Kagome’s head spun as she bolted up from the settee. On wobbling legs, she staggered outside. Her breath steamed before her in the autumn air, adding to the haze that eclipsed her. Half-dazed, she stared through it, frozen. Numb. Gravel from the garden path dug into her bare feet, but she barely felt its stab. Her mind had gone blank.

For one long, bewildered moment of horror, she stood arrested by the carnage that met her eyes—

In the silvered grass, Natsuko lay. Her pale limbs flopped, doll-like and limp, thrashing weakly beneath the grizzled, shadowed bulk bearing down upon her. The beast bearing down upon her. Kagome’s mind teetered sickeningly, brutally. She clambered onto the grass. Natsuko had stopped shrieking, and that yawning silence was all she could hear. The distant shouts of the approaching guards seemed muted. Their torchlight dimmed in her perception.

They were too far away, because she’d sent them away. Too far away to help. They couldn’t get here fast enough. They wouldn’t make it in time.

There was only her—only her launching herself into the fray as she yelled, “Ikiryou! Ikiryou, STOP! Let her go!”

For one fraught moment, the attacking dog paused. His bloody maw lifted from Natsuko’s collar—before he lowered his head and started mauling her again. Kagome threw herself onto him then. She beat at him with her fists, grabbed and scratched at him wildly, frenziedly. Raking a nail across his eye, she felt his whipcord muscles jerk and tense, coiling under her like a striking snake. With a howl of rage, he whipped around on her at breakneck speed.

Steely claws ripped across her chest. Kagome started to scream—but then Ikiryou was on her, tackling her, pinning her to the ground beneath him. The wind crashed out of her. Vainly, she gasped, choked. Her heart slammed into her throat. Tears of agony bleared her eyes. Knifepoint claws dug into her shoulders. Slavering jaws snapped in her face.

In breathless anguish, she peered up at him. His mad burning gaze scorched into hers.

Caught in this terrible limbo, it seemed like a hellish eternity ensued. In truth, probably only a handful of seconds passed—before Ikiryou made a tortured sound somewhere between a snarl and a whine and slunk off of her, vanishing into the shadows.

…

“I’m sorry,” Kagome whispered again. “I’m so, so sorry…”

By Natsuko’s bedside, she sat, gazing down at her mistress’s pale, unconscious form. Many of her bandaged bites and scratches lay concealed beneath the white sheet draped over her. But Kagome could see the edge of the worst wound—the deep punctures Ikiryou’s fangs had sunk into the junction of Natsuko’s neck and shoulder. The gruesome savagery of it made Kagome’s stomach turn, made the fading slashes across her own flesh blaze with fresh heat.

“He was restless in his kennel, Kagome-sama, growling and pacing,” the stablemaster had said. “We watched him close for a while, worried he might try the gate. When he quieted, I thought that was the end of it, that he’d tired out at last. By the time we spied the hole he’d dug, he was gone…”

From her sickbed, Natsuko gave a pitiful, raspy moan. Crushing the heel of her hand to her brow, Kagome grimaced. This was her fault. With all the festivities going on, she’d thought it best to lock Ikiryou away. He’d been crankier than usual at this. She’d known that. But such an attack she’d never foreseen…

Somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, a voice laughed at her in mocking.

Kagome’s nails bit into her skin. The guards were still looking for him, she knew. But they wouldn’t find him. Ikiryou was clever enough to keep himself hidden—when he was sane at least.

But how long would that last?

The searing madness in his eyes would haunt her forever. That feral, bloody gleam left an afterimage she just couldn’t shake. It was all she could see as she drew herself up from the floor, and left Natsuko to rest in peace.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi