A/N: This is the mega-update I promised you guys. I bet none of you even noticed that! You get it anyway.

Disclaimer: I didn't do it but I served time. So now I can commit double jeopardy, right?

Last Time: Rin outgrew herself. Sesshoumaru dreads the market trip.

Daiyoukai and the Female Gender

Chapter 8: Daiyoukai and Shopping Spree

It wasn't as if he couldn't go shopping, it really wasn't. It was just... between the strange females, the unwashed crowds, and the pushy merchants he would wilt like the flowers Rin loved to pick so much. Besides, who knows a child's needs better than someone who cares for a child... And who knows what a girl needs other than another girl. (He really wasn't desperate for an excuse out. He wasn't!)

The miko fit the criteria but she wasn't very modest. The slayer was modest but didn't fit the criteria. Would he really have to do this himself? Maybe if he just got her some demon silk... Nah, two heads are better than one. He'd turn to his pack females to get the job done. (It was a plausible excuse, he thought.)

"So... you want me and Sango to shop for Rin?" He nodded.

"And give her a thorough grooming?"

"That was understood to be required."

"We won't know what you approve of unless you come along."

"Please come too, Sesshoumaru-sama!" Damn! The puppy eyes! The puppy eyes!

"...You will do the shopping. This Sesshoumaru shall observe." He was suckered into it.

Shrugging off the seventy-eighth (no exaggeration there!) fawner, Sesshoumaru waited for the girls to show off Rin. (Almost as if she was a prize...) They walked her to him in a green kimono with sakura petals scattered across. It was... acceptable. (The miko laid it aside saying, "We can do better.") Next was a blue kimono with silver little fish. (The slayer examined his face and placed it with the first.) And finally a yellow kimono with green leaves.

"This is perfect!"

"But we should get the other two for spare Kagome."

"Okay! Rin do you want them?"

"Yes!" Matching slippers were found and all was paid for.

Then they tugged Rin to the hotsprings with a new kimono. When Rin came out... her hair was trimmed evenly and in two side ponytails with the rest loose... and she was wearing the yellow kimono. She looked... "Acceptable." ...Perfect.

343 words. Yeah, you got more...

kimono :: a Japanese traditional garment. There are many different types. Rin's is less formal.

Sakura :: cherry blossom