Hello everyone, even though it might have seemed that way, I'm still not dead and now I'm planning to finish all my stories one by one. I've had a really major block the last few months and even I was starting to get annoyed by it, but now I'm back, hopefully, so you can expect more chapters soon.

Thanks for keeping up with me for so long and once again sorry for the long wait.

Beta Reader: animefollower101

Chapter 13 – Memories

"If it's so, then I order you to remember! Remember everything!"

Her words ran through my mind. I never expected she would give me such an order, and I had no idea what would happen next. The first moment felt almost like an eternity. There was a short moment of expectation, when I could hear only the beating of my heart, and then it started.

My head suddenly started to hurt as if it was on fire. I wasn't prepared for this and my body instantly paralyzed in agony.

I fell on the ground, holding my head in an effort to ease the pain that kept rising every second. I heard someone's voice in the distance, but I didn't know what it was saying. I tried to get my head to stop throbbing, but no matter what I did, it had no effect at all.

My mind filled with an avalanche of scenes flashing before my eyes. The uncountable masses of memories, forcibly forgotten over the centuries, suddenly came rushing back. I started to feel dizzy and tried to close my eyes, but that just made it worse.

I was confused. I didn't know what to make out of it. There was no system, nothing to help make sense of it all. The places, the people, there were just too many of them, and I was sure that my head would burst at any moment. When the pain began to ease, I opened my eyes once more.

I found myself in some dark was a familiar face looking at me, worried. It wasn't part of my memories. The face was.

Who is that person?

Why is she so anxious?

Is it my fault?

Who am I?

The world around me started to spin. My eyelids felt heavy, my head felt light. The face started to fade away, slowly but surely disappearing to the darkness. That darkness was inviting, and I couldn't find the strength to refuse that invitation anymore.

The pain stopped just as suddenly as it appeared. I couldn't tell if I had my eyes opened or closed. It didn't make any difference, because everything was still dark either way.

What is this place? Why am I here?

I stood up, trying to make sense of anything, when a small spark of light caught my attention.

At the moment, it was the only thing that seemed out of place. Instinctually, I decided to follow it. The echo of my steps was my only companion.

When I reached the light source, it was too bright for me to see what was beyond. There was no other place to go. Only one little step separated the yellow rays of light from completely engulfing me. I took that step and the last of the darkness disappeared.

Inside, the light started to slowly fade away and, the scenes of my life took its place. These places in time were running fast in front of my eyes, but somehow, I was able to keep up.

I recognized places from when I was still just a kid and later even those from my travels and from my encounters with Inuyasha or Naraku. Every single day of my life passed in front of me and my mind was taking it all back in the form of my lost memories.

I watched everything patiently, even the moment when we defeated Naraku and Kagome was leaving for home.

Kagome.

I knew her, she was traveling with my half-brother Inuyasha, but there was something more about her. Something was bothering me and I couldn't figure out what. She was somehow important. Not only in our fight against Naraku, but also something else. Maybe I would get the answer later.

Kagome was leaving, she didn't belong to our time and she knew it. Everyone looked sad, and I knew that no one wanted to let her go. She also seemed to be a bit hesitant at times, but she's already made her decision and she wasn't of those who would easily change their mind. She was saying goodbyes and hugging everyone along the way. It was a very tearful farewell.

Why am I even here? I was thinking at that time. We weren't even allies, we just each took a part in the final battle. I didn't owe anything to any of them and the same could be said the other way around.

In all her excitement, Kagome came to hug me as well. I didn't react in any way, I found this whole ordeal to be foolish, but even though I didn't return her hug, I didn't try to shake her off either.

Why? I asked myself and surprisingly, it didn't even take me that much time to reach the answer.

As much as I would want to deny it, this girl has also found her way to my heart. Kagome was careless and moody. She was stubborn, and hard to get along with. She was different from all the girls which were around at that time and that made her interesting. Interesting in many ways. Maybe if Kagome had stayed a little longer, I could have studied her some more. Her and her ways of doing things.

She let go of me and I mentally shook my head. What was I thinking? She was Inuyasha's, I had no connection to her whatsoever and I didn't want to create one either. It's certainly better that she was leaving. Kagome had a strange influence on the people around her. I could see it with Inuyasha, and even though I didn't exactly want to admit it, I could see it with myself, too.

My thoughts about Kagome left with her, and for a while, everything seemed to be peaceful. I left Rin in the village with the old lady Kaede, and just occasionally visited her. It was better for both of us that way. Inuyasha proved himself to be stronger than I anticipated, so I decided to tolerate him around me. He seemed to accept that kind of relationship between us.

Everything was fine, until the day Naraku had returned. It was something no one expected to happen. The first place he attacked was the village where Rin and everyone else lived. It was completely destroyed. Without any significant delay, he did the same in many other places across the whole country, causing everyone to panic. People lived in despair, and many demons started to wreak havoc after the attacks had started.

I didn't know what caused such wide-spread mayhem, but my first action was to go check on Rin. My rescue came far too late. The only indication of something being there before was Naraku's thick miasma lingering on the dead ground. I would recognize that stench at any time. I knew that Rin couldn't have made it, and I cursed Naraku, swearing that this time I would end his life for sure.

I relaxed somewhat when I noticed the presence of someone still alive nearby. I found Inuyasha and the little fox kit, near where the village had once stood, but they were both unconscious. I picked them up and carried them to a safe place, so they could recover. I started to think about what exactly happened, and how to solve this sudden return of our long-to-be-thought-dead enemy. I wasn't making much progress.

It took days before the two survivors woke up, and in the meantime, the country was in even more panic than at the start. Naraku certainly wasn't wasting any time. There was a war between those who stood on Naraku's side and those who were against him. If one didn't count the power of Naraku himself, the two sides would be almost equal. If not for Naraku, either side could win, but Naraku was there, and even stronger than before.

From the traces he's left behind, he was no longer a half-demon, but a full-fledged demon who also somehow outwitted death. That was too much of a disadvantage to his opponents.

When Inuyasha woke up, his first words were: "That bastard Naraku!" and I knew that instant that he was full aware of our situation. I filled him in the happenings of the time he was out and he just proved to me that the attack was too sudden to be able to do anything.

Shippowoke up shortly after Inuyasha. When they've got well enough, we decided to meet up with some other people who had something to do with the first battle against him. The first person we went to was Kouga, who had already started to gather people for a resistance movement.

He and Ayame were the main initiators of this gathering. Aside from past grudges, they had one more reason to be as active as they were. By this time in their lives, they were blessed with a cub. A small girl who was given the name Kagome. It was Kouga's idea and Ayame protested quite a bit at the start, but only because of the relationship Kouga had with her. Ayame acknowledged Kagome for her strengths, and soon she's learned to like the idea of having her first cub named after her.

Unlike the last time, we already knew how dangerous can Naraku be and none of us wanted to underestimate him again, so this time, we'd formed an actual alliance. There was no space for playing around like we were doing before. We all were fully aware that if we couldn't defeat him that time by ourselves, this time it would be even less probable.

Our alliance hadn't joined the forces who were fighting against him. We've came to the conclusion, that fighting him head-on would be meaningless, other than buying a bit of time. We've left that to the people already fighting him and instead were trying to come up with some other strategy.

The number of those who were actively fighting against Naraku was slowly, but surely, going down and those who were still alive were quickly losing their morale. They themselves started to realize how futile their attempts were. The enemies they managed to defeat were replaced with someone else and their numbers were actually rising, since many joined Naraku after witnessing his power.

In the end, our little alliance was the only opposing force, which was still active. Yet, we still weren't any wiser in regards to Naraku's complete defeat. On the contrary, we've become the targets of many, and the only reason we could still keep going was by staying in shadows, not letting anyone to find our hideouts. It was too much like when we were looking for Naraku in the past, but this time it was the other way around.

At one point, Kouga's got the wind of some information. It was supposed to get us closer to uncovering Naraku's weakness, but considering the situation, we were all aware that even though it could be useful for us, it would be just as dangerous. With this in mind, jsut before Kouga set out to check it out, he asked me to take care of Ayame and little Kagome, if something were to happen to him. He wasn't a dreamer anymore, and he was well aware of the differences of strengths between us and Naraku, or even between us two. He still wasn't the one to admit it aloud to others, but he couldn't deny it to himself any longer, not in the situation we were in.

As we feared, that information was just a trap set up for us, and we have never seen Kouga again. Ayame didn't want to accept it, and even though we tried to stop her, she's left after him. This way, we've lost two of our members in a short time and thanks to Ayame's carelessness, we were also soon found out by Naraku's spies.

We scattered into the woods, hoping that at least some of us would be saved and could continue to search for Naraku's weakness, but they were already on our trail, leaving us no choice but to keep running and hiding. At first, Inuyasha and I were together, but then even we had to split up. Inuyasha took Shippo with him, while I took care of little Kagome as I promised.

We've lived like this for years, Kagome hardly remembering anything about her real parents. She'd been too young when this all started and this situation had been dragging out for too long. Somewhere along the way, I'd gotten the news that Inuyasha got caught, too. There was no one else in our alliance who could significantly change the the fight to our advantage, leaving me as the last one.

The long years of constant escaping, having to look not only after me, but also after the girl, also took their toll on me, and one day Naraku managed to catch me, too. Maybe I would be able to keep it up a bit longer, but when Naraku decided to go after me himself, my chances lessened way too much. He took little Kagome away from me and put me into a dark cell deep underground, with all my power drained away from me...

I backed away a few steps. I knew these scenes, I still remembered it. I didn't remember everything, but I didn't even want to. I didn't want to go through this again. I turned my head away, and swung out with my claws. I felt as if my hand was going through some substance and it reminded me of blood. I looked up, and saw as the scenes were slowly scattering around in whirls, until they completely disappeared.

I was once again left in darkness, though, this darkness was different. It wasn't that deep and unwelcoming. I was actually able to think about what was going on. There wasn't the numbness as before.

I felt some movement and the darkness started to lighten. It was the same as having my eyes closed, so I tried to open them. I saw a girl sitting in front of me with her face full of tears.

I was a bit confused about what was going on, which was probably the outcome of not watching my memories until the end, but even without that, I was soon able to put things together. She was Kagome, the person who left for home so long ago, and now centuries later, she was here, sitting on the bottom of the well crying. There was no doubt she was the same person.

"Now I understand why you are so weird," I commented plainly, "you are that priestess who was traveling with my brother."