The utter predictability of people was nothing new to him.
Though it suited his needs more often than not, he also found it almost unbearably dull. For all of their struggles against it, people were little more than animals, after all. From almost as far back as he could remember he had seen the truth of them, had seen that they were driven by nothing more than fear, food, or fucking. And all he need do was to prod at one of these, any one, and the reaction was all but a forgone conclusion.
Tedious, predictable, plodding creatures.
For the briefest of moments he had thought she might prove anomalous, a troublesome aberration. She had appeared, small and unbending and strange, in the midst of his carefully laid plans. And he had found that she held inside of her that which he had sought after for years, the key to ensuring the victory he had worked towards for so long, but that inside of her it had also become strange and unbending.
She and it had defied him, refusing to be swayed despite the pressures he had applied. And worse yet in her strangeness she had provoked oddities in the court around her, even stirring the defeated dog to trot along at her heels.
But the veil had been lifted at last. She was no different than any other, commoner or courtier, save perhaps that she had attempted to defy the baseness of her own nature more stubbornly than most. Predictable, almost disappointingly so.
Kagura had reported over a week ago that there were murmurings among the appointees of support for the girl, common thing that she was, to fill the position of Empress. Byakuya had confirmed as much, the whispers having reached the ranks of the male appointees, as well. How the girl had managed to accomplish this feat was not entirely clear, but as he had seen time and again she was capable of inspiring the unnatural in those around her.
Either way it had the desired effect, the effect he had anticipated. It brought matters between her and her dog to a head at last, the crude desire between them forced into the light. The tenuous link between them had at last become a tether that chafed like a collar at her throat.
A blind man could have seen that any connection between them would be disastrous for the both, so of course he had suspected it from the first time the dog had trailed after her scent when she had left the court. It had been confirmed for him when the dog came barking after her the second time, desperate and willing to risk all to reclaim her. His interference had curtailed a well-laid plan, but it had opened the path to another, far simpler one.
And that path had led them here, exactly as he had known that it would.
The image in his mirror was distorted by distance, but the sight that the pair of them made could not have been clearer. The pair were within what they imagined to be the seclusion of their little alcove, one wrapped within the other's embrace.
Cloaked within Byakuya's illusions, Kanna was invisible to the human eye as she turned her mirror upon them. Still she had to keep her distance lest the miko sense her youki, faint though it was in such a weak creature as Kanna. She was a vessel of the void in truth, empty of strength or will, but as a tool she was ideal.
Tremors wracked the girl's frame, her breath coming in hiccuping gasps as she sobbed brokenly against the elder miko's shoulder. The elder miko embraced her in turn, her features pale and drawn in concern as she rocked her.
"What do I do?" the girl muttered, the words high and watery. "What do I do? What should I do? I don't-"
Her words dissolved back into heaving sobs, hands white-knuckled and spasming as she clutched at the older woman's robes as if she were the life line that might save her from being pulled under. The features of the older woman, the O-Miko Midoriko, tightened further.
"Kagome," she said, shaking the girl slightly. "Kagome, you must calm yourself, child. You cannot-"
"He won't even see me anymore!" the girl burst out, beyond hearing. "He won't speak to me! Won't even look at me! I can't-!"
But the words fled once more beneath the weight of her distress, her eyes wide and unseeing as she lifted them to Midoriko's face. Midoriko's hands flew up to the sides of her face, grasping it firmly as she forced her mind back.
"Breathe, child," she commanded. "You must breathe. Watch me, and breathe."
But the girl was shaking her head, red-faced and tear-stained and wild-eyed. She had the look of a hunted thing, a beast backed into a trap. He felt a faint curl of satisfaction at the sight, though even this was a dull sensation at best. It was a look he knew well, having inspired it in countless others. Truly predictable creatures.
"You don't understand," she panted. "You cannot. You cannot. All I want is to be at his side. All I want is to be with him. And I can't. No matter how close I come I can't. Because it would crush us. The entire court would come down to crush us, it would destroy him...and I can't…"
"Kagome, you cannot know that. His Majesty is strong, you have seen his strength-"
The girl shook her head, jaw set hard against this.
"You don't see it," she said fiercely. "You both refuse to see it. I am the only one who can, who will look at this path and see clearly where it must lead. There's only one end to it, an end where no amount of strength matters. This court...it is poison. It is ruin. What they did Rin, what the Abe continue to do to their servants unchecked...there is no strength enough to curb it. No strength enough to keep us from tumbling back down into the depths of a throne war should I choose to stand at Inuyasha's side."
Tears coursed in rivers down her cheeks, rolling over Midoriko's hands, and the elder miko could only be silent in the face of this dark certainty, her face growing paler still. The girl's chest heaved with each breath, her hands curling into fists in the dirt beneath her.
"I thought once that I might change things here," she said, her voice falling to scarcely a whisper. "I thought that if I could stand at his side, we could change them. But I cannot even have that. I see now that there is no saving a thing that has rotted through to its core."
"It has to be remade. To be purified."
Midoriko's eyes were wide, her mouth slightly agape as she looked down into the girl's darkened features. Her brow furrowed, a dawning horror creeping into her features.
"Kagome…"
The sound of her name, hushed and uneasy, seemed to reach the girl through her haze. She blinked, her gaze clearing slowly. She gasped softly, her expression crumbling beneath another wash of tears.
"Sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry. I just...I never thought it would hurt like this. I thought I was doing the right thing, but how can it be right if this is how it feels?"
The elder miko's expression softened in turn, her thumbs moving to swipe at the tears tracking down the girl's cheeks. She smoothed the girl's hair back from her face, leaning in to press her forehead lightly to hers.
"It's alright," she murmured. "It's alright. I am sorry. I pushed you here, pushed you towards something that I did not fully understand, and I am sorry for it. But trust me in this at least, child: if you feel in your heart that you have done right, then you have done right. Whatever comes after, we will face it together. I swear I will not leave you."
The girl was silent, her eyes sliding closed even as tears continued to leak from beneath the dark fringe of her lashes. Still the clench of her fists did not ease, nor did the quaking of her limbs.
"Do not give yourself over to despair," the elder miko murmured. "You cannot afford it. We cannot afford it. Amaterasu-sama guides your steps even now, though it may be hard to see it. Will you pray with me?"
The girl tensed, glancing with uncertain eyes at the stone form that loomed unmoving above them. The statue of the kami was distant, unmoved, its hollow eyes as empty as ever he had seen them. He had learned long ago that if such things as kami existed, they cared nothing for the pain of such small, paltry beings.
The girl, however, seemed to struggle still beneath the weight of her delusions, giving a small nod and allowing herself to be led as the elder miko turned her towards the cold idol. The elder miko bowed her head, her eyes sliding closed and hands splayed before her in supplication as she bowed her head.
The girl did now bow. She did not close her eyes. Instead she gazed with wide, red-rimmed eyes up into the face of the idol, as if daring it to move. He could almost hear the grinding of her teeth together, the strain of every muscle in her as she dared Amaterasu to move, to answer her.
But for her there would be no more answers than there had been for him, that distant, impersonal gaze unmoved as it always was. The corner's of the girl's lips curled down as if in contempt of this, the unnatural blue of her eyes growing bright with tears once more. But no amount of rage or sorrow could move stone, and so the statue was nothing more.
Slowly her hand slid to her hip, clutching at a spot there as her lips curled back in defiance. Another look he knew well. If her prayers fell on deaf, callous ears, if her life was too inconsequential to be acknowledged, then there was nothing left to restrain her. It was a fearful, freeing thing to know.
But unlike most, she did not need to scrabble and claw for a place. That power was already burning at her fingertips, ready to be unleashed.
Again he felt that curl of dull satisfaction.
Pathetic, predictable creatures.
"As I have said," Kagura drawled, studying the folds of her fan with a focus that was unequal to the task. "Things are largely unchanged between them. They do not meet. They do not speak. They appear to have fallen out entirely. How many times must I be made to repeat the same tedious details before you are satisfied?"
He felt a frown tug at the corners of his lips, though the feeling reached no deeper. Her defiance was as dull and predictable as anything else, more stubborn reflex than true rebellion. As long as he had known her Kagura had ever been a slave to her whims, following the wind whichever way it might blow.
The difference now was that he was there to check those fickle whims, to guide them into something at least somewhat worthy of the power that she possessed. With a vague gesture he had her beating heart within his grasp once more, though even the warm pulse of it in his palm felt banal.
Still her eyes rounded as if the sight of it was unexpected, her breath hitching faintly at the premonition of pain to come. The tedious routine of it was enough to inspire his fingers to curl about the fluttering organ, irritation flaring within him. Even in their defiance they were dull, their responses as easy to predict as any cornered creatures'. All posturing and bared fangs and empty threats.
"You will repeat them," he said. "Time and again, until I am satisfied."
"And when have you ever been satisfied?" she muttered, crimson eyes flashing resentfully up at him.
Inwardly he felt the query echo down to his bones. Outwardly he dug his nails into her frantically fluttering heart, watching pain steal the color and the fight from her features with quiet satisfaction. She held up a hand in wordless surrender, the other at her throat as she struggled past the pain to draw breath enough to fill her lungs.
He eased his hold on her heart. No use in destroying a tool that yet had some use to it.
She tried to hide the heaving of her chest as she fought to catch her breath, the trembling of her limbs as she braced them against the pain. If nothing else could be said of Kagura, it could at least be said that she was stubborn to her last breath. It was a quality he had once begrudgingly admired, wished to possess, though now it was more tiresome than anything else.
"...She has been sullen," she said, swiping the dribble of blood from the corner of her lips as if she could pretend that it had never been there. "Every day she looks more haggard, and she scarcely eats. Even the female appointees are beginning to lose the fleeting faith that they had in her. The other night, when I was supposed to act as her handmaid, I woke to find her out in the garden babbling to herself. She is growing unhinged."
"And the dog?"
She shrugged, a sharp jerk of her shoulders.
"How should I know?" she said sharply. "I don't see him. He avoids her. Ask Byakuya."
For a moment he considered the heart still beating furiously against his palm, wondering if he would not be amiss in giving it another squeeze as a warning against the edge in her tone. But she was compliant enough, the hard edge to her features growing duller by the moment. It would not do to push her too hard.
The key to beings, he had found, was understanding to what degree they could bend before breaking. Kagura had always been fairly inflexible, and he had no use for a broken tool. Not yet.
With a flick of his fingers he returned her heart to its place, secure behind the cage of his own ribs.
"Mind your tongue when you speak to me," he said. "And continue to keep your eyes and ears open. And if the situation should present itself…"
"Give the push," she said, her gaze darkening. "How could I forget? You never fail to remind me. Besides, I'm well aware of the stakes here. You never fail to remind me of those, either."
He nodded, the faintest of quirks tipping up one corner of his mouth.
"Death or freedom," he said. "The only true stakes there are."
"There's a rumor going around that I think will interest you, Naraku-sama."
A grin edged the crimson of Byakuya's lips, his dark eyes bright with anticipation. Clearly he thought himself to be in possession of something worthy of praise or reward.
Naraku quirked a dark brow, waiting. He would be the judge of that.
Byakuya's expression soured slightly, grin fading into a faint pout as he failed to rise to the bait. He sighed, muttering something under his breath about no one ever wanting to observe the niceties anymore.
He remained silent, allowing him his momentary fit of pique. For all that his manner not infrequently grated at his nerves, Byakuya had always proven to be unquestioningly obedient. There was nothing of Kagura's true rebellion in his idiosyncrasies. In fact for all of his power he had always had remarkably little ambition of his own, content instead to float along on whatever wind blew the strongest.
It had been nothing at all to lure the youkai in so many years ago, to make him servant to his whims. To Byakuya it seemed to make very little difference save that it had occasionally given him a focus.
"Fine," Byakuya huffed, shaking his head. "I suppose I should have known better than to expect you to indulge my whims by now. There's a rumor that's spread from the female appointees to the male appointees in the last few days, at first in whispers but now with some seeming of true certainty."
He paused, dark eyes darting again to his image in the mirror with that hint of expectancy. He deflated slightly to find him still unmoved, flicking the long tail of his dark hair back over his shoulder with a huff.
"They say that the dog has chosen an Empress," he said. "And that he plans on announcing her in the not too distant future."
A frisson of unease slid through him.
"They have reconciled, then?"
Byakuya's earlier grin returned in full force as he shook his head.
"That's the interesting part, Naraku-sama," he said. "As far as I have seen, they are still scarcely ever even in the same room together. He seems to avoid her at every turn. Why, just the other day I saw her fairly sobbing as the guards turned her away from his chambers."
That was something, then. It would have been one thing should they somehow have managed a reconciliation after the falling out her obvious refusal must have caused. Annoying, but not entirely outside of the realm of possibility and not at all outside the parameters of his plans. Even should they manage to get past her faltering, it was still a foregone conclusion that all of their dithering and the weight of the court's scrutiny would break them eventually. It would simply mean biding his time for a while longer.
But something like this? This would have to mean that the rift between them had grown even deeper than he had been able to glean. This would mean that the dog was hurt enough to try and bite, to either sever their connection or to provoke her into responding to him. Either way it was ideal. Having believed themselves to care for one another, both were uniquely positioned to be able to break one another.
And with this it seemed that that break might be coming sooner rather than later.
A curl of satisfaction unfurled itself low in his stomach, nudging the corners of his lips upward.
"You've done well, Byakuya," he said. "Continue to serve me so well and you will have your choice of reward when this is all done."
Byakuya bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the praise, but the smug curve of his mouth said clearly enough that this was what he had been expecting the entire time.
"Your gratitude is the only reward I require, Naraku-sama," he said. "And, of course, whatever entertainment I can derive from these errands you have me running. Kami know it's difficult to come by after the third century or so of being alive."
He paused, his expression sobering somewhat even as the light in his dark eyes brightened.
"Does this mean what I think it means, then?" he said. "Is it time?"
Some of the light dimmed as Naraku shook his head.
"We are close," he allowed. "But there are yet a few things more to be put in place. Until then you will keep your eyes open and await my word. Do you understand, Byakuya?"
Byakuya's gaze cooled further, sliding away from his image in the mirror.
"Of course, Naraku-sama," he said with only the barest hint of disappointment. "But if the opportunity should present itself…?"
"Then you break them," he finished. "As I have taught you to do. But what comes after…"
"Is yours, Naraku-sama," Byakuya finished in turn, bowing his head. "As you have taught me. Kami know I wouldn't know what to do with it."
And that was precisely why he had chosen him. Power without imagination. The exact opposite of what he had once been. The perfect tool.
He smiled.
"Then I leave it to you, Byakuya."
She had lingered there for nearly half the day now.
Her reflection in the surface of the pond, interrupted by the occasional ripple of a breeze across the surface, was wan, pathetic.
That miserable appearance was likely the only reason the guards had not driven her away, as far as he could gauge. They eyed her uncertainty from across the space of the water walkway, but made no move save when they had rebuffed her from entering his chambers.
Today, though, it seemed she was not to be deterred.
And so the girl waited, a pale, wretched waif. Dark circles lined her sunken eyes, her hair a tangled mass as she gazed down into the stagnant water. Still stubborn, though. The last thing left to tell him that even now she was not quite where he needed her to be.
The creaking of wood had her suddenly straight-backed and wide-eyed. She scrambled to her feet as if the wood of the walkway had burned her, the whole of her focus suddenly fixed on the opposite end of the water walkway.
He could see the moment the dog caught sight of her, the entirety of him going still in an instant. The silence between them then was heavy enough to sink ships.
For a moment he thought the dog might turn tail and retreat back into the safety of his chambers, but after a long moment of indecision his expression hardened as he took a decisive step forward. His gaze darted away from her, his steps growing swift as he made to sweep past her.
Undeterred, she threw herself directly into his path. In stubbornness, it seemed, they were equals.
He stopped to avoid touching her, though his gaze remained fixed above her head. Her strange blue gaze was fixed unerringly upon his face, burning as she willed him to look at her. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, the trembling in them apparent even as the length of her sleeves slid down to hide them. Behind them his guards stirred, their looks uncertain as they eyed the pair.
"Move."
The word, low and jagged, would have been enough to move a lesser person. Instead she dug her heels in.
"I won't," she said, though the words trembled. "Not until you talk to me, Inuyasha."
"And what the fuck do you think we have left to talk about?" he snarled lowly, fists clenching in turn. "Pretty sure you already made yourself clear."
He made as if to go around her, but she shifted to block him once more. His ears flattened back against his skull, his gaze burning as it fell to meet hers. The guards made as if to come to his aid, but a sharp gesture of his hand stopped them in their tracks.
"Move," he said once more.
"You don't understand," she said desperately, one hand reaching out as if to touch him. "You didn't even try to understand, to hear me out-"
"To hear what, Kagome?" he hissed, fangs bared. "To hear you reject me again? To hear more excuses about why I'm the only-? Fuck, Kagome, we both know that that doesn't lead anywhere anymore. So let's just-"
"Just what?" she broke in. "Just continue pretending as if we never knew each other? As if we were never-?"
But whatever else she might have said seemed to catch in her throat, her eyes bright with the tears of choking it back. He said nothing, though some of the hard edge went out of him.
"I need you to talk to me," she said, several tears breaking free at last to course down her pallid cheeks. "I need you to actually listen to me and hear me for once. I...I didn't refuse you because I wanted to. I-"
"You can't risk it," he spat, the words a bitter taste on his tongue. "You can't risk this. You can't risk-"
"You," she finished softly. "I can't risk you. I would never risk you. Not for anything."
He said nothing, but some of the tension went out of him. Still he made no move towards her and was careful to remain just out of her reach. The dog had been kicked one time too many, perhaps.
"But…"
She bit her lip, hesitating. She shook her head.
"I don't...I don't know how to be without you," she said. "I...every day I think of you, of us. I think...I think of what might be, if things were different."
"But they're not," he said flatly, his gaze sliding away. "So what's the fucking point of pretending they are? If that's what you came here for, then we're better off ending it here."
Before he could try to dodge around her again her hands shot up, white-knuckled as they grasped at his arms. He froze, going wide-eyed and statue stiff.
"But what if they were?" she murmured, almost breathless now. "Different, I mean. What if things were different? What if we could make them different?"
If possible his eyes grew even wider with sudden, terrible comprehension.
"You can't mean-"
"Why not?" she said fiercely, clinging with all of her meager strength to him. "Why not? It was given to me. Why should I not use it? What is it for if not this? We could change everything, change it all, for the better. We could punish the Abe, save their servants, make it all right-"
But he was already shaking his head, his expression shuttering.
"Is that what you're looking for?" he said. "Revenge?"
"No!" she said, though the word lacked conviction. "No. Not revenge. Just...justice. Some kind of justice for all the people that have been lost, that have been hurt. Can't we at least give them that?"
He was silent for long moments, his gaze growing dark as he watched her.
"You said you wouldn't," he said at last. "You said it had to be right."
"And what could be more right than justice for those who deserve it?" she said. "I was frightened then, but I see it now. This is what I was meant to do! What we were meant to do."
He frowned, his eyes searching hers. She refused to look away, her eyes still bright with tears as she pleaded silently for him to understand her.
At last he shook his head, his eyes sliding closed.
"No," he said lowly. "No. I want you-you know I want you-but I won't be your excuse, Kagome. I won't."
This time he managed to duck around her with ease, her hands falling limp at her sides. Her eyes were wide, unseeing, as he brushed past her at last.
"Wait-"
But the choked word was no more than a whisper on the wind, neither heard nor acknowledged as he pressed doggedly onward. His guards swept past her, as well, sparing her a pitying glance as they trailed after him.
The girl remained frozen there for several long moments, her head bowed so that her fringe hid her eyes from his sight. It did not conceal the tears that dripped slowly down her cheeks, though, or the trembling of her white-knuckled fists at her sides. It did not conceal the snarl on her lips as she raised her head at last and let out a yell that would have startled birds into flight had there been any near.
"That's something!" she yelled, though there was no longer anyone left to hear her. "Coming from the man who would have used it to become a full youkai!"
The outburst brought her no solace, though, her tears flowing faster and thicker down her cheeks. At last she turned, nearly fleeing in her haste to be away.
"Enough," he said.
The reflected image of her retreating form faded, replaced by that of Kanna's blank stare.
"Is that all you require, Naraku-sama?" she said, her face and voice as empty as ever they had been.
A void in truth. A puppet in truth. Pitiful almost, though he had long known that even pity would be wasted on such a creature as Kanna. She was emptiness given physical form, more malleable than even Byakuya in her complete lack of feeling or desire. He would have called her a gift to him, had he been foolish enough to believe the kami cared enough for him or anyone else to provide such things. Nonetheless her uses never ceased.
"For now," he said. "Though you will keep eyes upon her. Day or night, if she makes any move outside of the ordinary you will show it to me. It will not be much longer now."
For a moment he could have sworn that he saw her lips twitch downward in the briefest of frowns.
But, no. Her eyes, dark as a moonless night, were empty still. He was seeing what was not there, expecting some sort of intent where there was none. She was empty still.
"Yes, Naraku-sama," she said, inflectionless as ever.
She dipped her head slightly in what passed for a bow with her, her image dissolving and leaving him with only his own reflection in the mirror.
It would not be long now. The girl was on the verge of cracking, suffocating beneath the weight of her anger at the court and her own misguided desires. As he had realized when the dog and the girl had come back to the court together, it was only a matter of time now.
In the meantime, though, there were a few more things to be put in order. The last time he had failed to account for the obstinate refusal of those who thought themselves to be in possession of power to surrender it.
He would not make the same mistake again.
In the curved reflection of his kusari-gama, the boy's face was as blank as it had been since first he had taken control of him.
It had not been difficult. He had been out of the court on a mission, his first mission outside, and he had been senseless with fear when he was separated from the other taiji-ya by some minor youkai under Naraku's control.
Naraku had been keeping an eye on his group since they had departed the Heian-kyō. A chance at gaining control over the Tachibana headman was too great an opportunity to be missed, though the man had proven too skilled by far to be brought down. His son, on the other hand, was yet young and untested and high enough in the hierarchy of the clan to be of use.
And so he had made certain to separate them, to make the boy so desperate that he would have given almost anything to make it back to his family. And then he had killed him.
Well, brought him as near to death as he could. For all of the power he had managed to accumulate over the years, even he could not reverse death. Those years of experience had taught him, though, that if someone could not be manipulated into service, weakness and desperation were enough to overcome nearly anyone's will.
Appearing before him, he had offered him salvation and the chance to return to his family in return for service. The boy had accepted eagerly, and a bit of his youki was enough to heal the wound and secure his control.
From there he had kept his word, returning him undetected to his family and allowing him free reign over his mind until such time as he needed him. He had proven useful, his connections to the girl and the Tachibana providing him with a good deal of necessary information. He had even succeeded in getting close enough to the girl to deliver her into his hands, though the dog's interference had brought that plan to a premature end and left the boy's hiding place among them compromised.
At least, though, the boy's sister had proven stubborn enough to refuse to cut ties with him entirely. Using the boy as bait he could keep her distracted, keep her separate from the girl and her clan.
But he had played at distraction long enough now. The girl was wounded in the court, struggling. It was time to drive a knife into that wound that would nudge her forward that last step over the edge.
"They are still on your trail?" he said, speaking into the mirror before him.
The boy nodded, though his expression remained vacant.
"Yes, Naraku-sama," he said. "I continue to leave a trail behind for them to track, as you ordered. They are at most a day's distance from catching up."
"And how far out are you from your destination?"
"Perhaps five days' time," he replied.
"And you know your orders upon arrival?"
He nodded once more.
"Summon the saimyōshō," he said. "And await their arrival."
"And when they arrive?"
"Kill everyone there," he said, his expression still as vacant as if he were remarking on the weather. "Down to the last woman and child. Make certain they see it. Use the saimyōshō to provoke the houshi into opening the curse and allow them to finish him. Leave one alive to bring word back to the court."
Naraku nodded, satisfied with his understanding of the plan.
It should suffice. Either way the houshi did not have much longer before the curse he had laid upon his family took him. Better to make full use of his death to further break the taiji-ya woman and the girl. Between her grief and the weight of the deaths of the others, the pressure should be enough to open a rift between the dog and the girl through which he could slip in.
It was nearly time.
This feeling, this unanticipated jolt of anger and dismay, was so foreign to him that it took several moments before he could put a name to it. It was a feeling from the time before; the time before he had taken the name Naraku, the time before he had had power, the time before he had been able to truly see the world as it was. It was the feeling of a child who had only ever known hunger and loss and pain.
It was a feeling that belonged to Onigumo, and yet, he, Naraku, felt it pierce him now to his core.
The captain of the wakō, a stocky, grim-faced woman with a number of scars nowhere near commensurate with her years glowered out at him from the confines of his mirror. Her eyes, an unusual shade of jade, were a hooded, unyielding match to the set of her mouth.
The sight of her made the strange feeling rise up like bile in his throat.
"What do you mean, 'overrun'?" he said, the words escaping him in a low snarl that was equally as unfamiliar as the sensation roiling just beneath his skin.
"I should think it'd be obvious," she said, an empty bravado to the curl of her lips. "Overrun is overrun. I won't risk any more of mine for some lost cause, no matter the reward. We're done. We've begun our retreat. Y'should be grateful I bothered to let you know and cut a retreat of your own while you've still got a chance. Clearly you're out of depth and that can only end in drowning."
Again the feeling surged, hot and unfamiliar and jarring. He could feel the tightening in his limbs, the contortion of his features. If he could have reached the woman he had no doubt that he would have already killed her where she stood.
"I supplied you with everything you could have required," he said, that faint quaver of rage that he could still hear in his words only further stoking the burning feeling. "I gave you the fastest ships, supplies, information on every weak point waiting to be exploited. So explain how you now come to me, overrun and fleeing, despite all of that?"
The woman scowled, her gaze hardening.
"First off, wakō don't flee," she snapped. " S'only that we know a loss when we see one, and there's nothin' but loss left to be had in your scheme. Whatever you think you might've given to us, you made the one mistake that can't be overcome with all the supplies or ships or coin in the world: you didn't know your enemy."
A crack crawled across the face of his mirror, the force of the youki seeping from him enough almost to shatter it. He forced it down, willed it back even as he willed the hot singing of his blood in his ears to quiet.
"Then tell me, woman, what is it that you know of my enemy that I do not?"
"I know that the kami or the spirits or whatever you wish to call 'em are against you," she said darkly. "A chunk of our ships and supplies were lost to unseen hands. Attacks by an invisible enemy, under the cover of dark. They tore holes in the hulls, pulled every last weapon or scrap of food they could find down into the depths."
"You expect me to believe that yūrei attacked your ships and stole your supplies?"
"I don't expect you to believe anything," she spat back. "Truth's truth, whatever you choose to believe. And the truth of it is something other than human was tryin' to sabotage us well before the Chinese vessels reached us."
For a moment the world seemed to go silent, the absence of sound so loud in his ears that he was almost deafened by it.
"...Chinese vessels?" he echoed, the sound of the words hollow in his own ears.
The woman nodded, expression more grim than ever.
"A small fleet, but enough to do real damage if they wished it," she said. "Said they were patrolling their waters, but I'm not fool enough to believe that load of shit. As far out as they were, they were looking for something. May be it was us. Either way they made it clear that if we didn't move they'd be more than happy to move us. An' I'm sure as shit not willing to bring the wrath of their Emperor down on my crew, no matter the reward."
"So consider this the end of our dealings. We want nothing more t' do with your cursed affairs."
"You think it will be so easy to sever ties with me, woman?" he said, lips peeling back from his teeth in as near to a snarl as he had come in decades. "My reach stretches farther than your sad imaginings can comprehend, and if you cannot be made to see reason with reward then I will be more than happy to make you see it with force."
Fear. Something familiar in the faces of those who served him, those who opposed him. It was almost a relief to see it flicker across her weather-worn features, to see it creep into her eyes. For all that she and her crew had somehow managed to butcher the task he had given them, she was no fool. He would not have chosen her if she was.
No, he had watched them for some time before approaching them with this task. The wakō were ruthless, cunning, devoid of loyalty save to wealth and one another, and none more so than her crew. She could be made to see reason, to salvage the wreckage they had made of his carefully crafted plan.
But then her jaw tightened, her gaze grew hard. She shook her head.
"Your reach I've seen for myself," she said. "I'm not fool enough to think we could flee for long should you come after us. Nor am I fool enough to think you've got the luxury of time to do it. You're a man who's working towards something, something big I'd wager. And this will've set you back. You've not got the time to spend trifling with me and my crew, so we'll be taking our leave of you here. Good riddance, and may all your plans go as poorly as this one."
The rage returned threefold, searing, blinding. He gripped his mirror in both hands, his eyes bleeding slowly red.
"I will kill you," he vowed. "Wherever you run to, whatever you do, I will find you and rend every last one of your crew limb from limb. I-"
"As I said," she broke in. "I wish you as much success in that as you've had so far. For now, though, I'll not be takin' any more threats from a piece of glass."
And then she lifted the mirror, tossing it. He watched as the sea and sky spun end over end within it, watched as it sank beneath the waves. He watched as the water surrounding it grew so dark that it was like looking into an abyss.
After several moments the image faded, Kanna's replacing it slowly.
"It appears that they have thrown out their mirror, Naraku-sama," she said tonelessly. "I can follow them in the reflection of the waves if-"
Abruptly his mirror shattered, the force of his youki overwhelming it at last. He watched with unseeing eyes as the image of Kanna was blown apart, felt it only distantly as several of the shards lodged themselves in his flesh. A trickle of blood from one of the cuts slid slowly down his cheek.
He watched it drip onto the floor beneath him, wide eyes unseeing as the rage burning beneath his skin blinded him to all else.
He would kill them. He would raze their ranks down to the last child, would sink their ships to the depths and allow them to witness the destruction of their pitiful ambitions before sinking their bodies to the depths to join the wreckage. And he would save their captain for last, would ensure she lived long enough to see the ruin she had wrought with her failure before she was torn apart and fed to the sea.
It would be easy. Kanna could track them, mirror or no, to whatever corner of the sea or tiny port hovel they might think to flee to. He had youkai enough under his control to send after them, even some loyal to him in Goryeo should they try to seek refuge on foreign soil. It would be easy, and it would be deeply satisfying.
It would also be exceedingly pointless.
He raised a hand, swiping at the blood on his cheek and observing the viscous crimson gleam of it in the faint light of the lantern. The shallow wounds from the glass had already almost finished mending themselves, and he could slowly feel some of the rage beginning to subside.
What remained of his humanity was prone to petty rages such as these, but it had been some time since one had been strong enough that he could not suppress it. But the root of this one was different, deeper and more pathetic by far.
Desperation.
He had known it often in the time before he had become Naraku, had lived with it as a constant, clawing companion in the time before. It was an emotion for the weak, the powerless, and no one had been more weak or powerless than that wretch Onigumo.
Absently his hand shifted to his chest, the blood from the tips of his fingers smearing across the front of his dark robes. It had been years since he had purged himself of Onigumo's weakness. He would not allow the echoes of that miserable creature to sway him now.
The plan had been a solid one, one that had been some time in the making. It had been central to his aims, as well, serving both to undermine the dog's authority within the court and to force him to divert attention and resources away from it. It would also allow him to begin sowing the seeds of discontent among the commoners.
He would show them in no uncertain terms that whatever empty gestures he might try to make, the dog cared no more for them and their inconsequential lives than any courtier ever had. Even should the dog attempt to send them aid, he knew well enough that a couple of massacres here and there would be enough to sow the seeds that would forever turn them against him.
But all of his planning, his careful manipulations of the foolish heir to Goryeo's throne and efforts to ensure that the dog would remain little more than a powerless figurehead, had come to almost nothing. He was no fool, and no part of him believed that it was pure happenstance and incompetence that had led to the plan's unraveling.
No, either the dog or the girl had been involved in this somehow, which meant one or the other of them had managed to get their hands on resources of which he had no knowledge. And where the court was concerned there should be no movement of which he did not have knowledge.
A failure on two fronts, then.
It could yet be salvaged, though. The wakō were not the only unattached fleet to be bought with the promise of wealth and power. The heir to Goryeo could yet be convinced of his victory, convinced that perhaps a larger mercenary fleet was all that stood between him and vengeance for his fool of a father.
This, however, would take time. Months if all fell perfectly into place, years if they did not. And all that time would be more time for the dog and the girl to maneuver, more time for them to reconcile and to plot.
It was time he had. In fact, he had all the time in the world almost. This body he had so meticulously built would age slowly, more slowly with every youkai he absorbed or brought under his control. Time he had in abundance.
But he had never been closer than he was now. With the throne war he had come close, so close, but had been impeded at the last by the eccentricity of the first dog and his own lack of understanding of how hard the court would struggle to maintain its delusions of order. It had slipped through his fingers at the last, along with the one thing that would have secured his aims above all else.
But now the Jewel had presented itself once more, had set itself in his path again as if it were his fate to possess it. Not that he bought into any desperate notions of faith. No, he knew well enough that that was a falsehood from start to finish, a mere tool wielded by those in power to convince those without that there was no other way than the one set before them. But it was a close enough seeming that he could almost be swayed by it.
Either way, the Jewel was laid before him, nearly ripe for the taking. He had only to reach out and take it, to ensure the corruption of its vessel. With it, all would be possible.
Everything could be possible.
When he had first begun to hear whispers of its existence, he had scorned it as a fool's hope. Surely in a world so clearly devoid of reason, devoid of mercy, there could be no such thing as a Jewel gifted by the kami to man for their salvation.
But then he had begun to feel the pull of it, had felt the sting of its power crackling along his skin, and suddenly he had understood. It was no boon of salvation being offered, but merely a game for whatever powers might be. What could be more random, more detached, than the kami tossing down among the faceless masses of their creations the power to change everything with something as fickle as a wish?
It was capricious, random, cruel. It was his entire existence, distilled down into one shining orb. It was exactly what he needed.
The only difficulty then had been that it was in the hands of the O-Miko, one of the few figures within the court in possession of enough power to pose a true threat to him should she find him out. But she was not a woman without weakness and the death of the sculptor proved to be just the push she had required to begin stumbling down the path he needed her on.
But she had proven more stubborn than he had anticipated. Before the Jewel could grow completely corrupt in her grasp, she had secreted it away outside of the court and beyond his reach. He had had no resources to spare in its pursuit, no notion of where she might have sent it off to, and so he had focused on fighting his battles within the court. He had no need of some contrivance of the kami to win his battles for him, not after all the work that he had put in.
But in that he had miscalculated. He had thought the clans of the court as fickle and motivated by power as he had always known them to be, had thought that they would give anything for even the chance at dominion. Their true nature was a thing he could never have seen living as a powerless waif among them. Greater than even their desire for power was their fear of losing it.
In essence, they were cowards. Having known nothing but struggle and want, the fear of loss was something he was uniquely ill-suited to comprehend. The only miserable thing Onigumo might have been able to say that he had had been snatched from his pathetic, trembling hands, after all. Loss was nothing he feared, as he had never known anything but it.
The courtiers, however, feared it even more than they desired power and so he had been forced to fall back, to bide his time until they could be made as desperate as that pathetic cur Onigumo or until he could gain enough sway to force their hands. He had time, after all. Nothing but time.
But now the Jewel was before him again. It was so close that he could feel the draw of its power once more, could feel again the sense of its inevitability.
He had time. The question was how much more of it was he willing to squander when the means to his end was already before him.
The note she had found left in her chambers had been strange, abrupt, demanding.
It was everything she had learned to expect in a note from Inuyasha, but somehow it had given her pause.
Still, after a bit of deliberation it was decided that there was little for it but to comply with his demand to meet. Waiting until her handmaiden for the night was well and truly asleep, she donned a karaginu and zori and slipped out into the night.
She spared a glance for her bow and arrows where they rested in a corner of her chamber, dismissing the notion of bringing them with a shake of her head. It would not do to start the encounter off as if she had come prepared to clash. After all, this might well be the last and best chance they would have at any sort of resolution.
The night air was warm and soft, like slipping through warm spring water. The dark of the night sky, dotted here and there with the gentle light of stars, had the smooth look of finely spun silk. It had all of the makings of a perfect evening.
Or it would have, she opined inwardly, if only she were headed towards any other sort of encounter. She bit down on her lip, even the prick of pain of her teeth against the soft flesh of her lower lip a welcome if fleeting distraction.
Still the weight of dread, hard and heavy and solid in her stomach, would not leave her.
The light of the stars seemed to flicker out as she entered the Daigokuden, the interior of the ceremonial hall dark and silent as a cave. She paused on the threshold, spiritual sense alert and eyes scouring the darkness for motion of any kind.
That he had asked to meet here did not particularly surprise her. At this time of night there was no reason for anyone to be there save them. It was perhaps the only place within that Dairi that they might be alone.
Kagome pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling that sense of dread congeal into something awful and solid. Now or never, she told herself in the hopes that the words would brace her. This encounter had to be now or never.
"Hello?" she called into the darkness, the echo of her own voice almost enough to startle her.
There was no answer, but suddenly she could hear the faint fall of footsteps. The movements were measured, deliberate as the person approached her through the deep gloom of the hall. She could feel the entirety of her body go taut as a bowstring, bracing.
Now or never.
A pair of golden eyes pierced the darkness before her. Slowly her eyes adjusted, a familiar form becoming apparent through the gloom. Her breath left her in a rush.
"Inuyasha," she said, pressing a hand to her chest. "Kami, you scared me. I thought-"
She paused, something in the strangeness of his expression catching her attention.
Though he made no move to close the distance between them, his eyes were bright and hard as they watched her. A chill crawled the length of her skin and unconsciously she felt herself take a step back.
Abruptly his expression shifted, dissolving into something softer so swiftly it was difficult to recall what it had looked like before. She blinked, relaxing somewhat. She was simply on edge because of what they were here to do tonight, that was all.
"Sorry," he said, voice low. "For scaring you. I just…"
He trailed off, his expression uncertain. He made as if to move towards her, but stopped himself. Kagome frowned.
"Are you alright?" she said softly.
He blinked, frowning faintly. After a moment he shook his head.
"No," he said. "Are you?"
She considered this a moment before shaking her head. The corner of her lips tipped up wryly.
"All things considered, how could I be?" she said, shrugging. "But perhaps after tonight…?"
Kagome trailed off, her eyes searching his face. This time he did take a step towards her, one hand half-reaching for her before falling back to his side.
"Kami," he said, shaking his head. "How in the seven hells did we end up here?"
"What else could we have done?" she said, shrugging once more. "It's far from ideal, but what other choices did we have? Now, please-"
In a move that was almost too quick for her to follow he had crossed the distance between them. In another his arms were around her, the force of them almost crushing as they pressed her to his chest.
Every bit of his frame was rigid with barely restrained anxiety. Even the tips of his clawed fingers shook faintly as he dragged them up the length of her spine.
"Kagome," he murmured, the sound no more than a ragged breath against the shell of her ear. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. All I've wanted is to be with you. All I want is-"
Whatever else he might have said died in his throat, lost beneath a frustrated growl. His hands slipped up to ghost over the sides of her face, tilting it upwards.
The gold eyes that met hers were bright, almost feverishly so. Kagome blinked, the sight of them almost stealing her breath.
When had she last seen this look on his face? Had she ever?
"There's a way, though," he said. "A way to be done with all of this shit once and for all. A way we can be together, can stay together, without anything getting in the way again. There's a way, right?"
That hard, heavy weight in the pit of Kagome's stomach returned tenfold, the pressure of it almost enough to make her feel ill.
"Inuyasha, you can't mean-"
She cut herself off, unwilling to even give voice to the words. There was no need to, though. The look on his face told her clearly enough what his answer would be.
"Why not use it?" he said, and she could feel the faint prick of his claws against the flesh of her cheeks. "Justice, isn't that what you said? Justice for what those assholes have done! A future for the both of us! What could be so wrong with that?"
The words felt like a blow.
Kagome gaped up at him, her eyes widening. The thrum of her pulse sped up dizzyingly, growing rapidly into a thunderous tattoo that echoed so loudly in her own ears that it drowned out almost all else.
"Oh."
The pathetic sound was all that she could manage as he lowered his head, his forehead coming to rest lightly against her own. The whole of her vision was consumed by the gold of his eyes, the look there softening once more.
"Sorry," he murmured, those brilliant eyes sliding closed. "I don't…I don't want to scare you. I'm just fucking tired of this. Of it all. And if we can fix it, if we can fix it and I can stand at your side, then…"
He trailed off, eyes fluttering open to meet hers once more.
Kagome forced herself to draw a deep breath. Absently she ran her tongue over her lips, her mouth suddenly as dry as if it had been days since she had last had a drink. She nodded slightly.
"It's alright," she said, the words a bit wooden as they left her. "I understand. And you are right. I was the one who said I wanted justice, wasn't I? I just…I was just so scared that after all this I had lost you. I mean, after all I have heard about you announcing your choice for Empress soon…"
She trailed off, glancing up at him through her lashes for a reaction. He frowned, his grip on the sides of her face tightening somewhat.
"Kagome, I…" he said, shaking his head slightly. "I'm sorry. I thought…fuck, I don't know. I was hurt. I thought maybe if I put that out there that I could make you…"
"Jealous," Kagome finished for him. "You wanted to see how I would react. To draw me back to you."
"…I'm sorry."
Kagome bit down on her lip, her thoughts spinning as she attempted to sort through it all.
The silence and the darkness around them was as deep as any cave. Even in her spiritual sense there was nothing anywhere near them, and the knot in her stomach tightened as she realized that it was truly only the two of them. There would be no one to curtail whatever came next.
It was the resolution she had come here seeking. Perhaps it was not exactly as she had hoped it would be, but one way or another the time for it had come at last.
Reaching up, Kagome gently placed her hands over his where they still cradled her face. She offered him a small smile.
"It's alright," she said softly. "I understand. It's not as if I haven't done my fair share to bring us to this. It's just…."
She trailed off, gripping his hands more tightly. They shifted in her grasp, his fingers tangling with hers as their clasped hands fell to rest between them.
"It's frightening," she said. "I have carried it with me for so long and even now it's difficult for me to wrap my head around what it might be truly capable of. To wrap my head around the idea of truly using it. What if I make a mistake?"
"That's why we do it together," he said, squeezing her hands. "We've gotten this far, haven't we? Just a little farther now. To the end."
"To the end," she echoed, swallowing against the dryness in her throat.
He offered her a small smile, elongated fangs peeking over his lower lip. He guided their still-clasped hands until they came to rest lightly over her hip.
Just above the Jewel.
Every hair on her body stood on end as she felt it pulse in response, a sensation she had never experienced before. It felt as if her entire body were alight, humming with an energy that was not her own.
And then, to her great horror, a light did emerge, almost blinding in its intensity, from beneath their joined hands.
The Jewel was emerging.
Kagome's legs nearly went out from under her, the shock of it and the mass of energy the glowing orb seemed to draw from her in its wake almost enough to make her pass out. Through sheer force of will she held onto consciousness, the edges of her vision going dark as her eyes sought his.
The light of the Jewel slid ghoulishly over his features, reflected in the deep darkness of eyes that seemed to have become all pupil.
A slow grin curled up the corners of his lips. With a jolt Kagome realized that this was it.
Both of their hands shot out, grasping for the Jewel where it hovered between them. Each managed to just grab hold of half, grasping desperately at it with scrabbling fingertips, and immediately a change began to overtake the Jewel.
The blinding light faded from the orb, a strange mixture of colors beginning to swirl beneath its pearlescent facade. The half Kagome had managed to grasp resolved slowly into a soft pink glow. The half that he held, however, was bleeding a strange, inky black, tendrils of it creeping across its surface like snakes.
Their eyes met.
"Kagome!" he snapped. "Stop! You're too weak to hold it! You'll hurt yourself! Just let it go! I can handle it on my own!"
The truth of those words trembled through her limbs, every extremity quaking with the effort it took just to remain standing. The Jewel had taken too much of her with it. She gritted her teeth.
Now or never.
With a grunt she forced every last bit of spiritual energy she could summon into the Jewel at her fingertips, drawing it up from the very core of her. That blinding glow returned in full force, a blaze of light that made her eyes tear up, and slowly the light began to drive out the dark tendrils, spreading until it began to sear his clawed fingertips where he still held tight to the Jewel.
He hissed, fangs bared and flesh sizzling and peeling back from his fingers. His gaze flew to hers, eyes wide with panic.
"What're you doing?!" he shouted. "Stop, please! You'll kill me, Kagome!"
She jolted at the sound of her name from his lips. The familiar sound of it, the panic spreading across features that she knew almost better than she knew her own, was almost enough to stay her hand.
She shook her head, biting down hard on her lip as anger flared. That he would force her to hurt him, of all people, could not be forgiven.
With another flare of her power the Jewel burned even more brilliantly, the white hot light of it burning away flesh and bone.
In the blink of an eye the entirety of his arm had been burned away, a charred stump all that remained of it. He cursed, stumbling back a step from the purifying light of it. His lips pulled back in a snarl, golden eyes bright with rage and pain as they found her face.
"How could you!?" he growled.
"How could you?"
A wave of exhaustion swamped her as she made to follow him, the world around her blurring into a mess of heavy darkness and bright light. She stumbled, bracing herself for the fall as her body betrayed her at last.
It never came. Instead a hand reached out, catching her.
Unfortunately the hand did not stop there, sharp claws shearing through the flesh of her stomach as if it were of no more substance than parchment.
Kagome gasped, the agony of it so sharp that she was almost instantly driven from her own body. She watched as if from a distance, saw her own pale, wide-eyed face as if it were someone else's. She saw his smirk, watched as he yanked his hand back and saw it glistening to the wrist with the dark sheen of her blood. She watched herself crumple into a heap on the cold wood of the floor.
He leaned in over her, reaching with his one remaining blood-soaked hand for the Jewel which was still clutched miraculously between her fingers. He spared her a glance, lips curling back briefly in disdain as he grasped it.
"A lesson for your next life," he murmured. "Love nothing, and serve no one."
And then he plucked the Jewel from her limp grasp.
Or he would have had she not focused every last bit of her rapidly draining life force into the orb. He cursed, drawing his hand back though the small flare of power did little more than singe the tips of his fingers. He reached again, eyes beginning to bleed red as the Jewel remained tethered by her remaining will to her hand.
This time, though, he did not release it, feeding his own youki into his half of the blood-stained Jewel. Slowly it began to bleed black once more, those same dark tendrils snaking through it. A prickle of panic slid through her, though she was so distant, so removed from the scene as she watched it play out, that the feeling almost seemed to belong to someone else.
Still Kagome held on, continuing to feed the last vestiges of her life into the orb out of sheer stubbornness or some echo of her fading will she could not say. Their energies twined and clashed in the center of the Jewel, neither giving way to the other.
It was only a matter of time, though. Kagome had been here before. She knew only too well that she was too far gone to be saved. As soon as she breathed her last the fight would be lost and the Jewel would be his.
The pang she felt at the thought of this was much stronger, even dulled as it was by exhaustion and distance. All of this, all the planning and effort and struggle that had gone into making it here, and still it had all fallen apart at the end. She had failed, not herself, but those who would be left behind.
Most of all she had failed him.
Through a haze of gathering tears her gaze sought his face. His features were distorted, a mask of rage and something that bordered on madness, but they were still those features she loved so dearly.
The tears overflowed, though even they felt cold as they tracked down her cheeks to pool on the floor beneath her head. Silently she sent up a prayer to any kami willing to heed it. They could do as they wished with her spirit, send it anywhere or keep it as her offering to them, if they would only save him.
Against her will she felt her eyes begin to roll back. Still she fixed her eyes on him, determined that at least his face would be the last one that she would see.
Inuyasha…
Kagome could have sworn she heard the echo of her own name in response, but there was nothing left within her to respond to the call. She could only watch as he whipped around, eyes wide with sudden alarm and taking the Jewel along with him as he went.
Or at least he would have.
At his sudden, forceful yank a crack raced through the Jewel, a flash of blinding light erupting from it as it split down the middle. His darkness separated from her light, leaving each with a half clutched in hand.
As the burst of dazzling light faded, so did Kagome's vision. Darkness fell over her like a veil and she knew no more.
Until she did.
Kagome jolted upwards, gasping in air as if she had just emerged from the deepest of depths. Her hand went instinctively to her stomach, feeling for a wound that was not there. Her robes were torn open, but the flesh beneath was whole and smooth as it had ever been.
A pair of warm hands caught the sides of her face, turning it urgently to meet wide golden eyes. Kagome gasped, attempting to jerk away only to be held fast.
"Oi, oi!" he said. "It's me! It's alright, it's me."
His face was haggard, his features deathly pale and spattered with blood. A shallow wound ran from his hairline to the edge of his jaw on the opposite side, though this already appeared to be closing. But it was the look in his eyes, the earnest desperation, that told her more clearly than anything else could that it truly was him.
"Inuyasha!"
She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him with everything in her. He returned the embrace tenfold, though he was careful to avoid putting any pressure on the area of her non-existent wound. He buried his face against her shoulder, a confused mixture of curses interlaced with her name spilling in a seemingly endless stream from his lips. His arms trembled around her and several times he brushed his lips over the pulse in her neck as if to reassure himself that it was still beating.
When she was able to open her eyes, Kagome was further stunned to see Sesshoumaru standing just behind Inuyasha. In one smooth motion he sheathed his sword at his hip and a realization slammed into Kagome with enough force to knock the breath from her.
It had really happened. All of it, every last bit. He had been there as they had hoped, but he had disguised himself so completely in a way that none of them had known he was capable of doing. Somehow their trap had been thwarted, their plan brought to ruin. Somehow the Jewel had been forced out of her, had been shattered by him. And he had killed her, well and truly killed her. And Sesshoumaru, of all people, had brought her back as he had done for Rin.
She felt dizzy. She felt as though she might be ill. She clutched at Inuyasha, desperate for the warmth and solidity of him. He cradled her against him, the curses turning to pained, hushed apologies breathed against the shell of her ear.
...but then, if all of it had truly happened, where was he?
Following the line of Sesshoumaru's gaze, she got her answer quickly enough. Not far off a figure knelt beside an indistinct heap, the untransformed blade of the Tessaiga protruding from it. Slowly her eyes penetrated to the darkness, the figures resolving into something she could recognize though she still struggled to comprehend it.
The kneeling figure was Kagura, her back to them as her hands hovered uncertainly over the second person sprawled out on the floor. Although to call the second thing a person any longer seemed a stretch.
The figure was a bloodied mess, the flesh of it torn almost to ribbons and the torso sheared cleanly in two. What remained of its face was equally grotesque, half of its features still a perfect replica of Inuyasha's own. The other half was that of a man with long, ink dark hair and snow pale skin. The eye on that half of his face was a terrible blood red, gaping wide with rage and surprise.
A sudden, strange, high-pitched laughter began to fill the room. Kagome jolted within the cradle of Inuyasha's arms, certain for a wild moment that it must be coming from him. Sesshoumaru shifted, taking a step towards Kagura, and Kagome realized that it was coming from her. The entirety of her frame shook with the force of it, the sound growing so loud that it almost sounded as if she were screaming.
Abruptly her hand shot out, piercing down with a sickening squelch into the flesh of the mangled body. She continued to quake with that awful, hysterical laughter as her hand rummaged about within the body, stopped only by a sharp cry as she found what she sought.
She pulled forth a dark, pulsing thing, rising with it cradled between her hands. A heart, Kagome realized as the youkai woman turned to face them. In her hands she held a still-beating heart.
"I'm free," she murmured, the words echoing in the silence of the Daigokuden. "I'm finally free."
The smile that lit her blood flecked features was perhaps the first true one Kagome had ever seen from her. As she raised her gaze to meet Sesshoumaru's the years seemed to fall away from her, her expression glowing with a childlike rapture so radiant that for a moment it even pierced the mire of Kagome's tangled thoughts. She felt the corners of her lips twitching upwards in an echo of it.
"We did it," she said, breathless. "Naraku is dead."
I am for real exhausted and thus cannot think of any mini-history lesson for today's chapter, so if you come across anything you find that you don't understand please feel free to shoot me a message here or on Tumblr and I'll do my best to respond. Also I realize there is a good deal left from this chapter that is likely unclear or possibly even confusing, but take my word that the majority of it is intentionally vague and will be explored in future chapters!
I know this chapter was a big change of pace from its predecessors, but I had a lot of fun writing it and so I hope you all enjoyed it, as well!
Also, if you happen to be looking for more ways to interact with or support me or this story, visit me on tumblr at eien-no-basho ! Any and all support there is always greatly appreciated!