Archive of Our Own

“A yuki-onna?” Sango repeats.

It’s one of those times when Yasha has been called back to his side of the well (Kagome mentioned something about duties to his education, though didn’t quite seem to understand it herself) and they’ve resigned themselves to the fact that they won’t make much progress until he returns. Sango, for all her spiritual talents, is not attuned to the Shikon-no-Tama the way he is, so shard hunting in his absence is largely doomed to futility. But there is always the possibility of stumbling upon a clue about Naraku, so travel is better than simply waiting around Kaede’s village. Besides, it does Kagome good to be out on the road, instead of sitting on the lip of the Bone-Eater’s Well and silently debating whether or not Yasha’s family would appreciate an unannounced visit.

This has led them to their current predicament—a hamlet village tucked into the base of a mist-shrouded mountain. Sango scans the faces of the small crowd before them, and there is not a single man among them. Nothing but women wringing their hands, stress-creases in their brows and shadows beneath their eyes from sleepless nights. Many are middle-aged, others young and comely. They had stopped them on the road the moment they saw the glint of Sango’s shakujo.

The headwoman nods grimly. She is a bit on the heavier side, middle-aged, with a frayed bandana tied around her brow. “Indeed. There’s an old rumor in this area about a young princess who had to flee from her castle because of war. She and many soldiers retreated into the mountains in the midst of winter. The soldiers first succumbed to their injuries, and then she herself succumbed to the harsh weather. Or something like that.”

“How awful,” Kagome murmurs.

“Recently, the princess’s ghost seems to have started haunting us, and has been luring our husbands away,” pipes another woman. She has a sleeping baby on her back, and is noticeably pregnant beneath her mo-bakama. “One by one, they go up into the mountains to hunt or gather firewood—but none return.”

Movement in Sango’s periphery. Hands clapping over the woman’s. Sango feels a vein in her temple twitch as Miroku leans in. “What a dreadful story.” The sincerity in his voice is not entirely fake, but it is unnecessarily exaggerated. “I imagine that you all must be quite lonely without your husbands around.”

At his feet, Kirara mewls disapprovingly. Sango concurs. “They’re married, taijiya.”

Miroku nonchalantly steps back, adjusting Hiraikotsu’s strap, as if he’s done nothing wrong. “I am aware, houshi-sama.”

Yet you flirt with them anyway. She lets the jab melt away inside her mouth, knowing by know that it won’t do any good. Miroku has been in their company only a few short weeks, but in that little time, he’s proven himself quite the nuisance.

Now, don’t get her wrong. Sango has nothing but sympathy for him and his situation. She still remembers the way he sank to his knees when he witnessed the ruins that Naraku had left of his village. It was unnecessarily cruel and yet another reason that monster needs to be slain. Add in the recent situation with his resurrected younger brother, and it’s hard for her heart not to ache when thinking about it. The fact that he hasn’t withdrawn into himself entirely actually amazes her, at times. She doubts that, were she in his situation, she would find the strength to act so casually.

But the moment the taijiya starts grabbing strange women by the hands and waxing poetics, she can feel that sympathy evaporating. Just because he’s gone through what he has, it doesn’t give him the right to be so, so... shameless.

Fighting an eyeroll, Sango turns back to the headwoman. “Of course we’ll help.”

Relief breaks across her face. “Thank you so much, houshi-sama!”

“It’s that mountain there, yes?” With a clawed finger, Kagome points to the hazy shape in the distance. Wreathed in white mist, it starts solid at the base but the edges blur more and more as the eye travels upwards, until the peak of it is lost to the sky.

“That’s right.” The headwoman’s gaze suddenly flits in Miroku’s direction. “You should be careful, young man. Rumor has it that the princess was of peerless beauty.”

Miroku’s eyes light up immediately. Sango misses the days when this would have surprised her. “Peerless beauty, you say?”

“Yes. So you must be extra mindful not to fall into her trap.”

Something about the way Miroku nods makes Sango doubt he heard anything after “peerless beauty”. “Of course.”

Kirara flicks her tails at Miroku’s ankle as if to scold him. He doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe Sango’s sympathy is better spent on the nekomata instead.

A few minutes later, once they are further down the path, Sango glances over her shoulder to see if the crowd of women have dispersed. They have. Many have drifted back to their daily chores or are making their back to their village in pairs, murmuring to each other with words too soft to be heard. Perhaps speculating about whether or not their husbands will really be rescued as promised. Whatever the case, it seems like they are away from earshot, now.

She stops walking, and taps the butt of her shakujo against the ground as a signal for the others to do the same. “Perhaps not all of us need to participate in this particular exorcism.”

Kagome’s brows rise, but she doesn’t look entirely unsurprised. “Think so?”

“A large group might scare the youkai off.” Sango glances pointedly in Miroku’s direction. He returns it with an expression of the utmost innocence. “Taijiya, I think you should stay behind.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because when it comes to women, you’re completely unreliable,” Sango deadpans.

“Houshi-sama...” The hand not holding her shakujo suddenly finds itself grasped by his. Then he’s leaning in, close enough that her vision is filled by the velvety depths of his eyes. A kind of delicate hurt sparkles in his irises. “Have you really so little faith in me?”

“My faith in you is nonexistent, actually.”

Shippo snorts. Kirara lashes her tails. Kagome purses her lips together to keep from smiling. Miroku’s misty look drops into something more affronted.

“Alright, I’ll admit, I can get a bit... carried away, shall we say, in a casual setting. But—I am quite capable of professionalism, when need be.”

Sango shakes off his hands. “So far, I’ve seen otherwise.”

Now Miroku frowns. The kind of frown that creases the corners of his mouth, which lets her know it’s genuine. See, she’s noticed by now that he has two sets of expressions—the first are performance, all in the name of flirtation and accenting the natural handsomeness of his features; then there are the real, unrestrained shows of emotion that aren’t afraid to crease or crinkle his face.

“I started my training when I was eleven. That was seven years ago.” He folds his arms into the sleeves of his kosode, Hiraikotsu towering proudly over his back. “You really think, that in all that time, I wouldn’t have developed some separation between my personal interests and my job?”

At some point during the conversation, Kirara settled down to start grooming her tails. She’s on the left tail at the beginning of that particular comment and, by the end of it, she pauses long enough to mewl in disagreement.

Miroku’s frown deepens. “Hey now. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Kirara blinks slowly.

“Unbelievable...”

Well, that’s all Sango needs. “Kagome-chan, do you think you can sniff out the barrier the women spoke of?”

Kagome cranes her neck to spy at where the path curves out of sight. “If it’s as strong as they say, then probably.”

“Hey,” Miroku starts.

“Shippo-chan, are you alright keeping an eye on the taijiya?”

Shippo, from his perch on Kagome’s shoulder, sits back on his haunches. “Uh... I guess so?”

Miroku looks outright offended now. “Really?”

“As a precaution,” Sango explains.

He breathes in deeply through his nose, then exhales. Molds his expression into something diplomatic and entreating. “If this yuki-onna targets men, don’t you suppose she’s rather unlikely to appear before a pair of women?”

“Hm... Good point.” Sango spends half a second recalculating. “Say, Shippo-chan, how long can you hold a more complex transformation?”

While Miroku’s expression drops a second time, Shippo straightens with the mild panic of someone suddenly on the spot. “Um... Like, a couple hours? Maybe? I mean, it’s always the face that starts to break first—uh, but I could cover that up, so...”

“No, that’s perfect.”

A muscle twitches in Miroku’s jaw. She can see the cracks starting bloom at the edges of his composure. “Is that really wise? Shippo’s illusions are notoriously unreliable, after all.”

“Hey!” Shippo protests. “At least I don’t get distracted by women’s rears!”

Kagome lets out a sharp, barking noise and hastily covers her mouth with one hand. Miroku sends Shippo the kind of glare that Yasha would approve of. Shippo hastily ducks behind the silver shield of Kagome’s hair. Kirara glances at her master with something almost like sympathy.

Biting down her own amused smile, Sango rests her shakujo against her shoulder. “Well, I think that settles that, then.”

Energy crackles fiercely against the head of Sango’s shakujo. Bolts of electric youki flash white-green against the metal, sending the rings into a frenetic clatter. She draws back a step, withdrawing her weapon to find steam rising from it in slow wisps. And as the barrier resettles, the air shimmers like heat on the horizon, the trees and shrubbery beyond warping as the image clears and then goes still once more. Even then, there is something off about it, if you look closely enough. Like your understanding of distance is being tampered with, so the thing in front of you is a bit too close, or a bit too far, than it should be.

Heat greets her fingertips as she runs them over the weapon’s decorative point. No warping, thankfully. “This is it, alright.”

Next to her, Miroku experimentally waves his arm out in front of him. It’s the same open air where her shakujo met so much resistance, yet nothing impedes the path of his limb. “Looks like it doesn’t effect men in the same manner.”

Sango snorts. “A sexist barrier. Lovely.”

Kirara sniffs the air, then makes an uneasy sound.

“No wonder the women couldn’t do anything,” Kagome says sadly. “They couldn’t take over the men’s duties themselves, despite being safer than them, because they couldn’t even make it up the mountain.”

Miroku grips Hiraikotsu’s strap. “So they had to abide by their husbands going into potential danger, and simply sit at home hoping nothing terrible happened...”

Unbidden, Sango thinks back to when she was eight. The day when her father kissed her head for the last time and then hastened into the field outside Mushin’s temple. Mushin’s hands holding her back, hard fingerbones digging into her shoulders as the wind whipped up in the distance.

To this day, she can’t remember whether her father screamed in pain or not, as he died. The wind was just too loud. It even swallowed sound.

Her right hand clenches into a fist.

With a wary growl in the back of her throat, Kirara swipes her paw at the open air. The barrier crackles brightly. She jumps back, hissing, ears pinned back and both tails fluffed.

“Seems it doesn’t care for other youkai much, either,” Kagome remarks.

Sango watches Kirara dart behind Miroku’s legs, then faces forward. “Alright. Let’s get going.”

“Hold on a minute, houshi-sama.”

Frowning, she glances at Miroku. He has his face turned toward the largest patch of sky visible through the trees. “What is it?”

“Well... it’s getting a bit late, don’t you think?”

He’s not wrong. It was midafternoon when the women had approached them, but several hours have passed since then. By the time Kagome had finally detected the barrier (which she claimed smelled like an odd combination of water and something burning), the sun had long since slipped low and daylight deepened into tones of amber and dark gold. Rays slant lethargically through the leaves and strike at the fine mist hanging almost suspended in the air until it looks as if the entire forest has been liberally flecked in gold dust. It gives Sango the impression that she has to be mindful of not inhaling too deeply, lest she fill her lungs with it and choke.

Sango eyes him skeptically. “What’s your point?”

Kirara pokes her head out from behind Miroku’s calf as he turns towards her, face serious. “The mountains are dangerous at night. It might be wiser to camp here and then resume this endeavor in the morning.”

She plants the butt of her shakujo sharply into the ground. Sharp enough that the rings jangle and Kagome’s ears fold back. “You can’t be serious.”

“It would also be wise to give Shippo some time to practice his illusions a little. Wouldn’t it?” His expression is purposefully neutral.

“Good idea!” Shippo pipes up, before Sango can think of a response. “I’m still tryna figure out if I should be bald or not.”

“Does that really make a difference?” Kagome wonders.

Folding his arms and donning the demeanor of a master addressing their apprentice, Shippo replies, “Trust me, Kagome. Kitsune illusions hinge on details.”

Kagome lets out a polite little “ooh”. Kirara emerges slowly, her side pressed into the hem of Miroku’s hakama. Sango studies the barrier for a long moment. With how dense the shrubbery looks, navigating it past sunset would be more difficult. That is, if the barrier is merely a warding spell rather than something that might transport them to a pocket dimension where the youkai would have free reign. Not to mention that it isn’t unheard of for youkai to have more strength during the darkest hours...

Miroku smiles guilelessly. He wouldn’t have any reason to make something up. A youkai in the shape of a beautiful woman is still a youkai, and surely he isn’t so lustful as to disresgard that.

Right?

“...I suppose it could wait until morning,” she concedes at last.

Sango wakes to something pawing at her face. She tries to wave it off once or twice, but only a few moments of peace pass before it returns. Whatever it is, it’s adamant about it disturbing her sleep.

And it gets its wish soon enough. Slowly, she finds her eyelids peeling open and the night slowly taking shape around her.

Something leaps off her shoulder and lands creamily on the ground. Black stripes, two tails, big carmine eyes.

Eh? Kirara...?

Awareness comes in pieces. Mist tickling coolly at her cheeks. Pale light from the half-moon spilling silver through the tree boughs. Her shakujo, resting comfortably on her shoulder. The charred remains of the fire at the center of their camp, blackened wood circled by large stones and embers long-dead. Kagome leaning against a nearby tree trunk, hair brilliant in the dark, the black of Tessaiga’s scabbard slanted across her crimson clothes. Shippo curled up in her lap, tail tucked beneath his cheek as a makeshift pillow. Yasha—no, wait, Yasha has been back behind the well for the last three days, and will remain there for three days more. Miroku...

...not here.

She blinks blearily. Scans the shadows again, the heaviness gradually fading from her eyes. But no, there’s no sign of his purple kosode and navy hakama, no Hiraikotsu resting palely against a trunk. Nearby, the barrier hums.

Her shakujo clatters to the ground as she jolts to her feet. “That idiotic lecher!”

The sound makes Kirara jump and wakes the others. Shippo gives a little shout as he bolts upright, tail fluffing and his little hands fisting at the fabric of Kagome’s hakama while his bright eyes flash every which way. Kagome, meanwhile, goes rigid as an arrow while catching Tessaiga’s hilt in a white-knuckled grip, her ears swiveling back and forth on her scalp.

As Sango bends down to seize her shakujo, Kagome’s gaze flashes to her. “What’s going on? Where’s Miroku-san?”

“Off to face the youkai alone, apparently.” She swears she’s gripping her shakujo so hard the metal might contort beneath her fingers.

Alarm brightens Kagome’s irises. “W-What, really?”

“Well, do you see him here?” Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable! Just when Sango thought he couldn’t sink any lower—

“But he left Kirara here,” Shippo points out.

...that’s right. Kirara sits back on her haunches not even a foot away. In all the time that Miroku has spent in their company—which isn’t very long, but long enough—he has yet to leave her behind when he goes into battle. And even if it was a beautiful woman on the barrier’s other side, a youkai is still a youkai. Even if that lecher was stupid enough to go off alone, surely his partner would have followed him anyway.

Not to mention that Kirara isn’t acting as if her master is in immediate danger. The fur along her spine flat and sleek. Both tails are coiled primly around her side and tucked against her paws. If Miroku’s death is imminent, she’s acting more like she might celebrate it.

Slowly, Kagome’s grip on Tessaiga relaxes. “...Maybe he just went to the bathroom?”

That... isn’t an unreasonable explanation, actually. It’s the middle of the night, the shrubbery around the little clearing isn’t particularly thick or concealing. Doing one’s business a little further away would be wise for both genders, in that regard.

But still... “With Hiraikotsu?”

“...Self defense?” Kagome proposes after a moment.

Again, not unreasonable. They are absurdly close to a youkai’s territory, after all. It would be wise of a warrior to bring their weapon with them, even for something as simple as relieving themselves.

Kirara continues to sit calmly. She watches Sango with luminous red eyes. Patient, almost waiting.

Shippo, meanwhile, slumps back against Kagome’s knee with a stifled yawn. “He’s pro’lly fine. Let’s go back t’ sleep...”

Moonlight bends beyond the barrier. The trees and plants beyond it seem paler than they should, too distant. Sango studies it from her periphery. Surely it is not just her imagination that the hum of youki from before has actually gotten stronger...

She makes up her mind.

“Kagome-chan, you wait here to see if he comes back. I’m going to check beyond the barrier.”

“Eh? W-Wait, Sango-sama—”

The rest of Kagome’s voice is drowned by a deafening crackle in Sango’s ears as she breeches the barrier.

I’m going to kill him, is the mantra going through Sango’s mind, her teeth clenched and her knuckles white around her shakujo.

Youki snaps and bursts all around her, bright enough to leave stars spinning behind her eyelids when she blinks. She has her weapon held out in front of her, head thrust outwards in some vain attempt at parting the barrier to make it more manageable. It doesn’t help nearly as much as she thought it would.

It’s a bit like wading through mud or trying to walk against fierce wind at once, but it’s also more. The pressure bears down on her from all directions, not just one. Rather that push her out, it feels more like the intent is to wrap her up and then squeeze. She can feel the metal of her shakujo creaking. She can feel her bones creaking. An ache begins to build inside her kneecaps with each trudging step, as if the joints will simply snap bloodily apart if she pushes too hard or too fast.

Buddha is usually against nonviolence. But he’d probably make an exception for Sango, given what that damn lecher is putting her through.

Just as suddenly as the pressure comes, it gives out. The loss of it sends her stumbling.

The first thing she notices is how the much thicker the mist is on this side. What was a fine film beyond the barrier now hangs heavy in the air and feels gluey in the back of her throat when she breathes. It isn’t cool or crisp, either, but rather a sickly warmth that paws demandingly at her clothes. She feels like she was slimy shackles around her ankles. The whiteness is conspiring to erase her depth perception, and she can hardly see a foot in front of her face without having to squint to make out blurry shapes.

The second thing she notices is a distinct lack of forest. No trees or shrubbery emerge from the fog, or even the outlines of them fading in and out of existence. The ground beneath her waraji is stiff and sheer. It smells of stone and the echo of thunderstorms, rather than loam or greenery. If she had to guess, she’d say this is the leeward side of the mountain.

The third thing she notices is the new, furry weight on her shoulder. A pair of large red eyes in her periphery. She tense, until she also registers striped tails and black markings on cream fur.

“Kirara. You came with me.” She must have hitched a ride just before Sango entered the barrier, and then she was too busy battling its pressure to notice her passenger.

Giving a mewl that sounds almost like an admonishment—as if to say, of course I would come—Kirara leaps off her shoulder. Red and gold explode around her form with little warning, engulf her completely for a few brief moments, then disperse as fast as it came. The Kirara that emerges from the flaming swirl looks more beast than pet, and not for the first time, Sango wonders about how a youkai taijiya came to have a youkai for a partner in the first place.

Speaking of Miroku...

There is a place where the fog looks almost yellowish if you stare at it long enough. Sango doesn’t even need to consult her spiritual powers to know that there must be something supernatural in that direction.

“Alright. Let’s go look for him.”

Kirara chuffs in agreement. The flames around her tails and ankles crackle as they start forward.

It was the night after the damage to her Wind Tunnel had been sewn up by Mushin that he found her at the bottom of the crater, her head bowed before her father’s grave. The sound of footsteps in the grass made her look up, but she already knew it wasn’t anyone else. Yasha’s shoes made a different sound, Kagome walked barefoot, Shippo’s steps were light, and Mushin’s gait was stiff with the beginnings of arthritis. Miroku’s were still unfamiliar to her.

She thought he didn’t look right, without Hiraikotsu’s jagged angles stretching out from behind his back. Bereft of his weapon, he looked less like the warrior she knew he was, behind all the roguish smiles and twinkling eyes, and instead seemed more mundane than he had any right to be. But it suited him somewhat, even if it was strange. It made her wonder about the person he was before his village was lain to waste.

“Mushin-sama told me how your grandfather was cursed,” he said, in lieu of an explanation. “I’m not surprised you’re not a fan of mine.”

The mala beads rattled as she set her hands down on her lap. There was still some soreness in her palm from the stitches. “My grandfather would probably like you, though. You’d have a lot in common.”

“I take it that isn’t a compliment.”

“Not really, no.”

“Dear oh dear.”

Summer hung heavy in the air. The heat made sweat bloom along the inside of her collar and slicked her covered forearm. Not for the first time, she resisted the urge to peel back the cloth. If it was too hot, then that was her burden to bear. Being a monk, after all, means abiding by discomfort. And if it were easy to be holy, then everyone would do it.

His sandaled feet shuffled in the grass. “I apologize, houshi-sama, for having caused all this.”

She blinked at him in askance. The darkness clung to his face like tar and made his expression hard to read, but even then, his gaze was affixed to the grave.

“If I hadn’t tried to fight that mantis youkai...”

“Oh. No, it’s—”

“Yes, it is.” He still would not look at her. “I overestimated how healed my injuries were. And you suffered because you stepped in.”

The injuries he speaks of are the ones that he accrued in Naraku’s castle. Weeping copious crimson when he was tricked into fighting them, numbed by the Shikon shard slipped into his back. He might have bled out, oblivious, if Sango hadn’t knocked him out back then. It’s hard to believe that only happened a week and a half ago. The scabbing must still be fresh and ugly. She imagines the bandages coiled whitely around his back and arms and stomach, hidden beneath his clothes.

Something must have torn open, when he’d tried to throw Hiraikotsu. She’d seen red bloom along the back of his kimono and had reached for her mala beads without a thought. Naraku knew him, and knew her, and that was why the trap worked.

“I would do it again,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

Crickets chirped in the distance. The heat carried the lingering taint of youkai blood, from the swarm that Kagome annihilated only yesterday. When Sango pressed her hands flat against her thighs, she could feel the stitches pinching at the skin of her cursed palm.

Slowly, his eyes drifted to her. Dark as an unbroken storm. “If Naraku dies, you will live, yes?”

Her father’s grave was silent before her. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll end him.”

Of course they don’t find Miroku right away. Sango didn’t expect to. But she also wasn’t expecting the vegetable garden.

After maybe five, ten minutes tops, the ground begins to change. It becomes softer, looser, a smell like dry earth and cracked clay rising to invade Sango’s nostrils. She has to breathe deeply through her mouth lest she sneeze on the dustiness of it. Large, lumpy shapes emerge around her feet. As the fog continues to thin, it becomes easier to see that the things brushing at her ankles are the large, star-shaped leaves. Before long, she realizes that many of the vines spill out into large, unripe gourds.

As she keeps going, she finds there are less and less places to walk. The vines start to clump together, tangle around each other into loose knots. Bulbous gourds impede her path, each one fat and green and firm. It gets to the point where she’s having to watch her step constantly, her eyes trained on the ground, that—

“Whoa!”

And then she is on the ground, her cheek pressed against dry soil.

Something moves around her sprawled-out legs.  With a bolt of horror, she realizes she tripped over something that is alive.

“Watch it, wouldya?”

Sango bolts upright, her shakujo at the ready.

But the eyes peering down at her do not belong to a youkai.

A quorum of elderly men crouch among the gourds, watching her with puzzled expressions. They all have a fantastic ancientness about them, as if an entire century left its mark upon their flesh. Pale, papery skin clings tightly to emaciated limbs and varicose veins run darkly underneath. Liver spots dapple foreheads and temples and gnarled hands in loose smatters. The clothes they wear are overlarge, loose, slipping carelessly off their skeletal frames. Many are half bald, but all of them have hair so pale and wispy-thin it is a genuine surprise it hasn’t yet fallen free from their scalps. Some watch her with eyes clouded in milky white, which would make her wonder if they were blind if not for how eerily direct their gazes are.

“Ho,” remarks the old man nearest to her. He wears the sleeveless haori of a village headman, which only makes her feel worse about the fact that she accidentally tripped over him. “You’re an amahoushi-sama, aren’t you?”

“Ah. I am.” Embarrassment burning in her cheeks, Sango curls her legs inwards and settles into a seiza position. As a monk, even a female monk, it’s practically in her job description to be respectable. And tripping over poor old men is not that. “I’m very sorry, jii-san.”

An affronted scowl twists his haggard face. “Who you callin’ ‘jii-san’?”

“...You?” The sound of rustling leaves lets her know that Kirara has come up behind her, but if the men are at all perturbed by a youkai’s presence, then they don’t react.

The old headman makes a plaintive noise. “I ain’t old!”

“Are you sure about that...?” Then again, his voice sounds awfully young. Rather deep and rich, rather than creaky voice you would expect from someone who looks his age.

“Pretty damn sure!”

Another old man somewhere nearby raises his skeletal arm high in the air. “I ain’t old either!”

“Me neither!” cries another, gnarled hands cupped around his mouth.

“Yeah!” adds a third. “I only turned twenty this spring!”

There is a long moment when Sango can only stare. But then she lets her gaze rove over the congregation again, more slowly this time. Though they each look as though they might turn to dust if they moved too much, they also each wear the kind of plain, simplistic clothing best for hard labor. A little over two dozen of them—exactly the same number of men that the village women told her went missing in the mountains.

She inhales sharply. “You’re the missing villagers.”

Kirara whines. The old headman finally seems to notice her, brows rising on his wrinkled forehead, but he doesn’t panic. People tend to be less wary of a youkai that is peacefully in the company of a monk.

“So you’ve all been here the whole time? Like this?” Seems like they’ve had their youth sucked out. But a yuki-onna wouldn’t do that... Is it a different kind of youkai, then?

While the question was in no way meant to be an accusation. the leaves rustle as the men shift uncomfortably, almost as if ashamed. Several avert their eyes to the distance or to the dirt. A couple tug at their collars with nervous chuckles. One even scratches his temple with a nervous smile stretching his toothless mouth.

“Well...”

“I’m cold...”

“My back hurts!”

“I gotta pee every time I move.”

“Who even knows where the exit is, anyway?”

“I don’t want my wife to see me like this!”

“I dunno... I kinda like gourds...”

Okay then. Sango decides there are bigger things to worry about right now. “Can you tell me how you all ended up like this?”

“Guess so. Gonna warn you though, amahoushi-sama, it’s a bit of a long story...”

They proceed to tell her, in almost gleeful detail, about how the moment they breeched the mountain’s barrier, they found themselves in the courtyard of an ornate castle. How sweet the flowers smelled, how peaceful the sound of flowing water in the moat was, how vivid the sakura petals were as they rained down from the branches. Lost and confused, they were amazed to be greeted by a beautiful princess with hair like ink and lush, ruby lips and dark, liquid eyes. Oh, how intoxicatingly she smiles as she invites them inside, with a songbird voice that would break you to pieces if you tried to refuse. What a miracle, that such an enchanting woman would allow such lowly creatures as themselves to sit across from her, to share tea with her. What a gripping tale she tells, about loneliness and despair, as she looks at you like you could be the god whose mercy pulls her out of hell. How dreamlike it is when she invites them into her room, their reflections caught in those big, mirrorlike eyes of hers, and how you feel like the night you spend inside that room will last for eternity...

She tightens her grip on her shakujo and prays for patience. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

The headman has his old face tilted to the sky, cheeks rosy and eyes misty. Sango feels a vein in her temple twitch as releases a long, wistful sigh. “That futon was the softest I’d ever slept on.”

...Huh?

“Best night’s sleep of my life!” agrees another, who lays flat on his back amidst the gourds. So flat, in fact, that Sango did not realize he was there until he spoke up.

“First time I’ve slept without my wife’s snoring,” laughs a third while elbowing the man nearest to him. Said man teeters as though a stiff breeze might bowl him over, but grins in seeming agreement.

Yet another man sags, almost mournfully, against the massive gourd propping him up. “Wish I’d never woken up...”

And all Sango can do is blink dumbly. “W... Wait. So you didn’t...?”

The headman’s wrinkled face twists with mortification. “Of course not, houshi-sama! I’m a married man!”

Similarly affronted murmurs break out from the congregation.

“Eh? Is she serious?”

“Does that amahoushi-sama really think we’d...?”

“What kinda husband do you take me for?!”

“What is it with women, anyway, being all suspicious?”

“Yeah! Just ‘cause we have urges don’t mean we don’t know how to deal with ‘em.”

“Marriage vows ain’t just for show, y’know!”

“Shame though. She was awfully pretty...”

The congregation then proceeds to glare at the one man not in accord with the others. Said outlier shrinks beneath the weight of their condemning stares, mumbling something about how he was just expressing an opinion and thoughts don’t necessarily translate into actions and please don’t tell his wife.

What a strange but nice change of pace. With how many stories there are of men lacking control (especially in her own family tree), it’s reassuring to know that the world actually has such decent men in it. Maybe she was starting to forget that, given how much time she’s been dealing with Miroku lately.

Miroku...

“Then when we woke up the next day, we were like this.” The old headman holds up skeletal hands. Bones stark through the skin, dark and twisting veins along the backs, liver spots smattering knuckles. Nails yellowed and overlong and chipped.

Sango imagines Miroku waking up with hands like that. Imagines the hands he likes to clap over hers becoming crackled and bony and brittle enough that they might break if he isn’t careful. And something sharp catches in the back of her throat.

Her shakujo jangles loudly as she stands. “Which way is the castle?”

“Er? I think it’s... uh, gimme a sec...”

“Which way.”

Meekly, the headman points.

Sango smooths her glare away beneath a beatific smile. “Thank you very much.” She turns to where Kirara has settled down on her haunches at some point during the conversation. “Kirara, you should stay here and keep an eye on them. The youkai left them alive, for whatever reason. She might not be done with them.”

Flames crackle at the ends of Kirara’s lashing trail. She does not exactly seem pleased with the prospect of being left behind, but she also does not outright protest it. For this, Sango dips her head in silent gratitude. Then she spins on her heel and takes off in the direction that the headman pointed.

“Be careful, amahoushi-sama!” the aged headman calls out after her. “Once you look into the princess’s eyes, you’re a goner!”

Credit where credit is due, it’s a very beautiful castle.

It rises resplendently from the white mists, lovelier than any daybreak cresting the horizon. Gold glitters along the veins of the roof, sparkles almost blindingly against the corneas when the light hits it wrong. The moat surrounding it is crystal-clear, water rushing whitely along the path, save for where it is caught beneath the shadow of a ruddy, lacquered bridge that arches over it. On the other side spans a great courtyard, almost inviting with its openness. Decadent camellia bushes unfurl on all sides, their blossoms so heavy and red that they look ready to fall off at a moment’s notice. Lush sakura trees shed enough petals to blanket the garden in a perpetual pinkness. Great rosy puffs are kicked up by Sango’s sandaled feet. Orange koi flash beneath the surface of a mirrorlike pond as she rushes past. The front steps are grey and stark and almost dauntingly steep, as though reaching heavenward, but she pays it no mind.

The inner halls are no less impressive. In her periphery, Sango catalogues lacquered wooden floorboards and pristine tatami mats, crisp white shoji and the occasional tapestry woven in glittering threads. But her mind is already racing forward, one hand reaching deep into her sleeves for the supply of sutras she keeps tucked within.

“Once you look into the princess’s eyes, you’re a goner!”

She can already imagine it. Miroku, with frosted white wisps in place of his dark fringe. Miroku, with liver-spots speckling his temples and deep wrinkles sagging beneath milky eyes. Miroku, with his bones made visible by every breath, with ancientness wrought into pale and papery skin, with his clothes hanging loose on an emaciated frame. Miroku—

...with a woman wrapped around him.

Sango’s sandals make an ugly sound against the floorboards as she screeches to a halt.

Credit where credit is due, she is exactly as beautiful as described. Her hair hangs long and loose past her shoulders, the kind of shining black that brings to mind a starless winter sky. She has a noblewoman’s pleasantly delicate face, with a tiny nose and big doe eyes, and a powdered-pale complexion that highlights plump, primrose lips. If her noble birth were not already obvious enough, then you need look no further than the uchigi draped over her lithe form, the fabric pastel-pink and patterned by an unfamiliar family crest. Whatever dye went into its coloring stands out strikingly against the black leather of Miroku’s taijiya uniform as arms and legs alike snare him in place, as if she were trying to cocoon him in silk and seduction.

And all the while his eyes are closed, his face relaxed, his body bowed in silent acceptance. Hiraikotsu is abandoned nearby, propped up against a nearby wooden beam with nary a move taken to reclaim it. The princess’s lips are parted just-so, smiling with wicked triumph, the distance shrinking until they practically share breath—

The sutra makes a satisfying snap against her cheek.

Those big doe eyes flash over to her. Sango gathers more sutras in hand, head pounding.

A violent contortion comes over the princess’s face. “Woman!”

And then she lunges. Sango darts out of the way as the princess skids across the tatami mats, carving furrows with the claws sprouting from her fingers. One moment the woman is crouched on all fours, hair spilling over her snarling face and the sutra slowly peeling off her cheek. The next, her face has elongated into a canine snout, claw-tipped paws protruding from the sleeves and ivory hair billowing behind her.

Sango steps back. Within heartbeats, a massive yamainu towers over her. Its livid tongue lolls pinkly out from a fanged maw, the sutra half-clinging to the fur on the side of its jaw. Baleful yellow eyes burn into her.

“So, rather than a yuki-onna, it was a yamainu.” Hiraikotsu whispers against the tatami mats as it is collected, and then Miroku is hefting it over his shoulder, standing upright with a proud and deadly, black-clad grace. “I thought there was an odd lack of snow.”

The yamainu’s gaze snaps in his direction, anger vanishing in favor of dumbfounded shock. “What?!”

Just as confused, Sango can only stare as he strides, calmly, over to her side. “Taijiya, you... weren’t bewitched?”

To which he looks at her with brows arched calmly over bright, impossibly lucid eyes. “Of course not. I’m a professional.”

Something in his smile feels oddly performative. She narrows her eyes at the way he enunciates “professional”. Why does she get the sense that he’s trying to prove point?

There isn’t time, though, because the yamainu rumbles its fury. “You...! I’ll devour you, bones and all!”

With that, it lunges—or tries to, anyway.

A shudder moves through its body. A spasm of muscles beneath fur and fabric. With a bewildered grunt, it teeters precariously. Miroku snatches Sango by her (cursed) wrist and yanks her away just as gravity makes its claim. Yelping in alarm, the yamainu careens right into the tatami, its weight thumping against the floor loud enough to resound against the room’s four walls.

As Sango cracks an eye open, she discovers the youkai laying sprawled, gracelessly, across the ground. One arm is reaching vainly out for them, the paw flexing and twitching. The other arm is motionless at its side, falling halfway over its stomach. Hair fans out in a loose white wedge across the floor, almost ghoulishly bright when the light strikes it right. It fell on its side and stays there, profile flush against the mats, the sutra Sango threw earlier hidden from view. The jaws are half-parted, and its snout is aimed in such a way that its bewildered eyes are fixed on them with a livid accusation.

Slowly, Sango lowers her shakujo.

“Why...?” The arm laying over its stomach jerks, then goes still again. “Why can’t... I move...?”

“Ahh, seems that paralysis potion I slipped into your tea finally kicked in.” Miroku’s smile has widened to show teeth.

Huh. He... actually had a plan. As much as she hates to admit it, Sango cannot help feeling a bit impressed. For someone more likely to be seduced than the village men, Miroku was the only one who managed to keep a clear head. Perhaps she had underestimated him.

It’s then that she notices he’s still holding her by the wrist. Not as tightly as he was when he pulled her to safety, but not loose enough for her to slip away without being obvious about it. Through the fabric of her arm-wrap, she can feel the callouses on his fingers, the heat of his palm.

She clears her throat. He blinks at her, seemingly oblivious. She tugs her wrist free and pins her gaze on the nearby wall, steadfastly ignoring the new burning in her ears.

A ragged pant leaves the youkai’s mouth. “You... bastard...!”

“Now, now, you were trying to bewitch me,” he chides. From the corner of her eye, she watches his dark silhouette saunter calmly over to the collapsed beast. “Turnabout is fair play.” Then, muscles jumping beneath black leather and scant indigo armor, he hefts Hiraikotsu’s weight his over his head. “May I take care this, then, houshi-sama?”

As she turns back to face him, something flickers in her periphery. Fleeting as a shadow. She blinks at the yamainu’s prone form, at the white hair fanning out behind it. Amidst the patterned uchigi, something shimmers.

“...hold on a second, taijiya.”

Hiraikotsu’s slumps against Miroku’s back. He eyes her in confusion, taking two large steps back as she approaches with a handful of sutras. Before he can voice a question, they fly from her fingers and land against the youkai’s clothes like snow.

They crackle where they make contact, holiness searing against the supernatural. The yamainu snarls and writhes. Within its jerking motions, Sango glimpses another figure. Pale, wavering, transparent.

Human.

Fast as lightning, she reaches in. The youkai’s body bends and warps around her flesh, as if it were never solid to begin with, and it feels a little as though she were dipping her limb into swamp water.

Then, her hand meets something cool and crisp, like half-melted frost. Something on the cusp of solidness. It threads itself through her fingers as if seeking, starving, a sinner reaching for salvation. It feels like hands grasping hers. She returns the grip, feels weight build beneath her as she tugs—

And a woman is peeled free from the youkai’s silhouette.

“Damn you, amahoushi!” No sooner has the woman hit the ground at Sango’s feet than the youkai rears up again. She couldn’t say what it is that caused it to regain its mobility, but its jaws are parted and a dozen yellowed fangs are racing towards her and Sango reaches into her sleeve for more sutras—

“Hiraikotsu!”

What started as a furious snarl ends with a pained howl. The spinning weapon carves the yamainu clean through its middle with almost no resistance. There is no blood, no bone, no tearing flesh—the sound is more like a blade sheering fabric. As Sango lowers her arm, which she had raised over her eyes to protect them from the displaced air velocity, she catches both halves of the youkai dissolving away like ashes in the wind.

But it is not just the youkai that dissolves. No sooner has the yamainu’s silhouette vanished in its entirety than the walls and ceiling, too, begin to flake apart. The tatami mats turn to dust. Shoji crumbles away. Lacquered floorboards evaporate. It begins slowly at first, in little pieces here and there, but then it quickens as the moments pass. Daybreak cuts through the holes widening in the roof, then spills wholeheartedly across the ground as less and less impedes its milky rays. Even the garden that Sango glimpsed during her arrival must disappear as well, because the collapsing walls do not give way to the mirrorlike koi pond or the bloody camellia blossoms hanging heavy on their stems. Even that cheerily arching bridge is not visible as the hallways fold in on themselves.

Instead, the castle gives way to crisp mountain air. To the kind of brightness that only the first, shattering light of morning could cast from the horizon. To soil so stark and grey it could only exist on the beaten-down flatness of infertile terrain. To a single, skeletal tree, blackened by winter’s abuse.

Miroku catches his returning weapon just as the last of the castle whispers away. “All an illusion, huh?”

“Looks like it.” There is still some darkness in the sky, though not much. The last few stars are retreating, one by one. That mist that once clung heavy to the air is nowhere to be found.

Someone whimpers at Sango’s feet.

It takes less than a moment to recognize her. She has no malice twisting her white, delicate face, but everything else is the same—the glossy ebony hair, the pale pink lips parted tremulously, the large eyes like a newborn fawn’s. And when she peers up at Sango, quivering, she does so in the way a shamefaced child seeks reassurance in the eyes of their parent.

The tines of Sango’s shakujo tinkle softly as she sets it down. As she sinks to her knees, the woman averts her eyes. “You’re the real princess, aren’t you?”

“Y-Yes." She wears none of the finery that the imposter did, dressed only in a plain white hadajuban and spilling scarlet hakama. This is a princess stripped of her decoration. A princess laid bare. “I’m... I’m so sorry—”

“It’s alright.”

“I was scared,” blurts the princess, tears beading along her lashes. “I just... We... We hid in the mountains after the attack, but they all just died, one after the other. I’m not a healer, so... so I couldn’t do anything. They just... kept dying, and I...”

The villagers’ story flashes through Sango’s mind as the woman curls her hands over her chest. Frostbitten darkness ravages her fingers, her knuckles, the lengths of her arms. In fact, the longer Sango looks, the more she sees evidence of winter’s cruelty. Lips dusted cyan, lashes heavy with frost crystals, snow tangled in hair...

Finally, the princess’s tears spill over. They shine like jewels on the bluish pallor of her cheeks. “Before I knew it, I was all alone. And I didn’t know how to survive. I’ve never hunted, or farmed, or a-anything like that. And, and, a-and it was so cold...”

She is still cold. Sango learns this as rests her hands on the woman’s shoulders and feels winter’s bite through her palms. The princess is shivering even now, though the dawn breaking on the horizon is summer-golden.

“I told you, it’s alright.” Sango smiles the way she imagines a mother would, if she had ever known hers. The kind of soft, sweet curve of lips where forgiveness feels possible again, and redemption is just a heartbeat away. “It... must have been very lonely.”

The princess hiccups. “Yes. It was.”

Guilt rises in Sango’s throat as she thinks about the many spent sutras. “I’m so sorry, hime-sama. I was too rough with you.”

“No, no! You had no choice! Because of me, that youkai...!”

“No, don’t blame yourself. No one is brave when they die.” Sango slides her hands off the woman’s shivering shoulders, and takes those frostbitten fingers with her own. “Say, how about I take you back to the village? That way, you won’t be alone anymore.”

A tentative hope blooms on the princess’s face. “R-Really?”

Sango squeezes her hands. “Of course.”

Something in the princess seems to loosen, then. As dawn continues to rise, she fades at the frays—the edges of her hair, her shining tears, the slow smile breaking across her face. “I’d like that...”

There is a moment of bated breath, and then a sigh from somewhere beyond sight. The princess’s silhouette shrinks in on itself, smaller and smaller until there is only a shining pith. Then, as Sango sinks further back on her haunches, it flutters delicately, tentatively, up towards the last darkness in the lightening sky.

At some point or another during the exchange, Miroku turned away from them, Hiraikotsu’s angled and off-white shape concealing his spine from view. Perhaps it was out of respect, perhaps it was to give them privacy, or perhaps he felt like an interloper otherwise—Sango couldn’t say. But as the princess’s soul joins the fading stars, the way he glances over his shoulders feels like asking permission.

He must see something in her face, because he turns around fully. Only then does she see that his eyes are dark with pity. “My guess would be that a yamainu happened upon that poor woman’s remains, and was transformed into a youkai after devouring the fear and loneliness that was lingering within them.”

Perhaps she was kneeling on a stone, because when Sango collects her shakujo and rises, there is a soreness right below her left knee. “That’s likely. And it would explain the youkai taking on her form. Preying on the village men might have been a means to grow stronger.”

Miroku nods solemnly. “We should probably search for the men, too.”

“No need.” Sango breezes past him, shakujo chiming. “I already found them.”

“...Did you now?”

She pauses. A glance in her periphery shows her a newfound woodenness in his silhouette. All the bends and curves in his body are stiffer, as if someone sharpened them when she wasn’t looking. And the gaze that lingers on the place where the princess’s soul vanished has grown cloudy in a way that makes her frown.

“Kirara’s with them now. Hm... In fact, with the youkai slain, they should be back to normal.”

“Ah.” A splint of a smile flashes across his face. “Kirara got you, did she?”

His tone is flat. He still has not made any move to cross the barren distance now spanning between them. Frowning, Sango rests her shakujo over her shoulder. “Well, knowing how you are around women, she was probably worried.”

Normally, that would provoke some fervent contradiction about how no, no, no, she must be mistaken, he only has eyes for her. Grabbing her by the hands (without hesitating around her cursed palm) and staring deeply into her eyes and, if the universe hated her, maybe even waxing poetic.

Instead, that too-sharp smile fades, and Miroku is silent for long enough to make her uneasy.

Then, softly, “Yes... I suppose she must have been.”

Alright. Now she’s officially worried. Maybe he was bewitched after all...

Before she can say anything, though, he is suddenly spinning on his heel and striding over to her with a spring in his step that feels entirely performative. “Then we should get looking for the princess’s bones. Will you be needing any assistance, houshi-sama?”

“Yes.” She blinks, uncertain. “Thank you.”

“Of course. My pleasure.” He smiles, the same smile he must think charming, because he turns it on every girl who broaches his sights. Boyish and bright and careless.

But this time, it does not quite reach his eyes.

The men do not remember their time in the mountain. Not really. They recall some dreamlike snippets about a gourd patch and a supernaturally soft futon and a lonely, lovely woman who invited them in for tea, but that’s all. They don’t seem to remember how long they were away for, or what it was like to be trapped in frail, faltering bodies. Which is blessing, really—mortality is burdensome enough without the intimate knowledge of all the ways your flesh will fail you once you live long enough. Perhaps the one bright side of the Wind Tunnel is that Sango will never have to worry about old age. Which isn’t much of a bright side at all, if you think about it.

Anyway.

Kagome helps dig a grave for the princess’s bones. Sango explains her tragic fate to the villagers and beseeches them to pay their respects in exchange for the promise of protection. When she is done, the weight of a half-night’s sleep presses against her eyes and she wants nothing more than to catch up on the sleep she missed.

But then she realizes Miroku is nowhere to be found.

His odd behavior continued off the mountain. A strange silence clung to him all during their return to the village, and though he tried to assuage Kagome’s vocalized concern and Shippo’s prying questions with practiced deflections, Sango was even less convinced than they were. Between that, and the woodenness she glimpsed earlier, concern has found a new home behind her ribs.

Her searching takes her to where the river runs swift and gleaming beneath the early morning sun. A small hut sits at the very edge of the village, close enough to the forest that it is just a breath away from melting into the trees. Whoever built it clearly craved seclusion, or perhaps intended for it to be a storehouse before changing their mind in the midst of construction. Near where a woven bamboo curtain hangs over a misshapen doorframe, Hiraikotsu sits propped against a wooden wall. Sango cannot help but think such a strange weapon looks painfully out of place amidst the domestic setting.

She knocks the head of her shakujo against the wood. The sound of shuffling responds, punctuated by a muffled, “One moment!”

Sure enough, it is not even a moment later when the curtain is brushed aside and Miroku emerges. He’s in his normal traveling attire, which makes her realize he must have been borrowing the hut to change. The taijiya suit and armor are likely tucked into the blue furoshiki now tied around his shoulders.

His brows arch when he sees her. The curtain swings behind him as he steps further out into the sun. “Houshi-sama. My, what a pleasant surprise.”

Huh. The silence is gone. As is the strange stiltedness. When he grabs Hiraikotsu by the strap and shrugs its weight over his shoulders, he slides fluidly through the motions without anything getting stuck or going sharp. It makes her wonder if she might’ve imagined it.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” His tone is light. Too light. And immediately, her suspicions flutter back into place.

There is something in his smile that she can’t look at directly, and she has to slide her gaze over to his left ear instead. “No, I just wanted to thank you.” When his brows arch incredulously, she adds, “For your assistance in helping locate and transfer the remains, I mean.”

“Ah.” There it is—that waver in his gaze, that momentary stiffness in his smile. “There’s no need. It’s the least I could, considering...”

She waits for him to finish the thought, but he doesn’t. Instead, the river seems to become very interesting to him, just then. And if she didn’t know any better, she would think he was ashamed.

“Considering...?” she prompts.

But almost immediately, the smile is affixed to his face again. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Miroku.”

Again, he falters, the smile becoming strained. As the seconds tick away and her gaze remains firm, he must realize that she has no intention of letting the subject go, because the façade soon drops in its entirety. He lets out a sigh that is somewhere between dejected and relenting, then turns his face up to the sky. For a moment, she wonders if he is searching the wispy clouds for any trace of where the princess’s soul ascended—but the longer she looks at him, the more he seems to her like a desert-parched flower, seeking a sip of impossible rain.

“Well,” he begins, almost-conversation, “it’s thanks to you that the princess’s soul was properly laid to rest. And you found the men quickly enough. To be honest... I really didn’t do anything.”

“That’s not true,” she protests. “You slayed the youkai, after all.”

“But that was only because I reacted a second faster than you did. You could have handled it just as easily if I hadn’t been there at all.” The daylight is still very young, pale and wan, casting him in a grey brightness. It means that the shadows on his face are tinged with a slow melancholy.

It occurs to Sango, then, that she never did learn why Miroku was behind the barrier on his own. Garbed for battle the way he was, it couldn’t have been an accident. His intent must have been to face the youkai alone, until she had barged in when she did.

Perhaps the questions show on her face, because he gives a sheepish chuckle and tucks his hand behind his neck. “This is going to sound a little silly, but... Between Naraku and Kohaku and the mantis youkai—”

“But that wasn’t—”

“It was.” His tone brooks no room for argument. Then he ducks his head, eyes wavering once more. “I suppose I’ve just... felt like a little I’ve lost my edge, or something along those lines. When I went to face the youkai, it was a matter of pride, of trying to prove something to myself.—Foolish, I know.”

“Not at all!” Suddenly, it all makes sense. Why he was so offended when she dismissed him yesterday, why he was so sullen on the mountain after she intervened...

Miroku still won’t quite meet her gaze when he smiles, tight with rue. “I asked that Kirara get you or Kagome-san should I not return by morning. But instead, it seems she got you almost as soon as I left.”

At once, a guilt rises in her throat. Sango bites the inside of her cheek. “...Actually, she didn’t ‘get me’, per se.”

“Pardon?”

“When she woke me up, I think it was just a precaution. So I wouldn’t panic if I woke up on my own to find you missing.” A warmth not unlike shame rises up her neck and settles in her cheeks. “But she was completely calm. Kirara, I think, had complete faith in you. The one who didn’t... was me.”

Muted surprise brightens his eyes. Sango ducks her head, turning to the mala beads wrapping her arm. Mushin always used to scold her when she’d fiddle with them, nerves or no, but childhood habits die hard and the threat of the Wind Tunnel accidentally coming loose somehow seems much easier to confront than Miroku’s gaze.

“I decided on my own to go after you, because I underestimated your abilities. A-And for that, I apologize.” She clears her throat. She swears she can feel herself going pink as the words stumble their way out of her mouth. “T-The truth is, you actually handled the situation very well! That someone with no spiritual powers to protect them could resist a youkai’s enchantment is actually very impressive. Not to mention that your plan to paralyze the youkai, even if it lasted only for a moment, was rather clever. The princess’s soul might have endured some hardship from the rough treatment, but I think she would have ultimately been grateful for her suffering to end.”

“Houshi-sama...”

“S-So in short! What I’m trying to say is—you say that I would have been fine without your help, but I think the reverse is true as well. You’re a very capable individual. A-And I’m sorry for being so dismissively lately.” Swallowing deeply, she manages to scrap together the courage to raise her eyes again.

Only to immediately stiffen when he clasps his hands in hers.

But in the next breath, his grip loosens. The kind of slackness that would let sand stream brightly through the gaps in one’s fingers, letting go what wishes to leave and holding onto that which wishes to stay. And that which stays is cupped gently against the palm’s lifelines, all the more revered for remaining.

Suddenly, without her having ever noticed, he has brought hands towards him. Her finger-knuckles are just a breath away from making contact with the dip in his clavicle, his heartbeat just a moment away from greeting the back of her cursed hand. All the while, he cups his hands around hers—and it strikes her, suddenly, how very large they are. Or perhaps her hands have always been small, petite things meant to be swallowed by the webbing of his fingers. The purple fabric of her hand-wrap is visible only in pieces, in small gaps where it has not been eclipsed beneath his skin. And she can feel it, the places where weapons have left a roughness behind, but also the places that are untouched and still impossibly soft.

Is it normal, for men to have soft places on their hands? It never occurred to her, that callouses wouldn’t cover the entirety of one’s skin. But here he is, with spots that are still smooth and silky and so, so warm.

There is something in his eyes. A lambent intensity, low but bright in the backs of his irises. It seems to encompass the entire world, in that moment. She finds herself counting the prismatic shades of blue-grey-purple when, slowly, he begins to bow his head. The gesture is almost reverent in a way, religious, and then she can feel his breath on her fingers.

“You are far too generous, Sango-sama.”

It might not have been intentional, but when he speaks, she can feel the brush of his lips against the crown of her knuckles. Dangerously close to a kiss.

Hastily, Sango jerks her hands to freedom. “W-With all that said, you could still stand to practice some self-restraint!”

“Now how can I be expected to restrain myself when such a kind and beautiful woman stands right before me?” he asks, brightly.

Buddha Almighty, he’s trying to kill me.

Swallowing thickly, she turns sharply on her heel until her back is to him. When her heartbeat doesn’t feel ready to break her ribcage apart anymore, Sango clears her throat. “In the future, I’ll not interfere with any of your business. Sound fair?”

Miroku clucks his tongue in seeming disappointment. “What a shame. Having you, of all the women in the world, concerned for me is a particular delight.”

Her lips spasm with the irrational urge to smile. “Flattery will get you nowhere, taijiya.”

“My apologies, houshi-sama.”

A few days later, they have meandered their way back to Kaede’s sleepy village. The summer heat presses sloppy kisses to any exposed skin, making shade a desperate commodity—luckily, there is a quiet spot in the shadow of Kaede’s hut. This is where Sango sits, with her legs folded in the lotus position and her shakujo leaned against the wall nearby, trying to meditate over the pungency of the nearby herb garden invading her every breath.

Footsteps rustle in the distance. Stomping from beyond the fence. She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know that they came from the forest, starting where Bone Eater’s Well sits solemnly in a clearing near the Goshinboku’s proud shadow.

Sure enough, a rattling thump sounds just as she cracks an eye open. An overstuffed pack dropped to the ground with careless abandon, looking ready to burst if you poke at it wrong. Not even a second later, its owner has vaulted over the fence and a pair of strange shoes touch down nearby.

“Yo.” Yasha smirks a greeting. There is a brush of sweat on his brow that makes his dark bangs stick. Since summer hit, he’s shed that black outfit (the one he calls a “gakuran”) in favor of equally unusual garments that he refers to as a “T-shirt” and “jeans”.

“Welcome back.” Sango watches as he bends down to collect his pack. Not for the first time, she wonders if it’s oversized because he overpacks or because he just throws things in haphazardly. “A word of warning, though—Kaede-sama probably isn’t going to appreciate you squishing her ginseng.”

“Huh?” Sure enough, as he lifts the bulk away from the ground, it reveals a large clump of greenery crushed by the impact. And while it doesn’t look beyond recovery, it’ll still earn him a scolding, and he stiffens guiltily with this realization. “Oh shit. Uh. My bad.” Dark eyes dart over to her. “Oi. Let’s keep this just between us, ‘kay?”

Sighing, Sango uncrosses her legs, then crosses them again. “Very well. But keep in mind that Buddha tracks all of our sins.”

“Ugh. Spare me the sermon, will ya?”

Once he’s tossed his pack over his shoulder, his gaze begins to wander. Sango counts out the seconds as he: first, wilts a little in disappoint; second, considers physically searching the area before remembering that she is sitting here and watching him; third, hastily abandons the idea because he knows how that will make him look; fourth, silently debates whether or not he should ask just her outright. And she waits, patiently, wondering for the thousandth time if he realizes how predictable he is.

Inevitably, he gives in, his own self-consciousness be damned. “So, uh, where is... everybody?”

The way he says “everybody” makes her stifle an eyeroll. Yasha Higurashi is as foreign to subtlety as Sango is to all the strange things from his side of the well. “Everybody, or Kagome specifically?”

He stiffens, face flashing with a momentary horror. Then he hastens to look away before she can glimpse the color in his cheeks. “Bah! If that’s what I was askin’, I woulda just said ‘Kagome’.”

“How silly of me.” Honestly. Who does he think he’s fooling here? “Well, Shippo-chan was bored, so he’s accompanying Kaede-sama on her rounds. And I believe Kagome-chan is practicing her swordsmanship right now.”

Again, he stiffens, but this time for a very different reason. “With Miroku?”

“That’s right.” It was the offer of teaching her how to properly wield a sword that made Kagome warm up to Miroku more quickly than the rest of them.

“...Alone?” The left side of Yasha’s face twitches.

Aaaand here comes the badly-concealed jealousy. “Calm down. Miroku knows better than to provoke a hanyou with sharp claws and a giant blade.”

“Like that’ll stop ‘im!” he snaps. “Guy’s got no sense a’ self-control, I swear...!”

Now it is Sango’s turn to silently debate. While watching Yasha make one-handed strangling motions in the air, she considers the ramifications of saying nothing. But she figures speaking up will do them all more good than harm.

“Actually... that’s not entirely true.”

Yasha—having turned sharply on his heel, likely with the intent to march over to the sparring ground and physically drag Miroku away by the ear if necessary—goes abruptly still. And then sends her a deeply incredulous look.

“While you were gone, we came across a youkai taking the form of a beautiful woman. And surprisingly enough, Miroku manages to keep his composure where men of... lower libido, shall we say, lost their heads.” She thinks back to the miraculous clarity in those blue-grey eyes. It still baffles her, even now. “So as it turns out, when the circumstances call for it, he’s actually quite capable of self-restraint.”

When she looks up again, she discovers Yasha crouched down directly in front of her. He’s not so close that it’s uncomfortable or an invasion to her personal space, but the intensity in his gaze makes her hackles rise.

“...What?”

He continues to stare, unblinking. “You feelin’ okay? You didn’t, like, get sunstroke or somethin’, didja?”

“No?” She frowns. “Why?”

“Uh. ‘Cause you’re defendin’ a guy that ya hate?”

“Wha—I...” Sango falters. Thinking about when she first met him, and then thinking about what she knows now. “I never said... that I hated him.”

The pack begins to slide off Yasha’s shoulder, but he doesn’t even react when it thumps against the ground. “Yeah you did. Us bitchin’ about Miroku together is what made you start to like me. ‘Member?”

She averts her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“And you’re bein’ weird.”

“I am not.”

From her periphery, she catches him leaning back on his heels and frowning with his arms over his chest. After a moment or two, he looks at her again, a brow raised inquiringly. “Oi. Anythin’ else happen when I was gone?”

Without warning or consent, her mind flashes back to—the callouses in Miroku’s hands, their largeness cupped around her own, all those soft, smooth places where weapon-handling didn’t leave its mark. How warm his breath felt when he bowed his head to her, that heartbeat of space separating his lips from her knuckles. That tender, lambent softness in his eyes...

And suddenly her face feels hot. “T-That’s—”

“Yasha!”

Salvation arrives in a benediction of red and silver as Kagome drops down from above. Sango can’t be say if she leaped over the roof or not when she made her entrance, but it doesn’t really matter. At the first sign of her, Yasha’s attention shifts, and then he is hastily rising to his feet. Which means that Sango now has the space to press a palm to her breast and heave a sigh of relief.

“Took ya long enough, woman!” He’s probably aiming for annoyance, but it comes out a little too close to fond. Because again, Yasha Higurashi knows nothing of subtlety. “I’ve been back for a whole half hour.”

“Sorry.” There is laughter in Kagome’s voice. Her arms are tucked behind her back and she leans in a little too close. In this way, she’s almost less subtle than Yasha. “I was kind of far away when I caught your scent. Oh!” Her smile suddenly widens enough to show pointed eyeteeth. “How’d that test-thingy go?”

With Kagome’s appearance, Yasha seemed brighten impossibly. But at that question, his shoulders slump and his face twists into a dreading grimace.

“Uh... not good?” Kagome’s smile tightens with sympathy.

He makes a noise of inarticulate misery. “...I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Well, if it bothers you that much, you could always do more of your ‘studying’ while you’re over here.” In all the commotion, Sango hadn’t noticed Miroku’s approach. He appears from around the bend of the hut, his arms folded into the sleeves of his kimono and his usual mirth glinting in his eyes.

Hostility twitches across Yasha’s face. “Yeah? And who asked you?”

Sighing, Sango collects her shakujo and rises to her feet, just as Miroku walks over to join them. “I was just telling Yasha about how you dealt with that yamainu a few days ago.”

Miroku’s brows rise pleasantly. “Oh? Such as?”

Valiantly, she bullies away that memory of hands clasped over hands and warm breath on her knuckles. “Just... that it was mildly impressive that you could resist a youkai’s enchantment. That’s all.”

It’s an innocent enough statement, really. But for some reason or another, an accusation sharpens in Yasha’s narrowed eyes. “Okay, seriously, what the fuck happened while I was gone?”

“Nothing.”

Small pleasures are the key to living. Sango finds hers in the knowledge that, without fail, Yasha will duck behind Kagome if she glares the right way. It makes things easy when she needs him to shut up.

“Ah, that reminds me!” Miroku dips a hand into the folding collar of his kimono. “Apologies, houshi-sama, but I may have, uh, borrowed this without permission.”

To her surprise, when his hand emerges again, there is a beaded bracelet caught between his fingers. Immediately, she recognizes the muddy jade color of the polished mala, the gleam of the silver decorative tassel. One of her juzu bracelets, which she keeps on her to dole out to others in need of emergency protection. After all, a person without spiritual powers of their own would need great discipline and mental fortitude to resist supernatural power—and even that might not be enough.

So that’s how he resisted the youkai’s enchantment. Admittedly, that is a bit less impressive, though it doesn’t necessarily change the fact that Miroku still had quite a bit of foresight.

The beads are blood-warm. Likely from being spending the last few days tucked into his clothes, pressed up against his skin...

“So ya stole it,” Yasha drawls, snapping her back to reality. Good thing, too, because she’s not really sure she wanted her thoughts to travel... wherever they were going to travel. Buddha help her.

“Hardly,” retorts Miroku. “Stealing does not entail returning something to its rightful owner.”

“Hold on a moment.” She studies the charm again. Yes, this is definitely one of hers. Except, it couldn’t be, because to steal it would mean... “I keep these in my robes.”

With a nervous laugh, Miroku tucks a hand behind his neck. “Er. Yes... I’m aware...”

A vein in Sango’s temple spasms. “Taijiya... are you saying... that while I sleeping...!”

“Ah... N-Now listen, houshi-sama, b-before you get mad—”

SMACK!

Kagome hisses sympathetically. “That sounded like it’ll leave a bruise...”

“Keh. The perv was askin’ it.”