"What made you think that I, Yoko Kurama, was in love with you?"
"Well it wasn't me per say, but if it didn't have boobs and an hour-glass figure, you didn't take a look."
"But the only girl whom I loved is Shizuru. She means everything to me."
"She does, I know, because there is something about her that attracted you to her," replied O'Falla.
"He said the first thing he was attracted to was my voice," Shizuru remembered, as she fed her newborn.
"Honey, did he look at you when he said that? Was it the first day you met, or the first time you fell in love?"
"One night, after he returned from Makai with Yusuke, where we are now, he said it to me, looking me in the eyes. He said he was in love with me. My voice was his favorite."
O'Falla looked at the fox for a while. She shook her head in laughter. "Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror, lately? You are a very attractive woman, very sexy. I am not saying he lied to you. You do have a lovely voice. However he was attracted to you. Do you know why you have two children so close together in age? He is that attracted to you, as you are to him. He fell for your soul."
"It's true, every time I looked at you, I was attracted to you. But I was too shy to admit it. I didn't fall in love with you that night on the beach; it was when I first saw you. At your house, before we rescued Yukina. And there you were again in the stadium, but you had your eye on Sakyo, so I didn't bother you. The day you asked me out, my feelings for you were too much for me to keep to myself. Our first kiss, I started that by looking your way, it had nothing to do with the boat. It was all you. I am glad you asked me out, do you realize how many times I tried to ask you out but couldn't?"
"You loved me from the start, before you even knew my name?" she questioned him.
"Shiz, you are only half-right. I thought since you are psychic, you could pick things up about your own soul. Something about it is what I like. Or should I say, someone?" replied her husband, "Have you ever noticed that you and your brother seem different? I know both of you are psychic and have the abilities that run in your family, the Kuwabara family has been like that for centuries. Your family was the human protectors of the demon foxes. But you are the only one with more than that.
One hundred and fifty years ago, your great great-grandfather and his wife were in serious hardship. She was nine months pregnant with their daughter, it was the dead of winter, and there was barely anything to keep them fed. What made things worse, Sora, your great great-grandfather had a dream that told him, his daughter's birth would quickly end in death. She would be born still. But instead of robbing her soul of the life she was meant to have, King Enma took pity on the poor family, so upon the girl's birth, the soul was to be reincarnated into the body of a spirit fox. When the daughter was born, there came a whimper at the door of their house. Sora, crying from losing his daughter, found a tiny kit freezing in the cold; her right front foot had been caught in a fur trap.
The man took pity on her and carried her inside. He was amazed to find her silver, seeing her coat glisten in the lantern light. He gave her the name Kiyoko, the name he was going to give to his daughter. I myself would venture to the Kuwabaras' door to see for myself this maiden fox. I quickly fell in love with the vixen, watching her from a distance, as she played with her human siblings and parents.
When she came of age, she would venture far from her human family, to seek independence for herself. That is when she first spotted me. At first she was shy, for she had not been in the presence of another fox. One night, while on her adventures, she got caught in a fur trappers' net. Kiyoko tried as hard as she could to set herself free. She yelped as loud as she could to her father, but to no avail. That is when I caught wind from Yomi, of the girl in distress. I promptly got on all fours and sprinted off in her direction. As I caught sight of the girl trapped in the net, I saw two men had beaten me to the trap, with rifles in their hands. Before they made off with their catch, I dashed between them and the net, bearing my teeth. My ears flattened against the back of my neck, my silver fur ruffled as it stood on end, from the top of my head to the tip of my tail. The hunters displayed their guns to me, trying to scare me off by saying, 'Get out of here you pest, or we will shoot you dead.' Not heeding my growls and threats, I lunged at the men, snarling and biting at them. There is nothing like fangs gnashing against a gun barrel to send shivers up one's spine. However their efforts to stave off my attack, made me want to finish the fight. They finally got the point when my teeth tore into wrist of one of the men. His arm dripped with blood, the hunter looked at my face with horror in his eye. 'Hiroshi,' he shouted to his friend, 'lets get out of here. This fox is sick with rabies. You don't want to catch what he's got, or you will get sick too.' You see in that situation, we foxes use a gland inside our mouths that produce foam, so we can fool a gullible human into thinking we are sick.
As the men fled the area, leaving their catch behind, I ripped open a gaping hole in the mesh net, to let Kiyoko out. As she bounded out, our eyes met. I asked her where her home was, she said at the moment she was independent of her family, so I offered her to join my tribe. She told me she had seen me from afar but was afraid to speak. Kiyoko accepted my offer without hesitating. I used my powers to transform her into a youkai. She was such a beautiful creature. Her body became like human, her silver hair became this luscious brown silk, flowing all across her head and down her back. Her skin hued into this light salmon, the texture became as subtle as new fallen snow. Her body grew to the length of 5-foot 8. Out of her back she sprouted white-feathered wings; the wingspan became twice the length of her body.
The days soon after her transformation, the two of us would play together. She would fly towards me, playing with me like a pixie. She refused the tribes attire at first, saying she was just getting used to her body's appearance. Dashing to the clear ponds in the forest, posing for her reflection in the water. Kiyoko was quite a beauty to be held.
I remember when our relationship became serious, especially when the first night of the full moon that summer. She got word that her father had taken ill with tuberculosis, and was moments from death. We rushed to Sora's bedside; he looked into her face, as he continued to throw up blood. 'It's you, Kiyoko, my precious daughter. I knew it was you at my door. You whom I found in that kitsune body. Someday I knew I would see your truest form, has the daughter I have loved.' She replied to him as tears fell from her eyes, 'Father, you were there for me through everything. It was you who helped me out of the cold. You who called me daughter. I love father. Please allow me to guide you to home, away from this broken body.' He smiled at her one last time and gave up his soul."
Kurama paused the story for a moment, seeing his beloved's eyes becoming flooded with tears. "Shiz, are you alright?"
She nodded her head, her tears trickling past her cheeks. "It's just your story is so moving. Especially hearing about how Papa Kuwabara died. His daughter must have been heartbroken to have that happen. I know if my father were to die, I would be devastated."
"She was heartbroken, you're right," he continued, wrapping his arm around her, "In fact soon after I would shield her face from the world. I held her in my arms, gently caressing her head against my chest. I watched as her face fell, and her tears poured like a fountain burst; my flesh and my cloak became soaked for days. I held her close, reassuring her that things would be all right, that her father was in a better place. When she awoke from her tears, Kiyoko felt herself safe in arms, like the worries of the world drifted by her, as in a dream. Then she looked into my eyes, tears still clinging to hers. Using the skirt of my tunic, I began to wipe off the tears. In the midst of me doing so, she reached her arms around my shoulders and caressed her lips against mine. I knew at that moment, the two of us were in love. That was the first time I felt my heart skip a beat. She became the angel I was searching for. The warmth I longed for. From that day our lives became inseparable. I loved everything about her."
Shizuru became puzzled, "Okay, so this Kiyoko was your first love then. That is strange, not that think you lied, but I remember you telling me that I was. I am not mad at you, just curious."
"I didn't lie to you, you are my first love. Let me explain. Our relationship had gone on for 120 years. Then about 30 years ago, we fell into some bad times. As we were running from a team of bounty hunters, a hunter from the Ningenkai shot her in the chest. I rushed to her side. Seeing her bleed, I felt my heart breaking. I picked her up in my arms. 'Kiyoko, please stay with me,' I begged her, tears rushing into my eyes. 'Yoko,' she whispered under a struggling voice, 'Please if you would take me back, please before I die. I feel the cries of an unborn child calling out to me. My body is too late to save. I feel myself fading.' Without a moments thought, I fled with her in my arms to a tiny house in Ningenkai. There upon the doorstep of the house, I felt her life slowly drift away. 'Yoko, my darling, thank you for getting me here to this place. I love you, Yoko Kura...' With that her soul left her body and entered the house. I felt my heart ache for her. As I watched her body disappear, I curled into a ball beside the house and wept for her. Once again I was alone." Kurama's tears started flowing; his heart still remembered that sorrowful moment.
"A young gentleman came out the door to find a single silver fox howling with tears in his eyes. He offered me in and gave me a cooked steak. His wife entered with surprise for him that she was pregnant. Suddenly I heard the voice of Kiyoko calling out from deep inside the woman's body. It was then I felt the ache in my heart mend. I stayed by the couple's side for the entire nine months until the baby was due. The day she was born, an ambulance had taken them away, and that was the last time I had contact with her."
"Wait a minute," responded Shizuru, in a daze, "I do remember my mother telling me of some slender dog staying with them while she was pregnant with me. Said he was the most loyal creature she ever met. He would remain by her side throughout the pregnancy. But then shortly before my birth, he ran off, never to return again."
"What happened after you lost contact with your girl?" asked her brother.
"I wanted to meet up with her again in the human world, trying to track her down. Then it happened 5 years later. I staged a raid on a castle. The hunters spotted me, the same ones that killed her. That is when I saw my opportunity to find the body of an unborn child in the human world. I leapt into the boy, knowing I would have better success as a human."
"So you went looking for your lover as human. But there are so many faces that look like the girl you had described. How did you know what girl was the one? More to the point what does this have to do with my soul? You said earlier that you fell in love with it."
"Before I say anymore, will you please let Kazuma hold our daughter? What I have to say may send you into shock."
She promptly gave the baby to her brother. After which she nodded to her husband to finish the story.
"That so-called dog you mentioned, that was no dog. That was I there next to your mother. I was there for her through the pregnancy. When I saw the spirit inside her baby's unborn body, I knew it was Kiyoko. Her soul had married itself with the girl's body. The soul that once belonged to Sora's dying baby, the soul that was cared for by a spirit fox, that soul that person is the very person whom I am sharing this story with right now. Shizuru have you ever wondered why you have smoked for years? Those dreams at night, you often talk about. The ones where you see yourself resting in the arms of the youko fox. You there on folded wings. Those were not dreams, but flashbacks of your preexistence."
A glassy look graced across Shizuru's face. "It can't be, I am a fox too. I am not just human." Suddenly she collapsed into her beloved's awaiting arms, blacking out from the strong dose of reality that had been handed to her.
As she was pass out in his arms, he quickly transformed himself into the Youko fox. From her body, the ghost of the wings ruffled out from beneath her clothes. Her brother watched the two of them in amazement, especially at her. When she regained consciousness, she found herself back in the arms of the fox.
"Yoko it's you again, after so long," she giggled in delight, hugging him with excitement.
"Kiyoko Shizuru, you have returned," he muffled in a quiet voice.