Previous chapters can be found at http://www.fanfiction.net/~smartycat or in my author forum here on BI.
<B><U>Chapter Summary</B></U>: Inuyasha dreams of darkness, Kagome nears death, and a new bond is forged.
<B><U>A.N.</U> </B>Dogs appear to view the world much as a red-green colorblind person does. See www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/LA/davis2.htm for a doggy-vision spectrum and www.mcw.edu/cellbio/colorvision/colorvision.pdf for more in depth information that applies across several species.
As always, C&C is greatly appreciated, and if you have any favorite dog or animal-in-general related quotes please pass them on to me in a review or via my livejournal (linked to below and in my user page). I want to have one at the beginning of each chapter, and my current list doesn't cover every situation I have plotted. Credit will, of course, be given if I use a submitted quote.
<I><center>For Iris Anthe
A much belated Merry Christmas!</center>
</I>
<B>Dog's Body
</B>
by
<B>Smarty Cat
</B>smartycat9383@yahoo.com
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<B>Chapter 7 -- <I>Blood Scent</I>
</B>---------------------------------------------------------------------
<I>~It came silently at him from out of the trees like a black ghost, from whatever distance it had to cover after it heard the girl calling. It came with a wolfish glitter of eyes and white teeth, the front paws extended, and it came straight for his throat.
--Thomas Walsh, "The Last of the Rossiters"~
</I>
"Inuyasha!"
The hanyou opened one eye lazily and squinted at the bright arcs of broken sunlight streaming into his face. His face twisted in a half-hearted grimace, and he turned his head to the side, both eyes opening fully to gaze up at the sky between the sheltering boughs of the willow tree in which he sprawled. Clouds drifted overhead peacefully, driven by the same light wind that ruffled his hair against his cheek and urged the leaves surrounding him into a rustling melody. The bark against his back was scratchy but not so much that he wanted to move from his perch, and Inuyasha allowed one arm to drop to his side. He trailed a clawed hand idly in the stream beneath him, watching diamond droplets fall from soaked red cloth as his fingers created miniature wakes and eddies in the clear, sluggish water. He had missed the colors. Blue and yellow were nice enough as colors went (although the same could not be said for the gray) but they lacked the vigor of red and orange, the peace of green, or the mystery of violet.
"Inuyasha!" the voice called to him again, more insistent than before.
He growled and snapped his hand shut convulsively, claws barely pricking the thick, calloused skin of his palm as a burst of displaced water surged up toward his elbow. The growl vibrating in his throat grew louder as he rolled off of his comfortable branch. He landed in a crouch, not in the water of the stream, but in the midst of a flower-dotted meadow where the sun beat openly on his back and no water dripped from the dry sleeve of his suikan.
Kikyou stood before him with her bow drawn taut and an arrow at the ready, a warlike image totally at odds with the idyllic vista and the heady scent of flowers on a summer's day. Fortunately, the hanyou had no qualms about war and bloodshed and the destruction of tranquility. Inuyasha rose from his crouch and flexed his claws in one fluid movement, a feral smile curling his lips and exposing his fangs.
"I've been waiting for this, bitch."
Her expression did not change, but grim satisfaction filled her voice as she replied, "As have I."
Kikyou swung the bow up, taking aim at his chest, and the Shikon no Tama flashed around her neck, dazzling in the sun. Yet even as that spark of light flared brighter, shadows massed at her feet and flowed up her legs. The shadows curled around her knees and flowed up over her hips, growing more and more solid. The bow dropped from her hands and she struggled against the thickening black cords with an alarmed cry. They curled around her fingers when she vainly attempted to grab them and surged up her arms to spread across her chest and back.
Inuyasha stood in stunned silence. Of all the things he could have expected from a confrontation with Kikyou, this was most certainly not one of them.
"Inuyasha!"
Her voice quavered as she called his name once again, this time as a plea for aid. His feet acted of their own accord in response to her appeal, and he shuffled forward a few halting steps before stopping himself. His hands curled into shaking fists at his sides, and he glared at her from beneath his thick white bangs.
"What can a dog do, Kikyou?" he demanded. The weight of betrayal lay heavy in his heart, but it was mitigated by anger and bitterness at her own treachery. He tossed his head in contempt, and infused his next snarled taunts with the raw power of unadulterated scorn, directed both at himself and the woman who had once claimed to want a lifetime at his side. "What can a dog possibly do to save you? Aren't you ashamed of your weakness? You've become so pitiful that you need a dog, a weak, worthless <I>dog</I>, to save you."
An unintelligible burble answered him as the shadows extended farther and wrapped around her head. They whirled and flowed unceasingly around her body, growing thicker and more constrictive. The black form that Kikyou had become started to buckle, and as it sank in on itself, the shadows parted for just a moment around her head, allowing her face to peek through.
Inuyasha started, a gasp catching in his throat. It was not Kikyou's face. The girl stared back at him, her eyes huge and terrified.
"Inuyasha!"
The mass of roiling shadows collapsed into a roaring vortex in the meadow, carrying the girl down with it. She fought it, her eyes rolling wildly as she struggled against its inexorable grip. One hand broke free of its confines, and she reached for him, her mouth open wide, screaming in terror.
<I>"Inuyasha!"
</I>
<hr>
Inuyasha stirred uneasily before opening his eyes and flexing his feet, claws raking shallow furrows in the dirt. He raised his head slowly, his neck stiff and sore, and looked out into the forest. The view was even grayer than usual. The ending of sunset and the rise of the new moon that would leave him weak and human could not be long in coming. His ears flicked and tilted first one way then the other as he scanned the area for anything unusual. Nothing heard; nothing seen. Although air scenting was less useful because the wind usually did not break the tree line and make it to the forest floor, he inhaled deeply. Still nothing.
The dream itself must have woken him.
It disturbed him that even now his heart beat at a faster pace than normal and his muscles shivered with restless energy. He should not have been so affected by a simple dream, particularly one that had merely reflected his own desires. He wanted to hurt Kikyou, to make her suffer as she had made him suffer. Kikyou had been attacked. It was simply what he had wanted to do to her himself, right? But then she had not been Kikyou anymore. She was the girl.
The girl had not come to see him.
He had waited a shamefully long time for her in their accustomed meeting place, but she never arrived. Eventually, he had given up on her and had left to seek refuge for the moonless night to come.
Perhaps she had finally grown tired of him . . .
"INU!"
The ragged, pain filled scream tore across his consciousness, and before he had time to willfully consider his actions he was up and running flat out, chasing the fading echo of her voice. As his dog's body streaked through the underbrush, Inuyasha snarled under his breath. The forest reeked of youkai, and it grew stronger with each stride. Then a new scent, the girl's blood, came to his nostrils, and the snarl grew in his throat, bubbling up into a roar of pure, animalistic rage.
The girl was his.
His food.
His prey.
His to kill.
His to protect.
<hr>
The youkai chuckled, and fresh, dark blood, Kagome's blood, ran down its chin. "Inuyasha? Are you calling for Inuyasha?" it mocked in a raspy feminine voice. "You call for that <I>dog </I>to help, that weak little mutt in that husk of a body. Pathetic weakling. Cannot hunt. Cannot kill. He survives but he will die. <I>He </I>will not come to your aid, human."
Kagome's fingernails raked shallow gouges down the youkai's head as she struggled to remove its fangs from her side. "How do you know Inuyasha?" she choked, a sob catching in her throat as she forced the words from her mouth and gulped at the cooling evening air.
It ignored her questions, clawed hands running agitatedly but purposefully over the human girl's skin as though it sought something hidden beneath her clothing. Its teeth gouged deeper into Kagome's side before pulling away accompanied by the sound of ripping fresh. Kagome gagged, the scream of pain unable to make it paste the lump hammering in her throat in time with her pulse, and the creature raised its head nearer to hers. "Do you have it?" it demanded in a fanatical hiss as its grip tightened around her. It continued with savage intensity, "<I>He </I>says you have it. Give it to me!"
Forming a rebuttal or denial proved to be an impossible task. Kagome could barely see the outlines of the trees above her. Her vision was growing increasingly dim and hazy as the youkai attached to her side lapped up the blood that poured from the girl's wound. Kagome's throat was raw and hoarse, her breath growing shallower by the second. Her grip on the youkai's head grew lax, blood stained fingers slipping away to dangle limply at her sides.
<I>I'm going to die this time.
</I>
Why did she ever continue coming to this wretched place day after day?
<I>I'm really going to die.
</I>
She was off the trail. No one would ever find her body. No one would want to risk searching the forest. Her family would be left wondering what had happened to their Kagome.
<I>I'm sorry, Mama.
</I>
"Where is it? <I>Tell me</I>!"the youkai embedded the demand in a shriek of rage, shaking the unresponsive girl so harshly that her head slammed into the tree trunk in a staccato rhythm.
Kagome's mouth parted in a grim parody of a smile, and she bit her bottom lip so hard that she drew blood. The youkai would not just let her lose consciousness and die in peace, eh? Typical.
<I>This is so stupid.
</I>
Because she had come to feed a dog, a scrawny, bad-tempered, abandoned dog, she was going to die. And she knew better than to willingly be out in the forest so close to sunset. She knew better, knew more intimately than most the horrors that lurked under the cover of darkness, and had known before this attack, before the first one too. Gods, she really was an idiot. But should she have left the white dog to starve? Left him to grow weak and die or hunger? Left him as the defenseless prey of a creature like this?
<I>No.
</I>
Jii-chan would be foolish enough to come looking for her body or to exact vengeance. Souta would someday walk the path to school in her long faded footprints. And if Mama chose to accompany him because she had already lost one child and would not readily lose another? Would she let this youkai, this creature, this monster, have them as well?
<B><I>NO!
</B></I>A corona of light flared up around her, blinding her vision. She could hear the youkai screaming in pain, but even that faded into nothing as her body slid heavily to the forest floor.
<hr>
Inuyasha streaked through the underbrush in a silvery blur, his lungs burning in his chest and his nostrils flaring with each stride as he pushed his dog's body to the limit. Time was rapidly running out as the light of day continued to die and the new moon ascended secretly in the twilight sky above the forest trees. The smell of the girl's blood grew stronger, its metallic tang overpowering even the natural musk of the female youkai that had attacked her. He could feel the girl nearby, feel her fading, closer. Closer. There! He lunged forward, a song of death in his throat. He would never allow another being the pleasure of killing her.
As he burst across the rough forest trail and covered the last few meters separating him from his target, an expanding globe of pinkish light seemed to erupt from the girl. Inuyasha checked himself for only a moment before plunging forward recklessly. He remembered the effect it had had on him, but he did not care. Vengeance overrode any fear of pain, and his claim of ownership to the girl demanded blood for blood and flesh for flesh. Inu youkai protected their own. An inu hanyou would as well.
The youkai holding the girl screamed in agony as the light blistered her skin and peeled it away in smoking, blackened strips, and she flung herself away from the burning, luminescent streamers that swirled around the human's body. Inuyasha saw the girl's body collapse lifelessly from the corner of his eyes, and the first tinges of red clouded his vision. Hatred and bloodlust blazing in his golden eyes, Inuyasha sprang, launching his canine form upward on a direct trajectory for the youkai's jugular.
Busy clawing at her burned eyes and drowning out his own snarls with her squeals of pain, she never realized he was there, and she did not struggle long once his jaws clamped onto her throat and his weight on her chest bore her to the ground. A swift death would be a mercy for her, one that he was loath to give, but time was of the essence. The hot, sharp taste of fresh blood filled Inuyasha's mouth, and he drove his fangs hard into her flesh, pressing forward until there was a satisfying crunch of bone. Then he wrenched his head to the side, tearing her head from her body and flinging it a short distance away.
Only when her body began to disintegrate under his feet did Inuyasha acknowledge that the youkai was well and truly dead. He stepped away, licking at the dark youkai blood still dripping from his lips, and cautiously approached the crumpled form of the girl. She lay unmoving in a growing puddle of her own blood, and only the faintest shimmer of light remained dancing over her skin to hint at the display of power that had occurred mere moments ago.
Inuyasha suppressed his body's strong desire to whine. She was just a girl, just a stupid human girl. A stupid human girl who had gone out of her way to help him, had fed him, had cared for him. A stupid human girl who was disturbingly still and pale. His ears flattened against his head as he slunk closer. Slowly, hesitantly, he touched his nose to her pale cheek. A spark seemed to leap between their bodies, and the girl started breathing again. He could hear her breathe again, see her chest rise and fall, feel the puffs of her breath stir his fur. Funny that he had not realized she was not breathing before. It was not until the sound returned that he realized it had been missing.
Light flared out from a point just above her left hip and washed over the pair in a wave of soothing warmth. Inuyasha jerked back in fear only to find that he could not move. The light flowing over them began to pulse in a steady rhythm. Timing the beats automatically, Inuyasha realized that the light was pulsing in time with his heart. Pain suddenly streaked through his body, and he gagged, sagging over her unmoving form but forcing himself to remain standing by sheer force of will.
<I>'Kikyou. Bitch.'
</I>
His bones shattered, changing direction, changing length, changing shape, as his skin rippled in grotesque waves over the internal shifting of organs, bones, and tissue, and his white fur darkened and faded, leaving behind tan skin. He did not cry out; he had not screamed with pain since the first change although the pain had grown no less with each subsequent transformation. The weight of his clothes settled around him, grown so unfamiliar they seemed heavy and restrictive, and he curled in on himself, limbs locked and shaking as the final shudders passed, leaving only an omnipresent aching weakness.
Inuyasha opened his eyes slowly, and his breath caught in his throat, muscles to tired and sore to reel backwards. He was braced on his hands and knees at the girl's side, his human face mere centimeters from her own. His long black hair merged with hers in the dirt as his labored pants mingled with her shallow breaths. And he could see the green of her uniform collar, the pale peach of her skin, the fading red of her lips, and the blood smeared across her cheek.
His eyes widened, and he jerked away violently, the youkai blood still coating his mouth suddenly burning and foul. He vomited into the nearby leaves, black youkai blood and the yellow bile of his own empty stomach, before subsiding into dry heaves. The air reeked, and even his weak human nose found the combination of odors offensive, but the strongest of all was the hot, metallic tang of the girl's freshly spilled blood. And there was so very, very much of it. The growing puddle of it coated his fingertips, and he spun around. She remained crumpled where he had left her, not that she could move under her own power now anyway. He crawled forward, eyes raking her figure. Her breath was shallow, but at least she was still breathing. Whatever had passed between them had ensured that. But she was still bleeding profusely, and Inuyasha knew it was not in his power to stop it.
After a second's hesitation he reached forward with his now human hand and placed it over the girl's heart. Hers beat in perfect sync with his, and he blinked wonderingly.
"Kagome," he breathed, lightly shaking her shoulder. His voice was rough and awkward from lack of use. He said her name again, cupping her face with his hands, but she did not respond. Inuyasha glanced at the deepening shadows warily. He was vulnerable, and the girl was severely injured. Only the force of their combined inherent powers kept her alive. He would have to return her to her people.
He gathered her to him and forced himself to his feet. Inuyasha cradled the girl in his arms awkwardly, feeling the blood from her wounds swiftly soaking into his clothes. He marched, one step at a time, stalking across the forest floor, black hair swirling in the darkness.
And for the first time in more than fifty years, Inuyasha left the forest.
[AU, rated R] Dog's Body 7/? "Blood Scent"
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