The End of the Demons

A New Plan

Kagome gave herself a mental pat on the back. She had seen the twitch in his eye when he learned about Rin’s death and pregnancy. She knew that he must have been devastated to allow his stoic mask to slip like that. Then she had brought out the big guns. Naraku had been the one to kill Rin. A one, two punch and the Demon Lord was down for the count. Now she just had to wait patiently for it all to sink in and she would have a new powerful ally to help fix things.

Sesshomaru was looking through the book again and appeared deep in thought. She saw his eyes start to darken in color just a bit and then a small smile appeared.

‘A smile, what the Hell?’ she thought as she continued to watch him and his eyes slowly raised from the book to meet hers.

“Well, aren’t you quite the little historian. All this knowledge on how things were going to turn out. I believe that you are ultimately the one who is responsible for this tragedy for failing so miserably in your mission. For that, it is time to die again Miko, but I assure you, Rin’s suffering will be nothing compared to yours.” Sesshomaru said this in a very calm and quiet voice while smiling at Kagome.

“Me!!! This was not my fault. I did everything that I could possibly do. I sacrificed my friends and even my life to put a stop to this.” Kagome replied as she slowly started to back away.

Then her mind started to clutter with a million random thoughts brought on by her fear, ‘What is it they say about dogs, back away slowly, do not turn your back, maintain eye contact, or is it don’t look them in the eye, shit I can’t remember which. Oh god, I thought Naraku was scary, but he has nothing on Sesshomaru. Why is he smiling? Is he thinking about what he’s going to do to me? Is he waiting for a better argument from me? What am I going to do? Maybe I should run? He will catch me, but he has already promised a painful death, so what does it matter.’

Sesshomaru abruptly turned on his heal and headed back towards the shrine entrance. Kagome let out a sigh of relief figuring that he had changed his mind. She waited for a few seconds before curiosity got the better of her and she ran to the door to see where Sesshomaru had gone. He was calmly walking across the shrine grounds towards the house.

“Sesshomaru”, she called, “Where are you going?”

“To start your suffering.” was his cold reply.

It only took a moment for his meaning to sink in. He was headed for her family. He blamed her for the death of his family, so he was going to kill her family before he killed her. She ran towards him and tried to tackle him. He side stepped and tripped her as she sailed passed him. He kept walking. She got up and rushed for him again. Again he side stepped, but his time he shoved her in the back as she flew by him. She hit the ground harder this time and had a harder time getting up. When she looked up he was reaching for the door.

“Please Sesshomaru, I’m begging you, I’ll do anything, please leave my family alone.” She managed to choke out through her tears while still kneeling on the ground.

He was in front of her in a second, “You are weak Miko. How can we hope to change anything when you cannot even summon up enough strength to protect those that are most precious to you?”

She had no answer and just stayed there kneeling at his feet. “Get up”, he commanded.

As soon as she stood, he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. He summoned his cloud and they flew off together. They touched down a few minutes later on the balcony of a huge home that you could only describe as a mansion. It was gated and secluded. Sesshomaru dropped Kagome on the ground and headed for the balcony door.

“Where are we?” Kagome asked.

“Naraku’s home,” Sesshomaru calmly replied.

“What, how” Kagome sputtered.

“I spent a pleasurable afternoon with an old friend,” Sesshomaru stated while flexing his claws.

When they walked inside, Kagome almost fainted. Naraku was not just dead, he was mutilated beyond anything that Kagome had ever seen or imagined in her worst nightmares.

“Pity I did not know about Rin this afternoon. I would have made him suffer more. Come Miko.” Sesshomaru stated over his shoulder as he left the room.

Kagome followed him out of the room while trying to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant. That was easier said then done as she was shaking as she walked. She was trying to figure out how long someone could remain conscious while Sesshomaru was making them ‘suffer’. She was also trying to figure out if she was going to find out this information personally. He led her to what must have been Naraku’s study.

“This is a good place to start looking for the answers to our problems. Naraku was obsessed with the jewel and its power. He will no doubt have information that can help us.” Sesshomaru stated while approaching a desk at the other end of the room. He carefully set down the book that he had been holding since Kagome gave it to him at the shrine.

They spent the rest of the afternoon and beginning of the evening tearing through everything in the study. Every book, drawer, and scrap of paper was reviewed. Kagome even accessed his computer and looked through everything on the hard drive. They found nothing. They were frustrated and actually a bit shocked.

“You know what you are going to have to do, right?” Kagome finally said.

“I will not revive him. He does not deserve even an extra second of life.” Sesshomaru almost snarled the words.

Kagome agreed that the thought of bringing Naraku back was beyond nauseating, but it was necessary. Now she just had to think of how to convince Sesshomaru. Then it came to her, “Just think, you’ll be able to kill him again, and this time you can really make him suffer for what he did to Rin.”

That got his attention. He was out the door before she could blink and barely heard him say, “Come Miko,” from the hallway.

She ran after him. She did not relish seeing Naraku’s remains again, but she wanted to hear every word of information that he had to give. She arrived in the room right behind Sesshomaru. He unsheathed Tenseiga, but the sword appeared to agree that Naraku indeed did not deserve to be revived. It refused to resurrect the Evil Hanyou.

“Ok, new plan. I say we tear this whole house apart. Naraku was the most devious being ever. If he had something we could use, it would be hidden in a better place then the study,” Kagome reasoned.

Sesshomaru was still upset that he wasn’t going to be able to kill Naraku for a second time. He had really liked the idea when the Miko had suggested it. Now he was surprised that she had made another useful suggestion. “You are apparently not as useless as I imagined. You’re reasoning is sound. Naraku was crafty. We will have to search harder, but we will do it in the morning. Follow me.”

Kagome rushed to follow Sesshomaru again. He led her to the kitchen. “Eat quickly. The sound that your stomach has been making over the last hour is annoying. You will silence it, or I will.”

Kagome was starving. She hadn’t eaten since the previous day prior to the start of the final battle. She ran to the refrigerator and quickly found something. She ate so quickly that even the Demon Lord was impressed. He had still been considering killing the Miko, but so far she had proved useful and slightly entertaining. He decided that he would keep her alive for a little while yet. He knew that she was too scared of him to not obey his orders, and she was as motivated as he was to fix the past. He would use her for her knowledge, and if she became a burden, he would just kill her at that time.

Just as Kagome was finishing her meal Sesshomaru rushed out of the room. She heard a door open and close and a scream. Kagome ran toward the source of the noise to find Sesshomaru with his claws around the throat of a woman. “Who are you and what is your purpose here?” he asked.

“I li he..can’t bre…plea,” she was trying to answer.

“Sesshomaru, for god’s sake let her have enough air to speak,” Kagome yelled.

He deposited the woman in a chair and let go of her neck. “Speak or Die,” he said menacingly.

The shaking woman said, “I live here with my husband. This is my house.”

“Naraku is your husband?” Kagome asked.

“No, I don’t know a Naraku. My husband’s name is Sasuke,” the woman answered.

While she spoke, Sesshomaru turned on his sense of smell. He had turned it off earlier, and had located the man that he thought was Naraku by his aura. Now that his sense of smell was back on he could tell that he had been mistaken about the identity of the man. Sasuke’s scent was almost identical to Nakaru, with just a slight difference.

“Incarnation,” Sesshomaru growled. “How many are there?”

“A what? What are you talking about? Where is my husband? Who are you?” The woman was now on her feet and screaming.

Kagome had gone silent when she realized that the man that Sesshomaru had killed was not Naraku. He had looked identical to him. Well what had remained had looked like him. She had just assumed that Sesshomaru had been sure of his identity before he had killed him. “So the man upstairs is an incarnation of Naraku?” Kagome asked Sesshomaru who was once again holding the woman by the throat to keep her quiet.

“He was an incarnation, she is an incarnation, and by the smell of things there have been others here recently. “ Sesshomaru replied.

He pulled the woman who he held dangling from his claws closer to his face and inhaled deeply. He then separated her head from her body like he was pulling apart a doll.

Kagome noticed that he had somehow managed to do this without getting any blood on him or her. ‘Well apparently practice makes perfect,’ Kagome thought before her brain fully registered what had happened. Once it sunk in, Kagome screamed and started to back away. In a flash Sesshomaru was no longer in front of her. He was behind her and had grabbed her around the waist.

He started running with her in his grasp. He ran to the study to retrieve his book. Then continued back to the balcony where they had first entered the house. They took off on his cloud once again, but this time they did not fly away, just up higher in the sky.
Kagome had stopped screaming once they had started moving through the house at incredible speed and was now holding onto Sesshomaru’s arm fearing that he had gone completely mad and was going to drop her to her death.

“Sesshomaru what’s going on?” She said weakly.

“Look down Miko,” he responded calmly.

She did as she was told and saw cars pulling up to the house, a lot of cars. The occupants of the vehicles jumped out and frantically entered the house. “What the,” was all Kagome could say while looking at the strange scene below.

“It appears that the Evil Hanyou came up with a plan to regain some of his power.” Sesshomaru stated and then started flying them away to parts unknown.

-- I hope this chapter is okay. I did not get to review it as much as I normally would. I had planned to put it up over the weekend, but a death in the family has me going out of state for a few days and I’m not sure if I will have internet access, so I am posting it early. Please let me know what you think. And once again, I do not own any part of Inuyasha or any of the characters that I used in this story so far.