Chapter 1

Even as a child she was astute. She understood what was happening around her and she was sure no one knew it.

Except, perhaps, her father.

There was something different about him, that was for sure. He alone didn't seem bothered by the fact that she never cried or laughed a child's innocent laughter. His long hair was the most brilliant of reds, his eyes like pools of jade, his skin pale but not unhealthily so.

They called him Kurama. Sometimes Suiichi.

Her mother was a deeply tanned woman and, she assumed, liked to spend time outside. She had chestnut hair and pretty blue eyes, was kind and gentle, always pampering and cooing over her daughter.

Everyone called her Claire.

She wasn't positive, but she didn't think her parents looked at each other quite the way they looked at her. In fact, there was no love in her father's eyes as he gazed upon his wife.

Of that much, Lilibelle Shiori Minamino was certain. Of her mother, she still wasn't sure. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn't.

But there was also something different about the way her father handled her and the way her mother did.

Her father was gentle but he knew when to let her alone; when to assist and when to stand back. He regarded her coolly but still managed to make her feel like she was safe and loved. His voice was calm and reassuring; a light, musical sound.

Bell's mother was constantly trying to make sure she wasn't going to hurt herself or hovering around anxiously. Claire was soft spoken around the child and always careful in her movements. There was a strange look in her eyes, something beyond love that drove her to be the insecure woman that coddled her child. There was a matching note of tension in her quiet voice.

Bell didn't mind. She observed, grew, and learned. She had a good life, albeit isolated – no one came to visit them and even when they did Bell was usually locked up in her room.

Things went downhill the week before Bell turned three.

At first Claire simply became less attentive and left more often to meet with friends.

Then Claire started avoiding her daughter and jumping when Bell spoke to her. She wasn't the hovering figure the child was used to.

Two days from Bell's birthday, Claire began breaking into hysterical sobs the second her daughter came within sight.

One day and she shouted, throwing things all around, breaking them. She screamed and cried and Kurama had to confine her to their bedroom so she wouldn't hurt Bell.

Bell looked up at Kurama through dark purple eyes and thick, deep brown locks of hair. "Daddy, what's wrong with Mommy?" she asked innocently.

Kurama looked down at Bell and frowned. For a minute he didn't answer. Then, "Claire is terrified beyond reason," he replied stiffly.

"Of what?" Bell clutched the ragged, grey stuffed monkey she brought everywhere she went close to her chest.

Again Kurama hesitated, but he seemed to decide that honesty was best. "Of you."

Bell blinked. "Of… me?" She looked down the hall to the door and giggled. "Why would Mommy be afraid of me?" She once again turned those large innocent eyes to her father.

This time Kurama just turned away and left Bell standing in her doorway confused.

Bell frowned. "I'll show Mommy she doesn't need to be afraid," she decided, speaking aloud so her monkey would know what she was doing. "Although I don't know why she is in the first place…"

So, her sock covered feet padding softly down the hall, Bell crept up to her parents' room. She glanced around – she wasn't supposed to go inside – and turned the doorknob experimentally.

Kurama hadn't locked the door. Beaming at her luck, Bell pushed the door open hesitantly. "Mommy?" she called softly into the room.

There was no answer.

"Mommy?" Bell ventured a little further into the room. There was no one there. But a door ajar with the light on and the faint sound of ragged breathing to her left made Bell smile and she ambled to the bathroom there to find her mother.

She pushed the door open a little more and stopped, frozen in her tracks at the sight before her: Claire stood at the counter, leaning over the sink, a crazed look in her eye as she stared at herself in the mirror.

"I can't do this," she moaned to herself. "I can't do this. I can't put myself through this torture; I won't let my own daughter kill me!" She laughed hysterically and fumbled for something beside her. "Carrier, they called me at the hospital. Those men in suits. Carrier… I can't inflict this disease upon a child, any child, most certainly not any child of mine." Claire lifted a pair of scissors and snipped the air experimentally. "Nope." She laughed again, a hollow, dead sort of laugh; the laugh of someone who has nothing to lose but life itself, and even that hold is tentative. "No child of mine will grow up like that."

Bell gaped at her mother. This was a side of her never revealed. It was a side Bell didn't like.

"Better off dead, they said to me. But I had to be sentimental – 'She's my daughter, my only child' I said. 'You can't take this precious child from me' I said. I was a fool." Claire frowned and stared intently at her reflection. "Oh, I knew what she was of course, when they told me. But no mother would believe their child a monster. But she is, oh, she is. No more cursed children from me!" Claire snapped the scissors together and stabbed the point into her hand with a cry of pain.

Bell gasped and stumbled backwards in shock. Another peal of crazed laughter echoed in the room.

"But that child, that monster… she must die first. No third birthday for little Lilibelle."

Bell's eyes filled with tears and she fell back over the edge of the rug. "Mommy," she whispered feebly, staring at the door. Could her mother truly mean to kill her?

It seemed she could.

"Oh, little Bell," Claire cooed as she stepped out of the bathroom, blood dripping from the scissors and her hand. "How much of that did you hear, little one? No matter," Claire sighed. She lifted the scissors and twirled them in her fingers. "Soon we'll be without troubles and worries, you and I. Doesn't that sound nice, honey?"

Bell sobbed fearfully and scrambled to get farther away. "Mommy, why are you doing this?" she whimpered. "I love you, Mommy!"

"I love you too, my little treasure. That's why I'm doing this. It's for the good of everyone." Claire stepped forward, her voice gentle but her face twisted hideously as she looked upon the child crawling away from her. "No one wants a monster around."

Bell felt a searing pain as the sharp points of the metal blades plunged into her back, narrowly missing her spine. She cried out. Her arms and legs giving way so that she fell flat on her stomach. The object was removed and Bell quickly rolled over onto her injured back. She screamed and held up her hands to try and deflect the next blow. All that this action accomplished, however, was to impale both of her palms and leave the poor child in tears and a slowly growing pool of blood.

As her mother raised her weapon a third time, Bell's father caught Claire's arm and shoved her away from his daughter. Bell had no idea where he came from, though at that moment she didn't particularly care. Claire shrieked and charged forward again. Hiei pushed her back.

"Don't you see what she is?" Claire demanded savagely. "Don't you see what we've created? We have to kill her before she kills us! Before she kills everyone! Belle cannot turn three!"

Kurama frowned deeply. "Claire, be reasonable. This is your daughter, not a monster. If you would treat her with the love and respect she deserves then she would have no reason to kill you. The thought probably hasn't even crossed her mind. You've kept her so sheltered that I doubt she even knows what she is, much less what's going on."

"How can you defend that… that thing?" Claire pointed a shaking finger at Belle, her eyes glinting with the heat of madness.

"How can you think of killing her?" Kurama retorted instantly.

Claire shook her head. "I don't have time for this," she snarled. Once more she made to stab Bell and once more Kurama repelled the hit.

"Claire, if you try that one more time, I will kill you. Don't contradict me," he added when Claire opened her mouth indignantly. "There is no love in this marriage – it is purely political. Although I am certainly willing to sacrifice this peace for the life of my daughter, I'm sure your people will understand when I explain to them what you were trying to do."

Claire growled lowly. "As long as I take that with me," she spat.

The scissors were in her hand one moment and flying through the air at the small gap left between Kurama and Claire in the next. Bell flinched, positive that she was about to die without so much as an explanation.

But Kurama had produced his rose whip in the same instant and with one smooth motion had both deflected the attack and made true his threat. Claire's torso lay a few feet away from her body.

Bell gasped and struggled to sit up, staring at the mangled body. "M-Mommy," she sobbed. "What did you do to Mommy?" The monkey at her side was lifted gently, followed by Bell herself as Kurama carried her out of the bloodstained room.

"Bell," Kurama admonished quietly. Bell fell silent immediately, sensing the underlying command. "What you have to understand is that you mother was under a lot of strain, mentally and emotionally. Being married to someone you don't love, someone who doesn't love you back, can be taxing. She never learned how to deal with it. She was bound to break sometime." Then he sighed and set her on the counter in a different bathroom. "I'm… sorry you had to see that."

Bell sniffled. "Why was Mommy so mad at me?" she asked. "Why did Mommy want to hurt me? Did I do something wrong? Am I a bad girl?"

"No," Kurama replied sharply. His voice softened. "It had nothing to do with your behaviour. Claire was hysterical. If I thought this bout of madness would have subsided I would have tried to save her. It was either her or you and quite frankly you are more important to me."

Bell watched Kurama clean her wounds for a minute before looking around in absolute panic. "Where's Monkey?" she howled. "Where is he? Did Mommy—"

"He's here, Bell. Please settle down, I have to get you cleaned up." Kurama absently handed her the monkey and returned to cleaning the blood off the wound in her back. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out an unmarked bottle. "This is going to sting. Be a good girl for Daddy and sit still, okay?"

Bell nodded and hugged Monkey tightly. She gritted her teeth as Kurama applied the antiseptic, followed quickly by thick gauze pads and a linen bandage from a drawer.

Turning around, Bell held out her hands. "I think I got blood on Monkey," she explained soberly.

Kurama smiled faintly and took the stuffed toy from her arms to set it beside her. "I'll get him cleaned up as well, then," he answered. "Don't these hurt?"

Bell shrugged. "They hurt when Mommy stabbed me, but now my body's all tingly. I can't really feel the pain…"

Kurama sighed heavily and began working on the holes in Bell's hands. "I'll take you to Genkai's and we'll see if Yukina will heal those for you," he said. "Sound good?"

"Can we get ice cream after?" Bell requested excitedly.

"Of course," Kurama replied. "Given that you are no longer in shock. It's not good to drink or eat when your system is shutting down. The best we can do is try to stop the bleeding and head out."

"Not without Monkey," protested Bell. "He has to come, he just has to! He's my only friend and if we leave him here he'll be worried and feel lonely. I don't want Monkey to feel lonely, Daddy," Bell whispered, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her free hand around them. She glanced at the monkey sadly. "It's not a nice feeling. He's never had to feel it because I've always been with him. We can't let him feel lonely."

Kurama regarded his offspring intently. "Your mother was a fool," he muttered to himself more than her. "Because she was worried about herself she isolated you. You don't know what it's like to play with children your own age—"

"Shhhh, Daddy, Monkey will hear you!" Bell hissed, covering the animal's ears with bandaged hands. Kurama noted worriedly that blood was already seeping through the cloth. "He's very sensitive about that!"

Kurama forced a laugh and picked up the monkey. He lifted Bell to the floor and gave her a little push. "Go get your jacket; it's a little chilly outside. We'll have to take a portal, I don't think a wounded girl and her blood soaked monkey would be very welcome on the train…"