Despite the brave face she’d put on for her friend, a part of Kagome had feared that Sesshoumaru might abandon her after their falling-out the evening before. But as morning rolled around and she left Sango’s hut to collect her weapons and pack, to her vast relief, she saw him. Red-hued by the light of dawn, he stood stonily with Jakken and Ah-Un near Kaede’s home, his hard eyes glinting toward the south.

Shifting her quiver across her shoulder, Kagome approached him with Entei at her side. “Sesshoumaru,” she said, looking up at him with a small, grateful smile, “you’re still here.”

Almost imperceptible, a slight clench of his jaw was the only change in his expression. “This Sesshoumaru,” he returned coolly, “keeps his word.”

There was a barb in that reply, and it certainly stung. Wounded, Kagome dropped her gaze.

A few minutes later, Sango, Miroku and Kirara arrived, rested and geared up for the journey ahead. With Rin on one hand and Shippou on the other, Kaede followed after them to see the group of warriors off.

“Kagome-chan!” Shippou cried as he launched himself into the miko’s arms. “…Can’t I come with you?”

Clinging to Sesshoumaru at the knee, Rin seemed to be pleading the same. Turning a little away, Kagome smiled proudly down at her adopted kit, who had grown so very much over the past few years.

“You’ve become really strong, Shippou-kun,” she said earnestly. “And you’ve protected me a bunch of times. But the village needs protecting too. Kaede-baa-chan, Rin-chan, and all the other villagers–they’re depending on you now. Be strong for them, okay?”

Wiping at his eyes, the fox boy nodded solemnly. “I will, Kagome-chan.” Puffing out his tiny chest, he grinned. “You can count on me!”

Kagome grinned back, ruffling his orange bangs until he bounded away with a blush and an exaggerated groan of protest. As Kaede stepped forward to give her protégé a parting embrace, it was Kagome’s turn to flush in embarrassment.

“Red clover leaves, steeped fresh or dried–an herbal tea ye shall find most useful, methinks.” With a crinkle of her lone eye toward Sesshoumaru, the elderly miko stepped back. “As did I, in the forays of my youth.”

“I’ll, uh…I’ll keep that in mind,” Kagome managed weakly, her image of her mentor as a chaste old maid forever shattered.

Though judging by Sesshoumaru’s frosty demeanor, Kagome didn’t think she had much to worry about on that front. As she and her group of friends and allies set out at last toward the south in pursuit of Naraku, it became abundantly clear to Kagome that Sesshoumaru wanted as little to do with her as possible. Every time she tried to speak to him, he either responded in a few terse words if what she asked was relevant to their mission, or ignored her altogether if it was not.

The discord between them was palpable and unsettling for everyone. Even Jakken, who initially seemed relieved at his lord’s icy treatment of Kagome, soon became disconcerted by all the tension. More than once, the spurned miko caught him, Sango and Miroku exchanging uneasy glances after Sesshoumaru coldly addressed or rebuffed her.

It was a dismal pattern that continued to manifest itself as their search went on. Only the fact that they were making progress kept Kagome’s sinking spirits afloat. Chilly and distant as he was, the daiyoukai followed Kagura’s days’ old trail with seemingly perfect ease–until all of a sudden, he drew short.

Golden eyes narrowed, he continued to stand rooted to the spot. As the others hung back warily, Kagome picked her way across the marsh to meet him.

“Sesshoumaru?” she ventured. “What’s wrong?”

“Kagura’s scent,” he replied, his sharp gaze cutting to her. “It has vanished.”

Despite the inu daiyoukai’s expert tracking abilities, the trail to Naraku had gone abruptly and inexplicably cold. With no other leads to go on, Kagome suggested they resume the hunt for the missing Jewel fragments instead, hoping that their paths would cross with Naraku or his minions along the way. Further and further south they pressed in their quest, but rumors of Jewel shards were few and far between. By the time Kagome and her group followed the rumors to the source, the shard–if ever it had even been there to begin with–had already been claimed, with only death and devastation remaining in its wake.

Frustrated and demoralized, the group trudged wearily on through the boggy and densely-wooded southern landscape. Even Sesshoumaru became increasingly haggard and unapproachable, his cold disdain for Kagome transitioning to simmering hostility as the long, fruitless days wore on. Every look he sent her was so razor-edged, every word so fanged that she did her best to avoid him altogether–though even this hardly seemed to help matters.

For more than a week now, she had barely slept, and it wasn’t just the lumpy, mucky earth and harsh living conditions that were to blame. Her heart was so sick with pain and remorse, so weak with neglect that she lay awake starving at night even when her stomach was full.

During Sesshoumaru’s three-day absence from Edo village, she had been able to put him from her mind by sheer force of will. But that willpower was gone, and to be around him like this day in and day out, to be so close to him physically but so far away emotionally, was pure torture. She missed being truly near him–missed his calm assurance, his dry sense of humor, even his prickly moods and snootiness. She missed his touch, too–so much so in fact that sometimes, in her darkest moments, she regretted not just letting him have his way with her that night before they’d left Edo, the thought only making her feel that much more pathetic as it passed.

So wretched in the purgatory she was mired in, Kagome gathered her meager strength and approached him at last. Leaning against a fallen cypress tree at the edge of the clearing, Sesshoumaru eyed her critically as she stopped before him.

“I’ve been thinking,” she began–not quite able to withstand the severity of his gaze after all–as she bowed her head and clasped her arms, “that maybe we should go our separate ways.”

His youki blazed, Kagome backing up a step as he rose. Swallowing, she darted an anxious glance at him through her bangs.

“N-not that I don’t appreciate all that you’ve done for us,” she stammered on, “but this situation just doesn’t seem to be working out anymore…a-and–”

“You have been thinking,” he said scathingly, “that you can simply dismiss me.”

Totally unprepared and unequipped for another confrontation with him, Kagome shivered as she ducked her head again. “I…I just thought–”

“Return to your bed,” he bit out, Kagome stumbling as he drove her off in that direction, “and keep your foolish thoughts to yourself.”

Sleep eluded the weary miko once again as she retreated to her bed. As commanded, she kept her thoughts to herself–scarcely having the energy to think them, let alone express them, at any rate.

Another bleak day dawned, another poor village ravaged by Naraku’s greed for the Jewel–the Jewel which Kagome herself had brought here and unleashed upon Sengoku Jidai like a plague. As they passed through the ruined, corpse-strewn square, her crushing burden of guilt and despair compounded further.

All these people… Kagome thought faintly, grievously, as she wandered almost in a daze through the wreckage, her bow dangling loosely from her hand. All these lives lost because of me.

How many more people would die? How many more would continue to suffer because of Kagome and her mistakes?

Amidst the hellish backdrop of carnage and destruction, a soft glimmer of white caught her attention, and Kagome moved dreamily toward it before collapsing to her knees in the torn, muddy earth. As her raw, blearing eyes struggled to focus, she noticed too late the large insect-like demon gorging itself on a dead body nearby. She fumbled for an arrow as the youkai lunged toward her, the wooden shaft slipping through her listless fingers a moment before Tessaiga cleaved the insect in two.

Frowning, Sesshoumaru stared down at her, gleaming sword still outstretched between them. For a second, Kagome thought she saw a gleam of something in his eyes, too, before her own tired gaze fell to the ground once more. Dimly, she registered the sound of Sango and Miroku’s sprinting footsteps as they rushed onto the scene.

“Kagome-chan, are you all right?” the taijiya panted from behind. Her voice edged with caution as she moved closer, Hiraikotsu thudding softly down beside her. “Kagome-chan…what is it?”

Head bowed, Kagome studied the faint circles of white before her–a patch of small ivory blossoms, their delicate petals marred by streaks of reddish-black.

“The first flowers of spring,” she answered.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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