Sango was disappointed to wake and find that Kagome had not returned in the night. It seemed Inuyasha hadn't been willing to go apologize after all, or perhaps he had gone through the well and merely started another fight. The only way to find out for sure was to ask, and she wasn't about to do that.

So she was quite surprised when, in the middle of breakfast, Kagome came through the door. Inuyasha was still nowhere to be seen; Kagome looked furtively around the hut and seemed relieved to find the hanyou missing. A little sheepishly, she said, "Hi."

Shippou flung himself at her, wrapping his tiny arms around her. "Kagome! You came back!"

"Just for a little while," she told him. "I can't stay."

That sounded oddly final to Sango. She looked to Miroku, but his face betrayed nothing. He didn't seem to have any better idea of what was going on than she did.

Kagome had already started pulling supplies out of her bag. "This should help keep any wounds from festering," she said of one jar. "So Miroku should use some on his arm, just in case. And I brought lots of gauze and bandages." Once she had heaped everything into piles near the hearth, she got a sad look on her face, like she might start crying at any moment. "Okay, that's it. I'm going back home now."

"Kagome…" Sango began. She had never been good at conversations like this, but she knew she couldn't just let Kagome run off without at least trying to find out what had caused this sudden change.

"You're really going back home again so soon?" Miroku asked, effortlessly finding the words that left Sango foundering.

"Yeah!" Kagome said with forced cheer. She was trying very hard to act as if everything were normal. "I just came back for a little bit to deliver all this medicine!"

Sango wanted to ask when she would be coming back, but she had a feeling it wouldn't go well. Instead, she asked, "You know… shouldn't you at least try to make up with Inuyasha? It's a silly fight…"

Kagome looked so stricken that Sango immediately regretted the words she had just spoken. She hadn't meant to hurt the other girl, but she had clearly done just that.

"I'm going now," she announced. She sounded almost cheerful, but was an eerie and uncomfortable cheeriness that grated on Sango's ears. "Bye!"

Stunned into silence, all Sango could think to do was sit there and watch her go, wondering what on earth had happened to cause this—and if they had any hope at all of setting things right.