Chapter Eight
She had almost forgotten about them. The semi-complete jewel of the Shikon no Tama winked at Kagome as she held it in her hands. She sighed. They were almost in Kaede's village, it was within sight.
'How am I going to make sure that when we switch bodies, Naraku doesn't stay with the jewel shard?' she thought, clutching the unfinished jewel in her hands.
"Hm?" Inu Yasha, noticing Kagome's uneasiness, turned towards her. "What's wrong?"
"Huh?" Kagome faced him. "Oh...! No, nothing. Just thinking how great it's gonna be to be back in my body."
"What about the Shikon jewel?"
Nothing gets by him, but only when it benefits him. Kagome shook her head and placing the jewel away in her robes said, "I'll make sure Naraku will be far away from it."
"Are you sure? Maybe I should-"
"Kaede!" Shippo yelled, acknowledging their arrival in the village as he ran up to the elder priestess. It was a strange sight seeing a grown monk chasing an old woman.
"Did thou discover the name of the soul switching demon?" Kaede asked the approaching party.
"Yeah, actually we did," Kagome said.
"Feh, you finally told us something useful, old woman," Inu Yasha commented.
Kaede eyed him with an evil no ordinary priestess should even have contact with. "Thou are fortunate Kagome no longer posses her 'sit' command over you."
Inu Yasha laughed out loud in an in-your-face tone. "And I'm enjoying it, old hag!"
"Uh...you know he doesn't mean it!" Kagome apologized in Inu Yasha's behalf.
"Like hell I don't!" he snapped.
Miroku sighed. "Such vulgar words escape from such beautiful lips. It's almost enough to make you want to cry..."
The awkward silence that quickly settled was aimed at Miroku.
"You want me to hit you on the head again, monk?" Inu Yasha threatened.
"Come on you guys!" Sango finally cut through. "Let's take care of what's more important first. You all can fight later."
"Sango speaks wisely," Kaede said. "I will gather the rest of the demons. Wait by Bone Eater's Well for my return."
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Kagome asked out of concern.
"Don't worry. They can't hurt her. Besides for an old hag she's still got a bit life in her left..."
"Thank you for the compliment, Inu Yasha," Kaede said as she began walking away from them.
"It wasn't a compliment!" he yelled at her but she had already been swallowed by the tree's vegetation in her search for Sesshomaru and company.
Sitting with her back resting against the well's short walls, Kagome again found herself lost in her thoughts, the Shikon jewel on the palm of her hand.'I still don't know what to do with the jewel...and on top of that...' The grip she suddenly engulfed the jewel in would have been enough to break it if she hadn't brought her anger under quick control. 'Stupid Inu Yasha...How am I gonna get out of Kouga's marriage proposal...?'
Her thoughts were interrupted when Kaede arrived with Sesshomaru, Rin, Jaken, Kikyo, and Naraku walking behind her.
"Uh...you know who is in whose body, right?" Kagome looked up to see herself over her. She had almost forgotten it was Inu Yasha but never the less nodded to his question.
"So, just tell me quick..." he kneeled next to her. "Who is in whose body over there?" he pointed towards the demons behind Kaede.
'You just want to know whose in Kikyo's body, right , Inu Yasha?' Kagome sighed. "Jaken is in Shippo's body, Rin (the little girl) is in Sesshomaru's body-"
"A little human girl is in Sesshomaur's body?" asked an astonished Inu Yasha. He then broke into laughter. "That must really boil his blood! But...how did a little girl end up in his body?"
Another sigh. "I'll tell you later. Naraku is in Jaken's body-"
This time Inu Yasha bellowed out his laughter. "Juh-Jaken's body! Naraku!"
"Yes!" Kagome hissed. She knew her next sentence would most likely be interrupt as well. "And Kikyo is in Rin's body, leaving Sesshomaru in-"
"KIKYO'S BODY!" Inu Yasha stood up in shock and horror.
"Don't be so loud!"
"My brother is in Kikyo's body! Hell no! Call the damn demon NOW!"
"Well we would, but we're waiting on you to finish your yelling," Kaede said over Inu Yasha's shoulder.
"Uh..." Inu Yasha turned to see everyone's even Naraku and Sesshomaru glaring at him. 'I guess they heard...But maybe they don't know who I am!'
"So, my little brother is in his wench's body?" Sesshomaru said through Kikyo's emotionless face, something he could easily keep.
"Ah hell..." Inu Yasha cursed as he and Kagome followed Kaede back to the party consisting of their closest friends and enemies.
XXXXXXX
Kagura watched the scene below, standing on a high branch from the tree she was under. Spotting Naraku in Jaken's body, she leapt from that branch to another one that belonged to the tree in front of her. She had to get as close as possible without alerting Sango, who had Inu Yasha's nose.
Slowly edging closer, Kagura ran Naraku's words from the night she had met with him. Although he spoke of his plan in the annoying and slightly high voice belonging to the demon he housed in, Kagura heard them in Naraku's own authoritive and deep voice.
..."As Kanna told you, Inu Yasha is getting closer to discovering the demon's true name. Knowing him, he will find it. But this is a perfect opportunity to destroy Inu Yasha.
"I want you to remain alert until the demon's name is discovered. When it is, you shall remain hidden from us when we are to summon the demon. You see, in order to reverse this, we must call the demon out and upon speaking it's name, it will have no choice but to return the souls to our bodies.
"There is a hole in the power they posses. For although they may be able to extract our souls from our bodies, they do not control where it will go. It is the natural instinct for the soul to drift to the body of it's matching aurora, but the soul switching demons can manipulate the aurora to fool the soul...only once. Thus, this second time the soul switching demon releases our souls from our bodies, there will be no control whatsoever from the demon.
"This is when I want you to strike. Souls are fragile. I want you to use your wind to make sure the souls of Inu Yasha and his friends remain in the wrong body. I do not care much for the rest as long as Inu Yasha suffers."
Kagura gazed at her master, seeing his true face piercing through the body that held him captive. "How will I know which soul is which?"
A small laugh."Keep track of them as they escape the bodies."
She scolded, then relaxing she said, "What about Kikyo?"
Naraku remained silent for a moment to long to be able to escape Kagura. "I will take care of her myself. Just make sure you do not fail."
Snapping back to reality, Kagura brought out her fan, extended it and held it in her hand. Slightly baring her teeth, she waited for the soul switching demon to appear.
XXXXXX
Mamono, invisible to all senses, human, demon, or other, watched over the elder priestess that was accompanied by demons and humans.
"It has been an excellent show," she said to no one in particular. "I would have never guessed there would be a sequel. Yet, it still unmercifully bothers me that they had discovered my true name rather quickly. Maybe I should had killed the male from that couple whose souls I switched those years back. They weren't as much fun so I thought it wouldn't had mattered if I let him live..." She shook her head.
"I'll just wait for them to call me. How much fun this is going to be! I wish I had found them earlier..." She turned her head towards the direction Kagura was, invisible to her as well.
"Get ready my dear. Though I compliment Naraku on his wonderfully enjoyable plan, his inferences about my power are not as accurate as he thinks. While I may only be able to extract a person's own soul from his rightful body once, I can still control the soul, despite how many times it has been extracted. I'll make sure that Inu Yasha, Kagome, Miroku, and Sango's soul don't return to their original body.
"You should thank me, Kagura. For there is no way you would have ever accomplished what Naraku asked of you. I just saved your life."
Mamono turned her sights back to the party below her and cracked a grin as she heard her true name.
"Hokaje! I'm calling your sorry ass right now! You better show up before-"
"That is enough, Inu Yasha," Kaede said holding up her hand. "She will show."
Mamono, now known to really be Hokaje, appeared before the party who called her name, rod accompanying her. She smiled to the people before her.
"Yes, you called?"
Inu Yasha stepped up towards her, arms crossed. "Yeah! And in case you haven't noticed, I called you with your real name and you know what that means."
Naraku cracked a small smile, unseen by those that surrounded him as he glimpsed at Kagura by the nearby trees. Kagura, herself gripped her fan tighter as she jumped branches, zooming past one tree to the other to only leave it too behind.
"Well?" barked an irritated Inu Yasha as he glared at Hokaje.
She in return only presented her fangs as her smile grew. "Of course. It'll be my pleasure to remove those souls from your body."
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Sorry! I know I said I would have this up by the weekend but...heh... I kinda you know...got sidetracked and stuff... but here it is now so don't worry! Oh yeah and sorry for the more than usual typos in the previous chapter...And about spelling "Tessaiga" like so, it's cuz I have episodes my friends gave me that it's spelled like that so yeah...and "Kana" that was my bad. Heh... well before I leave I would like to THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! for everything! yeah!
NEXT CHAPTER: With Naraku's plan successfully carried out, the Inu crew turns to Hokaje but to their shock find out that she couldn't help them even if she wanted to. What are they going to do now? And Hokaje has a brother?