The boy with medium-length hair lay on the little girl's lap, sleeping peacefully.
Beside his ear, a deep, resonant male voice told him, "Follow this priestess."
Yes, Kohaku answered respectfully in his heart, then opened his bewildered yet innocent eyes.
"Kohaku, you're awake!" Rin exclaimed in delight.
"Yes." Kohaku nodded. "Help me up, Rin."
"All right!" Rin answered happily, carefully helping Kohaku into a sitting position.
"How did you come to be here, in this demon's castle?" Kikyo asked them gently and patiently.
Though the little girl's eyes were clear and bright, she was only an ordinary human child. But this adolescent boy named Kohaku was already... one of the dead, just as Kikyo had once been. She had been revived through grave soil and ashes, while he barely clung to life through the power of the Shikon Jewel. Kikyo spotted the Four Souls Shard at his neck at once. And for some reason, his eyes troubled her. Beneath their apparent confusion and helplessness, she saw a deeper sorrow and a despair beyond redemption.
"Yan Luo brought me here," Rin answered. She did not know that Yan Luo had fled after being wounded and had therefore been unable to take her along.
"Yan Luo..." Kikyo said in surprise, a thoughtful look entering her eyes. Why would that woman keep such a frail, ordinary human girl at her side? Judging by the girl's clothes, she had not been mistreated, either.
"Yes." Rin nodded timidly. Why had the kind, beautiful priestess looked so troubled the moment she mentioned Yan Luo? Though Yan Luo occasionally wore a cold expression, she had always been gentle with Rin. And it was Yan Luo who had saved her when she was about to die in the jaws of wolves.
"Then do you have any plans for