Chapter 1: Blind

With a knife poised in nimble fingers, a man's figure melted into the darkening surroundings.

He was positioned to kill.

The best game appeared in the forest during this hour on the edge of dusk and nightfall. The man had chosen this time from years of experience… and instinct. His eyes strained in the oncoming darkness, and his unaware prey, the object of his focus, blithely meandered some distance away. All it took was the smallest twitch, the slightest rustling from the general direction of its target, for the hunting knife to jump out of the hunter's hand and shoot off into the darkness.

The rabbit never saw it coming.

Once upon a time, the only tools the man would have needed were his bare claws. Patience would not have been required as he tore through the woods and made a decisive kill. By this time, it would have already been consumed, its raw carcass shredded to pieces.

Once upon a time, the man never would have suffered the disappointment of retrieving the hunting knife, with the only gratification being a few wisps of sheared rabbit fur, and not a trace of blood or meat to be found. The darkness would not have hindered his vision. His strike would never have missed.

Once upon a time, the man was Lord Sesshoumaru of the West.

Now he was just hungry.