Title: Work-A-Holic
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: Feathergriffin and I are writing a story together. Please view my profile for a link to our shared profile, and read and review that story too. I do not own the characters used herein, whether they are "Yu Yu Hakusho", or "Inuyasha" based.

Chapter fourteen: Power

"I have your lunch all ready for you," Kagome told her patient as she entered what had been a storage room. It had taken a great deal of time and effort to get the room cleaned up and available for a patient who would be there for an indefinite amount of time. But it was worth it. He'd only just gotten to her earlier that morning; that meant he was on the road all night.

She kicked the door to the storage room shut with her foot. Souta and Shuichi had gone out for the day, so she didn't have to worry about nosy busybodies hovering about the door. He looked like he was sleeping, but she knew better.

She set the tray on his lap. "Now, tell me about the hell dragon," she said as she made herself busy with the task of checking his pulse and timing it. The memory of yesterday, and her drunken episode, burned in her mind. She couldn't believe she hadn't realized she was the one serving herself. It would only be logical to believe it, since she had been the only one there.

And then, her mother, the haunting memory of her from Kagome's childhood. How had she let those memories come up? Because she had let them, they brought up other memories all equally painful.

She pulled herself away from those thoughts. It did no good to think about it now too. Instead, she concentrated on the demon before her. He hadn't moved to take the food, and he hadn't moved to demand she heal him--which she couldn't anyway. She wrote his pulse down on his daily chart, looking once more at his name. 'Hiei,' she thought. 'Where have I heard that?'

He also hadn't moved to tell her about the hell dragon. He had agreed he would tell her whatever she wanted to know about it if she got him moved here. He must have known she wouldn't send him back to Saiza and Doctor Ahishimoru. That was why he wasn't talking.

She said thoughtfully, "Ah, yes... Souta mentioned you. That's where I know of you, and you fit the description." She closed the chart and leered over him. She didn't care who he was, or how powerful he thought he was. She would have her curiosity sated, even if it took months. A smirk crossed her features. "And it isn't like you'll be going anywhere for a long while," she whispered.

Finally he opened his eyes to look at her. There was a logical, but angry glow in them. He knew everything she was thinking, of this she had no doubt. "Make yourself comfortable, Hiei..." she told him. "Because very shortly you're going to wish they were doing tests on you in Saiza."

She stood up straight, adjusting her blouse for a second as he seethed. He felt helpless, and she knew it. It was the first time she had ever enjoyed someone's true helplessness. Sure, he could try getting up. His arms were probably strong enough to hold the rest of his body up, but his legs wouldn't work, and they'd just flop like a rag doll's limbs. He knew this. She knew this.

"Witch," he finally spat.

She reached out, taking a grape from his tray to pop it in her mouth. She was the one in power here... and she was going to enjoy it. She was a slave without a master, and this demon before her was nothing more than a dog to her. She would have him trained soon enough to respond not just on command, but on sight.

He could read her mind, so he would know her questions before they left her mouth. She thought, how it must have felt for her master to control her. Her master had known her fears, her hopes, her weaknesses, and her strengths. He had stripped all that from her in the end, and this must have been how he felt.

Sesshoumaru must have felt the awesome power she felt now, looking at this demon. Her smile spread wider and crueler as the minutes of silence stretched, and his eyes narrowed further. This was a game he hadn't played in a long time... and it had been even longer since he'd been on the receiving end. She wouldn't be caught off guard this time. He wouldn't frighten her into old memories dragging up.

She finally said, "Eat." Oh, yes... she would find out about his hell dragon. The thing had attempted to attack her when she had changed his bandages on his arms the other day, as they were fairly nasty looking. Of course, its attack failed.

And she would learn why Shuichi and those two other men were in Morrissey park...why they were in her park. There were innumerable things she would learn. She would have fun, too. She would enjoy herself because "What goes around, comes around".

She didn't wait for him to start eating. She turned heel, walking away from him. He didn't like this, but she didn't care. Soon, he would hate her, but he would do whatever she asked if it was in his power to do it. He would push himself to the limits to get better, if only to escape her, but soon even that hope of getting better would disappear.

How had she come to be this way? She wasn't sure. She'd been seeking power. Maybe that was how. With every degrading comment to her lacking abilities, she found her desire to be stronger than her previous incarnation grow to immense proportions. Then, when that power wouldn't come to her with them, she found it elsewhere.

She was a traitor... She shut the door behind her, leaving her patient alone to his angry little thoughts.

But they didn't have to haunt her for it... "He was our enemy... why? Why'd you do it?" But too late. For years, the memories were being fed to her by ghosts, whispered in her ears at inopportune moments, and whittling her down. If she could grasp onto power once again, she could force the ghosts back. She especially needed something to hang onto with the addition of being right on top of where it all happened...

Right on top of the graves... Those graves all hidden beneath the courtyard. She walked out of the shrine's main building to look upon the God tree, where her journey had first begun five hundred years earlier. To her non-surprise, it was still standing there... still mocking her... still protecting the bones of those she'd helped put in their graves.

Power... was all she had left. She needed nothing else. Power would keep the memories away. Power would keep the demons at bay. And power was what she desired. She didn't need alcohol. She would never touch the stuff again especially after yesterday. It was only a good thing that Souta had not seen her like that. Then she would really have felt like dying; to let him see her like that would be murder on its own.

Tomorrow... tomorrow she would whittle down at Hiei... and see if he knew anything about the Spirit World. She would forgive him for the moment on the hell dragon. For now... even though she didn't consider herself concerned about the damage those prints on that sword would do, she did have to prove to her master that she was not his slave anymore. And she had to find a job because now she had yet another mouth to feed...

I'm thinking this story is hard to write. What are you thinking?