Chapter 24
In absentia lucis, Tenebrae vincunt
"In the absence of light, darkness prevails"

"What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?"
—Middlemarch

Fuck.

Fuck.

She's been in that damn room for days.

And the hag put up a barrier to keep them all out, but especially him. In all the ways that mattered. In the only ways that mattered.

She claimed that Kagome didn't want to see anyone, and some part of him doesn't believe her, but her cold-shouldered dismissal of him makes that part reconsider.

Fuck!

He can't even get near the damn room, and the barrier keeps her scent from him. And then she hung up the fucking sheet! Like the barrier wasn't insult enough. He'd circuited around the hut so many times, trying to find a weakness, or a way in, but there was nothing.

He can't see her. He can't smell her.

He can't even tell if she's hurt.

If he couldn't hear her every now and then, he'd think that she'd just vanished or that she'd—

The only consolation is that Kagome has kicked everyone out, not just him this time.

Sango can't even get through the barrier, though she's tried. Kaede chastised her for talking to Kagome through the sheet, which none of them can even move, not even Miroku, because it's fucking inside where she's placed the ofuda. Kaede took the place of Kagome's voice, reiterating her desires to them through herself.

He'd resorted to attempting to bribe the monk to see if he'd move the sheet, so he could fucking see her, just for a moment. Just something. But even Miroku refused to go against the old hag, citing that she was merely doing as Kagome wished.

He could get through if he really wanted to though, and he's the only one who could force himself beyond the walls of the miko's barrier.

For fuck's sake, he just wants to fucking smell her. That would be enough. He's used to just having barely enough. He's used to making do, barely scraping by. He can deal with this. He just needs something; he can't make do with nothing.

But the old hag isn't talking to anyone about Kagome. She disappears behind the curtain, and reappears later, sometimes carrying a mostly full tray of food, which tells him that she's not eating.

And that bothers him.

Something deep and dark and necessary is unsettled by that.

He could get into the room easily, if he really wanted. Red Tetsusaiga would demolish the barrier, and, his shoulders sagged, probably Kaede's entire hut too. They could always rebuild it, wouldn't take too long.

He knows Kagome and that definitely wouldn't help him get back into her good graces.

When Kaede steps outside the hut, he waits until she's near the woods, and he corners her against the trees.

He doesn't say a word, but he doesn't have to. She knows exactly what he wants

Kaede sighed and stared back at the trees.

"I have chores that must be done today. You will need follow if you wish to talk."

"I ain't looking to have a conversation, hag." He growled, following her step for step. "Just tell me how she is."

"Kagome is fine."

"She's not eating enough," he countered, and she arched an eyebrow at his statement. He shifted, glancing away from her stare. "I see the trays you bring out," he said softly, "sometimes."

"Aye, but she's eating enough to sustain herself."

"It's not enough," he argued.

"Aye, it's not, but she's still eating. 'Tis better than nothing at all."

He grimaced at the notion that she could be eating less.

"She has nightmares," he admitted.

Kaede stopped and looked up at him.

"I can hear her sometimes, at night. She—" He swallows, looking away from Kaede's gaze. "She makes noise, sometimes, at night." Kaede doesn't say a word, and the silence compels him to keep flapping his lips like a little bitch. "Your barrier blocks everything but sound."

"Ah, that explains it." Kaede turns and continues walking along the path.

They walk in silence for a while, and he's been battling himself on whether or not to ask the question.

He wants the barrier down. He needs it down. But he knows the answer to that. She won't do it. Not until Kagome says that it's okay. And who the fuck knows when that will be.

"Take the barrier down. I—" He blurted out.

"No, Inuyasha," Kaede interrupts. "Not until Kagome wills it." Kaede kept walking down the path to wherever the fuck she was going. "If she doesn't want to be seen or heard, then she will not be seen or heard from until she is ready. Ye must have patience."

He snarled at that and leapt away into the trees.

Have patience, he scoffed to himself. He's had patience. He's been fucking patient, but he needs to see her; his senses need to know that she's okay.

But then, one night, he was sitting out in a tree, keeping watch, because he'd already done a perimeter sweep with Sango and Kirara, which would have been fine, but there were literally no demons to fight.

Miroku claimed it was good news. That the demons were leaving the village alone and what not, but he didn't care because today he'd been looking for a fight. He wanted to punch something, and he'd been left wanting.

Those fuckers.

But then he'd seen her.

Her.

Her.

He leaned forward on his branch, watching the moonlight play over her hair and skin. She was so pale; her cheeks looked too angular, not like the soft curves he was used to. She stumbled over a branch laying on the ground, and he lurched forward on the ground and hands outstretched for her when she recovered herself before she hit the ground. He froze. Just a few feet from her.

The wind shifted, and her scent, fucking hell, her scent washed over him. It felt like his brain was in overdrive trying to discern every little thing about it, what was different, what those changes meant, and how he could fucking fix it and make it better.

She doesn't smell sick, per se. But she doesn't smell like she's in perfect health either. She just smells weak. And sad.

Food.

Comfort.

Den.

All those things. He could bring them to her.

Provide, his instincts hummed just below the surface of his skin. Itching. Urging him to do something about it.

Kagome turned her head, and he dove behind a tree, to keep himself hidden from her. He cursed himself for being a coward and hiding. He should confront her, well, not confront her. Just not cower from her like an abused puppy.

He should apologize, grovel, whatever it took to get her to just fucking stop hiding in that fucking room.

Growling to himself and his own indecisiveness, her steps faltered and a small gasp escaped her. She bolted, running past his tree, and back into the hut.

Great.

Just fan-fucking-tastic.

Scare the girl, why don't you?

The mat waved in the night, and he could already hear her crying in the barricaded room.

Shippo always found him whether he wanted it or not.

He was pretty sure that the stupid kit was going to wind up waterlogged with how much he's been wailing the entire time Kagome's been locked away.

"Would you stop?" Inuyasha shouted from his position on the tree branch overlooking Kaede's hut. He heard claws scratching over the bark and leaned over the branch with a vicious scowl on his face.

But Shippo was not going to be deterred.

His small little claws latched onto the fire rat, and Shippo dragged himself up onto Inuyasha's chest, burrowing underneath the layers as Inuyasha let out a shout.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, runt?" He reached for the fox's tail with the intent to toss him out on the ground below.

"Kagome hates me!" He bawled, tears already running across the skin of his chest.

Inuyasha groaned.

Why him?

He could have literally picked anyone else in this village, and they would have been much better equipped to deal with this.

"Kagome doesn't hate anyone," he grumbled still trying to dislodge the kit from inside his clothes. "Keeps you around, doesn't she? And you're annoying as hell." Shippo buried his face into Inuyasha's chest and continued to wail inconsolably.

"She won't talk to me! I talk—I talk to her through the sheet, but she doesn't answer! She never talks to anyone!" He sniffled, and Inuyasha felt sure that he was going to have to put both his layers out on a line to dry at the rate the kit was soaking them with snot and tears. Hell, he was going to have to bathe himself to get the stink of kitsune off of him.

"Kagome's not talking to anyone." It was fact. Kagome wasn't talking to anyone. He wasn't even sure that she was talking to Kaede. He hadn't heard her voice in a couple days either. He was already on edge, and now it felt like he's just teetering, waiting for the ground to crumble away beneath him.

"But why?" Shippo cried, finally raising his head to meet Inuyasha's gaze from under his haori. "No one will tell me what happened! I want to help!" He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Kagome's important to me too! I can't help if I don't know what's wrong!"

"Shippo," he started, swallowing back the bile as he prepared himself for his next sentence. "Kagome will come out when she's ready."

Another small sniffle from inside his clothing, and he rested a hand over the obnoxious, and wet, lump on his chest.

"She's human, remember? They do things differently than us."

"I don't like it," Shippo grumbled. Inuyasha merely grunted in agreement. "She should just come out and let us help."

He didn't disagree with the kit. He poked the lump with a claw, gently, because the last thing he wanted was the fucking hag, monk, or slayer fucking berating him about being nice to the kit. Not like he'd let him fucking slobber on him all morning though.

"Come on, we should go help the others for lunch." He leapt down, holding an arm across Shippo, so he wouldn't land on his face. The kit poked his head out when Inuyasha held his haori open for him to climb out. "You're not staying in there forever," he told him. "Besides you need to wash your face before you scare someone." Shippo's eyes were bloodshot from crying, and his skin was developing a defined crust from tears and snot.

"Can I stay here until we get to the river?"

He had the patience of a fucking deity to put up with this bullshit.

"Fine, just hang on."

He leapt through the trees, landing at a section of the river that none of the local villagers went to.

"Out," he said, shaking his haori to encourage Shippo to get out. He was going to smell like kitsune for weeks at this rate.

Fucking great.

He stripped and leapt into the water to rinse off the snot.

Not the worst thing that he's ever been covered in. Still gross though. He scrubbed himself off in the water as Shippo scrubbed at his own face. Inuyasha grabbed both of his tops and dragged them into the water, rubbing at them until he couldn't smell Shippo all over them anymore.

"Sorry," Shippo murmured from the shore.

"It's fine," he mumbled as he climbed out, shaking the water out of his tops. He dressed and shook his clothes and hair once again. He was still slightly damp, but he didn't smell like kitsune. Well, not as strongly at least. "Come on, let's go." He started towards the village, and Shippo ran up beside him, following him as they went.

Miroku and Sango were waiting at the edge of the village, which made his hackles raise.

"What's wrong?" He growled, cracking his knuckles. He felt Shippo clutching at his leg.

Miroku sighed; his arm resting across Sango's shoulders.

"Nothing. Lady Kaede thought it best to have us wait here," Miroku explained.

"She said that Kagome was upset," Sango said, clutching Kirara to her chest.

"Inuyasha, we should really wait for—"

"Well, fuck that!" Inuyasha leapt off towards the hut before anyone else could stop him. He stopped in front of Kaede, who stood in the doorway as if to stop him.

"Inuyasha," she greeted evenly.

"What the fuck is wrong with Kagome?" He snarled, brandishing fangs and claws and letting his youki flare out around him menacingly.

Kaede merely sighed, looking over her shoulder at the room where Kagome now solely lived.

"She's struggling," she answered. He could hear the sobs now, muted as though buried under layers of cloth, but it still sounded clear as day.

He whined before he could stop himself, but Kaede didn't say a word.

"Kagome is crying again," Shippo whispered from behind him.

"She has not eaten anything since breakfast yesterday," Kaede said, looking back at him. His eyes widened, as mind and instinct whirled around inside his head. He lunged for the doorway, but the barrier stopped him, repelling him back towards outside the hut.

"Let me the fuck in, hag," he growled, pushing himself up to his feet. "I'm not gonna ask twice." He cracked his knuckles in warning.

"Inuyasha, that would only do more damage to Kagome. It would be better if ye went hunting, for when she does decide to eat."

He growled, staring at the doorway over her shoulder.

"Hmm, I suppose Miroku or Kirara would be willing to go hunt. Since ye care so little." She moved to step around him, but he stepped in front of her, blocking her inside the hut.

"You fucking know that's a fucking lie." He leaned down, pointing a sharp claw in her face. "I'll go provide for her; you go fix whatever the fuck you did."

"Aye," Kaede agreed, and he leapt away into the trees.

Fucking hag.

A/N: Hey! It's been a rough week, so I'm sorry that this chapter didn't get out earlier. My dad came down with Covid and then pneumonia, and with school returning, it's been a hellish week trying to get tested and then returning to work which is basically 8+ hours a day of just straight meetings (and some time between then and next Wednesday, I'm supposed to actually plan lessons, all the while in meeting after meeting after meeting). Thankfully, I tested negative, but my mom thinks that she may have it, and my dad's been in the hospital since late last night, so *stressed* is a gentle expression of what I've been since Friday.