Love was such a distant thing for me all throughout my childhood. I knew what it was supposed to be, but my mother never quite showed me what it really was. How could I have grown up without knowing what love was? How could I be bereft of the thing that fueled the lives of most humans?

Maybe it was because my life so mirrored my mother's. Constantly, she searched for one who had been just like my father, a man who could come close to taking his place. However, all that faced her was constant disappointment. Even I wasn't good enough to replace him. In fact, I was almost too much of his likeness, a girl born looking almost exactly like her father. Some days, Mother looks at me and just bursts out crying, saying that he'll never come back. I don't know when he left, but when he did, he told her that they'd see each other again soon enough.

Needless to say, I didn't have the model family, but I still went to school, and enjoyed those few friends that I had. They all had an able mother and a loving father, perhaps a sibling or two. They talked lightly of having people to care for, but my mother was so distant and independent that I was barely allowed to care for her. No matter how many times I scolded them, my friends continued to mock my lack of humor, and my stiff demeanor. Truthfully, I'd never been much of a social butterfly.

The one thing I remember from my childhood is hearing how much I looked like my father. From the very start, I had a substantial tuft of vivid red hair, and when I sprang forth from my mother's womb, she told me how she had remarked at my brilliant green eyes, the ones that she had seen so passionately so long ago. As I grew older, I also grew quieter. Pulling at my mother's hair didn't amuse me anymore, so I walked outside and to the edge of town. Just beyond here was a lake where she had taken me many times, in celebration of the time she met my father.

Once at the lake, I would gaze into it so fixedly that no one was able to draw me away. Crying out my fears and troubles, it felt as though someone were actually listening. Musing upon such a thought, I decided that it couldn't be true. In all my life, a lake had never talked to me. Though I was only four or five years old, I was here, on the soil that resounded with my name. Mother had said something about this place being special for both of us, but I couldn't yet see why.

Many years passed, and I went to the same schools as my friends, loving every minute of it. However, there was one day when my friends were sick, and pretty soon I was helplessly cornered by two popular girls. The excessive makeup they wore always seemed so cheap, and I couldn't stand the way they had to be better than everyone else. Despite my harsh feelings, I had never worked up the gall to take action against them.

One with thick, black curls held back by a headband approached me. "What are you doing here?" she asked sarcastically. Intimidated by the way she got in my face, I found myself unable to answer. How could they do this to me? None of this had ever happened before; nobody had ever launched personal attacks against me. "I thought you belonged in the school with all the losers over there," she sniffed, pointing over to the building across the road. Nobody knew exactly what went on at that school, and frankly, no one wanted to find out.

When I still didn't answer, she shoved me down to the ground, laughing as I scrambled to get my books together. "Later," she spat, giving me a good, swift kick in the side. Once all my books were safely in my bag, I got up and headed off to my next class. For the first time, I had started to realize that people whom you thought were good and knew what was right could often be cruel. The sickest part was that they took pleasure in the pain of others.

The teacher saw my disheveled hair and clothes, and asked me after class what the matter was. Adjusting my ruffled blouse, I pulled on a jacket to protect me from the cold. "It was nothing," I said quietly.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" the teacher asked. "I can always take you to counseling."

"Yes," I said warily. "I'm absolutely certain." While fixing my uniform, I made sure to conceal the bruise that had blossomed on my left hip. Mother couldn't know, or she might have me moved to a different school. Though those two were there, I still didn't want to leave the school I had known for so long.

Despite the seemingly endless last period class, I eventually got out of school and started walking home, toting my lunch box in my hand. Now thirteen, I was allowed to get myself to and from school, whether by foot, by bus, or by metro train. However, even Mother Nature seemed to be against me that day. Rain began to pour down relentlessly, pounding at my back and soaking me to the skin.

Immediately, I ran for cover and hid. A tree seemed to be the best possible cover that I could manage, although it was still cold, so I took it. I watched the raindrops plop down onto the pavement and wondered at how fast they came...how such a small thing would want to come plummeting down to earth so quickly rather than drifting down pleasantly.

Unfortunately, my time to ponder was soon cut short. A very short man with a wiry, muscular build, became visible in the top of the tree. I turned around to get a better look at him, and he just stared at me. Understanding that he was probably shy just like me, I turned back to my gazing at the sky. It really was beautiful, and I soon forgot that he was even there. Thoughts floated up to the surface of my mind...thoughts that I had never thought about before. After a while, though, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked up to see that the man from before had fallen asleep in the tree.

Before I could do anything, his weight shifted, and he slipped down from his perch on the slender branch. Due to the lightness of his body, it made little more than a soft thud, but I ran over nonetheless. When I examined him more closely, I found that there were no broken bones, but as I felt his face, searching for new bumps and bruises, I felt his eyes slide open. "Get off of me," he barked, looking at me as if my touch was poison.

"You sleep like a rock," I commented in a rather dazed fashion. "No wonder your body's the same way."

He got up and brushed himself off, wrapping a black cloak back around him. Of course, I wanted to know why he was dressed so strangely, but then it occurred to me that I must look strange to him. "What's your name?" I asked. What a stupid question to ask such a gruff stranger. I wouldn't have been surprised had he killed me right then and there for being an idiot.

"Names mean nothing," he said flatly. "Anyone can lie about their name...there are other qualities that can identify someone."

"Fine," I said. "Why the sword?" It was only a minute or two ago that I had noticed the katana in its sheath around his waist.

"Isn't it obvious, baka?" he snarled, and turned to walk away. Strange enough, right before he was around the corner, he turned back and looked at me. Something about that crimson glare chilled me straight to the marrow. A shifting feeling arose within me, making me want to vomit, and on an impulse, I ran home.

Home really wasn't too far away, and I managed to get the key out and get into the bathroom before I puked up what I had eaten at lunch. However, when I looked up and turned around to face the mirror, I was entirely shocked. My face was changing from my mother's, to that of a mystical green-haired woman, to another woman's with blonde hair and deep blue eyes. The shifting wouldn't stop, and each time I changed forms, it made me feel sicker and sicker. How could something this drastic be happening to me? It wasn't my time to die yet, was it?

No time was left for me to contemplate the matter. The doorbell rang and, holding down my gorge, I rushed to answer it. There was my mother, her mouth agape as she stared at the myriad of people my face was shifting into. "Keiryi," she whispered, as if she had to convince herself that it was still me. Her arms wrapped around me, I felt a sudden warmth flood my body, and the lurching stopped. I no longer had to vomit.

That was the first time my mother helped me like that. Before then, she had been so far away, and I hadn't really blamed her for it. I wasn't the most responsive daughter. However, it felt good when she soothed whatever it was that triggered the shapeshifting. I hadn't vomited on the carpet, so there was no mess to clean up, and I went upstairs into my bedroom.

I had my only chance to figure out what happened then, because a few hours later, Hiro came in with his sister Mikara. Both the Kuwabara twins were a joy to have around, but I wasn't much in the mood to entertain guests at that time. Their dad had taught them how to laugh so early on that it seemed natural whenever I saw them from a distance. But when they were around me, I could sense a sort of uneasiness underneath the mirth. "Hey, Ri, how's it going!" shouted Hiro, giving me a high-five. Somehow, I thought he liked me as more than a friend, but he never showed any truly visible signs.

"Hi," I said quietly, brushing a lock of vivid red hair behind my ear. "How are you two?" Mikari smiled and looked at my pale face with concern displayed openly. After vomiting like I had, I still felt a little sick.

"Are you sure, Keiryi?" she asked, and toyed with her aqua-green hair. For a while I had thought she dyed it, and wanted mine to be that color, but then she had told me it was her natural coloring.

"I'm sure Mikari," I said, and looked into her eyes, telling her that I was really alright. That was when I noticed it. Mikari's eyes were the same crimson as the man from the tree's eyes.

"Ri? Ri-i..." Hiro's pale hand snapped me back to reality. He also looked like his mother, with the same coloring as his sister.

"Yeah?" I said, dazed. They were used to my drifting mind, and knew that it took a lot to keep me on track.

"You were spacing on us again," he reminded me, laughing and closing his eyes.

"I was just thinking," I snapped back quietly, closing my eyes and trying to focus. "I saw someone on the way home who looked a lot like Hiro."

"We don't have any living uncles," Mikari reminded me.

"He didn't have the same coloring as you," I said. "He was built just like Hiro though."

Hiro's height was a constant point of teasing. He had only risen to about five foot four at the age of twelve. Most other boys towered over him by now, and even Mikari was quite a bit taller than her brother. It was fun to poke at him about it once in a while, but we knew to try and leave it alone for a bit, too. Nobody likes to be teased all the time.

"So what happened, Ri?" he asked. Mikari looked at me intently, knowing that I had always had trouble telling people stories from my own life. They seemed so insignificant, but other people always liked to hear them.

"I was walking home from school," I began. "Before I could even turn onto a different street, though, it started to rain. In order to avoid getting my uniform all wet, I took cover under a tree. For a while, I just mused on the raindrops, but then I saw a man up in the tree."

"And that would be him, right?" asked Mikari, now getting excited herself.

"Exactly," I said. "He had crimson eyes, just like yours, but his hair was pitch-black. It was spiked in a gravity-defying way, but it was starting to droop a little from the moisture. Soon enough, he fell asleep."

Sighing and rolling his eyes, Hiro looked at me as if he had been expecting a more exciting end. "So what happens next?" Mikari asked, waving aside her brother's impatience. "C'mon, Ri, don't leave us hanging!"

"Well," I said, "after he fell asleep, he ended up slipping off of the branch he was perched on."

"Oh, come on!" Hiro shouted indignantly. "Everyone knows that the Kuwabaras are incredibly graceful! Falling out of trees...pshaw!"

"I went over to make sure he was okay," I continued. Sometimes you were better off ignoring Hiro's rants. Very rarely were they worth listening to. "However, he woke up and startled me when I saw those crimson eyes. I felt a lurching, and ran home. Immediately, I went to the bathroom and puked. When I looked up, I saw that I was changing my appearance at the speed of sound. Mother saw me when she came home from work, and she just hugged me."

Both Hiro and Mikari looked at me in shock, waiting to see what would happen now. "It healed me," I said, smiling at them both. "There was this feeling of warmth, and it stopped. I don't know exactly what she did, but otherwise I still would be sicking up in the toilet." Mikari looked a little uneasy as I finished out the story, and Hiro had an enigmatic look on his face. "What?" I asked innocently, watching my friends as they puzzled over what I had said.

"So that's it," Hiro said. "She wanted to name me something close to his name, but I never knew he was still alive. By the way Mom talks about him, I'd have thought he was dead." Mikari nodded in agreement and stared at me calmly, almost unnervingly.

"Hiei," she muttered. "He's an uncle on our mother's side. I wasn't supposed to tell you, because he's a little dangerous, and him and Dad don't get along very well, but he visits me and Mom every year."

"Where's he from?" I asked. "He was dressed rather oddly."

"I don't know," Mikari said. "Mom never even told me."

All of it confused me to the point where I wanted to scream. If he was Hiro and Mikari's uncle, why had he acted like he knew me back at the tree? Also, there had been a rueful look in his crimson eyes when I caught him looking back at me. Was there something I didn't know about with him, or was he just taking an interest in those involved with his niece and nephew? Whatever it was, I wanted to find out, if only I could figure out where to find him again.

Mikari had to snap me out of my trance this time, and she touched a hand to my shoulder. "Sorry," she said. "I've got to go see Mom. She wants me, so I'll see you later, Ri!"

"I'll catch up to you in a bit, Mika!" Hiro shouted after his sister, and turned to me with a broad smile on his face. Sitting down next to me on the bed, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders in a brotherly way. "Whatever it is you're looking for, I know you'll find it sometime," he said, and grinned comfortingly.

"How did you know I was looking for something?" I asked quizzically. "I never told you about-"

"I can see it in those green eyes," he said. "Whenever I see you, you've become more of a puzzle to me, a door that can't be unlocked with an ordinary key. You don't understand something, so you want to find the answers."

I stared at my friend, who was almost like a cousin. We weren't actually related at all, but we saw each other so often that we could have been anyway. Hiro and Mikari were my two best friends, and always would be. Sure, I had friends at school, but I knew that eventually they would move on and I would still be able to count on the infallible, determined Kuwabara twins. "Yeah," I said, finally gathering the nerve to respond to Hiro's miniature speech. "I guess you're right about that. I really don't like being left in the dark, and I never have."

"Well," Hiro said mirthfully, "You're so bright, I know you'll find the light in no time." He gave me shoulders a gentle squeeze and stood up to leave.

"Hiro," I whispered, grabbing his hand right before he turned to walk away. "Thank you." I could see his cheeks turn a deep shade of red, almost as deep as his crimson eyes.

"No problem!" he said, regaining his composure and flashing a peace sign. "Anytime." And then he was downstairs. Mother, Kazuma, and Yukina would be there. I was anxious to see them all, but I was scared of the conversation and where it might lead. It had been a while since I had actually talked to any of the Kuwabaras beside Hiro or Mikari. In truth, it had been an entire year.

A/N-Miari's back, and quite soon if I do say so myself. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I actually have a few ideas as to where this is going. As for those of you who are returning Midnight Rose fans, Keiryi grew up SO much different from Kaiina. Kaiina-chan will come back, and I can't wait until I get to write from her point of view again! For those of you who read the first part, there are 2 main changes. They are as follows:

1.More characters

2.POV changes(I know you love getting to know one character so much, but for the sake of plot, I have to split up the POV's. Unfortunately, subplots won't allow me to stay with one point of view.)

Peace Out!

Miari