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p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px;""You admitted to strength; you could have purified him," Sesshoumaru said, watching as she once again paced around the small apartment./p
p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px;""I could have," she agreed, tilting her head in acceptance. "but knowing now and knowing then are two different things." She shuddered and walked carefully to the kitchen. The simple mechanics of making tea soothed her nerves. "I hadn't realized I'd lost so much of myself. There was no more self-respect, no more self-confidence. Jirōbō took over so many of my regular duties that I didn't even understand how little control I had anymore."/p
p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px;"She filled the kettle and was proud that her hands were steady. "You don't know what it's like, could probably never understand." Once she set it on the stove top and turned the flames up to high, she moved to lean against the wall between the two rooms. "It could be anything as simple as picking out my own clothes in the morning to deciding who my friends are and whether or not I'm allowed to see my family."/p
p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px;"Smiling bitterly, brokenly, she shook her head. "He took everything I had to give, and more." Several minutes passed in silence as she pushed through memories, trying to decide what to share and what not. More than anything, Kagome wanted him to understand but more than anything, she was very much afraid that all he would see was weakness. Closing her eyes, she blocked him from her view and continued. "It was easy to pretend at first that I'd imagined everything, that after it was all said and done, nothing had happened and he was still the charming, loving man I'd married."/p
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