Carly-chan: Well guys…. I must make my apologies to anyone who is reading this…I am sorry for my complete lack of updating…but it was deadline week. (which I will try to explain the best I can in a moment) I was trying to get this out to all of you before deadline week hit but then I suppose I'm just too lazy to write a chapter in…I thinks it was 4 days… I am sorry. Ok deadline week is…to be put simply the week where I am cramming before a deadline and I will barely talk to anyone for anything. Of course to really understand deadline week you would have to understand why it is there and where it came from… Ok so my deadlines are for my main story that I write…it's a vampire story and one of my best friends (who is a loyal reader of the story) proclaimed herself my manager and now gives me monthly deadlines and makes sure I get them done…she threatens me and punished me the one time I didn't get it done (believe me her threats are good and her punishments painful… that time…she beat me with whatever was in the radius of her reach…including my hairbrush and my own wooden sword . )…really though I'm glad that she does it cause she really helps me to get it done. smiles uh…well anyway..

Uh so yeah…. This chapter is completely dedicated to SGCred who was totally my inspiration for actually finishing this chapter…and without her writing her fan fiction and totally inspiring me I probably would never have finished this…so SGCred I thank you greatly smiles …uh today I have a not at the bottom too smiles

Also… Kitsune ….thank you for saying that my character thoughts are good and that my character seems real. Um…I really try to make them real… I try to make them like they are a part of me.

Disclaimer: Um…I'm tired today… so disclaimer is like usual …. Yeah you guys know the drill

I arrived at my apartment door sooner than I thought, yet again. I seemed to be doing this a lot lately; I would get lost in thought and just go to the place I wanted to be quickly and without even realizing what I was doing. Come to think of it, this seemed to have started when Ren entered my life; he really was special although I think the better word to describe him is something along the lines of wonderful. These kind thoughts were starting to scare me a bit, if not scaring me they were saddening me. I had finally realized this sort of happiness that I seemed to have been searching for subconsciously. However, now on the day of my death it is too late.

I reached out my hand and opened the door, Heala was waiting for me inside and when I opened the door she looked up and seemed to stare at me for a moment before she decided to speak. "Hello Mei. Did you have a nice time out?"

I smiled at that; sure it was nice in a sense. "Well… I suppose it was nice except for the haunting thoughts of how I am to die tonight and I'm beginning to find happiness but it's to late for me now since today is the day that I die."

"Your death… the day you die? What in the world are you talking about Mei?" Heala said, she was clearly confused and shocked.

"I interpreted my premonition Heala… I'm going to die tonight at my shaman fight… sometime after 6:30 I'll no longer be a part of this living world, I'll live in your world…" I trailed off but when I came to my senses of what I was saying again I continued. "Well… at least the last things I will see are you and Ren… the only people who cared about me really for these last few years."

"But… what about your family? Your mother and father and your baby sister?" Heala questioned. My family? I had nearly forgotten them; it had been so long since I saw them last. It must seem so horrible to have forgotten family but really they were the ones who wanted me to come here, they were the ones who made me come out here for this tournament. I wonder if they had known I would die during this tournament would they still have sent me? Perhaps they would… did they really care that much about me being a wonderful shaman?

"Heala…" I spoke, my tone was soft and perhaps a tad bit sad. "My mother and father were the ones who sent me to this tournament where I'm going to die and my 'baby sister' wasn't a baby when I left her and she certainly isn't now. She was five years old when I left her, just starting school. She was young but very smart. Did you hear the words she murmured to me as I left Heala?"

Heala shook her head, that day she wasn't really paying attention to my baby sister Rina she was trying to get me to not hate my parents for making me leave our nice home in the country which I loved so much to come to this city and fight in a tournament. I hated those two things; fighting in tournaments and the city and I was sure that they knew it. Well I'm getting lost in my thoughts again so I'll get back to what really counts now, what little Rina said. "She told me in her soft and nearly inaudible voice 'You should try to be happy out there, you never know when it will be too late, I wish that you'll come back to us.' Then she trailed off, foolishly not realizing what her words really meant I smiled at her and mouthed the words 'I will.' to her so that nobody else would know of our conversation. She had great potential in seeing the future and her premonitions were already sometimes more precise than mine." I paused and looked at Heala who nodded and then began to speak:

"Yes I remember how you would sometimes get mad at her because you had studied for years and still she was better than you without trying, then a few hours later you would realize that it wasn't her fault and you would go and apologize to her."

"Yeah… she was pretty great… I wish I could tell her goodbye." I pause trying to come up with some way I could tell her that I cared about her before I died. "Heala do you have any suggestions?"

"Well… I have heard of cases where letters are written before death perhaps you could write and mail a letter to them." She suggested.

"Oh…alright then I suppose I will go do that now then." I said a bit distantly as I shuffled off towards my room. I hadn't spoken to my family in quite a time and now what should I tell them in this letter; 'Hi…this is May…we haven't spoken in awhile… well I would just like to say goodbye to you guys before I head off to my latest shaman fight… oh did I tell you that I will die in that fight?'. Ok maybe that was a little too harsh… but really how does someone tell their family that they are about to die and that now they are saying their goodbyes… especially to do this in a letter will be tough.

I sat in my room for maybe 3 hours before I came out with a sealed envelope already stamped and addressed with my letter inside. The letter said this;

Dear Mom, Dad and my dearest little sister Rina,

I just wanted to say that I was sorry for never writing before now.. now when it is too late. I am also sorry about my crude outlook on the world and for all of the mean things that I have done in the past. I truly am sorry but all of that won't matter soon enough…all of the bad things that I do will melt away and I shall be forgiven… I hope so at least.

Mom… I am sorry for all of the times we fought over stupid things because I lashed out at you for things that weren't your fault. I hope that you can forgive me… never forget me but don't dwell on me…I will need you to move on with your lives… Rina will need you a lot after I'm gone and I will try to watch over you guys if I can.

Dad… Dad you were always good to me… well aside from sending me into this shaman tournament. But maybe I should be happy you sent me here, if you hadn't have sent me into the tournament I never would have met Ren. If the circumstances were different maybe in this letter I would be telling you guys all about Ren and how I finally got over my hatred for guys and fell in love with Ren. I would have told you about how I wished to spend the rest of my life with Ren and get married when we were older. Well I suppose that my wish will come true after all, well at least part of it, I will get to spend the rest of my life with Ren…he will, after all, be there with me during the fight. I wish the circumstances were like that but I shall miss you …goodbye.

Rina… Oh my dearest little sister Rina…I wish I could have been there for you while you were growing up. There wouldn't have been much I could have taught you though Rina, not about boys or about premonitions… you were always good at them anyway. You probably know what this letter is about then don't you…you saw it in a vision but didn't tell mom or dad… you wouldn't have, it might have upset them or they might not have believed it but it's true. So now I say goodbye and that I shall miss you little sis…after I die in this shaman fight whatever of mine you want is yours. Please hold strong though once I'm gone little sister, you have to hang in there. Mom and dad will need you once I am gone and I will need you to carry on in my place in the world.

And so by the time you read this my dear family I shall be gone from this world and into the world in which my ghostly friends live. Goodbye my family I shall miss you.

With love, your eldest daughter

Mei

By the time I had my letter mailed it was 2:00. Since I had let go of my hatred earlier I decided that I should go do some good things. I went downtown, truthfully I always hated downtown even before I started to hate humanity and human made things. Downtown was always to crazy and loud for my liking but now I found myself wandering from my home just outside of the city into that place that I would have cursed the sight of if it had been just a day before. I wandered around the big city, I had never before bothered to come down here and see what it was really like, I must admit that it was much like I thought, crazy and noisy, but there were still places where I found that were actually very nice.

Those nice places among what seemed to be a wasteland gave me an idea, a wonderful idea. I had once heard of a paradise that could only be found by the certain group of people struggling through the worst of times. I remembered a time in my life where I had met a very powerful sorceress who taught me quite a bit of magic, Soul Magic, is what she called it. It was a type of magic where acts of magic were performed by offering up a portion of the sorceress's soul. Of course with losing a portion of a soul life is shortened. I was to die anyway so why should I not offer up a small portion of my soul to make this shamanic paradise I dreamed of?

I didn't want to give up too much of my soul because I wanted to still have something left to cross over to the other world with so I made my paradise small, when the other shamans got there they could build on it if they wished. I started to run… I just ran for what seemed to be forever, I didn't know where I was going but I stopped suddenly when I got to what seemed to be the middle of a nearby forest. I looked around to make sure that no one was here watching me as I performed my magic.

I saw no one so I entwined my fingers as I remembered the sorceress doing and I started to chant. 'I offer up 10 of my soul to create this paradise for only shamans. Let this paradise be a beautiful place without putrid things of the new generations where the shamans can live forever in peace and happiness without being shunned my the world and machines" I spread out my arms and before me I saw a circle floating in the air with a white aura around it. Inside of this circle I saw a large field of flowers and then beyond that was a few huts to form a small village, just beyond the huts was a patch of land for growing food and beyond that was a forest that went on for as long as I could see. I sealed it and formed 5 mystical keys. I sent 4 of them off to be hidden in separate places across the world so that shamans from all over could find them no matter where they were… they would just have to make it here I watched as they zoomed off in a golden ray of light. I kept one of the keys, I planned to give it to Ren and then tell him the directions to this place so that he could live in happiness in this paradise I had created. Where was this place anyway?

Carly-chan: (…again)Um…. So I made this chapter quite weird… I added quite a bit of magic into this chapter (sorry I couldn't help myself…. I love magic) and um… the whole part about a paradise just for shamans was inspired by the anime Wolfs Rain (I really like that anime although it is quite depressing at times) where the wolves are trying to find a paradise that only the wolves can find…. Um so yeah…and at the end of the story I will talk about where I got the inspiration for this fan fiction not just the individual chapters…cause… I like to tell about where I got my inspiration.. smiles Um…… also the whole 'Soul Magic' thing …it came from a story that I once wrote about how the main character was a writer and she would offer up a portion of her soul to make her characters real but the only problem was that they weren't real in the 'real world' only in the world of her mind and about how these people had to come and exorcize the other characters who had created their own souls out of her body because if they remained they would drive her to insanity and she would die. Uh…yeah so… that's it.