Welcome to my latest fanfiction. Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Yet again it's something completely different and the premis is a bit less cannon that Chronicles was. It is still cannon, technically, but...well you'll see.

I would also like to say that some of the youkai mating and other particulars about youkai I established in my other fics are not the same in this one. I like to think in multifaceted pathways. I change something small or something large and see how it works out. It is a minor change that makes such big difference in this fic, but you'll only really get to see it later. I'm so evil. other than the theories on Youkai mating being slightly different and a theory based on the one Inuyasha episode where they supposedly rescued a god (this comes up later) not much has changed in my youkai. Don't worry, you'll enjoy it.

For those of you unfamiliar with my writing, I will once again state: if there are any issues that arise as to the originality of any of my work, contact me and we can compare notes. I have hard copies of my chapters, dated start and finished as to when I wrote them. If between the two (or three or four, etc.) of us we find that an idea was used elsewhere first, then I will give credit where credit is due. I will not remove it. Fanfiction is based on ideas and characters that are not our own therefore if someone else does the same with our work we should (of course ask permission first if possible) and give credit where credit is due.

that said, Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, KAgome, Kouga, Ayame, Jaken, Rin and Shippou are not mine... but everybody else... is all mine!

Lost in a Crowd

The expensively dressed man riding in the nearly empty first class section of the plane shifted uncomfortably against the cushioned leather seats. He dragged a hand through his rich, chin-length silver hair; a nervous habit he'd developed in recent years after chopping off the rest of it. He hated to fly.

No, that wasn't entirely accurate. He'd enjoyed flying once, when it was under his own power. He missed the feeling of the wind whipping his much longer hair around his body like some wild heathen's cloak. Not that he had ever been an undisciplined heathen. He had always been quite noble and civilized.

He still was he supposed, though this period's version of noble and civilized was being wealthy and quite strait-laced. He had always been somewhat strait-laced he mused absently though he hadn't been forced to wear such confining clothing like the fashionably cut suits he sported nowadays.

He was a wealthy, well-respected businessman to the general public, but inside, only his legendary control kept him from exposing how fractured and broken he truly was on the inside. His pride fought against letting his splintered psyche drag him down despite the pain it caused him.

He jumped as the flight staff made some noise in the coach area of the plane and let out a pent up breath. He clutched at the padded armrest to keep himself from jumping to his feet and clawing his way through the plush first class cabin to the emergency exit to jump. It wouldn't be seemly.

Besides looking like a crazed lunatic, he would have a hard time explaining how he survived the fall without a scratch. And he would survive it without a scratch. A youkai of his caliber couldn't help but survive it. Hell, he could fly!

The silver-haired man took a deep breath and tried to think of something to sufficiently distract him form the unpleasantness of placing his life in the hands of unknown life forms that could at this very moment be having a party in the cockpit without him knowing.

His mind invariably settled on days long past. Days before his brother and his wench had finished their quest and vanished. The days before his mind had begun to splinter, the days when he was whole.

And as almost always happened, his brain settled on the single night where he had proven himself just as capable of folly as his sire before him.

She was nervous; he could smell it. She had something to say but didn't know how to put it into words.

Sesshoumaru had his back to her, patiently waiting for her to speak. He wouldn't goad her into speech anymore than he would coax the words from her. But he would wait, she had earned that much from him in the year she had traveled with him. She had called him out, so he would listen. It did not occur to him that she might have bad news or that she had never had trouble speaking to him before.

Besides, what could she possibly have to say that would have any meaning to him? She never spoke to him of Rin for he already knew about his ward and she had long ago stopped complaining about his retainer. So what could she have to say?

He supposed it might have something to do with her trip home and the gift she'd brought for Rin. She'd never gone to the strange home she appeared to share with Inuyasha's wench before. But as they'd happened to pass through the hanyou's wood, she'd asked if she could stop there and he had waited. Rin would've been heartbroken if they'd left the wench behind. At least, that's what he told himself was the reason they'd stayed and nobody had complained.

The brief stop had been yesterday.

Today was when all the weird behavior of hers had begun.

She'd taken Rin to bathe in a spring and the two had come back a little bit sadder with Rin clutching a bear that was too fuzzy and too small to be a good likeness. It was too cuddly and the bow was demeaning, but from the way the child squeezed it to her, Sesshoumaru decided to ignore it for now.

Rin had sniffled through half the day and her manner was greatly subdued despite the handful of smiles that had graced her features.

Odder still was Jaken's behavior after the wench and he had gone to collect edibles for Rin at midday. The toady had watched her the rest of the day just as subdued as the little girl.

Their sadness reeked something awful and he was quite ready for it to end.

He supposed, now that she had called him out for this little talk, it was his turn to hear what had upset his charge and retainer earlier. Sesshoumaru was determined not to allow it to effect him. Whatever sad news she had to impart could not touch him. What cared he for this human? (Even if he did suspect her possession of latent youkai blood.)

"Sesshoumaru," her soft voice called his name. Her voice always came as a surprise to him, though in later decades he would never be able to recall why. She had called for his attention, but he didn't turn. He never did. She could speak to his back, if speak she must. He wouldn't expend more effort on her. "I've decided to return home. You'll probably never see me again," her voice crawled gently through the firefly-infested night.

So she was finally giving up? He thought to himself without real consideration. He mentally snorted to himself. She could have saved him all this trouble if she'd just taken his advice from the beginning and given up then. She'd never really had a chance of becoming his mate no matter how accomplished a whore she was. And she had to be a whore.

Sesshoumaru had never known a woman who wasn't one. All women of his acquaintance were. They would all sell their bodies for his name, a piece of his wealth, to bask in the residual power of his strength. She could certainly be no different, despite her protests otherwise. He was proud that he'd finally taught her not to bother to perpetuate that lie for he would never believe it.

He was curious to see when Rin would turn bad if she did. That was his on-going experiment, a diversion from the ennui much of his species succumbed to.

He had been told there were women who wouldn't sell themselves for anything, he hoped Rin would be like that, but so far he had yet to meet one of these fabled women.

"Sesshoumaru, I – " she'd gotten caught on her words, choking on some strong emotion he couldn't sort from the others in her scent. "AW, fuck me, I'm screwing this-"

She'd always had a bad habit for imprecise language and he should've realized in the course of their association that she only swore when her emotions became too much for her to contain. It mattered not to him. What mattered was that he had repeatedly warned her about it. She'd been doing well with keeping it under control since the last time he'd chosen to punish her for it.

She had declared her disbelief in something she'd been told with sarcasm and ending with "her left foot". He'd kindly shown her that her left foot had nothing to do with the matter by dragging the appendage out from under her setting her painfully on her rump.

This time she deserved worse. She had asked for it and with profanity too. And since she was already a whore he felt no guilt in his decided course of action.

Sesshoumaru was a full-grown demon lord and was no young green horn by any stretch of the imagination. He knew how to enter a woman in a way that would bring pleasure or in a way that would seem like punishment. So without preamble and before she could finish her frustrated self-tirade, he had crossed the space between them, shoved aside the flimsy cloth in his way and entered her to the hilt.

He froze as her fingers convulsively closed around his one arm and opposite shoulder. Her words had erupted into a cough she used to try and stall her cry of pain. Her eyes turned glassy as she fought not to cry and he knew why.

She hadn't been a whore. She'd been pure and untouched. Perhaps not as innocent as the day was long, but undeniably virtuous and he'd stolen that. He'd ripped it from her in the most painful way he ever could have.

Why hadn't he believed her when she'd insisted she wasn't a whore? She'd never lied about anything else in all his time with her. She was honest and honorable and she'd deserved better than this.

Her maidenhead was something he was certain she never would have sold. She'd have given it along with her heart to someone she believed deserved it. She would have given it to someone who would treasure her gift and treasure her and he had destroyed that.

He'd made her into what he had always believed her to be. He cradled her head to his shoulder ashamed of what he'd done. He would forever damn his arrogance and pride for the damage he'd done to her, but he couldn't undo it. He couldn't remove himself now without causing her more pain.

No, he couldn't undo the damage he'd done, but Sesshoumaru could make it up to her. It would take more effort to get her to relax and then sail into the pleasure she should have experienced all along, but he supposed he owed it to her.

She had saved Rin's life on multiple occasions and even his own once or twice. Surely that had earned her some kindness from him. And even if it hadn't, he found himself wanting to pleasure her.

He eased up, lessening the pressure that had her pinned to the tree behind her. He kissed her cheek gently and proceeded to make it up to her…

Sesshoumaru jerked back to the present as a flight attendant asked him if he required any refreshment. He nearly ripped the guy's head off for interrupting the blessed memory. In reality that memory was full of contradictory emotions but they were all true, all real, and he had been whole when he was wrapped safely inside of her.

She had been real then too, not just a phantasm that haunted him every step of his life. He could never leave her behind.

Most days he couldn't remember her name and he cursed himself for not realizing the treasure it was when he'd had the chance to carve it into his heart to never be forgotten. Even on his good days he really had to dig for the rapture that was knowing her name.

For years he'd had to have Rin remind him of the precious name. Then when Rin was gone, he'd taken to badgering Jaken for it. Jaken had refused to answer him about it for decades now.

It was funny how, after all these years, he could still remember vividly how she'd felt, how she'd looked, how she'd smelled, but not how she'd sounded or her name. Sesshoumaru yearned to remember all of her and he suspected one of the splinters of his personality knew it all and was hoarding it from the rest of him.

He knew of at least three such splinters, he called them Id, Ego, and Superego for the sake of convenience and nobody else knew except his most trusted aid, Jaken.

Another Flight attendant came by and asked if he needed anything. He nearly growled and clawed her throat out, as he smelled her keen sexual interest. Sesshoumaru swallowed the urge to disembowel the woman. It wouldn't do to break the youkai code.

The youkai code he'd helped create.

The youkai code that stipulated that all youkai were to encourage the human belief that demons were either extinct or myth. Some had chosen to disregard the code and gotten themselves and some of their fellows killed. Others had chosen to avoid the code by hiding in the wilderness leading to their eventual regression to primitive animals.

Those that lived by the code were often successful business owners.

The code had essentially saved those that lived by it from the true extinction that threatened before its inception. It was one of the first decisions turned into practiced law by the United Youkai Council of which Sesshoumaru was a senior member.

He'd used his council duties to stave off his boredom and further splintering of his mind.

All because of her.

He shook his head and raked his hand through his shortened hair. In the beginning he'd been more than willing to blame everything on the woman. She'd made him want her. She'd made him react, but that was completely false.

She hadn't done anything she hadn't always done. Truth be told he'd always found her attractive, but his prejudices against her apparent species and his firm belief in her lack of honorable character had kept him from acting on it. At least that's what he told himself. Sesshoumaru hated to think he was afraid of being rejected by her, but as he was quite certain he was not longer clinically as sane as he had been, he couldn't really trust his own judgment of the matter.

He hadn't really tried to pin his foolishness on her in centuries. He was the one at fault.

The plane bucked in a bit of turbulence and he dug his claws discreetly into the already much abused armrest. That was another thing he hated about modern flight. He'd never had a problem with turbulence before. A growl began to vibrate behind his teeth and he swallowed.

He needed to be distracted. Now.

He'd loved her through the night, never once leaving her. He'd brought her pleasure many times and he found himself enjoying his attempts to pleasure her.

She'd remained silent from the start. It was quite out-of-character for her to be so, though he suspected she was purposely holding herself back for whatever reason. He'd made it his goal to push her past such restraint. In a way, he'd decided his efforts to atone for this greatest of transgressions against her was left unfinished until she awarded him with a shout of passion. Or perhaps he just didn't want it to end.

Sesshoumaru kissed her lips, sipping of their sweet taste as he began to move again. It was probably too soon, she was just coming down from her last peak and he was most likely quite close to utterly exhausting her completely, but he hadn't yet achieved his goal.

Her wet skin glistened in the faint light of early dawn and it was the first time he had seen her so clearly all night. She was beautiful and glowing from their combined exertions. Her eyes, what he could see of them, were glazed with passion and fatigue.

This would be his last chance to earn his redemption, his last chance of the night to repay her for that look in her eyes. That look he was seeing clearly for the very first time. He didn't know what it meant other than the pain he knew she must have derived because of the emotion it represented before now.

His vision flashed to red briefly as his body shook from over use. He was quite close to collapsing himself, but he would send her to the stars one last time. And he would go with her.

He cursed his own fatigue as his arm shook; he wanted to drag this out, make it last. Something nagged at him about what she'd said before this had begun. She'd said…

She'd said she was leaving and the realization rippled through his body as the meaning finally sank in. She was leaving? Never coming back? The shock settled into his brain. There would be no other chance on any other nights. This really was his LAST chance to make it up to her.

Another shock rippled through him and his vision flashed again as he realized he didn't want her to leave. She was his pack. His companion, Rin's treasured older sister, Jaken's only friend, and she was leaving. It was strange to realize the truth of the matter. He didn't want her to leave, couldn't bear for her to disappear from his sight.

As he drove them closer to the edge of sanity, his vision flashed again and again until it completely stuck to the ruby color. He was barely aware as he was granted his reward at the same time his teeth sank into her flesh in a last ditch effort to keep her with him, to make her a major irreplaceable part of himself.

And that was his folly. He shifted against the leather chair. It was well known that mated youkai did terribly apart from each other, especially inus.

The only thing that kept anyone from realizing the danger he was to himself and others was that hardly anyone knew he had marked her. He only hoped she was human enough to be spared the suffering he had endured. He'd brought it down on himself, she hadn't.

She'd only done what she said she would and Sesshoumaru couldn't deny that his rational mind had known all along that she would leave. She had never gone against anything she had said she would do. It was part of what he had admired about her.

He had awoken, alone with the lingering scent of her on his skin and the empty feeling in his soul that let him know she was beyond his reach. He had interrogated Inuyasha as to where she went, but the whelp had steadfastly refused to tell. Then, shortly thereafter, the hanyou and his miko had likewise disappeared and he had nothing to go on.

In his desperation, he'd questioned Rin. Sesshoumaru shook his head at the memory, not really wanting to relive it. It was through his talks with his ward that he'd discovered there was more to the woman than he had bothered to learn.

She was there, living with him for a full year and he hadn't bothered to ascertain her age. He hadn't cared to inquire after her family. He hadn't seen the gift she presented to him with every word she spoke.

Her talks with Rin had never been private and yet he was the one who didn't listen. Jaken had expressed surprise when Rin's answers weren't already known by the lord. Even the toady had paid attention and learned about their companion, but not him. And now that she was gone, Sesshoumaru kicked himself everyday for his negligence.

Through Rin he'd learned that his companion had lost her family just before meeting them. Through Rin he'd learned they were assassinated. Through Rin he'd found out the woman had been forced into hiding for her own safety.

And through what he'd learned he found the explanation for often finding her offering her tears up to the starry sky when she was alone. Through his belated lessons he learned that she was of some standing herself if her family had constituted an assassination. And he discovered that she had been more than worthy of him the whole time.

If only his prejudices hadn't held him back.

Sesshoumaru often wondered what would've happened if he hadn't held back, if he had claimed her at any point before she had decided to leave. Would she have stayed? Would she still be with him now?

He liked to believe she would've stayed. He wanted to believe she wouldn't have had the strength to leave him, but that was his pride talking. The same pride that had cost him her in the first place.

Incidentally, daydreaming about her remaining with him lead to thoughts about what would've happened if she had. Some days he found himself mourning the children they'd never have, and there would have been many. He couldn't imagine being able to resist her in heat. It had been difficult enough when he hadn't already claimed her before, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to afterwards.

Most of all, he liked to believe she would have been happy with him. He liked to pretend she would save her most precious smiles for him. Sesshoumaru liked to imagine how she would have looked watching over little ones with his coloring and her luminous eyes. Or perhaps they would look more like her but with small hints of his features here and there.

Sesshoumaru shifted against the leather and dragged his fingers through his hair again. How pathetic he had become. He used to believe he was strong and invincible. He'd seen himself as completely infallible and in some things he still did. But now he knew there were things he had no knowledge of and no right to judge about. His botched claiming of a woman he could have loved had proven that.

Scratch that, he did love her. He loved her for all the things she had been and all the things she might have been and all the things she was. He'd just fallen too late for it to do any good.

Sesshoumaru gave a self-criticizing mental snort. It was years after that night of his foolishness that he learned what that look in her eyes had been. And again it was Rin who taught him the lesson.

His ward had grown up and found love and her eyes had shone with the same expression. When he had asked her what it was she'd told him it was love. Through the years, he'd seen that look again and again and each time there were only two results that followed after.

Either the woman married happily or lived with what happiness she could find, tainted by a shadow of quiet sadness. Sometimes they didn't even bother to live.

He shook his head and sighed as the saddest thought struck him and was dismissed. Sesshoumaru knew she hadn't gone that last route. He could feel she was alive and out there, somewhere beyond his reach.

On his more generous days he hoped she had found someone else. Youkai matings weren't necessarily permanent, though the pain of separation often made it seem that way. The easiest way to end an unwanted mating was to take another mate. It didn't end the pain, but it greatly lessened it.

But those days were few and centuries in between. At heart he was still the selfish pup his father used to laugh at and he disliked the thought of sharing her, of losing her.

It was sort of the same reason he refused to seek relief from the suffering elsewhere. He wanted her and absolutely no one else would suffice. Even if others wore that special expression for him, only she would receive it from him.

A flight attendant walked swiftly through his section of the plane. There was little reason not to, he was almost the only person riding first class. He doubted anyone had realized that he had been the one that caused that. Normally he would've taken his private jet, but Jaken had suggested riding commercial airlines might make the flight a bit easier.

In a way, he supposed it did. The sound of the other passengers shifting about and breathing helped to cover the sound of the stale air being moved about. The smell of other bodies blocked out the smell of the cleaning product use to clean planes. And it was sort of nice to know that he could take them all down by killing the pilot. He'd much rather drag down a bunch of other people than go alone. Of course he'd probably live through it and they wouldn't.

Commercial flight wasn't too bad, he admitted. The bigger plane certainly didn't bounce around in turbulence quite as much as his little jet. And though the flight staff had interrupted a most sacred memory to him, they'd left him alone for the most part.

Sesshoumaru gazed out the window as the coast came into view. He remembered when this land had been empty of all things except the nomadic natives that had worshipped youkai like gods. Times had changed. The nomadic natives were now all but extinct and no longer so nomadic.

Strangely enough, the youkai community had mourned the loss of those human nomads. They were a good people and had skillfully protected the last wilderness of its size. With them gone, the land had been cut into and divided, maimed and forcefully molded into the heavily populated countries that had claimed it. Many youkai refused to return to this place, preferring to remember it as it had been.

Sesshoumaru had been one such youkai, so what was he doing on a plane bound for the heart of this lost paradise? Jaken had managed to arrange him a meeting with the elusive lord of the Americas.

Nobody knew exactly who the lord was, only that the current reign had begun about fifteen years ago and the ruler was one member of a small group of about 8-10 people that could be possible candidates. No one on the youkai council had ever been able to arrange a meeting of any kind with any of the possible lords.

Until now it seems. Though why him he couldn't fathom. It wasn't that he wasn't interested, trading with the largest single territory of the world would greatly boost the wealth of his own territory. And he was definitely curious, who wouldn't be? It was strange for a youkai of any breed to avoid declaring before the world that they were in charge. He wasn't sure if the new lord was a genius or a fool or a myth, but he had to admit, this lord probably used the best strategy possible given what the rumors said.

According to hearsay, the lord was the last blood relative of the former ruling family in the north. And because all royal families marry into other nearby royal families, this new lord was also related to them of course. Sixteen or Seventeen years ago some bloody fool had assassinated every member of every ruling family in the two continents.

There were two possible outcomes should the last living blood descendent of those families surface. Either the assassin would return to finish the job, or foreign powers would decide this person had ordered the assassinations in order to rise to power. In the case of the second, those foreign powers might try to take out the new lord for severing trading treaties and alliances. In either scenario, safety demands some method to protect the lord's life. By not revealing the lord's identity and using a group that is never all in the same place, but together enough to keep the mystery, it has become nearly impossible to discover the identity from the outside.

But Jaken had assured him he would meet this lord, or at the very least the trip would not be a wasted endeavor. The lackey had even offered to come along and Jaken never went anywhere. The little green youkai discovered the Internet and that was the end of travel.

He supposed it was through Jaken's many contacts on the web that had gotten him this meeting.

Sesshoumaru gripped the armrests tightly, the wood under the padding creaked under the strain. This was the part about flying in these god-awful contraptions that he hated the most, landing.

No wonderful memory would be enough to distract him from this. On the plus side, he no longer became ill during landings, but the nausea was still there and he was certain he would never be rid of it.

He would be glad when they were back on the ground.