Only Half
It was evening. Marisa Kirisame stood on a hill that overlooked the Forest of Magic. She had received two scoldings that day-one from Patchouli about "borrowing" books from her library, and one from Rinnosuke when they'd gotten into a heated argument over the price of an item. Rinnosuke-being half youkai, half human, and thus having conflicted emotions a lot-had gotten furious with Marisa after she insulted him about high prices, and yelled at her for being obstinate and unladylike. His words were still fresh in the witch girl's mind: "Why can't you be silent and demure like a normal woman!"
That had hurt Marisa's pride more than Patchouli, Alice, or even Reimu ever could. Of course she'd hadn't shown it, so, grabbing the aforementioned item from Rinnosuke's shop without paying for it, she'd flown off on her broom with as much dignity as possible. She was known for being a bit of a kleptomaniac, which people sometimes exaggerated to "thief."
Out of habit, Marisa reached into her dress and pulled out her mini-Hakkero, remembering how Rinnosuke had given it to her when she was younger. Never before had she really thought about Rinnosuke when she used her mini-Hakkero, but now, just staring at it and remembering her argument with Rinnosuke, memories of the hanyou shopkeeper and of her own childhood began to flow through Marisa's mind.
"Hey, Rinnosuke-san!" Marisa would say to Rinnosuke after he and Marisa's father were done with work for the day.
"What is it, Marisa-chan?" Rinnosuke would ask the little girl.
"Read me a story, ze!" Marisa would demand.
Rinnosuke would sigh and say, "Try to be more polite about it, Marisa."
"Okay, then please read me a story, ze," the little blonde girl would say back.
"'Please' isn't the problem here! It's that 'ze' of yours. It's not very polite." the bespectacled half-youkai would inform her. But Rinnosuke would go ahead and read her a story anyway. "Which one?" he'd ask.
And then Marisa would reply with one of the names of her favourite stories like Momotaro, The Toothpick Warriors, or The Long-Nosed Tengu.
Just then, a cry of "Ooh, pretty! I want the shiny too!" interrupted Marisa's thoughts. She looked up and saw a bunch of idiots flying overhead. A firefly, a sparrow, and a blob of darkness were chasing an ice fairy who was holding a lump of gold.
"No way, Wriggle, Eye found it first!" the ice fairy yelled back.
"Is that so~" said the blob of darkness.
"Oh, friends, my friends, wait for meeee~¯" the sparrow crooned.
Another fairy dressed in green and yellow reluctantly followed the four idiots, pleading, "Slow down already! Enough nonsense, Cirno!"
It was the lump of gold in the ice fairy's hand that really caught Marisa's eye. "Heh, I'll have those idiots' lump of treasure before they even know what's going on, ze!" She jumped on her broom and flew off toward them.
The green-haired Daiyousei caught sight of the black-white first. "Cirno, look, it's a human!" she cried.
Cirno rolled her eyes. "Eye hate humans. They're so stupid."
Marisa laughed. "Well, if humans are so stupid, you must be the stupidest of all, because I'm obviously much smarter than you."
Rumia, concealed by her dark blob, floated round Marisa, saying, "Can I eat you~?"
Ignoring Rumia, the black-white turned to Cirno. "Hey, you. Where'd you find that?" she pointed at the gold.
"Eye don't know…do you know, Wriggle?" Cirno asked the firefly.
"You didn't tell any of us!" Wriggle pouted.
"Doesn't matter, it's mine now, ze!" Marisa whipped out the mini-Hakkero. "MASTER SPAAAAAARRK!" She hollered. There was a flash of light, and all five idiots lay on the ground, panting.
"Alright, now hand over that gold!" Marisa demanded.
"Never!" The blue-haired ice fairy retorted. "I got this gold because Eye'm the strongest!"
Marisa raised an eyebrow. "Oh, someone rewarded it to you?"
Cirno cocked her head. "What's a 'rewarded'? Eye'm the strongest, and this gold belongs to me."
The witch girl took a closer look at the gold. Of course it's frozen over, she thought. I'll have to use an ice-melt spell on it without turning the gold to liquid. And with that thought, Marisa hurled a heat spell at Cirno, weakening her. This caused the other idiots to panic and tried in vain to bring Marisa down. She easily dodged the inexperienced attacks and snatched the still-frozen gold lump from the subdued ice fairy. Then she grabbed her broom and flew off.
After melting the ice around the gold lump with a heat spell, Marisa went back outside. She glanced in the direction of Rinnosuke's shop, and stared for awhile. "Might as well…" she sighed and headed toward Kourindou.
"Hey, Kourin! It's Marisa, da ze!" The witch shouted from the doorway of the store.
The bespectacled half-breed glanced up from his cluttered desk and grunted. "Oh, Marisa. Come to barter with me again? Well, let's be ladies and gentlemen about it, shall we?"
Marisa rolled her eyes. "Quit talking like I'm a kid."
"What do you want here, then?" Rinnosuke sighed wearily.
"I'm just here to look around," the black-white fibbed. She stepped inside and began to browse through some things that were claimed to be from the outside world. At one point she made a big show of contemplating a soul container with knobs and antennae sticking out of it. After this had gone on for awhile, Rinnosuke grew sick of it and raised his voice at the blonde witch: "Look here, Kirisame! Either buy something or get the hell out of my store!"
Marisa was taken aback at this. Never before had Rinnosuke called her by her family name. "Kirisame?! Who do you think you're talking to? My father?!"
"I'm not going to argue with a human, Kirisame! Now get out!" Rinnosuke pounded his fist on the desk.
"Geez, Kourin. What made you so youkai-like all of a sudden? You do know we were just arguing over some stupid piece of junk earlier, right?"
Rinnosuke seemed to be appalled. He glared at Marisa. "So that's all I am to you?! Someone you can manipulate by bartering? An empty, lesser youkai vessel who deals junk?!"
"I never said that!" Marisa shouted back. "What are you talking about? All I said was that some piece of outside-world-junk that I didn't even have use for was a stupid thing to get into an argument about!"
This was when the youkai really came alive in Rinnosuke. Marisa didn't know what triggered it, but his eyes went positively wild with fury and he growled satanically. Within a halved second, his fists, so much like those of human yet with the power of a youkai, were flying at Marisa. Now, despite Marisa's rough, slightly tomboyish nature, on no account did she want to seriously hurt her old friend. She dodged Rinnosuke's inexperienced yet powerful attacks on her broom, and when he lunged at her, she fired back with one of her mild-damaging spells. Eventually, Rinnosuke caught Marisa slightly off-guard, grabbed her broomstick and hurled her against a wall, then pouncing her and drawing blood. She counterattacked with a damaging spell. The youkai-Rinnosuke crashed into one of the shelves and caused many things to fall to the floor.
"Rinnosuke, wake up! Snap out of it!" Marisa yelled into Rinnosuke's face. "You're damaging your own store!"
At this, the seemingly-possessed hanyou lunged at Marisa with fangs that never should have been there. He latched onto the girl's dress with his claws and teeth like a dog at a chew toy. Marisa was too surprised and scared to counterattack. She couldn't believe that her old friend would attack her like that. Just as she was about to pull out her mini-Hakkero and spark, Rinnosuke's eyes became tame again. His fangs and claws disappeared, and his voice sounded normal again-gentle and quiet, but with its masculine gruffness.
"Marisa…have you seen my glasses?" Rinnosuke asked as if nothing had happened. "I must have dropped them someplace."
"Rin-but you-youkai-glasses?!" Marisa stuttered. "What the hell is with you today, Kourin?"
Rinnosuke seemed to ignore her and instead was puzzling over the fallen shelves. "What happened to my store?"
Marisa was completely bewildered. "You…don't remember anything?"
Now it was Rinnosuke's turn to be appalled. "What are you talking about? And why are you still here? Unless you buy something, you'll have to leave."
"Kourin, listen to me. You went insane for a minute there. You know, like you really were a youkai," the blonde witch told him urgently.
The silver-haired clerk drew his breath in sharply. "I-I never thought that would happen again…Marisa, you…" he couldn't seem to finish.
"I what? What do you mean 'again'?" Marisa was scared now. "Kourin, are you sick or something?"
"Marisa, I'm a hanyou. You know that. I have a troubled mind. Humans don't have sympathy for me, and neither do youkai. I'm too demonic to fit in with humans, and I'm looked upon as a target by youkai. I'm accepted by no one. And sometimes, very rarely, my emotions will get the better of me and I'll go berserk, like you just saw." Rinnosuke sauntered toward the fallen shelves to pick them up.
"Kourin, I-" Marisa started.
"Leave me in peace." he waved her off.
It was late at night now, and Marisa was back at her house, fooling around with spells and potions. She was beginning to get sleepy when there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" she called.
"It's Rinnosuke," came the reply.
Marisa was taken aback. She'd nearly forgotten their little incident. Her first impulse was to shout, "Go away." Her second was to let him in, which she did.
He stepped inside, removing his shoes.
"What's up, Kourin?" Marisa said casually.
"Marisa, I'm sorry for losing my temper and going completely insane. If you like, we can rethink that little purchase of yours later on," he said, and he sounded sincere.
Marisa giggled. "Nah, no need, Kourin. I'll probably just steal it later anyways," she joked.
Rinnosuke laughed too. "You'd better not, or I'll get Tokiko."
"Ohhh, whatever shall I do?" Marisa covered her face in sarcastic surprise.
"Say, Kourin, you want some tea?" Marisa asked.
"Yeah, thanks, that'd be good."
When Marisa returned with some hot tea, they both sat down on the floor cushions.
"So what do you really want here, at so late an hour?" asked Marisa.
"It gets lonely at night down at the shop. And you're the only person I know who can keep me entertained, unlike Tokiko."
Marisa giggled. "Yeah, she's about as interesting as a blob of dark matter who floats around all day."
"I swear, I'd die of boredom if an interesting customer didn't pop up once in a while. And of course, thieves like you keep me on my toes," Rinnosuke told her.
Marisa huffed. "You say that like being a thief's a bad thing." She looked outside through one of the windows. "Hey, Kourin, it's getting late. Shouldn't you be closing up shop for the night?"
Rinnosuke yawned. "That can wait."
The black-white was surprised. Never before had Rinnosuke put his shop second. "Why?"
"I guess I just like your company," was his answer. Just then, Rinnosuke slid over to Marisa and put his arm around her. "I love you, Marisa," he told her.
Then the witch did something she rarely ever did-she blushed. "M-me? But Kourin, you're a youkai!"
Rinnosuke kissed the top of her blonde head. "Only half, Marisa-chan. Only half."