A/N: I am like an updating machine. On top of that, I have churned out two oneshots since I have last updated. Check those out if you get a chance, they're pretty good. As for this chapter,a few mysteries shall be unveiled. HUZZAH, I hear you cry!
Huzzah, indeed.
Here we go again with the thinking! Italicized text signifies the thoughts of the characters.
"Inuyasha?" Kagome whispered into Inuyasha's ear.
The lake was relatively small and bordered with fine sand that winked gray and silver in the dark illumination. Inuyasha stood where the water and sand embraced, sinking his toes into the cold putty. Simplicity blew softly here; it brushed through Inuyasha's hair, and it played on Kagome's lips, and Inuyasha never wanted to leave.
"Hm?" Inuyasha answered belatedly.
"Please let me down."
Inuyasha knelt quickly, slightly embarrassed for drifting off, and dipped one knee into the sand. Kagome dismounted his back. The breeze across his spine startled him, as Kagome had been shelter to it before. He looked to his left where Kagome stood, cautiously toeing the cold water with her slender foot. It, too, was bandaged.
"The water is freezing," she shivered. Inuyasha leapt on top of a thick boulder beside the lake. He landed deftly and took a seat so that only his back was exposed to Kagome.
"Well, your highness, I'm sorry if I can't spend the whole night sniffing out a heated lake for you. They're kind of hard to find, in case you haven't noticed," he replied nastily.
"I wasn't asking you to find one, I was just observing!" Kagome retorted fiercely. She stripped herself of the red pants Kaede supplied her and laid them neatly on the beach. Her arms twisted behind her and groped blindly for the small knot Kaede made to keep the bandages together. She pulled gently on the tail, and the cloth bindings wafted lazily down and around her ankles. Kagome bent forward and ladled chilly sand into her cupped hands. She waded into the water slowly, trying desperately to allow her muscles time to adjust to the biting water.
"Sounded like complaining to me," Inuyasha murmured. Kagome clenched her fists tightly, forcing sand from between her fingers, and then suddenly relaxed and sighed dejectedly. Inuyasha registered her sigh as more belligerence and turned on her harshly.
"What now?" he whined.
"Inuyasha… did you and Kikyo fight like this?" Kagome whispered.
Kagome's question hooked the air encircling Inuyasha and tugged violently, leaving him void of breath, void of answer. Simplicity was just crushed by the weight of Kikyo's name, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to scramble from his rock and sprint to solitude. In lieu of his delayed response, Kagome spoke again.
"Why do we feel the need to fight while we're in places like this?" she said, gesturing loosely at the vibrating night.
Absolute silence.
Kagome's eyes sloped downward in defeat, and she began to rub sand across her shoulder. Movement startled her focus back toward the bulbous rock, and she watched Inuyasha slide off the boulder quietly. He detached the Tetsusaiga from the bottom of his kimono and stood bristled, his chin pointed toward the foliage.
"Kagome," he said softly, gripping the boulder beside him. "May I bathe next to you?"
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This air… how I despise sharing air with him while he is in this state. It is like being suffocated in a trough of rotten fruit. This illness from which Naraku is suffering is truly bizarre… it does not affect me or Kanna…
"He is in the cellar again," Kanna whispered with heavy breath. Kagura covered her nose with her fan, eyes narrowed as if reluctant to allow the putrid air to skim their surface.
"Kanna, why has he beckoned us here?"
"To… watch," Kanna said simply. Kagura shot her an irritated glare.
"Kanna, do not speak in riddles, I haven't the patience."
"To watch… the birth of our sister."
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Kagome watched Inuyasha's back expand and deflate with quickened breath. He was nervous, possibly angry, but she preferred the former and settled upon it. She knelt down in the water so that only her neck and head broke the surface. Inuyasha looked over his shoulder tentatively, and Kagome nodded. She began to shiver uncontrollably, but could not tack its source to simply the freezing water…
Inuyasha turned around and waded into the lake, eyes diverted and half-closed. He looked miserable or pensive, perhaps both, Kagome thought, as he took position behind her, his back parallel to her own about a yard away. Kagome dared not disturb the water, as if breaking the surface around Inuyasha would shatter some sacred peace. She immediately regretted her question.
"You can keep bathing, I'm not looking," Inuyasha said solemnly. He took a cavernous breath and sunk below the surface of the water so that it engrossed him completely. The face of the lake regurgitated water instantaneously, and it rained brusquely upon Kagome's head and shoulders. Inuyasha surfaced again and shook his head to deter the wintry droplets that clung to his hair and face.
"I said I wasn't looking, why haven't you moved?" Inuyasha said harshly. Kagome pivoted quickly and ripples slapped Inuyasha across the back. He turned to meet her gaze and involuntarily took one step back.
"Inuyasha, I need to know. I need to know for me, not to invade that which is yours. Was it like this with Kikyo?" Kagome pleaded. Her desperation was agonizing, her eyes crying out deafeningly for resolution. Inuyasha did not know how to respond but to touch her, hoping in some way she would learn the answer through osmosis. His hands sought her pale arms, but found an indelible barrier around her shivering body. He grasped water, another thing that he was helpless to hold.
"No," Inuyasha said finally, his arms still half-extended in front of him. An irrational thrashing at the back of his mind warned of her flight, and he was splayed open to net her. "Kikyo and I never fought."
"Oh," Kagome replied, trying to signify surprise at his answer. She was a poor actress. She had speculated for a long time now that Kikyo and Inuyasha held a peace with tightly clasped hands, and for trying to interfere, she was doomed to spill that serenity.
I only bring him more confrontation… That is what separates Kikyo and me…
Kagome turned her back again, and began to scrub at her body, seemingly satisfied with the answer. The sand raked her tender flesh with ragged ferocity, but she would not go gently on herself, not now. She wanted everything that stained her to die in this water: Naraku, the pain, Kikyo.
Satisfied may be the wrong word.
But Inuyasha was not finished answering.
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Kanna stepped back as Kagura methodically opened the latch to the door in the cellar. Upon its first breath, the smell of rottenness and death intensified, and Kagura felt bile nip and gnaw at the back of her throat. Kanna remained unfazed and hopped elegantly through the incision in the floor. Kagura lifted her chin in disgust and followed suit. The cellar was cloaked in inclusive darkness.
"Kagura… lights," Naraku rasped from a far corner of the room. Kagura obeyed dutifully and waved her fan across the perimeter of the room. Small torches erupted in light along the surface of the ceiling and cast gory and horrible shadows across her nauseated face.
"Kagura, is the sight really that much to bear? Have I truly repulsed you so?" Naraku said teasingly.
The room was throbbing. Puddles of red, black, blue and green blood vibrated and danced across the floor and walls.
My sister… she has required an abundance of demons for her birth… just how formidable is she?
Naraku sat against a crumbling stone wall, bits of flesh and blood painted his face and hands like a twisted warrior. He sat with a dagger in his hands, his hand wrapped loosely around the handle, and he examined his reflection in the blade.
"Your sister is making me very sick," Naraku said delicately, running his index finger along the blade. The metal sung and evoked a thin lode of blood from the split finger. Naraku's lips curled in an ironic smile.
"You see, Kagura, your sister has developed a keen affection while trapped beneath my flesh. It is an affection I did not expect, and thus has put me in quite the predicament."
"An affection?" Kagura repeated, unsure of its importance. Naraku stood, the dagger readied in his bloody palm. Light cast half of his face in shadow. Kagura's flesh curled and rolled at the expression on his face.
"She has been growing within me for quite a long time now. Interestingly, I find my most formidable incarnations are females… I wonder why that is?" Naraku mused mostly to himself. He slowly undid the top of his kimono and let it pool around his hips. Hidden beneath the navy folds was a throbbing bulge below his flesh near his heart. Kagura immediately cried out in horror as she watched the protuberance expand and detract with sickly breath. Naraku gazed upon his child hungrily, for he loved none of them, and circled the swelling with the tip of his dagger. He looked up to Kagura and laughed devilishly.
"Come now, Kagura. You've seen me at much worse. I can't be that truly sickening," he hummed. His lips thinned to take on a more serious tone.
"Now, because of this lust your dear sister has developed, she has begun to revolt against my body. She wants to be freed to carry out her affections," Naraku said calmly.
"And this is the source of your illness?" Kagura asked meekly, suddenly overwhelmed by the terror of this scene. Naraku smiled.
"Your sister harbors a great deal of poison, this is how she will serve me," he explained slowly and deliberately. His free hand groped at the struggling mass, and his eyes bulged. A sudden wave of suffering caused by his demonic child, Kagura thought. Naraku cried out in anguish, and when it subsided, he laughed breathily.
"As of late… she has been causing me a great deal of pain," he strained. He steadied the dagger with both hands now, right above his heart. "Your sister is very unique, indeed. She injects poison into her victim, but unlike most demons, it does not spread with rapidity. Instead, it lies dormant, stored in the heart, until the heart of the victim breaks. Then, the poison spreads through the system slowly. It is a very uncomfortable death," Naraku said smiling. Kagura frowned.
"How, then, is she making you ill?" she asked skeptically.
"Ah, you see, your sister is still infantile. Right now, her poison will seep out from her flesh in very small traces at her every incredulous whim, without the power to lie dormant. Such small traces of poison should not affect a demon such as myself. However, unfortunately for me, she is attached directly to my heart."
"Kagura and I are not the same," Kanna said quietly. Kagura jumped at her voice, forgetting that she was there and chilled at her words.
"Correct, Kanna. Your sister is very different. When she is born, she will have extracted a piece of my heart with her. For, she who works hand-in-hand with the intensity of heartbreak must have a heart herself. I will not hold her heart in my palm."
Naraku gazed at Kagura and Kanna with one eye bathed in cryptic light. Malice painted his lips red, and with stifled breath he declared, "It is time, Danchou."
He plunged the dagger into his heart and evil incarnate spilled out of his chest, webbed with blood, flesh and mucus. Kagura extracted a feather from her hair and fled the cellar in a panic, realizing that she was, for the first time her in damned life, terrorized.
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