AN: I have way too much fun trying to figure out my kitsunes' personalities. They're the most human of all youkai, besides the whole 'they are their own yin and yang' thing that all of them have. Yet more irrelevancy, as a break from the seriousness One Wish is falling into. I would like to point out that any relationship between Mischa and Matsuro is platonic at best. Matsuro just happens to be a hornykitsune, and wouldgive his grandmother the once-over.

Summary: A third-person point of view of why to give a kitsune child what she wants. Mischa learns the hard way not to say "no" to Chame and Kagome is proven right that Mischa would look stellar in red. Matsuro learns to be subtler about trying to check out someone with heightened senses.

Disclaimer: OCs from One Wish. If you don't recognize them, how'd you find this story in the first place?

Crime and Punishment

He had been working on her most of the evening. The fun was in the chase, in making them ask you, not you them. And the key to that was making them feel like they were the center of your universe, that you revolved around them and could see nothing else.

So he was mildly surprised when she paused mid-sentence to watch a small child make her way across the bar to the pair sitting at the cozily darkened booth.

He knew it was Chame- his little sister may have shifted form, but she had kept her characteristic long dark braid. Though those violet eyes she had were telling him she was pulling a prank and he was part of it.

She tugged on his shirtsleeve as she finally reached him, as if she hadn't already gotten his attention. "Mommy's mad at you," the child whispered confidentially, very much loud enough for the woman sitting across the table to hear.

Or he was the brunt of the joke. She had changed her form to have his eyes. He couldn't wait to see whom she had tricked into playing 'Mommy.'

"Do I know you?" he asked, hoping his startled companion might believe him.

Chame pretended she hadn't heard the question. "She's called your office every night this week, and they told her you've been taking off early every night."

Oh shit. Tablemate suddenly very unhappy as she realizes that he probably fed the 'you're my whole world' look to every pretty face.

Might as well try to keep the damage low.

"I'm really not her father," he explained quickly to the pretty brunette. "She's my kid sister."

Anger dimming down- the resemblance is there, even if he's a redhead and she's got black hair. "Oh, I see," she said in a friendly manner. "But that still doesn't explain why she's here."

Or maybe she was still suspicious. That wasn't good.

"I'm trying to warn him before Mommy finds him," the aggravating kit told the brunette as she hopped up to take her favorite position of being a few tendons too weak to actually strangle him, but still enough of a deadweight to hang around his neck like an albatross. He really should stop giving her piggyback rides.

The door to the bar slammed open. All heads turned to look at the angry newcomer. Chame took the opportunity to stifle a snicker in his shoulder. He usually found this sort of thing amusing, but not when it was being played on him by a kit less than half his age.

Dark hair was pulled out of its usual ponytail, swirling about her like a short cape, dark eyes searching the room for someone she knew had to be there. Her usual brown clothes were gone in favor of a rather stunning sleeveless, likely backless, shimmery red cocktail dress that stopped a good deal above mid thigh. The sneakers and the sparkle of magic that clung to the dress told him precisely why she was in a murderous rage. Chame's illusions had the ability to become reality, should she so choose it. And she had chosen it and led the angry ex-hanyou right to him.

Matsuro would have been much more appreciative of the dress if his little sister and his suddenly drab-looking table companion hadn't been there, or if she hadn't looked three seconds away from killing anyone who even looked at her wrong.

He felt like sinking into the floor. His red hair always brought him attention, and right now, he didn't want hers, not with that angry 'death awaits you all' glare on her face. Especially after she heard the appreciative wolf whistles from some of the more inebriated patrons.

And when she finally caught sight of him- leaning slightly forward in his chair to accommodate the additional weight of a kit who was always wanting to be held, eyes wide with surprise as his glance flickered between her and the woman he had been hitting on, and feeling slightly, insanely guilty for being here at all- her eyes narrowed even further. At first he thought it was directed at him, then he remembered Chame's chin tucked on his shoulder.

He didn't think highly enough of his little sister to stand between her and a woman who knew eight different ways to vivisect a man in under five seconds.

"What the hell did you do?" he asked as Mischa strode purposefully across the room towards them, expertly subtly dodging grabs for her skirted posterior and fisted hands.

"Your sister, huh?" the woman said scornfully. "Gods, but you must think I'm really stupid to buy that. All men are pigs." She stood and stormed off, giving Mischa a sympathetic look as they passed each other. Mischa's eyes almost looked puzzled.

The confusion lasted long enough for one bold drunk to grab onto a wrist to try and pull her into his lap. She let the wrist be dragged in closer, and there was a sickening crunch he was sure even the humans could hear as her hand- still much too strong for a normal human- closed around his crotch and twisted.

He collapsed groaning and her way to Matsuro's table was immediately cleared.

"What I can do for you?" Matsuro asked calmly as she stopped in front of him. He fought an urge to turn tail and flee or else get into a defensive stance in preparation for the beating she was promising the barnacle clinging to his shoulders.

Death awaited all but the kitsune fast enough to outrun a pretty dark-haired girl who continually came in first in every track meet she competed in. Now if only he could detach his sister from his neck to keep Mischa distracted long enough for him to disappear.

"Here, let me take that for you," she snarled. Chame clung tighter as Mischa pulled the smaller kitsune up by the back of her shirt. His shirt didn't seem to be made of such stern stuff, and he gave a soft sigh as fabric tore and the girl was lifted to eye-level for the irate earth elementalist.

He wisely said nothing, while Chame clung to the torn material and made a pitiful whimper as she realized she wasn't getting away that easily.

"This is not funny," Mischa ground out at the small kitsune who was madly grinning, half-amused and half-terrified, at the human. "Nor is your form."

She had obviously seen the purple eyes and blue highlights in the usually green-highlighted black hair. Maybe if he was very still, she'd completely forget he was there.

"And don't think you're getting out of this either, red," she told him as he started inching towards an escape route. He didn't want to know what she was going to blame him for. Maybe for patroning bars of ill repute that made her become the eyeful of the day. The man was still groaning. He had no interest in becoming victim number two, so long as she was in that violent of a mood. Maybe once she calmed down a little, he'd...

"And get that ridiculous look off your face. You're not my type."

But that meant she had one. And if she did, he could find it out. Once he planned Chame's funeral arrangements.

"Pay your tab. You're leaving."

"Muuuushaaaa," the kit wailed as Matsuro eyed the woman, then nodded. He could argue about humans bossing youkai around later. "It was just a joke!"

One eye on Matsuro, Mischa hefted the wailing kit across her shoulder like a jacket and stormed back out. Everyone's eyes were wisely elsewhere- besides Matsuro, who had the luck of walking behind her and discovering that, yes, the dress did indeed have no back.

"I'm not laughing," she said coldly.

Matsuro would be, just as soon as he got out of hearing distance of her. He'd give anything to know how Chame had managed to get the illusion-to-reality spell to work without Mischa becoming aware of it. It usually required a great deal of contact with the substance being changed, and the ex-hanyou was very adept in avoiding someone's touch.

Although, given that he had noticed she was a sucker for big eyes and a cute pout, she had likely fallen prey to the same problem he had. Chame was just too cute to say 'no' to when she wanted a piggyback ride.

Though, judging by the whimpering and the pained look Chame was giving him as the bar door swung shut behind them, she wouldn't be pulling this prank again any time soon. Which was a real shame, because that dress looked absolutely wonderful.

Matsuro was torn between watching the dress's hemline rise and fall with each stride the woman in front of him took or making a quick getaway and leaving his sister to her deserved fate.

Mischa sent Chame flying right into a nearby car and spun, neatly hitting him in an uncomfortable spot with her knee. His eyes crossed and he doubled over with a groan.

Chame's loud complaint about being thrown against the side of the van with no respect for property damage muffled his low swearing. Mischa ignored both.

"I haven't spent twenty years hiding from people not to know when someone's looking at me and where they're looking. You can go now. You can have what remains of your sister when I'm done with her," she told him.

Chame gave up on playing the victim and shifted form into that of a bird and took off.

"Damn it."

And he was left alone in the parking lot, still groaning in pain, wondering how these things happened to him when it came to women who weren't just casual acquaintances. Yet another reason why never to get into a deeper relationship than one-night stands.