"Kagome!"

She could hear his voice amid the annoying insectual clicking and cackling of the large, black eight-legged creatures. Her frantic blue eyes searched for him, attempting to adjust to the absence of light that had befallen the sky, a darkness that engulfed even the most radiant of stars. The shrouding shadows cast by the towersome trees she was weaving around did little to help her in locating the one she was supposed to be protecting. Instead, she found herself running from those nasty tsuchigumo who had ambushed their dainty little camp - tsuchigumo who had been quick to trap Sango, Miroku, and Shippo in layers and threads of shooting webs, each now glued to neighbouring trees. The only good thing about the current situation was that the young girl had been able to lead the spider youkai away from her friends on account of having "delicious spiritual energy and blood" to feed off of, but the luck of the situation was only temporary at best. If she didn't find her hanyou friend soon, they would all end up being spider food.

"Inuyasha?" she shouted, trying her best not to stumble in her slender-legged escape and show the monster exactly what was under the skirt of her school uniform. She only carried a bow in her hand and a couple of arrows in the quiver upon her back. She glanced back at the giant spider youkai who scrambled after her with a malicious, hungry smile, followed by several smaller spider youkai. If only I could stop long enough to aim…

"It is useless to run, little girl! I will catch you, and my brethren and I will eat you from the inside out!" screeched the leader, fangs protruding and dripping with anticipation. His followers cackled and screeched in excitement of the proclamation.

She could feel their thirsty apprehension of drawing nearer to their prey, their twisted enjoyment of the chase. Her features became more worried, her sapphires searching once more for the human hanyou. He had to be around here somewhere, right? She had to be quick, or-

Her foot caught beneath a heavy root, and then the ground was swept from under. Her palms reached out, saving her from landing face first, but not before scraping the flesh off her right knee. She winced and turned to look at the sharp sting of pain that came after and the thin trail of crimson that began trickling down her leg.

It was the arachnid's laughter that tore her away from her cut, his foaming mouth and wide, insidious eyes that could wait no longer.

"YOU'RE MINE!" he bellowed, lunging for her.

Her eyes widened.

The black-haired man immediately jumped out of hiding, anger prominent in his features as he charged toward the spider youkai with all of his human might. "I don't think so!" He unsheathed his Tessaiga, its shape temporarily stuck in its katana form, and impaled the spider youkai in its side.

While the pierced ōgumo had not actually been wounded by the sword, it had served its purpose in directing the youkai's attention away from the black-haired girl… but, now said attention was on a weak and defenseless Inuyasha, who, idiotically but bravely stood in a battle stance, ready to fight regardless of his condition.

"You meddling mortal! Aaaffteerr hiiimm!" commanded the ōgumo, and, sure enough, the weaker, but more abundant tsuchigumo crawled menacingly fast towards the human hanyou, beginning to spray him with all sorts of webbage, and entrapping him, along with his sword, inside layers of web.

The young miko knew she had to act fast if she wanted to keep the person most dear to her from being cocooned into spider fodder, so she reached for the trusted red bow she had dropped in her stupid, clumsy fall, and readied it to support an arrow she snatched from her quiver a second later. Her sapphires narrowed, taking aim at the small arachnids as she pulled the arrow back and poured all of her reiryoku into it. Pierce 'Em.

The shaft soared through the air in a pink, purifying brilliance, only to pierce the hoard of tsuchigumo in a swift line of light and shatter them all into particles. She couldn't help but smile at herself, seeing as she had actually destroyed all of those nasty spider youkai and saved the inu hanyou all by herself. Her pride was only momentary, though, and her smile was short-lived, replaced by a look of shock as she realised that, while she had saved Inuyasha from the small arachnids, she had not freed him from the white threads that he was now entrapped in, glued to a tree just like the rest of her friends. "Hold on, Inuyasha! I'm coming!"

That's when she saw his golden eyes flash with a fear she had rarely ever seen. "Kagome! Look out!"

She rose to her feet, and she could sense something was behind her, but before she could turn around, a sudden, sharp, protruding pain sank deep into the side of neck.

Her eyes widened, and she could feel some type of shock come over her. All her limbs began to tingle, and her eyesight blurred. What… What was happening?

She felt herself fall -this time, because of something outside of her control, and she heard the clatter of her arrows and bow hit the cold, solid ground at the same time as she did. Her mind began to feel fuzzy, possibly protecting itself from the deep fire surging through her, and her breaths became something steady and shallow. The voice calling her name become fainter and fainter with each passing second, and she could no longer keep her eyelids open, no longer try to battle the fatigue that had claimed her.

Her body became numb.

She could feel herself start to fade away from whatever she had just been experiencing, becoming farther and farther from this world. From both worlds. From the people she cared about…. was she dying?

She wasn't sure.

But, she was starting to feel warm, a warmth she welcomed after lying on the bitter soil floor.

tsuchigumo - spider youkai

ōgumo - giant spider youkai

reiryoku - spiritual power

hanyou - half-demon

youkai - demon

miko - priestess