Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"Against Life" by Abraxas | 2006-10-31
Chapter Four
I was sixteen and it was time to find my very own way about the world.
I left because they did not deserve me. Any they did not understand me. How could they? Impossible! I was not of the human world – that must have been clear – and though I was demon in mind was not demon in body.
Had my life not veered off of its natural and due course, I would have been apprenticed if not to my father than to another, adult male of the clan. Had my Naraku not died so grossly and unjustly, my education would have been completed. Imagine, just imagine, what a monster I could have made. Alas, with my human heritage dead and distant – and indifferent – what could be done but return to my demonic heritage?
Again I became Naraku’s accomplice.
Beside a village that had been ravaged by war and famine I obtained a farm. The land was my realm, the house was my castle. There, alone, I established the operation. My neighbors must have thought I was a fine, upstanding youth, settling at last into a responsible and descent life. What they could not see, what they could not suspect, was my work, my art, involved a very different kind of cultivation.
I started with animals I trapped about the farm. Rats, mostly, but every so often I snagged dogs and cats and other, wilder forms. I did not use birds the way Naraku used them. They were too delicate while my methods were, then, too blunt. Anyway, I wanted to restart afresh and only gradually, by degrees, rise the ladder of complexity. If I could not regain the knowledge of the basic then I could not create any true masterpiece.
My reeducation involved vivisection. To familiarize myself with structure and function I used dead animals. I used living animals to understand the extremes of the body. How much blood could be lost? How much damaged could be inflicted? Along the way, accidentally, I discovered a way to reduce the rate of mortality: by performing the transmutation with the specimen submerged within vats of blood mixed with water and other, essential oils. And then I learned that as long as the heart beat I would be free to do the work without fear of failure.
I finished my training by exploring the plasticity of the flesh. It was the tool of the trade, that style, that method of expression entirely and uniquely Kohaku. The voice through which I, the artist, communicated with you, the audience.
I worked inside the cellar of the house but the quarters were cramped and the security was lacking. I was restricted to night and lamplight. I could not risk the day and I could not use anything as strong as a torch without attracting unwanted attention. Visitors could have stumbled into my secret. Or. People, aroused by the screams and the activities, would have wondered what I was doing away from the fields time after time.
I am amazed I succeeded despite those adversities.
Persistence and ingenuity liberated me of my restriction as, eventually, I found a cave at the edge of the farm. Mountains flanked it and jungles shrouded it. Amid shadow and darkness it escaped notice. The keenest eye of man or demon could not find it. It was deep and vast enough to house my laboratory and store my samples and there I worked day and night.
I wondered how far it could be taken. I asked if it were possible to scare away my sister’s friends. Rather one particular friend. You understand I felt mischievous, so, I freed samples of artwork. Animals that had been reworked were let into the wilderness. It was a logical thing to do, really, having perfected them it was natural to ask how they fared within the world. That they scared away the unwanted would be a bonus.
And as I watched them stumble about on their two or three legs – some blinded, some with eyes askew – I felt a kinship. Not only because they were my creations, therefore my extensions, but also because we were the same. Yes, we were the same, in each and every way identical. Perfect in an imperfect world and they could not endure the grossness of it anymore than I.
One day Shippo stopped by while I was working the fields, inspecting the scarecrow. Of all of the members of that group I tolerated Shippo. He was into art though he perused different and tamer kinds of expression. He showed me sculptures of dragons he completed from time to time. Without his knowledge – certainly, without his consent – I obtained an example of his work for my own, particular use: if I found a reptile of the right size and shape it was my intent to copy the sculpture.
That day it was not about his work it was about mine.
Shippo needed a plant for a certain, half-demon Jinenji. The plant, shoots of cleomes, were found where the earth possessed abundant shade and drainage. And it happened that the terrain about my cave suited the requirement. But I had to be careful. I could not just lead him directly for then and there my cover would be blown. Instead we explored about the extent of the land together while I, innocently, led the fox toward that secret, hidden location.
I prayed my excitement – I hoped my nervousness – could not be seen by the fox. Soon, however, the titillation of watching him squirming faded. Moment by moment the excitement ebbed into disappointment. Despite the proximity to the cave neither he nor I encountered anything.
Embittered and annoyed, once the plant had been collected I paused at the cave’s narrow, vertical entrance and rested half in and half out of its abyss.
That was when he warned me not to be too close.
“Why, Shippo?” I asked trying to be as calm as possible.
“Can’t you hear it?” he asked.
I shrugged, he shivered.
“Sounds are coming out of the cave. Shrieks of terror and pain. Can’t you hear it?”
He seemed to be shocked less by the sounds and more by my deafness of the sounds.
“You can’t hear it at all, can you? How did you become so deaf to suffering?”
Again I struggled to remain cool and collected. To placate him I stepped away from the cave’s entrance. Again he shuddered – no – he shivered. As if struck by a blow of bitter cold air. He, too, crept away from the deep, dark crack.
“It’s like a demon is at work there. You should be careful, Kohaku, you don’t know what could be lurking about this place.”
I laughed: “And now you sound like Miroku! How much do kitsunes charge for exorcisms?” I joked as I mocked the monk’s holy gesticulation.
Shippo, his eyes wide and wet, tightened his kimono about his chest. Through the years – though at arm’s length – he grew close enough to me to know of my dislike of the monk but it was not the glimmer of the grudge that affected him. I doubt he heard what I spoke. Instead his attention was focused onto the undergrowth by the bank of the stream – a flutter echoed through the bushes.
My heart skipped a beat.
A snout poked through the vegetation. It was my creation and a pup by the look of the fur. Its skull was distorted with visible and obscene signs of fracture as if the head had been crushed and the bone regenerated into a weird and chaotic shape. Its eyes were askew as its sockets shifted through positions unnatural and unknown among the kingdom of the animals. A few patches of hide were exposed here and there and revealed web-works of scars infected by the disease of the world.
The creature lifted its head – Shippo gasped, I covered my smile with my hand – I removed the lower-jaw and the tongue waggled like a tail.
Just as quickly as the sight materialized it vanished into the void.
“Nature is cruelty, isn’t it, Shippo?” I said while I looked at the fox. “Did it scare you?”
“Damn it!” he cursed, hitting my elbow. “Didn’t it scare you?”
“I was Naraku’s demon slayer, Shippo,” I said, squeezing his shoulder.
“That wasn’t Nature, Kohaku.”
“Then what was it, Shippo? Art?”
I tugged his sleeve and directed him away from the underbrush to the farmhouse.
“Normal, average – natural – these things are stubbornly persistent illusions. We are complacent with what we believe to be Nature so much so that when we see something new and different we shrink aback afraid because it does not conform with expectation. Of course it must have been evil – that thing – well, isn’t that what you’re thinking, Shippo? It must have been evil. To be reviled and hated.”
“What kind of person could be responsible for something like that? Yes it is evil!”
“Evil is a part of Nature, Shippo, as much as the sun and the moon and the stars.”
“I don’t believe that!” He struggled to find words to speak – then shrugged and added: “Anyway, if it were true, animals aren’t supposed to be like that. It was mutilated and someone –”
“Someone? Someone did it. Sick and perverted.” He nodded and I smiled. “What you think is normal might others think is sick and perverted? If you could tell by sight that which is good from that which is evil then tell me, Shippo, just by looking at me can you judge the darkness of my past?”
I practiced thus I sharpened my skill until I reached the peak of maximum human ability. Of course I was limited because I was human, I did not possess the essence of the demonic. I could not ensure the continuation of life through Naraku’s method with the use of the hair. I was resourceful, however, as I obtained samples from Shippo, Inuyasha even Koga. And I was pragmatic as I recycled it from animal to animal.
My creations were short-lived. Repetitive and uninspired. They did not please me and after a time I stopped. I stopped the collecting and the sculpting of animals. But that did not affect my love of the art-form. Night after night I sulked into the cave and stood astride the entrance. There, amid the shadow and darkness, I listened. At last, I sensed, I heard, the wail of my pain. Like a mirror of the creator, it did not emerge out of me – for it could not be expressed with human terms – only echo through the struggles of the animals. Their torment within their cages as they fought against cold, bitter death and succumbed.
Was I not caged? Was I not chocked by the crudeness of the world? As much as my work I had to be free.
During those times, when the moon shined across the rocky, barren edifice, I was taken back into my childhood. The castle. The bedroom. I saw Kagura, laying atop the tatami, I approached her, the visions of her breasts, naked and swollen with milk, coming afresh as if they were the very first memories of my life. And then the veil that cloaked my past lifted and I recalled a scene I could not be certain was real or imagined. Suddenly Naraku’s hand groped her breasts and abused other, exposed parts of her body. Words erupted into my mind, slithered as if uttered by a misshapen, half-man, half-spider, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. I approached her and him. Yes, I emerged out of the void. Then Naraku lunged into Kagura.
Reliving the memory I had been denied, my hand found its way onto the tent between my legs. Speaking as if to Kagura, while Naraku writhed atop, I begged to be nursed. Naraku raised himself off of Kagura and let me feed. I think he laughed while I squeezed her breast and bit into her nipple. Meanwhile my hand mimicked the demoness’s affection. It was fantasy – but it was not fantasy – for at the moment of my release it stopped. I felt as if I had been shoved aside. Shocked by a new and terrible transformation. For in my mind it was not Kagura, it was Sango, and those were not my hands holding her breasts, not my lips suckling her nipples, it was Miroku!
One night, after yet another session at the cave, I retuned and discovered my sister waiting within my house. I feared she was accompanied – and by Miroku – but I was assured her friends were not around. I paused, dumbstruck, I did not know what impelled a visit at that time of night. I thought it was odd that she managed a trek as far as my farm and without a friend. I surmised she might have worried about me, hearing what, if anything, Shippo said.
I confess, though, I cannot recall all of the events of that night. The record of my consciousness was damaged. Only moments of clarity and eons of ignorance remain. My mind was distracted. I was unreleased and aroused, still, at the peak of my climax and to find her alone with me.
I do not recall the nature of the conversation. Except that eventually I asked about her favorite childhood memory. She replied with a story about Kirara. About meeting that cat-demon. As I expected she asked about mine. So many things I could have said. So many things. But I related the thing upon my mind. The memory of Kagura nursing me. I described the act with vivid and loving detail, I exposed everything about what Kagura and I did afterward. The throb between my legs was exaggerated by my excitement and I did not conceal it. She was upset and when I asked to be nursed she screamed.
Why?
Why be afraid of me? The brother who loved her? Who idealized her?
Sango reeled and I jumped. Together we embraced and fell upon the floor with me on top and she on the bottom. We slid into the recess of the house. Someway, somehow, her breasts were exposed and I brushed my face against them. It was the gentlest, kindest touch. The pleasure of it surged through my body and drove my reflex onward. Despite the struggle of her fight against me I grinded into her.
No, Naraku? Did she cry: no, Naraku?
Weakened by the intrusion, she spun me and threw me off of her body. I crashed into furniture while she crawled against walls. Upon my back I exposed myself and with only the feeling of the air kissing my flesh I ejaculated. The spray of my seed splattered her clothes.
“But Miroku!” I shouted. “Is that the monk’s privilege? Is he more worthy than I? Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, seed of my seed!”
She ran into the night.
But I was not upset. I held her, I tasted her, I marked her! I would have her again, forever.
Then and there I resolved to do the impossible – the indescribable – I vowed to perfect her!
END OF CHAPTER
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