Trembling fingers rest on my stomach, and my shuddering breaths echo around me.

"Goddamn it" I mutter to myself, twisting and turning in my own bed, having stumbled out of your room, as you were spent enough or amiable enough to let me free from you.

What if I'm pregnant? Am I to suffer the same fate that my previous self suffered?

After a while of this cascade of stuttering thoughts, I crawl from my own bed, energized and exhausted, all at the same time. The creaking of the floor boards below me is loud in my own ears, even as my toes embrace the cold shooting up my legs. It is perhaps the only thing keeping me grounded to the reality I'm living, separate from my crumbling fantasy.

When I open the back door, there is a breeze, gentle against my inflamed face. Everything feels too warm, as though I am on fire. For a moment, I consider my tank top and the shorts I'm wearing, and wonder why I feel this way. Instead of dwelling on this oddity, I step into the yard, the crispness of the grass beneath my feet ringing in my hypersensitive ears.

I settle into the grass, my legs folded under me. It is almost as if I can feel every hair stir in the breeze. I take a deep breath, and a shuddering sob comes from between my swollen lips. Why did you do this to me? Why must everything be suffering when I am with you, no matter what turn our relationship take? I look up at the sky, the crescent moon hanging right before my eyes, and again I come to think of you.

"In another world, maybe we could be happy."

Suddenly I am trapped in such a foreboding energy that the air stutters in my lungs, so abruptly I find it hard to breathe. Like the whispering of silk against skin, it envelops me. I turn my head towards the source of this evil presence.

"You know, it is dangerous to be so alone, young one," sneers a man wearing a cloak made from a baboon. I pause for a moment, caught in its luster, brilliant white against black hair, like the moon against the darkness of the sky. He is beautiful and yet vile.

"Go away." I feel my energies surround me, like a comforting veil from the sight of onlookers. It sparks and sizzles with the heat of my rage.

"You would do well to watch your tongue."

Her words feel like a splash of cold water against my skin, and I turn shocked eyes to look at her. The ease that she approached me surprised me, but I had forgotten that I cannot repel humans, no matter how harmful their intent. Her fingers slide against my wrist, slippery and cold like a snake, and she jerked me upwards, forcing me to my feet. I feel his fingers going through my hair, almost like a caress, before they tighten to hold a fistful of the hair at the nape of my neck.

"I see you've had a fun night with your lover"

I tremble, flaring my energies against the hand careening my head backwards, yet there is no sizzle of demon flesh, no smell of the charring of skin, and for the first time in this encounter I am truly scared. As Naraku holds me still, Kikyo's hands move to my neck, fingering the necklace there.

"This is strong magic, but easy enough to lift." Her fingers clasp the beads around my neck as words, archaic and strange to my ears, flow from her in a soft chant. The longer the incantation goes, the harder she pulls, until finally the chord breaks, the little beads flying about. As they fall to the ground, they turn back into the teeth from the demons whence they came, and I catch a large canine and clasp it within my fingers.

Sesshomaru…

Before I can think anything else, the world is fading to black, my body going limp despite the hand in my hair and my desperation to be back in your arms.

-;-

When I awaken, I feel a breeze against my naked skin. I am bound to the floor which is cold against my back. Stone. Or metal, perhaps. I clench my hands into fists, the cool metal of shackles chafing against the tender skin of my wrists. A pair of sandaled feet come into view.

"Ah, my little priestess has awoken."

I crane my neck to look up, seeing a pair of blood red eyes glaring down at me. A strange mix of fear and contempt creeps up the back of my throat, and for a moment that chokes me, rendering me unable to let the stream of curses fall from my lips. A shuddering breath.

"What do you want of me, you bastard?"

Suddenly there is the sharp sound of something whistling through the air, and I feel the sting of something hard hitting me, little impacts along my skin, sharp like pinpricks, and a startled gasp of pain rips itself out of me. The skin of my stomach throbs in time to my heart, and already I can feel welts rise on my skin.

"Ah, ah, ah, little one, you should be wise to watch your tongue."

I glare up at him, my eyes wet from pain, anger stewing deep in my heart.

"Why are you doing this?"

He considers me for a moment, a cool, sinister smile tilting across his mouth.

"Because you should have been mine, all of those years ago. Your little group of friends may have saved your hide in the past, but now you are where you should be – safely within my grasp"

I tremble with the intensity of your words. Yours?

"So you plan to keep me shackled here, like some kind of slave?"

The chuckle you give settles around the room like a layer of grime, and I feel violated and dirty.

"Eventually you may earn your right to freedom. For now, though, you must be trained"

He stands, leaving me on the cold floor, and as he leaves, the lights go off. I am trapped in this world of darkness, and I do not know how to get out.

I feel my face go slack, and the thrumming of pain on my stomach dulls. The light in my eyes disappear, and I retreat into myself. A soft veil of energy cloaks me, and for the first time since my capture, I feel warmth spread through me.

My fingers play on a silken hem. The pear trees are in bloom, and the blossoms flutter to the ground all around me. The sound of the villagers' music is soft, far away. It is a feast day, commemorating the day I came from the well, Miss Centipede intent on the jewel shards nestled inside of me. The day I met Inuyasha. The day my life changed forever. How did I go from being a regular high school student to traipsing about all of Japan to save it from Naraku. How did I amass this group of friends, this sheer amount of love for all of these people? And to think, had my cat never gotten stuck in the well…

The air is pungent and ripe, the smell of the blossoms a striking counterpoint to the heady odor of cooking meat, and the smell of sweat and the beat of merriment.

"Meat…" I mutter, the grumbling of my empty stomach awakening me. I do not know how long it's been, here in this room of darkness. My welts have faded, and yet I still hurt with the pangs of hunger. I cannot tell when my eyes are opened or closed, so deep is the black engulfing me. The soft glow surrounding me does nothing to alleviate the feeling that I am small, and so alone.

My fingers flex and I become aware of something hard and smooth, and I run my thumb along its edge, surprised at the sudden heat in my digit. I heave a soft sigh, laden with guilt and self-loathing

"… Sesshomaru…"

I wish for you to come and save me; and I hope that the training I have received has prepared me for the hardships to follow.