Chapter 2 - Saved

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The trees around her became nothing but a big blur as Hana suddenly lost her footing while running as fast as her demon legs would’ve allowed. She’d been running for a while now, as she could recall noticing the sunset. She immediately landed face first on the ground with her sword in one hand and a great amount of blood on the other. She could feel the pain which she had been experiencing in her lower abdomen worsen as her body fell onto the cold and damp forest floor. It had only been one day since she’d managed to sneak away from home, and she was already injured – and badly, too. At this rate, she’d be dead before she could prove anything at all to her father.

As her eyes closed and she continuously whispered the words ‘don’t die’ to herself, Hana remembered how she’d gotten herself into this mess.

She had just finished putting her clothes back on and drying off her hair and tail after bathing in a nearby river when she heard loud talking coming directly her way. The people talking were close enough that she could effortlessly catch their scent. They were human – and they also reeked of alcohol. No good could come from that. Instinctively, she had hopped up into the nearest and one of the largest trees which she assumed could easily hide her small frame.
Looking on curiously as the group of about five men passed by, she remained as silent as possible, not wanting to cause any unnecessary trouble. 

One of the men – whom she assumed was their leader - then stopped abruptly, causing the rest to also cease their walking.

“What is it Haku – err, I mean boss? Something wrong?” questioned another of the men as he observed his leader with a puzzled look on his face.

“You all go on back to camp, I think I’ll just stay here for a while,” he murmured cynically.

“But boss –“

“No buts!” He retorted almost as fiercely as Hana’s father had a day before. Without another word, the other men shrugged and continued on, leaving their boss behind.

The man stood there for a moment, looking over at the river bank, and then up at the tree where the wolf princess hid.

He can’t possibly see me. She’d thought to herself,and then she glanced back to the bank, where the man had been staring. Her eyes widened in surprise at what she saw.

My canteen! Damnit! She’d forgotten the canteen in which she had kept her water and had left it laying out in the open. What a foolish mistake. Why did she even bother bringing it along with her? She was a wolf demon, for Kami’s sake! A hunter and a scavenger! Life in the palace had surely done nothing more for her than making her and her entire family weaker. Maybe that was what one of the tribe’s guard wolves had meant when he’d looked her dead in the eye and had called her a spoiled little weakling. Her and her family had become so accustomed to luxury of living in a tribe that was much more advanced than the others that they’d forgotten what wolves were – vicious fighters and hunters that were always on the go.

“I know you’re there - might as well come out now. Who knows? I might take a liking to you and spare your life,” he taunted, still looking up at the tree with his hands on his hips. Hana’s right hand immediately clutched the hilt of her sword while the claws on her left seemed to elongate a bit more. Her heart raced as she did the only thing her brain could think of. In a flash, she was out of the tree and on the ground, crouched in a stance that was meant to look like she was ready to attack – the speed of which she hopped out of the tree, causing a few leaves to fall off their branches and dance all around her in a picturesque manner. Now standing in front of the man with the sinister grin on his face, she growled as she got a better look at him. He was tall – or at least taller than she was – and as she stared up at him, trying her hardest to seem intimidating, she could notice a couple faded scars all over his face. She noted his short and scruffy black hair, the clothes he wore – he looked like a cross between a soldier and a bandit – and the knife he held in his hands.

A knife…?

Before Hana could even process the thought any further, the man’s knife had found its way deep into her lower abdomen.

“You’re a wolf demon, eh? For a wolf, you’re not very fast, are you?” He laughed, twisting the knife violently. She could feel the stinging and burning that the stab had caused, but ignored it long enough to give a quick swipe of her claws. She felt them dig into the man’s face and the fact the he released his grip on the knife in her abdomen confirmed that she’d actually done something right. He covered his bleeding face with his hands and cried out.

“Damn it, you bitch! You’ll pay for that! I hope the poison from my knife kills you quick!”

The last thing Hana could recall was running away before any of the other men could even think of turning back to check on their ‘boss’. She could barely even recall pulling out the knife.

Before she passed out, she’d thought that she heard footsteps coming her way and assumed that the men had followed her and were coming to finish her off. That couldn’t be possible though, for she’d run a great distance before falling.

“Maybe if I pretend that I’m already dead, they’ll find me useless,” she thought to herself before everything finally went black.

___________________________________________________________________________

Sesshomaru had spent quite a while pondering whether or not he should even care why he was smelling blood – the blood of a demon. He looked over at Jaken and Ah-Un who were both fast asleep and then back up at the moon which had barely risen.

Why not? He had nothing better to do. Maybe he would end up being able to test how strong his sword had gotten on some unlucky yokai. Then again, an already dying demon was not really worth his time. Still, he leapt from his tree, and in a flash he was gone. The scent was strong, so that must’ve meant that the demon was not very far away.

And he was right.

Soon enough, Sesshomaru had stumbled upon the motionless body of a demon – a female. Though he couldn’t see any blood other than that on the young girl’s hand, the scent was much stronger than that. He moved closer to her, examining her.

He turned the girl over and brought her closer to him, making note of the bloody stab wound in her lower abdomen. The way he held her reminded him of a, very familiar, past encounter.

She was breathing, but barely; although she wasn’t dead just yet, she would be in no time .In one of her hands, she held a sword in an almost deathlike grip. He looked at the wolf demon’s calm face as she grew nearer and nearer to death, and the tenseiga suddenly pulsed, attempting to get Sesshomaru to save a life once again.

Why should he bother saving her – using the tenseiga on her? Wolves never usually leave their pack – she’d obviously brought this on herself.

 But something inside him prevented the usually uncaring dog demon from leaving the girl there to die. Somehow, she reminded him too much of someone – that someone being Rin, his human ward whom tenseiga had compelled him into saving a couple years ago – Rin, who had become very dear to him.

He had no clue why – they did not even look alike - but he felt that this girl, whom he now held in his hand – this entire scene, actually – reminded him too much of Rin and how he had met her for him to leave her there to die. It made no sense. Maybe it was only Tenseiga’s compelling him to save someone’s life once more that was causing him to think that way.

What was happening to him? Was he becoming softer as the years passed?

Nonsense…!

He dismissed the thought, but before he could contemplate any further, Sesshomaru wielded the sword in his hand.

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