slightly long but relevant explanation of why naraku LOVES kikyou, how she is literally the center of his entire world, how his life is meaningless without her, bc tbh its been 2 years & it blows my mind that some ppl still don’t see this and i am t i r e d

(summary @ the bottom for ppl who don’t wanna read the whole rantTM. if anyone doesn’t understand why narkik is shipped , pls, pls read this)

first and FOREMOST,, i’d like to reiterate that oNIGUMO IS NOT NARAKU. they are 2 entirely different people. kikyou is a different person than kagome, right??? right !!! i could go on about how kagome/naraku parallel one another and how kikyou/kagome & onigumo/naraku are textually compared in literally every fucking way, but that’s whole different discussion

anyway: naraku loVEs kikyou. naraku. all by himself. ??? why??? bc , kinda like how kagome is different than kikyou and loves inuyasha for her own reasons, naraku fell in love with kikyou for reasons entirely beyond onigumo. kikyou lived her human life with as much agency as a human could have. but naraku was literally born for her?? his . literal. entire. body. would not exist. if not. for onigumo’s thirst. in fACt, that was part of the bargain he made w/ the demons !!! like “hey guys, i’ll let y’all eat me alive if you give me a new body, so i can grab the shikon jewel & grab me some kikyou ;)))”

the problem?? naraku was a person of his own. thats why he had 0% issues w murdering kikyou in s1 episode 1, then frolicked around feudal japan for 50+ years w/o worry.

THEN. SHE COMES BACK . suddenly naraku’s Thirsty Human Heart is fuc kin racing, making his hands sweat, shoving warm fuzzy feelings down his throat whenever kikyou makes some snide remark about his body, etc. and he’s like??? “fuck fu ck cfuCk fu Ck” for CHAPTERS ON END. it pisses him off that she has that effect on him, it pisses him off that he can’t just stab her 10 million times, it pisses him off that she Turns Him On even tho she’s made of clay. every cell of kikyou makes him wanna die and he Hates Her Entire Ass. its incredible

fast forward a couple chapters: naraku finally removes his heart. hurray !!!! right ??? n  o p E !! he learns p quickly that the human heart that loves kikyou is the LITERAL GLUE THAT HOLDS HIS PHYSICAL BODY TOGETHER. just !!! let that sink in !!! w/o that love, his bod y actually f cukin cant keep itself together,!!!

thats?? not even the best part???? whats even better is when round 2 of this happens, onigumo’s human heart doesn’t love kikyou; the infant says himself that he did not possess the love for kikyou which caused naraku so much suffering. i think its at this point where these feelings become naraku’s; they’ve evolved from onigumo’s own. bc, a few chapters down the line, naraku realizes that. he doesn’t know what he wants to do w the jewel after its completed. therefore he has no DriveTM to complete it. and the jewel couldn’t have THAT

so naraku has to take back his love for kikyou. why??? bc the bitterness, hurt, and anger that he felt because of it fueled his actions. ALL OF HIS ACTIONS. kagome points this out later -- how he makes every1 suffer by breaking human bonds. the agony he felt from unrequited love fueled everything he did, up ‘til he made his wish on the jewel, whICH WAS FOR KIKYOU’S HEART!!! not for the chance to feel her up, not to fcuk her 5 ways to sunday -- he wishes for her heart. on tOP of thaT, he laments about how they could never be together: not in this life, and not in the afterlife (bc ,, like.. even he knows he’s gonna burn in hell 5ever lmao). idk about y’all, but if i lust after some1, the first thing i ??? dont think of?? is their heart?? or the fact that we couldn’t /be together in life/??? just !! sayin !!

naraku wishes for kikyou’s heart because it’s an echo of what onigumo wanted, yes, and onigumo’s feelings are the reason his Whole Entire Life started. BUT he wishes for her heart bc he realized that he had no other purpose on planet earth other than to love her after completing the jewel. naraku himself loves kikyou bc she fleshes out his existence -- he literally doesn’t know what to do without her. after finishing the jewel, he has no other p ur p o se than to love her. kagome, who asserts her identity beyond kikyou through her love for inuyasha, is able to free herself from the jewel -- but naraku could not. even though he himself fell in love with kikyou, it was in accordance with the circumstances of his creation. inuyasha says “kagome was born for me & i was born for her as well!!” guess what my guys??? naraku was born for kikyou. she’s the literal core of his existence. and they hate each other bc the shikon jewel needed it to be that way. neither of them had any choice in that.

this isn’t even incLUDIng the actual literary narrative structure that parallels inukag OR the fact that narkik is the cyclical repeat of midoriko/magatsuhi a la the jewel’s manipulation OR how the overall theme of ~~humanity vs. monstrosity~~~ rumiko makes in the text is in accordance w/ the fact that naraku is so haunted by love, a human emotion?? i mean !! god !!

anyways , to summarize , can you fucking believe naraku’s entire existence revolves around how he’s supposed to suffer, how his love will never be returned, how he Has No Other Purpose on god’s green earth than to love Kikyou + be hated by her + complete the jewel 2 trap them both inside it???? can you belie ve that naraku was his own goddamn person, tried his hardest NOT to love her, but like how kagome was ~~born for inuyasha~~, naraku was born for kikyou, and had no fucking way out of the fact that he loved her just bc he happened to be the person born via onigumo’s thirst???? bc the shikon jewel squished him into a role and didn’t care about how he was his own person??? and can you believe that in sPITe of all this , naraku fell in love with kikyou for the fact that she grounds his very bEING, that his love for her is the only thing he knows, that at the end of the day he still wished for her heart ??

and no it’s not healthy love, it’s not functional love, it’s by no means good reason to love anyone at all. but naraku’s love is what differentiates him from onigumo, and it exhausts me when i see them being lumped together bc everyone remembers how kagome was different from kikyou?? rumiko’s Whole Entire Point w/ so much of the series was that people are not defined by their heritage, that they are not defined by the people who preceded them, that every1 is their Own Goddamn PersonTM even in the face of some(thing)one reducing you to a role just bc you have similarities to whatever they want to see. naraku was his Own Damn Person, yet he still fell in love w/ kikyou , he wouldn’t exist w/o that love, those inescapable feelings for her define his life, & idk about y’all but this is why narkik is my otp?? i will never be over it, not for as long as i live, and i still can’t believe the most academically consistent/intricate story i’ve ever seen is from a fcukin 90s anime