A/N: Please take the M rating seriously.
Chapter 16: Day 85
He didn't know how to deal with her. That much was made abundantly clear by their strained interactions over the next days. Sometimes he made his normal snide comments, sometimes he snapped at her, but mostly he just retreated into moody silence. Frankly, he had a right to, so she took it as best she could.
The next few days were quiet but uneventful. The nights were worse. She slept restlessly, waking or being woken by Kirara every few hours before she could fall into a fit of nightmares. On the third day, after multiple attempts to sleep, Sango stared up at the still pitch black sky and decided she should try something different.
She didn't go far. It would have been cruel to leave Inuyasha without saying anything or leave the camp unwatched. But he was somewhere up in a tree and he hadn't bothered to tell her which one, so after whispering in the dark like an idiot to no response, she gave up.
She picked up Kirara and headed towards a cluster of rocks they'd passed the day before. It was just high enough to clear the tree tops and just wide enough for a person and a cat to stretch out under the stars, so after a small climb, she and Kirara perched themselves in a warm ball at the top and stared at the shadows of the swaying tree branches.
The stars were still bright, the moon a waning crescent, as thin as a blade's edge. She was shocked to see it—had it really been nearly a month since the last new moon? If Mina's account was accurate, she'd spent almost two of those weeks on the brink of death. That she'd recovered so much in so little time was a testament to the power of the jewel.
Her minor bruises were healing, turning yellow at the edges and aching, but not worse than a post-battle bruise. Her arm though…
She struggled a little to slip her left arm free from her taijya suit, feeling the cold breeze prickle her skin as she squinted at her arm, turning it this way and that. While it was a little annoying to wear the taijya suit to bed, it was always the easier option during travel if they weren't near a river or lake to bathe in. At least she was still wearing her breast band.
"What do you think?" Sango asked Kirara, proffering her arm for inspection. "Is it healed?"
A red angry scar bisected her upper arm where her broken bones had sliced through the skin, leaving raised welts. It formed a thorny red ring around her arm, almost enough for her to span her entire hand around.
"Another scar to add to my collection," she said softly. She had a strong sense of déjà vu.
The cat meowed, butting its head against her wrist. Sango smiled moving her hand to rub her behind her ears, feeling a warm spot glow in her chest when Kirara began to purr, tilting her head for her favorite angle.
Sango remembered the simple days. When it had been her and Kirara traveling the land, searching for rumors of a newly resurfaced shikon jewel only to discover it had shattered and there were hundreds of its shards scattered across the country. She'd been utterly overwhelmed at the thought of finding all the pieces.
Not anymore. Now she was concerned with not if, but when the jewel would be whole again. Even if Kagome was the only one in the entire world that could sense the shards, Naraku was somehow still collecting them faster.
Who would hold it in their hands at the end?
Could anyone be trusted to hold it at all?
The thought urged her to her feet, restless. Kirara cocked her head and watched her curiously as Sango hopped down a few of the rocks and then began to stretch, gritting her teeth against the violent protest of her muscles.
When dawn crested the horizon, Sango had sprinted, jumped and even walked on her hands between the line of trees several times. After the one free sleeve of her suit kept slapping her in the face while doing hand stands, she'd shucked out of both sleeves and wrapped them tight around her waist. She'd had to braid her hair the way her mother had taught her when she was a child and knot it behind her head. She'd spent several minutes cursing in the mud trying to remember how the pattern worked.
Kirara had grown bored and fallen asleep long ago. Exhausted, sated and bored herself, she tried to do some hand stand push-ups, which back fired spectacularly, but when had a little setback ever deterred her? Her father always said she was too stubborn.
She was in the middle of trying to balance on one arm, legs stretched and her other a hands-width off the ground, when Inuyasha finally decided to come find her.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Sango jumped, cursing. To her credit, she didn't break her neck. A quick bend of her knees and a push of her upper arms had her barely making it to her feet, but she couldn't stop her momentum, which carried her swiftly forward and right into Inuyasha.
He caught her easily by the shoulders, his hands a hot brand compared to the chill morning air. She gulped in a few breaths, swaying, still feeling a little light headed from the sudden rush of blood out of her head.
"Inuyasha," she groused, gripping his wrists for support and hanging her head between them so she could close her eyes. Her head pulsed. "You almost killed me."
Kirara yowled loudly from her position on the rock. His ears flicked down a little. "Sorry," he muttered to the cat. Sango snorted. Of course he would apologize to Kirara.
They separated after a minute, once her breathing had calmed. She blinked at him rapidly through the dim light. He was frowning at her in a bemused sort of way.
"What were you doing?" he asked.
"Exercising," she said, fighting down a sudden wash of embarrassment at her child play.
"What's with your suit?"
She paused, looking down at herself. With her taijya suit stripped down to her waist, she was standing in nothing but her breast band. Her neck flushed. "It was too hot."
Inuyasha grunted, eyes tracing up her form, lingering a little almost unconsciously and making her flush deepen. Then his eyes flicked to the crown of her head and did a double take. "What did you do to your hair?"
What was with the sudden accusation in his tone? "Too hot," she sighed. She reached up and untucked the ends, letting it coil down her neck in a thick braid. "Keeps it out of the way."
Inuyasha eyes were locked on the braid, something like dislike in his expression. She expected him to make some rude comment about her looks. She didn't expect him to step forward and take her hair in his hand. She froze, astonished, as he muttered darkly and gave the coil a tug, "Why would you—"
Her head jerked back a little, forcing her chin up. Wincing, she grabbed his wrist, "Hey, don't pull—"
"Sorry, I…"
His voice died, and then he made a surprised sound. She snapped her eyes to him to figure out what his problem was only to freeze at the odd expression on his face. He was staring at her neck. Only then did she become acutely aware of the bareness of her throat, the pulse point thudding there, her naked shoulders, the flush that burned her ears, and the way he could see it all.
She swallowed, feeling with hyper sensitivity the articulation of the movement and the way his eyes followed it. She felt his grip on her hair tighten ever so slightly.
She thought he would lean forward and kiss her. Perhaps right there, on that spot under her jaw. Set his pointed canines along her pulse point—her grip on his wrist loosened.
He let go. She blinked as he took a quick step back then turned his back to her, staring at the perimeter line.
"Sorry. You done?" he said flatly.
Sango stared at his back, feeling the fading warmth on her skin where his hands had touched. And then, swiftly behind it, a quiet resentment.
Done? If only it was as easy for her as it seemed to be for him.
An awkward moment passed where she could find nothing to say that wouldn't make her sound like an idiot, or worse, a fool. So she brushed past him in silence, walking back to the camp. Only after she made it ten feet did she hear him follow after her.
Day 88
It was several hours into a break when he was in the middle of building a fire and she was watching him drowsily from a nearby rock that she realized something.
"We're setting up camp already?" They'd followed the river for a while today, but had travelled a far cry from their usual distance.
He didn't even pause in dropping another load of wood on the ground beside her, his eyes flicking to her out of the corner of his eye the only indication he heard her. "We've made some progress."
Sango stared at him. If someone had told her she'd ever hear Inuyasha giving so generous a description to the amount they'd travelled today, she might have laughed. Certainly, Kagome would have.
To be honest, she needed it today. Her previous few nights of sleeplessness had left her bleary-eyed and clumsy. She'd gotten new bruises banging herself into branches and logs.
She dropped her back to the ground, kneeling beside it as she started to unload its contents. Then her movement trailed off. Her thoughts shifted to the tiniest sliver of moon she'd spied last night.
Sango looked up to find Inuyasha carrying another load of logs. She reached forward, snagging the tail of his sleeve when he moved to walk past her. He looked down at her, surprised.
"Is this really okay?" She said seriously. "We can find a better place to camp."
An uncomfortable look flashed across his face, then he frowned lightly and looked at the sky. He shrugged. "Doesn't really matter where. Here's as good as any."
She stared at him. "If you are sure." She waited.
He sneered then, tugging his sleeve from her grip. "I've slept outside thousands of times on this night. It's fine." Then he stalked off.
She stared at his back, unsure. He sounded normal, his usual amount of annoyance. Slowly she returned to unpacking her stuff.
When the camp was made and the sun was about to set, Sango made an excuse of scouting the perimeter to give him privacy. She found a tall tree to climb, its trunk knobby and pitted with the occasional burn scar, and she scaled it as high as she dared put her weight on, perching on a limb somewhere in the middle of the tree tops so she could see a fair distance around them. As expected, there was nothing to see, but she ran her hands over the scratchy bark and hummed to herself, staring up into the star strewn sky. Bright stars of red and yellow and white began to emerge from the gold and violet sky until eventually they glowed like jewels on a blanket of darkness studded with winking lights.
It really was a beautiful night.
She got caught up in the gentle night, the sweet breeze on her skin, the soft hum of the cicadas. It nearly lulled her to sleep, though she shifted into uncomfortable positions every few minutes to prevent it. If she died falling out of a tree, Inuyasha would laugh over her grave. Eventually, the night sounds were interrupted by the faintest of footfalls. They stopped at the base of the tree.
She looked down to see Inuyasha standing beneath her bough, looking up at her. His hair was so dark that he almost blended into the shadows. She couldn't see the color of his eyes from this distance. She frowned a little, squinting.
"Are you going to come down?" He groused.
She smiled a little, scooting off the branch and began to climb a few branches down until she was on a branch nearly level with him. She scooted sideways down the branch till she was right above him and looked down.
"I see why you like hanging in trees so much," she said.
Now that she was so low, she could see him roll his eyes at her. "Done playing around?"
She contemplated him, then leaned back, falling. She heard him curse and take a hasty step toward her even as she swung back and then flipped, landing on her feet with a flourish on the leafy floor. Her heart pounded giddily in her chest.
"Like this?" She said, smiling impishly up at him.
He glared at her.
"Are you crazy? Do you want to break your neck?" He snapped.
She sighed. "Sorry," she said. "You're right, that was a little foolish." Her smile said otherwise.
He snorted, turning back to the camp. "You humans are crazy."
"So says the person who regularly sleeps in trees," she shot back, following him.
"When I'm a hanyou," he said. "A little fall isn't going to kill me, like it would you."
It was her turn to roll her eyes. "If I was always concerned about being a 'fragile' human, I wouldn't be a Taijya, you know."
She expected him to scoff or blow her off. Instead, there was pause, his gaze hard on her. Then, he turned away, saying nothing.
They returned in awkward silence to the camp. Kirara bounded up to them at their approach, leaping to her hip, then to her shoulder with the slightest hint of claw. Th cat youkai was definitely on the mend now. Sango absently scratched Kirara's fur as she watched Inuyasha sit down relatively close to her pack and stare moodily into the fire. After a moment's hesitation, she sat down too—not exactly next to him, but he had sat next to her stuff. When he didn't so much as acknowledge her, she relaxed a little, burrowing her noise into Kirara's purring body.
They didn't speak. Watching the crackling of the fire, she thought about their destination, about Miroku, Kagome and Shippou. She thought about where they should go next, or about Kirara's recovery, or the village.
She tried very, very hard not think about the events of the last new moon or the fact that Inuyasha was sitting an arm's reach away from her after days of little eye contact. Silhouetted by fire light, he was still a beautiful human, damn him. Thankfully, he couldn't hear her heartbeat, though perhaps it didn't matter. His expression didn't flicker once as he stared at the crackling embers of the fire.
She bit her lip. Their banter earlier had made her realize she missed it, gods help her. She had a sudden desire to reach out and touch him, shake him, get some response other than cool detachment. But she tamped that impulse down, digging her nails into her palms, and then it passed, leaving her a little colder than before.
Eventually, her exhaustion drained her of thought all together and she dozed, swaying in and out of consciousness, only jerking up right when sleep started to skim behind her eyelids. After the fifth time, she sighed, slipping the sleeping Kirara into a warm pile on her pack, and moving to stand up. Maybe a few pushups would stir the blood in her.
"You should sleep," Inuyasha spoke up, annoyed.
She paused, looking at him, but he hadn't moved. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"You sleep," she grumbled.
He blew out a frustrated breath and abruptly laid down on his side, his back to her. She stared at his profile over the flickering of the flames, and then begrudgingly settled back down. The impulse to get up was gone. She returned a vacant stare to the fire.
She lost track of time for a while, drifting in and out of the borders of phantom nightmares, until with a jerk she woke herself, heart pounding.
When she looked up, the fire was almost out. Her breath misted a little as she shivered, rubbing her hands on her arms to warm them. The stars were glinting in full force now, mixing with the glow of the embers to trace the faintest outline of light against Inuyasha's back.
He was right there, close enough to reach out.
The desire flared up again, but slightly different from before. She didn't just want his attention. She wanted his touch. He'd been the only one to touch her in so long, platonic or otherwise, that it made her physically ache for it.
She stared at his back for a long time, arguing with herself silently.
Eventually, she gave in. She checked on Kirara, still nestled in a happy ball where she'd put her, then as silently as she could she crept over to where Inuyasha lay. She stopped an arm's length away, almost afraid to breath, but he didn't stir, just normal, peaceful breathing.
She almost turned away right there, embarrassed. Instead, she awkwardly laid down next to him, a gap still between them, and then reached out and gently touched the back of his shirt.
The fire rat fur was warm under her fingers as always.
"Are you awake?" she whispered, almost afraid.
Nothing.
She squeezed her eyes shut, inching ever so slightly closer until the scent of him filled her lungs, until she could feel the heat of him radiating at her from even this distance. Almost instantly, she felt herself falling into a gentler doze. It wouldn't be for long, she reasoned. Just enough to sleep a little and then move away again before he woke.
And if she didn't, hopefully he wouldn't be mad. Hopefully he would forgive her this one weakness, this one time.
As she rapidly descended into sleep, there was the faintest sigh nearby. Warm movement against her fingertips, as the fire rat kimono shifted from under her loose grip, and then the warmth growing closer. A stirring of breath in her hair line, the drape of fabric over her shoulder. A soft grumble directed at her, probably unflattering.
But she was already asleep.
Day 89
She woke to darkness again. But this time, she was relaxed and warm. As she ascended into wakefulness, her senses filtered her information in lazy sensations. She was curled into a warm body, an arm draped over her back. There was a steady pulse under her hand, slow and comforting. All of these things were lovely until a few other things registered in her brain like a splash of cold water to her face and she froze, suddenly wide awake.
Inuyasha was a hanyou again. The faintest of dawn light glinted off his silver hair enough to almost hurt her eyes. He'd taken off his haori at some point in the night and somehow, she'd gotten a hold of it, bunched up beneath her back.
But that wasn't pressing right now. What was sending her into a spiral of panic was the fact that she was lying on her back with said hanyou on top of her, his beautiful hair in her mouth, his mouth on her neck, and something hard pressed against her hip.
Her pulse spiked and she had to force her breathing to be even, half afraid he would wake from the sound of it. That distance she had put between them last night was completely gone. At some point he had turned toward her and one of them—probably her—had scooted closer and she had—her face burned— wound her arms around his head and practically hugged him to her chest—
And he was waking up. She could tell. His ears were twitching ever so slightly now, and she could feel him mouthing a little at her skin, sending electricity right to the apex of her thighs, causing her to squeeze him tight enough that he made a sound and lifted a hand to her elbow in protest, nudging her jaw to the side as he started to lift his head.
And then he froze. She felt it. Awareness stole across his body, making him tense against her, the hard line of him a delicious pressure against her side and she bit her lip, mortified.
Silence descended where neither of them moved, dared breath. Then, Inuyasha said, voice gravelly from sleep, a warm heat against her neck, "Sango?"
She swallowed, mouth dry. "Yes?"
"Are you going to…let go?"
Did he want her to?
...did she want to?
She stared at the dark sky for a long moment, unsure of what to say. Then, slowly, she loosened her arms around him.
She felt his claws flex slightly on her skin. Then he was rising on his elbows, and she let her hands slide down his arms so that he was leaning over her.
What she saw made her heart stutter.
His eyes were still dark from sleep, variegated ambers and golds swallowed by pupils more dilated then she'd ever seen in his hanyou form, almost human-like. His remaining white shirt had shifted in the night, pulled down to expose the elegant sweep of collarbone and the strong cords of muscle in his chest. His hands bracketing either side of her were—she could almost still feel the warm imprint of them against her hip—so much larger than hers, even without the long curve of his claws. And there were these…tiny sun spots she had never noticed before near the corner of his down turned mouth.
Urge licked up inside her, a hot flame. She wanted to kiss those spots near that always frowning mouth. Wrap herself in those hands, lick a path from his collarbone to his pulse and make those, distant untouchable eyes burn for her.
She saw him breath deep, then jerk. His eyes flashed and for a moment, he seemed like he was going to devour her whole. Then a pained expression flashed across his face, his mouth flattening into a thin line.
He started to pull away.
Oh no. She fisted a hand abruptly in his shirt, cutting him off just as he started to lean back. Immediately his hand clamped down on her wrist, an iron brand, but she only tightened her grip on the fabric around his throat, feeling his growl reverberate right down the line of her body.
"Afraid of me now?" she said lowly.
His eyes flashed again, jaw clenching, but he said nothing.
"Fine," she said, letting him go so that only he was gripping her wrist tight between them. "I won't force you into anything. But just remember, this is your choice."
They glared at each other, at a stand still.
And then finally—finally—she saw his pupils suddenly contract to slits, revealing an unholy red star threading through his irises.
"Damn it, Sango," he hissed and then he was leaning down, his mouth sealing over hers.
It was a hard, heady, glorious kiss. There was nothing soft about the slick slide of his tongue in her mouth, the scrape of his canine against her bottom lip, the way he ground unconsciously down into her, and yet each sensation sent her spiraling higher and higher, her body responding in such a deep, visceral way it was almost frightening.
And yet it felt right.
Suddenly, he cursed into her mouth.
Before she could wrap her mind around it, he was vaulting into a stand and pulling her up with him, his thready red eyes looking at something over her shoulder.
"For the record," he said, his mouth a hard line as his eyes flicked back to hers. "I'm still pissed at you."
"What..Inuyasha—" but he was suddenly pulling her into the tree line. She only had enough time to glance behind her to see Kirara watching them with a lazy expression before the foliage cut her off.
She didn't have time to be mortified. One moment they were storming away at a fast clip from the fire, and then quite suddenly he was backing her up into a tree, his mouth demanding hers to open under his, and everything but surrendering to him flew from her mind.
His touch, almost a counterpoint to the hard press of his mouth on hers, was light. The pads of his fingers and the faint prick of his claws ghosted along her hips, then her arms, tracing the delicate bone of her elbows. The faint touch sent shivers up her skin, and she pulled from their kiss to gasp in air, feeling light headed. Undeterred, he turned his face into her neck, leaving a line of kisses down the column of her throat that had her clutching at him. She almost missed when he deftly unbuttoned the front of her suit and tugged the fabric open to bare her midriff down to her hip, cool air touching her skin.
The shock of the air pulled her right out of the moment and she inhaled sharply, almost flattening back into the tree. She felt him pause, a shuddering breath against her ear, and then he put an arm above her head to leverage himself back a bit, giving her room to breath and look up at him.
His face was entirely flushed, his eyes flickering between flashes of gold and threads of red. His expression, however, was patient. If she didn't feel the slightest tremor in him where their skin touched, she wouldn't have been able to tell he was restraining himself. After a moment her heart slowed down enough for her to stop pressing away from him, for her to relax a little more in his arms.
"Okay?" he said, and the deepness of his voice coiled warm in her gut. She nodded, and with the slightest of smirks that had her glaring, he brought his hand to the back of her head, sliding his fingers through her thick hair before fisting ever so slightly and drawing her mouth back to his.
He kissed her, tongue stroking hers lazily, until she was hazy and pliant and leaning into him as his hand resumed its course down her neck.
His fingers traced her collarbone, then hooked into the tightly wound cloth she used as a breast band.
"This fucking thing," he muttered into her mouth and tugged sharply on the fabric—and she heard the fabric creak. She made a noise and batted his hand away. It was tricky with the sleeves of her suit still on and the way his hands started to roam her waist and hips to distract her, but she managed to reach inside her suit and tug at the free end of the cloth that she kept tucked into the back. The fabric uncoiled and after a few unwindings it was loose enough that it slipped down, settling in a loose circle around her waist.
She felt Inuyasha's bright stare, his slow hiss of breath. Last time, there hadn't been much light to look. His sudden silence had her clearing her throat nervously. "I—"
Inuyasha hummed a little, cutting her off, and then she felt his thumb brushing against the underside of her left breast. She hissed between her teeth, feeling her flesh tighten a little at the touch, and then looked up to find him smirking. The sight raised her hackles immediately.
"What?" she said, eyes narrowed. His lips quirked crookedly in that way that made her heart pound, and then his thumb drifted up and she jerked a little as he pressed the rough callous of his thumb into the soft curve of her nipple, fire erupting under her skin and driving straight between her legs.
"Just remembering last time," he said, voice rough but unmistakably amused. She bared her teeth, opening her mouth to snap back at him, but then he interrupted her with a kiss to her ear, running a soothing line against her side that had her breath catch in her throat. Then his hands were running over her stomach, her back, touching everywhere else until she was tense again with anticipation, lips pressed into a thin line.
When she realized what he was doing, smiling against her neck, she grabbed his wrist where it brushed against her hip bone.
"Bastard," she whispered heatedly, and then he made a sound that was almost a laugh.
"You were just as impatient then," he muttered, and she would have hit him in the shoulder if he hadn't shaken off her grip, hands moving up in a warm lazy slide.
Her mouth opened soundlessly, a shudder working through her as finally his warm palms cupped her breasts. And then all she could do was grip his shoulders in a vice grip, squirming and feeling entirely exposed as he breathed into the junction of her jaw and rubbed her gently with his thumbs.
It was divine. Exquisite. And mortifying. Because soon enough she found herself practically pushing herself into his hands, her hips unconsciously bucking into him, and by then he wasn't smiling anymore just staring at her with this intensity that had her hiding her face in his neck.
"No," he said hoarsely, nudging her away. "Look at me." And she tried, she really tried, but it was too easy to just close her eyes with every exquisite brush of his thumb on her aching flesh.
"Fuck," he whispered. "You don't even know what you do to me."
She couldn't think straight enough to understand what he was saying and so she tried to draw back, only for him to make a sound, reaching for her. "Do…?" she breathed, then bit back a gasp as he jerked her into him by her hip, a knee sliding between hers, "I don't think…not there…"
"I know," he said suddenly, and she blinked at him. There was something so dark and unholy in his eyes that for a moment she wondered how he could have ever been human, even for a night. "Let me."
She hesitated. Then she leaned back fully, hands dropping away from him to clutch the tree bark behind her as he crowded into her. His mouth settled on the exposed part of her shoulder as his hands smoothed down her body, tracing the edges where her suit opened to bare skin with soft, teasing touches.
And then, finally, his hand stopped where the opening ended and the lower half of her suit stretched tight against her hip bones. She bit back a gasp as Inuyasha slid his hand beneath the fabric. Even careful as he was, the cool slide of his claws dragging on her skin made her shudder. Her heart skipped, and then started to pound, ratcheting higher and higher as he worked his hand excruciatingly slowly down into the gap of her suit.
And then he touched her between her legs.
She jerked uncontrollably, a long moan escaping her as the back of his knuckles brushed against her flesh. "Fuck," he said, and it came out almost as a groan. "You are so wet…"
Then, a frenetic struggle. Her pressing against his hand desperately, his wrist working an awkward angle. He drove her higher and higher and just when she thought she'd go mad, his mouth settled over her pulse point, his pointed teeth two bright points of threat, and it was every fucking dream she'd ever had.
She came instantly, legs shaking, his name a long drawn out moan. There was a prick of pain as his teeth reflexively nicked her skin before he pulled his mouth away, cursing and eyes flashing red, his fist hitting the wood above her head loudly as she rode out the aftermath.
When she finally came back into her skin, gasping, it took her longer than it should have to realize he was watching her with fascination. And even longer to realize that his breathing was even and deep.
"You didn't…" she trailed off, swallowing. "Should I…?"
He didn't say anything at first. Then he raised a hand, his thumb brushing against her neck, and coming away with the tiniest bead of blood. She watched as he slowly brought the thumb to his mouth and found herself shuddering slightly, touching her neck. He paused and though his eyes were no longer quite so wild, there was an unmistakably deep, almost predatory stillness to them that set her heart racing all over again.
"Next time," he said, then licked his thumb clean.
At dawn, she packed her bag in silence while Inuyasha waited for her at the periphery. Kirara didn't make so much as a sound, just gazed at Sango with quiet contemplation until she scooped her up onto her shoulder. Only then was there a gentle nuzzle against her ear, her paws kneading gently into her shoulder.
They travelled over rolling fields of gold and red, the wind tugging at her skirts and pulling leaves into magnificent swirls. The bite of the air was cold.
Then, finally, they topped a hill and she stopped, pushing her hair out of her face as it whipped forward and back. She felt Inuyasha pause beside her.
There, high against the mountain side and nestled between pockets of trees sat a small village surrounded by a wooden piked fence. A section of it had fallen over, leaving a gap that formed a natural opening. Even from this distance, she could see a lone plume of smoke winding a lazy column in the sky.
Kirara dropped from her shoulder to the ground. Then, in a yowl and a wreathe of flame, she transformed into her large form. Sango looked down, surprised, to find Kirara's familiar large red eyes looking at her for the first time in weeks.
The cat ducked under an arm and wedged her head there, purring. Sango gripped the fur around her neck tight, and then leaned down so she could wrap her arms around her neck.
She felt Inuyasha step closer and then stop, hesitating, even as she looked with wet stinging eyes back to the village. Her village.
She was home.
They made their way down the hill following the only path, which went through a small river and rose again in a steady climb back up to the village. Someone must have been on the lookout however, because no sooner had they reached the riverbank did Sango see three figures streak out from the gates and run down the sloped hillside, rushing toward them.
Shippou lead the pack, running on all fours. He was faster than she remembered; in a flash of green and brown, he leapt clear over the river and propelled himself at her, shouting her name.
Sango caught him midair, stumbling back a little against Kirara's frame. He was crying, great big tears dripping down his face, and her heart clenched. She pulled him to her chest, stroking his soft hair, murmuring, "It's okay, I'm here, I'm okay." Kirara meowed mournfully, and in a flash of smoke she was a small cat climbing onto Sango's arm and butting her head into Shippou's face. The kitsune reached out to touch the cat youkai too with his little hands.
Kagome came into view next. With a "Sango!", she plunged directly into the river without stopping, nearly falling head first into the water. Sango, still cradling Shippou and Kirara, rushed forward to meet her, the icy water splashing up to her knees as she waded closer.
She caught Kagome's outstretched hand and then one or both of them tugged each other forward and then Kagome just threw her arms around Sango's neck. That was too much even for Sango and so they all toppled over, Sango barely managing to keep all four of them from submerging under the water with her free arm as Kirara purred and Shippou bawled and Kagome began to sob into her shoulder.
"I'm so glad," the girl was saying, over and over again, and there was nothing Sango could do but press her forehead to Kagome's wet hair and apologize.
She held the three of them in the river, her own tears streaming down her face, and they would have probably all stayed there if Miroku and Inuyasha hadn't waded in after them.
"Thank the gods," Miroku said as he stopped, panting in front of them, and his expression was filled with both pain and relief as he leaned down to grip her shoulder with a slightly trembling grip. She placed her own hand on his and gripped tight, giving him a tremulous smile as she heard Inuyasha approach from behind. He stopped behind her, close enough that she could almost feel the warmth of him against her back.
"We should move them," he said quietly to Miroku, and the monk nodded.
When Miroku reached down though, hooking his other hand on Kagome's elbow, the girl violently shook her head. "Kagome, you need to let go for just a second," he said, but when she refused, there was a long suffering sigh from behind and then Inuyasha was kneeling down beside them in the river.
The hanyou wrapped his arms around the four of them, one hand on Kagome's back, the other on Shippou's tail, with Sango slotting snuggly against his chest. Her breath hitched a little as his cold nose touched the skin behind her ear, a contrast to the warmth of his breath on her neck, but the momentary awareness ended as Shippou started whining complaints at Inuyasha and Kagome reached up to grip the hanyou's forearm and give Sango a red-eyed, watery smile.
"I'm feeling left out here," Sango heard Miroku say amusedly from somewhere behind Kagome, and she squeezed the hand she still held and felt him squeeze her shoulder back. "Is there room for one more?"
"Don't you fucking dare," Inuyasha snapped immediately. "Help me, you idiot."
There was a moment of adjustment, Inuyasha shifting behind her to get his footing, Kagome clinging to her, Miroku turning his palm up to grip her hand and help leverage them up. She felt Inuyasha mutter complaints into her hair as the hanyou lifted their dead weight out of the water and on to their feet, heard Miroku's faint laugh.
She'd think about that moment again, later and many times after. A brief and innocuous moment in between too many goodbyes and too few reunions. Nothing had been resolved and yet somehow it was the closest she had ever come to feeling happy again.