I do not own Inuyasha. Not mine. Never will be.

She Floats Upon the River of His Thoughts

(From "Evangeline")

Neither locks had they to their doors nor bars to their windows;

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;

There the richest was poor and the poorest lived in abundance.

… … … … …

And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, healed it forever.

Longfellow

She stirred and sighed softly. His eyes opened as she began to move from him. "What is the matter?" He asked softly so that his voice didn't disturb those who were sleeping.

She smiled and kissed the end of his nose, causing it to wrinkle. She giggled softly and smoothed his bangs from his brow to reveal the indigo crescent. "Nothing. I need to go to the bushes for a moment. I'll be back."

His eyes sparkled with mischief faintly and nodded. "I suppose you do not want a guard."

She covered her mouth so she did not laugh and wake the camp. "No. Don't be silly. I'll be right back." She said again and walked toward the outskirts of camp to relieve herself. Once out of hearing range, she did her business and began to turn back toward the camp when she heard the faint rustle of dead leaves and earth a few yards away. She froze and frowned, then extended her senses to where she thought the sound originated. As she did, a dark energy captured her thoughts and pushed into her mind with a jarring force. She was caught in blackness before she could begin to draw breath. Before she could call out for Sesshomaru.

When she did not return after a few moments, he did not worry. When a few moments became ten, then fifteen, he found that his worry was making its appearance. He sat up slowly and looked in the direction that she had walked and contemplated if inciting her ire was worth following her. When fifteen minutes became twenty, he didn't care any more. He stood and grabbed Tokijin in his hand and then followed her scent out into the forest.

"Where are you going?" His brother's voice came in a whisper from above.

He paused, but did not look up. "She has been gone too long."

"So you're stalking her?"

"Call it what you wish." He responded and continued out into the forest. Inuyasha followed.

When her scent ended a short distance from where she had relieved herself and there was no sign of her, the brothers met their gazes with a sudden understanding. "Come back if you can't find her by dawn."

"Yes." Replied the Taiyoukai before he raced into the black of the forest in the hopes of discovering her scent again.

Inuyasha ran back to the camp and roused the others. Miroku frowned as he sat up from his place next to Sango.

"What's the matter, Inuyasha?"

"Kagome is gone." He replied and met Miroku's gaze meaningfully. "We have to find her."

As the camp was roused and put on alert, Sesshomaru sped through the forest with the ease that his demonic lineage granted. Had he not been so blessed, he never would have caught the miniscule scent that he passed by.

He stopped short and looked toward a tree several yards away from him. It was actually a sapling only a decade away from becoming a tree. Its bark was thin and vulnerable. Deeply embedded in the flesh of the trunk was an arrow piercing a slip of paper. He tore the paper from the arrow and read slowly the words that had been written.

If you wish to regain her, you will return to camp and wait. I will send her back in one piece to you, Taiyoukai of the West. If you love her, you will do as I say.

It bore no signature, however the scent of the paper and arrow betrayed the hand that penned it. His name was like poison in Sesshomaru's mouth. Naraku… He has my Kagome and he knows. Sesshomaru looked down and knelt so that he could hold his eyes level with the other item that the arrow had pinned to the sapling. He reached out and touched the ebony silk that had been roughly braided, then severed from his beloved's head. He took the fine strands gently, as if he were reaching out to take Kagome's hand, and then slipped the onyx waves into the folds of his robes. He fought the acid from surfacing and disintegrating the note left by the evil hanyou, Naraku. Perhaps the monk could locate or track him with what he left. He reached out again and tore the arrow from the tree to bring back for good measure. Save your venom. Came the voice of his beast. Save it for the one who took her. Our mate.

"Indeed." He breathed as he envisioned his poison melting away Naraku's face slowly. For an instant the forest hushed and even the breeze seemed to tremble in fear as Sesshomaru smiled.

The surest pledge of a deathless name

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

Longfellow

She woke slowly, escaping the blackness that had claimed her what felt like an eternity before. Her vision was greeted with further blackness and, quickly, she felt the familiar pressure of panic as it rose from her stomach and into her throat. She covered her mouth with both hands and sobbed sharply as she tried to restrain her scream. She shivered from the chill in the damp air. The ground she lay upon was rocky and, nearby, she could hear the gurgling of some flowing water. She couldn't guess where she was. She could guess, though, from the chill and the absence of any clothing covering her, that who ever had taken her possessed some cruel intention. A fate worse than death, had someone asked her to describe what she thought might occur. Sesshomaru's memories were fresh in her mind's eye and in the sensations of her own body. His had been a soul killing experience and so it was that fate that surpassed even death in her mind. She gasped softly as she fought back her tears and then touched the nape of her neck to find fine short hairs rather than her long drape of midnight. They cut off my hair! Her heart skipped as she remembered that Sesshomaru's hair had been cut as well. Who is doing this? Why? Why would they do this? Could they know what happened?

"Yes, miko, I know exactly what memories reside in your psyche. The Taiyoukai of the West's most terrible memories all caught up in painful panorama in your innocent mind." He laughed cruelly as she recognized his voice and screamed. He laughed in satisfaction as the girl who caused him such great pain pushed her self against the jagged walls of the cavern beneath his most recent fortress. "This place dampens the holy purification powers that have been such a thorn in my side for so long, miko. Do not fight me or you will find yourself worse off than I intend for you."

"Why? Why are you doing this?"

"Is it not obvious? The three warriors who rally to your side all are in love with you, Kagome. If I break you, I will break them. And so I have chosen the one thing I know will tear you to pieces, thanks to the rather loud memories you experienced of Sesshomaru. I could sense your trauma from my fortress and I have witnessed the outcome of your connection through pain with the Taiyoukai. He wishes you for his mate. He will take you, I am certain, in the not so distant future and you are so very willing to oblige." Naraku's lips snarled into a vicious smile, though she could not see it. "I will leave you with those thoughts and return in time. You see, I am not going to rape you now, pretty Kagome. Not until the fear runs off of you as purely as the river runs through this cave. Do not attempt to escape. I have a barrier around this cave that will keep you here which only I can pass through. This is my oubliette meant especially for you, not so I can forget you but so you can forget yourself and what it is to be whole. So you see, there is no escape."

She heard him walk away and then there was only the sound of the river and the aching thud of her own heartbeat. Panic had gripped her and suddenly, it did not matter what Naraku had said. She needed to escape. She had to try. She moved toward the sound of the water and found the shallow underground river. She followed it along the pool where the beginnings of it fell from the ceiling to its end. When she reached it, she found herself thrown back in an agonizing jolt of black, malevolent energy. She crashed into the sharp, rocky bed of the river, cutting her back in many places. She sobbed and curled into a knot where she had fallen. The jolt had shocked her to her senses. She was trapped. There was no escaping.

"Sesshou…" She breathed and ran her fingers through her hair. He wouldn't turn away from her, she knew this. They had shared his violation and torment and he would be able to understand hers. All she had to do now was endure. She had to survive and not let Naraku break her. I can survive this. He loves me. I can survive anything.

Naraku watched the miko from Kana's mirror in his chambers and chuckled ruefully as he heard the girl's thoughts. Since the rush of energy when she absorbed Sesshomaru's memories, he had been able to key into her thoughts and emotions with frightening ease. It was like having a pathway directly into her soul, which he had only discovered by accident when he'd been watching her with Sesshomaru by the spring the evening before. It had enabled Kana to sneak up on her and incapacitate her while his puppet and the girl left his message and returned the miko to him. He could already feel the connection with her waning, though. It was a temporary rift that he was certain extended to everyone that had been in range of the burst, however he was the only one to have noticed it and then, monopolized on it with her capture. "I am sorry, pretty Kagome." He said in his deep, sinfully smooth voice. He caressed the mirror along her knotted form still in the chilly underground river. "But I cannot allow you to survive. Your soul will break and so will your heart because when I return you to your Taiyoukai, he will never want you again, you will be so very ruined. Fear not, though. When I defeat him and the rest of your raggle taggle band, I will still want you. And someday, I am certain when there is nothing else left for you, you will want me."

As the sun began to rise over the horizon, Naraku shifted impatiently. He wanted to leave her there longer, but his own desire was slowly getting the better of him. He had never had Kikyo before she'd perished, either as flesh or clay. Often he'd lie awake and wonder what she would have felt like. Once Kagome had regained the whole of her soul again, the face of Kikyo had been replaced by the younger, less experienced Kagome and Naraku, not caring that she would only ever be an imitation of Kikyo, had decided that, had he ever gotten the chance to take her, he would ruin the little miko as brutally as he could for all his years of frustration over Kikyo.

But often times celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

Longfellow

Sango watched as the Taiyoukai of the West slowly bent the blades of grass beneath his feet into the earth. They would not break. Grass has a resiliency from a natural flexibility, graced to it by the divine. With enough passes along the same course, Sesshomaru would ensure that the grass became sod with the dirt beneath it if he continued along his furious path of pacing. He's so worried about her… There's nothing but ice in him now, but below the surface it must be killing him. She turned her gaze to where her beloved was meditating over the items Sesshomaru had brought back with him. The letter had been read quietly by the monk and then folded and placed on the ground near the arrow and the thick braid of Kagome's hair. Sesshomaru had been more reluctant to surrender that item to Miroku. For a moment he had caressed the silken length with his thumb as he stared at the ground before he had relinquished it into the monk's hands.

Now the lecherous monk sat with all three items lined up before where he sat with his eyes closed and his staff lain over his knees with his fingers wrapped around its shaft. He had been meditating to find his center for several moments before even attempting to begin. His heart had turned over when he had read the letter Sesshomaru had handed to him and then, decided quickly that the information that Naraku had kidnapped Kagome was the only part necessary for anyone else to know. As his mind and thoughts stilled and his emotions calmed, he held his staff out over the items and began a soft, murmuring prayer.

His holy aura pulsed around him as the tracking spell began to activate. His frustration burst into life as he realized that the arrow and letter were untraceable. Naraku had ensured that his position was hidden. Damn you, Naraku. I won't allow you to have your way. Not with Kagome. If I am correct in your intent, I must find a way to locate you quickly or… What is that? That pulse of energy when I focus on Kagome's hair… I can't track her, but it's almost like… How is this possible? He focused along the thin thread of light that his focus on Kagome's hair had revealed. It was so weak and hidden, but it was present. It stretched along a pathway into the mountains to the North only a short distance away. He felt himself slip into her thoughts suddenly.

Miroku? I have to be dreaming… You can't be real!

Kagome, it's me. I don't know how this is possible, but I have found a rapport between our minds. It is strange… I feel more of these threads coming from you. Its like you are connected to… Everything at once…

I can't sense what you're talking about… But Naraku was able to slip into my thoughts. It's how he was able to capture me and bring me… Here…

Where is here, Kagome? Hurry and tell me, I'm not sure how long I can hold on. There's some sort of barrier pushing me back.

I'm in a cave that Naraku prepared for me. It dampens my miko powers and has a barrier around it that only he can pass through. Miroku, tell Sesshomaru I love him and I'm sorry. Tell him that I'm trying to be strong but… I'm so afraid.

Kagome, what's happened? What did Naraku do to you?

Nothing… Yet. He left me. He said he is going to rape me so he can break me and break all of you in turn. Especially Sesshomaru and Inuyasha and Kouga. I don't know when he'll come back. Please, Miroku, you have to hurry!

The barrier is pushing me out, Kagome. You have to hold on. I know where you are now. We will come and save you, I promise. And I won't tell Sesshomaru what you have told me. You will tell him when we rescue you, all right? Don't give up yet. Promise you won't give up.

He could feel his connection with her being pushed away. He could still sense the pathway of light that led to her position, but he knew, shortly, his ability to speak with her would be stripped away.

I… I promise. Please hurry…

We will, Kagome. Just hold on.

The connection between their thoughts was severed and he was jolted back into his body. He gasped and shook with sudden rage. Taking slow, deliberate breaths, he extended his awareness back to the slowly ebbing pathway of light that led to the woman who he'd adopted as his sister long ago. "There you are. Kagome." He whispered and instantly felt all of the eyes that fell on him. "I found her. I know how to reach her, but we have to hurry." He stood and met the smoldering eyes of the Taiyoukai that was now only a few feet away from him. "He has her in an cave he's been preparing for her beneath his castle. It dampens her powers and has a barrier around it that only allows him admission. He's left her alone for now, but he intends to break her, Sesshomaru. We have to leave now or he will fulfill his purpose."

Sesshomaru nodded his head sharply. "Then we will go now. Jaken will remain with Rin and AhUn. It would be best if the Kitsune remains as well as Kohaku in case Naraku attempts retaliation."

"But… I want to help save her!" Shippo cried out and jumped onto Miroku's shoulder. His green eyes were overflowing with worried tears and fear. "Kagome needs all of us! We're her family!"

"Kitsune, I need you to stay with Rin and Kohaku. I trust you to protect my ward. I need you to trust me to save and protect Kagome." Sesshomaru said with a sudden gentleness. It was enough to shock the little Kitsune out of his mourning. He met the Taiyoukai's eyes and nodded faintly. "Thank you. Now we must go. There is not much time."

The group quickly readied themselves to advance on Naraku's palace in the mountains. Miroku had a perfect trajectory on its location and soon they were making their way by air and land toward the where the dark hanyou held their miko, racing time and testing fate in the singular hope that they would not be too late.