A/N: Written as a giftfic for Aiffe/Shiinabambi in the lj community iy(underscore)flashfic's January round.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha

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At seventeen, Onigumo was very good at what he did, but that's not to say that everything always went smoothly. He tried his best to be discreet, but it was impossible to be completely silent when raping and pillaging, murdering and betraying, etc, and it seemed that he was always running away from one place or another. He'd been lucky thus far, always evading capture by the narrowest of margins, but luck has a horrible habit of running out.

But Onigumo was an opportunist through and through, and had a knack for making his own luck.

After one particularly close call, Onigumo was forced to flee from a castle without managing to set it on fire first. He tore into the woods at top speed, several well-armed guards in tow. Somehow, by darting in between the trees at top speed he managed to lose them; their heavy armor and the fact that they'd spent the last few uneventful months leaning sleepily against the palace gates meant that they were no match for Onigumo's quick pace.

While continuing to increase the distance between himself and the guards who had already run out of breath and gone back to the castle, Onigumo mentally congratulated himself for his swift escape, while simultaneously attempting to berate himself for allowing himself to almost be captured. Wrapped up in his own convoluted thoughts, Onigumo didn't even see the boy until he was flying through the air towards his face in a flash of red and white.

"Sankontessou!" it yelled, as Onigumo twisted away as quickly as possible. While he had protected most of his body from the blow, the attack had managed to clip his forearm. The wound was deep, the blood already soaking his shirt.

'This must be the wild hanyou boy the maids were talking about,' he thought, taking in the boy's appearance before taking off back into the safety of the woods. His attacker looked to be no more than eight years old, was dressed completely in red, and had long white hair topped by two very unusual ears.

Onigumo ran until the loss of blood and fatigue of the day caught up with him. He collapsed at the base of a large tree and began to tend to his wound, idly wondering why the small boy hadn't pursued him through the woods. It was obvious that the hanyou had some power, and caught off-guard like he was, it would have been easy to kill him without much difficulty.

As he drifted off to sleep, he remembered the conversation he'd overheard back at the castle earlier in the day about the hanyou boy.

"I saw the oddest thing in the woods the other day while I was doing the laundry…it was a little boy with dog ears! I screamed when I saw him and he ran away, it was terrifying!"

"Oh, Megumi-chan…hasn't anyone told you? That boy is Inuyasha. His mother was Izayoi, the lord's eldest daughter. When she died two years ago the lord threw him out of the castle and the village, and told him to never come back. He was still bitter that his daughter had seen it fit to marry a youkai, especially one who abandoned her as soon as the boy was born, and proclaimed that the boy had died, although we all see him running about the woods from time to time…poor thing."

Onigumo had stopped listening at that point, as their idle chatter was much less amusing than the look of sheer horror that contorted their faces when he burst through the paper door and slit their throats. He smiled at the memory. Unfortunately, their screaming was what had forced him to flee, but it was a pleasant memory, nonetheless.

He found himself wondering about the life of the small boy, born into a noble family, but thrown out for his demon blood. He was only eight years old and was all alone.

'I know what it's like to be all alone in the world, kid,' he thought, remembering the way his family had abandoned him. Not that they had been all that loving and supportive, in fact it was quite the opposite, but sometimes the loneliness hurt even more than the beatings. He had been young and naïve and impressionable and…

'Wait a minute,' he thought, eyes suddenly flying open, 'He's perfect' With a quiet laugh in the back of his throat and a smile on his face, Onigumo finally drifted off to sleep.

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The next morning, Onigumo awoke with a stiff neck and a head full of evil plans. The wound on his arm was still painful, but looked like it would heal just fine, although it would probably leave a scar. After procuring a few rabbits that would do nicely for breakfast, Onigumo backtracked and finally came upon the clearing where he'd met the boy the night before.

"Inuyasha?" he called, shielding his eyes from the bright morning sun, "Inuyasha, are you still here?" He heard something shift up in the branches of a nearby tree, but Inuyasha made no move to come down. "My name is Onigumo. I'm not going to hurt you, Inuyasha; I just want to talk to you. And look! I brought some rabbits, we can have breakfast!"

"I don't need your help, I can hunt fine," Inuyasha muttered warily, jumping out of the tree and landing as far away from Onigumo as possible, "what do you want?" Onigumo hid a smile, managing to muster a misty-eyed look.

"You look just like your mother, Inuyasha," he lied, deceit oozing from every pore. Inuyasha's guarded stance faded a bit as he bought into the lie.

"You…you knew my mother?" Inuyasha asked, eyes wide.

"Yes, I used to be a guard at her castle. Lady Izayoi was very beautiful." Onigumo sighed dramatically, "It's such a shame she passed away."

"Yeah," Inuyasha said, "but, what do you want? Why are you here? I was thrown out of the village when haha-ue died." Onigumo smiled.

"I couldn't let my poor lady's young son live alone no matter what her father ordered," he said, "would you like to come and travel with me? All I ask is one small favor." Inuyasha wrung his hands together, still not completely sure he could trust the man, but the prospect of companionship made Onigumo's offer extremely tempting.

"What kind of favor?"

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Inuyasha hid in a tree by the road and waited for Onigumo's signal. The man had explained to Inuyasha that they were in dire need of funds with which to travel. He knew that the lord of the castle and his youngest daughter would be passing by within the next three days, bundles of riches in tow. All Inuyasha needed to do was to distract the guards so Onigumo could sneak into the cart that held the treasure that would fund their adventures. The boy protested at first, but Onigumo assured him that the lord deserved it. Hadn't he cruelly thrown Inuyasha out without a second thought?

Inuyasha's heartbeat quickened as he saw Onigumo step out of the brush on the opposite side of the road and heard the carts approach. Two carts came into view, slowed down, and eventually stopped. One particularly burly looking guard approached Onigumo to kindly ask him to clear the way for the lord and his daughter. Onigumo pulled out his sword. That was the signal!

Inuyasha leapt from the tree shouting, "Sankontessou!" at the top of his lungs, managing to take out two guards and sending most of the rest of them running as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Onigumo made short work of the guard who had approached him, and made his way to the first of the two carts.

Inuyasha stood dumbly by the side of the road and idly wondered why Onigumo was climbing into the first cart which held the lord and his daughter rather than the second that was filled with riches before a few of the guards that had fled finally worked up the courage to do their jobs and finally protect their lord. Inuyasha leapt into the air, ready to strike again when he heard a shrill female scream. Onigumo was in the lord's cart, and the young princess was screaming and trying to scramble out. Inuyasha finally got a clear look at the girl's face.

"Haha-ue!" he yelled, for a moment forgetting that the girl could not possibly be his mother. He suddenly realized Onigumo's true malicious intent. He planned on murdering the lord right before his daughter's eyes and then kidnapping her. Inuyasha was disgusted at the thought of Onigumo harming a girl that looked so like his mother. In one swift motion he pushed all the guards that had surrounded him away and took hold of the girl's waist, leaping into the air and dragging her along, back into the safety of the woods.

"Are you okay?" he panted, gently setting her down on the forest floor. The girl cried and screamed, pulling herself out of Inuyasha's arms as quickly as possible.

"You freak!" she yelled, running as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, the guards who had previously been distracted by Inuyasha were able to take action and subdued Onigumo, kicking and punching him until he passed out. A quick death was too good for someone who went to such great lengths to murder the lord. He was scheduled to be executed on the next new moon.

Onigumo was bound, but far from broken. After a week of lying in a dark prison, he managed to steal a sword from the guard who brought him meals, and succeeded in murdering everyone who stood in his way. After setting the castle itself on fire, Onigumo ran off into the woods intent on finding the little boy who had nearly gotten him killed.

He made his way through the woods clutching the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles were white. Inuyasha's little campsite was empty, and looked like it had been abandoned some time ago. Inuyasha had decided that living so close to the place where he had lived with his mother was too painful, and had decided to go off to find somewhere else to live.

Never breaking a sweat, Onigumo laughed in his throat and sheathed his sword.

"The hunt is on then, Inuyasha," he said, "someday I will find you."