Kurama could feel Sango watching him. It made him a little uneasy. He knew she had followed him that night, and she was curious. He was surprised she hadn't said anything yet, but he imagined she would have something to say soon, with all the disapproving looks she was giving him. He supposed she had a right to distrust him, but there wasn't much he could do.

Shippou had also followed him; apparently neither of them had been affected much by the sleep spell that had been cast. The young fox demon kept giving him hurt stares, making Kurama feel oddly like a traitor. Which he wasn't, of course, but they didn't know that.

He couldn't tell them the truth. It was far too complicated for him to even understand. Just the fact that he had even seen her was so farfetched that he found himself wondering if he had imagined the encounter. Of course he hadn't, otherwise he would be imagining the accusing yet curious stares of Sango and the disappointed stares of Shippou, who just a few days ago had been looking up at him with an almost worshipful gaze.

They were now on their way back to the village where they began. Kaede's village, as Sango and Miroku put it. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be returning after the events that had transpired a few days ago, but he didn't exactly have a choice. The old woman had also made him feel uncomfortable, as though she could see right through him.

Then his thoughts turned to her, the silver fox demon known as Akita. He had barely known her in his lifetime, but he had known enough about her. She was the leader of the best-known fox tribe of the time, a tribe of master thieves. Foxes were the best thieves, after all, but the silvers were known for their ruthless cunning.

He had received a lot of traits from her...the mother he had barely known. It was harrowing, to think that somewhere in a small cave, a smaller version of his demon self lay curled up with other fox demon children, asleep, or perhaps waiting for his mother to return. He remembered, vaguely, times where she would be gone for weeks. They were usually left with a den mother, someone too old to go with the pack, that would watch them in the absence of their own mothers.

Kurama sighed, lost in his own thoughts. He also remembered the day the tribe returned without his mother. She'd been killed by the priestess Kikyou, the same priestess who had killed his father, Amoyo, whom he had never known.

According to Akita, Amoyo had been trying to steal the Shikon jewel from the village when Kikyou wounded him with her arrow...several arrows, in fact. Kurama remembered the vengeance in her eyes as Akita would recall how her mate died in her arms.

Kurama opened his palm to reveal the shining jewel shard in his hand. This thing...how could it grant so much power? How was it that even shards of a tiny ball could be so troublesome. His eyes narrowed as he stared at it, and even then he could feel the rage building. The suffering had to end.

It was evil. It had to be destroyed.

And they would be the ones to destroy it.

Dreams. How she hated dreams. For Sango, her dreams were like visions of terrible doom, the irreversible fate of her brother, the laughing, hateful face of Naraku who took Kohaku away.

In his hand was the shard that he held, almost completed. She could hear his terrible laughter. He held Kohaku up by the neck, choking him. She tried to scream but no sound came out, and she could not move. She finally could tear her eyes away from her brother to look back at Naraku's face...only now it was not Naraku, but Kurama, the demon in a human's disguise. His face was no longer impassive but his lips were stretched into a sadistic grin.

"I knew I couldn't trust you!" she screamed.

He only continued grinning at her and held up something that looked like a knife or a dagger or something sharp. Blood dripped off the tip. He lifted it, and brought it down, piercing Kohaku's heart...

Sango awoke with a start, but lay still, her body paralyzed with terror. Her breath came in short gasps and she could feel the sweat cooling on her body. Her heart pounded mercilessly.

It was then that she heard a similar gasp, and across the campsite she saw Kurama sit up suddenly. She shrank back under her blanket and closed her eyes, not wanting him to notice that she was awake. She then opened one eye to see what was going on.

His eyes were hidden under his long red mane of hair, and she watched as he raised one badly shaking hand to cover his face. His shoulders were wracked with either heavy breathing, or...was he crying?

He turned to look at her and she quickly shut her eyes again. She tried her best to calm her racing heart and appear to be sleeping peacefully. She stayed that way for what seemed like a long time, not wanting to risk opening her eyes to find him staring at her. Finally, she heard the rustling of a blanket and she opened one eye partially to see him walking off into the woods. She sat up.

I wonder where he's going now? she wondered.

She didn't want to follow him but suddenly her body had a mind of its own as she found herself getting up.

He stumbled through the woods, not really caring where he went, not really caring if he got lost. He just had to get away.

Such a vivid dream...he never had those. At least, not very often. And they had never bothered him as badly as this one.

In his dream he had been home, in his human mother's house. He'd been helping with the dishes, and looking out the window he could see his mother gardening in the yard. She had looked up and given him a beautiful smile. A contagious smile.

Suddenly a darkness came over the house, as though a large rain cloud had just appeared out of nowhere. But it wasn't rain. He could smell the scent of a demon.

It was her. Akita.

Why is she here? he wondered. He felt fear, not for himself, but for his family. He looked outside again and to his horror saw his human mother slumped over her flowers. He cried out and ran outside. It was dark, so dark, and in what light was left, he saw the demoness standing over his human mother.

"No," he said, his voice sounding far away.

"How could you ever be human?" the demoness said. "You belong to us."

"But you didn't have to kill her!" he cried.

She gave him an almost sympathetic smile. "I did not kill her," she said. "You did."

And she held out the Shikon shard for him to see. It was tainted entirely red.

With a dawning horror he reached into his pocket, already knowing the shard he had carried was not there.

"No."

And he had opened his eyes to find it was all a dream. Just a nightmare. Why had he dreamed something like that? He knew there was no way Akita could kill his human mother. They were in completely different time periods and it was impossible.

"I just don't understand," he said aloud to no one. "I don't understand what it's supposed to mean."

He still carried the shard. It was resting comfortably in his pants pocket, and he instinctively felt for it, to make sure. He felt the cool texture of the shard and gripped it tightly in his hand. He hated this thing. Hated it. He didn't understand why Koenma had given it to him and not one of the others, such as Botan. Botan was better equipped to carry the shard, and had less susceptibility to its power.

He could feel it drawing on his negative feelings already, and he forced himself to calm down. It wouldn't do to give in to the shard now and go insane. Perhaps when he got back he would give the shard to Kagome. He stopped at a clearing, where the noise of a small stream broke the silence of the forest. He sat down and stared at the reflection of the moonlight in the water, collecting his thoughts.

It wasn't long after that he heard a noise behind him, the soft footsteps of a follower. He knew who it was, and had sensed her following him all along. He waited for her to speak first.

"Why did you leave?" she asked.

"Why did you follow me?"

That counter-question took her by surprise and she struggled for an answer.

"Well it is kind of suspicious when you go off by yourself in the middle of the night. Twice, now."

He chuckled. "I suppose that is suspicious. I don't know if this helps, but I assure you I'm not in league with Naraku."

"I never said that —"

"No, you didn't. But it's in your eyes, on your face, and I know you have thought it. You don't trust me because I'm a demon in a human's body and that frightens you."

"I'm not scared of you."

He turned to look at her then, saw the defiance on her face...and a slight touch of guilt. He offered her a surprisingly genuine smile.

"If you're not scared of me, why don't you join me?"

She hesitated, but sat down next to him anyway. She watched him warily. He didn't talk for a few moments, his eyes watching the water.

"You had a nightmare, didn't you?" she asked suddenly, and immediately wished she hadn't. It wasn't any of her business.

But he didn't seem to mind. "Yes, I did. And you did, too."

She blushed furiously. "You knew I was awake."

He smirked. "Yes. I can sense irregular breathing patterns and you were also squeezing your eyes shut."

She laughed nervously, and he regarded her silently, his eyes seeming to gleam in the moonlight.

"I know you and Shippou followed me that night," he said suddenly. "And you're lucky you weren't ripped to shreds. She travels in a pack, and they were there. I could smell them."

"But who was she?"

"My mother."

Sango frowned. "Your mother?"

"My demon mother."

Sango looked confused. "I don't understand."

Kurama sighed and placed a hand over his face. "I don't really understand it, either. Let me try to explain."

And so they sat down on some fallen logs and he went through the story...

The first thing he remembered was someone warm holding him close, the soft scent of body heat, the person he soon recognized as his mother. That vague shadow of a memory was all he truly had of who she once was. After the death of his father, soon after his birth, she had become distant and cold towards everyone, including him.

He recalled long weeks when she would not be there at all, and then when she did return, she could not look at him for long without ranting about his father.

"You look so much like Amoyo," she would cry. "Especially your eyes. They are your father's eyes. I promise you, boy, that I will avenge your father by killing the bitch who took him away from us."

And when Kurama would ask who that was, she would launch into a rant about Kikyou, the priestess.

"We may be demons, but she is more sinister and evil than we are."

"But why did she kill him?"

Somehow, she never answered that question. She wasn't concerned with why, she was only concerned with the fact that he was dead and that was it. She became more and more distant until finally she never returned. Later he learned she was killed by the same priestess who killed his father.

After that, members of the pack returned to the demon world, where he eventually became the most feared thief of all, and he was proud to live up to his mother's expectations. Always he heard her words in her mind...

"You must be powerful and cunning, Kurama," she would say. "So that you are never taken by surprise."

And in the end, she had been surprised, and it had cost her life. He didn't want to end up like that.

"So how did you end up in the human world?" Sango asked.

"That's a different story in itself."

Despite his power, he had discovered that sometimes, as the saying goes, shit happens. Despite all efforts to be cunning and quick, he nearly lost his own life. But he had managed to escape the demon world before dying and managed to be reborn in a human child. He thought he had won.

It turned out that he ended up tricking himself. As he in his human form grew, some part of him became human, and did not want to return to the demon world. Some part of him, the part that was human, fell in love with his human family, seeing how different they were, how fragile they were. They were warm, and they stayed warm.

When his human father died, he felt something he had never felt since learning of his demon mother's death. He hadn't known what it was then, but now he knew.

Grief. Sorrow. Pain. All of those things he had been so good at causing to others.

He had a fierce desire to protect these people who had become his second family.

And so he stayed the boy known as Minamino Schuichi in his human mother's home.

"That is fascinating," Sango breathed.

"Fascinating?"

She nodded. "I've never heard of a demon wishing to stay human. I suppose you still have your powers. But you only use them when you need to."

"Indeed. I suppose it would be unheard of in this day and age when one dares not show any amount of weakness."

"But even demons have weaknesses."

"True, and I know this. Take Inuyasha, for instance. His fear of weakness is his weakness."

Sango chuckled. "You read him perfectly."

He smiled. "I have exceptional insight, from what I'm told."

"So it would seem. But tell me, what were planning to do when you went to talk to your demon mother? She doesn't know who you are now, right?"

"Of course not, and I doubt she'd believe me if I told her. Honestly...I don't know. I want to convince her to stop the madness and move on, but I know it's not going to happen. She is going to lead the pack into destruction. Have you ever wanted to change the past so much that...that it just...?"

"More than you know," she said quietly. "Naraku has made us all wish that. That's why we want so badly to defeat him."

"He seems to have made several enemies."

"He has."

"So why hasn't anyone defeated him yet?"

She suddenly felt chilled and hugged herself. "It's because he keeps staying one step ahead of us. He's thought of every worst possible scenario to keep us hating him."

She sighed and added, "But I hope that with extra people, we'll be able to stop him now."

Kurama thought again of the Shikon jewel shard in his pocket and felt renewed fervor. Once this Naraku was defeated, the jewel could be destroyed.

"I don't think he'll stand a chance."