The guards might search the whole night in vain, but Kagome knew where Ikiryou would be. As the sky was beginning to lighten, she made her way alone and in secret to that spot in the thick timbered walls of the fortress which had never been patched over. Glancing about her one last time, Kagome lifted the blanket of browning vines and slipped through the gap in the timbers.

The woods beyond the castle were grey and still. Skeins of mist swirled between the sparse dark pines, dampened the tops of Kagome’s sandaled feet. There were no sounds of birds yet at this hour. There was only the susurrus slink of nocturnal creatures, creeping their way through the underbrush. Raccoons, maybe. Or foxes on the prowl.

Not wolves—of that Kagome felt strangely certain.

She wandered forward a little ways, not really searching for anything. It felt surreal and sad, to walk these woods again. Her regrets weighed heavy as a millstone around her neck. She couldn’t help but think of Mayuri and their game of ‘keep the secret’. Of the ill-fated tryst that had followed after. Of Sesshoumaru, and all she had done in that furor of discovery—

Of all that she hadn’t.

It was what she had failed to do that haunted her most. How different things might have been, had she charged into that clearing. Had she dealt head-on with the terrible shock of it all.

But her heart had faltered. She had chosen to run instead.

She was running now, she realized, as the watchful stare that had been trained upon her materialized through the shadows, golden and glinting. Like the mist, Ikiryou slipped out from the trees and fell into step beside her, soundless as a ghost.

They crossed one creek, then another. All day they walked north through the rocky hills, until the sky began to redden again. The days were growing shorter. The brisk air was biting in its chill. But the wilderness seemed to go on without ending.

Heart aching, Kagome longed to do the same. She looked down at Ikiryou, padding along beside her. Into this deep wilderness, they could disappear forever. They could vanish, never to return. It could be just her and him, alone together again.

But she had tried that before. She had tried running away, only to circle back. There was no point to running, she realized now.

There was no outrunning the past.

So Kagome slowed and stopped. She knelt down before Ikiryou and took his huge shaggy head in her hands. She ruffled through his frosted grey fur, still sticky here and there with Natsuko’s dried blood. The sight of it steeled her, despite the calm level gold of his eyes.

There was no outrunning the present, either, she knew. No outrunning what he’d done. What he might very well do again, if she didn’t take pains to prevent it.

From within her outer robe Kagome reached for the knife belted to her waist. The same knife she’d nearly plunged into her own beating heart. This knife she carried on her always. She drew it now and held it to his muscular neck. But Ikiryou didn’t so much as flinch. Tongue lolling, he panted heavy and damp into the air between them—before leaning forward against the edge of the blade to lick at the tears streaming down her face.

Kagome’s features crumpled, twisting. The knife trembled in her fist. Lowering it, she rose to her feet and staggered back. Impotent, despairing fury welled in her chest. As Ikiryou started after her, Kagome rounded upon him.

“Go away!” she yelled, her face red and her eyes streaming still. “Fuck off, you filthy mongrel! Go away and never come back!”

Ikiryou stilled at her yelling, but only briefly. As he started to take another step toward her, she knelt in a rage and scrabbled in the dirt. Her grasping fingers seized upon a rock. She threw it into the dirt at his feet. It glanced off his paw, and he flinched back.

But after a moment, he pursued her again.

Kagome wrenched up a bigger, sharper rock. Dark earth rained down from it. This time, she hit him hard in the chest. It slammed into fur, bone and flesh with a sickening, heavy thud. Ikiryou yelped, recoiling violently. Sobbing and bent, Kagome closed her fist around yet another stone.

But she never threw it. With one last wounded look, Ikiryou unfurled from his miserable hunch and took off from her, lumbering away into the brush.

Still holding the gritty stone, Kagome stared after him. Her arm went limp. With that last blow, she’d driven him off for good.

In her heart she knew she’d never see him again.

He was just a dog, she told herself. Just a big, wild brute of a dog—

Violent and mad, besides.

But she couldn’t stop weeping as she dragged herself back across that brittle, mean terrain. The sky was full dark when the last of her strength finally gave out. Around her, a light snow was falling. Clinging to the trunk of a silver-barked tree, she slid down to the sloping roots of it. Her fingers scored pale tracks through the soft, peeling bark.

Shame, thick and choking, smothered her into sleep at last.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi