-I hope this chapter turns out the way I want it...-.-; well...hmm...oh, about 'Lost Within' well everyone should know that in the manga's of Inuyasha, he is rather...(a nice word...-.-) he's dense about the obvious, like the whole jealousy between Kikyo and Kagome thing, so that should explain his actions in the most recent chapters...

OKAYYou obviously have some assumptions on who the three rulers are, well, you have a solid fact that Naraku is indeed one of the TRY government/rulers. That's the only one I've said so far, You'll probably find the other two's identities in this chap.

As for Inuyasha, I remind you all of the obvious, he is a hanyou, and he has human blood. The well had stopped working the day Kagome had been sent back. Think REALLY hard on these two facts, humans back-in-the-day didn't live very long, the youkai were practically ageless immortals. Inuyasha would have led a pretty long life, but still...the time difference.

AND another thing, they do not recognize(?) Kagome as of yet, they just think she's a refugee spy...now....

Just made up, TRY has three standing ranks:

Emperor: the one running EVERYTHING
2nd Emperor: Works just below the emperor
Prince: The heir to inherit the emporer's position should he die, 'disappear', or relinquishes his position.

These are going to be on every chapter so that you can come back to it for referance if stuff/people are being sold....
a single Venle: about $700,000,000 us dollars...
a single Noer(nO eR): about 700,000 us dollars...
a single Xev(Z eV): about 7,000

Ruling Youkai

Chapter 4: The Price of Flesh

"Time to auction you of on the slave block you pretty little ningen." A frog youkai croaked to her, dragged her towards the stage where the uninjured youkai roared in impatience.

"...No...!" She gasped as she strained against his arms.

She felt a sting in her arm as a cat youkai retracted her claw from Kagome's arm. The sedative was already calming her nerves, placing her in an intoxicated state of consciousness, willingly walking out onto the stage into the bright sunlight.

'My. . . .my last day. . . . of. . . . my last day of. . . . freedom. . .' She thought dimly before the sun blinded her.

-

Kagome's mind whirled with bright flashes of sunlight as the rough wooden boards nipped at her bare feet. She walked forward in a daze, against all her mind's protests. Her body then stopped in front of an unusually tall, willowy looking youkai.

His features were nothing but a blurry mess as she tried to shake her head free of it, only making her skull ache worse.

The sounds of howling, whistles, and throaty growls reached her ears, her lip curled in disgust. She was ashamed of herself as they paraded her back and forth on the acursed stage. She felt that if she didn't stop walking back and forth soon she'd willing leap into the oncoming darkness that was at the fringes of her mind. A small groan escaped her lips; her feet stopped moving, for that small gift, she was willing to kiss the ground, the chairs, even the bloody stage.

"Who will bid five xevs! Do I hear five xevs anyone?!" Some annoying voice scratched at Kagome's ears, she visibly flinched.

"I bid six xevs!" An annonymous youkai called from the blurry cloud.

"Seven!" another called.

"Eight!" a third yelled.

Kagome couldn't make sense of all the voices that she heard whirling around her, making her head ache and her body dizzy with exhaustion. More shouting, she heard that boyish voice a couple of times, and the voice of that idiot youkai she so badly wanted to skewer.

"Nine noers and fifteen xevs!" Naraku said icily, the other youkai bidders having stopped bidding awhile ago.

The youkai now stood watching between the two rulers as they faced each other off, both glaring at each other with death in there eyes. The other TRY ruler still sat on his chair, he hadn't even moved a muscle throughout the entire ordeal.

His liquid gold eyes trailed over the backwater scum mercilessly, studying every inch of her with intent interest. There was something...familiar about her. He couldn't quite place it, maybe it was the braided black hair? 'Their are quite a few concubines around with her particular style...maybe she was an escapee?' He thought absently, he rested his chin on the top of his right hand, he sighed.

Times have changed, but not to his likings, as if anything had gone his way since that damned brother of his had been born. Humans had multiplied faster than rabits and mice, breading there filth wherever they went, leaving behind bastard children all over the place. Technology had arisen, along with metal guns and lead bullets.

He snorted at that, 'Guns...' the flimsy material and the annoying little stings of the led pellets fired from them. He'd ordered all guns and firearms to be destroyed, they were useless and quite petty and dishonorable in his opinion.

His eyes fell upon the two companions, the only living remnants of his past history of the fuedal era, in truth, in the beginning that is why he'd taken the young kitsune in, he'd found the arrogant idiot Naraku along the way through time, had taken him in as well; it seems as the years went by he wanted to keep memories of the past, preserve the old ways.

For he knew that the humans would one day regain their freedom and kill off the remaining youkai, for we did not breed as fast as humans did, nor were we born with the powerful emotions that somehow gave these weak humans the strength to defeat youkai.

'Enough of these musings,' he cut himself off, gazing once more at the future slave, possibly concubine depending on who bought her, for now the only two bidders happened to be his own trinkets of the past, the young uppety demon Shippou, and the ever idiotic Naraku.

His head jerked in the direction of the naked refugee, his senses had picked something up, power, miko power...and...his golden orbs were frozen in place, gold met greenish-blue. His eyes widened, even through the obvious drug induced look in her eyes, he knew who that girl was.

There was no mistaking the familiar black hair, the pale skin, the green-blue eyes, and the miko powers. It was Inuyasha's wench! He had to have her now. She was another relic from the past, another form of memory to prove that the fuedal era when humans were small in numbers and youkai were feared just by their existance had happened. He needed to have Inuyasha's miko that had defeated him so many times, that had drawn the tetsusaiga from the bowels of his dead father's grave.

"Four venle to end this nonsense, the refugee is mine." The figure upon the dais said, his cold, commanding voice silencing Naraku's and Shippou's arguing.

"Why do you want her?" Naraku asked incrediously.

"I don't have that kind of money!" Shippou growled at the unmoving man on the dais.

"SOLD FOR 4 VENLE!!!" The auctionieer shouted in disbelief, slamming his mallet on the podium.

"The next set of slaves will be up in fifteen minutes!" A youkai with a pocket watch yelled to the disspersing crowd.

A slave handler came from behind the stages with a chained Kagome in his arms, she was still in a very obvious drugged state of mind, he bowed as best he could while still holding the slave in his arms. He held her out to the TRY Emperor, the emperor stood up gracefully and took the practically unconscious girl in his grasp.

He glanced at the prince, then at the 2nd emperor briefly, they both nodded after a moments hesitation, still angry that they'd both lost. Without looking the TRY members took off into the air, heading for the western castle.

"So why did you take her?" Shippou asked as they drew closer to the large castle that had stood since the time of fuedal japan.

"She is the hanyou's wench from the fuedal era." He answered simply, his silver white hair billowing in the winds.

"KIKYO'S REINCARNATION!?" Naraku practically screamed in disbelief as he made a futile lunge for the unconscious girl, only to dip down into the air as the emporer easily evaded.

"Yes, I believe that's the one." He answered coldly, flecking a glance of tightly controlled fury at Naraku.

"Is it really. . .Kagome?" Shippou asked more to himself than anyone, his eyes glued to the refugee with a different light.

His eyes glittered with sorrow, happiness, and then anger. 'How could she have left me?! She promised!' He thought to himself bitterly, turning his head away from her. He turned to the emperor catching his gaze quickly,

"What do you plan to do with...Kagome?" He asked, his head cocked to the side in a curious, but sad manor.

He then looked down at the unconscious bundle he held in his arm, truth be told, he hadn't a clue. She was a relic of his past and had thus wanted her, that had been his logic in the matter when he'd bought the wench.

"I will think of something." He said indifferently, landing in the garden by a rather large, blossoming sakura tree.

Two human slaves walked out into the garden and bowed low to the ground before there master; the took the young woman from his arm and bowed out, Kagome in tow.

The second emperor disappeared with a frown on his lips somewhere in the depths of his castle while the prince sat in one of the low hanging boughs of a sakura tree. He walked up to the tree with the despaired prince in it.

"What ails you prince?" he asked indifferently, not at all interested in the answer, he'd asked only due to the fact that the kitsune needed to vent his feelings, and he was normally the one he did it to.

"Her, why did she show up in this time? I knew her home was in the future, but I didn't know it was now!" Shippou growled as he dug his claws into the ceremonial robes he had to wear when in the presance of youkai lower than himself.

"Why did she leave me?! She promised she'd always be with me! It's all that stupid Inuyasha's fault!" Shippou screamed as he jumped from the tree, stomping back and forth angrily.

"If it wasn't for him and that stupid Kikyo she wouldn't have left me!" Shippou howled in anger, increasing his pace.

"..." He said nothing, waiting for Shippou's next outburst.

"If that stupid hanyou were still around I'd kill him!" He screamed, slamming his fist into the ground repeatedly, falling onto his knee's weak with anger as he continued to beat the ground mercilessly.

He sighed impatiently, walking up to the tired and furious kitsune he touched a single finger to Shippou's temple. The young kitsune slumped onto the ground, dead in sleep.

Instantly three human slaves walked up and picked up the sleeping form of the prince, they bowed before the emperor,

"Take him to his room and give him a sleeping potion." He stated flatly, not even looking at the lowly servants.

"Yes Great Sesshoumaru-sama." They spoke in unison, taking Shippou into the castle.

The emperor sighed as he stared at the empty sakura tree; the soft pink petals falling to the ground. The sakura blossoms blew in the soft wind, falling softly like snow.

-I admit as I typed this it didn't sound very...interesting, I wanted it to be more...um...the word would have to be...action-ey...sort of, more dramatic possibly. *shrugs* oh well, r/r-