Habits Die Hard

By Katana

 

Declaimer: I don’t own Inuyasha *pout*, but I wish I did. I own Katana and “Leenalovesbattle” owns Alexia.

 

 

Part I

I was running.

My tail wrapped around my waist. The five needles, poisonous to any human, poked through my light blue robe. The white hair on my head was rushing back in the air.

I was being chased.

By Inuyasha.

He wanted the jewel shards I had with me.

He can just go rot in hell for all I care.

The leather belt across my chest was jingling up and down. There were eight bags on it, one as small as a finger and the last as big as a jar. Their contents shook up and down, making soft grinding noises. I straightened up the belt. It was slipping off my right shoulder.

Another leather belt went around my waist. The center showed a lightning bolt with a piece of onyx in the center. My sword was dangling from two leather ropes tying it to the two rings on the belt. The handle, carved out of mahogany, bore the emblem of the Tiger demon, a circle with two lines and a dot in the middle. My icy blue eyes flashed a few times. I was controlling myself from becoming my true form as a demon.

“Hurry up!” yelled my sister, Alexia. She’s a Dog demon (I’ll explain that soon.)

“I’m coming!” I yelled right after her. We hopped from branch to branch, our feet hardly grazing the wood beneath us.

“You’re not trying very hard, Katana!”

“I told you! That’s not my name! It’s Myhaneiyoucosi! (If you’re wondering how that’s pronounced, like I bet you are, it’s my-ha-ne-u-co-c).

She shrugged. “Either way, it doesn’t help us right now.”

“Here!” I yelled, grabbing the second smallest bag from my belt, “Take these! You’re much faster! I can fight him off!”

I threw her the bottle with the jewel shards.

“Keep some!” she yelled back at me, throwing four pieces from the bottle towards me.

 I caught the shards as they landed in my hand. They poked into my skin. I winced a little.

Alexia ran faster, using her full speed.
“I love partners,” I mumbled to myself as I turned around.

Inuyasha stopped on the tree ahead of me.

“Wanna fight, girl? I’ll tell you right now, it’s not gonna be easy.”

He drew his sword from its scaberred. It transformed into some giant samurai sword with a ball of hair at the bottom of the blade.

“Hehe…” he said in his evil tone, smiling. I drew the Tiger sword. It gleamed in the faint moonlight of the forest.

“Let the match begin,” I said, standing and holding my sword at my side.

“Fine with me.”

He ran at me, throwing his sword up to his shoulder. I checked my nails for any dirt.

“YAAAAA!!!” he yelled, bringing the sword down. I flicked myself out of the way, causing him to chop off the branch I had been on.

I brought up my sword and we started to duel. He somehow nicked my ribcage.

Not that bad.

Alright, I’m lying.

He gave me a wide cut that bled through my robes.

I winced. “Not enough to put me down,” I said, lifting up my sword again. I slashed it down, but missed him. Inuyasha snapped my sword out of my hand. It landed on the ground below us.

He was shoving me back against the tree. I had no where to go.

“Well,” I said, “I led a good life.”

Just then, Inuyasha collapsed on me.

I saw Alexia.

“Oh, come on,” she said, lowering the elbow she had used to knock him out, “You didn’t honestly think that I would let you have all the fun, now did you?”

“How long do you think he’ll be out?” I asked her, pushing him off the branch. He landed on the ground with a thud.

“About a few hours or so,” she said, pulling back her long, blue hair and tying it into a ponytail.

“That’ll give us enough time to get back,” I said, standing up. I winced again. The cut really did hurt.

“Come off it, Kat,” she said, catching me and supporting me by the shoulder.

“You know mom or dad wouldn’t like to see us this way.”

“I know,” I said, clutching the jewel shards in my hand, “It’s just that memories seldom fade. And habits die hard.” (Hehehe…rip-off of Kenshin.)

“Ahh, the daily words of wisdom from Myhaneiyoucosi.”

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. My parents were both full-blooded demons. They got married and all that stuff and mom had us two. But I inherited my dad’s Tiger demon, while my sis inherited my mom’s Dog demon. We were still mixed demons in either way, but we reflected them like that, to make things easier.

“Oh, I see,” I said, grinning, “It looks like the loyalness of the dog has rubbed off on you.”

She pushed me away from her. “What are you talking about? I’m a Dog demon and that’s it!”

“Yeah. Right.”

We stood up. Using a little bit of her demon power, she powered up some to allow her to move like she normally would as if I weren’t there.

“You know,” I said, as we were hopping off branches, “What are we gonna do after we destroy Inuyasha? I mean, he’s the strongest demon.”

“Oh Katana,” said Alexia, looking at me, “That’s not true. Some one will always be there for us to fight. No one’s ever the strongest. We are always thriving to be. But we never really are.”

“I know. Some one is always there to block the way.”

By this time, we had reached the edge of the forest.

“You know, Kat,” said Alexia, looking at me, “You are smart for your eleven years of age.”

“Same goes to you,” I said, “But you’re thirteen.”

She winked. “Yup. And don’t you forget that.”

“I won’t,” I replied, “’cause you brag about it sooooooooooo much.”

“I do not!”

“Yes you do!”

“I do NOT!”

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging.

 

________________________________________________________ 

 

“Mmm…chocolate mint tea…delicious.”

“Thanks.”

We sat in our base, which was a small adobe hut. It had what we needed: a stove, two bed cots, a well outside, and food.

“This is the life,” I said, propping my feet up onto a shelf. I had bandages around my wounds.

“Yup. We’ve got the jewels, our weapons, and each other.”

“Err…not so much the last one.”

Alexia snorted with laughter. She took off the leather belt she had around her chest. My sis was a very interesting weapon in battle. There were eight slits in the belt, four in front, four in back. Each held a dagger. She also had a leather bag full of poison powder hanging off the cloth on her waist. The second largest bag on my chest belt held poison for her.

“Thanks for saving me from Inuyasha today,” I said. The sun had begun to rise.

“No problem-o,” she replied, looking out the slotted window behind her. The sun shone on my face.

“This isn’t that bad,” she mumbled, looking back at me.

“Whadoya mean?” I asked, slurring three of the words together.

“Well…” she started, then stopped. “You’re just too young to understand. Let’s get some sleep.”

“What!? I’m only two years younger than you!” I yelled, as she shuffled over to her cot on her knees.

“G’night Kat,” she said, curling up in the blanket. I sat there on the floor with a stout look on my face for a few more minutes, then joined her in sleeping.

 

“Sis…wake up…”

I groaned.

“Wake up or I’ll…I’ll…eat your chicken!”

I bolted up.

“Don’t you dare eat my chicken! It’s mine! I’ll kill you if I have to!”

“Oh, shut up you moron.”

I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Besides, we have another mission today.”

“What?”

“I heard of a group that might have a demon traveling with them. They might not posses any jewel shards, but they will be fun to handle.”

I crawled over to the stove where Alexia was cooking. Moonlight poured into our hut through the slotted window.

“Wha’cha cooking?” I asked.

“I wasn’t making chicken. I just told you that to get you up. Instead, I’m making some boar stew.”

I looked at the pot in disgust. There were large chunks of meat floating around in it, along with some carrots and rice. The actual stew part was a thick concoction of water and meat drippings. Actually, it smelled pretty good.

“Move it,” Alexia, shoving me out of the way. “It’s your day to make cots.”

I sighed. I hated “my days” of making the cots. I’m a demon, not a maid. But I did them anyway. By the time I finished, sis was already done with the stew.

“It’s good, Kat,” she said, pouring me some into a wooden bowl. It had become slick and soft from use.

I picked up a spoonful and blew on it. I took a slurp and went nuts.

“YUCK! YA! IT’S GROSS! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!”

She coiled over, clutching her stomach and laughing. “Those are the drippings from the meat. Here ya go.”

She handed me a second bowl. I stirred my spoon in it before giving it a taste.

“It’s good,” I said finally.

Alexia grinned, her two fangs glinting.

________________________________________________________ 

 

“Alright,” I said as I sat down on a tree branch. The group was supposed to come down the road right below me. I clutched the two jewel shards, causing my hands to bleed again. My sis had the other two.

The night was dead. Then I thought harder and heard the cries of bats, the hoots of owls, and the crunching of leaves. Autumn had arrived just a week ago, making our prey easier to find.

“Ready?” asked Alexia, kneeling right above me.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She pulled out a dagger, spat into her poison bag, shook it up and down, then dipped the blade into the mixture. I rolled my eyes, smiling.

“Here they come!” she whispered. I looked down and only saw one person. From his looks, I could tell he was a demon. He had short white hair and real ears, like a human’s, and carried two swords on his back. He walked steadily, looking forward and never breaking his pace.

“He looks strange,” I said.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Alexia jumped down from the tree branch. It was about a twenty-foot drop, but she managed not to kill herself.

“Die!” she cried out, flicking the dagger at the demon. It hit him in the chest. He gasped for air as he fell to the ground.

I jumped from my tree branch to another one, trying to see who this demon was. It wasn’t Inuyasha…it seemed like a younger demon, about my age or so.

“Nice catch!” I yelled down to her sarcastically.

She shrugged. “A little skinny, but it’ll do.”

I laughed, then made my way down the tree, dropping the last ten feet. I couldn’t do what my sister does. Never ever ever. I would probably kill myself before I hit the ground.

“Speak,” Alexia said, putting her foot on the demon’s chest. His voice rattled.

“My…(gasp) name…(gasp) is…(rattle) Link. I…(gasp-rattle) am a…(rattle) full-blooded…(gasp) Tiger Demon.”

My eyes widened. “Tiger Demon, you said?”

Link nodded painfully.

“Interesting,” I said. “Sis. Maybe we should take him back.”

Alexia grinned, her fangs gleaming in the moonlight. “I like the way you think, Katana.”

 

 

Aww…poor Link…*fake pouting.* Okay, done being sad. This thing actually took me a loooooonnnnngggg time to make, mainly because I got lazy and didn’t work on it for awhile. *clears throat* Alexia was played by kdbarrelracer@bellsouth.net, while Katana (me) was played by Scat91a@aol.com. Oh, and I’m not finished with this…thingie. Yet

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