As Miroku stopped to rub yet another sutra on the wall, Sango could take it no more. The constant stops and starts had begun a mere minute or so after they had entered the cave, and Inuyasha was obviously nearing his breaking point. The stops were also irritatingly long, considerably slowing them down.

"What are you doing?" she finally managed, her voice calm but tinted with exasperation.

Miroku didn't look up from where he was examining the wall to reply, "Warding off demons from outside and trapping anything that may be inside," He turned around after mumbling something else, and looked slightly surprised. "Didn't you know? I would have thought you did since you didn't ask the first time I stopped."

Sango blushed and muttered a pitiful 'No', glancing at Inuyasha to see how he was taking it. He looked calm enough, but his hands and feet were twitching. If not for Sango's boomerang bone on his back, he probably would have run away long ago. It had irritated him enough going back for it, but now he was glad they had. He would have taken Miroku's staff for extra anchoring except that he needed it to walk.

When Miroku had finished they continued down the hallway of rock, stopping four more times, without complaint, to put sutras on the wall. It was not long after the fourth sutra that they saw it.

'It' was the end of the cave. 'It' was an entrance into a well lit room. Kiki's words echoed in their minds once more: "It's a room that is big. Lit by the unknown." All three knew that they had reached their destination.

Upon stepping into the room and thick sense of evil fell on them. The ceiling was high above them and the walls outlined a large, spacious area. Scattered across and up the walls were torches, flickering the shadows with light in an endless dance. Yet it wasn't the details of the room that made their blood run cold. It was a faintly glowing figure hanging airborne in the middle of it all: Kiki.

Kiki's apparel was frightening. Her classic priestess attire of red and white had been traded in for a pure black silk. Her swords were unsheathed and draped in a weak glow of purple light, and the runes she had carved into them with her mind glowed with a deeper, more meaningful color. Instead of her worn brown leather belt she had a thick black one, tied so the ends dangled unevenly in front of her instead of her worn buckle. Her eyes were a deep violet, the purest of their impure color, and the darker colors she bore contrasted greatly with her new skin color: pale and drained instead of tan and rosy. Her hair had never looked darker, tied up away from her face so that only two strands fell on her face.

The most ghostly thing about her was that her body emitted light that stretched out two or three inches around her, and that her eyes, although shining, were somehow covered in a hazy glaze.

Inuyasha shouldered off Sango's weapon and handed it to her, stepping forward and drawing Kiki's blank, unemotional gaze. Miroku saw a trace of how Sango had looked in the utter blankness of her and almost took a step back. Inuyasha opened his mouth to call out to her when something – or someone -shifted behind her and then drifted casually out beside her. As it moved into the open, its features became clear.

It was a man, with strong facial features that were somehow tainted in the way they sat upon his face. His eyes were sharp and a brownish purple, as if someone had mixed in too much red. His hair was much like Kiki's, long and black yet giving off the sense of tidiness despite its wild appearance. He had on dim purple kimono bottoms and dainty black silk shoes. There was a vest trimmed and made mostly of black silk but with odd designs all over it thrown over a black and purple long sleeved kimono top. The smirk on his face could kill a bandit.

"Welcome." The man purred, his voice icy and faintly demonic yet sickening smooth at the same time. "I see you are all alive. Pity, because even after you've pathetically scrambled to cling to your equally pathetic lives, you're going to die right here."

"Funny. I was thinking that this would be your final hour, Naraku." Inuyasha hissed, also smirking. He cracked his knuckles and narrowed his eyes.

"Inuyasha, Kiki doesn't have the jewel." Miroku hastily whispered to him. "That means-"

"The monk is right, Inuyasha. The girl doesn't have the jewel, and I would think you'd want to save your precious gem before killing me and tainting it forever. But... Which gem am I talking about? Kiki or this?" Naraku said before sticking a hand in his vest and drawing something out.

Inuyasha heard Sango's breath intake sharply at the sight of the Shikon no Tama. It was defiled seemingly beyond return, seeped in a deep black with tints of red. It was also hauntingly beautiful, almost more beautiful than it had been at its absolute purest.

"They say the Sacred Jewel becomes more beautiful when twisted with malice, disgust, sorrow, and suffering." Naraku explained with a smile. "I wonder how beautiful it will be when you die by the hands of the woman you love, Inuyasha? Just like last time. Surely such a deed would make it glitter."

"Die by… What the hell are you spewing? You're saying Kiki is going to kill me on your command?" Inuyasha snarled in disbelief. "I don't think she'd ever let you control her!"

Naraku's smile widened. "Oh, we'll see."

Kiki had been watching Naraku and now turned her head to look at Inuyasha. Her hands moved slowly to the hilts of her swords and her eyes gleamed with an emotion he clearly hadn't expected.

They gleamed with death.

Before anyone really knew what as going on, Kiki skimmed through the air and towards Inuyasha with surprising speed and ease. Death had been a mere flicker in her eyes, quickly disguised with an unemotional mask of nothingness, almost to the point of being creepy. Inuyasha stepped forward again to meet her as she hovered and then landed on the ground in front of him. She tilted her head back to look him steadily in the eyes.

"Kiki, you…" Inuyasha whispered in pained confusion. She raised her hands up to his face, cupping each of his cheeks in cold, almost lifeless palms. Shivers ran down his spine but he kept their eyes locked, refusing to lose her interest. She was the one who broke the gaze, and then appeared to examine his face, as if trying to recognize someone long since forgotten. And then she smiled.

"Inu… yasha," She said slowly and uncertainly, her smile not wavering. A small wind tussled her hair and her face seemed to soften in a personal bliss.

As Inuyasha opened his mouth to reply he felt an odd sensation traveling from his body and into her hands. It was almost as if his heat had been sucked right out of him, and he was freezing. He yanked away from her touch, stepping warily away from her. "You're not yourself." He accused.

The action seemed to upset her to no end. "Inuyasha!" she exclaimed in almost hysterics. She looked at her hands to see how her touch had somehow offended him, and tears teased at her eyes. Without being able to control them she shoved her face into her hands and began to sob heavily.

"Kiki… You're acting insane!" Inuyasha said in pure exasperation, not knowing how such an action could make her cry. Naraku tch-tched from where he was hovering and Kiki's sobs immediately stopped. She lifted her head from her hands, face twisted in rage. He was stunned at her ability to slip from emotion to emotion in mere seconds and barely dodged an oncoming hunk of rock that fell from the ceiling.

Her face had morphed back into an emotionless mask, and she made clean, deadly swipes at him as he stumbled backwards and sideways out of the way. Whenever she came within an inch of him he felt a sharp pang of electricity run through his body, and as he tried to figure out what was going on and still keep all of his limbs, Miroku and Sango made their way towards Naraku.

"Her emotions are as pure as it gets. Her rage is unwise and spontaneous, her kindness sincere and overdone, her sorrow deep and breathtaking, and her happiness lights the room. My greatest creation," Naraku cackled, clearly entertained by her attacks against Inuyasha. "I am quite proud."

"But why make her?" Miroku yelled from his current position against the wall, around 15 feet from where they had originally come in. "What purpose could she possibly hold?"

Naraku didn't even turn his head to reply, "A source of unstoppable power. Trained until even the slightest flaw in power must be corrected, at all costs." He was too absorbed in controlling the girl they had once grown to love, and force her into killing the man she had fallen for. Kiki managed to lightly slice Inuyasha's side, but he was too quick for her to get a much deeper wound.

"Kiki, snap out of it! He's using you!" Inuyasha snapped as he skid backwards and out of the way of an overhead slice. She stopped and pointed her swords at him, the edges flickering with electricity. The sparks met at the tips, and before Inuyasha could process anything she had sent a bolt of lightning hurling at his feet. At first he was shocked, but quickly remembered what he had once told her. "It's so I can send my powers through the blades. Such a weapon would be near unstoppable in my hands."

She aimed only for his feet, concentrating on maiming him, emotionless in reply to his struggle to dodge such an unpredictable attack.

Sango clenched her boomerang bone in anger, wondering why Naraku wasn't paying them any mind. She chucked it at him in pure rage and to her utter dismay it bounced off a shield. It had flickered when hit, just long enough to show her that he was sitting in a protective orb, and it sent her bone in a completely off direction.

Kiki spun to face her, pointing the swords at her for a split moment. Miroku saw this and jumped forward as a bolt left Kiki's blade. "Sango! No!" he cried, reaching her just in time, grabbing her from behind and wrapping his arms around her waist. He turned his back to the oncoming attack, wincing as it hit him instead.

"Miroku!" Sango gasped, watching in horror as his eyelids fell and his body became limp and heavy on her back. She turned and gently laid him on the ground, sitting so that his head was in her lap. Tears rolled down her face faster than she could stop them, and she pressed her forehead to his own.

"Kiki!" Inuyasha snarled, making a grab for one of her arms as she watched the scene unfold under her. She twisted out of his grasp and nimbly floated backwards, completely out of his reach. She stared, unaffected by anything, right at him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"She is protecting her master, of course." Naraku stated with a smirk, acting as if he should know this yet knowing he wouldn't. Kiki made no objection to the statement, yet made no move to clarify that he was right.

"Her MASTER?" Inuyasha shouted in fury and obvious panic. His mouth hung open in complete disbelief. Kiki's gaze never left him, her hands clenching tightly around the sword hilts as she read the disgust on his face. "She would never allow herself to be a slave to you!"

Naraku laughed. "She has no choice. I made her, and she must obey."

And Kiki smiled.