Chapter Text
He doesn’t know exactly what brings him here of all places. For all intents and purposes, it is probably somewhere he should stay far away from. Yet, as he passes by and sees that even after all the countless years that damned old tree is still standing, he finds his legs marching up a thousand stairs to the grounds of a shrine.
The tree is bigger than he remembers. It looms a whole story taller with a trunk doubled over in size. He looks first at the ancient boughs, then at the intricate texture of its great bark, and finally at the sprawling cage-like roots where a boy lies sealed and asleep. Perhaps, even if the boy inside were to wake, he would have to fight his way out of the thrumming sacred roots. Despite all that, looking upon it feels nothing like victory. The only thing between the three of them that has anything to gloat about is the tree itself that has not diminished with the test of time, only ever growing stronger.
It’s a sour thought. Time has made everything he once desired meaningless. What is his strength when humans have fashioned weapons that can decimate the entire earth in the blink of an eye? What is immortality when everything that he has done has been forgotten and will stay that way? What is life when it has been so long that he doesn’t know why he is alive anymore?
They’re all rather troubling questions. He is unlike those full blooded demons that come from great long lines of prestige that can claim spots in worlds beyond and live out their old and long held glory as they have always done. He has nothing but a heart that he never quite managed to cast away.
“Hello.”
He looks over and freezes. It is her.
He had felt the muted aura of spiritual energy flitting around the property. It wasn’t aggressive and didn’t seem to notice him so he disregarded it without a second thought. There are a number of humans presently that roam around with untapped potential for spiritual energy as there is hardly any need for it. But, by all the heavens it’s her. She who started it all.
She is not quite a woman, he notes, but barely still a girl. She has the same face as she did five hundred years ago. However, this time her eyes are abruptly blue.
His staring causes her to pause her sweeping and awkwardly offer again, “Hi.”
A charming rosy color stains her fair cheeks as she looks at him. The spring breeze takes her long hair— that is gentle and wavy now— up toward the sky and she uses a small hand to keep it out of her face. He notes she is much, much smaller this time around. A slight wisp of a woman. Had she been that size five hundred years ago, she would not have survived as long as she did. He can see there’s no strength in her thin wrists and hardly any muscle in her legs. She is, at present, bone and skin and a beautiful face. It makes for a terribly unfortunate combination.
She smiles at him shyly, “Uhm… Sightseeing? Or did you come here to pray?”
“Both,” he finds himself belatedly answering, though it isn’t truthful. Nothing about him ever is.
She nods and continues to smile at him. Her expression grows when he responds. With happiness, with her face, and it’s such a perplexing sight to him. He cannot remember her ever offering a smile like the one she gives him now, not this warm unabashed show of teeth. The most he, her sister, and even Inuyasha ever got was a demure twitch of her lips and a cold, sad gaze that never lit. Yet, there she was standing in her little way with her tiny shoulders and bare thin knees giving him a smile that shows all her teeth and makes her blue eyes sparkle.
She is utterly beautiful. And for that he feels the sprouting seed of an ache he forgot he ever even sowed.
“Were— Were you able to find the actual shrine,” she asks kindly, her fingers enclose and twine around the handle of her broom. She’s rightfully nervous. He wonders if deep inside her soul she can tell who he is and is afraid. It would be fitting, he killed her once.
“I only just arrived,” he tells her. “I wanted to stop by the tree first.”
She blushes and looks down, dense lashes fluttering over her cheeks, “Oh. Sorry, I’m probably bothering you then. Uhm… I’ll just, leave you be—”
At that, he realizes she isn’t nervous because she is afraid. She is nervous because she wants to be around him. It’s a striking and powerful thought. The tables have turned. She desires him, however initial and innocent her attraction might be. All the same, this girl has her face and the fact the owner of it might want him makes him feel powerful in ways he has not for over a century.
So he plots.
“I would like some help finding it, if you are able to point it out,” he says, offering her his own smile.
Her face brightens even more, “Oh! Yes, of course! I’m always free to help. It’s just this way.”
She gestures for him to follow her and he does.
“This shrine has been in our family for ages,” she tells him. She blinks, “Oh! I’m, uhm, Higurashi by the way. Higurashi K—”
His heart startles. He finds himself suggesting, “Kikyo?”
She pauses, furrows her brows, looks at him, and tilts her head, “Kikyo?”
Of course she would not be named the same thing, that would be too telling and fate is never that way. Tamping down his strange reaction, he shakes his head dismissively, “I’m sorry. You just… remind me of someone.”
“Well don’t think about mixing us up,” she says with a playful smile. Each of her smiles is so beautiful. She goes on, “My name is Kagome. Ka-go-me.”
“Kagome,” he repeats, tasting her new name and the way it sits on his tongue.
That lovely little blush comes to her cheeks once again, “Uhm, yeah. You’re fine to call me that, if you want. There are a bunch of Higurashi-san’s around here, so Kagome is fine by itself. I don’t mind being familiar.”
“Kagome,” he says again. He nods, “Alright. Kagome it shall be.”
She beams at him before prompting, “And your name?”
He pauses. No one has asked for his name in a very long time. He doesn’t quite know which one to give. She looks at him expectantly. For some reason, he tells her, “You can call me Naraku. Let’s be familiar.”
“Naraku,” she parrots, brows rising in surprise. “As in mugen naraku, the eighth hell?”
“Indeed,” he says.
“You must have had odd parents to give you such a dreadful name.” The moment she finishes her thought, she flusters suddenly and waves her hands, “Sorry! That was really rude—”
Her reactions are substantially amusing. A smirk twitches at his lips and he says, “You’re just being honest.”
Indeed she is too terribly so. She looks like she knows this as her chin tips down and her fine boned hands crawl up to pet at her hair, “I’ve been told I’m too honest. My name is a little weird too. It was chosen because my grandfather said that eighteen strokes would be the most auspicious for me. My mom settled on Kagome after hearing the children’s song. She says she just liked the sound of it.”
“Kagome, kagome,” he muses. He then poses, “Who is it that stands behind you?”
Her eyes sparkle with an unfaltering light, “You, of course.”
And he is her executioner.
She takes him to the shrine and they both offer a simple prayer. Afterwards, he listens to her talk. Kagome shows him around more of the grounds and tells him about the history of the shrine and how it came to be in her family. She tells him how old they think the tree is and that they do not want to do a core sample for fear it will hurt the tree. He listens aptly, giving her his undivided attention and she absolutely glitters under it.
Kagome gives him a whole tour. He shows her the outside of her house, the shop as well, and finally she brings him to another structure.
“This is the wellhouse,” she announces, pushing open the doors. Kagome leans to the side to allow him in, “Jii-chan says this is even older than the shrine. We don’t have the records for it, but we think it’s been around since before even the Sengoku period, though by then it was already dried. Which for that we have records of.”
He doesn’t remember a well, personally. But he supposes he might have simply forgotten for a dry well has nothing to offer. The air inside smells stale and musty. It’s a rather wide structure housing an old wooden well of medieval construction. There are old but not as ancient seals placed over the latticed cover warning of danger and evil. His brow raises. She catches his gaze and laughs a bit, illuminating the dark room with a bright shimmering sound.
“It’s been sealed since forever too. Jii-chan says that they used to dump the bodies of demons inside there and that without those seals they’ll try to crawl back out.”
“Demons,” he asks, turning to her.
She nods and lifts some of her hair away from her delicate neck. His eyes trail down the slender length of it where it disappears under her flowery dress. There’s a silver chain from which hangs a sizable pink pearl. In fact, she is bedecked in pearls. Two white ones drip from her ears and there is a string of them round her left wrist. How ironic, he thinks.
“Demons,” she says with a cheeky twinkling of her eyes. “He used to say if I went too close, one might snatch me up and drag me into a different era. Of course, it was all just so I wouldn’t play and fall in there. But we do have some scrolls that call it the Bone Eater’s well. It suggests a gruesome history to it even if there are no beasts.”
“How fantastical,” he muses, leaning over to look inside. There is nothing but dirt.
“You don’t believe it,” she asks.
He looks over his shoulder where she stands on the stairs, tilting her head. Naraku hums, “Do you?”
She laughs, “Maybe a little. I always thought if I fell through I might never return.”
Eventually, they go back to the sacred tree. They sit together for a long while and he listens to all the stories she tells of the shrine. He can tell she loves them, though she is hard pressed to truly believe any that venture into the realm of magic. Interestingly, there is no story about a boy trapped in the roots of the sacred tree, not that she tells him at least.
The sun begins to dip under the horizon and at that point, a middle aged woman with Kagome’s mouth pokes her head out of the house curiously. It causes Kagome to flush the same color as the red sky. She stands suddenly and pulls her hair behind her ears.
“Oh gosh, I’ve kept you here all day, I’m so sorry,” she says.
“There was nothing better for me to do,” he assures her, standing as well. He smiles charmingly at her and takes satisfaction in the way she tries to hide her warm face in her shoulders, “Thank you for giving me such an in-depth tour of your shrine.”
Kagome nods, “Of course! I hope I didn’t just bore you to death. I know I used to find all of this pretty lame in high school.”
“What changed,” he asks.
She looks around before shrugging, “I don’t know. One day I woke up and I just realized how magical it all is.”
He looks around too, eyes lingering on the roots of the tree, “It is.”
“Well,” she says, shifting on her feet. “Uhm, I’d better let you go now…”
“Right, I’m sure you have dinner waiting for you,” he offers politely, nodding.
“Yeah,” Kagome murmurs. She has a brief look of debate on her features before she bounces onto her toes and clears her throat,
“Do… Do you think you’d come by again?”
“Would you want to see me,” he asks, feeling an amused smirk take the corner of his mouth.
She ducks forward with a sheepish look and twists her fingers together, “Erm… I would. I really enjoyed talking to you.”
“As did I,” he says. He hums, “But I don’t know if you’d really want to see me once more.”
“I would,” she assures. Kagome then adds, “I don’t know why, but I just felt like I knew you from somewhere.”
At that, he freezes. He looks deep into her blue eyes and finds no recognition clearing over her gaze. Slowly, he asks, “What if you did?”
She smiles once more, “Then I’d be really happy to meet you again.”
“What if I had done something terrible and unforgivable to you,” he presses, unsure why he is trying to spark memories she does not have.
Kagome gives him a confused look before she snorts, “You’re so strange. But, I don’t know. Have you? Do we know each other from somewhere?”
He stares at her for a beat of his terribly human heart. She is naïve, vexingly so. In some long off time, he might have liked her innocence and perhaps even preyed on it— but now he finds it simply tormenting. Naraku finds he wants her to know all that he has done to her and to others. He wants her to scorn him for it, to try and purify him. It would be so much easier to deal with but instead she leaves him with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. Something hot and slimy weighs on his back. He realizes, belatedly, that it might be guilt.
Imperceptibly, he clenches his fist before smiling back and answering, “No. I don’t think we do.”
His answer isn’t truthful. Nothing about him ever is.
—
He doesn’t actually leave that night. Rather, he hides himself along the shadows of her house and listens.
“Who was that handsome young man you were talking to all day,” her mother asks.
He can hear Kagome startle as her chopsticks clatter on a ceramic bowl, “Ah! No one!”
“It didn’t look like no one,” the woman presses. “Do you know him from university?”
“No, I don’t know him from anywhere,” Kagome answers. She groans, “Oh it’s so embarrassing really, I just— I just started talking and didn’t stop.”
“I’m sure he thought it was endearing, he let you talk for six hours,” her mother laughs. “Men don’t do things they don’t want to.”
“You did pull him around the whole place, nee-chan,” her brother says. He clears his throat when it cracks toward the end before continuing, “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No,” she snaps. “I just met him today! I just… I don’t know, he seemed so familiar for some reason.”
“What’s his name?”
“Naraku,” Kagome says.
“Naraku,” her grandfather gasps. “He must be a demon! Looking like that and coming onto our property to seduce our Kagome, the nerve of him! If he comes again you tell me, Kagome! I’ll—”
“And now we’re on about demons?! Give it a rest,” she yelps loudly before it sounds like she angrily sets her things down. Her chair scrapes across the floor and her stomps echo through the house until a door slams shut.
The boy whistles lowly, “Oof. Jii-chan, I think that was on you.”
“What did I say?”
“Let’s just give her space. You know she’s not very good with boys,” her mother says with a laugh. “Souta, be a dear and bring her food up for her when you’re done.”
“Yes mama,” the boy answers.
From what is presumably her room, he hears her pacing and muttering, “Stupid Jii-chan, stupid Souta… Ugh, stupid me… There’s no way a guy like that would like me… Ugh, I thought boy problems ended in high school…”
He huffed amusedly to himself, startling a plump cat that had been walking in front of him. Its eyes appear reflective as it stares at him and he stares back.
“Kagome,” he murmurs and the cat tilts its head. He smirks and the cat treads back suspiciously.
—
He lingers around her for two weeks. In that time he learns much about her and her routine. It allows him to find her in a library late at night. She is pouring over some books wearing jeans and a clean pink pullover. Her hair is bound at the base of her neck and her fingers are tangled in her bangs as she frowns down at the pages.
“Who even needs math…” she murmurs, scratching something on her notepad.
He almost feels bad for planning to distract her.
“Kagome,” he says quietly.
She stiffens and looks around before stiffening some more. Her fingers leave her bangs askew and a mess over her forehead and her mouth opens and closes several times.
“N-Naraku,” she stammers, wiping her hands on her pants. She tucks her feet back into her white flats and smiles, “Hi. What are you doing here?”
He shows her a book and she blushes. He picked it up from the science section and the cover suggests a discussion of mammalian biology. It is a carefully selected book. While he does find the concept one of the more interesting ones developed by modern humans, it will later play into a character he is building to present to her. Everything about this is a part of a plan. How long has it been since he has devised such an elaborate scheme to deceive someone, he wonders. Satisfaction soothes his dispirited soul, this is who he truly is.
“Oh, books, right,” she laughs.
“Are you having trouble,” he asks, looking down at her work.
“A little,” she nods, looking a bit sheepish. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about something like this, would you?”
She offers him a better look at her page.
He has taken a few courses in the modern era out of boredom and curiosity before. He finds it interesting that humans have advanced so far with something as simple as numbers and use them to sustain some of the newly grown parts of their society. Another part of him finds it all hilariously trivial.
“A little,” he says after a beat. He smiles at her, “Would you like my help?”
“If you could spare it,” she says, pressing her hands together pleadingly.
Pulling the seat next to her, he slides into it and sets his book off to the side. He smiles at her and takes satisfaction in the way she blushes, “I’ll do my best.”
With no skin off his back he walks her through her homework. When she finishes, she looks between him and her paper in astonishment before bowing as best as she can in her seat.
“Thank you so much! You don’t know how much of a help you’ve been, I’ve got a test next week on this and I think I finally get it now,” she says, offering him a grin so bright he leans away from it.
“It’s no problem,” he responds. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Uhm, excuse me.”
They both look over to see an older man with a lanyard hanging from his neck. Kagome’s eyes light up with realization and she quickly stands and begins packing her things.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, shoving her books into her yellow backpack. “I didn’t realize you were closing.”
“Yes, it’s about five minutes till,” the man informs. “We open again at eight tomorrow.”
“I understand, we’ll be on our way out,” Kagome assures, bowing politely.
When the man leaves, she turns to Naraku with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry, I took up all your time, I hope you weren’t looking for much more.”
“There is always tomorrow,” he assures. “I do not mind helping you.”
She tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “It’s late, let me make it up to you.”
“There’s no need,” he declines out of civility, though he knows she will insist.
“No, I really have to because you’ve helped me so much,” Kagome says. She grabs her backpack and pulls it over one shoulder, “Are you hungry? There’s WacDonald’s just down the road.”
It is too good of an opportunity to pass up. He smiles and nods, “Alright.”
She looks positively elated.
They end up seated at a booth. As it is late, there are hardly any people there. A group of teenagers is tucked into one corner. They talk amongst themselves and play with condiment packets. There seems to be one person in the kitchen and one person up front and both look listless and like they would rather be anywhere else.
Kagome is sitting across from him with a double stacked, horribly American burger and a pouch of fries. He has his own pouch before him as it’s about all he can stomach from what he doesn’t think can quite be considered a restaurant. She finishes hers, then eats her burger, and then eyes his fries which he offers to her and she sheepishly accepts.
“I haven’t eaten all day, sorry,” she says, poking a splotch of ketchup with the soggy end of a fry. “I stack my classes between only two days so I can help out at the shrine as much as I can. Jii-chan had a bad fall last year so he’s been slower around the upkeep since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he tells her.
“Oh no, it’s fine, he’s doing well,” she insists. A fond look graces her features and he’s hit with the memories of disgust as it’s a similar look to the one she once had when thinking about Inuyasha. Her eyes flicker over to the door when a new patron arrives, “He’s still always so lively. Actually, for his birthday this year he wants to go down to Kyushu to see a shrine keeper friend of his. Mama will probably take him and Souta will stay with me since we both have school.”
He nods along before beginning to ask all the questions he has about her. As she is an honest and open book, she tells him everything he wants to know. He learns she is nineteen. She is in her second year of university where she is aiming for a degree in business but has been thinking about double majoring in history after having an ancient history class she really liked. Her brother is in middle school and he does very well in baseball while her mother splits her time between helping with the shrine, cooking, and amateur karuta competitions. She tells him she’ll probably take over the shrine since Souta doesn’t have an interest in it and that truthfully neither did she at first but someone has to lest they have to sell it.
In turn, he spins a tale of his own. Lies upon lies layered with bits of truth between. He says that he is taking a gap year from his biology studies, that he is an only child and that his parents passed a few years ago rather suddenly but that they had been quite absent in his upbringing. He tells her he had been a bit unruly when he was younger, a known thief in fact.
“So what are you doing now,” she asks, tilting her head and licking the salt grains off her red lips.
He smirks, “Talking to you in a WacDonald’s.”
Kagome rolls her eyes but her cheeks are touched with color, “You know what I mean.”
He pauses before deciding to say, “Sorting things out.”
She takes his answer without any more elaboration and nods, “You’ve had a really tough life, I’m sure no one will blame you for taking all the time you need.”
They talk for a couple hours more. Eventually, she realizes the trains have stopped and he hails them a cab and the presence of another person is the only thing that puts a pause in their conversation. When they come upon the shrine, he pays for their fare and gets out with her to walk the rest of the way.
“You don’t have to see me home,” she tries.
“I want to,” he tells her and takes her bag from her nervous hands.
The street leading to the steps of the shrine is not very long and neither does it take them very long to reach the top of the steps.
“Thank you again, Naraku,” she says. “You really helped me so much— and paying for everything! Even the cab, it was supposed to be my treat.”
The pout tugging on her lips is endearing. He feels the corner of his lip twitch, “Believe me, I felt very treated. Your lovely company was enough.”
Her eyes widen. They’re so big and they sparkle even in the terrible light of the streetlamps, “Oh.”
Flustered, Kagome suddenly yanks the bag from him and throws it over her shoulder but its great weight tips her to one side. Her foot slips off the edge of the step and she sucks in a breath. Without wasting a moment, Naraku grabs her. One hand on her arm and the other slipping over her ribcage.
A shock of something scrapes across his palm where he’s bracing her side. So surprised is he that he doesn’t realize his grip has turned rough until she winces and tries to pull away after she’s righted. Quickly, he lets her go and she takes several steps away from the edge.
“Oh gosh, that would have been a terrible fall,” she breathes, looking at the long way down the steps.
Numbly, he answers, “It would have.”
She takes his reaction as one to her near-death and quickly bows, “I-I’m fine! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m just clumsy! Thank you for catching me, you’re a lot stronger than you look.”
He watches her rub her arm tenderly as a flustered heat takes hold of her. She clears her throat though her voice is shaky, “Uhm, have a good night! Thank you again!”
With that, she runs away into her home, slipping through the front door and the light behind it shuts off.
Naraku is left to stand there by himself with his tingling hand. So that’s where she hid it, he thinks.
That damn jewel is inside Kagome. It’s both fortuitous and vexing. Everything he has ever truly wanted has eluded him for five hundred years only to fall right before his feet in a single, primly wrapped package. Albeit, the package delivered to him belatedly. There’s no use for a jewel made of dead priestesses and fallen demons in a world of nuclear weapons and there’s been no war in that part of the world for over half a century. Still, how satisfying it would be to grasp finally what he had wanted at the very beginning of his wretched life.
“Kagome, Kagome,” he mutters. He reaches out with his youki, feeling around the shrine grounds. There is Inuyasha, asleep forevermore; there is Kagome’s grandfather who is also deep in slumber; and there is Kagome, flitting around the house with her shimmering aura as she gets ready for bed.
“Who is it that stands behind you?”