Their fire was small yet cast the heat and shadow of a funeral pyre.

"...we must seek out the bones. It's the only way to tell if she speaks the truth."

"Aye, Lady." Sango was uneasy as she picked at the roasted fish Kaede had prepared. "I have a feeling we already know what we'll find at the bottom of that well. But I won't leave you alone with him." She motioned to the white-haired demon, bound on the floor beside them. His presence made the hut feel so small.

She wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but Kaede's eyes were on her. So she ate.

Kaede chuckled as she pulled another fish from the coals. "Not much of a threat, ye made sure of that." It was true. Sango had tied the ropes as tightly as she could and had not-very-gently deposited him down on the hard wood floors of the elder priestess's hut. Judging by the color of his skin and the wisteria-based poison she had used to subdue him, Sango assumed it would probably be a while until he regained consciousness and tried to kill them again. She respected Kaede's request to keep him alive, even if she didn't agree.

"If Mistress Centipede took it somewhere, I could try to hunt her down. I can go to the well and look for tracks." Sango was no stranger to hunting demons.

Kaede raised a brow. "Ye alone?"

"Yes, Lady. I wouldn't have you trapsing across Japan with me looking for her."

Kaede nodded, chuckling. "Hm, while it may be true I'm not as spry as I once was...that wasn't what I was proposing."

The slayer followed her gaze to the half-demon with dried blood on his face and claws. On his furry ears that peeked out of his silky, white hair. Despite herself, she laughed.

Xx

'What better than a dog to aid you? To catch and follow the scent?'

A dog, eh? The only scent that filled his nose was his own blood, and...

Everything ached, but nothing came close to the pain in his head. The pressure ballooning in his skull was so intense it splashed color on the shapes around him that barely came into focus. Where the hell am I? He tried to remember the events that led him to...whatever and wherever he was.

Kikyo, pointing an arrow at him. Kikyo, attacking him. Kikyo...bleeding?

Inuyasha groaned as the feeling returned to the rest of his body. He struggled against the heavy ropes that bound his wrists behind his back, secured to his hips and ankles. He tried to roll, but each effort to pick up the momentum brought that pain crashing back into the front of his skull. Pain, and memories. A woman...a slayer! A slayer attacked him and must have tied him up and left him in this smelly hut. His groan was loud and hoarse. "My head..."

What the hell did these witches do to me?

"Stop your whining, demon." A woman's voice boomed around him. The brown-haired one came into view, standing above him with a fire in her gaze that was no doubt meant to scorch him, but the only burn he felt was rage.

Where was Kikyo? He wanted to ask that, but those were not the words that came from him. "Where's the jewel?" The question was sour on his tongue.

He heard an old woman speak, ignoring his demand for an answer with a message of warning. "Sango, stay back."

Yes, stay back. If I get my claws on you...he curled them as feeling returned, finally.

The girl disregarded the woman's warning, remaining by his side and by the way she was sneering at him, he wouldn't be surprised if she picked up a foot and kicked him in the face. "What the hell are you gawking at? If you're going to stand there, the least you can do is untie my hands, I'm eating splinters over here!" He struggled again for show, scratching his face against the shallow wooden planks of the raised platform.

The slayer scoffed, and the old woman's voice filled the room again.

"Be warned, Inuyasha. That necklace still binds ye, and it would be quite irritating if Sango needed to subdue you again with the word and I needed to replace the floorboards that she puts you through."

The memory of the earth speeding towards his face made his head pulse, and he hardened his features. They didn't need to know how much he didn't want to relive that feeling. He grunted, resigned. "Fine." He held back the urge to spit at the slayer's feet. "So, you gonna untie me or not?"

The woman looked over to the corner of the room. "Are you sure about this, Lady?"

"Aye" was the only response.

The slayer growled and grumbled, and he did not hide his gloating as she pulled out a dagger and sliced through the ropes locking his wrists. The blade slid across his skin, too close.

"Watch yourself." The slayer warned with a pointed finger before stepping over him and returning to the old woman.

"Yeah, yeah." Inuyasha rubbed at the raw, red shadow around his wrists where the rope had bit into them. They would be healed in moments - but they stung like hell now.

Inuyasha pulled himself up and stretched his body, which had been locked far too long in a twisted, awkward position. He was in a hut, no doubt the old woman's, accompanied by both of the wenches that had attacked him in the forest. His heart was racing, but he didn't want to show them just how off kilter, confused and anxious he was. He needed to get out of here.

His wrists were now only slightly pink, and the color reminded him of the Sakura blossom and his chest ached. "Alright, so what do you want with me?"

"You say you want the jewel? Well, help me find it."

"Help you find it and I get it?" His tone was anything but friendly.

"Of course not! Help me find it, and I'll release you from the spell."

"You mean my slavery? I ain't no servant lady! You just go around kidnapping poor defenseless demons and make them your slaves?"

"Defenseless, that's interesting coming from a demon whose claws are still red with blood. Whose eyes turned scarlet at the prospect of death! Interesting - coming from a murderer!"

"What the hell are you-"

The old woman's voice cut him off. "Enough! Inuyasha, we have much to discuss, but for now...I ask that ye and Sango claim a truce."

Though she was a stranger, something about the way she spoke stilled his burning, sharp tongue. The slayer looked just as enthusiastic about her request as he did.

"A truce, with this kidnapper?"

"Yes, a truce."

Well, the attacks were mutual, but they started it. And whatever that woman did to him...he was still seeing double. "Keh. What did you do to me, anyway? My head is killin' me!" He spotted the Robe of the Fire Rat, hanging by the door. The fabric had already repaired itself; no hole to be seen from the arrow that had pierced it.

Kikyo...

"Be lucky your aching head is all that ails you, and not that it was separated from your shoulders. You can thank the good Priestess for that." With her back to him, Sango pushed her dagger into its sheath and bent to offer the old woman help with the tea.

Inuyasha grunted and turned his eyes away from the women to lounge on his other side, his left forearm raised to prop up his aching head. "Keh, you'll live to regret that old woman!"

Kaede kept her eyes on the glow of the irori, stirring the blistering red charcoals with the poker as she waited for the water in the kettle to heat. Sango opened her mouth to threaten to relieve his headache by more permanent means, but Kaede spoke. "The only regret I would have, Inuyasha, would be to let ye die without finding out why ye did it."

"I have no idea what you're babbling about."

"My sister. Why Inuyasha. She loved ye more than her own sacred duty. And you betrayed her."

"Sister? What are you talking about you hag?" The pit forming in his stomach grew as the woman didn't answer, just stared at him. Those eyes that had been on him, this whole time. It had only been a day since he had seen her, why hadn't he seen her now? "K...kid?"

"Aye, Inuyasha. It is the younger sister to Kikyo. I am Kaede."

He tried to keep the trembling he felt boiling up from his stomach out of his voice. "How long?"

The woman dressed as a slayer bore her dark eyes into him. It made him uncomfortable.

Kaede lifted the pot and poured the tea as she answered. "Ah, you've been asleep for fifty years. Long, tiring and troublesome years, I'm afraid."

He barely noticed her set a cup in front of him. "Where is she?" He knew they would see the blush of blood rushing to his face. It laced with panic and shot through the rest of his body as he waited for her to tell him what he already knew. What the woman's eyes had been telling him all along.

Please, no...

Kaede shook her head, eyes downcast. "She is gone, Inuyasha." In those words, he did not hear the gravely voice of a woman beaten by time and circumstance; he heard the small voice of a child. That little girl whom he had so loved...

"Gone?"

"Aye. Gone with the jewel. She died."

Time seemed to slow and then everything around him was gone, too. The slayer, the tea, the hut -everything but the old woman and the glow of the irori before him.

"How?" He managed to ask. If she caught the waver in his voice, her eyes didn't betray her.

She didn't flinch as she delivered the verbal blow. "She died from the wound you gave her while trying to steal the jewel."

"What are you saying? Me? I didn't touch her! I wouldn't...I...never! How dare you..." He cut himself off. His breathing was too heavy, his words were beginning to run together and jumble.

Kaede's face was somber. "She is gone the same, Inuyasha. Now only ash and bone. The village bore witness the terror ye wrought before she bound ye to the tree all those years ago. Why she didn't finish ye, why she commanded us to leave ye be before she left this world and took that infernal jewel with her...I cannot say. But I can imagine, as I'm sure ye can."

His head swam, it raced. So many things. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, this old woman who still cast the shadow of the child he knew. He opened his mouth, but the presence of the slayer weighed on the words until they were ash in his mouth.

She called me a murderer.

Inuyasha turned again from the women, returning to the lounging position he was in before Kaede had mentioned Kikyo's name. Had mentioned her fate.

She had turned on him, after all. Why would he care?

"So now do ye see, Inuyasha? Why we ask this of ye? She took the jewel with her, yet now after all these years we feel its dark presence weighing heavily over Japan. Tsubaki released you from the sleep Kikyo had placed upon ye, and all but confirmed the suspicions that it has not only reappeared but has again fallen into the hands of those who would abuse it. We need to find them and reclaim the jewel so that it can be purified and protected. If for anything, in her memory. Even ye, I believe in my heart, can understand the importance of this, Inuyasha. Even ye especially...only ye."

He did not answer, could not face them. He couldn't let them see.

With the warmth of the irori heating his back through his thin shirt, he closed his eyes and listened to the women murmuring to each other over their tea. He slowed his breathing and tried to chase away the visions of the woman he loved with an arrow aimed at his heart, burning away into ash.