Title: The Challenge
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: This is the result of a challenge from a reviewer. Do not accuse the crappiness of this on my reviewer! Blame me, oh yes, blame me. Oh, and to the challenger: I am very sorry I could not keep my promise and give it to you first. I am participating in NaNoWriMo, and am lucky to have the time to post this much. To apologize, I will post the next two chapters of TMttF because I am so very sorry to have done this, even though I have only 49 reviews.ButI just don't have all that much time! Ahh! Fifty-thousand word novel in thirty days? You've got to be kidding me! Excuse me, I must sob now. I don't own most of the characters used here-in.

Chapter One: The Broken Woman,the Girl-Child, and the Toad Man

A young girl, more a woman than a girl, wearing a torn green school uniform skirt and dirty white and green blouse sat motionless with a gloomy look on her face, her bright blue eyes shining with tears that seemed to hover on the brink of falling and staying put. She leaned against a tree in the forest, alone and not wanting to be disturbed her black hair falling over her face in a sopping mess as the rain pelted at her, soaking her to the bone.

Her socks, dirty gray colored--they had once been white--and long enough to reach her knees, had fallen around her ankles, one even daring to slip into her muddy brown colored tennis shoes. She was unusually thin, from malnutrition. She hadn't eaten in days, nor had she even cared to try. Her grumbling and protesting stomach was drowned out by the voices who yelled in her head, battling each other like they were little soldiers in two separate armies.

A rustle in the soggy undergrowth told the mud spattered woman that someone had come upon her unbidden. The only conscious effort she made to prove she had heard and registered the movement was for her to pull her knees closer to her and wrap her arms around them in a vain attempt to become invisible. It had rained for hours already and she was shivering, her lips bluer than her haunted eyes and her skin having a sick green palor to it. Her cheeks were dominating her features dangerously, she had lost weight. Her blouse and skirt hung on her body, clearly having once been fitted for someone much larger than she, but they were not stolen clothes.

"How long has it been, Lord Jaken?" she heard in the background of her mind. She paid no heed to this voice; it was mere static to the dangerous fight inside her. She was not good enough. She was a copy. A ghost image of the real woman who lived so long ago. No one had to say these things for her to see it in their expressions. It's clear as daylight, isn't it? "Lord Jaken, Lord Sesshoumaru will be back soon right? He's been gone an awful long time."

But that woman had given her life, twice, for the safety of a Jewel. She had sent her own soul to Hell twice, just to keep a Jewel safe and out of the hands of the malice. "Oh, shut up, human! You're very pestersome!" A chill ran up the broken woman's spine. The feeling was familiar, somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. What was that feeling? Where was it coming from? "How dare you even suggest Lord Sesshoumaru would not return!"

There was a giggle that came from the first of the voices. "But Lord Jaken, I only asked if he would be back soon. I never said he wouldn't come back. Are you worried?" Another chill. But this time, it was accompanied by an urging nudge in her mind that told her to look to her left. She ignored it to favor the inner battle. Hard to believe that just days ago there had been a major battle, and this broken woman was a part of it. Perhaps not a part of the success of it, because she had run like a coward at the very last moment. Well, they had all told her to leave if it got dangerous, hadn't they?

Flashes of that battle jarred her mind this way and that, never focusing. Thanks to the twice-dead woman, the broken woman knew everything from start to finish. But this broken woman did not condemn the twice-dead for it. She blamed her own self. She knew the emotions, the thoughts, everything of those people who participated in the battle. How sad it was indeed that she could not proceed on her own and have her own memories. Instead, she was tucked into bed with the memories of all those who had fought, to the death, to save the fate of the world.

More rustles in the moist pine needles brought a young girl barely reaching puberty within eyesight of the broken woman. The young girl gasped, noticing the woman who sat more than half-dead. She shed her rain cloak and was quickly drenched, her half-formed curves becoming more prominent. A small frog-like man brushed out of the trees and began to scold the young girl immediately about taking her cloak off, saying she would catch cold, but spoke too fast for much of what he said to be taken to meaning.

The broken woman's blue eyes stared listlessly off into space, still more images and visions flashing before her eyes. Now murmurs could be heard escaping her numb lips. "No... no... where are you..? Can you distract him on the left! I'll take the right... Behind you..! He was my brother... my kill... you took my kill... So what, going to avenge him..? Come get me then, foolish half-breed... Taste the purity, Naraku, I shall eradicate all evil who seeks the Jewel..! Ahhh! You watch, you cannot kill me... I live... on... take this body, Naraku, but the soul lives on..."

An evil chuckle escaped the mouth of the broken woman, one of the likes that had never before dared to emit from her throat. "Not if I devour your soul... Naraku, you bastard! How could you do that to her..? Forgive me, Inuyasha... K-Kikyou..? I can only be glad I knew you... Kikyou!" A deafening scream tore from her throat, gurgling, dying scream. "Face it. Naraku made a mistake when he devoured Kikyou's soul. The soul, so pure, was what killed him. Inuyasha, don't do it. I will be with Kikyou! Miroku, why..? Sango, I'm sorry... I cannot control my body... It seems Naraku's curse created a link between us. I wondered why it never left... Ahh, my hand! Shippou run! Shippou is dead, Sango."

"What is wrong with her, Lord Jaken? Is this not that girl Kagome?" the young girl wondered to the frog-man. She had wrapped her rain resistant cloak around the shivering girl, feeling a slight chill herself but feeling this poor broken woman could use it more than she.

"Oh, it's her alright." the frog-man sniffed and made a disgusted face. "Has she not moved for days? She smells of urine and dung. Well, I suppose that is natural of humans. I should not be surprised. H-hey!" the frog-man called out, surprised as the young woman-child attempted to hoist the broken woman to her feet and help the broken woman to lean against her shoulder. "What are you doing? Just leave her there. She'll be dead soon anyway."

"Not if we take her and care for her, Lord Jaken. Boy is she light. She must not have eaten much recently. She feels very brittle."

"No, no! Just leave her there! What did Lord Sesshoumaru tell you about bringing home strays!" protested the little frog-man, leaning heavily upon his staff of two heads.

The girl argued reasonably, "That was different. I didn't know Lord Sesshoumaru was allergic to kittens!"

"Stupid human, no sense at all. You'll catch a cold, I'm warning you. Maybe even flees and lice after touching that slop. It will take forever to decontaminate you," it was the last of the argument that came from the little frog-man.

That's just crazy. Not sexy crazy either. Just plain crazy. For those new people: I have a ten reviews requirement on all my stories, except TMttF which is fifty reviews. Ten reviews before I will update again.