Whispers in the Dark

Chapter 1

Yukio stopped and looked at his cousin's door five hours later. It was twilight, and they had been training all day, carefully keeping away from the other ninja.

"Yukio, go home." Whisper said firmly. "I'll be fine."

Yukio wrinkled his nose, resisting the urge to snort. She would not be fine. She'd never be fine—at least not while that thing she called her father was still alive and living in that house.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

"You can't come in."

"I'll stay outside your bedroom window," he said simply.

Whisper narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

Yukio smirked. "I would."

"Don't even think about it, Yukio," she hissed physically.

He stepped back. If she used her voice, she was dead serious.

'She's dead serious,' he thought. 'I should go home . . .'

Whisper just nodded, as if reading his thoughts and slipped inside her three-story house. Why they needed three stories, she never knew. Her eyes traveled to her fathers limp figure. 'He's probably passed out,' she thought, 'No need to worry.'

She climbed the staircase as silently as she did anything. Whisper spotted a patch of blood in the corner of the 23rd step. It brought back the violent and not-so-happy memories of before she was Whisper and not Kiya Kikei-Kyoshoku.

"Nee-Chan?" 4-year-old Kiya asked, leaning over her blood-covered sister. "Nee-Chan, are you alright?"

11-year-old Kita just smiled and ruffled her hair. "I'm fine, Kiya, don't worry." She smiled weakly again and stood, walking back to her room at a slow, painful pace.

Kiya stared after her sister's retreating back. She looked at her father's limp figure on the couch, and then at the shattered beer bottle he had thrown at the wall earlier. Kiya shook her head, not understanding why the bottle had been there, or why her sister was partially covered in blue-violet patches. She shrugged, holding her silver-and-black stuffed toy wolf closely. Her sister would tell her if she wanted to.

Whisper shook her head firmly. She was no longer Kiya Gurei-Metsuki Kikei-Kyoshoku. She was Whisper; nothing more, nothing less. Well, maybe she was less than Whisper.

Anyway, what were peoples like her good for; some entertainment and a few good laughs? She did not want to be alive just for that.

"If I could leave," she said to herself once she was in the safety of her own colorless room. "I might be able to find something else I'm good for."


Yukio sat down on his bed across the clan's compound.

"Yuki-sochi," his mother said. "Do you want some cookies, honey?"

He shook his head and laid back. His mother sat on the edge of the bed.

"This is about Kiya," she stated, mostly to herself.

"Whisper," he corrected. "Her name's Whisper."

His mother sighed and nodded. "What's wrong now?" she asked, concerned. "Is something happening over there?"

"The usual," he said.

"Yukio," she said firmly. "You still haven't told me what 'the usual' is."

He looked at her. "Do you remember what was happening to Kita before she died?"

"Yes," his mother replied sadly. "She was beaten and sexually abused."

Yukio gave his mother a long look.

"Oh my," she dropped the plate of cookies. "That's—that's happening to her?" she choked.

Yukio gave her another look. His mother picked up the cookies, wearing a hard look. Yukio sat up and hopped off his bed.

"Mom, what are you going to do?" he asked, helping her pick up the pieces of plate.

His mother exchanged a glance with her husband, who had been listening outside the door. "I'm going to give her father a piece of my mind," she said, blue eyes blazing with anger. "Throw that away." With that, his mother left the room, and the house, her long blonde hair gracefully flowing behind her. Yukio looked at his father, whose black hair and red eyes were looking back at him, his lightning face markings standing out against his pale skin.

"This is going to be bad," they said together.