Chapter 3

Being blind, Megumi decided, was rather unpleasant.

Sure, it had been great fun during those first few hours she spent with Daisuke and company, but that had only been because she was able to watch people without being caught doing so. Of course, she had also taken pleasure in alarming the other three - Banko, Kyo, and Goro - although all it really took was the slow, deliberate turn of her head to stare at exactly where she knew they were. She knew that her eyes were an irregular color, and to have them focused on a person without really seeing them would make nearly anyone shiver.

"We've got to do something about those eyes," Kyo grumbled at one point, not caring if Megumi heard. His statement was emphasized by a determined swig of the remaining sake he possessed. Megumi assumed, if he always drank like that, he would only get more insufferable should he remain unsatiated for long. And of course, as the only new thing in the group, he had adjusted quite eagerly to taking his frustrations out on her. To which Banko, who she surmised to be quite taken with herself, would leap in and defend her; being blind, apparently, led people to assume you were utterly incapable of helping yourself. As if to back up her point, the man in question soon responded with, "I think her eyes are perfectly lovely. Don't you think so, Goro?"

His defense of her was another thing she found unpleasant about the whole ordeal.

And of course, Megumi could always show the merchants how familiar with battle she was. Centuries of learning and training had made sure to see her capable of carrying her own weight in combat, be it an individual duel or a skirmish of armies. And yet, she could not - would not - use her powers, for fear of draining them further. They still had yet to replenish her levels, and each hour that dragged by without change had fear climbing higher in her throat.

And so, the self-imposed power ban brought forth another hassle - navigation. She could have sent gentle pulses into the earth to gather her bearings and walk without fear of falling off a cliff or clothes-lining herself, but without her power she was left to fumble blindly. The group had only been travelling for a few hours since dawn made its initial appearance, but she had learned very quickly that escaping this forest and finding someone to break her seal meant relying on the merchants to take her safely to town.

Megumi listened to her companions continue to ramble, without really hearing them, as she thought bitterly over her own foolishness. She should have checked the area with her power before stepping out of the cave; she should have closed the mirage from inside and remained there until the goons of the other dragon left the forest. She should have sensed the elemental demon, or else this never would have happened. She had been safe, comfortable even, for nearly a century, and it had made her foolish. How naive of her to assume she could let her guard down like that when she was near her patron's pool.

I wonder what Toga would think, if he could see me now . . .

Megumi was startled rather abruptly out of her thoughts when she felt someone place their hand on her shoulder. It shouldn't have startled her as much as it did, and in truth it wouldn't have if she had been starting to think about anyone else. That's Toga for you, she thought inwardly, before turning her attention towards figuring out who touched her and what they wanted.

Because she wasn't using her power to guide herself, she had made a fool of herself stumbling around and trying to follow the sounds of the group to lead her footsteps. That rather embarrassing spectacle had lasted all of five minutes before Daisuke had appeared next to her, his hand grabbing her left hand to drape it over his proffered right arm. Before she could ask why (though she was fairly certain she could make an accurate guess) Daisuke had said, it's this, or I drape you over Banko's shoulders and he hauls you the rest of the way. Banko, of course, had perked up at the prospect, but Megumi was eager to keep both feet of hers on the ground.

Thinking back to the limb on her shoulder, she could feel it on her right one, and knew by the new scent that filled her lungs that it had been Kyo, this time, to approach her. Daisuke, who was still on her left, had yet to say anything. She wondered what Kyo wanted.

"Don't do that," he commanded rather rudely, when she had settled her unseeing eyes on where she knew his face probably was. A moment later, she felt something strike her across her face, and the simple surprise of it had her unconsciously stopping in her tracks. Her right hand flew up instinctively, to try and feel what had happened, only to brush against something and catch it just before it fell. Tentatively, she brushed her fingers along the inanimate captive in her hand, and almost smirked when she realized what it was.

A simple cloth - nice quality, really - that wasn't large enough to be of much use, but such a convenient size for something like a blindfold.

"If you could not bear the sight of me, you ought to have said so sooner, Kyo," Megumi taunted lightly. When she felt him bristle next to her, the next words tumbled out of her mouth before she could help it. "Perhaps you'd prefer to use the blindfold? I'm afraid I won't be able to obscure much of my form with a cloth as small as this one."

Before Kyo could blurt out against her goad, Daisuke had extracted the offending garment from her hand and had paused to wrap it over her eyes. "I agree with Kyo, Madarame. I don't think the villagers will feel very inclined to approach us when you're staring like you do."

From somewhere far towards her left, she could hear the studder of Goro's steps as he tried to multitask between stopping their cart of goods and waving his hands as he talked. "It's offsetting," he rasped in that reedy voice of his, apparently just going wherever the others directed the conversation. "Normal people don't have eyes like that."

"Blind people don't even have eyes like that," Kyo added under his breath, but because he was still by her side she was able to catch it.

"Well I certainly wasn't given these eyes to stare at people without seeing, so you'll excuse my temporary condition," Megumi retorted, still feeling rather upset over her earlier remembrance of that night.

Her companions seemed surprised at her revelation, though to her it seemed perfectly obvious that she was not as accustomed to being without her sense of sight as someone who had been blind for a long time would be. As much as she wished her other senses would have instantly heightened themselves to make up for the loss, it would take time she had yet to be given, and knew that thus far she certainly hadn't acted with the same sort of awareness that one used to this situation might.

Daisuke soon finished his task and set to returning to his earlier place by her side. However, he did not stop there; she heard his footsteps as they walked in the direction she assumed the cart was. "We'll take a quick break," he decided, and his declaration was quickly met by Goro's relieved sigh. She wondered how heavy the cart must have been to pull. "After we're done, Kyo and I will switch to pulling the cart. Goro will take my place and guide Madarame, while Banko will take Kyo's and guard."

"I can guide her," Banko's voice shot out, but was quickly silenced by its superior's.

"I'm sure you're just as capable as Goro, but Goro is not as competent in remaining on guard for the group."

Banko grumbled, but remained silent.

When it seemed evident that no one else was planning on saying anything, Megumi heard Kyo toss some half-hearted remark about relieving himself before trudging off into the forest, with Goro soon to follow. She could hear Kyo's loud voice as he yelled at being joined when he clearly wanted to pee in private, but Megumi tuned them out in favor of trying to make her way over to the cart where she knew the water skins were.

Banko was by her side in a second, to help guide her over to the cart. "Did you need something?" He asked, and Megumi worked to school her reluctance to being helped so frequently in order to answer him without a hint of irritation in her voice.

"Water, if you please."

She could hear both Banko's shuffling and Daisuke's deliberate prowl as she waited for one of the skins to be located for her. There was a brief note of Daisuke's scent in the air as he walked past her, towards the back of the cart. She heard Banko exclaim that he found one of the skins at the same time she heard the creaking of a chest opening, and the smells of the herbs were so much more potent now with the lid open that Megumi unconsciously drifted closer to them.

She breathed in the individual notes, the corners of her lips lilting up almost unnoticeably so as she drifted closer to the cart. She reached out a hand and was glad she did, because she had been slightly closer than she'd estimated and the contact of her skin against the wood warned her not to take many more steps forward.

"Something caught your eye?" Banko said, coming up and letting the water skin touch the hand not placed on the cart so she would know where to grab. He flinched lightly when she took the water from him, and imagined that the irony of his words finally dawned on him.

"Something did catch my nose," she corrected, before taking her other hand from the cart. Using both, she undid the stopper at the top and raised the skin to her lips. She paused before she drank, however, to add an elaboration to her earlier statement. "Many of these herbs . . . I recognize their scents, from when I was much younger." She forced herself to take a drink then, to effectively stop her from saying more.

"You must have traveled rather far," Daisuke commented, and Megumi found herself feeling slightly wary.

"I did," she finally conceded, nodding slightly as she refastened the stopper and held the skin back out to where she figured Banko still was.

Megumi tried not to think heavily about her past. It was laden with confusion, with emotions that ought to remain buried. There were gaps in her memories; not small ones, at that. There were those nights of gnawing hunger, of feeling her ribs against her fingers as she tried to think over the din of torrential rain smothering and soaking her.

Then, of course, there was Toga.

And the last time she saw him.

She shuddered suddenly; finding herself once again trying to think about anything but that. Still, she found herself wanting to. Why? Why had she used her powers like that? Why did it feel like there was more to that memory, more that had been locked away in a place even she couldn't find?

"Megumi?"

The sound of Banko's voice startled her, much like Kyo's hand had, and swiftly dragged herself out of the depths of her mind once more. Inside, Megumi swore. She was getting careless, letting her tongue move on impulse and letting her mind roam into the past. "Yes?" She replied, letting the word out slowly.

"I just asked how you managed to travel around so much, being young and alone and all that," was his reply. Daisuke remained silent even as he closed the lid on the chest he opened to open a new one.

That less restrained part of Megumi wanted to roll her eyes at Banko. There certainly was no way she could explain that she was certainly several centuries his senior. Yes, she looked human, much like any powerful demon can. But being the chosen incarnate of a Twin Dragon came with certain perks . . . longevity to rival a daiyoukai, power separate from reiki and youki, abilities unprecedented, and those irregular eyes . . . sometimes, she'd even questioned if she was actually just a unique sort of demon.

"I spent several of my years on the seas," Megumi finally said, partially as a way to prevent her from falling back into her thoughts. "We ran through many merchant ships and trade ports." The memory made her smile, even if she had originally been more or less kidnapped onto the ship with all those demon pirates. She had bonded with the captain and crew, though, over the centuries; it had only been when she'd had that dream that she finally felt forced to face her guilt and fears and return to the four lands.

She wondered how he'd react when he saw her.

Would he recognize her?

Worse, would he remember?

The sound of Goro bumbling through the trees, close on the trail of Kyo, made the other three turn to face the newcomers. "Let's get out of here," Kyo hissed, stomping up to the cart, "and get to that damned village before I kill this fucking idiot."

"We'll arrive well before nightfall," Daisuke assured him, ever the level-headed man of the group. "I'd appreciate it if you focused more on pulling the cart than your withdrawals until then."

The sounds of Kyo's grumbling, Goro's clearly dejected sighs, and Banko's snicker were mingling and flitting around the group as each member settled into place for the last half of their journey. It would have been easier to distract her mind from itself if she could only look at the scenery while she walked with Goro, but seeing as she couldn't, Megumi contemplated trying to start a conversation with her guide instead.
"You must be rather knowledgeable on herbs," she observed, "for you to be travelling around with this lot."

She could feel Goro's arm move slightly as his hands danced in the air to match his voice. "I owe Daisuke for saving my life, and medicinal herbs are the only thing I really know." Megumi could hear Kyo snort from his place at the cart's front, and internally frowned as the brutish man mocked Goro by saying it was the only thing that a scrawny man like the one she was currently holding onto could do without messing up.

"Do you think you could perhaps help me?" Megumi ventured, if anything, to distract Goro from Kyo's intolerable personality. She would admit that Kyo had a pleasant laugh, but it only slipped out when he was thoroughly tipsy, and whenever he was anything less, he was rather heated and testy.

"Help with what?" The thin man besides her asked. Megumi wondered how many of her travelling partners were now either looking at her, or at least tuning in.

Megumi paused to consider her response carefully. Yes, she had acclimated to her current situation rather well; she needed them to get her out of the forest, they needed her to attract more customers . . . everyone goes home happy. But she had to consider that she may not be able to erase their memories when this was all said and done, considering that the seal might not be broken. She had already told them her name - and in the event they remembered it, she had to limit the things they could possibly repeat to others about her.

"I have already hinted that I did not reach my current condition of my own volition," she started carefully, but was rudely interrupted by one of Kyo's snorts.

"People rarely bury themselves into the earth for fun," he quipped.

"Perhaps," she retorted non committedly, if for nothing more than to spite him. "There is a seal placed over my eyes. I've yet to regain my strength since it has been enforced on me."

"And you wish to use herbs for recovering energy to test if it's related to the seal?" It was Daisuke this time, though by the inquisitive yet testing nature of the question she wasn't surprised.

"Not for free," she reassured him, even though her head remained facing straight ahead. It wasn't like she had to move it when she talked to people; she wasn't really looking anyways. "I'm willing to assist you in selling your wares if you'll allow me the use of a few in exchange."

Kyo grunted, but said nothing. She knew that intolerable nature of his was prodding him to say no just because, but it wasn't his decision. For whatever their history was, despite never confirming it audibly, Daisuke called all the shots here.

"Depending on how well you perform in the village, I'll be willing to lay down further terms with you," he decided, and Megumi nodded. She had rather expected an answer like this; one that told her do your share and then we'll talk, but also managed to treat her with a degree of respect. She knew, as the others probably did, that it would have been as easy to keep her tied and sell her off as it was to untie her and work out an unspoken deal. "Lucky for you," Daisuke continued, "we're going to be hitting one of the largest villages this side of the four lands."

Megumi let silence replace where her response could have been, choosing instead to reflect on those last three words. The four lands. North, South, East - West. She had not been to the west in a few centuries, enough to make her curious as to everything that had changed. She'd reached the mainland through the south, though, and had yet to interact with any demons that could tell her how the west had been fairing. She wondered briefly, with all the reckless hope of a child, if news of her and what she had been doing in the human villages had reached the western shiro yet.

Almost immediately she curbed her hope, and reminded herself that if her new blindness was a testament to anything, it was that she had greater priorities than a trip down memory lane. Her work with these merchants came first, then the accursed seal. Next, the Twin Dragon of Temperament, then, maybe, perhaps . . .

The cart must have hit a rather nasty rock, because Kyo cursed rather loudly, prompting Banko to reprimand his "atrocious behavior, in the presence of a lady, no less!" Before she knew it, Goro had excitedly thrown in his own observation that made Kyo snarl with fury.

She heard one of the men near her yell back at him: "Don't; Kyo, your shit aim will end up hitting me, or worse, her!"

"I'll make that idiot pay for angering me twice now!" Was that ever-aggravating man's reply, before Megumi could hear something whistling towards her, barely past Goro on her left. It connected with a sharp stab of pain against her left temple - when had it gotten that close? - and the force of the impact left her staggering, sinking rather heavily to her knees. She could feel Goro's pitiful arms try and brace her fall, but he came tumbling down with her. Dazed, her temple smarting with pain, Megumi weakly pried her hand from Goro's arm and raised her slightly shaking fingers to touch where the source of pain was.

She was startled, of course, when her fingers could feel an undeniable slickness that had to be blood. She then noticed, with less alarm, that her consciousness was slowly fading.

"Idiot," she heard Banko seethe, as stronger arms were around her now and picking her up from where she had fallen.

"Kyo," another voice called suddenly, but it was farther away, "as this is your fault, you'll switch with Goro and carry her now." In the second he paused before adding the afterthought, "Gently," Megumi's rather drowsy brain recognized the speaker to be Daisuke.

And then she slipped away.


He had been flying for several hours now, when his shiro finally bled into view. It was an impressive thing, layers of stairs and paths curling around the base of the hill and snaking their ways up, past various houses and structures for those without quarters in the shiro itself, all the way up towards the main area sectioned off at the top by walls and trees. He could spot several of the gardens from his vantage point above the structures; could see the main garden, as well as the private ones for the Lady's rooms and her son's. He could see the main entrance, the one that led to the grand sitting room for introducing guests and visitors. His eyes slithered up to hone in on his prey - the building, off from the main house; that was where he would find his healers. Whichever of them were currently in, that is.

Sesshomaru could feel a sense of anticipation and urgency build up as he grew closer, ever ready for the moment when he would be able to touch down without risking injury to the passenger in his arms.

"Inform this one's mother that we've returned and that I will be unreachable when we arrive," the Lord of the West commanded, and he knew his retainer had heard even before his beak opened to squawk out a reply.

"Hai, Lord Sesshomaru, I would be honored to carry a message for one as mighty as - "

"We land."

The Lord's feet touched stone a moment later, and without waiting for Jaken to detach from his pelt, Sesshomaru strode purposefully towards the building he'd locked into his sights. He let his youki flare as he approached, and a second later one of the healers-in-training had appeared at the door to open it for the Lord as he strode inside.

The infirmary was clean, unsurprisingly, and smelled only faintly of the healers that were almost constantly here. Many of the demons that lived in and visited the shiro were youkai with strong senses of smell, and he knew that the healers respected this by using special herbs that muted the majority of the smells in the space. Sesshomaru knew that the healers that were here had sensed his youki and would be arriving to the main room shortly, and so he pressed on to the nearest place where he would be able to lay Rin down. The runes on her brow had yet to shift since forming into the symbols he had seen yesterday, and though she had slumbered peacefully since the wolf's healers saw to her, Sesshomaru was unwilling to wait for his healers to make their way to the main building to check on Rin.

"My Lord," he soon heard, the voice identified instantly as belonging to the main healer - Chiharu - as she entered the space and bowed. "How may I serve you?"

Sesshomaru inclined his head to the resting figure of Rin, and watched the healer's face carefully for her reaction. "You will see to her, and when you are done, she will be moved to her room so you can continue your work in better privacy." Sesshomaru watched as Chiharu's face morphed into an unmasked expression of surprise, before her brows knit in a contemplative frown.

"Forgive me, my Lord, but did you see who attached the runes to Rin?" Sesshomaru overlooked Chiharu's use of Rin's name without the honorific; he knew his ward had grown fond of the old miko in Edo and had instantly fastened herself to Chiharu's side to further the knowledge of healing that Kaede had started.

"There was no one."

Chiharu visibly started at his words, before she drew in a shaky breath and nodded. "I will see what I can do. When I'm sure she's able to be moved, I'll see personally to her relocation." He knew why Chiharu had stopped talking, was hesitating now, but to her credit, she plowed through anyway. "Lord Sesshomaru, in order to properly concentrate on my work, I will need you to leave this space." Her voice had grown rather faint on the tail end of her statement, but her eyes remained nevertheless those of a professional.

Sesshomaru waited, perhaps a second longer than he ought to, before he tore his gaze away from Rin to look Chiharu in her eyes. "This Sesshomaru will return," he told her, "if Rin has yet to be moved before nightfall."

He waited for her to nod and start her work without further delay before he finally exited the tent. Though he didn't exactly enjoy Rin's current situation, he reveled in the idea that he would have a more direct reason to tell his mother to cease her antics. Those suitors had hovered in his home for too long.


"Where am I?"

"Hush, hush . . . " Soft hands brushed over her forehead, pushing back her bangs. Her fingers were warm. "You're with good people now."

"How did I get here?"

The hand stops for a moment, then continues to dust lightly over her hair. "I found you in the forest," she says. The stranger's accent is different than any she's heard before. "It was clear that you'd been lying there for days; but no matter. You're with us now. I'm a pirate captain, yes, but I'm not so cruel as to let an abandoned child suffer alone."

"But I'm not alone! I - I have someone! Let me go back to him!"

"I don't know who this person is, kid, but he clearly didn't search too hard if you were left like that for days. So just stick with me now, alright? I won't do the same to you."

The stranger's hand knocked lightly against her skin as she shook her head from side to side. "That's not true, he'd come for me! He said he would!"

"Look, kid, he's not - "

"No! He promised!"

The hand pulled back from her head, and the accented voice didn't speak for some time. Finally, the woman sighed, seemingly in surrender. "Okay; let's make a deal then, yeah? If your person comes to get you in the next year, then I'll send you back with well wishes and fanfare and all that bull. But if he doesn't, you'll stay with our crew until you're grown, okay? I hate seeing orphans go cold in the night."

" . . . okay. But I want two years. He'll come, though. Just you wait."

He'll come.

Megumi awoke, her eyes opening into blackness. Dully, she wondered why she couldn't see, her hands fluttering up to her face before she realized that one, she was kind of blind, and two, there seemed to be some sort of dressing around her eyes.

Hadn't it been a cloth before? It didn't feel like the one that Kyo had thrown at her. That thought was enough to bring back the memory of the second time Kyo had found it suitable to launch a projectile in her general direction, and Megumi groaned. Stupid, stupid man. Had he no brain?

"You're awake."

Megumi started at the voice that came from somewhere not far from where she was laying. She rose slowly, noting the blanket over her and pulling it back. She moved her hand to feel if whatever she was laying on was level with the ground or not (it was) and she moved accordingly, so that she was sitting facing where the voice had originated from. "It appears so," she remarked dryly. "So where have I been dragged off to this time?" Megumi asked, unable to fight the tired humor at her situation. Must she always wake up in foreign places with foreign people?

That thought brought her dream back to the surface of her thoughts, and Megumi found herself trying to swallow around the hard lump that had suddenly formed in her mouth.

"You're at the inn the rest of your merchant friends are staying in," the feminine voice explained. "They brought you here. You're lucky they ran into me when they did though," she remarked, laughing slightly, but then her voice took a surprising turn. She seemed . . . concerned. Unsettled. "I was on my way out of the inn, when they came tumbling in. I noticed you had some sort of head wound; overheard them talking about how it hadn't stopped bleeding for hours - and that got my attention - and I couldn't help but check out the problem."

Megumi nodded along numbly, finding herself reaching up again to feel the gauze. "You're a healer," she noted dryly.

"Yes. And I was originally planning on instructing your friends on what to do and then going on my way, but they admitted to having no healing knowledge - said that if I stayed long enough to make sure they didn't accidentally kill you, that you would be able to provide a worthwhile I.O.U. for me as a thanks."

Megumi couldn't help the scoff that fell from her lips; how very typical of those merchants. At least they had cared enough to ask someone to help. Megumi wondered dryly how many debts she'd owe strangers before she finally got rid of that blasted seal. "I suppose I ought to thank you, for prolonging your return for some random woman."

The woman chuckled lightly. "Another day or two away won't really hurt, since the Lord has been away for a few weeks now and the chief healer told me to take advantage of his impromptu vacation to get her more herbs. Besides, I couldn't help it really; once I get curious there's no end to it. And you've certainly made me curious - your friends got here before sundown, and though it's been a couple more hours since I was able to stop the bleeding, you don't seem to have regained any of your energy back yet."

That made Megumi nervous. "I haven't recovered physically?" No wonder she had felt so drained since she had woken up tied in the forest. It wasn't just her power, it was her body, too?

She heard the woman stand up, and listened to her footsteps as she came to where Megumi sat. "No, you haven't. You're pale as hell still. A curious thing, really, but I can't exactly stay here a week to see if you come 'round the bend. I did send a message to the chief healer, though, explaining all about you and the herbs that you guys are selling. Not even she'll get mad if I come back with some rarer finds."

Megumi nodded along, and then decided that she needed to move around. She tried to stand up, and soon felt the healer's hand helping her to her feet. "Thank you," Megumi said once she was on her feet, but as soon as she was she wondered what exactly she wanted to walk to. The merchants? No, she thought with a mental roll of her eyes, I'm still annoyed about the pain in my temple. That, and the fact that they promised I'd do a favor for someone without my say so. "So," she said instead, wishing she could study the woman in front of her. "You're staying here to buy some things off of us and pull a favor out of me?"

She could practically see the grin that must have split across the healer's face as she laughed airily. "I've already bought what I want from your friends. Really, I've just been waiting on you."

"So desperate to cash in a favor, are we?"

That light laugh came again as the other lady asked Megumi if she'd like to follow her. Megumi obliged, and let the other woman link her arm in hers and start walking. "In truth; yes," she admitted once they had exited the room. "I'm hoping you'll be able to teach me something, so that I can show off to Chiharu when I get back." There was a note of sheepishness in the girl's voice, and Megumi couldn't help but smile softly.

"I remember those days," Megumi reminisced. "Impressing my sensei seemed like a forever unreachable task." She shook her head, and the other girl laughed wholeheartedly.

"Doesn't it? I'm Gina, by the way."

"Megumi."

They rounded a corner, and Megumi could distinctly smell rice and tea in one of the rooms they passed. "Just how long was I out, Gina?"

"Hmm . . . " They had made another turn before Estumi spoke again. "Only a few hours, I think. It's just before nightfall now."

Megumi absorbed this new information before she asked another question. "You used demonic healing techniques to heal me, didn't you?"

The girl whose arm was linked through hers stopped so quickly that Megumi wondered for a second if she had said something wrong. "Shh!" Was the reply that came, and Megumi promptly found herself rather urgently escorted into another room. When they had moved to what Megumi guessed was the middle of the room, Gina started to speak again, but her tones were more wary and considerably quieter. "How could you tell?"

Megumi shrugged. "I learned to heal and harm by the hands of demons," she supplied. "You get used to detecting the difference between human and youkai healing techniques." When Gina remained silent, Megumi tried once more. "The gauze," she tried, pointing at her face. "The wrapping is basically the same, but the paste I could smell that was rubbed on my skin . . . that's not used by too many humans."

"Oh."

"I won't tell."

At her promise to secrecy, Gina's relieved exhale came tumbling out in full force. "Thank you. I'm the one that gets sent to buy supplies from humans, because as a kitsune I'm rather good at disguising my true nature. If the villagers knew there was a demon in their inn . . . "

"Don't worry so much," Megumi reassured, a rather secretive smile splitting her face, "I'm not exactly human either, you know."

The kitsune balked at this. "I never would have guessed." She paused, and Megumi sensed that she wanted to press further, but eventually decided against it. "So, anyways, I wanted to bring you here to show you what I was thinking for that favor you owe me." Megumi nodded, and Gina continued. "There's a girl in the room connecting to this one. Her breathing is so shallow I doubt you've noticed it yet."

"Why is it so quiet?" Megumi questioned, as she strained to hear the girl in question. She couldn't.

"There's something wrong with her lungs," Gina supplied, but said no more. Perhaps she wanted to see just what Megumi was capable of; a little bit of a test. "You can take a look, if you want."

"And the favor part of this?"

Gina started walking towards where she figured the entrance to the other room was, dragging Megumi along by the arm. "Oh, nothing drastic. I just want to see if there's anything you can do about her condition. If you can, then I'm confident I'll learn plenty just by watching."

The sound of a shoji sliding back reached Megumi's ears. "I don't think my techniques are ones you can replicate," she told Gina, and couldn't help the slight note of humor in her voice.

Gina's laugh rang out again, but quieter. "Is that a challenge? Let's see what you can do, then." The kitsune healer guided her over to kneel on the floor, showing where the girl's head was, before letting go of Megumi. Before the Dragon of Timidity could ask for more information about the patient, Gina started filling her in. "She's eleven, I think. Human. She was playing up by the falls a few days ago with some other kids in the village, but she fell in and got swept downstream. The villagers looked for a while but couldn't find her until around a day and a half later. She was still soaked, pale and shivering constantly. She hasn't really warmed up; if anything, her pulse and her breathing have just been getting shallower."

"She won't heat up?" Megumi asked, her instinctive desire to help kicking in. For a moment, she forgot about the seal and about the wound on her temple. She forgot about her promise not to use more of her power, and before she could fully comprehend what she was doing, Megumi had leaned over the girl, hands over the child's heart, and pushed power to pulse through her fingertips and into the sleeping body.

She could hear Gina gasp faintly, but that seemed so far away from Megumi's ears. She was now wholly focused, channeling her energy to the girl's heart and lungs and head, figuring out why she wouldn't heat herself, figuring out how to help.

The minutes dragged on, and Megumi could soon feel that familiar sort of release; the one she knew from the thousands of times before when her power had finally established itself in the patient's body and had begun to work separately from its master. Megumi felt undeniable elation and pride and she sat back on her heels, wishing she didn't have both the gauze and the seal to prevent her from observing her work.

That's when it hit her, and Megumi nearly swore out loud, cursing her own self for getting swept up in the moment.

Idiot.

Stupid, sentimental, hopeless idiot.

"She should be prancing around in no time," Megumi stated abruptly, partially to distract herself from her own self-chastising. "I'd bet an hour before she comes to, tops."

"How - "

"I think I should eat something," Megumi said abruptly, feeling guilty for cutting off Gina, but it was necessary. "I haven't eaten much this week. It might help me recover; doing this so soon has made me feel kind of faint again."

"Oh. Oh." She could hear Gina stand up abruptly, and listened to her walk rather swiftly around the room before settling down again next to Megumi. "Here," she said, pressing a cup into her hands. "It's an energizing tea. It was for the girl, but I don't think she'll mind very much. They brought her rice, too. And some fish."

Megumi accepted the cup almost too eagerly, trying to ignore any thoughts related to the sorts of repercussions she'd possibly experience in the near future. And while Gina couldn't see the faint frown that distorted her brows under the gauze, she undoubtedly could sense Megumi's frustration.

She found that it vanished almost immediately, however, when she heard the girl's breathing steadily, surely, growing stronger.

Screw the consequences.

Megumi had made the right choice.