Hurray! this part is done! What does that mean? It means that the next chapter will be under another heading. WE start to see how Aki will interact with some of the original cast members of Inuyasha. And First up is Miroku! what a treat! But first, I have to end this part and boy do things go a little crazy.

Now is the time when the Inuyasha cast thank whatever gods are out there that they are not my original characters. There are just some things I won't do to characters that aren't mine.

Unbreathing Saviors

Darkness is what you make of it. It can be like a blanket that wraps around you like a lover's embrace. It can be a creeping shadow that steals across the floor to nip at your extremities. It can be sinister or comforting or sweet or bitter. It all depends on how you perceive it.

And no darkness is so profound or multifaceted as the night. Most especially that darkest of nights in which the moon shuns the earth as it pays homage to its first love, the sun.

We cannot blame the moon for loving the sun more than all else. It is in the nature of planets, once-planets, and satellites to love the giver of light that they fall in with. No, we cannot blame the moon for the earth, too, loves the sun as does all her children. So we do not blame them for the love, but we bloody well do blame them for abandoning their posts to do so. Especially the moon!

"Damn bloody rock," Aki muttered as she stumbled over a hapless stone in her path.

"You should've stopped hours ago," Fred commented, condescendingly.

Yep, it was several hours after the sun had gone down and Aki had still not stopped to put up camp. This was nothing unusual really. Aki often continued her travel far into the night, her chronic semi-self-induced insomnia rendered restful sleep nearly unachievable so stopping was practically pointless. On any other night that is. Tonight, however, there was no moon to see by and Fred was convinced she was going to break her neck.

Aki didn't necessarily need to be walking in the dark; she did have a flashlight in her bag. But she figured the light would draw attention, the big, fanged, I-eat-humans kind of attention. Then again, she was making enough racket to stampede a herd of four legged animals or something, of which there was a huge abundance due to the superstitions of the time. Really, Aki couldn't imagine surviving on fish alone when there was a plethora of other kinds of meat available.

Give her Cow before Flounder, Pig over salmon, venison over trout…well maybe not the last. I mean, Bambie or lake trout? Trout, no cute movies about trout.

It was about then the ridiculous line her thoughts had crept into hit her and she snorted. One would almost suppose she was hungry or something. Well she wasn't. She never seemed to be hungry anymore. When she did eat, which was rarely, it was perfunctorily and only when Fred nagged her into it for hours on end. And even then, she didn't eat much.

There just wasn't anything that appealed to her anymore. All her old favorites made her ill and she couldn't stomach half of the common Japanese dishes. Pretty much she subsisted on snack foods and every once in a great while, pocky.

Ugh, she was back to thinking about food!

"If you break your neck, I'm just going to point and laugh," Fred said dryly. She grunted but kept walking. She suspected the only reason he kept talking was to be certain she knew he was still there.

Aki snorted, all he really had to do to make her aware of his constant presence was to hover just a little bit closer. No way she'd be able to ignore that electrifying chill that screamed, "There is a dead person breathing down your neck!" Then again, she might eventually grow numb to that.

There was one thing she'd learned from spending so much time with Fred. She could never have successfully dated him. She could hardly stand him as she was half the time. She couldn't imagine just how bad this would be if she was the same as she was before the curse. Then again, Fred wouldn't be dead without the curse and he wouldn't be spending this much time with her if he was alive…

Aki chose that wonderful thought to distract her from her footing and caught her foot on a tree root and went tumbling down a low hill. The background music to her ungraceful movement was the sound of some protruding object tearing through her and her jeans. It was a sound that had her cursing even before the thump of her abrupt halt.

The thump signaled to her neck that it needed to send flaming protests at having to bend so far to her head. To which her head rang mighty thanks for having bent so far as to prevent its resembling a squashed melon. Poor Aki was caught between the two with a nasty headache and a sore neck, which she rubbed into muted pain before focusing on the knee of her jeans.

The rent in her pants had her cursing rocks, tress, hills and darkness in the most unladylike of ways. She didn't care about the abraded flesh underneath; flesh would heal, but jeans… She grumbled a few more expletives before deciding to wear them anyways with a shrug she soon regretted. Nobody on the feudal side of the well would likely care.

Of course she wouldn't be able to wear them in her neighborhood in modern Tokyo, the neighbors would probably think she was some unsavory character and call the cops on her or something. She would just have to leave a change of clothes at the Higurashi's to change in and out of.

The logistics of this little endeavor were starting to annoy her. If the people weren't so uptight about some things… Well, she really shouldn't resent it so much. She was the one who chose to live in this country and she would not upset its people simply because of annoyance.

She sighed and moved to get up.

"How dare you trespass here!" a gravelly voice accused out of the darkness.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see the signs," Aki replied. "You do have signs don't you? I mean, how am I supposed to know where not to go if there aren't any signs saying 'Do not enter' or 'Beware, territorial land owner lives her'?"

Suddenly, the area was brightly illuminated with torchlight. Aki's eyes watered in pain as the cursed darkness fought to retain its hold on her eyes. It was a painful battle across the field of her retinas, but the light inevitably won. And when it did, Aki caught her first glimpse of her accuser.

It was the ugliest, most wizened and eccentric looking woman Aki had ever seen. And that was while the old bat's buggy eyes were closed as they still were.

Aki snorted. AT least she wasn't the only one who suffered at the sudden brightness. It was a petty satisfaction, but Damnit! Why couldn't she be petty in her own head?

"I do not need signs, impudent girl," the old hag declared as two men, she thought they were men, latched onto Aki's arms in a restraining manner. "How to punish you for your trespass," the old woman hummed in thought. "I could chop you up to use in my spells, but there are so many girls available for that and none of them have been fool enough to trespass here."

Aki blinked, she'd known her fair share of witches back in the states. Wiccans weren't a bad sort, for the most part, even if they did occasionally take themselves too seriously. But her friends had nothing on this woman.

It was then the old bug-eyed woman opened her eyes and Aki could feel the intrusive power of the witch's vision rifling through her skin, tissue, and bones, even her-and she snorted at the thought-soul. "My, my, my," the hag licked her withered lips with delight, "What a delicious curse you have there?" My, but you do seem to be in the habit of angering my kind," the woman chuckled with glee. "Oh but this is a well made spell, bit too benign and well-intentioned for my taste. It seems this is what kept the curse from your life. Hmph! It should have made you more susceptible to it, it sealed your youkai blood." Aki blinked, what? "Should I break it?" the witch leaned forward to study the spell. "No too much effort, better to manipulate it, redirect its energies, but how to do it without tripping the built in defenses?" The woman paused as her eyes started to dance with gleeful inspiration. "Yes, yes, that would work," her beaked lips smiled her evil joy. "It's benign enough not to trip the defense yet annoying enough to be real punishment." She cackled and Aki shivered as much as her captors would allow. "What to do with the extra energies?"

Aki felt the old woman's gaze draw back in space to a point where it was quite painful. Her body spasmed in uncontrollable pain and she looked up at her strange empty faced guards pleadingly. "Don't bother girl, they're my dolls," the hag commented dryly before seizing Aki's face in her deceptively brittle fingers. "What's this? Shikon no tama! No, no, just a shard of it, but where there is one shard, there must be others…Too bad this one is out of reach," She pondered absently. "Ah, that's what I'll do with the extra energies."

"Alright, I've decided your punishment," the hag let go of her face slapping Aki on the cheek in the process. "I'm going to twist the purpose of this smell." She cackled with malicious delight. "I'm going to make it so that the next time a male youkai touches you, you'll go into heat. You do know that heat is, do you not? It'll have all the lesser youkai chasing after your scent to invade your lovely skin very intimately." The hag choked on her attempt at full-bellied laughter. "Unlike a natural heat though, you will not desire their continued attentions after the first coupling, but they'll be frenzied by the scent of heat. If by some chance your scent is undetectable or you manage to go without being touched the effects of the spell will escalate. And do take a literal interpretation of heat, dear, as the spell will. We both know a body can only withstand so much heat before it's over for you," the hag cackled darkly. "You can sense the Shikon no Kakera, and so with what's left of the original spell's energies I will bind you to me. You will be my little hunting dog that sniffs out the jewel for me. I like it, yes, yes." The witch stared down at her evilly. "Of course in redirecting the spell its original purpose will no longer be effective and your youkai blood will be released. You've been as you are so long the sudden release of it may well drive you crazy. But then a mad dog that can sniff out the Shikon is better than no dog at all," the old hag cackled at her good fortune.

Aki stared at her dazedly. Recently her life just seemed to be going to the dogs. Dog demons, inu hanyou, and now she'd been relegated to being a dog herself. Could life get any weirder?

"Girl what is your name?" the Urasue demanded, breaking her out of her musing.

Aki snorted, "Like I'm going to give you anything while you're threatening me." She rolled her eyes at the thought.

The hag slapped her; a jagged nail caught on her skin and drew blood. "Such impertinence! No matter," the witch dismissed it. "I need not know your name to do this, I need only the name of the spells original caster, and the signature is right here clear as day. And after I'm done with you," she murmured darkly, "You'll have no use for a name other than pain."

The urasei latched onto Aki's face, digging in her nails to secure her grip. Aki would've jerked out of the witch's painful hold despite the nails driven into her skin if she could just get the leverage.

"Punishment first, binding second," the hag decreed, mostly to herself. "Wouldn't want to short it of the necessary energies, would we? The binding can be weaker in any case."

Aki felt painful holes being punched in a place where they shouldn't be punched. The flow of something else was diverted in a new direction that she just knew was going to be painful until she got used to it. Luckily the flow was still reluctant to change so the peculiar sensation she felt wasn't particularly painful yet, but that most assuredly wasn't going to last.

It was right as the old witch was finishing the punishment part of her spell alteration plan that Fred attacked.

The ghost materialized out of the shadows behind the urasue and launched his fist through the head of the guard on Aki's right. She almost rolled her eyes at the futility of the action until his fist came out the back of the clay head with a glowing ball in his grip.

The now empty clay husk began to list towards Aki and the old witch before it fell full out upon them. It broke into large heavy pieces that left a stunned Aki partially pinned flat on the ground and the urasue hopping mad.

"A ghost! Ouch! Get rid of it!" the old hag shrieked in out rage.

The remaining clay doll soul-prison lumbered about as only a clay doll soul-prison can. Consequently, it stepped on Aki a few times and smacked forcefully into the witch many times in its attempts to follow the hag's irrational orders. The last time it bumped into the witch she shoved it angrily away causing it to stumble and knock the clay pieces off of Aki.

She really didn't need Fred's prompting to run. The moment she was free she was up and running as the ghost took the remaining entrapped soul in such a way that the clay body left behind fell upon its maker.

"No!" She shouted at the sky in anger as Aki disappeared from her sight. The witch's red hot anger gave her the strength to shove her impediment aside and stand up. She glowered into the darkened forest until a thought struck her. it was a gleefully horrible and disgustingly true thought that left her almost wishing she were prone to performing happy dances. "Ah well," she cackled maniacally. "I guess the extra energy will just find its way into her punishment as well."

Aki raced away from the witch, barely noticing when she tripped over the same root again and fell. She absently got back up, hardly noticing her freshly split lip, and continued to flee.

It was all her brain was capable of comprehending. Even when she fell, she got back up as an after thought and continued to run.

Finally, her body gave out after a couple of hours, still long before dawn. She fell and failed to get back up, so she lie there breathing hard, her heart pounding in her chest like a caged animal. It was in the subdued silence that enveloped her that she began to notice the growing pain in her body that had nothing to do with falling down or being winded.

Falling down did not make the sound of rustling leaves stab into the back of her eyeballs. Breathing hard did not make the smell of damp earth try to pull her toenails out through her sinuses. And neither left her feeling like her bones were stabbing into her softer tissue and skin feeling so tight it might burst.

Oh gods the pain! She squeezed her eyes shut as the pain intensified and her breath hitched. Perhaps this is what it felt like to be born? No, then the pressure was constant but the squeezing pain was intermittent. This… this was most assuredly – and she passed out from the pain before she could finish the thought.

A silver haired figure glared down at Aki. She was trespassing on his territory. He moved closer with deadly grace and lethal intent. He would kill this stranger that dared enter his lands without permission.

He paused as he glimpsed her contorted features, easily interpreting her grimace of pain. Something about her face nagged at him but he dismissed it. If it were important he would've remembered it immediately.

The girl curled more in on herself, her body like her face, plainly communicating the strength of her inflicted discomfort.

He supposed he could be merciful and pretend she wasn't here. She did seem to be in enough pain already, too much to be able to notice anything he might do as punishment. It would be a waste of effort on his part he supposed.

Silently, he turned and left.

The next morning Fred was slightly afraid to awaken his friend. It was now just approaching dawn and he know he should wake her now rather than later. It would be easier to adjust to the light if she started while it was still dim. He knew that, he just wasn't sure how she'd take the rest of the changes. She was his friend and would always remain so no matter her species, but Aki's own body had seemingly turned on her worse than when it went through puberty. Then she'd changed height, weight, bust size, and begun a monthly cycle. Now, all that and more had changed.

She was taller, bustier. Her hair had changed color and her ears were in the wrong place. There were some new editions she was bound to notice. Oh he knew she wasn't going to take this well.

Fred ran his intangible hand through his transparent hair. Better to get this over with sooner rather than later. "Aki," he called gently.

"Not so loud!" she grumbled and winced. She had a serious headache and the volume was up too loud on everything. She moved to cover her ears and couldn't find them. "What?" she sat up abruptly eyes wide and hands scrabbling through her hair. She winced "Argh! Too bright!" she whined nearly hysterical, "too loud. Where are my ears? It smells." She leaned back and something pinched painfully where nothing should've been able to be pinched before. It was then she found her triangle shaped ears on the top of her head, accidentally grazing the sensitive flesh with the talons she didn't know she had. "Ow!" she howled in pain before curling forward afraid to move anymore for fear of further harming herself. Her entire body ached painfully and she wished more than anything that this was just a dream, a nightmare. She opened her eyes and stared at her hands. They were still sharp and talon-like. She was just a hair's breadth from falling into hysterics.

"Fred," Aki began very quietly. "What's happening to me?"

"You remember the witch last night?" he asked.

Aki creased brow in though before her eyes widened realization and dawning horror. "This is what the spell she was talking about was supposed to hide," she groaned unhappily. "But I've always been human, my family's human, I don't understand," she said, a dreadful idea sneaking around the back of her mind.

"I," Fred paused not really wanting to continue, "I did some digging around while you were unconscious. You're not going to like what I found out," he admitted. "I think you should soak your muscles in the hot spring just a little ways that way. You're likely to take it better when you're not in so much pain," he suggested. "We can talk while you soak or after, but I promise I will tell you what I found out."

"Alright," she agreed softly. She rolled forward onto her hands and cursed as she nearly flew over them onto her head. Her balance was all off. It was then she noticed her new appendages. "Fred?" she squeaked while eyeing them.

"Later," Fred said firmly. Like a good friend, he didn't laugh at her numerous failed attempts to walk upright. If he'd been alive, he convinced himself, he would pick her up and carry her just to save her the embarrassment.

Never the less, Aki did manage a semi-upright position and she did kind of walk…from tree to tree to get to the hot spring under her own power. She grinned triumphantly as soon as the warm water came into view. No stupid crisis was gong to keep her from those waters.

Aki began to strip down, when she realized she couldn't. She almost cried when she couldn't remove the strap of her courier-style bag. "Fred," her voice quavered with her upset.

"The shoulder bag has a buckle," he mumbled. "Just undo it."

"But what about my clothes?" she whined.

His chest heaved as if in a sigh. "Your grandmother told me you could perform a bit of illusion. Not much though but as you practice you should be able to do more." Fred studied her new appendages, "Just make them disappear when taking off your clothes or putting them back on, you should be able to hold the illusion for that."

Aki blinked, "Aren't my clothes already torn?"

"Nope, they fused with your clothing like it was your own skin. Good thing huh?" Fred teased gently. "You would've had kittens if anything had happened to that shirt."

"Can I have kittens?"

"It was a joke Aki."

"I don't now that do I? I don't know what the hell I am anymore," it was then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water as she slid into it having disrobed while Fred looked the other way. "There's no part of me in that person I see anymore."

"It's just a reflection Aki."

"And when was the last time you looked in the mirror and saw something else staring back at you?"

"You're still you," Fred soothed. "There's just more of you visible than you ever realized was there."

"I hate this."

"You hate yourself?"

"Fred!"

"Like I said before, I did some networking while you were unconscious," he changed the subject.

"Like on Casper."

"They got more right in that movie than would seem possible considering I've never met a single ghost that was a floating, glowing ball covered in a white sheet."

"Yeah that was a disappointment, it would've really improved your looks," Aki jested half-heartedly.

"You want me to tell you what I found out or not?" At her nod he continued. "I found some of your other family. It seems your human family wasn't your birth family."

"How is that right? I wasn't adopted."

"I'm not sure, but your human parents didn't know until after they were dead. Your dads keep arguing over who's daughter you are and your mothers just talk about your entire childhood nonstop. It was your blood grandmother who placed the original spell on you and she was quite upset when she found out it had been so tampered with and both your moms were horrified. If your blood father wasn't dead, I dare say he and your half brother would've been out for blood." Fred muttered the last. "I guess the spell was placed on you to help prolong your life. I didn't have time to get the details but now we know where all these changes came from."

"My family," Aki swallowed, "isn't my family?"

"They're still your family," Fred reassured her. "There's just more of them. They all loves ya, you know."

Aki sighed, letting the water work its magic. Things like this were better thought of at leisure. There were many more pressing things to do at the moment. "Fred, what am I going to do?" she sighed heavily.

"About what?"

"I need to get back some where safe to better learn what all I can do now, and I need to relearn how to move properly. I can't do that out here without getting into some kind of serious trouble and I can't go back through the to my apartment looking like I do," she sank down into the water.

"You still have your cell phone?"

Aki snorted. "What good is a cell phone going to do here?"

"You can use it to call Loki from the well house once you get through the well."

"We haven't even established if I can go through the well, and even if I can, how the heck is Loki supposed to help me?" Aki wondered in disbelief.

"Well his mom said he should be able to help, what with him being part youkai and somewhat well connected in the Tokyo youkai circles," Fred replied.

"When did you talk to Loki's mom?" she couldn't believe it. What was he doing? Going around chatting with the dead family of everyone they knew?

"I was networking," he defended himself. "You know networking for ghosts isn't like making a phone call. It's more like pulling the threads of a complicated spider web, one tug sets the whole thing dancing. It's like telephone bingo. You get whoever feels like picking up. Especially when you've never met the person you're trying to talk to. I dare say it's a telephone operator's version of hell."

"You've met my parents," Aki argued.

"Not the ones I was trying to talk to and I didn't know your parents and your parents were hanging out together. That was pure luck," Fred muttered. "And you're forgetting I had to reach through time to pull this off. Loki's mom was the first to answer me, and she was very helpful."

"Whatever you say," Aki murmured. "Fred?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you hear the spell that witch put on me?" she asked quietly.

"You mean she did more than just break your grandmother's spell?" he cursed the old hag. One thing was bad enough.

"Actually, she didn't break it, just kind of modified it," Aki shrugged half heartedly, sending a slightly larger ripple across the surface of the spring. "She said," Aki paused reluctant to repeat what the ugly old woman had said. It was as if saying it would make it more real, but then everything else had proved true. She sighed out the last of her reserve. "She said the next time a male youkai touched me I would go into heat," Aki blurted out in a rush.

"What?" His brain refused to make sense of that in the way people's eyes refused to recognize photographs of bloody massacres upon first viewing them. It's a defense against knowledge you honestly don't want, but it almost never works for long.

"Please don't make me repeat that," Aki whined.

"I can't believe it! What a sick old hag!" Fred exclaimed. "I can't wait 'til she finally croaks! I'll be the first there to rip her a new one!" He declared viciously. "I'll save just enough for your family to tear her apart. Sick, evil, demented witch!"

"Fred! I'm flattered by your outrage on my behalf, but that doesn't help me deal with the problem," Aki commented dryly, cutting him off from further incensed ranting.

"How in the hell do you expect to be able to deal with it? You're bound to come in contact with a male youkai hunting the shards. They're the most likely to have them!" Something occurred to the ghost, "Do partial youkai count? What about children? Oh god, I'm having day mares already!"

"Fred, calm down!" Aki yelled over the ghosts near hysterics. "This isn't helping me. I don't know if partial youkai count, I don't know if children can set it off. The witch didn't seem likely to answer those kinds of questions last night. For all I know it only works on this side of the well!"

"Guess we'll just have to hope Inuyasha was right and bank on your not having a scent," Fred muttered.

"Won't work," Aki shook her head. "The longer I go after the spell has been tripped without being violated the more intense it gets."

"The more you want to be violated," Fred mumbled with growing dread.

Aki nodded, "The more I want it, the higher my body temperature goes. The old woman decided to take a literal interpretation of heat."

"That evil, crazy, demented, ugly-"

"Fred, that's not helping," Aki cut him off.

The ghost made the motions of a sigh, "Well, you've got two options. You can set off the spell on purpose in a controlled environment and take care of it by choice, or you can attempt to go without setting it off and hope for the best."

"Definitely not the first," Aki declared.

"But you don't even know what'll set it off! How are you going to prevent it?"

"I'm just going to assume all males will set it off and avoid touching them all together. Except dead ones of course," she answered smoothly. "I'll include children and humans in that category until it is proven otherwise."

"How are you going to avoid touching an entire gender?"

"That's why I need you to help me," Aki replied. "I need you to stay between me and them as much as you can."

"You want me to run interference?" he asked incredulously. "You do realize that it's going to be nearly impossible to run interference on Inuyasha, right?"

"I trust you Fred, you can do it!" Aki said sweetly.

"Might I remind you I'm just a ghost, I can't do anything."

"I know you're a ghost Fred, that's why I asked you. Nobody's going to want to walk through you," Aki said honestly.

"Why not? Everybody seems to love walking all over me!" he grumbled good-naturedly at the main culprit for using him as a doormat.

"Walking through you isn't nearly as much fun as walking over you," Aki made a face at him teasingly, which he couldn't see with his back to her. "There's kind of this big cold shock that happens when a person walks through you. It's most unpleasant in the extreme and completely disconcerting."

"How would you know? You've never walked through me."

"When you first died you kept sticking your fingers through my arm. That was enough for me," Aki stated. She decided she'd spent enough time in the water and got out carefully. Her new body was still giving her a bit of trouble when she moved. As she dressed it was easy to see why. Her shirt, which had previously been just this side of excessively baggy, was now just a bit more loose than snug. Her jeans, which had been long enough to fully cover her shoes, now stopped at the ankle. With the aches of her body soothed, she was finally able to stand fully upright. She could now almost see over the top of Fred's ghostly head.

"How does it feel to be tall?" he asked jokingly.

"Disorienting," came her serious answer. "Everything seems so small from here. Why couldn't I have just been average height?"

Fred shrugged, "Both your blood parents were tall."

"Yeah, but my other parents were short."

"Can't fight genetics."

"Hang genetics, I want to go back to being me," Aki declared.

"You are you," Fred corrected forcefully.

"You know what I meant," Aki retorted.

"Yes, I know what you meant."

"Why did everything have to get so complicated? I was just fine with my little uncomplicated though terribly melancholy life. But no, Life just had to go and add to it. I was so certain I wouldn't live past 100 years. Which meant at the most, I had eighty years left to put up with my life. Instead Life decided I had to live even longer and made me demon. Do you have any idea how long youkai live?" She ranted as she stumbled through the trees back towards the well.

"Aki," Fred began, barely containing his laughter.

"Shut up Fred. I'm venting at Life and I want it to hear every word of it," she glanced down her nose at him.

"I don't think life's a sentient entity that's going to listen to you," he commented.

"Oh, I'm sure it is. I'm certain it wakes up in the morning and takes a deep breath before saying to itself 'How can I change the entire outlook on me of someone today?' Then it comes up with an idea and Life claps its hands together and say 'Ah that! That would be a good way to do it!' and it goes out and does it to some poor unfortunate like me. And almost all the schemes life comes up with are exceedingly unpleasant. Like making someone wake up to discover themselves to be someone other than who they were. Or making a person go home to reveal the total cessation of life in their entire family, to see the blood soaked into the carpet to the point where it stands in puddles on top." She fell silent, choking on the memories.

They traveled for some time in the quiet growing light of day. Aki was slowly getting used to the noise and the light and the smell. It was probably a good thing they'd begun so early. There is not quieter time in the world than the time just before dawn when nocturnal creatures rush home to settle for the day and the day creatures have not yet awakened.

She was really getting the hang of walking through the wooded area with her new appendages, besides when they would catch on things.

"Why don't you try to run, jumping tree to tree like Inuyasha does?" Fred suggested.

"I'm still getting the hang of walking and you want me to try to run?" she was flabbergasted.

"For all you know running is easier," he argued.

"What if I fall from a tree or something?"

"Then you get back up and try again. You're part youkai now, I very much doubt you're that easy to seriously hurt," he pointed out.

"What do you mean 'part youkai'? I thought I was a youkai."

"Nah, your father had some human in him. It's why you could be spelled into being human. Your half brother has more human blood than you though. Your mom was pure demon," Fred explained.

"My father had some human in him?" she murmured. "I don't think I like that my father eats humans," she said thoughtfully, her face serious.

Fred almost nodded agreement before he realized what she had actually said. "Hey! That's not what I meant!" he yelled at her tree running back.

"Ah-hahaha!" she laughed back at him as the thrill of her quick movement coursed through her body. Running really was easier than walking contrary to logic.

Fred gave up following in pursuit almost before he began. It wasn't like she could lose him or anything. She was his anchor, the thing that kept him here. Because of her he was the only ghost he knew that could travel around the world, let alone through time. Most people when they die latch on to a thing or place, the idea being that things and places last longer than people. The downside to that was how stationary those things were.

It was great to travel as a dead guy. You never have to worry about luggage, the price is just right and you don't have to worry about the food. As long as his anchor knew the language, so did he.

Nobody he'd met had actually come up with a decent explanation for that. He could pull random knowledge out of her head, but not know everything or even what she was thinking. Then again, nobody knew what side effects would occur from choosing a person for an anchor.

There weren't any ghost that hadn't moved on that could remember anyone else choosing a person. He just had to go and be different. Most anyone else would count death as the end to all promises, but not him, oh no. He made a promise and an expiration date had never been set. He was still bound by it.

Granted the promise had been made to himself, but it still held. He wouldn't leave Aki all alone while he had any say in the matter. Which is why he anchored himself to her.

So why hadn't he followed after her yet? Probably because, like in Star Trek, it was easier to wait for her to stop and beam over to where she was than to chase after her. It was quicker too. The dead do not travel in linear motions quickly. Heck, he couldn't even keep up with Aki running when she was human. If he had a destination though, all it took was a little thought and –poof- he was there.

Like now. –Poof- and the area was empty of strange pensive ghosts pondering being dead.