Disclaimer: This may come as a shock... but I don't own any part of Inuyasha, show or character-wise! (readers: gasp)
Naraku sat cross-legged by the window, staring out dully at the purple miasma choking his castle. His thoughts, as usual, were elsewhere. Kanna, one of his servants, stood stoically by the paper doors; her face, as always, revealing nothing. Long moments passed.
Suddenly Naraku blinked; a lazy movement that would have gone unnoticed if it hadn't been the first time he had blinked in an hour. A human would have gone blind. But Naraku wasn't completely human.
"Kanna," he said coldly, not bothering to turn around. Kanna had been made from him, and as such, he always knew where she was. It was an alarming bond that bothered another one of his servants, Kagura, immensely.
"Where is the priestess?" He continued.
Kanna's face didn't shift at all. "Not here," she whispered in her deceptively innocent voice. Naraku's red eyes narrowed dangerously. Most would have run in fear by now.
"I realize that," he hissed, barely able to keep track of his fists. "What I want to know is, why isn't she here yet?"
A chuckle by the door made him flinch slightly. Creating the other wench present had been one of his less intelligent ideas.
"Things not going according to plan, my lord?" Kagura mocked, tapping her snarling lips with her fan.
Naraku stood. With in a moment, he had the idiot puppet of a woman by the jaw, holding her wriggling form off the wooden planks. Digging one claw deliberately into her flesh, he glared at her for a long minute. Kanna didn't move, or make any sign that she'd seen anything during the exchange.
"My patience with you grows thin, Kagura," he warned. Kagura's eyes narrowed to match his own lidded slits.
"Then kill me, my lord," she mocked. Naraku resisted the urge to do just that. He knew it was truly what she wanted, but he still had a use for her. One she knew nothing about.
"I will," Naraku promised. It was one of the few promises he made that he actually intended to keep. "But not now," he continued. Kagura's face flashed with annoyance once, then went blank.
Naraku turned away impatiently, striding to the window with just a few steps. No ghostly shape penetrated the miasma. Naraku swore.
"I'm going out," he announced abruptly, reaching for the fluffy white pile that was pooled on the floor. When draped casually over his body, it revealed itself to be a baboon cloak. Fully cloaking both his purple kimono and pale face, it would have served as a clever disguise if his enemies weren't well aware of his costume by now.
"Your patience is less than impressive," Kagura muttered bitterly behind him. Naraku determinedly ignored her, fading away into the air as soon as he wished it.
On a green coated cliff a considerable distance away, Kikyo lay still on her back, one hand on her stomach, the other beneath her head. Her eyes were closed, matching the equally tranquil expression on her face. A passerby may have thought she was just another woman, napping another lazy afternoon away.
But inside, Kikyo was in turmoil. For one thing, her borrowed clay body was crying out for a nourishing soul. Where were her soul catchers anyway? But that wasn't her major concern, for her eel-like pets had never failed her before. No, Kikyo's turmoil was of a different kind. The intensely painful emotional kind. Strange that a dead body could feel so much, but it was true.
A stranger arrived. No, not a stranger.
"Naraku," Kikyo breathed quietly, her eyes remaining closed. Footsteps closed the distance between them. Only when he was standing over her did she open her eyes. She calmly noted the anger in his face.
"We had a deal," Naraku said quietly. The rage in his carefully controlled voice would have stilled Kikyo's heart if it hadn't stopped beating fifty years ago.
"We still do," Kikyo replied, suddenly not liking her body spread before him like a waiting meal. She sat up in one fluid motion and pulled her knees to her chin, staring out at the river below while feigning innocent boredom.
Naraku's jaw worked beneath the cloak. "The shards?" He asked, fighting back impatience.
Kikyo sighed, true misery being the cause. "I don't have them. Yet."
"Then you are of no use to me." Naraku turned and walked away. "Enjoy your second life, Kikyo. Alone and without purpose."
That did it. Kikyo stood quickly and turned, glaring after Naraku's rigid back. "I'll have them soon," she said, concealing a tremor in her cold voice. She didn't want him to leave. He was the only person she had talked to in a month that didn't treat her like the angelic healer all the villagers mistankingly thought her as. It was ironic that one of the only two people she felt like being herself around were the man that killed her and the man she had thought had killed her for fifty years.
"What's the problem so far?" Naraku asked, pausing midstride.
Relief flooded through Kikyo alarmingly. Choosing to ignore her emotions, she turned her thoughts to earlier that afternoon. Back to when she had seen Kagome sitting in Inuyasha's lap, while his clawed fingers gently stroked her hair. Memories of his fingers massaging her own scalp had proven too painful even for the hardened Kikyo and she had been forced to leave before her thievery could be carried out.
Her silence seemed to prove whatever Naraku's suspicions were. "You still love him," he snarled.
Kikyo stiffened, every muscle taut with anger. Anger, but surprisingly not hatred. "I do not," she retorted firmly. "But don't pride yourself, I don't hate him just because of what you did to come between us. I hate him because of his indecision. His pathetic, human indecision."
Naraku turned, a smirk undoubtedly hidden by the blue mask.
"I said I would deliver the shards, and that is what I'm going to do," Kikyo continued before Naraku could cut her down with his words again. "And when I get them, I will give them to you. And using their power, you will destroy Inuyasha. Our bargain remains, Naraku."
Naraku hesitated, thinking. "Death has changed you, Kikyo," he said finally.
Kikyo snorted, just another thing she had picked up since her rebirth. "It would be impossible not to," she said quietly.
Naraku regarded her thoughtfully a moment longer, then turned casually and walked away. Waving a hand at her carelessly, he called back one more thing: "I'll be waiting."
She would think he meant the shards, he knew, but really there was more meaning in his words. Long since he had been called Onigumo, he had wanted to make Kikyo his. When the burns had rendered his body useless and ugly, it had been her cooling hands and soothing words that had kept him clinging to life. Later, when his eyes had healed a little, he had noticed her eyes. Wise and sad, caring but reclutant to show it. If his arms had been in working condition, he would have reached up to stroke her sorrows away. But he couldn't. Perhaps it was his bitterness at knowing he could never hold or have her that warped his mind to the point where his thoughts of her were of something else entirely. It was most likely true that she was the reason he had called the demons to feast upon his soul that night so many years ago... And then Naraku had been born. Onigumo's memories and feelings still surfaced, mostly in dreams, but they were dulled, and marred. Naraku did not share Onigumo's obsessive love for Kikyo. Only Onigumo's longing for power and strength had survived the transformation between bodies. But Naraku could not deny it from himself that there was something about Kikyo that plagued him. She was a mystery, that miko, one that Naraku wanted to unravel. And someday, when the shards had been gathered, and Inuyasha's head decorated some dreary corner in his castle... Naraku would play with the toy he secretly longed for.
Hi, guys. Truth be told, this story was written awhile ago, but I was waiting for summer so I could post chapters frequently. Second chapter is ready to publish, but I'm waiting for some feedback first. Any opinions/suggestions/proclamations of HOW COULD YOU/just dropping in to say hi ;) are very much appreciated. Thanks! Voldemort's Alisna