A/N: I am going to try very hard to stick to the updating schedule I started out with, despite the fact that this semester hates my existence. I know there are people out there keeping up with Dead, and I will try very hard to not disappoint those of you who are waiting on the next chapter. That said, I give you chapter five, in which our mismatched companions continue to annoy the shit out of each other.
Disclaimer: I wish….
Words To Know:
ri: Japanese unit of distance; one ri is roughly equivalent to 2.44 miles
oi: hey
baka: an all-purpose insult to one's general intelligence, with severity resting primarily on the tone of voice employed; within the contexts of this story, it means "idiot"
hentai: pervert
Chapter Five: Blur
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Lost again:
Broken and weary,
Unable to, find my way;
Tail in hand,
Dizzy and clearly unable to
Just, let this go….
"Gravity"/ A Perfect Circle
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Two days later, Kagome stumbled to her knees. She had a fever and knew the wound in her neck had become infected, despite the precautions she'd taken to keep it clean. She reached up and pressed the back of her hand to her neck, grimacing at the contact. The area was extremely inflamed and tender, and she hadn't been able to sleep the night before because of the discomfort caused by the simple act of swallowing.
"Sesshoumaru," she called, voice sounding rusty due to the fact that she hadn't been using it.
He paused.
"I'm sorry, but I need to find a village. Fast."
Sesshoumaru turned and seemed vaguely surprised to find her on her knees.
"Why?"
"My neck…." She paused. "The wound there, it's infected."
If she'd been able to see his reaction from where she was, Kagome guessed he would have sighed. He walked to where she knelt and leaned down, then reached out and grabbed her wrist. Kagome jerked in response, instinctively trying to get away from him, and he sent her one of those silent, deadly looks that commanded obedience. He then removed her hand from her neck and inspected the wound. He let go of her wrist and straightened, and she thought she saw his nose twitch.
"There is a village near by, just beyond the wood," he said after sniffing the air.
"Can you tell how close?" she asked, rising on shaking legs.
He sniffed the air again. "At most, three ri," he decided. He looked down at her.
"Lead the way," she said, gesturing vaguely to the trail they had been following.
He turned and began heading in the direction of the village, and after a moment, he heard her follow him.
He had smelled the pus from the infection last night, but because she hadn't mentioned it, he hadn't made comment. He had worried over it, though, despite himself. This was a complication that he couldn't afford. And it had been his own damn fault. That galled him the most.
He looked back often to check on her progress. Her cheeks were flushed and she was shaking slightly. Her eyes had a glazed look to them, and she was clutching her shoulder again.
Fuck, he thought to himself, saying in his mind what he would never dare let pass through his lips.
They reached the village, Kagome only half-lucid; she kept walking out of sheer will. Their appearance caused quite a stir, and Kagome had to place herself in front of Sesshoumaru and explain to the villagers that he wouldn't attack them if they left him the hell alone. She used those exact words, too. Sesshoumaru found himself silently approving their use.
The head man led them to the village miko's hut, where Kagome had to once again explain that he wasn't going to kill anyone unless provoked. The old woman was a harder sell than the other inhabitants had been, though.
"What kind of miko travels with youkai?" the old woman demanded suspiciously.
"This one," Kagome snapped. "Now please look at my neck—the sooner you help me the sooner we'll leave."
He felt the anger roll off her in waves, and Sesshoumaru suddenly didn't mind her company quite so much. In fact, he preferred her like this, mean and out of temper—she irritated him worse when she was depressed.
She had a difficult time with the remedy the old woman came up with. For one thing, the wound was reopened and the pus allowed to drain out. Kagome managed to keep from screaming, though tears rolled down her face when the hot knife tore open her too warm flesh. The old woman actually extended the cut, then made Kagome hold a small bowl under the incision. The smell was retch-inducing, and Sesshoumaru moved to the doorway, where the breeze helped cover most of the scent.
"How'd you do that?" the old woman asked Kagome, whose nose and eyes were as red as her cheeks.
The younger woman sniffled painfully. "Accident," she said. "I met with a bad fall a few days back."
The old woman snorted.
"Youth!" she muttered, using her meaty fist to pound some unknown herb.
It got quiet after that. Only Kagome's sniffling broke the silence, and if he had been so inclined by nature, Sesshoumaru would have almost felt sorry for causing her so much trouble. As it was, he felt his long-silent conscience prick him. He had, after all, caused her this pain, and himself this delay. He brushed the accusing thoughts aside, though, and folded his hands into his kimono sleeves while reclining against the doorjamb.
Within several minutes, the old woman waddled back to Kagome and began poking around the incision, making Kagome gnash her back teeth to keep from screaming. He knew because he could hear her grinding them together. After a full minute of probing, the old woman nodded, then began to wipe the blood off Kagome's neck. She told the young woman to hold a cloth to her neck, then took her little bowl with her and went outside, saying she was out of water and she'd be right back.
The young miko looked extremely dejected. She sat lotus style on the floor, in dirty clothing, holding a semi-bloody cloth to her neck. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were watering, and every once in a while a fat tear would roll down her cheek and drop from the point of her chin onto her lap. Sesshoumaru, bothered by the tears but unwilling to escape outside, began examining the dirt floor of the old woman's hut; it was a poor village indeed that they'd come across.
"Sesshoumaru?" she asked thickly after a long pause.
He looked up and found her watching him.
"Why did you hurt me?"
He watched her for a moment. "Because I could," he replied at long last.
She searched his face, then sighed. "Next time, just slice my neck all the way through, will you? No more half-assed stuff, please—I don't think I could do that again."
Sesshoumaru didn't reply, mainly because he wasn't exactly sure how to. He was tempted to take her up on her request, but decided now wasn't the time for such foolishness.
The old woman returned and mixed a green, goopy paste, which she then applied to Kagome's neck before wrapping it. Sesshoumaru's nose was deeply offended by the vile smelling substance; one whiff and he felt as if the inside of his nostrils were burning. He managed to keep his discomfort from the women. It wouldn't do to let them know he was at all bothered by the paste's vile stench.
As for Kagome, the smell of the paste made her stomach roil, and she nearly suffered the indignity of losing what little food she'd ingested last night in front of the thoroughly unpleasant miko and the fastidious demon standing by the door. She glanced at him, saw that token bored look on his face, and didn't buy it—if her nose was twitching, his had to be ablaze in agony.
She leapt to her feet the second the old woman finished her ministrations and practically ran to the door.
"Oi!" the old woman yelled. "Get back over here! I need to give you the rest of this!"
"Hell fuck no," Kagome muttered under her breath, and Sesshoumaru bit back a wry smirk at the vehemence of her tone. "Arigatou gozimasu, but we have to get going," she said over her shoulder. She sent Sesshoumaru an urgent look.
"You need it!" the miko said.
"I doubt it—arigatou!" Kagome said with a cheerful wave and smile, then ducked out of the hut.
Sesshoumaru followed her outside. On his way out, he heard the old woman say,
"Suit yourself—you'll be sorry."
I highly doubt it, he thought to himself.
As Fate would have it, exactly three hours later, they were stopped at a stream. Kagome was laying under a tree, sleeping fitfully. Sesshoumaru was keeping watch under another tree not too far away. And he had never been so deeply, utterly sorry in his life.
She had fallen violently ill in the forest. Sesshoumaru hadn't even realized that there was something wrong with her until he heard, faintly from behind him, the sounds of someone retching. He turned around and found that the miko had disappeared. A second later, the bitter smell of vomit reached his nostrils. The retching sound had stopped, but the miko hadn't appeared. He heard her groaning indistinctly.
At this point, he was unsure how to proceed. He really would rather not go into the bushes to fetch her, but if she was too sick to get up he was going to have to. He sighed in acute frustration—he'd been cursed.
"Miko," he called, not bothering to hide his exasperation.
"Sesshoumaru…remember what I told you about slicing through my neck?" her voice weakly carried from the depths of the forest.
"Hai." he returned after a pause where he had seriously debated whether or not responding was a good idea.
"Do it."
"Shit," he said wearily under his breath, and made up his mind: he was going to have to go get her.
She was seated under a tree, back against the rough bark, when he found her, eyes closed and face pale, except for two pink blotches on her cheeks. She opened her eyes slowly when she heard his approach and watched him.
"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked feebly.
"No you stupid woman, I'm going to get you out of the damn woods," he muttered, leaning down and picking her up by the waist with both hands. She screwed her eyes shut and held onto his wrists for dear life. Her palms were cold and clammy. He tucked her under one arm and began walking east; they hadn't made much progress since leaving the village, which had been very near a river, so he supposed that was the best place to start. He also resigned himself to the fact that they wouldn't be getting anywhere today.
He reached the river and placed her under a tree. She curled up into a ball and didn't move. After watching her for a moment, he looked out at the river. Things were NOT going as he'd planned.
He'd removed to a tree near by, watching the water moodily. Black thoughts had been with him for the past few days, memories best not dwelt on that returned to him despite his every effort to obliterate them. It was why he hadn't noticed the miko's worsening condition. That, and the compromise they'd reached. If he hadn't demanded total silence from her, he might have noticed the change in her demeanor.
He snorted—who was he kidding? If he'd only controlled his temper that first day and not given in to his baser instincts, they'd have been halfway to the Western Lands by now.
A moan made him look up. She was sitting up and clutching her throat with one hand. Sesshoumaru stood and went to see what the problem was.
Kagome was sure she was dying. Her head was pounding, her entire neck and shoulders were a mass of screaming nerves, and the rest of her felt like death warmed over. Twice. She was trying to rip the bandages off her neck, but she was too weak to do much more than fiddle with the knot the old woman had tied.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up. There he was: the reason for her discomfort in the first place. Her eyes fell to the claws on his hands, and she met his gaze again.
"Please," she said simply.
Sesshoumaru squatted down in front of her and removed her hand from her neck, then cleanly sliced the bandage away with his claws. Kagome reached up and lightly touched her wound, which throbbed like hell and made her wince, then regarded him with feverish eyes.
"How bad is it?" she asked quietly.
His eyes fell to her neck and he examined the wound for several minutes, thoughts inscrutable.
"It's not quite as red as it was this morning," he said finally.
"Is it better or worse?"
He shrugged. "Neither. It just isn't as red."
Kagome sank back down on the grass and sighed.
"Sesshoumaru?"
He grunted.
"Do me a favor."
He eyed her warily and didn't answer, but she kept speaking as though he had:
"Don't leave me, okay? I don't want to die alone."
He didn't say anything for a while, merely watched the water.
"You won't," he said simply.
Kagome closed her eyes, telling herself she meant to hold him to the words.
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They spent the rest of the day there, with Kagome extremely ill and Sesshoumaru extremely annoyed and agitated by the turn of events.
She was getting worse, not better. Her fever had spiked, and no amount of cool water was helping to bring it down—and for now, water was all he could do.
He went to the river's edge and dunked the damp piece of red cloth that he'd ripped off her obi, then squeezed the excess water out of it.
And one of those dark memories he pretended he didn't remember suddenly loomed before him, catching him off guard:
He wrung the cloth out, then turned to the futon where a very sick little girl lay, lost in nightmares no doubt full of flashing, tearing teeth and the scent of blood. He laid the cloth on her forehead and sat by her side, silent. Jaken should have returned with the healer by now. It shouldn't have taken the toad so damn long.
The little girl sobbed, terrified. He sat, frozen, unable to do anything for her, and cursed his own helplessness. It was the longest night of his life. He couldn't bear to stay, but he didn't dare leave her. None of the household staff could stay with her, either—their absence in the shiro was his only reminder that there was a world outside this horrible little sick room, a world that had more important goings-on than a deathly ill human girl to fuss over. He had more important goings-on to fuss over. But nothing, not the smell of disease or approaching death, not the sharp reminder of his distain, his hatred, for humanity—not even hell could have kept him from this child's side, when the night was darkest and most ominous.
She hadn't died.
She might as well have.
He whirled and looked at the young woman under the tree, his sudden horror and panic subsiding when his mind registered that it wasn't the same girl. He stood there for a moment, caught between the present and the past, and then he shoved the recollection back and away, away into the dark corner of his mind where he'd banished all those memories, and then he slowly began walking toward Kagome. He silently repeated her name to himself, over and over again, as he went.
Kagome opened her eyes and saw Inuyasha leaning over her. He looked strange. She supposed it was probably her fever that made him look different.
She was aware that she was very ill; she hadn't been able to turn her head for several hours now—at least, she thought several hours had passed. She didn't remember where she was or how she'd gotten there, wherever there was, but on seeing Inuyasha's face, she knew he would remedy the issue shortly. He might not find the neatest way, but it would damn sure be the quickest.
He should take me to Obaa-chan, she thought, closing her eyes as he laid a piece of cloth over her forehead. It was wet and cold. Kagome wanted to tell him to get her a blanket, to stop wetting the cloth because it was just making her colder than she already was. But her tongue refused to obey her, and her mouth felt dry and full of cotton. It was easier to just lay there and let him attend to her as he saw fit, despite the fact that it wasn't helping her.
Sesshoumaru watched the miko, then leaned forward and lifted her hair away from her neck. He studied the now-bleeding wound—it appeared that the scab had torn when she'd moved to look at him—growling low in his throat. There was no visible change.
"Baka," he snapped to himself. "This Sesshoumaru should have sealed the wound."
Oh, of course, his mind sarcastically returned, because the miko was just so damn eager to be within two feet of you, never mind being at your mercy during the cauterization process.
He growled again, impotently.
This was no good. He should return to the village and once more call on the vile old miko's services. But he couldn't very well leave her here, alone and vulnerable. And he couldn't drag her back to the village; that wouldn't improve her condition at all.
No, he had to remedy this situation himself. He'd caused it—he'd fix it.
Sesshoumaru decided that the best course of action was cleansing the wound again and cauterizing it. He encountered difficulty with the last part of his decision, though: there was nothing to use.
He wouldn't use Tenseiga or Toukijin for this undertaking. The hell he was going to ruin either one of them by using them for such a menial task on such a lowly being. The hanyou probably would have done it. Sesshoumaru's eyes went to the miko's prone form, and he felt his hackles rise. Yes, Inuyasha would have abused Tessaiga in such a manner…to save his precious miko. Humans.
"Why protect them? Why miss them? Why love them?"
He was destined to eat his words.
Kagome groaned and he looked at her. She was sweating; he could smell it. He placed a hand on her forehead and noticed immediately that her fever was climbing steadily higher—it was time to stop this useless thinking and act.
He cast about for something—anything—to use, and his eyes settled on her quiver. The arrows, he thought suddenly. The tips could be heated. He removed one arrow and looked it over, then nodded. That problem tackled, he set about building up a fire, and then ripped another piece off her obi and went to the river and wet it, returned to her side and began to wipe off the dried goop and trickling blood from the wound. Kagome was unconscious, for which he was thankful. He didn't need her awake and screaming.
He held the tip of the arrow over the fire, turning it over and over, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the miko, who slept on, blissfully unaware of what was coming.
Once he deemed the tip ready, he walked to her, and after a moment's hesitation, straddled her chest, so that he could use his knees to pin her shoulders down. With one hand, he took firm hold of her chin and lifted her head so that he had unobstructed access to the wound; with the other hand, he placed the glowing tip to the cut, searing her skin. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils, sickening him, but he ignored it as best he could and concentrated on his task.
Pain such as she'd never felt jerked Kagome out of feverish, disjointed dreams. She felt a heavy weight crushing her into the grass, but the white-hot agony she felt in the vicinity of her neck overtook that feeling. She couldn't scream, even though she desperately wanted to. The shock of the acute pain had paralyzed her vocal cords and her lungs, and she wondered if she was dying.
And then the pain receded into a horrible throbbing, and the weight that had been crushing her was suddenly lifted. The smell of meat burning hit her, and she looked around, wondering who was cooking. She saw Sesshoumaru at the river's edge, back to her. He seemed to be getting a drink. Kagome wondered if Inuyasha knew that his elder brother was around; there was going to be a battle once they saw each other.
She tried to move, but a sharp jab from her nerves quickly removed the idea from her mind, and she closed her eyes, hoping Inuyasha would come back soon.
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Her fever broke the next day.
Sesshoumaru had settled down under her tree and spent most of the night checking her progress and making sure she drank water at regular intervals. At first, her fever had simply continued to climb. He'd been forced to revert back to the damp cloth. He'd also been forced to listen to her muttering about his brother. He ignored it, closed his ears to her, and instead watched the sky, drawing comfort from the presence of the moon as it hung serenely in the inky darkness, glowing faintly. Once, he'd glanced at the miko and found her watching the moon. He'd thought she was dead at first, but after catching the faint beat of her heart and the rasp of her breath, was satisfied that she was alive, if not well. For now.
During the deepest hour of the night, her fever had stopped climbing, and stayed high for a few hours before beginning to fall, and half an hour before noon, she opened clear eyes to stare at him.
"Did I die?" was the first thing she asked.
"No," he replied.
She didn't seem to have a response to that, so she didn't speak. Several minutes passed.
"Can I eat something?" she murmured, sitting up weakly.
He silently pushed the bamboo box Mine had packed toward her with the toe of his boot. She rifled through the contents and found something she didn't mind eating.
Sesshoumaru went to the river and squatted down. He caught sight of his reflection and smiled grimly. He was gaunt and weary, his usually well put-together appearance travel-worn. It was clear to anyone who looked at him that he was carrying an immense weight on his shoulders.
He dipped a hand into the river and blurred his reflection. No time for that uselessness.
Kagome ate slowly, finding the act of swallowing excruciating, but she was far too hungry to stop eating.
She felt sticky and sweaty and uncomfortable in her skin. Her body felt weak, and she was visibly shaking. All in all, she decided, this particular journey had been a total bust.
And it ain't over yet, she thought, watching Sesshoumaru rise and start walking back to her.
"Are you able to travel?" he asked.
She gaped at him. "I just woke up from a fever!" she said, incredulous.
He glared at her. "Answer the question."
"Hell no! That's my answer!" she threw back.
"Miko, we cannot afford anymore dawdling," he said evenly.
"Look, I'm sure we can't, but unless you want to cart my happy ass all over Creation, we aren't going anywhere."
She ought to have kept her mouth shut.
Half an hour later, Kagome found herself thrown over Sesshoumaru's shoulder as the demon lord leapt from tree to tree. She was holding onto him for dear life and trying very hard not to be sick.
He had generously allowed her to bathe in the river when she had asked. Kagome might have appreciated the gesture, if he hadn't ruined it:
"A bath would do much towards improving your smell."
She had been nursing an intense hatred for the demon since then.
He had also only allowed her to take ten minutes, which she had protested until he shot her a look that would have murdered her violently if it had been possible. Her dissent instantly died on her lips. So, she'd shakily walked downstream until their sad little camp was no longer visible, gotten out of her clothes—which she desperately wanted to wash but didn't dare—and waded into the river, yelling an expletive when she made contact with the cold water. She wet her hair and scrubbed at her skin with a handful of the river bottom, teeth chattering noisily, cursing him both to herself and aloud depending on how miserable she felt from second to second. Apparently, Sesshoumaru had meant exactly ten minutes, because he showed up while she had her back to the shore.
"Miko," he called, and she let out a yelp and ducked down so that only her face was above the water.
She whirled around.
"Get out of here you hentai!" she yelled.
He glared at her, but seemed to decide that responding to the statement was beneath him.
"You have exceeded the allotted time," he said instead. "Get out of the water and get dressed."
"Go away and I will," she threw back, teeth chattering faster.
His glare deepened, but he turned around and showed her his back.
"Get out now," he commanded, and Kagome decided that she had irritated him enough for the time being.
She shot out of the river, used her obi to haphazardly dry off and then scrambled into her clothing, checking every minute to make sure he hadn't turned around. He merely stayed as he was, head tilted to one side as if listening to something. Once she had tied her obi into place, he nodded and walked back toward the camp, and it occurred to Kagome that he had been listening to her get dressed. She flushed, embarrassed—hell, he might as well have watched, since his hearing was as good as his eyes.
"Miko…."
"I'm coming!" she blurted, running back to camp.
She had rounded up her meager possessions, grabbed her bow and turned to him expectantly, waiting for him to lead the way. Instead, he grabbed her around the waist and set her over his left shoulder before leaping into the air. Kagome grabbed hold of whatever article of him she could find, desperate not to fall off despite the grip he had on her legs.
She'd flown in an airplane once or twice and never been airsick, much to her happy relief, but Sesshoumaru's shoulder was hardly the match of a coach class seat on a 747. She shut her eyes, feeling dizzy and trying not be sick. For one thing, she'd just bathed. For another, the demon didn't need another reason to dislike her any more than he already did, and she knew without a doubt that throwing up on him would do very little towards ingratiating herself with him.
By the time he leapt from the tree tops to the ground, the sun was setting and they'd been traveling without stopping. He removed her from his shoulder and set her on her feet without speaking. Kagome fell to her knees and hugged the grass as best she could.
"What are you doing?" he asked, and she looked up and saw him staring at her as if she'd lost her mind.
"Being extremely grateful," she returned, sitting up, "that I survived. What was that about, anyway?"
He seemed to sigh—she couldn't tell if he was provoked or not, though—and after a moment said,
"It was more expedient than walking."
"If you don't die, then I guess it would be," she muttered.
He didn't comment. Instead, he walked to a tree and sat under it, folded his hands into his sleeves and leaned against the tree, eyes shut.
"You have two hours, Miko."
It was a familiar routine, and she sighed wearily and dragged herself up. She spent the next fifteen minutes preparing a dinner of sorts for the both of them, cleaned up and then leaned her pack against a tree and laid down next to it, using the balled up kappa as a pillow and throwing the blanket over herself. She set her bow and quiver of arrows next to her, within easy reach, and shut her eyes.
It seemed that only a minute or two had passed when she felt Sesshoumaru nudge her with the toe of his boot. She opened her eyes slowly, blinked away the bleariness of sleep and looked around. The sky was dark, and the moon would be rising soon. She glanced around for Sesshoumaru, found him waiting for her nearby, face lifted to the sky. She struggled to her feet, stretched out her back slightly, then tossed her quiver over her shoulder and strapped her pack on after putting the blanket and kappa away, and took up her bow. She then walked to where he stood and waited for him to acknowledge her existence.
"Do you have a blade?" he asked, and she was startled by both his voice and the question.
"Huh?" she brilliantly replied.
He looked down at her.
"Do you have a blade?" he repeated.
"No," she said, frowning; where in the world had THAT come from?
He inclined his head slightly, as if to say he had expected as much.
"We will have to make a slight deviation," he murmured, more to himself than to her.
"Deviation?" she repeated slowly, as if she'd never heard the word in her life. "Deviation to where?"
"Toutousai's forge. You have need of a katana."
She scowled. "I do not, I have my bow."
He sent her THAT LOOK:
"You run out of arrows eventually, don't you Miko?" he coolly remarked.
She felt foolish without knowing why. The tone he was using, she decided. It made him sound like he was speaking to an idiot.
"Of course," she snapped irritably.
"Then it would behoove you to acquire an alternate weapon, would it not?"
"Only if I knew how to use it and I don't," she replied, mimicking his tone.
He frowned and she thought he was going to retaliate, but he merely said,
"That is a condition this Sesshoumaru shall remedy shortly. Katana first."
Kagome sighed, feeling a little nervous as to exactly how he was planning on "remedying" the situation. That stray thought she'd had about his being Inuyasha's murderer suddenly came back to her full force then, and she felt herself go white. He sent her a strange look, then shrugged and made a move to pick her up. Kagome automatically jumped back, away from him. Now he was provoked:
"Stupid woman, what are you doing?" he snapped, raising his voice for the first time since she'd joined him. She might have enjoyed the fact that she'd finally made him lose his cool if she hadn't been so horrified.
"Nothing," she meekly returned.
"Get over here!"
She hesitantly walked back over to him and stiffened when he grabbed her by the waist. Instead of his left shoulder, he threw her over his right one, against the weird white pelt he wore. She grabbed hold of it, and he wrapped his arm around the backs of her thighs and jumped.
Kagome shut her eyes. What was she doing? She might be helping the man who had killed Inuyasha. He'd always sworn he'd do it, after all, and even during the last battle with Naraku, they'd been tossing insults and threats back and forth, though Kagome had always held out the overly optimistic hope that the brothers might come to terms and—at the very least—stop trying to kill each other.
"Sesshoumaru?" she asked, keeping her eyes shut as they leapt from tree top to tree top.
She felt his sigh. "What now Miko?" he asked, sounding weary.
"What happened to Inuyasha?" she asked softly.
He was silent for so long she thought the wind might have snatched away her words, and then he dryly said,
"He died."
It was her turn for a long pause. She almost didn't ask him, afraid he might say he had killed his own flesh and blood; if there was one good quality Sesshoumaru possessed, it was that he refused to tarnish his honor by lying. In the end, her morbid interest won out:
"But how?"
Another silence, this one brief. Then:
"He jumped down your well and broke his neck."
