Chapter 13: Day 58
A few minutes later, she was feeling her way blindly back into the cave, hands stretched out to skim either wall, using her leg to feel out the floor. The going was slow and she knew she looked stupid. She was starting to wonder exactly how far he had wandered down the cave when she quiet literally hooked her foot onto his ankle. One of them, or the both of them, involuntarily jerked her from her feet.
Sango fell right on top of him. On her way down, her elbows banged hard on the wall, then his skull—she heard him curse, hands fumbling for her waist—and then she half pulled him down with her as she hit the ground flat on her back, splashing a puddle of dirty cave water into her hair and knocking the wind right out of her.
Over and over again, it seemed, they were going to repeat this odd dance of dragging each other to the ground.
They lay there for a second, her wheezing, him oddly silent.
There was not a lot of light, but by now her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see the outline of things if they were close enough. She blinked at the ceiling, then became aware of the warm puff at her neck and realized that she was gripping his head with both arms to her collarbone, forcing him to bend in half at the waist.
She let him go abruptly, huffing an apology. There was a moments delay before lifted his head up off her. A cold wet strand of hair touched her cheek. Then he was shaking his head like a wet dog, his hair flying everywhere, including into her mouth. She thought fearfully of the scummy cave water she was partly laying in.
"Quit that," she snapped, already reaching to push his hair away from his and her face, and he stopped. He was silent as she gathered his hair and then kind of shoved it behind his shoulders.
She didn't realize he was staring until she looked up and found black violet eyes hovering above her own. She froze, then made to sit up and he leaned back so that she could wrench herself up into a sitting position. She brushed back her own wet hair from her face, wondering if she should pull it back into a tail, carefully avoiding his eyes.
This had probably been one of the most awkward moments in her life. She couldn't think of a greater demonstration of her own klutziness.
"What are you doing?" Inuyasha asked point blank. He sounded more than a little annoyed. Her elbows still smarted a little from where it had met his skull.
She turned to look at him, then stared at the hands in her lap. What was she doing? Good question.
"After dropping this—" she waved at him vaguely "—on me, were you actually expecting me to just walk away?" she asked a little crossly. Then, before he could confirm or deny, she admitted, "I'm not sure I want to try navigating those cliffs back down in the dark."
Inuyasha grunted. She scratched her head, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
She was not stupid. Miroku, Kagome and him fighting on the night that he turned human? Unlikely coincidence. She wondered if Kagome knew that she knew now. Wondered what exactly they had all been fighting about.
"I assume," she said carefully, "that you don't want to talk about whatever happened with Kagome?"
She could practically feel his glare cut through the darkness. Sango raised her arms up in surrender, then sighed. Then scooted over to sit against the wall next to Inuyasha, curling her arms around her legs, ignoring the way he leaned away from her.
They sat in silence for a long time. Eventually, Sango buried her head against her knees, closing her eyes. Stray thoughts popped in her head.
"So why now?" she eventually mumbled in to her legs.
"Hmm?" Inuyasha hadn't moved at all, still staring resolutely at the wall.
She lifted her head up. "Why tell me about this now?"
He shifted. She saw his profile as he looked up at the ceiling. Then, "Seemed only fair. That you know what you're getting yourself into it."
She mulled on that, feeling oddly grateful, and then decided he was right in more ways then one. A few restrained kisses hadn't left much of a physical impression of him in her memory other than that—well, she liked his fangs. Flushing a little, she pushed herself to her knees, turning to him, and reaching out with a hand.
She felt his arm grip her wrist immediately in a hard hold, like he'd been watching her move in the dark.
"What are you doing?" he said tightly.
Sango frowned. This was not going to work if he was not going to cooperate. But then she had the thought that maybe it made him really uncomfortable, being around other people in his human form. That this was as new to him as it was to her. So instead, she said slowly, "Inuyasha. I'm not planning on hurting you."
He paused, as if contemplating her words, then let her hand slowly slide from his grip. Taking that as permission, she scooted closer on her knees, moving her body between his legs and then tentatively placing her hands on his knees. She felt rather then saw the way he tensed at the simple contact. Her lips turned down. This was so much harder in the dark, when she couldn't really see him well, and he couldn't see her.
Which meant she would have to ask. "Can I—" she swallowed, then continued. "Can I touch you?"
Silence. She wished she could see his face clearly, but there was nothing but darkness.
"I'm not a freak show on display," he said finally, warningly. There was deep uneasiness in his voice.
But it was not a no.
"I know," she told him solemnly. And then she lifted her hands off his legs and reached slowly forward towards his body.
Her fingers found his chest first, the fur of his fire rat haori soft beneath her finger tips. She traced the lines of his clothes up his body to more familiar territory, gripping his shoulders so she could pull herself closer still into the cage of his body. She felt one of his hands come up, finally, to meet her waist and steady her, and she sighed a little, grateful.
She let go of his shoulders, tracing his collarbone with her fingers, feeling the first shiver at her touch and smiling against the darkness. She hoped he couldn't see that.
She thought about the ring of bruises on his throat, careful not to touch them too much, though she couldn't be sure as he was so tense beneath her.
"You don't heal very well near this time, do you?" she asked quietly. She remembered a similar moment, a month ago, when she had noticed his injuries after the water god attack weren't healing as well as they should have been. She felt Inuyasha jump a little at her comment, then grunt, trying to pull away, but she kept her hands firmly in place on his neck, gazing up at him in the dark until he stopped.
She wondered if the others had realized this, if he had ever told anyone. Surely not. Or Kagome wouldn't have tried subjugating him today, so high in a tree. Sango's breath caught. The girl could have accidentally killed him.
The blistering rage she'd seen in Inuyasha's face as he yelled at Kagome now took on a whole new meaning.
She sighed a little, fingers rubbing the back of his neck. "You could have just said something. You always make things so difficult." For yourself, she didn't say but it went unspoken.
She could practically hear his sneer in the dark. "Why should I?"
The idea repulsed him. Sharing his weaknesses more then he already had.
She bit her lip. It wasn't her place to tell him what to do. And she could understand his feelings too, not wanting to give people more power to control you. So she nodded slowly, seeing the faintest flash of his surprise in the dark, and then she reached up, a thumb brushing against his pulse point, then lightly along the bone of his jaw.
She cupped his face with both hands as gently as she could.
She felt human ears at the tips of her fingers. At the small touch, she felt him flinch in her hold, the hand on her waist tight, and she pulled back immediately. "Sorry," she murmured. "I won't do that again."
After a moment, he muttered, almost embarrassed, "No. It's fine. Just not…used to them being there. Feels weird."
She nodded. But her fingers had moved on, ghosting up the planes of his face, tracing the ridge of his forehead, an eyebrow, the straight curve of his nose. The bruises on his face were warmer then the rest of him, so she avoided those, merely tracing the edges of them. One of her thumbs settled on his lips, feeling the warm puff of his breath against her skin, and she shivered slightly.
"What are you doing," he asked, his other hand coming up to lightly grab her wrist. He was not pulling her away. She continued to trace his features with her other hand.
"Memorizing you," she said honestly, and felt his intake of breath along her thumb. But she couldn't see his expression and after a long moment of silence, her confidence started to falter. Feeling oddly embarrassed, she let her hands drop to his chest, and shifted back, intending to scoot away from him and give him space.
He tugged at her wrist, stopping her. She paused, and then she felt his hands move along her body, one up her arm, the other up her back. He pressed her lightly to him in the space between her shoulder blades and after only a moments hesitation, she scooted closer and felt his legs close into a loose crosslegged position around her, blocking her exit. She bit her lip.
"What are you doing?" she asked, and then she thought she did see a flash of white against the darkness where his face was. A faint half smile. And then he moved his hands up to her face for his own inspection and she held her breath.
He traced her features with the calluses of his fingers, so faint that it was like a ghost touching her in the dark. She shivered, feeling incredibly vulnerable as he stroked a finger along her hair line, curling her hair around one of her ears, his knuckle rubbing on the underside of her chin. She tilted her head up. One of his thumbs found the pulse point on her neck, the other her mouth.
When he slipped his thumb into her mouth, scraping at the line of her teeth and sending sparks of heat down to her toes, she leaned forward on impulse, her teeth biting gently to the knuckle, her tongue curling on the pad of his thumb. His skin tasted earthy, a little salty, not at all unpleasant.
He hissed a little, the grip on the back of her neck tightening. After a moment she let go of his thumb with an audible pop, looking up at him, feeling him smear a wet, messy trail from the corner of her mouth down her chin. He groaned slightly, then both hands were cupping her jaw and he was guiding her to him.
The kiss was harder than any they'd shared, maybe because he was holding back less. He pulled her sharply towards him and she was crawling into his lap, bracing her hands on his arms as his hands splayed hard on the knife edges of her shoulder blades and she had never felt so consumed before, completely enveloped in the warmth of him, and she wanted more.
When they pulled apart to breathe, his hand was in her hair, holding her still as he leaned up to place a kiss on her ear. She shuddered fully against him.
"Can I touch you?" he asked then, voice gravel in her ear, and there was no disguising what he meant. They were long past innocent touches.
A precipice, a knife's edge. There was always some chasm she had to cross to get to him and he always made her choose.
She nodded mutely, and she felt the curve of his mouth against her hairline.
He touched her, just touched her, exploring her in the full darkness, and while they didn't go further than that, it was more than enough.
Day 59
The only reminder of the night before was a yellow, fading bruise like a bite mark on Inuyasha's shoulder, her robe with dirty water marks on the back and sleeves, and her own burning memories.
Sango left in the morning, shaking, knowing deep in her bones that something had changed again, spinning out of her control. She wondered with a sense of foreboding what exactly she had done.
Day 61
Life waits for no one.
She and Kirara were flying low in the trees when a human scream rent the air. They immediately turned in the direction. It wasn't long before they circled in the air, arrowing down towards the carnage of an in-progress assault on a trader caravan.
It was human raiders.
Bloody smears of corpses littered the road, but there were also several dozens of humans scrambling behind either of the two downed wagons. One wagon had its wheels lodged deep in a muddy ditch, its hull peppered with arrows. Another wagon, otherwise upright, was completely lit on fire, the horses still attached to its leads shrieking and bucking at the blaze. Tracks in the road suggested that the rest of the caravan had sped away, abandoning these two here to the mercy of the raiders. Of which there would be none.
When Sango rolled off Kirara's back and dropped down into the clearing, she could see the blanched face of a woman huddling behind the wagon in the ditch, clutching a young boy and girl to her chest. She looked to be trying to shield their faces from the battle. Sango's eyes locked briefly with the woman's—full of abject fear and horror and also resignation at what was to come—and the strap of Hiraikotsu creaked in her fist.
Sango turned burning eyes to the almost dozen bandits, watching grimly as one finished gutting a last caravan guard. He pulled the blade free with a gut wrenching jerk, watching the man convulse and the die in his grip, and then wiped his blade on the man's tunic sleeve before dropping him into the dirt.
There was no one left to fight, other than Sango.
Ten pairs of bandit eyes studied her, some dismissive, some wary. One man looked confusedly at Hiraikotsu, which she was holding at her side. More than she'd care to count looked hungry.
Then Kirara landed beside her with a powerful thud, an ear-splitting roar that thundered through the clearing.
The band splintered along the expected lines. Three bandits take one look at Kirara and began to flee, while the remaining, still high on blood lust, settled their hands on their weapons and stepped forward.
Sango gripped Hiraikotsu, her other hand going to the blade at her hip. She didn't like to use the bone boomerang against humans. It was a weapon crafted specifically to protect people, not to take their lives. And yet the look on that woman's face—
A trill of alien howls filled the sky, making everyone freeze. Sango's blood ran cold. On the heels of the sound came a shaking of the forest in the distance, and then suddenly four coyote demons were bursting onto the road.
They were not tall, but they didn't need to be—every point on their lean bodies was a polished weapon. Red spiked fur bristled in the sun, revealing blood red gleaming eyes, a mouthful of sharp, sharp black teeth, and clawed hands like a handful of swords.
Sango cursed her luck. She knew these types of demons. Scavengers of battlefields, the kind that came to slaughter what ever remained, winner and loser and victim alike. Even for the taijya, they were formidable. The bandits had let the carnage go on too long and the scent of blood must have carried for miles.
One demon landed near a retreating bandit and before anyone could blink, pounced on the man, its large mouth ripping a chunk out of his chest. The man's blood-curdling scream was cut off in an arc of blood and flesh.
No time to think. Sango grabbed the top strap of Hiraikotsu, dropped into a crouch, twisting, her back straining, and then with a half shout, propelled the boomerang in a wide path down the road.
Four bandits were immediately sheared down by her weapon, fountains of blood erupting as Hiraikotsu cut through them like butter. Her chest panged.
Unfortunately, the time it took to mow down half of the bandits was enough to lose the element of surprise against the demons. The two coyote demons in the weapon's path jumped nimbly aside, letting Hiraikotsu pass harmlessly between them as it arced up and away on its return trajectory. It would return to her in seven seconds. But she didn't have time to wait for it to come back.
One of the coyote's had turned its beady eyes on her. It moved—what she was seeing, she knew, was actually an afterimage burned in her retina from its burst of speed, but Sango didn't need to see it to know it was coming for her.
She dropped, unsheathing her sword in the same motion as she pulled a smoke bomb from her back. Her blade was not even at the apex of its swing before it hit first against nothing, then the creature's clawed hand as her sight caught up with it, metal sparking on black claws. Then another afterimage, its free arm swinging at her body.
A horrible rip and a searing arc rocked her side, tearing a cry from her mouth. But that was okay. Now that it was this close, image and afterimage blurred together. She already knew that when its head came into view, blood frothing on its nose, that the image she saw was the real thing.
She thrust her arm into its open jaws and triggered the bomb.
An explosion of black smoke burst from every orifice of the creature. It pulled back shrieking, eyes rolling white in the back of its head, its jaws convulsing—its teeth caught her a little before she could fully escape, white hot pain cutting across the exposed joints her armor couldn't protect—but then she wrenched her arm completely free. Using the resistance of her blade against its claws, she pushed back and reversed her swing, whirling in the other direction.
Her blade sliced the creature's head clean off.
The headless body swayed, the thunk of its skull reverberating at her feet, but she was already pushing off into a roll towards the ditch in the road. Just barely in time. Three claws glanced off her hairline, leaving white hot pain along her skin as she barely missed the swing of the second coyote, who had simply batted away the corpse of its brethren like a sack of flour.
Time slowed for a brief second. She was in mid-roll, still in the air, her head tucked forward and eyes darting back to meet the creatures from across the empty space between them. She knew with the painful clarity of someone who could do nothing that the creature had clear aim at her exposed back. An afterimage flashed before her—the creature's arm raised.
But then Hiraikotsu slammed into the creature, taking it from her sight. A spark of disbelief filled her, sheer joy—that had worked. But there was no time to think. She landed on her feet and then pushed off, unravelling the cord of a grappling hook at her belt mid-run, watching with careful calculation as Hiraikotsu carried the creature, howling, into a nearby tree.
She just had to get there there in time.
The creature sunk deep into the tree, blood spurting from where Hiraikotsu pinned it. At the same moment, Sango threw the end of her grappling hook forward and jumped feet first into a slide, reaching with her free hand. Her hand just barely wrapped around one of the free low hanging straps of Hiraikotsu as the coyote howled in pain, planted its hands on the heavy bone of the boomerang, and threw it away from him.
The push sent Sango flying into the air, but she was waiting for it. The grappling hook she had thrown, wrapped tight around a nearby tree, pulled taught and yanking her where it was secured at her belt. She jerked to a halt in the air, being pulled apart on two ends by the force of the creatures throw and her tether to the earth, the hot bloody mess at her side unravelling like a spool of thread and a raw scream ripping from her throat.
For a second she thought she heard another voice, Kagome, screaming her name.
But Sango's was as much a scream of defiance as a scream of pain. With a shriek of muscle, she pulled Hiraikotsu, using the tree roped by her grappling hook as a counter balance, and the weapon veered to the left and then around her, still carrying it deadly momentum.
It thunked straight into the demon head, cracking the skull upon like a ripe watermelon and embedding deep into the wood.
Sango dropped hard on her wounded side, stars exploding behind her eyes. She gasped, her vision swimming, writhing and twisting her body to the side. Over the high buzzing in her ears, she thought she could hear fighting, what sounded like the twang of a bow, the concussion of a small whirlwind. Something like relief filled her chest.
It was short-lived.
Suddenly, a hissing sound filled the air. It was as if the roots of the trees were slithering forward, ensnaring her, wrapping around her legs and arms and then curling around her neck to press her head hard to the ground. She struggled, feeling a root jerk her head even harder so her neck was exposed. She cursed herself for her moment of weakness. She was clumsy and foolish, and—she froze. A steady sound finally registered in her head. Footsteps.
They stopped behind her. Something white flashed from the corner of her eyes as the person crouched down.
A soft, low clap.
"That was glorious," said a familiar voice. "You never cease to amaze me, you know. To think that this is what human's are capable of." A touch, delicate, against her hair. The voice was almost proud. "There is almost no one quite like you."
Sango jerked in the grip of the roots, eyes wide, all the color draining from her face. No. No no no.
Cold fingers touched her neck. They were soft, uncallused. Exploring. They lingered on the scar on her check, then buried themselves deeply into the hair at the nape of her neck.
"And what is this?" he whispered, almost to himself. "Another scar? By whom?"
The hand in her hair clenched tight, pain sparking on her scalp, eliciting a sharp gasp from her. She struggled to turn her head, to look at him, but the root over her forehead ground her cheek deeper into the earth.
"You've chosen some interesting companions," he continued, musing. His grip lessened. He was petting her now, soothing the hurt. "It's almost flattering, to be the reason that you all found each other. Makes it most convenient to find all of you when I need you."
There was a faint laugh, so familiar it felt like a stab in her chest. He leaned down, a long black strand of hair falling into her vision, and whispered in her ear.
"The time your little ragtag group has together is coming to an end. Not yet. But soon. Until then, don't forget little fool."
You are mine.
He disappeared like the wind, the roots sinking into the earth. But the paralysis, even when she had the power to get up, lasted long after he was gone.
The others had found her and Kirara just in time. Time enough to stop the two remaining coyotes from picking apart most of the terrified caravaners.
But the bandits had been shredded to pieces. And the woman—
Sango, her side already bandaged and a blanket over her shoulders, had to turn away from the two children crying pitifully into the dress of the woman's corpse, prostrate in the dirt, it's two pieces put respectfully back together.
Sightless eyes gazing up at the sky haunted her for the rest of the night as the group travelled under cover of darkness, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the massacre site.
Day 62
She almost didn't tell them. Almost.
But it was Inuyasha who had found her, still lying on the ground after he had left. It was Inuyasha who had picked her up gently like she would break, who didn't ask her what had happened, even when she had told him with urgency that they needed to get as far away as possible.
Not because he didn't want to. She could see it, the way he ground his teeth every time their eyes met. He was always the first to look away.
And she was reminded, oddly, of that moment at the bath house, when he gave her a choice. And his words, in a dark cave. Seemed only fair. That you know what you're getting yourself into it.
He had a choice too.
"Naraku was there," she said quietly, in the middle of an awkward dinner. Someone dropped their rice bowl with a clatter and it careened across the table, spilling food everywhere. Immediately, both Miroku and Kagome scrambled to reach it before it fell off the table. It was Shippou who stopped it by jumping on it entirely, wobbling on the back of it as as the bowl settled upside down with a clatter.
Sango looked at the kitsune, blinking in bewilderment, and then found that all of them had turned to stare at her. Kagome, half stretched on the table. Miroku, half out of his seat. And Inuyasha, leapt up to a complete stand where he had been sitting against the wall.
Her voice failed her. She didn't know where to start.
Miroku cleared his throat, leaning back. "When?"
The direct question made her relax. Logistics were easy. She cleared her throat. "Right after I killed the second coyote. He snuck up behind me."
She briefly described to them the encounter, what he had said to her. Or most of it. She left out the beginning and the very last thing he had said.
Miroku had his chin on his hand, contemplating the ceiling. "So he knows we are together," he muttered, his eyes stealing over to look at the hanyou. "That he can find us so easily...this is troubling—"
He was cut off suddenly by Inuyasha, who as always cut straight to the thing Sango didn't say. "But why you?"
A ball of dread descended into the bit of her stomach. She looked up, caught Inuyasha's eyes on her, and then immediately looked away at the intensity of his gaze.
His voice was oddly calm. If she didn't know better it was almost…pleading."Why did he show himself to you?"
A moment of truth, then. If she could not trust them now, she could never. And neither could they trust her. She took a breath.
"When I first met him," she said slowly, not looking at any of them, "he was Kagewaki. Only Kagewaki. And we…" She paused and looked at her hands, feeling only misery. "…might have been something more than enemies."
Silence. Then there was a loud bang, the slam of a screen door. Sango flinched. When she looked up, eyes wide, it was to see Inuyasha's back as he left the room.
"He'll get over it," Kagome told her later, surprising Sango from her reverie. They were sitting on the porch outside the eating area, staring out into the garden. Shippou was busying himself inspecting the bugs on the leaves. Kagome was swinging her legs absently, watching the kitsune fondly.
Sango contemplated denying that she actually cared what Inuyasha thought of her.
But it would be a bald faced lie. She merely sighed, absently rubbing her aching arm, then her aching side. She was lucky that both cuts had been glancing blows. More scars to collect, she supposed.
"Will he?" she asked instead, hating how vulnerable it made her feel.
Kagome threw a curious glance at her but then shrugged. "He knows," she said simply. "Better than any of us. He knows exactly what it means to be tricked by Naraku's disguises. It happened to him too, in a way."
At Sango's questioning look, Kagome shrugged. "That's all I can really say. The rest is his to tell."
Sango had a fleeting sense of deja-vu. They'd had a similar conversation, what felt like ages ago, when they were washing clothes at the river. The day she'd learned Inuyasha had had a lover. At the time, Sango had only scoffed, unconvinced that that was possible. Now, she nodded slowly, looking down.
They sat in comfortable silence until eventually Sango started to doze off. She was startled awake when Kagome bumped shoulders with her. When Sango looked down, bleary eyed, to see the girl's impish smile, she felt a warm feeling in her chest and realized it was the first time that she was reminded of Kohaku without feeling a twinge of pain.
"You should go to bed," Kagome was saying. "The room is two halls from here—a right, then a left. First door on the right. I'll stay up with Shippou for a little while."
Sango made to sleepily protest, but when the girl merely shooed at her, she sighed and gave in. Blearily, she got to her feet, feeling exhaustion seated deep in her bones, and shuffled in the direction that Kagome pointed.
Not unexpectedly, she got lost. She wandered down several hall ways for awhile, so sleepy and complacent that she might have just continued shuffling down the halls all night, or maybe just leaned against a random wall and fallen asleep right there. But then reason pricked at her subconscious and she yawned, turning out of another series of halls towards the outside. She would walk the building perimeter til she found their room.
She was so tired that she almost didn't realize that there were people talking outside. But she did stop short when the voice she heard lecturing around the corner becoming distinctly recognizable as Miroku's voice. She blinked, turning her head. The lanterns that hung on the perimeter of the porch illuminated the outside walk way through the screen walls. She could see Miroku's figure, the tell-tale shape of his staff leaning against his chest. He was looking down at someone sitting on the edge of the porch, the shape of a katana protruding from a shoulder.
Sango froze. Three guesses to who that was.
"It's not her fault," Miroku was pointing out. Sango stiffened instantly, sleepiness evaporating from her. The monk continued, "We both know how Naraku is. She couldn't have known, anymore than we could have. This situation is not her fault."
A pause. Then, "I know." Inuyasha said lowly. She didn't know how to read his tone. "I didn't say it was her fault."
"Well, you're sure doing a good job of making her feel like it is."
A grunt of a response. Then, nothing.
Miroku sighed, a frustrated sound. "You are so difficult." But he didn't turn to walk away. Instead, he seemed to slump, the staff jingling softly. He leaned against the nearest building column, looking to the outside grounds.
The silence between the two men was not exactly companionable, but somehow intimate enough that Sango felt like a horrible intruder. She was about to take a careful step back in the direction she'd come when suddenly, Miroku spoke again.
"Be honest with me…what is actually bothering you?"
For a moment, Sango thought Inuyasha was not going to respond. But then, surprisingly, she saw his silhouette straighten from his position and turn to look at the monk. The faint shadow of his ears moved and for one, heart stopping moment, she thought one flicked in her direction.
"It's nothing. Just—" He barked an ugly laugh. "Just a reminder that there is literally nothing that bastard can't take away from—" he cut himself short, another harsh laugh.
Miroku didn't push him to elaborate.
But he didn't have to.
Sango was left reeling, struggling to breathe around the back of her hand pressed tight to her mouth. She backed away slowly, wide-eyed.
Maybe Inuyasha had been going to say someone.
Maybe he'd been going to say me.
Day 64
He had a choice, just like she did. And when he wouldn't look her in the eye at all the next two days, Sango felt the door on this part of her life shut with a sense of finality that made her close her eyes and almost wish she'd never agreed to it from the start.
It was over. And she accepted it, because it was only fair.
She could survive this, the loss of the still infant thing between them. It had been just under two weeks, impossible as that seemed, thesir stolen moments even less. They hadn't had long, but it had been sweet and she was still grateful.
So she ran away again, that very night, quietly packing her bag and slipping out the door with Kirara on her heels. Because that was what she was good at. Surviving.
Day 66
She got careless. One little slip up.
The demon with the lavender hair found her.