CHAPTER TWO

Threading Through Time

Rinna already knew the day was off to a downhill spiral when Souta came to her with Buyo's food dish, shuffling his feet. It was his chore to take care of the beloved family feline and he knew it.

"Ninna-nee-chan," he murmured, "Buyo won't come out of the well house..."

She let out a put-upon sigh, shaking her head. "Really, Souta...?"

But while she was more resigned to Souta's timid attitude about the bone eater's well—Jii-chan had told them enough creepy stories about it after all—Kagome was much more irritated. Jii-chan's attempt at giving her a mummified kappa hand for their birthday had her in a much less charitable mood than usual. That was really just adding insult to injury though. Rinna knew the larger part of her irritation was aimed at her, since the birthday expenses this year had gone mostly to the new flute Mama had surprised her with. Both she and Jii-chan were very proud she'd made it into the Traditional Music club, and Rinna's quiet efforts at self-improvement and academic ambition had not gone unnoticed.

She couldn't really blame her for the resentment. It was hardly that at all, even. Kagome wasn't built for bitter feelings. She tried her best to always be supportive and unselfish. But there was a line in the sand, and Rinna thought she was perfectly justified in feeling hurt and angry this time. It was their birthday, a special day that they always shared between the two of them. This wasn't fair. But Rinna didn't know how to open her mouth and say all these things without making Kagome even more aggravated. And now, with Souta acting like a helpless damsel in distress, it appeared to be the last straw for her.

"Oh. Come. ON!" She threw her hands up and proceeded to seize the distraught boy by the collar, marching across the courtyard past the god tree, and straight for the dry well. "Are you a man, or aren't you?! Do you have to rely on your big sister for everything? Huh?"

"Onee-chan," Rinna admonished her, rushing over and tugging Souta away where he clung to her side, stiff with apprehension as they stood before the well house. "Calm down. Don't be so mean... Can you really blame him? This place is creepy."

"Yeah? That's funny. I seem to remember you spending a lot of time out here not too long ago," she retaliated, unmindful of her words. "It's like your second home!"

Rinna just gave her a baleful stare, not wanting to acknowledge the miserable summer she'd spent crying behind that shed, or much less let Kagome know about it. It was humiliating enough as it was... Eventually, she closed her eyes with a sigh and turned her head away.

"Let's just get Buyo... We don't want to be late." She patted her little brother's head. "Souta, we still need to walk you to school after this..."

"I know the way..." he mumbled, cheeks pink with embarrassment and eyes trained on the pavement. "You don't have to..."

Carding her fingers through his hair she gave him a soft smile and said, "I want to."

When he gave her a subdued smile in return, she walked over to where Kagome stood in the dark doorway, impatiently tapping her foot.

"Buyo-kitty~" She stuck her head through the door, trying not to breathe in the drifting dust moats as she called for the cat. "Nya-nya-nyan, ki-kitty! Mew-mew-mew-nya-mew nya-nya-mew!"

As she imitated a couple more feline trills, Kagome gave her a flat stare, utterly exasperated.

"...Really?"

Frowning at her with tinted cheeks, Rinna insisted, "She likes it when I talk to her..."

"You sound like a lunatic," she insisted back.

"You try it, then."

With an imperious sniff, she trotted down the steps, calling, "Buyo! Come out, you stupid cat..."

She paused halfway down with a visible shiver when a scratching sound emerged from the well.

"See?" Rinna said, following her with a frown and laying a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Creepy. Do you think a squirrel got stuck in there or something...?"

"Or something..." Kagome muttered, brow furrowed and eyes fixed on the well with uncharacteristic focus...until she let out an unholy shriek, enough to startle a yelp out Souta and making Rinna stumble back against the well when she jumped.

She gave Kagome an affronted look when she let out a sheepish chuckle and picked up Buyo from where the cat brushed against her leg. "Whoops...just the cat."

"Now who sounds like a lunatic?" she muttered as Souta whined at her in protest.

"Onee-chan don't do that! I think my soul almost left my body—"

"Hey! I'm down here 'cause you're the one who's scared!" she turned to shoot back at him then gave Rinna the stink eye. "Don't even get me started on you."

Frowning, she said, "That's not fair. I didn't even do anything."

"Exactly!"

Their bickering came to an abrupt halt when—and she could see from the startled look in Kagome's eyes that she felt it too—an oppressive aura of dread flooded over them alongside the scratching in the well. It was like the primal awareness of eyes on the back of one's neck only magnified tenfold with ancient malice and hunger. It was enough to stiffen every one of Rinna's joints into a frozen shock so she could not even move an inch when the sealed cover on the well splintered apart and ghostly hands latched onto her and Kagome, tugging them back in what almost seemed like slow motion. It was that awful, helpless feeling right before a fall, knowing you can do absolutely nothing but wait for the impact to hit.

And then they were floating through a nebulous sea of stars. It would've been beautiful if it wasn't for the grotesque figure of a woman with black teeth and an unemotive face stretched like a noh mask over her skull holding onto them in a parody of a gentle embrace. As they beheld her with shock and alarm, they saw the horrific bones of a centipede's tail with a hundred clicking, jointed legs manifesting an exoskeleton and an insectile carapace from the nude form of her six-armed torso.

And though Rinna rarely engaged in profanity aside from muttering curses under her breath now and again, all she could muster to verbalize her hysteria was a faint, "What the fuck?" over and over.

"The power!" the woman—if it could even be called that—hissed out, oblivious to their shock. "After so long, I feel it returning! You have it, don't you!?" And to their collective horror, a much-too-long tongue emerged like a snake from the monster-woman's lips, moving to run itself along Kagome's neck and cheek, much to the girl's audible revulsion. "The sacred jewel! Shikon no tama! Give it to me!"

"No!" Kagome jerked in the creature's grasp, finally surrendering to animal panic, flailing her fists. "Get away! Let go! Let go!"

And somehow, with that last word, a blinding pink light flashed from Kagome's hand, evoking a shriek from the beastly woman, who released them, sending them all adrift in different directions within the anti-gravity dimension all around them, shouting, "Shikon no Tama! Shikon no Tama!" over and over like some obsessive mantra.

"Onee-chan!" She stretched her hand for Kagome's, desperate not to spiral away and lose her in this place.

"Rinna-chan!" She did the same, twisting around to stretch for Rinna's fingers. "Just a little more...little more...reach!"

Rinna did until it felt like her joints were going to pop out of their sockets. And just when it looked like their fingers were about to touch, it was as if someone turned off the anti-gravity. She caught Kagome's look of panic for about a millisecond before they both ended up in a heap on the ground and all the air whooshed out of Rinna's lungs with a painful 'oof.'

Luckily, it was not too far of a drop—maybe just a few feet—but she still let out a groan, "Onee-chan, you're crushing me..."

Kagome pushed herself up, panting with the residual adrenaline and glaring down at her. "Are you...ha-ha...calling your big sister fat?"

Glaring back, Rinna gritted her teeth and shoved her off, sitting up and swatting at Kagome when she shoved her in retaliation. It degenerated into a catty slap fight that only ceased when the two saw something twitching out of the corner of their eye that turned out to be the centipede woman's severed arm, and both girls flinched away with sounds of disgust.

"Are we...inside the well?" Kagome asked, skeptical as they both looked up at the square of light above them.

Scowling and giving the still twitching arm a wide berth, Rinna got to her feet and approached the vine and root studded wall. "Only one way to find out..."

It only occurred peripherally to her as they struggled their way to the surface that there shouldn't have been any light, seeing as the shed built around the well had a roof, and that any roots or vines sprouting from the walls should have withered away to nothing years and years ago...

"What the fuck," was starting to sound repetitive coming from her lips when they emerged in a clearing in the middle of nowhere.

"Watch your mouth," Kagome admonished her as she popped her head up out of the well after her.

Giving her sister a hard look over her shoulder, she asked, "Is that really what we ought to be worrying about right now?"

Looking around and seeming truly daunted for the first time, Kagome murmured, "You might have a point..."

Rinna watched her, agitated, and even starting to get a little angry, as was her unfortunate tendency whenever faced with situations of emotional distress, as Kagome called out first for Souta, then Jii-chan, then Mama, even Buyo, when it was quite clear that, "They're not here, Onee-chan."

Wherever here was.

Kagome sent her a hurt look and asked, "Why aren't you freaking out right now?"

She was freaking out. Only Rinna's distress tended to manifest in cold anger, profanity, and passive aggressive remarks.

"Come on," was all she said in response. "Let's just get the hell out of here before that thing decides to come back..."

With an uneasy noise of intense agreement, Kagome gave her a nod and made a move to follow her out of the clearing towards where Rinna caught the scent of smoke and food before pausing when something caught her eye. "Wait...is that the god tree!? It is! Let's go!"

And then she took off into the woods.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Rinna sprinted after her with a scowl. "Onee-chan! Don't just take off without thinking!"

But of course, that was like asking rain not to fall.

"Onee-chan! Onee-ch—" She nearly ran smack into Kagome who was standing stalk still when she caught up with her at the god tree. And when she looked beyond her at where she was staring, she couldn't help but repeat the words once again. "What the fuck."

Because there in the clearing, motionless aside from the breeze that tugged at his silver hair, pinned to the god tree with a raggedly fletched arrow and thick, stalk-like vines, was a boy. And one of the most peculiar looking ones she'd ever seen in her life.

Exchanging an unnerved look with Kagome, she mouthed, "...Do you think he's alive?"

She raised her brows and repeated her words from earlier. "Only one way to find out."

Rinna was quick to follow her over, a tug of what might be concern in her chest as they approached the boy. If she wasn't so worried about figuring out whether he was deceased or not, she might've taken more notice of his outlandish appearance, like the wickedly sharp claws on his fingers, instead of reaching out to check for a pulse... Kagome was not so hyper focused—well, she was, but not on things like claws or a pulse. No, and perhaps it was to be expected, but Kagome went straight for the ears...

"Are these real?"

Rinna, ignoring her sister's antics, shook her head, still prodding around for a pulse. Not finding one in the neck, she reached down past the trailing crimson sleeve to check at his wrist...and that was when she finally noticed the claws.

Once again, she muttered out, "What the fuck."

Much more cautious, she eyed the boy's reposed features with curiosity as she gently pressed at the wiry veins of his wrist. And as her eyes roved over the boyish features, made somehow even more exotic by the stark, sliver starlight color of his hair juxtaposed with dark, heavy brows, she couldn't help but feel captivated. With a straight, delicate nose, and a shapely mouth accompanied by a strong jaw, she had the thought that his was a face full of contradictions, and reluctantly found herself fascinated.

Alas, the bult up anticipation in her chest came crashing down when she discovered, "...There's no pulse, Onee-chan."

"W-what?" Kagome flinched back from fondling the boy's ears, stuttering out, "He's...he's d-dead?"

Rinna was about to give her a severe nod when she felt his long fingers twitch against her hand, and she dropped it with a startled gasp. It fell back to his side—limp.

Wide-eyed she looked at Kagome and muttered out in a faint, thin voice that seemed just about to break with bottled hysteria, "This has been...the most bizarre day."

Kagome's eyes softened as she took her hand and said with a quirky smile. "Well, at least it can't get any worse."

Rinna could've slapped her for saying that, because not a moment later, there was shouting, a whistling sound, and all at once, a dozen arrows were hurtling at them and embedding themselves into the tree around them.

They must've been warning shots, was all Rinna could conclude by it as they were trussed up and dragged to the village nearby, because unless all the men had particularly bad aim, she could think of no other reason why they were still alive and not pinned like bugs to the god tree alongside the dead boy. It was enough to send her stomach roiling into knots with anxiety, and it was taking all her concentrated efforts to keep her eyes free of tears. The anger she'd been feeling earlier seemed to have all been transferred over to Kagome as she yelled righteously at the men and chastised them for treating the two of them so roughly. Some of them looked reluctant, and one of the younger ones even apologized, but for the most part, they all just looked hard-faced and unsympathetic. And did she mention they all looked to have stepped out of some sort of period drama?

She might have picked up on the theme from the state of the boy's red clothes, but she'd been more preoccupied with the rest of him at that time. When they were brought into the village, her suspicions sunk even lower as she took in the rough, archaic architecture and the sight of more men with topknots. They started to see women too, all dressed in plain, modest yukatas, some with their babies strapped to their backs as they worked, pausing only to eye the two of them with alarm as the armed men dragged them towards the center of the village.

"Onee-chan..." she said from beside her on the straw mat they'd been forced down on, voice subdued and grave enough to make her pause in her furious tirade. "I think we're in really big trouble..."

As if that wasn't obvious from the start.

Monsters, and dead boys with claws were troubling enough things in their own right. But the mob of village people crowding around them, whispering things about wars and kitsune and eyeing them with fear and suspicion... Rinna had experienced bullying in the past. She had seen some of the worst sides of people. She knew how people could act towards those they saw as 'other' and what she was seeing now? These were not good signs. The fact that she could see no modern equipment around anywhere, no familiar hum of generators or electricity, were not good signs. The fact that for all accounts they seemed to have fallen into another era where common law was a joke and that these people could do whatever the hell they wanted with them...

The alarm bells going off in Rinna's head were as loud as those at a temple at the turn of the hour.

And then the priestess came.

If she thought the situation was complicated before, after the priestess Kaede tilted Kagome's chin this way and that and lifted Rinna's much-too-long bangs out of her eyes, airing her suspicions at their mystical origins, it became a hundred times worse.

The sun set quickly as they set off for Kaede's house on the edge of the village, which Rinna thought was strange, since the whole incident with the bone-eater's well, and what they could now firmly conclude was a centipede youkai, had happened in the early morning by her reckoning. Perhaps, she conjectured, time moved faster when one was in mortal peril. She did not think to bring up the time discrepancy issue to either Kagome or the priestess, as it was literally the last thing they needed to be worrying about.

Rinna frowned, staring warily out the barred window by the bamboo-mat door as the sound of some unidentifiable creature howling in the woods could be heard over the gentle simmering of the old woman's vegetable stew. But more than that, the sounds of the village unnerved her, still shaken by the incident earlier. Had Priestess Kaede not come up with the ridiculous claim that they were the reincarnations of the previous priestess, Kikyo—which Rinna did not believe for an instant, even if the existence of youkai could no longer be disputed, but she was in no place to argue the point—she still had no idea what the villagers might have done to them otherwise. She paid enough attention in class to know that terrible things happened to young girls who lived in the past. The standards of human dignity and what constituted as strange and unusual punishment were far different here than in the modern age.

Humans were vicious creatures.

That's what it all boiled down to in the end, wasn't it?

It was a truth that could not be denied...not now, and not in the future.

"Please forgive them," Kaede said as if reading her mind, pulling Rinna's attention from the sound of the warning bells in her head and back to the issues at hand. As she ladled out some stew for them, Kaede explained, "With so many wars upon us, the youths have become wary of outsiders... Though I tell them we have nothing to do with those wars, they refuse to listen, and it only gives me more to worry about."

To that, Rinna could say nothing, but accepted a bowl of soup with a thankful bow of her head, suddenly ravenous. She tried not to be too conscious of the feeling of Kaede's piercing, one-eyed stare which drifted between her and Kagome as the latter chattered on about inconsequential things, asking about Tokyo (which Kaede had never heard of) and generally acting like she was in denial. Rinna couldn't blame her, after all they'd just been through, (and were still going through), using denial as a coping method seemed to be working for Kagome. Rinna almost wished she could do the same, but she was always too levelheaded, too grounded in reality for that. And now that they seemed to be (relatively) safe, she saw no point in popping her sister's fragile bubble.

That didn't last for long.

All too soon, the alarm bells in Rinna's head became alarm bells in real life. Over that was the sound of people screaming in panic and earth shuddering crashes of buildings collapsing. When the three of them bolted out of the priestess's cabin to see what was happening, Rinna could not help but verbalize what was soon becoming her favorite word.

"Oh, fuck."

For whatever reason, Kaede seemed more scandalized by her foul language—staring at her like she'd just grown another head—than she did by the giant centipede youkai brutalizing the village below. But that was only for a split second before whatever longstanding instinct the spry old woman possessed took over, dodging when the beastly creature flung the carcass of a horse at them from its pincer-like fangs. It seemed no worse for ware, lacking its one arm; it had plenty more. What's more, it seemed perfectly capable of something almost like flight, swooping down and over several times, making to grab both of them.

"Shikon no Tama! GIVE IT TO ME! GIVE IT TO MEEE!"

It didn't seem like a very articulate or intelligent beast, the thought occurred to Rinna from somewhere deep inside the part of her brain that wasn't absorbed with dread. For one thing, it had a very limited vocabulary, from what she'd heard so far, and did not seem to have any particular strategy towards accomplishing its goals other than to destroy things and throw a fit—a bit like a toddler having a temper tantrum, really. A really insanely strong toddler, with a bunch of extra arms, and no value for human life. Most toddlers had no value for human life anyway, so Rinna was really glad they lacked the former two. But that didn't help them with the current situation...

"You possess the Shikon no Tama?!" Kaede gaped between the two of them.

Rinna knew their shrine was famous for a legend about a sacred jewel. Jii-chan had told the story often enough that it had grown repetitive. She typically enjoyed Jii-chan's stories, but the details of some of them—like the one about the jewel—were vague, and Jii-chan shuffled them around so much that they all turned to mush in her head at some point. Really, the only thing she knew for sure about the jewel was that it was called the Shikon no Tama, that it was either blue, or pink, depending on which replica keychain ("Blessed by real monks!") the shrine was selling that month, and that it was apparently a big deal way back when.

"I don't know what that is!" Kagome wailed, inadvertently summarizing Rinna's thoughts as she was often prone to doing. It was a twin thing, apparently.

The centipede youkai continued to holler and flail about, damaging several more buildings and livestock in the process. Several of the men hurried over to Kaede when their weapons proved useless, asking how they should proceed.

"We must return it to the bone-eater's well in Inuyasha's forest from whence it came!" Kaede told them.

When Rinna looked over at Kagome, her sister met her eyes with a look she knew all too well. It was the look she got whenever she was about to do something supremely stupid and impulsive, and this time, Rinna knew she was going to have to go along with it.

"If we die," she said to her through gritted teeth, "you're never going to hear the end of it from me in the afterlife. Not in the next life either. Or the one after that. I won't forgive you—not ever."

With a determined nod, Kagome looked around, asking, "Which way is the forest? Towards that light? Rinna!"

"Yeah. I got the idea," she muttered without having to be told what Kagome was thinking.

At any given point, Kagome could usually be relied upon to chose whatever recklessly selfless option there was available to solve a problem—often when an Occam's Razor solution would have sufficed just as well. But this time, Rinna could not fault Kagome because the simplest solution was also the reckless, self-endangering one.

And so, resigned to the immanent clusterfuck to come, she picked up a stone and hurled it at the creature as it made another dive.

"HEY!" she shouted as it let out an infuriated howl. "SHIT FOR BRAINS! COME GET YOUR STUPID ROCK!"

"...You didn't have to make it angrier," Kagome hissed at her as the youkai jerked around.

Oops.

She turned to Kagome with a blank face, white with terror.

"Time to run," was all she said.

And so they made a beeline straight for the forest illuminated with an ominous, otherworldly light that seeped through the trees. It honestly looked like the last place they wanted to be, but somehow, Rinna felt like there was something drawing her there beyond the instinct to survive, like the needle of a compass.

"It always points north..."

She wasn't sure why the words Papa once said came back to her then. Maybe because they were about to die, and she was going to see him again in whatever came...after. She missed him, increasingly so, it seemed, as the years passed, but she would confess she was not eager to see him again this soon.

"Please...ha-haa...wait just a bit longer, Papa..." she panted, her eyes trained on Kagome's back. She was doing everything not to look over her shoulder towards the howling and crashing noises coming behind them. Though virtually identical, aside from the lengths and styles of their hair, Kagome was a good few inches taller than Rinna. She was convinced that's what made her the faster runner.

"You know, Papa told me this story about a bear once!" she called after her sister. "He said, if you ever have to run from one, always bring a partner with you. That way, you don't have to be faster than the bear, just the other person."

"Why do you always make jokes at the WORST possible moments!" Kagome cried back at her.

"I wasn't joking!" she insisted, pushing her legs harder to catch up, and added, "I do know a pretty good joke about a bear and a bunny rabbit, though..."

"Save it for after we survive this!" she retorted as the forest came into sight.

"Have I ever told you how much I admire your optimism, Onee-chan?"

"YOU'RE NOT FUNNY!" she cried in distress. "Somebody—ha-ha-ha—somebody's going to save us, right? Right?" When Rinna had no witty comment ready for her, and the centipede youkai made another furious dive for them, Kagome's panic prompted her to cry out, "Somebody, HEL—ahhh!"

The impact the youkai made with the ground ripped it up like an explosion that sent the two of them flying ass over teakettle through the woods. Rinna felt branches splinter beneath her, and the fall to the ground knocked the wind right out of her. She'd be amazed if she hadn't broken any bones.

"Onee-chan..." she moaned, unwilling—more like unable—to push herself up. But she had to, she had to...

"Oi, Kikyo! What's with you, playing around with some centipede lady?! Why don't you take her out in one hit, like you did with me?" a boy's voice prompted her to slowly lift her head, watching as Kagome stumbled to her feet before the god tree. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing the dead boy perfectly alive and alert, jeering at her sister, that prompted her to get to her knees, staggering up to Kagome's side to stare in awe. "EH? There's two of you!? Kikyo, what the hell did you get yourself into this time?"

She and Kagome exchanged a bewildered look. "I thought you said he was dead!"

"He was definitely dead." Rinna nodded back. "No pulse. No body heat. Then again..."

She looked to the boy, who scrutinized them both with startling, yellow-gold eyes, then averted her own, blushing when she remembered the feeling of his fingers twitching against hers.

"Hey, hey, what do you think you're going on about, talking like I'm not even here? Eh, Kikyo?" the boy demanded. "I didn't think things could get any worse, but now that there's two Kikyos..."

Somehow, his uncouth way of speaking helped her to quickly get over her bout of shyness. Now, she was just bewildered. Kikyo... Wasn't that the name of the previous priestess Kaede had mentioned? The one she convinced the villagers they were a reincarnation of...? Though that just left her feeling even more puzzled. She and Kagome were close, it was true. Close enough to even pick up on the other's thoughts sometimes, and sense if they were in some kind of trouble. As an identical twin, Rinna was used to getting mistaken for Kagome all the time, but wasn't this Kikyo-reincarnation-business taking the 'one soul in two bodies' theory a little too far?

Rinna shook her head at the boy, "I really, really wish you wouldn't say that."

"Eh?" He furrowed his brow at her.

"Whenever somebody says that things can't get worse, or even indirectly thinks that—things tend to get worse." She frowned up at the treetops as an all-encompassing feeling of dread washed over them—the same one she and Kagome first felt in the well house back home, and had followed them on a rampage all the way to this forest. "...Case in point."

In the next moment, Kagome squealed in alarm as the centipede youkai crashed down through the trees headed straight for them. Rinna hobbled back as fast as she could on her aching legs. There were still plenty of fallen branches from where she had fallen and she was quick to swipe one up, putting herself between the youkai and her sister, leveling the branch at the beastly thing like a sword which she jabbed at it whenever it tried to enter their space.

"Stay back!" she tried to inject as much power and authority into the demand as she could muster, which didn't turn out to be much, nor did any of it do her much good. It was such a pathetic display that even the boy pinned to the tree was laughing at her struggle, which ended promptly when, with a sound of fury, the centipede woman grabbed the branch as she swung it, and ripped it out of her grasp, leaving plenty of scrapes and splinters behind. Grimacing, Rinna looked up through her bangs, eyes flashing as the youkai lunged for her, feeling a great, welling anger as she faced her end.

Baring her teeth, she bit out her last words, "Go to hell."

And then it felt like a steel bar—one of the centipede woman's arms—hit her middle with the force of a car cruising at 45, sending her flying into a tree trunk. She felt her head hit something hard with a sickening crack, but other than the flashes of stars and black dots peppering her vision, the landing was not nearly as rough as she was expecting, (considering she had been expecting it to kill her). In fact, there was a whoosh of air that sounded like an 'oof!' and it was actually kind of...soft?

Then she felt a clawed hand wrap around her poor, abused ribcage, keeping her from sliding down to the ground.

"Damn, you've got a hard head... That actually hurt. The hell is wrong with you, Kiky—wait a second..." Was he...sniffing her hair? "You're not Kikyo..."

With labored breath, she retained her consciousness just long enough to see the villagers send a couple arrows into the centipede youkai's torso, pulling it down away from Kagome and grounding it with attached ropes, and she managed to breathe out, "So glad...you noticed..."

For Rinna, the rest of that night passed like a horrible dream with flashes of wakefulness shifting back into an unconscious malaise and back again. One moment, she surfaced to a horrible squeezing, crushing sensation, and Kagome urging her into consciousness with a hand around hers and the shaft of an arrow. In the next, she was lying on the ground covered in something gross and sticky, watching Kagome sort through the shredded remains of a centipede, only to emerge with some pink shining bauble shaped like a half moon.

The next time she woke, her neck was twisted at an awkward angle, her scalp on fire as she was lifted by her long hair.

"Hand over the jewel, or the mouthy one gets it!" That was the boy in red again. She felt the pricks of claws against her throat and she squinted at him through blurry eyes, his form weaving in and out in her shaky vision. "And where the hell is the rest of it!?"

The next time she woke, she was draped over his shoulder, moving faster than she could track. In his tight fist, she saw a mesmerizing pink light seeping between the cracks.

"Keh," she heard him mutter. "If this came from inside the other one, I guess I'll just have to open you up with my claws and see if you're hiding the other half in that body of yours, huh...?"

"Onee-chan..." Feeling every ounce of her pain and exhaustion, the words came out smaller than she intended them, like the plea of a scared child.

She wasn't sure how old she was when she last cried for Kagome like that. When had she stopped seeing her as the perfect savior who would always come running to her rescue? Was it when their teachers separated them? When Kagome started spending time with all her other friends instead of her? When Rinna started getting bullied in the first year of middle school and her big sister didn't even notice? Some part of her must have still associated Kagome with safety, though, for her to still cry for her now, when she needed someone the most...

"H-hey! Cut that out!" The boy jostled her on his shoulder. "I don't show mercy to crying women, you know!" A beat later, he added, "Just cooperate, and show me where your half of the jewel is. Then, when I become a full demon, maybe I'll return you to your sister safe and sound, got it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about..." she breathed out, every inch of her body sagging under the weight of how sore she felt. It wasn't long until it was dragging her back into unconsciousness once again.

"Oi! Stay awake, you idiotic woman—"

"SIT!"

And then she was falling.

When her head hit the wood planks of the bridge, the last thing she heard was a howl of rage and a splash...and then she was out for the night.

Ninna-nee-chan - Souta's nickname for Rinna. While the oldest is usually always the Onee/Onii san/chan, middle and younger siblings often come up with different nicknames for each other. It really just depends on the family.

I've noticed that most Inuyasha fics tend to label Buyo as a boy-cat. But I've always thought Buyo was a calico, and as we know, most calicos are girls. There are exceptions, obviously. (I've owned a male calico, actually. His name was Jello). But for the intents and purposes of this story, Buyo is a girl. You might ask, will this impact the plot? I really have no idea, but it brings me personal satisfaction, so this is how things are going to be. (Also, does anyone else make cat noises at their cat? Or are Rinna and me just flat out crazy?)

Sorry, for any recycled lines. Also for things in this chapter getting a little incoherent at the end due to the multiple concussions Rinna can now lay claim to. I don't really like fade-to-black chapter endings where characters fall unconscious, but I felt like this was the only realistic conclusion with all her various injuries. Hopefully you all are terrifically smart people and arrived at the right conclusions with this series of events. If not, next chapter will clear things up a bit.

Questions? Leave them in a review, and I'll do my very best to answer them!

Also, for those interested, this is also posted on Ao3 under the same username.