I know you're as eager for a certain character to appear as I am. Please enjoy.

Edited 5/16/2020

Beautiful Moon

Unanticipated

Life didn't flash before her eyes like the sayings had taught her to expect. It just went on like it normally did, except for the overwhelming feeling of impending death and the terror that accompanied it. If anything, she didn't have the presence of mind to think of something beyond what was happening right at that moment, the current situation far more important than remembering anything about her time alive, good or bad.

All she wanted to do was run. She settled for taking the child's arm and tugging her gently closer, because she couldn't bring herself to stand.

"I do like when my prey tries to escape," the gray-skinned giant commented, mocking her thoughts while his tone suggested that he was praising a child, smiling even as he licked his claws clean of her blood. Her stomach roiled again, threatening to bring up her meager lunch. "Now, who to eat first?"

For a very brief moment, Mizuki felt every bit of emotion coursing through her simply dull, as though her brain had given up on processing them. A stupid, deadpan question trailed through her mind. What's the point in asking that when you're clearly already enjoying your appetizer? Worse, the absurd thought of raising her hand to answer him like she was sitting in a classroom felt suddenly like an appropriate gesture. Me, she probably would have suggested, since he technically already was. Does human taste like chicken? She'd once heard from Kimura's mother that Americans thought a lot of things tasted like chicken. She'd thought it was silly. She wondered if the demon would answer that question, before banishing the thought from her mind with all of the ferocity of a snail.

That very brief moment ended abruptly, however, when an orange and tan checkered kimono obscured her view. She didn't notice when the arm she had been grasping had left her hand. The girl was now standing in front of her, arms spread like a shield, as though somehow Mizuki was the one who needed protecting.

"Go away!" the child commanded sternly, and Mizuki stumbled over words of protest while fear figured out how to exist properly within her once again. The demon laughed, full-bellied, the sight as absurd to him as it was to her, but the girl clenched her fists and straightened her back further.

He didn't acknowledge her protest, just cackling jovially as he voiced his amusement, hand slapping his belly in his mirth. "This really is entertaining!" he crowed. "A human child who doesn't run and another human with power. Tell me, what better meal could I ask for? The gods surely favor me this day."

"Lord Sesshomaru!" the girl called out before addressing the demon again. "Lord Sesshomaru will protect me, so you better leave us alone!"

Lord who? Human with power? Nothing wanted to make sense about any of this. She shoved the intruding thoughts away and tried again to get the girl's attention, but her voice had no substance, and her hand could no longer reach her.

"Work, damn it!" she screamed to her legs, but they ignored her.

The demon tilted his head, a question breaking through the amusement on his face.

"And where is this Lord Sesshomaru now, little-"

He was cut off as a glowing green line seemed to flash around him, and his eyes widened in surprise. All at once his body split into pieces, slashed apart by the light as it danced and retreated behind them. Mizuki couldn't look away. Bile rose in her throat, her stomach clenching in utter revulsion as it turned. The thing was dead. It was dead because it was torn apart by some freaky light and there was blood and everything everywhere…

Her stomach had finally had enough.

After gifting her meager meals of the day to the earth, Mizuki finally composed herself enough to acknowledge the child's concern. She nodded when asked if she was okay, which apparently allowed the girl to turn her attention to an entirely different presence she didn't realize had approached.

"Would it be alright, Lord Sesshomaru?"

She'd missed some part of a conversation, it seemed, but was less concerned about that as she took in the appearance of this apparent lord, who somewhat looked the part of one, at least. A tall man, his clothing of choice was made of an impossibly white fabric trimmed with a red floral pattern. Elaborate armor covered his chest and thighs, dark in contrast to the flowing yellow and purple obi tied around his waist, and the hilts of two swords adorned his left hip. His right side was occupied by a large pelt, the animal it could have come from indiscernible.

His face held little to no emotion, though his golden gaze was sharp enough to send a chill down her spine. Despite that, he had what she would consider a handsome appearance, with smooth features broken by colorful stripes across his cheeks and eyelids, and a crescent moon of a bluer hue in the center of his forehead.

Lord Sesshomaru was a demon, she suddenly realized.

Mizuki didn't think the girl was anything but human. The (currently very dead) demon had appeared to think the same, so she was left wondering about the relationship between the child and this demon that warranted the trusting look and honorable title she regarded him with.

The demon did not answer her, but not because he seemed to be ignoring her inquiry; a shout came from the top of the hill, and suddenly a small creature was tumbling down, the staff it had been carrying sliding down after it. When the being raised its head, she found herself facing yet another demon, though this one was comparatively smaller and significantly less threatening in appearance.

"Rin! Why did you wander off?!" the imp-like creature shouted breathlessly at the girl, who simply frowned. He picked himself up along with the staff (a strange tool, Mizuki concluded, upon seeing the two heads carved into the top) and stomped up to the child. If he was trying to be imposing, he didn't accomplish it well, especially since she had a bit of height on him herself.

"Your story was boring, Master Jaken," the girl called Rin said bluntly, causing the creature to balk. "I decided to pick flowers instead. I suppose I did wander a bit too far, oh, but everything is okay, because Lord Sesshomaru is back!"

The smaller demon turned his attention to the other, and shrank further under his flat gaze.

"I swear, My Lord; I don't know how she slipped away! I was watching her!"

Apparently not very well, given all that had occurred. She felt somewhat like Sesshomaru managed to convey that very thought to the girl's babysitter, since the imp apologized by throwing himself to the ground, before trying to deflect the attention from himself by looking directly at Mizuki.

"Who is this?" he asked. "Another human? What misfortune have you brought upon Lord Sesshomaru this time, girl?"

The way he seemed to use misfortune in the same way he used human made her fairly angry, which was a welcome emotion to feel in place of fear, but she decided not to address her grievance beyond her expression. He attempted to glare holes into her in return.

Rin explained what had happened, recounting Mizuki's actions in a much less pathetic light than she remembered them herself, at least up until she included the fact that she'd thrown up, which made her shift uncomfortably away from where she had done so.

"Since she got hurt, I want to help her," she concluded, reminding Mizuki why her arm felt like it was on fire before bringing the conversation back around to before the interruption. "Is that okay, Lord Sesshomaru?"

Being caught in his gaze was unnerving in a lot of ways, but while the imp seemed to regard humans like she expected demons would, Sesshomaru simply didn't, or at least not outwardly. She reminded herself that Rin seemed to be protected by the both of them, and though she didn't know what circumstances warranted that arrangement, it at least told her that she wasn't on their menu for the day.

Hopefully, anyway.

"Do as you wish," he eventually answered, his tone as dismissive as the way he turned and walked away upon finishing his statement. She wasn't sure how to take that. Her immediate reaction was irritation, because it felt like he had just written off every terrible moment that she had experienced since stepping into the grounds of the shrine despite knowing that he had no knowledge of any of that. She tried to tamp that down to gratefulness, but that Rin had to get permission to help her was no less annoying a thought, so she settled for simply trying to ignore it for now.

The imp had reason to complain about his approval, trailing after the man with questions on his tongue that went unanswered, leaving the two humans to themselves. The girl crouched before her, giving her an assessing look and frowning a little. "Does your arm hurt a lot?" she asked. Mizuki put on a strained smile in an attempt to comfort her.

"It's not too bad, I think," she tried. Not her best lie in the world, but hopefully the girl would be pacified by it. "I'm just glad you're okay. Your name is Rin, right?"

"Oh, yes!" she replied, distracted, hopefully, from the pain in her voice. "What's your name, Miss?"

"Mizuki," she answered simply. No need for family names, it seemed. She wasn't sure the girl had one to give.

"That's a pretty name," Rin noted excitedly. Mizuki hadn't ever thought much of it; her mother liked the look of the kanji she'd chosen, and her father agreed only because the pronunciation conveyed other meanings he found suitable. She mostly found it easy to write. "Can you stand?" she asked, switching gears quickly.

Mizuki shifted a little, testing how well her limbs were responding now. They seemed to be unfrozen, so she nodded. "Yeah, I think I can manage that," she replied, and found herself smiling despite herself when Rin beamed. The girl was a kind and warm presence.

"Let's go over to the river so we can clean your arm," she suggested, and Mizuki agreed. Rin took her hand despite it being covered in blood. She didn't need to be led, but having the girl hold on to her grounded her in a way that was almost overwhelming. She managed not to simply fall apart from the relief, and tried to discretely wipe tears from her eyes.

While walking, Rin formally introduced the small imp as Jaken, as she took his peeved glances to mean that he was upset that she hadn't done so yet. Mizuki tried offering him a small smile to see if he was more amicable than his first impression had let on, but he completely dismissed it and mumbled something about lousy humans, which turned her right back around to glaring at him.

When they were nearly at the river, Mizuki jumped at the unexpected sight of a large, two-headed beast that looked far too much like a dragon as it grumbled out some sort of response to their approach. Rin smiled at the creature before she realized the owner of the hand in her own had stopped, and looked up with a bright smile.

It was a dragon. Apparently it ate grass.

"This is Ah and Un," she introduced each head in turn after pointing out their favorite meal (clovers, though there were few left where they stood now). "They are very nice, so please don't be afraid," she concluded, finally realizing that Mizuki was, in fact, quite worried.

She nodded silently, unsure what to say. It was difficult to comprehend much of the events since the shrine. Between experiencing magic and attachments to weirdly emotional artifacts, running for her life twice, encountering all manner of demons, and children comfortable with dragons, it was overwhelming to say the least. Add to all of that the near-death experience and the pain in her arm, it was no wonder that she didn't want to try too hard in that area right now.

The river was cleaner than she expected, which made rinsing her mouth out much less worrying and making her feel equally as bad as she dirtied it with her own spit and blood. The discoloring dissipated quickly enough, though, so she supposed nothing would suffer too much from it, and continued to focus on at least getting one hand clean. Rin did the same.

"We need something to bandage your arm," she suddenly voiced, as though she had just realized that they didn't have any. Mizuki frowned, noting the scrapes on Rin's face, and thought her caretakers might need a lesson in human medicine.

Setting that aside, she looked around the area they were in. There were a few trees, the river, the demon who didn't seem to be watching them but whose gaze she could swear she was feeling nonetheless, along with the other blatantly doing so…nothing good for wrapping her arm. She doubted the two demons would offer up anything.

"I might have something," she said after a thought, and sat down heavily beside a tree.

Mizuki took a moment to breathe, feeling tired as she inspected the broken strap of her bag, and tried not to think about how badly she wanted to lay down. After concluding that the broken strap wouldn't suffice, she shifted through her stuff in what she expected would be a fruitless endeavor. She couldn't use her shirt since that was all she had to wear, and her jacket wasn't the right material for the job, being water-resistant, and probably too hot to replace her shirt for very long. Paper, paper, more paper – all slightly different, none helpful for binding wounds. Plastic and metal. Nothing cloth. Why didn't she have any small things made of cloth…

Oh.

She flushed a deep red, sparing the man to her right a quick glance. She could use her bra, since, being of the sports variety, it was a wide band of somewhat stretchy fabric, and it wasn't entirely necessary given her relatively flat chest. Being the type it was, though, there wasn't a convenient hook to undo, which meant being half-naked in front of a man she had just met in order to remove it. Flat-chested or not, that was downright uncomfortable and not a position she wanted to be in.

"Miss Mizuki, is everything alright?" Rin asked her, gently prodding her good shoulder. She nodded quickly, attempting to dispel the blush, before giving the small girl a smile.

"I'm fine," she assured her, and then turned her attention to the girl's companions. The little imp was staring at her incredulously, while the demon beside him hardly paid her much mind, merely blinking with a bored expression on his otherwise blank face. At least he seemed to acknowledge that her attention was directed at him.

It was the only thing she could think of, aside from tearing off fabric from someone else's clothing, and she didn't want to ask for that favor. Realizing that, she resigned herself to the embarrassment.

"Could…I ask you two to turn around?" she requested quietly. "I need to take my shirt off, for something to bandage this with…"

The imp spoke first.

"You dare order Lord Sesshomaru to do something, you insolent little human!?" he barked, waving his strange staff around over his head.

"I asked nicely!" she snapped, and quickly regretted it. The shout made her head spin, making her wonder how much blood someone needed to lose before they passed out. She held a hand to her head, closing her eyes to get rid of the feeling.

"Jaken."

She opened them again at the sound of the other demon's voice. He had been a man of few words and fewer emotions so far, and she wasn't sure if it was because he didn't care or just wasn't one to talk needlessly, so to hear him speak in a somewhat reprimanding tone was a little unexpected. She blinked up at him in interest, and he acknowledged her with a glance before turning his back to them. The imp followed suit with a small grumble. Pleased by the unexpectedly easy acknowledgement, she smiled.

"Thank you," she added for good measure. He didn't say anything back, but she felt better, nonetheless.

Removing her shirt was a difficult matter. She tried to do so without moving her left arm and found that to be impossible, so every shift, twist, and turn hurt like hell. She was glad for the shirt being somewhat loose on her, and tried to focus on that singular positive while she pulled her right arm through the sleeve, bunched it up over her shoulder, and managed to get her head out of it. She finally, carefully, slid it down her left arm.

Rin was watching her with an inquisitive expression, she noticed belatedly. It took her a moment longer to realize her shirt must have looked very strange to the girl.

"It's my weird clothes, huh?"

"You do dress very strangely," she agreed straightforwardly. "Your clothes look very cumbersome."

Her matter-of-fact pattern of speech was apparently habit, but considering her company was that of two demons and a dragon, she figured the girl had probably picked it up from her companions.

That aside, wiggling out of her sports bra was another matter entirely. Doing what she did with her shirt would be much more difficult with the fabric being tighter, which made her wish she had gone with one of her less comfortable, more typical choices. Of course, she wouldn't have anything to use for her arm were that the case, so it was a moot point. Rin didn't look as though she knew if she could help at all, though she was looking at her sympathetically.

She took a deep breath.

"If I just think of it like a band-aid," she thought as she carefully crossed her arms over her chest, "then it'll be over quickly."

The countdown went far faster than she would have liked before she flipped the article over her head, and she cried out when the movement aggravated her wound about a hundred times more than she expected. She rolled into herself, cradling her arm in her lap as she rocked back and forth, hissing out the pain and trying to suppress tears once again.

"You moved too fast!" Rin declared. When Mizuki opened her eyes, she laughed despite the pain. Rin was down on her hands and knees to get a clearer look at her, and it was both ridiculous and adorable. The smile she wore around the pain was less forced than she expected it would be.

"I'm alright," she assured her, easing herself upright again. She held out her bra to her. "You think we can use this to wrap up my arm?"

Rin took the garment from her, glancing it over curiously.

"Yes," she affirmed. "Is it okay if I rip it up?"

Mizuki nodded. She had more with her luggage back at the hotel. Surviving without one for a little bit wouldn't be too bad.

They soon discovered, however, that a sports bra was a difficult thing to rip, and Mizuki didn't have the strength to get it started herself when she tried. Suddenly faced with this new obstacle, Rin jumped up with a smile and informed her that she had an idea, and walked straight over to the demon standing off to the side of them.

"Lord Sesshomaru, may I ask something of you?" she questioned innocently, and Mizuki's face regained the flush she had experienced when she first thought of this whole idea with the bra. When he looked at it as Rin presented the article to him, the wattage of her face turned up about twenty more shades.

Sports bra though it was, Mizuki regarded the clothing with a bit more of a personal air than was probably necessary. It wasn't like it was cute or particularly fancy, because she didn't care about what people weren't ever going to see outside of the girl's locker room, but it was a bra. Sure, he likely had no idea of the connotations associated with a man seeing a woman's undergarments, but the idea that he was looking at it…

She missed the exchange between the two, and managed to get her thoughts together when he pulled one of the swords from his waist and stuck it in the ground between himself and Rin. She smiled warmly before taking the fabric to one of its sides, where the thread and elastic gave easily against the blade. She quickly made use of the sharp edge to turn the article into a suitable bandage, pulling out the thin padding when it interrupted her work, and cheerfully thanked him when she was finished.

The demon didn't say anything in response, but Mizuki belatedly realized that he didn't need to. Rin knew how to read him. Jaken apparently as well, given the earlier exchange between them, and she was left wondering just how close they all were to be able to understand him so easily, or if telepathy was a thing to add to her growing list.

Rin was surprisingly efficient for someone so young. She determined that the elastic band would be very good for securing the fabric around her arm. The padding she had removed also made a decent sponge, so that was used to clean the wound, and she was careful as she worked to clean the blood off of the rest of her arm and around her wristwatch. While she didn't ask about the futuristic device, Mizuki caught her staring at it in wonder, and resolved to explain its purpose later.

She couldn't help but wince, though, as the girl worked directly on the wound.

"Sorry," Rin said apologetically.

"No, no, it's alright," Mizuki assured her once again, a nervous laugh breaking her composure. "I'm just not accustomed to pain much, is all."

The girl nodded in understanding, but continued her work much more softly. Mizuki gritted her teeth against the pricks of pain and looked around for something distracting. The demon's back was about the only thing that stood out, so she turned her attention to him.

His name was Sesshomaru, she reminded herself (Lord Sesshomaru, she should probably remember). Like Inuyasha or Jaken, his was not a name she had encountered before, and trying to think of the kanji that made it up left her coming up with blanks aside from the typical maru male names contained around this time. Riho would have a better idea, given her interest in the meanings of all things. It didn't sound particularly friendly, but he didn't appear mean. Just indifferent, and patient, if she considered his interactions with the young girl working on her arm.

Oh, ouch. She forgot she was distracting herself from that.

She forced her thoughts back to the demon. He was certainly good at keeping his word, though she couldn't say the same for the imp companion who kept slightly glancing back before catching himself and turning forward again. Never far enough to see anything, but still suspicious enough of her that he couldn't sit still. Sesshomaru didn't move a muscle. His hair didn't even move, which, considering how long the silver-white locks were, was quite a feat.

"Damn," she thought dryly. "Makes my hair look short."

He was easily over six feet tall, the height countering his somewhat soft appearance with an imposing frame. The fur over his shoulder looked comfortable enough to sleep on, though she figured if she wanted to keep her head where it was, she'd refrain from ever suggesting that outside of the privacy of her own thoughts. His opposite shoulder had a much different look due to the spiked pauldron, and the way the sleeve seemed to lay flat against him suggested there was a good reason for it.

She didn't get too far wondering how he'd lost an arm before she was reminded of how easily a string of light had cut down her former pursuer, and she suddenly found herself in a fit of gagging brought on by the betraying flip of her very empty stomach. One of the other things she was trying to forget was that the demon that had been chasing her was very much dead, cut up as easily as if the light had been a hot knife passing through butter.

Rin stopped her tending of the wound in concern, and Mizuki had to push back the taste of bile in her throat so that the girl wouldn't turn around and ask him for help again. The bra was embarrassing enough; she didn't want him to see her exposed.

"It's okay, Rin," she assured her once again. "I'm fine, really. I just thought too much about what happened earlier, when..." She trailed off and gestured instead in the direction of the hill when she couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence.

"Oh," she said with a small hint of surprise, which made Mizuki feel suddenly childish. Rin wasn't sick from it in the slightest, and here she was, probably around ten years older than her, and she was flipping out about it.

"You speak as though you have never seen death," Sesshomaru abruptly spoke from where he stood, and she turned to him quickly to yell at him about peeping, only to swallow the words when she found that he hadn't moved at all. His tone was different from when he had been addressing Rin or Jaken. Curious, if she had to assign a word to it. It was almost like he found it unusual or amusing.

"Not like that…" she eventually answered, unsure what else to say. Her grandparents had died, but she was only there for the funerals. All she knew about death was a grave and a shrine, not what a dead body actually looked like, and she didn't have enough interest in the horror genre to have had an experience that compared to what had occurred not long before. Seeing something vaguely resembling a human killed like that was jarring.

He shifted slightly, as if he wanted to turn around, but refrained from doing so. Instead, he continued, "It was hardly different from butchering an animal."

"They're hardly alike!" she countered quickly, frustrated by what she was perceiving as smugness in his tone now. "You tore that thing apart! It was…" She trailed off for a minute, looking away from his back and to Rin, who looked concerned about her arguing with him and unsure if she should say anything. Embarrassed, she took a breath and rubbed at her face, suddenly unsure about herself. Maybe to them, it really hadn't been very different. She was the one five hundred years out of her time.

"…Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful. Really, I am," she redirected quietly, trying to subdue the irritation she felt. Maybe she was just reading him wrong because she was tired. Nothing was exactly normal for her anymore as it was, and she wasn't really up on demon etiquette. "I'm just…a little new to this, I guess you could say."

There was silence, and then Sesshomaru filled it once again with his observations.

"Shielded so much that you know less of this world than a child," he mused flatly, unfairly comparing her to Rin and inflating her own mortification from doing the same. "Have you never encountered a demon? Do you even comprehend who it is that speaks to you now?"

No longer unsure of how she had been reading his attitude, Mizuki fumed. There was no mistaking the arrogance with which he said that, and she was not having it right now, not after everything she had gone through.

"You're a self-righteous ass, speaking of things you know nothing about," she replied with a sharp clip. "Is that enough comprehension for you, Sesshomaru, or were you expecting me to throw myself at the feet of the man who simply happened to save my life?"

Part of her really wanted to see his expression right now, even as she rushed to cover herself with her shirt as Jaken spun around and reprimanded her both for her tone and for the honorific she'd deliberately dropped. Her blood pounded in her skull, a headache settling in that she was certain wouldn't be going away any time soon, and her mood soured further.

Probably the blood loss, something within her warned while her father's voice reminded her, "Represent the Kurahashi family well."

So much for that.

Unexpectedly, Sesshomaru's boot came down on the imp's head, offering the creature an up-close look at the grass and dirt instead of her half-naked state. She didn't get the chance to consider whether to be appreciative of his consideration before he turned his gaze to her instead.

His expression wasn't angry, or even annoyed, but it remained sharp and cold and sent that same chill down her spine, and she suddenly understood just how far above her he considered himself. He was indulging her, amused by the curiosity she presented, but he did not care. She was insignificant.

When she looked away, she found Rin still kneeling beside her. She was frowning, worried about their exchange, but she wasn't afraid. Somehow, this human was comfortable around this demon. Somehow, she wasn't as insignificant a creature to him. Mizuki didn't know why that was the case, but it calmed the fury in her chest enough that she found herself looking at the ground.

"I'm making a fool of myself," she concluded shortly. "He's testing me."

Mizuki exhaled long and slow, collecting herself and telling both the phantom of her father and her headache to shove it for now, and set her attention on him again.

"You're strong," she remarked, and watched his eyes narrow marginally. Golden irises reflected a minor interest, and she was reminded briefly of the other golden-eyed person she had met what felt like a lifetime ago. "The way you carry yourself tells me that your confidence isn't simply show. You observe and draw conclusions from what you perceive, and act on those observations. You're a demon, but you don't simply kill and eat humans because of that. Honorable seems like an appropriate word to prescribe to you, based on how you respected my desire for privacy, at least until this moment.

"You don't know much about humans, despite the child in your custody, but as a demon, I suspect that's not unreasonable. I don't think you care whether I praise you for your part in saving my life, or whether or not I fear you simply because of your nature. I'll thank you, of course, and I'll choose not to be afraid based on what I've observed so far. It's a welcome change to the experiences I've had recently, anyway."

He was silent, taking in her words, an imposing figure that wracked her long-frayed nerves by simply doing nothing. Choosing not to be afraid didn't mean that a loud part of her wasn't contemplating how many mistakes she had just made and whether or not he would decide that Rin could not assist her anymore because of them, or if calling him an ass was too far past a line she couldn't see. She probably wouldn't suffer long, she suspected, but dying was still an idea she feared.

Too nervous to allow the silence to continue, she asked, "Am I wrong?"

For a few moments longer, he allowed the silence to stretch on, as if knowing that it was unsettling her. Then suddenly he made a small noise that sounded like one of resignation, and he closed his eyes, turning his back to her once again.

"You are curious," he replied, not answering her question but allowing her some insight into his thoughts. She sighed quietly in relief before she realized he wasn't finished speaking. "Most humans have far more sense when it comes to demons, though it seems you lack any experience to provide you with it."

She groaned inadvertently. Apparently he wasn't going to let that go, and she hadn't been deft enough to redirect his attention from her inexperience to the point where he would allow her to get away with failing to elaborate on how new to this she really was. She was going to have to remember that he was sharp.

"…Alright, so I have zero experience with demons," she answered truthfully, leaning back against the tree behind her in resignation. "Doesn't mean I wasn't smart enough to realize I was going to die back there."

"Yet you attempted to save Rin," he added, "rather than running away."

It'd been a pretty pathetic attempt to save the girl, looking back, but Mizuki couldn't have brought herself to sacrifice someone else for her own safety, no matter how much her instincts had protested the action.

"You don't just leave someone to die when you can do something about it," she reasoned. "Especially a kid. Even more so a kid like you, Rin," she added, turning back to the girl. "I guess I can see why you could stand up to that guy now, but it was still really brave. Thanks for protecting me."

Concern forgotten now that the standoff seemed to have ended, Rin smiled brightly.

"You're welcome, Miss Mizuki!"

Sesshomaru didn't say anything more, apparently satisfied or unwilling to interrupt now that Rin was chattering amicably about how surprised she had been when Mizuki had appeared and how grateful for her help she was, and she continued to recount other times where either Sesshomaru or Jaken had come to her rescue. Eventually, the girl returned to tending to her wound, shifting from speaking to humming quietly somewhere along the way, the song a tone that mirrored the comforting echo from the pendant in Mizuki's pocket. She found herself lulled into a light doze, her thoughts on the events of the day finally quieting.

A short distance away, the demon called Sesshomaru stood, deeply in thought.

He'd heard the scream that hadn't belonged to Rin too close to where he had left the child with Jaken, and that had hastened his return. Rin calling his name had been unnecessary because of it. Her asking to help the woman in return for her efforts to save her wasn't a surprise, but the longer she remained in their presence, the more he found himself…curious.

It was not as though there were no cause to be. She was unusual in ways similar to the woman his hanyou of a brother kept by his side, details of which he had never realized he had cared enough to commit to memory until now. Clothing of uncommon design, scents of unknown origins, and mannerisms far more abrasive than meek. This one knew how to craft words more favorably than the other, demonstrating a rough capacity for directing conversation in a way that would probably benefit her were he not her opponent, but was less falsely assured of her own survivability than the priestess.

She was not unfazed by the fact that he was a demon, something the other woman seemed to ignore during their encounters, but she had seemed able to just as easily set it aside once she thought herself safe, in much the same way Rin could.

Rin was a child, however, and her ignorance could be attributed to her lack of general life experience, no matter the warnings of other humans she had spent time with prior. This woman should have no such excuse, which led him to the conclusion that she had led a sheltered, comfortable life, at least until she had found herself in a forest that hadn't left its scent on her for much beyond a night.

The foreignness of the woman certainly warranted interest, he reasoned. Something else about her pushed that somewhat beyond that scope, however, and Sesshomaru was left pondering just what that was. He felt no power from her, and nothing about her presence caused any instinctive wariness or caution, but there was something there on the edge of his senses nonetheless, something he couldn't define, and his inability to understand it left him dissatisfied.

Rin's voice carried over his thoughts, forcing him to set aside his minor frustrations as he shifted his attention to her attempts to rouse the woman, who had apparently fallen asleep.

"Oh, thanks, Rin," she finally answered lethargically.

"Would you like me to wash your…kimono?" Rin asked, and Sesshomaru guessed she was referring to the short garment that covered her torso.

"T-shirt," the woman corrected. "That would be really helpful," she continued. "I could wear my jacket while it dries."

She began to shift through her belongings, until she withdrew what he assumed was the jacket she spoke of, a noisy piece of fabric that sounded too stiff to his ears. A hiss of pain ended the woman's attempts to continue what she was doing, and she instead asked Rin for her assistance. A sound like a metallic tearing followed that made him turn his head slightly, but it appeared that nothing was amiss, as Rin was apparently awed by what she was witnessing. She directed the child into repeating the same process after shifting the fabric around, until the sound ceased

"Sorry for the wait," the woman said, suddenly addressing him. "I'm decent again."

He turned to find her dressed in a stiff, black fabric with long, thin sleeves and a strange metallic line running down the center of it. She had managed to get her left arm inside of the sleeve, which made him wonder if the fabric was somehow meant to split down the metallic line, because she had not made a sound indicating she was in pain like she had when removing her other clothing.

She attempted to stand, aiming to assist Rin, perhaps, but found that her legs did not have the strength in them that they had had when she had previously been upright. They collapsed under her, and her eyes widened in surprise before shifting unnaturally, until she found herself back against the tree.

"Miss Mizuki!" Rin called worriedly, rushing to her side before flashing him a concerned look. He approached to put the child at ease, but had no intention of doing anything himself beyond answering questions she might have. The woman's care was a responsibility she had chosen to take on, not him.

"That's the blood loss," the woman muttered, a breathless laugh following that spoke of a deeper unsettlement with her current state. "That's definitely the blood loss, right?"

"My Lord, what should I do?" Rin asked him.

Human ailments were not something he concerned himself with, but he supposed blood could be replaced over time in a similar way as most creatures.

"Water," he offered. One thanked him while the other nodded.

"Can I ask a favor?" He was not sure who she was addressing, but Rin jumped in to offer her assistance. "In my bag, there's a plastic water bottle. Could you get that for me?"

Her bag had tipped away from her but wasn't out of arm's reach, so the favor was likely a testament to how much she was shaken by simply standing. Rin jumped to the task, producing from the sack a strange, clear container that held water. The woman took it gratefully and shakily removed its lid, before just as unsteadily consuming its contents. With it emptied, Rin offered to fill it once more, though Sesshomaru suspected that she also had wanted a better look at it as she examined it closely while she hurried to fulfill her mission.

He would give the woman credit; she managed to remain awake long enough to empty the container twice more, though she eventually succumbed to exhaustion. Rin, worried about leaving the woman alone in such a state, requested that they watch over her charge until she woke again and apologized for taking up his time in the same breath.

She needn't have done so, though, and he would later find himself deeply examining where the motivation to say yes truly originated from.

The woman made him unexpectedly curious, and he could not fathom why.

The biggest change in this chapter was the transition from Mizuki's limited perspective to Sesshomaru's, which before was abrupt, but now sails in a little more smoothly (at least in my brain at the moment – four more years from now, who knows what I'll think). A lot of other things changed, like how Mizuki reacts to various things, but the most important one for me is that moment where Sesshomaru takes over.

I want his perspective both because I enjoy examining his character and his motivations, and because I want someone else to characterize Mizuki. I have a difficult time with first-person writing because of my interest in using multiple angles to view a single person, though there are times when I make the effort not to for the sake of an unreliable narrator. He becomes an important foil for her, especially as she navigates herself and the feudal era.

Let's not kid ourselves, though. This story wouldn't be interesting enough without him.