A/N: A special thanks to those of you that reviewed: Liv The Life ~Thank you dahling i'm so glad thatyou think that this rinky-dink story is worth being compared to the famous "Double Rainbow"UniQueMimI-O.B.S.E.S.S.I.O.N~ Thank You so much for thatwonderful comment you cannot possibly imagine how happy that made me feel :) So i'm updating this for those of you that reviewed and for those of you that have read this story. Now...On with the fic!
Chapter one: Found.
It was late in the afternoon when Sesshomaru, full demon prince of the western lands, decided he should take a stroll. He had been sitting under a slightly aged tree, contemplating what to do when something caught his attention. It was the scent of that girl his half-demon brother, Inuyasha, traveled with. It was faint and masked by other scents, but it was still there.
What brought his attention to her scent more than anything was the fact that she smelled of death. The smell was pungent to say the least and it had gotten him curious. He was also curious as to why she wasn't surrounded by Inuyasha's, for lackof a better term, overbearing scent. He was so used to the two scents being together that the change was abrupt, though he cared little about such things.
Before he left to investigate the situation, Sesshomaru had left his loyal servant Jaken with specific instructions.
"Watch Rin," he had said in his usual nonchalant way, but his face said that if Jaken failed to protect Rin, said servant would pay severely.
"Aye milord," Jaken responded swiftly, greatly realizing the obvious threat to his life. Sesshomaru nodded in confirmation at Jaken's response, and set off on his stroll.
As Sesshomaru walked through the forest, Kagome's scent became more and more noticeable to him. The evident smell of death was still around her, but there was no obvious smell of fear on her, which normally accompanied death. In its place he found the only scent of calm.
"Odd," he said. "Though I should expect no less from such an odd creature," he added as an after thought.
He continued to walk in the direction of Kagome's scent. Eventually he stumbled upon a small clearing with an old well in the middle.
He had expected to see Kagome's body twisted and contorted on the ground in the clearing before him. To his surprise all he saw were pieces of her ridiculous green, white, and red clothing. One of her shoes was in front of the well too.
Did she strip before entering the well to get home, he thought quizzically.
As he pondered his latest statement, he began to wonder whether or not this trip had actually been necessary. Obviously Kagome was nowhere to be seen, and it was none of his business as to whether or not she had decided to remove her clothes before going home.
Besides he had other things to worry about. He couldn't waste his time worrying about humans that he didn't care for. He also could not afford to be away from Rin for long periods of time. Even with Naraku gone there was still a threat to her life from lower level demons.
With this thought in mind, he began to leave the clearing. Sesshomaru might have been three steps out when he heard a low moan. Had he not been a dog demon with impeccable hearing, he would not have heard it. The fact that he did hear it though intrigued him.
He made himself turn away from the awful sound that continued to resound in his head.
"I have little time for this," he scolded himself. "I must get back to Rin and Jaken and continue with my own business ".
Once again, he had barely started to walk when he heard that awful moan become louder.
It almost sounds like an, echo? No…it seems hollower. The sound must be coming from the well. Maybe that Kagome girl is stuck at the bottom. How tragic.
Sesshomaru did believe that it was tragic; mostly… however it was not his place to pity the girl for getting herself into that position. If she truly was stuck at the bottom of the well, it was most likely her own fault and he didn't have the time to save her from her own blunders.
With this in mind, he walked even further out of the clearing. He was commending himself for successfully ignoring the girl, when the moan sounded, again!
Dammit all, he screamed internally. Maybe I could kill her, just to put her out of her misery. That would be okay wouldn't it? No it wouldn't be okay he realized. Rin would be devestated if she found out that he had killed Kagome.
He began to rack his brain for another solution, when suddenly it hit him like a ton of bricks.
I can drop her off at the village in this area and let them deal with her. After all, she is not my responsibility.
And so with this thought, he made his way to the well.
The sight Sesshomaru had seen was absolutely horrendous. He was right. Kagome had been at the bottom of the well. She had also been stripped of almost all her clothing, though that seemed to be no fault of her own. She was unconscious as well.
In her sleep she twitched with pain. Low groans of discomfort were emitted from her lips. Her eyes moved rapidly behind their lids as she dreamed. Her breath was ragged and labored, but she did not seem to be in utter distress.
What has happened to this girl, Sesshomaru thought contemplatively. He was actually curious as to what had happened to her, and this surprised him. However, he did not let himself dwell on his curiosity.
After all curiosity killed the cat, Sesshomaru reminded himself.
But you are a dog, responded a voice form the back of Sesshomaru's mind.
"I know that," Sesshomaru responded out loud, sounding rather perturbed.
Chastising himself for being so ridiculous, Sesshomaru began the task of descending into the well to retrieve Kagome. He hoped this task would be over soon. He truly did not want to help the girl. He didn't have to help her either. The only thing that made him help her was the fact that she was making those god awful noises.
Retrieving the girl had been easy enough. Taking her to the village was also fairly easy. Finding someone willing to take her, however, was a different story.
He had gotten one main response from every villager in town as to his appearance with the girl. First the villager in question would a gape at the two, and then they would blink their eyes. Finally realization would hit them and they would begin to scream begging and pleading for their lives to be spared.
After about the twentieth villager, Sesshomaru had had enough. He began to make his way through the throng of terrified villagers to what he thought would be the priestess's hut.
It did not take long for him to reach his destination. The villagers had been amazingly cooperative. They had moved out of his way without any sort of a fuss.
True, they had only moved for fear of their lives, but the dog demon decided not to acknowledge this fact.
Once he made it to the hut, it was obvious that the villagers' screams had alerted the head priestess of the village. He saw an old woman dressed in priestess attire. She was standing with her bow at the ready.
Sesshomaru looked at her faced and remembered seeing her before. He did not know her name, nor did he wish to know. All he wanted to do was leave the village and leave the girl as well.
He was about to drop the girl when suddenly the old woman spoke.
"What business do ye have with young Kagome, Sesshomaru elder brother of the half demon Inuyasha?"
"My business is my own old woman. I do not have to explain my actions to you. It would do you well to remember that," Sesshomaru responded, still obviously annoyed at his current situation.
The old priestess was shocked at his elaborate response. She remembered him, and she also remembered that he was a demon of hardly any words. It took her awhile to recoil from the shock, but when she did, she did not fail to respond to the rude quip he had made.
"Ye need not be so rude, demon lord Sesshomaru. My name is Kaede, not old woman and I am merely curious as to why you have brought young Kagome here, in this state of health."
"Her state of health is no fault of mine," Sesshomaru responded, not wanting to answer the latter part of her query. He did not feel like explaining his motives to this decrepit old woman. It was confusing to him as to why he had saved her, so he decided to spare the old woman the headache that would follow his explanation.
"I figured as much. So am I to assume that ye have brought Kagome here to help her?"
Kaede knew it was a ridiculous thing to say, for she knew that Sesshomaru never did anything to help anybody unless it was beneficial to him-self. She only said it because she wanted to see how he would react.
She was sorely disappointed, for Sesshomaru did his best never to show his initial reaction to anything. He stood there with his eyes uncaring and his face full of obvious boredom, so his listless answer was not a surprise.
"I have only brought her here because her moans of pain were a disturbance in my day," said Sesshomaru.
"I see…" Kaede began, "So ye have brought her here only to be rid of her."
"Correct." Sesshomaru decided it was appropriate to leave it at that. It saved him the trouble of having to go into detail about what happened earlier that day.
And so with his last word, he dropped Kagome on the step of Kaede's hut and began to walk away. He was half way down the road when he heard Kaede speak.
"I am grateful to ye, Sesshomaru, and so I thank ye. I will tell young Kagome that she owes her life to ye."
Sesshomaru almost told her not to tell Kagome. He did not feel like dealing with the repercussions of his actions, for life debts were tricky business. On the other hand, he rather liked the idea of this girl owing her life to him so he made his response simple.
"Do what you will," he said "Your actions are your own."
With that he made his way back to the clearing so he could get back to Rin and Jaken.
Kaede motioned for a nearby man to pick Kagome up.
Today has certainly been an unusual day, she thought to herself.
With Kagome in the villagers arms, Kaede went into the hut to attend to her injuries. As she walked through the door Kagome began to stir from her sleep. It seemed as though she was trying to run away from someone, or something.
"Inu… Inuyasha," Kagome said in a hoarse tone. After she said his name she began to cry.
"Hush child," Kaede said. "Ye need not worry about Inuyasha. He and Kikiyo are in a village nearby safe from the demons that plague this land."
Kagome relaxed as she heard Kaede words. Her tears ceased and she went into a more peaceful sleep.
"Sleep well my child," Kaede said. "Sleep well."
Sesshomaru walked back into the field where he had left Jaken and Rin. At the same time of his entrance, another one of his companions, Ah-Un, arrived as well with Kohaku sitting calmly on his back. Kohaku had taken Ah-Un on a mission to find his sister, apparently their search had yeilded no results. Ever since Kikiyo had managed to save his soul Kohaku's one and only mission had been to find his sister, the Demon Slayer, that day came he had decided to stay with Rin and her group.
"Ah-Un, Kohaku," Sesshomaru heard Rin cry out. "and lord Sesshomaru, it's good to see that you're all back."
Sesshomaru almost let himself smile at her joy. It always gave him a sort of happiness when he knew that Rin had missed him. But, being who he was, he could not allow himself to smile, so he nodded in recognition and took a seat on a near by rock.
Sesshomaru watched as Rin hugged Kohaku and began to play with the beast that had just arrived. He was so pre occupied, that he didn't notice when Jaken made his way to him.
"So milord, did you have a pleasant walk," Jaken asked with true curiosity. His lord had been away a long time, and he wanted to know where he had been.
"It is none of your business, Jaken," Sesshomaru said irritably. He was not in the mood to tolerate Jaken.
"Aye milord," Jaken said. "I will go and check on Rin now. I wonder if she…," He trailed off as he began to move towards Rin, Kohaku and Ah-Un.
Once again Sesshomaru watched as Rin played with Jaken, Kohaku and Ah-Un. But even though he was watching them, his mind was on other things, one other thing in particular. His thoughts had strayed to that Kagome girl.
I should not think about her. She is in the village with that old woman whose name I have forgotten. She is no longer a problem of mine.
But try as he might, Sesshomaru could not remove the image of her battered body at the bottom of the well from his mind. Every time blinked he saw her twitching in pain.
Finally he had had enough so he forced his mind onto other tings and closed his eyes and began to fall into a light sleep.
Kagome is to be forgotten. You have other more important things to worry yourself about.
And with this thought in mind, he fell asleep.
A/N: Wow editing this chapter in the document manager was a piece of work. I completely forgot to add Kohaku when I had typed this up in word -.- Gee shows how much I pay attention. Oh well, there's no use crying over misprints when you can fix them. Once again I thank those of you that have reviewed and favorited this fic it does truly brighten my day.
Please review if you have something kind to say, constructive critisim is also welcome. Thanks for taking the time to read this X3
See you all at the next chapter and I will update as soon as I can.
~shastar27