Disclaimer: Tactics characters belong to Sakura Kinoshita and Kazuko Higashiyama. Not mine. :(

This is called a prologue. It would be better described as useless fluff that pertains in no way to the actual story. Bear with me.

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"Heh, isn't the moon pretty tonight?" A soft chuckle escaped his lips as he gazed upwards at the shining orb in the sky. Funny, no stars accompanied it that night. The previous night a thick cloud cover had blanketed the cosmos and so he wasn't sure if stars had dotted the sky, but the beautiful winter weather and full-moon had sounded like a promise of many stars. But not one blinked down upon him. He closed his eyes, giggling again. "Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto sure loves to show off, doesn't he?" A breeze gently lifted his lilac hair in tiny wisps; the odd strand that never obeyed a brush actually complied to the will of the wind. It felt so good. How he had missed that feeling... It made him so warm, made his body tingle inadvertently.

A dark voice retorted, coarsely, "It is nothing but a moon."

The young man shook his head and turned to gaze at his companion, letting his eyes linger a little too long on his face. He knew it bothered the black tengu. Finally the pale boy turned back to the bright moon. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to lighten up a bit. Maybe enjoy something once in awhile?"

The tengu glared at the smaller one, but his narrowed eyes did not communicate much malice. A deep sigh erupted from his throat and he pulled his knees close to his chest, wrapping the large black bird-like appendages about his body. "It is too cold to be enjoyable." He said no more; what could he say? He was not a verbose man.

Why he was sitting on the roof of their small cottage was beyond him in the first place. Sure, his young master had shouted his name repeatedly to get him up on the roof (and he had to obey his master) but the tengu could think of no reason why the ethnology scholar would want to sit on the roof in the middle of winter. Did he not get cold?

The wind picked up, startling the younger one, who instinctively reached out to grab the oni-eater's arm. There really was no reason for it, as he could not have lost his balance while seated, but it had frightened him nonetheless. The scholar's hair flew wildly in all directions, as did the tengu's, and he used his free hand to push the lilac locks out of his face. It remained there until the wind calmed, his cherry eyes closed tight against the wind.

The tengu noticed a glistening on his companion's cheek. "Are you... crying?"

He blinked and shielded his face, eyes definately watering. "Wha-? Oh, no, the wind is just irriating my eyes, that's all." The yokai-buster chuckled again and let go of his tengu's arm to grasp the dark wing instead. "Open up. I'm cold." With that said he wrenched open the black tengu's right wing and scooted his body close to the other's, pulling the feathery appendage around him once he was nestled comfortably near the man's chest. He mumbled something after feeling the oni-eater tense beside him, but it was far too muffled for the tengu to discern.

Staring down at the splotch of pastel hair that glinted in the crystalline moonlight, the dark haired man grumbled, "If you are so cold, why don't you go inside? It would save both of us further suffering..." Did his master really think he could get away with such physical contact? It was degrading, for gods sakes! Here he was, a black tengu, the oni-eating tengu, having to warm up some human.

No, his young master was not worth the title of human, callow idiot that he was.

A child-like voice piped up through the cover of silky feathers: "I'm so glad you stayed with us. Makes me happy."

Why did his master have to bring that up constantly? He felt a hotness rising in his face. Hmmph, well, he could attribute the heat to the scholar's body. As much as the tengu hated to admit it, he wasn't as cold as he had been a few minutes earlier. In fact, the younger man's body was molded so perfectly against his own that he thought he'd be able to forget about the other's presence in a little while. The man managed to pull one arm out from between the yokai-buster and his body, but once it was freed he couldn't remember what he had originally wanted to do with it. Having no place else to put it, the black tengu weaved it between his wing and his master's thin frame, pulling the smaller one closer to his body.

Emerald eyes mixed with velvety green hair as he looked up at the moon again. It... really was beautiful. The hard line of his mouth softened as he ducked his head below the tips of his wings when the wind picked up again. The nippy gusts combined with the low temperature was something new to the tengu. He couldn't remember the weather before he had been sealed, and he wondered if the technological advances across Tokyo and the rest of the world had somehow changed the way nature acted. "We should pray to the sun god, eh, Kantarou?" It was a serious question, but it was laced with a bit of humour.

Yet the pale boy did not answer.

"Hmm? Kantarou?" The tengu flexed his wing slightly to allow a glimpse at the yokai-buster, and he was mildly surprised to see that Kantarou had fallen asleep. "Well, how fast you find contentment." A sigh accompanied this comment, and the oni-eater folded his wings into the slight depression between his shoulder blades. He stood, shivering at the immediate difference in temperature. To rememdy the uncomfortable feeling he bent down and scooped up his master, cradling him close to his chest and reveling in the warmth that emanated from his body.

Unfurling his wings, a few black feathers drifted into the wind as the black tengu floated down gracefully to the ground. He stepped onto the porch and opened the sliding door leading into Kantarou's office, letting his wings fade as they always did and not caring about the few dark oblong feathers that littered the ground. He quietly padded through the house, cringing every time his shoes squeaked. Youko-chan would kill him if he was leaving footprints behind...

Having arrived at his master's room, the man placed him onto his futon and pulled the blanket up to his collarbone. Kantarou's mouth was open comically, and it was all the black tengu could do to not imagine a stream of drool trickling out of his mouth. Exhaling, he shook his head and raided his companion's closet for another quilt. It was even cold inside, and if they had a heating system...

Once again reminded how poor their little 'family' was, the oni-eating tengu grumbled incoherently and yanked a navy fleece blanket out from behind a box of unknown contents. He dropped this on top of his young master, and then, after a moment of scrutiny, kneeled down to re-adjust it properly. His obsessive compulsive behaviour really didn't bother him, so he gave no extra thought to the action of tucking it in around Kantarou's sides and making sure the sliding door leading to his office was shut tight (if it had been open, there would have surely been a draft).

After blinking down at his accomplishment, the tengu realized he too was sleepy. Ah, sleepy was an understatement. Kantarou-kun had run him ragged that day with useless yokai-chasing, and the prospect of blissful sleep seemed oh so sweet.

"Goodnight, Kan."

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Remember, read and review!

Kan-chan: I'll bust yokais for ya if you leave comments! With my sidekick, Haruka!
Haruka: Get him to stop writing my name as 'pretty flowers' or whatever and I'll do anything.