"He saw you?!?"

Kuri nodded, answering 'yes' to her friend's question for the fifteenth time that night. The trip back to camp had been a quick one. Night had fallen rapidly around her as she drew near to the area she had left Hana. And the excitement of her success had returned upon seeing the girl again.

"Yes, Hana," she laughed, slipping into the warmth of her blanket. "He did see me. Looked right into my eyes without even the slightest hesitation."

This had been the depth of their conversation since the rising of the moon when Kuri had returned from tracking. Hana, welcoming the company in the darkening forest, had greeted her with freshly roasted fish, and yams from a nearby village. The two had shared the day's events while filling their bellies with food.

Kuri smiled as she withdrew the small pouch from her waist and reached inside.

"And..." she breathed dramatically, unraveling the silken strand from within, "I found this before I cast the taming spell."

She held the hair up to the light, delighting in the surprise that reflected in the other girl's eyes.

"Oohh!!" Hana breathed, unrolling from her blanket and taking the hair. "Is it... his hair? Does this mean... the magic will work? You truly can take control of him?"

Kuri nodded, looking into the fire's light. But it wasn't that easy...

She had been sure that the great youkai was, at the least, a mile north of her. Fear had halted her pace at the sound of voices above her in the peaks. She'd turned to find the object of her mission standing a short distance away. Stricken by the sheer onslaught of emotions his presence had brought, she had hardly noticed the toad-like minion that spoke with the youkai.

And then he had looked at her, watching her with those deep golden eyes... As though he'd known she was there all along. And those eyes... She'd almost fallen into their trance before she remembered the reason for following him that day. She had begun to run before the spell was fully cast...

"What will you do with it now?" Hana's voice inquired, her small hand extending to return the strand to Kuri.

"The magic is complex," she murmured, looking across the small fire in their camp at the raven-haired girl. "I've only just now begun to understand its meaning. Your dialect is very different from mine. I only hope that the scrolls Priestess Midori gave us will be enough."

It was proving to be an interesting tale, this journey Kuri had found herself taking. It had been nearly two months. Two months since she had awoken in feudal Japan and taken on the task of finding Riku, the missing girl that Hana called her sister. Two months since she had fallen through the ancient well in her own world, only to find herself miles and centuries away from her mother...

But this has always been my destiny, Kuri thought to herself, twisting the hair delicately around her finger. Ever since I was a child... I knew some day mom's stories would come true... That someday, I would die to save someone's soul...

She smiled sadly. Too bad mom didn't tell me it would be in feudal Japan...

But the trip hadn't been the nightmare it had seemed to be. The villagers that had taken the girl, Hana, in as an orphan, had cared for Kuri as well, despite their strange fear of her miko powers. It was these kind people who had taught her to survive in their age of poverty. And it was the same people who had directed the two friends to Midori, the aged miko who lived deep within the Satsuma caverns.

Midori had foreseen this journey that even Kuri had not been trained to see. And though the ancient miko had been blind, she knew precisely where to find the scrolls that would aid Kuri in her predestined tasks. Within the parchment lay writings by an even older priestess. A miko who had fought against the same demon she, Kuri, now sought to tame. And using these spells of such an ancient tongue, Kuri was now closer to claiming the information Sesshoumaru had on the girl that Hana called Riku. Her sister.

Unless, of course, he decides to kill me first... she smiled ironically.

Kuri remembered the look in his eyes. The raw sense of... something... It escaped her somehow. She had known it, could almost smell it as she found her way back to camp. But now, as she gazed up through the trees at the half moon above them, she couldn't be sure.

"Will you do it now?" Hana's light, sleepy voice murmured as she turned chocolate colored eyes to Kuri. "Will you use his hair to cast the final spell?"

Kuri sat up slowly, pausing before untying her hair from the braid she kept it in. Purple hair cascaded around her shoulders, falling in waves down her back.

"I can try..." she murmured, rummaging through her pack as she spoke.

Hana rose as well, drawing the blanket about her and leaning against the large pack on her side of the fire. Kuri withdrew the small blade she had hidden in the folds of her clothing. Taking a glance toward Hana, she lay the blade, the hair, and her small pouch onto the grassy ground before her. Without a word, she opened the pouch, extracting one of the many pieces of crystal she had stored there.

The small crystal shard glowed dimly as Kuri ran the blade along its side. There was a light hiss as an opening grew at the shard's center. Whispering the words Midori taught her, she plunged the tip of the blade into the crystal's glowing center. Light burst from the core, engulfing the blade and running in white tendrils along her hands. Swiftly, she lifted the hair, allowing the crystal's light to draw the tress into the core, consuming it wholly.

There was silence.

Kuri released her breath, smiling reassuringly at Hana. The younger girl's eyes were wide in amazement. The light receded, returning to a dim glow. And then the trembling began.

Hands burning with the crystal's strength, Kuri's lips parted as the shard began to shake violently. The rumbling grew louder, surrounding them as the wind rose. The trees moaned in the strength of the light that flared from Kuri's hands. Hana fell backward, the glow striking her. Kuri squinted into the blaze, eyes flown open as the gash in the shard glowed a molten red.

"Kuri!!" Hana called to her, her voice muffled by the howling wind. "Kuri! What's happening?!?"

The miko held fast to the shard, refusing to allow the dark power emitting from it to control her.

"Stop," she whispered, building her own power around the shard. "Stop it!"

Thrusting the crystal downward, she grasped the blade, arching it upward.

"Stop!" she commanded, driving the blade downward.

The sound of steel against glass echoed through the night. The light dimmed, diffusing the power that had only then exploded from the shard's center. Kuri panted, her hand steady as she held the tip of the blade against the crystal. The light was gone now. The wind had fallen, dashing strand of hair in her face, and the chirping of crickets began once again.

"Kuri?" Hana's timid voice asked her as she sat up. "Are you alright?"

Kuri swallowed hard, a bead of sweat dripping from the side of her face. Lifting her hand slowly, she withdrew the blade. The opening still glowed. And as she removed her hand, allowing the shard to rest amongst the blades of grass, a splintering sound could be heard. Jagged cracks, thin as thread, ran in wavy currents along the crystal's surface. Dust-like bits splinted from the cracks. Light surrounded the shard, glowing from the fissures like miniature streams. A faint hiss emitted from the shard as it swelled, strained against the breaks, then finally shattered into billions of dust particles.

Kuri raised a hand, protecting her eyes from the splinters. Lowering her arm slowly, she looked at the ground before her. The hair was there. Nestled between two blades of grass, the hair glowed silver, throbbing in the fire's light. She could hear Hana move; felt the girl draw closer as she retrieved the tress.

"It's... warm," Kuri breathed, watching as the glow receded, leaving the lock the same shade of silver it had been.

Lifting it gingerly, Kuri bit her lip.

"What now?" Hana whispered, eyes wide.

Kuri's brow furrowed as she thought to herself. Straightening slowly, she lifted the lock to her own hair, pausing a moment before braiding it into her purple tresses. She held the thin braid up to the light, a faint shiver running along her spine as the silver strand glowed, then turned to purple, blending perfectly with her own hair.

"Now..." she whispered, letting her hair fall as she turned to Hana, "we wait."

Gathering her hair backward, she tied it securely and smiled at Hana.

"Better clean up," she breathed, touching the girl's arm lightly.

If only I knew what we should really do now, Kuri thought silently as she moved to clean their disheveled camp. That energy... It was almost as though Sesshoumaru's own power was fighting the spell...

Her lavender eyes flitted toward Hana's back. Better not scare her... The people of this era aren't as used to these things as we are back home. Actually, people back home aren't so accepting of it either... Better to just let it go...

"It worries me," Hana murmured as they finally returned to their blankets. "Not the magic, really. Just... the danger you place yourself in... And for me... I know you mean well, Kuri. And I thank you as you may not know. But to follow him as you do... Does it not worry you that it has been such an easy task? To follow a demon as powerful as he, no less?"

Kuri had thought about the reasons why so many had claimed the great demon, Sesshoumaru, to be elusive. Especially in light of the effortless ease in which she had located him. She wasn't foolish enough to believe that her spells solely contributed to the demon's attraction. But she also wasn't foolish enough to think that he may not be leading her on. She would not bring herself to put it past him to use her for game.

Being close to the demon had begun to implant strange feelings inside her, as well. She had anticipated it, well aware of the tainted blood that ran through her family's veins. It was beyond her control, this attraction to Sesshoumaru. At least, mostly it was. Her mother's words rang clearly as she turned her cheek into the blanket's folds.

"We are different, Kuri. You and I. Not merely because of the miko blood that runs within our veins, but also because of the curse we, as the women of our line, have carried from our ancestors. Your greatest grandmother was the first. She, being of a time when monsters were abundant and priestesses were few, was borne of a demon herself. Her father, a man of the cloth, turned his back on the religion he once knew, for the love of a woman deemed a monster in his brethren's eyes.

"It was his wife, a pure-blood, that cast the curse against us. To protect her children from a power greater than her own, she bound them. The blood we have is not that of merely a human, but a mixed breed that will forever be refrained from the full power that is our right. Because of our curse, we may never fully make use of our true powers. The power of a full-blooded demon..."

Weirdo-girl. Is that what I am? Kuri wondered silently. A human with demonic miko powers hidden somewhere inside this body? Is that why I feel so deeply for them? These creatures... Because of my umpteenth-great grandmother's curse? Is that why I can't help but... want him?

"However it was that I found him, it will only bring us closer to our mission," Kuri whispered, "Whatever the reason, he lets me find him. And he's never tried to hurt me... Well, almost never. I only know that, somehow, I'll be seeing him again very soon. And when I do, I'll know for sure if he can help us to find Riku."

"Hmm," Hana's murmur came across the dimming circle. "Then it will be back to the Bone-eater's well..."

Kuri nodded, snuggling further into her bedding.

"The well," Kuri murmured, smiling sadly to herself. "Riku will know, won't she, Hana? She'll know a way back through the well... Back to mom, and the shrine... Back home..."

She looked over to her friend. The fire reflected off of the sleeping girl's face. It was probably best this way. No fear of endangering the only one that could get her through the well's magical barrier. Casting her covers aside and rising quietly, she reached into the pouch at her waist, retrieving a sift of hachimitsu dust. She scattered it over the entire site, sealing any traces of their scent and enchanting the clearing so that any who came near would unconsciously rethink their path. Hana would be protected now, and the spell would keep her deep in sleep until the following sunset.

Gathering one of their two small packs, Kuri set out to scavenge for food. Her bare feet were muffled by the leafy undergrowth as she darted through the forest, gathering what edible plants she could find. Pausing at a low-lying shrub, she looked to the west.

That would be the place to find Sesshoumaru. In the region that his power was strongest. It was everywhere, she knew. Traces of his power hovered in the north as well as the south. The villagers had been right in their fear. The demon had been meticulous these past years. He had not been "randomly wandering" as so many older villagers had bravely joked. Sesshoumaru had spent his years slowly claiming nearly the entire region that would have been modern day Tokyo.

And if my classes in geography served me right, and rumors from these travelers are true, Kuri trembled as she turned back to her task, he's marked his land as far west as Kanazawa would be, back home in my time... So much power... Like a border between north and south Japan...

Gathering her pack to her hurriedly, she tossed her hair to the side, lowering her head and setting out en route to the Bone-eater's well.

The breeze caressed her cheeks as she ran, her breath loud in her ears. The trees around her began to thin and she could feel the wind pick up as she neared the clearing.

Moonlight shone on her path, guiding her along the way. The air was thick with remnants of war. Gnarled roots jutted from the dying grass, grasping at the rotted wood that were the well's gates. The gates had not been there as long as the well itself, she knew. Years ago, when a battle had been waged in this very spot, someone had built the gates surrounding the well in hopes of keeping people out. And the magical barrier, glowing just dimly enough for her miko eyes to see, was enough to deduce that whoever built made sure to keep both humans and demons in mind.

As she drew closer, the tales that the villagers had told her flashed into her mind. Tales of a strange girl who had come to this world by way of the same well. A girl who had freed a demon half-breed and joined forces with him to oppose Sesshoumaru himself. That girl had been a priestess as well. She had used her gift of Sight to help the hanyou in hopes of gaining the shards of the legendary Shikon no Tama. The sacred jewel that had been shattered into hundreds of pieces. No one would complete the tale, but Kuri knew that the girl was forced back into her own world. And the hanyou, whose name the villagers dared not mention for fear of Sesshoumaru's wrath, was destroyed at the great demon's own hand. It had been twelve years...

Kuri's fingers stroked absently at the weeds that grew from the cracks in the well. Twelve years to the day. That was when she and Hana had arrived. Or, rather, when she had been dragged through the well by its curse. She could barely remember the journey. Only the feel of twelve years' worth of loss and suffering, and the devastation of someone else's memories flooding her soul. It hadn't taken long for her to understand and accept her mission.

Ten years of studying her powers, and the mystery that was her family's history, had made her strong. Granted, being engulfed in flames, and hurtled into a strange world of demons and talking toads, was morbid punishment for being a diligent priestess, but somehow she felt she belonged. And the friendship she shared with Hana reinforced her resolve to stay. At lease until she found what she was looking for...

She set the pack down, leaning over the edge of the well to gaze into the darkness below. It seemed a black abyss, swallowing even the light of the moon without reflection.

"I will find you," Kuri whispered, sighing slightly. "With whatever information Sesshoumaru holds, I will bring you back. It's the only way..."

"And what will you do if the person you seek does not wish to be found and taken back?"

Kuri spun around at the voice. Before her stood a young woman, perhaps her own age, with dark hip-length hair and curious eyes.

"I... You... " Kuri stammered. "Y-you're the one!"

The woman stepped forward, a hand grasping at the folds of her short white kimono.

"Why are you following Lord Sesshoumaru?" the woman asked pleadingly, her eyes filled with sadness. "He's done nothing to you or your people. And whatever you seek... it cannot be so very important to risk angering him, can it?! Why do you do this? And who are you?"

Kuri stood staring, breathless. She looked almost exactly like Hana! This had to be the one she was looking for! This woman in Sesshoumaru's possession...

"Kuri. My name is Kuri," she answered. "I came to rescue you, I think... You're Riku, aren't you? Hana's sister? We've searched for you for so long! Hana will be so glad to see you when you get back! We should go before..."

"You're mistaken, is all," the woman said softly, smiling a little. "I'm not the one you're looking for."

"What do you mean?" Kuri moved closer, sensing danger drawing near.

A rustle to their left made her jump. There, in the clearing of the woods, a monstrous twin-headed creature towered with eyes blazing in rage. Its left head snarled lowly, the hulking body striding toward where the woman stood.

"You have to come with me!" Kuri said urgently, reaching back before realizing that her boa was still at the camp. "Please! I have to take you to Hana before Sesshoumaru comes to find us!"

The woman looked at the creature as it bent one of its heads to her. Without a word, she leap onto the thing's shoulder and sat down, looking down at Kuri.

"I'm sorry," the woman said as the beast rose and began to walk away. "You really were mistaken. My name is not Riku. It's Rin."