Restless as Kagome felt, there was never a shortage of work to be done in the village-turned-mecca that Edo had become. Visiting Rin in the makeshift hospital she’d raised in the heart of the sprawl, Kagome was struck by the sheer number of battle-wounded among the afflicted travelers and refugees. Yet there were no warlords in this region. No battles being waged, mortal or otherwise.

And perhaps that was the problem entirely. Kagome remembered Hirokin’s words to her, about how the death of the Eastern Lord had sparked a contest of succession that had ravaged the land at large. She had protected Edo, but to what end? Her hard-fought peace had created a vacuum, it seemed, drawing in opportunists good and ill alike.

What had begun as the occasional isolated attack by bandit groups had devolved into the routine waylaying of all those en route to Edo. Speaking to the grim-faced patients she tended to, Kagome learned that many of those who stuck to the roads hadn’t been fortunate enough to make it here at all.

Rin was just as grave. Armed with mercenaries as they often were, merchants were still a prime target for these sorts of raids, and her apothecary was running dangerously low as a result. With citizens and newcomers alike already falling ill at the onset of winter, the young miko was feeling understandably overwhelmed.

“Things are bad enough as it is,” Rin mumbled, swiping a blood-streaked hand across her brow as she bound up yet another slashed limb. “What am I supposed to do when I can’t find a scrap of fresh linen, let alone the ingredients for curatives? This can’t go on, Kagome-chan—it just can’t.”

Kagome agreed. Yet against human enemies, what could she do?

And so with no small amount of reluctance, she set off for the guard tower at the edge of Edo proper. In the yard outside of it, armed militiamen milled about, the older ones playing dice and chatting in their off-time while the younger ones sparred in a suspiciously taijiya-like fashion. Forcing her jaw to unclench, Kagome strode toward the doorway, one and all nodding reverentially to her as they made way.

Up the narrow zigzag of the stairway within, she arrived at last at the single large room that served as its landing. The room was sparsely furnished, a raw-wood chamber filled with raw-wood furnishings. The rough-hewn table was stacked with patrol routes, missives, and drawn diagrams. An array of weaponry decorated the walls, if one could even call it ‘decorated’.  ‘Spartan’ would be a fairer description of the place, in Kagome’s mind. But the futon rolled up neatly in one corner showed that this place was not merely a center of command, but a home-away-from-home for the one who dwelt within.

Of course, Kohaku had never been one for idleness or luxury.

Even now he stood at the window with a scroll in one hand and a roasted drumstick in the other. Though his keen dark eyes were trained upon the parchment he held, Kagome knew he was surveying both Edo and herself peripherally—even as he ripped another shred of charred flesh from the bone.

As she drew to a stop a few feet from the stairs, he glanced directly toward her at last. “Well,” he said shortly, “what is it?”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi