The Companion

Chapter II: The Flying Fox

Japanese Vocabulary:

Miko: A Shinto (Japanese Religion) priestess, or a female with holy powers. Kagome, Kikyo, and Kaede are all considered to be mikos.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." Anais Nin

After a few months of seeing to matters at home, Sesshoumaru knew that he should be on patrol again. Although he could technically stay at home and let his spies come to him with their reports, he felt that doing so would both bore and weaken him. In order to remain strong (and keep his sanity intact), he had to continuously travel and fight with those who lacked the intelligence not to oppose him. However, his ambitions to leave were met with a small dilemma: Rin was still receiving training from Gella. He did not desire to take her away from her lessons, but he was reluctant to let Gella accompany them as well. He did not even consider leaving the small girl behind, though he told himself it was because it would be foolish for her to stay unprotected in a household full of youkai. He eventually decided that the most logical option would be to simply go on a relatively short patrol and to make sure that Rin continued to practice what she had already learned.

Truthfully, he was rather proud of his little shadow. She already knew all of the basics of fighting without a weapon, and Gella would soon be instructing her on her katas, as well. Sesshoumaru had also decided that if he was going to have a human female instructed in the art of combat, he might as well defy other social taboos and educate the girl. Since Rin was quite bright (sometimes to the point that it unnerved him), Sesshoumaru thought himself up to the task of teaching her. If he grew weary of the chore, he could always delegate to Jaken…

So the days of Sesshoumaru's patrol passed quickly by, with the taiyoukai educating Rin in both human and youkai history, science, math, and language. Sesshoumaru's patience and knowledge were put to the test with Rin's seemingly endless questions. Since Rin was learning to fight, it also amused him to teach her a bit of war strategy. The topic he placed the most emphasis on, however, was literacy; he knew that she would have more access to useful knowledge if she could read the texts in his library when they returned.

The nights, on the other hand, were growing steadily colder, and he often had to let Rin use his Mokomoko-sama to keep warm. He added the commission of warmer clothes for his growing ward to his mental list of things to do when they returned home. He also planned to expand his gardens, since Rin seemed to take such joys in the wild blooms during their travels.

After a little over a week of travel, Sesshoumaru's company came upon an odd-smelling, steep cliff that Sesshoumaru decided was too dangerous for Rin to investigate with him. He left her in the care of Jaken and Ah-Un, though the former quickly fell asleep. Immediately bored and irritated with the sound of Jaken's snoring, Rin left to find some flowers to pick and later weave into Sesshoumaru's hair during her lessons that night. Finding a small meadow with enough wild flowers to suit Rin's needs, she slowly began making her selection, smelling each individual flower that she chose. Ah-Un went to lay in the shade, sniffing the air every few moments and alert for possible danger.

At one point, Rin saw both the heads turn sharply in the same direction and she stiffened, thinking that they had sensed the presence of another youkai. She cautiously moved closer to her guardians, but they soon relaxed and Rin returned to her task. When Rin felt that she had enough flowers, she crouched down near Ah-Un and began practicing to write the new words that Sesshoumaru had taught her. She was so immersed in her task, that the sound of a small voice asking what she was doing completely took her by surprise.

Due to the fact that Rin had spent several months training to counteract surprise attacks, she reacted without thinking and spun around to kick her perceived enemy and the voice that had startled her so badly. A small orange blur went flying with the contact, and she heard Ah-Un emit what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle as the little fur ball screamed "Kaaagoommeee!"

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Not far away, a very irritated miko and her companions were traveling in search of Naraku and shards from the sacred jewel. Although Kagome loved her friends and wouldn't trade any of them for the world, they sometimes possessed the annoying habit to irritate her beyond all reason. Today was apparently going to be one of those days where they demonstrated how much they had perfected said talent and see how far they could push her until she simply snapped. Inuyasha and Shippou had been quarreling so much that she had eventually told them to separate or she would not be held responsible for the resulting purifications. Shippou had scampered off and Inuyasha was now sulking, but at least everything was quiet. After a good five minutes of peace, Kagome let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the day might just be salvageable, after all. She took in another wonderful, calming breath-

"Kaaagoommeee!"

-and let it out in a scream. "SIT! Sit, sit, sit, sitsitsitsitsitsitSIT!"

Spitting out the dirt that he had been forced to swallow, Inuyasha snarled before turning and yelling back at the miko responsible. "Dammit, what the HELL was that for, wench?"

Kagome merely blinked, and then looked around for her small ball of orange fluff. Not seeing him, she slowly paled. "If you didn't make Shippou yell, Inuyasha, what did?"

Inuyasha snarled again, and took off in the direction that the scream had come from.

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Back at the cliff, Sesshoumaru had just finished flicking the rougue-bat youkai blood from his sword when he also heard the yell. Recognizing the bawled name, Sesshoumaru growled, knowing that Inuyasha would never be far from the fox kit or the miko. Resigned with the fact that his day was about to greatly deteriorate, Sesshoumaru readied himself for trading insults with his half-sibling and pummeling him into the dirt where he belonged. With a sigh, he converted to his energy form and began heading toward the bane of his existence.

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Quote of the day:

"Never moon a werewolf." Anon.

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A/N: This story in on hold until it is complete, for the simple fact that I cannot write consecutive chapters. This may take some time, since it is showing several signs of being completely epic… but it shall be done! Thanks to animeangel665, MySoulYourPuppet, Xenus, and MoreEverything for the reviews! You officially have my undying love and devotion. Also, another wonderful thanks to my beta, Yestreen, who takes my charcoal and turns it into diamonds. Without you, many readers would be left very confused…