Aoi

Five years have passes since our training began. Luble is 17, Mammon is 16, and I'm 15 years old. Over the past five years there have been many fights between Luble and Mammon, most of which have something to do with me. Out of the three of us, Mammon is the strongest, and almost always gets his way. Luble is almost too protective of me, so he's always keeping his eyes on Mammon. Those two are just strange…
Luble is my best friend, he's always been there for me, but things seem to be changing. And Mammon, well Mammon is the same as he was five years ago. He acts very cocky and possessive around me, and hateful towards Luble and Belial.
Belial has put us through hell. On Monday we run 500 yards with 300lbs of weights attached to our limbs 100 times. This is easiest than it sounds, but Luble and Mammon use it as a form of competition. On Tuesdays we climb the rocky 250 foot wall with the 300lbs of weights 50 times. On Wednesdays we have target practice with the weapon of our choice. My weapon of choice is a bandit style blade, Luble uses a bow and arrows, and while Mammon doesn't need a weapon, he prefers a naginata. I say he doesn't need a weapon because of his sin ability, which is his diamond hard body. If someone were to punch him they'd break their hand, while if he were to punch someone it'd likely that they'd die. On Thursdays Belial makes us dodge giant rocks and knives that she throws at us for hours. On Fridays we spar with each other, and on the weekends we finally get a well-deserved break. The only other days we get off are our birthdays.
Speaking of birthdays, mines November 15th, Luble's is January 23rd, and Mammon's is August 9th. Belial has a birthday on June 6th, but nothing special ever happens that day.
One day things had become too easy in our training. "Aoi, I've been thinking," Luble approached me Wednesday after training.
"About?"
"I think we can take Belial on and win now."
"Maybe."
"I think he's right…for once," Mammon was standing behind me.
Jumping back from shock, I responded, "Mammon, when did you-?"
"Just got done talking to the old witch."
"About what?" Luble was staring Mammon down.
Mammon ignored him and continued, "she says she wants us to fight her instead of training tomorrow." He smirked, "she says if we can beat her then our training is complete."
"So, tomorrow we can set out for the demons of sin?" I hid the excitement in my voice.
"Yes, we'll all get our revenge," he smirked widely.
Sighing lightly, Luble interrupted, "we won't need you. Not for the fight with Belial or with the demons of sin."
Mammon growled, "you're the one that isn't needed, damned gerbil!"
"Hey you two, stop fighting!" I pushed the two away from each other. "Let's sleep now?" Innocently, I asked.
"You want me that bad?" Mammon growled playfully. "Anytime," he winked as he smirked at me.
My face turned red as I cringed, but I ignored hid comment and went to his room, where we all slept. Luble and I always slept together on the plush floor. I thought about sleeping on the bed once, but Mammon would get the wrong idea, and Luble would get no sleep.
Luble was glaring at Mammon.
Mammon was laughing in his face.
Eventually the two went into Mammon's room. Mammon plopped himself onto the bed and Luble curled up in the corner of the room, perfectly positioned to be my pillow.
At first Mammon never accepted this, but ever since he learned to sleep with his eyes open he's calmed down quite a bit.
I crawled over to Luble's warm chest and laid against it. Next came Mammon's threat, the nightly routine.
"If you touch my girl I'll tear you to pieces!" Barked Mammon. Silence followed his threat.
Assuming that they had both fallen asleep, I followed their example and fell into a deep sleep.

This morning was the same as the others. I woke up to Mammon sitting in front of me, watching me. Luble was still curled up and had let me stay lying on his chest until I had woken up.
"Good morning my princess," smiling as politely as he could manage, Mammon grabbed me by the hand and lifted me up as he stood.
Before Mammon had the chance to pull me up completely, Luble wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me down into his lap. He was holding me tight, too tight.
"Luble! Let me go!" I squeaked.
He quickly let go of me.
Mammon was snarling at him, "how many times do I have to tell you, the girl is mine!"
"The girl has a name you know," Luble's arms wrapped slowly around my waist again.
"Luble," I grabbed his arms and removed them from my waist.
"I know my princess' name," Mammon replied angrily.
"Then what is it?" Luble tried to put his hand on my waist again.
I pushed Luble's hands to the floor and held them there.
Kneeling down, Mammon placed a hand to my cheek and tried to smile politely again. His face moved close to mine so that there was only a small space between the two of us.
I could feel Luble's hands under my own as he struggled to free them.
"Aoi," is all he said before he forced his lips against mine.
My eyes widened, my body shook, but I couldn't bring myself to move from him. My cheeks flushed and my body became weak.
This gave Luble the chance to free himself from my grasp. I saw him change from a gentle person to one filled with rage. And before I could recompose myself, he had tackled Mammon and punched towards his face.
To dodge, Mammon simply turned his head out of the way, smirking while he did.
Determined to make contact, Luble punched once more towards Mammon's head.
Instead of dodging the punch as he had done before, Mammon grabbed Luble's fist, then punched him directly in the gut.
Luble fell off of Mammon backwards and held tightly to his stomach, gasping for air as if he were a fish out of water.
"Luble!" I gasped.
Mammon stood up right in front of Luble and glared down at him wickedly. "Don't you ever try to pick a fight with me again gerbil boy. Oh, and don't ever forget, Aoi is mine."
I stood up, turned towards Mammon, and slapped him across the face as hard as I could (which hurt my hand a lot).
The wicked expression that was once on Mammon's face was quickly replaced with wide-eyed confusion.
The room grew silent for a while, but the one to break the silence was Mammon. "I apologize," he bit his lower lip, "that was too much." It was obvious that he fought against his pride to say those few words. "I refuse to take back what I said, but punching him, knowing my body is as hard as diamonds and could possibly kill him was going too far." Mammon had to grit his teeth to maintain his composure. "I'm sorry Luble," his eyes twitched as he said the word 'sorry'.
Maybe it would be best if we all forgot this incident," I said, attempting to be the peacemaker.
Neither responded, but I already knew what they were thinking.

Breakfast was awkward. All of my attempts at conversations ended badly. Luble wouldn't talk and the spark in Mammon had vanished. "Today's the day guys!" I beamed.
"Yep." Mammon stabbed his fork into his eggs.
Luble picked at his food and remained silent.
"Luble?"
His eyes showed him questioning my calling to him.
"Be happy, be mad at Mammon, just be you," I begged.
No response, just a blank stare.
"Didn't you promise me five years ago that you'd do anything for my happiness?"
He seemed surprised, possibly even saddened.
It would make me happy if you would be your normal self again," I whined.
"Aoi," he finally responded.
My ears perked up, "yes?"
He held me close with one arm.
Mammon growled slightly, but did nothing to stop him.
"Does this mean you'll be you again?" Happiness flooded over me.
"This means I'll be me again," he smiled gently.
"Not to interrupt this touching scene." Mammon laughed, "oh wait, of course I want to interrupt this,' he laughed even more.
Luble had already been starring him down.
Finally things were back to normal.

Breakfast had ended and normality had returned. We were in the middle of Belial's huge basement waiting for her to arrive for the final test. A strange feeling welled in the pit of my stomach. "Where will we live after this?" The feeling grew stronger.
"Don't worry my princess. With the money from my gems I can buy us a house," Mammon boasted.
"That's nice of you," Luble responded," but doesn't your very name mean Greed?"
"A few gems for a house is nothing," he huffed.
"Thanks Mammon," some of the uneasiness went away. A tap on my shoulder caused my entire body to shiver.
"Miss me, stupid cat," Belial smirked.
Emotionlessly, I responded, "it hasn't even been an entire day yet since we last saw you."
"Well, as you already know, today is the day that you three have your fight with me," her eyes flashed. "I want you all to come at me with the intent to kill."
"Hell yes!" Mammon laughed like a mad-man.
"If you say so," no complaints from me. This was my chance to get back at her for calling me 'stupid cat' all of these years.
"I don't think you stand a chance Belial," Luble added in a serious tone. "This hardly seems fair for you."
At the same time, Mammon and I glared at Luble. Was he trying to keep us here longer?
"Don't you think I know this," Belial responded. "I would lose badly id the three of you fought me at once."
"Then why would you have us do it?" Luble asked.
"I'm not," she smirked.
"Why the smirk? Doesn't that mean we win by default?" I smiled wide.
"Are you stupid? Oh wait, of course you are, stupid cat. You're still going to be fighting me, but at the same time you won't be."
"Huh?" My ears twitched.
"You'll be fighting Daimeon. He is an experimental drug I created. Well, the best way to explain is just simply show you." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black pill, which she then swallowed. As soon as the pill went down her throat, her appearance changed dramatically.
A man now stood where Belial had once been. He was a deathly looking man, taller than Belial, but only weighed half as much. The man was extremely pale, so pale that his skin appeared grey. The combination of his unhealthy weight and skin color made his dark blue veins even more prominent. Daimeon had six devil-style tails that were the same color as his skin. He also had claws, and I think he may have had fangs. His hair was thick and grey and went all the way to the bottom of his back. Also, his eyes were darker than black. If looks could kill, I think the three of us would be dead where we now stood.
Without any form of warning he charged at us. For a guy who looks like death walking, he was really fast!
We all jumped out of the way when his fist rammed at us. However, Mammon had jumped up and attempted to kick Daimeon in the side of his stomach.
This didn't work. Before Mammon could land the hit, one of Daimeon's tails wrapped around his foot.
To make up for a loss of a foot, he punched at Daimeon's face.
Again, Mammon's attempt failed as Daimeon grabbed his wrist, not allowing the fist to reach his face.
"Damint! Why won't anything go through to you?!" He slammed his other foot angrily at Daimeon.
Another fail. His foot was stopped by another one of Daimeon's tails. Mammon refused to give up and used his last free limb, a hand, to attempt to hit Daimeon. Screaming loudly, he made his final attempt, which failed, just as his previous attempts had. Daimeon had stopped the punch with his other free hand.
"Aoi, I know what we can do," Luble grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him.
"Standing here isn't helping at all," I groaned as I watched Daimeon's four free tails attempt to penetrate Mammon's diamond-hard body.
"Listen for a moment," Luble pleaded.
"Hurry!"
He lowered his voice, "I'll hold off the other tails while you go in for the finishing blow."
"Sounds great to me," excitedly, I prepared myself.
Luble was behind Daimeon faster than my eyes could follow.
Daimeon's four free tails sped to immobilize him, One tail wrapped tightly around his waist, two more grabbed both of his wrists, and the last tail coiled around both of his legs.
"Hurry!" Luble screamed as the tails squeezed him limbs tighter and tighter.
I was almost to Daimeon when Mammon made his move. With all of the strength he could muster, Mammon slammed his forehead against Daimeon's.
The force of the impact was so strong that Mammon and Luble were both freed, while Daimeon wobbled around holding his bloody, boney forehead. Even his tails were in a panicked frenzy.
"My turn!" I picked up a nearby blade and charged at the disoriented creature. I plunged the blade into his heart and force pinned him, with the blade, into the ground. I took a few shaky steps back, "d-does that mean I just killed Belial?"
The body rose from the blood soaked floor. It was no longer Daimeon, but Belial. "Of course not, stupid cat. As I stated before the fight, that was an experimental body that I obtained by use of a drug that I just recently developed."
"Are we done now?" Mammon glared angrily at Belial.
"I suppose, but I'm coming with. I don't think you immature children could protect yourselves against everything." Belial grinned over at Mammon, "we can stay at my abandoned research facility about a mile from here. It'll save you money."
He growled deeply, "fine, but only for money's sake."
"Now get packing, we leave first thing tomorrow morning."