Just warning you . . . we kinda jump into this. What better way to introduce Sesshoumaru this chapter than to have him put up with Inuyasha right off the bat? And no one quite guessed who was with Kagome . . . if anyone wonders about why Sesshoumaru doesn't do a whole lot of warm-and-fuzzy thinking in Kagome's direction . . . hello! Why would he? If denial were just a river in Egypt, he'd be up it without a paddle. Once again, I hope you can all suffer through my fight scenes all right. It's really damn bad. If anyone could email me and give me ANY information on Sesshoumaru's sword, I would be so appreciative!!

And OMG! Did Celyia review me??!! I've been addicted to 'Falling Stars' and 'Forget Me Not' since I found them—FMN is my total favorite!!!! You rock so much! There's no way you're praising *me,* man! I can't even begin with you—your story rocks! (Does her 'we're not worthy' routine) I've been peeing my pants waiting for the next chapter!

.ALSO, there is an alternate version to the citrus a few chapters earlier . . . definitely more spicy, but it didn't go where I wanted it to go, so I mellowed it out and ended up with what you read. If anyone would like the harder citrus and then the revised conversation with Miroku that followed, email me and ask! It was definitely enough to make me re-consider my rating. But no lemon. Just snark and some Miroku.

Btw, if no one noticed, I do so love Miroku almost as much as I love Sesshoumaru

*

Sesshoumaru

For the first time in a very long time, I had nothing to do. There were no wars, no land disputes . . . not even a demon who annoyed me to torment. Certainly, I could put Jaken to some sort of use in the latter department, but when he was tormented, I was tormented if only because he annoyed me so damned much. Were he not a faithful vassal that I couldn't get rid of, I would have disposed of him long ago.

And he was proving adept in childcare lately, anyways.

Rin, in the meanwhile, was learning to drop the habit of speaking in the third-person. For a very long time after she had joined me, she had referred to herself in the third-person and thus never ceased to irritate me when she talked. But she was growing out of it. Slowly.

I looked down from the tower I had wandered into after hours of restless pacing when I smelled the disturbance. Actually, I smelled the disturber or the disturbed, as happened to be the case. Four figures—three large, one small—were cutting their way through an entourage of guards that had flocked out to capture them. I wasn't sure who the bigger fools were; the quartet or the guards.

A glimmer of light from below, like sunlight reflecting off the blade of a sword. Tetsusuiga. Five demons fell in one elegant sweep of the blade—if not slightly clumsy. One would have thought Inuyasha would learn to properly wield a sword in two years. Really. He insulted the honor of the sword itself by simply touching it. But he handled it well enough to cut a path for himself and the little bouncing fox-demon. The monk was holding his own, as well, considering the fact that he had not unleashed the wind tunnel Naraku had spoken to me of. Had he done so, there would have been little my men could do against him.

Among them was a girl with black hair—Kagome? No. She moved differently—just as elegantly, but with a lethal step that the other lacked. She moved like a warrior. And she carried a boomerang barely smaller than she, if not slightly larger. And she killed the demons encircling them with one mighty sweep after another.

I had heard of warriors like hers—demon exterminators with unrivalled skill. But I had been under the impression that all had been . . . er . . . exterminated . . . themselves—by Naraku, no less. It seemed he had been keeping himself busy, collecting jewel shards as though he needed them to survive. I myself had been expecting him to arrive soon to demand the jewel shard he had 'loaned' me before—my fists clenched at the thought, possibly out of reflex when thinking about that damned Shikkon Jewel. Jewel of the Four Souls, they called it. So be it; I had uses for it myself and while I would not spend my time collecting shard after shard in a painstaking pattern, I had no desire to sacrifice the one I possessed.

And certainly that's why they had come. Well, no use in sacrificing a hundred good men to allow them to simply walk up to me and tell me what I already knew.

I descended from my position, although I was not eager to waste time by running up and down stairs, so I simply leaped over the edge and landed several hundred feet down, behind the actual fighting. Inuyasha and his three were winning considerably, only yards from the gate that barred their entry to my castle.

"Desist!" I commanded loudly. A hundred demons down to fifty turned and looked at me in alarm.

"My Lord—"

"I said be gone!" I ordered. "Do not challenge my orders, or you shall suffer the consequences!"

And in the true obedience of men fortunate enough to serve under me, they scattered, leaving me to face my half-brother alone. Where is she?

Be silent. I have no need for this now.

I folded my arms. "Such a wonderful announcement of your presence," I told him in a low voice that left no room for interruption. "Though I should have expected nothing less from a foolish half-breed. Tell me your business and then be gone from my sight. I have no desire to see you."

In a sudden burst of rage, he threw down the Tetsusuiga (rather disrespectfully) and lunged at me—an act so foolish and unexpected that he actually slammed right into me and knocked me to the ground, his hands locking around my throat.

"You son of a bitch, you're fucking dead!" he exploded as I retaliated and smashed him in the chest. "Where is she?"

I planted two feet squarely in the soft part of his stomach and launched him off of me. "Damned fool of a demon!" I snapped. "Do not overstep your already strained welcome here!"

He scrambled to his feet, perhaps in a moment of sanity, and reached for the Tetsusuiga. And yet I simply could not allow him to use it against me.

Crack!

The air split with the sound of a bullwhip, and he slammed to his knees before he even reached the sword. Another flick of my wrist, and the back of his shirt—along with the flesh beneath it—split open as well. "Did you expect me to face you unarmed?" I demanded coldly.

Inuyasha pushed himself to his feet, his hand wrapped around the hilt of our father's mighty sword and hate in his golden eyes. I had not seen him in two years—certainly he was not still angry with me. Oh—the jewel shard. Fool. I would not give it up easily.

"Unless you want to much on the sword when I ram it down your throat," he snarled as he leveled the sword at me, "you had damned well better tell me where she is!"

"She who? I know not of whom you speak."

A feral grin. "Fine. Play your games, then. I'll get her out of here myself—after I kill you!"

I swung the whip around again, just as he made a dive at me, and the cord of energy wrapped around the blade of the Tetsusuiga for only a moment before it released under the power of the sword. Attacking the sword itself was perhaps not the wisest move, then. Before I could collect it to snap it again, however, Inuyasha swung the sword with all his might and sliced right down my chest, severing the armor I wore like it was paper and ripping open the cloth and skin it protected. I bared my teeth in pain, swinging the bullwhip and catching him around the ankles and pulling back sharply, yanking him off his feet and leaving him sprawled out on his back. Another crack!, and the arm he clutched the sword with blossomed with blood.

The Tetsusuiga clattered to the ground, and I made a move to collect it and end this pointless duel, but even with the wounds he now had, Inuyasha popped up to his feet and caught me under the chin in an old-fashioned punch and effectively halting me for a moment. I could not collect myself before he snap-kicked me in the side of the head and, when I doubled over for a brief moment, drove an elbow into my back and a fist into my stomach at the same time. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, knocking me down onto my knees and digging his foot into my back, all the while pulling backwards and straining my neck.

"Tell me where she is, or I'll snap your neck like a twig," he snarled. "I'm not in the mood to fuck around!" Then the cool kiss of steel against my exposed throat. Perhaps he would slit my throat before he broke my neck.

"Do not misunderstand me—I am always eager for an excuse to kill you," I hissed, "but I fail to see the logic in this. Do you desire your precious jewel fragment so?"

"This has nothing to do with the goddamn jewel and you know it! Tell me where Kagome is!"

I went very still, although why, I did not know. "Your misplaced human is of no concern of mine."

A little more pressure from the sword. "Wrong answer. I want locations and directions."

My hand shot up and grabbed his arm that held the sword weakly, due to his injuries, and slammed Inuyasha to the ground. All too easy. The whip, forgotten but for a moment, cracked down and split the front of his shirt open in a mirror-image of my own, drawing blood immediately. His arm had no strength left to swing the sword effectively, and I dug my foot into his chest, making sure to put my heel over the fresh wound. "Hear me once, and heed my words: I do not have your human here, nor have I. Her disappearance is your problem. Do not involve me in it."

"So you didn't take Kagome?" spoke up the monk.

"I did not," I told him, after forgetting he existed for a little while. "I have no use for her."

"So if you didn't take her, then who did?" asked the girl I assumed was a demon exterminator.

"It is not my concern."

"Well they're your lands," she said harshly. "You should keep closer watch on these things."

"If I must tell you again that your misplaced human is not my problem, I will be very unhappy."

"Then why don't you get off my chest!"

"If the human Kagome is your only business here, then I should hope you will leave now," I said, beyond annoyed. "It seems perfectly logical for her to leave your little group; I have told her before that it is most unwise to travel with you," I told my brother. "As she will probably be killed on accident. I would check anyone who offers a spare bed to sleep in. Now get out of my sight."

"If you'd quit stepping on my chest, I would. And besides . . . she went to get firewood from back in the woods the other night, and then she never came back. You call that leaving? I figured that was just you being an asshole again."

My foot left his chest, but hardly a moment later I grabbed him by the necklace he wore and slammed him into a boulder. "You let her wander the forests of the Western Lands alone? You are the damnedest fool of a half-demon, you pathetic excuse for a living creature! If you want to know where she is, then I would go and check the belly of every creature that roams the woods! I have warned you before that the forests of this world are not safe for her to roam—do you have some inane desire to see her killed? You waste both my time and her life with your foolishness!" I stepped back from him, disgusted. "For all you know, she's dead!"

She is not dead. She can't be—not in your lands! Not on your conscience.

Be silent!

The outburst stunned Inuyasha and his fellowship into silence for a moment. "Oh yeah?" he asked finally. "Then why don't you come with us and prove it? Maybe you know more about these lands than I do. I sure as hell would hope so, anyways."

I narrowed my eyes as I released him, folding my arms. "Really. And what makes you so eager to accept my help? You did just try to kill me."

"She means more to me than sibling rivalry," he snapped. "I'm not going to lose her just because I don't like you."

The monk and the demon exterminator exchanged a glance. "I will help you, but do not blame me if all you find of her is a carcass."

The looks I received from the humans, the fox, and my fool brother were definitely ill at my words . . . until the monk began to smile. I saw very little funny in what I had said—and then I felt what the monk smiled at. Something small, foul-smelling, and persistent had wrapped itself around my leg and gave very little sign of letting go.

Damn her. I had spoken to her of doing that under any circumstances—but when she was excited or frightened, it seemed to be the first thing she did. "Rin."

Her dark eyes looked straight up into mine, and I folded my arms crossly. "Where 'ya goin'?"

"Away for the afternoon." I made my voice as stern as possible. Her timing was abysmal.

"Can Rin come?"

A cold glare.

"Can . . ." she seemed to consider her words seriously. "Can I come?"

Had she learned nothing while I had left Jaken to instruct her? "I don't know if you can do anything. I do not make those decisions for you."

A concentrated look from her small face. "Mmm . . . ma-a-ay I come?" she pressed, testing the word carefully.

"You may not."

Her eyes grew round. "But Rin—but I did my words and wrote semances like Jaken told me to and then I cleaned my room and had my lunch and did just what you told Rin to do!"

I kept my face hard, despite the softness that often entered it where Rin was involved. Her tongue often lagged behind her brain, which explained why she was tripping over her own words. "I do not leave to play some game without you," I informed her. "I have business to attend."

"Don't want to play a game! I want to go fight business with you," she insisted, baring her little human fangs in a mimic of what I did on the few occasions I was truly furious. "An' be a dog," she added.

The monk seemed amazed. "So you do have a daughter."

That grabbed Rin's attention like candy waved under her nose (which was something I did not often indulge). "Sesshoumaru's not my dad," she told him plainly, never releasing my leg. "Who're you?"

He bowed low. "Miroku, a mere monk, at your service."

Her eyes fixed with fascination on each person she did not know as they introduced themselves: Shippou, then the demon exterminator Sango, who used both her name and occupation as introduction. The girl's eyes grew wider. "You sterminate people like Sesshoumaru?" she asked. I retained a smirk as the young woman stumbled through an answer that really held no point, as Rin would not appreciate the truth.

Inuyasha mumbled his name, arms folded and his face speaking of impatience and lacking the amusement that temporarily distracted the monk from their grim purpose. Rin's eyes narrowed intelligently as she slowly placed Inuyasha's name with what she had been told of him.

"You're . . ." she studied him. "The bakayaro half-demon who scraces (she meant disgraced) anyone with demon . . . um . . . stuff . . ."

Blood, perhaps.

" . . . and get really . . . er . . . mad . . ."

That generalization would undoubtedly be Jaken's doing, as he was hesitant to speak to her of my frequent rages that destroyed countless human villages after my encounters with Inuyasha. Something about upsetting her, as she was human herself.

"Can I go with you now?"

"No."

*

"You were foolish enough to make camp in this part of the woods?" I demanded sourly. "It's a wonder that she alone disappeared."

"Yeah, well, it was dark and we were out of options," Inuyasha snapped. "Shit, it's hot out here." His clothing was already going limp from heat and sweat, as was his hair. I myself had abandoned the demon pelt I had worn before to keep myself cooler, and while it was certainly not as hot as it would have been, it was still unbearable.

"You should have taken that into consideration," I told him.

The monk—Miroku or something like that—had already tossed down a few layers of his garb and was down to the white undershirt similar to Inuyasha's. "I'm going to agree with Inuyasha for once," he muttered. "It's too hot out here to be comfortable."

"That's how it is here," I said shortly. "The days are hot and the nights are cold. If you intend to stay here long, then I suggest you get used to it—although I do not intend on allowing you to stay long enough to adjust," I added coldly. I was irritated enough as it was—Rin had insisted on coming, and threw one of her temper-tantrums that she'd perfected to a fine art, and she was now sleeping on my foolish half-brother's back. She had been fascinated to finally meet the one I had despised for so long, and couldn't tear herself away from him, much to my chagrin.

"So what's the worst thing imaginable out here?" Inuyasha asked. "Just in case we need a worst-case scenario."

"There is a particular demon in these woods," I admitted, "that hunts human women and small human boys, during its rutting season, as there are no females of its species. It reproduces by laying an egg that can only be fertilized once the hormones in its body that stall fertilization are dispelled by taking the victim and—"

"You talk like that when there are children around?" the monk demanded.

I gave him a cold glance. "She has already learned of each demon in this realm; I see no reason to hide the harsh reality of life from her. She will only discover it later—better to know what she faces than be afraid and ignorant."

"Well so much for that worst-case scenario," Inuyasha muttered. "Guess we can only hope she's not pregnant when we find her."

"Should that be her fate," I informed him haughtily, "you will not recognize her corpse when we find it. Do not flatter yourself to think that anything that lurks in the Western Lands is merciful enough to let its victims live."

Several hours passed in that tight-lipped fashion, everyone wary of speaking out of line around me and afraid at the same time that we would only find their missing companion's body. The demon-exterminator had taken the fox-child in another direction, and had she not seemed a formidable foe, I would have silently questioned her safety in these woods.

But I certainly would not have stopped her.

The unbearable heat remained until the sun disappeared into the trees, and then the temperature began to plummet to dangerous lows. The human Sango had returned with the fox-child not long before sunset, and I was preparing to take Rin and leave them to search the forest alone in the dark. Even though I ruled all in my lands, I was not so foolish as to think that I would not find trouble after sunset.

Rin had picked up the demon pelt from the ground, furry and black in contrast to the lighter one I had lost in the battle with Naraku years before, and was curled up on my shoulder. Though I would not admit it, the added warmth that she and her cover provided was appreciated.

Inuyasha's teeth chattered as he became angry. His mood darkened along with the sky, and I secretly pitied whatever had made off with his human, chuckling to myself that it had best avoid the half-demon for many years.

It would do well to avoid me, as well.

"Goddamnit!" he snarled. "This is absolute bullshit—you're seriously ditching us?"

I looked down my nose at him. "I did not promise otherwise."

"You're a lot of fucking help!"

"You're lucky I helped this much. And your language is abysmal, given our small company." But of course Rin didn't care. She had heard me say far worse.

His hand went to his sword. "Fine—leave if you want to! Go back to your precious fortress—I don't care! And obviously, neither do you," he added venomously.

My face darkened. "For your wench?" I sneered. "Certainly not."

Rin sniffed as she perched on my shoulder. "She smells," the small girl declared.

I looked at her. "You should have taken care of that when it was warm enough to bathe," I sighed.

She shook her head. "No, not Rin," she said plainly. "Her. She smells like blood."

Then Inuyasha and I both spun around when we both smelled what Rin smelled. (How had she smelled it before us? Perhaps I was losing my touch and she was gaining it.) There was a crash in the forest behind us, and from the darkness emerged a stumbling, ragged human girl.

Gods of all the worlds . . . her sudden presence and physical state were a blow to the stomach.

"Kagome—" Inuyasha seemed to hold himself back rather than tackle her—she didn't seem to be able to stand, let alone withstand someone jumping on her. A hand shot out and she collapsed against a tree—she did smell of blood. There were dark spots on the blackness of her shirt that showed up shining wetly in the failing light. The wounds were fresh. The largest was on her stomach, it seemed, although I could only guess from how much blood I smelled and the way that even now, the stain seemed to be spreading.

"Don't," she said in a tired voice as both the monk and Sango made moves to help her. "I'm . . . I can walk."

"It does not seem so to me," I said quietly.

Her dark eyes lifted and focused on me for the first time, and I could not read the many emotions that flashed behind them. Look away. Don't look at me like that. She was . . . she looked very . . . beautiful . . . even when she was so destroyed.

Oh, not again. I had not considered for a long time why I had so violently avoided her—but now I remembered. I should not have aided them at all . . .

"Kagome—what in the hell happened?" Inuyasha demanded, not yelling and making no move to aide her, out of respect for her dignity.

She shook her head, but her eyes never left mine, and now she lifted the hem of her blood-soaked shirt to show the wound it concealed. It struck something deep inside of me; not sympathy, and not regret, but . . . something I could not place. It was obvious, once I saw it, what had happened—who had happened.

A large handprint encompassed much of her stomach, red with abuse and severe burns, much in the same way as my own two years ago. It was the same size as the scar on my chest that would never truly heal.

Silence settled in the air around us, and she stumbled forward a few steps before her eyes closed and she dropped into a dead faint, my arms the only thing that kept her from hitting the ground.

*

Kagome

I threw up more that night than I thought possible—given the fact that I hadn't eaten in days, I didn't know I had anything left to puke. It was probably vital organs or something by then. The days following passed with only vague notions of burning heat and then bone-chilling cold, along with standard pain and fragmented memories.

I should never have walked away from the campsite. I should have stayed right by the fire, close to Inuyasha and Miroku and Sango—even Shippou, who wouldn't have been much use against him.

How many days had he kept me? One—ten? A hundred years? It all seemed the same. Blood and pain and crying and talking—I hadn't been allowed to fall asleep or pass out from the pain he was inflicting. However long he'd had me, I had been conscious the entire time. I had learned more of his twisted past and sickening creation, how each jewel shard he collected had made him stronger, how each demon foolish enough to trust him was eventually absorbed into him along with the many other demons that made him just who he was. He in turn had wrenched from me the deep love I'd carried for Inuyasha in the beginning, then the confusing ordeal with Sesshoumaru later on. He ripped from me the dreams I'd had of the striking demon lord, and the nightmares of what he himself would do when he finally caught up with us and our jewel shards. I had learned to erect strong mental barriers after I stayed in the Warring States for long periods, but like even the strongest armor, Naraku had invaded my mind and taken it apart, exposing me before him down to the core of my soul. In the most literal sense of the word, he had raped my mind and spirit each moment of each day he held me.

He had also collected the jewel shards I carried with me—the largest shard I had given to Inuyasha for a while, so he couldn't get his hands on it, but the others he found quickly. I had taken precautions in case I was ever taken hostage like that and had hidden jewel shards in unlikely places—some in the hem of my skirt, one in the toe of my shoe, another embedded in the handle of my bow, and so on. But he had found them all because my mind was exposed to him to do with as he wished.

That was the least of the horrors. Even in my nightmares over the next few days, I couldn't delve into the physical horrors that had left me covered in blood.

I slowly came to awareness, the room around me dark and my face cold, but the rest of me warm. There was a silver-headed figure sleeping in the floor by what seemed to be my bed, his head dropping to his chest occasionally. A little fox slept beside him, by my feet. In a chair, with his head on the table, Miroku snored, and Sango appeared to be dozing lightly on her feet by the door.

"Inuyasha?" I whispered.

He jerked awake at the noise, always the light sleeper, and his golden eyes went wide in the darkness. "Kagome!" he exclaimed. "You're . . . you're—"

I was instantly pinned when Shippou pounced on me, followed by Miroku, who had woken up, and Sango, who had been startled at the commotion and fallen over initially. I flinched in pain as they all assaulted me. "Ouch! Hey, careful there!" I exclaimed.

Hey, my voice worked. Aside from a throbbing pain in my stomach and a few aches and pains here and there, I felt pretty okay. Not perfect, mind you, but not like I'd been tortured for days. I must have been treated by a healer. "I'm here," I assured them. "Although if you're not careful, I may just break."

"Kagome," said Sango incredulously, "you were at Naraku's mercy for three days straight and you lived—I don't think you've got anything to worry about now!"

"Where am I—or more appropriately, where are we?" I asked.

They all exchanged dubious glances. "You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Sango told me.

"Sure I would. I feel fine—I am deeply in the debt of whoever set us up here and healed me," I added. "Tell me so I can hug them."

"You'll eat your words," Inuyasha said dryly. "Unless you'd like a make-out session with my brother."

"I hereby eat my words. Oh—shit, he was there," I realized. I had seen Inuyasha first, then I had seen Sesshoumaru beside him with something small perched on his shoulder. A child? "Help me avoid him, please," I begged. "I can't face him right now!"

"You don't have to. He's been scarce these past few days," Miroku explained, "hunting Naraku no doubt. He seemed as angry as we were when we realized it was Naraku that had taken you. We haven't seen him more than two or three times. His fortress has been heavily guarded, however. Naraku stands no chance of getting in—although I do know what happens when we underestimate him," he added. "So I can make no guarantees."

I bit my lip and blocked the memories that swelled at his name, closing my eyes for a moment. "Oh. Well he won't come for me here, I can say that much. He's made his point, if we're holed up here waiting to see what he'll do next. He only . . . he only did this because he could. This is his equivalent of a power trip." A lie—Naraku had told me in plain words why it had been me caught unaware rather than Miroku or Sango or even Shippou, but it was nothing I ever wanted to think about again. "Is there anywhere I can get fresh air?" I asked, the thoughts of Naraku making my voice strain. "I don't feel so hot."

"Yeah, on the walls of the fortress," Inuyasha said, "but see if I'm stupid enough to let you go alone."

"I'll go with her," Miroku said, as though I wasn't there.

I sighed. "You can come, that's fine, but remove your hand from my thigh before I do it for you."

He complied instantly, and Sango slapped him hard across the face. "Don't you have any dignity?" she demanded. "After everything Kagome has been through, you grope her? Some monk you are!"

"I was simply laying a comforting hand—"

"Don't make me slap you again."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Shall we go, or would you like to wait for the physical abuse to continue?" he asked me politely.

I pushed myself to my feet. "We'll let the abuse continue when I feel like watching," I replied, grabbing his offered hand to steady myself. He picked up his staff and we walked in silence for a few minutes.

Cool night air assaulted me—cold, actually, but I was bundled in a blanket and so only my cheeks went numb. "You've been through quite the ordeal," Miroku commented lightly. "How are you feeling?"

I shrugged, looking into the black forest that stretched up into the mountains. "Been better. Minor aches and pains, you know, but nothing surprising."

"How's your stomach?"

Under the blanket, my hand had already draped across the mark, laying inside the burned-out wound. "It'll be fine. But it won't heal completely—I'll always have a scar."

"There are certain spells that will dispel the indention," he told me. "If you wish, I could ask Kaede to—"

I shook my head. "You and Inuyasha are covered with battle scars; no way am I sacrificing mine. I can show it to my kids someday with pride and say, 'Look what I lived through. Anything's possible.'"

"Only you could take such a life-threatening situation and make it positive," he chuckled.

"You should see me in rush-hour traffic. I thrive there." The one time I had been home long enough to go anywhere, my mother had taken me shopping for more appropriate clothes to traipse around in, as she thought mine made me look cheap—and, she continued, it was falling apart. She ended up choosing black, which retained heat well and was good for the occasional sneaking around I did. Black pants, black top, belt that evened it out. Fine; black was the new gray anyways. We had been trapped in traffic for hours, and I alone, of the thousands of people who moved ten feet every hour, did not mind in the least.

"You are truly an amazing person, Kagome," he sighed.

"Thanks, you're not too bad yourself."

"Are you all right?" he asked very seriously.

I glanced at him, studying his face under the quarter-moon. "Didn't we just go through that?"

"You know what I mean. Naraku's strength is not his only weapon. Your wounds are not merely physical—I can see it in the way you move."

I chewed my lip. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You've got to eventually."

"Well then I don't want to think about it. Once I think about it, then I'll worry about talking about it. Until then, I don't want to deal with it."

He put a hand on my shoulder. "I understand. I can offer to ease your pain by healing your wounds, but I cannot make you forget. That is what I truly regret the most, aside from being unable to realize the danger you were in before Naraku took you."

I sighed, my heart heavy suddenly. Why had I thought that Inuyasha would be the only one bothered by all this? Miroku had always been there for me, certainly more than I had been there for him. But he didn't need consolation as often as I did. "He saw it all," I said suddenly. "Everything in my mind and soul that I'd kept hidden away—he could pull it out of me like it was nothing. He . . . he saw exactly how to get here, through the well with jewel shards—once he's destroyed this world, he'll go through the well and destroy mine too. He took all my jewel shards—all in all, I think it was seven or so. He saw where I had stashed them and he took them. He saw how much bigger your wind tunnel has gotten, he saw how Inuyasha becomes human at the new moon, he saw what happened with Sesshoumaru last time we were in the Western Lands, he knows everything I know. There's nothing we can hide from him. He plans on using Kikyo's immortal soul against Inuyasha, Sango against you, me to get Sesshoumaru's jewel shard—we're just pawns on a damn chessboard that he's moving around! All those times we thought we'd bested him for the time—they were all sacrifices he'd planned in advance so he could completely destroy us later!"

"Excuse me," he cut in. "I'm aware of how perilous our situation is, so please don't think I was ignoring you, but I couldn't help but notice your references to Sesshoumaru—what happened last time we were in the Western Lands? And how are you an outlet to his jewel shard? My curiosity is running rampant."

"Indeed," came a new voice, "as is my own. How do I figure into Naraku's ultimate goal?"

Oh no. No, no, no, no. Please let me be dreaming. If I'm wide awake, I think I'm going to have to jump off the side and plummet to my untimely death. I think my stomach beat me to it—I can't feel it. Damn!

Miroku and I both tuned slowly—or maybe we just plain turned and time seemed to have slowed considerably for me. "Good evening," Miroku said politely, though not with extravagant kindness.

"You should not be up," Sesshoumaru told me in an unreadable voice. "I highly doubt you are well enough to be up and about so soon after Naraku almost killed you."

"At this point," Miroku told me, "I quite agree." His meaning was obvious, as was his continued dislike of Inuyasha's brother.

"Go and tell my foolish brother that she will return shortly," Sesshoumaru told him. "I shall see that she returns safely."

"Forgive me if I—"

"Your intrusion is taken into consideration," he interrupted coldly, "but I have dismissed you." His tone invited neither interruption or argument. "She will rejoin your group in her quarters shortly. Until then, I have already made my call."

Miroku didn't move.

"Shall we deal with this hand to hand, monk?" he asked with gentle steel in his voice.

Miroku hesitated, but I didn't tell him to wait for me, so he finally began to move. "Inuyasha will not be happy about this," he told me.

"Tell him if he has a problem, I'll sit him all the way to Matamores."

There was tense silence as Miroku departed, and then Sesshoumaru spoke. "So tell me, human, how is it that Naraku considers you the key to my jewel shard?"

A cold breeze ripped right through the blanket, and I fought down a shiver. "I don't know. I told him he was crazy."

"I assume then that you brought up the incident several years ago."

"I didn't bring it up, thanks a lot," I snapped. "If you must know how he knew everything that's ever happened to me before in my life, then maybe I ought to tell you that he ripped my mind open like there was a cheap lock on it and ransacked it! So now he knows about everything from you to my family, and you were not the only person he dragged up, Mr. Center of My Universe!"

"Your body will heal," he said suddenly, "but I did not consider the fact that he scarred your spirit as well. That is another scar you will bear through eternity."

I wrapped the blanket tighter. "That son of a bitch is dead meat," I seethed silently, my eyes riveted again to the black expanse of a forest beyond the fortress walls. "He'll pay for what he's done to people for the last fifty years, and damned if I don't play some part in dishing the punishment."

"When you are well enough," he reminded me. "Do not seek your revenge until you are strong enough to defend yourself. Should you attack him now, you would fight valiantly and die quickly." And he spoke as though he cared—hah.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Why did you help them out the other day, anyways? I figured you'd be off doing something demonically constructive, like pillaging a defenseless village or something like that."

A disdainful glance. "It suited me at the time. I would not have done it if it did not."

"Oh right, you demon lords get to push your pleasure buttons whenever you want," I snorted. "I forgot."

"One with power such as mine does only what pleases him," he replied shortly. "I care none for the ones I help or hinder."

"So I've noticed," I scowled. "Guess you get your kicks out of making out with chicks and then disappearing, huh?"

Whoopsy. Um . . . could I take that back right quick? Didn't quite mean to bring that up . . .

"If you refer to the incident at the hot springs—and I'm sure you do—then I advise you to speak not of what you know nothing."

"Are you telling me I don't know what happened?" I demanded. "I was there—I should hope I have some idea!"

"I never insinuated that you had no idea; I simply stated that you have no concept of what truly happened." Big whopping difference.

"So enlighten me—did you kiss me and run, or did you kiss me and haul ass?" I asked sourly. The anger warming my cold skin surprised me—I hadn't really thought about it that much since it happened. I had assumed that it had been because I didn't care—although it was beginning to look like I not only cared at the time, I still cared.

"I have neither desire nor need to explain myself to you," he said shortly. "But know this: should Naraku attempt to use you to gain the jewel shard I have grown quite fond of, I will certainly kill you before he does."

"You're a real lady-killer, you know? I don't see how you're not being chased by rabid women desperate to be with you, given your charms and people-skills."

He spun on me, golden eyes flashing. "Feel fortunate that you stand before me and yet live," he snarled. "But do not assume that killing you before Naraku can use you in such a way is a crime against you. I personally find it a favor."

I backed away a step, but my anger didn't falter. "Some favor! Don't you dare talk to me about Naraku," I seethed. "I know more about him and the way his mind works—he let me see some of the inner workings, although it was more to aide in destroying me utterly more than it was anything else. Even you don't compare to him."

"I never claimed to desire so," he threw back. "But I know the workings of evil, as I am sometimes inclined to work as such. And I know the mind of evil, as I have one myself. Naraku is a foe to be kept closer than a friend or lover. Any farther away, and he will destroy you from the inside out, as he is doing with you."

My eyes widened. "Pardon me?" I exclaimed furiously.

"He will haunt your mind until either you have gone mad or you destroy him—it is not anything that he could have stopped if he wished, which I'm sure he didn't. It is human nature to be destroyed by such actions. When one's mind and body are violated as yours have been, only strength of mind and sheer will can overcome the effects. The true extent of his torment will come to you within the upcoming weeks, and you will wish for death so greatly that you will try to bring it upon yourself, unless you can make yourself find a reason to live."

I swallowed. His words carried what felt like a warning of things to come—although he was wrong, I knew he was. I wasn't that weak. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," I said with a weak laugh. "Guess he knew what he was doing."

"Keep him close above all others," Sesshoumaru advised me, "but do not keep him so close that he has only to push you a little before you crumble into yourself."

"Right," I sighed. "Keep him close, but not too close. And how close do you advise I keep my friends—close, but not so close they overshadow Naraku?"

He was suddenly a hell of a lot closer than I had thought—not too alert, huh? Fear flickered up in my stomach, but I didn't budge an inch. "No," he growled in response to my question. I forgot for a moment what we were talking about when I saw the look in his eyes—utter confusion. For one reason or another, he seemed torn between two things, and I couldn't tell what they were. But he looked—well, just that: torn. He seemed to forget what we were talking about, too, because his answer really made no sense and contradicted what seemed to be his point a moment ago. "Keep them as close as you can handle without going mad," he finally said, his words sounding forced. Then, planting his arms on the edge of the wall on each side of me and effectively trapping me, his mouth descended on mine and I could feel in his body one of the two warring sides succumb as I lost myself in him.