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laughingsapphic-creates · 1 year

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Inukag week, Day 2: Possession

Didn't quite make midnight on this one, but I had work. Hopefully I make tomorrow 😅

@inukag-week

~~~~~~

In My Head

"Kagura, let Kagome go! I'm your opponent right now!"

It had just seemed like a regular run-of-the-mill jewel hunt. Local demon, relatively harmless, suddenly goes haywire? Sounded like a sacred jewel shard causing problems, same as usual. And it has been a pretty standard fight, until Kagura showed up. Kagome had chased her down with sacred arrows while Inuyasha helped beat down the demon - a burrower, easily handled with reference to their fight with Kageromaru a while back - and followed once it was weak enough for Sango and Miroku to handle.

So yeah, standard fare. Until Kagura had grabbed Kagome and hauled her up onto her feather.

"Better hurry along, Inuyasha!" Kagura crowed, turning Kagome's face in her hand from her perch above the trees. "Naraku has such plans for your pretty little priestess."

"You give her back now!" He demanded, disliking how desperate he sounded.

"Inuyasha!"

Trying to avoid Kagura's notice, Kagome tossed something off the feather, and Inuyasha snatched it from the air as he leapt after them. The cool glass and faint rattle of its contents told him what he needed to know without taking his eyes off of the rapidly shrinking transport.

Inuyasha did his best to take chase, but as the feather rose into the sky, and the wind whipped their scent trail into nothing, Inuyasha slowed, trying to keep sight of the speck he thought was them until they vanished into the clouds.

He kept running in the direction they had disappeared in, a shout of frustration clawing its way from his throat.

"Inuyasha!"

Skidding to a halt, he turned to watch as Kilala landed on his left, with Sango, Shippo, and Miroku in tow.

"It was a trap. Kagura grabbed Kagome and flew off with her," he growled. "She used the cloud cover to hide before she could get too far, and I can't pick up their scent anymore."

"Great. Just perfect," Sango sighed fingers tightening in Kilala's fur. Miroku held up a tainted shards, frowning at it.

"We got the shard that Naraku planted on that demon, but lost Kagome in exchange. It was a distraction, but a costly one for him. He probably thinks he'll take it back easily when we go to rescue Kagome."

"But if Naraku wants the shard back," Shippo considered, "why did he make it so hard for Inuyasha to follow Kagura?"

Inuyasha looked down at the vial in his hand, gritting his teeth with another growl as his fingers clenched around the glass. With barely a thought, he lifted the little bottle to his mouth, pulling the cork out with his teeth and dumping their one remaining shard into his hand.

"Inuyasha! What do you think you're doing!?"

The half demon looked at Sango, the crystal point pinched between two claws.

"I've had what we'll call a scientific theory for a while, and now seems as good a time as any to test it," he stated, looking at the shard as he spoke. "Naraku can communicate with and control demons and humans through shards he's corrupted, right? Is it that wild to think that maybe Kagome could do the same for shards that she's purified?"

"Yes! That is wild! And crazy, and stupid!" Shippo decided, jumping to Miroku's shoulder to try and draw Inuyasha's attention more easily.

"And what do you suggest? Kagura's wind blew out any scent trail they might have left, and she got away fast enough that she was out of sight before you three even spotted me. She could've changed directions once they were out of sight, so we'd end up running even further away before we figure out where they've gone!"

"You shouldn't rely on the jewel's power like that. We've seen what it can do to other demons, you can't be so cavalier about this," Miroku insisted, clearly agreeing with Shippo.

"Would ya just listen? I ain't interested in the power right now! Kagome's spiritual power purified the jewel. Don't get me wrong, I know what it's still capable of. But if Kagome's spiritual power is in this shard, it could connect me to her so I can track her." Pulling the collar of his robe down, Inuyasha used a claw to cut slightly into the skin there. "Look, worst case scenario, it won't work and I'll take it right back out, I promise."

Sango paused, watching blood bead at the cut beneath Inuyasha's throat. He could see her considering as she met his eyes - it was definitely a risk, they both knew that. But if it worked, it might be a way that they could save Kohaku the next chance they got.

Another beat passed, and she placed a hand on Miroku's free shoulder.

"We'll try it, just for a minute or two. We don't know if Kagome is able to connect through the shards the way Naraku is, but if she can, it should only take a moment to establish a connection."

Inuyasha nodded, hesitating for only a moment before pressing the jewel shard into his open wound.

Immediately, he felt the low-level aches and scrapes from his altercation with Kagura and the other demon fade - skin knit back together, pains eased, and Inuyasha felt the skin beneath his throat close up around the jagged edges of the shard. Power coursed through him, and he could immediately understand why other demons got addicted to this. He could sense the darkness trying to take hold, but more than that, he felt the warmth and light that he'd come to associate with Kagome's reiki.

Clawed fingers still resting on the jewel at his collar, he reached out in his head, looking for the parts that felt the most like her.

Kagome? Come on, talk to me. Can you hear me?

There was a beat of silence, and he could feel the others looking at him.

"Alright, Inuyasha, I think it's time-"

Something reached back.

He shushed Miroku, trying to focus.

Kagome?

I-Inuyasha?

"I've got her," he announced

Kagome! Are you okay?

I'm fine, we're still flying. What are you doing in my head?

I used the jewel shard to connect with you. Listen, can you see any landmarks we can use to find you?

The jewel-? Inuyasha! That's not why I threw it to you and you know it!

Explanation later. I'll take it out after we find you, just tell me where you are!

An image flashed in his mind: the mountains to their right, already much closer but still distant, and with a dark, unnatural shadow on what should've been the sunny face. And if he really focused, he could feel a tug on his chest, pulling him towards the mountain.

You hang in there, Kagome. We'll be there soon.

Smirking softly to himself, Inuyasha looked up at the mountain peak Kagome had shown him.

"There! That mountain! They're getting close to Naraku's castle!"

Kilala transformed and they mounted up, taking to the skies.

Inuyasha scanned the clouds for any glimpse of Kagura's feather, but found himself distracted by the lightness in his head. Kagome's presence was somehow a one-to-one mix of mental fog and perfect clarity. He couldn't hear the thoughts she wasn't intentionally thinking at him, but he got some impressions - indignation and righteous fury (he wondered if what kagara had said to trigger that), but also a confidence that was almost smug. She was hundreds of feet in the air, with Kagura, on her way to Naraku's castle, and he could barely feel any fear from her. It was an afterthought, barely worthy of note.

He didn't know what being possessed by Naraku through a jewel shard felt like first hand, but according to Sango and Kagome, it was a dark, cloying sort of thing. Like your head was filled with miasma and rot and decay that made you willing to do anything for relief. Inuyasha yasha had quietly likened it to his faint memories of being a full demon when the Tessaiga broke for the first time. That constant stream of RIP/TEAR/ENDURE/SURVIVE/KILL that occasionally reared its head in his nightmares didn't sound too similar to their experiences, but it was the closest comparison he had.

Having Kagome in his head, meanwhile, felt like the polar opposite of that wild, cornered animal that he had become in demon form. Comfort instead of desperation, compassion instead of cruelty. It was hard to say if it was the spiritual power or just Kagome herself, but either way, it was probably the closest to enlightenment that Inuyasha would ever get.

This feels weird, right? Kagome asked, her voice light and sweet against his consciousness. Not bad, but definitely weird.

You're telling me, he agreed, wondering what sort of impressions she might've gotten from him, if any.

As if hearing the question out loud, her voice came again.

You need to relax. I can feel you stressing from here.

You're one to talk! Where the hell is your sense of self-preservation?! In case you missed it, you're being kidnapped and brought to Naraku!

You and the others aren't far behind, right? What's there to worry about?

That impression of confidence he felt before strengthened, pushing out that negligible sense of fear. He wasn't sure if she could feel the pride/wonder/satisfaction that he felt in response. He knew, after so much time together, that Kagome trusted him. That she believed he would and could come and clutch when she needed him. It was different, though, to feel it in his own head with the same surety as the phases of the moon or the cycle of seasons. Sun shines, grass grows, birds fly, and he and Kagome protect each other.

You're closing in on us; I can sense the jewel now, not just you. How do you want to do this?

"We're getting close," Inuyasha announced. "Stay low and stay quiet."

Is Kagura holding on to you?

No, I'm sitting behind her now. But she keeps glaring over her shoulder at me

They were getting quite close to the shadow in the mountainside, and Inuyasha could now make out the silhouette of the castle.

Inuyasha paused, refocusing on the clouds. As soon as the cloud cover passed for just a moment, his eyes were drawn right to Kagome's figure on the back end of the feather, a good ways above and a bit ahead of them.

"Sango," he hummed, voice soft but laced with a venomous determination. He nodded up at the shape floating overhead. "As soon as Kagome drops down, be ready to knock that witch out of the sky. I'll give Kagome some extra hang time, but try and catch us before we get too cozy with the ground, got it?"

Sango nodded, adjusting her weapon and letting Miroku and Shippo lean out of the way. Inuyasha brought his feet up, crouching on Kirara's hindquarters. Giving everyone a glance over, Inuyasha looked back up at the feather, catching Kagome looking at him.

As soon as she looks away from you again, fall back off the feather.

There was nearly a breath of hesitation before he felt the confirmation/understanding/trust in response, and he didn't even have time to enjoy the rush of warmth he felt in response before her voice in his head muttered here goes nothing.

He saw Kagura shift, and right on cue, Kagome quietly leaned back and slipped right off the tip of the feather.

Inuyasha leapt lightly from Kilala's back, angling himself to his descent aligned with Kagome's. He heard the indignant shriek Kagura gave as she was struck, and felt Kagome's disappointment that she hadn't seen it mirror his own.

When his arms came up around her, he was caught off guard again when she let off a wave of safety/security/affection/knewyou'dbehere while smiling up at him

"Hey you," she greeted, breathless and almost laughing.

"Hey yourself," he shot back, ignoring the fact that he was definitely red in the face and there was no way she'd missed it. He looked around for Kilala, who circled around to catch them once Sango had caught her hiraikotsu. Landing easily at the base of her tails, Inuyasha helped Kagome to sit before doing so himself.

"So, do we stay or do we go?" Sango asked, looking back at them while pulling the strap of her weapon over her shoulder. "I'm guessing we only have a few minutes before the saimyosho or another incarnation shows up. Do we go to them or let them come to us?

"Put me down for a tactical retreat. We spent all morning tracking that demon and didn't even have breakfast," Shippo whined, crawling down Miroku's back and into Kagome's lap. "This is probably just another fakey illusion castle with another fakey puppet Naraku. And if it's not, it'll still be there after we eat and rest."

"Regardless of whether it's real or not, we should take a step back and come up with a plan. Kagura wanted me at the castle, and said Naraku had plans for me. Even if it's just a puppet, no plan of his means anything good for us," Kagome pointed out. Looking back at Inuyasha, she offered a smile, pushing out reminders for food/rest/comfort toward him. Ears flattening, he sighed, crossing his arms.

"The edge of the forest. Away from any villages. If we're gonna get attacked, last thing we need is a bunch of humans caught in the crossfire."

Kagome's smile softened, and she leaned back against him. An hour or two to rest, and maybe play with this connection a little more before diving back into danger.

~~~~~~

Shippo, stop kicking the fourth wall, you're gonna break it.

If I wanted to get this posted tonight, I had to cut it off here. But Kagome being able to connect with people through purified jewel shards the way Naraku does tainted ones is something I've idly played with before, and I might touch on it again just for funsies.

#inuyasha #inukag #inukag week #inukag week day 2 #inukag week 2023 #tayto writes

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caithyra · 3 years

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A lot of people claim Kagura (and by extension her "siblings") was a full demon, but am I alone in thinking that she was always a half-demon/hanyo because she was an incarnation of Naraku, who was also a half-demon?

First a disclaimer: I view Naraku’s incarnations very different from the rest of fandom, like I do with most things in this manga.

Naraku’s incarnations fans might not like my interpretation... Oh, and it only pertains to the manga.

TL;DR: They are likely as yokai as Sesshomaru’s severed arm. Except Muso. (Skip to the bottom of this post if you want the elaborated, quick answer of my interpretation and then the probable canon answer, which is different. I just have an interpretation of canon that I haven’t seen anyone else suggest before that...)

Anyway, first we are going to go through what Naraku is before he creates his incarnations:

Onigumo, a human, who is devoured by a yokai horde that becomes Naraku.

Naraku is then a hanyo capable of absorbing other yokai and their power, which he presumably does a few times before he tries something as big as absorbing a daiyokai like Sesshomaru (which he fails at), given his attempt at Sesshomaru, we can presume that at least a few of these yokai were powerful even if they were not daiyokai, since going from lesser yokai to greater yokai without anyone inbetween is very foolhardy, given how weak Naraku was at the time (he also used manipulations mostly during this time).

So up to the point that the manga starts, Naraku is a mostly yokai hanyo made up of literally hundreds of yokai of various powers and strengths.

Then, before he begins creating incarnations Naraku is nearly killed by Kagome (this is an important part of my interpretation) and cannot restore himself without turning towards a dark type of magic called kodoku.

Kodoku is a magical ritual/art called “gu/ku” in Chinese in which various toxic creatures are put into an enclosed space to absorb one another until only one remains. This remaining creature (also called Gu/Ku/Kodoku) is considered supremely toxic and powerful and with various abilities such as pestilence, manipulation (Naraku/Kanna/Infant?), transformation (Naraku), and a number of other things that falls well within Naraku’s sphere of power.

Anyway, Naraku absorbs the kodoku and is restored, and also made up of even more different kinds of yokai. And he holds a large chunk of the empowering Shikon no Tama, courtesy of Kikyo.

And that’s when he begins creating incarnations (分身 - bunshin).

That word, bunshin, is a funny thing. In Naruto, it is the “clone” part in Clone Techniques (such as Kage Bunshin/Shadow Clone which Naruto uses all the time), and as a common word, has been used in many manga/anime/games.

Here’s the definition of Jisho.org for example:

ぶんしん分身 common word Noun 1. other self; alter ego; part of oneself (in someone or something else); representation of oneself 2. (Buddhist term) incarnations of Buddha

Kotobank.jp translates it into “double/doppelgänger” and has this to say:

1. One divided into two or more separate bodies. 2. (Buddhist term, similar to above.)

But basically, a bunshin is not a separate person from what they are a bunshin of most of the time in pop culture (or they are re/pre/incarnations like in Buddhism, but no one suggests Kagura is to Naraku what Kagome is to Kikyo, so... *shrugs* Lets got with the other definition!). They always exist in relation to the original (Naraku). Other translations simply call them detachments, which has the implication of parts of Naraku that he’s cut off and given life for his own purposes.

I will be skipping Muso since he is an aberration among the bunshin, and likely the most hanyo of the lot.

The first bunshin Naraku creates is Kanna, who has no will, no emotions and no drive of her own. She solely does Naraku’s bidding, no more, no less. (There is a sole exception of her death scene, but that was more to inform the heroes of Kikyo’s light, which curtails with how the story began bending to fit Kikyo as a tragic heroine... Don’t even get me started...)

Then he creates Kagura, who is the opposite extreme; freedom is her greatest aspiration and she continuously backtalks Naraku and tries to act against him, yet, in the end, everything goes as Naraku wants when it comes to Kagura (this is also important).

Lets look at these two extremes and lets pretend that these are not Naraku’s incarnations; they are toasters.

Kanna is the toaster that Naraku must put the perfect settings in every time before use and push the toast down with a lever. Then he must wait and push the eject button, because Kanna wont do it herself.

Kagura is the fancy toaster with all the bells and whistles and more settings than anyone needs, including sensors to tell when the perfect toast is done to be ejected. She even automatically lowers the toast into the toasting slots when you put them in. In theory, Naraku doesn’t need to do anything else; Kagura knows exactly what to do to make the toast Naraku wants. Except fancy gadgets like these malfunctions and are temperamental and has the wrong settings put in and, yeah, Kagura doesn’t want to make Naraku’s perfect toast, but Naraku has rigged a big, complicated Rube-Goldberg machine to push her eject button before she can irreparably burn his toast, so it doesn’t matter.

All the different incarnations are on a sliding scale of these, except for Hakudoshi, who is an even fancier version of Kagura and capable of making grilled cheese sandwiches, and what more, Naraku wants Hakudoshi to burn some of his toast, because of the risk/reward that one day, Hakudoshi will not burn Naraku’s toast, but instead will make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich for Naraku to enjoy.

Byakuya, by contrast, is the perfect blend of obedient Kanna and the ability to make tedious decisions and act on his own like Kagura.

It’s like with computer programs; some require a dozen clicks to complete a task, another, that has been further programmed (given personality and motivation), only require one.

In short, I do not see them as separate people from Naraku, which is where I diverge from most of fandom; they have no pupils, which are signs of possession/not having their own minds in many anime, which is also a yokai trait (like Koga), but is egregious when it comes to everything else. It should be noted that most of Naraku’s bunshin are obedient to Naraku, but that in order to arrive to the perfect blend of independent action plus unquestioning obedience that is Byakuya, he experimented with giving more or less free will, individual desires and so on.

And it was Kagura who led me to believe that:

First; she is given the appearance of “Sesshomaru’s ideal woman” according to Takahashi who believes that all men want Kikyo or someone like her (”Sesshomaru’s ideal type of woman” is “like Kikyo” according to her according to some interview I’ve seen quoted around, but I would like an actual source, please...), including Sesshomaru, so she makes Kagura a young woman like Kikyo named after a dance that miko, like Kikyo, dance.

Second; she is given a sympathetic motivation “freedom” but at no point do we get a clue as to how she feels about “freedom” other than something to attain. She does not daydream about it or what she will do with it, she does not envy others’ freedom overtly (nor resentfully watching them), there’s literally nothing except her nebulously wanting “freedom” being “the free wind” when she passes away.

Third; she is obviously and loudly antagonistic towards Naraku, and, indeed he, the great villain, holds her heart literally in his hand to torture her with. Don’t you want to save her? Give this pretty lady freedom?

Fourth; she really wants Sesshomaru to save her, despite the fact that Sesshomaru has never come close to killing Naraku and always refuses to save Kagura.

Fifth; but when Kagome, the only person to ever come close to killing Naraku in the entire series at this point, offers to protect Kagura, Kagura refuses and still goes to Sesshomaru. Even though Kagome is not just the person whose power Naraku fears, but also someone with a history of taking in her foes as friends (unlike Sesshomaru).

Sixth; Tenseiga did not even react to Kagura “dying”.

None of this makes sense, unless one thinks of Kagura as a part of Naraku that he has “programmed” specifically to mess with Sesshomaru. In that case, Kagura refusing Kagome’s protection while still being infatuated with Sesshomaru who refuses to do anything and has proven nothing as her supposed savior, and the lack of psychopomps at her death and Tenseiga having no reaction, makes sense if Kagura is little more than something like a living tentacle of Naraku’s, given a pretty face, personality and “programming” to go hard for Sesshomaru and then, use her final moment to upset him (by this time, everyone knows Sesshomaru’s complex with his father’s swords, so if his sword wont work when predictably would he ask it to... Cue upset Sesshomaru. Too bad Inu no Taisho did one up on Naraku on that front by ensuring Inuyasha got the Meido after Sesshomaru and Rin nearly died in front of Sesshomaru’s mother for Sesshomaru to get it... Naraku’s manipulations got nothing on InuPapa’s beyond the grave...).

It would explain her undeveloped motivation (the abstract “freedom”), why everything still goes as Naraku wishes despite a few hiccups and so on, and, of course, why she had no soul for Tenseiga to save...

Naraku might as well have told Kanna “fall in love with Sesshomaru and plead with him to give you freedom” and Kanna would do her best to obey, but because of her non-personality, the emotional manipulation would be obvious (even more so once she refused Kagome, since, after all, it is Sesshomaru who is to give her freedom). But Naraku would have to micromanage her extensively to do so as well as make her a mature body. Far easier to just create a new detachment with slightly more free will and so on with the “programming” installed.

Does Kagura know this? Maybe she suspected it by being around her “siblings” and noting how different their levels of sapience/sentience/free wills were (and she even tells Hakudoshi that his plans will come to naught because Naraku wont allow it, suggesting she believes Naraku’s will is absolute over the incarnations), but she probably felt like her own person, and would have been “programmed” to think of herself as such and dismiss any suspicions to the contrary.

It would fit very well with the body-horror aspect of early Inuyasha and Naraku’s character as a whole. But would also be a bit too much for a children’s comic magazine in an action series...

So what are Naraku’s incarnations on the human-yokai scale?

They are likely yokai, like Sesshomaru’s severed arm, with the exception of Muso who had Naraku’s most human part in him and would likely be considered hanyo on a DNA test. They were likely made from the yokai parts of the hordes that make up Naraku after the kodoku, but aren’t separate people (like, the parts of a crane yokai would have been used to create Byakuya, for example, while oni parts would have been used for Goshinki). They are just more advanced dolls made of purely yokai parts IMO.

But that’s just my extremely niche interpretation of the manga and the inconsistencies with the story.

In canon, it is much more likely that the simpler explanation; that they are separate people who are also yokai (except Muso), is the answer.

I just don’t like the inconsistencies it creates within the story and made my own interpretation and rambled on and on in this post. Sorry.

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