Disclaimer: Anyone you recognize doesn't belong to me. Anyone you don't, does. Especially Kusaraku Fujii. He's my pride and joy.

Title: Body, Mind, and Soul

Chapter: Ten – Arachnaphobics, Beware

Inuyasha crouched to the ground, sniffing. He frowned as he concentrated, and then pointed. "This way."

"Inuyasha," Miroku spoke up. "Just out of curiosity… this scent you're following, what does it smell like?"

Inuyasha looked like he didn't want to answer this, for some reason.

"Come on, Inuyasha," Sango prodded. "Answer the question. What does the scent smell like?"

Inuyasha, who was walking ahead of the rest of them, didn't even turn when he answered them. "A scared human," he admitted. "A really scared human. Along with a trace of something else, though I can't tell what it is, it's too faint."

Kagome, still sounding mad, spoke. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Inuyasha! He's NOT Naraku. He's from my time, his name is Kusaraku Fujii, and he goes to my school. Kaede thinks he might be Naraku's reincarnation, though."

"EXACTLY!" Inuyasha exploded, whirling to face her. "You still should have let me kill him. If he's Naraku's reincarnation, that means he's Naraku. That's all we need, wench, is TWO of that bastard running around here, making trouble for us! When we find him, I'll kill him."

"SIT BOY! SITSITSITSITSITSIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIITTT!"

Kusaraku stopped moving again. He was really getting tired and had to stop to take a breath. Breathing heavily, he reached up to adjust his glasses, only to realize that they weren't there!

He looked around, a bit awed. Usually, without his glasses, he couldn't see worth a crap, but now everything seemed even clearer than they'd ever been before! What on earth was going on?

He heard the sound of a stream trickling nearby, and was reminded of how thirsty he was.

Moving towards the sound, he found a clear looking stream flowing. Kneeling by it, he moved to cup his hands to get some of the water only to get another surprise. His nails were now longer, and were a bit curved, now more like claws than nails. They looked kind of like the dog boy's nails had looked, like his own had looked in those weird dreams he'd had.

Looking at his reflection in the water, mottled slightly by the flow of the stream, he noticed that something about him looked a bit different, though he couldn't figure out exactly what it was. Without his glasses, and with his hair down, he looked almost… ethereal, or something, but he was sure that it wasn't just those two things. It was like there was a new aura or something about him. It was really, really weird.

And though he hadn't really noticed it until the first time he had stopped for a breather, his stupid birthmark on his back had been itching like crazy since he had got here. The birthmark was really weird, a large one that looked kind of like a deformed spider or something.

Just then, there was a rustling in the bushes, and before Kusaraku could react, a large reptilian… something burst from them. The thing was probably about seven feet tall, towering over Kusaraku.

The thing eyed Kusaraku like one might eye a particularly tasty treat. "Sss…. Sssuch a lucky day it isss for Nitu. It isss not often that tasssty humansss are foolisssh enough to wander thisss foressst."

Without further ado, the… thing… rushed towards Kusaraku.

By some miracle, Kusaraku was able to get out of the way, all the while his mind screaming at him. I-hate-this-place-I-hate-this-place-oh-man-I-am-seriously-gonna-die!

It was then that the itching of his scar turned to an unbearable searing pain, and Kusaraku collapsed in agony. A sort of pulse of power went out from him and the reptilian creature, Nitu, took a step back, uncertain for a moment. What was its prey doing?"

Meanwhile, Kusaraku felt like he was going through hell. The burning on his back continued, as though someone had poured lava on his birthmark. And then, it felt to him like lines of fire were stretching from the birthmark to his sides and limbs.

Unseen by him, underneath his clothes, the 'legs' of his birthmark, which had turned black, were stretching. The top ones on either side of it spread out along his arms until they ended on his palms. The bottom 'legs' of the birthmark had stretched downwards, going down along the backs of his legs to end under the arches of his feet. And lastly, the two middle 'legs' on either side of the birthmark had spread to his sides, and, for a moment, seemed to sort of pool there like black ink.

A moment later, two sets of arms exploded out of Kusaraku's sides under his normal arms, the last four 'legs' of the birthmark stretching out respectively to each of Kusaraku's new palms. The four new arms were slightly thinner than his normal ones.

Realizing his prey was changing into something not-so-defenseless, the reptilian thing rushed at Kusaraku, but Kusaraku, without even thinking about it, leapt easily out of the way, actually leaping over the creature to land behind it. A moment later, Kusaraku slashed wildly at the creature with the deadly-sharp claws with all six of his upper limbs, and the creature screamed in pain.

The creature kept screaming, and at first Kusaraku couldn't figure out why. He knew he had hurt it, that much was obvious, but come on, this thing had looked tougher than that.

Than he smelled it. And saw it. The flesh of the creature around the wounds was sizzling, and it almost looked like the creature was slowly melting alive, as though acid had been poured through its veins. It was less than a couple of minutes before the creature's screams had died and it was nothing more than a pile of acid and gore.

Holding up his claws, Kusaraku was confused to see some sort of strange pale green fluid on the tips, smoking slowly. Examining them closely, he saw that it looked as though his claws had been secreting it.

Looking down at his six arms, Kusaraku started to tremble. Slightly at first, and then violently. What was he? What was happening to him?

He went back to the stream to rinse his claws, and was, needless to say, shocked at his reflection. Counting his legs, it seemed he now had a total of eight limbs. All across his visible skin spidered faint red veins. As he gaped at his reflection, he saw that his incisors were now slightly longer, and looked rather sharp, reminding him of a vampire.

Abruptly, he sat down. This was all too much. He had to figure out what to do.

He probably sat there for about fifteen minutes, his mind strangely blank, not really thinking about anything. Slowly, he calmed down. Feeling a strange sensation suddenly at his sides, he looked down to see that the extra four arms were now gone, though the rips in his once-crisp white shirt showed the evidence that they had been there.

Moving to look once more at his reflection, he saw that not only were the arms gone, but so were the spidery red veins. Also, the limbs of his birthmark had retracted to their original positions. Lifting up the back of his shirt to look, he saw that his birthmark was no longer its natural faint red, but rather an angry bloodred. Weird. However, his fangs were still there, along with his claws. Not that bad, though, when compared to the extra arms. Also, his claws weren't secreting anything anymore.

He sighed, and stood, not feeling tired at all anymore, for some strange reason. He started running again, in a slightly different direction than the one he had been going in. What he didn't really notice right away, however, was the fact that he was now moving at an inhuman speed.

QS: I really hope you guys don't hate Kusaraku's powers. See, his powers can't be exactly like Naraku's, because even if he is the dude's reincarnation, he doesn't have an assload of demons in him.

And to explain why he was so fast at the end… well, think of how fast wolf spiders and all kinds of spiders usually are when they run. -shudders- Same with the jumping. Really, though, I hope I did okay with his powers.

AND DO NOT THINK THIS MAKES HIM A HALF-DEMON. It does not. All will be explained, don't worry.