The Principle of Evil Made Flesh

He had a long painful walk back to his lair and Naraku knew daylight was beating him around the corner of the world. He stood slowly on slightly numb legs; the hanyou brat had broken his neck high up and luckily it was beginning to heal and quickly; he had just barely been able to breathe when InuYasha had driven his last punch home. Now his raw, newly healed nerves where starting to protest the long march he knew they would have to undertake soon. Finding a squat was more comfortable than standing, Naraku dropped his long legs down and held on fast to the slowly wavering world. He would not pass out, he would not! He had taken far worse damage – yes, but the finality of this battle is what stunned him. InuYasha was finally dead. Naraku had won.

At least he could convince himself of that fact, that was – until he looked over at the girl.

The Shikon no Tama was the only winner in this battle and that was how it had always been in the end. Naraku scrubbed his hands across his face, half in an attempt to clear his swirling head and again to vent his aggravation. Maroon flakes of dried blood floated down to the sand at his feet. What had happened to his shoes? Fuck, he didn’t know and why the hell should he be caring at this point? Focusing his eyes at the scattered sprays of his dark blood in the sand before him, Naraku tried to get both his mind and body in gear.

Kagome sighed heavily and pushed herself up to stand. The dangling jewel chinked against the shining silver that encased her throat. A strange dangling sensation tickled her skin and running a hand up to the epicenter of the strangeness, the miko found her silver spider webs of chain dangled slackly in disconnection. They tugged with tiny gravity at her nipples, at her inner thighs. It was a terribly lost sensation to suddenly feel loose after having been drawn so tight for so long. The tiny links were dull in her hand as she examined the broken end; Naraku’s glamour on the chain was gone. Kagome felt very empty all of a sudden; she no longer felt special.

She now felt used, trapped into once again shouldering the burden of being the Miko no Shikon. It had used Naraku, Onigumo, Kikyou, InuYasha – every last one of them – to get to her. The jewel was indeed the principle of absolute evil, like an elegant equation in blue-black crystal and Kagome hated it. She wanted to pity Naraku – only she knew he would not suffer it from her.

He had wanted power and dominion over the world, truly - but that desire stemmed for his yearning for the complete dominion over his fractious and incongruent parts. Naraku’s love of cruelty stemmed from the constant rending and tearing of his opposing halves as he was torn asunder, only to be instantly remade in his every waking moment. Had he never known any other way? It couldn’t be that he simply enjoyed being cruel and inherently evil… could it?

“Quit trying to understand my soul, priestess. What could you possibly hope to accomplish with your stupid pity?” Naraku spat back at her, not even deigning to look upon her towering form.

“I only seek to understand you! You fascinate me, you bewitch me! You’re the one who wanted me to live and breathe for nothing but you and now that I do just that you want me to what – go away?” Kagome shot back in frustration, her small pointed fists tight at her sides. She was suddenly furious as all her pent-up loneliness, sadness and passion rushed out of her bruised soul in an angry torrent.

Naraku’s head snapped up to glare at the little wide-eyed Fury foolishly bearing her fangs at him. He wanted to do nothing but sleep, rest, and heal but the bitch persisted in egging him on! The Shikon no Tama flared against the hollow of her white throat and it too mocked his weakened state. The priestess glowed like a black sun, a limitless well of formless creation; of hungry need, of covetousness: she had to know, she needed him to explain himself, she wanted him to hand over his secrets. Very soon, the jewel would hone within the girl a desire for power… and she would enslave him.

Well – fuck that!

Snapping a whip-thin tentacle at the bitch’s bare ass with a thick snarl, Naraku pulled himself up-right and began to walk. Kagome’s pained shriek at his abuse diffused her troublesome fury beautifully. Short-attention span theatre, indeed and thank the kami for it! The Spider wanted to be secreted away in his lair, licking his wounds before he fully tackled the problem of the girl and the jewel.

The last shard sang under his skin and begged to be released.

Kagome could have told it that begging Naraku for anything was futile.

~*~

“Walk faster, priestess or I will drag you.”

“I’m walking, but these dangling chain…”

“What?!”

“Uh, well, Naraku – turn around.”

Very irritated red eyes blazed in barely contained fury at her interruption. They were making their way back to what Kagome could only assume was their cavern lair. But she was starting to really hate the way her slack chains were constantly slapping her stomach in obnoxious little stings that felt just like mosquito bites and the lower ones were constantly getting caught in her thighs with the long stride Naraku was forcing her to maintain to keep up with him. It irritated her acutely and like she had in all things, Kagome spoke her mind before thinking.

The chains were irritating but telling Naraku they were irritating was probably the best way to get him to rip them out… intact. The miko’s nipples immediately hardened around their golden rings in unconscious disagreement to any such action! But habits were habits and Kagome hoped the hanyou was too distracted to put two-and-two together into PAIN.

She truly was a special kind of idiot, sometimes.

Naraku was still looking at her with rapidly accelerating anger so Kagome did first thing she could think of.

She leaned forward with a sexy (and sarcastic) lick to her upper lip and shook her breasts at Naraku. The whipping chains curled and snapped before his wide eyes in such a comic way that Kagome almost lost it, she truly wanted to laugh – it was the instinctive emotional pressure release she needed right now. The exhausted and nearly overcome miko snorted and then thought better of it.

The look on Naraku’s face made her throat get very, very dry very, very quickly.

His eyes looked like murder and he smiled.

She grinned back with a nervous whimper.

She never even saw him move. The miko’s last thought before blackness rose up to claim her was that time seemed far too limber anymore these days! Kagome, not realizing she had been holding her breath, startled at her master’s hand as it gripped her loose bonds, bore down in instinctive surprise, and passed right out.

Naraku had to agree with her last blip of conscious thought. Time was a luxury that was fast running out. He had so much still he wanted to do with this girl, to her, for her and hindsight was making him irritable. How was he going to keep her and kill her? Was there a way to have it all? If there was, he – Naraku – was going to think it up!

But right now, he reckoned time by a slightly more immediate need and scale. It had been well over a week since The Spider had served his little bitch and right now, the high ache in his balls took priority over meditation. Hoisting her limp form over his shoulder, Naraku tested his still-sore body with flight.