Voila! A new Part and a new chapter and all before you were really expecting it! Bet you didn't think the break would be so short this time did ya? Well, it was. Welcome to the next edition of Chronicles of the fall. Will anything be resolved this time around? Will Sesshoumaru finally get his claws firmly in Aki? Will Naraku finally be chained up to the side of a torture chamber open to all the fangirls that like their idols dark haired, manipulative and evil? Check it out an see!!!

Okay, I'm better now... What the heck was that anyway? I'm afraid my ANs will be a little off the wall for a bit because the chapters themselves threaten to be serious. Bad chapters! Bad bad bad chapters... but then, serious for me is rather funny anyways. I guess I have kind of a macabre humor sometimes. I've learned to curb it around the freshly dead... they don't appreciate it for some reason.

Okay, okay I'll be serious. I just don't view death and trouble the same way other people do. I'm not going to cry at the funeral of somebody I never liked. If I respected them, I stand quiet and serious, but without tears. In fact, at my grandfather's funeral the year I graduated from high school I was floored by the the tears that were shed be everyone around me. The man was a cantankerous old fart. Sure I liked, I loved him, he was family. but I didn't cry. he'd lived a long life, done a lot of things and still smoked after they put him on oxygen. I even predicted he wouldn't see the next new year in January. I don't feel bad about that, though I do kind of wish I hadn't said it with my parents in the car. I hadn't realized how differently I felt about death when compared to them.

I've since learned to keep my mouth shut. Death doesn't scare me and it bewilders me that others fear it so much. Death is as much a part of life as anything else. The moment we're born we begin to die. And that's not just philosophical words, it is fact. I'm a chemist so it isn't a wonder I feel that way about it.

And it doesn't worry me whether there is life beyond death or not. I don't need a religion to sooth me with what might come next. You live one day into the next and when the time comes, you don't anymore and that is enough for me. Life is like a story. there is a beginning, and because there is a beginning, there is an end to. the key to whether or not it is a good life, story, is if something was accomplished, resolved, achieved.

Oops, sorry! I just got all wishy-washy philosophical and stuff. But it is a view I've expressed through many of my characters. Bright and cheerful, and tormented but alive. Life goes on for me and For Rumiko Takahashi so that her characters might come out of her imagination to play with ours for everyone has at least one. Even if it is only an insertion of self in the story-line.

Heheh. Just read, ignore me. i'm feeling pretty good about myself since this is all ready to go. Hope you enjoy it!

Suspension

Ookami are a very family oriented species with strong ties within their clans and tribes, so the highest honor goes not to the warrior with the finest hunting skills or the largest number of physical exploits, but to the females of the pack.

Female wolf youkai, while not exactly rare, are not overly abundant, and fewer still made it through all the rigorous training required of a clan female. Girls were taught how to care for any pups they would have, how to train those pups in everything they would need in order to survive and how to do it all within the structure of the greater pack beyond that located within their familiar den, for all dens are linked. It was perhaps the most vital employment of any member of the clan. The men may be the hunters, but the women taught them how. The males may be the first line of defense, but their mamas trained them to do it first.

Truly some of the best fighters in any of the clans were women and the rest were males they had taught personally.

The future of a pack depended on its central core of females and the daughters they produced and raise. Despite this, girls are in no way coddled or closed off from the world any more than any other member of the pack of the same age. In fact, unmated females are expected to help hunt and otherwise aid in feeding the pack alongside of the males.

At least this was traditionally true when it didn't seem as if something were purposely hunting down the females and ultimately brutally killing every single one it could get a hold of. If the female happened to be away from the pack far enough, it seemed they were fair game. And it seemed to prefer its females young, the younger the better.

Since it started hunting them down, the packs have been scrambling to protect its daughters, keeping the girls closer to the dens and constantly under the watchful eyes of the elders.

This was fine, for the pups that had yet to grow into the control and strength required to assume a humanoid form. Most often no child that young had any desire to explore the world beyond the home den.

It wasn't the same for the children who had managed to finally get the fuzz from their human faces. It had always been customary for children of this age to start learning how to properly hunt and interact with their four legged brethren beyond the confines of the den. It was looked upon as a rite of passage, the first step into adulthood. For boys, it was a custom the pack could still follow, but for girls…and it was brewing contention and resentment.

The girls wanted just as much to get out and test their newly developing strength and skill. It was an itch under their skin and though the den mothers tried to keep them appeased with other required lessons, there wasn't distraction enough within the den to make them forget completely.

The elders finally acknowledged the growing situation and endeavored to fix it. No unmated female was to leave the den without an escort of furred brethren and at least two youkai brothers for any reason.

Thus it was extremely obvious that the female ookami streaking through the forest was in a great deal of trouble. And she wasn't streaking in the sense that she wasn't wearing any clothing and she wanted people to see, she was streaking in the way her terror had driven her to run so fast as to be no more than a blur of matted, blood coated fur and fear.

Maya couldn't really think past moving forward, moving away from the sight of her slaughtered wolf brothers and four-legged pack members. She didn't want to see more of the blood that she already wore. She didn't want to see the stunned and painful look in their eyes.

Her benumbed mind was running on autopilot, or rather the ancient predecessor of autopilot as the words held no meaning without the existence of planes to pilot or machines that run on their own. She was propelled forward under the power of the last command given her by the stranger that saved her. The stranger that had taken the blow meant for Maya even while ordering her to run.

So Maya ran with all she was, no thought to get in her way, no distraction to slow her down; just the fear of being caught to push her onward and the strong desire to curl up in the heart of the den and weep against the bosom of her clan. If she could only get that far, then perhaps she would be safe.

Out of nowhere strong arms caught her up and she reacted with everything she was. Maya lashed out with everything she had thus far been taught about defense and combat, determined to make it home or at least to inflict as much damage as she could.

"Easy little sister," a familiar voice rumbled in her pointed ear. Slowly a scent registered through the mindless haze of terror that had enveloped her senses. It was a scent she was familiar with and associated positive feelings with, feelings of protection and family. "Where are you hurt?" hands pawed at her skin tenderly after her limbs quit flailing. Furry bodies pressed against her in offer of comfort and support.

The furry ones she welcomed whole-heartedly, but found herself pushing the hands away even as hysteria bubbled up in attempt to consume her. "I'm not hurt, it's not my blood!" Maya got out between sobs in a high keening voice. "The bad man didn't hurt me, not Maya. He didn't get Maya."

Ginta and Hakkaku shared a look as the girl started to shake and dance away from Kouga's hands. No member of the pack had ever done that before.

"Where are your keepers?" Kouga demanded sternly. Somebody wasn't doing their job if the little thing had managed to get this far from the den alone.

Maya's erratic movements stopped and she stood very still without breathing or doing anything at all. Kouga's hackles raised the longer the child stood in front of him without making a sound. The only move she made was the very obvious widening of her eyes. "They're gone! All gone!" she exploded loudly, shaking more violently than before. "He hurt them! He killed them! He tore though them like they weren't even there, but they were there! Maya's keepers were there but they're not anymore! Please don't let them still be there!' She continued on and on, sometimes shrilly, sometimes not, but always streaming words together so quick as to be unintelligible.

Kouga blinked at the child from where he'd reared back in surprise and pain at her volume. The girl's hysteria had escalated and he didn't know how to fix it.

Ayame shoved him to the side, her own wolves moving to mix with the ones still milling around Maya. The red head pushed past the furry bodies in her way and swept Maya up into a tight hold.

The little youkai attempted to struggle upon being caught up once again without real warning. She squirmed and kicked and yelled and sobbed until she wore herself out. Through it all Ayame held on tightly and refused to let go.

"Are you done now, Maya-chan?" Ayame asked as the little girl went nearly completely limp.

"Ayame-san?" Maya sniffed carefully, her breathing still stilted from her somewhat violent fit.

"Yes?" Ayame asked, both to reassure the child and to encourage the flow of words that would hopefully lead to an intelligible explanation.

"They're all gone," Maya choked out as she shook. "We didn't even sense it coming before half the furries were torn to pieces, their shocked eyes staring at the rest of us and the blood running from the sky. All I could see was red, red on the bushes, the grass and the ground. Even the sky looked a little red. Even my elder brothers were covered. That was before the bad man came after the rest of them. They didn't have a chance. They fought so hard and he…he just laughed." The child shuddered violently as the mere memory increased her fear. "He was everywhere, all around me hiding behind the bodies even as they fell. I couldn't do anything. Why couldn't I do anything? They were protecting me and all I could do was stand there!"

"Maya!" Ayame broke in sharply. It was becoming quite clear the child was going to need a great deal of careful attention and coaching to overcome the traumas she'd suffered this day. "Maya," she began gently. "Did the bad man say anything?"

Maya froze completely as the question registered and its meaning sank in. "He said, he said," she tried to start a couple times and failed. "He told Maya things, threatened things that Maya never wants to know about or remember hearing. Then he moved to hurt Maya and the stranger saved Maya." The little girl's eyes regained the focus previously lost. "She saved Maya, told me to run, to get away."

"Who did Maya?" Ayame asked afraid the child would somehow stop making sense again before they managed to find out who or what the villain was.

Kouga clenched his fist with impatience, but otherwise kept quiet. It bothered him, as it bothered every member of the pack, that some lowlife was targeting the females of his people and they knew nothing about the culprit nor could they seem to defend against him. Hell, before now it had only been an assumption that a male was behind it all.

Kouga was completely ready to pin it all on Naraku, but the moment he first mentioned the possibility the elders had warned him against assuming Naraku was behind every act of evil. After all, the vile hanyou had never shown a penchant for useless acts of violence before. What could be gained from such brutality against children in which no witness was left to convey the message, threat or demand? Nothing was being sought after and Naraku never did anything without the possibility of achieving something.

It was against the ookami prince's nature to keep on the defensive, he preferred more active types of problem solving. The full contact sort of problem solving kept him sharp and sane, but he could be patient and set aside his destructive impulses for the good of his people if he had to. Nobody said he had to like it, and complaining was his royal right if he so chose, which wasn't often because Ginta and Hakkaku did it for him.

Now was not the time for complaint, impatience would have to be borne in silence if anything was to be gleaned from the child's experiences.

"Maya," Ayame called sternly but softly, demanding the return of the child's wandering attention. "Who saved you?"

"I don't know," Maya pursed her lips in thought. "I've never met her before."

"What did she look like?" Ayame asked, realizing that Maya was in no way frightened of this woman by the fact the little girl wasn't trying to distance herself from her savior by speaking in third person.

"Her eyes were very green and her hair was extremely pale," Maya remembered, struggling to recall every detail of her hero. "And she was tall, taller even than Garu when the elders first let him lead a hunting team. He was so puffed up with pride and nearly hurt himself from walking so tall," she laughed at the remembered antics of one of her fellows; until she remembered he had been with her when the bad man first attacked. "The bad man killed him," she murmured sadly. Then it struck her that she had left the stranger who had saved her life alone with the one who had killed the third best male warrior of their tribe as easily as pulling petals off a flower.

Maya's eyes widened in horror and she began to struggle out of Ayame's grasp. She couldn't leave anyone to that horrible man with his terrible laugh and awful strength. She'd never be able to live with herself.

"Maya, what is it?" Ayame demanded somewhat angrily as she struggled to hold onto the younger youkai.

"Maya left her behind with the bad man," the child cried in a mixture of fear and determination. "The bad man will hurt her," she couldn't bring herself to admit that it was likely the man had already killed the stranger. "She helped Maya get away. She stayed to fight him."

Maya finally broke free and darted back the way she had come too fast for Ayame to catch her. "Kouga!" Ayame yelled at the male. Her fancy for the prince held no bearing when weighted against the safety of the pack.

The wolf prince managed to catch the little demon with his artificially enhanced speed but had trouble keeping a grip on her as she immediately arched her back in continued attempts to travel back to where she had left her hero behind.

"Maya!" Kouga growled at the child. The girl stilled in sudden fright. "It's all right Maya, but it is obvious to me that the stranger wanted you to be safe. You don't want to disappoint her do you?" Maya shook her head stiffly. "Then let Ayame, Ginta and Hakkaku take you back to the den." The little girl began to struggle with him again. "Maya! Go back to the den and I promise that I will go help your friend." His friends gave him disapproving looks and Ayame nearly growled at him. "I'll go see if she's still there," he ignored them. As a leader within the pack he could see that his people owed the stranger at least that much.

"Kouga!" Ayame did growl.

"Maya, will you go now?" Kouga continued to ignore her.

"You promise? You'll help her and not let the bad man hurt her more?" the child demanded.

"If he's still there, I swear I'll not let him do more than he already has," Kouga replied carefully. He didn't want to get caught breaking promises because he misspoke, especially not with Maya's trust in as vulnerable a state as it was after the proof of evil and duplicity had made such a strong recent impression. "Will you go?"

Maya nodded decisively, and then patted Kouga's clawed hand gently. "Be careful," she whispered. "The bad man will get you if you're not."

Kouga nodded at the child seriously and released her from his arms.

Maya nodded back one last time before walking to Ayame to tug on the older woman's hand.

"Kouga," Ginta whined in protest when the youkai in question gestured for them to leave.

"Return them to the safety of the den," Kouga growled firmly. The safety of a female pack member held priority over foolish worry over a premier male, any female. Besides, Kouga could take care of himself; he had the jewel shards.

"Come on," Ayame grumbled at them crossly. She was generally upset with the whole situation, but even she wasn't allowed out of the den without two male escorts and a throng of wolves, and as there was a limited supply of both where they currently stood she would just have to resign herself to the prodding of circumstance. Not that she had to like it any better than Ginta and Hakkaku.

Kouga turned around and left with a badly concealed look of annoyance. He didn't need looking after. By the time he got where he was going the bad guy was liable to be done finishing off Maya's rescuer and well away from possible discovery and punishment. The bastard always was terribly fast for a screwball.

The wolf prince could smell the scene of the crime long before he reached it. The strong scent of mass death was truly unforgettable. And unmistakable. It was such an unwholesome stench that reeked of spilled blood and loosened bowel of the dead and dieing.

It wasn't until Kouga actually saw the carnage creating the smell that he realized his assumed version of events was actually a great deal tamer than he had imagined could be possible. The blood of his brothers was everywhere, staining the grass, the ground, even the tree branches that managed to still reach out over the death site of his comrades. It had been a massacre.

Pieces of bodies he refused to recognize as real, as familiar friends, were strewn everywhere, absolute proof that whomever had done this bit of work had truly torn the bodies asunder and with little effort judging by the expressions of surprise he could see on the few faces that had enough features to support such a look.

The scene was horrific and gruesome to the point Kouga felt that he, a seasoned warrior, might look a little green the way Kagome does upon occasion. The combination of smells, sights and the terrible thought that little Maya had been forced to face this view alone and in the midst of its creation made his normally steady stomach heave ever so violently. And that was before he heard the gasping breath of something amidst the bits and pieces still fighting to live. The likelihood of it being one of his people was exceedingly slim which meant that whoever it was had (apparently) provided the costly distraction Maya had needed to get away.

The wolf prince set aside his reluctance right then, his people, his clan at least, owed this stranger far more than could be easily dismissed. Quite likely some serious effort would have to be made in order to repay this debt. All thoughts of repayment were shoved from his mind when he realized he needed all of his brain cells to focus on finding this person in the mayhem of red before him.

The harder he looked the more movement he saw in the scene before him, phantom gestures in the peripheral of his vision. Thankfully before he head the chance to truly embarrass himself by starting at shadows a painful cough was dragged from the only other living throat in the vicinity. Given a proper direction, he bolted through the blood sticky waving fronds of the foliage.

Beyond the majority of the gore was a patch of blood occupied by a single body, the sight of which made Kouga wish he hadn't eaten the entire week before.

There lying on the ground leaking blood from wounds that wrapped lovingly around her body, was Aki, promised and practically mate of the Lord of the Western Lands. He didn't fully understand the intimate details of their relationship, but it didn't take a genius to realize that if she died when he could have done something it would be the end of his clan, if not his species all together. Sesshoumaru's rage wouldn't even spare the trees. The dens would be completely demolished, possibly flooded or just shaken down. Nightmarish visions of drowned comrades filled his head even as he approached her sprawled figure on the ground.

Aki opened her eyes, fighting through a haze of pain just to see and breath when the wolf youkai came into her rather limited range of view. Between pants for air she managed to greet him, "I should have known she was a friend of yours." She ended with a cough and a painful swallow. The muscles of her throat pulled at the gouges on her chest that ringed the one side of her neck. These bloody necklaces were the least of her problems and she didn't bother to remark on them or any of her other wounds suffered in the course of protecting the life of a child she didn't know. "Did she get away?" Aki rasped, demanding assurance that her effort had been successful.

"Maya found us," Kouga answered absently as he tried to decipher what this woman could mean by risking life and limb for one of his people when they clearly did not get along. "Why would you help her?"

Aki blinked slowly surprised that he would ask something so stupid. "I won't let anyone harm a child if I can help it, especially not that bastard," her eyes flashed a bit of red on the last word but it faded quickly and he wondered if he imagined it.

"But she's one of my people," Kouga shook his head in confusion as he came even closer to get a better look at the damage her attacker had wrought.

"What's your point?" Aki gasped in pain when Kouga reached out and gently prodded one of her many wounds. "I don't dislike Kagura and Kanna just because Naraku's an asshole." Again her eyes flashed red and faded too quickly for the wolf to be certain of what he saw.

Kouga shook his head, "the bastard did a number on you." There was so much blood he didn't know where to start. It was looking like even if he did manage to start, it wouldn't do her any good, which was strange for someone as powerful as Aki was supposed to be. If he didn't do something fast, Sesshoumaru really would decimate his people.

"Naraku would," Aki rolled her eyes and let them slide shut, tired of looking at the furry guy hunched down beside her. The wolf youkai uselessly gathered up the pieces of torn fabric she had been wearing and tried to clad her more private places. He really wasn't very bright she mused absently.

Kouga wasn't really thinking about what his hands were doing. There was something he could do that might help Aki, might give her a fighting chance to live through this, but it would likely get him into a lot of trouble with his pack and Sesshoumaru. HE shook his head, his pack he could handle and Sesshoumaru was going to be pissed no matter what he did.

The ookami sighed wearily, the situation wearing on him and his stupid sense of responsibility. He would just have to adopt Aki as a member of the pack, officially and irrefutably.

Adoption of the type he was contemplating was extremely rare among the wolves or even any other species of youkai. Outsiders were not commonly welcomed into even the outermost circles of interaction with the pack. It was seldom that someone was trusted enough to be elevated to the status of pack membership, even rarer for someone of Aki's age to even be considered.

The older the candidate the greater the likelihood of deviousness and betrayal, for once adopted into the pack, the decision was final.

Normally a number of elders would deliberate over the decision for days before a verdict could be reached and most often the answer was no. The last time adoption had been considered, Kouga had been a barely weaned pup and the candidate had been an abandoned human child left to the elements by the brigands that had murdered its parents. The final decision had ruled against adoption, but the pack had helped the child survive to maturity in any case.

There wasn't time to call the elders to debate this issue and Aki needed the aid of the pack's strength to survive the damage she'd sustained defending one of his people. What he knew of her, he knew to be honest and good despite his personal opinion of her. This was the second time she had saved a female of his pack at high personal risk and he knew she would ask for nothing in repayment, she never had.

His pack's debt was enough to cover the headache he was sure to suffer when the elders caught wind of what he was planning.

The specifics of the ceremony required that he mix the blood of at least three members of the pack with that of the one being adopted. This presented a problem, as he was quite clearly alone, but that was likely to remedy itself when the two idiots that followed him would track him down at the first opportunity. The biggest problem was figuring out how to mix their blood with hers without hers mixing into theirs. He hadn't forgotten how efficient Aki's curse was and the pack had to be protected for any part of his plan to work.

Aki reached out, every movement painful, and pinched him. "Whatever you're thinking, don't," she panted. All of the incidental defensive wounds up and down her arms ached with a renewed sharpness due to her efforts. She welcomed it as they distracted her from the worst of her wounds. The wound that wrapped from the side of her right hip around her front under her breast and behind her left shoulder. It wasn't particularly deep, but it made every movement, every breath painful and difficult to take.

Kouga almost snarled at her intrusion of his thoughts and her mistaken belief that she could tell him what to do. It was one of many reasons he didn't really like her. Although, it was possible his opinion had been formed in a desire to be different from every other person that ever met her. To Maya she was a hero, after even first meeting her. He distrusted someone with the general good opinion of everybody, even though she'd never given him reason to really dislike her, her mild teasing aside.

He had willfully disregarded one of his earliest lessons on judging others. One should look to a person's friends to judge them based, not on who those friends were, but how those friends were treated and reacted to that bond of friendship.

Aki was clearly one of the best of people if she could inspire such loyalty in her friends that one of them would keep to a promise made even after death.

Where were those two idiots anyway! They needed to get here already so they could get this done and he could stop thinking about how stupid he had been when judging her. Seriously, he knew better! His sensei would be up in arms to beat the shit out of him, and that was if she was in a good mood.

Aki pinched him again and he really did growl at her this time. "I told you not to," she wasted the breath to admonish him. Kouga having a bought of serious thought only served to make her uneasy. She suspected Kouga thinking was a lot like Inuyasha thinking; it could only end in violence. "Stop thinking so hard."

"Stop talking," Kouga growled at her when she gave further indication of severe pain. Aki snorted at him and instantly regretted it when the pain everywhere spiked. She took two more severely painful breaths before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.

Kouga jumped to his feet in alarm. This wasn't good! The unconsciousness preceded the dieing and the dieing lead to a massacre of his people. Where were Ginta and Hakkaku? He swore he would beat the crap out of them for being so slow!

Luckily, for Kouga, the two hapless wolf brothers made an appearance right about then. And it was almost only good for the wolf prince, for Ginta and Hakkaku suffered for their leaders impatience and Aki suffered a moment longer for his venting.

Then Kouga pulled out his seldom-used sword and sliced open his hand. He squeezed the wound in his fist so that his blood would drip into Aki's largest wound. Then he grabbed up a startled Hakkaku's hand and did the same to him.

"Eh? Kouga!" Ginta yelped in shock when the wolf prince grabbed his hand to repeat the process.

"Don't touch her until it heals," Kouga growled commandingly.

"Kouga, do you realize what you've done?" Hakkaku demanded and licked over the cut in his palm.

"I've adopted her as pack. She would have died without the strength of the pack," Kouga growled defensively. The fact that Aki could still die anyway didn't need voicing.

"But the elders…" Hakkaku began.

Kouga caught the wolf brother up against the nearest tree with a growl. "You'd rather we did nothing and she died? I'll be sure to let Maya know that and the Lord of the Western Lands as well."

Hakkaku blanched and Ginta wedged himself between the two hoping to preserve the health of his pack brother.

"She gained those wounds defending our female, the second time she has saved a pack female," the wolf prince growled once again.

"We know that Kouga," Ginta struggled to loosen Kouga's grip on Hakkaku. "We know Aki is worthy. The elders don't though. That's what he meant."

"It doesn't matter because it's already done," Kouga sighed as he finally let Hakkaku down.

"The elders will probably let it go when they find out she brings ties with the Western Lord," Hakkaku offered as an olive branch.

Kouga blinked at him a minute, then began to laugh as he really thought about it. Aki was part of his pack now, so Sesshoumaru would have to negotiate with the elders if he wanted to court her. It was entirely too much. Since he had been the one to first offer his blood, he would be seen as her father and therefore it was his permission the taiyoukai would have to ultimately gain and that was after gaining the go ahead from the pack elders. Just imagining the flaming hoops he could make the great dog jump through delighted him.

"What will who have to let go?" a voice interrupted his musing and mirth. It was the voice of someone that hadn't been there before.

Damnit, and he was so enjoying his thoughts too…