Vash awoke to the sharp, mingled aromas of spices and cooked meat, in a dimly lit room.
'Where...am I?' He pondered, as he found himself gazing up at a thatch ceiling, with his tiny squirrel body uncomfortably laid out on a cloth draped across a bumpy and gnarled, hard wooden surface.
As Vash sat up, he heard a young voice's gentle humming, and the sound of boiling water nearby.
'Someone is here cooking?'
'Whatever it is, I want some...it's been so long since I had a warm meal."
"Good morning, my snoozy friend!" A light, youthful voice abruptly greeted him—giving him a slight startle.
Vash looked and saw a small figure crouched over a fire pit, stirring a ladle around in a pot.
He squinted, trying to get a better look. 'A...boy? It's too dark to see, though."
"Sorry if you didn't sleep well." The voice continued. "The dining room table was all I had available."
"I still think we should have just left him to die." A second voice interjected—softer, yet lacking the former's gentility. More malicious, and 'edgy,' even.
"Serves him right, for trying to break the temple's defenses."
'Huh?' Vash thought, scratching a spot in his side where a splinter had poked him overnight.
'Does he know about the Temple?'
Shortly after, the boy stood up then approached the table with a small bowl of food in hand— providing Vash with a first-ever look at his rescuer, as he entered into the light.
[Sonny] wore the garb and presence of a wise, old hermit, despite only being a child, who looked to be no more than twelve years old: He wore a long, rough-looking robe of animal furs, patterned with leaves and decorated with owl's feathers. Dirt, smeared on his freckled face. Rough, and unkempt, curly ginger hair. Large, and highly expressive brown eyes, that sparkled as much with intelligence as they did a latent desire to do mischief.
On this occasion, his expression was a mournful one, however, as he'd just been forced to recall a painful memory.
"Yes..." He said wearily. "The temple where you contracted that curse..."
"It is also the final resting place of my brother, Arjun."
Up close, the boy named Sonny smelled overwhelmingly like soil and rain—as well as sweat, to Vash's disgust, which prompted him to wonder when was the last time this boy had bathed...
With a sudden realization, Vash-squirrel abruptly gawked. 'Wait a second...'
'Did this stinky twerp actually just read my mind, or am I crazy!?'
The boy smiled. "That's right. I can hear everything that you're thinking, clear as day."
"Oh, and...might I add, I actually do like to wash off in the river every morning."
Vash froze. 'Oh, shit! How is that even possible?'
The other voice from before—the edgy one—scoffed. "Weirdo. Talking to squirrels, and shit."
Ignoring this, Sonny nudged the bowl he had set on the table, that was filled to the brim with piping hot soup, slightly closer to Vash-squirrel.
"Drink," he commanded—before leaning back, with a serious expression. "Regain your strength."
Vash nodded slowly, as he turned to face the bowl; inside of it, a creamy brown broth frothed and bubbled—carrying with it a strong, distinctly nutty scent, in addition to those delightful aromas Vash had detected prior.
'I was...bleeding before,' noted Vash. 'It was you that patched me up, huh?'
Sonny nodded. "That's right, but so far I've only mended your external wounds. That soup will help you resolve what's wrong on the inside."
'On the...inside?' Vash-squirrel scratched his head. 'You mean, as in...internal bleeding?'
Sonny laughed. "No, silly. I mean to say that SURELY, you must be hungry!"
"I put an incantation on the soup, to make it even more tasty!"
Vash-squirrel gazed deeper into the bowl, and sure enough could make out the faint, telltale blue glimmers of magical influence, lining its swimming ingredients.
'Err...on second thought, I'm good.' Vash said, trying to be polite as he nudged it away.
"Come on!" The edgy voice snapped, sounding even more annoyed.
"Unless you're perfectly fine with gnawing on nuts for the rest of your life, you'd better listen to my brother."
Vash turned to the soup again, remaining reluctant.
'I guess...this Sonny person really is my best hope of returning to normal.'
Being a Fire-specialized Mage, he didn't have any grasp on the complex workings of other forms of magic. He mostly just chucked fireballs at things, until they died.
'It's guess life as a squirrel is even LESS worth living, anyway.' He decided, with a shrug.
'So, it's not like I have anything to lose by giving it a taste...'
Thus, he stretched his body over the lip of the bowl, dipping his head close to the liquid contents.
Without any further pondering, Vash touched his mouth to the scalding soup, as a dizzying haze flooded his brain, making his furry limbs feel all weird and...fuzzy. The world around him started to melt and dissolve away, into a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors and chattering, disembodied voices. And in this bizarre dreamscape, as he rose his head from the bowl in a confused, almost drunken-like stupor, a frenzy of phantom images bombarded his tangled senses.
He observed a young woman—dressed in a tight brown skirt, and loosened white top—approach him from across the void, her hips swaying and heels clicking against invisible tiles.
"Hey there, handsome." She said to him, with a coy wink. "Want to meet up after work?"
Blinking, he stared at her for a bit...until it finally registered.
'That's the co-worker I thought was hitting on me!' He blurted, with an unconscious level of excitement in his voice.
While he watched, this vision of his coworker then promptly laughed, before sharply turning away.
"I enchanted this soup to conjure up scenes from your past," explained Sonny's disembodied voice. "It is necessary that we do this, if you're ever to revert to your—"
'Wow!' Vash interrupted. 'It looks like she has an even NICER ass than I remembered!'
The voice of Sonny growled, in annoyance. "Quit staring at her behind, man!" He snapped. "Focus more on what's inside!"
Vash paused, to dwell on his words for a bit...then cringed.
'Her personality? It was...well...' He snorted. 'Actually, she was a total bitch, so—'
"No, no, no!" The boy interrupted, and with a scolding voice he added, "I meant to look inside of YOURSELF!"
"Contemplate how that entire incident caused you to feel!"
Vash huffed—wasn't it weird to talk about one's feelings with a kid you'd just met?
'I guess, I felt like...a huge dumb-ass? Like I should have recognized a flirt when I saw one.'
"Good, good!" The edgy voice from before. "To be fair, though, you're still a virgin."
"Excuse me!?" Vash bristled. 'All I signed up for was a bowl of soup—not to be ATTACKED!'
"Squirrel boy is a VIRGIN!?" The obnoxious, edgy voice chimed in.
"NAIL!" Sonny yelled. "Go slice up some more [Water Bottles], and let me do my thing!"
Vash-squirrel's tail twitched briefly—with anger—as he faced away from the apparition of his coworker.
'I mean, it's cruel when you phrase it that way, but I guess it's true I could have done better.'
'Video games were my life, pretty much." He said, just as a phantasmal image of a family computer and SNES—containing a cartridge of Donkey Kong Country—floated past his head.
'I did well in school, and stayed out of trouble...but all that got me was a dead end job.'
Sonny's bickering with the other person had ceased.
It was just Sonny again, appearing in the space before Vash, speaking calmly:
"Someone like you, who always just fumbled their way through life...shouldn't be surprised that a similar lack of results holds true in the afterlife."
Vash opened his mouth to reply—to offer up some defense—but words failed him.
'Did a twelve-year old that bathes in a river seriously just blow my mind!?'
With a wave of his hand, it seemed, Sonny was able to conjure a new image beside the coworker...
Vash-squirrel immediately gritted his teeth, upon seeing who it was.
'Akira!' He growled under his breath, feeling the red hot blood—the pure, unbridled hatred—start to course throughout his entire body.
"Yo, Vash!" Greeted the image Akira, as she nonchalantly wrapped an arm around the coworker.
With a flirty laugh, the coworker immediately threw herself against Akira's bountiful chest.
"I'm sorry, Tadaaki-san." She said to Vash, using a name he hadn't heard in quite some time. "Akira-sama IS a top-ranking CEO, after all."
At this, Vash could not contain himself at all.
He impulsively flung himself off the edge of the table, toward the phantom apparitions.
However, instead of clawing Akira's eyes out, as he had wanted to, he only passed through air before colliding with a chest of a person he hadn't seen before.
"Sup, virgin-squirrel." He heard the edgy voice say right above him, and slowly turned up...
It was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous face he'd ever seen. So gorgeous, that he had to remind himself it was a man: a feminine face with soft, red-painted lips, and a set of small, narrow eyes which, in spite of all else, contained a predatory coldness to them. His dark hair was formed into a neat top knot with a long, trailing red ribbon.
Even the clothes he was wearing spoke of elegance: a spotted fur kimono, opened to reveal his ghostly white chest draped with a necklace of sharp, curved teeth.
Set upon each of his dainty hips was a sheathed blade: dual [Hooked Cutlasses].
[Nail] was his name, and Vash found himself stricken sick with mixed feelings—of both wanting to KISS a face like his, and wanting to gouge his eyes out for the things he'd said.
Vash-squirrel didn't get much time to think on it, however.
A hand brusquely swept him off, causing him to fall to meet a sandaled foot on the upswing.
The fearsome kick propelled him across the room, face-first into a wall that he remained stuck to for a moment, questioning his life choices, before gradually sinking down, down to the floor.
There, he laid motionless for a time: utterly confused, and broken.
'Who cares about my stupid potential!' He sulked. 'I just want...to be human again!'
Sonny walked over to him, casting a huge shadow.
"If I were capable of making you human again, as you are now...what is the first thing you'd do?"
Vash, compelled by rage, sprang up. 'That's easy! I'll catch up with Akira, and then I'll—'
"Kill him?" Sonny cut in, with a disapproving grunt. "Towards what end?"
'I can think of plenty of reasons.' Vash said. 'For starters, he LEFT me behind at the temple, where I had this STUPID curse placed on me...'
'He's stolen a girl I like away from me, even though he already had Ai...'
Vash sniffed. He hadn't known squirrels could cry, yet here he was holding back tears.
'He just...makes it look so effortless...'
'The way he draws people in, USES them, and spits them out.'
Suddenly, he felt Sonny's pair of warm hands slip under him, and scoop him up.
"I believe there is much you still need to resolve." He said. "If I were to revert the hex right now, you wouldn't be the same person as you were before."
Vash let out an unconscious squirrel-squeak, panicking. 'Where the Hell are you taking me!?'
"Finish the soup." Sonny told him. "Consider this...the first step in your journey toward enlightenment."
'C-c-cut it out! No way am I gonna eat even one more bite of that crazy shit!'
'Forget enlightenment! Forget everything I said!'
'I'm perfectly fine being a squirrel!'