Okay! This chapter I made especially for everyone who likes to read! It's nice and long for those of you!...And twisty, and mysterious, and romantic-y, and, well...you get the point. I have to say this and the next two chapters are going to be my favorites. You get to discover all the sides of Lee that have never been known...and/or revealed...whatever...

I'm rather tired right now so I'm going to let you read this AWESOMENESS chapter while I sleep...

Zzzzzzzzz...zzzzzzz...

Raye: That's just sad...

(AN: The characters/story line of Inuyasha are not mine! I only own Lee, Raye, and their story lines!)

-KB

Chapter 14-

"I have heard of something happening like this before, I believe." Kaede says, hurriedly, placing bowls and plates of different fluids onto the floor around Lee's body.

"Can you fix it?" Rin cries in Kagome's arms.

"I can only try, child. Everyone will have to wait outside, but one of ye must stay and help her back."

"Help her back? What do you mean?" Sango asks.

"Someone must go into this same, soulless like state, enter her body, and find her soul. Something like this only happens to those whose souls become disconnected from the body." Kaede explains, lighting incense to place around the body as well.

"You mean she's dead?" Shippo exclaims.

"Very near to it; she cannot remain this way or she will die for sure. Now, who will go? The person needs a soul strong enough to make the journey there and then make it back. It is not for the faint of heart to undergo."

"I guess-"

"What must be done?" Sesshomaru cuts Kagome off, coming into the door and approaching Lee's lifeless body.

"No way are you doing it, Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha snaps, jumping to his feet.

"Maybe it is best that he goes."

"Whose side are you on, Kaede?" Kagome gasps.

"I only speak the truth. He is a full demon and much stronger than any of us here. We need someone of a strong soul."

"Just talk me through whatever needs to be done, human." Sesshomaru says.

"Just lies here then." Kaede responds a little hard. Obviously, she's offended by the demon's lack of kindness. "The rest of you will have to wait outside. Miroku, I think I will need your help as well to create a spirit barrier. We don't want their souls flying off where they don't need to be going."

Miroku sits down on the other side of Lee's body as Sesshomaru goes to lie down on the other side in the exact position that Lee's form is positioned.

"Now, just close ye eyes and let all of ye thoughts disappear. Your mind needs to be blank in order for your soul to find its way to hers. Search for her with your own soul; your ears and eyes will not help ye much in the world ye will be going to." Kaede sits down, legs folded beneath her, on Sesshomaru's other side.

The incense and burning liquids fill his nose as he closes his eyes and clears his mind. Only one thought remains to go away: he's surrounded by humans-the lowest of creatures.

Shaking his mind clear of this last thought, he focuses on his breathing instead of everything else. That's when he hears the older woman and the young monk begin to hum under their breaths as they clasp their hands and begin to pray. Not wanting to think of them, Sesshomaru turns his hearing to Lee's body. It breathes slowly in and out as if not much air is left in its lungs. He knows she isn't here in her body anymore. Something's missing: her soul. She's no longer herself and he has to remember that.

That one conclusion suddenly has him falling! Everything inside him seems to melt away and he falls! The connection he feels to his body breaks and he free falls down into a darkness that stirs even his very soul. He, the dog-demon Sesshomaru, feels a shiver of fear ripple through his spirit.

He hears a voice then.

"So you've come then?" Her voice is the same one he heard right before Lee's soul disappeared.

His form turns right ways up and he hits a dark ground that he cannot see. Raising his eyes to look around, he spots her for the first time. A dark stone, polished like black marble, raises from the non-existent floor and she sits atop it casually, one knee higher than the other so that one arm can drape across it gracefully. Her fiery red-brown hair flows gracefully around her face and down her back in straight locks. Her bright green eyes blaze like individual fires. Her body glows as if someone has turned on a bright light inside of her; her own personal glow. Her eyes are a little troubled and sad, but a playfulness covers it up almost perfectly.

"And you are?" Sesshomaru calls.

"My name is Raye. I am the one inside your girl Lee." She smiles gently.

"The human isn't my girl."

"Of course she isn't, but because of the feelings I have felt from the child, she will always be 'your girl'." Raye smiles even wider as she chuckles and leaps elegantly from her perch. Her red and white kimono top barely covers over her shoulders and her long red kimono pants flare out around her bare ankles. The dress is so uncommon and daring it has Sesshomaru shaking his head.

"You know Lee then. If what you claim is true then you have talked to her." He pushes.

"Yes, I have talked to her. Sadly though, I have a feeling she and I will no longer be...here much longer. She's fading fast."

"That's why I am here. She needs her soul back inside her body. I have come to retrieve it."

"It's not that simple, dear."

"Explain."

The sadness that she has been trying to cover up reveals its presence in her eyes as she turns it all towards his gaze.

"Because there's nothing here to find. Her soul has shattered."

"You think she'll be okay?" Rin mutters again.

Jaken beats his chest again. "Do not fret, Rin! Lord Sesshomaru will bring her back!"

"If he can." Inuyasha cuts him off.

"Why you-!"

"No he's right Jaken. What if Lord Sesshomaru can't find her? What if he can't bring her back?" Rin's face falls into her hands and she starts to wail.

"No, Rin! That's not true! He'll find and bring her back! Lee's not that far away. Always remember that she's going to be with you forever now. She'll always be right here." Kagome points to the center of the small child's chest and smiles warmly.

"I wasn't kidding though." Inuyasha cuts in again. "I've heard stories of people who ended up like Lee. Very few of them made it back."

"How come?" Sango asks.

"Because all those who died, didn't just leave their bodies. They died because their souls shattered. If a soul shatters, there's not much anyone can do to put it back together. The shattered soul has to want to return; if not, then the body dies. At least that's what I heard from the stories my mother told me anyway." Inuyasha closes his eyes in defeat.

"But she'll want to come back! Lee loves us! She cares about us!" Rin cries.

"Of course she does." Sango reassures her.

Kagome and Inuyasha share the same look and thought: but does she care enough to come back and want to deal with the pain it causes her?

"What do you mean shattered?" He continues, trying to swallow the news silently.

"I can see you're really torn up about this." Raye places her hands on her hips, shifting her weight to her opposite leg. "I'm being serious about this. If she remains this way, she will die. On top of that, if she dies, so do I. Just for the record, I don't feel like dying yet if that's alright with you."

"Then help me find her." Sesshomaru turns back to her, trying not to notice that she looks a little like Lee herself in the hairstyle and the attitude and the figure. Memories about the night he had held Lee coming flooding back into his mind and he has to turn away again.

"There's no finding her. She's s-h-a-t-t-e-r-e-d!" Raye growls pronouncing each individual syllable of the word so that he gets it through his skull; secretly thinking that Lee had been wrong to place him so high in her thoughts.

"I can understand you just fine, demon, but that doesn't mean she's dead yet. She has to still be here, even if it means that she's in pieces." This time he turns on her completely, hovering over her with a dark look in his eyes. This demon is just as annoying as Lee is.

"Okay, first off, it's Raye. If you can't say my name then at least have the courtesy to acknowledge that I'm a fox-demon. I will never be one of your regular lower-class demons. Got it?" Raye passes by him, not at all affected by his death glare, and stares out into the darkness around them. "Okay, getting down to business now…"

Placing her hands together, she focuses her energy and lets it reach out towards Lee's remaining presence. There's not much left of it, but it still draws the energy out of her and trailing off into the darkness in six different directions. Each trail is a different color: yellow, blue, orange, black, purple, and red.

"These trails are pointing to each piece of her soul. It's up to you to choose which one you wish to go after first. Don't take your time; we're on a tight schedule here." Raye turns to him and motions for him to choose a path.

Sesshomaru looks down at the paths connected to Raye and disappearing into the darkness around them. Each one looks lighter than the next. The lightest one is the yellow path. It looks like the sunlight on a bright and happy day.

"We take this one." He points to the yellow path.

Raye nods and smiles at him proudly.

Together they walk off into the darkness. They don't speak to each other except for the occasional question from Raye every once in a while. Sesshomaru tries to ignore how much the two are alike, but the thought sneaks into his thoughts every time the woman speaks. Raye tries to ignore the fact that every time he answers one of her questions half-heartedly, she remembers how those simple answers had made Lee feel back then.

They travel over many weird terrains in the world of souls, watching the other lost souls float around pointlessly through the air. They approach a giant doorway and pass through it to the other side, the world around them changing instantly as if it was melting away to reveal the real world it was hiding. The sun shines brightly here, warm and beautiful like a spring day. The yellow trail abruptly ends at their feet.

"Well, that's not good." Raye says, glancing nervously down at the place where the trail hangs in the air with nowhere to go.

Sesshomaru ignores the trail and walks to the edge of the ledge to look over the side. The world ends! It doesn't go any further! It looks like they stand on a floating piece of rock.

"Now what?"

Sesshomaru glances over at her with an annoyed expression. Raye shrugs. "You are not much help."

"That's why I asked you, I don't have much help to give."

"Just jump!" Comes a small voice. Out of nowhere, a small child in a bright yellow kimono rushes past them and leaps into the air! Her voice is high and childlike, full of the happiness of youth. The small girl lands on another floating rock nearby and then jumps again and again farther and farther out into the floating rock field.

"Please tell me you see that too…" Raye points dumbfounded at the laughing child.

"Lee." Is all Sesshomaru says before leaping in a flash after the child. Raye rushes after him.

"Hey, Lee!" She calls out.

"Yes?" The small child version of Lee stops on a floating rock not far ahead, but continues to pace in her spot.

Sesshomaru lands beside her.

"Hold up a second, will ya?" Raye finally lands too.

"I can't, I have to keep moving." She smiles.

"Why?"

"I don't want to disappear. I can feel myself disappearing slowly every time I stop. If you want to play with me then keep jumping." Smaller Lee is about to take off again, but Sesshomaru reaches out and tugs her into the air and into his arms, wrapping his grip around her knees so that she has to look down into his eyes. "Stop! I have to keep moving!"

"Don't you want to go back to Lee?" He asks her.

The small child stops struggling and her form flickers as if she's not really there. "Lee…She used to never be that close to me, but for the last couple of weeks she has been. She always used to think about you and she'd be happy even though she didn't know it. It's because of you. You make her happy."

"You're her Happiness." Raye states in matter-of-fact tone.

"Yeah, but not anymore; she's disappearing and she won't listen to my voice anymore. I can't be a part of her anymore." Small Lee smiles through her sadness and continues to speak. "She has chosen to remain sad and she'll fade sad too."

"You are part of her soul, so part of the decision is still yours." Sesshomaru tells her.

"It is?" She asks, a bit of hope returning to her eyes.

"Yeah, it does. You are her, whether she wants it or not. You make up a vital part of her, so you can return to her." Raye places a hand on his arm and smiles up at her.

Child Lee glances at Raye for a long moment and then a bright as sunshine smile lights up her face and suddenly she doesn't look so transparent. "You know, you two also make up a vital part of her happiness too."

Leaning down, she kisses Sesshomaru directly on his moon tattoo on his forehead and then disappears in a flurry of sparkling lights into the sky.

"Aww, that's so cute!" Raye nudges him with a teasing smile. Sesshomaru sends another glare at her and she coughs. "Anyway…shall we move on?"

As they turn around, the floating rocks around them shift and bump into each other as they move to form a bridge back to the doorway they had come through.

"Okay, this place is weird."

They stop after a long walk through a desert like place when they approach a giant crater in the earth. Staring down into the crater, they spot a form sitting in the darkness, curled up in a ball. The form doesn't move a muscle even when Raye calls out to it.

"Hey, you? Are you another part of Lee's soul?"

The form in the bottom, at the end of the glowing orange trail, calls back without much heart. "Yeah, I guess."

Raye glances at Sesshomaru who doesn't move before sliding down into the hole. He follows after her a moment later. "Good, well we need you to return to her, so she'll be herself again and not die."

"She doesn't want me back. She won't listen to me anymore. Who would want to listen to me?" The form answers.

"Which one are you?" Sesshomaru asks.

"I'm her Confidence."

"That explains a lot. I was wondering why you sounded so uncaring. So what's your problem? Is Lee feeling unconfident?" Raye rolls her eyes.

"Pretty much. She's never had much confidence." The form moves then, standing up. This Lee is a few years younger than Lee really is and her eyes are down cast and uncomfortable making her seem smaller than she really is. She wears an orange kimono much like the one Lee and her child form had worn. "All her life she's been unconfident, but lately I could feel her confidence grow. The last thing I remember before all this happened was her confidence suddenly fall again and then being broken apart. Her confidence fell right after she saw you." She points an accusing finger at Sesshomaru.

"What else are you gonna cause?" Raye glares at him.

"You need to return to her. She can't die here." He ignores Raye's comment.

"I just said she won't listen to me. I give up. I can't reach her anymore."

"Well, you could use a confidence boost."

"Funny." The younger Lee answers Raye sarcastically. "I'm sorry that I'm not as strong as you."

"You can be if you had more confidence in yourself. Come on!" Raye loses her patience and stomps off.

Sesshomaru takes a step forward. "If you don't return, you will die here too. Do you want that?"

"No, but what can I do? I can't even speak up for myself, or speak my mind, or tell anyone how I feel. The world makes me feel so small. I couldn't survive out there anyway. You saw that better than anyone, remember?" Sadness touches her eyes through her down cast stare and her voice starts to cry.

"Stop crying. It gets you nowhere." Sesshomaru snaps.

The other Lee glances up in surprise.

"If you keep saying that to yourself then you really will get nowhere in your life; you have to keep moving and have confidence that you will get stronger."

The other Lee turns her eyes down and goes silent.

"You know, I thought Lee would let her sadness swallow her," She turns her eyes back up, "but I won't let her choose that path anymore. I'm going to keep trying until she listens to my voice again!"

"That's my girl!" Raye smiles proudly from her place above them at the edge of the crater.

Sesshomaru nods.

The younger Lee starts to climb out of the hole, but then stops and turns back around to face him, the confidence returning to her face and the sadness washing away. "You know I'm not confident enough to say how I feel right now, but one day I will be!" Quickly, she leaps up and kisses Sesshomaru on the mouth and then vanishes in an explosion of sparkling lights.

Sesshomaru stares up into the sparkles as they disappear; lost in his thoughts.

"Dang, you just Mr. Popular with the ladies, aren't ya." Raye growls when he finally joins her at her side.

"Jealousy isn't a positive thing." He responds.

"Well, gloating isn't all that good either!" She snaps. "Just pick your stupid path already! I'm getting tired of standing still."

He looks down at the remaining paths: blue, purple, black, and red. Red is fading now, so he points to that one.

Raye doesn't respond as she starts walking, following the red path to their next piece of Lee's soul. The crater fills in as they walk across it, becoming even ground again. Even though they got the other pieces to go back to her, it doesn't mean Lee will take them back. It's up to her to make that decision.

"Why?"

"I already told you why! I'm tired of walking and I don't think I can make it around those mazes, so you're going to have to find the next one alone. We're running out of time, so hurry up. All you need to do is follow the red trail; it should lead you straight to her." Raye had said.

Sesshomaru had accepted her decision to stay behind and he had continued on, following the trail of red light twisting its way through the maze he now travels. With each turn the trail becomes lighter and lighter and he wonders if it'll vanish before he finds the piece of Lee's soul that's hiding here, but the trail suddenly comes to an end and a woman's voice floats over to his ears. It's soft and beautiful, but so familiar. He finds his body moving towards her against his will. Turning a corner again, he spots a woman lying out across a stone bench, staring out dreamily towards the light blue sky. Her legs are crossed and hang off the end of the bench, brushing the soft grass below her. Her deep pink kimono is longer like a flowing dress around her ankles. Her brown hair, longer than Lee's, lies in soft curls around her head and pool over onto the ground, threading into the flowers. A few butterflies flutter around her happily as she softly sings her poem out loud without a care.

She looks a few years older than Lee, but the same features still reside in that face.

"You made it through the maze I see."

"Yes." He answers, resisting the urge to go to her voice. "You are?"

"You don't know? You brought me alive the first time you touched her. She never felt love before you, not this love anyway. She loves her mother and brother dearly, but that love never changed until you came along." The older, beautiful woman sits up, dropping her small hands into her lap, her fingers wrap gently around a very familiar blue flower. "I am her Love."

Zzzzzz...zzzzzz...

Raye: ...Let's just let her sleep for now shall we? Anyway, yes Lee is dying, yes her soul is shattered and in pieces, and yes if we don't hurry she'll die. Right now though I just don't feel well enough to go into details so you'll just have to wait 'til she wakes up for the next chapter.

Raye: Please read and review! (But please don't be hateful :D )