Blood Sick

I

The Thread

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Disclaimer

I do not own any of the publicly recognized figures in this Fanfiction. Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise TV.

Content Warning

This fanfiction is filled with the fuckery of my mind. This fanfiction is explicit and M rated.

Chapter Warning

Sexual implications. Body Horror. Loss of physical and mental control.

It had been sixteen days since Kagome had spoken to him.

She was there, in his era, with her bag slung off her shoulders and Shippo in her arms. If he raised his hand he could touch her, splay his hands over her shoulder and drag her to him. Force her to talk to him, something.

But he was… afraid. Something had progressively felt wrong within him, like a piece of furniture moved out of place despite knowing that he wasn't the one to move it. His skin felt too tight and his blood rushed in an ominous uproar- something spiraled out of control just under the surface.

There had been a change somewhere along the lines. Somewhere up the path, maybe? A thread caught on a branch, slowly pulling- unwinding, unraveling. Far too unwound to be reassembled.

Inuyasha twitched, catching himself staring again. His eyes catching the sweet dip of her shoulder, the cool caress of her iridescent black hair over the soft slope of her neck, and finding purchase in the expanding plain of her ribs- just hidden beyond the heavy knit of the blue sweater.

He knew that just below her last rib was a ghosted memory of a faint mark in the shape of his own hand. Just like there were phantom marks at the planes of his back-

Shaking himself, he bit the inside of his cheek and crossed his arms over his chest. Attempting to look indignant, annoyed, as he tried to realign his brain to the task ahead. The task they had been on for the last few years.

Gather the jewels. Defeat Naraku. Defeat, defeat, defeat-

Each death, human or demon, had begun to affect him. Noticeably now.

Nothing that wore on him, nothing that impeded him. But it had become less of a survivalist mentality, and more of a territorial mentality. Inuyasha had caught himself posturing, nearly puffing every time he took down something.

And forbid it if they ever as much as looked at Kagome.

Forbid if they antagonized her. Spoke to her. Touched her.

And when the blood dried on his hands and his sword felt light in his grip, did he want to kill more. It was a scary thought, terrifying, as he was ineloquent and far too crude to even speak on his thoughts of violence- he did not need anyone to tell him it was wrong.

That the change within him was not normal, not under his control. He was under control- Had to be.

He did not need to see the fear. Did not need to see it in their eyes. In her eyes.

The thread must have been pulled soon after they had met; the spool was so large he didn't notice until it was mostly unwounded, the bare wood of his soul coaxed into the daylight. The wood pus yellow and rotting.

He worried he poisoned her too. He could still smell himself within her and her upon him, sunk into and forever tangible. In that trade, bodily, could he have tainted her like he tainted the jewel?

Kagome mumbled something to Shippo, her tone light and sweet and warm, stark in comparison to the cold sharp breeze that wrapped around him. Infiltrating the cloak of the fire rat, cutting his skin like a fray of ice shards.

"Don't worry, Shippo," His brain felt soft, nullified, at her voice. "I'll get more paper when I go home. Would you like another coloring book? They alrea-"

Like a snapping whip, his brain realigned and the curve of his mouth fell.

"Like hell you will." The words fell before Inuyasha could think, graveled and nearly morose. Unlike the sparking vitriol that he was known for, this tone was still hot but was held in such a way that held a true warning. Uneclipsed, unhidden. He scrambled a moment, his ears quivering as he tried to hide his strange…ailment. "We- we are four days away from Kaede's Village and I can smell the storm comin'."

He wasn't lying about the storm as dark, angry clouds swirled like his venomous mood, but his insistence came from somewhere else.

Gather the jewels. Defeat Naraku. Keep her here.

Keep her. Keep her.

Hazy words from his subconscious poised within him like an alarm. Echoing something that strangely felt like instinct- He was her dog, wasn't he? Too bad he answered the call of an old master.

His jaw tensed, mimicking the tick in Kagome's shoulders as the soft slope became bunched and the ridge of her spine heightened. Shippo, on the other hand, peaked over her shoulder with a doleful look, his expression timid before carefully cutting to something sly. Something fox-like. Playful, goading.

"Say Inuyasha-" the little twerp used a tone that made the hair on the back of his neck twinge. "It wouldn't be because you don't want Kagome to leave, would it?"

The fox kit was young, something barked inside of him. Young and without a father. And in that infancy he was far too oblivious to understand that Inuyasha had staked a claim. That, in all affairs, the kit was far too close and far too cuddly with a woman that wasn't related to him. But Inuyasha himself didn't understand why he felt so aggravated at the display he had seen so many times before.

That cloying, aggravating tone of the fox kit upheld made him bite the other cheek. "Oi, shut it, twerp. I just don't wanna go hunting for her when Kirara gets rain blasted out of the sky."

"Then how about you take our dear Kagome, Inyasha?" Miroku was, indefinitely, walking a thin line. Had been for gods knew how long now: his trailing eye and wandering hand bidding for a bite.

Miroku did not read the hazard signs: the tilt in Inuyasha's head and the tensing of his claws, nor the twitch in the lid of his left eye. Kagome hadn't spoken to him directly in days, and his implication of Kirara was not- Inuyasha clenched his jaw, his skin itching. "It can't be that you two are still at odds, can it?"

It wasn't that easy. Inuyasha knew it- even under his own brazen behavior and thick-headedness that he had pushed the line too far, that he had broken something not easily rebuilt. He wanted a thousand subjugated commands if only she would look at him.

But that was not the start of this uncoiling. It would not be the end either.

"No." Kagome spoke, her voice flat. Tired. "I will wait until after the storm and take Kirara- if it's alright with you, Sango?"

No it wasn't alright. No it wasn't alright-

Inuyasha pushed forward and past Kagome, picking up speed as he crossed his hands across the back of his head. "Come on. Your yapping doesn't mean we get to slow down."

"We weren't slo-" But there was a scent- her scent, changed with him, that slipped into his nose thicker than ever. A hot, wet feeling climbed his spine and laced itself around his neck. In turn, a grating noise blossomed in the back of his throat, a thick sound that struck against his larynx: guttural. A growl that made the forest go silent around them as he felt the white foam curdle from his lips, the pit of his stomach heavy and sick.

The air tensed around them all and he could feel the way that they all straightened. Suddenly tense themselves, on guard as their dear friend corrected them.

Just keep walking. Inuyasha felt a rush of…embarrassment? Shame? It felt like violence. Something that would lessen if he could just…fix it all. Fix it, turn it back.

There was silence that followed Inuyasha for a beat. Then a second, before the shuffle of feet rose again and the murmur of the monk's smooth voice fell dead before Inuyasha's superior hearing could make it out, stifled unseen by Sango's hand.

The rest of the journey was silent, at least, until the first arc of lightning kissed the sky. It had left Inuyasha in his own head, the falling dark and the sharpening breeze unfounded, only pulling from the sea of regret when the first drops of rain fell on his hair and face.

All he had to do, all he should have done, was stay next to Kagome. Ignore Kikyo for once, banish the thoughts of her. And be at peace with knowing that they were not meant for each other. Understand that, for a moment in time, they had been eclipsed as two lonely people in a very cruel and very sad world.

Naraku, in a time that seemed so long ago when the spider puppetted Rōyakan, had relinquished a detail that cut him to the core: it had been so easy to accept that collective betrayal. A betrayal that if Kagome mirrored Kikyo's attack, Inuyasha would have known it to be a figment of someone else's malice.

Except.

Except that it had been the real Kikyo who had taken the shot. And that phantom wound in his lung still ached, so many years passed. His heart, however-

He didn't want Kikyo. But he had met her. He had lain with Kagome, her first time, and he had exited their den and met with a woman that had tried to kill them both. His own ex-lover.

Inuyasha hadn't known what he wanted for that meeting. Perhaps some small part of him was attempting to acknowledge whether or not he still felt something when he looked at her cold face. If there was something that still felt warm to him.

You should have dropped it. You should have rolled over in that bed and fucked Kagome again and instead you fucked it all up.

He hadn't even spoken to the undead priestess, had simply looked at her and recognized, as she did, that they were no longer the same people. That he was no longer alone and she had simply isolated herself in her desire for life and revenge. But when he had headed back to the den, to the soft furs and the carefully set, albeit dried, foods… Kagome had not been there.

And she had not returned.

He did not know how to explain. Didn't know how to push past the feeling of dread, thick and black, in his throat. It was cold, that bloodless feeling, and it was only then that he knew something was wrong. Something was wrong with him, beyond his old love. Beyond his nature.

And now, days later- she had yet to acknowledge him. He, in turn, offered her chances. Chances to scream at him, talk to him, punish him-

But instead she ignored him. Her sad eyes felt like daggers; shades of blue and sorrow. That was so much worse. He had to fix this, he had to fix this-

Pay attention. Something deep within himself barked, weaseling through his guts to his temples. The rain washed away the smell of everything, the sound of thunder dampened his hearing. Third eye, fourth eye blinded- His mind clouded with his own shortcomings.

And then it was there.

"Demon," the greeting was a graveled hiss, his arm extending as a warning only moments before the darkness thickened in the forcible presence that soaked the path they walked. But it wasn't in front of him. Not the path ahead, but the surrounding area. As if they were in the heart of a beast- There were hands the shape of tree branches descending from the trees themselves in hoards uncountable. The mist and the rain shrouding them.

The scent of blood filled the air, the caress of claws striking, tearing, breaking- something in his brain could not catch up. Could not grasp the situation, as if moving through thick syrup.

The spool was empty. In an instant the thread of humanity was gone, and even Tetsusaiga did nothing to halt it as his father's blood ate through the remains of his mother. Ate through him as the world had known him, unfolding and refolding into different lines.

It was agony and jouissance.

It was uncontrollable. It was too much. The heat felt boiling, and the rage called his soul forth like a dog on a chain, tearing it and reforming it in its grasp. But Inuyasha did not care. Did not care about his body, his mind, or his soul.

Inuyasha didn't feel it when the hands descended upon him. Clawing him, gouging him.

A howl tore out of his throat, grating against his tongue and teeth like a blazing call. And the heat bubbled through him, sweeping against the heavy pit in his gut as it became lighter, his rage and hunger coiled through him as he turned to the vessel of a demon, his wild eyes fixed on the hands that touched her. His.

"Kagome." His mouth barely fit her name, his teeth scraping the syllables as his throat felt too wide to carefully deliver it. His tongue was clumsy too- and it came out a snarl; possessive and horrible. The stripes, jagged and unkempt, arced over his cheeks as he felt the small capillaries in his eye snap open, drowning his sclera in a sea of red.

The Tetsusaiga, still, sat in his hand as it had for years. Unmoving and silent in its trueform. An instant of familiarity and muscle memory drawing it as he turned on his heel to watch a thing of many hands grasped at Kagome, seeking her or the jewel: it did not matter.

Words echoed in his brain from a time long past, before Sango settled in the group. How are you to know that once a full-demon, you won't devour Kagome?

The answer was here, tremendously, without the aid of the Shikon Jewel. Without the shards. And it, his very blood, screamed in him that Kagome was his. The urge to protect her had not waned an inch and only doubled in ferocity- echoing through his soul. He would devour the world before it could harm her.

He would devour the gods themselves. Hunt the moon and the sun.

Someone shouted something, the tones warped and distorted to an unknown length. There was the sound of blood rushing, and an encapsulating hatred that drove Inuyasha mad. His wounds bubbled, his fathers blood-smell filled the air with a tumultuous force as his skin sealed itself back together.

He moved on instinct and power. Instinct and power-

"Inuyasha!" Sango's call morphed, becoming strained as her eyes settled on him through the mass of hands descending on them. Recognizing his change as the comradery slipped into a blur of shock as Hiraikotsu arched back into her awaiting, raised hand.

She was in front of Kagome, her pose defensive as her legs were braced against the dirt. His brain was slower at recognizing his group members, the demon slayer just aligned in his brain as he thrashed through a swarm of clawed fingers tearing at his clothes.

"Don't-" Sango's words were cut short as the influx of hands swaggered forth from the shadows along the forest path, the lighting strike above glinting off claws like eye-shine.

Pink light bobbled from behind her, an unseen arrow plummeting through the leagues of flesh, sizzling, as they fell from the sky like Naraku's venomous swarms. The refraction from the power, her power, tittered over his skin like trailing fingers. Familiar, non-threatening-

Her blood still drenched the inside of his nose, his Jacobson Organ, and the air around them was alight with his bubbling yokai. It did little to alleviate the pressure and panic that roved his brain and body. He needed to get to Kagome.

"Move." He didn't let her commit to that command- when had his group ever given into his commands? And he needed compliance, whatever control that remained in him needed to have Kagome to ground him or he would slip away, completely. So Sango, who had raised her arm to block him with Hiraikotsu, was tossed by that very arm away from him and into the back of Miroku who was fighting by hand in the close quarters of the wooded path.

Kagome stood there, her blue sweater dark along the collar where blood dripped from her split bottom lip and along her leg, there was a series of scratch marks climbing from her ankle to her mid thigh. She had another arrow notched, the point aimed somewhere over his shoulder.

Her fingers released as she finally registered him, the arrow sailing past as the smell of burning yokai bloomed and blistered somewhere behind him.

Another low dragging noise hung from his throat, and Shippo who still held tightly to Kagome's shoulders suddenly cowered down and hid against her hair. "Kagome watch out!"

Her eyes, wet and sad, finally met his own, red and gold and fevered. Concern coated the blue depths, suddenly, and her rigid stance slackened- in a moment, a blink, Inuyasha had grabbed her and pulled her to him, wrapping his loose arm around her tightly.

Water and blood whipped around them, her power attempting to thwart the heavy presence of his own. But even as the rain came down, Inuyasha glared out and through, the hands pulling back and retreating to the branches when the joint combat had forced enough down and back.

The sound bubbling in his throat rattled, and Tetsusaiga heeded his call as he pushed forth a wordless Wind Scar, which tore into trees, shredding bark and limb and hidden, camouflage yokai, emulsifying and destroying.

When his hand rose again, the echo of his power thrumming through the trees and howling into the wind itself, it came down in a cataclysm, tearing through even more of the forest apart. The echoing death throes of whatever was out there, multiple or singular, cried back- feeding his violence.

The third time his hand rose, a hand wove around his wrist, locking it. "Inuyas-ha"

Her voice was tense, hissing. "Too tight. You're holding me- ha- too tight."

A beat passed before he loosened, his arm slackening but not releasing. But as a sudden, grating fear lanced through him that did not allow him to let go entirely, his claws hooking through her sweater in a grasp.

"Let her down," Inuyasha turned, his ears pinning back as he was faced with Miroku, brandishing his staff only to be caught at the elbow by Sango, who visibly attempted to pull him back. Inuyasha bared his teeth and snarled, recognizing his packmate well and good, but not against a physical correction of an opposing force.

Sango on the other hand, was trying to pull him down and away. Her own body was pungent with fear. "He's changed, you idiot. Back down-"

"But he still has…Tetsusaiga…?" Miroku blinked at Inuyasha, letting himself be drug back slowly. His stance was still far too tense and the eye contact the monk kept made something in Inuyasha's mind turn aggressive. A snarl churned in his chest as he kept Kagome, and Shippo by extension, hidden away from the other two.

"Oh Inuyasha," There was such a sound of regret under her words, something choking from the inside, as a soft hand slid to the side of his face. The warm pads of her finger tips, bisected by calluses from her bowstring, gripped him and turned her head to her. The rage softened, the blurry messy feelings that called for copious destruction and blood was muted.

He was no longer hanyo, halfbreed. And the completion, the totality, of his blood was not…It felt wrong. He felt scared, the familiarity he once had for his own body falling away even as he held onto Tetsusaiga. A feeling of horror, mortification as he was changed without will.

"Don't leave me please." Inuyasha attempted to say, his teeth and tongue feeling different in his own mouth, sounding slurred as he pressed his face into her hair and against the curve of her neck and shoulder. Grounding himself with her where his father failed. "I don't know- I didn't mean too-"