Thank you for the lovely reviews. I am so excited this got nominated best Angst! I'll update with the voting period for Feudal Connection on Tumblr once it's listed. I think it might be the end of January-Feb 15th but I'm not sure.

**Announcement*** I try to do 2 chapters a week but school is starting again on Monday. I'm taking 2 classes and I don't know the work-load yet to gauge how much posting I will be able to do. So there may be delays. You can follow me on twitter or tumblr for updates if you aren't on FFN as a member.

Interlude V

Of course there were other things she didn't think about being in dog form most of the time. Simple things like being dragged to animal doctors and them demanding that she get shots in her ass. At night she used the family computer while everyone slept and learned enough to know that the injections wouldn't hurt her. She allowed them to happen. How else was she to prove she was a 'good dog'?

She was also forced to attend classes with Nina that taught both of them how to communicate with each other. The highlight was when another dog decided to mount her backside. She was desperate to lose her virginity but not to a boxer with ugly speckles on his nose. Taka let loose on the offending humper and slammed him into the ground. Ewww…

Nina was enrolled by her social worker into Lighthouse for the Deaf and Blind and eventually moved from the Fireman's house to another and then another and another placement. Her one consistent companion was Taka. She now sported a fancy bright pink harness with the emblem of "Service Dog" on it. She led Nina to and from her classes. She watched intently as Nina was taught first to finger sign and then Tadoma. Tadoma involve Nina placing her fingers delicately on the jaws and lips of the speaker and learning to recognize the movements as words. Her mind was blown when she began to understand that the things she touched had names.

Taka gazed on in awe as her little girl began to see the world through her fingers. She liked coarse things the best. Scarred emblems, pens and pencils, sand, and 3D maps. The child was insatiably curious about the world around her. On the schoolyard, Nina would take her shoes and socks off and run around barefoot with Nina jogging next to her to keep her from running into the slides and swings. Just because they were blind and deaf, didn't mean they couldn't learn to fly. It was fall, Nina stepped on a crunchy orange leaf. She dropped to her knees and made a pile of the foliage in her lap. With each one, she ran her fingers up the spines as if she were caressing a lover. Leaf, she signed to Taka. Red like his eyes. Purple like his stripes. Hair like snow.

For the first few years Nina refused to try to learn to speak. It wasn't until she was twelve and placed with the Richmond's who lived in a middle-class neighborhood in a house with an open layout that Nina started coming into her own.

The Richmond's were already fostering two other girls, one a teenager named Linda and a little girl named Rosa who was ten. Linda and Rosa were both deaf. The Richmond's had a son who was grown and in college who had also been deaf and despite having a cochlear they had made sure that he learned ASL and educated himself. After Nina had been with them for eight months she tried to say her first word. She pointed at her furry companion and said, "Loooo," and after another year of speech therapy, the white dog that followed her around finally had a name, "Lucy."

Taka did her part to make sure that Nina's needs were cared for. She had always been gifted at embroidery. She began making her designs in the middle of the night when the house was silent and everyone slept. She kept them hidden in a box in the back of the closet in Nina's room where the parents never looked. She opened her own Etsy account and sold her designs. She took care of mailing the items when no one would notice her missing and was rather surprised at how quickly her store took off.

Nina had also learned to type. Taka purchased her a MacBook for her twelfth birthday. It was left as a present at the school front desk. The demoness left it at the administration office of the school and said it was from a kind neighbor who wanted to make sure the girl got the best of everything she needed. Nina lit up and began learning to type at school. Eventually the typing became stories and one night after Nina nearly got herself grounded for refusing to go to bed Taka snuck onto the computer to see what the girl was writing.

She was a bright little girl, with big brown eyes. Her hair was matted around the side. She wasn't always like this. She lived in a small village that kept fish in a pond so that everyone could take what they needed to eat. There were fields that grew vegetables and trees that grew fruit.

Then one day, night robbers came and killed her family. She was only seven and so alone. She spent her days foraging in the forest because the villagers didn't want her to eat their food. She lived in a hut on the edge of the woods by herself.

One day she went into the forest to find food. She was cold and hungry. She found a man on the ground. His hair was white. His stripes were purple. He was hurt and covered in his own blood. He rest on a big fluffy pillow, just like Lucy's fur. His eyes turned red trying to scare her away. She wasn't scared. She brought him food. He didn't want it. He was rude. At first he didn't speak except to tell her to stop bothering him, because he didn't eat human food.

She thought maybe he was a god in disguise and if she fed him, he would bless her. But then when he said he wouldn't eat anything she brought her, she decided to try fish. But she was beaten for it. She came to him with bruises and he wanted to know who had hurt her. She didn't like talking. He said it was okay and she smiled, because it was finally okay to be herself.

Taka balked. She had been told the story by Taiyomaru. Taiyomaru was the only one of Rin's children that tolerated her. Yuki had never spoken more than a few words to her in centuries and Harutoga never said anything unless he had to. Her father had met Rin in the forest when she was a little girl and tried to help him after he was injured. She knows him. She covered her mouth and for the millionth time she stood clutching the house phone wondering whether or not to call her father and tell him where she was and that she had found his human lover. It always ended the same way, she set the phone back down. She couldn't hurt her mother. Would it really hurt Haha-ue? She doesn't love him…

Everything seemed to be settling down for Nina until the week after her thirteenth birthday. The family had taken her to her favorite restaurant to eat steak and fries and then spent a long day at the zoo. Nina liked the smells and the petting zoo. The next morning Nina was scheduled to have a cochlear implant, something she was both nervous and excited about. She sat in her bed with her foster mother, signing into the woman's palm, I can't sleep.

Nina had learned to read lips with her palms, or to take in entire sentences from tactile finger spelling. The girl raised her hands to her foster mother's jawline, "you'll be fine."

Does it hurt? She spelled into the woman's hand.

"You'll be a bit sore afterwards. But then you'll be able to hear. You know there's no operation to fix your eyes. The doctors said they came from burns. Probably a house fire."

Nina shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't remember ever being able to see. The memories of vision weren't there. But other things were constantly in her dreams. A divine being with silver hair who traveled into the afterlife to find her. Another time he brought her presents, but the dreams…the last one she had an old woman accosted her for not getting married. She ran away and when he found her and held her to keep her warm that night, it made her heart flutter. She woke up in the middle of the night with goosebumps.

"Go to sleep," her foster-mother told her.

Taka jumped onto the bed with the girl and they rest together. At night Nina finger spelled into Lucy's paw. Taka had been with her long enough she knew what the girl was saying. Do you think he's real? The one I dream about all the time? I dreamt that we were in the forest together. He was warm and then my heart started racing and I wanted to kiss him. I bet no one will ever kiss me. Don't tell anyone.

And who would I tell? Taka chuckled as the girl continued on.

I had another. I dreamed of about this scary thing with tentacles attacking him. But he won. He always wins. Whoever he is, he's very powerful. Why don't I ever dream his name? You know what's weird? He has this green thingy that follows him around like a lost puppy dog. I think the green thing is in love with him. I'm going to write the whole story someday. Goodnight Lucy.

Taka nuzzled the girl's nose and licked her cheek.

His eyes are like yours, Nina told her.

Taka puffed air on the girl's neck and then bolted upright. Something hit her senses, something strong. It was dull a smell she knew well from when her father would seize and throw up blood. Taka changed into her human form, flicking the light on, the bedsheets were covered. "Oh my god," Taka covered her mouth.

She grabbed a towel and pushed it against Nina's nose. Blood gushed from the tiny button. Nina choked on it crying. The demoness changed back to her dog form and stood by the door barking. She yipped over and over until Mrs. Richmond came running. "What is it Lucy?" The dog was rewarded with a quick pat on her head. "Oh my god!" She screamed running over to Nina. She pressed the cloth tighter against the child's nose. "Tyler! Tyler!" she yelled.

The father came running, half dressed in just his pajama bottoms. "I'll call an ambulance"

Nina's skin was pasty white, her head lolled and then rolled into the back of her head. How did I miss it? Taka could do nothing but sit and watch. If she changed she would scare the daylights out of them. The blood wasn't stopping, the entire top of the bed was soaked. Nina was unconscious and her foster parents terrified.

"Chichiue how can you tell if someone is sick?" She once asked him.

"The smell is in their blood. It smells sick, but there are different kinds. Leukemia smells like propyl and mistletoe but each strain has its own unique smell." He picked up two vials of blood and asked, "which one do you think has leukemia."

She brought them both to her nose and pointed to one that had more of a bitter smell.

"Good," congratulated her.

No…no…no…She ran circles around their feet.

Please review! AHHH another cliffhanger!

Coming on January 13th, Rin-Past III

Story plug for this chapter...Hearts Abduction - Lemonlush AU Inu/Kag amazing~~~ Nominated best AU

Mother Fudger: First off I love the name you chose for yourself. It makes me giggle. It's an idea for him to challenge Kensaku but as the story progresses you'll see that there may not be time to even think of something like that. Something will give somewhere and is it in fighting amongst ourselves or fighting to survive? And not everything can revolve around Rin.

Morality: Very good question...you'll have to read more to find out if she will show favoritism to her pure-blooded grand-children. So Gobodo-sama is pragmatic not mean, although it comes across that way. She loves Rin but she is a ruler and her idea of balance between the two doesn't matter who it hurts. Has nothing to do with Rin's humanity, she wants to save her kind and to hell with who it hurts.

Reaper 007: It is an idea that because she can't return the bond it means they aren't meant to be, but as it said in Instinct, bond or no bond they were in love. It's why he couldn't let her go once it broke and why she went back to him.

Guesswho: Thank you! I was so excited to see it. The Big Spoof and Instinct got nominated last quarter and I would love to see the Disease win this time. Yep finally time to bring the big bad Monks in. Did you recognize the name of the monk yet?

Consistentguest: There you are! I was wondering if I lost you because I hadn't seen a review in sooo long. Yeah confession I love writing Yuki and she is such a brat and I love how she interacts with Katsumoto and hates him.

Luin-fanel- Your review came through just as I was wrapping up getting this posted. I hope Shiori can knock some sense into that child too. Or maybe Katsumoto because as you said, he is pretty much being her nanny, isn't scared of her and seems to take pleasure in trying to tame her. Happy new year and thank you for the good wishes!