be a samurai in the household of my lord and uncle."

Koinu: Kagome, I would have served him well, and with great honor! When you met me I was a beast, just as they said! But not then! Not in the household of the Houjou!

Koinu: "Snow White." Do you know "Snow White"? It’s a movie, but it was a fairy tale—the Brothers Grimm.

Koinu: I . . . I can’t talk about being Inuyasha Who Seeks the Shikon no Tama. I’m not allowed. There’s been nobody to explain to me how . . . someone like me lives my life. So I read fairy tales.

Koinu: I read fairy tales and legends. I read about heroes with magic swords. I have about a hundred books like that. I try to be like them. Try to be a good man.

Koinu: My father is an economist, a deputy minister of foreign affairs. My mother takes care of me and runs the committee, to make the world a better place. They’re good people. I try to be good, too. And I’ve tried to look for you. I . . . Now comes the really bad part.

Koinu: In the house of the Houjou was the man who led the hunt. Sometimes he carried a bow, and always he carried a dagger and a sword.

Koinu: He came to where I kept vigil for my poor mother. He took me into the forest.

Koinu: In "Snow White" the huntsman can’t bring himself to kill an innocent girl. I was no innocent girl. I was youkai. I was a monster. He told me to bare my chest, and he ran his dagger through me. It was like a dream.

Koinu (offstage): I looked down and there was this dagger going into my chest . . . And my blood started . . . Spurting out . . . Pain . . . All the way through . . . And feeling the blood running down my back . . .

Koinu: It hurt me…I’d been…teased…I’d been hit with rocks and laughed at and humiliated. But somebody wanted to kill me. Somebody wanted to cut me up and kill me!

Koinu: I was just shocked and angry. I started to fight him—not attacking him, just trying to push him away.

Koinu: I scared him. Scared him because I didn’t just die…because I was strong enough to hold him off. I was a little kid, Kagome! He thought it was going to be easy! Thought because I was a little kid he could just…butcher me!

Koinu: I just wanted him to stop! I just wanted to get away! I wanted to run home and tell somebody, so they’d make him stop and leave me alone! And then he pulled his sword…he said he was going to cut off my head…

Koinu: I didn’t want to die! I didn’t want to die! I was just pushing away . . . hitting at him, biting him, slashing at him with my claws . . . his sword cut me . . . I was pushing him . . . we were both screaming . . .

Koinu: . . . and then I was holding . . . his eyeball . . . in my hand . . .