"Can we begin now?" Kikyo looked toward Inuyasha, slowly clenching her hand into a fist. She had waited far too long for this moment.
"Yes," Han murmured. "Do you really have to do this? Is Inuyasha really someone who would do such a thing?"
"Has he deceived you too, Han?" Kikyo pulled her top back into place and rose from the ground, looking at Inuyasha, who sat sprawled nearby.
"Inuyasha, that wound looks familiar, doesn't it?" Kikyo said, slowly approaching him.
Inuyasha had been stunned the moment the priestess revealed that wound. That wound, those claw marks...
But... he had never betrayed Kikyo! He was absolutely certain of that! He was the one who had been betrayed!
"Please stop, Kikyo." Kaede stepped forward, blocking her sister's path as she looked at her.
"You..." Kikyo did not recognize this priestess, though she felt strangely familiar.
"I'm your younger sister, Kaede," she said. "Fifty years have passed since you died."
"Kaede, why are you protecting Inuyasha?" Kikyo demanded. She snatched the bow and arrows from Kaede's back and aimed at Inuyasha.
Kikyo could barely contain her anger and sorrow. "Back then, you said you would become human. Become human and live with me."
"I... meant it!" Inuyasha answered just as fiercely.
"Enough!" Kikyo said angrily. "I was such a fool. Even if only for a moment, I actually thought of being with you. I died hating you, and that hatred left my soul unable to move on. As long as you live, I can never find salvation."
Kikyo's fingertips trembled slightly against the bowstring.
Nearby, Shippo dragged Kagome out of the medicinal liquid and asked Kaede, "What will happen to Kagome?"
Kaede looked at the still-furious Kikyo, the great priestess who had died so long ago, and said, "Until my sister's hatred