Blue moon and Red Fire

Chapter 4: Competition

It wasn’t cold as he remembered it being, as it should have been. The ground, or at least that what he thought he was laying on, wasn’t freezing and wet like it should have been, just cool and soft in contrast to the heat he was feeling in the air. The tight constriction around his neck also wasn’t there as he remembered it, he was breathing easily and felt as if he had been doing so for quite some time. The only thing he felt had been in place was the sharp, pounding pain pulsing in his head and the throbbing of his neck, it was what awakened him in the first place.

With the memories of what had just happened blowing painfully through his mind, Souta sat up with a light jump, fast enough to make the pain worse and himself dizzy. “Owwww...” Souta opened his eyes and immediately shut them again with a light wince, his hands raising to his face to rub them furiously. Blood, his own, had gotten into them, blood that was smeared across his forehead streaming out of small but mildly deep cuts that resided there. ‘Inu...Inuyasha?’

Souta opened his eyes to blurry vision as soon as he could, feeling more blood stream down the side of his face in a light river. He lay in the middle of an expansive open field covered in short grass and a few spars flowers scattered around randomly, a blue sky covered in roaming clouds and the view of mountains in the distance. Flashes of himself crashing through the small shrine encompassing the well allowed him to put the facts together and realized that he had been dragged down it. The question was, how did he get all the way out here and where was the thing that grabbed him....where was the thing that grabbed him?

An underlying fear started to rise to the surface...that thing could be anywhere... “Ehhhaa.....” Souta scrambled to his feet, one hand clinching his forehead in an attempt to ease the blood flow and the other one held close to his stomach. The haste and sharp movements of his ascent caused him to grow dizzy again, Souta nearly fell back down ’Owww...My head...’

...Souta flinched when he felt something brush against his neck, he quickly turned around with a light gasp...

Only to find nothing there. The wind brushed against his neck, and when he realized it he laughed nervously in his head. ’Ha ha, I’m just overreacting...Ahhaaa!’ Souta felt something slick and wet on the back of his head, his hand instinctively lifted to the spot he felt and he pivoted abruptly.

Again he saw nothing.

And what he felt was more blood from another wound hidden beneath his hair.

All this bleeding couldn’t be good for him, it was probably why he was so dizzy and his body felt a little numb. ‘Inuyasha....I gotta get back home...’ Souta took a deep breath to steady his pounding heart, he had to get back, he had to get back!

...Souta looked around the field, the field that seemed to go endlessly in all directions, the completely empty field except for himself, he was even sure he heard his voice echoing when he spoke....How was he suppose to get back? “Oh man...no, no, no, no, no...Inuyasha where are you?” He was...alone, completely alone. If he wasn’t scared before, he was now.

Rustle, rustle...

Souta kept himself from flinching, it was just more wind blowing threw the grass...

Rustle, rustle...

More wind...Wait... That was strange, he didn’t feel the wind this time...

Rustle, rustle...

“!!” Souta gasped, feeling something wrap tightly around his neck from behind.

Not again, not again!

Souta clinched the fleshy pink tentacle constricting his airway, trying to pry it off frantically with eyes wide and both hands working feverously. ’!!!’ “Help...Me...” Souta placed one foot back to steady his stance in an attempt to keep himself from being pulled backwards. But another one grabbed onto that leg, then the other, then his waist, both arms, his torso, his forehead, his mouth, and with himself completely trapped he couldn’t hope to fight it. All he could do was let out a muffled scream and bite down as hard as he could on the appendage wrapped around his mouth while tears streamed down the side of his face, mixing with the blood that had already been there.

‘Inuyasha...help me!’

Through blurry, tear filled eyes, Souta could just faintly see a blur of brown rushing at him in a trail of kicked up grass and dirt. A loud growl echoed through the air, one that Souta barely even had the presence of mind to do acknowledge it until he was suddenly dropped out of the air, landing face first on the ground. The tentacles surrounding him loosened, completely severed.

Souta drew in desperate breath, his air starved lungs preventing him from getting up and running like he wanted to. At the moment all he could do was turn his head to see what had happened, his mind uttering hopefully that it was ‘Inuyasha...no...who is...that?’

Before him stood a man, his black hair pulled into a ponytail, dressed in armor with fur laying across his shoulders and his shins among other places. Most notably was the tail protruding from his lower back next to the sheathed sword on his waist, and the familiar feeling he got similar to the one he gained when he encountered the first time he came face to face with a demon and Inuyasha saved him. Just like then he saw a light, two of them, coming from the man’s legs. Souta didn’t care what this guy looked like, as long as he was remotely human and saving him.

Another growl came from the mysterious man, claws clinched tightly into fist with fangs bearing. It was enough to make the remaining tentacles draw back and out of sight, running away.

Breath remotely regained, Souta nervously stripped himself of the dead tentacles and stood to his feet with a light shutter, the liquid covering them stung his cuts. “Thank y--” .

..The winds shifted direction, blowing towards him, carrying a notable scent his way. It was...like the one he smelled on Inuyasha, only different but it still carried the same appealing properties. Really appealing... he couldn’t...he couldn’t resist. Souta’s panting became more intentional, inhaling it with shallow breaths, the same daze he felt with Inuyasha washing over him again like a wave. He was...lost in it...he wanted...more... “Who are you?”

The man turned around, blue eyes with pupils shifted into animalistic, canine like slits staring at him hungrily. The boy’s scent was so strong, so... he had tracked it down, and when he caught wind of the demon scent closing in on his potential mate, he couldn‘t let that happen.

The man walked toward Souta like a predator approaching prey, a low growl emitting from his throat...

“Who are you...?” Souta stood boldly, staring at the man with his head titled back and his nose in the air. It was probably the pheromones overloading his sense, clouding his mind, but he didn’t particularly care at the moment. Why did he keep feeling this way?

The man knelt down, giving him a more intense look , pressing his nose against the boy’s neck to inhale the equally appealing scent. In the boy’s blood he could sense something that wasn’t normal, something that wasn’t like everyone else's, something that caused him to run as fast as he could away from his den and any other perfectly good potentially suitable mates for this one. This one was special, and a why would a prince settle when he could have the best. “Kouga...” Kouga opened his mouth, running his tongue over the boy’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Souta didn’t sound questioning when he asked, he didn’t even seem to care. He just closed his eyes and took in the scent...that scent...so close...Souta leaned foward, burring his face in Kouga’s neck

Kouga smirked victoriously, following his instinct, he pulled down the collar of Souta’s black shirt and pressed his mouth against the boy’s shoulder. “Ah!....“ Souta flinched and let out a startled sound when Kouga bit down into his shoulder intuitively to mark his new mate, easing the small wound with light kisses. An arm wrapped around Souta’s back, his other hand pulling open his shirt easily since all of the buttons had been torn off.

“?” Kouga lifted his head when he heard an interesting roar and caught wind of a scent, a scent that he knew. But it was too late by then. “!!” He was thrown to the side from a strong punch to his jaw.

Immediately afterwords he was pounced on and pinned down by a red eyed Inuyasha, growling inhumanly. “Get away from him you bastard!”

Heat induced mindset fading for the moment, Kouga pushed Inuyasha off of him. “Inuyasha! What the hell are you doing here!”

And of course with Kouga’s heat momentarily subsiding so did the scent he was emitting, releasing Souta from it’s manipulative appeal. “Inuyasha!”

“Damn bastard!” Inuyasha didn’t notice the boy, he was too busy trying to strangle Kouga.

Kouga could see that Inuyasha was also in heat, which was bad for him, “Back off! He’s mine!”

“He’s not yours!” No, Souta was most definitely not anyone's, anyone’s but his own. Inuyasha would have lunged at Kouga if Souta had not grabbed his leg and cried out of him to stop. When he saw this red eyes reverted back to the normal golden ones, and he ignored the protective instinct driving him to attack Kouga and gave in to a concerned one. “Are you ok?”

Souta wrapped his arms around Inuyasha’s waist, tears forming in his eyes “I thought I was gonna die! I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, it was--”

“Calm down...” Inuyasha knelt down next to Souta, “What--”

“Don’t hurt him.” Souta pleaded, his admiration in the Hanyou giving him no doubt that Inuyasha could indeed hurt Kouga.

Which only made Kouga angrier. “Hey!” Kouga ran up to Inuyasha, glaring dangerously at him with a tent of heat induced red in his aqua eyes. “He’s mine, back off mutt-face.”

Inuyasha found himself letting out another growl he otherwise wouldn’t be able to make. “Don’t lay a finger on him!” Discarding Souta, Inuyasha dived upward, his claws digging into Kouga’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground. His hands went for the wolf’s neck, but Kouga seized him by his wrist before he could reach.

Kouga drove his head upwards into Inuyasha’s, knocking him backwards and causing him to falter slight. With Inuyasha open, Kouga pushed himself off the ground into a crouching position then knocked him off his feet with a sweep kick. “Your not taking him away from me!” Kouga shouted, jumping on Inuyasha only to be caught by the waist.

Inuyasha rolled over, taking Kouga with him and pining him down again. “Stay away from him!”

All of this left Souta to watch in confusion, and he didn’t know why they were fighting but he saw no reason, he didn’t want them to fight. “Inuyasha, stop.” When he said it his voice was lower then he intended it to be...infact, he was dizzy, really dizzy...everything was spinning in a nauseating manner, and his head was pounding so hard that he involuntarily cringed. “Oww....Inu....” The next thing Souta knew he was flat on his back, staring up at the distorting sky spinning around him.

“!?” Inuyasha froze, holding Kouga by the neck with one hand while the other had him in the same position, both about to strike. He and Kouga looked at each other, then immediately let go of the other and rushed over to the fallen boy.

“Souta?”

“My head....” Souta tried to lift his hand to his head, only to miss it completely from disorientation and hit Inuyasha’s arm. “It hurts....I‘m really dizzy.” And weak, and light headed.

‘No wonder, he’s bleeding all over the place.’ Inuyasha’s eyes stared at the blood smearing the boy’s head, watching tears stream down his face, did Souta even know he was still crying? He searched himself feverously for anything he could put over Souta’s head to stop the bleeding.

“Hold on kid.” Kouga slid his hand behind Souta’s head, noting the blood coming from back here also. “Damn, your bleeding all over the place, what did that demon do to you?” With a white cloth retreated from someplace on his body, Kouga wrapped the fabric around Souta’s head, tying it tightly so enough pressure would continuously be applied. “See, I got him. So back off!” He growled, directing his comment towards Inuyasha.

Inuyasha only snarled back at him, his attention more on Souta then his instinct to kill Kouga. He pushed back the boy’s open shirt to examine burn marks caused by the tentacle's excessive rubbing. And that’s when Kouga saw it... “No! It can’t be!!” He pushed Inuyasha out of the way, quickly thrusting Souta’s shirt all the way down to reveal the boy’s shoulders and the two bite marks that lay on each one.

Two! There couldn’t be two! Kouga only bit him once! Which could only mean the second one’s belong to “Inuyasha!”

“What’s your problem you mangy wolf!” Inuyasha shouted.

Souta lifted his hand to his head, this time he didn’t miss. “My head...stop yelling.”

“You...You!” Kouga stared at the second bite mark, knowing it could only mean one thing “You took my mate!” he shouted in fury.

“You...you.” Souta, still dizzy, clinched on to Kouga’s leg. “You saved me...I-I thought...I was gonna die.” More tears streamed from his eyes, partly from relief, somewhat from the pain, the only indication he had that he was still crying was his distorted vision. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Kouga smirked almost arrogantly, his eyes shifting over to Inuyasha “He can’t be your mate, you can’t even protect him!” Now that some of Souta’s blood was concealed, Kouga could detect some other scents on him that hadn't been so strong, like Inuyasha’s.

“You gotta lot of mouth.” Inuyasha shot back, more as a warning.

It was at that moment that Kouga made up his mind, there was no way in hell he would let Inuyasha leave with his mate. Not him, this boy was special, he could tell by his scent, his scent tainted in traces of the sacred jewel and soaked with some of it‘s power. The hell if he was going to allow this to happen.

Both hands clinching his forehead, Souta sat up, looking over at Kouga “Who...are you?” He had to know, after feeling what he had just felt, after what had almost just happened. Having being bitten by him. He had to know something. “And what’s that light?” Souta removed his left hand from his head, slowly reaching out his arm toward the only thing he could see strait, that light emitting from Kouga’s leg. “I’ve seen...it before.”

“Huh?” Inuyasha blinked a few times before he spoke, confirming something he already knew ‘He really can see them...’

It also confirmed something Kouga already knew, that kid was special, and there was no way in hell he would let Inuyasha take him for himself. “It’s a Shikon Jewel shard.” Kouga took Souta’s arm, removing it from his leg and helping him up by it. Souta shook his head, more as a means to try and disparate the spinning surroundings that he knew shouldn’t have been spinning then anything, and regained his footing.

“Your really fast.” Souta looked up at Kouga with evident amazement in his eyes, wiping away the blood and tears with is forearm “It was so cool how you came out of nowhere cut off those things.”

Inuyasha grunted in annoyment, deciding that he had watched Souta drool over Kouga, a very haughty looking Kouga, long enough. “Alright, lets go.” Inuyasha grabbed Souta by the arm and stormed off.

“Hey wait Inuyasha! Where do you think your going with him!” Kouga immediately ran after Inuyasha, appearing before him in a complete blur of speed. Much to the amazement of Souta.

“Get out of the way Kouga, go back home.” Inuyasha easily pushed him aside and kept going.

“No way Mutt!” Kouga growled, Inuyasha always did this to him. He took Kagome from him, and now his new mate. Not this time! “You get out of my way!”

A fury of threats followed, most of which a second from being acted upon and would have been had not Souta been in the way... “Hey.” Souta called out, forced to assert himself a second time to be heard over Inuyasha and Kouga auguring. “I’m getting that feeling again...”

“Huh?” Inuyasha knelt down in front of him, knowing what feeling Souta was talking about. “What? Where? Which way”

Souta glanced back over his shoulder, staring outward in an attempt to place what he was feeling with sight. He didn’t see anything, and that’s what made him nervous. “It’s that way--!” Souta was abruptly thrown backwards when the ground beneath them buckled and burst apart with a strong cloud of dust, dirt and grass, quickly encompassing the area unnaturally. “Inuyasha!” Souta cried out loudly as he landed, hard enough to knock him momentarily out of focus.

It had happened so suddenly it was confusing even to Kouga. The dust and dirt flying everywhere prevented him from seeing, or smelling anything, he lifted his arm to rub his eyes frantically, blocking any farther partials from entering. “What the hell is going on!?” Kouga shouted with a series of coughs. His senses, still intact, drove him to crouch down just in time for a fleshy pink tentacle to pass over his head, then he flipped backwards just in time to avoid one that thrust upward from underground. Kouga lowered his arm and peered outward with squinted eyes, slipping agilely under, over and aside anything that reached out for him.

He nearly tripped over Souta, who let out a started sound not from Kouga but from something wrapping around his legs. “What is this!!?” Souta reached behind him and tried to grab on to anything he could to keep from being pulled in, but it was futile, his arms were quickly bound by more tentacles that constricted him and drew him into the center of the cloud of smoke and lacerated ground. “Help!”

“Hold on! I got you!” Kouga‘s came from someplace undistinguishable, right before the constriction around him loosened, the tentacles completely severed. Souta quickly peeled the appendages off of him, pushing himself on his feet.

Winds began to swirl around him, strong winds that devoured the cloud of sense inhibiting dust in a tornado. “Whoa...” Souta stood breathlessly in the center, watching the walls of currents, right before it all halted when Kouga stopped in front of him and the winds dissipated, the source of the winds.

With all of the debris cleared away, the both of them could see the source of all of this.

From the center of the field where they had previously conversed a forest of those same raw pink tendrils protruding endlessly from the ground, wavering and twitching. Souta took a step back fearfully, his eyes widening “Wha-What is that!?”

Something Kouga wasn’t sure he wanted to take on by himself, “Come on, we gotta get out here.” Kouga abruptly pulled Souta on to his back, but just as he was about to take off he was stopped by Souta.

“Inuyasha!!!”

Inuyasha, after being launched in the air, landed a few feet away from them, covered in cuts and burses, drenched with blood, and completely unconscious. Souta jumped off of Kouga’s back, ignoring his fear of the demon behind him and dropping to his knees by Inuyasha’s side. “Inuyasha!” Souta shook the hanyou feverously, trying as hard as he could to get him to wake up. “Inuyasha, come on, wake up!”

“What are you doing, we have to get out of here.” Kouga made his way back to where Souta was, keeping his eyes on the enemy before them. “Forget the mutt!”

Souta refused, “No, I’m not leaving with out Inuyasha!”

“Damnit!” Kouga grunted, they didn’t have time for this. He could see some of those tentacles burrowing into the ground, and he could guess where they would come up. There was no way in hell he was leaving his potential mate, and Souta wasn’t leaving without Inuyasha, only leaving him one choice. Kouga reluctantly scooped Inuyasha into his arms “I got him alright, now let’s go!”

Souta complied this time with out hesitation, climbing on to Kouga’s back and holding on tightly when the wolf took off at near full speed. He was so much faster the Inuyasha, Souta could see nothing but a blur at this speed yet Kouga was moving completely adapt and with agility, avoiding anything that was an obstacle. “Whoa!”

“Heh.” Kouga smirked, that small reaction was worth having to carry Inuyasha, “Wanna see how fast I can really go?”

“Yeah!”

“Then hold on.” Just as Kouga reached a wooded area he broke out into a full sprint, weaving effortlessly through the trees and other obstructions in his path.

! - ! - !
! - ! - !

Pain was something Inuyasha had long since grown accustomed to waking up in, especially when it was a daily ritual to fight off demons. But that wasn’t what woke him up.

Inuyasha opened his eyes faintly, finding himself staring up at a white ceiling that had grown familiar to him. He felt a small weight on his chest feeling something wet, and hearing the sound that had awakened him. ‘That...sounds like...’ Inuyasha lifted his head just high enough to see his torso and what resided there. Souta was sitting on his knees, his head buried in his arms on top of Inuyasha’s chest, and something more notably that sounding like light sobs. “Souta.”

The sound stopped when the boy heard the voice, Souta immediately lifted his head allowing Inuyasha to see that he had been and was still crying. “Inu-Inuyasha! Your alright!” Souta wrapped his arms around Inuyasha’s back and hugged him tightly.

Slowly Inuyasha placed his hands behind him and sat up right, taking a quick look of his surroundings, finding himself back in Souta’s home a few life times away from his own. He was neatly bandages across his torso, arms, legs and face with great care by Souta. He didn’t bother to tell him that there was no need to do all that work since all of these injuries would be gone by tomorrow morning, it couldn’t have been easy to lift him to get the bandages around him. “Calm down, I’m fine...” Inuyasha rubbed Souta’s head, gently pushing him away. “But what happened? There’s no way you could have carried me back.” Of course Souta couldn’t have, Souta didn’t even know where he was let alone had the strength to lift him.

“Heh.”

He heard that familiar, arrogant, laugh behind him, unable to believe he hadn’t smelled his scent but knew who it was with out even looking back. “What are you doing here.” Inuyasha said in annoyment. “Mangy wolf.”

“Is that anyway to speak to someone who saved your ass?” Kouga leaned against the back of the sofa, looking around the place a heavy interest, studying all of the things he had no idea of what they where.

“He carried you back.” Souta told him, “He saved me too, it was really cool!” he spoke with that same awe when he talked about something spectacular or something he had never seen before. “He’s so fast!”

Kouga smiled, “You don’t have to thank me.”

Inuyasha sprang to his feet, glaring angrily at Kouga with his fist cinched tightly at his side “Thank you?! I didn’t ask you to touch me!”

Kouga turned around, facing Inuyasha with his arms folded and his head titled upward. “You ungrateful bastard, you don’t deserve a mate like him!”

“Your one to talk!” He shouted.

“If you can’t even protect him, then you don’t deserve to have him!”

The temporarily subsided heat between the two came back in full effect, Inuyasha’s instinct to protect Souta conflicting with Kouga’s to clam him for his own, leaving Souta standing between two different sets of demonic pheromones that a human had little to no chance of resting. The only thing that was able to distract Souta from it was the sound of two stomachs growling. “Huh?”

Inuyasha and Kouga stopped, looking at each other, then down at their own stomach. Such a strenuous day could work up a strong appetite, especially after an experience like that. “I guess--” Souta was interrupted mid-sentence by the sound of his own stomach asserting it self “--we’re all pretty hungry.” He said with a light smile.

Kouga growled at Inuyasha again “You can’t even feed him!”

“That’s it!” Inuyasha nearly punched through the sofa as he leaned forward, brining himself face to face with Kouga. “Go back home now.”

Kouga tilt toward him, looking Inuyasha in the eyes with that same smirk from before creeping it’s way onto his features. “There’s no way I’m leaving him, your gonna have to make me.”

A similar smirk appeared on Inuyasha’s face, hoping that Kouga would make good on that statement. “I’ll throw you back down that well myself.”

“I’d like to see you try Inuyasha.” Kouga shot back.

Practically able to see the tension, Souta came between Inuyasha and Kouga pushing them away from each other. “Hey, stop fighting. Come on, please?”

Another audible growl from his stomach caused Inuyasha to step back, realizing he was too hungry to fight with or concentrate on Kouga. “Damnit...food.”

Also deciding to temporally ignore the other, Kouga lifted his noise into the air. “Is there any food around here?”

Souta nodded disheartenedly, “Yeah...we just don’t know how to make it.”

Kouga followed his nose, walking out of the living room and into the kitchen where the smell got stronger...Kouga lent down in front of the refrigerator, knowing there was something inside...he just didn’t know how to get inside. Kouga grabbed on to the sides of the mechanical box and began to pull. “Open up you stupid box!” He would have ripped it open had it not been for Souta pulling him away from it.

“Not like that.” Souta grabbed on to the handle and easily pulled it open for Kouga’s instruction. “Like this.”

The wolf looked over the device, not wondering how it but mostly in astonishment of the contents. Kouga began to draw out the food, setting everything he took out aside on the table while Souta stood and watched. “Do you know what your doing?” He asked nervously, having flashbacks of about an hour ago when he had tried his hand at cooking. It didn't end well.

“Of course I know what I’m doing.” Kouga boasted with his usual confidence, even though he was lying and had no clue what he was doing having never cooked any of these things in his life. The closest he had gotten was a kill after a hunt over an open fire, that counted, right? “All I need is some kindling to make a fire and--”

“No! No fires!” Souta shouted immediately as soon as Kouga said the word.

Kouga rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh, “You can’t cook food without heat.”

“Then use the stove.” Souta pointed the large white appliance sitting beside the refrigerator.

Kouga lowered his head and looked over every inch of it, his tail wiping around with mild interest, his eyes moving across it with a child like curiosity. “How am I suppose to use that?”

Souta turned one of the knobs laying on the stove’s front, and only a few seconds after one of the 4 dish like objects on the surface began to glow red. “See.” Souta grabbed Kouga’s hand and pulled him closer, holding the extremity over the glowing dish. “It gets hot.”

“Really...” Kouga continued to over look the device, trying to figure out how it worked while Souta dug through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for, then retuned to Kouga’s side with two pots and two pans.

“And you use these to cook with.”

Not sure what he was doing but determined to impress Souta even farther, Kouga decided to persist in his attempt at cooking. With a nervous smile twitching on his lips, Kouga took the metal pots and pans and set each one down on one of the four metal dishes. Then he started twisting the corresponding knobs repeatedly until one of them almost broke off.

“No, just turn it once.” Souta pointed to the small numbers printed on the back knob “These tell you how hot those things are gonna be.”

“Ok, I got it from here.” Kouga pushed Souta back out of his way, staring down at the pans gathering heat below him....he had no idea what he was doing. “...You have any more stuff around here?”

“Some powered and stuff over there.” Souta pointed to a spice rack sitting on the wall above the stove, each one a different color and label. Kouga opened one of the bottles and dabbed his finger into it, tasting the orange power.

‘Salty...’ Kouga tested each one of the containers, memorizing the tastes more as a manner to stall then anything else.

“So what are you going to make?” Souta asked anticipantly, staring up at Kouga with that same admiration and amazement. “I bet it’s going to be really good.”

‘Oh gods, this is going to suck.’