A/N: I had the craziest dreams last night. I dreamed I had a beard, like beard as in Gimli-beard. LOTR beard…icky. And then I dreamed that a gay guy my boyfriend and I both know, who has hit on him before (he asked him to come over and spend the night for a pair of pants my boyfriend wanted to buy, to which my boyfriend asked, "Can I bring my girlfriend?" and he said, "Forget it then.") started hitting on him hardcore…and then my boyfriend fled to me embarrassed and…well, it was all disturbingly real. That's what I get for going to bed at 5 in the AM…

BUT anyway, how do you like it? Rin's a tough girl, eh? But she's not all badass, as I am about to show you…and what of Sesshomaru? He has reacted with amazing swiftness…

Last Chapter: Rin and Tsukiyume were attacked by bandits. They defended themselves well, though Rin did it with particular vengeance and bloodlust. We all know she has multiple reasons to be a little off her rocker…A monk, 2 boys, and a youkai child tried to come to their rescue. This happened of course to be Miroku, Kohimu, Tisoki, and Shippo, acting as vigilante police against an insurgence of recent bandit activity. Rin and Tsukiyume joined them for a time, but left. Shippo put two and two together and now they are eager to warn Inuyasha of the approaching trouble—and of his unborn niece…

Carnage

A small village appeared at a turn in the bend. Tsukiyume stopped when she saw it, ears swiveling. Rin was some distance behind her, walking Roba. The sky was darkening with twilight, the sun was setting. To Tsukiyume's rich hanyou senses, the air felt charged with electricity. A storm was brewing, a rich, pounding rainstorm.

When she heard Rin's footsteps, and Roba's hooves crunching the dirt, she turned around, facing the other girl uncertainly. "There's a village ahead, Lady Rin."

Rin didn't look up. "Good for them."

"We should stop." Tsukiyume insisted, watching tensely as Rin drew closer, still leading Roba onward. The mare was snorting, disliking the closeness of Tsukiyume's feral scent.

"No, we keep moving." Rin ordered, but she could not disguise the fatigue in her shoulders, in the slump of her posture, in the weary circles underneath her eyes.

"My lady, please." Tsukiyume started backing up, trying to keep a safe distance from Roba. "You aren't in the condition to…"

"Don't speak of it." Rin interrupted, harshly. She glared at the hanyou girl, her lips tight, her expression bitter.

"But we must stop! You cannot walk through the night like this, my lady…" giving up on Roba, Tsukiyume stepped forward and snatched Rin's arm where she held the reins, trying to stop her or pull the horse away from her. "Please, Rin…"

The use of her name without official titles startled Rin and, as if seeing Tsukiyume for the first time, she stopped, blinking unsteadily. "If you insist…" she stuttered.

Roba whinnied, jerking on the girls' hold on her, trying to flee instinctually from Tsukiyume. The hanyou irritably tugged back on the halter, ears lying flat. "Shut up—you're more trouble than you're worth."

Rin laughed, short but with genuine amusement. A weak smile spread over her lips. "You said just what I was thinking."

When Shimofuri arrived in his preferred battlement in the Nanka province of the Middle Lands at around noon the day after Rin and Tsukiyume had left, he knew upon entering that he'd waited too long. The small city around his castle was solemn, mourning the dead. At first Shimofuri sensed the atmosphere and thought that an earthquake or a storm had passed through, but when he saw the damage he quickly realized that no natural phenomenon had swept through his city.

Surprisingly, his castle was undamaged. The guards greeted him with stony, stunned expressions, saying little. Shimofuri learned more when his advisors and retainers flocked to him, frantic but apologetic. They spoke of an attack in the town, throughout the countryside as well. An inuyoukai, fair-haired, golden-eyed. The denizens of the Middle Lands had come to know inuyoukai over the other types of youkai. They had also learned to distinguish the different clans that ruled over them. This beast they knew wasn't apart of the clans that ruled over the Nanka. His features, and the fact that his power was turned against them, told them that well enough. They knew of Inutaisho only out of collective group memory, that he'd been fair-haired like Taikokajin, but not blue-eyed or pink-eyed as a true albino. The golden-eyed inuyoukai was an entirely different breed…

Shimofuri's retainers, of course, knew their attacker to be Sesshomaru because he had come and announced this, demanding to see their ruler. When they'd told him that Shimofuri was away—at some unknown location at the time—he'd left, seemingly defeated. That was when the attacks started. Not on the palace, but on the people.

All of this had apparently taken place the evening before; at around the time that Shimofuri had watched Tsukiyume and Rin leave for the coastal lands and Inuyasha's home there. Sesshomaru had behaved as they'd predicted, rushing to the one responsible in his mind for having dragged Rin away. When he hadn't found trace of either Shimofuri or Rin, he'd taken out his frustration on the people, beginning his first punishment on Shimofuri.

"Send out my messengers." Shimofuri ordered his advisors, "And the spies as well. I want to know where Sesshomaru is and what he's doing. Alert my uncle and Lord Arasoizuki of this incident."

"What should the messengers say?" a wide-eyed, fox demon asked Shimofuri. He was one of Shimofuri's hired messengers. "Are we to search for Lord Sesshomaru? And if we run into him, what do we say to him?"

Shimofuri scowled, jaw clenching. "Yes, seek Sesshomaru out. If you find him, tell him he is asked to come and speak with me, diplomatically…" for the messenger's sake, Shimofuri hoped they never did run into Sesshomaru. It would probably be the last thing they ever said.

The villagers were understandably uncertain about their newest guests. A dog-eared girl and a rich woman with her packhorse traveling alone? They muttered and doubted even after Rin paid them twice the amount of money their meager lodgings were worth. But for that kind of money they accepted her wishes and provided them with a meal. When Rin and Tsukiyume sat together inside the small hut they'd been given, they could hear the villagers gossiping. The pitter-patter of their children's feet scurrying around the side of their hut sent Tsukiyume's ears continually circling, trying to pinpoint the sounds.

Finally she snapped, growling to herself. "How does Inuyasha stand it? All the gawking…" unlike her distant cousin, Tsukiyume had spent her entire life until recently hidden away from prying eyes, first by her mother and brother, then by Sesshomaru and Rin.

Rin was focused on her meal, though she didn't eat with any vigor at all. The chopsticks moved slowly from her bowl to her mouth and then the process repeated, but each time it seemed to take longer for the journey to be completed. She didn't answer Tsukiyume's question, and seemed deaf to the boys trying to peek at them outside.

Tsukiyume's ears flattened dangerously. She looked between the door and Rin, frowning. "Can you even hear them, my lady?"

"Don't call me that anymore." Rin murmured, softly. The chopsticks poked into her mouth, and then, gradually, she pulled them free and let them drop to the bowl again.

"What do you mean?" the hanyou girl scowled.

"I'm not royalty, Tsukiyume." Rin answered, still speaking gently and quietly. "Sesshomaru made me appear as if I was." Only at the end did her words become embittered and nasty.

Tsukiyume scowled. "You are Lady Rin." Her tone made it sound as if she were trying to convince Rin that the sky really was blue. It was obvious to her, Rin was a lady, she was royalty. She hadn't been born into it, no, but she was as fair as any samurai warlord's wife or daughter, and certainly more educated.

Rin's face twisted briefly as she fought with her chopsticks, forcing her meal to stay caught in them. "Do as I say." She might as well have been talking to her food, Tsukiyume was beginning to think her human companion had gone mad.

"How can you command me if you aren't royalty?" Tsukiyume demanded, growing irritable.

At last Rin lifted her eyes away from her bowl and the chopsticks. "Because you are hanyou." She spat, viciously. "Hanyou have no place in this world."

Tsukiyume's ears fell backward, her eyes narrowed. As Rin turned back to her food and continued her slow, laborious path from bowl, to chopsticks, to mouth, Tsukiyume's hands clenched tightly into fists. At last she blew, like a volcano, losing her top.

"What's the matter with you? If you think taking out your anger on everyone around you is going to help you feel better, you should take a look in the mirror! The only thing you're doing is making everyone else miserable right alongside you!" she shouted, snarling.

Rin didn't even glance up at her. "If you are miserable it is nothing of my doing."

Tsukiyume groaned, covering her face with her hands, pressing at her eyes. Caught between rage, fear, and pain, she didn't know whether to scream, curse, or bawl. She pulled her hands away from her face and leaned forward, closer to Rin, invading her personal bubble all in one fluid movement. "I worried about you every day I was stuck with Ginrei! Every day! And now you insult me for being hanyou?"

There was a flicker of interest in Rin's gaze now, but it was still as if she were barely seeing Tsukiyume, as if there was a shroud over the hanyou girl and Rin were watching her from a distance. It was like a personal drama before her, played out on a stage that was so close she could reach out and touch it, or pinch its white dog ears…

"So that's Sesshomaru's new wife, is it? Ginrei…" Rin said, blandly, tasting the name with more interest than she gave to her food.

Tsukiyume got to her feet stiffly, hands still balled into angry fists at her side. "Do you know who you sound like, Lady Rin?"

Rin looked up at her, unconcernedly. "Who would that be?"

"You sound like your mate. You sound just like Sesshomaru." She pivoted, facing Rin more directly to scowl down at her, angrily. "Hanyou have no place in this world. Isn't that what you always said he told you, over and over again? Well congratulations, Lady Rin, your baby is hanyou. She'll be right here with me—and you can make her miserable too."

Rin had lowered her eyes now, though whether it was to actually hide them because she was having an emotional reaction to Tsukiyume's words, or whether it was simply because she'd lost interest in the speech and decided to try eating again was completely unclear. Tsukiyume was about to storm out and shout at the boys, who were still racing around the hut, trying to eavesdrop—not that it was hard to do currently—when she saw Rin's shoulders jerk once. This made her pause, watching the mortal woman a moment longer…

At last, Rin cracked.

It began in her shoulders. They quaked, looking as if she were laughing. And as the sound reached Tsukiyume, she thought Rin had lost her mind, because it sounded like laughter at first, hard, chest convulsing laughter. (A/N: that's something strange I've noticed. While sobbing really hard, it can actually sound like laughter. It's really like a sick joke…)

But then Tsukiyume scented the salt of the tears and saw Rin's fingers go limp, dropping the chopsticks.

"Lady Rin—Rin, I'm sorry…" Tsukiyume stammered, dropping to her knees and reaching out for her, but Rin knocked her hands away fiercely.

A snarl curled itself over Rin's face. She looked up into Tsukiyume's face and the hanyou girl moved away, blown backward by the hatred she saw awakening inside her friend's face. "Rin…" she whispered, gapingly.

"How could this happen?" Rin choked, hands balling up into fists, "I'm such a fool!"

"It's okay," Tsukiyume stuttered lamely, "I know you didn't mean it—and I didn't mean a word I said either…"

Rin lashed out, knocking the bowl away, sending the chopsticks flying. Rice, sauce, noodles, meat, strips of vegetables, everything splattered over the floor messily. Rin ducked over, folding herself in half. Her long hair cascaded forward, covering her face and dipping itself in the spilled, wide-flung food.

"Everything I am, he made me." Rin was gasping; her words were barely understandable over her hoarse, ragged breathing. "Tsuki…" she breathed coarsely, "My babies…he told me I was being poisoned. What if he did it…" her words dissolved into choked sobs and wailing, teary cries.

"Rin, no—that's not true! Sesshomaru wanted those babies as much as you did! Ginrei meant nothing to him! All he ever did was pick on her and fight with her and…" Tsukiyume moved forward, awkwardly trying to comfort Rin once more, but Rin heard her movement and sat up, scooting away.

Tears streaked down her face, her eyes were bright red and inflamed. "I could kill him…" and then, as soon as she said it, Rin's hands flew to her abdomen and she shook her head helplessly. "But I can't…everything I am…" she repeated, sobbingly.

Tsukiyume kept her distance now, stiff and carefully composed, although her eyes were very wet and she was blinking ferociously. "I'm sure right now Lord Sesshomaru is regretting everything, Rin. I'm sure he's ready to kill anyone that stands in his way…" the hanyou girl cut herself off, putting one hand over her mouth and closing her eyes tightly. Shimofuri…

Rin sobbed onward, unaware of Tsukiyume's presence or her pain. "Sesshomaru has what he needs." Her face rippled with self-loathing and hatred for her mate mixed as one, ugly expression. "And it's not me. I am only weakness." She looked up at Tsukiyume, abruptly shouting, "How could he go to her when he knew I was always waiting for him? How could he look at me?" she hugged herself, rocking back and forth and whimpering, gasping. "He probably laughed." She whispered to herself, eyes wide and unseeing. "He enjoyed it all…"

Tsukiyume shook her head desperately. "Please, please stop this! You're only hurting yourself, Lady Rin. You must be strong!" her ears flattened, a few tears escaped her own eyes but she flicked them off of her. "For your baby!"

"Even that is his." Rin snarled, viciously, still rocking back and forth, back and forth.

"Not anymore." Tsukiyume murmured. "Now she's yours."

"He doesn't care!" Rin spat.

"He does." Tsukiyume repeated, calmly. "He spent months with you, Lady Rin. You can't believe your own words, you're heartbroken. Please, stop, for your baby?"

Rin's breathing had stabilized some, her rocking had ceased, but in spite of it she shook her head firmly. "She won't live, none of them ever do." She choked on the words again, lowering her head to hide her eyes.

"You've been traveling all this way, my lady, and she is still alive, isn't she? I've seen you flinch when there's nothing wrong—she moves, doesn't she?" Tsukiyume had begun radiating hope and confidence to bolster her failing mistress. "What will you name her?"

Rin scoffed bitterly and began sobbing again, but this time it was with less violence, though it at last robbed her of her breath, making her give up on speech. As Tsukiyume saw Rin's body shaking, her long hair dirtied from being dragged through the spilled food on the floor, she sighed, recognizing that the worst was over, for now. She didn't try to stop these tears; some tears were unavoidable and actually needed for cleansing. Instead, she moved about the room trying to clean up the bowl Rin had tossed aside, snatching up the chopsticks as well. And searching for a comb. She acted like a maid, serving her lady.

The familiarity of the ritual made Rin give in to it, sitting up, sniffling, and allowing Tsukiyume to pick through her hair clumsily with the comb. They did not speak—neither risked an exchange, for fear of what it could do to them both.

As night at last descended the villagers brought bedding supplies for them, which Tsukiyume accepted and then unrolled, setting them up for sleep. Rin stayed quiet, having once more retreated into her cold, distant façade, protecting her fragile innards where she'd been torn wide open and split like an egg.

Sesshomaru arrived in the eastern province of the Middle Lands—the Itou—at about the same time as Rin and Tsukiyume faced the bandits on the road. The sun was shining brightly; the temperature was soaring, showing the first true signs of spring. The Itou was flourishing, its people populated the fields, clearing out the debris from their irrigation channels. They planted rice in preparation for the next growing season.

They were unaware that their world was about to be shaken from the top-down.

In the castle town of the Itou province, a city called Sobadzue, Lord Arasoizuki was summoned by his flustered, confused servants, telling him that the great Lord Sesshomaru had appeared, demanding an audience.

Arasoizuki was a young inuyoukai still, only freshly married. He had two children from his recent marriage already, both sons. Arasoizuki was a gentle leader, he preferred to avoid and evade wars as much as he could. While Nishiyori had plotted against Shimofuri and before him his mother Lady Taikokajin, Arasoizuki had contented himself with finding a suitable bride and bedding her to ensure his legacy, through his heirs, would continue on.

When the war in the Isei had started, both Nishiyori and Shimofuri had come forward, pleading with Arasoizuki to ally himself with them. Arasoizuki hadn't been interested. He proclaimed neutrality and held it, stiffly. His lands, at the time, had been devastated by a typhoon that had swept up over the eastern coast and been caught in the rain shadow of the mountains further west. Most of the Middle Lands had suffered in that growing season because of that misfortune, except the Isei, which was part of the reason why Nishiyori had gone to war when he did. He'd known that all the other provinces but his own were weakened by famine and hardship.

Arasoizuki had been no exception, and so he saw it prudent to avoid the conflict, which he saw as silly anyway.

This day he would rue not having joined the battle on Nishiyori's side.

He stepped into the audience room, after being announced by his retainer, Boujin, and was surprised to see Sesshomaru sitting there. The inuyoukai was calm outwardly, but Arasoizuki's instincts flared up, setting his pulse racing, although he had yet to understand why. There was something in Seesshomaru's posture, something in the position of his single hand in his lap—and the rather dirtied, travel-worn kimono and hakama that he wore—that set Arasoizuki on edge.

Even as he walked into the room, Shimofuri was arriving back into his castle and sending out his messengers to the Itou and the Hokubo provinces, to warn them of Sesshomaru's likely hostile intentions.

Arasoizuki had entered the room without a blade.

He settled himself on his platform, grunting as he sat. Sesshomaru, in the center of the audience room some ten feet away, did not bow. Arasoizuki decided not to make a matter out of it. Sesshomaru was intimidating, he'd heard many things and knew the inuyoukai to be powerful and to hate the clan. He wondered, innocently, what had brought the old heir of Inutaisho's estranged line into his audience room without any warning or prearrangements.

"Good day, Lord Sesshomaru. I hope you are well." Arasoizuki began, warmly. He had a smooth voice, a voice meant for diplomacy and peace. In another decade Arasoizuki might balloon in size and become fat to match his easy-going sound. "May I ask you what brings you here so soon in the spring?"

He'd only met Sesshomaru briefly, when he had newly inherited his position as lord of the Itou. It had been over fifty years ago, when the panther tribe was invading the Western Lands again and Sesshomaru had still been apart of the inuyoukai clan. Sesshomaru had asked each of his distant relatives for aid, and each had turned their backs on him. He ruled the single-largest swathe of land of any leader in the clan. They had decided, unanimously, to test Sesshomaru's mettle and leave him to fend for himself. They hoped it would weaken him and they could step in later to help and divide his lands up amongst their squabbling children and the lesser inuyoukai families that longed for their own rule and land.

Unfortunately it had only worked to estrange Sesshomaru from the clan and garner his lasting grudge. Arasoizuki hadn't been opposed to helping Sesshomaru in those days, but he had been new in his position, vulnerable. He needed to support the clan t have them support him, so he denied Sesshomaru's requests for aid just like all the rest of the clan.

Now Sesshomaru was back, and there was something in his golden eyes, a strange, brooding darkness…

"I have come, Lord Arasoizuki, to ask what you know about Shimofuri's involvement in the abduction of my mate."

Arasoizuki blinked, stunned. His mouth opened but no words came out. "I'm afraid I have heard nothing, Lord Sesshomaru. Forgive me; I was not even aware that you had a mate…"

"You are Shimofuri's ally." Sesshomaru spoke in a deadly calm voice, cold enough to make Arasoizuki shudder as if a blizzard had suddenly started inside the room. "You knew of his plans."

"I'm afraid Lord Shimofuri and I are not on the closest of terms. They are angry with me for remaining neutral in the war within the Isei." He bowed slightly, starting to sweat, "I am genuinely sorry for your loss, Lord Sesshomaru. If there is anyone that will know Lord Shimofuri's mind, it is his uncle, Lord Sasgainu. They are very close allies." He tried to make a joke laughing, "I would call them mates if it were not in such poor taste."

When Sesshomaru failed to react at all to his bad joke, Arasoizuki cleared his throat nervously. "As I said, I'm afraid Lord Shimofuri has told me nothing. Is there anything that I can do for you, Lord Sesshomaru? My men are at your disposal to help you find your mate."

"You have already given me what I need." Sesshomaru answered him, ducking his chin in what at first glance appeared to be a bow, but in the space of an eye blink it became a deadly, fatal move. Sesshomaru lashed out with the green glow of his energy whip. The snakelike thing wrapped itself around Arasoizuki's throat, coiling tightly. As Arasoizuki cried out and the guards in the room sprang into action, swords as well as bows and arrows at the ready, Sesshomaru turned, whirling like a child's spinning top. His projected green whip moved with him, dragging Arasoizuki around the room. Sesshomaru used his body like a club, knocking aside all of the guards and the retainer, Boujin.

Their bodies all flew through the air, crashing with enough force to smash through the screened walls of the audience room. Sesshomaru released the coils holding Arasoizuki then, letting his inuyoukai club fall unceremoniously at his feet.

Arasoizuki was still alive, though he was choking and gasping for breath. He clutched at his neck with shaking hands. The flesh of his neck was searing, smoking, and oozing the same green color as Sesshomaru's whip. He recovered swiftly though, seeing that Sesshomaru was not finished with him yet.

"Sessho…" his voice was all but destroyed by his trip flying at the end of the other lord's whip. He stumbled backwards, beginning to pant. The energies of the room swarmed as Arasoizuki, in desperation, began to call on his true form.

Sesshomaru drew the sword at his belt with his single hand and held it level as Arasoizuki's face erupted in a canine snarl. His eyes blazed red; he dropped to all fours…

Without a word, Sesshomaru slashed the air with his blade, sending a lightening-like bolt of energy ripping through the floor. It tore apart the wood floor of the audience room, cracking it and making the entire castle tremble warningly. It was preparing to collapse in on itself, destroyed from the inside out by Sesshomaru.

The streaking energy cut into Arasoizuki's changing body, ripping him limb from limb. The stink of blood pierced the air sharply. As the floor collapsed, Arasoizuki's human guards and retainers cried out, falling into the chasm that was opening beneath their feet. Arasoizuki suffered the same, fate, but he did it in pieces. A leg fell through an early crack there, an arm or a hand through a different crack on the other side of the room. Blood dribbled and cascaded downward like a waterfall.

Sesshomaru, through sheer force of will, remained where he was, defying gravity as the floor fell out. When the roof above him started to crumble as well, Sesshomaru let loose another crackling, streaking bolt of energy, this time aimed upwards. It cut through the floors above him, straight into the ceiling. The castle crashed around him, collapsing into itself in a way that would not be mimicked until the skyscrapers of the 20th century.

Before the dust had settled, and as the shrieks and wailing cries of the mourners and wounded had only just started up, Sesshomaru set foot back on the ground and paused, staring at the carnage. But his golden eyes weren't seeing it. They were hazy, unfocused. As if on autopilot, he sheathed his sword, and turned his back on the mess at last, vanishing for a time into the countryside of the shocked Itou.

They would begin their own mourning soon enough. As he passed through the villages, Sesshomaru took the time to stop and tear one apart every so often, almost randomly. His eyes held the same darkness that Rin's had, and alongside his normal distance and chilly personality, Sesshomaru had adopted a stifled rage. He was driven to carnage, to vengeance; as if these things could alleviate the pain he felt, the sense of loss…

They didn't. He left each scene of disaster even more calloused than he had been before, and even more helpless…hopeless…

He crossed the Itou and entered the Hokubo before dawn. He did not stop to sleep and would not stop until a sign had been given, until some scent, a shred of hope…

At one time in his life he had thought all humans smelled the same. Only Inuyasha's mother had left an impression on him previously, and that had only been one of hatred. But now, after raising Rin, there were other humans, and there was Rin. Rin was not one of them. She bore a scent unlike any other, a scent so deeply ingrained in him, that he knew as he passed through each province, that she wasn't hidden within their borders. Her scent had become more than a scent; it had become a sense, an aura that he could follow as surely as he could track the moon, the sun, the starlight…

The Middle Lands were bereft of that, empty, as good as barren wastelands in his eyes. Wildernesses of darkness, stretching out into infinity…

Arasoizuki and the Itou were behind him, that left the Hokubo and Sasugainu, Shimofuri's closest ally.

Rin awoke in the night, doused in her own cold sweat. She shivered, trying to dig herself deeper into her blankets. Tsukiyume was snoring quietly on the other side of the room, seemingly asleep and unlikely to waken.

Alone, in the darkness, Rin felt herself starting to crack again. Her body flushed hot beneath the blankets, in spite of her sweat. She shivered, her stomach tightened and she gagged, nearly vomiting.

Closing her eyes and taking deep breaths steadied her body, and helped to solidify her emotions, but it didn't rid her of the pain completely.

Where are you? She wondered to the darkness. Laying one hand over her belly, she delicately probed her own feelings regarding her child. Are you his? Are you mine? Will you even survive? The questions were unanswerable.

She missed his touch, the deep purr-like sound, the chest rumble, that he made during their moments of intimacy. Her body and mind craved him, quaking inside and out at the thought and the memories. He was like a drug, and she couldn't deny her ongoing desire for him, so strong it was a need that drove her slowly mad as she went without him, as she suffered withdrawal.

Whimpering weakly, she pressed her face into her beddings, letting a few tears come. What do I do without you? Everything I have you gave me. I'm nothing without you…

A fox demon crossed Sesshomaru's path. It cowered and bowed and tried to pass on a message. Sesshomaru held himself in check long enough to understand that the little youkai was a messenger working for Shimofuri, and that the arrogant dog was trying to summon Sesshomaru to him, to try "diplomacy…"

"There was no use of diplomacy when he took my mate…" Sesshomaru snarled, eyes flaring red through the darkness of the night.

The kitsune glanced up in time to see the eerie green glow of Sesshomaru's clawed fingertips. He screamed, turning away to flee, but Sesshomaru was faster. He let his noxious poison fly, spraying after the kitsune. It covered over the helpless creature, leaving him to scream with pain as the acidic poison carved the flesh from his bones while he was still living.

Sesshomaru spared him this agony by drawing his sword and releasing another burst of energy, cutting the kitsune up, at last killing him.

His journey now included run-ins with Shimofuri's messengers frequently. He scented them and often crossed paths with them. Sometimes, without reason, he tracked them down and killed them wordlessly, other times he allowed them to speak their messages, and then he would slaughter them. Other times he would pass their scents and not pursue them at all, merely continue on his own journey like a mindless drone.

At dawn, as he came to the bordering forest around Sasugainu's castle city, Funuke, Sesshomaru came across one last kitsune messenger. This one was taller, lankier than the others, and his scent was stronger, more powerful. He would be at the head of Shimofuri's messengers; he would be the favored inside his clan, more powerful than the others.

This one, apparently wise to the fact that Sesshomaru had been murdering his kin and companions, kept his distance, skirting through the trees. He was ash-gray, making him fit in very well with the surrounding forest, especially in the twilight of the sunrise. And his voice had the uncanny ability to echo, throwing off Sesshomaru's keen ears and confusing him.

"Sesshomaru." The fox called. As far as Sesshomaru could tell, the kitsune youkai was a hundred feet away, to his left. The kitsune had left out titles, ignored the altogether.

He drew his sword, narrowing his eyes coldly at the trees all around him. "Speak." He ordered, almost growling.

"Shimofuri calls you to the Nanka." The messenger's voice hissed through the trees—Sesshomaru caught a shadow moving between the trees fifty feet away from them to his far right.

Without hesitation, Sesshomaru whipped his sword in a wide arc, sending a flash of light through the trees toward his right, where he'd last seen the fox. The energy crackled and pulsed, pushing ferociously through the woods. The trees snapped and broke into tiny pieces, there fresh spring buds burning up in the blink of an eye. Charred bark tumbled down around Sesshomaru. A wide swathe of blackened ground stretched out ahead of him—and no sign of the fox.

He wasn't dead, Sesshomaru understood that. The forest was silent, but Sesshomaru could feel the fox's presence. "Show yourself."

"Your mate came with Shimofuri willingly." The fox's tone had lowered, darkening, and the echoes had increased, making Sesshomaru turn around, his sword lowered and ready for action—but there was no sign of his enemy to be had.

His words were different from all of the other messengers'. This was genuinely insulting, this made Sesshomaru's stomach tighten and his face wrinkle with a stony hate. He didn't answer the kitsune's taunting, and refused to let himself think about whether it was true or not.

Light from the sun shot through the trees, dispersing the shadows and the mists slightly. Sesshomaru squinted, adjusting to the light. A shadow flashed by on his left side, in his peripheral vision. He whirled in that direction and slashed at once with his sword. The trees burned, exploding on impact. The earth rumbled a little, as if feeling the loss of life.

But the fox wasn't gone yet. As the smoke cleared and the new sunlight revealed the twisted, deformed and charred shapes of the trees, nothing but ghosts of their former selves, Sesshomaru saw no evidence that this blast had caught the fox. He bared his teeth with mounting frustration, clenching his jaw. "Show yourself!"

"You kill my clansmen for their message calling you to be civil when it is you alone that is to blame for your mate's choice."

He caught the fox's form, and saw with astonishment that it was no longer in human form. It was a large red-colored fox, cowering, slinking through the trees, stumbling and stunned.

Sesshomaru moved forward stiffly, his senses alert.

The fox in the distance tripped over its own legs and fell in a heap. Sesshomaru could see its body shivering, quivering.

The voice came again, echoing and deep, challenging him. "You choose this, Sesshomaru. Shimofuri merely took advantage of it. You go on this tirade, slaughtering…" the fox's voice changed, becoming lighter, higher, and shrill, "What did you think you accomplished with slaughter?"

Sesshomaru stopped, frowning briefly. The fox spoke with Ginrei's voice—was it telepathic? Kitsune were tricksters, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility…

He lunged forward, moving with the great speed of the inuyoukai. The trees flew by him; the lump of the fox's body was abruptly at his feet. It struggled, trying to get up, and when it raised its head, it stared at him with wide, dull brown eyes, unthinking and panicked…

Sesshomaru froze, realizing that this was a normal fox, a mortal fox. It was injured from his blast with his sword. It was bleeding, and likely dying.

It was with a great, alarming jolt, that Sesshomaru realized there was no kitsune. It was his own brain at work here, feverishly constructing an enemy aside from the forest; somewhere he could vent his frustration and rage…

"You are a monster." The voice laughed, still echoing through the trees, but now he recognized it as his own voice, taunting him.

Sesshomaru sheathed his sword and growled—but as he made the sound, something snapped inside him and the rage and pain rose to the surface. His growl became a roar of anguish, and midway through it formed a distinguishable word, or rather, a name:

"RIN!"

"Sesshomaru…" Rin was curled into a fetal position, with her face still pressed firmly into her bedding, stifling the words, muting the sounds of her tears—as well, she hoped, as the scent. If you come after me, if you find me…I would never have the strength to turn you away.

She could feel a tug on her insides, deep in her guts. It was as if Sesshomaru had a rope tied around her heart and, somewhere out in the darkness, he was tugging on it, trying to reel her in like a fish at the end of his line. It was like lopping off limbs to Rin, trying to resist it.

I will kill them all. Sesshomaru vowed as he moved at a fast walk, through the charred forest around him, the forest he had massacred while chasing a self-induced kitsune youkai. Smoke rose from beneath his shoes as he crunched over the cracked, blackened earth. Until you are returned to me, they will know nothing but death.

The voice of the "kitsune" echoed in his mind: Your mate went willingly with Shimofuri.

It couldn't be true. Rin had been tricked in some way; deceived…she would never betray him like this, never leave with another demon that she knew to be a potential threat or rival to him. Shimofuri could use her against me, she knows this…

Rin, how could you betray me?

A/N: The next chapter…

Shippo plunged into his story, spilling it out hurriedly, as if afraid of more interruptions at any second. "Me, Miroku, and the boys ran into these two women—"

"Okay, who asked who to marry them this time?" Inuyasha snorted, smirking. "Wait, I don't wanna know unless it was Miroku and he got beaten by Sango for it."