Six years have passed, Ai-chan now lives on her own in Kyoto. Sohcahtoa is still living as a cat, but his feelings for her are growing.

-- Six Years Later --

So now you know my story. Well my story as to how I met Sohcahtoa. I’m now twenty-two and live in an apartment in Kyoto with Sohcahtoa. He’s getting weaker everyday. I’ve had to watch him slowly fade. He’s getting thinner.

For a while he was fine. I got to know him so well. I knew him as the Spirit Guardian, no as my friend. He told me stories of all the people he meat at the gate, the battles he fought to keep demons out.

“The Akuma came at me,” began Sohcahtoa, telling me of one fight he had with the demons, “one in the form of a large tiger, five tails, and red metal on his face. His eyes burned as he clawed at me, trying to get though. I turned and stabbed him with my sword. Blood flowed from his right shoulder, but that didn’t stop him.

“Four more came at me. One like a dragon, another like a bird only with more human like prospective, another that had the form of an Ox, and finally one that was superior than any of the others. He was greater than them, and he looked like a snake. Each Akuma surrounded the one I had stabbed; the smell of blood had attracted them. They wanted the blood, lusted for it. Pitiful, no? Creatures that live off of blood and pain of others, creatures unworthy of Heaven, only looking for hell for eternity after torching the souls of the living.”

Sohcahtoa looked at me, wanting to see if I wanted to know the rest. I was attempting to cook dinner for myself and listen at the same time. It was quite hard. I looked back at him from the stove where I was making some mack and cheese. I was attempting to stir it, but when he stopped talking, I turned around.

“Hey, keep going.” I ordered. “I want to hear the rest!” I then turned back to the stove so as to not end up burning my dinner. I heard Sohcahtoa laughing behind me. “Oh, and what do you find funny?” I asked.

“Oh nothing,” he replied, jumping into the counter sitting down next to the stove. I scowled at him. “Hey, I told you to sit on a towel, I put food on here!” I laughed at him, walking away to grab a rag for him to sit on.

He got up as I put the rag down, then he sat on it after I went back to the stove. His blue eyes looked up at me, staring at me. I felt his stare, but I ignored it. For a while now I no longer saw him has my cat, I saw him as the person he once was, a guardian, a Soul protector.

“Well,” he began after about five minuets of looking at me, “I then had four demons, and an injured pissed demon, all wanting more blood. I was alone before the gate; the other guardians were on earth, no in the Spirit Realm. The five Akuma came before, each clawing, biting, and stabbing. I found it hard to move for a while. I felt myself bleeding hard, the pain was so horrible. I was used to fighting many demons, but these demons were level four and one was level six. I was in danger, I knew it, but I wouldn’t allow them in. Blood rushed from my face, some almost getting into my eyes I wasn’t able to keep fighting much longer. I could feel myself getting weaker, and the smell of blood was only making the fight all the harder.

“I couldn’t allow myself to be beaten; no I had a duty to protect the Gate and the Souls inside. So I closed my eyes and tried something I had never done.”

He stopped there; he knew my interest was pricked even more than before. Though I had learned much about the guardians, there was still so little I truly knew about them.

I looked at him quickly, then back down to my food. His cool blue eyes, his REAL eyes, the eyes not of a cat, but of Guardian, those that looked into you, into your soul they look at me, into me. Looking away I fumbled for something’s to get the pot off the burner, without burning myself. He saw my fumbling around, he was accustomed to it by now, I bet. He jumped down walked away. I had upset him yet again. Every time he looked at me without cat eyes, when he had his old eyes, THOSE eyes I just froze up. I couldn’t look at those eyes; they made me feel so odd, as if he knew what I was thinking.

I looked down, feeling bad. This kept happening, epically recently. In the past year, he kept looking at me like that; he was epically over protective of me. I recently started to go out with this guy I meat at my job, his name is Haruka. He’s so sweet, and I’ve been going out with him for two months now. He really cared about me, I could tell. But the only problem is that Sohcahtoa hates Haruka.

I had Haruka come over one night, we were going to watch a movie, but Sohcahtoa tried to attack Haruka. Luckily Haruka was ok, I mean we got a bit and a bunch of scratches, but he just said that Sohcahtoa didn’t really like him and that’s just how things were going to be. Haruka just accepted things how they were, and that was really cool. Most people couldn’t, I couldn’t.

As I was draining the Mac and Cheese, the phone rang. I sighed and put the pot back on the stove, on a burner that wasn’t hot of course, and walked to the couch. The phone was left there, since I left it there the other night after I was done talking to Dai.

“Hello?” I asked into the phone, smiling.

“Yes, hello, is this the Ichimoto residence?” The person on the other line asked.

“Yes it is, well I mean I’m Ai Ichimoto, are you looking for Kiosho Ichimoto?”

“No miss; it’s you that I wished to talk to.”

“Ok, well who is this?”

“I’m Yasuo Yukisaka, Haruka's older brother.”

His voice had sadness filled in it, something bad had happened, I knew it. Haruka’s bother worked as a police officer, that’s all I knew about him.

“What’s happened?” I asked quickly.

“Ai, Ha-Haruka’s dead.” He answered slowly.

Tears sprung to my eyes.

N-no. NOT HARUKA, WHY?! WHY HIM?!

Poor Ai-chan. I kinda feel bad that Haruka died. Btw, if you didn't know the names of the people other than Sohcahtoa are improtant. Ai's name means Love, and Haruka's means Tranquil. Names are key in the story as you will find out as I write more.