"Ask me 'Are we there yet' one more time and I'll drop you off in the middle of no where."

Keisuke reeled a bit in his seat from his half-sister's biting comment.

"I didn't ask it that, geez."

"You've said that same sentence almost seventy-eight times!" She growled back.

"I'm just curious."

Natsume facepalmed. Don't get Natsume wrong, she loved her brother Keisuke deeply, but at the same time, he was a little brother. He was pushy, annoying, and a bit bratty sometimes. He was definitely was showing all those traits this morning.

She didn't originally plan to bring him to Kyubi's place. She had planned it out the night before by calling Touma. She told him about what she was doing the next few weeks and she needed him to tell her parents that she was at the detective "club", as her dad called it, while she was gone. He agreed to do it and seemed excited for her. She thought. Sometimes with Touma it was hard to tell his emotion as his voice didn't usually rise or fall too much when he talked. Though, it had been cracking recently.

She had to lower and turn up the volume on her phone at some points because it went from his usual low and monotone voice that squeaked a little to a something more baritone in quality.

She was kinda glad she wasn't a guy at some times.

That afternoon after school seemed like it would go flawlessly as she was preparing to depart.

And then Keisuke walked in.

He was so sheepish with everything else when he needed to suck it up, but at the ONE point, the single time he needed to be a little less curious, he was.

And she couldn't lie her way out like every other time because there was too much evidence. She was taking a goddamn book about foxes and kitsune shit with her; of course that raise red flags to even a box of wood, considering the circumstances.

And somehow, he knew how to blackmail. He said he was going to tell Mom and Dad that she was seeing someone.

She made a mental note to kick his ass where Dad, and especially Mom, couldn't see them. Usually, the father was the one to pull out the leather from the little loops in the jeans of dress pants and begin the work, but her mother was the one who did corporal punishment. And she hit hard.

But not on the bus and definitely not at someone elses house. That'd just be rude.

And now here they were, floating around in the void filled with colors, buildings with unconventional shapes like hexagons and trapezoids, and various eyes and mouths on these buildings and yokai doing their daily business.

After a few minutes, they were what could be called into the country area. Natsume surmised this as there was more oddly shaped Flora than oddly shaped buildings.

"If your stop is here, please get off." The humanoid driver rang out as the bus stopped the at where they needed to go.

"C'mon, here's our stop." Natsume shook Keisuke awake as he was half asleep.

They stepped off and watched as the only normal looking thing in this plane, the brown bus, disappeared into the into the pink fuzz of the distance.

"Where the hell are we? It's like we're in a kids cartoon."

"Stop complaining and just follow me."

"Ugh."

"Hey, it wasn't my idea to bring you here. If I had it my way, your but would have still been home, safe."

"You think I'm going to be dumb enough to get into the line of fire?"

She seemed to pause for a second, thinking of the best thing to say so it didn't hurt Keisuke's too much. She shook her head when she couldn't see an option that was polite enough.

"Nevermind, just follow me."

He obliged begrudgingly.

Kyubi simply brimming with excitement that hadn't been matched since his third birthday, which was was the last one he had spent with his mother when she was alive.

His backyard had been weeded (of what little nuisances there were) and cleared anything that could hurt her if anything went wrong.

He had also set up a little table with bottles of water and healthy snacks if Natsume wanted to take a break.

All he had to do now was to wait at the doorstep for her.

A little side effect of this increase in energy was he was bit more jumpy and just couldn't sit down for her. He stayed in the vicinity, but was walking around a bit in his front yard, hands stuffed in his pockets.

He was mindlessly kicking a good sized pebble when he saw a figure in the distance. Actually, two figures, the smaller one trailing behind.

He didn't think it was her at first, as he expected her to come alone, but as the duo came in closer, Kyubi could see it was indeed his daughter.

And her half brother.

He groaned. Ok, he didn't hate Keisuke at all. Hate was a strong word you usually reserved for someone you definitely wouldn't regret burning their house down. He just...disliked him. He tried to treat everyone nicely and keep a straight face when the slop of shit ran from their mouths, but God. That boy was just so ANNOYING.

And he was going to be there for a few hours?

He made a mental note to take some money out today for some stronger liquor.

"Hey, we're here!" Natsume called out when she was in her father's hearing distance.

"Afternoon, Natsume. If I may ask, why is your brother here?"

"Ugh, I had to drag him along because he was being a little shit."

"Hmm?"

"He walked in on me getting prepared and demanded to go with me."

"Sigh. Keisuke, just stay far away from the action. We're definitely going to do stuff that might cause death or least third degree burns...so yeah."

Her brother turned pale and gulped before giving the thumbs.

"Alright," Kyubi started in his more flamboyant voice, "we are going to start this off in my yard. So if you don't mind..."

With a snap of his fingers, the kitsune vanished into thin air.

The siblings then heard a voice from the backyard.

"Go around the back."

"Man, you've got a nice yard."

"Thank you! I spent most of most of night fixing up, so that means I've gotten about two collective hours of sleep."

"That...sounds unhealthy."

"Yep..."

The conversation went silent between the father and daughter as Natsume took in the scenery. The place was lush with every shade of green you could imagine. It was probably thrice the size of the yard at her house and cared for much more professionally. She thought it might have been done by a crew, but it was more likely Kyubi did it due to his amount of free time.

In fact, what did he do for a living? Did he pull this house and yard out of hammerspace or did he have a nine to five that payed well?

These thoughts were brushes away as she took off her backpack.

"So, I've brought a whole bunch of texts and stuff that I think will help with our lessons."

Natsume pulled out books of various thickness, from factual to mythological, all based around foxes and kitsune.

Kyubi picked up the stack and scrutinized it before making the stack vaporize out of the area.

"But-"

"Don't worry, I brought them back to your home, but you don't need them. I can guarantee that I can provide you of all that info and more. Especially... biologically..."

He shuddered at the thought of explaining the much rougher birds and bees kitsune had.

"But that will be the next lesson, along with transformation. Our afternoon shall be filled me gauging your endurance to several things, such as heat intensity, reflexes and that stuff of the sort. Think fast!"

A/N: Another long one. I'll try to make the next almost as long as this or more. Remember to review!