She couldn't understand how, but as Totosai blew on the fang, it seemed to grow, and it grew even more as he hammered it. It got the longer, until it was perhaps a foot and a half long, and instead of being in the shape of a fang, it was closer to the shape of a bamboo leaf.

She closed her eyes, waiting.

She shifted, and realized that she had been in the same position for many hours.

She smelled pine and felt something lightly touch her shoulder, but when she opened her eyes, Sesshomaru-sama was leaning against the wall on the other side of the cave.

"Here you are, girl. Try it out." Totosai held out the dagger out to her, hilt first. Sesshomaru-sama stepped away from the wall, but before he could do anything, she grasped the offered weapon.

The shockwave knocked the wind out of her, and would have thrown her against the wall if she had not already been leaning against it. The sheer power of the blade astonished her. The waves of yukai energy rolled up her arms, trying to take her mind.

She refused to let it.

She saw Sesshomaru-sama take Totosai by the throat and lift him off the ground, a slightly crazed expression on his face.

Her breath came in short grunts as she fought the blade that had been forged for her. Instinctively, she bared her teeth, struggling to hold her own.

Sesshomaru-sama and Totosai both looked over at her in surprise. The energy from the dagger swamped her, and she fought against it with everything she had.

She faintly remembered Inuyasha saying something about yukai energy; that it flowed in a pattern, and if you messed it up…

She tried to find a pattern in the wild, flowing forces buffeting her, struggled to make sense of the madness, but there seemed to be no predicting...Wait, she stopped flailing around and let herself feel.

She saw it. It was a whirlpool.

She didn't know why, but she started to spin herself in the opposite direction, counteracting the forces, forcing it to flow around her.

Soon she was in control of the flow, and she allowed herself to sink back into her body. Oh, OW! She thought. She was still sitting against the wall in Totosai's smithy, and every muscle in her body was on fire.

She—painfully—lifted the dagger. She could still sense the youki flowing in the blade, but now it was under her control. She looked over at Sesshomaru-sama, but she couldn't find him anywhere. She started to panic, and tried to lever herself up from the floor—only to fall flat on her face. The noise caught the attention of Totosai, who seemed like he couldn't believe his eyes. "How are you alive? You should have been killed or overtaken by youki as powerful as Sesshomaru's."

Rin tried to answer, but her throat didn't work right.

Still wearing a look of wonder, Totosai got up and brought her water!

"Here," he said. As she sipped from the ladle, she wondered why a yukai like Totosai would serve her, a human girl.

After she finished, Totosai asked again, "How are you still alive?"

"I don't know myself." As she explained what had happened, the smith's expression was so shocked she couldn't help herself.

She laughed.

Then she clamped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry, sorry. Sorry! I shouldn't have laughed, but your face..."

Totosai wasn't even paying attention to her.

Since he had been so nice with the water, she decided to push her luck just a little.

"Umm, Totosai-sama? Could you help me? I can't get up on my own."

Still slack-jawed, he helped her to her feet.

She found she could walk on her own, and once she moved around, most of the stiffness vanished. "Totosai-sama, do you know where Sesshomaru-sama is?"

Totosai nodded, but told her to wait, because he had not followed the path of relatively cool stone that let to the youkai smith's door.

She wandered around the cave, getting rid of the last of her kinks. She lay down on the warm stone floor, thinking, I'll just take a small nap. It felt like only moments later, she heard something scuffling, and someone choking out, "She...Alive.......Alive."

She opened her eyes to see...Sesshomaru-sama! Who was holding the poor Totosai a foot off the floor.

"Do you have a death-wish, Totosai?" As always, completely smooth on the surface, Sesshomaru-sama's voice rang in her ears. "I told you that I wished to be left alone!" She had never heard him so irate, his voice rising to nearly a shout.

He tightened his grip, and Totosai's face began to turn an alarming purple. She shifted her focus to Sesshomaru-sama's face, and was shocked.

His eyes were burning red, and his expression was so anguished it was nearly insane.

She pushed herself up from the floor, rushed over to Sesshomaru-sama and threw her arms around his chest, "Sesshomaru-sama!" She hugged him so tightly she heard his ribs creak.

She heard Totosai drop to the floor, still breathing, thankfully. "Rin?"

"Sesshomaru-sama."

She felt his hands come up her back, and his claws lightly scratched the back of her neck as he...hugged her back!

"Oh, Rin." he sighed. She never wanted to let go, but eventually his hands dropped, and she knew it was time to step away.

When she saw his face, she was surprised.

On the surface, it was as stony as ever, but she knew him well enough to see past his mask.

There was relief in his eyes, and, tender concern?

His eyes flicked to Totosai, who had gotten to his feet.

She went back to retrieve the dagger lying near where she had napped.

"NO!"

She ignored the shout and bent, carefully, to get the weapon. It wasn't there when her hands got there.

Without turning she said, "Sesshomaru-sama, please give me my dagger."

"No."

"I have mastered it, you saw me grab it, the only way I would still be alive is if I had beaten the blade."

She looked at Totosai for help. "She speaks the truth, you know." He said. "I saw it with my own eyes. I would not have believed it possible, but this young lady has mastered your fang."

Rin blushed when Totosai called her "young lady" instead of "girl."

Since she wouldn't be a "woman" for a few centuries in a yukai's opinion, "young lady" was a compliment, coming from him.

She turned to face Sesshomaru-sama. "Please?"

His grip on the handle tightened, then, very slowly, he brought it toward her.

Very slowly, she brought her hand up, and touched the hilt. When nothing happened, he let her take the weapon from his hand.

She wondered what he was thinking.

Watching Sesshomaru-sama watching her, she asked, "Totosai-sama, do you have a sheath for this?"

******************************

She smiles in remembering, and admires, for the umpteenth time, the way the firelight plays over the ripples in the steel, refracting, making the fire appear to dance twice as hard as it is.

The blade is much like Sesshomaru-sama, she reflects, cold, graceful, with surprises lurking just beneath the surface.

At least he had a heartbeat.

She looks over at Sesshomaru-sama again, hoping without any hope. That one day had been the only time he had ever shown such, intense, emotion for her; afterward, he certainly hasn't been any colder toward her, but it was as though none of it had ever happened.

Stop living in the past girl, it is over, it does no good to be pining when you could be doing!

She rolls onto her side so she could watch him, and tells the voice in her head to go stuff it.