Naraku in Love

6

When I woke up the next morning I was laying on Naraku's pelt on the floor, he was nowhere to be seen. Kagura came in shortly after I woke and roughly set down a tray of food in front of me. It was my usual porridge with a small daifuku this time. I wondered if that had been Naraku's idea. But I quickly put that thought out of my mind, he didn't seem like the type to come up with small sweet gestures like that and why would he in the first place, it wasn't like he was my betrothed or anything.

My mind continued to wander back to last night as I ate. What had all that been about? Why had Naraku held me like that? Why didn't I want him to stop? I had never felt these things before or experienced anything like it. And against all reason, it made me smile. I knew that I should be worried about all the evil Naraku had done and how I was still technically his prisoner, but my heart felt something else. I couldn't say what exactly, but all I knew was that when Naraku held me last night, I never wanted it to end.

"What are you so happy about?" Kagura's icy voice cut through my thoughts.

I guess I had been smiling to myself and didn't notice. When I didn't answer her she just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Whatever."

Another day, another demon, and another jewel shard to be obtained. But this time I could hardly focus my spiritual energy, all I wanted was to see Naraku again. I wondered what our next meeting would be like, would he have another game for us to play? Would he hold me again the way he did last night? When I thought of him and the excitement I felt to see him again I noticed that my spiritual energy grew stronger almost to a point where I couldn't control it. I even felt slightly bad for the demon I shot, my energy was so great that it seemed like a bit of an overkill.

Kagura said nothing after we had collected the jewel, but I caught her looking at me curiously. I'm sure even she could tell the difference in my spiritual strength.

As we got nearer to the castle I felt almost giddy. I nearly jumped off Kagura's feather and didn't even wait for her to lead me back to my room as usual. I could picture Naraku perfectly, waiting in his usual spot by the window, one arm propped up on his knee with a thoughtful expression on his face. But when I got to the room he wasn't there.

His pelt was on the floor just where I had left it but Naraku was nowhere to be seen. I felt my heart sink a little. Maybe he would be back later I thought to myself. I sat around waiting for an unknown amount of time. After what felt like an hour I grew bored. I noticed a pile of papers and a paintbrush off to the corner of the room. I walked over to it and sat down. I loved to paint but there was never much time for it when I was traveling and working as a priestess. I thought of Naraku, I pictured him again at his window and tried to paint that. I went through sheet after sheet trying to capture his likeness, but in my eyes none of them were quite right or maybe none of them truly satisfied my desire to see him.

Kanna brought me my dinner and it was only then that I realized how much time had passed. I felt sad as I realized I probably wouldn't see Naraku today. But I fell asleep curled in his pelt, taking comfort in the fact that it had his scent. It smelled like rain and fresh cut grass. It was intoxicating. How could a demon smell so sweet and of the earth? I had never noticed before, maybe because whenever I was near Naraku I held my breath. He made me nervous in a way I couldn't explain, in a way that I liked. I buried my face in the soft, white fur and inhaler until I fell into a deep sleep. 

Naraku wasn't there when I woke up, and he wasn't there the next day or the day after that. I tried asking Kagura once where he had gone but she simply shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know nor care. I didn't understand why I felt so lonely all of a sudden or why I felt a pang in my chest at not being able to see him. My spiritual energy seemed to grow weaker by the day. I was less focused and more volatile. I tried to pray and cleanse myself in my free time. I tried to forget about Naraku, but I could not seem to purify myself. My powers remained weak and even though I tried not to, I spent hours of my free time painting him. The days were long and lonely, 5 days had passed since I last saw him. Neither Kanna or Kagura gave much in the way of conversation, I was introduced to a boy named Kohaku on the third day, but he too said little. I guess Naraku hadn't liked to talk much either, but somehow it seemed like he didn't need to for me to understand what he was feeling. This castle was a quiet and lonely one, each of us lived in our own worlds even though we were so close together.

On the seventh day I awoke as usual. I had my porridge and cake, (I had still been getting them ever since Naraku left) I wondered if he somehow knew they were something that reminded me of my childhood. My mother would bake them and give them to me in this same way, alongside porridge, but it would be impossible for him to know such a thing. I savored it either way, and once I was finished eating me and Kagura headed out. My mood had been fluctuating heavily, but today it seemed worse than usual, I went from feeling like I was finally over whatever I felt for Naraku to being heavily depressed that this was going on day seven that I hadn't seen him. What if he never came back and continued to give me orders from afar? Was I ok with that? I guess I didn't have much choice in the matter to begin with.

The demons Kagura had been taking me to slay were usually relatively harmless. Either centipede demons or bird demons, just small time creatures that had happened across a shard of the jewel. As we drew nearer towards a forest I felt something was different though. I could sense a demonic aura before we even touched the ground.

When we landed I looked around, usually the smaller demons would immediately lunge for us, overly confident in their abilities. This demon seemed trickier, it was hiding and seemed to know that I possessed enough spiritual energy to be a threat to it.

"Is it here?" I asked Kagura to confirm my suspicions.

"Should be," she shrugged nonchalantly.

I looked around and that's when I caught something darting through the trees. It was small, much smaller than I would have expected for such a strong aura. I aimed my arrow at it and tried to shoot but it was too fast, I still hadn't even been able to get a good look at it. Kagura watched but did nothing to help, I continued to miss, arrow after arrow until it finally stopped on a tree. It was grotesque, a small human like face with a wide gaping mouth sat on top of a small spider like body. It smiled at me and my heart sunk. I had seen many demons in my day but this one repulsed me the most, something about it didn't seem right.