Pronunciation Guide

Kigeko ----- Ki (like in "kick") gee (G like 1st g in "garage") ko (like in "cope"

Imashirou ------ Ee-mah-shee-roo (I would guess)

------

Kagome awoke to find herself chained to a stone wall. The chamber was freezing cold, so much that if she had any light at all she believed she'd be able to see her breath. Shuddering, she tried desperately to open her eyes against the agonizing pain that seemed centered within her temples. With a slow and slight twist of her aching head, Kagome looked around to confirm whether or not she was alone.

It's too dark to see anything in here, she thought to herself. Sighing, Kagome lifted her head and called out for Inuyasha. No answer. Then she tried for Shippou. Again, nothing.

"Sango?" Still no answer. "Miroku?"

"I'm afraid you're quite alone in here," answered a deep and luscious voice from seemingly nowhere.

"What?" Kagome looked around in a sudden state of panic, demanding her eyes immediately to focus. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where are my friends?"

"They're quite safe, my dear," came the response. Kagome flinched, the sound of footsteps told her that the owner of that voice was getting closer. "For now."

"Get away from me!" she yelled, though the pain in her head pleaded against such an action. But this man had other ideas. Without warning, a strong hand leapt from the darkness and grabbed her face at the chin, turning her head idly to the left and right over and over again.

"You're a very pretty girl," he commented. Leaning forward, he pressed his nose up against the crook between her jaw and her neck. Kagome shuddered in disgust at this man's having touched her. "Do you know that?"

"Don't you touch me!" she shrieked against him.

"Or what?" the man asked, chuckling malevolently. He moved over to the other side of her head and did the same thing. Again Kagome shuddered, this time severe chills ran down her back as he did it, and not from the coldness of the room. "Your friends will come to save you?" he stopped, moving both his head and hers till they were eye to eye. His eyes, she saw now that a low light was provided from a window above, were a lovely shade of green, a hint of earthly brown mixed in with them. They were the eyes of a knowledgeable man, but at the same time there was a strange glimmer in those earthly depths. The glimmer of a man's insatiable lust, and Kagome was there to satisfy that hunger. "I don't believe that will be happening anytime soon, my dear." He leaned forward and kissed her right temple, staying that way for sometime. Kagome did not fight back. There was no way that she could!

"What do you want from me?" she whimpered, hating herself for feeling so helpless and weak.

"Just to be still," he whispered.

------

Kigeko launched herself at Kurama. Despite the biting sting of the whip she was able to reach the annoying red head and pin him down to the ground.

"You have underestimated me, I see?" she snarled, raising a clawed hand.

"Please," Kurama begged. "We do not wish to harm you! But we will if we must. We desire your assistance!"

"Forget it!" Kigeko responded, her red eyes pulsating as her anger intensified. "You'll turn me in just like the others!"

"Turn you in?" Kurama frowned. "To whom?"

"What do you mean, to whom?" she snarled. "You know damn well who I mean! Imashirou! He's been collecting us for years now!"

Kurama's eyes widened as he realized he was getting exactly the kind of information he needed from her. Yusuke pulled himself upward and aimed his Spirit Gun again, but Kurama turned his head.

"No! Wait! Don't shoot her!"

At this statement, Kigeko, Yusuke, and Kuwabara frowned.

"She's going to kill you if I don't!" Yusuke argued.

"She won't," Kurama answered. "She isn't capable of that yet."

Kigeko's eyes flared once more with rage, and a clawed hand was suddenly holding very fast to Kurama's throat.

"Don't bet on it." she exclaimed.

"Oh I would," Kurama answered, amazingly calm for someone who's life was being choked away from them. "For all the strength and hatred you possess, you still don't hold the heartlessness to actually take a life. Not like this."

"You would know?" Kigeko mockingly inquired.

Kurama gave a charming smile. "You would be surprised what strangers know." And with that he slipped his legs beneath her body and easily kicked her from him. Kigeko shrieked in rage as she was thrown from her pray, and landing cat like on her feet she began to eye her next target.

Kurama had fully regained himself, weapon and all, and was poised to another attack. Yusuke was on his feet, shaky but prepared to fight. The only one not fighting or taking any part in this was the taller red head they had called Kuwabara. Kigeko considered him for a moment but decided that he was not worthy prey. Her eyes turned questioningly back to the other two. The sincere gazes of determination met hers with an awe inspiring stance that gave the impression that they might have been a trio fighting till the death. But that wasn't the case.

It was Kurama who broke the silence between the fighters, once again.

"I know what you're thinking, Kigeko, but you cannot defeat us. Please, if you help us we will in turn help you. We are not your enemies!"

"Is that so?" she asked. "Prove it to me! Prove to me that you do not work for Imashirou! Then maybe, maybe I will believe you."

"What sort of proof do you want?!" Yusuke hollered at her. "We don't know this man or what he does! We just want to get our friend back and go home!"

"Is Imashirou the one collecting your kind?" Kurama asked. "Is he the one who is hunting demons?" Kurama paused, then steadied a knowing gaze at the young girl. "Is he hunting you as well?"

Suddenly, Kigeko laughed.

"For ones trying to prove yourselves you're not doing a very good job."

Kurama sighed, signaling for Yusuke to back down. He then threw his whip aside and spread his limbs so that they were far away from his sides.

"Here! Attack me now if you so desire! If you are truly a demon, you can tell that I am too; and no demon would ever turn another in to a Hunter for sport. Come closer if you desire, I will not strike out at you and I am willing to trust that you will not do the same."

Kuwabara and Yusuke gaped at Kurama's boldness. Was he this foolish? Or did he have another plan in mind.

Kigeko seemed to be thinking the same thing. At once she straightened her stance and considered the young man's offer. He did indeed seem to have no other weapons on him, but she had learned the hard way many times before that looks were often deceiving. Like a hunter circling prey she inched closer to him in a semi-circular pattern. Uncertain of this man's honesty.

Her eyes were focused purely on his, and she saw no lie in them. Her approach became swifter, and her moves more fluent and predictable. Slowly, she was letting her guard down.

"If you're planning on attacking Kurama, now is definitely the time to do it." Yusuke stated. Kuwabara nodded in agreement. Both, however, only stood by as helpless spectators, wondering if their friend had succeeded, or if he was living his last moments.

"You have the smell of a fox," she commented at last.

"That I am," stated Kurama, still not moving from his pose. "My name is Kurama, though my demon name is Youko Kurama."

"Youko Kurama..." Kigeko repeated, as though she had heard the name before. Suddenly, the red in her eyes died, and her hair flattened against her head. The claws retracted into typical fingernails, and the stance straightened out into that of a more humane pose. "I know you're name." She stated. "Forgive me."

Kurama nodded with a bright smile, as though there was nothing to forgive.

"If you could please tell us what is happening here, we would be very appreciative. As you know, we're not from this time and are, literally, quite lost." Kurama chuckled, and a few moments later Kigeko was also chuckling.

"Would you check this guy out?" Yusuke commented.

"Charmer." Kuwabara chuckled. Yusuke merely sighed, glad that this fight was over.

"You know," Yusuke went on as they approached the laughing couple. "For a newbie demon, she was pretty powerful."

"Yeah, a few seconds more and she's have probably kicked your but Urameshi."

"Now," Yusuke laughed. "I didn't say she was that good."

"Whatever."

------

"My full name is Kigeko Hiroya. I'm sixteen years old. I don't know how I first became what I am, but it most likely started a long time ago. Every since I became a teenager I would experience fits of rage, some so great I was barely able to control them. No one ever helped either. In fact, most people made it worse. Family, friends, school, peers, life in general. After a while, everything just pissed me off. Eventually I was better at hiding my anger. I suppose you could say the bottle that I stuffed everything grew with me, and I thought I could control it.

"Until I would try to go to sleep at night. Suddenly all these memories would haunt me. Things that had made me mad all my life. Not just that day or that week, but years before, things that I usually wouldn't typically be able to recall. It were as though my memories could haunt me. In fact, I could probably claim that that's just what would happen. The light would go off, and suddenly I would remember all these things.

"Eventually I became insane at times. I would thrash about in my bed trying to make them all go away. I would curl up in anger and then just burst out in silent screams because they wouldn't leave me alone. I lost sleep because of it. Countless hours of sleep. And as I grew, so did the fits. Then the memories would start haunting me for longer. Suddenly I couldn't just turn the light on and have them all go away. I would wake up and I'd still remember. Whenever I was alone, or everything was silent, suddenly they were all there. All of these memories, for as far back as I could remember.

"It got to the point where I wanted to kill people. Not just specific people, but anyone. It didn't matter who they were. Family, friends, dear friends that I had known all my life! It didn't matter. None of it did. I just wanted to kill them. It was an insatiable lust with no reason or any hopes of being quelled. I knew when these days started that I was near my breaking point. After this, it was simply a matter of when.

"That question didn't take long to be answered either.

"One night I snapped. I threw knives at my mother so precisely aimed that had I been intending to kill her, I would have, and I slapped my father to the point where it nearly broke his neck. He has permanent scars where my newfound claws dug into his skin. He's also partially blinded now in one of his eyes because my nails sunk to deep. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a random outburst. My parents had been fighting. My mother suspected my father was seeing another woman. She was always good at blowing things out of proportion, but my father wasn't helping in the least. In a sudden rage I physically threw myself at both of them, and after that I ran away. I had looked at my reflection in my father's car before leaving, and I saw for the first time what you saw when I transformed. I knew what I was. Somehow, my suppressed emotions, especially my anger, had taken me and changed me. The complete hatred I felt for everything made me a demon.

"I can't explain it. I'm not even sure how it's possible. Maybe there was something else. Maybe there was demon blood in me all along and it had to be woken up. That seems more likely, but I can't be too sure now can I?

"Well, that's my story. But there are others."

------

"Have you found anything yet?" Inuyasha whined. "I'm getting tired of waiting on you!"

A clash rung up from the chamber as he had finished his question. The hanyou looked up immediately to find that the fire demon had stuck quite true to his word.

"Yes, now hurry up. Someone will have undoubtedly heard that." in a second Hiei was gone from the opening in the wall. Inuyasha followed with a few great bounds, and within seconds they were both outside if the stronghold. "Now, lets go." Hiei urged.

"Wait!" Inuyasha snarled, grabbing hold of Hiei's bandaged wrist. This got the demon's attention well, mainly because he was so pissed off this half demon had dared to lay a hand on him. "I have friends in there!"

Hiei stopped to think, then frowned. "We can't get them now. It's too risky."

"To hell with you!" Inuyasha snarled. "I'm not leaving them here! Who knows what's happened to them!"

"Exactly!" Hiei retorted. "For all you know they could be dead. Don't be so stupid as to risk your life now. Right now we're their only hope of escape. If you're wise, you'll take my advice."

"So we're just leaving them here? Is that it?"

"For now that's the only choice we have!" Hiei stated firmly. "Now lets go before we're captured again." With that, the fire youkai bound off. Angrily, Inuyasha followed, but not before vowing to return for Kagome and the others.

Author's Note: You guys better be happy with this! I'm getting carpultunnel from all this typing! -.-