“It..it’s ok if you’re scared Shoko-chan. I’m here!”

Shoko glanced sidelong at Jiao, as they stood next to each other at the school gates. Shoko had learnt a few things from Paul-sama, and she could tell the young oni was scared herself from the way her voice trembled and she stood stiffly, holding her school satchel in front of her. Shoko reached out and took Jiao’s slender hand, giving it a squeeze.

“I don’t think we have anything to be scared of, but I won’t be as long as you’re here with me. Thank you Jiao!”

The young kitsune smiled inwardly as she noticed the tension draining away from Jiao, her posture softening as she relaxed fractionally. Jiao nodded as she reached some silent decision, and she gave Shoko’s hand a small tug.

“Ok then… lets go!”

As the pair of them walked between the school gates, hand in hand, the other children stopped streaming in, to stand and stare at the pair of young yokai. Whispers floated though the air like dry leaves, as the human children saw Jiao’s pale ivory horns ending in the palest seashell pink at the tips, and Shoko’s fluffy fox ears poking out from her reddish blonde hair, and the tip of her fox tail peeking out from under the hem of her skirt.

The pair already knew what class they’d be in, the school Principal, Ms Hitomi Mitashi, had sent a letter to Inari over a week ago with the details. As she’d said in it, the young pair would have more than the usual things to worry about, so she thought to spare them the usual worries like finding their classroom.

Those ‘more than usual’ things arrived even before they entered class, in the shape of a group of young boys hanging around the classroom entrance

Jiao’s steps faltered slightly as she saw them, but then she plowed ahead, pulling Shoko along in her wake. The tallest of the group stepped in front of her, blocking the doorway.

“Hey look, it’s a beast girl and a mini-demon! Whatcha doing here?”

Jiao bit her lip, but her voice was steady when she answered.

“You’re blocking the doorway.”

“What? Hey they think they’re going to class like real people! Look at that!”

The group sniggered and a shorter boy with ears like jug handles remarked from behind the broad back of the the groups leader.

“Maybe they think they’re actual people? Hey freaks, only people are allowed to go to school, why don’t you run home to your freak mommies?!”

Jiao stiffened.

“My mother is dead because of humans. They killed her and my father.”

The boys stopped laughing, and all but the tallest boy who was evidently the leader looked uncomfortable. Oblivious to his followers wavering, he plowed on…

“Aw whatcha gonna do freak… cry? Oh look she’s scared. I bet she’s wetting her panties at us humans!”

“Nah”... the sycophantic boy of the group drawled from behind the tall bully.. “Everyone knows yokai don’t wear pantsu!”

Shoko could see the tips of Jiao’s ears going redder and redder, as she hotly retorted.

“I DO to wear them!”

“Well prove it then, show us yours!” The bully jeered, a creepy lewd smile on his broad flat face.

Jiao went bright red, flushing to the tips of her horns, reduced to spluttering incoherence. She let out a half-stifled scream as the bully made to snatch at the hem of her skirt. Shoko decided that enough was enough. If Jiao started to fight back, she’d risk seriously harming the young thugs.

The young kitsune seemed to blur as she moved, kicking out the legs from under the bully, and punching him in the solar plexus before he even hit the ground. Then, as he lay gasping, trying to breath, she jumped, landing astride him, pinning him down with her legs on his arms, head gripped between her thighs..

“You boys must be so brave.. picking on us. I mean, Jiao’s an oni, she could tear you in half long ways without even straining. And me…”

Shoko leaned down, and smiled at the young bully, her face elongating into a foxes muzzle full of wickedly sharp pointed teeth as she let her human guise slip.

“And me, I’m Inari-Okami’s daughter, and we eat bad little boys like you!”

She leaned back, staring down at the pale faced young boy… and realising she’d maybe taken it a bit far she paused thinking. Then Shoko grinned mischievously, her face sliding back into a more human shape, as she remarked.

“Besides, we’re not all the same.. I mean, Jiao wouldn’t be caught dead without pantsu on.. but me. I’ve got a tail, so I can’t wear them at all!”

The young boy’s eyes went wide, and he looked down towards his toes… realising from where he lay, he could see everything! His face went redder than Shoko’s hair ribbons, and he frantically scrambled to free himself from between her thighs. Shoko raised herself slightly, opening her legs just enough to release her vice grip on his head. She laughed as he scrambled to his feet and flung himself down the hallway, his face a scarlet banner of embarrassment.

Jiao looked at Shoko in mild disbelief as she stood up, dusting her skirt down and laughing as the rest of the small gang fled after their leader.

“You didn’t have to say that Shoko-chan! Why’d you lie…”

“Wasn’t a lie. I’m going commando as Paul-sama would say.”

“SHOKO! Really?”

Shoko grinned. “Yes, really..wanna check?”

Jiao shook her head, scandalised by her friend.

“N.. no! I believe you… Why?”

Shoko shrugged.

“Inari said I should be myself, and pantsu are really uncomfortable if you have a tail. Besides, it’s not like I’m ashamed of my body, unlike humans. Now, c’mon, we need to find our desks before class starts!”

Jiao followed Shoko, still dazed at her friends daring. Once they’d hung their satchels by the hooks on the side of their desks and sat down, Jiao quietly spoke.

“I… I don’t think I’m as brave as you Shoko.”

Shoko shrugged, and shook her head.

“That wasn’t bravery. You know they couldn’t hurt us, not physically. They’re all talk, that’s all…”

Jiao hung her head looking down at the desk, and murmured.

“Words can hurt too.”

Shoko glanced sideways at her friend, then leaned across taking Jiao’s small hand in hers.

“Yeah I know, words can hurt more sometimes because they keep hurting as you remember them. But they were just teasing, not seriously trying to hurt this time. So I teased back...well, and frightened them a bit. They probably won’t do it again.”

“B..but now he knows you don’t wear any… p..p.. pantsu!” Jiao’s voice was barely above a whisper on the last word, forcing it out between clenched teeth.

“So?” Shoko shrugged.

“So that boy, he saw… everything! Aren’t you afraid he’ll think… things.. about you?”

Shoko laughed, shaking her head.

“Jiao.. I’m a kitsune! You know what sort of reputation we have among humans… they’ll think what they’ll think. It doesn’t bother me. But if they try anything, you know what will happen to them! I’ll bite them where it’ll hurts most! That is, if Aimi-chan doesn’t scare them half to death first!”

Jiao nodded. “Umm.. yeah. She still scares me too sometimes. Ah, we.. we probably shouldn’t mention this to her. Right?”

Shoko nodded. “Right! They haven’t done anything to deserve that.”

Jiao nodded and then frowned. “Umm.. Shoko-chan, why do you keep saying they and them instead of He and him about that boy?”

“Huh? Because they’re toransujendā, couldn’t you tell? I mean it’s right there in their aura. Kiko told me that’s what you call them unless they say different.”

Jiao frowned, puzzled by the unfamiliar word, as she remarked. “Not everyone can read auras Shoko, and what’s a toransujendā ?”

Shoko shrugged. “Sorry, forgot.. it means someone who’s physically one gender but their spirit is another, or both. Kiko explained it to me after some of them came to see her while I was there and I couldn’t work out what they were, just that their auras were really pretty with all the colours.”

Jiao blinked, pieces falling together in her head as suddenly some things about the worshippers who came to prey to Inari and Kiko made sense.

“Ohhhh….. do you think that one knows what they are yet? I’d heard humans don’t just know, they have to figure it out for themselves.”

Shoko looked at Jiao surprised.

“Humans don’t? Huh… I can’t imagine not knowing yourself like that. I guess that would explain the conflict I sensed in them… I thought they were just embarrassed but wanted to see. You know, like most males. I mean, they were still a bit male, just mixed in with everything else like a swirly rainbow.”

Jiao shrugged. “Well… if they didn’t know before, they might have some idea now! But maybe you shouldn’t mention it to others, you know what humans are like about… Oh oh! Shh.. teacher is coming!”

Shoko looked towards the door… she didn’t hear anything but she’d come to realise that Jiao somehow sensed things about to happen before they did. Not always but quite often, and she’d never been wrong as far as Shoko knew.

Once the class had settled down and the teacher Mr Hamasaki had taken roll-call, he asked Jiao and Shoko to step up to the front of the class and introduce themselves. Shoko glanced at Jiao, and volunteered to go first, taking a deep breath she launched into the speech she’d practised the night before.

“Hi! My name is Shoko, Inarinoko Shoko. I’m a kitsune, and Inari Okami is my mother. I live on the temple mountain, at the shrine, and until Paul-sama arrived we were a secret! Now thanks to him I can come to school. Umm… oh yes.. Jiao and I are part of the Yokai Metal band… I hope we can all be friends!”

The class applauded politely, some more enthusiastically than others, and one brown-haired girl with large round glasses lifted her school binder up to display a Yokai Metal sticker, her face lit up with broad smile. Shoko wasn’t too surprised that there was at least one fan in the class. According to Rin, their manager and Shoko’s elder brother, sales of Yokai Metal merchandise and records were quite healthy.

Shoko moved off to one side allowing Jiao to take centre stage. They’d rehearsed this too last night, but as soon as she spoke Shoko knew Jiao was going off script..

“H..hello. My name is Jiao, Jiao Lǜ shān, of the Rìchūshān clan. We.. we came from China originally, about thirty years ago we arrived in Japan as refugees, driven from our traditional home by humans who wanted our lands. We secretly found a home in Hokkaido in an abandoned amusement park. Until five years ago when men came to tear that down, and killed all our adults. Now there’s just me and my brother left of our family. The rest of our clan is the same, only the old and the young escaped as the adults who could, stayed and fought to give us time to get away.”

Jiao stopped briefly to take a deep breath. The class room was filled with thick and heavy silence as everyone stared at the pale and trembling oni. Jiao lifted her head, a defiant look on her face despite the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.

“I...I am not ashamed to admit I am afraid. I’ve been told I should hate humans, or be afraid of them. Oni… we don’t like to admit to being afraid of anything, so we get angry a lot. But… I want to like humans. I don’t want to be afraid or angry any more. It makes me feel sick. So, please… be kind to us… Umm.. are there any questions?”

For a moment no-one said anything, then the teacher gently asked.

“Forgive me Jiao, but is it true Oni are quite strong?”

Jiao nodded.. then shook her head.

“It depends… we’re not all the same. Among my clan I’m considered quite weak, I mean, I could barely lift your desk I think. I’m only two or maybe three times stronger than a human my size. Some of us are much, much stronger. Yuri and Yuko, they’re my cousins, they can crush big boulders with their bare hands! But.. well.. they’re what you’d call body builders. They exercise all the time with heavy weights.”

One of the girls, who probably had mixed ancestry herself judging by her long blonde plaits shot to her feet, waving a hand over her head.

“Me, me…”

“Alright Olsen, you have a question?”

“Yeah.. um, Hi, I’m Hana Olsen. Can I ask Jiao-chan, have you picked an athletics club yet? And would you consider joining the volleyball club.. please!”

Half the class groaned audibly, as the young girl glared around at her peers. “Whaaat… if I don’t snap her up for my club, someone will!”

The teacher shook his head, making patting motions in the air as he spoke.

“Alright, settle down now. Olsen, it’s entirely up to Jiao to choose what after school clubs she participates in. She may not feel comfortable playing sports around humans since we are comparatively weak and fragile to her.”

Jiao stood blinking, although she knew that, Shoko got the impression that until now, Jiao hadn’t entirely accepted that as true, since she’d grown up in her clan, where she was the smallest and weakest one.

Shoko at that point made up her mind.

“Jiao and I would be happy to join your volleyball club Olsen if you’ll have us.”

Jiao glanced at Shoko, puzzled, and at an encouraging nod from her, slowly nodded in agreement. Hana grinned broadly, raising her clasped hands above her head in a victory pose.

“Yayy! We’re gonna win this year for sure!”

Shoko grinned slowly, then a thought struck her.

“Um… Olsen-senpai? One question… what’s volleyball, and how do you play it?”

Hana slumped back down to her desk as everyone else laughed.

At first recess, Hana Olsen came over to where Jiao and Shoko were sitting, surrounded by a small group of curious classmates.

“Hey you lot, scram! I want to have a talk with my new recruits.”

The other students dispelled with some good natured grumbling and joking complaints, as Olsen pulled up a chair, and turning it around, sat down resting her forearms on the chair-back.

Jiao eyed the blond-haired fair skinned girl. She was tall enough almost to be an oni herself, head and shoulders taller that Jiao. Her arms were a study in anatomy, all smoothly curved muscle under freckled translucent skin. Her eyes were a bright blue, like a summer sky, even though her face was more Asian in it’s shape. Jiao figured she had to have at least one parent who was not Japanese.

“So… please tell me you were joking, right? You don’t really know nothing about volleyball?”

Jiao and Shoko shook their heads, and Shoko replied.

“Nmn.. not a thing. Sorry. You’ll have to teach us senpai.”

Jiao nodded, adding. “Please take care of us senpai”.

Hana hung her head, burying her face in her folded forearms.

“Ohh… what have I done? And please, call me Hana”

Sitting up straight she looked them both in the face.

“Ok… well I know you have strength Jiao, but what about you Shoko, what do you bring to the team?”

Shoko shrugged; “I’m fast, really fast… and um.. oh yeah I can jump way higher than humans!”

Olsen looked at Jiao, who nodded.

“She really is! She can run a mile in under a minute, and she can leap to the top of the Torii gates in one go from standing. That’s about three meters.”

Hana brightened up, and smiled slightly.

“Ok, so probably not a disaster than! You’ve got potential at least. I’m glad I snagged you.”

Jiao frowned slightly, and then spoke.

“About that… why did you Hana-san? Aside from the fact I’m an oni and stronger that anyone else my size.”

Hana laughed self-consciously, rubbing the back of her neck..

“Ha.. yeah.. about that… Um, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I felt sympathy for you.”

Jiao tilted her head, looking at Hana perplexed. The taller girl shrugged.

“I mean… I’m sort of in the same boat as you. My mother is from North Korea.. uh, you have heard of…?”

Jiao nodded. “I know, I had to study recent history. Uh.. I’m not an expert on human appearance, but…”

Olsen laughed.

“Yeah, I know, I look weird. I’m Hāfu, half-breed, I’m half Korean, half Norwegian. My dad’s a merchant sailor, he pulled my mother off a makeshift raft she’d used to escape on. They fell in love right away, like a romance novel. They were married by the ships captain and settled in Okinawa because that was the first port they landed at and Mother flat refused to go near the sea again! We only moved here last year because Dad got a new job. He still works at sea, Mom worries but.. well, it’s in his blood.”

Jiao frowned. “Norwegian… you mean like a Viking?”

Olsen laughed, nodding.

“Yup, very like in some ways.. Dad’s big enough people call him an Oni! Which is really funny because he’s really, really gentle and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now mom however… she’s scary tough! I get my competitive nature from her she says, as well as her stubbornness, or so Dad says.”

Jiao laughed slightly.

“Tatsuo, my big brother, says I’m more like our father than he is...and father was fierce.. but gentle too everyone says. A proud oni warrior and leader.”

“Wait, your dad was head of your clan?”

Jiao nodded enthusiastically.

“MmHm! My family has been clan leaders and warriors ever since anyone can remember. Big brother Tatsuo is our current clan leader, but he says he’s only keeping the spot open until I’m old enough. He says I’ll be a much better clan head than he can be. I think he’s probably a bit wrong, he’s a great leader, but as his Master says, he’s a hot head and young still. So he doesn’t always think it through before doing something.”

Hana nodded slowly

“Yeahhh… he’s the one that opened a dojo with Katsu Yamato isn’t he? Before she got turned into a kami..”

Jiao sighed exasperatedly.

“Yes.. that’s him. As I said, doesn’t think things though. The whole clan is still scandalised by him taking up with a human woman! We only just avoided him getting challenged for leadership, again. But I think that was mainly because no-one else really wanted the job… Things are changing rapidly for us, so no-one’s at all sure what to do, and no-one wants to take his position and risk messing up and ruining it for everyone.”

Hana laughed. “Ok, I can see that. That’s how I ended up being club president last year, despite it only being my first year here! The volleyball club is… well, we need more members if we don’t want to get disbanded, and no-one wanted to take responsibility for that! Although with you two we can at least field a full team now, as long as no-one gets injured or drops out. If it looks like we might start winning, we might even get some more people joining this year.”

Shoko having been silent listening, grinned.

“I think we’re going to have fun Hana-san, and I hope we can all be friends!”

Hana grinned slightly, and stuck out a hand.

“I hope so too Shoko-schan, Jiao-chan … but mostly I can’t wait to beat the pantsu off the other school teams! You two are going to be our secret weapon!”

Jiao grinned fiercely and taking Hana-sans hand in both of hers carefully shook.

“Me too! For the honour of our school, I’ll do my best!”