A Long Way Home
Summary: Kagome Higurashi, daughter of a wealthy banker, finds herself kidnapped and held for ransom by a notorious smuggler. Now, the only way she can escape is with her father's cooperation and the aid of...her doggy-eared kidnapper?
Specific Chapter Warnings: Language, violence, implied rape, implied prostitution, mild sexual situation (non-consensual), OOC
Arr! Ye be warned!
The Dog and the Past
"Mmhhghh..." A pained groan filled the air.
Kagome blinked at the sound, drawn from the muddiness of her mind by it, and realized that she had been the one that uttered it. Before she could process the thought, a rat suddenly scurried across her vision and she instinctively let out a scream, trying to back away, but a firm hand quickly covered her mouth and another pressed against the back of her head.
A sharp pain rang through her as the hand at her neck pressed on what she instantaneously realized was a very large, very painful bump on her head. She moaned in agony against the hand at her mouth as she felt a violent dizziness run through her.
"Oi! Shush!" A voice whispered out harshly in the silence. "Or you'll get us both killed."
Fighting the urge to retch, Kagome shut her eyes and relaxed just the slightest in her restraints.
Wait...restraints?
The previous night's events came back to mind and Kagome mentally groaned. So it hadn't just been an awful dream. She really had been kidnapped and now she was stuck in some gross dungeon cell, chained up like a wild animal. All she wanted to do was bundle up into a ball and sleep until this was all over, but she willed herself to be brave and fight through this.
Ready to scream her lungs out for help, she felt a sudden iciness at the back of her head and flinched, accidentally biting down on the hand at her mouth.
"Shit! Watch it!" The voice complained, but the iciness remained firmly on her head until Kagome felt the throbbing dull to a numb ache..
When the initial coldness passed, Kagome opened her eyes again, strained her eyes to look backward and withheld a gasp as she caught sight of shimmering silver hair.
It was the otherworldly one, she remembered, trying to scrounge up images of the three from the truck. It was... 'Inuyasha...' Even saying his name in her head made her flush nervously as if he could hear her thoughts. 'Ugh, really.' It was not normal to act like a stupid teenage girl with a crush around the man that kidnapped you. Maybe it was just Stockholm Syndrome, she assured herself. That or she was just all sorts of messed up in the head. Regardless of her strange reaction to him, she furrowed her brow in confusion.
He was icing her wound. That much was clear enough, but why would her kidnapper be helping her in the first place? She mumbled incessantly behind his hand, trying to communicate that she wanted it off her mouth, and he complied reluctantly.
"What are you doing here?" She rasped out, mouth feeling drier than the Sahara, leveling her eyes back at him as well as she could with her hands bound behind her back. A small cup of water appeared magically at her lips, and she expressed her welcome by tilting her head back and drinking it with the gusto of...well, of a girl who hadn't had any water for nearly a day. Kagome wasn't much for metaphors.
Inuyasha looked down from where he was holding the bag of ice. "Keh!" He scoffed. "I'm making sure you don't die from your head wound, ungrateful bitch," he muttered, carefully wiping the wound of blood.
Kagome clenched her teeth to refrain from being provoked by the insult but couldn't help biting back. "Yeah, well how about you let me go and I'll call it even for hitting my head," she responded with a snort.
"Wow! That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?" The sarcasm in his voice practically dripped itself all over her.
"Pfft..." Kagome breathed out disappointedly. 'And I half-expected that to work.'
"'Sides, it wasn't even me that knocked you out, alright?" He reminded as he secured the bag of ice to her head. "Don't mix me up with that shithead Goshinki," he spat out the name like a curse.
"You're all the same to me," she barked back angrily, semi-aware that she might be taking her anger out on the wrong person. Goshinki...he must have been the one that, quite frankly, scared the crap out of her...the purple one. Speaking of which... "Why are you all so...strange-looking? Or do you guys just always like to dress up when you steal teenage girls out of their bedrooms?"
"F-feh!" He sputtered back in reply, showing the first sign of surprise. "None of your business, wench! Do you always make small talk with your kidnappers?!"
Withholding a growl of her own at what she was quickly picking up as a tendecy of his to call her insulting names, she muttered, "I try not to make a habit of it."
Letting out a resigned sigh, Kagome accepted her fate for the moment. She was lucky, she guessed. The perverted one and this one – Inuyasha – didn't seem too bad. She remembered the man, the perverted one, mentioning something about their boss, but that didn't change the fact that these guys were criminals – top dog or not.
She winced when his hand reached a tender area of the bump, swearing at the sharp pain that shot through her.
"Yeah whatever, you go ahead and tell Goshitski that we're all the same the next time he comes down here to make sure you're not dead," he mocked, though his hand remained gentle as he meticulously wiped away any blood in her matted hair.
He had a point..."Why are you even doing this?" She asked, her voice softening.
"Like I said, just trying to make sure you don't die," he answered gruffly, though she swore there was something...tenderness?...in there.
Maybe he wasn't one of the bad guys. Maybe he was a servant bad guy or something. Maybe he was just stuck in a bad situation and owed the 'boss' a lot of money and was stuck doing his dirty work – like kidnap young girls, Kagome thought with a glimmer of hope.
'Wow, why don't I just write the script and send it off to Hollywood?!' She mentally ridiculed herself for being the idiotic thought. But still...if he wasn't as personally involved with this, then maybe...
With a deep breath, Kagome took the chance.
"I-Inuyasha," she whispered, the word sending another unwelcome wave of relaxing warmth through her. "Inuyasha, right?" She tried again, this time more confidently, and turned her head just enough to look him in the eyes.
And once again, found herself nearly losing her thoughts in his piercing golden orbs.
"Yeah," he grunted out. "What?"
"Please," she whispered, "I promise if you let me go, I'll get my dad to give your boss whatever he wants. I swear – "
"Don't bother," he cut her off, dropping the bloodied towel that he had been wiping her with onto a tray. "Naraku's keeping you 'til Taiyo gives him what he wants, and nothing you say will change Naraku's mind."
"But you can explain to him! You understand, right? It's a win-win for everyone," She tried, feeling a sense of desperation as he pulled away from her, and chided herself for missing the warmth. If she could just get him to agree...!
"And it would do jack shit." He picked up the trash from cleaning her wound and stood up to leave. "I do what Naraku says, and you should learn to do the same if you wanna get out of this in one piece."
Feeling a rush of indignation, Kagome glared at him defiantly. Like hell! She loved her father like no one else, and she hardly listened to him, so if some stupid gangster thought that she was going to just roll over on command, he had another thing coming.
"Unlike you, I'm not this Naraku's dog," she growled out stubbornly, ignoring the sudden tenseness in Inuyasha. "I guess I was wrong," she bit out. "Do you just do whatever he says, sit and bark on command?"
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She was playing with fire, and that might have just gotten her killed. It wasn't like she didn't realize it, but she just wanted someone to take her frustration out on.
He swung around to face her, and for a moment, Kagome throat closed in fear. He was pissed, and it showed. After a tense second, he pivoted back to the door just as swiftly as he had turned to face her and slammed it shut.
Then, Kagome was left with nothing but the utter darkness, the throbbing in her head, and her thoughts.
'Shit.' She thought miserably to herself as she tried not to think on the fact that the room was pitch black and she knew that there had been rats scurrying around just minutes earlier. 'Maybe that was a little uncalled for.' He might have been just another stupid criminal, but he had been down here trying to fix her wound. And by the sound of it, he had partially risked his own skin to do it, she thought, feeling a twinge of guilt.
Perhaps making enemies with the men who had her life in their hands was not the best strategy. Still, she was just trying to do whatever it took to get free.
The feeling of tiny rat feet scurrying across her leg suddenly startled her out of her thoughts, drawing a muffled shriek.
She shut her eyes – not that it really mattered in the pitch black room – willing herself to believe that she was safe, there were no rats, her father was on his way, and that she was getting out of this whole mess soon. It wasn't much of a comfort, but it passed the time.
Somehow, slamming doors always sounded more satisfying than it felt.
Inuyasha stormed down the stone halls, through the dimly lit path of the warehouse basement, and let his anger heat him in the freezing air. Somehow, even with the rather medieval torches lining the walls, the basement always chilled him to the bone, a remarkable feat considering what he was...
...which brought him back to the reason why he was so pissed in the first place...
'Fucking wench,' he cursed to himself, replaying her words in his head. She'd called him Naraku's dog, asked whether he barked on command, he thought, scoffing angrily at the ridiculousness. He should have never bothered to help her. He didn't know why he had come down here in the first place.
To keep her from dying. That's what he told her, but it was a weak farce at best. It was almost as if he couldn't keep himself away, and that made his stomach churn unpleasantly.
'Kagome...' He tested the name in his head, not sure whether he wanted to say it with anger or twisted wonder. He almost couldn't believe that she was there. She looked so much like her...mother. And yet, all it took was one good look into her eyes and the resemblances stopped there. Then, there was the fact that they smelled nothing alike. He hadn't know what he expected, but the girl smelled...unique, like something sweet and soft and refreshing...and though part of him hated acknowledging this, it was absolutely magnetic. Shaking off the ludicrous thought, he swung open another set of doors, giving a distracted nod at two of Naraku's men – human gunmen that Naraku kept manned at all entry points in case some idiot tried to escape – at the exit to the building.
He walked briskly to a neighboring warehouse, trying to focus on what he would say when he met with Naraku to update him, but his thoughts remained stubbornly attached to the girl he had left behind in one of the cells.
It was strange to think of it, that the girl they had brought into Naraku's clutches was the daughter of the woman that had started it all.
Though, he thought sardonically as he recalled Kagome's insult, the two had the same bite. After all, Kikyo...she had said something eerily similar the day she had betrayed him.
At the reminder, his mind brought him unwillingly to the past.
He could remember everything about the way she looked that morning down to the slight sheen of sweat on her brow. Sleek, dressed in a soft brown cloak, covered from head to toe, and yet she still exuded something seductively dangerous. She had always been so tempting, from the day he had seen her in Naraku's arms nearly twenty years ago. Other than Naraku himself, she'd been the only one who'd shown him any semblance of kindness, and he had once hoped that she would be his future. That all changed the day she came to him, hand extended to his while telling him that she had chosen another man.
"Come with us, Inuyasha." To anyone else, it might have sounded like begging, but he knew Kikyo did not beg.
"What the hells are you talking about?" He remembered feeling jumbled, his mind in a disorganized haze. She had woken him up at the crack of dawn, caught him off guard.
"Come on, I don't have time to explain."
Why, even when she was asking something of him, even with her hand extended to his, did she always sound so angry with him?
"Explain what? What the fuck are you talking about?"
"We've found a way to get out of this...away from Naraku." Her words had been whispered, but they struck him with full force all the same.
"What...?"
"Inuyasha." He remembered looking at those sharp brown eyes whose meaning had never failed to elude him, "Just come with me. I'll tell you everything after we're out of here. Taiyo is taking care of the others, but he can only hold them off for so long."
And that name was all it took for him to make his decision before he even thought about it. "Taiyo, huh? So you're leaving with him." It was a struggle to keep the bitterness out of his voice, one that he didn't bother fighting. There was no way she didn't know how he felt, and yet here she was, trying to get him to run away with her lover. Had she ever even looked his way?
"Not now." That time, there was a hint of pleading in her voice. "We can figure this out when – "
"When what? We miraculously manage to get away from Naraku and I have nowhere to go because you've decided you wanna fuck Taiyo for the rest of your life?" He spat out the name like filthy water in his mouth. Did Kikyo have any idea what she was even doing? What Naraku would do when he caught them? He had been the one that protected her from the worst of Naraku, not Taiyo.
"For christ's sake, Inuyasha, this isn't about us. Why are you being like this?"
"Because you're not thinking this through! You think you're gonna just run away with Naraku's supplier and he'll leave you alone to live some stupid dream life?" He stood up from his wooden bunk and grabbed her shoulders, wanting to shake some sense into her.
Her eyes hardened in determination. "You don't honestly think I'm that stupid. We have insurance, something that will keep him from coming after us, at least until Taiyo gets us out of the country."
Despite everything he'd said, his interest was piqued. Insurance? "What do you mean?"
"I can explain this all to you after we're out safely."
"How do you know I'm going to let you go? I could tell Naraku right now and you wouldn't be able to stop me." It was a low blow, but he couldn't help it. His mind was already made up. Taiyo was always dreaming up some big scheme, and now, somehow he'd even managed to rope Kikyo along into it. It would be safer for her in the long run, he tried to convince himself. Naraku didn't just let people waltz out his doors, insurance or not, and he wasn't about to leave the only home he knew, the only place he belonged on one of Taiyo's whims.
For a moment, Kikyo seemed to look at him with pity, before that turned into anger. "For once in your life, Inuyasha, can you stop being Naraku's lap dog?" She bit out, knowing the barb would cut exactly where she wanted. "You spend every waking moment barking and biting at his command – "
Infuriated at the insult, Inuyasha shoved her away and growled furiously. "And you're his whore, so I think we both know who's higher on the food chain here."
"That's the point, Inuyasha. I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this, and unless you want to spend the rest of yours serving that bastard..." She trailed off, looking at him with an unreadable expression. With a sigh, she shook her head and slowly walked toward him, her arms open. That in itself should have sent off warning bells, but all he could think was that she was right. He was going to end up being Naraku's dog for the rest of his life at this rate. "Nevermind. I'm sorry," she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him just the slightest. "I shouldn't have said those things."
He'd been so embarrassingly caught up in the fact that this was the first time he could ever remember being hugged – pitiful embrace that it was – that he hadn't registered the tiny pinch at his neck until it was too late.
"Hu..." Her arms fell away beside her and suddenly, the unwelcome call of sleep became too tempting to ignore.
"I really am sorry."
That was the last thing he heard before waking up to the chaotic aftermath of Taiyo and Kikyo's escape plan. A number of feelings had raced through him, betrayal, anger, and an overwhelming sense of defeat among them. She had drugged him when he refused to go with her, but a tiny part of him refused to let go of the hope that she did it to protect him. To the day, he couldn't remember a time when Naraku had been more angry, and he was all but exempt in their escape.
All he had known for so many years was that she was right. Whatever insurance she and Taiyo had found worked...until now.
He didn't know how to feel that Kikyo's young daughter had been plucked from right under Taiyo Higurashi's nose. On the one hand, it only confirmed what he thought all those years ago. Taiyo Higurashi was an idiot who couldn't keep his mouth safe from his foot even if his life depending on it. On the other, the girl might have been nothing more than another stupid teenager, but she was an innocent one. Kikyo might not have been, but all it had taken was one look in her eyes last night for him to see that her daughter...that Kagome had been kept safe from their world. Hell, she'd asked him if they played dress up!
"Stupid girl," he muttered to himself, though he could feel the anger from earlier drain out of him. All he knew was that having the girl here was less than comfortable, and he wanted Higurashi to pay up and get her out of here so he could move on.
He continued up a flight of stairs and through a long corridor to Naraku's office, knowing that he would want an update. Before long, his feet had reached the threshold. He could smell Naraku inside, and raised a hand to knock on the door, hesitating for a tenth of second when Naraku's voice hummed through the air in the strange way it always did.
"Come in, Inuyasha."
Not bothering to stall, Inuyasha opened the door and stepped into the room. Naraku sat directly in front of him, his black eyes piercing straight through him. Naraku had looked exactly the same for all the years that Inuyasha had known him. Soft, flowing black hair, dark, hooded eyes and slippery smooth skin. That in itself wasn't strange – in fact, Inuyasha could hardly remember the last time a youkai aged – but still, something was always off...as if Naraku looked just a bit different each time.
"Please, take a seat." The black-haired man welcomed him into his 'office.'
He gestured to one of the cushioned seats in front of the desk, and Inuyasha found himself repressing the urge to fidget and squirm at the disconcerting feeling of this familiar charade. Something about the way Naraku liked to pretend their meetings were some sort of therapy lesson rather than what they were – updates on some task to kidnap, kill or acquire one thing or another – set him on edge.
It was like a reminder that Naraku could turn from friendly, fatherly figure to the type of man that would happily feed his enemies their own fingers and toes.
"How are you, Inuyasha?"
"Good," he said simply, used to this pretense by now.
"Excellent," Naraku smiled kindly. "How is our friend Kagome doing? She wasn't too much trouble to acquire I hope."
Inuyasha grunted in the negative, feeling distinctly agitated at the way he described the girl like a novelty item. "Goshinki injured her head, but she's fine otherwise."
Naraku frowned, and Inuyasha sensed a change to the more threatening Naraku coming. His red eyes turned to a set of papers that Inuyasha was fairly certain was only there for decoration. "I'll take care of Goshinki. He was told to leave the girl unharmed. In the meanwhile, I'll need someone to take care of the girl."
And by the slight quirk at the corner of Naraku's mouth, Inuyasha knew what he meant. "I don't want to be some stupid girl's babysitter. That's what the humans are for."
Naraku looked back at him coolly. "You'll do what I want you to do. I'll forgive your disobedience because I hadn't asked you yet, but you are going to watch the Higurashi girl."
Wanting to curse at the prospect of spending more time with Kikyo's daughter, Inuyasha settled for something that was less likely to get him skinned alive. "How long do I have to look after the brat?"
"Now, now, that's not nice." And therapist Naraku was back. "It's only until Taiyo returns what is mine." With a pause, Naraku began twisting the vibrant band around his ring finger – another part of Naraku that Inuyasha had never seen him without. "I don't expect it will be too long. I have something planned for his daughter tomorrow that I think will...motivate him," Naraku finished.
Whatever that was, Inuyasha couldn't help the unsettling feeling in his gut. It was never good when Naraku smiled like that. If it weren't for the fact that they obviously had to keep the girl alive, he would have considered her a dead girl walking from that point on. Of course, when it came to Naraku, sometimes only the lucky ones got a clean death. Quashing the worry that surged at the thought of the innocent girl being subject to Naraku's punishments, he forced himself back to the present, refocusing his eyes on the impenetrable black eyes watching him.
Naraku stared at him for an unbearably long minute, as Inuyasha waited for his customary dismissal.
"Does she look like Kikyo?" The question came out of nowhere, catching him off-guard. Naraku reached a hand down for a small tea cup and poured himself a cup of tea, all while keep his eyes on Inuyasha's face.
"S-she..." Pausing briefly at his shaky start and his inexplicable nervousness, Inuyasha took a small breath. It wasn't a hard question to answer, but for some reason, the words weren't coming out. "A bit," he managed.
Naraku gave a knowing smirk and nodded, as though satisfied with his answer. "Good. It was a shame Kikyo died." Inuyasha furrowed his brows, unsure of where this turn in conversation was taking them.
Disregarding Inuyasha's perplexed stare, Naraku stood up without elaborating, leaving the steaming cup of tea at the center of the desk, right in between him and Inuyasha. Inuyasha watched as he looked to his right at a drawing draped on the wall, some diagram Naraku was always working on that was indecipherable to Inuyasha. Inuyasha eyed the drawing, noting the webbed lines that connected all the different nodes and portions together, and tried to figure out why it always looked slightly modified than the previous times he'd seen it, when Naraku finally broke the silence. "It will be nice to relive our time together with her daughter."
Then, before the disturbing suggestion could set in, Naraku waved him off. "You're dismissed."
The agitating feeling in his gut growing stronger, Inuyasha rose from the seat and turned stiffly to the door. He tried to ignore Naraku's eyes lingering on him and left the room as quickly as he came in. A brisk walk down the hallways brought him back out into the open concrete again, and without a word to the entry guards, he sprinted off into the lightly forested terrain a few blocks south of the secluded warehouses, seeking shelter on a familiar branch high above the rest of the world. He had his own quarters, of course, after living with Naraku and his men for so many years, but he needed somewhere quiet and peaceful right now to deal with everything in his head.
Naraku hadn't given him any assignments other than to keep the Higurashi girl alive, and that meant he was likely free for the rest of the day until he had to bring her a meal and water. However, for once, he wished he had something else to do other than think, because all he could think about right now was the girl that Naraku had just announced he was planning on raping. It shouldn't have sickened him any more than any of the other shit Naraku committed, but he had the feeling he would do almost anything short of getting himself killed to keep that from happening. Unfortunately, that only confused him even more.
'Why the hell do I even care about some girl, Kikyo's daughter or not?' He mentally berated, wanting to rid himself of this misplaced sense of protectiveness. As there was no way Naraku would simply leave Kagome alone until Taiyo returned whatever he'd stolen from Naraku all those years ago, Inuyasha knew that feeling anything other than apathy towards the girl would be trouble.
He couldn't say he was ever happy here, but this, working for Naraku...it had worked for him so far. He learned to turn his mind off to the things he didn't want to see, lock away the deeds he hadn't wanted to do. It had kept him alive and functional for decades, long before Kikyo came around. She had been a complication in the life Naraku had given him, one that, looking back on it, he partially-wished hadn't happened. Now that her daughter Kagome was here, he already knew in his gut that it would be the same...that somehow, someway, the girl was going to fuck with his life.
Leaning his head against the sturdy bark in frustration, Inuyasha closed his eyes, trying to will away the image of her face and those blue eyes that were warm and soft even when she had seen the face of her kidnappers. She might have tried to hide it when she glared at them, but all the evidence was there.
She had never seen a man killed, cut down before her eyes, never watched him tortured for information or for Naraku's own amusement, never heard anyone beg for death to put an end to his suffering...
'...and I don't want her to.' Inuyasha thought, frowning at the realization.
It wasn't that innocent people were never involved in Naraku's business. In fact, Naraku seemed to take a unique joy in corrupting people, but it was rare. Kidnapping regular civilians off the street and murdering them tended to draw too much attention to their world. But whatever it was that Taiyo had stolen, it was evidently enough
With a sigh, he rested his head as comfortably as he could against the tree. It was all pointless to think about. Kagome was going to be relatively unharmed as long as Naraku got what he wanted, and she would be out of his life before he knew it, just like Kikyo.
Until then, he would play babysitter. It might be a degrading job, but at least, he thought, it wouldn't keep him up at night.
Morning the next day, Inuyasha rose to the sound of screaming.
Shooting up from the cot that he'd been moved to while he had to watch the Higurashi girl, he threw open the door, heart pounding angrily in his chest as he ran to Kagome's cell.
As the metal door slammed open under the force of his hand, he nearly saw red at the sight. One of Naraku's men, a human Onigumo, was holding a dim candle in one hand and had his other slithered beneath her shirt on her breast. Kagome was struggling in her restraints, clearly trying to move her leg into a position to kick him. Inuyasha let out a fierce roar, drawing both of their attentions to him, and attacked Onigumo before the presence of the enraged newcomer could even register.
Slamming the perverted human against the stone wall with a clawed hand at his neck, Inuyasha squeezed the tender flesh beneath his fingers, a part of him taking pleasure at the five dots of red appearing swimming down Onigumo's neck.
"Wha-at the he-ell!" Onigumo choked out, clawing at Inuyasha's hold, the girl he had been previously molesting all but forgotten.
"Why the fuck are you down here?" Inuyasha growled with a barely restrained fury.
"J-just bringing the girl her food," Onigumo got out in a strained voice, still trying to pry off the hand that was keeping him from breathing.
Inuyasha threw him down to the floor, just by the open door. And stepped on the dropped flame to put out the fire. "I'm taking care of her, you got that?" He let out a snarl that clearly warned Onigumo not to go near her again.
Holding a hand to his bleeding neck, Onigumo glared coldly at the intruder. "The fuck is wrong with you? I wasn't going to rape the girl," he ground out, as if it that made everything better.
"Don't fucking touch her again," Inuyasha warned, tensing his claws in warning. When all he got in response was Onigumo's unyielding scowl, he crouched in warning, ready to attack again if Onigumo resisted. "Get out."
Onigumo knew a lost fight when he saw one. Without another word, the human stood up and slammed the door closed as he left, leaving Inuyasha and the stunned silent Kagome in the darkness.
Letting out a pent up breath, Inuyasha slowly loosened his stance and moved to a more familiar part of the cell. He switched on a light, bringing the half-cowering girl back into view. Still adjusting to the sudden artificial light, Kagome blinked rapidly up at him, trying to clear her vision. When Inuyasha finally came into view, Kagome resisted the urge to squirm under his intense stare. Remnants of raw anger lingered in the amber pools, and while she knew it wasn't directed at her, she couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine. Half-formed thoughts raced through her head as she tried to process what she had just seen.
He moved towards the tray of food that Onigumo had brought in, bringing it up briefly to sniff for drugs that the human man might have snuck in, and when he was satisfied that the food was safe, he swiftly unlocked Kagome's cuffs, so she could move her hands freely and eat.
With a sharp gasp at the painful sensations that ran up and down her arms after having them cuffed and chained for a nearly a day, Kagome would have fallen over onto her food from the sudden lack of support had it not been for a sturdy arm catching her across her chest.
"He didn't hurt you?" He asked gruffly.
With a quick shake of her head, she let him lift her into a sitting position, withholding a wince at her throbbing joints, and whispered a quick word of gratitude. She heard him mumble something that sounded suspiciously like "clumsy girl," but despite the insult she couldn't muster up even the tiniest offense. Instead, she used her new freedom to sneak a look at the silver haired man. 'Inuyasha,' she repeated his name in her head again, taking in the man's appearance more closely than she had the last time she saw him.
She couldn't be sure because the room had only been lit by a candle, but she swore, earlier when Onigumo had groped her, that she saw him move faster than light itself. Then, there was the matter of his claws, which given by the blood on Onigumo's neck, were very real. 'Is he...not human?' The question itself seemed absolutely ridiculous.
It turned out that her furtive glances weren't as discreet as she hoped.
"Stop staring and eat."
"R-right," she stammered out, embarrassedly looking down and reaching for the surprisingly appetizing food. He was obviously going to wait until she finished her food before locking her back up like he had last night. She wanted to ask how much longer she was going to be here, when she was going to be returned, what they were going to do with her, why that slimy man from earlier had been here, and a million other questions, but restrained herself.
It was her second meal after being brought down into god knows where, and she still had no idea what was happening in the outside world. Other than the man that Inuyasha had attacked, no one else had come down here, and she was essentially left to ponder her life in the insanity-inducing, solitary darkness.
She had almost been relieved to hear the door opening this morning, willing to take her odd-looking kidnapper over nothing at all, at least until she saw the unfamiliar face.
He'd been disfigured beyond recognition by severe burns, but that wasn't what scared Kagome when he walked in with her meal. No, it was the disturbing grin he gave her that sent off warning bells. It was all the caution she needed before he dropped to her kneeling form on the floor and roughly grabbed at her inner thighs and slid that hand up her shirt. At the memory of his rough hand on her naked skin, Kagome blinked away tears and shuddered violently, wanting nothing more than to wash off the ghost touch.
Her hand shook in disgust and the plastic spoon fell to the floor with a soft clatter.
Inuyasha's eyes shot down at the noise, and she hastily apologized. Picking up the utensil, she tried not to think about the fact that it had fallen on rat-ridden floors and quickly resumed her meal.
He sat to her left, waiting in silence for her to finish. That left plenty of quiet for her mind to think, and it went automatically to the obvious topic occupying her thoughts: Inuyasha – more specifically, what he was. He was plainly different from her; if the ears hadn't given it away, then his claws and inhuman strength would have. What exactly that meant was still up in the air, though.
'Is he even human?' The question seemed absurd and ironic. Absurd because the only people capable of creating some sort of genetically modified, super-human, hybrid being – and that was the only thing he could possibly be – would be a powerful company or the government, and they wouldn't be using them to snatch teenage daughters of your average banker from their bedrooms. Ironic because of all the people she'd met so far...he felt the most human. Not human in the homo sapiens sense – thank you, middle school biology – but in the he-cracked-jokes-and-wasn't-entirely-awful sense. Of course, that didn't change the fact that he was still a criminal.
As she picked at the food, not having much of an appetite given the circumstances, Kagome couldn't help wanting to ask him the million questions swarming in her head.
"Didn't Taiyo ever teach you not to pick at your food?" He finally spoke, grunting out the question.
"Huh...?" The name didn't register for a brief moment. "Oh! You mean Daddy – um, yeah, he did. Sorry," she apologized half-heartedly, bringing a small piece of bread to her mouth to satisfy him. However, what struck her was how familiarly he had used her father's name. Even his tone of voice...It almost sounded like he knew her father.
"Keh! Eat more. You're gonna need your strength later tonight," he stated calmly, turning back to face the empty wall.
Suspicions about his relationship with her father gone at his ominous words, Kagome immediately demanded, "What do you mean? What's going to happen to me?!"
"Calm down. Naraku's not going to kill you, if that's what you're worried about," Inuyasha assured, though he felt a sense of guilt at the way he was essentially soothing the lamb before the slaughter...or sort of slaughter, depending on whatever Naraku had planned for Kagome.
Nonetheless, it did the trick as Kagome visibly relaxed and resumed eating. They sat in a tense silence for another minute before Kagome finally gave in and asked, "What is he going to do to me?"
"I don't know," he said honestly.
He would have turned back to the wall with that if the smell of fear and worry hadn't suddenly flooded her scent, and though he tried to ignore the almost instinctive rise of protectiveness in him, he couldn't help the need to rid her of the unpleasant scent and bring back her natural, soft smell back.
"It won't be too bad," he reassured, hoping that he wasn't straight-out lying. "He just wants to make sure Taiyo gives him whatever he wants." He was breaking every rule of interacting with their captives, but Inuyasha couldn't regret it when Kagome's scent started to return to normal, her eyes softening just the slightest in relief.
"O-okay," she whispered in response, the fact that she might be meeting the man behind her kidnapping and that he was dead serious about getting what he wanted starting to really hit her.
She could only pray that this Naraku man was like Inuyasha. He'd been kind to her thus far, if only because he had to keep her alive until she was returned, and while she wasn't going to judge him based on an hour of interaction max, he hadn't been cruel to her at all. In fact, just a few minutes earlier, he had seemed even...protective? Kagome wasn't sure that was the word she was looking for, but it lodged itself in her mind regardless.
The tray sliding out from under her hands brought her back to the present. It seemed that she had finished her food without even realizing it, and Inuyasha was about to head back out.
Her mind distracted by her thoughts, she only caught the last part of his sentence. "...be back for you later tonight." With that, he walked to the entrance and started to close the door.
Panic rushed through her briefly and Kagome cried out a "Wait!" before he could leave.
When he turned back to face her questioningly, Kagome found herself at a loss for words. Damn if it didn't feel like his eyes saw straight through to her soul.
'No, Kagome, you did not just think that,' she chastised herself.
Aware that he was waiting for her to speak, Kagome shakily began the apology that she should have given him last night when he brought her dinner. "S-sorry," she started, clearing her throat. "A-about yesterday I mean. What I said w-when you were icing my head. It wasn't nice...I guess." Feeling an utterly ridiculous sense of dread at the prospect that he would reject her silly apology, Kagome lowered her eyes to the ground.
To her amazement, a snicker reached her ears. Darting her eyes back up in surprise, she saw Inuyasha looking at her with amusement in his eyes.
"Feh – s'ok." With a shrug, he turned to leave the cell again. "Sorry about kidnapping you...wasn't nice...I guess." Then with something daringly close to a grin, he shut the door behind him, leaving Kagome with the light on this time and a small smile of her own.
Author's Note:
I'm thinking of keeping most of the chapters somewhere around 5,000-6,000 words per chapter so they won't all have that much meat and action to them (as you may be able to tell). I went a little over this chapter, but the goal is to update this story in a more timely manner (as I have a bad habit of letting the intervals between story updates drag on for a long time!), so let me know if you guys prefer longer or shorter chapters (obviously with longer or shorter intervals, respectively). My bad if there are any accidental spelling or grammatical mistakes. I'm not a fan of proofreading as I'm not doing this for a grade ^.^!
Anyway, thank you to anyone and everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I hope you enjoy the second!