"My obāsan would say that if you weren't careful, your face could stay that way." Rin said with a wry smile as she gently washed over the slayer's battered body. She glided her course fingers over him as softly as she could manage while looking over his wounds and cleaning his nude form.

He tried to ignore the way her feather light touches left his blood boiling and his skin scorched. She seemed to have no qualms about the intimate moment they shared, a moment he would have with no one aside from the woman he would wed. She had washed over him diligently, from his scalp to the heels of his feet; scrubbing him over, no part of him untouched and renewed by her.

There was no virgin blush on her cheeks, no shyness, and yet there was a humble modesty about her. She was completely at ease, as if it were nothing to her, as if this day was the same as the last and would be the same on the next. Yet he knew the blood in his cheeks gave away his dueling discomfort and pleasure. He found himself thanking the kami for the pain that hummed through his body, overwhelming the senses enough to overpower his corporal lust or he'd find himself truly humiliated in her presence. Though in earnest, he doubted that would be the case, she was so unlike the women he was accustomed to. Her eyes held no mirth or mischief now, just purpose and acceptance. It was welcome, more than welcome.

The sight of his body so beaten and brightly colored, made his stomach turn. He looked and felt like abused and rotting fruit. She had removed the bandages and gritted her teeth before standing abruptly and grabbing the washcloth.

How bad is it?

He tried but the question wouldn't go further than the tip of his tongue, refusing to leave the shelter of his mind. Yet as his morbid curiosity would have it, he watched her for every reaction, anything to indicate his state of health.

She gave nothing away, her face calm and serene, unbothered and unaffected by the world. She moved with the grace of a predator, sinuous and precise.

She gingerly moved him into the water and worked over his body like he were a new born babe in the arms of a mother instead of a slayer in the hands of a captive.

He'd been covered in dirt, mud, and blood; most of it from their most recent travels and thankfully not from the fatal night of their encounter. He smelled of sweat and herbs but as she laid his body in midst of water running between, around, and under them, he could feel his skin come alive. The water, cool and clean, washed over him and removed the layer of grime that had nestled into his person so deep it could have permeated the soul. She sat behind him, her small hands on either side of his face, holding his head firmly above water; steadying him.

He could feel the water rush against his open wounds but made no complaint. Not when just days ago he had pleaded with the kami to allow the water to guide him into the next life. He closed his eyes as he felt the water ebb away the sting of bitter tears.

Everything. Everyone. He'd lost it all. Again. The water rushed his ears as the shouts of his comrades deafened his mind as he recalled that smoky night. How could it have all gone so terribly? He could hear it now the sound of screaming women and children, the ringing that accompanied the blows the beast had landed on him.

YUN!

He could hear Kohaku's voice blaring for him before he succumbed to the darkness.

YUN!

Kohaku. How much more torment could the soul bare?

His brother, his comrade, his confidant. His eyes and ears.

Dead. And all that he had come to know with him.

He felt his soul tearing apart as he mourned his only remaining family.

What had happened to him? Had he been in danger when he called? Had death been swift?

YUN!

I'm so sorry Kohaku. I am so so sorry.

YUN!

Forgive me.

Rin watched as the man in her hands trembled, as the tears that poured from his closed eyes fell with more force than the coursing river they sat in and weighed heavily in her hand and heart. She watched as his demons ate away at him and her heart broke for the slayer.

She could see in him what she knew others had seen in her, what she had so often seen in herself every day for the past decade. There was no torment greater, no enemy crueler, no place colder than the recesses of one's mind as their most miserable thoughts came loose and tore at the sheets of their being.

The thoughts that deemed them useless and unworthy, the thoughts that transcended time and yet trapped them in the present.

"Yun." She breathed softly, letting the pads of her thumbs stroke his face soothingly.

His eyes opened slowly, his body succumbing to a stillness, as he looked up at her as if in a dream.

She could see the devastation in his eyes and watched as his guard now in tatters, took its place at the forefront of his soul. She sighed before looking up; giving him a moment to collect himself.

"You must think-" He began softly.

"I think nothing." She promised. "I simply am. As present as the breeze, as calm as the sky, and as unseen as the air we breathe."

A trembling breath escaped him as relief coursed through his veins.

The moment was short lived.

Rin felt the man in her arms relax and felt her own body sag though not with relief but apprehension.

Would there never be a moment of peace? She wondered.

The hair on the back of her neck stood as every nerve ending in her body screamed.

"A-Un." She commanded. The two headed beast came to their side at a moment's notice. She braced the slayer's upper body against her knees as she lunged for her blades. She would have no time to dawn her gear, her simple cotton yukata would have to suffice, though it was wet and hung on her heavily.

"A-Un guard!" she said as she thrusted, as gently as she possibly could, the slayer unto his saddle.

She spun around and watched as three beasts erupted from the blanket of forestry and leered over them.

"Look at what we have here."

Sesshomaru snarled lowly as he raced towards the scent being washed down stream. A new scent, one so familiar to him, now hummed over his senses. His youkai roared in rage and he could feel his body fading away as he became light and shot through the sky.

Damn her. He thought before he cursed again.