Coyote Tricks: Fox Child

This chapter is rated PG-13 for violence and suggestive comments.

Chapter: Memories and Nightmares

Yuki was surprised when Toshiro showed up in front of her little apartment in a top of the line Mercedes.
“Oh my God!” She said, looking at the car and his expensive dress suit. She was wearing the best outfit in her wardrobe but she suddenly felt like she was in rags.
“I didn’t know you were rich, Toshiro-san.”
“Oh, the car actually belongs to my dad’s company. I just borrow it for important dates.” He said with a grin as he opened the passenger door for her.

“What company does your father work for?” She asked as they pulled away from the curb.
“Ninja Foods Inc.”
“They are one of the ten largest companies in Japan, aren’t they? What does your father do there?”
“It’s in the top five. My father is the owner actually, and the executive president of the Kitsune investment group.”
“Wow!”
“Well that is one of the advantages of being a 500 year old Kitsune, lots of time for your investments to pay off.”

‘Of course,’ Toshiro added silently to himself, ‘having some knowledge of the future helped too.’ Shippo had carefully positioned himself and the Kitsune group’s investments to take advantage to the developing market of instant foodstuffs. Toshiro and the other members of Shippo’s clan found themselves heirs to an instant ramen empire.

Yuki considered the implications of all this. At first she had suspected that Toshiro was only trying to get close to her to persuade her to abandon Coyote Tricks because of the embarrassment it had caused him. But it was obvious that he had enough wealth that he could have crushed her little publication without any need to expose himself. Could it be that this handsome Kitsune was interested in her?

The restaurant was one of the finest in Tokyo. It was designed around the traditional style of small private dining rooms instead of a common dining area.
“So, I’ve told you a little about me,” Toshiro said after they had ordered. “Tell me a little about yourself.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Well, when did you first realized you had the sight?”
“I’ve always been able to see…things. When I was little my parents thought I was just into imaginary friends. When I got older, I was the ‘strange’ kid and so I didn’t have many friends.”

“That’s common for people with the sight. Humans can be very cruel, especially children.” Toshiro said. “My own childhood had its share of trauma. Being a Hanyou is never easy, even today. I was more fortunate than my older sister in that I was born during the period that King Enma was driving most of the demons that ‘actively’ like to hunt and kill Humans and Hanyous into the demon realm.”
“When was that?” Yuki asked; amazed at hearing these childhood legends referred to as actual persons.
“Oh, just a little over 200 years ago.”
Yuki’s jaw dropped. She would have sworn he was around 20 years old, 22 at most.
Toshiro laughed at her reaction. “Wait till you meet my father. He was born in the warring states period, over 500 years ago, but most people think he’s around 30.”

It was late when Toshiro dropped Yuki off at her apartment. After dinner, he had taken her to an out of the way and, from the outside, rather seedy looking dance club. The inside turned out to be great and Yuki couldn’t remember a night when she had more fun.

Toshiro walked her to her door, arranged to call her again and headed back to the car. As he got in and pulled away, a shadow moved to follow leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

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Kit, Yuriko and Hanako stayed at the den another day leaving only to forage for water and firewood. Also to ensure the Oni had left the area. A pack had come back searching the battle area for them. But the Oni sense of smell is not much better than a human’s and Foxes and Coyotes gone to den are hard to find.

By that night Yuriko's rapidly declining heat, a sure sign of her and Kit's impending parenthood, had reached a state that she and Kit could get a good nights sleep with only two bouts of lovemaking.

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They had been driven from their home by a human war. They realized too late that the mountain range they had fled to was the territory of a tribe of Oni. So far their superior senses had enabled them to avoid the brutes. They just had get through this pass and they could work their way down the range and out of the Oni’s territory. Yuriko froze as Tetseo stopped and sniffed the air. Her senses picked it up too; two groups of Oni were coming up the pass, one from each end.

Tetseo looked at Yuriko, Hanako cradled in her arms, and saw his fear reflected in her eyes. It might be a trap but more than likely it was just bad timing. Either way the valley was too narrow to avoid them. If it wasn’t a trap they might be able hide in the surrounding rocks and trees but the risk of even an Oni’s dull senses detecting them was too great, unless….

Tetseo looked at his family and made his decision.
“Run! Hide!” he growled a command with an Alpha leader’s imperative.
She resisted the instinctive drive to obey, guessing his intention.
“Tetseo no. Come with us.”
“GO!” he yelled reinforcing it with the Alpha imperative again. Yuriko obeyed, racing up the valley wall until she found a niche in the rocks large enough to hide in.
As soon as she was out of sight, he turned back towards the trail just in time to see the larger group of Oni come into sight. Tetseo pulled out a handful of leaves and tossed them into the air.
“Multiply!” he shouted and the leaves turned into a pack of twenty Tetseos, which roared defiance as one and charged the Oni. The Oni were surprised to have a pack of Kitsune appear out of nowhere and attack them but quickly rallied to meet them. Just short of the Oni, the pack of Tetseos transformed into fox form causing the thrown rocks and swung clubs to miss as they dodged under the Oni’s feet. The Oni group dissolved into chaos as they tried to catch the fast moving blurs in their midst.

The other group of Oni coming over the hill saw the chaos below and charged to join it, running right past Yuriko’s hiding place. As she heard them pass, she shifted to see the fight moving down the pass.

Tetseo dodged left and right through the legs of his opponents, snarling and biting at their heels as he passed. He sensed his duplicates disappearing one by one as Oni fists and clubs struck them dispelling the illusion. He was clipped once with a club but the owner didn’t have room in the crowd to swing so it only knocked him slightly aside. Then he broke free of the pack, running down the pass with the slower Oni pursuing. He was going to make it! He would out run them and circle back to get Yuriko and….

The rock wasn’t even aimed but Oni muscle gave it speed enough to be deadly. Tetseo’s yelp of pain echoed over the valley as it struck his hind leg, shattering the bone. His flat out run collapsed into a tumbling roll. When he stopped, he transformed back into Kitsune form and, struggling against pain, tried unsuccessfully to stand. The Oni was bearing down on him as Tetseo allowed his rage to fill him as he gathered all his spirit energy.
“Foxfire!” Tetseo’s voice echoed across the valley again as a blue flame shot out from his hands striking down a third of the Oni. The remainder fell upon him, clubs swinging and, for the last time, Tetseo’s voice echoed across the valley walls with sounds that were mercifully short.

A short distant away, Yuriko cradled her frightened child in her arms as she shed silent tears. The two of them, disciplined by fox instinct, made no sound even in their terror except for one brief tiny whisper, “Tetseo.”

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“Tetseo!”
The whisper was now a cry and was quickly silenced as Yuriko jerked out of the nightmare memory. Instinctively her senses reached out looking for threats and found none. Kit was sleeping peacefully next to her. Hanako had crawled in between them at some point and was curled up in Kit’s arms.

She considered the turn of events that had brought her here. When she had submitted to her life mate, this strange hanyou, it had been a spur of the moment thing, some blind instinct that drove her. She knew that wanting a father and protector for Hanako had been a good part of that. She had been terrified afterward that she would find out that it was a mistake. But looking into his eyes, she just felt it was right. Kit, for all the viciousness he had shown in the fight with the Oni, was kind and gentle. The way he played with Hanako made him seem like a child himself but his lovemaking left no doubt that he was a grown man. He was very experienced and yet had no marks of a life mate, dead or otherwise. That puzzled her since he was obviously an expert lover. After sating the initial needs of her heat, he had gone on to show her levels of pleasure she hadn’t even known were possible. She suspected that this far away land that he came from was a very strange and interesting place.

Yuriko watched the two of them sleeping, so innocent in appearance. Yes, she had to admit, taking Kit as mate was no mistake and there was no worries about falling in love with him either. As she watched, Kit’s ear twitched in some response to some dream and he stirred slightly in his sleep. Unnoticed by her, the jewel shard in his chest glowed a dull red.

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“Shippo!”
Kit ran after the elder Kitsune, but no matter how hard he ran Shippo moved father away without turning back.
“Shippo, come back!”
A feminine laugh filled the air.
“I told you he didn’t love you,” She said.
Kit turned to see the dark silhouette of the Queen of Shadows towering over him.
“Only I love you” She continued.
“That’s not true. Everything you say is a lie.” Kit answered Her. “There is Yuriko.”
Suddenly Yuriko stood before him and he placed his arms around her as they stood defiantly before Her.
She laughed again. “Your love will destroy her. You can no more protect her than you could that old fool.”
Suddenly Momoru stood in front of them, a steaming sword made of miasma in his hands. Before Kit could react, he drove the sword into Yuriko’s heart.
“YURIKO…!”

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“Yuriko!” Kit yelled, jerking upright.
“I’m here beloved,” Yuriko said grasping his shoulder. “You were having a dream.”
“Yuriko,” he said again as he threw his arms around her as best he could without crushing the stirring child between them. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, never!”

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Stardreamer: This chapter wound up being so long I had to break it up into two chapters. Next Chapter – Recurring Nightmares.