“Bastard,” Kagome seethed, ripping the shelves from the walls with all their contents, reveling perversely in the sound of glass and ceramics shattering against the wooden floor. Wrathfully, she ground her heel into the brittle shards, reveling even in the cutting pain that lanced through her traitorous flesh. “Rapist! Murderer! I hate you—I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

“Kagome-sama!” Kanako shrieked in fright, flattening herself further against the doorframe.

But Kagome paid the girl no heed. In the frenzy of her rage, she stormed bloodily back toward the bed. The hateful sheets she had shredded from the start, but seizing up the ragged pieces from under the rubble that now buried them, Kagome shredded them again. Even the sharp sound of their rending couldn’t take the edge off her resentment.

A red haze seemed to fog her vision as she thunderously breathed, shredding and shredding until the pieces were so small she could shred them no more. Had there been hot coals in the hearth, she might have set fire to the futon altogether. But the coals were as cool as the autumn air against her naked skin, and all she could do was stamp at the mangled bedding with her torn, bleeding feet and rake her nails over her belly and breasts with a blistering, savage scream.

At the horror of this self-mutilation, Kanako shrieked again, flying at Kagome in a panic. Thin, clammy fingers prised at her own, clutched and molded to Kagome’s tender flesh to shield it. Even in the mad, frothing grip of her fury, the miko shuddered. The dank bony press of Kanako’s touch against her searing skin had a dousing effect, as though Kagome had been plunged headfirst into the depths of a dark icy lake.

“No, Kagome-sama—you must not! You cannot!” Kanako sobbed, shrill and reedy and gasping as she clutched at Kagome more desperately still. “It is sacrilege to wound your holy self! It is blasphemy!”

“Let go of me!” Kagome cried, rounding viciously upon her. With a harsh shove, she cast Kanako bodily off—momentarily forgetting her rage against Sesshoumaru as she glared upon the trembling waif in sudden and furious recognition. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with Kaede-baa-chan?”

A brief look of pinched, sullen panic crossed Kanako’s features. “Rin-chan sent me away!” she exclaimed on a whine. “She said, ‘Get out, I will see to the old woman now!'”

Kagome grit her teeth, still breathing forcefully and fast. She didn’t believe this story for an instant, but her greater anger against her brother-in-law eclipsed all else. Striding over to a trunk, she swept some of the shelves’ carnage from its lid before throwing it open and wrenching out a simple white cotton robe.

“Clean up this mess,” she ordered Kanako as she pulled the robe roughly around her shoulders and marched toward the door. “Burn that old bedding and get me some new.”

“Hai, Kagome-sama,” Kanako said faintly from the floor, her large wide eyes fixed upon Kagome with unswerving focus.

Disturbed for some reason she couldn’t place, Kagome shoved the curtain aside and went out. The cold morning light scalded her eyes. Blinking, she adjusted slowly to it as she trudged down the steps, holding her robe closed about her. She had forgotten the sash in her anger and her haste to get to the spring, to wash every last trace of him off her—for what little good it would do.

So bitterly distracted, Kagome failed to notice at first the one who awaited her in the yard just beyond. Noticing at last, she froze at the bottom of the steps, her eyes narrowing upon his dark and silent form.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Whew boy, it’s been a loooong week, y’all. But wanted to get an update out before the weekend at least – should be back on more of a regular schedule next week! 🙂

<3