Autho's Note: I am stressed. School sucks. When I am stressed, I write. Sorry this doesn't have much of a plot, and sorry but I didn't edit. I am working on an actual story (Not Kikyo-centric) but it will be a while before that is up and going. R and R is appreaciated. Enjoy.

Extremely short One-shot: Not very Kikyo-loving, but rather, Kikyo sympathetic.

Cyber cookies for whoever figures out what the hell this is about.

The Blood of a Miko

By Azul Bloom

Reborn from ashes and soil, Kikyo was given a second life with a superior vessel to wield her increased powers, coerced by dark magic. But the price she paid for this unwanted gift was too high for the tragic maiden ... and that price was not that of her own life...

She stepped through the cold forest, making no sounds upon the ground as her feet barely rustled the fallen foliage. A reminder of her ethereal being.

Her soul snatchers always by her side, traveling at whatever pace she did, waiting patiently for her commands. Her only friends in this lifetime.

As she descended from the darkness of the forests, she stalled, noticing the procession of mourners from the nearby impoverished village, most of it in ruins from a recent youkai attack. They trudged along with heavy steps, crying their tears of lament, wallowing in sorrow for their lost loved ones. The men carried the bodies of their fellow villagers on simple wooden stretchers, taking them to the large crater made to be their final resting place. Kikyo looked on, her face as untouched by sentiment as the stone it was created from, though her soul cried out in sympathy.

'I wonder...if Inu-Yasha ever mourned my death so...'

Her own death, a scar in her new form, never fully healing and allowing her to move on into the next world. The person that she had been before it would have insisted on parting, citing her new existence was unholy and unsuited for the living realm. But she was not the same, and she no longer cared to abide by the rules of mortals.

She lifted one hand in a delicate gesture for her phantom servants to go forth and free the souls from their wilted bodies, and her form disappeared into nothing, rematerializing miles away into depths from which she had just emerged, not wanting to hear the cries of the villagers as her demons claimed the spirits of their deceased. There was but one soul she would truly rejoice in pillaging, and it would not matter if the vessel that held it was dead of alive, though perhaps, her enjoyment would be greater if it was by her own cold hands that it was destroyed. The woman that came to claim all that she had been and that had been hers. The woman, so very much like who she had been one life time ago. The woman that would surely one day, acquire the very thing that had torn the heart from her soul, leaving her but an empty apparition, haunting the land she and people she had given all for, never allowing the man that had loved her to forget her. No, if she was to feel the pain of their loss, if she was to know the tragedy of what could have been, then he would at least feel her own pain. But never, would she tell him. It was her own, and no man could ever know it like a woman.

Sure, with this new body, she was more powerful than she would have ever been with flesh and bone, and in this reborn form, she would never perish, as long as mortals kept dying. But it really meant nothing, for inside, she was hollow. No promise of life would ever be felt within this body.

Her servants returned to her, each carrying a plundered soul for her to feed on, dropping them within her reach one by one, until her phantom glow radiated with replenished energy. "That'll do for now."

She sat atop a burley branch, high above in the trees, no where to go, no where to be, so she set out to fall into rest, her servants quick to set up the cloak of invisibility around her, shielding their tragic master into her loneliness.

"I told you! I smelled her! She was here! Somewhere!"

"Inu-Yasha! Why do you still search for her! You only hurt Kagome when you do so! It has been years, and she obviously wishes you dead! That is not love anymore! She is not your love anymore! The one you loved...that is Kagome! Understand that! Kagome is her, reborn and returned to you!"

Kikyo opened her eyes and looked down below her. There on the forest floor, the hanyou she had given herself to, still searching for her, never wavering in his promise. A placid smile appeared on her face.

But the monk spoke truths that even she could not deny. The strange miko, was in deed her own rebirth, fully human and fully her. Their souls the same, their hearts proven to be one by the hanyou right below.

"I know! I just...I can't move on...until...I know she will do so as well. Kagome understands, and I wont always harm her so. But ... She's in pain here, Miroku. I failed to protect her. I failed to save her. I failed her."

His gaze traveled up towards her, their eyes locking, but his not seeing, although he felt her. Confusion on his face, he sighed and looked away, ending the only moment of warmth she could now feel. "Let's go...she's not here anymore..."

'But I am here, Inu-Yasha! I am here! Forever!'

But no, she was not. She was a ghost, a memory, a mistake. Fate had played a cruel game with her. Bringing her into the world, beautiful, strong, cunning and brave. The perfect woman, but it all meant nothing. She was doomed to loneliness, apart from all others. And then, he came along, and their bond was stronger than anything could and should ever be. They were one, and they happy, planning a life together, and she surrendered to him entirely.

And just as all had seemed whole, just as she experienced the ultimate ecstasy of womanhood, it was all shattered. Struck down by a deception, her life could have been salvaged, but not the one that grew inside her. That one was lost and the only one she would have wanted to try for it again with, had been the one who had destroyed it. With her last ounce of will, she slew him, determined to keep their word to forever be together, one way or another. All three of them.

But oh fate, what a foul master she is. He lived, but they didn't. Now reborn into earth and clay, she could never feel that bliss again. Her only option had been to take the hanyou with her, but it was too late. She had been replaced with a mirror of herself. One of warmth and flesh, fully able to reach that ecstasy she had lost without ever fully experiencing it.

Inu-Yasha and the monk turned away, back towards their home, towards the maiden that had everything she had wanted. She laid one hand on her cold, empty womb; her eyes closing as one lonely tear traveled down her pale cheek. No warmth reigned in her touch. No blood ran through her veins. She was it. She was all. She was truly alone.

Raise your hands if you have no clue what the point was.