Reflections
He stood in front of Kanna's mirror, hair trickling over shoulders like dark water. In his arms he held the miko still. She was naked, and her back pressed up against him where his arms came around her front and crossed her chilled flesh, one over her tender breasts, another just beneath them. Her limbs dangled, and her head rolled limply to the side.
He reflected.
The gash in her side was tended with an ointment and bandage – the slit where Kikyo's arrow had entered when the hanyou . . .
Kagome's neck jerked as she woke, finding her skull a great weight. She gazed listlessly out in front of her. Naraku remained still. She stretched a little and then squirmed to be let down. He dropped her and she fell painfully onto her hands and knees on the cool floor, pressing her wound in agony.
He knelt down beside and watched her.
"That wound will never heal," he murmured, "long after scars fade."
Kagome did not answer but looked into the mirror. Her face was pale and streaked with dirt.
Naraku reached and held her chin in his hand. He met her gaze in the reflection of the glass, his eyes like bruised plums.
"You wish to be fulfilled in all the wrong places," he spoke calmly. "You look to the hanyou to complete you, to breathe life and beauty into you. I have seen how your insides crush at his hesitation. Do you believe that one day he will finally see? That he will tend to the seed he planted and nourish your withering, sickly love? Look into the glass."
Kagome did. She could see now that hot tears streamed quickly.
"You will never find that from him, nor from anyone." Naraku looked steadily, undeterred by the glass barrier. "To see what you truly are, you need only look in the mirror." He dropped his hand, still holding her infinite eyes in reflection. "You are whole. You are complete in yourself."
She let fall a soft sob at the words she had so longed to hear – that she was not Kikyo's mere reincarnation. But the person they came from was not whom she would expect.
Naraku stood, dropping his baboon pelt around her nakedness, and started to leave her.
She stopped him with a plaintive cry. "You will never live!" She said it as though she knew she were speaking nonsense.
He halted. Turned slowly. "Won't I?"
She blinked with difficulty and turned to look at him. "You won't. Because the others. They want the jewel more than you. They deserve it more than you. They have honor, and family, and friendship. But you – you have nothing. You want the jewel merely to possess it. What will you do with it? What strength in your desire could you possibly have?"
Naraku laughed then, deeply, maliciously. "Stupid Kagome. Power is the object of power."
She started in shock.
He laughed fully and kneeled next her again. "I will be great," he whispered dangerously, "and I will wallow in that greatness."
She swallowed, having long ago abandoned feigning bravery for him. "You won't be happy," she said quietly.
"That is not my goal."
"I hate you!" she spat childishly.
He looked at her strangely, evenly. "Indeed. And yet . . . you came to me . . .. Or do you forget the hanyou's betrayal?"
Her features twisted in a mixture of wrath and sorrow.
"Hn. You would like to hit me, wouldn't you?"
Kagome trembled angrily.
"Do it. Hit me."
She sprang like a cat. Nails extended for his face, but he was quicker. He knocked her backward onto the ground and straddled her waste, pinning her hands as they leapt, even within his heavy grip. A primal memory tugged at his consciousness. There was something to be done with a naked woman. But it was long since he was a human, and he could not remember.
Presently, Kagome went limp, breathing heavily. He let go her hands and reclined on his calves, still on top of her.
He enjoyed that he made her angry. And yet . . . a hot flame of unfamiliar jealously licked within him.
Because Inuyasha made her cry.
The knowledge came to him not as thought but as intense bursting color, waves of heat deep in his chest.
It was in the midst and tumult of such alien emotion that he leaned in and kissed her, before he even knew what he was doing.
It was gentle, almost absent, the way he dipped his torso low and touched his mouth to her cracked lips. She remained very still for him. His mouth over her upper lip, the pillow of her bottom lip supporting it. Their eyes were open – his vague and distant, hers wide and frightened. His breath came steadily, calmly. She trapped hers inside her chest. They rested there for a few moments. Then he withdrew, making hardly a sound but for a tiny suck upon her lip. He reclined again and exhaled deeply, as though removing a heavy load.
Neither moved. Neither thought.
Then carefully, Naraku rose and moved away, unhurried, and slid the door closed behind her.
Kanna, forgotten until now, set the mirror down with hollow eyes.