Musō (monk)

Muso is one of Naraku's incarnations

Description
Unlike the other incarnations before, Muso was the first humanoid male detachment to be born of Naraku's flesh. He first appears as a human, albeit, nude, male with shoulder length unkempt hair. His most striking feature was his lack of a face. After acquiring the face of a handsome priest, he takes his robe as well, shortly before stealing a samurai's armor.

Overview
"Muso" first appears as a collection of mutated flesh from Naraku's arm that somehow managed to gain a mind of its own and detached itself from the half-demon and is dropped into a chasm where it slithers off. Later on, the flesh stops before a gang of criminal samurai where it is promptly impaled on sight. Shortly after, a hand erupts from the cocoon and grabs a sword before finally emerging, revealing to be a man with a spider-shaped scar on his back and begs for a face after discovering he lacks one. The enigma then lashes out and slaughters the entire gang whereas then he begins ripping off the faces of the samurai. One by one he is disappointed by the rather unattractive visages of his would be killers and throws them into a river.

His luck would change when a priest with a fair face appears before him to banish him. The priest attacks but shortly finds himself overwhelmed by the demon has his face torn off. The demon dons this new face and seems rather pleased and takes the robe as he departs. He later then kills a passer-by samurai on horseback after studying his armor and takes it himself along with the horse and begins going on to a murderous spree, destroying villages and robbing valuables. However, despite the thrill of it all, he is frustrated, sensing a feeling of emptiness inside, as if he is missing something. His thoughts are cut short as he is encountered by Inuyasha's group. Inuyasha questions him if he is one of Naraku's detachments but simply replies that he hasn't even heard of someone of that name. The dog demon asks once more of his identity but not even he can recall, but shortly adopts the name of "Muso", the name of the priest whose face he stole. An impatient Inuyasha attacks and slices off an arm but a swarm of Naraku's poisonous insects appear and conjoin together at Muso's stub of an arm and regenerates it completely. Inuyasha attacks once more but Muso attacks with a transformed arm not unlike that of Naraku's. Kagome runs to Inuyasha's side. But as Muso notices the young girl, an image of an identical woman flashes in his mind and suddenly remembers that it was her that he was searching for. Inuyasha quickly recovers and unleashes a Wind Scar, successfully defeating him. Muso revives later from the scattered pieces and declares revenge on Inuyasha. In the meantime, he began to search for anything that would help him remember. He eventually spots a cave that he vaguely remembers. Memories come flooding back, finally remembering his identity as Onigumo, the bandit who would later become Naraku. He remembers Kikyo too, the woman he desire hardly, and that Naraku killed her. As he runs out of the cave too look for her, Kagome and Kaede appear to check the same cave, in case. When Muso attemps to catch Kagome, Inuyasha appears and fights Muso[Kagura said him, where Muso is]. He uses Kazo no Kizu several times, but Muso regenerates as often, as he destroys his body. Miroku realises that Muso uses part of his body with spider scar as a base of regeneration and tells Inuyasha to destroy it. When Inuyasha attemps to slash it with Kaze no Kizu, Kagura changes its direction with her Fuijin no Mai. Saimyosho take Muso's body to the forest. Naraku realises that it is too early to free Onigumo's heart, because he became weaker. He visits Muso in the forest and atemps to absorb him, but Inuyasha rushes in and saves Muso. However, Naraku tells Muso that Kikyo is alive and she looks like that Kikyo he remembers. When Inuyasha fights Naraku, Muso runs away. After few minutes, he stops and runs towards Naraku. He says that Naraku was stupid if he thought that Muso will leave him like this. Naraku, with a part of Muso's arm in his chest, can absorb him easily. After this, he absorbs Muso and generates strong barrier that can withstand Kaze no Kizu.

Trivia

 * Muso's faceless depiction seems to contribute to Onigumo's severly crippled condition as his body was coated with bandages with only one eye and his mouth being visible, thus leaving his undamaged face a mystery.