Hey, Fictioners!

Yeah, anyone who thinks this is strangely familiar: I posted this up a while ago, but my computer had problems and it was screwing up and the fic wasn't showing up in My Stories, so I'm trying again! LOL. Damn technology!!

So, this is my entry fic for Mika's backstory of Kisshu (see 'CONTEST ALERT!'). The rules, just for anyone interested who does not already know:

1. Kish must have had a different name when he was human.

2. Kish must have NO memory of being human.

3. Must be Kish-x-OC, and your OC must be Ryou's cousin, and they must have been friends with Kish when he was human.

4. As well as Ryou's cousin, you must have another OC; Ryou's cousin's friend.

5. It must begin with a prologue.

6. It must be over 5 chapters.

7. The deadline is May 6th, 2009.

Anyway, so this is my entry :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Mew Mew, or Kisshu. I do, however, own his human form, and the two OCs used in this fic.

I dedicate this story to Mika herself. She's had a bit of a rough time lately, what with the whole 'Sukira' disaster. Go easy on her, guys. -hugs-

Memories Prologued

Prologue

"Reborn White Dream Purification!"

Brilliant white light exploded from the end of my twisted golden staff, momentarily dazzling the room. I removed my arm from where I'd thrown it across my face to protect my eyes, opening them again.

The bright red-orange tongue of flame crackled further up the frame of the door, eating into the walls and furniture of the enormous lounge room. The crackling and spitting was so loud my ears were ringing. The smoke was so thick I was practically gagging. And it was so hot, I could feel the beads of sweat running rivers down my forehead.

"It's not working!" I called desperately, my voice a strangled choke.

"Just keep trying!" Mei called back from somewhere on the first floor of the mansion. Her voice echoed back to me along the burning hallway. I heard her shout her own attack, and the blast that followed.

"Reborn... White Dream Purification!" I shouted, raising my staff again. Once more, there was the flash of white light as I focused my attack on the fireball before me.

And once more, my efforts were wasted. The flames crept closer and closer to the roof, engulfing more of the room with each passing second.

With a roar, the thick velvet curtains framing the arched windows caught alight.

I stifled a horrified scream and stumbled backwards instinctively, tripping over the lip of the expensive Persian rug. I tumbled to the floor, choking heavily on the putrid smoke.

There was an excruciatingly loud crash from one of the other numerous rooms, and lots of booming thuds, followed by the unmistakeable high pitched scream of my best friend.

"Mei!" I yelled fearfully, climbing to my feet and lurching through the burning doorway, into the smoke-filled hall. "MEI!"

She didn't answer me. I staggered along the wide corridor, dodging falling pieces of roof plaster as the mansion began to collapse around me. It had once been breathtakingly beautiful, the Shirogane manor, but now the fire was destroying all that Dr. Shirogane had worked to create.

I couldn't find her. Every room I searched in was empty, save for the flames and rubble. Tears began to well up in my already stinging eyes – I could hardly see as it was with all the smoke, let alone with the tears blurring my vision – and I backed out into the hall from the kitchen, straight into someone else. I squealed.

"Oh! Hikari!" he cried, grabbing my shoulders to steady me.

"Keiichiro!" I gasped, relieved. I looked up into his youthful, handsome face, searching frantically for the reassurance I always found in his beautiful brown eyes. There was nothing but panic in them today.

"Have you seen anyone else?" he asked, his lovely voice reduced to a rasp. I shook my head, reminded again, and the tears spilled over.

"Where's Mei?" I croaked. "She just screamed!"

"I don't know," he replied. "I think the dining room just caved in."

"My attacks aren't working!" I sobbed. "What do we do?"

Suddenly, he stiffened, his eyes tense.

"Wha–?" I began, but he held up one long-fingered hand to silence me. Then I heard it. The faint, childlike voice calling from above us.

"Mom!" There was a short pause. "Dad!"

"Ryou!" we both gasped at the same time. His wide, horrified eyes mirrored mine.

"Ryou!" Keiichiro bellowed, letting go of my shoulders and running towards the burning oak staircase.

"Keiichiro, no! You'll get killed!" I screamed in terror, chasing after him.

"We've got to get him out!" he yelled back, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Wait – WAIT!" I shouted, right on his heels. I reached out desperately and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, yanking on it with all my strength to stop him. It was insanely lucky I had, too; part of the roof caved in, crumbling down right in front of us – a ball of plaster and fire. Keiichiro instinctively pulled me to him, shielding us both from harm. His breathing was ragged, his heart racing against my ear.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously, letting me go after a moment. "Did you get hit?"

"I'm fine," I replied shakily. I licked my parched lips, steeling myself. "Let me go get Ryou. You go look in the other rooms for anyone else. I'll meet you out the front, okay?"

He gazed at me for a few moments, and we cringed instinctively as more of the roofing crashed down around us; a hail of lethal, burning debris. Finally he swallowed and nodded.

"Okay."

I took off at a run, skirting around him and continuing up the staircase.

"Hikari!" Keiichiro called. I stopped and turned. His brown eyes were soft.

"Be careful."

I nodded once, forcing a reassuring smile, and started running again.

The upper storey hallways were in worse shape than the ones downstairs. I couldn't see anything through the fog of smoke, and I fumbled my way in the direction of my cousin's bedroom, trailing one hand along the wall. The plaster was boiling hot against my fingertips; I could feel my skin blistering.

"Ryou!" I called, fighting the reflex to choke as I inhaled another lungful of the smouldering air. "Ryou, where are you?!"

"Hikari!" his young voice replied, and I forced my legs forward, faster, desperate to find him. "Hikari, I'm in here!"

"I'm coming!" I shouted, darting through an open door on my left to avoid being crushed by another shower of burning plaster. I leaped over the pile, ignoring the flames licking at the carpet, and practically broke the door down, crashing my way into his bedroom.

He was huddled in the corner, his arms and legs drawn into a tight ball, tears staining his pudgy little cheeks. He looked up with enormous, terrified azure eyes, and I watched them fill with relief. I dropped to my knees and he clambered to his feet, stumbling forward into my embrace. I hugged him tightly – his small body felt so vulnerable in my arms.

"Where's Mom and Dad?" Ryou asked, his little voice trembling.

"I don't know," I replied truthfully. "But we've just gotta get out of here, okay? We'll get out first and then we'll find your parents."

"Okay," he agreed, wiping at his smudged cheeks with ashen hands.

"Alright, Ryou, I'm going to pick you up, okay? I want you to hug my neck really tight and close your eyes, alright? Can you do that for me?" I asked seriously, letting go of him. He nodded wordlessly, his big blue eyes wide.

"Good boy."

I reached down and scooped him up bridal-style. His small arms encircled my neck, and I clamped him firmly against my chest. The smoke in his room was getting so thick my eyes were running like rivers. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. Breathing was excruciating – my throat burned, and with each breath I forced into my lungs, it felt like pieces of sandpaper were scratching together, all the way down my windpipe.

"Hold tight, Ryou," I shouted over the crackling and the roar, "And do not open your eyes, am I clear?"

He nodded against my chest. I took as deep a breath as I could, backtracked two steps, and launched myself at his large bedroom window, turning my shoulder so my wings would protect us from the glass.

With an epic crash, we plunged through the pane, and suddenly, we were free-falling. Acting purely on an instinct, I unfurled my wings and beat them hard, twice. Shards of glass had embedded themselves into the delicate skin, burying themselves among the dirty, white feathers, and I screeched in pain, listening to the hail of glass pattering to the earth below us.

"Hikari?" Ryou cried in alarm, patting my cheeks worriedly with his hands. "Are you okay? Are you hurting?"

"Don't worry," I somehow managed to croak through the excruciation, reassuring myself as much as him. "We're fine. I'm okay. Keep your eyes closed, alright?"

"Okay," he mumbled, and I flapped my wings again, gritting my teeth against the searing pain in my wings. I lifted us away from the house, gliding carefully towards the brown-haired figure I saw near the marble fountain.

"What part of 'be careful' involves throwing yourself through a window?" Keiichiro demanded furiously, coming forward to meet us. I miscalculated the distance between the ground and my feet, landing clumsily and severely jarring an ankle. I managed to stay upright, despite the exhaustion tearing at my limbs, the burning in my wings, the reeling of my head, and – in recent addition – the sharp stabs in my ankle.

Ryou clambered down carefully from my arms, running at Keiichiro and tackling him in a bear hug. I choked and gasped in the suddenly fresh oxygen – it burned my searing throat. Before I could register what was happening, I was tumbling forwards.

Keiichiro must have caught me, though, because I didn't feel the thump of my body hitting the ground, like I expected, and I instead found myself leaning heavily against something – or someone.

"Are you okay?" his voice asked anxiously in my ear. I tried to nod my head, but it lolled weakly.

"Here," he said, lowering me gently to the earth. I lay where he sat me, my head still spinning. "We need to get you to a hospit–" he broke off, his voice catching. I wondered what had caused him to fall silent; a heavy sense of meaning crashed down around us, and I knew something was wrong.

Very wrong.

I forced my blurry eyes open and pushed myself up from the ground, following his gaze towards the double-door oak entrance to the mansion. Oh God, I hadn't actually looked at the glorious manor from outside. Flames engulfed almost the entire building, licking greedily out of the windows. Smoke billowed from every cavity – doors, windows, holes, even the tiles in the roof – rising into the blazing orange-red sky like an eerie black fog. The entire scene was absolutely terrifying.

But it wasn't actually the mansion Keiichiro was staring at, his brown eyes almost emanating his disbelief.

It was the figure emerging through the doors, walking calmly towards us like the host of an extravagant party coming to greet his guests, rather than the survivor of a terrible house fire that had potentially claimed the lives of my best friend, aunt and uncle.

He was tall and slender, with skin so white it was like porcelain. His body was elegant, almost feminine, his muscles long and wiry. His eyes, fixed on us, gleamed a rich golden, like melted honey; his thin lips curled back from his pointed fangs in a superior smirk. His seaweed-green hair tumbled over his shoulders in loose waves, shining with a nauseating beauty as the flames reflected against it.

He was like no one I'd ever seen, and yet, I recognised him immediately.

My eyebrows knitted together in confusion. I tried to place him; tried to work out where I'd seen him before. Why were his eyes so familiar to me? Why was there a niggling feeling in my stomach that I knew him?

My breath was knocked out of me with a whooshing sound as I put the pieces together.

I'd run my fingers through his hair so many times before; ruffled it many a time, be it fondly or irritatingly. I'd stared furiously into those eyes during arguments, fought the urge to punch that nose when he'd disagreed with me.

But it didn't make sense.

His eyes were brown, not gold. And his hair... his hair was brown, too. I was sure of it. Maybe my smoke-filled eyes were playing tricks on me. Perhaps the boy before me really was my friend; perhaps my exhausted mind was mutating his image – distorting my vision.

"Kesshi!" I called, relieved, pushing myself up even more. He didn't reply. There was no flicker of recognition on his strange, elfin face. That sinister, creepy smirk was fixed in place.

"K... Kesshi?" I whispered, feeling my eyes widen with confusion.

He walked towards us, smiling. Behind him, the Shirogane mansion erupted in an ear-splitting explosion of glass and mortar.

So, this was the prologue for 'Memories Prologued'.

I don't know when I will next have this updated; maybe after I've updated MA again.

Thanks for reading! PLEASE REVIEW!

Until the next update,

Cherrie-Sakura

xxox