Blessings in Disguise

A Little Blessing

I woke up to Karmen poking me in the face and I rolled over too sleepy to tell her to stop.

I was shook fully awake when Karmen's body landed on my mine and I sputtered a moan as she shook me.

"Hey!" She shouted, "What the hell?"

"I think I should be the one asking you that." I groaned sitting up and pulling her close pinning her down so she couldn't leave.

"No, I mean what the hell do you think you're doing? I know you have a big heart but picking up a kid off the street; that seems like a decision we should make together. Y'know, like man and wife." I released Karmen and left the bedroom hurrying to the sofa where I'd laid the baby fox cub to sleep at night. She was missing and Peaches had taken her spot marking it with her face furiously.

I looked to the small breakfast counter where perched atop a stool kicking her little feet eating cereal was a small skinny girl with long ginger hair humming happily to herself.

She noticed me and smiled at me with a big warm smile that was pure sunshine.

"Ohayō gozaimasu!" Her sweet voice rang clear as a bell and I nodded to her.

"See? She knows you for sure," Karmen said suddenly standing next to me. I hadn't even heard her walking.

"No, this isn't right," I said trying to wrap my head around the situation. "I brought a fox cub home, not a little girl."

"She, my dear man, is one in the same." Karmen pointed down for me and I barely noticed the thick bottlebrush tail that was indeed coming from the base of her back.

"What the..."

"From what I was able to decipher from our minimal conversation you saved her from the alleyway." Karmen's hands on her hips were her best attempt at looking serious.

"You speak Japanese?" I asked puzzled. It wasn't too far-fetched a concept as Karmen could speak Hindi as well as Spanish. There were a few perks to being karma.

"Yeah, I can muster a sentence in the language of anime if I have to." She went over to the little fox girl. "Konnichiwa, o genki desu ka?"

"O kagesama de genki desu." The girl said looking at me.

"What?"

"She's saying that thanks to you she's fine now."

"Oh, well I'm glad she's safe now. What's her name?"

"Onamae wa nan desu ka?" Karmen asked and the girl mumbled to herself and then something softly.

"She says she has a number instead of a name. She says her number is 845, but that she'd rather not go by a number at all." Karmen looked at me, her blue eyes flashing with a fierce want to protect this little girl.

"Number?" I asked. That sounded suspiciously like something that could be involved with human trafficking.

"Ask her how she ended up in the alley?" I asked Karmen and I could feel my lawyer side activating.

The little girl began recounting in very rapid Japanese and Karmen nodded asking questions here and there and I waited for her translation with baited breath.

"She says she was made by this company, by..." she looked at the little girl, "Bēru koa?" She asked the girl for confirmation and she nodded emphatically. "She says it was Veil Corporation that made her."

"The conglomerate pharmaceutical company?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, she says there are hundreds of clones like herself that exist and that Veil makes beings like her and calls them Jigoku no buki, or I guess the English word would be Infernus Weapons."