Hey!

Yes, I know, I should really be focusing on finishing up the other stories, but I just had to write this. It's one of my first really good ideas. I'm trying out a first-person view, and yes, it is a male OC. So sue me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, but I do own Taki (rhymes with pocky) and this storyline. So don't borrow either without my permission, okay?

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Instrumental

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A stream of notes floated away on the breeze, and I sighed happily.

"One note for pure joy,

One note for anger,

One note for attack,

One note for summoning," I recited, remembering the words, both instruction and promise. Someday I'd live up to them.

I'd always loved music, to the consternation of my family. To them, music was something to be enjoyed at holidays and feasts, nothing more. But to me... I could feel the notes, swirling inside me, stirring up emotions and images of people far away, those who wrote the songs.

I'd learned to play the flute, and could sing most songs, if I was familiar with them. I was always willing to learn to play other instruments, but the flute was my favorite. It didn't really matter what I played, though - after the song was done, my family would just get on with life.

I sighed, reflecting on that. My family lived in a rather isolated area. It wasn't quite in the mountains, but we did live on the side of a rather large hill, our only neighbor being an old man in a shack about a mile down the road. We rarely went anywhere civilized, because we produced almost all our own food. This was a working farm, intended to feed nothing more than our family. Occasionally, a visitor or two would pass by, but we mostly lived by ourselves.

"Ourselves" included Ma, me, three sisters and three brothers, the youngest of which was nine. My father had left when I was barely three. He had stormed out of the house, saying, "I just can't stand it any more! I don't know how you can! I care about you, but I can't stay if it means living here!" My Ma had let him go. She knew that he wasn't coming back, but she also refused to move. She had done an admirable job of raising us. Except for me.

I sighed again. I had always been the odd one out. Ma claimed that there had been a huge storm the day of my birth, and the air had felt funny all day. Maybe that was why I looked so strange. My hair was an odd shade of blue-green, and my eyes were bright blue. It didn't help that I had an Asiatic cast to my features, with high cheekbones and slanted eyes. My father had had a DNA test done on me when I was old enough, just to prove that I was really his son. I was.

My friend Martha happened to be the daughter of one of the scientists at the clinic. I saw her on our semi-annual trips to the city to get clothing and other essentials we couldn't produce on the farm. When we were seven, she snuck into the records at the clinic and found my test. She said that it was true, I was his child, and that she had found some interesting coding in my DNA that would account for my odd coloring. She then launched into a technical explanation of point-shift mutations and chemical formulas that I didn't understand a word of. Basically, what it boiled down to was that my cells had somehow inserted or deleted a codon that turned out to be similar to the DNA of an Asian person, and my hair had chemicals in it that normally didn't occur in human beings.

Great. So I have mutant hair.

I shrugged away my worries. They didn't really matter, anyways. As long as I had my music, everything was all right.

"Taki! Time for dinner!"

I looked over at my oldest sister from where I sat, perched high in an oak tree. Shira smiled, her eyes laughing. I couldn't help but grin back.

Shira was my oldest sister, and the only one who understood my love of music. She was 15, whereas I was only 12, but the age difference didn't bother me. She also loved to hear and play music, although not with the same passion I did. Her music was filled with light and happiness, and felt like a light summer breeze.

She was beautiful, too. Her soft brown hair reached to the middle of her back, and her eyes were the color of my hair. Her delicate frame might mean she was unsuited for farm work, but it was perfect for a musician. She and I sometimes played duets, me on my flute, she on her clarinet.

"All right, I'm coming," I said, stretching. "I'll be down in a minute. You go on ahead."

She nodded and ran off towards the house. It was close to sunset, and the sky was beginning to show a rainbow of color. It would have been beautiful... but I had to go to dinner.

I sighed one last time and set off for the house.

I had almost reached it when I sensed that something was wrong. Normally, there would be several children converging on the back door from wherever they were playing. I knew I was late, but I couldn't be that late - there were usually a few stragglers...

I opened the door and stopped, mouth wide in horror. My three youngest brothers and sisters were dead. Someone had cut their throats and thrown them in a heap by the door.

My stomach churned, and I lost all appetite for dinner. I finally stumbled past them, desperately searching for someone that would make this make sense.

I heard voices from the living room and headed in that direction, to be confronted by a horrible scene.

Two strange men were standing the middle of the living room, one of them holding Shira. She had been gagged, and her arms were held behind her back by a huge man. The other was staring scornfully at my mother, who was begging for Shira's life.

"Please, let her go. She's my daughter. You don't understand! Please! Give my daughter back!"

The blond man listening to her laughed. "After all we've been through to get her? I don't think so."

Ma's eyes filled with rage, and she charged the man...

He lifted one hand, almost casually, and hit her.

Ma slammed against the wall, arms outspread, and I heard the awful sound of her neck breaking. Her eyes were still round with shock as she slid to the floor.

"Ma!" I cried, and ran over to her.

She was definitely dead. There was no heartbeat, and her head lolled at an awful angle. At least it had been a clean death.

I felt my immeasurable shock turn to grief, and then anger, in a split second. My eyes spilled tears as I rose from beside my mother's body, fists clenched. "Bastards... You'll pay for this!" I screamed as I ran towards them, hoping to get a hit, anything, to make them pay for what they had done.

But the blond-haired man that had killed Ma just laughed and grabbed me by the throat, raising me up into the air. I choked, scrabbling at the hand that held me so easily.

"You little brat..." he chuckled softly. "What could you ever hope to do against us?"

"Hey," called the black-haired muscle man, the one with my sister. "We got the Summoner. Now let's go."

"Yeah, you're right," the one who held me said, tightening his grip. I would have screamed in pain, except I had no breath to do so.

He tossed me in a heap on the floor and left with the other one. The last I saw of them was Shira, looking back, wild and terrified. Then they were gone.

My last thought was, ~Shira...~

Then I blacked out.

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