Chapter 17

Rin, A Ring of Victory

The girl and the demoness made fast of their time in the morning, heading back to the Kaede's village.

"I am surprised Sesshomaru-sama had not gotten to you first. He's usually quite vigilant."

It truly was a wonder. The lord tended to meet intruders to his borders long before they realized they were even on his land. It must be those mononoke…the pigs.

There was such a number of them that Rin had made a game out of counting their oversized bodies before she lost track of the numbers. Stranger still, some of them were mummified.

"Why are the bodies like that Shinokiri-hime?"

"Majogumo."

"What?"

The demoness was lost in thought now. This could not possibly offer good prospects. The onibaba was gaining yoki from these corpses. Nothing good could come from this. Shinokiri sniffed the air. The scent wasn't there. She must be covering her tracks.

"Stay back Ah-Un."

The demoness approached the gossamer covered dried carcass with apprehension. She extended her claw far out in front of her to poke it. As soon as it was disturbed, a legion of rodent sized arachnids poured out from every orifice. Both Ah-Un and Rin made a sort of bleat of horror. The dragon flew upwards as to avoid the creeping terrors with such zeal as to almost fall off of her seat.

Shinokiri used her claw to impale one. Crouching down, she shifted her scrutiny from the spider on her claw and the corpse nest. She inspected them both with a grown. It seemed that after the hag drained the corpse of its contents she would expel the excess yoki into offspring, to be hatched in the remains of her meal.

Idiot.

Sesshomaru knew she was here. It was beyond Shinokiri's powers of deduction to figure out what exactly was clouding his judgment. It seemed so very out of character. This would become a problem.

She knew he was near. His scent. Blood. Yoki. It was all in the air. He was obviously wrapped up into a tempest of blood lust; killing the intruders blindly.

Such a disturbance.

Shinokiri felt the ground tremble beneath her. From the thicket gigantic boar parts flew; torn and spurting. Not long behind them was the imposing colossus of a white inu.

"Sesshomaru-sama!"

Rin clapped in excitement. It made going back to the village worth it if she could have the opportunity to be with the daiyoukai for even a moment. She directed her two-headed dragon to a landing, as the giant dog's eyes shifted in focus to her and her companions. Mystifyingly his voice roared out at them.

"Shinokiri, you undermine me!"

His eyes bubbled with anger and confusion as Shinokiri nonchalantly shook the spider oni off of her claw.

"I was returning her to your brother's protection."

He made a swipe at her with his paws, slobbering venom down like rain. It was such an uncharacteristic act of anger that she barely managed to move out of the way. She noticed a missing claw.

"You lie!"

"What would be my motive…to steal her?"

"To continue to torment me!"

"You have greater problems than this… Majogumo."

"Silence!"

Sesshomaru chased after Shinokiri's leaping figure with much snarling and gnashing of teeth. The female allowed her true form to take over and the pair became embattled in a tangle of fur and blood. They ruptured the forest with their grappling and biting, slashing at each other's bellies.

Rin was traumatized to the point of Ah-Un having to act on their own accord, flying to a safe distance. She yelled out to the two warring beasts to no avail. The inus were locked by their necks in each other's jaws.

"Sesshomaru-sama! She didn't take me! She's not lying! I'm sorry! I ran away! I'm sorry! Please stop fighting!"

She screamed in an explosion of tears. Sesshomaru's red eyes shifted to her, but the two youkai remained locked in their battle. They bared their teeth down into each other's flesh creating a constant stream of blood running through their fur and matting it. Despite the crying of the small child above them, they seemed intent on ripping one another's throats out.

In a great collapse, the massive jointure of the two bodies fell like a great crumbling structure. Rin urged Ah-Un to their sides as they melted into their humanoid forms. The two were bloody and exhausted: piled on top of each other in a knot of limp limbs.

As Ah-Un touched the ground, Rin leapt to the bloody mess. Confused and fawning, she did not know where to begin with this mess. Shinokiri coughed, embedding her chin in Sesshomaru's chest as a means of lifting her head.

"Are you satisfied my lord?"

"Hn. You should have left this place."

Shinokiri spat out a laugh, turning her attention to the rattled little girl. "It seems we must postpone your return to the village little one." Her head flopped over in a sort of defeat to her condition, and Sesshomaru followed suit.

Frantically, Rin looked around trying to figure out what to do with the two unconscious bodies.

"Girl! What happened?! Is M'lord alive?! What did that terrible woman do?"

Jaken buzzed his way into the scene of dying chaos.

"Master Jaken! They wouldn't stop, they just kept attacking each other!"

The two minuscule beings stood side by side, Ah-Un looking on, resigned to stasis. They had no choice but to stand watch as the two demons healed. Jaken silently shook within himself, clinging to the staff of two heads. He knew that their blood would attract attention. An incapacitated Lord of the Western Lands was a prize target, and it was only a matter of time before something would stumble upon them in this most vulnerable of states.

Making camp, the ramshackle group huddles by a fire, the two taiyoukai were still deep into their recuperative slumber. Struggling onto consciousness, the others followed suit one after the other. Rin was barely still awake when she saw a dark figure shifting over them, causing the sleep to be ripped from her.

The child whipped her head around, shooting up like an arrow to find the source of her startled state. There above her was a sickeningly twisted old hag with long bony groups of extremities popping out from her. She toothlessly smiled down at Shinokiri.

"Sesshomaru-sama, I humbly ask that you spare the sorceress, Majogumo."

"And why should this Sesshomaru grant his absentee consort such a request?"

The pair stood above the onibaba cowering beneath them. The lord had seen it fit to expel those he deemed as inferior beings off of his land. It was his first action as absolute ruler of his territory. An old scavenger of yoki fell right into this category.

Shinokiri had planted herself between the youkai lord and the disgusting old witch. She felt some responsibility towards the onibaba. If it were not for this lowly scavenger, she would be disfigured and barren.

"To settle a debt, my lord."

Sesshomaru relinquished the aggressiveness of his stance and nodded at his mate. He would not test the moment. It was a rare occasion in which they were in each other's presence.

The old demon smirked up at them. She never would have dreamed that the small ointment she had so casually made would allow for such favor. Especially as it seemed to have been accepted so gracelessly at the time.

Majogumo groveled and bowed in a veneer of gratitude. However, she did not take kindly to the idea of her life being at the whim of a young pretender, resting on the glory of his father. As her superiors left her, she made note to be rid of them when she had the chance. She could feel the power of their delicious yoki. It would be hers.

"Shinokiri-hime…I can smell your power. Now you may truly pa me back."

She craned down as she creakily caressed the younger demoness' face, but snapped back up when she noticed the gaze of a small child.

"Ah, Lord Sesshomaru's human pet."

A gnarled hand shot out towards Rin's face, and the girl fell back jarring the strings of her wrapped koto. The metallic clanging was a call to action, waking Ah-Un and Jaken. Startled, the hag moved backward.

"Diseased wretch! Remove yourself from Lord Seshommaru!"

Jaken commanded a below of fire from the staff of two heads as Ah-Un growled in such a menacing way as to hold off the spider. Hurriedly, Rin unwrapped her instrument and fumbled to position it right.

"Master Jaken! Ah-Un! Stay back!"

Before the warning could sink in she furiously took set on the strings. The blast blew back her two companions but left them largely unscathed…the hag, however…her extremities were blown to bits. She was howling and gurgling as she flailed backward. In the commotion, the two taiyoukai only seemed to flutter their eyelids.

From out of the darkness: each crevice of the forest and the old witch let loose a black carpet of spiders. Jaken, now somewhat recovered unleashed the fury of his staff on the encroaching legion to the east and Ah-Un tackled the west. Their efforts allowed for the group to not be completely encircled, allowing Rin to climb on top of the mound of the two demons she was protecting.

If I'm touching them, then they can't get hurt.

She reminded herself of Shinokiri's advice to her as she focused her energies on the center of the attacking arachnids, specifically the wretched witch. The three ate through the horde but to their chagrin, the sorceress's expanse of yoki kept the army of spider replenished.

"Rin! You must awaken Lord Sesshomaru! Only his superior power could defeat this!"

Rin's chest tightened as she tried to think of a way to get at least one of the demons under her to wake up. It was a mystery already as to how they could still be unconscious in all of this commotion. All at once it came to her, quickly she raised one hand to her hair, keeping the other frantically strumming the strings. Reaching back, she pulled her hairpin out and thrust it blindly into one of the bodies beneath her.

With a great and thunderous growl, Sesshomaru shot up, back into the world, now aware that he was in the center of an attack. Rin fell down, tumbling onto a now stirring Shinokiri.

Enraged, Sesshomaru drew Bakusaiga and slashed at the army like a mere nuisance. The shockwave spread through the collective yoki of Majogumo and her offspring—obliterating them all. It seemed all so simple.

"M'lord! You have saved us."

Jaken collapsed with Ah-Un in elated exhaustion.

Shinokiri propped herself up with strain, "Sesshomaru-sama, I tried to warn you…your trail of dead hog demons…she was feeding off of their residual yoki."

"Hn,"

She continued, "If you had not been so foolish, then perhaps she would not have been so embolden as to attack us in this—"

"This Sesshomaru recalls that it was you who entreated me to allow her to stay."

The tension was now tactile and mounting, and Rin felt as if she would burst.

"Please! Stop fighting!"

Rin's face was wet and streaked with tears, her voice hoarse. She was so tired. The child shook her sorrow into Shinokiri's embrace, which caused an empty feeling to bubble inside Sesshomaru. He looked down to the source of a mild stinging in his leg to see a gold and jadeite ornament embedded deep within his thigh. Pulling it out, he wiped the blood off and gently placed it back in Rin's hair, leaving his hand there. He stroked her tresses gently as the fabric of his sleeve ruffled the fabric of Shinokiri's.

"When I gifted this to you, I had not expected you to use it in such a manner."

Rin's head popped up and flashed a bright smile up at her protector. Leaping from one embrace to the other, she wrapped her arms around the stoic demon lord.

"I'm sorry Lord Sesshomaru. This is all my fault….I should have stayed in the village."

She sniffled a bit, "I was selfish. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be useful…but I'm not."

Shinokiri cooed at the child.

"Silly girl, we have you to owe our lives to."

Upon hearing Shinokiri's words, Rin looked up at Lord Sesshomaru.

"Really?"

"Hn." He followed up with a swift nod. The group would huddle close that night, no one really resting, still alert from all that had happened.