Chapter Two

Naraku would have given anything for this moment. He would even have accepted mortality to have this very opportunity. Perhaps that was the most frustrating circumstance to the unexpected journey InuYasha and his companions had taken, heading south along the trail that would take them further from civilization. He had watched muc of their journey together through the Kanna's mirror, and he had grown certain that they were a willing company, and not merely a team driven by desire to reach yet another rumored jewel shard within the Hollow Wood.

It was all very intriguing. For Naraku, it would have been the perfect moment to strike… but he had other plans for InuYasha. It was lucky that he was a patient demon, so unlike that meddlesome half-breed. A grin spread slowly over his handsome face. "Kagura."

From the shadows, the slender figure of the wind sorceress appeared. Slowly, she lowered her head in a gesture of obedience. "Yes, Master?"

One eye narrowed ever so slightly as he gazed upon his reincarnation.

"I have a job for you."

She lifted her crimson gaze to his. "As you wish."

Auron's entire body twitched as the bucketful of ice-cold water splashed mercilessly against his naked flesh. Dark eyes shot open and instantly began scanning the area for signs of the perpetrator, only to find nothing but the darkness that surrounded him. He knew, though, he was not alone. Despite his poor eyesight he had a very acute sense of smell, and a familiar smell infuriated him. A low growl originated from deep in his throat and reverberated from the room and down the corridor.

"You," he hissed as recognition took hold.

"Auron." She gave a slight bow of her head. "Naraku has big plans for you."

Powerful arms rose and he set the palms of his hands against the cold, stone floor. With a grunt the beast lifted himself several inches. "I am not his puppet," Auron growled, sifting his dark eyes through the shadows to no avail.

"I'm afraid you have no say in the matter."

"Bitch!" Spittle flew from the beasts fangs as he lurched forward. Kagura smirked as the chain around Auron's neck went taut and yanked him back to the floor. With a flick of the wrist, she opened her fan and batted her long eyelashes at the monster.

"Patience, Auron. You must save your strength for the task at hand."

"I'll never serve that knave!"

Kagura sighed and pulled the pouch from her belt. "As I have already said, the choice isn't yours. You will serve, or die."

"I don't answer to threats, wench."

Kagura pulled the cork from the lip of the pouch, allowing the scent of the contents to saturate the air. Grimacing at the stench, she held fast as every muscle in Auron's bulky body stiffened. His jaws fell open and a wail of pain ripped the halls with terrifying savagery. Kagura's entire body ached at the deafening sound.

What had Naraku done to this poor bastard?

"It's about time!" Shippo announced as he eagerly accepted the bowl of Ramen from Kagome and hungrily began draining the broth into his gullet, barely coming up for air even as he started slurping up noodles. The others stood over him, sharing looks of surprise as the little fox demon ate. Though he had said how hungry he was earlier in the day, they had never expected this. "Thanks Kagome!" he said between chews. "This is really yummy!" He swallowed. "I'm starving!"

"Hey, don't eat so fast," InuYasha said. "You're gonna be sick."

"Am not!" Shippo took a moment to make a grab for a small stack of crackers.

Kagome slapped his little paw gently. "Shippo! He's right, you know. You're eating way too fast. Chew slowly and take smaller bites." He gave her a dirty look but ultimately surrendered with a quick nod. The girl smiled as he took her advise. "Besides, how can you expect to savor your dinner if it's gone before you realize it?"

As she turned to hand out two more bowls for InuYasha and Miroku, she saw that they had already helped themself, devouring the food without a second thought. She shook her head. Idiots. It's really no wonder why Shippo eats like a slob; these two are the two male influences in his life right now. She rose and headed over to Sango. "Are you sure you don't want any?"

The demon-slayer shook her head slowly, but she didn't say anything. Kagome smiled sadly and slipped Kirara a chunk of beef jerky and or herself took an apple from her pack and a few crackers. They watched her for a moment but said nothing as she snapped off a chunk of the fruit's sweet flesh with her teeth. Chewing thoughtfully, she turned her gaze to her demon hunter friend, who was still distracted following their grim discovery after the battle with the frog demon. Kagome wasn't so hungry anymore.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know the source of Sango's pain. Kagome hated seeing her friends suffer, but she didn't know exactly what to make of the situation. The demon-slayer's fingers skimmed lightly over the screen of the face-guard of a demon-slayer's mask, an exact duplicate of her own. Kagome reached out and touched her friend's hand, offering a sympathetic smile.

"I'm all right." She wasn't really, and the others knew it. She was thinking of her brother, now a mindless slave of Naraku. Kohaku had worn a similar mask, and finding this one worried her. In truth, it worried them all. It was just the type of game Naraku loved to play. He had done so before, sending Kohaku to kill Kagome, allowing him to retain his memories, however briefly, in order to turn him against them, and again when he faked his own death at their hands, just so that he could rid himself of the sinister Kaguya. All the more reason, of course, to make sure Naraku never hurt anyone again. A difficult task, but one they were determined to see through to the end.

Kagome ached for Sango. Kohaku seemed like a fine young man, though she'd never known the true Kohaku, the brother Sango held so dear. When she had met him, he'd lost his memory and been trapped in Naraku's web of lies. Poor Sango, Kagome thought. I've never lost a brother. Dad died before Sota was even born; I hardly remember him at all. Still, it wasn't all that long ago Sango lost her whole family…her people. I couldn't begin to imagine the pain she must be going through. She glanced to InuYasha, then Shippo, and finally Miroku, and realized that they had all suffered the indignities of a cruel world. InuYasha had lost his parents ages ago, and his half-brother was more of an enemy to him than anything else. Life couldn't possibly have been easy on him, a half-demon without someone to lean on. Miroku, as far as she knew, was also completely alone in the world, save Hachi, if not for his friends, and even little Shippo had lost his father to the evil tendencies of the thunder demon tribe. And what of Kirara? What life had the fire-cat experienced before becoming best friend and guardian of Sango? There really is so much I don't know about my friends, Kagome realized. Maybe it's time to get to know them before it's too late.

She got to her feet and strolled over to her bike, lifting her bow and quiver from the rack and slid it into place over her left shoulder. The others watched her with curiosity as she headed over to Sango's side and peered into the steadily growing darkness.

"Where ya goin' Kagome?" InuYasha demanded.

"Sango and I are going for a walk," she replied. She looked over to her friend and smiled. "Come on. We need to talk."

"Talk?" Sango asked hesitantly.

"Trust me, girl, we need to talk." Kagome smiled as she reached down for Sango's hand. The guys just sat there, waiting to see how the demon-slayer would respond. It was apparent she wanted time to be on her own, but Kagome knew from experience that it wasn't always the best thing to do to close in your emotions, especially when there were plenty of shoulders to lean on. "Come on, Sango. I don't bite."

The older girl smiled meekly. "Okay. I'm game." With Kagome's aid, she pushed herself to her feet and, after gathering her Hiraikotsu, they started away from camp. "Come, Kirara." The demon cat accepted the invitation eagerly, scurrying after the girls.

As Kagome expected, InuYasha's indignant voice followed after them. "Hey, you two don't go too far!"

"Don't worry about us," Kagome said, leaving the guys to watch after them as they disappeared into the forest under Kirara's watch. "We won't go far."

Besides, she was pretty sure they could take care of themselves.

"Answer me a question?"

Kagome glanced to her friend, a little surprised Sango had been the one to initiate the conversation. There was so much she had hoped to talk with her friend about, but she hadn't yet decided how to begin. She wanted desperately to talk from the beginning, to know what kind of childhood she had experienced, to understand what it was like growing up to be a warrior in an era she didn't even understand. What had her family been like? Who was the real Kohaku? How had she come to meet Kirara? There was so much to learn, and Kagome longed to understand. Afterwards, Kagome planned to share the intricacies of her life before coming to the feudal era.

"Anything," she said, cheerful and nervous at the same time.

"How do you do it?" Kagome blinked at somber tone of her friend's voice. She didn't understand the question at first, and waited for an elaboration. She didn't wait long. "You've been with InuYasha since you freed him from the sacred tree…"

Oh Sango, don't go there. Please, anything but that…

"There's a lot I don't understand. You really have no reason to be here. Of all of us, you are the one who has nothing to gain and everything to lose. You don't need the Shikon jewel, you don't have a cursed hand, and Naraku doesn't possess anything that belongs to you. I'm grateful that you want to be with us, and I can't see it any other way, but that doesn't mean I understand why."

Kagome smiled sympathetically. "But he does possess something that affects me personally. He holds the future of my friends in the palm of his hand, and that's all the reason I need."

They fell silent for a time, continuing their walk through the forest. Kagome was admittedly a little uncomfortable with the situation, but she felt like she could tell Sango anything. Sango was like a sister to her, and they cared deeply for one another's well-being. Seeing her friend in pain tortured her more than if the pain had been her own.

"It's not the same," Sango whispered after a time. She rested a hand on Kirara's nape and scratched the soft fur behind her ears. Kagome frowned. "It's difficult, I know. You barely spend any time at home with your family. But InuYasha, he makes it more difficult on you than I could imagine."

"No, he doesn't. I'm not here because he asked me. If it were up to him I'm sure I would have left you guys ages ago. I'm here because this is where I choose to be." She smiled to Sango. "I choose to be with my friends. You're my family too."

Sango cast her a sidelong glance. "You really see us that way?"

Kagome nodded. "Mm hmm. Absolutely."

More silence. Sango stared to the path ahead as she considered the exchange. The night air was cool against their cheeks, as a northerly wind drifted gently through the trees. It reminded Kagome winter was just a few short weeks away, and with it would come the long, cold nights. She dreaded winter in the feudal era, but InuYasha needed her here. She wanted to be here. It was all just a matter of consequence, and here, she could make a difference in so many lives. On the other side, in her own time, she could only improve herself. How could she ever be a better person if she turned away from the most important life she had ever known?

It occurred to Kagome that she viewed her experiences in the feudal era as an opportunity to mold herself into the person she longed to be. Back home, she knew her mother and Sota and Grandpa cared desperately for her, but she had never been happier then she was when she was here, at InuYasha's side. Here, she was important, not only to her friends but also in the grand scheme of existence. What would the world become if Naraku was allowed to collect all the jewel shards, seize power throughout Japan, and mold the world in his own terrifying image? It was her job to help her friends find the shards and see to it that Naraku didn't have that opportunity. In essence, she was, by choice, exactly what she didn't want to be: a shard detector.

The girls and Kirara strolled along a narrow path that ran through the forest, knowing that they were drifting further away from the camp with each step. Kirara seemed at ease, so girls weren't concerned about the dangers that could be lurking around any corner. The fire-cat would alert them long before any demon or bandit could even consider confronting them. However, they knew that it would soon be dark, as the sky had already dimmed to a lovely bluish-purple. High overhead, the first sign of a star appeared as a faint twinkling light, no larger to the naked eye than a grain of sand.

"We should head back," Kagome said. "The other's will be worried."

"Wait, Kagome…"

She beamed over at her friend. "Yeah?"

Sango watched her somberly for a long moment before taking a step forward, peering down into her friend's eyes. "You really mean what you said, don't you?"

"About what?"

"That we're family?"

Kagome blinked, and then nodded. "Of course I do. That's what I said, isn't it?" A loving smile crept across her features. There wasn't a need to say anything more. The demon-slayer stood limply before her as they stared into one another's eyes for several long moments, as nightfall arrived and cast them in deep, purple shadows.

"That means a lot to me," she whispered finally.

Kagome blushed as she found herself lost in Sango's tight embrace. Even before she heard the soft sob escaping her friend's throat, she could feel the trickle of tears against her neck. Poor girl. She's lost so much. She deserves so much better than this hell she's living. Slowly, Kagome allowed her arms to cradle Sango to her chest. They stood there for a long while before they finally decided to head back to the safety of the camp. As they walked back down the path toward the safety of their makeshift camp, Sango revealed the truth everyone already knew.

"I miss him."

Kohaku. Kagome sighed. "Yeah, I know." We're gonna to get him back, Sango, just wait and see. Together, we can accomplish anything.

A soft breeze tousled InuYasha's long, silver hair as he stared to the stars, lost in the shadows of doubt as he considered the events of the past four days. It had begun with a seemingly harmless journey, starting south of Kaede's village toward a forest where few dared to venture. But then, barely three days into their journey, InuYasha had caught wind of human blood. A lot of blood. Fearful of the loss of life, Kagome and Miroku had insisted on checking it out, despite InuYasha's insistence that they could do nothing for dead men.

When they discovered the scene—the remains of a royal convoy attacked in the middle of a journey, where a dozen guards had been torn to bits trying to protect whomever it was they were guarding—they were rudely greeted by forces of a Haranobu's legion. InuYasha had fought to defend, injuring six soldiers before Haranobu saw the girl he believed to be the priestess, Kikyo.

Again, a case of mistaken identity had saved InuYasha and his friends from anything more terrible than a rough skirmish. With Miroku's help, Kagome, though it took some rather insistent explaining on her part, managed to convince the young lord of a rather old, albeit small, land that she was not Kikyo. They had eventually accepted the truth, including the part that InuYasha had not been responsible for the brutal assault on his men. The fighting ceased with little more than a few cuts, scrapes, and bruises—though InuYasha would rather have torn every last one of them to shreds for their indignities toward himself and his friends. In the end, Miroku decided it was up to them to locate and rescue the young fiancée of Haranobu, and they had set off on their little detour despite InuYasha's protests. While most of Haranobu's men—hell, including the prince himself—had been weary of allowing the half-demon anywhere near the youthful peasant-turned-princess, Mino, it had been a pleasant surprise when it turned out that the girl herself did not fear him, and in fact blessed him up and down for her rescue after the death of her captor, the frog demon. In a single moment in time, InuYasha turned from a half-breed to a treasured hero in the eyes of Haranobu and his men.

"Feh." InuYasha turned his head slightly in disgust. People are such hypocrites, he thought. It had been so annoying that one single moment in time had caused so many people to change their opinions of him, especially when their initial impressions had been nothing but negative. And they wonder why I have to be so cautious about the world around me. Anything less is foolhardy.

Of course, they thought most of his actions were rash as it was. He was a man of reaction, and that could do a lot of damage in the world. But he had to be, because in such a dangerous world, trying to consider options was an act of hesitation, and a soldier who hesitates on the battlefield is a dead man. Quietly, InuYasha shifted into a more comfortable position, resting one hand on his belly and another on the hilt of his sword. His golden eyes traveled across the blanket of stars as he pondered, not for the first time in his life, exactly what they were. Kagome had tried to explain the stars as she tried to explain everything of the world she had come from, but she'd never made sense to him. He preferred the world just stay the same as he'd always viewed it.

As he rested, InuYasha caught sight of a dim stream of lights drifting slowly across the blanket of darkness. Blinking, he sat up for a better look. There were two or three long and thin objects passing by just to the north, high above the tree line. They were headed southwest. By the scent he knew precisely what he was seeing. The realization made his heart stop: Those are Kikyo's soul collectors…

"What the hell's she doing here?"

"Is that what I think it is?" Sango asked as she peered to the dim lights that appeared through a break in the trees, drifting toward the south. Kagome followed her line of sight only for the light to fade away before she could get a clear view. She frowned, glancing to her friend. "I could have sworn…soul collectors."

That was the last thing Kagome wanted to hear. "Soul collectors? You mean Kikyo?" Sango could see the worry on her friend's face, and although she didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, this was no time to sugarcoat theories. She nodded, causing Kagome to grimace and avert her eyes to the shadows. "What's she doing here?"

In her first life, Kagome had no doubt of the kind of person Kikyo had been. Strong, serious, determined, a mature and heralded priestess that would have given anything for her people. Kagome could see the same person, the same headstrong and devoted woman, in the heart of Lady Kaede, Kikyo's sister. The potential for both must have been great, to have become priestesses bound by obligation to important roles in the lives of so many people. Kikyo had been simply an amazing woman in Kagome's eyes, to have been bestowed the protection of the Shikon jewel.

And then Naraku. So much heartache had been forged upon the terrible demon's arrival, practically all of it placed squarely on the shoulders of two star-crossed lovers, bound by conflicting destinies to the jaws of hate and despair. Kagome knew little about Naraku's origins, but she did know that much of it involved a dying man, a bandit Kikyo had cared for on his deathbed.

Sango steadied her Hiraikotsu over her right shoulder. "I don't know what she's doing, but whatever it is, it's not here."

"What do you mean?"

"They're flying overhead. We can't tell for sure where she is, but they won't stray far from her. They didn't seem to be very interested in slowing down."

Kagome blinked. Of course, the demon hunter was right.

"You think InuYasha saw them?"

"Not a trace of doubt." Kagome averted her eyes. "He couldn't've missed them."

Sango sighed and rested a hand on her shoulder to comfort her friend. "Come. Let's not keep the other's waiting. We need to get some rest."

"There's a long road ahead of us," Kagome agreed.

"What are we going to do about…" Sango trailed off, gesturing to the sky, where the glow of Kikyo's soul collectors was no longer visible.

"I don't know, Sango." Admittedly, she didn't like the idea that they were headed in the same direction as the resurrected priestess, but at the same time, what Kikyo did—as well as what it led InuYasha to do—was none of her business. She was his companion, but no more. No matter what circumstances may lay on the table for InuYasha and Kikyo, Kagome simply didn't apply.

That didn't mean the thought of it all didn't break her heart.