Pet Spider
Summary: Inuyasha has the ultimate leash to control his tantrums, so why not collar Naraku, who has an even greater temper? What will the consequences be in subjugating such a volatile being? Kagome will find out soon enough. (Humor/romance/angst in that order. Lemon and Character death near end of story.)
Beginning is comedy ending gets more angsty, a mismatch of ideas thrown together just for the fun of it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. There is CHARACTER DEATH in this chapter.
Chapter 8
Naraku used her for several more hours before they returned to camp. Kagome still hadn't the faintest idea as to the web she just walked into, but she would soon find out. Neither had ever felt so satiated, but for Naraku, the fun was not over yet, in fact it was just beginning. Keeping his calm, he knew exactly what was about to happen, after all, the half-breed mutt was the most predictable creature he'd ever met.
"Kagome!" he barked, Naraku barely contained the mirth in his eyes. This would be much more satisfying that simply taking her life in private. "Where the hell have you two been for the last several hours?" His loud mouth succeeded in waking the rest of the camp who rose to see what was going on.
"W-we were," Kagome blushed nervously, trying to find a suitable explanation, "I mean, just-"
"Why do you smell like him, deeply?" Inuyasha voice lowered in octave, threat evident in the sound.
"You know what, Inuyasha," Kagome's anger gave her an added confidence boost, "its none of your business what we were doing."
"Of course it is you stupid wench," Inuyasha snapped, idiotically trying to tell her his suspicions about Naraku.
"SIT!" Kagome yelled in response to his insult, eyes squeezed shut in anger. Inuyasha visibly bristled, bracing his body for the impact, but nothing came; nothing, except for the bellowing laugh of Naraku. "What? What is going on?" Kagome looked back and forth between her hands and Inuyasha to try and figure it out. "Why didn't it work?"
That's when Miroku sensed it; Kagome had no powers. That could only mean one thing: Kagome had slept with Naraku. How foolish could she get? That was priestess 101, never give yourself to a demon. But Kagome wasn't from this era, and there were no demons in her time, so maybe that piece of knowledge was no longer common sense in her time. He had never thought to voice it to her in warning; damn, he was just as much to blame for his lack of forethought. Could this have been Naraku's plan all along, to bed Kagome and destroy her powers that bound him?
"Kagome," Sango ventured quieter, timidly hoping she was wrong but on the same conclusion as Miroku, "please tell me you didn't just have sex with Naraku."
Kagome blushed, but Naraku beat her to the response, "She did." He gripped her shoulders from behind. "You know what that means, Inuyasha." Naraku taunted, drawing all of their attention to his next move. He gripped his rosary and pulled, shattering the powerless trinket and causing beads to scatter everywhere. Kagome's eyes widened in shock.
"But how? I don't understand," she asked, still not registering him as a threat like the others were. He was the man she loved, he wouldn't hurt her; he had changed.
"I am surprised your companions failed to explain where your powers originate from," he taunted the girl, suddenly seeming taller and more foreboding than before. "The instant I tainted your body, you lost all semblance of your purity." She finally noticed that she couldn't even feel the jewel shards anymore; she really was powerless now.
Suddenly understanding that Kagome had no power, Inuyasha tentatively tried to remove his rosary too, but was zapped in response. "You lie Naraku," he snapped. "If Kagome has lost all of her powers, then why is my necklace still active?"
"Because you failed to bed the one responsible for placing the spell on it: Kikyo," Naraku taunted. "Pathetic really, that you couldn't even get a woman who claimed to love you."
By now, they had all picked up their weapons, preparing for the imminent battle, the overburdening demonic aura laced with feelings of malice and an intense desire to kill was proof enough that he was no ally. Kagome was the only one who didn't pick up a weapon, not that it would have done any good. She turned tear-filled eyes on her lover, "Naraku, I-I thought-"
"You thought wrong," Naraku interrupted. "Did you honestly think I would fall in love with the wench that imprisoned me to her side? That I would change everything I am after the torture you have put me through? I used your heart against you; I turned your strength into a weakness. I do have to say, you were a very pleasing rut, the perfect conclusion to an ingenious design. And now, with your failure to see through to my nature, you will be rewarded with watching each of your friends die."
(A/N: Warning: character death incoming!)
He snatched her up and enclosed them both in a barrier, flooding the area with miasma that quickly knocked out the humans. Sango hadn't had time to don her mask, not that it would have helped seeing as it dissolved flesh in an instant, and Miroku, even if he had erected a barrier, it would not have withstood. Kagome screamed out her agony at their deaths, crying in droves as she tried to spot the other three. The barrier glowed for a second as she saw Inuyasha try to break it without success. Walking over to where Naraku knew the fox to be hiding, he snatched him up with a tentacle and crushed his small body before handing him to Kagome. "A gift," he chuckled darkly as she tried to struggle out of his grasp.
"Inuyasha, Kirara," Kagome shouted, panicked that they would be next, "run away."
Kagome held Shippo's failing body in her arms as he whispered hoarsely, "Kagome, I'm scared."
"Its okay, Shippo. Everything will be okay," Naraku's evil laugh rang out again as Shippo slipped away into the afterlife, a look of terror on his face. Kagome just sobbed louder.
Inuyasha charged in again, this time riding Kirara but his attack did nothing besides reveal his location. Naraku grabbed them both, twisted tentacles held them still, Kirara meowing in pain to the left and Inuyasha trying not to scream out his own pain to the right. "Which one should die first, Kagome?"
"Stop it, Naraku," her struggles began anew. "Let them go."
"Not likely," he chuckled as he snapped the large cat's neck, letting her body fall limp to the ground. "One left," he needled as a claw-like spear extension from his body was stabbed through Inuyasha's gut, twisting its way through his flesh and approaching his heart.
"No, stop please," Kagome pleaded but the words had no effect on Naraku other than to drive him even more to kill the mutt.
"Goodbye, Inuyasha," Naraku taunted before ending his miserable life. He set down on the ground and let his miasma dissipate.
Kagome fell to her knees once he released her and bawled her eyes out over the bodies of her friends. "How could you?" she ground out.
"It was rather easy, actually," he placed his knee on her back, cracking a few ribs, forcing her down face-first in the bloodstained dirt. He knelt down to retrieve the nearly complete jewel from her pocket, already black from her own pain. Picking up Tessaiga, the sword that had defended her countless times, he let the point draw blood on her back. "This is your end." Plunging the sword through her lung, he left her there to bleed out slowly.
(A/N: End character death.)
It did not take him long to complete the jewel, seeing as the only shards left were Kohaku's and Kouga's, and once he did destruction rained on demon kind. He mercilessly destroyed all that opposed him, absorbing, slaughtering, and torturing his way across the land. His wish granted him a complete body, one that no longer required his to feed on lesser demons, or anything for that matter. He finally had silence in his own mind, as well as all around him. Too much silence. Wasn't this what he wanted? It had only taken a couple hundred years to reach this point, where demons were extinct or extremely skilled at hiding from him, none opposed him, we was practically worshipped wherever he went, and yet, something was missing. Unbidden, the girl's face came to mind: Kagome, accompanied by a strange sense of longing. For the first time in his life, Naraku felt regret, "Maybe I should have kept her alive…" This line of thought haunted him, only growing more demanding as the years passed. Slowly, a new plan began to form, and he had one chance to execute it.
Keeping watch over the shrine Kagome resided in, he waited patiently for his chance. The day it arrived, he was confident it would work, and yet, held the slightest bit of apprehension. This would be his ultimate scheme, aimed towards the most formidable of any opponent he had, or would, ever meet: himself. He would only have a short window of opportunity to plant the necessary ideas in his own mind to alter his past actions. Actions he had already performed, but that his past self, visiting the home of the Miko Kagome, had yet to commit.
He had planted a small spider in the house to act as a medium between himself and his past self. As the first night fell, the tiny arachnid approached his past, very skeptical self, "How progresses the plan to attain freedom." The spider perched on the wall beside Naraku spoke in a way only another of the same species could understand.
"What would you know of my plight?" he answered quietly, so as not to awaken Kagome. He could do nothing to the little creature anyways, not with the spell around his neck.
"More than you realize," the spider responded, then gestured towards the sleeping priestess on the other side of the room. "What do you intend to do once you kill her?"
Naraku was a little surprised how this mysterious spider knew of his plans, "This set-back is temporary, and once it is dealt with, I shall attain my desires."
"That is not what I asked," the spider interjected. "I have no doubt you could eliminate her, my question is what will you do once that is done? What are these desires you speak of?"
"You seem to have an inexplicable knowledge about me," Naraku pointed out, "therefore, I believe you already know that answer."
"I do," the spider acknowledged, "you will become complete, destroying all who would stand against you."
"Precisely," Naraku smirked, pleased with this mental image.
"And once that happens, you will fall into a depression," the spider posed this less than savory outcome. "You will be overcome with regret over the death of a single individual; suffer a longing to change your past, and be sustained for hundreds of years on the sole possibility of doing just that."
"What non-sense do you speak?" Naraku growled lowly.
"You will become lonely, having no purpose other than that which is transpiring this day, in this conversation we are now having," the tiny arachnid forewarned, giving away its identity.
"What you pose is impossible," Naraku tried to ignore the churning his gut was doing at this unexpected information.
"Is it really so impossible that you survive 500 years and choose to make life even more enjoyable for yourself?" the spider countered easily.
"If what you say is true, what would you have me do?" Naraku asked hypothetically. He could choose to heed this spider, which was apparently an extension of himself if it spoke the truth, or not at a later time.
"Keep the girl," the spider spoke plainly. "There are far more dynamic ways in purging the exasperating companions that follow her; ways that she could never deduce. And if she ever does become too much of a burden, her death could always come at a later time."
Even as Naraku spoke to his past self, his memories changed. He remembered that night, the night he was supposed to end them all. After returning to camp and stating the consequences of Kagome's actions, he shocked all of them by simply settling down in the grass near Kagome. He was undecided as to what to do next so he disappeared that night, putting himself into isolation to determine the truth of his future self's words and found them true. He did find it droll, boring, and begrudgingly lonely. Returning to her side had Kagome overjoyed. He would not let all of them live, however; there were more duplicitous ways of ridding himself of the useless additions. He set up scenarios that they couldn't possibly handle, making it seem as if their deaths were accidents or just the result of too strong an enemy, and eventually had all of them eliminated except Kagome, who he defended fiercely. He used black magic to make her life just as long as his and kept her forever by his side. Within a few hundred years, he had absorbed or destroyed all of the other demons in the lands that had not been smart enough to flee to another country. He reigned supreme, manipulating the time line itself to ensure he came out on top, and with a companion that would keep his mind from insanity for all eternity. Kagome belonged to him and she always would.
(A/N: Not anywhere near my best work and I'm not trying to pass it off as such. It was simply an exercise to keep me writing and ideas flowing despite a bout of writer's block. These were ideas I liked too much to discard, but not enough to put them in any of my main stories, so they got lumped into this conglomerate plot. Hope I managed to get at least a little laugh or other reactions out of my readers.)