Habits Die Hard
Katana
Disclaimer: I’ll put this simply: I own Katana, Leena (aka “leenaluvstobattle) owns Alexia, my friend Mark owns Link, and my best bud Lorenza owns Eowyn.
Part IV
It was about noon the next day. The four of us – me, Alexia, Link, and Eowyn – walked along the dirt path, casting clouds of dust behind us. Link was panting from thirst when Eowyn told him to just get a drink from the stream two feet away from us. He did so, cupping his hands and slurping up the water. I couldn’t help but laugh, since most of it was trickling out of a space in his hands.
Sis looked back at Link and Eowyn, smiling, then looked at me.
“What’s wrong Sis?” I asked. Alexia looked around and then back at me.
“Remember after mom and dad died, when we lived on the streets basically?”
She looked ahead while asking me.
“Well, yeah.” I replied. “Something like that is not that hard too forget.”
“Well, remember when I said that someone was there with us, like another demon?”
“Yeah...” I replied once again, getting a bit suspicious.
“Well, I sensed its energy again, ‘bout 20 seconds ago, and...”
Alexia stopped and looked around quickly; she pulled out a dagger and chucked the blade. It looked like she was aiming for nothing, but then the dagger hit something. A yelp of pain cried out as the dagger hit its target. I looked over at Sis, but she wasn't smirking like she usually does after she hits someone. Her eyes stayed focused on it. She walked forward and kept staring at it. Then she looked back at me.
“Kat, I need to borrow your sword,” she said holding out her hand.
“No! It’s a Tiger sword,” I replied, “Not a Dog sword!”
“Kat, I need your sword,” she said again. “And besides! I have Tiger blood, you know.”
“Alexia...” said Link, trying to avoid a war between us. She looked at him. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he threw her one of his swords.
“Thanks,” said Alexia. Link winked and smiled, kind of nervously, I noticed. Sis rolled her eyes and walked forward. She was about 10 feet from where the demon had been when it started moving again.
Sis's eyes grew wide.
“Kat, it’s...it’s a Dog demon!' said Alexia, surprised by what she just said. He stood up, panting hard. Then he looked at Sis.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Sis replied, snarling. Her fangs gleamed.
“I asked first,” he replied. Alexia drew out 3 daggers and aimed for his throat.
“Fine,” he said, his eyes on the daggers. “I'm Konjoh, now who are you?”
“Alexia,” Sis replied.
Konjoh, as he had called himself, had black hair, brown eyes, and wore a leather vest-like shirt. His wrists were tied in a cloth, white he had used the same cloth to tie his hair into a high ponytail. (Imagine the wolf demon guy…erm…Koga, right?) He wore a long skirt-like thingie that had been sewed to look like pants.
“Well, Al,” said Konjoh, relaxing a bit, “Looks like you’re a Dog demon too. At least…mostly Dog demon.” He laughed as Alexia snarled even louder.
“Well, I'm supposed to kill a Dog demon called and Alexia and a Tiger demon called Katana, so looks like I'm gonna hafta kill ya,” said Konjoh, drawing out his sword.
“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!?!?!?!” Sis yelled, making me, Link, and Eowyn back away.
“Al,” said Konjoh sarcastically, “Why? You've got a problem with that?”
Sis sighed and glared at him, she drew her sword and smirked.
I was puzzled. Had Alexia ever used a sword before? She looked like she had, the way she held it and stood with it, but this Konjoh guy...who was he?
“Well, I'm gonna hafta disagree. I'm not dying and neither is my sister. It'll be you,” Sis said smiling.
Konjoh nodded and charged. His speed was incredible; he raised his sword and lashed down. Luckily, Sis had blocked.
“Too slow,” Alexia said. She kicked him in the side, which sent him flying into a tree.
“Better then I thought,” Konjoh said out loud, leaping up. Sis charged for him. He looked like he wasn't gonna use his sword. So Alexia raised her sword and lashed it down, then out of nowhere, Konjoh's sword hit her side. Sis screamed, (like “ARGH!” kinda scream) and fell to the ground.
“Sis!” I shouted, trying to run towards her. Something was pulling me back. Looking behind me, I saw it was Link.”
“What do you think you are doing?!” I yelled. Link sighed.
“Look...” he said simply. I looked at Alexia, and she was standing. I sighed with relief. Konjoh charged. Sis ran out of the way and grabbed a rock.
A pretty big one.
She chucked it at his head, which landed right where it had meant to land. He passed out with a small moan. Sis grinned and dropped the sword.
She held her left rib cage and breathed heavily. Blood was all over the side of her robe.
“Sis!” I yelled, running up to her.
“You did it!” said Eowyn, smiling. Alexia grinned
“We need to take Konjoh back and question him,” Sis said, then she fell to her knees.
“Alexia…” I said. A worried look came across my face. She smiled.
“Don't be worried Katana, I'm not gonna die.”
Sis passed out.
* * *
“Eowyn,” I said, sipping some tea, “How’s she doing?”
Eowyn put the blanket back over Alexia, then looked at me.
“She’s doing fine.”
I sighed. Link had wrapped Konjoh in some chains he found on our way back to the hut. Konjoh was still knocked out.
“If I use too much magic,” said Eowyn, boiling some water, “I’ll tap into my Life Force. Best to heal her bit by bit, she’ll recover better that way; and I won’t risk a young death.”
My eyes had begun to water. I wiped them quickly so that nobody would notice.
Alexia had always been there for me. Since the time my parents died, to the time I scraped my knee on some rocks, she had been right by my side.
“Damn it all,” I said, looking at the lump under the blankets. It was moving up and down slowly; meaning Sis was still breathing. I sighed, then remembered that, in all the commotion, we had left Link’s sword back where Alexia and Konjoh had fought.
“Link,” I said, looking over at him, “You forgot your second sword.”
“OH! I did? Oh yeah, I did…well, we should go get it, huh? Eowyn, you can handle Konjoh, right?”
“Yeah. He shouldn’t be much of a problem if he should wake up. But…just to make sure…”
She pulled out a bottle of clear liquid from beneath her robes. She opened up Konjoh’s mouth carefully, then administered a few drops onto his tongue.
“Paralyses potion,” she said, capping the bottle. “I made it up a while ago. Good thing I did, too, since it needs time in order to work at full strength.”
“Let’s go!” Link grabbed my arm as he ran out of the hut.
“It should be around here…somewhere…”
I sniffed the ground. The blood of the Dog demon had kicked in. I searched for Link’s scent. It was faint when I found it.
“Here it is!” I yelled, waving it up in the air.
“Alright! My sword!”
He came running towards me, smiling. He had gotten to the point where he was supposed to stop.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he ran straight into me.
The next few moments were completely a blur. Link began to lower down a little bit, so he was my height. Then he started to lean towards my cheek. I started blushing like mad. My arms and legs went numb as he kissed me.
Suddenly, he backed away.
“S-s-s-sorry,” he said, trembling. I couldn’t help but sigh. A long, in love, oh-man-that-was-great sigh.
“That’s okay,” I said, my face a deep scarlet.
We started walking back towards the hut, Link whistling. I picked at dirt beneath my fingernails.
“Do you like me, Katana?” he asked, out of the blue.
“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I?”
“No. I mean…do you like me Katana?”“…Yeah.”
“I like you too,” he said. I sighed, again, this time a little softer. A guy – make that a Tiger demon – who actually liked me. This was both my unlucky and lucky day. Sis almost getting killed and Link giving me a kiss.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
“What?”
“You know.”“Oh. Well…there’s just something about you. I guess the Tiger blood caught me.”
“Is that all?” I asked. “Just blood?”
“No. There’s just…something different about you, you know?”“Yeah,” I replied.
* * *
“SIS? WHERE WERE YOU?”
I jumped.
“Katana! WHERE WERE YOU?!”
“I was…”
“YOU WAS NOTHING! YOU WEREN’T HERE WHEN I WOKE UP!”
“Sorry…”
“Don’t be so hard on her Al.”
Alexia’s eyes seemed to be filled with fire. “DON’T CALL ME AL!”
Konjoh had just woken up. I could tell he was trying to move, but he couldn’t. Eowyn’s potion had worked.
“Why did you come after us?” asked Sis, looking at Konjoh. She had a dagger pressed against her throat.
“Because…because I wanted to.”
“You lie.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I do.”
“Are you going to give us the truth this time?” asked Eowyn. I began to wonder if she had some kind of potion for truth telling.
Konjoh laughed. “Yeah right!”
“Yeah, right.” Eowyn went outside, then came back in, holding a piece of grass. “I put a spell on this blade of grass, you see?” she said, putting it right in front of his face. “And if I make it touch your lips, you’re gonna start telling the truth.” She placed it on his lips. It somehow stuck there, as if by…magic.
“I’ve always been watching you two,” he began in a dull voice, like he wasn’t talking. “Since the day Katana was born. I was four, really.”
“You mean you’re 15?”
“Yeah. Then, when your parents died, my father told me to watch over you guys. I was the demon you felt, Al.”
“IT’S –““Ergh…Alexia…”
Link and I gripped Sis, trying to prevent her from killing Konjoh before we got all the answers out of him.
“Then you two seemed to be fine. In that way, I mean…getting food, killing people, finding shelter…your demon blood must’ve been fully developed by then.”
“Is that all?”
“No. The reason I attacked you today was because of the Shikon jewel.”
“We’re very popular,” grumbled Sis, crossing her arms.“When I first heard of it, I believed it to be just a story. But when I saw it with my own eyes…I suddenly told myself, ‘I must have it.’”
“What’s your wish?” asked Link.
“My wish is to have ultimate power.”
“He has no say,” I whispered into Alexia’s ear, “In what the wish is going to be.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“Yeah, yeah, interesting,” said Eowyn, poking Konjoh’s chest with the top of her staff. The blade of grass suddenly fell from his lips.
“AH! What did you just make me do?!”
“Tell the truth,” said Sis.
“Aw Al…”
“DON’T CALL ME AL!!!”
* * *
I laid in my cot that night, looking at Link sleeping upright in his chair. Eowyn had conjured up her own cot with some magic and slept at the bottom of me and Sis’s. Konjoh was still bound in chains to his chair. He seemed to be struggling to get out.
“Don’t try,” I said, realizing that Eowyn’s paralysis potion had worn off. “You won’t get free.”
“Yeah,” replied Konjoh in a gruff voice, “I realized that.”
I laughed, then snuggled down back into my blanket.
* * *
The next day, when I woke up, Sis wasn’t next to me. I whirled my head around. She wasn’t in the hut. Just me, Link, and Eowyn.
…Wait. What was wrong with that thought?
“WHERE’S KONJOH?!” I yelled out. Eowyn bolted up as Link’s eyes opened up slowly.
“Where’s Konjoh?” I asked, frantic.
“Not in here.”
“Shut up Link.”Eowyn closed her eyes. “She’s outside.”
“How’d you know?” asked Link.
“I received psychic powers when I turned into an elf, you dork. I can read minds, phase through things, and tell where people are. If I try really hard, I may be able to glimpse the future.”
“Cool,” said Link as I ran outside.
The scene that greeted me was horrific.
Konjoh and Sis were fighting what seemed to be a match to the death. Blood was smeared across her face, as blood was dripping down Konjoh’s side.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Suddenly they stopped and laughed.
“Just a little feud between friends,” said Konjoh.
“Is that what you call it? I think the words you’re looking for are death match.”
“Ah Kat. Don’t be so dramatic,” said Alexia.
Later that day, about mid-afternoon, Sis came up to me.
“Today, when you saw me and Konjoh…what did you think?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”“Good. You see, Katana…I have this feeling…it’s like burning inside me…I hate Konjoh, yet I…I…have feelings for him, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I replied, confused. “Yeah, I know what you’re saying.”I honestly didn’t know.
Oh boy. Double douse of love-related sections. Hahaha, I hate romance, but I can live with it.
Konjoh…who is he? Does he really want the Shikon no Tama shards, or is he just lying? Is he working for Shesshomaru? To find out…ah, forget it. Does anyone even read these? If so, e-mail me or something. *sniff sniff* I’m a lonely person, and I loooove talking if you’ve got something to say! *winks* Ciya later!
Oh…and yet again…the e-mail is Scat91a@aol.com
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