Cat and Dog by Himura Asami

The Beginning

So this is a prompt sent in by Ranko twin.  It’s going to be so much fun! As soon as I saw it, I knew.

This was me.

I had two ideas. Obviously, this one won.

Enjoy!

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Prompt: Safe and sound.

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Disclaimer: I don’t own anything.

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            She needed to get away from him. As far away as possible. The farther she was from him, the safer she’d be, and that’s what she wanted. That was all she wanted.

            To be safe and sound.

            To not have to look over her shoulder every five seconds and spread out her senses to see if she was being followed. She didn’t want to have to be on the look out for attacks anymore. All she wanted was peace.

            She had been tired of living the life she had been “groomed” for. All her life she had been molded and shaped, and then he had come along and promised her freedom. She hadn’t been naïve, even back then. She had known that he had wanted something from her, but she hadn’t cared. All she had wanted was to do was get away from the people who had raised her to be something she wasn’t and who had only cared for her basic needs, because once they shipped her off to “fulfill her destiny” they would be compensated for taking care of her for however many years they had kept her.

            So, she had left, following after him the way a puppy followed after her master. It was rather ironic when she thought about it, but more than anything, she tried not to think about it.

            She had been thrown into his world all of a sudden. It had been a surprise, but she hadn’t been unprepared. Her parents had trained her to handle situations like the ones she had been thrust into.

            She had never questioned how perfectly her upbringing meshed with his.

            She had never questioned anything regarding him.

            He had saved her, and for that, she had pledged him her loyalty. She trusted him implicitly. No matter what he wanted from her, she would have given it happily, as payment for what she considered a life-debt; she owed him.          

            It was after a few months of living on the estate that she had become suspicious. She had fit in a little too perfectly. And people had been a little too friendly– a bit too welcoming.

             It hadn’t taken her long afterwards to find out the truth. When she questioned him, he hadn’t even bothered to deny it.

            It had been the most devastating day of her life.

            She acted like it hadn’t changed her­­– finding out the truth– but she knew he could tell. He was too perceptive to miss the change. Still, he hadn’t done anything, so she had planned in secret.

            She planned her escape. Her flight from her fate and from destiny and from all the other forces attempting to control her life.

            She fled from him.

            She hadn’t gotten far before he had realized she had gone. She had felt his aura raging angrily and she couldn’t help the smirk that had wormed its way onto her face. She knew that from that moment on that she would forever enjoy throwing a wrench in his plans, whether they involved her or not.

            It had been five days since she had escaped and she was exhausted.

            He had the entire country at his disposal. He controlled the underground, the government, and even regular people! She couldn’t go to any public place without the fear of being recognized and chased after. She didn’t know how, but he had managed to get the word out about her departure extremely fast. In less than an hour, the news was circulating the whole nation, and there were even pictures of her on television.

            She had done the only thing she could when she realized that the whole country was on high alert and searching for her: she had traveled to the dirtiest, poorest, most violent slum she could find, and plopped herself down in the very heart of the grimy neighborhood.

            She knew he would never look for her there. Or so she had thought, before about fifty armed guards had stormed the run-down district– all of them bearing his seal.

            Without thinking, she had slipped into the sewer and dived into the sewage filled water, knowing that the filth would disguise her scent and ward off the guards. Most of them were inu, like him, after all. They wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the smelly sewer system.

            She had lucked out, and before she knew it, the presence of the guards had disappeared off of the radar of her power.

            She had then pulled herself out of the muck and plopped herself onto a relatively dry spot. She heaved deep breaths and her eyelids fluttered.

            Her last thought before fatigue claimed her was how much she absolutely hated Sesshomaru Taisho.

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            Sesshomaru stared hard at his computer screen, attempting to focus on his work. The problem was, he couldn’t concentrate. It was disturbing for him, because never in his life had he not been able to do something.

            He closed his laptop shut with a snap and lightly put the pads of his fingers together.

            It was all her fault. She was the problem. The reason he hadn’t been able to concentrate on his work for the past five days. All because she had ran away, the silly human.

            He needed to get her back. Not because he wanted her back, because he didn’t. He needed her back because, not only would his father be disappointed if he found out about the situation, but also because the girl was his, and he did not lose things that belonged to him.

            True, she wasn’t a thing, but she did belong to him. She had been his since before either of them had been born.

            His father had long ago made a deal with the Higurashi’s. Their first daughter would be given to his first son. Sesshomaru had never really understood why his father had promised him to a human girl, but he knew it had something to do with her being a miko.

            Sesshomaru didn’t actually care.

            He just did what his father had said, considering he had no interest in the female sex. They were all undeniably annoying and he could barely put up with them. The way he saw it, the Higurashi girl was only there to fulfill some stupid plan of his father’s, and possibly give him a child once she became of age.

            His father had sped things up though, merely months before. He had told Sesshomaru to retrieve the girl early. Sesshomaru hadn’t questioned it. In his mind, he still didn’t have to worry about the girl for another two or so years. His father could go ahead and enact whatever plan he had concocted, and leave him out of it until he had to preform the necessary ceremonies to bind himself to the girl.

            And then, he had met her.

            She was loud and stubborn and headstrong. She was as annoying as every other girl he had ever met, but she wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t smell as repulsive as he had expected, and she was powerful. And sort of attractive.

            So he had taken her home with him, noting all of her wary but increasingly grateful looks with tangible amusement.

            She had been perfectly happy for quite some time. Sure, she tracked him down everyday, despite the great lengths he ended up going to in order to hide his aura. But he hadn’t truly minded. Her mindless chatter faded into the background easily and whenever she became particularly loud, it was easy to silence her. All he had to do was give her a look and she would quiet herself with an embarrassed blush.

            He would then absentmindedly note that she was rather pretty when she did that blushing thing of hers, and he would proceed to enjoy the temporary silence until she began talking again. It was a routine that, although unwelcome, was not entirely bothersome.

            And then, everything fell to ruin.

            Not surprisingly, the others on the compound had given it away. The treated her differently than everyone else. She had noticed, cementing his idea of her lack of stupidity.

            He hadn’t stopped her when he had been informed of her search for information. It was something he permitted, because he himself wasn’t overly fond of keeping his intentions from her. It was merely something his father had asked him to do.

            Soon enough, she had confronted him. He hadn’t been surprised at her anger. She wasn’t the type to appreciate being forced to do something. That was why she had run away from her family and followed him.

            He hadn’t accounted for that fact. He had forgotten.

Life had continued as usual. They continued with their routine, though he noticed she was a bit more distant. That was to be expected, so he didn’t worry over it. He should have.

            It had been a mistake to brush off her cool attitude.

            If he had looked into the situation, he would have been able to find out that she had been preparing to run.

            But he hadn’t. He had made a mistake.

            And that haunted him more than anything.

            More than the fact that she had managed to escape the compound when he had hand-picked every single guard on the premises. More than the fact that his father would be disappointed in him for losing his fiancée. More than the fact that his pride was smarting from the idea that he hadn’t been able to keep track of her when she was his and keeping track of her was his job.

            No. What haunted him the most was the fact that he had made a mistake. He didn’t care what the mistake lead to. He only cared about the fact that he had made a mistake.

            He didn’t make mistakes.

            That girl had messed with his head and his perfection and him. He had every intention of capturing her and locking her up and shipping her off to his father until it was time for him to mate her and marry her and whatever else he would have to do with her.

            But first, he needed to find her.

            He had sent messages and spread the word that one of his was missing. The message had traveled to his father’s agents in major companies and the Diet, as well as his own contacts.

            The reaction had been instantaneous.

            The number of sightings reported had been many, but the number of captures amounted to zero.

            He had been very displeased. He didn’t understand why it was so hard for professionally trained agents to capture one sixteen year-old miko. Not one of them had been injured, so she hadn’t escaped in a fight. She had merely escaped.

            It annoyed him.

            She had escaped him and them. He needed to make sure she didn’t escape anybody ever again. His sanity depended on it.

            He couldn’t make another mistake.

            To avoid the pain such a misstep would bring, he had sent his best group of men–mostly youkai– to track her down.

            He was now awaiting the report.   

            He had complete faith that they wouldn’t fail him.

            There was no possible way that she could outmaneuver them. He and his father had trained them personally.

            Sesshomaru stood, but immediately sat back down as he felt someone approaching. There was a knock on his door.

            “Enter,” he said.

            Sesshomaru stared impassively at the inu-youkai that walked into his office.

            “Well?” Sesshomaru asked, seemingly indifferent.

            “Sir,” the inu youkai said with a bow. “We traced the target to a slum in the southern part of the district. We nearly had her cornered, but she escaped somehow.”

            Sesshomaru blinked once. “Leave.”

            The youkai whimpered once, before bowing quickly and running out of the room.   

            Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes and his lips thinned.

            The situation was unacceptable.

            He stood from his seat and straightened his jacket. He made a mental note to punish the squad he had sent out– he did not accept incompetence. After filing that in the back of his brain, he walked out of the room.

            He was going to go out and find Kagome Higurashi himself. And he would drag her back, kicking and screaming if need be.

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There you have it.

I’m sort of wondering who’s going to win.

T.N.T!