Author's Note: Hello, everyone! I am pleased to announce two more oneshot collections, Tales of Resonating Souls (Soul Eater) and Tales from Ouran High (Ouran High School Host Club)! Though no stories have been posted as of yet, feel free to visit and make a request!

Category: Mild Romantic Fluff, Friendship Fluff

Characters: Rin Okumura and Shiemi Moriyama

"Let's see…" Shiemi murmured thoughtfully as she inspected the piece of paper in her hands. It was a memo that contained a detailed map of Fukushima City, located in the Fukushima prefecture. "We're close! The target building is just down this street and around the corner!" she smiled cheerfully up at Rin, who was hunched over slightly with his hands in his pockets and staring at the map with his dark eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"How can you read that thing, Shiemi? There's so much crap on it." Shiemi giggled and folded up the map, tucking it into the pocket of her uniform skirt while her little familiar leaned over her shoulder, wiggling his arms as if he had wanted longer to look at it. He leaned a little too far and wobbled precariously, but managed to cling to her neck and avoid tumbling down to the ground. "All right, so down this street?" he affirmed and straightened up, peering down the sidewalk.

The city was quite large, so it really was no wonder that Rin was having trouble navigating. Currently, they were located somewhere in the heart of the city, but on the outskirts of the commercial district that contained towering office buildings and other corporate establishments. Shiemi and Rin had been dispatched to the residential area to deal with a troublesome ghost.

"According to the briefing, the ghost has been around for quite some time, but had more or less been benevolent up until now," Shiemi reported as she strolled alongside Rin. "Before, an old couple lived in the house, and only had to deal with objects moving, footsteps, slamming doors, that kind of thing. The couple has since died and a new family moved in, a young couple with their three-year-old, and that's when things escalated. The family is so afraid that they've been staying in a hotel."

"So we just gotta go in there and kill it, right?" Rin smirked, his unusually sharp canines catching the sunlight. His sword was wrapped in its cloth, strapped to his back, but Shiemi knew that he was itching to hold it already.

"We've been called to assist the senior exorcists already there. It's a very old and powerful spirit, they say. Also, they mentioned that we have to do as little damage to the house as possible." This instantly popped the balloon of Rin's excitement, and his shoulders hunched up to his pointed ears as he grimaced.

"Why the hell did they put me on this mission, then?"

"Everyone else was busy, and Shura said it would be good practice for you to control your 'destructive tendencies.'" The half-demon boy muttered something unflattering about the swordswoman under his breath, but Shiemi had not time to reply as they turned the corner and were abruptly greeted by chaos. "Oh, my goodness!"

The entire street was marked off with metal barricades and police tape, blocking off the section in front of a quaint two-story house. At the instant she and Rin rounded the corner, a gale of black wind burst from the front door, sending it flapping on its hinges and sounding eerily reminiscent of a woman's screech. It was so deafening that she and Rin had to clap their hands over their ears to keep their eardrums from bursting, but even then, it was so loud and high-pitched it was painful. What power! Shiemi thought as the wind's cold fingers ripped at her clothes and almost blew Nee out of her hair. She cracked an eye open when the wind finally died, finding that the entire left side of the road block had been flung into the opposite building, which already contained the marks of prior destruction; bricks were loosened and piled on the ground, several windows were shattered, and one of the metal barricades was embedded into the building several yards up. Littered across the street were groaning, wounded exorcists and debris from the front yard, ripped up flowerbeds and stones from the gravel path and even the splintered remains of the wooden mailbox. At the sight of injured, Shiemi gasped and hopped over the remaining bits of barricade to rush to the nearest exorcist's side. "Nee! You know what to do!" she commanded as she knelt beside him to inspect the deep laceration in his arm. Her familiar squealed and jumped up, healing herbs springing from his belly. Shiemi plucked them off and expertly created a wrap around his bleeding arm. It was no substitute for medicine and bandages, but it would keep him from bleeding to death.

"What the hell was that?" Rin cried as he followed Shiemi to the next patient. An exorcist came running from the other side of the barrier, apparently the one in charge of the operation.

"It's a banshee," he answered grimly with a look to the house. Shiemi glanced at it out of the corners of her eyes; it didn't look so quaint anymore. The porch and yard were littered in dead leaves from the gnarled, dying oak tree whose bare branches bent over the roof, making an eerie scratching sound with every slight breeze. Several of the planks on the porch had been pulled up, bearing sharp nails, and one of the chains securing the porch swing had snapped, sending it crashing down. No windows were broken or side paneling or shutter removed, but the house seemed to leak evil energy; the door was still open, the only thing beyond it a gaping chasm of darkness. Shiemi shivered, not looking forward to venturing into the abyss. I could stay out here and treat the wounded… No way! She scolded herself as soon as she thought it. I can't have Rin go in there alone!

"A banshee?" Rin frowned. It wasn't a demon they had come across yet, and since Rin barely retained anything he studied past examinations (and even then, sometimes before), it wasn't something he knew by memory.

"A banshee is a relative of a ghost. They come from ghosts of women who died in tragic ways, and are extremely dangerous. That wind you saw just now was just from her screaming. The wind can cut you just like any blade, and can burst your eardrums in an instant. The team we sent in first didn't stand a chance. They've all been rendered deaf," the senior exorcist explained with a sad shake of his head. Now that Shiemi looked, all the men scattered about, and even the officer, had earplugs in their ears. As she was wrapping the second man's leg, a handful of medical officers ran out into the street.

"We can take over from here. Captain, that thing just wiped out the entire team. Are you sure we should send these Exwires in?" one frowned as he knelt down across from Shiemi to further tend to the wounded man. Before he could answer, Rin snorted and gave him a cheeky grin and a thumbs-up.

"Just leave it to us! Right, Shiemi?"

"Yes!" she nodded determinedly and hopped to her feet. The officer provided them with the earplugs, and Shiemi frowned slightly as she pushed them into her ears, finding the feeling of them very uncomfortable. "These things are weird."

"What did you say?"

"I said these things are weird!" she repeated louder, and he laughed at her, though she wasn't sure if he had actually heard her or it was just a knee-jerk reaction to pretend like he had. Rin pulled his sword off his shoulder, sliding off the cloth to reveal the sleek sheathed blade, as he approached the house. He and Shiemi carefully picked their way across the porch, careful to avoid the nails sticking up; the wood groaned with each step they made. As they approached the door, the temperature abruptly dropped, making Shiemi shiver again. "It's cold…" She wasn't just shivering from the cold. Try as she might to be brave, the darkness emanating from the house made her heart quiver with fear. She involuntarily took a step back and swallowed nervously.

"Shiemi." As he uttered her name, she turned to him, finding that he was smiling softly at her. "Stop worrying. We can do this, together." Her cheeks flushed dark pink, and she looked away, embarrassed that he had realized that she was afraid.

"I-I'm not scared. I-it's just cold," she mumbled and cast her gaze back to the doorway. "And dark… So dark we could get separated…"

"I can't do much about the cold, but how about this? You can hold my hand until we find the banshee, so we don't get separated in the house," he beamed at her and offered her his hand. It was so natural for him, like it was nothing, but Shiemi's pulse immediately skyrocketed. It's just Rin! She told herself as she took the offered hand. Immediately, she felt at ease, and a smile came to her face as she wrapped her fingers around his. Kind, dependable Rin… "Feel better?"

"Mm-hmm!"

"Great! Then let's go, Shiemi!" he grinned in that confident, devilish way of his, and together, they plunged into the house. It was like stepping into a walk-in freezer, but everything around them was just darkness. Shiemi could barely make out Rin's form beside her or her breath fogging in front of her face in the gloom. While her other hand lay locked in Rin's, her other was pressed to her chest, trying to still her rapidly beating heart. They were standing in the entryway, all the light from the entryway absorbed by the crushing blackness. Shiemi could just barely make out the outlines of a pair of recliners, a sofa, and what seemed to be a small fireplace. Rin tugged her in that direction, and Shiemi was sickened that upon closer inspection the furniture contained deep claw-marks. They leaked stuffing like blood, piles like puddles on the floor. "So much for not doing much damage to the house," Rin muttered, just high enough that she could hear him through the earplugs. Shiemi's attention was caught by the photographs on the walls and end tables.

"Rin… Look at these." In the photographs, all the glass had been shattered. The little bits crunched under their feet as they leaned close to the pictures to inspect them in the gloom. "Only the parents' faces have been scratched out."

"Huh. You're right. Weird." In every photo, the man and woman's faces were now unrecognizable scribbles of white, but their daughter's happy face was perfectly intact. It was obvious that it was done by the banshee, but why? "It isn't in here. Let's go, Shiemi."

He pulled her along to the opposite side of the house through a doorway, into the adjoining kitchen. Rin tried flicking the light switch, but the bulb in the overhanging lights did not flicker to life. "So much for that." He began leading her through the room, hissing in pain as his hip collided with the dinner table that they could barely make out. "Ow... What the hell?" Shiemi followed his surprised gaze, and with enough squinting she could recognize that every knife the couple owned was embedded into the wood of the table. There were at least twenty. "This is one pissed-off ghost." For comfort, Shiemi grabbed onto the back of Rin's shirt. "Oh, don't worry, Shiemi. It's nothing we can't handle," he grinned at her in the dark before leading her down a hallway, toward what she surmised would be bedrooms.

Rin… I hope you're right.

"It's getting colder," she observed quietly as they progressed through the house, finding only an empty bathroom, sitting room, and bathroom. Evidence of the enraged banshee was everywhere: claw marks scored into the walls and furniture, the linens of the beds strewn about and ripped beyond repair, and the same strange disfiguring of every photograph. Both she and Rin were shuddering with the cold now. They were at the landing of the staircase now.

"Let's go." The string of photographs that had been nailed to the walls had been flung off, and their feet crunched on broken glass and splintered photo frames as they slowly edged up the staircase. When they arrived at the turning point, Rin paused; floating in the air were the miserable sobs of a woman. Even more slowly so as not to alert the demon to their presence, they crept up the steps, following the sound down the second-floor hallway to a bedroom in the back. The darkness up there was even more crushing, and if Shiemi had not been holding his hand, she would have no idea where Rin was at all. Her hand brushed along the hallway wall to keep herself grounded in reality, otherwise she would be floating untethered in the abyssal space. When they made it to the room, sitting on the floor silhouetted by soft white light was the form of a young woman in a kimono. She was clutching a little doll to her chest as she wept.

"Setsuko… Where is Setsuko?" Instantly, the reason for the ghost's abrupt change in mood was apparent. She lost her daughter and was unable to move on. When the family with the daughter moved in, she must have thought she was Setsuko, and lashed out at the parents. Rin moved to creep forward, but the plank beneath his foot loudly creaked. Immediately the woman's head snapped to glare where they were standing, her pupils expanding to smother the whites of her eyes. "Give me back Setsuko!" she screamed, and Shiemi gasped and braced herself against Rin as an unholy wind blasted from the form of the woman. It was shrieking, just like the black wind before.

"Who the hell is Setsuko?" Rin shouted as he whipped his sword from its sheath. At once his blue flames blazed to life, flickering along the edge of his sword and across his body; it seemed to chase the darkness away, casting them in a circle of soft blue light. The woman had undergone a ghastly transformation, her black hair growing to writhe around her like tentacles and darkness seeping from her pale body. "Shiemi! Back me up, okay?" Rin shouted as he sprang at the demon. His sword was halted by several of the thick hair tendrils.

"Got it! Nee!" Her familiar sprang onto her head, his belly bursting open with climbing ivy. It shot towards the ghost, curling around her hands and legs and writhing hair to immobilize her.

"Good job, Shiemi! Take this!" Rin roared and went to deliver the finishing blow, but the banshee was far from done. The banshee screamed again, the volume fierce enough this time to make their bones rattle and ears ring despite the safety equipment, and Rin froze in his tracks and dropped his sword to cover his ears. "Owwww! Dammit!"

"Rin, no!" Shiemi cried, hovering by the door with her hands clamped over her ears too. He was much too vulnerable like that; the banshee's fingernails grew into wicked claws, and with a gleeful shriek, she swiped at the trembling demon boy. Shiemi did the only thing she thought she could do at the moment and flung herself at Rin, knocking him roughly to the side. "Ahh!" she screamed in pain as the banshee's claws ripped across her side, leaving her white uniform shirt blooming red with blood. The force of the blow was enough to fling her backwards, sending her crashing through the bedroom window and plummeting into the backyard below.

"Shiemi!" she heard Rin screaming as she fell through the air, the wind tugging at her hair and clothes. Nee sprang of her shoulder to expand in size, and she landed safely in his pillowy, bush-like body. Groaning, she rolled off of her familiar as he shrank back down to his miniature form, holding a hand to her gaping wound. Above, she could hear Rin roaring in anger and things crashing around as he fought the banshee, and blue flames blazed through the broken window. She gritted her teeth at the intense pain as she forced herself to sit up. She had to get back in there.

"Hey… Over here."

"Who said that?" her voice was labored, just like her breathing, as her head whipped wildly around. Compared to the rest of the house, the backyard was serene and untouched; the grass was emerald in the bright sunlight, and the white fence was lined with colorful flowerbeds. A smaller tree was in the back corner, its leaves full and healthy with bright pink blossoms dotted throughout. A white bench was placed in front of one of the flowerbeds, and on this bench sat a little girl in a flower-patterned kimono and her black hair tied into a pair of buns. Panting, Shiemi forced herself to stand up and stumble over to the little girl. "You shouldn't be here. It's danger-" she started to say, but as she got closer, it was painfully obvious that the little girl was a spirit as well. She smiled cutely up at Shiemi and tilted her head to the side. "Are you Setsuko?"

"Yep. What's your name, pretty lady?" Shiemi nervously looked back to the eerie house. Though the fight had migrated deeper within, she could still hear Rin's valiant effort against the crazed banshee, and her occasional demonic screams. I need to help Rin… But if I find out what happened to Setsuko, maybe I can get the banshee to calm down!

"My name is Shiemi," she told the little girl, looking back at her with a pained smile. Blood was seeping through Shiemi's fingers and flooding into her skirt, even dribbling down the side of her thigh. She had to finish this quickly, or she would pass out from blood loss. She grimaced as she increased the pressure on the wound.

"I'm sorry my mommy hurt you."

"Oh, it's okay. Please tell me why your mommy is so sad," Shiemi smiled weakly. Setsuko looked down at her little hands in her lap, then wordlessly pointed to the base of the tree in the corner. Her eyebrows knitting together in confusion, Shiemi hobbled over to the large plant and, with much effort, crouched down to rifle through the detritus among the roots. After a minute of digging into the soft, loamy earth, her hands found something solid, and she pulled it up. She immediately dropped it with a frightened scream. Grinning at her from the ground was a child-sized skull. "O-oh m-my…" she whispered in horror, tears streaming from her wide green eyes, and she turned to Setsuko, who had risen from the bench to walk over. She was staring sadly down at what remained of her body.

"We were very poor. Daddy and Mommy fought a lot about it," she sighed and crouched down to pick up the skull. Bile rose in Shiemi's throat, but she forced it back down. "Daddy lost his job, and they fought even more. Mommy cried a lot. One night, Daddy said that if I had never been born, then they wouldn't be poor. It made me cry. Daddy left, and Mommy told me that it wasn't my fault and me being born was the best thing to ever happen to them. Daddy came back late that night and got me out of bed. He said that there was a pretty flower in the garden he wanted to show me. He made me look at the flower, and then…"

"Your own father killed you?" Shiemi whispered. It was the most horrible thing that she had ever heard. Setsuko straightened back up, smiling brightly as she held the skull in her tiny little hands, hands that would never get to grow bigger.

"It's okay, Miss Shiemi. I'm not sad about it anymore," she told her. "I just want my mommy to get better. She thinks I'm lost, but I've been here the whole time. She just can't see me." She held out the skull to her. "Please, take me to her? I don't want her to be sad anymore. I want us to be able to go to Heaven together." Shiemi sniffed and used the backs of her hands to wipe her eyes, then nodded firmly and took the skull from the little ghost girl. Her determination momentarily chased the pain from her body, and she stood up to resolutely stare at the house. I'm on my way, to deliver Setsuko's message! Just hold on a little longer, Rin!

She trotted across the backyard to enter the house through the back door. It was a dark as ever, but the remains of the child glowed in her hands, providing her enough light to see. She ran as fast as she could towards the stairs, leaving a trail of bright red blood in her wake. Her vision was beginning to grow fuzzy and her breath short, but she pressed onward. I have to save Sestuko and her mother!

"Rin!" she shouted hoarsely as she made it to the stairs. She grabbed the banister as she fought for breath, leaning over as she panted heavily. "Rin! Down here!" she screamed into the darkness. There was silence, then suddenly Rin came bursting out of the hallway above in an explosion of blue flame.

"Shiemi!" he shouted down at her as he slid down the banister to drop to her side. He was panting hard too, scratches across his face and arms and his clothes a little torn, but faring much better than she was. "I tried to go after you, but that bitch wouldn't let me! I can't get close enough to hit her with my sword without tearing this whole house down!" Shiemi had to laugh, because the idea that he was more concerned about the house than killing the demon really was extraordinary.

"It's okay! I know how to beat it!" she told him with a smile. As she said so, the banshee came crawling on all fours down the hall, her hair writhing around her like a hundred snakes. The temperature in the room plummeted, make Shiemi tremble violently, but nevertheless she ran up the flight of stairs to approach the demonic woman.

"Shiemi, no!" Rin's cry and her thundering footsteps alerted the banshee to her presence, and with monstrous speed she surged towards Shiemi. As she landed at the top of the steps, Shiemi thrust the skull out.

"Here! Here is Setsuko!" she cried and squeezed her eyes shut. She expected some sort of impact, but none came, so she cracked an eye open. The demon had stopped just short of her, and was sitting up on her knees, her black hair swirling gently around her like it was suspended in water. A few strands brushed across Shiemi's cheek, feeling softer than down. The woman's eyes reverted to normal and flooded with tears as her pale hands reached out to gently take the small skull.

"Set… suko…"

"I'm sorry. Your daughter died. Her father killed her because of the money," Shiemi explained softly. The banshee looked up at her with wide eyes. Shiemi hung her head, recounting the tale enough to make her eyes flood with tears again. As they spilled down her cheeks, she whispered, "It must have been so terrible, not knowing what happened to her… I'm so sorry you had to suffer like that for so long…" She then looked up at her, her expression firm. "But you need to stop hurting other people! Setsuko is waiting for you, so you can go on together!" The ghost exhaled deeply in realization, and turned around as a small form materialized behind her.

"Setsuko," she whispered as the little girl held out her arms for an embrace. She dropped the skull and crawled over to her, then gasped and pulled her into her arms to hug her tightly.

"Let's go now, Mommy. Don't be sad anymore." The woman nodded wordlessly as she shed her tears of happiness and longing, and Setsuko smiled at Shiemi as they both began to glow brightly. "Thank you, Miss Shiemi! I've never seen a flower as pretty as you!" she grinned cheekily, and then they were gone. Shiemi smiled warmly as daylight spilled into the house, warm and comforting. She then wobbled, growing dizzy, and fell backward into the open air.

"Gotcha!" Rin cried as he came up behind her and caught her, falling down to his knees on the step. Her head flopped back onto his shoulder, her blonde hair sweeping across her face, and her green eyes gazed up at him tiredly. "Ah! Shiemi! You're hurt bad!" he cried in panic as he carried her down the steps to the landing, laying her down gently on the wooden boards and flicking his tail nervously as he eyed the scratch marks in her side. "Hey, Nee, do something, will ya?" he begged the little Greenman. Shiemi giggled, making him look at her in a mixture of alarm and confusion.

"Stop worrying. I'm tougher than that," she mused. He hunched his shoulders slightly before sighing deeply and sitting on his knees beside her.

"You did have me worried. The whole time I was fighting her, all I could think about was you…" he mumbled with pink cheeks. Shiemi's eyes widened slightly and her face took on a similar hue.

"Hey, Rin… Come a little closer. I can't hear you." She could hear him just fine, actually; perhaps it was the blood less making her thoughts fuzzy, or the brush with death, but she was about to do something bold. Rin frowned deeply, then put his hands on his knees as he leaned over her.

"I said-" she didn't let him finish, because she reached up to pull his head down and press his mouth against hers. Shiemi didn't know much about love; she had told him that she wasn't ready for that sort of thing, but after everything that had happened, somehow, she felt like she knew that was the right thing to do. She could feel the heat radiating from his blushing face, mingling with the heat of her own, as their mouth moved gently together for a few seconds. I love Rin. Why had it taken her so long to realize that? Her beating heart, a drum to the tune of her singing soul, was enough evidence of that. When he pulled back from her, his face was red and his mouth curled into an embarrassed scowl. "That was smooth."

"You think so?" she laughed as he straightened up, then winced as the pain flared in her side once more.

"All right, to be continued. I'm getting you to a doctor."

"Wait, to be continued?!" she cried in alarm as he scooped her into his arm, and it was his turn to laugh as she turned cherry-red and her heart began palpitating. "Don't say things like that! I'll bleed out! Rin!" He just laughed maliciously as he carried her out of the house into the daylight, and into a new future of love where she had no idea what to expect…