Out of the darkness loomed the shape of a man. He carried a large sword and wore a necklace made of skulls; his expression was one of evil intent, and Sango did not think that was merely a trick of the flickering firelight. This must be the source of the evil aura that had woken her out of deep sleep.
He was laughing in a supremely self-satisfied way that set all of Sango's inner alarm bells to ringing. She was on her feet, the hiraikotsu's strap in her hand, even before he fully stepped into the ring of firelight. "Where are you, Inuyasha?" he asked, confirming her worst fears.
She had thought this place was safe in its isolation, but somehow one of their enemies had found them here. She couldn't see a spider scar, so she couldn't be sure if this was one of Naraku's… but if he had come here looking for Inuyasha, it seemed safe to assume he was connected.
Miroku and Inuyasha had risen, too, placing themselves between the newcomer and their other companions. Sango didn't dare let her focus stray from hew newcomer, but she was glad to know she wouldn't be fighting alone, if it came to that.
"Who the hell are you?" Inuyasha demanded.
"I am Kaijinbou, the swordsmith," he told them. He raised the sword in his hand and went on, "This holy sword that I have forged, called Toukijin, it's weeping that it wants to devour the blood of Inuyasha."
Abruptly he lowered the sword, pointing its tip directly at the three in front of him. Or, more accurately, directly at Inuyasha. His face twisted into a cruel grimace that may have been meant as a smile. "Toukijin tells me you're Inuyasha."
Sango's mind raced as Kaijinbou stepped closer to Inuyasha. What kind of weapon could this Toukijin be, that it could sense Inuyasha's presence and apparently desire his death? There were stories in her family of weapons made not only of the parts of a youkai's body, but that captured the full soul and all its power as well. Surely this could not be one of those.
"I had assumed you would be a youkai," the swordsman went on. "But it appears you're nothing but a human."
Inuyasha was clearly agitated by the proclamation. Sango knew it must be frightening for him to be faced with an enemy in his human form—and the possibility that that enemy might realize what he was and what power had rendered him fully human for a night. She wasn't sure who this Kaijinbou really was, or who might have sent him here, but she knew they could not allow him to leave this place alive. Not when he knew Inuyasha's secret.
It seemed the hanyou was thinking before acting, for once, and thinking along the same lines that Sango had been. Instead of just leaping into a fight, he demanded, "Who put you up to this?"
The swordsman laughed in response. "I already told you, the sword wants to cut you. Toukijin was forged from the fangs of an ogre called Goshinki, whose fangs shattered Toutousai's worthless sword, Tessaiga," Kaijinbou explained. That certainly went a long way toward explaining the strong evil aura the sword emitted and its desire to kill Inuyasha.
"Meaning all of Goshinki's malice toward Inuyasha is bound up in that sword," Sango said, "along with its power." Kaijinbou said nothing to confirm or deny what she had said.
"Bah," Inuyasha snapped. "Doesn't matter." Sango watched with horror as he began to step forward, brashly asserting that he had beaten Goshinki once, and would do it again. If she didn't step in now, he was going to get himself killed.
"Stay back, Inuyasha!" she warned, rushing forward to put herself between him and the evil-looking swordsman.
Miroku must have had the same idea, because he was already moving into place beside her. "Leave this to me and Sango."
"Excuse me?" the hanyou demanded.
Sango did not wait for him to admit that, in human form and with no weapon, he would stand no chance against this enemy. She ran forward, putting on speed, and hurled the hiraikotsu at her foe.
The weapon missed on its initial pass, as she had planned. The swordsman sneered at the obvious miss—also more or less according to plan. Men like him always underestimated her.
But on the return flight… The swordsman laughed and raised his weapon. With a single stroke, the demon sword sheared the hiraikotsu in half. The two pieces fell uselessly to earth on either side, having failed utterly to hit the target.
Sango felt as if her heart had lodged in her throat as the two pieces of her weapon hit the ground—her friends were in danger and her strongest weapon was sundered and she had no way to repair it and—
This was no time to let her feelings overwhelm her. She had trained all her life to be resilient in battle, to always be thinking of the next step no matter what setbacks she faced. There was nearly always some way out, she just had to find it. Yet she couldn't help but feel dismayed. She had never thought that she would lose the hiraikotsu. There were always going to be times when she did not have her weapon in a fight, but to see it in pieces like this…
A part of her balked at the sight, unwilling to accept what had just happened. But the better part of her knew she couldn't let this be more than a setback. She needed another plan, and quick.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—Miroku seemed entirely willing to oblige.