A/N: Ugh. This is getting so close to the end, and just when I'm actually enjoying writing it!

Well, you readers must be happy. It's been three days, and I've updated each day! Alas, tomorrow I won't have any typing time. Tests and the like, and I can't write at home because I don't have time there. So, bad news is that I probably won't get a chance to update until Tuesday or so. Maybe Monday, if I'm really lucky.

Alright, this chapter is probably going to be one of the darkest in my story. It starts out right away with Shippo...which I'll explain in a minute. Then I have a scene at Doryoku's house to brush up a few things and let you guys now what's going on with that side of the story.

Alright, I need to brighten this up some, right? Well, I'll just have to fix in some humor in a couple chapters later in the story.

About the Shippo scene now. It will probably be confusing, but I'll take a minute to explain my logic.

Okay, kids tend to have a wierd way of viewing the world. It has been according to my experience that time perception changes as you age. That is to say, days are really really long when you're a young child and they seem to shorten as you become an adult. So, in accordance to that philosophy, I've written a skewed version of what Shippo's going through. If it still confuses you, I'll take a while to explain in my story what happens. If it's still confusing you after that...well, I'll meet that obstacle when I come to it.

Now, do any of you have any requests for Kagome to go through when meeting her villains? How about Yuuki, since the Knight In Shining Armor has to be a part of the final battle. Any? I will consider them all from every angle before adding or discarding them. If I add them, I'll give you credit. If I don't use them, I'll still thank you for giving me it and possibly even let you know if it sparks some inspiration in me.

Anyways, this chapter is a bit short and dark (like I mentioned before), but I'm sure you're all eager to read it. So enough jabbering at you! Read!

Shippo whimpered. He had long ago decided that it wasn't worth getting hurt worse by staying silent. If he could lift his punishment just a little bit, that would be better than being driven to the brink of death on a regular basis.

He had been in the same cell he woke up for for years. He was an old man now, already tired of life and wanting to just drop off into the sweet darkness that oblivion would bring. To just feel no more pain, to be at peace for once in his life. Was it too much to ask, when he had suffered for so long?

They only brought him out of the cell once a year. That was just to feed him and let him use the restroom. It was long since past when he had seen his captors faces, and as he aged, they stayed the same.

How he could age so quickly as a demon and only have to be fed once a year, while his kidnappers didn't change at all was beyond Shippo's limited comprehension. He hadn't had a chance to finish school, of course. They took him before he could finish.

He had long since given up hope of rescue. So many years. All in darkness or false lighting, only bright when they came for him. He had long ago learned not to expect any help whatsoever, learned to fear the light appearing.

Darkness was his friend. That was all there was to it. In the darkness, he could drift off. He could pretend he was a young child laying in his bedroom at Doryoku's house. He could pretend that his guardian really did love them, himself and both of his siblings. He could pretend that they were all loved, they were just a normal family with a loving caretaker. He could drift off and pretend that Kagome was their mother, with her nurturing nature and kind eyes always watching over them, making sure no harm came to them.

He could pretend he was still a part of his real family, that his dad hadn't broken his promise and gone out that night. That he came back, with his mother. They would be sitting and having dinner, Shippo visiting them and telling them about his newest discoveries in the world of college. Or maybe he would have gone straight to the working field, providing for his new bride and their family-to-be. He would never know.

The light brought terror with it. With the light came the scary men with their axes and hammers. They would hammer him away until he was flatter than a sheet of paper. Then they would cut him into the tiniest of pieces, so small that he shifted in a million directions at the slightest breeze. They would scatter him in a cold breeze to drift over the world and never be whole again.

Or they would come with false stories, trying to soothe him over the decades. But they lied. They told him he would get a new mother, that they would find his father and take him to see the parent he so longed for. Shippo had believed them in the first few months, but now he knew better.

They enjoyed tormenting him. They had been doing so for nearly a century. They would never stop teasing him, trying to bring his hopes up so that he would be brought cruelly back to reality as soon as they told him they weren't telling the truth.

But they didn't know him. They didn't know he knew adults never told the truth. His father had promised he would go out on that stormy night, that he was only going to pick up his mother and would be back before Shippo knew it. But he hadn't come back. He had disappeared and he had lied to his young son.

No, nobody would ever come for him. His jailors were lying to him. They never told him the truth, telling him falseties that confused him and made him wish he knew what they were talking about.

The only peice of truth they told him was that he was being punished. After such a long time in the darkness, Shippo had long ago figured out that he was being punished, that he deserved all that had happened and was happening to him.

This was his price for making his mommy fight with his daddy. This was the payment for begging his father to go find her again and making him promise to return when Shippo knew he wouldn't. This was what he paid for all of the happy times he had with Kanna and Chinchou, all the kindness shown to him from his teachers and Mrs. Higurashii at the hospital.

Deep in his heart, he knew he was never meant to be happy. He was never meant to find the family he had in Kanna and Chin-chan.

This was what he deserved.

Kanna stared in front of her, confused and angry. There were people rushing about the house, scouring the floors in search of a person who wasn't there. They had taken Chinchou away from her, saying they needed to talk and that he would be back before she knew it. That had been a good while ago, before they had given her a sandwhich but after she had calmed down from her dream.

She was still nibbling her little meal, thinking about what was going on. They were asking so many questions, and none of them seemed to make sense to her. They kept asking her if Doryoku had ever hit her (to which she had lied and said no), what had happened when she went with those men that Doryoku sent her with (she didn't tell them anything; she didn't like thinking about it), how she lived like in her home.

They asked nothing to do with her missing brother, Shippo. And that was supposed to be the sole reason they were there.

After calming down, Kanna and Chin-chan had looked everywhere for their missing sibling. They had looked high and low, in every place imagionable. Even some places that would be impossible for a boy like him to hide in. They hadn't found even his shadow.

The next thing the two children had done was telephone the police. The would know what to do, and Doryoku wouldn't hurt them because Shippo was one of her kids. They had called to file a missing persons report, just like how they had learned to do it in school.

The police had swarmed into their house, waking their sleeping guardian and began to bombard her with questions. Some of them Doryoku couldn't answer, which lead to more questions. Kanna shivered as she recalled the one time the policeman turned his back on her, Doryoku had given her and Chinchou a venomous glare. That was where things had started getting wierd.

They had started making a big fuss over something found in Doryoku's bedroom. They had wrestled her to the ground as she tried to flee, cuffing her hands behind her back and dragging her to another room. Kanna had become upset and started to cry. Chin-chan placed a comforting arm around his sister's shoulder while they police took them to their attic bedroom.

Then came the sandwhich and the promise that Chinchou would be back soon. They had just left her alone in the attic, and the only reason she wasn't panicking like she normally would was because she had faith that Shippo was alright, would be found, and that Chin-chan was somewhere in the house still.

Kanna polished off her little meal and began to think. Since the police weren't asking any questions to help her find her missing brother, Kanna figured that she and Chinchou would just have to go looking themselves. The could start with people that Shippo had talked about non-stop whenever he came back to them, and the first person she could think of was that Mrs. Higurashii. Shippo had loved telling them about the kind woman.

Nodding, Kanna decided. She would tell Chin-chan that they should go see this Mrs. Higurashii. They would tell her that her brother had gone missing, and if she knew what had happened to him. Then it would only be a matter of looking in the right places.

End Chapter
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