Fifty years. It's been fifty years since I last spoke to my sister. And yet, despite all the time that has passed, I can still see her face. I can still hear her voice. I loved Kikyo will all my heart, and I still do to this day. After all these years, however, I've finally been able to accept that she is gone. My sister is dead.
Which is perhaps why it's so strange to see her standing before me.
Kikyo? My sister Kikyo? She can't be alive. This is a trick, an illusion. That horrible, fiendish woman Urasue must be trying to trick me. First she desecrates my sister's grave and then she creates this terrible, heartbreaking illusion of a human being? Yes, heartbreaking. For my heart is breaking as I stand there, looking my sister. For as much as I know that she is dead, I yearn for her to be alive. I yearn for this lump of clay to actually be my sister, come back from the dead.
Perhaps these fifty years have been a dream. If so, it's been a terribly long one. All that endless time, dragging on and on. For fifty years, as I've lived and trained and made friends and, yes, even fallen in love, all this time I've been so horribly lonely. Forever alone, after my sister died.
My heart is breaking as I stand there, staring at my sister's face, transfixed by a body made of clay and ashes.
I am sixty years old, watching my sister being resurrected.
I am nine years old, learning to shoot an arrow from my sister.
I am ten years old, watching my sister die.
I am sixteen years old, training, and training, and training.
I am thirty years old, chasing demons from my village.
I am fifty years old, chasing demons from my village.
I am crying, because my sister is dead.
I am crying, because my sister is alive.
Who is she? This strange woman, who looks so much like Kikyo? Is she my sister? Is she Kikyo?
Who am I? That question is simple enough to answer. I am Kaede. Even after all these years, all this endless time, I am Kaede.
As I stand there, with all these thoughts swirling around in my head, there is only one thing that I wish.
Please, let this be Kikyo.
Please let my sister be alive.
Please don't let these last fifty years have been for nothing.