Something was wrong.

Miroku, Sango and Shippou had arrived at Kaede's village the day before, only to find that neither Kirara nor InuYasha were there. This was tremendously worrisome, as both the nekomata and the inu-hanyou were much faster than the two humans, so they should have gotten to the village long before the humans. The only two explanations they could see was that one, something had held them up on the journey, or two, they had gone somewhere else. If the latter was true, that meant that not one but three friends were unaccounted for. Greatly concerned, the houshi, taijiya and kitsune went to Kaede to ask if she had seen their friends.

"I have not seen Kirara or Kagome in a long time," she informed them. "InuYasha was here for a while, but when I told him that Kagome was not here, he went to the Bone-Eater's Well to see if she had passed through without my seeing her. I haven't seen him since." She frowned, the expression pulling down on her wrinkles and making her look even older. "I do not know where he could have gone. I can only hope that both he and Kagome are all right."

This news did nothing to reassure the remaining group members. It was obvious that if InuYasha had left the village without seeing Kaede, something was horribly wrong. InuYasha usually moped around Kaede's hut when Kagome went back to her homeland; the fact that he wasn't now meant that either Kikyou had summoned him (unlikely, but it had happened before) or he was chasing after something.

That brought them to the other members of their missing group: Kirara and Kagome. Neither of them had been spotted in the village, and most of the villagers claimed that they hadn't seen them in weeks. Kagome would never go home without stopping in the village first; it was her habit to drop by Kaede's to tell her what was going on before leaving for the Heisei jidai. Never before had she gone home without telling Kaede what had happened, or even just dropping by to say hello. Sure Kagome could have been upset enough to forget, but then why would InuYasha have gone to the well and not come back?

"It doesn't make any sense, houshi-sama," Sango complained dully. "Why would Kagome-chan not go home?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "This is definitely very unusual. Kagome-sama isn't one to lie about her intentions. Not only that, but when she does lie, it's not hard to see right through it."

"What does that mean?" Shippou asked, his morose green eyes briefly sparking with confused curiosity.

"It means that I don't think Kagome-sama was lying to us…at least, not initially." Miroku looked thoughtfully up at the sky, the beads covering his cursed hand rattling somewhat as he brought it up to rub his chin. "I'm not sure, but I think she was telling the truth when she said she was going home."

"Then…could she have changed her mind?" Sango suggested. "Maybe something happened to make her go somewhere other than her home."

"Perhaps."

The group was silent for a while after that, lost in their individual thoughts. They were sitting by the river that flowed through the center of the village, watching the waters as they flowed beneath the old bridge and out of sight. Miroku was wondering where Kagome, InuYasha and Kirara were. Sango wanted to know where they had gone. Shippou just wanted to figure out why they hadn't come back. Each of them came at the problem from several different directions, but they all led to the same dead end.

Later on, when night had fallen and most of the villagers were in their beds, the group was ensconced in Kaede's hut, though sleep could not claim them. Worry was still running rampant inside them, eating away their hearts and tearing at their minds. They couldn't talk, for Kaede had managed to fall asleep and they didn't want to disturb her. Instead they sat in silence, thinking about their friends and wondering what could be happening.

Suddenly, there came the sound of rustling grass. Something outside was moving, and it wasn't the wind. Sango's eyes flicked over to Miroku. The houshi's eyes were closed, but his cursed hand was white-knuckling his Shakujou. Sitting up, Sango started inching her hand toward her Hiraikotsu.

"What is it?" she whispered. "A youkai?"

"I think so," he replied, careful to keep his voice low. He concentrated for a few minutes, brow furrowed and body tensed. Then he relaxed, eyes opening to reveal brilliant violet irises. "Hold on...I think it's Kirara."

"Kirara?" Losing all sense of time and place, Sango rocketed to her feet, startling both Kaede and Shippou into wakefulness as she darted outside. Sure enough, there was the fire-neko, sailing down from the sky to land directly in front of Sango. "Kirara!" she yelled, launching herself at the giant cat. "I was so worried!"

Kirara growled and pulled away, shaking her head and waving her tails agitatedly. Sango frowned. "What's wrong?" Her eyes moved to Kirara's back, which was devoid of passengers of any sort. "Where's Kagome-chan?" The nekomata let out a sound like a low groan, her head lowering as if in shame.

"What's going on?" Miroku had stepped out of the hut, Shakujou at the ready even though he didn't sense any enemies. Shippou was balanced on his shoulder, yawning widely as he studied Kirara with sleep-blurred eyes. The houshi's purple irises were flat and dull as he studied the nekomata intently. "Why isn't Kagome-sama with you, Kirara?"

Kirara's ears drooped as another lilting whine rose in her throat. Sango walked forward and started rubbing the diamond on her head, trying to soothe her companion. "Can you take us to her, Kirara?" she asked. The giant cat shook her head, then sat on her haunches and started to scratch madly at an itch beneath her right ear. A small brown dot was dislodged from her fur and sent flying over to Miroku. It landed on his cheek, and shortly thereafter, the houshi felt a small prick. Without even thinking, he lifted his hand and squished the offending nomi-youkai.

"Myouga-sama, what are you doing here?" he asked, regarding the squished flea with a surprised stare. In Miroku's head, however, the pieces were starting to come together. He remembered that Myouga had shown up the night Kagome left for the Heisei jidai. According to Sango, InuYasha had yelled at him for a long time, though she had been too far away to hear exactly what he was saying. Shortly thereafter, not only had InuYasha vanished, but Kirara and Kagome had, too. Miroku wasn't sure, but he would be willing to bet that all these events were tied together somehow.

There was a small pop, then Myouga was sitting upright in Miroku's palm, looking none the worse for wear. He glared ruefully up at Miroku, his beady eyes narrowing. "Why is everybody squishing me?" he grumbled. "Can't a poor old flea get a decent meal for once?"

"Sorry about that." If Myouga noticed the insincerity in Miroku's apology, he didn't comment on it. "Now, I'll ask you again…what are you doing here?"

Myouga blinked up at him, confused. "What am I doing here?" He looked around, as if he had just realized where he was. "What am I doing here? I remember falling asleep back in the castle…" The old youkai trailed off, lost in thought as he tried to remember what had happened.

"Castle? What castle?" It was Sango who spoke now, moving forward to squint down at the flea. "When was this?"

"Uh…just this morning, I think," Myouga guessed. "Or maybe it was earlier. I don't know…" He shrugged with one set of arms while the other two remained crossed over his chest.

"Was Kagome at this castle?" Shippou surprised everyone by piping up. His eyes were bright and alert now as he also studied the flea.

"Why yes, she was." Myouga's fuzzy eyebrows shot up at this. "How did you know?"

"Well, if you got here on Kirara, and you were at the castle, then Kirara must have been at the castle, too. So, if Kirara was at the castle with you, then Kagome had to be there with her!" Shippou looked mighty proud of himself as he explained his reasoning, his orange tail wagging behind him as he spoke.

"Impressive, Shippou," Miroku praised. "I would never have guessed that myself." Truthfully, the houshi had figured it out as soon as Myouga said he remembered falling asleep at the castle, but he didn't want to make Shippou feel put out. It had the effect Miroku wanted, as Shippou's small chest puffed out with pride.

"So Kagome-chan was at this castle?" Sango asked.

Myouga nodded, one hand rubbing his proboscis thoughtfully. "She was. She might still be there, for all I know."

"What is she doing at this castle?" Miroku inquired.

Myouga's face fell. "That I can't tell you. I didn't realize it at the time, but I took a great risk in telling Kagome about the…situation. If I tell more people, I'll surely get punished for it." The flea shuddered, his tiny arms wrapping around his body. "No, I cannot take that risk again."

"You mean you didn't tell InuYasha about this situation?" The houshi sounded puzzled. "Surely that would be less risky."

"Wrong! My punishment would be even greater if I had managed to tell InuYasha-sama about it! I'm almost grateful for the fact that he wasn't willing to listen. It makes my sentence a little lighter, I think. All the same, I shan't go back until Sesshou-whoops!" The nomi-youkai's minute hands flew up to his straw-like mouth, but it was too late.

"Were you about to say Sesshoumaru?" Sango gasped. "What does he have to do with this?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." Beads of sweat were popping up on Myouga's forehead as he spoke. He mopped his face with a miniscule kerchief, fixing the two humans and Shippou with what he fervently hoped was an innocent expression.

The flea's demeanor wasn't fooling them one bit. "Myouga-ji-chan, I think you need to show us the way to this castle," Sango stated. "If Kagome-chan is involved in this thing that you can't talk about, she'll need help, especially if she's alone." She paused for a moment as a new thought came to her mind. "…Is she alone?"

"Yes." Myouga seemed glad to have left the dangerous topic of taking the others to the castle. "When I told her about the…incident, she insisted on traveling alone. She didn't give her reasons, but I'm sure they're reasonable."

"Reasonable?" the taijiya choked. "Reasonable? Myouga-ji-chan, Kagome-chan isn't a warrior like the rest of us! An untrained miko who insists on traveling by herself is begging for disaster to strike!" Sango turned on her heel and ran into the hut, gathering her things and rushing back out again, her cheeks glowing pink with fury. "Baka! Why did you let her go off by herself?"

The reed mat covering the hut's entrance rustled as Kaede pushed her way past it, intent on seeing what all the commotion was about. "What's going on?"

"Kagome-chan is wandering around Nippon by herself!" Sango bellowed back. "I'm going to find her!"

"Sango, be reasonable," Miroku tried to soothe. "It's the middle of the night. You can't go out now."

"To hell with that! We've already gone too long without acting!" Sango snapped. "If you don't want to come, houshi-sama, then stay here!"

"Wait one minute!" Kaede held up her gnarled hands, silencing the houshi as he was about to fire off an indignant retort. "Both of you calm down and tell me what's going on."

Shippou decided he should probably be spokesperson, seeing as Miroku and Sango were liable to start fighting again if either of them started speaking. "Kirara showed up a few minutes ago, and Myouga was with her. He told us that he had fallen asleep at some castle, and that Kagome was there too. We asked him what they were doing at this castle, but he said he couldn't tell us. Then we asked him to show us there, and he started freaking out and saying that he would get in trouble if he did it cuz he wasn't supposed to tell Kagome about this thing he's not supposed to talk about." Shippou looked to see if the taijiya or houshi would interrupt to add something. When they didn't move to speak, he wrapped it up with, "Oh, and Sango's mad because Kagome went off by herself to do this thing we're not supposed to know about."

Alarm flashed in Kaede's good eye. "Kagome is by herself? How long has this been going on?"

Miroku spoke up now, flashing a cautious glance in Sango's direction as he did so. "If I were to guess, I would say ever since the day InuYasha and Kagome-sama had that argument. That was the day she left, and the day Myouga-sama showed up." He looked down at the flea still sitting in his palm. "Is that correct, Myouga-sama?"

The nomi-youkai nodded. "Indeed. After InuYasha-sama yelled at me, I started back toward the castle. A gust of wind caught me in mid-jump and blew me up to Kirara, who was flying in the opposite direction. I hadn't eaten all day, and the smell of Kagome's blood was just so tempting…" Myouga sighed softly, his eyes growing moist as he thought about the miko's blood. "I can see why InuYasha-sama is so enraptured by her scent," he commented off-handedly. "She smells lovely and tastes even better."

Miroku's eyes got that familiar perverted glint in them at Myouga's observation. "I wonder if InuYasha knows how Kagome-sama tastes," he chuckled.

"HENTAI!" Sango's hand flew out in a slap that caught the houshi's cheek and sent him flying. Myouga leaped clear of the houshi, soaring through the air and landing on the bridge of Kirara's nose. "Stop all your perverted prattle, you depraved holy man! We have to find Kagome-chan!"

Kaede strode forward, concern flashing in her eye. "I know you're worried about Kagome, but it is the middle of the night. There are bound to be youkai roaming around, plus you are still worn out from traveling all the way here on foot. Also, Kagome is not as weak as you think she is. Even if she is alone, she will be able to take care of herself."

Sango shook her head. "You don't get it," she whispered. "Kagome-chan is from a world where you don't have to fight to survive. She's used to being able to go anywhere she pleases without fearing attack. I know she's spent a lot of time here, but she's still not as hardened a warrior as myself, InuYasha or houshi-sama. I can't even imagine what will happen to her if she gets swarmed by youkai, or worse…" Sango trailed off, horror flashing in the depths of her pupils. The image of her father and brother danced before her eyes, and she shuddered to think of the same tragic 'accident' that had taken their lives befalling Kagome.

"I don't think she'll be alone for long." Miroku slowly rose from where he had fallen, gently prodding the large red welt on his cheek with one hand while pushing himself up with the other.

"What makes you say that?"

"InuYasha," Kaede interjected. "Since Kagome didn't go home, he would have found out that she was gone as soon as he went down the well. InuYasha may not be the brightest man who ever walked the Earth, but neither is he the stupidest. No doubt he knew to return to where he had last seen Kagome and track her from there." A small smile creased Kaede's face as she added, "If there's one thing InuYasha truly cares about in this world, it is Kagome."

A marginal amount of relief trickled into Sango's heart, but she quickly stifled it. "But InuYasha hasn't found Kagome-chan yet," she stated. "Even if he moved as fast as he could, Kagome-chan still had at least a day's lead on him, and she had Kirara at the time!" With that, Sango whipped about and started loading her things onto Kirara's back.

The nekomata stood motionless, allowing her mistress to place the packs upon her. If she could talk, Kirara would have emphatically agreed with Sango's decision to move out immediately. It had been bad enough that Kagome was looking for Izayoi's urn by herself, but to have InuYasha in such a blind rage that he was a danger to himself and anyone unfortunate enough to fall in his path made the fire-cat very worried indeed. Maybe she wouldn't be able to catch up to the pair of them, but she could at least try to lead the others to them. Together, the group would be able to do that which Kagome couldn't possibly accomplish alone, and they could help keep InuYasha in line.

Miroku rose to his feet, using Shakujou to help push himself off the ground. He studied Sango's face for a moment, taking in the determined seriousness set in her jaw and the fierce protectiveness blazing in her brown eyes. Clearly she was intending to head out tonight, despite what both he and Kaede had to say on the matter. Well, there was no use fighting her, so as the old phrase went, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. "All right, Sango," he conceded. "We'll leave tonight."

"Are you sure?" Kaede asked, regarding them solemnly. "This time of night is very dangerous for travelers."

"Every time you say that just reminds me that Kagome-chan is out there somewhere, all alone with no-one to help her if she gets hurt!" The taijiya glared at the old miko, her eyes fiery and dangerous.

"All right, all right, if you want to go, I won't stop you." Kaede took a step back toward her hut, her gaze veiled. "Just be careful, all of you. I like not this 'situation' you speak of."

"We will, Kaede-sama," Miroku replied. "We shall go find Kagome-sama and InuYasha, and bring them back here!"

With that, Sango leaped up onto Kirara's back, followed swiftly by Miroku and Shippou. When the fire-neko was sure that the two humans and the kitsune were secure, she leaped into the air, fire blazing around her body as she soared into the night-time sky. A few seconds later, she was just a tiny dot in the sky, burning much like a star as she headed northwest.

Kaede sighed deeply, feeling the trepidation settle all the way to her aged bones. Turning around, she headed back inside her hut, more exhausted than she had been in a long time. Something tickled her throat, making her shiver as it moved over her skin. She reached up to scratch the itch, and something jumped up on her hand. "Myouga?" Kaede's brow furrowed as she did her best to focus on the tiny speck of the flea in the dark. "What are you doing here?"

"I can't go back to the castle," he moaned, rubbing his face with all four hands as he shivered violently. "Sesshoumaru-sama would skin me alive if he found out that I told Kagome about the…the situation!"

"That is no reason to send other people in your place! Cowardly flea, do you not realize what could happen if those four go to this castle you speak of and meet Sesshoumaru? If he is capable of feeling the anger you speak of, what's to stop him from taking it out on them?"

Myouga looked horrified at the very thought. "I hadn't thought of it like that. I certainly hope that's not the case…especially considering how angry Sesshoumaru-sama will be…"

Kaede sat down with a small groan, a thousand little pops marking the protest of her old bones. It was starting to look like she wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight, so she struck some flint and got the fire started back up, the flames licking eagerly at the halfway devoured logs. "What is this thing that has got Sesshoumaru so mad?" she asked.

"I cannot tell you!" he wailed, waving his hands about and stomping his feet. "He would skin me alive!"

"Stay with me and I'm sure Sesshoumaru won't be any the wiser," Kaede suggested. "Why would a dai-youkai like him have any interest in an old human woman like me?"

Myouga was instantly pacified, sitting back down in the palm of Kaede's hand and sighing deeply. "True, true. The last thing Sesshoumaru-sama will want to deal with are strange humans. I hadn't thought of that either." He was silent for a few minutes, during which Kaede wondered what this terrible 'situation' could be.

Finally, after what seemed like ages and ages, the flea spoke. "Well, it all started on a night remarkably like this one…"

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.

That was all he thought about as he pushed himself further and faster. His lungs ached, his legs burned, his stomach growled and his hands smarted, but all that was irrelevant. All that mattered was that he keep running, keep moving until the prey had been caught and the chase ended. Ignoring the protests of his body, he continued to do just that.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.

Anger had long since eclipsed his rational thoughts and emotions, reducing him to a machine whose only purpose was to run. Nothing else mattered except running, and nothing else would matter. Fueled by anger and driven by frustration, the machine continued on, pushing all emotions into the corner they always inhabited.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right…Kagome.

Her name bubbled up through the monotony of running, a tiny speck of light in the midst of his personal darkness. He shook it off and kept running, trying to concentrate on the grassy ground directly beneath him. Only the hunt mattered. What happened at the end of the hunt would come later. For now, he had to keep running.

Left. Right. Kagome. Left. Right. Kagome. Left. Right. Kagome.

It wasn't working. With each step that took, her name pounded in his head, growing stronger the longer he ignored it. He still tried to push it away, gritting his teeth as he started running faster. If he weakened now, if he allowed himself to feel, he would slow and the hunt would fail. He must not weaken, he must not weaken!

Left. Kagome. Right. Kagome. Left. Kagome. Right. Kagome. Left-

Suddenly, his foot caught on a root that had escaped his notice. He went down, howling more from annoyance than from pain. His face rammed against the earth in a way reminiscent of an 'osuwari,' hard enough to make his teeth rattle and his head spin.

'Fucking hell,' InuYasha thought, scowling as he lifted his head up off the ground. 'I've never tripped before in my damn life. Why the hell should I start now?' Cursing everything from the Kami to Sesshoumaru, he slowly rose, shaking the dirt from his body as he did so. The fall had done what Kagome's name couldn't do by itself; it had driven the last of the mindless anger from InuYasha's heart, leaving him (mostly) rational once more. The hurt and worry he had been fighting ever since he had started searching for Kagome came back with a vengeance, stronger and more potent after his talk with Hattori. His insides felt like they were tying themselves in knots while his heart ached with every beat it took. If he didn't do something about this soon, he might do something crazy like eviscerate himself just to deal with the pain.

'Stupid wench. Why the hell did you leave without telling me what was going on? Mother's ashes have nothing to do with you, ya nosy bitch. Why did you go off on your own like that? Why…' InuYasha let his head fall into his hands, fighting down a lilting whine. Truth be told, once he had thought about it, really thought about it, he didn't mind that Kagome was pursuing his mother's ashes. No, what bothered him was that she had known, but had decided not to tell him about it. Seeing as they were his mother's ashes and not hers, it made more sense for him to know than her. Knowing that she had willingly kept that from him hurt the hanyou in a place deep inside of him.

Then there was the fact that she had run off by herself. Sure, maybe there was a chance that the 'mount' Hattori had given her wasn't wimpy, but could InuYasha gamble on that and risk Kagome's life? Obviously not. She was still out there somewhere, practically defenseless and wandering deeper into youkai territory. Anything could attack her, hurt her, even kill her if she was foolish enough to fight instead of flee. Images of Kagome surrounded by youkai drifted through his mind, followed swiftly by Naraku's jeering face as he crushed the life out of the helpless miko. The hanyou shuddered, icy tendrils of horror encircling his gut and driving the breath from his body.

A loud growl jerked InuYasha out of his rumination. At first he thought it was an enemy, until he realized that the growl had come from his own midriff. On the heels of that realization came another one-he hadn't eaten since the day he had left to search for Kagome. 'Fucking hell, how could I have forgotten to eat? Damn, it's a good thing I'm hanyou, otherwise I might've passed out by now.' He chuckled darkly at the thought of his status as hanyou being a good thing. 'Since when has me being hanyou been a good thing? Since fucking never, that's when.'

A second growl reminded him that sitting there and feeling sorry for himself was not going to fill his belly. Without further ado, the hanyou got up and started searching for something to eat, careful to keep heading north instead of straying off and getting lost. If that happened, Kagome's fate would be sealed. InuYasha purposefully shunted those thoughts off into a corner and focused on finding food. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight shining down from the cloudy sky to provide illumination, and the hanyou possessed excellent night-vision besides. He scented the air, ears twitching as he waited for a sign, any sign that might signify prey.

Abruptly, there was a loud snapping noise. The hanyou tensed, his ears automatically swiveling in the direction the noise had come from. He crouched down, using the shadows cast by the moon to hide as he waited. His keen ears picked up the faint sound of rustling, slowly but surely heading his way. With the patience of one who had done this very task many times before, InuYasha waited, still as a statue and tense as a coiled spring.

A gigantic wild boar shuffled through the bushes to the right of where InuYasha was crouching. He snorted and snuffled, detecting the hanyou's scent but unable to see him. Moonlight gleamed dully in his brownish hair and illuminated the sharp tusks jutting out of his mouth. Apparently satisfied that there was no threat nearby, the boar began to forage in the nearby foliage, probably searching for roots or some other delicacy. It was his undoing; the minute the boar had turned his back on the shadows to his left, the hanyou struck. Swift as a thunderbolt and just as terrible, he hit the boar dead on, killing it instantly with one blow to the back of its neck.

Normally, when InuYasha was with his human companions, he would have been obliged to collect the boar, skin it, gut it and bring the meat back to the camp to be cooked. However, since he was alone, he didn't have to rely on such niceties, nor did he want to. Kami only knew what kind of attention he would draw upon himself if he made a fire and started cooking meat-not that he would mind another fight, but every minute he wasted was a minute in which Kagome got further away from him. Instead, he used his claws to slit open the boar's hairy skin, peeled it back to expose its bloody meat and hungrily tore at the raw flesh.

To InuYasha, this was nothing unusual. Several decades ago, before he met Kikyou and started getting connected with his human half, he had lived like a wild animal, catching whatever he could kill and eating it as quickly as he could possibly manage. Even so, he was grimly amused at the thought of what his human friends would say if they could see him now, fangs glistening with blood as he ripped strips of meat away from the boar's skeleton and swallowed them whole. They would most likely be repulsed by this display of savagery; he could just see the contorted expressions of disgust on their faces, hear them gagging and retching as he devoured his bloody dinner.

'Whatever,' he snorted. 'Not like I care what other people think.'

He had just started gnawing at the boar's liver when something passed by the tree he was currently sitting next to. Growling, the hanyou gathered up his kill, ready to defend it from whatever scavenger might be lurking out there. But it was not a scavenger or a hungry animal or anything of that sort. InuYasha's heart did a somersault when he saw the tail end of a long white youkai disappearing into the trees opposite the place where he was sitting. A few seconds passed, then more of the delicate creatures sailed past him, souls clutched in their spidery legs and eyes intent on something he couldn't see, though he had a good idea as to what it was.

Those were Kikyou's shinidamachuu, meaning that Kikyou herself had to be somewhere nearby.

Kikyou was here.