“I’m sorry,” Kagome fumed as she ripped out a few more snapped twigs from her hair, swiped a few more torn leaves from her sweater, “I’ve tried to give him the benefit of the doubt since he’s our ally, but I just have to say it: Sesshoumaru is no-good—no good at all!”

Miroku side-eyed her. Sango frowned. Shippou blinked, and Kirara’s red eyes stared. Inuyasha scoffed.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like that’s news or anything.” The hanyou shrugged. “He’s an asshole, always has been, always will be.”

“It’s more than that,” Kagome raged on, because now that she’d started it didn’t seem she could stop. “He’s insufferable! It’s like he goes out of his way just to get under your skin. He’s so arrogant, so snide, so condescending, so—”

Kagome broke off in her tirade, realizing that everyone was staring at her now. As her jaw snapped shut, Inuyasha arched a brow.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “I think we get it.”

Kagome gave a sheepish laugh. “Sorry,” she said, skimming a hand through her hair. “I guess I got a little carried away there. Heat of battle and all.” Smiling around at them, she asked, “Who wants ramen?”

The answer was enthusiastic and unanimous. Kagome was relieved. But after they’d eaten dinner and gone to bed, she remained wide awake and incensed. In the darkness of night, Sesshoumaru’s latest and greatest slight against her stood out in stark relief.

She couldn’t stop replaying the events from the skirmish earlier that day, when the edge of a cliff had crumbled out from under her feet and she’d gone skidding down the hillside. With her heart in her throat, she’d caught hold of a ledge, but it had been a near thing. Inuyasha had been away, preoccupied with his own fight. So had everyone else. Her white-knuckled hands had been cramping as she’d struggled to hold on, searching in vain for a foothold until Sesshoumaru’s shadow had fallen over her from on high. She’d glanced up at him, hopefully. Desperately. But though he looked the part, he was no rescuing angel. His bright golden eye had held hers for a breathless moment, before he’d smirked and turned away. About a second later, Kagome’s hold had given out. With a scream, she’d plummeted—only to have her fall broken almost instantly by a leafy tree jutting from the cliffside, then another and another, until she’d landed in a roughed-up heap at the bottom of the ridge, dazed but unharmed.

Physically, anyway. Kagome’s wounded pride was still smarting something fierce. Because it would’ve been nothing for him to have rescued her, and they both knew it. But he’d literally left her hanging instead.

Kagome turned over in her sleeping bag, stewing. It wasn’t just the fact that she was human. Somehow she knew that if it had been Sango in her place, Sesshoumaru would have given her a hand. Why Kagome knew this she couldn’t say, but she resented it. For whatever reason, Sesshoumaru had set out to bully her, and her alone.

Kagome knew, too, that any attempt to decry his behavior would just earn her the same looks of consternation she’d gotten earlier that day. There was nothing for it, she told herself again, for what seemed like the hundredth time. But she still couldn’t sleep that night. Groggy and dragging the next day, she said she needed to go home for a bit. Even Inuyasha didn’t give her much grief over it, though they were still several days’ journey by foot from Edo.

With Kirara’s help, Kagome returned ahead of them. As she was wending her weary way alone through the woods toward the Bone-Eater’s Well, a wave of dark power razed across her senses, drawing her to a halt. She stared across the clearing, where Sesshoumaru’s pale form materialized through the shifting shadows, like a sliver of moon appearing behind a cloud. He was high in a tree, reclining on a branch. From his shoulder, his snowy fur fell in a train that glittered like starlight.

But it was another uncanny glint that made Kagome’s breath catch in her throat. Between his ivory claws, she spied the source of the shimmer—a shard of the Shikon Jewel. Catching her eye, Sesshoumaru smiled, slight and dark.

“Hello, miko,” he said, pinching the violet shard so that it glowed just as dark. “See something that you like?”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 9/17/23