I'm really, really sorry about the lateness of this update.
My homework piled up during my exams and the three or so days that I had set aside to do this just… vanished in a puff of smoke. Then, I had to spend a week doing work experience on Flathome – with no electricity. After that, my pet died and I was too depressed to write… and then, to cap it all, my computer crashed. Completely. It wiped out windows, and it's only just working.
But, a very late thanks to those who reviewed (cos this wouldn't be here at all if you hadn't!) – Cold Kikyo, Punk Rock Miko2, priestessmykala, AnimeKage, Inuyasha05 and Jamie (spelt right this time. Sorry! And thank you yet again for finding my grammar errors, and also helping me write this chapter!).
Disclaimer – Meh. If I had money, I could buy Inuyasha. Hmm… I remember money…
"…" Speech
Italics: Thoughts, quotes and flashbacks.
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Chapter 9
The silent girl"So, you can't talk." He looked her up and down. "Well then, silent girl, I am called Sesshomaru, and you are in my territory."
Rin looked at him with wide eyes.
This can't be good!She caught his eyes in her own wide-eyed panic and held his icy amber gaze with her own. He did nothing, just sat there.
Please she mouthed. Let me go. Please.
The youkai looked at her and slowly blinked, breaking the connection he had with her. He seemed…
Cold. Rin thought. Cold and lonely, though he has a hard exterior.
"And why should I free you, human? You have not yet told me your name."
Rin motioned for some paper and the youkai nodded, getting up, and produced some from a draw.
He couldn't understand what was happening to him. Normally, he would have killed a human on sight, but when she turned up with not a whimper of pain…
It touched him. Somehow.
And there was no real reason that she couldn't talk; her mouth and throat were fine.
She has lost the will to speak and so believes that she cannot.
Sesshomaru felt an unusual emotion for this human girl; pity. She was about sixteen or so, with mid-length black hair, unkempt and partly tied up to keep it out of her dirty and smudged face. Her brown eyes were frightened and weary, but there was life there yet… happy, sparkling life…
The youkai shook the thoughts firmly out of his head.
Youkai and humans are enemies. We cannot help her. It is forbidden.
He handed the paper and a pen to the girl without a word, and she started writing. He leant over the bed, curious.
Thank you very much for saving me. My name is Rin. I am honoured to meet you Lord Sesshomaru.
The youkai raised delicate silver eyebrows. "Rin." He rolled the word around in his mouth a few times.
She nodded.
Just at that moment, a large, green, toad-like creature entered the room. "Lord Sesshomaru!" It croaked. Rin looked it over curiously, noting the strange staff that it carried, and the old brown clothes that it wore. Bulbous eyes turned on the girl, and she noted, hiding a smile, that this… toad youkai had a cute little hat on too.
"My lord, the girl has woken up, should we not give her back to the streets?"
Rin noted that his voice would get a little annoying after a while.
Sesshomaru stood up. "Yes Jaken. But we must escort her out of the territory of the wolf clan first."
The toad-thing, which Rin assumed to be Jaken, looked taken aback. "But my lord! Surely she is not important enough for that."
Rin winced. This conversation was not going well, at least to her.
Sesshomaru, though he hid it well, was having similar thoughts.
For some reason, the thought of this girl being harmed by the wolves causes me concern. Perhaps I should study her a while longer.
Aloud, he replied: "I do not want the blood of a human to be on my claws. She may stay here a little longer then I shall escort her out of the youkai side of London."
"But…"
"You may leave, Jaken."
The green youkai left, apparently in a huff.
Rin stared, and Sesshomaru noted in passing that she looked very cute when she stared…
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Later that afternoon, the chill wind and cold sun found the tall, silver-haired youkai walking slowly in order for the smaller, bare-foot human girl to keep up with him.
The silence was not cold, (unlike the weather) but it was not comfortable. Sesshomaru almost wished for Jaken's ceaseless chattering to clear the air.
Unfortunately, (or thankfully, depending how you look at it), Jaken had been left behind at Sesshomaru's home – it could hardly be called a house. This just left the girl and the youkai to walk to the human side of town together.
Sesshomaru decided to break the silence up, an unusual thing for the normally silent inu to do.
"Will your family be looking for you?" This was the wrong question to ask, since Rin immediately tensed up. She shook her head.
Sesshomaru tried again. "Do they not care for you?" Rin shrugged.
Sesshomaru wondered about that response. Surely if they cared they would be looking… unless…
"Do you have any family?" Rin shook her head slowly.
Ah…The youkai forced the pity down again, as though some disgusting beast had reared up and attacked him.
She's just a human. She is not worth this trouble.
Nevertheless, when they reached the end of the youkai side of town and she gave a little wave before walking off, his heart felt a lot heavier than before…
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Kagome sat in her room, staring at the window. Rain was tumbling down again, hitting the windowpane and trickling in a snake-like stream towards the ground. It was cold outside, and the heating was turned up high. Despite this, the house was still cold and Kagome had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
They were going to meet up tomorrow – her, Miroku, Sango, Shippou, Kirara, and, she smiled wryly, Inuyasha.
She would be lying if she said she wasn't scared. She was. The idea of people being after her – willing to kill her – for a small pink gem was more than scary. Sango had lost her family to the one who killed Kikyo – and if this… Naraku could take down the powerful miko Kagome doubted that he would have any troubles with small fry like her.
So, worried for her family's safety, she had told her mother what had happened.
Her mother, being her mother, was not terribly bothered.
"That little stone has been here for years and you have never had a single problem," she said. "So don't worry. But, if it makes you feel better, I'll get your grandfather to put some concealing wards around the house."
Yup. That was her mother.
Kagome supposed she was right. But it didn't stop her being worried.
And then there was the deal with her powers. Apparently, she had purifying powers of a high level. And she needed training.
That was where Miroku and Sango came in. Although Kaede had offered to teach her, Kagome had refused – no sense burdening the old woman further. The monk (she still couldn't believe that such a hentai was a monk, either) and Sango seemed to know a lot about miko powers, and had offered to instruct her.
They were such good friends.
And speaking of friends…
What'll the others in school say?
Kagome had visions of her friends' faces. Eri, looking bemused, Yuka, shocked, and Ayumi just finding the whole thing a big joke.
Great.
Not forgetting Hojo. What was she meant to do about him? Nice as he was, she didn't trust him all that much… and telling him that she had made friends with homeless kids – a monk, a girl, two youkai – and was acquainted with a hanyou (seen as the scum of the lower part of society) wouldn't bode well.
Kagome turned away from the window, and walked over to her bed determinedly. She just… wouldn't tell them. That was all.
What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, right?
The rain suddenly started picking up, the droplets getting bigger and falling more forcefully from the sky. Kagome winced at the noise.
I hope the others are alright…she thought miserably. I knew I should have asked them to stay over, but they left…
Sighing, she slowly climbed into bed and switched the light off.
It had been a long, long day.
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Not too far away, inside Kaede's grand Victorian house, sat two of the acquaintances she had been thinking about.
Kaede sat once again at the grand table, this time with some sewing. She glanced up from her work every now and then to look at the other in the room, who was glaring moodily at the ceiling and muttering under his breath.
Finally, the old teacher decided that she had had enough.
"Stop muttering Inuyasha," she snapped, exasperated. "You sound like a disgruntled dog."
Inuyasha stopped abruptly, and looked down from the ceiling, an angry retort clear in his amber eyes. Kaede, however, had gone back to her sewing.
Before Inuyasha had a chance to go back to glaring at the ceiling, Kaede broke the silence once again.
"What do you think of Kagome, Inuyasha?"
"Huh?"
The hanyou brought his mind out of daydreams of happier times and looked at the woman in front of him.
"Kagome, What do you think of her?"
Inuyasha shrugged. "Feh. Not a lot. That wench has nothing going for her at all."
Kaede paused to rethread her needle. "Yet it was the first time she had picked up a bow today."
The hanyou looked annoyed at being questioned. "So? Kikyo was a master archer. And," he hit the table with one claw to make his point. "She didn't hit the youkai properly."
Kaede raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
With Inuyasha around, there was really no point.
After a couple of minutes of quiet, Inuyasha stood up.
"Thanks for letting me stay a while, old woman," he said gruffly.
Kaede hid a smile. Underneath his hard exterior, Inuyasha was surprisingly sensitive – when he wasn't angry, that was.
"One moment, Inuyasha," she commented, getting up and pulling something from her pocket.
Inuyasha stared at the necklace that she had pulled out, made of large brown and black beads and some sharp white… somethings.
"What the hell's that?" He asked warily.
"A rosary." Kaede replied sternly. "It will help you to sense where Kagome is."
"And I would want that because...?"
"You said that you'd protect Kikyo. Kagome harbours her soul. Kagome is Kikyo."
Inuyasha grabbed the beaded necklace exasperatedly.
"Fine."
Kaede held up a hand. "Once on, you cannot remove it. Are you willing to stay bound to Kagome?"
Inuyasha hestitaded.
He looked at the necklaces and then out the window. Kaede could not tell what he was thinking.
"Yes!" He firmly held the rosary up and placed it around his neck.
So be it, thought Kaede. A knot has been tied.
She also produced a letter from her pocket.
"Please give this to Kagome," she said to Inuyasha, who was trying to figure out what the rosary had actually done to him. The hanyou took the letter carefully and put it into the inside of his coat, before jumping out of the window.
"Oh, and Inuyasha," Kaede added. "I shall know if you have opened it!"
Inuyasha chose not to reply.
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Fweh! It's tooooo hot in here… /collapses/
CN.