"Somebody put a curse on Kagome?!"
Kaede remained calm in the face of Inuyasha's horrified outburst. "Yes. This is most likely the work of a dark miko," she continued. "It seems most likely that Kagome was attacked by shikigami serving as the familiar of a dark miko. I know of nothing else that could have this effect on one such as her."
With Kagome's strong spiritual powers, Sango was surprised that anyone could successfully curse her. A dark miko would make sense; only someone like that would have the required knowledge and subverted spiritual power to pull it off. Even so, the idea was more than a bit horrifying.
Inuyasha, however, was unimpressed. "A dark miko?!"
"You must have heard of such things before," Kaede protested wearily. "Not all miko are good. Some serve evil purposes, specializing in arts forbidden to miko who work toward good ends. No doubt this tainting of the Shikon fragments is due to her power as well."
It was worse than that: her body had continued to absorb the impure fragments. Soon they would be completely fused with her body. And when that happened, Sango was afraid it might be too late to ever save her.
"They've gone completely into her body!" Shippou cried.
"At this rate, the darkness from the jewel shards may kill her," Sango confirmed. She hated to say it, and did not want to sound as if she were giving up on Kagome, but she did not want to disguise how serious the situation was. They had reached the worst case scenario, as far as she could tell, and there might be no going back. She would hope, of course, and do anything in her power to help her friend, but—
Miroku stood, setting his shakujo firmly on the ground. "Let's go, Sango."
Confused, she only stared at him.
"We must find the dark miko and defeat her," he explained. "It's the only way to break a curse like this."
The dark miko…
"In that case, I'm coming too," Inuyasha insisted.
A woman versed in curses and evil magic… if she had done this to someone like Kagome, there was no telling what else she might be capable of.
Sango's nerves jittered just thinking about it. Youkai were one thing. She was trained in the best ways to fight them. But a miko? She had a feeling she would have to rely on Miroku more than usual for this fight. And she wasn't sure she liked the feeling.
"You stay here," Miroku was saying, "even if all you do is hold Kagome's hand." The hanyou looked torn. Being a man of action, he wanted to rush out and wreak havoc until the person who cursed Kagome was defeated. But he was also a man who cared about Kagome very much and did not want to leave her side while she was suffering.
"Inuyasha…" Sango began, striving for a gentle but convincing tone. If they couldn't find this dark miko in time, or if she could not be defeated… it would be better for him to be here, with Kagome, until the bitter end. "You should stay by her side."
He looked down at where Kagome lay, cursing under his breath, and Sango knew she and Miroku would be pursuing the dark miko on their own. There was no way they would be able to tear Inuyasha away from Kagome right now. And as far as Sango was concerned, that was exactly as it should be.
If Kagome needed him, Inuyasha's place was at her side.
With that decided, there was no more time to waste. Sango set aside her misgivings, put on her armor, and joined Miroku and Kirara outside Kaede's hut.
"Where do we even start?" she asked.
"We'll have to follow the evil aura," Miroku decided. Even though Sango could feel it—as a not-quite-right crackle in the air—she could not sense anything like a direction from it. Miroku's training, it seemed, had given him some idea of how to do this.
"Then let's go."
Riding together on Kirara's back was slowly becoming routine, but at least it was getting easier with practice. In moments the three of them were airborne, with Sango in front to guide Kirara and the monk behind, holding on by virtue of the staff he had placed across Sango's lap.
Given the gravity of the situation, Sango was glad that this had become so smooth. She could look back on their first few flights—and the way Miroku had clung to her before figuring out to hold onto the shakujo rather than so obnoxiously invading her space—with a sort of fond exasperation now, and they could get on with tracking down the dark miko.
"Which way?" she called back as Kirara lifted into the air.
He hesitated. "Let's start with a big loop. Is that okay, Kirara?"
It ended up being more than one loop, forming an ever-widening spiral, before Miroku finally got a feel for which direction the sensation might be coming from. "It's stronger this way," he concluded at last, and they were off.
"Hurry, Kirara," Sango urged, though Kirara needed no encouragement. Kagome's life was at stake. There was no time to lose.