Author's note: I do not take responsibility for Inuyasha.
Chapter 11: Deceptions
Naraku smirked to himself. So she had taken the bait. He rolled the large fragment of the sacred jewel between his fingers. The little chipped marble illuminated the palm of his hand with a weak magenta nebulous light. It reflected in his crafty eyes.
Even though it was still dark outside, sunrise would not be far off. The stars shimmered off the surface of a nearby pond. The coy swam elegantly under the bridges and throughout the intricate garden. The gardens were so peaceful in the twilight hours. This castle was one of the finest he had inhabited. Naraku truly had to hand it to humans, their unbridled selfishness and greed provided the most extravagant living arrangements.
Kanna materialized at his side. Her pure white robes glowed in the gentle starlight. Her big black eyes stared through him and he turned his head to regard her. She offered up her mirror and he observed a familiar figure stepping through his barrier with little effort. His eyebrows hovered in intrigue. He focused his attention on the woman as she walked determinedly on into his castle. He dismissed Kanna. She slowly paced out, evaporating into a smoggy mist.
Naraku stayed comfortably sitting with one arm resting on his bent knee. He had his back to a wall of the castle and was viewing the garden from a porch of the castle. He looked up with mild interest as the priestess approached him. The moonlight streaked down her slim figure and veiled her in its warm embrace.
"Hello, Kikyo..." He scrutinized her with a smug grin. She returned his gesture with a crooked smile.
"Naraku," She addressed him, "what would it take for you to forget your futile quest and relinquish the jewel to me?"
"Don't tell me you've given up?" He toyed with her.
"Not at all," she answered cooly, "Perhaps you have more worthy pursuits."
"Ah, Kikyo, you would be the one to know all about that, though, now wouldn't you?" She did not react.
"You don't use the jewel and yet you desire it," she accused, "it is worthless under your influence."
"Worthless, you say?" He smiled up at her.
"You are not my equal and no wish the jewel can grant will make you as such."
"Perhaps you believe because of past history that your image here before me will have any leverage to make me weak, blind, and dumb. But you are sorely mistaken. Your presence here only proves your foolishness."
"Your arrogance proves yours." She spat back.
"I thought you would figure it out by now. You mean nothing to me." Naraku said in a calm voice. At that she had drawn her bow and aimed directly at him.
"So be it."
Kikyo let the quiver go and it plunged right through Naraku's left arm, near the shoulder. His arm exploded into a mass of squirming tentacles. Naraku slowly stood up, regarding the priestess. She redrew and aimed again, this time landing it in the collarbone of his right shoulder.
The look imbedded on Naraku's face was condescending boredom and even disgust. He turned to fully face her. He slowly approached her as another arrow lodged in his stomach. When he was standing directly next to her he grinned down into her confused mahogany eyes.
"You are not a thing like her." Naraku whispered. With that, tentacles shot out from every portion of Naraku's body, trying to spear the imposter. The priestess impersonator cried in Kikyo's voice as several tentacles hooked through various body parts. Naraku started pulling the tentacles so they would rip her body to pieces, but Kikyo's arm plunged into Naraku's chest and removed a glowing wad of flesh. The flesh dissolved off the radiant ball. The sacred jewel pulsed with a fiery light.
Naraku glared down at the being in his clutches. A horrid smile snaked across Kikyo's blood stained face.
"Thanks," said a male voice that resonated from Kikyo's lips. Then he pulled Kikyo's lips into a wide toothy smile that made Naraku cringe. A white pink light shot like a lightening bolt through the space between them. Naraku was thrown backward and relieved of his tentacles. His body broke some pillars on the porch. He slumped down in the wreckage, topped with dust and debris. He opened one eye and spied. Kikyo's form picked up the jewel off the floor and walked briskly out.
Naraku lied there a few moments smirking to himself. After he thought Kikyo's figure was out of range, he got up and straightened his robes. It was some male demon who had impersonated the priestess. He would have sensed if Naraku had stirred anytime before then. Naraku knew the demon to be the same rumored to suck out spiritual powers. He did not fully expect him to wield such spiritual power, it was commanding like Kikyo's. In fact it was a lot like Kikyo's, but Naraku was no fool.
Naraku pondered what the demon would do now that he had given him the sacred jewel. Whatever he decided, it wouldn't end well for Inuyasha's friends. Kagome should lead them right to him. If the demon was always as careless as he had been with Naraku, Inuyasha and his friends were sure to find him. Naraku laughed to himself. It would be a real show.
Kikyo should be preoccupied too. Naraku's earlier delight had been interrupted by his visitor, but before then, he had felt his puppet die. Kikyo must have reached the watery sea bed. Perhaps Kikyo wasn't as adept as he perceived, if she was fooled by an altered demon puppet. How disappointing.
Kagura was playing with misconceptions too. Naraku sneered when Kanna showed him the image of Kagura smiling in the night's sky. She looked so happy. Kagura was so naive, so easy to control.
Naraku let the night's cool wind play with his lightly curled obsidian hair. The forest around the castle was peaceful. The coy curiously tasted some debris that had fallen in their pond. One sucked in a large wooden piece and started chocking it back out. It splashed the surface and struggled helplessly. Naraku looked on; the splashing stopped. He exited the castle wearing his baboon mask and cloak.
It was afternoon the next day when Naraku finally glimpsed the small cottage buried in the woods. Moss molded all over the rotting wooden exterior and the surrounding trees stabbed out at anything alive. Flat topped mushrooms were strewn over the ground near the entrance. The floor outside was soft, squishy, and sucked at his light foot steps.
Naraku didn't bother to announce his presence as he creaked the badly hinged door open. There the old witch was, stooped over a fresh bubbling cauldron. She exhaled loudly as she pushed herself off her haunches to a standing position. Her back was considerably curved down, making her hunch wherever she walked. She had a tight narrow face and a protruding chin. Her lips wore a discernable mustache. Her eyes were perhaps the only distinctly alive characteristic of her. They gleamed a swampy green and crinkled with the wisdom of great age. Her hands were a pale disarray of twig-like fingers with large incongruous joints. And her clothes were layers of old, dusty, moth-eaten, rags.
She grunted up at Naraku, but continued to stir her concoction. He stood in the doorway, a white untouchable statue in the midst of utter chaos. Her one room living quarter was a mess. Jars and boxes lined the walls with various inscriptions scribbled on. He didn't even know what he was standing on.
"Back so soon?" she scoffed in a husky voice.
"You have it ready, I trust..." his cold voice was calm and stealthy. She continued to stir the brew, adding strange smelly ingredients. After a minute she turned about and sauntered over to a cabinet and pulled out a twine-tied package. She eyed him with her disproportionate sockets and handed him the bundle. A smirk tainted his face, but that's all he revealed from beneath his baboon mask.
"Now give me the ingredient I need, the wind's wings." Out of Naraku's blanketing white cloak he relinquished a hand. The freed appendage offered a sing feather. It was white and fluffy. The old witch grinned slyly. Her skeleton fingers raked it out of his hand. The little trinket had popped out of Kagura's hair in one of his many castles after a brush with him. He jovially pondered to himself if after a frightening run-in with her master, Kagura would start molting. A sparkle lit up his sinister eyes.
The ancient woman was at her cauldron again. She dropped the feather into her mixture and it erupted with a poof. Purple steam frothed out. She mixed it, then hobbled back to face Naraku, and sat down in a squeaky rocking chair.
"It's as good as the original?" Naraku questioned.
"It's better than what you're wearin', ape shit," the hag coughed, "who do you think I am?" A truly awful grin snaked onto Naraku's lips. "I made the origin'l too, even you know that junior, don't you sass me."
"My apologies," he chuckled, "Hisa."
"Now go before my carpet eats ya.' I don' wanna have to pull monkey hair out of it for weeks." She waved her arm at him menacingly.
The grin never disappeared from his face as he took his time walking out the door and through the forest. What an amusing insolent old bat. If nothing else, he could use her again to bite Inuyasha's amateur head off. He smirked to himself. Life was too short to waste a good laugh.