S-S: Ah, so sorry for long delay, I was on vacation and then school started and yeah. Enjoy!

I don't own InuYasha, but this chapter is mainly Shiko and Ichirou and I do own them…

"A chat?" Shiko echoed, unsure if she had heard the man correctly.

Unfazed, unblinking, unmoving, with his grin still decorating his face, Ichirou replied, "That's right. I've never had the time to speak with you properly you know. Before, Kikyo and Kagome were there to get in the way, and really, although you are a dull and boring human, I have rather been meaning to have a little talk with you. I won't pretend to be uninterested in you."

Shiko took a little step backwards, which, if anything, made Ichirou's grin only grow wider. Why the hell was this man- psychopomp- thing, interested in her? Even though Shiko loved to think herself important and special, she knew deep down that she was really rather ordinary, and, up until her accident, had lived an uninteresting life. Masa had too been interested in Shiko, although she had been more vague, and had called Shiko impossible. Prehaps Ichirou also wished to know how it was that Shiko travelled between the worlds? In that case, he was sure to be disappointed, she didn't know anything.

"Sorry," she said, her voice harsh, "But I'm afraid that I've got nothing to say to you. I already talked to Masa. I don't know how I came to be here. You're out of luck."

Ichirou waved it off and walked slowly towards Shiko, with much the impression of a predator stalking its prey, a game before the meal, "Oh, that's perfectly alright," he reassured her, "I already know how you came to be in this world. My dear old sister knows as well, although I didn't think that she would have told you. Or perhaps," he mused to himself, "she only guesses how you came to be here, and doesn't know for fact yet."

He knew?! Shiko felt her heart beat race. What did he know, and if Masa knew, or suspected, why the hell hadn't the woman told her?! "Alright, then how did I get to be here?"

The grin faded from Ichirou's face in such a natural and yet sudden way that made Shiko question whether he had been smiling in the first place. He leaned forward and stared at her, "You really don't know," he stated with a dangerous calm.

"Of course I don't, you idiot," Shiko quickly retorted, shuddering from his gaze, "That's what I've been saying this whole time!"

He ignored her, and instead began to mutter, as a doctor would mutter when examining a patient ailing from an unknown illness, "How can you not know…? Was amnesia part of the deal perhaps? … Or would she take away the memory on her own…? No, surely not… my love would never… far too personal…" he looked up, right into Shiko's eyes and waved his hand in front of her face.

Shiko almost smacked his hand out the air before she remembered that doing such a thing might get her hand ripped off by the maniac. He was muttering to himself after all. "What in the hell are you going on about? I don't have amnesia!"

Ichirou rolled his eyes at her, "Because of course you would remember if you had amnesia. Think before you speak."

Biting her tongue, Shiko resigned herself to glare at him with hatred.

Ichirou took a ring off his finger, of the same hand that he had waved in front of Shiko's face just then. The ring was small, and perfectly circular. He tossed it lazily into the air, where it hovered in front of his palm, and then it started to grow.

When the ring ceased to enlarge, it was a mirror, round and smooth, with an elaborately etched golden frame that's sharp edges reminded Shiko of the sun's rays. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, flawless and stunning, perfect in every way save one. The mirror held no reflection.

Ichirou let his hand pass across the surface of the mirror, and even though Shiko could see that he hadn't done anything more than move his hand, when the mirror began to show images, she could only determine that he had indeed done something. "I suppose I'm doing you a favor right now," Ichirou stated, turning away from Shiko to face the mirror, "You see, this mirror is very special. It shows only the truth. Even if you cannot remember what happened, such a thing will not matter. The truth, shown in its entirety."

Shiko almost replied, but all her thoughts fled her mind when she too looked at the mirror. She saw herself, stepping out into the middle of the street.

The mirror her turned around and took a step backwards.

The car sped into the frame of the mirror.

Close my eyes, Shiko thought, look away! But she didn't, her eyes were held open by a perverse desire that came from some twisted corner of her mind, the desire to see what had happened to her.

The car collided with her body and then everything went dark.

"That was what you saw," Ichirou explained. He tugged on something, something that Shiko couldn't see and the blackness was lifted, like a curtain drawing back. "This is what happened."

The mirror Shiko was smashed, her body flung backwards across the cement, thrown messily and un-elegantly like a tossed aside rag doll. Blood splattered the ground. Shiko's body hit a lamp-post and went still, though her chest still rose and fell in shaky, uncertain motions. She looked a wreck, her leg twisted around and her arms hanging from the wrong angles, part of her chest looked like it had been smashed in, and tiny bits of pale white bone protruded from the crimson mess that was the left side of her torso. It was a miracle her neck had not been snapped, a miracle that Shiko had not died.

Her father cried out, running desperately towards her fallen body. The car door opened and a shaken young man uneasily got out, his jaw lagging and unable to say anything.

And then it was as if a hand took hold of Shiko.

In a split second images were hurtled across the mirror, nothing more than bright flashes of color, but Shiko got the distinct impression of watching her soul being dragged.

Then the image settled, and Shiko watched as her body opened its eyes on this world.

Ichirou's hand twitched, and the mirror went blank again. Shiko breathed a sigh of relief.

"What…?" Ichirou muttered, "There was no deal?" he didn't seem to understand this, something the mirror had shown, or hadn't show, had ripped up his expectations into tiny shreds. "But how…?" he looked at Shiko again, his eyes narrow and piercing, "You are alive, and yet… Why? That was her, that must have been, no one else could have, and yet you made no deal, you didn't barter, you didn't beg! I watched your whole life, you pathetic girl! No one would have made the deal for you, no one else would have made such a deal!"

Shiko didn't understand, she couldn't. It seemed as though he thought she had made some deal with someone, a deal that must have saved her. But she hadn't. The only person she had ever made a deal with was Masa, and even Masa didn't know how Shiko had been saved that day.

"Sorry," Shiko bit out, hating to apologize to the insane man, "But who is this 'she' that you keep talking about? I haven't made any deals, you know."

Ichriou frowned, "You don't know. You really don't know."

Irritated, Shiko snapped, "Of course I don't bloody know! If I did, I wouldn't be asking!"

He laughed. Loud, twisted laughs that made Shiko shudder. "I can't believe it!" he said at last, "My sister must have guessed, I know that you have met her. Oh, she didn't tell you! My damned sister didn't even tell you anything!"

"She didn't need to!" Shiko barked, annoyed by how he kept insinuating that Shiko was some sort of blind idiot. She had figured out the psychopomp bit all by herself after all. She hadn't needed Masa or this Ichirou to tell her what they were, she had figured it all out just from that one silly riddle of Masa's. "I'm no fool!"

Ichirou straightened up and looked at Shiko slightly differently, "Indeed?" he said, "Then I'm sure you can figure out who she is," the grin slipped back onto his face, "It's easy. Find the one of us that is missing. We number three, not two."

There was a third psychopomp? One that, Shiko guessed, must be more powerful than Ichirou and Masa, maybe their boss of sorts. And it seemed as though both Ichirou and Masa thought that this third person had been the one to rescue Shiko and bring her to this world.

Ichirou held out his hand and the mirror shrunk down until it was a ring again and then Ichirou slipped it onto his finger. "I shall have to ask my sister…" he muttered to himself before asking Shiko, "So tell me, have you figured out the point of this game yet?"

"Point?" Shiko asked, mocking him, "You mean there was an actual point besides terrorizing the good guys for your sick sadistic purposes?"

"But of course!" Ichirou stated with a smirk, his hand over his heart in fake sincerity, "I did explain that this was an experiment after all."

"You know who also did twisted horrible things to living people and called them experiments to justify their crimes against humanity as the work of science?" Shiko snarled right back, "Fucking Nazi's."

He snorted in amusement, "Hilarious, dear Shiko. But no, there is in fact a point to this. You see, I've been trying to kill you for a good long time now."

Shiko's eyes went as wide as saucers. She shrieked, leapt backwards and pointed her gun at his head, "You've been trying to fucking kill me! What the fuck! You don't just say things like that all casual!"

"Of course I've been trying to kill you," he said, and then pointed at her gun with a frown, "You can put that down now, I thought I already told you that your weapons won't work on me. Don't worry, you're relatively safe right now, I'm not actually going to kill you at the moment. You see, that person that brought you here, well, she doesn't do things lightly. If she brought you here, then you're sort of under her protection. Of course, I'm fighting against her, and so that makes you on her side and therefore my enemy. However, I'm trying to stay under the radar at the moment. I can't kill you myself, that would be breaking rules that would get me in trouble with her."

A deranged giggle escaped Shiko's mouth. This whole entire situation was simply preposterous and terrifying. "Ha! I'm safe from you!" she declared, "Bet that drives you up the wall!"

He shrugged casually, "Not really. There are far more frustrating things in the world. It is a bit of a problem though, and it has become rather more complicated as of late. You see, I want you dead but cannot do the dead myself. I have to use other pawns to get at you, to get at most all of my enemies. I'm using Naraku for the moment, he's rather useful when not obsessing terribly over the dead priestess."

"You're… using Naraku?" Shiko gaped, "You're using the king of manipulation to do your will?"

"Oh yes," Ichirou stated calmly, "It's rather easy as well. All I had to tell him was that you were far more important an enemy than anyone else. That your 'future knowledge' would make you his chief adversary. After that of course, he's been after you as well and it has worked rather nicely. He tried his hand at diplomacy at first, good thinking on his part. Keep your enemies closer and all that, too bad it didn't work. That demon bird back at the castle, did you like it? I set it to you of course, my other efforts were not working and I was trying to speed up your demise."

Shiko pointed an incredulous finger at him, "You? You sent that damn bird after me?"

He nodded quite cheerfully, "Of course it was me. Naraku may have extensive networks of power spread throughout the country, but I can go through worlds as I please, and traveling outside of the country was a simple matter. I found that rare demon in the America's actually."

"Wait wait wait," Shiko said, holding up her hand in a 'stop' gesture, "Back up," she weakly tried to piece her jumbled and scrambled and mashed thoughts together, "You said you've made other attempts on my life?"

"Obviously. For quite some time now I've been using Kikyo to get to you," he stated.

Shiko gasped, "Kikyo!? But Kikyo doesn't work for you! She would never!" The mere thought of Kikyo working for an obviously dark and evil man like Ichirou was absurd, and besides, she had been just as shocked as the rest of them when he had first appeared to them. No one was that good of an actress, not even Kikyo.

"She's been unknowingly working towards fulfilling my goal without even realizing it for quite some time now," Ichirou informed her, still cheerful, still upbeat, acting as if he was stating facts, not confessing to plots of murder, "As soon as you entered this world I was informed, and I assume that my sister was as well. You aren't supposed to be here, you aren't a designated dimension traveler like some are, and so when you appeared a sort of, alarm went off, if you will. It alerted us to your presence and immediately I began to suspect. I looked over your past life, and I found nothing worthy of note. I assumed that my sister had brought you here. It would not be the first time she has become clingy over a mortal and proclaimed a friendship with them."

"B-But Masa didn't bring me here," Shiko denied, "I thought we already established that. Why would you try to kill me if your sister brought me here? Are you fighting her as well?"

"Yes," he continued, "My sister is indeed one of my most bitter enemies. Anyway, I knew that you were an enemy and you would have to be killed. I am no fool like my sister, I know far better than to underestimate the power that humans can have. I knew that your soul's connection with your body would be weak. And I knew that if I could permanently detach your soul from your body then the victory would be mine, regardless of by who's hand you were killed. So I sent you down the path to Kikyo, which you walked quite willingly."

What? But Shiko hadn't been following some sort of set out path! All the choices she had made, her decision to go to Mt Hakurei, her choice to follow Sesshomaru, all of those choices had been her own! "What?" she asked incredulously, "But I haven't been following some path at all! I've made my own decisions, you weren't even there for any of them, you only showed up long after Masa did, and even she got there after I already knew what I was going to do."

He chuckled, and the sound made Shiko shiver again, out of fear, "You humans truly are blind, don't you know it? Really, you were so predictable! Your first day here, remember? Come now, a path that conveniently led right in the direction of Mt Hakurei? What did you say, 'Follow the yellow brick road'? I put that stone there, I led you right towards that mountain."

"You- you're lying…" Shiko muttered. He had to be. She had made her own decision, she had to have. The stone had been an omen from the universe, not from him.

"That path led you right towards Kikyo," Ichirou declared, "I was so close, your soul was pulled right out of your body, but not for long enough. It wasn't enough, you weren't close enough and Kikyo was injured far too soon. It failed, but my sister had already warned you. Knowing that she must have been under extreme duress to contact you, I knew that she had figured out what I was doing and warned you, either against me, or against any contact with Kikyo, although I would place my money of the later. It didn't work of course, despite her warning, you ended up running into Kikyo anyways. But then I knew that I had to be more careful and swifter.

"I tried again," he continued, beginning to pace around the confines of the cave, a wild and manic gleam in his eyes as he spoke, "I didn't interfere again while you were under the guide of Sesshomaru. Demons are far harder, I wasn't going to risk implanting suggestions into his mind, I knew that it was more likely that he would notice the foreign thought, and I knew that delicacy would be needed. I would have to stick with humans for the next round, I knew that. So I sent that silly girl and that bandit your way and had you walk right into that human village. I sent whispers to the high priestess that lived there, telling of a powerful priestess, a witch that lived by a waterfall. I had found Kikyo again, and I knew that you were looking for Masa and so I easily took advantage of that."

"You made the priestess Hikaru-sama tell me to find Kikyo?" Shiko felt like a rock that has been grasping onto the riverbank for years, and has just been torn from safety and swept down into the sea.

Ichirou nodded, zealously continuing his tale, "I knew that you would go after her, and it was the perfect set up. You would get close to Kikoy's body and then her soul stealers would rip your soul from your body, a soul that you were already prodding at and weakening, doing a good deal of my job for me. But then my plans were ruined again! My damned sister slipped the bonds on that bandit, drove him to summon his comrades and attack the village in retaliation. And you were sent away from Kikyo again."

"Masa…?" Shiko gasped, "Masa sent those bandits after me?" She tried to swallow but found her throat dry. Imaginary hands clawed at her kimono and she hugged her arms tightly around herself to fend off the past attacks. She had thought Masa was on her side, even if she disliked the woman. But Masa had sent those foul men after her?

"Yes, rather well played, don't you think?" Ichirou said elatedly, "What a show that was, very well done. She didn't intend to kill you of course, if she had wanted you dead she would simply have left you to run after Kikyo. No, she just wanted to set you off course, and knew that those bandits would rough you up a bit. She must have been very confident about your fighting abilities to risk that gamble. I was almost worried when you stumbled off into that dark forest, I knew that you were headed in the wrong direction entirely. But then I was in luck. You had headed straight towards an expedition from that castle, the same castle where Naraku had made a sort of base."

The pieces slotted into place in Shiko's mind and she knew what he was going to tell her next, "You had Kohaku find me and take me back to the castle."

Ichirou smirked condescendingly at her, "Of course I did. What, you thought that to be a coincidence?"

Shiko kept silent. She wasn't sure if she knew what was coincidence and what was freakish planning in her life anymore.

It seemed as though silence had been what Ichirou had expected, for he continued on his tirade with barely a moment's hesitation, "It wasn't too hard then, you were under Naraku's watch, and by extension, mine. It gave me a moment to plan. When those bird demons attacked the castle, it gave me the perfect opportunity. Naraku wasn't willing to act any earlier, that precious infant thing was there and he wanted it safe. I was hardly going to antagonize the man over this, I know that he will be useful in the future. So I sent that bird demon after you during the attack. It almost killed you, but when you lived I was not too disappointed. My chance was coming soon."

"The Borderland…" Shiko muttered.

"Yes, exactly," he agreed, "I knew that you would be drawn to that place and once you entered you would be dead the moment you returned. And yet… for some reason you did not die. I thought perhaps it was a fluke. That maybe you had stayed outside, maybe you had not entered. So I resolved to try again, and this time I wouldn't leave any error for mistakes. I revealed myself to you and brought the three of you here. I knew that I would let the soul stealers into this maze and I intended for Kikyo to kill you when you were weakened. But no… Your soul didn't fall under the creature's control, though it did leave your body. And you had full control of it as well. I wondered why."

He stopped pacing and stared right into Shiko's misty grey eyes, "Tell me Shiko. How is it that an ordinary human girl with little to no talent manages to avoid having her soul dragged out of her body when I know for a fact that under the circumstances you should be soulless and dead right now?"

A faint shimmer of light entered the dark stream of twisted thoughts storming through Shiko's mind.

He didn't know.

He didn't know about the chain connecting her soul to this body and this body to this world. He knew nothing about her death and encounter with Masa. He didn't know, and that gave Shiko a faint glimmer of hope.

"I'm sorry," she said, a faint and wary smirk playing on her lips, "But I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Fine," he said, still calm, acting as though she had not even spoken, "You can avoid telling me for now. There is however, one more thing that I would like to test."

Shiko's brief respite from worry ended and her fear came flooding back to her, "What? What are you going to do now?" There wasn't anything worse that he could possibly do to her, was there? She dared not think of anything more horrible than manipulating the past month of her life.

He flipped the ring off his finger and enlarged it to its proper size, leaving the mirror hovering in front of them.

"There," he said merrily, "It'll be best if you see what I'm going to do. Let's see… it's been what… a month and a few days?" he gave Shiko a grin, "You did not know this, but once a body has been vacated and in stasis for one full month, it is no longer judged by the same standards that apply to others."

"What the hell does that mean?" Shiko demanded, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence.

He simply flashed that demented grin at her again, "You'll see."

With a flash of his white coat, he turned on the spot and vanished.

The mirror flickered to life, and began to show images on the surface, like a real time television. It depicted a white clean room, tiled floors, white-washed walls, and people in white coats walking past an open door, occasionally exchanging brief words that Shiko could hear through the mirror. Ichirou appeared, silently, and without preamble in the middle of the corridor. The doctors, for this must be a hospital of sorts, walked right past him. It occurred to Shiko that they could not see him.

Ichirou turned and waved at Shiko mischievously before striding right through the open door.

Beep…. Beep…..

Her stomach fell and twisted into some tight knot of fear. She recognized this place. She knew that room, she knew those machines, she knew that bed, and she knew oh-so-well the people in the room. She had been here before, once, when she had almost died at the hands of Kikyo's soul stealers.

Shiko saw herself lying on the hospital bed.

Tubes of all sorts vanished into her veins, and wound into sacks of clear liquid that dripped lazily into the tubes. Machines hummed steadily near the single white bed, and the beeping was the only sound in the room. Two people sat inside. Her father was propped up against the wall, his eyes shut and his breathing heavy. Her mother sat in a chair, dozing off as well. Even now, her parents had not left her side.

Ichirou walked right past her parents and looked leeringly over Shiko's immobile body.

And suddenly, she knew what he was going to do.

"NO!" she screamed, slamming her fist against the glass, "NO! YOU CAN'T!"

Beep…. Beep….

Slam! She pounded at the glass again, whamming against it as she saw Ichirou go towards the machines that sat beside the best. "You cant! Don't you DARE!" she shrieked, like fury and sadness combined into a storm, "Don't you even DARE!"

That was her home! She had to get back there, she had to get back to her home, that was what had been driving her, keeping her tethered to sanity and stability in this crazy world, that was what kept her fighting. He couldn't! He simply couldn't, the thought was unthinkable.

Ichirou placed his hand on the machines and ran his fingers over the button, almost lazily.

Shiko's eyes went wide and tears flowed down her face. He couldn't. He simply couldn't.

Beep…. Beep….

He was going to kill her.

Ichirou calmly pressed the buttons on the machine, and slowly, things began to shut off, the tiny flashing electronic lights began to blink out of existence, one by one.

"No…" she sobbed, still pressing against the glass of the mirror, "Oh god, no…"

Beeeeeep…..

Beeeeeeeeeeeeepppp…

Bee-

She choked on her scream.

No no no no no... The scream was clawing its way up her throat, tearing at her mind. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be real, this had to be some sort of dream, an elaborate construction of her subconscious mind. She couldn't have just… died. The scream slashed away at her.

"Hmmm…" that hated voice said from behind her, "No, there's no difference. Interesting. I was so sure that breaking the link to the original body would ruin whatever was keeping your soul here, but it seems as though I was wr-"

The scream ripped out of her throat and she lashed out at him, intending to bring his death about by her own hands, to tear him to pieces with her bare fingers, to pluck out his eyes with her nails and claw at his skin till it was in tatters.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" she screamed, racking her nails across his face, slamming her other hand into his gut as she pounced on him like a vicious animal, "I'll kill you for this! I'll tear you to shreds! You killed me you sick son-of-a-bitch!"

With shocking strength and ease, Ichirou threw her across the room.

She slammed painfully into the jagged stone wall, her head almost barely missing a sharp rock that would have impaled her skull. Blood, fresh and red trickled town her newly cut open thigh. Her head spun. But that didn't matter, she pushed herself off the wall.

This wasn't like before, her soul was still in her body, it hadn't even occurred to her to access 'Super-Shiko mode', she was just so angry, furious, enraged. Her eyes were locked onto Ichirou like a sniper on their target and all that mattered at the moment was making him pay. The pain ripped through her body as she moved and it occurred to her that she might have bruised her ribs. It didn't matter. The pain drove her towards him, it was her reward, and she would welcome it. She was about to throw herself right back at Ichirou, to do anything that would cause him pain, to return the favor and then some.

He snapped his fingers.

Shiko tried to lunge at him. But she couldn't, she couldn't move, not even an inch forward. Damn him! Damn that bastard to the deepest circles of hell!

"Temper temper Shiko!" Ichirou said breathlessly, elatedly, "You have quite the fire in you! I like that! It certainly makes for an entertaining enemy!" he reached out and snagged the mirror out of the air, pulling the now small ring back into the palm of his hand, "Now, let's stop playing this game shall we? I want to know why you haven't lost your soul yet. Clearly, killing your other body did nothing, and I am rather running out of time."

He calmly walked over to Shiko and grabbed her by the arm. Then, he turned.

It felt like being dragged through space and pressed too thin all at once. When she reappeared, she found herself dizzy, immobile, and facing a terrified looking Kagome.

Ichirou dropped Shiko, who fell boneless to the ground. "You may, if you wish, talk now," he said to Kagome, who leapt to her feet and rushed over to Shiko, trying to help the other girl stand.

With a snap of his fingers, Kikyo appeared, breathless, and collapsed on the ground from where Shiko had shot her in the leg. "What-?" she questioned, looking around at where she now was.

"The game is over," Ichirou informed then, and then, with a clap of his hands, lifted the darkness from the cave. All three of the woman could look around and see their rocky surroundings with perfect clarity. "There is no winner. Shiko did not manage to kill Kikyo. And Kikyo did not manage to kill Shiko. I must admit, I am a bit disappointed, I had hoped that Shiko would be killed by Kikyo before the end."

"Who has won?" Kikyo demanded, "Do we continue to play?"

He grinned at her like one would at a foolish child, "No," he replied simply, "I did promise my dear sponsor one death from this. Oh, by the way, he is watching this right now. Naraku does have that handy mirror of his void incarnation. Say hi to Naraku Kikyo," he chastised and the now seething woman, "I don't particularly care about you, but Naraku does rather want you dead. Sorry, no hard feelings, I trust. This is only business."

"You are going to kill me?" Kikyo inquired coldly, "You cannot, I played this game of yours."

"Sorry," he said with a grin, "But you were always going to die and the end of this, regardless. I was hoping for Shiko's death to be the result of this game, but ah! Disappointment! Such is the way of things."

In a split second, Kikyo loosed an arrow headed towards Ichriou's heart, an arrow that blazed a path of holy light.

Ichirou plucked it out of the air before it reached him.

It fizzled and sputtered in his hand and then crumbled into ash. He looked at Kikyo with disappointment, "Pity, I expected better things from you. I already said that none of your weapons or powers could harm me. Did you honestly think that to be a mere boast?"

Before Kikyo could fight him again, he held up his hand. Kikyo was pulled, slowly, into the air, hanging there as if nothing more than his puppet, forcefully silent and struggling in the air, awaiting her execution. She fell still and glared at Ichirou silently, cursing him a thousand times with naught but her eyes.

"That's better," Ichirou said calmly, walking towards Kikyo, "Now I know that my friend Shiko is dying to speak," he grinned at this, and then added to Shiko, "Oh and don't worry, that spell will wear off on its own in a few minutes. Anyway, I know what she would be asking. 'How can you kill Kikyo? You can't kill me!' So I'll tell her, and the rest of you. Education for all. The only people I can't really kill are those tied in with this world's fate system and those who are under protection. However, you, dear Kikyo, are dead. Your soul has technically moved on. Which means that your soul is mine." He pointed to Kagome, "And now Kagome, your purpose here shall be explained. I need you to do this."

With that, he reached his hand into Kikyo's chest and pulled something out.

A bright light sat in his hand, a bright soul. He walked over to Kagome and placed it in her chest.

She gasped as the light entered her body, too overwhelmed to fight what was happening. It probably felt right as well. It was her soul after all. Kagome collapsed onto her knees as the light faded.

Shiko felt her neck un-freeze and looked at Kikyo. The woman was still hanging in midair. Her eyes were blank. Her chest no longer rose and fell. "Kikyo-" Shiko rasped out, her lungs still partially under the spell, "Kikyo… she's… she's dead. Kagome… she's dead."

Kagome looked first to Shiko and then up at Kikyo, "Oh no!" she gasped, and Shiko could see that it wasn't an act. As much as Kagome must hate Kikyo, and god knows that Kagome had plenty of reasons to, it still didn't mean that she wasn't honestly sad that Kikyo was dead. That was just how Kagome was. Too much heart in her.

Kagome threw her arms around Shiko and began to sob into the older girl's shoulder. Shiko stiffly reached out an arm to wrap around Kagome. God knows the girl needed the comfort.

BRRRRIIIIIINNNN-

Suddenly, loud and blaring, an alarm went off in the cave.