Here we go with the next boring chapter... bleh...
Disclaimer: No, Inu Yasha is not mine. But Lunaria is, don't touch her.
Serene Murder
Rin looked at her Lord's back in wide eyed wonder. It had been at least six days... Six days and he had said absolutely nothing. That was the longest he had gone without admitting to her exsistance. Of couse she wasn't particularly worried... Sometimes he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he forgot...or pretended to forget to answer her when she said she'd be going somewhere, whether it be for food or for play, but he always knew where she was... She was sure of it.
However, this silence seemed different.
It wasn't directed at her, that much she knew. He wasn't being cold, or as cold as in mean cold. No, he was thinking, thinking hard about something, and he was so preoccupied that he didn't want to be disturbed by anything... Not her, but especially, not Jaken.
"Um... milord?"
Without letting the toad say or think or do anything else, Sesshomaru stepped squarely on his face. "Not now." he grunted, turning away, leaving Jaken flat on the ground with a rather evident foot print on his face.
Rin waited until Sesshomaru had turned away before running over to the toad. "Ah! Master Jaken, you shouldn't bother him!" she cried, bending down to help him up.
Jaken shoved her hand away. "Quiet, you impudent child! You know nothing of what I should and should not do when around my lord." he snapped.
Rin cocked her head at him, still crouched to his level. Jaken rarely allowed her to help him, and it was most obvious that he didn't considering her great traveling company, but that didn't bug her at all, however his constant statements of "my" lord did get to her sometimes to the point that she would want to cry.
Lord Sesshomaru was as much her lord as Jaken's. It didn't seem fair. However, the girl kept her mouth shut and watched with large eyes as Jaken struggled to his feet and ran after the great dog demon.
Sighing, she stood, resting a hand on Ah Un who had come up beside her, letting out a low sound of dislike.
"It's all right Ah Un. He will understand one day, I suppose." she said childishly. The dragon made another sound, this one skeptical.
Ignoring it, Rin mounted and settled on his back. "Let's go, or we might be left behind!" she cried, urging the creature onward, and so they went, following after their master.
Sesshomaru frowned slightly as he walked, running the woman's face over and over in his mind. It just seemed to unlikely that he knew her, he was sure he'd never seen her face, however the name still stung, like a splinter in his mind...
Ignoring Jaken completely he sped up the pace, eyes flickering to see that Rin had mounted and Ah Un had followed, matching the pace with ease.
How was it taht the idiot toad was less accustomed to his traveling ways that the human girl?
Shoving the thought aside, Sesshomaru concentrated once more on the matter at hand.
The demon's scent was still fresh, as if she were only a few days ahead of them.
He was determined to find out how it was that he knew her name, even if that meant looking for her. She didn't need to know that he was following.
But of course that was not the only reason why he followed. The fact that she had gotten away from his half brother unharmed had been interesting...as well as her smell..
She smelled of cat, lillies and human.
Three very different things.
"Jaken." he said suddenly, finally reaching his last string of patience at the toad's continual jabbering. "Be silent."
The imp stopped, and shut his mouth hard, only to hear Rin's light knowing giggle behind him. It burned as if he had been throw into a forest fire.
Grumbling he followed, head down, complaining to himself of all the things he wished to do to a certain unknown child...
Suddenly he ran right into his lord, knocking himself right back to the ground.
Rin had stopped laughing behind him, and was staring ahead, her face surprised.
He stared at her upside down figure, and Ah Un's front feet before struggling into a sitting position to see past his lord's legs.
A child had rather unceremoniously been dumped onto his lord's path... a human child.
It was a girl, wearing a white kimono and her hair in a braid, down to nearly her knees, but she was not older than six at the most.
She stared with wide eyes at Sesshomaru. "Oh..." she managed.
The great Youkai lord looked down at her, impassive. "Out of the way." he stated, eyes flickering upwards to see from where she had fallen.
"I... I.." the girl began.
Sesshomaru let out a breath of annoyance and began to step over her, but to his surprise she stood.
"No! Wait!"
He frowned, Rin gasped.
Jaken opened his mouth to start telling her off when Sesshomaru gave him a look. He shut his mouth.
"I was just- I have a message to-" the girl started, struggling.
Sesshomaru lifted his hand up, letting the color of his claws begin to glow, showing his irritation. "Move. Human."
"But- I..." the girl began again.
Rin screamed, covering her ears and closing her eyes as her lord lifted a hand as if to strike.
Swish
Sesshomaru had one moment to see the girl snatched up by a black and white blur before his whip landed where she had currently been, scorching the ground. It wouldnt have been a killing blow, but it would have stung... and bled.
"Don't make me attack your charge in revenge for damaging mine, Sesshomaru." a familiar voice snapped...
He turned slowly to face Lunaria, noting with amusement her vexation.
Then her words sank in and he had to blink to control his confusion.
"Your human?" he asked instead, cold and controlled as ever.
The demoness nodded. "I sent her to deliver a message to the following party." she stated, glaring.
He looked back at her impassively, though he was a bit surprised she had noticed his following... how she had known was rather odd, he couldn't see how.
"Now, what is it you want?" she snapped.
The girl was behind her now, peeking past her kimono, eyes wide, staring at the demon who had just attacked her.
RIn watched this as well, swallowing in slight fear. She could see both demons were tense...
Sesshomaru said nothing in return but lifted his clawed hand slightly, eyes narrowed.
"You dare to threaten me?" he asked calmly, though it wasn't really him that had been threatened but Rin.
Lunaria looked at him, her face just as calm and realaxed as him, so much that she looked almost bored.
"Do you have a problem with that?" she asked quietly, folding her hands in the sleeves of her kimono.
He frowned. "Your ignorance shall be your demise."
With a flick of his wrist, the whip shot out, hissing as it sliced the air. Lunaria growled, angered suddenly by his lack of patience. Things had been going badly with the shards, her charge had been kidnapped twice already in the last week, and now she had also been attacked by this paranoid dog bastard...
The whip collided with a shield that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, flinging the whip right back at Sesshomaru with surprising force.
He frowned, lowering his hand and putting it lightly on Tokijin.
A barrier? This demon...she can't be that powerful... He frowned. It must be the shards.
"Sesshomaru I am not in the mood to deal with your impatience." she replied. He frowned, once more unsettled by her lack of fear. It wasn't even respect she was lacking... she had bowed, had apologized, what really irked him was simply that she did not fear him at all... and her power seemed to say she should.
"Do you cower behind your jewel shards, Lunaria?" he enquired, walking towards the barrier... he reached out and found nothing in his way.
"I don't cower, Lord Sesshomaru." was her calm reply, eyes narrowing. "Let alone behind shards."
He started at her statement, frowning once more. She must be lying...
To his surprise she walked towards him. "Unless you'recapable of dealing with a problem without fighting, you aren't worth my time."
He growled, deep in his throat, his hand automatically pulling Tokijin from his sheath.
"You are incapable of fighting me." he stated.
Her eyes narrowed, and he found her hand tight around his throat, though she wasn't squeezing at all. "I am very much capable of fighting you." she retorted. "I simply find it... worthless. Your powers are equal to mine, you simply can't feel anything." she hissed, anger glinting in her eyes, though her grip was still loose and cool around his throat.
He shoved her hand away, growling. "Who are you?"
The woman opened her mouth to answer when a scream cut in, making her turn around sharply to look.
Jaken had the girl by her hair, the staff of two heads facing her. The child was crying, pain evident on her face.
"i have her! I have her, Lord Sesshomaru-" he started, then choked, seeing Lunaria's fleeting form for an instant before she had knocked him clear across the field with one blow.
"Insolent toad." she hissed, bending down to examine the girl. "Rowen." she stated, and frowned, seeing the child sit up, rubbing her head and her face at the same time.
"I'm okay..."
Lunaria stood and faced Sesshomaru who was looking back at her, once more calm, planning silently the many painful things Jaken would endure later on.
"Whyare you following me?" She snapped. The child stood behind her and hid, crying softly from the pain of feeling her hair nearly torn from her head.
Sesshomaru shrugged. "Your name seems familiar and yet I cannot-"
"I am from the mainland, you know nothing of me." she hissed, bending down to pick up the child. She lifted her up and onto her back, before looking back at him.
"I am here to gather the shards for my father, he needs them...for something." she murmured.
Sesshomaru smirked. "Your father is not powerful enough to-"
"Ressurection is a difficult thing, Lord Sesshomaru, mainly if the life is canceled by spells and guarded by a demon armya lot bigger than our people." she snapped. "My father is capable of getting there, however it is a neccesity to have the shard. Even your father's fang would do nothing to ressurect that which we wish to bring back." Her eyes flashed. "Your father too, is not powerful enough."
Sesshomaru felt the burning flame of anger flicker to life within him and he advanced towards her. "You will regrett this..." he started. She walked right up to him, making him stop.
"I do not fear you in the least. Do not think to make me submit to your threats." she snapped, jabbing a finger into his chest.
He blinked at her, throughly confused by her sudden reaction, his flame of anger put out by her cool vexation.
"Dog or not, I may be a cat demon, but fear you I certainly do not." she stated.
He started, suddenly realizing that's the kind of demon she was... however she was not from nearby, but from the mainland...
As she said so, black markings appeared on her face, outlining her eyes dramamtically and making her forhead with a small black sun shape.
"You are the Lord of the Western lands, I am heir for the northern lands of the mainland. We are equal. Get used to it." she snapped, then turned around, started away as if to leave.
He finally unfroze. "Lunaria... that's who you are." he said, making her stop.
Growling she turned to look back at him. "What?"
"My half brother's intended bride."
At this the cat started. "What?" she asked again, unbelieving.
Sesshomaru didn't laugh very often... this time he did.
"You are Inu Yasha's fiance."