Disclaimer (1): This is a fan written work based on the works of J.K. Rowling. It might possibly also have some elements of a number of other works. There is no money being made from this, it is merely a work meant for the entertainment of myself and the masses. This is merely for fun, and no profit. I repeat: I am not making any money out of writing this.

Disclaimer (2): I also do not own anything that has to do with Juuni Kokki, Juuni Kokuki, Record of the Twelve Kingdoms, The Twelve Kingdoms. The only things that will probably be mine to claim are some of the names that will appear in the fic.

Warning: OCs OOCs Sues, and some crack. You have been warned.

Note 1: Post-DH Disclaimer (2) anime/novel Crossover

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CHANGE

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Chapter Six

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It took three weeks before the ravens returned from their mass scouting mission, each had brought in its mind a piece of the puzzle that was the land on which Kurai had landed. It was truly a desolate place, ravaged by sickness, famine, and other natural disasters. The few places that actually had some green were, according to the ravens, filled with wild beasts that normally would not be found in the numbers which they were. The ravens were able to relay other information, and not just the lay of the land, but also of human settlements that they had found, most of which were uninhabited. The places that were, held within their walls a starving, and a dying people, people that upon seeing the ravens, did not react all that much as if they were already resigned to their fates. Some of the ravens witnessed some of the people escape the island nation, the country which was equivalent in size to a continent, they travelled to the main continent of the twelve kingdoms, specifically in the direction of En and Kei.

From that information Kurai was able to deduce that he was on Tai, the kingdom whose king and kirin were lost to them for unknown reasons. But what concerned him more was not the missing important figures, but rather the starving people devoid of hope. He could sympathize with them a little bit. Having enough to survive, Kurai decided that he would have to do something to help those people.

So he transformed his ravens, of which were no longer entirely separate individuals, but rather extensions or parts of himself. He gave them human form, each one wearing a mask depicting a raven, all of them exactly the same, not that telling one apart from another was all that important at that point. They each wore all black clothing, and bronze colored boots and gloves. Covering their body from view were cloaks made out of their feathers.

Kurai then fashioned transfigured some stones into carts, and had the ravens gather food and pile them on the carts, and covered the food just in case, to avoid the senses of hungry youma on the prowl beyond his home's perimeter. Once all the carts were loaded with sufficient food for the starving people, along with some medicines for the sick and dying, Kurai sent the ravens on their way. Ten to a cart, two to tow, and the rest to either direct or to guard against theives, be they human or beast.

Just as a precaution, he sent some untransformed ravens flying, having them keep aerial watch over the carts. It would not do to have the things and their precious cargos ambushed and whisked away.

Some of the ravens were given an altered plume, these special avians were given one extra feather, a jade feather, which signified them as the eyes and ears of Kurai.

Through the eyes of those special birds, he was able to see some larger settlements in the region, these ones having more people, while at the same time still having some people that looked to be living better lives than the rest, provincial governors that had gotten greedy, and acted more like warlords than mere governors. They cared little for the people, and cared only about themselves. Throught he eyes of the ravens, Kurai was also able to see how the sennin were doing, seeing some of them still living blissfully ignorant of the suffering around them, and their still comfortable lives. Their servants knowing the suffering down below, but not being able to do anything about it.

Kurai did not like what he saw, and vowed to one day do something about it, he knew that he would not be able to use any kind of kingly powers in Tai, but he would do what he could, while at the same time solve the mystery that was the vanishing of Tai-o and Tai Taiho.

After sometime, he witnessed some attacks on his food carts, done not by beast, but by men. Their attempts at robbing the carts, or even simply extorting something from the carts were all thwarted by the ravens, whose intellect and wisdom were added to when they were given their human forms. They not only outsmarted the bandits, but were also able to instill in them a fear of ravens.

When the food carts reached the settlements, they were received with much suspicion by the residnets, for who would willingly send so much food to starving villagers, without knowing them personally. The ravens did not answer when questioned about who had sent the carts, who they were working for, and any other question. All they said was that they were ordered to stay until all the food was used up, and to make sure that the residents were kept safe.

Some of the people wondered at the possibility of the Tai-o and his kirin being found. The ravens only response to that was that they were still missing, but that their master was trying to find them, without much success yet. Not letting anything else slip, the ravens were after a week or two accepted by the residents of the settlements, but in some cases were forced to hide away lest they catch the attention of some of the local warlords who would steal what was for the starving, sick, and dying.

They never told a single person their name, or what they were. They were ravens, all without names, but when asked about their master, some decided that it would be a good idea to simply answer Karasu or crow, a lesser cousin of the raven, but one that was steeped in negativity, as they did not want to answer all that truthfully, and Karasu was as close to raven as they could come up with, Kurai did not object to his servants' choice either.

Through his ravens he had learned that the most recent ruler to be chosen, aside from himself, was the queen of Kei or Kei-o. She had been in power for not more than ten years, and her country was prospering. He had some of the young queen's story stored away in his organized head, but the information that he gleamed using his ravens was more detailed. He even went so far as to think that it would be possible that such an individual would know a little something about the missing king and kirin. But walking that path would have to be put off until a later date.

By watching the world, or more like simply Tai, through the eyes and ears of his avian servants, he failed to monitor the activity closer to his base of operations. He monitored the carts that came and went, taking food and whatnot to the settlements that they had been assigned to, but he had failed to watch out for any intruders.

He was unprepared for any attack, not thinking that it was a possibility that someone would someday stumble upon his home, which was not at all affected by the natural disasters that ran rampant all over the country, or the youma that visciously guarded and hunted in the sparse few green places around the land.

One night, as he lay sleeping in his home, luckily only reachable by flying or climbing up, he had been alerted by his wards, some parts he noticed were missing, the seal arrows that held up those parts having been destroyed by something. His first thought that was some regular wild animal had found its way onto his land, but his thoughts quickly changed when he heard the distinct sound of footsteps trampling on his property. The footsteps did not belong to only one animal which he knew of, that being man. He had some trespassers, something which he had not really prepared for.

None of his ravens were close enough to him to help him in any way, all of them were out on missions. All Kurai had was himself. He had numerous tricks up his sleeve, but he did not want to let the world know about all that he could do in case one of the tresspassers escaped his clutches. So he stuck to the idea of simply stunning them, then figuring out what to do to them once all had been subdued.

He may have had thousands of ravens, but there were equally that many things he needed them to accomplish, a bunch of which had to do with the missing rulers of Tai.

He teleported himself soundlessly to the top of the main tree, the one which his house was a part of, then he brought out his longbow. Instead of arrows, he charged up stunners, each spell being given the form of an arrow. Once one had been formed, he let it fly, where it promptly hit his target, stunning the person. Trespasser upon trespasser fell to his arrows. There seemed to have been a hundred of them in all. When all hundred of them were knocked out, he jumped down to manually collect the bodies.

He did not count the number of people that had trespassed correctly, for there was one more person that he had not been able to see. The leader of what appeared to be a group of prolific bandits had hidden himself amongst the trees, while his minions went about their business. Upon seeing Kurai, he snuck his way behind him and forced Kurai to the ground.

Once Kurai was pinned to the ground by the bandit leader, he was told to call his men out. The leader refused to believe that one man could take down one hundred men with a bow all by himself, and insisted that there were more of them, at least nine more men hidden in the trees. When Kurai kept insisting that he was the only person there, the bandit leader beat him up a bit, Kurai allowing the mortal man to do so, not really caring all that much as his injuries healed rather quickly.

When the bandit leader was tired of Kurai refusing to give up his non existent men, he brought out a blade and prepard to kill the immortal, not that stabbing would have worked as the bandit leader intended.

The bandit leader halted his action when he heard a howl rent through the night air. He quickly tried to flee the scene, thinking to leave his band and Kurai to the wolf youma that were approaching, sure to have been drawn to the scent of blood, that came from Kurai's wounds.

The bandit leader was not able to make it away in time, as he was the first of many among the bandits that were torn to pieces.

Kurai decided to give the bandits, whom he did not mean to kill, a chance to get away, and quickly revived them all, shouting run once all of them were awake, even the ones being torn to piece were awoken, not that it really mattered when it came to those poor unfortunate souls, in pain, and in desperate need of aid, aid that would not and could not reach them in time.

Around twenty five bandits were able to escape the attention of the youma, all of which had directed their attention to Kurai.

He was stuck with the problem of some fifty youma staring at him hungrily, for some reason. Not wanting to die or simply experience something as gruesom as being torn to shreds, he nearly panicked but used the first idea that popped up in his head.

"Rin Byou Tou Sha Kai Jin Retsu Zen Gyou!" Kurai calmly called out moving his right arm in the way that kirin did when they began the process to turn a wild youma into one of their servants, then continued speaking once he knew that he had their undivided attentions, "Shinchoku Meichoku, Tensei Chisei, Jinkun Seikun, Fuo Fudaku, Kimi Koubuku, Onmyou Wagou, Kyuu Kyuu Nyo Ritsu Ryou!"

Kurai then proceeded to stare, or glare them all down, his right eye changing to crimson, while his misty eye churning into a storm. The remaining bandits that were hiding out in the forest that surrounded Kurai's land and served as a semi-barrier, felt something in the air. Kurai's magic was overwhelming and overflowing. Some of them were forced to their knees, while others were simply floored and forced to the floor, but still allowing their eyes witnessing something they had not thougth possible. Someone, someone they believed to be human was attempting to gain some shirei.

"Hoppou no Urufu!" Kurai called out, saying each wolf's name in each of their mind, taming, and turning each one into his servant, his own kind of shirei, except without that oath that would allow them to eat his corpse should he ever die.

When Kurai's power was once again contained, the bandits ran for their lives in fear of retribution by a being that was neither man nor kirin, but had monsters at his disposal.

"Fools.." Kurai muttered, as he mentally ordered his wolf pack, or Hoppou no Urufu which meant something like Northern wolves, to rest beneath the trees surrounding his house, instead of in his shadow, since he was technically not a kirin, he did not want to be viewed more like one. He made some of the trees hollow, as well as added space beneath them to serve as dens for the wolves.

When he was done, his protections renewed, and some were added in case something similar were to perchance happen again, and he had made sure that his new servants were inside their new homes, he went back to his bedroom and promptly fell asleep, shifting into what he would later recognize as his animagus form, one of them anyway. It was the form of a krin, a gray one, but was different from the run of the mill kirin in that his horn was not blunt, but was like a spear, and could be turned into a razon blade, there was also the fact that in that form, he looked like he was constantly bleeding, a blood like substance ran from the tip of his horn, and simply flowed down in, and dripped to the floor where it just vanished or evaporated.