Lunar Month

Naraku is a hanyou ("half-demon" — you is derived from youkai, which means "demon"), although he differs from most hanyou.

There was a man named Onigumo ("demon-spider"), who was full of deceit and hatred for others. He tricked his bandit leader, Rasetsu (the elderly man later on in both manga and anime who gives Kikyo his top knot to be sent to Mount Hakurei in order to purify his soul) into approaching Kikyo and attempt to obtain the Shikon no Tama, or Jewel of Four Souls; however, Onigumo did not warn him that with Kikyo, there was a hanyou named InuYasha. Rasetsu survived the encounter with InuYasha, lost an eye, and returns to camp annoyed to find that Onigumo has made off with his troops. Rasetsu finds Onigumo and his troops at an inn down the road celebrating their change in leadership. Rasetsu blows up the inn, but the charred body of Onigumo somehow manages to survive the blast. Rasetsu throws the barely-living Onigumo off a cliff. (This, however, does not explain the spider scar, as Onigumo had the scar before he met Rasetsu).

By either chance or fate, Onigumo barely survived and was found by Kikyo who slowly nursed him back to the point of being able to speak. Onigumo developed feelings for Kikyo, but knowing that he could not move for the rest of his life, he summoned countless youkai using his corrupted soul. He then had them devour his body in exchange for giving him a new body with which he could claim Kikyo and the Jewel of Four Souls. Thus the countless youkai were bound together in a form with Onigumo serving as a connector. (In an anime special, it is implied that a spider-youkai, which looked like a small replica of Naraku's spider form in the second movie, was the de facto leader of these youkai.) This resulted in the part-human, part-youkai Naraku.

In the meantime, he did not forget about his ultimate goal of obtaining the corrupted Shikon no Tama. He disguised himself as both InuYasha and Kikyo and tricked them into hating each other, as he describes that "the Shikon Jewel is the most beautiful when it's tainted by the hatred Kikyo and InuYasha have toward each other".

He mortally wounded Kikyo while disguised as InuYasha, took the Shikon no Tama and returned it to the village, then disguised himself as Kikyo and attacked InuYasha. InuYasha, sensing something was wrong, instinctively went back to the village to retrieve the Jewel. However, disguised as Kikyo, Naraku told the villagers that InuYasha would come for the Shikon no Tama at any cost, thereby forcing InuYasha to use force to obtain the Jewel. As he was getting away with the Jewel, Kikyo, with her remaining strength, sealed InuYasha to the Tree of Ages. Naraku, who desired both the Jewel of Four Souls and Kikyo, thought that she would use the Jewel to heal herself, but instead she requested Kaede to cremate the Jewel along with her dying body, so that it would be taken to the afterlife with her.

Onigumo's soul, within Naraku, objected to Kikyo's death. At this time, Naraku took action to prevent Onigumo from consciously influencing the hanyou's actions. Onigumo perceived this process as imprisonment in a deep dark place where he proceeded to sleep.

For fifty years after Kikyo's death, Naraku secretly plotted and waited for the Shikon Jewel to appear again. After the appearance of Kagome as the present-day reincarnation of Kikyo and InuYasha's awakening, he moved forward with his plan of gathering the shattered shards of the Jewel. Knowing his weakness as a hanyou, he relied mostly on evil tricks and traps while gathering information on his potential enemies that would stand before his insidious plot.

Being a hanyou like InuYasha, Naraku also sometimes experiences a period of weakness. During those times, he loses all his youkai powers and reverts to his human "form". While in this form, he is composed of his head attached to countless random youkai parts. Naraku has the freedom of choosing this time, unlike InuYasha, and since he is made up of thousands of youkai, each time he "experiments" and "reconstructs" his body, he gets rid of weak and useless parts while keeping the vital ones to get stronger. It is possible that during each of these periods he expelled more and more of his humanity. This process ultimately led to the creation of his stronger form.

Disposal of his human heart

After InuYasha was able to break his barrier with the red Tetsusaiga, Naraku got injured by InuYasha and he almost beat him but he retreated to a mountain Hakurei-Zan for a long time, resurrecting the Shichinintai in the meantime to keep his enemies busy. To better protect himself from powerful youkai enemies like InuYasha, Sesshomaru, and Koga, he deceived a lost soul of a dead priest Hakushin into creating a barrier so holy, that it would purify and cleanse any youkai that came close to it. The closer Naraku's enemies came to the core of the barrier, the stronger it was. This was also the most powerful barrier in the series as its reach extended over the parameter of an entire mountain and much of the land around it. The stronger a youkai, the deeper into the barrier they could go until they got to a specific sort of critical point where anything with even the slightest bit of demon energy would be utterly purified. For any creature with yōkai as its spirit, they would die at this point no matter how powerful. For example, Koga could not even pass the perimeter of the barrier due to the fact that he is a normal youkai. Sesshomaru however was able to penetrate the barrier's perimeter and travel deeper into it but was weakened, during his battles with Suikotsu and Jakotsu. InuYasha was able to pass this final point, but his half demon was purified so completely that he transformed into his human form while inside the barrier. Naraku himself hides within a cave inside the mountain which is not penetrated by the purifying barrier. Kikyo persuades Hakushin to remove the barrier and ascend to Heaven.

Naraku separates himself from his heart, rendering it in two pieces. The physical heart he imparts to Akago, rendering Naraku effectively immortal unless Akago is destroyed. The spiritual heart, or soul, which he inherited from the human Onigumo, is discarded inside Hakurei-Zan. This allows Naraku to become stronger, much like a full youkai. (Comments later made by Abi-Hime and Tekkei revealed that Naraku was still technically a hanyou.) Furthermore, he now possessed an even stronger barrier, which proved impenetrable to anything except for the Tetsusaiga's Kongousouha ("Diamond Shard Blast" or "Adamant Barrage" in the English dub).

As soon as Kikyo gives the man who created the barrier the ability to find peace, he departs for the afterlife and the barrier dissolves. Naraku then reveals his new, powerful form and strikes down Kikyo. His powers increased dramatically as he challenged Sesshomaru and deliberately let him tear his body apart with a point-blank range youki blast, however it had no effect and Naraku proclaimed that "I cannot die". In order to find the final Shikon shard located at the border between this world and the afterlife, Naraku made a deal with Abi-Hime, the princess of the bird youkai. However, Abi-Hime and her mother, Tekkei, never did trust Naraku because he was "merely" a hanyou. Both being full youkai with utter contempt for hanyou, Abi-Hime and Tekkei plotted against Naraku and later attacked him. Naraku proceeds to behead Tekkei, the river of her blood producing a gateway to the world between this and the next.

Throughout the series Naraku is always constantly absorbing youkai to carry on the process of expelling the weak components of his victims and retaining the stronger ones. Thus he is able to constantly increase his strength even after the events of Mt. Hakurei, though it never increases enough to counteract InuYasha's Kongōsōha until he has absorbed Moryomaru and a barrier-dissolving Daiyoukai tree.

Re-absorption of Naraku's heart

Following the death of Kagura in the manga, Naraku becomes largely absent from the series, and the focus shifts to Akago's and Moryomaru's quest to absorb yōkai and Shikon shards. Naraku finally reappears, reviving a tree youkai known as Youmeiju, a tree which devoured humans and youkai alike. But this time, as InuYasha and his group watched, Naraku devoured the tree. Shortly thereafter, he and Moryomaru squared off for the first time in an open battle. Naraku then reveals that the reason he created Akago as an infant and purposely made him so weak, while providing him with a powerful barrier that he had the power to disable, was because he always knew his heart would turn against him. Taunting Moryomaru about his shell, referring to it as a castle and to Akago as a king who has grown fat inside a castle, Naraku at first appeared to be trying to reabsorb him. But this clash ended with a shocking twist: Moryomaru absorbed his maker, supposedly defeating him for good. Naraku soon revealed that he was in fact alive, having allowed Moryomaru to absorb him in a Trojan Horse-style ploy in order to then devour Moryomaru from the inside. He then used the Youmeiju's barrier-dissolving abilities to reclaim Akago and then fully assimilated Moryomaru into his being.

In Chapter 452 of the manga, "Spider Web", Naraku also returned to Hakurei-Zan to reabsorb the heart of Onigumo which he discarded there. Onigumo speaks to him, gloating that Naraku still needs this discarded human heart to avoid being purified by Kikyo, because of Onigumo's intense negative feelings. The human heart says it possesses more intense negative feelings, and these can prevent purification by bringing darkness to the Shikon Jewel. Naraku seems to confirm this analysis. He intends to exploit the emotional connection between the hearts of Onigumo, Kikyo and InuYasha to destroy both Kikyo and InuYasha. The re-absorptions may mean that Naraku has lost the invulnerability he obtained from keeping his heart outside his body. However, the Shikon no Tama also allows it's possessor to survive otherwise fatal injuries. The diamonds on Naraku's new body, along with his armored shell, may also add some extra protection (due to the former being the hardest substance on the planet, and the latter easily able to swat off even the destructive brunt of the Kongousouha).

The Shikon Jewel's Completion and Death

In chapter 463 in battle with InuYasha, Naraku takes Koga's shikon shards because he placed his Jewel shard inside Kikyo. After he placed it in Kikyo, Kagome shot Kikyo with her last sacred arrow to purify her, then Naraku used Koga's shards to corrupt the Jewel as Kikyo plans to purify the Jewel. But Naraku's evil overpowered Kikyo's holy aura and allowed him to reclaim the Jewel, leaving only Kohaku's shard. Once the Jewel is completed, Naraku will have the power to become a full youkai.

However, in chapter 475, Naraku blames Kikyo for a purity inside the shikon no tama. Currently, Naraku is dead-set on decapitating Kohaku in an attempt to get his shard without becoming purified by Kikyo's presence in the jewel, however a light from the shard prevents him from doing this. The light/purity of Kohaku's shard (though kohaku needs the shard to stay alive) is the work of Kikyo but whether it is her soul or her "light" is a matter of debate. Magatsuhi, the demon sealed inside the Shikon jewel by Midoriko, escapes the gem and creates a new body for itself using some of Naraku's spare parts. Technically this would mean he is not truly Naraku's as he reveals he is merely borrowing a body from Naraku. Magatsuhi is able to, in contrast to Naraku, not only touch the shard in Kohaku's back, but corrupt it as well. In chapter 528, Naraku succeeds in removing the shard from Kohaku, though Kohaku is able to survive the loss of his shard.

Naraku completes the Shikon-no-Tama and uses the fully dark jewel to begin his final transformation. Before that, when asked by Byakuya what he would do with the jewel, Naraku admitted that he had no real plans for it and wondered what would be left for him when he killed all the people who hated him. Following his completion of the Shikon no Tama, Naraku takes on the form of a gigantic spider. However, within this new body Naraku's face appears on its flesh, and he also manifests a new, dark-skinned, white-haired humanoid form. After the defeat of Magatsuhi by Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, Kagome's spiritual powers return and a small light returns to the once completely corrupted Shikon Jewel. Naraku planned to use the hope of this light to trick Miroku into killing the others with the last use of his Wind Tunnel. Although things do not go as he originally plans, Naraku finally eliminates the last traces of light within the Shikon-no-Tama and fully fuses with the jewel.

Kagome asks Naraku what his true wish was, since it seems that the Shikon-no-Tama has not granted it. This question startles him greatly. Inuyasha tells Naraku that he seems to know a lot about relationships because he focused so much on tearing people apart, and mentions that this is because of his human heart, which the Shikon Jewel may not have removed. For the first time, Naraku hesitates to attack Inuyasha and Kagome. Inuyasha attacks him with a variation on the Meidou Zangetsuha more adapted to his fighting style, and seems to damage even Naraku's most powerful form. Although he regenerates from this repeatedly, Sesshomaru takes note of Naraku's vulnerability and uses the Bakusaiga on him. Because of Bakusaiga's decomposing powers, Naraku's large outer body begins to fall apart. As Naraku weakens, the curse on the Wind Tunnel begins to break as well, and Miroku uses it to absorb much of the deadly shouki.

Naraku becomes cornered as much of his body deteriorates, he uses the Shikon no Tama to grant him more power. He uses this power to stall the others from killing him so he can prepare to crash his gigantic, shouki-filled body into Kaede's village. Though he intends to use this threat of destroying the village to prevent Inuyasha from killing him, Sesshomaru ignores him and strikes his main body with the jewel with Bakusaiga. Sesshomaru's sword, however, doesn't even scratch the jewel, which prevents Naraku's death. As his massive body begins to fall onto the village, everyone escapes from within and try to protect the villagers. Kagome sees the Shikon no Tama within Naraku and shoots an arrow at the jewel. Prior to the arrow hitting the jewel, Naraku thinks to himself that indeed the Shikon no Tama did not grant his true wish: he wanted Kikyo's love, and laments that he won't be able to go where she is in the afterlife. Naraku's body is completely purified and most of the village is saved from destruction.

Naraku, appearing as only a head with the pierced jewel, hovers above the bone-eater's well and says he made a different wish upon the Shikon no Tama, and that when he dies that wish will be granted. He finally dies, and a meidou appears and swallows Kagome and the well disappears. It is revealed the wish Naraku made was actually the wish of Magatsuhi itself: that the souls of a resurrected Naraku and Kagome would replace it and Midoriko (that she was killed by Naraku with Magatsuhi's wish). However, this wish can only be fulfilled if Kagome succumbs to despair and wishes in the meidou to return home. Naraku and Magatsuhi were finally defeated when Inuyasha cuts the point of light in the darkness inside the Shikon no Tama with the Meidou Zangetsuha and arrives in the meidou outside to save Kagome. The Shikon no Tama was finally killed but not destroyed: so Kagome instead chooses to wish that the Shikon no Tama disappear forever.

Appearance

Because of his nature, Naraku's true form is somewhat a mystery. In the past, he was usually seen hidden inside his white baboon pelt, which hides all but his mouth. He is later seen wearing a dark blue kimono with matching hakama and a purple kataginu that matches the color of his shouki. This is not Naraku's true form, but rather the form of a human daimyou named Hitome Kagewaki, the ill son of the castle lord who Naraku killed and replaced by taking his form. In Naraku's "human" form, he has long, dark hair, red eyes, and pale skin.

In InuYasha the Movie 2: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass, Naraku is briefly seen in the opening credits as a large spider youkai, which has been called his true form. This could indeed be possible, due to his origins as Onigumo (which translates to "demon-spider"), as well as the spider scar on his back, have led many to believe Naraku to be a spider-youkai / han'you. This is concurrent with an anime special in which an identical (but smaller) spider-youkai acted as the leader of the youkai who consumed Onigumo. The "giant spider" form was likely a temporary form though, or a diversion, as he later regenerates in a form resembling the one he would take in episodes 80–81. During this battle, he creates a form of the top half of his body surrounded in gigantic green tentacles and centipede bodies, along with dozens of smaller gray tentacles and four spiky red claws growing out of his back. Since at this time Naraku had still not perfected his body as it still had components of Onigumo in it, he told Sesshomaru that this was his body in its intermediate stage of reaching its full youkai transformation.

Many fans believe that Naraku's true form is a human form identical to Onigumo or Hitomi Kagewaki (the young daimyou). However, even less is known about Onigumo than Naraku. Onigumo, whenever seen, has his face in shadows or is bandaged around his face. But Onigumo's hair is seen, and Kagewaki's face when Naraku is having periods of weaknesses (like InuYasha's) — which is remarkably similar to his current appearance (described above). Also, in "Spider Web" (manga Chapter 452), when Naraku went back to Hakurei-Zan in order to reabsorb Onigumo's heart, the heart appears at first in the form of a human head, looking indistinguishable from Naraku's face with different colored hair. After Naraku touches it, the heart takes the form of a spider.

Before obtaining his full youkai form, Naraku hated his one known consistent physical trait - the spider-shaped scar that revealed his part-human origin - and worked to remove the human heart associated with it. When Musō left Naraku's body, the scar on Musō's back showed the location of his heart. In one episode of the anime, Naraku cuts the scar from his back with a sword, but it immediately grows back.

Following the battles at Hakurei-Zan, Naraku is seen in the same "human form". However, this form was composed only of youkai as he had disposed of Onigumo from his body and become a full youkai. This form has an armor of blades rising over the shoulders, and also features blades along the chest and wrists, with horns on the top of his back. He also wears the same dark blue kimono, now with a huge light blue jacket with a high collar, and a yellow belt. He now also has a monstrous eye in the center of his chest, two red eyes on each of his hands, and three tails that seem to belong to a dragon. In the manga the tails were purple and around three to four times the size on Naraku, but in the anime they are green and much shorter. In this form he usually extends his fingers and makes them attack as in the form of glowing purple tentacles or extends the bones of his wrist in a zigzag purple beam like motion and infects people with his shouki.

After the absorption of Moryomaru and Akago, Naraku's appearance changes again. Initially, his right arm becomes covered in diamond armor, and the rest of his body sports diamond tentacles similar to Moryomaru's, although this trait is not present in all subsequent appearances. The exoskeleton breastplate is now composed of diamond and much less rigid, and is connected by two blade-like diamond extensions outside of the high collar. He has no dragon tails in his back, and the armor that was similar to Sesshomaru's is gone. Following his completion of the Shikon no Tama, Naraku takes on the form of a gigantic spider. However, within this new body Naraku's face appears on its flesh, and he also manifests various other forms. In the center of the body, Naraku is seen as a nude human in a protective barrier.

When he begins to battle InuYasha and Kagome, he assumes a new form through the Shikon Jewel. He retains the manner of dress from his post-Mt. Hakurei form. The diamond 'blades' coming over his shoulders increase in number to about eight, and a layer of diamond forms over his forearms, legs and jacket. His face appears to be cracking, and there are diamond tentacles resembling a spiderweb coming from his back, which extend out to several times the length of his body. Upon his dismemberment by Bakusaiga, Naraku uses the Jewel to keep himself alive, and takes on an appearance far less human than has been shown up until this point. His face bears some resemblance to a typical oni, his hair becomes white, and a large ribcage forms over him. However, after Naraku is purified, his face reverts back to its usual appearance.

Naraku has seemingly countless abilities, many of which may be unknown. Many of his powers are granted/enhanced by the large amount of Shikon-no-tama shards he has. Those that he has revealed are as follows:

Saimyosho: Naraku's minion wasps from hell. They are useful for stopping Miroku's Kazaana ("wind void"; Wind Tunnel in the English dub), spying on his enemies, and gathering Jewel shards.

Shapeshifting: He can take the form anything he chooses (usually a humanoid). He would have a different voice as well. He can also change his body however he wantsl this is seen when he fights Sesshomaru in an attempt to absorb him.

Youkai puppets ("demon puppets" in the English dub): Puppets which resemble him. He controls them from afar and can see through their eyes. They are mostly made of mud and soil, and are able to spring roots in order to attack opponents.

Superhuman strength and speed: Much like Sesshomaru, Naraku is far stronger than a normal demon and can move faster than the eye can see, both in the air and on the ground.

Flight: Similarly to Sesshomaru, Naraku possesses the ability to float midair, and to ride upon a cloud of his own shoki. After his transformation into a full youkai, Naraku never chose to employ his shouki-sustained flight, but flew only by the strength of his will.

Youkai parts: As he is made up of multiple youkai in one body, Naraku is able to manipulate their body parts at will in order to restructure and strengthen his body, and he can also regenerate himself from injury and reform his body parts if they are cut off. He most commonly uses these parts to form tentacles which he uses to attack.

Absorption: Naraku is able to absorb other youkai into his body, adding their powers and body to his own. This is primarily how he gains strength, by seeking out and absorbing strong youkai, giving him access to their powers. Naraku can also expel weaker body parts in order to rid himself of them.

Psionics: Naraku has shown using various psychic powers and capabilities; including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, mind control, illusion-casting, and astral projection.

Detachments: Makes incarnations out of his own body to do his dirty work for him. Most have a spider mark on their back which is a result of being born of Naraku when he still was a han'you with Onigumo inside him. After he purged himself of his human presence in the countless lumps of flesh inside Hakurei, he and all his future children were free of having that scar on them.

Barrier: A barrier which prevents the foe from finding and/or attacking him. At first his barrier was only useful in hiding his presence. As he persevered in absorbing new, stronger demons into his body and discarding the weaker ones, it became powerful enough to survive the Kaze no Kizu, which is why InuYasha needed to obtain blood from the bat youkai, Taigokumeru, in order to penetrate. After Naraku became a full youkai (in a sense) the barrier became so powerful that nothing but the Kongousouha was able to pierce it.

Youki control: Whenever someone sends an attack of youki (youkai energy) into Naraku's barrier he can channel the flow of the attack into his own jaki (youki aura) and then attack his opponents with it. However, this can only be done with attacks that cannot penetrate his barrier, which means it's useless against InuYasha's Kongousouha.

Regeneration: Naraku can quickly heal his own wounds and also put back together severed pieces of his body. He can control 100% of his body all the time (even when severed), which comes in handy when he is trying to absorb someone. However, there is a limit to how much he can regenerate. The more damage he takes the more time he will need later on to recover. Too much damage can kill him, which is why he had to flee from his enemies in the beginning of the series. Usually, he will absorb youkai to speed up his regeneration process. However, after he removes his heart, which comes out as Akago, he was able to regenerate no matter how much damage his body took since his life force wasn't in his body.

Choosing when to become human: Unlike InuYasha, who is forced to become fully human on the first night of a new moon every month, Naraku, as a hanyo with Onigumo inside him, could choose what time of the month he lost all of his powers and became human, although he was merely a human head attached to a mass of yokai parts during this time, which he used to experiment with his body and rid himself of any unnecessary parts. Since the events that have transpired on Mt. Hakurei, he no longer has to become human at any time, being a full-fledged youkai.

Beam attack: Naraku sends out one or more of the horns on his elbows in a zigzag beam attack or extends his fingers into tentacles with a glowing attack at the tip of fingers to attack his foe(s). In the manga this attack was of a silverfish color and in the anime it is of a purple color. Furthermore, even though this attack is a youki attack, because Naraku is using his body parts infused with shouki to attack his opponents, InuYasha cannot use his Bakuryūha (Backlash Wave) against it since it counts as a physical attack.

Shouki (miasma): This is Naraku's trademark, poison which kills anything that touches it. It is what makes his poisonous gas. Naraku uses it to cover his entrances and exits, and can surround himself with the gas while flying. He created a "false Shikon shard" for Koga with this substance. It was able to power Koga in the manga and anime for a while until it backfired, poisoning him, and ultimately leading him to remove it with the help of Kagome. Naraku's body is filled with it, which is why when a foe bites him or even touches him he/she gets poisoned. Later on, as his power grew upon his transition to full youkai, his shōki is able to take on a liquid form and acts like a river of acid. His shōki is so strong that it allows him to break away pieces of the nearly completed Shikon no Tama to use in his schemes. In the current manga, he can melt entire mountains. Over time his shouki has become so dangerous that after he infects Kikyo with it, neither Kagome nor Kikyo's holy powers seem to be able to purify it. Kikyo absorbs Midoriko's soul in order to protect herself but she comments that she doesn't know how long Midoriko's power can last against Naraku's venom, in the regard that she and Midoriko remain at the same strength while Naraku continues to increase in power. Eventually, even the influence of Midoriko is nullified with Naraku's absorption of the tree and Moryomaru.

Live Body Pieces: After absorbing Akago/Moryomaru, Naraku gained the power to merge pieces of his body with other youkai, thus giving him control over them and increasing their regenerative abilities. He can send pieces of his body abroad to scout for new youkai, for him to add into his body. It is important to note that these pieces, after becoming separate of Naraku's body, became living beings that can move and fight on their own.

Shikigami: This power is only displayed in the Playstation 2 RPG InuYasha game; InuYasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask. He obtained this power by deceiving Utsugi, a 'hitogata' (clay doll demon) duplicate of the original Utsugi, who was created by the priest Kakuju to ease his/her suffering when his/her real wife/husband died. Utsugi (the hitogata) required the soul of a relative of the real Utsugi, and a large portion of the Shikon Jewel, which Naraku provided, and helped in retrieving shards from Koga to become a true, live human. When Naraku supposedly died (w/ jewel on hand) at the hands of InuYasha & co, the leftover jewel was retrieved by Utsugi behind the scenes. When Utsugi finally retrieved the soul she/he needed (which as it turns out, was Kakuju's) Naraku's voice began echoing from the Sacred Jewel, and Naraku took over Utsugi's body rather than absorbing her/him to acquire her shikigami-channeling powers. He became able to use the destructive power of an unknown variety of shikigami, and would time-to-time spout out a long verse when he attacked during the fight in the game. Because this only happens in a game based on the anime (which wasn't entirely canon from the start) and the events of the game stray away from the actual cliffhanger ending of the anime, this power is un-canon.

Phantom Castle: Naraku is seen having the ability to create various "Phantom Castles" as a temporary headquarters throughout the series.

Dormancy: Naraku has the ability to hide himself within one of his servants and make it appear as though he has disappeared, or have been killed, rather. A simple task; he gets himself "killed" and hides within the body of a servant of his choice. To reinforce this fact, he even (although temporarily) removes Miroku's Wind Tunnel and returns Kagura's heart.

Black Magic: Naraku knows many different spells and curses, a prime example being the Wind Tunnel curse.

Armor Shell: Upon absorbing Moryomaru, he gained the ability to cover himself at will with Moryomaru's nigh impenetrable shell. It has been revealed that Naraku is hiding the Shikon Jewel underneath this shell.