[AU, rated R] Dog's Body 6/? "Bared Fangs"

Smarty Cat · Post by **Smarty Cat** » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:16 pm

I don't know why I forgot to post this chapter here...

Chapter Summary: Inuyasha gets introduced to the power of "Sit" (see my explanation for the modifications at www.livejournal.com/users/smartycat/63418.html ), the plot thickens, and Kagome has a rough day.
A.N. Inuyasha can only see red when his demon blood rises or when he is back in one of his normal forms.
Also, dogs eating chocolate isn?t as bad as you might think (see www.livejournal.com/users/smartycat/50921.html ). And Inuyasha isn?t a normal dog anyway.

Dog's Body
by
Smarty Cat
smartycat9383(at)yahoo.com

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Chapter 6: Bared Fangs
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~Thou callest me a dog before thou hast cause.
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
--William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" ~

She stared at him, and never one to resist a challenge, he stared back, a low growl rumbling in his chest. The girl and the white dog sat a short distance apart in their usual scraggly forest clearing, eyes locked, her posture thoughtful as she fingered the beaded necklace in her hands while instinct and experience drove his to become more and more aggressive. Only when he shifted, half rising to his feet, did Kagome's attention fully turn to him. She blinked slowly, her eyes refocusing with difficulty from their blank stare into space, and as her gaze raked the stiff lines of his body she finally became aware of the effect her unintentional scrutiny had had on the white Akita.

His braced body quivered with pent-up hostility, his fur standing on end, his head lowered defensively and his right lip curled up in a sneer that exposed strong white teeth. Kagome swallowed, a nervous smile quirking her lips though she was careful to keep her lips covered for fear that he would think she was snarling at him. She quickly flicked her gaze to his ears. His ears were always the best indicator of his mood. They were neither erect and directed forward nor pinned against his skull but stuck out stiffly to the side and were tilted slightly backwards. Kagome thought quickly as she eased her free hand into the bag propped up against her leg. Inu--Inuyasha, she corrected mentally--was not confident. He was not truly afraid of her, but he also was not at ease engaging in direct eye contact, something that he must have perceived as a challenge or a threat. And although he was more uncomfortable with the situation than murderous, it made him no less dangerous.

As his growl escalated, her hand closed around the object she sought, and Kagome took the only course of action available to her. To disarm a situation growing more and more volatile, she threw a cookie in his face.

Inuyasha lunged into the air as the projectile hurtled for his nose, and his jaws snapped around it before it could reach its target, snarls bubbling in his throat as he crushed the cookie into a fine powder. His eyes widened and a thoroughly startled look appeared on his face as the rich flavor filled his mouth.

'It's good!'

Kagome sighed with relief, turning her face away to hide her chuckle as he comically scrabbled among the dead leaves of the forest floor for any remaining crumbs. There were times when he seemed like a normal dog, one who had never learned to hate humans. His eyes were no longer so cold or so suspicious, his temper had grown longer, and he allowed her to touch him more frequently. His overall attitude change was very encouraging, but there was still work to be done.

He's still not safe enough to take home to Mama, but I'll civilize him yet. He's much friendlier than he used to be after all. Kagome's fingers tightened on the beads draped over her lap. And I can use these to control him. Maybe.

The shock of a cold, wet nose on her bare skin jarred her out of her contemplation when, all good will thoroughly restored between them and the incident of a few moments before completely forgotten in favor of the all mighty cookie, Inuyasha walked up to her and imperiously nudged her knee for more. Her eyes widened and she gasped. It was one thing for him to grudgingly allow her ministrations but quite another for him to initiate the contact.

Inuyasha grumbled and butted his muzzle against her with more force. 'Don't just sit there, human! Give me another cookie!'

"Hey, stop it!" the girl yelped as she wobbled precariously on her fallen tree, nearly tumbling over backward. Kagome's hands shot up and closed on the loose skin of his cheeks, and she used that as leverage to haul herself upright while simultaneously pushing his head away. Once her position had been stabilized she released her grip on him but kept her hands buried in his fur, angling his broad skull from side to side.

He eyed her with something that might develop into concern with time. The girl's demeanor had been off since she arrived, and, had he not been so intent on acquiring another cookie, he would have fled in horror at the thought of dealing with any feminine mood swings. However, he was simply puzzled and a bit wary. She was nervous. He could smell it.

'What?s wrong with you?'

Neither realized that she was touching a part of his body previously declared forbidden, so intent were they on trying to read each other. She did not speak but simply stared down at him silently, apprehension and something akin to sadness in her gaze. For the dog to be hers she would have to take his freedom from him and bind him to her as Kaede had instructed. In order to trust him, she would have to subdue him.

"I know you now," she said at last in a soft murmur, her left hand slipping from his head back to her lap and the beads. "Inuyasha."

The effect was instantaneous. Before the final syllable had fully left her mouth he stiffened, his strange eyes shooting to hers. A threatening growl built in his throat and vibrated through his skull beneath her fingers.

'You stupid human bitch! You don't know when to keep your fucking mouth shut!'

It was sooner than he had expected, and Inuyasha regretted it, but when it came to a choice between the girl and himself the girl would die. He would kill to protect himself; he would kill to protect his secret. If she knew too much she had to die. It was simple really. Self-defense. But he took no joy in the task that lay ahead. There was no joy to be had in the hitch of her breath in her throat, the sharpening scent of her fear, or the tremor of her fingers against his fur.

Kagome's eyes widened as she felt the muscles in his jaw tense and quiver beneath her right hand. As his body lunged off the ground on an arc with her face her fingers spasmed around the loose skin of his cheek, pinching it tightly and twisting his head down at the same time that she brought her free hand up and between them. Inuyasha's own momentum drove his head through the beaded necklace she held.

Without relinquishing her grip on the beads, Kagome threw her body to the right while simultaneously lashing out with her left hand and turning her wrist. The necklace caught about her fingers twisted into a noose around the dog's neck, cutting off his air supply, and she used his own airborne momentum to slam him into the ground. His head smashed against the fallen tree, and Kagome stifled a scream as the harsh, dead bark scraped strips of skin from her hand and lower arm. She quickly wrenched her hand out of the necklace, ignoring the burn of the hard beads raking across her already damaged skin.

Kagome tumbled over the other side of the tree and quickly scrambled to her feet, backing away from the gagging Akita as he writhed on the ground. His blazing yellow gaze swung to her, its intensity making her skin prickle, and Kagome's breath caught in her throat as he struggled to his feet.

All right, Kaede-sama, I hope this works. It?s too late to take it back, and I won't be getting another chance. He acts like he?ll kill me first. I need a word of restraint. Word of restraint; word of restraint; oh, what word of restraint? She licked her lips, and his ears pricked forward at the movement. That's it!

Kagome shrieked as he gathered his legs beneath himself in preparation for another assault. "Osuwari!"

The dog yelped as a sudden crushing weight dropped onto his back, and his teeth snapped shut with a sharp click, piercing his tongue. Kagome watched with amazement as it seemed that a great invisible hand flattened the dog to the ground.

"It works!" she gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

Inuyasha lay rigidly, like a sphinx, with his legs beneath him, but his head was pressed to the leaf litter and he could not raise it. His muscles rippled and strained as he fought the forced position, his front claws digging ruts in the dirt.

'Fucking bitch! I'm going to fucking kill you! Rip your fucking heart out and feed it to you!' Inuyasha strained against the magic binding him, a tide of rage rising within him as a red mist crept about the edges of his vision. The rage and the changes in his vision alarmed him, and he turned his efforts to extinguishing them. He was close, dangerously close, to losing his composure, to giving in to the madness once again. He did not want to go mad again. Inuyasha clamped his eyes tightly shut, blocking out the sight of her pale face and huge eyes and denying the rising berserker fury within him a target. For lack of a better alternative, he savaged the ground around him with his teeth as movement and sensation slowly returned to his body.

Kagome swallowed nervously, a cold lump of fear hammering in her throat as she saw his legs begin to move stiffly. She crouched on the ground a short distance away and babbled to him, voice wavering. "What's wrong with you though, Inuyasha? That is your name . . . but if it's going to make you go nuts I'll just keep calling you Inu. Unless you'd prefer something else . . . Yuki? Kiba?"

A building snarl greeted each of her suggestions, and she frowned anxiously, her eyes never leaving his expressive face. There was rage there, blind, mind-numbing rage that left her feeling shaky and helpless but as she continued to talk it slowly gave way to annoyance and then confusion.

Now that he was suitably calm--irate but composed--Inuyasha allowed his eyes to open once again, and he raised his head and looked at the girl quizzically. 'You don't know? You know my name, but you don't know what I am? You really are stupid.'

Kagome froze as his eyelids rose and his head lifted and turned to her, her upper teeth biting painfully into her lower lip as she dug her fingers deep into the leaf litter, clutching the cold, decomposing matter like a lifeline. He stared at her, his lower jaw quivering eagerly, but he did not move, made no attempt to rise. Kagome was unsure which she was most grateful for--that he did not run away or that he came no closer.

"Ne, Inuyasha?" she queried softly, and his ears pricked, a suspicious growl still vibrating in his chest. Kagome extended her hand very slowly in his direction, another cookie nestled in her offered palm. "I'm sorry for upsetting you. We're friends now though, right? We're friends. I'm not going to hurt you."

'Friends? Like hell. Not going to hurt me? What the fuck do you think you just did, bitch!' Inuyasha snapped, slashing the air with his teeth before walking to her and snatching the cookie from her hand without even brushing against her skin. 'You're damn lucky you had the forethought to bring these, bitch, or I wouldn't be so forgiving.'

To her credit, she made no attempt to touch him in his current bristling and grumbling state, but she leaned forward and cocked her head earnestly to the side as she watched him eat her peace offering.

"You have to wear it, Inuyasha. You have to. I can't take you home if I can't control you."

His gaze flicked to her face. Hopeful. Pleading. Pathetic. He snorted. 'You will never control me, human.'

Neither noticed that over the fading echoes of their pounding hearts their ears rang with the echo of a strange buzzing.

<hr>

"Inuyasha recovers." The darkly silken tones filled the air of the cave and were amplified by the rock walls. They reverberated for long moments after leaving their speaker's mouth.

The hunched figure reclining at the rear of the cave beside the still, nude body of a young woman looked up slowly. He blocked the light, his shadow filling the cave with more darkness than was its natural state. He was threatening, ominous, angry. He could kill them both with ease, but he would not because she had knowledge he lacked, knew the secrets from beyond death which even he did not know.

"Does he?" her aged, cracked voice replied, as she ran gnarled fingers through long black hair and draped the silken strands over pale lifeless skin. The contrasting colors pleased her. Black as death and white as bone. Unmoving. Useless. Her mouth parted in a grim smile, revealing unnaturally sharp teeth, and she scraped her hand along the cave floor beside the girl's head, leaving deep gouges in the rock. "This one does not. My most perfect creation and there is no use for her. Forever young, forever beautiful. Forever still."

He appeared unperturbed, but the hag's acute eyesight did not miss the tensing of his fingers, the whitening of his knuckles, as he stepped farther into the gloom and pushed the fur back from his head. Nevertheless, his perfect face remained composed as he stared down at them, and his voice remained smooth and calm as he murmured, "You are to blame for missing the window of opportunity when her soul was free."

Urasue the witch barked with laughter. "And do you really want her with a soul?"

His eyes narrowed as he focused on the unmarred, lifeless face that feigned sleep. No breath whispered between full, pale lips; no eyes caught in dreams moved beneath fragile, blue veined lids; no pulse fluttered in the exposed line of her throat. It angered him. The cave reeked of forbidden herbs and pungent clay, and that was all she was: the dust of scorched bones and grave soil bound together and shaped by dark magic. Nothing living, nothing that could be harmed.

"I cannot break what I do not possess."

The hag shrugged, and her vicious parody of a smile grew wider, slyer. "Then find the one that bears the miko's soul. Kill that one, Naraku. Or bring her to me alive. It makes no difference. She dies regardless, and who am I to speculate which of us would be the most merciful?"

Naraku cast a glance back at the cave entrance before turning back to Urasue. He stroked an elegant finger across his lips as he ordered, "Since you know of such arts as these, tell me, how would such a one be recognized?"

Too large blood red eyes hooded, and the witches head tilted as she studied him. He was too assured, too calm. "You have located it already," she breathed, her hands lacing together and tightening with excitement.

"I have found her," Naraku corrected, eyes dark with hate and lust trailing slowly over the exposed curves of the inert golem's body. "Kikyou's soul seems to prefer being female . . . though she is but a pale imitation of the original."

"And she still lives?" Urasue demanded with unveiled surprise and curiosity, glancing from her masterwork back to the one who had requested it. "Would you rather have her than this one?"

"No, Kikyou will be mine," he purred, menace wrapped in velvet tones. "None shall stop me from defiling her purity. But there is something quite interesting about this girl. A shimmer within her aura. Like a jewel," he added, his eyes sliding up to connect with the hag's.

Urasue sucked air between her lips with a sharp hiss, and her eyes widened to unnatural levels. "Ah."

There was a long pause as they regarded each other silently, knowingly. A wind blew through the trees outside the cave, rustling leaves and scraping branches across the exposed outer rock. Naraku arched an eyebrow, and the witch slowly blinked in response. The wind stilled and died, and the only sound to be heard was the water dripping down the damp cave walls into a basin still filled with crushed herbs and ash.

Urasue broke the silence. "Will you kill her then? If she possesses the Shikon no Tama? If the jewel has returned perhaps you should reconsider your course of action. There are stronger magicks than necromancy, and the one who wields the full power of the jewel wields them as well, or so the stories say."

"Do not get any ideas, hag. Kikyou is mine. The Shikon no Tama will be mine. I will spare the girl for now. Until the jewel reveals itself. I am not the only one who is watching her, however. There are others," he half-turned and his eyes slid to the undisturbed cave mouth, "with agendas far different than my own."

She followed his gaze. There was nothing there, and she did not expect there to be. It had already left.

"You are not going to stop it?"

"No. I will not kill the girl. Yet. But neither will I act to prevent her death. Either outcome will benefit me."

<hr>

"Thanks for taking me with you and giving me a ride back." Kagome stepped out of the car, shutting the door before taking a step back and bowing to Eri's father. Yuka had coaxed her--or, more accurately, guilted her--into going to see Houjou-kun play baseball against a neighboring team, and Eri's father had kindly volunteered to drive her home and drop her off at the foot of the shrine steps. "I had a wonderful time."

Eri's eyebrows lifted but she did not comment on how distant and preoccupied Kagome had seemed all day, buying refreshments and forgetting to eat them and not realizing when she was being spoken to. She smiled, albeit somewhat falsely, and leaned out the open back window. "That's good. I'm glad you had a nice time." She rested her head on her folded arms and cast a shrewd gaze up at Kagome from beneath her bangs. "We never see you anymore, Kagome," Eri sighed reproachfully.

Kagome started, panic and then guilt streaking through her body and stiffening it. "I've been really busy lately," she offered, her hands twining around each other in a nervous wringing motion before she hastily hid them behind her back and smiled stiffly.

"Yes, your grandfather really does need your help at the shrine, doesn't he?" Eri's father interjected. "You should probably be getting back then. He talks about you often when I visit. You're such a good daughter and a help to your family. I hope to see you again soon."

"Yeah, bye, Kagome. See you at school," Eri added flippantly, popping back in the car and rolling the window up.

Kagome watched the car pull away and drive off down the street, Eri staring back at her through the rear window. Kagome waved until they turned the corner. Once they were out of sight her shoulders slumped and she sighed with relief. As she raised her head, she caught a flash of the time from her wristwatch and her eyes jerked to the sky in alarm. Sure enough, indigo and violet were starting to creep across the sky in the east.

It'll be dark soon, and I haven't been to see Inuyasha today!

She turned to gaze up the length of the shrine steps, torn between the safety and comfort of home and her obligation to a dog that might or might not be waiting for her at such a late hour, and the movement caused her stuffed bag to slip from her shoulder and fall to the crook of her elbow. Kagome tottered a bit before regaining her balance and stared down at the bulging, concession-filled canvas bag. If she did not take it to Inuyasha it would go to waste and he would be hungry. She rocked on the balls of her feet and bit her lip, once again casting an anxious glance up at the shrine and the darkening sky.

"This is stupid," she proclaimed in ringing tones to the empty street. "I've gone out of my way to avoid being in the forest after dark. I'm not going to start going back now."

However, her feet were already moving, taking her across the street and through the park entrance even as she bounced the bag back up onto her shoulder.

Kagome panted as she sprinted across the open lawn that marked the section of the park near her home. Without the daily conditioning provided by cheerleading practice she had gotten out of shape, and her lengthened shadow bouncing across the grass ahead of her served as a reminder that sunset was not long in coming.

Not good. Already not good.

She skidded to a stop beneath the sparse, outlying trees that served as a border between the civilization of the open park and the thick, primitive tangle of the forest proper. Kagome bent over and braced her hands on her knees, her eyes marking the location of the solitary trail to the forest as she waited for her breath to return and her heart to slow. The girl took one final, shuddering inhalation before straightening and striding over to the slender dirt path. She stared down its shadowed length before turning to cast her eyes to the setting sun once again, seeking reassurance and finding none. Time had not stopped or even slowed. The dying light turned the trees around her to gold, and the Akita's eyes flashed in her mind.

"Inuyasha . . ." Kagome took a deep breath and plunged in, her pace approaching a trot over the familiar dips of the trail she walked every day.

There had been no answering rustle among the foliage. Indeed, she had not expected one, had even hoped that there would be none. Inuyasha would never come to her there, not so close to open ground. It was useless to attempt to coax him out of the forest. She had tried, and he had first balked then outright refused.

The shadows of the forest, always long, fell even longer as the sun sank. She had forgotten, had forgotten just how dark and sinister the forest became with the onset of nightfall.

How could I have forgotten that?

Her steps faltered. The slanted light of sunset could not breach the trees, and the gloomy twilight of the forest stirred memories of the last night she had spent beneath its branches. The weight of the bag on her back drove her forward, however. Inuyasha would be expecting her, waiting, wondering why she had not come to see him, why she had not fed him, not forced her attention on him.

He better be expecting me.

"Inuyasha!"

A sense of urgency made her call his name prematurely, far from their usual meeting place in the clearing. Her voice rang startlingly loud amongst the trees, and Kagome flinched, scurrying along the path a little faster. Everything looked so different coming from the shrine, and she realized that she did not know how far it was to their clearing. There was more than one decomposing log littering a break in the trees off the path, and Inuyasha did not wait for her in the open. There would be no white dog sitting in it to mark it. Would she even recognize their clearing when she saw it?

"Why am I doing this?" Kagome gritted her teeth. "Oh, yes, I remember. You don't break promises, even unspoken ones, to someone who can't understand why. And Inuyasha has already been betrayed and abandoned by humans once. I won't do it to him again."

"Talking to myself though, that's fair game," she mumbled, feeling her nails bite into her palms as her hands curled into sweaty fists. "Because I must be an idiot if I'd rather risk getting myself killed than letting a dog that doesn't even like me miss a meal. It's too late to go back now though."

The woods around Kagome remained strangely silent, and her pulse quickened. It had been like this the night she was attacked--the same eerie stillness. She bit back a whimper and pressed her lips firmly together to silence her nervous babbling. She would not fill the silence with empty words and lead the youkai right to her. She would not be an easy target. Not again.

I wish Inuyasha would come. I wish he was here now. Not that he'd offer any protection, but he seems to be able to sense youkai long before I can. At least I'd know if anything was out there.

Visibility in the forest was limited even in the daytime. At night it was drastically reduced, and fanciful thinking led Kagome to believe that she could see the darkness swallowing up her field of vision.

The crunch of dry leaves sounding from within a dark tangle of scrub to her left froze Kagome in her tracks. She turned very slowly but saw no further sign of movement or life, no shifting of shadows on shadows.

"Inuyasha?"

Her voice wavered, but she did not try to say the dog's name again. There was no answer anyway. Her surroundings remained quiet and she shifted nervously, her throat dry and her pulse hammering in her ears. Could she hear anything over that? Was she physically capable of hearing any outside noises over the rapid pounding of her heart?

Kagome tried to calm herself. Irrational fear. That's all it is. It's not even completely dark . . . yet. And it's easy enough to find out once and for all if there's anything there. Even if I don't want to. Do I really have a choice though?

Her stomach clenched in knots, dread weighting every hollow of her being. Her fists clenched as well, all the color bleeding from her knuckles as her nails dug crescents in her palms nearly deep enough to draw blood. The pain steadied her.

It was too dangerous to try to sense youkai while moving because the trail was not level. However, it was also risky to stay in one place for too long, to allow herself to be vulnerable. Would the knowing be worse than not knowing? Was it worth the risk?

Filled with misgivings, Kagome nevertheless allowed her eyes to fall shut. She remained unmoving, allowing her senses of hearing and smell to sharpen before opening her mind and giving way to the vision. The swirl of colors that marked where youkai had tread formed across the backs of her eyelids, and she stifled a gasp. She had never tried this in the forest before. Youkai trace was everywhere! Her sight shimmered with overlapping arcs of color so numerous that they nearly swamped the stylized image of the forest itself.

Is there anything new?

Kagome surveyed the underbrush in front of her slowly. The half-shadows of individual youkai who had passed through the area the night before and earlier in the day swirled and crisscrossed in a matrix of floating hallucinogenic color and ghostly light, jumbled and indistinct. It was disorienting and intense enough to induce something rather like vertigo. Bile rose in the back of Kagome's throat, but she forced her eyes to remain shut. Her body rebelled though, tremors wracking her frame as she swayed on her feet, and the sharp crack of a broken twig shattered the quiet.

Damn! She had just given herself away. Except, she realized suddenly, the sound had not originated from beneath her own feet. An icy chill of panic swept down the length of her spine and she inhaled sharply.

Where is it?

Kagome spun around, and the youki swirling in the air around her blurred into distorted rainbow streamers. Each burst of color drove a spike of pain through her skull, and she felt more nauseous than before. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she stumbled, but she did not fall and she did not open her eyes.

Where?

A wild, unearthly shriek rent the air as light exploded across her mental map. A fiery supernova of blinding color blasted through the air on a direct course for her, and the girl had no time to get out of the way. Kagome reeled back even as the form that came hurtling out of the bushes slammed into her chest. The impact flung her straight across the path, and she slammed into a tree with a broken wail, eyes opened wide and staring ahead blindly, the flare of the youkai's aura still dancing across her vision . Agony erupted along the length of her spine as a thousand daggers simultaneously sunk themselves into the flesh just above her left hip.

And then she knew where it was.

Kagome choked for air, struggling to draw breath into her straining lungs, as she stared down through tear-glazed eyes at the creature pinning her against the harsh bark of the tree, its mouth fastened to her side. She could feel warm streams of liquid sliding down her skin, and the hot, heady scent of freshly spilled blood filled the air. As the creature shifted its grip on her, Kagome saw that her clothes were soaked a brilliant crimson where its mouth had been. That fang-lined mouth smiled evilly at her before once again ripping into her side.

Oh, gods, it was eating her alive! Kagome threw her head back and screamed as loud as her burning lungs would allow.

"INU--!"

Blissful Ignorance

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