**Author's Note: This chapter is a bit short so I'll update a new chapter sooner than three days from now. Enjoy :)

I do not own Inuyasha.

Chapter Three – Sesshomaru's Surprise

There in the bushes lay a beautiful young woman, naked and unconscious. Sesshomaru's eyes traveled up her body, taking in the sinuous nature of her curves and the pale milkiness of her skin. He was immediately taken by curiosity as he observed this girl. "How did I not sense the presence of a mortal woman before?" he asked himself as his eyes casually glanced over her breasts and then finally came to rest on her face.

At that moment, Sesshomaru's cold demon heart skipped a beat, a sensation that had long eluded him until now. The shape of the girl's eyes and the fashion in which she wore her hair immediately gave her identity away: it was Rin! Sesshomaru widened his eyes in disbelief and recounted all of that morning's events as he observed Rin's visage. "That demon…he must not have finished sucking her youth away." He knelt beside Rin's motionless body and lay the back of his hand against her cheek, shuddering slightly as he felt how smooth it was. 'So strange…' he thought to himself, 'this feeling that I have is so strange…in years past, the sight of mortal women roused nothing but bitter contempt and disgust…and yet now…I feel compelled to…' compelled to what, he wondered? 'I don't understand this feeling!' he thought to himself in frustration.

Sesshomaru removed his mokomoko and hastily wrapped it around Rin, who did not stir as he did so. Once she was adequately covered, he scooped her up with his right arm and carried her out from the bushes and back into the clearing. He paused for a moment as he held her close to him, looking down into her face and examining how the demon's spell had altered her appearance. Her former childlike qualities had given way to an exquisite, womanish beauty. Her long, black lashes lay prominently against the delicate features of her face, and her lips had ripened like sweet nectarines. Her very being seemed to radiate a sort of ethereal glow as he gazed down at her, and hew new captivating scent greeted his nostrils with a floral allure as he gingerly sniffed at her hair, which was now much longer than before. Sesshomaru was interrupted as Jaken approached in the distance.

"Lord Sesshomaru, there you are!" Jaken exclaimed with glee as he hopped awkwardly over a large tree root and eagerly took his place at Sesshomaru's side. "Mi lord, there should be no cause for alarm when I say this but it seems that Rin has-" Jaken cut himself off when he noticed a tattered piece of Rin's old garments laying in the grass nearby and that Sesshomaru's mokomoko was bundled up in his right arm. "Mi lord? What has happened?"

Sesshomaru didn't look at Jaken as he spoke. "We must find a human village immediately. Summon AhUn. We are leaving."

Jaken stared up at his master dumbfounded for a moment, confused by his orders. "But mi lord…"

"Do as I command, and do not hesitate!" Sesshomaru cast a nasty glance at Jaken, who backed away fearfully and then quickly scrambled off into the woods. When positive that he was alone, Sesshomaru looked down at Rin, furrowing his eyebrows in puzzlement as the unfamiliar emotion swept over him once more. He closed his eyes and willed the emotion away, and waited passively for the return of Jaken.