A/N: Alright, onto the story! (kind of). It's actually in the past, which is why I put it in italics. Aki and Toi are 6 or so. And they're all mine ^-^


Chapter 1: The Stone Tower

"Toi! Wait! Don't leave me behind!" Toi grinned mischievously as Akihiko caught up to her, his eyes wide open for fear of losing sight of her in the forest. She giggled and flicked her tail at him before leaping down another twisty path.

"Toooiiii!" Aki cried, his voice edged with panic. "Toi, please wait! I don't know Yoshpet as well as you do!"

"Okay, okay," she conceded, and slowed down for him. She couldn't help showing off—after all, usually it was Aki who was better at everything. Aki was a divine being, so of course he was nearly perfect. Just like his mother, Amaterasu, he had a shimmering white coat patterned with signature red divine markings. His eyes, which had lost their panic now that she was walking next to him, were a deep blue, just like the color of the icy sea. Even his name was divine: Akihiko, meaning "shining prince". He was almost the exact opposite of herself, with her dark black and blue fur and white markings in the same places as a fox. She was an Oina with a black fox's mask, and her name, Toitoi, meant earth in Ainu.

Toi's father found Aki one day curled up in the snow when he was barely 6 months old. She had been born a couple months earlier, and so they were raised together like brother and sister. Everyone knew as soon as they saw him that he was the son of Amaterasu. Of course, Toi didn't understand why, but her mother told her that the great sun goddess had come to Kamui a long time ago and helped them defeat some demons that almost destroyed their village. After that, she boarded a great metal ark in the middle of Laochi Lake and left the mortal world to go to the Celestial Plain. The great sun goddess held the form of a white wolf with the same divine markings as Aki. What no one knew, however, was why the goddess would send down her son to earth, unless perhaps something terribly wrong was going on in the heavens.

"Where are we going, anyway, Toi?" Aki asked.

"Nowhere in particular," she replied happily. "Just exploring."

Aki didn't seem to like the sound of that. "I hope you know where you're going," he said nervously.

"Of course I do! I know every leaf, tree, and corner of this fores—" She stopped suddenly, her eyes narrowing down a path that she was positive hadn't existed before. This path was narrower and darker than the others, but was straight and grew none of the cursed trees that threw fruits at them. Curious, she headed towards it.

Aki tried sniffing the air, but it was useless because of the heavy mist. He gave up and followed after Toi, who had a much better sense of the forest anyway. Besides, if any monsters came, he knew how to deal with them. Those thoughts reassured him, and he even felt a shiver of excitement at the thought of exploring a place no one had ever been.

The two young wolves crept down the narrow path. As they went further, the snow became thinner and they saw that they were walking on a neatly cobbled stone pathway. The air became clearer and lighter too as the mist lifted away. At last, the path opened up into a small, round clearing, and in the center of the clearing was a tall stone tower. The tower had thirteen sections that were separated by a medium sized band of stone, and each of the sections seemed to have some sort of carvings on them, but Aki and Toi couldn't tell what they were because the stone was so old and corroded. At the very top of the tower was what looked like an observatory.

Aki and Toi looked at each other. "You want to go inside?" Toi asked.

Aki nodded, his eyes gleaming. Maybe they would find treasure! He learned a lot about treasure from Issun, and an old tower like this was exactly the type of thing that would store it.

Toi turned into her human form and opened the door for them, then turned back into a wolf. She felt much safer as a wolf, since she was much faster at running and could at least bite and scratch if she needed to.

The tower was empty except for a spiral staircase that led to the top. The young wolves took a deep breath, quivering with excitement.

They took the staircase slowly, not wanting to disturb anything that could possibly be sleeping in the tower. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the top and pushed open the old wooden door.

The room was perfectly round and was very tall. There were long, narrow windows all around the walls, and the entire room was cluttered with desks, papers, blueprints, and half-finished inventions. The walls soared above them and were topped with a glass half-dome, through which the bright night sky shone down on a man sitting at the center of the stone floor, tinkering with pieces of metal. The man himself had his back to them, but he turned around as soon as they entered and gazed at them with his sharp gray eyes as if he was expecting them. His hair was cut short and hovered in a straight line just over his shoulders, sparkling almost silver in the moonlight. He seemed infinitely old and yet young at the same time, as if time had miraculously stopped for him years and years ago. He smiled slightly at them.

"No need to be shy, children. Come in, come in."

Toi looked at Aki with wide eyes, wondering if it was alright. The man didn't smell like a demon, and he didn't seem to have bad intentions. The two of them stepped forward and nervously approached the strange man. He continued to fiddle with his work and then abruptly held out his palms to them, revealing two tiny copper birds. The birds shook their heads and opened their eyes at the wolves, then spread their wings and flew little circles around each of them, finally coming to rest on their heads.

"They seem to have taken a liking to you," he said. Aki and Toi looked up with wonder as the little copper birds peeped softly and preened their feathers. "They're all yours, if you want them."

"Really?" Toi asked. She changed into a human and the bird, disrupted from its nesting spot, cheeped and flew circles around her until it came to rest on her palms. "It's…beautiful!" she marveled. "Did you make these, Uncle?"

"I did," he said. His eyes twinkled. "I enjoy making toys like these, but I have never given any away before. The two of you are special children."

Aki and Toi swelled with the pride of being the first ones to ever receive such an amazing gift. "Special," they repeated, feeling the taste of the word on their tongues.

"Oh yes," said the man. "In fact, I have been expecting you two. There is a story I wish to share, that can only be told in the light of the full moon."

He looked upward at the vaulted ceiling, where, sure enough, a silver moon cast its light into the tower. Mesmerized, Toi sat down and pulled Aki into her lap. Normally he hated when she did that to him, knowing full well he couldn't change into a human, but he let it slide this time and listened to the man's tale.

"Once upon a time, there was a proud and dignified tribe of people who lived on the moon. These people were even more advanced than we are, and were well known for the things they made. Nothing was impossible for them. They made amazing things, beautiful things, useful things. Now dear children, do you know where demons come from?"

"Kamui," Toi said. "My mother told me all demons originated in Kamui."

The man smiled and shook his head. "They did not used to come from Kamui, dear one. Demons came to Kamui from somewhere else—a place so desolate and far from the sun that the Celestials in heaven feared all who lived in its shadows. No, children, demons came from the moon."

By this time, Aki and Toi were completely absorbed in the story. They leaned forward slightly, hanging onto every word that came from the man's mouth.

"And so you see the problem. The Moon Tribe was cursed to live with these demons, who spawned in the dark side of the moon. On nights like these, the demons can't see you, but beware on those nights when the moon refuses to shine, for it is then that the demons are watching, and listening…

"But anyway, in the Moon Tribe there was a man, well educated and well respected by his peers. This man was also highly favored by the Princess, who took him as her second-in-command. At this point in time, there was conflict amongst members of the Moon Tribe concerning the demons that plagued them. Some wished to rid the moon of those demons. Others, however, wanted to keep them on the moon."

"Why would you want to keep demons?" Toi wondered, hugging Aki tighter and her eyes growing wide.

"Because it was in fact the demons who taught the Moon Tribe their secrets," the man said softly. "The greater demons were considered the gods of some Moon Tribe members. See, children, the demons weren't evil in those days. They were just different. They were like the gods of the Celestial Plain—like two sides of the same coin." He pulled a golden five yen coin out of his pocket and flipped it into the air, watching it fall back into his hand. "But on to the story. This man of the Moon Tribe was also an emissary to the Celestial Plain, to keep peaceful relations between the two nations. Except he fell in love where he shouldn't have." The man's expression darkened. "He fell in love with the Celestials and their gods. He did not renounce his own, but he expressed doubt, and that was more than enough to convince the Princess.

"He convinced the Princess that they should share more than relations with the Celestials. He offered to share technologies and ideas, and to even bring their gods and religion to the moon. The Princess agreed, believing it was a good idea. So they packed a ship full of Moon Tribe technologies and sent it to the Celestial Plain."

"Weren't the demons mad?" Aki asked, cocking his head.

"Of course they were. They were furious that the Moon Tribe would forget who they owed their secrets to. They started rampaging and terrorizing the moon and all those who lived upon it. Those who had originally wanted to get rid of the demons were only more convinced now, and those who had remained loyal blamed the unstable faith of the others. Civil war broke loose on the moon. And do you know what happened to the Princess?"

"What?" the children breathed.

"She escaped," said the man. "She left the moon to deal with its own problems and fled to safety. The man who had betrayed his people remained on the Celestial Plain, blissfully unaware of the events unfolding because of him.

"Even in the end, however, fate caught up with this man. The demon gods arrived on the Celestial Plain after having ravished the moon, and they waged war on the gods of light, incensed with hatred. Terrified, the Celestials fled onto the ship, believing it to be safe. The Moon Tribe man tried sailing them to safety, but revenge fell fast and swift on them as even more demons came out of the shadows, hungry for Celestial blood. They crashed onto earth, releasing demons unto the mortal world."

Toi shivered. "So that's how demons came to Kamui, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear one. It is all the fault of the man who tried to fuse light and dark." Absentmindedly, the man flipped his coin into the air again, watching it spin with an unreadable expression. "Because of his foolishness, two entire races were destroyed, and one was threatened. Listen to me carefully, children. Light and dark can never exist together. Just like this coin—" He caught it and showed it to them. "One must always overpower the other. They cannot both be showing at the same time."

He stood up and brushed the dust off his pants. "Keep those birds," he said, smiling at them. "And don't ever forget what I have told you tonight."

"Yes sir!" Aki and Toi nodded, still shivering from the excitement of the tale. They got up and headed for the door. Toi was about to close it behind her when she thought of something that was bothering her. "Uncle," she said. "Was that story real?"

The man stood with his back to them as if he hadn't heard her question, but just as she was about to ask again he looked back at her, giving another slight smile. "It's a story," he replied. He flicked the coin at her, and she caught it. "Is it real, or is it not? That's not for me to answer, is it?"

Toi looked down at the coin. "May we come again, Uncle?" she asked, hoping she could hear more stories. Even Tuskle had never told her one like this.

The man smiled. "Maybe," he said. She was satisfied with that for now. She and Aki headed back down the stairs with the copper birds on their shoulders. The last thing she saw of the strange man was his gray eyes looking back at the both of them with amusement before the wooden door swung shut.

They tried to find the stone tower with the man several times after, but the narrow path had disappeared. Everything else in Yoshpet was the same, but after that day, no matter how many times she tried to remember which path she had taken, she could never seem to remember. Maybe it was a dream.

The only thing they had to remind them it wasn't were the two copper birds that followed them everywhere they went…