Disclaimer: If I owned Inu Yasha, I would be the most popular kid in school!... But I don't, so I'm not.
Chapter Three: Taken Prisoner
As Yuki slowly reentered the waking world, she ran a hand through her raven hair that had fallen from the ponytail sometime during her mad quest for her new friend, Shippo. Then as her mind slowly gained awareness, her ears piqued to the sound of the crackling of a fire. Had Kagome and the others already rescued her?
Slowly she opened her eyes and sat up from the sleeping position that she had taken sometime during the night and she looked around at her setting. Yuki was alone in an empty campsite with nothing occupying it but the fire that burned to keep her warm. But the fire assured Yuki that she was now safe and found for who else but her rescuers could have lit it? It relaxed her so that she now let a small smile grace her features as she laid her head back down onto her arms. She was still a little tired from the events of her visit to this place.
And just when she was just about to drift back to sleep, Yuki began to hear the footsteps of the approaching party. At first, she didn't even bother to open her eyes, knowing that it was only her new friends returning. But she was unknowingly mistaken.
Just then, the voice of the cute little girl named Rin sounded in Yuki's ears, causing her eyes to snap open. She quickly sat up in her spot and looked to see the group containing Rin, Sesshomaru, and the toad approaching the clearing.
Then, seeing that Yuki was now awake and alert, Rin ran over to the older girl with that cheery and smiley disposition of hers. "Hello, I'm Rin," she greeted, "Would you like to play with me?"
For a few moments, Yuki could only sit frozen in her spot, still in shock that these people that had come were not her companions at all but their enemies. However, not wanting to deny the sweet child of a playmate, Yuki gave an automatic nod of agreement.
Rin clapped her hands in excitement. "Yay!" she exclaimed, "Is hide-and-go-seek okay?"
Yuki could only nod again. Rin smiled and pulled on Yuki's hand, beckoning her to get to her feet. Automatically Yuki obeyed to the ushering of the child, "Okay then let's go!"
The event of Rin so suddenly asking Yuki to play when she didn't even know where she was just happened to be a little much for Yuki right then. But Rin didn't seem to notice Yuki's daze because she then questioned, "Do you wanna count first?"
Once again, a nod answered the question. "Okay," Rin smiled, "Count to 30 and come find me." Then, she ran off to find her hiding space.
When the presence of the girl was no more, Yuki was finally able to snap out of her amazed trance. She then awkwardly leaned her arm on the tree that she had been sleeping under and rested her forehead against it. Yuki then began the countdown, "One…Two…Three…"
It was when she reached about the count of fifteen that Yuki felt a strong hand place itself gently on her shoulder, the contact sending chills down her neck and spine and making her stop her countdown. Then Sesshomaru's tickling wind of a whisper sounded in her ear, "Listen, these are the rules: If you do not anger me, you will not get hurt. If you try to run away from me, I will be very annoyed with you. So it is in your best interest that you believe me when I say that you do not want that. Do you understand?"
Yuki froze in fear that was as cold as Sesshomaru's icy tone. This man was absolutely petrifying in his demands! "Mhm," she was able to mumble, "I understand." Yuki had hoped that hearing these words of agreement would give Sesshomaru satisfaction enough to leave her, but he was not in any hurry to do so.
Now he was REALLY making her feel uncomfortable by being this close to her, and not in any way that could have been good. Instead of leaving, which was what Yuki wanted, he did the complete opposite: he leaned in closer, burying his nose and mouth into Yuki's hair and inhaling its sweet fragrance and causing Yuki's heart to stop once more.
"Wh-what are you d-doing?" The question had slipped out of Yuki's lips accidentally. She had not meant to voice her thoughts and she especially didn't want to know the answer.
It was just her luck that she received one nevertheless. "I'm picking up your scent," he replied in that hushed and sadistic tone that really worried Yuki, shaking her to the core, "So in the event that you should run away, I will easily be able to find you." He then quickly pulled away and turned his back to her. "By the way," he called as he walked away, "It has been thirty seconds."
He then took a seat on the ground underneath a tree, his arm resting on a propped up leg. Yuki took this chance of looking for Rin to rush away from her new captor. What was she going to do now? She had just become a prisoner!
Unfortunately for our heroine, the search for Rin didn't last long so the two were forced to return to camp where the tyrant Sesshomaru and the imp, whose name Yuki would later learn was Jaken, waited.
But just as they entered the campground, the little imp was already saying that lunch was ready. Yuki sat next to Rin by the fire as everyone but Sesshomaru began to eat in silence. This peace was the ideal time for Yuki to sort through her thoughts and try to get the situation figured out. 'Why does Sesshomaru want me to stay here with him when he obviously doesn't even seem to like me?' she pondered as she reviewed the treatment shown to her, 'He treats me as if I was an object or something...' Then another dreadful thought occurred to her, even worse than the thought of the first, 'What if he does like me? Oh God! That would explain his weird behavior earlier! Is that why he's keeping me?'
But Yuki's silent fears were then interrupted by Sesshomaru as he informed her on one embarrassing act: "Girl, you are blushing."
Yuki looked up from the spot in the fire that she had been staring at to see Sesshomaru sitting as still as a statue and simply looking off in the distance somewhere to his right. Staring at him with raised eyebrows, Yuki checked herself and found that her face did feel a little warm. So now that she knew that she had been caught with her cheeks turning crimson, she felt all the more embarrassed, causing her cheeks to go to an even darker shade of red. But Yuki didn't want Sesshomaru to see her like this, so she turned her face away from him and tried to regain control of her skin tone, finding it very difficult to do.
By the time she had finally been able to discharge the unnatural color from her cheeks, the meal was over with. Then once again, Rin asked if Yuki if she wanted to play with her. This time, Yuki managed not only a nod, but she also replied with a, "Sure."
Smiling that cute little grin of hers, Rin took Yuki's hand and led her straight to another clearing. This one was much, much larger than the one they were staying in and it was also filled with grass and flowers that lifted Yuki's spirit upon sight. "Tag!" Rin shouted as she tapped Yuki, then bolted away, "You're it!"
This was the first time that Yuki was actually able to smile out of joy during her trip there. And so she reacted, chasing after Rin and playing with her. Of course Yuki went easy on the child since Yuki was the Mistress of Tag. Sadly the two females became so weary and tired that they both had to stop and rest, deciding to make flower jewelry as they recovered their energy.
Having had never done this pastime before, Yuki was not very good at forming the flowery trinkets her first few tries. Gradually she improved though, making necklaces and bracelets that she put on and traded with the younger girl. And it was somewhere in the midst of it all that Rin placed a hand on Yuki's cheek, turning her face towards her and scrutinizing the woman's countenance. "You know," Rin commented, not letting that concentration in her eyes slip, "Even with your face smudged with dirt like it is, you still look really pretty. I hope that I can grow up to be pretty like you."
And even through the dirt that caked her cheeks that she had gathered from her earlier attempted rescue, that blush that had been appearing so often showed up once again.
But it was fun, spending time with this little girl. In fact, Yuki was having so much fun that she herself felt like a child again: carefree and happy. This enjoyment actually caused Yuki to lose track of time and later realized that hours had passed without her notice. But Rin soon started to tire of playing and wanted to go back to the campsite so that they could rest from this play day. Yuki was very disappointed by this but was able to hide it very well from the youngling. Even though she dreaded going back to that man, Yuki would not want to keep Rin because of it.
As they walked back down the path from which they had come, Rin asked Yuki her name. The woman smiled and answered, "My name is Yuki."
Rin's eyes examined Yuki's face for a moment, then cracked a grin. "You're pretty when you smile," she commented, "You should do it more often."
The smile on Yuki's face diminished for a moment as she thought about the compliment that Rin had just paid her. 'You're pretty when you smile…' Rin had been saying such things so often. Could she really mean it? 'No,' Yuki told herself, 'She doesn't. I'm not so pretty that someone would comment on it... Especially not so often as she does.' Yuki thought this way about herself because she knew that she wasn't ugly, but she didn't think that her appearance was worth noticing either. She was simply plain.
Then the next thing she knew, Yuki and Rin had arrived back to the camp. Sesshomaru was still sitting with his back to the tree, gazing off into space and Jaken was…um… being Jaken.
But seeing that the two girls had returned, Sesshomaru silently stood and walked over and passed the two. "You, girl," he addressed Yuki while heading right back out of the clearing, "Follow me."
At first, Yuki was reluctant to go after him. She didn't like the idea of being alone with him at all, especially in a vast and concealed place that the forest probably held. But after a few moments when he noticed that she wasn't coming, Sesshomaru turned around, showing the impatience that had crept into his eyes. "Well?" he snapped back to Yuki, stirring her into action out of fear of angering the man.
Captor and captive walked in complete silence down the path going through new terrain. Yuki looked around as they went, working on memorizing the scenery so that she wouldn't have to think about the awkward nothingness between her and Sesshomaru. She could only pray that he too would say nothing and was hopefully occupied with his own thoughts, unrelated to her.
After only a couple more minutes of walking, the two reached a beautiful waterfall. And though the water stream that fell into the pool was smooth and gentle, the stream was thick enough that anything that was behind it was hidden, or at least distorted. And yet it flowed softly enough that if you put your hand in the water, it would simply pass by it without any trouble.
Sesshomaru turned around began to walk away. "I do not want to travel with a filthy human, let alone a dirty one," he told Yuki, "You will bathe here. But do not attempt to flee." Yuki turned to the departing man and unthinkingly nodded to his back, even though he couldn't see it. Then when the man was completely out of sight, Yuki followed the small ledge that was formed into the cliff from which the water fell and she went behind the falling stream. Once she was sure that she hidden from view, Yuki slipped out of her dirty school uniform and folded it carefully before setting it down on the stone. Then she slid into the cold water, shivering on contact. It was so cold!!! She didn't want to get any wetter than she already was, but she had to get clean. Sesshomaru had already made that clear. That is why she mentally prepared herself the best that she could to rush under the waterfall and out into deeper water.
Yuki took only a moment to adjust in the waist deep section of the water, then went farther towards the center, going in deeper and deeper before she was shoulder deep into the pool. Then, taking a deep breath, Yuki plunged underneath the water so that she might wash her hair and face clean of the dirt that had collected there. She then reemerged to the top and began to scrub the rest of her body with her hands, trying her best to get clean. She probably would have enjoyed this little bath more if it had not been so freezing!
It only took a few more minutes for Yuki to become satisfied with her clean condition, and she then headed back to the other side of the waterfall to dress again. However, what awaited her there was not the worn clothing that she had left behind. Now, there was a dry towel and a simple and clean kimono that was the plainest of blues that Yuki could ever recall seeing.
Yuki looked around for any sign of someone who could have left the items there, but saw no one. So, she tried to dry off the best she could with the towel, then she dressed herself in the kimono and put on the sandals that had been provided for her onto her feet.
After Yuki had gone back to the land, she saw Sesshomaru waiting for her at the mouth of the pathway that led back to camp. The moment he saw that the girl was now ready, he turned around and began again down the road. Yuki hurried to catch up to him.
