By: Silver Neko
A/N: Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, or any products, movies, or other things mentioned in this fic. Please don't sue me, I'm too young to pay for a lawyer.
Wow! I got my very first review! And it wasn't even a flame! Thank you so much Mija! I shall answer (maybe) some questions my beta-type-reader-person asked me. Or not. Please read and review thank you so much! Please don't flame, but I welcome constructive criticism I do I do!
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I'm looking at this book in front of me blankly, trying to translate the words I am reading. I'm sorry, written languages never were my strongest suit. And besides, I had been experiencing a really different history when that was happening- My home was being moved into by more and more humans, and I was barely old enough to do a small concealing spell to hide from the murderous (not to mention Christian) humans. I think I may have been slightly delusional when I came up with the idea to go to school.
This past week has been absolutely full of surprises. I came home completely drained every day this week, thanks to some stupid regulation that I have to wear this Sailor suit outfit they call a uniform. So much bare skin to cover up with my spells. And the worst part? My spells are being worn away at by a certain priestess-wannabe I could name. She's called Kagome, and I seem to be spending all of my time dodging her, and all of the questions dancing on her tongue. I have both Japanese history and English with her, and the only empty seat was right next to her in both. Needless to say, dodging this girl's questions is about to drive me crazy. And that pretty little round and pink jewel... It radiates so much power, I'm surprised that the normal humans don't see it. My paws are absolutely itching to steal it, just thinking about it. Uncomfortable questions keep me from doing so. Where's her kit? The hanyou mutt-face? I honestly can't say.
At least I'm not alone in being a transfer student, although this particular group of people aren't half as lost as I am, because Japanese is their native language. Strange that they're all guys, But one of them is... *gasp* a youkai! I only have art with him, but that's okay by me. It's almost like he's not even wearing a concealing spell... like the silver kitsune I'm seeing every now and then is actually another part of our redheaded cutie. Personally, I prefer his silver look... He has such a beautiful.. Erm... tail! That's the word I was looking for. Tail. It's really too bad he's not the one in history and English, instead of the girl. Then again, it's probably best. He probably has questions to rival hers. Ugh. Unfortunately, there's at least one of them in every class I have. The worst part? I'm almost always stuck next to this orange-haired freak, who keeps staring at me. I've caught him, several times. In the classes where his brown-haired friend are with him, he gets an elbow in the gut, and the other guy whispers something about a "Yukina."
It's barely the weekend- why do they have school on Saturdays? Today's Sunday, and I'm cooped up in this little shoebox of an apartment, doing homework. I've had to 'borrow' money for my rent quite a few times. I'm a good neko, honest! I only steal from the people who have enough to spare. And then, I only steal enough yen to keep ahead of my rent on the barely-used room. I generally hide out in this wooded area, just outside the city. The wooded area is frequented by this really annoying reptile hanyou, who I generally try to avoid. Just because I'm good at fighting doesn't mean I want to have to stave off some brute like that.
Ugh... I have no concealing spell on today, the door is locked, and I am pretending there is no one alive in this room. I have a suspicion I'm being watched through the window by... something... with a distinctly black aura, but I'm about to take a catnap, and my homework be damned. I seem to have forgotten that my spirit energy was as limited as it is, and I need to replenish it. Maybe I'll just forget about that assignment. I doze off without even thinking about it, and I'm in dream land.
********Dream Land********
I'm a cub again, maybe ten. I'm looking up at my mom, a silvery neko-youkai, and I ask her, "What's a youkai? Why do those new people hate our real-forms so much? What are they?" I was a curious little cub, even then. I still had my silvery markings, then, because I was still a truly happy cub. If I'd only known what would happen that day, I could have told them... I could have saved them, maybe. In my mind, I'm screaming for my younger-self and my mother to leave, go back to our home. But they don't listen, they keep on walking.
My mom pauses as she's walking, and smiles, kneeling down to my height to answer my question. "A youkai is a very special being, who is stronger than the average person. A youkai has all the power to take care of themselves, and they can take care of their family. The truest, closest translation I can give you is that it's a spirit. Your new friends, the ones you meet when I hide your true form from them, are humans, and they have... a very different name for our kind. They would call us demons. I want you to promise me never to walk among them in your true form, Gwenhwyvar, my shadow. Can I ask that of you?" She looked intently into my eyes as she elicited that promise from me. I had really wanted my friends to know my true form, and I didn't know what was so bad about a "demon."
My mother was not one to be denied. Eventually, she got the promise from me, willing, understanding, or not. I was unhappy about it, but she was my mother. Her ears twitch suddenly as we both hear a noise. "Shadow? I want you to run. Go home, and get your father to leave there. We'll be moving again." This was a phrase I'd heard many times, and it almost broke my heart to hear it. "Goodbye, Shadow. I'll see you again, soon."
I took off running, whispering my goodbye around a lump in my throat behind. She smiled one last time, as if she heard me, and I continued running, turning my head away from her. There was a loud boom, my mother screamed once, and I never saw her again. I can only assume she knew. I kept on running, even after I felt the prescence I'd come to think of as "Mom" fade, even after all of my heart wanted to keen its anguish to the world, I kept running. Finally, I reached my home, and, before I could relive the sight that greeted me, I woke, panting, and frightened.
********Dream Land********
I blinked the tears out of my eyes before I could soak the book with my tears. I had fallen asleep on my homework, and I began working on it, after scrubbing my eyes, ignoring the twillight darkness that had crept up on me when I was sleeping. The sight was of my father, shot and bleeding. He had told me, also, to run, and that both he, and my mother, loved me, very much, and would meet again, someday. I left his giant, charcoal black cat form behind, and I had run all the way until I found my aunt, a crafty, witty neko, with dazzling golden eyes, and she taught me the concealing spells, where my parents had taught me to transform. She taught me all I needed to know, really. How to fight, basic math, how to read English. I had loved her, and she loved me, and completely supported my curiousity. She helped me get on with my life, but there was always that gaping hole where my family had been, and all of my silver markings had turned black. I was no longer truly happy, and my golden, lion-like aunt, knew this. She let me go, to a place where there would be no reminders of my family. I learned all of my odd skills on the streets of my new home, and I eventually went to school. When I heard about a transfer program, where I would go to a different country for school for a few years, I jumped at the chance. Everything about this "America" reminded me of my family, even ninety years later.
Back in reality, I blink as I realize that true night has come, my homework is done, and that black aura that was watching me was long gone, off to someplace outside the range of my senses. Fine with me. I'm too tired to need a case of paranoia to keep me from my sleeping. Emoting like that, and after all this week of dodging questions and using spells constantly is enough to drain just about anyone, so I decide to go back to sleep- true sleep, in a bed this time. I pray that I won't have any phantoms of the past haunting me. I need my sleep.
*******The Next Day*******
My invisible watcher came back last night, but I don't care. I pull on the sailor suit, chanting the words to my concealing spell as I do so, and eating a ham sandwich with my free paw between phrases. I've done this before- last Monday, and exactly in the same way. I don't usually wake up at dawn, so my internal alarm tends to hit snooze, and I will end up nearly missing school. Let my invisible watcher think what he will, I'm in too much of a hurry to run at a normal human's pace. I jump out the third story window and land nimbly, running off towards the school, taking just about any means to do so. I am suddenly stopped as I slam head-first into the redheaded guy. I look up at him, slightly dazed. He offers me a hand, as if being run into by a neko going at 60 miles per hour is a normal occurance. I get the feeling silver, who is hiding just behind the redhead's eyes, is laughing his metaphorical head off at me. I accept his offer, mumbling my thanks, a blush speading over my spelled features. My tail would be hanging down in embarassment, if anyone could see it. I take off at full tilt after re-adjusting my backpack, before the kitsune can ask me any questions or anything.
I reach the school, the last of my embarassment fading as I walk to my locker. I re-adjust my hair with the miniature locker-mirror I'd bought, put in the books I don't need and grab what I need for the first couple of classes. I walk into art right as the bell rings. Somehow, red/silver still managed to beat me there. Go figure. The teacher walks in right after I do, and soon he gives us our assignment, after taking roll. "Class, today we will be doing portraits. I will pair you off, and you will draw the person I pair you off with as closely as you can manage. I realize that your drawing may not be good, but save it, like all of the other work. It'll be useful later."
I wait to be paired up with someone, possibly the only girl in the whole room who was thinking Please, don't pair me up with red, there. Please. Of course, I still don't know what red/silver's name is, unlike some of the obsessive girls I've seen. They probably know everything about him, right down to his Social Security number. Naturally, I'm paired up with the single person I could wish on any of those obsessive girls. "Gwena, you'll be paired with Shuuichi." I look around at all the girls glaring at me and wonder who this Shuuichi could possibly be.
Shuuichi? Who the... I realize red is the only person other than me who isn't paired up with anyone, and I get a cold sensation right in the pit of my stomach, like I just swallowed all the ice in an entire bag. Just my luck. "Um... hello, Shuuichi..." I say, probably looking for all the world like a little cub with my hand caught in the cookie jar.
Shuuichi is surprisingly nice about the whole thing, and acts like I wasn't the neko who ran over him just half an hour ago. "Please, miss, call me Kurama. My friends do." Okayyyyyyyyy.... Why? Why does red need a third name? Shuuichi doesn't sound like a kitsune name...
"Okay... Kurama. Well... I suppose we should start drawing- everone else seems to have a head start." I say this as I open a large-ish notebook and pick up my mechanical pencil. He already has his open, and looks for all the world like I stole the words right out of his mouth.
He's sitting across the table from me, and is drawing intently. I, on the other hand, seem to be erasing every few minutes. He notices this, much to my embarrasment, and asks me about it.
"What seems to be the matter? Maybe I could help."
"Ah... It's nothing, I just have some trouble- It's nothing." I was finding it increasingly difficult to draw red, not silver. He's... I dunno how to call it. Flickering, I guess. It's beginning to drive me insane, but I'm not even supposed to know about silver, I bet. Damn, it's confusing, though.
"Trouble with what? You're moving so much that it's making you hard to draw."
"Ah... why do you do that? It's starting to really distract me..."
Silver looks just about as confused as red. "Do what, Gwena?"
"Flicker like that. It's really distracting, and silver there looks different than you-" I shut up- I'd been gradually getting quieter as I'd said this.
Now silver looks like he was hit with a board, and red hardly looks much better. "How do you... How can you see him?"
I'd thought that little could faze the two there. "What? Can't a kitsune like silver is see what I am?" I whispered, uncertainly. "Am I not supposed to know about silver? I'm sorry..."
"..." He looks like he's about to answer, but fortunately for me, the bell rings, and I'm out of there at about the upper limits a human could reach for speed, putting my stuff for art where it was supposed to go, and snatching everything that was really-truly mine at the same speed. I yelled *'Bye, Kurama!* at him, but with my mind, unlike any normal human could.
The next class is Japanese history, and the girl is, fortunately, sick. Thank God. I'm not at all sure if I can deal with both Kagome and Kurama. I'm being watched by that black prescence again, and orange-hair is oogling me. I swear, if he keeps it up, I will hurt him. Severely. And then wipe my claws on his bloody carcass. Where in the nine hells is orange-hair's brown-haired counterpart? I thought he had this class with me, too. I growl at orange-hair. He seems surprised. Must remember that. Or am I pulling a flickering act just like silver? God help me, but I hope I'm not. Wait. No one else is even looking sideways at me. Hel-lo... So weird.
I endure Japanese history to the best of my ability then tackle Japanese. Mister brown-hair-with-a-green-uniform has yet to make an appearance. I do believe he's ditched. Thankfully, orange-hair-conformist takes the hint and stops oogling me.
I take English, next. Kagome is still absent, thank God.
After that, algebra. I don't like math, I would rather not be in algebra, but there it is. Somehow, some way, I was placed in algebra. Not even general math, which is easier, but algebra. Why me. Orange-hair insists on looking at me, even when I growl at him. God, where is his friend? The one who hits him in the gut? This guy is giving me the creeps! I'll just try to ignore him...
Somehow I endure the staring guy. Now, I have lunch. I'm almost terrified that orange-hair will decide to sit next to me. Why does this guy insist on stalking me? I'd even welcome Kurama's or Kagome's questionings right now!
Almost like I'd summoned him, Kurama is sitting next to me. I am now recieving all the glares of every girl in the entire school. Why? Why me? Why am I being glared at? Oh, right. Because a hot guy like Kurama is even looking at me, not them. If they only knew what silver looked like...
Which brings me to my turn at the questioning wheel, apparently. "Why are you sitting by me? There's plenty of fangirls there who would be absolutely dying for your prescence, you know." I snicker a bit, a terribly bad image of Kurama being submerged under a giant pile of all the girls in the school. This is amusing enough that I forget that he's sitting next to me, presumably about to ask me all sorts of uncomfortable questions.
"What's so funny? I hear there are quite a few guys who wouldn't mind your prescence, either." I blush, and growl at him some. This guy didn't normally show any emotion whatsoever, and that comment was made so completely devoid of emotion, you could almost think he was commenting about the weather. Unfortunately, I notice orange-hair staring at me, and vow to beat him to a bloody pulp during gym. But he'd probably like that. Go figure.
I think I'm being glared at by just about every female in this entire school district. If looks were knives, I would most assuredly be sliced into ribbons and used to tie their hair. Disgusting thought, but there it was.
"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, why are you sitting here, and not with your fangirls? I've heard rumors of a club." Another disturbing image- a large, wooden club sporting the words "Shuuichi Minamino Fan Club"* being used to hit Kurama in the back of the head, and some triumphant girl carrying him off like a bag of ice or something. I suppress my laughter here.
Red and silver both look slightly panicked. "Really?"
"I've only hear rumors, mind you. Now, tell me, why are you sitting here and not near any of them?" I demand, patience wearing thin.
"Partly, I'm hiding from the girls you mentioned, but mostly, I'm curious." Oh, great. Here it comes. "Who are you? I can tell you're a neko-youkai, but most of them are either dead, or very conspicuous. Usually both. Since you're not dead, and you're not conspicuous, I don't know anything about you. Another thing: Most youkai I've run into have heard of me, well, know me on sight, more like, yet you don't even know who Youko is, and you've been seeing 'flickers' of him for how long now?" I wonder if he's ever been curious about anything- when he wasn't especially curious about me, I noticed that he wasn't exactly what one would call talkative.
"Well, yeah, I'm a neko-youkai, but I lived in the United States for a long, long, time. And I'm not exactly conspicuous because being conspicuous there generally results in being impaled by religious fanatics. Thanks, but no thanks. And now that I think about it... I may have heard of a kitsune named Youko... He was a great thief, right?" I'm really stretching my memory here, Mom only told me legends from before our family moved across the Atlantic, which was long before I was born. Naturally, I don't know very much about this.
"I don't suppose you've heard of a 'Shikon no Tama,' then?" He asked, hopefully. Wow, I'm reading him better.
"Shikon no whatsa? Nope, I'm afraid I haven't. Why?" Now I was curious. That happens a lot. But it wasn't a stupid curiousity that was bound to kill a very specific cat, it was just a naieve one.
"Shikon no Tama. And there's no reason." I'm guessing there really was a reason, but damn if I knew what it was. I gave up and ate the food I had packed. (If you guessed ham sandwich, you win a prize. Have a ham sandwich! No, I don't like them, but I can't cook anything else.)
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A/N: Okay, there it is. Chapter two is officially done. I don't like leaving people with cliffhangers, did you notice? Also, I'm trying to write longer chapters. Did you notice that? Also... Is it just me, or are there a shocking amount od IYxYYH fics out there? Well... probably just me. But it does seem to be the most common for either one. Probably because it's easy to picture a crossover. See? Why I picked it for my first fic.
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* Special thanks to Mistress of the Sword's Feelings For a Fox, a really good story, for the idea of a fan club, and for a last name for Shuuichi.
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Please review! Thank you!