InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Where the Streets Have No Name ( Chapter 21 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The Edge of Resistance
Book Two: The Dissidents

“I want to feel sunlight on my face. I see the dust cloud disappear, without a trace. I want to take shelter from the poison rain, Where the streets have no name.” – U2

Shippou and Kagura kept up their strength through the long and brutal winter by drawing on the other’s resilient resolve. When one began to weaken under the weight of endless violence, the other propped that one up with the memory of loss. When one shrank from the shadow of death, the other whispered of past triumphs. In this way, they kept from falling over the edge of resistance.

The sun gave no warmth, and the bitter wind that scoured the hills was unchecked by the bare and sickened trees. The forests and fields, robbed of summer, flooded in fetid swamps, then abused by arid wind, were worn and threadbare. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, Shippou and Kagura had gathered something of an army; ragged, desolate people, ravaged by hunger and fevers. The entire population traveled with them and the women, children, and elderly remained in the furthermost flanks whenever they engaged the enemy. The men fought with axes, swords, knives, arrows, and all too often with implements that had been meant for the farm but had long, oh so long, been useless. When Shippou saw them charging into the teeth of the monsters, with their rusty sickles and bleeding feet, he dared never mention his cold-afflicted fingers.

All day long they fought alongside with these humans, Shippou tearing the Tsuchigumo apart with his iron beak and steel talons and Kagura rending them into a million pieces with her ferocious wind. Still, their numbers seemed undiminished, and the task appeared hopeless and endless. Shippou changed form so often, from adolescent fox demon to titanic sized hawk, that he found himself thinking more like the bird and less like himself. Often he would check his feet and hands, uncertain for a moment in which shape he resided. Kagura sometimes had to remind Shippou to resume his normal shape at night when, exhausted, he and Kagura searched for wood to keep their comrades warm.

They fought and slaughtered. They ate and shared. They laughed under the stars. They gathered more to them. They buried and mourned.

The year wore away.

They sat beside their own little fire one night while most of the humans slept, though they could hear that some were still celebrating the day’s victories. Kagura sat with her feet near the fire, holding her toes and looking up at the crystal stars. Shippou sat with a large pelt thrown across his shoulders, a gift from one of the women. He stared into the flames, letting his drowsiness overtake him. It seemed to him that he could hear Kagome singing to him in a soft, distant voice.

“And when we’re older, and full of cancer
It doesn’t matter now, come on get happy
Because nothing lasts forever,
But I will always love you.”

“Shippou, what is love?”

His eyes snapped open and he turned to stare at his one time enemy, who was now his almost constant companion. The fur blanket slid from his shoulders.

“What?” he asked, blinking at her.

“Love, what is it?”

“It’s…I mean, that’s…you can’t just ask something like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s complicated.”

With the foolish hope that this would end the conversation, he arranged his blanket again, determined to resume dozing.

Kagura furrowed her flawless forehead.

“It is? It doesn’t seem so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, everybody makes such a big deal about it. They talk about it so much. It seems to me they know very well what it is.”

“Of course they do!”

“Then why won’t you tell me?” she stamped her little feet.

“It’s not that I won’t, Kagura.”

He sighed, and then straightened his shoulders.

“People know what it is when they see it, when they feel it, but you can’t describe it. It just…is.”

“Do I…would I know it?”

“I don’t know,” he smiled to himself, a soft smile hidden under the shadow of his wild hair. “I hope so.”

“Am I supposed to love you?”

Shippou winced, and prayed devoutly that some hypnotic deity of sleep would come along and clock Kagura over the head. He opened his eyes and saw that she was staring at him intently and that his supplications had all been in vain.

Nothing new about that.

“I can’t answer that,” he faltered.

“Do you love me?”

Good heavens and every demon in hell, why wouldn’t she just go to sleep?

A lie was out of the question, and avoidance was almost as impossible. More than a little desperate, he looked up. The stars looked the same as always.

Sometimes it was hard to believe what his life had become. Up there the stars went on shining as if nothing had changed. But he wasn’t with Kagome and Inuyasha anymore. His friends were gone, long gone, and he may never see them again. The only real friend he had was this demoness, who looked to him now for everything.

Who had been created by the very monster that had destroyed his life.

“I promise I will answer you someday,” he said at last. “But not tonight.”

“As you wish,” she shrugged. “I’m tired. Let’s go to sleep.”

But even after Kagura’s soft breathing told him she had drifted off, Shippou did not sleep. He continued gazing at the stars.

Is she up there with you?

They should at least give him a sign.

You owe me that much.

The stars did not answer.

***

He waited for it for a long time; long after the Rains had ended. The land was becoming as dry and bare as a bone on a windy beach, and still he waited. The winter fell like a hammer, and night after night came without a hint of cloud, and still he waited.

Any day now, he thought.

At any moment, soon, they will arrive, and we will begin it all over again.

As he waited, he collected his time, employed his energy, and arranged his future. Naraku never squandered one drop of anything.

The monsters that were terrorizing the countryside had their origins before the Plateau, and even as he recovered from that disaster he continued that work, almost complete by the time he sent Kanna to spy on his enemies and long before he sent Botsuraku to the village Edo.

Inside him a power struggled for dominion, though he knew it not, dominion over the forces that opposed it, the forces that were pushing and lashing Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, and countless others like leaves through the wind.

The force inside of Naraku had an easier task. It did not need to manage an army of pawns that were currently scattered across the wilderness. It did not need to torture Naraku into submission. Naraku readily obeyed its every desire. This was because what was expected of Naraku came to him quite naturally anyway. He believed that every plot, plan, and impetus was his own; that every creation he hatched was as original as the universe itself. As far as his ethereal and unseen master was concerned, long may it be so.

Naraku sat on a simple mat in a bare room in a rather modest house. He had never desired luxuries and, at the present time, his appearance of sparse stoicism encouraged his cause with his human subjects. The little insects were racked with deprivation brought on by the Rains and the disintegration they had caused, to say nothing of the ravages of the Tsuchigumo. Naraku’s ears were besieged with an endless stream of prayers and supplications that had droned into a tiresome buzzing in his ears.

His sharp hearing told him that bare feet were shuffling down the hall to his door. He checked the mirror again, the little piece of reflective glass that he kept hidden in his hand. Seeing that his face was still arranged as desired, he withdrew the shard back into his flesh and assumed an air of long suffering nobility and patience.

A diffident servant entered the room and kneeled.

“My lord, messengers have returned.”

“All of them, Hari-kun?” Naraku gave him a toothy smile and his voice was honey sweet.

“No, Henshin-sama, not all.”

“Please send in the ones that have returned, and prepare additional warrants to be sent out. We must be sure to warn all good folk, do you not agree?”

“Yes, Henshin-sama,” Hari bowed so low he nearly went through the floor. When he sat up again his eyes were full of love and trust.

“Would my lord care for something to eat?”

A vision blurred before Naraku’s eyes for a moment, of blood and bone, flesh and sinew. He was almost weak with hunger, but he distracted himself with the amusing thought of this peasant’s reaction to a genuine request.

Yes, please bring me a farmer. Followed directly with a maiden. Then I will finish with a delicacy, an infant perhaps? Yes, I think so.

“There are too many who are going to sleep hungry tonight, my son,” he said instead. “I will fast.”

The man looked as though he would argue, but then he apparently thought better of it and he bowed again.

“Yes, my lord.”

***

“Yuka!” Souta’s voice rang out across the courtyard. “Get away from there!”

Yuka turned and looked up at the window to Kagome’s room, and saw Souta leaning out and waving his arms. Still influenced by the cloud of suspicion, created by all the dodged or unanswered questions, she misinterpreted his anxiety.

What is in the wellhouse?

Is…is Kagome in there? Is it just her body in there, still bound and gagged, or hanging from the rafters? Will it be a skeleton? A bag of bones? Or maybe she was still alive but locked inside, kept apart and secret like the rich man’s wife in that famous British book.

Vague and foggy thoughts entered her head.

I guess the shrine doesn’t have an attic.

Higurashi, with a heavy pack strapped to her shoulders and around her waist, had come out into the yard with Ayumi and Eri. When they saw Yuka they stopped, and Ayumi and Eri exchanged glances.

Higurashi froze when she saw the lock on the door.

“What?” she started to move toward it.

The heavy wooden door began to creak and rattle.

Yuka was transfixed. This development was clear proof of her wildest theories and most terrible fears. She took slow but deliberate steps toward the door, hand outreached.

But the lock…who will break the lock?

What was this light coming from the other side? A red, unnatural glow oozed through the old wooden door and frame. The commotion of the rattle wood grew louder and more frenzied.

“Yuka-chan…” Eri’s nervous voice came from behind her.

Then it became quiet, and still, and Yuka began to doubt that the door had moved at all. Perhaps it had only been the wind. She even began to turn away.

She did not realize that she had been thrown through the air until she collided with Eri and Ayumi. The three of them fell together in a terrified heap. Yuka tried to get to her feet, but the world reeled and she hit her knees on the courtyard dirt instead, her hands cradling her head. She took a hand away and saw that she was bleeding somewhere. She heard screaming, but it sounded muffled or far away, as though her head was under water. Jagged pieces of wood littered the ground. Someone was pulling on her. Yuka looked up and saw that it was Eri. Her old friend was hysterical, pulling and sobbing and screaming, but Yuka could understand nothing.

Maybe it was a gas leak. Was there a tank in there? Her fuzzy thoughts tried to repair the scene.

Yuka had been knocked nearly senseless, and she did not then know what her friends and Higurashi and Souta already knew. She had not seen, nor understood, that a titanic monster had come through the door with the force of a dozen bulls. It was red, and covered with a shaggy coat of black, coarse hair. It could not be human. Not only was it eight or nine feet tall, but its powerful, tree-trunk arms reached almost to its knees, and its face was grotesquely twisted, like the stone ogres that sometimes adorned temples.

Souta came screaming out of the kitchen door. Yuka heard Higurashi shout for him to run away before she was pulled and dragged across the ground. She saw that she and the other girls had been gathered in a net. They were terrified, but they were senseless and panicked and it was not difficult for the monster to catch them.

Souta was wielding some kind of hooked, metal implement.

“Souta!” Higurashi screamed. “Please run!”

Yuka was not sure if Souta ignored his mother or did not hear her. They were all being dragged away from the house, towards the well.

“He means to take us through,” she heard Higurashi whisper in a choked sob.

Yuka heard the monster roar. Souta had hooked or stabbed it in the back. It reached around and plucked out the weapon like removing a splinter. The monster swung one heavy hand through the air and sent Souta flying into the Goshinboku. He landed on the ground in a crumpled heap and did not rise again.

“Souta!” Higurashi wailed.

By now, Yuka could see what was dragging them away, but she still could not comprehend it, and some important part of her mind was still unreachable by fear. She was not aware of how her frenzied limbs struggled, dug, clawed, and resisted on their own.

Is this real?

The sun was extinguished; they had entered the well house. They were towed over the splintered remains of the door. Yuka felt herself being lifted into the air. She was smashed into one of the girls, her face crushed into hair, and she could scarcely breath. The girls were screaming, but she did not think she was screaming. The world blurred into black, then pink, and she felt a sensation like reaching the top of a rollercoaster.

Then there was daylight again.

No, this cannot be real.

She heard Higurashi sob.

“I always knew it would come to this.”

***

When word reached Kouga that Ayame the Sacred Iris had gone missing and was presumed dead, a cold knot formed in his insides that would never be undone in his lifetime.

They said that her clan of wolf demons had been especially afflicted by the Rains and by the mysterious spider monsters that came from the north and east. They said that Ayame had resolved to find the source of their suffering and to defeat it, if possible. She gave her kin instructions to merge with the southern clans, and then she departed alone, never to be seen again.

The weight of dread that burdened Kouga did not come from the mere fact of her death. There had been more death and misery in the last few months than he had ever thought to see in his lifetime and, in truth, he envied her. His sorrow came from his own culpability.

She should not have gone alone. She should not have been left alone, with all that weight on her shoulders. She should not have felt it necessary to stand alone.

He should not have left her alone.

At first he tried to ignore his sense of guilt, but an event took place that very night that made denial forever impossible.

He stood on the banks of a small mountain stream at twilight and saw a vague figure standing on the surface of water, some three or four feet away from him. When he peered closer, he saw that it was a woman covered in mud.

No, not a woman, and it was not mud. It was a demoness; it was Ayame. Her red hair was blackened with blood and the irises of her veil were crushed and wilted. She held out a mangled hand to him with pitiful supplication. He braced himself to hear the dreadful sound of a dead voice, but he saw that, even in death, she could not speak because her throat was torn and her chest was crushed.

His own throat choked and he stood stricken numb and mute. The foggy figure began to fade into the shadows of the growing night.

“Wait!” he broke out. “Don’t go! Ayame! I’m sorry!”

Kouga’s stomach twisted and his head swam. He reeled and stumbled back into the forest, collapsing on a bed of scrubby moss, and sat with his head between his knees, hitting the ground again and again with weak fists. His body rocked and trembled. A cruel tempest grew from the bottom of his stomach.

You’re to blame!

In his mind’s eye he saw Naraku’s face first, as he always did.

If only he had been strong enough to defeat that monster years ago!

Naraku’s face dimmed and faded and instead he saw Inuyasha’s white hair and yellow eyes.

Why didn’t you do it? You worthless bastard!

Inevitably, Inuyasha reminded him of Kagome, and he recalled her sweet face and laughing blue eyes, the light scent of her jet-black hair.

If only you never came here. None of this would have happened! I would have married Ayame. I would have!

On the edge of his awareness he heard a choking sound break free from his chest.

It’s not my fault! You’re to blame! You’re responsible for everything!

Towering and unrestrained, the power tore through his throat without mercy and rang out over the forest, a wail of rage and despair.

***

The circumstances of their exodus could not have been much worse. The day had provided no warmth, and the night air bit their faces and grasped their hands and feet with iron claws. After they ascended the hill, they paused to look back behind the thick cedar trees and down at the soft glow of huts lit by cooking fires, inviting and deceitful. Miroku looked up and saw that there was no moon. It had been as slim as a willow branch the night before, and would not appear at all tonight.

I wonder where he is.

Miroku stood next to Sango, holding her hand as tight as he could without hurting her, breathing in the stony night air, perfumed with earth, fungus, and cedar.

“Where are we going from here?” she whispered to him. His eyes returned to her face.

She was beautiful; he had always thought so, but now he felt himself realize it as a new understanding. She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. It was a fierce, relentless beauty. Her wealth of lustrous hair was an ensnaring net, soft but inescapable. Her dark eyes and sharp features where edged like knives. The inexplicable notion of Sango the Slayer, destroyer of men’s souls, gave rise to the unheralded idea that he would rather that she, and only she, kill him, than to succumb in the end to the wind tunnel. He toyed with the idea of asking the favor of her.

“Miroku?” she squeezed his hand. “What’s the matter with you?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he whispered back. “I’m not sure where, but we go together.”

She squeezed his hand again.

The only sound was the wind sulking in the fir trees. He caught snatches of whispered words between Suzi and Momiji, or between Momiji and Kyotou, but he did not hear what they said.

A confused clamor grew from a point somewhere in the village and disturbed the calm of the midnight hour. The refugees looked down and saw the glow of torches moving from one end of the village to the other. They could hear the disorder of numerous voices shouting.

“They’re going toward our house, Momiji-sama!” Suzi cried out.

“Hush child!” Momiji said to her sharply.

There seemed to be a brief moment of bewilderment when the mob searched the tiny hut only to find it empty. That did not stop them from setting flames to it.

“It looks like we left just in time,” Kyotou commented grimly.

“I can’t believe they would do this,” Momiji whispered.

“We should keep moving,” Miroku urged them. “Mobs like that often do not stop until they get their fill of blood.”

“But where are we going to go?” Sango asked again. Miroku reminded himself that Sango was persistent and did not like uncertainty.

“That depends on what you want to accomplish,” Kyotou answered. “That fellow with the warrant came from the west. We could go in that direction, and see if we can find out anything about this enemy of yours.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Sango’s question, and look, was direct.

“I don’t have anything else to do,” the middle-aged man shrugged. “And we’re better off in a group if we’re going to go into exile in the wild. Also, if what you’ve told me is true, we all owe this Naraku his licks.”

Miroku wondered if they dared tell him how unlikely that was. He felt Sango flinch, and knew she was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s just head that way,” Kyotou said. “We need to get as far from the village tonight as we can anyway. We’ll find someplace to bed down for the night and then we’ll decide in the morning.”

Miroku hesitated. Edo was in the opposite direction, and that road called to him. Isn’t that where they always went when things fell apart?

“Miroku,” Sango stood close to him and whispered so that only he could hear. “What are you thinking?”

“I was just wondering why we wouldn’t go to Edo.”

In his heart he already knew the answer, and he knew he knew it when he saw the sick shadow come into her eyes. She shook her head, in a slight movement.

“We have no past,” she whispered. “We won’t look back.”

They walked for another hour, and settled on a patch of earth surrounded by young pines, which they hoped would at least shelter them from the worst of the wind. They did not dare build a fire and, though they had packed as many blankets as they could carry, they did not seem near enough.

The next morning’s sky was a rose-tinted steel, and five rootless vagabonds ate a meager meal of potatoes, chestnuts, and tiny rice cakes sweetened with honey. In the honey Miroku was sure he could taste the summer that died early. He wondered if all the bees that made it were dead, and if any like it would ever be made again. A feather touch brushed his cheek and startled him. Sango was looking at him with a concerned expression. He realized he must have looked gloomy, and he cast the expression aside and smiled at her.

They walked all that day under the azure sky. It was so bright and cloudless that, looking at it, one could scarce believe it was winter. But the wind whistled through the trees and bent the grass, and the sun was pale and uncaring.

They found another place to rest that night, and it was so similar to the one before that Miroku feared they had walked in one large circle and returned to where they had begun.

That night they did risk a fire. Kyotou worked with a pile of grass and twigs to start the flame, and when the first glow appeared they huddled over it eagerly.

“That won’t work,” he told them. “You’ll smother it before I get it going.”

They edged away with reluctance. It seemed to take forever, but it was only a few minutes before he had a generous blaze flickering and dancing in the cold night. They sat near it, shared another meal similar to their breakfast, and tried to ignore the many smoldering eyes that emerged from the surrounding forest, stared and blinked, and faded again into the shadow.

Miroku was about to make some comment about whether or not they should prepare themselves for snow, when he cringed and shrank. A sudden sound pierced the dead silence of the winter night. It was an anguished, desperate cry.

“What was that?” Suzi whispered.

“I don’t know,” Miroku answered.

“It was uncanny,” Momiji shuddered. “It’s a bad omen.”

Kyotou shrugged. “Whoever it was, they’ve got bigger worries, it seems, then trying to bother us.”

That night, Sango dreamt of the horse again, the same horse she had seen in a dream on the last night she spent in Edo.

Kagome and Inuyasha and Shippou were not there. She was not quite sure that Miroku was there, though he seemed to be somewhere behind her. The horse was even more beautiful than before, less wild and compelling, more tender and pleading. She reached out her hand and touched the broad, sable neck. The horse bowed her head in greeting, and Sango knew she had mistaken it for a stallion before. It was a mare. She nuzzled Sango’s neck. From behind her, Sango heard a growing roar, the sound of a calamity rushing toward her. She felt the earth tremble, and she looked up. The sky was dark except in the west, where a pale light lingered. She heard a voice.

You can’t get here fast enough.

***

Shippou rested again by a small fire. It was a cold night, like so many others, at the end of a long day of endless battle, also like so many others. Though it had really been only a few weeks, it felt to him like he had been doing this forever. The only thing that ever changed was the growing number of humans that followed them.

For the sake of practicality, the fighting force, collectively referred to as 'the Resistance', was quickly divided into groups called 'houses', which were more or less composed of men from the same village. These groups were led by men probably elected by the group itself through Shippou never knew or cared about that. These men reported to Shippou and Kagura. Shippou and Kagura were simply called 'the captains'.  

Their strategy was simple. They moved in a migrating fan from west to east, exterminating without exception every Tsuchigumo they encountered. They left the corpses where they fell and moved on. The women, children, and elderly moved behind the army, through the land that had just been cleared of enemies, where they attempted to gather whatever food was left and to tend to the wounded. The Resistance also collected more followers as it encountered villages. Since, most of the time, the village had just been saved from certain death by the army, and since the army itself was rather intimidating, little persuasion was needed to swell the ranks.

The initial distrust of Shippou and Kagura faded quickly, and soon their demonic appearance and abilities were accepted as a matter of course. In short order the humans did not even turn a hair when Shippou transformed into a hawk of impossible proportions. He realized that humans were more adaptable than any demon he ever met. Perhaps there is something of immortality that ruins a person’s ability to accept change.

He mused over this oddity as he stared into the fire and waited for sleep to come. For once, Kagura was not around.

“Taichou Shippou.”

He looked up. Norio, the leader of a large house, was hurrying towards him, his grim face thoughtful and downcast as usual, his thin shoulders hunched in the cold. He was still splattered with blood, as it was his habit to help with the wounded even after fighting all day. He carried a scroll of paper in his right fist.

“Good evening, Norio-san,” Shippou reminded himself at the last minute to use an honorific.

The wiry man bowed in a short, sharp movement.

“Shippou-sama, there is something here you may wish to see.”

“Oh?” he held out his hand and retrieved the document.

As he unrolled it, Norio spoke again.

“This is just a copy. The last town we encountered had many of them, and it is said they have spread far and wide.”

Shippou read the words: “Warrant. Being that the Lord Henshin has sought to restore peace and prosperity to the land…”

He read the rest to himself. His hands began to shake, and he bit his lower lip savagely.

“Unbelievable! The audacity!” he exclaimed, tossing the hateful paper to the ground.

He paced back and forth, swearing and waving his arms and shaking his fists at the indifferent stars.

“What’s gotten into him?” Kagura, who had just returned, asked Norio.

He bent and retrieved the warrant and handed it to her. She glanced at it.

“I never learned to read,” she said. “Would you read it to me?”

Norio glanced at the raving fox demon and back at her. He cleared his throat.

She let him get as far as the description of herself.

“Sluttish!” she burst out. “That is entirely unfounded and uncalled for!”

“I am sure only a villain without honor would write this, my lady,” Norio said in a mild, polite tone. “There is more.”

“Never mind. I get the idea.”

She turned to Shippou.

“Do you think my face is sharp and unpleasant?” she asked, rubbing her cheek and wearing a concerned frown.

“Oh, really Kagura!”

“What?”

“Is that all you can say at a time like this?” he turned back to Norio. “Do people believe this junk?”

“We in the Resistance do not, my lord. The people we have so far encountered are too grateful that we are killing Tsuchigumo to ask too many questions about the two of you. Further east, we may encounter more trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rumor, at least, is that the Dissidents are being hunted there with fervor. The pursuit of them seems to have merged into the Movement, which is—

“That means the people who want to get rid of monks and priests, right?” Kagura interrupted him.

“Yes, my lady.”

Shippou shook his head. “I can’t believe what a lead he has gained.”

“Who do you mean, my lord?”

“I told you about him before. Naraku. He is the devil behind all of this, and every person mentioned in that scrap of paper,” he pointed derisively at the document, “is his enemy.”

“They are our allies then, my lord?”

“Absolutely,” he answered, silencing Kagura with a glance. There was no need to get into the particulars of their past experiences with Kikyou and Sesshoumaru.

“I will spread this news, my lord, and let it be known that we should look for these persons, so that they may be added to our cause.”

He did not wait for an answer or dismissal, but bowed and made a hasty departure. Shippou stared after him.

“That’s…a really good idea,” he said, half to himself.

He sat again by the fire and with a gesture invited Kagura to do the same. She lowered herself and sat on his right side, facing him.

“This may be just what we need,” he said to her. “With this many people looking, maybe now we’ll find some of them.”

“Maybe,” Kagura murmured.

“Don’t sound so doubtful,” he said. “Have a little faith!”

“Oh, it’s not that. I was thinking of something else.”

“What?”

“Do you remember what we talked about before? About love?”

Shippou groaned. Why had he asked?

“Why are you making that face?”

“Because,” he said plaintively, “you don’t talk about this sort of thing.”

“Who doesn’t?

“No one.”

“Not ever?”

“No, not ever.”

She looked at him with suspicion.

“Okay,” he amended, “not never, but seldom. Only under special circumstances.”

“When do I get a special circumstance?”

Somewhere in Shippou’s chest there was a little twitch, like a muscle jumped and flinched from a flame.

“Well,” he floundered, “parents talk about it to their children.”

He realized before he even finished the sentence that he was just digging himself in deeper.

“I don’t have parents,” she said, like he knew she would.

“Yeah, I know.”

“And I’m only five years old you know.”

This time Shippou visibly started.

“Damn!” he gasped.

An ocean of realization crashed over his head and left him breathless. She was utterly parentless. Her formation! Her terrible birth!

“Oh, how I forgot!” he shuddered.

He gave up.

“Very well, Kagura,” he said, trying to sound gracious. “What do you want to know?”

“To start with—

She broke off when a sudden scream, a wail of anguish, soared across the night sky. It seemed far away, and yet its power was titanic. They both jumped to their feet. Around them, some of the people stirred from their sleep, and many tilted their ears in dismay.

“What the hell was that?” Kagura’s anxious whisper steamed in the air.

“I have no idea,” Shippou answered.

He realized his knees were shaking, like they did when he was a kid and cowered behind Kagome. Was that really so long ago?

They were silent for a few moments, but no other sounds were heard but the whining whisper of the winter wind.

“So anyway,” Kagura went on, “like I was saying.”

***

Onigumo was born of a human mother. That one fact was immutable. Sinking his tormented soul into a pool of demonic corruption could not change it. It was not altered by all the power mustered by a towering universe, demanding his sacrifice, expecting his triumph. The forces rallied by Naraku and mustered by the power behind him were combined into a vast ocean that cast that one, pitiful human soul about like a tiny, paper boat.

Yet human it remained.

I want to leave.

Naraku had long ceased to heed this plaintive sentence, but it never left his head. It had become a quiet singsong between his ears, unnoticed and yet never quite forgotten.

A timid knock interrupted his thoughts. Hari, his most useful human puppet, entered. Naraku reflected that excessive flattery and pretended love was far easier, and far more effective, than the mental prison with which he had trammeled Kohaku.

Not nearly as fun, though.

Hari bowed. “You sent for me, my most high lord.”

“Come sit with me, my favorite son,” Naraku said softly. “I am lonesome.”

Hari’s face became an instant expression of sympathy. He lowered himself to sit next to his master, every angle in his body conveying respect and diffidence.

“Hari-kun,” Naraku began, his voice breathy and weak, “you must promise me something.”

“Anything, my lord.”

“I fear I will soon move on from this life. It would set my mind at rest to know you will carry on our cause.”

“I beg you to not speak so, my lord,” Hari replied.

“I have had a vision. I have seen my death.”

“Then we must take steps to prevent this unbearable tragedy!”

Naraku shook his head, his expression martyred. “Gladly will I go to my fate. It is my duty.”

“My lord,” Hari choked back a sob, and fell silent.

“You will promise?”

“I swear it. I will never rest.”

“Do you have a petition for me to take to the other side?”

The air was cold. Outside, a few winter birds remained, but they had fallen silent. An expectant hush filled the room. Naraku listened to the sound of the sun and to Onigumo’s endless pleading. He looked over at Hari, who sat with his hands clenched on top of his knees, his brown hair caught with a leather twine at the nape of his neck and falling over one shoulder. His expression was troubled.

“I wish to be saved my lord.”

The sentence seemed a cacophony of noise amidst the silence, hidden before and swallowed after.

“Saved, my child?”

“From the fate of…” he hesitated, pressing his lips again. “Of never loving anyone else.”

A gentle hand reached out to brush away a tear, but inside Naraku was crowing with exultation. He wondered if he could ruin this soul forever, destroy all his chances and twist his treasured decency. Could he do that here and now, without compromising the tenuous hold that he had over this tender flesh that restrained his true nature? Would the fabric tear and all the truth coming spilling out in a black blanket of poison?

With palpable regret, he retrieved his hand. He could not risk it. His plans were too important to jeopardize for a few moments of pleasure, however satisfying. For a moment his desire curdled into a rage and he wondered, not for the first or last time, where the hell was Kagura.

The look on Hari’s face let him believe he had accomplished his intent just the same.

“I will do what I may, my son.”

***

They were put down on their feet upon the brown, stiff grass that was crushed and crumbled beneath their shoes. Their hands were tied and all four of them were bound together on a long chain.

Higurashi looked around, hoping against hope to see available aid. Nothing was near but trees and empty skies. The sun was sinking behind the forest. Her knees trembled and her heart and head pounded, but she had quit the state of panic. The girls seemed in a state of shock. They stood as close together as they could, their faces pale and their dark eyes distant. There was a violent tug on her chain.

“You will walk.”

To her horror, she realized the monster had spoken to them. She saw the girls flinch away, as if to deny this assertion of their nightmare. In her heart, she wept for them, for their ignorance and innocence. This was her fault, and hers alone.

Oh, Souta!
“Please,” she cried. “What do you want with us?”

She was answered with a blow to the left cheek that sent her sprawling and brought down a couple of the girls with her. Yuka had at least the presence of mind to help her back to her feet.

“Are you okay, Higurashi-san?”

“Shhh!” Higurashi whispered. “Don’t say my name!”
“Be silent!” the monster ordered them. “Unless you desire more knocks. Talking is not required of you.”

He dragged them along without mercy. At times they were required to almost run to keep up with him. Often, one would fall and she would be dragged until the others got her upright again. The monster rarely even paused.

Out of the corner of her eye, Higurashi saw buildings, and she looked eagerly for signs of people. It seemed to be a village, but to her sick disappointment and dread she saw only bodies lying here and there in pools of blood that looked black in the twilight. Some of the buildings bore signs of heavy damage.

Did he do this? Had he been looking for Kagome? How did he find the well?

She knew there was an old woman here that Kagome relied on for food, shelter, and comfort when she was in the Feudal Era, though at that moment Higurashi could not find a flame of thought to light up her name.

I hope she is not dead. Heaven protect us!

They went on without stopping. Trees closed around them and hid the cold stars. The air was biting, but the exertion and terror kept her from feeling it. At last she began to feel the tremble of exhaustion in her feet and legs. The girls stumbled more often and they were all on the verge of collapse.

Thinking that death might be a welcome improvement on her lot and willing to risk it, Higurashi yanked on the chain.

“Please,” she cried. “We must rest!”

The monster turned and glared at her. She shrank away.

“You want us alive, don’t you?” she burst out.

He hesitated, and Higurashi seized her advantage and took a gamble.

“Humans must rest when it is dark, or we will perish before dawn!” she explained earnestly. “You must know that!”

The demon peered down at them, then at the moonless sky.
 
“It may be as you say,” he said after a few moments of silence. “You are pathetic, queer little things.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Just so!”

With rough hands, he shoved them together against a gnarled cypress, and he wrapped the chain around it.

“You will need food and water as well, I suppose. I cannot return you to my master if you are dead.”

A shadow, sharp as a blade, fell on Higurashi’s heart. She had thought that this towering beast was Naraku himself, but she now realized how foolish that had been. Of course he was not! This was just a servant, an errand boy! Doubtless, the fiend that was Naraku, a being of almost infinite power, was still waiting for them.

“You will remain here,” he told them, as if they had a choice. “I would not bring attention to yourselves if I were you. There are many things in these woods that are hungry.”

With those ominous words he disappeared, a dark red blur into the trees.

Dark silence closed in around them. They huddled close together. Higurashi listened to the wind murmur in the pines and to the girls whimper and shiver. They did not dare speak for some time.

At last, Yuka broke the silence.

“Higurashi-san?” her tiny voice quavered. “Where are we?”

Higurashi stared into the dark forest, older and yet younger than any she had known. This was a world without skyscrapers, telephones, highways, and electric lights.

“Where the streets have no name,” she answered.

***

Kouga stomped into the encampment before dawn, waking his fellow clansmen with savage kicks and curses.

“To your feet, you lazy dogs!” he barked.

Despite much grumbling and glowering, the wolf demons began to shamble about, putting out the last embers of their smoking fires and picking up blankets, bags, and weapons.

Until this point, they had traveled in wide circles in the mountains, with the ostensible goal of hunting Naraku. Lately, however, they had spent most of their time trying to procure food, this being the harshest, leanest winter in living memory. When they weren’t foraging they were fighting off the encroachment of the strange, spider-like demons that were beginning to turn up everywhere.

“Naraku has a hand in it, I’d bet anything,” he growled to himself.

Well, no more of this random, aimless wandering. It was time to take care of things once and for all. He gave brisk orders to four of his fastest, most reliable kinsmen to go in search of news, one in each direction. They were to look for the origins of the Tsuchigumo, for rumor of Naraku and his whereabouts, to ascertain the condition of other demon wolf tribes in the general area and, above all, to discover the whereabouts of Kagome.

He did not need to describe her to them, since any wolf demon associated with Kouga knew her by sight and considered her a sister.

The time for hesitation, delay, and doubt was over. He swore that before another winter came, Naraku would be dead. If he himself should have to die, then such was his fate.

“But I will not die,” he murmured to himself. “I’ll come back and raise the wolf tribes to a new glory, and consecrate our triumph to Ayame.”

The lone scouts ate a quick meal on their feet of tough, dried meat, and were gone before the dew was off the ground. The rest of the encampment left not long after. The only thing everyone knew for certain was that the Tsuchigumo were most dense to the northwest of where they were now. Kouga made it clear that they were headed in that direction with nothing but war on their minds.

“Nii-san,” one of them said to him. “That trek may take us close to Sesshoumaru’s lands.”

Kouga was unconcerned. “Maybe he’ll join us.”

The man gave him an odd look. “That…seems unlikely, sir.”

Kouga shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Since no one covered distance as well as even the slowest wolf, it was not two days before the first scout returned to the clan. He had been sent ahead, in the direction they were moving now.

“What did you learn?” Kouga asked.

“A great deal, and all of it interesting,” he returned a rugged smile.

He was only a couple of years younger than Kouga and they were closely related—second or third cousins or some such, it was difficult to keep track of that sort of thing in such a large and close-knit group. And they were all considered brothers anyway.

“Well, go on!” Kouga stamped his foot impatiently.

“The first is that we will not be the only army in the area.”

“Army?”
“That’s right,” the young demon answered. “There is a huge and growing army of humans that are systematically butchering every Tsuchigumo they can lay their hands on.”

“Mere humans?” Kouga scoffed. “Doesn’t seem like they’d have much luck.”

“On the contrary, the Tsuchigumo in that area are on the run. These humans, they are led by two demons.”

“Demons?” Kouga’s eyes widened. “What demons? Who are they?”

“That I could not find out. There were still too many Tsuchigumo in the area for me to get through.”

Kouga grunted.

“I can’t imagine it’s Sesshoumaru,” he mused out loud.

“No, I know it isn’t,” the scout answered, “because everyone I talked to, who knew anything about him, swore that he was still at or near home. They say that he and that vagrant cousin of his are keeping themselves busy exterminating the monsters that come near his land.”

“And yet, with all this, those nasty things don’t seem to diminish,” Kouga fumed.

“This is true,” his kinsman admitted.

He stretched and yawned.

“I’m going to grab a nap before we’re on the move again.”

Kouga sat deep in thought and did not answer.

“Oh, one more thing,” the scout added. “I did hear one rumor that there were three human women living at the Hyouden now, not just that pet girl of his, but two mikos as well.”

Kouga started out of his reverie.

“That’s ridiculous!” he shouted. “I hope the rest of your information is more reliable than that.”

The young man shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

Left to his thoughts, Kouga dismissed the last bit of information outright. For such a thing to happen was without a doubt wholly unthinkable. He would as soon believe that Sesshoumaru had shut himself in his house and given himself over to keeping a menagerie of tame birds.

Kyotou always walked in the lead. He used a staff of twisted oak he had found at some point and he pressed on into the biting wind with his face set in a tight, grim expression. Sango walked close behind him, feeling the absence of the Hiraikotsu like a knife’s edge, more bright and keen than ever. Momiji and Suzi followed, Momiji taking care to keep Suzi close. Miroku always followed last. He figured that if he had to turn around and use the wind tunnel, it was better to be in the rearguard.

They encountered little during the day, however, threatening or not. At night, when they could manage a fire, it seemed many things crept close, things they could not make out but vague shapes and shadows. But nothing dared disturb them.

On the third day, they believed their fortunes had changed when they saw a well trodden path coming over a hill ahead of them. It led down into a modest village.

“Maybe we can add to our food supply,” Kyotou said. “And it’d be nice to not sleep in the dirt tonight.”

It did not take them long, however, to see that the village was abandoned. The sad remains of the husk of houses stood with crumbling roofs and decaying walls. There were no sounds of dogs barking, cattle stirring, children laughing, or women washing. The only noise came from the clacking and banging of doors and windows that had fallen half off their track and casings and swung about in the wind.

Momiji sighed. “Well, maybe we can find something left behind.”

The only treasures that turned up were moldy, moth-eaten blankets, which they did keep, and beans that had turned into a solid green cake in their barrels, which they did not keep.

Sleeping in a house, even an abandoned one with holes in the roof, was better than nothing, and so that was how they passed that night. The fire cast dancing shadows that Sango fancied might belong to the former occupants, rather than to herself and her companions.

A shake of her shoulder woke Sango early the next morning, an hour or two before dawn. It took her a few moments of peering into the wan moonlight to see that it was Miroku leaning over her.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Come with me,” he said.

She rose and followed him out of the house, pulling her kimonos tighter around her.
“Miroku, what is this about? It’s cold.”

“I started another fire.”

He pulled her into another of the abandoned huts where a fire smoldered in the center pit.

“Come,” he urged, pulling her toward it.

She knelt beside him. “What is it?” she repeated.

“We have not been alone in a while,” he said, a hand taking her arm and then pressing against her back.

“Oh,” she said, somewhat startled.

She was inclined, at first, to back away from him, but then she remembered.

He is my husband now.

“Very well,” she assented. “But we must not be too long.”

Later that day, they encountered a second settlement, and this one was not abandoned. By unspoken agreement, Kyotou did all the talking. The residents regarded them with open suspicion. In short order, they were met with a leader, who demanded from them their names, places of origins, and business in the region.

“We came from the south,” Kyotou said vaguely, “and we are searching for dear friends, from whom we became separated during the Rains.”

“I am certain no one here would be who you seek. I have known them all for many years and they have been in this village since long before the Rains.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kyotou bowed slightly. “But we did hope to find comfort in your estimable village. The nights are cold and we have been journeying in the wilderness for many days.”

This was met by a murmur from the crowd and many more unwelcoming looks.

“We have a small amount of money,” Kyotou hurried on. “We could purchase food and drink.”

“Money?” the leader scoffed. “What good would your money do us? Can you eat it? There is no one left to take money for food.”

“Surely, good man, there are still some remnants of civilization left to us?”

The headman’s face darkened, and Sango perceived that Kyotou was treading dangerous ground.

“What is left us,” the man replied with scorn, “is to hope that peace and plenty can be restored, which it can be once we have rid ourselves of the infection of priests and monks.”

“Uh-oh,” Sango heard Miroku mutter under his breath.

She was grateful that Momiji and Suzi had traded their clergy frocks for ordinary peasant clothes.

“Surely you can see we are not of them,” Kyotou lied.

The leader was about to respond, when he was interrupted by a shout from somewhere behind him.

“Dissident!” a voice rang out. “A Dissident is here!”

***

“There are many different kinds of love?” Kagura repeated the idea, frowning.

“Yes,” Shippou said. “There is a love between parent and child, between siblings, between friends and comrades and, of course…between man and woman.”

“That’s the one I want to talk about,” Kagura jumped on his rawest nerve.

“Of course it is,” he muttered.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Like I said before, people don’t talk about these things.”
“But you said you would,” she reminded him.“I didn’t say I’d like it though, did I?”

She did not answer.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“We are not parent and child, we are not brother and sister…so are we then—

“No! No, no, no!” Shippou shouted, waving his arms like a lunatic.

“We are not comrades?”

“Oh. Um, yes. Yes we are,” he looked away sheepishly.

“What is your problem anyway?”

He did not answer.

She looked at him thoughtfully. “Can you be more than one at a time? You must be able to. I’m sure there are siblings that are comrades.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Then, we could also be—

“No, no, no!”

Kagura sighed. “This is getting annoying.”

“We are not lovers!” he shouted, then clamped his mouth shut and blushed to the roots of his hair.

Kagura laughed at the spectacle.

“I don’t even know what that means, Shippou.”

“You don’t?”

“No, not really. I understand there was something like that between Inuyasha and Kikyou at some point in the past, but I don’t know what it entails.”

“Surely you have some idea.”

“I know it is important. It’s between two people. And things can go bad. That’s all.”

“I think that’s more than enough,” Shippou declared. “I’m tired Kagura, and we have to battle tomorrow.”

“We have to battle every day.”

He did not have a response to that, so he lay down on a patch of ground that seemed less rugged, with his back to the fire. After a time, when he thought she was asleep, Kagura spoke again.

“What distinguishes the man and woman situation from the friends?” she asked. “The others involve blood ties, but what makes the man and woman special?”

“Kagura, please go to sleep.”

The next day Shippou destroyed Tsuchigumo as one might casually pull up weeds in a garden. Throughout the process, he was distracted by the concern that Kagura would grill him again that night about things with which he himself was not yet prepared to cope. It was almost midday before he realized with surprised how effortless it was for him to fight.

When did I become this way? He could not remember.

That night, after they had collected a ton of firewood, kindled a few dozen fires, and swallowed their meager meal of dried meat and soggy beans, Kagura did not disappoint. She seemed to have a genius for identifying the very elements of relationships and interactions which made him the most uncomfortable. She seized upon the idea that the “man and woman” relationship was singular and unique, and would not relent in uncovering its secrets.

“What is the separate element?”

“Is it the same man and woman forever?”

“Is it always a man and a woman?”

At one point he burst out that men and women in love did things together that they didn’t do with anyone else. That turned out to be a mistake.

“Ever?”

“What things?”

At this point, Shippou was so distressed he began to give serious thoughts to running away. He doubted she could catch him if he transformed into the hawk. Better yet, he could become a small sparrow and it would be even easier to get away.

And easier to be eaten yourself by a hawk.

This plan needed more thought.

“Shippou?” her voice was plaintive. “What things?”

Shippou sighed and hung his head. Clearly, he was going to have to be the adult here. He had to be strong and take responsibility.

His face flaming and his eyes locked with determination on his own feet, he launched into a bumbling, stammering, rather inept description of interpersonal physical relations, all of which was based only on what he had heard throughout his life. He was near tears by the end of it, and she only sat there and gazed at him, with those unwavering, scarlet eyes and a grave expression on her little mouth. When he was done, or at least when he trailed off and wished the earth would open and swallow him alive, she merely shrugged.

“Oh, is that what all the fuss is about?” she gave what he thought was an odd little smile.

“What do you mean?”

“I just thought it would be something…grander than that. I mean, everyone seems to want it, so I thought it would be something more…happy.”

Now he was genuinely confused.

“Ah, Kagura, I’m pretty sure it is.”

She shook her head.

“Naraku used to do that to me all the time. I never enjoyed it.”

Something happened to Shippou’s hearing. A sudden roaring overtook him almost before he had understood what was said. His blood ran cold. A colossal blow came down on his neck, and he shuddered.

Over the rushing sound that was still ringing in his ears, he heard Kagura’s muffled voice.

“Shippou! What’s the matter?”

He realized she was standing over him, leaning over him, as he knelt in the grass, vomiting out the food he had just eaten. His body shook violently.

“What did you say?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

She started to repeat the whole thing but he clapped his head in his hands.

“No! Stop! Stop!”

Kagura, dismayed, stepped away from him.

“I can’t believe it,” he sobbed brokenly. “What a monster! One day I will spit on his corpse, I swear it!”

“We are talking about Naraku now?”

He looked up at her.

“Of course!”

He lurched to his feet and grabbed both her hands. The sudden physical connection shocked her and she stared at him.

“Kagura, that’s what Naraku does. He takes things that are good and twists them into something hideous. But that doesn’t change that the original was, and still is, good! Do you understand?”

She was too overcome by his behavior to respond. She stared at him with wide eyes, and attempted to stutter something.

“Tell me you understand that, Kagura!” he pleaded. “Or everything I’ve done with you and for you is worthless!”

She pulled her hands away, and for a moment he was afraid that he had pushed her too far, had tried too hard to make her into something she was not.

But she lifted one hand and brushed hot tears away from his cheek, and then her hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him into a fierce embrace.

“I understand,” she whispered. “I understand now, that you love me. Is that right? Did I get it right?”

A small laugh bubbled up through his swollen throat.

“What will make you believe me?”

***

Kanna, pulled by her master’s invisible but irresistible chain, returned. She reported what she had learned of his enemies, which had been little. Kouga she knew to be with his clans in the mountains. She discovered Inuyasha in the care of a miko that was not Kagome or Kikyou. Sesshoumaru had not left his home territory in months.

“Kagome and Kikyou are with him,” she reported.

“What? Sesshoumaru has them?” Naraku asked.

“Yes, and Kohaku as well.”

Naraku gnashed his teeth together.

“So much the better,” he lashed out. “Let them all collect in one place, and make my task that much easier.

Kanna said nothing. As usual, her face was blank.

“What of the rest?” he demanded. “What of Kagura, Miroku, and Sango?”

“I could not find them, my master.”

If Kagura had reported such a failure to him, Naraku would have devised a torture for her that was exquisite and would take days to complete. There was nothing more useless, however, than punishing Kanna. He regarded her child-like frame and colorless features for a moment, and was silent.

“Do you know what you are to do?” he asked at last, giving her a sidelong glance.

“Yes, my master,” she replied.

She lifted her mirror and held it in front of her face. The surface swirled and danced like the eddies of a swift stream. When she took it away, the shape before him had changed, had grown taller, and darker.

“Nicely done”, he congratulated her.

These dramatic moments were best carried out at sunrise or sunset. Impatient to move on to the next step in his plan, Naraku chose sunset. Taking unimpeachable care with his weak and frail appearance, he stood at the gate of his little house as the sky reddened behind the hills. The rays of the setting sun lay on his shoulders like a mantle of blood.

“So you are the one,” an iron voice rang out. “You are the one who has been hunting me and my friends!”

Naraku lifted his head and assumed an expression of an elder dealing with a wayward child.

“I seek only to secure peace and safety for all,” he declared in a soft, reasoning tone.

“Liar!”

Some of his followers had heard the commotion and came rushing to the gate.

“Master!” they cried. “We will deal with this insolent intruder!”

“No!” Naraku answered firmly. “I must face her myself.”

“But… Henshin-sama…”

“It is my destiny,” he declared. “Do not dishonor me by disobeying.”

They shrank away.

The intruder was a woman, young, with dark brown hair that she wore in a tail at the crown of her head. Her eyes flashed like black lightening and her mouth was twisted in a sneer. She wore dark, close-fitting clothes tied with coral colored sashes. Her weapon was a boomerang of impossible proportions, which she held over her head as though it were a mere twig.

“This is the end,” the evil woman declared.

She lifted her weapon high above her head and flung it at him. It sped through the air with a low whistle. To the dismay and horror of his followers, Henshin-sama did not attempt to dodge or thwart the attack. Several of the men started forward, but they were too late.

“NO!” a wail of unbearable loss escaped Hari’s lips.

***

Higurashi estimated that it was a little past midnight. She had regained her reason in the face of terror by reminding herself that her daughter must have faced dozens of such threats during the past five years. This reminded her, of course, that she had not seen her daughter alive in several months, but she pushed this thought aside because it would not aid in her preservation.

“On Kagome’s fifteenth birthday, she fell into the old well, called the Bone-Eater’s Well, on our shrine.”

Higurashi made a sudden announcement of this sentence, speaking out in steam in the cold air, after over an hour of their terrified silence.

Eri and Ayumi craned their necks to look at her, though they could make out little in the moonless night. Yuka did not stir, but she struggled with the strange notion that Kagome had died five years ago.

When no one spoke, Higurashi continued.

“Because of its tie to the Tree of Ages, the well serves as a transport to another time, to this time: the Feudal Era of Japan.”

She listened to their breathing quicken, but still no one said anything.

“It was Kagome’s destiny to lead a second life here. She was born, you see—

“She never was sick, was she?” Eri interrupted her.

“No…well, sometimes she was, but hardly ever. Most of those school absences were…lies.”

The only face Higurashi could see clearly belonged to Yuka. When she looked at her, she saw that the young woman’s lips were pressed tight together, and her nostrils were white and flaring.

Higurashi went on to explain what she knew of Kagome’s journeys, concerning everything from the Shikon Jewel to the existence of Naraku. She described what she remembered of Kagome’s companions, including Inuyasha, who they had unknowingly met before.

“This Naraku,” Eri whispered. “Is that the monster?”

“No,” Higurashi answered. “This monster is a servant of Naraku.”

Higurashi knew she had made a mistake almost instantly. She sensed their growing panic.

“Please, remain calm,” she said to them. “I know it seems impossible, but you must try, if we are to get through this.”

“How could you let her do that?” Yuka, who until then had been silent, burst out. “She was fifteen!”

“I told you,” Higurashi replied, “it was her destiny.”

“An easy thing to say,” Yuka retorted. “Look at us! Is this our destiny?”

“It may be!”

Silence fell. After a few minutes, Eri spoke up again.

“Did you ever come here with her?”

“The well would only let Kagome and Inuyasha pass though,” Higurashi answered.

“But—

“I know. Apparently, the rules have changed.”

“I just want to go home,” Ayumi whimpered.

“I know,” Higurashi whispered. “Don’t give up!”

Higurashi, hoping to distract them, continued to talk about Kagome. She repeated stories she had heard from her daughter about people she had met and places she had been. She even listed, in meticulous detail, lunch boxes that she had packed for Kagome to take back to her friends. At last, exhaustion and cold began to take its toll, and she realized at some point that the girls had fallen asleep. She hoped, and prayed, that they would not freeze to death in the night. She spent the rest of that interminable night going over the oracles in her head, straining her mind’s eye to recall something she had read that spoke of her present circumstances.

***

Ginta shook Hakkaku’s shoulder to wake him. They had spent two days crossing the mountains with Kouga and the rest of their kin and, after coming into the valley of the Tenryu River, everyone understood that they would encounter Tsuchigumo before the sun was high. They had camped for a mere two hours to eat and grab a bite to eat before crossing the wide river. They were fortunate that it was returning to its normal level.

They crossed the freezing river at dawn, and Hakkaku turned his head to glance back at the large pack of wolf demons behind him. He was thus caught by surprise by a collision that sent him sprawling. The force had knocked the air out of him and, before he knew what it was, he was grappling with a strange assailant. They twisted and turned in the mud of the river bank as Hakkaku struggled to regain his footing and the enemy attempted to wring his neck. On his back, he looked up and saw a dark, wiry thing, covered with short, coarse black hairs and staring down at him with two clusters of eyes. The nose on this flat, ugly face was just two slits and its mouth was a pincher that slobbered and clutched for him. Hakkaku’s nose was filled with the stench of rotting fruit and ash.

“Ginta!” he called.

There was no answer, and he continued to struggle to keep the nasty, bony hands from seizing his throat. Why didn’t anyone do anything?

Finally, a jolt of one knee sent the devil rolling and Hakkaku was able to get to his knife. He saw that the monster had eight arms.

This is a Tsuchigumo.

It rushed him again, showing no caution, and Hakkaku had no difficulty slicing it up the middle. It fell in a black and green gurgling mess at his feet.

Looking around, through a confusion of dust and shouts, he understood why no one had come to his aid. The vermin had descended from the hills and onto the clans like a cloud of locusts on tender leaves. Around him swirled a tempest of blood, curses, and anguish.

There are so many. So many! We will perish!

Desperate or determined, bleak or victorious, Kouga’s clans had engaged the enemy.

***

Miroku began to reconsider his opinion about Inuyasha.

Since he had first opened his eyes in that flooded hut that turned out to belong to the priestess Momiji, Miroku had never wavered in one idea:

It was all Inuyasha’s fault.

It was not until he was strapped to a stake, considering how likely it would be that he would suffocate before the flames reached him, that he began to rethink his opinion about his long lost friend.

Inuyasha had many poor qualities, but if he were here, this would not be happening.

But it was happening. Someone had identified him as a Dissident from the Warrant. Angry hands rushed him all at once. Sango was pulled along with him for a time, but he thought she must have escaped, because he was the only one standing on the scaffold.

That was the worst part. He knew that Sango and the others would not forsake him. Sango in particular would not rest until she had retrieved him.

“Sango,” he called out. “There are too many of them! Get away!”

His shout sounded loud in his own ears, but no one else heard it.

Some people near him were singing a dirge, and others were helping to pile more wood and straw around him. He wondered why, in a winter such as this, they would be willing to waste so much of it.

I am a man on the longest road
I bid farewell to old Totomi
To those fair and peaceful shores
For all my years bound to ramble
No peace have I ever found
My dear home I’ll see no more

I am a man on the longest road
My dear home I’ll see no more

“I wish they’d shut up already,” he murmured to himself.

He caught the scent of something burning and saw someone holding a spray of straw that was aflame, and they were bringing it closer to him.

“Fire!” someone shouted, and soon many voices took up the cry.

Miroku sighed. “That’s the idea, isn’t it?”

After almost a minute, he lifted his head and surveyed his surroundings again. The crowd had dispersed. A lash of panic had swept it away and back towards the village. He shifted his shoulders so that he could turn his head. Smoke was coming from some place off to the left, and people were running and dashing about in mindless terror.

He realized he was unattended, and he tried to twist his hands to free them.

“Hold now,” a familiar voice spoke behind him. “I gotcha.”

“Kyotou-san?”

“Yeah, it’s me. The girls are in the woods. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“Who set the fires? To the village, I mean.”

“The girls.”

Less than two minutes found him standing in the woods, some ways off, rubbing the red marks on his wrists. Sango embraced him fiercely, with tears in her eyes that she dashed away. The next moment, she was smiling as though the terror was forgotten.

Sango and Momiji had bags slung over their shoulders.

“You pilfered goods as well?” he asked, pinching his wife on the cheek.

“Don’t say 'pilfered' Miroku-san,” Momiji told him. “Those people deserved it.”

“I dare say they did,” Miroku said. “I won’t argue with you.”

“We’ll have to be more careful about places and people we come across, from here on in,” Kyotou warned them.

“Would you like some pickled plum, Miroku-san?” Momiji indicated one of the bags.


[End of Chapter Twenty-Two]

[Next chapter: Winter]

Author’s note: Sorry this took so ridiculously long, but at least the chapter is long! Also, the little bit of song included is from “Don’t Forget Me” and was written by Harry Nilsson.