Kanai and Rin still sat in the hot-spring, making girlish conversation.

"Lady Kanai, why haven't Lord Sesshoumaru and Master Jaken returned yet?" Ask Rin from within the spring.

Before answering the little girl, Kanai stood up in all her nude beauty and sniffed the air around them. She was very disturbed that she could smell neither of the mails, nor any thing else.

"Rin, stay hear with Ah and Un," the female hanyou instructed the now confused little girl.

Kanai quickly dressed herself and took off in the direction the two males had departed earlier. Some thing was defiantly amiss and she couldn't smell any thing. She didn't know what it was, but she could feel something was out of place. Although Kanai couldn't sprint as fast as Sesshoumaru, she did make good pace.

Sesshoumaru felt it unwise to inform Kagura that it had actually been Jaken who alerted him to her presence.

"To what avail have you used this Antinu Powder on my brother?" The demon lord assertively asked.

Kagura had suddenly become bored with the inquiry, and so without answering him, she made a hurried retreat on her feather.
The demon lord had actually expected the wind sorceress to make such an escape, so he made no attempt to hinder it when he so easily could have. But he was now quite curious as to what Naraku was up to and how it concerned InuYasha.
Kagura was now some distance from Sesshoumaru, so the air was clear of her powder. Kanai quickly picked up Sesshoumaru's scent and caught up with him.
She found him and the toadish walking calmly in the direction of the lake. She also detected the lingering scent of Kagura, a scent she knew all too well...

"Sesshoumaru!" Kanai yelled as the demon lord came into view.

It was almost dawn and they were about 20 minutes stride from the lake.
Rin had been alone with Ah and Un for quite some time now. She was accustomed to being alone with the beast, though she usually had Jaken to accompany her.

"I wonder where Lady Kanai and Lord Sesshoumaru have gone" she thought aloud.

As she was saying this, in came the pair followed by a rather distressed Jaken.

"Lord Sesshoumaru!" Kanai was yelling at him as they entered the clearing. "Tell me what you know about the demon who's sent that belongs!"

Sesshoumaru was still trying to ignore her though. Rin didn't like what she was seeing. She liked Kanai and she liked Sesshoumaru, she didn't want to see them at odds.
Sesshoumaru himself was finding it rather difficult to not respond to Kanai's yells. Jaken surprisingly was keeping quiet. But when Sesshoumaru saw Rin's dismay toward him and Kanai's state of offensiveness, he spoke.

"The scent is that of demon wind sorceress calling herself Kagura. She is an incarnation of a surprisingly powerful hanyou. He told me at our first meeting that his name was Naraku."

Kanai never broke eye contact with the demon lord as he told her this, even though she vaguely knew who Naraku was already. Jaken was surprised to his master give in to and speak to this insulant hanyou.

"Master Jaken, you look disappointed to see Lady Kanai and Lord Sesshoumaru speaking," inquired the little girl.

Jaken gave no answer and just wandered over to Ah and Un. Rin, however, was very pleased to see them converse, though their conversation she found quite boring. Kanai was continuing to interrogate the demon lord, but not to any real avail. This is mostly because he didn't know a great deal more than he was telling her.
Sesshoumaru finally broke Kanai's questioning by asking her something:

"Why is it hat you wish to know so much about Naraku and his incarnations?" He inquired.

Although she should have seen it coming, Kanai was completely unprepared to answer that. This is how she explained it:

My father, a human, had killed a demon with seven shards of the Shicon Jewel embedded in its body, three in its head, and one in each of its extremities. Relentlessly they fought for hours. My father eventually realized that if he could somehow remove the shards from the demon's head, it would die. I don't know how, but somehow my father reasoned that the shards in its head were the only thing keeping it alive.
I myself was with my mother visiting friends in a near by village. I returned to find my father, half alive with the decaying carcase of the demon in our courtyard.

At this point the Sesshoumaru felt it would be a good time to interrupt.

"Hanyou, this is an interesting tale but it does not answer my question, and I don't believe a human would have the strength, even if he knew the weakness of a demon with seven shards of the Shicon Jewel, could defeat it no matter how strong he was. Rin now was quiet interested in their conversation, most notably Kanai's story. All the while, Jaken was sulking beside Ah and Un. Kanai was very offended by Sessoumaru's interruption and was even more offended that this demon who travels with a human child would accuse her of conjuring a story.

"Sesshoumaru!" She boldly interjected, "number one, I am not finished, number two, I was not there, so I have no idea how exactly my father killed the demon, other than what he toled me, and number three, let me finish and you will see why I want to know about Naraku. And my name is Kanai!"

Sesshoumaru was amazed at her gaul. In response, he simply took a step back and motioned for her to continue. Pleased at the response she got from the demon lord, Kanai promptly carried forth her story.

My father started to tell me about the battle between himself and the demon, but he died before he could reveal any details. The last thing I heard him say was a name, Naraku. I could smell very thickly the scent of the being I thought my father was referring to. Several seconds after my father's death, a wave of purplish miasma engulfed the village my castle was at the center of, killing everyone. Why I wasn't killed with the rest of them is a mystery to me. I traveled to the village ware my mother was still visiting to find a similar seen. And the same scent. I have been traveling, searching for that scent ever since.



There was the slightest hint of sadness in Sesshoumaru's expression. So slight in fact that only Kanai picked up on it. Though she kept that observation to herself. Several seconds passed.

"I'm sorry," the demon lord quietly responded.

"Wench! What spell have you placed on Lord Sesshoumaru!?" came Jaken's abrupt breaking of the stillness.

The toadish was so completely shocked to hear those words uttered from his master's lips. Rin didn't hear the demon lord's show of sympathy, so she was once again confused. But she simply shrugged it off.

"Shut up Jaken," came Sesshoumaru's voice, once again with the usual silent arrogance.