InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sachi ❯ Hesitation (byoyomi) ( Chapter 21 )

Chapter 21: Hesitation (byoyomi)

"InuYasha!" The snow hissed around her feet as Abi dropped down directly in front of him, her arms skewed, cutting off his dash towards the South Dragon's still-intact face. "Wait!"

"Like hell!"

He'd already wasted precious, eternal moments in the horrified pause following the collapse, taking in, searching, assessing the sight in front of him while Abi took to the air behind him, shouting instructions into the initial panic. He was relieved to realize that, contrary to his first impression, most of the structure's ice remained intact. A majority of the front and the thick outer walls had held against the heat; it was some unknown percentage of the back, the area closest to the fireball, which had crumbled in on itself, warping and deflating the South Dragon like some some obscene baked good. The observation deck at the top appeared to have taken a large part of the damage—it was gone, disappeared amongst the newly formed pile-up, and all the people on top with it. From inside, cries, of pain and for help, were starting to bounce and echo strangely off all the newly created surfaces as people got their bearings and realized they were trapped or hurt. And even with the damn hat muffling his hearing, he could still tell none of the voices yet were from Shippou, or Miroku, or…

Kagome.

He snapped his teeth together, biting down the acid wash of panic coating his insides; his heart thudded, hard and fast, even though he hadn't had time to expend more than a breath's worth of effort; urgency punched through his blood and bled onto his tongue, sour and hot, pushing him to move, to do. "My people are in there!"

Abi glanced back at the entrance, just a few steps away. Two humans were stumbling their way out, blinking and shaking but otherwise unharmed, into the light, and two phoenix youkai quickly herded them away from the damaged structure; Abi gave a nod of satisfaction. "The explosion came from one of the generators in the back. The fire is still burning, and we don't know how much fuel is left."

"No shit." The South Dragon, so brilliantly colored just a few moments ago, was mostly dark now, a cold blue lump of broken ice with only a few points of light peeking through this crack or that opening. Smoke billowed from somewhere behind the dragon's head, and the acrid scent of gas and chemically-tinged gunpowder bit into his nostrils, running annoying interference to the scents he'd rather find. "There are fireworks in the mix, too."

Her head snapped around, her red eyes widening, then narrowing with abrupt outrage. "What? But the fire-workers are set up out in a clearing in the woods. How did those incompetents let their fireworks get anywhere near the generators!"

"Hell if I know!" Hell if he cared. He tried to step around her, but she stepped with him, keeping in his path. His fingers curled into fists. "Move."

She held up a hand. "Just wait! We don't know how unstable it is in there. What if you go in and start shoving things around and it causes another collapse? The yuki-onna who built the ice structures is staying nearby for the duration of the festival. Once she gets here, she'll be able to stabilize it so we can—"

"Get out of my way, Abi." No way in hell was he standing around and waiting for someone else to do something. Certainly not a damn yuki-onna, who were notoriously difficult to find, even when you knew exactly where the hell they were. His friends were inside all that brokenness, and he needed to help them get out right now. They could be hurt, probably were scared. Trapped, or buried, or—

No, not worse. He refused to even think about worse. He couldn't take it, wouldn't let it happen. They were fine, all of them. And it would be absolutely true the moment he found them.

He exhaled, then stepped right into Abi's space, his mouth set in grim lines. He gestured up at the intact face of the South Dragon. "I'm going in there. You can waste time out here trying to stop me, or you can let me go help whoever I can help and spend your time doing something actually useful out here."

Abi's red eyes widened, and her features..stretched. The deep red of her irises bled out to color in the whites of her eyes, leaving her irises a striking teal; black made streaking slashes down her cheeks. Her teeth sharpened, grew, bared at him.

He curled a lip, cracking knuckles and bracing, just in case. "Tch! Quit the bullshit. Sesshoumaru's a hell of a lot better at it than you, and neither of us have the fucking time."

She glared at him for another long moment, long enough he flicked a wary eye to the top, wondering if it would be faster to jump up and try to find his way down through the rubble, even if he didn't know the layout. When she gave a huffy "tsk," he glanced back just as she let the partial transformation slip away, and stepped to the side.

She gestured behind her, at the wide mouth. "Fine. But if you cause any more damage, I'm not risking my people to pull you out."

He was already disappearing into the dark opening, passing more people shockily making their way out. "Not asking you to."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into the dragon's mouth was like walking from a cooler into a freezer: the temperature plummeted immediately, and when he skimmed his fingers along the main ice wall that branched out into a series of initial tunnel mouths, they came back finely dusted with a thin coat of sharp, frozen micro-particles.

Scowling, he dusted his hand off.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

As if things weren't bad enough without supernatural power threatening to freeze whoever had survived in whichever place they'd been stuck. And damn if the humans wouldn't have the worst of it. Tight bands wrapped around his chest, drawing all his muscles tense with a new sense of urgency. The scents in the maze were all frustratingly frozen, muffled and dull because of it, and nearly hopelessly tangled together. It was hard to pinpoint sounds, too, when they all seemed to bounce off so many differently angled surfaces. Those still calling for help from different areas of the wrecked dragon didn't help. With no real trail to follow, he picked a random tunnel.

The structural damage started right away, with cracks making themselves uncomfortably visible in the tunnel walls, radiating from the back of the head. In some sections, they were deep enough to cause serious rubble, ice debris raining down from the ceiling, littering the floors with chunks of all sizes. He came across multiple cave-ins (one of which had buried a young couple in a waist-deep mixture of ice and snow, forcing him to stop and dig them out), and more barriers. The further back he went, the worse it got, and he had to start climbing around and through blockages: in another frustrating section where a tunnel had forked, he had to stop and help a father pull his young son around a huge chunk of ceiling that had fallen between them. A few other humans InuYasha'd had to point in the general direction of out, but none of them belonged to him.

Also? It was fucking dark. Only a few lights remained to illuminate the place—probably from one of the generators that hadn't blown itself and everything around it to shit—and those were sprinkled few and far between. It was enough to throw out a dim glow to flirt with the shadows and keep the place from being pitch black, but the shadows were definitely winning, in some places more than others.

He found those damn Uzumas first, after the first time he had to double back to take a different tunnel. They were stuck in some kind of mini-store nook, huddled up with a phoenix youkai who'd also gathered a small, female group of teenage admirers (who seemed more than happy to cuddle against his hellbird warmth). Some choice vulgarity left his mouth when they pointed to a mostly-black tunnel as the direction they'd last seen Shippou and Kagome and, later, Miroku, heading.

His chest was starting to ache.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Listen, everyone needs to calm down. Whatever happened out there, I'm sure someone is working to get to us as we speak."

The voice, a muffled, distant snippet of calm, soothing tenor, halted InuYasha mid-stride in the barely lit tunnel he'd just turned down. Something eased in his chest, a tiny easing of the tightly drawn muscles. His breath expelled on a hot rush, the steam barely visible in the dark. "Miroku."

Finally.

He glanced around frantically, trying to pinpoint where the voice had come from. He was in a darker-than-light area, and had been moving faster than was wise in such a dim interior. He cocked his head, his ears wriggling beneath his cap. Sniffed, and got nothing. They were nearby, but he couldn't tell in which direction.

In the background, he heard a low murmur of a reply, followed almost immediately in Miroku's wryest tone, "I very much doubt that terrorists would care about a town as small and strategically unimportant as Sonkyou." He paused. "Besides, apocalypse or no, I assure you, our friend is coming to get us. For now, it's best we all wait where we're relatively safe."

InuYasha scowled and smacked the wall nearest him. "Oi! Miroku!"

He waited one loud heartbeat.

Two.

Then, a scramble-scrape against ice. "InuYasha?!"

There. He moved a little further down the tunnel, skirting around a small pileup of icefall tumbled across the floor. "You guys all right?"

Another two heartbeats of silence. "Ah…everyone with us is fine. We're trapped in on both sides, though. What happened out there? We heard a loud boom, and all the ice started coming down on top of us."

He paused in between tunnels. Miroku was louder now, but…. Frustrated, he ripped off his cap and crushed it in his fist, his ears twitching involuntarily now that they were free. He moved around again to gauge distance. "One of the generators around back blew the hell out of itself. Caused a lot of damage."

"Some of the people in here want to try digging out the ice on one side, but I think that's a bad idea."

He was halfway down a new tunnel by now, grateful for the strength of the yellowish light embedded high in the ice up ahead, making it easier to go quickly. "Yeah, just stay put. I'm trying to find you, but it's tough with everything all messed up." He caught a clear, familiar scent: the peculiar burn of kitsune-bi. Finally. Another strand of tension loosened in his chest as he ducked under a sideways slab that had broken loose from the wall and took off, happy to rely on something other than his eyes. "Shippou's with you?"

"He's here. Good thing, too, because without him we'd be in the dark." Miroku's voice was getting clearer, firming up, echoing less.

"InuYasha!" Shippou's voice joined Miroku's, angry and filled with the faint hint of tears. "We were waiting for you, you big dummy!"

He almost smiled as he darted through a bigger room, this one littered with broken shards of polished, reflective ice. It should have been confusing, but he didn't stop. He didn't have to, when he had a scent to follow.

He found them less than five minutes from the cross-section, at the intersection of a mostly dark alcove and one of the tunnels branching off from it. Part of the roof had collapsed inward over the tunnel mouth, forming a messy, formidable barrier of bigger slabs, with more of that snow-and-ice slush packed in around all the bigger, jagged pieces. There were cracks, though, and through the cracks tiny flickers of blue light trickled and danced. The packing around the opening was dense and sprawling enough that he had to climb some of it to reach the biggest opening, near one upper corner of the tunnel.

He braced a boot against a fairly stable slant of large, smooth ice and his hands curled around smaller, more jagged block for support. The space was barely as wide as his head, and thanks to it being near the top of the tunnel, he could only see a small space of the ice-cave beyond. The bit within his narrow field of vision was short and battered, with disturbing, deep cracks warping the walls, and another heavy ice-mix blocking the way a short distance in. The kistune-bi flamed and crackled in the middle of the tunnel, burning on practically nothing and probably mostly illusion, casting the half-dozen humans he didn't recognize huddled around it in strange highlights of dark and light.

He scowled, and strained to see more, searching faces. The air burned cold in his lungs after his sprint, making him breath harder than he should have. "Miroku! Shippou!"

"InuYasha!" They called his name together, in unison, and a few snow-scraping footsteps brought them both into his line of vision. Miroku scrambled as far up his side of the ice-collapse as he could, his gloves gripping at the less crumbly bits for balance.

Shippou clung to Miroku's shoulder, his eyes raw-edged. His lip wobbled as Miroku ascended, but his voice was still fierce. "InuYasha! You took too long!"

InuYasha ignored him. The iron bite of Miroku's blood hit his nose right before he noticed the two thin lines dripping from an open gash on his forehead, just as Miroku's face drew near to level with the small gap in the ice. InuYasha's fingers, still curled over a heavy protrusion of ice rock, flexed, digging at the rough-hewn freeze of the edge. "You said no one was hurt, damn it!"

"What, this?" Miroku's gloved fingers brushed at the blood, and it smeared; he blinked down, vague surprise lifting his brows. "It's nothing. I got hit by some ricocheting ice shards. It's not serious." His violet eyes met InuYasha's. "The cold is a much bigger problem."

He grimaced. "Yeah. Abi's got people trying to find the yuki-onna that built all this shit to come put it back together."

"Interesting. I suppose that explains the temperatures." Miroku's eyes widened. "Wait, they need to find her? That's…unfortunate."

"Yeah. We're not waiting. I'm gonna get you out of here." The unease was gnawing at his gut again, tightening his lungs as he strained to see around Miroku, to catch every cranny of the tunnel beyond, but he wasn't seeing the face he wanted to see. Stomach churning, he snapped his eyes back to his friend. "Hey. Where's Kagome?"

Miroku hesitated at his question, brows drawing together, his mouth halfway open—but Shippou cut him off before he could make a sound. The little guy's eyes rimmed with tears, and he gave a desperate, soggy wail. "We don't know where she is!"

InuYasha's claws scraped at the ice. "What?"

"I'm sorry, InuYasha! I'm sorry! I left her behind to come meet Miroku, and before she could join us, everything started falling apart!"

The churn in his stomach solidified into a cold, hard knot, and he squeezed his eyes shut against a sickening rush of adrenaline. Pressure surged in his head, throbbing at the backs of his eyes, and he slammed his fist into the ice. "Damn it!"

She wasn't here. She was somewhere else, still in danger. Completely alone. He had a sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to whirl, to go tearing deeper through the ice, destroying everything in his way.

"We were hoping you'd have found her already." Miroku sighed and his hand made a soft "pluff, pluff" against the knit cap pulled low over the points of Shippou's ears. "There, there. I'm sure she's all right."

"It's my fault!" A sniff-hiccup broke into his sob. "I shouldn't have left her alone without protection!"

"It's not your fault, Shippou. You couldn't know what was going to happen. Calm down."

"But she could be hurt! What if she got hit in the head? What if she's being crushed underneath some giant—"

"Shut up!"

Shippou's wail froze mid-panic, and InuYasha could almost feel his unblinking regard. He filled his lungs with air, willing back against the blood-pounding alarm threatening to punch his heart from his chest.

"Shut up," he repeated, this time bit out between clenched teeth. "She's fine. I'll find her, so shut up."

"You will?" Another sniff, cautious this time. "You have to, InuYasha. Promise."

InuYasha snapped his eyes open, and two huge green eyes, equal parts devastation and hope, pinned him through the small gap. Around the tightness in his throat, he scoffed. "I said I would, didn't I? Stop crying already. You're gonna have to help all these people find their way out, and you can't do that if you're sniveling like a baby." He waited to see Shippou nod, suck on his bottom lip and visibly stiffen his spine, before he slid back down to the floor and eyed the collection of ice and snow holding them in.

Another deep breath, another exhale, battling back against the instinct to go now. To find Kagome now. But he didn't know where she was, and it was Miroku and Shippou in front of him now. He couldn't just leave them in this mess—yuki-onna on the way, or no.

"All this damn ice is hard as a rock, and it's wedged in tight." He glanced up, measuring the hole in the ceiling and what he could see of the debris filling it from above, weighing the possibilities. "Hey! Get everyone clear. I'm gonna bust some of this ice."

It took three—Three, damn that yuki-onna and her supercharged ice!—sankon tessou to carve enough of a hole in the tightly packed rubble to allow the people trapped behind it to climb their way out. They had a moment of concern when the shifting ice caused all the debris still clogging the portion of the ceiling that had originally caved in to come tumbling down; but besides two large, flat chunks falling crossways against each other, most of it just went rolling across the little alcove, leaving both the tunnel and the overhead gap clear. It yawned above them as they emerged, a ragged, sinister black maw through which they could still hear people murmuring and ice moving.

The strangers came first, women then men, some of them thanking him profusely as they stopped to get their bearings in the dark chamber. Miroku and Shippou came last, together; Shippou held his kitsune-bi in the palm of his hand, his stare one of fierce concentration. It was small, but would be enough to illuminate their path out.

Despite the tension tapping his foot against the ice, InuYasha smirked. "Look at that, Shippou. You've actually gotten better with that damn fire of yours."

Shippou, tucked into Miroku's elbow, sniffed, though his attention didn't waver from his little blue fireball. "Ha! Just remember you said that the next time I get in some practice at home."

Miroku's chuckle was strained and a little dry. "Just because he praised you doesn't mean you're allowed to set things on fire, Shippou."

"I know that!"

Through the shadows, Miroku's gaze flicked up to meet InuYasha's. InuYasha shrugged, then gestured impatiently in the direction of "out". "I won't take you, but you'll find your way out if you just keep walking. And be careful. Some of this place is really wrecked." His eyes narrowed. "Keep that fire going, Shippou. You'll need it."

Shippou's chest swelled and his lips pursed. "Leave it to me! I'll get everyone out safely!"

With a snort, InuYasha turned to peer deeper into the maze, his attention already dividing, already turning to the problem of his last missing person.

Miroku sighed. "Don't worry about us. Find Kagome." He hesitated, lowered his voice, gesturing with his eyes down at the cap still clutched in one of InuYasha's fists. "Have you, maybe, got an idea of where she is?"

His ears flicked against the frozen air and he grimaced, smacked the hat against his leg. "No, damn it." It didn't necessarily mean anything bad, since a lot of the cries for help had fallen silent in the last while as people either gave up, or started trying to work their way out of their own situations. But it wasn't good that he hadn't heard her at all. The South Dragon was a big structure—but it wasn't that big. His eyes skated back down to the kitsune staring hard at the tiny bit of blue fire dancing in his palm. "Hey, Shippou. Which direction was Kagome when you left her?"

Without taking his eyes off his fire, the kitsune pointed a finger.

Up.

InuYasha blinked at the small appendage, feeling all the ease in his chest seep away as his muscles snapped painfully tight. "What's…she wasn't down here with you?"

"She was on the third level, right under the observation deck. We got through the maze real fast, and she wanted to wait for you to go through all those bridges and paths on the second level, so we went up to the third. It was just more tunnels and a bunch of windows, so…" Shippou shrugged, but the move was tinged with guilt as he glared his little flame into life.

Right under the observation deck. The observation deck that was now missing.

InuYasha's eyes widened as his heart jackrabbited in a burst of raw, sheer panic. "Did she have time to get down before the explosion?!"

Startled green eyes finally turned back to his. "I don't know. She said she was gonna follow in a few minutes. I barely made it back to Miroku before the explosion blew out the lights." Dread crept into his eyes, made his voice anxious. "Why?"

"Fuck!" He threw the cap to the ground, whirling, barely breathing. "She was right in the middle of that damn collapse!"

"In the middle?" Miroku's voice was sharp, but InuYasha was already leaping up two of the bigger hunks of ice that had come tumbling down from above (Bridges, Shippou had said. It even looked like two pieces of the same damn bridge.), struggling to keep his feet from slipping as he scrambled for the hole in the ceiling. "It wasn't just a few tunnels?"

"It was half the damn castle!" He called over his shoulder as he pulled himself up into a mess of a second level. He found himself just on the edge of the true destruction, the floor beneath his feet mostly intact, and a number of the bridges and walkways cracked, but still identifiable as such. There was a ceiling above his head, too, so portions of the level above were still okay. Just a few feet in front of him, though….

The observation deck really was just…gone. So was most of the third floor.

It was nothing but hunks and chunks and crumbled pieces, all tumbled atop each other. The pile-up was several huge, flowing hills of ice debris, corralled within the sturdy outer walls that still stretched nearly all the way around. A lot of the second floor still remained, clinging around the edges of the walls and spreading out into the crumbled mess thanks to the sturdy supports from the first level, but the upper floors had all crashed together into a sloping, rolling junkyard of ice.

A narrow strip of the back wall had fallen in on top of everything, so there was a ragged strip running back-to-top letting the moon and stars illuminate the place; but it was the multiple slopes of mangled walkways, partially shattered tunnels, and huge pieces so broken he couldn't tell what they'd been riveting his attention. Everything leaned against everything else; some pieces were so big they stood straight up in the air, while others jutted over dark edges and threatened to go tumbling into empty space at any moment, much of it filled in with smaller bits and sheered-off shards. And somewhere inside that mess….

Breathing hard for reasons that had nothing to do with exertion, he cupped his hands around his mouth. "KAGOME!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The darkness was a sucking, liquid mass, pinning down her limbs, creeping smooth and freezing over every inch of her skin, sliding into her mouth and nose, blocking her eyes. She heard voices, echoing whispers slipping in and out of the darkness. Ghosts of images, vague things, never really materializing, only hinting they might have once been, pressed in from behind her eyes.

Scenes of happiness, of children laughing in yukatas. "Souta, come play with the fireworks!"

Scenes of sadness, of flowers and crying. "But Jii-chan, where has Papa gone?"

Scenes of fear, of true, morbid helplessness. "Mama, I don't know what to do…"

A flash of silver, dangling kanji she barely knew, and childish, girlish delight. "Always remember, no matter what. Kagome is Kagome."

A sense of knowing, of dying, of falling, falling, falling…. Of flashing faces she couldn't quite see… Of the sharp, startling "crack" and pain searing into her head….

Run, run, run. Don't stop, don't look back. You have to keep running. You promised….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kagome didn't come awake; she came aware. First gradually: the information, the picture, of the dim, silver-blue obstruction in front of her eyes fading into her brain. Then, suddenly: the knowledge it was a wall, the distant recognition of the smooth-over ridges making up the ice-tunnels. And even more surprising, the realization her eyes were open.

Her eyelids fluttered. Her chest expanded with a sudden inhale, and her breath shushed out into a thick, visible vapor in the air in front of her face. From the corner of her vision, she caught the movement as her fingers twitched, a brief sign of life from their otherwise-limp curl next to her head.

More things came into focus: she was sprawled on her back, head turned, limbs splayed; her chest was sore, a deep, odd discomfort she felt with every breath; she was cold—very, very cold. The cold spread up into her from below, unrelenting and insistent. It came from the air above, too, a sheer chill razoring down her esophagus and crystallizing into her stomach with each inhale, but it was her back, her butt, her legs, all aching with cold. Even through her clothes, the ice seared into her.

She blinked, several times. Ice.

Why was she lying on ice?

A shudder wracked her whole body, and it jerked her back to herself, away from the darkness hazing over her mind, ready to suck her back down into…what? She had the vague impression of voices, words, but it was all jumbled, nonsensical. When she tried to sort it, to focus in on something enough to decipher it, the chaos infected her mind, confused her, scared her. Her brows tensed, and she squinted against the deluge and shook her head, trying to clear it.

Moving her head triggered other processes, though, and a cough hacked from her throat. It was rigid and dry to the point of raw, with a hint of the particular bite she associated with the fireplaces in the front rooms. Swallowing, barely managing a groan, she forced her body to move. Her body didn't want to move; it was content to stay put and turn to ice, so she had to force it. Another spine-clutching shiver helped, and she pushed her way into a sitting position, her clothes scraping heavily along the ice. Heated puffs streamed from her mouth, between her teeth as she glanced around, took in her surroundings.

Ice. More ice, all around her, ice. Dim, silvery light filtered from somewhere above, so she could see in pale tones and deep shadows, but it didn't matter because the only thing in all directions was ice. She put her hand down, thinking to push onto her feet, jerked it back—and realized two very disturbing things. The first? The reason she was so cold wasn't because she'd been lying on ice. No, the reason she was so shatteringly cold was the water on top of the ice she'd been lying in. Her clothes had soaked up a good portion of it, and now her entire back and some of her sides were damp; another shiver shook her, toes to crown, and her breath stuttered beneath the force of it.

The second? The floor beneath her was curved.

It took her a moment to realize why: The tunnel was upside down. And only then did she remember.

Oh, god. Had she seen something? She remembered a moment of shock, and pain, then… she'd been knocked back, hard enough to go into that terrorizing darkness. It stirred in the back of her mind at the mere thought of it, a clamoring shadow waiting to consume her. She shied away from it, tried to block it off, shut it away, and when it receded, she let it go gratefully, willing it as far away from her as she could.

But…what had happened to her?

An explosion.

She remembered the heat, being thrown by the force. Had she been hurt? She put a hand to the back of her head, but didn't feel any lumps, any sore spots. The hair at the back of her head was wet, though at least she still had her hat and scarf—even if they were both heavy and plastered against her head and neck. And she was still sitting in a puddle, her backside nearly numb. Her hand trembled…in fact, her whole body was shaking with fine tremors. Drawing in a shuddering breath, Kagome scooted backwards until her back hit the wall's upward slant, and worked her cold, protesting muscles into a standing position. She felt the chill way down deep inside, as if the very bones supporting her had turned to ice and were taking her with them. Teeth chattering, she tested her body, putting pressure on one foot, then the other, extending each arm out and rotating it until she was satisfied nothing hurt except her chest, and even that bruised discomfort was fading.

So she wasn't injured. She was just literally freezing. Her clothes were already starting to stiffen.

Tucking her arms in tight around herself, she glanced around, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Nothing looked right: she'd been in the South Dragon, so she still had to be, but the tunnel was upside down, with maybe a slight cant to one side. Nearby, she spotted what looked like the remnants of one of those large, thick windows—only this one was a thin, warp-edged version of itself. She sucked in another bit of freezing air, then glanced down at the remains of the puddle along what was now the tunnel's floor. Had the window protected her from the fire of the explosion?

But how had the ice passage ended up upside down? If this really was still the South Dragon, then…

Did the explosion break up the ice?

If so, she might be in big trouble. Was the damage wide-spread, or was it just in the area where she'd been? If she could find her way out to where other people were….

She peered up. The structure above seemed to be made of two jagged-edged sheets of ice resting against each other in a makeshift roof. Cautiously, boots slipping on the lopsided floor, she made her way along the tunnel, peering up at the strange line where the two slabs met. One half of the roof was the tunnel's previous floor, still flat and attached by one rounded upper corner; the other seemed to be a thick, separate piece that had smashed down over one side of the tunnel, making a low, slanted side blocking off any exit she might have had from the broken former floor.

There were occasional gaps between the two sheets, and through them she caught glimpses of dark, hulking shapes in various sizes piled on top of each other (piled on top of her), and beyond those, stars; the light flowing down into her tiny passage was silvery, and probably moonlight, since all the electric lights were gone. After a few short yards, the tunnel ended in a rough conglomeration of ice fragments and tight-packed snow. So she went the other way…and came to an even shorter, similar end, though this wall was more sheer and smooth.

A disbelieving laugh stuttered past her lips—and for the first time since she'd woken in such a state of disorientation, worry slipped in.

How am I supposed to get out?

Kagome paced for a little while, trying to beat back her shivers. She tucked the only vaguely damp front of her scarf around her nose and ears, because even that flimsy filter was better than breathing in frozen air. She tried to climb the walls, in the hopes she would be able to somehow find a hidden nook or a space, but they were too slick for her frozen fingers to get any kind of grasp on, and all she ended up doing was splashing her boots back in the puddle again; she tried jumping to grasp at the gaps in the low "roof"—with the same result. Somewhere, far in the distance, she heard commotion, people yelling, maybe even sirens, but the sounds didn't seem to be penetrating vary far into wherever she was. They had to be looking for survivors, right? She tried calling out for help, but she was so cold she couldn't get much volume. And besides, even if they knew where she was, how would they get past the ice?

She was trapped. A human rat in a cage of ice.

She stopped and stood, fear curdling in her stomach, making breathing even harder as she rubbed at her arms, trying to generate heat. It was so cold. She was surrounded by ice on all sides, her clothes wet-but-rapidly-icing, and her body wracked by the occasional shudder.

InuYasha.

The thought of him was a brief, welcome blast of heat, and the relief was so strong she sank into a precarious crouch on the slant-curved floor, tears stinging at her eyes. InuYasha was looking for her. She knew it. He would find her—and when he did, he would find a way to get her out. Shudders wracked her body, hard enough her muscles hurt from the strain of them. Lips firming, she wrapped her arms around her knees, holding herself together, tucked her fingers between the relative warmth of her folded legs, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

InuYasha would find her. All she had to do was keep herself awake and mobile enough to help him when he did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"KAGOME!"

The dark haze had crept back over her, as if it had been waiting only for her guard to fall, oil slicking into the crevices of her mind, whispering with disembodied voices, flashing her with rapid-fire scenes she couldn't see, but cringed away from anyway. Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, she knew it had been a mistake to stop moving, but she was stuck now, lost, drifting and unable to find her way back to her body and control of it. A part of her was curious and wanted to see, wanted to slow it all down and know it, but a larger part was terrified, whimpering and struggling to get away. It was a quiet, nebulous internal battle, raging in a mind only half-conscious of anything at all, while her body remained still, curled up and frigid in its miserable huddle against the ice.

"KAGOME!"

She gasped, and her head snapped up off her knees. Her mind sucked free of the awful, disturbing froth, but for a few confused moments, it hovered around her. Unable to focus, she squinted into the dim, barely breathing, resisting its pull.

"Kagome! Where are you, damn it!"

Her heart stopped…then thundered back into rhythm. "InuYasha." His name was a whisper, slipped past her cold-numb lips.

He was looking for her.

She'd known he would. She known he would—and yet still, because he was out there now…. Warmth kindled, soft and electric, in the lowest parts of her stomach; the darkness sifted away, back into the subconscious pit it had escaped from. She scrambled to her feet, stumbling over limbs sluggish from either position or cold. Both, maybe.

"In..asha!" Her first attempt lacked volume and clear pronunciation; the glacial cold had sapped a shocking amount of her strength.

"Kagome!" His echoing voice sounded fainter over a distant scrape and scrabble, as if he were moving away from her.

Panic sifted over her, kicking along her nerves. She scrambled again, a few feet along the tunnel, boots skidding and slipping over the slick ice, to the largest of the jagged gaps above her head. She swallowed to dampen her throat and licked her lips to warm them, inhaled, then yanked the scarf down and cupped her hands around her mouth. "INUYASHA!" This time her voice hollowed back at her, reverberating around her little enclosure. "INUYASHA! I'M HERE!"

A few heartbeats stretched like hours, with silence her only reply. Kagome stopped breathing and tilted her head, listening, willing him to have heard her. "Hurry," she thought, weaving her icy fingers together. "Find me."

"Kagome!" His voice rasped, harsh with urgency, echoing and more than a little muffled through the ice. "Are you all right?!"

Her breath burst from her lungs, and she slumped nearly in half from the relief, her arms wrapping around her middle again as she took a moment to breath. In and out, the warmest air she'd felt since coming to in her tiny frozen prison. Even the shivers invading her body seemed to have receded.

"Kagome!"

She straightened, a helpless smile blooming across her face. "Yes! I'm here! I'm f-fine!" She peered up, eyes straining to see something other than shadows and stars through the gap above. "I'm trapped, though."

"Yeah. I figured." His response was so dry, she almost laughed, despite her situation. "Can you tell me where you are? I don't have your scent, and it's hard to follow your voice."

A tremble vibrated through her, and her smile dimmed. "Where am I?" She glanced around. "I don't know. Everything is…different. I was on the third level, but…" But it was obvious the explosion had messed with the South Dragon's layout. Kagome sucked on her lip, glanced around at the dark, silvery-blue shadows, then ventured. "Um…I'm in a t-tunnel?" She winced even as she finished saying it, both because of how unhelpful it was, and because of the hard, body-gripping quaver that broke into her pronunciation.

"A tunnel." His voice had gone from dry to flat, and even from a distance, she noted a fine tone of frustration underlining his husk, and—she could have imagined it, but she thought she detected a quietly coarse "Shit."

"It's an…upside down tunnel?" He didn't answer, and worry pushed her up to wobble on her toes, trying once again to find some distinguishing feature above her. Another moment passed, and she sucked on her lip again, if only for the warmth. "InuYasha?"

"I'm here. Keep talking, Kagome! Tell me more. It doesn't matter what." He was still far enough away he had to call out, but his voice carried well, pushed out by a sheer, bull-headed determination. "No matter what, I'll find you."

Kagome blinked up through the ice-fissure, breathless and throat-thick. Slowly, she came back down onto her heels, her arms loosening their hug. The soft, electric heat in her stomach spread out, setting her heart to pounding. She had to draw another breath and force herself to swallow before she could find her voice.

"Hey! Kagome?"

"Yes! Ah…" She glanced around her, sighed. "It's…a small tunnel. I can only pace a few feet in either direction before I'm blocked off by ice. There are two big sheets of ice above me, just high enough I can brush at them if I jump. One of them is part of the original floor, the other one is separate, but propped against it. It's dark in here, so I can't see well, but I think…" She swallowed again. "I think there's a lot more ice on top of them. I can just see it through the gaps. I can see stars, though. Past all the ice. There has to be a way through." She paused, cocked her head, straining her ears. "It's…cold."

"Yeah, I know. Ice molded by yuki-onna doesn't melt easy; it's one of the reasons they're so damn dangerous. When the generator blew, all the ice cracked up and collided, and some of it broke down into dust and went everywhere. Everyone still inside is breathing that shit. It'll be easier to warm you up once we get you out of it." He sounded grim. And closer; her stomach flipped, and her heart sped up again, almost as if it could feel him approaching. Reflexively, her hands clenched, then unclenched.

A generator? Another bone-deep shiver wracked her body as she thought of the water she'd woken in; her forehead wrinkled, and she glanced down, noting with dismay that everything had hardened back into ice. "Is it b-bad?"

"It's not good." He paused long enough for worry to filter through her sheen of cold and anticipation. She bit her lip, but before she could even open her mouth, he spoke up again. "Don't bother worrying about everyone else. I found 'em already. Even those damn Uzumas. They're fine. I just need…" The crack and clatter of moving ice punctuated his words. "You."

Closer.

Kagome lifted her head and turned in a circle, ignoring the tiny shudders that kept trying to take her over, craning her neck in an effort to see. "I think you're..."

Ice rattled and tumbled, and a trickle of small, pebbled ice bits rolled over the edge above her. She ducked back to avoid them.

"Kagome!"

His voice, punching and rough and right above her. Her gaze jerked back up, to the fissure, and she saw him—a figure of shrouded shadows and silvery hair, crouched and peering through the gap, mere feet away. Her voice slipped from her lips on a sigh, the relief so intense she could barely whisper. "InuYasha."

He didn't answer, and even though she could barely distinguish his eyes from the rest of his features, she knew he was studying her; his eyes were tracing her over, limbs and body, inch by inch, looking for any kind of damage. She stood quietly under it, inhaling and exhaling in a rhythm as ragged as her heartbeat.

"You're not hurt?" He finally said.

Kagome shook her head. "Mm-mm. I'm fine."

He let out a breath, and the outline of his shoulders lost some of their tension. "Good." Relief thickened his voice. He paused. "Shippou was crying. 'Cause he left you alone."

Another pause.

Gentleness curved her lips. "I was worried, too," she said softly, up at him, for him. "But I knew you'd find me."

His ears, little more than pale triangles, twitched. He stared down at her for a few thudding heartbeats longer, long enough for the intensity to burn—until her body gave a visible shudder, the heavy vapor of her breaths rippling into the cold air. Instinctively, she folded her arms tight, trying to control it. Even through the shadows, she saw his scowl.

He angled his head, peering around her tunnel as much as he could, then pulled back and glanced around him. "Che! How the hell did you end up beneath so much shit when you started out at the top? Getting you out is gonna be a pain in the ass." He stood, obviously not expecting an answer, and for a few moments, all she could see were his boots and some of his legs. He moved around a bit, and the ice beneath his feet—the bit still attached to her tunnel—gave off an ominous creak that had her holding her breath.

Then he was back in his crouch over the opening, his hands braced against the edge. "It's a damn mess out here." He reached across and rapped a knuckle against the thick shelf that had fallen across the tunnel. "However the hell you got down here, you're lucky this thing fell on top of you. If it hadn't, you would have been…buried."

The way his volume dropped on the word "buried" sent a chill through all the warmth brewing in her belly. Another bout of shivering seized her, and she barely kept her teeth from chattering. "I c-can't climb out. I've tri-ied."

"Yeah, I can see. This gap isn't big enough for me to get in, either." He frowned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm c-cold."

"Shit." He glanced around, and in his pale-highlighted profile, she saw tension around his eye and the side of his mouth. "Stay there. I can't break through the ice here, or a shit-ton of this damn pile-up might come down on you." He stood again, and the thud of his boots moved several steps along the natural seam between the two heavy bulwarks. He stopped closer to the end with the smooth wall, near a smaller gap. His boot tapped at the ice; then he began to chip at the ice-edge with his claws with regular, careful swipes.

Kagome watched him for a few moments, trying to breath out warmth more than she inhaled the cold-burn of the air trying to strip the surface from her lungs. "It's safe there?"

"The ice is more stable on this side." He grunted, and a few curly-cues of ice shaving drifted over the side. "I think I can widen it here. If I can get through this damn ice."

It took a few more minutes for the sounds of his claws against the ice to get thicker, as if he'd finally got some depth beneath the surface. He swore and muttered something about yuki-onna. A couple of small, broken pieces chipped over the edge to the curved floor.

Kagome edged a bit closer, trying to see him through the gaps. "If the ice is so hard, why don't you just use some of your youki?"

"Sankon tessou?" He swore again. The scraping sounds turned into a deep, chunking crunch. "Yeah, it would be faster, but it's too damn powerful. I don't want to risk causing too much damage to the ledge. If too much of it goes, we'll be under another landslide."

"Landslide?" She blinked, a crackle of anxiety cracking at her nerves, tightening in her veins. "You mean all that ice could come down?"

"…Not if I'm careful."

"If it's dangerous, maybe you shouldn't—"

"I'm being careful. That's why it's taking. So. Damn. Long."

"But you don't have to—"

"It's fine."

Kagome unfolded her arms to clench her fists, her stomach rolling, her heart thudding. "But I don't want you to get hurt for no reason. If help is coming, then—"

"Would you just shut up already?!" The crunch-chunk of his claws stopped, and his boot thudded hard against the ice. "We don't know how long it'll take them to find that damn yuki-onna," thunk, "and you obviously need to get the hell out of here." Thunk. "I'm for damn sure not leaving you here alone," thunk, "and it's stupid to stay and do nothing!" Thunk. "So be quiet and let me concentrate—" On the last thunk, the ice cracked and crumbled inward, a mini-cascade of ragged ice pieces crashing to bounce against the icy bottom. "—on getting in there."

InuYasha was right behind it, an effortless slide through the widened gap. He landed in a crouch, his boots making another solid thud amongst the rubble, then sprang upright, brushing ice particles from his fingers. "See? I told you—"

He was already turning to her as he stood, but Kagome didn't wait for him to get his bearings. She darted forward as soon as she saw him land safely, throwing her arms around his waist the moment she reached him, so happy to see him whole and unharmed she didn't even care if he pushed her away. InuYasha made a sound of surprise, but caught her, his arms going around her back as he braced against her weight to keep them from slipping on the ice.

"Hell," he said. "Kagome…."

Tears burned her eyes. She shook her head and buried her face against his jacket, taking in the heat and scent of him; he didn't wear cologne, or aftershave, or any human scents of any kind, but his body held something essentially him, the gruffness and strength and caring, all rolled up into a masculine musk she found incredibly appealing. It permeated his clothes, carried on the heat seeping from his body. After so much time feeling as if she were an extension of the ice itself, his warmth was like a drug—scorching, agonizing, addicting. Her frozen hands found the bottom of his jacket and slipped underneath to dig into the layers closer to the skin at his back. The shivers that had forgotten themselves while he was breaking his way into her icy tomb returned with a vengeance, and she knew he couldn't miss her body-wracking shudders.

"Kagome…" he said again, and she heard a frown forming. His hands smoothed upward, wrapping around the stiff material heavy on her shoulders, and a micro-crackling emanated from beneath his palms. "Shit. Shit! You're covered in ice!" He gently eased her back, away from his warmth.

She nearly whimpered at the loss; she let her hands slide forward, but couldn't bring herself to tug them out from beneath his jacket. The heat of his body was so intense against her digits it almost hurt as it started to seep into them, thawing the icy core in her with a sensation close to burning.

His scowl was fierce. "Why the fuck are your clothes frozen?" His eyes roamed her face (she could make out their dark and turbulent amber, now that the hole he'd opened up was letting in more light). His hands, not as hot as his body, but still far warmer than her skin, lifted to her face; his palms cradled her jaw, his long fingers spread along the curve of her neck, and his thumbs brushed over the apples of her cheeks. The slide of his skin over hers was abrasive and searing, the sensation somewhere between painful and divine. "Your lips are fucking blue! How long has it been this bad?!"

Shaking more now with the input of InuYasha's warmth than she had been when her body had been dealing with the cold alone, Kagome licked her lips again and shook her head. "W-when I w-woke up, I w-was lying in a p-p-puddle of w-water. I m-must have b-been there a wh-while, because I-I was s-s-soaked." As she spoke, she edged in closer to him, tucked her hands a little higher under his jacket.

If he noticed, he didn't mind enough to acknowledge.

"When you woke up?" His eyes sharpened, went to her head. "You were knocked out?" And before she could respond, he'd tugged her close again, right up against him. His hands slid back, delving into the heavy fall of her hair, feeling out her scalp. When his fingers encountered the flexible, icy crunch of the strands at the back of her head, he spit out a couple of swear words she'd never heard before.

Since she'd done the same for herself, Kagome stood still as she could manage beneath the violent shivers, and huddled into him, waiting for him to assure himself she hadn't been lying about her lack of injuries. His chest expanded and retracted beneath her hands, a harsh, angry rhythm to his breath.

"I th-think it was j-just the explosion th-that knocked m-me o-out."

His fingers paused their searching. "You were that close?"

"Th-think so." Shades of the darkness from before, the chaotic confusion that had hurt her head when she tried to look at it stirred, and she winced against it, shaking her head. Her nose brushed against the front of his jacket; her voice dropped to a mumble, nearly lost in the fabric. "I d-don't really r-remember." Her fingers curled into his undershirt, clutched into his heat, already more mobile than they'd been for however long it had been since she'd found herself trapped here.

"Son-of-a-bitch." His fingers left her scalp, and he swore again as he ripped the stiffness of her hat from her head. He nudged her back, just a little, and her scarf followed, ice crackling and flaking from its fibers as it came unwound from her neck.

"H-hey!" Kagome made a grab for them, her hands slipping away from the comfortable nest she'd made for them to keep him from tossing them to the ground. Catching the ice-laden garments in her hands sent a prickly, painful shock through them; quickly, she stuffed them into the stiff pockets of her jacket for safekeeping and shook her hands to encourage circulation. "I l-like those!"

"What the fuck were you thinking, keeping all this shit on after it got wet?! Are you trying to get hypothermia again?" His ears flicked repeatedly in agitation as his fingers went to the zipper of her jacket. It made a faint crackling "zzz" as he ripped it down and yanked it apart. "Take this fucking thing off."

"B-but I'm cold!"

"Yeah." With quick, efficient jerks, the material cracking in protest, he stripped the jacket from her shoulders and down her arms. "No shit. Your whole damn body's wrapped in ice!" To her dismay, her jacket hit the icy floor with a sharper smack than the cloth should have made against anything—but his hands were back to the shallow scoop of her top faster than she could react. His scowl grew black for a moment as his claws got in the way. Then his fingers got the first of the small pearlescent buttons undone, revealing the white of the shirt beneath it; the second, third, and fourth went in quick succession. "We need to get rid of…" His fingers reached the center of her chest, right where the knitting stretched over her breasts, and…paused. "…it."

He stood there, his fingers halfway through another button, staring down at his hands.

His hands, hovering right between her breasts.

Her eyes going wide, Kagome sucked in a breath. In, then out. It was enough to push his knuckles against the inner curves of her breasts, a teasing, electrifying hint of pressure over cloth. She was cold all the way down to her bones, her body literally shaking, but it didn't stop the caress of intimate awareness from ghosting over her; it skated across her skin like a wave, all the way down through her heels before rolling back through her body. It skimmed along the sensitive nerves of her spine, fluttered against her throat and down her lungs, then pooled low in her belly, thick and liquid and hot.

He didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't acknowledge it. Kagome would have thought, with a twinge of frustrated dismay, that he hadn't noticed anything at all. But then his ear twitched. One quick, betraying flicker, and she realized his stillness was anything but indifference.

She didn't know what had caused it, but she knew his focus wasn't solely on the ice anymore. In fact, she was certain, had they been somewhere else—anywhere else just then—stripping all her clothes would be the only thing on his mind. It was an odd realization to have, trapped within so serious and dangerous a thing as an avalanche of ice. The slick, deeply pleasurable ache between her legs, the intensity clenching from her chest all the way down to her toes, the tingling in the nipples already taut with the cold—his hand so close—all felt so wickedly out of place in this situation she didn't know what to do with them.

She curled a cold hand over one of his still ones. "InuYasha," she breathed, barely.

He lifted his eyes, touched them to hers. She wasn't sure what she saw in them. Confusion, maybe, or hesitance. Questioning.

Not rejection. Not resistance. Nothing close to what it had been for days now, weeks even. No hard emotions, only soft, uncertain ones.

"I'm cold," she whispered.

His brows drew together above his gaze, crinkling with thought. Finally, he moved, a reluctant tug of his hands from her buttons, out of her grasp; they dropped, his fingertips coming to rest against the icy stiffness of her hips. "I'm trying to…warm you up." But the crinkling was already turning into a frown. "You even smell cold. I can't tell—" He gave his head a sharp, staccato shake. His fingers plucked at the hem of her top. "No. It doesn't matter. You have to take this off. I can—"

The ice rumbled, then shuddered all around them; power rippled through the air, both ahead and behind the shudder. Buffeted by the feel of old, chilled power, Kagome sucked in a breath, and her hands shot out to curl into the front of his jacket. InuYasha swore, his fingers digging into her hips, scowling around them as the ice trembled, creaked…then stopped.

Kagome stared up at him, heart thundering with alarm. "W-what was that?"

"The ice-bitch. It's got to be." His eyes were fixed on the wall next to them, narrowed.

She followed his gaze and gasped. Before her eyes, the ice was…melting. Except, it didn't look as if it was melting into water—just some kind of viscous blue gel that kept the same basic shape as the ice. But melting it was, all of it, softening all around them. It was moving, too, flowing, creeping, seaming together above their heads and cutting off the stars and most of the light. The darkness folded over them, a frozen blanket with only the faintest of bluish light, leaving Kagome with only the outline of his body in front of her and the vague, foggy paleness her breath made when it shuddered out from her lungs.

InuYasha breathed out, the forceful huff of steam laced with frustration. "Fuck, we don't have time for this shit." The growl in his words rolled into the slickening darkness, vibrating through her fingers and down her arms. Before she could say anything else, he tugged on her. Her boots sank into the newly malleable surface, then slid enough that she stumbled. He caught her as if he'd expected it, his taking a firm grip under her biceps and pulling her into him. The ice in her clothes was persistent, keeping his heat from penetrating to the parts of her covered in it, but it didn't stop her from feeling the warm thump of his heart against her cheek.

In the darkness, the ice-goop still moved, slipping and writhing around them, almost like a living thing. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

"Sh-shouldn't we leave?" Only a portion of the tremor in her voice was from the cold.

"Keh!" His voice scratched and rumbled against her ear, but she detected unease in him. "Too late now. Just…don't let get go of me. There's no way Abi didn't tell her yuki-onna to keep everyone alive, so if—"

The rumbling started up again, and suddenly the everything around them was moving.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He hadn't expected her to be covered in ice.

Surrounded by ice? Hell yes.

Cold? Sure. Even he was a little chilled with the air itself literally frosted.

Hurt, bleeding, in agony? He'd been frantic she would be.

Literally half-frozen because she didn't have the sense to get out of clothes that were freezing her in? Hell no. Where had she even gotten the water? A yuki-onna's ice didn't melt except under extreme circumstances—a big explosion, for instance, or the right kid of power. The very idea that enough of it had melted to soak through the water resistant material of her jacket and deeper into her clothes meant she'd been far closer to that damn explosion than was healthier for any being—human or youkai. Seeing her like that reminded him of the night he'd found her, nearly frozen, almost dead. Only this time she wasn't just some random idiot human.

No, she was one of his idiot humans, and she was shrieking with fear as the goopified walls of her damned ice-cage bucked and rose up around them in an arctic wave. It took their feet out from under them, but he managed to twist so she landed on top of him, and they hit the ice with a cushioned plop. The cold swished and swirled, and then it had enveloped them. It didn't suffocate, but wrapped around them, creeping over their clothes and skin until they were encased in a cocoon of thick, bone-numbing goo—and then they were moving with it, tumbling and rolling and sliding without gravity or intent until they couldn't tell up from down, over from under from sideways. It was nauseating.

In the distance, others screamed too, but it was Kagome's distressed whimpers that held his attention, the shudders wracking her body worrying the hell out of him as the whirling cold pressed into them from every angle. Since he couldn't do much until the yuni-onna finished her crafting, InuYasha closed his eyes and focused on keeping his grip on his fragile idiot human. He tightened his arms around her chilled body and tangled their legs together, gritted his teeth and cursed himself for not at least getting her wrapped in his jacket before the whole place bled into frozen liquid chaos.

That damn yuki-onna.

He wasn't sure how long it took for the dizzying sense of motion to stop and the sickening rumble-slick sound of movement to die away, but his eyes snapped open the moment it did. An almost unnatural quiet had settled around them. All the screaming in the background had ceased; the faint scrapings and tumblings of ice were gone, too. The sudden peace was almost obscene.

It took him another moment to reorient to up and down. He found himself flat on his back, staring up at the low, smooth ceiling of an ice-dome. Dim, silvery light filtered in through a large rectangle of clear ice set halfway up the curve of the ceiling. Thick white walls amplified the light, and it was just bright enough for him to glance around and note the room they were in was small, about the size of one of Sachi's smaller bedrooms, and as smoothly round as the ceiling. Somewhere beyond his feet, a wide arch cut into the wall, with what looked like a dark corridor of ice beyond it. Other than that, the room was featureless and constant.

They were safe. They were in a fucking igloo, but they were unharmed.

More importantly—most importantly—he hadn't lost Kagome in the upheaval.

He swallowed, drawing in a deep breath and heaving it out. The relief he felt to have her still with him was almost debilitating, reminiscent of what he'd felt when he'd finally heard her calling out to him through the ice. Then, he'd been nearly frantic, heart choking him as he threw chunks of ice from his path, getting deeper into the hopelessly jumbled pile with not even a hint of her to show for it. Now, she was still with him, huddled into him, a reassuring weight of soft, cold curves.

Cold. He realized the ice that had crusted her clothes beneath his palms was gone, though her body now thrummed with a faint, steady undercurrent of shivers. He moved a hand to her hair, and was immensely relieved to find the strands had lost their crunch. It seemed the yuki-onna had taken back her ice when she'd rearranged the place around them.

"Hey," he said, angling his chin down to study the top of her head. "You okay?"

Kagome lifted her head, and her gray eyes peeked up at him; his claws caught and slid in the soft sift of her hair. Now that it wasn't frozen, the dark strands had puffed into a tangle of waves and curls gone slightly wild around her head. "I'm…fine." She blinked owlishly, her eyes skipping around the room before a tiny frown wrinkled her brows. She shifted, pushing up enough to rest her weight on her elbows. "This is…amazing. Where are we?"

When she moved, his hands slid along her body, one curving into the dip of her waist, the other dragging forward to spread light fingertips along her neck and jaw. But it was the way her lower body pressed into his that had him sucking in a breath as pleasure rushed up along his spine in a series of small, fiery bursts, rolled his gut, made him hotter than he should be with his ass planted on a freezing floor.

Kagome froze, her eyes going wide and tumultuous as awareness sparked in them: awareness of their intimate position, awareness of his hands on her body, awareness of him. That damn green shirt gaped open over the white of her undershirt, the tiny pearlescent buttons taunting him with the fact he'd only gotten halfway through them. His hands started itching again, and his mind took him through the steps of finishing what he'd started with those infuriating buttons, then cutting his way through the thinner cotton layer underneath. Putting his hot mouth on her chilly skin. Licking. He would start smack dab in the center, right between the whatever-colored scraps of cloth making up her bra, and then work his way through those, too. Anticipation made him hard as the ice around them, and there was no way she didn't feel it, but he couldn't even bring himself to care.

Especially not when he caught a wisp of her scent, blurred and frozen but damn responsive anyway. She was always doing that—catching on to his lust, and matching it with such generous and honest abandon. She didn't even seem to realize she was doing it. It was so damn enticing, most of the time it was all he could do to keep himself from locking the two of them away in a room somewhere and testing the limits of the seductive heat that flared every time they touched each other. A groan rumbled somewhere deep in his diaphragm, and his thumb moved; the very tip of his claw skimmed along the bottom of her lip, feather-light.

Her lips (still a little blue, he noted with distant irritation) parted, and his ears flicked as they caught the soft shush of her breath rushing, catching in her throat. And then all he could think was, They're cold. I need to warm them up. And all he could feel was the upper curve of her hip beneath his palm, and the cold, pale smoothness of her skin beneath his fingertips. And then his hand was reaching, sliding into a firmer grip against her chilled neck, and he could almost taste her already, and—

And she shivered, so hard it stuttered her breath and shook his body. It snapped him out of his haze of lust better than a slap to the face. He blinked, his mind finally registering how dangerously cold she had to be. His body heat was probably helping now that she wasn't literally wearing ice, but considering how long she'd spent covered in the stuff, it wasn't good enough. Her damn lips were still blue, her scent still muffled by her low body temperature.

"Damn it." He dropped his hands to the rough ice of the ground and pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the need pounding through his blood, a throbbing hammer of protest as he pulled his legs free from hers. She scrambled back onto her knees, watching him with reproachful eyes but uncharacteristically quiet as he climbed to his feet and pulled her with him. The minute the thick soles of her boots was between her and the ice, her arms wrapped around her middle, her white fists tucking against her body. The leeched paleness of her features and the weariness setting into the lines of her body were harsh reminders of how little defense the human body had against the cold.

He grimaced, pushing back the guilt, and stripped from his jacket. "Look at you. You're still freezing. The ice might be gone from your clothes, but that damn ice-dust is probably still in your lungs." They'd probably need to bring her core temperature up and keep it up for a while to melt it. "We need to get you out of the fucking snow, now."

He ignored the part of his brain pointing out there was a quick and intensely pleasurable way to bring her temperature up, available to them right away. He was not going to fuck a freezing woman in a room made of ice—no matter how tempted he was by the whispery image of her riding him in nothing but that green knit top. He struggled to banish the errant vision from his mind, to calm his pulse and leash his overly eager libido while he wrapped his jacket around her shoulders. What the hell was wrong with him, when she was like this? He didn't even have those damn Uzumas to blame for his sudden lack of control.

She smells like you.

His scowl felt black. Damn you, Abi.

He couldn't even clear anything up just then. He couldn't trust Kagome's scent because she was half-frozen, and he'd covered her in his scent pretty damn thoroughly at this point (and to hell with the small rush of satisfaction the thought gave him).

Kagome visibly shuddered again as she tucked her arms into the sleeves, oblivious to his internal tug-of-war. "What about you? Won't you be cold?"

InuYasha snorted. "I'm not the one who spent the last hour covered in ice." He spotted something on the ground near their feet and bent to pick it up, staring with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment.

Kagome blinked. "My jacket." She reached out. "I can't believe we didn't lose it."

He held it away from her. "Forget it. This thing is still ice-cold, and you need to warm up."

"But…" She curled her fist into the sleeve of his sweater and tugged gently. "It's cold even for you. You should wear your jacket if you can."

He swallowed, pretending he hadn't felt her small gesture travel all the way to his chest. "I'll be fine. It's just until we get outside to the ambulances. They'll have emergency blankets and hot drinks and shit." He hesitated, then tossed her jacket over his shoulder. "You can give back mine after you're warmer."

The reluctant, weary way she nodded sent a jolt of disquiet through him, tightening his throat. She was being too damn quiet; he watching her energy drain away, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. The thought of the yuki-onna's ice still lurking in her lungs ate at the back of his mind. When her hand released his sleeve, he caught it and curled her chilled fingers into his palm, unable to keep the gruff anxiety out of his words. "C'mon. Let's get out of this damn death trap."

"InuYasha! Kagome!" Shippou's voice careened and echoed from the hallway beyond the arched door to their little room. Multiple footsteps crunched on the scored floor.

InuYasha pivoted with a frown just as familiar figures started filing through the opening. Shippou came first, his fox feet having no trouble skipping across the ice. "You're here!"

InuYasha stepped forward with a warning growl before Shippou had the chance to throw himself at Kagome. "Don't you damn dare."

Shippou skidded to a stop right near their feet, his upturned face twisted with worry. "Is she okay? You're okay, right, Kagome?"

Kagome edged around him and gave a wan smile. "I'm all right, Shippou."

Miroku and Abi had come in right behind Shippou. They stood a few feet back, Miroku with his hands in his jacket pockets, Abi with her hands propped on her hips. They wore nearly identical smirks. Behind them, just inside the entrance, a beautiful, willowy figure glided to a stop on bare feet. She had white skin and long, blue-tinged hair that hung in sheets down her back and over her shoulders. Her kimono was thin and ethereal, folding and flowing about her body in a way that reminded him of gusts in a blizzard; the perpetual chill of her scent reached up into his nostrils, coating the back of his throat, sharp and almost minty. Her pale, ice-chip eyes swept the room, studying the structure and form.

InuYasha kept a wary eye on her, but raised a hand at Miroku. "Yo. You made it out."

"It wasn't hard, once we had a clear path." Miroku nodded at Shippou with amusement. "He's been frantic ever since, though. I had to stop him from coming after you more than once."

InuYasha turned his attention back to the anxious kitsune practically bouncing at his feet. He sighed, then bent to swipe the brat up and set him on his shoulder. "I told you, didn't I? I found her, and she's fine."

Shippou's features scrunched and scowled. "She doesn't look fine."

Abi snorted, her red eyes fixing pointedly between InuYasha and Kagome. "Oh, I don't know. She certainly smells fine."

Miroku ducked his head and cleared his throat, covering a chuckle.

And InuYasha realized why they were smirking.

He dropped Kagome's hand as if she'd burned him, snarling to keep away the heat threatening his cheeks. "The hell she is. We're lucky she's not dead. Her clothes were damn near frozen through when I found her." He picked Shippou from his shoulder and placed him—carefully—into Kagome's arms.

Ignoring everyone else, Shippou reached up a small hand and patted at Kagome's cheek. "I'm sorry I left you alone," he whispered to her.

Her wan smile altered somehow, became comforting and warm. "I'm fine, Shippou. Really."

Miroku tutted and tilted his head, studying her. "You do look a bit on the chilled side, Kagome."

"Her clothes were frozen?" The yuki-onna's voice flowed the way her body had, cool and distant, but it drew everyone's attention. Her eyes had turned to Kagome, and seemed curious. "How did they freeze?"

InuYasha's scowl turned to the yuki-onna. "Your damn ice melted and she got soaked."

"Melted?" Her pale blue lashes swept down in a slow, deliberate blink, then lifted. "She was close to the explosion? Did she see the cause?"

Abi glared at her, disgust twisting her red lips. "We already know the cause. One of those idiot fireworkers left a box of fireworks next to a generator with bad wiring." She smacked her palms together. "Spark. Boom."

The yuki-onna fixed her with a steady look. "The damage to my ice does not equal the cause."

Abi narrowed her eyes and huffed. "Well, maybe your damn ice wasn't as strong as you thought."

The yuki-onna's slender shoulders stiffened. Her pale chin lifted and she drifted a few steps in Abi's direction. Her words were a frost-burn. "You insult my sculpting."

"Insult?" Abi's furious sneer was spectacularly unimpressed. She tossed her wild hair. "I paid for a beautiful and safe structure. Do you know how many wounded tourists we have out there right now?"

"What was requested was provided."

Abi's slender arm swept the room. "Broken ice speaks for itself."

InuYasha tensed, eyeing the yuki-onna's bristly, otherworldly posture. Abi was going to piss the ice-witch off, and they hadn't made it out of the damn South Dragon yet. A pissed-off yuki-onna with a handy supply of ice could be a very dangerous thing. He edged a step forward, putting himself between the two most vulnerable members of his group and the creature who had already demonstrated she could do whatever the hell she wanted with the walls around them.

"Ladies, if you wouldn't mind, I believe we have more important issues to address at the moment," Miroku's voice was mild, but his eyebrows had lifted into a tight, concerned arch.

InuYasha shrugged. "Let 'em bitch at each other. We're getting the hell away from all this ice."

Miroku closed his eyes and sighed, his breath a cloud of warm moisture, then turned to face them, his violet eyes going to Kagome, taking critical measure of her pale exhaustion, the way she seemed to hunch into the remnant heat of his jacket. "Yeah," he said, slowly. "About that. You can't go out there."

It was Miroku's tone, not his words, that brought a sudden return of all the tension InuYasha had been slowly shedding since he'd found Kagome. He narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"

Miroku's gaze traveled to the two females staring each other down, then back to InuYasha, as if considering.

Abi broke her posturing with a roll of her eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You can't go out there because there are news crews everywhere. They showed up right after the collapse and started filming everything." She crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow at him. "It's lucky you went in when you did, or one of them might have caught you."

News crews. The words dropped into him, as hard and unforgiving as a stone cutting through water. He shook his head and looked at Miroku. "What the hell are news crews doing outside? Sonkyou doesn't have a local station."

"I know. These are from a couple different channels in Sapporo." Miroku hesitated again. "One of them is national. Based out of Tokyo."

"Fuck me." InuYasha turned a murderous glare on Abi, who was picking at her nails. "What the fuck is a national news team doing at your festival, Abi?"

Somehow, she managed to arch a disdainful brow at him without looking up. "I may have invited them out to see our new and improved ice festival and fireworks show." She did look up then, her nose high, her red irises haughty with challenge. "But I didn't specify which show they should come see, and they didn't tell me they were going to be here. I had no idea they'd be here tonight in particular, or I would have warned you."

"Shit." InuYasha glanced back at Kagome, whose eyes had gone wide as she took in the implications. A little of the color seemed to have seeped back into her cheeks, but she was still far from okay. Shudders still occasionally wracked through her, and Shippou kept patting at her—her cheek, her shoulder, her arm—as if he could warm her up with kinetic energy alone. "Shit. How long have they been out there?"

"Not long enough," Miroku answered, his mouth grim. "Abi banished them from the grounds while the South Dragon was wrecked, but she couldn't stop them from setting up on the other side of the bridge and interviewing people as they're leaving. One of the crews is going around the town getting statements from local businesses. A reporter is arguing she has the right to interview the survivors. And everyone not a reporter has their phone out. With all those cameras recording everywhere, we can't risk you wandering around."

And a crew in the town meant he couldn't get back to the truck by following the river a little ways down and jumping across. If he was caught, he'd really have their attention. So he was stuck hiding in the ice until they left.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" He raked his claws along the base of one of his ears, then let out a sigh that was more throaty growl and gestured at Kagome. "At least get her out of here. She's been surrounded by ice for too damn long, and she needs to get warm now, not later."

But Miroku shook his head and took a step closer. His eyes flicked over Kagome again before they caught InuYasha's; they were a dark, urgent purple, as serious as they ever got. "Someone tried to kill her, remember? Do you really want to risk putting her alive-and-well face on a national television report?"

Her alive-and-well face that looked so much like Kikyou's.

He chewed that over for about twenty seconds as helpless fury smoldered in his chest. "Goddamnit!"

Kagome placed a calming hand on his forearm. "I'll be all right for a little while."

"The hell you will. You were covered in ice, remember? You're still shivering, and it'll only get colder as the night goes on. You're not staying out here!"

"It gets worse," Abi cut in, arms crossed while her bare foot tapped at the ice. "You can't stay here, either, InuYasha."

"What?" His glare burned at her. "Why not?"

"Because the reporters are demanding a tour of the new South Dragon structure, and I think I might have to give it to them." She put her hands up to cut off his snarl. "To keep them off the grounds, I had to assure them that the structure would be fully repaired if they just waited for the yuki-onna who built it. If I don't provide proof of a renewed and safe ice structure, they'll wonder what I'm hiding…and you know reporters. That could be bad for a number of different reasons. If I give them a tour, they'll go back and talk about the fluke explosion and how efficiently we fixed it."

"Shit." The bitch of it was, he did know reporters—the bad side, at least. They'd been all over his story, spitting out rumors as facts and pure made-up bullshit as exciting rumor. Not only did Sonkyou not need that kind of publicity, everyone in the Sachi had to avoid it at all costs. He drew a hand down his face. "So we can't leave, and we can't stay. Fuck."

Miroku nodded tensely. "The way we see it, you two have two options."

He knew immediately he wouldn't like either of them. "Spit 'em out, damn it."

Abi inclined her head toward the yuki-onna, who was standing a few paces apart from their little semi-circle, her eyes scanning over the smoothness of the room once again, as if searching for flaws. "First: you can stay here—very quietly—and I'll have the yuki-onna wall off the corridor leading to this room. They probably won't find you, but she'll have to deal with the cold for a while longer."

InuYasha eyes narrowed, and he pointed to Kagome, whose hand was still on his arm. "She's. Not. Staying. Here." Never mind the idiocy of hoping nothing went wrong—'cause hoping shit didn't go sideways always went so damn well. "If I stay, we have to smuggle her out somehow."

Kagome frowned at him. "Smuggle?"

He ignored it, but…damn, something inside him cringed at the thought of sending her out to dodge cameras without him.

Miroku shifted on his feet, his eyes leveled at Kagome, his brows heavy. "I agree. Given her current state, we should get Kagome out of the cold as quickly as possible, and the chances of getting her out the entrance without being recorded is pretty low."

"So? What's the second choice?"

Miroku nodded at Kagome. "You take her home first." He paused, his eyes going to InuYasha. "The short way. We'll follow at a more leisurely pace."

InuYasha understood before he'd finished. He eyes widened and he glanced over her. "Like hell. She can't take the cold like I can, and she's already freezing as it is."

"But it is the fastest way. Cutting straight through, it will take twenty minutes at most, and then Kaede will have her all wrapped up in front of the fire." Miroku stepped back and swept a critical eye over him. "We both know you can make it in less. Easily."

From the corner of his eye, he caught Kagome frowning again. She tilted her head down at Shippou. "What's the short way?"

He was still patting her shoulder. "Running. InuYasha's strong, so he can carry you through the mountains. But you'll be moving fast, and the air will be really cold." His auburn brows wrinkled. "And you're already too cold."

"How the hell would we even get to the forest? You already said we can't go through the front with all those damn cameras."

Abi pivoted on a bare heel and lifted a brow at the yuki-onna. "Well? He wants to know how they'll get out."

The yuki-onna eyed her with distaste, but lifted a hand and waved it at the side of the dome opposite the door. A faint rumble rippled through the dome. Kagome gasped and dug her fingers into his arm. A portion of the wall beneath the ice-window morphed into the icy gel that had roller-coastered them around earlier. It danced like jello, then slicked back onto itself in waves, sliding up and out until it melded seemlessly into the rest of the dome, leaving a perfect, arched, round-edged opening. Through the exit, the partial moon shone especially bright over thick blackness of the trees blanketing the dip-climb-dip of the landscape. The stars were still punching through a cloudless sky, filling in the gaps where the moon failed with crystalline glitter.

They were at the back of the damn head, almost exactly where they'd need to be if he was going to carry her home unseen.

"Hell," he said.

At the same time, Kagome breathed a wonder-filled, "Wow."

Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit. Send her away to probably get filmed by some damn bastard, who would put it on the Internet for anyone—including any curious reporters, or even the blood-curdling possibility of Naraku himself—to search up and find. Or carry her through a freezing wind and risk her getting frostbite or hypothermia. All bad options.

But staying put wasn't an option. InuYasha glanced down at Kagome, who was staring out the newly transformed doorway with a soft-mouthed appreciation he didn't feel. Her fingers were still digging into his forearm, still icy, and still resonating with a gentle, deep-seated background shiver. Every second of her silent trembling wrapped him in a new layer of wretched, helpless knots. More than anything, they needed to get her body into some form of warmth before she took on permanent damage.

His brows snapped together. "Hey, snow-bitch."

The yuki-onna turned her head, her eyes fixing directly on him with a terrifyingly even look.

He scowled back. "Kagome breathed in a bunch of your ice-dust while she was stuck inside this place. Can you do something about that?"

"Ice-dust?" The yuki-onna tilted her head, her pale-ice eyes drifting over Kagome's figure. "Not intended to kill or infect. Constant exposure to human body temperature will melt even my ice. Warm food and drink. Physical exertion."

"Except we don't have time to wait. If I'm gonna carry her around out there," he gestured to the trees, "then she needs to be warm on the inside."

The yuki-onna's eyes closed in another one of her infuriatingly slow, lash-brushing blinks. "To remove my ice, the moisture in her lungs must be frozen."

Before InuYasha could express his thoughts on that idea, Miroku held up a hand. "Thank you, but I think that won't be necessary."

Abi moved, crossing the few steps it took her to be standing in front of Kagome. "Hmm. Ice in her lungs, did you say?" She didn't look at InuYasha, only focused on running her eyes up and down Kagome's body, tipping her head to one side, then the other.

Something inside him bristled.

Abi's red eyes blinked up, like a laser, onto Shippou, who squeaked, then cowed back into Kagome's arm when Abi stuck a long finger in his face. "Down, brat."

Shippou's green eyes, wide with panic, turned to him. InuYasha frowned. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Abi?"

"Seeing to not-your human," Abi said. Then she grasped Shippou's jacket in one hand, plucked him from Kagome's arms, and tossed him at InuYasha. "I said down, brat."

Shippou flew through the air, squealing. InuYasha caught him. And Abi stuck her hands beneath the open flaps of his jacket, cupping one of Kagome's breasts in each of her palms, red-tipped fingers splayed around each curve.

An alarmed squeak came from Kagome's throat, followed immediately by a soft, breathy gasp.

Miroku said, "Oh?"

InuYasha saw red. He dropped Shippou, his knuckles cracking, reaching for Kagome's arm. "What the fuck, Abi!"

His hand closed around her wrist and he paused for just a second, because her skin was suddenly warmer than it had been digging into his arm a few moments ago. The second passed, and he yanked her away from Abi's grasping hands and into his side, his arm sliding instinctively along her shoulders. His growl resonated warning through the air.

Abi threw up her hands and took a big step back, her red-lipped smirk returning with all its lascivious glory. "Relax, hanyou. Since you're so damned concerned about her temperature, I brought it up for you. I was just—" Her fingers clutched suggestively at the air liked they'd clutched at Kagome's chest. "—'helping.'"

His growl pitched down, but Kagome turned her head into his shoulder as harsh coughs ripped from her throat. With each cough, her body convulsed and cold air punched through his sweater. She was coughing cold air. She coughed for a solid minute while he patted awkwardly at her back and threw growling-black looks at Abi, unsure what else to do.

Finally, Kagome cleared her throat and blinked up at him. "It's fine. She just surprised me."

His eyes roamed her face, noting how the pinched whiteness of her skin had eased, and color filled in some of the unnatural paleness. "You're okay?"

Her brows furrowed. "Mm. I don't know. It feels like…all the blood in my body has warmed up. I'm not as cold anymore."

"It was the best I could do without burning her," Abi added with a satisfied flick of her fingers. "Not all of the ice in her lungs will be gone, but some of it is, and the rest of her is much warmer. The effect won't last forever, though. You'd better get on with your little run." Her fangs flashed beneath a wicked smile. "Unless you want me to have to do it again."

He wondered if she was trying to start a fight. They didn't have time for one just then, though, much as he'd like to oblige her after the stunt she'd just pulled.

Kagome hummed thoughtfully, then stepped back out of his semi-embrace and—to his mild alarm—shrugged out of his jacket. "Here, take this back. You'll need it since it's so cold." She shoved it into his chest and let go.

He caught it automatically. "Hey."

She ignored him, yanked her jacket from his shoulder, then turned to Abi. "Abi-hime, can you do that again with this?" she asked, holding it out.

With another smirk aimed at him, Abi took Kagome's jacket in both hands. Something rebelled in his gut, but he couldn't very well make a fuss when she was making sure Kagome would be as warm as possible before he took her back into the cold.

He swallowed his instinctive growl and curled his lip at her, then turned to Miroku. Shippou, who had scampered away the second he bounced off the ground, peered up around Miroku's leg. "What about you two?"

The corners of Miroku's mouth tipped upward, but his eyes remained glued with fascination on Kagome and Abi. "The Uzumas have graciously agreed to accompany us out of the festival grounds. Anyone looking for Shippou probably won't pay attention to a boy surrounded by relatives, will they?" He paused, watching with rapt attention Abi help Kagome into her now-warmed jacket. "And my face isn't something to worry about. Barely anyone even knows who I am, remember?"

When Kagome stepped away from Abi and busied herself adjusting things, Miroku sighed and gave his full attention to InuYasha. He pulled his hand from his pocket and, with a small flourish, presented InuYasha's hat. He slapped it against his thigh, smoothed it over his head, and pulled the bill low. "Besides, I think you might be right about people not looking too closely underneath this thing." He held out his hand. "Keys?"

InuYasha snorted out a half-amused "keh," while he slung on his jacket. Once he had it zipped up tight, he dug into one of the pockets, and his hand emerged with the micro-clank of metal. He tossed them through the short distance separating them; Miroku one-handed them with a similar jangle, a small smile crinkling around his eyes. He nodded out at the wild, frozen mountainscape. "Be careful. And whatever you do, don't get caught."

"Same to you." InuYasha nodded, then turned…to find Kagome next to him, buttoned down and bundled up with hat and scarf against the cold. Jacket once again covering up all those little buttons. Still no gloves. Waiting quietly, a question in her eyes.

It hit him, what they were about to do, a low sock in his already-knotted gut. His jaw clenched for a moment, mentally bracing. He crouched and gave her his back, tapping at his shoulder. "Climb on." The words grumbled out of his throat, rolled over each other like rough stones in a tumbler. His chest was tight, his heart a little fast. A softer, more heady version of the panicked adrenaline that had pushed him earlier in the night spread through his blood, heating him from the inside out—not that he needed it.

InuYasha couldn't see her blinking hesitation, but he felt it. He couldn't quite bring himself to look over his shoulder at her; he didn't want her to see whatever was in his eyes. "We haven't got all night, you know."

Then he felt her arms sliding over his shoulders, folding around his neck in a loose shackle, and the weight of her, just hovering over him. He stood, his hands clasping her thighs, not missing the barely-there gasp she breathed against the side of his neck when he hefted her. Without him having to say anything, her body moved with him, thighs gripping along his sides as she fitted herself to his back, her breasts, abdomen, and pelvis all settling into him, molding against him.

It all happened in the space of a few heartbeats, but it felt like longer, and then he had her secure, his hands shifting on her thighs to just before the curve of her ass, pulling the hot space between her legs in close against his back. Her scent enveloped him now, still a little muffled and blurry, and he knew she wasn't quite as warm as she pretended to be. He stared out the open exit at the cold.

"It's all right. I'll be fine." She murmured it so only he could hear, her voice resonating into his ear. He flicked it at her, trying to shake the micro-shiver she caused, the one that wanted to travel down his spine and nestle in his gut. He felt her breaths, each inhale pushing her breasts into his shoulder-blades, each exhale whispering against his temples. "We don't have a choice."

He bared his teeth in a grimace, then turned to Miroku and Shippou. "You too. Be careful, both of you. Avoid those damn reporters and get home safe. Don't make me have to come back for you."

Miroku gave a crooked grin. His eyes traveled over them with a knowing speculation that set InuYasha's teeth on edge. Miroku gave a mocking salute with his gloved hand. "Just hurry home so you can warm Kagome up."

Kagome glanced over at the yuki-onna and gave a head-bow. "Thank you for your help. I'm sorry your dragon sculpture was ruined. It was beautiful."

The yuki-onna's cold eyes studied her curiously before she tipped her head, her expression softer, somehow. She turned to Abi. "Your heat melted some of my ice. How?"

InuYasha had already headed for the exit, so he didn't see Abi, but her speculative "You want me to show you?" had him rolling his eyes.

He leaned out the opening just a bit to glance around, hyper-aware of her weight on his back; she wasn't heavy, she wouldn't slow him down, but she was there, and he couldn't stop feeling her. The little dome room they were in stuck out the side of a much bigger, round-ish ice structure. No one dawdled on this side, and it would only take a quick dash to reach the treeline, and then they would be out of sight. He turned his head and caught her gaze in the faint, silvery light. His breath puffed between them. "You ready? It's gonna get cold."

Her gray eyes were clear, if a little tired. She nodded. "Mm. Let's go."

His hands tightened on her thighs. Her arms tightened around his neck. Then, with a hard "tch" through his teeth, he was leaping through the snow. The air cut around them immediately, freezing and sharp, and he heard Kagome gasp again, but he didn't stop. The best he could do for her at this point, he figured, was to get her home quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Okay! So one step closer (nearly there). Sort of. Anyway, I'm actually really excited about this, because it turned out pretty good despite a few minor things I hadn't seen coming into the picture along the way. Also, I've got the two of them right where I want them now. Oh, boy.

So, two things real quick.

One: This monstrosity of a chapter has clocked in at just over 16,000 words. Phew. I think it might be the longest chapter I've ever written. Sorry about that. I tried to cut it down, really I did. A couple things just wanted to happen.

And two: The reason this last chapter took so long isn't really because of the length, but because my life went sideways for a bit. Like, literal hurricane sideways. See, I had this nice long vacay planned out from the job that I hate, and the last three weeks or so were going to be just for me to read and focus on writing. Instead, the eyewall of a cat four hurricane (cat 5 initially, but dropped to 4 by the time it reached my house) by the name of Irma literally went right over my house. I'm totally okay, and so is all my family, and our house, and all our pets. I should be grateful (and I am, in the larger sense), because some of our neighbors took some major damage to their house, and there are still blue tarps everywhere. But instead of reading and writing time (both dearly bought), I had boarding up time, and assessing damage time, and no electricity in brutally hot weather time. By the time we got it all cleaned up and properly fixed, it was time for me to go back to work. *sigh* Oh well, trucking on we shall do.

So, yeah. My writing plans got backburnered right when I was supposed to really focus on them (super-duper depressed about this btw). And then, of course, it took me a while to get back into the swing of things.

And so, after all that, I present to you chapter 21 of Sachi. Sorry to those who were hoping for the lemon this chapter. I couldn't quite make it work, but I did have a ton of fun with the innuendo. I love it when what I'm writing makes me smile- -why tell a story if you're not enjoying it, right? But definitely look forward to the next chapter. If I do it right, the next chapter is chock full of fun goodness. (You can see it coming, can't you? I know you can. XD)

Thanks to all who are still reading! I'm super jazzed about where we are in this story, and I'm even more super jazzed that you're following it along with me.

Till (the hopefully shorter) next time,

Quill