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Update Dates: Sundays and Thursdays

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The War Between Races
Chapter 12 - Do What You Want

By: Scaevola
Published 9/16/05
Updated 10/24/05

Sesshomaru hurried down the slopes of the mountain. The cold air whipped his face as he ran, numbing his ears and nose. He breathed deeply from the exertion. It was not like him to run like this, but he needed to make sure that Koga had not done anything more than take the village.

Although he had been planning on taking the village, Koga had done it without orders. Sesshomaru had decided he'd let the wolf get away with that offense, but if he had done anything else without orders...well, Sesshomaru would be far from happy.

The village was in view now, he could see the smoke rising from it and the orange glow of the flames on the houses. People swarmed around the village, some trying to flee, while others pursued. The ones who fled never made it far. Demons and wolves were far faster than humans, and many didn't show any mercy. It was not a pleasant way to die.

Behind Sesshomaru could hear the footfalls of a bunch of fellow inuyoukai who had followed him. If Koga had decided to abandon Sesshomaru and fight the humans on his own, he may very well attack Sesshomaru. The inuyoukai refused staying in the camp when they knew their leader may be in danger.

Occasionally one of the inuyoukai or one of the dog's would slip in the snow, especially when the lower layers had compacted and frozen into a slippery ice, but none paid any mind when another fell. Reaching the village was first priority.

When they finally did reach the village, Sesshomaru could see Koga standing just outside the gates of the village, his arms crossed in front of him and his feet shoulder length apart, smirking as he watched his wolf youkai tear villagers apart.

Koga appeared to be unaware of the new arrivals, laughing when he saw one human reach the gate and try to beg for mercy, only to be attacked from behind by three wolves.

Sesshomaru didn't laugh. He didn't find many things funny. He was slightly confused however by the humans begging. How could the pitiful man even think that the demons would spare him? Better to have simply taken his own life before the demons had a chance to kill him. At least then he would die without having to feel his flesh be torn apart.

It was then that Koga noticed Sesshomaru. He gave a start, his eyes widening, before he quickly bowed to Sesshomaru. His blue eyes never left Sesshomaru's face however. So, he obviously didn't trust Sesshomaru to not attack him when he let his guard down.

Sesshomaru stepped forward, and nearly smiled when he saw the wolf flinch. Yes, he knew he had done wrong, and was only now thinking of the consequences. Sesshomaru glanced at the village then. He had done something that Sesshomaru would have ordered anyway, so perhaps the wolf did not deserve to be punished.

"You disobeyed Kaito and Ishimaru, Koga. By doing that, you disobeyed me." stated Sesshomaru, his voice like ice.

Koga hurried to explain. "I knew you would have ordered it anyway Lord Sesshomaru, so I thought that I would save you the trouble and-"

"Normally you would be punished severely for disobeyed." cut in Sesshomaru. He glanced at the village again, ignoring the screams that rose from it. "However, you are correct. I would have ordered it to be done. Perhaps I would have gone about it more efficiently, yet it would have been done anyway. So I will be lenient this time and allow this to go. If you disobey orders once more however..." he let the threat hang in the air.

Koga visibly flinched at the words. Angering Sesshomaru was not a wise thing to do. Especially when Sesshomaru had so much power as the western lord.

Sesshomaru left the wolf to go and see the village. He stepped over the dead humans and ignored the wolves that raced past him, as well as the cackling wolf demons, their claws dripping with blood.

"Clean up this mess." he ordered over his shoulder.

He didn't wait to see if they obeyed. He knew they would. The dead humans and their body parts would have to be dragged out of the village. Sesshomaru would not force his army to reside in a village full of the dead.

He stepped over a human, who was still clinging to life. He tried to say something to Sesshomaru, but all he managed to make was a small gurgling sound as blood flooded his mouth.

Sesshomaru glanced at him before walking on. He would not bother to kill the man - he would die soon enough. Perhaps if there was a human who was missing a limb and would still live he would have stopped to kill the human, but not someone who already smelled of death.

He soon noticed that Koga was following him. He no longer seemed to be carrying himself so arrogantly. His shoulder had dropped a little, and he seemed to be watching Sesshomaru warily, as though he was afraid Sesshomaru might turn around and attack him at any time.

The screams had begun to die down, most likely whatever humans that had been in the village earlier today were either dead or had somehow escaped. Sesshomaru did not bother sending anyone out to see if any humans had escaped. Many would freeze to death in the night, and the ones that didn't wouldn't be able to make it very far.

Sesshomaru glanced at the buildings that he passed. Surprisingly, many were still intact. The fire didn't seem to be spreading quickly, which was just as well. Sesshomaru didn't quite feel like capturing a village simply to burn it down.

He made a mental note to ask Koga how that fire had started. If the wolf demon had ordered it, then perhaps he should be punished after all. If that fire had spread and burnt too much of the village, then it would have defeated the purpose of capturing it in the first place.

As the wolf demons realized that their weren't any humans left standing, they slowly began to gather the corpses and pile them just outside of the village. Tonight they would burn the bodies. Sesshomaru shuddered. The smell of funeral pyres was disgusting to his sense of smell, but it seemed they had to clean up the village somehow.

Several of the inuyoukai went to help the wolf youkai gather the bodies, but Sesshomaru called them back.

"They're the ones who killed them. Let them clean the bodies up." He glanced over his shoulder at one of them. Kitaru he thought his name was. "Kitaru, go back and tell Kaito and Ishimaru that the village is empty now."

Soon Sesshomaru came to a larger building, apparently the village headsman's hut. He stepped inside and blood splattered walls greeted him. Of to the side was an elderly couple, they're faces a mangled mess covered in blood and wounds. He spared them a glance before he noticed a small hand sticking out from behind a door.

He walked over to it an pulled the door open to see a small girl on the floor of the closet.

It was the same girl he had seen in the clearing making her snowman. The one who had made her snowman look like Sesshomaru, and hadn't even feared him in the slightest.

He looked at her for a long time in silence. Her kimono was drench with blood - her blood - all oozing out of the gashes in her chest, the wounds she had taken from the demon's claws and the wolves' teeth. For some reason, he was feeling sadness. He didn't know why, he had never felt sadness or regret over something so small.

In fact, he hadn't felt anything for any of the humans he'd seen so far in the village. Not even when they were still alive and screaming. Behind him, Sesshomaru could hear two wolf youkai lifting the elderly couple up and carrying them out of the hut. A third wolf youkai walked up behind him.

"Do you want me to remove her, Lord Sesshomaru?" he asked.

Sesshomaru shook his head no, still staring at the girl. He waited until the wolf youkai had left before he drew Tensaiga. He waited until the demons from the other side appeared before he swung the sword, killing the demons. The wounds on the girl's chest healed and her eyes opened.

She stared at him for a moment before turning to look at the hut around her. The blood on the floors and on the walls was still there, but what she was obviously seeking - the elderly couple - wasn't.

He sighed and began to walk away, leaving the girl where she was. He had revived the girl, and he still wasn't sure why. But he intended to leave the girl alone for now.

He stopped when he realized the girl was following him. He turned to look at her then, she was staring right at him, brown eyes meeting gold.

"What are you doing, human?" he asked.

"You saved me." she said, as if that explained everything.

He stood there silently, waiting for her to go on, but when she didn't, he simple turned away from her and continued walking. "Do what you want." he said.

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There was no light shining through the branches of the tall trees in the early morning. Kagome and InuYasha were both awake, and one particular hanyou was painfully aware of the fact that the sun had not yet risen. He would occasionally finger his dark hair or glare at his hands, at though he were angry with them. Perhaps he was.

"You said you'll change back when the sun rises, right?" asked Kagome.

"Feh. Of course." snapped InuYasha.

Kagome glared at him for snapping at her, but she said nothing. She realized awhile ago that he was just angry when he was human, usually because he felt so weak as a human.

She watched him from the corner of her eye as she ate some of the food that had been in her pack. InuYasha had gone back to the horse and gotten her things earlier, and thankfully they had some food in one of the compartments.

Sitting on a fallen tree, he occasionally threw a few logs into the fire to try and keep it alive and burning. He huddled closer to the fire to try and keep warm, but the cold air seemed to take all the warmth out of him as quick as the fire gave any.

He sat back and forced himself to ignore the cold, hoping the Princess hadn't noticed how he shivered before. He wasn't some weakling - he would be able to handle the cold. But he was painfully aware of his now rosy cheeks and blue lips. They were so cold they seemed like they were burning.

Finally, the first glimmers of daylight began to shine through the leaves. InuYasha stood expectantly, waiting for the change to take place. He smirked as Kagome looked on with interest.

The princess couldn't help but gasp when she saw it happen. She'd never seen anything like it. He seemed to...pulse as the sun rose. With each pulse his demon features returned. His hair turned silver, his normal ears appeared on his head as his human ears disappeared, and his human nails grew into his normal demon claws.

When the transformation had finished, InuYasha inspected his claws. He turned to see the princess staring at him, her mouth agape. He smirked again. He walked over and picked up her bag, and then said.

"Hurry up and finish eating. I want to reach Kirei before nightfall." he said.

Kagome, who was still staring at him, exclaimed, "But it's a two day trip on horseback! On foot it'll be four if not five!"

InuYasha glanced at her, and laughed. "Yes, on foot it would take four or five days, and on horseback it would take two, but who said we're going to be traveling that way?"

Kagome thought for a moment. What could he possibly mean? What other ways could they travel? She tried to think of ways to travel as she ate, but couldn't think of any way faster than horseback.

While she was eating, InuYasha sat and leaned back against the tree, closing his eyes. He liked to simply relax like this sometimes. Preferably in a tree branch, but he didn't want the Princess to think he had left her, so he stayed in sight.

He waited until Kagome had finished eating before he walked over and crouched down in front of her.

"Get on." he said. "We'll reach Kirei by nightfall if I carry you."

"O-On top of you?" she stuttered. "I'm not doing that!"

InuYasha rolled his eyes. "If you don't, we'll be walking for four days! So you make the choice, get back to safety at your home tonight, or take our time and risk running into more problems?"

Kagome was about to refuse, but she stopped herself, knowing that she was just being childish. InuYasha was right, if she did let him carry her, they would move a lot fast. She nodded and stepped forward to climb on his back.

InuYasha crouched again and let her get on. She blushed when she got on and wrapped her legs around it. It somehow felt too...intimate. Unbidden thoughts came to her mind when she felt InuYasha's muscles flex as he stood. She pushed the thoughts away and concentrated on getting home.

"Hold on tight." was all InuYasha said before jumping. Kagome shrieked at the sudden movement, but calmed quickly as InuYasha tightened his grip to reassure her. She rested her head on his back and watched as the trees went by in a blur, pausing only when InuYasha stopped on a branch only to leap off of it again for more speed.

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Kaede glanced behind her to see the demon slayers trailing her. They had been extremely cautious ever since those bandits had attacked them. They scanned the tree's often, trying to see if there was anyone hiding nearby, ready to attack.

Of course, Kaede had suggested that they take the path that lead out of the forest to the main road on the plains between the mountains and the forest and then head to Kirei on that road, but the Demon slayers refused. They agreed that taking that route would help them avoid any chance of bandits attacking them again since it would be much harder to sneak up on a group of travelers on the plains, but they also said that doing so would lengthen the trip.

Not only that, taking that route would also take them even farther away from InuYasha and the Princess, who they still had not found. And they had looked, very hard. One of the demon slayers had found what looked like a trail that InuYasha had left behind, but they quickly found out how wrong they were when it lead to an angry bear demon.

Needless to say, they stopped following odd trails that demon's left behind after that.

One of the demon slayers hurried up beside her. He was the new leader of the small band of demon slayers, since the bandits had managed to put an arrow through their last leader's chest, and Maiku was still becoming accustomed to his new position.

"Kaede-sama." he said, "I was wondering if perhaps we should remain in the forest for a day more, to see if the Princess or the hanyou returns. If they were to return and we were not there -"

Kaede cut him off quickly. "No Maiku. We must return to the palace quickly. As much as I hate to admit it, the shikon jewel's safety comes first. After we return it to the palace we can worry about the Princess. At the moment, I am not to worried about her. If InuYasha found her, she will be taken care of."

The young man sneered. His new authority seemed to begetting to his head to think he could be disrespectful to Kaede. "How can you trust that hanyou at all? He is a Taisho! The very reason we are at war now!"

Kaede let him rant about InuYasha and how untrustworthy he was, but Kaede thought differently. She had seen that he believed the Princess's words, and would not betray her now. She felt the jewel in her pocket. Kagome had dropped it when he horse had gone wild, and now it seemed that it was left up to Kaede to protect it for now.

Kaede heeled her horse forward, ignoring the man to her side and his complaints as she offered a silent prayer for Princess Kagome's safety.

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Kohaku ignored the spray from the ocean as the ship broke through another wave. He did not like traveling on the sea, it usually gave him an upset stomach, and the constant reminder that he was on top of the water as the ocean water sloshed and splashed up on top of the ship was not helping.

He stood at the bow of the ship, watching as the western shores came into view. They were quite awhile south of Daelis, Kohaku did not want the demons to know of his arrival before he even reached land, but they were still close enough to be able to reach Daelis in a few days march on land.

Behind his ship sailed a small armada. Kohaka had taken as many men as he was willing to from the troops near Kirei. Hopefully General Jin and General Hideko would return to Kirei in time to defend it from the demon army. Kohaku had been hesitant to take any troops away from Kirei until Hideki or Jin returned with their armies, but the Emperor had put his foot down, demanding that Kohaku sail out of the Western Lands as soon as possible.

Kahaku gazed at the land forming in the horizon. Soon he'd be there, and he still wasn't sure whether he'd ever leave those lands. He sighed. Strangely, despite his belief that he wouldn't be returning to the Eastern Kingdom, Kohaku felt more fear for his sister, Sango.

He too had heard rumors of Sesshomaru's and InuYasha's skill and extensive training for war. And frankly, he knew General Hideki and General Jin wouldn't put up much of a fight. They were both fools, each of them boasting of how they would rout the demon army shortly, with hardly any losses.

Kohaku pushed his thoughts away from Sango and her safety. She was far away, and whatever happened there was beyond his reach. He had to concentrate on what he was about to do.

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Okay! I promised I'd have it to you today. I'm VERY sorry about not getting it to you yesterday. Anyway, I hope it lives up to any expectations you guys might have from the previews.

Tell me what you think:D