Groggily, Kagome came to, the world a dizzying swirl of orange-gold above her. The smoky scent of incense invaded her lungs. As her eyes struggled to focus, she clutched at the softness beneath her and groaned.

“…Kagome-sama!” a familiar voice exclaimed.

Kagome’s head screamed in protest as she slowly turned it, and Kanako’s pale drawn face swam hazily into view. “Kanako-chan…” she rasped out, “did you give the tea to Rin-chan?”

The waif frowned, blinking. “…Hai, Kagome-sama, but that was many a day ago. You have been abed nearly a fortnight, now.”

“A fortnight?!” Trying to bolt upright on her elbows made the candlelit-room spin again. “Ugh…what…how?” Kagome grimaced as she took a shallow, smoke-laden breath. “Where the hell am I? And can you do something about all that incense?—it’s making me wheeze.”

“I had to fill the air,” Kanako said meekly as she scurried about the small room, tamping down the flames and pinching off the fuming sticks of scent. “Else evil spirits might enter while you were sleeping.”

The miko rolled her eyes. As if a bunch of smoke was going to do anything but give them both a migraine. But there was no reasoning with these superstitious country folk.

”You still haven’t answered my question,” Kagome said, peering around at the close but well-appointed space. It smelled and gleamed like fresh pine, and the crisp white tatami faintly shone. “Where am I, and how did I get here? Why am I not at home?”

“Outriders found you by the road, Kagome-sama,” the waif replied, her big grey eyes beginning to brim as her thin lips trembled. “I feared that you were dead, when I first saw you—you were so pale and bedecked in gore, and listless like a broken doll, so lovely and wretched to behold…”

“Kanako!”

“Hai, Kagome-sama—hai.” Wiping her wan face on her sleeve, the girl resumed with a sniffle, “When the outriders returned with your holy self in such a state, their master thought it best to remove you here instead, lest the common folk be thrown into a panic. There was nothing I could do; he ordered it so. Had I not a friend here, even I should not have been permitted to see you. Why, Kagome-sama, it has cost me a great deal…”

But whatever else Kanako had to say about her plight failed to register. Kagome’s foggy mind was reeling to process her circumstances.

“Ikiryou,” she said suddenly, in the midst of Kanako’s whining. Her voice rose as she glanced around. “Where’s Ikiryou? Why isn’t he here with me?”

Kanako’s brow scrunched. “They put him up in the stables, Kagome-sama. He kept growling and snapping at everyone, like a mad thing. So he ordered that, too.”

Kagome’s chest heaved, her heart racing. “He?—who is he?”

Kanako’s mouth opened, but before she could answer, there was a heavy clunking sound from the door, as if a large metal bolt were sliding free. A guard entered first. He took up his post at the threshold so mechanically he was like a fixture in the room itself—albeit a crude and hulking one. Looking narrowly at him, Kagome could only assume he’d left his post when she’d first stirred awake—

And when his master stepped smiling into the room behind him, she cut her narrowed gaze to him, with a thrill of foreboding racing along her spine.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi