“Ah, Kagome-sama,” one of the clerks demurred from her side. “Your apprentice has been indisposed these past few days, as I have so humbly informed you…”

Kagome blinked. Rin, indisposed? Mikos didn’t catch colds—not for long, at any rate. But most people wouldn’t know this. Calmly, Kagome nodded and held her silence, delegating as she normally would, though inside she was shaken. A feeling of dread had gripped her and would not let go, all throughout the long hours of that day.

With Ikiryou at her heels, she made her way to Rin’s home. Outside, just beyond the dark threshold, that feeling of unease deepened as Kagome touched her hand to the curtain and drew it aside. The great grey dog whined low in his throat.

“Rin-chan?” Kagome called out into the darkness, thinking she must have guessed wrong about the girl’s whereabouts—until she saw a soft shifting in the shadows.

Brows drawn, the miko inched forward. Her heart pounded in her throat as she groped along the wall shelves for a light. Only Ikiryou’s warm, steady huffing at her ankles kept her from falling into a full-blown panic. Her trembling fingers fumbled to strike the flint. Blinking as the candle leapt to life, Kagome drew in a haggard breath at last, as the bundled form of her apprentice sprang into view.

At the raised back of the room, Rin lay on her side upon her futon, cocooned in the blankets. Only the rich brown gleam of her hair spilled free from the sheets. But at the soft hiccupping sound of her breathing, Kagome frowned and crept forward cautiously as ever.

“Rin-chan?” she called out again, more insistently. When the girl only burrowed deeper into the bedding, Kagome couldn’t help but let her voice sharpen with frustration. “Rin-chan, what is it now?”

Still Rin didn’t answer. Sighing, Kagome set the light down upon the tatami platform. Kneeling by the bedside, she started tugging at the twisted sheets.

“Please—just go away!” Rin cried in dismay. “I’m fine; leave me alone!”

“I’ll leave when you turn around and talk to me,” Kagome said briskly. But Rin only pulled back against her. “Listen, I’m not going anywhere. So how about you stop being so childish and tell me what the hell’s been going on? You have everyone convinced you’re ‘sick’, but I’m not buying it.”

Rin rounded, bolting suddenly upright. “I told you, I’m fine!”

But one look at her red, puffy eyes, her stricken expression—the shameful way she was clutching closed the neck of her yukata—and Kagome’s heart sank beneath the tide of that terrible, formless foreboding.

“Rin-chan,” she asked faintly, miserably, “what have you done?”

There was a flash in Rin’s dark eyes—sharp and bitter, before her face crumpled and she collapsed into helpless, heart-rending sobs.

“I…Kagome-chan…I…”

“It’s okay,” the miko said softly and swiftly, as if to console them both. Circling around the poor crying girl, Kagome hugged her tight around the shoulders. “Whatever it is, we can fix it, I promise. Just tell me what happened.”

“I-I thought…” Rin gasped against Kagome’s collar, dug her nails into Kagome’s back through her haori. “I thought if I went to him, like you did…”

A pit, cold and fathomless, yawned open in Kagome’s chest.

“Who did you go to?” she asked.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi