And yet, as the days passed and Kagome continued to catch phantom glimpses of this beast of the woods—the smoky wisp of a tail turning into the trees, the glint of gilded eyes through the brush, the pale points of ears tipping just above a fallen log or the far side of a boulder—her irritation gave way to a sort of wry exasperation. As if sensing this, the interloper grew more intrepid still. There were paw prints now among the dirt and stubble of her garden, tooth and claw marks on the fenceposts—

Even a curiously large, fur-limned depression in the dead grass beneath the awning of her shed.

Shaking her head at this latest intrusion, Kagome fought to keep her lips from twitching up at the corners. He was a rascal, all right—though she was finding it increasingly difficult to begrudge him. Despite her passive efforts to be rid of him, this wily dog had managed to weasel his way past her defenses, and she couldn’t help but feel a certain admiration for that.

She stopped harping at Kanako to set out the poisoned meat. It wasn’t doing any good anyway, Kagome told herself—but still experienced an unbidden prickle of relief, when forty-eight hours later she continued to find fresh evidence of his presence.

It was nice, in a way, to have a guileless opponent for a change. This dog didn’t have any sort of hidden agenda or ulterior motives. He just wanted to survive, and all his strength and cunning and destructive tendencies were geared simply for that. Could she fault an animal for behaving according to his own base nature?

Following the trail of blood and feathers that snaked around to the back of her shed, Kagome frowned, uncertain. There, in his bed on the opposite side of the structure, the wild dog lay, a slaughtered chicken dangling limply from his jaws. At her arrival, he dropped his prize into the dirt between them and recoiled a few wary inches from her.

And here now before her was the grisly proof of what she’d suspected, the secret to his success: this dog was no mere scavenger.

He was a killer.

The miko’s frown deepened. She could run him off, perhaps for good this time—though no doubt he’d go on to trouble someone else. She could take down the bow slung across her back and sink an arrow between his gimlet eyes. One shot, and it would all be over. One shot, and he’d be nothing more than another ghost to haunt her sleeping hours. This was what she should do, she knew. And yet her hands remained balled and shaking at her sides.

“I don’t want it,” she bit out at last, rolling the dead bird away from her with the toe of her sandal.

The dog’s ears pricked as he cocked his head to one side. It would’ve been a cute pose—if not for the gore that grimed his muzzle. But after another second of unblinking regard, he edged forward. Pinning the chicken between his forepaws, he plopped back down in the dirt and began to devour it with relish, bones snapping and crunching like twigs. Judging by the whiteness of his fangs and all the bulk he’d put on, this wasn’t the first chicken he’d chewed up since arriving in Edo.

Watching him, Kagome crossed her arms, debating with herself. Yet in the end, she returned to her hut, and after cutting off a shank of salt pork, strode back to the shed. At her aggressive approach the dog abandoned his feast once again. Snatching the mangled little corpse up and away from him, she tossed it into the compost bin and crouched down to offer him the pork instead.

“No more stealing chickens,” she said sternly. “Understood?”

Slowly, he crept toward her outstretched hand, sniffing at the meat she’d extended toward him. Smart dog, Kagome thought with a grimace, as he tugged the chunk of pork from her and gobbled it down—then slicked his tongue along the breadth of her palm for good measure.

Kagome’s skin crawled at the sensation. “…Gross,” she muttered, rising from her crouch.

As he pawed at her knee for more, she wiped her wet hand off on her pants leg and turned toward home, the dog a second shadow trailing behind her.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi