ABOUT A GIRL

Chapter 1 – Describing Aki

Describing Aki was a task best left to the professionals, because anyone else would have taken one look at her pretty China doll face and would have pretty much stopped there because it was so darn cute and no girl with a China doll face as pretty and cute as hers could possibly have any emotional depth, why should she? After all she was pretty.

She was pretty I say? Well yes but then again everyone important in the land of Saiyuki was, it was a fact that was to be gratefully accepted by legions of fan girls around the world. However, shallow meager stereotypes aside Aki was not your usual run of the mill beauty, for starters, height wise she barely grazed 5 feet making her 4 inches shorter than the shortest member of the Sanzo-Ikouu (Goku) and if this wasn't bad enough she was petite.

Mind you, I'm not talking hobbit petite, I'm talking, Oh look at me with my meek, submissive feminine pettiness, Now this alone would have sent most amateurs of on the road of misjudgment because there was really nothing about her (save for her appearance) that even hinted of her being meek or submissive. She was a fighter and not just because she could fight (although she was very good at that too) it was because apart from looking like a helpless meek China doll who looked like she was capable of tripping over her own shoe laces (a hard task to accomplish since she wore slippers) she also had one of the nastiest most explosive tempers known to man and let me just tell you when she wanted to (meaning when she was pissed off enough) she could put Mt. Vesuvius to shame, Now here was the real question. Would you willingly stay in the path of a 1000 degreed flow of molten lava capable of burning off your flesh to the bone in less than 3.5 seconds flat? I didn't think so.

However lucky for you (if in fact you like dieing in agonizing pain) Aki also possessed a high tolerance for all things annoying and an iron clad will to only hurt when she needed to, people would have called this fighting temptation, her former associates (more about them later) would have called it being annoyingly stubborn which once again she held the world record for. It wasn't as if she tried to be stubborn she just was and it didn't matter how long you would try to cajole or maim something out of her if she had certain views about it she would keep those views and further more she would probably end up hammering said views mercilessly (with or with out a real hammer) in to you.

Now I know what your thinking, what a bitch right? Well I haven't actually been very fair. You see although she did have a fiery temper and she was incredibly stubborn she had one redeeming quality that made up for all her other pissing off qualities. She was in fact an almost pathetically kind person whose compassionate nature (as much as she tried to hide it) could simply not tolerate injustice of any kind even when she knew (at least her head sort of knew) that fighting said injustices was going to get her into trouble, of which it did, many, many , many times.

It seemed that the girl really did not care about tiny little things such as consequences, or pain or death as she continued to prove by recklessly endangering her life any chance that she got and all for the sake of others (This in itself was enough to check her in to the freak motel). Now any half-assed psychologist could have diagnosed her with swift precision as being a compulsive redemption seeker because as cynical as it sounded people who had clear consciences (of which she didn't) simply did not go around fighting on the behalf of people who they hardly knew (of which she did) and why shouldn't she? She had much to atone for but we'll get to that later.

I bet you want to know what she looks like, right? Well let's see, her doll like face was round with high cheek bones a cute slightly turned up button nose and small full rosebud lips. Her skin was a flawless ivory white and contrasted perfectly with her black hair but the one feature that bewitched people the most were her eyes. They were impossibly big and sea- green.

Cat eyes that stared out at the world defiantly through long dark lashes, they were the only evidence of how un-doll like she actually was because they gazed out with an unnatural brightness that could only be explained through blood, demon blood.

This actually explained a great deal on the whole because no human girl her height with her build could possibly take out a whole band of Youkaii by herself or leap from roofs and land as agile as any cat would no matter how good a fighter they were.

She took pride in her ass-kicking, it gave her a warm feeling to know that if she wanted to she could send a 200 pound guy flying through a wall with a mere kick but at the same time she would gladly have given it all up if she could have one night of decent sleep. Hell! She'd gladly turn in to the meek submissive little doll people thought her to be if she thought it would get rid of the agonizing, gut wrenching guilt that threatened to over-power her while she wondered around at night trying to fight her insomnia.

Playing her flute helped, the sounds calmed her, people liked it too especially children, she had always been gifted with it and the feel of the old familiar wood beneath her long fingers gave her some measure of comfort no matter how insignificant it was she'd grasp on to it and pretend for just a little while that she wasn't there, she wasn't anything, just nothing. She did not wish the burden of finding peace in nothingness on anyone it was just too pathetic but there she would be playing her flute her eyes closed completely absorbed into the song and grateful for every passing second.

Then of course there were times nothing could help, nothing could drown out the screams of her past, her own and of others. She would fight it being the stubborn person she was she'd hold her hands over her ears pressing so hard that she thought she would smash her own skull in which would get her wondering if it wasn't preferable to the nightly hell she was put through, at around this time she would normally find solace in a bottle finding it necessary to Anesthetize herself for the onslaught of her own emotions as she wept/ screamed inconsolably and drank herself in to oblivion.

But that was the night and in the morning after she took a shower, had a drag of nicotine and a cup of coffee, she was ready to deal again, ready to help people and to make up for the pain she caused, ready to try to build her life back up, never allowing herself to give in to the idea that the blood on her hands could never be washed away and that she should just give the fuck up and go bury herself in a hole somewhere.

No that definitely could not be used to describe Aki.