"You're not moving fast enough!" Tsuru got up on her feet, quickly avoiding the wooden
sword. "Demons are not going to wait for you!" She barely blocked the man slash, her own
practice sword getting a nice dent from it.
Just as the man was about to strike again, a voice interrupted. "Uncle! What do you
think you're doing?!" The man in front of Tsuru froze and colored a bright red. He was
dressed in his training clothes and his graying hair was cut neatly. At that moment,
however, he looked more like a child caught in the cookie jar.
"I was... I am... just training Tsuru. What does it look like I'm doing?" The voice
belonged to a young man in his twenties who was walking up beside the man.
"It looks like you're beating her to a pulp. She's ten years old! What's wrong with
you?" Tsuru dropped her guard and let out a sigh of relief. The ten year old adjusted her
ponytail, her black hair not quite staying up. She continued to watch Cecil admonish Uncle
and accuse him of child abuse.
"Cecil, I did the exact same thing for you and you turned out perfectly fine. How's
Tsuru going to become a great exorcist if we continue to baby her?" The man pointed his
sword at the little girl. "She constantly tells me how she hates being treated as a child,
so I was just trying to treat her as an equal."
The younger man rolled his eyes. "Right. Are you sure you weren't doing it so you
could feel better about yourself?" Uncle got angry at this statement and Tsuru stood there,
not quite knowing what to do.
"Give me your sword, Tsuru," the young man said.
"Huh, oh, sure Cecil," Tsuru handed it to the handsome boy and he smiled at her.
"Alright, Uncle. Let's see how you do against an adult and not a child." Tsuru stepped
back and watched their steps, their moves, their strikes. She wanted to be that good of a
fighter one day... Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt a gentle hand on her
shoulder.
"I guess Uncle was being harsh on you again," Julie said, a girl about the same age as
Cecil. "He only does that to you because of how good you are. At your age, I barely knew a
thing."
"But you're one of the best here," Tsuru protested and Julie helped her off the
ground.
"Only because of how much I practiced. If you keep practicing hard, you'll be fine
too. It's time for dinner, but let's leave these boys to their silly games, alright?"
They walked together to the dining hall in a comfortable silence. Tsuru didn't really
mind Uncle for he was the one that first found her. He often said it was ironic for her to
become an exorcist when her parents were killed in a war caused by humans.
She often wondered what his real name was, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was
that she had a family now, something she didn't have a few years ago. Her and Julie entered
the building where dinner was served and over a dozen other exorcists were eating.
They laughed, exchanged greetings and then sat down. Tsuru was considerably shorter
than everyone else... but then again, she was the only child among them.
*****
"Th... this... is your girlfriend?" Tsuru asked, about ready to scream. This could not
be happening. No way - the one girl she really liked could not be dating the one woman she
had sworn to kill.
"Yeah... why? Are you okay? You look a bit ill," Krystal said, oblivious to the
problem. Isaka on the other hand was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Who would have known that it was Tsuru that was meeting up with my Krystal? Such
odds. We didn't end on a good note last time, but maybe this will be a great time to catch
up?"
Tsuru gritted her teeth. "Krystal... Krystal, don't you realize that this woman is a
demon and-"
"Oh, yeah. I know. That's actually how we first met." Tsuru flinched. Isaka was
enjoying this, wasn't she?
"But she... she... how can you date her? Don't you know that she's a - a monster! And
a murderer and a lecherous whore-"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Isaka said looking slightly disgruntled. "Are we really going to do
this again? Every time I see you that's all that ever happens: 'Look at me! I'm Tsuru and
you killed my clan - prepare to die!'. And then you go bitching and wailing about me taking
your eye, taking your humanity, taking your virginity-"
"What?!" Krystal's exclamation brought the two feuding females out of their moment.
The blonde didn't look particularly happy with the circumstance. "You... what did you do to
Tsuru?"
It was Tsuru's turn to take pleasure in Isaka's expression. The demon looked ready to
go crawl in a hole in die. Looks like she said too much...
*****
Tsuru watched the exorcists pack up their gear. Mostly, she was watching Uncle and
Julie. She always liked Uncle's weapon the best - it was a big sword, but it was a pretty
light blue color. He told her that it was because it was holy.
Cecil came up behind her and placed a hand on her head. "Hey, Tsuru. Should you be
practicing your seals?" The little girl looked up at him.
"I wanted to see you guys off. How come I never get to come?" Uncle heard her question
and looked up.
"Tsuru, you're just too young right now. We can't put you in that much danger. You may
be eleven, but you can't come until you're at least thirteen or fourteen," he said with a
gentle smile. "But when we do let you come, we'll make up for lost time."
Julie gave her a smile as well and Tsuru decided that it was probably time for her to
go back to studying. She could hear them talking amongst themselves. "...so we'll attack the
demon village by nightfall with the incendiaries..."
*****
Isaka squirmed under Krystal's harsh gaze. The three of them were seated in the living
room, Krystal on the couch flanked by both girls. Tsuru almost felt bad for the demon...
almost.
"Krystal, this all happened way before I met you so I don’t think it really warrants
an explanation."
The blonde shrugged. "Fine - you don't have to give me an explanation. I will just
make sure the couch is nice and comfy for the next couple weeks." The demon picked up on her
threat.
"But Krystal," she whined. "You were going to wear that thing tonight...!"
Tsuru pretended not to hear that as Krystal chided the demon. After a while, she
turned to Tsuru. "I would appreciate it if you would tell me about your past with Isaka..."
The demon let out a long sigh and said. "Here we go again..."
*****
"We've been successfully knocking out the demon settlements," Uncle announced to
everyone else at the dining hall. There were cheers, sighs of relief and applause. Tsuru
didn't quite understand what it meant so she asked Julie.
"It means that we've been taking out the demons that have been encroaching on the
land. Instead of going into hiding, they've been colonizing in villages and trying to
interact with humans." Tsuru wasn't sure what that meant either, but Julie continued.
"Demons are detrimental to humanity and we can't let them roam around unchecked."
She nodded and drank from her glass of water. In a less than a year, she would be able
to go out on missions too. Tsuru had been practicing so hard and Uncle said she was a
promising exorcist. She couldn't wait.
But Tsuru never got that chance. A few nights later - it happened.
She had been asleep when she heard the alarm bell go off and exorcists running around.
There was a commotion on the ground level, near the entrance. The little girl hurried to get
changed and someone opened her door. It was Julie.
"Tsuru! Stay in your room, alright? Don't come out and lock your window. This is too
dangerous for you," she said before heading back out. Tsuru continued to get dress and
listened. It didn't take long for her to hear the first scream, distinctly male.
She was scared... so scared, but she didn't want to just sit in her room. Tsuru knew
Julie would be angry with her, but she was an exorcist too! If nothing else, she could help
out the wounded, right?
As she raced down the hall, there were more screams, groans and thuds. It didn't quite
register in her mind what it meant to die. And then she heard another scream dissolve into a
groan... it was Julie. Tsuru stopped as she suddenly became aware of the malevolent
atmosphere and the coppery scent around her.
She briefly wondered if she should stop and go hide like she'd been told, but she kept
going forward. It didn't take long for her to stumble over the first body, then the
second... the third. Tsuru could identify them all because they were all people she knew and
ate with and trained with.
Tsuru cried and sat down because she knew they were all dead. She should have stayed
in her room. With that thought, she headed out towards the entrance, thinking of Julie, of
Cecil, of Uncle. The double doors were open, leading out into a meadow that was normally
beautiful and not covered in a dark substance like it was that night.
The moon was full and Tsuru could see Uncle was lying face down. He wasn't getting up.
Next to him was Julie, her face unmarked, her eyes closed like she was sleeping. But she
wasn't sleeping, none of them were sleeping. She tried to wipe at her tears because they
made everything blurry and a sound behind her made her turn around.
There was a woman standing there, outlined by the moon, holding up Cecil's corpse. She
tossed the young man away, having already killed him. Uncle always told Tsuru not to be an
idiot because idiots got killed, but she didn't hesitate to grab Julie's sword, a black
katana a bit too big for her and charge at the young woman.
She turned around and dodged Tsuru's strike. For a second, the ebony haired girl could
see her. She was very pretty, with brown hair and purple eyes. She looked angry - oh so
angry. That was the last thing Tsuru saw before everything went red and burned.
The demon had used the dark energy in her hand to slash at the attacker's eye and
watched her stumble her way to the ground, screaming. She clutched at her eye in agony, on
her knees, the sword forgotten on the ground.
It was then that Isaka realized how the scream sounded - so young. Too young. She'd
made a mistake and as she turned to look at the figure, crouched and sobbing, she realized
that it was a little girl that had attacked her, not a grown exorcist.
As she walked over to her, the girl attempted to crawl away, one hand over her bloody,
destroyed, right eye. Isaka picked up the sword, briefly wondering what she should do. The
blade cut her hand and she dropped it before going over to the child.
Tsuru tried to scramble away as Isaka grabbed her and turned her over. Both her eyes
were shut and she was still crying. Her breathing was erratic and Isaka pulled Tsuru's hand
away from her eye. It was still bleeding. Isaka let out a sigh and forced the eye open.
Tsuru was too scared to resist and fainted when she saw the closeness of the demon.
Isaka squeezed her cut hand and watched her own blood mix in with that of Tsuru's eye.
*****
When Tsuru awoke, she was clean and in her bed. Her pajamas were on and she didn't
smell of blood. She would have been happy to think of it all as a dream, except... except
she couldn't see out of one eye. The young girl sat up in her bed, her hand cautiously going
up to her eye. There was the unexpected feel of a bandage.
Tsuru felt her heart race. It had to have been a dream... why else would she be alive?
That still didn't explain the bandage and... she cautiously got out of the bed, birds
chirping outside her window. Tsuru made it to the entrance. There were not stains on the
wood floor, not stains on the grass outside. The whole place was silent. Tsuru wanted to
believe that she'd just gotten hurt during training and had a crazy dream... that made
sense, didn't it?
She walked out to the backyard and started to cry. Tsuru sat down on the steps, trying
not to shed tears because it made her right eye beneath the bandage burn. In the backyard
were the graves of everyone who had died the night before, their weapons lying faithfully at
the top, like grave markers, to signify who was who. The little girl sat there for hours, no
sound around her but the birds in the trees.
*****
"The demon is coming this way, young miss!" Tsuru nodded at the villager's warning.
"It's fine - it's just a disgruntled bull demon. I will take care of it out here," she
said, smiling at the scared people inside the village. She was currently outside, on the
path that led to the forest. She would stop the bull here... It was then that she could feel
the bull's presence and it came charging out of the woods. It was as large as a house and
Tsuru drew the greatsword from her back, it's blue blade shining in the darkness.
She swatted it away when it charged, causing the bull to fall over. "Entrapment Art:
Thread Bind!" Tsuru watched the circle form around the bull and a multitude of threads
entangle the demon. It let out a snort and cry as it was now stuck. She approached with her
sword and called out, "Demon! Why are you attacking this village? Please go back to the
woods and be at peace."
The bull snorted and struggled, almost angry with her words. She couldn't understand
what it was saying and could hear the villagers behind her murmuring. They were probably
wondering why she was talking to it... The fourteen year old girl removed her eye patch and
opened her rusty red Demon Eye.
It maybe a curse, but she wouldn't let it go to waste. She turned to the village,
looking for whatever it was that was enraging the demon. Tsuru found it let and let out a
sigh, sheathing her sword. "Don't worry, demon. I can see what it is you're after. Wait
here." The demon calmed down and stopped struggling, watching her with its angry eyes.
Tsuru approached the village and quickly found the town's mayor. "Excuse me, but I
think you and your village is at fault." He looked angry at her accusation and she couldn't
blame him. She was a little girl telling him what to do.
"I'm not going to exorcist this demon for you nor am I going to expect to get paid.
You've been allowing villagers to capture the cows in the deep forest haven't you? You've
been taking away the kin of this demon and slaughtering them for food."
From the look on the faces of the villagers, they had known what they were doing. "You have
to return the still living cattle and make offerings to the bull for the next year-" She was
cut off by some of the townspeople.
"What would you know? We've been starving lately and it's hard to come across good
meat. We have a hard time trading and-"
Tsuru sighed and clasped her hands together. "Then I have no choice but to release the
demon bull-"
The village was suddenly inclined to release the cows and promise to offer to the
bull. Tsuru released the demon and led it back to the woods, the other cattle in tow.
"Alright, demon. Promise you won't attack without reason?"
The bull snorted and Tsuru had to take it as a yes. The fourteen year old sighed and
put on her eye patch. She picked up her things at the village and left. She'd been training
for the last year and now, she was traveling around, exorcising demons.
Tsuru took a quick peek at the amount of money she had... which wasn't a lot. But she
was happy to have forsaken a reward to do the right thing. That demon hadn't done a darn
thing wrong. Too bad she didn't get a chance to ask about a purple eyed beauty.
Tsuru was going to find her and kill her.
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