It had been a few days since the sunburn, and Luna was almost fully recovered, though her face remained slightly pink. Surprisingly, her skin hadn't started peeling, and Sesshomaru was taking more caution with having Luna out in sunlight. Even more surprising was that Luna had figured out how to stay on the dragon without falling every five minutes... after Rin had taught her. In exchange for the lesson, Rin happily listened as Luna told her about the time period Luna had come from.

"Are there dragons where you're from?"

"Nope. We have other ways to get from place to place."

"Horses?"

"Nope... Well, they exist, but we don't use them. We have large metal things called cars... Though I prefer to walk from place to place. The cars are too noisy."

"What does it look like there?"

"There's a lot of buildings. Tall buildings. Barely any trees. At night, we have lights to illuminate our streets."

"It sounds amazing!"

"Maybe to you... but I don't like it... It's crowded... and the people aren't friendly... The place stinks and there's not much nature. Altogether, I like it here much better."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's missing the few things I enjoy from where I'm from, but that isn't actually a big deal..."

"What kind of things do you enjoy there?"

Luna had to think about how to word what she was going to say. "Well... we have moving pictures on a screen... and stories are told with them. We have music that we can take with us and play whenever we want to hear it, without having to take an entire musical group or instruments with us. We also have a special box that connects us to the rest of the world. With it, I could talk to anyone anywhere, no matter how far away they are, and get a reply as if they were standing here talking to me."

"Wow! That sounds awesome!"

"It is, but that stuff wouldn't work here... No power source. Well, maybe one thing." Luna calmly turned around and pulled something out of her shirt. Turning back to Rin, Luna revealed what she had taken out from her shirt. It was a small box with a cord wrapped around it. At the end of the cord was two oddly shaped lumps of a hard and shiny substance.

"What is that?"

"This is the portable music I told you about. I remembered I had it with me."

"But I don't hear anything..."

"Give me a second." Luna pressed a small button and the screen lit up. Hitting a few more buttons, Luna finally had it set to something she deemed acceptable, and gave one of the oddly shaped lumps to Rin. "This goes in your ear."

Rin, at first confused by the strange device, nodded and placed the lump in her ear.

A slight gasp made Sesshomaru turn around. To his surprise, nothing was attacking. Instead, Rin was smiling and swaying with the music from the strange box-like object. Smiling slightly, he turned back around and continued walking. It wasn't very long, however, before he had the feeling he was being watched.

"Luna?"

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Do you feel like you're being watched?"

"Yes, actually... and it's annoying... can we kill whatever is watching us please?"

"If it attacks us, I'll handle it."

Luna smiled at him, then started carefully scanning the undergrowth. Staying silent, she finally closed her eyes and focused. Her demonic aura slowly expanded around her, carefully enveloping the group and spreading to the surrounding forest. She could feel everything inside her aura: Rin's small, yet light aura; Jaken's aura, though nearly unnoticeable; the two headed dragon's strong aura; Sesshomaru's powerful aura, like a neon light; a squirrel that had wandered too close to the group; something dark and abnormally strong... "There!" Luna pointed at a blue and green serpent demon as it leaped at Rin.

Sesshomaru, hearing Luna, had no time to react before the demon had grabbed Rin. He could see that Luna was on its back, slashing furiously with her claws as she tried to break through its shell.

The demon only laughed at her attempts as it lifted its tail into the air. Sesshomaru saw the shiny barb and tried desperately to stop it, but the barb on its tail sunk into Luna's back, making her screech in pain.

Sesshomaru felt the furious rage building as the demon removed its tail from Luna's back, causing her to fall onto the ground limply. Instead of reaching for his sword, he lunged at the demon, eyes starting to turn red with anger. As the serpent demon slid out of the way, Sesshomaru let his true form emerge. The serpent demon blinked in surprise and dropped Rin as he was now facing a twenty foot tall demon dog.

Not wasting a second, Sesshomaru picked up the demon with his mouth and crushed it, letting it fall back onto the ground. Making sure it was dead, Sesshomaru returned to his human-like form and went to check on the girls.

Rin was scared, but unharmed. Luna, however, was unconscious and barely breathing. Sesshomaru could tell she was steadily getting worse.

"Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Yes, Rin?"

He could hear her fear and sorrow in her voice as she whispered, "She'll be ok, won't she?"

Suddenly, he realized that he couldn't answer her. He only faintly noticed he was shaking, and could feel something wet sliding down his cheek, though he was almost convinced that he could never cry.

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Rin moved to where she could see his face and gasped in shock. She had never seen him like this, and it was quite a change from his usual expression.

"The jewel shard is over here," a voice shouted from the forest. The sound of footsteps approaching made Sesshomaru look up. Recognizing the voice, he tried his hardest to hide the fact that he had been crying.

A young girl ran out first, carrying a bow and a few arrows, freezing as her eyes met Sesshomaru's. A young boy wearing a solid red outfit followed her. Following them was a man in dark robes and a woman in a demon-slayer's outfit.

"Sesshomaru!" The first boy jumped in fromt of his friends, drawing his sword quickly.

"I have no time for your nonsense, brother. This Sesshomaru requires the assistance of your priestess."

"Luna needs help!" Rin started crying as the first girl calmly walked over to the tiny girl.

"It'll be ok, I'll help."

"What? How can you help him when he's tried to kill me all my life?"

"Sit, boy."

The boy in the red outfit crashed to the ground, being dragged by the beads around his neck.

The priestess, meanwhile, carefully examined the half-demon beside Sesshomaru. 'Her outfit... it's the same as mine... She must be from my time... but why is she here?'

"Will she live?" Sesshomaru's low voice brought the girl out of her thoughts.

"She's poisoned... Hey, Sango, do we have any antidotes left?"

The demon-slayer looked through her supplies and gave the priestess a small packet of herbs. "The last one."

"We need to get her to swallow these herbs... Is there any way we can wake her up?"

Sesshomaru thought carefully. "We could drop her on her head... though that would hurt her worse..."

"If you can get her awake, she'll get better."

Sesshomaru calmly picked Luna up and dropped her, eliciting a groan from the half-demon. Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinking in confusion.

"Here. You need to take these herbs..." The priestess watched as Luna turned her head, looking everywhere, then finally stopped when she was looking at Sesshomaru. The priestess noticed that Luna seemed a lot calmer as she saw Sesshomaru. Quietly, she gave the packet to him. "Get her to take these, please. She seems to trust you more."

Sesshomaru nodded, gently lifting Luna's head. "Take these... You're poisoned, and these herbs are an antidote..."

Looking into his eyes, Luna could tell he was telling the truth. Carefully, she swallowed the herbs, grimacing at the horrible taste. "Now if only it wasn't so nasty..."

The priestess giggled, "That's what I thought when I first took them..."

Luna glanced at the new humans and the half-demon boy who was muttering obsenities. "Who are you people?" 'and why do two of you look so familiar?'

The priestess smiled, "I'm Kagome Higurashi."

"My name is Sango," the demon-slayer smiled at the half-demon girl.

"This is Inuyasha." Kagome brought the boy in red over to Luna.

"Feh."

"Inuyasha, be nice."

"I shouldn't have to be nice to friends of my brother."

"Sit, boy!"

Inuyasha hit the ground with a loud thud, which made Luna jump backwards.

"Sorry about that... He gets a little grumpy sometimes..."

Before Luna could react to that, the man in the robes was right in front of her, holding both of her hands. "and my name is Miroku. Fair maiden, I must ask if you'd consider bearing my childr-"

"Finish that sentence and you're dead." Luna and Sesshomaru blinked, looking at each other in surprise. Neither one had expected the other to say something, much less the exact same sentence at the exact same time.

"Oh, wow..." Luna blushed, looking away from Sesshomaru.

"Um, yeah..." Sesshomaru looked away from Luna, blushing as much as Luna.

A short boy with bright orange hair ran up to Luna. "Just ignore Miroku. Sango will take care of it." Laughing a bit, he added, "My name's Shippo!"

Luna smiled at the boy. 'He's quite obviously a fox demon... I can tell from the tail...' "My name is Luna. It's nice to meet you, Shippo."

"Are you a half-demon like Inuyasha?"

Luna blinked in confusion. "I... er... what kind is he, exactly?"

"You can't tell?" The boy in the red outfit half-growled at Luna.

"Not exactly... I can't tell if you're a dog or a cat." Sesshomaru noticed the mischievious grin on her face.

"I'm not a fuckin' cat! I'm half dog demon! How the fuck do you get that confused, bitch?"

Luna calmly stood up and strutted over to the furious boy, pointed at him and poked him in the chest, "One, I may be a bitch, but I'm most certainly not your bitch. Two, you will treat me with as much respect as you can muster." Stepping back, she answered Shippo's question, "and, no, I'm not the same as Inuyasha. I'm technically three-fourths demon, and three types of demon. The last fourth is human. However, I do refer to myself as a half-demon, simply because saying 'three-fourths' demon every time someone asks would be quite a mouthful."

"Feh."

"Is that a challenge, Inuyasha?"

"Yeah, bitch."

"Bring it, pup."

Inuyasha charged at her, preparing to use his claws on her back. Instead of running or turning around, Luna calmly stepped to the side at the last minute, dragging her foot so that it would trip him. Due to the forward force, he rolled as he fell, smacking into a nearby tree. "Damn it..."

"And that's why you don't mess with me."

Authoress: Hi again! Got three new chapters for you, my loyal readers.

Izuru: SHE'S GONE MAD! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Authoress: *throws water bottle* Shut up over there.

Izuru: *is hit with water bottle* Why'd you do that for? I'm not Justin Bieber!

Authoress: If you were, that would have been a flag pole. *remembers what her 12-year-old cousins did to her, shudders* I swear I don't get why he's so popular... Anyway, my thanks this time go to Vegitotheeverlastingwarrior for reviewing. As you all should know by now, I love reviews. So, be sure to let me hear from you!

Izuru: Let me translate that last statement. She has no life, and wants to hear from the outside world- *jumps back as Authoress hits the bars of his cage with the flag pole she was talking about*

Authoress: Angering the flag girl is not the brightest idea, Izuru. Sayonara for now, everyone. *steps into the cage with the flag pole*