InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ His Brother's Girl ❯ An Unlikely Pair ( Chapter 1 )

His Brother's Girl

By Nanda and Kira

Chapter 1 - An Unlikely Pair

"Rin? Rin! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!!!" Jaken screeched, looking about frantically. Sadly, his panicked screams were of little use, for it seemed that the louder he called for her, the more his voice was drowned out by the rolling thunder and the pounding torrents of rain steadily assaulting the earth.

"Where are you, you little fool?! This is no time for games! Rin?! Riiiiiiiiin!"

'Oh this is not good, not good at all…' he thought to himself as he checked inside the hollow of a fallen log. 'Sesshoumaru-sama is going to be very angry with me if he returns and finds that stupid girl missing. He might… Gah! I'm too frightened to even think about what he might do! I have to find her!'

Grabbing tightly onto the reigns of Au and Un, he tugged insistently at the lumbering beast, urging it's tree-trunk legs into a slow, deliberate plod.

"Riiiiiiin?! Stop hiding from poor Jaken-sama! Are you trying to end my life?! Riiiiiiiiin! Riiiiiiiiin…..!"

As it turned out, the little fool in question had not gone very far at all. She was maybe a half a mile away, hidden in the dark recesses of a tiny stone cavern. The thunder and lightning had frightened her, and she had abandoned the toad youkai in search of shelter from them and the driving rain both. It had never occurred to her to let Jaken-sama know where she was going. She'd made a habit of wandering off while in his company, and he'd always managed to find her before, so why should this time have been any different?

As the wind outside the small mouth of the cave began to pick up, she was beginning to realize that this time was different. She'd left well over an hour ago, and yet here she remained, alone and scared, the lightning casting frightening shadows on the wall as she sat whimpering, warm tears rolling down her cheeks as she waited in the darkness to be rescued.

A few miles away from where the small child crouched, cringing with fear at each loud shock of thunder, another 'stupid girl' was causing her protector grief over her absence.

"Damn that girl!" he swore as he raced through the forest at a full tilt, artfully dodging the trees in his path. 'Why is it that every time we get a lead, she has to go home?! And what the hell is 'Geometry' anyway?! Next time she wants to learn about trees, I'm gonna throw her up one! Stopping to land on a likely candidate, Inuyasha looked up at the dark and turbulent sky.

"What was the big rush anyway?" he wondered out loud, closing his eyes and letting the rainwater wash down his face, cooling his temper as well as his features, which were over-heated and a tad flushed from his argument with Kagome, followed by his flight into the forest. "It's just a little rain…"

As the words were leaving his lips, there was a loud sizzling noise, and a streak of lightning raced down from the sky, striking and igniting a large ginkgo, three trees to the left of where he sat at that very moment.

"Oh shit…" he gasped, his eyebrows creeping up toward his hairline. "Ok, so maybe this is a little extreme…" In another instant, he was on the move again, only this time, he was racing to get out of the forest. The rain that had been a comfort to him only moments ago was now really starting to piss him off. It had thoroughly soaked his hair, and his bangs were drooping in his face, nearly blinding him. The wind has also picked up, and the ferocity with which it now blew, matched with the chill in the air, was causing a hot, throbbing ache in his ears. He was just beginning to wonder if coming so far away from the village had been a good idea, when he spotted a small cave a few yards off to his right. If it was dry and unoccupied, it would serve him better than Kaede-baba's hut. The humans and that brat kitsune were staying there, and he wasn't in the mood for their well-intentioned abuse at the moment. As he approached the small cleft in the rock wall, he sniffed cautiously, having learned the hard way early on in his youth that you don't run blindly into strange, dark caverns.

Rin heard a small noise just outside the mouth of the cave, and her eyes widened in fear, her pupils dilating even further than they already had in the gloomy darkness.

"…anno…Jaken-sama?" she whispered hopefully, barely daring to let the words escape her mouth. After a few seconds of straining her eyes, she could just make out the silhouette of a figure as it stood, unmoving, in the entrance. There was no doubt about it now, someone was coming in. A very tall someone, and a someone who was most definitely not Jaken-sama. Torn between screaming for help and staying silent in hopes that she would not be discovered, Rin crouched down lower, trying to disappear behind the large rock she was sitting against, and breathed out softly one last time,

"…w-who's there…?"

His ears were aching, and they still rang from the cold wind outside, so he did not hear the tiny voice. That didn't change the fact, however, that he was becoming fully aware of another presence within the obscurity of the cave.

'Something's here… and I know this scent…' he said to himself, taking a few quick sniffs of the cave's dense, stale air. There was something definitely human about the smell, and yet… there were trace scents of a familiar youkai, not so dissimilar from his own… As he took another cautious step into the small cavern, the smell became stronger. The scent was confused, mixing provocatively with the smells of ningen and fear, but he finally recognized it for what it was. His right hand coming around his body to rest on the hilt of Tetsusaiga, he breathed into the darkness…

"Sesshoumaru."

She heard the faint snuffling noises of the intruder, and knew that he was scenting the area, trying to find her. It was a sound that she had become very familiar with while traveling in the company of the Inuyoukai. Unable to resist the urge, she peeked her head out a fraction from behind the rock to catch a glimpse of this invader. She watched with dreadful curiosity as the creature attempted to sniff her out, turning its head from side to side, its body tense and rigid. Just as she was about to duck back down into her hiding place, a bolt of lightning flashed at the cave's entrance, illuminating the intruder from behind and revealing a long main of silver hair. Then, as if answering her timidly asked question from only moments before, she heard a deep male voice softly whisper "Sesshoumaru."

Rin's heart leapt with joy. Sesshoumaru-sama! Not only had he returned far earlier than she had expected, but he had come to find her as well! No longer afraid of the darkness or the storm, she leapt out of her hiding place with a delighted squeal and ran out to greet him, throwing her arms around the youkai lord's legs. She knew that he usually objected when she was overly affectionate, but she had been so frightened, and was now so relieved to be rescued by him, that she couldn't help herself. As she squeezed, hugged and cuddled his knees, repeating his name happily over and over, it was a full thirty seconds before she realized that his waist was not nearly as high up as it should have been…