THERE WAS A SHIP
Scribe Figaro

Chapter Six
The Very Deep
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

I.

I will admit that there are emotions and feelings that I do not understand. My knowledge of human interaction is limited to those things which assist me in exploiting them. There are some minor things I do not give much concern about.

Take, for example, betrayal. In essence, it is the act of deciding one's needs are more important than the needs of another person. Only a human would decide such a concept was worth verbalizing. It is only natural to serve oneself. Why give it a name?

I suppose, there is the important aspect of deceit in betrayal. That one may weave his way into another, allow that person to lower her defenses, and then exploit this new weakness. But for this to happen, one must trust the betrayer.

This also confuses me. Trust. What benefit is there in that? How much easier does one's day-to-day life become by allowing a select group of people the opportunity to destroy oneself? To allow others access to your core, your mind? This is idiocy. Even as I watched the interaction between Inuyasha and Kikyou develop, I found it difficult to believe. It was laughable. For no apparent reason, they opened themselves to each other. Trusted each other. Kept in close contact, without their weapons, such that one could easily kill the other.

I suspect there is some sickness, some disease, that infests humans, and hanyou as well. An addiction. Like the need for drug or alcohol, they need to place themselves in defenseless situations.

This is perhaps an artifact of their reproduction. Men and women are vulnerable then, sometimes for an extended period of time. It is unfortunate for them, that their bodies are made in such a way that it requires such a long sexual encounter. Doubly unfortunate that the human requires nearly a year to grow, and does so in the woman's belly, so that she is an ineffective fighter over much of that time. Triply unfortunate that, once born, the new human will not be an effective fighter for a decade or more.

In any case, it is clear that, so far as social interaction is concerned, from the point of first meeting to the point of coitus, the human is a very inefficient and vulnerable thing.

I feel no need to emulate humans to this level. I will take their appearance, to some extent, but certainly not their habits. I have no weaknesses, and if I did, I would feel no need to expose them to my allies. After all, all allies are temporary.

I do not kill those who betray me, because I have never trusted a person to do any more than serve his own instincts. If a person is useful to me, I keep him alive. If a person's best interests begin to deviate from my own, he is useless, and I kill him. Betrayal is irrelevant. I would be an imbecile if I was hurt, hurt to the point of losing my reason, because a person did something obvious and predictable, like harboring murderous intent toward me, or intending to seek out my heart and kill me.

So, Kohaku, do not fear for your life just yet. I will kill you, of course, when you have served your usefulness to me. But your intent to deceive me is not relevant to this. Your closeness to me is only in your mind, Kohaku. You have no better chance of finding out my secrets and weaknesses than Inuyasha or his companions.

Keep doing as you are, Kohaku, and you will very possibly live out the rest of your natural life. Or far beyond. I will of course kill you to take the jewel shard back, when I need it, but if you have been good at that point, I should need only minimal effort to resurrect you.

Still, you have taken back quite a lot of your own memory. I am careful in taking your memories, as the deep-rooted ones are quite necessary for me to exploit your taiji-ya skills. But, most unfortunately, your memories of your family and childhood are scattered amongst these things. Like weeds, these tiny bits of root tend to sprout. It has been three months since I last touched your brow, Kohaku, and washed you of such dirty things. And yet, already you recall your sister.

I know that, so long as she is out there, you will have a split loyalty. This does not bother me very much, in that you have yet to do anything unexpected, but I am aware you are becoming less and less reliable. This is not good.

If I were human, I suppose I would kill you right now. Or should have killed you already. But I am not human, and I do not care about betrayal, and you, Kohaku, are still useful to me. I gave you some choices when I pulled you back from hell. Here is one more. Continue to live this way, guarding your memories from me like little hatchlings, as if I could not see them poke their beaks between your interlaced fingers, and I will continue to use you, and at some point I will kill Sango and I will kill you. Or, cease this charade, continue to serve me, and I will take the one thing that continually distracts you, and give it to you.

Two taiji-ya, fighting together, would be far better than just one. You may again fight along side her, and in the times I do not need you, you may do whatever things brothers and sisters do.

II.

To hurt someone, to very and truly hurt someone, you must love first. You must appreciate a person, understand the person, trust the person, if that is possible.

Then you must destroy the person, while loving her.

I do not care much for Inuyasha or Kagome. He is loud and brash; she is simple and stupid in her own ways. They arise nothing in me.

But I cannot dismiss the huntress, the only of my enemies who ever surprised me, even if it was only once, the only human I ever found worthy of my attentions. She too came from hell, spent her time discarded and buried, and came back, crawling to me, stinking of dirt and death, for like this Naraku, she was not something to be easily killed.

I tested her, and I disappointed that she betrayed him for Inuyasha, even though this Naraku knew her already, and knew what she would do. But this Naraku loved her then, loved her in the only way a youkai can love a woman, and I made her a puppet, to dance for her and to horrify her, and Sango cursed Narkau's name, and refused to trade her honor for her brother, and tortured herself, and this Naraku loved her for it.

III.

He is amber, and he belongs to the river, but you are coral, and you belong to the sea. I will wear you down like the ocean, shape you and smooth you, until there is nothing left of what you were before. Still you will be hard, and heavy, and well-marbled in color, but with no sharp edges, I should be able to keep you in my pocket, and not worry about you insolently snagging a thread.

IV.

Why do you do this?

Because I can.

That's not an answer. That's a child's answer.

Then because I want to.

Do you always do the things you want to do?

Eventually.

V.

You brother had a choice. He had many choices. I gave him the shard, held in him the place between life and death, and asked him. He chose life. I asked him if he would rather have the hell of his own guilt and memory, or let me take such awful things from him. He chose to drown in nepenthe, and thus was reborn. My child. Not yours. And now he was alone. Frightened. And I gave him one last choice. I told him he was free, to go out into this deadly world, to seek his own food and shelter, his own allies, his own enemies. And he fell before me, forehead to my feet, and begged me. Begged me to keep him. Pledged me his loyalty, a thing I never asked. Swore to kill and die on my whim. And he meant it.

He has proved more useful than I could have ever imagined. And I know you surpass his skill. I will be honest, Sango. I want you. I want you to come to me.

VI.

A thread dangled before him, thin and tattered but with some strength in it, and he threaded it between the others.

Naraku wove, and Naraku wondered what worried men more: the illusion of choice, or the fear that there was no one out there, no Naraku, to make sure things happened as they were supposed to happen.

Naraku was kind. Naraku gave her the choice of paths. And Naraku made sure all paths led her safely to the place she needed to be.

All things served this Naraku, and all things of any import came to him eventually.