Disclaimer: This story is based on "Inuyasha," copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of copyright intended or implied.
Restraint
The second attack surprised him. He staggered under the blast, eyes widening as his cool, precise control over his human-seeming appearance cracked and buckled. He felt his normal restraints crumpling as he started to change. The hot, lusting instincts of his blood howled for escape, infuriated by the pure, untrammeled insolence of the human priests. They dared?
He snarled, feeling his jaws elongating to accommodate jagged teeth, eyes reddening. The energy from the purifying blast snapped and crackled, eroding his control, stinging with pain. His inner beast howled in even greater fury, eager to trample the impudent nothings under his feet, to feast on their blood, to dissolve their bones into nothingness. They dared think they could destroy him?
He refused. In the middle of the maelstrom, in the vortex of battling reiki and youki, he refused to let his true form escape, refused the easier path. His youki overcame the reiki, shattering it and reflecting the remnants back to their source. Before the inner beast could howl triumph, he reasserted his control, forcing his youki and his heated instincts back into submission.
The winds of combat died, and in the middle of a strip of devastation, surrounded by a loose circle of sprawled, helpless monks, he stood, unruffled, unchanged. Rin walked up to him, fearless and trusting.
"Rin."
"Hai?"
"Do as you please."
"Hai!" She grinned.
He turned and left. She followed.
His attackers lived.
For her, he would restrain himself.
That she never be afraid—
—Of him.
Author's Note: This piece was written for the prompt "Escape", for the Issekiwa community on LiveJournal. It was originally posted on August 5, 2010. It won the contest.