I'm getting ready for my trip...

"Len!" Chizu shouted out loudly back into our house. "Come say goodbye to your father!" There was a mumbled shout from inside, but I couldn't tell what he said.

"Have a good trip, Daddy," my nine-year-old raven-haired daughter Rei said very formally. She always tried to act like an adult and was most often the more responsible one of all Chizu’s children. She read every book she could get her hands on and was often teaching me things I’d never known. "And here are some rare healing herbs I found that might help auntie recover faster."

I took the small wrapped package and gave my little know-it-all daughter a hug. "Thank you, Rei. I’m sure she will appreciate that."

"But why you always go away, Daddy?" our precious little Ami almost cried in asking as she clung tightly to her mother’s skirt. Her cute way of talking in not quite right sentences really reminded me of Chizu in her youth, especially since she inherited her same purple hair and eyes.

I squatted down and told her again, trying to think of a new way to tell her that she would understand, but being only four I didn’t think it would really sink in until she got older. "Daddy loves you very much, but to keep the peace he has to take messages back to where he was born," I said keeping out all the details of the truce the three of us had brokered. Chizu’s people accepted her back instantly and it turns out since she had been their chief’s daughter her abduction and enslavement had been the cause of the whole war in the first place. She wasn’t able to inherit the leadership of their clan as a woman, but neither side really wanted a war any longer anyway.

The rest of the clan didn’t take to me right away, but since she was pregnant with my child when we returned I was more or less **** to married her and given a waiver to live with them. I didn’t have any regrets about that at all and since I spent so much time here was able to learn their language. Soon being bilingual let me leverage myself into being the natural messenger and ambassador for both peoples and that was that. Though it would be many years before she could comprehend that much.

"And auntie Natsumi needs him right now," Rei said, but I just held up my hand and she got the idea that explanations could wait.

"Miss you, Daddy," was all she said and hugged me with her free hand, still not letting go of her mother’s clothing.

"I’ll miss you too, Sweetie," I said back with a smile, then with a kiss to her forehead the rumble of my firstborn son came up to the door as he sounded like a heard of oxen stampeding right at us.

"I found it!" he proclaimed loudly as he was breathing hard and handed me the solid crystal cube with the oni trapped in it. It had to be solid even if it didn’t look like it since it was luckily impossible to break. I was worried about it and had kept it hidden for years, but my son had found it and asked me about it a few years ago. I yelled at him and explained there was a murderous demon trapped inside, trying to scare him, but he either didn’t really believe me or wasn’t really scared of that thought. His mother was no help as she had no memory of the demonic possession she’d experienced, thinking all those actions had been her own. And like any kid, Len was often clumsy and I almost had a heart attack the first time I saw that cube strike the ground.

It didn’t even bounce. Whatever it was made of, it was sturdy and my son took to gazing into it. I talked to him a lot after that, trying to make sure he was okay and that the oni wasn’t somehow trying to escape, but he seemed like a good kid still. It wouldn’t be long until he was a man in his own right. But since I constantly spent half my time back in my home town he was very interested in what was going on there.

"I promised Rin she could see this too," he explained. Chizu had told him when he was old enough on one of the months I was away about my other family and how she loved them as well which was true. We’ve even meet half-way on a few occasions and I found out that my mail sack of letters also contained correspondence back and forth from Chizu and Natsumi who had turned into pen pals. Out of respect I didn’t read the letters and they had their girl talks and rants about me I’m sure, but I guess that’s the cost of keeping two wives happy. But it turns out that Len was very interested in his almost twin step-sister Rin and his mother helped him write her a letter of introduction a few years ago. Since then they wrote letters every month as well.

"Alright…" I sighed as I took the cube and packed it away. Since nothing had happened in all these years I wondered anymore if this was even dangerous myself since nothing had ever happened again. With our goodbyes in order, I kissed my seven months pregnant wife and assured her I’d be back for the birth of our fourth child. She said she wasn’t worried and told me to make sure to hurry home to take care of Natsumi’s needs because she was due to pop any day now. That was true and I made good time on my most reliable horse, crossing the long distance between the once barbarian tribe that had finally settled down into a proper city, back down the coast up to the rocky isthmus, and into the Honda dojo.

"Kenji!" My sister called out waving me in excitedly as she saw me. "It’s almost time! Hurry!" I snapped the reins and galloped right into the courtyard. Without even talking with her she took my horse and urgently informed me, "She’s in the bedroom with Yuki." Of course, she would be. Yuki had become the town’s resident physician since her grandmother passed away.

I ran in finding I had just missed the big event, but was just in time for the happy ending. I was fine with that, all the joy without any of the work, though I have to say there is something almost magical about watching the birth of one of my children as it leaves the womb I planted them in. Yuki was tending my exhausted wife who had clearly just finished birthing the newest addition to our family as my eldest daughter held the precious new soul in her arms.

"It’s a boy!" she said excitedly, handing me my newborn son. It truly was a miracle for though Natsumi had conceived Rin probably in the first week we started having sex much like Chizu had with Len, she was worried about becoming too old to get pregnant again and sometimes begrudged Chizu of her youth and fertility. Natsumi was forty now and was already be old enough to be a grandmother, but Yuki had been hopeful even though it had been over a decade. Then last year our unions finally took hold again and she was over the moon.

I was lost in his wonderful little eyes as he looked up at me for a few moments until he started squalling. "Looks like he’s getting hungry," I laughed as I handed him down to Natsumi who laughed and placed the miniature copy of me onto her breast and placed her milk swollen teat into his mouth.

"Just like his father…" she said almost under her breath as she nursed her newest child.

"Good news and bad news," Yuki came said as she finished washing her hands. "The bad news is I think this will be Natsumi’s last pregnancy, but on the good side it looks like little Kenji Junior is healthy."

"That’s all that matters," Natsumi sighed. We’d already had several long talks suspecting that would be the case, so we're prepared for that possibility. I was slightly disappointed, but knew Natsumi was just lucky to still be alive after such a late birth. "So how is Chizu?" she asked happily and after that, we all just admired the baby and talked for some time.

Eventually, just before bedtime Rin came up and asked, "Dad… Did you bring that magic light cube Len told me about?"

I hesitantly nodded and pulled it out. The thought of handing the imprisoned oni over to my excited fourteen-year-old daughter bothered me, but I knew that was irrational. Len had been fascinated by it, but it had proven harmless enough. "Be careful with this," I said considering trying to scare her with the same demonic tail I’d given to her step-brother, but it had been a long day and I was sure nothing would happen. "It’s fragile," was all I said instead, "and I wouldn’t want you getting hurt."

"Don’t worry, Dad," she said excitedly taking the crystal cube that still pulsed with vivid red lightning that looked like electric blood in slow motion. "I’ll be careful with it." I only hoped that would be the case as she kissed my cheek and disappeared into her own room and closed the door behind her with a smile I still found unsettling.