Thievish (Yu Yu Hakusho)

You woke up, lazily, stretching your sore muscles in ways most people would not think possible. Standing up, you looked towards the top layers of the hundreds of thick dark trees that made your home. As far back as you could remember, you were always a part of this forest. It provided all of the basic necessities you needed to survive, you just stole things for the hell of it. The images of last night rolled into your head as you licked your lips trying to hold on to the intense amount of adrenaline that flowed through your veins. You did love adrenaline. When you turned 14, you joined a small group of thieves from a nearby city. At first, they only focused on money and after proving to the leader that you were an excellent thief despite your ridiculously young age for a demon, he allowed you to join. Soon enough, you turned out to be the most valuable in the group and three exciting years later, you are on the top 100 wanted demons list. The fact made you smile, the attention made you feel good.

You were always alone, you had no idea who your mother or father was, or if you had any siblings. You were always just a part of the forest and you were always fighting to stay alive. Even though the forest provided everything you needed, stealing from the villagers was so much more exhilarating! The plans, the tricking, the possession of the object, the chasing, the winning, it all was so dear to you. You remembered the first time you stole something; you were a youngster when you watched day after day behind the bushes, as two young boys went and stole the bread from an old woman. It just happened to be a dog demon village. One day you got there earlier than usual and you saw the old woman put her bread out on the windowsill of your house. You never had bread before and the wind brought the warm golden scent right under your nose, it smelt different from mice and you liked it. The woman went back into her house waiting for the bread to cool, and you didn’t see the two pups anywhere. Quietly you crawled out of the bushes, next to the house with your back to the wall, just like the way you saw the other two do. Then you got next to the window and grabbed the bread with your hands and ran as fast as your little legs could go back into the forest. You rolled onto the ground with a big smile on your face and the warm bread in your hands. Just as you were going to take a nibble into the bread you heard two very annoyed pups running into the forest. Hiding the bread under another bush you turned around to start running in another direction, when a pebble hit your back.

“We saw you take our bread! Give it back before we hurt you! You stupid cat!” The smaller of the two pups barked at you.

“It isn’t your fuckin’ bread, the old hag made it and I’ve seen you two assholes take it from her every shitty day. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried you idiot dogs.” You scoffed at them. You learned to talk by hearing the old drunks that talked to themselves and who got lost in the forest, they’re speech wasn’t the cleanest around.

“You shouldn’t talk to us like that. You either shut up and give us back the bread or we’ll kill you and take it back ourselves!” The bigger of the two pups growled at you. You hissed and stood your ground; you had been fighting forever and knew you could take on these s.o.bs.

“Like hell I’m gonna give you back the bread. It’s not like you could lay a fuckin’ hand on me.” You stated confidently while placing your hands on your hips.

“Hah you’re going to lose.” The smaller one stated. Both of them charged at you, throwing wild punches around. You did a front flip and turned around to see them still punching wildly. Quickly you knocked both of their heads together and they whimpered a bit. “Dogs can be so slow” You thought to yourself, while punching both of them in the nose. The punches weren’t too strong because you were so young but still managed to get some tears out of the pups. In their rage they kept on kicking and punching all around, absolutely no flow to their fighting. You were a little shocked from their lack of skill, but it didn’t matter to you, a fight was a fight and you were going to make them regret every word they said to you. You kicked the bigger one, who then fell onto the smaller one, nearly crushing him. Then you jumped up into the air and did a few flips to gather momentum and elbowed the bigger one in his back hard enough so the smaller one felt it. After a few seconds they both laid there whimpering so you returned to the bush, got the bread, sat down in front of them and happily ate it all. You knew it tasted twice as good since you won it from the brats. Ever since then, you trained at fighting and trained even more at stealing and here you are today! Two weeks away from your 18th birthday and one of the most feared demons in the demon world. You licked your lips again; life couldn’t get any sweeter.

Last night was great. You and the gang raided a small town in the human world; it had been a while since you had so much fun. You guys almost got caught by some pesky amateur spirit detectives they sent after you, but Koenma obviously did not think you guys were a force to be reckoned with. You killed the three trainees as they tried to arrest you and jetted back to the portal with the loot. Tonight the gang was going to have another meeting and it was about time you started going to join them. You went to a nearby pond and washed your face and combed your long silver hair with your fingers, and then put it back in a bun. After massaging your tail a bit you placed a small dagger into a secret compartment of your big steel-toed boots. You were clumsy and terrible when it came to using weapons but you brought that dagger around with you everywhere just in case. The walk out of the forest was quick, you knew most of the area like the back of your hand, and the fact that you were pretty fast helped too. You made your way into the old abandoned dog village; they relocated a while back after a troublesome spirit from the forest stole almost everything they had. You stopped for a second, absorbing the last warm rays of sun before it set for the day, and then proceeded to walk into the biggest hut in the village.

“Mai you’re late.” A voice from the shadows scolded you.

“Who cares? Now let’s get this meeting over with” You responded. Normally no one else would get away with such an attitude in the group, but you were important to them, you stole more than everyone combined.

“Last night was close. We could have gotten away without any loses if it was not for someone in our group.” Most of the eyes went towards the youngest member of the group, Masa. He was a 15 year old runaway just trying to get by, and got attacked by one of the spirit detectives while robbing a random store. Stores weren’t his specialty, he was amazing at pick pocketing though, the main reason he was in the group in the first place. You felt bad for him, but he was tough and you knew he would learn from the experience.

“I think it was great, more exciting than usual if you ask me.” You spoke up. The leader just ignored your comment but you saw the young boy smile at you in a “thanks” kind of way. It made you feel good. You walked over to the windowsill and sat down, looking outside while listening to the plans about going back into the human world tonight to get some more. You daydreamed about sleeping in the trees and waking up to some milk, milk was very rare in the forest.

“… Masa! You are going to stay with Mai at all times. Understood?” The voice brought you back slightly confused, you always worked alone but maybe this could work too. “It’s understood, sir” He responded obediently. You walked over to him and sat down next to him on the dirt floor.

“Alright kid, we’re going to go to this jewelry store I didn’t get enough time to go to last night, alright?” You looked at him through the dark. He seem kind of scared but nodded. “What’s wrong?” You asked, tilting your head to the side, trying to get a good look at his eyes. They were a normal brown but something was weird, like he was hiding something. You figured it was probably some sort of fear and brushed it off.

“Well,” He started, “Aren’t jewelry stores hard to get into? Like don’t they have strong security or something?” You smiled at him. “Exactly. More adventure. Meet me there at 1, usually I wouldn’t show people how I work, but I like you kid, I have a bit of respect for you being so young and all.” He looked away from you, “Yeah… I’ll be there. Thanks.” Both of you got up and left.