This one is a little flirty, just a little. Do not own SC characters. Happy readin'

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Chapter 8: Teasing Territories

Both Sophitia and Taki wanted to get the demon hunting out of the way so that they could continue back to the docks. They treaded through another dark forest, luckily not as dark as the forest around the shrine, but it still had an ominous feeling to it. It had small abandoned watchtowers spread across the entire forest, or so they could tell what with the small holes in the walls that were made of stone that was also wearing away.

'Thank the gods Mitsurugi is gone; I think he just slowed us down. The only thing good about him was that we could keep our minds on him and not on each other. Now we have more awkward silences as we walk.' Sophitia thought to herself, trying to let her gaze fall upon anything nearby, except Taki. She sighed silently as she looked back to the dirt-and-stone road. 'I wonder why Taki won't... come close to me. I know I shouldn't be thinking these things, as Taki said; it'll leave us off track of what we are supposed to be doing.' Sophitia let her gaze sweep to the skies, or the parts of the skies that she could see anyway through the many fir trees' thin limbs. ''Cat-like beasts'... heh, I'd like to see them bite me and turn me into a 'cat-like beast'.' Sophitia kept thinking to herself, it was the second to only thing to do to pass the time. The first thing would be to start a conversation with Taki but she was sure that it'll end up merely being small-talk, which Sophitia hated because it would bring the silence back.

"We're heading into a swamp, be careful." Taki informed plainly as she looked from the ground to the damp forests ahead.

"The demons aren't in the swamp are they?" Sophitia could only hope that Taki would say 'no' because it would make the battle a bit more difficult to fight with mud capturing her heels.

"Do you think a cat would live in a swamp?" Taki turned to her with a raised eyebrow to match her cocky tone. Sophitia did the same to Taki's ridiculous question as she slowly turned her head away with narrowed eyes.

"No, of course not."

"Then no, there's a valley beyond this place where the demons inhabit." Taki pointed forward through the now swamp-like trees. Sophitia looked through the trees with an expression of confusion on her face.

"Your country has strange lands. I never passed through all of this; I just went the easy way through the towns."

"I know we have strange lands, in some cases it's mostly because the demons like to change the area that they inhabit."

"They change the area? How is that possible? They're basically ghosts aren't they?" Sophitia sounded both confused and intrigued.

"Well, some demons have auras that emit something that can change the atmosphere around them and-" Taki was cut off by an arrow that shot passed her from behind, it luckily narrowly missed her shoulder. "Who the hell...?" Taki turned to find a person that seems to be an assassin standing right in front of a tree. He was wrapped in black and a single black sash covered his or her nose and mouth.

"You have no reason to be here, this is my territory!" The assassin narrowed, Taki figured by the sound of the assassin's voice, his gaze at her. "You look familiar, have I met you before?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know, idiot!?" Taki shouted while she drew Mekki-Maru. Sophitia watched as she jumped over the assassin and with his back off guard, she drove her blade forward. To Sophitia's surprise, the assassin was quick enough to turn and guard Taki's attack. Taki looked as though she surprised at his sudden defense to Sophitia's eyes. The two of them fought fiercely, Taki giving more successful hits then him, even though he guarded himself quite a bit.

'His back is turned to me; perhaps I can use this to my advantage.' Sophitia crept up behind him and lifted her shield high above her head. She whacked him hard on the head, subduing him. They watched as he yelped in pain and quickly collapsed to the hard ground. Taki looked at her in surprise. "What's the matter? Didn't know I could do that?" She raised her eyebrows and held a small smile.

"No, I just didn't see you." Taki blinked as Sophitia laughed in return.

"Oh really? A ninja who destroys demons couldn't see me. It's funny that that surprised you and the assassin didn't when he turned around." She giggled.

"Actually he did surprise me, a little, I just held it in. I hide as many emotions as I can so that I won't give away my possible weaknesses." Taki explained in an 'as-a-matter-of-fact' tone as she crossed her arms. Sophitia took a slow step towards her.

"Oh? Well in that case that must mean that I bring out a lot of emotions in you." Sophitia's words became softer and softer the closer she came to Taki. Eventually she came so close that it made Taki feel uncomfortable and she could feel butterflies in her stomach, plus the fact that she was backed up to a tree didn't help.

"Sophitia, don't." She spoke in a low voice and a tone that sounded like a plea as she gently pushed Sophitia back. Sophitia backed away reluctantly.

"Alright... I remember what you said about me not teasing you."

"Why do you tease me like you do?" Sophitia's reply was silent, like she didn't want to give away something.

"I... Well, I enjoy it." She stated as if the reason was both meaningful and simple at the same time.

"I realize that and I also realize that you're not giving me the whole story." Taki raised her eyebrows as Sophitia lowered her gaze and breathed deeply.

"Back home, I've never felt something so strongly before. I don't even know why I enjoy teasing you... probably because I find it cute when you seem nervous after a say or do something and I want to see how you act when I tease you. Nobody where I come from approves of this, for somebody of my age doing this to someone else... especially when this person happens to be Asian." Sophitia looked up at Taki, who returned a soft gaze. "I like to watch you fight, it's powerful, quick and mysterious at the same time... I find it funny to watch you go from serious to nervous."

"I never used to be nervous until you started teasing me, which is why I don't want you to. I would like to remain focused thank you!" Taki leaned forward as she chided Sophitia to show how much she meant her statement. Sophitia responded after a short pause and turned straight to Taki and placed one hand behind her back and one in the air as if to promise to truth or something.

"Okay, I promise not to tease you while we are on our demon hunt. Fair enough?" Taki paused.

"No, but I suppose it's better than nothing. I'd rather have you promise that you're going to refrain from teasing me, period!" Taki pushed herself from the tree and continued to walk down the path.

"Oh, I don't think I can promise you that, but I'll see what I can do." Taki turned to look at her with a surprised look on her face, Sophitia was looking through the swamps with a playful smirk on her face, as if she knew Taki was looking at her, and Taki had no doubts on that fact. "I'm kidding. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist." Sophitia grinned at her.

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The swamp wasn't as large as Sophitia had originally thought, she was certainly thankful for that. They had finally made it through the thick swamp and Sophitia saw the valley not even worthy of words, it was more beautiful than Sophitia had imagined, it had acres and acres of full green maple trees with several small streams, all leading to the most beautiful waterfall Sophitia had ever laid eyes on.

"This... is where the demons are?" She asked as she stared at the magnificent valley before her. It looked too tranquil for demons to tread upon.

"They're a bit beyond here, not much further though. I figured we could us this place for a few hours before we finally leave for an attack, might as well rest our legs after all that walking through the mud." Taki was mostly thinking of Sophitia at that point, seeing as to how she had some difficulty going through the swamps and herself knowing that a demon fight was about to happen sometime that day.

Sophitia immediately chose to go to the waterfall, Taki watched her as her golden locks rippled through the air and reflected the sun's light as she ran towards the maple trees. She took off her boots as soon as she got there so that she could soak her feet in the large pool of water that the waterfall poured into as she tried to clean her boots from the mud. Unlike Sophitia, Taki took her time as she walked to the waterfall. She really didn't care how dirty her boots where, to an extent anyway, they were harder to clean.

When she came down she sat right next to Sophitia, wading her feet in the water as she watched Sophitia clean intently. She could clearly picture all the Greek women doing this. She noticed all the woman's features as she continued about her task in a serious fashion, she looked just as serious as when she first came to the shrine. The sunlight beamed down upon her revealing her in a way that would make anybody think she was a real goddess.

'Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?' rang into Taki's head the more she stared at her. She wanted to but couldn't, she didn't have the nerve, plus it might bring another opening for Sophitia to tease her again. She new that Sophitia promised but she didn't trust her.

'She teased me right after she promised not to, I'm sure another teasing sentence will come out again. I better try to keep myself occupied so that she won't notice me staring at her so much.' Taki pulled out her daggers and started wiping one blade at a time.

Sophitia heard a slight squeaking sound next to her; she looked up to find Taki working intently on her unneeded task; the blade seemed already cleaned to her, it only had a few light streaks on it. She looked up to Taki's soft-looking raven-wing hair color as it was still in a ponytail and falling over her shoulder slightly as her head bent forward.

'Why doesn't she let her hair down more often? It looks so beautiful when it's down.' She noticed how much her crème-colored skin brought out her chocolate eyes and her...Lips. Those luscious red lips made Sophitia's eyes stare with curiosity of what she might have felt yesterday night had it not been for Mitsurugi. The thought and possible feeling of simply guiding Taki's chin with her fingers and press them upon her own. Sophitia's eyes widened as she realized what she was doing.

'Ack! No! Look away!' She ordered herself. 'For Taki's sake as well as your own, look away!' She reluctantly obeyed herself. She suddenly realized something; the reason for these sudden feelings is because she didn't feel Taki's lips and wanted to try and somehow make Taki get the idea that Sophitia wanted her to finish what she couldn't because of her timid personality when it comes to emotions like this. "Taki?" Sophitia started in a low and hesitant voice after she brought her gaze to the rippling waters.

"Um-hm?" She didn't stop cleaning her blade as she responded. Sophitia hesitated, but continued.

"I... I think I know the really reason why I've been teasing you." Sophitia kept her eyes on the water's surface, afraid of looking back into Taki's soft eyes.

"Oh really?" Taki stopped and turned to Sophitia and watched her as she stared into the water. "So then what is the real reason?" She wanted to know although a part of her was afraid to ask.

"It's because of that one night that you didn't kiss me." Taki pulled back at Sophitia's tone as it seemed to soften at a slow pace. Taki could see where this was heading, this quick realization made her heart beat faster. "Taki I... I want you to..." Sophitia slowly turned her head and looked deeply into Taki's wooden gaze. "Please kiss me..."

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Hope you liked this one. It's gonna take a little longer for these to get done because I'm running out of creativity... heh heh, just what I need. I'm trying to tone down Sophitia's tease-like self a bit. I'm thinking of writing another Taki/Sophitia fanfic eventually where they chat online and have no idea who each other are but enjoy talking to each other online while in real life they hate each other. But I'm not sure.

To Rachel: Hope you're satisfied with this one

To Silvermoonlight GJ: I like your version of Sophitia better than mine to tell you the truth ;P

To PriestessLennoue: lol, were you on a sugar high when you wrote your last review about Catwoman? LoL Just wondering ;P