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Sesshoumaru-sama woke her up again early in the morning. It seemed to Rin that he liked to walk as far as possible in one day and get started as early as possible. She wondered what the hurry was. He and Jaken-sama had talked about swords before, so Rin thought that maybe he was going to get another one, or maybe get the one that he said was broken fixed. But she didn't see what the rush was.
But she could ride on Ah and Un if she got tired, and she spent the day alternating between sitting on their back and walking. Sesshoumaru-sama seemed to be following some trail that only he knew the path of, for Rin could never see anything that told him where he were going. They stayed along the edge of the forest, never entering the trees, but with them always near. Rin stared into the woods as they went along. Parts seemed nice, like woods that she had been in before, but other parts seemed shadowed and scary.
Right now Jaken-sama was leading Ah and Un, and Sesshoumaru-sama was walking a little bit in front of him. Rin ran around, sometimes behind Sesshoumaru-sama, sometimes ahead. She picked flowers as she went along, for no other reason than that they were pretty and it gave her something to do. She looked into the woods again. It seemed that they were at one of the scarier looking sections. Out of the corner of her eye, Rin suddenly saw something move toward her. There was a thing coming from the woods. She took a step back and started to move, but it was coming at her too quickly.
"Sesshoumaru-sama!"
Suddenly, the thing was stopped in its advance, and fell to the ground. Rin looked around just in time to see a string of light coming from Sesshoumaru-sama's outstretched hand. It retracted and disappeared with a quick movement of his wrist, almost faster than she could see. Rin suddenly realized that she had dropped her flowers, and reached to pick them up, but stopped when she saw the dead thing. She stared at it with a sort of morbid fascination, unable to look away. It had been alive, and now it was dead. Sesshoumaru-sama had killed it. She didn't really like seeing things die, because it reminded her too much of something that she had almost forgotten. But at the same time, she registered that there was a certain amount of logic to it. If he hadn't killed it, that could have been her lying there. Then Rin realized that its tail was still moving, and that there was a growing puddle underneath it. She had a sudden urge to get away from the thing. She looked up to see Sesshoumaru-sama pausing over her.
"You should stay closer today."
Rin wordlessly got on the back of Ah and Un, and sat there for the rest of the day. She thought about Sesshoumaru-sama. He didn't seem bothered by the dead thing at all. Maybe youkai didn't care about such occurrences, but Rin didn't want to be near the thing. Sesshoumaru-sama had also killed it without even moving from where he stood. It was almost as if he had extended something from his hand. Something that had easily cut the thing in half, and just as quickly vanished. Sesshoumaru-sama's words about youkai being able to do things that humans couldn't came back to her again. Rin wondered once more what else he could do. The day before, he had jumped very high to get some fruit for her. But she hadn't really seen him do anything else.
People said that youkai were scary because they could get people. People never said exactly why youkai could get people, but only that they could. She thought back. Sesshoumaru-sama had said that youkai were faster and stronger than humans. That would make sense then, she supposed. She suddenly wondered if some youkai were stronger than other youkai. They had seen other youkai, and the other youkai had seemed reluctant to get near Sesshoumaru-sama, seeming very afraid of him. Well, except for the scary dog man, but he had done exactly what Sesshoumaru-sama said. Rin wondered if maybe Sesshoumaru-sama was a very powerful youkai. The villagers never talked about differences in youkai, but she thought that maybe there were some. She also began to think that maybe the villagers didn't know everything about youkai.
Rin stayed on the back of Ah and Un all day, except when she got off to get some mushrooms. She ate that and some more of the fruit, and then she combed her hair. Rin realized that she was tired of sitting, but she didn't want to get down and walk by herself again. Anyway, Sesshoumaru-sama had told her to stay closer. So she lay down and stared up at the sky as Ah and Un walked. She watched the clouds, and played the game of picking out shapes among them and making up stories about what she saw. As the clouds changed and moved, so did what Rin could find. As the day went by, there were clouds that looked like a swimming fish, a flower, a bird, and a lady wearing a heavy kimono. There was also one that looked like a dog. It reminded her a little of the scary dog, but the one in the clouds didn't seem scary. It was big and white and seemed to take up almost the whole sky overhead. She imagined that the other dog would have run away if this dog were real.
Sesshoumaru-sama stopped in the evening and found a place to rest for the night. After the sun went down, the air had turned cold, making Rin shiver. She told Sesshoumaru-sama, and he asked her if she could see.
"Yes," she said.
"Then get some firewood."
She did, and then Jaken-sama lit her pile of sticks. Rin sat next to Sesshoumaru-sama, even though he was a little bit away from the fire. She suddenly remembered that he had asked her the same question the night before, when she had said that she was cold.
"Why does Sesshoumaru-sama keep asking Rin that?"
"What?"
"If Rin can see?" she asked.
"Youkai can see in the dark."
Rin wished that she could see in the dark. Then it would never really be dark, and there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of. She had always tried to spend the nights somewhere at least inside the village, and on nights when she was forced to sleep outside of it, she slept very uneasily, or not at all. Though Rin still didn't like the dark, she was learning to get used to it, especially since Sesshoumaru-sama was always in the wilderness, no matter what time of day it was.
Then Rin remembered something else. She pointed to Sesshoumaru-sama's hand, and asked him how he did the thing earlier. He said that it was just something that he could do.
"What else can Sesshoumaru-sama do?" she asked.
He didn't seem to have an immediate answer, so she spoke again.
"Sesshoumaru-sama can jump higher than Rin."
"Yes."
"And Sesshoumaru-sama's eyes can do that thing," she said, suddenly remembering.
"That too."
"Sesshoumaru-sama's a lot stronger than Rin?"
"Yes."
"And faster?"
"Yes."
"Are all youkai as strong as Sesshoumaru-sama?"
"Absolutely not!" Jaken-sama suddenly said. "Sesshoumaru-sama is one of the strongest youkai, if not the strongest! Other youkai are nothing to him!"
"Really?" she asked. So Sesshoumaru-sama was stronger than the other youkai that they had seen. And maybe stronger than lots of other youkai. No wonder he was never scared or afraid of anything--everything was scared or afraid of him. Except her. Rin thought that she was very lucky to have someone like Sesshoumaru-sama be nice to her. She asked what else Sesshoumaru-sama could do, but Jaken-sama told her to leave Sesshoumaru-sama alone. Not sure of what else to ask anyway, Rin then asked Jaken-sama what he could do. Jaken-sama showed her the fire stick again, but she told him that she'd seen that. It seemed that Jaken-sama couldn't do much. He must be one of the youkai that Sesshoumaru-sama was stronger than.
"Hey, Jaken-sama, let Rin see the stick!" she suddenly said.
"Nintoujou," Jaken-sama informed her.
"Let Rin see the Nintoujou. Please, Sesshoumaru-sama?"
Jaken-sama finally handed her the staff, and she tried to make the fire come out like he had, but she couldn't. It really must only work for youkai, like he had said. She handed the staff back to Jaken-sama, and then went to sit next to Sesshoumaru-sama again.
"Rin wishes that she could do things like Sesshoumaru-sama and Jaken-sama," she said. Sesshoumaru-sama said nothing, but Rin had had a feeling that he wouldn't reply. He tended not to unless she asked a direct question.
They sat that way for a while, before she lay down and fell asleep.