i'd just like to say thanks to Yuti-chan for the review, fave, and alert. hope you like this chapter, too. oh, and i'll want another review before i put up the next one.
Chapter 2: First attempt
Within the next few hours, the Band of Seven members finish what the wolf started, while Bankotsu keeps an eye on his new pet. She repeatedly tries to use her claws to cut through the metal of her new collar, but any scratches she puts in it are repaired somehow within seconds. She doesn't like Bankotsu's hand in her fur, but something seems to be keeping her from doing more than growling at him. He quickly figures out that it's the collar preventing her from biting him as long as he holds the chain attached to it.
As the moon starts to go down, though, the wolf stops fighting him altogether and passes out in his lap. Imagine his surprise when his pet wolf starts to transform into a hanyou woman as the sun comes up. She has waist length golden hair with a small pink streak in her bangs, a series of scars along the left side of her throat, and her fangs are longer than those of a normal hanyou, but otherwise, she can pass for human. His biggest problem, though, is that she's totally naked when she transforms, leaving him in an awkward position with her sleeping in his lap.
She wakes up a few minutes later, revealing that her eyes are the same icy blue as the wolf's. The collar shrank to fit her human neck when she transformed, but when she comes fully awake, her entire face heats up as she realizes that she's in Bankotsu's lap with nothing but her hair covering certain vital areas. She refuses to look at his face as she says quietly, "I-I left some clothes in the forest….can I go and get them, please?"
Bankotsu quickly regains his composure and smirks when he sees her blush, "I'm coming with you."
Her face turns a brighter shade of red, but she nods, apparently just wanting to put on her clothes. She's careful to keep her hair covering her breasts as she leads him over to a tree at the edge of the forest that has a gap in the roots. She quickly reaches into the gap and pulls out a slightly tattered pale pink bag. (it's a backpack similar to Kagome's, but Bankotsu doesn't know what it's called.) She asks quietly if she can go behind the tree to get dressed, and he lets go of enough of the chain for her to do that.
Once behind the tree, she quickly pulls on a black silk kimono decorated sparsely with golden lightning bolt designs, securing it closed with a matching obi before lifting part of the chain as quietly as possible and hooking it onto a branch close to the level of her collar. She then uses her claws to cut through the chain as close to the collar as she can, moving away from Bankotsu before he can realize what she's done and before the cut ends of the chain can reseal themselves. She runs into the woods on silent feet, going almost too fast to be seen as she rushes through the trees. The chain quickly regrows itself from where she cut it, and she stops just long enough to wrap the chain around her waist so it won't snag and slow her down, but her pause is enough for Bankotsu to catch up to her and tackle her to the ground, putting them both in an awkward position as he knocks the wind out of her.
He uses the remains of the chain she left behind to tie her clawed hands together behind her back, growling a bit in anger as her sleeves get in the way. He finally rips the sleeves completely off of her kimono, secures the chain around her wrists, and pulls her back to her feet, saying, "Nice try, pet. You're mine now, and I keep what's mine."
She flexes her clawed fingers a little when she notices that he's secured her bag to his obi somehow as he drags her along beside him, now holding onto her by the base of the regrown chain. She refuses to speak to him as he rejoins the other members of his band. When he sees that Kanna and Kohaku have joined his group, he smirks again, "To what do I owe the pleasure, kids? New orders from Naraku?"
Kohaku looks curiously at the hanyou standing obviously against her will beside Bankotsu as Kanna says in her monotone voice, "Naraku has given us orders to leave his newest follower with you. She has apparently been raised as a messenger by her former master."
As Kanna says this, a twelve year old girl steps up next to her, her inu-gold eyes blank in the look of having her mind completely under Naraku's control. She looks eerily like Inuyasha, right down to the dog ears and red kimono. At the girl's waist is a pair of fans similar to Kagura's. Kanna looks at her as she finishes telling Bankotsu his orders and says, "You're to stay with brother and follow his orders."
The girl nods and says in a tone similar to Kanna's, "Yes, sister."
Bankotsu raises an eyebrow at their words, looking to Kohaku for an explanation as Kanna turns to leave. Kohaku shrugs, "It's the illusion Master Naraku put into her head to control her. She's fiercely loyal to anyone she's told is family to her."
Kohaku doesn't add that the illusion is transmitted into her mind via a jewel shard embedded so deeply into her forehead that she would die almost instantly if it were removed, but Bankotsu gets the idea and nods his understanding before Kohaku follows after Kanna, leaving the girl behind with the Band of Seven and the leader's new pet hanyou.
