Uetsugi paled. His stout jaw went slack. A riot of emotions stormed through his charcoal-colored eyes, before he went down into an awkward bow before Kagome on the steps.

“You honor me, Kagome-sama,” he said slowly and carefully, as if trying to master his stutter once again. “Yet this charge I must humbly refuse; forgive me.”

Huh? Kagome blinked, frowning. This she hadn’t anticipated—what sort of man turned down such an offer?

“…Can I ask why?” she managed, after a moment.

“The title of lord is not one which I should bear,” Uetsugi said, his expression solemn and sincere. “With respect, Kagome-sama, I know my strengths, and to lead is not among them. I am a soldier, and that is all I aim to be.” His voice lowered, gruff with feeling. “Rin-sama has ever been a lady in my eyes; I devote myself to her, but I will take no wife. This, I have decided.”

Well, Kagome thought with a pang of disappointment, so much for that.

Kanako’s poisons took many forms, it seemed. But toward Uetsugi, Kagome could hold no hard feelings; she couldn’t help but admire him, really. Perhaps she even envied him a little. He was the sort of man who knew himself completely.

A good and honest man. The miko sighed—such a shame.

“I respect your choice,” she said, “though I wish you’d reconsider. I think you’d make a fine leader, regardless.”

Uneasy, Uetsugi retreated back to his step. “It is unfortunate Kohaku-dono cut ties with Edo,” he replied, hedging. “Truly, he has a lordly bearing. I owed a debt to Ren-heichou. Now that he is dead I can say freely what I have long since felt: there is a leader whom I would follow without scruple.”

Kohaku…

Kagome’s eyes closed briefly, as she came to a decision she’d been loath to contemplate.

“Uetsugi-dono, will you do me a favor?”

…

Not long after Kanako’s ashes were interred, Kagome departed alone from Edo, headed north and east. It wasn’t so different a course from the one she and Kohaku had taken many months ago, when they’d set out to investigate the Beast and his then-latest victim—

That other Kanako.

Kagome grimaced at the irony. Her heart weighed heavy as a stone. Déjà vu assailed her, eerie and unsettling. As much as possible, she kept to the wilderness, and kept her concealment spell firmly in place. It wouldn’t help against men or beasts, of course, but it gave her a feeling of safety nevertheless.

Since ‘safety’ was only ever a feeling, this was good enough in her mind.

Two days of traveling by horseback, and she arrived at the ruins of the hidden taijiya village—not that the place was in ruins anymore, or even remotely hidden. Instead, her eyes widened at the formidable, thriving fortress it had become. Recognizing her, the guards hailed her, waving her through the thick timbered gates.

Within, Kagome gazed around in awe. The last time she’d been here, there’d been little more than a scattering of ramshackle huts and the graveyard that dwarfed them. Now, the place bustled with activity: the hammering and sawing of new dwellings and fortifications going up, the clang of steel being forged into weapons and men being forged into warriors, the rich smoke of wood fires with stews simmering and meat spitted over them, the warmth of high spirits and open camaraderie, the clearing-out of the old and the bringing-in of the new.

No banners flew with Midoriko’s four-point emblem, and Kagome considered this strange. For all that this place was the mythical taijiya home-base reclaimed, it had the martial character of a feudal-era stronghold. Maybe Kohaku himself hadn’t yet decided what it should be.

Belatedly, because of all her gawking, Kagome asked where she might find him. One of the men directed her toward the heart of the encampment: the manor house, of course. Tying up her horse outside the garden, Kagome gazed at the many-roomed estate. This was the place where Kohaku and Sango had both been born and raised, and it had been restored to its former glory with impeccable care. Not a shingle was mismatched in those sweeping eaves. Not a sliver of wood was unvarnished, nor a board misaligned. The decorative lintels above the verandas gleamed, intricately carved and enameled.

“Kohaku-dono is not at home, Miko-sama,” one of the servants informed her, but Kagome invited herself in all the same.

The interior of the house was as handsome as the exterior. Wall hangings and silk screens depicted scenes of heroic battle. The rest of the decor was minimal yet tasteful, and exuded exactly the sort of spartan aesthetic Kagome would have expected. Crisp white tatami, low dark furnishings, racks of katanas, suits of armor—all glinting in the light of the square lanterns that glowed around her, clear and bright.

The only thing that seemed out of place to Kagome as she wandered through was a tiny maple chest, sitting atop what was clearly Kohaku’s writing desk. Ink stones and swathes of parchment littered the surface. The corner of one such scroll draped over the top of the chest. Moving the scroll aside, Kagome trailed her fingers wonderingly over the pattern etched into the lid: three spade-shaped flowers, encircled and pointing inward.

“That chest belonged to my mother,” a cool voice addressed her from behind, making Kagome turn with a start. “The sigil it bears was her old family crest.”

“…Kohaku-kun,” she said, pressing a hand to her racing heart.

Clad darkly in the full regalia of a taijiya clan leader, he fixed her with his penetrating stare. “What are you doing here, Kagome?”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi