Message for you! I'm looking for a proof reader for this story, someone who is familiar with Inuyasha and has studied English at university level for at least a year or someone whose mother tongue is English. If you are interested, then please let me know! Thanks.

This chapter has not been proof read (by anyone other than me), but please bear with it. Thanks.

Chapter 4

The white clad, stoic man frowned. He was surrounded by agitated and terrified farmers sporting rakes and spades. He didn't understand what the farmers were intending with the rakes, nor why they seemed upset: all he had done was to stand there, at the edge of the forest.

When first he had appeared in the shadows of the forest there had only been a few pitiful farmer women in sight. He had tried to recognise them to determine whether they had been there the last time, when he had left his ward at the very same village, but if he had ever met them before, then age had changed them past recognition. That thought made his intestines burn from some unknown feeling. He had watched them for some time before he stood out in the sunlight to greet them but when he did terrified screams had pierced his ears. Suddenly women had ran back and forth in a frenzy meanwhile the toad youkai at Sesshoumaru's side croaked and attempted to follow them with his staff held high, scaring the two-headed pet beast into roaring loudly. Not too long after that the great amount of farmers with rakes had appeared.

He had tried to be reasonable and explain why he was there but as he had muttered the word his throat had thickened and to his dismay the farmers had only watched each other with as terrified looks as before. "Rin" he tried again and to his relief, this time a farmer had ran off after silently having consulted his comrades.

The toad youkai now stood by his master's side and leaned on the two-headed staff, though staggering a bit from the hardship of staying completely still. His master, on the other hand, had neither budged nor stirred from the time that the farmer had left to fetch Rin, until the time the woman arrived, panting.

She abruptly stopped moving when she spotted him. It had been such a long time since she had last seen the man and she was stunned by the very sight of him. He looked the same as he always had and she was lost in sensation as she admired his hair, his air and his gigantic tail that he still sported over one shoulder. He stood as still as though time around him had stopped, and she knew that he had, indeed, not felt a second passing by since the last time they met!

Then, in the blink of an eye the wind changed and the illusion was lost. The ever-white clad man lifted his head in her direction and she immediately assumed an offensive position. She shouted orders at the villagers that still surrounded her former master and they turned around in panic and ran toward her. "Go back to the village! I will handle this!" she screamed with all the intensity and authority she could muster. The villagers happily obliged and above the rustle and the noise of villagers' screams she could hear the, somehow, still familiar voice of the youkai she once had called 'Jaken-sama'. "Rin!" he croaked. The sound made her dizzy and she began to tremble. This was the moment which she had for so longed awaited but now, when it was finally happening, she was surprised to realise that the trembling of all her limbs were not caused by anticipation and longing, but from fury. The longing and love, she realised were but distant sentiments repressed by the current loathing. She fought her inner instincts to remain her calm and began pacing toward the two people whom she had for so long loved, and for so long hated.

Time sped up as she got closer and closer to her warder. Her heartbeats felt like they were penetrating her chest and the broken voice of the toad youkai got diluted with the messy jumble in her brain. Her warder said nothing, but quietly regarded her as he always had and for a heart-rending moment she longed to hear him say her name. When she was close enough so that she could have exhaled and have had the fur of his tail stir from the action she stopped. For a second she felt the need to look him in the eye but when her eyes trailed upwards from the selvage of his armour she remembered how tall he actually was.

"Rin, is that really you?" the toad inquired.

She looked down, surprised at how small the youkai servant was: she had remembered him bigger, almost as big as she. "Yes, Jaken", she answered bitterly as she remembered how the only one actually changed was her. Then she sadly added "-sama" as she realised how her Jaken-sama had tried to comfort her upon their departure, caring for her more than her warder had, at that last moment.

The look on the toad youkai's face was that of confusion. Then he spoke. "Rin", was all he said at first. Her heart leapt. Then: "You have changed".

She knew that her old self would have felt sorrow and even despair at the words, but the grown-up Rin had improved: she wouldn't put her feelings on display as long as he didn't. She inhaled fast and rendered her face into an expressionless imitation of her warder's, then proudly raised her head to meet his eyes.

"I hate you", she said without displaying or revealing anything she might have felt upon speaking the words. Then she promptly turned around and began walking away.

Jaken's croaking voice reached her ears as she lifted one foot to put it in front of the other but what caught her attention was the sudden whirlwind that she could feel appearing and disappearing behind her back in the blink of an eye. She twirled around and found herself standing face to face with a speechless toad youkai and en empty, gaping forest.

In the next chapter? The introduction of an OC.

Hope you enjoyed!