I own nothing but my beloved Sada! *Himitsu growls*


Sunlight shimmered over the water's rippling surface, Rena stood there, watching the way the colorful Koi swam with elegance around her feet. She'd been there for awhile now, she didn't feel like seeing anyone, and the gardens were the only place she could get away, she was forbidden to ever go past the gardens. It crushed her heart to know that she wasn't able to see the outside world, and that the only life she could remember was in the castle walls.

The mortal sighed, her hands clenched the sides of her kimono, she didn't want them to treat her like a child, Rin was much younger than her, and she had traveled the lands with Lord Sesshomaru. Why did her Lord keep her hidden?

"Rena? What are you doing?" She knew that voice, all to well, it was the first voice she had heard when she woke, Himitsu.

"Watching the Koi, isn't that obvious?" The girl didn't turn to look at him, and he didn't come any closer to her.

"Sesshomaru told me." He ran his fingers through his hair and held the back of his neck, this obviously something he didn't want to talk about. But he was going to anyway, because his brother asked him, wait that wasn't right, more like demanded.

"I don't think it's all that important, it was just a silly feeling that I had, it was trivial but I brought it up. Now, my Lord is angry, so I don't wish to speak of it." Rena walked further into the water, the bottom of her kimono now floated on top of the water. Her vivid friends peeked out from under her now soaked clothing, hiding from the sun and stayed under her.

"For fish that are frightened easily, they seem to like you." Himitsu pointed out the obvious, and Rena glanced at him with her blue depths.

"Probably because I'm a mere mortal and something they don't find as threatening as demons." She said bluntly, she knew it hurt his feelings, but right now her feeling were hurt and she was having an emotional war with herself.

"That's probably it too, they can tell who's nice and who's not." He laughed lightly, then his face became serious, "I'm leaving tomorrow, and if you're worried about Rin, I'll take her with me okay? Besides, the Northern Lord finds her charming, so I doubt it'll be a problem." The inu yokai just watched is human friend, there was something off, about her, "Is something bothering you?"

"Why am I not allowed to go outside?" Rena turned around sharply, surprisingly the Koi didn't scatter, "Rin has been around the whole western land, where have I been? Inside, trapped like a bird whose had her wings torn off, stripped of her freedom!" Tears streamed down her face, falling into the water beneath.

"Rena..." He didn't know what to say to that.

"Why do you want me to stay here?"She cried, covering her face with her hands and sobbing her heart out. There was nothing he could do to stop her tears, or make her heart stop hurting.

"I'm sorry." was all he could get out, he backed away from the emotional mortal and started walking back to the castle, where he had to prepare for his departure.

Rena continued to sob, her Koi friends brushed against her legs as if to comfort her. She wiped her eyes, but the sadness was still there, there was nothing that could take it away. Looking down at the colored fish, she bent down and let them nibble and nuzzle her fingers. Rena was about to step out of the water when yells and screams started coming towards the south wall. Turning to look in the general direction she spotted a running figure, coming straight towards her.

White hair, crimson eyes, jagged markings, red haori, dog ears. All of this seemed familiar in someway, Rena couldn't figure out why, she'd never seen this man before. He suddenly was standing in front of her, sharp fangs were bared and long nails raised and poised to strike. She took a step back and he brought his hand down, swinging it across her chest, blood sprayed everywhere, dotting her face and splattering it over the scary man's clothes. She could feel herself falling, her vision clouded over and everything went black.


Sesshomaru glared at the stack of scrolls he still needed to sign, of course glaring at them wasn't going to make them disappear, but someone could hope right? He stood and walked away from them, he really, really, REALLY, didn't want to sign them. Walking out to his balcony he looked over the gardens, these weren't the ones Rena usually wandered through, those were on the other side of the castle. These were his personal grounds, no one ever entered here, well except Rin, she apparently found his to be much more interesting than the public ones.

A burst of demonic energy filled his senses, "That half-breed dared to-?" he stopped, blood swept through the air, and he was gone in a flash, leaving Tokijin on his hip. He could feel Himitsu's energy rushing towards the gardens as well, but his brother would be there much sooner than him. Passing many of his servants, he realized that they didn't sense at all what was taking place, nothing had hit their senses yet. It bewildered him to no end, he kept his emotionless mask on and hurried towards the strong smell of blood.

Once he finally made his entrance to the gardens he saw something disturbing, Himitsu's eyes were the same as InuYasha's, yet, they looked so much more blood thirsty than the hanyou's. He was on the verge of transforming, yet, still held a humanoid form. Swinging his sword around like a fool, Sesshomaru almost felt a little ashamed that his brother would lose his composer simply over the fact that InuYasha was there.

The smell of fresh blood stole his attention from the fighting demons and trained on the unconscious mortal floating in the Koi pond, blood tinting the water, the fish didn't swim away from the human. Large lacerations stretched across her chest, her face was pale and her breathing didn't sound right. Sesshomaru ignored his brothers and walked over to the bleeding mortal, and simply looked at her for a few moments. Her eyes opened slightly, and lazily trained onto his face, and he couldn't look away.

The way she looked so helpless made his chest hurt, and out of simple instinct he walked through the water and picked her up bridal style, his yoki started rolling off him in waves, this made Himitsu look at him with a confused look, but quickly returned to fighting InuYasha. He wasn't trying to hurt him, more like fend him off and smack some sense into him.

Sesshomaru left the gardens and the two fighting, he wasn't going to stick himself in the middle of something so trivial, besides, his instincts were practically taking over his mind, telling how much energy to give to the mortal and which halls to turn down. He didn't even give any notice when Rin came up to him crying her eyes out, wanting to know what had happened to Rena. She followed him of course, holding onto his sleeve and rubbing her eyes.

"Lord Sesshomaru..." She sniffled, tightening her hold on his sleeve and wiping away her remaining tears. She had gotten taller, almost to his hip and her hair was longer as well and her childish features were slowly fading away, but she was still Rin, carefree and hyper. The same girl that would rather be with demons than humans, and the small girl who was afraid of wolves. But she was crying now, and he wasn't paying any mind to it.

Currently, for some odd reason, he was a little more worried about the mortal in his arms, muttering names he'd never heard before, but Himitsu had mentioned this to him. Saying that she often whispered them in her sleep, how his brother knew such an odd fact concerned him a little, but it really wasn't anything to worry about at that precise moment. Sesshomaru turned into an open room and realized it was her room, setting her down onto her bed he looked at Rin.

"Do you want to help?" He asked, she shook her head yes, "Go get Saki then." The little girl nodded and ran out of the room, turning back to Rena he examined the long cuts across her body. They had healed slightly from the energy he was giving her, but they still looked terrible. Why are you such a handful? He thought.

Rin ran as fast as she could through the castles maze of hallways. Many people looked at her but she payed them no mind. She had to find miss Saki, Rena's life was in trouble. She took a sharp turn and ran into something very solid, looking up her face drained of color, and she started trembling. "Hello, little girl." they hissed and grabbed her. She tried to scream but nothing came out, the man who had her had green scales under his very yellow eye, his skin was different tones of brown and was pulled back into a braid, but hair stuck out all over. He was tall and had very sharp looking fangs that came down over his bottom lip.

Rin fought against his hold, kicking and biting his arms, nothing worked. Within an instant he came down and bite her shoulder, and everything got very hazy, her vision started to grey, and her all she could hear was a strange ringing noise. Her body grew heavy and she slowly stopped struggling. "That'sssss right, go to sssssleep little girl." that was the last thing Rin clearly heard before everything went numb.


A/N: Sorry this chapter is kind of short.