The day comes to an end and along the way my mind has become clear and free of all thoughts. It was relaxing to say, my heart felt lighter as I passed mesmerizing sceneries telling me of a beautiful spring that is about to come. When night falls, I take Hidzume to a nearby tree and we camp for the night.

"We still have another 6 days to go Hidzume, then we'll arrive at the next village. Just hang in there for a little bit ok?" I say patting his mane.

We ate the food that Kagome and the others packed for us. I place a blanket over Hidzume and myself, Hidzume lay besides me and I pull the koto onto my lap. I play a slow and mellow tune to fill the night, a slow lullaby that will help lull Hidzume to sleep and hopefully me eventually. After a while I stop and place the koto beside me and lay down onto the blanket that is laid onto the ground. I pull the blanket covering me up to my chin and I look up at the stars. The stars twinkle in the clear sky and without knowing I start to count them. Eventually I lost count of the never ending stars that are sprinkled above the earth, I close my eyes and fall asleep. The flames of the fire that I made sways in the air as the night draws out. Morning follows hours later, I wake up and stretch out my arms and back. I take a deep breath of the cool morning air.

"Guess it's time to carry on, good morning Hidzume." I say patting him.

I continue on the road with Hidzume till we came upon a small stream, I get off of Hidzume and wash my face with the cool clear water. We stay there for a while enjoying the sun, it looks like it's about to rain soon though.

"What a weather, guess I better find some shelter soon before I get drenched." I said quietly.

I then take Hidzume by the reigns and begin to leave the beautiful area, when suddenly I hear a bunch of horse hooves from within the trees. Not knowing what it is, I quickly guide Hidzume into the trees on the other side of the bank and hid. I kept Hidzume quiet as much as I can as we waited. Not long after hiding, a group of men comes out of the trees and then into the clearing. There were about 5 of them, they have knives and swords, riding on horsebacks and there is one of them that stands out than the rest. He is bald with a tuff of feathers around his neck, his neck itself is thin and a bit long than a normal human's. He has a pointy nose and his ears are pointed as well, and that tells me that he's a demon, but just what I'm not sure. The others seem to be human, I'm not sure if they know that he's a demon or not but it seems like they do.

"Well done men, we are on our next village. We will start the raid tomorrow!" The demon leader says to his subordinates.

They all give a cheer, and get off their horses and walk to the stream. I felt a chill go down my spine as I heard them.

"Thieves and bandits.... They're heading towards Lady Kaede's village, I have to go warn them." I thought to myself.

I slowly back away with Hidzume but I accidently step on a branch as I backed up. I let out a gasp, I then look up to see the demon looking in my direction.

"Oh no.... I have to run." I said to myself, I turn and hop onto Hidzume.

"Go after the sound now! Bring it back alive, I want to see what it is." He screeches.

The men all hop onto their horses and gallops through the stream towards me. I gasp and give Hidzume a kick and he bolts through the trees. The clouds in the sky has slowly turned grey, raindrops are slowly coming down on me. I rode through the grassy field in the cold and dreary weather, my body soon became drenched. The cold wind mixed with rain hits my face as I try to escape with Hidzume, my heart pounds heavily as fear arises in me. Who knows what will happen if the thieves and bandits captures me, my life could end. Who knows what they will do to me with a demon as a leader, but I remember that I told my mother before I left, I won't go down without a fight. I found my composure and rode as fast I can away from them, but they are close behind me. I realized that I still have quite a lot of items on me, I have to get rid of them to reduce the weight. Hopefully I can use them to distract them somehow, I start to throw leftover fruits and food at them. Luckily Hidzume and I rested up well last night, the bandits start to slow down a bit. So I turn back to focus on escaping, suddenly something hits me in the back and I get knocked off balance. I fall to the ground hard and it knocks the wind out of me, Hidzume comes to a halt and turns to me not knowing what to do.

"Run get out of here!" I yell at him.

Hidzume turns and gallops away, the koto on my back fell with me and landed a few centimeters away from me. I prop myself up with pain running through me, Not far away from me is the demon. His legs has changed into that of a bird legs, the tuff of feathers around his neck sways in the wind. The legs soon turns back into its human shape, I know that he is some kind of bird demon as of now.

"What do you want?" I ask him with my guard up.

"Fun, we want fun." He says with a laugh as he glares at me, his black eyes showing no human emotions.

A chill runs down my spine as I hear those words, there were so many interpretations to it.

"You ain't going to do anything to me!" I shout at him.

The thieves and bandits soon arrives beside him they all hop of their horses, I crawl to my koto knowing that that is my only weapon.

"Fiesty aren't you? We'll take our time torturing you before we kill you. Men, capture her and bring her back to camp." The demon commands.

"You're not getting me without a fight, I won't go down easily!" I say sternly.

"We'll see how long you'll last." The demon smiles.

The bandits starts charging towards me and I stand up with my koto in my hands. Although the koto is an instrument, its body is made of hollow wood and it's hard enough to use as a weapon. I start to run away from them first to give me some distance, my kimono is making it difficult though. One of the men catches up to me and grabs my shoulder, I use the opportunity to swing my koto at him. It hits him on the side hard, he let's me go and the momentum makes me lose my balance. I fall to the ground along with him, I look up and I see the other bandits coming towards me without stopping. I gasp and quickly get up and grab my koto, at this point the force of my hit earlier has caused a few strings to snap. Seeing so much of them coming at the same time it feels overwhelming, I'm exhausted at this moment. With no other choice I throw my koto at them like a boomerang, it hurls towards them and hits 2 of them. With the impact, the koto finally splits in half. It was my last tactic. The bandits then grabs me as I pant heavily, they push me to the ground holding me down. I struggle, scream and yell at them to get off of me, but they refuse to budge. At this point I'm completely exhausted, my muscles ached and I'm drenched in rain and my hair is a mess. The demon leader walks up to us and looks down at me with smile.

"Tie her hands up and put a blindfold on her. Cover her mouth so she won't scream or talk. Let's go." He says to his men.

I breathe heavily and my heart is pounding like crazy, I couldn't resist anymore. I look up into the grey sky one last time before a cloth is put over my eyes, they tie up my hands and makes me bite onto a rope to keep me from talking. I then pass out from tiredness. I don't know how long I've been out for but when I wake up the blindfold has been taken off me, My wrists are tied to a tree by a single rope. I'm sitting on the ground. The night has arrived and not far away from me are the bandits sitting around a fire and eating. I'm cold and shivering from the rain earlier, I'm totally going to catch a cold if I survive this. The demon notices that I woke up and walks towards me, I push myself back against the tree as much as I can to try to put a distance between us, but it was no use. He crouches down and roughly grabs my chin and turns my face to him.

"Looks like you're awake, how was your rest?" He asks me in a mocking tone.

"Not the best but I suppose it'll help me when I free myself later." I say to him with a glare, at the same time I'm trying to loosen up the knot tied around my wrists.

"Still putting up a fight, well since you're all rest up now let's have some fun shall we?" He says.

The words hits me like ice shards, it made me freeze up. He then grabs the collar of my kimono and roughly pulls it down to my left shoulder revealing my skin, I gasp at the sudden action. He brushes his boney finger down my shoulder he then stops, and looks back at me with his black eyes. I try to hold in my tears not knowing what is going to happen, I have to endure the chaos.

"Don't touch me you heartless monster." I spit at him.

" But it seems like you can't do anything about it can you?" He smirks.

The next thing I know there's a sharp burning pain near my shoulder, I let out a cry and tears falls down my eyes. The demon has sunk his long nails into my skin and blood runs out of the wound, he then pulls it out of the wound and my blood almost flies out, he then licks the blood off of his fingers and smiles. I clench my teeth together to resist the pain, the coldness brushes passes the wounds and it stings. I breathe in and out heavily, at the same time I'm still trying to loosen the knots around my wrists.

"Well since it's late now, we're going to rest up. You should too, tomorrow will be even more fun since we're taking you with us." He says with a smile and walks back to his men.

The blood drips down onto my once pale blue kimono. I try to hold back the lingering sting from the fresh wound, I continue to wriggle my wrist that is tied within the rope, luckily I have a thin wrist and nimble fingers. I have to stay strong so I can escape and warn Inuyasha and the others. The men puts out the fire and heads to bed, within minutes they are all snoring away. I continue to wriggle my wrist until finally, I manage to pull my wrists out of the bind. After an hour, I can feel the skin on my wrist stinging a little from almost rubbing it raw. I look up at the men and I see them all asleep and snoring loudly, I take the opportunity to escape. Since there's a bit of distance from their camp, if I stay quiet I can escape. There were trees surrounding us so I can hide if something happens, but there's the demon. He can probably smell my blood from my wound. I get up slowly and as quietly as I can, my legs are numb and painful from sitting down for so many hours. The only thing on my mind is to escape. I quietly run into the trees, just trying to get distance between myself and the bandits. As I run I hear the demon suddenly start yelling at his men to wake up. I continue to run not caring what is happening back there, a few seconds has passed and then I hear screams and yelling behind me. I turn around just in time to see a faint green aura disappear, I didn't know what it is but I turn and start running again. I run until I finally reach the open grassy plain, the moon finally shows itself. I breathe a sigh of relief and I run towards the field, I grab my kimono and lift it a bit from around my legs so I can have more movement. The cold air hits my bare legs as I start to run. I run towards the plains when I hear a loud screech from behind me and above me, I look up and I see a large vulture like demon circling around me. Its black eyes locked on me as it circles.

"My men has been killed but I'll eat you before he kills me!" He screeches and fold his wings and flies down towards me.

At the moment my mind blanks out a little after hearing it say "he", I begin to wonder who it's talking about. Before he could reach me, I snap back to my sense and I turn to run again. The vulture demon opens up its wings to prevent it from hitting the ground and quickly lifts himself up and as he lifts itself up it lunges forward, and as it does its large talons scratches up from the middle of my back and up to my left shoulder and rips my kimono open. The scratch also cuts the ribbon that tied my braids up and my hair unravels and flies around me. The momentum throws me forward and I fall onto the ground, the pain rushes through my body and tears flows down my face. I scream in pain as I can feel blood running down my back, I couldn't move. I manage to turn myself onto my right side and I look up to the night sky, my vision is going hazy at the moment. The vulture is circling above me and it starts to fly down straight towards me.

"I guess my journey ends here...." I say to myself and close my eyes and wait for my demise.

A loud snap echos through the field and through my dark eyelids I can see a faint green light. Then a high pitch screech is heard, and a flash of bright light blinds me through my lids. Then everything goes quiet. I am too weak to open my eyes, but I can hear faint footsteps approaching me. It then stops beside me and I can feel the presence kneeling down, suddenly I feel something light and silky falls against my hand. I begin to think if it's my own hair, but it was so silky it feels unreal almost out of this world. I couldn't open my eyes as the pain still pulses through me. The presence then lifts me up gently and my head rests against the presence, I can feel silk fabrics against my cheek and I can feel the strong surface beneath the fabrics. I could figure it out that it's a person at this point, I didn't care I felt safe as I rest my face against the person's chest. My head also rests against a soft furry object, it felt like soft fur and it tickles me lightly as it sways in the wind. The person then begins to walk while holding me gently against them. The rhythm of the person's steps slowly lulls me towards slumber, I don't want to go to sleep. I want to open my eyes and see the world, so I force myself to open my eyes slowly. As I did, everything is still hazy and blurry. I am greeted by white fabrics with red flowers embroidered onto the fabrics, the person has porcelain white skin that seem to dazzle under the moonlight. I slowly lift my head and I can only see from his chin up to his cheeks, on his cheeks are two dark pink stripes and he has a frown on his lips. His silver white hair slightly flowing around his face brushing against mine, the wind blows gently around us. Without knowing, I lift my right arm up and put it lightly around his neck and I rest my face against his chest. I close my eyes as a single tear falls down my cheek.

"Sesshomaru..." I whisper quietly.

He then start to dash gracefully and the wind picks up, my hair now flies against my face because they are free from their binds now. I then black out.