Disclaimer: I suppose since these are required, I must say, "I do not own anything of this fic but the idea!"

Chapter Three:

"She Who Was Eternal"

Her flimsy laughter resonated in the dense forest, ricocheting off the musty old barks of decaying trees and gliding blithely across the dewy grass—but never penetrating the green canopies above. While her joyous cries for help reached the ears of no one she ran from him, her gawky steps careless and lacking precision. He tailed her effortlessly like the voracious predator that he was, his own footfalls silenced by the killing grace that shinobi possessed. Within the murky shadows that conspired with him he slunk after her, granting her more room now and then just so she would think she had narrowly escaped his grasp.

And when she believed she had she would turn around with a frivolous smile tilting her pretty lips, bright blue eyes scanning the woods for him. But she also knew that she had never once won this game, and never would, so she whirled around again and resumed sprinting, crunching the leaves under her bare feet and frightening off nearby hares.

This elusive sprite had appeared before him one untold day, bathing serenely in the clear rippling azure of a waterfall. Samehada had been the one to lead him to her, pinpointing her frantically as a being with extraordinary amounts of power. All he had discovered was a nude woman standing amidst the color that matched her eyes, a jet of obsidian running down her naked back. An imprudent woman lounging alone in a forest brimming with wild coyote and bears—and him. When their gazes locked she had shown him no fear or consternation; something he was unused to.

Were you searching for me? she had asked of him, raising a drenched hand to placidly tuck back a strand of black behind her ear.

He had graciously introduced her to the tip of his bandaged weapon in reciprocation, smirking. What are you, woman?

Narrowing her eyes at Samehada almost lazily so, she closed them and smiled to herself, rashly dismissing him as a threat. I'm eternal, she answered cryptically, simply.

Then he had flashed with unbridled speed and cut across the water, also proceeding to tear through her in a singular accurate strike with his concealed sword. Lips quirked smugly, he had relished in the spurts of blood drenching him and Samehada. Curiously enough, however, when he had peered back over his shoulder the eccentric woman's corpse was nowhere to be located. Then, the wet crimson on his cloak and weapon had vanished as well, leaving not a vestige of proof that he had just murdered.

I told you already, didn't I? a familiar voice subsequently asked, testy.

He had snapped his neck back into place to see the exact same woman standing below him, half-submerged in the crystalline waters. Arms crossed under her uncovered breasts and mouth pursed querulously. Even as he watched, her fatal wounds mended themselves back together, the blood dissipating into thin air with a crackle of pink electricity.

It had been impossible to withhold the amused chuckle begging to be unhitched from the rear of his throat. You're an interesting case.

She had smiled a small, mysterious smile. Visit me again sometime if you ever get bored. I have lots of stories to tell and no one to tell them to.

He had taken her up on her offer, delighted to find such a bizarre woman who could simultaneously fulfill both his carnal and sadistic desires. His Uchiha partner never inquired of him where he wandered off to for several days at a time, possibly relieved to finally have stretches of solitude on his own to meditate. So in the span of those innumerable several days he sought her out in this particular forest, his blue-eyed apparition.

She was always present somewhere among the lush greenery, waiting for him to find her and pounce her, hold her again in his suffocating grip. Her hiding spots were never all too cleverly decided, and far too often he could espy a cascade of onyx or the evocative twinkling of blue from the periphery of his vision.

It was because she wished to be plucked by him, time and time again; torn asunder and vigorously tunneled into. Although her dismantled body always unfailingly threaded itself back to health after every session, he knew—according to her shrill gasps and agonized breathing—that while she was not exempt from worldly pleasures, neither was she from raw pain. And he would dimly wonder, by consummating with a ruthless beast like him was she punishing herself?

"Kisame," she whispered under her breath, panting from the taxing cardiac activity. Her back was pressed flat against the jagged brown bark of a tree that towered loftily over the rest.

He was wordless as he approached her with precise calculated steps, Samehada vibrating over his shoulder. The shiver that shook her lean physique did not pass him by undetected, and he appreciated it enormously: her evident terror and anxiety—along with her excitement. She was a trapped mouse with no more welcoming corners to scamper off to, staring at her ravenous pursuer with wide knowing eyes. The corner of his mouth tweaked up as he accelerated his movement and knocked her unceremoniously against that majestic tree.

A high-pitched cry of shock and distress spilled out between her parted lips.

He momentarily discarded Samehada beside him, piercing it into the dirt ground that would hold it steady while he finished his business. The demonic weapon wailed peevishly in response to being abandoned, but Kisame was oblivious to its complaints.

"Are you afraid?" he asked huskily, a cruel grin in his voice as he looked down at the cringing female. His palms were on either side of her, keeping her confined between him and the tree.

She peered up at him, regarding him with a mixed expression of horror and reverence. Her delectable lips trembled as they always did whenever she answered him: "Iie. I'm not afraid of you."

That was how they always began; it was their precursory ritual.

He dipped down to encase her mouth with his in an unpolished union, pushing against her again and forcing her head back to the coarse wall behind her. He bit down on her lower lip, eliciting a pleased groan from her throat. Kisame continued kissing her with a bruising intensity, his right hand traveling downward from where it was set guard to hover over a round breast. He squeezed it hard without proper invitation, digging his short nails into the vulnerable mound of flesh.

She whimpered in protest, lifting her own hand to try and pry his detrimental one away from her. He smoothly struck it down in a single deft blow, nonchalantly treating it as if it were a bothersome insect. With a tearful gasp that was brushed away by his dominating tongue her skewed wrist fell lifelessly to her side, countless bones fractured in a bare instant.

Blood dribbled onto the unsympathetic leaf-blanketed terrain, the dainty plops overshadowed by the woman's increased panting. Kisame smiled darkly against her mouth, a pinch of morbid happiness beginning to bloom in chest. His oppressive hand was placed on her reddened breast again, scratching it and leaving distinct marks that would merely disappear in a few hours. She tried feebly to move away from his grasp but failed miserably as his opposite hand shot down to fiercely clutch her shoulder. He nearly crushed even more of her with his terrifying clasp.

The startled noises she emitted were absolutely divine to his ears and contributed to the stirring in his loins.

Kisame pulled away from her lips in favor of her neck, nibbling it mindfully at first—to her relief—before suddenly sinking his sharpened fangs into her and drawing blood. It was coppery and pungent to his taste buds, but just as well it was utterly exquisite. She was motionless and rigid, still unable to properly accustom herself to his feral tendencies after all the afternoons and nights they had squandered away together. He lifted his teeth from the bleeding skin of his prey, his mouth shifting gingerly across it as he murmured to her.

"Are you afraid?"

She drew in a shaky breath, her nerves trembling as she whispered, "…iie. I'm not afraid of you."

Chuckling menacingly, Kisame drew backwards and bent down slightly to grasp the woman from behind her quivering thighs. He swiftly hoisted her up with ease, purposefully forcing her back against the serrated tree bark as he did, satisfied to hear her rasps in response to the pointed chips of wood embedding themselves in her unprotected flesh. Between her velvety legs he stood, holding them apart as he ground into her, ensuring she would feel the full impact of his body on hers.

Her heartbeat was rising and her bosom fluctuating rapidly; he felt both against his own as he left no possible gap between them, kissing her hungrily. With her mobile hand she held the side of his face, running it down his tough flesh to his chin where her fingertips barely lingered. It was almost an affectionate gesture but he knew better than to deem it as such—he had not a tinge of interest in doing so either.

He left her lips again and dove for her prominent collarbone, a certain feature of hers that he had always particularly admired. As he continually moved against her, pressing her deeper and deeper into the hostile tree bark, he raked his teeth over her clavicle. Bitter copper was dancing across his tongue again, and he greedily lapped at the wound he had just inflicted. Her fingers dug into the hair at the top of his head, gripping onto it as though she were barely maintaining her connection to sanity through it.

She was mumbling fervently under her breath, her eyes closed as she tilted her head back to the leafy green ceiling. "I deserve this…I deserve this…"

Kisame mercilessly pierced through the delicate bone with his fangs, a definite crack and a female yelp inciting him further. While he continued lifting her with one hand the other flew down to hastily undo the hold of his pants. They obediently slid down to his knees and he spared a moment to evaluate the woman offering her pale, blood-drizzled neck to the spectating gods as though she were sacrificing herself to the heavens. Her eyes were shut closed in concentration, refusing him a view of her clear blue eyes as she hysterically repeated her self-mutilating mantra.

He did away with those pesky words the second he jabbed his way inside her, shifting under her pulsating walls. On pure reflex she whipped her right hand—the broken one—at his face in the vain hopes of driving him off. Kisame grabbed it and pitilessly twisted it around as he ventured deeper into her, galvanized by her loud yell that was sure to attract wild animals to them. (Only to be driven in the reverse direction upon seeing Samehada stationed before the source of sound.)

She was sniffling now and tears were running avidly down her cheeks as he forcibly expanded her inner walls to admit him. Every time he entered her it felt without fail as though he were doing so anew; as if she had never been sullied during their last encounter.

And she always bled, and she was always dry until she eventually deigned to give in to sinful bliss and to him.

…I deserve this…I deserve this.

Her enigmatic words echoed in his blurred mind as he pounded into her, the whispers far greater in volume than her high-pitched shrieks and moaning. The bushes surrounding them rustled lightly as wild vermin scurried away from the scene, disgusted with the brazen show taking place in the middle of their forest. Birds took flight from their nests on overhanging branches, stimulated out of their dozing to consciousness by the raucous noise.

Kisame heard none of it as he pistoned into her like a madman, watching as her head thrashed from side to side in rebellion against the hard bark. She jerked and struggled valiantly while shouting with helplessness. And while it should have been scathing to his ears, it was more like sweet candy.

With the tip of his member he hit the ends deep within her, but instead of relenting he continued trying to senselessly shove the rest of himself inside.

"Not—not so deep…!" she implored tearfully.

She should have realized by now that the more she begged him not to, the more he would do it, Kisame thought fleetingly. More than likely, she probably did. So he acted accordingly by wordlessly heeding to her demand: he drove into her over and over, the feel of her blood trickling down from his shaft and onto his legs captivating him, as well as the wretched smears marring her sweat-layered pink-dusted neck and chest. Everything about her in this accursed scenario aroused him, and he knew that in some twisted psychotic way she derived a similar effect from it as well.

It was because she wished to be plucked by him, time and time again; torn asunder and vigorously tunneled into.

I deserve this.

By consummating with a ruthless beast like him she was punishing herself.

He grinned sharply, the threatening edges of his teeth glinting in the sunlight seeping in through the leafy opening above. The slickness inside her increased, and whether from his own entire doing or her added influence as well he knew not. It became easier to pull in and out of her and he complied with her body's partial coerced acceptance of him. He wittingly demolished the diminutive fist still clutched in his hand, reducing it to but a shriveled mass of porcelain skin and pale fragmented bones. Some of the slimy grotesque bits and pieces oozed out through the space between his fingers.

Her excruciating screams accompanied him as he released himself in her.

…

…

…

"…and the teenage girl named Kagome traveled with a hanyou called Inuyasha to collect the shards of a mystical jewel together. Along the way they befriended others who would help them on their journey to eventually defeat the wicked villain, Naraku; Shippou, Miroku, Sango, Kirara." Transcendent energy crackled as she herself was pieced back together like the sacred jewel she spoke of so often to him.

He, now fully clothed, sat beside her ever-nude form against that majestic tree bark, watching as the magical phenomenon patched her up again to how she was before he brutally disassembled her. As the cuts and slashes across her chest, neck and back healed, so did the right hand that had surely been disfigured beyond fixing. The blood on her skin evaporated as it always did and everything she was missing was impeccably replaced; materializing from nothing, summoned forth into existence by sizzling pink electricity. And as per usual while her unorthodox method of auto-maintenance repaired her without her having to lift a single finger, she rehashed for him in a benumbed tone the apocryphal tale of The Girl Who Overcame Time.

"What happened to that girl?" he questioned without preamble, a blue hand draped over his knee while the other was relaxing on a corpulent root jutting up from the ground.

She turned to him, her blue eyes shining with a hint of curiosity. "That girl?"

"The one you refer to as Kagome."

"Oh…" Mouth pressed in a firm line, she seemingly steeled herself before humoring him with a bitter smile. "Her? She's no longer alive."

Kisame cocked a speculative brow and acknowledged her gaze with his own. "And why would that be?"

The woman held her chin between her newly restored thumb and forefinger, looking both childish and thoughtful as she studied a fallen verdant leaf. "Kagome made a mistake."

His eyes were hard on her, pressing her for more information.

"She made the wrong wish," she supplemented.

The ex-Mist ninja warningly growled, "You're being vague."

"Let's see," she said quietly, sitting up straighter now that her full health had been granted back to her. "Basically, you could say that while she thought she was doing what was best for everyone, it ended up wiping them all out along with the enemy. As for her, she was…consumed. By the jewel."

In casual response Kisame hummed. "What are you?" he asked again what he had so many times already, his attention fixated on her.

"I'm eternal," she replied, the regret and yearning heavy in her tone.

"Eternal…" the shinobi murmured hollowly, testing the ambiguous word on his tongue. It tasted repulsive.

"So, Kisame, have you decided yet?" She picked up a nondescript leaf by the stem, twirling it absentmindedly before her nose. "Your wish?"

"Eager to pass on the liability, are you," he remarked snidely with a low, rumbling laughter.

She smiled ruefully. "Can you blame me?"

…

…

…

A lone nocturnal owl hooted in the distance, singing out for the companions that didn't exist.

Kisame, with a dexterous hand grasping onto the hilt of his vexed sword, ascended to his feet. "My wish. I'll make it now," he announced surely, keeping his back to her.

"You will…?" She sounded taken aback, as if she hadn't expected for this night to come so soon. Not ever. "After everything I've told you, you'll still take on the burden?"

He said nothing, raising his chin to assess the dark near-impenetrable ceiling. Moonlight filtered in through sparse slits, but it wasn't him they shone on.

"Fine, then," the woman conceded cynically, and he could practically hear her fold her arms under her chest. "What is your deepest desire, Hoshigaki Kisame? Wealth, power, fame—"

"Disappear from this world, and take that damned jewel with you."

"…what?"

But it was already too late; the wish had been articulated and heard. Stifling flames erupted suddenly from behind him, both the oppressive heat stroking his cloaked back and ignited roars snapping at his trained ears confirming the fact for him. He was also able to discern the familiar weeping of his blue-eyed sprite as her body was engulfed in the conflagration. He declined seeing her and remained stagnant, gazing up into a desolate void of nothingness. He wasn't surprised to discover that he couldn't pick up the stench of burning flesh—she never had left any traces in her wake unless it was intentional.

"You made the correct wish!"

With that final triumphant shout, the gluttonous fires were quelled by a deific palm. She was swept away as well, a powerless leaf in an unforgiving whirlwind—his blue-eyed sprite.

That was when he finally turned, his action slow and deliberate. At that bottom of that majestic tree, gleaming dully under a generous beam of white light was a conquered pink jewel. It perished subserviently at his will, cracked lines of demise suffusing it before it collapsed into numerous shards. They disintegrated pitifully on the forest floor where he had continually relieved himself of his carnal and sadistic pleasures—too often to count.

A frail breeze that shouldn't have, by any logical means, been passing through the dense forest slithered by; it scattered the glittering relics of the defanged Shikon no Tama among the wild terrain, guaranteeing that it would never be pieced back together ever again.

Thank you, Kisame…

His mouth quirked in a rogue smirk as he turned his back to that majestic tree and walked away from it for the final time. Turns out you weren't eternal after all, Kagome.