The Truth

AN: The Silver Life Jewel mentioned later is of my own creation so please don't use it without my consent.

They had been traveling together for a couple of days and Niroku was glad to realize that Katia hadn't changed much personality wise, though she was a bit more wary. The problem of them change in her blood he thought he could smell with his dong nose still bothered him and he still hadn't asked her about it. He decided he would have to do just that.

"Um, Katia?" She looked up at him from the campfire she had just procured to cook their lunch.

"Yes?" she said.

"Well, I was wondering." He was suddenly cut off as Katia raised a finger to her lips and glanced to her right. He sensed it then too, a demon. Suddenly it attacked. It was a squid looking demon only it could walk on land and had a human like mouth.

Katia quickly pulled her arrow back and shot at the demon and managed to slice off one of its many arms. Niroku used his claws to cut off another. This continued for several minutes with no headway gained from Katia and Niroku because every time they cut off an arm another instantly took its place.

"This isn't working. Try and aim for the body." They tried that to find themselves blocked by innumerable arms. Suddenly an arm shot out at Katia when she let her guard down for a second trying to think of a way around its arms without revealing all her powers to Niroku. The arm slammed her into the cliff behind her and created a large crater in the rock face. Niroku could have sworn he heard a small snap and Katia hit the rock. He charged at the demon when it tried to attack Katia still form again. He managed to hit its body and rip it to shred before it could attack again. When he looked over at Katia, afraid of what he might see, he started at seeing her sitting up and groaning.

"Damn, I should know better than that by now. I can't believe I let my guard down. Stupid, stupid, stupid." She cursed herself as she stood up. She suddenly noticed Niroku staring at her with wide-eyed disbelief. "What?"

"How.I could've sworn.I thought I heard a small snap. I thought that was your back when you hit the rock." He was still staring at her disbelievingly as he said this. "How are you still moving after that?"

"You did hear that snap," Katia said simply. "Let's go back to the camp and I'll explain."

*Back at the current camp*

"Now will you explain how you seemingly broke your back and yet here you are, still alive much less standing and walking about?" Niroku asked as they sat by the cooking fire. It was dusk now; it had been late after noon when they had stopped.

Katia took the cooked meat off the cooking rod and handed Niroku his half. "Here, take this. This may be a long story cause first I have to figure out where to start." He accepted the meat and looked at her while she sat down with her meat and took a bite and swallowed. After a moment of thinking she said, "I think that over the past couple of days you've noticed something odd about my scent, about my blood. Am I right?" He nodded. "Well, I guess you could simply say that it's because I'm not completely human, not any more anyways. I'm now only half-human. I'm also half-goddess. What I'm about to tell you is the truth and I want you to promise my to believe it or else there is no point in me telling it" At his incredulous look she sighed and explained, "It happened when I was sixteen. I was attack by demon. A small group of them." She took another bite, swallowed, and continued. "I was hurting very badly, emotionally that is, at that time so I didn't have the strength even to run." When she said this her eyes clouded over with pain, the emotional pain she had mentioned. After a moment they cleared up and she continued. " Well, I was hurt pretty badly and they were about to kill me, I guess, when there was a bright flash of light. When the light cleared there was a woman standing in front of me protecting me, she was fighting the demons off. Then I blacked out. The rest I learned from the goddess that combined with me. She fought the demons a banished them. When she glanced at my unconscious from she could tell that if she didn't help me, I would die from blood loss from the numerous gashes over my body. Unfortunately she didn't have any healing abilities unless you counted the fact that she could heal herself from anything. She did the only thing she could do to save me, she combined with me. When she did this it was like she became me in a way so my body was healed. With the combination I gained new abilities like my senses. They've been heightened and I've become stronger and my magical powers, which she said I already had though they were currently dormant, were awakened and heightened. I still haven't found out how much I've changed. I haven't pushed my abilities to the limit yet because I haven't even tried. But what's nice is that because of my powers and hers combining, I can now heal people other than myself. What's the most amazing part is that we didn't entirely combine. Instead of becoming one person in one body it's like there are two people in my body and we can speak to each other and with my permission she can take over. Also, since she combined with me, I'm immortal by aging. Basically I won't age past the age of eighteen, and I'd be difficult to kill anyway, with my healing ability and all." She sighed again as she finish. She didn't look into the half-demon's eyes and they sat in silence for a few moments.

"Wow, that's a lot to digest. But I do believe you." Niroku looked up at her as she raised her eyes to meet his. "I'm not trying to be cold or anything but what I don't understand is why she saved you. I'm happy she did because you're my friend and I'd hate it if you died, but why did she save you?"

"I honestly don't know. While I learned a lot when she combined with me, I only learned what she wished me to. All she told me when I asked her was that I had important mission to complete. I'm not sure nut I think it has something to do with this." Then pulled out a necklace with what looked like three-quarters of a silver-white jewel attached as a pendant. The jewel seemed to glow in her grasp. "The Silver Life Jewel."

"What the hell? How did you get that?" Niroku asked her curiously. He recognized it right away from a story he'd been told as a kid. But that jewel was supposed to be shattered into hundreds of pieces. "I thought it was supposed to have been shattered in an accident long ago."

"It was. I've been collecting shards and putting them together for the last four years. Since I left my home at the age of sixteen. Well, I guess you could say that I haven't been actively searching for them, but whenever I come across some in my travels I retrieve them. This is what I've recovered from demon and priests alike. And this is probably the reason that the demon attacked us. This'll give power to the bearer. The reason you didn't notice it was because I kept its aura hidden. Unfortunately I got a shard recently, just on the edge of this forest in fact, and the demon probably heard the rumor of a girl bearing a large shard of the Silver Life Jewel." With that said the both noticed that night had fallen.

"Well, I guess we aren't going anywhere tonight. Let's get some rest and we can start out again in the morning." Niroku said. Both he a Katia lay out on the blankets she again took out of her small pack. Niroku again lay awake a little after Katia had fallen asleep, pondering the new information. 'Well, that explains a lot. But what was the incident that she experienced before the attack that left her emotionally hurting so badly that she hadn't even the strength to run. I got the feeling that she didn't want to discuss it. Maybe she'll tell me someday.' And with that last thought on his mid he fell asleep.