InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sachi ❯ Flashback ( Chapter 18 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter 18: Flashback

Blood…
Everywhere. It splattered the walls, soaked through the carpet and gathered in small pools; his jeans were heavy and cold with the stuff. It was the first thing he noticed, the only thing he noticed. He was kneeling in the middle of her apartment; it was a small place, but one she'd called a sanctuary, a reprieve from those trying to use her for her powers, from those who hunted her, from the seemingly constant demand on her time from everyone around her—for help or council or support for a cause, or whatever the hell else they could think of to demand. No one was supposed to be able to find her here except him. She was supposed to be safe here.
The smell made him sick. The scent of her death, contained in such a tiny space, rose up around him, mixing with the blood. The intensity of her last moments sank into his nostrils; it saturated his senses, weakened his muscles.
Her body was little more than a miss-mash of ravaged flesh and exposed bone, slashed open until everything inside spilled out across the floor, the skin slivered by youkai claws and hanging slack from cooling muscle. Her face was—he averted his gaze. Ugly red holes gaped up at him where cool brown eyes should have been; deep, ragged tears raked across what had only hours before been such beautiful features; but it was her weight he held together in his arms, her lustrous black hair that was somehow more on the ground than in her skull. It was her death-blood painting her home such a black, inescapable red.
His stomach twisted and heaved, but he managed to keep in whatever was left of his dinner—the dinner he'd had without her, because he'd been so damn furious with her. He'd been so fucking angry at her, but....
It was the sorrow, deep and riveting, that pinned him to the floor, holding together what was left of her; he wanted to howl with it, but he wasn't the Asshole, to have another form to make use of. So he kept it locked rigidly inside, to mix and churn with the anger and betrayal that had never truly gotten its outlet and now never would; the combination bubbled over inside of him, ever more explosive and violent.
It was the conviction, the certainty that this was his fault that kept him there, waiting. Because he was the one who'd left her alone while he went off to stew. Despite everything she'd done, he was the one who'd failed to protect her.
He heard them coming. Some distant, common sense part of his mind knew what would happen when they found him curled over her, eyes flickering a dangerous red, growling at them, at himself, at anyone who dared come near her. He dismissed that part of his mind and stayed anyway, because he couldn't bear to leave her alone again.

************************************************* ******



The fire cracked, popped, spit. Over and over again. It was the only sound in the room, soft background noise with a wave of warmth to fill the hole of silence that had opened up around their tableau.
InuYasha couldn't move; every muscle in his body had locked up tight, straining against his skin and keeping him frozen at the same time. An invisible fist had clenched down on his throat, cutting off his breath and any sound he might have wanted to make if he'd been able to think of making one. All he could do was stare at the damn picture and remember, blindsided, caught beneath a thunderous rush of torment he’d been avoiding for years.
Kagome didn't move. She just held the fucking thing out at him and waited. She seemed to be holding her breath, and he knew her damn heart was still going a mile a minute, but he couldn't get himself to do anything but stare. And so she just waited. Watching him. Solemn, sad. He could feel the weight of her eyes—dark, storm-filled, alive—but he was caught by the picture of her.  
For the longest time, they just stood together like that, unmoving, inanimate, like some pointless, moronic painting on a wall. Then Kagome exhaled, a push of air and a quick, wavering inhale, as if she couldn’t hold out anymore. The sound was soft but jarring enough to kick them both out of whatever damn spell had held them.
His hand snapped out, snatched the paper. His eyes skimmed the article, but the words were all old-fucking-hat—the same bullshit it had always been, over and over, gleefully convicting him without bothering to care what had really happened. His jaw hurt from clenching so hard. “Where did you get this?”
InuYasha noted, peripherally, her flinch.
“I....” She hesitated. “I found it...using Miroku's computer.”
“What the fuck were you doing on Miroku's computer!?”
Another flinch. “I know I shouldn't have...but everyone else already knows enough to tip-toe around whatever big secret that you’re all keeping is, and you wouldn’t.... I thought if I had a little more information, if I just knew something....”
Heat boiled up, a well-spring of rage from deep inside. InuYasha's eyes finally jerked away from the hateful words on the page. Kagome met them, her guilt a soft glint back at him, but she didn't back down. “This is my home, too, you know.”
InuYasha had the gut-sinking realization he'd waited too long, spent too much time questioning and doubting and second-guessing. She'd found out on her own, knew too many of the awful details without benefit of his eyes. Those half-assed bastards had had their damning say first, and now nothing he said would make a difference. The knowledge actually hurt, because he hadn't wanted Kagome to think of him that way. He just hadn't known how much until now.
Fuck.  
“So you decided to snoop.” His hand fisted around the paper, his growl forced through a tight throat. “Like what you found?”
Her lips pressed together, then her tongue took a nervous swipe them. Her scent was a confusing, tangled mess: sadness, anxiety, even a tiny hint of fear that stoked the rage inside of him, made him want to rip something apart with his bare hands. “I'm...not sure what I found. I mean, the articles all seem as if they’ve—”
“Articles.” Holy shit, she'd said articles. As in more than one. She'd gotten all those little damning details over and over again from more than one source. “So you did a lot of snooping.”
Something flickered in her eyes, tightened her mouth: anger, frustration. “Why can’t you just tell me what happened? Kikyou was important to you, and now she’s like some kind of ghost haunting everyone here, only we’re supposed to pretend she doesn’t—”
Panic jerked him, ripping through his chest. “Just what the hell makes anything I did with her any of your business?”
Her hands curled into fists at her side. Her lips parted and he expected to hear her lashing out at him. Instead, he heard a whisper, intimate and filled with disappointment. Hurt. “Isn't it? When Kikyou is the reason you keep walking away and leaving me like that?”
He couldn’t help it. His eyes raked down, over her body—the clingy-loose sweater, the curve-hugging jeans, the bare feet peeking out beneath them, reminding himself how it had all looked the last time, what it had felt like to have all those curves pliant and breathless and enthusiastic beneath his hands.
It was his turn to wince. Damn. That knocked him right in the balls, with all the usual symptoms, even at this seriously inappropriate time. When the hell had she learned to hit him like that?
“I want to hear it from you. Did you kill her?”
He opened his mouth to snap why she was even bothering to ask, since she’d probably already made up her mind anyway, but the words quailed at the back of his throat, and he couldn’t make a sound. It was the hurt radiating off of her that got him, the underlying expectation, hope, in her eyes; it latched onto his defiance and ate through it like a shot of poison from the Asshole's claws. He closed his mouth and swallowed, looked down at his fist and managed to hold out against her for one more second before—
“No.” The denial burst from him with a harsh rasp, forced out by years of stored frustration and silence without any conscious effort from him. “I didn't. Of course I didn't kill Kikyou.” He glared at the hated article in his fist and braced for the inevitable skepticism: the questions, the sudden unease in his presence, the godsdamned doubt permeating her scent; his stomach wrapped itself into a great knot of stone and just sat there, ice-cold and heavy inside him.
An exhale burst from her, and her feet padded back towards the couch. “Good,” she said as she sank down onto a cushion. Weariness and relief threaded her voice. “You didn't. Good. I’m so glad.”
InuYasha looked up. “What?”
“Everything I read made it seem as no one had any doubt you were the one who killed your—her. And since I wasn't there when it happened I was a little afraid they might have been right. Of all the possibilities I could think of, you being the person to kill her seemed like the worst. I'm glad it wasn't you.”
He waited for a moment, thinking maybe there’d be more, but all she did was stare at him, looking almost…happy. “That's...that's it? You find out that the whole fucking world thinks I murdered Kikyou, and that's all you've got to say? Good?”
She blinked back at him. “Am I supposed to say something else? What's wrong with good?”
“What's wrong with—” He glared, more because he was lost than angry. She'd seen the evidence, admitted to how bad it all looked—so what the hell was she saying to him? Or did she really not understand? “You're going to just accept what I'm saying like that? Are you fucking stupid?”
“What!?” Kagome’s eyes widened, then darkened, and she was back on her feet, face flushed and pique in every line of her body. Her fists propped against her hips. “It's stupid for me to believe you? I shouldn't? You don't want me to? Why? Are you lying?”
“No! That’s...that's not what I meant.”
InuYasha didn't understand. She didn't make sense. A person would normally be a little cautious after hearing a denial, right? A normal person would hesitate in the face of all that evidence. Where the fuck did she get off taking him at his word when even his closest friend had doubted him in those first few hours? When the Asshole probably still thought he was guilty? How could she just calmly accept when everyone else had so easily decided that he'd killed someone important to him?
“Then what do you mean?”
He scowled, shook his head. Took a few steps closer to her, still trying to figure out what she wasn’t seeing. “Those reporters, the police, the articles.... You realize all that stuff they said about me isn't wrong, right?” The facts, the chronology had never been wrong. Only the conclusions. “That was me they found with her body that night, me who was one of the only people who even knew where she lived. It was me they found with her body, me who was covered in her blood. And it’s me,” he lifted his claws, cracked his knuckles, knowing how menacing the sound could be, “who has the natural weapons perfect for making the mess they found us in.”
Her eyes were still wide and indignant, and her head had an impatient tilt—as if he were the one not making sense right now.
“The reports about us having a big fight were right, too.” The words tumbled from him, rough and uncensored. “And if you thought it was just some stupid fucking spat, you were wrong. Kikyou, she—Kikyou betrayed me, did you know that? I was angry enough with her to want her dead.”
What the hell was he saying? That wasn't even true. He'd been angry, all right. He'd been furious. But he'd never wanted Kikyou dead. Never.
No. He'd just abandoned her long enough for her to die at someone else's hands.
Kagome sucked in a breath and her fists dropped away from her hips. The angry flush in her face slowly drained away, leaving her pale and dismayed. “Kikyou betrayed you? That’s what you were arguing about?” Her voice was suddenly hushed and stricken. “Why would she do that?”
The frustration boiled over inside him, and he shook his head, more an attempt to shake it off than to answer her question. His words came out in a near-snarl. “We never got around to the why.” Because he’d left her before they could.
Kagome’s hand gripped at her arm, sliding over the soft blue sleeve of her sweater as if she were cold. She turned her face away, looked into the fire. “So she betrayed you,” she said again, as if she understood something now that she hadn’t before. “And you were that angry with her.”
Her unnatural reserve finally cut through his turmoil, dissipating some of it. Her scent had just shifted, become heavier and more metallic somehow, almost sorrowful. Before he could say anything, though, she swallowed hard. The ripple caught his gaze, drew it down towards the expanse of skin stretching beneath her collar, and a little of his rising anger slipped away as well.
“She must have been very important to you, if what she did hurt you so much.”
He opened his mouth, but both her words and her tone made him hesitate again. Instead, he eyed her profile; the sight of her standing there holding onto herself like that bothered him on a fundamental level he couldn’t quite grasp, like some suicidally buzzing insect flitting round his head. He didn't understand what the hell it was, and he couldn't figure out what the hell he was supposed to do about it, so he shoved it to the back of his brain, where it clamored and fed into his irritation. “Kikyou was—”  When he did find his voice again, his tongue felt thick, his mouth coated with grit. “She shouldn't have died. She didn’t deserve that.”
“No.” She shook her head, and her eyes lifted to his. The gentleness in the gray irises caught him by surprise. “It’s not that I think the news reports were wrong. But I trust you more. So of course I’d believe you.”
I trust you more.
It was the last thing he'd expected to hear. It was the last thing he'd wanted to hear.
Trust.
Stupid fucking word to throw around, when she didn't even know what it meant. When the hell was it ever that simple? Not even Kikyou—

“You don't understand.”
“Fuck right I don't understand! You know! You know the things he’s done, all the shit he represents, so how?” His blood rushed through him, furious, sick. She could have killed him; she could have rid everyone of the scum-bastard long ago. Instead.... “Why!? Why the fuck can you help the son-of-a-bitch!?”
“It's nothing so simple.”
“The hell it's not!” The slim curves of her shoulders fit against his palms, familiar and deceptively fragile even as he shook her. “He’s a fucking plague, an enemy! My enemy! What the fuck is so complicated about cutting ties with him!?”
Her head bobbled like a stupid toy, her hair sliding over his fingers. But all she did was shackle his wrists with her cool fingers. “It's too late. It has been for so long now. I need to finish this.”
Fury bubbled inside of him, barely contained. His fingers tightened, digging hard—but her face remained impassive, as if she didn't even feel it. “The only thing you need to do is stay away from him! He twists things. He does it to every fucking thing he touches; it's like some kind of warped game to him!”
“I know what I'm doing. I know him. Far better than you do.”
“Bullshit! I won't stand by and watch this! If you won't stop it, I will.”
Her lashes swept down, covering the cool distance in her eyes. “Is that a threat?”
“Threat?” Fire spread inside of him, reaching so deep it would leave even his heart raw and bleeding if he didn't stop it. His throat burned. “I can help, damn it! Whatever it is, whatever he's got tying you to him, I'll cut it for you.”
She turned her head away from him. “No.” The slim line of her jaw set. “You can't help me.”
It was like getting a shiv in the ribs, slicing into him clean and sharp and devastating, as she had to have known it would be. He winced, drew back; his fingers loosened their grip. “I can.”
“No,” she said again. “You can't.” Her dark brown eyes returned to him, softened. Her fingertips left cold, silky tracks against his cheek. “I told you. You don't understand what I'm doing, or why.”
Every time he thought about what she'd done—what she was still doing—he lost a little more patience, a little more sanity. “Yeah? You'd be surprised what I understand, Kikyou.”
A pause, long and hesitant. Then—
“You don't.” Something dark and fierce flashed across her features.“You can't. You can’t.”
It was that look that finally convinced him, that moment when the bitter acid of acceptance seared through him. “You won't stop, will you?” He barely waited for her stoic confirmation before he pushed her away. Right there, in the middle of their private dining room, he shoved her away from him as if her skin was red-hot instead of winter-chill.
And then he really lost his temper.

—The icy knot in his gut was alive now, roiling and black.
“Keh!” InuYasha shoved his hands into his pocket and shook his head hard, trying to dislodge the dank, sour edge of memory. The balled-up paper in his right fist bit into his palm, reminding him, grounding him. “You don't,” he muttered. “You can’t.”
“Of course I can. It doesn’t even make any sense that I wouldn’t.”
“You don’t even make any sense! What the hell kind of sense does it make to trust the word of a wanted murderer over so much evidence?”
“What sense does it make,” she countered, anger filtering in beneath the softness of her tone, “for me to believe people I've never even met over the one person who's protected me without fail for literally as long as I can remember? What reason do I have to trust them over you?”
“Reason.” He sneered. “I'm a fucking fugitive! A violent youkai murderer! That's reason enough for most people!”
Silence.
“Fugitive?” Kagome's voice went blank. The skin between her brows wrinkled. “But you said you didn't—”
Shit.
There. The missing piece, the reason she wasn’t reacting as expected. She hadn't gotten everything from the news reports. Of course she hadn't—according to Miroku, Sesshoumaru had buried that particular pile of shit so deep a bloodhound couldn't have sniffed it out, never mind a clueless amnesiac. She still didn't understand exactly what had happened.
“What the hell do you think ‘wanted murderer’ means? They fucking arrested me!” More words bursting from deep inside, pushed out through a bitter throat and clenched teeth. “They charged me, they threw me in a maximum security prison, and when they convicted me, they were going to execute me. And so—what? You thought they just let me go after all that?”
Her eyes went wide, dark and shadowy in the crackling firelight. They burned into him, forced him to look away. From the corner of his eye, he caught quick movement as Kagome pressed her fingers to her mouth.
“Oh,” she said. And then, with dawning understanding, “Oh.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Oh. You get it now?”
“I thought they didn't have enough evidence to.... ”
“You thought wrong.”
“Oh,” she said again in a small voice. “There wasn't anything that said.... They really put you in prison?”
“Officially, it was just detention while we waited for trial. But it was prison. A special one, just for youkai.” He barely suppressed another sneer. The country only had one prison capable of containing dangerous youkai—and the term “prison” wasn't nearly as accurate as the term “hell” would have been. Hard-asses everywhere, every one of them looking for a bitch, a meal, or both. Small comfort, then, that the reason they'd taken off was because he probably wouldn't have made it through the trial to face whatever form of execution they cooked up for a hanyou anyway.
“And they didn't let you go.”
“Hell, no.”
Kagome fell silent again, and InuYasha's stomach did a sickening dead-drop. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend it didn't matter.
“Then, I don't understand. Why are you here?”
InuYasha's eyes popped back open. “What?”
Those fine wrinkles were back between her brows. “Even if there was some reason that forced you to break out, even if you felt you had to hide, why come to a place so far away? You.... I can't imagine you being okay with letting the real murderer get away.” Curiosity in her voice, in her eyes—but still no accusation. No whiff of condemnation. Not even a stabbing hint of doubt.
InuYasha stared at her, his throat locked in a ghost-cold grip.
Kagome started to fidget. Warm color flushed high in her cheekbones, and her fingers curled into the soft material of that blue top, stretching it tight around her hips. “I mean, Kikyou was....” She looked away, her eyes flitting over to the fire; her voice dropped a few decibels. “She was important to you, and someone did something awful to her. Even if she betrayed you, I don’t think you would just sit still and let the person who did it go free. After all, when Hakeda-san hurt me, you....”
This time when his feet moved, he didn't bother to stop them. Slow and deliberate, he took the few steps across the room towards her, his slippers near-silent on the wood. Her voice trailed off as he neared, but she didn't back away, not even when he stopped less than an arm's length away. Her eyes held his, unwavering and open and....
Warm.
A tiny ember of warmth, deep within the cold blackness inside him.
“I didn't want to,” he spoke low through the tightness, his hands still secure and obedient in his pockets. “They gave me Kaede and Shippou and told us to stay here, because it was goddamn safe. And I—”

“The kitsune needs protection. He's the only witness. As long as those fools are free, they'll do anything to make sure he never testifies.”
“Fuck that! I'm not the only one who can—”
“Returning is a fool's move. This is the best option for you. For the old miko as well. Without that woman to provide for her, her life is as threatened as yours. Will you leave her without protection?”
“The son-of-a-bitch who murdered Kikyou is still out there! How can I—”
“Then you'll also abandon the human who threw away his freedom to save you as well? Your partner is as wanted as you are now.”

“—I accepted it. Instead of going back and finding out what the hell happened, instead of hunting down the bastard who killed her, I stayed like they told me to.” It was the worst thing he could admit to her. It was every nightmare disturbing his sleep for the past five years, every lonely night run in the woods, every miserable, head-ducking trip into Sounkyo, every time he'd sat on the roof and listened to the bursts of laughter as Miroku and Shippou entertained the guests. It was the dead, painful silence from the corner of his room he almost never glanced at.
Everything he'd been slowly forgetting since almost the moment Kagome had shown up.
No matter what she'd done, Kikyou had deserved better from him than letting the bastard who had literally ripped her to pieces just walk away. He'd owed her better.
“They needed you. Shippou and Kaede. Even Miroku, I think.” Kagome's voice, somehow both gentle and insistent, pulling him back. “Even if I don't know all the details, I can still see that. You chose to protect the living instead of avenging the dead. That can't have been an easy choice.”
More warmth, loosening his throat and that internal knot driving him crazy. Eyes narrow, he drew a deep breath and took another step in, noted the quick hitch in her breathing. And there went that pulse again.
He pulled a hand from his pocket—the hand holding the crumpled remains of the article. “You,” he said, holding it up between them. “You said you were worried. What were you gonna do if I told you everything in this damned thing was true? What if I really killed her?”
He was watching her eyes, saw the flare of dismay and the way her lashes fluttered at his question, but she still didn't back away from him. She reached out and folded her fingers over his—claws and all. It felt as if she were crying for him, even though he couldn't see any moisture in her eyes or scent anything salty or damp in the air. Instead, he saw understanding and a deep, unwavering faith in him. It damn near stopped his heart, because he had no idea where it came from.
“I would have slept in my bed, gotten up tomorrow, and made you breakfast like always,” she said, softly, simply. “And I would have kept on doing my job like always. Because even though I don't know the circumstances, I think only something terrible could have forced you to hurt someone you cared about so much.”
His gaze dropped to their hands, clasped tight in the gap between his body and hers, a stupidly thrilling bit of skin-to-skin contact. Her hand was small; the heel of her palm barely covered his knuckles, and her soft fingertips barely grazed the smoothest part of his claws; but that tiny bit of her had heat soaking into him, easing the frozen tension in his body, seeping deep into his bones. Even the damn paper, balled-up and harmless in his palm, felt warm from her touch.
Stupid fucking thing. Causing so much trouble. And now it was pointless to even resent the stupidity of it, because she really believed him despite everything, and she really wasn't going to hold anything against him, and—goddamn it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this kind of warmth.
InuYasha unclenched his fist, pushed the abused paper into the loose cage of her fingers. “Fine.” He let his hand fall away; her fingers automatically closed around it, keeping it from plunging to the space of floor between their feet. “Those details. You still want to know?”
Uncertainty flashed across her face. It was brief as blink, and then it was gone, her fist hanging suspended between them before she tucked it against her chest and up went that chin. “Yes. Will you tell me?”
No one had ever asked him—just asked him—for the whole story. They'd accused, demanded, guessed, judged, and flat-out assumed, but they'd never asked. Not the police. Not the media. Not the Asshole. Not even Miroku.
Kaede had never even mentioned the circumstances surrounding her sister's death.
Kagome was the only one who'd ever just...asked.
“We were chasing a serial killer.”

*************************************************** ****



Kagome blinked down at InuYasha, who had sunk to the ground and now sat cross-legged, arms crossed, with his back to the couch, staring into the fire. “I.... What?”
Serial killer? We were talking about Kikyou...weren't we?
His eyes slid back up to her, then he jerked his head towards the couch, indicating she sit. “You wanted to know what happened, so I'm telling you.”
Stunned into momentary speechlessness, Kagome felt her body moving, felt the softness of the cushions as she perched on the edge and rested her hands in her lap. She found herself staring down at the silky, silver-white texture of his ears and suffering from mental whiplash. “What?” she said again.
“That's what we were doing with that stupid sports shop. It was in the same area where youkai had been turning up all shriveled and dead. We needed a good excuse to be there all the time while we looked for the bastard.”
“But....” Kagome struggled for a moment to find words that made sense, and grabbed onto the first one that did. “We?”
“Me and Miroku. It was our job to find the son-of-a-bitch who was dumping dried-out youkai bodies in all these random back streets.” He paused, snorted. “Well, they were all bad-ass bastards with reputations for causing trouble with humans, but some of the city’s stinking rich youkai crowd were scared shitless, which is why they asked us to intervene.”
Kagome nodded as if it made sense, then shook her head. “But...isn't that what police are for?”
“Youkai were the only targets. The police have a special unit to deal with youkai crimes, but they don't usually stir their asses unless humans are involved somehow, so the investigator they sent didn't really do a lot of investigating.”
“Why wouldn't they? Isn't it their job to catch criminals, no matter who they are?”
She got a frowning, sidelong glance. “The police generally stay away from anything that smells of youkai territorial dispute, and the youkai pretty much prefer it that way.”
Kagome tilted her head, feeling as if she were missing something huge and obvious. “Territorial disputes?”
Another long, considering side-glance, and then he turned to face her with a sigh. “Listen, here's the way most people think things work: a long time ago, youkai stopped trying to eat, kill, and dominate humans and started living with them outright, and now youkai and humans all live together. Everyone works the same jobs, everyone follows the same rules, right?”
Kagome hesitated, her brows pulling together. “No?”
InuYasha snorted. “As if youkai would ever be completely domesticated to the human way. Daiyoukai controlled their own lands before humans controlled anything, and they didn't stop just because humans started multiplying like fucking rabbits and building cities. Youkai look like they live and work under human laws, but ultimately most of 'em are living under some powerful youkai or youkai clan, and they all know it. To them, the lord of the territory is still the ultimate authority, and when violence happens between youkai, it's usually either a territorial dispute or something for the youkai in charge to handle.”
“And the police are okay with this?”
A shrug. “Doesn't matter. Youkai use their resources as they see fit anyway, and they always have; some care about the youkai in their protection, some don't give a rat's ass, some actively abuse them. Most of them are rich and a lot of them are busy getting more of it, so they don't really give a shit about the day-to-day outside their own operations. Those kind only get involved when the problem could be seen as a challenge to their authority and leave 'em open to some kind of coup from another group who wants what they've got. Either way, they act independently of the police, and the youkai population in general are more afraid of the territory heads than human laws.”
“You make them sound like yakuza.”
“Keh.” A disdainful flick of his fingers. “Yakuza are different. As long as they stay out of our way, we just let the humans deal with them.”
“And by 'we' you mean...?”
InuYasha's ears twitched. His gaze slanted over at her, grew solemn, almost arrogant. “My dad’s territory covered all of Tokyo and its immediate suburbs for centuries before he died.”
She sucked in a soft breath. Centuries? How powerful had his father been to hold such a huge area for so long a time? And if she wasn't mistaken, was that just the tiniest hint of pride in his voice when he said it? “And... after he died?”
“The Asshole took over. He's strong, but young by daiyoukai standards, so we've had to deal with a few challenges to the territory over the decades.” His lip curled. “One bastard in particular has been picking away at our territory for a while now.”
We. Our.
He kept using those words, as if he were just as involved, just as responsible. InuYasha had said he and his brother had never really gotten along, and always acted like he hated him—but how genuine could that hate be if they'd had to work together for any amount of time to maintain a legacy their father had left them? And what had it meant to him, then, to be forced into exile—no matter how good the reason—by the brother he'd fought beside and supported for so long?
Kagome bit her lip. “So when this serial killer appeared, it looked like another challenge to...your brother's authority?”
InuYasha scowled. “Not really. This killer is pretty well known already; he's been around for decades now. Likes to drop a bunch of beef-jerky bodies in a place for a while, then move on. Never touches a human and sticks mostly to bullies and thugs, so it's usually just whispered about in youkai communities. Our problem was more politics. Since some of the more powerful youkai in the city had petitioned the lord for help, the Asshole would look weak if he didn't take care of it. And that might've given that bastard the support he's been looking for.”
She assumed “that bastard” was the particular youkai who had been challenging them on territory. “What does any of this have to do with...Kikyou?”
He blinked hard at the name—just another of the myriad of little details telling her what an impact Kikyou’d had on him—and his expression turned somber. He shifted, unfolding until he had his back against the couch and his elbows on his raised knees. “Kikyou.... She was already there, in that neighborhood. She did that a lot, moved around from community to community and helped out for a while. She lived close to the shop and liked the coffee place across the street, so we ended up seeing each other a lot. Not real friendly or anything but...coffee. We had coffee sometimes.”
He fell quiet for a moment, his eyes locked on the fire. Kagome could almost see the memories dancing around in the flickering light.
“I caught her one night, fighting a youkai thug in a back alley. He was freaky-looking and probably one of that bastard's guys, so I'd have taken him out on principle anyway, but she looked like she needed help.” Another agitated twitch of his ears. “She didn't, but we fought well together. Then she told me she knew who we were and why we were there. She said we were working towards the same goal and that maybe we could work together.”
Her chest felt painfully tight. Kagome dropped her gaze to study the white-edged tension in her hands. She swallowed and managed to keep her voice reasonably disinterested. “And that's when you....”
“Yeah. That's when we.”
He stopped talking again and Kagome couldn't bring herself to prod him. The silence, for all the discomfiting subject matter, was surprisingly comfortable. He seemed absorbed in his thoughts, so she sat and waited patiently.
“It was almost a year before I found out she was working with Naraku.”
Naraku.
Her heart stuttered, then started pounding, beating at her chest, in her head. “N...Naraku?” The name slithered into Kagome's brain and seemed to stick with a dull, painful ache. For a second, she felt an odd tightness around her torso, as if a tentacle had reached inside her and was winding and squeezing around her lungs.
Tentacle?
Repulsive, hideous, strong.
Automatically, her hand went to her throat, as if she could ward the sensation off. The pain in her head was hazy and confused. The rapid thudding in her chest made her feel as if she couldn’t breathe.
In a flash of panic, she put her other hand to her forehead, and hit herself with the balled-up article. Startled, Kagome dropped her hand and stared at it; the paper sat harmless and solid in the palm of her hand. Desperate for calm, she drew in a deep breath and tried to focus. “Who is...Naraku?”
“Naraku!” InuYasha spat the word, a bitter sneer in his voice. “That son-of-a-bitch has been after the Tokyo territory since before my old man died, and we're pretty damn sure he had something to do with his death. Kikyou was working with the bastard from the beginning, and I didn't even know.”
“She was working with the person who killed your father?” Cold horror washed through her, sweeping her panic-confused reaction back into her subconscious. Her head snapped up, and she stared at him, eyes wide. “Did she know?”
“She knew,” he snarled, rough and low. “I told her. She knew, and she was working with him anyway. That's what we were fighting about that night.” His mouth twisted. “She didn't even tell me herself. I had to hear it from a former business associate of Naraku's—that for a while, he'd been quietly suggesting to the higher youkai in the city that she was his spiritual muscle.” He let out a “tsk”, his frustration palpable. “Naraku's a rotten, twisted psychopath. He plays with people like they're his own personal toys and then he breaks them so no one else can play with them. Letting him get total control over anyone or anything would be disaster. She knew that. She was better than that.”
Kagome felt as if all the warmth had been sucked from her body. Without realizing she was doing it, she slowly let her body slide from the couch until she was sitting next to him on the floor, close enough to feel his body heat.
Betrayal, he'd said. The woman he’d loved, giving aid and support to the person who’d taken his father, and who was trying to take his heritage.
Shivering. She was shivering, deep inside.
She hugged her knees to her chest. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He didn't look away from the fire. “The night I found out, we were supposed to meet up at this fancy private restaurant. It was supposed to be a night away from everything, but I couldn’t believe it, so I confronted her as soon as I saw her. She fucking admitted it. Said she was just using him and his money to help people, that she was doing something important.
“When I asked her to stop, she refused, said she couldn't. Like hell was I accepting that. It was the first real argument we ever had. Everyone in the restaurant must have heard it. I was so fucking pissed, I—” A muscles jumped in his jaw, and she realized he was speaking through gritted teeth. “I left her there. Alone. And when I went to see her at her apartment later that night, she was already.... It was a big fucking mess. Lots of blood, and the smell was—” His voice roughened and he ground to a halt for a few heavy seconds. “Some scents are deep. They're stronger than others, get under the skin and stick. Blood is one of them. So is death. That place reeked with both of 'em...and by the time the cops found me, so did I.”
InuYasha glared at his hands. Opened them. Closed them. Opened them. Closed them. Dropped his forehead against his fists. “I was supposed to be with her,” he said, quietly. “It was only a few hours. I should have gone sooner.”
Kagome didn't know what to do, how to make it weigh less. It was almost piercingly painful, to watch the guilt hovering over him, and know there was nothing she could do to relieve him of it. Another deep shiver shook her frame and she instinctively leaned her head against the straining bunch of his shoulder. His jacket was cool on the surface but his body heat seeped through quickly, warming her cheek; the material smelled of some combination of cold snow, wilderness, and InuYasha. It was a teasing scent, an appealing one.
She felt a shock go through him at the contact, and his head turned to look down at her, but she kept her gaze on the floor. It took another moment, but the shoulder beneath her cheek lost its tension.
A little of the cold went out of her. But the deep heaviness, the damp, somber weight that had been dragging her down since the moment she'd seen the picture of Kikyou, remained. Kagome swallowed. “Do you know who killed her?”
He drew a deep breath, sighed, and dropped his hands back between his knees. He relaxed back into the couch a little more, a quick, subtle adjustment in her direction. “Kikyou was strong and smart; bringing her to a fight always gave you damn good odds at surviving it. Killing her isn't something that just anyone could do.” He shook his head. “At first I was convinced it was Naraku. But even if the bastard's homicidal, it's not like he's stupid. Why do that to her when her lending him her reputation was giving him an edge over us? And he wasn't even the most likely person to want her dead. Kikyou played by her own rules. Even some humans had reason to hate her. How many of them could have found her and were strong enough to take her out like that?” He dropped his head back, eyes closed. “Hell if I know.”
And that, Kagome was sure, was the biggest problem. He didn't know, just like she hadn't known about InuYasha. So many of the events surrounding Kikyou’s life and death would be forever shrouded in the murky clouds of doubt and uncertainty. InuYasha hadn't just been robbed of his life, he'd been cheated out of answers from the only person who could provide them, and then denied the opportunity to find the one responsible and avenge her.
Of course it haunted him. Of course he couldn't move on from it. Or her.
No wonder seeing Kagome, who had the same face, was confusing, maybe even agonizing.
And of course he couldn't keep his hands off her—she looked exactly like his dead lover.
So many realizations, each one a devastating, back-bending lash. She'd known they might be. After all, who could compete with a memory? What living person could ever compare to such an unresolved tragedy?
Kagome swallowed around the aching knot in her throat and lifted her head from his shoulder. “InuYasha....” She had no one else, nowhere else, her whole world was Sachi, and she didn't want to, but— “Would it be better if I left?”
“What?” InuYasha's head jerked up, and the look of offended outrage he gave her made her feel as if she'd slapped him. “Why would—where the hell did that come from?”
Her arms tightened around her knees, holding herself in, trying to dispel the chill deep in her bones. “I look like her.”
He blinked at her. “For fuck’s sake. Not you, too.” A growl rumbled from his throat, and his glare turned accusatory. “Do you have somewhere else to go?”
She was taken aback, by both his attitude and the question. “Not...really.”
“Do you know anyone who could help you?”
“No.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No!” The answer burst from her, her whole body flinching back from the idea.
His body relaxed, just a bit. His eyes, intent and almost gilt in the firelight, locked with hers for a moment. “And you trust me, right?”
It felt as if all the breath went out of her, as if he'd stolen it away. “Yes.”
It was so quick she almost missed it: his face lost every bit of its tension, and relief curved the corners of his mouth. “Then quit talking like you don't.” He settled back against the couch, arms crossed, an air of stubborn finality radiating from every line in his body. “Besides, leaving would be stupid. You belong here.”
You belong here.
It was the exact opposite of a lash. Her heart went back to pounding; she resisted it. “But...doesn't—isn't it hard seeing me every day? Don't I remind you of her? Wouldn't it be easier for you if I wasn't—”
“Did that fucking monk put you up to this?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I got it. At first, yeah, it was a little like seeing a ghost walking around the place. But you're Kagome; you're different from the way Kikyou was. To remind me of her, you'd have to be like her. You're not. Kagome is Kagome; Kikyou was Kikyou. That's all there is to it.”
You belong here.
“But,” she said, voice soft. “You kissed me.”
“So? I wanted to kiss you! I wanted to do a hell of a lot more than k—” InuYasha broke off abruptly, tried to swallow back his words, then winced when he realized he couldn't.
Oh, she remembered all right. She stared at him, lips parted and breath shallow, cheeks hot, and very little of it from embarrassment. Me too, she wanted to say. I wanted more, too. But it stuck in her throat and refused to come out, because how could she accept a sentiment intended for someone else, no matter how much she wanted it for herself?
His gaze flicked around the room, then settled back on her with a narrowed intensity that told her he was remembering the “hell of a lot more”, too. The memories almost danced between them, building on each other moment by moment, each phantom-touch drawing out a breath in the fire-warmed air. But then he closed his eyes, sighed, and scratched behind an ear in an uncomfortable gesture, mumbling. “What does any of that have to do with Kikyou?”
“I...look like her.”
“Uh-huh. You keep saying that.” He scowled. “Like I said. You look like you; she looked like her.” He shrugged, another sign of discomfort, then proved he knew exactly what she was asking. “When I kissed you, I was kissing Kagome, not Kikyou. She wasn't—” He broke off again and looked down at his hands. Kagome could see the tension in his neck, the set of his jaw. “She wasn't even in my mind. She wasn't there at all. And when she was, that's when it stopped.” Another pause, and another almost inaudible mumble. “I don't like her being there when I kiss you.”
Kagome was watching him so closely she could see what it cost him to say that out loud. As she sat beside him, a scant few inches between them, it really sank in.
You belong here.
“Oh,” she breathed, and it felt like all her strength seeped away with the sound. All the pain and tightness and anxiety of the past twenty-four hours drained away, and suddenly she was exhausted. Somewhere deep inside, she trembled with it.
She let her head drop back onto his shoulder, and this time he didn't even flinch. They sat there, quiet. The fire crackled, the sound gentler than it had been before, soothing. For the first time since she'd seen the picture on that article, Kagome felt sleep calling.
“I was so worried,” she whispered, “that I was nothing but her.”
“That's just stupid.” His scowl was back; she heard it in his voice, but it sounded like a half-hearted shadow of what it usually was. “Haven't you been listening? You're not nothing, and you're not her.”
A smile curved her lips. “Mmm.” But her eyes were already weighed down with the leaden heft of emotional depletion, and within moments, she was asleep. The crinkled, balled-up remnant of the article that had started the whole thing rolled from between her fingers and hit the floor.

*******************************************************



InuYasha didn't need as much sleep as normal humans, but he did need some, and he hadn't been sleeping well for several days. Now, with Kagome's soft, steady breathing in the air and a warm feeling lodged deep in his chest, he felt tired--relieved that the misery of the past few days finally felt over, and inexplicably relaxed and content, but hella tired. He couldn't blame her for falling asleep on him when he was almost there himself.
He picked up the article and uncrumpled it. Stared at Kikyou's picture. Ran a finger over it. Then he folded it up, set it aside, and rested his cheek against Kagome's hair. His eyes closed.
Just for a minute.

*******************************************************



“Most people think the spiritually talented exist to help both human and youkai alike, to foster peace and safety.”
They sat at the well, taking a short break. Sensei was old and strange, someone for whom she had great respect. And more than a little fear.
She looked up from her small fingers trailing in the water. “Don't they?”
“Hundreds of years ago, perhaps, they would have been right. But now... Youkai control too much. They've had centuries to acquire wealth and power, and because of their natures, they use them without conscience.” Sensei's fingers also trailed through the water, and the ripples from their individual fingers blended into one another, marring the reflection of the tree overhead. “Control. Destruction. Profit. What was once a serious struggle has become a game. We are but pieces to them.”
“Pieces?”
“Humans have ceded the power they once held to stand against powerful youkai and become mere pawns in the youkai power game. Who allies with whom, who makes the most money, who has the most influence. We have become pieces for gameplay. Some pieces are more powerful than others, some don't even know they are playing, but we are all pieces.”
“That's not fair. Can't we just not play?”
She wasn't sure, but she thought Sensei was pleased by the question. “Playing is life. But some of us find ways to take the game back for ourselves.”
“Not me. I just won't play.”
“Foolish child. You are....” Sensei lifted a frail arm, ran a wet finger down her cheek, then cupped her chin and grasped at her face with long, chill, spidery digits. The regard was calculating, almost regretful, and it made her shiver, but not from the cold. “A pawn. One which will someday be promoted to a higher piece, because that is your fate. As it was from the beginning.”
“You sound like you're warning me, Sensei.” A whisper.
The fingers dug into her skin, then elongated, stretching, creeping over and around until sharp nails dug into the back of her head. They squeezed. “I am, little one. You are powerful and pure. Youkai will try to use you and defile you. You musn’t let them.”
She winced at the piercing pain, the pressure making it hard to breathe. “But you said...I'm a pawn.”
Dark, unfathomable eyes. Nails, knife-like, slicing into her. “You are. A special pawn. The only question is: whose piece will you be?”
Her skull, splitting open, and cold fingers crawling into her mind.

**************************************************** ***

Kagome bolted straight up out of her sleep, too terrified to scream. Instead she gasped, choking, hands clutching at her head, desperate to hold it together, at the same time desperate to claw out some vague, creeping, crawling thing. Horror—clear, mean, and primal—slammed her heart into her ribcage, spurring it on in a throat-pounding rush. She sucked at the air, fought with lungs that felt constricted and dry. Her stomach heaved, and she fought against that, too. Driven by pure panic, she opened her eyes—
—and reality slammed into her with the soft whump of a pillow to the face. Like a soundwave cut suddenly silent, the whole world that had been mad and wildly scrambled fell into a flat, peaceful calm. She blinked around.
She was on the couch, warm and tucked beneath a blanket with the wood-musty smell of a supply closet, her body sunk into its own little hollow within the cushions. The embers in the fireplace in her direct line of sight had burned out some time ago, and the room was cocooned in quiet. No faceless mysterious figure. No discomforting, unfamiliar-yet-not location. No repulsive appendages squirming around in her brain.
Sachi, her mind recognized.
Relief made her body limp. The adrenaline that had shot her upright crashed hard, and like water escaping through the seems of her fingers, the details slipped away, leaving only the horrified knots in her stomach and a few vague, disturbing images her mind refused to grasp. Nausea rolling through her, breathing hard, Kagome let her hands fall onto the folds of the blanket in her lap and stared down at her shaking palms, willing her heart and body to be calm.
No, she thought. No. It’s nothing. A nightmare. You’re awake now, in the real world, away from strange non-faces with nothing but eyes. Nothing to fear. She ignored, desperately, the sense that she’d seen those eyes before, that she should know them well.
The blanket was solid against her legs, comforting against her body, holding heat in against her trembling muscles. Instinctively, she clutched at it, her white-knuckle fingers curling into soft cloth, wondering where it had come from. She was sure it hadn't been out the night before.
Oh. Last night.
Her fingers relaxed their grip, and she sighed as real memories, the solid, non-ethereal happenings of the night before flooded back. She glanced around the deserted room and drew several deep breaths as her heart began to slow, feeling a little silly to be so frightened by something she couldn't even remember now. It was probably only natural, especially after everything InuYasha had told her. Murder and smells and humans as weapons in quiet wars between powerful youkai—it was all the kind of real life horror that gave nightmares an extra punch. She bit her lip and ran absent fingertips over the fading scar in her hairline, unease still churning deep in her gut.
Was it any wonder her dreams had scared her after all that?
Her eyes settled on the windows from which the light illuminating the room streamed; it was golden and soft and warm. She frowned. A little too warm, in fact, to be early morning light.
Realization dawned slowly. With a sharp inhale, she forgot all about worrying over a dream. “Oh no. Breakfast.” She scrambled off the couch, plucking the blanket up with her and throwing it in quick folds over her arm as she darted out of the room, past the deserted reception desk, and towards the kitchen.
Why hadn't anyone woken her? Had Kaede had to handle cooking and serving all by herself?! They'd had new guests arrive the night before, and Tanaka-san wasn't scheduled to leave until sometime during the late morning hours, so he'd still needed his morning tray. They had a thorough cleaning to do upstairs today, too, since they were expecting even more guests sometime in the evening, and how late in the day was it, anyway, since she had to—
“Oof!”
She rounded a corner at a near run and collided head-on with another body in the hallway. Her face mashed into a masculine chest, and she heard a discomfited grunt right before a strong arm slid around her back, keeping her from careening backwards from the force of the impact.
“Kagome?”
Kagome blinked against the shirt. “Miroku?” Her voice was muffled.
“Is the Sachi's very own resident Sleeping Beauty finally awake?”
Uh-oh. His hand was on her back, and she could feel his fingers inching downward. Kagome rammed the thick mass of blanket into his stomach. He grunted again, and she neatly stepped back out of his embrace.
With a soft huff of her own, she crossed her arms and glared at him. “You should fix that bad habit of yours.”
A rueful glance at the blanket now bundled in his arms. “You're not the first person to tell me that. It's this cursed hand. It hasn't found a place to settle yet.” He wiggled the fingers of his damaged hand, then looked back at her, eyes appraising. “You seem remarkably...peaceful this afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Peaceful? What are you—” Her eyes rounded with horror. “Did you say afternoon?”
“Lunch was about, oh, an hour ago, so...yes. Afternoon.”
“Why didn't you wake me sooner!?”
Miroku's eyebrows shot up, delight dancing across his features. “And risk our great leader's snarly wrath? He gave everyone strict instructions not to wake you. He was very adamant about it—claimed you’d had a long night and were exhausted.” He sighed and shook his head. “Imagine, after hearing all that, my disappointment to find you sleeping so tidy and unmolested in plain view of the whole place. Next time, try to fall asleep in InuYasha's room, if you can? My fancies require a little more fodder for proper flights.”
Kagome brushed him off with a shake of her head. “What about breakfast?”
“We managed. InuYasha woke Kaede and Shippou early this morning to get breakfast ready. He even helped.”
“InuYasha did?”
“Oh yes, he did.” A wicked gleam joined the pleasure in his eyes. “Seeing InuYasha serve the Nozaki couple in the dining room this morning was worth all the extra work your sleeping in cost us. A reward in and of itself.”
A part of her was amused right along with Miroku, but another part was dismayed at her dereliction. It was part of her job to make breakfast to take some of the burden off the rest of them. That was, after all, one of the reasons they’d allowed her to stay in the first place. “I shouldn't have slept so long.”
Miroku waved away her apology. “It's fine, it's fine. It gave us a chance to appreciate your contribution to the Sachi. Besides, even housekeepers deserve a morning off every once in a while.” He paused and looked her over again, keen interest glinting in his gaze. “Especially when the housekeeper has been under so much stress for the past few days.”    
“Stress?”
He shifted to lean his shoulder against the wall, tucking the blanket a little more securely under one arm. “Well, there were two attacks in two days, the first of which almost killed you and the other of which was something we never should have allowed to happen in the first place.”
Kagome blinked, astonished to realize she'd forgotten, even for a little while, either incident. “Oh. Yes, well....”
“Then there was the finding out you have spiritual powers you didn't know about, and the fact that it obviously made the rest of us uneasy, which in turn made things uncomfortable for you.
“Then, of course, as I'm quite certain has happened by now, there's the realization that the people you have been staying with all this time are all fugitives of some sort—though to be fair, we're not all criminal fugitives.” His smile returned faintly, though this time she saw nothing amused in his violet eyes. “But I imagine the biggest shock for you was finding out about Kikyou, especially after seeing her picture.”
Kagome gaped at him for a moment, then had the grace to lower her eyes over a chagrined blush. “Then...he told you?”
“Told us? Well, not in so many words. He kind of just…gave himself away, as usual." A shade of disgust crossed his face. "It was one of my biggest worries when we first came here, you know. That he would just blurt out who he was to some random guest." He paused to brood, then shook himself. "I believe Kaede has already figured it out for herself, and if Shippou hasn’t yet, he will soon—but for future reference, computers are bad at keeping secrets from me, especially when the secret involves something as simple as a history search.”
“History search?” Kagome blinked. The article. Oh no. How stupidly careless of her. She'd forgotten all about it. It hadn't been anywhere in sight when she'd woken. InuYasha must have taken it with him after he'd tucked her into the blanket.
Miroku was still staring at her with an air of expectation.
“Oh,” she said, lamely.
That earned her another faint smile. “Rather than what the rest of us know, I’m far more interested in exactly how much InuYasha told you last night.”
“I think I got most of the story.” She bowed her head, shook it. “I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have been snooping. About him, or Kikyou, or any of it.”
Miroku sighed. “Well, we probably did keep that secret from you a little longer than necessary. I would have done the same as you, except I wouldn't have waited so long to do it. But you do realize why we kept it, don't you? It's essential we keep it quiet. If any of us were to ever slip around a guest—”
“InuYasha could go back to jail,” Kagome said. “I know.”
“In one of the better cases, yes.”
She frowned, tilted her head. “One of the better cases?”
“Well, ideally we would have time to disappear again before the authorities found us, but....” His eyes narrowed at her. “Did he tell you we had to break him out?”
She nodded.
“Did he tell you why?”
“Going through a trial and facing the death penalty for a murder you didn't commit isn't enough of a reason?”
Her answer and the indignation behind it threw Miroku. He studied her for a minute, then his quirked, rueful grin reappeared. “It might have been for most people, but InuYasha insisted he should stay and fight the charge for his own name's sake. He was really stupidly stubborn about it. No, the reason we finally got him out of there was because of Naraku.”
There was that discomfited twinge again. Her stomach went sour; her skin prickled with cold points. Kagome twisted her fingers together, baffled by the reaction. Maybe Naraku was such a horrible person that InuYasha’s dislike had rubbed off on her? “What did N—he do?”
“Naraku took great pleasure in acting the wounded youkai lord. He decided to take revenge on behalf of his favorite miko and offered an obscene reward to the inmate who managed to kill InuYasha before he went to trial. They’d already made more than one attempt on his life by the time we got him out, and this was not the kind of place where guards would go out of their way to interfere with a prisoner spat.” A shadow crossed his face, the ghost of an unpleasant memory. “When I found him in that prison, he was wounded more severely than we’d expected. I doubt he would have survived another attempt on his life.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “He didn't tell me that.”
“No, I didn't think he would have.”
Then, the prison had become a literal death trap for him. “And so, the worst-case scenario is....”
“Naraku or one of his many assassin underlings find us before we figure out we've been compromised, and we all die.”
So it wasn't just the police who were looking for InuYasha. Naraku was still actively trying to hunt him down and kill him. What had he said last night? He'd been told to stay here because it was safe—and all it could take was a simple misstatement to ruin that safety. Kagome would never forgive herself if she were the cause of such a thing. “I understand. I won't slip.” She startled, then looked around the deserted hallway. She edged a little closer, lowered her voice. “Should we even be talking about this here?”
Miroku grinned and pushed away from the wall. “No need to worry. The Nozaki couple have gone into Sonkyou for the day, and Tanaka-san left this morning.” He pulled the roll of blanket from under his arm and held it out to her. “As I'm sure you've noticed, the circumstances that brought us here isn't a subject that comes up often. Just remember not to say anything in front of the guests, and everything will be fine. Shall I escort you to the kitchen? I'm certain there are leftovers from lunch.”
Kagome took the blanket, but shook her head. “I should find Kaede first and apologize.”
“I believe she's upstairs, tidying up the guest rooms for this evening. But you know, apologies aren't really necessary. It's only natural for the rest of us to pick up the slack when one of us is feeling unwell.”
Kagome couldn't help but smile. “I know. But I'd like to apologize anyway and see if she needs help first. Then maybe....”
As she was talking, Miroku's gaze shifted, focusing somewhere at a distance over her shoulder; it was a brief flicker, then his attention was back on her. He smiled. It was his pleasant smile, the one he reserved for guests he thought would be susceptible to extra little charges during their stay.
Kagome’s voice fell away under the suspicious weight of it. She frowned, and edged a step back and realized she'd somehow gotten her back turned to the wall. Still smiling, Miroku forward-matched her step and bent his head a little closer.
“Kagome,” he said, low and conversational. “I've just been reminded of something Tanaka-san asked me to give you this morning, before he left.”
“Tanaka-san?”
A nod. “He was very disappointed that you weren't awake to see him off, but he wanted me to convey his thanks for a pleasant stay.”
Kagome blinked at him, then relaxed. “Oh. Well, if—”
“Oi! What the hell are you doing?”
Miroku's grin turned downright wicked, but Kagome caught it only peripherally because her head had whipped around to find InuYasha at the far end of the hallway. A bucket hung from his hooked fingers, and his expression was thoroughly suspicious. At the sight of him, her heart gave a little shock, a half-excited, half-unsure stutter zipping all the way down to her stomach. She sucked in a breath.
“And—”
Kagome only half-turned her head back towards Miroku, whose voice was now just above her ear—just in time to feel his hand on the back of her head and gentle lips bussing over her forehead in a gesture filled with fraternal affection.
“A kiss, for Sachi's Sleeping Beauty.”
Blanket clutched to her chest, Kagome stared at him in shock. From farther away, the clatter of a bucket hitting the ground and the splash of water spilling across the floor.
“Miroku! The fuck!”
“If you'll excuse me.” Still grinning, Miroku took a crisp step back, and, moving as fast as she'd ever seen him, disappeared down the hall, away from the charging hanyou and into the nearest doorway: the dining room.
He must have disappeared just as quickly out the other side, because InuYasha stopped—grumbling, swearing, glaring—in the doorway. After a moment, he turned back to her, scratching at his head, canines flashing beneath a lifted lip. “What the hell did that bastard think he was doing? You okay?”
“I—” She bit back an unexpected giggle. “I’m fine.”
“Che.” Annoyance flashed over his face. “Damn pervert.” He prowled across the hallway, stopped just beyond her reach. His brows settled into dark slashes, and he tilted his head, gave her a frowning once-over. “You shouldn't let him get so close.” The words were suggestion, the tone less so. He really hadn’t liked Miroku’s gesture, even though to Kagome it had felt carefully devoid of sexual overture.
This time she couldn’t stop her smile, or the laughter in her voice. “It’s fine, it’s fine. It was just a joke.”
“Joke my ass. Bastard’s asking for a beating.” His mouth was still down-curved and disgruntled, but his eyes latched onto her smile and softened a bit. His ears flicked, as if throwing off the residual irritation. “You finally woke up, huh?”
“Mm.” She nodded. Miroku’s prank had been acknowledged and dismissed, and her heart was re-establishing that odd, not-quite-settled rhythm it had started when she’d first noticed him. She lifted the bundle of cloth in her arms. “Thank you for the blanket. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late, though.”
“Keh.” He shifted his stance and shrugged, a restless shuffle of his body. “As tired as you were last night, I thought you might sleep all day. I can smell it when you’re exhausted so…” His eyes skipped around the hallway, then went to hers. His voice was gruff. “You feel better now?”
It was a question of multiple layers, and she hesitated. They’d settled quite a bit last night. Now she knew what everyone else knew, and she could help protect the Sachi alongside her friends. Now she knew—to InuYasha at least—she had her own face and her own person, independent of her bizarre, look-alike ghost in his past. But it was his gaze that really sealed it for her. The yellow-gold was warm and gentle and concerned, and for the first time since she’d woken up and met it with her own, completely clear of suspicion. She’d never realized how omnipresent it had been before, because she’d never seen his eyes without it.
Until now.
Something snicked into place in her chest, something right, like a key falling into place in its lock. The last, heavy thread of her anxiety fell away, and a thousand butterflies took flight in her belly. The corners of her mouth lifted on their own. She nodded again, feeling almost shy, not trusting her voice. “Mm.”
“Good.” A slight frown marred his brows and he stepped into her space, reaching out to brush at the loose strands of hair floating against her cheek, tucking it back away from her face. “Just don’t let Miroku get that close again.” Almost absently, his thumb rubbed at her forehead and he gave another exasperated, lip-curled “che.”
She might have laughed again, but the tip of his claw happened to graze over the fading line of scar tissue, the one left by the mysterious bullet that had landed her in the Sachi.
The touch ricocheted through her head with a muted “crack”—a sound that wasn’t.
Despair assaulted her. Overwhelming, all-encompassing, shattering. It washed over her, swamping all her other senses, sucking the strength from her muscles until they trembled with fatigue and fear. She was gasping again, sucking at the air as if she’d been running for years and had only now stopped to take a breath. A freezing terror slid down her spine, an icy resignation that she was about to die, and her knees buckled under the pressure of it. Someone—it sounded like her—gave a quiet cry, and from somewhere—out, beyond her—came the sensation of falling.
She heard InuYasha swear. Repeatedly. Through a cold-numb shell, she felt his hands catching her shoulders, hauling her upright. Through a thick wrap of cotton, she heard her name.
Then, like a whisper, it vanished, back into the ether from which it came. She blinked, and the world whiplashed back into focus. Oxygen flooded her deprived lungs. Her legs firmed underneath her again, supporting her. Mostly. Kagome found herself staring up at a frantic InuYasha, his expression twisted with bafflement, his mouth moving, shouting at her. He looked as if he wanted to shake her but didn’t quite dare.
“…gome! Kagome! Answer me, damn it!”
She wrapped a hand around one of his wrists, grounding herself with the strength of it. His tendons strained against her palm, his skin hot—or maybe it was that her hands were cold? “It’s okay,” she breathed, the sound jagged around her thundering heart. “I’m here. I’m okay.”
“The fucking hell it is!” Fury overlaid the relief that had flashed across his face when she answered him. His fingers flexed, digging into her shoulders; he made a visible effort to relax them, smoothing them down to curl around her upper arms. His hold was still tight, still supporting her weight. “What. The. Fuck! You just—” A shadow passed over the fury, his grip loosened, and his voice hollowed out. “Shit. Did I hurt you?”
“No!” Her thumb swiped at the skin of his inner wrist, comforting him, comforting herself. “No, it wasn’t you. It wasn’t. I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”
“It wasn’t?” The momentary fear eased from his face, the muscles in his jaw worked as he looked her over. His next words were like an explosion. “Then what the FUCK just happened!? Your face went white and your eyes looked d—” He cut himself off, his chest heaving, visibly struggled to pull on some composure. His volume evened out, but his eyes still glinted with anger. “You were gone, Kagome. Where the fuck did you go?!”
She stared at him, aghast. “I don’t… I don’t know. I just—for a second…” She didn’t know how to explain. For one odd, displaced moment, it had felt like she’d been two versions of herself smashed into one. As if a shadow version of herself from somewhere else had smothered over her, drowning her in horror and terror. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Deep inside, she trembled. A hard, tiny, frozen ball had formed in the pit of her stomach, sending ice through her veins—because the stark, agonizing hopelessness buried within that strange otherness…had felt so frighteningly familiar. As if it were an intimate part of her life. Everything inside her shied away from it, from looking at it or confronting it. She didn’t even want to think about it. She didn’t know if InuYasha could tell how disturbed she was, but his scowl was still ferocious, and still directed at her.
He waited another few seconds, then swore again and tugged at her, turning towards the end of the hallway. “Fuck it. C’mon.”
“What? Where?” Something tangled around her feet, hindering whatever steps she might have taken to follow him, and she blinked down, surprised to see the forgotten blanket had fallen to the floor.
“To find the old bat.”
“Kaede?” Kagome recoiled at the thought of trying to explain to Kaede what she couldn’t to InuYasha. Her grip on his wrist tightened. “Wait!”
He rounded on her, chest heaving with agitation. “Wait? Do you even realize how bad you looked just now? You could be sick!”
“I’m not.” She swallowed around a dry throat, the strange chill receding back a bit into a corner of her mind where she could pretend it had never existed. “I’m not sick,” she said again, firmer this time.
His scowl didn’t budge, his brows a twisted combination of fury and disbelief. “Says the bitch who almost passed out in my arms. We’re getting Kaede to look at you. Now.”
“No!” Frantic herself now for reasons she chose not to examine, Kagome dug in her feet. Before he could drag her further, she grabbed at his sweater with both hands, bunching and pulling the soft cotton into two fists. “I said it’s fine!”
“Like hell it is!”
His sweater was deep red and cable-knit; her fingertips slipped between the stitching and curled, her nails scraping along his inner shirt, the fabric so thin she could feel the warm sculpt of his body beneath it. The sensation was so unexpectedly soothing, she did it again, dragging her nails against his abdomen. The muscles beneath her fingers tensed, and his whole body seemed to twitch, from his ears to his fingers. An answering pull in her belly eased her twisted insides, drove the cold a little further away.  
“It is. It was just…” She licked her lips. “Like a flashback.”
“Hah? Flashback?”
She drew a deep breath, then exhaled and met his narrowed eyes. “I… Sometimes I have bad dreams.”
“Bad dreams?” InuYasha didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t look like he would drag her off any second any more. One of his ears gave an uncertain little flick, and his fingers gentled on her shoulders. “Nightmares?”
“Mm. I had one again last night, and when I woke up this morning, it was a lot like what happened just now. I was afraid, but I didn’t know why.”
“It’s happened before?”
At his expression, she hastened to add, “It’s just…sometimes. I don’t really remember them, so they don’t bother me. After everything we talked about last night, it’s probably only natural.” She tilted her head, entreating him. Her hands continued their petting, curling and uncurling, feeling as if each gentle scrape of her nails pulled a little more heat into the cold knotting her up. “It’s nothing to bother Kaede with.”
He snorted, doubt pulling at the corners of his mouth, but at least the anger had eased. “All that from a leftover nightmare? That is one nasty mother-fucker of a side effect. Doesn’t seem like something we should ignore.” He hesitated, then lifted his hand, brushed at the black bed-tangle of hair that hid her scar. “‘Specially if they have anything to do with…this.”
This time, it was the rough callouses of his fingertips stroking over the pink flesh.
This time, the caress skittered across her skin, shimmering and electric. It bloomed warm in the pit of her stomach, then went hot and melty, wiping away the ugly remnants of the terror which had almost incapacitated her only moments before. The knots inside her eased, loosened, then smoothed out under the wash of heat. She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, nearly moaned in relief.
Oh, yes. More of this.  
Their bare feet, hidden beneath the forgotten blanket, were close enough that his ambient heat had enveloped her chilly toes. She curled them against the sudden urge to run them up his calf, curled her fingers into fists to resist the urge to tug at his shirt and tuck her freezing fingertips against his bare skin.
When she peeled her eyelids open, it was to meet his golden gaze, dark and heavy, his face tight with a thread of sensual awareness. For a moment, she thought he might pull away. Instead, his eyes dropped to her lips; his mouth mumbled. “Why’ve you never said anything about it before?”
“Because.” Breaking under temptation, she unfisted her hands and flattened them against his sweater, letting the invading pads of her fingertips seek out the hidden contours beneath the fabric, fascinated by the feel of him. Reveling in the anticipation thickening the air between them. “I never remember. I only feel.”
“You should have fucking said something.” He inhaled, pushing his skin into her palms, and when he blew out the breath, it was ragged. His fingers fell away from her scar, his claws sliding through her hair until his palm rested against her neck, his thumb at the very corner of her jaw. The fingers of his other hand were suddenly digging, tense and hard, into the curve of her hip. A growl rumbled through his body and underlined his words, something she felt rather than heard. “You should have told me.”
“Why?” She murmured against the mouth now only a breath away. “Can you make it stop?”
His hands tightened on her neck before she even finished her question, tugging her along with her last syllable, and smothering her lips with the harsh, near-desperation of his.
They’d had fried vegetables with some kind of spicy, tangy sauce for lunch. She knew because the faintest bite of it tinged the inside of her mouth as he nudged it open so his tongue could rasp against hers. He licked at her, tasted her; his thumb pressed at her jaw, tilting, fitting their mouths together. Long fingers spread through her hair and across the back of her neck.
Enthusiasm pushed her up on her toes and into him, her fingers stretching the deep red weave of his sweater as her hands smoothed around to his sides, to the subtle, rippling layers of his lateral muscle. Her mouth clung to his, her lips soft to his hard, caressing, coaxing, seeking—because it turned out he could indeed make it stop, could make everything stop. It was a delicious, suspended moment of physical bliss that made her want to roll around in him like a kitten with her own personal pile of string.
Her body was warm now, hot and rushing with blood, throbbing with reckless excitement. Her breasts were heavy and peaked in the cotton confines of her bra, her skin—every inch of it—prickly and sensitive, aching to be touched. Their clothing seemed unbearably irrational, an unfair barrier keeping his bare skin from hers. Her nails dug into his sides, and he curled his lip against hers, an animalistic growl rolling against her palms, into her mouth.
Then his mouth ripped away, the sharp edges of his canines stinging over her bottom lip before coming together with a snap. Kagome whimpered at being left so suddenly bereft, gasping for air.
InuYasha groaned and pressed his forehead against hers, his chest heaving as he struggled with himself, eyes squeezed tight. “Stop,” he rasped.
Frustration curled her fingers, her nails scratching at him through his clothing. His eyes snapped open and his hand abandoned her waist to clamp around one wrist. “Stop,” he said again through clenched teeth. His voice was more gravel than sound and sent a sensual ripple down her spine and into the molten throb between her legs. She nearly moaned, her ragged breath pushing into the small space separating them to mingle with his.
“Why?” She asked, her voice an angry, near-plaintive thread of sound. His odd slit pupils had constricted into thin, drugged slashes, the gold of his eyes now a dark amber. They were hard and penetrating with lust, burning into hers with unrelenting need. Kagome couldn’t understand why he kept fighting something they both so obviously wanted. “Why do you keep doing this?”
“We…we need to tell Kaede,” he rasped out. “About your…dreams. Maybe she can help.” But he didn’t pull away. He just stood there with his forehead heavy against hers, as if it was the only way to keep his mouth away from hers.
“No,” Kagome murmured, licking her lips and the taste of him still on them, still in her mouth. “This helps. This is better.”
Her awareness of him was like the fog of some sensuous spell in her brain: his palm, hot and controlling against her neck; the warmth of their feet, cocooned so closely together beneath the blanket; the teasing hint of his body, flexing and moving beneath her hands with each jagged gulp of air he took. She wanted that body moving against hers, inside of hers. And he did, too. It was all there, the depth of it laid bare in the gaze he couldn’t drag away. The things he wanted to do to her, with her, if only he would let himself; her body clenched around the thought of it.
And because she was so aware of him, she saw clearly when the guilt flashed through the lust like an ugly shadow. “We can’t. I can’t.”
“Why not?” She wanted to hit him.
“Because.” Finally, InuYasha was able to pull back just a bit so he could glare down at her. Physical frustration strained his body, made him snarl. “You’re still alive, damn it! And I’m fucking going to keep you that way!”
Oh.
Kagome stared up at him. InuYasha’s fingers were still wrapped around her hand, his claws points against the baby-soft skin of her inner wrist, hints of a violence she knew would never be used against her. For her, maybe, but never against her. She heard his words, saw the conflict in his face, sensed the ghosts of regret beneath his voice…and understood. A sliver of sorrow cut through the hot haze around them, just long enough for her to mourn with him, mourn for the wound someone else had dealt him that might never fully heal.
But mourning and sorrow had never been intended for anything more than a pause. They made a terrible way of life.
She untangled her fingers from the fabric she’d stretched over his body and twisted her wrist free of his grasp. Then, in one fluid motion, she reached up, caught his face in her hands and guided him back to her, her fingers spread in ten delicate, barely-there caresses. Golden eyes followed her movements warily, stupidly torn between guilt and desire, but he only let her pull him so far, until the heat of his lips hovered above hers, until the ragged cadence of their breathing clashed with damp, muggy heat. His bare palm burned against her neck—holding her away, holding her close, not letting her go.
“You want me to live?” she asked, still breathless, her heart tumbling in her ears, so loud she almost couldn’t hear herself. Her eyes went back to his, fierce and passionate. “Then stop teasing me and help me live.”
And, instead of making him come to her, she pushed up on her toes to bridge the final gap between them, pressing her mouth to his again, sliding her tongue along the grim line of his lips.
For a heart-stuttering moment, his whole body stiffened.
Then he cursed. His hand, burning and heavy, wrapped around her nape, hauling her into him, and his lips sealed over hers again. Kagome’s arms slipped around his neck, his warm, unyielding lines making her curves soft and nearly liquid against him. He growled again, and his palm slid down her back: pressing down the indent of her spine, spreading over her waist, smoothing along the curve of her butt. He used both hands, cupped her and lifted, and the hot, hard erection he could neither hide nor deny was suddenly cradled between her legs, right where she was soft and wet. The pressure through their jeans was almost painful, would have been if she hadn’t been so excited.
“Oh, god.” The words slipped out of her on a half-whispered cry as her head fell back. His mouth, undeterred, slid down her jaw, her throat.
She lifted her leg, tried to wrap it around his. Was deterred by the blanket, which had twisted itself around her ankles and refused her the range of movement she wanted. She whimpered, filled with impatience, and it seemed to shake him a bit, because he lowered her to her feet, a sensual slide of her body along his that didn’t do anything to calm them down. His hands settled on her hips, iron with indecision. Kagome pushed herself up on tip-toe again, her fingers curling into his shoulders. Her parted lips brushed over his.
“Ignoring it won’t make it go away,” she whispered into him, her lips caressing his, catching and sucking with every word. “Why torture ourselves by trying?”
“Fuck.” He gave her whisper back to her, mouth clinging, his voice angry and torn. They hovered there, together, on the edge.
Somewhere beyond them, Kagome heard a soft thumping, coming closer; then a high-pitched, childish squeal cut through the hallway. From the corner of her eye, she saw a little red-headed body go skidding fox-feet last, slicking across the wood to slam with a thud into the wall.
The sound was rude and unexpected, like an attack, and one or both of them jumped, the shudder startling them both. Kagome didn’t react fast enough when InuYasha’s hands went from her hips to her arm, shoving her around and behind him. They’d both forgotten the blanket, and her feet couldn’t keep up with the sudden movement of her body. She stumbled, then fell back with a yelp.
“Kagome!” His grip on her arm tightened, but it wasn’t enough.
Kagome landed hard on her bottom, her left hand smacking flat against the floor behind her to absorb some of the impact.
“Shit!” InuYasha dropped to one knee next to her, his eyes moving rapidly over her body, his hand still around her arm. “I didn’t meant to--you okay?!”
Kagome found herself stunned and breathless, blinking between her raised knees at the little kitsune who was sitting up and shaking his head to clear it, no worse the wear for his unanticipated greeting of the hallway. She felt a brief, uncharitable flash of annoyance, compounded by the abrupt, disorienting change in the atmosphere around them.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled. None of the pulsing discomfort in her body had anything to do with her fall. Absently, she shifted her weight, folding her legs to the side so she could sit upright. Well, almost none. Despite InuYasha’s hand on her arm, she rubbed at the tender throb in the wrist she’d landed on.
Breathing still a little labored, InuYasha shot a furious glare down the hall. “Damn it, Shippou! Watch where the fuck you're going!”
Shippou, who was gaping at the puddle on the floor, jumped to his feet, his chest swelling with indignation as he stomped toward them. “Me! And who the hell put water all over the floor, huh? How was I supposed to know this was here?”
“It was an accident, idiot!” InuYasha's frustration was as palpable as hers. She could feel it rolling off of him in waves, could see it in the tense set of his shoulders, hear it in the angry, heaving rasp of his voice. His hand clenched in front of him as he draped it off one raised knee. He released her arm and his eyes met hers, his voice quiet, only for her. “It never should have happened.”
Kagome shook her head at him, desperate to keep him with her while she still trembled with all that heady lust, but the sensual spell had dissolved. She felt him pull away from her, leaving only a hard shell of anger and resignation.
InuYasha turned away from her, his scowl firmly set on the kitsune bearing down on them. “Who the hell told you to go running through here anyway?”
“So it’s your fault there’s water everywhere, but you still get to yell at me!?” Shippou pulled to an abrupt stop as he noticed Kagome. “Kagome!” Quick as silver, he changed tactics, flashing around a still-kneeling InuYasha to fly into Kagome's arms, clearing the blanket in a single, joyous leap. “I was looking for you!”
Kagome caught him easily, barely wincing at the twinge in her wrist.
“Hey! Watch how you’re jumping, you damn brat!” InuYasha reached out, as if he were about to rip Shippou away from her.
She scooted back, cuddling Shippou closer. “It’s fine,” she said.
“It’s not.” His scowl was still aimed in Shippou’s direction, but his eyes were on her wrist. “You’re hurt. He needs to be more careful.”
“I’m not hurt,” she replied, with a force born of agitation. “I just tripped. He wouldn’t hurt me.”
He avoided her gaze, his hands still clenched. “If something happens because he’s not paying attention, it’s still his fault.”
And she was back to wanting to hit him. Frustration welled in her chest, compounded by the fact that all she could do to relieve it was huff. “Well, I trust him!”
His eyes snapped back to hers. “Maybe you should be more careful, too.”
She glared. “It’s my choice!”
He glared back. “Yeah? It’s his, too!”
Shippou was watching them, his blue eyes bouncing with suspicion between the two of them. He hesitated, looking confused, his nose sniffing at the air. “You fell, Kagome? Is that why you’re sitting on the floor?” He twisted in Kagome’s arms and shot a dirty look and an accusatory finger at InuYasha. “InuYasha! You’re fighting with Kagome again, aren’t you? Why don’t you just apologize, already!”
“What!?” InuYasha snarled, showing fang. His hand came up. His knuckles actually cracked. “You damn brat! You don’t even know what the fuck you’re talk—”
Shippou cowered into her, and Kagome drew a deep breath, desperate to regain her composure, desperate to stop the deep trembling, desperate to calm the raging heartbeat out-pacing her lungs. “Okay, okay, that’s enough. We’re not seriously fighting, Shippou.” She spoke to Shippou, but couldn’t quite force her eyes away from the infuriated hanyou a few agonizing feet away, the flush still hot on her cheeks, her body tight and aching and heavy all over. She met his gaze and let him see all that unspent longing, laid it out for him like a challenge. “Shippou's right. We can't leave this place like this. It’s a mess. He wouldn't have tripped if we’d just taken care of it in the first place, instead of letting it get so bad.”
Shippou went still and quiet again, his gaze darting between the two of them, eyes narrowed.
InuYasha's fist lowered, slowly, and the scowl dropped away from his face. Lust and guilt flickered in his eyes, a brief, fierce clash before he averted them. “Che. Fine. Just…make sure to get Kaede to look at that for you.”
“I said it’s fine.”
His eyes flicked up and burned into hers for another second before he surged to his feet and turned his back on both of them, heading for the puddle. His movements were restless as he strode away from them, swearing bad-temperedly. “I'll...find a fucking a mop.”
Shippou snorted. “So why didn’t you just clean it up in the first place?”
InuYasha paused, but didn’t turn around. “Because.”
Kagome watched him go with shades of dismay and resolve settling deep in her chest. This wasn’t the end of it. It would happen again, he had little defense against it, and she was immensely glad. InuYasha’s worry—his reluctance—was more about punishing himself than protecting her, and as far as she was concerned, enough was enough. For both their sakes, for everyone’s sakes, his penance had lasted long enough.  
Shippou snorted again. “That’s stupid.”
“Yes, it is,” Kagome agreed. “‘Because’ isn’t good enough,” she aimed her words at his retreating back. He didn’t in any way indicate that he’d heard, but of course he had. She drew in a heavy breath, feeling as if battle lines had been drawn, and shook herself before climbing to her feet, remembering that she’d been intending to find Kaede.
She got two steps beyond the dining room doorway before her brief, corner-eyed glimpse of the newest sign posted beside it brought her up short, jerking her around in a double take.
Emergency Exit.
Wide-eyed, she blinked. Slowly turned back to glance at the deserted hallway, then down. Shippou blinked back up at her from the crook of her arm, his look of innocence disturbingly genuine.
“Shippou, did you...?”
His little brow wrinkled. Suspiciously baffled. “What?”
A faint shiver ran up her spine and she shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.” She turned back toward the stairway, one of the things InuYasha had muttered as he’d hovered in the dining room doorway sticking in her head.
“Stupid. Fucking. House.”

********************************************* **********