I've had this idea rolling around and decided to give it a shot. It's not a chapter story, but it was meant to be short. I DO have at least FOUR Inuyasha multi-chapter stories in the works, though, so don't get annoyed that I only have a poem and a one-shot.

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to any part of the Inuyasha franchise or any other copyrighted, registered, trademarked, patented, or otherwise-claimed material that may or may not be mentioned in the subsequent writings. (Hey, if those stupid lawyers think they're gonna intimidate me with their fancy terms, they're gonna be awfully surprised... -snicker-)

Posted: AD.04.12.2005.Tuesday
1st Revision: AD.04.12.2005.Tuesday
2nd Revision: AD.04.20.2005.Wednesday

Alright, stupid FFnet won't let me put an exclamation mark right next to a question mark, or use multiples of such, so I have to put a hyphen between them... okay?
Like this?-! or !-? or !-! or... well, you get the point.
"talking"
thinking

Okay... here... we... GO!

Naraku, You Moron... by Aliryn

In some dark, empty, silent place...

"...heh," a voice pierced the nothingness.

"What? Who's there!-?"

"Why, my dear Naraku... can you not recognise the very power of which you are the incarnation...? I am Hell Itself."

A dark laugh filled the dead hanyou's ears. "I see you have nothing to say now that you have been defeated and thrown into the deepest of my horrendously-torturous depths. You don't know how to deal with having no dominance whatsoever, do you...?"

"But I can't understand what went wrong! It was the PERFECT plan!" Naraku yelled in fury.

A more menacing chuckle reverberated in Hell's depths. "Naraku... you moron."

This was the last thing he had expected to face when coming to hell.

"What did you call me?-!"

"You're still trying to retain your pride," Hell said, amused now, but his voice immediately regained its foreboding tone. "I said that you are a moron, Naraku."

"And exactly why is that?-!"

"You're even more of an idiot if you can't figure out your own mistakes in retrospect," Hell said murderously. "You spent more than two years sending new creatures and incarnations of yourself, each slightly more powerful than the last, whilst you hid and built up your strength, trying to kill your strongest foes in one blow from afar..."

"It would have been stupid to face them myself too soon!"

"Oh, yes. You were perfectly correct in that. But it was idiotic to deal with them the way you did. First of all, you were helping your enemies to build up their own strength even as you increased yours, so that your power never truly surpassed theirs..."

"Lies! They must have pulled some dirty trick!-! Those weak fools--"

"SHUT UP!-!-!" Hell roared in all its fury. "You are in denial!-! You are the only one who 'pulled dirty tricks'! That wouldn't matter if you hadn't FAILED!-!-!"

But on top of that," Naraku's persecutor went on, "what you ended up doing was making your adversaries grow stronger emotional attachments to one another... they came to love each other as family... especially the love between that weird miko from the future and that hanyou... all you did was give them multiple reasons to lean on one another for emotional support and a lot of 'oh fuck, they're dead!' "--Hell imitated a pathetically frantic voice--"moments which only made their feelings stronger! You should have foreseen this! You should have tried harder to drive them apart, or just used weak youkai to keep them away so they didn't gain strength while you rearranged your filthy conglomeration of a body! I gave you all of the cunning at my disposal when you were created from Onigumo and all those lesser youkai who were under my sway! What is this?-?-! You are the most evil being to EVER walk the earth and yet you let all the evil plots in the universe flop because of a mistake!-!-!-! I cannot make such an extension of myself again! You filthy half-breed... all the light in the world has outweighed the darkness because of you! And because you lost me my chance to fill the universe with darkness, you will suffer a thousand times more than any other being I have in my clutches! You will have eternal unrelenting pain in every way!-!-!-!-!"

Naraku had nothing to say and only one thing to think.

Oh, shit…

In the land of Happily Ever After...

The group was just hanging out, resting, thrilled at their victory. Inuyasha had brought a football from the future and taught the others to play before starting a game with him, Miroku, Kagura, and Shippou against Kohaku, Sango, Kouga, and Sesshoumaru. Kanna--who had acquired cinnamon-coloured hair and deep blue eyes--sat in Kagome's lap as the teenaged girl braided her hair. Rin hung over Kagome's shoulder, intently watching the process. Kaede was sitting near them, observing the obsessively competitive game with amusement. Kirara was chasing Jaken and Myouga all over the place in retaliation for their pathetic ever-present cowardice.

"There! All done!" Kagome patted Kanna's hair in satisfaction. The girl put her hand back to feel the neat braid.

"Thank you, Kagome-chan!"

Kagome beamed at her new friend and happily watched the two little girls--who had become fast friends--jump up and start cheering the football players... only Rin was focusing on Sesshoumaru's team, and Kanna was encouraging Inuyasha's... which, of course, only increased the level of chaos.

And they all loved it.

After awhile, Kagome noticed that her stomach was rumbling and saw that all the others were sweating. Time for a break. She started pulling things out of the basket that rested beside her on the sunlit grass.

"FOOD!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, fully aware of the stampede she'd cause by doing so. She started laughing as she watched them race toward her, shoving one another out of the way. Joy was bubbling up inside of her, insanely bright and intense, and they felt the same way; and they all had huge grins on their faces as they fought over the sandwiches, chps, cookies, Gatorade, and pop that Kagome had brought over from her era.

Inuyasha spoke up with a malicious smile on his face. "So, how do you think Naraku's doing in hell?"

They all paused a moment, mirroring his not-too-kind expression as they imagined their defeated nemesis' current situation.

" 'Not too good' would by my guess," Sesshoumaru said, his voice empty of emotion, but he exchanged a satisfied smirk with his brother.

Yes, Kagome thought, here we all are... together... now friends… now happy… now unburdened... now free...

Revisiting Hell's fury...

Hell was furious. He was furious at Naraku for failing, he was furious that those good guys were so happy, he was furious because he knew they always would be, and he was furious because they had secured the same future for the rest of the world. Disgusting. Completely and totally vile. He wanted Naraku to share all of his horror, and more. So as part of Naraku's torment, along with boundless emotional, spiritual, physical, mental pain with no end, Hell made Naraku watch his rivals' contentment...

Naraku's fate…

Naraku was in agony. Eternal horror. Never-ending hatred. And so on. It was so terrible that there was no comparison. Pain unmatchable by anything. Or so he thought... until an image appeared before him.

He saw his adversaries have a nauseatingly cheerful picnic and heard their revoltingly jovial banter and felt their maddening exhilaration. No, HE wasn't happy, but he felt just how overjoyed they were... he tried to close his eyes and ignore the sounds and feelings, but was denied it. All of his consciousness was forced to experience the same pain he'd been feeling before, along with his foes' absolute delight in the universe, all at the same time.

His previous pain hadn't been unmatchable after all.

This hurt way worse.

It was horrid. Even Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru had formed an unbreakable bond. He had to watch them speculate on his own doom… and the worst of it was, they were right.

As time went on, they only got happier, his pain only escalated, and everything just became invariably worse.

And so far "as time went on" had only lasted about three seconds.

He started screaming with bloodcurldling intensity, but that did nothing to drown out the agony he felt or the jubilant laughter of those he now hated more than ever.

THE END

Okay, pretty corny... but I couldn't resist! The idea had been nagging at me for weeks! Please tell me what you think. I've got lots more little ideas I'm planning to try out... if I think anyone will read them...