Around midday they reached Yoichiro’s home, a quaint little cabin tucked away in the wooded hills. A dusting of snow glittered on the ground here, giving the place a fairytale feel as they climbed the porch steps to the door.

“Yoichiro!” his mother cried, hastening over to him the moment they entered the cozy space. A little girl trotted after her with straw doll in tow, piping out, “Ani-ue!”

Yoichiro flushed as his mother hugged him to her, as close as her bulging belly would allow. She really did look as though she might pop at any moment. Releasing her son at last, she turned toward Kagome with a haggard smile.

“Miko-sama,” Yoichiro’s mother said with a bow, though Kagome was clothed as plainly as she. “Thank you for coming all this way.”

Kagome smiled back, glad that she’d taken the trouble. Clearly this poor beleaguered woman didn’t need any more stress on her right now. Next to her, Kagome looked practically un-pregnant. And she didn’t have half her household incapacitated, either.

“I understand both your husband and son were stung?”

Yoichiro’s mother nodded. “Yes,” she replied, her features recast with worry as she turned, “they’re in here.”

Kagome followed her into an adjoining room. Yoichiro’s father and brother lay wooden there on their bedrolls, looking grotesquely like human ballon animals pinned to the floor. Above the blankets their arms stuck out like linked sausages, tipped with puffy stubs of finger.

“I had to cut their clothes off them,” Yoichiro’s mother said, embarrassed. “I’ve tried to make them as comfortable as possible.” Her eyes glimmered with tears. “They can’t speak at all.”

Kagome nodded, kneeling at the father’s bedside. Of the two, he looked to be in slightly worse shape. Only his eyes roved about in his marshmallowy face. He seemed aware at least, which Kagome took to be a good sign.

“You’re going to be all right,” she said to him softly, as she pressed her hands to his swollen chest.

Her reiki flowed into him, purifying the demonic toxins that inflamed him. After not using her powers in so long, the rush of this spiritual release felt deeply cathartic to her. It was like a boulder of accumulated tension had rolled off her back. When she drew her fingers away from his chest, she felt as though she were breathing freely for the first time in weeks.

The moment she’d started to purify the venom, Yoichiro’s father had begun to deflate. By the time she was finished, he looked back to normal again, if awfully weary. Sitting up in bed, he gave a faint smile. 

“…Thank you, Miko-sama.”

With a tearful gasp, his wife padded over to him. The burly woodsman flushed as red as Yoichiro had, as she clutched him to her breast and sobbed. 

After tending to the teenaged son—who submitted to his mother’s embraces with a sort of resigned bemusement—Kagome cleaned and dressed the puncture wounds. Along with some extra salve and bandages, she left instructions for the two of them to take it easy the next few days.

Yoichiro’s mother nodded just as solemnly at this ‘sage’ wisdom as her younger son had. Drawing herself up with motherly authority, she herded Yoichiro and his sister out of the room, ordering the patients at once to rest. Good-natured protests were voiced all around. Of the group, Kagome was the only one really itching to leave. The familial scene left her feeling strangely melancholy—the parting press of Yoichiro’s father’s hand to his mother’s belly in particular.

Outside in the main room, Yoichiro’s mother bowed to Kagome again. “I can’t thank you enough, Miko-sama.” Her voice turned sheepish as she straightened. “We don’t have much coin to repay you…”

Kagome gave a little wave. “Don’t worry about it.” Smiling to Yoichiro, she started for the door. “You guys take care.”

Yoichiro’s mother seized her by the arm, aghast. “Miko-sama! Please, you must stay the night.”

“Stay, stay!” Yoichiro’s little sister chorused.

“That’s very kind of you,” Kagome said, “but I need to be getting back.”

…Before Inuyasha did.

“Let me fix you something to eat, at least,” Yoichiro’s mother insisted, giving her a knowing look. “You must be famished.”

Kagome’s mouth twitched. When wasn’t she, these days? Having relented, she sat by the hearth across from Yoichiro while his mother bustled about with her daughter ‘helping’.

“Thank you,” Kagome said, taking a rice ball the little girl offered her with sticky fingers.

“Oh, Megumi,” her mother sighed as she came over with a tea tray. Kneeling down, she took the plate of rice balls from her daughter and poured Kagome a steaming cup. “She means well.”

Kagome smiled. “Of course she does.”

As Megumi gazed up at her starry-eyed, Yoichiro’s mother said, “She thinks you’re very pretty. Don’t you, Megumi?” 

“Pretty,” the little girl chirped.

Teasingly, the woman looked to her son. “Yoichiro thinks so too.”

The boy’s cheeks flamed. “Haha-ue!”

Smiling still, his mother looked to Kagome. “How far along are you, Miko-sama?”

“A little over six months, I think.”

“Your first?”

As Kagome nodded, the woman nodded fondly back, giving her own belly a pat. “The first one is nerve-wracking, but after that it gets easier.”

There would be no ‘after’ for her, but Kagome smiled mannerly just the same. Finishing her tea and rice balls—which were very tasty—she rose to leave. Yoichiro’s mother followed at her heels, trying yet again to detain her.

“Please stay the night, Miko-sama. Around here the weather can turn at a moment’s notice, and there are demons in the woods.”

“Fortunately, demons are my specialty,” Kagome said winningly, though it still took her many more polite declines before she could make her escape.

There were demons in the woods, sure enough. Kagome could feel the prickle of their auras, but she dismissed them about as quick as she sensed them. None posed a threat to her. But as she went on her way, following the path she and Yoichiro had taken earlier that day, she felt a spiritual pressure she couldn’t dismiss.

Setting her jaw, she walked on, hoping that if she ignored it long enough it would go away. She just wanted to get home and get some sleep. She felt too tired, too drained for any sort of confrontation.

But that presence didn’t go away. When she stopped to rest, she felt it looming still. Kagome sighed.

“Sesshoumaru,” she said, and there he was.

There he always was, she thought a bit sourly, whenever Inuyasha’s back was turned.

His golden eyes settled on her, and she felt the weight of that glance like a tangible force. Kagome sagged under the intensity of it.

“You’re exhausted,” he said.

Kagome turned her face away. “I’m fine.”

He looked to the sky, so deeply gray. “A storm is coming.” He looked back down to her, extending a clawed hand. “Let us depart.”

Kagome pushed off from the tree she’d been leaning against. “I can manage on my own, thanks.”

Sesshoumaru tilted his head, peering at her. “You’re angry with me.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“Then why do you refuse?”

“Because it wouldn’t look good, you carrying me back home.” Tersely, she added, “Again.”

“What does that matter.”

“It may not matter to you,” Kagome said sharply, “but it matters to me. I have a life there, a reputation to maintain.” When he didn’t say anything, she crossed her arms, incensed. Past grievances boiled to the surface. “You know all that, and still you said it to him, about the baby not being your nephew. You put me in a tough spot. So why? Why would you say that?”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes glinted darkly. “It’s the truth.”

“The truth,” Kagome said bitterly, her nails digging into her sleeves. “Even if it is, you don’t need to weaponize it.” Her eyes flashed. “You and Inuyasha may have your differences, but keep the baby out of your pissing contests, okay?”

Sesshoumaru’s expression was hard as stone. But after a moment, he nodded. 

Just as she started to relax, he stepped toward her and said, “Come along.”

Kagome bristled anew. “I told you, I can manage.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“Don’t be so pushy then,” she shot back. “If I want to walk home, that’s my business. Or do you not care what I want?”

Sesshoumaru gave her a look that could cleave flesh from bone. “Would that I didn’t,” he said coolly. 

Then in a flash, he was gone.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 2/10/23

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