Ningen no Kokoro

Author’s note: Okay, minna, this is my first fanfic, and hoo, boy, is it a monster. I’d like to apologize in advance for those people that become disturbed by the first lemon. Yeah, there’s a “lemon” in this first chapter… yeah… I actually wouldn’t call it a lemon. I’d call it “sick shit.” I’d advise everyone reading this fanfic to skip that section, because I don’t think anybody should be exposed to that little snippet of fun. That being said, please note that that particular lemon is NOT how the entire fanfic will turn out. In fact, that is the only part tis lis like that. At the beginning of the second chapter will be a small edited recap of the lemon… just understand that by skipping it you’re not really missing anything—other than the sick and warped imagination of my muse.
Oh yes, the muse. All hail the evil muse. The muse demands recognization. And she shall receive it. Here is a story: In the beginning, there was an evil muse. I was possessed by said evil muse. She forced me to write this fanfic. Does anybody want to buy a muse? Low, low, discount rates!
Ow.
Stupid muse.
Sorry if this author’s note is getting a bit rambling. It’s 3 AM and I’d really like to go to bed, your musey highness.
Oh well, Inuyasha is not mine, yadda, yadda, Rumiko Takahashi, yadda, yadda…
Enjoy! ^.^

Ningen no Kokoro
By Still Water

The sun, stained scarlet
Has been casting light on everything
Both in the past and now
What am I imagining in the twilight darkness
Is it something that is mthanthan I can do?
Please tell me how to live
Less guarded than I am now
Please taint me, just a little
In that way, alone ,even if I am hurt
Or lose those around me
The song of truth will flow in my heart
The song of truth will be my guide


Part One: Stained Scarlet

She fidgeted outside the doorway, brushing nervously at her billowing white sleeves. She didn’t want to enter his room, even though her big sister had ther her that he was expecting her. Her gaze fell on the blank stare of one of the castle guards, now reduced to just so much white bone, flesh eaten away by the poisonous shouki that filled the corridors of the palace. One skeletal hand still clutched his sword, but the weapon had proved to be unable to defend its owner against the threat that had ended his life. Her own hand darted to her hair, to make sure that her long hair was tied up in the annoying braid that he liked her hair to be in instead of floating free like she wanted. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, opened the shoji that separated his room from the hallway, and stepped past the threshold.

The room was furnished sparsely; the large ceramic pots that recently held the lumps of pulsating flesh were gone, leaving a low table the only furniture, and he was in his usual accustomed place, slumped bonelessly under the window that covered the entire rear wall. Till only recently that window had been slatted with massive wooden beams… until her sister had thrown her temper tantrum. Although it was sometime near noon (she wasn’t really sure, since she had never even seen the sun in her short life), the room was shrouded in shadows. Outside the window, there was only the swirling purple and grey of clouds of shouki and toxins that had been extruded from his body. The slumped shape under the window shifted, and the pale face under its mane of greasy hair turned to look at her.

Red eyes studied her from the darkness. She stifled a shiver; the inhuman white pupils of those eyes always unnerver, er, reminded her of the things he had done to her…

“Kikyo. Come here.”

Her head bowed demurely, she knelt (somewhat clumsily) before him, cursing the awkward baggy red hakama that he had given her to wear.

Rough fingers seized her chin, turning her face up to meet his. The red eyes looked down at her, hard and emotionless. The mouth settled into ael lel line.

“No,” he said. “Not now. You will come back to me tonight, after I return.” and flung her aside as if she were no more than a rag doll.

Her head struck the wall, and her vision went red in a sudden stab of pain.

Suddenly, she saw green trees, and a meadow filled with flowers, and could hear the singing of birds—and then the vision ended, and there was only him, burning eyes staring out of that pale, emotionless face.

He gazed down at her crumpled body impassively, his face seemingly carved of stone. “You will go down to the dungeon tonight. I think tonight we’ll have some fun.” The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “Maybe something messy, a little dangerous. I want to see you frightened and in pain.”

She looked down again, trembling, not wanting to meet those eyes, lit with his cruelty and lust. “Hai, Naraku-sama.”

Her creator strode out of the room without another word.

She lay on the floor for a while, trying to understand what she had just seen. The flash of the meadow—it was just SO real… so tantalizingly familiar… She could swear that she had been there, in that instant…

But how could she envision trees and flowers and grass and the sun (yes, the bright glorious sun) without ever having left this gloomy castle in all her life? To be sure, she knew of such things—she had started life knowing such things, like it was warm in summer and cold in winter, and that the big opening in the wall in front of her was called a window, and the wooden thing that sat in the corner was called a table…

Leaving his chambers, she bumped (not literally, since he already knew she was coming before she did) into her younger brother stalking around the halls. His massive purple-fleshed limbs were hunched and folded in order to fit through the hallway, which had been built for people and not for gigantic oni. His massive horned head turned toward her.

“Aneue.”

“Otòto.”

“Feeling down, Aneue?”

She said nothing. After all, it wasn’t necessary.

“Today is my big debut,” Goshinki went on, flexing one massive clawed hand. “I will kill these people that Naraku wants me to kill, and then maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll be in a good mood later tonight.”

She looked at Goshinki’s very large, very white teeth.

“Does the thought of all that killing disturb you, dear Aneue? I never understood your hesitawhenwhen it came to these things. Kagura also feels the need for some good slaughter, and Naraku’s a sadistic—well, I don’t have to tell you about Naraku, do I?”

She noticed that Goshinki had left the other member of their little family out of
his little speech.

“Kanna?” Goshinki’s jaw opened a little wider, making him look a little like a big, horned, purple, grinning dog. “You were thinking I was afraid of her, iie? You’d do well to be afraid of our ‘big sister.’ Everyone has their motivations and their intentions.” He motioned for her to walk with him, and resumed his awkward, staggering stalk down the hall, the white ruff on his humped back scraping the ceiling. “I hear them all. Kagura howls around the castle, waving that silly fan of hers at this and that, fuming about how she wants Naraku out of the picture so she can wander free. Naraku sits there under his window and obsesses over the Shikon no Tama, and how he’s going to lay enemenemies low and destroy them, and how he has a disgusting, pathetic human soul stuck inside himself that he wants to get rid of, and how much that disgusting, pathetic human soul wants that ‘Kikyo’ woman, and how much he’d like to yank that ‘Kikyo’ wom gut guts out. But Kanna has nothing. No motivations. None. I can hear her thoughts well enough, but the thing is… she doesn’t think that often. She just stands there, and mig might as well be a block of wood… Hmm? Oi, you stopped paying attention.”

She had stopped paying attention to Goshinki’s speech as soon as he said ‘Kikyo.’ In the three weeks or so that she had known her brother, she had discovered that his two favorite things in the world were eating (preferably living, bleeding meat), and talking peoples’ heads off (he really, really loved to hear himself talk). Right now she was wondering about what Goshinki meant by his comments about “that ‘Kikyo’ woman.” Wasn’t she Kikyo? At least that was the name Naraku gave to her at her birth…

Goshinki stopped dead in his tracks. His head swung over and his huge eyes, which had been glancing every now and then at the skeletal guards littering the hallway, were now fixed on her. His mouth had dropped open in complete astonishment.

“’That Kikyo woman?’ You don’t know?” he gasped. “He never told you?”

“Told me what?” She demanded.

Goshinki looked aside. “Eh… never mind.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She yelled at him.

Goshinki looked down at her again, and his mouth twitched. “I said, never mind.”

Not for the first time, she wished that she had some kind of power like her siblings, so she could force her stupid brother to tell her what he was thinking, but she had nothing. No claws and teeth; no ability to control the wind; not even a stupid mirror to steal peoples’ souls. She had nothing. Why should she? Kanna and Kagura and Goshinki were warriors. She was just his plaything. His

-Whore-

Even less than that… for he didn’t even… use her like a man normally had a woman…

She felt two scalding, bitter tears trail their way down her face.

“Oi, oi!” Goshinki put a large hand on her head—and she shrank away from him, hissing in a sudden breath.

Goshinki shrunk back, looking pained. “You’re here, same as the rest of us, to do what Naraku wants.” He sounded simultaneously disgusted and saddened somehow. “And anyways, it doesn’t matter that the three of us have powers. Naraku has our hearts in his hand, you know…”

Of course she knew. Kagura had told her the whole story about how she had tried to oppose Naraku, and nearly been killed for her folly.

“There’s something Kagura doesn’t know about you.” Goshinki said. “Naraku doesn’t have your heart. You’re something special.” He extended a finger towards her chest, but didn’t touch her. “Your heart’s right there.”

ashiashi no kokoro? Of course my heart’s right here,” she growled. “I’m no threat to him. I can’t hurt him. I can’t run from him. He can make me do whatever he wants me to do, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Goshinki patted her on the head—and this time, she stiffened, but didn’t pull away. “He can make us do whatever he wants us to do, too.”

-’Whatever he wants us to do?’ You of all people… It’s not the same with you, and you know it.- she thought, and turned her gaze away from him.

Goshinki, for once, had nothing to say about that. He looked a little sad, then turned and resumed his walk down the hall. This time, she just stood still, looking at the dark purple spider scar that stretched across his back. The same scar adorned her back, and Kagura’s back, and Kanna’s back. The scar that marked them all as his.

Goshinki turned a corner in front of her, and that was the last time she saw her otòto with her own two eyes.

****************************

Kagura was darkly amused, Kanna waited motionlessly, Naraku was silently enraged.

And Kikyo was terrified.

She and Naraku had been gathered in Naraku’s chamber, watching the battle between Goshinki and Naraku’s enemies through Kanna’s mirror. Goshinki had laid waste to a small village to lure Naraku’s enemies out of hiding, and his viciousness and gluttony had nauseated her. Even Kagura had become disgusted at his insistence that he would eat every human, horse, dog, and chicken in the village and had flown away on her giant feather. She had joined them in Naraku’s chamber just as Naraku’s enemies had shown up.

Kikyo hadn’t thought that Naraku’s enemies looked all that special. There was a houshi, a neko youkai (what cute ears! Kawaii!) with an oversized sword, a pale woman who breathed in shallow gasps and looked as if she were in great pain sitting on a neko youkai in full youkai form, a tiny kitsune, and a young woman in a ridiculously short green kimono.

Then she had taken a second look at the young woman in the green kimono and been greatly disturbed. The woman’s face was nearly identical to her own! Her skin was a bit darker, and her eyes were a little bigger (and a little more innocent, she thought bitterly), but aside from that they could have been twins!

She thought back to what Goshinki had said about Naraku earlier. He had said “that ‘Kikyo’ woman.” Somehow, Kikyo didn’t think that he was talking about her… was this woman in the short green kimono this “other” Kikyo?

What the hell was going on here? She looked at Naraku. He was staring at Kanna’s mirror as if nothing else in the world mattered.

The neko youkai was the only one that seemed to be able to pose a challenge to Goshinki, and he was far outmatched by Goshinki’s agility and speed. Kikyo had expected slaughter from the moment she saw the forces arrayed against Goshinki, and slaughter was what it was. In moments, the neko youkai was flying through the air, bloody and broken, having failed to even scratch Goshinki. The woman in the short kimono stepped forward, but Goshinki leapt in front of her and cut off her imminent attack with a few well-spoken words.

-Goshinki called her “Kagome,”- Kikyo thought. -She can’t possibly be the other Kikyo he was talking about.-

The neko youkai attacked Goshinki with his overlarge sword again, and Goshinki simply shattered the blade with his teeth, then slapped the neko youkai away like a small insect. Kikyo thanked her brother under her breath. Goshinki was going to eat Naraku’s enemies, and then Naraku was going to be in a good mood, and maybe then he wouldn’t hurt her too badly tonight. She looked at Naraku. His eyes were completely focused on Kanna’s mirror, and his mouth was set in a small smile.

It was going so well, too. At least, it was going well up until the moment when the neko youkai somehow got back up despite his severe injuries and ripped Goshinki’s arm off. Goshinki, seeming shocked that anybody could touch him against his will, failed to dodge the neko youkai’s next attack and was ripped to bloody shreds.

Naraku said nothing. He just sat under his window, still peering at Kanna’sror ror where the woman that looked at Kikyo yelled some kind of incantation that caused the dog youkai to fall face-first into the dirt. The view shifted as the Saimyoshou that provided the view began to fly off, as per orders now that Goshinki was dead; Naraku always planned for all contingencies.

Kagura’s hand seized her shoulder. “Come on,” the pink-eyed woman tilted her head towards the door. “There’s nothing more to see here.”

Kikyo got up and walked out with Kagura. A bit down the hall, Kagura leaned against the wall and began to chuckle.

“Aa, baka.” Kagura laughed. “Yokatta. I knew that glutton would get himself done in. So much for being the ‘main show,’ iie?”

Kikyo stared dejectedly at Kagura. “I don’t know why you didn’t like him. I don’t think you ever said a single word to him during the three weeks he was alive.”

“Na--?” Kagura said, shocked. “Don’t… don’t tell me you don’t remember what he did to you? He… I mean… I saw you down there… You were all ripped to pieces!”

“What he did, he did at Naraku’s command,” Kikyo said sadly. “He never wanted to do it…” She remembered the day, a week ago, when Naraku had summoned her to his chambers, had her strip, and then ordered Goshinki to rape her. She and Goshinki had gotten along well ever since his birth, and just before Naraku had voiced his command Goshinki had looked at him askew.

Kikyo had stumbled backwards in fear, eyeing Goshinki’s massive member, which was about the thickness of her upper arm and far longer. Goshinki had hesitated, slowly reaching out to touch her hair. Naraku must have thought something at him just then, because Goshinki’s eyes narrowed in resolve. He brought his mouth down to her ear, and whispered, “gomen, Aneue.”

Then he had entered her.

The pain had been immense. She screamed and tried to crawl away, but Goshinki grabbed her waist with one huge hand and held her down while he rammed in and out of her. Her cervix had been destroyed after the first two strokes, and each time Goshinki shoved into her he bashed against the top of her womb, although Goshinki didn’t even try to push the entire length of his enormous member into her. She vomited, and begged Goshinki to stop whenever she could get breath to do so. Stars began to swim at the edges of her vision, and her world had started to fade out beneath the onslaught.

That was when Goshinki had stopped.

Panting, she had looked back at him, to see his head turned toward Naraku. Naraku looked at her, and said—for her benefit, since Goshinki needed no such verbal commands—“put it all in her.”

Kikyo had shrieked anew as Goshinki had planted his member firmly inside her and began to push hard against her womb. She had been sure that Goshinki was going to kill her, and as the pain of her stretching innards increased to an unbearable level, she had passed out… When she awoke, she was laying on her sleeping futon, which was wet with her blood, and Goshinki was hunched miserably in the corner, head hung in shame, red fluid smeared over his chest from where she had bled on him as he had carried her to her room.

Then Kagura had entered, looking worried, and Goshinki had looked dismayed, and shuffled quickly out of the room, barely squeezing his bulk through the narrow door.

Afterwards, her relationship with Goshinki had—amazingly—quickly returned to something close to what it had been before—although the memory of that encounter echoed in both their minds, and made their exchanges wretchedly uncomfortable. There was nothing to do, besides forgive him, for she didn’t blame him for what happened, and he knew it… and besides, what could they do, being Naraku’s tools?

Kagura looked long and hard at her little sister. Kikyo looked frightened and pale, and her eyes were panicked and would not meet Kagura’s gaze. She remembered vividly how badly Kikyo had been hurt that time with Goshinki. She had tried to use one of Kikyo’s poofy red hakama to staunch the bleeding, but Kikyo had been too badly injured; she was bleeding internally somewhere, and Kagura had been sure that her little sister had been about to die. Instead, Naraku had shown up after a few minutes, shoved a tentacle into Kikyo’s bleeding entrance, detached it, and Kagura had watched in morbid fascination as the flesh of the tentacle was absorbed into Kikyo’s body, and the bleeding had stopped.

Since then, however, Naraku had grown more and more brutal towards Kikyo. The first few times that he had her, in the first days after her creation, she had come away with no more than bruises and bite marks… but the last time she went to him, just two days ago, he had broken two of her ribs, and her entire front had been covered with lacerations—Kagura still had no idea just what he had done to her to cause those injuries. In her heart she knew that Naraku would probably end up killing Kikyo before too long…

Kagura wasn’t sure why exactly she was so attached to Kikyo. She would feel sorry for herself, thinking about how her life wasn’t her own, and how she was forced to serve the whims of a madman who held her life in his hand. But then she would look over at Kikyo, the pale mockery of that woman that Naraku hated, and she would be glad that there was one other creature more wretched than she was.

Then she would feel guilty for being glad about Kikyo’s suffering, which made no sense, since she had slaughtered helpless youkai and humans by the dozen without ever batting an eyelash, but here she was, leaning against the wall and feeling remorse and pity for the her sad broken lonely little imouto in front of her—her little sister, who was so stupidly innocent that she would forgive even a mindless, brutal creature that had raped and nearly killed her—

—Ningen no kokoro! What weak, soft things human hearts were! In front of her, Kikyo had begun to cry, sniffling softly.
-Chikushou, she’s crying!-

Kikyo was unable to hold back the tears. Goshinki was dead, and they had parted on such bitter terms. Silently, she cursed Naraku for destroying the friendship that had grown between them during the first few weeks that they had known one another…

…And Naraku, what would he do to her? He would be angry at Goshinki’s death, and maybe he would take it out on her… She shuddered, remembering being facedown in the broken glass, the glittering shards slicing into her breasts and stomach, while Naraku thrust repeatedly into her from behind, and stomping on her back a few times for good measure, shattering her ribs and making sure that the glass would cut more deeply into her body…

Kagura’s strong arms wrapped around her, holding her firmly. She stiffened and tried to pull away; Naraku might find some way to shatter the affection between her aneue and her—or even worse, punish Kagura for comforting her. She couldn’t let that happen!

“Sh... sh…” Kikyo felt Kagura’s hands smoothing over her hair. “I’m here for you, imouto… watashi no chiisai tori…”

Kikyo collapsed forward into Kagura’s warm embrace, and buried her face in her sister’s shoulder. Chiisai tori… little bird… that was Kagura’s nickname for her… these days, she felt, the only thing keeping san sane was Kagura; Kagura was always there, always ready to hold her, to let her cry out her pain, to comfort her…

“Be strong, chiisai tori… be strong.” Kikyo heard Kagura whisper in her ear. I’m here for you… I’ll always be here for you…”

Kikyo trembled for a moment in Kagura’s arms, then whispered back, “arigatou, Aneue.”

“Naraku wants to see you, Kikyo.”

Kikyo and Kagura jumped apart at the soft, whispery voice, whirling to face the tiny white-haired girl who stood impassively in front of them, mirror held at the ready.
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or’sor’s Note: quick, everyone! Cover your eyes, press ctrl+F, type in “Get outd prd press enter! Quick! Do it! If you do want to read the lemon, continue on past this point, but remember: you have been warned.
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Kikyo trembled in apprehension as she entered Naraku’s chamber. She expected to see Naraku in his usual place under his window, but his customary seat was vaca Ins Instead, as she took a few hesitantps ips into the room, she saw Naraku, dressed in his usual dark clothing and swaddled with his baboon pelt, standing at the low table.

On the table was a large metal rod, covered with hooks and barbs. Kikyo felt herself break into a cold sweat at the sight of it. She had quite a few ideas about what Naraku intended to do with that thing, and none of them were pleasant.

Naraku looked over at her, his red eyes shining. “Kikyo… come here.”

Swallowing hard, Kikyo began to move slowly in his direction. Her legs were sluggish, and threatened to collapse and spill her onto the floor, and she had to force them to respond to her will, to lift and bend and lower, and to life and bend and lower again. An eternity seemed to pass before she stood, facing Naraku. He looked her up and down, enjoying her fear, his red eyes pleased and his lips set in a small smirk. She looked aside, unable to meet his eyes. Standing next to him, she felt smald ind insignificant; her head barely reaching to his chest.

Naraku’s heavy hand fell on her shoulder, and she shuddered at the weight of it, and the sick heat that seemed to pour off his body like a brazier. The hand fisted in the fabric of her gi, and his other hand rose to hover in front of her face. She flinched, expecting a blow.

Naraku chuckled, the sound low and ominous. He grabbed the front of her gi with his free hand, and then pulled, ripping her clothing apart with a loud tearing sound, leaving her nude to the waist. She tried not to cower as even the sliprotprotection of her clothing was denied to him. Clothed, she could at least feel safe in the fact that he could not see her body—naked, she had no secrets from him, no security—and there was nothing between his flesh and hers.

Kikyo winced as Naraku grabbed her left breast and squeezed, fingers sinking into the soft white flesh. His hand tightened, drawing a pained whimper from her throat before releasing, leaving dull red marks on her creamy skin to show where his fingertips had been.

Naraku stepped back, and Kikyo watched in horrified fascination as her creator’s body began to change.

The baboon skin swaddled around his lower body expanded, as thick, muscular coils of tentacles pushed from beneath the albino hide, squirming and making slurping, meaty noises as they pushed past one another. His arms stretched out of his sleevehe fhe fingers of his hand melting together and lengthening, to form vicious claws. Bulges formed under his robes, and the robes ripped apart to reveal orangeish insectoid legs and a multitude of small, whipping red tentacles.

Kikyo backed away slowly as Naraku towered above her, even more coils of flesh pushing out from the remnants of his clothing. She had never seen anything like the thing he had become, and couldn’t imagine anything more disgusting, more terrifying. As the monster stretched out his arms towards her, she broke and turned to run for the door.

Tentacles abruptly shot out of the lower half of Naraku’s body, wrapping tight around her wrists and pulling them together in front of her body. The fleshy tentacles had a soft, squishy feeling, like the feel of a canvas sack full of watery mud, but they held on to her with an iron strength that she couldn’t hope to overcome. More tentacles seized her ankles, pulling her legs apart. She was pulled up into the air in front of Naraku’s face.

“Kikyo… were you trying to run away from me?” Naraku frowned. One of the insect legs jutting from his back reached down, and brushed her cheek. It was dry, and hard.

“Iie, Danna… Gomen, Naraku-sama… Gomen…” Kikyo babbled, her brain unable to think of any kind of response as Naraku’s tentacles stripped off her hakama from her legs, leaving her completely naked.

His eyes bored into hers, red, crimson like blood. She tried to turn her head away, to look at anything else beside those inhuman orbs, but something smooth and slimy wed ied itself around her head, and forced her gaze back up to his.

“You can’t run away, Kikyo. You’re mine.” Naraku reached up with one of his clawed hands and slowly sliced it through the flesh of Kikyo’s side. She gritted her teeth as searing pain shot through her. Her muscles tensed, and she tried to pull away from Naraku’s claw, but the tentacles holding her wouldn’t let her budge. The claw completed its journey down her side and withdrew. Kikyo felt hot liquid sheeting down her side, onto her legs.

“You’re mine,” Naraku repeated, holding his bloody hand in front of her. Kikyo watched as her blood disappeared into his flesh. “Made of my flesh, and for me to do whatever with as I please.” A tentacle dipped down, picked up the metal rod on the table, and deposited it in the brazier in the corner of the room. Tears beto fto flow from Kikyo’s eyes as she considered what the metal rod could be used to do.

“Iie, iie, Naraku-sama… please… no…”

Something poked at the entr of of her womanhood, and she tensed, trying to avoid what she knew would come next. The thing, whatever it was, pushed into her roughly and deeply, scraping dryly past her unlubricated flesh and bring a choked hiss from her lips.

“Maybe, a little thicker…”

Kikyo cried out in pain as the tentacle inside her thickened, stretching her to the limit before wriggling deeper into her, pushing against her cervix. She could feel the thing inside her squirming like some obscene snaor aor a moment before it started ramming brutally in and out, causing her to yell out each time it slammed into her cervix. It felt like he was slamming his fist in and out of her. Each time the thing thrusted it knocked the breath right out of her lungs, and she had to struggle to gasp in air. Dimly, through the pain, she felt something hard and rough scrape against her anus. She clenched her anus as tightly as she could just as the tentacle tried to enter her. The tentacle failed to penetrate her rectum; instead, it pushed her anus into her body a few inches. Kikyo groaned. Naraku’s bright red eyes flashed at her.

“Resisting, kirei na miko?”

The tentacle inside her pulled out and waved in the air in front of her face. She watched in terror as bony spines jutted out around the tentacle. The tentacle returned to her vagina, and she cried out in fear before the newly spined appendage rammed into her, shredding the lining of her vagina, twisting and gouging. She screamed at the top of her lungs and pulled her body up by the tentacles around her wrists, actually managing to gain a few inches’ reprieve from the invader inside her body before the tentacles around her ankles jerked her back down with such force that it nearly dislocated her shoulders.

Kikyo sobbed and writhed against her bonds as the spiked tentacle shoved into her again. She could feel hot fluid trickling down her legs, and her crotch felt as if it was on fire. She barely even noticed when the second tentacle shoved into her ass, ripping her rectum apart as it traveled up into her bowels.

She did notice, however, as the tentacle inside her ass pushed higher up into her body. Her intestines cramped, trying to repel Naraku’s appendage, but to no avail as the muscular tentacle easily pushed its way deeper into her bowels. The tentacle inside her vagina slammed up agonizingly once more deep inside her, then withdrew, having completely destroyed her vagina. Kikyo slumped in her bonds, sweat pouring from her body, blood oozing down her legs from the gash in her side and from her ravaged womanhood. She twitched slowly, her face drawn in a rictus of pain as Naraku’s tentacle traveled ever higher into her digestive tract.

Just how high was the thing going to go? She wondered, as her insides twisted in agony at the tentacle’s invasion. Was it going to go all the way through her body and come out of her mouth? It felt as if a tree branch was being shoved up insider her, where nothing was supposed to go.

Thankfully, Naraku stopped the progress of his tentacle far before it got to that point. Kikyo retched as the tentacle seemed to poke against something deep inside her (her stomach, perhaps?), and then retract, pulling out of her body. As the thing exited her rectum, she groaned, and collapsed as far as Naraku’s tentacles would allow her to go, her head hanging down over her chest. She was too exhausted to even offer any kind of resistance to Naraku anymore.

A hand twined itself in her hair, pulling her head back up to a level position. Red eyes burned into hers. She cringed. A claw reached out to the gash in her side, and pushed into the bleeding wound. She shrieked. The claw began to slice into her flesh, peeling back the skin from her side. Kikyo couldn’t even scream as her vision went wavy, Naraku’s face dancing in front of her eyes like a reflection in a pond on a windy day. She made a high pitched squealing noise reminiscent of a rodent being stepped on.

Naraku peeled the skin off Kikyo’s side in big, bloody strips, pausing long enough between ripping off stripes for Kikyo to get her breath back before starting back in. He watched as she hung, her hair soaked in sweat and falling limp over her face, her chest desperately heaving as she sucked in air.

“Let’s make a deal, Kikyo. I’ll stop flaying you, if you can do one thing for me.”

Kikyo nodded her head weakly, too exhausted to even talk. Anything to stop the pain!

Tentacles raised her head back up, and a wad of something wet and soft and warm was pressed to her mouth.

It was her own skin.

“Eats.” s.”

Kikyo hesitated for a moment, before opening her mouth. The wad of her skin was pushed into her mouth, and she chewed mechanically and swallowed, unable to really taste anything due to the pain that seared her body. If Naraku was disappointed by her lack of reaction, he didn’t show it.

“Hmm…” Naraku considered the bleeding, skinless patch of flesh on Kikyo’s side. “I think you might be bleeding to death. We can’t have that.”

Tentacle seized the hooked metal rod, now glowing dully, from the brazier. Kikyo shook her head no desperately at Naraku, hoping that he would stop and take pity on her.

No such luck.

The heated metal bar pushed into her bloody side, searing the flesh. Kikyo howled, jerked in her bonds, and lost control of her bladder, bloody piss spraying down her legs.

The tentacles drew the metal bar away, and brought it crashing down on her breast, cooking flesh and smashing ribs. On her shoulder, destroying the joint and her collarbone. On her arm, snapping the ulna and radius like thin twigs, on her stomach, on her legs…

Kikyo fainted from the pain.

She didn’t know how long she was unconscious, but when she came to, she was lying on the hard wooden floor, her whole body a mass of pain.

Naraku’s pale face appeared above her.

Fuzzy.

Her eyes refused to focus.

She was lifted up by one leg, whimpering as the jagged broken bone of her thigh shifted. She was completely unprepared for what happened next.

Naraku sliced into her anus with his claws, and began to draw her intestines out through her anus, wrapping them around the hooked metal bar he had used to beat her.

Kikyo fainted from the pain again.

She didn’t know how long she was unconscious, but when she came to, she was hanging from the ceiling, her arms and legs tied with her own bloody intestines… there was a huge puddle of blood underneath her… Kami… she was bleeding to death… She looked weakly over at the window, and Naraku sat there, fully clothed, just watching her… red eyes gleaming among the shadows…

“Ch—chodai…”

Please…

Her vision was red and failing, her head felt fuzzy, and she was cold… so cold…

“Chodai…”

She had long ago lost the ability to linelines. Everything was just one big muddy crimson blur, darkening to black in some places.



“Cho…. Chodai…”

“…”

There was a sudden sharp pain in her head and right shoulder, and then something was being thrown over her… something inside of her reached out greedily, wanting, and she felt the thing on her, whatever it was, become part of her. As it did, the pain faded, and strength returned to her limbs.

She opened her eyes.

Naraku stood above her, red eyes gleaming.

“Get out.”

It was all Kikyo could do to get weakly to her knees, and slowly crawl away from him to the door, and out.

**************************

Naraku slumped under his window, thinking.

Even now, in the quiet of his sanctuary, Onigumo still yammered away at the back of his mind. He never knew when his thoughts might turn to Kikyo… the feel of her flesh, giving way before his claws, the hot, copper tang of her blood… the touch of her slender, deft fingers, changing the dressings on his wounds… the smell of herbs and growing green things that clung to her like perf oh- oh-so-welcome in thnk cnk cave that he lay in… the soft pressure of her body on his, unconscious and helpless in his arms (ah, the possibilities there)…

Arrogant bitch. The way she had simply swept into his castle, and flung the Shikon no Tama at his feet, as if he were some pathetic ningen beggar… oh, no. Old Onigumo-the-lovesick-bandit dn’tdn’t possibly hurt her, he was infatuated with her, he was as helpless as a little puppy wherever she was concerned… and so, too, by extension, was Naraku… certainly not someone considered a threat… certainly not someone to be feared.

Wasn’t that what he wanted to see that first time? Her fear? Her pain? Hadn’t he already shown her that he was someone to be feared?

Kikyo lay bleeding in the grass, looking up at him, her eyes dazed, confused, filled with betrayal and crushed love…he had cherished… no, treasured that moment. Seeing her shattered soul, laid bare before him, hearing her small sweet gasp of pain as he crushed the delicate bones of her hand beneath his heel…oh, it was bliss…

He shifted uncomfortably. The spider scar on his back seemed to itch, but surely that was only his imagination.

It seemed sometimes that Onigumo merely got stronger each time he tried to stifle him. It had gotten so bad that he actually went out and made this Kikyo doll… this puppet of his own flesh, with a stolen human heart inside. He disgusted himself—he hated himself for this moment of weakness that allowed Onigumo to so influence him. It would be so much easier—and better—if he got rid of the doll, but Onigumo would not let him simply kill something that wore her face—even when he knew that face was a lie.

Weak, soft human heart!

He had been working up to it. Oh, yes, he had. Each time, hurting her more and more, seeing her tears and her blood, listening to her soft sobs, and delighting in them. Onigumo desired Kikyo sexually, but he also desired her pain and torment, and Naraku had thought at first that he could turn the situation to his advantage—if he hurt her, tortured her, killed her as a sex act, then maybe he could get Onigumo to enjoy it when he killed the real Kikyo.

He had really intended to just let her bleed to death tonight. But sitting there, listening to her pleading and her whimpers slowly growing weaker, smelling her blood and her tears and her bowels… something inside him, that had formerly enjoyed her agony, was this time sickened, and he had cut her down, healed her, and sent her on her way.

Next time, Naraku resolved. Next time, he would kill the doll… and Onigumo would not get in his way.

Author’s Note: So how was that? Not too bad, I hope? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a sick, sick person. Whee. Already knew that. Please review! Reviews are important to me! And my muse! Without reviews she will surely wither up and die! Also, if any of my Japanese was blatantly wrong, please, please correct me, for I am merely a silly Chinese-American, pretending to know Japanese.