Chapter 10- A Dark Secret Revealed

Kagome had been gone a very long time and it shouldn't have bothered Hiei at all but it did. It did because this was a haven for demons, demons roamed everywhere and whatever it was about Kagome that attracted demons to her like moths to flames would, undoubtedly, be at full swing. Shippo and Kilala were with her and that offered some measure of protection but more than likely Kagome would be trying to be every place at once in a vain attempt to keep them from harm while forgetting her own vast powers (which he fervently hoped would instinctively react to attack and thus remind Kagome that she was no longer the human she had believed herself to be). How he knew these things when he had only seen her fight once (and that time she had not only been aware of its presence but had, in fact, been charging towards it) was beyond his ability to comprehend. Perhaps the jagen eye had inadvertently picked it up or, perhaps, those silent moments had lead up to something he could not yet grasp. It no longer mattered. Because she intrigued him, because she enticed him, because he hated her loathed her and constantly wished her dead even as he longed to love her, and because she knew of the jewel. She was somehow connected to the Shikon Jewel and when he found it he would destroy it, eradicate them, and she would hate him beyond all belief so he could not, would not love her now when she would hate and utterly destroy him later. But damnit WHERE was she!?

Shaking himself out of his thoughts he glanced around at his companions Yusuke who appeared not to have noticed Hiei retrospective moment, Kuwabara who was incapable of noting such a state, Kurama who only looked at him with a worry that was a shadow of his own, and Genkai who sneered at his obvious concern. He had not succeeded in winning Genkai to Kagome's side, the girl would have to prove herself on her own.

"We should search the woods."

"Yes, it has been hours she could be in danger."

"Ya Genkai Kagome's strong but who knows what's out there?"

"Come on grandma what's the big deal, she's a priestess? She barely stood up to your spirit gun right?"

"Shut up, all of you. She'll come back on her own I made you two slackers do it that beast can do it too."

Hiei growled in the corner.

"She'll come back alive."

Because if she doesn't, old hag, I'll kill you.

"So you've stayed here? All this time?"

"Yes."

"But why Kanna?"

The demon shrugged, her pale skin more translucent than ever and made even paler by the stark vibrancy of her white dress. The mirror in her hand still making Kagome cringe inwardly in nightmarish fright but it was cracked now and it seemed the years had taken some kind of toll, if not it could simply be that removed from Naraku's power and influence the mirror no longer found it necessary to try so very hard. Kagome, Shippo, and Kilala had been sitting there for most of the day. At first it had been fright that kept them but it quickly changed to wonder and then a giddy sense of love that here, at last, was a tangible connection of her past to her present. Kilala, of course, refused to go near the little girl, not caring to go to close to a creature that had tried to kill them all numerous times, but Shippo remained close braving this nightmare come to life with first dreadful possibilities in his mind but now was simply bored.

"Because I had to."

"I don't understand."

"Did you not know? Did no one tell you anything?"

"Tell me what Kanna?"

"It is not my place to tell I am no longer Kanna I am the Lady of the woods, guardian of this sacred land."

Kagome blinked for a moment, straightened and frowned. Doing a slow circle her frown slowly changed into a shocked O. Genkai's lands, her entire lands, was the field of the battle. A battle that had been fought on the air and on the earth at dazzling speeds, leaping large distances in a single bound, but, no, it could not be that massive. Kanna looked at her for a moment and then shrugged.

"The woods end at the points were whatever had remained of Naraku died, every incarnation, every sliver of him. Five hundred years ago there would be bodies where the borderlines now are."

Kagome understood, Naraku had always been one to spread himself out, to be in as many places as possible so that he could exploit any weakness and he would have traveled far even as he fought them to the death. This land, hallowed land it appeared, was fertile and beautiful and Kagome wondered briefly if this haven for all those that were more than just human had been trapped by Naraku's evil and that the fertile land between was the influence of the jewel, that light that had for a single moment made the whole of her world fill with light. Still her blues eyes focused intently on Kanna, something had been kept from her but why? And by who?

"Kanna, Lady, please tell me what you mean, help me to understand. I've lost too much. Please."

In the past Kanna would have killed her, stolen her soul in an instant, but she had been given a heart and even though she only felt like a shell that could feel small twinges of emotions she understood how much she owed the priestess, even if her life had been far from ideal in her self-possessing solitude. Without Kagome Naraku would never have been stopped and Kanna would never have had a choice in her life. Sighing she ushered the priestess close, her enemy, and revealed to her the first of many horrible truths to come.

"There"

Hiei suddenly whispered, shattering the silence in the room. His eyes had been scanning the woods for hours, tirelessly, but that didn't matter because he found that he could feel her coming. His heart accelerated, his pulse went wild, his soul sighed in peace, and an electric current seemed to move throughout his body. Before the others could react to his words he was off, moving faster than he had in a long time. The sound as he passed against the smaller trees and braches sounded like the crack of a whip. Kilala came thundering towards him on his right and he slid to a stop just as Kagome jumped off the beast her eyes a flame of pink, her body covered in shallow wounds, and Shippo there at her side in the visage of an extraordinarily handsome youth roughly Yusuke's height. His silver streaked fiery red hair fell in elegant waves behind him, almost reaching the back of his thighs. His face was delicately wrought, a bit boyish, a bit mischievous. His bright green eyes glowing like emeralds in the sun with tiny sapphire and gold hints giving them a look of a faerie prince. His mouth was one that brought to mind serious frowns, deadly glares, and a laughter that would sound like angel bells in the distance. His body was a bit leaner than Yusuke's, more like Kurama's truest form. His clothes modern, blue jeans and a white shirt, but he had an ear-ring in his right ear in the shape of some sort of tooth. All the details were there and all the irregularities corrected, even if his ears were just a tad bit pointy at the top. The boy held his mother tightly for a moment, his arms like a vice around her, but when she twitched (sensing Hiei in her own strange way) his arms fell to his sides and he watched, with haunted eyes, as she fell into his arms. Slowly, as if he were in a daze, Shippo transformed back to his true self and, like a man in a dream, wedged himself between the two along with Kilala so that Kagome, Kilala, and himself were being held in the protective circle of Hiei's arms.

"Tell me." It was a demand, one that could not be denied because it was borne out of concern and caring and fear. Kagome, however, remained unmoving and while no tears fell form her face he sensed a sadness so profound that it threatened to tear her in two. Her blue eyes, flaming pink and gold and silver all at once, bore into his and it was as if his essence was being sucked into them, what she had just experienced.

"Naraku is dead, dear priestess, he shall never be seen again, at least not in any form of his choosing."

"But…?" She had encouraged the girl before her to speak, a demon of immense strength but of solitary nature. Kanna Kagome called her but Kagome was afraid of this creature and her whole body had trembled at the name Naraku. She did not want to hear anymore, Hiei could feel that within her, but she was incapable of continuing on without first knowing what had been hidden from her.

"Naraku is dead but his spirit remained behind, whatever power governs souls did not take him and, thus, he remained powerless but eternal."

Hatred, fear, pain, ungodly pain.

"How?" It was a whisper on the wind and the girl, the demon, did not bother to answer, she continued on mercilessly and Hiei wondered if some foreign part of the demon actually enjoyed the pain she was causing.

"He wandered, a haunting wind, for four-hundred years. He tried, over time, to posses different beings but he could not. Severed because of my heart my soul can still feel him. He is a miasma within me, I can feel everything he does."

"So…he never got a body right? He'll wander in purgatory forever?"

"No."

The demon looked away from her/them/him (Hiei no longer knew the answer because it seemed as if the two were one and her emotions were now his, beyond his control.) as if speaking anymore might shatter them both and Hiei, who had suffered beyond imagining, wanted to run. Wanted to scream and cry but could not. Something within him, within Kagome, was pulsing along with her heartbeat. Some powerful thing that had somehow wove itself into her very soul so that one could not remove it without destroying her. It would not let her run, it gave her strength. She hated it, but she would protect it. He simply did not understand.

"A hundred years ago, on the anniversary of his death one you love returned here, as he had every single century before, but this time Naraku was aware and waiting. Naraku possessed him and now he wanders. For a time, for a long time, the one Naraku possessed fought and Naraku almost lost but, regretfully, something occurred, I know not what, and Naraku won."

"He's back. Who!? WHO IS HE IN KANNA?"

The girl, her entire being as white as newly fallen snow, looked at Kagome for a moment before walking back towards the shadows and the eldest trees. Before she reached them, before she was out of ear shot, the demon turned and a single tear streaked down her face. Kagome knew the answer, as did Hiei though he knew nothing of that person. Knew nothing of who he was or what he looked like save what he saw in a picture.

"Inuyasha…and he's searching for you Kagome. He will never rest until he finds you and takes back what is his. He will never release either of you, he will take Inuyasha to his grave if he can not get what he wants and he will continue on forever hunting you."

"There is no hope."

He was being pulled out, ripped away from the memory, but not before he felt her heart crack and a broken name fall from her lips, as if the world had ended and only she remained.

"Inu…ya…sha."

So they had run, together, fighting anything that got into their path and killing all but those who allowed them to pass. Shippo no doubt holding his mother up as much as he could with his own grief weighing heavily on his shoulders and Kilala sobbing in her own way for another friend lost. Alive, yes, but lost. Kagome remained mute, broken, because Inuyasha had been her first love, her best friend, and, in the end, her brother when he could not love her any other way. They had been through too much together and Kagome just wanted to disappear because how could she deal with this?

Oh god Inuyasha, always getting yourself into trouble. Is Kikyo ok? Why didn't Sesshomaru save you? Where are you Inuyasha? What has Naraku done to you?

She wanted to sob, she wanted to break down and cry and never have to get up out of the darkness again but Inuyasha needed her, her friends needed her, her son and Kilala needed her, and, most importantly, Hiei was with her, holding her, and she refused to let herself shatter when he was there silently encouraging her. Holding her together. When the others found them it was in an embrace. Kagome kneeling on the ground, her eyes vague and determined and lost all at the same time, Shippo and Kilala curled on her lap Kilala mewing sadly and Shippo with one hand curled into Hieis shirt and Hiei with his arms around them all looking as serious as he always had only now he had something new in his eyes. Pure, unending, hate.

Yusuke and Kuwabara just kind of stood there, seeing a family that had yet to realize the truth of what it was, Kurama sensing something terrible and pivotal had just happened, and Genkai seething with anger that Kagome had escaped the forest relatively unscathed. The stark sadness in the priestess eyes was almost enough to sway her, Genkai knew sadness at that level, but this was a priestess and Genkai's memory was long. As she watched, though, Kagome's eyes cleared and jumped with phoenix fire for the first time in Genkais presence. Deftly Kagome bent her head and kissed Shippos cheek, and Kilala's forehead before turning to Hiei. Moving slowly she placed a light kiss on his lips, shocking everyone present including herself (even now the touch of their lips sent heat rushing through her, beckoning her to continue her exploration and find something that she had only ever wished for before) and handed her dear ones to him. He held Shippo against his chest, deftly, and Kilala in his other arm so that the two could cuddle against each other. Yusuke would have laughed at this, would have teased his friend mercilessly, if Kagome hadn't suddenly launched herself at Genkai, pinning the old woman against a tree as her form wavered between the Kagome they knew and the one Hiei had briefly glimpsed in that first battle.

"Inuyasha was here. He came here. HOW COULD YOU LET NARAKU TAKE HIM!?"

Genkai was no weakling, she was a tough old broad and damned proud of it. Proud that she could destroy just about anyone and anything that roamed on the earth with a few notable exceptions. This girl, though, wasn't using any physical strength, or even spiritual or purifying strength. Her power came from something inside her, something so powerful its energy was wrapping around Genkai, binding her so that she could not move, not even to defend herself. If she had not given Yusuke her spirit orb she may have been able to escape but the naked pain in Kagome's eyes, and the accusations, stopped her dead.

"Listen here, you little monster, I don't know any Inuyasha. I do, however, know Naraku. Until a year ago he never told me his name but I know him, oh yes. He and his damned priestess, a monster equal to you I'm sure, have been coming here for years killing the innocent demons in this place and more than enough humans too."

"YOU IDIOT. You're suppose to be wise and yet it never occurred to you to find Kanna to ask her anything. You must know her, the little demon in white, the one that has been here for longer than you've been alive. The 'Lady of the woods'."

"We have an understanding, she and I, she stays away from me and I won't kill her."

The bindings tightened and tears threatened to spill.

"They weren't killing demons or even humans for the fun of it. INUYASHA and his PRIESTESS mate, who is a demon, were killing those possessed by Naraku the most vile, evil, compassionless demon that has ever existed. Don't you get it? You were so busy hating them that you never thought to ask them anything and now he's back and he'll never stop. He'll destroy the world and he can do it, he almost did it once before."

Genkai shook herself away from Kagome's grip, the girl having lost whatever unnatural strength had possessed her before. Part of her was sure she was exaggerating, pulling her leg as Yusuke was always attempting to do, but had she ever talked to the two demons? No, she admitted, she never had. Had never searched for the Lady either, and tried to gleam whatever knowledge the demon might have known. And hadn't the demon been different? Before he had been loud, somehow noble, and almost laughable. Like Yusuke but that last time she had seen him he had been different. Sly, cold, a perpetual darkness hovering within him.

"Hmph."

Kagome could only shake her head, force herself to be strong. To stay strong. Inuyasha, she had to save Inuyasha.

"Naraku was alive five hundred years ago but we killed him, we thought we killed him but something happened and you 'Spirit Detectives' need to find out what because he stayed, his soul stayed, and after so long he was able to become strong enough to final posses something. That's what they were fighting, that's what your 'monster' was doing when she killed all those people. She was killing Naraku over and over again until it got to Inuyasha."

Hiei moved to stand at her side, reaching down and helping her to her feet. Steadying her. Kagome's eyes were bright, determined. She was ready to fight.

"Yusuke says you can make us strong. Teach us how to use our spirit energy, and mold any other energy we have. Train us to fight. Now you do it. Train us all because if I know about the tournament then so does he and he'll know I'll be there. We gotta train, and we gotta be strong. All of us."

"And why should I train you?"

"Because you owe me. You may have helped to kill my friend and let loose an evil that will make all evils before him seem like nothing more than a common cold. And if you don't, if you don't make us strong enough to get my friend back and end this forever I'll kill you."