InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Edge of Resistance ❯ Shippou and Kagura ( Chapter 9 )

Author's notes:

Another chapter of abject misery. We have two more to go after this one (remember poor Kikyou and Kohaku, left back at that river in chapter 3?), and then things will start to look up again for our luckless cast.

 

If you should find errors or typos—missing particles, “the” instead of “he”, things that look like a mistake that wasn't fixed—please let me know in the comments section! I do not have a beta for this and I would really appreciate it! This goes for all chapters past and future.

 

Thanks,

Lalieth

 

The Edge of Resistance

Book One: The Dreaming World

 

 

Chapter 10: Shippou and Kagura

 

Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for a time it did me.

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. -Herman Melville

 

***

 

He always knew it would end this way.

 

When the exploding force unleashed on the plateau, Shippou's very nature forced him to transform into his soft balloon shape. He could have landed without injury, though some distance away, but for the confusion and terror that smashed his mind like glass. He returned to his normal form while still in the air. Shippou's transformations had lessened his velocity, but nonetheless his collision with the mountain's sheer face was enough to render him senseless.

 

When he regained awareness moments later, his right arm was wedged under rocks dislodged by the detonation. In a frenzy, he struggled with it in vain until his panic tripped some automatic switch again and he transformed. In his current condition he could not hold the false form for long and, once returned to his natural state, he plummeted to the ground.

 

Even as he plunged towards the earth, Shippou realized with the clarity of death how predictable this finale had always been.

 

---

 

The darkness was so great and unyielding that Kagura could not be certain that she had opened her eyes at all. There was a crushing weight on her back and a general ache covered her body. She assumed that she was in the midst of a torture devised by her master, and she did not remember her visit to the Hyouden, or Inuyasha and Kagome, until she tried to move her right arm. The limb felt twisted behind her in an awkward position and all she got for her effort to pull on it was a sharp pain that shot to her shoulder like lightning. In answer to the sting, images of the young, desperate priestess—of dust, poison, and calamity—flew through her mind in a bright flash. A sudden and dark dread engulfed her and, in unthinking panic, she tried to get on her feet.

 

Her fiercest exertions were useless and she soon realized with a fresh horror that she was so much weaker than she should be, weak beyond reason. Something was wrong. Kagura was now coherent enough to realize that she was in the mud with a tree on her back. As a demon, she should have been capable of mustering the strength to lift the weight herself, but she could not even summon the wind to aid her. After a few minutes of frustrating and exhausting labor, she collapsed again in surrender.

 

Kagura lay in the chilled filth, surrounded by dark wilderness, thinking of Kagome. That she herself lived while Kagome was in all probability dead, struck Kagura as an immense absurdity, a whimsical trick of fickle Fate. She almost wanted to laugh, but for the implacable weight of that damned tree. She watched the viscous water that trickled down through leaves and limbs. A foul mixture of dirt, ash and miasma continued to fall as rain, and it burned her eyes and throat.

 

This she thought odd, because his poison had never bothered her before.

 

Had Kagome been at all successful? If Naraku still had Kagura's heart, would she not be dead by now? Wouldn't he find her? Was he just toying with her? Was her heart now lost in the wilderness?

 

Why did she do that?

 

Kagura never considered that Naraku could be dead. She believed in his endless inevitability with an intransigence against which there was no appeal.

 

None of it mattered anyway so long as she lay trapped alone in the toxic dark. Perhaps she could get free if she could just move enough to crawl on her belly.

 

This last exertion cost her. Her shoulder shrieked in protest and the back of her skull became heavy and numb. A gloom filled her mind, as though someone had tipped an ink well behind her eyes. Kagura lost consciousness.

 

---

 

Shippou lurched to his feet, commanding a huge effort to stay upright and to keep his stomach contents on the inside. A fiery taste burned his tongue, and he spat out a fetid mixture of bile, rainwater and miasma.

 

Through bleary and burning eyes, he tried to assess his surroundings, but he could see only a confusion of uprooted trees with mangled branches, veiled in the dusty and toxic downpour. He tried testing the air, but the rain made it impossible to smell anything but Naraku. As he stumbled over rocks and tree trunks, Shippou wondered if Naraku had survived the explosion. He surmised that chances were good that he had.

 

Covering ground was difficult because branches often gave way under his feet, causing him to trip and stumble, scraping his skin and tearing his already ruined clothing. He considered transforming into a hawk, but the memory of Kagome calling it “going bird” caused such an ache in his chest that he abandoned the idea at once. He heard her laughter in his mind and his mind answered.

 

You know, that's a dead person laughing.

 

Stop it. STOP. IT.

 

He staggered along on bloodied feet for what felt like hours, not knowing where he was, not trying to go in any particular direction. He only felt a pressing need to keep moving, to stay on his feet. He climbed over a pile of contorted trees and jumped to a smooth boulder.

 

Disguised as a stable surface, in truth the stone was poised, in precarious balance, on a craggy precipice. As soon as he landed on it, the boulder surrendered at last to all the trauma and tumult of the day. Shippou flew forwarded, tumbling over another ledge, and landing on his knees and elbows.

 

He was too tired to transform anymore, too broken to think, too overthrown to care. Shippou collapsed in the mud. He bled, and he cried.

 

The surprise of it all hurt at least as much as his battered and poisoned body. It was impossible, unthinkable, that only this morning he had lain on green grass next to Kagome, smiling, as they reveled in the baking sun.

 

Now it was as though that sun had never existed. All the light, warmth, and love of the world was now gone; all of it ripped away and shredded into bits of unrecognizable pictures and scraps of unimportant paper.

 

Shredded by the claws of a stupid, stubborn half-demon. All those days spent on the dry and dusty roads, all those nights spent in the cold, clear silence. What was it all for anyway? What had it gotten them?

 

His unthinking compulsion to keep moving took over again, and Shippou went forward in blindness, half walking, half crawling. He tried to move away from the plateau, without being sure where it even was, while avoiding going back into the treacherous slopes.

 

He had no more luck with this strategy then he had had with the hills. The downpour was so polluted that the ground became a slick slime. It was not long before a tiny, hastening stream caught hold of him and dragged him on his belly for several yards over rocks and wreckage. When he stopped, he got to his feet and spat out an amazing quantity of vile water.

 

Then a patch of odd color drew his eyes, almost invisible through the shroud of rain and the tangle of tree trunks and branches.

 

It was soon easy to see that it was a person trapped beneath a demolished tree. As Shippou came closer, he saw that it was not Kagome (as he most hoped), or Sango, Kirara, Miroku, or Inuyasha. It was Kagura.

 

The demoness was lying on her face in the mud.

 

Anger and hatred overwhelmed him. He was sure he would never understand what had made Kagome take it in her head to prevent Kagura's death, but the sight of the demoness filled him with unbearable rancor. She appeared to be dead, or at least unaware of his presence, and so he almost turned away to continue his search for his friends. He did not, after all, have time to waste on virulence.

 

“I can't stand that sorceress,” Shippou spat after one of the many occasions Kagura escaped from them, leaving behind only her spiteful laughter.

 

“It doesn't do any good,” Kagome said. “She is the way Naraku made her, and I don't even think she wants to do his work. But what choice does she have? She's the same as Kohaku.”

 

“It isn't the same at all!” Inuyasha argued. “Kohaku was an innocent human boy once. Kagura is made from Naraku.”

 

“But she can't help how she was born. You can't blame her. That's no different than how Sesshoumaru treats you.”

 

“She is a piece of Naraku, our enemy,” Inuyasha repeated stubbornly. “She is our enemy.”

 

“You should worry less about her and more about Naraku. And maybe we could consider Kagura's plight. If she were freed of Naraku, she might be a powerful ally.”

 

“Don't be stupid!” Inuyasha retorted. “She would kill you just as soon as you turned your back. And why should we save her? If anyone, we should save Kohaku.”

 

“The time may come when there is little choice,” Kagome added.

 

They had said no more on the matter back then, but now, in his lonely agony, Shippou remembered Kohaku. Kohaku was dead, and now Kagura could be as well. Then neither of Kagome's hopes would come to bear. In the end, the only one who would win would be Naraku. Shippou did not always understand Kagome's decisions, but in a vivid epiphany he realized that he did not need to. He accepted then, amongst the towering ruin and despair in which he stood, that she understood them.

 

He clambered over the wreckage of debris, trying to get a better look at his sometime enemy.

 

“Kagura!” he called. “Can you hear me? Say something!”

 

There was no answer, and he feared she was indeed dead.

 

Shippou struggled with the debris, almost weeping with exhaustion and desperation. At last, his hazy brain realized that his efforts were pointless; he could transform into something more useful.

 

As a gigantic ogre, Shippou was as hideous as any monster, but as strong as a titan. He heaved the debris off the wind sorceress. He flung aside the tangled debris but the slimy, saturated ground was treacherous, and the swing of his weight knocked him off his feet again. His normal shape returned and he landed flat on his face. He lifted his shoulders with a colossal effort, and crawled forward to hover over the unconscious demoness.

 

Poisonous sludge covered her ashen face. She did not appear to be breathing. Without knowing why, Shippou tried to mop away the muck and clear the soaked and stringy hair from her face. She seemed so weak and helpless now, a shadow of the terrible wind sorceress she had been. She was so frail and wan that, for a moment, he thought maybe he had been mistaken. Perhaps he had really found Sango or Kagome after all.

 

He crushed the thought with brutal callousness. There was no point in being stupid. Kagura's kimono, her jade earrings, the shape of ears, all gave her away.

 

Shippou peered down at her and then tried to clear his own eyes. When he did, he felt the sting of miasma. As if the thought brought it all back to him, he remembered his burning lungs, his scorching mouth, and his screaming muscles. They had to get away from the foul rain.

 

“Kagura!” he shook her. “Kagura! Get up!”

 

Kagura did not stir. He was too tired to lift her, and the thought of transforming again made his bones shudder with exhaustion. It was impossible. He pressed his ear against her, trying to hear a heartbeat, but then he remembered.

 

Wherever it is, it's not here.

 

He tried to detect her breathing, or any other sign of life, but she remained motionless and colorless.

 

Shippou shook with exhaustion, but even more with rage.

 

Was this it then? Was this all there was to it? Forget about his love; forget the grief and horror of that. Couldn't he even save a wretched enemy? Was even that still too much to ask?

 

Reaching madness in his shock, exhaustion, and pain, he cried brokenly.

 

“Please,” he sobbed. “Please oh please don't do this to me.”

 

He raised his eyes to the weeping sky. No one answered.

 

Shippou tried to clear his eyes again and noticed his hands were red. Some of it was blood, but most of it was the dye from Kagura's kimono. The sickened downpour had leached it out. The crimson color reminded him of someone else, and he choked on his rage again.

 

“How could you? How could you?” he shouted with a raw and inflamed throat. “Damn you!”

 

He started to beat his fists on Kagura's chest. He was no longer trying to rouse her, having given her up for dead. A soaring fury maddened him.

 

“I hate you! I hate you! Curse you forever!”

 

All he had gotten out of all of this was dying alone.

 

He was startled when, over his insane raging, he heard a strange new noise. On the last blow of his fists against her chest, Kagura let out a weak, gurgling cough. He stopped and stared at her.

 

 

Kagura opened her eyes and saw a charcoal sky. She was no longer under the tree, but she still felt like her body was on fire.

 

The rain was hitting her face and she tried to turn away, but the slightest movement resulted in a crushing pain at the base of her skull and made her stomach heave. With trembling hands, she tried to cover her eyes. Then she saw him.

 

One of Inuyasha's companions, the kitsune—she could not recall his name—was staring down at her. He was crusted with blood and filth and his eyes were red and haunted. Kagura took ragged, shuddering breaths and remained motionless, not knowing what to do next, or if she could even trust her own senses. She could still feel the poison, agonizing through her body like tiny flecks of glass in her veins.

 

So I'm dying then, what else is new?

 

She felt a sudden resentment, not at her impending demise, but at the brat who would not let her die in peace.

 

“Go away.”

 

He looked surprised, but then his eyes hardened.

 

“Get up,” he answered.

 

Kagura did not respond. She felt an irrational and stubborn need to preserve some quiet dignity before her death.

 

“GET UP!”

 

Kagura tried to shift away from him again, annoyed.

 

“I said go away.” It hurt to crack open her mouth, and her voice came out in a pathetic quiver.

 

Shippou crawled over her and seized two handfuls of her hair, holding her head between his hands. Kagura cried out.

 

“Now you listen to me!” he shouted. “Kagome is dead! Do you hear me? She is fucking dead! And you ARE getting up!”

 

For a moment, Kagura felt stricken and sick. For the first time in her life it seemed to her that she was hearing real despair, and its blackness was seeping through her like smoke through a veil. She shuddered and let it pass, and set her soul back in its grim place.

 

“What makes you think I care?”

 

“I didn't ask if you did. I just said you are getting up.”

 

With that, Shippou raised himself and stood with the firm resolution of hatred. Though he swayed on his feet from exhaustion, injuries, and the assault of poison, he took her hands in a firm grasp and yanked her to her feet.

 

Kagura shrieked as he pulled on the injured arm. Nonetheless, she ended up on her feet. She started to say something, but nothing came out. It seemed to her that she should be feeling something or doing something, or maybe going somewhere, but her mind was a broken plane of orange and blue fuzz that could not connect any of those points together anymore.

 

She mumbled slow and stupid words, through a haze of pain and poison, as she stood hunched over and clutching her shoulder. “Okay…so now what?”

 

“I…we must get away…away from here.”

 

The boy was almost as incoherent as she was. He seemed to be going in and out of sanity. Kagura even started to reach out her hand to him, but then remembered she shouldn't or couldn't or wouldn't because…

 

But then it was gone again.

 

“Is this what it's like to die?”

 

Shippou did not answer. He put his hand on her shoulder and pointed. Her gaze followed his finger.

 

“What?”

 

“Go. Go that way.”

 

They trekked across the ruined woods and venomous streams, stumbling and shuffling in darkness. Nothing but slight breezes, the occasional force of water released from the flooded hills, and their inability to comprehend death pushed them on.

 

There was no way to keep track of the passage of time. The endless rain veiled the course of sun and moon and stars. They did not bother to sleep or to eat. Worse still, the odd pair of demons went in and out of feverish lunacy, their bodies and minds lashed with torture and despair. At various times, they shared in a kind of communal mania, feeding off the other's incomprehensible ravings. On other occasions, one would shuffle about, muttering incomprehensible gibberish at unseen phantoms, while the other looked on with fear and dread.

 

At some point in their wanderings, Kagura became aware that something was stabbing and burning her in the ribs. She reached into her kimono and her fingers encountered something hard and unnatural. It was her fan. She pulled it out and realized that it was the source of the discomfort. It had left a rod-shaped welt across her breast and now it was throbbing in her hand. Looking at it made her stomach churn with a deep revulsion. Kagura broke the hateful thing over her knee and cast aside its remains.

 

The poison weakened, and the air underwent a slow transformation to something breathable again. The rain continued.

 

They had no idea that they had wandered in larger and larger circles for more than a month, before finding a cave somewhere south of the plateau. It was no more than a crease in the mountain, but it provided some relief from the ceaseless rain.

 

 

Kagura awoke one day (there was no way to know what time it was), to find her throat and eyes swollen with weeping. She was hoarse, and her lips cracked and bled when she licked them. Nonetheless, she was able to sit upright, and to take in her surroundings without the taint and swirl of madness.

 

Shippou, however, seemed worse than ever. He was crouched in the most narrow part of the cave, with his arms above his head, as if he was all that kept the mountain from crushing them. Without knowing what she would say, Kagura stumbled toward him. When he sensed her, he started mumbling an unbroken string of bizarre ramblings.

 

“On the dry and dusty road, the nights we spent apart alone, I need to get back home, to cool, cool rain, I can't sleep and I lie and I think, the nights are hot and black as ink, oh god I need a drink, or cool, cool rain, love, love, love reign over me, rain on me. Where is the Wanderer? She seeks the Beloved at the General's house. I have saved the Saved. The Cursed lies with the Faithful. The Solitary lies with the Lucky. The Tempered is keeping the Bearer. The Released is alone, alone!”

 

Thus it went on and on. Kagura's strength was returning, and she accepted with disappointment that she was probably not dying. However, upon hearing the kitsune's ravings she gave him up for dead. She decided to wait it out, if only for an utter lack of anything else to do. It never occurred to her to leave.

 

But that night Shippou slept a deep and profound sleep, and when the grey dawn was still indistinguishable from the night, he opened his eyes and sat upright. He drew his knees up to his face and rested his chin. Kagura watched him all the while, but he did not speak. For days they sat in silence, enclosed on all sides by mountain and a curtain of rain.

 

Finally, Shippou despaired that the rain would ever end, which is what he had been waiting for once he had shaken the fever and regained his senses. He rose to his feet without a word and went to the mouth of the cave. Kagura, who had grown accustomed to silence and inactivity, was startled, and she followed him.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“What do you care?” Shippou did not turn around. “Why are you still here anyway?”

 

Kagura did not know an answer.

 

Shippou walked out to the rocky edge, transformed into a hawk, and circled higher and higher in the sky. Kagura watched him until he was just a speck in the distance, almost impossible to see through the rainy veil.

 

So I'm alone again, what else is new?

 

Kagura debated with herself what action she should take next. Should she look for her heart? What if that led her back to Naraku? What if he found her? Maybe she could find allies. But where? It seemed to her that Naraku had succeeding in destroying or at least scattering most of his enemies.

 

As she was exploring her options, still standing near the cave opening, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Shippou landed right in front of her.

 

“I saw a house!” he announced in a loud voice.

 

“What?”

 

“A house. There's a house to the south. Even through the rain, I could see it clear as day. I'm going towards it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because my friends would go that way too. If Sango is still alive, she might have Kirara, and she might have seen the house. She would have gone there looking for shelter. Maybe she even had Miroku or Inuyasha with her. If I go that way, I might pick up their trail.”

 

“I heard a lot of `mights' and `maybes' in there.”

 

Shippou looked away, to the distance. “Yes,” he admitted, “but we have no choice.”

 

“We?” Kagura jumped to her feet.

 

Shippou looked at her in surprise. “That's right. I'm not leaving you here to die after all we've gone through to save you.”

 

Kagura thought to reply how she never asked Kagome to do anything, that Kagome had been a fool to throw her life away, that none of mattered anyway because she was Kagura, and she didn't need or owe anybody.

 

But the words stuck in her throat like clumps of wet sand.

 

“And you will die,” he went on, “if I leave you here. Why don't you try flying?”

 

Kagura realized with a start that it had never occurred to her to fly since that terrible day. She went to the edge of the mountain's rock face and raised her hand in a gesture that was so familiar that it was automatic to her.

 

Nothing happened. There was no answering rush of air, no sensation of lifting. She turned around and Shippou was looking at her with a knowing expression.

 

“What happened?” she demanded.

 

“Naraku just made you the way you are, and all your powers came from him. Now that your ties to him are severed, they're gone.”

 

Kagura tried again, and again, and again. In frustration, she reached for her fan and then remembered it was gone and why. She felt the first twinges of panic in her chest.

 

The kitsune was right! If left alone, it would only be a matter of time before Naraku, or any other demon, would find her in this helpless state. She would be as defenseless as a kitten.

 

Shippou summarized the situation in one sentence.

 

“I'm not strong enough yet to carry you, so we'll have to walk.”

 

Kagura, choked by rage, confusion, and fear, followed him in mute numbness.

 

As they walked, jumped, climbed, and slid down the slops of the mountain, Shippou tried to reassure her, if only a little bit. “Don't worry, they may come back. My guess is that you never had to think about your powers before. If you work on it, who knows?”

 

Have you ever wondered what you could accomplish if you pushed yourself, Shippou?

 

Kagura did not feel much better.

 

They walked for days. It was hard to be sure how long because they did not really need to sleep and there was little distinction between the nights and the gloomy, overcast days. As they traveled through the soggy and swampy hills, they passed villages devastated by the deluge. No one stopped them or asked them any questions.

 

One evening they came across a shelf of slate that jutted over a swollen, mountain stream. Shippou decided they would take the chance to dry out. There was nothing that could be burned, so the kitsune piled together some rocks, the size of his fists, and created a blue flame on top that gave off an eerie light.

 

“I can keep that going for a while, anyway.”

 

Kagura sat under the ledge, as far out of the rain as she could.

 

“How long do you think it's been?” he asked her.

 

“I don't know. More than a few weeks. Less than a few months.”

 

The mention of “months” reminded Shippou of “new moons” and other things about which he preferred not to think. He was silent for the rest of the night.

 

The next morning, Kagura opened her eyes to see her unforeseen companion crouched before the pile of stones, waving his arm over it repeatedly.

 

“Trying to get the fire going again?” she asked in a disinterested tone. “All the water in the air is probably putting it out.”

 

“No, I was trying to create one of my acorns.”

 

Kagura looked up in alarm. “Have you lost your powers?”

 

“You can't lose what you never had.”

 

Then he vanished in a squeaky little puff.

 

Kagura looked around, puzzled. “Kitsune?” she called.

 

“Demoness?” he answered pertly.

 

Kagura turned around. He was sitting on the lowest branch of a spreading oak some twelve yards away from the outcrop, looking serene and for all the world as though he had been there all along. A small, furtive movement caught Kagura's eye, and she noticed several Shippou clones, one by one popping into oblivion with little puffs of smoke.

 

“Self-replicating is pretty standard,” he said by way of explanation. “Kid's stuff, really. But usually, you can't make them do anything except run around all over the place. Least I can't. I thought it might be neat if I could.”

 

“Demon exercises,” she smirked. “I'm impressed.”

 

Shippou doubted she meant that.

 

“At least I can have a conversation while I'm using them, for a minute or two.” Then he gave her a direct look. “It wouldn't hurt you to think about practicing you own skills. If my instincts are right, we haven't seen the last of trouble.”

 

Kagura scoffed. “Your instincts!” she mocked. “They've served you so well until now. If our enemy decides to come after us, not all the replications in the world will save you.”

 

Shippou's eyes hardened. “Okay, fine! So why don't you just sit here and wait for him?”

 

Kagura did not have an answer, and they did not speak about it again that day.

 

It was only a few days later. Kagura was walking behind Shippou, as she always did, and she placed her hand on a tree trunk for support. When she took her hand away, it was both wet and sticky. There was sap on her palm.

 

Kagura shuddered, as memories of things she had buried in her mind came back to her with the lash of a dragon's tail. Then she let out a gasp.

 

Shippou turned in anxiety. “What is it?”

 

“Oh no,” Kagura's voice was sick. “I hope I'm wrong.”

 

“What?”

 

“Can you transform again? Can you go up and take another look at that house?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I want you to tell me what it looks like,” she told him. “Go up and take another look at it, then come back and describe it to me. It's important.”

 

Shippou looked annoyed, but he crouched, spread his arms and was in the air before Kagura really had the chance to see the transformation.

 

After about five minutes, he landed and gave her a thorough description of the house that was still many miles away.

 

“I was afraid of this,” she shook her head.

 

“What is it?” he asked. “Do you know it?”

 

“That place is called the Hyouden. Or rather, those lands are called the Hyouden. It is where Sesshoumaru lives.”

 

Shippou gaped at her in amazement.

 

“I'm not sure if you can really say he lives there though. He's hardly ever actually there.”

 

Shippou continued to stare at her for a moment or two. Then his eyes hardened, and he turned and began walking again.

 

“Where are you going now?” Kagura walked after him.

 

“Nothing's changed.”

 

“Have you lost your mind?” Kagura demanded. “Do not be a fool and expect one such as him to lift a finger for you! He will more likely kill us, if the idea doesn't bore him too much. We would be like insects to him.”

 

“So?”

 

“So? What the hell do you mean, SO?”

 

Shippou stopped and turned. He walked right up to Kagura until their noses were mere inches apart.

 

“If Sesshoumaru is so strong, why hasn't he done anything about Naraku? Why, as far as I can tell, has he never done anything about anything?”

 

“Because he has not gotten around to it yet. Sesshoumaru does not think about time the way the rest of us do.”

 

“Is that right?” Shippou peered at her. “How is it that you know so much about him?”

 

Kagura returned his gaze with a cool expression, but did not answer.

 

“Well, it doesn't matter anyway.” Shippou turned and walked on again. “If what you say is true, then perhaps Sesshoumaru will have an explanation.”

 

Kagura was thunderstruck. “Sesshoumaru? Explain?”

 

“Look, you can hang out in these soggy mountains for the next few centuries if you want to. I'm going to that house.”

 

Kagura had to run to keep up with him.

 

He turned around again. “So is that your answer? Are we going to do things this way? Are we going to that house, even if it means death, because it's better than lying down to die or waiting for that devil to find us?”

 

Kagura was taken aback by the intensity of the young demon's voice and expression. She remembered the last time she had seen Kagome, and she felt a chill that she took for a premonition.

 

Kagura surrendered at last to the undeniable evidence of her new existence

 

“That's how it is,” she answered, trying to sound casual, trying to make it seem as though it was the most reasonable thing in the world, as though it were only natural, not at all unexpected and not at all the effect of her fear of solitude.

 

Shippou contemplated her face, assessing whether or not she meant it.

 

But just then the rain, which they had come to accept like a white noise, began to lessen to a faint drizzle. The silence was shocking. The sky above broke into patches of dreary, tattered clouds, as if someone had just torn the gray fabric apart. They stood still and silent, eyes glinting with stars and unshed tears.

 

“Oh wow,” Shippou took a deep breath, feeling as if he had not breathed in all the time since the Plateau. “It's actually stopping. I got so used to it. I wonder how long we were wandering in the rain.”

 

They did not notice the tiny, but very bright, red star that was winking at them from the western horizon.

 

“Let's go, Kagura. His Imperial Indifference is waiting for us.”

***

[End of Chapter 10]

[Next chapter: Miroku and Sango]