Author's Notes: I really wanted to resolve this one, because the scene is so vivid in my mind. So I'm getting to work early.

Ronin

Chapter 3 - Every Breath You Take

Sam smiled softly at Danny's question. A light blush colored her cheeks and she tried to find something to do with her hands. "I'd like that," she whispered.

Danny felt as if a huge weight had suddenly been lifted off his chest. He stood up and followed Sam out of the room. "I'll be back soon, Mom," he called out before stepping out the front door.

The summer air was warm and lethargic. Magic hour was just starting. Danny had learned that term in art class. It was coined by photographers to describe the period of 15 minutes every day around sunset where the angle of the sun's rays bathed everything in soft, pastel light. It was odd, but as much as Sam loathed the color pink, the soft pink, gold, and purple hues painting the city right now created a beauty too powerful to ignore.

Danny glanced over at Sam as they started the walk toward her house and smiled. He had to admit, she looked really beautiful in this light. It felt odd coming to terms with it, but he was finding himself more and more attracted to Sam. His mother was right. For once, when Sam caught him staring at her, he didn't look away in embarrassment. Instead, he just took her hand in his. Her blush deepened, but the smile was obvious.

The walk was slow. Slower than it really had to be. Danny really wanted to take his time. By the time they were within a couple blocks of Sam's house, the sun was long gone. "You know..." he said at last, "we should probably talk about this." It was the only words he'd spoken since they left the house, and he honestly couldn't think of a better way to approach the subject.

"W-what do you mean?" Sam asked, visibly wincing at herself for stuttering.

"Well..." Danny began, when a strange noise reached his ears. It was like the rhythmic scuffing of footsteps, but the time between them was too long. "Hold on... do you hear that?"

Sam furrowed her brow and listened. "Sounds like... someone walking really slow."

A figure rounded the corner. It seemed to be dressed in robes and was standing up straight. The arms were outstretched in front of it. The weird thing was that it was... hopping. Well, that explained the pauses. "Who the hell is that?" Danny asked

"I don't know," Sam answered. "But something doesn't feel right here."

That was proven soon enough when the figure stepped under the light of streetlamp and Danny felt his eyes go wider than he could have imagined. Even with all the weirdness in his life, he never would have expected something like this. The creature before them looked human, but it couldn't have been anymore. It was dressed in Chinese robes and stood a little over five feet tall. The skin was white as paper and looked just as dry, stretched tight over the skull. The eyes were pale and dead, two pinholes of red light emanating from the pupils like tiny fires. The gaunt hands held out in front of the creature ended in dirty, sharp talons. It opened its mouth to let out a hiss and showed a mouthful of sharp yellow teeth.

"What the hell is that?" Danny exclaimed as he jumped back with Sam, trying to shield her despite his own fear. He didn't bother to wait for an answer. He went ghost.

Immediately, the creature stopped its advance, seeming confused. It snarled again and began hopping toward them once more.

"Don't come any closer!" Danny threatened. When the monster hopped again, he fired off an ecto blast, knocking it over. The creature seemed to perform a somersault and righted itself like one of the wobblin' weebl toys. It seemed more confused and infuriated than ever before continuing to hop toward the two of them.

"Sam, get out of the way. I'm not sure what this thing is, but I need to take it down quick."

Sam nodded and ran across the street to find cover.

"Alright, ugly. It's just you and m-!" Danny stopped cold when he saw the monster ignore him and hop after Sam. "Hey! I'm over here, you scrawny jack-ass!" Seeing that the monster was thoroughly ignoring him, Danny launched himself at it in flight. He spun a hard round kick at the back of its head, knocking it over once again only to have it right itself like before.

Danny growled in frustration and sent another powerful ecto blast at the creature. This one sent it flying and singed its robes and dried skin. The monster made no notice however, and got right back up. Sam tried to run to get some distance between her and it, but within a few quick leaps, it had caught up to her and caught her neck in it s bony fingers.

Sam managed to barely choke out Danny's name as the preternaturally strong hands began to squeeze.

Danny panicked. He flew right to them and grabbed the monster's arms. "Let her go!" he yelled, trying to wrench its hands away, but its grip was like iron. Sam's face was going red, her eyes wide in horror.

"Let her go!" Danny practically screamed. His hands became surrounded in ectoplasm. Then his arms and shoulders, filling him with a strength he had never known before. With one great pull, he ripped the monster's arms off at the elbow joint with a sickening sound like a mixture of splintering bone and torn paper.

The monster howled in rage instead of pain, as its two severed arms released their grip on Sam's throat and she fell to the ground choking and desperately gulping in air.

Not wasting an instant, Danny dropped the arms and grabbed the creature by its head. Ecto blasts erupted from his palms, and with a howl that faded like the wind the monstrosity was reduced to little more than ash.

The thought of what he had just done barely registered in Danny's mind as he transformed back to a human and he immediately went to Sam's side in a near panic. "Sam? Sam, please say something."

"I'm okay," she said weakly, her voice strained and hoarse. Her voice and sobs, and with the tears in her eyes and bruises on her neck told him otherwise.

Danny scooped her up into his arms bridal style and carried her down the street to her house as fast as he could. "Just relax. It's over now. I'm taking you home."

Just as he reached Sam's house, the door opened up to show Sam's parents standing in the door. "What happened out here?" her father asked. "We heard shouting a minute ago."

"What happened to my daughter?" Mrs. Manson cried out in a mixture of horror and outrage seeing Sam in the state she was in.

Danny did some fast thinking and half-assed a cover story. "I was walking her home. Some guy tried to mug us and he attacked Sam. I... I think he was going to rape her."

Sam's mother gasped, on the verge of tears. Her father looked scared and perplexed at once. "Did he...?"

"No," Danny replied quickly. "I... I tried to fight him. He ran when I started yelling. I guess he was afraid people heard me."

Mr. Manson looked a little skeptical at first, but seemed to accept the story. "Let's get you two inside. I'm calling the police."

Danny sighed. His little cover story was going to cause some complications, but at least his secret wouldn't get out. More importantly, Sam was safe. That was all he really cared about right now.

-x-

Sam slowly came to, recognizing the familiar setting of her bedroom. She stirred weakly, her head feeling as if it had been packed with cotton and her skull turned to lead. As her vision came into focus, she pushed herself back against the headboard to see better and saw Danny sitting on the floor next to her bed. His head was resting on its side on the mattress and he was fast asleep.

The memories came back all at once. She remembered the monster that attacked them. The feeling of its cold, rough hands encircling her neck... strangling her as her vision tunneled. Sam liked to believe she was strong, but even the hardiest souls were shaken by a brush with death. She couldn't stop the sobs from shaking her body as the fear from that moment, thinking that she was going to die, came as such a fresh memory.

Danny slowly stirred and woke up. In an instant, Sam felt herself being pulled into his arms as he sat on her bed and whispered to her. "Shh... It's okay, Sam."

Sam clung to Danny like he was the only thing real to her anymore. She hated herself for showing this kind of weakness. She was supposed to be strong. And here she was crying into his shoulder, trying in vain to chase away the memories of the attack. Still... his presence was comforting. She knew how much Danny hated seeing her cry. The last time she had ever done this was in second grade. They were on the playground when someone found a mole. Dash, in a juvenile attempt to prove how tough he was, stepped on it and killed it. Sam kicked him in the crotch and ran off under her favorite willow tree to cry. Danny was there to see the whole thing and he spent the next hour-and-a-half desperately trying to stop her tears.

Time sort of lost its meaning at that point. The last thing Sam remembered before slipping back into the comparative tranquility of half-sleep was Danny's voice whispering, "You're safe now, Sam. I'll never let anything hurt you again."

When Sam next awoke, she saw Danny sitting next to her bed, flipping through a trade paperback of PS238, the only non-Goth comic book she ever read. Danny and Tucker had persuaded her into reading it, and she immediately fell in love with the series. She glanced at her digital clock to see that it was almost noon. "Danny?" she asked softly, he voice still weak from the injuries on her neck.

Danny looked up from the comic and smiled softly. "Good afternoon, sleeping beauty. You feeling better?"

Sam smiled gently despite herself and nodded slowly. "What happened?"

Danny sighed and lost his smile. He glanced at the door as if expecting her parents to come in any time now before sitting on her bed. "I destroyed that... thing. Practically vaporized it. Your parents called the police when I got you home, so I gave them all a bogus story about a rapist in a Halloween mask. I can't believe they bought it. Still, it's better than telling them we were attacked by a hopping zombie."

Sam suddenly had a flash of memory and the truth dawned on her. "Vampire actually."

Danny furrowed his brows and gave her a strange look. "A vampire?"

"A Chinese one, specifically. A kyonshi." Sam had delved into Far Eastern superstition a few years back, utterly fascinated by the ways of different cultures. "It's a restless spirit whose corpse was buried improperly. Rigor mortis sets in, so they can only hop. And they can only see you if you breathe."

Danny's eyebrows went up in revelation. "So that's why it ignored me! In my ghost mode, I don't have to breathe. It didn't know I was there."

Sam nodded. "But what I don't get is what it was doing here on the West Coast."

The two shared a silence before Danny spoke up. "I think there's only one real way to find out. You said our main lead was the Order of the Crimson Ghosts and Kagyaku, right?"

Sam nodded again, and decided not to do that anymore as it was starting to irritate her bruises. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking you're thinking?"

"Probably," Danny answered. "We're going to have to go to Japan ourselves and try to fit all the pieces together."

There was a knock at the door, causing the two of them to jump slightly. Danny put one finger to his lips quickly before turning to the door. "Come in."

The door opened and both the Mansons and the Fentons came in. The mothers went immediately to their children and enveloped them in crushing maternal hugs.

"Oh, Sammiekins!" Mrs. Manson crooned in her usual singsong voice. "Don't scare us like that!"

"Danny, I'm so proud of you," Maddie gushed. "The police and Mr. and Mrs. Manson told us everything!"

"That's my son, alright!" Jack beamed. "A real fighter, a hero!"

Mr. Manson cleared his throat and looked over at Jack. "I have to admit, I... owe your family an apology," he muttered grudgingly.

Sam was a little surprised by everything that was going on. She had no idea her parents actually cared this much. Her father was even apologizing to the Fentons. "Mom, please! Watch the neck!"

"Out of curiosity, when did you guys get here?" Danny asked.

"We arrived last night," Jazz answered. "You and Sam were asleep, so we didn't want to bother you two."

"Daniel never left your side, Sammiekins," Mrs. Manson explained. "We offered him a guest room, but he insisted on staying here all night."

Danny smiled embarrassedly and looked off to the side as his face went bright red. "She would have done the same for me," he said, trying to wave it off.

"Why don't we all head downstairs," Mr. Manson ordered rather than suggested. "I'll have the cook fix us all some brunch, and we can talk about it over a nice meal."

Everyone knew there was no real sense in arguing with Sam's father in his own house and acquiesced. "Danny and I will be down in a minute, Dad."

"Very well. Don't take long." Everyone but Sam and Danny filed out of the room. Except Jazz who straggled a bit.

She paused at the doorway, then turned and came back into the room, shutting the door behind her. "Okay, you two, what really happened?" she asked bluntly.

"What?" Sam and Danny asked in unison.

"Danny, that story about a rapist was fake, wasn't it?" Jazz asked directly. "I can tell when you're hiding something because your eyebrows always arc upward when you do."

"Well... the thing is..." Danny was desperately stalling for time.

"Danny, please," Jazz said gently as she pulled up a chair from Sam's desk to the bed. "There's something going on that you aren't telling me. Whatever your secret is, it's safe with me. But please stop hiding it from me."

Sam knew there was no escaping it this time. She placed a hand over Danny's and looked him in the eye. "It's time, Danny. She's going to find out sooner or later."

Danny sighed in resignation. "The truth is... Jazz, I'm the ghost boy. I'm... Danny Phantom."

Jazz breathed a sigh of relief. "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever tell me," she said with a smile.

Danny did a double take. "Wait, you knew I was the ghost boy?"

"I have since the Spirit Week incident," Jazz explained. "I just wanted you to be the one to tell me yourself."

Danny and Sam looked at one another in surprise. "Well, isn't this just a kick in the head," Danny muttered.

"Now that we've got that out," Jazz continued, "what happened last night?"

Danny paused for a moment as if choosing the best words. "I was walking Sam home last night. The sun went down and we were attacked by... what did you say it was, Sam?"

"A kyonshi," Sam replied. "It's a Chinese creature also called a hopping vampire. But it behaves more like a zombie."

"What's a Chinese monster doing here?" Jazz asked, clearly just as perplexed as them.

"That's a damn good question," Danny said in response. "Sam and I only have one lead right now. All these Asian ghosts keep showing up, and we think it might have something to do with this ancient ninja clan called the Order of the Crimson Ghosts."

Jazz furrowed her brows in thought. "We'll have to talk more about this later. For now, we better head downstairs before everyone starts wondering what's taking us so long."

Sam nodded and slowly got out of bed. She still had a slight headache, but that wasn't anything a couple of aspirin couldn't fix. She also was suddenly pleased with herself for looking into holistic medicine and remedies. That herbal bruise lineament she bought a couple weeks ago was going to be very handy to have around. The bigger issue though was how they were going to arrange a trip to Japan when they were just a couple of minors...

-x-

Author's Notes: This chapter wasn't supposed to be out this early, you know. But it practically wrote itself and I just couldn't stop. I'll have to dedicate myself to finishing up the next chapters of LCA! and AMI. But first I need to finish the last 30 or so pages of a script before September 10th. I really have to bust my ass to make this work, so wish me luck.