Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha. But I will one day.

Chapter 5: Dark Secrets

Makoto roused from his sleep just after sunrise to the sound of one of the sliding doors opening, followed by the light patter and shuffling of feet against the wooden floor. He opened one eye to see the she-wolf slowly stepping over his feet to the entrance door. He smirked and grabbed her unhurt ankle gently with one clawed hand. She let out a sudden gasp and tumbled to the floor, landing on her butt. Makoto cackled and rolled into a sitting position, looking at the girl in amusement. His enjoyment was short lived, his ears flattening and lips straightening as the girl cowered into a corner and made herself as small as possible. He hadn't meant to scare her like he did.

Kita herself was trembling, her heartbeat quickening. She was frightened, not so much of the sudden scare from the hanyou, but because of the slight tingling around her neck that had awakened her moments before. Her Master was sending her his warning. That kind of twinge on the spell told Kita she was to meet her Master at the clearing within two weeks, or face the effects of her entrapment. She buried her face in her arms as she fought to regain control of her nerves. If He was already calling to Kita, that meant He had another job for her on His behalf. At the suddenness of the calling she had panicked and tried to sneak past the inu-hanyou, only to be left flat on her butt. Now her leg and ankle were aching again, as were the rest of her wounds that had yet to heal.

"I didn't mean to scare you, it's just you can't go sneaking out with wounds like those. Even in these woods you wouldn't be safe for very long." She didn't respond. Makoto stood and slowly walked closer. "Hey, um, if you're hungry I can fix you something. Kita…are you alright?"

Kita was regaining control over herself. First her breathing, trying to slow down her breaths back to normal. Then the shaking. Her hands were still shaking. She had panicked, something she knew she should never do. Panicking makes you unaware of things around you. If she had just taken her time she could have slipped past the inu without him knowing. She could already be on her way to her Master.

"Look, I really should change those bandages. It'll only get worse if it gets infected." Kita looked up from where she sat and slightly nodded her head. Her wounds hadn't healed as fast as she would have liked. Even as a hanyou, a leg injury such as hers was no simple matter in the feudal era. Kita could walk on it but not without pain, and her still sore ankle caused her to stumble. After Makoto had finished with the bandaging, he reached into a clay pot and pour rice into the pot over the fire pit, lighting the fire and adding water to the rice for a quick breakfast.

"What's your name?"

"Hm?"

"I told you mine. What's your name?"

"Makoto." He answered. Makoto saw her shift uncomfortably. "What happened to you out there anyway?"

Kita paused, thinking for the right words without telling the inu too much. "I-I just got the wrong people mad, that's all." She replied. Something was confusing her. Makoto was obviously a hanyou like her, but he was different. Cheerful almost. How could a half-breed be cheerful? And he was living in a hut like a human, with a human village not far away. Didn't the villagers try to chase him away, or kill him? Kita had met very few humans, but it didn't take very long for her to find that she was not welcomed by them, even if her mother was once a member of their village.

It had been two years since Kita left her homeland and traveled to this place. Just a year and a half since she met her Master and was forced into submission by a spell placed on a thin silver hair strung around her neck. You couldn't even tell it was there unless you were actually looking for it. He had never told her why, or given her any explanation at all as to why he wanted her to do all the things she had for him. At first it was a task of tracking down some miko that had obviously ticked him off in the past. After Kita failed to find the miko, she received her first true 'punishment'. Her 'collar' had been activated before, with low tingles and tight spasms that would cut off her supply of air, but that time had been different. The pain was unbearable.

The spell started slow at first, bruising her throat with its force, but it didn't stop there as it normally did. Her Master was far from finished with her punishment. Next, her lungs tightened so much she felt as if her insides were going to explode, not allowing her precious air supply to replenish itself. Then her head started pounding, she could hear her blood flow through her ears as her heart rate increased. By then every cell in her body was aching, sending her crashing to the ground on her knees. Her insides burned flaming hot, her dry throat not allowing her to scream her anguish.

Just as quickly at the memory came, it disappeared. She shook her head as if to shake away her thoughts. After that, her Master had given up on finding the miko, and sent Kita out on a number of other quests, mainly just being a slave with a few occasional battles against his foes. Every time Kita failed to meet her Master's expectations, the spell would be reactivated full force. She had tried everything she knew to get the hair out from around her neck, but the spell must have also been created to protect its conductor, as the hair was indestructible.

"Food's ready." Makoto called Kita out of her trance. His golden eyes looked at her with deep concern. He must have been watching her the whole time. A slight blush crept across her face as she took the couple of rice balls from Makoto and started to nibble on one. "Like I said, I'm not as good of a cook as Okaa-san, but it's not too bad."

Kita thought the food tasted great. It was the best food she had had in a long time, and she would have gulped in down if it wasn't for a tight knot in her stomach that was only getting tighter as the moments passed.

Makoto watched idly as the she-wolf took small bites of her food and swallowed hard. Something terrible had happened to her, something beyond what he could tell. Moments ago she had seemed lost in her thoughts and the sadness that had made contact with Makoto's hanyou senses were nearly overwhelming. What had pushed her into that kind of sadness? Was her family killed? Had she ever had a family? Maybe she got lost from her pack or something. Wolves rarely traveled alone, and females never traveled alone for very long. There was always a male there to protect her. Maybe that was it. Maybe her male companion had been killed by the same youkai InuYasha had smelled in the clearing where they found her.

But that in itself was also strange. For a single female and male wolf to be traveling together as a pair, but not as mates, was unheard of, and Makoto could tell she wasn't mated. She was still young, maybe fifteen, not that that was too young to be mated. And what pack she had actually come from was confusing too. The nearest pack was Kouga's, the next pack being at least a week's travel from there. Her eyes told him right off the bat that she wasn't from around here, not even the other tribe, not with the eyes she had. A swirling emerald green that made her stare so fierce he thought she would burn a hole in the floor boards if she didn't look up soon.

Kita cringed as she stood from her seat, Makoto stood also, waiting to see what the girl would do. She fidgeted with the sash of her kimono. "I-I need some water."

Makoto nodded. "Sit down, I'll get it. And don't think about running away. You'll just hurt yourself." A few minutes later he returned with fresh water from the stream. Kita greedily emptied three cups full before finally settling down and taking normal sips from her fourth. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until the liquid hit her parched throat. Her senses were still way off track, as she had come to realize since waking up that morning. She didn't like the feel of the inu's eyes on her, or the fact that she was trapped in an enclosed area with him blocking the only exit route. Her blood was screaming for her to make a run for it and get herself outside, but her leg begged her not to move an inch. She sighed and closed her eyes to calm herself.

"W-why are you keeping me here?" she asked meekly, opening her eyes to gaze at a spot on the floor. The inu's ears perked.

"I'm not keeping you here, I'm keeping you here. You can't go out there like you are. You'll be killed with that kind of handicap."

"So? You don't know me, we've never even met. Why would you care?" the question just flowed out of her mouth by itself. She had wanted it answered, but she also had no intention of actually asking him. To her surprise his ears drooped slightly, his lips curling down at the ends into a frown.

"Because," he started, searching for the right words to say, "because you're hurt. You need help. No, I don't know you, and maybe we'll never see each other after you're better, but right now you're here and you're hurt. It's my duty to make sure you're alright before I let you go." He spoke as if she were absurd to believe anything other than his words.

"Your duty?"

Makoto nodded. "Oyaji always taught me that. He practically crams it down my throat everyday."

Oyaji. So both of his parents are still alive. That has to be some kind of miracle. "Do you live here, so close to a human village?"

"Yea. I've had problems with some villagers, but most here aren't all that bad. They know me, Oyaji and Okaa protect the village so they kinda just stay back. Not to mention that my cousin Mai is married to the village headman's son."

"Your cousin? Just how big is your family?"

Makoto laughed. "Well, there's me, Oyaji, Okaa, and my adopted older brother Shippou. He's a kitsune-youkai that lost his parents when he was just a kit, and his human mate Tani. Then there's my Oba Sango and Oji Miroku. They're humans too, not really blood related, just really close to the family. Then there's my itoko (cousins) Cho, Hana, Yumi, and Mai and her husband Kisho. Then there's my Oji Sesshomaru and Oba Usagi, itoko Keiji and Rin. Rin's adopted too, a human. Oji Sess is Oyaji's half-brother. He's full youkai and lord of the western lands. Don't really see him that much."

Kita's blood ran cold. Sesshomaru. An Inu-youkai, the lord of the western lands. That's where she was, in the western lands! That was her Master's last mission for her. She was once again looking for the miko her Master wanted to find so badly when she felt him calling to her. She ran all the way back and he told her to bring back the youkai's son. She didn't want to. Kita protested until her Master threatened to use the spell on her again. She had gone as far as nearly snatching the silver haired child from the back garden, but several other inu where there and after a warning howl sounded Kita ran. She was able to evade most of them, but at least one was still hot on her trail. The inu apparently didn't want to kill her, if that were so she wouldn't be alive, but he did want to make sure she never tried anything like that again. He's the reason why Kita was now stuck here.

When she was there, laying in the clearing beaten and bloody, she just wished he would have finished her off. Kita couldn't run, she couldn't hide from her entrapment. She was a slave to her Master's every will. No matter how sinister, how horrid the deed, she had to. If Kita refused to do it herself, he would take control of her using the spell. Her claws had killed people she didn't even know. As far as she was concerned, that made her a murderer, just like all the humans believed.

"Kita? Are you alright?" Makoto was standing over her. She had gotten that dazed look over her face again, like she was thinking very deeply about something. Her eyes looked so sad and full of regret. She grimaced as she moved her leg to the side. "I can get something for you if it still hurts." He said. Kita nodded once and gazed out the window while Makoto dug through Kagome's things for the right herbal combination to soothe her pain. There really wasn't much more he could do. He had set it as best as he could, but the damage was going to be permanent. She wouldn't be able to go back to the way she once was. "Here," he handed her a foul smelling bowl, "rub this where ever you're sore. It'll help a bit with the pain."

"Makoto?" she questioned after she had finished.

"Hum?"

"What is your Okaa-san and Otou-san like?"

"Well, Oyaji can be a real pain sometimes. He likes everything done his way. Never apologizes, stuck on himself, too. Stubborn, egotistical, baka of a hanyou. That's what Okaa says." Makoto smiled. "But he's really a big softy when you get to know him, especially to Okaa. I remember one night she was in one of her moods and slammed him into the ground a few dozen times. She stalked off to cool down, but after an hour she still hadn't came back. Oyaji was practically crawling back to her once she came back. Whimpered too, but don't tell him I told you that. Okaa might get away with it, but he'd kill me."

"Your Okaa-san, she's human?"

"Yea. Oyaji's an inu-hanyou like me, but Okaa's a human, and a miko at that. Pretty darn good one too."

Kita's stomach flip-flopped. Her Master had something against this family. For some reason he wanted them all dead. The Inu-youkai lord and his child, the miko, the hanyou, and Makoto. It didn't make any sense. What was he after?

"Maybe you should go get some rest. We've been talking all morning and it's almost lunch time. I'll find something to eat and you just stay here." Makoto gave her a warning glare with the last two words as he slipped outside. She nodded in agreement and lay herself down on the floor using her arms as pillows. As soon as he was out of sight she was hobbling to her feet. She couldn't stay. Just by being here she was putting Makoto and his family into more danger than they already were. Kita knew she couldn't kill Makoto, not after all he had done for her. But if her Master found out she was with him, he wouldn't hesitate in taking the matter into his own hands. He would control her, force her into killing once again.

Kita couldn't risk it, she had to leave. The hanyous here had found peace, something she could never have, and was a bit jealous of, but she wouldn't be the cause of its downfall. She checked at the entrance, making sure Makoto indeed was gone hunting. The house had a path leading in one direction and smelled of humans, youkai, and hanyou alike. It must have led to the human village. She turned to the other direction, toward the thick forest. That was the way back to the clearing and her Master. That was the path she had to take. Feeling a bit on edge she entered, stumbling and catching her balance. If something were to attack her now, she really would be dead.

A/N:

The last chapter didn't repeat within itself. I sometimes go back and do the same scene but switch the characters POV. D

And, well, Makoto heard of a special fan he has out there, who seems really smitten with him. So, Eowyn Organa, he has a special gift for you. :smirk:

:Makoto walks up sporting dark sunshades, leather jacket over a tight black shirt, and loose fitting jeans:

Makoto: Oi, what's up, babe?

:flips sunshades down with a sexy grin, grabs Eowyn's hand and kisses her palm:

Makoto: Tsu-chan sent me personally to give you 2 extra points for the nice review.

:hooks Eowyn's chin with his finger and cocks a grin:

Makoto: Catch you later, doll.