At Kaede’s doorstep, Sesshoumaru landed. With Kagome in his arms, he shouldered through the patchy door curtain. A startled gasp rent the air. Through the haze of her pain, Kagome saw Rin kneeling there on the tatami across from Kaede. They’d been having tea, it seemed. “Old woman,” Sesshoumaru said, striding forward as Kagome groaned

Kagome sank back to the ground. Her kimono was wet beneath her, and growing wetter. Blankly, she stared ahead toward the sun-dappled trees. Her vision blurred. Tears trickled down her cheeks. This can’t be happening, was all she could think. “Kagome,” a voice said to her, as if from afar.  But when she turned her

Kagome returned home in a morbid haze. As she trudged up the porch steps in the deepening dusk, it was like she’d lost time. She was so spaced-out she didn’t even realize she’d been soaked to the bone until Inuyasha arched a brow at her and said, “What happened? You fall into a creek or

Wherever Sesshoumaru might have expected Kagome wished to go, it clearly wasn’t here. As they touched down in the grassy ruins of the village square, his features were edged in displeasure. Still, he’d done as she’d asked. Kagome ventured out from the ruined square, toward that dilapidated porch step she recognized so well. Startled grasshoppers

Even Sesshoumaru’s vast powers had their limits. Even Kagome’s stubborn will couldn’t change the course of time. Whatever cosmic magic controlled the Bone-Eater’s Well didn’t bend to the whims of human hearts, or the might of demons, however strong. The past might not be fixed, but theirs was. Kagome knew that as well as he

Kagome was glad Sesshoumaru had warned her to shut her eyes. The vertigo she experienced as they shot off through the sky was enough to make her head spin as it was. She felt eerily weightless, almost disembodied. It was a disorienting sensation to say the least. Even when her feet touched solid ground again,

Kagome didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse, this utter indifference that possessed her. After Sesshoumaru had left her, it had fallen over her like a spell. She felt somehow hollow and leaden at the same time. Dull and empty inside. There was a heaviness centered in her that had nothing to