Disclaimer: Who cares? Is anyone actually reading this, anyway?

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"It began, I suppose, when I was born, around three hundred years ago. I'm sorry I cannot be anymore specific then that, but I've lost track of time. The world I lived in was complete and utter chaos. There was a government, surely, but it was weak and had almost no control over our lives.

"My mother was young, and died at my birth and I was left with my father, an only child. He was a good man, I suppose, a farmer by nature, and I grew up in fields of plants, surrounded by animals and the smell of outdoors. I suppose my father let me be a bit more wild then was appropriate for a young lady, and I grew up as wild and as free as the very animals I played with.

"When I turned 16, my father decided that it was time for me to marry. It was an arranged marriage, as were almost all back then, and my father and I went into town to meet my husband, an older man of about 30 who owned a tavern in town. Naturally, I opposed the whole thing, but being a woman, I had little say in the situation.

"But, a night before the wedding, something happened. In the middle of the night, we awoke to the smell of burning wood and found that the entire town was burning down upon our heads. There was no time to get out, and everyone in the small village died. Every child, every woman, every man, every person. Not a single person was spared. Except for, of course, me.

"But it was no coincidence that I alone survived. I was saved, if you can call it that, by a youko who went by the name of Noramu. He was a panther thief, and I found out later, that it had been his clan that had burned down my village. Noramu had fallen in love with me in my time growing up, and had taken this chance to kidnap me.

"In shall come as no surprise that I did not love him, nor should I ever. I went mad in those few months after the burning, and I remember little of it. I am told I even tried to rip off my ears, and they had to bind my hands to make sure I didn't do worse damage.

"Eventually, Noramu grew tired of me and my ravings. He had wanted a pretty slave, a "sex kitten" might be an appropriate word for it. Instead, he ended up with a mad girl who tried to rip her own flesh apart. Finally, in a last attempt to change me, he did something that had never been attempted before: he tried to change me into a demon.

"The process was extremely painful, but I remember little else. The experiment, though, as you can see, failed. Or at least that's what they thought. Although my outside body remained almost exactly the same, my mind had become somewhat…. stronger. As soon as I realized what had happened, I went on a bit of a mad killing spree. I murdered everyone in Noramu's clan, including him, with only my body and my ki. My ki, although it had not actually turned into youki, had become much easier for me to manipulate and I found that the easiest thing for me to control was plants, particularly trees, as my main element had always been wood.

"When at last, each and every living thing there was dead, I lay in the outlying forests, waiting to die. I did not end my life there, though, and I was found by a group of wondering mercenaries known as the Knights. The Knights themselves were a rather odd group as it was, and they had no problem taking in a pretty, young, warrior like me into their own caravan.

"It was there I spent most of my days. It didn't take long for the rest of the troupe and I to realize that I didn't age. I quickly became one of the oldest in the group, although I still appeared to be pretty young. The fact that I was a good fighter, mixed with my young, female appearances made me one of the best of the mercenaries, as all of the enemies had the tendency to underestimate me. I had many adventures with the Knights, too many for me to describe, but it was a bloody and wonderful life….."

"Why did you leave then?" Kurama asked, interrupting for the first time. "How did you end up here if you loved the thrill of battle so much?"

Koranu sighed deeply. "Remember I told you how it had taken me, many, many years to realized the horror of killing without remorse? About a hundred years ago, the Knights faced an opponent known only as the Snatcher, for it was said that when you met him, your life would be snatched away from you like it wasn't even yours to have. He actually wasn't that hard of an opponent, but that wasn't what was so terrifying about him. The Snatcher was the only demon I've ever met who could kill completely without remorse. Lives meant nothing to him. It wasn't even that he'd kill for fun like so many demons do. He simply DIDN'T CARE. Lives just didn't matter.

"It was then I left the Knights. I had lived longer then any other Knight in existence, and I was tired of that bloody life. I had realized that I was becoming dangerously close to becoming a beast like the Snatcher. It wasn't that I enjoyed killing, I just no longer carried whether or not people lived or died. I suppose it's like that for many people who have lived as long as I have. Life loses it's wonder after time."

'It's true,' Kurama thought to himself. 'What she says is very true.'

"So I bought a temple in the human world, a place with little violence or torture, or at least little compared to the Makai. And I've spent my remaining days here, living the life of peace and comfort like I haven't had since my childhood."

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Hey!

New chapter up! This chapter was fun to write, because I got to make so much up! Yayyyy!!!

Next chapter will be up soon, probably on Wednesday or so, but I'm really unsure. My schdule is really confusing right now. And it's so hot here! Around 100!!!! I'm boiling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk 'oon,

Dream Fox