PRIDE
For a patchwork being, made up of the strung together parts of various youkai, spit out into a jar covered in slime with a scorch mark marring her spine, Kagura is…
Confident is the kindest word. She knows that humans have silly notions like modesty and being humble―it's what their women strive for. Timid and bashful as they hide their smiles into a sleeve, speaking softly and averting their eyes whenever there's a man near. The "lucky" ones, those rich enough to afford it, weigh themselves down with heavy robes and hair to the floor, paint on their faces to hide their blemishes.
Despite the circumstances of her birth, her very existence, Kagura declines the pretense of such self-deprecation.
She paints her lips and her eyelids, red as vibrant as the blood she spills, and strings jade beads through her earlobes, the perfect shade to contrast with her crimson eyes. Her robes―stolen, all of them―are made of silk, the stripes along her sleeves always a deep shade of maroon or violet, only the most expensive, perfectly breathable and loose enough to allow her to dance. She does not adorn her feet, sandals and socks are too restricting, she prefers feeling the earth beneath her toes.
Her dance brings death, but when she moves she cannot help the grin that overtakes her rouge stained lips, the inherent glee in movement and the fear in the eyes of her victims, but it doesn't take long for her to realize it isn't just terror that widens their eyes… there is awe there, too.
She swims in that feeling, the heat that travels from the tips of her fingers and straight to her head.
Corpses dance to her tune, oh so prettily, her wind courses through them and tugs them like puppets on strings, and there are times where even she is lost to the feeling, the elation, the pure joy of the dance. Murder is what she was made for, but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy herself as she brings down a bloodbath.
Once Naraku is dead there's less and less incentive for her to go to battle, fewer enemies and lower stakes, so she falls back. It becomes a rare thing for her to open her fan for bloodshed.
In fact, it becomes so uncommon that she's almost surprised when Kohaku asks for her help, saying something about his little village coming under threat from some youkai. She doesn't understand why he bothers when Inuyasha's lot are strong enough to handle any problem on their own, but once she agrees to go she sees why they're calling in favors.
A horde of Hihi, monstrous apes, laughing so maliciously it sets a chill to her bones before they've even crested the hills that border the village. It would be an army, if the monkeys had the capacity to work together, instead they are nothing but a swarm of chaos, laying waste to whatever is in their path, whether that be a tree or a castle or each other. As many as their are, she understands why she's been called, as stupid as they are, they're strong and unpredictable, a tough opponent to beat.
Inuyasha is the first into the fray, his wife on his back, followed by the slayer and Kohaku. Sesshoumaru is somewhere in the village, uninterested in defending any human besides the girl tucked away in a hut somewhere.
Kagura watches them with nostalgia, remembering when she was on the receiving end of those attacks. They've grown, gotten stronger, but an army of monkeys is still a difficult order and it isn't until she hears Kohaku's scream that she decides to throw herself into the fray. The monkeys are too busy reigning destruction on anything and anyone in their path to notice her in the sky.
As she raises her fan, she catches sight of a spectator from the corner of her eye, and with a grin she brings the wind down on their heads.
It's chaos, blood spews into the sky as the apes are rent limb from limb, their laughter turning from that cringe inducing high pitched giggling to screeches of terror that are nearly as ear splitting. Kagura hardly hears it, suddenly taken by the dance of death. The wind flows, and soon enough there is little left of the apes, viscera and gore splattering the ground, turning the dirt to a deep dark red mud. The screeches have stopped, replaced only by the gentle drip drip drip of blood falling from splintered timbers.
It's exhilarating.
Kagura closes her fan and turns around. Kohaku and his little friends are quiet, lips sealed tight and hands fisted at their sides. Nostalgic, but for them she thinks its a sickening sense of deja vu; she wants to laugh, infected by her own power, adrenaline thumping in her chest. A chuckle bubbles up her throat and the boy flinches. But their spectator, the man behind him…
Sesshoumaru's eyes are alight with the same feeling coursing through her veins.
Kagura throws her head back and laughs, proud of the terror she's wrought.