I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho!
Companion fic to Galaxy. Cute and/or heartbreaking tidbits that I didn't think about or want to add into the main story.
Probably also Omakes.
-other-
Had Annabella Been Reincarnated Into a Demon Instead...
I huffed at the large boar demon that was eying my food, my tail swishing behind me in agitation.
"You gonna eat that, Koneko?" Kitten? Kitten my fangs! I growled at him, low and long.
"It's on my plate, you ass, of course I am. Glutton." I sneered. He held up his hands in mock surrender, a smirk on his thin lips.
Steal my fucking fish? Hell no.
-Star-
My father was a caring and loving man, a Jaguar, his skin and hair showing that. My mother was rather distant, but as the Alpha of our little village, that was expected.
She had asked a Submissive to bear her an heir.
Me.
Hers by blood, but not my jaguar of a father's. It also meant that I had the blood of the tigers in my veins. Royalty, basically.
It did mean that I was born into a feud though.
Lions didn't like us much. At all, really. I blew a strand of white hair out of my eyes as my father bent down to check over the gash on my knee. Mildly painful, and bleeding a surprising amount. He clucked his tongue.
"Let's wash it out, Kogo." I made a face at the name, even if it was mine. Empress? Bitch, I was a mechanic! Lord of the Grease, Empress of Misbehaving Motors maybe. But just Empress?
I wasn't worth that much.
-systems-
I eyed the golden haired woman at my side with weariness. She turned slitted silver eyes onto my small form, and quirked a striped eyebrow. I narrowed my own blue at her.
"Honestly, Kogo, so suspicious." One gold ear twitched, and I felt my striped white ones fall back against my head.
"You're spending time with me. You never spend time with me." I pointed out, my tail curling around my leg.
"If this is because I smacked, clawed, and/or beat the hell out of Butaouji, just know that he deserved it." I pointed out.
"No, dear. That isn't why. Your father noticed something in your scent that is... mildly alarming." I frowned.
"Am I sick?" I asked her, completely serious.
"No, just... sit." Warily, I dropped down to sit on the edge of our roof.
"You are a Submissive, Kogo."
Oh.
My face lost what little color it had. That wasn't good. My mom's little sister had been a submissive. The lions had taken her, raped her, and killed her. Only to leave her corpse and...cubs, dead in front of the village.
"I'm sending you away for a bit. To someone that I trust. He's a good man, one I met when I was your age. Your mother, the one that bore you, will be there as well. She's rather excited. Sweet girl."
"That makes sense." I said quietly. I had lived through a lot of pain in my first life. Rape hadn't been one of those pains.
I never wanted it to be.
-other-
Takao was nice enough, I decided, watching the hulking man stitch up a woman who had come in with a hole in her stomach.
My mom was decent. Young, though. Far too loud for my liking. She was pretty, and I hoped that I inherited that from her.
She was cheerful, always bustling about. I turned my eyes on her as she pulled down the salves for Takao.
Later that day, after the patient had left, I turned to Takao.
"I want to learn that." I decided, my young voice high in the nearly silent room.
"I want to help people like that."
-star-
I snipped off three leaves from the plant in front of me, carefully gathering them up in a bit of cloth. At the age of fifteen, Takao had deemed me old enough to go out on my own.
Which, while nice, was strange. I hadn't been out alone since my status as a fucking submissive had been realized.
I hummed as I worked, gathering things slowly and carefully. My keen ears picked up a rustle in the bushes, and I snapped my head toward it, eyes wide.
Backing away carefully, I scanned them.
"You look like a mouse." A deep voice informed me. I scowled.
"I am a cat." I told him, beyond offended. Could he not see that?
"A rather frightened one." He said again, dropping out of the damn trees to land in front of my ridiculously small form. I flinched backwards. A...purple? A purple beret sat on his head, and his wiry form hid away immense amounts of power. I was immediately on edge. My fighting capabilities were weak, my knowledge of herbs might come in handy, but with enough energy, he could simply burn through whatever I dosed him with.
He sniffed at the air, then leveled me with an appraising look.
"But not without reason. Don't panic, Kitten. I'm not one for hurting submissives." My tail lashed through the air speedily. He knew. Oh, Takao was going to give me an earful when I got home.
If I got home, I amended silently.
"I'm not going to attack you." He told me, brows furrowed as if he couldn't understand why I would think that.
"And I if you did, I would most certainly win." I said, sarcasm heavy on my tongue. I then promptly gave myself a mental smack.
"So, the scared cat does have claws." He seemed more amused than offended. Slowly, I lifted myself up from my crouch, eyes scanning him. I was cautious, it was in my nature.
I was also a cat, and cats are curious creatures. This man... did not feel like danger. Not the way that most did.
That was strange, because violence flowed about him like a cloak, promising bloodshed.
"Staring is rude." He murmured.
"So is jumping out of the trees to terrify small healers." I sniffed, shifting my weight to slowly start moving. I should have run, right then.
Instead, I went back to collecting herbs.
I had a shadow throughout it, until I got home.
That shadow followed me on other days as well, nearly every time I left the house.
-systems-
I stared suspiciously at my window sill, eyeing the, admittedly, pretty stone that rested on it. I picked it up with my claws, and pulled it toward my body. It was white, and looked like a cat's eye crystal.
I decided that I liked it.
That wasn't the last gift that I found on that window sill. After the thirteenth, I finally asked my mom about it. Her eyes had sharpened and an unholy smirk had appeared on her painted lips.
"Thirteen, hmm? Really making them work for it, aren't you?" I stared at her, uncomprehending. She snorted, a surprisingly pretty sound.
"You're being courted. Oh, Takao is going to be insufferable." Courted? The hell?
"Respond back with a gift, that means that you accept the courtship." She patted me on the cheek and went back to cooking. Sometimes the woman was baffling.
A gift? Well, if they had worked so hard to get my attention, accepting the offer would only be polite, right?
That night, I carefully laid a tub of my strongest healing salve on the window.
-other-
I snorted as I read the most recent letter from Souketsu. Said man had beat the hell out of a friend recently, and was rather proud of himself. He had also gifted me with a rather pretty kimono. He was surprisingly sweet for the amount of sass that rolled off of him.
It had been three years since I had accepted his courtship, and we had yet to meet face to face.
It was disheartening.
Biting my lip, I carefully informed him that I wanted to meet him, but only if he didn't mind.
I wanted to smack him for his response.
All you had to do was ask.
What an ass.
-star-
I admit to becoming flustered when a date was set, hell, my mother was coming so that she would be present for it. That was... a strange thing. I hadn't seen her in years, and had believed that she forgot about me. Apparently not.
Takao grumbled in his overprotective way, and my mom laughed at him every time. I was pretty sure that there was something between the two.
More importantly, what the hell was I going to wear? I tore through my closet, until my mom stepped in.
"Wear the light grey kimono he got you. You look nice in it, and it's your favorite." Thus saying, she plucked it from the closet and laid it out on my bed. Sheepishly, I cleaned up the mess I had made of my room.
-systems-
I tugged at a lock of my white hair, trying to ignore the awkward air that surrounded my home. My mother, the dominant one, sat near unmoving at the windowsill. My other mother, was curled up on the couch, her eyes on the jaguar that was my father. Takao kept his distance, an uncomfortable look on his tan face.
"I'll… go make tea." I muttered. I then escaped into the kitchen. My ears twitched as I caught a rumbling sigh.
"My own daughter doesn't know how to act around me." My mother spoke. My ears flattened and my tail lashed through the air.
"She doesn't know you, Shiki." Takao told her.
"I know." I continued making the tea, my slitted eyes downcast.
"I didn't even know that she had a suitor, much less that they've been courting for years."
"She's gotten so big. And she's so beautiful." The jaguar muttered.
"She really is." My softer mother answered. I could hear her smile.
"She's also eavesdropping." Takao added, amusement dancing through his voice. I felt my skin turn red.
"Is she?" Shiki asked.
"Her hearing is phenomenal." Takao chuckled.
-other-
I pulled on my grey kimono, and pinned my hair up in it's usual braided bun. Takao slipped a decorative silver comb into my hair as I left my room.
"Are you ready to meet him, Kogo?" He asked me, a soft smile on his face. I smiled just as gently.
"Actually, I think I am." I answered. He took my small hand and clasped it between both of his large ones.
"Good." He rumbled.
-star-
I blinked at the man in front of me, then allowed a wry smirk to settle on my lips.
"I should have figured that you'd be my shadow." I told him. He laughed, and though the sound was feral, I'd never liked something more.
"You really should have, Kitten." Souketsu agreed, tapping me on the forehead.
"Jerk." I grumbled, turning and leading him inside.
I had suffered greatly in my first life, but as I watched Souketsu interact with my family, I realized that it wouldn't break me. I realized that I hadn't experienced all of the good, or the bad.
I was looking forward to doing so.
-systems-
Just a little short thing. I played with this idea before writing Galaxy, and I thought that you guys might like to read about what could have been.
Until next time,
-Tigressa.