The Killing Perfection's Sister

#8 No!

I yawn as I snuggle deeper into my sleeping bag.
Yesterday was intense.
If it wasn't for Sesshomaru I would have been married off to, apparently, a jerk.
I still don't remember Kazue, have I met him before now?
Did I love him?
I sighed, frustrated, and rolled over, careful to not squish the small body that sleeps next to me.
I froze.
Where was the small body that sleeps next to me?
I sit up and pull open my sleeping bag.
Shippou's not here.
I glance around the camp.
Where did he go?
I do a more detailed sweep.
Sesshomaru? Check.
Inuyasha? Where the hell did he go?
Sango? Check.
Miroku? Check.
Rin? Shit, not her too!
Everyone but Rin and Shippou was present. I pull myself out of my sleeping bag, mentally cursing at its clinginess.
"Sesshomaru? You awake?" Sesshomaru opens his eyes and glances at me. I must have had a look on my face because he was immediately concerned.
"What's wrong?" I try not to panic. Maybe they just wanted to play? I ignored the little demon in my head that told me how unlikely that was.
"Rin and Shippou are gone. Can you smell anything?" He paused for a moment, smelling, glancing around. He shook his head.
"I cannot smell anything. Their scent is a couple of hours old." I cursed under my breath and started waking everyone up.
Inuyasha's not here and Sango and Miroku look like they had no idea what was going on. Which was probably true.
"Sango, Miroku, Rin and Shippou are gone. We need a way to find them. Japan is too big to just run around blindly. It would take us forever to cover the entire island, at most the kids only have a couple of days at best. Where the fuck is Inuyasha?"
It is, of course, at this moment that he decides to jump into the clearing.
"I could hear your bitching nearly a mile away. What are you going on about kids only having a couple of days?" I take a moment to make sure I wouldn't sit him all the way to hell.
"Rin and Shippou are missing. Sesshomaru can't smell anything that could give us a lead and we have no idea where to start."
Deep breaths. I had to keep breathing.
"What do you think the possibility of it being Naraku is?" I grimaced in Sango's direction. Of all the people on this planet it was most likely him. It's unlikely he would forget that we've been hunting him for almost two years now.
"As much as I'd hate to think about it, it's probably him. Regardless, it gives us a place to start. We have to draw out Naraku and find out if he took the children." My mind settled a little at finally having something to do.
We were going to find the kids.

We weren't going to find the kids.
It's been a full day, we've found no leads, no information, nothing. We haven't even been attacked by a random demon. Sesshomaru and I decided that we would forgo our normal lesson given the circumstances. Well, really, I was so stressed that I nearly blew up a tree when we were resting.
I sat on a log and watched the sun disappear behind the horizon. I ignored Sesshomaru when he sat next to me. I was just trying not to imagine the worst.
"You seemed very stressed, Kagome-chan." Sesshomaru was obviously worried about me. He almost never called me chan.
"You know that I was raised in the future, right?" At his nod I continued.
"Over there it's not so uncommon for a child to disappear. They have this thing called an amber alert. It's for whenever a child goes missing. An entire city will be looking for this child. And they say the first 48 hours are the most important. Any longer and...and you..you shouldn't..." I started crying, "any longer and they're probably dead. And that's not all. There are some pretty sick people in my time. I just....I can't help but to think of all the bad things that could be happening to them." Sesshomaru pulled me into his arms, where I sobbed. I sobbed until I couldn't sob anymore, so then I sniffled. And I sniffled until I fell asleep.
It was a short fitful sleep from which I was awoken many times by nightmares. I couldn't get to them fast enough. Their dead eyes staring at me, accusing me of not helping them, of letting them die. Other dreams I had were to horrible to think about. I could do nothing to block out the images, the horrible things that invaded my mind.
I woke up screaming for forgiveness. And stayed awake for the rest of the night.

Come dawn I felt like a zombie. I had hardly slept and was tense with worry.
"Should we go ask Keade for advice? She might know someplace we could look?" I could tell that the words were supposed to be encouraging but they just made me more depressed. Keade was a good few days walk from here, provided good conditions. I couldn't handle it anymore. The stress was eating me alive.
"NARAKU! YOU WANT THE JEWEL SHARDS? COME AND GET THEM! TELL ME WHERE RIN AND SHIPPOU IS AND I'LL GIVE THEM TO YOU! DO YOU HERE ME, NARAKU?!"