“Oops,” Hakudoushi said mockingly.

“Rin-chan!” Kagome cried, throwing aside her bow as she sprinted toward the falling child with a speed that no one—least of all her jaded gym teacher—would have ever believed her capable of.

She hit the ground as Rin landed in her outstretched arms, her ungodly momentum sending them both sliding across the stony plateau. As they careened over the edge, her hand struck out, seizing the brittle roots of a half-dead tree.  

Her boots scrabbled for a foothold against the sheer wall of rock before her. Far below, she could just make out the snow-dusted treetops skirting the mountain’s base. Swallowing thickly, she tore her eyes away from the sight, Rin whimpering as she clung to the front of her coat.

“It’s okay, Rin-chan,” she managed with a smile, her toes at last finding the slimmest ledge to rest upon. “Here, see if you can grab onto one of these roots.”

Timidly the little girl reached out, her fingers curling around one dusty tendril.

“That’s it!” Kagome cheered. “Keep going!”

Emboldened by this, Rin took hold of another root and began to climb, Kagome supporting her from below. Rin gasped when one of the thinner roots snapped in her hand, looking back down at Kagome in terror.

“Don’t worry,” Kagome said, with all the cheery optimism she could muster. “I’ve got you, okay?”

Rin nodded, resuming her ascent. As she pulled herself at last over the edge of the plateau, Kagome released a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. A jaunty side ponytail jutted out over the cliff above her, wide brown eyes peering down at her in concern as Kagome now began the treacherous task of hauling her own self up the mountainside.

Testing the weight of the root she’d been clinging to, she stepped carefully off the ledge and hoisted herself toward the withered trunk of the tree. The hollow wood groaned ominously as she climbed, her grip slipping occasionally from the sweat filming her palms. Her heart leapt as the top of the plateau finally came within reach, the fingers of her left hand hooking just over the rim of it when she felt a dark presence hurtling toward her through the air.

She swung out to the side as the scimitar blade of Hakudoushi’s naginata crashed into the rock beside her. Rin scrambled back with a short cry, the last inch or so of her ponytail sheared off by his strike. Kagome grit her teeth as she swayed precariously in midair, the aged roots snapping and fraying beneath her hands from the strain. Strengthening them with a desperate surge of reiki, she climbed frantically for the top.

“I was getting lonely up there, waiting for you,” Hakudoushi said wryly, wrenching his weapon from the cliff side.

Kagome launched herself over the edge as he struck out again, the point of his naginata slicing through the meat of her left arm. She screamed out in pain, knees buckling and vision blurring as shouki seared through her flesh like an acid burn.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi