Chapter One : Playtime

The Goddess Erisa sat before her table, chin on one hand looking through papers that hovered in the air before her, vanishing and appearing in time to the flicking of her index finger.

"No. . . No, no. . . Definitely not!" Erisa discarded yet another paper with a soft poof as it disappeared.

Now, Erisa was not exactly a goddess. But she was nothing like a nymph or a demi-goddess. She was one of those little oopses that occurred during the creation of the universe. Since she is perpetually youthful, physically and mentally no older than eight years, she gets bored very easily. The gods gave her earth to play with to keep her occupied. At one point she had a bunch of lizards running around on the earth, but then she got tired of them and threw a big rock at them. For a while she was content with furry things. Then she wanted to see how they would last against the cold. Then she went and created a strange race that survived not by strength or defense, but by intelligence. She even went so far as to give them predators, a lot like humans, but much stronger.

But, alas, she grew bored of that little scenario and decided to make herself the Grand High Match Maker of Japan.

"Grrr. How the heck am I ever going to find a match for this guy!" The goddess threw up her hands in exasperation, falling back into her little cloud-chair.

"No matter how many times I look I can't find a single one!" She swung her hand in frustration and knocked over the pile of papers that she had yet to look through.

"Gah! This is just not my day!" Erisa began to pick up the papers then her eyes fell upon a certain one. Her eyes lit up like a cat's and the dropped all the other papers to read the one in her hand. Her eyes skimmed over the paper and her grin grew. Then she saw one tiny bit of information. Her face transformed completely from happiness to vexation.

"What! Not born for another three hundred years! Come on. Give me a break!" The goddess sat back again and thought for a few moments.

"Wait a second. Why should when she's born matter?" Erisa said, grinning mischievously. She swept all the papers off the table and ran her hand over the glassy marble surface. The patterns in the marble began to change and form themselves into a map of Feudal Japan.

"Now, here's the village. here's the fortress. . . Here's the western lands." Said Erisa, pointing to different places on the map as she named each place.

"Now which legend do I want to use? Umm. . . Nothing comes to mind. Why not create one? There'll be rumors of a great tree and within lays a power source even greater than the Shikon No Tama. Anyone who manages to get inside will be gifted with its powers. But no one has ever made it into this tree."

"Now how am I gonna get this all to work. . . I'll put the tree here. and I'll add this little gem to attract them. . . It's just close enough to there to get him to come. now if I can tie him into all of this. . . I know!" As she spoke she pointed about the map.

"Now, am I forgetting anything? Don't think so. Excellent!" Erisa opened a little drawer in the edge of the table and pulled out two little figurines about the size of chess pieces. One shaped like a tree, and the other in a human-like form.

Erisa gently touched the top of the tree shaped piece and it opened. Erisa placed the human shaped piece inside and put the piece down on the table as other pieces appeared on the marble surface.

Erisa looked satisfactorily over the paper in her hands one last time. It was a description of a girl. The picture on the paper changed as a small number in the text changed. The image went to that of a bit of text, to a baby, to a child, to a sixteen-year-old demon girl. Erisa put the bit of parchment into a drawer in the table and grinned to herself.

"Let my playtime begin!"

OOO

The youkai lord looked irritably across his lands. Not that he could see them. The entire area was covered in a thick layer of fog, so thick that you could not see your own hand two feet away.

Sesshoumaru allowed a slight scowl to fly briefly across his face before retreating from the balcony. The taiyoukai walked restlessly about his study. He needed to see to things to the east, but this fog was preventing him traveling. For it was so thick it even blocked his sense of smell.

"Sesshoumaru-SAMA!" The voice of the toad youkai pierced through the dampened air, soon followed by the panicked source of the noise. Jaken ran screaming into the room with a paintbrush wielding Rin hot on his heels.

"Lookit Jaken go Sesshoumaru-sama!" laughed Rin as she chased the terrified toad youkai about the room. Jaken cowered behind Sesshoumaru's hakama and Rin skidded to a halt before the demon lord. The little girl blinked cutely at him and Sesshoumaru allowed the shadow of a smile to cross his face as he stepped aside.

"AHH!" screamed Jaken. "Milord Sesshoumaru-sama! How could you do this to me! Your poor servant who has served you loyally for countless years!" shrieked Jaken as he ran from Rin, who had already started towards the old toad youkai, but his words were lost under the volume of Rin's laughter.

Finally Rin pounced on Jaken just as he ran in front of Sesshoumaru and painted the old youkai's face a vibrant bright pink. 'Where did she get that ink? Certainly not in this fortress.' Thought Sesshoumaru as he watched the little girl proceed to paint on Jaken's clothes.

Suddenly a faint presence entered Sesshoumaru's senses. The inu youkai turned and looked out at his fog-covered lands, patiently waiting as the presence grew stronger and stronger until it reached that of a youkai with strength equal and somewhat greater than his own. Then a power flared with the presence then dimmed to a steady glow in Sesshoumaru's senses.

The taiyoukai turned to face the still open sliding door to the gardens. He could see a strange shape in the horizon. Wait a second. He shouldn't be able to see anything. Natural fog didn't clear up during the evening, just in the morning when the sun dries it up.

Sesshoumaru watched as the fog cleared up at an unnaturally fast rate. Soon revealing the strange shape on the horizon to be a very large tree. Now it seemed that that was the place from which the presence was emanating. Rin had stopped painting on Jaken and stood beside the taiyoukai.

"What is Sesshoumaru-sama looking at?" Asked Rin as she pulled on Sesshoumaru's hakama. The inu youkai looked out at his lands. "Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"Nothing." Sesshoumaru made a quick decision then turned to Rin. "Rin. Go play with Jaken. Aisumii!" The last was spoken to a potted plant in the corner.

Smoothly, the large leafed plant became a young nymph with pale, green tinted skin long leaves for hair, and short heart shaped ones in place of her ears. She appeared to be dressed in a tight fitting emerald green dress that flowed down to her ankles. But in truth the "dress" was many tiny scale-like leaves that were simply an extension of her body. Aisumii walked over to Sesshoumaru and knelt.

"Yes master, what would you have this unworthy one do?" she stressed "unworthy" with annoyance and distaste. But Sesshoumaru either took no notice, or ignored her.

"Show Rin where more inks can be found and entertain her until I come back." Sesshoumaru turned to the bright pink toad youkai who cowered under a table. "Jaken, you are to stay here." Jaken's eyes bugged to the size of saucers as he clutched the table leg with greater conviction.

Sesshoumaru left the fortress and set out in the direction of the great tree.

Author's Corner

OOO

I've gone and edited it, like I should have done a long time ago. ; I joined some chapters here and there to make them longer. Anyway, enjoy.