No disclaimer that is interesting. Unfortunately, to have the plot make sense, I have decided to relinquish my hold on Sakura. I do not own InuYasha. Remember, the recap is never the same as the story. It's only to give an idea of what happened last time so you don't have to read it again. The only problem is, I still have to read…

The Lost Years of Kaede

Recap: "The girl is no other than Kikyo's younger sister." Daisuke was in shock. This young girl couldn't be the fair Kikyo's sister!

Naraku knew exactly what to do. He was dangerous like this. He killed the priestess Kikyo with the sort of idea he had now.

Sakura realized her miko powers were fading. 'What does he plan to use my powers for?'

The Hut

Sayuri was frightened, and all because she decidedly did not like the expression on Daisuke's face. His look told her that, if the messengers had been touting bad news, he would probably have turned her in without a second's thought. She had trusted him, for some odd reason, and now she realized her stupidity in that act. 'Silly, stupid, worthless you,' she thought, chuckling mirthlessly. She felt violated and wronged beyond what was acceptable in the situation, and Sayuri couldn't help but look at Daisuke differently in turn.

Her opinion of Daisuke altered, her thoughts turned to those that had apparently tried to decide her fate. She was not sure about these mysterious elders; what did her standing with Kikyo have to do with anything? Why did they just suddenly decide that she was not there for harmful reasons based solely on this fact? And how did they even find out about that, in the first place? She was afraid to deliberately try to figure that out; each option was darker than the last.

In a tone full of open disbelief, his voice cracking at the end like a prepubescent boy, Daisuke whispered, "Are you really Kikyo's sister?" 'She looks nothing like her,' he couldn't help but think again; though he was wise enough not to say this out loud, he could not help that the pitch of his voice betrayed his thoughts.

A part of her got riled up at his doubt, though she should have been as fearful of him as she was of the "messengers" outside. 'Do I really look so inexperienced and stupid that it has to be impossible for me to be related to my own sister?' Sayuri thought angrily.

Sayuri knew that every day brought her closer to looking more and more like her deceased sister, so it couldn't be a lack of family resemblance, which left her ability or lack thereof to be the issue. Without letting her irritation show, she answered simply, "Yes. I am." The portion of her that wasn't annoyed started to feel guilty, so Sayuri added, "That is why I had to change my name." 'Let him think I'm not mad,' she thought coyly, unable to hide the mischievous smile on her face despite her grim circumstances.

"I will protect you," he replied without even hesitating, taking Sayuri aback. Daisuke wasn't sure his outburst of promised care was from learning she was related to Kikyo, or the fact that he now sensed that she was no longer hiding anything from him.

Disregarding that, he knew as well as she probably did that there was no way the members of his village could have known that simple fact about her without being on an active search for her. The question remained: Why would they care?

He could hear the shuffling of the men's feet outside the hut. There were far too many to warrant delivering such a simple message. It was obvious; they were after Sayuri, and he was meant to simply give her up. But they had made a mistake when they had told him who Sayuri shared blood with.

'I will repay my debt, Kikyo. I promised that I would,' Daisuke thought, relishing the idea at being able to help the beautiful figure from his memories despite her death. "I will protect you," he reiterated before adding, "with my life."

Daisuke made some excuse to the guards, claiming that he was in the process of changing Sayuri's bandages, as he walked out of the smaller room of the hut into the larger. He looked around for something that would make could obstruct their eventual pursuers, but Daisuke owned nothing that was heavy enough, nor practical enough, to move. He had to open his mind and consider all the possibilities, even the ones that made little sense.

Daisuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath, looking and weighing each thing his gaze landed on without bias. He found his old stove, an ancient piece that he had been meaning to get melted down in order to barter for a new one. Grinning to himself, he silently dragged the bulky appliance across the ground and left it in front of the hut's makeshift door. It wouldn't do anything but slightly inconvenience the "messengers", for the door was not much more than animal skin, but every second counted.

This being done, he quickly grabbed a cloth pack and filled it with some goods: bandages, a few ointments, food, and a couple skins full of water. Daisuke slung this on his back, and looked around. A walking stick with a hole drilled at either end for a sash sat in one of the corners of the hut. It could, and in a few circumstances he'd rather not repeat it had, double as a stave, and he also slung this on his back. Thus prepared, he turned to Sayuri.

Sayuri had helped herself into a standing position, somehow understanding the full meaning behind Daisuke's furtive actions. She tried to take a step towards him and stumbled a little, but Daisuke easily caught her before she could fall. 'Her fear-induced adrenaline is helping her filter through the snake venom faster,' Daisuke noted with an awe-struck smile. 'She really does have an extreme tolerance to such a deadly toxin,' he added, seeing how relatively easily she moved.

With Sayuri leaning heavily on his shoulder, he moved a secret trapdoor in the floor, showing her a secret hole out of the hut. The pair made their slow escape down a dark and dank tunnel. It wasn't easy for Sayuri to crawl through, but with Daisuke behind her egging her ever further on with gentle pushes from his hand, she found the strength to continue.

In a Different Part of the Forest

His sense of smell told him that the girl was making an escape with the healer she'd been brought to. Naraku could always track her down later, so when he decided to leave the messengers at their failed attempt to apprehend the injured stranger, he also decided to leave the girl to her own devices for a while. He had other, and more pressing, matters to take care of before he could turn his attention fully on Kaede.

Naraku had ordered his minions at his castle to begin sucking Sakura's miko powers out of her body with the new knowledge he had gained from reading an ancient book before he'd left to spy on the miko-in-training. He'd found that tome in the six years since Kikyo had died and supposedly taken the jewel with her to the underworld.

Besides giving detailed instructions on how to absorb the energies of a miko and how to store a soul, something that he had not considered doing before, it had shown him how to safely handle holy powers that should cleanse something like him. He needed Sakura's powers, in particular, because hers were the only color that could be used the way he desired most; he wanted hers so he could shift his shape into any he desired. Then, and only then, could his schemes could continue.

He would pose as the highest elder governing the village where Kaede was currently hidden. He knew the history of this village, and that they had been preyed upon for years by the "Listeners" that heard thoughts louder than most demons heard sounds, and he had no doubt that they had probably already started their own plan to retrieve the Sacred jewel. All he would do would be to speed their plans up by a considerable amount.

Naraku would seize the jewel in the chaos the villagers provided. He'd then be free to do what he liked with both the girl and the jewel. Even if he were unable to obtain the jewel, for the villagers were the only ones who could beat him to it, he'd be able to get it back.

Naraku had been taken too far out of his way to ensure his success. Regardless of whether the villagers failed or achieved their goal, he had been put into a bad mood, and he knew without a doubt the ultimate fate of every human involved in this sordid affair.

They would all die in the end.

Naraku's Castle

Sakura was all but entirely drained of her powers. She could feel each little crumb of strength slipping away, now. At first she had only noticed because there was a decrease in her abilities while she trained. Now, she had lost so much that each pull the demons surrounding her made was just another nail in her coffin.

If Naraku had in his possession what she feared he did, things were grimmer than she'd ever thought they could get. For, if that forbidden, hidden artifact was his, once Naraku had all of her powers, he could morph them to do whatever he wanted done. With her soul in his possession, and her body melded into one that didn't age and could be protected from unnatural death, he'd have an energy source for a limitless weapon. The miko's soul, not her body, was the source of her power, but souls had indissoluble ties to their bodies when it came to retaining the powers they had held in life.

If Sakura's soul were to be separated from her body, she and her body should die. Creating a demon from her body, however, and binding her soul to an object in Naraku's possession, would keep Sakura tied to the world of the living. She wouldn't technically be alive herself, though, as she would become a tool in the hands of her master. And, if she were a tool, and Naraku had the ability to manipulate holy energies, he could raze entire villages without her being able to do a single thing to prevent it. A bound soul was often helpless when used, as shown by the Shikon jewel from time to time.

The thought of such ability in the hands of a demon was too frightening for her in her weakened state, so Sakura let it be. She couldn't even risk suicide now, because the strength that had been stolen was enough to bring her back if her body wasn't too badly damaged, but also because she'd always been somewhat of a coward. Her years of hanging back had prevented her from taking the necessary steps to prevent giving her soul over to Naraku. She had pretended it was her student stopping her, and that was one of her greatest motives, but her will to live was an equally strong compulsion for waiting out the situation.

She was frightened, for more reasons than just her impending use as a weapon on a scale never before seen.

Sakura wondered when he would come for her. Naraku had to come soon, or regardless of how much energy had been sucked out of her, he could lose her soul entirely.

She was dying.

It was, perhaps, redundant to be afraid of death when there was no way out of the situation she was in but to die physically or morally. Her miko powers were what kept her alive all these years, beyond the standard use in altercations with demons. She had a disease that only her divine powers could treat, but the sickness was so great that it couldn't be cured even with the cleansing properties of her miko ability. Her blindness was, in fact, a symptom of this illness. The disease was so powerful that healthy, grown men who caught it died in days. So if her powers left her, she would not have long to live.

Kaede still depended on her, but there was no way for Sakura to find her way back to her now. The illness, sensing the weakness in her powers, was raging through her body in an unprecedented attack. Sakura was simply too frail to summon up the agility needed to escape.

If she died of natural causes, her absorbed powers could do nothing to heal the damage. However, Naraku could still bring her back as a demon using the artifact, but the skill the book described was meant to be used on a living human, and there was no telling what would happen if they tried to circumvent that. Any number of unexpected events could happen, and Naraku could and most probably would lose both her soul and the long-term use of her drained powers.

She could sense his attention; she knew he was coming. Perhaps not immediately, but he was coming for her. Her judgment day would arrive when he asked her to decide her fate, for she knew Naraku well enough by now to understand:

He'd cruelly give her the choice to become a demon, or die.

A/N I would like to know your opinion. Please, review.