Against Life: Chapter 3

Chapter Three

There was not time enough to contemplate the perfection of my creation, short-lived as it proved to be, just to digest the notion that artistic ends justified failures. As for the thing carried within the basin, the thing dead at my hands, what ever it was supposed to be, where ever it came from, slowly and gradually it became yet another scar only I knew of. The torture of it, pressing into my mind day after day, became a badge that like Naraku's praise was my reward.

It is hard, you understand, it is hard to become me.

The sacrifice.

Artistic ends justified failures: it was an important lesson that would be applied again and again.

I reasoned I understood why Naraku was not angry with me. Despite what Kagura and I - did - I was innocent of the purpose of the act. I suspected the aim - she wanted to be free - I did not comprehend the method. How, exactly, did one thing lead to another? Even now, at this time and place, I lack answers only theories.

But I was a pawn and it did not matter.

The group was like a family with myself as its offspring. And Naraku and Kagura pitted me against each other and used me to further their own particular agendas. It was unfortunate for Kagura's fate that Naraku's hold was tight. Why was I more loyal to him than to her? Because he did not disappoint me - is that too hard to accept? - true, the human race considered him to be evil but it is true, too, that to me, to my - Kohaku's - eyes, he was pure. He did not pretend with me as she pretended with me. My place with him was clear while with her there were only lies and illusions.

As I said, there was not time enough to weigh those issues, for almost as soon as I became master Naraku was defeated. The chaos and confusion, the shambles that became of all that I ever, really knew and loved, the effect cannot be put into words. It cannot be spoken. For the second time in my life was world was destroyed, safety and security were vanished, and I cannot speak of it.

What would become of me? Who would accept me as corrupt as I was?

I was not as others were. I did not see as others saw. Within that realm of man and demon, I was alone, as distant as the stars of the universe because the world's base was virginal compared with my sin. I was tainted. Not so much in body - where it could be hidden. But in mind - where it could not be as easily or was willfully contained.

Imagine how I forced myself silent while I watched the victors rejoice over the conquered. Imagine my anger and resentment that grew moment by moment while my enemies resettled into life, convinced of the totality of the triumph and assured everything would be all right again now that Naraku was slain. Where was my life? Where? Now, imagine, that hate turned into loathing and then - then - turned into something new and different. Something that could be called revenge.

Oh, yes, I knew what to do. What I had been trained to do. There, so confident. There, so alive. There, so ignorant, like the animals of the fields, raw and incomplete.

As if anything like a Naraku could be defeated.

But I forced myself silent.

I was too young to be by myself. I could not make it into the world alone. It was, I think, a clever thing that I allowed myself to use the victors. For refuge not friendship. Naraku would have approved. Naturally, they did not suspect what lurked within my heart, they noticed my eccentricities but it was easier to say I was a troubled youth, haunted by Naraku, than to believe I could be a monster as hideous as the spider. They invented excuse after excuse to explain my dark and antisocial demeanor. They coddled me, as if everything was fine between us, and I learned the lesson, I knew then and there, evil itself was powerful enough to thrive out in the open exposed and vulnerable.

Let me note that among the group there was one and only one person who escaped the glare of my bloodlust: my sister, Sango. Understand that her face did not ever, really leave me. Through those terrible, yearly years of capture, when Naraku's powers over my mind were complete, that image remained. Only its identity was blurred. I idealized the face and because it was what remained of my past, and because I did not associate it with any harm or evil, I fooled myself into thinking the person behind the face would be able to love me and accept me just as much, if not more, than Naraku.

I betrayed myself, I believed in Sango.

With Inuyasha and Kagome, the executioners of my Naraku, I showed early subtle signs of hostility. I did not lash at them directly or openly, that would have been counterproductive, rather my rebellion consisted of what I did not do. I avoided them, saying and doing very little while about them. I averted my eyes away from their faces and at those rare occasions, when I was forced to be eye-to-eye through their persistence, my expression was detached and indifferent.

I looked through them not at them.

I do not know about Inuyasha but I do know about Kagome. It hurt her that I did not recover the way I was expected. You cannot imagine the pleasure I took realizing that. That it disappointed her.

Of all of that gang, only Inuyasha could have understood me. Since he was not entirely of the human or demon world. Of course, it was harder for him than for me, he could not hide the differences and whereas I kept my hostility confined he was vocal and physical about his displeasure. But despite those superficial differences he could have opened me like a book and read my thoughts. For that reason he was dangerous and I could not afford to be alone around him.

I could not be exposed again and by a would-be demon!

Then there was Miroku. If Inuyasha was familiar then Miroku was alien. I could not understand the motives of such a man. His existence unnerved me. To be a monk and to be helpful, especially toward people who did not deserve it, it was a concept beyond my comprehension. And he was so sly, so charming - respected by men and fawned by women - it was as if his life mocked my apathy and his sociability flaunted my ostracism. He was as foreign as a being from another realm altogether therefore he could not be trusted.

I reviled Miroku as soon as I realized that opposition of personality. But I hated him when I discovered that connection between him and my sister. That connection, it could have been mine, it should have been mine, and it was not his place to be a part of it. Then and there I knew he planned to complete that domination. He wanted to make me unimportant. He needed to make me insignificant with respect to my sister's life - yes - that was his aim, if he knew it or knew it not, it did not and does not matter. I could not allow it.

Sango - she was supposed to be my sister! Mine, mine. All of her, entirely, mine.

I was young and stupid. In another world, in another time, I would have been content just leaving Miroku and Sango together, to wallow and to drown within Nature's base and earthly excrement. Yet if I had been that cruel I would have denied the humanity my greatest, artistic creation.

Then I was withdrawn, now I was paranoid. I watched Miroku and Sango. I trailed them, climbing up trees and crawling down bushes. Stopping them - that was the aim of the excursion - and I told myself, time and time again, that when the moment came, I would have to be ready. With stones or other, practical attacks gained through years of experience. But when the moment came I could not act.

How many times was I watching from behind the cover of the forest as Miroku loosened my sister's kimono? How many times was I panting and gasping - paralyzed - while he released my sister's breasts? Oh, their virginity, their beauty, I stirred imagining them to be as soft and smooth as they looked! I could not help it, I was drawn into memories of those ancient, preadolescent moments with Kagura. And - the shame of it! - how many times was I succumbing to ecstasy while he fondled and nipped them and forced his own naked flesh upon them.

But it was pleasure that surged through my climax and my body. It was pure and utter rage. I without my Kagura and Miroku with my Sango? The universe was askew, unbalanced, clearly the world required an adjustment.

I continued to watch, determined to stop them when I felt they were - they would be - out of control. But when they exposed their flesh I froze. And I told myself to be strong. Fool! I shouted. When they played with their bodies I froze again, again I told myself to be strong. Act! Bit by bit, Miroku urged Sango to erect what would be my very own destruction. Then - at last - when foreplay became penetration I failed. I failed. I failed because I was not strong enough and I could not be strong enough as long as he interfered. Naraku, save me!

I was not the master of my fate. I was stymied and powerless. Impotent! And I hated myself that I could be that insignificant within the narrative of my life. Even now, across that gulf of time and space, I remember the feel of that dreadful and all-consuming emptiness as if it were fresh and anew.

I sulked back into the village and staggered upon the scene of the campfire. Inuyasha and Kagome sat by the flames, along with Shippo, eating the catch of the day. The fox game me a fish - it was cooked, hot and smoking, when I grasped the skewer - and I sat, stared at its form. Its head and body, through the firelight, did it not seem to be the shape of a phallus? I grasped and squeezed the flesh. The fish, now misshapen and destroyed, extruded like goo through the gaps between my fingers. I relaxed and the rest of the food crumpled onto the ground.

I smiled, confident of my triumph over Nature. I looked, seething and ravenous, while Inuyasha whispered and Kagome gasped.