Here's my normal Friday post! Enjoy!

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Kagura kicked the young Kaede to the ground and stomped on her chest.

"I'll do whatever I please with my life! That's none of your concern!" Kagura seethed.

Kaede laughed through her teeth as a bit of blood ran out from the corner of her mouth.

"Admit it! When Naraku is……dead, you'll have.. no one! No one wants ...you, no one ...cares about you, you'll be ...alone! What kind of life... would that be?!"

"How dare you!" Kagura's anger grew in intensity.

Kagura picked up Kaede by the front of her kimono top and brought her up to her face.

"Maybe Naraku was right, maybe we should destroy we while we have the chance!" Kagura taunted as she lifted her fan and prepared to bring down the final blow.

Kaede was almost ready to accept death when she suddenly felt something. She could feel herself regaining some strength in her muscles.

"The herbs must be starting to dull away the miasma! It's working! I just need a little more time!"

"I was already... planning on... killing Naraku!" Kaede yelled.

"What?!" Kagura asked.

"What do you...think that... I came here for?" Kaede said.

"Came here? What the hell does that mean?!" Kagura asked, tightening her grip on Kaede's kimono.

"I...I've traveled hundreds... of miles... to get Naraku... to kill him!" Kaede replied.

"So... you weren't just passing by to help InuYasha and the others?" Kagura's temper began to slow down.

"I came to fight Naraku, I just happened upon them!"

Kaede began to feel her demon powers take control over the miasma in her body. Just the same, Kagura noticed Naraku's insects arriving to see her destroy the young demon girl. Just as Kagura noticed the insects, Kaede felt a wave of blood rushing through her and broke the grip that Kagura had on her.

"What are you-?!" Kagura turned her head back to the girl with a shocked expression.

"IRON REAVER SOUL STEALER!" Kaede shouted as she threw her claws at the insects.

After she had destroyed them she turned to Kagura and said, "I'm not going to kill Naraku for you! I'm going to kill Naraku for my own personal vengeance! But don't you worry... I'LL BE THE ONE TO KILL HIM!" She said as she slashed at Kagura to scare her away.

Kagura threw her feather up in the air and as she rode away she snickered at the girl, "I'll be waiting for that day..." And then she was gone.

Kaede took that moment to feel the power in her arms and legs. She had regained enough power to walk and use her claws, but she knew that she still hadn't fully recovered.

"I better get back to the village, they're going to be wondering where I've gone off to!" Kaede said as she began walking back towards the village. The walk would probably take her until nightfall since she didn't feel up to running yet. But she wasn't worried about being found. She knew that Kagura would try to find a way to keep her from dying if it came down to it, and Naraku, himself was in no shape to attack her.

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"InuYasha, can you not pick up Kaede's scent?" Miroku asked.

The group had made it far from the village, but InuYasha couldn't pick up a scent.

"I can't pick up anything... DAMN IT!..." InuYasha said as he knocked down a tree in anger.

He turned to old Kaede and said, "Why the hell didn't you stay in the village?! You were supposed to stay in the hut and protect her!"

"I am sorry InuYasha. Had I known what they were planning I would have stayed with her." The old woman replied sadly.

"InuYasha, it's not like she would have been able to fight against a demon like Kagura anyway! We just have to keep looking, and if nothing else, we'll have to find Naraku's castle..." Kagome said with a bad feeling in her stomach.

"Oh no, you're not going anywhere! It's too dangerous to risk taking you to Naraku's castle! Miroku, take Kagome and the old hag back to the village and look after them and Sango! I'm going to find Naraku myself!" he said, with his anger on the rise.

"Calm down InuYasha! It's no good if you tried to kill Naraku on your own, I'm going with you, and I think old Kaede can take care of Kagome and Sango," Miroku argued.

"Go where?" young Kaede's voice cheerfully broke through the enraged conversation.

"Haven't you been keeping up?! We're going to Naraku's castle to find -" InuYasha suddenly realized who he was yelling at and froze in place.

"Kaede! You're all right!" Kagome ran forward and hugged the young girl.

Miroku and old Kaede ran forward as well and soon realized that it truly was the girl.

"How did you manage to escape the clutches of Kagura?" Miroku asked.

"Those herbs that you gave me diminished some of the miasma in my body, and I was able to scare her and Naraku's insects away. I would have come sooner, but I still don't have much strength, I'm afraid, to run," Kaede replied.

InuYasha stepped forward and hugged the girl tightly, "I'm so glad..."

Everyone there was a bit taken back, but they all knew that he was just as scared as the rest of them. She was his daughter after all.

"Come on, Kagome and Kaede climb up on my back and I'll take you to the village..." InuYasha quietly ordered.

Kaede remembered that tone of voice, and did as she was told. On the way back to the village, a memory was brought back to her quieted mind.

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A little girl about the age of 6 had been wandering where she wasn't supposed to. She was alone in the forest and was trying to find the well which she had fallen through. Her ankle had been twisted after battling a small demon, which she had never done before. Just as the little girl was about to break down in tears and cry, she heard a familiar voice.

"Kaede! Kaede, where are you?!" a man's voice yelled into the full moon's light.

"D-Daddy! Daddy I'm here! Daddy!" The girl yelled in a scared and shivering tone.

The half-demon finally arrived. He saw his young daughter with her torn clothes and scratches along with some bruises, and of course her swollen ankle.

"What did we tell you about going near the well?! It's too dangerous for you to be coming over here without your mom or me!" The man sat down on his knees and looked her over with an angry face.

The little girl looked down at the ground and away from her father and tears started to run down her face again.

"I'm sorry daddy... I didn't mean to run away!" she sobbed.

The man sighed and picked the little girl up in his arms and said, "It's okay; you just scared your mommy and me. You just can't go running off like that. You could have gotten... Just please don't ever scare us like that again..."

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The group arrived back at the village to find that Sango had awoken from her unconscious state. Kaede looked at the woman's wounds and asked, "What happened?"

InuYasha put the girls on the ground carefully and said, "Kagura tricked us. She used Kanna and Sango's brother, Kohaku to lure us away from you so that you would be alone and vulnerable."

Kaede looked to the injured woman and said, "I'm sorry that I'm so much trouble... If I had done any of this right.. -"

"If you had done any of this the way you had planned to do so, you may have already died, and the past would not have changed," Miroku reminded.

"Injuries are a small price to pay compared to death," Kagome said adamantly.

Kaede looked at the six friends as they settled in the hut.

"I guess I really didn't think about how much each of them has lost already. Miroku lost his father and grandfather to their wind tunnels, and may lose himself to his as well. Sango lost her father and friends in a battle and her brother's life belongs solely to Naraku as long as the jewel shard remains in his back... Father... he had lost his old love, Kikyo, to the deceiving demon... Everyone here has suffered because of that man, and I won't be the one to make them suffer anymore than they already have..."

It was late in the evening and everyone in the hut was asleep except for Kaede. She looked over everyone as if her father's spirit were inside her. Her eyes stared directly into the fire, which was now diminishing into a small flame.

"Can't sleep?" Miroku asked suddenly.

"No... I've just been thinking a little," she replied.

"About leaving?" Miroku asked solemnly.

"..." Kaede really didn't have a response to that. She didn't want to leave now, but she still worried about what she was doing, even though her heart told her otherwise.

"Tell me something Kaede... You haven't mentioned what Sango, Shippo and I had been doing while you were growing up. Can you tell me what happens to us?" Miroku didn't know if he should have asked, but the question had been mingling in his mind more than he thought it would have, and he needed to know the answer.

Kaede looked at him and then down at the floor with her eyes closed.

"You guys... you died in a battle against Naraku not long after I was born. I never really got to know any of you except through stories. Some funny, some heroic. Even though I had never met any of you, I felt like I had lost a family. Mom and dad felt that way too..." Kaede replied.

"I see... And what about old Kaede? What happens to her?" Miroku asked.

"...She died saving my mom the day that I was born. My parents had decided that they wanted me to be born in my mother's original time and they waited too long to go there. They were attacked as my mother began to go into labor and old Kaede shot an arrow at the demon who would have been responsible for my own mother's death. After that other demons attacked her and she was killed. My parents decided that it was befitting to name me after her since she had lost her life to save mine and my mother's."

"And what about you? Who took care of you after Naraku killed your parents?" He pressed on.

"...My... Uncle..."

"You say that Sesshomaru took you in?" Miroku was shocked.

"No, my mother's brother. Uncle Sota. My grandma, Kagome's mom, died protecting us about a year after we had fled Tokyo to find refuge from Naraku. Dad had trained him a little during the time that I was growing up, so he trained me. He was never as good as dad was, but, he taught me nonetheless." Kaede replied once more.

"I see... You have risked a lot in order to come here then haven't you?" Miroku asked.

"My world has been overrun by demons that were once thought to have died off. Naraku, of course, was the reason behind their being there. Our home, the shrine, everything had been nearly destroyed. But as my training progressed, I had long discussed with my uncle about leaving our refuge and going back, in order for me to stop the past from destroying the future as it was. I took him ten years to accept the fact that I was determined to get my life back. Even when I left, though, he still tried to stop me. He tried to talk me out of it but my mind was made up. I have always been willing to risk everything to save everyone. I've never thought of anything else but the revenge that I would take on Naraku's sorry hide. And I will get my revenge..." Kaede stated firmly.

"Amazing…" Miroku thought aloud.

"What's amazing?" Kaede asked as she looked up at the monk.

"It's amazing how much of your parents I see within you. I can see your strong spirit of InuYasha, where you've made up your mind and that's exactly what you plan to do. Then I have seen your compassion for others, in your need to see everyone alive and well. You are an amazing person, and I have no doubt that you can do amazing things along with those talents." Miroku commented.

"I guess I just could never sit back and -"

BOOM

InuYasha was thrown to the floor.

"K-Kagome?! What the hell was that for-" InuYasha looked to his sleeping girl. She hadn't even been awake...

"If she didn't do that then..." He looked up to see that Kaede and Miroku were awake.

"Oh no..." InuYasha realized what had happened.

Kaede's shocked look turned into an embarrassed one.

"Hey Miroku, did I ever tell you what my first word was?!" She asked cheerfully.

Miroku couldn't help but laugh and say, "Well InuYasha, it looks like you've got a lot of work ahead of you!" he commented happily.

"Oh man... I'm really going to be in for it once this kid is born..." InuYasha said from the hole in the bottom of the hut that the spell had made him create from the fall.

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Next Chapter!

"So, what's the plan now, Kaede?" Sango asked.

"Well, I'm in need of some serious training," she replied.

"Well then, we should start on that today when we -" Miroku was about to comment on before he was interrupted.

"No no, there's no we involved. I need to train on my own, that way I get everything in that I can."

"But Kaede, you heard InuYasha, you can't leave here or he'll get really angry!" Shippo tried to reason with the girl.

"Well that's why I would trust you guys not to tell him that I've gone off alone," Kaede replied sarcastically.

"Shippo's right Kaede, InuYasha could come back sooner than Kagome and then you'd be caught. As well as the fact that it's too dangerous to be out on your own," Miroku commented.

"I told you before, monk, I'm healed. I'm a demon, not a human. I've got my entire demon working in full force, so I can take care of myself. If InuYasha comes back early just tell him the truth, I don't care. But I need this time to spend on my own, regain some sense of things," Kaede replied.

"It's too dangerous Kaede! If you're harmed and we don't know about it, then even if InuYasha does come back sooner than expected you could be in serious danger," Sango stated.

"I'll take the risk... See you guys in three days!" Kaede said as she sprinted away.

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