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Description
Haunting: Demon
I allow my eyes to unfocus as I stare up at a cloudless sky. This planet had no moons- so I was sparred moonlight in any form. Another reason I’d chosen this festering mass of escapism. Until tonight I’d been able to bury myself in the intoxicating fumes of indulgence.
Even in the past I survived without life, much like the bums around me. Unconciously I stumbled into an alley and slid down into the muck. I leaned back against a brick wall and let memories wash over me.
They came slowly at first- the blurred faces of my youth. A childhood in the slums of Carrotopia broke everyone at one point or another- I managed by being broken from the beginning. I lived more off short friendships than food and water- and ran away from then after every meal. I couldn’t stand people in general, so I avoided them until I was starved of emotional interaction. Then I would befriend another shifting child, before vanishing after a few hours. I was left with a gaping hole in my life, until I was pulled into an alley.
There I met a woman, and she paid me to kill someone, a child I’d just met. At twelve I stole into his house late at night and earned my pay. The burst of adrenaline that job brought everything into sharp focus- but without the meaning. I remember staring at a table for five minutes in the dark before realizing what it was. Suddenly I didn’t feel the pull of other people, like I had all my childhood. Up until this point in my life I had nothing to really remember. I had not actually memories, just sensations.
From then on I searched for more work. I met people, invented relationships. I learned a thousand ways to kill someone, I learned a thousand more to make someone scream in passion. But all of that was background music to my job.
I was addicted to the focus killing gave, and I relentlessly pursued more dangerous jobs. I made a name for myself. I met fellow assassins, and they taught me so much I thought my brain would burst. Through them I learned the art of social interaction, but it never amounted to much. I never required it, and I pitied bounty hunters that did. I talked with many of my teachers, even taught a few children. I know I slept with some of them, but I can't recall their faces. They never meant anything to me anyway.
Endless faces blurred together until about a year ago, during was must have been my most dangerous job. It was the second defining memory I had, and it was about another one of my jobs. I met someone like myself.
I was supposed to kill some ambassador, a woman from Radish’s twin. I don’t know what they were paying me, but it hardly mattered to me even then. I was doing this job because the ambassador was guarded by an assassin who was even better known than I was. Oddly enough we had never met before, but I was interested in meeting someone with his impressive record for killing.
Assassins were as common as flies in the raging capitalism of Carrotopia, so very few names were worth remembering. Mine is long forgotten already. My name was Asuma, a name I had picked for myself on an Internet database. It was listed as a demon hated in Hindu legend for its selfishness. It felt almost romantically correct.
He was called Kyuubi, and rumor had it that he was softening. This woman ambassador was changing him.
I stood up, brushing imaginary dust off myself. I shook my head in disappointment. Even now I can’t seem to cure my insatiable desire to fight. I knew the alley walls were crowding my shoulders, but I could already see the rooftop in my mind’s eye.
There he was all fiery eyes and impossible speed. I clutched my side, a slash across my chest. I breathed too deeply, felt my lung dampen. My eyes widened in shocked surprise. How did he pinpoint the gap in my ribcage- I smiled happily. So the reports of his expertise weren’t exaggerated. I saw silver glint in the moonslight.
“You really . . . “ I gasped softly. “ . . . Use a sword?” I said incredulously. Kyuubi laughed from the shadows.
“You really think you can hurt me with *that* gun?” Was his response. I held my gun to my chest defensively. It was a good gun. Sure it was only an inanimate object, but this hunk of metal had served me well.
“Hardly.” He answered himself. Kyuubi shook his mane-like hair and walked out of the shadows confidently.
“You know . . . you can’t kill me. I’m stronger than you are.” He said confidently. I looked thoughtfully at a small knife sticking out of his shoulder. I raised an eyebrow, still high off the fight. Looking for more.
“We’re about the same strength. My death most likely means yours.” I stated, my voice roughly cutting through the night chill. Kyuubi shook his head again, laughing this time. I coughed in annoyance, moving into a fighting stance. Waited for my chance.
“You fight only for yourself and care only for yourself. You could never possibly defeat me.” The man boasted. I shot behind me at chest level over my shoulder without turning around. My gun glinted in the light of all seven moons. A wet sound was heard behind me, followed by the sound of flesh hitting concrete. Red eyes widened at me.
With a mocking bow I stepped to one side and exposed the dead body of the ambassador.
I stumbled towards the end of the alleyway, thinking Mizu would come looking for me soon, and I didn’t want to be found by her.
Kyuubi rushed at me after that, but everything was different now. He caught me by surprise with that attack, but left him completely open. I called his bluff. I clipped the side of his chest, around the area of my wound. It should disable him, but not kill him. I walked over to him, where he was lying on the cold concrete roof.
“Why did you keep fighting?” I asked. With his job dead, there was no reason to fight. Much as I wanted to continue, the polite thing to do would be to take him out for a drink. “I have no grudge against you-” Kyuubi pushed me off and cut my cheek before I jumped backwards.
“Just shut up, because I have one against you!” Kyuubi jumped at me again, and I puzzled over his abandon. He was fighting me without a care for his own safety.
“Why?” I asked when we met again, my gun parrying his sword.
“I have no purpose now! Don’t you understand, the woman you killed was my reason for living! I would have given anything to protect her, but you took that away from me!” Kyuubi shouted from the shadows, and his eyes took on a ferocious light. I could have sworn they glowed. I threw one of my arms backwards to run to were I could see Kyuubi to be- instead I found a sword at my throat and a weight at my back. Before he could react I pulled the trigger. For the second time that night I heard my bullets rend flesh behind me. As Kyuubi’s sword fell away from my neck I realized something.
“Why didn’t you dodge?” I asked the man behind me angrily. He could have easily avoided my bullet.
“I told you.” The fellow assassin coughed. “. . . without her. . .” He smiled and coughed up blood. “You and me, we are demons. Living only for us. But I was rescued.” Something in my heard him.
“Her? But she’s dead.” I said it, but it was too late. They were both dead. And I was so confused. I looked from one dead body to the other, trying to pry answers from their corpses. I couldn’t understand what she had done to him. Could those born on Radish and its twin control magic?
I started walking down the street, surprised at the tears running down my cheeks. This was a new. I don’t remember my fight affecting me so much before, but I knew it was the first time I hadn’t wanted to kill. That stuck out. On the other hand, the memories of the trial that befell me were unimportant. Carrotopian courts can be pushovers, but the coppers found me crouching in a puddle of blood that wasn’t mind, holding my head. I deserved what I got and more, but they settled with life on Earth. I didn’t mind too much at the time, I was so sedated by the justice system I couldn’t remember my damn name.
I pulled my cape up further around my shoulders when I heard Mizu’s voice babbling behind me. I almost didn’t notice when her voice gained an urgent tone, but when I heard his voice cry,
“Asuma, wait!” I started running.

TBC. . .

Description
Haunting: Demon
I allow my eyes to unfocus as I stare up at a cloudless sky. This planet had no moons- so I was sparred moonlight in any form. Another reason I’d chosen this festering mass of escapism. Until tonight I’d been able to bury myself in the intoxicating fumes of indulgence.
Even in the past I survived without life, much like the bums around me. Unconciously I stumbled into an alley and slid down into the muck. I leaned back against a brick wall and let memories wash over me.
They came slowly at first- the blurred faces of my youth. A childhood in the slums of Carrotopia broke everyone at one point or another- I managed by being broken from the beginning. I lived more off short friendships than food and water- and ran away from then after every meal. I couldn’t stand people in general, so I avoided them until I was starved of emotional interaction. Then I would befriend another shifting child, before vanishing after a few hours. I was left with a gaping hole in my life, until I was pulled into an alley.
There I met a woman, and she paid me to kill someone, a child I’d just met. At twelve I stole into his house late at night and earned my pay. The burst of adrenaline that job brought everything into sharp focus- but without the meaning. I remember staring at a table for five minutes in the dark before realizing what it was. Suddenly I didn’t feel the pull of other people, like I had all my childhood. Up until this point in my life I had nothing to really remember. I had not actually memories, just sensations.
From then on I searched for more work. I met people, invented relationships. I learned a thousand ways to kill someone, I learned a thousand more to make someone scream in passion. But all of that was background music to my job.
I was addicted to the focus killing gave, and I relentlessly pursued more dangerous jobs. I made a name for myself. I met fellow assassins, and they taught me so much I thought my brain would burst. Through them I learned the art of social interaction, but it never amounted to much. I never required it, and I pitied bounty hunters that did. I talked with many of my teachers, even taught a few children. I know I slept with some of them, but I can't recall their faces. They never meant anything to me anyway.
Endless faces blurred together until about a year ago, during was must have been my most dangerous job. It was the second defining memory I had, and it was about another one of my jobs. I met someone like myself.
I was supposed to kill some ambassador, a woman from Radish’s twin. I don’t know what they were paying me, but it hardly mattered to me even then. I was doing this job because the ambassador was guarded by an assassin who was even better known than I was. Oddly enough we had never met before, but I was interested in meeting someone with his impressive record for killing.
Assassins were as common as flies in the raging capitalism of Carrotopia, so very few names were worth remembering. Mine is long forgotten already. My name was Asuma, a name I had picked for myself on an Internet database. It was listed as a demon hated in Hindu legend for its selfishness. It felt almost romantically correct.
He was called Kyuubi, and rumor had it that he was softening. This woman ambassador was changing him.
I stood up, brushing imaginary dust off myself. I shook my head in disappointment. Even now I can’t seem to cure my insatiable desire to fight. I knew the alley walls were crowding my shoulders, but I could already see the rooftop in my mind’s eye.
There he was all fiery eyes and impossible speed. I clutched my side, a slash across my chest. I breathed too deeply, felt my lung dampen. My eyes widened in shocked surprise. How did he pinpoint the gap in my ribcage- I smiled happily. So the reports of his expertise weren’t exaggerated. I saw silver glint in the moonslight.
“You really . . . “ I gasped softly. “ . . . Use a sword?” I said incredulously. Kyuubi laughed from the shadows.
“You really think you can hurt me with *that* gun?” Was his response. I held my gun to my chest defensively. It was a good gun. Sure it was only an inanimate object, but this hunk of metal had served me well.
“Hardly.” He answered himself. Kyuubi shook his mane-like hair and walked out of the shadows confidently.
“You know . . . you can’t kill me. I’m stronger than you are.” He said confidently. I looked thoughtfully at a small knife sticking out of his shoulder. I raised an eyebrow, still high off the fight. Looking for more.
“We’re about the same strength. My death most likely means yours.” I stated, my voice roughly cutting through the night chill. Kyuubi shook his head again, laughing this time. I coughed in annoyance, moving into a fighting stance. Waited for my chance.
“You fight only for yourself and care only for yourself. You could never possibly defeat me.” The man boasted. I shot behind me at chest level over my shoulder without turning around. My gun glinted in the light of all seven moons. A wet sound was heard behind me, followed by the sound of flesh hitting concrete. Red eyes widened at me.
With a mocking bow I stepped to one side and exposed the dead body of the ambassador.
I stumbled towards the end of the alleyway, thinking Mizu would come looking for me soon, and I didn’t want to be found by her.
Kyuubi rushed at me after that, but everything was different now. He caught me by surprise with that attack, but left him completely open. I called his bluff. I clipped the side of his chest, around the area of my wound. It should disable him, but not kill him. I walked over to him, where he was lying on the cold concrete roof.
“Why did you keep fighting?” I asked. With his job dead, there was no reason to fight. Much as I wanted to continue, the polite thing to do would be to take him out for a drink. “I have no grudge against you-” Kyuubi pushed me off and cut my cheek before I jumped backwards.
“Just shut up, because I have one against you!” Kyuubi jumped at me again, and I puzzled over his abandon. He was fighting me without a care for his own safety.
“Why?” I asked when we met again, my gun parrying his sword.
“I have no purpose now! Don’t you understand, the woman you killed was my reason for living! I would have given anything to protect her, but you took that away from me!” Kyuubi shouted from the shadows, and his eyes took on a ferocious light. I could have sworn they glowed. I threw one of my arms backwards to run to were I could see Kyuubi to be- instead I found a sword at my throat and a weight at my back. Before he could react I pulled the trigger. For the second time that night I heard my bullets rend flesh behind me. As Kyuubi’s sword fell away from my neck I realized something.
“Why didn’t you dodge?” I asked the man behind me angrily. He could have easily avoided my bullet.
“I told you.” The fellow assassin coughed. “. . . without her. . .” He smiled and coughed up blood. “You and me, we are demons. Living only for us. But I was rescued.” Something in my heard him.
“Her? But she’s dead.” I said it, but it was too late. They were both dead. And I was so confused. I looked from one dead body to the other, trying to pry answers from their corpses. I couldn’t understand what she had done to him. Could those born on Radish and its twin control magic?
I started walking down the street, surprised at the tears running down my cheeks. This was a new. I don’t remember my fight affecting me so much before, but I knew it was the first time I hadn’t wanted to kill. That stuck out. On the other hand, the memories of the trial that befell me were unimportant. Carrotopian courts can be pushovers, but the coppers found me crouching in a puddle of blood that wasn’t mind, holding my head. I deserved what I got and more, but they settled with life on Earth. I didn’t mind too much at the time, I was so sedated by the justice system I couldn’t remember my damn name.
I pulled my cape up further around my shoulders when I heard Mizu’s voice babbling behind me. I almost didn’t notice when her voice gained an urgent tone, but when I heard his voice cry,
“Asuma, wait!” I started running.

TBC. . .