"Oh gods..." Soledad whispered to herself as she ran over to the wounded girl. The girl looked no older than sixteen or seventeen in human years, but Soledad knew that she was a demon from her ears. She had long auburn hair, and her lime green kimono was stained red from her wounds. The young girl was gasping for breath, and though her stomach wound looked deep Soledad didn't think it would kill the girl if it was treated quickly. Still sopping wet, she ripped off another piece of her kimono and pressed it against the girl's stomach, the pale yellow slowly turning into a orange hue.

"Can you speak?" Soledad whispered softly. The girl coughed violently and nodded.

"Kawari." the young girl gasped, each breath sounding more painful than the last. Soledad nodded, and began pressing the cloth more firmly on Kawari's stomach, trying to slow down the bleeding.

"Well, Kawari, how on Earth did you manage to get this wound?" Kawari gasped a bit for air, and as Soledad touched her side, she also noticed Kawari probably had a broken rib. Soledad sighed and shook her head. "This isn't something you just get from simply tripping over yourself, and you don't appear to have any weapons on you." Kawari shook her head and attempted a smile, but from all the pain it wasn't very easy for her to do.

"My master...my master did this." Soledad's eyes opened up in shock and concern.

"What a terrible thing for someone to do to you. Is he always this cruel with his servants?" Kawari nodded.

"He knows what he wants and he is relentlessly vicious when he doesn't get it." Soledad frowned.

"Did you try to escape from him?" she whispered. Kawari nodded.

"Yes, but I guess you could see what happened after that." Kawari whispered sarcastically. "I couldn't find the person he wanted, so I tried to escape before the deadline was up, but he always finds those that defy him. He sent someone from the castle to attack me and left me here. Fortunately, the servant was a bit merciful, and didn't make sure that I was dead before leaving." Soledad nodded in agreement.

"Yes, I suppose others have a heart, unlike this master you had, and fortunately the wound he did give you doesn't seem like it'll be fatal. But, if you want, I was supposed to be going back to Lord Sesshomaru's castle with a small group of his finest soldiers. I'm sure that we can still find them in time and you'll be safe from your cruel master." Soledad assured her, giving Kawari a slight smile. Kawari opened her eyes, Soledad noting the striking green that they were, and suddenly Soledad felt a bit uneasy about the young girl.

"No, no...that won't be possible." Kawari whimpered. Soledad gave her a look of confusion.

"What do you-" Soledad felt a sharp blow to her head, and her mind drifted into darkness.

"FIND HER NOW!" Shinto roared at his soldiers. All of them nodded and quickly went in various directions in order to find Soledad. "After all I had told you, I thought you actually listened and would come back to him." Shinto mumbled to himself as he sat down on the grass, rubbing his temples. He wasn't going to lie to himself, of course he was hurt when he discovered that Soledad had feelings for his lord, but at the same time, he knew that he couldn't try to separate them from each other; their love technically spanned centuries. Shinto knew deep down in his heart that he couldn't try to get in the way of that. Besides, trying to get on Lord Sesshomaru's bad side wasn't going to help his case in any way. Shinto had felt tension between Lord Sesshomaru and himself for the past few months, even when discussing war tactics, though Shinto didn't have a clue why until just recently.

"General Shinto! We found something!" Two soldiers ran up to the general as Shinto stood up.

"That was quite fast." The soldiers nodded and smiled.

"We found a piece of cloth that has her scent!" Shinto gave them a look of slight annoyance.

"Of course you'd find a piece of cloth, that was the last thing we had found of her just an hour ago!" he told them. The taller one of the two shook his head.

"No, this isn't the same piece of cloth. There's blood all over this one, and it has some other scents on it." The soldier passed the cloth to Shinto for him to analyze. This cloth was different alright: it still had the same pale yellow hue on the corners of the cloth, but the rest of it was tinged a reddish orange, and was still damp with blood. Shinto sniffed it and could clearly find the jasmine and vanilla scent Soledad always wore, but he smelled two other scents as well. One was almost as strong as Soledad's, but it was very vague, almost a mixture of too many scents, as if the wearer couldn't really choose. The last one, however, was faint but distinct, carrying the scent of miasma and death around it. Shinto wasn't sure of the last scent, but knew that if anyone would know who took Soledad, it'd probably be Sesshomaru.

"Why am I still locked up here?" Kawari wailed. As soon as she returned with an unconscious Soledad, she had expected to have compensation, namely her freedom back, but it didn't seem like that was happening soon. "I did what you told me to do! I found the girl Naraku was so intent on having, so why am I still chained up?" Hebi simply smirked, his eyes the only thing giving him away in the shadows.

"You truly think Naraku-sama was going to let someone who attempted to kill him be free after doing one simple assignment?" Hebi chuckled, sending a shiver down Kawari's spine. "How could he be sure that you weren't going to make another pathetic attempt on his life? It'd be much simpler to keep you here locked up rather than have to worry about you becoming a nuisance again." Kawari gritted her teeth and snarled at the snake demon. She couldn't say that he was wrong in the sense that she'd try to kill him again, but she knew that she wouldn't make the same mistake twice and allow him to make her vulnerable. She sighed. Why would she have had hope when Naraku was known for taking it away?

She looked up at the entryway where a small slit of light came through the bottom of the door. She knew Naraku was up there, probably waiting for that girl Soledad to wake up. Kawari had to admit, even though she took her appearance once, Soledad still was very striking to her. But I wonder what he needs her for? Kawari thought to herself. Maybe Naraku is just keeping her to get revenge of Lord Sesshomaru. From the little information she collected about the woman, she could only assume that they were lovers at least, so kidnapping her would probably lure the Taiyoukai here.

But, now that she was locked up and chained to a wall in this dank dungeon, she felt a little bit of regret for bringing Soledad into this mess. Before, Kawari wouldn't have cared less, because she assumed that after finding her Kawari would be allowed to leave, and Kawari's only thought would be how to kill Naraku again. But after thinking about the horrible ways Naraku had treated her, how would he treat this new woman? Her fate would probably be less fortunate than hers, if there was any other situation that could be worse. All Kawari could hope for was that maybe this nightmarish reality would soon be over.

"Ah!" Soledad hissed as she lurched straight up. A sharp pain in the back of her head seared through her and she instinctively brought her hands to her head, hoping for some relief. After a few minutes, the pain mercifully subsided into a dull ache, and she was finally able to see her surroundings.

Where am I? she thought to herself. She felt like the room she was in was familiar, and she felt almost sick as she looked around. The furnishings on the simple furniture in the room were dark silvers and black, and she noticed she was on a bed with silk black sheets. "I remember this place, but...it can't be...he isn't alive, and he couldn't have found me in so little time..." she whispered to herself, growing fearful as she began to remember the horrible memories of this place. Pushing herself off the bed, she slowly began walking around the room, and found that through one of the doors to her left, there was a hot bath waiting for her. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and spun around to head back but hit someone right behind her.

"I see you're awake." Naraku said, his eyes piercing through her. She gasped and felt tears forming in her eyes.

"No, no it can't be you." she whispered, feeling her knees almost buckling under her in shock. I thought this had to be a cruel nightmare, I should've woken up by now if it was! she thought. Naraku smiled menacingly at her, finding that he enjoyed her fear of him.

"Now, now, why are you so scared of your host? I'm not planning on doing anything to you yet." Soledad clenched her teeth.

"How did you find me?" she growled. "I never wanted to even hear of your name ever again, much less allow you to be my 'host.'" He came closer to her, and she tried backing away from him, trying to keep the distance between them as far as possible.

"Well, it wasn't too difficult, I knew that you'd be compassionate towards someone so frail and hurt, that I sent one of my allies to find and capture you."

"...Kawari?" he nodded slightly. She slumped against the wall slightly, in anger of the young girl tricking her and in disbelief that she let her guard down to allow this to happen.

"Yes, for some reason, she thought that she could trick me." he stated non chalantly. He walked strode towards her until their faces were inches apart from each other. "Unfortunately for her, her shapeshifting abilities weren't capable of matching your beauty." he said, running his claw across her cheek. Soledad snarled and turned her face away from him. He turned away from her, walking over to the bath, steam still rising from it. He placed his hand in the water, feeling its warmth. "Still stubborn as ever, I see."

"Hmph. Why would you expect me to act any different from you now than I did before?" she snapped at him. He turned to face her.

"Well, because you're not going to be leaving like the last time. My servants are now much more faithful than that useless spawn of mine Kagura, and besides, she's the one that brought me back from Hell in order to get you out of the picture." Soledad looked down in astonishment. Yes, Kagura was never her best friend, but Kagura should've been wise enough to know that Soledad left in order to prevent being the other woman and tarnishing the couple's reputation. "She's very sweet, isn't she? She almost takes after me in that sense." Naraku said sarcastically.

"I can't believe she'd go this far to get rid of me." Soledad whispered to herself.

"Well, my dear, this is definitely a reality, but whether it becomes a nightmare or not is entirely your decision." he told her, smirking. "I will bring one of my servants to help you get ready. Dinner will be served in the main dining hall in an hour." he said leaving the room.

"What if I decide I'm not that hungry?" she spat at him. He stopped, looking down towards the floor.

"Well, sometimes the unknown consequences end up being the things you wish you never found out." he told her darkly. He turned to her, his red eyes penetrating through her. "Remember, you have an hour." he said simply before leaving the room.