The arrival of spring didn’t do much to lift Kagome’s spirits. Now well into her third trimester, the more-or-less constant state of discomfort she was in made it hard for her to enjoy the nice, warm weather—or anything, really.

It was becoming increasingly difficult, just for her to get up and about. Even puttering around the hut left her winded. Her back hurt all the time. Her muscles were constantly knotting and cramping. Even the mildest of foods gave her heartburn. Without Taiyoutori’s eggs she was certain she wouldn’t have slept a wink.

She felt awkward, dangerously unwieldy in her own skin. She was swollen all over, and not just in her belly—though it seemed to be fast overtaking the rest of her. Every day her feet disappeared a little more beneath that growing baby bulge.

But the headaches were the worst of it.

Nagging at first, they’d grown steadily more intense over the past few weeks, devolving into full-blown migraines that left her incapacitated until they passed. These episodes usually lasted no more than a few minutes at a time. But the latest bout had left her in a state of debilitating pain for almost half an hour.

Kagome and Kaede both wracked their brains for any remedy that might help to alleviate the pain. One obscure herbal tea seemed to lessen it somewhat. But as the days passed, the beneficial effects started to wear off. Through Inuyasha, Kagome consulted her mother, who sent some palliatives back from the Modern Era. But if Kaede’s tea did next to nothing, these modern therapeutics did absolutely nothing. 

Stumped and demoralized, Kagome didn’t know how she was going to endure the remainder of her pregnancy like this. She anguished over whether she should seek out Sesshoumaru, on the off chance he might know something that could help her—but then her pain would break, and her determination to avoid him would return two-fold. She didn’t even like to think about him these days. How could she speak to him, without remembering what he’d last said to her? If she called on him, would he read into it, like he had before?

In the end, all her fretting over whether or not to involve him proved to be a moot point.

Kagome couldn’t say how long she’d been seized up in pain that morning, but she expected it had been a new record time. Her skull felt like it was splitting in two. White-hot stabs of pain radiated down her spine. In the throes of such agony, each minute felt like an eternity.

Blearily, she watched from the bed as Inuyasha paced about the hut, raking his claws through his hair in frustration. Snapped strands of silver fell glinting to the floor. Her violent reaction to Kaede’s medicinal tea was the final straw. He’d scarcely managed to get a bucket beneath her when the few sips of tea he’d tipped down her throat came vomiting back up.

“Damn it,” he growled, slamming down the bucket he’d rinsed off out back, before taking off again. “That’s it!”

Kagome must have lost time in his absence. In a delirium of pain, she heard him bursting back through the door curtain, barking at someone. Hazily, Kagome assumed it was her, until she heard a cool masculine voice responding to him, cutting like a knife through her pain-fogged mind—

“Cease your yapping, Inuyasha. You are making my ears ring.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 4/12/23