I could feel the shaking of many heavy footsteps approaching.

I didn't move.

The footsteps stopped, and retreated.

Feather-light footsteps returned, alone.

Someone kicked my foot, and I looked up. There was Lord Mukuro, her head cocked to one side curiously. She tossed her head to one side; follow me.

It took an incredible amount of effort and energy to pick myself up off the floor, seeing as no one felt the urge to help me this time. But I did it – Lord Mukuro was already walking away, and I had to scurry to catch up.

This is it, I thought, you're being kicked out. Maybe they're giving you to another slaver. Too much trouble to keep you around. It had been overly generous of Mukuro to take in all the slaves she had liberated – I hoped that my mistake hadn't cost the rest of them their shelter.

Mukuro stopped in front of a heavy wood door and waited for me to catch up – I had been walking several lengths behind her.

She opened the door, and we walked through a dimly lit room to a smaller back door. She opened it, and steam poured out. There was a bath inside capable of drowning several large men, already brimming with hot bathwater.

Mukuro pointed to a little stack of towels, and then she left.

Where I should have been ecstatic over the idea of finally getting a bath – as I had wanted – I just felt sort of numb. Numb was good. Numb didn't hurt. Numb was just… numb.

I got undressed and slipped into the hot bath – a pleased sigh slipped from my lips, and I snapped them shut immediately. I had no right to be happy about anything. I sank low in the water; as low as I could get while still breathing from my nose.

I knew the moment my eardrums healed, as I could hear the rippling of the water against the sides of the tub.

I focused on that sound – peaceful, steady, gentle – instead of my thoughts. I sat in the bath, working hard to think about nothing, staring at the sides of the tub. Staring at water, making little waves. Thinking about breathing.

I was ok.

Numb was ok.

Numb meant nothing hurt.

Mukuro was waiting for me when I emerged from the bathroom an eternity later. She was lounging in a plush sofa, and gestured for me to take a seat in a matching chair across from her. I complied, sitting just on the edge of the chair, waiting for a dreaded announcement I knew must be coming.

"Drink this," she commanded, holding out a little ceramic goblet. I complied, and the liquid burned like cheap whiskey as it ran down my throat.

"I'm sorry," I whispered under my breath. "Please don't punish the others for my mistake."

"What are you talking about?" Mukuro sounded mildly annoyed.

I gripped the goblet tightly and tried not to sound like I was begging. "The others from the line; please don't kick them out."

Mukuro made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a derisive snort. "Don't be absurd; that guard paid for his stupidity appropriately. I'm not kicking anyone out." She poured herself a goblet of the harsh alcohol, and took a swift swig. I don't know how she drank it that quickly – the stuff was stronger than floor cleaner. "You'll stay in here tonight; it's far enough away from the barracks that you shouldn't be able to kill anyone in your sleep. I'll send Nyema to retrieve you in the morning." I searched my fuzzy memory, and came up with the little Mouse demoness.

"What for?" I asked, my tongue starting to feel too large for my mouth.

Mukuro drained her goblet, and filled it again. She offered me the bottle, and I shook my head quickly – I was sure it would dissolve my insides if I drank too much. She shrugged, and poured more into her own goblet. "You clearly have no control over your powers, which is understandable, but should not be allowed to continue. As much as stupidity should always be removed from my forces, daily deaths might lower morale." I squirmed uncomfortably, and her lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. "You'll be training with Nyema to get your powers under control."

I leaned forward so quickly I spilled some of the alcohol from my goblet onto the floor. "Do you really think I can get this under control?"

Mukuro didn't seem to notice the mess I had made – or she didn't care. She shrugged nonchalantly. "That's up to you." She glanced at me over the goblet. "Your power comes from your conviction. There is raw energy, of course, but the ability to take that and mold it into strength comes from here," she tapped her head. "Your core will always have a will of its own – it was never yours. The demon it once was will always fight against you. You will have to work harder than all others around you, and not just hope you can control it, but know that you do."

I bit my lip, fighting back the wave of frustration that threatened tears. "I don't know how to do that."

Mukuro nodded. "And therein is the crux of the issue. You have doubts, and fears, and too much cluttering up your mind."

"There's not much I can do about that." My voice was getting quieter with every word.

"I could have your memory erased," Mukuro offered. "I would have everything before your time in Alaric removed – your human life, your conversion, and your slavery would be gone."

That was a possibility? We sat in silence – my brain running a thousand miles an hour, and Mukuro just staring at me across the space between us. I hadn't considered the incredible range of powers that must exist in the Makai – I had seen such a limited sample. I also hadn't spent much time thinking about how to change my situation. I had just accepted each new piece of my life as it was thrown upon me, and never tried to find a way out or escape on my own.

What did that say about me as a person? Was I overly accepting, or just apathetic? Did I care at all about my life, or was I content to roll over and just let it happen, whatever 'it' was?

Mukuro was still staring, and I was unable to hold her intense gaze. I looked down at the floor, fighting back tears. I didn't deserve the peace she was offering. I deserved my pain and nightmares. I deserved to suffer through the memories of what I had done. I needed to carry that, because even thought I couldn't make sense of what had been inflicted on me, and the choices that others had mane, my memory was ultimately my choice.

"But they wouldn't really be gone," my voice was husky with emotion. "It would still have happened. And those people would still be dead."

"That's true."

"There isn't much about what happened that I had control over – if anything, actually. I think… I think I need to remember. It's all that's left of some of them, and even if they were bad people… I don't know," I looked back up at Mukuro. "I just don't think I'm ready to forget. Move on, maybe, but not forget. I can't erase what happened, so I shouldn't erase the memory."

Mukuro stared, not moving. Her eyes searched my face, her mechanical one moving a half-second ahead of her natural one.

She stood abruptly, startling me. "Alright," she said. "Get some sleep, Hana. Nyema will retrieve you in the morning, and we'll see what we can do in the meantime to keep the body count low."

And that was that.

Kurama stood in front of Maggie's apartment, clutching her key tightly. He had avoided going on for too long, he knew that, but it didn't make it any easier to unlock the door. He shook his head, sighing, and gave the key a little shake.

You're being ridiculous, he chided. Maggie's poorly-tended plants leaned slightly towards the door as it opened, reaching for his energy. He released it willingly, a sort of apology for leaving them untended for so long.

Maggie's apartment was half-packed – there were open boxes everywhere, and only a handful taped shut by the door. Her parents must have come by. They haven't made much progress. The packing was sporadic, it seemed. Maggie's clothes and books had been packed away, but none of her photographs had been moved. They could only pack what didn't hurt to see.

All the photos were piled on the coffee table – framed, unframed, and photo albums. Kurama sat down heavily on Maggie's old sofa, and pulled an album towards him on the coffee had taken the time and energy to lovingly assemble the photo album, sealing photos behind protective plastic sheets and writing little notes beneath each photograph.

This is Maggie's handwriting, Kurama realized. Kurama meandered through the album, following Maggie's life. There were a lot of photos from Louisiana, according to Maggie's delicate script. Her mother was alone for her birth, that much he remembered. In Maggie's toddler years there were photos of her and a large man he assumed was her father. Their family looked happy together.

And then there were no more pictures of her mother. Maggie looked particularly somber for a young child.

Then there was a photo of her and her father underneath a Torii gate – the year they came to Japan. Kurama smiled at Maggie's sour face in Japanese school uniforms, and almost laughed as she made faces to the camera – her father behind the lens, assuredly.

And then all the light went out of her eyes. It was a school portrait, and she looked dead inside. Cancer diagnosis four days prior, read Maggie's handwriting, makeup was on point, though.

Kurama could see she tried to make light of it – there was a picture of Maggie and her father with matching bald heads (Dad showing his solidarity! The caption read), but that familiar lingering sadness clung to her in every photo.

He flipped back to the last page, and felt a rush of shock roll over him. It was a photo of him and Maggie, together at the café. The photo had been taken from outside, peeking through the large window. Mrs. Kimura is a snoop, but takes nice pictures, was the caption.

I think this is the only photo of us together, Kurama thought. They looked happy. Kurama's face held a sly grin, but Maggie was laughing openly. Kurama couldn't remember what they talked about that day.

He shut the book forcefully, and slid it across the table. She's gone. Let it go.

He hadn't known her very long. She had just been yet another human woman in a never-ending sea of faces. Courtesy had drawn him into a conversation, but interest had kept him there. She had an incredibly expressive face, and an intelligent humor fueled by a keen mind. She was happy to share her love for the knowledge abundant around her, and Kurama had enjoyed what she recommended.

He hadn't known her very long, but he found a kindred spirit; a trickster's spirit that he couldn't help but respond to with his own. She played jokes with books, and he with plants and little looks.

She haunted his life – not in any harmful or dark way – in that he wanted to make her smile, and would spend a great amount of time planning how to do just that. He wanted the best joke, or the best gesture – one that would delight and inspire her to respond.

And at the height of that short, short time, when it seemed as though their game was at its best, she was gone.

Gone.

Spirited away in the night, cut apart and sewn back together, and sold. As a slave. And all that joy and sorrow and laughter and twisted smiles was gone. And if she had survived the hasty demonic conversion she would live hundreds of years in suffering.

But it shouldn't hurt so much. He shouldn't be so attached to a human woman he hadn't known very long. He shouldn't have leveled the Factory in his anger. He shouldn't have crossed half the Makai to follow a lead. He shouldn't have spent so much time sitting in an empty apartment, looking at old photos.

But there he was, sitting alone at the end of the story. Kurama's hands clenched tightly, his knuckles turning white. It was the end – he had done all he could, and all paths had led to dead ends. His own thoughtless rage had cut off his last avenue, and that was it. No more searching. No more Maggie. Nothing.

Kurama felt utterly powerless. The last time he had felt like this, his mother had been ill, and-

A whole train of thought suddenly rushed through his brain, and landing squarely at a door he hadn't thought to open.

It wasn't the end. There was another way to search for hidden things in the Makai – secret places that required certain talents to find.

Kurama flipped back a page or two until he found what he was looking for. It was a simple photo – Maggie in her apartment, sitting on the sofa, looking up from a book she had been reading, smiling wryly. Taken by Dad; "Magnolia in her natural environment" – very funny, Dad, the caption read. Kurama peeled back the protective plastic and pulled out the picture of Maggie – he would need it.

He was going back to the Makai.

I was awoken in the morning by the gentlest of knocks on my bedroom door. I barely heard it, wrapped up as I was in blankets, far from the door. I wasn't able to bring myself to sleep in the bed the night before – I had felt so exposed – so I had slept on the plush sofas after wrapping myself up into a blanket burrito.

"Hana?" Nyema called softly, opening the door barely a hair.

"I'm awake, just give me a minute," I answered groggily. I swung my feet onto the cold floor a recoiled for a moment. "I just need to splash some water on my face."

"Alright – I'll be here in the hall when you're ready." The mouse demoness closed the door again.

True to my word, I rolled off the sofa – still fully dressed from the day before – and just quickly splashed some water on my face. I looked like shit – dark purple smudges under my eyes betrayed my lack of good sleep for the last few weeks. My hair was completely out of control, and I ran my fingers through it a few times before giving up.

"Okay," I nodded to my reflection. "Here we go."

Nyema seemed surprised that I came out of my little room as quickly as I did. She recovered in a quick second, and then we were off down the hall. I didn't need to ask where we were going, because she started talking almost instantly.

"We'll get you something to eat just as soon as we get those powers of yours in check, alright?" she asked, glancing up at back. I was probably two and a half feet taller than her, so she had to really crane her head around.

"It didn't sound like it was going to be an easy process – do I not get to eat for a few months?" I asked bitterly. I hadn't meant to sound so sour, but it didn't seem to bother the mouse demoness.

"Goodness, no!" she laughed. "Full training will take some time, that's true. This morning Woden is just putting on something more temporary."

"And what are we 'putting on'?" I asked skeptically.

"Why, wards of course," Nyema responded casually.

A/N: Readers! Many of you have chosen a slightly expedited story line, so I'm going to do my best to pick up the pace a little. Fear not! Maggie's development will still get the attention it deserves; we'll just have a bit of a training montage (as much as I hate montages).

And gosh golly gee I wonder who Kurama is going to see in the Makai?

I must say, thank you all SO MUCH for your patience as I take forever to write this. It's definitely the more difficult of the two to write, but is much more popular, it seems! I personally prefer Hiei-type men to Kurama-type, which makes this SO MUCH HARDER to write. I think about writing sometimes and just say "ugh. I don't wanna." But – being a writer – it's not really my choice. If I don't write it, the story just gets caught up in my head and swirls around until I can't think of anything else, and there are other things I WANT to be writing, but can't, because PBP is taking up so much room.

I don't know if Maggie and I would have been friends if she was a real person – Aria and I would have been BFF, but Maggie… I don't know.

Many thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Guest, Counting Sinful Stars, Melissa Fairy, versailles214, Chibisensei110787, Tsuki Kitsune Moon Fox, Sanguinary Tide, Divine Demonic Assassin, TiaKay, Emzybubble, SilverDragonsTail, Elicorn, Yuuki no Yuki, Akara Suzuki, OfficerShadowcat, UzumakiRaven, Guest, Hermetics, Nevermorea, tyedyeoreo1015, SlytherclawQueen, Sydney Dominguez, Ground-Cinnamon, Sombra- The Resurrection, Tay, Distractionforyourthoughts, darkknightwriter, and Biku-sensei-sez-meow!

PLEASE REVIEW!