The mystery nagged at Miroku. Who was the woman who had called herself Kagura, the woman with the spider scar on her back? Even after hearing the story several times from both Inuyasha and Kagome, with contributions from Shippou, he still couldn't fully make sense of it. He could think of no reason for the deception that had apparently occurred.

After a while they found an empty hut not far from the path, which seemed as good a place as any to shelter for the night. At least they wouldn't be out in the open where their enemies could easily spot them this way.

Sango prepared the evening meal while Kagome unpacked her first aid kit and began the laborious process of coaxing Inuyasha into allowing his injuries to be treated. In the meantime, Miroku settled down quietly to one side, where he could continue to consider the implications of the day's adventure.

Since he was getting nowhere, he decided to start over from the beginning. They knew very little about Naraku for certain.

Fifty years ago, Naraku had been created from the unholy union of an evil man and innumerable youkai. Perhaps that was the explanation. If Naraku could separate those youkai from the whole… or reshape them somehow… By the time he hit on his conclusion, the general conversation had conveniently circled back to the mystery of Kagura and Naraku.

"I still don't get why," Inuyasha was saying. "What would he gain from pretending not to know who we were?"

"Unless it wasn't Naraku at all," Sango pointed out. "Maybe Kagura is simply someone else that Naraku is manipulating."

"That wouldn't explain the spider," Kagome countered.

"I think," Miroku interjected, "that Kagura may not have been Naraku, but been a part of Naraku."

"Wait a minute. You're saying she might have been born from Naraku?" Inuyasha asked, sounding incredulous.

It was decidedly not how he had arrived at the idea, but it was… close enough. "That's one way you could look at it," he agreed.

"But," Kagome protested, looking over from where she was working on Inuyasha's bandages. "But…" She couldn't seem to get much further than that.

"How would a man give birth?" Shippou said it.

"Now, hear me out," Miroku told them. "I'm not saying he actually gave birth to Kagura. But we do know that Naraku was originally formed from the merging of many youkai along with the thief Onigumo. They all gathered together and became one. But if you think of Kagura as being a detachment of one of those youkai…"

"That would explain why she didn't seem to know anything about us," Kagome said.

"Don't you think it's strange?" Inuyasha asked. "This Kagura person was strong, for a woman. If he can produce something like her, whether she's a creation or a detachment, or whatever…"

"Yes," Sango chimed in. "Why hasn't he done this before? What's changed?"

"Exactly," Miroku agreed. "I suspect the reason why he hasn't done this before…"

Sango caught on quickly. "It's because he only recently became able to do it."

"Yes." He sighed. "At least, that's my best guess." He could still be wrong, after all. There was much about Naraku that they still didn't know. But it made a certain kind of sense, given what they did know, and it was promising that Sango had arrived at the same conclusion.

"So what's changed?"

"If we knew that, then we might actually have an advantage," he told her.

"Not only that," she added. "It could give us some idea of what he intends to do next."

And, Miroku thought, whether they could expect to encounter more of Naraku's offspring in the future, or if Kagura was the only one. Just how much power had Naraku gained, and how had he managed it? As if the challenge of defeating him hadn't been enough before…

"Since we don't know what he'll try next, what do we do next?" Kagome asked.

"Keh," Inuyasha gave a derisive exhale. "We find more jewel shards before he can get his hands on them."

Leave it to him to remain completely fixated on the goal, at least as long as Kouga and Kikyou weren't around. The thought of Kikyou made Miroku wonder. She had stolen Kagome's relatively large piece of the jewel. If Naraku had managed to steal it from her in turn, or if he had acquired much of the rest of the jewel, that could perhaps explain the sudden increase in his power.

He briefly considered bringing up these possibilities, but decided it was better to keep them to himself for now. Things were actually peaceful for a change, and they were in very close quarters. No sense risking Inuyasha's fury when there was nowhere to escape to and no evidence—yet—to bear out his theory.

For now, he decided, it would be better to wait and see.