CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Sesshomaru

Before me, lay the grunting, panting corpse of Jakotsu. His eyes were glazed, seeming to focus before him on the shaking hands of his. I watched as he shuddered before letting out a laugh that shook his whole body.

"W-wow... You are good at fighting, h-huh?" Jakotsu coughed, blood spattering up upon his lip. He wiped it off with his sleeve quickly before he rolled over, stomach shown to me in a surrender. "Here I went again, underestimating you."

Without another word, nor thought, I turned. He had provided enough annoyance for me for one day. To me, he was no use. I brought my foot forward. Once it was set down, an audible squish of the fluids within the ground was heard. The rainwater gathered around the rim of my toes. Just before me lie a puddle within the grass. I examined my face in the rippling liquid, watching as a ghastly blur of skin fell over the small tides. A slight outline of a pair of eyes could be seen, only small amber spheres in the hazy grey of the pool.

I looked at it for a while, looking at my distorted countenance. My hair fell askew around my forehead.

"H-hey... Isn't that...?"

I removed my gaze from the unstable fluid and glanced back at the broken specter. His eyes were directed upward, mouth completely slack-jawed. My eyes followed his to the sky. I grunted as water filtered into them with a sting, blinking a few times to clear them. However, as I redirected my sight, what I saw also baffled me.

Above me soared a girl. Sapphire eyes focused on my face, a visible hardship harbored beneath them. Her fawn hair stuck to her forehead, elvish ears protruding from chin-length strands of hair that framed her face. A golden sun glowed in the darkness.

Time froze for a moment, the time it took for her to get past me seeming to lengthen. I watched in shock as her expression transformed from fright, to something entirely different. I saw her jawline firm, small worry lines in her brow appearing. Could it be...dedication to something? Perhaps... That's how it appeared to me. Though, her expression seemed to beckon me to follow.

How foolish. I Sesshomaru, believed her to be dead, and yet here she was. Directly within my sight, and in good health. Whatever activities she was up to did not concern me. I had no interest in her bothersome antics.

Though as I watched, her body slowed. Her eyes darted to mine again, body seeming to feverishly twitch in anxiousness. Her hair clung to her body, large eyes even more evident with it slick, and water-darkened.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" called Mikage, body straightening. Her small fingers clenched into fists as pellets of water sprang from her tense skin.

"What do you want?" I questioned. She glanced around her for only a moment, her small frame turning slightly at the shoulders with her. Then she returned her hardened gaze back at me. It was now without a doubt that something troubled her.

"Never mind it. All you need to know is that I promise to bring her back!" Her voice rang above the tree tops, a bit hoarse still from her encounter with the smoke. And then she dashed off, skidding across the sky like a thin stone skipping over water.

I found this encounter strange. Why would she ask for my attention, only to run off? And who was 'her'? A sudden image flashed through my thoughts like a deer after being startled. Rin, laying upon the red velvet cushion that was my mother's throne, dark hair splayed out behind her head and neck. I remember her unmoving figure, and that same stone that seemed to hit the bottom of my gut. The Tenseiga had been unable to save her. The only way however, that this could be the case, that it could be Rin...was if Jaken had done a unsatisfactory job protecting her during my absence. And as if a door had been opened, it all made sense.

Rin had been kidnapped, and in a panic, Jaken had gone straight to the only person he knew could help. I heard an audible crunch just below my ears as my teeth ground in anger. Curse that imp. His cowardice was truly something to behold, along with his inability to state the truth to me.

A forced, croaky chuckle could be heard from behind me. One more word from his mouth, and I'd make sure he was bones and rotted flesh atop the wet soil again. However, the rain washed out any snarky remarks from his lips as I arose to the sky. I found this in the slightest bit pleasing. He had nothing on me. For I, Sesshomaru had no necessity to listen to his imprudent comments, as I soon realized.

The storm now crashed against my skull like rocks, rattling my thoughts about. I was finding it hard to ruminate upon any ideas of Rin's situation, and in addition to this, Mikage was out of sight. Before me, the rain was visible, searing through the hazy grey of the sky like icicles. My own hair flailed about upon my forehead, smacking against my flesh like wet rat tails. And though the storm around me rampaged viciously and fast, I was finding myself ever more slow. Flight was toilsome in such weather. This didn't fail to displease me. How was it that a demon lower a rank than myself was able to fly with such great speed on her last legs? Why was she so set upon saving a girl she hardly knew? I forced myself against the wall of the storm, gritting my fangs as it struck me painfully. And though it was hard to gather proper assumptions, a few scattered ones surfaced within my head.

One such presumption was that perhaps it was again, the Band of Seven. This ruled out both Ginkotsu and Jakotsu, leaving only the other five. I knew them all not by name. However, I had heard rumors. Such gossip told of a large one, and a flamethrower. These two? Not likely. In my eyes, it was probably either Suikotsu or Mukotsu for their predicted deaths at my hands. Mukotsu as I had remembered, had refused to answer my question of Naraku's whereabouts. There was a possibility, but only mere seconds before his demise, he had shown great fear in me. At the small idea of facing me yet again, he would most likely refuse. So I suppose that ruled out that disgusting mortal. Suikotsu? Far more probable. His incapability to slaughter Rin would have given him the lust for vengeance.

This man, as I recall, had put up a reasonable fight with a demon such as myself. Then again, he had been teamed with the one loitering about on the soaked grass now ways away from me.

Below me, rain seemed to fall to a point, pine-colored grass flattened to the dirt. It zoomed the opposite way beneath my body, seeming to blur with my accelerating speed.

And then, a faint sound.

A clutter of sounds, actually. Loud screams and shouts, and to my immediate solace, the sounds of a younger woman. Just below the plumage of trees, were three people.

"Vile woman... Learn your place!" bellowed a familiarly deep, dark-tempered voice.

"Why don't you just be quiet?! Learn your morals, cretin!" riposted another. A loud yell of astonishment sounded.

"Go Lady Mikage! Go!" yet another cheered, easily recognizable to me. Rin's voice, safe and unharmed.

I allowed my weight to finally pull me to the forest bottom, where an excited Rin squealed and ran to me. Her footsteps could be heard, pressing through the wet grass along with the smack of her bare soles.

"Lord Sesshomaru!"

I nodded my presence to her and watched in a slight surprise as Mikage quickly took Suikotsu down to his knees with a swift kick to the neck. He clattered down in an instant, limbs folding up with ease. Wounded moans could be just barely heard through theconstant fall of rain as the previously threatening Suikotsu sunk to the grass. A panting Mikage, eye squinted in pain leaned over him, feet pinning his clawed hands to the floor of the huge forest.

"You were saying...?" she gasped. "Who's top dog now?" She frowned upon his unsatisfactory performance in battle, back arching only a bit more to bring quartz talons to his neck.

Suikotsu merely snorted in response, spiked hair flattening with the water drenching it.

"I would end it right here and now, but I have questions to be answered. Who are you Band of Seven people, and how did you get the Jewel shards to revive you?" She pressed her nails to his neck warningly, bridge of her nose wrinkling in concentration. Suikotsu let out a guffaw, brow firming in a sick humor.

His response startled me more than anything.

"It all narrows down to one guy named Naraku."