Chapter 12: Day 53

In the morning, they discussed their plans to move forward. She found herself giving up the more dangerous route to the west for a quick scouting mission to the east. She had tried not to react when Miroku had looked surprised—she normally never gave up a route, even if there were jewel shards along its path. But she'd only done it because she'd known with an almost animal instinct that if she'd argued, Inuyasha would have stepped in and suggested teams. And she just knew that no matter how illogical, he would have somehow got his way.

When no one was looking, she felt his accusing stare like a brand against her back and she tried not to shiver.

She was a coward. A god damn coward.

She left before breakfast so she wouldn't have to face him staring at her over the campfire, making her wonder exactly what he had meant by what he'd said yesterday. And exactly what he'd do when he got his hands on her.

Day 54

Distance did not make the dreams go away. It made them worse.

Under the cover of night, she mourned the second violent death of her decency and prayed to the gods that her father was not looking down at her, throwing curses at her from afar.

Day 55

"Sango!" Kagome was waving at the top of the hill, her green skirt flashing like a beacon in the sunlight. She sounded happy.

Sango's back stiffened but otherwise she made no other outward signs of surprise. She bowed to the man she was talking to and excused herself, moving to wait at the bottom of the hill with Kirara trotting at her heels. She adjusted Hiraikotsu and her yukata, feeling the beat of the sun on her hair and back. It was another warm day. Maybe one of the last.

The snap of "Kagome!" from a disgruntled voice above made Sango look up from the loose thread on her sleeve she'd been nervously unravelling the last two day.

To her alarm, Kagome had hastily descended down the slightly steep hill, and her jog had turned into to a pellmell stumble. She would have tumbled head over heels onto the dirt road if Sango hadn't caught her by the shoulders, swinging her slightly to dissipate the momentum. Soft strands of the girl's hair touched her cheek before settling down.

Kagome looked up at her, breathless and grinning. "Thanks."

Sango found herself smiling, only for the bottom of her stomach to drop out as the shadow of the others descended on them.

She didn't look at his face. She wouldn't look at his face.

Inuyasha was leading them, of course, arms crossed and glaring daggers at Kagome. Thankfully, he didn't spare Sango a glance. "Why are you such a klutz?"

"Am not," Kagome replied swiftly, but her mood was too bright to be affected by the hanyou's clear bad temper. Shippou, who had chased Kagome down the hills on all fours, jumped to her shoulder and glared at the hanyou. He opened his mouth, fangs bared, but whatever he said was cut off as Miroku took a discrete step between the pair on his way towards Sango of which she was glad.

Until he kept going and took her hand.

Instinct almost made her jerk away, but Miroku was looking at her with raised eyebrows, a mischievous smile on his face. It was that showman's face that she normally rolled her eyes at. She hesitated.

"Sango," he said warmly, eyes crinkling. His entire body turned to focus on her then, blotting out everything else from her view like a magic trick. The sleight of hand shift in her attention, which she'd so often seen directed at others but never towards her, was so complete that she could only stare in a awe, feeling a little overwhelmed. "It is good to see you again."

This was his effect on other girls? No wonder they so often swooned under his attention.

Sango struggled with a reply but was fortunately distracted by a sudden movement from Inuyasha. He had stepped forward to kick at the monk, who easily side stepped the foot while still holding her hand.

"Yes, Inuyasha?" Miroku asked without looking away. He winked at her covertly, but she could only blink in bemusement

"Can you quit it?" Inuyasha snapped. He had turned his glare on them now, his eyes flickering down to their hands. "If you'd stop accosting every woman we see, we'd have more shards by now."

Kagome tutted. "Don't be jealous, Inuyasha," she tossed carelessly over her shoulder, already turning to Sango, and therefore missed entirely the way the hanyou started, then positively glowered at her. They all missed it. Except Sango.

Flushing, Sango quickly looked away before the hanyou noticed and quickly extricated her hands from Miroku's grasp. The monk let her with only the a slight rueful twist to his mouth.

Flustered, she found herself reverting to formalities. She gave a curtsy nod. "It is an honor to see you again."

Miroku smiled but was cut off as Kagome tugged on her arm gently, saying they should move to the inn. Sango followed obediently, eventually finding herself sandwiched between the girl and the monk as they chattered to her about their recent activities, with Shippou piping in from time to time.

She walked in silence, all the while feeling a pair of eyes burning a hole in her back.

If she was being entirely honest with herself, she might have expected something from him. Some acknowledgement, however small, that he was furious with her for the running act she had pulled, or even just a little annoyed.

But she got nothing. He didn't say anything to her beyond a perfunctory, "find any jewel shards?" and after that one time on the way to the inn, she didn't catch him staring again. Which was good. A great thing.

So she stopped following Kagome around like a woman starved for friendship, tried to quiet her heart pounding in her chest. It had been a mistake, surely. Especially if he didn't seem to care. So maybe they could just return to whatever they had been before and everything would be fine. She wouldn't have to keep looking over her shoulder like he was a predator hunting her.

Sango was never so lucky.

He caught her alone in the hallway, late at night as she was coming back from the baths.

She froze when she saw him slam open a door and step out into the hall in just his white shirt and his hakama, the door shutting behind him with finality. Like he had been waiting for her. His eyes were blistering, furious suns in the dark. "Two fucking days," he hissed, stalking towards her, and now she knew how much trouble she was in, and she was going to go to hell for the way the thought sent a bolt of pure, unadulterated need down her spine. It terrified her, the intensity of it.

Heart in her throat, she turned and sprinted back the way she came.

She was fast, but he was faster. She had barely slipped out a window and into a garden bed when suddenly he was there in front of her, rising from a crouch and backing her up against the wall of the bathing house, an arm coming up to cage her between his body and the wall.

She half expected him to just start kissing her, but he didn't. He didn't touch her at all, though the heat radiating off of him was such a stark contrast to the cold night breeze that she shivered in her thin yukata, leaning towards him. She was barefoot. He watched her with those predator eyes, like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and it made her want to hide her face.

"Let me guess," he growled. "You thought that if I wasn't begging at your feet the moment I saw you that what happened the other day must have been another dream—" the way he said the word was almost like he knew.

She flinched, pressing against the wall. "No, I—I thought…" Her words failed her at the look in his eyes, daring her to lie to him.

"I told you," he said lowly, and she swallowed, "we were not finished."

They stared at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. And then suddenly he was pulling back, sighing sharply.

"If you think I'm just going to force you into this," he said, words chilling her, "so that you can pretend like you had no choice" and god that stung, "then you can think again. You have to choose Sango. Or this really will go no where." He pinned her with a dark amber stare, waiting.

She stood there, frozen. After a moment, his lips thinned, disappointment flashing in his eyes and then he was pulling away, his arm dropping at his side. And it was now or never. There would be no going back from this, either way. If she let him walk away now, he would never let her touch him again.

She sucked in a deep breath, knowing which she preferred, and suddenly the choice was easy. She was already a damned woman anyway, what was she trying to preserve?

"Okay," she whispered, licking her lips, and he froze. Then she was reaching forward, grabbing the lapels of his shirt and drawing him around slowly, pressing him against the bath house wall as she leaned in to him, breathing in the warm scent of him. "You're right," she breathed, watching his jaw clench. He was still angry with her. "Sorry."

She placed an apologetic open mouthed kissed on his neck.

He breathed in sharply, hands fisting at his sides, but didn't move. So she continued a line of tentative, inexpert kisses down his corded neck, kissed the hollow of his collar bone and felt him shiver, and then travelled back up his neck to the other side. She breathed out slowly against his jaw bone, his name.

He breathed out shakily. His hands came up finally to span her waist, his hands large enough that they almost entirely circled her body, and she made a small noise at the touch that she was immediately mortified at. His mouth twitched. And then he was leaning down, one hand raising to sink fingers into her hair, tilting her head back.

He kissed her.

It was a study of contrasts. There was the warmth of his mouth. The cold touch of his skin against hers. There was the wetness, when his tongue licked the seam of her lips and she opened to him—and the utter bolt of shock at the prick of his canines, of having his tongue, foreign, inside her own mouth, that made her press tighter to him. The smell of him, filling her senses, wood and salt and skin. The taste of something alive and breathing.

It was potent, encompassing, overwhelming.

It was not enough.

At some point they had flipped and he was fully pinning her to the wall now by his mouth and the one hand on her waist, but the rest of him was empty cold space. She arched, almost hating herself at the way his mouth curved against hers, but then he was moving forward and she didn't care—

His chest and hips slotted against hers in one solid, perfect resonance and she broke the kiss as the back of her head hit the wall, her mouth open in a gasp...

And then he…stepped away.

The cold air washed over her as effectively as a bucket of water. Her head whipped up, gaping at him as he took another measured step back, breathing harshly. His mouth was still wet until he wiped it against he back of his hand, eyes intently still focused on hers.

"What," Sango started to say around a pant, almost raising an arm to reach for him before she caught herself.

"Punishment," he said, voice hoarse. But there was a resolution in his eyes that made any hope that he might come back die a quick death. "For making me wait."

"What? I—"

"You tell me," he continued as if she had said nothing at all, "when you are ready for more."

And then he walked away from her a second time.

Later that night, panting wide in the dark after having woken from another dream, she admitted to herself that the shame she felt at feeling this way for Inuyasha was not enough of an excuse anymore.

Her life was short. It was always going to be short. Making a choice meant she could choose what exactly she was giving up, and that was something until now she'd never had a choice in at all.

She had her duty. No one would ever take that from her. But maybe she could also have a bit more.

Even if, like everything else in her life, it would be as fleeting as a dream.

Day 56

She got the jump on him this time, cornering him against a tree during one of their night patrols, when the others had retired to their sleeping bags.

He was still holding back. She could tell in the way that he let her take the lead when they kissed, in the way he would let go of her neck or her waist to clench a fist into the fabric of her skirt. And she was grateful, because she didn't think she was ready for anything more and both of them knew it.

They traded stolen warm kisses under the cover of twilight, illuminated only by the tiniest sliver of moonlight in the night sky.

Day 58

The group had stayed the night before at an inn, sketching out plans on scraps of paper in the men's room and arguing over details until they had all nearly fallen dead on their feet and Sango had had to carry a sleeping Kagome on her back to their futons next door.

Therefore, it came as a odd surprise to Sango when, instead of immediately heading out early in the morning, they lingered. And then at noon, when Sango was looking twitchily at the door, Miroku announced that they were staying at the inn another night.

Even Kagome looked surprised. In fact, it looked like the girl was frowning at him and Miroku was studiously ignoring her. Sango blinked, looking around to gauge the others expressions, only to realize that Inuyasha was not in the room. Shippou looked as baffled as she did.

Kagome had crossed her arms, her tone reproachful. "Is this okay?"

Miroku continued drinking his tea. "Everything has been taken care of."

If she hadn't been looking she would have missed the flash of hurt that crossed Kagome's face. But what replaced it was even more baffling. Resentment?

The girl stood up abruptly, lip trembling. "Well it must feel great making decisions without having to consult anyone else."

Miroku's eyes snapped open and his tea cup slamming on the table, making everyone jump. Clearly a nerve had been hit. But any annoyance on Miroku's face quickly died when he spied Kagome's face, eyes bright with unshed tears. His mouth fell open, immediately contrite.

"Kagome—" he began, but the girl whirled around and angrily stormed out of the room. With an alarmed squeak, Shippou jumped from the table and pelted after her, leaving Sango and Miroku alone in the room. Miroku himself was half out his seat, arm outstretched, before he paused, seeming to think better of it, then sank back down.

She thought maybe he would try to pretend nothing happened and return to his tea. And he did try valiantly, hand picking up his cup and bringing it half way to his face.

But then he got stuck, staring moodily into its depths, something close to a scowl on his face.

Sango, who up until this point had been utterly speechless, leaned forward and went to take the cup from him.

His eyes snapped to hers, defensive, but when she merely looked at him questioningly, he sighed and let her take the cup from him.

"What was that?" she said after a moment.

Miroku shifted, his gaze moving to the window.

She tried again. "Where is she going?"

The tiniest flash of bitterness, so small she could almost convince herself she imagined it. Then he said something that simply made no sense. "Running to Inuyasha, no doubt." He was glaring at his cup of tea now, across the table out of his reach.

Sango stared at him, feeling emotionally whiplashed. What? But the longer she watched him fidget under her gaze, the more she understood that she was seeing more shards of what she had barely glimpsed at, that one night when the monk got drunk. The messy, convoluted tangle that was the relationship between her companions.

She saw Miroku sigh harshly, then put his head in his hands. And she thought, the burden of leading the people you care for, with no guarantee that you were making the right choices, was always a heavy and thankless one.

She let him have a moment, before reaching out again to touch his hand gently. When he finally looked up, blinking rapidly at her, she held out a freshly poured cup of tea. Surprised, he took it, and she leaned back.

"Let me take care of them right now," she said gently, patting his hand. "It doesn't have to be your responsibility all the time."

She had the painful experience of watching her words reach him in slow motion. She saw the exact moment his face broke, just a little bit, before he bowed his head to hide it. She squeezed his hand, holding it, until she felt him turn his hand over and give a slight squeeze back. She smiled sadly, let go.

Then she got up and let him have his peace.

Just as Miroku had predicted, Kagome had gone running to Inuyasha. But from the way he had said it, Sango half expected to find them in some sort of comforting exchange, the hanyou being soft with the girl.

Instead, she walked right into a screaming match.

Inuyasha was on the ground, struggling to lift his head against some unseen force so he could shout curses at Kagome. The rosary beads around his neck glowed with the tell tale light of subjugation. Kagome was standing over him, her face red and blotchy from tears, blubbering through something that was part incomprehensible because she was crying so hard.

If that sight alone wasn't enough to make Sango's heart drop to her stomach, she found Shippou sitting in the middle of the hall way and curled into a ball, his hands over his ears, trembling and whispering.

When Sango knelt beside him, putting a hand on her back, he flinched slightly, then continued to mutter to himself over and over. Make it stop, make it stop. Sango's heart clenched. She picked him up, letting him curl his trembling, fragile body into her shoulder, and then furiously marched over to the arguing pair.

"I don't fucking need your help," Inuyasha was snarling. The subjugation was wearing off. He had hulled himself to his knees and was glaring balefully at Kagome. Even from where Sango was standing, she saw the girl flinch.

"I'm—" Kagome was saying, trying to speak over the hiccup in her voice. "I'm just trying to—t-to understand—"

Sneering, Inuyasha opened his mouth to say something that would surely cut Kagome to the bone. Quickly, Sango stepped between them. "Enough," she shouted, the warning a sharp sound that caused the birds in nearby trees to take flight.

They both flinched at the sound, at the suddenness of her presence. She looked between the two of them, angry, as Shippou quietly whimpered into her shoulder. At the small sound, Inuyasha looked at the kit, then quickly closed his mouth, looking away.

Kagome was staring at her, gasping in short quick breaths, her expression some twisted mix of abject misery and horror. The sight calmed Sango's anger somewhat. It was obvious the girl was on the losing end of the argument. Sango turned her back on the hanyou for a moment.

"Kagome," she said calmly, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder, "You need to breathe. Deep, slow breathes." She demonstrated and Kagome tried to follow her example, stuttering through it. She nodded. "Good. That's good. Keep doing that, okay?"

Then she turned to Inuyasha, who had finally stood and was staring stonily at the ground. At her movement, he looked up, defiance flashing in his eyes.

She stared at him coolly, then "Are you okay?"

He blinked at her, completely thrown by her question, but when she merely waited, he gave a hesitant nod.

By then, Kagome was breathing slower, only hiccuping occasionally. Sango took her by the arm with her free hand. "Lets go to your room," she said softly. Kagome nodded, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hand.

Sango leveled Inuyasha a frosty glare over the girls head. He stiffened, immediately defensive.

"You," she said. "I'll find you later. Don't go anywhere."

He opened his mouth in a sneer, but then she was turning Kagome away with her, Shippou still curled into her arm, and she didn't look back as she left him there.

Kagome, unsurprisingly, didn't want to talk about it. She was always been that way when it came to things about Inuyasha. Worse, the girl wouldn't look Sango in the eye and she felt without really needing to be told that on some level Kagome was both relieved and resentful that Sango was here. Both to bear witness to what had happened and also to pick up the pieces afterwards.

So she merely tucked Kagome and Shippou into a futon and sat on the edge of the mat until the girl's hitched breathing slowed, following the kitsune into sleep.

She stayed a little longer, stroking both of their heads, thinking about Kohaku.

Kohaku had used to have panic attacks, when he was younger. She'd wake in the night to find him curled tight in a dark corner, clutching his hair in his hands and unable to breathe. She'd learned how to coax him through breathing exercises by example, how to transfer his grip from hurting himself to her own hands. She'd learned that simply rocking with him and humming a little had provided him more comfort than trying to talk him down. He'd never needed to be told what he should do. He'd always tried, desperately, to calm himself down so that no one would wake up. So that he wouldn't bother anyone.

For a moment, the tears came, threatening to fall down her cheeks and Sango had to stop, put a hand to her face and will the longing away. The longing to not be here, but to be back in the Taijya village, sharpening her sword and patiently watching Kohaku as he practiced his forms.

It may as well have been another lifetime. In the meantime, she had the life she was given right now, the people in it who were suffering, and the means, however small, to do something about it.

When left the room, the afternoon had worn on into evening. She checked in briefly with Miroku, found him busying himself with maps, and they went over any slight changes they would need to make for having lost a day.

When she mentioned Kagome and Inuyasha's fight, he flinched guiltily, looking away. She had a feeling that it was usually him that broke up the fights, and also a feeling that maybe there were some fights he hadn't broken up at all. She mulled that thought over, noting how tired he looked as he began to pull out another scroll from a pack.

She left him to it—who was she to judge a man for chasing down a distraction?

She went searching for Inuyasha.

He was, surprisingly, still where she'd left him. He stood in the middle of the courtyard, arms crossed, staring down at a spot of upturned earth. The bed of flowers below his feet had been there had been flattened and partially uprooted. It was likely, Sango thought, the spot where Kagome's subjugation had dragged him down. She looked up with a sense of dread and winced at the swinging of a broken tree branch above them, hanging by a thin strip of bark and looking perilously close to falling at any moment.

So he'd been in the tree, then, probably refusing to come down and speak with her. Even for a hanyou, that fall had to have hurt. Now that she was looking, she could see faint mottled shadows on his chest and lower face and purple evenly spaced bruises forming on his neck, where the subjugation beads must have dragged him to the ground. She had never seen such bruising before from subjugation, perhaps given that he always healed so quickly. She frowned, wondering why then she could see them now.

His ears flicked back at her at her approach but he didn't actually turn to her as she stopped a couple feet from him. The was going to set soon, already going partially behind the building. The light cut his body in to stark halves, leaving his lower half in darkness. His silver hair glowed gold.

She couldn't tell his mood. And now that she was here, she wasn't sure what she wanted to say to him. It was easier in a way to sympathize with the others. Miroku and Kagome were complex in recognizable, human ways, and Shippou more than anything was just a child.

With Inuyasha, it was different.

He was complicated. Torn between identifies that diametrically opposed each other and unable to really trust either side. She had no idea what that was like, being rejected in every direction, not belonging anywhere or with anyone. She didn't know how to help him. None of them did. And he seemed to not really want any of them to try.

"Do you think you could, ah—" she stared, pausing when he turned his head slightly to look at her. The gold of his eyes against the his sunset washed hair made her swallow a moment, before she pointed up. At the tree branch. "—get that down? It might hurt someone."

He didn't respond for a moment, long enough that she thought he was going to ignore her. But then he looked away, crouched in a fluid motion and jumped up effortlessly fifteen feet into the air.

It wasn't fair, she thought, awed despite herself, as she watched him easily grab the branch and then tug with jerk, the wood snapping with a loud crack like a twig at the base where branch met trunk. He dropped quickly to face her, so close that she took a half step back as he landed and the whoosh of his descent made her long unbound hair blow back.

He looked down at her as second, gaze unreadable, the branch still in his hand. Then, with a casual strength that made her mouth fall open, he took the branch which was thicker than her hand, and bent it with a a shriek of wood into half and quarter pieces, which he then dropped unceremoniously on the ground.

She gaped at him, then looked down at one of the branches and picked it up. She couldn't fit her hand around the entirety of it. She hefted it. Sure, she could snap this in half with her knee, maybe. But not bend it like blade of grass.

When she looked back up, it was to see him walking away from her.

She dropped the branch in surprise, hand outstretched "Hey—"

He paused, turning again to look at her with his profile. He met her eyes for half a beat, and then raising an eyebrow, resumed walking in the direction he was going.

He wasn't exactly inviting her long. But he wasn't exactly telling her to go away?

Confused, Sango trailed after him.

She followed him out of the inn yard, out of the village perimeter. Soon, they left the road and were heading up a steadily steeping incline. He set a hard pace, but never seemed to leave her sight entirely, even when she found herself taking detours over climbs the he seemed to effortlessly clear with a few jumps. She might have been grateful if it didn't further rub in her face how unfair it all was, the effortlessness with which youkai did everything.

When she cleared a hill only to find she had lost sight of him and wondered if he'd dragged her out onto this rock in the middle of nowhere only to abandon her, she spied a cave coming out of a cliff edge. She made her way over to it, still panting at the exertion of the climb, and hesitated at the cave entrance.

She catalogued briefly all the youkai that she knew loved to live in caves, the steeled herself, shaking her head. She highly doubted he would be going into a cave infested with youkai at this time of night. She took a moment to look out at the view, oranges and pinks painting the trees and rivers below. The sun was now almost entirely sinking beyond the horizon.

She went inside.

It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust in the dark. And then she jumped back, a hand flying to her chest.

Inuyasha was standing right in front her, hardly a hands length between them. He stood just outside of the last few rays cast from the light of the sunset.

She hadn't sensed him at all. His presence seemed oddly muted somehow, and she couldn't put her finger on exactly why. She scowled, then turned, blinking around at the cave here.

"So what's this place?" she asked.

"Nothing." He said shortly. "No where." He turned to look at the cave entrance, then back into the darkness. "A place to hide, I guess." He shrugged.

She contemplated that, wondering if he was baiting her, then decided to take it. "Hide from what?"

In that moment, the light chose to fade, blinking out over the horizon like a put out candle flame.

It happened.

It started at the crown at his head, so subtle that she almost thought it had to be a trick of the light— except there wasn't any. If looked like the shadows peeled of the ceiling and began to drip heavy, inky droplets directly onto him, flattening his hair as it traced fine rivulets down his head that spread and spread until his hair was entirely coated in black.

But it didn't stop there. A shadow cast itself over his skin, skating down his face and arms, the pale glow that she hadn't even realized had been there in the first place fading into ruddy tan, faintly translucent. The ring of bruises on his neck from the subjugation beads became a black, ugly collar, the bruises on his cheek and jaw deepening to a mottled purple. Her eyes traced his muscled arms to his blunt fingered hands, noticing for the first time that they were covered here and there with thin, green veins.

She stared, uncomprehending, then with a start looked into his eyes and gasped.

Gone was the gold and amber, the slitted pupils. His irises were a dark black, almost violet in their hue, and his pupils were circular, like hers. Her eyes skimmed to the top of his head. His hair hadn't flattened. His ears were gone.

Her eyes returned to his, startled. "You are…" she started, then stopped, humbled. Human.

They stared at each other. Inuyasha, who had waited patiently under her wide-eyed scrutiny, now looked as if he was waiting for something. Waiting for her to respond. But she didn't know what to say. Her father had mentioned something like this to her before, maybe. Something about cycles, about—

Sango turned and raced out of the cave. She craned her neck up at the sky already dotted with a sea of stars, searching for one specific light. She didn't find it.

There was no moon. Or rather, it was a new moon.

She heard the dark shadow of him moving to stand at the lip of the cave. When she turned to him, eyes wide, he scoffed and finally answered her earlier question.

"Everyone," he said. Then he turned his back on her, disappearing into the caves depths.