With her reiki, Kagome burned away the spill of Sesshoumaru’s seed from her skin. She did this with the same habitual thoroughness she’d have used to burn it up inside her. As he’d told her, it was her prerogative to ‘see to it,’ and so she did. No risk of any lingering evidence of him

She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was her own deranged perception of events, but it seemed he couldn’t either. Neither of them could help themselves anymore. All sense of sanity and restraint were gone. Lost to the blaze of his frustration, to the flung floodgates of her anguish that wouldn’t shut to

Kagome raised herself up and turned toward him. The sight of Sesshoumaru standing there against the purpling skies was almost blinding to her misted eyes. She blinked up at him and felt a fresh wave of tears course down her cheeks. “This is all my fault,” she said tremulously. Sesshoumaru’s golden gaze trailed over the

It was an overcast day when they laid Miroku’s remains to rest, as if the gods themselves had selected the backdrop best suited to the occasion—a gloomy, ash grey. The funeral was a bleak affair—what funeral wasn’t? But Kagome was most staggered by the surrealness of it. She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact

Torn in more ways than one, Kagome walked next door with Sango, leaving her there with her children and neighbors. Picking up Shin, she called Inuyasha down from his gloomy perch after a few attempts. Together with him she returned to their home. They didn’t speak the whole way back. Their silent suffering lay thick

While Inuyasha sulked in a tree just outside the house, Kagome sat with Sango in the hours after. Not speaking much, weeping often. Kagome felt raw with grief—fleshed-out from the inside out. Sango’s eyes were rubbed red, her face pale as swept stone. She looked washed out, hollowed out. Worn out with pain, yet unable

With Shin in arms, Inuyasha and Kagome hurried from their home. On the porch step they met the harried young man who had hailed them. He stood panting to catch his breath. “Miko-sama, I-Inuyasha-sama…” “What the hell’s going on?” Inuyasha barked at him. The young man started, then shook his head. “…You had better just

Inuyasha wasn’t at home when she arrived, not that she’d expected him to be. He usually came trudging in after sunset, and that was still about an hour off. Anxiously, she paced the hut with Shin in her arms, glancing about, thinking. She felt both sick with dread and restless with anticipation. No matter how

Kagome reeled aside as if she’d been struck. She staggered a few steps into the grass, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her shoulders hunched. Her guts twisted, her stomach roiled. She thought she might throw up. Her eyes watered and burned. Her throat was parched, constricted. Blood rushed pounding in her ears. At her

Tangled up in Sesshoumaru’s arms, Kagome stared out at Miroku, staring back at her. In the time before he turned away, she was frozen, numb inside. Her body went still. Her mind went blank. A moment could have passed. An eternity could have passed. She felt no difference between the two as she stood there,