Returning to her home, Kagome peered over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t been followed before slipping into the woods just beyond the garden and emptying the contents of the vial out upon the ground. The unremarkable dirt, though a shade darker than the rest, blended easily enough away beneath the sweep of her sandaled foot. Tossing the small flask off into the wilderness, she imagined she heard the tinny sound of glass shattering in the distance, as she turned and walked back to her house.

Her interaction with Kohaku had left her deeply unsettled. That he was suspicious of her was unquestionable—but how much did he truly know? Kagome couldn’t be sure, but she also couldn’t assume that he actually knew anything. Maybe he’d simply been watching her to see if she would give something away.

He had certainly put her in a tight spot with that vial. Kagome’s jaw clenched even now at how narrowly he had cornered her. The extent to which she’d passed or failed whatever test he’d forced her into remained to be seen. But as she paced, her heated blood continuing to pound in her ears, she reassured herself with the knowledge that the evidence she had given him was all purely circumstantial—and nothing that would point back to her brother-in-law.

Sesshoumaru wouldn’t be killing any more women. With no more ravaged bodies showing up, whatever suspicions Kohaku might have concerning the Beast would have to subside.

“The threat’s been contained,” she reminded herself quietly, as she clasped her trembling hands together in her lap and stared into the hearth’s twisting flames.

Barely tasting the lunch she’d made, Kagome joined up with Rin afterward to tend to some ailing villagers. As she left the sick family’s home a short while later, Kagome heard a curious scuffling off to her right, but when she looked toward the source of the sound, no one was there. Eyes narrowed, the miko continued on to the shrine, where a pair of traveling monks were waiting to exchange news and knowledge with her and Miroku over tea. After seeing them off and parting ways with her friend, Kagome headed alone to the graves as usual, a brief glimpse of color through the trees allaying her doubts that she was simply being paranoid or jumpy—someone was definitely following her.

And they were doing a pretty poor job of hiding it.

Pretending not to have noticed all the same, she went about attending to the rest of the day’s activities. As the sun began to set, she set a course for home once more, the presence who had been shadowing her footsteps since noon trailing predictably along after her. Senses attuned, she could pinpoint the source and pattern of the whispered movements behind her. Approaching the edge of the village proper, where the gap between adjacent huts would be too large to quickly bridge, she turned suddenly around to confront her stalker.

Frozen mid-step, a teenaged girl about Rin’s age stared back at her with no small amount of trepidation. Clothed in a dingy worn yukata she had clearly outgrown some years ago, the waiflike figure hunched over in a shabby approximation of a bow, her wide overlarge eyes peeking hesitantly up Kagome through the limp stringy fringe of her bangs.

“…Kagome-sama,” the waif hailed her breathlessly from the shadows.

The miko frowned at the address. From the first glance, there had been something vaguely, disturbingly familiar about this girl, but it was the sound of her voice which revealed at last what the low, fading light had obscured of her appearance. With a sick sinking feeling, Kagome remembered the name of her pursuer.

And the face of the dead.

“Kanako,” she slowly said.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi