Nine-year-old Kiyo sat at the top of the stairs, nervously biting her nails as she waited for her dad to finish his conversation with his friends.
Saying goodbye, he shut the door before turning around and to his surprise, he saw his daughter, staring down at him. He immediately understood something was wrong. She always bit her nails when she was nervous, a bad habit of hers.
"Is there something you want to talk about, monkey?" He asked her, slowly making his way up the stairs. Kiyos eyes widened, regretting the decisions she made to talk to her dad. Getting up quickly she ran to her room.
Sighing softly with a small smile her dad followed. She always ran away from her problems, literally, another bad habit of hers. Despite all of the exorcist training she has had over the last few years, she was still the scared little girl. It seemed the demons only made her more scared of the world than better.
He knocked on her door lightly, his voice soft as he spoke.
"Can I come in, monkey?"
"NO!" She squeaked, holding her pillow tight to her chest, making Shiro Fujimoto -her father- chuckle, she had always been stubborn.
"Too bad, I'm already opening the door." He spoke in a sing-song voice. The little girl couldn't hold back her smile, she hated how silly her dad was, he always made her smile, especially when she didn't want to.
He stood at the door, looking down at the girl who cuddled her pillow tightly, her head buried in the top, avoiding eye contact with her father.
Shutting the door he made his way over to her bed, sitting on the edge and pretending he did not know she was there.
"Well, I guess no one is in this room and I can do whatever I want," he started, his eyes quickly looking to Kiyo for a reaction. She was peaking upwards to see what he was doing, but quickly hid her head again when they made eye contact.
"I should try to practise my singing..." He announced, a smirk already playing on his lips, knowing the reaction his daughter was going to give.
"ONCE I WAS A YOUNG BOY..." He started singing loudly and badly, and it didn't take long for Kiyo to break and scream stop to Shiro causing him to chuckle loudly.
The little girl gave him a sheepish smile, her back against the wall as she still cuddled her pillow.
"Whats the mattered?" Shiro asked his daughter. She nibbled on her bottom lip, trying to find the right words.
"I don't want to upset you..." She mumbled, tears springing to her eyes as she did. Shiro noticed and realised it was more serious than he thought. Taking the pillow away from her, he moved closer and pulled her onto his lap.
Kiyo had always been small for her age, so at nine she more seems like six, it made is easy for Shiro to picked her up and place in his lap.
Wiping away her tears he spoke.
"You could never upset me monkey. You should know that by now..."
"But-"
"But nothing. I don't ever want you being upset."
Taking a deep breath she looked to her father once more, his eyes showed worried but held a slight smile on his face. Shiro loved his little girl, and it hurt him when she was upset.
"I DON'T WANT TO BE AN EXORCIST ANYMORE!" She blurted out suddenly taking Shiro by surprise. She was even shocked by her sudden outburst. She froze, waiting for a reaction and to her surprise and relief he smiled.
"That's okay...I know how much you hate it monkey." He stated.
"Really? You're not mad at me?" She beamed jumping up.
"Of course not! I'm not going to make my little girl do something she hates!"
"Dad you're the best!" She hugged him tight before dancing around. Kiyo had a great loud personality once she was comfortable around people, people just needed to give her a chance.
"Wait," she froze at the thought.
"What do I do about the demons now? Will they still attack me? How will I stop them?"
Sighing heavily Shiro made his way to her window. It was snowing heavily outside, it was night time, the world looked like an untouched cloud. He put his hand in his pocket as he decided.
"I was going to keep this for your birthday, but it seems giving it to you now may be better."
Kiyos head cocked to the side, wandering on what he meant. Walking back to her he pulled out a necklace from his pocket. Sitting back down on the bed he showed it to his daughter, whose eyes lit up at the sight of it. It was a plain silver necklace but at the bottom hung a locket in the symbol of a monkey's face.
"Not only are you my little monkey." He mused, tapping her on her nose, "this is also a protection charm of a sort. Always keep it on you, and if you ever find yourself in trouble, you'll whisper a spell into it and I'll come to get you."
X
Kiyo groaned in pain as she woke up. Her body aching from top to bottom. The sun shone brightly as she tried opening her eyes, burning them slightly. She brought her hand up to her necklace, smiling at the thought of her father. She seemed to had forgotten what happened the night before. As her hand made her way to her neck she could feel the swelling and the instant pain as she touched it.
"Afternoon." A voice announced from behind her, making her jump and hit her head.
"Ah..." She muttered, rubbing her head, her whole body still feeling sore.
"YUKIO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING..." Her eyes scanned the room, it wasn't hers. "inside my room?" She muttered finishing off her sentence confused.
"Where am I?"
Yukio's face showed no emotion. He pushed his glasses up before replying.
"This is your new room as True Cross Academy."
"What? How? I don't even rememb-" Her thought cut short as last nights memories came flooding into her mind. She quickly chocked up. She didn't want to believe it.
"Yukio..." He refused to meet her gaze, she felt her heartbreak into pieces as she relived it all in her mind.
"Father..." She sobbed. "I never got to say goodbye..."
Yukio brought his younger sister into his arms, he still showed no emotion as he held her. At that moment, he needed to be strong for her.
"It's going to be okay Kiyo..." He tried comforting her best he good, but how could anything make it better? She lost her father, the one person she trusted and love more than anything. She had her brothers, but they didn't understand her like Shiro did.
The silence seemed to last a lifetime between them, neither of them spoke, only the sound of sobs seeming to break it every once in a while.
Holding her necklace, Kiyo pulled away from Yukio.
"Where's Rin..." She observed, noticing the oldest Okumura missing.
"He's having a chat with the headmaster..." It was almost awkward between the two despite how close they usually were.
"Do you want me to to get him?" Kiyo shook her head quickly at the request. Rin was the last person she wanted to see. The pain she felt was unbearable and she couldn't help but blame Rin for it all.
Placing her back on the back wall, she sighed as she took off her necklace. Staring down at the monkey symbol, she could hear her dad calling her 'monkey', multiple times throughout her childhood. He said he called her that because she used to love climbing trees when she was younger.
Holding back her tears she opened up the locket, one side held a picture of her, her brothers and father. All huddled closely together, large grins on all their faces, the photo was only taken a few months ago.
The other side held a picture of just Kiyo and her father. That picture what taken the same birthday of when she got the locket. Shiro held her on his shoulders, both of them dressed in pyjamas as it was also Christmas morning. He was grinning up at her while she laughed loudly, the picture caught a perfect moment between father and daughter.
"Kiyo, I know it's going to be hard, but you're going to have to be strong." Yukio inquired, she simply nodded, her eyes not meeting his as she admired the photos.
Sighing as he stood, he made his way to the door, before leaving he gave a final comment.
"The headmaster said he wanted to see you as soon as you woke. I suggest making your way to him soon."
Kiyo decided quicker she got moving, the easier it would be for her to not procrastinate on her thoughts.
She found herself walking around True Cross Academy for a long time before she found the headmasters office. It seemed to be its own city with how big it was. Despite the hot weather she wore a jumper, she wore it so she could hide the large bruises on her neck, keeping her hood up and out of sight to anyone and everyone. She was definitely someone who prefered to be away from attention.
Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the headmasters door.
"Come in." He stated, his voice soundly familiar to Kiyo.
Slowly opening the door she revealed the one and only,
"Mephisto Pheles..." She mumbled seeing him sat on his large chair at the back of the room, his smile large as he watched her enter.
"I should of know..."
"Ah, Kiyo Okumura! Welcome to True Cross Academy! I'm glad to see you're awake!' His enthusiasm made her sick. Even though he 'helped' her when she was younger, she couldn't help but have a dislike for the man. She stayed silent as he crackled.
"You must know why I've called you here today!'
Kiyo raised her eyebrows to him and gave a slight shake to her head. She really had no idea why he'd want to see her. She knew it wasn't about her dad because she knew he didn't care.
"Well, I want to see how your secret is going! I want to see what you can do!" An evil smirk appeared as he spoke.
"Here, let's test your control! Light the candles on the end, not the middle." He ordered, placing three candles next to each other one his table.
Kiyo internally rolled her eyes, he seriously underestimated her control.
With one blink, and no other movement, the two candles on the end lit. Mephisto Pheles stared shocked for a moment.
"My, my, I seemed to have underestimated you..." He beamed eyeing the candles.
"What else can you do?"
Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she showed him the ball of fire which sat in her hand.
"I have complete control." She informed as he watched her flame. Smirking she brought her other hand out, making the ball larger. Slowly pulling her hands apart, the fire followed, becoming a long line. Mephisto watched amazed.
"Blue Dragon..." She mumbled to the fire, throwing her left hand around her right, the fire wrapping around her arm like a spiral. As she finished, the end of the fire became a dragon head. Kiyo gave Phelps one last smirk before blowing the fire, the 'dragon' zipped off her arm towards him. He watched in awe as it released off her arm. It seemed to swim through the air towards him. Fear quickly entered his eyes as he saw it going in his direction.
Flame, she thought. Her dragon responded by blowing his own blue flame.
Split.
The dragon and fire split off into both directions of Mephisto before wrapping around him, spiralling as they both grew. Slowly engulfing him into a large ball of blue flame. Even he was speechless for a second.
"It's warm..." He analysed his own body, confused on how he was not burning. Letting the fire drop she took a deep breath. Controlling the fire that was that large took a lot out of her, she didn't have the energy to keep it going.
"AMAZING!" He exclaimed standing up.
"You're absolutely magnificent!"
Mephisto was stunned by the control the young girl had on the fire and he wanted to push her limits, what else could she do.