Time had stopped at the peak of everything gone completely wrong. The battle scene before her was frozen in a tableau horror and dread. There was so much pain, so much death and Ren retch until nothing remained in her stomach. Every single person she had met. Every single person with a future had been snuffed out in the moments that would follow this scene if time began running once more. She was unsure of how things had become so wrong, but this was how it was about to end at the end of time

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The sky had darkened with the arrival of Susanoo. The clouds themselves looked ready to weep a thousand years' worth of tears. Human, God and demon would all meet the same end. Susanoo knelt holding his sister who bled what looked like gold. It shone as the life force slowly flowed from her veins and into a world that would never heal from the loss. Both cried as for the first time both looked more human than they ever had. They looked no different from a woman crying for her dead husband, child for a broken toy or even the simple tears shed at a sad movie. It moved Ren to cry with them as she moved her eyes to the next visage.

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This was of Sango, her body had wound up in a tree that had been blasted apart. Her limbs were twisted where a body could not manage normally and in the lower branches was her beloved. Miroku was reaching for her hand, his fingers just barely touching her blood caked nails. His back was turned to the orb of red death that was careening towards him from a completely maddened Tsukiyomi. Ren felt such a heavy load sink into her heart knowing fully well that everyone in this scene had someone who loved them, but that Sesshomaru would be alone.

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She scanned the scene again and passed over quickly what she knew was Sesshomaru. She would wait to see him. She had to memorize the scene so she could make sure it did not happen. If she looked at Sesshomaru now, she would lose her grip and fall apart. Very little was holding together as it stood and now she turned see torn piece of red clothe behind a large overturned boulder. Behind it was Kagome who was draped in InuYasha's cloak. She no longer had any tears to shed. Stains marred her face where the tears had cleaned away dirt and mud, her eyes were empty as she looked down into her own hand. In her palm was a single bead.

It was not the color it should have been and Ren dry heaved painfully.

"No more… no more… Make it stop. It's not right. It should be this way! Why did they all have to die!?" Her eyes turned to the only brightness aside from Amaterasu's blood. Sesshomaru stood with Rin behind him. He was shielding her with his own flesh and she protected something as well.

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It was a body.

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"Sesshomaru and I made a deal. Remember?" Ren turned and looked around for something alive, something moving and then she saw it. "He promised to have the battle here, to destroy all that was the bridge between the worlds and in turn I would steal your soul." Ren stared out while Sesshomaru's mother stopped beside her. "A lifeless body is nothing… but a soul… a soul can be reborn. He had seen it done time and time again in his brother's wife, his children and his own wife. He wanted to make sure that you would live again. Even if it might not be with him." Ren leaned forward, her head on the ground with her legs tucked underneath. She could have bawled for an eternity.

"Izanami…" The Inu no fuku-taishou picked her up and held her like a child which made her cry all the harder.

"Sesshomaru's father never set me aside. Did you know? It was I that forswore him. He was faithful until I told him that I no longer had use for him. His love for the human woman I watched grow by the day and it pained me; not to see him without her, but that it was I that kept them apart. It wounded me. I explained that a child of worth was all I had expected from him and with Sesshomaru born, the Inu no Taishou was of no importance. He left knowing I was lying in part, but had respect enough to not push it. I loved him, parts of him, but for all his strength, love and purity… he lacked something irreplaceable." Ren twisted her hands into cold satin and a hand brushed down her hair. "I also never had a name. I was born with a name, but I never used it and because no name ever sounded right. Izanami sounds like… as sweet as when I first held my son." The hand fell away and Ren straightened herself out.

"You have no idea who you really are, do you?" Izanami shook her head and looked away from the death before her.

"I am me and I would change little aside from doing all that I can to see this time pay out differently. I would not see my child die. Not like this. Not without the one he loves… It pains me to even imagine."

.

The woman before Ren was so different from who she had imagined meeting and all else. She felt pain and joy, worries and fears and was as close to Ren's heart as her own mother was. She felt a bond so strong that it lent strength where before she felt weak and useless. The wind blew lightly and Ren watched everything begin rewinding backwards.

Amaterasu's blood flowed back into her veins.

InuYasha took back his cloak from Kagome and his necklace wound itself around his neck.

Sango flew back to the ground and Miroku ran to catch up.

Shippo soared onto the scene on a giant flaming lion and Rin step back and away from shielding something of her own.

.

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It was Ren's body and blazing on her forehead was the symbol of the sun, but it was different that it was before… surrounding the sun was four magatama and they shone with a bright light.

"What can I do to undo all of this?" But no–one answered her, only the gentle breeze spoke as it picked up her errant soul and blew it back into her body.

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Time began moving once more.