Dressed once more in her fire-rat haori, Kagome padded over to the window, Kanna still standing sentinel by the door. Hooking her fingers into the bars, the miko gazed out over the dark sprawl of Naraku’s phantom castle, an eerie purple sky roiling above it all. As she watched, vast monstrous shapes swam through the murky air, their spines and tails and wings denting against some invisible boundary that shielded the castle and its grounds.

Kagome’s skin prickled at the sight. There was something distinctly unsettling about those creatures. Somehow, she sensed that they didn’t belong to her world—and if this place was their domain, then neither did she.

“The demons of the Void,” Naraku’s silky voice spoke from behind her, “are fearsome indeed.”

Kagome turned with a start, retreating into the window as he approached her. Naraku smiled, his crimson eyes regarding her with amusement.

“Can you sense their power, Kagome?” he asked, drawing to a stop just before her. “Such brutish strength…yet so easily brought to heel beneath my command.”

At this declaration, the violet sky parted above them. A gigantic dragon-like demon soared through the gap, its pale armored body translucent as quartz. Vaporous breath spilled from its cavernous jaws, Kagome shrinking back as Naraku dismissed it with a conceited glance.

“These empty beasts are simple to control,” he continued, his gaze flicking casually to Kanna before returning intently to her own. “But even the strongest will can be broken.”

Kagome flattened against the wall as Naraku advanced upon her, his knuckles skimming the stubborn line of her jaw.

“How I will enjoy it,” he murmured, the sound making her stomach turn, “breaking you.”

Kagome glared. “You’ll never break me, Naraku. I’d rather die than submit to you.”

The hanyou laughed, leaning in toward her. “You are terribly mistaken, Kagome,” he replied darkly, his cool breath whispering over her skin, “if you think that death will be an option for you.”

Kagome shivered, struggling to keep the fear from her eyes as he drew back with a smirk.

“Magatsuhi has returned,” Kanna announced suddenly behind them.

Naraku’s smirk deepened, a tendril of relief wending through Kagome as he turned to the door. “Good.”

A moment later, Magatsuhi entered, his red eyes narrowing briefly as he crossed the threshold with Jewel shard in hand. Naraku stepped forward to meet him, the demon’s blue lips fixing in a sneer as he dropped the defiled shard into the hanyou’s outstretched palm.

“Only one remains apart from the rest,” Naraku stated, smiling in triumph as the dark gem showed only the slightest crack. “Bring me Kohaku,” he ordered smugly to Kanna.

“He is not here, master,” the waif-like girl replied.

“Not here,” Naraku repeated chillingly, rounding upon her after a moment of savage concentration. “Where is he?”

“Kagura returned with him,” the incarnation answered tonelessly, “to the mortal realm.”

Crushing the incomplete Jewel in his fist, Naraku strode toward her, his expression thunderous with rage.

“Show me,” he demanded.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi