It had been several hours since the group arrived at the lake, and since Sesshoumaru made no indication they would be leaving any time soon, the two shortest of the four prepared to stay the night. Kanai didn't like being ignored and made several futile attempts to reestablish communication with the demon lord, but to no avail.
Then to her surprise she was approached by Rin.

"What's your name?" She asked, in her mellowest tone.

The little girl enthusiastically told Kanai that her name was Rin.

"And who are you?" Rin asked in a secondary reply.

"You may call me Kanai," she told the little girl.

Sesshoumaru watched the two females with grate interest. Once again thinking to himself. He was fascinated with the way Rin would ask a question, and then patiently wait for an answer. She never did this when conversing with himself or Jaken. The manner in which Kanai spoke to Rin also intrigued him. To be honest. Almost every aspect of their conversation was not necessarily new, but certainly uncommon for him to witness.
But the Great Lord Sesshoumaru, Lord of the Western Lands, had something else on his mind. Not even he could help but notice how truly beautiful Kanai really was. This was another opinion he kept completely to himself. And the anger he first felt toward her for disrespecting him gradually developed into respect. He figured she was either extremely brave or very ignorant.

"But she is a hanyou!" Sesshoumaru reminded himself.

"Sesshoumaru sama?" Rin asked, interrupting his train of thought. "Lady Kanai told me to inform you that we are going to be getting in the hot-spring and that you and master Jaken should go elsewhere."

At first Sesshoumaru was reluctant to leave Rin with this hanyou but after a moment he realized that no matter what he said to convey this to the girl, she would be disappointed at not being allowed to join Kanai in the spring, and so the demon lord just nodded his head and he and Jaken departed into the forest as the two females climbed into the spring.

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" Jaken gasp.

"What is it Jaken?" came the demon lord's reply.

"That scent, do you not smell it?" The toadish ask. "The smell of that hanyou bastard Naraku lingers in the air." Jaken continued.

With this knowledge Sesshoumaru quickly dashed back in the direction of Rin and Kanai.

"Jaken, are you sure you smell Naraku?" he asked.

Normally, Sesshoumaru's sense of smell was far greater than Jaken's.

"Yes my lord." came the toadish's answer.

And with the imp's confirmation, Sesshoumaru stopped to smell the air for a moment. It was the smell Naraku, but it was faint to him.

"Jaken, why is it that you can smell Naraku so clearly, yet I can hardly detect the scent of anything?"

but before the toadish had a chance to answer, it had become clear to the demon lord that he could smell neither Rin nor Kanai's scent in the air.
Sesshoumaru and Jaken had stopped in a clearing about ten minutes sprint from the lake.

"Jaken, my sense if smell is being dulled, tell me every thing you smell." Commanded the demon lord.

"Well my lord, I smell only Rin, that Hanyou wench... and Naraku! Naraku's scent is approaching fast and from above." Jaken answered.

"From above you say? It must be his detachment Kagura, the wind sorceress," Sesshoumaru deducted.Indeed it was Kagura, on her feather approaching from the north. Naraku had sent her to spy on the demon lord. But his acute sense of smell, and other means of detection were more than great enough to prevent himself from being monitored. This made Kagura's task difficult and she had lost track of him some time ago.
But she had recently acquired a type of mystic powder that clouded the scene of smell that most dogs possessed. It was used by bandits and escaped prisoners to evade capture. Inevitably, its properties were concentrated and straightened by Naraku to be affective on a dog demon such as Inuyasha and his borther.Kagura was unaware she had been detected, and Sesshoumaru was actually interested in knowing why she had sought him out. With his clawed hand resting in the hilt of Toukijin, he strode confidently in the direction Jaken had indicated she was approaching. Sesshoumaru's mind wasn't on Rin or Kanai at the moment, now he was focused on Kagura. She had never been a threat, but she was closely tied to Naraku and that alone made her untrustworthy.
By now his stride had become a sprint, and poor Jaken was left chasing after him. Noticing Sesshoumaru's speedy advance in her direction, Kagura suddenly became aware that she had been detected.

"Curse you Naraku! This Antinu powder you've conjured up has failed!" she exclaimed.

"My lord!" gasped the toadish, still catching his breath.

"What is it Jaken?" came Sesshoumaru's retort.

"We are close enough to her now that I can smell her presence, she is on the ground," the demon lord continued, not giving the toadish a chance to answer him.

They had been moving in a direction away from the lake and had stopped some ways away from it.
Kagura was at a loss as to what to do. Sesshoumaru knew she was following him, and he was close. She figured she could do one of two things, she could confront him and inform the demon lord of Naraku's orders for her to follow him,(orders she was oddly pleased to receive) or she could return to the castle and inform Naraku of the failure of the Antinu powder.
The latter of the two choices was soon eliminated however;

"wind sorceress Kagura! Show yourself and tell me why you're here," came Sesshoumaru's calm voice through the trees.

"Just doing as ordered," she replied, stepping through the trees into his direction.

"And what might that be wench?!" Jaken yelled at her.

Kagura noticed him standing prepared to fry her with that staph of his. "Go ahead, cook me to the bone," she smirked.

The toadish tried to obey the order only to have his own flames blown back in his face.

"Sesshoumaru, you knew that would happen, didn't you?"

the demon lord simply nodded. "So why then didn't you warn him?" she inquired.

Without answering, Sesshoumaru drew Tenseiga
and revived the now crispy Jaken.

"I see," said Kagura smugly. "In any case, I was instructed by my master Naraku to follow and keep tabs on you. A difficult task I assure you," she continued.

In light of the apparent compliment, Sesshoumaru was at unease. He wasn't afraid of her. But he could sense she was up too more than just following him, and he wanted to know how she had managed to cloud his sense of smell and remain undetected for as long as she had.

"Tell me, wind sorceress, why couldn't I smell your approach until you were so close to me?" The demon lord inquired.

As he spoke, he paced around her, keeping her firmly within striking range. Kagura paced around a bit in return before answering.

"Its called Antinu powder, something Naraku cooked up. It's supposed to completely mask ones scent. It worked flawlessly on your hanyou brother InuYasha, but you it would seem, a full fledged demon were able to smell through it after a time."

She decided later to inform her master of that last small lie... In truth, she had seen neither hide nor hair of Sesshoumaru's brother in quite some time.