Official Chapter One
sorry for the wait
Until just a few years ago Rin had always regarded Sesshomaru as her father, which, according to her is a very deserving title for him, though she would think he was more of a guardian angel than anything else.
Rin could never dream why Sesshomaru had loved her in the first place. Not only was she a lowly human in his eyes, she was a beggar's daughter. She grew up in the kind of family that lives for one day, not caring for the next.
She wished that she could be of more use to him, as an apology for the mistakes that she made when she was little and also the many, many times that she threw him off-track when she made those mistakes.
Rin sat next to a stream, gazing at her reflection in the beautiful sword as she waited for Sesshomaru-sama's return, but something she saw in her reflection made her heart beat faster. Her eyes had faint traces of gold just about the edges of her irises, and her hair, something about it, gave it a shimmering glow, even in the daylight, her face, her lips, her ears, they were all different, they did not belong to her, they belonged to someone much more beautiful, someone…familiar.
Who – what has she become? A demon? Why was the reflection so familiar to her, like she has met that person before, but does not remember her name? Rin slipped the sword back into its holder, pondering on the questions while she went back to washing her clothes, humming absent-mindedly as she did her chores.
"Hey there, beautiful."
Rin whirled around to face three boys around her age.
"What's your name?" the tallest one asked, "and what are you doing here do deep in the woods, there's a stream down south, right outside the forest. You could be attacked by you-know-what out here." He made a gesture signifying all the things "you-know-what" stood for.
Rin was speechless. She had never talked to another human after her kidnapping by a child-eating youkai, and she knew that she would get in trouble if Sesshomaru found out she was in conversation with such lowly, deceivable humans.
"I-I'm Rin, and I don't think I can talk to you," she stammered, blushing.
"And why is that?" another boy piped up. Rin remembered his face from the nearby town they had crossed earlier. He was the only one she had regarded as slightly handsome.
"Because Se-my master will come and punish you." She had learned the easy way from Sesshomaru to say the truth, or keep her mouth shut and say nothing at all.
"Don't worry, you can tell that master of yours that we mean no harm. We were just hunting in the forest and came across a beautiful young lady by a stream. We come in peace." He put down his bow and arrow, and the other two did the same, and all three showed their palms.
"I don't know…" Rin wringed out the water in her clothes and collected her belongings, gingerly lifting the sword and tying the string around her belt.
"Beautiful sword you got there, why is it glowing?" The boys seemed earnest to Rin, but she noticed them exchange glances every now and then, which made her feel uncomfortable. She decided to leave the stream and go look for Sesshomaru-sama, but heaven knows where he is!
"Leaving already, are we?" The tall one asked. "Why the rush? We have all day to get to know each other." He and the other two chuckled. "My name is Masaku Kitagawa. I'm from the village down south –" he pointed behind him, "and these are my brothers, Kizumaru and Shirou." He hesitated before asking, "How about you come down with us and meet the family?"
That, Rin realized, turned out to be a rhetorical question. Before she could respond, Shirou and Masaku each took one of her hand and Kizumaru stood behind her, making escape impossible, yet the acted gentlemanly in each movement they made. "Don't worry," Shirou, the cute one, whispered into her ear. "We won't hurt you in any way. We just want to get to know you better." He smiled, baring his brilliant teeth, making Rin feel warm again. She had never seen Sesshomaru smile.
Just then, Rin noticed something very wrong. They were walking on the path, but after a while the boys veered her greatly towards the right, and that was when she detected the smell of blood. Fresh blood, stale blood, HUMAN blood. She saw movement ahead of her and the boys pushed her out of the trees.
Rin scoffed. How rude they were, to push a lady like that! She couldn't wait until Sesshomaru comes and finds her, then she'll definitely let them have a piece of her mind! And it is only a matter of time until he comes –
Her eyes grew wide at the red blotches on the floor. Slowly, she looked up from the ground.
She was staring into the eyes of hundreds of gore-stained men.