This is my first Kannazuki no Miko story. I felt the need for more after the ending. It takes place directly after the end. It was pretty damn hard to write in the first person POV.

Innocence

The sign changed from stop to walk and I continued my monotonous journey. I glanced up from the ground as people began to shuffle past.

I began to walk and the image directly ahead stopped me. I was completely paralyzed. It was a girl, the most gorgeous girl I've ever seen in my life. Her silky tresses danced in the breeze, one that seemed to only affect her. A small pink shell bounced gently up and down bound by a simple golden chain and she had a reserved smile on her face directed only towards me.

It couldn't be, there is no way.

I can't even begin to comprehend what I'm thinking.

It can't be her but… It is her.

They were dreams, unconscious thoughts, secret desires kept buried deep within myself. I never knew a face or a name. But somehow I knew this was the person I had been searching for, yearning for.

At a moments notice these thoughts, my thoughts, my previous lives were being poured back into my mind, not as just one, but as several hundred independent thoughts, all of which spoke to me at once, yet separate, allowing me to identify them as individual thoughts.

With a peculiar sense of déjà vu I felt re-energized and quickened my pace only to find she was already there in front of me with her arms beginning to encompass my entire body.

My body had seemed so cold and empty my entire life, like a piece of myself had been stolen away. In this girl's embrace I felt a warming and tingly sensation. Everything around me grew incredibly distant as my aching soul suddenly felt complete.

'It isn't real …'

Not hearing the voices that had around us, not the traffic, only this voice. Suddenly I felt empty again. The only thing I could see at that point was the infinite black, the lightless void in which only I stood in.

'You killed her … she's gone for all eternity. Don't fool yourself.'

No…

'You can never be with her, you only reincarnate when the world needs to be saved.'

Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!!

'You know it's true, the tragic fate of the shrine maidens, but I can change all that."

'Now, wake up …'

I kept my eyes closed, squeezing tighter and tighter until my tears glided silently down my cheeks and I couldn't take it any longer. I covered my ears, hoping to drown the words out, a foolish reaction, but they were in my head, tapping directly into my mind. My eyelids burst wide open I was not in the street but in my bed on top of my sheets sweating, tired, and alone. The voices had receded once my consciousness had returned to me.

I climbed to my feet slowly and somewhat awkwardly, as the dizziness from my little dream lingered still. The intoxicating feel of the dream sent shivers down my spine as I grasped onto the fading thoughts.

It had been like this for the past few months now, like clockwork it seemed a dream that quickly faded, but always stirred my soul, never remembering a face, only the feeling.

The emptiness in myself.

Walking to the double paned window of my apartment, I placed my hands upon the cold surface of the sill and peered out across the snowy courtyard. Unable to pay attention for long many overwhelming things passing through my mind: What is this sense of incompletion? Why can I never remember anything? Why can't I just let it go as a nightmare? It's absurd…isn't it? But still, the thoughts tormented me day in and day out.

I rose from the window pane and continued about my morning routine, bath, dress, and eat before resting into the seat facing an easel. It became habit since the dreams that I started to paint early in the morning before school. I had so many incomplete works, all faceless or lacking the final touch of something I knew was missing.

Running my hands over the brushes I select one to suit the task at hand and remove a choice color. Midnight blue seemed to suit the picture well. Taking palette in hand I applied a small dollop and began to paint.

I had been working on this particular one for nearly a week now; it only lacked proper hair and a face. Closing my eyes I try to think back to the dream, the girl, the hair, the face. I exhaled deeply and could feel myself reliving the dream. Suddenly, a grip of silent pandemonium seemed to wash over me as my own heartbeat rang out, almost deafeningly. The beats became more and more erratic. Faster and faster, the beats drummed, echoing through my consciousness.

I can see her.

"Chi …," I began in a whisper.

My eyes shot open and it burned, my chest it burns, the temperature of the room seemed to drop and the heat of my labored breaths showing slightly in the room as I came crashing to the floor.

My heart stopped beating in a momentary lapse, my eyes grew blurry, and I seemed to stop breathing, but not of my own accord. I lay between the realms of life and death, watching my life slip before my very eyes.

It was dark. I was alone. Am I dead?

I opened my eyes drearily and tried to focus, but everything was so distant, so blurry. It was bright and white wherever I was. Heaven maybe?

"Welcome back to the world of the living," I heard someone speak.

No.

I sat up uncomfortably trying to get a better view of the source of this voice and suddenly, I felt a sharp stabbing sensation across the middle portion of my chest. Clutching my chest instinctively I curled in pain. Then suddenly it was gone, and in its place was someone's well tanned hand.

"Trust me; I don't do this for your sake." She said before pushing me back to the surface of the bed that I hadn't even realized I was lying upon

Quickly she pulled fumbled around the edges of the bed and before I knew it I felt myself being bound by leather straps.

Feeling drained from my little spell, and quite incapable of running or fighting back I froze as she lowered her face next to mine and whispered hotly into my ear.

"That's much better?"

Pulling courage from somewhere deep I didn't even know I had I spoke, "What's going on?"

My own voice sounded so foreign to me now, like I hadn't heard it for years.

She pulled herself away quickly obviously stunned by my sudden words, but quickly recovered her composure and replaced her astonishment with a wicked grin. She walked away from my range of vision but returned soon enough no longer with a grin but a full on smile as she reached down to my chest and ripped open my blouse.

"You don't even remember who you are? How pathetic."

Thrusting an object in my face I squeezed my eyes closed expecting a blow to come, but it never did. I slowly opened my eyes to see myself, my golden hair, my amethyst eyes, and something else. Glancing to the lower half of the mirror I saw my uncovered chest, more importantly, the spot that had been so painful bore a burn that seemed as though it had been there for year.

It looked like the sun, and instinctively I tried to reach up only to find I was still bound to the bed.

"You are the Solar Priestess, one of the two protectors of this world. Who constantly have to kill and sacrifice themselves to preserve this twisted perverse world. But do you know who I am?" She started as she pulled the mirror from my face revealing her own, "I am going to be the destruction of this world, the savior, the one to reshape this world into a better place."

What is she talking about I'm no priestess, I'm nothing but an average student. My contempt for this person grew with every passing word, but what could I do? Absolutely nothing. I was utterly helpless, confined and condemned to this bed.

Smiling she sat on the edge on the bed, "Can I tell you a story?"

I refused to acknowledge her with an answer and turned my face away in distain.

"Never the less, it is a story about you. The two shrine maidens bound by the whim of the world, hopelessly devoted to their duty. Enter the Orochi, poor souls abused and hated by this world, who are given the power to change it into something else, something better. The world fearing it's end calls upon the barbaric sacrifice of the maidens and saves itself over and over again. Until now."

By that time I had turned my head back and was listening intently as she spoke lost in her own self.

She turns to meet my gaze and strokes the side of my face gently.

"I have come to you with an offer; I know how much you have suffered over the years. I personally have seen it with my own eyes not too long ago. I want to spare you. She will be reincarnated, your Chikane."

My heart at that moment broke into a thousand tiny pieces. I don't know why but the sound of that name filled my heart with such sorrow and pain I felt I could die strapped to that bed.

"I want to recreate this world with the power of the Orochi to free myself of the pain and hatred that fuels myself and the other Orochi on. A world where there is no need for Orochi and one with no need for the sullen dance of the Shrine Maidens. A beautiful world with no war no hate just a world where you and Chikane can finally be together and at peace."

She pulled the straps free from my bed and too my hand gently in hers, "Will you help me, Himeko?"

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