"The jewel is a source of power," she says, "for any demon who desires it. United, it could make one demon a monster. Divided - a hundred. You have Kikyo's sensitivity to the spiritual, and with Inuyasha's strength you may be able to recover them."

She looks very, very tired. "And there is no better option." 

"This doesn't really seem like an option either! As far as I can tell, ever since the centipede bit the jewel out of me, I've been a completely normal person! I tried my best, I really did, and I don't see what I'm adding here that any other person in your village wouldn't!"

She feels horrible saying this - inappropriate and childish and ashamed and humiliated and angry, at herself and at Kaede and at whatever pulled her here - but she's spent half of the last day flooded with adrenaline, almost died half a dozen times, gotten several people killed, and apparently managed to multiply their central problem a hundredfold. She's fine with responsibilities. She's fine with responsibilities she didn't ask for, even. But this, all of this, running together at lightning speed, watching herself make mistakes for no reason, do no better than any other person would do and fumble every single step until she inevitably dies of it -

It's too much. She doesn't know how not to snap. She wants to stop. She wants to go home.

Inuyasha has two warring instincts, here: Agree, and defend Kikyo random girl.

He picks 'agree' because it lets him yell at someone.

"She's completely useless! All she does is get kidnapped and screw up and get the Shikon Jewel shattered! She doesn't even know how to fight! You'd be better off with a trained sheep!"

She hasn't noticed, has she.

"You think a normal person could have killed a crow-demon with one arrow?"

"I didn't kill it with the arrow! I accidentally hit the jewel and it exploded! And I didn't even hit the crow by aiming, it was a cheap trick that didn't have anything to do with me!"

"The jewel would not have shattered unless struck with great spiritual force."

ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE THE ADULT KIKYO SHOULD BE BEING THE ADULT WHY IS HER SISTER DEAD

"Well, then it seems like being spiritual isn't very helpful."

"That's what I've been saying!"

Kaede will sharply cough.

....after a couple seconds of silence, Kagome's embarrassment will overtake her need to snap.

"I'm sorry," she says, quietly. "I shouldn't have said all of that."

"I'm going to - go wash the blood off. If that's okay."

" - Yes. I -"

- She does not gain enough self-control there.

"Yes. Of course. Do so."

Kaede can provide her with priestess's robes (she has spare) which won't be too undersized on her, and point her at a relatively hard-to-spy-on-and-not-too-cold part of the stream.

Kagome will thank her, and then go try taking a fairly freezing bath. Maybe she can regain some basic semblance of humanity, internally and externally, before coming back and figuring what to do for these people who she met twenty-four hours ago, and who she has failed more dramatically, completely, and quickly than anyone she's ever met in her entire life.

The stomach wound from yesterday still hurts, but at least today's misadventures haven't left her with anything worse than scrapes. Several other people died, but she was lucky. Lucky, and...

She really ought to thank Inuyasha again. You ought to at least thank people when they save your life, even if they're angry with you after, and she doesn't think she did before. Except that he's quite possibly regretting it, at this point, and she's not sure she can take someone saying that to her face without crying, right now.

She stays in the water for longer than she really has to, not so much thinking her situation through as gathering her scant emotional reserves together. And then eventually she can come out and try wearing something that isn't covered in blood.

Inuyasha is lurking around, on general principles.

"TAKE THAT OFF!"

She's gonna need to take a couple seconds just to process this request. Processing it doesn't really help.

"Excuse me?"

"Stop wearing that! Put your weird foreign clothes back on!"

" They're covered in blood! What is wrong with you?"

- right, she was gonna not give him more reasons to regret saving her life.

"I mean - ugh. Why."

"You look funny like that! It's not right!"

What a stupid - no, calm, calm, that was half the point of the bath, she is not going to immediately give up being calm.

She sits down, faced away from him, and takes a deep breath. She's very unclear on what exactly is so shocking and upsetting about seeing her in the clothes that should look normal to him. The only other time he's reacted to anything with an expression that even approached that was - 

- oh. Right. Kikyo.

Things she thinks she knows about Kikyo: 

- She was Kaede's older sister, and she died while Inuyasha was pinned to the tree.

- She was responsible for looking after the sacred jewel, and had it destroyed when she died (and man, why didn't Kagome think of doing that again, twelve hours ago). 

- She was responsible for pinning Inuyasha to the tree, for however long he was there, or at least Inuyasha holds her responsible.

- When he found out that she was dead, he looked horrified, and then pretended that he wasn't.

- Kagome looks and sounds so much like her, even dressed in clothes from the future, that Inuyasha thought Kagome was her for at least, like, several seconds of conversation.

These do not really paint a complete, or even particularly coherent picture, but they explain the specific thing that's going on now. Sort of.

"Does it really bother you?"

"- I don't know what you're talking about. It just ticks me off, is all."

"Fine. Turn around."

He will do that.