Sanzo's departure marked the end of any serious discussion among the others. Goku was getting tired, though not quite enough to go to bed; Hakkai and Gojyo quickly got into a game of mah jong on the coffee table. For awhile, Miya watched, but there were patterns in the pieces, patterns that made a fog around her mind and teased her with thoughts that would not come clear, and it didn't take long for her to quietly excuse herself.

In the kitchen, she looked around her absently as she put a kettle on for tea, struck again by the mark her chance visitors had left on her home. More dishes than she had used in most of the rest of her life were scattered across her table and counters and piled in the sink. The curtains nearest the stove were slightly black from an minor accident she and Goku had making dinner earlier that night. Empty beer cans were piled neatly by the door, and she grinned, recognizing Hakkai's handiwork. Water still pooled on the floor beneath the sink, splashed as Gojyo tried to escape Sanzo's fan after some snide comment when they had gotten home that night.

"I could get used to this," she whispered, then laughed and shook her head. Not so much cleaning it, admittedly, but then, that was never what she had seen…

She sighed and brushed off her thoughts, turning to fill the sink with water and add soap, before crossing to the table to gather up the dinner dishes, humming softly to herself.

"I was just going to offer to do that for you."

Startled, Miya jumped and spun, then smiled. Hakkai was in the doorway; he returned her smile and added, "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"No, it's just that I thought everyone had gone to bed," she answered honestly. "It was pretty quiet out there."

"Goku went to bed," Hakkai explained with a grin. "That's why it was quiet. I'm not sure where Gojyo wandered off to. I actually thought I'd take care of some of this tonight so you wouldn't have as much to deal with tomorrow." He looked around the room ruefully. "We do leave a mess, don't we?"

"Don't worry about it, I don't mind doing it," Miya answered, meaning it. "It helps me sleep better."

"At least let me help you," Hakkai offered.

"If you want to…" Miya replied, amused and Hakkai headed over to the sink, pushing up his sleeves as he turned the water on again. Miya gathered the dishes together and brought them over to the counter, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she had them all, then reached for a towel.

"Thanks for doing this," she commented quietly, beginning to dry what he had already finished. "I do appreciate it." She paused, then added with a grin, "All of it, not just the dishes."

"I'm just glad we could help you," Hakkai replied quietly and for a moment, they worked together in companionable silence. Miya turned away with an armful of clean plates, putting them away; when she turned back, Hakkai glanced at her and remarked, "Miya, if you don't mind my asking, there's something that I'm a little curious about."

"Go ahead," she replied, surprised.

"You don't have to tell me – it's really none of my business – but I was wondering how you came to live here, in a place like this, you being what you are…"

"The same thing you are," Miya pointed out gently, smiling. "I'm not ashamed of being a demon, Hakkai… though," she admitted, a little ruefully, "to hear the story, you'd think I was. When I first arrived here, the townspeople didn't know I wasn't human, so…" She shrugged. "They let me stay."

"I'm surprised no one noticed your power limiter," he commented mildly.

"An ankle bracelet?" Miya lifted an eyebrow.

"With the people as paranoid as they are, I would have thought that they would have looked for anything that might be a mark of a demon."

"They probably would have…" Miya trailed off, remembering. "I… had been wounded pretty badly not long before and I had just about enough strength to drag myself into the square and collapse. The man who owned the inn at the time, an ancient old guy named Jiro found me there. He took me in and, along with the old woman who cooked and cleaned and the waitress, nursed me back to health. They never asked me any questions and it was… some time before I could say anything about myself. I had nowhere else to go, so he gave me a job at the inn as a waitress and cook and the villagers agreed I could have this little place to live."

"But they did find out you were a demon." Hakkai glanced at her.

"A couple of weeks later, a band of demons attacked," Miya went on quietly. "They were bandits, but… really they just wanted to kill. They got to the inn before I found out about it, and by the time I got there… they had already killed the cook and hurt Jiro pretty badly. I fought and killed them, but that doesn't bring people back and now the whole town knew that I was a demon as well and hadn't said anything. They were pretty close to lynching me, to be honest, but Jiro got their attention and pointed out that I had lived there for almost a month without ever acting like the other demons had and that this situation just proved that having a demon in town to protect it could be useful. He got them to agree to let me stay here and then he died." She paused, putting away another armful of dishes before she went on, "Obviously, some people were more receptive to the idea than others."

"I'm sorry."

Hakkai had turned away from the sink to give her his entire attention, and for a moment, Miya stood facing him, startled at the look she saw in his eyes. It was a look that said more clearly than his words that he had sympathy for her pain because he had lived through his own.

"Don't be," she replied, just as quietly, surprising herself with her words. "It was nowhere near what other people have had to live through. I didn't mean for it to sound as if I was saying that it was."

"No…" Hakkai shook his head, smiling a little. "No, Miya, that's not what I was saying. I didn't mean I pitied you, I just meant that I was sorry you had to live through it, that… that you had to be hurt like the rest of us. That's all."

She turned back to the dishes, smiling.

"It's hard to do anything for anyone you can't at least understand them," she answered quietly. "And if being hurt in the past made it so that you four can be here… It was a small price to pay, Hakkai." She took the last pile of dishes in her hands and turned to look around the room with satisfaction. "Looks like we're done. Or, rather," with a mischievous look at Hakkai, "I'm tired, so it's good enough."

He chuckled. "Well, then, it looks like I'd better let you go to bed. Sleep well."

"Thanks again." Miya smiled as he headed for the door, then, alone again, gave the room one more contented look and went to bed.

---

It was a familiar dream.

She was standing in the woods, and huge pines rose all around her, whispering softly in the steady breeze. She turned slowly, searching the shadows for any sign of her opponent.

He came out of nowhere, catching her full in the back with his claws and she swore and spun, letting her kausinge snap out, but he was fast; faster than she was, anyway, and she only barely managed to avoid another slash with his claws. She darted backwards, then saw his shadow on the ground and knew where he was going to land and lashed out with the kausinge again, a perfectly timed blow…

He flew backwards into a tree, glared at her with venom, and she stepped forward to look down at him without expression. He had killed the humans of the village where she had stopped at, and she was not about to let that continue. She saw his lips move, but he had no voice and she saw him slump down among the fallen leaves.

She sighed and for the first time took in her own injuries. The slashes across her back ached, and there was a deep gash along her arm that was still bleeding freely. It wasn't until she tried to walk that she realized she was in more trouble than she expected. She had lost a great deal of blood, and she staggered forward to lean against the nearest tree, swearing softly to keep herself focused.

And then she saw the shadows drawing nearer to her and she pulled herself up with the last of her strength, reaching for her kausinge again, but one of them had stepped into the sunlight. It was a man from the town, and she called out to him, relaxing against a tree, relieved, and even pleased to see him.

Except that there was an expression on his face that she didn't understand, and she stared at him, puzzled, as her knees gave way and she sank down against the roots of the pine. And then the others had come, out of the shadows, men she knew from the village, and they stared at her with anger and all of a sudden, she knew what they had meant when they had said that they were going to go demon – hunting.

Her own cry shattered the stillness of the pines, but only the birds heard her, scattering into the sky like petals from a dropped flower.

Miya woke, her own voice echoing in her head, and shot up, clasping the blanket to her as she gasped for breath.

It was a dream. Miya forced herself to sigh, calming herself. It was a dream, nothing more, just a fragment from the past. She sighed again and swept her hair back from her face, turning her closed eyes to the sunlight that poured through the window over the couch.

"Miya, what is it, what's wrong?" Someone burst through the door, and Miya jumped, suddenly unable to tell if she really was awake or still dreaming, and, determined to wake up this time, took a deep breath and tried to scream.

It came out as something between a gasp and an undignified squeak. Truly puzzled now, Miya stared up at the figure who was looking down at her with incomprehension. It was Gojyo, shirtless and not looking too awake himself, but with his bladed staff in hand as he scanned the room.

Miya found her voice.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" she cried, yanking the blanket up around her, far more angry at her own confusion than she was embarrassed.

"You were the one that screamed, what the hell's wrong with you?" Gojyo shouted back at her and Miya blinked and suddenly figured out what was going on.

"I'm sorry." She sighed and shook her head, abruptly irritated with herself. "I was dreaming and I must have cried out, that's all. I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Oh." Gojyo looked momentarily taken aback, then grinned at her. "Well, now that I'm here…"

"Get out and let me get dressed!" Miya snapped, laughing as she threw her pillow at him. He ducked it, laughing himself, but pulled the door closed behind him.

Alone, Miya shook her head, still grinning, then sighed, growing more serious as she swung her feet to the floor and reached for her clothes. It had been awhile since she was troubled by those dreams, longer still since they had been so bad that she had trouble figuring out where she was.

This demon, the townspeople… I haven't had to think about it, not in a long time and all of a sudden, it's like everything is there just to remind me. Everything but them, and…

And maybe that in itself was simply confirming that it was time to leave, that she had been here too long. Miya sighed and glanced down at the coffee table as something caught her attention.

They had been using her mah jong set, and the pieces from the night before still lay scattered across the table. Miya reached down to pick one up, considering it.

"Enduring partnerships," she murmured aloud and gave a quick laugh, then bent to gather the pieces together quickly, dropping them back in their bag and putting the bag with her kausinge rod. It only took her a moment to comb her hair, then she headed out in search of tea.

The kitchen was empty; Miya reflected idly that Gojyo had probably gone back to bed, hoping to get another hour or two of sleep. Not that she blamed him, after the events of last night, and today wouldn't be much better. They still had some time before the three days were up, but they didn't have any way to figure out which of the townspeople was a demon.

People I've known for the last year, Miya reflected, waiting for her water to boil. Someone in this town knew I was coming, and they got here first and for a year, they've waited. But… why? And how could they possibly have known that Genjo Sanzo and his party would stop here one day, that they would meet me? I didn't even know what was going on until I met them…

She shook her head, turning away from the thoughts as she reached for a teabag and a cup. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was still Sanzo himself, who obviously knew more than he was saying. She was fairly sure that he suspected what she had come to guess, but until the time came, she could only wait and see what happened.

"I hate waiting," she muttered, and headed outside.

It clearly wasn't going to be as nice out as it had been the last few days; heavy clouds had rolled in and a brisk, cold wind tugged at her hair and chilled her bare stomach and shoulders, and even through long sleeves, she was cold. Something in the wind, though, made her restless, and she wandered down toward the road, clasping her arms with her hands as her eyes turned to where the path disappeared into the distant mountains.

"Hey. I thought you'd come out here."

Miya turned, surprised. Gojyo stood leaning against her large bamboo tree, lazily smoking, and she smiled and wandered over toward him.

"I thought you'd be sleeping," she replied as she joined him.

"Nah." He shot her a quick, amused look. "Between the snoring and the screaming…"

"Oh, shut up," she retorted mildly, smiling, and they stood together silently for a moment.

Every inch of her body had ached with the pain of the lacerations across her back, down her arm, with the pain of the bruised muscles and the blows she had taken. Even sitting, the world was swirling a little, so that she couldn't tell if the angry, cold faces that confronted her were multiplied or if there really were that many of them. Sitting there, dazed and frightened, she had nonetheless been confused as well… she had never hidden what she was, had never lied to them about the blood that flowed through her veins.

Miya shook herself sharply, startled at the vivid intensity of the memory. It was the dream that had brought them to the surface, she told herself firmly, not the demon, not the terrible realization that there was a plot around her seemingly to make her live that nightmare again…

"Want to talk about it?" Gojyo wasn't looking at her. Standing next to him under the tree, Miya allowed herself a quick, hard smile.

"Not particularly."

He nodded, didn't say anything else.

"I killed him to protect you," she had whispered. Drawing closer to her, the men had sneered.

"You betray your own kind, killing them," one of them snarled. "What's to say that you won't change your mind again?"

"It's… not like that." It wasn't a protest, not really, for it had never occurred to her that they didn't understand.

"There's nothing to tell, really." It was a plea, not to him but to herself, a quiet little plea that her memories would spare her, even though she knew they wouldn't, just as they hadn't.

And then, one of them reached out to her and she knew what they were going to do to her and she had reached down, just once. Her fingers had brushed the cold, silver metal around her ankle, the simple silver bangle that was so much a part of her that most of the time, she forgot that she could take it off. And for a single moment, she knew the power she had, in her fingers with the silver. They would fall back before her, terror in their eyes, and she could almost feel the exultation of knowing that there was nothing they could do against her…

And then, deliberately, she had let her fingers slid away, let the bracelet fall back against her ankle, and all she could offer against them was a single, pleading cry.

"It happened when the demons changed, a year ago." She did not look at Gojyo, though she knew he was watching her with silent, unreadable eyes; she let her eyes rest on the mountains in the distance and the wind carry her voice to him. "I'd been on my own for a number of year by then, just… wandering, really. I didn't have anywhere to go home to, so… I would stay in a town for a while, then move on.

"Anyway, a year ago I ended up in a town not far from here. It was bigger than this one, and like this place, it had a fairly large demon population. When the change came…" She trailed off for a moment, then shook her head. "I doubt I could tell you any stories that you haven't already heard. It didn't happen all at once, of course, and that's what really scared people… the person that had been a good neighbor and friend to you one morning ripped out your throat that night. I didn't feel it, though, and that meant that I got to spend a lot of my time hunting down other demons who didn't leave the town, killing them before they killed any more."

She hesitated again, partly remembering and partly searching for a way to explain.

"Killing my own people to protect those that I thought of as my charges," she reflected, softly. "That was how I grew up thinking of humans, how my mother thought and what she always taught my sister and I. We were demons, more powerful than humans, but demons had been created to be humanity's guardians and companions, their older siblings. The demons were my people, yes, but so were the humans in a very different way. And as most demons would have just as soon killed me as looked at me at that point, the choice seemed easy.

"And then, one day, a bunch of the men told me they were going demon – hunting. A rogue demon was running around at night, and he was one of the flesh – eating ones… Anyway, they asked for my help, and I, of course, said yes."

It took her a moment to make sure that she could keep her voice steady, to be sure that her next words would be even and clear. Memories were flashing before her eyes, but it was the road she concentrated on, the distant mountains and the cold, wet wind.

"We found the demon in the graveyard, eating some of the newly – buried human bodies. The men gave chase, and being faster than they were, I went around into the woods, to be sure we didn't lose him there. It didn't take me long to hear the men's shouting and I realized that I was right about what the demon would try to do – he had gotten away from them and was in the woods with me. I found him, hunted him down and battled him in a clearing somewhere. He was fast, more brutal than I expected, and I didn't really have the experience with fighting that I have now… he did a lot of damage to me before I finally killed him.

She stopped again, caught for a moment in that strange and terrible silence that always trapped her when she got to that point in her memories. Never had she spoken of it, never had she told anyone what had happened once the demon was dead. She wasn't completely sure she could now.

Except that it took almost as much effort to stop, and she reached for that part of her, a part she knew well and had learned, over a long lifetime, to trust. It was the soft whisper inside of her that had promised that the four of them would come, that no matter how long as she stayed in the tiny village, the time would come when her path would be clear, and just as she had trusted that little voice to tell the future, she trusted it to tell the past, and all of a sudden, she heard her own voice distantly, pouring out words like water.

"I didn't realize at first how badly I was injured. I had some pretty bad cuts down my back and arm, and I had been beaten up pretty thoroughly, but it was the amount of blood that I lost that was really the problem. I was about to try to stagger back to town when I saw the men come out of the trees. I pointed out the demon's body, figuring that they would be ready to go home. Then I got a good look at their faces.

"The thing is, I'd never realized exactly how angry they were. Not just the men… humans in general. It had truly never occurred to me that they had come to hate all demons, even though I had fought and lived beside them. I hadn't changed and I didn't realize that they had. Maybe most of all, though, I never realized that they had never understood why I had protected them to begin with.

"I thought at first that they were going to kill me. Then I realized that they weren't… or rather I realized that they would, but not immediately. Death brings lust, and they wanted, or maybe needed, to see a demon made as helpless and frightened as they felt, to do something to a demon that would give them vengeance for the violation of trust that they felt the demons had committed. I saw…all of that in their eyes in that moment. And I almost… I couldn't even see straight, I'd lost so much blood, and even if I had been fine, I doubt I could have held them off with my power limiter on, and for one moment, I very nearly…"

"You let them rape you rather than use your power as a demon."

She couldn't hear what was in Gojyo's voice, only the harshness and the words themselves, and she turned to face him for the first time, something flaring in her defiantly.

"No, Gojyo, it wasn't that simple," she snapped sharply. "I would have given anything at that moment to have been what you are so that I didn't have to make that choice. But I did, and if I had taken my power limiter off I would have killed them, and whatever changed the other demons would have changed me. Yes, I chose to let them rape me, because I knew that I would live… and so would they. But don't you ever think that I had forgotten, then or now, what I am."

And then, maddeningly, the tears came, the tears she had never cried in the long days since then, as her body healed and her mind clawed its way back up from darkness. Standing there, wordlessly cursing her own vulnerability, she felt the tears blur her vision and the shaking that threatened to tear her apart.

For a heartbeat, Gojyo stood watching her, and she felt, rather than saw, something startled and vulnerable in his own eyes. It lingered, even as he deliberately dropped the cigarette he'd been holding and ground it under his heel and then he reached out to her.

"Come here."

It was the gentleness in his voice that undid her. Miya took a single, staggering step toward him and Gojyo's arms closed around her and he pulled her against him as her tears broke free at last.

She had no idea how long she sobbed in his arms, shaking harder than she believed possible. She wasn't quite sure when her tears finally stilled, leaving behind a sense of drained, numb, exhaustion that was so complete that all she could do was breathe. It took even longer to realize that the fear that had haunted her for days was gone.

It was Gojyo that she was aware of first. He was stroking her hair slowly, soothing her, and with that, the rest of the world slowly began to take form around her. But she didn't move, and neither did he, and for a long time, the only sound was the wind in the trees.