An:

Chapter Nine

Rin's World

It was mid-to-late August in the Feudal Warring States Era when a sight in the late afternoon sun beamed down upon a small scene in a clearing.

A little girl in an orange and yellow checkered kimono with her dark black hair held back in a polyanna top knot guided a two headed dragon in to the clearing. Following with a loud protest was her babysitter, a small green toad-like imp with a brown formal kimono and hat, waving around a staff with two heads on it.

"Rin! Wait up you wild child!" The toad retainer cried.

"Sorry, Master Jaken." the child named Rin called back as she and the dragon called Ah-Un was pulled gently to a stop.

It had been a long day for the two, it began with a morning of traveling with their Lord Sesshomaru until he had to do some sort of taiyokai business and had to leave Rin in the guardianship of Jaken.

Rin spent almost the rest of the day playing outside, taking care of Ah-Un, asking Jaken tons of questions that he didn't know the answers to, and after Jaken had gotten quite pensive as to considering the answer to a question considering the question of creation, Rin walked around a field picking the wild flowers of the area. The heat was sapping her energy, wilted the flowers, and made all of Rin's actions not quite as energetic as they normally were.

Eventually Rin had done all she needed to do and felt very tired from all of her activities as she lead Ah-Un to a clearing to graze on some grass and have Jaken catch up.

Rin gave a half hearted twirl as she gazed at the world dancing before her eyes before she decided to lay down in the grass and gaze at the sky with a smile, feeling the extreme heat of the sun bearing down at her, the grass providing necessary shade for her eyes.

When ever the girl was tried she would look up at the sky for comfort and energy, it was also something that made Rin unique to the others.

The sky could sparkle in Rin's eyes. As far back as she could remember she would watch the white round gems in the sky that blinked and danced in a swirling mass of easy to see light.

At first when she was little, she could only see in clouds, especially on cloudy days where the snow white sky was nothing more that a long mass of white, those types of days eventually had gotten blinding. But the more she kept trying to see them; she slowly began to see the sparkle on clear days like today. A few months after her fifth birthday, the clear night sky held the stars every one could see and multicolored opalescent qualities kept in the small girl's vision.

As time went on she told her mother, father, and brothers about the sky after days of active play; they would either say she made it up, or laugh and try to encourage her creativity and her active imagination. But Rin knew better and after spending sometime trying to persuade them otherwise her mother and father would look at her with worried expressions, she gave up trying to tell them about her progress. It was a world she kept to herself.

Unfortunately then her family was killed by bandits and she had to be a ward of the village.

One the first day after her family was killed, an old village woman walked up to Rin and tried to comfort her.

Rin cried and used the last of her will to speak trying to confide in the other force that tried to make her feel better besides the charitable elder woman and the woman looked at her confused, surprised, and didn't believe a word she said about the sky, until the woman just laughed it off and said " my my, your family must have loved to hear about your imagination with the sky, for my dear child, I have lived a long life and I have never seen the sky sparkle. It will never happen."

Although the woman didn't mean any harm, Rin had hoped that the woman would have believed her and give her an open mind and a chance to understand Rin's world. That missed chance and hope of having someone who understood what it was like created a shattered feeling in Rin's heart like a thin sheet of ice lifted up from a puddle on an icy day and then dropped to the hard rocky ground below. With that feeling, her words were lost, the villagers just passed it off as Rin mourning and missing her family, which was mostly correct, but she still hoped that someone would understand.

The rest was easy to explain, for she had discovered and followed Sesshomaru and Jaken with an unwavering loyalty after Sesshomaru was found in those woods injured and wounded badly. Rin had nursed him and tried to offer him food at the expense of the treatment of the villagers had given her for the stolen food.

Then wolves had attacked the village and killed her, the next thing Rin knew was that she was brought back by Sesshomaru's sword, the Tensaiga and Rin followed him from there.

The world had changed for Rin after that life and death incident; after being an active human girl, she began to notice that the flowers began to glow and shimmer as she picked them, and the brown veins of roots from huge trees could be visible under ground and travel up the trunk and the leaves gave off an impressive display of shimmering glitter that resembled drops of green dew in the dawn sun.

The world had grown more beautiful in her point of view.

"Rin?" Jaken was bending over her grassy border and looked at the human girl making sure that she was alright.

"Huh?" Rin sat up and looked at him.

"Are you alright Rin?"

"Yes Jaken-sama." Rin replied.

"Good," Jaken nodded and turned around to tend to Ah-Un.

A thought had occurred to Rin.

"Jaken-sama?" Jaken turned back to look at Rin, "When you look at the sky, can you see it give off any kind of shimmer or sparkle?"

Jaken paused, looked up at the sky –like a small child being told about the magic foot prints on the ceiling –and then looked at Rin. "Of course not, you silly girl!" he muttered irritated.

Rin sighed and laid back on to the ground, "That's alright Jaken-sama, that's all I wanted to know."

Maybe Sesshomaru-sama would know about the sky...


Harry enjoyed his summer at the Weasleys' Burrow, playing Quiddich with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in afternoons, and helping Mrs. Weasley with the chores.

Harry had also been learning about the inheritance from Sirius, which consisted of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, all of Sirius' possessions and sending Kreacher to Hogwarts, Harry could still remember Kreacher's tantrum the minute it was discovered that he was now Harry's servant. The old house elf kept screaming 'won't, won't, won't, won't' before throwing himself on to Aunt Petunia's carpets as part of the tantrum, now Kreacher was at Hogwarts in the kitchens with the other house elves (Rowlings, 38-56) (see sixth book).

Now it was August and Harry was walking down Diagon Ally with the Weasleys. The crowds were passing in a tense manner to get their shopping done as soon as possible like a herd of zebra as a lioness had been spotted near by. Eyes were out for possible snipers and Death Eaters.

Those who weren't too concerned of possible attacks were trying their hardest to sell protection charms and other assortments of trinkets.

"Amulets get your amulets cheap here!"

"Talismans, protects against dark wizards, werewolves, inferi, and dementors!"

"Protection Charms hand book!"

And Arthur Weasley was looking down upon some of the merchandise displayed here but he was off duty so he couldn't arrest any one.

"Are you aware that this product causes more harm than good?" a Ministry witch said to one of the venders.

Molly and Arthur paused as their children—Harry and Hermione included—entered the book shop to buy school textbooks. They knew that voice.

"Hello Arthur, hello Molly, It's nice to see you." The Ministry Witch said as she turned to the two adult Weasleys.

"Why hello dear, is it Aine or Keisha am I speaking to?" Molly asked pleasantly.

"Aine, Molly. Lye is some where around here too." Aine answered back.

"Aine, I've noticed that you've dyed your hair to that of a dirty blonde." Arthur observed.

"Hai, yeah, I decided to go for a little change and I had to look for a color that both Keisha and I agreed on." Aine continued.

"But you looked so beautiful with your black hair." Molly protested slightly at the British Japanese woman.

"I know Molly, I know, but I felt that a change was in order." Aine smiled at the two Weasleys.

"Aine? There's a man trying to sell ofada's from Japan I think you might want to examime." A silky feminine voice replied.


An: Sorry for the short chapter. I had intended to give you readers a longer chapter and had more plans for this chapter but my computer's word program stopped working and I have to wait fifteen days before I can write another chapter. But I had decided that you people deserved an update anyway, rain or shine. I hope it wasn't disappointing, but there's nothing I can do to make it a better chapter until later. Let me know if there is anything I can do.

A Naruto addiciton didn't help either.

Myappologies,

Donamarine.