InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ One-Track Mind ❯ Enter: Akiko ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

One-Track Mind
Chapter 01
Enter: Akiko

A young girl, no more than six, ran pell-mell down the crude dirt road clutching a small hen, followed by several yelling villagers, including the stall owner from which she had stolen her prize. Her face was smudged with dirt and her clothes, although they showed signs of having once been much labored-over, were now no more than tattered, faded bits of cloth. I just need to get to the tree… They can’t get me up there! “Catch me if you can, humans,” she yelled over her shoulder as she quickened her pace. “You damn… little… thief! Get… back… here,” one of them screamed at her, out of breath and only having chased the girl for half a mile. A large tree came into the small girl’s sight; there was a small boy of the same age perched in one of the branches. He wore an old-fashioned outfit made of a durable, red fur. He cheered her on and threw a well-aimed rock at the man nearest the girl; his sister, to be more precise. The man pitched forward, almost toppling the boy’s sister and causing the others to stumble. The girl became an after-shadow in their eyes as she rocketed into the tree, jumping into it with such force that it shook for nearly a full minute.

The girl still clutched her hen, which would serve as their dinner until her brother could catch something more substantial for them to eat. She crouched on a thick limb, almost doglike in her posture, and lifted her leg to scratch behind her ear. They weren’t human ears; they didn’t resemble them in the slightest. For one, they were located on top of her head. The utmost difference that set them apart from others was that they were fluffy, white puppy ears. Her brother had a pair exactly similar to hers; they were twins. They twitched and rotated, swerving to catch any sounds that might give away demons looking for an easy meal or humans who decided that the pair of them no longer deserved to be given the miserable, lonely existence that they knew as life. The girl ended up splattered with chicken when she tried to divide it between the two of them. In trying to rip it into two pieces with her sharp teeth and fingernails, she pulled too hard and their meal turned into hundreds of tiny chunks. She picked a small bit out of her hair and ate it, not caring about manners or cleanliness as long as she had food to eat.

Her brother scolded her, and began picking bits of what would now be a scant meal out of her unnaturally colored hair. “Baka! Why’d ya hafta do it so hard, Akiko? Now we ain’t got anything ta’ eat! What’re we gonna do fer’ food? Eat those stupid humans?” Akiko spied a piece that had landed on the branch and quickly snatched it up, nearly hitting her brother in the face with her hair whipping around from the sudden motion Her hair color was also another factor that set her apart from everyone else because it couldn’t be called a human color in any situation. It was a bluish-silver, as was his. She spoke with the piece of chicken jammed into her mouth, “I was—hungry! We still—have some, anyways. Mother always told us to pay no mind to ningen like them and to not fight with them ‘cause we could hurt ‘em. You for—got that already, Inuyasha?” Inuyasha shot back at her, angry at her for mentioning their recently deceased mother. “I didn’t f’rget what she taught us! I ain’t stupid! I don’t see why we don’t hurt ‘em for all th’ crud they do to us! We’re half-demons! Doncha’ get it? They’re scared of us… If we use that, we c’n get whatever we want! Mother never taught us that, did she? She was human, Akiko. Humans’re weak n’ stupid. Callin’ us half-breeds when we can kick their butts up the roads any day of th’ week…” Akiko was taken aback by his statement about their mother. He had loved her very much, and so had she. He would never have said that while she was alive. She was kind and anything but weak. She was the reason that they had been allowed to stay in their tiny hut at the edge of the village for as long as they had. They’d been kicked out the day she died and the place burned to the ground to prevent any bad ki from making its way to the villagers. She used to tell stories to them at night when they couldn’t sleep and work in the fields to get enough food for them because they were too young to hunt. She even stood up to the village elder when he’d ordered her to hand the young children over to the care of some of the local samurai and forget that such abominations had ever existed. They’d cowered against the wall when they sensed them coming until their mother began yelling at the men with words so foul, the elder and those accompanying him were trembling with fear in front of the woman who was usually so quiet and mild-mannered.

Akiko thought of this and looked her brother straight in the face, not with her eyes glancing upwards at him and head lowered as was customary. “Mother didn’t teach us that ‘cause she didn’t want us to live that way, baka! She was always telling us to get along with them, not scare ‘em ta get what we wanted. She might’ve been human, but she wasn’t weak or stupid, Inuyasha. She died from bad ki she got working in the fields to get food f’r us! Don’t say things like that about Mother! She used ta be rich, like Sesshomaru. She gave that up for us! Didn’t you see th’ way she was treated? She was bothered much as us. ” Inuyasha turned his back to her and crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. She closed her eyes and settled in, it was almost dusk and they couldn’t be caught off guard at night. They were lucky that they had a dog’s sense of smell and could see better in the dark than an owl. They had long, sharp claws at the end of each of their fingers, much more deadly than human fingernails. Baby fangs were in the place of all four canine teeth, giving them a fearsome appearance when they yawned. Akiko smelled a squirrel approaching and heard a bird swoop down upon the unfortunate critter. She flinched at its frantic chattering that, to her sensitive ears, sounded more like squeals of pain. She opened her eyes, a golden color with cat-like pupils that expanded to catch the last rays of light. They glowed in the waning sunlight, reflecting it like a cat does, giving her a truly frightening air. Inuyasha took off his red coat and spread it over the two of them; the rest had been tied in the back to prevent it from getting in the way. A chilly mist was settling over the area as night fell, causing the little pair of hanyou to snuggle under the makeshift blanket further for warmth.

Akiko would stay awake for the first half of the night and Inuyasha took over for the second. They alternated shifts each night so that they wouldn’t be taken by surprise and so that the other could get some sleep to make up for the time that they’d stayed up the night before. Tonight, it was Akiko’s turn. She got out from under the coat and hopped to the topmost branch to keep a lookout until the moon was halfway down the western side of the sky. She crouched down in the same position she had taken earlier, her small claws gouging the wood, and readied herself for what would most likely be another night of drunken men brandishing their farming tools by removing a few stones that were kept in a hollowed-out portion of the trunk next to the branch she was on. ‘Let the fun begin’ she thought, already weary of the warnings she would have to dole out.