Disclaimer: Search the first non-dialogue paragraph. Anybody who can name that (animated) movie and the character who said the line will get imaginary cookies, an e-hug, and the distinction of being as big a movie geek as I am! Bonus points if you can name the voice actor! Unfortunately, I will not be able to award Inuyasha and Co. to anyone, because I don't own him. No matter how big a movie geek you are, you can't have him.

A/N: Ack, ack, ack! Is summer supposed to be this crammed? No, it isn't, but that's why I've not updated in forever and a day… also, this chapter would not get written. I've had to bribe the cast with ramen and pocky, and what with no job my funds have been short. (note: 'no job' does NOT mean 'no work'… it just means 'no pay.' As of graduation day…) Fortunately, I start job training Thursday (yay for dumb, stubborn luck) so I will shortly have bribing money. Just not any time… Cookies to medlii for being wonderful and reviewing (yeah, Kouga gets shafted a bit… am working on that, 'cause I think he's adorable even if he can't take a hint worth a damn).

Eh, enough of my bitchin' and blitherin'. You've waited very patiently, so on with it.

12

Reflection

"So you figured out how to get it off?"

"Yep. It'll wash off."

"You're sure?"

"…Positive."

Hyakunan decided not to voice the opinion that only fools are positive; it wouldn't go over well, and he doubted that Shippou would recognize its origin anyway.

"So. First we need to find them…"

Hyakunan shrugged. "Easy. I put them to sleep."

Shippou's eyebrows raised. "Oh. That's easy, then."

Slight pause.

"Have anything we could carry water in?"

Another slight pause. "…No." Then, more brightly, "We could scrub it off."

"With what?"

"…Clothes, I guess."

Shippou grumbled. "I hate wet clothes…"

"Any better ideas?"

"No."

"Okay."

Shippou sighed heavily, then looked around. "Rin?"

Hyakunan frowned. "What, she didn't come with you?"

"No."

They looked at each other.

"D'you think Sesshoumaru would…?"

"Nah. He doesn't know she was with us."

Pause, in which they considered what would happen to them if the inuyoukai knew more than they wanted him to.

"Maybe she found him already," Hyakunan said doubtfully.

"Maybe."

Two beats.

"Let's check."

"Yeah—hey, what about the other guys?"

Hyakunan grimaced. "Forgot. Let's pair 'em up like they're supposed to be, and get back to them later."

"Okay. Maybe Rin found a bucket…"

………………………………………………

Kagura decided to leave the spell on Kouga; with luck, he'd stay asleep long enough for her to erase most of Sesshoumaru's scent from the nest. After the inuyoukai's reaction to Kouga's presence, she didn't want to risk an equally angry reaction from the wolf prince over particular smells.

Sesshoumaru's question bothered her. "Is that the only reason?" Of course it wasn't. Kouga was handsome, and… strong, and… fast…

Kouga had asked something similar when she'd had him tied up—she hadn't given him a real answer, either…

She shook her head, trying to clear some of the fog from it. It wasn't a question of whether she adored Kouga; she knew she loved him. But the question was still a mosquito bite that she couldn't ease no matter what she did. Why?

She definitely felt a headache coming on, perfectly in time with the approaching dawn. Her eyes felt slightly gummy, too. The wind witch decided on a bath. That'll feel good. There shouldn't be too many pests around the river at this hour. Then I can find Rin—she felt slightly ashamed of herself, leaving the child to fend for herself like that… but considering what had been accomplished in the girl's absence, she wasn't that sorry—and sort out what I'm going to do about Naraku now.

She carefully checked the area around the river before she judged it safe to shed the outer kimono she'd thrown on and submerge herself in the water. After that incident with Fluffy—staring at me like that… ogling, lecherous bastard…—she was rather self-conscious, which was remarkable in itself. What was even more remarkable was that she didn't know whether she minded or not.

Wonder if he liked what he saw…? No, dammit! Not going there! Not a chance!

Even if I think he did… he didn't exactly stop himself…

She rubbed one hand thoroughly over her eyes and down her face, trying valiantly to scrub those nasty, insidious, delighted little thoughts away. Even when he was gone, Sesshoumaru wouldn't leave her alone.

Maybe I don't want him to…

She was extremely surprised when she couldn't find a single retort in her own mind to counter that. She dipped under the water's surface again, meticulously wiping her face as she came back up. Where the hell had that come from? Was she really that attached to the inuyoukai? What about Kouga?

…What about him?

This was so far past creepy it wasn't even funny. Two minutes ago she wouldn't have voiced that particular rhetorical question to herself. She finished scrubbing, pulled herself out of the river, and lofted herself back to her nest.

Kouga still hadn't woken up. He was curled loosely in a ball, long hair framing his face like black silk around an adorable cameo, lightly snoring. She waited for the now-familiar upwelling of tender affection that came with the sight of him.

Nothing.

She mentally prodded herself. Kouga? Wolf youkai? Man you just slept with? The guy who squeaks like a puppy when you—noooooo, not gonna go there.

She stared at the man she quite clearly no longer loved. Who was wearing her obi on his tail.

Well, shit, she thought, quite calmly. Calm was good. It was better than speculation over this new turn of events, and the hysterics that would probably follow it. What do I do now?

…………………………………………

There was only so much sitting around a girl could take.

For Rin, it was a little over five minutes.

She couldn't help it. Whenever Sesshoumaru-sama took off, she knew that she was under no circumstances to leave the place where he'd left her, and she reasonably assumed that the same applied to Shippou-kun. However, there were a few major differences: (1) Shippou-kun was not, by any stretch of the imagination, Sesshoumaru-sama.­ (2) She didn't have Jaken to pester for amusement, so she was bored. (3) She had no specific and/or binding instructions. (4) She thought she'd seen something bright and pretty just over there…

In any case, once she'd caught the bright, pretty butterfly, she realized that she didn't have a clue where she was. Fortunately, this was not a problem.

"Kagura-sama said that she could hear Rin if Rin called," Rin reasoned aloud, using the butterfly as her audience. "Rin will just call Kagura-sama. Hopefully Kouga no baka isn't with Kagura-sama, even if his tail is fluffy."

Speaking of fluffy, where was Sesshoumaru-sama? "Rin hasn't seen Sesshoumaru-sama in over a day. Maybe this is a good thing," she confided to the insect, "since he never lets Rin stay up so late past bedtime." The butterfly showed no interest in her soliloquy other than a distressed flutter of pink and orange wings, but Rin decided to take that as commiseration. "No," she reconsidered after a moment, "Rin misses him." He was Sesshoumaru-sama, after all. Not having him there was a bit like not having the sky there.

The butterfly attempted to communicate that it had urgent business elsewhere. It was ignored.

She brightened. "Maybe he will let Rin see Kagura-sama once in a while. Especially since Kagura-sama seems to like him a lot more than any other lady he's met. And," she added significantly, "Sesshoumaru-sama definitely likes Kagura-sama; Rin can tell. He speaks more around her than around anybody else—well, except maybe Inuyasha no baka, but that's because they're brothers and brothers always insult each other."

She appeared to hold a brief inner debate, then added conspiratorially to her captive audience, "Rin also knows that Kagura-sama comes closest out of anybody to making Sesshoumaru-sama smile, and that's definitely a good sign."

The butterfly resigned itself to its fate.

Rin sighed. "Rin really wonders about grown-ups sometimes. Do they always try not to do what they most want to do?" She shook her head. "They are very silly. Even Sesshoumaru-sama."

Oh, well. They also made food and beds, and she was getting hungry and sleepy. She released the very relieved butterfly, then wandered off. "Kagura-sama…"

…………………………………………

"Stupid naïve little girl," Jaken snorted. "Talking to a butterfly, of all things… and about that of which she knows nothing! Sesshoumaru-sama and the wind witch… bah. Simpleton…"

It took a moment to realize that the guardian of said child was standing right behind him, fully aware of the toad youkai's disdain and more than capable of punting his vassal halfway across Japan for his unwisely voiced opinions.

Jaken froze, recited a prayer for a swift end to every god he could think of, and waited to be pummeled.

It never came.

The squat youkai peeled one tightly-scrunched eye open. "S-sesshoumaru-sama?" He chanced a look up.

The inuyoukai wasn't moving at all. He was barely breathing. This was a marginal change from his normal appearance of arrested grace, but the main difference that this posture had from his normal one was the look on his face.

Sesshoumaru-sama of the long-perfected Ice Mask was… gaping?

He was. The youkai lord's thin mouth was slightly, but definitely, open. Jaken's eyes bulged further with surprise. "Sesshoumaru-sama?"

Sesshoumaru didn't hear the toad at all. His mind was still running through Rin's words, particularly the sentence about his smile.

"…Kagura-sama comes closest out of anybody to making Sesshoumaru-sama smile…"

He knew she wasn't lying. The girl wouldn't lie even to a butterfly. It therefore might have followed that she was mistaken…

…Except she wasn't. He knew it was true, damn it.

And if she's right…

"…Kagura-sama seems to like him a lot more than any other lady he's met…"

…is that true?

Sesshoumaru very rarely felt like a blithering idiot. Today, however, seemed to be his day for it.

He stepped over Jaken without a downward glance, heading in the same direction Rin had. I'm getting that damn potion off of her.

He didn't really want to think about what would happen after that. If he was lucky, she'd only take a few chunks out of him. If he wasn't…

He really hoped he was lucky.

…………………………………………….

In the woods, four bodies lay sprawled within a fifty-yard radius of each other.

One small figure stopped by each of these bodies, then appeared to concentrate intensely on each of their faces. The body would then laboriously rise a few feet off the ground a minute or so later. They were not cooperative bodies; they lolled and flopped like corpses.

It would, in all probability, have been easier to move them if they were dead, but that would've defeated the purpose somewhat.

Eventually, all four were arranged to the small figure's satisfaction, paired carefully at the center of a miniature clearing near the forest's edge. A second small figure came to check the first's progress.

After a brief pause, the male halves of the two pairs were quickly switched.

Short silence.

"They gonna wake up soon?"

"Yeah. You wash 'em off?"

Another silence.

"I'm never doing this again." The two short figures trotted off, slightly more speedily than they'd come.

"Yeah. Too much trouble…"

A/N: To catch your attention, I've put this at the end. . brilliant me... okay, not brilliant, just odd.I mentioned this in a past chapter, but nobody responded, so please tell me yes or no or whatever you think… I like feedback! On the back burner (another reason this chapter has been so long in coming) has been an idea of mine that involves a new take on a fairy tale, featuring—you guessed it—the Inu-Tachi. Something about a girl whose father dies and leaves her in the care of an evil, power-hungry social climber with two daughters… and, by the way, a prince's hand in marriage is at stake... Yes, it's kinda old, but still good! I bet I can surprise you, too. No idea what I would call this 'borrowed' creation of mine; ideas are welcome.