Ice and Snow, Mind and Heart

Chapter 11: Affections Touching Across Time

It had been just over a week or so that Yuki had been travelling with Sesshomaru before she heard news of Inuyasha again. And it couldn't have come at a better time... in her opinion.

The day had started out relatively normally, though Yuki had seemed glum for a few days. Rin had noticed, but nothing she said or asked could coax anything out of Yuki besides a few words and shrugs. Sesshomaru noted her strange behaviour but didn't comment, while Jaken complained about how she was making Rin even more incessantly talkative.

By lunch, it was clear that something was weighing Yuki down, for she turned pensive very often and would often stare blankly up at the sky. Rin had let her be at last, while Sesshomaru apparently ignored them as he continued his journey in his customary silence.

He would never admit it aloud, but he'd gotten used to the half-demoness's cheerful and often teasing attitude. Yes, she could be serious once in a while, particularly during a fight, but he'd long since noticed that she tended to have a happier disposition, almost akin to Rin's. Her dampened mood, therefore, was incredibly uncharacteristic, and it bothered Sesshomaru... though he would be caught dead before he acknowledged such a thing.

Yuki, meanwhile, was pondering the likelihood of Sesshomaru allowing her to go 'visit' Inuyasha. It hadn't been that long since they'd last parted with the half-demon, but she was starting to get anxious...

She was interrupted from her thoughts, when a large tree suddenly started to grow in the distance, looking almost identical to the Sacred Tree. Both Sesshomaru and Yuki stopped at that, heads turning to stare, and Yuki recognized the tree as the mythical Tree of Ages.

"Mi lord?" Jaken asked tentatively, but Sesshomaru ignored him.

Both he and Yuki stared at the tree, and Yuki felt a chill run down her spine at the strong demonic aura that wafted off the new tree, thick and pulsing with a darkness that made her skin crawl.

They had been staring out above the trees in the valley far below for a moment, when Yuki frowned as she stared at the Tree of Ages in the distance.

"That smell..." Yuki murmured, and Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed as he too caught it, before he turned and walked away, back towards Jaken and Rin.

Yuki glanced after him in surprise, and she called as she hurried after him: "You aren't going to follow it? It smelt like-"

"I see no need in joining pointless battles." Sesshomaru replied coldly, and Yuki wrinkled her nose at him.

She was certain that the smell she'd caught was that of a moth demon from the far West. It was not a very familiar smell, but she'd heard the stories of the moth demons from other demons that had fled the terrible battles they had cause, and how Inu no Taisho had defeated them centuries ago.

But apparently Sesshomaru wasn't interested in following his father's legacy in this fight, and Yuki was certainly in no position to contradict him now.

She glanced back up at the sky once more before, with a sigh, she turned and simply followed Sesshomaru as he walked off. Sesshomaru noted her unusually passive acquiescence and frowned slightly, but he became distracted by another smell in the distance.

Yuki also stiffened and her head whipped to stare towards Kikyo's home village, towards the Sacred Tree where Inuyasha had once been trapped.

"Inuyasha." She murmured, while Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed. "He's in danger."

"Hmph." He sniffed before turning and walking on.

Yuki hesitated, staring at the place where she could smell Inuyasha's blood, spilling from a fresh wound.