Once Upon an Inuyoukai

A/N:Warning-- this chapter contains an extremely uncomfortable situation. I use writing to
work out my issues, and some of them are unlovely. You can skip everything with Izayoi at the end
of the chapter and not lose any of the plot, if you're so inclined.

That said... read and enjoy! Leave concrit!


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Chapter IV: Adflictationis

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He considered killing her very seriously.

It wasn't every day, after all, that he learned that someone had been sitting pretty in the middle
of his land for months, sucking mana from his lands in order for the coming flood to have the most
serious effect. Little human whore! he thought, his fury bleeding his vision red. His claws
twitched, itching to rend her flesh. How dare she? The old familiar blood rage flooded him,
as it had when he had slaughtered her village. The demon dog within screamed for blood, would not
be denied. His knuckles cracked.

He looked down at her. She was kneeling, slumped and defeated, on the floor; her glorious hair
pooled around her feet. Her arms were bloodstreaked and she was shaking. But not a sound had
escaped her after that last choked admission of surrender. She would take her death like a samurai,
silent and honourable. Like a demon. There was no one left to fight, so she would go into death
open-eyed and graceful to await her next rebirth.

Through the crimson haze that burned his mind, a thought appeared out of nowhere, cool and blue
and calming. She knew. She knew what my probable reaction would be, and she came anyways
to warn me. She betrayed her liege lord to save my people.

He became aware that she was standing again, pale-faced and resolute before him. She was speaking,
and with a great effort he pulled back far enough to listen.

"....understand if you want to kill me. I probably deserve it. But don't forget that I came clean in the
end, all right? Remember my death as honourable." With that, she reached up and swept her hair
away from one side, baring her whie neck to his avenging claws. "Go ahead. I'm ready."

And suddenly, inexplicably, he completely lost the desire to kill her. The red haze winked out like it
had never been, and he was left cold and empty, and feeling very alone. When she saw that he was
hesitating, she filled the gap with hope despite all her resolve to accept death.

Besides, the thing she'd forgotten to say was rather important.

"There's one more thing you should know. The reason I was able to stay in your land so long
undiscovered, the reason you didn't feel the need to kill me when you met me: it's because a member
of your court has been protecting me. He, or one of his contacts, cast a spell on me to discourage you
from killing me, and to as much of an extent as possible encourage you to help me. It was very
advanced magic... whoever it was is a force to be reckoned with." She continued, oblivious to the terrible
expression on his face. "You have a traitor, my lord Inutaisho. Be warned."

"Who?" he asked hoarsely, feeling the walls of his life dissolve around him like snow in rain. She shook
her head negatingly, to his great disappointment.

"I don't know, it was all done anonymously, across shoji in darkened rooms. I never saw them. It was a
different messenger every time, and I doubt I could identify their voices. I'm sorry, Inutaisho-sama. I
wish I could help." He shook his head slowly, disbelieving. His greatest enemy was working with one of
his allies, aided by his own household. Did he have any friends left? Until he identified the traitor, he
could trust no one. He was completely alone.

He felt disjointed, like he had been cut loose from the fabric of his universe and was floating freely with
nothing to anchor him. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. He had lived for nearly three millenia, but
never had he been so totally betrayed. His staunchest ally, Sakenmaru, the lion demon of the South, had
betrayed him. The North remained neutral as ever under the Wolf Lord Kuroga, and the East had always
hated him. His very household, his extended family, were under suspicion as well. The only one he was
reasonably certain was faithful was Jaken, his new personal adviser. The little toad's deference and
hero-worship had been real, he was sure of it.

One. One person in the world world he could trust. How had it come to this? Logically, he knew that
in all likelihood most of his staff were loyal, but in the light of her stunning revelations, he
coulnd't help but wonder how many weren't.


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Hell with it, she thought. If I have a chance for survival, I'm taking it.

"If you should choose not to kill me outright, I will be your ally," she hazarded, praying she wouldn't
strike a nerve and lose her head before she could blink.

It seemed she was in luck, for Inutaisho only raise heavy-lidded eyes to meet her own.

"You may wonder how you can trust me since I betrayed my lord..."

He had in fact not considered it yet, but it was a valid point.

"...but the simple fact is, he betrayed me first. He cast off my loyalty and forfeited all right to it
long ago. I do not feel I have betrayed him at all." Please please please... "I am not
entirely useless as an ally- I am, as you know, a seer, and I have some small control over the
mystic arts as well." She hesitated, took a deep breath, and took the plunge. "The fact is, my
lord, that I'm one of the only people on your side here. It should say something to you that I
nearly ran myself into the ground to get this warning to you in time with no regard for my safety
once I got here. I have nothing to gain from betraying you- as of five minutes ago, I'm living at
your discretion. On borrowed time. I have enough honour not to betray that."

She stopped talking. Any more would sound like begging, and she had sworn not to do that. So
she waited. And prayed.


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He was, to say the least, astonished. She was right. How utterly unthinkable. He'd spared her life
twice now, and he had seen her honour in action. She would indeed hold herself to her new path.
If he let her live.

If.

It seemed a foregone conclusion, now. Of course he would let her live- how idiotic would it be to
eliminate one of his three remaining allies? Like it or not, she was really all the muscle he had
on his side now, aside from himself. Jaken and her dragon steed didn't really count- Jaken had
no power and the dragon had no brain. She was it. His only real ally.

In the space of barely ten minutes his carefully maintained world had fallen to pieces around
him. "Leave me," he said hollowly. "I need to think." She nodded, scent suddenly flooding with
hope though her face remained carefully blank. She rose, bowed deeply, and swept out. Once
she was gone and the shoji slid shut behind her, his breath exploded out of him and he whirled
into a fast pace. In his mind, he began to categorize all the major players into categories- allies,
enemies, and neutrals.

Enemies: Sakenmaru, Ryuunomei, their entire kingdoms, the traitors in my own court. Number:
about fifty thousand. Ugh. His long fingers carefully massaged his temples, thoughtlessly
avoiding his claws. Neutrals: Kuroga and his kingdom. Number: about twenty thousand.

Allies: Jaken, the dragon, and the woman. Number: three. He groaned, deep voice vibrating
through his skull.

How could this have happened? What could have possibly happened to make Sakenmaru turn
against him? They had been allies for centuries! What could Ryuunomei have offered him as
incentive? Money? Land? Whatever it was, it had to be impossibly valuable to change something
so deep and long-standing. What? What?

There would be no help from the Northern wolf tribes- though they remained neutral, they had a
long-standing rivalry with the dogs and would be much more inclined to join the South and East
in grinding them into the dust than help the West. There might be some help from the outlying
islands, but it that would number in the hundreds, not the thousands he needed.

Slow down. What needs to be done? he asked himself. One: root out the traitor.

Easier said than done. His household numbered about four hundred, between servants, labourers
and miscellaneous royalty. The woman's comment about it being advanced magic did not help-
magical power had little to do with political affluence. The traitor could be any servant with the gift.

Two: get that talisman out of my lands.

This was less difficult- all he had to do was find a remote spot on his border to cross, take it- and
by extension her- a ways out without being detected, and leave it. Trouble was, the only unpopulated
place on his borders where he would be unlikely to be detected was with the North, and as they were
the only nation not directly opposing him, he was loath to do anything that would cause them to turn
against him for good. Besides which, putting the talisman there would make a mana drought there,
which would cause the flood from the South to cross his lands directly, which wouldn't help matters
at all. So he would have to risk crossing the border with the South, which was heavily populated. The
chances of getting caught would be enormous.

Too bad he couldn't trust anybody but the aforementioned three to take it across the border- with
her a well known lackey of Ryuunomei's, she would be easy to recognize. Jaken was too weak, and
the dragon not smart enough to travel alone with the amulet. If the woman was recognized, she was
not powerful enough to avoid being taken. He'd think about the solution for that later.

Three: find out why Sakenmaru turned on me and try my damnedest to turn him back.

Possibly the tallest order yet. This would involve meeting with him in person, which would naturally
involve passing through his lands, right into the very heart of his power. It wouold be an enormous
risk, and utmost stealth would be required.

Four: get more allies.

He would have to find a way to determine who was loyal and who wasn't, beyond a possibility of doubt.
Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. As far as he knew, there was no foolproof method to determine
loyalty. So he would just have to trust those he could get- something he was highly uncomfortable with.
There was nothing for it.

So what first? The talisman, I think.

It suddenly occurred to him that he'd thrown a third of his allies out into the hallway without a guard,
in his mazelike, hostile compound. Damnation! He threw the door open, and sucked in a breath
when he realized she was nowhere to be seen. Damnation and hellfire! Where is she?

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Izayoi was off balace. Whatever she'd expected, it hadn't been this precipitous ejection from his
presence. She couldn't remember anything about the way from the gate, and the halls twisted
away bewilderingly in either direction. In the room, she could hear the canine lord pacing frantically,
and felt a great compassion being born within her.

Poor man, she thought sadly, he must not have any friends left. I wonder if he'll be
smart enough to let me stay with him. There was a disquieting notion in there, and she doubled
back to reexamine it. Do I want to stay with him?

Her shoulders throbbed from the four deep punctures, and her heart was still wildly fluttering from
her almost-death. He hurt me. But she had to admit, he could have done a lot worse than
he had. For her brashness in coming to his home, her, a known ally of his worst enemy, he
might have had her flayed alive. It was not unheard of. Instead, he'd left her alive and relatively
unharmed.

Besides, he's so beautiful, a small part of her brain that she rarely allowed to speak slipped in.
Her cheeks flamed and she savagely quashed the small, heated voice. But it was too late- her traitorous
imagination was drifting to the fierce lines of his face and tall, straight-backed strength. Her ears rang
with the low tones of his growling voice. She moaned, shaking her head and dropping it into her hands.

Shut up! Shut up! He is not beautiful!

It seemed a strange word to use to describe a man, but 'gorgeous' and 'handsome' slid off him like the
pathetic human words they were. They were too small and too petty for what he was. Beautiful.

Shut up!

She paced the hallway, desperately clutching her head in an attempt to squeeze the images and
thoughts out. Back and forth, back and forth, stop it stop it stop it...!

So it was that she did not notice that she was no longer alone in the hallway. Back and forth she
paced, oblivious to the new company, who licked his hairy lips and flared his nostrils. A ferret demon,
low level and mostly despised. He was humanoid, but distinctly ferretish at the same time. Coarse,
yellowed white hair grew profusely over most of his body, and his eyes were completely black and
beady. Long claws curved off the ends of his stubby fingertips. He was not pleasant to look at,
unlike some of the females of his species.

He was nearly upon her before she noticed. It was his movements out of the corner of his eye that
alerted her, and she turned to regard him neutrally. She took comfort in the fact that the lord of the
castle was just a doorway away. It was then that she discovered that in her pacing she'd gone quite
a ways from the door. Fear bloomed in her belly and she tensed.

Here, she made a fatal mistake- she assumed the demon would talk to her first before deciding to
ravish. She was mistaken. Before she could even open her mouth to greet him, he clapped a furry
hand over her mouth and hoisted her bodily. She shrieked, but it was muffled by his hand-- kicked,
but because of her position was unable to gain any purchase.

Horror drowned her as the realization of the situation dawned on her. The ferret intended to have her,
and there was no way to stop him and no one to help her. She redoubled her efforts, to no avail. They
entered a dark, dusty room at the end of a long hall, and with despair she realized that even the maids
never came down here. She was going to be ravished, and then probably killed. Vomit boiled in her
stomach, but she couldn't even relax her larynx enough to be sick all over the ferret's disgusting, hairy hand.

The world tilted and she landed heavily on her back on something lumpy and reeking of sweat and
semen. He brings all his victims here, her mind clinically told her, and then she was sick,
hurling violently off to the side. The ferret laughed, high and cackling. "You're a toothsome piece,"
he snarled appreciatively. "Be nice, now."

In response, she let loose an unholy shriek that reverberated throughout the small room. The demon's
eyes widened and he knelt beside her. "Quiet, wench!" he snarled, and dealt her a stunning blow to the
side of her head.

She thought her skill had come unglued, and she was sure she felt her brain leaking out her ears. There
was a high, shrill sound somewhere just beyond the corner of seeing, and it pierced her head like a dagger.
Tears of agony rolled unnoticed down her broken cheek, down into the fragrant mess of her hair. "Much
better," the demon grunted, and in a few jerky movements shed his kimono.

She wailed in silent horror within the depths of her shattered mind. He roughly shredded her kimono, too
impatient to undo it properly.

It was autumn, she remembered dimly. The air was cold on her bared skin, and she shivered. And then it
was all warm breath and heavy hands, coarse hair scratching her raw and pain in places she'd spent the last
year trying to numb. His warm, rank breath gusted over her face and her stomach heaved again, dryly and
painfully. She couldn't remember how to speak. He grunted, moving in short, percussive thrusts that
agonized her.

Unable to bear the world, she turned inwards and fled to the farthest, darkest place in her mind and curled
up there, shaking and weeping for her mother. Her mother was not here. Her mother was gone, long dead,
far beyond being able to help her. Her father was a prisoner, probably dead now- another stab of a different
agony for that- and impotent as always. She was alone, friendless, and drowning in all the wrong that
surrounded her.

Help, she sobbed to the darkness, which only gazed back with silent, cold eyes.

Somebody, save me.

But there was no one. She was alone with the demons outside and those within. Death would be welcome,
now, and she found herself longing for the sweet release of Inutaisho's silver claws. But he was not here
either, and would not be inclined to help her even if he was.

Please, please, somebody, please, anybody, please please please...

It felt like days that she lay beneath the hot, damp lump of grunting hairy demon wishing she were dead.
It might have been hours, was probably only minutes. But to her it was a forever of sorts before light flooded
the room from behind the dark silhouette crouched between her damp, trembling thighs. There was a jerk,
a horrendous tearing sound, and a warm splatter. She wondered whether it was blood or something even
less pleasant. Not that it mattered, nothing mattered. It was a faraway curiosity, leftover from when she
was alive.

She barely even felt the strong arms that gathered her pieces off the floor and took her into the light.

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A/N: Sorry, sorry. I hope your inner eyes are all okay. See you next chapter... I hope!