AN: To answer one of the comments: YokaiCom is a good site, totally worth checking out when one wants to get their youkai facts straight.
I really hope you will like this chap...
Beta; Cstorm86 - thank you, you lovely angel!

The Dog Dreams

Inuyasha was a heavy man, all that muscle seemed to weigh a ton. Soon after they started their ascent, Hojo had to help her support Inuyasha and now they were practically dragging him. He was trying to walk, but it looked like with every step his legs were weakening.

His eyes were closed, brow knitted, his breath growing louder as his head drowsily lolled to the side.

Hojo tried to talk, probably in an attempt to keep their wounded companion focused, but Inuyasha was replying in monosyllables and grunts. Kagome tried to keep up the conversation, but it was hard to focus on anything other than supporting the man that was injured because she broke her promise not to bring him out of the barrier on the new moon night.

With every minute it was more and more clear to Kagome that he was slipping into unconsciousness. Whatever was the reason for it, she didn't know. Were the youkai's claws poisonous? Was there a spell cast on him? Maybe it was the result of inhaling the smoke that had surrounded them when the youkai had been purified?

Moving one step at a time, climbing back to the safety of the shrine, she did her best not to allow panic and dread to take control over her. She had to stay focused, to keep moving, to encourage Inuyasha and Hojo on.

The forest around them seemed darker than it should be, the grim silence filling the air. The beams of light that swept across the road and the shadowed trees seemed weak and fragile.

And then came the voices, soft and loud, feminine and masculine, old and young. There were at least ten distinctive people talking and had only one thing in common.

They were talking in her head.

Or, as she assumed, in Inuyasha's.

As the shrine guardian grew weaker and less responsive to Hojo and herself, the voices grew in number.

Then came visions.

Glimpses of various places - some of which she knew, some she didn't - seen by eyes that weren't hers. People dressed in traditional robes of priests and priestesses, various expressions written across the faces that held some resemblance to her own. They'd flash in front of her just to fade away in the image of the road and forest during the moonless night.

'Inuyasha... You cannot interact with the villagers. You're scaring them. From now on, stay in the forest...' a middle-aged woman with one eye covered by a patch pointed to the forest surrounding the shrine grounds. 'Maybe one day you will be free to come out, but not now.'

'I don't want to see you! You're ugly! You let aunt die!' cried a boy not older than Souta, tears running down his cheeks. 'You should've died instead of her!'

"So this is your human form. Such a pity you are forced to spend the rest of the month as a hanyou,' an old man with long thin beard, looking like an advisory at an imperial court, shook his head. 'To think for so many years you hid this from me.'

'Mother...' a woman knelt down to stroke the face of a child asking. 'What's a half-breed?' tears start running down her face and she pulls the child in a hug.

'Inuyasha, you can't leave the shrine grounds and the forest without permission. If you do, it's only to assure the safety of the keeper,' ordered yet another woman.

'Inuyasha, you're not allowed in the household. We can't purify it every day because you come in.'

'Inuyasha, kill.'

'Inuyasha, you are not to speak of that man to anyone, especially my husband.'

'Inuyasha...'

'...Inuyasha...'

'...'Inu..'

'Come and become our komainu. Come and we will grant you our divine blessing. We will make a place for you under our roof. We will grant you power, if you swear to stand guard to our dwelling and priests. And if you serve us well, we will grant your deepest wish. Surround your name in the service of our priests and in return find a place where you can live, prove that you are more than the world thinks of your kind. Your breed is known to be territorial and fierce, we will allow you to consider our shrine your territory. Protect it against those who want to take control over it, who want to steal the artifacts stored here, who want to kill our chosen priests.'

'Care for a game of Go? I know you don't like to stay in the house, but I figured that maybe we could play on the engawa?' this was her grandfather, but much younger, sitting on the engawa of the living room, a board ready at his side. 'Winner gets this lovely bowl of rice cookies.'

'Thank you for helping me. I couldn't have done it without you," this time it was her own voice, she could see herself walking towards where the purifying water basin was.

Between those visions she saw flashes of fights, blood and severed limbs, the odor of death, pain and sweat. She fought to take another step just to find herself facing a huge oni that dug its claws deep in her thigh - the pain was there despite the fact that she knew it all wasn't real. She saw priests purifying crowds, miko shooting arrows at youkai, she saw her ancestors falling in battle, playing around the shrine as kids, performing their duties, creating families, dying of old age, coming and going like waves.

It was beyond her power to stop the flow of memories that weren't hers. As painful as it was to see, a part of her was thankful to see. She just hoped that Hojo could lead them - after all, all he had to do was to follow the road that led straight to the shrine. She vaguely felt herself walking, but the sensation was akin to the sensation of motion one got while dreaming.

It was like walking through a storm, when you could see only glimpses of your surroundings in the flash of a lightning. She was panting, unable to collect her own thoughts, overcome by the flood of jagged memories, some too horrible, some bitter. She stalked a deer just to eat its meat raw, she fought, she obeyed orders, she traveled in a dog's form at the heel of one of her ancestors to battle a river dragon. She had to lick her own wounds heal before running after the priest who didn't wait for her. She watched the pilgrims going up and down the mountain, slinking between the trees. She felt the biting cold of the mountain snow in the winter and the humid air of the summer as she raced through the forest, leaping from tree to tree, jumping over the streams. She was a child chased by a mob with torches and sticks, away from her dead mother. As the same kid she was hanging from a clawed hand, held by her throat, staring in eyes the color of sun, so similar to Inuyasha's, but holding only cold anger.

'You aren't even worthy to be killed by this one. How could this one's noble father steep so low to sire such an abomination.'

'...Come and become our komainu...'

'...Inuyasha... I'm sorry for offending you. Please, accept this peace offering and don't stay away. I'd really like to talk to you...'

"Uh... Kagome..." Hojo's voice came as if from a great distance, almost too weak to reach her ears. It was full of confusion and trepidation, which made her manage to latch onto it, before she was swept away by another wave. "The road disappeared,"

Her eyes opened and she gasped. They weren't walking anymore. The beam of her flashlight swept from her left to right, showing only countless trunks and tree limbs, no road. She glanced back to see Hojo's flashlight shining in the direction from which they came.

There was no road there too, they stood in the middle of a small meadow in the middle of the forest.

A crow call came from over their heads and Kagome gasped, sensing youki from where she could see a dark shadow against the starry sky, approaching them fast.

A/N: In case you didn't notice - I am a kitsune that is a bit malicious at times.