A/N

Guess who's back! It's been so very, very, very long since I've touched The Inheritance Project, but I've randomly been back into KHR again and was thinking about it a lot. I had many new ideas and no motivation to try and finish what I already had (honestly the old version was kind of a train wreck, even I didn't know where it was going)... SO, I'm gonna try and rewrite the whole thing again from the beginning!

I wasn't actually going to post this here, since I'm on Ao3 these days and I have plans to add a cover picture to each chapter (which is just one of the many things that Ao3 lets you do that does not), but I figured, what the heck. If ya want to see the version with art, there's a link in my profile to my Ao3 account (let me know if it works or not, kay?). Also, for those of you that are familiar with the old version just a heads up, a great many things have changed.

Wrapping things up, assume all dialogue is in Japanese, unless it's in italics.

In this world there's a magic circle that can neither be seen nor touched. Its magic separates people into two types: those who belong on the inside, and those who belong on the outside.

I am a person who belongs on the outside.

"Here it is; our new house." Aunt Katerina finally broke the quiet that had settled since we first clambered into the car at the airport.

She likes to drive in silence. She likes to do a lot of things in silence. Even so, Katerina is a person that belongs on the inside.

The car rolled into a garage attached to a plain, cream-coloured two-story house that looked like a slightly newer version of every other house on the street. The front yard looked way too neat, almost like it was made of plastic. A boring plastic house with a boring plastic garden; I wonder if the town is full of boring plastic people too.

A brown-haired woman comes running up the street towards us, arms waving wildly and smiling so wide I think her face might split. A blonde haired man with an equally large, much goofier grin came running up behind her.

"Obaa-chan!" Yoshitaka yelled. The car door slammed shut with a heavy thunk behind him as he ran out to meet them.

I stayed in the car a while longer, watching him jump into Nana-obaachan's arms and be swung around, laughing all the while. Iemitsu-ojiisan ruffled Taka's hair, making him pout and fuss over it. He then got picked up and thrown into the air. I bet you could hear the squealing all the way down the street.

The three of them are the type that belongs on the inside too.

"Mrrreow?" Celica glared up at me from inside her cat carrier.

She's been in a bad mood ever since she had to be stuffed into the carrier. The plane ride must have sucked for her even more than me. Why couldn't she have just come on the plane together with me? She's always quiet, and doesn't take up much room. It wasn't fair.

"Sorry," I murmur and grab my backpack, "let's go."

Taka was sitting on Ojii-san's shoulders while he and Obaa-chan talked to Katerina. I got my hair ruffled too, but I didn't make a fuss about it like Taka does. It's always messy, sticking up in random directions, and it's just too much effort to try and fix it. I pulled my hood up over it instead.

"My! How cute!" Nana-obaachan cooed and gently tugged at the cat ears on my hoodie. She then pulled me into a bone crushing hug, my face squished into her belly. I tried to return the hug with one arm, but it felt awkward. I don't really want to put Celica's carrier down though, so awkward hug it is, I guess...

She pulled back and started chatting away. Obaa-chan always talks to fast for me to follow, so I only got like three, maybe four words. Most of that was when she bent down to coo at Celica, who kept moving around and poking at the little door, clearly wanting out.

She finally let me go when Taka showed off his hoodie, which matched mine, only it was in red instead of purple.

A big truck pulled up in front of the house. It must be the movers with the rest of our stuff.

Ojii-san put Taka down, "How about you two go and explore the house?"

"The bedrooms are upstairs. You can pick whichever one you like." Katerina nodded towards the house. Taka was already running to get his backpack from the car.

"Is it okay to let Celica out now?" I ask, but she was already walking away to meet the movers with Ojii-san, and Taka was dragging Obaa-chan inside with him.

It should be fine, right? They said she might be confused and scared in a new place, but Celica is smart. She wouldn't just run away. Maybe if I put her leash on just to be safe... yeah, that should be fine. It's a good thing it was one of the last things I put it in my bag, or I'd have to go digging around for it.

The bell on her collar jingles as she practically leaps out of the carrier the moment I unlock it. She lets me put on the bright orange harness and leash without much fuss. Celica is usually pretty good about keeping clean, but since her fur is mostly white it's easy to see when she's all dirty. It looks like I'll have to give her a bath later.

Maybe getting all cleaned up and then good brushing will cheer her up.

I put the carrier down against the wall, hopefully out of the way, and we follow the others inside. Why are there are shoes lying around in the entryway? Oh, right, you're supposed to take them off before going inside. Obaa-chan's house is like that too. Ugh, that's going to be annoying. I kick my shoes off and let Celica lead the way in exploring the house.

It's so small compared to our home back in Italy. Everything is squished together, instead of being separated by long hallways; ancient hallways that are decorated in stories and hide secrets around every corner. This house is brand new with no secrets to hide or stories to tell. There's nothing much to see, so we head upstairs. Celica takes her time testing out the steps as we go.

Taka comes running down the stairs, and nearly runs into us. But then he sees Celica and shrieks, plastering himself against the wall.

"Scaredy cat."

"Shut up!" He shouts. The tips of his ears go red when he blushes. "I'm telling you, that's not a normal cat!" He shrieks again when she turns to glare at him and somehow manages to crabwalk down the rest of the stairs with his back still stuck to the wall.

Celica hops daintily up the remaining steps with her nose in the air.

He only says that stuff about her because her eyes don't match; the right is a caramel brown while the left is a sky blue. She'd probably be nicer to him if he wasn't so mean to her. Papa and Katerina can be nice to one another even though they don't getting along.

The rooms upstairs pretty much all look the same, just different sizes. Taka's picked one of the bigger rooms, given the way his stuff is lying around in there. The room next to it seems okay, I guess... Celica tugs on the leash, heading to the end of the hall.

There's a door – which leads to a closet, apparently – next to a small staircase that appears to lead up into the ceiling. Its steeper, a bit more like a ladder, only it looks sturdier than one. Huh, guess this place does have a few secrets after all.

Celica slinks faster up the stairs this time, and is pawing at the ceiling, which turns out to be a door that opens upwards. Cool, like a trap door.

It opens up into another room. The floors are made of wood, the ceiling is slanted and there's a single window with see through curtains. It feels further away from the rest of the house, even the all the noise from downstairs is quieter.

The view from the window is nice enough, everything is at just the right angle so we can't see anywhere we don't want to, and no one can see up at us either. The curtains are thin and lacy, like they're made from spider silk. It feels nice between my fingers. Celica deems the windowsill a good place for sitting, more so when I open the window and a nice breeze floats in.

The sky feels really far away. Back home it seemed much closer as if you could reach out and touch it, but here...

I reach up my hand, the light catches on my bracelet. It's a simple silver bangle with an ornate blue jewel in the middle sitting between two tiny clams. Papa gave it to me. Papa said that no matter how far apart we are, we're still living under the same sky. Papa isn't usually wrong...

"Giulio!"

"Up here." I pull away from the window, letting Celica's leash go. She settles herself down to stare out at, uh, whatever it is cats stare out of windows at.

I poke my head through the trap door. Katerina frowns at me from the other end of the hall, "What are you doing up there?"

"I want this room." I can already see where my bed would go, Celica's cat tree in the corner, the squishy blue rug on the floor, oh, and some glow in the dark star sticker on the walls! Yeah, it's gonna be awesome!

"Giulio," She says, with a face like she's just swallowed a lemon, "That is the attic."

So? "It's upstairs."

She opens her mouth, stops, takes a breath, and then stares up at the ceiling like it holds all the answers. She does that sometimes. I don't know why. The ceiling is as blank and boring as the rest of the empty house.

Obaa-chan pokes her head out of the other room and says something to her. It sounds reassuring, but she uses that happy tone most of the time so...

Katerina sighs and stares up at the ceiling again, this time pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright. But you can't change your mind later."

"I won't!" Why would I? This is probably the coolest room in the entire house after all.

Katerina says something to the movers as they bring a big box up the stairs. One of them turns to look in my direction with their eyebrows raised. But they just shrug and get back to work.

Moving is noisy. People going in and out of rooms, boxes being unpacked, furniture assembled with lots of yelling and chatting too. The movers are all people who belong on the inside.

Even Papa belongs on the inside.

I belong on the outside, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I could exist on the inside like everyone else...

Just in case there's some confusion; Cielo is Giulio now, and Yoshitaka was Masamune.

Let me know what you think so far.

Love NyanNyan-suru