Mizoshi awoke with a gasp.

Another nightmare. How surprising.

Something was coming. Something bad. Something that she was going to do.

The village burning…the people screaming…myself laughing at the carnage…my inner phoenix screeching in approval…

She had not told Naraku. If she told Naraku, then she would have to tell him the nightmares had begun around the time when she had seen his new "superior" form.

I'm nervous of course. It's just sheer anxiety. It's been hard these past two weeks adjusting to a new home and a new Naraku…

Ever since Ken's reappearance, something indefinable had changed in her life. It was if this "life" she had been thrust into--this life she had chosen for herself—was no longer valid. Ken was getting married, Ken was moving forward, and she was not.

I'm a fixture now. An inanimate object…

Stop it, Mizoshi!

With some unknown fear tugging at her heart, she ran ink-stained fingers through her sweaty hair. On the floor was her newest creation, though so far, it was mostly blank and gave the impression of an uninspired mind. Two globes circled each other over a towering mountain peak. One globe was to be…something.

Whatever should I draw?

Mizoshi had the irrational dilemma if it should be a daytime picture or a nighttime picture. It certainly couldn't be both. Through the dim candlelight, those two white circles gazed at her like two big solemn eyes.

Complete me.

She blinked her eyes.

I need more sleep.

But, she couldn't sleep. All she could do was sit and wonder how exactly she had transformed from a self-assured maiden to a young woman with constant insecurity.

Mizoshi reclined back on the sleeping mattress and closed her eyes. Naraku had left her abed.

Naraku…

Nothing had prepared her for the sight that had awaited her when Kagura brought her back home. She knew he would change, but she didn't realize how much.

He was taller when she first beheld him. This was not surprising. Not when his feet were floating above the floor. His rich undulating waves of pitch hair tumbled down his spiked, curved, lethal appendages that were attached to his shoulders. He was literally encased in armor. A high-collared haori of true blue blended with subtler stripes of the same shade framed more spiked and plated armor. A blinding yellow sash kept this monstrosity attached to his heavy frame. Navy hakama sheathed his legs while pulsing green tentacles splayed out behind them. He was both horrible and awesome to look at.

Where's the man I first fell in love in with?

It became clear enough that she did not wish to embrace him. This of course amused him. Her hesitation and anxiety was a heady elixir for him.

He's worse than ever now.

Still, he made no move to harm her. She was dismissed with the gift of keeping her head. While his heart indeed appeared to have fled from his very body, he was indifferent to the possibility of eliminating her. She was no threat. A bird perhaps that had chosen to nest in a small alcove that not so much as twittered to alert others of its presence.

The mountain was gone. Exploded. Thanks to the battle of wills that had clashed there with various participants. It had been quite a fight. A fight without a casualty.

But…did I really want somebody to die?

The Band of Seven was dead though. Bankotsu, the leader, had breathed his last with his shikon shard-imbedded throat.

That means Doctor Suikotsu…

She would not think of him. There was nothing to think about.

Naraku had told her the story of what had transpired there so often that she expected she could recite it from memory. His boastful tone caressed her ears in the impenetrable darkness.

He had started to scare her. Not intentionally—never intentionally--, but nonetheless, when he wanted to see her, he seemed to miraculously materialize from the darkness itself. That was his element—darkness. Night. The abyss.

And I'm fire. A light that is burning lower and lower.

She groaned and turned over again.

I should go back to sleep.

Still, her unconsciousness would not protect her from the truth: she needed to find Naraku.

He already knows my thoughts. Maybe I should tell him in person what I feel. Besides, I don't want to be alone right now…

Unsteadily, her feet touched the ground. Her powder blue yukata trailing behind her, Mizoshi wafted akin to a ghost through the hollow corridor that smelled of damp earth and rot.

I didn't even ask him about how he acquired this new dwelling. It's not the same structure.

"I resent what I'm put through around here!" a familiar voice cried.

She resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.

Kagura.

Though she did not want to admit it to herself, Mizoshi was starting to feel sympathy for the snippy wind witch. Naraku had not let up on her for one minute. In fact, she didn't have one minute to herself anymore due to the fact that she was never spotted without a creamy white bundle in her arms. A white bundle with a penetrating wrongness about it. Mizoshi was purposefully ignoring Kagura for this very reason.

A new creature.

So…what is the problem?

Pressing her back against the wall, Mizoshi closed her eyes and tilted her head for better reception.

"Calm yourself, Kagura," his voice stretched out in an arachnid hiss.

"You said it was going to be easy!"

She edged towards the door. Her heart began to beat with frenzied intensity. The sensation that something bad was going to happen had completely taken over her body. The edges of her vision were becoming blurry and hazy. It was then that she realized her eyes were tearing.

What has happened?
He curtly interrupted her. "You have completed your objective?"

"Yes, but I didn't expect any mere mortal villager to put up a fight! He scratched my arm!"

"By human fingernails? You, an incarnation of Naraku, cannot fight off a little boy?" the dark soon-to-be youkai scoffed with indignation.

"No," the incarnation snarled. "The boy had claws. Demonic claws. I swear he was a hanyou!"

Here it is.

Mizoshi needed to get some air. She needed…something. Hands gripping at the wall, she found she could no longer stand it.

It can't be him.

But…who else would it be?

Before her mind could digest it, she was standing in the doorway. The scarlet-eyed wind witch was facing her crimson-eyed creator and the room was already crackling with embers of hostility. Now, her interference was going to fan it into a blaze. Predictably, both demons switched their blood-ruby gazes on her.

"A boy with claws?" Her voice was quivering.

"What are you doing here? This is a conversation for adults," the sharp-tongued woman in lavender ridiculed.

"Be quiet, Kagura," he rasped. His expression was both feral and genuinely curious. A combustible blend.

"What was the boy's name? What did you do with him?" Her voice was growing higher in pitch.

Kagura haughtily turned towards him. "She keeps talking to me."

"Answer Mizoshi, Kagura. Tell me as well." The dark soon-to-be youkai's expression was growing fierce. Unfortunately, Mizoshi had the impression this severe expression was for her and her alone.

The demoness tossed her shoulders airily. "What do you think? He got in my way. Silly boy—thinking that he could take on a demon."

"You killed my brother." Odd. It was if her bare lips had moved of their own accord—as if a stranger were speaking and not she herself.

"What nonsense is this?" Kagura's eyes were of red liquefied hatred.

"My brother is dead." Her voice was now exceedingly calm. Just as calm and at peace as her brother must be. "His name was Ken, and he wore long sleeves to conceal the bird-like claws our father's blood bestowed upon him. For your information, he was to be married to a girl named Kita. Now, he cannot marry. Now, I am the last surviving member of the Matsumoto family."

Disturbingly, against all decency, the wind witch began to laugh.

"Kita! That's what the idiot kept crying! Don't worry--the little wench still lives-- if that is at all comforting. Is it, Mizoshi?" Her voice had taken on a teasing lilt.

A joke. A joke to both of them.

"Kagura—stop." Naraku was studying Mizoshi intently.

"I can't believe it." She was overwhelmed. Sorrow was impossible to fathom at the moment. "I can't believe that you of all people…"

"Kagura, get out. We shall consider this matter later." His eyes did not leave her.

Mumbling angrily to herself, the wind witch breezed out of the receiving chamber—taking that creamy white bundle out with her. Now, it was her and the armor-plated spider.

Misty-eyed, her gaze swept over Naraku. He stared back at her calmly.

Did you do this?

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask. However, she worried that if she took this course of action she wouldn't possess a tongue to ever speak another syllable again.

He shot her a challenging smirk. This one small particular had not changed. "You look at me so accusingly, dear Mizoshi. Why?" Already, the armor-plated spider was ready to spring.

Her mouth was dry. So dry. She should've drunk some cold tea after she had awoken. But…she didn't.

"Why did Kagura kill my brother? What was she doing in Bara Village?"

Naraku stood there unflinching. His vermillion eyes gleamed. "I do not enjoy being questioned, Mizoshi."

"So…I cannot even attend the funeral?" Her thoughts were elsewhere. Still, she did not miss the menace in the dark soon-to-be youkai's timbre.

Ever so slowly, he crept across the floor. There was a hardness in his ruby eyes that she had never glimpsed before. Throughout all their petty arguments, throughout all of her various disagreements, there was never such a callousness in his stance as there was now.

"I knew nothing of this. Surely, you understand, Mizoshi."

"Am I not supposed to feel pain?" Her eyes were burning. Not from demonic smoking flames, but from all too human salty tears.

"No." There was such a profound absence of normal emotion in his entire manner.

Surprised, she jerked her head up. In the process, a stray tear trickled down.

Cry. Yes, Mizoshi. Cry the guilt away…

"W-w-what?" She swallowed hard.

"He does not deserve you tears," he stated harshly. "This brother tried to kill you for the pure and simple reason that you were too different. Now, he has met the same fate."

She dismissed his coldly rational words. "But, he's dead."

Naraku sighed as if reprimanding a tiny child. "Kagura did what needed to be done. She was attacked by him. He would've slain her first if he were a bit more powerful. It is so in the youkai world. Had he have used his common sense, like his sister, nothing would have occurred." He fixed her with a powerful glare.

Defeated, she sank to her knees. She was too tired to be disagreeable. "I understand, Naraku."

I haven't lived this long by being disagreeable. Not like Ken.

He swept by her then without another a word. His raw annoyance that she had made such a fuss was unmistakable.

He's off to finish his clandestine conversation with Kagura.

Strange how events came full-circle. She was saved by the dark hanyou in the dark of the wood while her brother's body now lay motionless—cut down by the dark hanyou's very own child made flesh. It was such an irony. The guilt pressing her in on all sides had not diminished.

I can't help but feel partly responsible. I knew Kagura. I could have warned him…

So. Ken had been caught in his own lie. Instead of his family being killed by demons, he himself had been slain by a full-blooded youkai in a no doubt preventable situation.

Ken, why were you so stupid? What were you trying to prove by attacking the wind witch? Did she threaten Kita? Or were you just self-righteous as usual?

For the first time in his life, Ken recognized his hanyou blood. And he lost his life. Another irony. Still, the power in Ken's blood had lain dormant. It had not been awakened by a voracious spider and spun and shaped into web-like proportions.

Still, it was all too believable. Ken was always the type to speak his moral-riddled mind or perform duties of what he thought was "honor." This quirk had caught up with him.

Naraku couldn't have eliminated Ken on purpose. I didn't even tell him where he was or what he looked like. Why would he even bother?

A mistake. An unfortunate tragedy.

Scraping herself off the floorboards, she walked with heavy feet back to her deserted apartment. He was not waiting there to comfort her.

How expected.

With an aching bitterness, she stepped over the pathetically incomplete drawing. Ken had always deemed her art a "waste."

Except now, Ken can't comment on anything any more.

A wave of anguish surging in her chest, she moved aside small curios and pots of ink until she came to a lacquered box. Red. Like his eyes. With no hesitation, she opened it, stuck her hand inside, and came up from the inky interior with a familiar bracelet.

Your gift, my brother. The last birthday gift I will ever receive from you. A pity he could not have carved birds in the wood instead of fish.

This bracelet had a long history attached to it even if the piece of jewelry had only existed in the world for seven or eight fleeting months. It had been on her wrist when she had first been "saved." It had traveled with her by some miracle when they were forced to move to the holy mountain. Only weeks ago, she had physically taken it with her along with food and blankets when she had been forced to move yet again.

Now, it would travel with her no more.

Tears in her eyes, she laid it down in a porcelain bowl on the floor. Focusing her will, flames instantaneously licked the wooden beads. The creamy mint green jade bits glowed with a destructive inner luminosity as the bracelet itself burned in the decorative bowl.

Now, you are set free.

When black ashes stared up at her, she turned away.

Kita will love again. She was too good for him in any case.

Mizoshi was hungry, but this was unimportant. Suddenly exhausted beyond comprehension, she collapsed onto the mattress. All strength had flooded out of her with the fire.

He's with mother again. Nibori too.

Will I meet them? Or, will I be going where Naraku will go?

Unwilling to debate answers, she allowed her eyelids to drift closed.

Author's Note: Ken is no more. I've been planning this for a while now. So, there's the big twist! Somehow, I will turn this dark chapter into a happy ending. The next chapter will be the last.