Chapter 5

It had been a miserable week. Everyone at work had been sick and she had been assigned to care for Tsuruga Ren. She hadn't seen him since he cornered her in the hall, in front of the Ladies Room. She was irritated, and she wasn't sure why he was so negative towards her. He had mentioned something about her using her family to get into show business, and that her stone was basically a piece of garbage from a souvenir shop before that. What was that all about? Who did he think he was, saying things like that to her? He was lucky she only flipped him off. She didn't have any family and her stone was all she really had. What a jerk! Now she was stuck with the ass, trying to please him as his temporary manager. She groaned internally at the thought as she sat at his coffee table, animating the tiny pixie bones that Uesugi-dono had given her to practice her shadow magic with. "Dance." She murmured not noticing the male that had been watching her.

Kuon's eyes went wide at the revelation. Elves can't do that. What family is she from? He thought as he watched the tiny skeleton Pirouette and Grand Jeté across the coffee table to Kyoko humming a piece from Swan Lake. He cleared his throat to let her know he was there. "Mogami-san? Where did you learn that?" He was asking out of genuine curiosity.

She shook her head. "I'm not really sure." She answered as the little skeleton kept dancing.

"Did your parents teach you that?" He asked, not knowing he stepped on a land mine, yet again.

She furrowed her brow and frowned. The little skeleton was now covered in a black armor that resembled a chitinous flesh. "I don't have parents. They left me when I was six on the side of a road... I think." She answered quietly in a obviously wounded tone. "I don't remember anything before that, but that's what I was told by the family that took me in."

He watched worriedly as the little pixie-soldier fleshed out a little more, and a small sword and shield made of shadow magic, appeared in its hands while it stood in a defensive posture, with its sword at the ready. "S-Sorry. I didn't realize." He looked up at her after regaining his composure. "I didn't realize you weren't an elf."

The tiny soldier's new body evaporated and only a small pile of bones were left. "No one does. I'm not supposed to tell anyone." She said nervously. "I-I don't know what I am. No one will tell me." She told him while worrying her fingers, then distracting herself by cleaning up the little bones, and putting them back in the velvet-lined box she made to keep them in.

He sat on the sofa by her and took a sip of the water he had grabbed earlier. He sighed as she peered up at him through her thick dark lashes. "Um... I can give you a few pointers." He nodded towards the little box. "What are you practicing for?" He asked curiously.

She sighed a little in relief that he had changed the subject. "My Level 8.7 exam." She held out the palm of her hand and blew a little breath on it, causing a small black demon to appear. "I've been able to do that since I was seven, but Uesugi-dono says I need to do this first. He said I won't need this until my Level 10 exam." She explained, behaving as if the demon in her hand was something that she had dealt with every day.

An unnoticeable look of shock briefly crossed his face and he quickly schooled it. "Well... It's all a matter of emotion. You do look like you have the basics of it and from what I just saw, you'll master it very soon... Why did you decide to come to LME?" He asked casually throwing it in while her guard was down.

She sighed. "At first I wanted revenge on someone, but the more I do, learn, and see; the more I just want to learn about who I really am. I don't really care about revenge anymore. It just seems so petty and empty." She told him thinking about how easy it had been getting to the top and toppling Sho from his spot. It quickly became an empty feeling. She was thankful that Lory had shown that to her.

He nodded. "I agree. It is a very unsatisfying emotion."

"I really did mean it when I said that I was looking for myself. The real me. I think this will help and I really like acting. It was really fun." She told him practically glowing.

He smiled softly. It really is her, it has to be. There's no other explanation, but how? "I understand." He patted her gently on the head. "We have a busy day tomorrow. You should bathe and get some rest. You can use my guest room." He smirked. It was just an impulse to tease her.

She frowned. "W-What? I can't do that."

He turned to her as he stood. "I promise I won't watch."

She looked at him a little stunned, then growled and grabbed her things. "Fine! I will!"

He chuckled. "Good, see you in the morning." He left the room leaving her to gape at him for his comment.

What a playboy. She huffed internally.

I will not burn the flesh from her bones, I will not burn the flesh from her bones. Kyoko repeated internally as the little, snotty elf, Mimori Nanokura walked away after taunting her during her first day of real school. Not that her training with Uesugi-dono wasn't real, but this was with others her age and similar type. Although, she was steadily seeing exactly how elves behaved and the fact that the girl was a staunch Sho supporter didn't help much. How did that even happen? Didn't she know that elves hated vamps? Didn't she know he was a vampire? A blood-sucking parasite? She giggled at the thought of Sho being a tick on his slutty werewolf manager. Kyoko shook off the thoughts.

"Now Kyoko, that wasn't very nice. You don't really know if it's that way. You know how he is. He's probably treating her like a servant since you aren't around." A tiny angelic voice scolded.

Kyoko huffed inwardly. "Get lost you flying rat. If I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you." She flicked the little cherub from her shoulder and it hit the wall across the room. She looked back down at her history book and forced herself to concentrate on controlling her inner urges to incinerate, reanimate the little elf, then use her to do her bidding. She smirked at the prospects and wondered if anyone would really notice. All of Sho's fans seemed to be brainless sets of tits like this one anyway. Nothing at all like her Kitsune friend Mōko-san.

She smiled softly at the thought and radiantly glowed. Mōko was smart, pretty and very talented. Sure she was a bit standoffish, but that was because she had been mistreated for going against what was traditional in her kind's community. She wanted to be an actress, and they wanted a litter of fox-kits before her 18th birthday. She flatly refused, and nearly had one of her four tails removed because of it.

Kyoko looked up to her for standing up like that. A Kitsune's tail was a hard fought treasure that didn't come easily. It took many years of trials, tribulations, and heavy education to earn one. To have four at Kanae's age was truly and achievement. Most didn't have that number until they were at least 60 and certainly didn't don their humanoid form until they were at least 100. Perhaps that's why they were trying to force kits out of her at such a young age. Kyoko was glad that she didn't have that kind of family obligation and shivered at the bullet she had dodged with Sho as his caretaker. She was now glad that he had never returned the feelings that she had felt for him, and wondered if she would ever find one of her own kind. Were there any others like her?

Sure she and Sho would have never married, but that didn't mean she wouldn't have ended up serving him in other ways, not that he hadn't tried. She winced at the memory of the first time he had called her plain, boring and with no sex-appeal. It had been terrifying, and something that Yayoi Fuwa had never discussed or warned her about when it came the male gender. Not that she hadn't been harassed by various, drunken male patrons at the ryokan. She wasn't stupid, she just wasn't ready for something like that. It was too much of an unknown and it didn't feel right at the time. It was the first time she had witnessed the birth of so many of her demons at once. Sho never knew what hit him. He was unconscious, and she was safe from his advances, from that point on.