Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha™ nor do I own any of its characters or its original plotline. They are the intellectual property of Takahashi Rumiko and will remain so forever. My small claim on this work of fiction is in its creation of the alternate universe plotline, which I assert to the best of my knowledge to be an original product of my imagination. Any similarity to persons(other than the aforementioned characters belonging to Takahashi Rumiko) or events either real or previously imagined is completely coincidental and please excused.

With hooded eyes and the slightly disdainful and bemused expression that seemed a permanent feature of his face, he surveyed the scene before him.

'This seems more like a central switch office at a telephone company than an intelligence office,' he thought with more than a hint of rancor.

Men in grey and black uniforms sporting the distinctive symbol of their party bustled between desks and other men in uniform on their way to deliver field reports, radio intel, and coffee. Maps littered with pegs and ink markings were arrayed around the large room. It seemed like business as usual inside the Third Reich's main intelligence office.

"Herr Naraku." The man almost smirked when his name was called across the room. For a brief instant, all activity seemed to stop and glance his way. He was rather conspicuous in the room of tall Arian men, with there blond hair and blue eyes. His dark hair, short stature, black eyes, and a green uniform, very simply adorned—no medals, no indication of rank, no name plate, just a clear reminder of who he really worked for—set him apart from the rest of the men in the room quite easily.

His uniform did not sport his name. "Naraku," as it was at the current moment, was just another in a long string of aliases, code names. He had had many before that one, and a few since, but nobody had pinned him down yet with the current one, so he kept it. Among some of his "creations" that he hid himself behind in the past were "Onigumo," he had used that one for some time, but it had some painful memories for him, so he "killed" it; "Kagura" had been one of the rare times he had resorted to cross-dressing to gather intelligence and he liked it very little; "Kanna" had been one of his favorites so far. For "Kanna" he had been an entity without form; a ghost that could go anywhere and see anything, or at least, that was what the enemy had said of him. In truth, his ancestry held deep roots in the Shinobi clans of old, and his family still practiced ninjitsu as much as possible within their professions. His father had said that he had a rare gift for ninjitsu, and as far as he was concerned, he had used his gift extremely well thus far.

As he followed the German colonel that had addressed him before, he mused over his family. He had forgotten them—not momentarily, but permanently. After so many assumed identities and covers, assignments and lies, he couldn't even remember his own name. All he had were bits and pieces of a childhood learning the art of the shinobi, and a few small bits of wisdom left to him by his father. It didn't bother him much, but it did annoy him. He wished that if this were the way things were going to be, that he could get rid of the small pieces of his former self. Expel them from his body and mind, and just be a nameless, well most of the time, agent.

The large colonel that sat in front of him stirred him from his musings. "Herr Naraku, we have an assignment for you," he stated.

"Obviously," Naraku frowned. "I don't come to crowded places on a whim, and you know this. So, it was obvious you had something for me."

The colonel reached into a folder and removed an 8x10 photo. He held it up for Naraku to see.

"Kikyou…" Naraku whispered under his breath. How had they figured her out? He was sure he had placed the girl in such deep cover that if it weren't for the weekly drops, he himself would lose track of her. He would have to remove her from her current assignment and "train" her some more, he thought grimly.

The colonel continued: "This girl is an American of Japanese descent. She is currently touring the show circuit for the American troops. We would like you to try to capture and interrogate her near the end of her tour. It would be helpful to know what she knows."

Naraku shook his head…he had been wrong, Kikyou had not been discovered; however, he might remove her from her current assignment anyway. This could prove interesting.

"Her name?" he inquired. He would have to try to figure out if his plan would work by starting his own little intelligence gathering on this girl, and for that he would need a name.

"Her Americanized name is Kagome Higurashi. She has a strictly civilian background, as far as we can tell, though her brother has caused some damage to our Atlantic fleet in recent history." The Colonel winced inwardly. The U-boat the Higurashi male had destroyed had been carrying one of their more prominent Admirals who had insisted on being present for a raid on Allied shipping. The unexpected sinking of the boat had brought the wrath of the Fuehrer himself down on the intelligence division. The Admiral had been a close friend of the Fuehrer's, and he wanted to know why his friend had been so carelessly allowed to wander into the path of such a capable escort. The intelligence office had been baffled…from the reports of the spotter plane, all of the ship's brains should have been killed in the initial attack on the bridge of the ship. They had discovered only a week ago from American and British newspapers that the ship had been taken command of by a young junior officer. Who would have expected a junior officer to be so capable? Even the Fuehrer couldn't argue with that.

"Vital statistics?" Naraku prodded again.

"Approximately 5'6", athletic, black hair, brown eyes, measurements…unknown," the Colonel finished uncomfortably. He wasn't used to describing young women. Most targets of intelligence gathering were men, as women usually weren't entrusted with important details.

"I see…" the Japanese man trailed off. Nearly a perfect match for Kikyou, he thought. If I could just figure out how she acts in public, she might be able to pull this off. It would be difficult enough to get her to smile like that, though…she was trained to be submissive and docile, and absolutely invisible to those around her; trained to make such little impact when she entered a room that people would scarcely remember her existence when she left their presence. He had considered giving her the code name Kanna, but decided that the name was too well known, and might be connected to her true activities. He stood to leave, but the Colonel wasn't finished yet.

"Herr Naraku…why exactly is it you're here, again?" he asked, sounding almost afraid.

Naraku fixed him with his most contented grin, and grinned wider when the man squirmed in his chair—when Naraku was happy, you knew it was time to be afraid…of what, you weren't sure, but you knew nonetheless. "I am here, Herr Colonel, to provide your Fuehrer with diplomatic relations to the Emperor, as well as to assist your Intelligence office in any way I can," Naraku spouted the official line. The Colonel frowned at the answer and stood from his chair.

"As you say, Mein herr."

Naraku grinned at him again and bowed politely, leaving the office. Ah, why was he there, indeed? The question was a dangerous one, if he ever answered it truthfully. Fortunately he was well versed in lying. He had, of course, many ulterior motives for his current assignment. His first reason for remaining in the Reich was to keep an ear out for when the Germans were planning to move on Japan, as they undoubtedly would—their goal after all WAS world domination, just the same as Japan…eventually. His second reason followed closely on the tails of the first, and that was to gather all of the information he could on the impending betrayal of Japan so he could use it to rise to power, like standing on top of the tsunami as it rolled across his country Yes, he would twist everything around him to his advantage, manipulating all that crossed his path…it was amazing what you could make some people do if you had the right information. Yes, they were all just his little puppets; his pawns; his to do with as he pleased…just like Kikyou.

Kikyou should be waiting for him at the drop now. He grinned at what her reaction would be to him removing her from her assignment. He knew she would visibly cringe at the thought of a complete debriefing—she almost always broke down like a baby. She wasn't always like that though, he remembered. When he had first acquired her, she had been unwilling to do anything—at all. He smiled remembering how he had broken her. It had taken a lot of work, but when he finally found out what the key to her sanity was he had gleefully (if that was possible for him) toyed with her for almost 24 hours, coming closer and closer to her secret, making her sweat. Naraku licked his lips in memory of the moment when he had told her what she had feared hearing most, and then the aftermath. She had listed all of the sick, twisted things she would agree to if he would only leave her secret just that—a secret.

Yes, he absolutely relished that memory. He continued in his little reverie as he walked to the drop—a train station in the middle of Berlin. Naraku knew from experience and what he considered infallible and obvious logic that the best place to hide was right out in the open. All of his drops were more or less in very public, busy places, as opposed to the bungling fools at the intelligence office he just left. All of the drops they organized were in dark, hardly visited places—perfect for a suspicious looking person in dark clothing to just walk in and out of without drawing attention to them.

'Fools' he thought to himself. His drops were always very carefully choreographed with a lot of symbolic language and signaling. Kikyou was very skilled at non-verbal communication, which made her his favorite tool for most situations. He grinned slightly as he entered the train station and began scanning for her presence in the crowd.

There. He found her sitting on a bench, expressionless, staring up at the schedule board—or the mirrors that were situated on either side of it.

'Good girl,' he thought with a hint of approval, but a nevertheless condescending undertone.

He walked behind her where she could see him in the elevated, angled mirrors, looking back toward the door as if expecting someone he knew to come through them. The gesture was obvious to her: Anybody following?

She stood up and walked toward the pub inside the station greeting a tall, light haired gentleman on her way. Translation: Yes. If she had not greeted anyone, he would know that she had not been followed, if she had chosen a woman to greet, he would know that not only had she been followed, but it was someone she was acquainted with and knew by name.

Naraku simply kept walking toward the track after he had caught her message. As he stopped near the track doors to buy a newspaper, he caught her next signal.

Before entering the pub, she checked her reflection in the window and undid the bun she had her hair in, and then left it down: Luring out the tail.

Naraku grinned a feral, predatory grin and continued to read his newspaper, noting an article concerning the latest developments in the Italian peninsula. Apparently the combined Italian/German armies were able to push back the allied advance to into the mountains in South-central Italy, where they hoped to achieve air-superiority and bomb the British and American troops. Naraku shook his head some more. The fools kept walking into rooms that had more that one door for their enemies to come through. The mountains were where the elite American 10th Mountain Division had the advantage. Also, the American attack planes could disguise their engine noise and presence in the mountains with their low level flying, and thus sneak up on the advancing German forces, leveling them with bombs. German air-superiority was supposed to preclude that, but lately the Luftwaffe had been sustaining heavy casualties from the now standard American P-51 fighter, which was able to fly escort deeper into Europe thanks to advance air fields constructed by the Americans and British on their slow march up the Italian Peninsula. Daylight bombing raids flown from the same air fields was also slowing down production of the Luftwaffe planes reducing their numbers by twice, since they couldn't even replace the planes that were being destroyed. Naraku tsked at the Fuehrer's apparent lack of comprehension of basic facts.

He looked up just in time to see Kikyou leaving the pub with her arm through a young dark haired gentleman's arm. Naraku grinned as followed them—the same grin from before.

Still taking non-verbal cues from Kikyou, like tosses of her hair, or waves of either hand, he followed them. She had already told him that she was letting him lead her somewhere, and that she would signal when she found the appropriate place to cause the 'accident.'

They walked for a time before they came to slightly less busy street with several outlets and alleys. Naraku sensed that this seemed to be what they were looking for—a rarely frequented street in the less affluent, to put it nicely, section of town. He reached for a knife he had stolen from a member of the German Underground—before it had been almost squelched, thanks to his intelligence, or lack thereof if you considered the fact that it still existed. He had left some alive for cases just like this, in order to have a scapegoat. Then the signal came.

She started to grin at something he had said, then flashed a brilliant smile at him at whispered something to him. Naraku quickened his pace to catch up with them. By the time he caught up to them, the man would be too distracted to notice. Kikyou meanwhile had pulled the man into an alley.

When Naraku arrived, Kikyou was facing away from the man, toward the back of the alley, leaving the man with his back to the street.

'Some tail this guy is. Doesn't even bother to watch for a tail on himself,' Naraku thought disdainfully.

The man had just started to fondle Kikyou, who stood motionlessly in front of him, when Naraku stabbed the man through the base of the neck, severing his spinal cord and larynx at the same time, effectively paralyzing and muting him. Naraku had an experienced surgeon's knowledge of the locations of blood vessels and nerve clusters. He performed the stab in such a way that it would cripple the man, but not kill him. It also kept bleeding to a minimum so that he could disguise the wound later in order to make it look like he had simply been stabbed brutally, not crippled for interrogation.

Naraku soon had all of the answers he needed out of the man. He had threatened to make him wait the full three and a half hours it would take to die of that extremely painful wound if he refused to answer, or he could give the answers quickly and die relatively painlessly. The man claimed, in the harsh rasp that remained without his vocal cords, that he had followed Kikyou in order to kidnap, rape, and murder her because she was a foreigner and not a part of the super-race that the Germans were trying to create. Naraku laughed at this, explaining to the man that his own dark hair excluded him from the super-race too. As that fact sank in, Naraku thanked him for his answers and very calmly stabbed him through the heart. After the man had ceased breathing, Naraku set about placing very brutal, but calculated stab wounds all over the man's body to disguise the true nature of his death.

Through all of this, Kikyou had stood quietly and stolidly just behind Naraku, not even flinching when the man had revealed what he had intended to do with her. She continued to stand by like a statue while Naraku brutalized the body. When he had finished he stood and brushed himself off, and finally addressed her.

"Your work here is finished. We'll return now for a debriefing."

And she shivered violently.