I do not own Inuyasha nor profit from the writing of this in any way.

Rating: T

Warnings: Dark

Genera: Angst

Note:

**

Kagome gazed at the figure with bland interest while he howled in pain. She cocked her head to the side as he panted trying to work through the after effects of the pain she had laced through his body.

"Tell me why it hurts so much." She instructed in a flat tone.

"Because I'm only human." He responded instantly. He had long ago learned that it was best to answer her immediately. She tended to get upset if she had to wait, and took it out on his body.

Kagome placed her cool fingers on his hot skin, and he shuddered. She dipped her finger into his wound, and he bit back a scream making only a low moan. Kagome shot her power into her hand, and the flesh healed at once.

"Thank you." He whispered.

She looked up into his face. "You thank me, yet I hurt you."

"I like the pain." He told her. "I like what you do to me. I like how you punish me."

Kagome drew the knife across his skin again, and the man howled. "Self destruction is not a good end." She told him.

"No, but I'm not self inflicting am I?" He said while panting.

"No." She said with displeasure coloring her voice.

She didn't like how things had ended. She didn't like where she was now. She didn't like how it had all unraveled in front of her eyes. She had sacrificed so much to have it all thrown in her face. Now all she had was the man that was her enemy once.

Kagome sliced him again, and then healed his body with gentle fingers. She then turned away from his naked form, and set down the knife. He watched her intently as she cleaned the blade of his blood, and then used it to slice a fruit for herself. She walked to the window of the great temple, and slowly ate while looking out over the land.

The land and the people in it had changed greatly since the last time she had set foot outside the temple. Kagome had watched dispassionately as the war between demons and humans had raged. She watched as the demons went into hiding, their number severely dwindled by the humans.

Then the mikos and the demon exterminators had gone into decline. Still the demons stayed hidden, and the humans flourished.

It was the new age, and soon guns had made their first appearance in Japan. Kagome watched at the foreigners came. She didn't care as she watched history played out before her eyes.

A chuckle behind her brought her back to the temple she was sealed in with the one man she never wished to see again.

Kagome turned to the shackled man. "What is it that amuses you?"

"You and I."

Kagome cocked her head to the side at the once hanyou. He still continued to puzzle her at times. "Explain."

He looked past her to the world. "We once fought for the right to change that world- to affect it. We fought for the right to mold it into what we each wanted, you: your world and time, and me: a world to rule. Now we are sealed into a temple, unable to leave, and unable to affect that world."

"As it should be," Kagome replied.

He chuckled again. "They left us behind. They moved on without us. They still bring offerings, but for how long? How long before we are forgotten?"

"It will not matter. We have no need for food or water or sleep. Time doesn't touch us here." Kagome replied.

"They adored you once, the great miko that saved the lands from a menacing hanyou. Do you think they even remember you or what you did to give them life?" He asked.

Kagome walked closer to her old nemesis. "Why do you care? Why do you insist on discussing these issues that don't matter? Even if they remember us or not we are still sealed. Nothing will change that."

The man looked at the woman that had defeated him, the woman that had purified him, and made him what he was now. The woman that had, at last, freed him from Onigumo's pesky heart, but in doing so had trapped his melded mind in the body of the man he had once been. "You choose to pretend to not care, but I know you do.

"Your hanyou companion killed himself to be with his true love. Your demon love was forced to mate a demoness for his compassion toward a human girl, and for his love of you. Your friends all left you, and your love was taken away leaving you with nothing.

"All you have left is a shadow of your enemy, a demon distorted mind trapped in a human body. All you have left is me."

Kagome didn't let her feeling touch the surface. Something she had learned long ago from the demon she loved. When he had admitted his loved for her she was on a high that she had never experience before. Then he returned to tell her that he was forced to take a demoness mate, or forfeit everything. She had been torn to shreds that he chose his kingdom over her, but she hid it away behind a mask of indifference. She told him to go, and never return to her.

She left then, and eventually found this place, a hidden temple, that housed a deadly secret. She found the monks that tended the place, and what they had shackled inside. They were preparing to seal the temple so that the monstrosity within would never escape, and that the war wouldn't inadvertently free him. She knew that there was nothing left in this world for her until her time came (having been sealed), and offered to be sealed within with the monster. If he were ever freed she would kill him.

The monk accepted, and she stepped inside.

"Perhaps I cared once. Perhaps your world would once bring me to tears, but I have accepted my fate long ago." She told him. She picked up the knife once more.

The man howled as she sliced him with more vengeance than usual. "Oh you care, and you hate it. You were created to have this existence. You were destined to be here with me like this."

"Perhaps," Kagome relied. She hated that he had to bring up their past. She hated that he was right and she did care.

"What's it like to have never been touched by a man?" He asked softly knowing the hurt it would bring. He wanted to know more about the miko that he was going to spend the rest of his existence with- the one that had thwarted all his plans.

"I wouldn't know, but I suppose it's better than having had and lost. At least this way I don't know what I'm missing." She replied as she healed the injuries she had inflicted.

"I could show you."

Kagome paused, and looked up into his eyes.

For one moment the man thought that she might say yes, and release him. He lost himself in those eyes that still conveyed her pain and immense sorrow like silent screams. He had fallen for this woman, and he wanted her love like he had never wanted anything before. It scared him in the depths of his heart that was human, and his soul that was hanyou.

Then she lashed out with deadly accuracy slicing fine ribbons across his abdomen.

"No Naraku, you will never touch me. No man will, only the demon I love will ever have that pleasure." She told him when he stopped screaming.

"He will never come." He told her. He wouldn't show her weakness, but he wanted to see hers. He wanted to see the woman beneath the exterior façade.

"I know." She whispered softly in response. "I know."