While Inuyasha sulked in a tree just outside the house, Kagome sat with Sango in the hours after. Not speaking much, weeping often. Kagome felt raw with grief—fleshed-out from the inside out. Sango’s eyes were rubbed red, her face pale as swept stone. She looked washed out, hollowed out. Worn out with pain, yet unable

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

Inuyasha wasn’t at home when she arrived, not that she’d expected him to be. He usually came trudging in after sunset, and that was still about an hour off. Anxiously, she paced the hut with Shin in her arms, glancing about, thinking. She felt both sick with dread and restless with anticipation. No matter how

Kagome reeled aside as if she’d been struck. She staggered a few steps into the grass, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her shoulders hunched. Her guts twisted, her stomach roiled. She thought she might throw up. Her eyes watered and burned. Her throat was parched, constricted. Blood rushed pounding in her ears. At her

Tangled up in Sesshoumaru’s arms, Kagome stared out at Miroku, staring back at her. In the time before he turned away, she was frozen, numb inside. Her body went still. Her mind went blank. A moment could have passed. An eternity could have passed. She felt no difference between the two as she stood there,

Kagome leapt up from the stump like she’d been shocked, glaring at Sesshoumaru. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have known better. This is why I can’t talk to you—because you always try to twist things back around on me to suit your own purposes. I’m not in love with you. I’m

Kagome sat on a stump in the clearing, watching Shin dash about through the falling leaves. His gusts of youki sent them swirling in all directions—riotous confetti-bursts of crimson and gold. He darted and leapt, snapped and spun. At times he gathered enough ethereal steam beneath his paws to go briefly airborne, but even Kagome

Kagome stared down at where Inuyasha lay sprawled, too stunned at first to do anything else. He was out cold. Shin inched toward him, bristled and sniffing. Even when he nudged Inuyasha with his snowy crackling muzzle, even when his miasmic purple tongue licked Inuyasha full and fuming across the face, the hanyou barely stirred. 

In the wake of Inuyasha’s departure the silence was deafening. Crushing. Shoulders hunched beneath the oppressive weight of it, Kagome stood there in the middle of the hut, staring after him long after he’d gone. Her own brash words had left her reeling. She had fired them off without thinking. Only now was she registering