Chapter 7

Lesson 2: Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.

Koronue was sure he had scared Tou-Kou; his intent had been to warn her. Now she was avoiding him and hiding a lot more than usual. It had only been two days, and he had not seen her since he spoke with her. He began to worry, though he knew not what for. Many times when he asked his friend where she was, Youko had rarely seen her. Youko said sometimes he would see her shadow, or a flash of her hair as she darted around, evading them.

Koronue ignored her, while Youko was puzzled. "Why is she so afraid of us all of a sudden? What could she have heard or seen to terrify her so?" the fox mused.

"I have no idea." he lied, " Now, should we go for the mirror or the crossbow? The mirror is not as difficult to obtain, but the crossbow is very nice."

"You and your weapons-fetish. I like the mirror better; how about we go for both?" they were discussing a robbery they wished to carry out. A beautiful antiques mirror and an enchanted crossbow were part of a museum. Both were very valuable. The museum was heavily guarded with a futuristic security system only Koenma himself could design.

"Alright, but just to make it interesting, you go for the crossbow and I will steal the mirror. You're skill as a fighter is slipping, so should you get caught, you could do with some exercise." Koronue teased. The fox wrinkled his nose and glared. "Are you saying I would get caught?"

"No, but you do like to personalize your thefts, which almost always attract attention from guards."

"So you're calling me a show-off?"

"Basically, but isn't that what friends do? Tell each other when they screw up?"

"Alright, alright, get off your soap-box. I go for the crossbow; you go for the mirror; and the first one back to the hide out gets to keep his treasure of choice while the other must get rid of his own."

"Nani? That doesn't sound fair!"

"Hai, hai, but things are beginning to pile up around here. We ought to get rid of some of this junk."

"Very well, we start at…"

"Dusk."

Youko did not bother trying to contact Tou-Kou to alert her he was going away; she tried to avoid them anyway. The two bandits set out at dusk together, and then went separately when they reached the Museum. The fox snuck in through a locked door, Koronue broke through the skylight.

The two were going in different directions; Youko was going down stairs into the underground rooms; Koronue's target was on the top floor. Big clumsy guards, hired only for show, strutted around the shadowy halls. Light sensitive laser traps guarded the floors around more valuable exhibits. Youko snuck down the stairs, two at a time, listening carefully. He came to the room where the crossbow was kept; it was shielded by a chain-ladder curtain that was locked into the floor during the night hours. Pulling a seed from behind his right ear, he feed a tiny strand of reiki into it; there were sensors that detected strong spiritual energy around him. The tiny sprout in his hand wriggled violently, gnashing a tiny set of teeth, a miniature Shokuyou butsu. (Death tree.) Carefully moving the sprout between the chain ladder bars, the little plant's saliva began to eat away at the metal.

The process of melting an opening big enough for him to fit through was agonizingly slow, because the Shokuyou butsu was so small. After the sizzling had stopped, Youko made the plant regress back to its seed again, containing it in a harmless shell.

He crawled through the hole and trekked forward. He guessed the janitor was off duty; the floor was caked with dust. Little clouds of it swirled around his feet as he moved. 'Isn't there supposed to be a light trap right here?' he could not see where it was. Lifting his foot sharply, a whirlwind billowed around his ankles; the dust caught the laser light in the trap. 'Koenma really is an idiot,' he lifted his foot to step over the light trap, sending more dust up into his face. The dust caught even more light traps; they were not just on the floor, they were everywhere.

  Koronue found it rather easy to find his target; he just followed the line of other ugly works of art. His ears twitched at the sound of a guard's footsteps. He hid in the shadows, swinging his red pendulum. The guard came around the corner, Koronue stepped out in front of him. The guard opened his mouth to speak, but Koronue began to swing his pendulum, hypnotizing him. The guard's mouth hung open lazily, his eyes drooped.

"Listen to me, obey my commands; fetch me that mirror with your own hands." The Bat demon murmured his spell. The guard shuffled sleepily to the mirror's exhibit, deactivated the alarm, unlocked the glass case and pulled it out. He turned around and walked slowly back, leaving the glass case unlocked, and hanging open. Presenting the treasure to him, Koronue twirled the pendulum's chain around his hand, finishing his trick, "Remember naught of my bandit team, and wake up when you hear a scream." He casually walked away from the guard, leaving him drooling in stupor. He was about to make his exit when he felt a familiar reiki flit up and down. He allowed himself to laugh softly; his friend was having trouble.

Youko had suspended himself from the ceiling with some very strong vines. They crisscrossed across the room to form a tight net over the crossbow display. Digging his claws into the ceiling tiles, he scooted along in the net, positioning himself directly over the glass casing. Concentrating very hard, he made the vines fall around the casing, lift it up, and then extract the weapon from within. He only took a breath when he had the crossbow in his hand. Moving back toward the entrance to the exhibit, he froze, a guard was coming. His clunking footsteps echoed in the empty hallway.

The fox thought for a second; he raised the crossbow and prepared to shoot him, but then he remembered Koronue berating him about being a show off. Mentally snarling, he aimed to the left and shot out the dim light in the room. The cross bow's arrow silently extracted itself from the wall and replaced itself in the crossbow shaft. 'Oooh! I like this thing too!' The guard strolled into view, carrying a walkie-talkie. He was built like a mountain, tall and thick. He stopped in front of the room and peered in.

'Please, don't notice me, please don't notice me!!' he thought, folding his ears to his head, and then he noticed the hole in the chain ladder curtain. 'Oh, no-please don't notice the hole in the chain curtain!' Apparently, the guard wasn't very smart. His walkie-talkie squawked some indiscernible garble; the guard muttered something in reply with a gravely voice. 'What does that mean? What did he say?' The fox stopped breathing. The guard stared hard at the dark room, put his hand on his nightstick, and then slowly walked away.

Tou-Kou watched the bandits leave. She was all alone now. Flopping down on a couch, she sighed and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes became heavier and heavier; she fell asleep. The lamps burned out around the hideout. Everything was dim and shadowy. A loud thumping jolted her out of her sleep.

She sat up; the thumping was coming from the front door. Many harsh voices were shouting, "Bring the crowbar, this door is locked tight!" She gasped; the hide out was about to be raided. Scrambling up from the couch, she reached into her tunic collar and pulled out the skeleton key to the hide out. Running franticly through the labyrinth of halls, she locked every door she could get to. A splintering crack made her jump, she ran down a hallway that was only accessible through a door and locked it. Many pairs of feet thundered in the halls.

"Hey, I smell a human in here, boss! It's a female."

"Find her and I'll give you the first pick of meat tonight, Spoonz!"

A fist rammed through the door behind her, she was sprinting down the corridor, her necklace bouncing off her chest, slamming doors left and right, trying to through him off her trail. Tou-Kou locked her self in the basements; she looked around for anything that could help her. A shelf was hung above the doorway, littered with little glass objects. Tou-Kou yanked the shelf down, letting the glass objects shatter on the floor. She propped the board up against the doorknob to barricade it; then clambered up onto the shelf supports with a random cartoon-sized mallet.

Spoonz busted through the door after a few moments of tracking her down. He was a heavily built ogre with a single horn sticking out of his bald head, other than that, he was just plain ugly. He flung the shattered door fragments to the side. Sniffing deeply, he tried to locate her. "Where are you, little wretch?" Tou-Kou swung the mallet as hard as she could, the mallet make a dull whack against his skull; he crumpled to the ground. Hoisting the mallet up onto her shoulder, she waited for the next robber.

Youko hurried back out of the museum; his act was flawless, they guards were clueless of him ever being there. He wanted to wait for his friend but he remembered the wager they placed and sped away. He stopped when he reached the forest near the hideout. The breeze was in his face, he smelled it, but did not find his partner's scent on it. Waving his tail in a superior sort of way, he raced through the trees.

Koronue wasted no time exiting the museum through the broken skylight. He was about to jump over the edge of the roof when a sentry turned his way. "Halt! Who goes there?" Koronue was standing in the shadows; he could reach his pendulum if he put the mirror down, but the mirror would reflect the light and attract unwanted attention. His only options were to drop the mirror or to remain perfectly still. He stood still as a statue; the sentry searched the shadows with his eyes. He took a step toward Koronue, his gaze calculating, piercing his very soul. He reached out to Koronue, his fingers inching closer to his face, then his walkie-talkie blinked with a red light. The sentry swung the ridiculous gadget to his ear; it was turned way lower than the internal guards' walkie-talkies so he could remain stealthy.

"No trouble up here, perimeter is secured…10-4, over and out." The sentry turned and walked around another way. Koronue breathed again, and fled. He stood on the edge of the roof, a silver flash shot out on the ground in front of him. "Youko, you will not ride if me so easily."

He spread his wings and joined the race.

  Tou-Kou sat a little awkwardly on the shelf supports, she had knocked three robbers out so far. The four was too short to be reached at her height. He was a snake-like man, with a lisp in his voice because he had ridiculously angled fangs. "Over here, Bo'th! Three of ours are out cold, and the female'th thent ith th'trong here." He spat as he talked. A taller robber walked in, he seemed to be made of rough-cut granite. His voice was even more gravel-like than his skin. "Find her, Scales. I want her alive; she could fetch a pretty penny if she really is a human."

With a high shriek, Scales yanked her from her perch. His clawed hands cut into her skin, "Right here, Bo'th!" Boss took her from Scales' grip. His huge hand went all the way around her waist; he was like a giant. "Pretty little wench, well done, Scales." Boss tossed as bag to Scales nearly as big as the little man. From the way it jingled, she guessed it was full of money.

Tou-Kou banged her fists futilely against Boss' arm. "Now, now, don't be like that." He squeezed on her waist, invoking a cry of pain. She was carried to the entrance of the hide out; another little demon raced up to Boss. "Him is returning, sir! What do we do?" he squeaked

"Be sure to give Him a proper greeting, 'honor among thieves,' as thy say." Boss said. Tou-Kou started to cry, she was scared, and her ribs were hurting. The sound of bombs going off blared in her ears, cries of panic followed. "The Shokuyou butsu!! Don't let it touch you, blow it up!!" more screams followed. "It's Him!! Run!!"

Tou-Kou craned her head to see who 'Him' was. A shadowy image of writhing branches blocked the glowing silver figure at its base. Horrible sounds were brought to her ears, she was thankful it was not daylight. Boss held her tightly, "He's not getting this onna! I worked too hard to find this place." Tou-Kou cried out again. The bell around her neck jingled wildly. She tried desperately to pry his fingers off of her. With unmatchable strength, his hand twisted horribly out of shape, she was free. Her pendant began to glow. Making a mad dash, Tou-Kou went in the direction of the forest, being careful not to run into the monstrous creature called the Shokuyou butsu. None of the robbers appeared to be spared, especially not Boss. Running for a score of yards, she rammed into an invisible wall in the dark. "Ningen?" a familiar voice said. It was Koronue. He pulled her to her feet, "Where's Youko? I heard explosions!" her vision dimmed, 'Youko, what's a youko?' her ribs were throbbing. He led her back to the battle-scene, where the screams had stopped and the smell of gore and burning flesh was profuse. The bat held her back for a minute, the tree was still feeding, and it might grab them if they got too close. Hiding her eyes from the carnage in Koronue's vest, she cried miserably. He looked down at her, unused to such emotions, and slowly began to pat her shoulders. "It's okay… Tou-Kou, don't be afraid."

When the tree was put back in it's shell, Youko noticed his friend was there. He seemed so cold and ruthless. His gaze drifted to Tou-Kou, she looked over her shoulder at him; her eyes were shiny and wide with fear. His own eyes bored into hers before his expression melted away and was replaced with worry. She turned around to face him fully, but her eyes would not leave the ground. "Are you hurt, Tou-Kou?" he noticed her rubbing her ribs gingerly. Her cheeks turned pink again, she met his gaze. He came closer, and took her hands. "You're shaking. Koronue, let's go inside." The fox picked her up and followed his friend into the hideout.

"Well, most of the stuff we wanted to get rid of is gone now!" Koronue laughed wryly. "I wonder of they got into my room…" Tou-Kou pulled the skeleton key out of her collar and waved it in front of his face playfully. Not too long after he retrieved it from her, she fell fast asleep in Youko's arms. "You do have your uses, ningen."

R&R