AN: Okay so.. I completely forgot I was writing this. Things got absolutely insane in the last few years, my tablet I was writing this on fried itself and I've been distracted. I apologize... I'm hoping to finish this story, but I don't remember where I was going with it - but hey let's run with it, yea?
Upon his return to the cave, Miroku reached up and brushed fingers lightly across the sutra he'd placed, the barrier fading at the touch of his fingertips and the paper peeling off the rock as if in slow motion. The monk did a careful inspection before speaking a few words to cleanse the charm and then placed it back in his robes. It would still work for another sutra - so that would mean one less trip he'd have to make in the cover of night.
The monk stepped into the cave to find Sango kneeling beside the now undressed priestess - her white haori draped over her to preserve her modesty. She was sweating, and even without the practiced eye of a healer he could tell she'd gone a few shades paler. Her breathing was shallow, as if each breath pained her even in the wound-induced unconsciousness.
"My lovely Sango.." There was relief in his voice as he looked at her, a frown tugging the edges of his lips down at the expression on her face. As he knelt beside her, his staff jingling faintly in the cave around them, he could see the sheen to her eyes. "Oh, Sango.."
"Miroku..." She sobbed then and threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his neck. "We just got her back and she's so hurt." Why was it always Kagome? Why was she always the one that got hurt? Why did she always have to take the brunt of things? The strength in the arms around her helped as her husband-monk did what he could.
"Kagome is strong, she's fought this hard. She'll make it through this." They just had to move her. With a frown, he glanced over the dark hair of his wife and towards the small fox demon who was sitting at Kagome's head with his hands threading through her hair and a worried expression on his face. "Shippo.."
Looking up, he saw the same worry etched on Shippo's face that he saw and felt in his wife's tears. "How far do you think you could carry the Lady Kagome?"
"Not far.. but.. maybe... maybe far 'nuff?" He looked back at Kagome, his small hands nervously spreading across the wrinkles in her forehead as she made a strangled sort of pained sound in her sleep.
"The pond I've blessed isn't far. Let's see what we can do to get her there without further injury." He would gently kiss Sango's hair and smiled as she pulled away, her eyes still red, but the tears having dried. "That's my wife..." A watery smile and a half-hearted punch to his shoulder was his answer.
Miroku rose to his feet and nodded to Shippo who popped into a large balloon. "This would be easier if we had Hachi..." But that damnable racoon-dog was nowhere to be seen and hadn't been seen in quite some time. His lip twitched before he and Sango managed to get the unconcious priestess onto Shippo.
Moving her was obviously painful as she had screamed - causing both he and Sango to flinch and frown. Once outside, Miroku lead the way with Sango and a transformed Kirara to the pond. Why hadn't they placed Kagome on Kirara? Because despite the wildcats size, her back wouldn't be wide enough to support the grown woman without injury where Shippo's balloon form was just this side of big enough.
By the time they arrived, Shippo held his form just long enough that they could get Kagome down before he reverted and sprawled on the ground, panting and shuddering with the exertion. "You did good, Shippo. You did really well." The small fox demon smiled at the praise before he curled up and used his fluffy tail as a pillow. Kirara with a soft growl moved to curl around him, hiding the small red-furred demon from view.
Sango stepped into the water, and held out her hands for Kagome. "Allright, Monk. Once she's in the water, you turn and face that way." The demon slayer would point towards the trees nearby. Though her voice was hard, and lacked amusement, her eyes sparkled with laughter and there was a grin threatening to tug at her lips.
"You wound me, Dearest Sango.. I would never seek to tarnish the Lady Kagome's honor in such a manner.." Now Sango? Another story. He helped get Kagome into the water, and smiled when the cool liquid seemed to buzz against his hands. It had the monk turning towards Kirara with a frown. "Make sure you and Shippo don't get near this.."
The cat rolled her eyes and growled as if to say 'no shit sherlock' and he laughed. The sound was enough to have Sango looking up at him with something akin to awe. How long had it been since he had laughed like that? Really, how long had it been since any of them had truly laughed?
With Miroku turning, and a smile tugging the lips of the dark haired slayer, she carefully removed the haori covering Kagome and let the unconscious priestess drift in the water. Sango only made sure to keep Kagome's head above the water, but let the natural buoyancy of the pond handle the rest.
While they could draw the Waira's lingering effects from the wound, it would still take a skilled healer to make it so Kagome would be able to use that arm again. But...still. Sango worried at her lip before she carefully cupped water over Kagome's injured shoulder. It wasn't hard to see the angry, festering red skin around the wound start to recede. A triumphant grin split her lips and she was hard pressed not to let out a whoop of victory.
Even here - with all of them together, things were still dangerous. And the last thing they needed was someone drawn to even more noise than they had made already moving Kagome. Beyond the Kytes, they still had the roaming demons to worry about - and additionally? They had the Enforcers to worry about to. She chewed on her abused lower lip as she worked on bathing the wound in the holy water.
It took longer than she wanted to, but the wound slowly changed to something less red and irritated and more red and swollen of damaged skin and ligaments. The groaning that came from Kagome had her pausing where she was in the water, holding her friend and heart-sister supported while she slowly came around to waking. "Kagome?"
The drifting was nice, and she welcomed it. Initially there had been searing pain, a scream ripping her almost into consciousness before she fell into a blissful, if fitful darkness. Now - she was enshrouded in warmth, as if someone was giving her one of the best hugs. It was almost enough to lull her into a deeper semblance of sleep. Still, there was something else there, something tugging and pulling at her that she forgot. What was it?
Oh.. a memory. It came in bits and pieces almost like a dream. First, the soft memory of a voice, something calling her in the distance.
"Kagome!" Brows knitted together as she thought about where that voice was coming from. Why was it familiar? "Kagome! Answer me!"
"Who...?"
A hand touched her cheek and she sighed, leaning her cheek into the familiar, rough callouses. Her eyes opened and she smiled at the silver haired Hanyou standing over her with his soft smile. "Inuyasha.." She smiled at him in an equally soft smile.
"Hey...You had me worried."
"I'm sorry... I didn't mean it." She would nuzzle his hand, still looking up at him through her lashes. Beside them the fire crackled, and she realized that they were laying on her sleeping bag, but there wasn't anyone else there. "I'm sorry I scared you."
"Tch..." his normal gruff sound of indifference had a smile on his lips. "You sleep like the dead, wench. Miroku and Sango have already left." Still, despite his 'insult' he didn't seem like he'd be intending to leave anytime soon either. She realized then that though he had one hand on her cheek, he was supporting himself with the other, and leaning over her. His hip was propped on her sleeping bag, one leg propped up while the other was laying crossed beneath it.
"What time is it?"
"Well past time for you to get your lazy butt up.." She would turn her head, kissing his palm and watched his eyes turn from a bright amber to molten gold. It was one of her favorite things.. to watch her composed Hanyou melt for her.
"And if I don't wanna get up?" She teased, a grin touching her lips as she kissed his palm again, lifting her hand and holding the back of his, biting lightly across calloused skin and listening as he hissed, knowing without asking what was going through his head.
"Wench..." He leaned over her, and she gave him a pouty, but also cheeky grin.
"Yes...? Inu-Ya-sha?" She would enunciate each word with a bite to his palm. Kagome saw his jaw clench, the muscle along the edge of his jawline twitch as he fought not to give in. She could tell with the way his fingers tensed against her skin that she was getting under his.
"Playing with fire... We don't have time for this - but.. maybe later... We are due for a bath and the rivers warm this time of year.. Though I'm pretty sure there are some natural springs up ahead.." She felt her eyes widen with the promise of not just a bath, but a HOT bath. Kagome sprang to her feet, scrambling to gather their supplies.
"Really? Well why didn't you say so! Let's get going, Inuyasha!" A bath, a REAL bath! Oh heavens she would throw herself into it face first and die happy. He had laughed then, getting up with exaggerated slow movements and they'd broken down the camp without further ado. Which - she had to say she was impressed with.
"Kagome?" The priestess blinked her eyes open, smiling up at the demon slayer hovering over her.
"Sango..." She tried to sit up and flailed, then winced as Sango made to steady her with a hand on her good shoulder and moving closer to her in the water.
"Hey, take it easy... You're in a pond."
"Oh.." That would explain why she felt like she was falling. Kagome reached up and grabbed her injured shoulder, gasping softly as she felt the normal amount of pain and not the pain and fatigue brought on by the infection that had raged in the wound. "What...?"
"It was a Waira - a demon that uses their victims own energy to fuel a rotting curse. Miroku blessed the pond and I bathed you in it... It was a long shot because my lesson on Waira was so long ago - and they should have been long gone by now.. but it worked!" She squealed, grinning from ear to ear.
Kagome beamed up at her friend, and shifted carefully so she could also stand in the water. "Uh... Sango?" She glanced down at herself realizing she was wearing nothing but her birthday suit and flushed a deep crimson.
"Don't worry, Kagome.. Miroku has been a gentleman - and Shippo is passed out." It was enough to have her relaxing, a smile tugging her lips. "Thanks... I guess we should get out and keep going.. huh." Though, she did worry - with the water holding the worst of the weight of her injured arm, she knew that once she made it to the land, gravity would return and the pain would be... excruciating. Her fingertips were numb, and she could still flex her fingers, but moving anything more than that was impossible without searing pain.
"Let me go get your clothes and some bandages...and Kagome?" the Slayer had begun to walk towards the shore, pausing as she stopped to glance at the raven haired priestess.
"Yea... Sango?"
"I know that trying to die was sort of your thing - but maybe.. tone down the desire a little?" She smirked to show she was joking and kept walking, splashing water as she did so. Kagome remained standing - her back to where Sango and Miroku were standing. She could hear them talking but chose instead to cling to the memory she had somewhat had in her dream. This pond reminded her of the hot spring she had Inuyasha had gone to...
A hot spring that lead to some of the best times she had remembered in her time within Feudal Japan. Still - maybe.. if she held onto that memory, she could replay the memory in her dreams. Splashing alerted her to Sango returning and she turned in the water, seeing the clothes and the bandages and what she assumed was a makeshift sling. Now that would help!
"Miroku has gone to scout the area around us - so we have time to get you dried and covered back up."
"Sounds good.." Kagome went to the waters edge, and managed to keep herself from screaming by biting her lip. Sango was working to wrap her wound. Once it was wrapped well enough, she helped get her arm into a sling.
"We will still need to get you to a healer... but this will work for now."
"I was worrying about that.. I'm not going to be able to draw my bow.." The pair fell into a strained silence at the implications of that, before Sango handed her the rest of her clothes, with a smile that Kagome knew was as practiced and forced as some of her own.
"It's all right! We've managed so far - and we'll do it just like we always did."
Kagome nodded, pulling her clothes on with the woman's help before she was tying the sash and just in time for Miroku to arrive with the faint jingle of his staff.
"Ah! Lady Kagome! It's good to see you awake...how is your injury?"
"It still needs healing, but.. thank you, Miroku...For the water." He gave a faint inclination of his head, a soft monks smile.
"You're most welcome, my friend. Your color has returned.." He sounded relieved, and she could see the white knuckled grip on his staff relax a little, allowing color to return to his skin.
"Well, Miroku?" Sango was drying her hands and putting the remaining things back into their packs.
"It seems we're clear for now - but...I've seen some Enforcer sign up the road." His frown touched his lips again, and Kagome watched his knuckles blanch white again.
"How far? How old?" Kagome looked at Sango as she seemed to sit to attention.
"Enforcers?" Her confusion showed in her question as she looked between the two. Miroku frowned, sighing softly as he searched the priestess's face.
"Enforcers are.. demons from Sesshomaru's army. They lead the hunts." This didn't sound good at all and Kagome frowned, looking at how carefully and slow Sango had gone - her strain showing in the motions.
"Hunts...for..."
This time, Sango was the one to speak up as Kagome spoke, and she followed the slayers gaze towards the sleeping Shippo and curled Kirara. "A priestess." Kagome felt her blood turn cold, and her face pale. "Rumor has it that they are searching for a priestess...that once defeated Naraku."
The woman gave her friend a sad frown, before tying the pack jerkily. "Why we don't know - but I suspect that the Enforcers hunts were what started the Kytes hunts." That reminded Kagome of Shippo's story and she looked to Miroku before opening her mouth to question how he'd escaped.
However, at the stirring of the young fox demon, he held up his hand to still her question. "Later, my friend. All will be revealed later."
Shippo rose and smiled up at Kagome, rubbing his eyes. "Are you better now 'Gome?" She made her way towards the young kit and knelt, her arm in a sling.
"Mostly - but you're going to have to help me with some things.. think you can handle that?" The sparkle in his eyes and the way he stood up had her knowing the request would work well to keep him occupied.
"Yea!" She smiled at him, reaching out to ruffle his hair with a grin.
"That's my very best kit... Now.. we've found Sango and Miroku... What's next?"
He jumped to his feet, beaming at the two other humans and then looking back at Kagome.
"We go get Tessaiga!"
The words had Miroku and Sango exchanging glances before a smile touched the slayers lips.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea..."