Well, we've finally come to an end. This is the last chapter. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I hope to see a lot of you when I start posting updated versions of other stories that I have posted, along with new stories that are soon to come. See you soon.

A warning to all potential thieves, this work is copyright 2011 Kassandra Duric *****Ayame's Story is completely the work of Kassandra Duric, to reproduce under any other name is theft!****

Chapter 10

I cried myself to sleep so it was not really a shock when I found myself waking up. The real shock, however, was waking up outside of the cave and beside a pond, alone. I thought I was dreaming so I pinched myself, but when it hurt I realised it was not a dream.

I looked around to double check that no one was around before I looked down to examine my legs. The bones seemed to be mostly healed so I pulled myself over to the edge of the pond, still wary to put weight on them, started to take my torn clothing off, and slid down into the extremely clear, blue water.

"What do you think you're doing?" a male's voice cried in shock, startling me since I thought I was completely alone.

I jumped and reached for my clothes, thankfully I had not gone far from the shore, since I did not know who it was. When I saw his foot on my shirt I looked up at him, realized that it was Dakota, and gave a small, relived sigh. "What does it look like?" I asked. "I'm taking a bath."

"What about your legs?"

"My bones are mostly healed, just sore now. And the bath will clean out the cuts, making it easier for them to heal."

Dakota blinked.

"I got some healing abilities from my master when he changed me. Nowhere near as strong as his, just strong enough to heal major things like broken bones or life threatening injuries. It will not do much for a bleeding wound like the gash on my leg, other than stopping the bleeding when a normal Tamahara or Yamashima would likely bleed to death," I supplied.

He nodded then we lapsed into silence, he turned away from me. I did a few laps around the pond before swimming back to the bank.

"Hey Dakota, pass me something to dry off with, please?"

Dakota still had his back to me, but he threw his trench coat over his shoulder so I could get dried off.

"Why do you not start a fire, Dakota?" I suggested as I wrapped the trench coat around my shoulders.

"Why do I have to start the fire?" Dakota asked as he lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky.

"Because I do not know how to start a fire without a match," I said as I put my rags back on under the trench coat.

Dakota sighed and got up to start the fire pretty quickly with just a couple of sticks, and then lay back down on the grass to watch the sun set. I came to join him soon, lying down beside him.

"So what now?" I asked, turning my head to look at him, only to find him snoring. I sighed, curled up beside him, and closed my own eyes and fell asleep.

As I slept, I dreamt about my family, who I had thought I had long forgotten. I dreamed about my mother's home-cooked bread with dried up fruit, like grapes, apples, and peaches, freshly picked from the trees out on the farm.

I dreamt about when Shelua came to the house, just to brag about her new clothes that her husband -who my father had picked to marry her- was constantly buying her. I dreamt about the time Shelua came to the house, in tears, a year before her daughter was born to take me out on the town. She told me that she had found a lover to share her bed, when her husband, whom she never truly loved, was out of town for business.

I dreamt about when she came to the house to tell me that she was pregnant with her daughter, but the child was not her husband's. Instead, her lover was the father, and she was scared her husband would find out. I had told her everything would be fine as long as she did not tell anyone the truth; for if anyone found out, our family would be put to shame. I told her to lie about the date of conception to her husband so he would not question her.

I dreamt about Elizabeth and the night I had helped to deliver her daughter and how happy they were. I dreamt of the night I flew to Dakota's house and found him sleeping with another woman, two nights after I had disappeared. That was the first time I had ever used my wings, and when I went to find Dakota, my heart broke. That also happened to be the night my master found out about my wings and sent one of his many servants out after me. I came back willingly as I was too upset to fight back at the time. My father never did like Dakota. He had only agreed to let me marry him because he needed a man to take care of the farm. He was getting to old too do it on his own, and my only brother, Sethekrd, had run off years before.

I sat upright, the last dream startling me to awareness. I had broken out in a cold sweat. I realized Dakota was no longer beside me and I looked around, and ask him why I had found him with Alex, the same Alex I had only met a day ago, only days after my disappearance. I found him less than a foot to my left. Ironically Alex was leaning over top of him, kissing him. The disgusting part was that Alex's hand was around the hilt of a knife that was buried deep in his chest.

"Alex?" I called, scurrying away from the two.

Alex sat up, her hand still on the hilt of the blade, putting pressure down until the blade was all the way through. She licked the blood off of her lips with a seductive smile. "Surprise!" she laughed.

The wind picked up dramatically and clouds started to roll in, covering the stars and the moon. Soon after, thunder crashed in the distance, followed by closer lightning and more thunder. Then the rain came like a brick wall, pelting us with water so we were soon soaked.

"Why…what is going on?" I asked, stumbling over my words, still looking at the lifeless Dakota.

Alex looked down at Dakota as well, her eyes blank and lifeless. "You know, that night you came to see him after you disappeared he was just a shell of a being. No soul. No spirit. He stopped looking after that little vegetable garden he planted after his family disowned him, and spent all day and night looking for you. No matter what I told him, he wouldn't stop. I told him over and over that you were gone, long gone. You were never coming back, but he wouldn't listen. Not until I made love to him that night, not until I changed him. Then, and only then, did he listen to me, but then again…he had no choice but to listen to me, his creator." She laughed. Something was off with her. Something evil. Something insane.

"How old are you Alex?" I asked. If there was one thing I knew, it was that if you did not have the willpower to hold on to some of your humanity during your immortal life, you eventually went insane and had to be killed. I had seen an elder do it to one of the older ones in the house, when my master wouldn't do the job. Sometimes, if you do not drink often enough, this will happen to the younger ones as well, but I doubted that was the case now.

"I'm not insane!" Alex screamed, completely removing herself from Dakota and walking around behind me.

I got up and turned around to look at her, backing up and tripping over Dakota's dead body. She may say she was not insane, but her eyes told a different story. They were cold, dark, and lifeless; no humanity left in them, just the thirst of the Yamashima. How I did not notice this yesterday when I first met her, is a question I would like answered.

"Why would I think you are insane? What does that have to do with my question?" I asked, pretending to be clueless.

"Then why do you want to know how old I am?"

"Just curious."

"You're lying." She giggled. "I can tell," she said, pointing to her head. "You're inside of me now, Ayame. I know, just like your master knew, everything that you think." She laughed and gave a small lunge, then laughed again as I flinched away from her.

I reached behind me and took a hold of the handle on the blade that was buried deep within Dakota's chest and yanked on it, pulling it free and into my grasp.

"Honestly, do you think you'd win if we fought? Yes, your master may have let you carry around loaded guns, but he never actually taught you how to fight with a blade. Me on the other hand, my Father made sure I knew how to use every weapon there was out there, dating all the way back to a holy water sprinkler in the thirteenth century." She laughed while saying, "You have no actual fighting experience."

"Well, as my Tamaharan father once said, you only learn from experience," I said, swallowing my fear back with a slight twitch of my head to the right.

"Let's see what you can learn then," Alex growled and actually lunged at me, her knife held out, ready to strike.

I was about to lunge when suddenly I heard a vaguely familiar male voice in my head. Wait until I tell you to move. I started to look around for the source of the voice but heard, do not take your eyes off of your attacker, and figured it would be best to listen to him, even though having a voice in my head that was not my own kind of scared me.

Funny, I thought, that voice sounds a lot like my brother's. My brother had been missing for over a hundred and seventy years, but we were close when he was around, and I would remember his voice anywhere. I trusted Sethekrd to tell me what to do, because Alex was right, I did not have any real fighting experience, especially no experience with a blade.

Alex was closing in on me when I heard Sethekrd say, duck and roll to your right. Get as far from the body as possible, you'll only lose your balance around it. And I did as I was told.

I turned to my right and ducked, letting the weight of my body flow to my head, and fell forward, tucking my arms and head close to my body and rolled. I jumped up onto my feet and started to run. I took a second to look over my shoulder to see Alex trip over Dakota's body. I turned my attention back to my running and looked forward, running until I came close to a tall fir tree and stopped, just under it. I watched Alex stumble back up to her feet and look around, furiously.

What now? I thought when Alex spotted me and started to run towards me. She was covered in mud, and I noticed the grip on her blade had loosened.

Just wait, Sethekrd said. Again, I did what I was told; I waited. I held the blade in my right hand, out in front of my face, hoping that little bit of protection would help, and my left hand was by my side in a tight fist.

Watching her stumble through the muddy grass trying to get to me, I decided she was definitely insane. I could not stop myself from wondering how I could not have noticed her insanity before, but she hadn't really shown any signs until now. Does she seriously think she can beat me in her state of mind?

Alex fell to the ground one more time, dropping her blade altogether. She did not pick it back up when she got back to her feet; she just started to run for me again, this time she managed to make it to me without falling.

She went to punch me when I heard, Strike! Without any conscious thought on my part, my left hand flew into her gut, knocking the breath out of her, and causing her to stumble back slightly. Then my right hand flipped the blade slightly and I shoved it through her abdomen, just under my fist.

Alex fell back and hit the ground hard, eyes open, and gasping for breath.

I pulled the blade out of the wound and looked up at her face. She was smiling. Why?

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"Finally taking me from this life."

Finish the job. Cut her head off and finish the job, Sethekrd told me.

My body began to shake again. The adrenaline rush was wearing off, and I did not think I could finish the job though the voice in my head was demanding it of me.

Finish it! he yelled in my mind.

I closed my eyes, knowing I had to do this, and felt my arm connect with her body, and when I opened my eyes again, Alex's head was rolling down the hill that we had both just run up.

I stood up in shock. I watched it roll until it stopped under a hooded figure's foot at the bottom of the hill. My body tensed up the second I saw the figure bend down, coming out of the shadow of the trees, and pick it up.

"Those born in the early years, go insane faster than those born in the later years. Her years spent alone made her go faster," the figure said from under his hood.

"Who are you?"

He took off his hood and looked up the hill at me. His starry night eyes were cold and dark and told me everything.

"Seth?"

He nodded, and I dropped the knife to the ground. My body soon followed the knife to the muddy ground as I fell to my knees.

He dropped Alex's head and walked up the hill to my side. "It's been a while," he whispered. "Sorry I couldn't come to you sooner." I just looked up at him, blinking. "All these years, and you haven't killed anyone before?"

I shook my head and lowered it. "Until recently, no, but now I have taken many lives with my own hands," I whispered. With the guilt of killing both Steve and Alex lying hard on my shoulders, for Dakota dying beside me in my sleep, I looked down at my shaking hands. "Was this all a dream?"

"Come on, let's head to my place and you can sleep it off. We can talk about it later if you want, and I'll explain all about where I've been all this time, and why it took me so long to find you." Sethekrd said with a sigh, reaching a hand out to me.

I nodded and took the offered hand, getting up with my brother's help. He took his cloak off and wrapped it around my shoulders. He guided me down the hill and through the other end of the forest. Far away from my master's house, Alex's cave, the collapsed cave, Steve, Dakota, and Alex.

A warning to all potential thieves, this work is copyright 2011 Kassandra Duric *****Ayame's Story is completely the work of Kassandra Duric, to reproduce under any other name is theft!****

Hope you enjoyed Chapter 10. Don't forget to review.