Disclaimer on the fan fiction: Hey from AriaSoulOfPoems! I need to stretch my legs. I'm also on a Persona 4 kick... So therefore, I'm going to be articulate about some things...namely, Kuma's past - should he have not been just a Shadow - but a ghost before getting his own human form back. Weird, isn't it? Well - I DO NOT OWN KUMA OR ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS IDEA! And don't kill me if I'm not accurate... I just want my fan fiction alive and well!

I wasn't always like this. Kami-sama. It...wasn't always like this.

Once, oh-so-long ago...there were fields and it was paradise like on the small place I called home, even during the time when I... ... ...Never mind!

In any case, there weren't even televisions, ice cream was a foreign concept to everyone, and life was peaceful. The people worked hard, and even as a half-raced boy of a man from across the sea and a local sake brewer: in all of that time... I worked hard to overcome other's high standards, and then, their quotas; if I still had the steam... I just wanted acceptance and love from the local beauty... Doesn't any guy want that? I actually put forth so much effort that my hardworking ethics seemed to be my own enemy.

See...I wasn't all that strong to begin with. No muscles; no matter how hard I worked in the fields... People called me otherworldly from the start, and it seemed like they may have been onto something. I was frail and yet I tried so hard. Apparently, the peace didn't last too long; as a ninja stayed in the place where father's inn was, next to my room... I had inadvertently found out that information; all because that one ninja was so pretty!

I won't mention WHY I looked through her bag though, hehehe... It ended the same. I was in so much pain for a week before just not waking up anymore, not caring if I worried my friends worse.

Then again... Maybe I didn't really lose everything. It was astonishingly beautiful where I found myself next, just like where I had lived every moment of my life. There were even others around! It was great.

Time passed - I didn't know how much, mind you - and I still kept my cheerful demeanor as much as I could, trying to take care of the paradise that grew smaller each and every single day; despite the ever-increasing fog to the priests and priestesses on spirit trips...

It all changed after a while... My paradise was gone; in it's place was ah...like something...that they called a studio. People ran away from me, thinking I was a demon after their souls.

That may have been closer to the truth. I had basically forgotten how to speak like a person would, being the most carefree guy I knew...and I had always felt like I would be...gone... in a fleeting; passing, moment. The place that I had known so long was now a big place of dismay.

What had happened to my home?! So...I...made a promise. That I would learn how to speak again and make friends. From time to time, people appeared, and I learned how to speak once again, though the same language had definitely changed. I think I scared them away when the fog lifted because they wouldn't come back after it settled down to the soothing mist again...

It just wasn't fair! Was I a real monster? I remember there being one called Nyx and her son, Ryoji... like me, yes...but his aura was ever-so-wrong!

Then...I was in for real panic. One day, the serenity returned, but I could smell right through it! A half-year later after catching up on what others wore...and, well, I had realized that; like some mythological fox demon... I could change my appearance somewhat. I had picked a body much like a drawing of a stuffed bear that a little girl had shown me...and stayed that way.

Another six months? My home got really, utterly worse.

People to be murdered came inside... Like some sick; horrendously twisted game. I didn't care where they went at first, since they didn't even like me... but when they were murdered... Augh, too much! The voices wouldn't stop then!

I don't think I did it, but that one who smiled so kindly at me when the mist lifted, saying that I was special and would be okay... I think that he was the one to hang up the bodies from their high places in the town...

I wanted those voices GONE, now! What could I do? I was only one voice out of many. Ehhh...I felt powerless! ...Yet it wasn't like me to just give up like that.

~To be Continued!~

I would like to say thank you so much for reading this far. I'd want to thank you for looking so much and hope that you'd take the time to review please! The more, the merrier~! Anyways, this series is an ongoing one; so thanks for tuning in~!