"Missing?" Inu-Yasha tested the word with care. He had never expected that word to be used in the same sentence as Kagome. Sure, she'd been kidnapped before, but at least then he had an idea of where she was...and who to kill. Now what was he supposed to do. With one single word his entire world had stopped spinning. If Kagome was gone what would he do? She was the only one who could see the shards and he fought better when she was with him.

"Inu-Yasha..." Kagome's mother broke into his thoughts. "Can you find her with that nose of hers?"

Inu-Yasha gave Mrs. Higurashi a look wich conveyed his most current emotion; annoyance.

"Of course I can find Kagome. Don't worry about it." Though his words were characteristically cocky, his mind had been thrown into an unescapable turmoil. Finding Kagome would not be as easy as was leading her family to believe. If she had been missing for three days her scent would be gone, earased by the thoughtless others who trampled it. What would be left for him to search for.

"Please, Inu-Yasha, find my sister." Sota gazed up at his hero with as much hope as his young eyes could hold. "She may be stupid, and act like an idiot sometimes, but she's supposed to be here."

Inu-Yasha simply nodded. He and Sota a created a sort of "man to man" understanding. Sota never told Kagome when Inu-Yasha came looking for her, and Inu-Yasha let the kid call him his hero. Those were the rules, and that was how it would be. However, what Sota was asking of him now was a promise that he himself was not entirely sure he could keep. There was no doubt in his mind that he would find Kagome, only little what-ifs that fed on his confidence.

"I'll bring her back."

It had been a long time since Kagome and Sachi had run into the mysterious woman. The thought of her made Kagome shiver and gain goosebumps along her arms. It was odd how the woman had seemed so crazy, Kagome thought. It was like there was nothing else in the world except for Masumi...whoever that was.

There had been pain in that womans' eyes. Her mind had not been altogether, Kagome was sure of that. It was as if she was looking for someone, but having found Kagome instead she decided to kill her.

Kagome was pulled from her rumination at the pressure of a hand tightly gripping hers. The hand, Kagome new, belonged to the little girl, Sachi.

Bending low so that she could be almost eye level with the small child, Kagome posed her question. "What's wrong, Sachi." In return, all she recieved was a scream from the girl. Not understanding what was wrong, she continued to look Sachi in the eye. If something had frightened her she needed to know what it was.

Too late.

The presence of a hand on her shoulder alerted her that she and Sachi were not alone. Slowly she turned around and felt the hand slip from her shoulder silently. Along pause followed as Kagome gazed into the eyes of what she could only describe as a ghost. A woman in a light colored Yukata stood there looking at her. Everything about her seemed normal until Kagome realized with sickening awareness that the womans' neck was broken. It didn't seem to troubel the ghosyly appariton in the least, though, for as soon as Kagome's fearful eyes had wandered to her neck she once again exteneded her arm to grab Kagome's shoulder. That was when she screamed.

A sound of one like no other peirced the air. This woman was indredibly different than the one she had met earlier. There were no words escaping her lips, no withered and angry pleas for the return of a missing person. Nothing. This woman, ghastly and horrifiying was surly dead, but at the same time still terrifyingly alive.

Wretching herself from the ghost woman's grasp, she grabbed Sachin up in her arms and ran, just as she had before. But this time, instead of fleeing past house after house, she made her way toward the earily silent structures. There was one at the beginnig of the village that stuck into her memory. It was rather large, and had been near to where she and Sachi had ran into the first woman...the woman Kagome had now decided must be a ghost as well.

When the house was in her sights, Kagome spead up in a mad dash of strength, fear, and agility. When she came to it, Kagome almost ripped the door from it's hinges. There, once inside, she found herself in a small and short walkway that lead to another dark, wooden door. She opened it hastily and stepped into the front room of the house. It did not appear that the woman with the broken neck had chased them so Kagome slowed to a dull walking pace and concentrated hard on her new surroundings. There was dark hallway straight ahead of her, a sunken fireplace, and what appeared to be a door off to the left. It seemed best to Kagome to explore the very path in front of her, so that is what she did. With slowed footsteps she began walking down the long narrow hall.

The walls surrounding them were old and untouched. The entire viilage looked as though no one had been near it in a very long time, and this house was no exception. From the ceiling hung clothes flaps that brushed Kagome's head as she walked under them. They were old and torn, shredded at the ends. At some point along the hallway was a break. To the right were a set of stairs, to the left an extremely short hallway that was home to a single door.

Which way would they go? The stairs would only lead them farther away from the safety of the ground, but that didn't neccesarily mean that they shouldn't be checked. The door, on the other hand would lead them deeper into the house without a clear way out. In the kaoss of the fear something so simple as a door could seem a mointain too hight to climb. In a split second everything could fail and her life could end; all because of a door that she could not manage to open in time. Either choice meant danger. That thought clearly played before Kagome's eyes.

The door...

The door..

The door.

The door!