A/N: Here it is! The completely rewritten version fresh out of the oven! Many thanks to Emkiu for being my beta! ;w; I know I'm not good therefore I'm really thankful for the help.
Reviews would be highly appreciated and please do write one if you liked the story since they mean a lot for me and boost my writing morale! Besides I'm always curious about the readers' opinions! :D

The island of Oki. A place every traveller tries to avoid as far as possible because of the rumors and legends about man-eating evil youkais and other terrifying creatures. But in reality, only a fraction of these stories showed connections with the truth. Even if the island had residents like those, most of the youkais were satisfied with small, innocent tricks and rarely fought deadly fights with each other. They were nothing like the giant sea serpent, Yofune Nushi, who terrorized the inhabitants of the area for two years now and the description of humans were based on him. It devoured and destroyed everything that ventured into his sacred territory: the sea. They said it wouldn't hurt a fly without a reason, and in the past he spent most of his time in the depths of the sea, but something angered the lord of the Sea and he took his revenge on the port city.

On Oki lived a rabbit youkai called Fei Rune, the main character of this twisted story. He was disowned from the rank of rabbits at the age of twenty-three because of his unpredictable power and unnatural colours. Causing disharmony in their population was something the elder couldn't watch without action. His exile was the main reason why he refused to change into his rabbit form over the years. This way no one could mention his difference because there were no humans on Oki just a few youkai who mimicked them for a change.

The land that was called "the other side" by the islanders was separated from them by the sea. Fei could see the long road going alongside the beach, ending somewhere near the forest that supposed to led travellers to a town called Inaba. Sometimes the ghosts of the people who died by drowning in the sea told him stories about this place. They praised the beauty and wealth of Inaba, but as much as they wanted to return there was always a few who complained about their hardships and bad life in the city. These two extreme seemed to be the most common, but he rarely met ghosts who had a neutral opinion about the whole place saying it's not bad or good. From the information the spirits gave him and his own imagination Fei created a city out of a fairy-tale, a giant castle of dreams. After a while he seriously reconsidered the idea of crossing the sea to chase his dreams. However every attempt was a failure because the sea kindly threw him back to the land with a strong wave or two, before the serpent could notice his presence. Sometimes Fei thought it was the sea dragon itself that sent him back, trapping him like a piece of his collection.

Therefore the lights of the city were Fei's only shelter from his life. As they shined behind the surrounding mountains he could forget about his problems for a few hours. Back when the sea serpent was calm even the sea became the home of many glimmering lights as some of the merchant ships left the harbour at night to reach the continent by morning. On the night that made his life take a sudden turn he was doing the same, sitting on the beach and making up scenarios in his head about objects he never saw and humans he never talked to.

As Inaba's lights started to fade into nothing, his gaze wandered along the rocky shore of Oki. That was the first time he saw a blue ball-like junk lying in the water. At first he didn't really care about it, since the sea used to bring all kind of junk with the high tide but the blue colour attracted him so he decided to take a look at it. It was a weird, giant, blue toy bear. Worn out from usage, its blue fur was ruffled around the elbow-parts.

For a moment Fei thought about bringing the toy home so he could use some parts of it, but he dropped the idea as soon as it started moving. The bear tried to get up from the ground but the water that had collected inside of it prevented him from moving.

"Some help would be greatly appreciated." he groaned angrily as he tried to sit up. Fei was still stunned from the sudden voice but helped him otherwise. He'd seen bears many times in the forest and even talked with the one who seemed to be sleeping through his life, but this one was not just abnormal in choice of fur colour but rude too.

"You're too bearish to be a bear." remarked Fei with a sigh.

"I'm not a bear!" said the toy angrily. "Youkai." He then added with the purpose of annoying the boy.

Fei was honestly surprised by this statement since the bear-toy-whatever could not know about his origin especially after a few seconds of their first meeting.

"What now? Cat got your tongue? Of course I know you are a youkai. You live on Oki, the island where no humans can set foot, remember?"

"Ye-yeah, that's true." Fei admitted. "Who are you exactly?"

"I use Wandaba nowadays." he said folding his arms with a proud smile. "It comes from my human name in case I started forgetting it."

"Human name?" asked Fei curiously as he sat down beside Wandaba on a rock.

"Agh. Don't tell me you don't know the three types of youkais…"

"Well there are animal youkais and humans who changed into youkais due to being greedy or eating a youkai… Uhm… The third is…"

"Tsukumogami. Tools, that gained a soul because they were abandoned for at least a hundred year. Like a karakasa." Wandaba finished it for him but from Fei's expression he saw how lost the boy was in this topic "It's an umbrella that was left alone for hundreds of years. I think this region has a lot of one eyed, one legged karakasa."

"I see. So does this mean you were abandoned too?" he said with a sympathetically smile.

Wandaba was not willing to reveal too much about his past for the boy about this, and only told him the most necessary information.

He was a human once, but he didn't have to wait a hundred years to become a youkai because somehow his soul got stuck in the toy bear and ever since that day, he was trying to get rid of his curse. This was his story that Fei knew, but he never spoke a word about his accident on the sea or how old was he in reality and the boy never forced the idea. He was more interested in the place where Wandaba came from. After all, he rarely met someone who didn't lament about his death. In the case of Wandaba he just had to speak to him with utter respect as he claimed to be the wisest youkai that has ever stepped on the grounds of Oki.

"Wandaba-san what do you know about Inaba? What can I find there? And how are the people?" he asked once when they were watching the lights of the night from the shore.

The bear didn't seem really enthusiastic about hearing this question again, but because the boy looked at him so eagerly he decided to answer his questions in his own way, murmuring something about children's day under his breath.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The people are ungrateful and the whole place stinks! You give them your heart and they throw you into the sea! Or leave you. If you know what's good for yourself you will never go there and never trust anyone who's from Inaba!"

"Are you sure? I don't think they are that bad." Fei mused to himself thinking about his past experiences with the ghosts of Inaba. In the distance the lights of the city slowly went out in favour of the empty starless night that seemed to rule sky, closing out the stars and the moon.

"Boy, you're too optimistic and this will be your biggest drawback in life. It's better if you have no connections with them. You have this beautiful island. More than enough for a rabbit youkai." he added, "Besides it's not the wisest thing to go there now. I've heard the daimyo was possessed or maybe he is a spirit and then there's the sea serpent that's slowly destroying Inaba."

"Daimyo?" Fei looked at him in disbelief at the mention of this unknown and foreign sounding word.

"In short, a person who controls the rest. You can call it landlord too, if that sounds better for your ears. But if you ask me they do more harm than good especially that one in the city, since he is a rather young one with zero experience. He is an egoistic idiot, who thinks he knows what he is doing."

Wandaba badmouthed the daimyo in a way that could easily get him killed in the city, but Fei managed to get the most important information from the rant the bear made. The landlord refused the yearly sacrifice from Yofune Nushi, causing destruction and death to his own city and ships.

"Well I still want to leave this place." said the rabbit youkai. "No one really loves me and the other side is bigger, so maybe I could meet someone who considers me his friend or youkais like me or-"

"Of course and you can find a lot of enemies too." he let out a bitter laugh. "But for me you look too much like a human for a rabbit youkai. I bet you can't even change into a rabbit and long forgot this ability."

"I did not." Fei shook his head with a smile. "You know Wandaba-san, this island mostly belongs to my relatives. However I do not belong to them as they exiled me years ago."

"So the human form is your way of rebelling? Interesting."

"Yeah…"

Wandaba thought for a while whether he should ask Fei or not, but his curiosity got the best of him and he asked the rabbit to show him his true form. Or old true form as Fei referred to it. The youkai was protesting for a few seconds but Wandaba promised him more stories about the other side and after considered the offer, he did as he was asked to.

The process was always strange no matter how many times Fei went through the grotesque transformation. But unlike his relatives, Fei's eyes held more intelligence than six other's as a rabbit. The toy hasn't said a word. He just looked at the jade coloured eyes and the pale green fur, clicking his tongue as he understood the boy's problem.

"You see, people weren't fond of Momotaro either, because he was born in a peach and they called him a monster." he said wisely, recalling the details of said story, but when he saw that even this widely known story was new to Fei, he outlined the legendary child and his travels. "So despite of his origins, he became a hero with his animal friends. Those idiots should be happy that you're different. For example look at me! You won't find a toy like me in this country!"

After Fei changed back he sat next to Wandaba again.

"I wish people here would feel the same way." he sighed, but since he made a promise to the melancholic youkai boy Wandaba did not stop at Momotaro and tried to introduce every story he could remember. Sometimes Fei brought back the topic of the sea in hopes that the bear will be more informative. But he did not mind if he didn't. The newcomer made the unpleasant feeling from his heart disappear, a feeling that had a strong grip on him ever since he started living alone. The silence was gone, but even like this his thoughts wandered back to the other shore.

This island was too small for him.