Naraku climbed through the rocks, the place where a mountain once was, and now stood a cliff.

This was the place where the Dragon King and the Lord of the West had buried their terrible enemy all those years ago. The wizard's dead body still held so much power that he could still feel the exact point where it was buried.

If everything went according to his plans, the overfed lizards would kill the mongrels, and vice versa. A single shred of the Shikon would be all that was needed to bring him back into the world of the living.

As he removed a few rocks from above the corpse, he noticed that even after three hundred years, more or less, the body wasn't rotten. The maggots had never dared touch the body. A wicked smile crept up to his face… this would make things much more easier.

He placed a hand under the rigid beard covered chin and forced the mouth open, then placed the shred on the tongue and let go of his grip on the ancient face. Slowly, the black eyes turned into yellow with reddish strands of blood, and the lungs moved to life. Yes, this puppet he would enjoy… and a lot.

A hand slowly rose from among the rocks in search of an enemy long time gone…

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"Papa is come! Papa is come!" the redhead yelled running down the spiral staircase, her long braid falling over her night gown, her nightcap over her head. "Papa is come at last! I've seen him!" she kept going.

"Marie! Louis!" she knocked harshly in the first door that came to her sight on the hallway "wake up, Louis! Didn't you hear? Father has finally come back from Denmark," the girl yelled merrily.

"Good God! Isabeu, be quiet! Do you know what time it is?" her brother appeared on his door, towering over her. From his messy hair and his sleepy eyes, he'd just stepped out of bed. Isabeu always enjoyed seeing how much Louis and Marie resembled their mother, with the green eyes and pitch black hair, while she and Philippe resembled their father, with the red hair.

"Mon petite soeur, pray tell, what is the source of all this racket?" Marie asked softly from across the hallway, appearing on her own door. She too looked like she just rise from the bed, but she'd at leas had had the decency of putting a night robe on, unlike Louis, who slept only in his loose underwear, if not naked and cared not the least to show himself like that to whoever came to his rooms in the morning. This time, the girls were lucky to see him covered.

"Marie, papa is come! We must get dressed to welcome him back." The fifteen-year-old look-alike redhead answered.

"I'm already dressed," Louis remarked with a smirk.

"Louis, for Christ's sake, have some decency!" Marie snapped before turning to her sister "I'll be ready in just a moment. Please go dress yourself and get Chatôn out of bed." She smiled warmly, excitement claiming her eyes. "And you! Put some clothes on! Yes, clothes, as in many, not just your underpinnings!" she said coolly to her brother, who laughed and closed his door behind him to get dressed.

As Isabeu nodded and headed towards the next spiral stairs across from the ones from where she'd come, Marie went back to her rooms and got dressed.

An hour later they were all gathered in the kitchen, spying through a small window that looked to the stables and the gate from which their father would enter. But as the siblings chatted excitedly, Philippe smelled something and ran towards the door, and to the open portcullis.

"Blood… a dragon's blood." Isabeau gasped as she too caught the smell, along with her siblings.

"Papa!" Marie cried as she ran behind her elder brother "Stay here, girls" Louis commanded before calling for his stepbrother "Georges" and they both left behind Marie and Philippe. Catherine and Isabeau stayed in the kitchen, looking out the window, praying for their father's safety, expecting their brothers and sister to come back.

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As the dragons and their human stepbrother ran quickly towards the bloody smell, a bleeding man ran towards them.

"Prince, princess…" he gasped "run! Go back to safety!" he said before collapsing. Marie ran to her knees and tried to help the man back up. By his clothes she saw he was one of her father's servants, his skin was starting to gain scales, turning him back to his real form.

"Please, tell me what happened to my father?" she begged, tears running down her eyes in fear, her brothers surrounding her.

"Betrayed… that dog… those savages… devil worshippers… we always told him…" with those words said, a fountain of blood came out on Marie's dress and the man died, turning to a humanoid snake. The blood shining brightly against the white fabric and baby blue flowers embroider on it.

Philippe ran to the place where the smell of blood was stronger, his brothers following. Marie stood a second longer in the ground, astonished before the corpse in front of her, before se too ran behind her brothers.

As the reach a group of rocks near a river they say their father's real form collapse to the ground, on top of was a man, his long white hair reached his calves, his cheeks marked with purple and a moon on his forehead. His golden eyes were the ones that pinned Marie to the ground.

Her dragon brothers recognized him as well, even when they'd met last as children.

An evil laughter reached them as the dog demon disappeared with their father, badly wounded.

"Sesshoumaru" Louis whispered, caught somewhere between disbelieve and outrage. I was only his sister the one who caught something off in the Japanese demon scent.

"No" it was all she uttered.