Swiping a furious hand across her lips, Kagome scrambled back from Naraku in revulsion. The hanyou laughed, assuming the form of Hitomi Kagewaki once more.

“Does Sesshoumaru’s kiss so revile you now, Kagome?”

The miko glared. “It’s you who disgusts me, Naraku. You can put on whatever face you want, but I see what you are underneath.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in scorn. “And what is that?” he asked.

“A dark, ugly twisted recluse,” Kagome answered back. “A spider too repulsed by itself to come out and show its real face.”

Naraku’s crimson eyes narrowed as he stepped toward her. “You are one to speak of disguises, miko. You, who betrayed your sacred duty–who selfishly called upon the power of the Jewel when your demon lover turned against you.”

“You’re wrong.”

Naraku paused as Kagome rose slowly, yet determinedly, to her feet, meeting his gaze in calm conviction.

“I was ready to die–I even wanted to,” she said, her eyes glimmering as she remembered the immensity of her pain–and the fragment that had staunched it, emerging rosy and radiant from her chest. “It was the Jewel that saved me. The pure spirit of the Jewel–Midoriko’s spirit.”

“Midoriko’s spirit?” Naraku scoffed, raising the shadowed Shikon no Tama between them. “Don’t delude yourself. Can you not see how thoroughly the Jewel has been defiled?” A cold smile formed on his lips. “My servant Magatsuhi has done his work well.”

“Your ‘servant,’ huh?” Kagome shook her head. “Naraku, the one who’s deluded here is you. You’re wrong about Magatsuhi, and you’re wrong about the Jewel.” Steadily, her eyes met his. “You’ve been wrong about everything.”

A shadow passed across the hanyou’s features as he stared hard at her in return. Sure, she was challenging him, provoking him even–but Kagome wasn’t bluffing. Even now she could see it–a point of light buried deep within the dark depths of the Jewel, a kernel of brilliant purity that refused to be extinguished.

So long as the Shikon no Tama remained in existence, the battle between good and evil would continue within it. Neither the dark nor the light would ever triumph completely. For Naraku not to see this himself was curiously blind.

“We shall see how wrong I am when I possess the Jewel in full,” he said to her, his voice soft with promise as he held the near-complete gem aloft before him. A rapt, almost manic expression entered his eyes as he gazed upon it. “How beautiful it is…I wonder how much more beautiful it will appear, from the inside.”

Kagome’s brow creased. “…What?”

Sharply, Naraku glanced at her, as if in surprise. He’d been speaking like a man possessed, icy dread seeping through her as she took a hesitant step toward him.

“Naraku,” she ventured quietly, “what is it that you truly wished for?”

His cool expression faltered at the question, a look of wariness stealing over him as she approached. His pale fingers closed around the Jewel in his hand.

“What I wished for…” he murmured, frowning down at the orb in concentration–and deepening unease.

Drawing to a stop before him, Kagome frowned as well. Reaching out, she placed her hand lightly to the center of his chest, his red eyes snapping to hers.

Her gaze softened in pity. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Naraku’s eyes widened in shock. Beneath her palm, she could feel the stuttered beating of his heart within him.

And within her, a familiar warmth bloomed and spread–spilling out of her from the font of her soul, filling her like the first breath of air after breaking the water’s surface.

Sesshoumaru… she realized, love blossoming through her as well, shimmering brilliantly in the gleaming surface of her eyes.

As her tears fell and her hand began to glow, Naraku’s gaze remained riveted on hers still, the lightening Jewel slipping heedless through his fingers. Beneath her purifying touch, the crimson bled from his eyes, a dreamlike wonder transcending him as he looked upon her.

“This,” he breathed out in awe, the tips of his fingers brushing across her dampened cheek. “This is what I wished for…”

As his eyes closed in an expression of peace, Kagome’s closed as well, her features crumpling as she brought her other hand to his chest, setting the spirit of Onigumo free in a blaze of rose-colored light.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi