Forsaken Child

Chapter 4: Prisoner

Not a slave yet not a free being,
Not caged in yet not let out,
Fate decided by passion,
A destiny engulfed in darkness.
This is what a Blood Prisoner is,
To the day they die.

For the third time Shika awoke from her unconsciousness and into a warm, subtle room but for the first time Shika actually remembered where she was and what had happened, not to mention what would happen. For once she had not forgotten one thing and she was in control of her mind completely. For once no one was tampering with her head or causing her to lose her conscious.

She took in what peaceful sight the room gave her and that sight was greatly relaxing. The warm air coated her body into a held embrace of comfort that Shika felt a need to be treasured tightly against her...but there was no time for this serenity as it did not last long, soon overpowered by a nauseating uneasiness lingering in the room. She found that some parts of it were coming from her own self as her mind slowly worked to break out of the long rest she had probably taken.

There was barely any light in the room to see but even with what little source there was began to sting her eyes out viciously. However, seeing that the lights were still faint her eyes could adjust to the sting quickly. How long had she been out? For hours into the night or maybe even longer then that? That and many more questions would be answered as she looked over to the far side of the room to find what she wanted to see, and yet at the same time, something she did not want to see, Kishin.

“The nightmares just beginning,” she thought sullenly.

He sat silently on an old oak desk on the other side of the room, his right leg propped up on the table while the same side arm rested on his propped leg. His meaningless but intense gaze fell aimlessly at the floor with emotionless eyes that he always seemed to have on, the same eyes that greatly annoyed and frightened Shika even in her drowsy state. Since, in some ways, that placid face reminded her of the night her entire life was turned upside down, and twisted into a poorly tied bow around a box that was labeled paradox in a nice cursive handwriting just to spite her even more.

He didn’t seem to notice that she was awake since he kept staring obliviously at the floor in more intensity then he would probably ever give Shika. Making no movement whatsoever to tell her that he had noticed her awake. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, that would get his attention but he had beaten her to that before any sound escaped her lips.

“Can you sit up?” he commanded, more then asked. Seeming to be least interested in what Shika had to say or had wanted to say. He finally allowed his eyes to make movement, they blinked quickly to break off the intensity in them as they rolled up to stare at Shika instead. Although she would have better liked this if he had stayed staring at the floor, but even to her, that sounded strange and unlikely.

She knew all this and yet kept quiet but involuntarily shuddered for some mysterious reason that even she couldn’t quite fathom. Feeling slightly alone in the room since she couldn’t really list Kishin in one of her friends’ category, not to mention he was a major anti-social person. Heck, she didn’t even know what to call their relation. Acquaintances, partners, or maybe he saw her as something no higher then a lower being? She violently shook her head and trashed the thought away, since all she ever could think about depressed her.

Finally, as she willed her body into a sitting position her body felt awkwardly heavy with every tired muscle that moved, which was everywhere. Almost as if she was placed in a different body that she could tell didn’t feel like her own but she knew that wasn’t the case, the feeling had just seemed like that to her. She was finally up as she pulled herself back to the head of the bed so she could rest a little bit more on the hard surface but still be able to talk straight with Kishin. Which actually might have been worse then just him looking at her, his piercing eyes slicing right through her, making her feel even more uncomfortable then before. Yet she knew he wasn’t as intense about her in his stare as he seemed to be with the floor minutes before.

Shika wanted to shout out if she had the choice, just to get her answers, but his eyes kept taunting her relentless. Although she couldn’t really complain, right? All the explanations she had been waiting for was just inches away from her fingertips, dangling leisurely in front of her face. The only problem with her patience was the fact that she had for so long desperately wanted to be able to ask everything she had planned for so long but her mind felt as empty and useless as a dead corpse. That sounded ironic but she had hoped that it wasn’t literally to her.

One thing those eyes and her drowsed mind weren’t going to do to Shika was keep her from at least speaking, if not a little, “I…I, wha-what…happened t-to me?” she finally asked in a soft rasp.

Looking away at her hands, then her feet, and then back to her hands, she just had to look away. Shika had been wrong, she just couldn’t look at his eyes and talk at the same time, the act was just too much, too impossible! She had a hard enough time just to be able to stutter out what she did. She was beginning to feel like the giddy little school girl she used to be, the one who had problems being shy and who was way too timid for anyone’s tastes. As an afterthought, she quickly thought of a possibility and used the idea to get the conversation moving.

“A-Am I—Did I-.” She quickly stopped herself, almost on the verge of breaking down in fear as she clamped her hands over her lips and began to shake violently and uncontrollably. To afraid to admit to herself that she might not be human any longer.

“You’re not a vampire,” he said simply, after a long annoying pause, the slight irritation in his voice obvious as he continued on without reverence. “There wouldn’t have been a point in turning you into a vampire since the whole point was so that I could drink your blood instead of getting it from others.”

He was right, why would he have turned her if she had promised to give him her blood in exchange for sparing the lives of others he might drink from and kill, which made her wonder why he had let her live the first time they met. Noticing that her reasoning was failing her, she promptly tried to compose herself to stop her vigorous shaking and push the conversation further with a rounder mind then what she was using now. She had been thinking way too morbidly and cowardly, even to her own eyes.

When she had finally stopped shaking, Shika slowly let her hands fall onto her lap and took many, long, deep breaths of reassurance.

With more control she said, “Then…what happened to m-me? What did,” she paused, trying to find the right words in her limited English. “What did…you do to me?”

He said nothing at first, letting the uneasiness in the room linger, prolonging the silence even more. He stared at Shika as if contemplating something only he knew and when he looked ready to speak he let his head hang slightly and closed his eyes, “You’re my Blood Prisoner,” he said simply, heaving the words out as if just speaking were a burden to him.

“Blood…Prisoner?” Shika repeated more slowly to herself in confusion.

“It’s a term we use to define a willing blood donor, at least that’s what Rei said, the only difference with that and what you are is that I’ve tied your soul to mine,” he quickly explained. “While drinking your blood I was searching for your soul to bind, in a way we’re connected to each other in a type of psychological way. It’s not what you’re probably thinking though. I can’t read your mind and you can’t read mine, but we can talk to each other through it, but it’s more of a feeling that we can transfer to each other, but since ‘psycho-’ also includes your feelings we’re just going to label it that.”

He was right, now that she actually stopped and quieted down, Shika did feel a strange bond between her and Kishin that wasn’t there before. The words to describing such a feeling were very limited but nonetheless there. The bond felt almost as if a rope or chain was being tied around her soul, or at least, she thought what was being bound was her soul? No, that insignificant detail wasn’t what truly matter to Shika. Her soul, her heart, didn’t all of that just mean that she belonged to him now? I mean, the term he used was called Blood Prisoner. What was she really?

Abruptly interrupting Shika’s thought he continued on. “Although I won’t bore you or me with irrelevant information, so I’ll just get straight to the point,” he said with growing impatience. “Basically, you belong to me. I’ll be drinking your blood whenever I want and unless I call you, you’ll be coming here every other day or so.”

“Did he have to be so blunt about it? And is it just me, or did he just switch from talking somewhat polite to completely vulgar?” Shika thought to herself, not paying attention to the rest of Kishin’s ranting.

“Also,” she heard him say suddenly. “Now that you know about us there are a couple of things you have to know about. You also have to realize along with this that you’re not in a faerie tale that sugar coated to the point where it’s child’s play. The real roots of any mythical creature, faerie tale, or folklore are all brutal and merciless, something you should defiantly keep in mind.”

At this Shika shuddered in an unexpressed fear. Not wanting to find out or know what kind of horror he could be talking about.

“All that you’ve probably heard and all that you’ve seen so far are nothing compared to what you will see. Damnation would even sound better then some of what you might see in some ways. What I’m telling you is something so obvious yet something always overlooked. So in short, I won’t allow my Blood Prisoner to die or kill herself just because you couldn’t handle what you got yourself into,” he said, slightly emphasizing the fact that she now belonged to him, as he kept repeating. “Can you still handle all of this, knowing that you’ll only see more of them in a view few humans ever see? Knowledge that few can live with without going insane?”

She didn’t answer. Leaving the room in another pause of silence as she stared into nothing, letting her bangs cover her eyes from revealing the fear she held.

“If you can’t handle it then tell me now. I won’t allow you to hold me back and get in the way. If you tell me now, then I can erase all that’s happened, relieve you of all of this and you can go back to your regular old life. Just tell me now if you have the guts for it or not, no one’s here to tell you otherwise. So choose.”

Regular old life? That’s a laugh. Even before she came here and met Kishin and his sister, Rei, she had lost her regular old life a long time ago. Ever since her parents died on that dreary winter’s night in that single car crash, maybe even before then? She didn’t know, all that she knew was that she had no real life to go back to now. Her friends are all in Japan, her parents are dead…and she had lost most her resolve for life, her uncle the only thing connecting her to any life at all. Backing out of this agreement now would have flung her back to the life she held outside of vampires and Blood Prisoners, the one she didn’t want to return to. Not to mention by showing her fear and backing out the only thing she would have accomplished in all of this was proving that she was a coward, sure she was weak but who wasn’t?

No, the real question was how weak would she allow herself to become?

“Maybe…this is what I need?” she thought in a growing, unwavering resolve.

Lifting up her head, she looked straight towards Kishin for the first time since she had been in there and told him her answer. One she did not regret and said with confidence, “No matter what I see, I’ll handle it,” she answered plainly, but defiantly.

Kishin said nothing but just stared at her, slightly curious.

“I got myself into this without thinking at all and I won’t make the same mistake again. Even if this whole thing can be erased it still wouldn’t change the fact that it happened. That’s why…I won’t let this moment go to waste and I won’t let fear control my actions,” with complete assurance she stared straight into Kishin’s eyes and continued on without faltering. “I accept it, I accept it all, I’ll take on anything that I see from here on out and I’ll deal with it.”

He still stared at her with his own serious look just like Shika. Studying and testing if her will was real and also if she might be able to back up those mighty words in future incidents. He now needed to answer her with his own reply.

He laughed slightly in expectance but quickly had replaced that with his usual confident look. “I’ll have to admit, you’re not too bad considering you’re a human, but nonetheless I’ll acknowledge you for now-”

Slam!

Suddenly interrupting Kishin, a loud noise could be heard from outside the door indicating that someone had entered the house. No sooner had that happened did Rei, obviously the one aggravated, slammed open the door to the room Shika and Kishin was in with the same force as the front door. She was obviously not happy. The biggest hint being her glaring eyes that already told you what her mouth didn’t need to repeat: ‘back off or you’re gonna get hurt.’ Although, Rei being angry wasn’t really new and was defiantly not the reason Shika stared at her in apprehensive curiosity.

No, the real reason being the fact that Rei...was covered in black puff balls latched all over her body.

Somewhat shocked, Shika looked towards Rei and simply said, “R...Rei?” Being so caught up in their discussion Shika had completely forgotten about the eldest sibling in the house. She had never even crossed her mind until now...although right now the puff balls were taking away that attention from Rei.

She didn’t reply back to Shika but just entered the room and walked, to some extent, calmly towards Kishin. Although that calm quickly disappeared when Rei roughly grabbed the collar of Kishin’s shirt and brought him closer to her eyes.

“Kishin,” she fumed, saying each syllable slowly to emphasize the fact that she was not happy. “If I remember correctly, you assured me that these things wouldn’t come back,” she said in a mildly controlled voice.

“Well, I kind of assumed they weren’t, I didn’t think the Turgon Magnets were going for you so I thought that once they stopped clinging to me they wouldn’t come back but...I guess not.” His voice lowered when the last part was said and he looked down at the ‘Turgon Magnets’ stuck to his sister.

“Oh, what gave it away?” she warned. “Kishin, I want them off of me now before I-stop clinging to me you useless balls of fluff!” Rei protested in disgusted anger.

“I will once you let go of me, Rei,” Kishin said, matter-of-factly. “Sheesh, and here I was afraid that Julian’s juice had backfired and you were coming to warn me about them coming. Guess it worked after all.”

“Are you serious, all I have to do is drink a damn juice?” Rei asked skeptically, releasing her grip on Kishin. “And here I thought-no wait, back up, Julian was here yesterday!?”

Kishin simply nodded his head in reply and moved to get the juice before Rei decided to choke him again.

“Julian?” Shika voiced out loud to herself curiously, no one taking notice.

“That’s why I have this sudden hangover from drinking coffee. He slipped his fucking vodka in it…again!” Rei shouted back in greater anger then before, suddenly taking notice to Shika in the corner of her eye as she turned slowly to calm herself and still say hello in a controlled manner. “Hey Shika, you’ve kind of caught me at a bad moment so you can just relax over there until things have calmed down, ‘kay?”

“That is easier said then done,” Shika thought to herself.

“That was really smooth Rei,” Kishin commented sarcastically and left the room.

“Shut up!”

“Um...Rei...what exactly is going on?” Shika asked.

“Short story cut shorter: These things are attracted to things with large amounts of energy, went after Kishin and annoyed the hell outta me, and now we’re trying to get rid of them for good, again.”

“Wow that was short.”

“Yeah, well, not much behind this-”

“Here it is,” Kishin interrupted.

He had quickly returned with a vial that was half empty of a strange, thick purple liquid in hand but not for long for as soon as the purple liquid was in sight of Rei. She quickly took the vial from Kishin’s hand, quickly opened the vial, and drunk what was left of the purple liquid in a single, loud gulp.

Silence...

That’s all there was for the longest time. Rei continued to hold the vial against her lips even though there was nothing left to consume. A feeling of uneasiness, yet again, took control of the event.

Nothing happened until Rei finally moved the vial away from her mouth and breathed out an air of refreshment. Acting as if the purple liquid was a relaxing drink to help her nerves...which could be one of the effects of the strange drink but Shika couldn’t be sure.

All of a sudden, the strange puff balls that were called Turgon Magnets began to make a strange piercing noise that sounded like they were in slight pain. Probably the case since they began to freefall off of Rei and slowly and silently, like a leaf, fall onto the floor. They stopped screeching, or whatever they were doing, a few seconds after parting from Rei. The Magnet part of their name becoming a useless descriptor as they all rolled apart from each other on the floor without purpose. One certain puff ball, though, rolled over to Shika like a ball kicked by a child. They all stared at one particular one for a long while until their screeches began again and they panicked out of control. Scurrying around, not knowing where to go but obviously somewhere other then their current place with Rei.

Once a few went out the door the rest began to follow their lead and slid away out of the room then out of the house. Leaving a trail of dust clouds flying about behind them.

“What was...that about?” Shika asked, blinking multiple times in amazement.

“Who cares, they’re gone!” Rei shouted in joyful bliss.

Looking down, Shika noticed something next to her bed and bent down to pick the protruding object up. “Not all of them,” she informed, squishing the remaining turgon in her hands like an oversized marshmallow.

When seen, Rei’s anger returned and she glared at the protruding puff ball with great resentment.

“What exactly are these things?” Shika truly wondered.

“They’re evil little puff balls that like to cling to anything with large amounts of energy, now get rid of that thing!”

“Wow, he’s so soft. Where do they come from?” Shika asked, getting an immediate answer from the turgon’s noises, a cross between actually talking words and a deranged helium high chipmunk. “Aw, that’s so cute, is it alright if I can keep him?”

Rei was about to yell out to her no but was cut off when Kishin suddenly took away the turgon from Shika’s hands.

“I highly doubt you could keep these sugar high things away from your uncle, Shika. Besides there our world’s problem,” he said simply and walked off to dispose of the remaining turgon.

“Your...world?” Shika caught, staring curiously at nothing while she contemplated a meaning behind the simple words.

“You say something Shika?” Rei asked as she sat down on the single chair in the room to compose herself in front of Shika. Knowing that more needed to be explained to the newly turned Blood Prisoner.

“When you say ‘your world’ do you mean...the underworld or something?”

Rei stared dumbfounded at her, not expecting the question. “Wow, um...well you see...” she paused, searching her memory for a logical explanation for her. “Well first off, our world doesn’t mean that we live on another planet or dimensional plane or anything like that it’s just...we all live in secret from you humans.”

From the look that Shika was giving the explanation was obviously not enough to grasp her point and continued on.

“Um...okay then, I’ll give you an example. It’s kind of like...popular and unpopular people, they both live in a different world so to speak. Their lives are totally in each others view yet they don’t live in each other’s realities, or mind set. Our world is somewhat like that, we live among and near you humans but we just don’t blend into your realities, our different realities means our different worlds. Does that make sense?”

Shika scrunched her face in confusion and looked up at Rei to answer, “I guess...Kishin had already told me that I needed to know a few things but...it’s not going to be easy to deal with this even when I get all my questions answered.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that,” Rei commented friendly, suddenly noticing Kishin walk back in the room in silence. “But before we go any further,” she paused, looking over at Kishin, Shika mimicking the action but with more curiosity then the one she was mimicking. “Kishin, did you tell Shika about her being a Blood Prisoner and if you did how much did you tell her?”

“Everything I needed to tell her, there’s really not much to it. She agreed to the pact and now I get her blood when I want it.”

“Well, yeah, if you want to put it like that and scare the girl to death. Did you even tell her about the pros of said pact?” Rei questioned.

He didn’t answer immediately and when he did he turned his head away knowingly, “It might’ve slipped my mind...”

“Might have?” she twitched. Getting up, she swiftly grabbed the collar of Kishin’s shirt and lifted him off the ground and closer to her angered face, yet again. “You didn’t tell her on purpose. I specifically wanted you to talk to her about that when she woke up!”

“Like I said, it slipped my mind,” he said casually. “But besides that, it’s kind of sad that you have to stand on a chair to be able to lift your younger brother up just to level our height difference.”

Rei just glared at him in bitter acknowledgement, for what he had just said was true. Rei was standing on the only chair available in the room just so she could lift him off the ground but still be on the same eye level with him. Since he was, in fact, two maybe even three inches taller then Rei.

“I don’t need you telling me that,” she said simply while glaring at him. Holding back most of the anger she was feeling with obvious discontent.

With that said she released her grip on him and sat back down into the chair. “Anyway, what my brother neglected, and probably didn’t explain very well in the first place, to tell you is that as a Blood Prisoner you basically belong to only one vampire. That means only Kishin’s allowed to drink from you. To keep this rule in effect you’re given a protective barrier, I should say, that is actually already in effect right now and will keep your body and mind safe from others unless that other is greatly trusted by both you and Kishin. You should also be aware that this pact will also give you the power to see things in our world that most humans can’t see. Such as faerie folk that can hide their appearance or their whereabouts from the human eye. Some humans have this ability already for reasons that we have yet to make sense of. Although Blood Prisoners’ have something those humans do not. You automatically send off enact feeling of assurance. Basically saying our world will know that you mean no harm and that you’re a Blood Prisoner to someone.”

“So,” Shika interrupted in a prolonged slur, “what you’re basically saying is that Kishin is my vampire master, I have a shield thing protecting me because Kishin’s my master, I can see lots of other creatures normal humans can’t, and its almost like I’m holding an invisible white flag to other beings as well?”

“Yeah, on the short end, that’s really all I said. There’s more complicated stuff as well but I’m just covering the basics. You’ll learn as you go along, but don’t take any of this lightly, Shika. There is more bad then good in our world and being a Blood Prisoner doesn’t always save your ass. More have gone insane from their abilities compared to those that have been killed during a battle. Even so, there are plenty of people that have been killed in our world to count as something important.”

“But Rei’ll end up telling you as much as she can cram into you in a few days and even then she’ll throw more at you every single time,” Kishin interrupted from behind Rei, leaning against the desk lightly as his arms were folded lightly across his chest. He pretended to stare off into the distance when he spoke to the two girls, acting as if none of what they were conversing about mattered.

This did not make Rei any happier then when she had last threatened her brother and held him by his collar. “You know,” she forced out calmly, “that offer that Gaelle had told me about before is really tempting to use to curse you right now.”

Before Kishin or Rei could talk any further the loud and constant banging of solid wood could be heard coming from downstairs and by the volume at which the bang bang banging of the door had been, the sound seemed to have gone on longer then anyone had noticed. The sound was firm and hard as the continuous beating of an object against wood made Rei and Shika jump in their seats and Kishin stare at the door of the room as if he were having a migraine, which he might have been, but it had been unexpected by everyone in the room. The banging was obviously the sound of someone knocking the front door to be opened, immediately, by a very impatient guest.

Could nothing in this household be at rest for even an hour?

Rei was the first to speak after the sudden pause from the unexpected interruption, warning through clenched teeth, as she made her way to the front door. “If that’s Julian asking for payment for the Turgon repellant then he is so dead!”

“Even though he’s technically already dead,” Kishin corrected.

“Shut up!” she shouted before slamming the door loudly.

“Already dead? Then, does that mean he’s a vampire too?” Shika inquired. “Does he belong to your cult, your blood line, your...your...something?” The excitement in her voice just couldn’t be contained as she learned more and more of the world she would soon have to interact with as Kishin’s Blood Prisoner. Although even to her, the excitement in her voice seemed a little too eccentric to be entirely real, it was fake and she knew it but wouldn’t admit it.

“He’s a...special case, you could say,” Kishin answered attentively. “And why do you sound excited about this all of a sudden?”

When he had revealed to her what she was doing, the thought made Shika think for a moment what was truly going on and how she really felt. For only a moment she pondered and she got nowhere and quickly decided that things were best left unsought for now, to just feel and think how things came about. “Well, how can I not be?” she said excitedly. “You don’t expect me not to find any of this amazing, I know, I know, I should be more careful but all of this to me is just-”

“Shika!” a familiar voice boomed throughout the house. Startling Shika into a shudder that shook out all of her excited feelings to leave her with a feel of slight pang as she slowly remembered about her other life, her uncle. Leaving Kishin where he was to stiffen his shoulders in slight unawareness, but in the end both were left staring strangely at the closed door together.

“Hi...Hiroshi-oni-chan?” Shika sputtered in little thought but to just fill in the strange eeriness that she did not want left open.

“H-Hold on a minute, sir? Will you please listen to me?” Rei exclaimed to the intruder of her home.

There was no doubt about it. That voice had been her uncle, searching for his missing niece even into the deep depths of the forest that surrounded Rei and Kishin’s home. How her uncle had somehow managed to find her all the way out here was the ultimate mystery but one that would have to be explained later. Uncovering herself from the warm air of the blanket and bed she laid in she quickly moved to calm her uncle and to stop him from doing something she knew was going to be stupid.

“Who the hell is down there?” Kishin inquired, irritably, as he made his way as well to follow Shika out of the room and down the narrow stairs to see the newcomer. While Rei attempted to calm Shika’s uncle as they made their way down...

“She’s about this tall, like 5’4”, with long black hair about here, and-and unusual green eyes...” Hiroshi sputtered out in alarm, flailing his arms everywhere in agitation.

“Sir, can you please calm down,” Rei exclaimed. “Are you even listening to me, sir?”

“Hiroshi-oni-chan,” Shika said.

Hiroshi suddenly stiffened for a second, looking over Rei’s form to find Shika on the stairs.

“Shika,” Hiroshi said in a startle, staring at Shika in a shock that he didn’t know he had as he walked past Rei and towards Shika in a slow walk.

“Hiroshi-oni-chan, h-how did you find me?”

“Shika!” he yelled, running quickly to embrace his niece, “where the hell did you run off to! I was so damn worried about you!”

“Hi-Hiroshi-oni-chan, I can’t breathe like this,” Shika managed to squeeze out of her mouth. In all of her uncle’s excitement he forgot his own strength and was basically squeezing Shika a little too much for comfort. Although what was bad was the fact that he uncle was cursing, nothing ever went well once her uncle started cursing.

“ 俺。。。ほんとにしんぱいしてだから。。。このことするない、ね？”
Quietly, and only to Shika he whispered into her hair something only between them, “I...was really worried about you that’s why,” he paused, and Shika knew he was searching for words that would explain everything to her but she and he both knew that wasn’t possible in any language and settled for something simple, “don’t do this again, please?”

As if knowing that he wouldn’t receive a reply he instead hugged her closer to him and his hands gripped her more tightly that the embrace was almost painful. He held her like a lifeline and Shika didn’t have to heart to tell him the pressure he was putting on her or to stop him herself. She widened her eyes in guilty sorrow and her emerald hues began to soften in a way that Shika didn’t want to show so she buried her own face into her uncle’s shoulders. Bringing the parts of her arms that were still free and resting them onto her uncle’s back, forgetting everything around her until a voice broke it all.

“Sorry to interrupt all the family reunion but who the hell are you?” Kishin said from behind Shika.

“And now, bad just became worse,” Shika thought in dismay.

She heard her uncle coughing from behind her and thought for a second that he might have been sick but realized that he was clearing his throat. Slowly but surely he began to loosen his grip on Shika until finally he let her go completely and he stood tall and straight, emphasizing his intimidating height of six seven.

“Shika, why don’t you go upstairs and get all of your stuff, I need a few minutes to talk to this young man, alright?” he said calmly but Shika could hear all the spite he really wanted to say and that worried her more then anything else now.

“Hiroshi-oni-chan, are you...okay?” It was a stupid question and Shika knew it but she didn’t know what else to say. Saying something like “don’t get angry” was already lost and saying “don’t do anything stupid” was impossible to avoid with her uncle sometimes. It didn’t make things any better knowing that Kishin was probably no better level headed then her own uncle, from what she has seen.

Shika suddenly felt an arm wrapping around her own and turned her head to see who it was, “Shika, why don’t we go upstairs and get you changed, huh?” Rei said merrily, completely tuning out the strong tension rising from the two males. Dragging Shika away from the scene and up the stairs by just that arm she held onto.

“R-Rei, hold on a minute,” Shika said while stumbling up the stairs and trying to control her own balance. “I can’t leave my uncle like-”

Interrupting Shika, Rei looked down at the oblivious girl below her as she continued to drag the two up the stairs, “Take my advice Shika, you don’t want to get in between any number of males and their dominance games, it’s not worth it,” she said simply. Leaving her explanation at that and continuing up the stairs and when that was done she went down the hall towards a room that contained Shika’s cloths.

----------------------

Once Shika was done upstairs, she and Rei went down to see how things were going only to find a mess that they had to clean up themselves.

“Hiroshi-oni-chan, we really should be going,” Shika said in a sing-song slur that had nothing to do with fun and everything to do with keeping her uncle at bay while straining to say something easy to help.

“Kishin, let the nice gentleman leave since you two are such good friends,” Rei said in her own sarcastic chime as she struggled to keep her own brother at bay as well but had obviously not been working. “I swear I will throw you through the door rather then stuff bread into your mouth.”

Shika was holding her uncle back as well as she could, which made her think how useful passing P.E. with flying colors had helped her life for once. Pushing her uncle back towards the door and had made it as far back as getting half of his body out of the house before he grabbed the door frame for leverage and stopping Shika in her efforts. Rei, as well, was having no luck on her end. While Shika worked to move her uncle away and out of the house, Rei worked to hold back her brother by his arms. Locking them in her own but only managing to hold him by his elbows. Successful in only holding back her brother from running full charged at the center of his anger.

“Shika let me go. I’m not going to hurt the little brat that much, just enough to beat him senseless!” Hiroshi shouted through clenched teeth.

Taking a second to think about the last time he had said that to her, she immediately thought against it, “No way! Hiroshi-oni-chan, we need to leave right now.”

Hiding some of his anger behind a raged grin he said, “Rei, let me go. This one won’t die from my attacks although I wonder if he would be able to walk home afterwards. Oh, no wait, Shika seems to be strong enough to carry all the crap he has in his deluded brain!”

“What did you say, you little shit!”

Just then, an incessant ringing came to Shika’s ears. It took her a second to realize what it was and when she did she carefully maneuvered so that she could still hold back her uncle and still reach into her uncle’s pocket. She reached in and grabbed hold of the cell phone that her uncle had recently bought for work purposes and checked the blue lit screen to find the name of the manager of the archeological department her uncle worked with.

“Hiroshi-oni-chan, look, you got a call from Shiromasa-san. You’ll have to take this outside since this is the tenth call and he seems pretty desperate,” Shika said as she flashed the phone screen in his face to see for himself.

“What? Oh shit!” he yelled as he grabbed his cell phone which told Shika she could ease away from her uncle now.

“Oh, are you going to run away now, huh?” Kishin taunted.

“Do you not know when to let up?” Rei yelled from behind.

“Shika we have to go now, we’ll talk about this later okay?” he said, turning to walk out of the house, they both left quickly and Shika shut the door behind her. Relieved that the day was finally over as she walked down the forest and out of it’s depths as clearly as her restored memory allowed.

Her uncle’s yells and pleas through his cell phone could be heard through the open air of the night sky as they made their way towards home. Shika still wanted to learn more about what she had gotten herself into and a little more about what would happen now. She would have learned more if it were not for her uncle to suddenly find her, how did he anyway? Truthfully, it did not matter, things were becoming too complicated and events were becoming too vague for her for now. At another time, she would be ready and hopefully things would have calmed over all the heat with her new Master, would that have been correct? Would she now have to call Kishin master?

She shook her head quickly from that, dismissing the idea until-

“Don’t forget about our arrangement, you’ll learn everything you want to know in two days.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and went pale from lack of thought to do anything else. She widened her eyes when she realized that she would never be alone again, no matter how far she was from him, she would never be free just like the name given to people like her. He could invade her mind any time he wanted and she knew that. She knew that and it frightened her and angered her at the same time.

“Remember, everything about you belongs to me. Your entire being itself is mine...”

With that small whisper heard in her head, it was done. He stopped saying anything but Shika was still scared. With that small caress of breath gone her mind felt even less safe then ever before in her life and it scared her. That small voice that passed through her mind felt more like the cold winter air night that held an air of something otherworldly. The grave, was it a grave?

A graveyard that stroked inside her places that hands should never be able to reach and held a sensation more intimate then she knew or could possible understand could be possible in the physical world.

She asked herself again after a few moments that lasted longer then any forever could promise. She asked out loud in a hushed voice that you would usually use to calm a child with but this had nothing to do with the comforting feel of anything and everything to do with expressing a fear to only her. To only her ears. Though in the back of her mind, she knew she wanted someone to hear it and help her so much, for her mother to help her again just like when she was a child with fears of the dark.

Her mother was dead and the darkness now held a new meaning to her fears. The darkness was more infinite and stronger then she would ever see or understand since her childhood and now.

“What have I gotten myself into?” she breathed, frightened. The cold air and darkness of the forest affecting her and becoming larger then they actually were. Close to the end and yet farthest away from the end of the forest and her uncle then ever before...

“ あたしどうするがえの？　まま？”
“What should I do? Mama?”