No, Kagome thought. No…

As Tessaiga dimmed, a convulsing sob wracked through her. In her glowing hands, the dark blade began to smoke. With a pained cry, she cast it away from her and lurched to her feet.

Around her, the world seemed sharply to tilt. Blinding white agony lanced between her eyes, but it was nothing compared to the anguish that was churning her up inside. She staggered back from the shores of the misted lake, whose surface was now eerily devoid of presence.

Hirokin…the dragon…had she imagined them?

Kagome didn’t know. Didn’t care. The mist had thickened to a clammy fog. Like a shroud it covered the land. Dense glittering clouds rolled in to dampen her skin. Above her, the skies had darkened thunderously, as though night were prematurely setting in.

Get away from here, she thought as she backed away, her tongue heavy and leaden in her mouth. I have to get away.

Through the fog in her mind, it was all she could think. The horse was still foaming and shying in distress. With a burst of reiki, she subdued him. Threw herself up into the saddle. With a frantic jab of her heels, she goaded him into a gallop. His hooves pounded over the flinty ground.

Through the darkling landscape they raced on. The shadows of the trees grew sharp and sinister around them. The brooding, ethereal mists hovered, ever-present. In vain Kagome strove to conceal her presence. But her focus was shattered. It was all she could do to keep her reiki from hemorrhaging out of her through the bonds that strove in vain to contain it.

And above her the skies continued thunderously to darken.

All she could think was to flee these lands. To get out of the West. If she could only get out of here, then maybe—maybe—

Hysterical laughter exploded from her, unhinged.

Here she was hoping like a fool, but hadn’t she already figured it out long ago? There was no sanctuary for her this side of the well. There was nothing for any of this.

Nothing.

But she kept jabbing her heels into the terrorized horse anyway. Kept driving them both on in a mad, breakneck dash toward the end that loomed before them.

It was a literal cliff they drew up against, as they attempted to ford the canyon with its white frothing river raging down below. The spindly plank bridge was next to nothing already, but the horse had barely taken a step toward it when the waters of the river raged up with unnatural vehemence, smashing the bridge to splinters ahead of them.

The horse reared with a shriek, throwing Kagome from the saddle as it bolted away, only to be consumed by the rising current. She crashed hard to the rocky ledge. A sickening crack sounded in her ankle. Pain rocketed up her leg. Crying out, she clutched at the fracture, blinking back her burning tears. They smoldered on her cheeks as she dragged herself up and hobbled away, using her longbow as a crutch.

The shadows of the woods weighed thick about her, black against the gathering dark. Panting, sobbing, Kagome fell to her knees amidst the ancient cedars. Despite the bulwark of her rosary restraints, her reiki bled out of her unchecked. Across the ground it spread like ghostly, red-hued flames, setting the land ablaze in her self-immolation.

In a daze, she stared out at the riotous conflagration.

Her bow clattered aside. Pulling her knees to her chest, Kagome bowed her head and wept. Her tears had turned bloody, streaking her grimed haori with fresh rivulets of red. Her nailbeds and ears were bleeding also. Through the gush of her own lifeblood the panicked cries of burning demons were muted. Distantly, she listened to them being consumed, as she herself was consumed.

Through sockets streaming blood, she peered up at the smothering dark skies. In her sight the shadows seemed to lengthen. Against the raging flames, they poured like a wash of cool dark.

But the dark shadows were a sort of flame unto themselves. At their flickering fringes, she saw a glint of virulent green.

“Sesshoumaru,” she murmured, dreamlike, as his pale form materialized through the seething haze.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi