Then I met her.

That night, I lay in my bed after being cleared from the hospital Mama had rushed me to. I was sleeping soundly. A dreamless, peaceful sleep. At first, I thought I had been kidnapped in my sleep and taken to some scary place that only nightmares could come up with. Then I felt it.

Or rather, I felt her.

I didn't know what it was at first, as I sat in the dark abyss, a bright yellow wall of light right in front of me. I was scared, confused, and completely frightened.

Then I just knew. I knew what it was. I knew what was happening. I don't know how I knew, I just did.

And I became eerily calm.

I knew who the energy belonged to. I knew why it could read my reaction.

I knew it was me. But a different me.

One that was lost millennia ago when we split from the same soul. When we decided to go two different ways instead of staying in the same body.

When we wanted to experience more than being a demon.

Part of me wanted to stay a demon. To be reborn again. That was it.

Part of me wanted to be human. To experience something new. To learn what is was that made them tick. That was me.

And, I knew it had been searching for me. Searching for a long, long time.

Seven Hundred years of searching.

Scouring all three dimensions for me; trying to find me so it could heal.

So it could live.

It wanted its body back. It wasn't ready to pass on. It still had a lot of work to do…

For a demon.

But it couldn't live in just any body. It just wanted a familiar place to stay while its power came back. To recoup the power it had before it died. It needed a living, breathing body for that.

A compatible body. One that it knew wouldn't die from the pressure of a foreign soul.

It needed my body.

I knew we had once been the same soul. That we had split because we wanted to do two things at once.

To live again, and to wait in line for the body of a human to become available. Its demon body died while I was still waiting in line.

And both of us waited patiently for me to get a body for over seven hundred years.

And it finally found me, a few years to go before it faded.

Souls did that.

They faded away if they didn't have a body to go to.

It was on the brink of fading. A light pressure on my conscious, nothing more. It wanted its last body back. It still had unfinished business in that body.

Business worth waiting centuries.

Out of mere curiosity, I let our subconscious' touch.

"You gunna let me in?"

A rough, but obviously female, voice entered my head. It was pushing harder now, but it was too weak to force anything.

"Why?" I felt myself asking her, staring into the bright wall of yellow light.

She was on the other side, invisible… calculating.

"I want my other body back. I'll share yours with you until I have enough power to leave."

I paused, rolling it over.

"What will you do when you leave? You're body will still be dead, you'll just be a soul again. A soul can't inhabit a dead body. Especially a body that doesn't exist. A body deteriorates over the years. Seven hundred have passed; it should be nothing but dust by now."

It didn't answer.

"You want me to bring your body back." I concluded, knowing what it didn't want to ask, but needed anyway. I could feel it doing something, and then confirmation of that statement came to me.

It was as if her soul had nodded, but had no means of doing so, and my soul just knew it.

"Is it too much to ask to be with the one you love?"

A cackling laughter escaped my lips as I rocked away from the yellow wall. I didn't even notice how naked I was. Or how demented I seemed at that very moment: a small, naked Japanese girl laughing hysterically.

"So… your 'soul mate' still lives?" Another case of laughter on my part. My soul had never experienced that deep a love, so I found I could do nothing but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

I knew she would look angry, if she had a form. But right now she was just a weak soul behind that wall, and there was nothing she could do about it.

After awhile I quieted, and feeling absurdly curious, I smiled into the wall, where I knew she was scowling back at me.

I wanted to see that love.

I wanted to know if it was really possible.

Usually, when a body dies, the soul loses all the emotions and thoughts and memories of the body. Only its body's power or energy stayed with it.

Because that's what a soul lived off of- the bodies energy. As long as it had a supply of energy, it could live. If its body's energy was weak, then it would be weak when the body died. If its body was strong, then it would be strong when its body died.

And then I knew that her previous body had to be extremely powerful, or else it wouldn't have been able to last this long all on its own.

I felt an unnatural grin spread across my face.

I was just so damn curious.

Without warning, I felt my subconscious open itself up, letting her into my body.

And I could tell she hadn't been happier in over seven hundred years.

My dreamless sleep now shifted. Everything went into a bright light.

Slowly, colors started to appear. Reds and blues mixed before my eyes to form purples. Yellows and greens did the same. I found all the colors of the color wheel before me at that one moment of time, and all I could think of was how beautiful all of them looked. As if I had never really seen color the way I did now. And then the colors stretched and twisted into objects.

I watched in amazement as a room was formed. It was a kitchen, girly in essence, but cute.

The light pink upper cabinets ran to the wall in front of me and the wall to my left, along with the white with speckled gray countertops and white bottom cabinets. In the middle of the counter on the wall in front of me was a sink, and in the middle of the wall to my left was an oven range. To my right was a Japanese low table, with mats on the floor around it. In the middle of the right wall was a wood door. To the left of that was a minifridge. In the corner of the right and back walls was a small T.V. on a small table. Behind me was a pair of Japanese sliding doors.

Slowly, I breathed in then out, my five year old body shaking slightly from the odd turn of things.

"Where am I?" I asked meekly, standing up. I didn't expect an answer, but I got one anyways.

"In the waiting room, as I like to call it." The female voice sounded. I hadn't heard it say one hundred words, and I already knew who it was. I glanced around the room, turning my head over my shoulders to try to see her.

"Oh, don't even try. I'm far too weak to even have a presence in here. Later though, when I'm strong enough, I'll be able to take on some kind of humane looking form. But until then," she paused, and I could hear a shuffle on one of the table mats. "We have to make do with what we have."

"Why are we here?" I sat down at the table, looking to where the voice was coming from. "Why not that place with the wall of yellow light?"

She chuckled, "Ah, if ya want to go there, it's just outside those sliding doors." I gave them a glance before turning back to the voice as it spoke again.

"But I find this much more pleasant. This will be the room we wait in while the other is using the body. Just a creation of our minds for both of our mutual comfort. I mean really, do ya want to be stuck, naked, in that dark abyss while I use your body? I sure as hell wouldn't want to be there while ya used your body."

My eyes widened, "Use my body?! I never said-"

"Not-" She interrupted me, "right now. But in the future. If I'm too weak to have a presence here, what makes ya think I can properly run your body? Easy, I can't. So I'll be in here for awhile, healing, while ya use your body like ya always do. Ya probably won't even hear from me for at least a month." She paused for a moment, "However, it seems like your soul still has the regenerative powers of the last body ya-we inhabited. Odd, powers don't usually transfer like that. But then again, souls don't usually split. So, I'll probably heal faster in ya than I would if your powers hadn't transferred. It could be a week."

I thought that over for a minute. After all, it did make since; especially after what happened today. "Do you have any powers from our previous body?"

I could feel it shake its head, "No, but after I heal, I should be able to gain some of my last body's powers."

Tilting my head, I could feel the curiosity boiling within me again, "What are you powers?"

I could feel its presence leaning over the table, smiling to itself, "It would be a secret… but you're not going to tell anyone, right?"

I nodded as I leaned over the table as well.

"Shadows."

It leaned back, acting smug.

"Shadows?" I asked, feeling slightly disappointed in the fact that it wasn't something grander or more amazing. She could tell.

"Hey! Don't be like that! I conquered and brought under my command a large portion of the Makai, starting one of the greatest territories ever known!"

I nodded, faking understanding as I leaned back, "And then you died. Leaving that territory and completely destroying your empire."

She growled at me, and a dangerous tone entered her voice, "My empire is still alive and completely functional to this day." My breath was caught in my throat, she sounded like she'd kill me if she could.

Scared, I decided to change the subject, "Where does that door go?" I pointed to the wooden door on the right wall.

"It leads to your conscious. If ya want to take control of your body, ya go through there. The sliding door, as I said before, leads to your subconscious. That T.V. over there shows what the body sees and hears. Those windows project your mood. Like sunny for happy, cloudy if bored, rainy if sad and thunderstorm if mad."

I leaned on the table as I looked around the room. Scratching my head, I put all of this together, "So, you basically created a place between my subconscious and conscious, that does all this cool stuff?" I felt her nod. "Um, alright… so all I have to do is go through that door?"

"Yes, but it'll wake up your body. The in-between of your conscious and subconscious is your dream world, so I basically replaced your dreams with this. Your body rests, we stay here."

"Ah…" I said as it all finally sunk in, "I get it now. So, how do I tell when it's time to get up?"

"The clock on the stove tells the time of the outside world."

"Amazing… how did you do all this?"

I could feel her smirk, "The power of the mind is far more amazing than any normal being-demon or human- could ever imagine. Creating this took little to no energy at all."

I glanced over to the clock; we still had hours until I had to get up in the morning. "You keep saying that… are they really real?"

Getting the reference, she nodded. "As real as you and me. Ya see, there are three worlds: the Ningenkai, or Human world; the Reikai, or Spirit world; and the Makai, or demon world. Each one serves its own purpose, the Ningenkai to hold the humans, the Spirit World to hold the spirits and souls of the dead until they pass on, and the Makai, to hold the demons. There's a barrier between the Makai and the Ningenkai, to keep the demons from killing the humans like they used to. There wasn't always a barrier; it was put up soon after I died. It was complete mayhem, the Makai, but it was home. Some of the demons eat humans, too. Some eat human souls. Some, like me, eat other things."

I closed my eyes and leaned on the table, not really tired, but since I had no one to watch while listening, I mind as well rest my eyes. "Then what do you eat?" I asked as curiosity filled my tone, but not my expression.

"Shadows." She paused for a minute, letting that sink in before elaborating. "But only of living things, preferably humans or demons. Ya have to suck it out of them someway, and I'm not kissing and animal."

My eyebrows furrowed as I bit the inside of my cheek in thought. That was just weird. "What happens when you take their shadow?"

"They become a mindless being, doing whatever their instinct is and nothing more. So basically eat and sleep. It takes some power, but I can control them to an extent. Like getting them to follow me. Eating their shadows makes me stronger because I'm basically taking away half of their existence. It's what I run on, like you and your human food."

I nodded, letting the silence come in. She didn't seem to like it very much though, and now I realized what I just invited into my body: a talkative demon that eats people shadows. Freaky.

"So, what do ya like to do?" She asked, and I shrugged.

"Mama's giving me piano lessons, so that and hanging out with Yumi."

"Yumi… that kid who saw you regenerate?"

"You saw that?"

I could feel her shrug, "Your body is my body now. I have full access to your memories and experiences. Just thinking the girls name brings a lot of your memories to mind." Another pause. "Ya should take fighting lessons."

I frowned a bit, not liking where this conversation was going. "Papa says that fighting's unladylike."

She scoffed, "So? Fighting a basic survival skill in the Makai. Besides, if ya ever want me out of your body now, you're going to have to learn how to fight. Ya should probably talk to Yumi too, just to make sure no one finds out about your ability."

"She already promised not to tell." Feeling defensive of my best friend, my frown deepened. "She'll never break a promise. That's what friends do; they keep secrets and make promises."

She was thinking about that statement to herself, pushing it over in her mind.

"We'll see about it… What's your name kid?"

I blinked up, looking to where I thought she was.

"Yorusta Toshiko. And yours?"

"Ryo. Well, Toshiko, it seems within the week ya will have developed a case of M.P.D., and will refuse to take any medication for your case whatsoever, leaving your parents helpless to your stubborn will. Then you'll tell them ya want karate classes."

I tilted my head, "What's M.P.D.?"

She laughed at my childlike ignorance, "Multiple Personality Disorder. When a human has split personalities that don't know about each other and act completely different."

"But we know about each other, so won't they notice something's different?"

"Ah, but Toshiko…" I could feel her pat my head like Mama always does. I didn't care, it was practically impossible to mess up my hair. "They won't know how to solve it. There just humans, after all. They'll say it's a side effect of the 'horror' ya experienced yesterday. Getting blood on your clothes after 'blacking out', now that was a clever lie! Very smart! Un-kidlike in a way, but smart. So all they will be able to do is except it."

"Mmkay! Thank you… Hey Ryo?" She stopped patting my head as I closed my eyes with a smile on my face.

"Yes?"

Giggling, I sat up and grinned at her. "I think you and Yumi'll like each other."

She chuckled.

"I think so too."

And in the end, she loved her too.