Well it's been a long time since I posted anything. A few weeks back I realized I'd never actually finished reading Animorphs and set about rectifying that. Three weeks later and I'm pissed at the ending. Saw it coming books before but still annoyed the hell outta me. My two favorite characters in the series got seriously shat upon in the final book so I decided to write my own damn ending and fix this.

Yes this is going to be another "Rachel comes back" fic. Don't like it then don't read. And bite me while you're at it. Not gonna be a long one; couple chapters tops so I will finish this one ^_^

Anyway, enjoy...or not lol

Oh before I forget, the usual copyright BS. I don't own Animorphs and I ain't makin any money off this.

~The Last Ronin~

The Ellimist left me with much to think about. For a brief moment I felt pity for the creature: his race long since dead, himself alone with only the endless game he played with Crayak to keep him company.

However, my pity quickly turned to anger. He could have saved me. Choose not to. Rules he claimed: he could not interfere.

Bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit.

As far as I'm concerned he'd owed me. I could have accepted Crayak's offer all those months ago. I could have ended this war by killing the Ellimist's own champion; my cousin Jake. One death to save millions. No one would have condemned me for making that decision. But I'd refused Crayak; what he'd offered would have destroyed me and those I cared about.

Surely I deserved something for choosing as I did. But what did I get for being noble? Screwed. Sent to my death by the same cousin I'd refused to kill.

After awhile my anger burned itself out. From its ashes rose a crushing grief that would have choked the breath from me had I still had any. But I was dead. I couldn't breathe...didn't need to. I couldn't cry, couldn't give voice to the sob trapped within me. My friends, my family. I'd never see any of them again.

But most of all I missed him: neither friend nor family and yet both at the same time. Both and more. Always I came back to him. It had taken me a long time to realize my feelings for him and longer still to voice them. Through all the pain and grief of the war he was the one truly good thing that had happened to me.

He was there, always, even before I realized it myself. In my darkest moments, when I couldn't see where the monster inside me ended and I began he pulled me back, helped me see myself as he saw me: someone warm and kind and beautiful - someone worth saving.

I want to cry. Curse my inability to do so. I love him...never said it enough. Hadn't had enough time. No time. No time. Out of time.

I love him and my final act had been to hurt him. The tears in his human eyes looked so wrong, out of place. I hated seeing him cry, loved that he trusted me enough to let me see him do so, hated that I was reason for his pain. If I'd ever for even a moment doubted how he felt about me I knew for certain as I watched his heart break in the instant the morphed controller broke me.

So much I never got to say, to do. So much...

All at once weariness hits me. Never have I felt so tired before. Not even when I morphed back to back four or five times that time... My mind begins to get fuzzy and my memories start to look as if I'm watching them on a TV with very bad reception. They all look so strange, almost as if they belong to someone else...

No!

No! Those are my memories! Mine! My name is...my name is...?

Oh God! What is my name? no, no, no, no.

Ok forget my name, it doesn't matter so long as I can remember him. Without him there is no me and so long as there's him there will be me and I can be called anything at all. So long as there's him.

For a long time I struggle to hold his face, his name, within my mind. It's a losing battle, I already know...but I vaguely remember being used to those. But I have to win this one. No fight has ever been so important...I'm sure.

Over and over I repeat his name and focus on keeping his face firmly burned in my mind. But I'm slipping. His face is becoming blurrier and blurrier. More time passes between each repetition of his name.

Panic and fear sings through my mind.

No, no, no! No! Not like this! I can't go out like this.

"Please God!" I scream silently, "Anyone! Help me! Help me! Please I don't want to die, I don't want to die!"

I struggle on, repeating his name as often as I can remember it. I switch to his eyes rather than his whole face, forcing them into focus. Those eyes, if nothing else I have to hold onto them: those eyes that screamed his love for me as I died.

But they're fading too. This is to cruel. I must have done terrible things in my life - didn't everyone? - but certainly I wasn't such a horrible person to deserve this.

"Please," I beg again, "I'll go quietly, I promise. Just don't make me forget. I'll do anything. Just let me remember him!"

I can't stop it though and no one who can help cares enough to do so. Slowly his eyes fade, his name already gone and I weep silently for the person I can no longer remember.

His name...what is his name?...he's important I'm sure. If I could only remember.

If I could only...