Kagura and Kagura deduce that they must kill The Infant in order to destroy Naraku. Naraku decides to send Hakudoshi and Kohaku to bring Kikyo out of hiding. Hakudoshi orders Kohaku to unleash a plague of rat demons from a shrine box throughout many villages, hoping to draw out Kikyo. The protagonists figure out that Naraku is after Kikyo. Meanwhile, Kikyo performs a ritual using a special branch to evolve it into a special tree, which, in turn, attracts the rat demons to ascend onto it.