Kaede poked through the curtain which covered the door of the hut and began to listen in on the conversation between the other six.

"Listen guys, I know that this girl could be in trouble if she's on her own, but I'm not sure if we can just keep her with us all of the time. She seems pretty adamant about leaving soon too." Kagome stated.

"We don't have many options about it. If she wants to go, we can't keep her here. For now, we can just play on her wounds and hope that she trusts us after she's healed and strong enough to travel on her own." Miroku stated.

"We'll have to take shifts watching her after she wakes up. She'll probably want to be up and around as soon as she's awake so we'll need to find a way to keep her settled for a while." Sango added.

"Oh great! Now they're going to baby-sit me until they think I'm well... I'm a demon for crying out loud! They're going to want to keep me around for weeks!... I promised uncle that I would do my best not to interfere with their travels, and now they're all about wanting to keep me around! This couldn't possibly get any worse than it already is..."

Kaede wasn't sure what she was supposed to do now. She had already played too big of a role in the past and she wasn't sure what damage she had already done to it.

"Oh, you're up!" Kagome walked into the hut and nearly jumped back at the sight of Kaede sitting up on her own already.

"What happened?" Kaede asked as if she didn't already know.

"You stood up too soon after losing so much blood and you passed out. We brought you back up here and bandaged you up, you really took some hits!"

"Is she up already?" Sango asked as she walked into the hut along with Miroku and Shippo.

"Amazing! Not too many people have the handling on wounds like that, and she's still seemingly untouched!" Miroku said cheerfully.

"Listen, thank you for taking care of me, really... But I've already fiddled enough in your own travels, so I really should get back to my own affairs." Kaede tried to explain herself as nicely as she could.

"Right, we'll let you leave so that you can get yourself attacked by Kagura again! Sorry about your luck, but you're stuck where you're at. You'll be lucky if we let you leave this hut for a while!" InuYasha added his sarcastic toned comment.

"I'm not a helpless child, okay?" Kaede said in a surprisingly quiet tone.

"You don't understand, I have things that need to be taken care of and I've already meddled too much where I shouldn't have. Just believe me okay?" Kaede tried calm reasoning.

"...No..." InuYasha stated as he walked away from the hut.

"Well, there went that idea..." Kaede thought.

"Look, after battling with a strong demon like Kagura, you need to rest. You could only cause more damage to yourself by walking for miles alone." Kagome tried to reason with the girl.

"...Just for a while... I have to get going in a few days, so after that there's no if's, and's or buts about it... Agreed?"

Kagome nodded her head and walked away with InuYasha.

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InuYasha sat in a tree not far away from the hut and Kagome followed him there.

"So what's your deal anyway? You've been quiet for a while now." The girl asked.

"...Nothing..." InuYasha said as he looked to the sky.

"It's never nothing! Come on! I thought we could talk to each other about things!" She began to get irritated.

"It's nothing already!" InuYasha replied angrily.

"Fine!" Kagome said as she walked away.

Miroku and Sango had left the hut and Kaede sat back against the wall. She closed her eyes and began to fall asleep again.

"So, who's watching her first?" Miroku asked as he sat back down where they were eating.

"Kirara and I can. I wouldn't doubt that she'll be asleep for a while though, so it shouldn't be too difficult."

Back in the hut Kaede began to dream.

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It was a beautiful sunny day and a little girl about the age of 10 was playing in the courts of the shrine in which she lived. The ball she was playing with bounced out of her reach and rolled into the old shack where a certain well was. She looked at the shack and became fearful. Her parents had told her to stay away from the well unless they were with her, but she knew better than to go into the well without them so she proceeded to walk into the shack. Kaede looked around and saw that the ball had stopped just at the foot of the well at the bottom of the stairs. Slowly walking down the stairs, the girl was careful on the old wooden staircase. She got to the bottom of the stairs and walked towards the well to pick up the ball.

"Got it!" The girl proclaimed.

Just as she turned to walk back up the stairs, the ground began to shake. The girl became scared and looked with her amber eyes back towards the well. It began to glow with a bright blue aura and a shadow appeared from the lip of the well.

The girl turned back towards the stairs and dropped the ball, running up them as fast as she could. Her heart was racing and all she could think of was getting to her parents.

"Well well, look what we have here!" A deep voice called from the bottom of the stairs and the girl turned to see a man staring back at her with small, beady, red eyes. There were what looked like several vine-like arms surrounding the man.

He smiled at her, and she could smell with her demon nose that this man had the smell of fresh human blood all over him. He had just killed many humans!

The little girl turned back towards the door and ran for her life! When she got to the door and opened it just a crack of the way, one of the vines grabbed her and picked her up.

"Where are you going?" The demon said with a taunting voice.

"Let me go! Daddy!!! Help!" The girl cried out.

"Why don't you and I go see your "daddy"... We can discuss this together with him!" The man levitated off of the ground and then flew through the doors and into the courtyards of the shrine.

"Naraku!" another man's voice yelled.

The demon turned to see a familiar sight of InuYasha and Kagome with discouraged looks on their faces.

"What's the matter InuYasha? Aren't you happy to see me?!" The man said, then producing the arms which held the little girl.

"Kaede!" Kagome shouted.

"Mommy!" The girl cried out again.

"So this is where you've been hiding for all of these years! And is this the reason that you were hiding in the first place? I'm surprised at you InuYasha!" Naraku said as he threw the little girl down on the ground.

"Damn you Naraku!" InuYasha stated as he and Kagome ran to the girl's side.

"Kagome, take Kaede and run!" InuYasha ordered.

The woman picked up the little girl, who was now unconscious, and ran to the home.

InuYasha pulled out his Tetsusaiga, which he had always kept with him, and pointed it at Naraku.

Back at the house, Kagome ran to her mother and brother and yelled, "We have to get into the basement! Naraku's here!"

At this point the little girl began to wake up and she could hear everyone's heart beginning to pump loud and hard.

"Mommy?" the girl squeaked out.

"Kaede! Listen, mommy has to go help daddy! Go with Uncle Sota and Grandma for me okay?" Kagome asked as she put the girl down and grabbed her old bow and quiver of arrows.

Just then, the sharp smell of blood poked at the little girl's nose.

"...Daddy! Mommy! Where's daddy?!" Kaede started to squirm in the arms of her grandmother.

"I'll be right back! I'm going to help InuYasha!" Kagome yelled as she ran back out of the house.

"Mommy!" Kaede yelled.

"Sis!" Sota yelled as well.

Kaede could feel Kagome's spiritual energy grow and then... it was gone...

"...Mommy... NO!! Mommy!!!" The girl managed to get out of the loving arms of her grandmother and run out of the house and back onto the shrine courtyards.

"Kaede! Wait!" Sota yelled giving chase to the child.

Kaede ran back out onto the courtyards and saw the horrible sight... Her mother and father's body being ingested by the gruesome demon Naraku...

Sota ran out and saw the sight as well and they both stood in complete shock.

Sota then realized where he was and grabbed his niece, and yelling at his mother, "Get in the car mom! Hurry!"

The three got into the car and took off.

Kaede looked through the back window of the car as they sped off and saw the vine arms of the demon destroy their home.

"NOOOOOO!" The girl yelled.

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"NO!" Kaede yelled as she awoke from her nightmare.

She was sweating bullets and some of her wounds had reopened and were bleeding through the bandages. Kaede remembered where she was and looked around the hut. It was night now, and everyone was asleep. The only one that was missing was InuYasha.

Kaede pulled herself up and walked outside into the cool night air.

"What are you doing up?" A voice called out.