Disclaimer: The anime/manga Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. I, Aubrey Simone, make no money from the writing or posting of this fic.

Pre-Note: Ah. Well. It's been far too long since I posted here, and I'm almost shocked to find that I want to write this—it's going to be much darker than any of my other works, and I don't even know if I can promise a happy ending. At any rate, this is rated M for dark themes and suggestive passages, so if you don't like it, don't read it! Enjoy!

01. Captive

Someone was coughing. Hacking, almost, breath rattling in their lungs. There was the clink, clink, clink of metal being shifted, too, and with her head feeling as though someone had stuffed it with cotton and proceeded to beat her with a hammer, Kagome just wanted them to shut up.

She tried to say so, tried to get her mouth to work out the words—just be still, please!—but her tongue felt thick behind her lips; thick and hot and dry and immovable.

She groaned, a muffled ngnh sound that made her throat hurt, and then, with far more effort than it should've taken, the miko rolled onto her back.

And realized that the coughing, the rattling, the wheezing, was all coming from her.

Like someone had set fire to her brain, images flashed before her mind's eye, bright and brilliant and too vivid to be imagined: a bear youkai attacking the village; Inuyasha having trouble defeating it; seeing a shard in its chest; feeling a presence, menacing and dark, behind her; turning to see Naraku's red eyes gleaming sickly; and then darkness.

She had been caught; captured. Panic fumbled around in her chest, reaching with frantic fingers for a heart that battered an irregular tattoo against her ribcage. How long have I been here? What does Naraku want with me? Why hasn't Inuyasha found me yet? Does he even know I'm gone?

They were questions she couldn't answer, and the one that she could only made her sick—she knew what Naraku wanted from her: what Naraku had always wanted from her.

Belatedly, she realized that she couldn't feel the steady pulse of the jewel shards around her neck, and now there was fear—not for herself, but for the rest of humanity—struggling to grasp what little of her heart panic hadn't already claimed. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, and the ragged cough she hadn't known was hers ripped from her throat until she tasted blood, until her chest felt like someone had attempted to cave it in and her lungs had crawled partially up her throat.

Pain—so much of it that she couldn't really register it all—blossomed, and she closed her eyes against the swell of it, breathing raggedly, wetly, through her mouth.

After a while, she began to catalogue her surroundings as best she could, wiggling her fingers and toes, grasping at the thin-seeming, delicate-feeling chain attached to the thin manacles around her wrists and passing her fingertips along the cold stone floor.

A dungeon, she finally deduced, the wetness in her lungs not preventing her from feeling the wetness in the air. It was cold, dank, and something—maybe her—smelled. There was no light, and she sat for an eternity, staring out into the darkness and trembling with growing anxiety.

She was one breath, maybe two, from bursting into tears when she heard the rasp of a footstep close by, far too close to be on the other side of a door. She froze.

"So it does work," someone said, voice bored and soft in the darkness. "I'd thought he was lying. Again."

Kagome swallowed. Who are you? she wanted to ask. Let me go, please. I'll do anything, just please let me go. But her throat hurt too much, and the film of blood and mucus sticking at the back of her tongue didn't really make her feel confident about the state of her voice.

Flint clicked, and then the room was awash in a soft golden glow. Flinching, Kagome screwed her eyes shut, peeling them open a little at a time after the shock had worn off. She stared, for a moment, at a wall that was much closer than she'd thought it was, with a small steel ring embedded into it and the chain—her chain, she thought bitterly—wound through it.

And then the person who'd spoken stepped around into her line of sight, and Kagome felt her heart drop at the sight of Kagura, regal and indifferent, peering down her nose, red eyes blank and even redder lips twisted as though she found something distasteful. After a moment, she sniffed, and then nudged at the chain with her bare foot.

"Naraku had someone craft this especially for you." Her lips twisted further. "You should feel flattered."

Something on Kagome's face must have given away her displeasure, because Kagura scoffed, waving one elegant hand. "No matter. Come on."

She reached down, and before Kagome could somehow warn her about how badly her body ached, she grasped the chain and hauled the miko, quite bodily, to her feet. The chain rattled, and with every nerve ending she possessed screaming in agony, Kagome whimpered out as much of a protest as she could, swaying on legs that shook like gelatin and burned as though on fire.

Kagura cut her a glance, and after she released the chain from its ring on the wall, she wound it around her fist, somehow still seeming ethereally elegant despite the frightening picture she made. "It's a side-effect of the chain. Come with me."

And with no choice but to follow or be dragged, Kagome forced her trembling legs into motion and followed Kagura out of the room.

Her mind was too foggy with pain and nausea to process anything after that; there was a bath, and food, and something about why she was really here, and then she was taken back to the room and left to her own devices.

Tired and sick and numb, Kagome curled up on the floor and closed her eyes, tears slipping from beneath her lids.

Please…somebody…Please help me.

She cried herself to sleep.

And standing on the other side of the still-open door, lips pursed, Kagura frowned.

Because she had never really felt badly for the human before, but now, staring down at the tears that continued to wet the miko's cheeks, Kagura only wanted one thing: to protect Kagome.

Hands trembling, she turned and went down the hall.

Author's Note: And there's that. I'm thinking that all of the chapters will be about this short, but I'm not going to promise any sort of regular update schedule. At any rate, please review, and thanks for reading!

~Aubrey