Chapter 5: Hot Halloween

GRUUUUUMBLE

Nishiki popped up. "Where's the demon!"

A blushing Kokoro punched the back of his head. "That was my stomach!"

"Oh..."

"Ugh, I'm so hungry!" Kokoro whined.

"Your brother won't get paid until tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah.." Kokoro sighed and just stared at the ceiling as she lay on her bed. But after a moment, she sat up. "Come on, Nishiki! Maybe if we're lucky there will be some food in the pantry!"

The two ran downstairs into the kitchen, and Kokoro opened the pantry doors. "Lucky!" There happened to be two cups of instant ramen noodles left. "Looks like it's noodles for lunch, Nishiki!" So they took them out and filled them with water, and then put them in the microwave at the same time. Kokoro set the time to four minutes. "That should do it," said Kokoro. "Come on! We're gonna miss the latest episode of Pokémon!" At that she grabbed Nishiki's arm and dragged him upstairs to their room.

After four minutes had gone by, the microwave beeped, but Kokoro and Nishiki were so absorbed in watching Pokémon that they didn't even hear it. Kodama, however, heard it loud and clear, and when he came into the kitchen to investigate, no one was in sight. But something smelled good. He walked over to the microwave and popped it open.

"Hm, noodles." He took one of the ramen cups and shut the microwave door. "Mmm." At that he walked away, noodles hanging from mouth.

As soon as the commercials went on, Kokoro's stomach reminded them about their noodles. So they stumbled downstairs and ran into the kitchen and popped open the microwave, and they were mortified to find only one precious cup of noodles. "W-Where'd the other noodles go!" Kokoro screamed.

Just then, Kodama walked in. "You mean this?"

"GIMME that!" Kokoro snatched the cup away, only to find out that it was empty. "Kodama! You didn't even leave a single piece of a noodle!"

"Heh. You snooze you lose."

"KODAMA!" She chucked the empty foam cup at his head. It barely made a sound on foamy impact.

"Was that some kind of attack that was supposed to hurt me..?"

"GRRR!" She started beating on his chest with her fists, having no effect on him by the way, until she was interrupted by a loud, disgusting slurping sound. She turned around and saw Nishiki was eating the other noodles.

"NISHIKI! Those are MY noodles!" She started wrestling him for them.

"Nuh uh! I clearly remember that MY noodles had this tiny scratch on the cup, see! See!"

"No I don't see! Why don't you gimme those noodles so I can take a closer look!"

As they kept wrestling on the floor like wild rabid monkeys, Kodama was just trying to figure out how Nishiki had Kokoro in a headlock but Kokoro's foot was in Nishiki's face. "Jeez, they act like three year olds... Umm... Hello..?"

"That's it! I choose you, Charmander! Raah! Feel my fiery breath!" Kokoro called out, pretending to be a Charmander, complete with sound effects and all. "Char! Char!"

"Oh, yeah! Well how about this? I choose you, Pikachu! Piiiiikaaaa..CHUU!"

Kodama sweatdropped. "Are you sure you two aren't three years old..?"

Suddenly, the noodles went flying.

"AAH! YOU SPILLED MY NOODLES!"

"MY NOODLES!"

(A/N: Sorry, had to vent out some hyperness ; )

"Many centuries ago, there lived a woman who was gifted with the power of God. People called her the Holy Maiden. Every step she took, purity followed, and she could grant or take life with one breath. Throughout her life, she stayed in her native village, and the people there loved her very much, for she would cure the sick and grant plentiful crops all year round. People from other villages would also travel many miles to receive her miracles.

But her life was not perfect. She also had the ability to "see" evil, and she was often burdened by it. And although the people of Earth revered her, the demons of Hell despised her, for while she lived, the gates of Hell were closed.

But one day, an evil witch who was insanely jealous of the Holy Maiden managed to break the gates of Hell, unleashing the vast amount of demons that had been locked away for as long as the Holy Maiden had lived. In fact, the demons were so many that the Maiden had to use every bit of her power to destroy them and the witch, and that meant destroying herself along with them.

After the Maiden's remains were gathered, they were forged into a crystal by the Maiden's daughter. The Holy Crystal, as they called it, brought the Maiden's descendants good luck and health. However, now that the Holy Maiden was dead, the gates of Hell remained open, and the Maiden's family was constantly attacked by demons. That is when her family created the art of summoning shikigami.."

Kokoro stood. "Wow, big brother, amazing! So that's how it happened!"

Kodama smirked. "Yes... But I left out one small detail..."

"Huh? What's that?"

"Hehehe... Though the Maiden's remains were cared for, the evil witch's remains were forgotten, and from then on the Holy Maiden's family has been haunted by the evil witch's ghost that seeks revenge! And that family name is... Nagahara! AHH! THE EVIL WITCH IS HERE!"

"EEEEEK!" Kokoro jumped into Nishiki's arms, while Kodama was left laughing his butt off.

"Hahaha! Kokoro you're such a scaredy-cat!"

Kokoro was still holding onto Nishiki as she trembled and her eyes were tightly shut. She finally snapped out of it though when she felt Nishiki's gentle touch and soft voice, "Kokoro.."

"Kodama, you meanie! Why'd you have to make it scary!"

"Oh come on, it wasn't that scary! Besides, it's Halloween!"

Kokoro just frowned at her big brother, until she realized what position she was in. Quickly she jumped out of Nishiki's arms, blushing. Nishiki was also blushing a little.

After an awkward moment of silence, Kodama cleared his throat and said, "Shouldn't you two be getting your costumes on? It's almost time to go trick-or-treating."

"Right! C'mon Nishiki!" Kokoro said, grabbing Nishiki's arm and pulling him to her room.

Just then Kujyo came up beside Kodama. "Shouldn't you be getting your costume too, Master?"

Kodama turned to see Kujyo wearing a bunny ears headband. She smiled at him, but he simply replied, "You know I don't do that kid's stuff."

After a few minutes, Nishiki and Kokoro finally came down. Nishiki was wearing a big Pikachu costume and Kokoro was wearing a Charmander one. Kokoro stood proudly, for she and Nishiki had made their costumes themselves. Kodama, however, was obviously not impressed. "You're positive you guys aren't five years old..?"

"Shut up! You know you used to watch Pokémon when you were a kid too! Come on Nishiki, let's go!" Kokoro said, dragging him by his Pikachu tail, as they grabbed their buckets and went out the door. "Bye!"

Once the door shut, Kujyo moved closer to Kodama and smiled warmly. "I remember when you used to love Pokémon..."

"Shut up."

As Nishiki and Kokoro walked down the streets, they were joined by a large group of other kids from the neighborhood, all in costumes and on a quest for candy.

"Bleh! Bleh! I vant to suck your blood!" said a little guy dressed in a vampire costume to Kokoro.

"Hey, cool! I like your costume," Kokoro replied back to the seemingly hyper kid.

As the night rolled on, Nishiki and Kokoro's buckets became increasingly full of candy, even though they would munch on some whenever possible. And still, this little kid in a vampire costume wouldn't stop bugging Kokoro.

"Bleh! Bleh!"

"Okay, okay! I get it! You're a vampire! Now leave me alone! I'm tryin' to eat candy!"

"But I am going to suck your blood!"

"Dude, you're trying too hard," said Nishiki, with a mouth full of chocolate.

"Yeah, don't you think you're taking this Halloween stuff a little too seriously?" munch munch

"Bleh... Keep your shikigami out of this..."

Both Nishiki and Kokoro were taken aback. They stopped and let all the other kids walk away. "What did you say?" said Nishiki.

The little vampire guy pulled his cape over his face so that only his eyes were showing. "I said... Keep out of this.." His eyes glowed red, "Shikigami..."

Nishiki's eyes turned to slits. "You have got to be kidding me..."

At that, the unusual demon leapt up and flapped his cape, sending out a wave of energy towards the two.

Nishiki quickly covered Kokoro and easily blocked his attack. "Great. Just what we needed on Halloween.. An annoying little demon." At that, Nishiki started chanting his incantation, and before long the demon was vanquished.

Kokoro sighed. "What a lame excuse for a demon.. Now we've lost track of the group because of him! Come on, let's hurry and catch up!"

"Wait!" Nishiki said, and quickly he pulled Kokoro back just in time to avoid a falling tree branch.

"W-What's that!" The tree branch was on fire. The two quickly looked up and saw that some of the trees were burning, and the flames were spreading rapidly.

Suddenly, Kokoro gasped. Nishiki turned instantly. "Kokoro! What-AGH!"

"Agghhh! Nishiki help!" Kokoro's costume was on fire. Without any second thoughts, Nishiki ripped the costume off her, but as soon as he did so, he felt something whisk past him, and soon his costume was on fire too.

After ripping off his costume, he turned towards Kokoro. "Kokoro, are you o... Kokoro!" Kokoro was kneeling on the ground, holding her arm and looking like she was in pain, so Nishiki ran to her side. "Kokoro, what's wrong?"

"Ow... Nishiki... My arm..."

"Here, let me see.." Nishiki carefully got a hold of her arm and noticed it was burned. It pained him to see her hurt, because he was supposed to be there to protect her. He felt even worse for having to rip apart the costumes that they had worked so hard on to make. But shrugging all that stuff out of the way, he decided to start a healing spell on her arm.

However, only a few moments after Nishiki had started the spell, another demon emerged. This time though, the demon was a lot more formidable it seemed.

"A fire demon!" Nishiki said bitterly. Instead of responding verbally, the demon responded with a growl and a fire attack, which Nishiki shielded off. "How dare you... Destroying our beloved costumes is one thing, but hurting Kokoro... That is unforgivable!"

At his words, Kokoro blushed and just watched as Nishiki quickly vanquished the demon with one powerful blow...

"Kokoro, are you alright? Does your arm still hurt?" Nishiki asked tenderly.

"A little..."

Nishiki gently helped Kokoro up, and they started walking home. But as they walked, little did they know that they were being watched by two beady red eyes. The eyes of a crow that seemed ordinary enough. But as the two turned around the corner and escaped the bird's sight, it crowed and flapped its jet black wings until it was flying. From there, the crow flew to one particular tree, and landed on the arm of a dark, yet familiar cloaked figure. A few strands of curly, pink hair escaped from the cover of the cloak. The bird made a crowing noise again.

"Hm, what did you see, pretty crow?" Asked the feminine voice. Upon looking into the crow's eyes, she could see Kokoro and Nishiki talking. "Feh, what does he see in her? She's just a human... All humans are worthless.. I don't know why the rest of my kind hasn't figured that out yet!" she said coldly. "Ah well.." She gently stroked the crow's back. "Soon, we won't have to worry about any humans, will we?"

The crow made a shriek as it suddenly flew away, literally disappearing into the dark sky.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry..."

"It's okay..."

Kokoro and Nishiki were now at home, in their room, and Nishiki was tending to Kokoro's burn. Even with magic a burn was still hard to heal, so Nishiki was resorting to the old fashioned stuff.

After her bandages were wrapped, Kokoro spoke. "Thank you... for everything, Nishiki..."

He smiled. "It's no problem." He started putting away all the stuff from the first-aid kit, and when he turned to Kokoro again, she looked away.

"Won't... you come and sit next to me?.." She was blushing just little.

Nishiki stayed still for a moment, but he was happy to meet her request. He crawled onto the bed and sat beside her. Since her bed was so close to the wall, they could sit up against the wall with their pillows for cushioning.

"That is unforgivable!" The phrase was ringing through Kokoro's mind as she reflected upon that scene. Suddenly, Kokoro's eyes closed and she leaned against Nishiki's warm shoulder and drifted off into sleep. She was truly exhausted. "Nishiki..." she said softly in her sleep.

Nishiki smiled warmly at the sleeping girl and cuddled closer, closing his eyes as well...

THE NEXT DAY

"Ooowwww! My arm is better but my teeth huuuuurt!" Kokoro whined.

"Mine too!" Nishiki whined back.

"Well, that's what you two get for eating so much candy," Kodama said plainly as the two continued moaning all over the place.

Kokoro started crying like a baby. "Ohh... Why does everything always have to happen to me?"

Cute chappie, ne? Reviews!

I really should do fanart for this chapter, but, I'm too lazy right now! .