'How could this have fuckin' happened?' InuYasha ignored the frequent cries of his friends as he tore through the city, not paying any attention to the screams and gasps as the people in the streets caught a glimpse of the runaway hanyou. 'Baka! Baka, baka baka!' he cursed, mentally berating himself over and over. How could he have been so blind?

As soon as Kikyou had been sighted by the humans of this city, she would have left the area immediately, for there was one person and one person only on her 'people-to-keep-alive' list, and that person was Kikyou herself. Not only that, but most of the people in the city hadn't even seen Kikyou, they were just freaking out because whoever had seen her had started telling tall tales about her. Rumors had a way of spreading like wildfire, and soon the whole city had been buzzing with whispers of youkai. The samurai had searched for her, but of course there was nothing for them to find. Kikyou had long since been gone from the place. Regardless of the fact that he had never seen her, the malcontent of the people had prompted the lord of the region to send for a houshi-the houshi Tôjirô, to be specific.

Still, the final nail in InuYasha's coffin of stupidity was the fact that he had unthinkingly brought Kikyou's reincarnation into a city where the undead miko was feared, and not just that, but he let her go off by herself. Of course someone would catch sight of her, and, thinking that they were seeing the dark miko, would tell Tôjirô about her before they were hurt (and, of course, to get the credit for turning in the controller of youkai who had been 'terrorizing' their city).

'If Tôjirô has done anything to her, I swear I won't rest until I crack his head open, fuckin' houshi!' InuYasha mentally roared. If Tetsusaiga hadn't been hanging at his hip, the hanyou would surely have gone full-youkai in his anger and loathing toward the houshi. 'Damn him!'

Behind him, InuYasha could hear the sounds of his friends as they frantically followed him, yelling something which was lost amidst the pounding of the blood in his ears. 'I can't stop for anything! I have to, HAVE TO find Kagome before that fuckin' houshi does something to her!'

But where would he even start to look? When Kagome and Miroku had first started searching for signs of Tôjirô or Kikyou, InuYasha had been fighting off the spell that would mean his transformation back into a dog, so he hadn't exactly been paying attention to the direction she was going. In addition the sheer population size of this city meant that Kagome's scent trail was buried under hundreds, maybe even thousands of different scent-trails that each and every individual exuded. Trying to sort through them all would waste time InuYasha knew he didn't have.

'Damn it all,' InuYasha cursed, leaping into the air and clearing several startled merchants at once. 'What do I do? Where do I go?'

Then an idea came to the hanyou, an idea that probably should have come to him earlier. Kagome had last been seen near the castle. Additionally, the lord of the region was the one who had hired Tôjirô to get rid of the 'dark miko.' Continuing on that line of thought, Tôjirô would go to the castle first to present the 'dark miko' he had captured to the lord. And, since the day was rapidly descending into evening, most of the inhabitants of the city were starting to go home, meaning that InuYasha would have a much easier time sifting through fresh and stale scents than before, now that the throngs of humanity were thinning.

'Maybe I can get a lead there!' he thought wildly, darting over to the large ancestral castle that dominated a quarter of the city's landscape.

After he made it to the castle, InuYasha made a quick circle around its perimeter, sniffing around for some sign of either Kagome or Tôjirô. When he arrived at the Southern side of the castle, the sun had sunken fully, and only the crimson glow from the red-light district could really be seen in the darkened city.

"Dammit!" InuYasha cursed, punching the wall of the castle as he sank to his knees. "I'm not getting anywhere!" Never in his life had his nose been so confused! The scents around the castle were so diverse, so different, so salty...

'Hang on-salty?' InuYasha sniffed again, ears flattening to his skull as he sank to his knees, hands on the ground as he snuffled like the dog the spell forced him to transform into. There it was again! The scent of salt! 'So familiar...' he thought, his brow furrowing in concentration as his head dropped even lower, his nose almost touching the ground as he sniffed again.

A memory surfaced as the hanyou focused on the scent of salt. A memory of Kagome, looking down on his human form when his mortal body had been wracked with poisons, two streams of pearly tears trailing down her cheeks.'This is...the scent of Kagome's tears!' InuYasha realized, his golden eyes jerking open as his muscles locked. Now that he was on his hands and knees, InuYasha could tell that the ground around the Southern entrance of the castle was permeated with the smell of Kagome's tears, and, lingering around some scuff-marks was the smell of blood.

Blood. InuYasha felt his hackles rising as his lips drew back to reveal his fangs in a feral snarl. Tôjirô had wounded Kagome. Oh yes, he knew it was the houshi who had done it; that damn bastard's scent was stronger around the scuff-marks than Kagome's. Judging by the way the footprints around and through the scuff-marks were positioned, InuYasha guessed that Tôjirô had dragged Kagome out of the castle.

"You won't get away with this, you bastard," InuYasha snarled, following the scent as swiftly as he could, given his crouched position. "You mess with her, you mess with me!"

Deep within a temple located in the city's heart, Tôjirô was drawing something on the floor with what looked like a piece of old charcoal. As he penned out each symbol, he muttered something under his breath, his opposite hand curled up into a fist with the middle and index fingers held out as he worked. Kagome watched him from the altar under which she had been placed. Tôjirô hadn't bothered to gag her when he moved her from the castle to the temple, but then again, he really didn't need to. The pain of Kagome's most likely bruised bone in her leg and her most definitely broken rib was enough to keep her still and silent. Even her breathing was more quiet than it usually was, since breathing regularly jarred her broken rib and made her convulse in pain.

'Kami, someone please free me from this hell,' she thought, a tear sliding down her face to disappear into the faded wooden grain of the floor.

"Feeling sorry for yourself, are you?" Tôjirô asked as he rose from the floor. "If you think you can bemoan your way into freedom, don't count on it. I've never been one for pity."

"Why..." Kagome whispered, screwing up her face as she tried to ignore the pain in her chest. "Why...can't you...listen? Why...can't you show...some...mercy?"

Tôjirô's eyes flashed as he picked up his staff and brandished it at her. "Mercy? Mercy? I, Tôjirô, should show a cock-sucking youkai fucker like you mercy?" The rage in Tôjirô's eyes was mounting to that point between reason and insanity again as he shouted, "Like the mercy the youkai showed my mother when they raped and murdered her? Like the mercy my kind old master Chikanaka received when the youkai attacked him and ripped his head off? Or like the mercy the youkai show to each and every human they happen to come across? Is that what you want from me? Do you want to feel what forty years of hating youkai can do to my mercy?"

Kagome tried not to shiver, but it was a hard thing to not do. Never in her life had she imagined such a warped person could become a man of the cloth, and yet, here he was, standing over her, his eyes filled with twisted rage and hatred. The speech said holy man had just delivered removed all of the hope from Kagome's heart. There was no way on Earth Tôjirô was going to free her if he knew she consorted with youkai, and why would he? He had seen so many terrible things, it was hard not to feel what he felt.

'Although,' Kagome thought, a deep crimson blush spreading over her cheeks, 'What I am to InuYasha...is totally and completely wrong! I-I mean...I would never...could never...' The thought was cut short when Kagome received yet another blow to her body, this time on her right arm. She whimpered, biting her lip as the sharp edge of the star cut her upper arm, causing blood to soak her sleeve as it trailed down in a small crimson river.

"It is time, dark miko. Time for you to be rendered worthless," Tôjirô announced, dragging Kagome to her knees as he stared down into her brown eyes. "Now you will see what true weakness feels like!" Tôjirô threw Kagome with all his strength, leaping away as he did so and placing his staff firmly on the ground. Kagome landed with a pained cry right in the middle of the charcoal circle, just as Tôjirô raised his hand and began to chant. Both the star on his staff and the circle beneath Kagome began to glow an eerie blue.

At first, Kagome thought it wouldn't work. After all, most spells didn't work on her, right? Then the blue light of the circle beneath her turned into blue lightning, arching over and into her body. The bolts were white-hot, burning the miko to the depths of her soul. A pain twisted through her, a terribly fearsome pain that made her scream in agony. It was akin to being dumped in a vat of Naraku's shouki, while at the same time having her insides twisted up by a giant screwdriver. The miko wailed again, her body convulsing horribly, the ropes holding her snapping like dandelion stems under the strain of her writhing body.

Tôjirô's gray eyes were as hard as two shards of flint as he straightened his back, looking down at the screaming and writhing miko beneath him with the utmost contempt. "Feel the pain, bitch," he snarled softly. "Feel the pain of your body becoming that of an animal's!"

InuYasha was still following the scent of Tôjirô and Kagome's blood, his nose practically pressed to the ground as he faithfully tailed the houshi and miko, when it happened. A piercing scream ripped through the night, tearing through the peace and tranquility like the Kaze-no-Kizu ripped through youkai. People rushed out of the huts and houses that lined the streets, looking left and right with terrified looks on their faces as the screaming grew louder.

InuYasha's delicate dog-ears were almost overwhelmed by the pain-filled howls reverberating through the city. He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and hunker down until the noise abated, but he couldn't. He couldn't, not when Kagome was screaming in pain like this.

"FUCKER!" he roared, ears flattening to his head as he leaped up, soaring through the air as he sought out the source of the terrible sounds. 'What the fuck is he DOING to her?' Anger and anguish lent their power to the hanyou, making him much faster than he was normally. His legs were a scarlet blur beneath him, his hair a silver storm cloud about his head. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK!'

A small temple loomed in his nearly reddened vision. The screams were louder than ever now, cutting through his ears like a thousand tiny knives. InuYasha charged forth, his head maddened by the sounds of Kagome's pain, as well as the smell of blood that leaked out from the cracks in the temple door.

CRACKABOOM!

Tôjirô was nearly blasted off of his feet as the temple door exploded into hundreds of sharp splinters, several of which tore through his clothes and his skin, leaving tiny trails of blood all over his body. The houshi whipped about, cursing as the blue lightning surrounding Kagome's body abated, interrupted by the storm of splinters.

"Who dares to interrupt me while I exorcise this evil woman?" Tôjirô shouted, his face going impossibly red with anger as his hands clutched his staff so hard that the veins stood out, blue against his white skin. "Who dares to stop me?"

"Shut up, you fuckin' great windbag!" A fist flew out of the dark hole that had once been the doorway, catching Tôjirô in the cheek and sending him spinning into a statue of the Buddha. InuYasha ignored the houshi's groans as he sped toward the girl lying on the floor. His anger grew to an impossible depth when he got close enough to see how she was curled up, blood seeping out of a wound on her arm. Other than that, she looked unharmed.

'But she was definitely in pain...what was he doing to her?' he wondered, picking her up and cradling her in his arms. She curled up to him, whimpering softly as the tears continued to trail down her face. "What has that mother fuckin' houshi done to you, Kagome?" InuYasha growled, his hand traveling slowly from her waist to her chest, where a chunk of her shirt was missing, some coagulated blood marring the edges of the missing piece. Bruises marked the visible parts of her back and legs, and there was that wound...

'Damned fucker was BEATING her!' he yowled in his mind, ears flat against his skin as his rage was rekindled. Slowly, InuYasha got up, placing Kagome safely down on the floor.

The hanyou was about to go beat the snot out of the houshi when something caught his eye; something near Kagome that was not Kagome had moved. He looked down, tensing, ready to fight the...whatever it might be. The 'whatever it might be' was a coal-black, furry snake-looking thing, lying perpendicular to Kagome's butt as it moved slowly over the ground. InuYasha pounced, pinning it to the ground as he lifted one hand to kill it. Kagome let out a cry of pain as she stirred restlessly, her eyes darting about beneath their lids.

"Sorry," he muttered, jerking back as he released the black thing from the prison of his hand. It flicked and tucked itself closer to Kagome, almost like...almost like... 'Almost like a tail,' InuYasha thought.

Before the thought could go any further, his ears twitched as a shiver of awareness ran down his spine. InuYasha leaped aside, grabbing Kagome as Tôjirô's staff whistled past the spot where his head had been, landing with a thunk in the wooden floor as the houshi lunged forth from the shadows of the dark temple. "How dare you, youkai," Tôjirô growled, using one of his sleeves to wipe away the blood from a wound on his head, "How dare you try to interfere with my work! First you break my dokko and cause me to have to find a new weapon, then you humiliate me in front of an entire village by attacking me, and now you stop me from exorcising your evil little whore? Your gall is never-ending!"

InuYasha snarled at the houshi, ears flattening to his head as he gritted out, "What do you mean, how do I dare? How dare you attack Kagome, you bastard! How DARE you call her such foul names! I don't know what kind of a houshi you are, but only a coward would resort to turning youkai into animals for the sole purpose of making them weak!"

Tôjirô's eyes narrowed at the insults, but he seemed to contain his anger as he eyed InuYasha with the disinterested expertise of one who studies bugs for a living. "One thing I must know...how are you fighting my spell? How can you stand there as a youkai and not as a filthy mongrel like my spell should make you be?" Tôjirô asked, his hands twisting almost nervously on his staff.

"How should I know? Maybe you're gettin' weaker in your old age, jijii," InuYasha taunted, tucking Kagome closer to his chest as he edged toward the door. 'If I can just get Kagome to safety...I don't even care if my spell's broken, as long as she's safe...'

Tôjirô saw what InuYasha was doing and moved to block him. "You won't escape me so easily, you-" Tôjirô cut himself off, his eyes widening as something seemed to dawn on him. "You're...not a youkai," Tôjirô gasped, his eyes as round as coins as he stared at InuYasha. "How could I have missed something so obvious?" The houshi moved back, holding his staff in both hands as the anger returned to his face. "No...you're even worse than a youkai, you...you...filthy, dirty hanyou!"

InuYasha's growl returned full force to his throat, his eyes narrowing and his ears flattening further as he glared daggers at the houshi across from him. "Care to repeat that, bastard?" he hissed through clenched fangs.

"So that's why the spell is wavering," Tôjirô mused, completely ignoring him. "It was meant for a full-blooded youkai, not a mistake of nature like you." Tôjirô straightened, his eyes contemptuous as he glared at InuYasha with what was unmistakeably loathing in his gaze. "After all, most hanyou do the world a favor and die off after birth, if they're not drowned by those decent enough to care for the future of humanity. So unfortunate that the bitch who birthed you couldn't do the same."

"Y'know what?" InuYasha managed to snarl, his entire body trembling with ill-suppressed rage as he slowly lowered Kagome to the ground. "I don't usually kill humans, but you..." InuYasha didn't even finish the sentence as he leaped at the houshi, teeth bared and claws outstretched.

"You are a fool to think you can even touch me!" Tôjirô swung his staff about to meet the hanyou's wild charge. InuYasha brought his hands forth and caught the staff before it could hit him in the chest. He grunted as the spiritual power within the weapon started to burn his hands, but InuYasha held on tight, determined to break the houshi's weapon in two. Since it was the six-pointed star atop the staff that had made him into a dog, surely breaking it would cause the spell upon him to be broken for good.

However, it was not to be. Tôjirô stared down at him, smirking as his eyes glinted malevolently. "Do you honestly think that you can defeat me by grabbing my staff?" The star atop the staff started glowing with blue light as Tôjirô started chanting. InuYasha's body froze like it had in the forest as the light slowly moved over his body. The twisting was curling through him again, more painful than ever before.

'NO! You WILL NOT curse me again!' InuYasha focused all of his power into destroying Tôjirô's staff, sweat breaking out on his face as he gritted his teeth, concentrating on moving the hands on Tôjirô's staff before they turned back into useless paws and he was no longer able to stand.

With a great roar of anger and pain, the hanyou managed to push the staff away and shoved the houshi with all of his strength. Tôjirô shot backward and crashed through the wall, the wood splintering as his back smashed through the temple and sent him tumbling into the streets. InuYasha collapsed, panting, a painful sort of numbness spreading through his body as he fought the sudden exhaustion that ran through his entire being.

'Kami dammit,' he thought, sinking onto his haunches as he started licking one of his burned silver paws. 'I'm glad that's-' With a sudden dread, he realized what he was doing. InuYasha held out the paw he had been licking, studying it with a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Dammit!" InuYasha howled, his muzzle rising to the ceiling as he yowled to the uncaring sky. "Why the fuck am I back like this AGAIN?"

A low moan suddenly rose from his left. Turning to the side, InuYasha could see Kagome stirring on the ground, rising into an upright position as her hands clutched her head. InuYasha darted over to her, cursing himself for forgetting Kagome for even a second. "Kagome, are you all right?" he asked anxiously, not caring if Kagome understood him or not. His tail wagged frantically behind him as he fixed her with a concerned golden stare.

"Don't worry, Inu. I'm fine," Kagome groaned. "Can you get the number of the bus that ran me over?"

InuYasha cocked his head, wondering what the hell she meant by that before remembering that she had used the expression once before when she'd had a headache. "Yeah, well, I'm glad to see you're..." InuYasha tailed off as a thought occurred belatedly to him. "Kagome...you can understand me?" he asked, confused.

"Well, you're not exactly mumbling, InuYasha," Kagome told him. She looked just as confused as he felt.

"I know that, but...fuck, I'm a dog right now! How can you understand me?" he practically shouted, a bark exiting his mouth as he jumped a few inches in the air.

Kagome looked shocked. "You're...Kami, you're right! How can I...I..." Kagome trailed off, her hands slowly moving from her face to her head as she slowly massaged her skull. A screech of horror exited her mouth, causing InuYasha to leap back in shock, growling slightly as he remonstrated her for her scream.

"What the fuck was that fo-"

"What has that houshi done to me?" Kagome wailed, her hands clamped on her head as something writhed agitatedly behind her. InuYasha's eye was caught by the movement, and he could see the black thing again, wiggling about as Kagome whimpered and clamped her hands to her head.

"Oh, SHIT."

The black thing was indeed a tail, a cat's tail which peeked out of the bottom of Kagome's skirt as it waved about like a flag. Also, Kagome's hands were trying to mask the two coal black cat-ears that perched on her head, much like InuYasha's dog-ears did when he was normal, except the cat ears were larger and slightly more flimsy-looking than his dog-ears. Tôjirô hadn't managed to completely transform Kagome, but the spell hadn't been entirely ineffective, either.

"Kagome..." InuYasha whined as he pushed his cold nose into Kagome's stomach, "What the fuck has that houshi DONE to you?"

A/N: Kagome's transformation is very partially based off of the doujinshi Neko Moe. Good manga, but VERY not safe for work.