Did you survive the week? Too bad...
Just Kidding! I survived it too, despite the best efforts of my lazy, loafer coworkers. That is to say the old Dpt manager that is my direct supervisor and always leaves her freight for me to do without asking, hasn't won yet. I'm not doing it because she's resetting the purse mods. Granted I am doing the rest... but that's only because I overhauled the whole area single handedly. That's right, I did it, all by myself!
Of course that was a few weeks ago. This last weekend I got asked to zone up the clearance racks that hadn't been zoned in about two years (massive exaggeration I suppose, but that's what the mess felt like.) And because I worked the clearance in a department that wasn't mine, my department was neglected and the associate who's supposed to work in that department didnt' touch it the entire time I was there. Gah! I hate loafers. People who consistently fail to complete the tasks that make up their job description should find employment elsewhere. It's breach of contract! But I work at wal-mart, where the stupid people reign over all... oh well.
Mucho bonus after the start of the fiscal year. buff bonus. healthy bonus. chant it with me...
It' funny that my reviewers have taken to getting bored with my set up chapters. Granted, setup chapters are never particularly awesome, but in the past mine seemed to have been received rather well. I suppose they'll finally be happy with this chapter... STUFF HAPPENS!!! seriuosly.
I guess in the way that some of my chapters are better received than others is also like the anime and mange as some of the episodes are better and more well liked than others. It's just like memory, some things just stand out more than others. Such as the first time Inuyasha turns human. you remember that MORE than the third or forth time miroku gropes Sango. They blend together and become background. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS! heheh.
Oh, on a side note, I'm typing up another fanfic I've got mostly written. If I ever manage to finish it, I'll post it. It's quite different from this and Insecurities Between Us, mainly becuase I'm trying to pull away from the cannon universe as I progress. Though technically this new fic is still within the parameters of Rumiko Takahashi's story, sort of. Fanfiction is sort of my starting point for building confidence. Who knows, maybe someday I'll write something original I can publish and sell. Would be nice, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
The Game of War
Adversity is the food of life. Without it, we are never forced to change and therefore we never grow. Being stuck in stasis isn't truly living, which is why we tend to be so unsatisfied with out lives and ourselves when we are stuck in a rut.
Then again, life or death altercations are only good if we survive them, thereby making somebody else the loser and very dead. So it is best to limit the occurrence of such altercations.
Something Aki was very aware of, even if everybody else present had no idea what she was talking about.
"What!" Two voices demanded her to explain.
Aki sighed. "The mole youkai were ordered to catch me for Naraku. Did nobody else realize that he would return to either collect his prize or mete out his punishment? He couldn't come yesterday because of the storm, but the weather is fine today and all of his targets are exposed and vulnerable. He comes."
"Call them in," Fred nodded. "Fine, but be as expedient about it as possible. They went in different directions, send a messenger to each."
"Ayame stays here," Aki stated flatly. "Kagome and Sango too, Sesshoumaru and I are faster."
"And you'd both be able to find them quicker," the ghost nodded. "I'll find Kikyou. She has a piece of your soul so I should be able to find her pretty quickly. If not, she's dead and a miko, she'll be fine."
"I'll go for the kids," Aki answered firmly. "Sesshoumaru can go after the boys. It'll give him an excuse to beat them a little if he gets to break up the fight."
A spark lit in the taiyoukai's eyes at the mere thought of it. Aki was giving him a gift and he got to beat on the disrespectful wolf. He liked this plan, except the part where Aki had to go outside to do it.
Sesshoumaru grabbed Aki's arm before she stepped through the door and handed her his Tenseiga.
Aki blinked at the feel of the sword, before a slow grin crossed her face. "Give me something I can't cut myself with did you?" she teased him before turning serious. "I'm erecting a barrier over the door when we leave. Nothing evil will be able to cross it, no mutated false Naraku or heartless detachment will get through. Once our people enter, they'll not be able to leave until the barrier drops again, got it? No second chances, let's go!"
"Do not run, " Sesshoumaru murmured in her ear. "Naraku has eyes everywhere, do not alert him to your knowledge of his imminent arrival."
"I know," Aki muttered. "Now shut up and go beat up the boys." She rolled her eyes discretely. He did realize that giving her a sword of any kind pretty much gave the game away, right? One does not arm oneself to go pick up the kids from a play date, but it was highly unlikely he would take the weapon back.
Sesshoumaru nodded without a change in his expression. He was pretty sure Aki would be making sarcastic comments about this whole situation once everyone was safe.
The inu youkai paused as a thought occurred to him. If Naraku was watching, Sesshoumaru himself may have given the evil hanyou the biggest clue that they were expecting him. Aki never went armed for anything, and males seldom offer weapons to their females unless there would be call to use them. And there was no real way to hide the naked blade of something longer than her arm.
He was an idiot, but at the same time, there was no way he would send her off to possibly face a very dangerous agent of the vile creature that seemed to always be out to get everybody. He just knew Aki was going to tease the hell out of him later for handing her Tenseiga and then instructing her how to keep from tipping off the enemy. He really needed to think more and try to stall Aki less. He could only hoe that when Aki's wit descended upon him no one else would be present to hear it, but his chances were terribly slim.
Now where had his moron of a brother and the wretched cur of a wolf prince gone? It was a bit strange that he hadn't already found them, or at the very least heard the ruckus the two created wherever they went. He should be hearing Inuyasha's cursing by now, whether in pain or frustration. There would be the hollered encouragement from the uninvolved bystanders, and the unmistakable sound of the scenery being demolished as bodies and attacks were thrown about in a haphazard manner.
He didn't see the appeal of such idiotic fighting, neither bastard learned anything from it, as was the usual purpose of sparring, and nothing could be gained from it as the girl being fought over was quite clear in her preferences and thoughts concerning the constant fighting over her.
"What the hell kind of a move was that? That's got to be illegal!" Inuyasha's gruff voice broke the silence of the whitened trees.
"Are you trying to call me a cheater?" a voice Sesshoumaru recognized as the wolf prince's demanded.
"Well if the title fits…" Inuyasha growled.
"You just say that again, dog turd!" Kouga growled back. A curious sound floated to the inu youkai's ears, it reminded him of the sound Aki's book made when she flicked quickly through the pages, but slightly harder.
"I challenge that move," Inuyasha declared with a threatening crack of his knuckles.
"Now that's got to be illegal," Kouga growled.
Sesshoumaru was absolutely floored when the group came into view and the two morons weren't facing off across a space of ten feet. Instead they were huddled close together and hunched over some object or other intently.
"Whose idea was this crap anyway?" Inuyasha growled in frustration.
"Not mine, I'd be just as happy beating you into the ground," Kouga growled in return.
Inuyasha's retort was cut off by the jangle of metal rings as the monk's staff knocked them both on the head. "Gentlemen, you both agreed to this as an alternative to the fight Kagome made you promise not to have," Miroku declared mildly. "Threats made over the game were declared against the rules before the game started."
"Dog turd's just upset because he's losing," Kouga smirked without looking up from the cards.
"Shut up, wimpy wolf! You have to be cheating, I've played this game before and you haven't," Inuyasha growled.
"The only reason you're losing is because you didn't listen to Kagome-sama the last three times she tried to teach it to you," the monk sighed in annoyance, paused and hit Inuyasha for the hell of it.
"Yeah, Kouga wouldn't cheat," Ginta declared.
"He doesn't know how," Hakkaku said to the side.
"What was that?" Kouga chanced a glare at his comrade.
"Hah! I got that one!" Inuyasha grinned in triumph.
"What? No way!" Kouga yelled in disbelief.
Sesshoumaru deliberately crunched the snow under foot behind the monk.
"Not right now, Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha grumbled.
Miroku glanced at the taiyoukai behind him and nodded in acknowledgement before pushing to his feet. "They are playing one of Kagome-sama's games," he informed the inu youkai. "She calls it 'War' though there is not much in the way of combative movement."
"Hah, I won that one!" Inuyasha bragged loudly.
"No, you didn't, moron!" Kouga growled and held up the card Inuyasha thought he'd beaten. "This is the high card stupid!"
"No way, this one has more pictures on it, that one only has that little one in the middle," Inuyasha protested.
"Inuyasha," Miroku gave a long-suffering sigh. "The ace is the highest card in the deck." It was obvious the monk had said this more than once.
"That doesn't make any sense!" Inuyasha growled.
Sesshoumaru doubted the hanyou actually knew anything about sense. Speaking of hanyou. "The game will have to be moved indoors," he stated calmly. Nothing in his tone or his words giving away the seriousness of the situation… Well besides how serious he normally sounds.
"Has Aki-nee-san sensed another storm coming?" Hakkaku asked, allowing his attention to slide towards the more interesting conversation.
If Sesshoumaru were prone to telling lies in order to smooth his path, he just might have seized upon the suggested excuse provided by the wolf brother. But that was not his way. "She has sensed, or rather predicted the coming of a different kind of danger," he replied.
Miroku sighed and broke into the game between hanyou and Ookami. "The game shall have to wait, trouble is brewing and we need a plan," he declared after being sure to gather all of Kagome's cards.
"What are you talking about?" Inuyasha demanded.
"I suspect the threat Aki has sensed has something to do with why the mole youkai attacked her," the monk answered. Sesshoumaru glanced at the purple clad human in surprise. Apparently he would have to raise his opinion of the man's intelligence.
"Huh?" the hanyou remained in the dark. The taiyoukai's estimation of Inuyasha's intelligence was dead on though.
"The mole's were forced – by Naraku – to capture Aki," Miroku explained as patiently as he could force himself to be. "The situation indicates that the driving force behind the moles behavior – Naraku – would return to claim his supposedly captured Aki."
"Naraku!" Kouga growled. "Where is he? Let me at him!"
"Stay out of my damn way!" Inuyasha growled. "Naraku is mine, you can have our left overs!"
Miroku brought his staff down on both their heads swiftly and with more force than he had used before. "Naraku is not an enemy to be taken lightly," he raised his voice a notch, perhaps increased volume would stimulate the thought in their two heads. "We need a plan."
"The human is right," Ginta pleaded with Kouga.
"Every time we go after him without a plan, something bad happens," Hakkaku added.
"We need to gather with everyone in order to use our resources to full advantage," Miroku concluded and turned to head back to the spring heated shelter that was now home base.
Kouga attempted to leave them all in the dust, tired of their more sedate pace and found himself on the ground nursing a bump on his head. The wolf prince turned and glared at the most likely culprit, Inuyasha.
But dog boy wasn't looking at him; in fact practically everybody was staring at the taiyoukai in disbelief. Sesshoumaru flexed his hand and allowed a smirk of satisfaction to cross his face as his joints popped audibly with the movement. "Do not run," the taiyoukai said calmly. "Naraku may not be aware that we know of his approach. You and the whelp may argue or even exchange blows, but give no hint as to the urgency you feel in the situation."
"How could he not know we're expecting him?" Inuyasha demanded. "He knows we're here."
Sesshoumaru gave the hanyou a flat look.
"You mean Naraku may not even know we are here?" Miroku asked for clarification.
"Naraku's main spy willfully denies him the ability to see Aki and most anything she does," Sesshoumaru answered. Kanna was a wonderful ally to have.
"So he very likely cannot see that we are here by our being near her," Miroku observed. "This could work to our advantage."
"Only if the stupid bugs haven't already told Naraku," Inuyasha scoffed.
"Have you seen any of the Saimyoushi?" Miroku asked patiently. "They are not exactly silent."
Inuyasha's ear twitched at the implication. "We might of missed them," he tried to defend his assertion, but his heart wasn't in it. To say they didn't detect them was like admitting he was fallible. It was exceedingly difficult to do that.
"Besides, what makes you so certain the insects are not the ones Aki made friends with," Miroku pointed out as they entered the warmth of home base.
"Because the Saimyoushi don't have the brain capacity to support the concept of friendship," Kagura cut in. "Why are you discussing them?"
Upon spying Kagura and most of the kids inside, Sesshoumaru went ahead and stepped through the barrier, as their presence suggested Aki's errand had been successfully completed.
"Inuyasha believes they may have been sent to spy on us," Miroku answered.
"Wouldn't do him any good," Kagura said with a flick of her fan. "The little bugs won't come this far north, it's too cold for them. He either has to get Kanna to spy for him or one of his other creations, but Kanna is the most effective and usually the most reliable."
"She's the one Aki made friends with," Inuyasha declared needlessly.
"Well, duh!" Kagome rolled her eyes. "Kagura just got done telling us Aki is beyond the eyes of Naraku. What did you think that meant? That Aki was a bee-charmer?"
"Miroku did," Inuyasha informed her.
"I don't think even Aki could manage to turn all of the hell's insects against Naraku," Sango looked at the monk, pondering his stupidity.
Miroku flushed in embarrassment as a few more incredulous stares landed on him.
Azusa tugged at Kagura's kimono sleeve to gain the detachment's attention. "What's taking Aki so long? The bad man's gonna come with her still out there."
"Aki," Sesshoumaru lowered a glare at the rest of the room full of people, "is not here." He made it a statement as the reality of the situation hit him hard.
Aki was still outside, still exposed to the machinations of Naraku and he was not free to aid her.
Kagura nodded, "the kids were playing hide-and-seek, when Aki showed up."
"Only Youta was still hiding," Azusa interrupted. "I'd already found everybody else."
"Youta's a good hider," Rin nodded, "Better even than Jaken-sama."
"When Aki explained why she wanted everybody back inside," Kagura continued, tapping Rin and Azusa gently on the head with her fan for interrupting, "Yumi took off after her brother."
"And Mr. Moley went after her," Shippou added, adopting Fred's name for the grumpy adult.
"Shh, Shippou," Kagome shushed him.
"Aki told us to go ahead without her because she was going to find them and bring them home," Azusa finished and practically dared Kagura to touch her again with a glare.
"Keh!" Inuyasha scoffed. "So let's just go get them!" the hanyou marched past the taiyoukai to the door, ran smack into Aki's barrier and fell on his ass.
"We cannot leave again until Aki drops her barrier," Sesshoumaru informed him.
"That's kind of stupid," Inuyasha growled. "Who makes a barrier that only lets people in?"
"Osuwari!" Kagome yelled before Sesshoumaru could punish his younger sibling for his comment.
"The barrier does not allow just anyone to walk through," Sesshoumaru growled. "Naraku could not enter, nor would most of his latest creationshave the ability either."
"Such a selective barrier," Miroku admired the energies he could sense. "Aki has grown in skill."
"If you have time to stop being impressed, you'd see Aki is heading this way," Sango pointed past Inuyasha to the snow-white world beyond.
"But where's Yumi?" Azusa demanded, seeing only the annoying Youta in Aki's arms. "And where's her dad?"
Just as Azusa finished speaking an object fell out of the sky and landed between Aki and the beckoning safety of the barrier covered doorway, forcing her to keep away from her destination or risk running into it.
And then it moved proving itself to be alive. More than alive it was lethal, as its movements to stand erect revealed the bodies of Yumi and her father at its feet.
Aki shoved Youta behind her and regarded her opponent warily.
It was long limbed and hunched over. Its body was lean and covered in fur so dark it sucked in the light and let none of it free. Its eyes studied her darkly, giving away no clue as to what it was thinking, but at the same time letting her know it could think. It stood taller than her by a couple feet from the bottoms of its clawed padded feet to the tufts of fur at his ears. The beast was all lithe menace and contained evil in one dark furry package; making the situation too much of a coincidence that the creature did not belong to Naraku.
But just to be absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, Aki asked a stupid question. "Why are you here?"
The beast merely smirked before lunging towards her so quickly she barely had time to push Youta out of the way with her fisted hand around Tenseiga. Her free hand came up to push the monster past them with his own momentum. The creature still managed to draw blood on her vulnerable shoulder and his deceptively soft looking fur bit into her hand, rupturing the skin.
Her opponent chuckled as he turned, the movement purposely slow to throw her off. "And with the drawing of blood you come under my power," the beast spoke with a deep voice that tickled the ear and caressed things lower and more liquid. "Oh beautiful desert, come a little bit closer."
Aki tightly fisted her injured hand, using the sharp increase of pain to combat the allure of the beast's voce. She gently guided Youta behind her as she slowly put her back to the doorway to safety. She eyed the creature watching her move to face off with him. "Youta," she whispered. "I want you to run for the door when I tell you to. Don't look back. Can you do that?"
The terrified mole youkai squeezed the hand holding the Tenseiga beside him, too afraid to speak.
"Come now pet," the best smirked some more. "No need to protect the nuisance. Taking a second desert is bad form."
"When I say go, you run," Aki flexed her injured hand, spreading her sharpened talons. She'd have to get close to the beast to distract him sufficiently. "Ready," her muscles bunched, ready to leap towards the beast. "Go!"
Youta darted towards home; so intent on making the door he barely noticed when he tripped over his sister's ankle. He kept running until just before he crossed the threshold and the overwhelming sound of screaming distracted him.
He felt safe enough to risk a look back towards the nightmare and Aki. What he saw and heard sucked the strength out of his knees and he fell with his back pressed against the outside of the doorframe.
Aki had rushed toward the beast determined to garner his full attention. She brought the Tenseiga up to block the beast's reaching arm and driven her claws into the flesh of his chest under the fur before darting out of reach.
"Little desert should not harm its diner," the creature growled with pain. "Too bad the diner's blood is poison to the desert."
Aki shook her bleeding hand of the excess fluid she had collected from wounding the beast. Then she purified was remained on her claws with a burst of miko power. "I think I'll live," she declared and shoved some loose hair behind her ear. "I'm not sure I can say the same for you."
"Such nonsense little pet," the beast chuckled, the sound petting nerve endings a voice should never be able to touch. He opened his mouth, as if to continue speaking and a panicked look crept over his face. The beast screamed in disbelief, denial, and pain, tearing apart whatever nerve had previously been touched.
It was this sound that had caught Youta's attention. The sight that followed left him with nightmares to torment him for looking back.
Truly the child was spared a more horrific sight because the beast's fur was so thick and dark. Youta couldn't see the blood when it started seeping through the creature's skin, couldn't tell those dark eyes were leaking something other than tears.
What he did see was the beast writhing and screaming in pain. He saw the snow on the ground turn red as Aki looked on without a visible change in her expression. And Youta saw when the furry body stopped moving and lay still in the churned, stained snow.
"Sadly it appears your dinner is poisonous too," Aki sighed as she stepped closer to check the best for life.
Before Aki had a chance to stand another beast leapt out of the trees and into sight, headed straight for her. She looked up just before this one would have killed her. A bright missile cut through the air and forced the beast back and out of existence before its outstretched claws could do more than tear a single line from the tip of her chin, missing her throat, down to the top of her breast, staining her borrowed kimono and the snow at her feet with more blood.
"Ho?" Naraku's voice shattered the silence left in the wake of two beasts' death cries. "A miko protecting a cursed youkai, truly you have fallen far Kikyou. Not even Tsubaki went so low."
"It is impossible for a manipulative bastard to understand the full scope of what it is to be miko and what is required for evil," Kikyou declared darkly. She didn't like the vile hanyou anywhere near Aki with the way the woman tended to collect injuries left and right.
"Your toys are becoming quite boring," Aki cut in. "One would almost think you weren't even trying to win anymore."
"If they had succeeded in sucking your soul from your body," Naraku growled menacingly, "I would have won."
"Oh please," Aki scoffed. "You expected the fuzz ball twins to beat me? As if," she dismissed the idea with a toss of her head. "And here I thought you weren't stupid, apparently I gave you too much credit. Wherever you dumped your brain with the rest of your leavings, you'd best go retrieve it before you do something so moronic you piss me off." She was asking for it and she knew it, so it was no surprise when he stabbed at her with a branch-like tentacle.
Aki side stepped it and slammed her fist down on it, breaking a good portion off. It melted and began to sail through the air toward Naraku under the power of the Shikon no Kakera the evil hanyou had on his person, proving what Aki had known all along, that this was the real bastard she was dealing with.
The former English tutor whipped the blade of Tenseiga through the amorphous blob floating past her, cutting the semi-living mass before it could reconnect with any part of its host. Surprisingly, Sesshoumaru's inherited fang converted the pieces back into the lower youkai they had originally been before Naraku absorbed them. The newly freed youkai fled the area and the sense of miko and powerful youkai, their natural survival instincts kicking in.
"Well would you look at that," Aki held Naraku's gaze levelly. "Looks like your bait has gone missing. They certainly didn't run from you in the beginning did they?"
Naraku glared at her even as his mind connected the dots and concluded she had proved, if only to herself that his heart had been removed for it had been the evil filled heart of Onigumo that had birthed him. He was beginning to realize cutting his heart out of the equation might be more of a liability than a benefit.
"Truly Naraku," Kikyou observed evenly, drawing his attention. "You are exposing your weaknesses."
"He cannot hide them from me," Aki declared, not taking her eyes off the bastard hiding behind his barrier.
"You're one to talk," the hanyou snarled then stabbed out at Youta where he still huddled in shock and horror.
Aki barely made it in time to save the boy. Once she laid a hand on the branchy limb Naraku had attempted to kill the mole with she forced purifying energy in it, allowing the power to climb up the arm to where Naraku broke it off himself to prevent incurring serious damage to his person.
Kikyou released the arrow she had knocked back and sent it soaring into the space just vacated by the retreating hanyou. "Coward," the dead miko dismissed him and lowered her bow.
Aki rolled her eyes at the other woman's assessment and turned to check Youta over. The boy still hadn't gotten up. She worried that he might have hurt himself when he fell or perhaps gone into shock, though she was one to talk about injury.
"Are you all right Youta?" Aki asked as she leaned to touch him and check him over.
"Don't kill me!" the stunned boy snapped alive when he saw the female about to touch him with the same bloodied hand that had struck down the beast and tore a piece off the hanyou. "I don't want to die!" the boy started to shake in terror and Inuyasha, still stuck on the other side of Aki's sound permeable barrier started to curse the little brat out when he saw the look on Aki's face.
Aki's expression showed nothing of pain or even sadness, she only wore her smile, tired as it was. Slowly she backed away from Youta, ignoring Inuyasha's impossible threats and invectives that attempted to deafen anyone within range.
When she was even with the spot Yumi and her father lay, Aki turned on her heel and ran out of sight with no warning, dropping the unneeded Tenseiga as she left.
"You fucking brat! I'm going to pound you into the ground at your feet!" Inuyasha bellowed, pressing against the prickly energy holding him and everyone else inside. Suddenly the hanyou fell forward on his face and lay there a moment in surprise.
Inuyasha's surprise didn't last long before he leapt to his feet, intent on meting out some pain.
"Osuwari!" Kagome yelled before pushing past the red filled crater she'd created. "The problem is between Aki and Youta, leave it alone." The miko-in-training walked on until she reached the side of Yumi across from Kikyou.
"The boy could use some sense being pounded into him!" Jaken declared, ever ready to condemn the actions of others.
"Jaken," Sesshoumaru began sternly, "be silent." He strode to the ground that cradled his sword to collect the weapon. His eyes stared in the direction his intended had disappeared, knowing it would be fruitless to chase after her now.
"I suppose we shall have to bury them now," Miroku sighed sadly.
"Poor Yumi-chan," Sango murmured.
"They're not dead," Kagome announced with certainty. "They're still breathing." She turned back to Yumi, continuing to check the child over for injuries. "She just has a few scratches and bruises."
"The father too," Kagura reported.
"But they do not have their souls," Kikyou informed them. "They will not live long."
"Can't their souls be returned?" Kagome asked absently brushing Yumi's hair out of her face.
"If we could find them in time," Miroku shrugged.
Sango drew her sword and approached the still body of Aki's attacker, the one Aki had dispatched personally. "The beast spoke of eating Aki for desert, indicating he had already eaten a meal."
"Except there's nothing missing on Yumi and her father for him to have eaten,' Kagome shook her head.
"Except their souls," Kouga observed surprising everyone by not being too stupid to catch on.
Sango stabbed her blade into the corpse and cut open the torso purposely. "Lost souls found," she breathed upon glimpsing the glow inside.
"You think your snake thingies can bring them on home?" Fred asked the miko.
Kikyou glared at the ghost, "Why are you not with Aki?"
"She hasn't stopped moving yet, and I doubt she will for a long while," Fred sighed as Kikyou's shinidamachuu cradled the souls of the two mole youkai and deposited them in the proper bodies. "She hadn't really known how her family died, not the nitty-gritty details of it. She's probably going to take a while to absorb what she saw."
"Why would she have done this?" Sango wondered aloud as the children had a cheerful reunion with Yumi, a reunion that quickly dissolved into a scolding session for Youta.
"Perhaps she was testing it?" Miroku suggested pensively. "Do we know how Aki is supposed to find out when her curse will be gone?"
"No," Sesshoumaru answered shortly. Aki was likely reeling form more than the thought of her family writhing in pain. If she was testing the curse, then she was hoping it was gone. When the curse had claimed the facsimile of life Naraku was producing these days, that fragile hope was crushed.
The death of hope, this specific hope was going to wreak havoc with his near future if he didn't get the chance to fix it.