The castle was empty inside. If anyone had ever lived here, it had been a long time ago. No furniture or decoration remained, only reed mats on the floor and cobwebs artfully draped in the corners.

Sango proceeded carefully, ever aware of the monk following close behind, but each room she checked was just like the last: completely devoid of life. It began to seem that the corpse controller couldn't really be hiding here, evil aura aside. But the monk was right about one thing, at least. Something was seriously amiss here.

Something had killed those wolves, brought them back to life, and killed them again just at the right moment to set Inuyasha up. And that tactic was infuriatingly familiar. Combined with the fact that the saimyoushou had led them here, it was easy to guess what conclusion Miroku had arrived at. No wonder he was so eager to go in search of the person behind all this—it just might be his enemy.

Up ahead, there was a shadow behind the screen, a shadow in the shape of a man. This had to be the person that was controlling the corpses. Who else could it be?

Sango didn't wait for an invitation. She hurled the hiraikotsu straight into the shadow. It knocked the screen down, but failed to hit its target. It struck the floor and bounced, careening off to one side as it returned; Sango sidestepped to catch it, swinging it easily back into throwing position. Her target had leaped back safely out of the way and regarded them now across the empty room from behind a mask in the shape of a baboon's head. He was cloaked from head to toe in white fur, but Sango would have recognized him anywhere.

"Naraku!" There was pain and anger in Miroku's voice, but mostly frustration. He must be getting sick and tired of meeting his lifelong enemy like this. Sango certainly was.

Naraku laughed. "So you actually made it here, monk… and slayer."

She half expected Miroku to throw himself at his enemy in a blind rage, doing everything he could to end Naraku and his curse here and now. The stakes were high enough, and it was certainly the strategy Inuyasha always used. But it seemed the monk wanted answers first. "Why did you kill the youkai wolves?" he asked.

"They were merely unlucky," Naraku replied. Sango shivered. Why was he telling them what they wanted to know? "You could say their greed got the better of them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sango demanded. She didn't like it one bit that Naraku still seemed to find all of this very funny.

"I spread some rumors that the lord of this castle possessed many jewel shards," Naraku told her. "Sure enough, they came to investigate, though of course it took a lot of time… and death… to lure out their leader." She could practically hear the cruel smirk in his voice, though his mask betrayed nothing. "That one is very considerate of his friends for a youkai. Maybe he'll be able to take down the one who killed his friends… Inuyasha."

She didn't dare take her eyes off Naraku to look at Miroku, but it was obvious he was angry now. "Using the same method every time," he grunted.

She had to agree. "It's really getting old."

Naraku's only response at first was a deep, ugly laugh. "Until your friends in the courtyard have settled their differences… I will be your opponent."

He abruptly revealed himself to be yet another puppet by sprouting a mass of thick, writhing tentacles from beneath the white pelt. And, of course, saimyoushou buzzed into the air around him. The poisonous insects must have been hiding somewhere in the shadows. Their presence meant Miroku wouldn't be able to clean things up quickly with the kazaana.

As Sango readied herself for battle, she couldn't help but wonder, if he's trying to hold us up here, what is he doing to our friends outside?

She didn't know, and had no way to find out. She only knew they didn't have any time to waste on this fight… but Naraku wasn't giving them a choice.

-x-

Author's Note: 100 chapters... can you believe it? I hardly can. Thank you to everyone who's read this story so far, especially those of you that have stuck around for all these updates (and to anyone that's been following since I started this story 10 years ago!). There will be more to come-I have weekly updates for quite a while yet and this story will be my NaNoWriMo project for this year, since that worked out so well last time around.