Blood red eyes swam briefly into focus.

“…Well done, Magatsuhi. It was good of you to bring her here.”

Blue lips pulled into an icy smile. “I thought the girl might be of interest to you.”

“Oh,” the silky voice replied, “most assuredly…”

Darkness swallowed Kagome whole. When she emerged into the low light again, the same red-and-white eyes were hovering above her still–framed by sharp porcelain features and a fall of black, wavy hair.

“Na…raku,” the miko gasped out, struggling to sit up on the futon beneath her.

“Kagome,” his smooth voice returned. “How sweet it is to hear you speak my name.”

Kagome flinched away as he reached for her. Collapsing onto an elbow, she thrust her free hand between them, her eyes widening in confusion as her reiki refused to channel to her palm.

Smiling indulgently, Naraku tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Here,” he said, bringing the rim of a cup to her lips.

Reluctantly, Kagome drank, the cool water soothing her parched throat.

“Your spiritual powers have been subdued by Magatsuhi,” Naraku explained as he took the empty cup away. “It is for this purpose that I called him forth from the Jewel and gave him flesh.”

“From the Jewel?” Kagome asked in trepidation, tugging the blanket higher up on her chest. “You mean, Magatsuhi is…”

“Yes,” Naraku said with a dark smile, “Magatsuhi is the demon of the Shikon no Tama—a personification of the evil spirit who wars with Midoriko still.” Folding his hands into his sleeves, he sat back, savoring Kagome’s distress. “Not only can he sense Jewel fragments as you can, he possesses the unique ability to seal your reiki—an ability which I will claim from him once his usefulness to me has ended.”

Surfacing in the center of his palm, the near-complete Jewel glowed violet-black. “Even as we speak, Magatsuhi is retrieving the final missing piece at my command. When he returns with it, all the shards will be in my possession at last.”

Kagome pressed a trembling hand to the purple splinter still wedged in her chest. Despair surged through her. If what he said was true, then the battle was already lost. With the completed Jewel in his grasp, Naraku would be unstoppable.

As her trembling intensified, he brushed aside her twitching fingers and plucked the Jewel shard from her skin, the dull pain of her injuries sweeping over her at once. Cringing, Kagome shrank in upon herself.

The hanyou chuckled as he joined her fragment to the rest. “When you used the Jewel to save yourself, Magatsuhi gained leverage against you.” The tips of his fingers touched lightly to the crescent wound in her chest. “Such selfishness. Kikyou would never have acted as you did–yet you are alive, and she is dead.” Slowly, his hand fell away from her, his simmering eyes remaining riveted upon hers. “We are both the abiding versions of our predecessors, are we not?”

Hot tears of anguish seared down Kagome’s cheeks as she glared at him in answer.

Naraku smirked as he stood. “Thanks to the power of the Shikon no Tama, your life is no longer in peril. Rest well now, Kagome,” he said as he went to the door, the fine hairs on her neck rising at the low promise in his voice. “I will call upon you again, soon.”

As the screen door slid shut behind him, Kagome collapsed to the futon in agony, hopeless tears seeping into the fabric. It was over. Naraku had won. All their efforts had been for nothing, in the end.

And in the end, Sesshoumaru despised her still.

The emptiness was crushing, and she felt it bearing down on her like he had, reducing her to nothing but the bitter remains of herself. She had failed–failed at love, failed at her quest.

Failed at everything.

When the shouji screen slid open once more, Kagome didn’t even stir. Numbly, she braced herself for Naraku’s triumph and for whatever horrors he had in store for her. Perhaps if the gods were merciful, they would finally just let her die.

But when footsteps padded over to her across the tatami, they were not Naraku’s. Blinking back her tears, Kagome glanced up to find Kagura staring down at her, her own crimson eyes flat with resignation.

“Sit up,” the wind sorceress ordered wearily. “I need to re-bandage your wounds.”

Slowly, Kagome pushed herself upright as Kagura unwound the strips of linen binding her around the back and chest. Just inside the doorway, Kanna stood in quiet vigil, her doll-like features as devoid of expression as ever.

Kagome winced as Kagura cleaned and dressed the long slashes on her back with clinical efficiency. “These cuts of yours are deep,” the wind witch remarked curtly. “I’ve done what I can for them, but you’ll always be scarred.”

The miko’s lashes lowered as she turned her face away. What difference did it make if she was scarred or not?

“…Thanks,” she replied instead, “for seeing to them.”

Pausing, Kagura made a brisk sound of acknowledgment. For a while, she was silent.

“It was Sesshoumaru, wasn’t it,” she asked eventually, a note of wariness in her tone, “who did this to you?”

Kagome bowed her head, her defeated silence answer enough. Perhaps a little gentler than before, the demoness continued to bind her wounds. Quietly, Kagome considered her.

“Kagura,” she asked after a moment, “why did you return to Naraku?”

The wind witch tensed in surprise. “Why?” she repeated, sounding bewildered. “He holds my life in his hands. What choice did I have?”

Kagome nodded. She knew how it felt, to be wholly at the mercy of another. But even still…

Even still, she had chosen. And despite the pain, despite the failure, despite everything, she would make the same decision again in an instant.

Maybe it was weakness, maybe it was insanity, but…

I love him. Closing her eyes briefly, Kagome smiled.

More than anything.

Smiling softly still, she met the wind witch’s gaze. “There’s always a choice.”

Kagura frowned in reply. Securing Kagome’s bandages with the deft tuck of a nail, the demoness stood and went to the door. As her hand pushed the screen aside, she cast one last inscrutable glance back at Kagome before stepping through.

Outside, a short thin shadow slanted just beyond the doorway. Voice as clipped as ever, Kagura addressed the shadow’s source.

“Come, Kohaku–we have tasks to attend to.” Bright red, her sharp eyes slanted back to Kanna’s as she turned to walk down the hall. “Open the way for us.”

Kanna’s vacant gaze slid downward as her mirror gleamed. “Yes, sister.”

With a short nod, the wind witch continued on, the shouji screen snapping shut decisively behind her.

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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