So nobody cared about that last chapter huh? I rather liked it myself. Especially the bit where Akemi thought the Inu no Taishou was rabid.

She couldn't very well think he was just crazy as that would mean he was Feral and I think she might be insulted by anyone supposing that about him.

Hmm, I wonder what Rumiko Takahashi would think of it.

In this chapter, things hit a high note, and not in a good way. I'm pretty sure you'll be cursing me at the end of this. Well, Tough. If I speed up posting I run out of chapters sooner and you get stuck with a longer wait for new material. AS I said when I was posting Chronicles, you can always go back and reread previous material, and I have enough of a library posted to keep some people busy for days.

Enjoy!

Upheaval

As earth-shatteringly profound as Akemi's declaration was to Sesshoumaru, his life didn't change much.

To be perfectly honest, it hadn't truly mattered whether he was a confirmed member of her pack or not. She was his alpha, chosen long before she was driven Feral. His instinct remained the same. His job was to look after and protect his alpha from further harm and, though he no longer feared she would randomly disappear on him for reasons he didn't understand and couldn't control, he didn't trust her not to strain her healing leg.

Sesshoumaru wasn't sure if it was a Feral thing or just an Akemi thing, but she seemingly could not just lie still for any reasonable amount of time. For whatever reason, every moment she was awake, the Feral female had to be up doing something, tending the fire, resituating the various garments piled up for their nest, or some other tedious chore of some sort or another. All of which could either be done later or by himself, but for some reason, Akemi refused to leave be.

His only offense was simply constant vigilance. If he stopped her or interfered she had one less thing to be doing. He couldn't physically keep her from these things. The use of force would be risky in such close quarters and may cause more harm than good. Normally he just took over the job for her.

His plan generally met with marginal success. Sesshoumaru's mornings were pretty busy, for at the beginning of the day, all the chores had yet to be done, so once he took one from Akemi she headed on to the next on her internal to do list. It wasn't until well after midday that he finally succeeded in closing out every task she had apparently thought up for the day.

And it always seemed to change from the day before. He never knew what she was going to do until she attempted to do it. It was strange, for he could detect no rhyme or reason as to how she made up her schedule or even when she did.

He did however have a suspicion or two.

Sesshoumaru was certain his job would be easier if he could actually manage to wake before she did.

He didn't know how she did it. Even with his slowly recovering health, he shouldn't be sleeping so much more than she did while healing an open wound. Without her even trying she always managed to stay awake longer than he and never once had he woken before she did. There was no explanation for the disparate needs for rest and sleep. He couldn't understand it, and his confusion and continually frustrated efforts to change this fact only served to provoke stronger efforts on his part.

Today, he succeeded. Well, in part anyway. In good conscience, when Sesshoumaru opened his eyes that morning he wasn't really awake at all. The lights were on, but no one was home kind of deal. He still wasn't certain how he did it, or to what extent anything was real.

All he knew was the moment he was aware enough to make conscious decisions with his right mind, Akemi had already whisked them both outside to deliver a lesson in stealth and hunting in the wilds. And he was really bad at it.

Sesshoumaru was okay with not being the best on the first try. He was fully cognizant walking came before running, and a single step came before that. He just hadn't been aware the first step would be a complete one eighty from everything he'd ever known or been taught about being youkai and how to hunt. It was a brand new arena when lives were on the line, when starvation was the ultimate result of a failed hunt.

Then there was the element of danger. The wilds were dangerous, every small child knew that. He'd known it since the day his mother was killed in front of him on the edge of the wilderness that bordered his father's property.

Out here, Akemi could get mauled by a simple animal predator if the fickle element of luck left her at the wrong moment. Simply existing in the wilds was dangerous for every creature, from the lowest simple plant upon which the prey animals fed to the most powerful youkai on a bad day.

And he, apparently, didn't know the first thing about stealth.

In regular society he was a force unto himself. There wasn't a civilized youkai alive that Sesshoumaru couldn't sneak up on without a second thought. He could move with such grace not even a single whisper of air current betrayed his passage.

In the wild, he didn't even come close. His youki, a tool to be used in the higher political circles, always preceded him, alerting every creature in the wild of his presence and intent. If he wasn't close to Akemi, his mere existence was a shout in all directions. Akemi suppressed it for him, shielding it carefully.

Sesshoumaru supposed she intended to do so until he learned to do it himself.

She might have been successful at it too, had something not found them out anyway.

It was the worst luck really. She had picked an area least likely to have prey and therefore likely to be free of predators. Akemi had managed to teach him how to place his feet so that no sound could give him away, a more difficult art among the fallen leaves than he'd ever imagined. There should have been nothing to draw attention their way.

No scent was free to trail after them, no tracks left to lead a hunter to follow. There should have been no danger to threaten them.

Sesshoumaru snorted internally as Akemi's hand pressed his shoulder down more firmly. The Feral female hovered over him warily. Something had set her off, something beyond the trees had caught her attention and she didn't like it. Any other youkai might have brushed her off ten minutes ago, But Sesshoumaru more than knew he was out of his element. This was Akemi's world if she sensed something he didn't, he believed her.

Though he was kind of hoping the situation would blow over, that whatever it was out there would move on without a direct encounter. The last thing either one of them was an altercation as she was still injured, albeit mostly healed, and he was not quite up to his preferred phenomenal state yet. Even if he were, Sesshoumaru probably wouldn't solve this situation in the best possible way for the wild. His morning had shown him that much already.

Unfortunately, it was looking increasingly unlikely his wish would be fulfilled the longer Akemi pinned them down. Whatever the threat was, it wasn't moving on, it wasn't leaving. It was watching them, and the longer it watched, the more likely it was that they were considered prey to be hunted, stalked, or spooked into the open, something Akemi had warned him about at the outset.

The best-case scenario had them under the scrutiny of some wild youkai observing them from idle curiosity. Some breeds were like that, playful and inquisitive. If they failed to prove interesting, after a long while (a really long while, wild youkai could be excessively patient) it would either move in to aggressively provoke them and inspire a chase situation or it would simply leave.

Worst-case had a Feral male pondering on the female in his company. Sadly, this was the more likely possibility as Akemi did have that Hunter out to rut with her. The other male had been close a week ago when He had slaughtered those piglets.

There was no question as to what would most likely happen if such a youkai had actually managed to catch them out here. He being a male in close proximity to the desired female would pretty much cause a serious ruckus, lethal in nature for Sesshoumaru. And Akemi would most likely suffer the more for it.

Akemi pressed against him more fully, her body actually seeming to shield him. She no longer hovered slightly above him. The right half of her body was glued to his back, pressing him down and blocking the view of him from most angles. With her this close to him he could actually feel her pulse under her skin as it raced in adrenaline rushed speed.

Akemi was more than a little spooked. Whatever was out there and watching them, terrified her.

Sesshoumaru's own pulse began to escalate at this knowledge. Akemi's emotions since she became Feral were almost impossible to read. She was more inscrutable than he was at his most enigmatic in youkai courts. The fact that he could pick up on her fear didn't mean she was slipping, it indicated the extent of the emotion.

He was learning that Akemi's fears, angers and other passions only pushed through her instinctual veneer when the situation contained a certain amount of extreme urgency to be expressed. The fact that she was terrified and still striving to protect him signaled that they, together, had the worst luck possible.

A conclusion confirmed by the red-eyed male that stepped finally into his view. The Hunter had come forth.

Golden eyes widen in surprise as a particularly intense, guttural growl rocked through the body pressing him into the loam on the forest floor. Sesshoumaru wasn't exactly sure what it meant but easily understood that her Hunter didn't much care for what she said.

The male's eyes shot wide-open and took on an even darker scarlet colour as the Hunter's skin began to stretch in the preceding signs of a full transformation brought about by anger and not control.

In a single movement Akemi rose and threw Sesshoumaru on his feet before breaking the silence for the first time since leaving the safety of the den. "RUN!"

Sesshoumaru didn't need to be told twice, though the chances of either one of them outrunning a fully transformed canine youkai were preposterously slim. Staying would be mindlessly stupid. He darted through trees in the opposite direction of the Feral threat, eyes darting for possible escape. He knew he had to be the one to find the means of evading the beast on the hunt since Akemi would be too busy trying to prevent Sesshoumaru's demise. It was the main reason she still hadn't passed him.

His breath was coming in harsh pants before he found their out. The river dropped several feet up ahead in a series of rapids and falls behind which he hoped to find at least one crevice or cavern or cul-de-sac large enough for both of them to hide behind.

"Watch out!" he heard a shout just before a hand shoved him hard to the left. Sesshoumaru lost his footing and rolled into the first set of rapids uncontrollably. He regained his feet after the first four-foot fall and stood under the washing water to wait for Akemi. His plan to reach out and grab her as she crossed the fall was almost forgotten when he saw the red staining the water. At the last minute he reached out to snatch her from the current and pulled her up behind the tumbling river to wait for the danger to pass them.

The little niche he had found was large enough and deep enough for him to pull Akemi out of the water on the low ledge formed by the natural rock. Sesshoumaru did not like what he saw. His Alpha was unconscious and more than slightly torn up. She had taken a serious blow high on her shoulder, entirely too close to her neck for comfort. And she wouldn't wake. She was bleeding too fast for it to clot properly and he had no way to properly treat such a wound in the wilds anyway.

She needed a miko, and Sesshoumaru knew exactly where he could find one willing to help him save her. Kagome had just better be home is all he could say, because he would start knocking down houses if he couldn't find her.

Sesshoumaru couldn't stand to be without Akemi again. He'd suffered it once; he'd rather die than go through it ever again.

Once the coast was clear, perhaps a bit sooner than he should have, Sesshoumaru threw all caution to the wind and rose up into the sky determined to make it home before Akemi had the chance to expire.