Friday, January 21, 2005

   Chapter 42: With The Best Intentions...
Inuyasha froze in alarm, his eyes slowly narrowing as his ears twitched madly in an effort to locate the source of that indistinct voice, 'Who the fuck are you and what have you done with the others?!'

'Hell, I should have known you'd make this as difficult as possible.'

Inuyasha growled menacingly, his claws flexing as he turned in a slow circle and tested the heavy air for a scent, 'Listen up, you asshole! Either you show your fucking face right now and I kill you quickly, or you make me look for you and I take you apart one piece at a time! Your choice.'

'You never change, do you, hanyou?'

'You think you know me?!' his eyes blazed as he swung around, swearing at his inability to hear or smell anything around him. It was like his human nights, he thought darkly, 'Dammit, who ARE you?!'

'Will you calm the fuck down for once in your life so I can help before you try to rip out my throat or should I leave now and let you try and sort out this mess on your own?' the voice growled out almost directly behind him, prompting Inuyasha to swing around and make a blind strike. The voice sighed in annoyance, 'This is why we didn't come to you.'

Inuyasha's eyes widened in realization. Kagome said she couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, and that it felt too real to be a dream... His eyes blazed angrily, 'You fucking son of a bitch!! You're the one who's been in Kagome's head! The one who did all this shit to my Kagome!'

'I'm not the fucking genius who kissed a corpse in front of her when she was in flux, you asshole!' the voice snapped back defensively as a blunt force smacked hard against Inuyasha's chest, pushing him backwards.

'Oi! Enough!!' another voice broke in abruptly, startling Inuyasha with the sound so close at his back that his exploding temper really had a chance to really snap over the loaded accusation. 'This won't get us anywhere and it could hurt Kagome more!'

Inuyasha tensed, turning sideways to stand where he thought both "voices" would be in front of him, 'You know what's happening to her...'

'We're...ah, figuring it out,' the second voice responded, just as unisex as the first but distinctly younger, and colored with slight embarrassment.

'Wha-? What the hell?!' Inuyasha's expression twisted with enraged disbelief. 'You cast the spell on her and you didn't even know what it would fucking do?!!'

There was a brief moment of silence, then a flurry of angry whispers quiet enough for the actual words to escape Inuyasha's hearing. He growled in annoyance, his eyes gleaming until the second voice made a sound like clearing its throat and responded, 'We knew what it was "supposed" to do...'

'Then what the fuck did you do wrong?' his eyes narrowed sharply.

The first voice rose in anger, 'It wasn't our mistake! Kagome's soul didn't react to the magic the way it should have! She-'

'Don't speak of her so familiarly, you worthless bastard!' Inuyasha rounded on that voice, his ears flattened back and hackles raised in instinctive reflex. Something about that first voice set him on edge and made him want to lash out, 'I want to talk to this other one, not to you.'

'If not for me, KAGOME would have been seriously hurt if not killed by those fucking youkai almost a month ago, you-!'

'That's it, I'm fucking taking your throat out!' Inuyasha interrupted and tensed, ready to spring at the source of that mocking voice.

'This is NOT productive, you two!!' a hand snaked out and caught Inuyasha sharply upside the head, knocking him off-balance as the second voice barked authoritatively at both of them. 'Inuyasha-sama, we did not risk bringing you to us and revealing you in this way just for you to get into a damn pissing contest! We don't want Kagome to get hurt and we can't get to her when she's surrounded by Naraku's power like this. We need you to listen and help us before he does something that could permanently damage her soul.'

Inuyasha rubbed his hand, glaring into the darkness warily and only slightly mollified by the respect in the younger voice, 'I want some answers from you two fuck-ups before I listen to anything you say.'

'I told you this would be a waste of time,' the first voice grumbled.

There was a muffled curse and something that sounded distinctly like smack and a grunt, 'Will you shut up! We owe him this, you moron, especially after you're the one who opened her up to accepting youkai energy with that stunt.'

Inuyasha's lip curled and he had to forcefully restrain himself from hunting out that first voice's owner all over again. Instead, he settled for barking out, 'Start fucking explaining! What the hell was the spell supposed to do and what is it doing to her now?!'

There was another curse and a defeated sigh before he felt that bizarre disembodied hand on his shoulder, 'Please understand, Inuyasha-sama, we only wanted to help you and Kagome. She's just as stubborn as you are and we were worried it would keep the two of you apart. So when we...ah, found this spell, we decided to use it and open your eyes a little on how much she meant to you.'

Inuyasha bristled in agitation, 'I didn't need any fucking help!'

'It took you a damn month to claim her after we cast the thing when in more than two years you hadn't even kissed her,' the first voice snorted in disgust. 'You ought to be thanking us, hanyou.'

'For nearly getting her killed more than once? Not fucking likely,' he bared his teeth, uncaring if the gesture was wasted in the darkness or not.

'We didn't realize that Kagome being the carrier and guardian of the Shikon-no-Tama along with her miko powers would make the spell distort,' the second voice raised to be heard over the growling between the two, bringing Inuyasha's attention back to it. 'Everything started out fine. She activated the mark, you set the word.... but then the spell changed.'

'How?' he demanded, folding his arms over his chest. In a way he was relaxing, finally getting the answers to the questions that had been driving him insane, but at the same time, he was even more agitated than before. The spell had gone wrong...

'We used your blood to make the mark, but we had made sure it was dormant,' it answered hesitantly while the first voice muttered under its breath behind the second. 'When she was attacked, we thought that the best way to save her was to use the link and give her a boost of power. We attacked the youkai through her when she gave us control.'

'But she broke the fucking seal on your blood when she let us in,' the second growled in his ear, taunting him with its proximity when they knew there was nothing he could do to prevent it. 'Her miko powers matured so quickly with the source of the youkai magic and blood that she threw her soul wide open and turned herself into a conduit.'

'My blood? You...tattooed my name in her with my blood?' Inuyasha took an instinctive step, his mind reeling with the implication. 'Are you insane?! You didn't tell me OR her that you'd-'

'If things had gone as planned it wouldn't have made a difference!' the second voice protested.

'That's why it fucking hurt her... She was fighting the youkai blood and she didn't know it,' he shook his head, raising his hand to rake it through his hair in his growing agitation. 'And when men touched her...'

'You have...possessive blood where Kagome's concerned,' it agreed quickly. 'She didn't really fight it because it recognized your aura, but it would react to anything it saw as a threat. She didn't tell you it got darker, did she?'

Inuyasha's brows drew together angrily, 'No...'

'We had to talk to her. We knew it would risk keeping the path open, but if we didn't speak with her there could have been more distortion that she could handle. She fought us for a long time.'

Inuyasha's lips twisted in a satisfied smirk, 'You thought she'd trust you?'

'Shut the hell up, hanyou, we're TRYING to help here even though you don't deserve it,' the first voice snapped, smacking him against the side of the head again.

'I didn't know why I thought this could be easy with the two of you in the same place,' the second voice cut in, heavy with annoyance this time. 'Look, this IS serious and we do have a bit of time limit, you know!'

'What the fuck do you mean we have a time limit?' Inuyasha's voice had lowered to a dangerous whisper.

'Kagome is in flux-'

'I said that already,' the first voice cut it's companion off in disgust.

'You didn't explain anything!' the second snapped, stopping itself and taking a deep breath. 'I am not arguing about this...'

'Would you explain this to me already?!' Inuyasha snarled at both of them.

The second voice answered, 'The two of you mated before the spell stopped distorting itself. After what happened with the other miko, the dead one, and Kagome balancing herself into a hanyou for your human night, you had connected yourself in ways we that we couldn't prepare for. I told you your blood was possessive and when she almost died, your blood and soul wrapped around her and just wouldn't let go.'

'Don't mention Kikyou to me,' Inuyasha's voice filled with pain, gritting his teeth as his fists clenched. 'Kagome told me that YOU said my heart took over for hers. That she would have died if you hadn't connected us.'

'That was true,' Inuyasha could hear the nod in the voice. 'You were connected before, but after that, she accepted the possession from you and stopped pushing against your attempts to direct her. She protected your blood and began to use her powers to mingle your blood with her own. You should have noticed... Before she accepted it, your soul was expending so much energy pushing itself into her that your own energy was draining faster than you could generate it.'

His eyes widened, 'When I kept falling asleep...'

'Exactly, but you left enough of your youkai blood behind to cause the spell to change again. We don't know how it's changing her, but the blood has mixed together to the point that we couldn't remove it from her without killing her.'

'She's...she's turning hanyou?!' Inuyasha felt of dizziness sweep through him.

'No, no... not hanyou. It's not something we've ever seen happen before.'

'What do you mean?' his heart started to pound nervously, and he pressed his hand flat to his chest in an effort to ease that tell-tale sign.

'Well, your blood and her powers are working with the spell,' there was a note of uncertainty in the voice that had Inuyasha's eyes narrowing even as it tried to expound on that explanation. 'The youkai blood stays separate from the human instead of mixing together like a hanyou. It has made...changes to her human side, but when she feels threatened, the youkai blood overwhelms her. When that happens, your blood takes over and it's almost as though there's nothing human about her at all. She's not hanyou, youkai, or even human anymore.'

Inuyasha blinked several times, trying to process the information he'd just received, 'Then... what is she? Is she...is she still mortal?'

'We don't think so, but every single time we've tried to read her since you mated, your aura attacks us and keeps us away from her soul,' the second voice explained.

'Course it doesn't fucking help that every time we've tried to tell her how to stay safe you do something that makes her lose control!' the first voice hissed out.

'What the fuck are you talking about?' Inuyasha's eyes slowly began to glow, bleeding red at the strength of the anger racing through him.

'Will you let me do this?!' the second voice was nearly silent, supremely frustrated as it argued with the first. 'Inuyasha-sama, Kagome is feeling emotions as a youkai instead of as a human. She's used to handling her emotions at a much lower level and until she adapts to the intensity of youkai feeling, it's very easy for her to become overwhelmed and lose control of them. When that happens, the blood, YOUR blood, thinks she's in danger and takes over to protect her. Her first instinct is to get away from what's causing that danger and when she obeys the instinct, she's going out of range to balance against you.'

'Now you're saying it's MY fault?!' he growled out, his lip curling in disgust.

There was a snort and then the sound of another smack before the younger voice continued, 'You didn't know. What's making it worse is that there was another soul prodding her aura, waiting for her to move out of range. When you mated, your soul took a much stronger grasp over Kagome's and she absorbed a larger portion to hold in your blood inside her. That's what has made her so vulnerable. While her body and soul are readjusting into... whatever it is that she's becoming, they are relying heavily on your spirit for direction. You are also her first-'

'Only,' Inuyasha corrected in a flat, cold voice.

'Her only mate,' it readily agreed. 'She's young and she still thinks like a human. Seeing you in the company of...of another woman she knows you cared deeply for when she is uncertain of your feelings made her fight against your presence inside her. She was so focused on the sight in front of her that she failed to recognize something pushing in on her and urging her to lose control of herself. With the sudden upset of her emotions, it was a simple matter for him to gain access and make her think it was her own mind directing her.'

'Directing her to do what?' the air around Inuyasha hummed with menace.

'To leave with Kagura.'

Inuyasha hadn't thought he was capable of feeling such intense pain when he hadn't received an injury, but the voice's words sent him to him knees. Kagome had left... She'd seen what happened, Naraku had been waiting to implant the thoughts in her head, and because she couldn't handle youkai emotions, she'd given into them. Now Kagome was open to Naraku's influence, in danger and in pain, and there was nothing he could do about it until he found her.

'How could I not have fucking seen it....' he whispered, his eyes squeezing shut.

'I could take a guess,' the first voice muttered only to earn a quick hiss from the second.

'Kagome is in great danger now because of the strength of Naraku's aura. She is sensitive to the Shikon-no-Tama... it hunts for her just as much as you do it. It was a part of her for so long that it does not feel complete without her. Naraku only knows that her aura doesn't push against the magic filtering through the jewel or the youkai blood inside her, and he's using that link to hide his presence inside her.'

'I'll kill him.'

The voice paused at the intensity of the hanyou, but continued gently, 'She is purifying most of the energy filtering into her, but she is weakened being away from you. Her soul feels the youkai blood's strength and borrows more and more of it to restore her energy and fight what it sees as a threat. Without your soul in range, it is being tricked into thinking Naraku's aura is a substitute, but the sheer force of the magic she's absorbing is starting to kill her human blood. We don't know what will happen if that occurs.'

Inuyasha looked ahead, his eyes glassy as he recalled the wave of weakness that had gone through him when he'd reconnected to her in that brief moment, 'He's keeping her from finding me.'

'Her soul CAN differentiate between the feel of you and the feel of another, but if she's threatened your blood will take from anything near to keep her strong. If you don't find her in the next day, Inuyasha-sama, she'll absorb enough that Naraku will be able to form a shell around her and prevent her from sensing your aura even when you are close enough. He will prevent you from connecting and balancing with her. The good news is that you're soul is still fighting off any male that comes near her, but it is likely taking it to the extreme and forming a barrier even you could not penetrate. Even now, you're going to have to make contact, physical contact to force his aura out of her completely and convince your blood she's safe to balance instead of absorb.'

'That won't be a problem,' his voice was still flat, intense, and terrifying with the promise of danger weighing heavily in it. 'I'll get her away from that bastard before anything happens and then you are going to get your ass back here and we are going to talk. I want to know how to fix this shit so that nothing like this can happen to her again.'

'Inuyasha-sama, you aren't listening. We CAN'T reverse it without killing her! The best we can do is stop the distortion so that the spell settles and quits changing itself. But you are correct, you do have to get her away from Naraku before she does serious damage to herself. We simply don't have any more time to waste right now.'

'We can't stay any longer,' the first voice snarled out, more to its companion than to Inuyasha. 'We've already kept the path between the two of them closed for too long trying to help this arrogant bastard.'

'What the fuck?!' Inuyasha rounded on them angrily. 'You closed her off from me even after you're the ones telling me all this about keeping her close? Are you trying to fucking get her killed?!'

'Oi! Would you rather we not have come?' it growled back. 'Face it, hanyou, you fucking owe us for helping you out. Without us, there's no telling how badly you would have fucked things up when you faced Naraku.'

'Liar! I'd sooner kill you than agree with that bullshit,' Inuyasha returned, his hands fisting at his sides. 'When this is over and she's safe, I'm going to track you down and take your hearts out for causing this mess!'

The second voice made a slight tsking noise as the landscape around Inuyasha blurred and dipped, the feel and sounds around him fading away, 'Try not to lose your temper when you get close to her, Inuyasha-sama. Kagome is taking on too much of you as it is...'


Comments (1)