Disclaimer: I do not own anything but this idea for a plot and alternate storyline, the characters and places mentioned, except for a few created by me, belong to the creators of either Yu Yu Hakusho, Hello Kitty, Inu Yasha (slight reference) or Harry Potter, and the Myrddraal and trollocs (slight reference next chapter) belong to Robert Jordan (the author of The Wheel of Time books), the lines from Stellaluna belong to Janell Cannon (who wrote the story, and please don't sue me for not writing for permission first), I do not own Matilda either, and any resemblances to people, living or dead, are purely the figment of my, or your imaginations. Oh, and don't sue me; I don't have money, I even have to go to a community college. ^_^
That's right! It's time to say goodbye to the prologue, and it's Mary Sue-esque character in favor of introducing the real characters more. Only, they won't be the characters you think, nope... Hiei's next chapter, and he isn't really the focus... and Kurama only makes a highlight here... Yusuke and Harry? Why should we care about them? I'm not introducing characters that almost everyone knows about, just the additions that won't quite be main characters for the actual plot. Yes, in this respect, the shear amount of supporting characters will be just as bad as in Yu Yu Hakusho or Inu Yasha. But hey, they'll be fun all the same. Now, to get rid of Miss Ravenclaw here.... Let's see... poison, rope, knife, shotgun, sword, pistol, demon, Myrddraal, trollocs, fundamentalist bombers, plastic explosives, touch of death, medical complications, spell gone awry.... so many choices, so few people. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking of changing the name to something snappier.
Chapter One: A Herd of Sheep in Wolves' Clothing
Michelle awoke with a groan, her soft red hair laying in sweaty clumps on her cotton pillow. The Ravenclaw girl shared her room with three others, each with their own canopy bed. Lelandra, who had imported silk sheets that she slipped out of as she would her expensive silk nightshift, hurried to the moaning girl's side.
"Oh no, two nights in a row. Michelle, I really doubt it was food poisoning from that cake your mother sent you." The rich girl with midnight black hair set in curlers said as she beckoned for help from the others. Her right arm lay around Michelle's shoulders, holding her upright and preparing to hold her hair back. A short tanned girl with rather plain brown hair moved a pail so that the ill girl could throw up.
Cathy sat upon her bed still, musing with her chocolate brown hands folded into a steeple under her chin. "You are right," her analytical mind started, "if it was the food, we'd all be sick. And she hadn't had anything to eat last night. Her illness seemed temporary yesterday, since it stopped in time for first class."
Michelle, who was wiping off her lips with a handkerchief, halted her before she could add another word. "Don't say it. I don't want to hear those words." She spoke with a glare.
"Michelle, don't worry, we all know it couldn't be that. I'm just thinking that these symptoms are remarkably similar to...." Again the dark skinned Ravenclaw was cut off.
"No! It's not that!"
As the plain tan girl, Susan, picked up a brush for her hair, she finished Cathy's thought. "Morning sickness. I searched the library during all of my breaks and I found nothing else similar to your symptoms." She sat down cross-legged on her bed and began brushing.
With a smirk at her friend's moan at hearing those words, Lelandra began brushing Michelle's hair for her. "We all need to get dressed and prepare for breakfast. Michelle and I will be a few minutes late though, because I am taking her to Madame Pomfrey as soon as we are both presentable. We need to find out what is wrong with her because if she keeps missing breakfast like yesterday, her grades will start to drop and we have N.E.W.T.s to think of." Michelle tried to make a sound of protest to the idea, but the sound quickly denatured into a second lunge for the bucket.
As Lelandra patted the poor girl on the back, Susan pondered aloud, "Why doesn't she want to see Madame Pomfrey, it can't be morning sickness because she's still a virgin, right?"
All she received was a sharp glare. "What? It's not like that's a bad thing, why I'm the only one here who has ever managed to get a boy into a closet." The silence was deafening, the other girls were awaiting Michelle's defense, but it never came. Eventually, Susan squeaked out an "Oh lord!"
"Who? When? Where? How the heck did you keep Filch from finding you?" Cathy asked with a look of mischief in her dark eyes. Almost reluctantly, Lelandra resumed brushing the red locks very slowly.
"Do you remember Christmas Break?" Knowledge flashed within the three pairs of eyes. The girls started to dress in silence, and as Lelandra pulled out her curlers, Susan managed to blurt out a question about whether or not the human-like demon was good in bed. Michelle groaned all the way to the hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey looked up after examining the girl's abdomen. The room was a sterile white color, complete with the smell of healing herbs. Opaque curtains separated the patients' beds, but Michelle could distinctly hear the sound of at least two people crying in pain. Somewhere in that room was a young boy yelling about being burned in Potions Class. However, the woman in charge of Hogwarts's healing was almost glaring down at her, just with a sad expression.
"I'm going to have to tell your parents, and Dumbledore that you are a month pregnant." She muttered another part under her breath, "We've only had five pregnancies in the history of Hogwarts, and you just had to make yourself the sixth."
"I'm sorry," the red haired girl whined softly, "but I didn't know any anti-pregnancy charms, and I didn't think...."
The adult rudely cut her off, "That's right! You didn't think. But hopefully you are skinny enough to hide this until after you graduate, Ravenclaw! Now sit tight, it's a good thing I shooed away your friends or they'd tell the whole school. I'm going to see Dumbledore and I expect you to stay right here until I come back."
Holding back tears, Michelle didn't plan on staying right there. As soon as the healer left the room, she lifted her wand and commanded, "Accio Cleansweep." Her old broom came as commanded, and after opening a small window, she climbed out and flew off in the general direction of the nearest muggle village.
She flew through the harsh January snowfall and high into the frigid clouds. Using her wand, Michelle worked a complex spell to heat her dark robes so that she would not freeze. An hour or so later she landed in a deserted alley and used a spell to disguise her robes as winter muggle clothing and her broom as a walking stick.
She quickly found a red metal and glass booth with the word "Telephone" written on it in large white paint. It was warmer inside it, but her knees felt weak, and she looked at the muggle technology warily. Scanning with a sharp eye, she read the directions on the phone.
"I have some muggle change," She started talking to herself in a rush, thinking aloud to organize her thoughts, "but I don't remember how many pounds to use. I'll just put in all I have and hope it is enough." Her small temper flared as she remembered how hard it was to find the muggle currency. "And, I put it in, and pick up the phone, and press the buttons." She fumbled through her robe pockets, looking for the small slip of paper with the number on it. Once found, she dialed hesitantly. Holding the phone awkwardly, and incorrectly near her head, she listened for a sound. "Ringing... this must be a good thing, yes?" The ringing of the phone halted, and she determined which end to put to her ear. A woman's monotonous voice started talking on the other end, all in a foreign language. "Um, hello? I need to talk to... Shuuichi?" She remembered at the last second to use Kurama's other name. The voice continued without emotion. "Shuuichi? Is Shuuichi there?" The voice never faltered, and Michelle regretfully hung up, listening to the clicks as change fell into a little pocket on the machine.
The girl sank to her knees on the dirty floor of the miniature building with tears springing from her eyes.
Two weeks earlier (it is assumed that all dialogue in this part is in Japanese):
Signaling silently to his partner, a tall and thin red haired young man sighed mentally. He was in such a beautiful forest, with such lovely foliage, and yet the only sounds were of the wind brushing past leaves and the soft crunches of his partner's feet. Even without sensing the demonic energy or the scent of human blood, both Kurama and Kuwabara knew their quarry was near.
He stopped, his green eyes flashing as he sends a mental signal to his young companion. The boy, only a year younger than him, was tall, but bulky with goofy orange hair. With a wistful smile Kurama remembered something another friend had said about Kuwabara, that the carrot-top was a moron. Hiei was always funny like that. He shook his head quickly to refocus. Holding up one finger, he slowly moved it to point toward their prey, and quietly both boys moved to attack the demon.
Kurama sauntered into the clearing calmly, while Kuwabara edged in ten feet away with a glower. A rather ugly demon with five horns in its forehead, holes for ears, red tinged skin and long tusk-like fangs sat on a tree stump with a dead deer lying nearby as he munched idly on a human arm.
"So," Kurama started out diplomatically, "You are Gyukuru, are you not?"
"Yup, and soon as I'm done with this I'm gonna have fun gnawin' on yer bones, detectives." A hoarse, rasping, low-pitched voice came from the grotesque mouth.
Kuwabara made a suppressed retching sound, "I'm gonna throw up, but after we kill you, bastard!" He said bravely as he summons his orange spirit sword. He barely managed to duck the severed human arm the monster threw at him. Gyukuru picked up a spiked wooden club.
Kurama stood there waiting patiently for Kuwabara to finish his attempt at a fight with the monster. After the initial charge by both the human and the demon, the red monster swung his club like a baseball bat, and for once Kuwabara managed to duck under the assault, his sword neatly slicing the monster in two.
"Um, Kurama? Do you think that might have been too easy?" Kuwabara looked like an anvil had fallen on his head as he pondered how the fight ended so quickly.
"Perhaps the demon patrols in Makai are finally having an impact." The former fox demon thief said quietly in a somber tone, right before a pale green object erupted out of the opposite end of the clearing to clip him in the right side of his chest. Luckily Kurama managed to twist around so the blow was only grazing, but his clean off-white button-up shirt was slightly shredded. His breast pocket was removed fully, and its contents lay strewn on the ground broken.
Both detectives back off into the tree line, awaiting the arrival of this much stronger demon. Kuwabara shouted a warning that the damn thing had masked its energy. The red haired youko looks to the pile of junk on the ground, and saw his beloved cell-phone smashed to bits. Only one very complex thought entered his mind, Michelle had only that number, and he couldn't get a phone with the same number.
"You fuckin' destroyed my almighty, inter-dimensional, gods damned cell-phone!" He roared as his eyes flashed golden.
Poor Kuwabara had rarely seen a slaughter as horrible as this. By the time the demon charged into the clearing with its thick, whip-like tentacles, Kurama had already finished transforming into the cruel fox demon, Youko Kurama. His enigmatically cold eyes glared murder as the wind blew his soft silver hair. And every plant in the clearing, from the grass and surrounding trees to the flowers and hastily thrown mix of demonic seeds, tore apart the tentacle monster. Pale green flesh was torn from muscle and yellow fat, which was in turn torn from tendons and bones. Organs were ripped into pieces, and blood ran in purple rivulets on the ground. Kuwabara finally got to throw up.
After he was done, the carrot top wiped a hand haggardly across his mouth as he looked warily at his friend. "Why the hell did you go berserk?" He managed to squeak out carefully.
Cold eyes stared back at him as Kurama shifted back to his human form. Wiping off the dead demon's violet blood from his cheek, his clothes would need a good washing, he stated calmly, "He pissed me off. Someone was supposed to call me on that phone." That day, Kuwabara swore to never break anything that belonged to the fox demon.
Back in the phone booth:
Michelle dried her eyes with the sleeve of her robe as she thought 'I'm not getting anywhere like this, I might as well find a library and learn Japanese.' She rose determinedly and entered the snowy world. Her sharp eyes quickly found the nearest library. She shook off the snow as she entered, and headed to the non-fiction section. Finding a promising green hard-back, she sat down to learn how to introduce herself in Japanese and ask for another person.
"Watashi wa... watashi wa... and what else?" She mused aloud. A dashing blonde haired man, the library assistant by his nametag, overheard her.
"Need help with anything?" He smiled. She shook her head casually. "Learning Japanese, fun language, I'm taking that right now at the university." She glanced at him a second time.
"Really?" She paused, searching his light brown eyes. "I'm supposed to call my friend, he speaks English fine, but he lives in Japan, and I couldn't figure out what that telephone was doing because the woman was talking in Japanese." She summarizes quickly.
"Hm, maybe I can help you, lets try using the library phone." They walked over to the front desk, and he dialed for her. She could hear as the same female voice answered, but then the nice guy hung up the phone quickly without saying a word.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, "I'm sorry, that was a recording. Apparently the number is out of use or disconnected. You will need to call him with a different number."
She almost started to cry again as she stammered out, "But, that's the only number I have."
The man almost reached out to touch her shoulder with concern, "I'm sorry, but I don't have any Japanese phonebooks, and you'd need to know what section of the city he lived in. Um, was he your boyfriend?"
"Well, not yet, but I was hoping...." Her mind is busy analyzing the situation. "He had a very loudmouth friend. 'I'm the mighty Kuwahara Kazuma, number 1 delinquent at Sarayashiki Junior High,' I think, if I can find that school, I can just go to Japan, ask where that boy is, and ask him where Kurama is."
The brunette nods with a thoughtful look on his face, "That could work, here, let's see if there are any maps of Tokyo and Kyoto here."
When Michelle returned from her trip, flying back through the window into the medical ward, she was confronted with accusatory glares from both Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey. However, she had a plan for her future. After graduation, she would fly to Japan, find Kurama's dimwitted friend, and tell Kurama about the pregnancy. First though, she would have to tell her own family.
Her parents took it surprisingly well. Dumbledore took Michelle to his office so that she could use the fire to communicate with her parents. Bright flames in the shape of her father's face were all she could really see as the Ravenclaw girl said, "Daddy? I'm pregnant, and the father is on the other side of the world in ignorance."
His fiery eyes grew wide, "No! Absolutely not! You are too young and there will be no more babies in this house."
"But Daddy, it's too late for that." She grew worried when the head suddenly disappeared, and she called after him. Her mother's face appeared, soft despite harsh light of the flames.
"Don't worry dear, he had a dizzy spell. I just told him that I'm four months pregnant. I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell him." She said calmly.
"Mom, you told us three months ago. Are you saying you didn't tell Daddy just because he went into that big fit when you asked if he wanted another?" The girl's tone was almost exasperated.
Her mother smiled benignly. "You can make it through to graduation, and then we can figure out what to do. Want me to send you some chocolate covered pickles? Or maybe some haggis covered in Pixi Stix?"
"Ew mom, no thanks."
"Okay, we'll see you in a few months then." The fire died down, leaving the pretty little red haired girl alone.
Almost a year later, December 17:
Michelle sat rocking her two-and-a-half-month-old baby. The tiny girl had the chubbiest little hands, and the chubbiest little cheeks, the softest hair in a shade of red so light it could almost pass as pink, and she was utterly adorable. And for once the thing was quiet. Her wail reached every ear in the village and when she wasn't wailing, she was whimpering or giving off a high-pitch whine.
Even though the witch had been woken in the middle of the night be one of her child's more ear-shattering cries, she enjoyed rocking the baby in her arms as it fed. The baby opened one eye to look at her, one odd-shaded green eye with just a hint of gold in it. Michelle's parents had been surprised when their granddaughter's eyes changed from baby blue to that eerie green in just days. The midwife had been surprised to find the newborn staring at her, especially since human babies were not supposed to be able to focus their eyes for weeks if not months.
'Headmaster Dumbledore warned me you would be an odd child.' She thought to herself as she smiled down. 'He was worried you might have fox ears and a tail, but then you would have been too cute.' No, the baby looked normal at first glance, if you ignored the tooth coming in already, and the eyes that seemed far too intelligent. "At least no one will hunt you down for being a demon's child, Kit." She spoke aloud.
The little one's name was Kitsune, after a word her father had used to describe his race of demons, for that was the Japanese word for fox. Kit was a really cute nickname in her opinion, when it could be short for both Kitsune and kit fox. She thought it was very appropriate considering the baby's heritage.
The baby's eyes closed as it continued feeding, and Michelle looked out of the window to see her village. It was the same old magic village she had been born in herself, and just two doors away was her parents' house. They had helped her find a job in the Ministry of Magic shortly after she graduated from Hogwart's, and now her mother watched Kitsune and Michelle's new baby brother, Kyle, during the day. Her father and a few of the villagers had helped to build her this small cottage. In a few months she would journey with Kit to see the baby's father, Kurama, in Japan. She would have left already, but it would be a while before the Ministry would give her a paid vacation.
She sighed as she absently stroked Kitsune's cheek, but a flash of light quickly turned her attention back to the window. An eerie glow surrounded the image of a skull in the sky above the village. She shuddered before realizing something, "The Dark Mark, it's right above my parents' house!"
Scrambling for her wand, Michelle secured the baby into a wooden cradle, and ran outside to find her family. Ignoring the cries of her baby that resounded in her ears, she rounded a neighboring house to see her father facing five Death Eaters. She, and several other neighbors awoken by the unusually loud wails charged into the fight blindly.
High above the village, somehow untouched by the smoke of burning houses, a Reikai ferry girl rode her oar back into the heavens. The blue haired grim reaper, Botan, was happily chatting in a one sided conversation with her only passenger. "I like you wizard people; you never get scared of my flying. Now those other people, well some try to throw up even though they are already dead!" Behind her sat a silent see through ghost with red hair and the saddest blue eyes that looked as though tears were still dripping from them. The air around them was filled with the servants of death transporting the souls of the dead.
"You know, you are very quiet for being dead, most argue with me trying to say they are still alive." The ferry girl looked back to see her passenger. "Oh dear me, what's wrong?"
"My entire family except for my daughter was killed. And her father doesn't even know she's alive. And I'm dead." The soul was looking down upon her former village, and her voice was almost as distant as the cries of people below.
"I wouldn't say your 'entire' family."
The blue eyes flashed to scan her face for a second before returning to the village, "So somebody is still alive down there?"
"Bingo! You are correct! You still have two little brothers alive. I think," she pauses with a finger to her cheek, "I think that your five year old brother Andy was at a friend's house, and your mother hid Kyle in a closet. The villagers should have found him before the house burnt down."
The soul merely nodded before saying, "That is good, but Kurama still doesn't know about his daughter." She didn't notice as Botan almost fell off of the oar.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that name right, I thought you said Kurama, but that's just because I know a guy by that name."
The ferry girl could feel the suspicious blue eyes boring holes into her skull. "That is his name, but you wouldn't know him because he lives far away."
"Japan?" Botan felt the soul tense behind her, "That is where I am from, I'm just here to help with the unusual amount of sudden deaths caused by this Voldemort person."
"Maybe you do know him then." A pause, then a whispered, almost fearful remark, "I tried to call his cell phone like he asked, and I asked for Shuuichi just like he said, but all I got was this woman that spoke in Japanese, no matter what I tried."
"Kisama! Now I'm certain we are talking about the same Kurama. How the hell did that happen? And I'm sure his mother would give him the phone if...."
The bubbly grim reaper was cut off by a snort, "It wasn't his mother, it was a recording, and the person I asked said his phone was disconnected, whatever that is."
"But still, he hasn't had a girlfriend since Maya years ago, and I'm certain Koenma would have heard about it before now...."
"I wasn't really his girlfriend. I think it was because he was a fox demon, and foxes mate in the winter. He just wanted me to call if I was interested in having a relationship."
Botan had continued talking, but still heard this part, "...I never thought he'd start preying on helpless young women, especially if they were human. He's going to get a severe talking to, maybe I should tell his mother! And according to what you just said, he was on that Hogwart's mission on top of everything!"
The soul waited for the irate grim reaper to slow down before asking a favor, "Could you tell Kurama that I'm dead? And ask him if he would take in Kit, or if his mother would. He said she was a good mother."
Those sad blue eyes tugged at Botan's heart. "I'll do what I can." She decided as they entered the spirit world.
The next day found Botan floating on her oar above a nice house in the suburbs of Tokyo. With a deep breath and a curse to her boss, she swept down into a bedroom where a fox demon disguised as a human sat reading a Shakespearean play.
"Ohayo Kurama! We need to talk." She began with a quick glance to the closed door.
"Ohayo. Botan, why are you speaking in English?" The handsome red head asked quietly.
"Well, I don't want your family to overhear us talking, just pretend you are reading aloud from that book and since they don't know English themselves things should be fine." She looked unusually nervous to Kurama.
"Botan, they aren't home. Shuuchi is at a movie and my mother and step father are at work."
"Oh, well then." She paused and tapped her foot while she thought about what to say next. "Um, Koenma and I foundoutaboutthatstudentyousleptwith on the Hogwart's mission last year, becauseshedied." It took a moment for Kurama to comprehend her extremely fast and slurred together chatter.
"What?"
"She was killed yesterday." The ferry girl was almost scuffling her feet and she refused to make contact with his normally breathtaking eyes. "She wanted me to tell you that she tried to call and that there was a lot of things she wanted you to know."
Kurama realized that he had stood up, so he forced himself back onto the mattress. "Must have been after that damn demon obliterated my cell phone, I should have...." He allowed the thought lie there, as they remained silent for a moment. "Who killed her?"
Botan made a minute shake of her head, "It was a human Kurama, I can't tell you anymore than that." Of course Koenma feared Kurama might want revenge, especially if he reasoned out why the fox demon had been so distraught over losing a phone.
"Funeral?"
"In three days at Merlin Cemetery. Koenma won't let you go to it though."
"Wasn't planning on it, I just want to say goodbye."
"Avoid crowds."
"Okay." Botan took a cautious glance at her friend and was surprised to see puffy, tear-filled eyes. He did care, but not enough to burst out weeping over the loss. It was the sadness that came from knowing that a chance for love was gone just as it started.
"I better go, I be back to work in ten minutes, and I don't know where the address is exactly." Botan spoke before trying to recall every curse ever used against her.
"Okay, see you later then Botan."
She lifted up onto her oar and flew away with only one last thought on the matter, 'Damn you Koenma, he has a right to know about his daughter' which she quickly followed with a string of curses she remembered Hiei using.
A flash of green illuminated the stone building as the fireplace flared and a tall young man dressed in an oddly shaped black dress like thing. At least that is what the gravedigger thought of the black and gray kimono that the red haired man wore. The stranger carried an odd bundle made of what appeared to be black silk as well.
"'Ello sir? Warn't 'spectin' nobody around these parts for the next few days. The Ferguson family burial's tomorrow, so go on home."
"Actually," the boy began in a slow, slightly accented feminine voice, "I'm here to pay last respects to Michelle. She should have been buried a week ago."
"Ah, I remember that family, t'was so sad." The aging gravedigger in his faded black robes picked up an umbrella by the wooden door, wondering how the boy could sound so calm speaking of a dead girl. "I'll show ya to the plot." The boy was probably still in shock at the news.
Outside, a heavy drizzle hid the sun, and the gloomy affect only added to the lines of gravestones and mausoleum entrances. It matched Kurama's mood perfectly.
"Really sad 'bout the whole thing. Whole village went to try and save the auror, and most of them died. Shame 'bout the orphans too. Luckily the news spread fast 'nough to prevent any more from dyin' when the Ferguson family was attacked." The man rambled on as he guided the silent red head. "Damn those Deatheaters, my cemetery's never been starving that much for business."
Stopping abruptly, the man turned down one row of grave markers to point at a newly filled mound of dirt. "Thar she is, I'll leave you be. The doors'll be open for ya when yer done."
After a nod of thanks to the gravedigger, Kurama stood silently for a few minutes before uncovering his bundle. A flowered plant, encased in never-melting ice was uncovered. Setting the frozen flowers down in front of her tombstone, he read aloud her epitaph, "'another soul gone to heaven, an angel that will be missed, taken from us by, he-who-must-not-be-named.' So it is true what I thought. Voldemort killed you, just as you feared. At least your brothers survived." He shuffled his feet a little, glancing back at the flowers. "Yukina helped me make this for you. It's your favorite flower, and it'll never die or melt away with that casing. She cried for you. I didn't, but she has a weak heart; she'd cry over strangers too. There's about five hiruseki in there, not that you would have known what they are. But don't worry; nobody will take this away from you. Even if they could break Yukina's ice, the plant would kill them. I, I guess that I'm sorry you died. I'm not sure. It would have been nice if we could have gotten together, but then we'd both be here and you would be crying and cursing everything because of your family's deaths. I guess it wouldn't have worked out." He paused in thought, "Still, I wonder what you wanted to tell me. Maybe you also thought that it wouldn't work out between us. Well, goodbye."
Without another word, the young man started walking back briskly to the cemetery's main building. Mentally he cursed himself, 'I could have said something better than just "goodbye," what happened to my eloquence. I sounded like a fool.' Another part of him responded coldly, 'It's not as if we actually miss her. The dead are dead, and there is little we can do about it.' Kurama bristled at the thought, but sadly, he realized just how true both statements were. It could be scary how closely linked both sides of him had become.
Kurama reached the stone building, drenched in rain and shivering slightly with the cold. He politely declined the offer of a warm cup of tea, and threw the last of a strangely magical green powder into the fire. After speaking the name of his destination, Genkai's Temple, he entered the fire and returned back to Japan.
The room had one window, which looked out into a rain-drenched, empty playground. The wall to his right held awards and a framed diploma certifying the woman sitting across from him in child rearing. The woman herself was brown haired, and nobody would ever have called her beautiful, though she did have a homey, motherly quality to her. She kept glancing at the pink swathed child in the bassinet on her desk.
He himself was busy trying to untangle the baby's strong fingers from his long white beard. Dumbledore's wide brimmed wizard hat started to slide down his head, and before he could snatch it back, the hat fell into the bassinet. Then the child disentangled her hands from his beard, releasing him, so she could chew on his poor hat.
The woman laughed. "Now Nina, stop laughing. Are you sure you can take another orphan in?"
"Don't worry, Dumbledore, there's plenty of room, and she's the perfect age for what the barren couples want. She'll be adopted quickly with luck."
He smiled, and wondered idly when he'd be getting his chewed up hat back, "Her uncles were taken in by a distant aunt, but nobody else had room for a child that might not have any abilities."
"I'll inform the Ministry and you immediately when she is adopted, or when she shows signs of, unusual behavior." The woman did not comment as the baby's one tooth managed to tear a whole in the wizard's hat, but she did raise one eyebrow. "Just remember what happened to the last orphan that came here who had a muggle and a wizard parent." Dumbledore nodded in thought. "What happened to the mother? Is she truly an orphan?"
"Tom Riddle is what happened." He smiled at the child as she made the cutest cooing noise, and then frowned at his torn hat. Nina suppressed a shudder.
"And the father?"
"He is on the other side of the world, probably doesn't know she exists." She nodded before standing.
"I'll keep an eye on her, and if anything strange happens, I'll send for you." The two exchanged farewells before Dumbledore carefully removed his hat from the child's hands and mouth. There were more tears than he thought. The baby started crying again as he apparated out of the room and back to his school.
The baby, Kitsune, was only a few days older when a nice muggle couple adopted her. The wife had lost her baby, and all chances for others in labor, and had miraculously been sped on the path to a new child, unknowing that the Jr. God of Death had helped her.
Five Years Later, August 31:
"Hey, Kitten, are you ready for your first day of school?" A pair of bright green eyes turned from watching the Teletubbies to regard a tall man with light brown hair and a mustache. The man squirmed as the eyes slanted into a glare.
"Yes, Father." He almost thought the little girl sitting in front of him was being sarcastic. But five year olds were incapable of that, weren't they? It was almost as if she knew the truth....
Her pale red hair, almost the shade of cotton candy, was tied into twin pigtails above her ears, and she looked more like three than the five years she had to be. She stood swiftly from where she had been sitting with her legs crossed, without using her arms and keeping her balance perfectly. Her father wondered if a gymnast could do the same, but then, the child was quite odd.
Blank faced, she slid past him, hair unmoving, the folds of her skirt not even shifting with the movement. He never noticed the deft movements of her hands, or the replacement of his wallet. 'Such a strange child,' was all he noticed.
In the kitchen of the suburban house, the mother, her blonde hair up in a perfect braid, smiled down at her adopted daughter. "The pancakes are done, now eat up Kitten, this is a big day for you." The girl almost smiled, almost.
Scurrying up to her chair, and onto her booster seat, Kit shoveled food into her mouth. "Hey, slow down Kitten, you'll get a tummy ache," the man advised with a laugh.
"She's just excited, her first day of school." The woman smiled as well; finally the child was starting to behave as they thought children should. "The bus won't be here for a while yet." The girl did smile then, to foster their beliefs. In truth, however, she only wanted a full tummy before leaving.
A few minutes later, Kit gulped down a glass of milk, and the blonde woman helped her down from the booster seat.
"I don't need help." The child's voice was high pitched, but the softness of the volume seemed to take the edge out of it. For a moment, the mother was reminded of when the child had started speaking for the first time. When she had been loud, and screamed so much that the woman had needed medicine for her migraines. Now it was rare enough to hear the little girl speak. 'Why did she stop so suddenly, after only a few months?'
Picking up the dirty plate, utensils and glass, the mother smiled down at her distant daughter, "Go to my purse, and get 5 pounds for lunch, you know, five of the pounds with the little one on it. I'll check your counting after I take care of these." The child was already good at counting, nothing would happen.
'Fool.' The girl thought as she removed the money from the purse, every last pound note. Carefully, she left five one-pound notes in a pocket separate from the others she had taken.
The mother brought a little backpack out of the closet. As she placed a large notepad of paper and some crayons and a small box of pencils into the bag, the child studied each object. The bag, the cover of the notepad, and the pencil box were pink, with a large, white, oddly shaped cartoon cat drawn all over each. The girl put on her own coat, again pink, and her black buckled shoes before allowing her mother to fit her arms into the backpack's straps.
"It's a 'Hello Kitty' backpack, so you won't lose it. And it matches your name!" The woman was far too enthusiastic in her opinion. "Now, let's not miss the bus!"
A moment of doubt hit the child, she asked, acting as though she wanted her 'mother' to join her, "Aren't you coming with me?"
"Sorry, Kitten, I can't, I have to stay home and clean the house." Kit hid her relief with a glum face.
When the woman took the girl's tiny right hand, and walked the child up to the waiting bus, she was left with the belief that the girl had finally started warming up to having a family after the years of aloofness.
Walking straight to the back of the bus, Kit took the last seat on the right side. A few stops later, and she was surrounded by brutish 6th graders.
"Hey, little girl, do you miss your mommy?" One of the uglier boys started making faces at her. It didn't take him long to stop at the sight of her calmly glaring face. One, the leader by the way the others surrounded him, merely laughed.
"Let's see if this fazes the brat," He said smugly as he pulled out a knife. He thought it was fear that flashed in her eyes as he began waving it around near the seat.
Minutes later, the boys had thought that the little girl had gotten off before them, and that the leader's knife was safely tucked in his backpack. However, it was lodged under the seat, along with Kit. The bus driver searched each seat for any missing kids, but he never looked under, and when he parked in the bus garage five blocks from the school and left, she crawled out from her hiding.
She jumped onto a seat, and reached for the top of the window. Failing, she jumped to straddle the seat backs with her small legs. Then she pushed the latches to open the window fully, and crawled out into the daylight. Falling to the ground, Kit landed lightly on both feet in a crouch. 'Childs play,' she thought.
Days later, the small, cotton candy haired girl lay underneath a series of mostly dry boxes positioned to form a makeshift tent. Rain splattered down, and she shivered into her muddied pink coat. The 'Hello Kitty' bag lay beneath her head as a pillow, full of stolen coins and pound notes, even some food she managed to pilfer and a couple watches of dubious quality.
A sudden sound made her shift so that she could reach her knife. It wouldn't be the first time a stranger had tried to hurt her, or steal her things. Snatches of conversation drifted down the alley.
".... Never knew what hit 'em."
"This way, we can use this hideout for tonight."
A gang of young boys appeared, some not much older than herself, and she realized that they were whispering to each other. She slowed her breathing, made herself as quiet as possible, and hid the shine of the knife with a box flap. Their leader seemed to slow as he passed the boxes she hid in, and as the other boys passed him, he turned around completely to go back, and peer into her shelter.
"Hey, there's a...." She launched herself at him. Half a second later, she was dangling by her blade hand, and vainly trying to kick at the boy, who happened to be a good foot and a half taller than her. He held her tiny wrist in his hand, and after trying to pry the knife from her fingers, he settled for kicking it out of her hand. "There's a little vixen with a really long fang."
The leader moved aside to allow his gang to search her boxes. While he wasn't looking, Kit pulled herself up enough to kick the arm holding her.
"Yeouch!" He almost dropped her, but managed to keep his grip. "Don't do that again!" He yelled at her. She then very deliberately pulled herself up and slowly moved to bite his arm. Letting her go before Kit could chomp down, he slapped her lightly with the hand that had held her, and somehow managed to grab her wrist again with the same hand to leave her dangling an inch above the ground.
Her eyes were as wide as saucers before they narrowed again to meet his challenging gaze. Before she could fight back any more, a boy's soprano voice spoke up from her shelter, "Boss, she's got at least a hundred pounds in here."
"And food!" A second boy said between a mouthful of apple.
The leader had the audacity to smile at her. "Yer a fast fox, ain't ya?" She nodded slightly. "You wanna join our gang?" Her eyes blinked in amazement, but she caught her emotions quickly to give a noncommittal shrug. "Tough little cookie." He released her, and she fell the last inch lightly, showing no sign that she had ever moved.
"Give her back her stuff." The leader ordered.
"Can I keep the apple?" The hungry boy asked.
"I'm not going to eat it." Her whisper startled the gang a little. The leader just shrugged with another smile and led the way into an abandoned basement.
Kitsune wrinkled her nose at the smell of filth that rose from the basement. Rats scurried along on the tops of tables; the wooden platforms covered the room, forming false flooring. Splashing, a rat fell into a crack between two tables only to flounder in the deep puddle covering the basement's floor. She could hear water slowly draining in one of the far corners.
"It's flooded half the year, it smells, there's rats, the tables fall apart occasionally, but hey, it's home!" The boss flashed a grin at her as the others began to light torches, lanterns, electric lamps, and candles. The sconces on the walls were unmatched and crudely made, but they seemed to hold the torches well. Kit could see shelves and metal cabinets lining the walls, and cushions and pillows lying about haphazardly on the tabletops. "Get the loot into the cabinets, and make sure the rats didn't eat anything again. Fox, you can put your stuff on one of the shelves an' nobody'll touch it."
With the light, Kit finally had a good look at the leader. Black hair slicked by the rain was pulled into a tight ponytail, topped by a cocky wide-brimmed hat. His pale skin seemed to reflect the lights of the flames. He was taller than her, and almost as slim and lithe. And his eyes were weird, narrowed and hard like hers, only in the oddest shade of dark blue, no it wasn't blue, it was that color in the rainbows between blue and violet. Kit couldn't remember what the color was called, but she quickly placed her 'Hello Kitty' bag on one of the empty, lower shelves.
"So, what's yer name fox?"
"Kit, Kitsune really." She whispered as she sat down on a dark green pillow. The leader tossed her a faded blue woolen blanket, and she wrapped herself up in it against the cold.
"Yer mum too?" After the boy received a quizzical look from her green-eyed gaze, he continued, "My name's Kuronue, but everybody just calls me Kuro for short. I swear, my mum must have been on something to name me that."
"My mu... mother is dead. Just don't call me 'Kitten,' I hate that name."
"Fair 'nuff. We'll just call you our little Kit Fox fer now." Holding a small book in his hands, the boy, Kuro, sat down next to her. She fought the urge to move away. "Hey, everything's gonna be okay now. You ain't alone. Max over there by the cabinet lost his parents about two years back, and that boy over there with the green scarf, he don't talk much cause his parents left him in an alley. My mum died when I was little. She got beaten to death by one of her johns. I'm just lucky I was born before all that." His eyes seemed less harsh now, somehow softer, and for a second she saw a pair of bright blue eyes framed by red locks, the eyes of her real mother. "So how old are you, or have you been alone so long you can't remember?"
"I'll be six soon, on September 29. My mother died when I was only a few months old when she never came back, and then I had to live with these people that kept on calling me Kitten, and saying they were my parents. I hated them; they were nothing like my real mother. She was better, and nicer, and smelled better, and she smiled for only me.
Kuro didn't voice his doubts at her remembering anything from that young, but he did return her embrace as she clung to his loose gray jacket and cried. "Hey," he tried to soothe her, "It's okay. Stupid adoptive parents rarely understand something like that. Um, you look a little small for six, but, um, I'm eight, so I guess I'll kinda be like your big brother here."
He looked to the other boys, some listening quietly, two fighting over a half eaten sandwich, and three betting on the fight with shiny pebbles, and many half asleep inside layers of blankets. "Ain't that right boys, we'll all be her big brothers."
A few mumbled back affirmations, one went so far as to wonder aloud what it would be like to have a little sister, even though that boy was only five himself. Kitsune fell asleep with the tears she had been waiting her whole life to shed, and Kuro just held her until she did. As he tucked the small book, a dictionary for both English and Japanese, he thought he would tell her what he had found later, maybe tomorrow, or something.
About a year later:
Smugglers used the warehouse for stashing their ill-gotten gains, or at least that is what the gang believed, and the secret removable floorboards provided evidence to support their belief. All Kitsune knew was that the abandoned facility was a terrific place to store their own goods, and the empty shipping crates were quite comfortable with a few dirty mattresses on top of them. It was also very safe, since nobody messed with the docks after some fire destroyed it and filled the small inlet with charred wood, and Kuro had the only key.
As she lay stomach-down on her mattress, which happened to smell strongly like moldy cheese, Kitsune stared blankly at the open book in her small, dirty hands. Then she glared at the boy eating an apple in front of her. "Kuro," she moaned as the boy paused in mid-bite, "I'm bored." Her voice was liltingly high pitched, like the whine of a baby animal.
"So, read a different book," Kuro responded while chewing a piece of the apple.
"But I've already read them all, and this is so boring. I wish I had something better to read." Kitsune pouted cutely as she threw the book onto the mattress and curled up on her side with her legs underneath her chin and her eyes still focused on her friend.
"Is it more boring than "Dick and Jane find a Cat" or "Dick and Jane visit the museum"?"
Kitsune moaned again, "No, but it's so easy to read. I know it's supposed to be a harder book 'cause it's 44 pages, but I've read it ten times already!"
"You have not, couldn't be more than five times, if even." His easy smile received a glare from the little girl.
Her voice grew cold and very soft, "In a warm and sultry forest far, far away, there once lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby. Oh, how Mother Bat loved her soft tiny baby. 'I'll name you Stellaluna,' she crooned. Each night, Mother Bat would carry Stellaluna clutched to her breast as she flew out to search for food."
A/N: Those lines were from page one of Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, published in 1993 by Harcourt Brace & Company. I didn't just use this because it was the only children's book I had in my bookshelf, but because the story mirrors Kitsune's own in that her mother lost her, she was raised by strangers, and is currently in a society in which she does not belong, and someday, though she does not know it yet, things will change. Also, fruit bats are also known as "Flying Foxes." It works on so many levels, creepy.
"Okay, so maybe you have. Jeez, were you this bad with your adoptive parents?"
"Worse. I was cold all the time, and I always whispered, but I like you more and you don't yell at me for sounding weird."
Kuro reached underneath his mattress and drew out a little book. "This was my ma's, so be careful with it. I'll let you read it and tomorrow we'll clean up and go to the library." He tossed her the Japanese-English Dictionary.
"The library? Why should we go to the spot where we meet up after looting the mall?"
Kuro sighed, "Sometimes you amaze me with your stupidity. The library has lots of books that you can read for free. And I know this lady who knew my mom that works there. She'll let me borrow books without telling anyone I'm a street brat."
"Oh." Kitsune's voice went back to normal. "Okay, I guess we can do that then." She flipped the book open and missed a flash of remembrance in Kuro's indigo gaze.
"Hey, you should look up your name in the Japanese side," Kuro flashes that smirk again, "I think I saw it in there."
Kitsune reads the one word entry beside her name, "Fox," and then she glares at her friend and flips a few pages and starts scanning, "Hey, 'Kuronue's' not in here. Closest thing is 'kuroi' which means black."
"Eh, close enough, that's what 'Kuro' is short for really, so." Kuro shrugs.
"Black and fox." Kit gives him a small smile, "At least it's better than 'Kitten'."
The next day found the entire gang splashing around the ruins of the docks. Older kids helped younger kids bathe in the shallows. The oldest child, Marcus, was ten, so he bought a bag of soap, shampoo and conditioner for the 14 children using some stolen money. Kitsune, being a girl, had been allowed to bathe first, and was currently brushing out her soaking hair in the sun.
Hands reached out from behind Kit to softly stroke her pale red hair. Kit froze before reaching for her hidden belt knife. "Relax fox, it's just me," Kuronue's voice touched her ears, "You've got nice hair, it's pretty. Bet you could make a hundred dollars if you grew it out real long and sold it."
"Hn," She grunted a reply, "Not gonna do that, my mother had long hair, and it was pretty, and very soft."
Kuro stayed silent about his doubts, "Okay."
Finishing her hair, Kit turned around to look at her friend. Her gold-flecked gaze saw bare bottomed boys chasing each other in the shallow waters, and Kuro beside her wearing a white towel that was borrowed from a cheap hostel. His black hair hung down his back with streams of water flowing from the shortened tendrils near his face.
"Hey, once I get dressed we're going to the library."
It didn't' take the boy long to dress in his only decent and clean outfit. Kuro forwent his usual wide brimmed hat, and wore clean khaki shorts, stolen, and a plain white button up shirt, also stolen. Kit had on the only dress she owned, a yellow little thing that replaced her torn and dirtied school dress.
Kuronue led the way to the library and even held the door open for the little girl. Inside was the largest array of books she had ever seen. Rotating stands held paperback books, and there was a whole section for children. Beyond that were hardbound copies of novels, and a section of older tombs labeled "Reference."
Kit found ten; one was the largest book she had ever seen. They were chaptered novels mostly, and a book on foxes that she thought might be interesting. As he escorted her to the checkout desk, Kuro was left wondering how she could hold them, let alone be able to read all of the books.
The librarian was of a like mind. The woman had short-cropped brown hair, a red blouse, and gaudy gold hoop earrings. She looked to be about 30.
"Kuro! How have you been, child? I thought I told you not to get a girlfriend until you were 14." The woman beamed a kind smile.
The boy shivered at a half remembered memory. "Girl's are gross, she's just my friend."
"Wow, this little thing wants to read all of these? I'm assuming she's never been to school just like you." The woman had paused in her scanning of the fox reference book.
"She's got a 'Matilda' complex, and she doesn't know how poorly she reads yet," the boy replied.
"I can read just fine!" Kit screeched in indignation, "And you don't hafta act like I'm not here." Kuro clamped a hand over her mouth and ordered her to be quiet when she spoke because she had earned a few harsh looks from other patrons.
Before the tiny girl could ask what a 'Matilda complex' was, the librarian chuckled and spoke again, "Oh, you've got the book right here too. You're such a darling little thing, if you have any troubles you can just come over here after 6 and I'll have a volunteer read the books to you." Kuro's hand refrained Kit from a rude comment.
Somehow, Kit managed to carry all but the largest book back to the warehouse. Kuro had to help her with the last one. By the time they arrived back home, the sky had darkened with the onset of night. The two children could never have anticipated the scene that awaited them.
The inarticulate screams of a child punctuated hoarse yells for help, and Kit and Kuro began to run. Skidding to a halt to face the front of their warehouse, they dropped the books as terror began to grip them. A large man, whose right hand was sticking out through the boy's abdomen, held Ernie one of the nine year olds. The man's dark hair was matted to his skull, and he had the look of a common vagabond if one ignored the red glow of his narrow eyes.
The man threw the boy's dying body away, knocking down two of the larger boys that held knives. Then his lips drew into an ugly sneer as his burning gaze found Kit. However, she was unaware of this; her senses were focusing on something else. The man, no, he wasn't a man for he glowed, a sickly purple/red aura that lashed out wildly, the feel of it made Kit sick to her stomach. And the man had long claws and a lion tail longer than most of the kids were tall.
Kuro tried to pull the girl away before the monster could grab her too, but she wasn't budging, and the monster kicked him into a garbage can while lifting the girl's rigid body. Looking up quickly, Kuro watched as the killer prepared to pierce his friend's body with his hand. And then Kit disappeared.
A knife slid between the monster's neck vertebrae, and Kitsune was once more visible as she sat perched lightly with her toes on the neck of the killer. Forced to jump down as the monster spasmodically entered his death throws, Kit took cold care in cleaning off her knife.
"Is it dead?" A boy's frightened voice asked as others began weeping. Another voice chimed in to inform everyone of Ernie's passing.
Kuro matched Kit's hard stare, and after walking to his side, she spoke in her eerily cold whisper, "Did you feel it?"
Eyes widening, he started, "Do you mean, that you too?" He turned his stare to the dead body, and his eyes narrowed in concentration. "It's faint, but that evil energy is unmistakable. And the tail and claws, they can't be seen normally, so it was a monster." Kit nodded, relieved that she wasn't the only one to see it. "Fox, do me a favor and don't mention this to anyone. If they ask, you did a back flip and slid out of his grip, 'k?"
"Sure thing." Her voice still carried that cold edge. "I've never been able to see this glow before, but I think I've seen the hidden things once or twice."
Kuro turned toward her, "If it becomes a problem, tell me. This was how I found you when you were hiding in that box, I got an odd feeling so I searched and saw your aura. I've seen glows around everyone ever since I was a baby, and I learned to ignore it for the most part. It becomes a pain in the ass after very short while, but the only colors I've seen were pale and less violent. The only other thing like it was this dark aura I saw around the guy that killed my mum. I think the unseen claws and tail had some kind of spell hiding them, cause I've seen others like that before too."
With that, Kuro left her standing in the night so that he and the older children could dump the monsters body elsewhere and bury Ernie. Kit and the other kids went back into their hideout to hide inside dirty blankets, cry, and sleep.
A/N: Okay, I'll finish this section later and I hope this much has appeased anybody who has actually bothered to read this. This may be more of a biography than an entertaining story, but hopefully the real story will be better, now if I can just start on it this weekend.
That's right! It's time to say goodbye to the prologue, and it's Mary Sue-esque character in favor of introducing the real characters more. Only, they won't be the characters you think, nope... Hiei's next chapter, and he isn't really the focus... and Kurama only makes a highlight here... Yusuke and Harry? Why should we care about them? I'm not introducing characters that almost everyone knows about, just the additions that won't quite be main characters for the actual plot. Yes, in this respect, the shear amount of supporting characters will be just as bad as in Yu Yu Hakusho or Inu Yasha. But hey, they'll be fun all the same. Now, to get rid of Miss Ravenclaw here.... Let's see... poison, rope, knife, shotgun, sword, pistol, demon, Myrddraal, trollocs, fundamentalist bombers, plastic explosives, touch of death, medical complications, spell gone awry.... so many choices, so few people. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking of changing the name to something snappier.
Chapter One: A Herd of Sheep in Wolves' Clothing
Michelle awoke with a groan, her soft red hair laying in sweaty clumps on her cotton pillow. The Ravenclaw girl shared her room with three others, each with their own canopy bed. Lelandra, who had imported silk sheets that she slipped out of as she would her expensive silk nightshift, hurried to the moaning girl's side.
"Oh no, two nights in a row. Michelle, I really doubt it was food poisoning from that cake your mother sent you." The rich girl with midnight black hair set in curlers said as she beckoned for help from the others. Her right arm lay around Michelle's shoulders, holding her upright and preparing to hold her hair back. A short tanned girl with rather plain brown hair moved a pail so that the ill girl could throw up.
Cathy sat upon her bed still, musing with her chocolate brown hands folded into a steeple under her chin. "You are right," her analytical mind started, "if it was the food, we'd all be sick. And she hadn't had anything to eat last night. Her illness seemed temporary yesterday, since it stopped in time for first class."
Michelle, who was wiping off her lips with a handkerchief, halted her before she could add another word. "Don't say it. I don't want to hear those words." She spoke with a glare.
"Michelle, don't worry, we all know it couldn't be that. I'm just thinking that these symptoms are remarkably similar to...." Again the dark skinned Ravenclaw was cut off.
"No! It's not that!"
As the plain tan girl, Susan, picked up a brush for her hair, she finished Cathy's thought. "Morning sickness. I searched the library during all of my breaks and I found nothing else similar to your symptoms." She sat down cross-legged on her bed and began brushing.
With a smirk at her friend's moan at hearing those words, Lelandra began brushing Michelle's hair for her. "We all need to get dressed and prepare for breakfast. Michelle and I will be a few minutes late though, because I am taking her to Madame Pomfrey as soon as we are both presentable. We need to find out what is wrong with her because if she keeps missing breakfast like yesterday, her grades will start to drop and we have N.E.W.T.s to think of." Michelle tried to make a sound of protest to the idea, but the sound quickly denatured into a second lunge for the bucket.
As Lelandra patted the poor girl on the back, Susan pondered aloud, "Why doesn't she want to see Madame Pomfrey, it can't be morning sickness because she's still a virgin, right?"
All she received was a sharp glare. "What? It's not like that's a bad thing, why I'm the only one here who has ever managed to get a boy into a closet." The silence was deafening, the other girls were awaiting Michelle's defense, but it never came. Eventually, Susan squeaked out an "Oh lord!"
"Who? When? Where? How the heck did you keep Filch from finding you?" Cathy asked with a look of mischief in her dark eyes. Almost reluctantly, Lelandra resumed brushing the red locks very slowly.
"Do you remember Christmas Break?" Knowledge flashed within the three pairs of eyes. The girls started to dress in silence, and as Lelandra pulled out her curlers, Susan managed to blurt out a question about whether or not the human-like demon was good in bed. Michelle groaned all the way to the hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey looked up after examining the girl's abdomen. The room was a sterile white color, complete with the smell of healing herbs. Opaque curtains separated the patients' beds, but Michelle could distinctly hear the sound of at least two people crying in pain. Somewhere in that room was a young boy yelling about being burned in Potions Class. However, the woman in charge of Hogwarts's healing was almost glaring down at her, just with a sad expression.
"I'm going to have to tell your parents, and Dumbledore that you are a month pregnant." She muttered another part under her breath, "We've only had five pregnancies in the history of Hogwarts, and you just had to make yourself the sixth."
"I'm sorry," the red haired girl whined softly, "but I didn't know any anti-pregnancy charms, and I didn't think...."
The adult rudely cut her off, "That's right! You didn't think. But hopefully you are skinny enough to hide this until after you graduate, Ravenclaw! Now sit tight, it's a good thing I shooed away your friends or they'd tell the whole school. I'm going to see Dumbledore and I expect you to stay right here until I come back."
Holding back tears, Michelle didn't plan on staying right there. As soon as the healer left the room, she lifted her wand and commanded, "Accio Cleansweep." Her old broom came as commanded, and after opening a small window, she climbed out and flew off in the general direction of the nearest muggle village.
She flew through the harsh January snowfall and high into the frigid clouds. Using her wand, Michelle worked a complex spell to heat her dark robes so that she would not freeze. An hour or so later she landed in a deserted alley and used a spell to disguise her robes as winter muggle clothing and her broom as a walking stick.
She quickly found a red metal and glass booth with the word "Telephone" written on it in large white paint. It was warmer inside it, but her knees felt weak, and she looked at the muggle technology warily. Scanning with a sharp eye, she read the directions on the phone.
"I have some muggle change," She started talking to herself in a rush, thinking aloud to organize her thoughts, "but I don't remember how many pounds to use. I'll just put in all I have and hope it is enough." Her small temper flared as she remembered how hard it was to find the muggle currency. "And, I put it in, and pick up the phone, and press the buttons." She fumbled through her robe pockets, looking for the small slip of paper with the number on it. Once found, she dialed hesitantly. Holding the phone awkwardly, and incorrectly near her head, she listened for a sound. "Ringing... this must be a good thing, yes?" The ringing of the phone halted, and she determined which end to put to her ear. A woman's monotonous voice started talking on the other end, all in a foreign language. "Um, hello? I need to talk to... Shuuichi?" She remembered at the last second to use Kurama's other name. The voice continued without emotion. "Shuuichi? Is Shuuichi there?" The voice never faltered, and Michelle regretfully hung up, listening to the clicks as change fell into a little pocket on the machine.
The girl sank to her knees on the dirty floor of the miniature building with tears springing from her eyes.
Two weeks earlier (it is assumed that all dialogue in this part is in Japanese):
Signaling silently to his partner, a tall and thin red haired young man sighed mentally. He was in such a beautiful forest, with such lovely foliage, and yet the only sounds were of the wind brushing past leaves and the soft crunches of his partner's feet. Even without sensing the demonic energy or the scent of human blood, both Kurama and Kuwabara knew their quarry was near.
He stopped, his green eyes flashing as he sends a mental signal to his young companion. The boy, only a year younger than him, was tall, but bulky with goofy orange hair. With a wistful smile Kurama remembered something another friend had said about Kuwabara, that the carrot-top was a moron. Hiei was always funny like that. He shook his head quickly to refocus. Holding up one finger, he slowly moved it to point toward their prey, and quietly both boys moved to attack the demon.
Kurama sauntered into the clearing calmly, while Kuwabara edged in ten feet away with a glower. A rather ugly demon with five horns in its forehead, holes for ears, red tinged skin and long tusk-like fangs sat on a tree stump with a dead deer lying nearby as he munched idly on a human arm.
"So," Kurama started out diplomatically, "You are Gyukuru, are you not?"
"Yup, and soon as I'm done with this I'm gonna have fun gnawin' on yer bones, detectives." A hoarse, rasping, low-pitched voice came from the grotesque mouth.
Kuwabara made a suppressed retching sound, "I'm gonna throw up, but after we kill you, bastard!" He said bravely as he summons his orange spirit sword. He barely managed to duck the severed human arm the monster threw at him. Gyukuru picked up a spiked wooden club.
Kurama stood there waiting patiently for Kuwabara to finish his attempt at a fight with the monster. After the initial charge by both the human and the demon, the red monster swung his club like a baseball bat, and for once Kuwabara managed to duck under the assault, his sword neatly slicing the monster in two.
"Um, Kurama? Do you think that might have been too easy?" Kuwabara looked like an anvil had fallen on his head as he pondered how the fight ended so quickly.
"Perhaps the demon patrols in Makai are finally having an impact." The former fox demon thief said quietly in a somber tone, right before a pale green object erupted out of the opposite end of the clearing to clip him in the right side of his chest. Luckily Kurama managed to twist around so the blow was only grazing, but his clean off-white button-up shirt was slightly shredded. His breast pocket was removed fully, and its contents lay strewn on the ground broken.
Both detectives back off into the tree line, awaiting the arrival of this much stronger demon. Kuwabara shouted a warning that the damn thing had masked its energy. The red haired youko looks to the pile of junk on the ground, and saw his beloved cell-phone smashed to bits. Only one very complex thought entered his mind, Michelle had only that number, and he couldn't get a phone with the same number.
"You fuckin' destroyed my almighty, inter-dimensional, gods damned cell-phone!" He roared as his eyes flashed golden.
Poor Kuwabara had rarely seen a slaughter as horrible as this. By the time the demon charged into the clearing with its thick, whip-like tentacles, Kurama had already finished transforming into the cruel fox demon, Youko Kurama. His enigmatically cold eyes glared murder as the wind blew his soft silver hair. And every plant in the clearing, from the grass and surrounding trees to the flowers and hastily thrown mix of demonic seeds, tore apart the tentacle monster. Pale green flesh was torn from muscle and yellow fat, which was in turn torn from tendons and bones. Organs were ripped into pieces, and blood ran in purple rivulets on the ground. Kuwabara finally got to throw up.
After he was done, the carrot top wiped a hand haggardly across his mouth as he looked warily at his friend. "Why the hell did you go berserk?" He managed to squeak out carefully.
Cold eyes stared back at him as Kurama shifted back to his human form. Wiping off the dead demon's violet blood from his cheek, his clothes would need a good washing, he stated calmly, "He pissed me off. Someone was supposed to call me on that phone." That day, Kuwabara swore to never break anything that belonged to the fox demon.
Back in the phone booth:
Michelle dried her eyes with the sleeve of her robe as she thought 'I'm not getting anywhere like this, I might as well find a library and learn Japanese.' She rose determinedly and entered the snowy world. Her sharp eyes quickly found the nearest library. She shook off the snow as she entered, and headed to the non-fiction section. Finding a promising green hard-back, she sat down to learn how to introduce herself in Japanese and ask for another person.
"Watashi wa... watashi wa... and what else?" She mused aloud. A dashing blonde haired man, the library assistant by his nametag, overheard her.
"Need help with anything?" He smiled. She shook her head casually. "Learning Japanese, fun language, I'm taking that right now at the university." She glanced at him a second time.
"Really?" She paused, searching his light brown eyes. "I'm supposed to call my friend, he speaks English fine, but he lives in Japan, and I couldn't figure out what that telephone was doing because the woman was talking in Japanese." She summarizes quickly.
"Hm, maybe I can help you, lets try using the library phone." They walked over to the front desk, and he dialed for her. She could hear as the same female voice answered, but then the nice guy hung up the phone quickly without saying a word.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, "I'm sorry, that was a recording. Apparently the number is out of use or disconnected. You will need to call him with a different number."
She almost started to cry again as she stammered out, "But, that's the only number I have."
The man almost reached out to touch her shoulder with concern, "I'm sorry, but I don't have any Japanese phonebooks, and you'd need to know what section of the city he lived in. Um, was he your boyfriend?"
"Well, not yet, but I was hoping...." Her mind is busy analyzing the situation. "He had a very loudmouth friend. 'I'm the mighty Kuwahara Kazuma, number 1 delinquent at Sarayashiki Junior High,' I think, if I can find that school, I can just go to Japan, ask where that boy is, and ask him where Kurama is."
The brunette nods with a thoughtful look on his face, "That could work, here, let's see if there are any maps of Tokyo and Kyoto here."
When Michelle returned from her trip, flying back through the window into the medical ward, she was confronted with accusatory glares from both Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey. However, she had a plan for her future. After graduation, she would fly to Japan, find Kurama's dimwitted friend, and tell Kurama about the pregnancy. First though, she would have to tell her own family.
Her parents took it surprisingly well. Dumbledore took Michelle to his office so that she could use the fire to communicate with her parents. Bright flames in the shape of her father's face were all she could really see as the Ravenclaw girl said, "Daddy? I'm pregnant, and the father is on the other side of the world in ignorance."
His fiery eyes grew wide, "No! Absolutely not! You are too young and there will be no more babies in this house."
"But Daddy, it's too late for that." She grew worried when the head suddenly disappeared, and she called after him. Her mother's face appeared, soft despite harsh light of the flames.
"Don't worry dear, he had a dizzy spell. I just told him that I'm four months pregnant. I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell him." She said calmly.
"Mom, you told us three months ago. Are you saying you didn't tell Daddy just because he went into that big fit when you asked if he wanted another?" The girl's tone was almost exasperated.
Her mother smiled benignly. "You can make it through to graduation, and then we can figure out what to do. Want me to send you some chocolate covered pickles? Or maybe some haggis covered in Pixi Stix?"
"Ew mom, no thanks."
"Okay, we'll see you in a few months then." The fire died down, leaving the pretty little red haired girl alone.
Almost a year later, December 17:
Michelle sat rocking her two-and-a-half-month-old baby. The tiny girl had the chubbiest little hands, and the chubbiest little cheeks, the softest hair in a shade of red so light it could almost pass as pink, and she was utterly adorable. And for once the thing was quiet. Her wail reached every ear in the village and when she wasn't wailing, she was whimpering or giving off a high-pitch whine.
Even though the witch had been woken in the middle of the night be one of her child's more ear-shattering cries, she enjoyed rocking the baby in her arms as it fed. The baby opened one eye to look at her, one odd-shaded green eye with just a hint of gold in it. Michelle's parents had been surprised when their granddaughter's eyes changed from baby blue to that eerie green in just days. The midwife had been surprised to find the newborn staring at her, especially since human babies were not supposed to be able to focus their eyes for weeks if not months.
'Headmaster Dumbledore warned me you would be an odd child.' She thought to herself as she smiled down. 'He was worried you might have fox ears and a tail, but then you would have been too cute.' No, the baby looked normal at first glance, if you ignored the tooth coming in already, and the eyes that seemed far too intelligent. "At least no one will hunt you down for being a demon's child, Kit." She spoke aloud.
The little one's name was Kitsune, after a word her father had used to describe his race of demons, for that was the Japanese word for fox. Kit was a really cute nickname in her opinion, when it could be short for both Kitsune and kit fox. She thought it was very appropriate considering the baby's heritage.
The baby's eyes closed as it continued feeding, and Michelle looked out of the window to see her village. It was the same old magic village she had been born in herself, and just two doors away was her parents' house. They had helped her find a job in the Ministry of Magic shortly after she graduated from Hogwart's, and now her mother watched Kitsune and Michelle's new baby brother, Kyle, during the day. Her father and a few of the villagers had helped to build her this small cottage. In a few months she would journey with Kit to see the baby's father, Kurama, in Japan. She would have left already, but it would be a while before the Ministry would give her a paid vacation.
She sighed as she absently stroked Kitsune's cheek, but a flash of light quickly turned her attention back to the window. An eerie glow surrounded the image of a skull in the sky above the village. She shuddered before realizing something, "The Dark Mark, it's right above my parents' house!"
Scrambling for her wand, Michelle secured the baby into a wooden cradle, and ran outside to find her family. Ignoring the cries of her baby that resounded in her ears, she rounded a neighboring house to see her father facing five Death Eaters. She, and several other neighbors awoken by the unusually loud wails charged into the fight blindly.
High above the village, somehow untouched by the smoke of burning houses, a Reikai ferry girl rode her oar back into the heavens. The blue haired grim reaper, Botan, was happily chatting in a one sided conversation with her only passenger. "I like you wizard people; you never get scared of my flying. Now those other people, well some try to throw up even though they are already dead!" Behind her sat a silent see through ghost with red hair and the saddest blue eyes that looked as though tears were still dripping from them. The air around them was filled with the servants of death transporting the souls of the dead.
"You know, you are very quiet for being dead, most argue with me trying to say they are still alive." The ferry girl looked back to see her passenger. "Oh dear me, what's wrong?"
"My entire family except for my daughter was killed. And her father doesn't even know she's alive. And I'm dead." The soul was looking down upon her former village, and her voice was almost as distant as the cries of people below.
"I wouldn't say your 'entire' family."
The blue eyes flashed to scan her face for a second before returning to the village, "So somebody is still alive down there?"
"Bingo! You are correct! You still have two little brothers alive. I think," she pauses with a finger to her cheek, "I think that your five year old brother Andy was at a friend's house, and your mother hid Kyle in a closet. The villagers should have found him before the house burnt down."
The soul merely nodded before saying, "That is good, but Kurama still doesn't know about his daughter." She didn't notice as Botan almost fell off of the oar.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that name right, I thought you said Kurama, but that's just because I know a guy by that name."
The ferry girl could feel the suspicious blue eyes boring holes into her skull. "That is his name, but you wouldn't know him because he lives far away."
"Japan?" Botan felt the soul tense behind her, "That is where I am from, I'm just here to help with the unusual amount of sudden deaths caused by this Voldemort person."
"Maybe you do know him then." A pause, then a whispered, almost fearful remark, "I tried to call his cell phone like he asked, and I asked for Shuuichi just like he said, but all I got was this woman that spoke in Japanese, no matter what I tried."
"Kisama! Now I'm certain we are talking about the same Kurama. How the hell did that happen? And I'm sure his mother would give him the phone if...."
The bubbly grim reaper was cut off by a snort, "It wasn't his mother, it was a recording, and the person I asked said his phone was disconnected, whatever that is."
"But still, he hasn't had a girlfriend since Maya years ago, and I'm certain Koenma would have heard about it before now...."
"I wasn't really his girlfriend. I think it was because he was a fox demon, and foxes mate in the winter. He just wanted me to call if I was interested in having a relationship."
Botan had continued talking, but still heard this part, "...I never thought he'd start preying on helpless young women, especially if they were human. He's going to get a severe talking to, maybe I should tell his mother! And according to what you just said, he was on that Hogwart's mission on top of everything!"
The soul waited for the irate grim reaper to slow down before asking a favor, "Could you tell Kurama that I'm dead? And ask him if he would take in Kit, or if his mother would. He said she was a good mother."
Those sad blue eyes tugged at Botan's heart. "I'll do what I can." She decided as they entered the spirit world.
The next day found Botan floating on her oar above a nice house in the suburbs of Tokyo. With a deep breath and a curse to her boss, she swept down into a bedroom where a fox demon disguised as a human sat reading a Shakespearean play.
"Ohayo Kurama! We need to talk." She began with a quick glance to the closed door.
"Ohayo. Botan, why are you speaking in English?" The handsome red head asked quietly.
"Well, I don't want your family to overhear us talking, just pretend you are reading aloud from that book and since they don't know English themselves things should be fine." She looked unusually nervous to Kurama.
"Botan, they aren't home. Shuuchi is at a movie and my mother and step father are at work."
"Oh, well then." She paused and tapped her foot while she thought about what to say next. "Um, Koenma and I foundoutaboutthatstudentyousleptwith on the Hogwart's mission last year, becauseshedied." It took a moment for Kurama to comprehend her extremely fast and slurred together chatter.
"What?"
"She was killed yesterday." The ferry girl was almost scuffling her feet and she refused to make contact with his normally breathtaking eyes. "She wanted me to tell you that she tried to call and that there was a lot of things she wanted you to know."
Kurama realized that he had stood up, so he forced himself back onto the mattress. "Must have been after that damn demon obliterated my cell phone, I should have...." He allowed the thought lie there, as they remained silent for a moment. "Who killed her?"
Botan made a minute shake of her head, "It was a human Kurama, I can't tell you anymore than that." Of course Koenma feared Kurama might want revenge, especially if he reasoned out why the fox demon had been so distraught over losing a phone.
"Funeral?"
"In three days at Merlin Cemetery. Koenma won't let you go to it though."
"Wasn't planning on it, I just want to say goodbye."
"Avoid crowds."
"Okay." Botan took a cautious glance at her friend and was surprised to see puffy, tear-filled eyes. He did care, but not enough to burst out weeping over the loss. It was the sadness that came from knowing that a chance for love was gone just as it started.
"I better go, I be back to work in ten minutes, and I don't know where the address is exactly." Botan spoke before trying to recall every curse ever used against her.
"Okay, see you later then Botan."
She lifted up onto her oar and flew away with only one last thought on the matter, 'Damn you Koenma, he has a right to know about his daughter' which she quickly followed with a string of curses she remembered Hiei using.
A flash of green illuminated the stone building as the fireplace flared and a tall young man dressed in an oddly shaped black dress like thing. At least that is what the gravedigger thought of the black and gray kimono that the red haired man wore. The stranger carried an odd bundle made of what appeared to be black silk as well.
"'Ello sir? Warn't 'spectin' nobody around these parts for the next few days. The Ferguson family burial's tomorrow, so go on home."
"Actually," the boy began in a slow, slightly accented feminine voice, "I'm here to pay last respects to Michelle. She should have been buried a week ago."
"Ah, I remember that family, t'was so sad." The aging gravedigger in his faded black robes picked up an umbrella by the wooden door, wondering how the boy could sound so calm speaking of a dead girl. "I'll show ya to the plot." The boy was probably still in shock at the news.
Outside, a heavy drizzle hid the sun, and the gloomy affect only added to the lines of gravestones and mausoleum entrances. It matched Kurama's mood perfectly.
"Really sad 'bout the whole thing. Whole village went to try and save the auror, and most of them died. Shame 'bout the orphans too. Luckily the news spread fast 'nough to prevent any more from dyin' when the Ferguson family was attacked." The man rambled on as he guided the silent red head. "Damn those Deatheaters, my cemetery's never been starving that much for business."
Stopping abruptly, the man turned down one row of grave markers to point at a newly filled mound of dirt. "Thar she is, I'll leave you be. The doors'll be open for ya when yer done."
After a nod of thanks to the gravedigger, Kurama stood silently for a few minutes before uncovering his bundle. A flowered plant, encased in never-melting ice was uncovered. Setting the frozen flowers down in front of her tombstone, he read aloud her epitaph, "'another soul gone to heaven, an angel that will be missed, taken from us by, he-who-must-not-be-named.' So it is true what I thought. Voldemort killed you, just as you feared. At least your brothers survived." He shuffled his feet a little, glancing back at the flowers. "Yukina helped me make this for you. It's your favorite flower, and it'll never die or melt away with that casing. She cried for you. I didn't, but she has a weak heart; she'd cry over strangers too. There's about five hiruseki in there, not that you would have known what they are. But don't worry; nobody will take this away from you. Even if they could break Yukina's ice, the plant would kill them. I, I guess that I'm sorry you died. I'm not sure. It would have been nice if we could have gotten together, but then we'd both be here and you would be crying and cursing everything because of your family's deaths. I guess it wouldn't have worked out." He paused in thought, "Still, I wonder what you wanted to tell me. Maybe you also thought that it wouldn't work out between us. Well, goodbye."
Without another word, the young man started walking back briskly to the cemetery's main building. Mentally he cursed himself, 'I could have said something better than just "goodbye," what happened to my eloquence. I sounded like a fool.' Another part of him responded coldly, 'It's not as if we actually miss her. The dead are dead, and there is little we can do about it.' Kurama bristled at the thought, but sadly, he realized just how true both statements were. It could be scary how closely linked both sides of him had become.
Kurama reached the stone building, drenched in rain and shivering slightly with the cold. He politely declined the offer of a warm cup of tea, and threw the last of a strangely magical green powder into the fire. After speaking the name of his destination, Genkai's Temple, he entered the fire and returned back to Japan.
The room had one window, which looked out into a rain-drenched, empty playground. The wall to his right held awards and a framed diploma certifying the woman sitting across from him in child rearing. The woman herself was brown haired, and nobody would ever have called her beautiful, though she did have a homey, motherly quality to her. She kept glancing at the pink swathed child in the bassinet on her desk.
He himself was busy trying to untangle the baby's strong fingers from his long white beard. Dumbledore's wide brimmed wizard hat started to slide down his head, and before he could snatch it back, the hat fell into the bassinet. Then the child disentangled her hands from his beard, releasing him, so she could chew on his poor hat.
The woman laughed. "Now Nina, stop laughing. Are you sure you can take another orphan in?"
"Don't worry, Dumbledore, there's plenty of room, and she's the perfect age for what the barren couples want. She'll be adopted quickly with luck."
He smiled, and wondered idly when he'd be getting his chewed up hat back, "Her uncles were taken in by a distant aunt, but nobody else had room for a child that might not have any abilities."
"I'll inform the Ministry and you immediately when she is adopted, or when she shows signs of, unusual behavior." The woman did not comment as the baby's one tooth managed to tear a whole in the wizard's hat, but she did raise one eyebrow. "Just remember what happened to the last orphan that came here who had a muggle and a wizard parent." Dumbledore nodded in thought. "What happened to the mother? Is she truly an orphan?"
"Tom Riddle is what happened." He smiled at the child as she made the cutest cooing noise, and then frowned at his torn hat. Nina suppressed a shudder.
"And the father?"
"He is on the other side of the world, probably doesn't know she exists." She nodded before standing.
"I'll keep an eye on her, and if anything strange happens, I'll send for you." The two exchanged farewells before Dumbledore carefully removed his hat from the child's hands and mouth. There were more tears than he thought. The baby started crying again as he apparated out of the room and back to his school.
The baby, Kitsune, was only a few days older when a nice muggle couple adopted her. The wife had lost her baby, and all chances for others in labor, and had miraculously been sped on the path to a new child, unknowing that the Jr. God of Death had helped her.
Five Years Later, August 31:
"Hey, Kitten, are you ready for your first day of school?" A pair of bright green eyes turned from watching the Teletubbies to regard a tall man with light brown hair and a mustache. The man squirmed as the eyes slanted into a glare.
"Yes, Father." He almost thought the little girl sitting in front of him was being sarcastic. But five year olds were incapable of that, weren't they? It was almost as if she knew the truth....
Her pale red hair, almost the shade of cotton candy, was tied into twin pigtails above her ears, and she looked more like three than the five years she had to be. She stood swiftly from where she had been sitting with her legs crossed, without using her arms and keeping her balance perfectly. Her father wondered if a gymnast could do the same, but then, the child was quite odd.
Blank faced, she slid past him, hair unmoving, the folds of her skirt not even shifting with the movement. He never noticed the deft movements of her hands, or the replacement of his wallet. 'Such a strange child,' was all he noticed.
In the kitchen of the suburban house, the mother, her blonde hair up in a perfect braid, smiled down at her adopted daughter. "The pancakes are done, now eat up Kitten, this is a big day for you." The girl almost smiled, almost.
Scurrying up to her chair, and onto her booster seat, Kit shoveled food into her mouth. "Hey, slow down Kitten, you'll get a tummy ache," the man advised with a laugh.
"She's just excited, her first day of school." The woman smiled as well; finally the child was starting to behave as they thought children should. "The bus won't be here for a while yet." The girl did smile then, to foster their beliefs. In truth, however, she only wanted a full tummy before leaving.
A few minutes later, Kit gulped down a glass of milk, and the blonde woman helped her down from the booster seat.
"I don't need help." The child's voice was high pitched, but the softness of the volume seemed to take the edge out of it. For a moment, the mother was reminded of when the child had started speaking for the first time. When she had been loud, and screamed so much that the woman had needed medicine for her migraines. Now it was rare enough to hear the little girl speak. 'Why did she stop so suddenly, after only a few months?'
Picking up the dirty plate, utensils and glass, the mother smiled down at her distant daughter, "Go to my purse, and get 5 pounds for lunch, you know, five of the pounds with the little one on it. I'll check your counting after I take care of these." The child was already good at counting, nothing would happen.
'Fool.' The girl thought as she removed the money from the purse, every last pound note. Carefully, she left five one-pound notes in a pocket separate from the others she had taken.
The mother brought a little backpack out of the closet. As she placed a large notepad of paper and some crayons and a small box of pencils into the bag, the child studied each object. The bag, the cover of the notepad, and the pencil box were pink, with a large, white, oddly shaped cartoon cat drawn all over each. The girl put on her own coat, again pink, and her black buckled shoes before allowing her mother to fit her arms into the backpack's straps.
"It's a 'Hello Kitty' backpack, so you won't lose it. And it matches your name!" The woman was far too enthusiastic in her opinion. "Now, let's not miss the bus!"
A moment of doubt hit the child, she asked, acting as though she wanted her 'mother' to join her, "Aren't you coming with me?"
"Sorry, Kitten, I can't, I have to stay home and clean the house." Kit hid her relief with a glum face.
When the woman took the girl's tiny right hand, and walked the child up to the waiting bus, she was left with the belief that the girl had finally started warming up to having a family after the years of aloofness.
Walking straight to the back of the bus, Kit took the last seat on the right side. A few stops later, and she was surrounded by brutish 6th graders.
"Hey, little girl, do you miss your mommy?" One of the uglier boys started making faces at her. It didn't take him long to stop at the sight of her calmly glaring face. One, the leader by the way the others surrounded him, merely laughed.
"Let's see if this fazes the brat," He said smugly as he pulled out a knife. He thought it was fear that flashed in her eyes as he began waving it around near the seat.
Minutes later, the boys had thought that the little girl had gotten off before them, and that the leader's knife was safely tucked in his backpack. However, it was lodged under the seat, along with Kit. The bus driver searched each seat for any missing kids, but he never looked under, and when he parked in the bus garage five blocks from the school and left, she crawled out from her hiding.
She jumped onto a seat, and reached for the top of the window. Failing, she jumped to straddle the seat backs with her small legs. Then she pushed the latches to open the window fully, and crawled out into the daylight. Falling to the ground, Kit landed lightly on both feet in a crouch. 'Childs play,' she thought.
Days later, the small, cotton candy haired girl lay underneath a series of mostly dry boxes positioned to form a makeshift tent. Rain splattered down, and she shivered into her muddied pink coat. The 'Hello Kitty' bag lay beneath her head as a pillow, full of stolen coins and pound notes, even some food she managed to pilfer and a couple watches of dubious quality.
A sudden sound made her shift so that she could reach her knife. It wouldn't be the first time a stranger had tried to hurt her, or steal her things. Snatches of conversation drifted down the alley.
".... Never knew what hit 'em."
"This way, we can use this hideout for tonight."
A gang of young boys appeared, some not much older than herself, and she realized that they were whispering to each other. She slowed her breathing, made herself as quiet as possible, and hid the shine of the knife with a box flap. Their leader seemed to slow as he passed the boxes she hid in, and as the other boys passed him, he turned around completely to go back, and peer into her shelter.
"Hey, there's a...." She launched herself at him. Half a second later, she was dangling by her blade hand, and vainly trying to kick at the boy, who happened to be a good foot and a half taller than her. He held her tiny wrist in his hand, and after trying to pry the knife from her fingers, he settled for kicking it out of her hand. "There's a little vixen with a really long fang."
The leader moved aside to allow his gang to search her boxes. While he wasn't looking, Kit pulled herself up enough to kick the arm holding her.
"Yeouch!" He almost dropped her, but managed to keep his grip. "Don't do that again!" He yelled at her. She then very deliberately pulled herself up and slowly moved to bite his arm. Letting her go before Kit could chomp down, he slapped her lightly with the hand that had held her, and somehow managed to grab her wrist again with the same hand to leave her dangling an inch above the ground.
Her eyes were as wide as saucers before they narrowed again to meet his challenging gaze. Before she could fight back any more, a boy's soprano voice spoke up from her shelter, "Boss, she's got at least a hundred pounds in here."
"And food!" A second boy said between a mouthful of apple.
The leader had the audacity to smile at her. "Yer a fast fox, ain't ya?" She nodded slightly. "You wanna join our gang?" Her eyes blinked in amazement, but she caught her emotions quickly to give a noncommittal shrug. "Tough little cookie." He released her, and she fell the last inch lightly, showing no sign that she had ever moved.
"Give her back her stuff." The leader ordered.
"Can I keep the apple?" The hungry boy asked.
"I'm not going to eat it." Her whisper startled the gang a little. The leader just shrugged with another smile and led the way into an abandoned basement.
Kitsune wrinkled her nose at the smell of filth that rose from the basement. Rats scurried along on the tops of tables; the wooden platforms covered the room, forming false flooring. Splashing, a rat fell into a crack between two tables only to flounder in the deep puddle covering the basement's floor. She could hear water slowly draining in one of the far corners.
"It's flooded half the year, it smells, there's rats, the tables fall apart occasionally, but hey, it's home!" The boss flashed a grin at her as the others began to light torches, lanterns, electric lamps, and candles. The sconces on the walls were unmatched and crudely made, but they seemed to hold the torches well. Kit could see shelves and metal cabinets lining the walls, and cushions and pillows lying about haphazardly on the tabletops. "Get the loot into the cabinets, and make sure the rats didn't eat anything again. Fox, you can put your stuff on one of the shelves an' nobody'll touch it."
With the light, Kit finally had a good look at the leader. Black hair slicked by the rain was pulled into a tight ponytail, topped by a cocky wide-brimmed hat. His pale skin seemed to reflect the lights of the flames. He was taller than her, and almost as slim and lithe. And his eyes were weird, narrowed and hard like hers, only in the oddest shade of dark blue, no it wasn't blue, it was that color in the rainbows between blue and violet. Kit couldn't remember what the color was called, but she quickly placed her 'Hello Kitty' bag on one of the empty, lower shelves.
"So, what's yer name fox?"
"Kit, Kitsune really." She whispered as she sat down on a dark green pillow. The leader tossed her a faded blue woolen blanket, and she wrapped herself up in it against the cold.
"Yer mum too?" After the boy received a quizzical look from her green-eyed gaze, he continued, "My name's Kuronue, but everybody just calls me Kuro for short. I swear, my mum must have been on something to name me that."
"My mu... mother is dead. Just don't call me 'Kitten,' I hate that name."
"Fair 'nuff. We'll just call you our little Kit Fox fer now." Holding a small book in his hands, the boy, Kuro, sat down next to her. She fought the urge to move away. "Hey, everything's gonna be okay now. You ain't alone. Max over there by the cabinet lost his parents about two years back, and that boy over there with the green scarf, he don't talk much cause his parents left him in an alley. My mum died when I was little. She got beaten to death by one of her johns. I'm just lucky I was born before all that." His eyes seemed less harsh now, somehow softer, and for a second she saw a pair of bright blue eyes framed by red locks, the eyes of her real mother. "So how old are you, or have you been alone so long you can't remember?"
"I'll be six soon, on September 29. My mother died when I was only a few months old when she never came back, and then I had to live with these people that kept on calling me Kitten, and saying they were my parents. I hated them; they were nothing like my real mother. She was better, and nicer, and smelled better, and she smiled for only me.
Kuro didn't voice his doubts at her remembering anything from that young, but he did return her embrace as she clung to his loose gray jacket and cried. "Hey," he tried to soothe her, "It's okay. Stupid adoptive parents rarely understand something like that. Um, you look a little small for six, but, um, I'm eight, so I guess I'll kinda be like your big brother here."
He looked to the other boys, some listening quietly, two fighting over a half eaten sandwich, and three betting on the fight with shiny pebbles, and many half asleep inside layers of blankets. "Ain't that right boys, we'll all be her big brothers."
A few mumbled back affirmations, one went so far as to wonder aloud what it would be like to have a little sister, even though that boy was only five himself. Kitsune fell asleep with the tears she had been waiting her whole life to shed, and Kuro just held her until she did. As he tucked the small book, a dictionary for both English and Japanese, he thought he would tell her what he had found later, maybe tomorrow, or something.
About a year later:
Smugglers used the warehouse for stashing their ill-gotten gains, or at least that is what the gang believed, and the secret removable floorboards provided evidence to support their belief. All Kitsune knew was that the abandoned facility was a terrific place to store their own goods, and the empty shipping crates were quite comfortable with a few dirty mattresses on top of them. It was also very safe, since nobody messed with the docks after some fire destroyed it and filled the small inlet with charred wood, and Kuro had the only key.
As she lay stomach-down on her mattress, which happened to smell strongly like moldy cheese, Kitsune stared blankly at the open book in her small, dirty hands. Then she glared at the boy eating an apple in front of her. "Kuro," she moaned as the boy paused in mid-bite, "I'm bored." Her voice was liltingly high pitched, like the whine of a baby animal.
"So, read a different book," Kuro responded while chewing a piece of the apple.
"But I've already read them all, and this is so boring. I wish I had something better to read." Kitsune pouted cutely as she threw the book onto the mattress and curled up on her side with her legs underneath her chin and her eyes still focused on her friend.
"Is it more boring than "Dick and Jane find a Cat" or "Dick and Jane visit the museum"?"
Kitsune moaned again, "No, but it's so easy to read. I know it's supposed to be a harder book 'cause it's 44 pages, but I've read it ten times already!"
"You have not, couldn't be more than five times, if even." His easy smile received a glare from the little girl.
Her voice grew cold and very soft, "In a warm and sultry forest far, far away, there once lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby. Oh, how Mother Bat loved her soft tiny baby. 'I'll name you Stellaluna,' she crooned. Each night, Mother Bat would carry Stellaluna clutched to her breast as she flew out to search for food."
A/N: Those lines were from page one of Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, published in 1993 by Harcourt Brace & Company. I didn't just use this because it was the only children's book I had in my bookshelf, but because the story mirrors Kitsune's own in that her mother lost her, she was raised by strangers, and is currently in a society in which she does not belong, and someday, though she does not know it yet, things will change. Also, fruit bats are also known as "Flying Foxes." It works on so many levels, creepy.
"Okay, so maybe you have. Jeez, were you this bad with your adoptive parents?"
"Worse. I was cold all the time, and I always whispered, but I like you more and you don't yell at me for sounding weird."
Kuro reached underneath his mattress and drew out a little book. "This was my ma's, so be careful with it. I'll let you read it and tomorrow we'll clean up and go to the library." He tossed her the Japanese-English Dictionary.
"The library? Why should we go to the spot where we meet up after looting the mall?"
Kuro sighed, "Sometimes you amaze me with your stupidity. The library has lots of books that you can read for free. And I know this lady who knew my mom that works there. She'll let me borrow books without telling anyone I'm a street brat."
"Oh." Kitsune's voice went back to normal. "Okay, I guess we can do that then." She flipped the book open and missed a flash of remembrance in Kuro's indigo gaze.
"Hey, you should look up your name in the Japanese side," Kuro flashes that smirk again, "I think I saw it in there."
Kitsune reads the one word entry beside her name, "Fox," and then she glares at her friend and flips a few pages and starts scanning, "Hey, 'Kuronue's' not in here. Closest thing is 'kuroi' which means black."
"Eh, close enough, that's what 'Kuro' is short for really, so." Kuro shrugs.
"Black and fox." Kit gives him a small smile, "At least it's better than 'Kitten'."
The next day found the entire gang splashing around the ruins of the docks. Older kids helped younger kids bathe in the shallows. The oldest child, Marcus, was ten, so he bought a bag of soap, shampoo and conditioner for the 14 children using some stolen money. Kitsune, being a girl, had been allowed to bathe first, and was currently brushing out her soaking hair in the sun.
Hands reached out from behind Kit to softly stroke her pale red hair. Kit froze before reaching for her hidden belt knife. "Relax fox, it's just me," Kuronue's voice touched her ears, "You've got nice hair, it's pretty. Bet you could make a hundred dollars if you grew it out real long and sold it."
"Hn," She grunted a reply, "Not gonna do that, my mother had long hair, and it was pretty, and very soft."
Kuro stayed silent about his doubts, "Okay."
Finishing her hair, Kit turned around to look at her friend. Her gold-flecked gaze saw bare bottomed boys chasing each other in the shallow waters, and Kuro beside her wearing a white towel that was borrowed from a cheap hostel. His black hair hung down his back with streams of water flowing from the shortened tendrils near his face.
"Hey, once I get dressed we're going to the library."
It didn't' take the boy long to dress in his only decent and clean outfit. Kuro forwent his usual wide brimmed hat, and wore clean khaki shorts, stolen, and a plain white button up shirt, also stolen. Kit had on the only dress she owned, a yellow little thing that replaced her torn and dirtied school dress.
Kuronue led the way to the library and even held the door open for the little girl. Inside was the largest array of books she had ever seen. Rotating stands held paperback books, and there was a whole section for children. Beyond that were hardbound copies of novels, and a section of older tombs labeled "Reference."
Kit found ten; one was the largest book she had ever seen. They were chaptered novels mostly, and a book on foxes that she thought might be interesting. As he escorted her to the checkout desk, Kuro was left wondering how she could hold them, let alone be able to read all of the books.
The librarian was of a like mind. The woman had short-cropped brown hair, a red blouse, and gaudy gold hoop earrings. She looked to be about 30.
"Kuro! How have you been, child? I thought I told you not to get a girlfriend until you were 14." The woman beamed a kind smile.
The boy shivered at a half remembered memory. "Girl's are gross, she's just my friend."
"Wow, this little thing wants to read all of these? I'm assuming she's never been to school just like you." The woman had paused in her scanning of the fox reference book.
"She's got a 'Matilda' complex, and she doesn't know how poorly she reads yet," the boy replied.
"I can read just fine!" Kit screeched in indignation, "And you don't hafta act like I'm not here." Kuro clamped a hand over her mouth and ordered her to be quiet when she spoke because she had earned a few harsh looks from other patrons.
Before the tiny girl could ask what a 'Matilda complex' was, the librarian chuckled and spoke again, "Oh, you've got the book right here too. You're such a darling little thing, if you have any troubles you can just come over here after 6 and I'll have a volunteer read the books to you." Kuro's hand refrained Kit from a rude comment.
Somehow, Kit managed to carry all but the largest book back to the warehouse. Kuro had to help her with the last one. By the time they arrived back home, the sky had darkened with the onset of night. The two children could never have anticipated the scene that awaited them.
The inarticulate screams of a child punctuated hoarse yells for help, and Kit and Kuro began to run. Skidding to a halt to face the front of their warehouse, they dropped the books as terror began to grip them. A large man, whose right hand was sticking out through the boy's abdomen, held Ernie one of the nine year olds. The man's dark hair was matted to his skull, and he had the look of a common vagabond if one ignored the red glow of his narrow eyes.
The man threw the boy's dying body away, knocking down two of the larger boys that held knives. Then his lips drew into an ugly sneer as his burning gaze found Kit. However, she was unaware of this; her senses were focusing on something else. The man, no, he wasn't a man for he glowed, a sickly purple/red aura that lashed out wildly, the feel of it made Kit sick to her stomach. And the man had long claws and a lion tail longer than most of the kids were tall.
Kuro tried to pull the girl away before the monster could grab her too, but she wasn't budging, and the monster kicked him into a garbage can while lifting the girl's rigid body. Looking up quickly, Kuro watched as the killer prepared to pierce his friend's body with his hand. And then Kit disappeared.
A knife slid between the monster's neck vertebrae, and Kitsune was once more visible as she sat perched lightly with her toes on the neck of the killer. Forced to jump down as the monster spasmodically entered his death throws, Kit took cold care in cleaning off her knife.
"Is it dead?" A boy's frightened voice asked as others began weeping. Another voice chimed in to inform everyone of Ernie's passing.
Kuro matched Kit's hard stare, and after walking to his side, she spoke in her eerily cold whisper, "Did you feel it?"
Eyes widening, he started, "Do you mean, that you too?" He turned his stare to the dead body, and his eyes narrowed in concentration. "It's faint, but that evil energy is unmistakable. And the tail and claws, they can't be seen normally, so it was a monster." Kit nodded, relieved that she wasn't the only one to see it. "Fox, do me a favor and don't mention this to anyone. If they ask, you did a back flip and slid out of his grip, 'k?"
"Sure thing." Her voice still carried that cold edge. "I've never been able to see this glow before, but I think I've seen the hidden things once or twice."
Kuro turned toward her, "If it becomes a problem, tell me. This was how I found you when you were hiding in that box, I got an odd feeling so I searched and saw your aura. I've seen glows around everyone ever since I was a baby, and I learned to ignore it for the most part. It becomes a pain in the ass after very short while, but the only colors I've seen were pale and less violent. The only other thing like it was this dark aura I saw around the guy that killed my mum. I think the unseen claws and tail had some kind of spell hiding them, cause I've seen others like that before too."
With that, Kuro left her standing in the night so that he and the older children could dump the monsters body elsewhere and bury Ernie. Kit and the other kids went back into their hideout to hide inside dirty blankets, cry, and sleep.
A/N: Okay, I'll finish this section later and I hope this much has appeased anybody who has actually bothered to read this. This may be more of a biography than an entertaining story, but hopefully the real story will be better, now if I can just start on it this weekend.