Ruusu the Deom and Shiro's Secret

"A DEOM?" Ryu shouted. Marjat face-palmed in embarrassment. "So," she said, "that's Ruusu. She's a Deom, but she means no harm. Trust me."
The Deom girl, Ruusu, waved at the group. Her bright pink wavy hair was tied up in two odango style buns with scrunchies, hair clips holding her bangs out of her eyes, and was wearing pink puffy shorts and a crop-top. She had wrist-cuffs and semi-transparent fingerless gloves, held by a ring on her middle fingers. Her orange eyes glowed like the tattoos on her right arm and left leg.
"Heya, everybody!" Ruusu said cheerfully. She looked around, and hopped over to Makoto in a rhythmic jump. "Soooo, who are you?" She said, bending down to reach Makoto's height. 'SHE'S SO TALL!!!!' Makoto thought in shock. 'She must be at LEAST 6 feet tall, MAYBE  5'10"!'
"U-Uhh, I'm Makoto," Makoto stammered slightly, "and this is Ryu and Chihiro. I guess you already know Shiro?"

Marjat nodded. "Yeah, we've know Shiro for a while," she said. "Mhm!" Ruusu said, standing up straight. "Marjat's right, I remember when Shi- wait, Shiro?" She said, obviously confused as she turned around to face Marjat and Shiro. Marjat sighed, and floated over to Ruusu, and whispered something in her ear. 'Why is everyone questioning why Shiro's called Shiro?' Makoto wondered. 'He's just always been Shiro, right?'
After a few seconds, Ruusu seemed to understand what Marjat was saying, nodded, and turned back around.

"Yeah, as I was saying, we've know Shiro for a while," Ruusu said, as if nothing had happened.
Chihiro, who had been too shy ーand maybe a bit scaredー to say anything, finally decided to ask what he had been thinking about. "Um, Ruusu?" He said. "Why is your one horn smaller than the other?"
Ruusu instinctively reached for her left horn when he asked, but didn't seem too fazed. "Ah, that story," she said with a giggle. "Well, you see, I..." her voice trailed off for a moment, almost as if she had forgotten what happened to her horn. "It was ripped off in battle!!" She shouted, like an older sibling trying to scare their younger sibling. "EEK!!" Chihiro screamed, jumping backwards. "But don't worry, I'm fine," Ruusu said, brushing it off like a scratch. "It was a long time ago." But Makot could see a fear in her eyes; one he didn't expect from what seemed to be Eldoria's version of a Demon.

(Later that night...)

After that meeting, the group trained with Marjat and Ruusu for the rest of the day. It was pretty hardcore training, but the three of them got much stronger from it.
"Phew, that was a good test," Ryu said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. "No problem!" Ruusu said with a grin. "I enjoy training~"
Makoto looked around the campfire they were all sitting at. 'Hm,' he thought, 'I wonder what they would've been like if I never found that pendant.'
"Hey, Makoto," Chihiro said. "I know it's been a while since then, but how did you get that burst of confidence back at the Flame's Peak to fight Zain?"
Makoto thought for a second."Uhhhhmm," he said, "I don't actually know. It just sorta happened."

At around midnight, everyone had already gone to sleep. Makoto was asleep as well, even though he wouldn't have wanted to sleep in a ruined village before.
Suddenly, he heard something.

                                                   "Have you told them yet?"

Makoto sat up quickly, sweat on his face. "Wha- who's there??" He shouted into the air before realizing that everyone was gone; or that he had been teleported somewhere.

                                          "Or are you too scared to tell them?"

"Come out here!" Makoto shouted. "I don't wanna fight you, but you're freaking me out, whoever you are!!"

                                         "Don't you remember, Makoto? It's me."

Makoto turned around and screamed. "EEK!"

It was Naraku.

* * *

"Naraku?? Wh- What are you doing here?" Makoto said, still a bit freaked out. "I wanted to see you, of course!" Naraku said with that smile he had from before. "But what did you mean when you asked if I had 'told them yet'?" Makoto asked.
Naraku turned around and ーsomehowー pulled a red apple from his sleeve. "I just wanted to know if you told your friends about me, of course."
Makoto furrowed his brow in confusion. Why would Naraku want Makoto to tell everyone about him? What was the reasoning? "Wait, but why?" Makoto asked. "Take a guess," Naraku replied.
"You're making this really confusing," Makoto said. "Why would you want Ryu, Chihiro, and the others to know about you? Do you know something about the Apex?
Or maybe you know something about the Abyss, or the Abyss King, or maybe YOU are the...?"

Makoto's voice trailed off, and Naraku looked at him with a grin he hadn't seen before. "You sure you want to know the answer to that?" Naraku asked, or maybe it was someone else, but Makoto couldn't even tell.
But then somehow, he reappeared where everyone was sleeping, except he was sitting up.

                                                        And Shiro wasn't there.

* * *

'Can't sleep,' Makoto thought, lying on the ground. He sat up and looked around. 'It's probably 2AM,' he thought to himself, standing up to walk around a bit, hoping that would make him at least a bit tired.
As he walked around, he heard someone talking. 'Who could be awake this early?' He thought as he followed the sound.
He entered a broken down house, and the source of the sound wasn't in there. But when he looked out of a small hole in the wall, he saw Shiro sitting next to an old tree.
The tree trunk was huge, and the tree itself was really tall. 'What's Shiro doing up at this hour?' Makoto thought, confused. 'I mean, I won't drag him back to the camp, he's an adult, but I just wonder why he's awake?'

Just as Makoto was thinking of this, he heard Shiro say something.
"Mhm, right here," Makoto heard him say. "It happened here." Shiro stood up and walked around a bit.
"Maybe," Shiro said to himself, "if I was stronger, or faster, orー or dracones prohibeant ut plus fiduciae haberem, I might! MIGHT! Have been able to help. MIGHT!"
Makoto watched in shock Shiro suddenly start kicking the tree and try to pull a branch off.
'What's going on??' Makoto thought, starting to get worried. 'Do I go get someone, orー?'

"Pro pudor, Feng, me paenitet!!" Shiro screamed. Makoto only then saw and heard that Shiro was crying.

Just before Makoto could go try to talk him down himself, Marjat floated to Shiro and gave him a hug.
"Same as before, huh?" Marjat whispered to Shiro. "Still thinking about Shinsuke and Feng?"
Shiro nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Look," Marjat said, "I know you can't just forget that kind of thing, but it seriously wasn't your fault. And Feng knows that, he was just... uhh, what's the word Humans use, again?"
"Grieving?" Shiro muttered.
Marjat pulled away. "Yeah, that's the word."
Makoto had, at first, thought that Marjat was kind of cold and distant, but right now, she seemed really caring. Almost motherly.

After Shiro went back to the camp, Makoto was going to go back as well, until Marjat appeared in front of him.
"YIKES!" Makoto almost screeched when she appeared. "I'll just get to the point, Makoto: know you heard everything," Marjat said, her face straighter than a line. "So I want you to keep what you may have seen or heard just now to yourself, alright?"
Makoto nodded. "Uh, so you're not mad?" He asked awkwardly. "No," Marjat answered. "I just don't want you spilling the beans."
"O-OK," Makoto said. 'I guess I had just never seen that caring side of you,' he thought to himself.

*bonk*

"Hey, that hurt!" Makoto said, rubbing his head where Marjat had just bonked with her forearm. "You must actually be mad."
"I'm not," Marjat said, crossing her arms, "but you need to go back to sleep."
Makoto nodded and went back to the camp, but he chuckled a little to himself. 'She's kinda like a big sister,' he thought. 'Caring, but not really sure how to show it.'