It was cold. She hated being there, hated metal bars, hated boxes. That was the one place she hated most. That’s why she’d left the service after the war, Oku had always had a sense that she was trapped as long as she was part of the war machine. Not that she didn’t respect lady Ukano, but after all that she’d seen… she simply couldn’t be apart of that war machine any longer. It was considerably harder to get any sleep when you were imprisoned by your enemy and it had been almost two days since she’d let her guard down. Her head ached from all the stress put upon her mind and she cursed herself constantly. Half a year ago she would never have even considered doing that for anyone, but here she was taking the fall for her friends. Friends… one of those things her type of Youkai seemed to have less of. She was the kind that had split off from the regular day to day of the capital and found solace in the forests of the human world. There were a vast number of her kind, and yet she’d felt so alone in Kazha. Overall the jail was good for one thing only. Thinking. Thinking about a couple major things. First of all was Lawrence. No… she shook her head. First of all were her friends. They would definitely be coming for her, but would their plan hold up to the power of the throned pipsqueak? Somewhere inside she really hoped they’d thought up something good enough to even trick him. Lawrence’s image floated back into her mind and she smiled. She could have been stuck to anyone, but why him? Oku wanted to believe that it was the simple answer of him having been in the right place at the right time, but somehow that wasn’t satisfying. She’d really only loved one other in her many years, and he was a Youkai… If she still deemed Lawrence worthy after they all broke her out of this cage… maybe…

CLINK

Suddenly she heard the door at the end of the long hallway open and the king himself, escorted by two large tiger-headed Youkai, waltzed in. He seemed to be annoyed, yet quite satisfied with himself at the same time. He stopped in front of her cage and looked down at the grimy being below him.

“Orchid, how excellent to see you.”

“The pleasure is all yours.”

“Oh come now, you can’t use that tone with me. The war is over, you lost.”

She huffed, leading the king to believe he’d won their little argument.

“Now now, you have places to be, do you not? What if I were to allow you freedom?”

Her ears perked up for a moment and he knew he had her.

“Of course, you know what I want. But give me that and I swear I will never pester you again. You can live in the human world alone for the rest of time for all I care, that is, if you tell me where Lady Ukano is.”

“You know I won’t tell you that.”

“Ah, a hundred years ago perhaps you wouldn’t have cared to be in this cell that much, but now? I think you have a nice human out there waiting for you. Friends? Quite new for you as well.”

“...”

“So I ask again, where is Lady Ukano?”

“What are you going to do, torture me until I answer you then throw me out on the street?”

The king grimaced and looked at her, disgusted. She could practically hear him gnashing his teeth as his small hands gripped the bars of her cage.

“Trust me when I say I desperately wish I could remove your organs one by one. Trust me when I say that it would give me immoral amounts of pleasure if I could skin you and make a coat out of that fox fur. Sadly, however, I cannot.”

“And why is that?”

The king huffed and turned his back on her.

“I will return in fifteen hours. Should you not decide to give up the information by then I will have the man you love killed.”

The door slammed as she saw black on the edges of her eyes. Nearly blacking out, she gripped the bars of the prison. He wouldn’t. Not Lawrence. Oku would have let that bastard do anything to her, torture was nothing in her eyes. But she remembered who he was, and a if she knew one thing it was that he was no stranger to torture. Hurting her would be trivial, but psychological murder was much more effective. All that she knew was that Lawrence was in trouble, and that she was going to save him. But first she would need to escape…

The door opened once again, light flooding into the dark hallway. This time, a large human-esque Youkai entered and walked towards her cell, paper in hand. When he finally found hers he lifted a cupped hand to his face and peered in the cell, looking for life. Oku was dead still, but with the small amount of light the man could see her anyways.

“Ah, the Orchid. Yes, it appears you are, and I’ve been looking for you.”

“...”

“Hmm, I thought you were silver tongued, but it appears not. Anyways, I’ve got news for you.”

“News…”

“Indeed, you’re bein’ broke out of here.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow at nine in the morning you’re having another trial. Koichi said that your little group was gonna prove you innocent on all your charges. Oh, and he says to tell you that that wasn’t what they hoped to do, they have a solid plan. You’re going to be set free, according to him at least.”

“Koichi?”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“Ah, I haven’t told you yet. My name is Kano, Chief Kano, of the defense force. I work with Koichi, and I helped him set up this trial.”

“Did you say at nine?”

“I did.”

“What time is it right now?”

“I’d say it’s around seven at night, why?”

The king had come around an hour ago, and if that was correct then he planned to kill Lawrence at eight tomorrow morning. She couldn’t wait for the trial. Nor could she tell this strange Youkai that Lawrence would be targeted tomorrow morning, no she had to give him a message to Koichi.

“Kano, when you next see Koichi tell him that danger surrounds the one I love. Oh, and tell him that if anyone else hears a word of that I’ll break all their fingers. His ears only.”

“Hmm? Alright, if you say so. I’ll tell him tomorrow morning when they arrive.”

“When will that be?”

“Around seven thirty I believe.”

She sighed in relief.

“Alright, but make sure you drill that into him.”

“I’m an officer, I know how to do that sort of thing.”

She big Youkai smiled and lumbered back down the hallway, closing the door on her only source of light, most literally. Oku looked back down at the dark floor. This place really was the best place for thinking, though she’d rather attempt that somewhere else. Perhaps with that good news she could finally get a few hours of sleep. Curling up on the floor, she thought about what tomorrow would bring. This jail was made with powerful Youkai in mind and there was no way she could break out. Transforming would only alert the guards and get her killed. No, the only way to get out was when the guards went to get her tomorrow. She would be doing something legal for once. With that, Oku fell asleep.

It had been a long time since she dreamt, a thing that Youkai tended to do less of than humans. In it, she walked along the edge of a forest, looking for a path. She barely had any clothes on, yet it was snowing, and large piles of it littered the ground around her. Finding the path would be difficult in a snow shower like this, especially since it was so dark outside, yet Oku walked still. Finally she found it, yet heard a roar off in the distance, and a scream. The other had sounded like a human, but the first, was it a Youkai? Had the moon bear finally showed its ugly face to one of them? Instantly she was running between trees towards the source of the scream, and quickly realized that she was nearing her home. She bounded past the large tree she called home and saw the bear a small distance away. It was looking for something. Had a human seen it and run, hiding behind a tree? How stupid of it. The bear had decent smell, therefore it would only be a matter of time till the thing found it. Then it would kill the human and devour it, unless Oku stopped the powerful Youkai of course.

Nearing the moon bear, she broke into a sprint, transforming into her combat mode in midair, which gave off a large light. Seeing this, the human seemed to stand up, leading the bear to instantly notice him. It bounded towards the human, but Oku was quicker, and crashed into the Youkai before it could murder the human. Shaking the daze out of it’s head, the bear quickly got back up and grinned. These Youkai were extremely smart, but could not speak. Therefore, it was hard to know what the beast was thinking. It lunged towards her, paw aiming for Oku’s heart, but she dodged out of the way at the last second. She seemed to forever be on the defensive, this Youkai was angry. After having taken away his meal a Youkai dared to challenge him? Then she would die! Or at least that’s what Oku expected from the bear’s mind. It stood up on all fours and ran towards her, dashing her against a tree and knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled back up and ran towards him, teeth bared. Luckily she was a bit faster, and chomped down on his left shoulder, partially disabling him.

“GRAAH!”

It made a loud noise, something in between language and a bear’s grunt, but still kept coming. Showing its white fangs to Oku the bear charged her, paws out, and felt pain run along her shoulder as the claws ripped into her flesh. This was not longer about the human in the snow a few feet away, this was about surviving a moon bear attack, and she was losing. As they circled each other Oku took some extra snow in her mouth, hardening it. The saliva and snow quickly fused into a ball of ice, which she quickly threw at the bear, charging in right after it. The bear’s eyes followed the ball for just a second, allowing Oku to get an attack in just before it retaliated. Her teeth sunk deeply into the bear’s neck, and he flailed rapidly. As she put more force into her killing blow she felt something else. The bear’s claws sinking deep into her flesh. She almost let go due to the pain, but kept it up. If she let go now she would only die a loser. She had to make sure that the human could get away. Once she’d finally felt the bear’s corpse go limp she let go and shrugged the claws of the bear out of her stomach and back. Limping back towards the visible mass that could only be the human, she transformed back into her more human form and stood over the boy. He was small, and it seemed that the bear had scared him half to death. She started to lean down towards her, but felt something inside of her change, and she simply fell over backwards. As she did, she smiled. Throughout it all, throughout Kuun dying, all these years in the forest, even the war, she’d lived a fine life. If it ended saving a human’s, it was fine. Maybe she had no pure love for humans, but she didn’t love youkai either. So this wasn’t… so bad…

Seconds later she woke up in the sames spot she had been before, yet she had no injuries. Stunned, she felt herself. No hole in her stomach, no rip in her back. It was as if the injuries had never happened, a theory she may have believed if there wasn’t blood surrounding her, caked into the snow. She got up, feeling fine. Though there was one small thing… she couldn’t transform. She tried a few more times, but nothing happened. Had she really died or not? Either way, she picked up the small boy, whose eyes flickered slightly. She knew of a cabin around here that some humans had visited in the past, and it seemed this was one of those times. Walking up to the front door, she knocked, then ran away, laying the child down on the steps before doing so. In seconds a woman opened the door and gasped, calling for another of them. A man ran over and picked the boy up in both arms, calling for yet more of the humans. Satisfied, she walked back to the forest. The next day she walked back to the cabin and saw that the humans were leaving. Perhaps they were going to seek medical attention for the boy, and they got in a large metal thing that swiftly took them away. Oku felt as if she had done well, and began walking back to the place she had died. Since it was day now there had to be a clue as to what had happened. As she was walking, she blinked, suddenly seeing something completely different. She was wrapped up in blankets, sitting in a seat in that strange metal thing. What?! What had happened?! She didn’t even have control of her eyes as they looked around the seat strangely. That was when she realized just what had happened. She’d lost the fight. The moon bear had indeed died, but it died after her. With that, her spirit energy had traveled to the nearest living thing. The boy. She didn’t go to limbo? Which meant… she was trapped inside of him… But for how long?

A long time. Years passed without the boy ever knowing that she was inside of him, but at nighttime when she was able to manifest herself she sat next to his bed. She thought of herself as a better mother than those fools that had thrown such a good kid away like they did. With their strange vacations and such, leaving Lawrence alone in this dark room every night. Thus she stayed with him, and while she was not conscious all that much, she could see through his eyes only when he was most tired, and at night. Somehow, she still knew about his problems however. She was the cause of them. Taking his energy away, she could do nothing but sit next to his bed at night and stroke his dark hair. It wasn’t much, but it was all she could do, and she really did feel bad about stealing his energy like that. It was all she could do, well, at least until he entered college.

Then she was finally able to learn just who Lawrence was.