Chapter 10
Labor omnia vincit
"Hard work conquers all"

"When such men, who are beyond hope and fear,
begin in their dim minds to see the source their woes,
it may be an evil time for those who have wronged them.
The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing,
for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair."
-The White Company

Not here.

She was not here.

No trace of her scent.

No one had seen a young woman in white and green or any other fucking color.

She wasn't here.

They'd wasted hours searching this stupid place. Had to talk to so many idiots who didn't know their own asses from their hands, and just fucking wait for everyone to ask questions and then go off and ask more questions only to discover that she'd never even been in this damned place.

Hours.

Hours they could've been searching for her.

He snarled, loudly, making everyone else take a step back and marched out of the village.

"Inuyasha!" Sango followed him with Miroku at her heels.

"She's not here!"

"We're trying to find her!"

"Where are you going?" Miroku asked, moving to stand in front of him. A growl seemed to come from his chest perpetually now. He was more restless than before, instincts driving him forward, goading him into action. "Need I remind you looking here was your idea?"

"Yeah, well, I'm going. Follow if you want."

"There's a lead from one of the neighboring villages. Where are you going so we can find you?" Sango asked.

"I'm going to follow the path." He bared his fangs at them, but they ignored him.

"The way we didn't go?" Miroku asked him, and he gave a curt nod. Miroku looked to Sango. "We are going to wait for the messenger to return. We'll head that way if we find nothing. You'll come back if you find nothing as well?" Another curt nod. Like they had to ask. "Good luck. We'll see you soon." He leapt towards the path they'd traveled in on.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Sango shouted after him. He scoffed mid-leap and ran down the trail, following the clear scent of horse down the path they'd come.

He reached the stream with little trouble, scowled and darted off again. He knew she had been here, days ago, but she had been physically present here at one point. The trail ended at the stream, someone must have picked her up and taken her somewhere.

But not to the village?

He stomach churned; something wasn't right. It was the sixth day she'd been missing, and he knew that time was going to run out.

Kagome was, well, Kagome wasn't meant to be out in the woods on her own. No matter that she attracted trouble faster than bees to honey. She needed protection; she wasn't raised in this world. Didn't understand what it was capable of. And she was dumb enough to try and face it head on.

The path was caked with the stench of horses and men and carts, and it took him longer than he'd ever admit to sort through the smells and keep going. There was a fork in the road that several carts seemed to follow, leaving a clearer path for him to trail. He blazed through the next stretch of pathway, weaving deeper into the woods. Leaping into the tree tops he looked for anything that might be a destination for travelers on this particular road, but didn't see anything nearby. Frowning, he leapt down and continued, feet digging into the earth and propelling him forward, faster now that the conglomeration of scents was reduced and more manageable.

He stumbled mid-step, nearly crashing to the ground in his surprise and relief.

Her scent!

Her scent had returned. He sniffed heavily and bit back a sigh. He'd found her! Finally, after all the searching and struggling, she'd reappeared. He pressed forward now that her scent lingered on the trail and kept moving. He wasn't going to lose it again! A small campsite gave him pause. Her scent pooled here, but it was another smell that threatened to drag out the whimper and whine sitting in the back of his throat.

There was blood, her blood, and the overwhelming stench of human men. He blanched at the implications, arguing with himself that men were usually the only ones traveling the roads. So, of course, Kagome would be picked up by men traveling.

But if she was hurt—and he knew that she was, she simply had to be with the blood present in the forest—then why not take her back to the village? Why continue this road?

He shook his head and continued, pressing as fast as he could without risking losing the trail.

But the only thing the trail left for him was more blood and more of her scent to follow.

The second campsite was an abomination. More blood, both hers, more than was at the first one, and someone else's. He didn't smell anything else, just them. No youkai or wild animals. No bandits. His stomach roiled, and all the food in his system, which wasn't much, started to crawl up into his throat. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted to believe that she was safe and cared for and just waiting for him to catch his stupid ass up to her. But that was fading quickly the farther down the trail he went. He continued running down the path towards her.

He reached the spot where her scent pooled again in the middle of the road. It was fresh and clear.

But so was everything else.

Blood sprayed across the dirt of the pathway, not hers, but enough that someone was seriously injured or maimed. At least it wasn't hers. There were scuffles in the dirt, and then a couple sets of small footprints leading, running, off into the woods. He followed until the smell of her blood overwhelmed him, making him gag and cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve. He'd never smelled this much before, and his eyes watered from the intensity.

She had to be close.

Another couple steps revealed the pale flesh of familiar legs.

"Kagome?" He called, but she didn't answer, didn't move. She remained still, too still. Urging his feet onwards, his own legs shook as he came around the bend. His arm dropped from his face as he took in the sight of her. The front of her left leg was a deep dark greenish discoloration. An arrow, shaft fractured near the tip, stuck almost straight up and out of her thigh. Her clothes were rumpled and stained with blood and dirt. Her wrists were bound with rope; blood seeped between the loops and down her arms. But her face—her face was covered in blood, and it covered her neck, running across the ground. And she was so still!

Blood rushed through his ears and he couldn't hear anything over his own heart, pounding away, drowning out all the other noises.

She was so still!

And so pale! Her skin took on an almost graying tint.

It took every bit of muscle he had to move to her side, trying to calm his own heart as he put his ear next to her chest and heard the faint, tremulous beat of her heart.

He let out a shaky exhale. She was alive. She was alive and breathing and just needed some care and she'd be okay. She'd be okay. He repeated the line as a mantra as he took a quick breath, prepared to figure out a way to carry her back to the village he'd just left. It was a good distance off now, but they had a healer who didn't seem like a complete idiot.

The smell of men was all over her, and he clenched his eyes closed. He knew what that smell was, and he knew where it was coming from.

No.

No, not her.

His eyes watered again, and the stench of infection, blood, and sex made his stomach roll and clench, and he felt the tightness in his throat and the need to do something built and built until the sound that came out of him felt like he was shredding his own vocal cords, youki pulsing around him. He found himself twisting around, away from her to finally retch, expelling anything and everything he'd eaten, his body heaving until nothing came out and then some, refusing to stop until the smell was gone.

He needed to get her help. She wouldn't make it like this.

He wouldn't let her die. Not now.

He turned back towards her again, bracing himself for the sight before him.

"Kagome, it's me. I'm—I'm going to pick you up now." His voice shook, and he cleared his throat several times as he spoke.

It only seemed appropriate to tell her what he was doing. He didn't want her to be scared any more than she already was. Carefully sliding his arm under her shoulders, gently propping her head up against his shoulder, he maneuvered her legs so that he couldn't catch the arrow on his sleeves, grimacing at the cool temperature of her skin. "I'm going to take you somewhere safe. You're going to be okay." For her part, Kagome didn't move or respond or acknowledge that she was even listening to him as he moved back to the road. He didn't dare burst through the canopy overhead with her in such a tremulous state.

Kirara's roar overhead made him pause as he'd crouched down to leap.

"Inuyasha!" Miroku called.

"You found her!" Sango was already leaping off the firecat and running towards him. "Is she—oh God! Is she—I mean, she's not—"

"She's alive, but she's hurt— it's really bad." Understatement.

"Miroku, take Kirara and find the closest village with a healer! Leave her bag!"

"On it!" The cat took to the air, circling before disappearing over the trees, the bag deposited on the ground where they'd been just moments before.

He stared at the top of Kagome's head, solemnly.

"Inuyasha?" Sango's voice was softer than he expected. "We need to get that bandaged, and take care of the arrow. She's going to bleed out if we don't do something soon."

The hanyou looked up at her, as she guided him towards the small stream.

"There's a lot of blood."

"I know. We'll get it to stop bleeding soon, okay?" She sounded like she was talking to a toddler. She tugged him towards the water, and he stepped in, settling down in the water, spreading the small girl out on the edge of it. His hand stayed under her head, keeping it from touching the ground. It felt like the right thing to do.

"Miroku and Kirara are going to be back soon, and then we can get you some help."

His eyes took in her form again, trying to take inventory of all the damage, but there was so much, and he was sure that the blood covered even more.

Taking a rag from the backpack, Sango dipped it in the stream and tried to wipe off some of the blood that had crusted over, trying to see where the wound was and how much needed packing.

"What did this?"

"Men. There as a rock with blood next to her head."

"Oh, poor Kagome," she mourned as she continued to wipe at her hair line. The more blood that she pulled away, the more the bruising appeared. Inuyasha continued to hold her head steady as Sango worked. She directed him, holding cloth to her wound and wrapping it securely, using his claws to cut the material before tying it off.
She let out a shuddering sigh.

"We'll need to remove the arrow. It will need to be stitched though."

"Shouldn't we wait until Miroku gets back? The healer will be able to do it."

Sango made a face.

"She's lost so much already."

"I know! It needs to come out, but I don't know if that would make things worse right now. We can't leave it in!" Sango gripped the fabric of her skirt as she stared with watering eyes at the girl stretched out on the ground. Clenching her jaw, she sniffled. "We take it out and apply pressure. It won't cause more damage if we have to travel then."

Inuyasha nodded once and let her head rest gently on the earth.

Sango moved closer to her leg.

Sliding his knee under hers, he propped her leg up and snapped the fractured arrowhead off with his claws.

"You ready?" He asked. She held two pieces of thick cloth in each hand.

"You'll pull it out. I'll press these on top of each side. Once you grab them and apply pressure, I'll start wrapping again." He knew that his claws made things, like bandaging others, difficult. Kagome always bandaged him. He preferred her to anyone else anyway. She wasn't afraid to touch him; his blood didn't bother her so much because it was mixed, but rather because it wasn't inside his body where it should've been. Sango took another deep breath as his fingers wrapped around the arrows fletched end. "Go."

He was quick about it. The arrow slid out with a soft shick and the blood seeped almost immediately as he broke the loosely clotted scab that formed around it. His hands clamped over hers as she slid them out and began wrapping her leg in tight white loops. Kagome, for all the pain that must have caused, did not flinch or make a noise at all. It was not a comfort.

"That wasn't so bad, right?" Sango asked and Inuyasha shot her a look, but she didn't notice as she began packing away the medical kit into the large yellow backpack. He stripped off his fire rat, laying it on the ground beside Kagome's overly still form, transferring her into the still-warm fabric. Sango watched him before averting her eyes to the sky. "Miroku will be here soon. She's going to be fine."

He cradled her against his chest. Her head rested against his collarbone, his arms around her back and under her knees, trying to be as gentle as he could.

He never wanted to put her down again.

Kirara's roar broke his reverie and Miroku quickly pointed out a village just over the next rise. It has a healer, a hospice, and he's preparing for their arrival. Sango is already behind Miroku, arms around his waist, backpack saddled on the fire cat. Inuyasha followed, loping gently across the path and through the trees. The immense relief of holding her, feeling the weight of her body, her still living body, was almost incomprehensible.

He'd found her. Finally. She was alive, and they were going to get her help. She would be fine. She would be fine.