"Please allow me to introduce myself – I'm a man of wealth and taste – I've been around for a long, long year -- Stole many a man's soul and faith."

Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil

Miroku paced back and forth in his room and cast an uneasy glance to his door. The shadows creeping under it shifted and he frowned hard. There were guards everywhere and despite his wish to speak with Sango he was afraid that his request for her to visit him in his room might possible put her in danger.

He was under no illusions that his taijiya wouldn't try to reach him, nor did he lack faith in her talents, but it was starting to appear an unnecessary risk. Miroku tried to stretch his aura out once again and like before he felt his power brush up against a barrier.

He cursed. Something was interfering with his powers and he had a pretty good idea what it was. Frowning, he paced to over to the edge of his futon and froze when he heard a scratching sound coming from the wall near him. Miroku whirled, grabbed his staff from where it rested on the wall, steadied and faced the sound.

A moment later an opening appeared, as if by magic, and a boy stumbled into the room, closely followed by Sango. He felt the adrenalin seep out of his tense muscles and he slowly relaxed his stance.

"Who's your friend?" Sango smiled and gestured to the boy.

"This is Michi. He's one of Toyotomi's servants." She made the same gesture towards Miroku.

"And this is Miroku. He's the friend I was telling you about." Miroku watched in amusement and the boy eyed him up and down critically. He snorted.

"Eh, he don't look like much. How's he gonna help?"

Sango couldn't help herself, she brought her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles, but she was unable to squash the mirth dancing in her cinnamon gaze. Miroku frowned but his expression slowly turned to a smirk and his indigo eyes promised repercussions later. Silently, he dropped on his knees so he was eye level with the boy.

Michi watched him with the same distrust he'd recently bestowed on Sango. Miroku didn't let his gaze waver from the boys as he drew out a sutra and held it up for the boy to see.

"Watch carefully boy."

Sango's giggles subsided and she watched the monk with a puzzled frown. Just what is he up to? She thought only to gasp along with Michi when Miroku made the flimsy paper stand up in is hand and disappear in a poof of flames.

"How'd you do that?" Michi asked and Sango had to admit she was just as interested in the answer as the boy. Miroku grinned and reached around behind Michi's ear. His eyes flinched, but he held his ground and the older man nodded in approval. With a twitch of his fingers Miroku pulled the vanished sutra out from behind the boy's head.

Sango gazed at him astonished, but his gaze never moved from Michi's.

"What say you know, boy? Do I meet with your approval?"

Michi grinned.

"You didn't tell me the houshi was magic." He accused. Sango narrowed her eyes on the pair.

"That's because I didn't know," she mumbled and the smirk that Miroku shot her had her hands convulsing. She had the irresistible urge to slap that expression off of his face.

Looking at him suspiciously he gazed back at her with supreme innocence. Whenever Miroku had the expression on his face she knew that he'd done something either lecherous or untrustworthy. She glared at him.

"Houshi…" she growled. He hastily cut her off.

"Tell me Michi, what can you tell us of your master?" The boy shuddered and Sango had to fight the urge to put his arms around him and pull him into a comforting hug.

"He's evil."

Miroku smiled indulgently.

"Yes, but evil how? Mortal, spirit, demon?"

The boy shrugged. "I wouldn't know about any of that. All I can tell you is what I've seen."

The monk nodded and the boy continued.

"I don't think he's human. 'Cause I've seen what happens to all the girls he ruts when he's done with them. I don't think anyone else here knows about it. I wouldn't either if I hadn't of found my sister," he choked up and swallowed hard, "with the others."

The older man frowned and anger started to smolder in his eyes.

"Explain." Michi bit his lips and looked at his hands.

"Lord Toyotomi is always taking servant girls and village girls and taking them to his bed. Most of the servants think he takes them for his harem, but I've found out differently. He's…done something too them. They appear to be with child but…I can't explain it…you would have to see for yourselves."

Miroku regarded the boy silently for a few moments, lost in thought.

"Can you take us to your sister?" He nodded and Miroku looked to Sango, who nodded as well.

He stood up and grabbed his staff.

"Let's go."

Looked like they were going to miss dinner.

Sango and Miroku followed Michi as he led them through a labyrinth of twisting passageways. They'd been walking for a good half an hour and Miroku was starting to fear that the boy was lost, but his fears were assuaged when they reached the end of a long dark tunnel and came out through the mouth of a cave. The moon was in its zenith and bathed everything around them in soft white light.

He regarded the glowing orb thoughtfully. In two days time the moon would be full. It would be the hunter's moon, the blood moon. He frowned. Toyotomi had demanded they arrive before the full moon and he'd implied it was because that was when the demon was most fearsome, but he knew that excuse was simply a lure to bring him and Sango here at an appointed time.

And yet he still had not discerned Toyotomi's game. It was frustrating. He had been sure that once they arrived at the palace he would understand what the Lord had been planning, but with the dissipation of the strange demonic aura and the Lord's clever illusion in the throne room he simply had more questions.

Perhaps seeing Michi's sister and the other young girls would provide him with the clue he needed. Quickly and quietly they followed the boy to a large wooden structure standing in the distance. Michi held his finger to his lips, gesturing for silence and crept around back.

Sango exchanged a look with Miroku and they carefully followed. Like three inconspicuous shadows they slipped into the structure and the moment they crossed the threshold both Sango and Miroku staggered.

Eyes wide, her gaze flew to his. "Do you feel that?"

He nodded grimly. "How could I not? It is almost overwhelming." And it was familiar, very, very familiar.

Sango voiced what he had been thinking. "It's the same as the aura that possessed the fox kit."

His lips thinned. "It's also the same as the aura we felt choking the villages we passed, which begs the question. Why were we unable to sense it with-in the walls of the palace?"

She shivered. "Something or someone with an immense amount of power was cloaking it."

He nodded grimly. At that moment Michi beckoned them forward, effectively cutting off their whispered conversation. When they entered the hall the choking demonic aura felt as if it was pressing and seeping into their skin. Sango shuddered and was grateful when Miroku took out a sutra, muttered a few words over it, folded it and tucked it so it was hidden in the waist band of her sash.

Immediately the aura dimmed to bearable and she felt the warmth of Miroku's spiritual power enfold her in a warm cocoon. It was almost as intimate as being held naked in his arms. A hint of pink tinted her cheeks.

"Thank you," she whispered softly. He smiled and shrugged.

"It's the least I can do. After all, it is so very rare that you need my protection that I enjoy being able to render aid when I can."

She frowned. She wasn't exactly sure how she should take that statement but, before she could ask Miroku's attention was drawn to the moans and pained gasps coming from the doorway beyond. With a grim expression on his face he stepped forward, following Michi, and Sango found herself bringing up the rear.

It took a moment for what she was seeing to be processed by her brain, but once it did the oppressive horror threatened to snap her sense of reality in two.

"Kami," she breathed. One glance at Miroku's hard and angry face confirmed that she wasn't the only one appalled by what they were seeing and sensing. It was...reprehensible and simply being in the room made her feel dirty and unclean.

There were thirteen young women in the room, most in their very early to mid-teens. Each was lying on a tatami mat and their bellies were swollen with child. The demonic aura engulfed and infused them like a rancid disease. Sango very much feared she was going to be sick.

"Gods Miroku…they're so young. He must have r…" She glanced at Michi and thought better of her statement. The boy, thankfully, had not been listening, but Miroku understood all to well what she'd been about to say.

His knuckles tightened around the hard wood of his staff and turned a ghostly shade of white.

Keeping his voice low so that Michi would not overhear him he muttered. "That's not the worst of it taijiya. These children…are not natural and if they are brought to term I fear that none of these young women will survive."

Sango stifled her gasp and felt rage burn in her gut. Toyotomi was a monster…pure and simple and as a warrior her blood cried out for penance. She could only think of one thing that would atone for this atrocity.

She was shaken from her rising bloodlust by the feel of a small hand on her wrist. Forcibly making herself focus she met Michi's eyes with a question in hers. He tugged on her wrist.

"Come. Mari is over here."

The girl they approached was like the others, young, pretty, and in an excruciating amount of pain. Mari blinked and turned accusing eyes on her brother.

"Michi…what have you done?" The boy looked mutinous.

"They say they can help, sister." She closed her eyes and looked away.

"You should have listened to me, Michi. You should have run when you had the chance. Now…it's too late."

"I told you…I won't leave you here. I won't!" She said nothing and to his embarrassment tears were streaming down his cheeks. He stiffened when Miroku put his uncursed hand on his shoulder, but he didn't shrug him off. Sango knelt down so that she was eye level with Mari and reached out to touch her, but the girl recoiled.

"No!" She screamed. Sango held both her hands up in a placating gesture.

"Okay…all right…it's all right," she murmured soothingly. The girl gradually calmed down.

"Y-You mustn't touch me, it will make him angry."

"Who? Lord Toyotomi?" She shook her head and Sango frowned in confusion.

The same puzzled expression could be found on Miroku's face. He removed his hand from Michi's shoulder and knelt down.

"If not Toyotomi then who Mari? Who are you afraid of?" The teenager bit her lower lip and turned towards them slowly. Her eyes were wide-eyed with fear.

"I-I don't know his name. H-He whispers to me in my dreams and tells me horrible things. He says the children growing in my belly belong to him. He says I belong to him. Please…I don't want him to find out…I don't want him to know…"

She suddenly gasped and her body started to tremble in terror.

"He's coming...it's too late…too late."

Miroku and Sango stood up and simultaneously readied their weapons just as the sound of multiple footsteps echoed from the hall beyond. A moment later a number of guards entered the room followed closely by their host.

He sneered at them when he saw them and instinctively Sango made sure the boy was hidden behind them.

"Well, well…aren't we clever. I wondered why you missed dinner and now I know. It seems that I no longer have any needed of the charade I perpetuated upon your arrival."

Sango and Miroku felt a burst of power crackle through the air and the illusion he'd been holding in place vanished. Where there had once been human guards there were now snarling demons. Miroku drove his hand into his robes and pulled out a sutra, intent on attempting to dispel some of the demons, but Toyotomi quickly grabbed the nearest young woman and promptly placed a blade at her throat.

"Now monk, that is not very nice. I'm afraid if you throw that little spell I will be forced to spill her blood all over this nice, clean floor. Your weapons please."

Sango tensed her fingers around her short sword and exchanged a look with Miroku. He was scowling.

"Do as he says," he conceded, gruffly. She wanted to argue, loath to give up her sword, but she could tell by the look in the Lord's eyes that he would have no qualms about backing up his threat. Grudgingly, she threw her sword to the floor. Miroku dropped his staff and the sutra he'd pulled out.

Toyotomi tightened his hold on the girl and she yelped when the knife dug a thin gash into her neck. Blood welled and she whimpered.

"Now houshi, you know better than that. All of them…now." Miroku glared hard at the man, dug in his robes, and threw the rest of his sutra's in the pile. All that is, but one.

Using the slight of hand he'd used to impress Michi earlier, he palmed the remaining gold leaf sutra and managed to tuck in the pocket of the boy's kimono.

Michi was oblivious.

Satisfied, Toyotomi waved his demon guards forward.

"Take them." The guards surged forward and promptly knocked the three unconscious.

Two of them dragged Miroku and Michi off in one direction while another threw Sango over his shoulder and headed in another.

Mari watched them take the strangers and her brother, her heart heavy and her last vestige of hope…gone.

Cool night air ruffled her gray hair while she sat on the bank of a vast, peaceful lake…waiting.

"I knew I'd find you here."

Lady Kaede's lips twitched into a brief, indulgent smile, but she didn't turn around.

"Seeing as how ye brought me here, I've no doubt that ye were expecting to find me, Lord Komoku."

The spirit lifted his shoulder in Gallic shrug and came to stand next to her on the bank. Kaede did not rise and continued to gaze out upon the tranquil waters.

"The monk and the taijiya have entered his palace. It will be over soon…one way or another."

Kaede folded her hands in her lap and frowned slightly.

"Is there nothing ye can do?"

He shook his head. "There are things that are not permitted. I can not interfere with their quest. This trial is for them and them alone."

She finally turned to look at him.

"Ye are troubled." It wasn't a question and he didn't deny, nor did he explain. She didn't press, knowing he wouldn't or simply couldn't tell her.

Komoku motioned for her to stand and she did so, much less painfully than she would have if she'd been in her arthritic and aged body.

"Hold out your hands." She did so and was surprised to feel them fill with smooth, heavy steel. She looked down and found her knuckles wrapped around Lord Komoku's lance.

"My Lord?" He placed his hand on her cheek and she closed her good eye briefly before opening it and regarding him silently.

"It is time for you to go to the slayer's village. You are needed. Take this, it will aid you."

She nodded solemnly and he retracted his hand and turned to leave, but before he vanished he added one last instruction.

"And Lady Kaede." She glanced up and regarded him steadily. "Bring the boy with you. He will be needed."

Lord Komoku disappeared into the mist and Lady Kaede awoke with the lance of the guardian of the South clutched firmly in her wrinkled hands.

A quiet 'meow' drew her attention and she tilted her head towards the sound. Kirara blinked up at her and cocked her head to the side, ears twitching. The old miko smiled and gently ruffled her ears. The nekomata purred contentedly.

"Go and wake Kohaku and Chie. We've a journey ahead of us."

The deceptively small demon meowed again and padded silently towards the sleeping figures at the far end of the hut. She softly batted Kohaku's cheek with the pad of her paw. The boy awoke instantly and his hand instinctively curled around his scythe until he realized where he was and relaxed. Kaede rose painfully to her feet.

"Come Kohaku, we've work to do. Ye need to pack yours and the little one's things." He frowned.

"Where are we going?"

She paused and regarded him sternly with her good eye.

"We're going to your village."