A/N: This is a joint story between my sister (Naruko Kina Tiger-Chan) and myself. It's our first time doing a joint story and we'll just be posting it all on both of our profiles instead of messing about posting some here and some there, this just seems easier for us and you.
Please leave a review after reading and give your honest opinion as we always wish to improve our writing.
Disclaimer: We do not own Shingeki no Kyojin in any way! That right belongs to Hajime Isayama! However, the characters "Emiko" and "Kina" are our own creations.
Emiko's P.O.V.
"Am- no! Kina, come on. We don't have the time." Stupid younger sister, always trying to find time for cookies, at least that was what I thought.
"It's not my fault, Tiger tried to crawl back into bed. You know she likes the warm." Kina's tone was whiney and it was obvious she wasn't big at the thought of leaving our comfortable lifestyle, but she knew why we were going. No way were we staying any longer. Over the past few weeks I'd taken all the cash from the hiding places around the mansion that I knew about, we had more than enough to get started. Although, I had no clue what getting started would entail.
However, looking at my half asleep sister worrying over her young kitten, I knew we would manage somehow, even if it wasn't easy.
The orange kitten was nicely nestled in Kina's mane of bed hair, but I couldn't tell if the thing was awake or not. The little pup by my ankle gave a whine, she could tell we were up to something. Still just a pup yet very intuitive, it was probably why we got on so well despite only being together a few weeks I'd already grown to love the little spotty thing a great deal. I bent down and picked her up, her little tail began to wag like crazy. I smiled and gave her head a pat, finding reassurance in her warmth.
"You ready?" I asked as I picked up the backpack over flowing with clothes and Kina picked up the one full of food, both human and animal.
"All set." She gave thumbs up and her big grin as she threw her bag over her shoulders. With the knowledge that we had we were ready to leave, I looked over at the grandfather clock that was stationed in the corner of our room.
Okay, its 6:45 that means we had 15 minutes till the maids switch over. This gives us fifteen minutes to get down to the main gate and hide behind the old oak tree to await our chance to slip out unnoticed. I really hope this works.
"Right, lets us be off then." I whispered as I poked my head around the door, to check that the hallway was clear. Seeing that the hallway was maid free I motioned with my right hand for Kina to follow me as we underwent our own remake of the great escape.
Being as swift as we could while remaining silent we began our voyage down the seemingly never ending corridor, until we got to the wide stair case that led down into the reception area of the old side of the mansion in which we lived. Again I checked to see if the coast was clear, I grabbed hold of Kina's hand and made a dash for the double doors that lead out into the vast gardens that surround our home.
I felt relief, we were so close to getting out. I reached up to touch the locket which hung around my neck but my eyes widened and I froze in place as the relief washed away and was replaced by a feeling of horror. I'd taken it off before going to bed and forgotten to put it back on before leaving.
"Kina!" I hissed, trying to keep my voice low. She looked at me in confusion as I thrust the puppy into her arms and handed her my bag. "I forgot the locket, I'm going back for it."
She seemed unable to think, there was no way she could tell me not to go back, it was our only picture of our mother, yet going back posed a great risk.
"I'm faster," she gave me the bag and puppy back along with her own bag, not bothering to unload the small kitten from her head. "Go to the main gate and hide, I wont be long." And before I could protest she was legging it back up the stairs and towards our room, like any desperate lady would. I sighed, although the statement was true, as the elder sibling surely it was my place to go back and risk getting caught? Not that I was older by very much, but still.
I nodded to myself, and slipped out of the large door, only opening the right side. The outside wasn't well lit but not pitch black, good enough to see where I was going. All of the staff were walking out through the back entrance, chattering among themselves, heading over to the gate which thankfully wasn't open just yet and nobody seemed to noticed me.
I managed to arrive at the old oak tree and rested my back up against it as I waited for my sister to rejoin me. After five minutes I heard the gates creak open to allow the day staff to leave and the night staff to enter.
"Where are you?" I hissed under my breath, scanning the area for any sign of blonde hair heading in my direction. If she didn't hurry the gates would close and we'd be trapped here to await our dreaded fate. But as soon as I'd asked I heard the shrieking of a young girl, more precisely, my sister.
"Sapphire! I think he caught meeeee!" I sighed and began to feel rather sorry for the poor kitten clutching onto her matted hair for dear life, that poor thing had been taken into a battle field without even being consulted.
"Close the gates!" The evil man's words echoed in the night. Kina wasn't as close as I might have hoped but like she'd said, she was faster than myself. Clutching the bag Kina was meant to be carrying to my chest, Panda nicely positioned on top, I turned towards the gate and began to run.
The main thing to our advantage was the fact that the gates were large, heavy, old and rusty. They took time to close. Another thing in our favour was the fat staff our father often hired, the men were there to scare us into being good girls while the women were there to be slim, loving mother figures. However, our father fit none of those. Thankfully, our father was no exception to the fat men rule, too many years of fine dinning had caught up to his gut.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!" Kina chanted to herself as she pushed herself to run as quick as her feet could carry her.
I slipped through the gates with no trouble, although now the men were in position to block Kina's way. She scrabbled to a stop and glared at the rather large beast in front of her. I looked around as two more advanced on me from the sides of the gate, it seemed they'd given up on closing the rust buckets.
I shrugged the bag off of my shoulders and set Panda down. "Stay out of the way, girl." I said quietly to the small Dalmatian. However, she did the opposite and stuck close to my legs.
Food, it was heavier. I tightened my grip on the bag Kina had given me and waited for the slightly slimmer of the two to get closer. As he went to grab my shoulders I swung the bag up with all my might, making it slam straight into his face.
"Nice one!" I looked over to Kina, she seemed far too excited by my knocking out a guy than having our father and a hulk closing in on her. Not bothering to pay attention to the other advancing guard I ran straight at the man stood in front of Kina. Pulling the bag back and preparing to swing again, I managed to get a good hit on his side. However, all it did was make his fat wobble. I stared at him in disgust, he really needed to lose some weight.
Using the distraction Kina danced around him, thanks to all the ballet classes we'd been forced to take she looked rather graceful as she did. Running straight past me she dove for the clothes bag on the floor, swinging it up and hitting the third man in the chin.
"Home run!"
I turned back to see what she'd done, any other time I would have laughed, but we really didn't have time. I grabbed her arm and pulled her from her victory pose and forced her into a run, trying to get as far away from the enclosed castle which was our 'home'.
"You had way too much fun," I said after a few moments. She nodded in response and pulled off into the small patch of trees not far from the church. I was surprised, we hadn't been running for that long, but I followed her anyway.
"What now?" She inquired as we dove behind a bush, so we could catch our breath for a bit.
"Get as close to the wall as we can, before it gets too late." I sighed ,petting Panda's head to try and calm my racing heart. Why did nothing ever go according to plan?
"But everyone will be looking for us now, and we don't exactly blend in." Kina pointed out by holding up a strand of platinum blonde hair.
"Good point." I mused, trying to figure out what to do now. We couldn't stay at a hotel like we had first planned, as we were now officially on the run from our father, his personal guard and the military police in the not too distance future. Being noble sure had some draw backs when you wanted to escape from that kind of life.
"FOUND THEM, BEHIND THE BUSHES!" A loud male voice hollowed. Well, wasn't that just what we needed.
"For the love of all that is holy." We both cried in unison, bursting out of the bush we had been using for cover. A lot of good that had done for us, I thought. I hugged Panda tightly in my left arm as Kina and I both held onto the other's hand, resuming our mad dash down the street in search of freedom. Kina lead the way down a dark ally way, as we narrowly avoided a large male's hand grabbing for my collar.
"Hurry!" Kina cried as she yanked to the left down another back ally. I was utterly lost now, I had no idea where we were or where we could possible go to escape the thundering sound of footsteps that were catching up to us.
"I'm trying." I huffed, forcing my legs to move faster than they had ever moved in my life, not that they had ever had to do a whole lot of work before. Noticing a loaming figure blocking the end of the passage I took control and dragged us to a skidding halt behind a large dumpster. We must be behind the restaurant part of town, this would work in our favour.
"Shush girl, it's okay." I whispered to Panda, who had started to whimper, as we wiggled under the dumpster that we planned to use as a means to hide ourselves from our pursuers, who just as we pulled our feet under, seemed to stand right on top of us.
"Did you see which way they went?" One of them asked.
"I'm sure it was this way! Although, they might have gone down one of the other allies back that way." The second replied. I couldn't see which way he pointed but I was currently thanking whichever deity that was smiling on us, for making Kina not decided to go another route.
"How can two spoilt brats be so hard to find?" The first man exclaimed, their footsteps receding into the distance. I took offence at being called a brat, but now wasn't the time to be annoyed, now was the time to high tail it out of here while they were off chasing a red herring.
"That was close." Kina breathed out from beside me.
"Too close." I nodded, shuffling out from our safe haven. If I'm honest I'd have liked to stay there for a little longer but that ran the risk of who ever had just disappeared returning to see if we'd now come this way...
Just as I stood up I stepped into someone. I stopped dead and felt panic violently consume my body. "Kina, please tell me that's you."
"What's me?" She asked, her voice was coming from too far away to be the thing I'd bumped into. It was so dark, making it far too hard to see anything.
"So, you're the kids everyone's going crazy over?" The voice was male but didn't sound that old, no older that a teenager.
"Step away from my sister!" Kina's words were trembling as bad as her body as she raised the bag over her head once again.
"Calm down, brat." There it was again, that word, brat. Why was everyone calling us brats? Had we done anything to make them think such a thing?
"I said, STEP AWAY!" Without giving much noticed she flung the only weapon she had at the boy, luckily for him it was only the clothes bag. He stumbled back and made a grunting sound, but he still had the mind to grab the strap before it hit the ground and launched it back at her. Kina managed to catch it as it hit her in the chest, the only saving grace was she was still too young for that to do too much damage.
"And here I was going to help you little sh-.." But before he could say another word Kina followed up her first attack with a swift knee to the gut.
"When around ladies, please reframe from having a potty mouth!" I rolled my eyes, it was as if I wasn't even there. "But you may help us if you wish."
"Why the hell would I want to after you try to beat the cra-... potty...out of me." It was obvious he was mocking her usage of the word potty but Kina didn't seem to pay it much heed.
"Because you're a nice guy?" It was a wild guess, but there was always the chance that she was right. After all, he hadn't called to the other men who had very obviously been searching for us.
"What are your names?" He asked, his tone bored and it seemed as if he wasn't really interested.
"Kina and Emiko!" I said before Kina could say anything. He looked at us in confusion and then shrugged, it was obvious he wasn't expecting those names. But then again, that could just be because they were oriental and there was no way in hell we were of oriental decent.
"They must be back this way!" One of the men's voices from earlier yelled as the foot steps grew closer once again.
"Come on," the teenager grabbed Kina's wrist who in turn grabbed mine, we were a three cart train being pulled around the back allies, two of which had no idea where we were going, luckily the leading cart did. Panda followed close behind us and I had no idea where Tiger had gotten to but I left her up to Kina to take care of.
"I'll take care of you for tonight, but then you're on your own. You hear?" He growled, not even bothering to look back at us. How rude.
"Whatever, just help us." Kina whimpered without even consulting me.
The response he gave her was yanking us around a tight corner, opening up a small trap door in the concrete of the floor, shoving us down before jumping in behind us and being sure to close the lid quietly so the people casing us didn't hear. The cretin only gave Panda a split second to get in and almost slammed it onto her poor tail. Although, I had no time to give him a piece of my mind as he slapped his hands over our mouths, keeping us quiet as he heard the other males over head.
Murmurs, unclear through the layer of ground separating us. I couldn't make out a single word, but they were soon gone and we were left in silence once more, but the rudely placed hands were not removed from our faces for several minutes.
"You guys sure got yourself in some trouble," he said before he'd taken his hands away, so in retort Kina gave him a... loving lick.
"We're ladies, not guys." She huffed.
"Oh yeah, that's real lady like!" He grumbled as he glared down to his saliva covered hand. "Disgusting."
"A lady has to do, what a lady had to do?" I offered in my sibling's defence. She nodded in agreement and began searching in her clothing for something.
The tunnel was actually better lit than the ally we'd been running down only moments before. There were lanterns lining the walls in regular intervals, however only every second one was lit. The change from pure darkness was one my eyes greeted with glee.
"Gotch ya!" Kina beamed as she pulled the shaking kitten from down her top. That poor thing really had been taken into a battle field without being consulted. At least Panda could've run away at any point in the night. But I was grateful she hadn't. I gave her another pat and picked her up, glaring at him as I remembered the near tail-lid interface.
"Wait... You were laid on the floor a minute ago, don't tell me you were crushing her?" I asked.
"Of course not! She was on my back at that point..." Kina mumbled as she attempted to calm the bundle of orange fur.
At that point...?
I took a step over to my sister, opening her clothes and exposing her torso and fresh claw marks, she really was covered in them. I sighed at her blood stained skin.
"Hey!" She shrieked as she covered her none existent chest. "Pervert." I looked over my shoulder to see the boy, unaffected by the sight of a young girl's naked upper body. I couldn't tell if that was because there really was nothing to look at or if he were gay... Or of course, there was always the possibility of it being a combination of both?
But as I looked to the boy he seemed ill dressed with thin, cold eyes and messy hair. He obviously knew this kind of life style well.
"What's your name?" I asked, after all, it wasn't fair he knew ours and we didn't know his.
"Tsk, it's Levi." He scoffed as if it were knowledge we had no use for.