Chapter 13

The flight

Mai whimpered as she started to regain consciousness. Her whole body was sore, and her head felt like exploding. The girl felt a cold wind on her face. She shifted and tried to make herself more comfortable, as she was pressed against something hard, which made her bruises only more painful. She carefully drew a breath, a shallow one, because she felt pressure on her stomach. She slowly opened her eyes.

And she closed them immediately again, thinking that her brain just must have had a sort of malfunction as a result of hitting her head. She opened her eyes once more and realized that there were clouds around her. She carefully glanced down and regretted it. She was sitting on some kind of steed in the saddle, but the creature was no horse. It was covered in scales and was two-headed. Beneath the animal she saw ground, trees and even buildings. They were very far away though. Mai paled as she realized that the creature she was on was actually gliding in the sky high above the ground.

The girl felt a pressure on her stomach increasing. Slowly, she turned her eyes on its source. An arm was wrapped tightly around her stomach, holding her waist and the reins. Mai shivered slightly as she saw that the nails were abnormally long and sharp, actually more like claws than nails. Around the wrist there were twin magenta stripes. Mai froze in terror. She recalled seeing such stripes not so long ago. She kept staring at the arm, too scared to look behind her. After a while, she shifted slowly in the saddle and looked over her shoulder.

Mai was already expecting it, but nonetheless, she gasped in shock. Behind her sat no one other than the silver-haired demon. She stared at him in horror. The youkai was towering over her, even as they both were sitting – the top of Mai’s head didn’t even reach anywhere near his shoulder. She had to nearly twist her neck to look upwards. The girl was pressed tightly against the breastplate of his armor, not being able to move freely. The demon was looking at the horizon; his face showed no emotion. Then he looked down at Mai. The girl shivered as her eyes met his cold gaze. She felt as if she was a cornered prey and panicked. Instinctively, she tried to push herself away from him, but he only tightened his grip, nearly crushing Mai’s ribs. She continued to struggle with him as he narrowed his golden eyes and emitted a growl. That caused the girl to stop for a moment.

“Stay still, woman.” He said to her, his voice giving out his irritation. However, Mai didn’t listen to him and kept trying to wriggle out of his steel grip, so tight she couldn’t even draw a proper breath.

“Let me go!” she screamed to him. The demon didn’t budge, clearly unimpressed by the girl’s attempts to set herself free.

“Let go of me!” Mai didn’t stop screaming. Suddenly, she felt the pressure on her stomach disappear, as the youkai removed his hand. Then, he pushed her from behind. Mai felt herself slipping off the saddle and tried to grasp something, anything, that would prevent her from falling – she didn’t make it.

Mai fell off the creature’s back only to stop in midair. Her limbs were dangling; she saw the solid ground in the distance. She would surely die if she hit it from this height. She closed her eyes, expecting the impact but felt nothing. She slowly opened her eyes to discover that she didn’t fall. The demon was gripping her obi. He pulled her roughly back on the saddle. Mai hissed from pain as she felt her bruised body slam into his armor. The youkai placed his arm around her waist again and looked as if nothing had happened.

Mai couldn’t calm herself down; she had just nearly died. She tried to control her hitched breathing as she analyzed the situation she was in. She was in the Feudal Era and got kidnapped by a demon, who has slaughtered her entire escort and almost killed her just now. She needed to stay calm and stay alive. Especially staying alive was a priority. She decided that the demon didn’t want to kill her, at least not right away. If he wanted, he has already had plenty of chances. Then why did he kidnap her? Mai couldn’t think of a logical answer. Then she remembered one more thing. Earlier, he called her “Mai”. How did he know her real name?

Mai yelped as she felt his grip tighten again and crush her ribs. She hissed from the pain and looked at him over her shoulder.

“You’re crushing my ribs. It hurts.” She said to him, her voice slightly shaking. He said nothing, didn’t even bother to look at her, but the pressure lessened a bit. Mai decided to be polite for her own safety.

“Thank you.” She said. Yet again, she received no answer. Actually, she was relieved because the demon’s voice creeped her out even more.

Mai was never so scared in her life; kidnapped by a being she thought to be mythical, she didn’t know what would happen to her. One thing was sure: returning home now was out of question. First, she had to know what exactly was going on, and she feared that to do that she had no choice but to ask the terrifying youkai who kidnapped her. She shifted in the saddle and looked up at the demon’s face, unsure how to start a conversation without angering him. She stared for quite a while when the youkai glanced down at her with visible annoyance.

“What is it, woman?” he demanded. Mai unknowingly flinched at the sound of his voice. She averted her eyes from him.

“Umm…” she started. “What are you going to do to me? What do you want? Why…”

The demon growled and sent Mai an angry glare. “Enough!” he hissed. “Be silent or I will kill you.”

The girl shut her mouth immediately. The man was dangerous and she didn’t want to get herself murdered. However, she really needed to get some information.

“Err…” she started, careful not to anger the youkai. “My name is Mai.”

The girl waited for some kind of reaction, but there was none. At least he didn’t threaten to kill her, yet. Mai decided to carry on.

“What’s yours? You have one, right?” she asked the demon. There was only silence. After a longer while he finally spoke up.

“Sesshomaru,” He stated, not looking at Mai.

“Oh.” The girl uttered, surprised, that he in fact did answer her question. Sesshomaru? That was an unusual name, for a human at least. Mai was, however, no expert on demon names. She had an impression, though, that she had heard such name before. But where? When? As she tried her best to remember, she felt herself lose balance as the creature, on which both she and Sesshomaru were riding, started to fly lower. She frantically tried to reach for the saddle to grab on to something to support herself, but she couldn’t reach because of the demon pressing her to himself. She turned abruptly to Sesshomaru and wrapped her arms around his waist. She pressed herself tight against him, desperate not to lose a hold of him and fall off the dragon.

The creature circled above a clearing in the forest and landed. Feeling, that they were no longer in the air, Mai slowly opened her eyes and pulled herself from the demon, a little ashamed that she grabbed a stranger like that. She blushed abruptly and started blabbering nervously.

“Um… Oh… sorry for that. But I was scared that I will fall and I had nothing to hold on to… and fear of heights…”

“Woman,” Sesshomaru said warningly, annoyance visible in his eyes. Mai stopped.

The demon gracefully got off the back of the two-headed dragon and unexpectedly grabbed Mai by her obi. He shoved her unceremoniously from the saddle and the girl fell on the ground with a loud thud, gaining more bruises. Mai yelped.

“What was that for?!” she screamed as she started to get herself back on her feet. Her beautiful royal attire was now dirty and torn, her hair disheveled. She cursed quietly to herself and stiffened as she felt something poking her shoulder. She turned her head to see what it was and gave out a cry of fear and surprise. One of the dragon’s heads sniffed her curiously. Mai cautiously backed herself away, not really willing to find out if the creature wants to hurt her or not.

She made a few steps back when she slammed into something. She turned around to see a very irritated Sesshomaru. The demon gave her his most scary look and grabbed her arm. Then he started to walk along the path, dragging Mai behind him. The dragon followed them, trotting a few steps after them.

“Wait! Let me go!” Mai started to protest and tried to wiggle herself from Sesshomaru’s grip, but it made no impression on him. He didn’t even slow down. He grabbed her tighter instead, his claws ripping through all the layers of fabric and puncturing the girl’s skin. Mai yelped in pain, but stopped struggling, not wanting to give him a reason to do something worse.

She knew that he was capable of killing her. She was pretty sure that he slaughtered Gorouza and his samurais, even though she didn’t really see a thing, but she remembered the screams. She flinched. What mess has she gotten herself into? Will she get out of it alive?

Finally Sesshomaru stopped and Mai bumped into his back. She took a look of her surroundings. The demon led her to a camp. By the fire was sitting an ugly small, toad-like creature. It had green skin and enormous eyes. It was clad in brown and was holding a staff, on which were carved two heads: male and female. As it saw the demon’s arrival, its eyes brightened and it got up quickly and rushed towards the tall youkai.

“Sesshomaru-sama! Where have you been? You got us worried!” it squeaked as if it was scolding the fearsome demon.

Then, a small figure darted from between the bushes and ran towards Sesshomaru.

“Sesshomaru-sama! You’re back!” a childish voice exclaimed, a voice that was very familiar to Mai. Mai observed as the little girl stopped in front of the demon, showing no fear and kept smiling brightly. Mai’s eyes widened as she recognized the child.

“Rin, were you behaving yourself?” Sesshomaru asked the girl. The kid nodded vigorously.

“Yes, Sesshomaru-sama!”