Chapter 5:

Many hours later he felt her breathing change, he sat up with his momoko still tightly wrapped around her form and looked down at her. This time her big doe eyes looked back up at him, he analyzed her and when he was certain she wouldn't run he loosened his hold.

They just sat staring at one another before Sesshomaru finally spoke.

"I've waited a long time for you Rin."

Her eyes softened at hearing his voice and replied quietly, "I bet I've been waiting longer, my Lord."

His brows furrowed as he looked at her wistful gaze and he said equally as quietly, "How long Rin."

A single tear fell from her right eye with a sad smile, "153 years my Lord"

Sesshomaru's breathing halted at her words.

"No human can live that long," he replied.

Rin smiled sadly, "I am no more human than you my Lord. I am no demon either." she said cryptically.

Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes at her as she shook her, "I apologize it has been a very long time since I've had a…civil conversation with anyone. I'm sure you have questions, I will answer the best I can."

In an instant she seemed to realize she was perched on his lap, a deep blush fell on her cheeks as she shuffled off of him. Sitting in front of him now rather than on him with her eyes closed.

Sesshomaru cocked his head at her actions, "You launched yourself at me earlier. You play shy now?"

Her eyes snapped open and turned to him in shock, "I'm surprised you have a sense of humor"

Sesshomaru scoffed, "I'm surprised you blush red instead of blue."

Rin chuckled lightly, "Odd isn't it? I bleed blue but blush red."

Silence fell on them once more, "Where did you go Rin?"

Rin sighed, "We will start at the beginning then. Though I must warn you it is not a happy story and some details have become a bit fuzzy in the past decades."

Sesshomaru nodded, "Go on."

Rin looked up at him and then turned her gaze back to the floor, "I never intended to leave the village, I just needed some space to breathe. I had a fight with Kaede, a bad one you could say. She had arranged for me to marry a man without my knowledge and I told her that I didn't want to. So I went to the forest to think before I returned back but I had lost track of time."

Rin ran her hand over her face, "I was lost in thought. I didn't notice them surrounding me. Everything after that went black, I woke up in a cell more or less. While they spoke around me, I didn't recognize their language but later it was discovered they thought I was a demon. They'd never seen one and knew nothing. They…for a lack of better words tortured me. It was awful."

Rin stopped and sighed loudly, and Sesshomaru interjected there.

"...Is that how you got those scars?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

Rin kept her gaze to the floor, "Some of them. They ended up doing some experiment on me. I'm not sure what they did but it was painful enough that I blacked out for most of it. When I came too, I could speak their language as if it was my own. I moved faster than they did, I was nearly as strong as them too and my blood was as blue as the sky."

"I don't know what they did to me my Lord, but I knew I was no longer a human being but I wasn't like them either. I tried to escape and I made it as far as their gate before they caught me." she looked up at him, "I'd never seen a place with a purple sky, there was no sun it was only dark with a small moon lighting everything to a purplish color. When they caught me, they threw me back into a cell but this was different. I also wasn't alone, others were there too. They weren't quite human either and they were…children in a way."

Sesshomaru kept looking at her, "What do you mean by that?"

Rin winced, "Some had different mutations like horns, and some looked mangled like they'd been attacked. But what I gathered from those who'd speak to me was all of them had been experiments and none of them aged anymore. The longer I was there the more they spoke to me or warned me really that my 'kind' didn't stay there for long."

Rin shuffled her legs to sit crossed, "I don't know how long I was there. They took me in chains to a different location and that's where 'my kind' as they put it was. So they trained us and if you refused to train, they'd beat you bloody. I was their biggest problem, I didn't want to hurt anyone! I didn't want to get beaten either, so I fought." Rin went quiet for a moment.

"I fought perhaps too well. Despite the brutal way the Igami did things, they were very structured and had a ranking system. They turned us all into soldiers, prepared to kill anything in our path. If I showed any weakness they'd turn on me, so I trusted no one and…killed anyone in my way. It was sickening really, what they'd made us do. I pondered briefly on an uprising, there were far more of us than them but I was very wrong. Everyone there was there for survival, they'd been there for hundreds."

Rin ran a hand through her hair before continuing,"I got close with a few who'd been there for a long time, I heard of an uprising years before. 1500 soldiers went against the Igami and they all died. When I asked what happened to them, that's when I discovered that the gates and building around were made out of them. They made them an example to keep us in line. For a decade I thought of ways to escape but I was powerless against them in the beginning."

"What did you do," Sesshomaru asked calmly.

Rin gazed at him with sadness he's never seen, "In a way sold my soul my Lord. I couldn't get out on my own, that I knew but those around me had too much fear and I trusted no one. I'd been there long enough to know that one wrong move and I was dead. I was so angry, I'd never felt such blind rage before. So I became worse than all of them. I'd kill anyone who dared to question me, the Igami loved it."

Rin laughed humorlessly, "I wanted to kill them all. As I said they had a ranking system, it took me fifty years of brutally killing everything around me but I managed to get their attention. I became one of 15 Generals incharge, only answering to the Igami's above me and the generals were awful and cruel. I wasn't much better but I didn't enjoy killing, I just wanted to go home. After a few years we got orders to invade different places, the Igami stayed back as they set us off through oddly shaped portals. They watched us like hawks, we were being observed and I gathered information on a way out as we went on conquering more areas. By the end of it, they began to call on Generals two at a time, and only one would come back."

Rin gritted her teeth, "Bastards. They made us fight each other, almost for entertainment. When they called me to fight General Emugi, he was a particularly foul individual, so when called to fight him I didn't hesitate but I did not kill him. I hated him but I had no reason to kill him and when they asked me why I didn't. I said the first thought that came to my mind, I said I wasn't ordered too. That's when everything changed. "

Sesshomaru watched her as her face contorted into a pained expression, how her hands began to turn white from squeezing so hard.

In a swift motion he put his hands over hers, "Rin stop."

It was like she couldn't hear him anymore, her eyes were tightly shut and when she opened them they were pitch black and the tears she was holding back fell rapidly down her cheeks in long red streaks.

When she gasped, Sesshomaru felt himself being pulled into…something. His eyes kept contact with her and when the world stopped swirling they stood on a battlefield. Rin seemed to snap out of it and tightly grabbed his hands.

Rin's panicked eyes looked at him, "Do not let go of my hands!"

He tightened his grip on her and tried to slow his heart beat, "Rin where are we?"

Rin closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing, "A...a memory." she took a few more steady breaths, "My memory."

The demon Lord's eyes widened and looked around, it smelled like death and a few feet away he saw these Igami standing around Rin as she stood over the bloodied face of a man three times her size. His arms were mangled beyond compare, his face horribly disfigured and it looked like more blood was around his body than in it.

Above him Rin looked like a wrathful goddess, she was covered in blue blood with a huge gash on her shoulder but it looked as if it didn't even bother her.

The four shinigami wore silver masks and a few stayed quiet, Rin backed away from the bloodied man and pulled her clasped hands around her back with her legs shoulder width apart.

Rin didn't make eye contact with any of them, only staring at their boots.

One stepped forward and removed his mask, "General why did you not kill him."

Sesshomaru noted that his face looked…ordinary except the glowing green eyes.

"I was told to fight not kill, Sir." Her voice held no emotion.

Seconds later, another Igami appeared but he wore all white. A bold contrast due to everyone else wearing only black minus the blood.

Immediately the other four got into a formation in front of Rin, faster than the eye could catch. All had their feet together and their arms crossed over their chest with their heads bowed low.

The one in white signaled for the Igami's to disperse.

Once they did he turned his face to look at Rin, "Raise your head General."

Rin flinched slightly but did as told, she looked him square in the eye. Emotionless, like a bloody doll attached to imaginary strings.

"You have not escaped my notice General Rin, you are now the last remaining General. Very surprising considering you were the newest and…female. Nonetheless Congratulations. You do not know me but you will. I am the Lord of this place and you are my victor, my conqueror if you will. You appear emotionless but I can feel the anger flowing off of you in waves, my little dangerous one. Even though you were once a weak demon, we will conquer many worlds together. So as a present for being the last General. I give you your life and the title of General supreme. You will work under my Igami until you take your place beside them" he said, throwing a silver mask down by her feet.

Sesshomaru turned to his Rin beside him, still clutching his hand. A look of true hatred etched on her face, a look he'd never known she was capable of. The memory appeared paused and began to fade into the background. Once again they were in Inuyasha hut but Rin kept a grip on his hands.

"I've never hated anyone as much as I hate that man. I guess my memory will tell you more than I can about the horrors of this place. Afterwards I planned very quickly. I worked in close proximity with other Igami's, but they didn't trust me. It took more years but I finally gained it. In doing so, I was granted more and more access. I became the warden of the prison I was initially brought in too, that made me…whatever I am. I wasn't strong enough to help anyone but I was able to recruit them. They feared me and still do but I had to do that in order to get enough soldiers to overthrow the place without them turning on me. Soldiers weren't allowed to speak to the Igami, only generals were." she said.

Sesshomaru's control over his own anger at this situation was remarkable, he wanted to kill everyone who ever laid a hand on her and he intends to do very much that.

Rin continued on, "After years of this I had about 5000 footmen. I was close enough with all 20 Igami's to take their portals without them knowing. So, I planned from there and eventually it paid off. Everyone had a formation selected for them and as warden I placed them all together as new soldiers came in. So, I gave the person in charge of those formations a portal. Within the hour 20 formations, all with 250 soldiers, were armed and we managed to kill a majority of these Igami but the problem was they wouldn't just die. They can die but it takes repeated motion to finally end one without it coming back. My entire formation was killed but I still fought. I had far more experience with them than the people I recruited did. Those who did make it out and through their portals, were all instructed to crush them as I did."

Rin looked down onto the ground and released her hold on him, "153 years later, I'm finally back."

Sesshomaru was at a loss for what to say. How had she managed to do all of this? He felt horror and anger at what she had to endure. Sadness and uselessness that he couldn't save her. Relief that she was here and would be able to live free of it all and dread that her long life expectancy would be a reminder of these horrid details of her past.

Sesshomaru reached out and raised her tear stained face with his hand, "I am sorry I wasn't there to protect you. I will regret this for the rest of life for every tear you have ever shed alone. If I could go back and change it, I would take away all the pain you've ever experienced and it kills me to know I am unable to enter that realm and butcher them all for what they've done and made you do."

By this point she was sobbing non stop at Sesshomaru words and he pulled her back into lap. Holding her as her blood red tears soaked into his white Kimono.