For Disclaimer see chapter 1.

AN: In this chapter the POV becomes narrative only. It's quite different from the rest of the story, but my muse jumped up and poked my brain with blunt toothpick till I wrote this, so blame him.

In Remembrance Of Who She Was

Chapter Ten: Back to the beginning As It Becomes The End / The Hidden Truth Of The Slayers.

Buffy awoke in Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. She lay there. Not moving. Her friends surrounded her, telling her the cold hard truth. Her neck had been broken as her head bent against her body as she fell from the gravestone the blaster pulse flung her against.

Her life was over. She was the Slayer. The Chosen One. That was why she existed. That was what she was. Eternally the Slayer. The blood of generations ran through her veins, her heart, all of her. It sang through her veins like an arrow through the wind. It defined her. Demanded the kill. This was why Slayers always did kill. The Demonic bloodlust coursing through them, infecting them. The irony being that Slayers, who were empowered by their heritage were also victims of it.

It was why no Slayer lived a long life. They became inhuman, consumed by the bloodlust, the thrill of the hunt. They became what they killed, and so, their bodies turned on them, slowly weakening them until they died in battle, and a new slayer was called. A new, innocent, untainted girl-child to be manipulated until they were insane with bloodlust, rage and hate, so they too weakened, and died in the same brutal fashion of their pitiable lives.

To a Slayer death is the truest gift. Freedom from manipulation, rage hate and taint. Freedom to be themselves and not the Slayer. Release from the ever increasing Demonic possession.

Any remaining humanity still in them by this stage, craved this. Pure, simple death. A fail-safe the Aborigines included in the make-up of the First Slayer, that had carried down the Slayer line. A guarantee that the most powerful being ever created would not become Demonic killers or even assassins. A fail-safe that still worked now, after so many generations. Faith had prove that as she begged for death. Her release.

Buffy would have reached this point years ago, if not for the fact that she was different. She had friends. She had to morally justify her actions to others, and therefore to herself as well. It had kept her human. Kept her herself. Now though, she was paralysed, and the bloodlust was still coursing through her veins, growing stronger as it was continually denied, week after week. As it grew stronger, her body began to weaken, attacking itself. Killing her. She was dying and there was nothing anyonee could do. Unless they were a powerful Witch or Warlock.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Willow's were of the best, but they were also torturing her friend, by allowing a Demon to take possession of a fully aware, completely helpless Buffy. She could do nothing. She was loosing herself in the hatred and rage the Demon felt, and so she retreated into her mind until she ceased to be, and her soul was blackened by destruction and death. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and Willow's had cost Buffy her soul. She would never see heaven.

It lay there, surrounded by her friends, being driven to insanity by it's inability to act on the bloodlust. Surrounded by her friends. The only thing that had kept her alive so long, and the thing that had destroyed her.

In the end the Slayer is always alone, with the murderous whisper of her blood.