A/N: Alrighty humans, I have taken a lot of liberties with the original storryline, as well as taken a whole lot of influence from the musical (If you haven't watched it, do it, it made me love Kyou Kara Maou even more than I have ever done before, even though the guy who plays Conrad can't sing for shit. The fact that the person who played Wolfram was a manly man of manliness helped a bit too). I will be changing a couple of scenes, prolonging scenes, adding scenes, and tweaking the storry to my hearts content because this is a fucking Fanfiction, and I can do what the hell I want.

Plus, it's not like I can controll how my brain works.

I promise, a lot of Yuuram/Wolfyuu moments (even though there is a strickt, no fluff, policy when it comes to my writing) with a lot of relationship development.

I promise, a less oblivious Yuri, a Yuri who is much more observant to everything that is going on around.

I will also be changing the environment. Just to put the warning out there.

I promise a story that is a mix between the anime, the novels, the manga, and the musical.

With that said, please read and decide for yourself what you think about what I'm doing with this storry.

Chapter 1:

Down the fountain drain

"Come on Yuri, just give me a chance." Kaito pleaded as he followed the black haired girl through the park, sneaking peaks at her backside as he went.

Could you really blame him? Those skin-tight dark-blue jeans capri pants, light blue tube-top and black cardigan hemmed with white and decorated with floral pattern left very little to the imagination. Hugging her figure that resembled one from the victorian age with her small breasts, absolutely tiny waist but surprisingly well rounded hips.

Then... there were the long arms and legs, fitted with just the right amount of muscle to not nessesarily be shown from under her lightly tanned skin.

Her long black hair had been braided down her back, ending in delicate curls at the tips.

Suddenly, the heeled light-blue sneakers stopped moving.

Thankfully, Kaito managed to keep himself from crashing right into her delicate frame and ruin all chances of ever getting with her.

A dainty hand sporting slender fingers tightened around the strap of the waterproof duffle-bag she had thrown over a fragile shoulder. He heard a breath being released from what he knew to be soft and plump naturally pink lips before she fully turned towards him, hr sparkling onyx eyes framed with long black eyelashes pinning him on the spot.

God he wanted this girl.

With her fragile body she should have no one other than the captain of the karate team as her man and boyfriend. If he was her boyfriend, he would be able to protect her.

"For the last time." Yuri spoke up, her voice ringing through his head like Christmas bells. God he had it bad for this girl, and she was barely 16! "The answer is no."

This should have made him feel like he had been rejected, but Kaito knew differently. The 17 year old high-school student knew for sure that the little lily standing in front of him was merely testing him. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her, but she just wanted to know if his feelings really were genuine.

Why couldn't this girl be more trusting? He would never hurt her.

But then again, he did make that one misstake once before about a year ago when he had first begun high-school...

Okay, again. He would never hurt her, again.

"Please." he begged, bending down from his length of a head taller than her, he could see his bleached caramel hair dangling in front of his eyes before he let his light brown eyes lock with the mesmerising black of his girl. He took the opportunity of their close proximity to grab a hold of her thin arms. Gently, mind you. "My life would be complete if I could only have you."

A scowl spread across her brow before she ripped herself away from him.

"You've already had your chance." she growled, her angelic voice dripping with hurt. "And you blew it. Horribly I might add."

This did take Kaito aback a little.

Yuri was known to have the patience of a saint, capable of putting up with practically anything without blowing a fuse, there were rumors of the few times she had actually snapped and according to him, they were all far-fetched for they spoke of his fragile, delicate angel beating up people. They all knew she wasn't capable of such a thing.

However... this was the first time he had actually seen legitemate anger on her beautiful face.

He had seen hurt, and he very much regretted having put that expression there, but he had never actually seen her angry.

"Yuri..." he tried, reaching out his hand towards her again, but she stepped away from him.

"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed.

He noticed how her knuckles whitened around the strap of her bag.

He really weren't making things better for himself, did he?

Dejectedly, Kaito let out a deep sigh, letting his head fall as he took a few steps away from Yuri, letting her have her space.

"Fine." he held up his hands for empathis. "I'll go away."

He looked up just in time to see an expression of relief wash over his girl's features, once again allowing her to become the beautiful girl he has been in love with for so many years.

Why the hell did he have to make such a huge fucking misstake?

"But know this." the relief vanished as soon as it had arrived. "I will never give up on you Shibuya Yuri." he pledged, his eyes narrowing at his serious words and his voice deepening. "I will have you again."

And with that, he turned around, and walked away. His mind buzzing with the many different ideas on just how to win her back, as well as the thoughts on what the two of them were going to do once he succeeded.

God, he was getting turned on just thinking about it.

Little did he know that, in just a few minutes (to him), Shibuya Yuri would come off the market.

The black haired girl stared exhasperatedly at the back of her ex-boyfriend Takagi Kaito as he walked away from her, his strong shoulders swaying in that stubborn swagger that had once captured her interest but now only made her shudder at what an upleasant person only his walk was telling her he was.

To think she hadn't caught onto that before the man broke her heart right in front of her eyes.

She shook her head to rid herself of the unpleasant memories.

As much as her relationship with Takagi had turned out to be nothing but disasterous, she couldn't help but to silently thank him for doing that to her. It had opened her eyes to the world around her, forcing her to become more observant, to pay more attention to the people around her and capable of judging a persons character and intentions from afar through a mix of what she could see and what her gut was telling her about someone.

She was determined to never go through the same heartbreak ever again.

She didn't allow herself to move until Takagi's figure had disappeared around the bend.

Sighing heavily, she turned around to face one of two stairways leading down the side of a concrete wall sporting a fountain at the center.

That man would never give up on her, just as she would never give him a second chance.

Everyone who knew her knew that she believed everyone deserved a second chance, but they didn't know that there was an acception to that belief, and that was people who had made her feel absolutely violated and didn't seem to understand just what it was that had made her feel that way in the first place.

She knew that Takagi still believed that she was deeply in love with him, and that was why she would never give him a second chance.

So long as he still had that arrogance, there was a risk of him doing the exact same thing to her all over again.

Takagi Kaito was in her past.

Now she was hoping to find someone truly magnificent that would be happy just to have her, and then, she would be able to reject Takagi on a more permanent level. She didn't care if the man was the ugliest or dorkiest being in Japan, so long as she could be with him and not constantly fear that he would do exactly what Takagi had done.

Then again, she's not as oblivious as she had been when she had first started dating that jerk.

She shook her head, bringing up her hand to brush her fringe out of her eyes.

She had spent too much time thinking about that bastard, it was about time she went home.

One hand resting on the railing, she made to walk down.

She stopped as she saw what was going on at the foot of the stairs.

There, just a few feet away from the fountain, were two boys in what appeared to be 18, ganging up on a figure that Yuri recognized all too well.

Murata Ken.

They had been in the same class during middle-school, and she liked to think that the two of them had been what she called 'classroom aquaintances'. Of cource, she had yet to develop her skills of observation back then, but now that she finally saw him again in his prep-school uniform after so many years...

Well, she hadn't been all that wrong in what she had thought of him back then.

He was a bit of a geek, and from the way he moved when the two bullies shoved at him, stronly opposed to violence. However, even though the two guys both towever over him, her ex-classmate remained completely calm, annoyed even.

She frowned at this.

Was he so used to bullying that it just didn't phase him anymore, or were there another story behind this strange and unnatural reaction?

She got a glimpse of his mischievous side when he bent down to pick up his disguarded wallet on the paved ground. Suddenly, his head shot up and he pointed blindly into the distance with a loud and surprised:

"Ah!"

Of course, stupid as they were, the two bullies fell for the pathetic excuse of a distraction. Something Yuri was sure Murata knew they would do, giving her past aquaintance ampel time to rush towards one of the stairways.

And he just happened to pick the one she was standing at the top of.

Of course he did.

He got half-way up the stairway when he finally lifted his head, and his eyes locked on her body.

With that one look, he absolutely froze the same moment one word blared up into the front of Yuri's mind.

Pervert.

She didn't know exactly what it was that had set off the mental alarm she had given herself over the year. If it was the way he had seemingly casually let his eyes wander over her from her feet to her eyes or if it simply was because he had frozen when he had seen her, but she didn't really care that much about the details. All she knew was that her intuition told her that her previous classmate was a pervert, and so, she was going to be careful whenever she saw him.

Too bad for the newly named pervert, him freezing up at the sight of her was just what the two bullies needed to grab a hold of the back of his blue blazer and haul him back down towards the fountain, pressing him up against the concrete wall.

Yuri could feel her blood pumping at the sight of this.

She was a girl with a strong moral ground, with strong beliefs in what is right from wrong. They were so strong in fact, that she just couldn't stand seeing anyone breaking them.

She clenched her hand around the strap of her bag, desperately trying to avoid the raiging desire to march down there and let the two bullies know just what she thought about their current activity. Something that the local thugs liked to call:

Collecting.

Biting her lower lip, she tried to just turn away. Nothing good could ever come out of approaching two thugs that were just about twize as large as herself.

She put one foot behind her and twisted around, preparing to walk off when suddenly.

"Shibuya!"

Why did Murata have to call out to her? Did he think that she could actually do something against those two that still had him pressed up against the wall? Then again... perhaps something like this could work out for him...

Either way, now that he has called out her name, there was no way she could just leave him there.

Squaring her shoulders, Yuri prayed that her acting abilities would be suficient enough, and that the two thugs were idiotic enough for it to work.

She let out an exhagerated sigh, loud enough for the three males to head her.

"Murata, what have you gotten yourself into now?" she made sure not to use any honorfics, he hadn't used any when adressing her, and it would make it sound as though the two of them were closer than they actually were.

The two thugs snapped their heads up at her, and their eyes widened considderably.

Yuri kept her eyes pinned on Murata, silently telling him to play along.

At the twitch at the corner of his lips, she knew that he had caught onto her plan.

"I didn't mean for this to happen you know." he replied, sounding rather bored with the fist clenched around the front of his shirt. "I'm apparently what they call a..." he rolled his wrist in the air, acting as though he was searching for the word when Yuri knew that he already had every word planned out in his head. "An easy target."

She shook her head in an exhasperated manner, rolling her eyes in the way a theatre actor would. Straightening the strap of her duffle-bag, she slowly strode down the stairs with an air of authority around her that she herself, was not aware of.

Watching her, Murata's glasses momentarily glaced over.

The thugs were watching her too, only they looked as though they had never seen anything quite like her before in all their years of life. Which, to Yuri, was quite odd considdering she was just a little above average in the looks department, good enough to make someone throw a second glance but not enough to hold them for long.

As she reached the foot of the stairs, the thug holding the front of Murata's shirt, dropped it as if he had completely forgotten that Murata was even there, and stepped up to Yuri.

"Look what we have here..." the thug mused, stepping in close to her body, his eyes running up and down her fragily frame appretiatively. Yuri wondered if the man was about to lick his lips just to make his interest more obvious than it already were. He turned his head up to meet her eyes. "You the geeks girlfriend?"

Yuri let out a soft snort.

"He wishes."

She turned her eyes towards Murata, Sparkling onyx meeting midnight as their gaces locked.

Of course, black hair and black eyes was a more than comon combo in Japan, so she didn't think too much about it.

At her coment, Murata raised one of his eyebrows.

"So, you're free then?" the thug asked, his a little less than attractive face adopting what he probably thought was an attractive and seductive expression, but the look just made Yuri want to break out in hysterical laugher.

It looked so stupid.

"Shibuya?" Murata spoke, his voice sounding just on the border of being worried, but Yuri doubted the two thugs would be able to catch it with their level of inteligence.

She looked at him again, silently telling him to shut up.

He gave her a look that asked her just what she was thinking.

Taking a deep breath, Yuri threw a pointed glance down at her left hand, the hand that wasn't currently wrapped around the strap of her duffle-bag.

Frowning, Murata followed.

Looking back at the thug, Yuri extended her left index finger twice before turning it in towards her thumb in a silent and quick message of: 1.1.0.

Eyes widening slightly, Murata stared at Yuri, his expression asking Yuri if she was joking.

Keeping her eyes on the thug in front of her, who was actually leaning in closer to her than before, Yuri discreetely lifted her hand up in Murata's direction and perform a slight 'sho'ing gesture with the back of her fingers.

Murata appeared to be hesitant to leave, but finally, he slowly began to back away, eyes glancing towards the two thugs whos attentions were entierly focused on Yuri.

Finally, he spun around, and sprinted from the scene.

The two thugs didn't realize that something was going on until they heard Murata's footsteps as he disappeared up the staircase, this time without distractions and thus, they lost him.

"Oi!" the two angrily shouted after the boy.

Yuri briefly wondered if they were actually stupid enough to believe that he would stop if they called out to him. Thankfully, for their sanity's sake, they only called out once.

Then... they turned on her.

"You little bitch..." the one standing closest to her mumbled, getting even closer to her than he was before (if that was even possible) without actually touching her. She could smell his breath as it brushed over her nose, it almost made her cough at the heavy scent of nicotine hidden within the otherwise unhealthy stench of his breath.

She didn't want to know what he put in his mouth.

"You helped our bank escape." he leaned in even further towards her, forcing her to bend her back to keep a steady distance between his face and hers. "How are you going to compensate us?" his mouth quirked up in a smug expression, his mind obviously realing with the different ideas on how she could 'conpensate' them.

"I don't know." Yuri said, keeping her voice steady as she leaned her back further and further the more the thug in front of her leaned forward. She glanced over his shoulder to note that the other thug was just standing there, lightly jealous but remained still.

So the one closer to her was the brains of the busines eh?

Turning her attention back to the thug obviously detemined to get his face as close to hers as possible, or probably until her back couldn't bend any further.

She felt herself smirk.

These guys were absolute idiots.

Quicker than either thug could process, Yuri relaced all of the muscles in her back, allowing herself to bend completely backwards, folding herself in the opposite direction than normal people were able. With her hands solidly on the ground she kicked up with her legs before her bag had the time to fully slide down her arm.

As her luck would have it, the toe of her wedge-heeled coverse caught the thug under the chin, sending him sprawling backwards as she landed with either foot firm on their own step of the stairway. She looked the thugs over, studying their movements.

The one that hadn't been right in front of her had caught his friend as he had fallen and they were both staring at her, eyes wide in disbelief.

Yeah, that's what you get for trying to corner a gymnast.

"YOU BITCH!" The leader bellowed as he shot up from the ground, his chin already bruising from the force of her kick. "You're going to pay for that."

"I think not..." Yuri muttered to herself before she let her bag drift down her arm to her hand as the thug rushed towards her.

With as much force as she could manage, she swung her bag straight towards the man's head, sending him once again tumbling, but her bag was a lot softer than her shoes so she could only hope that the momentum of it would be enough to keep him daced for a couple of more seconds.

Not waiting for the thug to clear his head, Yuri jumped high into the air, flipping herself so that she was able to put her hand on the top of the second thug's head, her weight making his legs buckle under him at the suddenness of it before she pushed off, sending the thug crashing to the ground as she once again expertly flipped her body so that she could land safely, and steadily, on the edge of the fountain.

She watched the two daced thugs with a feeling of mixed guilt and accomplishment, once again securing her bag over her shoulder.

"One should never underestimate a lady." she stated before spinning around oun her heel and walked along the fountain's edge with balance equal to that of a cats.

This was where she realized that her inteligence must have been compromised by the idiocy of these thugs, for she should have known she should have taken off running immediately. For if she had realized one thing with these thugs, it was that they were pretty damn persistent.

A hand wrapped itself around her ankle.

"You're not getting away." the thug that had, up until that point, done nothing but staring had managed to pull himself off of the ground, and was now staring at her with the outmost murder in his light brown eyes.

She had been wrong to dismiss this man.

Without warning, the man yanked on her ankle, causing Yuri to loose all her balance and sending her crashing into the body of water behind her. Her minimal weight didn't cause that much of a splash, but a loud 'thud' rang through the air before the water calmed around her.

She wasn't moving.

The two thugs slowly picked themselves off the ground, moving to look into the water. Even through their thick skulls, they knew that a girl of her physical condition should have been able to get out of that water a long time ago.

The color drained from their faces as they saw her.

She was lying face-up in the water, somehow managing to keep herself afloat, her eyes were closed as though she was sleeping, but they could see the red liquid trickle into the water from somewhere at the back of her head.

"This is bad." the guy who had grabbed her ankle whispered, guilt heavy in his eyes.

"Let's get out of here." the other one said, grabbing hold of his friend's arm, attempting to tug him away from the scene.

"But, what about-?" the guy didn't get the chance to finish before his friend knocked him over the head.

"Do you want to go to jail?"

And with that, the two boys set off running, leaving the girl floating in the fountain, her hand tighly grasping at the strap of her duffle-bag.

What they didn't know, was that because of them, Shibuya Yuri was able to take that first step towards her destiny.

The figure appeared out of nowhere.

At least, that is what the rider will tell anyone who is willing to listen.

At first, it had been nothing but a slight bubbling from the bottom of the river, then, suddenly, the bubbles grew larger and started to reach the surface at a much faster pace until it resembled the boiling water inside of the largest brand of cauldron one could get their hands on, and it only became worse.

Finally, the river had turned into a violent but rather small geyser, spewing up the water, letting it rain down on the surrounding environment as well as the rider.

Once the water calmed down, the rider was able to bring down the mantle he had thrown over his head at the last minute to cover himself from the shower just in time to see something float down the stream of the river in his direction.

He couldn't really see it clearly, but what he did see was what looked like a braid of black hair, and that was enough to get him to jump off the horse and sprint right into the river.

The resistance the water gave to his movements did little to brighten up his seemingly permanent sulky mood, but he did manage to catch the figure by a surprisingly thin wrist attatched to a dainty, feminy hand sporting slender fingers tipped with long uneaven nails (obviously a nail-biter then). The man let his fingertips run over the palm of the female's hand, trying to figure out what could have possibly gotten her into the river from her physical stature.

Whilst he did feel the beginning of a couple of callouses forming on certain parts of the palm, they weren't callouses recieved from any form of weapon training. In fact, he had no idea what could possibly create that kind of hardening on those particular areas at all.

The man threw a suspicious glance down at the female, only to find that her head was turned downwards with her face completely submerged in the water, and there was an area just a little bit to the left of the back of her head that didn't look right to him.

Carefully, the man reached out his hand to touch the area, and when he pulled back his limb, he found that the tips of his fingers were covered in blood.

He let out a long sigh.

The misstreatment of the fairer gender was something he despised above everything, even if he has given up a lot of his previous morals over the past twenty years.

Groaning a little under his breath, the man turned the girl over, pulling her face out of the water whilst still keeping her head elevated above the surface. Water kept wounds from clotting, and since head injureies are among the areas that blead the most, that would most certainly lead to the girls untimely death.

And quite frankly, he didn't want the have this female's blood on his hands, especially since he held to personal grudge against her and he didn't even know who she was.

Maybe he would let her die after he knew who she was, but that was something to think about another time.

Now, he had a life to save.

For she was still alive, he could feel the faint pulsing of a heartbeat from where his fingertips brushed against her throat, so there was definately still hope of her making it out alive.

Looking down at the onconscious female, the man was surprised to find that the girl looked to be barely more than sixteen years old, if she was even that. Now all he needed to know was whether or not she was human, if she was not... well... then he would know weather to kill her or not wouldn't he?

Bringing the girl out of the river, the man felt an odd weight from her right arm. Looking down, he saw the strangest type of bag he had ever seen tighly clutched in the girl's dainty little hand.

He raised an eyebrow at this.

She had managed to keep a firm enough grasp on that thing for her grip not to loosen even after she had gotten the back of her head smashed in and dumped in a river where she had then proceeded to drift down for the spirits know how long and then get picked up?

She must be pretty damn determined to succeed in doing that.

He threw a look at the girl's pieceful yet pained expression.

He couldn't help but to admit to himself that the girl was a very beautiful little thing. He could clearly see her idealistic figure through the damp, clingy clothes she wore, her pale yet tanned skin was a healthy contrast to her ebony black locks. Her face was heart-shaped with a button-up nose and plump Cupid's bow lips. He couldn't actually see her eyes, but he could see the long black eyelashes that would be framing them. Her arms and legs were long and thin, but he could feel a solid muscle build underneath the skin, just not ones nessesarily for fighting.

He frowned as he stepped out of the river.

Just who was this girl?

As gently as he could, he laid the girl down onto the ground, carefully guidng her head so that her wound wasn't touching the ground.

Deaming her position good enough, the man got up from the ground and headed over to his horse whom still stood exactly where he had left her. Loyal things these horses.

Opening up his saddle-pack, he shifted through it's insides before his hand closed around a phial barely large enough to peak through his hand when his fingers were wrapped around it.

Phial in hand, he turned back towards the unconscious girl.

A small puddle of blood had started forming under her and her skin was turning whiter by the second. He glanced down at the phial with a pondering look.

Should he really waste such a precious content on a girl he didn't even know if he was going to kill shortly after she had woken up?

But then again...

Who was he to know if the content was as effective as he had been promised?

May as well try it out on this dying girl, ensure that he hadn't just gone through all of that life-threatening things to get something an old loon said worked.

Kneeling down next to the girl, he took off the lid of the phial to reveal that it was a pippette bottle, the man carefully sucked up a couple of bright pink drops into the glass, smililing in a rather smug manner as the color brightened the closer it got to the girl's open wound.

Carefully, he let the liquid drop into the crack of the girl's skull, and his eyes positively brightened as he watched it immediately get to work.

He watched as the girl's skull started to knit itself together over where the drop had landed, slowly followed by the skin tisue and stopped there. The man kept on dripping the liquid into the girl's wound one by one, watching with great interest as the wound slowly closed, not only that, but the color began to return to the girl's skin little by little until it practically shone with health and energy that the man had absolutely no doubt the girl possessed when awake.

She probably would have been quite the sight for sore eyes had it not been for the blood clotting up her hair the way it did.

Suddenly, as the man was puting the lid back on the phial, the girl began to stir, her eyelids fluttering as she let out light groans that would make the softness of a feather rough in comparrison. But the man had heard one voice far more beautiful.

He stood up, looking down at the girl as she slowly began to turn her head from side to side, flexing her fingers, finally releasing her iron grip on that ridiculous looking bag, and at last, he witnessed her eyelids fluttering open and closed, revealing the mystery color of those orbs.

His own eyes widened.

No... she couldn't be... it was supposed to be a man!

Yuri let out a long groan as the light slipped in through the crack between her eyelids, possitively blinding her as she tried to regain her grasp on reality.

It wasn't working all that well.

She grasped at the ground under her, freezing up in surprise at, in stead of feeling her fingertips gracing over asphalt, she felt the unmistakable sensation of long, wild, grass mixed in with the occational piece of gravel.

There were no such location in Tokyo the last time she checked.

Fully opening her eyes, Yuri found herslf staring up at a fuzzy bright blue.

Okay... so she now knew that she was outside and not some freakish conservatory somewhere.

That's a start...

Groaning, she blinked rapidly until finally, finally, her vision started to clear up.

The sky was even bluer than she remembered it to be. Vaster ith even more brightly colored clouds than she had ever seen, the sun even looked a bit bigger in comparison, and if that wasn't strange enough, she could immediately tell that the air here, were a thousand times cleaner than Tokyo's air ever has or probably ever will be.

Just what was going on here?

With a slight winch, Yuri lifted up her hand to let it rest on her forehead, only to find it sticky and slimy with what she first thought was water, until she realized that the substance was far to thick to be that, and she felt herself growing pale.

Reaching up to her hair where the sticky substance seemed to be at it's thickest, she let her fingertips sink into it just a bit, slowly, she brought her hand back into her line of vision, allowing herself to peer up at whatever resedue had been left on her skin.

At the sight of the red liquid coating the tips of her fingers, Yuri felt like she was about to throw up. Her stomach coiling in on her and her eyes widening in distress.

This wasn't happening... this just wasn't happening.

Of all the things she could be soaked it, why did it have to be that liquid?

Suddenly, a deep bass voice rang through the air, originating from somewhere at her left side. The only problem was... she couldn't understand a word he was saying.

The language sounded as though it was a combination between German and Swedish, with a sing-song tone to it but with those odd, chopped of noises that she suspected would be very dificult for a foreigned like her to duplicate.

She tried to move her head in the direction of the voice, her eyebrows scrunching up as she desperately tried to desipher what the man had just said.

He spoke again, only to Yuri's confusion, about half-way through the one word that rang through the air, the language seeminly spontaniously switched to Japanese.

"... irl."

Now she was even more confused.

Just what kind of person desides to switch language mid-word like that?

Shaking her head slightly, she found that she didn't get dizzy from the action. Carefully, she braised her arms on the ground, slowly pushing herself off of the graveled grass, feeling her spine poping back into place in multiple areas as she did.

She must have lain in a terrible position then.

She winched slightly as she finally found herself sitting upright. She winched as she felt how her hair was sticking in uncomfortable masses to the back of her head. She couldn't even imagine what a mess she probably appeared to be at the moment, and that thought really didn't sit too well with her.

She may not care much for her nails, but she did pride herself in her personal hygiene.

Then, she noticed her surroundings.

What... the... hell?

The last time she checked, she had been in a park, in Tokyo, with large concrete buildings for as far as the eye could see. Not next to a river running paralell with a graveled road in what appeared to be in the middle of nowhere!

Not to mention, she was freezing through her soaked clothing.

Looking around at the tall, thick, seemingly ancient trees that surrounded her, Yuri brought up her arms, rubbing them to try and warm up, if only for a little bit. She was shaking quite violently even though the air around her was only just a few degrees colder than it had been when she had lost consciousness.

Just how long had she been out?

"What is the matter with you?" the bass voice asked, sounding very much annoyed with her.

Turning her head to the left, Yuri almost let out a scream.

Right there, stood a tall, hulking man in what appeared to be his mid thirties, with the figure of an americal football player. He had a head of wavy sandy-blonde hair, tanned skin and a pair of the most striking pair of dark blue eyes she had ever seen.

He was very handsome, in a bruteish sort of way.

It hadn't really been the fact that this man was a very attractive foreigner that had caught Yuri by surprise. No, it was the fact that the man was wearing what appeared to be mixed-era clothing. A mixture of victorian, medieval, renisance, and edwardian.

She had never seen clothing quite like that, and they looked to be too well made to have been created for some form of cosplay event or stageplay, so her only other option would be the shooting of a fantasy movie, only she definately hadn't signed up to be a part of one and she highly doubted that anyone of the cast would be allowed this far off into nowhere whilst still in costime.

She would have had a themed amusement park on the list but she could see no attractions anywhere and the landscape was so open that she could see for miles over the flush green hills and forests, following the graveled road until it was little more than a line in the distance.

At least, on the side that wasn't obscured by a large, dense forest in which the road soon vanished among the shadows.

What in the world was going on?!

She turned her eyes back on the man who looked as though he wanted nothing more than to draw the beautifully decorated sword he had attatched to his belt and run her through with it.

What a pleasant fellow (note the sarcasm).

Shifting slightly on the ground, Yuri threw a pointed glance around her.

"Where am I?" she was a little surprised at how weak her voice sounded.

The man seemed to straighten at the sound of her voice, though he kept his eyes firmly pinned on her figure, staring down at her as though that alone would be enough to intimidate her.

It was working.

Yuri suddenly felt the desperate need to look at anything other than the man standing over her. Turning her head away to once again stare at the line of trees.

She frowned when she realized that she didn't recognize any of them as trees usually grown in Japan.

"At the outskirts of Shin Makokue." the man answered, almost spitting out the name.

Yuri did a double-take.

"I'm sorry... where?" she snapped her head in his direction, which she really shouldn't have done if the massive wave of dizziness was anything to go by.

The man rolled his eyes exhasperatedly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Don't more your head around too much you silly girl." he said, though his voice told Yuri that he truly didn't care weather or not she listened to his words, almost like he was saying them out of duty or as a favor for someone else, and not actual care. "Your wound has just healed."

She frowned up at the man.

"What wound?"

The man rolled his eyes again.

"Where else did you think the blood came from?" Yuri felt herself flinch at that dreaded word. "The wound you had at the back of your skull." the man continued, seemingly not noticing Yuri's flinch. Or, he really didn't care, which Yuri felt was a much, much more acurate choice.

Feeling weaker than ever, Yuri brought up her hand back to where the... sticky substance, was at it's thickest. Letting her fingers sink in deeper through her messed up locks, desperately trying not to be vomit as she did, she traced her fingertips over the skin, trying to find any indication that there actually had been an injury there. But not matter how much she stroked, or how hard she pressed, the best she could feel was a jolt of pain when she pressed down on one particular area, but the pain was more like the one you get when pressing down on a bump than the scar of a wound.

In face, she couldn't feel a scar at all.

"You wont find anything." the man said, forcing Yuri to snap her attention back to him. Though this time, she took care not to move her head around too quickly.

The man looked rather smug with himself as he held out a phial in front of Yuri's face.

It was light brown in color, and made of glass. She could see that it was almost completely full with some form of liquid that was too thick to be water but not thick enough to be... that sticky substance running unerneath the skin.

She glanced up at the man questioningly.

"What is this?"

The man's smug expression only grew wider at her confusion.

He was enjoying this a bit to much for her liking.

"This..." the man said, bringing up the phial to eye-level with himself as he bent down on one knee next to Yuri on the grass. "Is a special and complex mixture of the Babbiley root and a blossom from the sobbing willows." he said this witch such a cocky tone and air of superiority that Yuri couldn't help but to feel as though she had missed something.

"Am I supposed to know what that it?" she found herself asking before she could stop herself.

The man's smugness vaned, replaced with a strange mixture of intrigue and annoyance.

Don't ask how that works, the man somehow did it anyway.

"How old are you, girl?" he asked, his deep voice almost no louder than a whisper, as though her age was supposed to be some sort of big, dark secret.

Well... had she been a middle-aged woman it probably would be but...

"15." she answered truthfully. "16 in a few months."

For a split second, the man looked surprised.

What? Did she look like she was ten? or even 57?

"You're a human?" the man asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Of course I'm human!" Yuri snapped back, sounding quite insulted. "What else would I be if I weren't human?"

The man stared at her for a moment, then, a smirk spread out over his lips.

"Eh..." he chuckled. "This is going to be interesting."

Yuri frowned at his words.

"What is?"

The man chuckled again, getting back to his feet as he slipped the phial into his left pocket.

"Don't you think about that." he insisted, though Yuri doubted she would be able to let that one go that easily, though she decided it would be better if she didn't try to push him. The man looked like he was strong enough to rip her apart at the waist by wrapping his arms around it.

She shuddered at the very thought.

"More importantly." the man said, forcing Yuri's attention back to him. "How did you recieve that kind of injury anyway?"

This brought a confused frown to Yuri's face. Once again turning her head away from the man so that she may try to gather up her memories.

The last thing she could remember was one of the thugs grabbing hold of her ankle, and the sensation of falling backwards... but nothing to indicate that she had recieved an injury to the back of her head, everything was just black after that. Now if she had recieved a sprained ankle, that would be another story, but a blow to the back of her head...

"I... I don't..." she muttered, pressing the tips of her fingers to her temple. "I can't remember."

The man let out a light 'hm' in responce.

"No matter." the man said, reaching down to grab a hold of Yuri's upper arm, yanking her upwards without giving her any form of warning.

"Hey, what are you-?" Yuri tried asking as she attempted to struggle her arm out of the man's grip, but he just tightened his fingers around her limb. It had been the pain of the grip that had forced her to stop talking, replacing her words with a pained whine.

"You're coming with me." the man stated, piercing her with his bright blue eyes.

"What?" Yuri whimpered.

All the man did was give her a down-right menacing smile.

A/N: Well... that was the first chapter of book 1.

Please review or leave a coment, I really want to know what you think.

Also, the program I'm using for my writing doesn't have a spell-check for the English language so if anyone could offer themselves up to be my beta reader, that would be very much appretiated.

I'm using the term 'offer themselves up', because I have the terrible feeling that there are many, many more errors in this than I would like to know. And the fact that I have this horrible habit of loosing interest in what I am writing mid-through.

Anyways, I thank all of you humans for reading and I'll be back with the second chapter as soon as I can.