(Midnight, Shirogane Mansion)

Aragaki Shinjiro looked up at the sky for a moment, eyes sad. The sky was dark and filled with stars, the full moon large and bright. It was so hard to believe that it had been eight years already … Shaking his head, Shinjiro bent down to pick up the suitcase he had sitting at his feet. He had been shocked that Hamuko's family had offered to take him in; he and Hamuko hadn't married. Hell, they had barely dated one another for a few weeks!

Looking at the other object on the ground next to him, he smiled and picked up the baby carrier. "Heh, I guess they wanted to make sure nothing happens to you …" Looking down at the sleeping infant inside of the carrier, Shinjiro smiled more before drawing a deep breath, looking at the door in front of him. "… Well, here we go …" Pushing open the door in front of him, he stepped inside.

The inside of the mansion house was impressive, if very traditional. There were several sliding doors lining the hallway he was standing in, each one with a different pattern on them. The recessed lighting was tinted in red to make it easier on the servants who clearly had to work the midnight shift, and seemed to be designed to hide the – fake or stuffed, Shinjiro hoped – red-eyed crows and ravens watching from above.

Looking down at the infant, Shinjiro chuckled. "Heh, you must be tired. then again, it is pretty late …" Shaking his head, he looked down the hall again. "… I guess I should walk until we meet someone, eh? Hamuko's sister said someone would meet us here …" walking forward, shinjiro couldn't help but wince at how loud his footsteps sounded in the stillness.

It only took a few seconds of walking forward for something to respond. A quick dart of fast shadows made Shinjiro jerk his head to follow it, only to see that it was a large, ink-black cat with large green eyes, a distinct collar with strange seals and writing on it around its throat. The cat seemed to stare at Shinjiro for a moment before letting out a satisfied purr, leaping down to land lightly on his shoulder.

Shocked, the man let the cat do so, perplexed by its behavior. "… Hello?" The cat looked at him as he spoke, and let out a louder purr before clambering over Shinjiro's shoulders to reach the baby carrier. "H – hey! Don't hurt her!" getting ready to pick up the cat and move it, a soft chuckle made him stop.

"Don't worry, Shinjiro-san, Gouto-san won't harm your daughter." Looking up, Shinjiro stared as a new man approached, chuckling. "He's just going to say hello."

Shinjiro wasn't certain that the man in front of him was fully human.

He looked about seventy or eighty, his grey hair showing faint hints of blue-black that refused to fade away, and he was wearing a formal black suit with a crescent moon pin on his blue tie. A vertical scar ran across one side of his face, and the katana strapped to his waist showed several decades worth of use. Sharp, black eyes seemed to take in the entire hall at once, but didn't seem hostile at all.

However, his style of dress was from the Taisho Era.

Even though he knew it probably wasn't a fair judgment, Shinjiro couldn't help but feel like the elderly man in front of him was an American mobster, and he shifted. "… So you're 'Ojii-sama'? Naoto and Hamuko both mentioned you to me once in a while."

"That would be me." The man chuckled, stopping right in front of Shinjiro and taking the suitcase out of his one hand. "Well, technically, I am their great-grandfather, but Ojii-sama makes it much simpler on everyone … even if I do wish they would leave off the 'sama'." Shaking his head at the thought, the elderly man ignored Shinjiro's jaw hitting the floor. "Sorry, I forgot to give you my name. I'm Shirogane Jouhei." Proffering his free hand with a soft chuckle, the man waited patiently for Shinjiro to pick his jaw up off of the floor.

"… Aragaki Shinjiro." Shaking the offered hand, Shinjiro looked around, and saw that the cat was nuzzling the sleeping infant. "Uhh … Cat, you're going to wake her up …" The cat paused at that, and turned right around to face him, green eyes holding a spark of amusement.

"That's what I intend, Aragaki-san. It's hard to greet someone when they're asleep, now isn't it?"

Shinjiro's brain took several seconds to register that the cat had spoken to him. It was only by sheer will that he kept himself from dropping the carrier in shock from the fact. "W – what the hell…?" Jouhei's accompanying chuckle made Shinjiro look at him. "Either I'm a shitload more tired than I thought, or did I just hear that cat talk?"

"I can talk just as well as you can, Aragaki-san. It's just that only those with strong spiritual powers can hear me." Nodding as he laid down in the baby carrier next to the infant, the cat's tail curled around her. "I am known as Gouto, Aragaki-san. I am a mentor to all the Raidou Kuzunohas, and a guardian of the family." Looking at the infant again, Gouto nuzzled her again. "Your daughter, what is her name?"

"… Aiko." Shinjiro relaxed a bit. "Aragaki Aiko. She's only a few months old though, she was born on New Year's Eve last year."

"I see." Nodding, Gouto looked at the sleeping girl before putting his cold nose on her forehead, just beneath the start of auburn hair. The cold, wet sensation made the infant's face scrunch up as she woke up, but instead of wailing like her father was worried she would, her eyes opened a bit with a small sniffle.

Gouto seemed satisfied, tail twitching as Aiko's pale grey eyes, very similar to her father's, slowly focused on the cat, perplexed. Instead of freaking out and crying at the sight of a black, fuzzy face, she reached out and patted the cat on the head. Gouto didn't seem to mind the roughness, even moving closer to the infant to let her get a better grip on him. "… She has a good deal of strength to her." The cat actually seemed to wince as Aiko's small hands wrapped into thick fur.

"Yeah … that's my fault." Rubbing the back of his head in nerves, Shinji looked around again. "I'm sorry to be imposing like this. Hell, I know Aiko'd be welcome here, but I wasn't expecting to be let in myself, what with Hamuko and I not being married …"

"I won't lie, it took me quite a while for me to convince them that it would be insulting to Hamuko, not to mention that it wouldn't be fair to Aiko to deprive her of her only parent." Jouhei's face darkened at that. "I might be Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV, but the elders can be stubborn enough to make a boulder seem agreeable. To be honest, Naoto had to come in and get one particular civilian elder off of his high horse, something she really shouldn't be doing when she's taking care of some business in Tokyo …"

Shinjiro winced "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." Jouhei shook his head again. "It wasn't your fault that such things have happened, or that the civilians can be the most irrational people at times."

"…Civilian?" Shinjiro looked at Jouhei in confusion.

"Not all of those who fall under the Kuzunoha clan can summon demons." Gouto spoke up, curled protectively around Aiko. "We might have reached an accord with the Queen Mother of Makai, but she does feel a bit irate if most of her children are in danger." Giving Shinjiro a cat smile, the black cat's tail twitched in amusement. "If Naoto and her husband hadn't managed to talk some sense into the civilians, it would have possibly resorted to calling on her judgment to settle the situation."

"That … sounds like it would have been bad." Not wanting to really picture what they meant by 'Queen Mother' of a place like Makai, Shinjiro looked back at Gouto, who was sniffing at Aiko with a strange intensity. "Does she need to be changed?"

"No no, it's not that." Jouhei shook his head with a chortle. "Gouto-san does that when he senses a strong amount of spiritual power in someone, or a potential for it. He's trying to see if it's what you and Hamuko have, of if it's a talent for demon summoning. Naoto's the first one to be equally adept at both, even if it did take her several years of practice to get it down pat."

"… And if she does have the knack for Demon Summoning?" Shinjiro's voice was tight with worry.

"Relax." Putting a hand on Shinjiro's shoulder, Jouhei gave him a reassuring smile. "Even if she does turn out to have the potential to become a demon summoner, we wouldn't keep her away from you."

Shinjiro felt a wave of relief rush through him at that. "… Thank you …"

Jouhei smiled, but tensed a second later. "Aragaki, don't move." Not giving the younger man a chance to respond, the retired summoner had drawn the katana at his waist and slashed at something behind Shinjiro. A muffled noise of death followed as a human dressed in black with a dagger in his hand crumpled to the floor, bleeding to death. "Assassin. He must have been very skilled to evade the crows." Scowling, Jouhei wiped his sword clean despite Shinjiro's wide eyes.

"You … you didn't even seem shocked …" Trying to gather his wits again, Shinjiro shook his head. "Should we be moving?"

"Yes." Nodding at Gouto, Jouhei cleared his throat. "Gouto-san, take Shinjiro and Aiko to the room we had set up for them. I'll see if there's any more outside." Gouto nodded and bounded out of the baby carrier before trotting off, Shinjiro following him, bewildered. Jouhei darted outside a second later, an abnormally large crow with orange flames on its wings following him.

Perplexed, Shinjiro followed Gouto through a winding part of the complex, including through a blue wall that felt like it should have been solid. When they passed through a similar red and goldenrod wall, Shinjiro found himself even more perplexed. "What the hell were those just now?"

"A wall made up of what we can only assume is raw magatite." Gouto explained without turning. "A strange man in an alternate dimension gave Jouhei the notes on how to create such walls when he was in his teens, and we've used them to secure off this particular part of the mansion. Now, only one of the Four Great Summoners or myself can bypass it without the key, along with those who live in this part."

Stopping outside of a sliding door decorated with the four guardian beasts, Gouto reared up on his hind paws and yowled. The sound made Shinjiro shiver, but Aiko slept through it. As the sound echoed for a few seconds, it was replied by a deep growl as a large, grey wolf with flaming eyes approached the door, standing nearly as tall as Shinjiro.

The gigantic wolf examined the man for a moment, as if memorizing his appearance, before giving a single wag of its tail and sitting in front of the sliding door. Gouto gave a satisfied mrt before looking at Shinjiro. "This is a Fenrir demon; she has taken the appearance of the legendary wolf to inherit its strength, and will serve as a last resort in case someone does manage to break through all three walls without dealing with the … repercussions …"

"… I can clearly imagine what you mean by that." Shuddering, Shinjiro looked at the Fenrir as her tail wagged. "She won't hurt Aiko when she's big enough to crawl and move around, will she?"

"She is under contract with Naoto." Gouto's tail twitched in amusement. "Harming a child would earn her a fate she doesn't want to discover." The Fenrir seemed to whuff in agreement.

Nodding, Shinjiro sighed and opened the sliding door; the large room inside had a divider decorated in gold with Huang Long cutting it in two. The smaller half held a good sized cradle for Aiko, decorated with the seven lucky gods and light blue blankets tucked in around it. A small dresser full of baby clothes was nearby, and a nearby door led to a good sized bathroom. The rest of the room was set aside for Shinjiro, a dresser for clothes against one wall with a bed close enough to the divider for him to reach Aiko quickly in case of an emergency. A desk was nearby as well, and the lights were dimmed and red-tinted as well, the switch located next to the bed.

"… Thanks …" Sitting on the bed, Shinjiro rested his feet for a few moments, setting Aiko's carrier next to him as Gouto entered the room, the sliding door snapping shut behind him. "I was half expecting to have to stay at Mitsuru's place, and the security there isn't quite as crazy as it is here …" looking at the door, Shinjiro chuckled. "It certainly didn't involve gigantic wolves as door guards."

Gouto let out a soft 'mrt' that seemed to serve as his laugh. "Well, this is an ancient family with … odd … connections. Such things are to be expected."

"Including assassins?" Shinjiro pulled Aiko out of her carrier and into his arms as he spoke, not wanting to let the sleeping girl out of his arms. Gouto seemed to sigh. "… It's part of the family deal, I take it?" Gouto gave a nod at Shinjiro's question, making him sigh. "I see … I really do appreciate the hospitality, but … I'm not going to let Aiko grow to adulthood in this sort of environment. As soon as I manage to buy a house and get a good enough job to support us, we'll be moving out."

"We're fully prepared for that, don't worry." Jouhei had arrived, carrying the suitcase. Setting it down, he nodded and continued talking. "There was one other assassin; like I feared, it was from one of the lesser demon summoners in the family." Pulling out the desk chair and sitting in it, he nodded at Aiko. "Unless you were able to determine something, Gouto-san, she's still a potential heir to the Raidou title."

"All I can detect with her so young is that she has a great affinity for change." Tail coiling around his feet as he sat up straight, Gouto's green eyes shone bright in the dimly lit room. "Transition, a flowing river, one with a great deal of power behind it … we will have to make certain nobody tries anything while she is here."

Shinjiro just shook his head. "No wonder Hamuko just wanted to open up a coffee shop somewhere." Standing up and parting the divider, he carried Aiko to the cradle and put her to bed. "This life sounds like it would be miserable on anyone."

"It's most likely why Minato refused the position of Raidou in favor of becoming a teacher." Jouhei nodded, standing up again. "I will take care of the problem immediately, Shinjiro. No matter what political struggle goes on in this family, infanticide is something that should not be tolerated." The old man's eyes darkened, making a shiver run through Shinjiro's spine.

"I will remain here for the night as well." Nodding, Gouto bounded over to the cradle and draped himself over the headboard. "Get some rest, Aragaki-san. You have made a long trip to get here."

Shinjiro, ready to protest, realized that the cat was right; he was exhausted. "Alright … again, thanks …" Sitting down in bed, he peeled off the coat he was wearing, not feeling up to changing.

"Naoto and Kanji will be here for breakfast, so you can talk with them then." Giving Shinjiro a soft smile, Jouhei began walking towards the door. "Sleep well, Shinjiro-san. Nothing will befall you here."

Unable to say anything before the sliding door closed behind Jouhei's back, Shinjiro just shook his head, kicking off his boots before crawling under the blankets. Giving one last gaze towards Aiko's cradle as he turned off the lights, he smiled as he fell asleep. "It's okay Aiko … everything's going to be okay now … And I'll always be there for you."

And here's the re-uping of "Guiding Light." I pulled it down due to too many plotholes forming, but that won't be an issue with this from now on. I'll also try to keep up a more regular update schedule, so every other Monday bar Mondays I work, in which case I'll update the next evening I have free.

From here, this is just setting up the story; this is one of the few stories where Hamuko is Minato and Naoto's sister, who I have as members of the Raidou Kuzunoha family. Minor setup here, and more things will be revealed in next chapter.

Enjoy, and happy New Year!