A Demon of a Woman /Sesshomaru Calls\*
Chapter 5
"He's just over here!" Rin cried excitedly, gesturing just beyond the bushes in front of us. Rin was definitely happier now that we were closer to her 'Lord'.
Moving ahead of her, I grabbed a bush and pushed it aside for her to step through. "Thank you" She replied sweetly. My head followed her tiny little body under the low hanging branch and into the gathering.
I looked around anxiously to see this Lord. My eyes landed on the body and I gasped. Unconsciously, I started to step back and away for a second. But then I glanced at Rin and forced myself to go forward.
"This is Lord Sesshomaru" Rin introduced quietly. The happiness in her voice from arriving finally drifted away when she looked over to the unconscious bloody figure that is her Lord.
'So, he survived after all...' I thought. That did seem like quite the impressive feat. I don't know if I could have survived a blow such as that, but then again, I've also never been tested in battle.
Kneeling next to him I took in a quick survey of his injuries. No point in doddling around, right?
"Jaken, I'm going to need your help." I called out to him, causing him to jump in place.
"What is it? Anything for my Lord! I am at your service." He spittled out, going all gooshy and starry eyed.
I turned my head to him, "Well first, I can't really get a good look at some of these wounds until we clean them up. Do you have anything you can carry water in?" I asked.
He nodded with a 'mhmm' and ran over to some creature I had only just noticed. And by 'some creature' I mean a two-headed dragon of behemoth proportions…'I'm really not the strangest creature anymore…' I watched in surprise as this creature I've grown up with being depicted as a wild dangerous beast laid on the ground, compliant as Jaken rifled through the sacks hanging from its back.
"Got it!" He piped up, holding a bucket he had found in a pouch above his head in triumph.
"Good. Now what I need you to do is go back to the river we just passed about 5 minutes back and fill it with water. Also, I noticed by the river that Berberis was growing. You must pick that as well." I instructed him.
He nodded again, lips pursed in determination. He disappeared behind the bushes instantly, then reappeared a second later. "Umm...what's Berberis look like?" He questioned, rubbing the back of his head nervously.
"It grows off the trees and hangs in vines of yellow flowers. Pluck the budding flowers." I informed him and then turned back to Sesshomaru, not wasting time to get started. Sesshomaru half-laid against the tree, his body battered and bruised.
From what I could tell, his legs and part of his upper left shoulder looked to be the only parts of him not bloody. The rest was covered in so much blood it was hard to tell which parts were hurt.
For the most part, he looked like he was unconscious and would probably stay that way for quite some time, so I went ahead and knelt beside him as close as I could get to him. I wrapped my arms as gingerly as I could around him without touching the blood or his wounds. Grunting along the way, I tried and slowly but surely, lifted him up and propped him into a sitting position against the tree momentarily.
After some struggling to figure out to unclasp the armor around his shoulders, it fell off his body and hit the earth with a thud. My hands made their way down to his waistline and started pulling next, tugging his top up his now bare back and over his head.
Gently laying him back down onto the ground as he was, I took the tattered and partially bloody top and hung it across a nearby tree branch. I think I can still get something out of this mess.
Turning back to him, I tried to get a better survey of the damage without his shirt. I inhaled deeply through my teeth and turned to Rin, her expression mirroring my thoughts. "Rin dear, you may want to take..." I paused, looking over at the, seemingly docile, dragon creature in question without a clue what to call him.
"A-Un." She added in.
"...A-Un and take a walk and play in that meadow," I pointed to the clearing poking through the trees surrounding us. "Please, I don't want you to see this." I added, noticing her hesitation as she eyed Sesshomaru.
She gave a solemn nod and trudged off with the reins to A-Un in hand.
"I'm back my Lord!" Jaken came running back through the bushes, sloshing the water in the bucket, as he spoke out like Sesshomaru could hear him.
"Going for the brownie points?" I commented with a cocked brow at Jaken. I grabbed the bucket and herbs from him with a chuckle at his expression. He just watched me for a second confused by my 'brownie' reference with his mouth open like he was going to say something back. But he just got flustered and turned around, arms crossed.
I placed the herbs to the side and reached over to the shirt I had lain across the branches and started tearing the fabric.
"W-what are you doing! Those are Lord Sesshomaru's clothes! You can't just start tearing apart his clothes!" Jaken shrieked, getting flustered eyeing the torn clothing.
"Jaken. Look." I said bluntly, pointing at the shirt. "Exactly how is he going to salvage that to wear again?"
Jaken just stared at me stubbornly with a fire in his eyes before turning his back to me again.
Taking my new make-shift rag I dipped it into the water and slowly began to wash all the blood off. After a long time cleaning, ringing out the blood and water, and being careful around the forming clots so I didn't reopen any wounds, I finally managed to reveal a bare chest covered in cuts and slices that were of various sizes. The majority were quite thick and deep.
Tossing the used rag that was covered in the dirty unclean blood to the side, I tore another piece off and laid it across my knees.
I picked up the herbs and a rock from the ground and started smashing the herbs to a pulp between my palm and the rock. With every clump I smashed, I sprinkled it into the new bucket of water I had instructed Jaken to get after I squeezed out the last bloody ring of the first rag.
"What is that for?" Jaken asked, watching my movements curiously.
"The Berberis herb is an antibacterial herb. This won't be enough to heal him-much more will be needed for that-but in the meantime it will at least clean the surface of his cuts and rid any bacteria that could enter and cause infection." I explained, dipping the new torn rag into the berberis filled water, then turned back to Sesshomaru.
It didn't take as long this time since I was simply just wiping down and cleaning off his chest. 'You're quite the lucky bastard' I thought dryly while watching Sesshomaru's motionless face. 'If you didn't have that little girl with you, there's no way in hell I'd try to save the likes of you'
My face grew cold at the feeling of phantom pains about my neck. "I'm supposed to be helping him...I can't have such thoughts." I whispered, shaking my head from the bad thoughts of the unconscious demon in front of me.
"Jaken, please keep an eye on Sesshomaru-"
"Lord!" His voice interjected with an irritated cry.
"Sesshomaru," I said his name pointedly and with much emphasis, not daring to even think of referring to him as 'Lord Sesshomaru', " and come to me if there are any troubles. I'm going to search these woods for some more herbs."
Picking myself up from the kneel I'd held next to Sesshomaru for quite some time that day, I grabbed the bucket and turned it over. With all the water dumped out, it now made a make-shift basket to hold the herbs.
Back in the modern era, I spent a good majority of my time hiding away from humans. Because I spent the majority of my life hiding, I had skipped out on things like school. So, I spent all that spare time reading up on every book I could...gaining knowledge was my pleasure and one of those pleasures happened to consist of herbalism-which consisted of almost everything you could know about botanical and herbal medicine.
"And if you wouldn't mind having a fire ready it'd be much appreciated." I told him. "It'll be getting dark soon and I can imagine Rin may start to get chilly." I added quickly before he could finish opening his mouth to protest.
With one last glance at Sesshomaru's fallen body I turned to the forest and disappeared among the trees.
"Mmmm. What's that smell?" Jaken inquired. He turned his head just as I re-entered the clearing.
"Honey." I answered, dipping my finger into the bottom of the bucket and bringing back up a sticky fingertip with quite the long string of honey following behind. "Oh good, you got the fire ready." I commented.
Taking a seat down in front of it, I gathered what I was able to find and laid it on the forest floor where I took a seat. First there was a small pile of Roselle, a twiggy looking plant with red stems and small red buds with yellows where the two joints met. Then some Aloe Vera and the bucket of honey.
"Do you have any pots?" I questioned, looking up at Jaken curiously...what all did they have in this…time?
"Pots?" He questioned with an odd look on his face.
"It's made of metal and has a circular shape, but with an open top, and made so you can hold it over a fire and cook...?" I slowly described to him making air motions of the shape.
"Oh...um." He went over to A-Un, who had finally come back with a tuckered out Rin napping on his back, and pulled another object out of one of its many pouches. "Is this it?" he scampered back to my side with what looked to have a familiar shape to a pot.
I couldn't help but chuckle, thinking of how much it looked like those little ceramic pots a child would make. There really was a difference in the times.
I picked up the flattest rock nearby and brushed it clean as best I could. Taking it, I tried to scrape the honey out of the bucket and into the pot. Reaching over next to Sesshomaru I quickly grabbed the rag I had used for the antibacterial wash and rung out a few drops to thin the honey and placed it over the fire. As the honey slowly warmed, I threw in the Aloe Vera and Roselle as I went along crushing it, either for seeds or the oils it secreted. Once it was finished marrying in the pot I took it away from the heat and set it to the side.
"I guess that Inuyasha really can pack a powerful punch." I chuckled to myself. Leaning back against a tree, I took another survey of Sesshomaru's wounds as I thought back to that pesky demon...how could something so powerful come from something so annoying?
"I-inuyasha?! You mean he was the one who did this?! B-but how...there's no way Lord Sesshomaru would allow himself to be beat by that mutt." Jaken started going off. "Wait...how do you know Inuyasha?" he deadpanned on his rant and looked back at me with a clean, irritated face.
"I have my ways." I decided to say in a coy manner to tease him. His reactions were quite funny.
"If you're comrades with that half-breed mutt then you can just leave here now! I can take care of Lord Sesshomaru all by myself!" He started hollering in a huff and tried to snatch the pot away from me...to his dismay upon burning his hands on the still hot pot.
"Half-breed mutt?" I mimicked with a questioning raised brow. "Geez, you seem to get quite flustered by his name...what's the deal?" I asked
"Why should I tell you? For all I know you're in cahoots with that mongrel." he harrumphed and crossed his arms in a slump back against a tree behind him.
"Woah! Woah! Cahoots?" I started laughing at the choice of words, then stopped short at the death glare he started shooting me...or at least attempted to suppress it. Clearing my throat, I went to continue. "Before you found me, I was trying to lose that..." remembering Rin was still close by I decided to choose my words carefully"...bunghole." 'Great decision there Corrine...that didn't sound immature at all.'
"O-oh well, then I don't see the harm. You see, Lord Sesshomaru is the great Dog Demon whom rules over the Western Lands," Jaken was standing up now with his fist in the air and sparkle in his eyes, "and Inuyasha...unfortunately Inuyasha is his good-for-nothing half-demon brother. He just makes a mockery of his name." Jaken spat in anger. "The stupid mutt even took Lord Sesshomaru's arm!" He cried, looking upset and teary-eyed at Sesshomaru's unconscious body.
"What?" My gaze instantly went back to Sesshomaru, widening as I finally looked at the space where his arm should have been ...how did I not notice that? Or did I just not have a care or curiousity? And... how could brothers come to hate each other so much?
Author's Note: Proceeding forward, the remaining chapters of 'A Demon of a Woman /Sesshomaru Calls\ will be published exclusively through FicFun. They are both web based and have a mobile out which you can check it out from.
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To all my readers who carry on with my story onto FicFun, I thank you and am glad that you are enjoying my story. This is a story that I have written to completion already, so there are many exciting chapters to come.
As of 07/24, I published Chapter 1, and I will be publishing at least 1 new chapter a day.
*I do not own the Inuyasha manga or TV series. I do not have any affiliation with the writer of this series. This book is a fanfiction and I do not own any of the characters that are from the Inuyasha series. The only character that is mine is the original character Corrine Matsumoto