There were a lot of places that he thought he'd be after a decade.

Holding the complete Shikon no Tama would have been the top of the list.

Being a full blooded youkai would have been the next best thing.

Ruler of the world would have been great.

Standing over the graves of Inuyasha and his annoying friends would have been fairly gratifying.

Finally killing Kikyo- really killing her, "not sort of kind of maybe she died" killed would have been a relief.

But this- this was just annoying.

"Naraku! You won't escape this time!" Inuyasha said, for what was perhaps the "oh-who-really-cares-we-lost-count" time, swinging Tessaiga- which had gained about twenty more new forms and powers and still couldn't kill Naraku.

"You won't escape this time!" Kagome added, still in her school uniform even after a decade. "Even if you escaped being shot, stabbed, blasted, and buried under an avalanche, we'll find a way to kill you!"

Naraku sighed, remembering the avalanche incident. He had holed himself up in another mountain after "Near Death Incident Twelve", and Inuyasha decided to Hell with looking and just ended up blasting the entire mountain.

The monk was gone, fortunately, having finally succumbed to the Kazaana. Unfortunately...

"Kwill yoo, Naraku..."

He had bred.

The very thought of it caused a shudder of complete revulsion through Naraku's core.

Sango smiled at her six year old son proudly, holding her Hiraikotsu and swinging it about, ready to throw at a moment's notice. "Go on! You can do it!" she urged, waving to her son with her free hand.

The boy- the unfortunate exact image of his father, swung his hand forward, his Kazaana attempting to draw him in with the equivalent force of a slightly windy day.

Honestly, you'd think the woman would find someone to watch the boy instead of bringing him to every dangerous youkai battle they could find, Naraku thought.

Naraku remembered his last kidnaping attempt on the monk's brat- he ended up throwing the kid into a river, just to make the whelp's crying finally stop.

The fox brat was bouncing about, his kitsune magic still rather useless even after ten years. At the moment, he was chatting animatedly with Sesshomaru's ward, who had grown from a sunny, annoyingly chatty girl to a sunny, annoyingly chatty young woman.

They honestly didn't care much to hunt him anymore- but it was like a family reunion for them- only with amazing magic and deadly weapons, instead of potato salad and gossip.

Rushing by was Kouga- still looking young and running still, even after losing his Shikon shards temporarily- sometime after Near Death Incident Four" and before the incident with Inuyasha's group and the whorehouse. And again, behind him were his lackeys "Something" and "Someone", who were still looking exhausted and trailing about five miles behind their leader.

Sesshomaru was looking bored.

Naraku was fairly certain that the taiyoukai didn't give a damn about killing him anymore- he was just so used to the routine that he wasn't about to stop now.

Kikyo was probably lurking around somewhere- after all that ominous talk about sending him and the Shikon no Tama to Hell, she still hadn't really made any progress on that front.

Naraku was beginning to suspect she said that just to give herself an excuse to appear and make ambiguous, alternately helpful and harmful gestures to both sides.

Naraku dodged Inuyasha's wild, impetuous swing- you'd think he'd have learned some semblance of swordsmanship by now- sighing to himself as he noticed Kagome firing off another of her holy arrows right for his chest.

Since everyone was here, Naraku gathered, this would mark another "Near Death Incident" for the books, and that, by some contrivance, he'd escape- with intense agony- with his life.

Naraku sighed again.

He really, really just wished Takahashi would kill him off already.

Hell would be a Godsend at this point.