After applying Sango’s salve and re-bandaging Kagome’s wound, Kaede left her to it, despite the younger miko’s reservations.

“I trust ye can manage,” the old woman said brusquely as she took up her satchel and headed for the door. “I’ve a birthin’ to attend to.”

“But, Baa-chan…”

“Ye will be fine,” Kaede said with a wave. “There be extra firewood out back, if ye have need of it.”

And with that, the noren curtain swung shut behind her. Kagome deflated, her gaze shifting helplessly toward Sesshoumaru’s comatose form. He was still sweating profusely, his features tense and his exposed skin gleaming with perspiration—although he had seemed to relax a fraction at Kaede’s departure.

Kagome was heartened by this indirect display of trust. Even if he was only relying on her to the tiniest extent, she should make the most of it. Rising to her feet in determination, she approached the hearth.

“Sweat it out,” she repeated to herself, punching her fist into her palm. “Okay, then—let’s do this.”

She piled on as much wood as the hearth could bear, stoking the fire into a roaring blaze. As soon as the flames began to shrink, she added another log, and another. It wasn’t long before the stack of wood inside the hut started to dwindle.

Not even bothering to put on her coat, Kagome burst from the dwelling, bowling over a snoozing Jakken on her way around to the back. The cold air doused her like a pitcher of ice-water—refreshing and jarring all at once. Teeth chattering, she found a small cart nearby and began loading wood into it by the armful. When the cart reached maximum capacity, she wheeled it around.

“Accursed horse!” a shrill voice cried out ahead of her.

Approaching the doorway, she encountered Jakken trying to sneak his way into the hut past Entei’s fiery-hooved blockade. As the imp made yet another attempt to break through, a flaming tail lashed out, sending him sprawling once again. Seething, Jakken glared up at Entei from the dirt, shaking his nintoujou threateningly. With a smoky snort, the horse looked away, unimpressed.

“Wench!” the imp exclaimed, rounding on her. “Tell your nag to move aside—this Jakken demands to see Sesshoumaru-sama!”

“Yeah, not happening.” As Entei shifted to let her pass, Kagome set the cart down just inside the threshold before turning back to Jakken. “Sesshoumaru doesn’t need you hovering over him. He’s stressed enough as it is. You can see him when he wakes up.”

“Insolent ningen!” he shouted after her as the curtain closed behind her. “How dare you—Yeeeeaaargh!”

Behind her, there was the pungent, oily smell of burning clothes and imp skin, followed by a resounding splash as Jakken doused himself in the wash bucket outside. Rolling her eyes at his enraged spluttering, Kagome pushed the cart further inside and set about tending to the neglected fire.

As the flames soared high again, she resumed her silent vigil at Sesshoumaru’s side. He wasn’t looking any better, but he also wasn’t looking any worse. For the next few hours, she alternated between stoking the fire and gently dabbing at his forehead with whatever scraps of cloth she could find, her own sweat soon dripping down onto the floor to pool with his.

The hut had become absolutely stifling, and Kagome sweltered even after paring her clothing down to just a pair of panties and a camisole. Now both were soaked through, the white fabric practically transparent. So when Sesshoumaru’s eyes opened toward her sometime around midnight, the inferno around them had nothing on the white-hot heat that seared through her at his brief, feverish appraisal.

As his eyes closed again, Kagome sagged wearily onto her palms, his colored lids twitching as he slipped once more into restless dreams. Exhaustion tugged at her like a fishhook in her brain, though the worry in her heart fatigued her even more. Propped up on her right elbow, she lay down beside him, praying that his fever broke soon–before it finished them both.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi