AN: I don't have a long, rambling introduction for you guys today. I wanted to write something sad, and I guess it showed.
Edit: okay so apparently there were some issues uploading/viewing the chapter - here goes another try.
Pain. Pain so terrible it made everything leading up to it a blessing, a brief but welcoming oasis she fell into every time the furious agony forced her vision to fail her and her conscious to whimper and groan until oblivion seemed like a welcomed embrace. She focused on this, on her past, on the people and the faces and the anything but this that she could tune her attention to. Because if she could remember them, everyone she cared for and placed her hope onto, then she wouldn't recede into the hopelessness he clearly wanted for her.
It was the only thing she could hang onto. White knuckled and eyes wide open, lax grip and passed out, facing red eyes and red blood and it was only ever hers –– whatever the situation demanded, she thought back to her heart, and she held, she held, she held.
––––– – – –
Day One
"Oi. C'mere and help me out, will ya?"
The boy tore his eyes away from the well house, lingering only a moment more before running back to where the detective was unloading decorations. "Sure thing."
Aki matsuri was exactly two weeks away, and since Kagome had originally planned to finish all of the prep work before she left for her trip, returning just before the festival began, it fell to them to set out everything as the young priestess had wanted it –– close to perfection, or at least as close as they were willing to get. Yusuke handed off a few of the paper lanterns to the kid. "You know how insistent your sister is. She'll want this set up before she gets back."
"I don't know why she left it all 'til the last minute. She's always doin' stuff like that, then we have to pick up the slack."
"Oh yeah?"
He grinned, although the motion barely reached his eyes. "Mhmm. Like, she loses her temper all of the time when things gets rushed together, but she's always busy so it ends up that way no matter what."
Yusuke laughed. "Sounds kinda like a recipe for disaster."
Souta readjusted his grip, nodding. "Yeah. You should have seen her when Inuyasha destroyed the stuff for Hanami last year, all because Sis kept piling boxes at the end of the stairs and he happened to fall into them."
"Scary huh?"
Souta smiled. "I'd always thought of him as the strongest guy ever, and he was freaking out when she got angry."
"That's because Kagome is one strong chick." Yusuke opined, his eyes upon the wooden doors. "He was right to be afraid of her."
"Yeah?"
Souta's voice wobbled near the end, and Yusuke dropped his own box of odd ends to kneel down in front of the teenager. He grinned softly. "Absolutely."
"Inuyasha looked worried."
Yusuke hadn't met the hanyou often enough to know how out of place his panic yesterday was, but it had certainly set Kagome's family on edge. "Look," he insisted, staring steadily up into brown eyes "your sister has her own legend written after her and her comrades. She's tough."
"But she told me that that might not even be true." Souta said, turning his eyes down to the leaf strewn ground. Autumn had come early this year.
Well damn…"Maybe those exact events won't happen, but even my boss agrees that your sister's powers are the stuff of legends."
This little tidbit seemed to straighten out Souta's shoulders, and Yusuke decided there was a time to be worried, and there was a time to keep busy. He stood up again, patting the boy firmly on the back.
"Now c'mon. Since we both agree Kagome can be irrationally scary, let's try to avoid her anger. There's no way I'm listening to one of her lectures after she's already made me do this much damn work."
––––– – – –
"You can't keep this up."
He said nothing, but she was getting well enough attuned to his moods that she saw the uplift of his lip and the slight narrowing of his eyes. If it wasn't so unbearably awful, these little lessons into his psyche would be downright pivotal.
Of course, it wouldn't matter how good she became at reading him, not if she didn't make it out of here alive.
"I may have underestimated your…commitment. But I assure you, if we are comparing whose endurance will fade first, let's remember who exactly the puny human being is with the limited power."
Her answering laugh was swallowed by a scream. She bit down on her lip, hard, drawing blood if only to resist giving him the pleasure of her pain. "Puny human with limited power, huh?" She rasped, lifting her head up slowly. It was difficult to see from underneath the blood on her upper brow. "I'll keep that in mind, hanyou."
Her only response was another biting sting to the face, and the dark surge through her chest as he attempted once more to claw his way into her heart. She tried, futilely, not to think of Inuyasha, of using his lineage as a weapon, and to convince herself that the pain she felt was once more only physical.
It was pointless, anyhow, because he was gripping her hair again and pulling back her head and clawing down the side of her face and dripping poison in the hollows of her cheek and she could think no more.
––––– – – –
Day Three
Silence lingered a bit longer, when allowed to take over, and the team made it their new mission not to leave the Higurashi family alone.
"What was it you wanted from the store again?" Botan asked, breaking the current period of quiet. At the moment it was just her at the house as the others had all left for school. Somewhere on the shrine grounds lurked Hiei, who was patrolling for one unknown reason or another. Botan blamed his antisocial tendencies, but apparently that was an unsatisfactory accusation to bring the little hybrid into the house.
Besides, he had barely known the girl.
Mrs. Higurashi refolded the wash cloth, her eyes trained on the living room window. "Hmm?"
Botan sighed nervously. "Er…from the store m'am. We're going to go shopping."
"Oh," she said, smiling gently at the grim reaper as she finally gave her full attention "you don't need to do the shopping dear. We have plenty of food here."
"Oh please, I insist! We've added a few extra bodies now, and there's no way you should have to pay for that. Besides," Botan added conspiratorially "it's all on Prince Koenma's tab."
She laughed softly. "Well that is very kind of him."
Nothing was said on the matter of dinner, and Botan let it drop, even though earlier the two of them had been fervent over the multitude of groceries that needed to be picked up if they were to accommodate for everyone. There were enough things on the family's plate right now, surely she and Keiko could figure out supper plans. Botan was picking the other woman up from school and then a few others would be joining them later in the evening.
She stared at Mrs. Higurashi for a moment more. The woman had alternated between chores and forgetting herself for long periods of time, to stare at certain areas of the house –– the window, always the window.
"I'm sure she'll be back soon." Botan assured.
Mrs. Higurashi smiled again, although it barely passed through her eyes. "I know dear." She said. "She left her bag here."
––––– – – –
"They're not coming for you."
She didn't snarl –– didn't have the energy anymore –– but did her best to give him a sullen glare. The wound on her shoulder was still healing, but everything was still healing, and he had nothing. He knew nothing about them.
"They would've been here by now." He continued, drawing lazy circles on her ribcage, his claws cutting lines across her stomach. "You know I'm a hard man to find, but surely not an impossible one, given the right motivation."
She shivered as his fingers drifted further upwards, but kept still. He was looking at her carefully, cautious after the first several attempts to burrow into her chest had resulted in a purification blast that had him recuperating for hours after.
It had, unfortunately, also taken most of the strength from her.
"Clearly," he drawled, skipping her breast out of apparent trepidation and moving up to curl his grip around her neck "you are not enough of an…incentive."
He tightened his hold until her breath came out in short, painful gasps. Still, she didn't fight. Not yet. It wouldn't kill her.
Not yet.
––––– – – –
Day Seven
"It can't be a battle."
"Not one that has lasted this long." He agreed.
"And she wouldn't have left for her usual travels, not without supplies."
A sigh. "No. Perhaps they had no other choice but to give chase?"
Yusuke frowned. "Maybe. But for a week? What sort of chase lasts for a whole week?"
Kurama leaned back into the tree. "The kind that involves someone like Naraku."
"True. And it isn't like they don't have their own supplies over there."
"Precisely. It is too early to worry."
Keiko, who had been curled into Yusuke's side, allowed to indulge in the rare show of affection, shook her head. "I think the family would disagree."
They were currently resting under the Goshinboku, alone in the compound. Mrs. Higurashi had taken Souta to go shopping for some essential soccer gear, and the trio had volunteered to wait at the house. Just in case.
"Well," Kurama asserted "it is too early for us to worry."
"Because we know better?" Yusuke asked, his face stuck in a scowl.
Kurama, who had been privileged to interrogate, to inquire, and to have his curiosity curtailed, understood that it wasn't as simple as knowing better. He stared up into the sky, wondering if it was anything like the one she currently looked at.
"Because we know she would not want us to. She has always insisted that the protection around her was unnecessary." He said.
Yusuke nodded. "Yeah, true that. She was pretty annoyed with the hovering."
"She has done just fine without our help thus far."
"And besides," Keiko interjected "doesn't she have that jewel with her? I thought that meant she couldn't die." She had been filled in on the basics, a condition that made her relationship a possibility.
Yusuke frowned again and Kurama agreed. "Perhaps. But there are certainly things out there worse than death."
The statement was left on its own for a moment, allowed to permeate and persist until the two men agreed –– there were things worse out there. Things that, despite her lengthy history and rather concerning adventures, Kagome had yet to have reason to fear.
Things that they feared.
Yusuke shook his head, shook the images away because gods, not Kagome. "No. She's strong. And she has Inuyasha with her. He's protected her so far."
The dog demon's face came to mind, tense and anxious and serious, and Yusuke scowled, hiding his face in Keiko's neck.
She had to be alright.
––––– – – –
A slash to her thigh had her panting in a half-strangled sob. Another to her chest, to cover the litter of wounds that had yet to heal, had her outright screaming. He used this momentum to bury a hand in her stomach, snarling profanities in her ear. He knew now that the injuries would stitch over, with time, was relying on mental warfare to fight his corruption, and she tried so hard to acknowledge that this desperation meant she hadn't lost yet.
She wouldn't cry. She refused to cry.
His poison filled the room around them, rushed down her throat to coat her lungs and lick acid upon her vocal folds. She tried to shout, to snarl, to do anything but submit, but no sound came out.
The miasma stung her eyes, but she held down her tears.
He pushed vision into her head, a man sneering at her, his silver hair flying behind him as he leapt away from her. A small boy, little fox feet kicking and jutting out at her as he growled insults at her –– human bitch, wench, whore, powerless, worthless ––
She sobbed, but the motion was dry and stuck to her mouth and she would not cry.
––––– – – –
Day Eleven
"I never thought about it, not really."
Kuwabara curled more tightly around Buyo, his gaze firmly on the floor. It was a little past midnight currently, which meant that Mrs. Higurashi and Souta were upstairs and deeply asleep. Or, as was the more common case, fighting off panic and worry in some vain attempt to maintain hope.
"Thought about what Kazuma?" Botan asked, tucking her feet underneath her. She was sitting in one of the armchairs, her head resting on Keiko's shoulder, who sat straight-backed next to her. Yusuke was lounging on the floor next to them, and every so often Keiko's hand would drift through his hair, smoothing away as much anxiety as she could.
There were three days left.
"That she might not return. That she could get killed over there, or th'well could deactivate and we'd never even know what happened to her. I mean, I knew it could happen. But I just didn't…"
He trailed off, lifting his eyes to look around the room helplessly.
Kurama was the one who finally spoke. "You did not believe it would happen."
Yusuke, who had not said anything since dinner had ended, since the group had amalgamated into the living room as they did every night, because it was useless to have shifts when they all wanted to be here just in case, muttered, as if to himself. "The well still works."
Botan nodded, jostling Keiko's arm slightly as she refused to lift her head. "Righto. Koenma's monitoring it and it is as powerful and as ready to use as the first day Kagome travelled through it."
There were three days left, before she had planned to return home, and the hours had begun to stretch.
––––– – – –
He hadn't been down in a while, and although she had long lost track of time, she knew by the scar tissue on her arms that it was longer than normal. She could raise her head and feel her hands again and it wasn't like Naraku to allow her such luxuries.
She heard a shout then, and a rush of air and she stared determinedly at the entrance of the cell. Whatever new monstrosity he'd prepared for her, he had given her the energy to at least go down with a fight.
Just as she began to get her feet underneath her –– straining the bracelets still wrapped around her wrists –– a figure clad in red and silver bound into the room.
She sagged in sudden relief because of course he had found her, of course he had been trying to rescue her, it was foolish to have ever doubted him when he'd done nothing but show her time and time again that even if he was all rough words and abrasive attitude, he would find her ––
"Inuyasha." She breathed, smiling up at him. Everything she had been holding in and holding back came rushing forward, and her smile turned watery, her surprised gasp turned into a breathy sob.
He didn't say anything, didn't rush over to her, but still he was there, and he was holding his sword, all fearless bravado.
"I'm so glad to see you." She cried, straining against her chains. "I was beginning to worry…"
She trailed off then, because he still hadn't done anything other than stare at her. In fact he was – he was scowling.
"Feh." He growled, golden eyes narrowed in what she could only call disgust. "Figured you get yourself into even more shit. Couldn't fight yer way outta this mess could ya."
"Inuyasha?" She cringed at the sound of her voice, so pathetic, so weak, what could only be called a whimper. "Inuyasha, look, just get me out of these–"
"Fuck." He brandished his sword, and this time it was at her. "I'm sick of bailing you out of every fucking situation. You have got to be the most hapless human I've ever found –– just a worthless waste of space."
She curled into herself then, letting her body fall to her knees.
"Y'know," he continued, and she tried to tell herself that this was wrong "I only put up with you because you looked like Kikyo. Figured you'd amount to something, even if it was only a fucking shard detector. But you're useless at that too, ain't ya? Got the damn thing stuck."
He walked towards her then, leaning down to stare her straight in the eye, gripping the Tessaiga loosely. "She never would have done that. Kikyo was worth so much more than you will ever be."
She felt the tears roll down her cheeks, hot and heavy on the marks across her face. "Inuyasha." She cried, not sure what else she'd meant to say.
Even as he recoiled back, as if it was too much to be in the same space as her for too long, as if he loathed even that small amenity, even as she saw that his eyes were red and angry and not Inuyasha, she couldn't help the sob that rose through her.
"You will never be anything, wench." Naraku said, still holding the Tessaiga. "You are nothing."
––––– – – –
Day Seventeen
The hardest thing had been putting away the boxes.
They'd done it in the middle of the afternoon, when Mrs. Higurashi had been dragged out grocery shopping by Kieko and Yukina, and Souta was occupied with school. It was hard enough to have to face the holiday passing when they had only known her a little over half a year. When they had all had to deal with situations such as this before, of loved ones disappearing and of a senseless loss of hope.
Her family should not be faced with such an ugly reality.
Yusuke had been the most sullen, had stalked off to his apartment with Keiko at his side, refusing to discuss anything, absolutely nothing was wrong, there wasn't any point in talking about it. His abrupt disappearance was followed closely by Kurama, who had immersed himself so completely in his studies that no one had seen him for the next few days.
Kuwabara and Botan had stuck around the house, if only because Kagome's family was still waiting. Just because she had missed the date didn't mean anything had necessarily happened.
But it sure felt like it had.
Yusuke finally returned mid-afternoon, three days after she was supposed to have returned. Souta was at home, Souta was upstairs in his room and Mrs. Higurashi wasn't sure if she could reassure him.
Kurama, who had come back to their house if only out of habit now, nudged the detective up the stairs. "You spent the most time with him."
And so, Yusuke trudged up the stairs, trying on a few varieties of grim smiles. When he walked into Souta's bedroom the space was dark, the curtains pulled and encasing the area in complete blackness.
"You shouldn't skip school kiddo."
The boy ducked underneath his covers, and Yusuke had to thank his muddled heritage that he could make out even that little tidbit.
"I'm not. I'm sick."
"Feh, sure you are. As sick as I am."
It was quiet then, another one of those long pauses that said more than words ever could. Yusuke could smell a sort of salt in the air, sorrow and fright filling his senses.
"Yusuke." Souta said, unable to get out anything more.
He scowled, because it had only been seventeen days, seventeen days was nothing, and he was too angry to lose hope. He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge, placed a hand on the small bump he could make out underneath the blanket –– Yusuke was fairly sure it was a shoulder. "I know kid." He said. "I know."
Kagome would not have lost hope. He didn't know much more about her than her story and her kindness, but he knew that she would not have wallowed. She would not want them to either, because then that meant they had given up on her, and it had only been seventeen days.
"She's coming back Souta." He patted the maybe-shoulder again, his rough growl more soothing than he could've possibly imagined. "She's just a little late, but she'll come back."
He was dismayed to note that as much as he was trying to reassure the boy, he was consoling himself as well.
––––– – – –
A mirage of images began to assault her then –– Shippo, small claws biting into her, yelling at her that she could never amount to anything like a mother, was nothing, nothing compared to his real parents, Miroku shouting slurs about her purity, about her virtue, that she wasn't worth even the pick-up line, and Sango, gods Sango, her calm whisper the most painful, that everything was Kagome's fault, breaking the jewel and murdering her clan, murdering everyone's dreams and casting a dark shadow on the land.
And Inuyasha, night after night Inuyasha, calling her names, attacking her, claws on her skin in the worst way possible.
This night was the most deranged assault of all, as he walked in with Kikyo at his side, an illusion maybe, or a prop, wearing the face of her friend, of Inuyasha. She had already lost her grip on what was real and what wasn't, maybe this was Naraku or maybe it was Kikyo herself, a real vision or an implanted one. It hardly matter, when the two figures began to disrobe in front of her, began to writhe and moan and she was stuck, with little choice but to shut her eyes and attempt to ignore the noise.
She could only be grateful then that this last barrage on her hope, tenuous that it was, was ineffective. Because these weren't her only friends, weren't the only ones she loved, and those were worlds away, separated by time and ambiguity.
If this were real, surely they would be here as well?
Kagome laughed to herself, mirthlessly, and screwed her eyes shut tighter. Perhaps. Or perhaps worse was still to come.
––––– – – –
Day Twenty
"Can't we figure out a way to send someone through?"
"It's impossible."
"Why?"
"You know –– it'll mess with the time continuum."
"She's already messed with the time continuum! What more is there to damage?"
Always too much. "Kagome's fate is intertwined with the Feudal Era. Yours are not."
He'd been shooting down ideas all night, from the vague hope of sending help to the slightly solidified plan of somehow hailing Inuyasha back and at least finding out what had gone wrong. Either way, Koenma argued, they risked more than just the fate of one human girl, messing with time and fate, and even if that one girl happened to be Kagome, happened to be a legend he idolized, they simply couldn't.
It bothered him as much as any of the others, the only difference being that he had to hold rule and propriety much further up than they.
Kurama paced forward, his eyes narrowed. "How can you know that?"
"I am the future ruler of the Spirit World. These are the type of problems we deal with –– you know that you cannot follow her back."
Botan, always trying to be the voice of reason, placed a hand on his back. "Besides, without a shard or a connection to Kagome it would be near impossible to send someone."
"But we could find a way." Kurama argued, shrugging off the gentle touch and leaning over Koenma's desk. "That's what we do."
"No."
In an uncharacteristic show of agitation he slammed his open palms on the table and growled. "Aren't we supposed to protect her?"
Koenma sighed. "Here –– in our time. Kagome travels to a place without separation, a place that doesn't have a Spirit World yet. I can't access records of that time, I can't even figure out if she's passed on because her spirit would return to Kikyo. My hands aren't just tied, they're gone."
"So we do nothing?"
"We wait."
Kurama pivoted and returned to his spot next to the other detectives, his hands clenching uselessly at his sides. It pained Koenma to know the sting his refusal caused, but short of creating their own rip in time, there was nothing to be done.
He liked Kagome. He did, and it was clear he wasn't the only one of the rag tag team who had formed an attachment to her. But she wasn't worth the chance of their worlds falling apart –– she was too important to interfere with, her fate was too strong to risk a change.
She had still so much to accomplish. This couldn't be the end.
––––– – – –
She'd come to learn that any gap in time meant a new horror was on its way –– any time she began to think that she'd finally hurt him somehow, that he'd given up because even if all she could do was resist at least she was still fighting, something ever worse came along and shoved her hopes down with such an overactive push that it took her a few days to recoup.
She didn't trust the silence.
Naraku had realized that even though it was seemingly impossible to kill her, to take the very thing that lent her longevity out of her chest, it was very easy to hurt her –– the pain was too great to move her body when she felt the figure enter the room, but the voice that spoke gave her cause to push through.
"My, my, aren't you a sorry little thing."
She curled the groan back down her throat and tipped her head back, lifting an eyebrow at the sight of the wind witch before her.
"Don't worry." she said, although Kagome had made no move to show that she had. "I'm not here on orders."
Hah. As if.
"Jus' for pleas're then?" Kagome slurred, tilting her head slightly.
Kagura laughed, hiding her smile behind her fan. It wasn't necessary, Kagome could hear just fine, could tell that there had been no humour in the sound.
"Y'like seein' me like this?" She continued, and although she tried to snarl it was weak. Her vision was quickly fading and she knew that trying to break past the pain had been a mistake. "'cause at leas' I'm still fightin'."
With a swift click she shut her fan, the scowl on her face now clearly visible despite the haze settling onto Kagome's eyes.
"Ungrateful wench." She sighed then, tucking the fan back into her sleeves. Kagome followed the motion only to have her head loll to the side, the world spinning on its axis.
And even as the next wave of sharp torment blackened the corners of her sight, even as the subsequent slow blink found her world slipped away, she still heard the whispered promise, the cold touch of morbid fingers on her wrists a soothing release.
––––– – – –
Day Twenty-Six
They'd spent the better part of the morning rifling through old files and far too dusty tomes, on the questionable hope that the old legends would have something new to say about what happened to Kagome; would hold some key to her whereabouts, perhaps comment on the anticipation before the fall, before Naraku's demise.
Yet they couldn't even pinpoint when his demise had been.
Kurama had read through these all already, quickly scouring as much information as he could after his first unforgettable meeting with the priestess. They still remarked upon the same critical facts –– that she was part of a fantastical group who had defeated the greatest evil to plague the land, that she protected the jewel, that she was immensely and unprecedently powerful. There was nothing about the fact that she housed the jewel in her body from the moment of her birth, or that it lent her questionable immortality. There was nothing about her fight or her loss, just the group and the jewel and Naraku.
Kurama found it a massive oversight and a huge slight to the woman who had supposedly saved the realms, that they had not catalogued her travels more thoroughly.
–– he wished he had asked her more.
What they did find however, after another waning afternoon spent together with Kuwabara and the history of the Feudal Era, was the various dangers of the time. How demons ran wild, how there were still lords and ladies of old who held land and power and who killed off scores of humans without ever considering the consequences. Several massive legends converged on the era, the descent of the moon goddess, the rise and fall of one of the greatest demon lords since the Western Clans, the band of seven. None of this helped calm the ire that had sparked ever since he'd heard of her untimely departure, and Kurama could only be grateful that Yusuke had decided to stay with her family rather than route through 'old-demon textbooks'.
The rational majority or his thoughts pointed out that Kagome was powerful, if not untrained, and that she was all but guarded by the jewel that had slept in her since childhood. She had friends, very strong and determined ones, who fought by her side and who protected her. The fact that Inuyasha had not returned to her family was something of a good thing. There was a multitude of reasons for her delayed trip home, none of which assumed her death or her pain.
The more panic-prone portion, the mind that rooted in his humanity and the emotions that accompanied it, couldn't help but recall that Naraku had been the monster under the bed for monsters under the bed.
He couldn't help but think that if she came back –– and it hurt him that he could not have the determination to say when –– the first thing she was doing was seeing Genkai and finding a way to communicate back home, five hundred years be damned.
––––– – – –
The wind was soft on her face, a gentle breeze, and was not what woke her.
"––gome. Kagome, please, open your eyes."
She felt her stomach drop as whoever was holding continued running. Perhaps it was a small blessing that Naraku neglected to feed her, for there was nothing to come up when her gut constricted and fought against her.
She groaned against the arms around her, burying her face thoughtlessly into the familiar smell. The grip tightened.
"You're gonna be okay. You hafta to be okay."
She didn't want to open her eyes, because that meant fully giving into consciousness and that meant that Naraku would reveal his newest attempt to twist her reality. And that meant that this would end.
Whoever held her was gentle, cradling her body into their chest with each jarring landing and smoothing a hand over her shoulder. It was a lie, it had to be a lie, but she felt weaker than ever and she didn't want to wake from this one.
If this was a dream, than all that was left for her beyond it were nightmares.
––––– – – –
Day Thirty
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit shit ––
The well.
He yelled over his shoulder, hollered at where he thought Kirara was still following close behind him, a wordless shout that indicated everything he could not, not over the panic swallowing his body whole.
She was breathing, and as long as she was breathing she had a chance ––
He tucked her body more tightly against his as he leapt over to where the rickety wooden passage lay, buried her head in his neck as he jumped down and left the skies of his home behind him, let the blissful, safe, familiar blue overtake them. He wasn't sure if the rest of the group was waiting for him, he wasn't sure of anything other than her far too still body in his arms and the wounds that still bled and of finally finding her only to maybe lose her and…and…
The blue receded and he was left at the bottom of the well.
It occurred to him, in some far off recess where rational thought still lay, that he couldn't let her family see her like this, but she had doctors here, medicine far beyond whatever Kaede could do, but Kagome would never forgive him if he let, gods, if he let Souta see her.
Her blood was coating his arms, she was bleeding and that was not okay.
With a graceless bound out of the well-house he used his feet, rubbed raw from days spent relentlessly searching for a sign, any sign, to kick open the door, only to meet wide brown eyes and a familiar scent.
Help. They can help.
He held onto her harder then, making sure not to actually harm her as his grip on her tightened further. "You." He whispered, and he was almost amazed that he had a voice at all. "You. She needs one of those medicine guys––"
Yusuke seemed to find himself just as Inuyasha took a step forward, and then he was rushing forward to see her face, rushing and then running back, away from Inuyasha and into the house, yelling something about calling in a portal and Spirit World and Inuyasha didn't give a flying fuck as long as help was on its way somehow, because Kagome was for all the world dying in his arms and he had sworn to protect her, had promised her mother and her brother and then he'd lost her and ––
The detective was sprinting back out now, the blue-haired woman by his side, and then they were trying to pull her from him and that wouldn't do at all, he wasn't letting her leave him for even a second, and he snarled and backed away, and ––
–– and then he was being pushed through a portal, the foreign sensation oddly comforting, and he held onto her wavering heartbeat with firm absolution.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.