Chapter 7 Mysterious Find

Sesshomaru sighed as he looked out the window of the mansion that he was staying at for training. It wasn't far from where he wanted to actually train so that was why he chose to stay here.

To himself, he didn't actually have to train but he wanted to get away from Solia before he lost control of himself all the way. That was one thing he didn't want to happen while she was the Lady of his father's house. Ever since she had come here, he couldn't stop thinking of her face- her beautiful childish face. She had somehow put herself in everything that he had been doing while he was there. Now he was finally free of her curse or spell he called it and it pleased him a lot.

After a few weeks of being at the mansion, where he would live for about a year, he realized with shock that he wasn't thinking of the bitch for once. That thought had made him happy that whole day. He guessed that it had been all the hard-ass training that he had been doing. Concentrating with everything that he had to keep her out of his mind and go over and over the objectives of his early training lessons of his childhood. The ones that helped him keep all his emotions inside after his mother had died in the horrible incident.

Now Sesshomaru was concentrating on work and lessons of the mind. Reading over battles and battle strategies had helped with it because it had him picture an image of each scene that he read. Most of them had been boring but a few had caught his interest because of their mentioning of assassins being used for most phases of the battle. A few names appeared that he recognized as ones that still lived. Most were famous now and he guessed that was with the battles that they helped with. Some of them now were over 3000 years old. It had him amazed but also scared him- not that it would scare him easily. But it made him cautious when he would become a lord.

He was reading one of those battles that had interested him from the start. He was almost done and after ward he would start the training for the day again. It was still the morning. The soldiers that he trained with couldn't understand how he could wake so early and have enough energy to still beat their sorry asses. But they knew the reasons why he was so much stronger than them. One was that they were so young and he wasn't and the other was that they were new soldiers. He meant to bring the new soldiers because he had wanted to train them and maybe teach them some discipline from someone much older and experienced than themselves.

Sesshomaru scanned over the last few words then sighed closing his book as he looked outside over the land. The trees and grasses were starting to loose their green color as it turned into the cool fall. He could see, though, in the mountains that it was snowing there already. He would have to dress a little warm today since he was going there.

A knock came at his door and he looked back at it admitting the maid in. She bowed her head. "Would you like anything to eat Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Hai, whatever you have. You know how I like my food." He waved her out and stood walking over to the dresser pulling out a training kimono used for the early winter. He slipped out of his sleeping hakama and into his usual white one, sitting back down at the small desk in front of the window. He leaned back against the sill closing his eyes as he let the morning light flit past him into the room. It would a while before she wold have his food ready so he wanted to rest his eyes and mind before the long training.

He woke when another knock came at his door and let her in. He bowed his head to her and went back to his bed eating. After that, he and the soldiers headed out into the mountains. Once they got there Sesshomaru told them to pair in twos and fight each other in a mock battle.

Sesshomaru watched them on top a boulder and sighed watching their movements. They were pretty good for beginners but they need to train harder so they could become faster. They movements were so easy to read and follow. He thought that they were as slow as when he was a pup in his training.

If this didn't get interesting soon then he was going to go for a walk after telling a far superior fighter than them to train them harder. That seemed to come true when nothing had changed in the last thirty minutes. He looked at the sergeant and pointed at the men as he walked off. He wanted to find somewhere for himself to train. A way better place than to be around the idiots of that particular field that he came from.

His eyes glanced around the surroundings of the snow-topped rocks and sighed. Maybe if some demon or demon slayer he would get a good fight out of it. But that would only happen if they happen to come across his tracks that he meant to put there for them. "It would be a miracle if I found something in these mountains." He said to himself and crossed his arms bored now. "I wold like to fight an ice youkai for those are fin to fight. Maybe a group of them wouldn't be so bad. Everyone that I've encountered have been weak."

He saw a pair of tracks but blinked stopping as he looked at the blood that went with them- quite a lot of blood. He sniffed the air for the kind of youkai and caught a fox's scent. 'Hmmm. Seems that it was prey and it escaped.' He followed it now looking ahead for any sign of the fox.

Whimpering came to his ears and they perked a little as he turned a corner. They became louder once the fox heard his crunching footsteps.

"Please, let me go. I…I didn't do anything."

Sesshomaru stopped looking at the woman that was curled in a ball in an iced corner. Her clothes were covered with quite a bit of blood. It seemed to be others besides her own blood though, and her hair seemed to be all covered in it. "Don't be afraid." He tried to say in a soothing voice.

"Go away." She whispered in a fear filled voice.

Sighing, he walked towards her, kneeling just a few feet away from her. "What happened?" He put a hand on her shoulder.

She shivered and whined, her ears flattening against her head. She looked up letting her green eyes meet his and she blinked. "Who are you? …You're… You're not them." She stuttered a little.

"I'm a friend. Don't worry. I won't hurt you." He said and forced a small smile on his face. "Here… let's go clean that wound up." He held a hand out to her.

She chewed on her lip as she eyed him to make sure that he wasn't one of the men that were after her. Her decision was made when she smelt that he was telling the truth and nodded putting her small, cold hand in his.

He pulled her up still holding her hand. 'She's too cold. She must have been here a while. We'll get her warmed up. I won't let her die if something that happened in these lands of my father's.' He thought looking her over for any major wounds. "Can you walk?"

She shivered and shook her head. "Its cold." Was all she said as she rubbed her arms and shook a little as a wind blew past.

Sesshomaru took his out layer of his kimono off and put it over her then picked her up. She blinked at this looking up at him. "Hold on," he told her and took off having her yelp at the sudden movement. A puff of cold, white snow billowed behind him in a puff.

She closed her eyes and clutched his clothing with her eyes shut tight. 'Where is he going?'

He gave a short whistle and slowed down to a walk after a few minutes of running.

Nothing happened until another puff was seen by him and an shadow of a male showed. "What is my lord?" A soldier asked in a yell, slowing down also then saw the child. "Oh, I see." He muttered under his breath and looked back to his lord.

"Take her and make sure that she's okay." He ordered looking down at her who was still clinging to him. He shook her gently telling her tat they had stopped and said, "Where did you come from?"

She jumped a little and looked up at him then back down. "Somewhere… Somewhere in the mountains. It's the only town in the… in the middle."

He nodded and put her in the other's arms. Looking over the surroundings to see where he was, he took off where he thought the center of the mountains was.

Both of them watched him leave then he looked at her. "What happened?"

She shifted in his arms bringing the kimono closer. "We were attacked and I escaped by hiding under some bodies. I stayed there until it was clear and quiet. But after I got out of my destroyed town they saw me and … and started to chase me. I was grabbed by one and clawed on my side." She rubbed her side as the man's face looked worried for a second until she said this, "Its not that bad though, its pretty much a scratch and I got him off with my wind powers."

He arched an eyebrow smiling, "You're a wind youkai?"

She nodded and blushed a little. "Um… can you put me down please?" She asked softly and glanced at him.

He laughed a little and put her down. "Come. We'll go get that 'scratch' checked. You never know if that youkai had a poison on his claws."

She nodded and followed him through the rest of the mountains until they came to a group of men that were training. She watched them but looked down not liking the gazing they gave her and walked closer to the male that was guiding her. He told them to stay here and train till he came back. He grabbed a horse and walked over to her. "It might be a while till we get to the castle so we'll need this. Do you know how to ride?"

Blinking, she nodded grabbing another horse's reins. "Hai…" She stated and hoped on circling her horse around him to show.

He grinned and got on is then turned around towards the trail to the mansion.

Sesshomaru ran down a trail that he figured that went towards the center of the mountains. 'Who would want to attack a town in the middle of nowhere?' He questioned glancing around him for anything out of the ordinary then took in the winter air for any scents. He stopped as a few came to him and then became stronger the farther he ran. 'This must be the way. There's no other that has a scent this strong on it.'

He looked around as he sensed something coming near. The scent of a fox came and he arched a thin eyebrow and began walking towards the shadow of the object coming towards him. "Halt!" He commanded to the person and it slowed down till it got close enough to him.

Now the scent of blood was emitting from what looked to be a woman. Her green eyes looking him over and she growled catching his scent- that of a dog's. "What do you want dog? I'm busy!" She growled out, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes making her lips into a thin line.

"You are not someone who can speak so rudely to this Sesshomaru that way," he barked narrowing his own eyes at her then added for emphasis, "woman."

The line of her lips disappeared and turned into a big O as she now remembered who he was. She bowed low and apologized. "I'm sorry Lord Sesshomaru, but my entire isn't very pleased right now. Please forgive my rudeness and lack of formality."

"Explain," he said, forgetting about her apology.

"Hai. Some of us found out about this woman's true identity that has been living with us for five years now. We've learned that she's an assassin and she's training her daughter to be one."

"How did you come across this?"

"One of my children went over to get something and heard one of the conversations. She said she heard that the woman was going to the castle of the Western Lord for a job. She told me this as soon as possible."

"And whom was she going to assassinate?"

"I don't know my lord." She paused now just thinking of something. "It doesn't really amaze me now but it also adds up to when two men came to her a couple nights before today."

"What did they look like," he questioned.

I don't know. I just saw the outlines of them and their armor." She paused then finally added, "they were dragon youkai from the south because they smelt foreign to this part of the country."

He nodded and turned on his heal gracefully but looked back at her out of the corner of his eye. "What did you do to the mother?"

"We killed her."

"Good." He stated without emotion and started to walk off.

"Wait! Please be careful my lord! Her daughter escaped and we can't find her. She's around seventeen in mortal years with green hair and silver eyes. She's a dog and an excellent fighter."

"Arigato." He bowed his head a little in thanks for the information then disappeared in a puff of smoke. 'That girl I found. She didn't look anything like what the fox described but her scent was swallowed by the smell of fox blood. I can't even tell if she's a fox or something else.' He pondered flying through the fogged air on his own cloud. He had learned this new ability a few weeks ago and it was very useful now for traveling. He was becoming quite accommodated to it now.

It took him thirty minutes for him to return to the training grounds where his men were and told them to return to the castle. He would have gone faster, but he was thinking about what he should do with the new acquired information and then decided that he would think about it later when he would tell everyone to return back to the castle. He knew they must have been worried a little because he had been gone for over three hours and he had never been gone that long before.

Now that everyone was gone though, he headed off into the clouds to ponder on questions that swam inside his head like a wild storm. There were so many, yet so many more popped up when he started to thing about just one.

"What can I do," he questioned himself in anger, letting all his hidden emotions go and escape the cold mask that covered them. He was alone after all- high up in the mountains where only powerful bird youkai would be. But here there were weak bird youkai, since the Western Lands were mostly made up of cat, fox, and rarely pure dog youkai.

"If that is the daughter of the assassin, that was going to kill someone at the castle, then why would she do it? Doesn't she know that she won't get away with it that easily with all the experienced men around. Father would sure as hell know what an assassin would do and he probably knows what they look and act like. He is, after all, over 1500 years old."

He sighed heavily in frustration and sat down on the fluffy substance beneath him. He now knew that he was going to be questioning this matter as long as the girl that he found lived and breathed in the castle grounds. He was also wondering if he should kill her or have her questioned by one the women interrogators.

"Maybe when I return back to the main castle, I should tell father." His chewed on his lower lip hard now thinking about Inutaisho would do after he had told him. "Would he kill her on site when she was brought to him? Would he throw her in the dungeon? I think he would question her since she is a woman and he always wants to treat women carefully." He thought about what he would do then finally came to a conclusion, "I'll just tell him. Its better since if he found out about her then he would probably think that I want him dead."

He nodded in agreement with himself and stood back up ready to go back to the mansion since it was no use to question about the girl, except if he wanted to make it worst.