Ai pushed her black hair out of her face and sighed. It had been a long day, and wasn't over yet. She slipped on her backpack and shouldered closed her locker with a practiced motion, then gave a started gasp as she came face-to-face with a woman she'd never met before. The woman, though shorter than Ai, was older and had the calm and lightly mocking aura of one who'd faced worse surprises than a stranger beside her locker.

"Karube Ai?" It wasn't as much as question as a courtesy. "May I call you Ruby? No? Thought as much. How are you today?"

"Ah, er, fine, ma'am." Ai was startled by the woman's casual knowledge of her. She must know her from somewhere... "I'm sorry; I can't seem to remember your name..."

"Don't be. I never mentioned it."

Ai paused to give her time to mention it now, but it didn't come. "Alright. Well, nice meeting you. Have a pleasant day." She moved to sidestep around her, but the woman blocked her path. "Excuse me, please."

"No, I don't think I will, thank you. You and I need to talk, Karube. Someplace other than here."

*************************************************************

"Demons? DEMONS?! No way, no how. I'm not cut out for demons!" Ai and the woman had resumed their talk in the lightly wooded park. A few couples could be seen, lost in their own worlds, but they were still within shouting distance if needed, Ai had noted. The 17 year old paced, waving her arms wildly, while her companion sat calmly on a rock, watching with interest.

"Hush, no need for all that. Of course you're cut out for it; I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't think you were."

"Think?? So maybe I'm not? And why does it have to be me?"

"Oh, it doesn't have to be you. Anyone could do it."

"What!" It wasn't a question.

"Yes. It just will be you. I know you, Ai. You won't be able to say no. Oh, I don't mean literally. You can leave now, if you want to. But you'll be back. I know you."

"Why me?" The question was plaintive.

"'Why me'?! Can you think of nothing more original to say? Very well. Let's just say that it was a roll of the dice." Then the woman stood up and left, leaving Ai lost and confused inside her own mind.

*************************************************************

Tara bounced up and down on Ai's bed, her braid slapping her back each time she landed. "Freaaaky" was her opinion of Ai's encounter. "I didn't know it was that cool to be old!"

"Old!" Ai looked at Tara with disbelief. "I'm only a year older than you!"

"Yeah, like I said: old. So did she say anything else?"

"Stop bouncing, you're making me dizzy! No, she didn't... Well, actually, she said she chose me for this because of a 'roll of the dice,' but I think that was just a put-off."

"Maybe not." Demure little Chikako, the final occupant of the room, spoke up from a corner. "The phrase, though doubtful meant literally here, can mean 'pure luck.' She did also say that anyone could do it, so perhaps it was just random choice."

"Argh! I know what the phrase means, thank you very much!" Ai exploded angrily. "I'm surrounded by babies! And I don't see how this involves you, she was only talking to me!" The girl then stormed from the room with her black mane streaming behind her, and slammed the door.

Tara, completely calm, turned to the cowering Chikako. "There, there. Have a flower." She offered her friend a piece of lint.

"Uh... thanks..."

*************************************************************

The next day, Ai stalked off to the park, her black skirt swishing out an angry counterpoint to her gait. What had that woman been thinking? Well, Ai wasn't that gullible. Now just to go back and tell her right!

As she approached the meeting spot, though, she heard voices -- besides the normal sappy talk of lovers. Ai quickened her pace, but stopped dead-still when the woman came into view.

"Ah, there you are!" The woman acted like she was greeting a tardy friend. "Come over here, Ai. Your friends and I were just getting acquainted."

"So... I see..." Ai let her gaze flick around... there was Tara, seated companionably next to the woman; Chikako standing with a nervous expression that had probably arrived at the same time as Ai; Kenji, another of Tara's friends, leaned against a tree, watching Ai with amusement and juggling; and there was Satoshi, walking toward her. She ignored him and spoke directly to Tara. "Why did you tell them all this? Were you trying to show them I'm a gullible fool? Well, I'm not. I don't believe a word she says, and I was just coming here to tell her to stop wasting her time on me."

Satoshi laid his hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "We don't think you're a gullible fool, and we aren't, either. We just wanted to hear what Masumi had to say, that's all."

"Masumi? So she has a name now?"

"Yep!" Tara was as perky as ever. "Why didn't you just ask?"

"Uh..."

Satoshi spared her the embarrassment of answering. "Tara seems to have a real connection with her. I have the feeling Masumi used to be like her."

"Hmm. Well, big change, that's for sure." Ai turned toward Masumi and bowed politely. "I thank you for your, uh, offer, but as you must have gathered, I'm going to have to decline. I hope you have a nice day."

Masumi shrugged. "As you will. You'll come around eventually."

"Uh. Well, okay, then. See you guys later." She told her friends. As she turned and walked away, she noted that none of them made a move to follow. She was just about to stop and look back when she got hit in the head with one of Kenji's juggling balls. She sighed and pocketed the squishy thing -- it had been hers once, anyway.

*************************************************************

Ai felt like she was being hounded. Every direction she turned, one of her friends was there, waiting.

"Come on, Ai, you can't say 'no'! It's your duty!" Satoshi had been completely converted to the cause, strangely enough.

"You are such a coward!"

"A dork!"

"A chicken!"

"Where's your sense of justice?"

"What about the fate of the world?"

"Don't you care about anything?"

"It'll be fun!"

Ai finally snapped. "FUN?!? You think it would be fun to get killed?! Well, then, I'll show you a blast!" She spun around, fire dancing in her red eyes... and came face-to-face with a pair of girls. Blink.

The younger one looked at her with surprise. "Uh... you wanna come, too?"

Ai blinked again. "Er, who're you two?"

The older one stammered out a reply. "Uh, I-I'm Clarissa, and this is my sister Emi, and uh, sorry to have bothered you, we'll just be going now." And they fled, looking like a pair of comets with long blonde tails.

Ai sighed deeply. "Now that is what I call a bad day."

*************************************************************

Later that day, Ai confronted the amazingly persistent Tara with a sigh. "I see you've been telling all sorts of people about this. Is anybody normal in the know? Er, no offense."

"None taken! Well, there's Satoshi..."

"What! Satoshi, normal?"

"...or Kenji's nice..."

"I'm not saying he isn't nice. Lots of people are nice. What about normal?" Ai sighed. "Okay, different approach. Did you tell, oh, Takashi? He's my age, and vaguely sane."

"Yeah, I told him, but he wasn't too fun with it." Tara made a face.

"Fun? Agh, there's that word again. The reason I wanted him in the first place, though. Thanks!" She ran off.

Tara waved energetically. "You're welcome!"

*************************************************************

Ai rapped on Takashi's door, praying, "be there, oh please be home..."

A few moments later, a blonde head poked out a couple inch gap in the door. "Oh, hi, Ai! Sorry, but I'm not joining."

"No, no, I should hope not. I don't want to, either. Can we talk, though? I'm afraid my overly-excited friends might be starting to change my mind, and I need a reality check. Please?"

Takashi opened the door and waved her in with a fond smile. "Anything for you, Ai."

"Thanks..." She walked in. "So, Tara told you about the whole deal? How come you aren't jumping on the 'save the world' bandwagon with everybody else?"

The boy led the way into the living room, and shrugged. "Masumi said anyone could do it. We're young. What do we know?"

Ai considered that. "You do have a point there. We are still kids. Surely adults would have a better idea of what to do."

"Yeah. And I don't want to go around hurting things, even if they are demons."

"I don't even know how one is supposed to go about fighting demons, supposing one wanted to."

"How about that pure luck thing again?"

"Heh!"

"Seriously, though, it seems a bit futile. They just keep coming back, after all... And why is this Masumi character giving up on it, huh?"

"Maybe she's just getting old."

"She doesn't sound that old. But who knows?"

"Maybe I'll ask her about that."

"That might not be a bad idea. Alright, besides 'why us,' 'we can't,' 'why not her,' and 'we don't want to,' there's 'this is all a joke.' I'm sure you realized it before, but maybe this is some kind of trick."

"Heh. Yeah, you can be sure I thought of that. Well, thanks for your time, Takashi. You really helped."

A faint blush colored his cheeks. "I'm just glad I could help you come to the right decision."

"I hope it's the right one..." Ai murmured.

"What?"

"I'm going to do it, Takashi. I'm going to be a demon hunter."