AUTHOR'S NOTES: Since I have no idea if A Charlie Brown Halloween still airs on TV, some of you may not get the jokes in this. Still, it's enough of a cultural icon for people to get the drift.

Yomi Mizuhara, Tomo Takino, and Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga are more characters from Azumanga Daioh, while Kaolla Su is from Love Hina. And kami are spirits, which Shinto believes inhabits all things–including, most certainly, pumpkins. I'm pretty sure they have pumpkins in Japan. If not, you shouldn't worry about that and other science facts. Ofuda are the strips of paper inscribed with prayers that Grandpa Higurashi uses (ineffectively) and Miroku uses (very effectively).

Enjoy and hope you had a good Halloween. Last chapter tomorrow (hopefully)...this one I'm going to try and actually make scary. If you can actually get scared from something text-based, without the author writing things like all work and no play make Jack a dull boy all work and no play make Jack a dull boy all work and no play make Jack a dull boy all work and no play make Jack a dull boy all work and no play make Jack a dull boy

Damn. That's annoying, isn't it? No wonder Jack Nicholson went nuts in The Shining.

"And then the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch to give toys to all the good girls and boys!" Souta Higurashi proclaimed.

Yomi Mizuhara looked less than convinced. "You're kidding, right?"

"Ah think it's entarly plausible," Ayumu Kasuga (better known as Osaka) said helpfully.

"Whatever," Yomi sighed. "Anything to get away from Tomo for a night."

Souta noticed the tone in Yomi's voice, and knew she doubted the existence of the Great Pumpkin. Osaka, he knew, would believe anything, so having her believe him wasn't necessarily a compliment. Still, Souta thought, they would all believe him soon enough.

The Great Pumpkin was a Higurashi family legend, one that Grandpa had told him on several occasions. Souta's mother always smiled politely, her common reaction to when her father started saying weird things, but Kagome openly scoffed. Souta thought that insulting to Grandpa–after all, Grandpa had always insisted the legend of Inuyasha Who Seeks the Shikon no Tama was true as well, and it was.

Besides, Souta had looked the legend up on the internet. It had to be true.

Basically, it went something like this: on the last day of the month of October, a great pumpkin kami would rise up out of a selected pumpkin patch in Japan. It had to be the most well-kept, sincerest pumpkin patch as well. Then it would go around and leave such gifts as wooden toys, sweet bean paste and rice balls for children who had obeyed their parents during the year. When dawn approached on the first day of November, the kami would return to the patch and sleep for another year. Souta did have his suspicions on Grandpa's recent statement that the Great Pumpkin also handed out chocolates, since Grandpa had a weakness for them, as did Kagome. But that was all right: Grandpa could embellish all he liked; the core of the legend was true. Of that, Souta was as certain as he was of Inuyasha's existence.

He wished Kagome and Inuyasha could be there with him to see the great kami, but they were back through the well in the Sengoku Jidai. He smiled to himself because he had managed to convince the slightly naive and gullible hanyou to watch a "secret tape" a week ago that would kill those who saw the little girl at the end. That, of course, was just a movie, and Souta had made sure he was out of the room when the girl appeared. The screams of horror from Inuyasha was fun enough, though Mama had to buy a new TV after Inuyasha had summarily demolished it, screaming "Die, demon bitch from hell!"

Which left the people at school to keep him company. A lot of his classmates avoided him, as they believed that the various diseases Kagome supposedly had were contagious. (Grandpa's excuse that Kagome had ebola had caused a mass panic, before he convinced them that he actually meant that she just had cramps.) Still, he had a few buddies, but Souta knew better than to ask his guy friends. He was reaching that tender age of youth when boys suddenly realize that girls aren't entirely icky, but before the stage where boys made incredible fools of themselves trying to ask the girls out. Of his classmates, only some of the girls from Class 2 would take him up on the offer of sitting in a pumpkin patch at the Higurashi Shrine at the beginning of winter–the bookish Yomi Mizuhara, and the slightly dense Ayumu Kasuga. Souta was wise beyond his years, and had rightly not invited two girls who would claim to be interested in the Great Pumpkin, but would actually use the opportunity to demolish said pumpkin patch–Tomo Takino and Kaolla Su.

"Ah'm cold," Osaka said, shivering.

"I'm sorry," Souta replied, and took off his coat. He draped the coat around Osaka's shoulders, and she smiled up at him, warming his heart. "You should drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold, and it'll warm you up."

"Chokolit don't agree none with me," Osaka replied sadly.

Yomi was about to say that she was leaving, that she was dumb for coming out here, and Souta as insane as his plague-infested sister, but then there was a sudden rustling in the patch. "What's that?" Yomi whispered, turning pale.

"It wasn't me," Osaka insisted.

"No, it's coming from over there," Souta said excitedly, his pulse beginning to race.

"Probably your cat."

"Buyo's inside," Souta rasped. He had made sure of that, and gotten a promise from Mom that the cat would stay inside all night.

"Maybe it's that weaird guy yer sister hangs out with–" Osaka began, but Souta cut her off, stabbing a finger at where the sound was coming from. "Look!" he cried.

Sure enough, something was rising from the pumpkin patch. It was near invisible in the moonlight, but it was definitely human-shaped–not a fat cat or a dog dressed as a World War One flying ace. Souta noticed that the shape was definitely female; there was nothing in the legend about that, but the Great Pumpkin didn't have a gender. His eyes were as big as platters now; Osaka was smiling insipidly and Yomi looked two seconds from heart failure.

The figure glided forward into the light. They saw that it had pale skin, dark and bedraggled hair, a torn and scorched kimono, and angry, angry blood-red eyes. The latter was enough for Yomi: she screamed and fled for the front gate of the shrine. Osaka's smile merely stayed in place as her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed in a dead faint.

Souta, on the other hand, was unfazed. Kami weren't all beautiful, and only a fool judged on appearances. "Are you the Great Pumpkin kami?" he asked, bowing deeply to the woman.

The woman looked at him haughtily. "No," she snapped.

Souta straightened, thinking Uh oh. Kagome and Inuyasha had many enemies, and he had a sinking feeling he was about to meet one. The woman suddenly snapped open a fan, but it broke in half. She let out a sigh and tossed it over her shoulder. "Look," she said with exasperation, "I've been lied to, robbed, nearly run over by giant metal birds, eaten by a shark, had my skull staved in with a cricket bat, and blown up by aliens. I finally find Japan and I was just getting some well-earned rest when you showed up and started talking about some damn pumpkin! Do I look like a pumpkin to you?" Souta knew that you never responded to questions about a woman's weight; his sister had taught him that painful lesson, so he stayed quiet. "I just want to know one thing," the woman continued. "Is this the Higurashi Shrine?"

"Yes." Souta saw no point in lying. There was a sign proclaiming that fact only a few feet away. He screwed up his courage as best he could, swallowed, and asked, "Are you here for my sister?"

"Yes," the woman said, this time with a great sigh of utter relief.

"Are you a demon?"

"Again, yes."

"Are you evil?"

"I prefer the term 'lawfully challenged.'"

Souta shook his head. "Sorry. She headed back through the well a few days ago. Her and Inuyasha both."

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

She looked towards the house. "Then I'll destroy the house. That should make Kagome's life miserable."

"You can't do that either," Souta said, thinking fast. "See those ofuda? They'll kill you if you try to hurt me or the house. My grandfather is a great magician, the descendant of the great miko Kikyo and Kagome's mentor," he lied smoothly. Grandfather Higurashi was probably only distantly related to Kikyo, and he and his ofuda would be about as effective against an evil kami as throwing a pie at her. As far as mentoring Kagome, Hojo did more of that than Grandpa ever did.

The woman's face fell and she slowly dropped down to sit on a pumpkin. To Souta's surprise, she began to cry. "I try to be a good demon," she sniffed. "I do everything I'm asked. I don't haunt people's dreams or kill for fun. I just can't take this anymore. I just can't..."

Souta reached up and patted her shoulder. "There, there." He picked up Osaka's still warm hot chocolate. "Here, have some of this."

The woman looked at him with puffy eyes. "With all that's happened to me, and given that I was sent here to kill you, do you really think some confection will help?"

Souta shrugged. "It can't hurt."

Deciding not to argue with that logic, the woman took the chocolate and sipped it. She blinked in surprise. "This...this is good." She took a long drink. "This is really good!"

"Souta Higurashi," he said, putting out a hand Western-style.

The woman hesitated, then smiled and took the hand. "Kagura."

"Really? I know a girl in my class named Kagura. Pretty name."

"Why, thank you..."