Born of Terror

A/N: So, this is yet another fic in The Promise-verse world of AU. The basic idea: One thousand years after the end of the InuYasha series, we have the Naruto series. Inuyasha marries Kagome. Sesshoumaru chooses Rin. Shippou marries Souten. Obito lives and marries his Rin. Naruto's parents live. Itachi doesn't go AWOL.

Within the context of this story, this is a who's-who since the perspective character is a little too young to think in much other than titles and small words.

Nari-chan: Nariko, daughter of Shippou and Souten.

Haru-chan: Haruki, son of Shippou and Souten.

Ume-chan: Umeko, daughter of Shippou and Souten.

Kaachan: Souten.

Touchan: Shippou.

Jiichan: Inuyasha.

Baachan: Kagome.

Sesshou-chama: Sesshoumaru.

Rin-chama: Rin.

The day was quiet for Nari-chan.

Since she was still small and hadn't lost her kit teeth, every day more or less went like this: get up, find breakfast, wander around the playroom and gnaw on things until getting bored and finally taking a nap when the sun was highest and the rug was warm. Kaachan was usually there, or Touchan, but today was a busy day. Nari-chan didn't know what was so special about this day over any other, but she supposed that was for big people to think about. And anyway, Nari-chan thought that she was at least big enough that not having Kaachan or Touchan around wasn't going to be too bad.

WHACK.

Then again, Ume-chan and Haru-chan didn't listen sometimes. And this time Ume-chan had found one of the toy tops Touchan said they weren't supposed to play with.

"Kaachan?Kaachan!" Haru-chan yelped, scrambling away from Ume-chan with his ears flat and his tail between his legs. "Ume-chan's being meeeeaaan."

"Kaachan's not here, Haru-chan." Nari-chan said, and stopped the trouble in its tracks by biting Ume-chan's tail when the red kit tried to go after the white kit again. She was the biggest kit, with jet-black fur and lots more teeth, so it was up to her to stop the other two from fighting.

Ume-chan snapped back, trying to catch Nari-chan's tail in her teeth, but Nari-chan pinned her head to the rug with one paw and growled.

"Nari-chan's not being fair either!" Ume-chan snarled, her fluffy kit-fur all fluffed up along her back. "Why do the big kits get to go out when we can't?"

"Kaachan said." Nari-chan insisted, because what Kaachan said was law as the kits understood it.

"Kaachan said this, Kaachan said that!" Ume-chan said in a mocking voice. "Kaachan won't hear—mmph!" At that point, Nari-chan shoved a stuffed rabbit toy into her mouth.

Nari-chan observed her handiwork and sat back, saying mildly, "Ume-chan, what Kaachan says, goes. And when Kaachan isn't here, what Nariko-nee says, goes."

"Pah!" Ume-chan spat out the toy and sulked. "Meanie…"

Haru-chan mumbled something and curled up on the rug next to Ume-chan, licking her ear. The baby and the middle child didn't get along a lot, but sometimes they would be nice to each other if Nari-chan was biting one of them. So far they hadn't really thought about if she did it on purpose or not.

There was a knock at the door.

"Kaachan?" Haru-chan chirped, looking at the nursery door with his head tilted curiously.

But Nari-chan sniffed and smelled something scary. Metal-y. Blood? Ume-chan smelled it too, and whined softly in sudden fear. Then Haru-chan realized what was wrong and led his sisters to the corner of the room. They huddled together there, shaking like leaves, and the door burst inward.

The youkai there was tall, in human shape. Her hair was long and white and she didn't smell familiar. She was wearing white—was she sad?—and her kimono was speckled red with fresh blood. She looked around the nursery, with all of its soft toys and bright colors for the kits to play with, and sniffed.

Nari-chan stared up at the youkai with wide eyes as she walked over to the three kits. She knew her. Tamami-chama, the inu youkai noble from a faraway place.

"T-Tamami-chama?" Haru-chan hiccupped, looking up at the inu youkai.

She smiled in a way that made all three kits realize that her eyes were completely blank. No happiness. No love. No mercy.

And the smile…didn't stop. It kept going, stretching her face and pulling back nearly to her ears. Her eyes went red and Haru-chan squeaked in terror as he was pulled from his sisters' grip. Tamami-chama held him by the scruff of his neck until he went quiet with fear, and then her jaw did something weird. The two other kits found themselves unable to look away.

Tamami-chama's face kept stretching. Her skin went white and was covered in fur and she was looking more and more like a dog, but like no dog any of them had ever seen.

Then Tamami-chama swallowed Haru-chan whole. And when the tip of his white tail disappeared, she went for the other two kits.

Ume-chan screeched and bit hard enough to draw blood, but she went down just as easily.

Nari-chan spat blue fire and tried to fight back with her little claws and kit teeth, but she was too weak. The mad youkai simply swatted the fireball aside and ate her, too. She screamed and cried, but no one heard.

Nari-chan found herself in a gray place, staring up at little gray imps with long wooden poles in their hands. They stood over her, and over Haru-chan and Ume-chan, but they only stood around and argued in high voices while Nari-chan felt like she wanted to cry. She couldn't move and tell the imps to go away, to help her or her brother and sister stand up.

Where was Kaachan? Touchan? Baachan? Jiichan? Sesshou-chama? Rin-chama? Why was she the only one who couldn't even move?

Distant voices. Angry ones.

"She got into the nursery! How did she get past the guards?"

"Kami-sama, don't let her hurt them…! No, nononononono!"

"GIVE THEM BACK, YOU CRAZY BITCH! GIVE MY BABIES BACK!"

"I will not be thrown away like some cheap whore! You have seen nothing of what I can do! I will kill every last one of those little freaks you call spawn—"

"SHUT! UP!"

Then Nari-chan watched as the gray imps were slashed into little wisps of dust and ash by a glowing sword. A moment or two more, and she opened her real eyes and stared up into Touchan's green ones. Why was everything all sticky? Why did she hurt all over? Why was Touchan crying?

Touchan picked her up along with Ume-chan and hugged them really hard, crying into their fur and licking their faces even though everything kind of smelled funny. Kaachan sat next to him, holding onto a confused Haru-chan and saying something in big words the kits didn't understand. And because Touchan and Kaachan were crying, Nari-chan, Haru-chan, and Ume-chan gave little hiccups and started crying too.

"They're going to be okay, they're going to be okay, and oh Kami-sama I'm so glad they're going to be okay…" Baachan said, taking Ume-chan from Touchan. But she was still close by and Baachan was smoothing down Ume-chan's sticky fur like it was all really going to be okay.

Jiichan snapped at Sesshou-chama, all his hair nearly standing on end. "Goddammit Sesshoumaru, what the fuck kind of ex-girlfriends do you have? Shippou's kids died!"

Sesshou-chama glared at Jiichan, saying something about stuff not working out between them, and Jiichan snarled something else as they both left the room. Baachan started humming to Ume-chan and hugged her.

Nari-chan peeked over Touchan's shoulder and looked around what used to be the nursery.

There was a lot of broken stuff, but the part that she remembered was the head.

It was Tamami-chama's, cut off and left lying on the floor. It was a lot bigger than anything Nari-chan had ever seen and the mouth, all red and huge with those big teeth, would haunt her nightmares for years afterward.

"Eyaagh!" No one had really expected Nariko to jump a foot in the air after seeing Bull for the first time since forever, even after what the ninken and his pack had done to Zabuza, but she did anyway. And then she went right up the nearest tree. Sometimes it seemed like her fear of dogs was out of proportion to the threat they posed, but only Kakashi connected it to her nature as a kitsune youkai. He was only partly right.

"Nariko-nee, what's so scary about dogs?" Naruto asked in that guileless way of his. Since he had grown up with Kakashi's dog summons, any phobia of them was killed before it started.

Nariko said nothing for a moment, even after Bull was ordered to return to tracking duty. She was too busy clutching at her heart and trying to slow down her breathing to even think of a response.

"That's…kind of extreme, Nariko-nee. Even for you." Sasuke said, since she was still up a tree.

"Eheheheh…" Nariko chuckled nervously, still clinging to the branch. "I…I just don't like dogs, okay?"

"Well, he's gone for now." Sakura said consolingly. "It's fine now."

"No, it's not," said Nariko, but she came down eventually anyway.

A/N: This entire fic was spawned from me trying to explain a quote and why Sesshoumaru didn't just revive the other two fox siblings when their bodies were returned home. The quote is as thus:

"It turned out that, once Haruki was settled down with them, he was probably the most boring fox in existence. Sure, he was a nervous wreck ninety percent of the time, but he didn't play pranks, he barely attracted any attention to himself if he could avoid it, and he didn't freak out half as bad as Nariko did when a dog walked past. He didn't even revert to fox form." – The Promise, chapter five.

So the explanation you get is that Haruki doesn't really remember being killed along with his sisters when he was a toddler.

Nariko does.

Also, there's a reason that Rin is referred to as Sesshoumaru's mate and not anyone else. She has the title permanently because she's never going to fall out of favor with him or anything, though none of his children are hers. And now you know why Sanyu and Amaya are full-blooded inu youkai even though Rin is human.