Sesshoumaru shuffled his feet in what, he supposed was nervousness. It was a new day and hopefully his luck with his fellow and flower-picking classmate would be better than that of the previous day. His gaze perked up as he saw Rin and the boy from before walking up to the gate. He leaned down and gave her a hug before giving her slight push in Sesshoumaru's general direction. When their eyes connected, Rin smiled, but the look suddenly faltered. Wondering what she was looking at, Sesshoumaru turned around to see Kagura shaking her head negatively at Rin. Her eyes slid to Sesshoumaru and she stuck her tongue out at him. "You're just as mean as the other boys! Well we're not gonna let you bully Rin. Come on!" by this time, Rin had reached the pair and was looking between the two as if trying to decide who to go with.

Sesshoumaru could easily place the dilemma flashing across her face; smiling slightly, he hoped that she would at least listen to what he had to say. Unfortunately, she allowed Kagura to grab her arm and lead her away. Sesshoumaru let his head hang low and sighed heavily; hopefully he'd have better luck a recess.


By the time recess rolled around, though, it was clear that the misunderstanding between Rin and Sesshoumaru had escalated to full scale girls versus boys battle. They had split themselves right down the middle; all the girls sat on one side of the room and the boys on the other, jeering at each other and cutting each other down every chance they got.

Rin and Sesshoumaru, the precipitators of all this, were sitting in their seats, glancing at each other every now and then. However, they never were given the chance to talk to one another since every time a girl looked at a boy or a boy looked at a girl, paper balls and insults would fly across the room in whispers behind Ms. Kaida's back.

"Psst! Hey, Sessh!" Sesshoumaru turned around at Kouga's beckoning. "Come over here!" It was only then that Sesshoumaru actually noticed that all the boys were huddled around in a circle whispering. A withering glance was his answer. "Just get over here!" Kouga hissed and with a heavy sigh, Sesshoumaru complied.

He had a really bad feeling about this.

"So…what do you want?"

Hiten smirked this time. "We got some balloons and water guns for recess today!"

Sesshoumaru's dry stare elicited a few groans of exasperation. "And we're gonna get those dumb girls really good."

"Why?"

"Because they're GIRLS!" Manten whined, fingering his hair self-consciously.

"The plan is to come at them when they aren't expecting it, got it guys?"

Sesshoumaru scoffed. "That's your plan? How stupid."

Kouga frowned. "Well I don't see you tryin to help! Can you come up with anything better?"

Sesshoumaru frowned. If they actually listened to him, then their crime and punishment game could actually be worth his time. Neither his mother nor Izayoi knew about the books his father read to him often times at night; as a result, Sesshoumaru was enamored of war games. Coming up with a strategy for this lot…it'd be simple and would probably even get Sesshoumaru some time to talk to Rin and straighten the whole mess out. "Fine," he conceded, ignoring the small voice in the back of his mind warning against these actions.

Rin was playing in the sandbox today, and even though she wasn't alone, Sesshoumaru figured he would have more luck without his idiotic male classmates. Approaching the red box, he gave Rin a small smile to which she responded with one of her own. However, some movement in the bushes behind her caught his attention and his eyes widened. Before he could call out a warning, Hiten, Manten and Kouga burst from the bushes and with loud yells and water guns.

And then mayhem broke. All the boys leapt out from their hiding places and bombarded the girls with water balloons and water guns. Sesshoumaru's eyes widened as everything fell apart around him.

Ms. Kaida jumped up from her seat on the bench and desperately began trying to pull the yelling boys off the screaming and crying girls.

Oh dear, this didn't turn out right at all.

For the rest of the day, Ms. Kaida was forced to dry off a group of sniffling little girls and try to prevent them all from getting colds. The boys were too busy with self-congratulations to heed Ms. Kaida's scolding. And then, Kouga made the mistake of lumping in Sesshoumaru in with their wretched posse of marauders. "Good job with distractin' the girls, Sessh!"

A startled gasp escaped Rin's lips. Why was she around to hear that? Her lower lip began to quiver and her eyes glazed over with tears as a single heartbreaking whimper broke free from her throat. "Sesshoumaru?"

"Rin, I'm sorry—" Sesshoumaru tried, but luck just was against him.

"YOU!" An enraged and highly feminine voice squeaked. "If it's a war you want, Sesshoumaru Taisho, it's a war you'll get!" Kagura gave Sesshoumaru perhaps the frostiest glare he'd ever seen on a girl and grasped Rin's hand, dragging her away.

Sesshoumaru heaved a deep sigh, and when Izayoi came to pick him up from what was possibly the longest day in his entire four years of life, he glared up at her. "You were wrong."


Enjoying it? I most certainly hope so. I'm going to take a break now, but the next three chapters will be out Monday...I'm going to be on a roadtrip, but I'll have my laptop with me so I'll have all the chapters done then!