Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.

Chapter Eight

Kagome and Naraku: The First Attempt

Kagome had heard the yelp, but it was muted enough her family thought it came from outdoors. She crammed in as much food as she dared, before saying she wanted to finish her breakfast in her room. With her mother's quizzical gaze on her back, Kagome loaded her plate, and headed up the stairs. The going was tricky, especially with Buyo constantly trying to trip her, wanting the food for himself. After a tedious process, she made it upstairs and to her room.

"I brought you some breakfast," Kagome whispered as she turned her doorknob and entered her room. She blushed as she noticed the gaze of the being on her bed. Intense golden eyes watched her as she came in and placed the plate of food on the bed stand.

"Smells good, thanks miko," the gruff voice came.

"Stop calling me that! Call me Kagome!" She was startled at how unsettled she was around Inuyasha. Attempting to soften her rampage, she spoke again. "I didn't realize your eyes were so gold."

"You might have noticed if you hadn't been so busy yelling at me. Speaking of which, will you take this off now?" Inuyasha pulled at the beads around his neck. Kagome smirked at him.

"No, I think its better that I have a way to control you. Now eat." She pointed at the food. Inuyasha painfully turned his head towards it, and struggled to lift his arm. Kagome sighed at the sight of it.

"What?"

"Look, let me help you."

"No, I can do it myself."

"Obviously you can't, now shut up and let me help." Kagome settled down next to the scowling boy, stabbed a piece of bacon, and started to feed Inuyasha his breakfast. Despite the bristling animosity, both felt comfortably at home with each other.


It was after Kagome finished that she asked why she had heard him yelp. He had shrugged, saying he had only tried to move. Kagome scolded him lightly, feeling that if he had hurt himself then he really had been punished enough. She changed the dressings on his wounds, removing the ones that covered healed places. There was one on his left shoulder that was particularly disturbing. Every time she brushed it, Inuyasha winced.

"So what happened to you?" Her question pierced the silence that had overtaken the room. She looked at Inuyasha, who was avoiding her gaze.

"I don't know," he mumbled. "Some guy attacked me, and I thought I died."

"Does it have anything to do with this Kikyou you thought I was?" Inuyasha turned his head sharply, causing himself unnecessary pain.

"How did you know that?"

"I didn't, it just seemed like a logical explanation. Typical jealous guy revenge."

"He wasn't jealous, he was stupid."

"Well, what happened?" Kagome finished with the bandages and sat on the ground, resting her elbows on the bed. She focused totally on Inuyasha.

"Kikyou and me, well, we were friends." Inuyasha puzzled over how to explain their strange relationship.

"Just friends?"

"I don't really know. See, she was a miko, a very powerful miko, charged with protecting the Shikon no Tama."

"What's that?"

"Well, it's a jewel, that grants a wish."

"Any wish?"

"Yeah."

"Did you want it?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha looked at Kagome curiously. How did she know all this? Kagome noticed the look and shrugged.

"Just seems logical," she said.

"Ok, well, I wanted it to be a full demon. I'm just a hanyou, and I need to be a full demon to live up to my father's status."

"Would he not accept you any other way?"

"He's dead."

"Oh." Kagome's eyes softened, and she stretched her hand up, rubbing Inuyasha's ears. He closed his eyes in content, to exhausted with everything to complain. He hurried to finish his story before Kagome interrupted him again.

"So, I kept trying to steal it from Kikyou, but she always caught me. She never killed me though, and when I finally asked her why, she said it was because we shared a fate. After that, we would sit and look at things for a long time, and she would just talk to me." Kagome opened her mouth to comment on the odd nature of that, but decided not too.

"And then one day she told me she hated being a miko. She wanted to be normal. She asked me to use the Shikon no Tama to become human, so we could live together. I...said yes. I don't really know why. I still wanted to be a full demon, but if she wanted me to be human, I would have done it for her. So the next day we were to meet, only by the time I got there, I saw somebody else who looked like me. Whoever he was, he killed Kikyou. And then a week later, he killed me. I thought."

"Wow," Kagome said after a moment. She was still rubbing Inuyasha's ear, her brow furrowed in thought.

"I don't know why I just told you that," Inuyasha mumbled. "I don't tell anyone anything."

"People tell me lots of things," Kagome offered. "I'm just that way. Anyway, where were you when this guy attacked you?"

"By the well in my forest."

"A well? But I pulled you out of the well here. I don't understand what's going on." Kagome was thinking out loud when she noticed Inuyasha had fallen asleep again. She looked down at him and smiled. With regret, she patted his head, and stood up. She really wanted a shower.


Kagome sat on her porch, staring at the well house. Her still damp hair was rustled by the slight breeze as she sipped her soda. Her long sleeved black shirt and blue skirt were plenty to keep her warm. Her family had gone to the park – it had taken a lot of convincing that she hadn't wanted to go. Absently, she rubbed her side, where the pain had come when she was so close to the well.

"There's something big going on," she said quietly to herself. "But what do I have to do with it?" She thought of Inuyasha, still asleep in her room, and then suddenly of Takumi, who she hadn't heard from all day. I've got to call him, she thought in panic. Just as she stood, she heard the gates of the shrine entrance creaking.

The gates were something her grandfather had always been meaning to fix, but never got around too. Kagome liked it though, it always alerted her to someone entering the shrine. Since whoever it was had to walk up tons of stairs to get to the top, it also gave her time to check out who it was. She glanced around, noticing the practice bow and arrows on the porch – Grandpa must have been trying to teach Souta again. She grabbed them, intending to throw them inside to make the place look neater, when a man suddenly appeared at the top of the steps.

This was wrong, no one could climb the steps that quickly. Kagome stood there with the bow and arrows, staring at the man. He was dressed in loose fitting clothes, black and purple. His feminine features were set off more by his long, curly black hair. But his eyes were red, a deep crimson that reminded Kagome of the blood she had recently seen all over Inuyasha.

"Can I help you?" she called out, unnerved. The man approached her slowly, a malicious smirk growing on his face with every step.

"Of course you can, Kikyou," he spoke, his voice a low purr. Kagome's mouth dropped in shock.

"I am not Kikyou!" she snapped. "What do you want?"

"The Shikon no Tama. I know you have it. If you give it to me now, I will not kill you with much pain." The man's eyes lit up when he saw Kagome's reaction. Her jaw had dropped with the mention of the jewel, and then her whole face blanched under the brief description of the murder the man had just described to her. And then the lightbulb went off.

"You're the man who killed Kikyou!" Kagome clutched the bow in her hand tighter. The man chuckled.

"The one and same. But that damn hanyou stopped me from getting the jewel, and then it was burned with Kikyou. But you are her, so you have it. So give it to me."

"I don't have it," Kagome insisted, shaking slightly at the mention of Inuyasha. The man stopped, perhaps twelve feet away from her. As Kagome watched, his arms and legs melted away, leaving many long, green tentacles. Kagome gasped.

In the second floor bedroom, Inuyasha woke up, nose twitching with a scent he remembered all to well. Then he heard Kagome scream, and realized that she was being attacked. He struggled to rise, but flopped back because of the pain. Kagome screamed again, and Inuyasha struggled again. He would not allow another girl, especially one so like Kikyou, to die.

The man had attacked Kagome twice, cutting her body with those tentacles. Each time she had instinctively turned away, wrapping her body up in itself, and most importantly, protecting her throbbing side. The longer the man stayed, the colder Kagome was getting, and she felt the tears of pain streaming down her face. The man laughed, a dark sinister chuckled that cut through Kagome. She turned her head to look at him, an ugly mass of an ageless body.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"You may call me Naraku," he said, bowing slightly. Then he attacked her again. With a sudden burst of energy, Kagome leapt out of the way, but the tentacle caught her leg. She cried out in pain as she was slammed to the ground, then fear as she felt herself being dragged towards Naraku. She then realized she was still holding the bow, and the one arrow. Without really knowing what she was doing, Kagome notched the arrow and took aim.

"What do you think you're doing, Kikyou?" Naraku asked maliciously.

"I'm not her!" Kagome yelled out. She was aiming for the heart, and in a sudden surge of anger, pulled back and let go. Her eyes widened at the pink glow suddenly coating the arrow, as did Naraku. He was too close to dodge it, and it hit right in the middle of his chest. A blackness flew out, and the tentacle let go of Kagome. As she watched the swirling mass, it vanished, leaving only a broken piece of wood behind. Kagome collapsed on the ground, in shock. Inuyasha, who had watched the entire thing from the window also stared in shock.


"Well well well. The little miko woke up." The red eyes glowed as an insatiable need for the hunt arose within the speaker. The sun sat high in the sky, shining brightly as if nothing was amiss.