Okay, here is another fic about Sesshoumaru, brought to you my me, Blahsblah2001! (I don't own Sesshoumaru, just so you know, or any other characters and even if I do own them I give them to Romiko, for letting me borrow her lovely ones to write fanfictions about.)

Warning: Sesshoumaru may be a bit OOC, because 1: This takes place pre-series, pre-Jaken and pre-pretty much anything else, and 2: The In Character Sesshoumaru is a complete blank, nice to look at, hell to write for.

Also, this story is completed, but I'm going to upload it chapter by chapter, just because it gets read more if there's more than one entry for it on the update board.

Chapter warning: Death, and lots of it.

Sesshoumaru stood on the rock, watching as the water washed around him and then over the falls. He liked this rock, it was a nice place to sit, a nice place to think, and the sound of the water drowned out any would-be distractions, allowing him to focus completely on whatever it was he wanted.

Or, that is, it had been.

Now, he stood on the rock and glared with distaste at the humans who had gathered on the bank. Ruffians and miscreants, by the look of them. They wore battered and mismatched armor, reeked of blood and smoke, and, more importantly, they were pissing him off.

He wondered which would be less work, killing them all or just leaving.

He had just decided on leaving when one of them, carrying what was obviously a new sword, started to wade into the currant toward him. Sesshoumaru guessed it was the sword that gave him such confidence, because he held the thing in front of him, like it could protect him from the specter of death himself. He was mistaken, incidentally, but at that moment he was quite sure he could take on anyone in the world and win.

It helped a bit that he thought he was about to take on a human woman, instead of the decidedly male youkai that actually stood before him. He may have been slightly drunk at the time as well, the last village had had quite an excess of both women and sake, a pleasant combination.

"Watcha doin all the way out there, darling?" He asked. "Why don't you come back in here?"

Sesshoumaru didn't know if he was kidding or not, but hoped for the human's sake that he was not. Drops of poison began to drop from his claws, hitting the rock with a sizzle lost in the rush of the water. The human had almost reached the rock.

"Me and my friends will take real good care of you, eh?" The man drew his sword. "Come down nice and easy, and I won't have to hurt you, babe."

Sesshoumaru wasn't listening anymore, he was envisioning what would be happening to this man right now if he was carrying his father's tessaiga, a daydream he fell back on more and more recently. For this reason he didn't notice as the man reached the rock. He did notice, however, when the man, on one second, it seemed, jumped on top of the rock, grabbed a fistful of his long white hair, and held the sword to his throat.

"Gotter, boys!" He yelled back to his companions on the shore. He was proven quite wrong a few seconds later when Sesshoumaru's claws entered his chest, the poison burning him to death in a matter of seconds.

Sesshoumaru groaned, the smell of burnt human was going to be clinging to him for days now, it was one of those Smells That Don't Wash Out.

Ah well, while he was already covered in the smell he may as well take out the jerks on the bank. They didn't lessen their fate by running. Instead they chose to throw rocks at him, an act of supreme stupidity.

He watched with not a small amount of satisfaction as several of the men were taken out at once by his whip. The rest of them decided to run, but it was too late, for they had incurred his vengeance. He followed them through the woods, taking them off in ones and twos. The last was incredibly fast, but Sesshoumaru got him... Just as he dove into a clearing with the rest of the camp. He let out a strangled scream as he died, and all eyes turned to the youkai, whose whip returned to him and disappeared.

He wanted to leave, the smell of fires and burnt food and blood and human were too overpowering. However, the dozen or so men drawing their swords and rushing at him seemed to have other ideas for what he should do. These ideas leaned less toward 'leave' and more toward 'die.'

He sighed, releasing the whip again. It slashed out once, taking the number of assailants down significantly. The remainder glanced at the remains of their friends. Sesshoumaru could almost hear rusty wheels turning in their heads. Then realization dawned and they sheathed their swords and ran.

Sesshoumaru turned to leave when a small sound caught his pointed ear. It was a whimper, a bit out place in his current position. He decided to ignore it, whatever it was could take care of itself. And if it couldn't, well that was just too bad.

But as he headed into he forest he couldn't help but look back, to see if he heard the sound again.

He did.

And then he thought, and wondered if one of these things that would eventually come back to haunt him, the curiosity of what the thing had been. The sound came a third time, less like a whimper and more like a sob. He decided hell with it and turned back to the clearing. It didn't take even his sharp hearing to lead him to the largest tent in the camp. One boot was still by the door, leading him to the conclusion that whoever was inside had left in a hurry.

Something rustled inside. Hr drew one of the canvas door flaps aside, ducking to go through the short entryway, and was rewarded with a sharp kick to the chest.

This neither hurt nor overbalanced him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't surprised. Without advancing further he turned a critical eye on his assailant. For a moment he was sure he was mistaken, but he was not.

A human woman of about twenty glared at him from the ground. Her hands and feet were bound, and the fact that her shirt was pushed dangerously far back over her shoulders gave him a pretty good idea of what had been happening in the tent when he arrived.

Not his problem.

"Who are you?" She asked him. This also, surprised him. Most humans he had seen either shouted at him that his doom was approaching or, as was more common for women, huddled in a corner and watched the youkai go by.

"It's not your concern."

"What did you do, kill the last head guy? To the victor go the spoils, eh? Well I hope you've got some good ribs." She made like to kick him again.

"Fine. I'll just leave."

"Wait! Won't you at least untie me? You know as soon as you're gone the rest of those brutes will come back."

Sesshoumaru very much doubted that.

"I get the impression you can handle yourself."

"You haven't even got a sword." The woman observed. "Which means you scared those men off another way. Which leaves a total of one conclusion."

"Which would be?" Sesshoumaru asked, trying to act as if he didn't care.

"You're a youkai."

"Very good. However, I already was, in fact, aware of this. Any other brilliant observations?"

"... No actually."

"Then..." Sesshoumaru left the thought unfinished as he caught the strong smell of blood. This wasn't unusual. The camp, thanks to him, reeked of human blood. But this was different. This blood came from the woman. He looked closer and saw she had a slash mark across her side. It was bleeding quite badly, he wondered why he hadn't realized it earlier.

Not that he cared or anything. Humans were remarkably fragile, they died all the time. But...

"You're bleeding."

"Who's the one with the brilliant observations now? Yeah, that bastard slashed me." She grinned at me, an evil smile that almost reminded him of his own rarely seen smile. "I kicked him in the wrong place, he got pretty pissed."

"I've never met a woman who speaks like you do. Why?"

"I dunno, but me neither. Hey, about these ropes-"

Sesshoumaru sighed, knowing their conversation was over. Flicking the whip twice, it cut cleanly through the two sets of ropes. As they dropped to the floor, Sesshoumaru waited for the woman to bolt. He could catch and kill her easily, but suddenly he wasn't in the mood.

He was so busy being disappointed that she had run that he didn't realize that she hadn't moved.

She rubbed her wrists, trying to get the blood flowing back into her hands and feet. Sesshoumaru watched with carefully detached interest as she searched around the tent for something, eventually coming up with the silk sleeping pallet. She tore some strips off it, of varying lengths and widths. And then, to Sesshoumaru's never ending surprise, she shucked off her shirt and carefully examined the wound on her side.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Usually he didn't swear, but the switchboard operator in his brain had just slammed on the panic button, maybe hitting a few others that happened to be nearby.

"Oh? Does it bother you? That's a first."

"No," Sesshoumaru said, directing his interest at anything in the tent but the woman. "But I've never met a woman who would do that, either."

"Really? That's surprising." The woman nodded, content, and started to wrap the strips around her midsection. "Well good news. I'm not gonna die."

Sesshoumaru didn't respond. It was a task slightly more difficult than he would have liked.

"Sure did bleed a lot though. I hate that kind of cut, they hurt like hell."

She put her shirt back on, examining the bloodstained tear with distaste.

"You can look now, Fluffy."

"What?" This woman got weirder and weirder. "Fluffy?"

"Yeah. You wouldn't tell me your name, so I gave you one."

"... But why fluffy?" He had a sinking feeling he knew the answer.

"Because of that huge fluffy thing, idiot. Why else?" She stood up, her head almost touching the top of the tent. "Hey can I get out of here?"

Sesshoumaru stepped backwards, removing himself from the doorway. The woman grinned again, following him out of the tent. Not that there was much to grin at. Riderless horses ambled about, picking at whatever grass hadn't been crushed yet. Several trees that had gotten in the way of Sesshoumaru's whip lay fallen on the ground like giant pick up sticks. One of the tents was on fire.

He felt relatively certain that once she saw the bodies on the ground she would realize what he had done and realize what, or who, she was dealing with. And then, of course, she would either run off or possibly, and this was seeming more and more likely, try to fight him. She did neither of these things, instead she approached one of the horses and began to root through the saddlebags.

"What are you looking for?"

"Some article of clothing that doesn't reek of fresh blood. I go two steps into the forest wearing this and I'll be eaten alive."

That, too, Sesshoumaru doubted. By the smell of it, everything within a five mile radius of the daiyoukai had vacated the premises.

She found a blue kimono, and quickly changed into it. It was too big for her, and a little more baggy then the design had intended. Around her middle she tied a belt of a bluish green.

"Isn't it weird that they would have taken this? I used to know the guy who had this. He lived in my village and I always envied it. I would suppose he's dead now."

"Why automatically assume that?"

She pulled a pair of swords from the bags.

"His katana and wakizashi. He loved these swords more than his children. He must have told the story of how his commanding officer left them to him a thousand times. If they're here he died protecting them."

"That's incredibly cynical."

"It's also very true."

She put the swords back.

"I'd take them but I think his ghost would haunt me into eternity. There's gotta be a decent sword around here, though."

Something sparked in Sesshoumaru's memory.

"Wait here."

He went back through the forest, retracing his steps until he came back to the rock where all of this had started. Out by his rock, the armor of the unfortunate man sparkled in the water. His body had long since dissolved in the poison. Among the armor he found what he was looking for, the man's sword.

After looking more carefully at it. Sesshoumaru saw why the man had gotten such confidence from it. The handle was carved into the shape of a dragon, the design extending almost the full three feet of the blade. The blade itself was a marvel. It looked as if it could cut a line through air itself.

He slid the sword back into it's sheath and headed back toward the camp. On the way back he managed to convince himself that she wouldn't be there. No woman, no human woman, no matter how brave or strong or powerful, hung around alone in forests with youkai. It just didn't happen. That he had learned from experience.

She wouldn't be there.

But she was. Looked kinda bored, too.

"There you are! I was starting to think maybe you took off on me."

Wordlessly, he handed her the sword. She pulled it out of the sheath, admiring the carvings as he had.

"That's a really sharp blade." She breathed. She picked a blade of grass, dropping it onto the blade. It was cut cleanly in half.

"Never seen anything like that before. What is it, youkai blade?"

"No, it's human. I don't know where it's from, though."

"Well thank you. I will use it well." She slid the sheathed sword into her belt. "I've always wanted to say that, you know."

"Where will you go?" Sesshoumaru asked. "I don't care or anything, but most of the villages in this area will react badly to a woman dressed as a man."

"Then I'll just have to leave the area, won't I? Goodbye, Fluffy. Maybe we'll meet again."

"I very much doubt it."

The woman walked off into the trees, and Sesshoumaru went back to the water, trying to get the smell of human off him. The blood staining the bank didn't help any. In the end he just gave up and sat on his rock, watching the water around him rush madly off the cliff to the lake below.

He may have continued sitting there for the next day or so, lost in thought, if the topic he had decided to think about, mostly out of annoyance, was how nasty humans smelled, and whether or not they did this for the single purpose of pissing him off.

And as he thought about this, it occurred to him that that woman, whatever her name had been, didn't smell as bad as most humans did.

But that was stupid. All humans smelled the same. Didn't they?

The more he tried to convince himself that it had just been his imagination, the more certain he was that she did, in fact, smell different from the others. Finally, tired of arguing with himself, he decided to go and find out for himself.

Yaaay! New chapter up tomorrow, because I finally got some unexpected but still unlimited computer access!