The days that went by ceased to have any meaning for Kikyo. She was wholly trapped, confined to the quarters that Naraku had carved out for himself. Try as she might to escape, the heavy stone doors kept her shut in and no amount of spiritual power within her could move the rock between her and freedom. Not that she had any magic left. Naraku's strange, imported flower prevented her from turning into clay, but the lack of available souls and the lack of her soul collectors kept her in a weakened state. Any movement she made caused a wave of lethargy to sweep over her and her legs often felt like lead.
Naraku eventually found a way to funnel souls through the stolen meido stone for her, he allowed her just enough to keep her mobile, but not enough to spike her spiritual power.
As a game for his own amusement, Naraku gave Kikyo a daily opportunity to escape and would place fresh arrows out for her each morning. He encouraged her to try and fight her way out, safe in the knowledge that Kikyo would never be able to shoot and scratch her way through the legions of demons now crammed onto the island.
Kikyo, not ready to give up on getting back to Sesshomaru, always took the weapons and fought valiantly to try and reach the surface, but she never got as far as she did that first night. Every time, she was overwhelmed and hauled back to Naraku in a straight jacket of webs. "You can try and escape again and again until your soul is rotten with disappointed hope," Naraku would whisper in her ear softly.
At what Kikyo assumed was her second night, Naraku removed her priestess garb and replaced it with a sheer, semi-transparent robe in black that tied around the waist. Kikyo had covered herself in furs to protect what little modesty she had left after Naraku's first attack. "You are no longer a priestess, this gown is more fitting for you now. I want you to put this on," Naraku told her, holding the gown out for her to see.
Kikyo refused to even contemplate wearing such a disgusting robe picked out for her by Naraku. He was trying to take everything from her, little by little. Creating a perfect hell for her to exist in that seemed to never end.
Kikyo refused to look at Naraku. "I won't!" she cried at first, hugging the furs tightly around her chest. She would not give him the satisfaction of wearing his revolting half robe.
"Either you can wear this garment, or you can walk around naked. I assure you I'll be pleased with whatever choice you make," Naraku said silkily, dressed in his own thin jet hakama pants and loose haori.
Screaming inside and hating the demon before her with every fibre of her being, Kikyo snatched the robe out of his hand and placed the thin fabric around her shoulders, Naraku watched every move she made with a satisfied and lustful gleam in his red eyes.
The days were filled with overexerted efforts to escape. But the nights… the nights were far worse. Naraku would drag her into his bed, running his hands all over her. At these desperate times, Kikyo would close her eyes and ears, shutting down her very skin.
Naraku would pin her down with his body, trying to force her to remain in the present. "Remember what I told you once? I told you I would break you."
Slowly and unconsciously, a spell of Kikyo's own making began to form…The only way to escape her torment. Kikyo dreamed of being elsewhere, delving deep and deeper into the recesses of her mind. Until her consciousness began to detach itself from her body for long periods. She felt her soul slowly sinking until she was drowning in an ocean of unreality that she could not always wake up from.
Kikyo dreamed and her dreams became her new reality…
Kikyo sat in a meadow thick with long grass and flowers. The sun shone down with a glaring brightness, the wind was light, gently lifting the ends of her hair.
Kaede sat beside her, but not the Kaede of old. She was a young girl again, with lank brown hair tucked behind her ears and no eye patch.
They sat crossed legged in the sun, idly picking flowers and enjoying the warmth on their heads and backs. Looking up at the blue, cloudless sky, Kikyo lay back and sighed, content in her love for the outdoors.
"It's beautiful here," Kikyo told her Kaede, "this is probably my most favourite place in the whole village."
Kaede gave a sweet, child-like smile. She was half covered by the grass. "Mine too, my life was almost perfect, living here."
Kikyo ignored the odd phrasing of her sister's response. She leaned over and brushed her sister's hair out of her eyes fondly. "I love you so much Kaede," kikyo said with a quiet voice full of warmth, her dark eyes twinkling.
"I know Kikyo, I loved you as well," Kaede replied.
Kikyo sighed and settled back down into the grass, letting the earthy smell of her perfect meadow surround her and fill her nose. "I want to stay here all day with you."
Kaede smiled brightly, rolling a tuft of grass between her fingers. "OK. What shall we do?"
They decided to make some daisy chains. It was fiddly work, requiring focus. They spent the sunny afternoon making necklace after necklace, laughing and joking in the sun's heat. Kikyo adorned her sister's narrow shoulders in flowers until Kaede began to sneeze from the pollen.
Kikyo laughed as Kaede wiped her nose ruefully. "It's been so long since we were last together like this," Kikyo said, smiling.
Kaede grinned back at her. "Not since I was a girl!"
Kikyo frowned, confused. Her sister was young and carefree right now, right in front of her… ...But that couldn't be right, wasn't her sister dead?
In the corner of her eye, Kikyo could see a dark storm cloud brewing in a sky that had moments before been bright and blue. The storm writhed like a twister, it was edging their way.
Kikyo gazed at the surging storm with worry. "Maybe we should go inside now, that dark cloud looks like it's coming closer," Kikyo said. A violent flash of lightning stabbed through the ominous clouds.
Kaede gave her sister a strange look. "You'll have to face it soon," Kaede warned. Before Kikyo's eyes, Kaede morphed into the old woman she had later become. Her eyelids sagging, her hair thinning and turning grey as Kaede's brow wrinkled.
Frightened, Kikyo got to her feet and backed up, she ran towards the edge of the storm, aiming to reach her old cruck house down in the valley beyond the now wildly whipping meadow. The storm encroached on her, flinging her hair into her eyes and covering her in a chill, biting air. The wind was so savage it tore her from the earth and lifted her, screaming, into the sky….
Kikyo awoke still screaming. She was back, stuck in Naraku's room of misery. The furs on the bed had tangled in her legs. Naraku was above Kikyo, shaking her slim shoulders roughly. Her limbs felt stiff, like she had been asleep for hours and hours. Naraku contemplated her with a dark anger.
"Wake up, Kikyo. You cannot escape me by sleeping," he hissed at her. He looked angry, but there was something alight in his eyes, a manic glee that was scratching through to the surface.
Kikyo fought against his grip, disorientated. "Let me go!" she raged. Her courage and determination to survive her ordeal were hanging by a thread. A small light of hope remained, the hope that Sesshomaru would save her. The longer it took, the longer she was dropping consciousness and remaining locked in her dreams. The only respite she had.
Naraku grabbed Kikyo's face with punishing fingers, forcing her to look into his blood red eyes. "I have something to show you. Get up and come with me," he demanded. Kikyo ripped his hand away from her face and Naraku let her go, wandering over to the other side of the room.
Feeling weak and confused, Kikyo stood up on shaking legs and reluctantly followed Naraku to his dressing table. On the table lay a handheld mirror with a grey, clouded surface that seemed to constantly shift.
Kikyo approached, as far from Naraku as she could possibly get whilst still being near the table. Naraku looked delighted, and it filled her with dread.
"What is this?" she asked warily, watching Naraku in case he made any movement towards her.
Naraku picked up the mirror in front of him. Holding it as though something precious hid within. "My dark mirror. It's how I managed to entrap you all in my latest scheme. This mirror is like the one my reincarnation Kanna used to hold. All seeing. I used it to spy on you and Sesshomaru countless times. When you were lying in his arms all those nights, you thought you had privacy. But I was watching you. This mirror can show me anything happening in this land, anything I care to see." Naraku gazed at something locked within the mirror, smiling broadly. He turned to Kikyo.
"Tell me Kikyo, do you believe Sesshomaru is still looking for you?" Naraku asked casually, watching her face with an alarming intensity.
"I know he is. Every minute brings him closer to me," Kikyo told Naraku resolutely, hoping her love for Sesshomaru would wound that self righteous look on his face. But Naraku's smile, already widened into a worrisome grin, managed to stretch further. She was disturbed to think that Naraku had been spying on her during those irreplaceable days with Sesshomaru.
He held out the mirror to her. "I haven't been watching Sesshomaru as closely as I probably should have, as I prefer to spend my time with you, " Naraku said. Kikyo shivered with revulsion at his words. "But I found something that I think you will find illuminating. Look into the mirror and see."
Kikyo took the mirror with a growing trepidation. What had he seen that would make Naraku so violently happy? Her heart constructed as she ran through the possibilities of what horrors she was about to witness. Has Sesshomaru been slain? No, it was unthinkable. Has something happened to Rin?
Kikyo looked into the mirror, and the smoky surface immediately withdrew, giving way to the blinking light of sunshine that seemed to glare through the mirror's face. Kikyo hooded her eyes with her hand, she had not seen the sun for days now. After being trapped in an endless gloom, the blinding rays that poured forth hurt her eyes.
The mirror focused to show Sesshomaru, standing on a tiny beach almost swallowed by the vast ocean around him. The mirror gave her no sound to listen to, just images. Sesshomaru was talking to a woman, a demoness who was familiar…Natsu.
Natsu was completely naked, and she and Sesshomaru seemed to be talking for a few moments. Then the demoness stepped towards Sesshomaru and pressed a kiss onto his mouth. Kikyo watched with wide eyes, waiting for Sesshomaru to push her away, but he did no such thing. Sesshomaru seemed to kiss the water demoness back. Kikyo watched in utter shock as Natsu snaked her leg up to his hip and pressed her breasts into Seshomaru's chest. The demoness looked like she was moaning with pleasure. The kiss went on and on, she watched as Natsu slipped her tongue into Sesshomaru's mouth.
"I…" Kikyo trailed off, watching the mirror as her head began to buzz with extreme distress, until she could not think straight, could barely see. She felt like her heart was being squeezed painfully, like Sesshomaru had reached through the mirror and ripped it right out of her chest.
Naraku began to laugh, a small laugh at first that manifested into an insanely loud cackle of absolute pleasure and enjoyment. Naraku laughed so much he clutched his chest, trying to get his breath back.
"What do you think now Kikyo? Do you think after he's finished fucking that blonde demoness that he will…Resume his search for you?! Is this your supposed great love? The demon who you can count on above all others?"
"Your sordid mirror is lying! You're… trying to trick me," Kikyo screeched in distress. In a fit of helpless rage Kikyo smashed the mirror on the floor. The surface of the mirror broke and turned black.
"You can believe that if you want, just as I will enjoy the exquisite knowledge that this is the truth. I don't think we need to worry so much about Sesshomaru now. As I predicted, he has forgotten you completely. You really are mine now, forever. Don't you see? You and I are eternal Kikyo. Our impact so great on the world that we will never be allowed to move on. Now that I am back in this world we can truly merge our destinies."
Kikyo stared at the remains of the mirror in disbelief. She knew Sesshomaru, trusted him. She would never have believed he would do such a thing if she had not seen it with her own eyes in that wretched mirror. Had he given her up and moved on? Was he really leaving her in Naraku's hands to suffer forever?
"No…No this cannot be…He wouldn't do this…" Already she could feel herself falling, the darkness of her mind taking over, trying to protect her from breaking into a thousand pieces. But she was already broken. Sesshomaru had been her last, brightest hope in a world filled with death and loneliness. Kikyo swayed, fighting against the dreams that clamoured to take over her conscious mind, dreams she now feared she would never wake from.
Naraku had sidled beside her, he ran his fingers through her silky hair with a possessive hand. "You gave everything to this world, Kikyo, and still it takes and takes from you. No peace, no rest, a unique being left to stagnate…Why would you want to rejoin it? All of my efforts have been for you, to keep you here with me," Naraku whispered to her quietly, all signs of laughter gone from his face. He almost looked sincere. "You'll want me eventually, Kikyo, you now have no choice but to accept my embrace. There is nothing else left for you."
Kikyo gave Naraku one final empty look. "No matter how you rage against it, you can never quell the disgust I feel towards you Naraku. Nothing will ever change that."
A black sea clouded Kikyo's eyes, offering bliss to soothe her inner turmoil. She fell where she stood, falling like a puppet whose strings had been cut.