CHAPTER 4: AN OBLIGED CHOICE
The first thing that Sesshoumaru heard was a woman's scream. This brought him at the entrance of a cavern. "Hell, I'm late." he thought, upset. With the woman's smell was tied the death's smell. Then, a cry: "I'M NOT THE ONE WHO'LL DIE HERE!!" and the youkai's scream of pain. "What." he murmured, before he was hit by a violent energy, that made him fly away from the cavern. Sesshoumaru made an elegant movement, using the shove for land with grace over a tree branch. The cavern partially collapsed, in a landslide of rocks and earth. Sesshoumaru waited, annoyed, that every movement stopped, than he returned on the ground and walked to the landslide. The first thing he met was the inu-youkai's body, or, better, what remained. Just a mummy, dark and dry, the skin spread over half human bones. Empty orbit looked at him. Sesshoumaru made a wry face. That jerk had mistaken even the fusion's spell. Treading without care the awful remains, Sesshoumaru went on, searching the woman's body without enthusiasm. He found her first with his eyes than with his nose. Few steps behind, among the rocks, a piece of her kimono was visible. Sesshoumaru approached with the same wry face. The smell of woman's blood was strong in the air around that point. He couldn't see her soul raising to Nirvana.it was surely absorbed by the spell. "How could he mistake that spell? What an idiot." he whispered, bored, clutching the kimono to take out the dead body from the landslide. He didn't approve that kind of spell. The only thought of melt with a weakly human.bah, this make him shivering in disgust. Whit a deed, he took out the body, raising it from the ground. He was near to make it fall another time. "But.what." he said, in surprise. "I've mistake, who hell is this woman?" he asked to himself, dumbfounded. But the smell was hers. Just a little bit different, but hers! The inert body in his irony clutch, dressed in that kimono, was a woman's body for sure, a fragile woman with an alabaster skin. The resemblance ended there. This woman had golden hair, hands with long fingers and dangerous nails. The figure of a blue-golden flame was in the middle of her forehead. Her kimono was covered with blood but she didn't seem hurt. Sesshoumaru left the clutch, making the body fall without grace. The woman didn't give life signals, but her chest raised with the breathing and he could hear her heartbeat. He opened her lips, showing fangs. He looked at the ears. They were pointed. He sniffed her scent another time. She was Anna. An inu-youkai. "His power was sucked by her.- Sesshoumaru whispered, incredulous- An inu- youkai is dead.and another is born." He stood in silence for one moment, than smiled. His smile changed in a terrible laugh, which made run away every creature in a big area. Sesshoumaru was satisfied. All that gave him an advantage, if only the woman's soul didn't fall under the power of the dead inu-youkai. "In that case, I'll kill her." he said, stopping his laugh. He sat near the girl, waiting that new body, a fusion of Anna's and inu-youkai's parts, awakened. Anna woke up slowly from what seemed the longer and deepest sleep of her entire life. She had the feeling of leave the dream of the big castle and the same person behind the door, waiting her, but she wasn't sure. She made a wry face. She had a strong headache and her mouth was full of a metallic taste. She opened her eyes and saw many stars shine. She remembered with a shiver the youkai's attack. "How can I be alive?" she asked to herself, confused. She stood motionless for one moment, breathing. The air of the night was full of scents. She had never sniffed so many scents before.too many scents! What a confusion! Puffing, she brought an hand over her nose, trying to contain that intoxicating tide. She stopped the movement at half. Something was wrong. Her hand's fingernails had a length out of normal. "Hell, what." she said, sitting up. There weren't mistakes. Her fingers ended whit long nails. She raised her eyes, feeling the presence of someone.not very distant from her, sit on the rocks of the landscaped cavern, there was Sesshoumaru. He looked at her without speak. "Sesshoumaru-sama." she whispered. The youkai raised on his feet to approach her. Anna made the same, ready for the battle. When she understood how fast her movements were, she stopped another time, uncertain. She felt so strange. "Where is." she started to ask. "Dead." Sesshoumaru said, preceding her and stopping his steps near her. Anna corrugated her forehead. "Dead?" she asked, dumbfounded. "You have absorbed him. Do you remember?" Sesshoumaru asked, with folded arms. "But.what do you say, Sesshoumaru-sama?!- Anna said- I'm not able to do anything similar! I'm pretty tired of these allusions that I don't understand!" She remembered herself biting his neck, surely, and then an explosion. She was sure of being dead. "Look at yourself, wench." Sesshoumaru ordered. He saw her bowed her eyes over herself with hesitancy, sure that the youkai had some trick in his mind, then she paled, seeing her golden hair. "What."Anna murmured, touching with tremble hand her ears and felling them pointed. Her tongue touched fangs. She looked at Sesshoumaru, frightened. "What is happened to me?- she asked, with a low voice- What means all this?" She raised her nailed hands to Sesshoumaru. He saw that they trembled. In the darkness, a golden light framed her pupils. Her eyes was very frightened. "You have absorbed his power.- Sesshoumaru explained, with an ironic smile- You have made to him what he want to do to you. You have melted your human nature with his youkai's one, but your body was too much weak and it has lost all his humanity, changing into a new youkai's body. Only your soul is the same." Anna stood in silence, trying to digest the news. Her hands bowed slowly, while her heart beat furiously in her chest. A youkai? A YOUKAI? Impossible. "It's not precise call you a youkai, but in the same way it's not exact call you an hanyou.- said Sesshoumaru, undaunted, watching the contrasting feelings that run over her face- A body totally demoniacal, a soul totally human. It's curious." "Curious?" Anna repeated, with atonic voice. She looked another time at her hands, unable to digest the thing. After some instants of silence, she raised her head. "I want to look at me.- she whispered- There's water near this place?" Sesshoumaru turned his back to her, walking to the forest. At a short distance, flowed a stream. The youkai leaned against a tree, while the girl kneeled down and watched herself in the water, silver because the moonlight. He saw her notice everything new while she run her hands over her face, with an incredulous expression: the hair with a new golden color, the yellow reflex around her new tiny youkai's pupils, the feral appearance of her small fangs and pointed ears, the nails over her fingers. From her came the scents of fear, worry and defeat, but in the same time a strong excitement and the exaltation about the new powers in her veins. Sesshoumaru smiled to himself. That was the second motivation that had push him to search that girl. He wanted to understand human's feelings, a mystery for him. That girl was an inexhaustible source of deep feelings of every kind. Anna bowed her head. The smooth wave of her hair covered her face, hiding it from Sesshoumaru's eyes. A smell of salt caught him. Was she crying? "It seems.- the girl said, lifting up her eyes without visible tears- it seems that my situation is worse and worse." She smiled mischeviously. "Don't talk nonsense, wench.- Sesshoumaru answered- This is only luck, for you. You'll not a human anymore, and you'll not live anymore with those weaklings. They hate you, in any case. You need to take habit with your new powers, and I can teach you what you need." Anna looked at him, dumbfounded, then a flash shone in her eyes. "You've told me the truth, Sesshoumaru-sama. You have what you want, ever, in one way or another." The youkai smiled slightly without an answer. Anna sighed, than raised on her feet. "And.if I tell you no?" she said. Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow, in a resemblance of surprise. "I'd to think that you are really a moron.- he said- And then, naturally, I'd kill you. You could not live alone in the forest, anyway." Anna smiled with cynicism. "I understand.- she murmured- I'm figuring out something similar. It's in your style, Sesshoumaru-sama." "What about my style, wench?" Sesshoumaru asked, annoyed. Anna didn't answer, sighing. "Well, it seems that I have to come with you.- she said- I'll follow you, Sesshoumaru-sama. I'll take care of Rin." "Another thing." the inu-youkai said, coldly. Anna looked at him, interrogative. "If you'll learn to retrain your emotion's smell, I want that you'll not use this power in my house. You must promise." Sesshoumaru said, moving away by the tree with a fluid movement. Anna shrugged her shoulders. "You speak a stranger language, for me.- she muttered- Anyway, I promise, but still I can't see the utility of this. Are you not disturbed by human's feelings?" "They are objects of study, you can tell." Sesshoumaru said. He clutched her wrist and flight away, carrying the girl with him. Jaken sighed in relief when he saw the figure of his master approach him. "Oh, you are here, Sesshoumaru-sama!" he greeted, running awkwardly to him and covering his eyes from the new day's light. "What." he croaked. There was a female youkai behind Sesshoumaru, an inu-youkai, if he didn't mistake. "She'll stay with us." were the only words of Sesshoumaru, while he passed the toad to go to Rin. Jaken watch the woman, who was surrounded by the morning light. Her golden hair were dazzling. She gave to him a cold glance and Jaken bowed respectfully. The female youkai smiled coldly and passed him without a word. Jaken corrugated his forehead. Where did he meet that woman? Something in her caused some bad memory.like an undesired fly through the trees. "Nee-chan?- he heard the brat say- NEE-CHAN!" "Eh?" Jaken said, seeing the child throw herself in the arms of the woman, that hugged her with a laugh. "She'll look at you from now on, Rin." Sesshoumaru said, coldly. "Oh, Rin is happy! Very happy!" Rin screamed, touching without a stop the youkai's golden hair. "But that.she is." Jaken croaked. That was the damned human wench that had dared hit him with the Ninto's staff! But what was happened to her, for all the demons? Sesshoumaru walked away from the two happy girls and Jaken approached him, running. "Sesshoumaru-sama!- he exclaimed- How you can." A very freezing glance congealed his words in his mouth. "Look it from a positive point of view, Jaken.- Sesshoumaru murmured- You'll not Rin's baby-sitter anymore." "S.surely, Sesshoumaru-sama." Jaken muttered, giving another look at that damned human girl.ehm, youkai girl. A positive point of view?! What a ugly life.
The first thing that Sesshoumaru heard was a woman's scream. This brought him at the entrance of a cavern. "Hell, I'm late." he thought, upset. With the woman's smell was tied the death's smell. Then, a cry: "I'M NOT THE ONE WHO'LL DIE HERE!!" and the youkai's scream of pain. "What." he murmured, before he was hit by a violent energy, that made him fly away from the cavern. Sesshoumaru made an elegant movement, using the shove for land with grace over a tree branch. The cavern partially collapsed, in a landslide of rocks and earth. Sesshoumaru waited, annoyed, that every movement stopped, than he returned on the ground and walked to the landslide. The first thing he met was the inu-youkai's body, or, better, what remained. Just a mummy, dark and dry, the skin spread over half human bones. Empty orbit looked at him. Sesshoumaru made a wry face. That jerk had mistaken even the fusion's spell. Treading without care the awful remains, Sesshoumaru went on, searching the woman's body without enthusiasm. He found her first with his eyes than with his nose. Few steps behind, among the rocks, a piece of her kimono was visible. Sesshoumaru approached with the same wry face. The smell of woman's blood was strong in the air around that point. He couldn't see her soul raising to Nirvana.it was surely absorbed by the spell. "How could he mistake that spell? What an idiot." he whispered, bored, clutching the kimono to take out the dead body from the landslide. He didn't approve that kind of spell. The only thought of melt with a weakly human.bah, this make him shivering in disgust. Whit a deed, he took out the body, raising it from the ground. He was near to make it fall another time. "But.what." he said, in surprise. "I've mistake, who hell is this woman?" he asked to himself, dumbfounded. But the smell was hers. Just a little bit different, but hers! The inert body in his irony clutch, dressed in that kimono, was a woman's body for sure, a fragile woman with an alabaster skin. The resemblance ended there. This woman had golden hair, hands with long fingers and dangerous nails. The figure of a blue-golden flame was in the middle of her forehead. Her kimono was covered with blood but she didn't seem hurt. Sesshoumaru left the clutch, making the body fall without grace. The woman didn't give life signals, but her chest raised with the breathing and he could hear her heartbeat. He opened her lips, showing fangs. He looked at the ears. They were pointed. He sniffed her scent another time. She was Anna. An inu-youkai. "His power was sucked by her.- Sesshoumaru whispered, incredulous- An inu- youkai is dead.and another is born." He stood in silence for one moment, than smiled. His smile changed in a terrible laugh, which made run away every creature in a big area. Sesshoumaru was satisfied. All that gave him an advantage, if only the woman's soul didn't fall under the power of the dead inu-youkai. "In that case, I'll kill her." he said, stopping his laugh. He sat near the girl, waiting that new body, a fusion of Anna's and inu-youkai's parts, awakened. Anna woke up slowly from what seemed the longer and deepest sleep of her entire life. She had the feeling of leave the dream of the big castle and the same person behind the door, waiting her, but she wasn't sure. She made a wry face. She had a strong headache and her mouth was full of a metallic taste. She opened her eyes and saw many stars shine. She remembered with a shiver the youkai's attack. "How can I be alive?" she asked to herself, confused. She stood motionless for one moment, breathing. The air of the night was full of scents. She had never sniffed so many scents before.too many scents! What a confusion! Puffing, she brought an hand over her nose, trying to contain that intoxicating tide. She stopped the movement at half. Something was wrong. Her hand's fingernails had a length out of normal. "Hell, what." she said, sitting up. There weren't mistakes. Her fingers ended whit long nails. She raised her eyes, feeling the presence of someone.not very distant from her, sit on the rocks of the landscaped cavern, there was Sesshoumaru. He looked at her without speak. "Sesshoumaru-sama." she whispered. The youkai raised on his feet to approach her. Anna made the same, ready for the battle. When she understood how fast her movements were, she stopped another time, uncertain. She felt so strange. "Where is." she started to ask. "Dead." Sesshoumaru said, preceding her and stopping his steps near her. Anna corrugated her forehead. "Dead?" she asked, dumbfounded. "You have absorbed him. Do you remember?" Sesshoumaru asked, with folded arms. "But.what do you say, Sesshoumaru-sama?!- Anna said- I'm not able to do anything similar! I'm pretty tired of these allusions that I don't understand!" She remembered herself biting his neck, surely, and then an explosion. She was sure of being dead. "Look at yourself, wench." Sesshoumaru ordered. He saw her bowed her eyes over herself with hesitancy, sure that the youkai had some trick in his mind, then she paled, seeing her golden hair. "What."Anna murmured, touching with tremble hand her ears and felling them pointed. Her tongue touched fangs. She looked at Sesshoumaru, frightened. "What is happened to me?- she asked, with a low voice- What means all this?" She raised her nailed hands to Sesshoumaru. He saw that they trembled. In the darkness, a golden light framed her pupils. Her eyes was very frightened. "You have absorbed his power.- Sesshoumaru explained, with an ironic smile- You have made to him what he want to do to you. You have melted your human nature with his youkai's one, but your body was too much weak and it has lost all his humanity, changing into a new youkai's body. Only your soul is the same." Anna stood in silence, trying to digest the news. Her hands bowed slowly, while her heart beat furiously in her chest. A youkai? A YOUKAI? Impossible. "It's not precise call you a youkai, but in the same way it's not exact call you an hanyou.- said Sesshoumaru, undaunted, watching the contrasting feelings that run over her face- A body totally demoniacal, a soul totally human. It's curious." "Curious?" Anna repeated, with atonic voice. She looked another time at her hands, unable to digest the thing. After some instants of silence, she raised her head. "I want to look at me.- she whispered- There's water near this place?" Sesshoumaru turned his back to her, walking to the forest. At a short distance, flowed a stream. The youkai leaned against a tree, while the girl kneeled down and watched herself in the water, silver because the moonlight. He saw her notice everything new while she run her hands over her face, with an incredulous expression: the hair with a new golden color, the yellow reflex around her new tiny youkai's pupils, the feral appearance of her small fangs and pointed ears, the nails over her fingers. From her came the scents of fear, worry and defeat, but in the same time a strong excitement and the exaltation about the new powers in her veins. Sesshoumaru smiled to himself. That was the second motivation that had push him to search that girl. He wanted to understand human's feelings, a mystery for him. That girl was an inexhaustible source of deep feelings of every kind. Anna bowed her head. The smooth wave of her hair covered her face, hiding it from Sesshoumaru's eyes. A smell of salt caught him. Was she crying? "It seems.- the girl said, lifting up her eyes without visible tears- it seems that my situation is worse and worse." She smiled mischeviously. "Don't talk nonsense, wench.- Sesshoumaru answered- This is only luck, for you. You'll not a human anymore, and you'll not live anymore with those weaklings. They hate you, in any case. You need to take habit with your new powers, and I can teach you what you need." Anna looked at him, dumbfounded, then a flash shone in her eyes. "You've told me the truth, Sesshoumaru-sama. You have what you want, ever, in one way or another." The youkai smiled slightly without an answer. Anna sighed, than raised on her feet. "And.if I tell you no?" she said. Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow, in a resemblance of surprise. "I'd to think that you are really a moron.- he said- And then, naturally, I'd kill you. You could not live alone in the forest, anyway." Anna smiled with cynicism. "I understand.- she murmured- I'm figuring out something similar. It's in your style, Sesshoumaru-sama." "What about my style, wench?" Sesshoumaru asked, annoyed. Anna didn't answer, sighing. "Well, it seems that I have to come with you.- she said- I'll follow you, Sesshoumaru-sama. I'll take care of Rin." "Another thing." the inu-youkai said, coldly. Anna looked at him, interrogative. "If you'll learn to retrain your emotion's smell, I want that you'll not use this power in my house. You must promise." Sesshoumaru said, moving away by the tree with a fluid movement. Anna shrugged her shoulders. "You speak a stranger language, for me.- she muttered- Anyway, I promise, but still I can't see the utility of this. Are you not disturbed by human's feelings?" "They are objects of study, you can tell." Sesshoumaru said. He clutched her wrist and flight away, carrying the girl with him. Jaken sighed in relief when he saw the figure of his master approach him. "Oh, you are here, Sesshoumaru-sama!" he greeted, running awkwardly to him and covering his eyes from the new day's light. "What." he croaked. There was a female youkai behind Sesshoumaru, an inu-youkai, if he didn't mistake. "She'll stay with us." were the only words of Sesshoumaru, while he passed the toad to go to Rin. Jaken watch the woman, who was surrounded by the morning light. Her golden hair were dazzling. She gave to him a cold glance and Jaken bowed respectfully. The female youkai smiled coldly and passed him without a word. Jaken corrugated his forehead. Where did he meet that woman? Something in her caused some bad memory.like an undesired fly through the trees. "Nee-chan?- he heard the brat say- NEE-CHAN!" "Eh?" Jaken said, seeing the child throw herself in the arms of the woman, that hugged her with a laugh. "She'll look at you from now on, Rin." Sesshoumaru said, coldly. "Oh, Rin is happy! Very happy!" Rin screamed, touching without a stop the youkai's golden hair. "But that.she is." Jaken croaked. That was the damned human wench that had dared hit him with the Ninto's staff! But what was happened to her, for all the demons? Sesshoumaru walked away from the two happy girls and Jaken approached him, running. "Sesshoumaru-sama!- he exclaimed- How you can." A very freezing glance congealed his words in his mouth. "Look it from a positive point of view, Jaken.- Sesshoumaru murmured- You'll not Rin's baby-sitter anymore." "S.surely, Sesshoumaru-sama." Jaken muttered, giving another look at that damned human girl.ehm, youkai girl. A positive point of view?! What a ugly life.