Mister Niceguy

A/N: There's a new summary for the story…It's a little more verbose and yet a little more vague, and I hope it sounds better. Tell me what you think!

Disclaimer: I'm not feeling very creative today in the disclaimer department, but I still don't own Inuyasha and seeing how the title of this chapter is very heavily based off of one of the episode titles I prolly need to mention that, too...

Chapter 11: Miroku's Insidious Plot

Nightfall was rapidly approaching as Miroku made his way back to the village. He found himself in noticeably better spirits than when he had left hours before. Where he had trudged through the forest earlier that day, fuming and seething with anger permeating from every pore, now an emotion akin to peace and calm flowed through the cursed monk.

But his calm did not come from the soothing hands of the gods that his monk's training offered him. Instead, his good mood came from a source that stood almost as contrary to the enlightenment his vocation taught as night stands to day.

It was thoughts of almost sadistic self-satisfaction and anticipation for the plan of revenge against Inuyasha that he and Koga had devised that calmed the fury Miroku had experienced after discovering the half demon's treacherous schemes to steal his sweet Sango away from him...

Yes, it was the sin of jealousy and the thirst for revenge that had brought about a contented attitude to the lecherous monk. Forces that so greatly opposed to the teachings that Miroku held to were now the forces driving the monk. Year of devotion to the gods and the quest for enlightenment that such a path promised were thrown away in an instant when Miroku saw Inuyasha and Sango in that friendly embrace.

Of course it didn't seem friendly to him. Oh no, what he saw was that scheming hanyou showing that his new cheery attitude had really just been a ruse so he could take advantage of Sango, HIS Sango... And of course, the monk needed to find some way to expose Inuyasha's dastardly plot and rescue the beauteous Sango from his hold so she would jump into his arms as he served the cold dish of justice to their backstabbing companion.

'Yes, it is for justice and the benefit of Lady Sango that I carry out this little ploy,' Miroku told himself. 'And although it will be a great pain to realize, I'm sure that Lady Kagome will see Inuyasha for the cretin he really is and she, too, can be free of his womanizing ways.'

Soon Miroku finished with his uncontested rationalizations of his scheme against Inuyasha and his reflections on what was in his mind his noble role as an enemy of depravity and a defender of womens' honor and he began to go over the plan in his head once more.

'First I must behave as if nothing is bothering me to avoid arousing suspicion,' he recalled. In the middle the monk and his co-conspirator's brainstorming, Koga had become irritated with the monk's edgy attitude and let it show.

"First off, monk," he said, the annoyance terribly evident in the way he spoke. "We're not going to get anywhere if you keep acting so pissy and whiny around the others. If you go around like that they're gonna smell something's up from across the village and then we'll have no chance to give that filthy mutt what he deserves."

Miroku had been angry about Koga telling him off, but somehow he'd managed to muster up the discipline to fight back his indignation and see the logic in the wolf's words. And so the first step of the plan was for Miroku to act casual.

'Yes, and once I assure everyone that my outburst today has been dealt with and that everything is fine, I move on to the next phase of the plan.'

Miroku's thoughts once again returned to his conference with Koga.

"Right now Muttface has got your demonslayer woman and Kagome wrapped around his finger. If we try to do anything to him we'll just be stabbing ourselves in the foot because they'll end up hating us for it." Koga's expression became grim as he remembered the enraged looks Kagome had shot at him when he had verbally attacked his rival.

"Then our next priority should be to break free the Ladies Sango and Kagome from Inuyasha's evil spell so they can see him for the cur he really is. Once they realize that he is manipulating them they will be all too happy to see us act against him." Miroku had managed to offer his suggestion with a fair amount of calmness.

Koga again become exasperated. Miroku hadn't offered anything new or useful to the plan and the wolf was getting tired of not getting anywhere.

"Yes, but we already knew that, didn't we? The question is how, monk!"

Miroku's newly-returned composure was beginning to grate on Koga's nerves. The monk gently rubbed his chin with an expression of concentration lightly muddling his features. A few moments passed like this, the two once again silently brainstorming.

It was Miroku who broke the silence.

"Tell me, Koga. When you encountered Inuyasha and the girls earlier, did it seem to you that Lady Kagome was aware of anything going on between Inuyasha and Lady Sango?"

Koga thought for a second and answered. "I don't think so. Why?"

Miroku was fighting back the surge of angry emotions that re-ignited when he thought of Inuyasha and Sango. He was however successful in maintaining an outwardly calm appearance despite his internal turmoil and continued relating his thoughts to Koga.

"It seems that if Kagome saw the two in a," Miroku twitched slightly as the next words began to flow from his mouth, "compromising situation, such as the one I…" Miroku began to feel his control fading as those thoughts surfaced, so he let that line of thought trail off. He resumed, "If Lady Kagome were to see something like that, surely that would be enough to remove Inuyasha from her good graces. And if all goes in our favor, the repercussions of the Lady Kagome's well-placed righteous anger will convince Lady Sango of Inuyasha's villainous intent. So, all we must do is wait for such a situation to arise and be ready to sweep in and take advantage of it."

Koga was thinking over Miroku's plan with approval, but decided that it needed some small improvements.

"That's good, monk, but who knows how long it'll take for that kind of situation to occur on its own? Besides, I can't hover around you guys forever waiting for it to happen."

Miroku frowned a little. "Then what do you suggest?"

A malevolent smirk landed on Koga's lips. "You, monk, need to make sure a situation like that takes place and that Kagome sees it. And make it quick-- sometime in the next few days."

Miroku nodded. Inuyasha would be unaware that the monk was on to him, so it wouldn't be difficult to subtly arrange something.

Again, Miroku broke free of his recollection of the events of some hours before. The village was in sight now and he was a few brief moments away from reaching Kaede's hut. He quickly thought over the final stage of the plan as he took the last steps of his journey.

Once Miroku had nodded his assent to the plan, Koga took over and keyed him in on the last part.

"Alright, so I'll be hanging around while you take care of things from your end. Once the girls stop going ga-ga over Inuyasha, I'll step in and help pummel him." Koga was smiling at the thought of finally ending his feud with the half demon in a decisive fight.

"But Kagome will be able to sense your presence." Koga gave him a confused look, and the monk pointed towards the wolf's legs. "Lady Kagome can sense your Shikon Jewel shards, remember?"

Koga looked down at his legs thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged indifferently.

"No problem. I can take on the mutt without these just as easily as I can with." With that he plucked the jewels from his legs and hid them under a rock in their hidden clearing.

"Very well. Now it is time to put the plan into action," Miroku said as he stood up. He brushed off some dirt from his robes and picked up his staff. "I shall be on my way now."

Koga nodded and watched the monk walk away.

'And that was it,' Miroku thought just as he stepped up to the door of Kaede's hut. He stood there for a moment and finally took a deep breath. 'It's time.'

He pushed the curtain that served as the door aside and entered.

The others were just sitting down for dinner, and they all looked up as he entered the room. Miroku put forth a convincing smile, and the others returned it back.

Inuyasha offered a bowl of stew to the monk and cheerily asked, "Hey Miroku! I see that whatever was bothering you earlier has been taken care of, huh?"

Miroku was tempted to break down and express his fury on the hanyou right then and there. How dare he act so friendly to him!

But he employed every calming technique he knew and managed to keep control.

"Oh yes, Inuyasha." He took the stew and smiled a smile shimmering with a sinister gleam that went unnoticed by the others. "Everything has been well taken care of."

--

Koga had decided to stay the night in Miroku's clearing. The monk wasn't going to start stirring anything up until tomorrow at the earliest, so he decided to rest up tonight before things started getting hairy.

As the wolf slept soundly, a shadowed figure stealthily crept into the clearing. It had no trouble locating the treasure hidden in the clearing as it stalked directly to the rock, under which were hidden Koga's sacred jewel shards. It immediately removed the rock and snatched the shining fragments.

As the pink gems touched the shadowy hand their glowing luster was marred by a malicious darkness. A black hue concealed their formerly bright nature.

"Hey! Drop those NOW!"

The intruder turned to find the wolf awake and angry. After a brief moment of tense silence the figure began to slowly advance towards Koga.

"Oh, you're in for it now, pal!" Koga began to charge at the thief with one arm shooting back into a position ready to launch a punch.

And in an second Koga was in front of him. Even at that range the figure was shrouded in shadows and the wolf could not distinguish any of its features past its outline. However, what the figure looked like made little difference to Koga, as the instant he was in range he began his fluid attack pattern: he threw a devastating punch straight to where he thought the figures sternum was, followed through with a crushing roundhouse kick to its approximate ribcage and finished it all up with a monstrous back thrust kick with his other leg that made contact with the figure's supposed jaw.

Koga speedily snapped back and swung himself into another fighting stance. In the midst of the combination he had briefly taken his eyes off of his opponent and was a little slow to regain focus on his opponent. Confident in his abilities, the Wolf Prince expected his offensive to have finished the thief off. But upon facing it he saw that figure was standing completely still in the same position as before the attack, completely unfazed.

"WHAT!" was the only word Koga could get out before his enemy launched its counteroffensive.

The figure moved forward at a speed so great that it appeared as nothing more than a dark streak. It planted an appendage into Koga's gut with a behemoth force that instantly rendered him unconscious. Before the wolf's crumpled form could slink to the ground, the figure clutched his face in his left palm and lifted him up so that Koga's chest met with what was apparently the shadowed form's eye level.

Even though Koga was unconscious and there was no one left to listen, the mysterious intruder chose that moment to finally speak.

"A weak effort, wolf. Even with these," it began, opening its other palm to reveal the newly corrupted jewel shards, "you wouldn't have stood a chance against me. And yet you tried to fight me without them! What an arrogant little fool you are!"

Slowly the figure began moving its left hand forward towards Koga's chest. A dark demonic aura began to flicker around its hand and the jewel shards augmented it with their perverted sacred powers.

"But worry not, little wolf. I have a use for you." Its hand finally met Koga's chest, pressing the jewel shards against his armored chest plate. They began to phase through his shiny black shell to become embedded in the flesh underneath.

"These jewel shards will force you to act according to my bidding. I will be your master, I will control you and I will be in command." Its left hand, still pressed against the wolf's chest, began to glow brighter as a blinding red light of energy began to intrude on the darkened forest, and a surge of energy crackled and engulfed the unconscious Koga.

When the lights were over the figure dropped the Wolf Prince to the ground. Quickly Koga started to stir and a moment later he awoke. He returned to his feet, no signs of the injury he sustained evident whatsoever.

He looked up and stared at the figure before him. The effects of the light that had emerged a moment ago had lifted away whatever enchantment had prevented him from identifying the shadowed being. The figure before him was all too familiar, but Koga just stood there, merely staring, no angered response rising and no questions coming to his lips.

The figure, now revealed to be a man, addressed the silent wolf youkai.

"You belong to me now. Do you understand?"

Koga's eyes began to glow red, a small fraction that same red that had engulfed the clearing a few moments before. With that, he bowed to the man, and spoke a small acknowledgement.

"Yes, Master Naraku."

--

A/N: Alright, finally got a new chapter up. HOPEFULLY it won't take so long now that school's over, but I'm not gonna make any promises cause I still have periodic writer's block to contend with. But it gets slow at work, so I can work on it there if I can keep myself from forgetting my notes. I'm not sure if this chapter works very well stylistically, but oh well. Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing...and um...yeah, review some more.