InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ DOG-BOY ❯ The Stuff of Dreams ( Chapter 1 )

Authors notes: Hi everyone! This is my brand new story. I was going to wait to write it...but the plot bunnies wouldn't leave me alone! This is an AU fic, that matches up with Kagome's friends ideas of what's really going on... well sort of... One thing's for sure though. This time, Grandpa isn't pulling the excuses out of his ass!

I've made the introduction similar to the manga, because Kagome's life, up until her fifteenth birthday, was exactly the same as her life in the manga, and it is only the events that happen afterward that change things. I can promise you, though, that this is not just Inuyasha in the future. The conflict is NOT the same as in the manga, and many of the villains are original. SO without further ado: the disclaimer!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. So don't sue! And if you decide to sue anyway, then please notify me via review. You know, something like, "This is a wonderful story, yadda, yadda, yadda...And I'll see you in court...

-----

DOG-BOY

Chapter One: The Stuff of Dreams

------

-- Tokyo Hospital of Alternative Medicine, 1950 --

In the smoking pyre that had once been the pediatrics ward, above the cataclysm of terrified screams, a boy's voice rose in hellish laughter. Seeing the faces of those he had come to trust, their eyes dim with fear, made him laugh all the more. In fact, seeing the destruction he wrought, hearing the ceiling beams creak and split, put him in such a perversely good mood that he almost allowed himself to be satisfied.

But no! He couldn't just let it go! Not after this.

He practically bounced off the smoldering walls, leaping higher than any normal boy should be able to despite the two gunshot wounds in his chest. "This is only what you deserve," He called out to both no one, and everyone. "Just as I deserve The Jewel of Four Souls!"

In a less desperate situation, many of the doctors present might have remarked that `having' the Jewel of Four Souls would help him achieve nothing but an early death of leukemia.

The `mutant boy' seemed to think differently though, "With this... I can become a true demon..."

"Inuyasha!!" He barely had time to register the voice, before he heard metal clinking, and a thunderous bang broke through the screams and stopped his laughter.

Suddenly the world turned upside down, and his head felt as though it was about to explode.

"Ki-Kikyo!" He barely managed to grit out.

He had hoped, in spite of it all, that perhaps he had been wrong.

Now, as the world receded into blackness, he had not even the coherency to realize he had dropped the thing that started it all or, more importantly, that it was not just his blood scent that was even now setting of warnings in his head.

Kikyo dropped the gun when the final shot jarred her hand. For a moment she stood with her arm still stretched out in front of her, and she looked like a statue save for the long black hair that the winds rising from the fire caused to flutter over her marble white skin. She was so hot, so angry... but there was no color in her face.

She knew she was dying. There was a dull roaring in her ears, and her body was beginning to go numb.

`So in the end, it came to this...'

She looked at the figure with his white hair fanned out around him and his strange clothes. The one who had done all this... was little more than a boy, now lying in a pool of his own blood.

`How... Dare you!' Her mind cried out, though she would not let her weakness show, close to death as she was.

"The Jewel... For such a thing." She staggered towards the boy, and stooped to take the sphere out of a pool of blood. She was dismayed to see that the accursed thing was glowing darkly.

`It has become tainted,' she knew. `And there is no one left to purify it...'

There was a great creak and bang as a door was opened, then thrown off its hinges, and several doctors and nurses, all carrying children, stumbled into the hall.

"Ms. Kikyou!"

"What terrible wounds!"

She barely heard them as they pleaded with her to allow them to move her to safety, where she could be treated.

"Please Sister! We have to take care of you!" The little girl's voice caused Kikyo to look up, and it quelled a small bit of her rage. She had hoped her little sister wouldn't witness such a thing, but it was just as well... she was the only one who would understand.

Kikyou turned to address her sister, and saw a bandage crudely wrapped around half of her face, as though Keade had done it herself just to stem the blood flow. Her visible eye was wide with worry and the light of the fire made her face look even more battered than it was.

`Inuyasha... did you do this too?' she wondered. `And to a child?'

It only strengthened her resolve. `I cannot allow this Jewel to remain in the world, corrupted or no. I am positive Inuyasha had a small amount of good in him, or he could never have blinded me so completely.' For some reason, the thought angered her. `I cannot allow the jewel to fall into the hands of monsters who know nothing but evil.'

"I will not live." She told her sister gently, feeling a great pain when the girl's face turned stricken. "Listen well Keade...

"Get out, and save yourself. Live, little sister, and do your best to carry on my work. But don't be afraid, because I will not leave you with this burden." Kikyo clenched the jewel tightly in her hands as she locked eyes with Keade. "I will die very soon, but I will keep the Jewel with me, and it will BURN with my remains. It must never..." she had to pause a moment, but would not allow her self to give into that blackness at the edge of her vision before she finished the explanation to her sister. She would not let death rob her of her final words. "...fall into the wrong hands again! I shall take this Jewel with me..." she paused again, but continued in a stronger voice than she had thought possible. "To the world beyond!"

Kikyo clutched the jewel tightly and put one hand on the ground.

Keade kissed her older sister on the brow, and looked at her, expression pleading. But she did not argue. Getting on her hands and knees she crawled to the doctors to escape the burning hospital. Silently she thanked her sister, who had ordered her to live.

Kikyou noticed that some of the doctors still lingering. She opened her mouth to speak, but only air escaped. As her consciousness left her, she willed them to go. And as the flaming ceiling beam fell between them they were forced to. Kikyo knew now at least, she could rest assured, that she and Inuyasha would burn alone.

-----

-- Sunset Shrine, Tokyo, 1997 --

The air was just cool enough to warrant the use of a sweater. One of the windows at the Sunset shrine's gift shop was opened wide, and through the window one could her a lilting girlish voice speaking in question.

"The Shikon No Tama?"

"Yes," Answered the shrine Priest. He was a stout old man. Though he was old he appeared very sturdy, as if his only real medical problem was the occasional bad back. He was dressed in traditional cloths colored white and black. What was left of his grey hair was pulled back into a pony-tail, and his pointed beard and mustache made his face look slightly angular. He spoke seriously to his Granddaughter, holding up a keychain, with a pink ball attached to the end. "So long as one has this," he continued, "One's family will know safety and prosperity."

His Granddaughter took the keychain, and held it in front of her face, eyes wide with awe. Her fat cat was eyeing both the keychain, and the numerous bows on her sweater, and wishing at least one of the items would come close enough for him to paw without working too hard. "And people actually pay money..." she wondered. "For these marbles?"

"Hear it's legend, Kagome," said her grandfather, affronted. "In the beginning the Shikon No Tama..." He had closed his eyes in concentration, so he had yet to notice that Kagome was now teasing her cat with the keychain, and would have continued with the story, had not Kagome stopped him out of pity.

"Save your breath, Gramps."

Or something like it...

Then something suddenly occurred to Kagome, and she said excitedly, "Do you remember what tomorrow is?"

The old man let out a longsuffering sigh that seemed to say `look how my own granddaughter underestimates me...' Then he smiled as he abruptly pulled a gift-wrapped box out from behind his back. "Could I ever forget my adorable Granddaughter's birthday?"

"For me?!" Said Kagome, affecting surprise happily. Her expression was as sparkly as the pretty metallic bow tied to the top of the present.

"It's a day early but - Happy Birthday Kagome!"

She unwrapped the present and stared at it blankly for a moment, hardly aware of her grandpa saying, "It's the mummified hand of a `Kappa' water sprite. The legends hold that whosoever possesses this..."

Kagome continued to stare at the thing, then shivered slightly. It was shriveled green, and ugly. It looked kind of like something Buyo might...

"Here Buyo, lunch," she said, scooping the cat up and leaving the gift-shop.

She could hear Grandpa's scream of, "Do you know how much those things cost?!" as the bells jingled on the door.

-----

Higurashi Kagome's "House" was also a very old shrine. So of course, it was an old fashioned building with lanterns, good luck charms, and the requisite shrine shaped mailbox out in front. There was a sacred Go- shinboku tree that was over five hundred years old, and a covered well that probably had it's own legend.

In fact, Kagome was sure that everything at the Sunset shrine had a legend but...

No matter how many times Gramps told them to her...

...She always forgot....

She never even thought about remembering them, until the day she turned fifteen...

Inside the house, the family ate breakfast. The "family" consisting of Kagome, Grandpa, Mama, Kagome's younger brother Souta, and if you really want to be picky, their cat Buyo. Kagome ate her breakfast quickly as Grandpa rambled on about the history of the pickles...

Buyo disappeared in the middle of the meal... It was unusual of him, as he normally kept a close lookout on the table during family meals, in hopes that some food would be dropped on the floor...

Souta finished soon after, and disappeared him self.

-----

"SEE YA!" Kagome called out the customary parting words with exceptional vigor. She was in high spirits. After all, it's not every day you turn fifteen.

Hearing her call Souta poked his head out of the well house.

"Hey Souta!"

"Sis?!"

"Your not s'posed to play in the mini shrine," Kagome chided him.

"But Buyo...he's..." Said Souta. Then paused almost long enough for Kagome to wonder what the heck their fat cat had to do with Souta being in the shrine. "In the well-house!"

They both gazed through the slightly opened door, into gloomy dark.

"Buyo!!!" Kagome called, but no answering mewl came.

Souta shivered.

Both children went in.

"He somewhere down there," said Souta, gesturing to the steps that led down to the old dried up covered well.

"So... so get him out," answered Kagome, more bravely than she felt.

"But doesn't this place kinda ...give you the creeps?" Souta asked her.

"What? You scared?" Asked Kagome, propping her chin on her hand, her general body language expressing that she was way too COMFORTABLE to get up and go down there, creepy or no. "You're a boy aren't you?"

KCH

KCH

KCH...

Souta really didn't think being a boy had anything to do with it.

"Th-there's something IN there!" He gasped, now hiding behind Kagome's shoulder.

"Like, oh, say... Our CAT?!" Said Kagome sarcastically. Honestly, she was embarrassed for Souta...

KCH

KCH

KCH...

"Geez..."

Kagome went down the steps...

And was sure she saw Souta flinch each time the stairs creaked...

`Huh? It's coming from inside the well? You're kidding me!'

Kagome jumped up and shrieked when she felt something brush against her leg. This caused Souta to jump up and scream too.

"Miew!"

It was Buyo...

Souta fell to the ground clutching his heart dramatically. "Don't YELL like that! You scared me!!"

Kagome set Buyo down on top of the well to deal with her impertinent little brother. "You little!"

"KA-Kagome!" Souta cut in. wide eyed.

She turned around slowly as an intense pain seemed to flood her body.

Then she saw Buyo, eyes glowing as green as the pickles they had eaten for breakfast.

And she fainted dead away...

-----

The first thing Kagome was aware of was a beeping sound, and a familiar smell that she couldn't quite place.

For a moment she just listened to the rapid beep, beep, beep. And tried to recall where she had been last...

...Beep

Beep

Beep...

...And if she had, somehow, broken her alarm clock...

She had just recalled, with a rush of excitement, that it was her birthday, when she realized...

That beeping sound was ANNOYING!

And it was beginning to give her a headache...

Kagome opened her eyes to silence the renegade alarm clock...

And quickly re-closed them.

"Urg...too bright..." Her voice came out slightly horse, and she discovered that her mouth felt like sandpaper.

BEEP

But the damn alarm clock...

Kagome cracked one eye open, with extreme caution, and discovered that her room had somehow turned white.

She opened her other eye, squinting against the glairing brightness. Then she realized that the annoying beeping noise wasn't an alarm clock.

`I'm... In the Hospital?' She tried to recall a reason that she might be in the hospital, but could think of nothing.

There was a jacket on a chair next to her bed.

`That's Mama's... so she was visiting me? Where is she now? What time is it?'

Kagome tried to find a clock in her room. But the walls were bare. Looking out the window though, she could tell that it was late morning... or maybe early afternoon...

Kagome shook her head.

`Okay... Get back on track Kagome!' She coached herself. `What's the last thing you remember?'

`Let's see…' She paused a moment and thought about it. `Souta and I were in the well-house... We were looking for...Buyo, and his eyes were glowing...

`Oh no!' Kagome covered her mouth in horror and sat up quickly. `I really AM sick! I must have been delusional!'

She felt her forehead. No fever... And her headache was already clearing up. Because she had realized she was delusional before, she deduced that she couldn't be delusional now, and therefore, she was all better!

But she was quite bored...And because of this, partnered with the fact that she was getting hungry, and that she was not quite fully awake yet, she saw nothing wrong with getting up and searching for a cafeteria (`even though hospital food is supposed to be disgusting...'). As she closed the door behind her she saw that there was a clock after all. A white faced black rimmed altogether boring clock hung directly over her bed. The clock said it was one seventeen.

`No wonder I'm hungry! I must have slept right through lunch!'

-----

Kagome padded through the halls in the pink slippers she had found by her bed. She had noticed a piece of cotton taped to her wrist where there must have been an IV needle.

`Glad I wasn't awake for that...'

She was now on a different floor from the one her room was on. This was the seventh floor. The very top floor where they kept long term patients.

`And food...'

She was walking in the direction of the cafeteria when she spotted a door. It was like all the other doors on the floor, but for some reason she was drawn to it, and before she even knew what she was doing, she had reached for the handle.

She stopped abruptly though, suddenly questioning the feeling that drew her to the room. Was she sick again? Shaking her head Kagome decided that the only way to find out was to go and see, so knowing this, she turned the knob and stepped in.

`Yup I'm definitely hallucinating...'

The room was dimly lit. A monitor beeped and flashed red light onto the face of the room's sole occupant. A boy about her age was asleep on the bed. His face was peaceful as a child, yet he had a bandage wrapped around his head, and the monitor clip was on his finger. He wasn't dressed like a patient, though. He wore old-fashioned red hakama, and a white cotton undershirt, the style of which, Kagome had not seen on any one under forty. The boy was actually quite handsome, despite his strange clothes. His hair was an unusual shade for a young person. It appeared white shadowed in blue.

The feature that caused her to gasp though, was a pair of white canine ears on top of his head.

So strange was the boy, that Kagome stepped up closer to his bed, and stared at his ears...

And came to a startling realization.

`I want to touch them,' she thought, reaching out to rub the boy's ears. `Though I suppose this isn't the time or place to.'

Her fingers brushed over the bandage and she could have sworn she'd seen a spark.

At first she was alarmed, but she mentally kicked herself.

`Your hallucinating, remember?'

She suddenly pulled back embarrassed at her self, even though the boy was a figment of her imagination.

`Now that I go t THAT out of my system...'

"Hey what are YOU doing here?!"

Kagome nearly jumped out of her skin as several doctors came through the door.

"This room is off limits!"

"Perhaps she's a reporter?!"

"H-Hey!" Said Kagome. "I was just looking for the cafeteria! I didn't mean any harm!"

"Yeah sure kid," said one man. "How do we know your telling the truth?"

"No wait!" another cut in. "She's Higurashi-san. You know, the one that disappeared from her room..."

`Disappeared?' thought Kagome, as a giant sweat-drop formed on her head.

-----

"You found her in Inuyasha's room?" Queried Dr. Higure, looking at the teen sleeping fitfully on the hospital bed.

"Yes Higure-san, but she believes she was delirious, so it shouldn't be a problem... Doctor Higure, is something wrong?"

"What? No I only..."The doctor trailed off, eyes still fixed on the girl asleep on the bed. "She is the very likeness of my sister... It's almost like... seeing a ghost..."

-----

"His heart rate has increased to six beats a minute!"

"Higure-san, does this mean he's waking up ?"

"It could be. Do we have any idea what caused this change?"

"We still don't know what caused him to go into stasis in the first place, let alone survive that fire, though it probably has something to do with his mutations."

"Mutations...yes... Did you check the wound?"

"Ito's doing it."

"Doctor Higure!" Ito cut in. "The wound is healing! The bullet has somehow disappeared without harming his nervous system!"

"Hmmm?"

-----

When Kagome woke up, her room was cast in shadow, and she was hallucinating again.

`YOU,' she thought, looking at the dark, shadow creature at the foot of her bed, `are a figment of my imagination.'

The thing inched closer.

`Not real,' she reminded herself. "That means you can't hurt me..."

HSST! The creature bear its fangs, and hissing, swiped at her legs with long claws.

It HURT!

"YAAAAH! You shouldn't be able to do that!"

She leapt up, and sprinted across the floor, but the thing gave chase, so she quit the room, not even pausing for her slippers.

The strange creature was on her tail. Fueled by adrenalin she was able to keep up her pace, until she reached a stair well which she climbed until there was nowhere else to go.

On the Seventh floor once again, her bare feet slapped against the icy tile, and gave her the will to run.

Unknown to Kagome, Dr. Higure was giving chase as well, but her old feet would not carry her so swiftly as she would have liked.

And unknown to both of them, in a room on the seventh floor, a canine ear twitched.

"The smell..." A boy growled into the night. "The smell of the girl who shot me...is getting closer..."

-----

A/N: Just wanted to explain some names here.

For one, this story is called DOG-BOY, because the name draws a parallel with Inuyasha.

And Dr. Higure's name means "dusk," where as Higurashi means "all the day" or "all day long." So though the names look similar, they actually have different meanings...

COMING SOON: Prayer beads, Dog-boys, alternative medicine, and POSSESED CATS?!

P.P. (Post post-_-`) I was revising this before I posted it here, and I got to "She would not let death rob her of her final words." And started to laugh… Isn't that kind of behavior just typical in a character from a Manga where when you have your enemy at sword-point, you must pause and announce "I am going to kill you"?