Kaemon walked back from the lake to where Rei lay on the ground, a small water canteen between his hands, tears in his wide, dark eyes.
"Rei," his voice pleaded, a watery quality laced throughout his voice.
He dripped a few cold water droplets between her lips in the hopes of her waking up, and waited for a bit. Just as disappointment slowly began to descend upon his heart, her dark eyes wavered open. Placing a delicate hand to her face, she sighed and pushed herself up.
"Where are we?" she uttered, glancing around.
"This thing brought us here with two others," Kaemon tried explaining, "I think they called it...Kilala?"
Rei looked down despairingly at her younger brother, and asked, "Where are these...other two?"
Kaemon turned and pointed towards the shrine, "The little fox demon went after the other one when she screamed...and neither have come back yet."
Gritting her teeth and pushing herself to her feet, she winced at the pain in her side and said, "Stay," to Kaemon before heading towards the shrine.
"Rei!" Kaemon cried, chasing after her, "No! Please don't leave me!"
She turned around and walked him back to the tree near Kilala, and reached into the pouch around her neck.
"I know you're scared, Kae," she told him, kneeling down, "But it's important that you stay here. I'm sorry, but I have to do this to keep you here..."
After placing the last smooth stone down in a circle around him, a brilliant, hazy pink coloured bubble surrounded Kaemon. When she rose and started to the shrine once more, he tried chasing after her again, but the shield held him back.
"Hey-" Shippou began when Rei stepped into his vision and began helping with Sango, but a fixed gaze from the girl stopped him in midsentence.
Carefully, she lifted Sango onto her back, slightly over her shoulder, ignoring the constant pain jack knifing through her side, and struggled with the weight of Sango back to the tree where Kilala and her brother were, Shippou following alongside. By the time they reached the tree, Rei's breathing was hard form the toll the short walk had taken on her. Carefully, she managed to get her cloak off her shoulders and lay Sango down on it. Kneeling, she checked Sango's pulse before taking a small vile of smelling salts from the pouch around her neck.
"What are you doing?" Shippou inquired curiously.
Rei glanced up shortly and replied with, "You guys helped me...I'm merely repaying the favor..."
Looking down, she found Sango's eyes open and looking up. Putting the salts away, Rei knicked one of the stones out of the circle so the shield faded away before leaning back against the tree behind her and holding a piece of cloth to her wound which was bleeding once more.
"Are you alright?" she asked Sango.
Sango nodded, "Yeah," and held the cloak out toe Rei, who only shook her head and said, "I don't need it right now-" her sentence was cut out by the same shrieks she'd heard only a few days before. Hastily getting to her feet, Rei retrieved four of the smooth stones and placed them in a wider circle so that the shield encompassed Sango, Shippou, Kilala and Kaemon.
"What are you doing?!" Sango demanded.
"Protecting you!" Rei replied, "This is my battle."
Snatching her weapons from behind the tree, she walked forward into an opening and looked up to see two huge, black and red coloured bird demons hovering in the air above her...the same two bird demons that had invaded their village before the horse demons had only days after.
"You!" Rei spat, her voice accusing, "What the hell have you done with my grandmother?!"
The bird demons chuckled, the high screech now gone from their voices.
"Stupid priestess," the first one squawked, "Don't you get it? You'll never get her back."
They both lifted higher into the air the second she reached for her knife, and instead she grabbed an arrow and her bow. Taking careful aim, seconds later, one of the demons fell to the ground, skaing it like an earthquake would, and shrivelling into his human form. Drawing now her sword, she walked forth towards him.
"Where," she demanded, "is she?"
The man sat up, a smil on his face as he slowly removed the arrow from his shoulder. "What makes you think I'll tell you?" he taunted, his eyes beginning to glow a deadly green, paralyzing her in place.
The second bird demon swooped down and grabbed her in its huge talons.
"Sis!" Kaemon screamed.
Rei squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying not to open her wound even more by struggling too much.
"How does it feel, priestess," the first demon taunted her harshly, "to know that you'll die the same way both your grandmother and mother died...every bone in your body broken with the impact of one fall?"
She shivered as the air got colder with the higher altitude as the second bird took her higher in the air. Even from above though, she could see his evil grin, and with sudden determination, she grabbed her sword and stabbed it up into the second demon's head, right through its brain before ripping the blade back out as it let go of her. In the air before she hit the ground, she tucked herself in a fashion that she could easily backflip from and go into a run. It was the moment she hit the ground that Inuyasha and Miroku showed up on the scene in her path. The first guy was too far ahead already to catch up with, so she grabbed another arrow and took aim carefully.
"MOVE!" she yelled at Inuyasha and Miroku, fire burning in her eyes as the first demon got farther and farther away from her.
Frustration coursed through her and instead of waiting, she let go of the arrow, letting it fly. Inuyasha and Miroku were forced to move from its path, and when the demon shrieked, she knew she'd hit in the center of his back.
"Liar," she told him callously as he staggered, "my grandmother's alive...I can feel her..."
"She's dying," the guy gasped out.
"Where is she?" Rei demanded, but the guy would not speak. When his eyes closed for the last time, her mission became harder.
"REI!" Kaemon screamed when Inuyasha and Miroku had removed a few of the stones from the circle, and the little boy raced to his sister's side, "Don't die," he pleaded.
"Kae, I'm fine..." she insisted stubbornly, resisting any further help from anyone.
"You should let them help you," Kaemon persisted, his eyes wide in fear.