ok bros...first time posting this...this is weird...

Ch 1

The one thing I truly remember was seeing my mother and my sister on our wooden floor of our small, cramped hut. The walls had blood splattered all over, and scorpions were crawling on the curtains and out of the floorboards.

I managed to scoot over to mother, lying lifelessly as foam dripped from her mouth and a little fell on her long, brown hair. Ten scorpions had gotten her even before she could change form to attack. Tears formed at my eyes as I realized that Calista, my twin sister, was the same way, some of her brown hair covering her eyes open in fear.

Father wasn't here. He hasn't been here in a little over seven months. That damn bastard, leaving us without even so much as a goodbye. It's unfortunate enough that I resemble him more than any else in my family, with my red eyes and deep purple hair.

But before I continue, let me introduce myself. My name is Juki Tora, daughter of Thias Desu and Vivi Tora, Vivi being my mother.

Anyways, back on topic. My mother and my twin, Calista, were both dead. Which only left me, the scorpions, and the witch in the tight hut. The witch had scorpions all over her, but she wasn't freaking out. She was the one who controlled them. Her name was Etna, and she had red eyes and green hair. A little strange, but I suppose I have no room to talk, right?

But her strange appearance wasn't what was on my mind at the time. What I was worrying about was why she was after us, and how she managed to find our home. Nobody—not even someone who lived here longer than us—could find our sanctuary, our little isolated home hidden by the mountains, forests, and the small lake in Scotland. There was one friend I had that knew where I lived, for she lived nearby. Her name was Akira, and we knew her because my mother knew hers. But other than her and her family, nobody else was supposed to know of our home.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, glaring up at Etna who just laughed off the question.

"Because it's always fun to pick on the weak," she answered simply. "Especially those with dirty little secrets up their sleeve." This caught me off guard a bit, because I had no idea what she meant by that. A secret? I had no secrets, besides where we lived, because I knew of no other secrets.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Do you know something I don't? Why would you need to kill us over something like that?!"

"Tsk, tsk," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not supposed to reveal such info. Oh, I'm so horrible, aren't I? Well I should just get this over with." Etna raised her hand as scorpions crowded to it. "And when I kill you and take your souls, I'll be the most powerful witch in all the world! And nobody—not even the Academy—will stand in my way!"

"The Academy?" I had never heard of such a place. But, then again, I never heard of witches until today, either. "What's that?"

"What, mommy never told you?" Etna asked with a smirk. "Too bad, you Scottish would never reach it in time to save you. It's all the way in Nevada, America. So why don't you just die right here and now, eh?"

I couldn't even stand to hear this woman breathe anymore. She planned to ruthlessly kill us just out of boredom? And who knows who else she'd go after once I was finished off.

There was no way I could just let her kill me. But how was I supposed to fight her if I couldn't sit around idly waiting for death? I surely wouldn't have enough time to get a knife from the cupboard, because she would have me swarmed in no time flat.

…A knife. A blade. Something sharp. I truly wished with all my heart that I had something like that on me at that time. My right arm started to tingle a bit, but I didn't really notice until Etna's smirk twitched.

"So," she said, scowling suddenly, "you're a weapon, then? I should've known. But I suppose it's really his fault, he never told me what you brats really were." I was confused, and suddenly felt the tingling in my arm dissipate as I looked down at it.

Replacing my arm now was a, long, dark, curved blade. My blade that I had wished for.

"It makes no difference, though," Etna said, as the scorpions in her hand condensed into one large one, so large that she had to put it on the ground. "There's no way that you'll live. Nobody's survived a sting from my Ganda!"

I managed to push myself up to my feet, my blade arm as heavy as it looked as I tested its weight. This would definitely take some getting used to, but I had to act fast or I'd become scorpion food. Her giant scorpion, apparently named Ganda, clacked its mandibles at me, eagerly waiting for orders.

"Ready, girly?" Etna smirked and then waved her hand at me, giving Ganda permission. The scorpion made a shrill cry—which I didn't know scorpions could do—and skittered at me.

I didn't have much time to think about what I was doing. I was in a tight hut surrounded by my family's dead bodies, and the scorpion was only about five feet away.

Without thinking too much, I supported my bladed arm with my other and swung down at Ganda. I shut my eyes tight, waiting for the pain to burst through my body, but I felt nothing. Cautiously, I had opened my eyes to see Ganda had split in half, falling down as yet another corpse. Ganda's inside juices—for it wasn't really blood—were dripping from my bladed arm in globs, and Etna stared at me in horror.

"Th-there's no way you could've…" she stammered, taking a few steps back. Her eyes suddenly narrowed and the other scorpions in the hut scampered to her. "Fine. Be that way, I was bored anyways. You live this time, weapon girl! But trust me when I say this: we will meet again, and I will kill you."

The scorpions crawled all over her, and then she was suddenly gone as the scorpions scuttled out of the hut and out of sight.

I took a few shaky breaths as I took in what I had done. I had killed something. I mean, I've killed animals several times before, when hunting with Calista or fishing with mother. But this was the first time I'd single-handedly killed something. The scorpion's body started to sizzle at my feet—which I was pretty sure it shouldn't have been doing—and then suddenly turned into dirt and scattered all over the floor. I looked at my blade-arm, which, as if it could understand that the danger was gone, suddenly returned to its original form as my arm.

I looked around at all of the blood, all of the death around me. That's when I noticed the strange floating orbs above the bodies of my mother and Calista. The one above my mother was blue, with a strange current of air around it, while Calista's looked dark blue.

What were these? Had they come from Calista and mother themselves?

There was something Etna had mentioned before she tried to kill me with Ganda. Something about taking our souls…

That was it. These were the souls of my family. I felt my throat closing up, the way it usually does when I'm about to bawl my eyes out, but I blinked back tears as I reached for the souls. I wasn't sure whether or not I could actually physically hold them, but I managed to grab hold of them.

They were warm. They were pulsing. These souls, these things…they held within them all of the memories my mother and sister held. The two of them were now nothing but squishy orbs.

Etna wasn't about to get them. Not on my watch. I let go of the souls and rushed outside, grabbing the shovel outside the door as I went to go find an empty space. It wasn't too difficult to find, seeing as how we were in an isolated area, so I started digging.

When I had decided that the hole was deep enough, I dropped the shovel and went back inside, grabbing the souls—which still made me shiver just holding them—and placed them inside of the hole. Nobody was going to get these. No witch, no "weapon," nobody.

After I had filled the hole back up, I set out to go find another area to dig up. I made two holes this time, and made them both six feet deep. I dug them out under a large pine tree that we used to sit under during the burning heat of the summer days. I set up some makeshift tombstones out of rocks I found nearby and went back to the house.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how I could pick up the two without getting too bloody or smacking them into anything, and then another ten minutes each to get them outside and bury them under the tree.

I sat in front of my family's new resting place, the night air chilling me. I hadn't even realized how dark it was getting until then, but I didn't care. My mind was filled with too many questions.

Why were we attacked? What exactly is a witch? How am I a weapon?

What was this "academy?" How would I possibly make it to Nevada, let alone a nearby village? I had never left my home, because we had no need to go outside of our secret place. How would I be able to find a village or a city from here?

All I could answer myself with was "I need to get out of here." There was no questioning it. If I stayed here, that witch Etna would find me again, and I would be dead for sure.

So, who did we know who had family that knew how to get to the nearest village?

Akira. Her mother occasionally went out to go and get fresh produce from several miles out, though I never knew how she could find her way out.

I forced myself to stand and turn away, my legs feeling stiff as I walked off to Akira's house.