"Oh, yes. Master Inuyasha is always like that when the subject turns to his mother."

She looks into her half-empty can of peaches, as if it's going to be any help at all. She still doesn't know anything about who Inuyasha is or where he comes from, except that he's been sealed to a tree for fifty years, and now that his father was a powerful demon who Myoga thinks would have wanted to leave him something.

And his mother wasn't.

"Did they love each other?" she asks, even though she probably ought to let it drop. "Inuyasha's parents."

It's not what she means to ask, of course. The thing she means to ask can't be said.

"They did," answers Myoga, easily enough. "Very much."

"Huh."

"Keep an eye on the camp, Myoga," she says, and stands up and goes off to find Inuyasha. 

Inuyasha is sitting on a branch of a tree not far off, looking at the moon and BEING DEPRESSED.

She isn't actually sure what to say. She should... apologize? She should probably apologize. It's none of her business, after all. It isn't as though she didn't cut Ayako off for talking about their mom just two days ago. She wants to say that it's the same thing, but it isn't. It's worse. She doesn't know what's going on here, but it's obviously a lot more complicated than a car accident.

The problem with apologizing a lot is that when you actually have to apologize for something, just saying that you're sorry doesn't sound like anything, anymore. It's almost insulting, really.

She stands at the bottom of the tree, like an idiot, for several minutes, trying to think of something to say that will do what an apology is supposed to.

Inuyasha is content to say nothing and stare at the moon.

And then a carriage crosses the moon. It's black, of course, and curtained; little gobliny things pull its spokes, and it rides across a cloud.

Then the curtain flashes, to reveal a woman dressed for the feudal era chained inside it.

... "Mother?"

Inuyasha visibly cannot believe his eyes.

- what?

A ghost? Do ghosts do that, show up when you talk about them? A vision? That she can see, too? Why?

She can't actually think of anything to do about this. She watches. Even though it occurs to her that maybe she shouldn't.

Well, before either of them can do much, a ridiculously huge ogre's hand comes out of a nearby cloud that had shrouded it (pretty huge cloud, to be clear) and crushes the carriage, fishing the woman out of the wreckage and casting it aside..

THAT sounds like a problem that can be solved with PUNCHING and CLAWS! It's not like FEELINGS, which are difficult to handle!

"DIE!"

On one of the ogre's shoulders is a tiny goblin-person in a hat and robes! He's carrying a staff with two human heads on it, an old man's and a young woman's, which is relevant because he just SHOT A GIGANTIC CONE OF FLAME out of it at Inuyasha.

MIDAIR SUPERJUMP DODGE!

"Jaken," says the other person on the ogre's shoulder, in a tone emotionless except for the complete exhaustion with idiots of all stripes, "you kill him after we've talked."

"Yes, m'lord!"

Kagome is going to hide behind this tree from the blasts of fire, not that on reflection trees are actually a fantastic shield from blasts of fire. She could run and get her bow, but she can't hit anything with it anyway. She stays put, peeking out enough to see what's happening.

(Oh yeah, no, the trees are a terrible shield, everything in the blast radius of the fire is just gone, barring some of the dirt under the grass under the Whatever.)

"SESSHOMARU!"

Person to blame: has arrived!

"Is this YOUR doing?"

"Little brother. I'm pleased you remember me."

His eyes pass over Kagome, not sufficiently under cover for Sesshomaru's eyes. "I suppose I should be flattered... except for the company you keep. A human girl?"

Why does everyone they fight have to have so many freaking OPINIONS. 

- wait, brother?

"Dallying with humans."

He snaps his fingers, and the chains around ?Inuyasha's mother? flow to his hand.

"You've found your own level at last." A faint smile. "Hardly surprising."

Inuyasha's eyes are flickering between the three targets he need to kill and the two he needs to protect, his stance is shifting so it's not quite clear whether he's aiming to throw blades of blood or lunge directly - but it doesn't show in his voice. "If you've come all this way to insult me, Sesshomaru -"

"I came to ask you where our father's grave is."