A/N: It's been a long, long time yet again. Ever since my grandma took away my video games, my writing creativity has just died. You know who I'll blame when I get a bad grade on those English essays. shudder, English class.

Chapter 9

The silver-white she-cat nodded. I must be going mad, Spiritstorm thought grimly. The deaths of Shadowstripe, of the wolves, and Jaggedstar had dulled her into stupefaction. Before she could sort out the things running rampant in her mind, the she-cat in front of her spoke with her blue eyes twinkling.

"Spiritstorm, you've finally made it," Stormspirit whispered. "Don't you have any questions?"

"Y-yes. Shadowstripe's convinced that I'm… you. But how can that be? We look so alike—but who's the real one? There can't be two of us, can there?"

Stormspirit replied, "We two are one. Which of us is the "true" Stormspirit or Spiritstorm… there really is no answer."

"Then how can I be speaking to you? I must be—"

"Going mad?" mewed Stormspirit sadly. "No, we—no, I—cannot afford to go mad, at least not yet. You and I, we both have something to accomplish before the pact is finally realized."

"Pact?"

"For although cats may break and fall and die as warriors, as aged elders, or perhaps even as cowards, promises can go on for eternity, so long as their makers remember to honor their pacts."

Spiritstorm's eyes flickered sadly as she silently questioned the truth in Stormspirit's words. Jaggedstar and every other leader in the past has sworn to defend his or her Clan with their lives. But in the end, he didn't…

As if Stormspirit could read her mind, she answered, "No, Spiritstorm. You forget, I told you that promises can go on for eternity if the cat remembers. Jaggedstar has lost the meaning of what a true leader should do, and he lost his life, in the end for it."

"Then tell me what I should do! You're me, right? But if I think of us as two parts of a whole, how come you can know all this and I have been left in the darkness all this time?! Tell me what I should do! You told me I have something to do before…" She couldn't bring herself to say it. Shadowstripe…

"Your goal." Stormspirit blinked kindly. "You have another promise to keep. You vowed to bring ForestClan back out of its current dilapidated state, caused by neglect by our late Jaggedstar. Before you go, I have to tell you something. What should you do? Remember, Spiritstorm, Stormspirit, whichever name you choose to go by. In the end you are the same and yet different as day and night, but you have been showed what happened in your past life, in mine. It's your choice to whether to accept these truths."

Her words were strange and Spiritstorm wasn't sure if she understood them, but before she returned to the world of chaos caused by the wolves and the deaths of Shadowstripe and Jaggedstar, she whispered quickly, "Stormspirit, tell me. Jaggedstar, what he tried to do to me back in his den… Did he do that do you as well?" It wasn't important to her goal of restoring ForestClan, but there was a terrible curiosity that drove her to try and understand this new part of herself that had just been revealed.

Her only answer was another sad blink from the silver she-cat, and there was another flash. Spiritstorm was staring at Pantherheart, the black medicine cat of ForestClan. She remembered what Stormspirit had said, and in turn remembered that Pantherheart was the brother of the strange and at the same time familiar she-cat, whose name had been banned from the lips of any cat. My brother, she thought, feeling how strange it felt to name the medicine cat as a sibling.

"Spiritstorm, you all right?" He looked at Jaggedstar's bleeding body, and the look in his eyes was anything but sympathy. "Now that he's gone, you'll be our leader," he mewed softly. "Are you sure you're okay? We should return to our camp."

Spiritstorm swayed, aware of the exhaustion in her legs. "Don't worry. I'm fine enough, to clean up what Jaggedstar has done to all of us." And I'll clean it up as soon as I can, she vowed. You won't have to wait long, Shadowstripe. For the greatest goal she had in mind now, with her newfound consciousness, was to fulfill their promise. To the ends of StarClan, then.