InuYasha and company managed to make it back to Kaede's village in record time, which was a very good thing; Kagome's shoulder wound wasn't getting any better. On the morning of the second day out of the castle, she was in so much pain that InuYasha had to carry her if she wanted to do anything, whether it be get a drink or sit by the fire.

It was with great feelings of relief that the village of the Bone-Eater's Well came into view later that afternoon, coupled with anxiety, as Kagome had spent the latter half of the trip in complete unconsciousness. The sun was just beginning to set in the West when InuYasha smacked aside the reed mat covering the entrance to Kaede's hut. The miko in question looked up, her one eye confused, then alarmed as she took in the wild-eyed hanyou and the unconscious miko in his arms.

"Babaa, you have to help Kagome!" InuYasha barked as the others slowly trailed in behind him. "She's been hurt, and-"

"Let me see," Kaede interrupted, putting down her tea as she hauled herself to her feet. "Where is the wound?"

InuYasha silently whispered an apology as he put his hand on Kagome's shoulder and ripped away the material that covered the bandaged wound and the splintered half of the javelin's haft. Kaede studied the wound with a professional eye (literally). "The wound is not particularly harmful. I suspect that the weapon is touching something deep inside Kagome that is causing her intense pain." Kaede went over to a small wooden box where she kept the things she needed for the rare times when she needed to do surgery. She took from it a small knife, a spool of coarse thread and a bone needle. "Sango, I will need ye to help me with removing the weapon from Kagome's shoulder," Kaede said as she went back over to the others. "Lay her down right here, InuYasha," she ordered gently, pointing to the bedding she had beside the fire. InuYasha nodded and gently laid Kagome upon the soft futon.

"If you don't make her better, babaa," InuYasha growled, "I swear I'll-"

"InuYasha, I have been listening to your threats for long enough to not feel threatened by them anymore," Kaede said smoothly. InuYasha flushed angrily, but kept his mouth shut.

"Excuse me?" Gaka came forward now, the large scroll of Amaterasu clasped in his arms. "Can I ask something?"

Kaede, who was about to start removing the javelin, paused and turned to Gaka. "Who are you?"

"My name is Gaka, and I am a wandering artist. I was wondering if I might hang something in here to help with your surgery."

Kaede raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "If that makes ye feel better," she said.

Gaka nodded, and found a place on the wall to hang his scroll. Amaterasu emerged in her full glory, glowing with the same aura that had surrounded her in the castle and in the later battlefield. Here it filled everyone with peace and contentment, as if they knew that everything was going to be all right.

"Sango, it is time for us to begin," Kaede said. If she was unnerved by the painting, she didn't show it. Sango nodded and held Kagome's head and shoulders in a firm grasp. Kaede took the knife, sterilized it with some of the cleanser Kagome had given her, and made two small, but deep cuts on either side of the javelin's haft.

InuYasha smelled the blood and panicked. "Babaa, what the hell are you-"

"I am only making the wound a little wider so that it is easier to get the weapon out, InuYasha," Kaede said as she put the knife down on the cloth it had been wrapped in. "It is better than having the flesh torn when we pull it out." Kaede fixed her eye on Sango, who nodded. Then she turned to Miroku and flashed her eye from him to InuYasha and back again. Miroku nodded: message received.

Kaede took as firm a grip as she could on the javelin's haft and began to slowly pull it out. Kagome gave a whimper and moved slightly. Sango's firm grip on her shoulders prevented the operation site from moving, though, and Kaede continued to pull the javelin out.

"Stop...it hurts...stop..." Kagome murmured, her eyes rolling restlessly underneath her eyelids as her lower body continued to shift around. Sweat was beading on her forehead as her movements became more agitated.

As Kagome's agitation grew, so did InuYasha's, who was now up and pacing about, a small growl starting in his throat. "Hurry up, babaa," he snarled as Kagome gave another whimper.

"Patience, InuYasha. If we rush this, we will cause more harm than good," Kaede replied.

After fifteen minutes of work, it looked like the javelin had only moved an inch or so, and Kagome was beginning to cry out more as convulsions seized her body. Another growl ripped itself out of InuYasha's throat. Kaede looked at Miroku and gave him a small nod. "InuYasha, we should go outside," the houshi said. "There's nothing we can do here, we're only-"

"Fuck off, houshi!" InuYasha snapped, fangs flashing and ears flattened. "I ain't goin' nowhere!"

Miroku sighed, as if he thought that was what InuYasha was going to say. "Then you leave me no choice. I apologize in advance."

"Apologize fo-"

A sharp pain exploded in InuYasha's head as Shakujou slammed down, right between the hanyou's fuzzy ears. InuYasha fell to the ground, thoroughly out for the count. "We shall leave you to it, then," Gaka said as he helped Miroku drag the incapacitated hanyou out of the hut, followed closely by Shippou and Kirara.

From then on, Amaterasu was the only witness to the grueling scene in the hut, as the two women struggled to first remove the javelin, then stitch up the wound in Kagome's shoulder. But at last, when the moon was starting to ride high in the sky, the deed was done. Kagome was sleeping peacefully, and the javelin was glinting maliciously from its position on the knife's cloth, still dripping warm blood onto the not-so pristine white fabric.

"Kagome-chan will need a lot of rest to heal this wound," Sango said quietly as she cleaned her hands off. "I'm glad that we managed to get that javelin out, though."

Kaede nodded. She looked years older than she actually was, she was so tired from the concentration it had taken to safely remove the javelin. "Aye. Now we must prepare ourselves for when InuYasha returns; he can't touch her, and I know he will want to."

Sango grumbled something that sounded vaguely like, "More like pound Houshi-sama, Gaka and Shippou into the ground."


The world slowly came back into agonizing focus as InuYasha regained consciousness, groaning slightly as the pain in his head made itself known. "Fuckin' hell," he grumbled as he rolled over onto his stomach and rose slowly to his knees, clutching his head with both hands and gingerly touching the throbbing lump between his ears.

"Nice to see you again, my friend," a familiar voice said. The pain on his head increased with the sound of the voice.

InuYasha winced and muttered, "Not so fuckin' loud, you're killin' me."

Miroku's face swam into focus, his amethyst eyes wary. For a few seconds, InuYasha wondered what the houshi did to get that look of wariness in his eyes. Then he remembered that when he had been hit, the blow had been accompanied by jingling. The same kind of jingling that Shakujou made.

"Why in the fucking hell did you fucking hit me?" InuYasha snapped, his anger overriding the pain, as it usually did. "What the hell did I do?"

"It wasn't about what you did, it was about what you were going to do. It was clear from the start that you would object to Kagome-sama being in so much pain, and if necessary, you would attack to protect her, which might put her in an even worse state. So I removed you before you could cause any damage," Miroku explained. The explanation made sense, but it didn't make InuYasha feel any better.

Then something popped to the forefront of his mind, something that he would've remembered if he hadn't been angry at Miroku. "Is...is Kagome all right? Did they get that javelin out of her?" he asked anxiously. If Kagome had died...

Miroku gave him a kind smile as his eyes flashed with a familiar insolence. "Kaede-sama isn't an amateur, InuYasha. Kagome is fine; she just needs to sleep and nature will take care of the rest."

InuYasha let out a long breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. 'She's all right...' Then something else came to him. He and Miroku were sitting out in the dark wilderness by themselves. Where were the others? "Where is everyone?" InuYasha asked incredulously. Had they dumped him out here and gone back to the hut?

As if sensing InuYasha's anger, Miroku quickly stated, "I have stayed out here with you. Shippou and Kirara returned to Sango when she told them that the surgery was finished. Gaka is at the Goshinboku. He said he needed some time by himself to paint. I have given him some ofuda to protect himself," he added when InuYasha opened his mouth to remind Miroku of why Gaka was with them in the first place.

InuYasha just gave a "Feh" and headed out into the night. With a small sigh, Miroku rose from where he was sitting and left for Kaede's hut, ready for a good night's sleep.


The wind rustled in the leaves as the breeze sighed through the land. The Goshinboku stood, taller and prouder than any of the other trees in the forest, its wide canopy shielding the land below it from the dark night above. Sitting just outside the shadow of the Goshinboku was Gaka, who was painting with the shikon-no-kakera concoction of his again, his brush moving across parchment to bring his characters to life. The artist didn't know why, but something about the Goshinboku had called him there, drawn him in with whispers of times long since gone. Being of the inquisitive type, Gaka asked for permission to leave from Miroku, who had said yes as long as Gaka kept his ofuda on his person at all times so he could erect a barrier around himself and stave off any youkai who might seek his life.

Honestly, Gaka wouldn't have noticed if a youkai had tapped him on the shoulder, so engrossed was he in the Goshinboku's energy flow. It was like the tree was speaking directly to his inner eye and opening up millions upon billions of opportunities. The clearest picture that had formed in his mind was none other than the hanyou InuYasha, his eyes closed as if in sleep, his back resting against the Goshinboku's trunk, his chest impaled with an arrow and his body bound with roots as the Goshinboku embraced him during a half-century's repose. The image had repeated itself over and over and over until Gaka finally took parchment and ink and started painting the scene in his head, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated on getting the details just right. The sky would be dark and starry, like it was tonight. The viewer would just see the trunk of the Goshinboku and the hanyou who had rested upon it, not the grass or any other distracting details. The trunk would be a mixture of brown and cream. As for InuYasha; well, Gaka knew what he looked like. The only difficult thing might be replicating the peaceful look on his face as he slept through the decades. 'Ah, well,' Gaka thought happily as his brush rasped against the parchment, 'I do like a challenge. When one has had as little inspiration as I have had these past few years, one seizes an opportunity like this with both hands.'

Gaka was soon so engrossed in his painting that he didn't notice when something came up behind him, stalking him in the night. Fangs glistening as a branch cracked beneath the steady advance of feet. Then, a near-silent whoosh as whatever it was leaped high into the night, blotting out the moonlight as it sought out its prey...

InuYasha landed right next to Gaka, who didn't even notice him, buried as he was in his newest painting. 'Baka,' the hanyou thought, shaking his head. 'I knew it was a bad idea to leave him out here on his own. What that houshi was thinking...damned if I know.' InuYasha reached out and tapped Gaka on the shoulder. Gaka still didn't look up. "OI!" InuYasha bellowed, annoyed at being ignored.

Gaka started, nearly making his ink-pot fall over as he looked around for the source of the noise. Upon seeing InuYasha, Gaka let out a long sigh. "Thank goodness...I thought you were a youkai."

InuYasha snorted. "Trust me, if I was a youkai, you'd be dead. Y'know, most people have enough common sense not to go wandering in the woods alone. You, however..." InuYasha trailed off and just shook his head scornfully.

Gaka just laughed. "I have always been more adventurous than most. Curious, too, especially about this tree." Gaka jerked his thumb towards the Goshinboku. "Very powerful, and filled to the brim with hundreds of years worth of history. I can give this history a voice, or rather, a picture." Gaka sighed again and looked at the tree, an almost reverent expression on his face. "I could sit out here for ten years and never get one half of its stories down on paper."

"I think that's a good thing," InuYasha said neutrally. Some things were best left buried. Gaka raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Instead, he began painting again. InuYasha craned his neck to see what Gaka was painting. "Oi," he said, "Can I see what you're doing?"

Gaka turned to him, a small smirk on his face. "I thought some things were best left buried, InuYasha." InuYasha went bright red and stalked away, muttering something like, "Stupid artist. Hope he has the sense to get to safety before some youkai devours him."

Gaka chuckled and wrapped up his parchment. If the others would allow it, he would continue his painting back in the old miko's hut. After all, he could still see the picture in his head; putting it on parchment would be child's play.

As Gaka gathered up his things, a cold shiver ran down his neck. He cast his gaze around warily, looking for whatever had caused him to feel this way. When nothing presented itself, Gaka shrugged and went on his way, unaware of the ugly wasp that lifted itself from a nearby tree and buzzed off into the night.

The Saimyoushou had much to report to its master...