Disclaimer. Need I say more?

First fanfiction. Please R&R to convince me I'm not totally talentless!

I'm not sure how this story will turn out, but I'll try to make it a KyoxYuya. I am a yaoi fan, but that doesn't mean I'm going to add any in this story. Though there's a fifty fifty chance I might, but try to enjoy it until then. I'm not sure if I can pull it off, but oh, well, might as well try, right? On with the story!

The smoky, dark town emitted an eerie aura with it's chilling silence. The area was almost like a ghost town in the night, as no shadow ever passed the flickering lampposts, or walked the dim streets of this rundown city somewhere in Japan. The stillness stretched for hours into the night, until-

'Go away, you low lives!'

An unpleasant screech cracked across the peace, which the author had been steadily building. A waste of effort. A second later, a slight figure appeared from a side street, moving at an impressive speed. After a slightly longer pause, a small group of running forms followed the path the former person had taken. They all darted into a narrower street on the other side of the road, which was surrounded by two of the many tall, but plain, buildings that stood in the wide city.

The leading person does not stop, does not falter in anyway. Every once a while she passes below a shaft of dim light, her features showing up briefly as she does so. Slim, but fast, her sweating face was contorted, her light brown hair, which was tied into a ponytail, streaming out behind her. The tight skirt worn along with the red polo shirt restricted her movements greatly, and with only wooden sandals on her feet, she was slowed down seriously. Even so, she kept a considerable distance from the group of men chasing her, their yells echoing around the passageways and spurring her drive to outrun them on.

With this urge for survival increasing her speed more, she skidded around a corner, but halted in sudden shock. A tall concrete wall faced her, with another brick one and a building enclosing her on each side. She snapped to her senses instantly, and the thought of turning back to take another route crossed her mind- but she knew that the pursuing gang was closer than the chance of reaching another, this time unblocked, alley. Giving up on that idea, she rushed up to the small door that belonged to the building on one side of the encasement, and, without a second thought, started banging on it while yelling at the top of her voice.

'Let me in! Please, is anybody there? There're men after me! Help me!'

Suddenly, she heard hideous snickering from behind her. Whirling around, she saw a man with narrow, hooded eyes and a skimpy body, wearing a sickening grin that was obviously directed at her. As she instinctively withdrew towards the wall at the very back, he turned his head towards the only open street left.

'Aniki! You lot!' He shouted down the direction of the street. 'She's here, alright!'

Shuffling feet and excited mutters could be heard from out of unseen sneering mouths. From around the dark corner stepped out three men, two of them keeping behind the most heavily built one. The first man also moved behind, the picture of humbleness, to join the men standing aside for the one that looked their leader.

The girl, still panting, straightened up to look into the Leader's eyes, making defiant body language evident as they probably could not see her expression as clearly. Might have been for the best. 'What do you want from me?'

The men in the back sniggered, the Leader's grin stretched wide across his face. He had sallow, pale skin, which gleamed dully in the dim light emitted from around the corner. His eyes, Yuya saw, was little more than slits, and what could be seen of them were watery, but held an intense gaze. With sleek, long hair swishing behind his thin figure, he looked like a snake wearing human skin.

'You shouldn't be out on your own at night, little missy,' he hissed. The girl shrank away as he stepped closer. 'You're a new face, aren't you? Everyone in this here city knows this one, golden rule.' He continued his advance, hair a-swishing, heels of boots click-clacking on the concrete ground. 'This whole place is controlled by gangs...and you, missy, has unluckily ran into one.'

He licked his lips, showing a long, sharp ended tongue. 'Unluckily for you, I mean,' he added, almost idly, as he stepped closer. 'To us, though, you're like an honoured guest. We were just gonna go completely bankrupt, you know...'

He laughed openly at the girl's shocked face. 'What's your name, little miss?' he asked suddenly, stopping just outside the door of the building on the right.

The girl, perhaps offended by the sickening jokes, did not answer him.

The snake-faced Leader waited for a few seconds, through which silence travelled through the air. Realizing that she was not about to utter a word, he frowned in displeasure. 'It doesn't matter. What do we care about your name, anyway. All we want and need is your purse, kid, and if you give it to us now we'll let you off easy. Don't tempt us,' he continued, as his opponent looked like she was about to retort. 'We're not above hitting you and stuff, you know. In fact, you have a rather fine body, and we won't mind playing with it a bit. So, miss,' The shadowed figure leered over her, what would it-'

But he was cut short by a dull slamming sound and a high yelp of pain- indeed, his own yelp. He scuttled backwards on his rear, towards his gaping pals. The alley was narrow, too narrow to dodge an opening metal door suddenly swinging their way, unless they had a very good sense of agility and had been able to flatten themselves against the opposite wall. Unfortunately, Snake-face did not and had not.

Yuya, taken by surprise at this turn of event, saw a sneaker and a jean hem step down from the raised step from where the door was hinged. Soon afterwards, a dark form of a tall, sleek man emerged from the other side of the open door. His back was turned from her, and most of his self was darkened anyway, but a dangerous aura still emitted from him, making the Snake- faced men shrink back (though they tried to hide it as best as they could, behind their Leader).

'My bad,' said a deep, cold voice. 'Didn't realise that somebody will be as dumb enough to stand in front of it.'

Pink patches appeared on the Snake-Face Leader. 'What was that, punk?' he hissed, his thin eyes narrowing even more. 'You want a fight with us? Well, let's do a head count here. You're one guy, stupid enough to take us on as opponents. We are-' He turned back to his companions and, ignoring their cowering frames, pointed mockingly at all of them in turn while muttering a number under his breath. 'Four real men, and ready to beat you to a pulp if we have to. So,' he made to look back at the opposing figure. 'If you just lower your scrawny head and scuttle back inside, we'll let you go and have the gir-'

But he saw no man listening to his rant with a terrified expression and shaking body. Instead, his still turning cheek caught the blunt of a swinging fist as it came in contact with it, and Snake-Face had crashed into the wall, his literally flying body trailing after it in the air, crumpling down with him as he hit the ground underneath.

'Wha-' was all the girl could gasp out, sliding to kneel on the ground in shock, disbelieving of the feat she had just seen pulled right in front of her eyes.

'ANIKI!'

'How did he-?'

While his two brothers gawked at the sight of their Leader in a moaning pile of limbs on the ground, the third gave no hesitation in charging at the offending, still standing man.

'AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!'

If he had hesitated before running at the speed of a buffalo in the middle of a stampede, he could have thought of a better plan- like running away. In his eagerness to avenge the pride of his dear Leader, however, he ended up being picked off from the concrete ground in mid-run, and with his legs still kicking, his stomach was attacked continuously by the same fist that had hit his boss across the face. Said boss was delivered a flying package on his head as he was raising himself for another fight- both subordinate and Leader now lay groaning, barely conscious.

The man's head cocked itself to the direction of the remaining two. 'There's one of me and two stupid geeks left standing. I wonder who the odds are on, though?' It was still the same cool, uncaring voice, but the sneer was evident in it. 'If you aren't as brainless as you look, I suggest you pick the least messy way outta here. You could grab that lump of dough you call your leader, or...' he left the sentence hanging. Amazingly, the two who looked like they couldn't figure out how to use a spoon on yogurt if they were presented with some, got the basic idea. Probably not the pair who liked to take things steady, they each rushed to grab a body from the wall and were around the corner the next instant, their wails fading swiftly down the maze of alleys.

'Stop it, you morons! Get me back! I want to- that guy-'

'Aniki, he's a monster! We'll just go back and think up something to do, and, uhh...get some soda! Yeah! We know how much you like soda...'

After a couple more seconds, all was silent again. No signs of terror lurked the almost empty alley, not a trace of the scruff left, apart from the gently swinging door and some patterns in the dust below. As though nothing abnormal had ever happened.

The girl breathed out a sigh; it actually felt as though she had not exhaled since the gasp before. She looked up gratefully at her rescuer. 'Thanks so much, mister, I don't know what I would have done without you.' She picked herself up and dusted her skirt off. Having finished that, she put on her best award winning beam, and offered her ready-to-shake hand at the man in front of her, whose back was still turned to her. 'My name is Shiina Yuya, and if there's anything I can do to repay you from saving me, I-'

She broke off with another sudden intake of air into her lungs, also known as a gasp. For the man had finally turned- finally shown his face. And the first thing that Yuya caught was the gleam of bright, red eyes, eyes with the colour that was deeper than blood, eyes of one prepared to, or even desiring to kill- eyes, in short of that of a demon.

While it seemed impossible to her to have an eye colour of that sort at the moment, the next thing she caught was a flash of bright, white fanged teeth.

(He must go to a really good dentist. But still, to have eyes like that....oh, contact lenses? I've seen them do that in movies, and they sell some pretty wacky ones over the net, too... it does have a nice effect, it might be what had scared those guys earlier. Do they have purple, I wonder?)

While Yuya was busy fascinating over the red contacts, that man had spoken again. Surprise, it wasn't the chocolatey voice that fell her silent (although it did set her thinking), but the words that dropped out along from his mouth.

'Why would I want your name, bitch? I only came out here because you were making an earsplitting racket with your girly high shrieks, and I needed to rid my territory of those fags. Now, I better not see your ugly brute face around here after dark again, or I'll just let the next blind that you come across rape you and be done with it. Of course, I'll kick what's left of your ass outta this area after that, too. Now scat, I want to finish my drink in peace.' With that, he turns and disappears around the creaking door, not once twitching an eyebrow. The steel door slams against it's concrete surroundings.

As the final sound resounded along and over the tall walls of the paths, Yuya's form looked as though it had deflated of it's former confidence. Shoulders slumped, jaw hanging in front of her chest, she looked almost comical- comical, if her expression wasn't changing inch by God forsaken inch, from one of disbelief and to one of- well, it isn't hard to guess.

Finally, she snapped out of it, and went all the way through to her outraged, twisted face.

'WHAT THE HELL?! What was that for! Is it so wrong to try and thank somebody honestly for doing something that also benefitted me?! Well, I'll tell you something, it IS wrong to diss a girl like that when she was trying to be polite! Hey!' She yanked at the door furiously, but her efforts were all futile. it was locked from the inside again- possibly even bolted. Talk about rude. 'Get out here and answer me, you damn son of a- AAH!' In her fury, she kicks at the door, but accomplishes only in fracturing her big toe. Taking this momentarily pause as an advantage, the little voice that always speaks to mental people stepped forward to stop her from doing anything rash.

He did save you; you could have been seriously hurt if he hadn't stopped them, you know. You owe him that much.

He called me ugly- and swore when I was trying to-

Hey, newsflash- you aren't exactly the Mona Lisa oil painting. And swearing is probably the least he could do to you, considering the stunt he pulled off on the reptile kids trying to mug you. Get over it like a real, mature lady will do.

Ah...Yuya straightened herself up from holding her still throbbing foot. 'Fine, then- I'll just take all that stuff you said as a trade for the help you gave me, like it or not! I'm going home now, and I hope I never see your stinky face ever again!'

Ooh, yeah. Real mature. Lady, I ain't putting any bets on you again.

Snorting at her own mind's voice's comment, Yuya trotted quickly away from the blocked off alley, perhaps actually half afraid of being hit by an opening door. It didn't, and Yuya wasn't exactly sure if she was scared of it to do so or not, but she decided to take heed of at least one part of the man's insulting speech- after dark seemed to be nobody's friend, and gangs like the last one were probably not the most inviting thought at the time. Hurrying home, she prayed to nobody in particular that she won't meet the soda drinking crew- or something worse- and that she will never again find herself in a care of the offensive, impulsive, sick-to-the-bone young man.

She wouldn't, not for a while from now, but fate always has funny- often mocking- ways to weave past the certainty in the human mind. Then again, a lot of things in the world do, each entwining around and with each other, never once ending, never at the same point of time and events.

Take love, for instance.

DONE! First fic, (okay, I tried a couple more before on the Shakugan no Shana collection- not my favourite series in all honesty, but entertaining all the same. They got deleted by that 60 days thing- hands up people who thinks that it's annoying- but I might try them again later, in the distant future.) maybe not the best of my stories- I might have produced better ones for ENGLISH HOMEWORK, but I tried, and I actually got this one finished.

Reviews, PLEASE. I've already got the starting draft for the second chapter, but I would really appreciate some comments to help me out and/or keep me going. Summer holidays are coming soon, though, and while I can't wait to get out of school early (Don't exactly encourage swine flu all that much, though- some of my trips with friends got cancelled because of it) I won't be able to touch the computer for a few weeks. Guess I'll work on paper draft, then.

I'm actually not supposed to touch the computer NOW (It's like, twelve o'clock and going here right now. It's late for me, though I've faced worse, since I'm not exactly the over achieving student of my class. Except in Japanese, which is so easy for me I can't count all the times I've fallen asleep in it) but it's a useful way to let precious sleep time go by. Nocturnal much? I realise I said 'the author' a couple of times here- I had to use it to cover up these parts in Ch.2, which I'd written before this. I'll stop after Ch.3, it's annoying for everyone here.

Once again, REVIEW!

One more for luck, RE- alright, I'll go now.