Masako's Letter
By: Hikari-Kayko
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A/N: Just 'cuz it's a one shot doesn't mean you get to skive off on the reviewing! So review damn it!
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It was all so random and unplanned; it just didn't fit in with the rest of the kitsune's meticulously calculated life.
He'd never had such an odd encounter that left him so confused and content all at the same time. He unfolded the worn yellow parchment for the hundredth time and read the rushed flow of handwriting from the only being he's ever had trouble figuring out.
Thank you for being my friend when no one else would. You helped me to understand more about me than even I thought possible. When we meet again I hope you will remember the promise we made. Until then,
Masako
Kurama sat in Reikai's expansive library pouring over book after book, the small scrap of paper folded neatly and tucked into his breast pocket as he siphoned each page for answers for the third day running. His hair fell in unkempt masses over his shoulders and back as he recalled the night she had strolled into his life.
"You're awful pretty for a boy, stranger." A childish voice called out to the red head as he passed the park on the way home from school one evening.
Kurama's green eyes blinked in confusion as he craned his neck upwards to find the source of the voice. "Yo," a small girl greeted with a huge, mischievous grin. She dropped down from the tree she had been perched in and landed cat like on her hands and feet before drawing up to her full height.
"Good evening," Kurama answered uncertainly, taking in every detail of the child. She was young, very young, probably no more than ten or eleven years old by the looks of it. She was more than two heads shorter than him, with long, board straight black hair tied in a long thick braid to one side of her head and wore a simple short sleeved dress with knee length leggings underneath. An assortment of cuts, scrapes, and bruises speckled her small body, some of which Kurama recognized as fist prints, the most recent of which resided under her indigo eyes which gleamed in the setting sun.
"And proper too. I'm impressed." Kurama frowned at the child's words; incredibly witty and cynical for a ten year old, ne?
"Shouldn't you be getting home to your parents? It's almost dark." The kitsune tried to take command of the conversation, using his age as an authoritative tool, but to no avail.
"You shouldn't assume things about people you've never met, Stranger. I don't have parents." Kurama felt a pang of guilt at his ignorance, but did not show it. He opened his mouth to apologize and end the odd conversation but she beat him to it.
"How did a demon like you come to live in a place like this?" The blue eyed child asked as though inquiring about last night's dinner. Kurama nearly chocked on his tongue and the girl smiled, kicking dust around with her bare feet. "Surprised? Yes I know you're a demon, I know lots of things and I help people to know. Don't be afraid though. It's in my blood… the Knowing that it. I see things too, like…"
The child lifted her small hand to the air in front of her and an orb of opaque glass popped into being, hovering over her tiny fingertips. In the milky surface a perfect panorama of one of the forests in Makai scrolled by idly, a multitude of demons roaming its depths. The scene fazed out and bloomed into a different setting, also familiar. Kurama stared in shock as the front porch of Genkai's temple came into view.
"I especially like the angel," The girl said distractedly, staring into the orb, transfixed, as figures moved across the curved screen. "She's very funny to watch sometimes, and the tall one with the big heart." Kurama peered into the glass ball to see Rori sitting on the porch steps, a burning cigarette between her lips while Kuwabara stood leaning against a pillar a few feet away. The two appeared to be having an animated conversation.
"Sometimes I watch people all day," The child chirped happily as the glass popped like a bubble and disappeared from sight. Kurama stared trying to find words as the last bits of sunlight gleamed in the girl's large indigo eyes.
"What are you?" The fox finally managed. He had intended to ask who, not what, but was proud non-the-less that he'd achieved words at all through his shock.
The child giggled and gave a sweet smile as she sprang towards the tree she'd come from and grabbed the lowest branch nimbly, climbing back into the foliage.
"They say foxes are the most cunning and perceptive of all animals. Maybe you can tell me Stranger." Her childish laughter rang in his ears long after the girl's dirt stained feet disappeared in the greenery over head.
And just like that she'd strolled out again. The mysterious girl reappeared three more times for short conversations, once she'd even dropped into his lecture hall window at the college, scared the professor half to death, and enlightened Kurama with a little warning that someone was looking for him. That afternoon, Koenma appeared to the old team and reunited them for the first time in two years for a mission in Makai.
The last of their meetings though, is what stuck in his mind so vividly.
"Do you think I'm bad?" The child he knew only as chibi-onna, asked as they sat together on the roof of Kurama's apartment building watching the stars twinkle in the night sky. Kurama blinked in surprise looking over to see pleading indigo orbs searching his green ones for truth. She was still wearing the same clothes as the day they'd met and new bruises clouded her pale skin, a pealing and blood caked split in her lip indicating an altercation just hours old. He never asked where the wounds came from, but he wondered and he worried.
"Of course not, why?"
"If I came to you one day and asked you for help, even if I'd done something bad, you'd help me?" The child looked close to tears now as she waited for his response.
"Of course I would," Kurama smiled reassuringly. "We're friends aren't we? And that's what friends do, they help each other.
"I'd help you if you were in trouble Stranger!" The girl, her cheer renewed by his conviction, declared raising her tiny fists as if preparing to defend him. "I'd take down anyone who tried to hurt my friend. Promise!" She growled with the usual child-like eagerness to prove ones self.
"I know you would chibi-onna, I would too… promise." Kurama chuckled, ruffling her perfectly straight black hair in the moon light. The girl smiled from ear to ear scooting closer to her new friend and gazing at the stars with him in wonder.
So now Kurama sat among the sea of hard bound knowledge, hoping to find answers. Botan had helped him get started and now he was swimming in information about strange human abilities and The Knowledge the child had mentioned on several occasions during their haphazard rendezvous. He sighed, setting down the last book and closing his eyes, exhausted.
"So what did you find?" Kurama jumped, his worn and frazzled nerves not expecting the sudden intrusion. He turned to see Yusuke leaning over a stack of books waist high, munching noisily on an apple, looking mildly interested at a page of a table sized book that had been thrown to the side still open to a chart of funny shapes and odd little ruins narrating the visuals' meanings.
"She was a witch." Kurama answered simply closing the books cluttered about him.
"What, your half pint stalker girl?" Yusuke laughed, remembering the kitsune's bewildered description of the child that night he'd come to visit out at Genkai's. Poor guy looked fit to have a heart attack he was so flustered. Something about the way the girl acted just didn't sit well with the Youko, for whatever reason.
"Yes, she possesses what youkai call The Knowledge, an ancient and powerful instinct that transmits knowledge and skills down through generations of people with out spoken word or apprenticeship."
"Hmm," Yusuke hummed eyeing the docile, yet perturbed look on his friends face. "Sounds a little spooky to me, but hey, who am I to judge right?" He grinned goofily but Kurama's sober expression erased it quickly enough. "Do you think you'll meet her again?"
Kurama placed a hand over his breast pocket, feeling the soft parchment under the cloth and a small, unexplainable smile crept onto his tired face.
"Yes, I think I will… one day."
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HIKARi