Moryomaru
OVERVIEW
Moryomaru is one of Naraku's enemies. At first, he is merely a haku (life force) puppet, the more refined of various such creations made from youkai by Hakudoushi. As such, he had no true personality, soul or will. When InuYasha uses Adamant Barrage against him, Hakudoushi shields him with his own body, indicating how valuable he is. After a couple brief altercations alongside Hakudoushi against Koga and InuYasha's group, he is given to Kanna, who places Akago inside of him (giving the puppet a soul, Naraku's). He is able to absorb the youki (youkai "aura/smell") that all youkai possess and exert (making attacks based solely on youki energy useless) and convert it into a powerful blast of energy which he releases from his arms (a technique he "lent" to Goryomaru while he was attached to him, chapters 356-366 in the manga). As far as personal essences go, he is actually Akago, the physical embodiment of Naraku's heart, and his youki cannot be detected due to the Fuyouheki, a stone which completely masks the presence of any youki near it. He has given a bit of trouble to InuYasha and Sesshomaru, since their attacks (the Kaze no Kizu and blasts from the Toukijin respectively) are based on youki, and therefore far from harming him, result in making Mouryoumaru even stronger. Through further modifications of his body, he seems to lose this ability or possibly because Sesshomaru blew up the arm that had this ability.
Kohaku eventually attempts to kill Moryomaru after Kagura tells him Moryomaru is after the shard of the Shikon no Tama in his back since his goal is Naraku's destruction, but fails, enabling Moryomaru to nearly steal the shard until Sango comes to his rescue. This in turn enables Moryomaru to flee from InuYasha and company.
As the story progresses, Moryomaru begins to increase more and more in power as he absorbs different kinds of youkai to gain their abilities. He seems to be more adept at this than even Naraku as he send pieces of his flesh out to gather demon parts. Once he sent his hand to kill a bunch of male dragon humanoid demons and then absorb them, which Koga witnessed. Here the main focus of the story begins to shift from finding and defeating Naraku, to stopping and destroying the growing Moryomaru. Moryomaru rarely appears before the group, instead he uses other powerful youkai (whom he plans to devour later) he influences to fight them. But after he revives the corpse of Meioujuu (a turtle-like youkai) and it regains its armored shell, Moryomaru manipulates the creature into battling InuYasha and letting him strike it with his Kongousouha (Diamond Spear Blast) attack. He then absorbs the Meioujuu and the diamond shards, incorporating them into his body and thus gaining a powerful armored shell of his own. The diamond spears are no where near as effective when used by Inuyasha due to the lack of the Wind Scar. During the following battle, he nearly defeats an onslaught of most of Naraku's enemies which included Kikyo, Kohaku, Kagome, InuYasha, Miroku, Sango, Shippo and even Sesshomaru. During this battle he broke Sesshomaru's sword Toukijin in the process. He only flees after nearly losing one of his shard of the Shikon no Tama. One might speculate that at this time Moryomaru had become even more powerful than Naraku as he was able to put up a fair fight against so many of his enemies which Naraku wasn't able to do even with the greatest portion of the Shikon Jewel in his possession. This difference in strength was also noted by Naraku himself in his conversation with Byakuya.
Later, after InuYasha gained the Senki from a Nikosen (for his Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga), Naraku sent Kanna to aid Moryomaru. He tried to absorb Ginka and Kinka, a pair of conjoined youkai brothers (sharing an antagonistic relationship with each other not unlike that between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru), as their blood would bond his armored shell together and prevent InuYasha's sword from damaging it. Though he succeeds in devouring Ginka, Kinka allowed InuYasha to absorb him with the Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga. The result is that when InuYasha used Kinka's power against Moryomaru, Ginka's power struck back from within the shell. This greatly weakened Moryomaru, and he flees. Soon after, Miroku suggested that Moryomaru will discard Ginka's body (since it's become a weakness).
Some time later, Moryomaru became involved in a plot by Naraku, and tried to steal Koga's jewel shards for himself. However, he found himself at a disadvantage when InuYasha and Koga teamed up, with InuYasha using the Dragon-Scaled Tetsusaiga's new technique to weaken Moryomaru, then Koga using his Goraishi to break the surface of the armored shell. Even rearranging himself with the diamond spears wasn't enough to save him. InuYasha broke through into Moryomaru's core and saw Akago. Before he could defeat the infant, InuYasha was flung out when Moryomaru grabbed an extra jewel shard from Kai, a younger youkai-wolf who was also caught up in Naraku's plan. With the shard in hand, Moryomaru escaped again, and reaffirmed his plan; to prove that he is superior to Naraku, just as Hakudoushi had intended to do until his death. A few days later, Moryomaru was seen to have regenerated, and escaped both Koga and Kikyo, this time without fighting.
Later in chapter 440 of the manga, Naraku ends up absorbing the power of the Youmeiju, a youkai-tree. Later he ends up running right into Moryomaru, who finished recovering from his fight with InuYasha and Koga. The jyaki or evil energy emanating from these two god like beings was so strong that when they met the forest below them and all life in it was annihilated by a huge amount of miasma even though they were only headed for each other. Both exchange banter with Naraku saying that Moryomaru can't kill him as long as his heart is within Moryomaru, while Moryomaru says that Naraku can't kill him either due to the same reason.
Chapter 442 continues with Moryomaru continuously destroying Naraku's body with the Kongosoha that he absorbed from InuYasha, while Naraku tries to absorb Moryomaru back into his flesh and reclaim his heart. Since Naraku can break through Moryomaru's armored shell, he continues to cover Moryomaru's body. When it all seemed finished, Moryomaru's tentacles pierced the flesh and instead Naraku's (surprised) face and his flesh are seen absorbed into Moryomaru instead. The chapter ends with Moryomaru, unharmed, saying "Naraku, I am the victor!", while the members of InuYasha's group look on in shock.
Chapter 445 shows that Naraku is still intact within Moryomaru, much to Akago's shock. In chapter 446 he absorbs Moryomaru from the inside, thus leading to Moryomaru's eventual death.
Abilities
Physical Attacks:
* Attacks using tentacles (later on uses tentacles covered in Kongōsōha spears for protection)
* Has a right hand that acts as a gigantic tentacle made of Kongousouha spears usually used to impale his opponents
* He seems to be able make spear-like formations on almost any part of his body
Special Abilities:
* Merging pieces of his flesh with other youkai (and even humans such as Goryomaru), thus giving him control over them and increasing their regenerative abilities. He often sends pieces of his flesh abroad to scout for new youkai for him to add into his body.
* Absorbing youkai and making his body stronger (Later on he absorbs a youkai named Meiojou and gains a nearly impenetrable armour)
* Absorbing his opponents youki (supernatural energy) and reflecting it back at them or simply consuming it to use as his own.
* Kongousouha spears (While both InuYasha and Moryomaru possess this ability, the strength of this attack depends on the users youki. Since Moryomaru doesn't have the Kaze no Kizu (Wind Scar) his attack can possibly be weaker than InuYasha's. This attack can possibly penetrate all barriers, as not a single barrier in the series has been able to withstand its force.
* Shouki (poisonous miasma) Kongousouha spears - after he absorbs Naraku, Moryomaru is able to upgrade his Kongousouha attack by launching Kongousouha spears with shouki infused in them. With the resulting damage increase he was once able to melt entire mountains in one strike.
