AN: If there are any mistakes and/or continuity issues, please PM me them!

Silent Watchers

Karin's back was to the door that she shared with her sister. Yuzu had actually brought home friends today and her curiosity was killing her. Luckily she wasn't a cat. Unluckily, it was a rather boring proposition. There was a reason she hung out with the crowd she did and not Yuzu and her friends. Even so, she was curious about what her sister did when she wasn't around and worried about her getting hurt.

Though she would never admit it, of course. The only person who had guessed how far that truly went had been her brother, and they had agreed to keep it between them. It seemed that she was not the only worrier in the family.

In fact, it was usually Ichi-nii who dealt with issues like that, but he spent more and more time disappeared into god-knows-where. He wasn't even home enough for Karin to question him properly. But the fact remained that someone had to keep track of Yuzu. So the task fell to Karin to keep a watchful eye on her mostly-oblivious sister.

Not that she was complaining. Not at all, as she grit her teeth for the umpteenth time, hearing Yuzu's bright laughter from the other side of the door. But Nii-chan would never forgive her if something happened to that laugh while he was gone and she didn't do anything to stop it. More than that, he would be right to. And she would not forgive herself either.

After knowing how much time Nii-chan put into watching their backs, Karin decided that she could at least manage to watch Yuzu's. So she pushed out all the thoughts about the soccer game she knew she was missing and focused on the words spoken, hushed by the wood.

"-or Dare, Natsuki-chan?" A smiling, boisterous voice spun upwards through the door crack into her ears.

"Dare!"

More giggling ensued as a suitable dare was chosen. Karin yawned. It was often a boring job, she thought. She remembered Ichi-nii yawning a lot even before he stopped sleeping nights in favor of monster hunting and walking on air in the black-and-white uniform he did. When she wasn't wondering what he was doing there, she pitied she remembered of wearing tabi and warajii was the nearly unbearable discomfort she had come to associate with traditional clothing. And tripping over the hakama was awfully easy.

When she wasn't wondering what on earth. Or off of earth as the case may be. And how exactly did he get the spirits to disappear? It was a trick she needed to learn. Desperately. The stalker-pedophile ghosts that had taken to following her were just a bit too annoying sometimes.

Karin cursed her luck. She had missed what was going on in the room, though it wasn't all bad from all the giggling she heard, and the voice yelling "Natsuki-chan!" to the world. The laughing, high pitched-ness of it gave it a less threatening front to the listening ears. They quieted again and Karin, decidedly not annoyed that she didn't know what had happened, listened hard.

She was getting weary of it and her ear was hurting from how hard she was pushing it up against the door. It was a wonder she hadn't worn an ear-shaped groove into it by now. Or that Ichi-nii hadn't either. And the footsteps from below had her worried that Dad would catch her or make enough of a scene for Yuzu and her friends to come out. But the next words had her attention, and she forgot for a moment about the imminent danger of her father.

"Truth or Dare, Yuzu-chan!"

This time it was Yuzu's giggling, animated voice that responded. "Truth." Karin let out a sigh of relief at the word. An inaudible sigh of relief, of course. She was trying not to be noticed of course.

"What is the oddest thing that has ever happened to you?" Once again came the first voice. Karin kept on listening, this time more curious than worried as to what the answer was. Yuzu was quiet for a moment as the other girls in the room chattered at the question. They were shushed by Yuzu as she started to speak.

Her tone was slower, as if she were reliving the memory, half in a dream world and half in reality. "Well, this one time Karin-chan and I were walking home from the store. We'd been buying ingredients for dinner. We weren't running or anything, just having a nice walk on the way home. And then, as we were walking by the bridge by the river, it felt like I was being dragged off of the ground and into the air" Yuzu's tone sped up as her story took on more and more action.

"Then I was thrown off of my feet and I dropped my bags. My legs felt like the were touching something wet, but textured oddly. I felt it through my socks too. It was disgusting-feeling. Not like the river. My hands were pinned to my sides by some force. Karin stopped and started yelling out to me and grabbing for my something tugged on my arm and the force and the wetness was gone, aside from my socks. Karin stopped yelling too, but the force on my arm didn't go away until I was on the ground next to her.

"I tried voicing my confusion, but Karin-chan pressed the handles of my bags into my hands and told me to run. So we ran away from the bridge. Then we were picked up and the ground was whooshing by, more quickly than I could perceive. It was like driving in a car without the car. It was all very weird. The pressure on my arm was back too. It was like someone was holding it and making us go that fast. But no one can run that fast, right?

"I thought I was just dizzy at first but then I heard Karin-chan yelling something. I couldn't hear what she was saying though. I heard something about onii-chan, but that doesn't make any sense. That wasn't even the weirdest thing. It was like we were being dragged along by something we couldn't see. We weren't even holding on to each other and when I reached out to her, I couldn't touch her."

Her friends were listening raptly. When Yuzu paused at this point, one of them prompted her promptly. "And then what happened, Yuzu-chan?"

"And then we were on the road, near the clinic with our shopping bags. We just walked home and I made dinner and everything was normal." Yuzu's tone had grown louder as she was more sure of her words but shushed as she ended her seemingly tall tale.

"That sounds like a nice daydream to have on the way home from shopping, Yuzu-chan." The voice sounded disbelieving and almost wistful.

"I'm serious! It actually happened!" Yuzu sounded indignant, even muffled as she was.

"Sure, sure." Her friends agreed and their game moved on.

Karin pushed her stiffened bones off of the wall and walked into the TV room for a stretch. She was reminded that there were other reasons than just concern for her sister in school that her nii-chan was concerned about Yuzu. And her, though she tried to ignore that part.

She very clearly remembers the concerned face of her brother that day. How his face was devoid of its usual casual scowl and replaced instead with a serious look. It was as odd and as sobering as when Otou-san exchanges his usual childish antics for a serious adult form. Perhaps even more so.

She also remembers how helpless she felt as she saw the masked monstrosity with a hole through its chest pick up Yuzu and started pushing her feet-first into its mouth. How Ichi-nii kicked the monster in the face and grabbed Yuzu, settling her on the ground next to her as he shook the bandages off of the weapon on his back and held it like he knew how to use it in front of quickly cut mask of the monster, the human face underneath mouthing the words 'thank you' as it disappeared into glittering black shards that disappeared. The bandages swirling around the dreadfully over-sized, guard-less sword as he held it behind his back.

How he put his fingers to his lips with those serious eyes after he set them down in front of the house before disappearing. He reappeared on the roof of the next building for the barest instant before he disappeared again and she was left alone with a shocked Yuzu.

She remembers that first incident, when she learned of her brothers other activities and his other life. She remembers his serious eyes and him asking her to keep quiet. She remembers the look he gave Yuzu, the one she didn't see. The hug his arms were twitching to give that was held back.

The quiet pleading to watch Yuzu when he couldn't as she yelled at him to explain as they zoomed over streets and buildings, purchases in tow, away from the monster. She remembers because she refuses to forget, or maybe because she can't.

Or, maybe, because she felt the awakening of the responsibility blossom in her chest. The inkling of a need to protect her sister from the monsters. The pained expression on Ichi-nii's face when he told her that he couldn't save them every time though they would die if he didn't. Worse than die, he said.

Maybe because she could help Ichi-nii by keeping Yuzu safe for him from what she could when he was keeping them safe from the monsters.

She had put a lot of thought into that day, but she had never known what Yuzu had thought of it. There was some relief that she didn't know, because she could protect Yuzu from what she didn't know. Yuzu wouldn't be burdened. But she had also felt some sadness that could not be crushed. Whatever Yuzu felt, there was no longer that bond between the girls where both could share anything and know everything about the other. Anger, because Yuzu didn't understand. Disgust, at herself, for feeling the anger.

And loss. It was almost a rape of her innocence as a child with no idea of the meaning of true danger to see it. And for Ichigo's sake as well. She couldn't look at anything the same way afterwards. And it was just as well. It just meant that she would have that much less illusion when the next threat came for Yuzu.

And maybe, she thought as nii-san rescued her from the monster that had tried to eat them on the day the anniversary of Mom's death, someday she could make sure to do some of it for herself and not rely on Ichi-nii to protect them both sometime.

Though she may be a bit of a hypocrite, she thought, she didn't really care. Because what she had prayed for right before that incident was for Yuzu's continued innocence, that she didn't end up aware of the monsters and the horrible danger of the world prematurely. Like she had, and Ichi-nii before her.