KIKYO'S POV

"The ground beneath me was cold, I was shivering and it was dark. I had been in such a beautiful and peaceful state, finally at rest, but I was yanked from that peace. Lying here alive, but still dead yet again I couldn't help but pitty myself. Why was I being tortured so, why could I just not be left alone to rest? My naked body again was hard like clay, unlike my soft beautiful skin I once had in my lifetime. The sun began to rise and I could now see my hands, yes I was truly back in the land of the living, but why? "I guess you're wondering why you're here, why you are back. Aren't you sister?"
I pulled myself up from the floor, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. "Who are you wench, and why is that you call me sister? Why have you brought me back to this place, answer me now or you will regret it." My tone was menacing, and just like that I had fallen back into my same routine of pretending to be so strong and powerful even when I felt so weak. The woman before me wore a black kimono, and she had dark black hair like me. Something about her was so familiar, had I seen her before?

"My name is itsumi. I grew up in the same village as you, but you never knew me, I was never so much as acknowledged by the great priestess Kikyo or her family, the family I was apart of." Itsumi tried to project anger in her voice, but her eyes held only sadness.

"We are sisters Kikyo, we share the same father. Do you know how long I've wanted to say this out loud?" She chuckled dryly. "I was conceived during the time between you and our younger sisters birth, born to my mother and your father. They met in the forest on a rainy night, my mother was injured from her ankle and our father nursed her back to health. She was a poor woman who wondered the earth alone with no family or home, her life had always been that way, so he would meet her In the forest and bring her food and make sure she had fresh bandages. They eventually fell in love, and it was all so sweet and innocent, or so my mother thought. He even built her a home in his village and moved her in, but he never stayed with her or acknowledged her in public. She began to ask why, and that is when he told her that he had a wife and child. He expressed to her that he loved her, that she was his one true love, but that his duty was to his family and what he was doing was wrong. My mother was of course devastated, she had never had anyone in her life who so much as was kind to her, and now the one person that she had loved was throwing her away like trash. In the later weeks my mother found out she was with child, our father wanted no part in it. He got her a job in the village sewing clothing for the villagers, and then he mostly disappeared from our life after that. She would see him in town, and they would walk past each other like they had never shared so much as a hand shake. When I was born he showed up to meet me, my mother always said that he loved us both, but that he was an important figure in the village and it just couldn't be for us to be together. She always told me I should be grateful to him that we had a home, and she had a job. I would see him in the village and notice how we had the same smile, and I would shed tears when I'd see you and him walking about in public laughing about things I would never know of. Then another child was born, our younger sister Kaede. Shortly after that your mother died from child birth complications, and our father became ill from disease. My mother weeped when he passed, I heard her cry in pain for nights on end over a man who could never even spare the woman who carried his child a hello. I found it mad. We struggled horribly, many nights I went to bed hungry and my clothes were always too small or had holes in them. I watched you walk around In beautiful clean kimonos, and I was enraged, but unable to even speak to you. Forced to keep my true identity a secret. My mother died a year later, she was raped and killed while out trying to hunt. The only food we had was not to my liking, and her job would not pay her until the following week. My mother being who she was wanted me to have the meal that I wanted. I was on my own after that, she never came home."
Itsumi stood in front of me with tears rolling down her cheeks, and I felt such anger for my father. I couldn't see the man I loved, my father, doing any of this but yet I knew it to be true. I could see his eyes, when I looked at her, and her pain was real. Though I still could not connect why this would warrant her to bring me, a dead person, back to life. "Itsumi, I am sorry for the misfortune of your life, but you must know I did not know of you. If I had, I would have taken care of you, just like I did Kaede. What is it that you require of me now? I sense your spiritual power is great, and it leads me to believe you definitely are the one who brought me back, but why? Itsumi wiped her tears and threw me the clothes I had worn in life, my red and white kimono. "You may dress Kikyo, I mean you no harm. I brought you back, but it was for a friend of mine. I have no use for you sister, you are a stranger to me. My friend wishes to speak with you. Follow me when you are done dressing please. I dressed, and when I was done I followed her like she said. She was lying, I could see through her so clearly. She did not tell me the story she did, to just simply let me be. She was sad, resentful, and I knew I had to keep my guard up. There was much more to this than her simply bringing me back for a friend, and I was sure I'd soon find out her true motive.