The lengths she went to in order to get some peace and quiet these days...
Having lived in a remote tribe a great distance away from anything for a few years of her life Kim was not used the loudness and cramped living conditions of city life. In fact she had never even really lived in a city before. The Witch World was that of great landscapes and wide open areas. Each land was different in it's own way with their unique living styles depending on which family owned the area, but rarely were there ever such tight living spaces as these.
The Witch World was filled with chaos, but honestly this place could give it a run for its money. Perhaps it was the seemingly organized chaos of this world that was making her on edge. It was chaotic, yet everything here was strangely neat. The housing, the roads, physics. Nothing made sense, and yet too much made sense. It was the same thing as trying to make something more random. The more random you try to make something, the less random it becomes. The same thing could be said for chaos.
Maybe confusing to some, and maybe even confusing to Kim herself. Which is probably way she tried to spend as much time away from the apparent neat-chaotic life of the city as she could, she couldn't stand staying in there for too long. As if she didn't already have enough headaches as it was the cramped spaces and constant string of noises were only adding to her discomfort. One might ask why she just didn't simply move somewhere else or live outside like she had been doing. Well as much as she would like to the city was a good place to steal and gain money. It was easy to find jobs, easy to gain knowledge. Plus housing was cheaper here, and oh how much she had missed running water.
Getting a daily shower was a privilege she had missed, and not something she wanted to live without again. There were as many pros as cons to many things, and city life was one of them.
The witch pressed the thin cigarette to her mouth and held it there, inhaling the smoke before letting it slide from her lips in a mist. She exhaled again through her nose, causing the remnants of smoke to breath out.
Lycan Woods. Not exactly the best on the eyes. Like if a guy took a chick here for a date he was probably secretly planning to murder her. But Kim found it slightly comforting. Despite the naturally gray colored air about it and the obvious dark aura it reminded her of tribe life. Plus it was quiet.
And also the home to an ingredient she needed for sleep potions. Recently the tanuki had run out of all her concoction for sleep potions. As you can imagine with her bad sleeping habits and the already noisy city life one found it hard to sleep a lot. Which is why she used them to force herself to go to sleep.
It probably wasn't healthy to use them as often as she did... But what did she care? There was nothing about her health that her dumb healing powers couldn't fix. They may be a curse but hey, might as well use them when needed.
Though maybe she did need to cut down on their use just a tiny bit. It was tiring to always have to search for the ingredients constantly. Maybe she could just get Vesta to get them for her next time, but the child was always so busy going off and doing... Well whatever children do... Maybe she should get a familiar.
Whatever, that could wait until she was finished here. Right now she had business with... Uh... Wait what did she have to find again?
Pausing her thoughts the witch hovered a hand if front of her and summoned her leather spell book, which also just so happened to contain information about all things witch related also. She opened it to a random page, which was also the one she needed since the book was just magical like that. Amber eyes traced over the cursive writing of her ancestors until she reached what she was searching for.
She owned everything needed but one thing.
"Dark jasmine..." Not to be confused with light jasmine. Actually there really wasn't a difference, but dark jasmine tended to work better and last longer. So she would be getting that one.
She closed the book and threw it in the air, causing it to disappear upon her command.
Kim took another inhale of her cigarette before removing it from her lips and flicking some of the ash onto the ground next to her.
Hopefully this wouldn't take too long. Vesta would probably be home soon, and the child didn't like it when she was gone for too long. Foolish girl, her heart was too big for that small body of her's.
It was hard to track down a plant when your nose was busted. All thanks to Gaara a couple of years ago when he almost killed her. What a dick. Worst part was his dark magic stained and soaked into the wound, making it so no amount of healing magic would ever allow it to work again.
Whatever happened to him anyway? Kim didn't know. A little after he attacked her he just... Vanished. Maybe he had been a witch hunter, just her luck. Though he would have surely tried to finish the job if he was. Meh, who knew. Whatever he was, he was gone, all that he left was a scar upon her nose to remember him by. What a sweet gift.
Because of said busted nose the tanuki had to rely on her sight alone in order to find this jasmine. It wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She had spent all that time as the tribe's doctor, always going out in search of herbs with nothing but her eyes and she was fine. Heh, she'd like to see other clan's doctors try and do that.
Unlike regular jasmine or its light counterpart, dark jasmine was colored a dark shade of purple. It'd be hard to find in these darkened woods, but Kim figured if she just wondered around long enough she'd stumble upon some eventually. That's how it always happened. Then next time she ran out she would remember where it was. Good thing her memory wasn't absolutely terrible. At least when it came to locating herbs.
What she didn't expect, however, was this sudden wave of chaos to wash over her as she was walking through the dense woods. She stopped in her tracks, lazy amber eyes flickering slightly with curiosity as the powerful aura stifled and coated the air around her.
That was strange. People say these woods are full of Lycan, not to be confused with werewolves. Oh god, don't even get her started on getting the two monsters confused. She had been called a speciesist enough, thanks. You get a Lycan confused with a werewolf once and suddenly you're the bad guy because they are almost the same kind of breed.
Still, a Lycan wouldn't give off such a thing as chaos. At least not this big or powerful. This was something far more greater. If Kim wasn't as good with ignoring her chaotic urges as she was, this might even be driving her into madness. Good thing she just couldn't give enough of a shit to even get influenced by it.
Normally she would have ignored something like this. It would just get her in trouble, and she wouldn't even care. But after stealing her family's spell book a while back the witch had become a little paranoid. Did Moka rat her out to the rest of the family? Her mother was the only one to face her back when she stole it, after all. It wouldn't surprise Kim. First she did nothing to stop her own daughter's exile, then she tattled on her. It was just like her, what a coward. If she really didn't want her to have the book then she should have tried harder to protect it from her. But half way through their fight the elder witch just seemed to... Stop trying. Was it because she was feeling guilt about letting her daughter get exiled? Good. Kim hoped that kept her up every night, that sinking feeling within her stomach, knowing what she had done lead the witch to even steal the precious book in the first place.
Though if her mother did rat to the rest of the family Kim fully expected a full out war, which is why these days she was so careful with what she did. She was powerful, even more so now that she had the book with her. But the Majonuki family was still strong in number. With so many of them they could easily overpower her. Which is why she needed to get stronger in the first place, so she could just wipe them all out like the shit stains they were. Maybe she would destroy some of the other families too, and then maybe just the entire Witch World. Then perhaps this world too. And the next world after that, and then the next one after that. Or maybe that was too much work. Well the Witch World would be a good start anyway. The rest could wait and see how she feels after turning the world to ash and then building a throne of dead bodies for herself.
The point was right now at any time her family could be hunting her down, and the chaos pressure was just putting her on edge. She was pretty sure it wasn't her family. They wouldn't be stupid enough to release their soul wavelength just like that. Unless this was a trap... But somehow, the tanuki didn't feel like it was.
Her two pink tails waved curiously, trying to sense which way the chaos was trailing from. After a moment, she sensed it. It was small, but it was there. A familiar soul, wrapped within the blanket of dark chaos.
A dark grin formed upon the feline's lazy features, revealing sharpened teeth. "How interesting" her words dripped like dark venom, playful yet creepy. Yellow eyes glistened and sparkled.
She removed the shortened cigarette from her mouth and flicked it into the woods without a care, a trail of smoke trailing behind it before it fell somewhere. Placing her hands upon her hips the feline began to move towards her prey. Jasmine could wait. She had other business to take care of first.
"Well well, what do we have here?" The witch's words popped up as she approached Izayuki, friendly sounding at first, but as the youkai could probably guess it was not so friendly to her.
The chaos around the girl was thick the closer she got to her. By this point the chaos was influencing Kim to some extent, as it was inevitable to be so close to the source and not feel anything. But she was still very much herself. Just, a little more insane. Which probably shouldn't even be possible.
The witch leaned forward, peering over at the arm with wide eyes, like a fat German kid at a chocolate store. "That's a sick looking hand you got there. Kinda emo though. MCR called, they want their 2001 style back."
What was the guild master doing here? And what was with that arm? She wasn't sure about the first part, and she didn't really care about the second. The witch was just in the mood to mess with someone and that someone just so happened to be her cousin. Call it payback for when the two got into their little argument last time they saw each other. She thought she knew what was right for Astrid. Bah, yeah right. She wasn't the one there for the little snot when her shape shifting was getting out of control. What kind of mother was she? Technically speaking, she wasn't even a real mother. Not yet anyway. How could she possible know more about kids than Kim? A real mother. Who birthed a real kid from her vagoo.
What a scrub.