Disclaimer: Thanks for not suing, it's been a blast borrowing the Yu Yu gang.
Chapter 9: Meikou High
…Bri…
I took quite possibly the deepest breath I'd ever taken in my fifteen long years as Bridget Kokomo Wolf, half-fox Empathe twin of Okuro "Kuronue" Marion Wolf. I stared up at Meikou High School, no longer just the daughter of the former math teacher and good friend to the new (well, sorta new), not just related to half the teachers. I was now a freshman student of Meikou High School once again.
It was here that this entire thing really started. I tugged at the short red skirt of the uniform, trying to cover my legs. Kuronue sidled up to me, his hair just slightly longer than mine. He wore the red men's uniform well, almost a patriotic visage for our good country. His skin was pasty white, while mine was slightly darker. I stared at my fingers, whiter than his skin around the handle of my suitcase bag.
"Don't worry about it," Kuronue said. "It's not like anything bad's going to happen just by going to a school." We learned that in preschool, remember? He added in our minds. I grinned up at him.
"You're right, as always."
"I am older by four minutes."
I scowled. He always brought that up, ever since he found out how much it'd bugged me that I hadn't been quicker. But of course, I couldn't say that aloud. I fired my retaliation back in our minds.
It's not like I had a choice, bat boy.
I'm not a "bat boy" anymore, little sister.
I scowled deeper and led the way through the double doors as my answer. Who should be my first class and homeroom teacher but the one and only Gun Wa Wolf? I smiled at my uncle and threw an arm over his shoulders.
"Hey, Toguro-sensei," I said playfully. "Are you going to pick on me again?"
"Be glad no one else is here yet, Bri," he chuckled darkly. "And no, I have no plans on reenacting the first time you passed through this school. Don't expect me to go easy on you."
"Of course not," I grinned. "After listening to you blab for fifteen years about this class, do you think I'd not already know what you're going to say anyway?"
"Do not set a bad example for your classmates."
I grinned teasingly but didn't answer. I wasn't planning on making a "bad example", but it was nice to know that I could make him stew. I sat back in my seat—the same one as before. Second from the front, right by the window. A cherry tree just outside, with a sparrow's nest about three feet from me. Before, Kurama had sat in the seat beside me, but this wasn't the same as before. Keiko wouldn't sit in front of me.
But guess who did.
I don't even want to say it. But I guess I have to. Only a few seconds before class was to begin, Yue Junana slid into the front seat. Whether deliberately or definitely deliberately, her satchel slammed into my knee. I glared at her, only to just sit back and take it all. It would not be a good idea to get in a rotten mood on my first day back at Meikou High School.
Gun Wa sighed and began class in the same way I'd always heard he did.
"Welcome to Biology, will you please take your pens and jab them directly into your aorta so we can begin human dissection?"
At the far back of the room, one kid piped up.
"What's a aorta?"
Another kid threw a pen at him. "Stupid, he didn't mean it for real!"
A smaller girl next to Yue asked softly: "Did you, Gun Wa-Sensei?"
"No, of course not," Gun Wa laughed. "We'll be studying microscopic organisms first before moving on into…"
I stopped listening after a while. I love my uncle, I really do, but sometimes he just needs to learn when to shut up. I started paying a bit more attention when he started the actual lesson, of course. If you don't remember, I kind of had trouble with this particular subject in the last life, because "Toguro-sensei" had been a bit on the fast side. While I was still learning Japanese, too…
Uncle Gun Wa left when the bell rang that familiar, tolling Beethoven. Ten minutes later, in walked Aunt Gunner. She began the English class the same way, with the poem Tyger, Tyger. And then, the class right before lunch, in walked the last person I wanted to see at Meikou High again.
"Good morning, class," he said, setting his things on the front desk. "My name is Minamino-sensei, and I will be teaching you Algebra I this year. That is what it says on your schedules and mine, correct?" His acid danced over them.
Why the hell hadn't he married yet?
He was thirty!
I sighed and began pulling out a new notebook for this class. Unlike Matsu (shudder), and unlike the second math teacher whose name I forgot long ago, he began class with a quiz. "Just to see how much you know," he explained.
Right. I think he just wanted to see the scowl on my face. He knew how much I hated quizzes, especially the ones that had no other purpose than to test me. Wait, wasn't that what all quizzes were for anyway? I sighed and sat back in my seat, putting away the paper and stuff.
Kurama made his way around the room, placing the quizzes directly on people's desks. As he passed by on the other row, I saw why. Each one of them was completely different from the last. I nearly groaned when he placed a particularly difficult one of Kuronue's desk.
Well, this might be a challenge after all. Kuronue fired at me, a playful smirk crossing his face.
Yeah, and I'll get one of the "easy" tests like everyone else.
You could always just tell him that you're a reborn, too. He doesn't have to know that you and he knew each other…
No, Kuronue. I like the façade I have now.
That's exactly what it is, Bri. A façade. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an old friend to contend with…
I sighed and waited for Kurama's hand to touch my desk with the paper. I felt his presence behind me and waited. When he didn't do anything, I glanced over my shoulder at him. He held the paper in his hand. I reached up gently and took it from him. His acid eyes lingered on mine for a moment before he placed the last paper on Yue's desk in front of me.
"Begin," he said.
As I suspected, it was one of the easy quizzes. I may not like math, but repeating the same subject three times typically has this effect where you tend to understand it. I heard somewhere that if you repeated something twenty-seven times, you remember it for a lifetime. I think that was the actual purpose of school, to repeat the same things twelve times over so that you'll remember it for half a lifetime.
Only I'm repeating it for twenty-four times instead. I think Koenma did this to me on purpose. I think he also positioned Kuronue and I at the northern edge of Tokyo on purpose as well, despite the fact that we already knew Nemoi District. Over the years, there had been several demons that came through our little town. It had gotten so bad that now, we were in contact with Koenma through a detective compact. We weren't really "spirit detectives", just a couple of helpers. Yusuke, despite King Yama's wishes, was still the official Spirit Detective.
Yusuke was also King of Demon world. He'd been "re-elected" a couple of times over since I was seven. I think there was another election coming up this summer. I had very little doubt that he would, once again, be re-elected as King.
I handed in my quiz and sat back to wait for the class bell to ring. When it did, everyone immediately jumped up and raced to the common area on the second floor. Everyone except Kuronue and I. Kurama was still packing up his things at the head of the classroom as I opened my obento.
"How is your mother?" Kurama asked.
His eyes were cast down as I glanced up. A bit unlike him to not look in my eyes when he's talking to me. Ever since my father passed away, he's been my leaning arm, the one I could always talk to. Every time Yue did something to upset me, it was him I could come to. I loved Kuronue dearly, but he could never be serious enough sometimes.
"She's fine," I said. "Her new job is great, or so she said."
"Mother is working in an attorney's place as a secretary," Kuronue said, rolling the eyes that made him look like our father and yet nothing like him. "How great can it be?"
"She's just keeping a brave face," I shrugged.
"I'm glad that she has the strength to do that," Kurama said gently.
"Yeah." I sighed and glanced at the sparrow on the cherry tree just outside the window. I felt his presence long before I felt the comforting hand on my shoulder.
"That sparrow has been there every fall since I was a freshman here," Kurama said, smiling at me. "Gun Wa said that she brings good luck."
"I know, he's always going on about the sparrow outside room A-2," I said. "Right, Kuronue?"
"Yeah, he's got a thing for birds," Kuronue shrugged. "How are Hiei and Koko?"
"Hey, what about Jun?" I slapped my brother's shoulder playfully.
"They're all doing fine," Kurama chuckled. "As are Yusuke, Yume, and Keiko. I must say, Yukina and Kuwabara are in a small fix, however."
"Why's that?" I asked.
"Yukina is expecting."
"What?" I laughed. "You're kidding me, I didn't think the lug would ever actually do it with her."
Kurama gave an amused noise. "Indeed. You think about these things often, Bri?"
"No!" I blushed and held back a punch. "I do not, you pervert!"
"Watch who it is you're calling a pervert, especially with whom you call a brother standing beside you," Kurama said, walking back to his desk. My stupid hormones decided that I would not let my eyes stop watching his lithe form until he turned back to me with those acid eyes. "He is far worse than I."
I snorted in laughter as Kuronue mocked an indignant growl. He stalked out of the room.
"Don't let those girls get the best of you, bat boy!" I called after him. He merely grunted and let the door close softly behind him. I sighed, smiling still. "He hasn't changed much since you knew him, has he?"
"A great deal and yet not at all," Kurama smiled. He sat behind the desk at the front of the room. "I did not once believe that I would be teaching math to you."
I snorted, most unladylike. "Did you think I wasn't going to go to high school or something?"
"I thought something with more prestige was in order."
My back stiffened before I laughed it off, answering with a different answer Keiko had once to the same sentence. He'd all but quoted me. "With everyone else having gone here before me, did you think I even had a choice, fox boy?"
"I think you did, Bridget."
"You're wrong."
"I'm right."
"Don't start this again."
"I'm right about that answer."
I smirked over my shoulder. "I had a choice, yes. It just so happens that I liked this particular choice."
He sighed. "What class do you have next?"
"What else?" I asked with a smirk. "Art with Gina."
"You act as if that were obvious."
"Isn't it?"
"You are far more advanced in that subject than Gina could ever teach you."
I shrugged.
"How is it that a three-year-old halfling had the same artistic prowess as the young Vincent Van Gogh?" Kurama asked. The quizzes were in front of him, along with a red Bic pen.
"How is it that a three-year-old human had the same thieving prowess of a certain infamous Makai thief?" I shot back.
He glanced up at me, but I was already looking away.
We've had this conversation many times over. I never gave him a straight answer and neither did he give me one. It was like an unspoken law between us, that no matter how many questions we asked, we would always be shrouded in mystery to the other. I sort of cheated, though.
I already knew the answers to my questions.
He just didn't know mine.
And I planned on keeping it that way.
…
…
…
Ha ha ha. I'm laughing at most, if not all, of you. Well, really, I'm not, but I just wanted to let ya'll know that you've been deliberately tricked. All but one of you guessed that Bri's mystery bluebell savior was Kurama. It's like a magic trick, but I'm going to reveal half the trick here right now. It's not Kurama! Major hint: Bluebells sometimes act as a sort of Mountain Dew to a certain species of animal. The bluebells originated from my warped imagination, a full moon the night I was writing this, and a certain Queen of the Nile purring in my ear…
Now, here's how this is possible.
I did a bunch of research on kitsune, and most of it definitely applies to Kurama. However, there are some things that are true of most kitsune, if not all, so I've decided to keep that true for Bri and Kuronue. I will list those things, as they will become important as we go along.
Kitsune are all capable of illusion. They also are able to manipulate the under-life around them (ie, plants, smaller rodents, etc.), which to some means that kitsune are vampiric in nature. Also, foxes gain tails in one of two ways: age and power. They gain tails every one hundred years, or if they gain enough power. Kurama, in fact, should have somewhere around nine or ten tails.
Kitsune only turn "silver" on their one thousandth birthday. Their "powers" vary from fox to fox but tend to "match" the powers they have in some way. Since Bri and Kuronue are fire foxes, they have the fox fire (like Shippou from Inu Yasha). However, they were born to a copper kitsune (I made this up), Ichigo. According to my theory, copper foxes typically have a very small store of energy.
However, to those with some genetic biology background, one of Ichigo's ancestors was a nine-tail. Those genes passed through Ichigo and landed in Kuronue and Bri (Kuronue more than Bri).
I've made some other fill-in-the-blank (hey, only so much you can get off foxtrot) additions, but you'll be finding that out later. I won't spoil the surprise.
And to my reviewers…
Peeka-Chan: O.O You actually trust me? The world's gonna end! The apocalypse is approaching! Not really, but….Eheh, I guess if you've trusted me thus far…As you can see, I have very low self esteem and I am a baka major. I think you're one of few who suggested it might not have been Kurama…
SilverDragon: Yup, it's too obvious. Hmm. I love using novel reverse strategies, they're so much fun. Watching this hand while another does the work. It's also a magic concept. See my reasoning for plants above. Even Bri and Kuronue will be able to wield plants (tho I think Bri will prefer fire).
Lucifer: You're the only reviewer at this point in time who didn't suggest that Kurama was behind the bluebells! Hersheys kisses for ya! Kuronue's gonna have to do more than train the poor chica…Is three days soon enough? I'm so bad at updating during the summer…Oh, well, at least I'm not those authors that make ya wait a month…a year…two years….eternity…
Kuramafan: I was actually debating whether or not to keep her helpless…And you hit my point right on the button. I tricked you! Now I'm just going to leave you wondering who the mystery bluebell person is…
Sillylittlenothing: Nope, not Kurama. I was leading you in that direction, though. I like keeping my stories true to life, and true to what I think would really happen. People change, I'll just leave it at that.
Princess Kandra: (crying) Sorry, cakes, you're just gonna have to give Kurama back his yen now. It wasn't him. Of course, wouldn't he know? Oo You ran outta luck and Kurama won. Gomen.