Fox ears sat in front of the low burning fire, staring deep into the embers. She was the only one awake because she had first guard duty.
A lay bare in her hand. The glow of the low flames reflected off of the 9mm Firestar pistol. Fox ears had just finished cleaning it not too long ago and had become bored enough to do it again.
To save herself from the monotony of cleaning an already very clean gun, she decided to clean her knives.
She hiked up both pant legs and unsheathed her short calf blades. Running along the side of her legs, from ankle to the bottom of her knee, were two elbow blades. With on movement, she unclipped the strap holding sheathes to her sides and back, allowing four blades to hit the ground. Finally, she untied the last blades, attached to her wrists.
Once she had fully unarmed herself she heard movement behind her. Before the thing behind her could think to move again or even to blink, she had her gun pointed in its direction and a bullet in the chamber.
Kurama stood frozen halfway out of his tent wrapped in a blanket. He stared at the gun slightly surprised but not startled.
Fox ears blinked a few times and then lowered the gun.
"Sorry," she said.
She turned and grabbed a rag out of a bowl of water to wash her blades with.
Kurama walked over and sat down next to her, looking at each weapon individually with what seemed to be great interest.
"Nice collection," he said.
Fox ears nodded lightly, not looking up or speaking.
"Do you wear all of them?" He asked after a short pause.
"If there's room. I guess it must be over kill for some one my age, but the paranoia gets the best of me. They're like a security blanket but with a sharp side," she said and then quickly fell silent. It had all come out in a rush like she was embarrassed to say it.
"Paranoia?" Kurama asked, urging her to go on.
Fox ears paused for a minute, wiping the blades down and then wiping the water off on her pant leg.
Finally, she stopped, setting down her spine blade and cloth and looked up at Kurama. No real emotion showed on her face, just a jumble of memories and pains.
"Back when I was 13," she began, sighing heavily," I was walking home at night alone along the streets of a small city in America. It was a very stupid thing for a teenager to do. I was barely half-way home when a couple of men pulled me into a side street. In the hour that proceeded I was beaten, robbed, tortured, raped, and abandoned.
"The police found me the next morning, slumped against a dumpster, covered in blood and half-dead. Once I was in the hospital and fully conscious, the police took a description from me. Later I found that the men that attacked me were the same men that had been attacking girls all over the state for the past month and still hadn't been caught.
"That day I realized that I can't really on anyone to protect me. Not my parents, not the police, not friends, no one. I was my only reliable protection."
A thick silence followed her last word and filled the air. Neither of the them spoke, or knew what else to say.
Fox ears blinked, suddenly realizing that she was tearing, and turned back to her knives, scrubbing harder as if the let out anger. As she drew a smaller blade through the cloth, she caught the meat of her hand and drew a quick hissing breath.
Blood welled up out of the cut, which went down a good quarter-inch. Fox ears reached around for a cloth or towel to slow the bleeding with, forgetting about the one she had just dropped.
Kurama lightly too her hand and the wet cloth and held it to the cut. He glanced up at Fox ears then back down to the wound.
Her face was covered half with surprise and half with embarrassment. Both emotions were battling to conquer her face and so far the surprisians were losing the battle.
All surprise dropped from her face and embarrassment reigned supreme; whereupon, her face turned bright red and she promptly looked at the ground.
In the following minutes, Kurama properly wrapped and bandaged Fox ears' hand.
Fox ears took back her hand as soon as she could and rubbed it tenderly.
"Er...," she s aid, still looking at the ground. "Thanks."
"Your welcome."
Hiei hopped down out of his tree. "I'll take watch now."
Fox ears strapped all of her blades back on and stood up, holding her gun in her right hand.
"Okay, I'll go get some sleep."
She walked over to Bat wings' tent and walked in. Almost immediately, she was shoved out.
She turned and stare at the tent flaps blinking at few times. Recognizing defeat, she lied down in front of the tent and was promptly pegged with a pillow flying from the tent. The pillow was closely followed by a rather small blanket.
Fox ears sat up, her ears dropping to the sides in dismay, and grabbed the pillow and blanket. She dragged them back over by the fire.
She put her pillow down where she had been sitting and lied down, curling up as tight as could to fit under the blanket. A few whimpers escaped her lips before she fell into a deep sleep, still clutching the gun in her right hand.