Authors Note: Well, here's the chapter I promised I'd have quickly, and I think this was relatively fast. My pardons to animeluvr8 for the dreams, I'm considering scraping the last chapter, it wasn't necessary, and didn't really add to the plot. Well give me your opinion. I just liked the fluff, and besides, you should have been able to tell it was a dream… I mean I put "Inuyasha awoke to find Kagome curled around him and the full Shikon no tama mysteriously beside him." I'm not going to ruin my fic by having the Shikon no tama just… show up.

I'm kinda hesitant to scrap the chapter though. I like what happened, and I love dreams. You may hate them by now, but I can never remember my dreams, only that they were good. I guess dreams are a way to escape. So I write dreams the same way, that last dream especially. It was just Kagome seeking an escape. Searching for what she didn't have in her subconscious.

Anywho, I promise this chapter will make all the dreams make sense! (I hope.)

Thanx to Dana for her input/revisions and to gatogirl1 for her great help/encouragement. Haha, and yeah, I was wondering when people would realize I'm a guy. Haha, you seriously crack me up gatogirl1… "HOLD THE PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!! You're a guy???? I didn't know any guys wrote fanfiction!!?!!"

That just about made my week. Well that's all for now.

Read and review!!! PWEASE!!!!

Chapter Seven

A Miko with a Message

Kouga walked up to the stone door that had long been sealed shut, and began to study it.

Hmm, this door doesn't seem to have been opened my entire life. I wonder how I will manage to get it open.

After studying the door for a little while, Kouga found a small crack on the right side. The crack was just the right size for one of his claws to fit in, so, Kouga inserted his claw and pulled.

To his great surprise the door slid open easily.

Kouga took this as a good sign and cautiously entered.

He stepped into the room and looked around while the stone door quietly swung closed behind him, emanating only a soft "clink" when it was shut.

"Shit!" Kouga exclaimed, leaping back to the door, trying, and failing, to keep it from shutting.

"Well great, now I'm stuck in here," said Kouga as he continued to try and force the door back open.

Giving up, Kouga now took notice of his surroundings.

In the center of the floor there was a large stone coffin, with the picture of a wolf carved into a stone at the head of the coffin.

Oh great… not only am I stuck, but I'm stuck in a tomb.

As Kouga walked around the room, he got an eerie feeling that made all the fur stand up on his tail.

This… is my father's tomb. Kouga was knocked to his knees by the realization of where he was.

Tears started to come into the eyes of the wolf prince, but he held them back, and suddenly he spoke to the air around him, "Father, why have you brought me here?" as if he expected the stone room to answer him.

When nothing replied, Kouga just continued to kneel there, until he eventually drifted off into a confused sleep.

***

"Father? Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me Kouga, the father you've never met."

"That's fine dad, you're here now right? Oh, I'm so glad to see you! There's so much I want to tell you, about the tribe, and our den, and… everything!"

Kouga ran over and hugged his father, barely able to hold back the tears welling up in his eyes.

"But how are you here?" asked Kouga, suddenly realizing the impossibility of the current events, "Oh…" Kouga's expression turned downcast. "This is another dream isn't it? You're not really here."

"Yes, it's a dream. I knew you'd be the first to figure things out Kouga, you're smart, just like me."

"Why!" yelled Kouga, suddenly pushing away from his father, "Why have you been plaguing me with dreams? And what do you mean the first? There are others? Who else have you been tormenting? Explain yourself!"

"Ah Kouga… I was afraid you'd take it like this. You may be smart, but you're also obstinate," Kouga's father continued with a chuckle, "again like me."

"…"

"But you are right of course, I will tell you everything. Or at least, everything I can," Kouga's father replaced his expression with a serious, almost saddened one, and began. "Before you were born, there was a prophecy made about you. The prophecy was made by a powerful Miko, named Kikyo."

Kouga let out a strange noise at the utterance of her name, the miko he had learned of from Kagome, but did not say anything.

"Ah, so you have heard of her? Well I'm not surprised, since she has a way of being found. Anyway, the prophecy was, this, 'Your son will replace you before he can even remember you, but the next time you see me, he will have to make a choice, either to end your tribe, or destroy the world.' And then she gave me a sword, saying 'he will use this when the time comes.'

Kouga seemed shocked by all of what he was hearing, and then suddenly he remembered his only inheritance from his father: a single sword, with a message that read "Don't use it until the time comes."

"You don't mean to say that this sword," gesturing the sword at his side, "is…"

"Yes, the very same."

"But it's just a sword… I've never even bothered to use it. I just keep it with me, because… It makes me think you are with me."

"Well… I didn't know what it was for, or what her prophecy meant, but I believed her, because Mikos don't lie. And so, I passed the sword on to you." Pausing, his father pondered what he was going to say. "However, I always felt that there must have been a mistake in her prophecies, because how could you replace me unless I was dead, and how could I see her again once dead?"

Kouga thought about it for a few moments and determined, "It's impossible."

"Exactly what I thought… however, her first prophecy came true. I did die, and you replaced me before you knew me. I was almost expecting her to show up right before I died, but she never did, so I died thinking everything was fine."

"I don't get it. What does any of this have to do with my— no, you said there were others— our dreams?"

"I'm getting there. Well as you must have figured out, dying is not the end. Far from it, in fact. There are whole other worlds after death, and that is where I am, and… where I met her again."

"What?!?" At this Kouga looked completely confused, and he wondered for a minute if this was in fact not simply a dream.

"This is not just a dream, Kouga!" shouted Kouga's father. "I'm here to warn you. The time is coming. You will have to decide. You will have to choose… I can't tell you much more, but I know one thing. Kikyo is dead— Naraku killed her, and he will force you to choose. She told me this, and this is why I have been sending you dreams."

Kouga sat down, trying to understand what he was being told. It seemed too much to comprehend.

Can my father really be here, talking to me in my dream, about something a dead miko told him would happen in my future?

"If this is all true, why didn't you just tell me before? It seems you have no problem communicating with the living."

"Well, I tried, but it didn't work. You were too far away; I couldn't reach your mind. All I could get across were images. As for the other, well I tried sending a message to Inuyasha as well, whom I learned of from Kikyo."

"So crap breath is involved in this too? Well, I guess he would be, it involves Kikyo."

"Yes, Inuyasha is involved, but he was even harder to reach than you. So I gave up with him. But it wasn't until you actually came to my grave that I was able to finally meet with you, not just convey thoughts to you. I needed to warn you, to warn you both, of what is coming. She has shown me two futures, though which one will happen depends upon you. But be ready to make the choice."

With that Kouga's father's face fell, replacing his old look with a completely sorrowful one.

"Goodbye, Kouga, I know you will make the right choice."

"Wait! You never told me what choice I have to make!" Kouga shouted out as his father slowly disappeared into a void of darkness. "There's still so much I want to tell you… Don't go!"

"You will know what it is… when it is time. I can't make the choice for you."

With one last goodbye, Kouga's father disappeared completely, leaving Kouga alone.

Suddenly Kouga heard another voice calling his name.

***

"Kouga! Wake up!"



Hakkaku and Ginta were both yelling at Kouga, trying to get him to awaken, when suddenly, to their great surprise, he did.

"…Didn't I tell you to leave me alone?"

Ginta looked down guiltily at his paws, and said, "Yes, but you were gone for two days, and the pack was getting worried."

"Two days! I've been gone for about 20 minutes!" Kouga exclaimed in shock.

"No, it's been two days; we haven't heard anything from you since I left you in that room yesterday morning."

"Yes, eventually some of us went to look to see what had happened, and we found the door sealed shut, we had to break it down." Here Hakkaku whimpered, holding a damaged paw up for Kouga to see.

"When we finally got through, we found you unconscious, lying on the floor, by a grave."

"So it's been two days…"

Kouga looked around to see that he was actually lying in his own room now, not in his father's grave, and he realized how much he must have scared his tribe.

"Well, it's all ok now," Kouga said with a smile, "and thank you for breaking down the door; you saved me a lot of digging." He laughed to prove he was all right.

"So what happened in there?" asked Ginta, unable to suppress his curiosity any longer.

"Well, it's a long story… but… well, that was my father's grave and… lets say he came to visit me."