The Beginning of a Legend

By Ky

Summary: A one-shot focusing on Youko Kurama's first meeting with Kuronue and the beginnings of his career as a thief.

Genre: General

Rating: PG

Warnings: None.

Author's Notes: This is probably one of my favorite things that I've ever written. It's so much fun to picture Kurama before he became the leader of a big bad bandit horde. I can't believe it took me this long to finally type it up and post it. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it as much as I do.

With the trained eye of a pickpocket, Kurama studied the crowd of demons milling about town. As soon as he was old enough to leave his mother, the young fox demon had fallen on hard times. He could hunt well enough to keep himself from starving, but Kurama had always had a penchant for the finer things in life, and he soon found that the easiest way for him to get what he felt he deserved was to "borrow" the payment from unsuspecting victims.

Just when he was beginning to think he had robbed almost everyone in town at least once, Kurama's gold eyes locked onto a figure he knew he had never seen before. He was a tall bat demon, dressed in an odd style of clothing. His shirt was laced up the front, appeared to be made of black leather, and left little of his muscular chest to the imagination. His pants appeared to be leather as well. What looked to Kurama like the back half of a long, white skirt was held up over the bat demon's pants by two crisscrossing black belts. Some sort of weapon, like a scythe on a chain, hung from one of the belts. The outfit was completed by the most ridiculous-looking hat the fox had ever laid eyes on—a wide-brimmed, navy blue number which covered one of the bat demon's eyes and looked like it had been half-destroyed—and a pendant with a red stone set in it, hanging from a thin cord around the demon's neck.

Definitely not from around here, Kurama decided. A gaudy dresser… Possibly a spendthrift, and therefore probably carrying a lot of cash…

Now, where would he keep it…? Kurama eventually decided that the bat demon must have some sort of coin pouch on his belt and began pursuing him.

In a split second, the young fox located the coin pouch on the bat demon's belt and used the action of bumping into him to draw attention away from his hand reaching into the pouch and snatching the money inside.

"Hey!" the bat demon exclaimed as Kurama hit him.

"Sorry, s'cuse me," the fox responded, trying not to look too rushed as he walked off, the stolen coins now hidden safely in his own pocket.

Once he was sure no one was following him, Kurama turned a corner into an alleyway. Sitting down on a crate someone had left lying around, he pulled the coins out of his pocket. There were three of them. Two were the same size and silver. With these alone he could afford both lunch and dinner at the nicest restaurant he knew. The third was a bit larger and—Kurama gasped, amazed—made of pure gold. His bushy tail began twitching excitedly behind him.

I'm holding real gold, Kurama thought, amazed. He'd known such things existed and were probably more common in Makai's bigger cities, but he had never actually touched gold before. Most of the townsfolk around here never carried around more than a few copper coins and occasionally a couple of silver. He couldn't even begin to imagine what he could buy with a gold coin. Whatever the oddly-dressed bat demon did for a living, he was eager to try it if it gave him enough gold to buy whatever he wanted…

Kurama crouched down in front of the large treasure chest in the center of the room. He reached into his hair and plucked out a seed. Growing a tiny, thin vine in the palm of his hand, he directed it to slip into the chest's lock. With a click, the growing plant effectively unlocked it. The silver-furred fox ordered the plant back into its seed and stashed it in his hair again. Hands shaking nervously, he reached for the heavy wooden lid.

It had taken him months of preparation, collecting information, failed attempts, and practice to get this far. He flung the lid open and winced when the chest's little-used hinges creaked. He paused for a second, but his sensitive fox ears didn't pick up any out-of-place sounds. His attention went back to the treasure chest.

Kurama had to keep from drooling as he stared at its contents. "It's pure gold…" he whispered. "All of this is pure gold…" The chest was filled to the brim with sparkling, yellow coins. They almost appeared to shine with some sort of ethereal glow, lighting up the dull wood of their box.

The wooden chest and the gold coins were too much for the young fox to carry by himself, but he had planned on this. He pulled a drawstring bag out of his tunic and began shoveling the coins into it, so he could leave the chest behind.

"Well, you've definitely improved from the last time we met, I'll give you that."

Kurama froze, the fur on his tail bristling, ears perking up at the sound of a voice behind him. It was deep, masculine, and familiar.

"You owe me, kid. Two silver coins and one gold, remember?"

So that's it. He's the bat demon I pick-pocketed, the youko thought. But that was months ago. Has he been tracking me all this time? Kurama spun around to face him, dropping his partially-filled bag of gold.

"Oh, and I've decided to charge interest. All of that gold there should be enough to pay off your debt to me. You even saved me the trouble of picking the lock," the bat demon continued arrogantly.

Kurama leapt to his feet, spreading his arms as if to block the treasure behind him. "You want this? You can't have it! Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to get here!"

"Hm, you're a headstrong one, aren't you?" The bat demon's violet eyes seemed to be sizing him up. "Cute. You know, maybe we don't have to argue. My name's Kuronue. You can get to know me better later. You're still a novice thief. So what do you say to this, kid? I teach you everything I know, and we can be partners. I'll even help you carry all of this gold outta here, on the condition that I get half."

The young fox was beginning to think this sounded like a good deal (though, what right did this guy have to in here, call him cute, not even bother to learn his name, and then tell him what to do? He wasn't a kit anymore, and he didn't enjoy being treated like one!) until… "Half! No. I found this place. I overrode the security systems. I knocked out the guards. I picked the lock. All you did was waltz on in here. You get ten percent."

"For your information, kid, I didn't just follow you here and decide to steal your prize. I had been planning my heist here for quite some time. It was by chance that we met again. I had my own plans to deal with the guards and security, but I found you'd already taken care of them. And you did a very nice job of it, if I do say so myself. So…" Kuronue patted Kurama's head like a human might the head of a pet dog, while the youko glowered. "… I want half."