Miroku was barely conscious by the time they finally found Kagome. It was all he could do to slide gracelessly to the ground once Kirara landed. Breathing hard as the poison did its work, he could do nothing to intervene as Sango ran toward her brother and swung the hiraikotsu.

Rather than stay and fight, Kohaku seized something from the ground and ran.

"He's taken the jewel shards!" Kagome shouted. Even in his poison-induced haze, Miroku could see that she was injured: one of her sleeves was torn and stained an ugly, wet red.

How, he wondered deliriously, had Inuyasha not made it here yet if Kagome was openly bleeding? The scent of her blood should have drawn him immediately.

Kirara rumbled as he sank back against her, too weak to help or to fully consider the implications.

With Kohaku on the run, Sango went to check on Kagome. Kagome protested that she was not badly injured, but Sango was having none of it.

"Kirara, stay here with Kagome and Houshi-sama," she ordered. But she paused before giving chase. "It hurt, didn't it?" she asked Kagome, her voice soft and sad.

"Sango-chan, it's really not that bad," Kagome protested. "Just a scratch…"

If Sango heard, she did not listen. She turned back one last time. "I'm sorry."

There was a terrifying finality in her voice as she uttered those last words. And the look on her face… but then she was gone, racing into the forest after Kohaku. Miroku yearned to go after her, but the poison pulsing so painfully through him had caused his body to resist all his attempts to keep going. All he could do was lie there and watch. Sango, he thought, please don't do what I think you're planning to do…

He hadn't taken in all that poison from Naraku's wasps just for her to give up now. Yet that same poison had left him too weak to do anything about it even if she did. Damn it… where are you, Inuyasha?

Miroku was still conscious, but barely, when Inuyasha arrived a few minutes later.

Thankfully, Kagome was in better shape than he was, and equally frantic for someone to intervene. The words spilled out in a rush: "Inuyasha! Don't worry about me, go find Sango!"

But there was no way Inuyasha was going to listen to something like that, not when Kagome was so obviously injured. In her fretting, she had not even bothered to wrap her wounded arm yet. "Kohaku did this, didn't he?"

"It's not that bad," she protested. "He could have killed me if he wanted to, but he didn't! And Sango was acting really weird when she went after him, so please…"

Miroku had by this point finally gathered enough strength to speak. "Sango may be intending to kill Kohaku."

Inuyasha snapped into action at that. "Stay here!" he shouted as he disappeared into the forest. As if Miroku had any choice.

Please set this right, Inuyasha, he thought as the last of his carefully hoarded strength ran out and oblivion descended.