InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Unicorn and the Spider: Kik/Nar drabbles ❯ The Messenger ( Chapter 29 )

AN: Spoilers for Chapter 409. Written for the “Note” theme at iy_wiltedrose and used for the “child” theme at 30shards on livejournal.

 

The Messenger

 

Nothing much scares Kikyou anymore. She's died before, and the world has transformed and moved on without her.

 

So it's odd when she feels a slight dread toward Naraku's incarnation, the white-haired monster that looks like a child. She comes to Kikyou unexpectedly; the moon is high that night with a ring of blood around it.

 

Kanna brings her a message. “Naraku gives you this.”

 

She sets it on the ground because she knows Kikyou will not come to her. The undead priestess wouldn't dare touch her. Everything Naraku creates is an abomination, no matter how innocent the child appears. (And no matter how alike Kikyou is to an abomination herself.)

 

Kanna is gone before Kikyou's dark thoughts clear, and she looks at her present on the ground. With its amorphous shape, anything could be inside: from a love note to the heart of a child. Naraku is predictable that way.

 

She walks forward and crouches down, and when she senses very little miasma, she unfolds the ruffled cloth, shaped to fit a young boy.

 

Kikyou frowns when she realizes what it is, a piece of Kohaku's clothing, splattered with blood and aching with residual memory.

 

It's a warning. Naraku must know Kohaku is with her, and no matter how many souls she takes on, he reminds her that he's still after her. Soon he will take her life, as well as Kohaku's life. He will rip the shard from the boy's body and laugh when he dies, and Naraku will do it in the most theatrical and gruesome way.

 

Kikyou shudders and notices that it isn't Kanna's creepy child-like veneer that makes her agitated tonight.

 

She realizes she understands Naraku too well, and no matter if she dies again, nothing else but knowing that will give her such unease.