Wrapped in Bloodied Chains by Callie Moonlight-sama

Prologue-The Decision and the Promise

Disclaimer: This is rated mature for further chapters that may be controversial in subject matter. Please do not report me as you have been warned. This pertains to the duration of the fic.

Summary: What happens when the life you thought you had becomes something you never could have predicted. A life that haunts you with every call of the changing wind. A call you must answer no matter what it will cost you. A decision from which there will be no coming back. Read and discover the haunting story of a love both yearned to deny. A love that would became the foundations of a legend unlike any the world had known.

And now on with the story..........

---------------------~.:*:.~-------------------- 

As the night dawned with the same haunting familiarity it had since she had first chanced upon them she couldn't believe she was here debating the same thing she had every night since he had allowed her to join them. The very woman who walked this earth, a mere shadow of who she had been in life. A woman who sustained her own life by living off of the souls of the departed. Why did he trust her after all this time had passed? What was it about her previous form she herself didn't possess? Perhaps she had to die in order to catch his fancy.

Shaking her head she tried to banish such thoughts. It wasn't her to think this way about anyone even if that person had tried to kill her more then once. Even if that being happened to be the stoic taiyokai who had threatened to take her life only to save it the next. The very same taiyokai who had also seemed to be hanging around with increasing frequency. He never stated a reason but then again they never asked. Sighing she soon realized that her attempts at distraction, even if it happened to be the neutral demon lord, wouldn't prove to be anything more then a hindrance.

It didn't change the fact that no matter how hard she tried to seal her heart away from him it never worked for any great length of time. All too soon the feelings she felt towards him would come flooding back with the same unsettling realities that, the hanyo she had loved would never be hers. At least not in the way that she had desperately craved more then anything else.

Sighing she hooked her left hand firmly along the yellow strap of her worn out bag that had seen more wear and tear in the last three years then it had in the ten she had owned it. She knew then as she placed her right hand on the lip of the well that she would return. That she would complete the task that had been appointed to her even if her previous incarnate could do the same. She would complete the jewel that she had shattered with her own unintentional hands and then when that was over what she would do next was a mystery.

She didn't know if she could ever live in the modern world again, at least not for any extended period of time. Her heart just wasn't here anymore even if it wasn't with him. Whether or not her mother would understand was another matter for another day. But nothing was certain. She had been through enough life experience in the last three years to tell her that much if nothing else.

Taking a deep hesitant breath she stared into it's blackened depths. Her fingers curling further into the wood before she threw her body over the lip and into it's dark unwelcoming depths. She felt the familiar catching of it's magic as it surged around her gently placing her on the bottom of it's floor. She realized that she made it the moment her stomach sank further as if knowing that Kikyo was going to be there wasn't enough.

She would have to face him, she would have to walk with them. Watch them exchange glances of a love lost to time. Of a love fated never to be and yet it was a look she wished he would show her. A love that she wished she had some part of. A love reserved for her and her alone.

She knew it wasn't possible and yet here she was, back in the Senjoku Jidai where her journey had begun and where it would end. Where her destiny would continue to unfold with a will of its own, a destiny that was as inescapable as his face. A destiny that eluded her, leaving her in the darkness of her heart.

She found herself repeating the trip up the vines surrounding the well as she had the thousand or so times before it. The sun streaming into her eyes with such intensity that she was forced to close them as she made it over the lip of the well with her backpack and what was left of her sanity in toe to her own amazement. She sighed again as she sat there waiting, for what she didn't know. Perhaps a sign that she had made the right decision to return to them.

She watched as the wind played with the branches of the trees. Casting them here and there in careless directions like an ill prepared and yet graceful dance. A dance that tossed her hair over her shoulders and in her face in the same go. She quickly decided that she wouldn't find the answer by staying where she was. By avoiding what she knew had to be faced.

She stood extremely slow and deliberate taking the extra time to re-adjust her backpack for the inevitable journey back towards the village and to his heated glares. A trip that she wasn't looking forward too by any means. A trip that would lead her into the same treacherous territory she wished to leave even now. Even as she stood on the other side forcing herself to breathe.

“Kagome.” a familiar voice squealed with a joy that she couldn't help but reciprocate even if it was in the smallest of measurements.

“Shippo.” she called back catching the kit who had thrown himself at her inadvertently turning himself into a ball of aqua and auburn. An image that she would've welcomed with a warm smile but now could only offer the remnants of one.

“You came back!” he cried snuggling as close to her as he could, a closeness that was only deepened as the miko wrapped her arms around him further securing her to him in a way that she hadn't before. Not that he protested, it was nice to hear the smooth steady beat of her heart as it appeared to match his own.

“Of course I did, I couldn't leave you behind. Now could I?” she said softly trying to sooth the kits fears while trying to stifle the tears that threatened to fall without her permission. What she had said had been the truth, if for no other reason she would continue to come back for the boy who cradled himself against her, whose claws moved to wrap themselves within the thin fabric of her top. The boy who had become more then she could have ever predicted. The boy who had become a part of her that she could never sever. A son. A light in her darkened world.

“I love you Kagome.” he breathed snuggling his head further into her neck creating a dangerous fracture in the damn of tears that had inadvertently built up over the course of the years she had remained here. Over the years of watching as he chose another. “Please stay,” he pleaded, his voice softening dangerously. “I don't want you to leave me forever.” he cried into her neck allowing the fear he had held in over her absence out at long last. In truth it had been the longest she had ever been away to date and he had said the words that would condemn her.

She had prayed for a sign and she had found one in a predicted form but one she welcomed wholeheartedly. A sign that forced the damn to fracture further releasing the flood of tears that she had held back for far too long. It was in that moment she knew she couldn't just walk away when this was all completed. No she knew it just as surely as the sun would set and rise again. She knew it as if it had been a part of her reality this entire time. She knew it even as the others approached cautiously, unsure of the situation. She would stay.

“I love you Shippo.” she breathed into his ear. “I love you. I won't go away like that again.”

“Promise.” he cried into her breast bone dampening the fabric beneath his eyes.

“I promise.” she said realizing for the first time in a long time it was a promise that she knew she would never be able to break. Even as the others approached her she remained as she was now with him against her. Holding him close as if her life depended solely upon the child she held. Her eyes opened briefly looking towards the village before allowing them to close once more against the fresh wave of tears that threatened to break free through the tear he had unknowingly created. “I promise, I promise.” she whispered repeatedly unable to stop the phrase from spilling from her lips. “I promise.”

Author's Note: Okay here we go with the prologue to this latest story. Not much happens unfortunatly but Chapter 1 will be better I assure you, at least I hope it will. Anyway by for now.

Your Lady Moonlight-sama