Beyond the clouds, Naraku rode the wind within his barrier. Yan Luo had left with him the moment she spotted Sesshomaru. Though her determination to win Sesshomaru remained as strong as ever, she was not yet ready to face him. And... with a young girl's private fancies and the reserve instilled in women by the island nation's traditions, no matter how powerful her demon power was, no matter how much she could sway the wars of the age, she always hoped to remain pure and flawless in the eyes of the man she loved, rather than a murderer who slaughtered villagers with her own hands. Neither she nor Naraku had expected a small experiment with a Four Souls Shard to draw someone they feared.
"Is it really all right to run away like this, Naraku?" Yan Luo could not bear to abandon that experimental shard.
"We have enough." A wicked smile curled Naraku's lips. The moment he touched the Four Souls, he had known they had succeeded. The shard's lightless blackness was no illusion.
"Really? Magatsuhi's power completely suppressed the Straight Spirit after all?" Yan Luo asked cheerfully, smiling with a trace of excitement. If not for the evil in her words, she would have looked like an innocent, happy girl again. Almost no man could have remained unmoved by her.
"Yes." Yet Naraku seemed oblivious. Indeed, for a monster whose calculations were almost never wrong, only one woman in the world could move him, and she was certainly not the woman before him. He merely gazed deeply at Yan Luo, his lips bearing their usual gentle, soothing smile, and spoke words cruel beyond measure to the dead in a soft voice. "An idea worthy of you, Yan Luo. Polluting the Shikon Jewel with human lives and despair, using human