Disclaimer: If these were my characters, I wouldn't feel too bad about putting them through this… but I don't own them, so I feel remorse. A little. Kinda. Not really.

A/N: Eep, if you got pissed off at me for chapter eight, you're all really gonna kill me now. Arigatou for the reviews; I love the feedback (wow, I didn't know I was so humorous!) and I promise that the pairings I've stated are the ones that will happen, but you really have to be patient; this is where it gets ugly, folks. Also long. Buckle up, your safety hatches are… well, anywhere, but the end is where you get off, so pleeeease don't jump ship too early. If it seems a tad OOC, just remember that anger is a nasty, nasty beast when it's not properly collared… —cross self— Right, here we go. Don't shoot me, I'm wearing Kevlar this time.

10

Hell In A Handbasket

"I swear, I'm going to make Kagome put him on a leash…" Sango grumbled as she hauled herself up to the next branch on the tree. "A collar isn't enough." She stifled a yelp as an inch-long splinter became intimately acquainted with the fleshy pad of her thumb, and dragged it out with even more grumbling and muttered curses, mostly directed toward a certain disappeared, blameless-for-once hanyou. "He needs a choke chain." This was high enough, she judged more out of exasperation than anything, and stilled herself to listen.

Night noises. She could hear the soft shush of owl flight if she really listened, and see their wings flash in the scattered rays of moonlight as they hunted. Unfortunately, unless Inuyasha was closer than she'd thought—and she'd have heard if he was—then there wasn't much chance of her seeing him in the tree cover at night. It would be far easier to locate him by sound, especially from a good height, when he was as pissed off as he had been recently.

Sure enough, she only had to be quiet for a few moments before the distinct tones of pure fury reached her ears.

Wait… that's not Inuyasha. Not without a miracle… the voice was female. Familiar, too, after a moment. Kagome-chan?

He must've found her, the taijiya reasoned as she shinnied down the trunk and slipped back into her yukata, which had been briefly discarded in favor of her less restrictive slaying uniform. Even Miroku can't make her scream like that. "Kirara, I found them."

The little firecat mewed, twining around Sango's ankles. The taijiya smiled and picked up her cat, settling her on her usual shoulder perch. Kirara didn't seem to want to sit still, though; her tails flicked constantly, and she insisted on halfway falling off every time Sango moved too suddenly. "What's wrong?"

Kirara just mewed and darted glances everywhere. It looked as if she were trying to watch every bug in a cloud of gnats simultaneously. Not for the first time, Sango wished one of them could speak the other's language. She sighed and kept moving toward Kagome's steadily shriller voice.

"—could believe—but you? What—gang up—"

"—his fault—lying—never—before—"

"—shut—already said—Sango—"

The taijiya halted at her name, then sped up a trifle. All three of them were there… what in Kami-sama's name could they all be so worked up about?

"—both bastards—making fun of me—sick of you—"

"—keep your f—hands off—back to Sango—"

"—not true—"

Why did they keep saying her name? Her gut twisted tighter with every half-running step she took toward the fight. Kirara was holding on for all she was worth, but her taijiya didn't even notice the tiny needle-claw tracks that would probably hurt like hell in the morning.

"—go back to her—NOW!"

Sango had barely gotten a glimpse of Kagome's yellow backpack and Inuyasha's red haori in a tiny clearing before a body slammed into her, and she subsequently crashed into the tree she'd just passed.

"Aaahh—Miroku?" The bruises on her ribs took an immediate second place to the young man in her arms. "Where've you been?"

To her complete astonishment, he actually shook her off. "Away."

She'd have been furious if she weren't so bewildered. What the hell kind of answer is that—? "Wha—Houshi-sama, have you lost your mind? Why'd you get up and go like that? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was following the one I care about more than anything in the world," the houshi answered curtly, stalking back toward Inuyasha and Kagome, the former of whom was fending off wild verbal attacks from the latter. "You were safe enough. Kagome-sama was not."

Sango had been stabbed before. She rather wished she could have avoided the experiences. This, though, felt as if she'd been run through with the blunt end of a small tree, all the worse for being so totally unexpected. He—he left me.

For Kagome-chan?

"Miroku…" Her brain had gone straight from being fit to explode with questions to a numb, buzzing blankness. Some clinical part of her mind, had it been functioning, might have compared it to the shock that followed a serious battle wound. Pretty soon it would register that that had hurt.

Ah, there it went.

"Miroku!" she burst out. "Why are you doing this?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Miroku shot back, now trying to reach Inuyasha's head with his staff and being half-successfully blocked. "I've chosen. I am sorry to have wasted your time, but there isn't anything you can do. I love Kagome-sama."

"You what?" No… this is not happening…

"You're in on this too, aren't you?" Kagome wheeled on her without warning, shaking off both tussling suitors. "Sango, stop it! What did I ever do to you? Did that asshole put you up to it? Why are you doing this to me? You're my friend!" The younger girl was nearly in tears of hurt fury.

"I—I—" The taijiya didn't have the slightest idea how to take this. "Kagome-chan, I don't know what you're talking about! Why am I doing what?"

This turned out to be the most wildly wrong thing she could have said. Kagome's grey-blue eyes practically snapped with enraged bolts of lightning. "Fine! Keep going at it! Keep pretending! What, did you think I was so desperate and stupid that I'd actually believe that he'd look twice at me, much less tell me he loves me? Either of them? Sango, I thought you at least I could trust! Guess this teaches me about having friends!" She whirled away from Sango, heading toward the forest's heart.

"Kagome-sama, stop!" Miroku broke away from Inuyasha's attempted headlock with difficulty. "Please!"

"Aren't you just so polite about it," she spat acidly over her shoulder, not stopping. "But then, that's what you are, aren't you? A charming liar!"

"Miroku—" Having no clue what to do with the emotional strain, Sango's body reacted on its own, reaching out to snag the runaway houshi by the arm. "Miroku, leave her alone! Stop, dammit!"

"Listen to your wench," Inuyasha grated, seizing the monk by the back of his collar and sweeping his feet out from under him hard enough to make Miroku curse. "Or I'll make you."

"Like hell," Miroku snarled, already struggling to his feet. "You can't even keep Shippou in one place!"

"Oy—"

"Kagome-sama, listen to me." No matter how fast Sango and Inuyasha grabbed for him, Miroku was across the clearing and seizing Kagome's hand in the space of a deep breath. "If there is any way to prove to you that I am sincere to the depths of my soul, please, tell me!"

Now Inuyasha was there, yanking the girl's hand out of Miroku's reach. "Fucking pervert never said a true word in his life, Kagome, you know that. And I know I was an idiot, but I'm telling you now, I love you."

Surprise gave Sango the strength to blink. Whoa… the end of the world must be approaching… Inuyasha admitted he was wrong?

Miroku tried to reclaim Kagome's hand, and earned his fingers several unpleasant cuts from the hanyou's claws. "Some lover you are. Were all those insults and fights your way of saying 'Hey beautiful'? Kagome-sama, I tell you that I love you a thousand times more than he ever could."

Inuyasha snarled low in his throat, cracking his knuckles one-handed. "Like to prove that, hentai?"

"Name a place," Miroku shot back.

"Oh, for—!" Kagome yanked her hand free of both of them, leaving them to grapple by themselves. "You stupid chauvinist jerkoffs, I shouldn't have expected anything else!"

If Miroku went against Inuyasha in earnest, someone would end up dead. Sango dashed forward, seizing the monk by the scruff of his robes. "Miroku, no."

He tried to shove her away. "Sango, don't interfere!"

She wasn't a taijiya for nothing, but the contempt in his eyes nearly destroyed her considerable strength. "You can't fight him, you're friends! I don't know what's happened to you, but you have to remember that, at least! You can't fight him!"

"She's right about that," Inuyasha taunted. "Puny human."

This time, Miroku succeeded in shaking her off. "Sango, for the last time, go away!"

"No!" Sango shouted, her voice cracking frantically. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing a sharp stick up the ass wouldn't cure," Kagome growled, trying to struggle free of Inuyasha again. "Osuwari!" He hit the floor in a minor explosion of debris, but wouldn't let go of her; she ended up on her rump, shrieking even louder.

"Oh, open your eyes!" the monk spat, wheeling to face her. This time she stepped back involuntarily at the scorn in his gaze. "Don't tell me you can't see what's in front of you. You're smart enough to figure it out!"

Sango shook her head violently. "I see you acting like you're possessed! Miroku, it's me! Why are you acting like this?" She was not going to cry. Not. Not. NOT!

He stuck his face a little closer to hers, but without the hopeful intimacy he'd displayed earlier. "Because I have chosen someone else," he stated coldly.

So that was what a shattering heart sounded like.

Tears streamed down her cheeks in hot mockery of her numbness.

"You—you said—just tonight—that you loved me," she whispered hoarsely. "You… said."

"I was mistaken."

Silence. The forest could have combusted on the spot and it would have been a relief.

The stillness was broken by a half-roared "BakAAAA!" as Kagome delivered a solid kick to a protesting Inuyasha's ribs and stormed away—right between the ice-eyed monk and the shattered taijiya.

Sango's world narrowed to two things.

Miroku. Hates me.

Kagome. He loves her.

The moving target became the most obvious one.

"You—BITCH!"

Even Miroku staggered back at that decibel level. Sango was literally shaking with rage, brown eyes almost glowing hatred in the darkness, spearing her flabbergasted best friend.

"What did you do to him?" The taijiya advanced on Kagome, one stride punctuating every step until she was screaming two inches from her nose.

The other girl recovered swiftly and with equal viciousness. "You're calling me a bitch? I'm not the one torturing my 'best friend'!"

"Define torture!" Sango screeched. "What, did you agree to that stupid question of his? How long have you been screwing him behind my back?"

"Maybe as long as you've been stabbing mine!" Kagome shrieked. "You've got practice!"

"Practice?" Sango might have towered over the modern girl if Kagome had given an inch. "Is that it, you're just so much more sweet and feminine than I am? You don't do any real work, so you can stay pretty for him?"

Neither of the two males could tell which girl was more terrifying by this point; they'd been frozen since the initial blowup, in the interest of self-preservation.

"I'm the one who doesn't have to care about my looks because I don't have any, is that it? I'm saving your ass and his because that's all I'm good for? Armor?"

Kagome's eyes narrowed to venomous slits. "If the shoe fits. It's not like you actually care what I think, anyway, is it?"

Moment of lethal silence. The taijiya's voice broke it with a hiss that wasn't any less homicidal than her bellow. "At least I can kick your scrawny little ass away from him."

Then she lunged.

Miroku and Inuyasha's jaws dropped with simultaneous pops. There was just no way that the two girls rolling on the ground, kicking, screaming, clawing, and scalping each other could be quiet, dignified Sango or gentle, compassionate Kagome. The phrase Fucking impossible ran at lightspeed through both their minds for approximately three seconds.

Then their altered instincts kicked in and they both rushed in at the same instant. Since most of the laws of physics generally agree that two objects cannot occupy the same space at once, the result was that both boys were catapulted backward by the force of their colliding foreheads. More profanity was added to the already invective-laden air.

Inuyasha was the first one to get close enough to try to separate Kagome's nails from Sango's ear and keep the taijiya from succeeding in strangling the modern girl. His results were mixed.

"Gutless—mincing—"

"Lying—vicious—"

"Sango, get off her!" Miroku pried the slayer's fingers free and attempted to full-nelson her, again with only some degree of success.

"Keep your wench leashed, bouzu," Inuyasha growled, though Kagome was by no means submitting to the hold he'd been forced to use on her; she wasn't done fighting any more than Sango was.

"Screw that, Inuyasha, let me go! My hair!" Her scalp was bleeding from an attempt to snatch her bald—and, even worse, caked with a large and previously unnoticed clump of—er, duck butter. "You skank, I'm gonna kill you for that!"

"Oh, right, with what? Batting your big—baby—blue—eyes?" Sango bucked in Miroku's arms, but he managed to hang on just long enough to sling her sideways—into a tangle of very stubborn vines.

"Getting her out of the way so she doesn't get hurt, huh, bouzu?" Inuyasha sneered, still trying to soothe Kagome (who was alternately aiming for his eyes and crotch). "How sweet."

"I refuse to listen to your shit-spewing. Release Kagome-sama." Miroku strode across the clearing and hefted his staff.

"Keh. In your—"

Kagome added weight to Miroku's argument by lashing out backward with one foot and a lot of anger—and connecting. The inuhanyou's eyes bugged, and whatever he'd been about to say came out as a very squeaky-voiced "Meep."

Miroku tried to reach for Kagome, but she spat something unprintable at him and wobbled toward her abandoned backpack—and, incidentally, toward the vines that should have been withering under Sango's livid curses. Reassessing the situation was not hard for the monk; he turned his glare to the far safer target that the hanyou made. "Shall we settle this?"

Inuyasha had managed to regain some semblance of dignity and speech capacity. "Anytime," he rasped.

Miroku lifted an eyebrow. "Should I give you a moment?"

The hanyou spat a hair-whitening obscenity, which bounced off Miroku's affected nonchalance with an audible ping. The monk sauntered away, leaving the hanyou to follow.

The two girls looked at each other. It was their turn for a simultaneous thought: Men.

Sango dragged a vine away from her neck, pretending to ignore the way Kagome just stood there, looking so hurt that for a moment the taijiya remembered that this was her best friend, that they'd been as close as sisters less than twelve hours before.

"Kagome," she said finally, extending a hand. "Help me up?"

The other girl started, then wavered, torn between an apparent peace offering and the furious insults that had only ceased a minute ago.

Hurt welled in Sango's heart; Kagome wasn't moving, didn't want to accept a truce, didn't want to be friends again. She withdrew her hand.

"All right," she muttered. "If you think I might be rabid…"

Anger flared in Kagome's eyes. "Fine. Who knows. You might be right about that." She stalked to her yellow backpack and hauled it away into the forest.

Sango stared miserably after her, not even struggling against her bindings anymore. It would be a long five minutes before she picked herself up. What the hell is going on? Why did this happen?