With Shin in arms, Inuyasha and Kagome hurried from their home. On the porch step they met the harried young man who had hailed them. He stood panting to catch his breath.

“Miko-sama, I-Inuyasha-sama…”

“What the hell’s going on?” Inuyasha barked at him.

The young man started, then shook his head. “…You had better just come with me.”

He was still panting as he took off again, waving for them to follow. As they raced through the village after him, Kagome’s heart sank further and further. 

No, she thought in despair. No, please gods, no…

But whether the gods heard her desperate prayer or not, soon enough to her dread she found herself standing before Sango and Miroku’s home. A crowd of villagers had gathered in the yard just outside the sprawling house. Seeing that Kagome and Inuyasha had arrived, the murmuring onlookers fell grimly silent. Thrusting Shin into Kagome’s arms, Inuyasha shouldered roughly through the crowd. Slowly and numbly, Kagome trailed in his wake, as if stuck in some terrible dream.

She felt sick in her heart, in the pit of her stomach. She was nearly at the door when she felt an urgent tug at her arm. Kagome glanced aside to see a kindly older woman frowning into her face—Sango’s next-door neighbor.

“Please, Miko-sama,” she said, reaching for Shin as she inclined her shawled head solemnly toward her own house. “We have the other children at our home. My daughter is watching them now.”

Wordlessly, Kagome handed Shin over to her. With leaden feet, she passed through the curtained door, into the darkness beyond. No hearth fire was burning. It took Kagome’s eyes an interminable moment to adjust to the gloom. But she heard the wasted sobs before she saw Sango’s figure lying sprawled on the floor, senseless with grief. Rin was at her side, clutching at her, trying to calm her, though from the gutted look on Rin’s face she seemed to realize how futile her efforts were.

In the middle of the room Inuyasha stood frozen, staring seemingly at nothing. Kagome knew somehow it was his sense of smell that had paralyzed him. As she took hold of his sleeve, his paralysis broke. Tearing free of her bracing hold, he barreled into the adjoining bedroom. Kagome cried after him in vain. A terrible howl from beyond rose a second later, followed by Kaede’s haggard cry of restraint. With a stuttering breath, Kagome crossed into the bedroom after him, her bloodless hand clasped to her throat.

Inuyasha was rampaging about in his misery, smashing things, scoring his claws along the walls while Kaede implored him hoarsely to stop. Kagome registered this turmoil as if from afar. Detached from it, somehow deaf to it in her own shock and horror, she wandered toward the bed, sank to her knees beside it.

Miroku was lying there very pale and still beneath the sheets. His eyes were closed as if in sleep, but he wasn’t sleeping. His white sleeping robe lay parted above his unbeating heart.

Kagome stared at him, blank and disbelieving. Her chest clenched strangely, spastically. Her throat started to seize. She was hyperventilating, she realized distantly. She couldn’t breathe. She hunched over as she gasped in breathless distress. As her vision spotted, Kaede was at her side, coaxing her to let her constricted airway relax. 

But it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t—not until she felt the raze of dark youki against her senses, and Sesshoumaru was there before her bleared eyes, steering her around by the shoulder. She perceived the flash of his eyes in the same instant he doused her full in the face.

Kagome’s breath broke from her in a spluttering, strangled wail. The empty water basin clattered to the floor beside her. She collapsed against him as Kaede drew back. A split-second later, Inuyasha fell upon him. Pushing Kagome aside, he snatched Sesshoumaru up by the collar, snarling red-eyed into his face.

“Your sword—use your fucking sword!”

Sesshoumaru met his frenzied gaze with unnerving placidity. “Tenseiga does not stir.”

“Stir?—what fucking bullshit is that?” Inuyasha raged, grasping Tenseiga by the hilt. “Give it to me!”

Sesshoumaru let him take the sword. Unsheathing it, Inuyasha hacked the thin silver blade like a madman against Miroku’s still and lifeless form. Tenseiga deflected harmlessly off him, not cutting him in the slightest, but it was a disturbing sight all the same.

“Work, damn you! Fucking work, you piece of shit!”

“Inuyasha, stop it!” Kagome shrieked, grabbing at him. “Please, stop! Please!”

But it was Sesshoumaru who stopped him, when an unintentional glancing blow from him had Kagome reeling sideways. A tempest of dark youki extinguished the candles, smothered the air. Sesshoumaru whipped Inuyasha around by the collar. Wresting Tenseiga from him, Sesshoumaru slammed his other fist into Inuyasha’s face all in one smooth, blazing motion, sending him crumpling unconscious to the floor.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 11/20/23