Infant

The  is Naraku's heart and seventh detachment. Despite his appearance, he is able to speak fluently. The Infant's main power is controling people through the darkness in their hearts.

In the Story
Born in Mount Hakurei, the Infant was created to serve as the vessel for Naraku's heart while the human spirit of Onigumo was left behind as lumps of flesh. Naraku purposely created the Infant as such because he knew his heart would eventualy betray him.

Entrusted to Kagura, the Infant left Mount Hakurei; he informed her not to attack Kikyo as she was not the one to kill her. When Kagura was resting from her trip, he infromed her that Naraku had succeeded in killing Kikyo.

First Mission
The Infant later took control of the Lady of a mansion, ordering her soldiers to capture suspicious travelers in the area; it was all part of his mission to take control of Kagome for her ability to see the jewel shards. To ensure InuYasha wouldn't trouble him, the Infant had Kagura use her Dance of the Dead to make a dead priest give a false story about Kikyo's whereabouts. Once she was captured, he tried finding darkness in Kagome's heart, but was surprised by how pure it was; there had to be some negative feeling inside. The Infant soon discovered Kagome's jealousy towards Kikyo and successfuly put her under his control. When they attempted to place a defiled shard in Kagome to permenantly put her under his control, the Infant found Kagome was resisting his manipualtion; she accepted her jealousy as proof she loved InuYasha. InuYasha arrived and rescued Kagome; the Infant told InuYasha that so long as he habored feelings for Kikyo, Kagome could still be manipulated. Being taken away, the Infant decided to sleep, having used up too much energy trying to control Kagome.

Second Misson
When Naraku learned from Mimisenri that the final Shikon Jewel Shard was in the border to the world of the dead, the Infant was taken by Kagura to temples inhabited by powerful priests. The plan was to kill the priests and read their souls as they departed from this world to find a way to reach the border without having to die. Confronting a priest that appeared to be more powerful than the others due to detecting his and Kagura's arrival, the Infant succeeded in having him fataly wounded. Glacing into the priest's soul, he saw a land shouded in white mist; however, at that moment, he was split in two by the last of the priest's power.

Kagura took his halves to Kanna, who took the left half. The Infant regrew his right half while the original right half of his body grew into Hakudoshi, who continued his mission to find a way to the borderland. His being split into two different beings was all part of Naraku's plan; now Hakudoshi could take attention away from the Infant, effectively keeping Naraku's heart safe from his enemies.

In Hiding
The Infant was entrusted to Kanna and Kohaku for care; they took him to a castle where a Lady had just had a still-born child; Kanna sucked out the souls of all the attendants to make the claim that the Infant was her child more real. He slept most of the time, effectively keeping the ruse from being discovered. However, Princess Abi attacked the castle, correctly believing it to have a connection to Naraku. The Infant was procted by his foster mother and the castle staff; however, Kohaku killed the staff under Naraku's orders to retrieve him. Kanna sucked out the Lady's soul and took him back.

Kikyo's shikigami came dangerously close to finding him, but Naraku appeared before her and served as a temporary distaction. Naraku gives the Nulling Stone to the Infant, having stolen it from Gakusanjin; it would act as a sort of armor by masking his demonic energy. At this time, he conceived an even more brilliant idea for protection; havng Hakudoshi created a demonic golem to house him. This lead to the creation of Moryomaru. When InuYasha's group had the crystals of Gakusanjin's demonic energy, which could lead them to him, the Infant had Hakudoshi steal them. Moryomaru is then left for him to use as he pleases.

To strengthen Moryomaru, the Infant has it attack the priest Goryomaru to increase its powers by absorbing him; however, Moryomaru ended up being sealed by Goryomaru and taking the place of the priest's devoured right arm. Hakudoshi later decapitates Goryomaru, allowing Moryomaru to escape the seal and eat the priest. Hakudoshi takes him and Kanna to the stone ogre cliff, serving as bait for Kagura to lead InuYasha's group into a trap.

Kikyo later comes accross the Infant and Kanna while traveling, having been tracking Moryomaru's demonic aura. He and Kanna jump off a cliff to evade her, having Moryomaru fly them to safety.

Betraying Naraku
Realising that Naraku is nothing more than an empty shell without his heart, which he has in him, the Infant decides to take Naraku's place with Hakudoshi's assistance. However, sometime after he is placed in Moryomaru by Kanna, Naraku locks him up with Moryomaru in the Goryomaru's form; Kagura serves as his guard. Naraku continously send captured demons at the Infant's armor to strengthen it. He and Hakudoshi manage to persuade Kagura into reaising him. He reveals his armor's true form and gives her Goryo urns to use bandits as a distraction to keep Inuyasha's group busy. Knowing that he needs more powerful to try replacing Naraku, the Infant has Hakudoshi and Kagura attack Inuyasha's group and Kohaku for their shards. However, he is only able to get the one from Inuyasha's group; trying to take Kohaku's shard, he reveals that the boy has gotten his memory back. When Hakudoshi is sucked into the Wind Tunnel, the Infant shows no remorse for the loss of his twin.

Strengthening his Armor
The Infant sends out pieces of Moryomaru to find demons with abilities that hold potential for making Moryomaru stronger. A vemouos demon ate a peice of Moryomaru's flesh, growing in size and power; however, Inuyasha slew it before Moryomar could absorb it. An arm of Moryomaru ate members of a snake demon tribe, gaining their venom. Wanting to strengthen Moryomaru's resistance to attacks, the Infant revives the aquatic demon, Meioju, allowing him to regain the peice of his armor, whcih is the hardest amongst demons, to bring it back to full strength. He also uses Meioju as bait to also take the Dimaond Spears from Tessaiga. Once he has all these parts, the Infant transoorms Moryomaru into a much more powerful form. He makes the poor choice of insulting Kagura in front of Sesshomaru, who succeeds in cracking Meioju's shell with Tokijin at the cost of the sword breaking.

Kanna later finds him, claiming to have defected from Naraku. Surprised, the Infant decides to read her so-called "heart" to see if she's being truthful. She tells him of twin demons (Kinka and Ginka) whose blood can strengthen Meioju's shell; though the Infant succeeds in taking in one of the twins and succesfuly gives Moryomaru a stronger shell, Tessaiga absorbs the other and gains the ability to resunate the powers of the twins, breaing the shell. Exposed to his enemey, the Infant quickluy releases a miasma to make his escape.

He also had Moryomaru eat a moth demon sent out by Byakuya of the Dreams, taking a Shikon Jewel Shard from the young wolf demon Kai; however, he failed to get Koga's.

Death
The Infant decided to confront Naraku, hoping to take his Shikon Jewel Shards. Naraku laughed at him for becoming a fat king inside his "castle" - Moryomaru. The Infant succeeded in reducing Naraku to scraps of flesh that covered Moryomaru; Naraku belived he was goign to absorb Moryomaru with the Infant, but he turned the tables on him by absorbing Naraku into Moryomaru. He next proceeded to fight Inuyasha and Koga, succeeding in capturing Koga in Moryomary's diamonds. However, much to his horror, the Infant discovered that Naraku was still alive and eating his armor from the inside-out. Trying to leaving, the Infant was stopped by Naraku, who had eaten the barrier-piercing demon tree Yomeiju; he was willing to die if it meant taking Naraku with him. However, Naraku fully absorbed Moryoamru, keeping the Infant trapped with Yomeiju's vines. Almost sucked into the Wind Tunnel like Hakudoshi had been, the Infant lost the Fuyoheki, leaving Naraku unable to mask his demonic aura.

By the time Naraku returned to Mount Hakurei to Onigumo's spirit back in, the Infant had been completely reabsorbed.

Personality
Usualy, the Infant is calm. Being born of Naraku's heart, he knows full well how negative emotions can enfluence others, believing that the desire to kill is contageous; the Infant believed Sango and Miroku would kill the guards simply because he ordered their deaths. He takes delight in toying with others' emotions; he taunted Inuyasha by saying Kagome's jealously towards Kikyo can still be used to his advantage. Like Naraku, he feels zero remorse fo any of his actions. As he is Naraku's heart, the Infant eventualy sought to usurp him. When faced with the threat of being absorbed back into Naraku, the Infant was willing to die at InuYasha's hands, showing he wished to have his own freedom, just like Kagura.

Appearance
As his name says, the Infant takes the form of a young baby. He has light violet hair that matches his eyes; however, his eyes lack pupils. Originaly, he was wrapped in what would appear to be Naraku's baboon pelt. However, he later gains a green kimono and a light blue blanket.



Abilities

 * Manipulation: Akago had the ability to search deep within a person's heart for darkness and if they didn't have enough willpower to resist him, they would be under his control. Once Akago's done with someone he's manipulating, they die; whether it's his own doing or a side-effect is a mystery.


 * Barrier Erecting: Akago was able to erect strong barriers (like his master, Naraku) to defend himself. Unlike Hakudōshi, this barrier is controlled by himself and not Naraku which the reason why Naraku has to obtain the power of Yomeiju to penetrated it.


 * Shoki: After Inuyasha breaks Moryomaru's shell and he is rendered visible, Akago released shoki to make Inuyasha back off and to make his escape. He only used this once, so it's unknown how potent his shoki is.

Trivia

 * Many English-speaking fans consider the Infant's true name to be, which is how other characters refer to the Infant in the original Japanese language version. However, akago is merely the Japanese word for infant, and is not really a name.
 * Interestingly, the Infant never speaks in the series after being split in half until after Hakudōshi dies.
 * Another interesting not is that only the top half of the Infant is ever seen, the lower half of his body is always covered.