In that severed head Kagome glimpsed another.

The image exploded red behind her eyes. The roar in her ears was deafening. Her stomach lurched as she reeled away, panic clawing at her throat. Her palm clamped to her mouth in frozen horror.

At her shoulder, a touch—the warmth and weight of it familiar. Hunched, she scrabbled for it, her fingers bloodless and seizing. The grip steadied her, and she sucked in a ragged breath. Then, haltingly, another.

“Just keep breathing, Kagome—it’ll pass.” Kohaku’s voice seemed to float around her, before it sharpened aside. “Her husband was beheaded,” he was explaining shortly to someone. “Take that filth away.”

Another voice, Ren’s—”…Ah.” There was the sound of metal plates clinking as he turned. “You heard the lad, fellows—we’ve offended the lady. Pack it up.”

As the bolt on the cart door slid heavily shut, Kagome straightened and wiped at her eyes. Kohaku’s hand drifted from her shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he muttered to her.

Kagome nodded stiffly, and as that loathsome first cart trundled away, she cast a scathing glance toward the others. “What’s in the rest of these—more cut-up bandits?”

Ren smirked faintly, waving them forward. “Something far easier on the eyes, Kagome-sama—that I promise.”

By now, with no sounds of battle to be heard, bystanders had started to peek out through door curtains and window shutters and even creep hesitantly out into the streets. As the rest of the carts were brought forward, hushed voices whispered to one another in speculation. Kagome kept her gaze fixed coolly forward, though she wasn’t any less curious than they were.

As the covers on the carts were removed, the mutterings grew distinct—into gasps and exclamations of surprise. Kagome’s own eyes widened. The wary tension remaining in her dissipated at the sight. Within the carts was a veritable treasure trove—not only of gold and valuables, but of foodstuffs, tools and tonics, textiles and other dry goods. It was a bandit’s stash, accumulated over weeks of robbing merchants, travelers and refugees. It was a blood prize paid for several times over, and it was about to change the fortunes of many a survivor living here.

Kagome’s eyes rose to Ren’s, and whatever her look held within it set his own brassy gaze aglow. With deliberate slowness, he approached her.

“There’s more yet, Kagome-sama,” he said, in a tone of such silken intimacy that it raised goosebumps on her arms in anticipation—

But nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.

His hand fell to his sword hilt, and the point of Kohaku’s blade was at his jugular so fast she could have blinked and missed it. Ren swallowed tightly. Kagome recoiled in alarm. But as if anticipating all of this, the rounin merely smiled and sank to his knees, his gaze never leaving hers for an instant. Eyes narrowed, Kohaku eased off, though only slightly.

A bead of blood, so deep and crimson, trickled down the tanned skin of Ren’s throat. Ever so carefully he unsheathed his blade. Bowed before her, he held it flat and aloft in the palms of his hands, as his men knelt low to the ground behind him.

“Edo has no lord, this is true,” the rounin said, his resonant voice resounding in the quiet that had descended over the crowd. “Yet it has a lady—a holy protector who has raised it from a scattering of miserable hovels to a beacon of safety and prosperity that shines throughout the land. It is a city on the rise, and I would see it rise higher still, Kagome-sama, in sworn service to you.” Deftly, he brought the point of his katana to the cut Kohaku had made, and as his blood flowed fresh along the edge, Kagome’s breath stilled. “Will you have me, my lady—me, and these warriors of mine?”

The taijiya’s sword trembled in his fist as his gaze slashed to her, his words gruff with urgency. “We must discuss this.”

Kagome’s eyes met his, clear and hard. “But we already have, earlier today when it was decided the militia couldn’t be spared to police the region when its top priority is to protect the town. That’s a militia’s job, and I agree with you. The responsibility of defending the East lies elsewhere—with me, and the soldiers of my choosing.” Before he could say anything in reply to this, she turned to Ren. “I accept your oath of service, heichou.”

With a proud smile, Ren sheathed his sword and stood, no longer a rounin, but a samurai captain once more. As the crowd erupted into cheers for them both, Kagome’s mind whirled, heady with disbelief. With exhilaration.

She had a samurai—

She had a samurai and an army.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi