Author's notes: This is pre-series Noir, before Kirika lost her memory.
I've been trying to avoid spoilers for the plot of Tenshi ni Narumon since only the first six episodes are currently available in the US. For that reason, about half the characters have been stripped for the purposes of this fic -- Michael, Raphael, Silky, Eros, Muse, and Natsumi will not be making any appearances. (Silky's character changes so much throughout the series that any mere mention of her constitutes a spoiler!) Even then, there are certain things that I had to give away for the purposes of narrative. Obviously, Noelle was an angel baby adopted by a family of demons, who gave up their lives in the Demon World to give her a safer life in the Human World. (Safer from what . . . is a spoiler.)
Anyway, enjoy chapter 3 of War Games!
Tendou Dojo, Nerima District, Tokyo
* * *
Outside the Tendou dojo, a lone figure crept alongside the wall, gun in hand. She looked all the world like nothing more than a typical Japanese teenager, except for the gun, with her short-cropped dark brown hair and denim miniskirt.
She paused for a moment when she heard a small movement, then began to move again when she realized it was just fish in the koi pond ahead of her. Her feet squeaked on the grass by accident once, but that was the major extent of evidence she gave to her presence.
No one seemed to sense her here. Good. She put away her gun, glad to know it wasn't needed, and peeked over the windowsill to see the middle generation of Tendous involved in one of their infamous fights.
* * *
"You're BOTH the male and female models? Pervert!" Akane flounced across the living room to plunk down at the table, sulking. She had been in a very good the day before when Ranma had announced his salary, but after his first day of actual work, she wasn't really that pleased with the job description anymore.
"Look, Akane, that's one reason my pay is so high, okay? When I filled out the application, I circled both genders out of force of habit. Upon learning of the nature of my curse, the creepy chick had little yen signs in her eyes. If I were only doing one model, I'd only be making six million yen -- but as it is, they're saving three million yen. That's the same salary as some people make in a whole year. They're doing it for economic reasons."
Ranma sat down next to her, and touched his wife's shoulder gently. Theirs had been a rocky relationship from the get-go, and nine years of living together hadn't smoothed it out any at all. But the taming of his shrew had taught him several things, and the most important thing was that Akane wouldn't listen to reason until someone beside Ranma pointed it out to her.
"That didn't mean you had to accept! You know I hate it when . . . men ogle your female half."
"You and me both," Ranma muttered. Nodoka entered the room, bearing a tea tray, and Ranma shrugged out of the suit top he'd been wearing. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, they'd begin actual modeling soon, and he'd be wearing just a form fitting lycra bodysuit with special tags on it that the three dimension modeling cameras would detect as he moved. At least he'd be out of a suit and tie.
The three of them settled silently into a very informal tea ceremony, and Ranma gave his mother a knowing look. Nodoka was better at handling Akane than anyone, and luring her into the meditative silence of tea forced the girl to think for a bit before yelling anymore.
Sometimes Ranma wondered why Nodoka and Akane got along so well. Perhaps it was Nodoka's patience; almost as infinite as Kasumi's, but with the stronger steel that came with being a true lady of honor. Too bad they were all so poor; Nodoka Saotome had been dressed in finery as a child, and it was only her bad luck that the man who had married into her clan had failed as a provider. She still wore her worn out kimono proudly, even if the silk was mended and the embroidery beginning to fray.
It made Ranma feel a little better, knowing that with the income from his job, they'd be able to fix up the dojo and give Nodoka the sort of lifestyle a lady of her original rank deserved. It was the least he could do for the way she handled his temperamental wife.
Finally, after at least fifteen minutes of gently sipping at tea with only the cool wind of the night air and the sliding of shougi tiles across the room to break the silence, Akane spoke again.
"I went out and bought you a new suit, Ranma," she said, catching his blue eyes for a moment with her own dark brown ones. "I figured that you can stop wearing that old one since you're actually employed."
Ranma nodded; her unspoken statement that she wouldn't argue any more meant that the impromptu tea ceremony had worked.
"I'll clean the tea up then," Nodoka said quietly, and Akane helped her without asking. That left Ranma to himself.
He walked over to the window, and leaned against the rice paper wall with a gentle thump. The stars had winked on outside, and the crisp air and cicadas warned of the approaching autumn. He sighed heavily, and finally left to go play with his son.
* * *
Kirika forced herself to breath calmly as Ranma Tendou looked out at the yard inches above her head. Were she not as well trained as he, his fighter's instinct would probably have detected her presence the moment she walked onto his property, but as it was she had suppressed her ki until she didn't exist on the energy level anymore.
It wasn't yet time to abort the mission. She had still to confirm that the youngest Tendou was indeed alive and gifted with unusual intelligence.
It was odd; Altena had requested she do this, at the same time that a message from an anonymous member of Soldats requested that she do it as well. Soldats must have a vested interest in that little boy, Kirika decided.
Part of her was sad. Children like her and Chloë were ripped from their families at childhood the instant they showed potential for fighting ability or strategy. Kirika didn't remember her real family; all she had ever known was Altena, who was firm but kind in her training with Kirika and Chloë. They were Altena's children.
Kirika snuggled into her warm fleece hoodie, and waited for something, anything to indicate that the Tendou son was really the tactical genius he was purported to be.
* * *
Tuck, fold, bend, unfold, tuck. Another one done. On Sara's desk, a crystal jar half filled with tiny paper cranes commanded attention; it was brightly painted with red geraniums, and had a little sign in front of it that said "Last count: 257."
A long time ago, Sara had learned origami in the Demon World from an old, refined youkai courtesan. She'd had a special knack for it, and ever since she'd moved to the Human World with her family last year, she'd been so happy to finally have her chance to fold a thousand paper cranes. When August finally had come, she'd thrown four garlands of tiny cranes onto the memorial.
Youkai like Sara wanted peace more than anything.
She used a block of small, neon memo pads, and folded some of the tinier parts with a toothpick. She'd been working for about two weeks on this jar now; she already had one full jar at home, the cranes strung on a thread, waiting for next year's memorial.
This was her favorite lunch break and after work activity, and also a sort of time passer if things got slow in the office -- which was rare. Since she tried hard to keep Sesshoumaru from having to do any actual work, she ended up doing more than anyone else on his staff. So he didn't mind when he caught her occasionally tossing a new crane into the smaller jar while her nails dried. The little jar would later be counted and emptied into the large one.
It was now almost seven at night, but Sesshoumaru had yet to leave his office. She would wait until he was gone for the day before leaving herself; Mama understood that Sara was a working woman now, and would sometimes be late.
She had just started on another crane when Sesshoumaru's voice came in over the intercom. "Sara, can you come here for a moment?"
"Yes sir," she replied quickly, and set the unfinished crane down. She smoothed her wild, salmon colored hair, touched her lips to make sure the kiss-proof lipstick was still in place, and straightened out her red power suit before quickly trotting over to the office door behind her desk.
She stepped inside and walked in a few steps, waiting to see what Sesshoumaru needed of her. She kept her face calm, although her breathing slightly quickened when she saw the tall, elegant youkai in front of her. He was mostly disguised at the moment, with his stripes and moon invisible, although his hair was loose.
"Sara," he began, leaning back and adjusting the tiny reading glasses he occasionally wore, "how old are you?"
She blinked. She hadn't been expecting that question at all.
"Ninety four years old, sir," she said. Still the flush of youth in a demon's timescale. Were she a human, her creamy skin would be papery and wrinkled, her back bent with age, her lovely dark pink hair yellow and white. As it was, she didn't look a day over twenty.
"It just occurred to me that when I first met you, you were ten years older than I was."
Sara blinked again, and gave in the urge to laugh softly. "Time travel tends to do that to people. And now you're four hundred years older than I am, more or less."
He nodded. "More or less."
"Is that all you needed, Sesshoumaru-sama?"
She looked at him expectantly, wondering why he had thought to ask her that all of a sudden. He stood up and walked around the desk, grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her.
She was so startled that she didn't even fight back; not that she'd ever fight him off, but this was all so sudden that it couldn't be proper at all.
He only kissed her for a few moments before breaking it, and looking down at her face with a faint glitter in his usually cold eyes. "I should have done that in the Sengoku Jidai."
She shook her head no. "You weren't ready. Rin told me about Makoto; and even though it had only been sixty years before, it was still too fresh, I'm sure. I'm just happy that I was able to meet Sesshoumaru again."
He stared at the wall behind her, and spoke in a fond, but sad voice. "Makoto was the sunshine that thawed my frozen heart back then. I was lucky to have her for as long as I did." He sighed. "I blamed humans for her death, and deep inside, I blamed her. For being a hanyou. For being weak." He kissed Sara's forehead, and dropped his arms around her in a genuine embrace. "Shortly after that my father died as well, leaving another halfling to suffer the same fate as Makoto. Lucky for that one, he fell in love with a human, not a demon."
"Humans and demons in love can will always lead to tragedy," Sara quoted in agreement. She chuckled bitterly, thinking of her old unrequited love for Michael. "Angels and demons, too, for that matter."
"Nowadays, the risks are almost forgotten. It is good that my half-brother picked someone from this time to seal him up in the past. I can use him as the example of what dangers like in interbreeding. He's strong enough to survive what both worlds could throw at him, unlike most hanyou."
"Surely it's not so dangerous now," Sara argued.
"It is more dangerous than ever." Sesshoumaru's expression darkened. "A human must never marry a youkai ever again."
* * *
Tendou Dojo
* * *
The shougi battle had almost finished. Soun Tendou stared at it with the concentration of someone ten times his age. He had run over to the game as soon as he dad had gone through a few very basic kata instructions with him, which seemed to please his father so Sounma played along. He DID like the things his parents did; they were great fun, but not quite as much fun as watching his grandfathers fight an imaginary war with a virtual army of stone.
Slide, pause. His maternal grandfather paused and made a thinking noise.
"Dinner's ready!" Nodoka called quietly.
"Well, Tendou, we should end this game quickly." Genma started to slide one of his warriors across the board, but a small, involuntary noise from Sounma caused both him and Soun to jump.
"No?" Genma said, not lifting his finger from the tile.
Sounma shook his head in denial. Advancing that tile would not help Genma at all.
"Then where?"
"Here." Sounma pointed to another tile, and then pointed to the position it needed to advance to on the board. The new position would endanger two of the enemy tiles while leaving none of the friendly tiles vulnerable.
The two older men looked at what their grandson was suggesting, and thought carefully. Genma slowly slid the tile he was touching back into place, and did as his grandson instructed instead.
"Oh," Soun said. "No fair, Saotome, taking help from the boy."
Genma smirked. "That's my grandson," he said, and ruffled Sounma's hair.
Sounma giggled and clambered up to his feet, stretching his little legs. "Should I help you more?" he offered. "I can see the whole game from here."
Genma and Soun looked at the young child in surprise, then looked at the board . . . then at each other.
"No," they both said at once.
Sounma felt vaguely disappointed, but then his mother came along. "Sounma, these two old men are going to get spoiled if you win their games for them," she said, and swung him onto her hip. "Come along. Your father has hardly seen you all day, and dinner's getting cold."
The two old men looked back at the board in contemplation.
"Looks like I've won, Tendou," Genma said.
"Maybe," Soun answered, and slid another tile up to fight.
* * *
Sony Tower
* * *
Sesshoumaru wasn't sure why he had chosen that moment to finally express himself to Sara. Part of it was most likely what he'd talked about. He needed more than a cover to keep himself from being used as the Eligible Bachelor among high society matchmakers. Sara had functioned well as an appearance mistress, and she had never complained, but it was time to make an honest woman of her, so to speak. The least he could do was actually start a genuine affair for her.
As he nibbled on her neck he remembered their one night of passion back in the Sengoku Jidai. She had fallen into the well, quite by accident, and landed in the past a few months after Inuyasha had been sealed for the second time. But Sesshoumaru had still been mourning his late wife Makoto. He still mourned her every day; every time he saw a cat, every time he saw a blonde, every time he saw his half brother. He had been afraid that he'd broken Sara's heart when she ran away the next day and never returned. He knew she was from the future, and had vowed to live on until the day he could see her again.
So many of the things came to fruition just like Makoto and Sara had both predicted that Sesshoumaru's passage through the centuries seemed to go by quickly. After the Second World War, he had decided to play around in electronics for the first time, and had been instrumental in re-establishing contact between the Human World and the Demon World. Even now, a youkai family wishing to live on this side of the daemons needed a visa, but the process for acquiring one was far, far easier than it had ever been. The youkai wanted to move back.
And therein lay the danger. Humans and youkai mingling freely produced hanyou, and hanyou were often so deformed that they were stillborn or monstrous in appearance. Inuyasha and other children of taiyoukai were an exception; however, if Inuyasha's youkai blood ever took over again, he'd be reduced to a snarling monster fit only to be destroyed. There was no love lost between Sesshoumaru and his little brother, but he didn't want Inuyasha to die either, not when he'd finally discovered love with a human.
Sara and Sesshoumaru had half stumbled, half danced their way to his desk as they kissed like teenagers. She was sitting on his high antique desk, her legs dangling off it in her sheer taupe stockings. She had kicked off her shoes, and then arranged them neatly together on the floor with her toes, all way working the knot on Sesshoumaru's necktie.
"I'm glad you waited for me," she whispered again, her sky blue eyes darkened to a royal color with passion.
"I'm glad I did too," he answered solemnly, and reached to unfasten the buttons of her power suit. At that moment the phone in his office began to ring.
The broke apart, confused, since all calls were supposed to be routed to Sara first.
"Who has my private line?" he asked impassively, looking at the phone.
"No one except me! Could someone have hacked into your system?" Sara began straightening his tie, knowing that whatever they had been about to share would have to wait until after business hours. Fraternizing among employees was against company policy, come to think of it.
"We shall find out." He regretfully plucked her off his desk and set her back on the ground. "You may wish to go notify the networking department of the security compromise." He kissed her briefly, and then gently sent her towards the office door. She glanced back at him once, worriedly, and left the room in her bare stockinged feet.
Annoyed, Sesshoumaru sat at his desk, then looked at the caller ID on his office phone.
Ah, he thought. It is one of those times.
The video screen on his desk opened quietly, interrupting the polished oak surface so smoothly that there should have been ripples on the rest of the plane. It unfolded itself so that it stood upright at a comfortable viewing angle, and then the video blinked into existence. On the screen appeared a fireplace, and a view of a few gnarled hands clutching canes in chairs around it. No faces showed.
"Greetings," Sesshoumaru said calmly in English.
"Salutations to you, Lord Sesshoumaru. I trust I am not interrupting something?" the voice on the other end said, the tone in it suggesting that whatever it was that had been interrupted had been unimportant compared to its message.
Sesshoumaru glanced down at Sara's shoes. She hadn't had time to put them on.
"No," he lied.
"Good. We have news from the ambassador of France. It seems that there are certain . . . individuals who would not like to see your game completed, for some reasons that are different from the usual ones."
"Go on," Sesshoumaru prompted.
"It isn't just that the War Games project will make real human wars outdated and obsolete. It's that they will defy traditions that have been passed on through the ages."
"This is no different from you have already told me."
"These groups will send . . . assassins. Highly trained ones."
"Human assassins do not frighten me." Sesshoumaru began to drum his fingers against the desk impatiently. Sometimes the Associates forgot precisely whom they were dealing with.
The link was silent, until someone else cleared his or her throat.
"They do not know your nature yet, Lord Sesshoumaru. But if they learn, well, everyone knows there are ways to kill demons as well."
Sesshoumaru gazed at the innocuous fire, and considered his next words carefully. The Associates believed it was important enough to warn them, and he knew that in these cases, it was best to listen to advice.
"I shall watch my back."
"Very good, Lord Sesshoumaru. And how, may I ask, is the Game itself progressing?"
"We have hired our martial artist models. They will begin recording in a few days."
"Excellent." The fire crackled for a few moments more. "Until next time, Lord Sesshoumaru."
"Next time, you will not be able to hack into my video-phone without my consent." He shut the screen manually, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary, and made a mental note to hire a personal network engineer for his office suite. The Associates had their own resources, and Sesshoumaru was not about to let them outwit him in the bizarre dance of mutual hinting that they engaged in each time they spoke.
Assassins, was it? No human alive would able to seal him except for his brother's human woman, and even then she'd have to use an arrow to do it. Being wounded, on the other hand, might be an . . . inconvenience.
Sesshoumaru sighed to himself, and picked up Sara's little red high-heeled pumps. After more than five hundred years of living in this world, he certainly had his libido under control, but he hated leaving things unfinished.
He carried the heels into the reception area. Sara was diligently typing, her hair still delightfully mussed.
She looked up as soon as she sensed him, and smiled when she saw that he had his shoes. Her little ruby earrings glittered as she moved her head.
"Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama. The networking department is already tracing the hack, but it appears to have been routed through at least twenty computers. It'll be hard to trace."
"Regrettable. Shall I leave these here?" He set the shoes down under the desk, well away from her feet.
"I suppose," she said, a bit confused. He stood up, straightened out his suit, and then plucked her from her chair, swinging her into his arms before she could even squeak in surprise.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?"
He carried her into his office, closed the door, locked it, and carefully unplugged his Ethernet connection.
"There are some things worth waiting for," he said, before returning to where they had been interrupted.
* * *
Luxembourg
* * *
The firelight glimmered in the dark air.
"You've not seen him before, have you?" one of the voices said.
"This was my first time." Nabiki's voice was shaking slightly, but she managed to steady it. "I had no idea they were real . . ."
"Not many humans alive do."
"Don't worry, your sister and brother-in-law are safe. The assassins being sent are not targeted for them."
"As far as we know, anyway," someone corrected.
Nabiki stared at her hand, which was bejeweled and clutching a cane she didn't need. All of the other people around the fire held them as well, although only two of them actually needed them. Appearances were important.
"He's one of the strongest ones alive, too. I've heard rumors that he's been around since the Middle Ages."
Since the Sengoku Jidai in Japan, then. Around five hundred years old.
Part of Nabiki's mind rebelled against that length of time. No one lived for that long; even Happosai wasn't three centuries old as he sometimes claimed, but merely pushing a health hundred. Soldats had warned her, long ago, when she'd first been invited to join their ranks, that many of the conspiracy theorists in the world weren't just blowing hot air. They WERE covering up things.
Not aliens. Just . . . demons.
Nabiki herself had seen firsthand that the old magic from legends still clung to this world. Wasn't her own brother-in-law inflicted with a water curse, one of the most common? Yet magic and actual magical beings were two different things. Magic was passive, around them, in them as ki. Magical beings went against her whole worldview.
"Anyway, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, shall we get down to business? We have much to accomplish tonight, ladies and gentlemen, and only a few brief hours in which to do it. First things first; it is still early evening in England. Please send through a message to Mr. Blair."
Nabiki Kuno had not, however, become one of the richest people in the world by letting herself be ruled by her emotions. She forced the thoughts of the demons out of her head, and joined her fellow Soldats in ruling the world.
* * *
Kamoshita Household, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, Japan
* * *
Not too far from Nerima Ward, in a neighborhood that was not too different from that of the Tendou household, an extremely unusual house stood out from the rows of small middle class dwellings.
It was as if an abstract artist with a fondness for extraordinarily bright colors had decided to try his hand at architecture. The proper basic shape was there; apparently two stories, nice green lawn, with a red gabled roof. Some things simply didn't belong on a Japanese middle class house, however, such as the small Ferris wheel and the whimsical eyes and glass-encased patio mouth.
Kirika blinked. And blinked again. This . . . this was the Kamoshita home? Her research indicated that Kamoshita Yuusuke was a teenager living at home alone with his fiancée's rather eccentric family. It had mentioned nothing about it having been designed by a lunatic.
Shaking her head to clear it, she crept across the lawn, ducked into the bushes, and peered inside the window.
"Hey, Miruru-chan, did Sara say she was going to be late?" a tall, pretty woman asked the girl sitting next to her on an enormous couch. The couch nearly spanned the entire length of the room, and at least half a dozen mismatched people -- they couldn't all be Japanese -- perched upon it, engaged in various activities. The youngest, whom Kirika recognized as Ruka, the genius child who worked at Sony as a designer, was tinkering with some device. Beside her a young man was sipping something -- that had to be tomato juice, it just had to be -- from a martini glass. The Personnel receptionist from Sony was snuggled up against him contentedly, like a cat. She seemed to be wearing fake cat ears and a curly tails as well. Next to them was a giant, ugly hulk of a man with the most unusual skin tone Kirika had ever seen. He actually looked *purple*, and the bizarre color was accented by a garish orange suit. Finally, draped across the end was a very old woman wearing frumpy maroon robes and a witch hat.
The two most normal people in the entire room weren't on the couch, but instead lay on the floor, school books in front of them. The boy, probably Kamoshita, seemed to be explaining something to the girl next to him. For reasons Kirika didn't even want to fathom, she wore a fake halo.
"I think Sara was . . . er, distracted at the office," the cat-girl answered, blushing ever so slightly and winking.
"See, now this is why I don't work. You guys can be kept away from home as long as those slave drivers want you there!" the young man next to her said, downing the rest of his red drink in one gulp. "Since I'm just a volunteer, I can leave whenever I feel like it."
Kirika recalled her notes, trying to match names to faces. The only "volunteer" listed in her information was Gabriel, who worked in a local blood center. Miruru would be his wife. That made the enormous . . . person, the only other male in the room besides Kamoshita, the one known simply as "Papa." Papa had worked odd jobs occasionally, ranging from a manager to a pro wrestler to construction work. He was currently unemployed. The tall pretty woman had to be "Mama," who stayed at home and cooked for the most part but was also the manager for the Suginami city woman's volleyball team. That left Noelle -- Kamoshita's fiancée, obviously the blonde on the floor beside him -- and Ba-chan, the old woman.
There was one missing; Sara, the receptionist for Sesshoumaru, vice president of the games division of Sony. She was obviously still at work.
The family had seemed strange on paper, and she had almost questioned the accuracy of the description, but Altena had assured her gravely that it was no mistake. Yet nothing had prepared her for the reality of the Kamoshita household. Eccentric was not a strong enough word; freakish seemed more fitting.
"Someone has to work, though," Miruru pointed out. "Yuusuke's father stopped paying the mortgage once he saw the house, remember? And there's food . . . and electricity for Ruka's workshop . . . and my cell phone bills . . . magic doesn't buy that sort of stuff, you know." She patted her slightly rounded belly. "Besides, we have a future to think of in this world as well."
"Yeah," Ruka chimed in. "We can't just hop into a daemon every time we need something anymore." She turned a crank on the object she had been tinkering with, and a shower of confetti erupted from the top.
"I still don't like it! I'll never like it!"
"Like it or not, Son," Papa said sternly, "for Noelle's sake we had agreed to never go back. Even now that . . . now, we won't."
Noelle looked up at the sound of her name, giggled, and randomly reached over to kiss Kamoshita.
The cozy family scene caused a pang of longing in Kirika's heart. Right now, if she weren't on a mission, she'd be doing her afternoon exercises with Altena and Chloë, reading about the latest exploits of the mysterious assassin Mireille Bouquet, or studying with the sisters of Altena's order. But because Soldats had asked Altena, and Altena couldn't refuse, both she and Chloë were currently out in the world, doing Soldats' dirty work.
Kirika sank down further into the shadows, and suddenly wondered what a "daemon" was.
Voices drifted up from the street. Kirika spared a glance, and then stared when she saw the last family member, Sara, being escorted by none other than the Vice President himself. He worked under a pseudonym but everyone in Soldats knew him by what was apparently his real name -- Sesshoumaru.
The moonlight hid most of their features, but Kirika could see that both of them fit in strangely well with the bizarre family she was spying on; Sara with her odd, fluffy salmon hair, and Sesshoumaru with his long mane of silver. Upon closer inspection, he seemed to have two dark scars on his face as well, extending from his ear to halfway down his cheekbone on the side facing her. Kirika frowned. None of her notes had mentioned such a disfigurement, and she couldn't recall seeing them in any photographs.
"Are you sure it is all right for this Sesshoumaru to make an unannounced visit?" he asked Sara solemnly as they walked up the drive.
"Of course," Sara said, giving her hair a toss over the shoulder. "Mama and Papa so rarely get company of our kind, they'll be just thrilled to meet you."
Our kind? Kirika thought as Sara stepped up onto the porch only a few feet away from her. What did she mean by "our kind?"
At that moment Sesshoumaru looked at the bushes. Kirika suppressed her breathing, dampened down her anxiety, and willed herself into invisibility. The cold comfort of a gun against her hip reassured her, but the stare lobbied in her direction was not accidental.
He knew she was there.
The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled in alarm. Still, she did not move. She swore that his nose seemed to quiver, and she had the distinct feeling of being . . . hunted.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, are you all right?" Sara asked, her hand on the door handle. She looked at him in concern.
Tearing his gaze away, Sesshoumaru gave the foreign woman a quick nod. "I am well. Although I believe your family may will to invest in an exterminator. There seems to be some minor infestation of some sort."
"Really? Huh, we'll just get Ruka to fix something . . . Mama, Papa, I'm home!"
They entered the house, and from the shouting and hugging inside, everyone was quite pleased to see them.
Kirika's heart continued to beat a staccato for several minutes. What had *happened* just now? From her hiding place only someone who was directly in front of her should have been able to see her. She wore muted colors, and her hair was dark enough to blend in with any shadow. But Sesshoumaru had known she was there. He hadn't betrayed her presence, however, which was very careless of him. She WAS a trained assassin. Had she been asked, she could have leveled the gun to his heart at any moment and killed him . . . no doubt there was a bounty on him, probably several from different organizations in fact. Surely he had more care for his personal safety.
But Altena had not asked her to kill anyone here. She was merely to observe for the moment, and report back what she saw.
Shaken, Kirika scurried out of the bushes, ready to leave the strange, strange Kamoshita household.
* * *
Mama had not been expecting three of her children's employer to be there for dinner, or else she would have made something fancier. As it was, her cuisine was fortunately geared toward mostly a demon appetite, with only a few more human dishes for Noelle and Yuusuke.
Her famous eyeball loaf stood proudly next to blood pudding and squiggly hair pasta. They would have Jasmine jelly and sprynock hearts for dessert. As a rule she avoided some of the more grisly recipes she knew, because they tended to spoil Yuusuke's appetite (Noelle never questioned them in her innocence.) Yuusuke had turned green the first time she explained the full range of ingredients for eyeball loaf, and had refused to eat anything besides rice for a week.
Papa, sitting on the couch, was grilling Sesshoumaru on the rigors of his job.
"So you were there at the beginning of Sony, correct?"
Sesshoumaru nodded, willing to play along for the moment. Being surrounded by other demons in a home environment was not something he'd had much opportunity to do over the centuries, but he felt very comfortable here. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I had prior knowledge that as a company Sony would succeed." The demon lord sipped from a cup of tea, and glanced down at the human teenagers, as if to ask whether he would be allowed to speak freely.
"Yuusuke and Noelle know," Sara put in quickly. "Remember, we raised Noelle from birth . . . she's hardly known anything but our world."
He continued. "Once we installed the daemons in the seventies, our division of Sony was allowed to grow unhindered by the constraints of space. Even now only a few of the higher positions in Sony are aware of just how large of an employment base we have. Much of that is due to . . . certain projects that are kept entirely secret."
"Ah, proprietary information," Papa said, sounding more jovially ignorant than he actually seemed; it was probably just an act. It was something, Sara had explained, that they had done for Noelle's sake. A human girl -- well, more precisely an angel girl -- needed to be protected from the darker aspects of the demon world. Rather than confuse her as a child with things that she might not understand, the demons in her family had feigned ignorance of most of the stranger things around them. Noelle had never once questioned their family's differences from the other youkai families in the Demon World, and even now in the Human World she didn't question much.
Unfortunately, the act had become so ingrained that Mama and Papa had almost forgotten how to talk normally. Of the family, only Ruka was frank with Noelle, because she had realized early on that Noelle was grandly oblivious to anything but the light. It was part of her nature, since her own darkness had been ripped from her at birth.
"Dinner's ready!" Mama called from the dining room. "Sesshoumaru-sama, I added the drop-leaf so that there will be room for you. You can sit between Sara-chan and Ruka." She glanced at the human and angel, who had both risen groggily from the land of high school entrance exams. Sesshoumaru had hitherto ignored them, and he realized that she had seated him between two full demons for a reason.
He'd long ago grown accustomed to humans, but not all demons were like him. He appreciated her tact.
He liked Sara's family. He liked them a great deal. They were so different from the only other family he'd known . . . his father, who had buried his mother a few brief months after his birth . . . his father's second human wife, who had been two years younger than Sesshoumaru . . . Makoto, the sunshine that had flickered only briefly before the long winter of the feudal age settled in.
This family was colorful and open. There were no fears of territorial squabbles ripping them apart, no dangers of other youkai attacking and challenging them, killing their father and brother and sisters. The youkai civilization had not only matured beyond the human civilization, it had surpassed it.
"Ten-yen for your thoughts?" Sara offered him with a faint grin.
"I was just thinking," Sesshoumaru said with a raised eyebrow, "that the aforementioned conversation could not have taken place a hundred years ago. I believe one of the humans would have been eaten."
Sara laughed, the silvery sound echoing through the cavernous house before she escorted him to the dining room.
* * *
End chapter 3
I've been trying to avoid spoilers for the plot of Tenshi ni Narumon since only the first six episodes are currently available in the US. For that reason, about half the characters have been stripped for the purposes of this fic -- Michael, Raphael, Silky, Eros, Muse, and Natsumi will not be making any appearances. (Silky's character changes so much throughout the series that any mere mention of her constitutes a spoiler!) Even then, there are certain things that I had to give away for the purposes of narrative. Obviously, Noelle was an angel baby adopted by a family of demons, who gave up their lives in the Demon World to give her a safer life in the Human World. (Safer from what . . . is a spoiler.)
Anyway, enjoy chapter 3 of War Games!
Tendou Dojo, Nerima District, Tokyo
* * *
Outside the Tendou dojo, a lone figure crept alongside the wall, gun in hand. She looked all the world like nothing more than a typical Japanese teenager, except for the gun, with her short-cropped dark brown hair and denim miniskirt.
She paused for a moment when she heard a small movement, then began to move again when she realized it was just fish in the koi pond ahead of her. Her feet squeaked on the grass by accident once, but that was the major extent of evidence she gave to her presence.
No one seemed to sense her here. Good. She put away her gun, glad to know it wasn't needed, and peeked over the windowsill to see the middle generation of Tendous involved in one of their infamous fights.
* * *
"You're BOTH the male and female models? Pervert!" Akane flounced across the living room to plunk down at the table, sulking. She had been in a very good the day before when Ranma had announced his salary, but after his first day of actual work, she wasn't really that pleased with the job description anymore.
"Look, Akane, that's one reason my pay is so high, okay? When I filled out the application, I circled both genders out of force of habit. Upon learning of the nature of my curse, the creepy chick had little yen signs in her eyes. If I were only doing one model, I'd only be making six million yen -- but as it is, they're saving three million yen. That's the same salary as some people make in a whole year. They're doing it for economic reasons."
Ranma sat down next to her, and touched his wife's shoulder gently. Theirs had been a rocky relationship from the get-go, and nine years of living together hadn't smoothed it out any at all. But the taming of his shrew had taught him several things, and the most important thing was that Akane wouldn't listen to reason until someone beside Ranma pointed it out to her.
"That didn't mean you had to accept! You know I hate it when . . . men ogle your female half."
"You and me both," Ranma muttered. Nodoka entered the room, bearing a tea tray, and Ranma shrugged out of the suit top he'd been wearing. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, they'd begin actual modeling soon, and he'd be wearing just a form fitting lycra bodysuit with special tags on it that the three dimension modeling cameras would detect as he moved. At least he'd be out of a suit and tie.
The three of them settled silently into a very informal tea ceremony, and Ranma gave his mother a knowing look. Nodoka was better at handling Akane than anyone, and luring her into the meditative silence of tea forced the girl to think for a bit before yelling anymore.
Sometimes Ranma wondered why Nodoka and Akane got along so well. Perhaps it was Nodoka's patience; almost as infinite as Kasumi's, but with the stronger steel that came with being a true lady of honor. Too bad they were all so poor; Nodoka Saotome had been dressed in finery as a child, and it was only her bad luck that the man who had married into her clan had failed as a provider. She still wore her worn out kimono proudly, even if the silk was mended and the embroidery beginning to fray.
It made Ranma feel a little better, knowing that with the income from his job, they'd be able to fix up the dojo and give Nodoka the sort of lifestyle a lady of her original rank deserved. It was the least he could do for the way she handled his temperamental wife.
Finally, after at least fifteen minutes of gently sipping at tea with only the cool wind of the night air and the sliding of shougi tiles across the room to break the silence, Akane spoke again.
"I went out and bought you a new suit, Ranma," she said, catching his blue eyes for a moment with her own dark brown ones. "I figured that you can stop wearing that old one since you're actually employed."
Ranma nodded; her unspoken statement that she wouldn't argue any more meant that the impromptu tea ceremony had worked.
"I'll clean the tea up then," Nodoka said quietly, and Akane helped her without asking. That left Ranma to himself.
He walked over to the window, and leaned against the rice paper wall with a gentle thump. The stars had winked on outside, and the crisp air and cicadas warned of the approaching autumn. He sighed heavily, and finally left to go play with his son.
* * *
Kirika forced herself to breath calmly as Ranma Tendou looked out at the yard inches above her head. Were she not as well trained as he, his fighter's instinct would probably have detected her presence the moment she walked onto his property, but as it was she had suppressed her ki until she didn't exist on the energy level anymore.
It wasn't yet time to abort the mission. She had still to confirm that the youngest Tendou was indeed alive and gifted with unusual intelligence.
It was odd; Altena had requested she do this, at the same time that a message from an anonymous member of Soldats requested that she do it as well. Soldats must have a vested interest in that little boy, Kirika decided.
Part of her was sad. Children like her and Chloë were ripped from their families at childhood the instant they showed potential for fighting ability or strategy. Kirika didn't remember her real family; all she had ever known was Altena, who was firm but kind in her training with Kirika and Chloë. They were Altena's children.
Kirika snuggled into her warm fleece hoodie, and waited for something, anything to indicate that the Tendou son was really the tactical genius he was purported to be.
* * *
Tuck, fold, bend, unfold, tuck. Another one done. On Sara's desk, a crystal jar half filled with tiny paper cranes commanded attention; it was brightly painted with red geraniums, and had a little sign in front of it that said "Last count: 257."
A long time ago, Sara had learned origami in the Demon World from an old, refined youkai courtesan. She'd had a special knack for it, and ever since she'd moved to the Human World with her family last year, she'd been so happy to finally have her chance to fold a thousand paper cranes. When August finally had come, she'd thrown four garlands of tiny cranes onto the memorial.
Youkai like Sara wanted peace more than anything.
She used a block of small, neon memo pads, and folded some of the tinier parts with a toothpick. She'd been working for about two weeks on this jar now; she already had one full jar at home, the cranes strung on a thread, waiting for next year's memorial.
This was her favorite lunch break and after work activity, and also a sort of time passer if things got slow in the office -- which was rare. Since she tried hard to keep Sesshoumaru from having to do any actual work, she ended up doing more than anyone else on his staff. So he didn't mind when he caught her occasionally tossing a new crane into the smaller jar while her nails dried. The little jar would later be counted and emptied into the large one.
It was now almost seven at night, but Sesshoumaru had yet to leave his office. She would wait until he was gone for the day before leaving herself; Mama understood that Sara was a working woman now, and would sometimes be late.
She had just started on another crane when Sesshoumaru's voice came in over the intercom. "Sara, can you come here for a moment?"
"Yes sir," she replied quickly, and set the unfinished crane down. She smoothed her wild, salmon colored hair, touched her lips to make sure the kiss-proof lipstick was still in place, and straightened out her red power suit before quickly trotting over to the office door behind her desk.
She stepped inside and walked in a few steps, waiting to see what Sesshoumaru needed of her. She kept her face calm, although her breathing slightly quickened when she saw the tall, elegant youkai in front of her. He was mostly disguised at the moment, with his stripes and moon invisible, although his hair was loose.
"Sara," he began, leaning back and adjusting the tiny reading glasses he occasionally wore, "how old are you?"
She blinked. She hadn't been expecting that question at all.
"Ninety four years old, sir," she said. Still the flush of youth in a demon's timescale. Were she a human, her creamy skin would be papery and wrinkled, her back bent with age, her lovely dark pink hair yellow and white. As it was, she didn't look a day over twenty.
"It just occurred to me that when I first met you, you were ten years older than I was."
Sara blinked again, and gave in the urge to laugh softly. "Time travel tends to do that to people. And now you're four hundred years older than I am, more or less."
He nodded. "More or less."
"Is that all you needed, Sesshoumaru-sama?"
She looked at him expectantly, wondering why he had thought to ask her that all of a sudden. He stood up and walked around the desk, grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her.
She was so startled that she didn't even fight back; not that she'd ever fight him off, but this was all so sudden that it couldn't be proper at all.
He only kissed her for a few moments before breaking it, and looking down at her face with a faint glitter in his usually cold eyes. "I should have done that in the Sengoku Jidai."
She shook her head no. "You weren't ready. Rin told me about Makoto; and even though it had only been sixty years before, it was still too fresh, I'm sure. I'm just happy that I was able to meet Sesshoumaru again."
He stared at the wall behind her, and spoke in a fond, but sad voice. "Makoto was the sunshine that thawed my frozen heart back then. I was lucky to have her for as long as I did." He sighed. "I blamed humans for her death, and deep inside, I blamed her. For being a hanyou. For being weak." He kissed Sara's forehead, and dropped his arms around her in a genuine embrace. "Shortly after that my father died as well, leaving another halfling to suffer the same fate as Makoto. Lucky for that one, he fell in love with a human, not a demon."
"Humans and demons in love can will always lead to tragedy," Sara quoted in agreement. She chuckled bitterly, thinking of her old unrequited love for Michael. "Angels and demons, too, for that matter."
"Nowadays, the risks are almost forgotten. It is good that my half-brother picked someone from this time to seal him up in the past. I can use him as the example of what dangers like in interbreeding. He's strong enough to survive what both worlds could throw at him, unlike most hanyou."
"Surely it's not so dangerous now," Sara argued.
"It is more dangerous than ever." Sesshoumaru's expression darkened. "A human must never marry a youkai ever again."
* * *
Tendou Dojo
* * *
The shougi battle had almost finished. Soun Tendou stared at it with the concentration of someone ten times his age. He had run over to the game as soon as he dad had gone through a few very basic kata instructions with him, which seemed to please his father so Sounma played along. He DID like the things his parents did; they were great fun, but not quite as much fun as watching his grandfathers fight an imaginary war with a virtual army of stone.
Slide, pause. His maternal grandfather paused and made a thinking noise.
"Dinner's ready!" Nodoka called quietly.
"Well, Tendou, we should end this game quickly." Genma started to slide one of his warriors across the board, but a small, involuntary noise from Sounma caused both him and Soun to jump.
"No?" Genma said, not lifting his finger from the tile.
Sounma shook his head in denial. Advancing that tile would not help Genma at all.
"Then where?"
"Here." Sounma pointed to another tile, and then pointed to the position it needed to advance to on the board. The new position would endanger two of the enemy tiles while leaving none of the friendly tiles vulnerable.
The two older men looked at what their grandson was suggesting, and thought carefully. Genma slowly slid the tile he was touching back into place, and did as his grandson instructed instead.
"Oh," Soun said. "No fair, Saotome, taking help from the boy."
Genma smirked. "That's my grandson," he said, and ruffled Sounma's hair.
Sounma giggled and clambered up to his feet, stretching his little legs. "Should I help you more?" he offered. "I can see the whole game from here."
Genma and Soun looked at the young child in surprise, then looked at the board . . . then at each other.
"No," they both said at once.
Sounma felt vaguely disappointed, but then his mother came along. "Sounma, these two old men are going to get spoiled if you win their games for them," she said, and swung him onto her hip. "Come along. Your father has hardly seen you all day, and dinner's getting cold."
The two old men looked back at the board in contemplation.
"Looks like I've won, Tendou," Genma said.
"Maybe," Soun answered, and slid another tile up to fight.
* * *
Sony Tower
* * *
Sesshoumaru wasn't sure why he had chosen that moment to finally express himself to Sara. Part of it was most likely what he'd talked about. He needed more than a cover to keep himself from being used as the Eligible Bachelor among high society matchmakers. Sara had functioned well as an appearance mistress, and she had never complained, but it was time to make an honest woman of her, so to speak. The least he could do was actually start a genuine affair for her.
As he nibbled on her neck he remembered their one night of passion back in the Sengoku Jidai. She had fallen into the well, quite by accident, and landed in the past a few months after Inuyasha had been sealed for the second time. But Sesshoumaru had still been mourning his late wife Makoto. He still mourned her every day; every time he saw a cat, every time he saw a blonde, every time he saw his half brother. He had been afraid that he'd broken Sara's heart when she ran away the next day and never returned. He knew she was from the future, and had vowed to live on until the day he could see her again.
So many of the things came to fruition just like Makoto and Sara had both predicted that Sesshoumaru's passage through the centuries seemed to go by quickly. After the Second World War, he had decided to play around in electronics for the first time, and had been instrumental in re-establishing contact between the Human World and the Demon World. Even now, a youkai family wishing to live on this side of the daemons needed a visa, but the process for acquiring one was far, far easier than it had ever been. The youkai wanted to move back.
And therein lay the danger. Humans and youkai mingling freely produced hanyou, and hanyou were often so deformed that they were stillborn or monstrous in appearance. Inuyasha and other children of taiyoukai were an exception; however, if Inuyasha's youkai blood ever took over again, he'd be reduced to a snarling monster fit only to be destroyed. There was no love lost between Sesshoumaru and his little brother, but he didn't want Inuyasha to die either, not when he'd finally discovered love with a human.
Sara and Sesshoumaru had half stumbled, half danced their way to his desk as they kissed like teenagers. She was sitting on his high antique desk, her legs dangling off it in her sheer taupe stockings. She had kicked off her shoes, and then arranged them neatly together on the floor with her toes, all way working the knot on Sesshoumaru's necktie.
"I'm glad you waited for me," she whispered again, her sky blue eyes darkened to a royal color with passion.
"I'm glad I did too," he answered solemnly, and reached to unfasten the buttons of her power suit. At that moment the phone in his office began to ring.
The broke apart, confused, since all calls were supposed to be routed to Sara first.
"Who has my private line?" he asked impassively, looking at the phone.
"No one except me! Could someone have hacked into your system?" Sara began straightening his tie, knowing that whatever they had been about to share would have to wait until after business hours. Fraternizing among employees was against company policy, come to think of it.
"We shall find out." He regretfully plucked her off his desk and set her back on the ground. "You may wish to go notify the networking department of the security compromise." He kissed her briefly, and then gently sent her towards the office door. She glanced back at him once, worriedly, and left the room in her bare stockinged feet.
Annoyed, Sesshoumaru sat at his desk, then looked at the caller ID on his office phone.
Ah, he thought. It is one of those times.
The video screen on his desk opened quietly, interrupting the polished oak surface so smoothly that there should have been ripples on the rest of the plane. It unfolded itself so that it stood upright at a comfortable viewing angle, and then the video blinked into existence. On the screen appeared a fireplace, and a view of a few gnarled hands clutching canes in chairs around it. No faces showed.
"Greetings," Sesshoumaru said calmly in English.
"Salutations to you, Lord Sesshoumaru. I trust I am not interrupting something?" the voice on the other end said, the tone in it suggesting that whatever it was that had been interrupted had been unimportant compared to its message.
Sesshoumaru glanced down at Sara's shoes. She hadn't had time to put them on.
"No," he lied.
"Good. We have news from the ambassador of France. It seems that there are certain . . . individuals who would not like to see your game completed, for some reasons that are different from the usual ones."
"Go on," Sesshoumaru prompted.
"It isn't just that the War Games project will make real human wars outdated and obsolete. It's that they will defy traditions that have been passed on through the ages."
"This is no different from you have already told me."
"These groups will send . . . assassins. Highly trained ones."
"Human assassins do not frighten me." Sesshoumaru began to drum his fingers against the desk impatiently. Sometimes the Associates forgot precisely whom they were dealing with.
The link was silent, until someone else cleared his or her throat.
"They do not know your nature yet, Lord Sesshoumaru. But if they learn, well, everyone knows there are ways to kill demons as well."
Sesshoumaru gazed at the innocuous fire, and considered his next words carefully. The Associates believed it was important enough to warn them, and he knew that in these cases, it was best to listen to advice.
"I shall watch my back."
"Very good, Lord Sesshoumaru. And how, may I ask, is the Game itself progressing?"
"We have hired our martial artist models. They will begin recording in a few days."
"Excellent." The fire crackled for a few moments more. "Until next time, Lord Sesshoumaru."
"Next time, you will not be able to hack into my video-phone without my consent." He shut the screen manually, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary, and made a mental note to hire a personal network engineer for his office suite. The Associates had their own resources, and Sesshoumaru was not about to let them outwit him in the bizarre dance of mutual hinting that they engaged in each time they spoke.
Assassins, was it? No human alive would able to seal him except for his brother's human woman, and even then she'd have to use an arrow to do it. Being wounded, on the other hand, might be an . . . inconvenience.
Sesshoumaru sighed to himself, and picked up Sara's little red high-heeled pumps. After more than five hundred years of living in this world, he certainly had his libido under control, but he hated leaving things unfinished.
He carried the heels into the reception area. Sara was diligently typing, her hair still delightfully mussed.
She looked up as soon as she sensed him, and smiled when she saw that he had his shoes. Her little ruby earrings glittered as she moved her head.
"Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama. The networking department is already tracing the hack, but it appears to have been routed through at least twenty computers. It'll be hard to trace."
"Regrettable. Shall I leave these here?" He set the shoes down under the desk, well away from her feet.
"I suppose," she said, a bit confused. He stood up, straightened out his suit, and then plucked her from her chair, swinging her into his arms before she could even squeak in surprise.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?"
He carried her into his office, closed the door, locked it, and carefully unplugged his Ethernet connection.
"There are some things worth waiting for," he said, before returning to where they had been interrupted.
* * *
Luxembourg
* * *
The firelight glimmered in the dark air.
"You've not seen him before, have you?" one of the voices said.
"This was my first time." Nabiki's voice was shaking slightly, but she managed to steady it. "I had no idea they were real . . ."
"Not many humans alive do."
"Don't worry, your sister and brother-in-law are safe. The assassins being sent are not targeted for them."
"As far as we know, anyway," someone corrected.
Nabiki stared at her hand, which was bejeweled and clutching a cane she didn't need. All of the other people around the fire held them as well, although only two of them actually needed them. Appearances were important.
"He's one of the strongest ones alive, too. I've heard rumors that he's been around since the Middle Ages."
Since the Sengoku Jidai in Japan, then. Around five hundred years old.
Part of Nabiki's mind rebelled against that length of time. No one lived for that long; even Happosai wasn't three centuries old as he sometimes claimed, but merely pushing a health hundred. Soldats had warned her, long ago, when she'd first been invited to join their ranks, that many of the conspiracy theorists in the world weren't just blowing hot air. They WERE covering up things.
Not aliens. Just . . . demons.
Nabiki herself had seen firsthand that the old magic from legends still clung to this world. Wasn't her own brother-in-law inflicted with a water curse, one of the most common? Yet magic and actual magical beings were two different things. Magic was passive, around them, in them as ki. Magical beings went against her whole worldview.
"Anyway, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, shall we get down to business? We have much to accomplish tonight, ladies and gentlemen, and only a few brief hours in which to do it. First things first; it is still early evening in England. Please send through a message to Mr. Blair."
Nabiki Kuno had not, however, become one of the richest people in the world by letting herself be ruled by her emotions. She forced the thoughts of the demons out of her head, and joined her fellow Soldats in ruling the world.
* * *
Kamoshita Household, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, Japan
* * *
Not too far from Nerima Ward, in a neighborhood that was not too different from that of the Tendou household, an extremely unusual house stood out from the rows of small middle class dwellings.
It was as if an abstract artist with a fondness for extraordinarily bright colors had decided to try his hand at architecture. The proper basic shape was there; apparently two stories, nice green lawn, with a red gabled roof. Some things simply didn't belong on a Japanese middle class house, however, such as the small Ferris wheel and the whimsical eyes and glass-encased patio mouth.
Kirika blinked. And blinked again. This . . . this was the Kamoshita home? Her research indicated that Kamoshita Yuusuke was a teenager living at home alone with his fiancée's rather eccentric family. It had mentioned nothing about it having been designed by a lunatic.
Shaking her head to clear it, she crept across the lawn, ducked into the bushes, and peered inside the window.
"Hey, Miruru-chan, did Sara say she was going to be late?" a tall, pretty woman asked the girl sitting next to her on an enormous couch. The couch nearly spanned the entire length of the room, and at least half a dozen mismatched people -- they couldn't all be Japanese -- perched upon it, engaged in various activities. The youngest, whom Kirika recognized as Ruka, the genius child who worked at Sony as a designer, was tinkering with some device. Beside her a young man was sipping something -- that had to be tomato juice, it just had to be -- from a martini glass. The Personnel receptionist from Sony was snuggled up against him contentedly, like a cat. She seemed to be wearing fake cat ears and a curly tails as well. Next to them was a giant, ugly hulk of a man with the most unusual skin tone Kirika had ever seen. He actually looked *purple*, and the bizarre color was accented by a garish orange suit. Finally, draped across the end was a very old woman wearing frumpy maroon robes and a witch hat.
The two most normal people in the entire room weren't on the couch, but instead lay on the floor, school books in front of them. The boy, probably Kamoshita, seemed to be explaining something to the girl next to him. For reasons Kirika didn't even want to fathom, she wore a fake halo.
"I think Sara was . . . er, distracted at the office," the cat-girl answered, blushing ever so slightly and winking.
"See, now this is why I don't work. You guys can be kept away from home as long as those slave drivers want you there!" the young man next to her said, downing the rest of his red drink in one gulp. "Since I'm just a volunteer, I can leave whenever I feel like it."
Kirika recalled her notes, trying to match names to faces. The only "volunteer" listed in her information was Gabriel, who worked in a local blood center. Miruru would be his wife. That made the enormous . . . person, the only other male in the room besides Kamoshita, the one known simply as "Papa." Papa had worked odd jobs occasionally, ranging from a manager to a pro wrestler to construction work. He was currently unemployed. The tall pretty woman had to be "Mama," who stayed at home and cooked for the most part but was also the manager for the Suginami city woman's volleyball team. That left Noelle -- Kamoshita's fiancée, obviously the blonde on the floor beside him -- and Ba-chan, the old woman.
There was one missing; Sara, the receptionist for Sesshoumaru, vice president of the games division of Sony. She was obviously still at work.
The family had seemed strange on paper, and she had almost questioned the accuracy of the description, but Altena had assured her gravely that it was no mistake. Yet nothing had prepared her for the reality of the Kamoshita household. Eccentric was not a strong enough word; freakish seemed more fitting.
"Someone has to work, though," Miruru pointed out. "Yuusuke's father stopped paying the mortgage once he saw the house, remember? And there's food . . . and electricity for Ruka's workshop . . . and my cell phone bills . . . magic doesn't buy that sort of stuff, you know." She patted her slightly rounded belly. "Besides, we have a future to think of in this world as well."
"Yeah," Ruka chimed in. "We can't just hop into a daemon every time we need something anymore." She turned a crank on the object she had been tinkering with, and a shower of confetti erupted from the top.
"I still don't like it! I'll never like it!"
"Like it or not, Son," Papa said sternly, "for Noelle's sake we had agreed to never go back. Even now that . . . now, we won't."
Noelle looked up at the sound of her name, giggled, and randomly reached over to kiss Kamoshita.
The cozy family scene caused a pang of longing in Kirika's heart. Right now, if she weren't on a mission, she'd be doing her afternoon exercises with Altena and Chloë, reading about the latest exploits of the mysterious assassin Mireille Bouquet, or studying with the sisters of Altena's order. But because Soldats had asked Altena, and Altena couldn't refuse, both she and Chloë were currently out in the world, doing Soldats' dirty work.
Kirika sank down further into the shadows, and suddenly wondered what a "daemon" was.
Voices drifted up from the street. Kirika spared a glance, and then stared when she saw the last family member, Sara, being escorted by none other than the Vice President himself. He worked under a pseudonym but everyone in Soldats knew him by what was apparently his real name -- Sesshoumaru.
The moonlight hid most of their features, but Kirika could see that both of them fit in strangely well with the bizarre family she was spying on; Sara with her odd, fluffy salmon hair, and Sesshoumaru with his long mane of silver. Upon closer inspection, he seemed to have two dark scars on his face as well, extending from his ear to halfway down his cheekbone on the side facing her. Kirika frowned. None of her notes had mentioned such a disfigurement, and she couldn't recall seeing them in any photographs.
"Are you sure it is all right for this Sesshoumaru to make an unannounced visit?" he asked Sara solemnly as they walked up the drive.
"Of course," Sara said, giving her hair a toss over the shoulder. "Mama and Papa so rarely get company of our kind, they'll be just thrilled to meet you."
Our kind? Kirika thought as Sara stepped up onto the porch only a few feet away from her. What did she mean by "our kind?"
At that moment Sesshoumaru looked at the bushes. Kirika suppressed her breathing, dampened down her anxiety, and willed herself into invisibility. The cold comfort of a gun against her hip reassured her, but the stare lobbied in her direction was not accidental.
He knew she was there.
The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled in alarm. Still, she did not move. She swore that his nose seemed to quiver, and she had the distinct feeling of being . . . hunted.
"Sesshoumaru-sama, are you all right?" Sara asked, her hand on the door handle. She looked at him in concern.
Tearing his gaze away, Sesshoumaru gave the foreign woman a quick nod. "I am well. Although I believe your family may will to invest in an exterminator. There seems to be some minor infestation of some sort."
"Really? Huh, we'll just get Ruka to fix something . . . Mama, Papa, I'm home!"
They entered the house, and from the shouting and hugging inside, everyone was quite pleased to see them.
Kirika's heart continued to beat a staccato for several minutes. What had *happened* just now? From her hiding place only someone who was directly in front of her should have been able to see her. She wore muted colors, and her hair was dark enough to blend in with any shadow. But Sesshoumaru had known she was there. He hadn't betrayed her presence, however, which was very careless of him. She WAS a trained assassin. Had she been asked, she could have leveled the gun to his heart at any moment and killed him . . . no doubt there was a bounty on him, probably several from different organizations in fact. Surely he had more care for his personal safety.
But Altena had not asked her to kill anyone here. She was merely to observe for the moment, and report back what she saw.
Shaken, Kirika scurried out of the bushes, ready to leave the strange, strange Kamoshita household.
* * *
Mama had not been expecting three of her children's employer to be there for dinner, or else she would have made something fancier. As it was, her cuisine was fortunately geared toward mostly a demon appetite, with only a few more human dishes for Noelle and Yuusuke.
Her famous eyeball loaf stood proudly next to blood pudding and squiggly hair pasta. They would have Jasmine jelly and sprynock hearts for dessert. As a rule she avoided some of the more grisly recipes she knew, because they tended to spoil Yuusuke's appetite (Noelle never questioned them in her innocence.) Yuusuke had turned green the first time she explained the full range of ingredients for eyeball loaf, and had refused to eat anything besides rice for a week.
Papa, sitting on the couch, was grilling Sesshoumaru on the rigors of his job.
"So you were there at the beginning of Sony, correct?"
Sesshoumaru nodded, willing to play along for the moment. Being surrounded by other demons in a home environment was not something he'd had much opportunity to do over the centuries, but he felt very comfortable here. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I had prior knowledge that as a company Sony would succeed." The demon lord sipped from a cup of tea, and glanced down at the human teenagers, as if to ask whether he would be allowed to speak freely.
"Yuusuke and Noelle know," Sara put in quickly. "Remember, we raised Noelle from birth . . . she's hardly known anything but our world."
He continued. "Once we installed the daemons in the seventies, our division of Sony was allowed to grow unhindered by the constraints of space. Even now only a few of the higher positions in Sony are aware of just how large of an employment base we have. Much of that is due to . . . certain projects that are kept entirely secret."
"Ah, proprietary information," Papa said, sounding more jovially ignorant than he actually seemed; it was probably just an act. It was something, Sara had explained, that they had done for Noelle's sake. A human girl -- well, more precisely an angel girl -- needed to be protected from the darker aspects of the demon world. Rather than confuse her as a child with things that she might not understand, the demons in her family had feigned ignorance of most of the stranger things around them. Noelle had never once questioned their family's differences from the other youkai families in the Demon World, and even now in the Human World she didn't question much.
Unfortunately, the act had become so ingrained that Mama and Papa had almost forgotten how to talk normally. Of the family, only Ruka was frank with Noelle, because she had realized early on that Noelle was grandly oblivious to anything but the light. It was part of her nature, since her own darkness had been ripped from her at birth.
"Dinner's ready!" Mama called from the dining room. "Sesshoumaru-sama, I added the drop-leaf so that there will be room for you. You can sit between Sara-chan and Ruka." She glanced at the human and angel, who had both risen groggily from the land of high school entrance exams. Sesshoumaru had hitherto ignored them, and he realized that she had seated him between two full demons for a reason.
He'd long ago grown accustomed to humans, but not all demons were like him. He appreciated her tact.
He liked Sara's family. He liked them a great deal. They were so different from the only other family he'd known . . . his father, who had buried his mother a few brief months after his birth . . . his father's second human wife, who had been two years younger than Sesshoumaru . . . Makoto, the sunshine that had flickered only briefly before the long winter of the feudal age settled in.
This family was colorful and open. There were no fears of territorial squabbles ripping them apart, no dangers of other youkai attacking and challenging them, killing their father and brother and sisters. The youkai civilization had not only matured beyond the human civilization, it had surpassed it.
"Ten-yen for your thoughts?" Sara offered him with a faint grin.
"I was just thinking," Sesshoumaru said with a raised eyebrow, "that the aforementioned conversation could not have taken place a hundred years ago. I believe one of the humans would have been eaten."
Sara laughed, the silvery sound echoing through the cavernous house before she escorted him to the dining room.
* * *
End chapter 3