As Niko drives on an empty highway towards the city, the light provided by the moon makes it seem peaceful, almost like a scene from a serenade.
Pulling the passenger sun visor down, Chisai flips up the protective cover over the mirror. Bringing up her hands to touch the marks on her cheeks, she breaks the silence. "I still can't believe it."
"A bit strange, huh?" Niko says as he quickly glances in her direction.
"Yesterday, I was falling asleep in class and drawing," she moves her hands up to her ears again, "and now I'm a....." her sentence trails off.
"It's okay, you can say it."
"....a demon." She says nervously.
"Well, only a half demon. Full demons have a lot more power than us, but we can do one thing they can't."
Looking in his direction, she begins to become curious. "What's that?"
Returning the look, he responds. "We can transform from human to demon and back again!" he says with a smile.
"Oh, right!" Chisai looks forward at the road. "I can't wait to tell all of my friends at school that I'm a demon!"
"No! You can't do that!" Niko quickly interjects. "You know that demons are still looked down upon in the human world! Just imagine how you would be treated if you told everyone!"
Chisai starts to withdraw a bit, thinking that she made Niko angry.
"The news stations would put you on every channel. The government would put you in a padded cell! Science laboratories would want to perform experiments on you!" he says with increasing intensity.
Scared of what Niko was saying, and if he was going to get any angrier, Chisai tries to lower her head into her school uniform, like a turtle.
Noticing the silence, Niko looks over at Chisai. She looks like she was trying to distance herself from him and become one with the seat. Realizing that he scared her, he relaxes. "Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. I'm sorry about scaring you." He reaches over and offers a hand, hoping that she will grab it and pull herself back into a more comfortable position.
Chisai doesn't move.
"Look, I didn't mean to go off on you like that. It's just....I've always been told to keep this a secret, because the world isn't ready for demons yet."
Chisai starts to relax and sit up a bit.
"I've been told that my whole life – for the past 18 years. I guess I assumed you knew that, but you've only been a demon for, what, a little more than an hour? There's no way you could have known."
Chisai sits up straight in her seat.
"You know all of the ancient stories about warriors slaying demons? And....and all of the fairy tales that have the heroes destroy the demons?"
Chisai nods, slowly.
"Well, that put the idea in everyone's head that demons are bad, and it's been that way ever since. Therefore, the demonic world has to keep a low profile to make sure we don't all get killed. With the government monitoring everything odd and unusual, and with the scientific community only a phone call away, ready to dissect us and figure out how to harness our abilities, we can't take too many chances."
Chisai becomes more relaxed, enough to ask a question. "Does that mean that we will become evil?"
Niko turns his head and gives Chisai an awkward stare. "What? No, nah. Don't be silly. Look – I'm not evil, am I?"
Chisai slightly twists her head left and right, slowly.
"We're not all bad. Now, there are some bad ones out there, but we're the good guys; we take care of the bad ones to make sure that our secret is safe. Think about it: the same goes for humans; some are bad, but the good ones make sure they are handled."
Thinking about all of the "cops and robber" stories that she's heard over the years from her parents, her friends, the news, etc, it all starts to fall into place. "Oh. That makes sense."
Continuing his explanation, Niko gives an example. "And if one of those bad guys had, oh, let's say a gigantic bomb in the middle of downtown, what would the good guys do?"
Feeling included in the conversation, Chisai perks up. "They'd stop him from blowing up the city!"
"Right. And after they stop him, what happens next?"
She thinks about the question he just asked for a bit. Perplexed by the situation, she comes to the conclusion that she's never thought of that before. "Um.....people start shopping again?"
"The investigative teams come in and dissect the bomb, to learn how it works and how to protect themselves from another bomb of the same type."
Chisai puts her fingers on her chin, realizing the severity of the situation. "Ohhhh....."
"The same thing would happen to us: we'd get captured, studied, dissected, probed, and other bad things so they could figure out how we do things, like grow these ears." He points to the cat ears on his head.
Imagining what he just said in her mind, Chisai reacts to her thoughts. "Ouch."
"That's why we all say that the human world isn't ready for us. You can go to school when you are in your human form, but the moment you transform into...." he waves a hand up and down in Chisai's direction, "....this, everything is over."
"So how do I not transform?" Chisai asks, trying to become more informed and secure.
"It's easy. All you do is....uh...." Having never had to explain the transformation process to anyone before, Niko was at a loss for words.
Chisai leans in towards Niko, hoping to see that he was still alive, since he wasn't saying anything.
"Look: Lord Tora said that training begins tomorrow. Let's get some sleep tonight, and I'm sure he'll help you out then. Sound like a deal?" He asks as he looks in Chisai's direction.
Chisai closes her eyes and a large smile appears on her face. Giving a large nod, she says "Deal!"
"Good. Now, how do I get to your house?"
Traveling through the suburbs of downtown, Niko pulls up in front of a concrete staircase and stops the car. "Well, here you go."
Chisai grabs the handle to open the door. "Thank you for the ride....and the rescue." She opens the door to get out.
"Don't worry about it. Just don't forget that training starts in a few hours, and don't tell anyone that you're a demon now." Niko says across the car.
She stands up, out of the car. Turning back to Niko, she asks "You said that I would transform back when I went to sleep, right?"
"That's the way it's worked for me. Hopefully, you'll do the same."
"Good." She closes the door gently, not to disturb the neighborhood, then starts to climb the staircase.
Lowering the passenger window, Niko tries to get her attention one last time. "Hey! One last thing!"
Chisai turns her head around.
"I just wanted to say...." he pauses, "....good night."
With a smile, she responds, "Good night to you too." Then continues up the staircase quietly.
Niko raises the passenger window and takes off gently.
At the top of the staircase, Chisai sees something familiar and stops to take a look at it. She smiles as she thinks of all of the cherished memories she had made.
An old, thick oak tree sat in the front yard, towering over the two-story house. Thinking back to her childhood, the old oak tree provided hours of entertainment between herself, her older brother, Tsuban, and her younger brother, Buyo. Using their imagination, the tree was much more than a tree; Chisai and Buyo would protect the tree-castle while keeping the Tsuban-dragon away, the three of them would shoot to the moon using the tree as a rocket, it even became the "Kids are Cool" club as they all sat in the branches and talked in secret code.
Seeing the low-hanging branches made her want to do something – something that she hadn't done in such a long time: climb the tree.
As she approached the trunk, her fingernails dug into the bark and she lifted herself up. Within seconds, she ends up sitting on a branch that was twenty feet high. "Whoa! That was easy, and fun!" She looked down to survey her height, but quickly regretted it as she became dizzy. Looking around for ways to get down, she noticed that the branch she now sat on had access to the roo
f of the first floor, within an arms' length of the window to her bedroom.
Gracefully, she crawls across the length of the branch, then jumps off and lands on the first floor roof gently. Softly, she says, "That was fun!" Scurrying off to her bedroom window, she tries to pull the panes open. A small "clink" comes from the other side of the panes, notifying her that they were locked from inside. Pulling them enough to form an opening in the middle, she fits one of her fingernails in between and lifts upwards, moving the locking hook off of its secure screw and unlocking the panes. Finally, she pulls them open and crawls through to her bedroom.
Although landing gracefully in her bedroom, a small "creeeek" comes from the floor where she landed. Trying not to make any more noise than she had to, she slowly tip-toed her way to her bed.
The hallway light turns on, which pours light into her bedroom through her open doorway. Feeling caught like an animal, Chisai freezes and stares at the hallway, although she is less than five feet from her bed. A small shadow approaches from the left.
Moments later, the shadow leads to a young boy, no more than seven, stumbling down the hallway in his plaid sleepy pants and oversized t-shirt, dragging his large teddy bear behind him by the arm. An odd shape from Chisai's room catches his eye. As he looks that direction, he has to rub his eyes to push aside the sleepiness.
A tall silhouette appears in to be standing in Chisai's room; the details of this figure can't be seen due to the moonlight coming in from the window. However, the young boy notices two triangular items on top of the silhouette. Curious to his discovery, he slowly walks into the bedroom and reaches up to touch the digital panel to turn on the bedroom lights. A moment later, his eyes adjust to the light level, and the figure becomes clearer. "Sister? Is that you?"
Chisai walks over to him, crouching to his level. She puts a finger to his mouth while making a "Shhhhh!" noise. "Buyo, please be quiet!"
Slowly waking up from his slumber, he realizes that he is talking to his sister. "Sis, what are you doing up? And what's with the funny hair and ears?"
"Buyo, you can't let anyone know about this, 'kay?"
The inevitable question that all kids ask, and the one that Chisai dreaded the most, was asked once again. "Why?"
"Ugh." Caught in the act, Chisai knew she had to think on her feet to save herself. "I just got back from a cosplay convention. There's a character I really like from a series I watch called 'Sword Titan' that looks like a cat, so I dress up as that character every now and then."
"What's 'cosplay'?" he asks with innocent eyes.
"It's where a lot of people get together and dress up as their favorite characters from, you know, movies, shows, books, and stuff."
Once again: "Why?"
"Because it's fun to dress up as a cat."
Again. "Why?"
"Because...." she pauses, trying to pull some answers out the air. "You know that show you watch, the one with the talking cat and the fish?"
"Leo the Leopard! Yeah!" he starts to get excited.
"And you know how you like to dress up as him for halloween?"
"Yeah!" he says a little louder.
"SHHHHH!" She tries to make sure he gets quiet. "That's what I'm doing: I'm dressing up as a cat because it's fun."
"Why?" he asks, again beginning the endless cycle of asking the inevitable question.
Feeling exhaustion set in, Chisai starts letting her answers stray. "Because...we can't dress up a real cat."
Yet again. "Why?"
"Because we can't have pets in the house, and because dad's allergic to fur."
Again. "Why?"
"Because....." Becoming frustrated as the endless cycle of questions continues, and at the fact that exhaustion is taking over, she tries to change the subject, hoping to save herself any more embarrassment. She places her hands on his shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes, trying to take control of the conversation. "Okay, where were you going before you saw me?"
"The bathroom." Buyo answers without hesitation to the different subject.
Chisai turns him around and starts to push him out. "Okay, you go use the bathroom, then go back to bed. If you promise not to say anything to dad, I'll play with you tomorrow. Deal?"
He stumbles back in the hallway. "Okay. You promise?" he asks as he turns his head to look back at her.
She nods. "I promise, now good night, Buyo" she says as she slowly slides the door closed.
"Night!" he says back towards the closed door. Turning towards the restroom at the end of the hallway, he continues his trek, dragging his teddy bear behind him again.
Chisai turns around, rests against the door, and slides to the floor. "Whew. I hope he bought it."
After a few moments to regain her thoughts, she stands back up and reaches for the light panel, turning off the room lights. Too tired change out of her school uniform, she walks over to her bed, kicking her shoes off under the bed, and falls towards the pillow, grabbing what blanket is available and pulling it over her with the little energy she has left. As she closes her eyes, she lets out a sigh, followed by one final statement of the night. "What a long, strange day. I hope tomorrow is better." As she falls asleep, her hair slowly changes from orange to her normal brown, her cat ears shrink away, and the marks on her face fade.