UnSpoken Love By: OtakuSailorV

Chapter 22:: The Target is Rin!

Inuyasha dropped from the sky heavily, Kagome sitting on his back. The young miko had an arrow taut in its bowstring, aimed at the hazy cloud of miasma, her eyes narrowed keenly. Inuyasha's bangs were bared, his golden eyes glinting brilliantly.

There was something about those eyes that were different from Sesshoumaru's. Maybe it was because he was partially human that they held more emotion in them, and thus made them sparkle even more. Or maybe it was simply because he craved battle more than his elder brother did. Whatever it was, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's eyes were very different, and exactly the same at the same time.

Her cousin looked brilliant, standing there like a true miko, her bow aimed at her enemy as she warily got down from Inuyasha's back. Her hanyou love stood by her side protectively, his golden gaze shifting around carefully as he tested the air with his sharp nose.

Above there roared the sound of flames, and an animalistic growl before Rin spotted her other cousin, Sango and her demon pal, Kirara descending as well. She smiled gaily at them, happy to see some familiar faces in this time in which she was so confused.

"Kagome-chan!" She called, crossing to her cousin who gave her a stiff smile in return. "Sango-chan, Kirara-chan, and Inuyasha-san too."

Sesshoumaru stayed by her side, her silent bodyguard, though he was sending a nasty look toward his younger half brother. When the small group had converged, he let himself get more than five feet away from Rin to speak privately with his brother.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, trying to keep the snarl out of his words. He would not go to his brother's level.

Inuyasha returned with a feral growl. "Why the hell should I tell you? It's obvious, isn't it?"

Sesshoumaru wished he could plug his ears. Why did Inuyasha feel the need to scream everything, like all the people that were listening were deaf or something? Well, maybe humans were deaf, but he did not have to scream for this Sesshoumaru to hear him.

"I do not need you help, little brother." Sesshoumaru informed him blandly, his eternally half-lidded eyes piercing down at him.

"How are you supposed to fight and protect at the same time?" Inuyasha demanded, crudely jerking a thumb in Rin's direction. None of the three conversing women noticed that the two-demon brother's were arguing yet. Well, Inuyasha was arguing at least.

"I would not worry about this Sesshoumaru if I were you, Inuyasha." His brother returned.

Inuyasha fumed at the assault on his pride. So what if he got separated from Kagome a lot in fights? She could manage on her own, couldn't she?!

Sesshoumaru saw that his point had driven home, for his brother had turned red in anger.

Inuyasha was about to retaliate when Sesshoumaru turned his head away, turning his attentions back to where their enemy had once stood.

Rin took in a sharp breath, and turned swiftly, Kagome turned at exactly the same time and together they stared at a new cloud of miasma that had suddenly started to gather where the old one, containing Naraku, had disappeared.

The cloud burst, the poisonous haze spreading quickly through the ranks of our heroes.

Inuyasha raised his draping red sleeve to block his sensitive nose, while his brother stood firm, the miasma blowing his hair back in a rush. The miko's flinched and were hit with a sudden wave of light-headedness, but overcame it after a moment and stood firm again. Sango grasped her taijiya's mask and strapped it quickly to her head. She was just a regular human after all, and if she wasn't careful, she could easily die from the noxious gases expelled by demons.

Under their feet came the sudden feeling as if the earth were shaking. But it was strange, for it rippled like waves, something that the ground didn't usually do. Sango recognized the sensation immediately for what it was and hurriedly waved to her cousin and sister. "Move!"

The ground cracked under their feet and all three girls let out gasps of shock. Sango jumped on Kirara's back, grasping at her sister's wrist. Rin ran toward the flaming youkai, feeling weak from the miasma, when a part of the ground rose up between Sango's outstretched hand and her own reaching fingers.

It rolled toward her, herding her away from those that would help her, and when she did not move, it tilted in a so that it appeared it was about to crush her. Rin's eyebrows rose and she immediately bolted. She could hear Kirara's growl somewhere above her and called out in return, but the moment the cat was visible, a large vine-like appendage would swing violently at Kirara.

A few times she glimpsed Inuyasha and had started to head toward him, calling out his name, but he was busy forcing off the root-vines with his transformed Tetsusaiga. Looking up, she glimpsed one of the mighty roots suddenly coming in a downward arc toward her. Her pupils dilated in fear, and she found herself frozen. She grew vaguely aware that someone was calling out to her, it sounded like Inuyasha, but she was lost.

An arm wrapped around her waist while she was still watching and tugged her swiftly out of the way. Butterflies floated in her stomach as the surge of climbing upward entered her, and then she was back on the ground again and the butterflies disappeared just as quickly as they had come, though they left her legs quaking nervously. A gasp escaped her lips as she realized what had almost happened and found that she was clinging tightly to someone.

Blinking, she moved her gaze so that she beheld gold. Her mouth opened in question, for briefly she thought that it was Inuyasha that had saved her, but she blushed immediately when she saw the emotional depravation in the beautiful gold eyes. It was Sesshoumaru, not Inuyasha that had come to her rescue.

Her set her down on the ground softly, making sure to be careful with her, as if she were a flower. "Stay close." He said. It was an order, but it was softened somehow, it didn't seem as sharp as Rin thought the situation called for.

Slowly, his hand moved to the hilt of one of the two swords that were sheathed at his waist, and from it he pulled a long, gleaming blade that shone brightly even in the miasma. Rin gasped as a dark aura suddenly flared out around it. The blade was menacing, it craved blood and the song of a thousand lost souls sang eerily in her head. She shivered involuntarily and Sesshoumaru sent a glance back her way briefly.

At the sight of the weapon, however, Rin had a sudden guilty feeling. She knew she was dead weight; she didn't have any battle skills like her cousins, and to top it off, she didn't even have a weapon to try and use. "I'm sorry." She apologized, though she knew that wasn't enough.

It wasn't good enough to say she was 'sorry' and not do anything about it.

Sesshoumaru looked back at her again for a moment, but turned away when he sensed the large roots heading their way again. They reeked of Naraku's foul stench, and Sesshoumaru found that he detested anything that carried his putrid odor.

The large vegetation came their way, weaving like a snake and tearing the ground beneath it simply with its momentum. Rocks flew in both directions while somewhere in the distance Sesshoumaru could pick up the screech of car alarms and the startled cries of humans. The turf that they occasionally trod upon muffled the stomping of their feet as they ran to escape.

Sesshoumaru struck out at it with Toukijin, cutting it to ribbons with just the sword's aura. Two more cropped up where the first had been, and when they had been dispensed, there were tree more to replace those. A never-ending flurry of them wound their way toward the pair, but Sesshoumaru stood firm. When not using Toukijin, he used his other demon powers, like his poisoned talons to tear at one that had nearly wound around him to pierce Rin.

While Sesshoumaru was slicing at the roots, Rin was searching for a weapon, but all that she could find were rocks, the largest of which were only as big as her fist. Picking them up, she looked at them precariously for a moment before tossing one to her right in hopes of diverting the attention of the root-things.

Rin shook her head at the silly idea as the rock merely bounced away undisturbed. What was she thinking? It wasn't like she was dealing with a hoard of snakes, someone was controlling the roots, and that someone was out of sight and sound at the moment. 'Probably that Naraku guy's controlling them.' She thought to herself as she prepared to launch another rock. She shivered at the memory of his crimson eyes. That guy made her skin crawl.

She tossed the stone in and with relief saw it bang hard against on of the smaller roots, making it whither for a moment, as if she had hit some kind of muscle. The larger ones didn't take any damage from her little rocks, but she was content that she was helping in some way.

Sesshoumaru didn't protest against her rocks, even though it wasn't making much of a difference, he supposed it was important to her in some way that she feel like she was helping, though he had it covered.

Glancing over his shoulder, he checked to make sure she was ok. His eyes widened momentarily as he spotted one of the sharp-tipped roots racing from behind headed straight for her. In his distraction, the ones that were working on the frontal assault sped their attack, forcing him to either pay attention to them or get cut.

"Rin!" He called out her name for the first time. She stopped immediately, staring at him with wide eyes. The root was coming on faster.

Slicing with Toukijin, Sesshoumaru dodged backward, grasping Rin by her shoulders and pulling her to the ground as the root passed by overhead. He crouched, Rin lying in his lap, stunned, as the sharp edge curved downward towards them with incredibly speed. He dodged backwards again, wielding Toukijin in one hand, and holding tightly to Rin with his other. Parrying the roots' advances, he continued to dodge to the sides.

He grit his teeth and sheathed Toukijin in a sudden decision. Rin looked at him, unsure of what he was thinking as he lifted a single, glowing hand and his poison whip was suddenly lashing out at the enemy. Rin's eyes grew wide, she had never seen anything like that before, and he seemed so used to using it, a simple movement of his wrist, sent the ribbon of energy dancing, slithering like a snake through the air toward it's next opponent.

The planet-like substances seethed and bubbled, hissing as the venom crushed them. Even when the whip had darted away, they were being eaten away at a swift pace.

After what seemed like only a few seconds, the army of reaching vines had been totally disposed of, not one had sprouted out of the miasma to replace it's fallen comrades. Rin could still hear Inuyasha and her cousins battling, though she couldn't tell where. The miasma was distorting her hearing somehow so that they sounded like they were everywhere at once. Very close and very near. Or maybe it was just her human senses that were easily betrayed.

Sesshoumaru let her cautiously to her feet again, though he stayed very close to her still, hovering near her like he was afraid of losing her. She felt safe, but was very self-conscious about how it must look to have him standing so near. She blushed involuntarily briefly, but managed to keep her head. She glanced around, trying to reach out with her miko senses for Kagome, or anyone relatively familiar, even Naraku. But there was nothing but Sesshoumaru. She was puzzled at this and looked up at him in question. She opened her mouth to question him on whether he was experiencing the same thing when she noticed he was bleeding.

"Oh! Sesshoumaru-san!" She said, her brow furrowing in concern. He had been hurt because of her, right? She knew how fast he could move, and that he was a very good fighter. If she hadn't been there to hamper him, he would have been able to finish them off without even batting an eyelash.

He looked at her suddenly, his calm exterior not betraying one of his thoughts. She tugged on his shoulder, trying to point out the blood to him. "You're hurt." She informed him in a worried tone.

He took one look at it and turned back to stare at her blankly again. "I'm fine." He assured her in the usual bland tone that he always had.

"But," Rin protested uneasily. It looked like a lot of blood to her, but then again, what hurt a human didn't always hurt a demon. Maybe he hadn't felt it?

To satisfy her, he tore the fabric so that she could see that the wound was already healed, and that the blood was just a stain now. He truly was fine. Rin gave him a wide-eyed look briefly before smiling. "I'm glad." She informed him, then remember what was going on and turned away to try and reach for her cousin again.

Sesshoumaru stared at her idly for a moment, wanting to smile in return, but his lips refused to twitch into that ridiculous expression. A warm feeling had become embedded in his chest somewhere and despite his prodding it would not leave while she smiled so nicely up at him. He was glad when she turned away and the warm feeling started to diminish. Frowning to himself, he hoped that he wasn't becoming too attached to the little human girl. He would not become his father or his half-breed brother. . .

Sorry 'bout that wait. I just fell into a heap of laziness, it's my own fault. Sigh

Thanks for sticking with me though, everyone. I appreciate it. And for your continued reviewing and support.

Thanks again, and I hope to update soon! Ja'ne!

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