Rikuos Admiration

there are many good things about my brother.... but.... playing fair is not one of them, hes always been a sore loser....

why am i mentioning this?

well... he refused to lose and instead of accepting pleaceful lose in shogi, he blatently cheated, by movoing my pieces around on the bored when i was about to win, and went...

"why did you move your pieces around, you know you can only take one turn at a time?"

as if i was to blame for making myself into a horrible position where he could easily checkmate my king on the board.

when suddenly his mother brought in his bag...

"Rikuo its time for school..."

wakana glanced at us both and smiled and asked "whos winning?"

my beloved brother childishly smiled and said "i am..." he chuckled afterward, charismatically, as if hating him would be crime in itself.

hes always done this, even when i was a kid, for some reason, hes always been terrible at board games. i 'beat' him '7' times in a row once and he did this everytime i was about to checkmate him....

hes only ever played officially three times but he went back to cheating...

still...

for some reason i think hes been 'playing' with me the entire time and let me win.... dont know why, it was just a feeling....

i was suppose to be the next heir, and i cant really understand why he wants me to either.

( TO BE CLEAR THEY ARE 12 years old almost 15 at this point in time)

however.... i looked to the blade my brother gave me, it had great power... it was a katana from his 'power' he called it 'the gate' when asked him what it was... and didnt explain anymore when i questioned him.

so i dropped it.

i got up... and went to school leaving my brother behind as he reset the game, his grandfather came in.... and sat down in his place...

happy at the sight of the sword in shead he was lugging around.

"you start this time, Old man."

Shiro smiled at him and he smiled back... and he laughed.... Rikuo turned around as he left and looked at the two... for some reason the air was solemn, and they playing for a different thing entirely, a game that was entirely weighty and solemn. he could faintly detect a sadness from grampa, but he didnt know how to explain it.

...

running to the bus station, with two guards following him, Aotabo and oikowa in their human forms, following close behind... they arrived... and he saw kana, his crush.

she had long brown hair, a slender body, and brown eyes.... she smiled aat him in greeting and looked at the two behind him.

she smiled at them two.

"still playing youkai Rikuo?"

she asked as she saw the blade he carried everywhere with him.

he looked at the blade once more, and began to remember when it was first given to him...

his brother was training in courtyard, in public causing everyone to look at him, he wielded his blade with such natural grace it was enchanting to watch... a dedication, and talent that was awe inspiring as he spiraled like it was a dance with his longsword in his hands.... a katana of pure darkness and energy... an energy known as 'fear' of a kind but 'different' so gramps described as he watched too...

he swirled and danced, as he fought imaginary enemies made of fear, causing illusions to appear of foreign youkai, demons that appeared in the courtyard to attack him... and were cut down as he summoned gates as swords floated around him, parrying and blocking the attacks, and he swirled, slashing in every arc imaginable....

in particular... one of the beasts were a humanoid and it attacked him with large overbearing knifelike claws, and a face of a noh.... slashing in a X motion with bot claws... a blade appeared and stopped him, it dispersed in magical dark energy at the attack but it still blocked it, sending it staggering, and than he moved in, lunging forward low, he brought a stunning dark slash from below and cut him in half moving on to the next one....

when suddenly a gate arrived in front of him... and a blade was floating in front of him.... it was blade he was using to train with.... he couldnt be happier to receive this blade from his brother he admired so much.

and he stopped... smiled and said

"i am a youkai, like my brother!" he clenched the blade in his hand and desired strength like his kin.