Damian Black

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"How do you feel about your next solo coming up, Miss Dark?"

"What words do you have for the fans?"

"What is going on in your personal life at the moment?"

"Sorry~ But I have to go now!" Aya said, in her usual stereotypical voice that she pictured a flawless model would act like. She waved her hand and blew a little kiss off her hand towards the cameramen and woman before quickly hurrying inside her apartment, smiling and waving as she closed the windows.

After all that passed though, Aya locked the door and slid onto the ground, immediately taking off the annoying heels she wore and unzipping the tight and weird looking dress she had to walk around in, 'Being famous is a pain... I didn't ask for the attention...' She sighed to herself, still hearing the group of people outside.

A minute later when she finally realized she was inside her apartment, she saw one of the pillows being ripped apart by the smaller Youmu who lived in her house. They weren't very big, being the size of her palm or smaller. She stared at them while the three stared back at her, as if stunned that they were caught, even though their 'hiding spot' was in the center of the room.

'Again...' Aya let out a growling noise from under her breath as she made imitating expressions and actions towards the three, most likely threatening them since it was their fourth time tearing apart her apartment, as always. If there weren't people outside, she probably would have began to yell at them all and chased them before tossing them out the window (knowing that they'd just return in the end, anyways.)

Taking her warnings into consideration, the three Youmu made a run for it, running across the room; one hiding underneath her couch, another headed for her room, and the third one still stuck inside the plush of the pillow. With another exhausting sigh, Aya stood up, getting her back off the wall and her rear off the ground as she walked over to the shredded pillow and plucked the Youmu out of the fluff, as if it were a doll, "You're going into the corner tonight, punk." She smirked before tossing it at the wall, it bouncing off harmlessly like it were rubber and making a giggling noise as it dashed away under the couch as well.

"How was your day...?" A very small and quite voice asked. Aya turned around to see a female Youmu, being around 2 or 3 feet tall, staring right back at her. It was obvious she was roaming through the fridge since it was wide open.

"Do you want to go into the corner too, Yuuki?" Aya asked, growing more frustrated with the Youmu in her house. Yuuki was one of the first Youmu she found living with her, the one who first destroyed her apartment. Currently, the two have been living with each other, besides their love hate for each other, "You know what, never mind. I'm going out."

"Again...?" The little Youmu asked.

"They won't notice if I wear something 'hideous' and go out the back." The blonde haired young woman said, changing out of the ridiculous dress into regular jeans and a shirt, completely contradictory to what she would have to wear as a model.

"Then I'm coming too."

"You're annoying."

"I know." Yuuki seemed to have giggled mischievously, in her own quiet way as Aya opened the window and made her way outside from there while the white haired Youmu followed.

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Hideki continued to look around for his partner, Sayuri Ami. While he did have a hate for her, the woman wasn't too bad, despite how lethargic she really was. At the moment, he was allowing other regular humans to find him, not really caring since he, as a Youmu, had a much more human-like appearance and liked to keep it that way. Besides, he was on the look out for that woman, so how was he going to get information? Hideki was definitely not going to ask any other monstrous Youmu, so he relied on humans.

"Excuse me, have you seen this woman anywhere?" He asked, holding up a phone with Sayuri's picture. The man he was talking to shook his head as he continued to walk down the road with his children, Hideki cursing quietly to himself while he continued to ask around.

Well, he did that for a while, but found it useless since no one seemed to have known where she was. This obviously got on Hideki's nerves, but things did brighten up after a little bit since he saw a wanted Youmu for the Moumoku. It was a small one, but wanted, nonetheless, and that's what counted.

It was a small one, blending in to look like a plant, but in Hideki's eyes, it couldn't hide. An advantage of his was his ability to scan the area- being able to find any breathing or living creature, especially Youmu, within a half a mile's radius. While using this ability, he found other Youmu in the area also, but he had his eyes set on the one trying to hide from him, "Found you." He said with a smirk as he leapt forwards, lowering his hand to grab the leaves sticking out from the leaf Youmu's head.

But his hand slipped and he fell into the planters instead. Many by passers stared at him, wondering if he was alright, but he ignored them. Why should he care? He wasn't human. He was a Youmu, after all.

Then the chase began; Hideki sprinted after the little dashing plant which other humans (without Sight) could see and reached his hand out to catch it. But it was way too fast for his legs to work, even if he was a Youmu. Hideki specialized in technology, but not running, "Dammit... Where's that woman when I need her!" He grumbled, more people staring at him as he sped up to catch the speedy plant Youmu.

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Public transport, a real pain in the ass like always. If it wasn't for the fact that it was still faster than driving, Sayuri would undoubtedly taken her car. However, considering that it took over ten minutes longer to drive home, not to mention that it costed more, trains worked perfectly fine. A little cramped? Sure. Some noisy teenagers in the back? Of course. No smoking? Heck, it was tempting to walk...

More and more people kept stepping on to the train, and it felt like nobody stepped off. Naturally, people were, but more people entered than stepped off. After only a couple of stops, Sayuri couldn't take it anymore. It drove her insane. How could people do this on a daily basis? Of course, normal humans were weirdo's, undoubtedly. However, being willing to use something as ungraceful as a train to travel every day had to be like self-torture.

She wasn't irritated. She didn't get irritated. She just had a mature and realistic react- Heck, who would fall for such a subtle excuse, of course she was irritated. People pushing up to her on all directions, all the bad breath, and all the other minorities she stamped as torture-methods.

Finally, a station, now she could get off. There was a store nearby, she could get an ice-cream or something like that and walk the rest of the way, it was no big deal. The train stopped, finally. And then, of course, now everybody were getting off the train. At least half of the cart she had been in. Now, it looked spacious and alright, even the noisy kids in the back got off. "Just my luck, huh..?"

Her hands trailed towards the pockets of the tight jeans, slowly falling into the comfortable material. At least the weather was comfortable. Wait, what was that in the bottom of her pocket? An empty 20-pack of standard cigarettes. Why hadn't she thrown it in a trash-can? looking inside of it, she found the reason. A single, flat-pressed cigarette was still there. Now, all she needed was a lighter...

Normally, fire wasn't a big deal, but she had the fire spirit sleeping in a small jar in her purse, and she didn't want to wake it up, or let in more air than necessary, not to mention that it'd look weird if she pulled out an empty glass with a piece of hot coal in it. It'd look weird for normal people at least. For Youmu or other exorcist, it'd look like she simply abused the powers of the demon in the jar.

The sun continued to burn as she looked for a store selling lighters. Why hadn't she brought one? Today really wasn't her day, it didn't seem like anything went her way. Finally, a small corner-store, they had to sell lighters, right?

Of course not. The owner was religious and believed that smoking was bad, and therefor didn't sell standard lighters, only the kind used to light up gas-ovens. What a pain... It had been so tempting to give the man a solid hit to the face just to get out some irritation, but she had decided to take the peaceful approach and instead left with a standard vanilla ice-cream in one hand. She could have been a thousand years old, but ice-cream would still taste good.

The streets weren't by far as cramped as the train had been. This was actually acceptable. People were happy, and it had its affect on her own mood. Everybody till now had seemed grumpy, tired, or just annoying. It naturally had an effect on her own mood, just the same way as this was cleansing her for all those bad emotions. She sat down on the edge of a circular fountain and looked out at people as they passed. It was an interesting view.

Two kids, one running after the other, both laughing and having fun. A couple teenage girls going home from a shopping-trip, a business-man helping an old woman Sayuri guessed was his mother, and an old man buying some flowers. He was probably heading for the cemetery nearby, she knew that a lot of war-heroes were buried there. Was he an old veteran maybe? Just thinking of such things made her smile a little. People went through hard times, but it always got better. That was the feel it gave at least.

Ryu took a deep breath his eyes darted down to the transcript in his hand. It was a five page report of his qualifications, including information on his feats while attending the exorcist academy in Hong Kong. His first job as a full-fledged exorcist would be in Tokyo, Japan, deemed the pinnacle of youmu activity and a dangerous place for humans to live, especially for those with 'sight'. The subway speed-ed along in the series of underground tunnels, a method of transportation that was mainly copied by the western society. Ryu daydreamed and fretted about what would happen once he got there the whole way there, he worried would they reject them? Would he have to be sent to somewhere else? He stopped worrying and so did the train. When he emerged from the underground station he saw several youmu, many small ones he noticed them pulling pranks and stealing wallets. All his training told him to observe them, but that would seem stramge to normal humans if he kept staring at every pebble and leaf.

Ryu had only a few blocks left to get to the building where the cheif exorcist was to meet him. He say some commotion and he could sense the presence of a very powerful youmu. Ryu decided to leave it to the exocist assigned to the area.

Soon the meeting was over and Ryu was officially a Japan exorcist, he had a badge to prove it. He now had to get to his fake school a simple cover, He made his way through the town, he caught a glimpse of a strange looking woman slowly walking and admiring the scenery. He decided to get a closer look, something about her seemed strange. To make sure she was what he thought she was he plucked up a small youmu that fit in his hand, a pebble youmu. He walked over to her and greeted the woman by putting the creature in her face. depending on her reaction would determine whether she had 'sight' or not.

The scenery around her didn't stop being interesting, not at all. The children continued to play their little games, though she had no idea what the point of it was. The man she had seen earlier had headed for the cemetery as she had guessed, and the older woman who were walking with her son smiled and gave her a light wave. She smiled back, and they had eye-contact for a second or two before she let go of the woman's eyes.

A boy had walked up in front of her. She had noticed it from the moment he bent down to pick up something, though she didn't exactly care what it was. He had probably just found a 100-yen coin or something like that. Her eyes didn't follow the kid and she returned to the ice-cream, eating it up quickly before it melted, leaving a small circular stick between her teeth. She really missed having a cigarette, but the stick made up for the feel of having something between her lips. If she could have felt the toxic smoke entering her lounges as well, it'd be perfect.

A rock? No, it was something more... Living. She could sense the aura, despite that it was suppressed by the hand of the boy in front of her. It interrupted the otherwise rather clean reading, though she could still feel a youmu soul. Not saying a word, she reached forward with her red hand, between the eyes of the boy, and snapped him between them.

"Idiot"

Such a simple insult. One word, a thousand meanings. She stared into his eyes and her hand moved towards his hand, forcing it to let go of the pebble. She caught it with her free hand and put it carefully down on the ground.

"If you own a soul, you own a mind of your own. And if you own a mind of your own, you own feelings. And if you own feelings, it means you will get hurt if people mistreat you"

She didn't appear as nice at all. No, she was angered. Well, more annoyed, she had no intentions of assaulting the boy, it had obviously just been a test to see if she could see the pebble or not. "That pebble has a soul, so it has a mind of it's own. Since it has a mind of its own, it has feelings as well. And since it has feelings, it feels hurt if you mistreat it as well"

"Jeez I don't understand people like you, protecting youmu like some kind of endangered species. If people keep protecting them we could very well be the minority, then who would be the idiot. Besides I wasn't going to harm it, it isn't big enough to be any threat." Ryu dug in his pocket and retrieved the badge as to confirm who he was. "Well I need to be going, there's this high school I'll be attending, even though I already past college. Just to keep an eye on the youmu." Ryu started to walk away not really caring if the pain n the ass lady followed or not.

What an impolite kid. Well, she wasn't exactly being a ray of light either, but there was something called respecting your elders. Not that she had cared much about it, but that was mainly because her own mother had been so pushing. Yet, they had been family. Now, it was just two strangers conversing. Being rude to a complete stranger, not to mention a stranger older than yourself. Even she knew that was wrong.

"I don't understand people like you either, so I suppose we're even" Sayuri brushed some of her hair behind her ears before pulling out a pair of sunglasses from her purse, putting them on. The sun was shining directly at her as she walked, and being blinded wasn't exactly fun.

She approached the boy with fast steps. She wasn't showing any signs of wanting to attack, though of course,there was no predicting the unpredictable.

"Newly educated kids thinking it's their job to cleanse the world, going wild and striking down on everything that moves. Learn to respect your elders kid. You haven't lived long enough to learn what is allowed and what is not"

She pulled out her own badge and held it in her hand for a couple seconds, considering if she should show it or not. She was afraid the kid might recognize her name, it'd be a real pain. It didn't happen all too often, though occasionally, it did. It was normally a big pain, and hardly ever anything to be happy over. However, she decided it was probably for the best.

She gripped the kid on one of his shoulders to stop him before walking up in front of him. It was almost annoying how much shorter he appeared than her. While she guessed he stood around 5'5 feet, she stood 5'9 while wearing the high-heeled shoes. It was normally just fun, but right now, it was only a pain.

"Also, you should learn to pick your friends and enemies. Considering that the only local high school nearby is Fujisaki, it'd be a pain if one of your teacher ended up disliking you from day one" She smiled a little before putting aside the badge and starting to walk again, past the boy. She held up one hand and gave him a light wave with her back towards him. "Also, I don't think there's any school today. Have a safe trip home, try to not kill every rock you see"

It's happening again.

An uncontrollable desire to kill and drink. It had been happening for years and years now and even a Youmu like Neil wouldn't be able to handle a temptation as strong as this one. He clutched his heart while leaning down against the walls in an alleyway. Cold sweat broke out and his breathing became more and more irregular. His eyes slowly fades in from the usual cool blue into a violent and crimson red. His senses were tingling and more and more he craves for blood.

Soon, he succumbs into the blood lust. His nose twitched as he picks up a dangerously close scent of Youmu in his area. Somewhere close to him where no other scents collide with each other. Further deep into the alleyway is where the requirements are all met. He stood up and walked into the alleyway, rats scuffling around in competitions where the victor gets its lunch. Just like the rats, Neil was about to get his. However, this one is more of a one-sided battle rather than an actual fight.

His teeth sinks into the flesh of a Youmu. It did not had a shell covering the skin, yet its flexible body made up for its lack of defense. It unfortunately, fell into the hands of Neil Yamamoto, a Youmu of Madness who consumes the blood of its own kin and of the humans. Neil had soon found human blood to be more less satisfying than his own kin. Their blood somehow tickles his body and when it flows down his palms, the warm sensation just makes it better.

He soon regains his self conscious. He stares down on the bloody mess he made himself and his hands full of the blood he had feasted upon. The body lost a limb and its head, but Neil only stared down on it like its a normal occurrence. Well, of course. To him, this sudden surge of blood lust surfaces just about once every week and it always ends up with him being covered in fresh blood.

He took off his jacket and threw it on the ground. He turned it inside out and worn it again, before departing off the alleyway casually.

The boy wasn't even objecting. He wasn't saying anything. Was he left speechless because she actually had a mature side and knew how to do more than just bitching? Regardless, she wasn't going to hang out there like he needed to answer before she could actually move. Oh well, he could be rude if he wanted, but it would eventually give him trouble. Her troubles with her own mother was related to rudeness, so she knew fairly well what she was talking about.

Back on the street it was then, back to all the stressed business-men unaware of all the bad spirits following them to mess up their work. It was an interesting view, watching the people walk like they knew nothing, while the main street was so full of youmu that it was ridiculous. Regardless though, there were those that were just neutral, showing themselves in human skin and helping humans that needed it, even if it meant getting coffee all over themselves or to cause misfortune for the human while doing so. Kind of like Ignis, despite that he was only helping her, and that he was more like a tool or weapon than an actual partner, unlike Hideki who apparently loved pushing on her to make her work.

A convenience store. How convenient, she had thrown away the ice cream stick and once again needed something between her lips. She entered the store and found herself a lighter and another 20-pack quite quickly. The teacher job paid out well so she could easily afford a pack or two per week if she wanted/needed it. After paying, she left and quickly lit the cigarette she had already, throwing the now empty pack in the trash.

Why couldn't anything exiting happen? A very dangerous youmu that had to be dealt with, a store robbery or anything that could be considered as amusing. Despite her hate for work, a high-level would have been quite amusing standing up against. Though, there were plenty of other spirit warriors in the city, most of them would probably react faster than her unless Hideki somehow found out before everybody else and threw her on the case, something that wasn't entirely impossible as he was quite good at being the first person over her shoulder. Quite annoying really, but if it was something major, she'd be thankful, very thankful. She'd might even treat the kid dinner, not that it was unlikely to occur regardless as she was the one sitting with all the humanly provided money, though she gave most of the money she received as a spirit warrior to him, though she kept a bit if it was big money in action. Anything under 25 000 yen normally went to him though.

Upon returning to the street, people appeared to walk in a small circle around her. Most likely because they recognized the smoke smell and didn't want it on their clothes, despite how low the chance was. As she walked past it, two of her male students, both class 3B she thought, were sitting on a bench talking. They gave her a light wave and she waved back, though she didn't stop by to talk, she wasn't really that desperate for people to talk to. Work was one life, spare time was another. That was what her mother told her whatever, it wasn't some rule she lived by like she was hypnotized.

Mina made her way through the urban city, quite bored out of her mind despite the steadfast expression she put across. She wanted to do something to occupy her time...and she wasn't currently looking for any Youmu, per se, but if she were to coincidentally run into an aggressive Youmu, it would only be right for her to do something about it. "It's not normal for aggressive Youmu's to attack in densely populated streets like this..." she thought to herself, causing her to take a more scenic route through various alleyways.

As she continued walking within the vast alleyways of the city she began hearing echoing sounds of what a seasoned exorcist such as herself could tell was a Youmu's flesh being teared apart. Immediately, in a way that was almost instinctual, Mina pushed her back against the wall, peering slightly around the corner to see if she could find out what was happening. Upon viewing what was around the corner she could feel her mouth creak into a smile, the anticipation of busting a flagrant Youmu rose within her as the seconds ticked by.

Shaking her head she decided to move into action, he had already killed one Youmu, she had to stop him before he attacked another. She turned the corner, picking up her pace as she continued moving until she eventually caught up to the Youmu, only a few feet away. The perpetrator didn't seem to have any remorse for the actions they committed, and she mentally took note of that before speaking. "Freeze," she said sternly, her right hand on her gun, "This is Mina Fukahara of Moumoku," she said, trying to gauge whether or not he was volatile, standing at a safe distance just in case. "Mind telling me what happened between you and that Youmu back there?" She asked, ready to draw her gun and end him if he decided to attack, but wanting to make sure she maintained her protocol and give him a fair chance.