Chapter 34

TW/CW: Hints of nonconsensual sex and death.

Her eyes dulled as she recalled the final battle. "It was hell, no worse than hell...at least in hell everyone there had done something to end up there...this was worse...innocents were pulled into the battle, their only sin being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Lucifer shifted, recalling the tales of the battle, it was a fairy tale told to young angels to prove that no matter what good would always prevail over evil...

Kagome glared at the top of the table, the wood grain being replaced by blood in her mind's eyes. "It was a long grueling battle, the scents and smells...the sounds still haunt me...eventually Naraku had me cornered, the jewel using both of us to fulfill its own twisted desires. We were both tugged inside of it, the void inside of it needing new blood to keep the battle raging inside of it..." She shivered recalling the vast emptiness of the void, it had been so cold...the illusions it had spun in order to try and taint her, to make her give in to its will...

"I don't know how long we were there...just that three days later I was spit out in my own time, broken and alone. I had faced my enemy, overcame my own shortcomings and human desires...breaking free of the path set before me by the jewel, ruining its plans..." She gave a dark bark of laughter. "One would think I had earned my happily ever after...but I hadn't the well no longer worked. I would never see my friends or Inuyasha again."

"I threw myself into my studies, pouring all my anger and hurt into them. Three years later and I was finally back on track. Graduating high school and getting ready to move on to college...that's when I felt it...the pull of the well. I ran towards it, throwing caution to the wind, I threw away everything I had worked so hard for in those three years for a chance at my happily ever after..."

"I was so stupid...thinking that after three years we could just pick up where we left off...we tried, God knows we did...we married...tried to keep the love alive but eventually we had to admit it wasn't there. Not anymore. We decided to separate...he moved on and I was stuck. I was so bitter for a time, angry...I buried it under the workload of being the village miko. It wasn't until years later that we realized something was wrong." She paused, licking her lips, recalling the way that Miroku had tentatively brought up the subject one day out of the blue.

"I wasn't aging...everyone around me was...they were gaining wrinkles, their joints stiffening as their hair grayed...yet there I was still as young and able bodied as when I had come back through the well. We assumed it was due to the jewel one last twisted curse from the death throes of an angry jewel." She paused again, her breath coming out as a shudder as she recalled the next part, the trauma from it making it stand out in her memories.

"Then I died the first time." She ignored the surprised noises the males made, closing her eyes as she lost herself in the memory of her first death. "I'd been patrolling the forest, there were rumors of a band of demons improaching on it after Inuyasha and his wife left the village to raise their children elsewhere. I was cocky, I was the shikon miko, most ran when they heard my title alone." She gave a low hollow chuckle.

"They didn't care, to them I was just some human bitch who needed to be taught her place...they." She paused shivering yet forced herself to keep talking. "They overpowered me, taking their time showing me my place. " The words fell from her lips as a dark snarl, her eyes still closed seeing the leers of those who had violated her in ways that no man had any right to do to another living being. "Once they were done they slit my throat and left me to die. I laid there waiting for it, praying for it...yet as soon as death wrapped me in its cold embrace I was back."

She swallowed, recalling her last rattling dying breath, the cold grasp of death and then the jarring jolting shock of air rushing through her deflated lungs. "I was back...alive. I cleaned myself up and tracked them down, they weren't hard to find. Sitting around a campfire laughing as they recanted the way they snuffed out the shikon miko." She ignored the low growls that vibrated around her, their anger filling the air, their rage rising with each word that fell from her lips.

"Afterwards I returned to the village, they hailed me a hero, calling me their undying miko, their ever living savior." She gave a snort, the sound bitter and humorless, it made all three of them bristle. "Yet as time marched on and each generation gave way to the next they began to grow wary, awe turning to fear and mistrust. I decided it was time to move on." She cracked her eyes open, letting them see the depth of her tired weary soul.

"I wandered, doing good deeds as I did so, eventually this caused the Celestial realm to take notice of me and I was invited to their home. I jumped at it, by now most demons had either returned to Devildom or assimilated to the ever growing human population." She paused, recalling the way the world changed around her while she was stuck in time. Knowing what had been and what would be, it was a lonely place to be.

"It was there that I met Lucifer and his rambunctious brood." She smiled, her eyes lighting with fond memories, shooting said man a fond smile that made him shift in his seat, wishing he could recall the memories that seemed to make her glow with happiness.