Kagome slept like the dead.

When she woke it was to the sound of Kanako’s reedy voice calling out—

“Kagome-sama? Kagome-sama, it is nearly noon.”

Groggily, Kagome blinked, propped herself up on an elbow. There was a blissful moment where she didn’t remember anything of the night before. Then Kanako slipped through the door curtain, took one look at her, and started shrilling.

“Kagome-sama! Oh, Kagome-sama!”

Wailing and moaning, Kanako rushed toward her, collapsing by the bed. From the foot of it, Ikiryou roused with a growl, which made the waif draw back a wary fraction. Her large grey eyes roved wretchedly over Kagome’s mussed naked body—her right side flaked with red, the bloodied ruin of her cast-off yukata even more gruesomely crusted.

“That beast—that vile creature—what he has done to you? Oh, what he has done—”

“Calm down,” Kagome said, then yawned. “I’m fine, really. Most of this blood isn’t even mine.”

This did little to reassure Kanako. The wet surface of her eyes misted and trembled anew.

“He has defiled you,” she whimpered. “Filthy demon…”

“That’s enough,” Kagome snapped, burning Sesshoumaru’s dried blood away. “He’s done no such thing.”

“But he has touched you.” Kanako stared at her, abject. “Somehow, you are changed. He has changed you; he has got his wicked claws into you.”

Kagome glanced away. “Stop saying ridiculous things, and go draw me a bath.”

Kanako drew it. The stones she sank to the bottom were hot enough to scald. With a heavy frown, she ran a cloth again and again over Kagome’s pinkened skin, with all the solemnity of purging and preparing her body for a funeral. In light of her true and recent loss, the miko didn’t appreciate it one bit. Even on one of her better days, all this gloomy ceremony would’ve grated on her nerves.

That, and Kanako’s incessant sighing and mumbling.

It was almost with relief that Kagome suddenly remembered Sango had asked her to stop by around noon. Abruptly, she rose from the tub, and after toweling herself briskly off, she sent the waif on her grudging way. Sango’s house was close and crowded enough without an extra person hanging about. Not to mention, there had been something strangely confidential in her tone when she’d made the request.

Arriving there, Kagome found herself immediately on edge. The large house was dark and oddly quiet. Empty.

“Sango-chan?” she called out uncertainly, the sliding door standing open behind her as she stepped across the threshold. “…Sango-chan?”

“In here,” Sango’s voice replied from another room, distant and muted by the presence of a closed screen.

It was her bedroom, and Miroku’s—and it was eerily dark as well. As Kagome entered and saw Sango sitting seiza by the shuttered window, her unease deepened that much further.

“…Where are the kids?” Kagome asked, hesitating in the entryway.

“At the neighbor’s,” Sango answered, rising with a small, flickering lamp in hand. “How are you faring?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” Kagome muttered grimly. Sango nodded as she approached, setting the oil lamp down on a table between them. “And you?”

“I’m pregnant, again.”

Kagome’s mouth opened automatically to blurt Congratulations—but Sango’s sharp look cut her off. In the low light her dark eyes glinted, keen and mirrored as chips of obsidian. “Is there something you want to tell me, Kagome-chan?”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi