Author's Notes: I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to fan fiction once I graduate, but I might as well try right? I'll try not to rush the chapter this time, I did it last time and reading it again today I was surprised by so many spelling and grammar errors. _ I need to rewrite some chapters anyway, so I guess I'll put this on the list as well.

Also, in this chapter I replaced "-sama" with "Lady" or "Lord." I don't remember what I used in previous chapters, and I don't feel like breaking open a dictionary right now anyway. In the future English titles will be used.

I'm also changing the emphasized words from bold to italics. It looks better and doesn't stand out as much.

Darkness: Chapter 11: Part 18: A Memory of Lust

He disgusted her, but she couldn't look away. He was always there, tempting her with harsh words and rude gestures, even though he couldn't move. Even his breath disgusted her, as if breathing in the same air would taint her lungs.

Onigumo disgusted her.

Kikyou tried to keep a straight face as she unwound the bandages around Onigumo's wounds, trying not to look into the bandit's leering eyes.

"Your sense of duty is commendable, priestess," Onigumo said, Kikyou's title escaping his mouth in a long hiss that may or may not have been deliberate considering his condtion.

Kikyou didn't reply, she didn't even seem to hear what he had said. Only her fingers hesitation over another spoll of bandages indicated that she had been listening.

This was their daily game; he would try and fail to get a rise out of her.

Kikyou focused on bandaging Onigumo's arm, trying to only touch him as little as possible. Even holding his arm made her feel dirty.

In front of Kaede she acted like his presence didn't bother her, that it wasn't only her duty to help others. Like her purpose in life was to help the less fortunate. And maybe it was her purpose in the beginning, but now? Now Kikyou wasn't so sure.

Why didn't she simply turn the job over to the women in the village? They could take care of him and if she asked the villagers not to probe into his background they would have listened to her. No, it wasn't simply that she didn't want to risk exposure or that Onigumo couldn't move in his condition either. She could have gotten men from the village to help her.

Even when it was obvious Onigumo was infactuated with her, Kikyou denied that there was anything wrong with this and put her doubts away by simply saying it wasn't unusual for patients to fall in love with their nurses.

Now, however, now Kikyou wishes that she hadn't made so many excuses.

But it's too late; the moment she is thinking of has already passed. Her reasons, her self from that time, are not clear. She can no longer understand her motivations or reasons for taking care of Onigumo. The past, and the present, has muddled her feelings and try as she might Kikyou can never again be that girl. The priestess and the warrior are two separate entities, and the gulf of time between them would make them strangers even if they did meet again.

"Who are you?" Kikyou asks, Onigumo as well as herself in the present—in the past. But Onigumo just laughed that raspy hiss of his that fouled the air with the smell of burnt meat and rotting flesh. He was dying—why didn't she end it? Wasn't that her duty too?

It was because he was human. Except even then he wasn't human. Was he ever human?

"Don't try to change the subject," Onigumo said as his eyes followed ever movement of Kikyou's fingers. "Is this your duty too, priestess, to comfort the dying?"

"I am trying to heal you."

Onigumo laughed again, except his laughter this time came out as more of a wheeze than a chuckle. Kikyou almost cursed as his laughter caused his body to rock slightly, messing up her bandage work. She would never admit to herself that he had unnearved her enough to make a mistake.

"Then heal me priestess, put your fingers where I really need them."

"A man in your position should be focused on resting. As soon as my work is finished I'll—"

Kikyou didn't finish her sentence as, in a movement that cost all of Onigumo's strength, his wrist flipped over in her hand and his fingers dug into her arm.

Kikyou stifled a scream, she hadn't expected him to move and in fact he wasn't supposed to. Yet, Kikyou thought as she sat frozen and stared at his fingers wrapped around her wrist, everything pointed to the impossible and the evidence was before her eyes. Onigumo's bony fingers were strong, even in their burned and rotting state. She watched as pieces of his dead and burned skin peeled off and fell to the ground like snow flakes.

Kikyou thought she would be sick, and she almost averted her eyes away from the monstrosity before her.

But that would have shown weakness. This moment, this moment was the defining moment between them. Whether Kikyou, either her past self or her present self, realized it or not Onigumo did and Naraku remembered.

"A man in my position takes what comfort he can, even if it is just your hand priestess," Onigumo hissed, his eyes giving a lewd connotation to his words.

"Let go," Kikyou said, her voice coming out in a low whisper almost like an exhale of breath.

"Why, priestess? Surely there's nothing wrong with a dying man holding the hand of a beautiful girl. But you're a woman now, aren't you?"

"Let go," Kikyou repeated, her voice firmer than before but her eyes still on Onigumo's hand on her wrist.

"Yesss…you're a woman now. I can smell him on you, priestess. On your arms, on your lovely hands, on your breasts…How tight did he hold you, hmm? Very tight I imagine…"

"Let go," Kikyou tried to pull her wrist out of his grasp, but it was like trying to pull something out of the hands of a dead man after rigor mortis has set in. Onigumo wouldn't budge.

"He must have held you very, very tight. I can even smell him between your legs…" Onigumo leered, his eyes leaving her face to travel down her body and then back up to her eyes again. He was laughing at her again, laughing with his eyes. His eyes were filled with an intense lust that frightened and angered Kikyou at the same time.

"I said let go of me now!" Kikyou shouted, jerking her wrist from his hand so hard that she fell back on her back when he finally let go. Onigumo's hand released her with a brittle cracking sound as if Kikyou has broke something, and in fact she did. Later Kikyou would inspect him again and find that she had broken his wrist and two of his fingers in her struggle. His bones were so brittle and weak that the merest pressure could have broken them. She hadn't been trapped by him; it was Onigumo's words that had held her in place until his insults had pushed Kikyou over the edge.

It wasn't his insults that hurt her and caused Kikyou to lash out, it was the way he looked at her. Not the lust, as frightening as his was she was used to men lusting after her or the jewel because she represented what they could never have. No, it was how his eyes seemed to bore into her soul and how he seemed to know everything. Even that she had given her virginity to Inuyasha.

Funny, how looking at Inuyasha this memory was all she could think about instead of the night she had given her heart and her body to the man she loved. Had loved.

But she couldn't focus on him right now, and his words and even the memory of Onigumo's assault passed through and faded from her mind in seconds as Kikyou tried to analyze the aura coming from Karou's dojo.

It was like nothing she had ever felt before, yet mixed in it were two auras' she knew: Saitou's and Kagome's.

"Kikyou!" Inuyasha shouted as Kikyou pushed him aside and jumped off the roof. She hopped from building to building with the speed and agility of a demon, a fleet that would have been impossible in her previous body.

"Incrediable," Inuyasha muttered as he watched Kikyou's flight. "Kikyou has almost become a demon, if the souls inside her continue to evolve..."

"Master Inuyasha!" Myoga exclaimed as he jumped from Inuyasha's head on to his shoulder. It appeared that Myoga, now sensing that Kikyou and all the danger she represented was gone, decided to make his appearance. "We don't have time to ponder about Lady Kikyou, Lady Kagome is in danger!"

"That's right, Kagome!" Inuyasha shouted before leaping after Kikyou.

Part 19: Possession

Saitou turned his back on the girl. The last thing he needed right now was to duel with a child. The only things on his mind now were finding Kikyou and finding Naraku's next victim, if he was even still in the city.

But all of Saitou's plans changed as Kagome's arrow grazed his check and embedded itself in the ground several feet away.

"Turn around, now! I don't know what kind of demon you are, but it's obvious you came from Naraku," Kagome growled, trying to stand her ground bravely without Inuyasha. It was obvious she couldn't take him alone, but Kagome hoped by the time she needed Inuyasha's help he would already be here.

If she let this demon go now she would never find Naraku.

Unfortunately, Saitiou couldn't read her mind and he wasn't the kind of man to let a challenge go unanswered.

"Alright, you want to play?" Saitou turned around, unsheathing his sword simultaneously.

Before either could strike the other two things happened.

Saitou and Kagome were hit with a unexplainable aura of madness and blood-lust. And then Kagome, on reflex, let her arrow go without aiming.

Saitou had a split second to stop, dodge, and raise his sword before another arrow whizzed pass his face and, from the sound of impact, hit solid flesh behind him. This felt werid to Saitou because he thought no one was behind him.

Saitou instantly turned around; his blade raised up to ward off a blow that threatened to drill him into the ground. Saitou ground his teeth, focusing everything he had into defense instead of who was attacking him. Suddenly the pressure on his blade diminished and Saitou looked up; way up, at what was attacking him.

It was a hand.

To be more specific it was a hand missing a thumb, a demonic hand that was black and twisted with evil energy with claws that looked sharp enough to cleave Saitou in two. It was also one of the hands that had attacked him and Kikyou two days ago.

And, more importantly, it was coming directly from the ground. There wasn't even a hole around the arm that the hand was attached to, as if the arm was as natural as a tree.

Saitou's mind threatened to break, in fact any human's mind would have broken in that situation and the fact that Saitou managed to hang on to his sanity was extraordinary. Human minds were engineered to reject anything different from themselves, whether they were supernatural or not. Especially when a mind had been trained not to believe in something like demons, so the fact that Saitou wasn't curled into a ball crying and waiting for death was extraordinary.

Kagome, who was used to demons and due to her background was immune to the sight of supernatural creatures, also had trouble processing what was in front of her. Which was dangerous, as the thing before them opened it's palm to reveal one horrible red eye before the other half of its palm split open to reveal a vertical mouth with a gleaming row of sharp teeth.

What Kikyou and Saitou had seen as "eyes" was actually part of the demon's hands. Saitou's hand actually trembled before tightening its grip on his sword.

"Kukuku…I knew I smelt something delicious!" The demonic hand addressed Kagome, staring at her with malevolent glee. For the moment it didn't even seem to notice Saitou. In fact, Saitou hadn't been attacked. Instead he had been used as something for the demon to hold on to while it pulled its form the earth.

Kagome took a step back, her knees shaking but her grip on her bow remained. She tried to notice another arrow but couldn't get it in place before it fell to the ground. The arrow she had shot perviously was embedded in the creature's palm, and as she watched the demon's tongue poked out of its mouth to twine around the shaft before pulling it out of its flesh to chew on.

"Inu..yash…" Kagome muttered as she took another step back.

Whoever this "Inuyasha" was he wasn't coming soon. Saitou's mind wanted him to run, but he couldn't just leave this girl here.

"Dammit," Saitou cursed. "Some of Kenshin's soft side must be rubbing off on me."

The demon, with impossible speed, reached over Saitou to grab Kagome. Before one of its fingers could even touch her Saitou pushed Kagome out of the way and raised his sword to fend off the demon.

Kagome landed in a heap away from the demonic hand and Saitou. She watched the two of them struggle, shocked that Saitou had defended her. Hadn't she just tried to kill him and wasn't he a demon too?

"What are you doing!" Saitou yelled. "Run!"

"But…"

"Go! Damn…what is it with women who look like Tokio, huh? They all want to argue," Saitou said as he put all his energy into pushing the hand back. His bravado was helping him stay on his feet from the enormous pressure that the demon's aura and body placed on him and his sword.

Just as it seemed that he was succeeding, the hand inexplicably let go. Teetering off balance because of the absence of pressure, Saitou fell backwards. This was exactly what the thing wanted as a second hand shot out from the ground behind Saitou.

"No! Behind you!" Kagome shouted, her hands raised to her face in horror as the fingers of the second hand pointed themselves at Saitou's unprotected back.

Then something extremely unexpected happened.

The next seconds seemed an eternity to Saitou as he waited for death, for his body to be impaled. Strangly, at the girl's cry he didn't feel fear or concern. Saitou felt more alert than he had ever been in his life. Time seemed to slow down as he looked over his shoulder at the deadly claws below him.

No stranger to danger or brushes with death, Saitou was used to thinking on his feet. But he had never experienced this insane amount of clarity as he could suddenly see every detail of what was going on around him and his senses seemed to go into overdrive. He could actually smell Kagome's fear and the remnants of his own. He could hear the gravel under his feet shift under his weight and the traffic on the next street and feel—he could feel everything. Even his sense of smell, taste, and touch were heightened. And suddenly he understood everything and saw what was going to happen before he did it.

First, he was going to twist his body as he fell to fall face first. Second, he was going to shift his sword to impale the second hand, not to stab through the fingers but to use the hand and his sword as a spring board for launching himself back. Finally, he was going to swing over his head and impale the eye on the first hand.

It happened exactly as Saitou saw it happen in his mind.

Kagome could only stare in disbelief as the man she thought would die before her eyes landed gracefully in front of her, shielding her body with his. He followed up his first attack with a swipe of his sword that took out the first and middle finger of the second hand, even though the demonic hand's flesh appeared to be as thick as steal.

"Arrgh! You have wounded us!" The creature screamed. "How is this possible? A mere mortal! You…you're not human!"

"Oh…" Saitou gasped from raw power instead of excursion. He didn't know when the change had taken place, but he felt powerful. Unbelievably powerful. Something crawled across his back, and what felt like spider's legs dug into his back. Saitou was too happy to care. This felt so good, so much better than anything he ever experienced in his life. Every thought other than killing what was in front of him vanished. Even protecting Kagome was only a fragment of his former self.

"You're notnotnot mortal!"

"Why don't you try to breath between words? You're more intimidating without a speech impediment," Saitou mocked.

Meanwhile, Kagome stood up and backed away from Saitou and the demonic hands. To her, it seemed like she had jumped from the frying pan and into the fire.

It was impossible for someone who was supposedly human to be on par with a demon of the demonic hands level, an entity Kagome had never faced before. But from the beginning she had sensed something demonic about Saitou, something that smelled like Naraku, and what ever was in him seemed to have awakened when he had almost been killed earlier. Almost as if a switch within Saitou had been clicked at the exact moment when he was going to die.

While Kagome was wondering which one was the true monster, Saitou did something so irresponsible and out of character that Kagome gasped in shock: He threw away his sword.

To be more precise he threw his sword. The blade was practically an extension of his self ever since Saitou had acquired it. Ever since Saitou had learned how to use a sword he had never failed to have one at his side or treat it with the utmost respect, yet he threw it at the demonic hands like a lance. Saitou's sword skewered the eye of the second hand. Instantly the demon screeched in pain and produced a sound loud enough to make Kagome clap her hands over her ears in pain.

Saitou, however, ignored the demon's screech and instead leap upon protruding end of sword, stomping upon the hilt so that the blade sank further into the creature's flesh as well as splitting it apart.

"I want to make you bleed," Saitou whispered. "And suffer, suffer as much as me and die!"

Saitou leaned back and stepped off of the edge of the sword before reaching forward and dragging it along with him. The wrist twisted at an unnatural angle and Saitou reached into the hole he had made in the hand's flesh.

With his bare hands Saitou cut the creature in half. Only one hand remained.

Only when Saitou turned to glance at Kagome did Kagome finally understand.

"Naraku…?" Kagome could barely form the words as she stared into Saitou's eyes.

His normal gold eyes were replaced with ruby eyes that seemed no more human than an actual wolf's.

Part 20: Transformation

It wasn't possible, it was impossible. Naraku couldn't make human copies of himself! All of his copies were demons, yet hadn't Saitou been human until now? Kagome and Inuyasha had followed Kikyou and Saitou since the park and she hadn't felt anything demonic about him until she came in contact with Saitou while trying to find Kikyou.

If Saitou realized what was going on with his body, he didn't show it as he stalked toward Kagome. He only stopped once to pick up his sword.

"Stay…Stay away!" Kagome cried as she aimed her bow at Saitou. She frantically tried to notch an arrow in it before Saitou reached her, but with impossible speed, and Kagome's carelessness due to fear, Saitou reached her side in an instant and crushed the head of her arrow with his bare hand.

Kagome's eyes widened as Saitou's blood spurted from his palm and his torn flesh without the merest hint of pain on Saitou's face. He didn't even seem to notice his mangled hand as his eyes left Kagome's face to stare over her shoulder. Before Kagome could say anything Saitou swung her over his shoulder to the ground with his injured hand before grabbing the finger on the remaining demonic hand and severing it from the demon's palm using only his strength.

A second screech and Kagome stopped watching as she buried her face in her arms and lay on the ground, trying to stay out of the fight as well as shield her sensitive ears from the onslaught of sound. So intent on protecting herself, Kagome almost didn't notice when Kikyou arrived.

Kikyou landed in front of Kagome, trying to figure out what was happening. Kagome looked fine, she wasn't injured at all. But where was Saitou. His presence had disappeared. She couldn't find his body, which meant he could be hiding his presence and might be still alive or most likely… Kikyou didn't even want to think about it. She didn't want to lose anyone else in her life. Especially not him, not the only human she had fought alongside and trusted since she had become undead.

"Saitou, where is Saitou!" Kikyou asked Kagome as she grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. Inuyasha was right on her heels, but Kikyou didn't care if the dog demon became enraged over Kikyou's treatment of his lover. Saitou was too important to lose.

"Over…there…" Kagome managed say. Kagome was exhausted, physically and emotionally. It had taken all of her power to remain conscious.

Kikyou looked over in the direction Kagome pointed to, raising a shield to block off the blunt of the demonic hand's sonic waves.

She didn't see Saitou. At least she didn't see the Saitou she wanted to see.

Like Kikyou when she had gone into a berserker like rage to protect Saitou from the spider demon that had attacked him, Saitou seemed to have become an entirely different person. But unlike Kikyou, he couldn't control his power at all and instead it was controlling him. He had abandoned his sword for one of the demonic hand's fingers and, even though he could kill the demon easily, he was toying with it and slicing off each digit at the knuckle instead of ending the demon's life.

The only way Kikyou could tell that the entity before her was Saitou was by his uniform. Even his voice was different, deeper, rasper as if he had yelled himself hoarse in pleasure over the pain he was inflicting. He probably had. Nothing of the man she had known remained.

"Is this the best Naraku can send?" Saitou asked as he practically danced out of the way of the remaining finger of the hand. Only the pinkie was left. "I thought there were four of you? Bring them out to play!"

"Notnotnotnot mortal!"

"Is that all you can say?" Saitou practically screamed with frustration as he sliced off the demon's last defense. "Why don't you show me the same terror as before? And you call yourself a demon!"

In despair, the creature tried to attack Saitou with its palm. Its mouth opened wide to devour Saitou and he let it.

"Saitou!" Kikyou cried out as he disappeared inside the creature. She would have followed after him, slicing the demon apart until she saved Saitou if Inuyasha hadn't arrived and held her back.

"Let me go," Kikyou said as Inuyasha had to restrain her arms to keep her from fighting back. "He's…Saitiou!"

As if in answer to her cry, the demonic hand split open. With a dying shriek blood and bone gave way to a wet, but very much alive, Saitou.

"Impossible…" Inuyasha said absentmindedly. "He was dead, he had to have been! No human could survive that!"

"Saitou… You're…" Kikyou started to say, but it was then she heard an inhuman laugh. A laugh Kikyou thought she would never hear again in her life. Onigumo's laugh.

"Is this all?" Saitou hissed in between rasps of glee. "Is this all that can challenge me?"

His last words came out as a pled for anything stronger than himself to appear. Saitou covered his eyes with one hand, and threw back his head to howl at the insanity of it all.

As he sank to his knees, overcome with emotion, Saitou asked once more for anything to appear. "Ahh…Something, anything…I still feel so empty… So empty!"

"Saitou…" Kikyou broke Inuyasha's hold on her and pushed herself away from him. Against her better judgement, as Saitou's powerful and distinctly demonic aura washed over her, she walked toward Saitou and picked up his abandoned sword.

Saitou didn't even glance at her, didn't even notice her as Kikyou raised his sword over his head and aimed for his neck.

"I'm so sorry…Saitou…I," Kikyou whispered to Saitou, trying to calm herself more than him. This had to be done. She had to kill him. Now by he was weak, overcome by the feeling of power that his battle, his slaughter, had induced.

"I can't make the same mistake," Kikyou thought as she stared down at Saitou. "If I had killed Onigumo at that time, if I had killed him before he turned into Naraku…then…then… Oh wolf, how did it come to this?"

Inuyasha was shouting something, trying to warn Kikyou, but she didn't hear it until it was too late. In the end Kikyou made one more fatal mistake.

As she swung the blade down to decapitate Saitou he whispered a name, one name that stayed her hand…

"Tokio."

And then Saitou reached up and plunged his hand into Kikyou's chest. His hand sank up to the wrist in her flesh, the clay that held the fragments of her soul together. His fingers latched on to what would have been a heart in a normal human, but were a ball of soul energy and remains in Kikyou's.

"Sait…ou...why?" Kikyou gasped as Saitou twisted his hand cruelly in her chest, crushing the souls that fueled her. Kikyou tried to hold on to the sword, to keep standing, but she couldn't as pain radiated from her heart in waves and paralyzed her.

Saitou didn't answer her; instead his other hand cradled Kikyou's cheek as he finally stared up into her eyes.

They were gold, not red. Kikyou barely had time to register this fact when Saitou pulled his hand out of her chest, tearing out her heart.

Inuyasha screamed, and the world erupted into chaos.

Author's Notes: Stayed up impossibly late to finish this chapter. I've actually had this chapter finished now for a couple of months but homework and my classes got in the way of posting it. Big plot twist, isn't it? Everything, or almost everything, will be cleared up in the next chapter.

Also, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Each year I always say I will release a chapter of something for Christmas and I never do. This year I finally did. I'm sorry I can't release a new chapter for all my unfinished chapters, so if you are still waiting for something I am really sorry. Feel free to berate me in your reviews. Just kidding. Seriously, constructive criticism is okay and I don't mind if you want to know what is going on with the other series as long as you are respectful. Thankfully I haven't had a problem with rude reviewers for a while. I had to block one asshole, and delete numerous reviews in the past that seemed rude, but that is something that is water under the bridge. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year too. :)