Disclaimer: This story is based on "Inuyasha," copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of copyright intended or implied.

Blood Unbound, Part XIV: The Beast

"You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention." The Last Unicorn, by Peter Beagle.

The beast pursued them, knowing nothing but bliss. It chuckled to itself as it ran and leaped, delighting in the pungent odor of terror in the fleeing auras of youki. Nothing was more pleasurable to the beast than that terror, except for the hot, rich blood covering its claws.

The beast's world was only the world of prey and predator, of fear and death. It could only hear whimpers and cries of pain. It could see only the things that fled before it, or the pulse of living blood beneath skin or fur. But those senses, to the beast, were minor. It was the smell of blood, the scent of terror, whether emanating from mortal or youkai, that all its attention was fixed upon.

There were many sources of terror that dawn morning. But, most-whether mortal animal or lesser youkai-froze where they were when they sensed the ravening beast, either from instinct or chance, knowing to stay still. Small, still, they were ignored for the fleeing prey.

Some youkai in its path did not fear. The great youkai trees of the forest barely comprehended the terror the more mobile youkai could feel. But, what they could feel was anger. Roused once already by the smell of invading human blood, they readily responded to the messages of the great magnolia and the ancient willow, and even the tiny, but well-known flea. Slow the inu-blood. Deflect its path, shape its course. It must reach Bokuseno. Protect the kitsune, slow the inu, but do not kill.

The beast ran and leaped after it prey, heedless of all else. If a wind spell knocked it off balance, it somersaulted into a roll, coming out to kick off against branch or trunk. If a whip-branch wrapped itself around an ankle, it freed himself with a slash of golden claws. Arrow-leaves, such as those which had brought down the hanyo, could not hold the beast, and gouts of miasma he didn't even notice. The beast was not invulnerable- foxfire burned him, leaves cut him, miasma scorched his lungs. But the burning, unbound blood eclipsed the pain, eclipsed the fear, eclipsed thought, and eclipsed reason. The beast knew nothing.

Except the desire to kill.

/==/==/==/

The wind was as icy shards slicing through her paw. Akeneka whimpered, wondering why she was so cold, why her ears were filled with the roar of wind. She hurt. Her paw hurt-

"Akeneka?"

The voice was odd-strained sounding, and out of breath. The owner of that voice came to her but slowly. "Eiji-eijimaru?" she whispered. "So...cold..."

"I know," came the kitsune's panting voice. "We're-in the air. Flying. Don't-try to move. Damn hanyo-chasing us. Got to stay-out of range..."

Hanyo? Akeneka couldn't remember any hanyo, but, then, she was so cold. Shivering, she whimpered again. The wind was whipping through her fur and battering her ears. If only she could get warm! She shifted, wanting to curl up, protect her ears, and her painful paw-

"Damn it, stop it! Akeneka! Stop trying to move!"

The vixen's eyes snapped open as she felt the ground fall away from her, and then, the next moment, rise sharply. The motion sent a stab of agony through her paw. She yelped.

"Sorry! Just-don't move!"

The words almost made sense. Akeneka tried to obey, panting, also trying to understand why one eye saw endless blue, while the other saw mostly a variegated brown. Comprehension slowly filtered through her cold- and pain-numbed mind. Eijimaru was in his eagle form, flying. She was on his back. Why, she didn't quite understand, except it must have to do with why she was so cold and hurt so much. "Eijimaru-"

"Don't-talk!" snapped the older kitsune, between pants. "When we-get to-Bokuseno-then ask-questions!"

Bokuseno? Akeneka blinked, mind jolting a bit more awake. She knew who Bokuseno was-one of the oldest trees in the forest. She'd never been to the magnolia-in fact, she didn't know anyone in the tribe who had ever gone to visit him. But, all the forest and its inhabitants knew Bokuseno, just as they knew Takaikatsura and Wind Along the Stream. Those ancient trees were not inclined to interfere in the minor, day-to-day squabbles and tribulation of existence. But, when they did arouse to speak, even a taiyoukai was wise to listen-

A scream startled her out of her fading musing. Eijimaru started and abruptly banked, throwing the injured vixen sideways across his slick back. "Shinkubi!" Her shriek and his horrified cry mingled as she desperately scrabbled for a hold with her one good forepaw, her rear feet inexplicably tangled in cloth. He continued his turn, and Akeneka acted in desperate instinct, lurching into her bipedal form, struggling to grasp anything that would keep her from falling.

Eijimaru yelped as her sudden shift in weight threw him off-balance. "Stop it!" he screamed, his bank turning into a sideways dive. "You're too heavy! Change back! Change back!" But all that was holding her to him was her desperate grip at the base of his left wing. The world was spinning crazily, all atilt with cold and pain and fear, and it was all she could do to keep her fingered grip. And then, as her weight continued to drag at him, the forces on the kitsune-turned-eagle rolled him onto his back. Akeneka dangled for a moment, all of her weight on her one hand.

Her hand could not hold her.

She fell.

Akeneka shrieked. She changed again, shifting into her owl form. But, her shattered limb snapped out and back in utter agony as she attempted to spread her wings. She tumbled, screaming, losing her hold on the bird form. She caught one glimpse of the forest, so far beneath her, and shut her eyes tightly, fighting not to scream again. Curling in on herself, protecting her injured arm, the vixen begged the kami to make it quick, and make it painless. She knew she would die. She had loved the physical aspects of flying, had loved her owl form, and had never tried to achieve a form that used pure youki to float. Now her disdain doomed her.

She would never find her brother now.

/==/==/==/

Rikaru saw it coming. The trees were not helping enough. The hanyo was relentless, and seemingly inexhaustible. They knocked him off balance, they slowed him down, but they could not stop him.

The two-tailed fox could not have tallied the near misses, as he dove and danced in the sky, trying to keep the blood-mad hanyo's attention on him, and not on his less skillful students. He did not remember when he had again dumped the green-skinned imp from his back, and didn't care. He used every bit of his skill to avoid the dangerous, youki claws, while working in the direction of the spinning leaves. He used all of his rage and his hate to heighten his speed, to strengthen his youki, and his endurance. He hated the hanyo. He had always hated the hanyo, ever since that winter when a lone, lost, wounded little boy had stumbled into a pair of soft-hearted kitsune vixens, who had, astonishingly, somehow persuaded the tribe's elders to allow them to care for the pathetic, dirty-blooded half-dog. It was the half-breed who had gotten him exiled from his own tribe. It was the half-breed who had injured his Akeneka, who was threatening his students. He was too caught within the situation to even think of arguing with the trees, but when this was over-

He was going to kill that hanyo.

If he survived.

The kitsune winged over to avoid the latest lash of golden claws. They missed by more than a hand-breadth. Rikaru snarled in satisfaction-

Shinkubi's scream shattered that half-formed reaction. Still in his wing over, momentarily upside down, through his hawk-enhanced vision, he saw the awkward bird-form of the middle brother shatter rather than pop out of existence, leaving a screaming, bloody rag that had once been a fox. Time nearly stood still for Rikaru as horror iced his soul, but then, other voices shrieked, grabbing his attention. As he flipped right side up, the two-tailed fox glanced up in time to see the second tragedy forming. He saw Eijimaru slipping sideways, saw Akeneka transforming to her larger form, and saw her losing her grip. He saw her fall.

He froze. Just for a sliver of a moment, as he realized that he had only one chance, to save just one of his students. Just one. Not both. And, quite possibly-neither.

That sliver cost him. Rikaru's voice added to the pandemonium as youki claws raked across his belly and legs. It was a glancing blow, which saved him, but the shock snatched him out of his bird form. Writhing in midair, savage images seared into his mind in strobe-like flicks of awareness. Akeneka falling. Eijimaru tumbling, wings beating erratically as he struggled to come out of a fall for which his instincts could not assist him. Shinkubi, no longer screaming, blood raining in reverse as he fell.

And, then, as his body turned, he saw the hanyo, tumbling in the midst of a whirlpool of spade-shaped leaves. The razor-edged leaves sliced through bare skin and through resisting fire-rat cloth as the youki wind whirled them about the hanyo. But, each cut healed as quickly as it was made. And when the whirlpool brought the falling hanyo around, it saw him.

It grinned. And, despite the wind, lashed out with its claws.

Rikaru Two-Tails snapped. He shrieked and transformed, the snap of his wings taking him above the deadly claws. But, this time, his wings were not layered with the appearance of normal feathers. Wrapped in the pale blue nimbus of his foxfire, Rikaru screamed and dove. It didn't matter that he had never practiced this form. It didn't matter that he had pulsed his youki to a level he could not sustain. He forgot about the falling bodies, of which he might have been able to save one, had he acted quickly enough. It didn't matter that older and wiser and more dangerous youkai wanted the hanyo alive.

All he wanted, all he cared to do, was to wrap his flaming wings around the hideous, horrifying, nauseating thing that should never have existed, and to burn it. Burn it until it transformed to lifeless ash.

And if meant his own life-

At that moment, Rikaru didn't care.

/==/==/==/

The beast chuckled as it saw its second victim scream and stagger. Blood! More blood shed! Perhaps it felt a slight disappointment when it sensed that its claws had been less successful than the first successful attack had been. But, when that same being pulsed its youkai and transformed into a firebird, diving straight at it, the beast only grinned and pulsed his own power, 'jumping' through and out of the whirlwind of leaves. The beast struck with its claws once, twice. They shattered against the blue balefire surrounding the descending, red-eyed form. The fact of failure did not-could not-register on the beast's awareness. The threat of the blazing fire did not exist to its limited mind. It flung itself upward, aware only that its foe was directly in front of it. It had no concern about the flames surrounding the maddened other; no care for the strength of the overpowered aura.

They collided. Wings of fire wrapped around a half-bared torso; and powerful hands and claws reached through the flames to find flesh. Foxfire burned, and claws shredded, as the two combatants, heedless of anything but the need to kill, fell.

The winds roared.