Katie's POV

Soft shades of blue and a glaring white blurred my vision. In the distance, I could make out some faint shapes. However, the voices rang all too clearly through my head. "When will they get back?" Yuki pondered, to herself it seemed.

"It doesn't look like she'll have long to live," Jakiri said worriedly. "Is there anything you can do to fend it off?"

"This is the same thing that took Yukina," Yuki said grimly. "It has a source, and unless they destroy the source, she'll be taken."

"I couldn't stand to lose her," Jakiri said forlornly. "Neither could he. The way he looked at her when he came over.."

The rest became too faint for me to hear. Instead, I looked within, and tried to find out what had invaded my body like this. Yukina had been a little timid about looking back at her past, but I knew everything there was to confront. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Everything was in the right place as my eyes closed again. Images of him floated to the surface. That was just my heart, though. It had been torn to shreds when he left, and I doubted I could ever love that way again.

Not too long after my eyes closed, I felt sleep come upon me. Whatever was there taxed my spirit energy more than anything ever had before. I was so crippled that I couldn't even summon a tiny vine anymore. Or was it the fact that my grief had also forced me to settle down and stop fighting. No longer was I the well-muscled, underfed girl I'd been back then. Back when we'd met, and we'd rolled around on the floor like nobody was watching.

It didn't turn out to be the pretty thing I hoped for, I thought to myself. I thought that our love would make my life perfect, but it didn't. Inwardly, I smiled. That was how everything had turned out for me, and I was slowly learning to live with it. I'd started to fall in love with him, then he died. After he came back, he sacrificed his life to save me and left me on the brink of being his wife. Maybe we just weren't destined to be together.

With sleep came dreams, and mine hadn't been quite that haunted in a long time. Since Lirra died, I hadn't dreamt or entered the Plane of Luminescence. I let myself slip away into what could have been the greatest euphoria or the most hellish nightmare...

I sat in our living room with Kurama on the couch next to me. Keiryi was on the big armchair that she always liked, her long legs tucked in beside her. "What have you been doing lately?" she asked. "All I heard was...was that you had a baby. Congratulations." Even though she was saying the words, her heart wasn't in it. The look in her green eyes spoke of something that was missing. Had we failed to satisfy her while growing up?

"Thank you," Kurama said graciously, smiling genuinely. "How's your husband? I heard he got a new job." I had to stop my eyes from going wide at this point. How could Keiryi have gotten married without my knowledge? Kurama's arm snaked its way around my shoulders and I sank into him. Blind comfort never felt so good. The cut was gone from my arm, and Keiryi had cut her hair short. Her green eyes were more alive than they had ever been before.

Suddenly, all of this disappeared, and I was on top of my love, trying to stop him from bleeding to death. "Don't leave," I sobbed from deep within me. After seeing him next to me like that, I didn't want to have to live without his touch. "I'm nothing without you. Lirra...was right."

"Don't listen to her lies," he said, reaching up slowly to caress my cheek. "You're...stronger than you believe you'll ever be. You'll live on without me...and you'll...you'll be hap..." His voice trailed off and I listened at his chest as that strong heartbeat faded into nothing. Each of those last heartbeats clung to my mind, though, resounding in all the emptiness his death had already left to fill.

The ring was on my finger, and I stood in the cathedral that I had been to so many times before. Rose petals littered the floor, and I saw Lirra in all her beautiful perfection. Perfect blonde hair poured down her back in voluminous waves, and her deep blue eyes were entrancing, if you didn't know what lay behind them. "I'm glad to see you again," she said. "My failure was unfortunate, and my master wasn't very happy. However, he gave me a second chance."

"Nice to see you again too," I spat. She was the one responsible for his death. Fondling a rose petal in her hands, she enclosed it in her palms and a rose appeared between her fingers.

"Such rudeness coming from the child he holds so valuable," she said quizzically. "Don't you know anything? Don't you want to uphold your breeding?"

"I was a fortunate mistake," I said coldly. "There is no status that comes with how i was bred."

"He started out as a pauper you know," Lirra continued. "He must have felt so lucky to have fallen in with royalty like yourself."

"Love dictated us, and you tried to tear that to shreds," I screamed. "You should feel all the pain I've suffered for him, all the nights I've spent alone while my daughter is able to find some sort of love! You took away the thing I treasured most!" An orb of white light formed in the palm of my hand, growing rapidly.

For reasons I couldn't comprehend, the white orb blinked out. Lirra laughed heartily at me, and I fell to my knees, considerably weakened. "Silly child," she said. "Doesn't it make sense yet? When you were born, he planted this virus in you. He fought Yukina and infected her. Once life overcame the two of you, it came upon you like lightning. How can the younger generation fight if there's no one to teach them?"

"There's Hiei," I said, panting. "And Yusuke, and Kazuma. They'll all do it."

"And they'll all be dead soon. Face the facts, my lovely Kaiina. We're going to take over, and punish all of you for what you've done to the demon race. Traitors, all of you. Too bad he couldn't have inflicted you sooner." All of this was said so calmly that I was standing there in shock. How could this be? Was the desire for revenge really that great?

"So then," I began, regaining my composure, "you're saying that the one behind all of this is..."

"That's right, and he's going to take control very soon. You'll regret betraying your own family."

I awoke and sat up bolt upright. In my complete and utter disorientation, I was even startled to see Yuki standing at the edge of my bed. "I know the source," I told her hurriedly. "I can help them save the world from a terrible fate!"

"No," Yuki said gently. "You're not even ready to get out of bed yet. We'll have to send a messenger."

"Whatever you can do," I said, feeling the fatigue overcome me.

"Whatever you say, Kaiina-chan." And then I faded away into a dreamless darkness...

A/N-Sorry it's short, but I don't want anyone to learn too much in one sitting. Yes, it's back to my favorite little made-up world. Okay. Honestly, I don't know if anyone's reading anymore, but this is all going somewhere. I hereby swear that I will try my hardest to finish this story. It's really not all that close to being done, though, and I've saved another great shocker for the end. No, Kurama doesn't die, and for those who loved MR1, Lirra doesn't get banished to the pits of hell. Now that that's cleared up...

Peace Out,

Miari