The White Dog
by Becky Tailweaver
Chapter 19: Nightmare Memory
Late in the night, while everyone was sound asleep in bed, Kagome was awakened by something jostling against her.
She quickly realized that Inuyasha had simply moved in his sleep, so she turned over and tried to drift off again.
Then she was nudged again, and this time a soft, sharp yelp jerked her completely awake.
Did that...did that come out of Inuyasha? She sat up suddenly, turning to find the hanyou in his familiar place next to her.
But what she saw shocked her.
Inuyasha was sprawled out on his side, not curled, his limbs twitching and jerking as though he were running, or even struggling. His claws gouged the wood floor, and his ears were pinned flat as they had been in the deep caves beneath Hitai Mountain. His face was wrenched in torment, his mouth open as he panted raggedly, emitting small, pained cries.
The pitiful whimpers were so unlike him that she stared in bewilderment for some time. He seemed so agonized, so angry, so afraid. Sometimes his sounds almost seemed like words, but they were so garbled by doglike cries of pain that she could not distinguish them.
She realized that her friend was trapped in the throes of some horrible nightmare he could not escape, and her heart beat fast at the thought of his torment. She reached out to him, to pull him free of the dreams, and was about to touch him when the presence of a youkai tingled in her perceptions.
"Don't touch him."
Shirokiba's half-whispered voice startled her away from the hanyou. The wolf-dog youkai stepped silently through Kaede's door, emerging out of the darkness to crouch beside her. Gently, he grasped the edge of her sleeping bag and pulled her away, sliding her across the wooden floor until they were a good meter away from Inuyasha.
His voice was a mere husky whisper. "If you startle him now, he may strike you."
Kagome gaped at the wolf-dog in confusion, her mouth open to ask why.
"He has nightmares sometimes," Shirokiba told her softly, reading the question in her eyes. "Dreams...in which he lives what was done to him over and over."
"I've never...seen..." Kagome tried to say.
"He's never slept so close to you when it's happened before," he stated. "When he was with me, he had them almost every night. Gradually, they became less frequent as time passed...but still, every so often, they return."
"What is he seeing?" Kagome whispered, almost horrified.
"I'm not sure," Shirokiba replied softly, regretfully. "Kaede-san's herbs triggered a memory in him this afternoon--something about the time he lay healing in my den. Somehow, any memories of that time spawn recollections of his darker past before it--some things I think he cannot even remember when awake. Even I don't know exactly what happened before I found him."
"What...do you know?"
"Listen...I'm only going to tell you this because I know he trusts you." Shirokiba remained still, thinking, for long minutes before beginning to speak. "I know that his parents died not long before I found him...and I know that Sesshomaru did more than just toss him in a rat pit. Beyond that, the details...I don't know. He never spoke of it to me. You have to ask him yourself...if he remembers."
Kagome stared at Inuyasha's twitching form, wincing as he yelped softly again. "It must have been...so horrible," she breathed.
"When I found him," Shirokiba continued in a husking whisper, "I couldn't believe anyone could have done that to a child. He was almost unrecognizeable. If I hadn't been able to smell him...I would not have noticed he was anything but a dead animal. I've seen some horrifying things in my time, but...what Sesshomaru did to him made me sick."
"He told me a little," Kagome confessed. "He said Sesshomaru threw him in there...and the rats bit him. He said...they even chewed on his ears..."
"I don't doubt it," Shirokiba replied. "But there was more than rat bites on him. That was just his head and arms. He was so much worse..." The wolf-dog swallowed hard. "It was the first time I'd felt pity like that in my life--the first time I'd ever cried."
Kagome stared. For a creature such as a youkai to be moved to tears...
"Inuyasha was...shattered," Shirokiba whispered, his tones raw. "Half the bones in his body had to be broken. How he survived so long in that water--and then climbed out of that pit with his hands so damaged--I'll never know. He was a mass of bruises, and those damn poison claws of his brother's had nearly taken all the skin off his body--lacerated to the bone in places."
Kagome's breath caught painfully.
"I couldn't believe he was alive when I found him all curled up in the mud under a bush," the youkai told her, his voice cracking. "He was so tiny...so torn up...like a little blind wolf cub mauled by a bear..."
Kagome's cheeks were wet with tears. She was crying silently, her eyes fixed on the sleeping hanyou trapped in the throes of a nightmare--horror memories in which he relived the torture, the abuse, the abandonment. And he'd been just a child then--just five years old...
"Oh...oh...Inuyasha..." She could not get anything else out. It was ever so much worse than what he'd told her before.
Shirokiba emitted an almost silent growl. "The worst part...was I could see that the wounds had not been made with the intent to kill. None of them were lethal. I could tell that whoever did it had not intended for him to die...but to live and suffer. It...infuriated me. It made me sick that any youkai could stoop so low. He was only a child, Kagome--little more than a baby. I'd never cried in pity for anyone before in my life, but I did when I brought him home and began to realize what had been done to him."
Kagome could do little more than try to stem the flow of her own tears. Her heart ached to know such awful things had been done to her Inuyasha. "How...how did he survive all that...?"
"I don't know...he was nearly dead when I took him in." Shirokiba settled back against the wall, his blue-gold eyes glowing softly in the dim moonlight from the window. "Almost frozen from the rain, starved for days, sick with disease, half-drowned with his own blood... He got the coughing sickness from the water, the cold, and the injuries, and he could hardly breathe..."
"Pneumonia?" Kagome breathed, stricken.
The wolf-dog shrugged, not recognizing the word. "I just know he was horribly sick...I bandaged his wounds, kept him warm...it was all I could do. He was so sick he couldn't eat--couldn't keep anything down--and there were nights I thought his shallow, ragged breaths would just stop...he was so weak...but they kept on, one after another. It was a week before he even opened his eyes."
She nodded, still crying, listening raptly to every painful word.
"I didn't know who he was when I took him in," Shirokiba confessed. "I didn't know who'd done it to him, or where he'd come from--the rain took care of any trails. I had to wait three weeks before he was once again recognizable as a child, or anything at all. It was more than a month before he could even sit up."
"That's good..."
"But he wasn't awake, Kagome," Shirokiba whispered. "Even after he did sit up, all he did was...stare. While his injuries were healing...for weeks, all he did was stare at the wall. He never acknowleged me--I put food in front of him and he'd never even look at it. I had to force-feed him broth, but there was nothing else I could do. He was like a living doll; moving, but...dead. He was still so in shock that his mind was...gone...far away."
Kagome could hear the crack in Shirokiba's voice. She knew the wolf-dog youkai cared a great deal for Inuyasha; this had to be a horrible memory for him as well. "How did he ever...?"
"How did he ever come out of it?" Shirokiba sighed. "I don't even know. It's a miracle he isn't still that way...or even a raging lunatic after what happened. All I know is one night he just...woke up."
"How?"
"I awoke to his screams in the middle of the night," the wolf-dog went on. "It was the first sound I'd heard him make other than gasps and whimpers while he lay sick. It might have been a nightmare--or he might have just jolted out of his stupor. I still don't know. I just found him sitting in his bed, ripping at his remaining bandages and crying. But...there was finally awareness in his eyes...and so much pain. He saw me, and he was scared--so scared. He was struggling in the bed, against the bandages, away from me. When he saw me he kept screaming, 'Who are you? Where's my okaasan? Where am I?' He couldn't remember anything about me or my help to him."
"So he just woke up? After more than a month?"
Shirokiba shrugged sadly. "After all this time, I still don't know how. I told him I was a friend, that I'd found him in the forest and I wanted to help him. Finally he stopped struggling, so I held him--rocked him while he cried. It was all I could do. He sobbed for so long, crying for his mother...it was all he did that first night. He cried for hours, until he fell asleep again."
"How did you find out who he was?"
"The next morning, he was a little calmer, and I managed to get his name out of him, and a little of what happened," the wolf-dog replied quietly. "I finally realized that not only was he a White Dog--he was Seibunishi-sama's hanyou son...and his own brother had done this to him. I was outraged...I can't even tell you how angry I was. So I kept him with me--I left the central Western Lands and lived in secret, where Sesshomaru couldn't find us. I kept him safe...I taught him to hunt, to fight, and to survive."
Shirokiba cleared his throat, hesitating before pressing on. "To this day, Inuyasha does not remember what happened between his encounter with Sesshomaru and the night he truly awoke. Those weeks he lay sick to death with fever are forever lost to him, and even parts of his life before it happened are gone. He only seems to remember in dreams. But his memories of the trauma itself are always fresh, like a wound that never heals. It is his one scar that never faded."
"Why?"
"It's a hurt that he won't share, out of either fear or shame," Shirokiba told her. "It is festering inside him, pressed deep down within and never allowed to surface. He's never let it bleed, to become clean and heal. Look...when I first knew him, when he awoke, he was shy and quiet, very gentle and unobtrusive. I managed to tease out that he'd lived peacefully, with his mother--a normal...human sort of life. He was totally unprepared for the kind of brutality he suffered."
Kagome sniffled. "No child could be prepared..."
"As he stayed with me," the wolf-dog went on,"and as he healed, he began to change. He suffered horrible nightmares--he'd awaken screaming two or three times a night. During the day, the sight of a rodent or the smell of human blood could send him into a mind-halting flashback. He was horribly marked for a long time--at first, he was afraid to leave my den because his features were so scarred.
"Gradually, though, the scars faded...and with them the quiet, gentle child he'd been. Months passed, and the nightmares and flashbacks became less frequent; Inuyasha became more withdrawn, sullen, and moody. To survive, to cope, he was pushing everything down--all his emotions, all his memories. He didn't want to feel the pain any more, so he forced it away. And with it, everything else--every recollection, every emotional bond, every person who tried to approach."
Kagome went very still, remembering her own realizations just the very day before.
"He trusted no one, talked with no one," Shirokiba continued. "I was the only person he shared even two words with. It took a long time before he'd speak much to even me. I think...he'd just gained back enough confidence to function--even in his withdrawn state--when he discovered the Shikon no Tama and decided to leave."
"And he found Kikyo," Kagome said quietly.
"Not immediately," Shirokiba explained. "He wandered for about four, years searching for the Jewel. For four years, he became the horror you might have heard the humans whisper about--Inuyasha who seeks the Shikon Jewel, the white wolf, enemy of all...the golden-eyed demon of terror parents frightened their children with."
Kagome shuddered, closing her eyes, remembering the harsh-voiced, hateful hanyou she'd first met, who threatened to kill her and take the Shikon no Tama from her dead hands--a violent, snarling tangle of anger and betrayal.
"For four years, he unleashed all the hate and pain and rage that had been bottled up inside him while he stayed with me," Shirokiba told her, his voice quiet and grim. "He let it out in the form of power, battling youkai twice his size and age and tearing them apart. For four years, he was truly a monster, even while he was still a little boy. Back then..." The wolf-dog's eyes went distant, sad. "I didn't know what hurt worse--knowing that the abuse he'd suffered had caused a sweet, gentle child to become that monster, or knowing that I'd kept him alive to become the very thing he once hated."
"So he was...like Sesshomaru...for a while?"
"For a while...probably worse...though I never heard of him slaughtering any humans. But by the time he located the Shikon no Tama, Inuyasha was essentially the same as how he was when you first met him--sullen, withdrawn, aggressive. He snarled at anyone who dared approach and was truly dangerous to everyone around him. He packed away all the emotions and memories from his experience with his brother, and used his cruel, surly attitude as his wall against hurt from both inside and out."
"He still does..." Kagome whispered.
"And when he found the Jewel, and Kikyo," Shirokiba concurred with a nod, "he found something he'd never encountered before--someone who could beat him without hurting him, someone who treated him fairly as an opponent instead of a monster. He found in her a friend, a thread of trust, a way to reach for a new life. He found in her someone who would listen. I think he told Kikyo far more than he ever told me. In some small way, he was able to find his heart again--she helped him a great deal, to find...hope."
"And then the worst possible thing happened," Kagome realized, swallowing hard. "All the trust and friendship he'd worked so hard for...all of that was ripped away again..."
Shirokiba nodded angrily. "I'm surprised he didn't go utterly mad then and there. Or maybe he did, for a little while--invading the village and attacking the townsfolk in his search for the Shikon no Tama. It was like his wandering years all over again. These people were lucky Kikyo trapped him when she did, before he could use the Jewel in his fit of rage."
The wolf-dog paused, and glanced down at her. "And it must have been you that kept him from going over the edge when he awakened again...somehow, he anchored himself in you. I still think it's a miracle that Inuyasha is not completely mad now--it must have been you..."
"I can't believe he...survived all of that," Kagome finally confessed, gulping down the hard lump in her throat.
"His will to live is powerful," Shirokiba said, brushing her shoulder gently. "It's the only thing that kept him alive and sane at first. Even after he met Kikyo...Kagome, it took him two years to learn to trust even her. He's learned to trust you so quickly...I think he's found new purpose in you--something special he's never had before. The strength to fight off the demons that torment him--to stand firm against the madness for one more day...you give him something to live for, something to protect, something to find meaning in. Kagome, for his sake...don't ever leave him."
Shirokiba's voice became so soft, pleading. "Don't go away--and don't die. I...I don't think he could take it again..."
Kagome wiped her eyes, unable to stop the tears; she looked over at the huddled, twitching form she'd left alone in the middle of the floor. She wanted so badly to help, to free him from the monsters that tortured his mind. "What can we do for him?" she asked, her voice tremulous.
"I don't know," Shirokiba answered sadly. "Nothing. He's reliving his mother's death, Sesshomaru's abuse, and his weeks of pain. During his nightmares he's very hard to wake--and if you do manage it, he's violent and might not recognize you."
"He's so alone," Kagome said, her tears welling anew. "He's hurting, and all we can do is sit and do nothing? Shirokiba-san!"
The wolf-dog youkai looked pained. "Kagome, there's nothing I'd like more than to free him of those awful dreams, and those horrible memories, but only one person can do that--and it's him. He has to work through what happened."
"He hasn't yet," Kagome asserted softly. "He can't...not alone. He's feeling it all again--over and over, because it's trapped inside him and he can't let it out by himself. He needs help, Shirokiba-san."
"I know," the wolf-dog replied, helpless. "But I...I don't even know how to start..."
Kagome turned her gaze back to Inuyasha, who let out a particularly sharp yip and writhed, his breathing hard and irregular. Her eyes softened, but her jaw set. "I do."
"Kagome, don't--!" Shirokiba hissed.
She was already out of her sleeping bag and crawling across the floor--pausing only once to smile back at him. "He won't hurt me."
"Kagome...!"
She lay down facing the hanyou's dream-sprawled form, taking him into her arms and holding him despite his jerking limbs and helpless cries. "Inuyasha," she murmured softly, close to his ear. "Inuyasha, it's me. I'm Kagome. I'm here with you...right beside you. Hear me?" She pulled him close, tucking his head under her chin in a motherly manner and keeping her lips near his sensitive ears.
Despite his twitching, one ear became still, oriented toward her voice. "I'm here," she continued softly, despite her tears. "I'm right here, and I'm not leaving. No matter what happens, I'm still here."
Shirokiba sat still in utter amazement as Inuyasha actually reached out to her, holding her quickly and tightly as if Kagome were his only lifeline. Those hands could easily snap bones, rip flesh--he could easily destroy the girl's body in his panicked grip. Yet he only held her firmly, as if he knew it was her--as if to reassure himself that she was there. The wolf-dog found himself frozen in wonder; Kagome was reaching the hanyou even through the nightmare--reaching him and comforting him and bringing reality back to him.
"I'm here. I'll always be here, and I'll never leave you. I promise with all my heart I'll stay beside you no matter what happens." Kagome's soft tones went on, and though he might not have understood the words, Inuyasha heard her voice, and his sharp yelps soon stopped. He nuzzled close to her throat, holding her tight, his only cries now small, pitiful whimpers like a child awakened from a nightmare--like a puppy reunited with his mother and eager to be reassured. Both Kagome and Shirokiba were surprised to see tears leaking, ever so faintly, from the very corners of Inuyasha's eyes.
"Masaka..." Shirokiba breathed, awed. "He's calming. I never knew...I never thought he'd be able to break the cycle. It was you...your voice..." He stared at the girl, his eyes wide with realization. "If he's that close to you...it's a bond--isn't it? You two children are...actually...?"
Kagome didn't dare ask what he meant; it would require her to take her attention from Inuyasha and she had a feeling that Shirokiba wouldn't tell her anyway. So she continued to hold the distraught hanyou in her arms until his last trembles ceased and his breathing grew normal once more.
However, when Kagome tried to leave, Inuyasha would give a small puppylike cry, grip her tighter, and prevent her from pulling free. He needed her--he wouldn't or couldn't let her go. So she stayed in his arms, knowing he shared her warmth and presence openly tonight. For once, he needed her utterly, and she could not refuse him.
Moving silently, Shirokiba unfolded Kagome's sleeping bag and placed it over them. With a small, amazed smile, he looked down at the two heads that peeped out from the impromptu blanket--one black and one white. As different as night and day, yet each as essential to the other as water, needing each other on a level few beings--mortal or immortal--could ever comprehend.
"Kagome?" he whispered.
"Yes?" the girl replied softly.
"Before you leave tomorrow, would you meet with me in the woods...alone?" Shirokiba asked hesitantly. "I need to talk with you about Inuyasha. It's...important."
"Then I'll be there," Kagome said firmly. "Your tree?"
"Yes. Good night."
"Good night, Shirokiba-san. Arigato."
There was no more sound. The wolf-dog youkai had already gone, disappearing into the night without a trace.