Enter the Madman

Urrrggghhh. I swear, that is the last time I eat cheese before bed.

Suffice it to say, consciousness was slowly creeping up on Kagome and she wasn't taking it too well. She might have taken it a little better if it weren't so freakin' rude about it. I mean, who sneaks in big clomping combat boots? As she slowly crawled towards wakefulness Kagome felt as though those combat boots had stomped all over her body and left waffle print footprints on her brain. She ached i everywhere /i and her head was positively throbbing.

If it weren't for the fact that I don't drink, I'd think I had a hangover. Wait a minute…if I don't have a hangover, then what the hell happened?

Slowly the memories began to surface through the thick fog blanketing her well waffle stomped mind. She remembered her birthday party, as much as she really wished she could have forgotten that thing with her grandfather and the cake, and returning through the well. Then…a scream. Yes, she remembered a scream and the feeling of youki…a girl was being attacked by two youki. She'd surrendered to her protection instincts and gone to help, killed the two low level youkai with her arrow and bow. Kagome couldn't help the small smile she felt tugging her lips at that. Ah, I love it when I kick ass…

But wait, there was something else, something trying to make its way through. She'd sent the girl home and then…

The memories of the second attack with the powder bombs flooded back. They must have been some kind of sleeping or paralyzing potion. It would certainly explain the ache that was slowly starting to recede throughout her body and the aching in her head. Sango had mentioned the after-effects of things like that when she warned the others not to mess with her various powders and poisons. But if she had been attacked by something like that…the sudden realization that she had been captured by something flashed through her brain, shaking away the rest of the fog, and she shot upright.

CLANG

And down.

Kagome groaned and clutched her head as a sharp pain shot through her skill, blossoming red behind her eyes as little fireworks went off in her brain.

Okay, obviously not such a good idea…

After the sharpness dissipated to a much worse throb than she had awoken with Kagome slowly peeled an eyelid back, wary of the potential pain of light flooding her poor, abused brain. This wasn't the first time she had managed to hit her head, she knew the dangers of bright lights to rattled brains. And while the sharp retort of metal should have been a clue she didn't quite expect to see what she did.

Bars. Directly above her was a rather impressive set of iron bars. She slowly slid her eyes down and to the right to see more bars. To the left, bars. She gently lifted her head to look down past her feet, and what do you know, more bars. She was in a cage. Oh, great. Just perfect.

Slowly, Kagome levered herself up, this time being careful of her head. She wasn't sure how much more damage it could take. She had enough problems with parabolic equations as it was, she didn't need to knock the ability to do simple addition and subtraction out of her head as well. What she found was less than pleasing.

She was, indeed, in a cage, but it looked like someone had gotten the measurements wrong. It was long enough for her to lie down in and wide enough to allow a bit of stretch, but someone had decided to save a little cash and neglected to make it high enough to sit up in. Iron bars must be expensive. Probably got a deal on short ones. Instead, it was only tall enough for her to sort of half recline in, that is, unless she wanted to do an impersonation of the Hunchback of Notre Dam. Frankly, she didn't think 'hunch' was her look.

Now that she had figured out her immediate reality and was in a semi comfortable position, she decided to try and figure out just where this cage was. The first thing that hit her when she looked around was that the room she was in was as poorly designed as the cage. Guess it's a theme… It looked like an old, wooden hut and from the half rotted and discolored wood planking it looked like it hadn't been inhabited in a long time. While at first glance it looked like a standard sized, one room hut Kagome soon saw that, like the cage, the ceiling was far too low. Obviously, someone very short had built this place and they didn't expect to have much in the way of company over five feet tall.

Well, they better not expect company, this place is a mess.

And it was. There were books and herbs and tools and bits and pieces of mostly unidentifiable things scattered everywhere. Sometimes they were in piles, sometimes they just looked like they had been dropped and forgotten. It looked like the midget that had kidnapped her was not much of a housekeeper. And to top it all off, the place absolutely stunk.

Before she could wonder any more on her current situation, however, the half rotted mat covering the door slipped to the side admitting who she could only assume was her captor. He looked vaguely human but the lizard-like tail, strangely iridescent skin, and the two large tusks protruding from his prominent lower jaw argued for youkai.Strange…why don't I sense any youki? Stranger still was the fact that he was dressed like a nobleman, or rather, a nobleman that had fallen on hard times...from really high up. And, as the architecture hinted, he stood only at about four feet tall.

"Ahh, I see you have finally awoken, my pet," he burbled at her. Kagome blinked at him. Pet? Hell, to compare the two of them he was the one who looked the size to be a pet, not her.

"Good, good," he continued, rubbing stubby, scaled hands together. "Now maybe we can get to work."

Kagome's brows drew together. "Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want with me?"

The youkai turned to her and bowed with a flair usually saved for ice dancers. "I am the Wizard Massoumo, once and future Great Lord of the Lizard Youkai. And what I want, my pet, is you. With you I will finally have my vengeance against the legacy of my great enemy." The lizard dissolved into a fit of maniacal laughter, his head tossed back and his fist raised in triumph. Apparently he was rather prone to dramatics. Or lunacy, she amended as she caught the fevered glint of madness in his eyes.

Uh oh. That's never good.

She had run into many different youkai during her time in the feudal era—some good, some evil, some merely annoying—but she had yet to meet one that was truly and utterly insane. Naraku was close, but mostly he was just evil. But this guy…Kagome was really getting a bad feeling about this.

Inuyasha…please, hurry up and rescue me…

She watched with a growing sense of foreboding as Massoumo turned, still chortling, to the pot that had been simmering over the fire in the center of the room. After catching of whiff of its contents Kagome devoutly prayed that it was not what he planned to serve for lunch. Or was it dinner? Whatever it was, her hunger was definitely quashed. After a moment, though, she began to feel something emanating from the pot besides a stench. Power. He wasn't making lunch, it was some kind of potion. She watched as he wandered almost randomly around the room, picking up bits of this and that that had been scattered in the mess. Every now and then he would turn and look at her before tossing in something else or chanting something in a sibilant language she couldn't hope to understand.

"Soon, soon," he crooned softly to himself and he weaved in and out of the mess, rubbing his scaly hands together cartoonishly. Yeesh, what television show did he crawl out of? He's like a comic book villain, I swear…After a few more minutes of this, though, he finally came to a rest on the opposite side of the pot from her, bringing a small, ornately carved wooden box from the front of his robes with a grandiose flare. "And now, for the final piece, the final thread of my master tapestry…"

Chortling again in that highly disturbing laugh that bespoke someone who had misplaced their marbles and wasn't concerned with checking the lost and found box, he opened the box and very ceremoniously pulled out two threads. No, wait a minute…Kagome looked closer, they weren't threads, they were hair. One was dark black and looked suspiciously like hers. The other was long and silver…

Massoumo quickly intertwined the two and dropped them into the pot, creating a rather bright flash.

Of course there would be a flash. It just wouldn't be right without a flash. Kagome drawled in her mind.

When she was able to open her eyes again, though, she wasn't encouraged by what she saw. Massoumo was standing near the door with a vicious grin on his tusked mouth. And the pot…there seemed to be a thick, dark, greasy looking cloud rising from it.

"I'll see you soon, my pet," Massoumo crooned. "And then…then we shall truly begin…"

Between one blink and another the lizard vanished, leaving Kagome with her cage, her headache, and a less than friendly looking cloud of smoke billowing up from the pot in the center of the room. And it…it was moving…right towards her!

Oh no! What is that thing? What has he done? Inuyasha, please hurry!

Just then, the smoke reached her and enveloped her in a searing cloud of agony. She thought she might have screamed but she couldn't be sure. Her entire being was on fire, no, worse.In…Inu...ya…sha... was her last coherent thought before she tumbled head first into the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness.

ooOoo

Inuyasha sat on top of the hut glaring at the orange tinted sky. One week. She'd promised only to be gone one week. She was supposed to be back today before sunset. Well, sunset was here and she wasn't. Where was that girl? Damn it, she knows how I feel about this!

It wasn't just that he didn't like her going back and forth through the well, though in truth, he rather despised it. He had found more and more that he hated to be parted from her. He didn't like it. He wasn't supposed to have to depend on anyone. Hanyous were alone in the world, never really belonging anywhere. The only problem with that is that he did. He belonged…with Kagome. It went against everything he'd ever learned, everything he'd ever experienced, and yet, there it was. And what was worse was that he'd grown used to it. Without her here it just didn't feel right.

He supposed he could go to her era, he had before, but more often than not he felt even more out of place there. Sure, her family made him feel welcome, in a lot of ways they had become like a family to him as well. But it wasn't his time, he was a stranger there, an oddity. And when Kagome went off to do whatever it was she needed to do there he was even more alone than he was here, without her.

Inuyasha grumbled and slumped down, arms crossed over his chest. Stupid girl. I'm not supposed to feel like this. Like…like…And that was more than half the problem. He didn't really know what he was feeling, or for that matter, what he was supposed to feel. All he knew was that he felt better when she was here, beside him. Unfortunately, there had been another time he'd felt like that, and to say it had ended poorly would have been a gross crime in understatement.

Kikyo. That's what it kept coming down to. He'd thought he'd known what he felt, how he was supposed to feel, back then…with her. And then…then. Inuyasha sighed and made a face at his own turn of thought. Talk about your fucked up situation. He loved Kikyo, there was no refuting that, but maybe…maybe that just wasn't enough. If it had been then none of that would have ever happened. Or maybe it wasn't love, it was trust. If they had really trusted each other they would have never believe that either would betray. They would have tried to figure out just what had happed before jumped to conclusions…or rather, weapons. In a time of magic, good, and evil, especially when so much evil was drawn to their particular corner of the world, it should have been a more logical leap to think that something else had happened.

Inuyasha grabbed a hold of his head with both hands, fighting off the growl rising in his throat. He didn't like thinking about things like this, usually he avoided it.

And if Kagome had been back when she'd promised then I wouldn't be thinking about it now, either. But that wasn't really fair. It wasn't her fault. But I do that, don't I? I take it out on her. I just can't help it…she's just so much likeher.

Another complication. It wasn't even all that true. Sure, they looked a lot a like, well, until you looked into their eyes. Kikyo's eyes had always been calm, serine, and tinted with sadness. But Kagome's…it was like there was a fire burning within her. It was hidden most of the time behind a cheerful, easygoing façade, but she just couldn't ever hide it from her eyes. And besides the looks there really wasn't all that much they had in common. Kikyo was refined, disciplined, well trained, and serine. Kagome was anything but. But Kagome had accepted him, and if he was tied down and forced to think about it, Kikyo never really had. Not really. If she had then she never would have asked him to become human. There had been a time when he hadn't thought that, that she just wanted to give them a chance to live a normal life. Then Kagome burst into his world and threw 'normal' out the window. To her, he wasnormal.

She had taught him so much—how to trust, how to smile, how to turn weakness to strength. She didn't even know that she had. With her he felt accepted, loved…safe. Strange that a relatively weak human could make him feel save, but she did. She was like…like…home, and she didn't even know it. If he could puzzle out his feelings for her, he would, but at the moment all he knew was that things just weren't quite right without her.

And, she was late.

ooOoo

Stupid monkeys... was the first thought that drifted through Kagome's brain as it struggled once again towards consciousness. It seemed rational in her foggy state, after all, if they would just lay off with the banging of the cymbals then maybe her head would stop hurting.

And it wasn't just her head that hurt, her entire body was one big ache.I've really got to stop waking up like this. That or I've got to start drinking so at least when I do I can have had the fun to go along with it. Then again, if thisis what a hangover felt like, maybe not. Who would subject themselves to this willingly?

And why do I feel like this again?

Kagome searched haphazardly through the soup her brain had become, looking for the answer. She wasn't exactly her best when she first woke up. Things tended to come back a little slowly, which was why Inuyasha had received more than one slap when he'd woken her up unexpectedly. She was more of a react first, think about it after coffee kind of morning person. Too bad there wasn't coffee in the Feudal Era.

Wait a minute…something about Inuyasha…She did a mental frown, mostly because she wasn't sure her head could withstand a real one. Maybe if she opened her eyes things would come back more easily.

Slowly, Kagome cracked one eye open and immediately shut it against the stabbing pain that shot through her skull. Okay, maybe that wasn't the best of notions…She decided to wait until the throbbing receded to a dull ache before she tried again. This time there was no blinding pain, merely a slight blurriness she slowly blinked away.

Hmm…bars…that's never good. Why are there bars? She took a deep breath through her nose, intending to sigh, but gagged instead. Holy crap! What was that stench? Then it came back, all of it. Massoumo, his insane plan to do something she wasn't sure she understood, the potion, the cloud…the pain. She hadn't felt that much pain when she'd been shot in the back with her own arrow. It had been like every single molecule of her body was on fire. She was glad she'd passed out quickly, she wasn't sure how much more of that kind of pain she could have endured before she went insane herself.

She slowly sat up, now clearly remembering the perils of this low-ceilinged caged. She'd intended to look around, maybe find a way out, but something else caught her attention. Something silvery-white. Hair. More than hair, though, her hair. She stared at the locks that had tumbled over one eye, doing an impressive cross-eyed maneuver. She reached up to tug at it and make sure it was really attached to her head when she was immediately distracted again by something else. Her hand. Or, at least, it should have been her hand. She didn't remember having claws, though, or twin stripes in her wrists. But there they were. Deep, sapphire stripes and pointed, though surprisingly dainty claws.

The potion…she thought, dazedly. The potion must have done this. But how? Wait a minute…the silver hair…

Still living in the land of shocked disbelief, Kagome slowly reached up with her stranger-hand and felt her ears. Yup, points. And her teeth…she ran her tongue over them…points. Egads! She'd been turned into a youkai! What the fu…

"Ah, I see you've recovered," a now dangerously familiar voice called from the doorway. Kagome's head snapped that direction to see Massoumo standing there, halfway into the hovel, with a smug grin forming around his yellowed tusks. Some part of her mind was a little surprised at just how bad he smelled, while another was wondering why it looked to be midday beyond him when the last time she'd woken up it was nearly night. Gasp! How much time have I been here? It could be days!

"Yes, yes," he murmured to himself as he came closer, walking around the cage. "The change is complete, a total success! Brilliant!"

Kagome stared at him, her lip starting to curl and she was slightly surprised by the rumble she felt starting to rumble in her chest. "What have you done to me?" she growled at him through clenched, fanged teeth.

"Done? Done?" Massoumo repeated, a wicked grin on his face and a feverish glow to his eyes. "Why I have given you a gift, my dear. The gift of youkai! You once were human, weak and pathetic. Now you are greater, so, so much more than you could ever hope to be. And I must say, my dear, that you are quite stunning, even though I don't usually go for dogs."

Kagome blinked, a little taken aback. "The hairs…" she started slowly, "you used the hair of a youkai to do this to me…"

"Yes, yes, quite, quite. You really are a quick one. That will serve so much better for my purposes. An excellent choice I have made, most excellent." Massoumo rubbed his scaly hands together, making the most horrible of dry, scrapping sounds. It was almost worse than nails on a chalkboard. "You are correct, of course. The spell used the hair of a youkai, but not just any youkai, mind you. Oh, no, that would not have done at all. No, it was a hair from the eldest son of Hannoyo, King of the Dogs, Lord of the West, and my great enemy. But, being a human, of course you know nothing about him."

For the briefest of moments she thought about correcting him, proving him wrong. It really had more to do with having one more person brush her off as worthless and stupid just because she was human. Inuyasha was one thing, she knew it was just a mask, but to have every single opponent and treat her like nothing…And then Reason managed to mentally bitch-slap her out of it. After all, in a situation like this, the more unappreciated you were, the less the attention, the greater likely hood of escape.

Hannoyo…that's Inuyasha's father. So if he used hair of the eldest…that means Sesshomaru. So, what, he turned me into a female version of Sesshomaru? How could he do that? Why would he do that? And how in the world did he manage to get the hair?

"Why?" she finally managed to stutter out past her suddenly parched throat. The idea of becoming a Sesshomaru with an extra X chromosome was not exactly appealing.

Massoumo got as close to her face as he could with the bars still in the way. "Revenge!" he hissed. "I want revenge! Many, many years ago, Hannoyo destroyed me, destroyed my empire and my power base. For a long time I waited and I plotted for revenge against him, but then he had to go and die. For a time I thought that would be good enough, but it wasn't. His legacy continued through two sons. The younger I care nothing about, he is but a pathetic hanyou and not even worth dealing with. But the elder…the elder is another matter. Sesshomaru is a great youkai, powerful and beautiful, with all the potential of becoming as strong as his father. Against him will I take my revenge, and through him, his father. And you, you will be the instrument of my revenge!"

So, he doesn't really know about Inuyasha, or how powerful he is? Best not to tip him off then, or that I already know these people… "Why do you need me?" she asked instead.

"You got in the way of my youkai," he said, still crouched down next to her. "I was just going to take that lost village girl, but then you appeared and killed my pets. I saw how strong you were, even for a human, and I knew that you would much better suit my purposes. That strength, it is rare in humans, especially females, and it would only make the transformation better. You see, through the transformation you were given the same strength as Sesshomaru, but any additional human strength would be added to that. I thought that it didn't really matter, that maybe just a little bit would do, but then I saw you! You were much stronger, and you already know how to fight! Oh, yes, you will serve my vengeance very well indeed."

So, she was stronger than Sesshomaru? There was definitely a point to all this, she just wished the old man would get to it. But she didn't want to press him, the longer she kept him talking the more time she would have to formulate an escape, or for Inuyasha to find her. Maybe if she could get him talking long enough he would get distracted and she could catch him unawares. After all, she was supposed to be even stronger than the strongest youkai she knew.

As long as I don't pull a me and trip and fall on my face or something… It had been known to happen at the most inopportune times…

"And just why do you think I'll go along with anything you want me to do?" she growled dangerously at him, and her anger wasn't feigned.

He laughed at her, "Easy there, pretty pup," he said, "I'll tell you why. Because if you don't, then I won't ever change you back to what you once were. I know there are those who would consider this a great gift and not see why anyone would want to change back, but not this Massoumo. I have been around for a long time, and I know humans pretty well. I know how important your sense of self is, and that you will never be happy like this if you did not choose it yourself. But…only if you do as I say will I change you back, only then."

Kagome growled again and looked down thoughtfully. So that meant that there was a way for her to change back. She would at least have to play along until she could find out what it was, or get away and find out later. It also meant, however, that she couldn't kill him or let him be killed until she knew.

"So," she said, looking back up at him, "how exactly am I supposed to serve that vague vengeance?" she asked.

"Glad you asked, glad you asked," he bubbled at her, his eyes bright and eager. "You will have to know if you are to carry this out, and I am glad your mind is as quick as I thought so you realize the realities of the situation." He grinned malevolently at her, his tusks protruding almost through the bars, and his eyes took on a mad glint. "You see, I was betrayed, betrayed! That thrice damned Hannoyo betrayed me and destroyed me…never should have trusted him, never should have. Dogs are loyal only to their own kind or their masters…not even always then. Dogs!" he spit over to the side as if the mere mention of them left a foul taste in his mouth. Then he looked back at her, his eyes going wide. "Oh, no, not you dear, you're different, remember that. Always remember that. You are my instrument."

He paused and gloated over her triumphantly. "Sesshomaru won't be able to resist you! I have made you quite fetching, yes, quite fetching indeed. Even if you weren't such a lovely bitch, though, he would be irresistibly drawn to you, even though he himself wouldn't fully know why. But I do, I do!"

He started to laugh again and Kagome rolled her eyes. Buying time was one thing, but this was getting very annoying, and her now heightened sense of smell was greatly offended by the stench of him so close to her. He must not have bathed in a very long time.

"Is this going anywhere?" she asked, irritated, and bringing him back to the focus of the conversation. "This Sesshomaru, he'll be attracted to me, so what?"

"Ah, yes," he said, his eyes focusing back on her, "but that is the key! That is the stroke of brilliance! He will see you and be drawn to you. You see, he has had many females in the past, a man like him would, but never has he found a true mate. He must know that he must find a mate to continue his line, to continue his family's legacy and power. He must! When he finds you he will have found that, his perfect mate! Granted, that is because you were formed from him and of him, not a daughter so don't worry about that, I know how squeamish you humans are about things like that. But he won't know that, and he'll fall for you, for the first time in his life he will have found the perfect mate and he will fall in love!"

Kagome stared at him, she could guess where this was going. It was one of the oldest plays in the book, though she wondered idly just how old it was in this time. Kagome remembered being forced to read stories like this in school. Her friends thought them all terribly romantic. She thought them nauseating.

"And then what?"

"Why, then, my lovely," he chortled and started to rub his scaly hands together. Kagome fought of a wince at the annoying sound. Okay, definitely some drawbacks to the youkai hearing…"after you have won his love, his trust, you will kill him!"

Kagome nodded slightly, she had been right. Damn, sometimes she just hated that.

Massoumo must have taken that for agreement or understanding, though. "You see, don't you, you see the brilliance of my plan? He shall be betrayed by one he trusts the most, and he shall know the pain he and his father laid upon me! And in his last instants he shall know, not only what has been done and why, but he and his father's spirit will know that their line has been forever extinguished! And thus shall I have my revenge!"

Kagome watched the lizard man, he was completely insane now, no light of reason in his eyes. i That doesn't mean he should be taken lightly, though /i she reminded herself. Mad men had wrought havoc in the past. They had conquered nations. Had killed millions. Had won Oscars and taken over the fashion industry. Just because he was insane didn't mean he was stupid or that he wouldn't pick up on things if she wasn't very careful. She did see the brilliance of his plan, it was actually a very good one and would probably work. That is, it would if it weren't for the one fatal flaw—her.

He had made a terrible mistake when he had chosen her to change and force into this, he just didn't know it yet. She wasn't sure if she still had her normal powers in this form, but that might not matter. After all, she knew Sesshomaru, and he knew her. He probably wouldn't recognize her, she doubted if even her scent was unchanged, but she should be able to find a way to warn him. What was more, she had Inuyasha, the other son Massoumo had discounted so early on. She knew that by now he had to have realized that something had happened to her, she was supposed to be back at the village by now, and he would come looking for her. He would be able to follow her human scent to this hut, though she didn't know how far away it was. If they stayed here long enough, perhaps he could find her before Massoumo set his plan into action, but if it was after that…with her scent changed to this she didn't know if he could track her.

Inuyasha, she prayed silently, please hurry, I need your help! Inuyasha!

A/N: And there we have Chapter Three! Yes, yes, I know, no Sesshomaru yet. But fear not, he appears in the next chapter. As I am a fan of the italics I am also a fan of the set up. All will be well.

Review Response:

To my one reviewer, JeanB, thank you so much...I hope this answers your questions...well, sort of!