Disclaimer: Do I even need to say anything else?

A gift-wrapped nothing is all you ever gave
A daughter cries
A brother runs
A mother screams in twisted tongues
A father hangs his head in shame
No one left to blame

-Stare, by Memento

The keys dropped numbly from Sango's fingers into Kohaku's, and the older girl turned just in time to watch –

- her father dropping to his knees -

"FATHER!" the scream tore from Sango's throat with such horrifying distress that it was a wonder her vocal cords didn't tear. She was running as hard as she could across the clearing, but it was as if she were running through water. She helplessly watched him fall to the ground, even as his family swarmed around him –

She shoved her way roughly through them, flinging herself to the ground at his side. "FATHER!" she shrieked, tears pouring down her face, burning her cheeks and blurring her vision; she kept moving her hands over his body, trying to think of something –anything – to do, but unable to come up with anything.

He moved his mouth, trying to speak, but nothing came out.

"Father, I love you! Please don't leave me!" she pleaded hysterically, squeezing her hands urgently over his –

'- sticky -'

Sticky hands – time slowed as Sango, so hesitantly, tore her eyes from his fast glazing stare, to look at his –

Bloody hands.

As if in a dream, she slowly and oh so gently moved his hands. With horror, Sango watched as his crimson-life force pumped from his chest. Her eyes shot uncertainly back to his face –

But Sango's father was already dead.

"Father?" she whispered, stroking his cheek gently, smearing his own blood across his ashen cheeks as she tried to awaken him. "Father – don't go – don't –"

So stupidly consumed was she with the body she was holding that she barely noticed the second scream.

'This can't be happening.' Tears stung her eyes as she continued to try to coax life back into her father's body. 'Wake up, father… you can't leave us…' This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

Dark grief swirled about her in an impenetrable storm of disbelieving melancholy; as it were, she didn't know how long she crouched there. All she knew was that she suddenly became aware of strong hands gripping her shoulders, shaking her hard as someone screamed into her face. "Sango – Sango!"

Sango blinked stupidly at her little brother and felt another wave of anguish wash over her. "Father is dead."

Kohaku looked down at their father and at his sister, covered in his blood, but remained aloof from it; his eyes were filled with uncertainty and terror. "We have to go Sango! Something is happening!"

'Damnit, Sango! Be strong for him! Snap out of it!'

"What?" Slowly, Sango shook herself from her daze of anguish –

And withheld absolute, pure pandemonium.

The air that had just been filled with a playful, gentle breeze only minutes ago was now painted with the terrified, pain-filled screams of her relatives. She could only watch numbly as they tried to run for their lives –

With horror, Sango watched as the young cousin her eyes had been sliding over in her momentary scan seemingly lost her footing in her mad dash and slammed hard into the ground, her escape stopped from the force of a silent bullet penetrating her chest…

It was an ambush.

"Kohaku!" Sango, suddenly lucid, grabbed her brother roughly by the collar and dragged him to the ground next to her. She saw him wince squeamishly as she got their father's blood on him, but she ignored it as resolutely as she ignored the stabbing pain in her heart. "I need you to run to the docks! Get in a boat if you can, or swim for it – just get to shore! Stay low!" She dug in her pockets frantically, then shoved her car keys in his limp hands. "Get the hell out of here – get help!"

"Sango – I won't leave you –"

"Just do it!" she snarled, and shoved him towards the docks. She ignored his fear-widened eyes, and forced herself not to follow him. "Stay low!"

She didn't even wait to see if he did as she told him. Instead, she turned in the opposite direction, and ran for all she was worth. "Stay low!" she screamed helplessly, but no one seemed to be listening to her –

A slight motion in the very corner of her left eye alerted her to a presence in the woods. She might not have noticed it at all if it weren't for the fact that she was trained for this sort of thing.

And in that moment, Sango forgot all her training. 'Don't let it get personal. Don't get emotional. Don't rush blindly into anything –' that well-trained little voice screamed in the back of her head.

But it was too late. Sango saw red. She was like a hound on the scent of its prey. She practically flew over the ground as she entered the forest in leaps and bounds, her hand instinctively reaching to her side –

'Gods-DAMNIT!' she shrieked mentally, her minds-eye taking her to exactly where she had left her gun. 'Won't need this at a family reunion,' she had thought bemusedly, closing the gun in her locker at the agency.

So what, exactly, she expected to accomplish in the woods, the logical part of her mind couldn't answer. Her heart could, though, and so Sango rushed headfirst into danger, skidding to a halt to crouch with her back against a tree, listening –

The snap of a twig was all the warning he got before she was upon him.

He saw her coming at the last possible moment, and he tried to whirl, but he was already too late; Sango grappled for his rifle with one hand while the other went straight for his face –

Dirt and foliage sprayed up as the trigger was pulled several times, but the barrel was still being forced uselessly towards the ground. Amid the distant scream of her dying relatives now were the grunts of the two grappling for the rifle –

"Oomph!" A knee connected hard with flesh –

The gun was fired three times in rapid succession…

Sango panted heavily over the body of the assassin for only a moment before taking off at a silent sprint through the woods –

'How the hell many are there?' she thought, kicking another dead body. She froze as she heard the nearby static of a walkie talkie; slowly, very slowly, Sango crept through the underbrush towards her new prey –

"Hey! The brother is headed towards the docks!" she heard a voice announce over the walkie-talkie.

All blood drained from her face, and her heart squeezed painfully. 'The brother – Kohaku is headed towards the dock… so – they're – after – me?' The implications that that realization didn't even begin to sink in before what they had just said – 'Kohaku!'

"No!" she screamed defiantly, leaping out of the bushes in a fury of gunfire. "You won't touch him!" The man spasmed wildly as the rounds sank into his flesh.

She was already off. She slung the rifle over her back and ran as hard as she could towards the dock; her breath was coming in rapid gasps, but she could only push herself harder. The world around her faded to a mere blur – belatedly, she realized that the screams of her family were becoming few and far between, and some corner of her mind knew what that meant. She couldn't let the grief come, however; Kohaku needed her. She would see him to the docks even if only by becoming a human shield –

The braches of the orchard trees, those trees that she had loved so dearly her entire life, now scratched and grabbed at her body as she flew into their midst, as if they were trying desperately to hold her back. Sango ignored the stinging whips and refused to slow her pace – she was so close now –

And there was Kohaku, waiting at the edge of the orchard, his back to the docks. He was clearly waiting for her. Despite the love of the gesture, Sango felt an insatiable urge to slap him and scream at him and hug him and weep all at the same time –

So close now – just a few more rows – she was almost to him – just a few more steps -

In a momentary flash of pain her knee simply would not carry her any further. With a horrified scream, the momentum of Sango's mad dash sent her tumbling roughly to the ground; it was a wonder she didn't break her neck as she slamming and rolled across the dirt. She was certain she had just tripped until she tried to stumble back to her feet and discovered to her revulsion that her throbbing knee simply would not do it. She looked down –

To see the knee tripping with blood, a bullet hole shot clear through it.

"Kohaku, RUN!" she shrieked helplessly at her brother, crawling frantically across the soft grass towards him, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as the hurried thumping of feet heralding someone approaching her from behind. "GODS-DAMN IT, JUST RUN!" her voice broke with urgency, but she continued to crawl away from her unseen attacker…

"I would never leave you, Sango!" he cried fiercely, tears spilling from his eyes as he took a step towards her –

The movement revealed a young girl standing in silent stillness behind him; for half a heartbeat, the young agent was sure the girl was a wraith –dressed in all white, with pale features and hair, her face expressionless as she raised a glistening metal baseball bat –

"Noooooo!" Scream, shout, yell – no words could possibly describe the sound that ripped from the helpless girl's throat as she watched the arc of the descending weapon; one hand was fruitlessly outstretched towards her brother, willing him to move from its path, even as she knew even the gesture was too late. In that half a moment, the only sound was her horrified shriek –

- which was permeated with the sickening crack as the blow connected with his head –

And followed by a scream of helpless anguish as Kohaku's lifeless form crumpled slowly to the ground. Scarlet oozed from the wound in his held, staining the once innocently-colored flower petals in which he laid. His form was still, deathly still, as he rested upon a silken blanket of blood stained cherry blossoms. Sango dragged herself frantically across the ground, leaving a crimson trail of her own as she struggled to his side.

'No –'

It had happened too fast. It had all happened too fast.

Gently, oh so gently, she cradled her brother's broken head in her lap, stroking the blood matted hair from his face. "Kohaku… Kohaku…" she whimpered, unable to believe – unwilling to believe –

"Kohaku… wake up…" She was completely unaware of the impending doom now closing in from all sides – all she could bring herself to concentrate on was that faint possibility that this was some horrible nightmare. Never mind the sharp stinging and throbbing in her knee; never mind the warm, sticky blood covering her hands; never mind the aching realization throbbing in her heart, threatening to tear the very fibers of her existence apart. 'This isn't happening. This can't be happening.'

An emotionless drone of a girl's voice vaguely penetrated Sango's inexplicable sorrow. "So you are the one. Agent Taijiya."

A slow heat was flooding her mind, burning its way through her cloud of anguish like an angry sun through a thick fog.

"I'll kill you!" Sango hissed breathlessly, whipping the rifle from her back in one fluid motion; before she could even blindly pull the trigger strong hands were grappling for the weapon. "I'll kill you all!" the brunette screamed hoarsely, unable to form any coherent thoughts beyond the torrent of emotions sweeping her away. She fought viciously for the only lifeline she had left, but a heavily-booted foot connected solidly with her ribs, and in the heartbeat she flinched away the weapon was ripped harshly from her clutching fingers.

The force of a second kick to the stomach sent her careening back across the silken blossoms. Her gasping breaths came raggedly as her now broken ribs stabbing painfully against her lungs. Like a cornered, wild animal, she blindly tried again to attack those who had taken so much from her…

But again, she was easily beaten back, and this time the thrashing did not stop when she slammed into the ground. Instead, the heavy kicks and strikes kept coming. And coming.

And coming.

Tears slid down her blood-stained face; the pain she felt by far transcended her physical state. The blows kept coming long after she ceased to move, long after she ceased to want to move.

"Kohaku," she whimpered, prying open one already-swelling eye, looking expectantly towards her brother, honestly believing that he must have awoken at her plight. But he laid unmoved and unmoving, features still lax with the seeming serenity of sleep.

The utter silence shrouding the little island was the only mocking answer her gentle plea received, viciously taunting: none had survived the onslaught.

'He's – he's dead. They all are.'

All will to fight went rushing from her body as the realization finally sank in, a blade of ice slicing painfully through her heart: no matter what she did, he would never wake up… And yet, if she could only touch him – just one last time –

She reached one bloodied hand towards his lax face –

Rough hands tangled in her hair, viciously denying her that one last wish – that meager desire to stroke her beloved brother's cheek once more – and with a single yank, dragged to her knees. Though the pain of having her bruised and bloodied body dragged backwards in such a way was excruciating, her eyes remained riveted upon his body until the fingers twined in her tresses snapped her head up. Vaguely, she was aware of the cocking of a gun…

As if to mock the dark void fast filling her heart, the sun peeked and glinted merrily through the lace of flowered branches above her. She felt a hard metal objected pressed firmly to her back but she didn't flinch away. Instead, she stared fixatedly at that gay sun, willing herself to wake up from this unfathomable nightmare… or if that weren't possible, to die…

"You have no bullet proof vest to save you this time," the monotone girl noted dryly.

Already her body and heart were irreparably broken – but that apparently wasn't enough. "Naraku insisted you know they all died because of you," a huskily feminine voice announced impatiently from behind her; strange, to think so few words – such simple words – could be the final, killing blow. 'Because of me,' the realization echoed hollowly through her shattered soul, meting out a spiritual punishment much worse than any hell. "Now just do it – we're done here!"

The ringing of a revolver was accompanied by an unbearably searing pain as the bullet was fired point-blank into her back, execution style.

She was vaguely aware of the sensation of being dragged, but everything quickly faded away to darkness, and the young woman readily welcomed the embracing nothingness…

Sorry it has taken me so long to update – I've been writing on "If Ever There Were a Way", another SanMir escapade of glittering resolve, love, and loyalty.

Please let me know what you think so far. Was it understandable? Did I get the emotions across? Is the writing style ok? How would you improve it? Is anyone still reading this?