A/N: This is actually the final chapter before the epilogue…yay…
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Yesterday's Feelings
Chapter 2: Move To the Back of My Mind
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Kaede held the basket of herbs at her side, waiting for Kikyou's job for her. She watched the man wrapped in bandages out of the corner of her eye carefully. She didn't trust him, she had seen eight summers and she knew that men like these were not trustable.
"Kaede, hand me your basket," Kikyou finally voiced quietly, somehow her silence making her hard to know whether she had come or gone.
Kaede nodded, handing Kikyou the basket and walking away from the bandaged man a little, thankful for her sister's presence.
Suddenly there was a scream from outside the cave, coming from the village. Kikyou looked up, jerking a little in shock.
"Come Kaede, we need to find out what's happening," she said quickly, quietly as they rushed from the cave, leaving the man alone.
The village was in chaos, demons attacking it ruthlessly. Kaede tried to run to their hut to hide, but in her frenzy someone whipped around, claws raking across one of her eyes, she screamed in pain and the demon fled.
As soon as Kikyou had cleared the village of the demons she walked over to her sister, lifting her head up so she could examine the wound.
And Kaede had some feeling, deep in the pit of her stomach that maybe this was Kikyou's end. She had never expected her sister to have a happy ending, but she had wished it. But she knew now, that it was going to be a tragedy, it had already began writing itself.
Maybe that was why she cried so much, while she lied and said it was the pain of losing her own eye, it was because she knew her sisters time was dwindling down. Maybe Kikyou knew it too, but she went along like she didn't.
The day that Onigumo had disappeared from the cave, that's when Kaede knew. And she wanted to tell her sister, but would she be able to?
"Kikyou-onee-sama!" she exclaimed as Kikyou was walking from the village. "What are you doing?"
"Fulfilling a promise, it will make everyone much happier, Kaede," she replied calmly. "Go back inside," she added.
Kaede looked a little baffled, but did as her sister said.
She sat in the hut waiting too long, when she heard the village under attack. Cries of Inuyasha.
"It's Inuyasha!"
"It's Inuyasha!"
Then…her sister….
"INUYASHA!" that scream that shattered the chaos.
She rushed out, and by the time she got to her sister, the hanyou, Inuyasha was limp against the Goshinboku, an arrow in his chest.
Kikyou fell to her knees, still, even dying, graceful and beautiful.
"Onee-sama!" she cried, rushing to her sister's side.
"Kaede, take this," she started, wincing in pain, holding out the pink jewel, the Shikon no Tama.
"Miko-sama, you're injured!" a villager pointed out.
"We must treat your wound, Kikyou-onee-sama," Kaede started.
Kikyou shook her head as another wave of pain coursed through her. "No…I will die, Kaede, take this…Shikon no Tama, and burn it with my body," she ordered, as she finally fell to the ground in her last moment of life.
"Onee-sama!"
At eight years, Kaede thought that putting her sister to rest was the most painful thing she'd ever do in her life…
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A/N: Next chapter, last chapter, thanks to all my reviewers! Lovums!
