I watched in terror as the most horrific scene of my life unfolded before my wide eyes. I watched in horror as someone that I cared about from the start of her time in the Sohma household, was hurt so badly. And then, I had to close my eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Five- Momiji's Pov

When I opened my eyes once again, I expected to see anything but the blackness that engulfed me in its strangely comforting embrace. Perhaps this was because when I had finally mustered enough courage to finally lift my suddenly weighty eyelids, I had expected to return to the horrific scene that I had been subjected to, the memory imprinted into my mind forever now.

But instead, I was greeted simply by the neutral waves of the darkest midnight, the deepest and most secretive of shadows, the thickest layers of night that falls in a blanket like manner over a sleeping city.

And I could never be more relieved. I began to think, what if it had simply been a twisted, warped figment of the darkest part of my mind.

Or at least, that was what I was trying to cling onto, to keep me from falling into a pit of cruel insanity, until I heard a voice snake through the compact murky fog.

"Momiji, what are you doing here?" The voice whispered, recognition adding to the soothing caress of the dark.

I squinted into the ripples of dark, searching for something, anything that pointed to the origin of the lovely voice.

Suddenly, a glow appeared, a dot of light that spread, and spread, until it opened to its full potential of a golden pit of glowing rays of light, that pierced through the shadows, revealing a beautiful scene of a green meadow, beautiful trees bordering the flowery clearing, the vegetation soaking in the filtering sunlight.

And in the middle of that meadow, radiating just as much light as the sun itself; was Ichi.

She stood there, a frown on her pale face, her white hair slightly longer and less tamed than usual, and a long flowing white dress slowly flowing in the wind laced with the sweet smell of unseen fruit, growing from somewhere in the thicket.

"What, what's going on?" I managed to stutter out.

With a sigh, she rolled her eyes. "As if I would know, well, actually, I do. But still, I've been stuck here for who knows how long, watching what you just watched, having to relive my memories again and again, and yet you still just automatically ask me? You really are an idiot."

"But, you're in your bedroom, passed out on the ground. You've been having these nightmares," She sighed again, irritation showing.

"Okay, we'll start from the beginning. So, I fell, and my physical body lost all memories. I am a manifestation of myself before the accident, in other words, a manifestation of the actual memories. Because of this, I am forced to see the memories basically 24/7, and as I am still loosely linked to the body that you have been seeing down on earth, some memories slip through when she is most venerable, sleep. That's why she's been getting nightmares." Ichi stopped speaking with a glare thrown towards me. "I refer to my physical body as 'she' and not as 'I', for the simple reason that she is not me. Without my memories, I become simply a prototype of the human species, nothing making me individual, not even a personality. Memories make the person, Momiji, never forget that."

With that, Ichi sat down the soft grass, and closed her eyes, as if meditating. It was strange; to see someone that I knew was at war so often inside appear so calm on the outside, her white dress making everything even more serene.

Someone who didn't know Ichi Sohma as well as I did would have most certainly been fooled into the illusion of peacefulness that falsely resonated from her. However I could still feel the unrest, the unstable energy, that always has and still did seep from Ichi's skin, the storm that seemed to gather around her, ready to release all of its powerful thunderous roars and its dangerous flashes of lightning at any moment.

I watched her, for what seemed like hours, just trying to understand what she had said, trying to understand Ichi herself, even though he knew that the attempt was futile. "Ichi." I whispered.

She opened her eye.

"Why is it that you always wear your hair that way?" I asked.

As soon as the words slipped through, her face hardened to stone. "I don't think that's really any of your business, is it?"

But she wasn't going to win that easily. "No, I think it is. I think that I deserve to know just a little more about you, from your mouth, instead of having to see it through the past."

After a moment, her eyes widened, as she realized what I was implying.

"You saw, didn't you?" She questioned in a low voice.

I nodded.

Her tongue flicked between her lips nervously. "How did, only I can, that's not possible!" She ended angrily.

I shrugged. "Well, it happened, and now, I want to know."

Ichi looked away, and I almost felt guilty. I had just seen some of her past, her worst memories presumably, the things that caused her, to be what she is now as she had put it. That made sense, why wouldn't it? Something so horrible, so painful, was bound to leave both metal and physical scars. In this case, it took the form of coldness, of bitter words, of a seemingly unfeeling mask that Ichi wears so often. Too often in fact. This explained why, when her memories were lost, she transformed into a different person, a happier person, a person who didn't even have a mask to wear. Ichi was right about everything, except for one thing. She believed that without the memories, and the mask they create, she becomes nothing. But in fact, she becomes more than nothing, she becomes herself.

"Fine." Ichi looked back to me, a glower plastered across her fair face. "If you want so badly to pry into my past, my secrets, my memories, fine. Just remember, it's your fault, not mine, that you will see what you don't want to."

And with that, she lifted her hair out of her face. And I saw the secret she had been hiding for so long.

Important Author's Note: Hello all of my loyal readers,

I am sooooooo sorry that I haven't been giving regular updates. Not only did I just start a new school, but I was stuck in the hospital for two weeks recently. So I apologize again, and since I'm better now, I shall be giving more regular updates (not quite once a day yet, but close).