Panting echoed around her as she fought for every breath, she had no idea how long she had been running for, it seemed all of her long 8 years of life, whether it be from frightened humans or disgusted yokai, there had always been someone chasing her. Right this moment and for the last three days it had been a gang of snake and centipede yokai and now she was reaching the ends of her reserves...

It was the day that had been too long in coming and InuYasha was eager to get to the bone eaters well to retrieve Kagome, 'that girl is always late and she always has some excuse or another..' he thought restlessly before stopping short in his tracks and lifting his nose to the air.

"What is it InuYasha? It's not like you to be stopped on your way to get lady Kagome like this.." the monk Miroku smiled a little uneasily. Shippo, the young Fox demon looked around at the half demon's behaviour curiously from Miroku's shoulder.

"Something's not right..." he replied, loud enough to catch Miroku's attention before sniffing at the air again. "Demons." Without another word InuYasha had changed direction and was running towards the scent of the foreign yokai, leaving Miroku with Shippo to catch up.

The girl had collapsed now having finally reached the ends of her strength to continue and will to force herself, this was how it was meant to be, she kept thinking before a familiar burning through her veins washed over her to convince her otherwise. Her eyes turned to crimson before her pupils came through with an icy blue, her fangs and claws grew longer and she growled low in her chest as she pushed herself up off the ground to turn and face her attackers, a defiant, almost eager scowl spread itself across her face as it was framed by the moonlight silver of her hair.

"Oh no little halfbreed has finally reached her limits!" cackled one of the snake demons as he took a step forward, "We'd best be careful or she'll rip our kneecaps to shreds!" this earned a roar of laughter from the group behind him and an added "she lost her ears last time she tried.. what will she lose this time?" which only served to enrage the girls now feral form.

InuYasha stopped short of the clearing and hid behind a stand of trees, hearing the last comment his eyes widened at the caked blood on the girl's head, on first glance he thought it was a bandanna or something but now he could feel a familiar stirring in his heart, he motioned for Miroku and Shippo to be silent as they came up to him wanting to ask what was going on. "This is gonna get very ugly, very quickly.." he said simply as he returned his gaze to the conflict ahead of them. No sooner than those words slipped through his mouth, the girl launched herself at the snake demon in front of her, she managed to get to his chest and bite down before she was ripped off and tossed into the waiting group of demons. What followed were sounds akin to a dogfight, biting, clawing and snarling as the group of demons worked to torture the small being in their midst while she fought tooth and claw for her life, InuYasha had had enough by now and stepped through the trees, letting loose a wind scar that barely scraped past the group of demons, but obliterated the one that had stepped forward.

"Hey! Waddaya think you're doing in my forest?" InuYasha called out to the stunned demons, who had paused in their ministrations to look for the source of the attack.

"Well well... if it isn't another halfbreed.. seems they get more common the further south you go.." a centipede said with a rattling voice, "Must be something in the waters here.."

"Keh, What are you on about vermin.. I asked you a question, now what are you doing here besides making a nuisance of yourselves?" InuYasha shouldered his Tessaiga and waited irritably for a response to his question.

"We were simply AARRGH!!" the demon's coy excuse was cut short by the girl leaping free of the group tht surrounded her, lashing out with her claws as she did so and slicing trough the flesh of two of the remaining five demons, including the one who was speaking. She landed between them and InuYasha, casting the briefest of glances at him before she took off at her full demon speed through the trees, leaving a slightly confused hanyou and enraged group of demons in her wake.

InuYasha didn't want to waste any more time with these small-fry demons and lifted his sword for another attack, the wind scar effectively disintegrating the group of demons that remained. "Well that was a waste of time.." he huffed, sheathing the Tessaiga and turning to look at Miroku and Shippo, "Come on, we've wasted enough time on this little side trip.." he said with a frown and started off towards the well...

AN: It's a little disjointed I know.. sorry...

This is the second versin of this particular story that has been rattling inside my head for a while now... first version was lost due to a recycle bin and system restore accident.. it was rough, but it was sadly better than this version.. though it didn't get much farther than what this is here..

I thought I had better submit this and see how people like it before I chickened out again haha, Tell me what you think of it, I'll probably still continue it even if no one likes it... I have to get it out of my head.