Kitsune of the Hakurei's Shrine

Author's Note: Yaharooo~ I know, I know. It's been far too long, worry not! As I write this I'm already preparing the next chapter, and most likely will release it during xmas along with KnR chapter so look forward to that~

Chapter 5: Prelude

"Is that all you came for?"

Six white wings fluttered.

"Yes"

Two purple slit eyes narrowed.

"Very well, We acknowledge your words and deem them unacceptable."

One handed wave, a golden scepter glinting dangerously.

"I see"

Ten tails bristled, darkness fell upon the land basked in eternal twilight.

"You may leave now"

Three halos shone brightly but their light was snuffled out by the ? in front of it.

"I was not giving you an option"

Doubt flickered in her eyes.

"For far too long I have stood on the sidelines, if you do not wish to be another corpse in my path then you will obey"

She shuddered but glared defiantly at the beast.

"Besides" He gazed at the land "You won't be losing anything beyond your pride"

"We... Accept your proposal" She muttered, a heavy sigh escaping her lips as she reclined back on her throne "Welcome back, Juubi"

The darkness receded back into it's owner, with a fanged smile the beast waved the Archangel good bye.

- 0 - Hakurei's Kitsune - 0 -

"Stupid Juubi, stupid Hecatia, stupid shrine" A ten year old Reimu scoffed under her breath as she swept the front of the Shrine, having been left behind by both of her guardians under the pretext that she hadn't completed her Shrine Duties. She was obviously angry that they had left her behind yet again, she could tolerate them doing so in the past because she was too young and would only slow them down but now that she had already completed her training under Juubi she could pull her own weight.

"One of these days I'll show them!" Reimu pouted as she clutched the broom harder until it creaked under her strength, at that point she took a deep breath to calm down and continue her duties. As much as she hated doing them, it still was something she had to do.

'If you shirk away small responsibilities, you will also shirk away the bigger ones' Is what Juubi had said and she knew it to be true.

More often than not, she would skip a simple thing such as collecting edible mushrooms finding it was unnecessary and somehow would end up skipping doing their meal all together because it was too troublesome.

She shuddered, remembering the harsh scoldings Juubi would give her because of that. At least Hecatia would try to stand up for her, emphasis on try, because somehow she would also wound up getting scolded by the ten tailed beast.

Reimu snickered despite her anger, the mental image of Hecatia sitting in seiza with logs on her lap apologizing to Juubi would forever be a memory of laughter. Brushing the last of the dirt at the front of the shrine, Reimu moved to the backyard and started sweeping once more.

"Anoo..." A voice trailed off and Reimu stopped to look at the speaker, finding a young woman with sparkling red eyes, shoulder-length pink hair with a Chinese-style double buns. She wore a white shirt and a green skirt, over those a brown front panel that has a thorny vine motif and a large rose-shaped ornament just below collar level "Are you this Shrine's maiden?"

Reimu wearily looked at the woman and nodded positively.

"Oh that's great, are you alone?" The woman asked as she eyed the Shrine, her already sparkling eyes gleamed even more as she studied the building before they returned to the maiden's face.

Reimu nodded once more, crossing her arms and holding the broom just a tad tighter "And you are?"

"Oh where are my manners, I'm Ibara, a wandering hermit" The young woman smiled and extended her left hand for a handshake.

While a strange way of greeting Reimu responded the handshake nonetheless, taking note of the hermit's right hand being wrapped in bandages and both arms having shackles around the wrist.

"If you don't mind me asking, which God is this Shrine dedicated to?" Ibara asked as her eyes returned once more to the building, a small twitch of her right hand and the slight tensing of her shoulders told Reimu that this person was anxious.

"Don't know" Reimu replied uncaring and started sweeping once more.

"You don't know!?" Ibara sounded surprised, weird.

"Nope, never knew and never cared either" Reimu replied with a little heat in her voice, the anger of being left behind was still strong in her.

"That can't be! You can't be a proper shrine maiden without knowing which God you're worshiping" Ibara spoke disbelievingly, her eye twitched when she saw Reimu ignoring her and continued sweeping. Ibara snapped and took away the broom from Reimu hands then adopted the universal pose of 'teacher mode'.

Reimu glared at the hermit, her already boiling anger seeping through the cracks as she harshly replied "Save it, if neither Ju-kun or Heca-nee bothered telling me then it must not be important"

Ibara tilted her head "Ju-kun...? Heca-nee?"

"Guardians" Reimu replied with sigh, muttering something under her breath "Now could you give me back the broom so I can finish this"

"AH! yes, sorry" The hermit returned the item and proceeded to watch as Reimu continued to sweep the ground "These Ju-kun and Heca-nee, who exactly are they?"

Reimu paused, eyeing the hermit and gauging how much she should tell her "Ju-kun is... like a father to me, he saved me and took care of me. He's a bit annoying and very old but I st..." she trailed off, the last words too low to hear "...And Heca-nee is my annoying acting-sister, she's a friend of Ju-kun" Reimu added and faintly smiled as she recalled a dozen of memories.

"They sound like good people"

Reimu snorted but nodded nonetheless.

"Don't let them hear you say that, it will be a pain to get them to shut up" Reimu replied with a shake of her head.

Ibara nodded, not that the maiden saw since she was busy sweeping, and continued to look around the shrine. Whenever her eyes gazed at the structure, she felt something otherworldly bubbling from inside the building.

It felt wrong.

"Anoo..." Ibara tilted her head "You never told me your name"

Reimu paused, scrolled up, yup she hadn't.

"Ha-" Reimu paused again, shaking her head and replying with "Reimu, just Reimu"

"Reimu, where have I heard that name before..." Ibara mused out loud "Well it doesn't matter, has any of your guardians started acting weird lately?" she asked as her eyes returned to the Shrine, somehow every time she looked back to it, the otherworldly feeling would intensify.

"Weird?" Reimu looked up in thought "Not really, not more than the usual"

"Are you sure?" Ibara wearily stepped away from the shrine.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" Reimu looked at the hermit with a frown.

"Can't you feel it?" Ibara nodded her head at the Shrine, she took another step back as the feeling increased tenfold after her words.

"Oh that" Reimu waved her hand "Don't mind it, that usually happens when Ju-kun's returning"

"Returning?" Ibara spoke wearily "Is this Ju-kun you speak of some sort of deity?" her bandaged arm trembled.

"Nope" Reimu replied and continued sweeping "He's more of p̷̨͓̱͕̮̭̗̆̃͐̇̎̽́ŗ̵̢͈̫̞͎̟̌̎̈́̎͌̕͠i̴̡̡̯̟̯̪͗̇̀̈́̾͋͜͠ṉ̷̠̮̪̯̺̑̇̉͑̈́̕͘͜c̷̛͇͍̜̟̺̹͊͊̽̒̆͛͜į̴̛͖̱̗͎̳̠̍̈́͒̀͌͑p̵̢̲̯̬̞͖̭̌̉̿̊̃͛́ļ̶̩͚͎̪̰̮̑̆͆̓̽͊͠e̷̡̢̯̞̫͙͉͛̅̐̌̈̉̚ than a deity"

"What?"

"He actually gets angry when you call him a deity" Reimu swept the last of the dirt away and threw the broom on the Shrine's veranda"Annnd done!" she cheered and started walking towards the shrine.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"Inside" Reimu replied as she slid open the tatami door.

It was then that Ibara really felt it.

Pain.

So much pain.

Like endless needless prickling every pore of her body.

"W-wait" Her voice was weak.

"Mmm?" Reimu looked back at the hermit whom had fallen to her knees "What?"

"H-how c-can y-you st-stand that!?"

"Stand what?"

"THAT!" Ibara shouted as she pointed with her shaky arm beyond the door.

Reimu turned to look inside the Shrine, the only notable thing in the room was a single orb floating on top of the table.

"Huh, so he left it behind this time..." Reimu muttered before closing the door and walked towards the kneeling hermit.

As soon as the door had closed, the pain subsided and only the otherworldly feeling stayed.

"Can you stand?" Reimu asked as she stopped beside the heavily breathing hermit.

Ibara nodded shakily and stood back up with a bit of difficulty.

"You're not... a normal Shrine Maiden" Ibara huffed out as she recovered her breathing.

Reimu deadpanned however before she could make a comment, the sound of a mirror slowly breaking apart resounded through the place. both girls turned to the source and their eyes widened. Floating just beyond the boundaries of the Shrine was a single crack in the air, it slowly expanded and white mist seeped through.

"That's not normal" Reimu frowned.

The crack suddenly exploded and something flew towards their direction, both girls yelped and threw themselves to the ground. The thing continued past them and smashed through the Shrine, wrecking it apart in under a second and the thing kept going, far past the boundary of the wrecked Shrine and disappeared, leaving behind only a trial of destruction.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Shit, not again" Reimu cursed, Ibara looked incredulously at the maiden "Okay that's it, I let it go last time because it was obviously Heca-nee's fault but this is just too annoying!" Reimu shouted to the crack.

Ibara gaped.

From within the crack, something laughed.

And Reimu snapped.

"You...!" She summoned her Gouhei, the purification rod appearing in her hand in a flash of light and pointed it at the crack "YOU!"

The crack laughed again and expanded.

One thing flew out, then another, and another, and another just as sudden as the first the sky was filled with floating things. Each and every one of them laughing, their bodies were nothing more than colorful spheres surrounded by white and red mist.

Spirits.

The little maiden wasted n time in drawing upon her powers and creating over a dozen of talismans, she held them between her middle and index fingers and with one swift slash sent them flying to the laughing spirits.

The sky was filled with miniature colorful explosions and dust.

"..."

"..."

Silence.

"..."

"..."

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAH"

That was broken by more laughter, the dust cleared up and lo and behold. None of the spirits were harmed, if anything the attack only tickled and strengthened their uproar.

"Was that supposed to happen!?" The hermit shouted from behind Reimu, but the maiden paid no attention as her mind was already at work.

'For those talismans to not work, those spirits must be stronger than the ones I've fought so far but that's... unless they're not from this dimension' Reimu eyes narrowed 'Heca-nee did take care of these types of spirits the last time they came, maybe she didn't let me have a go at them not because I wasn't prepared but because I wouldn't be able to hurt them at all!'

While she was thinking, her eyes never left the scene. More and more spirits kept pouring from the ever expanding crack, slowly but surely the light of the sun was being obscured by the minuscules spirits.

'If my current powers will have no effect on them, then I just have to use that' Her eyes glanced at the ruined Shrine behind her, fist tightening 'If only I could control it at will!'

"Reimu?" She heard the hermit's call but ignored her.

'I guess there's no other way'

"Hermit, distract them for a couple of seconds" Reimu spoke without taking her eyes of the spirits.

Ibara gaped, not because of the order but because she was being given an order. A quick sigh of resignation escaped her lips once she realized whether she wanted to or not, the maiden would probably do whatever was on her mind. If she had a plan, then it'd be less troublesome to follow her orders.

After all, she still was a Shrine Maiden.

"All right but don't take too long!" Ibara replied as she shook of her stupor and took a fight stance, knees bent with her left leg forward. Her left hand extended to the front, palm down while her right was balled into a fist above her chest.

Reimu nodded and sprinted to the wrecks of the Shrine "Where's it..." Her Gohei glowing brighter and dimmer depending on the direction from which she pointed it at.

Ibara took a deep breath and prepared, in one single motion she released her breath through her mouth along with moving her body.

Her left hand retracted as her body deflated, her right fist sailed forwards as her hips spun. Her right leg moving forward and increasing the speed and range at which her fist moved, energy spurred from within the bandages of her right arm and pulsed outwards her extended fist.

"Fwosh!"

The black pulse traveled across the air, it's fist shape visible. It impacted one of the spirits, shattering the orb into nothingness.

The laughter stopped.

All orbs turned towards her.

"Crap"

END

A/N: That's it for now, very tease much wow. Let'see if you can figure out the players in this chapter! Anyways, as I said before I will be following the canon timeline (including the time-skip between pc and windows) so it's safe to say where the next two chapters will follow. However how is the fun part ^^ I hope you enjoy it.