InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone ❯ Changes ( Chapter 4 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: RhiannonoftheMoon 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Hentai | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 05.24.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 4.7K | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Hentai | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 05.24.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 4.7K | Status: Completed
I do not own Inuyasha or any other characters created by Rumiko Takahashi
Chapter 4 - Changes
Sango and Miroku sprang apart as Inuyasha barreled into camp, identical blushes gracing their faces. On seeing the frantic look on Inuyasha’s face, their embarrassment was forgotten. He skidded to a stop in front of them, panting. “We have to get back to the hot spring!”
“Inuyasha! What’s wrong?” Sango exclaimed, as she reached for her giant bone boomerang.
“Are you being pursued?” Miroku peered around him into the night, but couldn’t detect any other presence.
“Where’s Kagome?” cried Shippo, tears already starting to form in eyes. “You did something to her, didn’t you, you meanie!” He ran up to Inuyasha and, clinging the fabric of his hakama, bit down on his leg, hard.
Inuyasha flailed his leg, trying to dislodge him. “Oi, runt! Knock it off,” and with one good kick sent the kit flying backwards. “Listen!” He described the strange changes that had effected Kagome, finishing with their confrontation but trying to leave out as much as he could about Kikyo. Seeing their nods, he knew that they, too, had noticed something odd.
“So she ran off into the woods and you didn’t try to stop her?” Miroku asked in disbelief.
Inuyasha tore at his hair in exasperation. “I told you, she was too fast and too strong! On any other night… We’re wasting time. We have to go NOW!” he shouted in the monk’s face.
“Calm yourself, Inuyasha,” the monk said, stepping backward and holding his hands palms out in a placating gesture. “We can’t track her at night, not with you in your human form. And we’ll never find our way back through the forest to the road.” Inuyasha took a threatening step forward, raising his fist and growling.
“He’s right, Inuyasha. I want Kagome to be safe as much as you do, but we can’t do anything tonight. From what you said, she can probably take care of herself,” Sango said and put a staying hand on Inuyasha’s shoulder. She didn’t voice her concern that since Kagome still had the jewel shards, she would be a demon magnate. She figured that everyone else would be thinking the same thing.
“But what about me?” the little kitsune spoke up. “I could track her! I am a full-fledged demon, after all.” He gave Inuyasha a smug look.
“Keh. You couldn’t find your ass with both hands, runt,” but a glimmer of hope in his eyes belied his harsh words.
“Oh, give him a chance, Inuyasha.” Miroku scooped up his staff and followed the kit, who was sniffing at the ground in his best Inuyasha imitation. The three humans followed him as he retraced Inuyasha’s steps. It was soon clear, however, that the kit’s nose was not made for tracking.
“So that’s it, then,” Inuyasha stomped back to the fire and flopped down in front of it. He glared up at the branches of the tree, wishing he could leap into them.
Miroku sat across from him. “I suggest we all get some rest and start out first thing in the morning. Are you sure that the enchantment occurred at the hot spring?” he watched Inuyasha closely from the other side of the small campfire.
Inuyasha wouldn’t meet his eyes. He gazed out over the lake and squeezed the prayer beads in his hand. “Yeah, when else was she alone?” Sango heard the guilt in his voice, feeling that same guilt in her. She lowered herself tiredly next to the monk.
“It’s not your fault, Inuyasha. I was supposed to go with her. If anything, you should blame me.” She stared at the ground between her feet. Miroku gave her a sympathetic look and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him, slightly.
“Keh.” If he hadn’t followed Kikyo, he would have been able to help her, maybe even stop the spell.
“There’s no use in laying blame.” The monk’s hand slowly made its way down her back. “All we can do is hope for the best. Inuyasha, you track her down. Sango, Shippo, Kirara and I will return to the hot spring and try to determine the nature of the spell.” His hand reached the end of its journey and squeezed the firm buttock.
Sango sprang up and slapped him across the face. “Hentai! Don’t you ever quit? Kagome’s in trouble! ”
“It was the hand! It’s cursed!” He raised the offending hand in supplication and rubbed his stinging face with the other.
Sango glared at him and found a new place to sit, equidistant between the two males.
“Pervert,” Inuyasha snorted, scooting up to the base of the tree. Leaning against it, he wrapped his arms around Tetsusaiga and closed his eyes. He wouldn’t sleep, he knew it, but anything was better than watching those two fight. ‘Kagome, you better be OK.’
~~~
Power, unlike any she had felt before, filled Kagome’s body. It didn’t possess her, like Tsubaki’s magic had. Instead, it merged with her, making her limbs tingle. The pounding in her head immediately stopped, to be replaced with a roaring that urged her to fight. Bones cracked, muscles and connective tissues wormed underneath the skin in her hands and feet, and tough nails shot from underneath her cuticles, forming long claws. Her ears lengthened, forming points at the tips. She tasted blood when her canines, top and bottom, loosened and were pushed out by sharp fangs. She absently spit out the old teeth and kicked off the ruined shoes, keeping her concentration fixed on the approaching lizard youkai. A small part of her was aware of the pain that the changes were causing, but most of her mind was consumed by sizing up the strengths and weaknesses of her enemy. Even the noxious fumes radiating from its scaly body had ceased to bother her, though her eyes and nose burned.
She knew instinctively that its soft underbelly was its weakest spot, and that it would be well guarded. She flexed her new claws and bared her fangs in anticipation of bloodshed. “You want the shards? Come get them!” she growled.
A furious hiss answered her, and the lizard shot out of the darkness. She leapt aside just in time to see a clawed hand slam into the tree where her head had been. She slashed at him with her own claws, satisfied when she felt them land and saw several scales fly. The lizard youkai shrieked, reared back and spat at her. She dodged again, but wasn’t quite able to avoid all of the sizzling liquid. The smell of her blood and burning flesh filled the clearing. She gasped at the pain in her shoulder but could tell that the acid wasn’t poisonous.
She and the lizard circled each other, waiting for the other to make the next move, the lizard low to the ground and flicking its tongue to taste the air. “I tassste your blood, girl. Give me the ssshardsss and I will kill you quickly,” the lizard hissed. She sniffed at him. Now that her nose had gotten used to the foul stench of the youkai, she was able to detect another scent.
“You have one of your own, I see.” But she didn’t see it, and that was a problem. Just as her miko power had failed when she tried to infuse the stone, she couldn’t even see a glimmer of the shard. However, she could smell it, a pure, clean scent like the air after a spring rain. ‘Can I still purify it?’ she wondered. She had always taken her miko power for granted; now she missed it.
The lizard hissed and, rearing back, spat again. Instead of leaping out of range of the acid, she ducked and lunged forward, raking her claws against its soft, exposed abdomen. Blood splattered across her face and body, soaking her school uniform. She spun and landed a kick to the side of its head, feeling her clawed toes catch on hard scales. Jumping back, she surveyed the damage.
The kick hadn’t done much but the stomach wound looked fatal. Shrieking in agony, the lizard youkai clutched at its stomach, trying to keep entrails from spilling out. Blood was trickling from its mouth and its breath gurgled in its lungs. ‘I have to finish this before it uses the jewel shards to regenerate.’ She leapt back at it, knocked aside its weak attempt to block, and sliced it from pelvis to throat. In the spray of blood, she smelled the shard. Letting her instincts guide her, she snatched at the font, closing her hand when she felt the shard touch her palm. With a last scream, the youkai fell dead at her feet.
She backed away from the body and crouched down at the base of the tree. Now that the fight was over, the roaring in her head subsided, leaving her drained and disgusted with herself. Feeling a tear slide down her cheek, she stared down at her claws, one still closed over her new shard. She had never killed anything with her bare hands. She had seen Inuyasha do it many times, but she had always been out of the fray firing arrows or trying to stay out of the way. ‘It would have killed me. I had no choice. Right?’ The voice that had spoken to her before the fight was silent. She wondered if it was still there or if it was now melded with her own.
“What is happening to me?” she whispered. She was changing, she knew that much. It probably had something to do with the strange carving at the spring. Now that she reflected on it, she realized how much she had changed since kissing the frog, even before the fight with the youkai: the enhanced senses, voracious appetite, increased strength, bizarre mood swings. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time and sorely regretted it. She groaned out load and rubbed her temple with her free hand, turning her attention to the shard in hidden in her hand.
She opened her hand, afraid to see what lay inside. The little shard was pink and pure. Kagome let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. ‘Then maybe I haven’t lost all of my miko power.’ A sudden thought froze her blood. ‘If I can’t see the jewel shards, will Inuyasha still want me around? Now he really will leave me for Kikyo.’ She moaned and pressed a hand to her heart that was threatening to crack. ‘Idiot. You never had him in the first place.’ She pushed the thought from her mind, refusing to deal with it. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.
She swiped at the tears with the back of her hand, smearing the blood that covered her face. ‘Regardless, I have to get cleaned up.’ She pulled off the torn socks and tossed them into the bushes. The rest of her uniform wasn’t much better; it was ripped and soaked in youkai blood. Pulling aside the melted fabric at her shoulder, she inspected her wound. The burn was puckered, red and had been bleeding but didn’t hurt that much. It was healing as she watched.
Sighing, she stood and sniffed the air. She couldn’t smell the lake, so she had to be far from it.
She really didn’t want to go back there and face her friends, anyway. ‘Great. Now I have to tramp through this stupid forest with no shoes and covered in blood.’ She opened the small bottle that contained the other shards, and, wiping lizard blood off of the shard onto the last piece of clean uniform, she slipped the new shard inside. ‘The first shard I’ve found and retrieved on my own. Maybe I’m not so useless.’ Smiling slightly and pleased with herself, she picked a direction at random and set off at a quick jog.
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Chapter 4 - Changes
Sango and Miroku sprang apart as Inuyasha barreled into camp, identical blushes gracing their faces. On seeing the frantic look on Inuyasha’s face, their embarrassment was forgotten. He skidded to a stop in front of them, panting. “We have to get back to the hot spring!”
“Inuyasha! What’s wrong?” Sango exclaimed, as she reached for her giant bone boomerang.
“Are you being pursued?” Miroku peered around him into the night, but couldn’t detect any other presence.
“Where’s Kagome?” cried Shippo, tears already starting to form in eyes. “You did something to her, didn’t you, you meanie!” He ran up to Inuyasha and, clinging the fabric of his hakama, bit down on his leg, hard.
Inuyasha flailed his leg, trying to dislodge him. “Oi, runt! Knock it off,” and with one good kick sent the kit flying backwards. “Listen!” He described the strange changes that had effected Kagome, finishing with their confrontation but trying to leave out as much as he could about Kikyo. Seeing their nods, he knew that they, too, had noticed something odd.
“So she ran off into the woods and you didn’t try to stop her?” Miroku asked in disbelief.
Inuyasha tore at his hair in exasperation. “I told you, she was too fast and too strong! On any other night… We’re wasting time. We have to go NOW!” he shouted in the monk’s face.
“Calm yourself, Inuyasha,” the monk said, stepping backward and holding his hands palms out in a placating gesture. “We can’t track her at night, not with you in your human form. And we’ll never find our way back through the forest to the road.” Inuyasha took a threatening step forward, raising his fist and growling.
“He’s right, Inuyasha. I want Kagome to be safe as much as you do, but we can’t do anything tonight. From what you said, she can probably take care of herself,” Sango said and put a staying hand on Inuyasha’s shoulder. She didn’t voice her concern that since Kagome still had the jewel shards, she would be a demon magnate. She figured that everyone else would be thinking the same thing.
“But what about me?” the little kitsune spoke up. “I could track her! I am a full-fledged demon, after all.” He gave Inuyasha a smug look.
“Keh. You couldn’t find your ass with both hands, runt,” but a glimmer of hope in his eyes belied his harsh words.
“Oh, give him a chance, Inuyasha.” Miroku scooped up his staff and followed the kit, who was sniffing at the ground in his best Inuyasha imitation. The three humans followed him as he retraced Inuyasha’s steps. It was soon clear, however, that the kit’s nose was not made for tracking.
“So that’s it, then,” Inuyasha stomped back to the fire and flopped down in front of it. He glared up at the branches of the tree, wishing he could leap into them.
Miroku sat across from him. “I suggest we all get some rest and start out first thing in the morning. Are you sure that the enchantment occurred at the hot spring?” he watched Inuyasha closely from the other side of the small campfire.
Inuyasha wouldn’t meet his eyes. He gazed out over the lake and squeezed the prayer beads in his hand. “Yeah, when else was she alone?” Sango heard the guilt in his voice, feeling that same guilt in her. She lowered herself tiredly next to the monk.
“It’s not your fault, Inuyasha. I was supposed to go with her. If anything, you should blame me.” She stared at the ground between her feet. Miroku gave her a sympathetic look and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him, slightly.
“Keh.” If he hadn’t followed Kikyo, he would have been able to help her, maybe even stop the spell.
“There’s no use in laying blame.” The monk’s hand slowly made its way down her back. “All we can do is hope for the best. Inuyasha, you track her down. Sango, Shippo, Kirara and I will return to the hot spring and try to determine the nature of the spell.” His hand reached the end of its journey and squeezed the firm buttock.
Sango sprang up and slapped him across the face. “Hentai! Don’t you ever quit? Kagome’s in trouble! ”
“It was the hand! It’s cursed!” He raised the offending hand in supplication and rubbed his stinging face with the other.
Sango glared at him and found a new place to sit, equidistant between the two males.
“Pervert,” Inuyasha snorted, scooting up to the base of the tree. Leaning against it, he wrapped his arms around Tetsusaiga and closed his eyes. He wouldn’t sleep, he knew it, but anything was better than watching those two fight. ‘Kagome, you better be OK.’
~~~
Power, unlike any she had felt before, filled Kagome’s body. It didn’t possess her, like Tsubaki’s magic had. Instead, it merged with her, making her limbs tingle. The pounding in her head immediately stopped, to be replaced with a roaring that urged her to fight. Bones cracked, muscles and connective tissues wormed underneath the skin in her hands and feet, and tough nails shot from underneath her cuticles, forming long claws. Her ears lengthened, forming points at the tips. She tasted blood when her canines, top and bottom, loosened and were pushed out by sharp fangs. She absently spit out the old teeth and kicked off the ruined shoes, keeping her concentration fixed on the approaching lizard youkai. A small part of her was aware of the pain that the changes were causing, but most of her mind was consumed by sizing up the strengths and weaknesses of her enemy. Even the noxious fumes radiating from its scaly body had ceased to bother her, though her eyes and nose burned.
She knew instinctively that its soft underbelly was its weakest spot, and that it would be well guarded. She flexed her new claws and bared her fangs in anticipation of bloodshed. “You want the shards? Come get them!” she growled.
A furious hiss answered her, and the lizard shot out of the darkness. She leapt aside just in time to see a clawed hand slam into the tree where her head had been. She slashed at him with her own claws, satisfied when she felt them land and saw several scales fly. The lizard youkai shrieked, reared back and spat at her. She dodged again, but wasn’t quite able to avoid all of the sizzling liquid. The smell of her blood and burning flesh filled the clearing. She gasped at the pain in her shoulder but could tell that the acid wasn’t poisonous.
She and the lizard circled each other, waiting for the other to make the next move, the lizard low to the ground and flicking its tongue to taste the air. “I tassste your blood, girl. Give me the ssshardsss and I will kill you quickly,” the lizard hissed. She sniffed at him. Now that her nose had gotten used to the foul stench of the youkai, she was able to detect another scent.
“You have one of your own, I see.” But she didn’t see it, and that was a problem. Just as her miko power had failed when she tried to infuse the stone, she couldn’t even see a glimmer of the shard. However, she could smell it, a pure, clean scent like the air after a spring rain. ‘Can I still purify it?’ she wondered. She had always taken her miko power for granted; now she missed it.
The lizard hissed and, rearing back, spat again. Instead of leaping out of range of the acid, she ducked and lunged forward, raking her claws against its soft, exposed abdomen. Blood splattered across her face and body, soaking her school uniform. She spun and landed a kick to the side of its head, feeling her clawed toes catch on hard scales. Jumping back, she surveyed the damage.
The kick hadn’t done much but the stomach wound looked fatal. Shrieking in agony, the lizard youkai clutched at its stomach, trying to keep entrails from spilling out. Blood was trickling from its mouth and its breath gurgled in its lungs. ‘I have to finish this before it uses the jewel shards to regenerate.’ She leapt back at it, knocked aside its weak attempt to block, and sliced it from pelvis to throat. In the spray of blood, she smelled the shard. Letting her instincts guide her, she snatched at the font, closing her hand when she felt the shard touch her palm. With a last scream, the youkai fell dead at her feet.
She backed away from the body and crouched down at the base of the tree. Now that the fight was over, the roaring in her head subsided, leaving her drained and disgusted with herself. Feeling a tear slide down her cheek, she stared down at her claws, one still closed over her new shard. She had never killed anything with her bare hands. She had seen Inuyasha do it many times, but she had always been out of the fray firing arrows or trying to stay out of the way. ‘It would have killed me. I had no choice. Right?’ The voice that had spoken to her before the fight was silent. She wondered if it was still there or if it was now melded with her own.
“What is happening to me?” she whispered. She was changing, she knew that much. It probably had something to do with the strange carving at the spring. Now that she reflected on it, she realized how much she had changed since kissing the frog, even before the fight with the youkai: the enhanced senses, voracious appetite, increased strength, bizarre mood swings. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time and sorely regretted it. She groaned out load and rubbed her temple with her free hand, turning her attention to the shard in hidden in her hand.
She opened her hand, afraid to see what lay inside. The little shard was pink and pure. Kagome let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. ‘Then maybe I haven’t lost all of my miko power.’ A sudden thought froze her blood. ‘If I can’t see the jewel shards, will Inuyasha still want me around? Now he really will leave me for Kikyo.’ She moaned and pressed a hand to her heart that was threatening to crack. ‘Idiot. You never had him in the first place.’ She pushed the thought from her mind, refusing to deal with it. She would cross that bridge when she came to it.
She swiped at the tears with the back of her hand, smearing the blood that covered her face. ‘Regardless, I have to get cleaned up.’ She pulled off the torn socks and tossed them into the bushes. The rest of her uniform wasn’t much better; it was ripped and soaked in youkai blood. Pulling aside the melted fabric at her shoulder, she inspected her wound. The burn was puckered, red and had been bleeding but didn’t hurt that much. It was healing as she watched.
Sighing, she stood and sniffed the air. She couldn’t smell the lake, so she had to be far from it.
She really didn’t want to go back there and face her friends, anyway. ‘Great. Now I have to tramp through this stupid forest with no shoes and covered in blood.’ She opened the small bottle that contained the other shards, and, wiping lizard blood off of the shard onto the last piece of clean uniform, she slipped the new shard inside. ‘The first shard I’ve found and retrieved on my own. Maybe I’m not so useless.’ Smiling slightly and pleased with herself, she picked a direction at random and set off at a quick jog.
Converting /tmp/phpCR5jCD to /dev/stdout