Author's Notes: I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed Chapter One. As always, I'd like to thank Usagi for helping concoct this story, and for proofreading it—my grammar can be atrocious.

As usual we'd like to point out that we do not own Inu-Yasha or any of the characters from it. They are all owned by one talented person named Rumiko Takahashi. We'd like to thank her for not suing us for using her creations to inspire our tale.

~ First Interlude ~

Miroku could see the sun beginning to rise outside the cave entrance. He looked down at Sango and carefully took his right hand and ran his fingers through her hair. To move his hand just a little further down her back was so tempting, but he resisted as she stirred in her sleep a little and tightened her grip around his waist.

"Hn," Miroku smiled. Sango was hugging him of her own accord, and he was behaving himself. 'This is so surreal,' he thought reclining again this time leaving his hand entangled in her hair on her shoulder.

~ Chapter Two: The Void ~

"I'm telling you she's not in this crowd. There was no crowd. She's gone. Someone took her or something!"

"Shippou, look at these people, how could there not have been a crowd?"

Shippou sighed. No one was listening to him.

"This is Sango, taiji-ya, abnormally strong woman and youkai hunter. There is no way she got kidnapped." Miroku reassured everyone.

"Feh, she probably just got sick of watching you grope everyone and left."

Miroku rolled his eyes, "I didn't grope EVERYONE!" he looked around at all the people staring at him angrily. "Well… I didn't grope her," he said meekly.

"For once," Shippou muttered under his breath looking intently at the walls of the corner store.

**~**

In a dark winding cave deep beneath the surface of the earth, Sango walked cautiously along the not-so-well lit walls, following the man with the mask. 'Of all the days to leave my hiraikotsu behind. Dammit Kagome, I knew this would happen, why did I listen to you?'

The man slowed as he approached a widening in the cave. "Most people who become displaced when I leave that realm are only gone for a minute and then return to their world not realizing anything had happened. You're the first to actually follow me into my caverns." He turned to greet Sango.

"Eh…heh," Sango smiled wishing she had her hiraikotsu.

"Now what am I going to do with you, taiji-ya?"

"How did you know who I am?"

"Oh… my dear I know… everything," he said with a sneer and then faded out of the room, leaving the mask behind floating in air and then it too shimmered away into nothingness.

Sango stared in disbelief, "Uh… no. Nonononono…" she touched the walls. Solid. Then she heard something faint in the distance. 'Footsteps?' She followed the sound.

**~**

"Sango!" Kagome called out. "Sango, where are you?"

Shippou was collapsed against the side of the building, having given up. He tapped every stone, not one moved; not one gave off odd vibes. He was just as puzzled as everyone else, except that he knew something non-human was at work here. But what?

"Guys, we aren't getting anywhere, and screaming up and down the empty streets isn't helping."

"B-but… she has to be around here somewhere."

"Like I said… she's probably back waiting in the room." Inu-Yasha said heading back.

Miroku looked beyond worried. "But why wouldn't she tell someone?"

Kagome scooped a slumbering Shippou up and approached Miroku. "She's not out here anymore. You can stay if you like, but I agree that we should head back to the room at least once before continuing."

Miroku nodded. Kagome stepped aside and gestured for him to go first. She still hadn't forgiven him for earlier.

Back at the Inn, everything was just as they left it. Clothes strewn across a futon, the contents of Kagome's back laying out on another, lipstick and perfume among them, and the hiraikotsu was propped up against a wooden beam of one wall.

"Wait, she doesn't even have her giant boomerang? That's it; Sango's in trouble," Miroku didn't wait around long enough to hear any objections, explanations, or snickering at his concern before he was back down the street. This time he was taking Shippou's tale more seriously and was poking at the walls of the buildings, the street posts, the barrels and boxes lining the alleyway, the trees at the end of the street, and even someone's horse. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, and no secret passageways were opened in his pursuit. Miroku was disheartened, but he wasn't giving up. He sat down on a bench and watched the spot until morning. As the people began to wake up and take to the marketplace again, he kept an eye out for anyone who looked suspicious, disappeared into thin air, or was just loitering in the area.

"You. What are you doing there?" He asked a kid who had been leaning against the post outside of the shop for nearly five whole minutes.

"Uh… I'm waiting for my mom and sister to finish staring into the windows of the shops." The kid shrugged and then walked away thinking that Miroku was insane.

An elderly woman was sitting on his bench when he turned around. "Hey, do you hang around here often?"

"Do I look young enough to be doing that kind of thing?" she eyed him suspiciously.

Miroku took a good look at the rather homely woman opposite him before taking a step back, "Forgive me. That's not what I meant. I was just wondering if you were here yesterday."

The woman eyed him as if he were on the menu, "Looking for the one you let get away, are you?" She reached out her bony hand to touch his robes.

"E-eh heh…" Miroku really began to back away, "I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said ready to run if she made another advancement.

"Hey Bouzu, did you sit out here all night?"

"Eh…" Miroku uttered as he backed into Inu-Yasha. "Sorta."

"What's a' matter? The baa-baa scaring you?" he said pushing the monk forward.

"Well if you must know, I was trying to ask her if she saw anything and she took it to be a come on." Miroku sidestepped and straightened his robes as if doing so would make him seem more important or believable.

"Feh," Inu-Yasha said. He walked up to the old woman and Miroku watched as the woman smiled at Inu-Yasha, pointed towards the corner and talked to him for nearly five minutes straight. Inu-Yasha returned and said, "She says there's a mystical void in the middle of that alley."

Miroku fell over.

Getting to his feet he asked, "Did she say where it leads? Or how to open it?"

"Feh." Inu-Yasha grumbled. "I had to promise her a date with you to get her to tell me that much."

Miroku's eyes went wide. He turned to look at the old woman, who was now standing less than a foot away from him. "GAH!" he screamed and took off down the road.

The old woman looked at Inu-Yasha and said, "I thought he would have liked to get his fiancé back?"

Inu-Yasha shrugged, "Feh."

"Well when he comes back, tell him that only one man has ever been able to open that portal. The only way to know where it goes is to follow him, and you must wake the sleeping beauty with a kiss."

Inu-Yasha's left ear perked a little as he raised his eyebrow to question the woman, but she was gone.

Kagome approached Inu-Yasha, "What are you doing standing in the middle of the street?"

"Feh," he said before walking on.

"I thought you weren't mad at me anymore."

"Who says I'm mad at you now?" he looked at her puzzled.

"Oh," Kagome said realizing that 'feh' was because she pointed out that he was doing something stupid and not because he was mad, "So did you find Miroku?"

"He was hitting on a baa-baa," Shippou said landing on her shoulder. "Now he's cowering around the corner."

Miroku peered around the corner, not seeing the old woman he let out a deep sigh. When a tap came at his shoulder, he about jumped out of his skin, "Houshi-sama," a voice said behind him.

Miroku slowly turned around not at all surprised at who he saw standing there.

"To find your true love you must follow your heart."

"Excuse me?" Miroku looked at the elderly woman that was now standing next to him.

"To find the girl that you seek."

"You mean Sango? I don't seek Sango. Well I seek her, but I don't seek her," he stopped and looked around for some support. For someone to tell him that what he just said made sense.

The old woman smiled a knowing smile at him. Light twinkled from her eyes as she said, "Then perhaps you do not know what you seek, or maybe you are just too stupid to listen to your heart."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Miroku felt a pawing at the hem of his robes. He looked down to see Kirara looking up at him, when he looked up from the cat-demon the old woman was gone. He looked around but stopped as he came to the street, "It's like she just vanished."

**~**

The cave widened into a great system of intertwined caverns. Sango came to a junction point. There were three different paths for her to pick from. Following the sound of the footsteps she headed to the far left.

The passageway was unlit and she felt like she could have walked off the edge of the world and not known it. The inky blackness was so thick she couldn't even see the movement of her hands inches from her face. She proceeded slowly, knowing that as long as she followed the sound of the footsteps she wouldn't fall down any crevices.

Sango stumbled along slowly wishing that she wasn't wearing a tightly drawn kimono and wooden shoes that made it near impossible to climb over small rocks. She slowed as she heard the footsteps echo off of the walls. The echoing made it sound as if there were more than a hundred people in front of her. As well as making it hard to follow, she couldn't be sure if the owner of those footsteps turned or not. Sango reached her hands out in front of her to balance herself as she tripped over a small protrusion on the floor surface. And then…

THUD!

She had run straight into something hard. Sango took a step back and rubbed her nose. Luckily it wasn't bleeding or broken. She reached out in front of her and at first felt nothing. Moving in a little she found the object she had run into: a stalagmite. Sango swallowed hard as she edged herself around the rock formation—the footsteps were becoming more distant—her free hand touched another stalagmite and she slowly weaved around that one as well. Going from stalagmite to stalagmite and stalactite to stalactite in the dark wearing a kimono and tall wooden sandals was no picnic. To make matters worse, the person she was following could either see in the dark or knew his way in and out of this maze so fast that Sango didn't think she could hear the footfalls at all.

If there had been even the teensiest glimmer of light, one would be able to see panic written across her face as she hurriedly picked up the pace. After a minute, Sango was getting the hand of swinging from rock to rock. Her natural athletic abilities were paying off even if she was wearing a dress. Relaxing a little, she didn't even realize what had happened as she stubbed the front support of her sandal on a little stalagmite and lost her balance completely. She flew head first into a great stalagmite smacking her head so hard she was instantly out cold. Sango lay in the pitch-blackness, blood trickling down her face, lost and unconscious.

**¥ **

Sango awoke in a well-lit cave. At the entrance, sat a familiar outline. The tall dark clad figure was sitting on a large rock staring out into the sunrise. Sango slowly got to her feet, dusted off her now sullied and torn kimono, tried to pull her hair back so that it wasn't in her face—with no luck—and walked over to him. She walked around the rock he sat on and smiled. "Miroku-san?"

"Hm?" the monk replied coming out of his trance-like vigil.

Sango approached standing directly before him now said, "How did you find me?"

Miroku smiled a crooked half smile and replied softly, "I followed my heart."

Sango didn't take her eyes off of him for a second when she whispered back, "So what took you so long?"

Miroku's response was sudden but, surprisingly, not unexpected. He wrapped his arms around her waist tightly as his lips feverishly met hers. Sango didn't pull away as one would expect. Instead she reached her arms up around his neck and returned the kiss if possible with even more vivacity.

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AN: That's where I'm going to stop Chapter Two. Remember to review if you want more and to tell me what you think as always.

Also, we'd like to warn that it may take a little longer to get the next chapter uploaded because we are on Christmas break and have to e-mail each other, but not to worry there will be more. J