Naraku lounged in his palace, contemptuously staring at the shrivelled woman before him. Kanna stood ever silent by his side, her mirror clasped close to her thin chest. The woman laid the tools of her trade before her; animal bones, multi-coloured crystals, and multiple small bowls and vials whose viscous contents seemed to glow threateningly from within. When she had placed each item just so, she raised her wrinkled visage slightly and rasped "So, Naraku, what is it you seek from this old woman?"
Naraku wrinkled his nose at the stench that arose from the hag's tattered cloak and replied haughtily "I seek a way to utterly destroy my enemies."
"Ah yes, the hanyou and his pack, these are your intended victims, are they not?"
Naraku's eyes widened before he schooled his features back into the self-satisfied smirk he so frequently wore. "You are well informed. Show me how this may be done."
The woman hummed in the back of her throat as she scooped up the bones and her largest bowl. She raised her fist above the bowl and spoke in a language neither of the room's other occupants could discern. As she muttered, she moved her closed fist in a circle above the bowl before tossing the bones down and peering intently at how they fell. "You must open the portal to Madra. Lure your enemies to you there, and open the portal. They will be dragged within and lose their souls to the monsters that dwell there."
"Where is this portal? How may it be opened?"
The woman gestured to Kanna's mirror, revealing a stone wall with an arched door, framed by two strange trees and a script Naraku had not seen before. "This is the portal you seek. You must open the portal on the night of the full moon, when the light falls on the carvings. Call the gods of destruction to you, and offer your enemies to them as a blood sacrifice. Their very souls will be consumed."
"Kukukukuku. Soon Inuyasha you and your pathetic band will be nothing but a faded memory."
Suddenly the old woman gasped and stared at her bones a second time. "A word of caution!" she shrieked, "Beware the Star's Child! Beware the child of fire and light! if the Child fights, then you will fail!" howling as if in agony, the old woman shrunk into herself, a high wind tearing at her cloak and hair. When the wind died, the old woman and all her goods were gone.
"Kanna!" Naraku snapped, "Show me this Star Child!"
"I cannot see clearly," came the whispered reply.
Naraku stared into the swirling depths of the mirror, straining for a glimpse. He caught a hint of vivid red and violet before Kanna gasped sharply; a tiny crack forming at the edge of her glass.
"Inuyasha! SIT!"
Four companions breathed heavy sighs as the morning's still was broken by the command of an angry young woman and the florid cursing of the victim of her ire.
"He still hasn't learned to keep his foot out of his mouth" Shippo stated wisely as Miroku, Sango, and Kirara nodded beside him.
"Perhaps, Inuyasha, it would be wiser to avoid pestering Kagome-sama first thing in the morning?" stated Miroku as the now dirt-covered hanyou stomped back towards his tree, muttering about a certain stubborn miko.
"Can it Monk!" he growled under his breath.
Sango moved to begin breaking down camp as Kagome returned from the river with several full water bottles and her toothbrush. "Honestly, Inuyasha! Can't you just let be get my teeth cleaned before you start hustling us on our way every morning? I'd rather not spend the day with fish-breath!"
"Well if you weren't so slow I wouldn't be rushing you now would I?"
A second chorus of sighs broke from the spectators as they tidied up the camping spot to the tune of an increasingly loud contest of wills between their friends.
"three, two oneā¦"
"Inuyasha! SIT!"
