It was unfortunately easy for Miroku to lose sight of his companions in the thick fog. One moment he had been following right behind Inuyasha, the next he was completely alone in the fog, unable even to see any sign of Kirara and the others.
"Inuyasha!" he called, but there was no response. "Kagome! Sango!" Still nothing.
Nothing but the sound of wind whispering through the trees. No, not through the trees. The sound was far too close at hand for that.
Horrified, he hardly dared look down to his cursed hand. It couldn't be the kazaana. He should have had more time yet. Mushin had said he ought to have a few years yet, not a few days… Had the old man misjudged the injury so badly?
The sound of rushing wind only grew louder and more intense the longer he waited. He had finally resolved himself to risking a look when the first pain knifed through his hand. By the time he had lifted his hand into view the pain had become a constant agony, pulsing in time with his heartbeat… and the wind.
He didn't know when he started screaming, but he couldn't stop. He had prepared for this moment his entire life, for when the kazaana would begin to consume him, but nothing had prepared him to actually experience it. No matter how dire the situation seemed, he'd always held on to a little bit of hope that his life might be saved.
Now it seemed he'd hoped in vain. And he had come so close to seeing Naraku defeated and the curse broken, too. But now he would die with no heir to carry on the line. Naraku would win in the end.
"Wake up!"
The pain and the wind wavered.
"Miroku, wake up, damn you!"
That was Inuyasha's voice. Miroku jolted awake and found himself covered in writhing vines from which, he realized blearily, Inuyasha was attempting to extricate him.
"My arm," he gasped, desperate to make Inuyasha understand. "The kazaana—" Realizing that he was not about to be consumed by his curse, he strove for control over himself. "The kazaana was sucking up my body…"
"Yeah, well, see for yourself."
The dream evaporated as soon as he was free of the vines, and the agonizing wind went with it. The kazaana quieted
"It's gone. An illusion."
Inuyasha did not deign to respond to that. In fact, he was already moving.
"You find Sango," he told Miroku. "She should be tangled up in these vines somewhere… Shippou, too." And then he was gone.
Left alone, Miroku rubbed his face with his hands. His two hands, not yet devoured by the kazaana in reality.
The illusion had seemed so real that he had a hard time believing it hadn't actually happened. Now that he was free of its power, he felt exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to find a safe corner where he could snatch a few hours of hopefully dreamless sleep. But Sango was out there somewhere, along with Shippou and Kirara, trapped in the vines and their nightmares, just like he had been.
Searching for them among the vines was the last thing he wanted to do right now. But when he thought of what he'd felt while under the vines' spell, he knew he couldn't leave them no matter how tired he was.