Chapter Eight: The Next Night, and the Curse of the New Moon!

InuYasha sat silently as the rest of the gang ate lunch. He would have to tell them now, or never. Tonight was the night it would happen. With a sigh, he sat down his bowl, and laid his chopsticks beside it.

"What is it, InuYasha?" Slowly, he met Miroku's gaze.

"Tonight is the new moon...you know what happens to me, right?"

Sango, Shippo, and Kaede nodded, and Miroku sat down his food.

"What of it?"

The hanyou thought for a moment, bit his lip, and then said quietly. "Kagome is going to turn...into a full-fledged dog demon."

Sango gasped. "Like...like Sesshomaru?"

InuYasha nodded. "He said... the only way to stop her..."

"Is what?" Miroku stared at him intently.

"I've gotta get my human blood and her blood after she changes mixed. Sesshomaru said that my human blood would calm the demon in her veins since that demon is from me, and draw it back into my body..."

"Will she retain her human mind in that state?" The monk spoke again.

InuYasha shook his head. "No."

"Then it will be extremely difficult..." Sango's voice trailed away in thought. "You'll need help from Miroku and I, of course..."

"Yeah. Will you?"

The slayer and the monk nodded in unison.

InuYasha sighed. "As soon as I change, so will she."

I K

N & A

U G

"Where am I?" Kagome's eyes fluttered open. "What the – umm..." She tried to rise, but her hands and feet were bound to four separate posts with prayer beads. Her throat was dreadfully dry, and she looked around the best her stiff neck, not to mention tightly fixed limbs, would allow her. It was almost nightfall that she could tell. She blinked as her body began to go numb, her before attentiveness ebbing away as an intense drowsiness fell on her. She heard footsteps, and craned her aching neck to look up at InuYasha. Just as raven began to coat the brilliant silver of his mane, a fiery sensation shot through her body, and where he had bitten her began to sting. Dumbly she cried out as her body began to change.

"InuYasha! Help me! O, gods!! InuYasha!!"

Her eyesight had begun to dull as her mortal mind faded out, and she could only see black.

"Kagome...I'm sorry...I can't help you just yet..."

He sighed with guilt and sorrow at her pained whimpers. After a moment though, the whimpers turned to growls, and he looked up into the face of a huge, snarling canine. The demon Kagome struggled vainly against Miroku's prayer beads as her three companions looked on. InuYasha watched quietly, then took the Tetsusaiga from it's sheath, untransformed, and cut a long slash into his chest, grimacing with pain and biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

'Damned human body...'

He nodded gravely to Sango, who drew her Hiraikotsu.

"Get ready, InuYasha!"

The slayer yelled out, and let her weapon fly. Kagome set free a deafening roar and reared as the giant boomerang struck her side, creating a giant, angry gash, which thick, dark blood flowed from instantly. To the horror of the three friends, the posts that bound her forefeet tore from the ground, the damp earth still clinging to the uprooted logs.

"Damn it!"

Kagome lashed out at Sango, a huge paw knocking the slayer onto the ground. Horrified, she scrambled backwards to move out of the path of the log, and barely missed the fangs of the giant demon. Angrily, Kagome swung in the opposite direction – InuYasha had begun the ascent of her leg, trying to make it to the place from which she bled. She snapped, and yelped as she caught some of her own flesh in seeking her offender. Sango again flung the Hiraikotsu, and it sailing past Kagome's head. She went for it. InuYasha began to climb again, the sharp black hairs that covered Kagome cutting into his hands.

"Almost there..."

He pulled himself, gritting his teeth as the demon hairs prickled against his gaping chest. Suddenly, Kagome bucked violently, and InuYasha was thrown from her newly gained back. He somersaulted through the air, only to be caught in the mouth of the girl he loved. He yelped as her fangs closed on him.

Sango cried out and Miroku ran forward.

InuYasha's eyes fluttered as he felt himself waving from consciousness as his own hot blood oozed out and spread over him, soaking his clothing. He heard the monk and the slayer's yells, but he couldn't respond. A stupid smile went across his face as he began to slip, deep into the dark cavern of death. Scenes from the past days danced across his mind, and he paid no attention when Sango's Hiraikotsu struck the demon Kagome hard on the snout, causing her to swing her head crazily, her jaws nearly crushing him.

Just as he stepped to the brink of oblivion, he heard his voice echo in his numb brain.

"Kagome I would never hurt you. You know that don't you?" He saw himself hugging her. "Not even if it killed me not to."

He heard Sesshomaru's voice.

"This will be extremely painful for the both of you."

Suddenly his mind focused on one thought.

'This is painful for Kagome! This isn't even Kagome! The girl I love is inside this monster! And she's in pain! I promised her I would help her!!'

Before he even realized what he was doing, he had drawn the regular Tetsusaiga from its sheath, and drove it into the gum of the demon that held him, and laughed when he felt the fountain of blood spurt out. He pulled his blade from the wound, and cast it to the earth below.

"InuYasha!" He heard Miroku's shouts. "InuYasha, are you alive?"

InuYasha Kagome's jaws begin to loosen.

'I...I did it...'

As the enormous canine started to shrink, InuYasha's hair, to his surprise, began to turn silver again. He fell to the ground as the snout of the beast that had bitten him disappeared. He leapt back to his feet, and stumbled to catch Kagome. When she fell into his arms, the world started to spin.

"I love you, InuYasha..." She sighed and fell limp in his arms.

The hanyou kissed her forehead and held her close to him, and he too, fainted.