I don't own Inuyasha or any of the characters.

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Super cute chapter.

Sesshomaru awoke the next day with Melissa still cuddled against him, warm and soft. He nuzzled the hair on top of her head and gave her a gentle lick on the forehead. He ran his hand under her sleeve and up the soft skin of her arm. He noticed she had something under the skin on one arm. Something small and hard, like shrapnel from a battle. Odd. Be then she was odd.

He became aware that his member was stiff. Was it his usual morning stiffness, or did it remain from last night? He carefully moved her so that he could stand. Her eyes fluttered open but he told her to sleep a while longer and walked in to the forest to take care of his needs.

When he returned she was awake. Jaken had gone off somewhere, probably to gather more wood for the tiny fire and Melissa had her bow and arrow tracking a flock of small wood ducks. She had learned to control her spiritual powers and so could use her bow and arrows for hunting if she wished. Though she still had trouble with small, moving targets.

She hit one this morning. She only clipped it's wing, not a killing shot, but enough to bring it down. She ran to get her duck and cut it's throat before dressing it and putting it over the fire. Jaken returned with more wood.

"Jaken. You watch duck?" She asked the little Kappa as she added the wood

"Yes, Merissa." The little kappa agreed. Melissa scooped him up in a big bear hug while he kicked his little feet and yelled in protest. She gave him a big noisy kiss on his cheek and put him down. Then kissed Sesshomaru and walked a short ways away, sitting down to meditate. She usually did that at night, but hadn't last night.

Once she'd meditated and eaten they got moving again, moving away from the shore and into the woods. Melissa sang a happy little song as they walked then challenged Jaken with a riddle. Sesshomaru figured it out right away but gave Jaken a chance to get it wrong before he spoke.

Near noon Sesshomaru caught the smell of smoke and human blood. A lot of human blood. He went to investigate and found a small human village that had been decimated.

Many of the simple wooden huts were leveled, a few were burning having collapsed on top of the noon time cooking fires. Bodies were scattered everywhere. Men, women, even children had all been slain.

He could smell a youkai. All creatures need food, and some did eat humans. However most of the villagers were whole. The youkai killed them for sport, not food. Sesshomaru did not approve of such senseless killing.

True, he had killed when he might not have needed to. But he never went out of his way to kill. And Sesshomaru would never have slain such defenseless creatures as these. That was another life anyway.

Melissa whispered something in her language. He could hear sadness in her voice. He looked over his shoulder and saw her looking around with sorrow in her eyes. Perhaps he should have left her in the woods, it hadn't even occurred to him that such a scene would distress her.

Suddenly a muffled cry could be heard from somewhere among the rubble. It sounded a bit like a cat yowling. Melissa ran toward the sound and began digging in the wreckage of a house. She started trying to lift a wall but it was to heavy. Sesshomaru grabbed it and flipped it back out of her way.

When he flipped the wall back the high noise became louder. It continued to increase in volume, assaulting his sensitive ears as she dug.

"What is that unholy noise?" Jaken screeched slapping his hands over his ears. "Gah, shut it up, silence it! Make it stop!"

Funny, that's how Sesshomaru often felt about the racket Jaken made he mused as he watched her. Then she held up the source of the noise, the lone survivor of the attack on this village. The tiny infant quieted as she held him close, the warmth of a mother's embrace was all he needed at the moment.

The small boy sucked on his fingers as he stared up curiously at Melissa with huge, bright eyes. She stepped closer to Sesshomaru and the boy's eyes shifted from her to Sesshomaru and back again. He made a cooing noise around the fingers he was sucking on, drool running down his chin. He looked back to Sesshomaru and stared at the youkai.

Sesshomaru stared back at him. He had never been this close to a baby before, never actually seen one. He was a cubby, healthy baby with curious dark eyes and fine black hair. He raised his free hand and waved it towards Sesshomaru as he cooed again.

"I think he likes you. You want hold?" Melissa asked

Sesshomaru glanced up at her then looked back down at the baby and slowly shook his head. "This sesshomaru does not hold infants."

Melissa started singing again, a slow soft song as she swayed with the baby. He looked up at her but continued to look back at Sesshomaru. After a few moments Sesshomaru cautiously reached out and petted the cooing babe on top of the head. His hand covered the baby's head and he was surprised how soft the baby's hair was.

Then the baby scrunched up his tiny face and it's face turned red. Their was a loud, wet, ripping sound, like wet cloth being torn. Then the boy smiled as a truly foul odor began to emanate from him. How could something so small and cute create such a smell?

"Gah, what is that horrid stench?" Jaken screeched clamping his hands over her beak as even Sesshomaru's nose wrinkled.

Melissa however seemed completely immune to the smell. "Uh-oh, did we make a poopoo?" She cooed in her own tongue.

She went back to the rubble and holding the child in one arm began to dig through the rubble of his former home until she found what she sought. She once had a friend who had a baby and had done some sitting, diapers were no big deal for her. However she'd never used a cloth diaper, much less a flat fold diaper.

She realized she was going to need two hands to figure out how to fold the large square of cloth to fit the baby. "Jaken, hold baby. I need fold this."

"I'm not touching that putrid thing!" Jaken screamed with his hands still over his beak.

Sesshomaru almost ordered Jaken to take the child, but felt it unwise. If the child sensed Jaken's disgust he might become upset and cry again. But Melissa clearly needed two hands for her task. "This Sesshomaru will hold the child for you, my dear."

Melissa smiled her beautiful smile and showed Sesshomaru how to hold the baby. The little one continued to gaze up in fascination at the two of them then squealed and flailed his tiny limbs in delight when he realized Sesshomaru was going to hold him.

"Hn, You have absolutely no fear of this Sesshomaru, do you little one? That is most unwise." Jaken gaped and Melissa beamed, the words sounded like Sesshomaru, but his tone was light, almost playful. The child babbled back around the fingers in his mouth, he couldn't speak the words, but he was attempting to match the tone.

Sesshomaru turned his back on the pack as Melissa went about figuring out how to fold the diaper. "Are you attempting to mimic me, young one?"

Again the child attempted to match his tone. Sesshomaru granted the child a rare smile, but unlike those who knew him the child felt no fear and returned a gummy smile of his own. He lowered his face toward the child and tapped him playfully on the nose. The child responded by reaching up and attempting to grab his.

Sesshomaru quickly lifted his head back up and out of reach. The infant giggled and wiggled happily in his arms. He tickled the child under his chin and the baby giggled and wiggled some more. 'Adorable. I might not mind having one of these some day.'

"What strange power you have, young one." He whispered to the babbling babe. "You screech like a thousand youkai being slain and reek like a summer corpse, and yet I can not bring myself to dislike you. Melissa has remedied one of these, perhaps she is ready to rid you of that smell now?"

The child cooed up at Sesshomaru then stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry.

"Yes, that is what you did. That is why this Sesshomaru shall call you Stinky." The child giggled and kicked his legs as Sesshomaru spoke.

"Stinky?" Melissa asked skeptically.

"That is what he is."

"Stinky not name!"

"He likes it."

"He is just baby! He not know what it means, He likes you, not name."

"This Sesshomaru has decided to call him Stinky."

"Well this Melissa not call him that!" She yelled placing her hands on her hips.

"Are you ready to change this child's diaper yet?" He snapped. The baby started to cry and Melissa stood to take him.

"What is wrong? Why does he cry now?" Sesshomaru asked, concerned about the child's sudden change in mood.

"We argue. Babies not like when parents argue. He knows you angry." She replied taking the child and bouncing him in her arms to soothe him.

Once the baby calmed down she set him down next to the clean diaper and both Sesshomaru and Jaken recoiled at the contents of the baby's diaper. Melissa was not surprised, she'd known what to expect. Due to undeveloped digestive systems and a liquid diet baby doodoos were fairly odd looking, the mess was liquid but granular, and yellowish brown. Since her first diaper change Melissa had not been able to stomach anything with stone ground mustard on it, the appearance of it turned her stomach.

Suddenly Melissa moved quickly to the side, narrowly avoiding the font that sprung from between the child's legs. The liquid instead sprinkled gently down on top of a tiny Kappa's head. Jaken froze, a look of mingled horror and disgust on his reptilian face. Then he began to scream and flailed his own tiny limbs. "Aaaak! It pissed on me!"

"Jaken, watch your language, I do not want you teaching this child profanities." Sesshomaru scolded.

"You are green, Jaken. Maybe he think you are plant, if he water you you grow." Melissa joked finishing cleaning the baby and wrapping him back up.

The child cooed at them again and then smacked it's lips a few times. When Melissa picked him back up he turned his tiny head and began nuzzling against her chest.

"Perhaps the child could have two names. He certainly has proven himself to be Stinky, but I suppose a proper name will serve him well later in life." He reached out to touch Melissa's face.

She nodded. "It can be nick name. I not call him nick name. I call him... hmmmmm. I need think of name."

The child in her arms made a soft fussy sound and they both looked down at the child. He was opening and closing his mouth against the smooth silk of her kimono with his eyes closed. He was searching for food and becoming upset by his inability to find it.

"If I were requesting your nipples and you failed to present them I believe I would become frusturated too." Sesshomaru quipped, keeping his face deadpan. He looked at Melissa's face, at her worried frown.

"He hungry. I can't feed him. I not have... not have..." She shook her head, she didn't know the word for milk so she patted her chest to be understood. Sesshomaru looked back down at the child who was now starting to cry.

"Can he not be weaned early?" He asked as he placed a finger in the baby's mouth. The baby latched onto his finger and began to suck vigorously as he examined the smooth gums, finding only one small lard lump beneath his lower gum. He had not yet cut his first milk tooth. If they kept him he would starve.

He removed his finger and the child voiced his hunger again. Melissa replaced it with her own, quieting the baby while she racked her brain, trying to think how to feed him in a land that didn't keep dairy animals. Sesshomaru's heart was moved with pity as he watched his beloved and the hungry child. Then, sensing the stirring of compassion, Tenseiga started to pulse, telling him what must be done.

"I am sorry, Melissa. I want you to have children, but this one must stay with his true mother. He will starve if we keep him." He began to walk away from her, following his nose.

"Sesshomaru, I not think she survive." Melissa replied.

She hadn't. Sesshomaru found her corpse near the demolished house. She was barely more than a child herself, not much older than Rin. She had perhaps 14 summers. But more than the button nose marked her as his mother, Sesshomaru could smell the milk turning sour in her breasts.

Nearby lay a very young man with a weapon in his hand. He had died trying to defend his young family. Sesshomaru lifted his eyes and scanned the village. A small child, no older than Rin had been when he found her, was lying in a pool of blood. Her doll was still clutched in her arms. And a middle aged couple were crumpled together over the form of a dead son and many other families wear similarly grouped together, having died attempting to protect one another.

He could smell tears as Melissa drew even with him. She gazed down at the girl, "Is that mother?"

"Yes." Sesshomaru replied, drawing a glowing Tenseiga. He put his free arm around her and drew her to his side. He heard her dagger make a curious sound at Tenseiga. "Cover his eyes."

Melissa did as he bade, placing one hand over the baby's face. Then a blinding blue white light erupted from Tenseiga as he held his sword infront of his face. She snapped her eyes shut and turned her face away. The light radiated out from the sword, a blast of healing energy with the power to lift their hair from their shoulders.

"It is safe to open your eyes now." He stated as he licked her cheek.

"Sesshomaru, what..."

Her question was cut short by a soft groan coming from the girl at their feet. She pushed herself to a sitting position and looked around in confusion. Then looked up at the pair with fear in her eyes before her eyes fell on her son.

Melissa'a jaw dropped and she looked around in awe as the dead rose, whole and healthy once more. The baby started crying again and Melissa glanced down at him then looked at his mother. She was staring at them in fear, clearly wondering what they were planning to do with her baby. Melissa gave her a reassuring smile and stepped forward, offering Stinky back to his mother.

Without another word Sesshomaru turned and walked away. Melissa gave the young mother another warm smile then turned to follow him.