134Kitsune of the Hakure's Shrine
Author's Note: Yaharoo~ Jasmine here, I have over 6k word written but I realized I hit a block at that point since most of my ideas were focused around my main story (Kitsune no Reaper) so instead of making you wait, I've decided to cut what I've written in different chapters and post it!
I'll try to stick to the main canon timeline of the games and also try to keep the characters with their personalities but some are bound to feel a little OOC because that's how I want to portray them as, of course nothing TOO OOC. This chapter while short will give an insight of what happened after last chapter, I hope you enjoy it~
Without further ado, chapter 2 of Hakurei's Kitsune!
Chapter 2: Responsibilities?
Warm...
She felt warm...
Something soft held her gently, she breathed in the freshly scent as she snuggled deeper into the softness that surrounded her.
Such warmth reminded her of her...
"Mom..." Her eyes fluttered open and the first thing she saw was an enormous white pupil with concentric rings(Rinnegan) staring right back at her.
"Ah, you're awake. Good"
She blinked and sure enough the pupil did so too.
"I'm surprised you haven't frea-"
The beast voice was cut short as the girl jabbed her finger in his pupil.
"GYAHHH!"
"Monster!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as she scrambled back until her back hit the wall, she tried to hide behind her arms.
"Girl!" She froze up "Why in the seven hells would you do that!?" the beast bellowed and made the ground tremble
"I'm sorry!" Reimu apologized quickly hoping that she didn't anger her savior.
"Bah! It's fine, I shouldn't have woken you up like that" The beast paused for a second seemingly in thought before it started speaking a lot softer "How are you feeling?"
The little girl tilted her head as she processed his question, she looked at herself finding her clothes being in tatters. The white skirt was absolutely ruined and only covered the bare essentials while her shirt had large gashes all around, all of those came from her falling around in the town while looking for her... mother...
"I'm fine" Her eyes teared up but she held onto the tears, her mother had taught her since little to always be strong no matter the circumstance so she would do her proud.
Even if she wasn't here anymore.
The beast nodded, finding her resolution acceptable. He didn't need to hear her words to understand her, an ability he always had possessed since as far as his memory remembered.
"Good, tell me child how much did your guardians teach you?" Seeing as he had already interfered with the worldly matters then he'd take proper responsibility and also take care of the child, at least until she was able to stand up on her own so as a start he would need to know what had her parents taught her and wing it from there.
What?
He had never managed to raise a child of his own nor did he ever adopt anyone else before in his very long live.
"What you mean?" Reimu asked cutely as she mustered her courage and sat closer to the beast's snout.
The beast face never changed from it's impassive visage however his nonexistent eyebrow did twitch.
"Vocabulary, speech, writing, how much did your guardian teach you?"
"Oh! I don't know?"
The twitching of his eyebrow increased.
"Child, raise your fist towards me" The beast ordered as it also raised one of it's massive paws and closed it into a fist, the girl watched perplexed but accepted the order nonetheless.
The little girl felt a weird shiver go down her spine the moment her fist touched the beast's but thought nothing of it.
For the beast, the effect of the action was vastly different. In his mind he saw the light when the little girl first opened her eyes and saw for the very first time the visage of her mother, how she was nurtured from the moment she could walk on her own in the duties of being a Shrine Maiden, the values her mother left behind and much, much more.
To say he was impressed by what he saw would fall short of what he truly felt, such a young girl yet with so many expectations put onto her little shoulders. It suddenly made sense how she managed to meet up with him, her heart screamed for freedom from those duties and by pure luck the day she decided to skip her duties she stumbled upon him.
He also knew how she felt about that, in her mind if she had not skipped her duties maybe... just maybe... her mother would still be with her.
"Child... No" The beast narrowed his eyes, he wouldn't call her child anymore, after everything that happened she was no longer a child so he acknowledged her resolve "Reimu your life from here on out will be difficult, I will only teach you how to become self-sufficient and take care of you until you're strong enough to stand on your own. What you do with my teachings will be up to you and you alone, understood?"
Though her 5 year old mind didn't understand 80% of what the beast said she knew that he was going to help her, and her mother had taught her to always be grateful to those who help you so she nodded.
The beast was about to move when he realized that he had yet to return to his smaller appearance, with a click of his tongue his body shrunk and now he stood at a total height of 8 feet though he kept his fox beastly appearance (A much smaller version of Kurama with 10 tails). Deciding that this shape would do for the meanwhile the beast clapped and in front of him appeared out of thin air a giant scroll along with writing tools.
"Come Reimu" The beast motioned to a spot beside him as he sat and opened up the scroll revealing it's blank contents, the girl nodded and hopped to the indicated spot before sitting happily next to the beast "We'll start with your grammar"
And so the beast started teaching the girl to the best of his abilities about grammar, using the memories of what her mother had been teaching her before he used that as a starting point to continue what was left. For the next few hours the two kept going symbol over symbol, it's meaning and the way it should be written.
Throughout the course of it all the girl beamed whenever the beast nodded at her when she completed a symbol successfully, with her close proximity to him she used every moment during which the beast explained the purpose of a symbol to snuggle his side, and the beast let her do so because to the both of them it felt... good?
Nice?
The beast realized that maybe looking so deep within the girl's memories wasn't the smartest of options since he felt a shallow bond to her but he did not linger on the thought much, he may as well accept the fact that he would probably grow feelings for the little squirt.
Such was his nature.
Much later on he would realize that he had already grown feelings of protectiveness over the little girl the moment she had stepped foot in his domain, but that's a story for another time.
Guuuurrr
The beast blinked and looked at Reimu, said girl was looking anywhere but at him and she had an adorable blush adorning her cheeks.
"Perhaps we should continue after you've eaten" The beast supplied slightly exasperated that the girl was trying too hard to not lose her only sense of safety that she wouldn't do anything that might get him upset, interrupting him for basic things as eating included, he would have to work on that too.
Maybe he should get the girl some friends?
"Please" Reimu nodded and looked sheepishly at him as she held her arms over grumbling stomach.
The beast raised one of it's arms and after snapping his fingers a portal opened up behind the duo and a giant turtle was launched from it a breakneck speeds towards the wall and collided with it painfully.
Reimu blinked as she looked at the turtle before she rushed towards it side with a scream of "Genji!" and promptly hugged it before placing herself between the beast and her pet, she knew if it came down to a fight she would be completely obliterated like the monsters that attacked her village but she didn't want to eat Genji...
At least not yet.
The beast rolled it's eyes at the obvious action "We're not eating him" he placated the girl and snorted when she visibly breathed a sigh of relief before she looked at him confusedly, seeing as she was trying too hard to come up with words to ask her question he decided to just reply her before she finished thinking "You told me about your pet last time, I saw him snooping around the remains of your town so I brought him here" because you'll need someone beside me at your side, the beast added in his thoughts.
Reimu beamed at him yet again before she glomped the beast by his mid-section and all but forgot about the fact that he had possibly injured her pet moments ago.
Children, he scoffed.
"This is what we're going to eat" The beast clapped his hands again and a big round table filled to the brim with different sort of exquisite meals popped out of thin air, he frowned and had to clap his hands again to create two chairs and muttered under his breath about losing his touch.
If possible the girl hugged him tighter "Thank you" her voice wavered but she didn't have a break down. His respect for the girl raised just a tad bit at that before he guided her to her seat and moved his chair beside her before sitting.
"Itadakimasu" Reimu clapped her hands before she dug into her meal with the beast patiently watching her stuff herself up.
Midway through her meal a pained groan made both remember that they had another guest in the beast's lair, the two looked bemusedly as the turtle kept trying to tilt itself on his back before the Juubi took pity on it and snapped his fingers, the turtle levitated a few feet above the air before it was gently set down properly and close to the table were it had direct view of the smiling girl.
"Reimu-hime!" The turtle all but shouted as it rushed to the giggling girl who also leaped off her seat to hug her pet, the beast merely watched with a small smile at the heartfelt reunion before interrupting it with a cough.
"Finish your food first" He added just a tiny hint of steel in his tone to scold the girl, it had it's obvious effect as the girl quickly apologized and sat back on her seat though the turtle kept giving him the skank eye "You must be Genji right?"
"Yes and you are...?" Genjii warily replied as he tried to gauge what kind of youkai was the fox whose his mistress was obeying.
"Juubi" The beast replied "I believe you are aware of what happened to the village?" seeing the turtle nod the beast continued "Where were you when this happened?" the child paused in her eating when she heard the harsh voice her savior had used.
If Genji was affected by it the turtle didn't show it "As ordered by my mistress's guardian, if such an outbreak were to happen I was to notify the Youkai whom we have treaties to get help from them but by the time we returned... there was... nothing" A look of realization crossed the turtle eyes and it finally recognized whom was it speaking to.
The beast pinched the bridge of his noise "Fat lot of good that did"
"I am extremely grateful to you Juubi-dono for saving our Mistress, we had believed everything was lost once we found nothing on our search"
"Save it, I don't want to hear any of your babbles" The beast waved his hand in the air lazily and effectively shut up the turtle, he turned to the little girl and found that she had finished her meal, when their gazes met she seemingly understood what he wanted and she hopped of the chair and went back towards were the giant scroll lay unfurled on the ground.
"The girl will stay here until I deem it safe for her to leave" The beast gave the ultimatum to the turtle, seeing as Genji was about to retort he raised one hand and stopped it "After your failure in keeping her safe I can not in good conscience leave her with you or your kin, I will allow you to periodically come here to visit her but that's it"
The turtle flinched at being reminded of it's failure "We are extremely sorry" was all the turtle really give. They had failed to keep one little girl safe and not just any little girl, they had failed to keep the Hakurei's next maiden safe. That's why Genji didn't even deign try to change the Juubi's decision, if anything their mistress would be the safest in his domain.
"Go inform those other pests that the maiden lives and will retake her duties as the Barrier Keeper once she comes of age" With a flick of his wrist another portal opened up and Genji looked warily at it then longingly at Reimu, this made the beast release an annoyed growl thus making Genji make haste towards the portal though the turtle did spare one last glance at his mistress.
Once the portal closed up the beast returned to his seat beside the girl on the floor.
"You angry?" Reimu asked with a small tilt of her head, the beast snorted but nodded nonetheless. He was surprised yet once again when the girl gently snuggled his side, trying her very best to wrap her tiny arms around his massive frame "Kaa-san always hug when I angry and me no angry" Reimu explained as she hugged him tighter "So you no angry right?"
Yes, he was definitely going to grow feelings for the little squirt.
"No, I'm not angry anymore" He replied after a while of simply enjoying the little pipsqueak affectionate gesture "Let's get back to your studies shall we?"
"Hai!"
- CHAPTER END -
Author's Note: Yes I know it's short but I felt this was the best place to cut the chapter, I'll be updating the next chapter somewhere between the week since it's technically already written and I think I'll keep this format (2k-5k words per chapter) for this story so as to not hit a block, again.
I hope you enjoyed it~
Reviews: THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR REVIEWING THE STORY, I HOPE I LIVE IT UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS ;A;
I'm glad to know I'm the first to explore this type of setting (Naruto adopting Reimu instead of stumbling into Gensokyo) and I'm beyond elated to know you'll support me through this tehehe~ Until next time!