Aftermath

As she made her way back to camp, Kuroihi contemplated what she would tell Sesshoumaru if he asked where they'd been. She couldn't exactly wash the smell of sea and salt from both herself and Kaijou well enough to be overlooked by a daiyoukai's keen sense of smell.

'Speaking of scents...'

She paused as the wind brought her the smell of wolf, and she traced it to the spot in the grasses that Kaijou now rose from. She was not irritated that he had followed her, only that she hadn't expected it. She would have done the same in this situation, after all. A quick glance to the horizon told her she'd been gone far longer than she had meant to be. He was bound to have woken at some point to find her far from where she should have been.

The expression on his face told her he'd been there for some time. There was no use trying to hide what had happened. Instead, she continued the trek back to camp, Kaijou joining her in mutual silence for a time.

***

Kaijou groaned internally, though he was not surprised to find the fire had gone out when they arrived back at camp.

This is all her fault, stupid bitch, she can re‐light it, and she's not using my flint to do it, either, he thought, and he told her as much as he settled back into his sleeping spot in the sand.

He did watch, though, admittedly curious as to how she would manage such a feat. After arranging the remaining wood, she clicked her claws together sharply, creating a shower of sparks that leaped to ignite the wood almost instantly. It was an infant flame at first, but it rose quickly, and soon his feet were warm again.

I think I'm beginning to understand Lord Sesshoumaru's fascination with you, woman…

His eyes followed her as she settled herself carefully in the sand, her dead eyes reflecting the rising flames. Her voice was equally empty as she addressed him.

"How much did you overhear?"

He considered his answer for a moment. He didn't owe this woman anything, as far as he was concerned, but after what he had heard…

"I heard enough. Now, shut up and go to sleep. We're leaving as soon as the sun rises. This field trip of yours is over."

He felt her gaze shift and opened his eyes again to find it resting on him. He'd give her this much, at least, there was no weakness or defeat on her face.

"What will you tell him?"

"Tell who?"

"Lord Sesshoumaru."

Kaijou growled.

"Look, if it'll make you shut up and go to sleep, it's like this: I'm on loan right now, but I work for the general; you're the one that works for Prince Barbarous, and your business ain't mine to tell."

She seemed to smile, nodding slightly before laying herself down in the sand to sleep. She almost seemed to be saying 'thank you' for his discretion. He snorted and rolled onto his back to watch the progress of the sky from night to dawn.

'What a pathetic creature. Bad enough to be a half‐breed, but to have come from parents like that, discarded at the first chance like a lame cub, and have no pack… How does someone continue on after something like that?'

He frowned. Was he feeling sorry for her? No, it wasn't sympathy, at least not in the pitying sort of way, more akin to an affirmation born from mutual suffering. After all, she was just as trapped in the castle as he was.

***

"Hey, come on, it's dawn," Kaijou grumbled.

Kuroihi roused herself, brushing off her clothes as Kaijou buried their small fire circle under the sand. The sky in the east was bleeding pastels to chase away the speckled black of her sleepless night, and it brought her a strange form of comfort. She found a sense of hope in those warm colors, and for a moment she felt as though the conversation the night before hadn't happened at all.

Kaijou kept a swift pace for them as they made their way back north to the main road they had broken from to come this way. The wind blew down and out from the in‐land, offering blessed relief from the overwhelming smell of salt. Kuroihi tilted her head, letting it run through her hair.

She imagined it sweeping away her pain, her disappointment, her sense of futility. All of it, she let the wind carry out to sea. She imagined the way it whistled was just for her, carrying a soothing promise of a brighter future now. For a moment, she imagined it whispering her name.

Only she wasn't imagining it. As she paused and glanced back over the sands and grass, she

heard it again. Someone was calling her name.

"Hold a moment."

Kaijou growled.

"What the hell for?"

In the distance, not too far off, Kuroihi recognized the muted colors of the clothes the woman the night before had been wearing. As she came closer, Kuroihi could see that her hair was now black, not white.

'Idiot! She's just asking for trouble, running out like this!'

"A friend of yours?" Kaijou sneered.

"I'll catch up."

Kuroihi hurried back down the path to meet the woman out of earshot of the wolf.

"Are you mad, coming out like this?"

Kuroihi glared at her 'mother's' human form. The woman lifted her palms with a weak smile. In them was the pendant Kuroihi had discarded.

"Please, at the very least, take this with you. I know we aren't what you hoped you'd find, but, please."

Kuroihi glared at the trinket, then at the woman.

"I have no use for it."

"Please." The woman insisted. "My mother gave it to me when I was young, and you came to possess it of your own accord. It's only right that you should keep it now. It should stay in the family."

'Family'? 'FAMILY'?!'

Kuroihi raged, and she snarled her words.

"What need have I for a thing given to me out of self‐pity and regret by the people that threw me at the feet of a greater demon to save their own skins? Every breath I take is a reminder enough of my own pathetic and disgraced existence, but in it, there is a spark of hope, and I fight every day to fulfill it. I don't need a reminder of you and your mate as an added weight on top of everything else."

Kuroihi felt no shame for being the cause of the pain etching itself across the woman's face or the tears forming in her eyes as she clutched the necklace to her chest.

"Kuroihi, child, please‐"

Whatever the woman was about to say next was cut off as Kuroihi held up a hand. She could sense a youki approaching, and it wasn't Kaijou's. She raked her eyes across the landscape in search of its source, but it was the wolf that found it first from his higher elevation as he sprinted to meet them.

"Sand Oni! Half‐breed, move!"

Kuroihi grabbed the woman's arm as she felt the sand under their feet shift, throwing them both out of the way just in time to avoid the giant hand rising up from beneath them.

"Leave!" Kuroihi roared.

She turned to face the creature that now dragged itself out of its bed, perhaps in search of breakfast. She let her fire flare to life in her hands, concentrating it as she had learned to do into a single orb and flinging it at the oni's face.

Her flames found their mark in its eyes, and the creature roared in pain, stumbling back.

One arm clawed at the scorching heat, the other flailed and swiped for anything it could find. As she dodged, a great squelching sound told Kuroihi it had found something that was neither herself nor Kaijou.

They had to end this quickly.

Kuroihi lunged to take out the tendons in the oni's ankles, giving Kaijou time to pounce and bury his claws in its neck, decapitating it in a few well‐placed swipes.

They took a quick inventory of each other before examining the gasping woman splayed out on the sand, trying desperately to pull her insides back into her belly and chest.

***

The scent on the wind confirmed for Sesshoumaru what he had already concluded from the dancing black light in the near‐distance; his attendants were in battle.

'A battle they would not be in if they had done as they were instructed,' he fumed

From above, he watched as they felled their quarry with relative ease. The wolf sounded angry, yelling at his half‐breed as it scrambled to tend to the mangled form of a human in the nearby sand.

He listened as it spoke empty promises of healing and the future, but even he could tell the creature was not long for this world. He took his time lowering to the ground below, the wolf too focused on his half‐breed to notice Sesshoumaru's arrival.

The human reached up with a trembling hand to touch his hanyou's face, muttering something he couldn't quite make out over the sound of the nearby surf. Whatever it had been, it set his hanyou off.

His ears twitched as it began to scream, helpless, and livid. Its greenish flames erupted from its hands again, thrashing in a desperate attempt to find something to ignite. He watched, unmoved as his hanyou bent to press its forehead to that of the human at its knees, grasping at the bloodied and lifeless body that, for whatever reason, wore a smile.

The flames found purchase quickly and devoured the corpse, leaving his half‐breed clutching only handfuls of delicate ashes. Tiring of the display and all the time he'd been made to waste, he strode forward to make his presence known to them both, the displeasure thick and cold in his voice.

"If you're finished…"