DISCLAIMER: I don't own anyone. Except all bishounen. And Tyler.
((The next chapter is finished! My apologies for the extremely long wait. I had to re-write it three times because I kept on losing it. Also, my chapters are getting bigger and more detailed, and I have many other things to do besides my fanfictions. Personally, I think my writing's improved slightly. Hopefully I'll build my skills and complete the next chapter at a reasonable date. Thank you for reading! I really appreciate your reviews:D))
"Me lord, where are you going?" Jaken yelled into the thicket surrounding the clearing. The fire's smoke weaved through the tree's branches and dissolved into the brisk night air.
The figure blended away from the fire's light and enveloped into the shadow of the trees. "I'll be back, I suppose." The figure mumbled before completely camouflaged by the bush.
The little girl broke her stare from the flames and looked up towards the shadows lethargically. She sat close to the lighten logs with her legs up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them.
"Don't leave me…" Faint as they where, Sesshoumaru heard the first words she had ever spoken in front of him. Perhaps it was a mistake to have saved that wretched human girl's life. He didn't turn back.
The moon's rays occasionally pierced through the dense forest as Sesshoumaru walked further from his servant. He looked through a patch of open trees and into the sky above. He studied the stars and sniffed the air, trying to find his bearings. "East" he mouthed as he turned a different direction and burst into a sprint.
Sesshoumaru easily weaved through the collaboration of plants and other things in his way, never pausing from his supersonic haste. The whistle and whip of branches surrounded him as he nimbly darted through the thicket.
Sesshoumaru's travels had never brought him this distance from the land he ruled, though when his father lived he had brought the prince on peace-treaties with lords of other lands. He always despised these travels and did anything in his power to avoid it, but it was his duty as the heir to the kingdom of the west. Since then Sesshoumaru has not left his own soil.
Sesshoumaru breathed in the air blowing at his face. Inuyasha's scent was not very strong, but it was the only thing he had to follow. As the cluster of trees thinned, the ground began to slowly slope uphill. Soon he was agilely skipping off boulders and appearing to be flying up the mountain.
The air began to blow swiftly and he paused on a steep ledge to gather location. The staggering depth of the drop below would unease most, but Sesshoumaru took no care to it and sniffed the chill air.
There wasn't much further until the top of the Paradise Mountain. Inuyasha's scent was still here, along with the scent of wolf's blood. He knew the demon wolf pack was situated somewhere in the east, but this smell was not tied to the memory of his fellow canine demon. This smell was death. Curious to what occurred; Sesshoumaru continued to bound up the inclined mountainside.
The youkai used his legs to absorb the impact as he landed on the summit in the clouds. He observed his surroundings. A single, large clue was seen to show Inuyasha's past presence. The crater was drilled into the center of the peak, with three large claw-like engravings leading to it. Obviously the claw marks where Inuyasha's wind scar. Rightfully Sesshoumaru's windscar. He jumped down into the interior of the gorge to get a better look.
The center of the depth had a few large dried puddles of blood. Sesshoumaru could smell it was the blood of a wolf demon, though it wasn't quite enough blood loss to kill.
The memory of wolf blood and wolf fur had to fairly different odors. In the gorge, he smelt the slight reminisce of wolf fur, which peculiarly reminded him of the stench of death. The death which was all over the orphan girl when he found her lying in the forest, mortally wounded and alone.
He glanced upwards to the wind scars, then back down at the blood. "So, Inuyasha was obviously in a conflict with a wolf demon… whom's scent is much like the girl's…"
"Impressive deduction, Sesshoumaru." A woman's voice congratulated in his head. Sesshoumaru was used to Maki's mind-voice by now.
"Even a simpleton like my half brother could figure it out. Though you couldn't, on account of you don't have the nose for it." Sesshoumaru replied in his own thoughts. He continued to stare at the dried blood… then his thoughts turned to the little girl back at the campfire, waiting an eternity for his return.
Sesshoumaru did not flinch or break his stare when he felt a brush across the leg of his kimono from one of her fanions. "I have powers far greater than heightened scent." Maki countered, now standing right beside him. "Well, I suppose you don't need me, then." The demon taunted.
Maki shuffled her foot slightly on the rough rocky surface of the mountain's peak. "All powers have their weaknesses, including yours."
Sesshoumaru looked at her in sarcastic surprise. "Oh, really? So your powers have weaknesses as well? I never would have guessed."
Maki always got so wound up when talking with the youkai. Why does he have to be so hostile and dense? Was he always this way? Will he always be this way? There was a major reason she really needed him. It had to do with finding out his past, though she was so discouraged with his bigot attitude she doubted she would ever find out.
"Yes, Sesshoumaru." She sighed in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "My powers have weaknesses, which you already know. The large demon who's soul is trapped in the Shikon jewel? It used the body of my previous lover to get close to me. My whole ability is turning the darkness in demons into light, therefore transforming their greatest strength into their mortal weakness."
Sesshoumaru looked away. "Your point being? It's not like you would do that to me, now would you?" he taunted, obviously his goal being to make her even more frustrated. Now, if she would just leave.
"No, I don't think so. Though sometimes you're annoying enough to persuade me."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the annoying one here."
Maki made Sesshoumaru face her and leaned towards him intimidatingly. She had to stand on tip-toe just for her nose to be the height of his jaw. "Are you saying I'm annoying?" she demanded.
Sesshoumaru huffed and closed his eyes aggravatingly. He could feel instinctively her eyes still intently set upon him. He hated when people stared at him, especially close up. Either they where thinking how handsome he was, or they where thinking what a deviation he was due to his demon markings. Now Sesshoumaru really was getting annoyed, though he retained his cool composure. "No, I'm just saying you harass and disturb on a repeated basis, is all."
Maki blinked at looked at him in awkward surprise. "What? You really think so? You think I'm annoying?" she insisted as he stood there silent.
"I just said you weren't. Where you not listening?"
"But you said it sarcastically! You said I disturb you on a repeated basis!"
"Also harass."
Maki huffed infuriatingly and tried her best to size him up. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, my lord, but I AM NOT the annoying one here."
Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and looked straight at her. His gaze made her feel significantly smaller. "I don't have time for this. You, my unpleasant filly, may get as upset as you want. I won't complain and it's doing you no good. But if it makes you feel better, by all means go ahead."
"Oh, so you don't have time for me? Though it would give me the GREATEST of joy to follow you around and argue with you every other sentence like we have been doing so far, I have optional replacements for you and you are the one wasting my time." Maki knew that would probably scratch his ego.
Sesshoumarulooked at her with his eyelids lowered, sarcastically astonished she could get any more irrational."It's more than obvious that you're the one persisting this argument."
Maki stood flat on her feet again. But she still stood there staring. If she didn't say anything, then she was obviously not the one persisting the argument, right? So there to stood, her silent gape making him that much more irritated.
"Then I suppose we don't need to persist this pointless conversation. Don't let me waste your precious time any longer. The only thing I'm doing is stalking my half-brother anyway. So you might as well find yourself a replacement." He summed up, giving her one last icy glare before turning his back and walking towards the mountain's edge. His hair blew lightly in the chilly fall wind before it vanished under the peak.
Maki felt something clutch at her heart. A distraught, frustrated, sorrowful grip which usually did not grasp her so easily. She almost always maintained a cool composure… what could it have been that made her tone so irrational? Could it have been his sarcasm that struck a nerve? Or perhaps it was the fact that his personality and thought process was moderately like her own. That most definitely made her shiver uneasily.
So why, in the back of her mind, did she feel so content?
