He didn't wake up until the afternoon and when he did, when all was said and done, their living room looked like a localized typhoon hit the place. She came back the next day, saw the devastation and told him she couldn't do this anymore. He'd been distant for months and she was tired of tip-toeing around him; tired of him being set off by the smallest of things; tired of the shouting matches. She was tired of trying to save what they had together and losing every time, but mostly she was tired of fighting alone. She'd been here before and she just couldn't handle yet another relationship where she was the only one who gave a damn. The sad thing was, he knew all this and did nothing to stop the inevitable from happening.

He was a bastard. A bastard she should hate but she didn't.

She loved him and she knew he loved her but she couldn't take it anymore and with that said she took a few of her belongings she really needed and then left, most likely for good. She didn't notice his eyes. She barely even looked at him. She was too busy crying. Her tears didn't affect him at all. In the face of real emotion, most humans have some kind of sympathetic reaction but he didn't. He watched her cry and there was a hollow space in his chest where it should hurt, where it had always hurt when he'd make her cry, but it wasn't there anymore. There was nothing and he didn't like it. In fact, it made him angry and sad all at once but those feelings were so far away as if they were detached from him and he was feeling them via some kind of umbilicus. He pushed his nails into the palm of his skin just to feel something, anything.

Someone once told him that a human being couldn't willingly draw blood from themselves this way. They had said all the movies that showed that were wrong. He pushed harder and his palm bled, but only for a moment before it healed itself. That person was wrong or maybe he was right. No human could do that... no human... who said he was human anymore? He opened his hand and examined his palm, flawless, but for the blood that marred his fingers. He licked it away and wasn't bothered by the fact that he wasn't bothered by that.

His nails had grown long now and he realized something he hadn't known then. They were more like claws than nails but that wasn't the interesting part about them. He'd found out an alternate purpose for his claws one night when he actually slept, which was becoming increasingly uncommon. He just didn't feel all that tired. But when he did sleep, it was deep and in the morning he'd awaken stiff and sore and with something changed from the morning before.

Like all the recent physical changes, his nails growing uncontrollably had seemed so innocent at first. For awhile, he'd been able to cut them, and though they grew back within a day it was a simple matter to solve. He'd just cut them again but then after a time cutting them wasn't so simple anymore. Within a week he'd broken four pairs of nail clippers; three for humans, one for dogs. Two pairs of scissors. Three nail files and a sand grinder. He'd settled on a diamond hard, industrial grade metal file. It worked somewhat, until it also broke and he gave up.

This was about the time he'd taken an extend leave from his job and cut all ties to the outside world, but that was beside the point.

He hadn't been sleeping. The dreams came all too often when he slept and it was nice not having to fight it, but that night... that night, his body demanded rest and no matter how hard he fought, he couldn't stop the sleep that came. Another dream came, this time more vivid. This time he remembered more. In a way, it was worth the melted mattress.

There was a sword he wanted.

A sword given to the annoying boy in red.

There was another sword that he didn't want at all but kept anyway.

There was a little girl. A girl he saved with the sword he hated.

There was a jewel. A cursed jewel of fours souls that was sought by someone he hated more than the boy in red.

And there was a young woman, the keeper of that jewel. The one that destroyed it and left who looked so much like the woman he'd fallen in love with.

That morning, he'd awoken to find two very large, smoking holes in his mattress. After a bit of examination he'd figured out that his nails had melted his mattress. Or more correctly, the powerful acid that emitted from his nails had melted the matress. He wasn't quite sure, at first, what triggered it. As a side note, he'd observed his nails kind would glow a sickly green before the acid came. For about a day, he went around the house just burning things with it, until he could fully control it. It was interesting on a purely scientific level. On a personal level it was unsettling and a bit scary.

He wasn't sure how long it had been since she'd left. Sometimes she'd call but he never answered. There was a part of him angered at himself by this. He should answer and beg her to take him back and help him -- comfort him -- but another part just didn't care. He didn't need her help. She was too human. And he was clearly not human at all, or perhaps he wouldn't be human when all of this stopped because he was still somewhat human.

Somewhat.

She finally stopped by one day to check up on him and he found himself unwilling to face her. The house was dark and the living room was still a mess. So he sat in the darkened, ruined living room and watched silently as she carefully picked her way through the mire of broken furniture. Yes, he was hiding from her. He was a coward but he didn't care. It was better this way. Let her think him gone. Make it easier for her to let go because it was far too hard for him. She didn't go into the bedroom as he suspected she would. Instead, she stopped and tensed, eyes darting around the room as if she sensed something. And then, she found him. He didn't know how, but she found him.

"Satoshi?"

She walked towards him so quietly, yet so loudly, and she proceeded to ask a myriad of questions, none of which had any easy answers. How could he answer her questions when he barely knew the answers himself? What could he tell her? That he thought he might be turning into something not quite human or, alternately, he was slowly going insane. Either way, it wasn't something anyone wanted to readily admit to someone else.

Honestly, should he tell her he'd been eating his meat nearly raw nowadays? Should he explain to her about his nails and the two bloody great holes in their mattress? He could tell her about his skin feeling stretched and the fire he'd feel inside sometimes. The fire that lit inside him that begged him to destroy every last living thing he could get his hands on and if he didn't find a way to control himself, he'd destroy more than just another piece of innocent furniture. Or maybe he could recount his dreams, that'd be a real winner. Maybe he really was insane. Truthfully, he didn't really know at this point, so instead of saying all that he said nothing.

She came closer again but she was always foolish.

Even in his dreams.

Always meddling.

Always unraveling everyone else's mysteries while keeping her own.

He remembered once when she was having a nightmare of some kind. She was tossing and turning and when he touched her to calm her down, she whispered a name.

Inuyasha....

Inuyasha

Inuyasha

INUYASHA!!

Her hand reached out. She mouthed the syllables to his name, but he didn't hear it. All he heard was her calling out that name. Her shouts encouraged the owner of that name, loaning him her strength. Her giving his sword away to Inuyasha, who took his arm and defeated him time and time again, because of her, always Inuyasha and again he felt something breaking free. He felt the fire inside bubble up and press against his flesh...

And he had to be away from her.

Without a word, he got up and left her there, hand hanging in midair. She said something. Most likely an entire sentence, even a paragraph's worth of something, but he didn't listen, his blood was rushing too fast in his ears for her voice to penetrate. He went into the bedroom. He approached the open window and looked out; bracing his hands against the window pane as he breathed in and out slowly until the fire in his veins cooled and he felt more like himself again.

"Your hair is longer..."

Her voice was soft, like always. Gentle, like a bubbling stream and it grated on his ears. Wind from the open window filtered through into the room, lifting the curtains around him.

Face shrouded by the dark, he replied to her implied question with a single, softly spoken word, "Leave."

She didn't.

"And I think you might be taller..."

She was right. He'd measured it himself -- what he thought might have been a few weeks ago. He wasn't too sure though, time seemed to lose meaning, much like everything else.

He tensed and she came closer, again. She always walked into dangerous situations without a thought. Why did she do that? What person in their right mind would put themselves in danger like that? What was wrong with her? Maybe she was the crazy one...

He could smell her more clearly now. She was all freshness and light. Her scent underneath the artificial smells of her shampoo and her perfume was effulgent and brought back with it so many memories. The control of the fire inside waned. It pulled on all his senses and he was on the verge of losing himself again. His fingers curled into the soft wood surrounding the window as the curtains whipped wildly around him. It occurred to him as he looked outside that there was no wind. The trees in the yard were perfectly still. It was a quiet night and the wind in the room right now came because of him.

"Get away from me," he whispered, his voice gravely as it grated out between clenched teeth.

She didn't move back, nor did she move forward.

He turned and snarled, "I SAID GET AWAY!"

She could see what he wanted to hide. He'd shown her the inhumanity in his eyes. They were red now, he knew without even having to look. His fingers itched. The poison just beneath his skin was festering, waiting to be released and he had to hold back the instinct that told him to do it... to kill her but it was so hard.

Why didn't she move away?

Couldn't she see?

Worse, why didn't she seem all that surprised?

She was afraid. He could smell it. Yet, she stood there calmly, her hand in her pocket as if she was waiting for the bus and her hands were cold.

"I'm sorry."

She pulled something out of her pocket and with a single, graceful motion, she flicked the contents of that package at him and it stilled the fire inside with steely, frigid cold; it felt like he'd jumped into a mountain stream during the spring thaw.

Purifying salt.

She'd thrown purifying salt at him.

It made sense, she'd grown up in a shrine after all but he'd never gone in for all the superstitious nonsense she believed in because of it. Purifying salt was nothing but regular sea salt that some foolish priest said a few words over. There was nothing special about it. There should be nothing special about it, but then why did it hurt when it came into contact with his skin?

She threw it again.

He stumbled back, snarling with feral inhumanity. She was un-fazed, and though her face was calm he could see the underlying anxiety in it. He could see her pity as she drew something else from her pocket. Holding an ofuda between two fingers, she charged the charm and threw it at him. Far, far away, in the very back of his mind, he wondered at the blue light that surrounded the charm. He didn't know she could do something like that. Then it hit him directly in the forehead and the effect was instantaneous. He felt a force beyond him pushing the fire back inside. It was just as cold as the salt had been but it hurt much, much more because it was more concentrated, stronger. The cold surround him, entered every fiber of his being and turned it to ice. He should be grateful. She was trying to purge him of whatever it was that was changing him, but it only made him angrier. It was an insult. The beast in his heart was furious with this human for trying to help him when he didn't need or even ask for it.

He struggled against the spell and the cold that it emanated. Even when the pain was so great that it brought him to his knees. What an insult: To be broken by a human priestess. Yes, he was aware she was a priestess. A part of him thought there might have been a time when she wasn't, but she had been as long as he'd known her. He writhed and bucked against the power a bit longer before quieting. She approached him, her hand gently caressing his shoulder for a moment. Part of him was happy for this affectionate gesture and yet simultaneously repulsed. He could hear her preparing something. A smell reached his nose. Incense. The scent of it was revolting enough to make him want to retch. If he could move, he might have. He could hear her beginning to chant.

It was then that he became alarmed.

He wouldn't be laid so low. This part of him had only just awakened and it was weak, but not so weak that he'd allow some human priestess to subdue him.

Using every bit of power he could summon, he fought against her subjugation spell. He could hear her chanting more frantically. She tried to use the salt again. Pathetic. Growling, he sat up and tore the charm from his forehead, leveling a glare at his tormentor as he did it. She paled but she didn't stop chanting, and she didn't stop throwing the damned salt.

Foolish human.

He grabbed her by the throat and held her up. The squeal of fear she made was amusing, so were her tears for their futility, as if such gestures would ever move him.

She gulped, using her last breath to speak to him, "I'm so sorry..."

She closed her eyes and fisted a hand into his shirt. A bright blue light erupted from her and it burnt like cold fire. It knocked both of them back and as his head hit the floor and black unconsciousness overwhelmed him, he realized what he'd almost done. And then he was lost.

The dreams came and he remembered a bit more.

There was a sword; a sword that was his father's.

He gave it to the annoying half breed; to Inuyasha, his half brother.

There was a girl. A human girl he'd saved with the other sword.

It also belonged to his father and it was meant for him, despite the fact that he didn't want it.

There was a jewel. The Shikon no Tama, a relic of some power, that was sought by a half-breed viler than his brother.

There was a young woman. She sought the Shikon with his brother, though her reasoning for doing so was shrouded in mystery. It was rumored she was a reincarnation of the very priestess that had sealed his brother fifty years before but he'd never put too much stock in reincarnation.

Such a pity...

The sun rose. Morning came. And he woke.

His eyes fluttered open, pupils contracting to adjust to the brightness of the room as the sun filtered in. As per usual, he was sore and tired. Sitting up reluctantly, he assessed his situation. The room was a mess, but that wasn't unusual. There was an odd smell. Several odd smells: Incense, Kagome... blood. Then the night before came back. He saw the incense holder and the torn up ofuda, and then he saw her. The woman he loved was crumpled in a heap on the floor next to him. He looked down at her, beautiful even in her sleep. There was a painful looking black and blue welt on her forehead. A welt he caused. She'd tried to save him from becoming a monster and he'd lashed out.

If things hadn't changed, he would have been panicking. Worrying himself sick with the thought that she was seriously hurt but he wasn't worried. He could hear her heart beat and it was strong. She was breathing normally. She was fine, physically anyway.

He reached out a hand to brush a stray tendril of hair away. His nail nicked her cheek, leaving a fine red line behind. Blood beaded and he watched with cold, detached eyes, feeling next to nothing when he instinctually licked the blood away. Hovering just above her, he felt an array of shame and disgust, though it wasn't that deep or that meaningful. He moved away, stood up and exited the bedroom. Walking into the bathroom, he barely spared the shattered mirror a glance as he washed the taste of her blood out of his mouth. It was then that he noticed the newest change in him.

His tongue ran over his teeth. Picking up a piece of broken mirror, he pulled back his lips to examine them. Nothing remarkable really, unless, of course, you counted the fact that his canine teeth had lengthened into what could be considered fangs. He snorted. He looked like some pathetic vampire wannabe from Harajuku. Dressing up in cheap nineteenth century European costumes with paste on fangs, trying desperately to convince themselves and the world around they were special, different just like everyone else. Except his fangs were real and unlike those sad bastards in Harajuku, he didn't want them. These weren't store bought novelty fangs, they were quite real. He could try filing them down like he'd done with his nails, but he knew without even trying that the effort would prove futile.

He tossed the piece of mirror away with a growl of disgust. For several minutes he just stood there, staring blankly at the millions of reflections in the mirror and they stared right back. His hair was even longer than it had been before. He tried to cut it weeks ago, but like his nails it just grew back. Fingering it, he was mildly dismayed to see that the straight black was now peppered with strands of pure white. He flipped it behind him and tried not to be unnerved that it had grown – overnight -- almost to the back of his knees.

Without even thinking about it, he gathered his things and left.

He couldn't stay here. It wasn't safe for her or anyone else. Anyway, he didn't like staying in one place. It was too suffocating and the instincts that now ruled him demanded that he move on.

He wasn't saddened by this decision.

He wasn't okay with it either.

It just had to be done and so he did it.