Title: An Unlikely Team
Fandom: InuYasha/Shikabane Hime fusion
Rating: Gen
Length: 515 words
Summary: If Miroku had known then what he knew now, he might not have taken the contract. (In which Sango is a Shikabane Hime and Miroku her contracted monk.)



Beaten down and bloody, cuts striping her legs where her armor has been torn away by gigantic claws, she is indomitable.

Miroku watches, equal parts awed and concerned, as she hauls herself back up with an impossible strength that betrays what she really is. Tireless in death and heedless of the injuries she has received, she launches herself at her foe again. The great bone boomerang swings its deadly arc and misses, but it was only a distraction after all.

This time she puts her sword through the monster's eye, the blade sliding in easily to destroy the brain.

Sango leaps free as the reanimated corpse falls to the ground, lifeless once more. She stands tall, and reaches up without looking to catch Hiraikotsu on its return path. As large as the boomerang is, as much power as it carries, she doesn't even budge as she catches the grip and forcibly drags it to a halt.

If Miroku had known then what he knew now, he might not have taken the contract. If he'd had any idea just how frighteningly powerful this Shikabane Hime of his would become…

He walks over to where she waits, trying to pretend that her injuries do not shock him. He knows that she died, once, long ago, but knowing and seeing are two different things.

She is healing already, his presence enough to restore her to the semblance of life and health. The stripes have shrunk visibly, becoming mere gashes. It won't be long now before they aren't even scars. Soon, Sango won't even remember they happened at all.

It will be a long time before Miroku forgets them.

"Good job," he tells Sango, because she needs to hear it.

She smiles faintly.

In that smile, he remembers the day he met her. She was already dead, then. And so were all the people who had once lived in her village. Her father, her brother, everyone she had ever known. They were all gone. All killed by the same monster that haunted Miroku's dreams and had cursed his family.

That was why they'd tracked him down. It wasn't much, they said, his curse and her murderer, but it was a connection. And from that connection a bond could be formed and, maybe, a contract made. If he was willing, Sango could become something useful instead of a monster.

At the time, he hadn't realized then exactly what it would entail. He'd seen her anguished face, he'd heard what happened to her and her village. But mostly he heard who was responsible. And when Sango had demanded, "Make a contract with me so I can kill Naraku and avenge my people!"

Miroku had said yes.

Months later, they are still learning how to work together. They are both new at this, and their connection has been hard-won. But they are learning, and they are growing. And, together, they have been killing monsters and inching closer and closer to their shared goal.

One day soon, they will confront Naraku.

And it is beginning to seem almost possible that they might win.