Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce owns the Tortal crew is, but my characters I do control.

A/N: Hello everybody. I’m Minachan the Neko and this is another of my brilliant stories. Only this time, it’s on Internet, not paper. I have a few things to state. Blah blah means that a person is thinking or remembering, “Blah blah” means that someone is talking. It will be like that for all of the chapters and this is the only time I’m saying this. Get it? Got it? Good.

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Prologue: Finally Back

It's been awhile since my return. Everything's changed. The land is more docile. Someone has firm control over it. It seems like the lands themselves have changed, expanded... More crops have been planted; there is less wilderness now. Not all people are warrior type anymore- Most of them are now farmers.

Sometimes I wish that my father wasn't a youkai lord of the Yamani Isles. A hidden lord, but a lord never the less. With him as an immortal and my mother as a hanyou, or among these people's terms, a half-breed, I have to wear specially made boots to hide my pawed feet and gloves to hide my silver claws.

I wrap my tail around my waist, as if it was the pelt of an animal that I made into a belt. I could control my youkai side enough to keep my hair black and my ears human; also to hide my special markings, considering my rank among my people. I wasn't fortunate enough to keep my eyes human, or my fangs normal, but luckily I grew my bangs down far enough to hide my cat-slit eyes from probing looks.

There was one good thing I could say about my demon blood, my body was considered perfect among humans. It permitted me to easily blend with the lords and others on the lands, gaining the latest gossip. Peasants are easier to fool than lords and ladies, noblemen and noblewomen. My palace masters and mistresses would be a great deal harder to fool than the lords and ladies of these lands.

I look to my companions. They too, are part human, like me. Well, that is except for one. My eldest brother is full youkai. His mother had died and mine had taken her place. He, of course, understood our father's position and raised me whilst out father was about our lands.

"Mitsuo, where is daddy?"

"I do not know Diana. Maybe he went out to survey the lands again."

"What is s-s-survey?"

His face had that faraway look, the look got when he was thinking. I stacked the marked blocks as I was taught and started a game of Mahjongg until he spoke again. I was only five and he was sixteen. I always thought that he looked for an answer, but it was quite opposite really. He only looked for a way to explain my question's answer in a way I would understand.

"To survey something is to watch something, then take notes of it. Now put that game away. It is time for your training."

Sighing, I did as he said and followed him out of the castle and into the courtyard. Other children were out there. They had their katana shaped sticks out already. I rolled my eyes; it was time for another lesson in my samurai training.

"Let's go."

My brother's voice breaks me from my state of remembrance. Kicking my white and black mare into a trot, I get behind my brother, my companions falling in line behind me. My horse snorted and shook her black tipped mane while swishing the black tip of her tail to and fro in nervousness. She hates big cities.

We travel into the heart of the city, to their capital. That's where the palace lies. We've already passed on all rumors to my father. Now he wants us to go there and renew our old treaty with their king and queen. My mother also wishes that I see if they remember, and if not, remind them about our ancient treaty of the Cyans.

Too bad my brother would be leaving as soon as our father's treaty is renewed. As for me and the girls, well, we'll be staying behind, on my mother's orders, to become "Tortallian knights".

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Translations:

Haku: white

Hanyou: half-breed

Inu: dog

Katana: a type of curved sword that Japanese samurai use, or in this case, Yamani samurai

Kimono: a Japanese out fit that girls wear

Kobudou: fighting in close combat with weapons

Obi: the tie around the middle of a kimono

Sakura: the blossoms of a tree

Sensu: a flip fan used in Japan

Youkai: demon

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A/N: Thank you for the name of this story and for the name of the hidden tribe of Carthak. Yep, that’s where her mother is from. They live very near to the river. But their magic and the animals help hide it from mortal eyes. All of them there are hanyou, that’s how they breed, with other hanyou.

Anyhoo, I used animals and legends from an anime manga (Japanese comic books) and put them in this story. The name of this series of manga is Inu Yasha, about a hanyou, a miko (priestess), a youkai exterminator and monk after a jewel called the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls) and after a youkai named Naraku to kill.