Toyfriend
Chapter 25: Tainted Target

They were married. It seemed so strange, so foreign, so unreal, but they were. She was no longer Higurashi Kagome but now… Takamoru Kagome. It was meant to keep her safe, to help protect her from Naraku, and to intertwine her more with Gami. She wasn't so sure that the marriage actually did any good. After all, the night of it, Naraku showed up anyway.

He wasn't afraid of the Takamorus, he wasn't afraid of Gami, he wasn't afraid of anything. He made it a point to show her that... that was what she was afraid of.

Those were the types of thoughts that kept her from sleeping well, that got her to wake up early and look over the man that slept beside her. Was that how she was really going to wake up for the rest of his life? With Inuyasha by her side, sleeping soundly. She might like that but…

Still she didn't know.

Her hazels shifted from him then to his bedroom. Their bedroom, she guessed was the proper term since they were asked - rather forced - to move in together after the marriage. She felt a little bad about bailing on Ayame and Kaede so soon but it was paid for because of her so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Really… she didn't know if she was ready to live with him but they were both at work so often that it didn't seem like they were together all day every day. But still, they were living together and had been for a whole month. He was a bit messy which annoyed her and she kept touching his stuff which bothered him.

"It's Saturday," caught her attention to get her to turn her hazels down to the golden ones that looked up at her. "And it's eight… so why are you awake?"

"Why are you?" she replied.

"I am going back to sleep," he answered as he turned on his side to shut his lids once more. "You should, too."

"Right," she whispered as she lied back down to look at his back. Sleep would elude her for an hour, though she tried, so she gave up, got up, and took a shower instead. After that she wrapped her robe around herself and towel dried her hair before she started to make breakfast. Some days Inuyasha would sleep in until well after noon, others he'd be up by ten. It depended on how late he stayed up and last night they were in bed by a reasonable time. She went out with her fiends last night instead of staying in with him.

When she got home she passed up the opportunity to have sex, much against his dismay. She simply wasn't in the mood.

"That smells good," she heard right as she was platting everything. She smiled as she looked up to Inuyasha, shirtless, in nothing but his boxers as he walked over to sit on a stool on the counter and wait to be served. He was a lazy ass on the weekends.

"Eat," she requested with a wave of her hands. No more needed to be said, he began to chow down right away. Watching him eat was never something she enjoyed so she took her food and sat down at the table to look out the window while she ate her food. Sometime after she began he must have finished because he worked over to sit down next to her.

"What's wrong? You're acting weird today," Inuyasha asserted to look over his wife. Yes, his wife… it was weird. He never really thought that he would get married. But if he had to then getting married to Kagome was the best plan of actions. She had her off and on moments, like anyone, and lately it seemed to be off. She constantly had second thoughts on the marriage, just as he did, but today she seemed pretty damn off.

"Nothing, tired I guess, I couldn't sleep," she lied with a simple shrug of one shoulder. She didn't even know what it was but that day she just felt… bothered, like she'd rather be left alone. If she just had a day without Inuyasha then she was sure she could recharge and be happy again. It wasn't that she was unhappy, it was just that she wasn't feeling like dealing with people right then.

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

"I don't know."

"Kagome," Inuyasha slowly dragged out until she looked to him. He was concerned with her behavior, that much was obvious, but she didn't know what else to say. She just felt like… she shook her head lightly. "Kagome?"

"I don't know, sometimes I just don't sleep well. I mean your bed is comfortable and all but I liked mine better."

"That's it?"

She nodded her head, it was true. Her bed was smaller but she liked it better, but he had to have a big bed. He was intolerable to deal with sometimes. But she loved him anyway, that thought did get her to smile which seemed to ease whatever worry he had.

"You're cute when you worry," she taunted while she reached out to tweak his ear, which got a cold stare in return. "Aw, poor Inu-baby."

"Don't call me that," he ordered, "I dislike that name."

"Inu-honey?"

He shook his head.

"Honey bunny?"

"Stop screwing with me," he grumbled as he leaned back in his seat.

"I love you," she assured him while she reached out to hold his hand, "but sometimes I don't like this whole living together thing."

"Me either, but I guess it's probably just something we are going to have to get use to, huh?"

"I agree," she answered while she returned her gaze to outside the window. Sometimes she wanted to be alone but more often than naught she was perfectly fine with being with Inuyasha. It would just take time to adjust to living together and married. Maybe it would just be temporary… or maybe it would be for forever.

At the time being, she wasn't sure which one she preferred.

.oooOoOooo.

Working could be annoying. Sometimes she just didn't want to do it and others she got stuck without any knowledge of how to fix the hitch she was on. Others she just was lazy… that day it was a bit of all. She was annoyed her project, frustrated with being stuck, and generally bored of it. She had been working on it for two months - almost as long as she had been living with her husband.

Sometimes it was still weird to catch the shine of her ring on her left hand. She was married. It was odd.

That and how everyone called her Mrs. Takamoru… everyone was so much more respectful now that she was Mrs. Takamoru. She still had the same set of friends, the ones that were her actual friends, plenty of people wanted to get to know her now that she had the prestigious Takamoru title and the money that came with it.

Ayame, the pretty pregnant Sango, and her were all ready to go to lunch that day but Sango had a meeting that would delay her so just her and her red headed friend made their way to the restaurant that was no more than a block away. It was something they did often but it wasn't supposed to be a problem. It never had been before yet…

It was that time. That time they never made it to the restaurant, on their walk a black unmarked van pulled up beside them, two people leaped out. One knocked Ayame out, the other grabbed Kagome and threw her into the car. The next thing she knew a bag was over her head and she heard the tires peel away.

There was always someone watching her when she wasn't at Gami or with Inuyasha, she knew that, so she thought that they would find a way to stop the vehicle. But it kept going… which meant that at least someone would know she was gone. That she had been kidnapped.

Which meant Inuyasha would and he would save her. He always did. That was what she kept telling herself at least while they continued. Her heart sped, her breath quickened, and she wanted nothing more than to struggle free but she couldn't. Someone was holding her too tight - two someones it would seem since there were two pairs of hand on each of her arm.

It apparently didn't matter how loud she was because they let her scream continuous, "get away! Let me go! Help!"

But it didn't matter how much she screamed, how raw she made her throat, because she wasn't saved. She was delivered to where she was supposed to get to. The two that kidnapped her dragged her out of the van, still kicking and screaming and trying her most to get away from them… but they were stronger.

She was still flung into a chair, still held down, and it was only then that the black bag was pulled off her head to reveal the living room of an apartment that she would never forget. It was elegant, expensive, and yet creepy. It was Naraku's place.

It was her biological father's, rather sperm donor's place. She knew right away that getting kidnapped was his place. That it was his doing but that didn't make her feel any better to have that verified.

The bedroom door opened up, the place he had gone to take a nap when she had first escaped the place, and he looked rather wicked. But ever so pleased. His crimson, creeping, gaze glanced over her a thousand times in a thousand different ways before meeting her hot hazels. The ones that sizzled with disgust and hatred.

"You won't be looking at me like that for long," he assured her, in an oddly assured yet soft voice. That unsettled her more than anything else. "Don't fuck up like your brothers," he ordered once his crimons crept up to the other two.

"Don't talk bad about the dead, Naraku, or else something very bad might happen to you," the oldest looking one, on her right, with a long braid of black hair, demanded.

"Keep her here for the night while I make arrangements, you weren't followed, were you?"

The girlish one that she recognized, Jakotsu, answered, "no, we were very careful on that. She had two guards following her but we eluded them an hour ago."

"You better be right," he retorted before he turned around and walked back into his bedroom.

.oooOoOooo.

It was a sickening feeling, to have someone loved, someone dearly precious to him, taken like that. He had assigned guards to follow her at all times when she wasn't with him… they were supposed to be the best. They were supposed to keep her safe. He'd beat the utter shit out of them once he got his hands on them.

Naraku had her. Naraku had Kagome and he didn't know what he was doing to her. Was she in pain? Naraku wouldn't kill her. At least he didn't think so but he'd hurt her… he'd do unimaginable things to her.

The worst part was that Inuyasha didn't know what to do, where to go, how to find his wife. Kagome was his wife and that was supposed to protect her. Fat lot of good that did them. She was gone and that was his fault. He failed to protect her. She was his wife and that was his job.

To protect her.

"Inuyasha," his father said to gain his attention. He didn't bother to turn around, to look away from the site that Kagome had been taken from. He could hear plenty fine. "We'll find her."

"You don't know that," he whispered back. "We haven't been able to find Naraku yet… she's with him, we won't find her."

"Inuyasha," he could hear his father walk closer to him, feel him place his hand on his shoulder. "We've got a lead, the guards followed them a good distance, if we set up a grid search-"

"Yeah, sure," he snapped as he shrugged his hand off his shoulder and stepped away, "whatever. If you say so."

There was a warped wrath within him, a small vacuum that zapped away the goodness and left him with festering frustration and fear. Anger over what had happened to Kagome… how she was lost. Terror over what will happen to her.. what was. He'd do anything to find her, to help her, to save her but that didn't matter.

He was helpless to help the woman he loved. Just that morning she was in bed with him… just that morning she was the warmth against him. Her pillow probably still smelled of her. The night before they had made love. He had felt her everywhere and yet she was gone now… and he couldn't find her.

He couldn't save her. It was the worst possible feeling in the world. He hated it almost as much as he did himself for letting this happen.

When he got her back - if he got her back - he'd never let her out of his sight again.

.oooOoOooo.

At some point in the night, apparently, much against her will she had fallen asleep because when she woke up she found herself not in the chair being held back by the brothers but on a table. A table that certainly didn't appear to be in the same apartment. The room was dark, the walls empty, and the ceiling old with a stain in the upper right corner.

She tried to move right away but couldn't. There was a cool breeze that made the hair on her skin stand on edge, that gave her Goosebumps all up her belly. All she could do was lift her head just enough off the table to see that her hands were strapped down just like her ankles. She was also missing her shirt. That set off more alarms than being tied down did. At least her bra was still on.

"Good morning, daughter of mine," caught her attention, it got her to look over to see him at the door where Naraku was, polishing off something very shinny in his hand. Something that made the pit of her stomach queasy. She swallowed as she watched him walk closer.

The way his eyes centered on her stomach worried her more than the fact that her shirt was gone. When she saw what was in his hand… a scalpel. "Wh-What are you going to do with that?" she whispered. "Wh… what are you doing?"

"I'm helping you, remember how I said you'd thank me for taking out the shikon?" he inquired, he could not help but ravish in the way her heart popped with fear just as her eyes did. "I take that as a yes. I did that so that your demon blood, the part of you that belonged to me, could be set free. And it is has."

He held up the shikon, the warped, black and purple thing that it had become so that she could see.

"It was also pure inside of you, pure in every shikon nymph I found. Now it's not. Now you'll thank me for putting it back in," he said with a smile.

"No, no, no, no!" She begged, pleaded, as she tried to struggle free.

"Stay still or else I might cut into the wrong thing," he said to her as he placed his hand on her lower left abdomen, right where he had stabbed her before. She didn't know what to do, even if she struggled he'd still cut into her again.

So she froze with fear… then screamed in pain as she felt the knife pierce through her skin.

A/N: So thanks as usual for the reviews. I'm sorry for the late update but I was stuck. So here's the next chapter, albeit it short. I hope you still enjoyed it and hope you will continue to review.

Next Chapter:A Banana For A Chipmunk?