The soft sound of footsteps coming up the path, innocuous but entirely unexpected, put an end to Sango and Kagome's debate about whether or not they ought to go in search of their missing friends.

Sango turned to look so quickly that she almost reeled and collapsed back against the rocks in a coughing fit. At first she thought she had to be imagining it, because the woman coming up the path looked just like Kagome. Yet Kagome was standing just beside her, steadying her as she all but saw double.

"Ki… Kikyou…?" Kagome murmured, while Sango belatedly realized that the newcomer might look like Kagome, but she was dressed in the familiar clothing of a Shinto priestess.

"Inuyasha was here," the priestess murmured. "Has he gone inside, then?"

She did not wait for an answer. She brushed past Kagome and made her way into the tunnel.

Sango watched her go with some consternation: here was yet another who could go where she could not. And then Kagome was calling after Kikyou. "Wait!"

Kikyou did not wait, but Kagome retrieved bow and arrows from her pack and hastened afterward anyway.

"Hey, wait a minute," Sango began to protest.

"You're going after her?" Shippou asked at the same time.

But Kagome paid them no mind, except to call over one shoulder, "Don't try to follow me, Sango! It isn't safe for you in here!"

There was no way Sango could go after her, even if she wanted to, but the remonstration stung. She wanted to help, not sit here and wait for everyone else to come back.

Frustrated, she ordered, "Kirara, go with them."

Kirara needed no further urging to take off after Kagome and Kikyou. She and Sango had worked together for long enough that she often had some idea of what Sango would want her to do even before the command was given. She had probably already guessed that if Sango could not go herself, she wanted Kirara to go and do what she could to help everyone get out of this safely.

Not one of them looked back as they hurried into the mine-shaft and toward whatever dangers lay within. And, just like that, Sango found herself left behind with nothing to do but wait and soothe her wounded pride.

"They're going to be all right now, aren't they, Sango?" Shippou asked. He had done well to remain calm so far, but she could hear the tinges of fear that had slipped into his voice. "Kagome almost took out Naraku! There's nothing she can't handle, right?"

"I hope so," Sango told him, unwilling to lie. Their friends were in a very dangerous situation—whatever the specific details of that situation—and her training had taught her long ago that it was better not to blindly believe they would return unscathed. Desperately needing something else to talk about, she said, "Say, Shippou. That woman… she looks just like Kagome."

He seemed unfazed, but also not particularly interested. "That's Kikyou."

"Kikyou," she echoed. The name sounded familiar, as if she had heard someone mention it in passing before. But she couldn't place it.

"A long time ago, Inuyasha was in love with her," Shippou added.

"She didn't look that old… how long was 'a long time ago'?" And why, she wondered, had Miroku mentioned none of this when he told her his stories about the group? Was she not an ally? Or was she simply someone he hadn't thought they would encounter again? But she would ask the monk those questions, if he ever came back. To Shippou, she added, "Is she not human?"

The kitsune gave a shudder. "She used to be human, a long time ago. But she died trying to protect the Shikon jewel. A witch brought her back by trying to kill Kagome and steal her soul."

"I see." Sango said. She did her best to make sense of this information and came up short; she resolved to ask the monk about that, too, at the next opportunity. He was more likely to give her the full story in a way that made sense.

"What I don't get," Shippou went on, "is what she's doing here. We haven't seen any sign of her in a really long time… she's probably up to no good, and Kagome went with her!"

Having not the least idea of who this Kikyou woman really was, or what she was capable of or where her allegiance really lay, Sango was unprepared to comfort him on this count. The best she could do was tell him, "We'll have to have faith in Kagome and Inuyasha. They'll find a way through whatever is going on in there, and come back to us safely."

Brave words to hide a worrisome truth: she wasn't sure at all that their friends would return in one piece.