Life with Koda: Cont'd

[Kirchy]

Koda and Ken'ichi agree to go exploring. Koda runs ahead. We all follow him. Koda walks away from the salmon run. We walk for a while.

I looked at my surroundings. I have never been here before. There was a lot of grass and rocks and trees. I lingered behind the others. I stared in wonder at everything. The other three seemed to avoid something but I didn't see it.

I walked right were they avoided. The next thing I knew I felt a rope tighten around me and I was upsidedown. I frantically looked around. I was caught in a hunter's trap!

[Ken'ichi]

As we're walking around in the forest, I keep seeing Kia catching some glances at me at times. Either she's admiring my fur, or she just can't take her eyes off of my scar. We pass around a hunter trap, but I stopped when I heard Kirchy scream. I turn around and find Kirchy hanging in the trap we were avoiding.

"Are you OK, Kirchy?" Koda says with a laugh as he walks over to the hanging Kirchy, "I never seen a girl cub get caught in one of these things."

I slowly walk to the trap's let out thing, "Kirchy, hold on to something." I let her a few seconds to grab something, then I release the trap's let out thing to release Kirchy, I hope she remembered to grab something, I don't want to see her flying through the sky like what happened to me.

[Nikiski]

I am just lying there, watching Ken'ichi wanders off out of sight... I close my eyes just to rest a little...

** BUSHES MOVING **

Something is coming close by? I can smell a bear coming by... a bear cub...

To my surprise... it's Ken'ichi!

"Hey Ken'ichi... I thought you went to play with those girls!"

Ken'ichi doesn't reply... wait... he looks darker some how...

"Ken'ichi... did you have a sunbath or something? You look darker..."

He growls at me... what...??

"Ken'ichi...?? What are you doing?"

Ken'ichi lowers his body...

He jumps at me, aiming at my neck... I am shocked and I defend myself my slashing slightly...

It cuts him, but I also hear a famaliar voice yells.

"Oow!"

Wait, that is Ken'ichi yelling there... but who is this cub? He looks like Ken'ichi... except darker...

Then a voice speaks into my heart:

"Nikiski... this is Ken'ichi's Darksoul..."

"Darksoul?" I ask in my heart.

"Yes. An accident when you used the prism caused a part of his hatred to materialize and forms this Darksoul... You must deal it or Ken'ichi may turn back... into the hatred... and unforgiveness he was in before you purified him..."

The voice continues...

"You cannot hurt him physically... He came out of Ken'ichi and is linked to the real Ken'ichi. You have to use both yours and Ken'ichi's power to deal with him..."

The voice fades away... what...? What must I do?

Now that I know that I cannot hurt him physically, I cannot attack...

He comes at me aggresively... even more aggresive than Ken'ichi fighting the humans before... I run and try to escape... and... finally I find Ken'ichi...

[Ken'ichi]

(Ken'ichi)-(1st person)
I watch as Kirchy takes my advice and grabs something and I release the trap's let out thing. Good thing Kirchy has a pretty good grip, she didn't flew up and she softly falls to the ground. I slowly walk to her to see if she's ok.

"You OK?" I ask her.

Before I could hear her answer, I feel a sharp pain coming from my arm, like if I was just slashed, my eyes widen and I fall to the ground.

"Oow!" I yell as hard as I could.

"Ken'ichi, what's wrong?" I hear Koda ask me.

"I don't know but whatever happened it really hurts." I reply to his question.

I thought a nerver just broke, but I look at my arm to see a wound, a slash wound. How did that happened?

"How did you get that?" Koda asks me again.

"I don't know..." I try to stand up, "Argh...I gotta go back to Niki, he'll know what to do..."

I suddenly hear something coming, I turn around and see Niki running from something. I look further to see a bear cub chasing Niki...Why is my big brother running away from a kid? Anyway, I have to help my brother, so ignoring the wound on my arm I race to the cub and stop in front of him, making him stop.

"What's your prob-" I stop with a gasp, this cub...he's...me?

How can he? He looks just like me, except he's darker. I shake my head and look again, I'm not dreaming. He growls at me and lowers his body, I know what he's going for so I hit him with my paw accross his face, tumbling him off his feet...

"Aaah!" I scream as I feel another sharp pain, this time from my face.

I breath hard, just what is happening to me?

[Nikiski]

Ha, now I bump into the real Ken'ichi... he stops the Darksoul... and I can tell that he is surprised by what he sees... He attacks his is paw,

"No wait, Ken-"

Too late, Ken'ichi hits the darksoul with his paw... and immediately Ken'ichi screams... I manage to explain to Ken'ichi when the darksoul is catching his breath...

"Ken'ichi... it doesn't work... he's your darksoul and... The spirits told me that he has to be dealt with... but we have to use both of our powers... I don't know what it means... I slashed the darksoul and you got hurt... I guess we cannot pick a physical fight..."

The darksoul attacks... he charges and attacks Ken'ichi... I push Ken'ichi aside and the darksoul's teeth cuts into my arm...

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!"

The darksoul lets go... with my blood dripping off his teeth... he gives an evil laugh...

"Muahahahaha!!!"

I don't know what I can do to stop him...

[Ken'ichi]

(Ken'ichi)-(1st person)
Niki tries to explain about this copy of me, "Ken'ichi... it doesn't work... he's your darksoul and... The spirits told me that he has to be dealt with... but we have to use both of our powers... I don't know what it means... I slashed the darksoul and you got hurt... I guess we cannot pick a physical fight..."

My Darksoul? Our powers? Ah, maybe they meant the prism pieces inside of us? I look at my Darksoul to see him charging at me, but Niki pushes me out of the way and the Darksoul sinks his teeth into Niki's arm.

"Ah, Niki!"

I begin to get angry when the Darksoul starts laughing after he retracks his teeth from Niki's arm, I look behind me to see Kirchy, Kia and Koda hiding behind some trees, I look back and see Darksoul charging right at me, he's too close for me to avoid him.

"Ken'ichi...your prism...your fragment..." Kamali? "Your prism fragment Ken'ichi, tap into its power" I'll try...

The Darksoul tackles me and he ends up right on me, like if he just pinned me in a game of wrestling, but he's pinning my arms with his arms. He glares at me with those dark eyes, growling at me very furoucisly. Was I really like that? I closed my eyes and focused, trying to do what my brother said to me. I open my eyes again and see my Darksoul opening his mouth and goes for my neck, I close my eyes and shout, "Kamali!"

Suddenly, an enormous flow of energy starts going around my body and my Darksoul goes flying off of me. I stand up and look at my paws, I'm sorrounded by some red aura? But things go really bad when the aura begins to dissapear.

"No! The power is fading!"

The aura dissapears and the flow fo energy I felt dissapeared along with it, I look at my Darksoul getting up, I glare at him and prepare for anything, but he just growls at me, turns around and runs away. I sigh in relief.

"Ken'ichi!" I look and see Koda running toward me and pounce me, "You did it!"

I smile, "Yea..."

Koda looks at me puzzled, "Who was that?"

I look at where that thing left, "Not who Koda, what."

OOC: Sorry about trying to make in my fragment's power Spec, but I thought maybe it would be a good idea to make him experience a little of the prism's power before he fully understand how to use and control it.

[Nikiski]

I watch closely at the Darksoul... I see Ken'ichi looks back to see Koda and the female cubs, then the darksoul takes the oppurtunity and charges at Ken'ichi. I try to run to where Ken'ichi is but my arm is hurting and I can't make it in time...

"Ken'ichi!!

Everything goes quick. I only hear Ken'ichi yelling:

"Kamali!"

The next thing I see is Ken'ichi has a red aura around him... and the darksoul goes flying off Ken'ichi...

The aura disappears and the darksoul growls and runs off.

I limp over to Ken'ichi and watch him talk to Koda... I hold out my crystal and heals Ken'ichi's wounds...

[Talist]

"Hey Talist, we can't finish our fish here. You think you can come and help us finish them?"

I glance over my shoulder to see Nikiski and Ken’ichi, tucking into some salmon on the riverbank. “What, two great sturdy bears such as yourselves?” I tilt my head roguishly. This gave me the chance to search Nikiski’s expression. The offer was a pleasant gesture, as long as the bear wasn’t thinking to pity me. Hmm, my fishing performance may have stirred some sympathy, but there are other aspects which would give a rather different perspective of my capabilities. Give it time. “Fine, I’ll take care of some fish if you like.”

Clambering onshore, I pad forward, pausing to flick water from my paws, and look over a newcomer to the group--new to my knowledge at least, because he seems to be a friend of Ken’ichi and Nikiski’s. There is something…faintly unsettling about him. Ken’ichi grins when the bear hands him a fruit, and is perfectly comfortable with exploring the gift. Not true when two cublets arrive, I’m amused to see, sometime after I’ve given a respectful nod to the new bear and a smile of thanks to Nikiski. You would think that after three consecutive life and death experiences, facing these girls would be no problem.

~~~

And now I watch, a low growl in my throat, as Ken'ichi's attacker runs for the forest, and Nikiski limps forward to heal the cub's wounds. "I think we might all benefit from a watcher," I remark quietly. "We can't go on like this, and I don't think whatever that was is gone for good."

[Ken'ichi]

(Ken'ichi)-(1st person)
I get back up after Niki used his crystal to heal my wounds, but I'm more concerned about that...'Darksoul' as Niki called it. I look at Niki's wound, it looks pretty bad. I look back at where this 'Darksoul' ran off. I felt like shouting at it, but I shake my head and go to aid my brother.

"Are you alright?" I ask Niki, "C'mon, let's go back to the river and do something about this wound."

[Truttle]

After everything was over I decided to get in some sleep. At around noon, everyone decides to go to the salmon run. When we arrive, the salmon run was still lively as ever. I had built quite a hunger so I went over to the water to catch some fish. Moment after I notice two young female bear cubs arrive. I notice that they catch Ken’ichi’s eye and he starts to blush. I chuckle at this and smile at how friendly they’ve become. They all went off to go play, so I continue to catch some salmon. As I set myself up with my paw in the air to try to swipe at a salmon, but before I could move a muscle, the salmon quickly darts away as if startled by something, my eyes look to the side as sly grin spreads across my face. I quickly turn to see Sioul charging at me again.

“Ha ha! You didn’t surprise me this time!”

I bring up my arms to catch him but with his size, weight, and speed of his charge, we both fall back into the water splashing and sliding on the ground of the very shallow end of the pond. We wrestle and splash all around the pond for a little while until I started getting tired. I attempted to pick him up and drop him into a deep section, but my arms and legs started to tremble. I was exhausted and his weight was too much for me. I fell forward with him landing on my back. He gets off and we sit there panting, out of breath.

“Huff, huff…you only won…huff…because you have…huff…more energy than me.”

I take some time to catch my breath then ask. “Where have you been? I’ve been crazy, worrying about you. I know your old enough to take care of yourself but it’s still not safe to be out here alone. Did anything happen to you while I was gone?”

OOC: With my brother’s consent. I will be taking over for his character. Lets say that we are too distracted to notice what is going on between Ken’ichi and Nikiski. As my brother is telling me what happened to him while I was gone.

[Chasca]

Those two girl cubs are really starting to get on my nerves. Then again, any type of flirting does. I mean, really, don't they ever get eyelashes stuck in their eyes? I sigh, rolling my eyes at their behavior. It's so...well, uneeded! But Ken'ichi seems to be falling for it. Feh...he's weaker than he acts.

I go on to staring off into space as they finally go away, but it seems that suddenly a bear cub that resembles Ken'ichi attacks him. After fighting with Ken'ichi, the cub runs off. I growl...not because he attacked them, though that does make me angry, but because he was so low as to run away.

I hear Talist make a comment on keeping watch. "You saw him though...he ran off...I doubt that he would come back..." I reply, my logic being that if he ran he would be too ashamed to return.

[Nikiski]

Now that things seem to be normal again. I sigh in relieve but that wound from that darksoul biting me looks pretty bad... Ken'ichi looks at me concerned and asks if I'm feeling ok.

"Are you alright? C'mon, let's go back to the river and do something about this wound."

"No I'm alright... just hurts... needs to get it cleaned first..." I say as we pad towards the river...

I need to clean my wound... I dip my arm into the river...

"Oooouuuucccchhhh!"

That hurts very much but I know if I don't get it cleaned it could be infected or something...

[Chasca]

I hear Nikiski's yell. "What?!" I ask harshly, but then realize it's his wound. I go over to where the two are, careful not to get wet from the water.

"Oh..." I pause, though I have no clue why. "Uhm...you should put some meat on that." I know it sounds stupid, but it's true.

I look around for any pieces of salmon lying around. Though, with all these bears, I doubt any of them would leave any to waste.

[Nikiski]

Sila comes over and suggests...

"Oh... Uhm... you should put some meat on that."

"Well would salmon work?"

"Yep."

By time Sila finish, Ken'ichi has already caught a fish. He bites it, then tears it and put the meat on my wound...

"Thanks Ken'ichi, and thanks Sila... for teaching me..."

[Chasca]

"No problem...you should lie down until you can walk." I reply, almost...ALMOST with concern.

Then I remember what had caused this. Looking at Nikiski solemnly, I say, "How could you run from a...cub?! I mean, I've got bitten by cubs before--" though he did look...kind of dark "--and I was able to get a piece of them!"

I then realize that maybe this wasn't the best thing to say. Great...I shouldn't have let myself go off like that. But still, I'd think Nikiski would fight with some honor...but he ran away.

Wait...maybe there was a reason he did. Maybe something to do with...the cub's appearance? I then remember that he looked a lot like Ken'ichi. "Uhm...what was with that cub anyway? Was he Ken'ichi's evil twin, or something?" I ask, the last part coming out sarcastically.