She woke again, not entirely unlike how she had woken when she had first arrived at the decrepit old mansion. This time, she stood and ignored the pounding in the back of her head, and watched the figure of a man leap through a hole in the ceiling and appear before her. She held her ground as he approached, and snarled when he moved too close.

"Get away from me, Naraku."

"Has Kikyo explained the universe to you, Kagome-chan? Did you understand that woman's old speech, or did she just sound like a senseless hag?"

"She did," Kagome spoke slowly, wondering how long she had been speaking to Kikyo, if it had been hours or mere seconds.

"And?" He smirked.

"And if you're trying to extract information from me about Kikyo, you won't be able to." She set her jaw firmly.

He growled and clasped a hand around her throat, not suffocating her but threatening to. "Why not, little Kagome?" He sneered.

She bared her teeth at him, but then let her expression slip into a frown. Puckering her brows, she thought for a moment, and weighed her possibilities. An idea sparked to life but she held her face calm, and met his chilling gaze.

"Fine. I'll make a deal with you, Naraku. I want to know how you came to control Hayate's body and what your plans are, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know about Kikyo."

He removed his hand and replied, "A bit unfair, Kagome-chan. All my secrets for the few that you know?"

She bit her tongue. "What else do you want to know?"

Naraku hummed, "Why do you want to know?"

Shaking her head, Kagome sighed. "Hold your horses, sweetheart. Let's make this deal official before we start giving information."

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and smiled. "So be it. Conditions?"

"You speak first."

He made a tsking noise. "Did you really think I'd fall for that, Kagome-chan?"

"You're the trickster, Naraku. I know who would be the first to cheat the agreement. And besides," Kagome met his gaze squarely, "Purity upholds all of its contracts."

"Deal." He smirked.

"You want to know how I killed Hayate? I'll tell you, but you may be sorry," he winked at her, and she felt her stomach drop into uneasiness.

"The first thing that boy ever remembered was death. As a baby, as a toddler, I was always there, always showing him my memories of killing others, watching their blood spill, and then, my own death. He was raised as a timid, pathetic thing who couldn't handle my past or present plans."

Kagome bit her lip to hold the disgust she was feeling from showing on her face. That poor boy…

"Now here's the best part, little miko. When he hit his twelfth year, scared Hayate simply couldn't take it anymore. He attempted to kill himself, to end the torture I was inflicting upon him, and it worked. When his soul left his body, my soul, or what was left of it, was able to take full control, and I quickly saved the body. From then on, I searched for you, and found you, and began exacting my revenge."

"You said you wanted to know my plans, Kagome-chan. Don't underestimate me," he sneered. "I'm not stupid enough to tell you. But if you're wondering, my only motive was to end you. Very slowly."

"Kikyo was the one to ruin my plans, and in death I found I don't lust over ruling the world anymore. But I do want revenge on Kikyo, and what better a way to torture her little pet, the one she raised and cared for?"

Suddenly, he was holding Kagome's throat, with his face twisted in rage. "So tell me, what has happened to Kikyo? Can she see everything I do to you?"

His voice was a low whisper, and he tightened his grip on her throat at the last word. Kagome, doing her best for her part, made a weak smile at him, and chocked out, "I'm surprised at you, Naraku. To think you'd fall for such an old trick. You see, I'm not going to tell you, because purity does not bend to evil."

Quick as lighting, she focused her powers into her hands, and tried to burn his arms with a fierce touch. His face twisted again into something akin to a smirk and squeezed her throat even more so that she was making strangled breaths, dizzy by not getting enough air to her brain. "Ah, you see, I'm in a human's body. Your powers can't hurt me."

She clawed at his arms enough to draw blood from the scrapes she was creating, and he finally released her, throwing her to the ground. As she gasped for breath, he placed a foot on her back, and forced her lower on the ground.

"Tell me what happened to Kikyo."

He was hissing now, and it occurred to Kagome through her dizzy mind, that Naraku was desperate. He doesn't know what happened to Kikyo. He wants to know, because he has some sort of sick obsession with her, that much I do know. But I won't tell him, and that is making him crazy, because he doesn't understand how I am connected to Kikyo, does he?

She rolled over and grabbed his leg, pulling him to the ground. And he teetered, unbalanced, she dashed past him and out of the room, racing towards the exit. Refocusing her mind, Kagome tried to recall every encounter she had with Naraku.

The first time she'd seen him in her life was when she went camping with Sesshomaru. It wasn't been him, though. He'd sent a puppet. And those puppets require a sort of demon magic… So that means he's not entirely human, right? If he can still use magic, than there still is a part of him that can be purified.

The second time we met he had two companions with him. Though, it wouldn't make sense for him to have accomplices because if he had some, then they would be helping him right now, she thought as she rushed into another room, only to find it was a dead end. The mansion had been built in an odd way, where she couldn't find the main hallway easily to escape. Just my luck.

So those two men with him that crashed my car were also puppets, she reasoned. And then, the third time? He'd had a mirror. A mirror that pulled… on my soul?

Kagome sifted through Kikyo's memories, trying to remember if there was ever a mirror in Naraku's possession. She tripped over a torn oriental rug and stumbled, but caught her balance next to a shattered white vase. White… she recalled a stony faced girl who had been a creation of Naraku's that was constantly sporting the odd mirror. So it's simply a fragment of his past.

Dashing through the room, she entered another that contained a staircase. As fast as her legs could carry her, she dove for it, only to be thwarted by the person waiting on the stairs for her. Naraku hissed at her and she kicked, sending him tumbling off his balance and down the stairs.

Making a run for it, Kagome saw an open window, and without hesitation, she leapt through it.

Sesshomaru paced in the meeting room at the youkai headquarters. A small hanyou girl with a sullen expression sat at the end of an empty table and watched the only person she was left with in the whole wide world, something she found to be a much more bleak and dreary place without her sister. The kidnapping hadn't quite set in yet for her—it merely felt like Kagome had gone on a vacation without her, but the nervous pit in her stomach kept on swirling in a way that reminded her this could be a very, very permanent thing.

Sliding out of the chair she had been sitting in, she approached the terrifying inuyoukai. She'd been woken in the middle of the night to come to a strange building with him, and they hadn't given her time to take care of her more personal issues. Rin stood next to him silently, cautiously, and waited for him to notice her. If anything, she hoped he would treat her the same way he had been for the past few weeks, and look down at her with warm eyes. But she knew without Kagome, Sesshomaru wasn't going to be acting like he used to.

"Excuse me?"

Sesshomaru startled visibly and growled at the source of his interruption. Peering down, he saw brown tear-filled eyes of a little girl worried about her big sister, and instantly felt a surge of guilt. She remained strong, and didn't let a tear slip out, but merely stared at him.

"Hn?"

He watched the little girl with dark circles under her eyes with a very near haunted look on her normally cheerful face swallow anxiously.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she whispered, not wanting to make her caretaker angry.

He nodded, and hesitantly raised a hand, placing a small pat for reassurance on the little girl's head. She sniffled, grasped his hand, and he walked her to the ladies room, two uneasy people taking comfort in each other's presence.

Kagome fluttered about the rooftop, trying to scramble as far away from her predator as possible. Balancing on the ball of her right foot, she jumped from one window sill to the next, catching a piece of the molding and holding onto it for dear life. Naraku, far more agile on his feet than she, climbed after her and closing in on the space between.

They continued their dangerous dance on the rooftop with swooping movements, one playing defense and the other, offense. As they moved Kagome tried to desperately think of a plan to get her out of this alive, caring little whether Naraku was or wasn't.

Cornering her on the side of the house, Naraku lunged for her foot, which was resting not-so-securely in the gutter. She jumped, praying for her life, and caught hold of a piece of wood that was sticking out of the roof and hanging out on the side of the building.

Oh, Kami, please no, she groaned when it began to creak, and felt it splintering in half. I'm going to die right now if this breaks. Leola was so wrong when she said I wouldn't need that much strength, the thought flashed dumbly through her mind.

Swinging her legs through the air, she used momentum to propel herself forward as the wood broke. As she sailed through the air, her hands groped desperately, and latched on to the molding of the roof. With much effort, Kagome was able to heft herself up onto the slanted ground, while trying to find Naraku.

"You will find her!" He roared at the man, and left the room, slamming the door with enough force to break it in two.

His aura flared as he glided through the building and became tangible enough to melt the furniture he passed. Sesshomaru was as bloodthirsty as the devil, and he had a certain hanyou's head he wanted mounted on his wall.

"You'll have to fight me eventually, Kagome-chan," Naraku taunted, his voice sliding into her ear.

She shivered against the humid night air, and wished she could see better. The moon was only a crescent that night, and though it gave her courage, it did little else. Naraku had the element of surprise on his hands, and the only thing she had left to her name was her quick thinking.

She'd put fragments of the puzzle that was Naraku together, but she still couldn't comprehend the entire picture. He was able to use some types of magic, but he wasn't a demon nor a human. He claimed he couldn't be purified, so then could his body be killed instead?

Her head whipped around when she heard a rustle close to her. She was still hiding in plain sight on the rooftop, and she didn't know if he'd followed her or not.

Testing her weight on the side of the building, she attempted to quietly slip away from their elevated battlefield. Kagome entered a room through its window only to find him waiting for her.

"Leaving so soon?"

"I was hoping to," she ground out and let her powers surface.

"Remember, those things don't work on me," he gestured to her aura while grinning.

But she was two steps ahead of him. Driven by pure instinct and adrenalin that was swiftly decreasing, she circled him. His grin suggested he was off guard but she wasn't fooled, and she kept her distance in a ready stance.

Measuring the distance with a critical eye, she subtly lined Naraku up with the window she had entered through and then charged. He, not expecting her irregular movement, blocked her with his arms, allowing her to push him. When he realized he was hanging out of a window it was too late, the woman fighting him appearing like an enraged warrior goddess.

Kagome struck his head with a fatal blow and let her powers and the ones gifted to her by the shikon jewel explode into his head, effectively purifying his soul. His body dropped from her grasp and out the window, landing with a bone-chilling snap.

She watched the body for a few minutes as her head cleared from the adrenalin rush and she returned to her normal state. It didn't seem real. That body—Hayate's body?—or Naraku's was a lifeless lump at the bottom of the mansion, and Naraku's spirit purified from the world.

And in return, she felt the powers she had never been quite able to use that were given to her by the shikon no tama drain out of her body. She mutely recalled Kikyo's words saying that in the world, purity and darkness balanced each other, and for such an evil like Naraku to die, she had to give up some of her purity.

And she had, just by ending him, already given up a large amount of her purity. She had killed a man, and the thought sickened her. He'd been a cruel, horrible man who would've done exactly the same to her without a second thought, but she wasn't like that. She was a being made for love, who thrived on life and was never meant to take it.

Kagome leaded her back against the wall, turning her head from Naraku's corpse and reflected, her mind in a mess. She shed no tears for her lost purity or Naraku's death, but the ideas swarmed in her mind and that saddened her. Kikyo, whose soul she could thankfully still feel, thrummed out a steady beat, reassuring her that death was simply a part of the cycle of life.

That was how they found her. Sesshomaru, who had left Rin with Jaken at the first light, had taken matters into his own hands and searched for his wife. There had been no trail for him to follow, but after the sun could be seen rising, he felt her soul call out to his. She was wounded.

He found the abandoned mansion in a secluded part of the wilderness, only a dirt road leading up to it. Sesshomaru circled the house once, and to his amassment, found the body of Hayate crumpled on the ground, its heart still. After that, he made assumed the worst, and rapidly followed her scent up into a room on the highest floor.

She was sitting in a corner with a dark look on her face, and he went to her, curling her body up into his lap. He needed touch to make sure she was still here, still very much alive and alright, and she needed him to keep her grounded.

After what felt like hours, she spoke, her voice hoarse. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to save you," his response sounded weak, even to himself.

"I'm okay."

He kissed her cheek, another soft touch to reassure them both.

"I handled him myself."

"Your first kill." It wasn't a question.

She hummed an affirmative and quieted. "I shouldn't feel sorry."

"Then don't."

"It's not that simple."

He began tracing patterns on the back of her hand and she sighed into his warm embrace. "Could you love a killer?"

He nearly snorted, if the matter at present hadn't been so important to her. "I am a killer."

"How…" she whispered, and shut her eyes forcefully, "how do you come to terms with yourself?"

He said nothing but rested with her, letting her sort through her mind and find the answer within herself. When they spoke again, it was late in the day, and he led her out of the abandoned mansion, both never looking back.

Only the epilogue left now! And I'd like to thank you so much, my reviewers and readers, because you have made this story infinitely more enjoyable for me. It's been a great ride, and you guys made every step of the way more fun. Thanks so much, guys! ~Gracie :)

All characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi.