Dread gnawed Kagome up inside, as she stood before the door of a building she’d scarcely glanced at before.

The windows were fitted with wooden bars. The door was bolted heavily from the outside. As Kagome laid her hand to the bolt, the priestesses at her back hovered grimly.

“Please, Miko-sama,” the eldest urged her once again, “you would do well not to enter.”

But Kagome’s mind was set. It had been set from the moment Hirokin had relayed the terms of the blood-oath to her. No demon would decide her fate. But a fellow priestess?

Kagome had planned to confess her sins to this Nazumi, slayer of demons. She would lay bare her soul and place herself at the mercy of her peer. Whatever fate Nazumi decided for her, Kagome would accept it.

‘Mad’ or not, Kagome felt compelled to accept it still. In her mind, there was no turning back.

Kagome unbolted the door and entered. The small, shed-like room was unlit. The stench within was overpowering. Pinching her nose, Kagome squinted. Her watering eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom, pierced wanly by shafts of light seeping in through the bars of the windows.

The room was mostly bare, for good reason. The few meager furnishings had been scratched, smashed or rent. The floors and walls had been similarly gouged. Mad sutras scrawled in blood and filth covered every reachable surface.

Huddled in one corner was Nazumi herself, muttering and rocking in her soiled rags. Spidery tangles of hair obscured her face. But as Kagome approached, her dark eyes snapped up—glowing like a pair of hellish coals from the gaunt, waxy white of her face. The expression she wore was one of stark raving terror.

“Nazumi-sama?” Kagome called out softly, tentatively. “Nazumi-sama, can you hear me?”

Shaking her head, the wraith went back to rocking and muttering. Tears and stringing snot splattered messily against the planks. Drawing close to her, Kagome knelt. She pushed the tangled curtain of the woman’s hair back from her grimy face. Despite how sickly and sunken she looked, there were traces of beauty in her features still. She must truly have been lovely, once.

Kagome’s heart clenched with pity. “The one who did this to you,” she whispered. “The daiyoukai who did this to you—he’s dead now. Dead, Nazumi, do you hear me?”

Nazumi clapped her frail, broken-nailed fingers to her ears. The head-shaking intensified, almost violently. When Kagome tried gently to still her, to ease her white-knuckled hands from their hold, Nazumi let out a blood-curdling shriek.

“No no nononono I can feel him! MAKE HIM STOP MAKE HIM STOP MAKEHIMSTOP!”

Kagome drew back from her in shock. Nazumi’s reiki seared across her like an open flame—

Red and transcendent.

A familiar pressure boomed against Kagome’s senses. A dark, building pressure she’d been ignoring until now.

The heavy door slammed open. Daylight flooded in. Smoke rose from Kagome’s singed sleeves.

“Miko-sama!” Yoshiko cried from the threshold.

Brushing off the spectral ash, Kagome shot the girl a glare. “Stay back—back, I said! And close that door behind you!”

Terrified, Yoshiko withdrew. The door banged shut behind her. In the noisome dark, Kagome’s throat ran dry and stinging. From beyond, that fell demonic pressure mounted still.

Nazumi moaned wretchedly, clawing at her rags. “He is tearing her…he is killing her…make him stop makehimstopmakehimstop…”

Kagome breathed rapidly through her nose, with difficulty. “Who is she? Who?”

Nazumi jerked her head so viciously hard to the side Kagome feared she’d snap her own neck. She was asking, but she already knew. She had been around enough victims to recognize that Nazumi had detached herself from her trauma, which she couldn’t stop reliving. She was the ‘her’, yet she saw herself as an outside observer instead.

“Who is he?” Kagome pressed instead, striving to keep her voice steady. “Who is hurting her? Tell me.”

Nazumi sniveled, seized. “The white beast…the white beast he is howling her name…makehimstop…make…him…makehim…”

All the blood drained from Kagome’s face. In a breathless whisper she asked, “What is her name?” Nazumi mumbled, choked. “What is it?” Kagome grabbed the madwoman, dug her nails into her the wasted flesh of her upper arms. “Tell me her fucking name, goddamn you!”

A startled cry rose from beyond the door. But Kagome couldn’t have cared less. All she could see was red as Nazumi stammered brokenly back to her—

“Ka…go…me…”

Kagome screwed her eyes shut, bit her tongue bloody on the scream that was roaring up through her chest. When she opened her eyes again, Nazumi’s were peering up at her with startling, piercing lucidity.

“Kill me,” she said to Kagome. “Kill me, please.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi