AN: Gasp. I managed to avoid killing myself while trying to keep a reasonable time between updating... Meh. I hate lack of sleep. I really should get to writing Legend's Rage Chapter 3, and Dark Hurricane's fifth chapter, and I really want to kill off a certain character... But I am tired. So my muse has poofed off to gnaw on someone else's brain. Which somehow prevented me from uploading this. Blahblahblah. Sesshomaru is a cruel bastard in this, and he remains so for... a while, because this is set before the events of the manga and anime, and I also find it fun to write him. x3 He gets fun dialogue.

Um... anyways, I feel kind of guilty for lobbing so much onto my own character. Suicune's cute when she's little. :P She gets all cruel and apathetic when she grows up, so it's fine to torture her then, but now, I start getting twinges of my conscience kicking in. Not fair. Yeah... enjoy, and leave a review? Please? I'd like to know if this deserves to be taken off or not. XD

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the series mentioned here. Woot. I wish I did.

Chapter Three – Decision

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"Tell me; is trust so important to you? Trusting in someone only opens the way to emotions and betrayal."

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The sun hurt her eyes when she woke up. It didn't make the village look any better, but there were no bodies left. Suicune was relieved at first, but when she began to actually look at the ground, she saw odd tracks – claws, hooves, weird shapes that didn't even seem to be possible. A lot of… something had come and… taken the bodies away? Eaten them? The warm sun suddenly seemed too far to keep away the fear. This was nothing like home. She had gotten here, wherever here was, because of that well. It wasn't far from here. Maybe, if she went back to it, she would be taken home?

The well stood in the distance, and her heart rose at the sight of it. Her legs twinged as she sped up, stumbling over the uneven ground. It was so close – just a few steps away…

"Running away, whelp?" She skidded to a stop, hope turning to fear. He was here, the one who had wanted to kill her. His voice was as cold as before, as if she didn't matter at all to him. "And after all the generosity my father showed you…" There was a bite to his words that made her think he wasn't happy at all.

"I – I needed to…" Her voice trailed off as she turned around and saw him staring at her with that same unemotional expression.

"I will weaken a yokai and bring it to you so you can finish it off," he informed her, not paying any attention to what she had been trying to say. "I suggest you show some shred of power beyond charming my father into believing you are useful." With that, he turned and strode away, leaving her rooted to the ground. She still didn't know what a yokai was, but that wasn't what was making her tremble. Kill. She had to kill something. She knew what death was, of course – some Pokemon died. Killing was very different from dying, though, and she had no idea what to do. He had left her alone… she could run for the well now. There was something wrong, though. It wasn't pulling at her like she remembered. Wasn't it supposed to glow too?

Suicune turned back to the well and took a tentative step forward. It didn't glow. Another step – still nothing. Now for another….

There was a roar. She had never heard anything like it before – so angry. It made her freeze up, but she could see out of the corner of her eye what was going on, and that made it even worse. Something large was rushing at her from the side. There was too much to look at: the blood from long, raking wounds on its back and sides, the vicious claws and fangs, the thrashing tail and the red, red eyes that were staring at her….

She was going to die. What could she do? Even moving to run, she was too slow. She had no way to fight. She was going to die here, without her family, without knowing where she was….

The monster slowed down, but it was still too fast for her to escape. It roared again, and then fell over. She stared at it, expecting it to suddenly jump up and come after her again. It shuddered, making her flinch back. It was alive, so why wasn't it getting up again? Suicune backed up, bumping into the well and then carefully scooting around it. The monster didn't move again, and she kept looking at it, afraid that it would move if she looked away….

"Oh, I thought it was stronger than that," Sesshomaru remarked, appearing so suddenly that she jumped. "What a shame. Since what was supposed to be your prey is dead, it seems that I will have to be your opponent." His robes billowed as he approached, one hand raised. She found herself staring at it. Humans always had blunt nails, but for some reason, his looked exactly like claws. Long, sharp claws. Her mind couldn't seem to keep up with what he had said. The monster was dead? It suddenly hit her – he was going to kill her. The terror returned full force, and she froze again.

"But – but your father said you couldn't," she stammered, trying to look at anything except those claws.

"Don't be foolish. I'm not going to kill you." Somehow, she didn't believe him. He didn't look or sound angry, or even interested in what he was doing, but something in her shrank away from his cold stare. He was coming closer. A few more steps and she would be in range… Something other than fear welled up inside her. She suddenly felt tired and, slowly, she looked back at the threatening hand. It was beginning to glow, the light from it a sickly green. Would it hurt if he attacked her? She had never been in a fight before….

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing it would just happen so she could stop feeling so scared and tired and sick…. Silence. Nothing hit her. Something was dripping – she could hear the faint sound of drops hitting the ground. Suicune waited longer, and still nothing happened. She opened her eyes.

Sesshomaru was so close he could have reached out and touched her, but she was no longer the focus of his attention. She followed his gaze and stared at his hand. This time, rather than just fear, she felt shock. His hand… it was bleeding. That was what had been dripping – blood was running down his palm and falling to the ground. He continued to look at his hand, and then up at her. For once, she wasn't frozen with terror, and she found the strength to turn and run away from him. If he hadn't been planning to kill her before, he was definitely going to now.

She hadn't gotten very far when he caught up to her. Before she could realize what was going on, he somehow flickered into sight in front of her, his injured hand grabbing her neck and lifting her. If using his hand hurt, he didn't show it, and his grip tightened until she couldn't breathe.

"I wonder," he remarked, as if not aware that he was hurting her, "how you did that. I don't suppose you'll tell me?" It hurt too much to try to answer him. Something was wrong with her eyes – she kept seeing black spots fade in and out. "So you do have some power, weak though it is. Perhaps…." His voice faded out, and the black spots spread. Her fear and pain melted away. Being hurt by Sesshomaru was no longer something to be frightened of….

Death, she decided, was coldand wet and hurt a lot. Only when she felt her legs steadily becoming numb did she realize that she wasn't dead. Suicune tried to breathe, and gulped down cold water that only made the pain worse. Before she could start flailing in an attempt to get to the surface of wherever she was, something grabbed her horn and pulled her up. She coughed violently as she finally managed to breathe in air rather than water and blinked until she saw who was holding her. She had been lifted to head-height, and was looking him straight in the eyes.

"Weren't you going to kill me?" she asked between coughs, and then regretted it as Sesshomaru scowled and dropped her onto the ground. It felt like she had bruises on top of bruises – had they all come from when she had fallen into the water?

"It would be more interesting to kill you when you provide a challenge," he intoned. "You are so weak that stepping on you would be sufficient." Hadn't she hurt him? Then again, she wasn't even sure if that had been her doing, and when she looked at his hand, it seemed perfectly fine. It couldn't have healed so quickly… had she imagined hurting him? That didn't make any sense…. Maybe it was because she was tired and hurt, but her thoughts seemed fuzzy. It was like she couldn't really focus on anything. She didn't even notice that Sesshomaru had started to walk away until he spoke again. "Follow me." When she hesitated, he snapped, "Now, whelp."

Even with her having four legs, she could barely keep Sesshomaru in sight, let alone walk right behind him. She was sure that he had noticed her falling behind, but she didn't think he would stop just for her sake. Suicune wasn't even sure she wanted him to notice her at all – she was afraid of him hurting her again. Her throat was bruised badly, and though not being dead was a good thing, it still hurt to breathe. She had no idea where they were going, or where they had come from. The only place she knew was the one with the well, and she didn't think she'd see it again…

She didn't understand what had just happened. She remembered the well, and him choking her…. So why had she woken up in water? Why was she alive? Not that she was complaining about being able to breathe, even if it did hurt. Would Sesshomaru answer her if she asked? She tried to catch up to him, but her legs hurt as much as the rest of her, and eventually she gave up. He was leading her into a forest, which would have been quite nice if she hadn't been tripping over roots and fallen branches that seemed to deliberately stand in her way. This time, she was sure that he had noticed, since he slowed down enough to be able to watch her stumble after him.

Suicune looked up at him when she caught him watching her and protested, "It's not funny!" He wasn't smiling or laughing openly, but why else would he be watching her?

"Indeed. It's not funny. It is pathetic," he answered, turning away and walking faster once more. She stared at his quickly retreating back, hurt by his comment. After that, she tried to avoid tripping over everything, but in doing so she slowed down so much that she lost sight of Sesshomaru and simply wandered in the direction she thought he had gone. Time passed, and she became so hungry and tired that it was hard to convince herself to move forward.

Eventually she found a small clearing in the trees and just curled up there. She didn't care where Sesshomaru was – he was mean for leaving her here, and it wasn't like he cared what would happen to her…. Maybe she would be able to find some Berries when she woke up. Even if all the trees here looked normal and green, there had to be a brightly coloured Berry tree in such a large forest. She could find her own food – she wasn't pathetic at all! At least now she was so tired from walking that she could fall asleep, even when so hungry…. She closed her eyes, wishing fervently that all the pain and loneliness would disappear like a bad dream when she woke up.

It didn't.