Though Kagome found herself waiting on pins and needles for Shin to transform again, he seldom did. It seemed totally random to her when he morphed into his beast form. Sometimes it was at night when he was sleeping deeply. Sometimes it was when he was wide awake in the broad light of day. He never held the form for long that she could tell—just a handful of minutes at a time. She wondered whether he simply couldn’t, either because of his tender age or mixed blood or both.

It was fair to say that Shin’s inuyoukai form raised more questions than it answered.

“Perhaps it’s not merely the influence of the moon,” Miroku said with a furrowed brow, after Kagome had hastened to fetch him and Sango during a transformation, “but the interplay of other celestial forces. Kagome-sama is a priestess, after all, and the babe has certainly inherited her spiritual power.” His violet gaze slid slyly to Inuyasha. “I see your forelock’s still singed from your pestering him the other day.”

“Keh.” Inuyasha scowled, crossing his arms. “That wasn’t ‘pestering’, it was playing. Kid just doesn’t know his own strength is all.”

Kagome shook her head, sighing.

“Part-demons are changeable by nature,” Sango said aside to her, in a conciliating tone that made Kagome fear that what she meant by ‘changeable’ was ‘volatile’ instead.

The only thing that seemed constant about Shin’s transformations was that they occurred when he had ample space for his beastly bulk to occupy. He’d never transformed before in his little bassinet, nor in his carrier sling, nor when he was being held in someone’s arms. 

Once, when Kagome was prepping raw meat for dinner, she turned to find him sitting on his shaggy haunches just behind her. She gasped, dropping the knife, which pinged to the wooden planks where it stood point-first, quivering. In his beast form, Shin didn’t so much as flinch at this. Cocking his head to one side, he stared unblinking toward her with his feral crimson eyes. Glowing saliva dripped from his fanged mouth to the floor, smoldering there. Low in his throat, he whined, gravelly and hair-raising.

Recovering from her shock, Kagome followed his searing red gaze to the pile of bloody meat heaped to one side of the cutting board. “A-are you hungry, baby?”

Whether he really understood her or not, Shin wagged his plush tail at the sound of her speaking to him. Picking up a slimy red sliver of venison, she held it outstretched toward him—gasping again when he snapped it up between his fangs and chewed with carnal relish. Kagome offered him several more slivers, until it seemed he was satisfied. Turning a few times in place, he curled up in the middle of the floor, and was still curled there in a tight ball shortly later, when he shivered into human form again.

Scooping him up, Kagome returned him to his crib. She swiped away the bead of congealed blood lingering at the corner of his mouth. Heart-hammering, she crossed over to a chair by the table and sat shakily down, telling herself she’d just have to get used to this.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 8/31/23