Rin had followed Sesshomaru in silence that night. This was a silence she was not used to, this was different than him simply not speaking.

"Rin." She stopped and looked down at the ground. She did not want to see his face. She had disappointed him. "These things... are no longer important. I have made due with the life I have now." He turned to her and sighed. "I will tell you something... something I will let you know... When I first saw you, I saw my daughter in you. As I got to know you, I realized how similar some of the things you both did and even said... even your names." He fell silent again. What he did not say was this.

And when I tore through hell to find you, bring you back, I searched outwardly for whatever might have remained of my wife and children. I had found nothing. Not then and not before. I found no body. Only the sword left behind, useless as it was, for me to find. I couldn't save any of them. I never saw her again... Jina, Rem... even the boy Kohaku who died no more than a week later... He had aged so quickly... I could do nothing for him...

"And Kohaku?" He sighed again and recalled the boy who walked into hell with him. The demon hunter's brother.

"Yes, even Kohaku, for a short time. Maybe if just your names, they all are so similar... But this woman..."

"It's her." Sesshomaru looked at Rin strangely then.

"Rin..."

"It is. A daughter lost first and then I come along. Then Kohaku and now Ren. Don't you see?" For the first time since he found her dead, he actually managed to look at Rin with pity in his eyes.

"You are seeing into this too much."

"And you are outright ignoring it!" Rin had never once yelled at him. This was new for them both. "Give her some time. She might be just like Kikyo and Kagome." All she wanted was him to be happy. Like he had made her, Like InuYasha and Miroku made Kagome and Sango... He deserved it. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach... This girl was special.

"She is just a human girl with an uncanny resemblance. A few hundred years is bound to see to at least one look alike, Rin." She couldn't believe he was being so stubborn.

"May I go back now, Sesshomaru-sama?" He looked at her surprised and he ignored the hurt her words gave him. She had never asked to leave his side before.

"Yes." He could say nothing to make her stay. Not if she wished to leave so much... That was just the way of the world as it seemed. Nothing stayed by him forever.

.

When then sun rose the next day it raised bright and clear skied. The residence inside the small village by the bone eaters well was not so quiet. Not in the slightest.

"You want me to believe what!?" Ren was standing in the corner, half dressed in miko clothes and ready to swing. "We're in Japan, but not sure when?! Are you out of your minds?" Ren eyed InuYasha and he glared right back. He knew she was going to run for it. Again. She'd already done it before and this was just another explosion of the one an hour ago.

"Please, let me explain. InuYasha please..." He made a stance at the door as if he were going to football tackle her and Ren decided to not even bother.

She hopped out the window.

"You're all insane." And she began running

"Please wait Ren-sama!" Rin chased her out the door and InuYasha sat perched on the window sill.

"The chase is on." Just as he pounced though, Kagome put an end to it.

"Sit! She is not wild game, InuYasha. She's a person. A frightened person." Kagome left InuYasha half buried in the dirt.

"Don't come anywhere near me! Y-you freaks!" Ren ran faster than she had ever tried to in school. This hadn't been her first attempt at escape. Not since they tried to feed her this reincarnation and wife crap. "I have to get out of here... I have to go home." Ren stopped and hid behind a tree.

"And what are you doing, you human pest?" Ren spun around and looked a little green toad-like thing straight in the face. He looked right back at her and reached a hand out to touch her and she stayed kneeling stunned for long enough it to gasp.

She screamed. And ran some more.

"Hey, get back here!" The little toad talked and chased her as best he could.

"Oh my God, get the hell away from me! If you don't leave me alone I swear I am going to kill you! What is wrong with this place!?" Ren stopped breathless and she watched while the toad crept up slowly to her. He looked at her from the left and then the right with his hands up so show he meant no harm. She wasn't buying it.

"Rem?..."

You can't be serious!

"NO! I am Ren! Kusabana Ren! Teenager and school student with crappy grades. I am not some guys dead wife, I am not a mother from a distant past and I do not know why I am talking to a freaking TOAD!" She ran up, pulled her leg back to punt the little thing as far as it would go.

Her leg never made contact and she was tossed backwards. When she got up she glared and snapped. The little part in one's brain the controls self-control broke in two.

"Sesshomaru!" She couldn't take it anymore. Not this place, not this time and she was sure as hell not taking this crap from 'him' now. He began to walk away, but she called after him.

"Stop!" He listened, stopped and waited. As she stalked up to him she called his name once more and slowly he turned to face her. Her hand raised to strike his face for some kind of retribution that she couldn't begin to explain.

It's your fault they think I am your wife! Tell them! Tell them I am not this woman!

The hit never landed.

In his hand her arm twisted to free itself and they both glared at one another... Until she stopped suddenly. The color drained from her face and she stopped resisting.

"S-Sessho..." Her voice caught in her throat and she made a choking sound and then another. Before him her eyes dilated and he could feel her growing weaker under him. The choking sound turned into gagging.

"You are nothing special... only human." He barely finished his words. He had intended to toss her backwards again until he realized his hand which gripped her arm, his claw, had pierced flesh. Ren's eyes fluttered; unfocused and her head tilted forward and hung there. She remain upright only because he still held her arm while her hair hung about her face in long lengths.

"Sesshomaru!" Kagome shouted at Sesshomaru and then at InuYasha who tried to stop her from coming any closer.

Ren gagged a bit more as her throat closed up and air ceased to make its way into her lungs. Her fingers twitched weakly. He moved to pull her away from him and the long, straight hair that was not the same, the eyes that held a different hue, the slight height difference that marked her as different no longer mattered.

Blazing in gold on the middle of her forehead was the mark of the sun goddess, Amaterasu.

"Rem." She risked everything then and raised her hand to his shirt and pulled with all she could. It was barely enough strength to wrinkle a tissue, but it had been enough. Sesshomaru bent over to listen to that last thing she was to end up saying.

"No..." He pulled away and the cognitive powers she had mustered failed and she finally became a dead weight.

"REN!" Kagome was crying and Rin had stopped just short of Sesshomaru.

"Sesshomaru-sama..." He said nothing to her. Instead he took Ren and held her tightly in his arms and disappeared.

"SESSHOMARU!" InuYasha's voice echoed.

Miles away, in a body of water that had once saved the life of his wife and then later still, retained the memory of InuYasha's reincarnated love, Ren sank below the water line. The water shone and he ignored the burns it had left on his hands when he had placed her in the water.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.