I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
Danny didn't really have anything to do around his place so he started to walk around town. But he quickly found that Tokyo city was not his kind of place. Wherever he went there was noise, so much noise that he couldn't even think. People were shouting and cars were racing around every corner. And with his life around explosions and screams of fear, the random noise put him on edge.
All he wanted was a place with a little quiet, but even the park was completely overrun with people. He never realized just how small town Amity Park was and he sure did miss the place. Not enough to go back and die, but enough to make him seek out a quiet corner to muse in.
He stumbled across his sanctuary completely by accident. "Excuse me lad. You think you could lend me a hand?" Danny was jogged out of his headache by a smaller elderly man. He was old and bald but sported a huge and lively grin on his face. He was dressed in what looked like a priest's garb. "Sorry if disturbed you, but you don't seem to be heading anywhere and I sure could use some help."
"Um... sure." Danny said, not really used to random people on the street asking for help. He wondered if it was a Japanese thing.
The man's grin somehow got wider, to the point where Danny thought that he might need to see a doctor about that. "Splendid! I run the Hikawa Shine right here on the top of this hill and I was wondering if you could help me move some supplies up." The man said, pointing first at a giant set of stairs to his right and then to a small pile of crates to his left. Danny's eyes widened as he looked at the heavy crates. "Thanks for your help."
Danny couldn't exactly leave the poor old guy to do it himself so he grabbed a few crates and started up the stairs. All and all it took two hours to move the supplies up the stairs to the shrine, and by the time they were done Danny was starting to feel tired. The old man however seemed to have an endless supply of energy for someone his age. Even if Danny had been handling the heavier crates, he was surprised by the man's seemingly limitless energy. It was almost unnatural of a man his age.
"Thanks for your help, son. You're stronger than you look." The small old man said.
"Right back at you." Danny said, stretching his back until he pulled it back into its original position. "How do you manage all this shrine stuff by yourself? Seems like a lot of work. Don't you have any help?" Danny asked as he glanced around the empty shrine, seeing no one but them standing there.
"My granddaughter helps out, but I try not to let the shrine be a burden to her. After all, she's just a young girl and should be out and about, having fun with her friends will they are all still young. Which is why I usually do most of the work while she isn't looking, such as right know for example." The elderly man said with a wink. "Oh, how rude of me, I've been having you slave away like this and I never asked your name."
"I'm Danny." Danny said nodding. "And it was no trouble. I wasn't up to anything anyways."
"Well thanks a bunch, Danny. You can just call me Gramps or Grandpa. Everyone seems to." Gramps said shrugging. "And as far getting help is concerned, I keep trying, but every single time it is just so lazy fool who wants to get closer to my granddaughter, or a youma trying to do who knows what. It's happened three times in the last two months. Holy shrines being used by monster for their evil plans to take over the world, is nothing sacred anymore?"
Danny's eyebrow shot up a few inches. "That sounds... odd." He said trying to find the right words. A few moments followed and Danny finally noticed it. "It nice here. Quiet." He said looking around. The area was pretty high up, towards the edge of the city, and surrounded by trees. "I'm not much of a big city kind of guy." He explained. "I like the moments of quiet."
"Yep, other than the after school rushes and holy days its usually pretty peaceful up here. Though I don't mind all the young school girls rushing to the shrines." Gramps said with a silly expression that Danny decided it was best not to ask about.
Two large ravens flew down and land on Danny, one on each shoulder. After a moment of being startled Danny just laughed and started to rum their necks as they pecked gingerly at his hair. "Oh, it looks like our friends have taken a liking to you." Gramps laughed. "You say you got some free time on your hands. Would you mind helping out?"
"So why are we all going to Raye's shrine again?" Serena asked as they started to climb the long set of stairs up to the shrine house.
"So that we can ask the Sacred Fire about the mystery boy. See what he is." Raye reminded her. "Honestly Serena, you should pay more attention. You're supposed to be our leader."
"I don't know why you're so obsessed with this. You've never even seen him." Amy said, moping at all the teasing her friends were doing.
"Don't be like that. Wouldn't you like to know what his face looks like?" Lita said putting an arm around Amy.
"Would you please stop asking questions that don't have answers that can't be misunderstood." Amy said defensively.
"Hey, do you girls hear that?" Serena asked as they approached the top of the hill. It sounded like someone was hammering a nail into something. Once they could see the shrine they saw that there was a boy on the roof with a hammer and a box of nails. Raye's ravens were perched on his shoulder making it clear that the boy's hair really was raven black.
"Gramps didn't say anything about a new hand around the Shrine, or calling someone about the hole in the roof." Raye said as they approached. "Excuse me!" She shouted and the boy jumped, startling the birds off of his shoulders and then he fell of the roof ten feet onto his back. The girls were horrified but a moment later he was sitting up scratching the back of his head.
"Owe. Going to be feeling that one in the morning." The boy said. Amy blinked having a sense of deza vu. It was the same thing that the hooded boy had said after being thrown and having a wrecking ball land on top of him.
"Are you ok!?" Lita asked as the boy turned his head in their direction. "Danny?"
"Lita, Amy, Serena? What are you girls doing here?" Danny asked puzzled. He had a light bruise underneath one eye and looked completely shocked to see them.
"Our friend Raye lives here." Serena said pointing to Raye. "What are you doing here? And why were you hammering away that the shrine roof like that?"
"That's... a good question?" Danny said, scratching his head. "I really not quite sure how it got to that. I was walking around town when Gramps asked if I could help him with something and then one thing led to another... I remember talking about how you couldn't leave the roof like it was without a patch just to stop the insulator from the rest of the building being ruined and then I started looking at what kind of material I would need to do the whole job and after finding a store nearby I started fixing the roof."
"Why do you know how to fix a roof?" Amy asked surprised to find the boy there.
"Well, I usually do walls and floors, but a roof isn't that much different." Danny said getting up and stretching. "I should probably finish." He said before returning to the ladder.
"That didn't answer my question." Amy pouted but it didn't seem like she was going to get a straight answer.
"Is everything alright out here? I thought I heard someone shouting." Gramps said, coming out of the main house. "Oh Raye, your home, and I see you brought your friends with you." The old man said smiling. "And I see you've met Danny. How are things going up there?"
"Pretty good, Gramps. I've got out all of the damaged insulator and replaced it before patching up the hole and I am putting a proper cover on. I'm pretty much done unless you have some replacement roofing tiles on hand." Danny reported.
"I'll look to see what we got. Thanks again." Gramps said grinning.
"Gramps, you didn't rope some poor passer by into helping with the shrine, did you?" Raye said looking a little disappointed in her grandfather.
"What... maybe." Gramps said scratching his head. Trying to keep from making eye contact with his already angry granddaughter.
"It's alright. I'm used to this kind of work." Danny said from the roof as he started again with the nails. "I wasn't doing anything today anyways. Besides, its nice and quiet up here. Other than my hammering, I mean."