When Shippo screamed, it caused Rin, who was in a deep sleep, to jolt awake. She looked around warily, not aware of what was happening. When she saw Sesshomaru laying lifelessly in a puddle of his own blood, the started to panic.
"Sesshomaru-sama!" She called, scrambling to her feet. Kuro & Inu-tachi watched as she ran to her fallen friend. Rin picked up Sesshomaru's head and layed him in her lap, not bothered by his bleeding all over her, since she has been through the same thing when her family was killed.
Kagome put her hands to her mouth, not wanting to say anything, but Kuro broke the shirt silence. He stepped forth, took Rin by her arm, and pulled her to the back of the room. Kicking a place in the wall gently, he opened a hole in the floor, probably made to be used as a trap hole to catch thieves, but it made a good escape route as well. He practically dragged her through the hole, which led to a small tunnel that ended up outside, to where Kagura was waiting, hoping to find Rin coming out with Sesshomaru instead of Kuro.
"Take me to Naraku." Kuro demanded to Kagura. She sighed rudely in reply and pulled out her feather, ready to take them to her master.
"Well, the rescue went a lot better than I had planned," Miroku sighed, sliding down the wall where he was leaning, trying to be positive. Sesshomaru was in much worse condition then they thought they'd find him.
"Yes, except for when Rin woke up." Kagome was in tears, imagining what Rin was going through at the time.
Suddenly, Sesshomaru coughed violently and spat out some blood. Everyone looked at him, amazed. His demon blood was pushing him to try to fight until he was dead. All he managed to do was prop himself up on his elbow before he collapsed again into unconsiousness. Sango looked at him worriedly, when Shippo finally said, "I think we should hurry to Kaede's village." Inuyasha nodded, Kirara transformed into her larger state, and Miroku and Sango started to lift Sesshomaru onto the cat demon's back.
Miroku, Sango, and Sesshomaru were all riding on Kirara while Kagome and Shippo were below with Inuyasha. They were all going as fast as they possibly could to get to Kaede's village.
When they finally arrived there, about two hours later, it was nearing nightfall and the sun was already beginning to set. Inuyasha pried open Kaede's door with his foot and walked in, interrupting an appointment Kaede was holding with a pregnant village woman.
"Excuse me! I'm trying to get an examination in here!" The woman said angrily. Inuyasha growled then replied, "This is more important than your little 'examination'." as he laid Sesshomaru down between the woman and Kaede. Scared, the woman screamed and backed away,Kaede was very suprised as well. While Miroku shooed the village woman to go home, Kagome and Sango tried to explain to Kaede what happened as quickly as they could, and what they were doing on Sesshomaru's team in the first place.
Kaede shook her head and sighed, "This isnt very good at all. I'll need lots of herbs and help. Kagome, tend to his wounds while I go fetch some herbs from the garden," Kagome nodded, and went to get a wet cloth to clean Sesshomaru's lighter wounds, "Sango, take care of Inuyasha. He's not badly injured, so dont worry about hurting him." Kaede said, walking to the door.
Kagome returned with a damp cloth about a moment later, and started to wipe away all of the caked blood from Sesshomaru's face and neck. She inspected the small gashes that Kuro clawed into the sides of his neck, and saw that they were there to make him lose blood faster. Meanwhile, Sango was doing her best to wrap up Inuyasha's wound decently.
"Kagome, why dont you help me and let Sango take care of him?" Inuyasha whimpered, envying the extra attention his brother was recieving. Miroku sighed comically to point out Inuyasha's stupidity, "Because Sango isnt that great at mending wounds, Inuyasha. Kagome is virtually a professional with all the practice she gets, and Sesshomaru is in much worse shape than you." All he got in reply was an unsatisfied "keh".
Holding a basket of various medicinal herbs and plants, Kaede returned a few minutes later. Seeing her arrival, Kagome hurriedly finished wiping away anything she missed from Sesshomaru's face and neck and backed away to let Kaede work. While Kaede was sorting her plants, Kagome was going to do her best to comfort Shippo, who had befriended Sesshomaru. In the few days they were together, Sesshomaru accepted Inu-tachi as something like 'friends', but in a more formal manner, it was more like a truce until Kuro was dead, but a friendship nonetheless. Shippo was especially fond of this new truce, since Sesshomaru treated him somewhat like he did with Rin, being a friend of Rin's and all.
"You okay, Shippo?" Kagome picked Shippo up playfully, trying to make him happy, with no luck. The little demon was doing his best to not look sad, but it was obvious that he was unhappy, "Kagome, how come whenever we make new friends, they get hurt somehow?" He whimpered, looking at Kagome with sad eyes. Kagome didnt understand, most of their new friends were just fine. Then she thought about what Shippo was probably thinking of, he was probably thinking of his family. She didnt see how Shippo compared Sesshomaru to his family, but respected it. "It'll be fine, Shippo-chan. Trust me." Shippo gave a small smile at her, she put him down and went back over to Kaede to see what she was doing.
Kaede was placing a powder made of herbs in the wounds on Sesshomaru's face and neck.
"Kagome, come over here. I need to show you what to do. My old tired bones need to rest, but if I can teach you how to do this, you can take care of his back and chest wounds." Kaede said, scooting over to give Kagome somewhere to sit.
"Oh.. Okay." She replied, sitting next to Kaede to inspect her actions. What Kaede was doing was rather simple, she had to clean the wound with some antibiotics Kagome brought back from her time, place the herb mixure on it, then wrap it carefully in a bandage. After showing exactly how to clean the wounds and wrap the bandages, Kaede left to go get some sleep, leaving Kagome to tend to Sesshomaru.
Sango was now finished tending to Inuyasha's cut in his back, and was sitting with Miroku and Inuyasha in a different room discussing what they would do next. Meanwhile, Shippo was sitting in a corner drawing pictures of scenery, flowers, people he had met, just anything that came to mind. At this point, everyone except Kagome and Sesshomaru were in the other room going to sleep, so Kagome hurried up to get finished. Eventually, Kagome had finished most of Sesshomaru's wounds, and everyone decided to go to bed and let Kagome finish in the morning.
The sun was rising over the village when Kagome woke up. She looked outside, there wasnt a cloud in sight, there would be good weather today. No one else was awake yet, so she could get a jumpstart on her task of finishing mending Sesshomaru's wounds.
She went into the other room to see that Sesshomaru had at least regained consciousness. He was sleeping soundly, and would probably stay that way for a few hours unless someone intentionally woke him up. Kagome crawled over to him and poked him, seeing if he stirred at all. No response. Supposing it was safe to properly re-bandage his large gash on his back without his waking, Kagome rolled him over and started to unwravel the bandage. She stopped for a moment and just looked at him, comparing him to how he normally was. Without his armor and weapons, he looked almost like an entirely different person. He was without his shirt, and was almost entirely wrapped in bandages from the waist up. The only places he wasnt wrapped, was on the left of his chest, part of his neck, and his face. Fortunately, he actually hadnt got any head injuries, other than maybe than the fall of Inuyasha dropping him, so he didnt need to be bandaged on his head at all. Kagome admired his features for a moment. He looked like he was related to Inuyasha, without a doubt. They had similar hair and facial features, and acted a lot alike. Kagome just couldnt help staring though. Even injured, Sesshomaru looked stunning. His long silvery blue hair shined in the early morning sunlight, falling elegantly around his face. Kagome wondered if he ever had to deal with acne like she did, when he was a teenager. Stroking his cheek, she decided he probably didnt, there would have had to be some sign of it somewhere if he had. Her eyes wandered down his face and over his injured but still strong body. After a moment, she started to drift into various girlish fantasies about the dog youkai brothers. What brought Kagome out of her thoughts of the fallen Lord was the sound of an agitated cough. Sesshomaru was waking up, probably out of hunger. Kagome looked at him, trying to think of something to say.
"Uh... Good to see youre awake." Kagome finally spat out, blushing furiously. She hurriedly re-wrapped the soaked bandage so that he could get up without reopening his wounds too much. He sat up, looking around groggily, trying to remember what happened. The young miko stared at him while he gathered his thoughts, Sesshomaru yawned and said, "What happened?" in a dazed and confused tone. Kagome sighed, getting ready to explain what had happened to him in a long story, but Sango walked in. There was an awkward silence as Sango stared at the two before she said happily, "Youre awake, Sesshoumaru! I thought you would be out for a few days. Heh, wait til Shippo hears this.." Kagome winced at the thought of what Shippo's joyous reaction would be to Sesshomaru's wake. The little kitsune was a fanboy to Sesshomaru just as much as Souta was to Inuyasha, and to Kagome, it was just plain creepy.
"Heh, lets wait until Shippo wakes up before we tell him." Kagome said, forcing a laugh. Sango understood what she meant and nodded her head in agreement while Sesshomaru still sat there, trying to regain his memory from the previous days events. Again he coughed violently, spitting out some blood on the floor. The two girls blinked at him, giggled, then started to explain to him what had happened.