InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Blue Anshan ❯ Seeking 9 - The Things We Learn ( Chapter 13 )

The Blue Anshan

By Alesyira

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho are not mine. I made a few OCs to fill in my gaps.

Summary: our lives are just a series of moments

Chapter Rating: T

Arc 2 - Seeking 9 - The Things We Learn

1506

Gatai

I was introduced to my new mentor, Gatai, a fire elemental and leader of a patrol group. I had many questions about my new squad and their expectations of me, but mostly I wondered why they'd assign me to a fire elemental? I mean maybe it made a tiny bit of sense, because I have a pretty cool liquid fire attack that I can use to set things ablaze and my foxfire which…kind of burns and is pretty bright, but…

oh.

I guess I barely knew anything about my fire attacks, and this guy was gonna try to teach me some stuff. (I often worried about accidentally burning down villages.) Was it serendipitous, or did they know way more than we'd told them? I hadn't used any of my magic since we'd arrived.

Gatai was barely as tall as my shoulder and had short red hair that spiked naturally in every direction. The first day of my lessons, and well before I could understand anything he said, he brought me to the center of a flat practice yard and showed me a quick display of his fire skills. I was briefly dazzled by the smaller male's arsenal of flaming attacks. He stopped after a few minutes and tucked his hands behind his back as a fluttering of ashes fell in a perfect circle around him.

He lifted his eyebrows in question and gestured with a hand, and I figured either he meant for me to repeat everything he had just done (unlikely) or show off what I could do (more likely). I grimaced and conjured a handful of foxfire. (It was lame.) I showed how super tiny I could make it! (That was also lame.) I focused on my hand for a moment—this was much easier when lives were in danger and I needed to destroy some stuff or else—to get the blue liquid to start, and then I flung my hand at a practice target nearby, watching as the liquid burst into flame that quickly reduced the straw figure into ash.

Gatai nodded and reached out for my still-dripping hand to examine my claws. After he released it, he pressed his palm to my chest and I could feel the burning tendrils of his magic as he poked around for clues. He nodded, looking distant for a few moments before shrugging in resignation. He then promptly whapped me on the head with a wooden stick I hadn't noticed before.

Learning under Gatai was a messy affair. He lit at least a dozen sets of my clothes on fire. He constantly tried to hit me with that wooden stick he liked to carry around. He seemed to enjoy catching me unawares, and I often found myself tackled, flipped, or tripped in the most absurd places, like during meals, at the hot spring, and once while I carried a humongous container of a highly pigmented dye I had been asked to deliver to the weaver to use on her yarn. (I was purple for a week.)

I attempted to retaliate against his unorthodox training methods with some mischief of my own, but somehow—impossibly—he could always tell when I was coming. (urge to chew ears… rising)

I was thankful for the combat lessons I'd received from Sango, which seemed like forever ago, now. Had it only been one year since I'd left? Gatai built on what I had learned in the past, honing my flexibility and reaction times and encouraging me to let loose with my fire as often as possible. Apparently, he thought the best way to gain control over something was to use it all the time.

Unfortunately, constantly creating fire attacks during training ate up most of my energy, and I ended up needing a lot of naps.

Berke, the cuddly bear that he was, enjoyed hosting a sleepy kitsune.

practice

Angara wanting to practice on me wasn't half as horrible as I'd imagined. When Gatai wasn't busy beating on me or insisting I set another practice target on fire, Angara and I would occupy an empty room, sitting across from each other with our legs crossed and eyes closed.

The language barrier quickly proved to be insurmountable, and so our practice (or whatever Angara was actually doing) became language studies, first. I felt confident that the words I learned from Angara would probably not offend the majority of the population. And she didn't just want to teach me her language, she wanted to learn the words I spoke, too. Trading knowledge with a kid was right up my alley.

And such a cute kid she was, too. One flutter of those eyelashes around her huge, glowing blue eyes, and she probably had everyone in the community wrapped around her little finger.

Angara had been fascinated by what she could sense regarding my magic. (It turned out that she was the reason why I had been assigned to a fire elemental for lessons.) Most magical beings she'd encountered in their community were generally of one or two natures from their parents. But Angara had seen several threads of magic within me, and between the excited questions she had peppered her father and his subsequent discussions with Chiran, I'd been selected as a good candidate for growing and understanding her abilities. Plus, if she ended up actually turning me into kitsune-goo, no huge loss to the community, right?

It took quite a few weeks before we could understand enough of each other to have much conversation. I did, however, learn random things like her favorite food was the tiny red berries that grew from branches draped exactly this high off the ground. She frequently had some in her pockets and demonstrated so I'd know where to find them for her in the future, just in case. (And also to never remark upon her height—or lack of—because it was apparently a very sore spot. Kids.)

"Where's your mother?" I managed to ask her one day.

She was very quiet. "She died."

"My mom disappeared," I said. We didn't say much for a little bit afterwards as we both thought about our losses.

Suddenly inspired, I smiled and touched my fingertips to my forehead, thinking hard about what I could remember of my mother's features. My visible form shuddered and shifted into an illusion of her from one of my last memories.

Discarding her sadness like the easily distracted young girl she was, Angara clapped with a sudden thrill and leaned forward, staring at my temporary features with glistening eyes. I thought she might burst into tears, and then she reached out to touch.

I had forgotten Chiran's warning.

Her youki was like a barbed hook at the end of a fishing string, piercing through my illusion to rip a new facet to the surface. The initial sensation felt as though she'd flipped my magic inside out, but then the strangeness passed and suddenly she was sobbing hysterically in my arms.

The guards posted outside the room burst through the doorway and, upon seeing their princess in some serious distress and apparently me being the cause, I got sharp weapons stuck in me until they could pry her loose. In hindsight, I should have fought back, but when those I had thought to be allies attacked, the only thing I could think to do was put the small girl clinging to me out of their immediate reach.

It probably hadn't helped my case that I didn't look anything like the male they'd grown used to seeing each afternoon.

Blood gushed everywhere, especially from the nasty wound in my neck which I could no longer staunch with my hands thanks to the guard restraining me. Angara understandably became even more upset. The screaming of a frightened child can be the worst.

When Chiran rushed into the room a few moments later, it was to a scene of absolute chaos. He froze when he saw me and his eyes searched my heavily bleeding form for the briefest of moments before he managed to pull himself together. He turned to Angara to ask her a series of quick and pointed questions, and though she was barely coherent around her crying mess, he managed to get enough information to understand what had happened and immediately called off the guards. I crumpled to the floor, still a little shocked at their violently quick reaction. A healer was called as a few helpful hands put pressure on my wounds.

After she calmed a bit further, she tried to tell me what had happened, but I had mostly pieced it together despite my extreme blood loss. What I could see of my newest outfit was not anything I'd ever seen my mother wear before, and the mass of nearly black hair that fell in wild, blood-soaked waves around my face nearly blocked my view of anything else in the room. She'd seen the thread of my illusion and wanted to see her mother's likeness, too.

Instead of a favorite memory, though, she'd dredged up the last time she'd seen her mother as she'd wasted away in a sickbed. I probably looked horrendous. I released the illusion on the spot, shuddering as the twisted, unfamiliar alignment of my magic settled back the way it belonged.

Angara practiced with my illusions for the next few weeks, using the images she could conjure with my power to help us with the exchange of our languages. She had to touch me to make the illusion appear, but then she would be free to walk around and poke at the results from every angle. The more she manipulated my magic, the more I understood what I could do.

Angara's ability was pretty wild. Alone, she didn't have much power or strength, but she could see other people's basic elements. She was still learning, though, and needed some kind of starting point to grasp, and then she could use that anchor to manipulate an ability in new and unexpected ways, apparently only limited by her imagination. Anything I knew how to kind of do, she took the hint and ran with it.

The day she figured out that my illusions could be used on other people, she turned some aspect of the magic in a direction I had forgotten about and made herself invisible, then proceeded to terrorize the community with practical jokes.

I was flabbergasted. I thought I needed fancy sutras to ever pull that off again. Apparently not.

ambush

Our squad went out on a patrol one week per month. The first few outings were fast-paced and uneventful, and I learned about the scents I should expect, the trails generally used, the best vantage points, and burrows for larger animals that could potentially be exploited. Ice-encrusted caves littered the rocky shoreline, and as long as the lake remained frozen over, it was too easy for troublemakers to quickly trespass if a patrol wasn't within range.

Spring finally rolled through by my third patrol. One of our group stayed back at the keep because his mate had just gone into labor with their first child, and Kiapo somehow convinced the khan to let him stretch his legs with us. I hadn't seen much of Kiapo thanks to all the training with Gatai and practice sessions with Angara, so having him along for the patrol started out pretty fun. He was a playful showoff, flush with silent flips and leaps and absolute exuberance at being outside the protective walls of the community. I got the impression he didn't often stray far from the keep.

At first, Gatai seemed pretty happy to have him along with his quick reflexes, impressive acrobatics, and skills with his throwing knives. After about a day on the trails, though, it became apparent that Kiapo had something other than guarding the lands on his mind. He was very touchy whenever he had a chance, and he was fixated with my tails.

They're pretty sensitive, which is sometimes a very nice thing, but not so much when we're supposed to be paying attention to our surroundings.

I mean, we should have seen it coming. Gatai had just turned to scowl at us for our lack of focus when an arrow zipped through the silence, embedding deep into Kiapo's shoulder. He grunted and fell back with the impact, but he was quick to get back on his feet.

My hand shot out to make him hold back, and I knew from the angle of the arrow shaft where this attack had likely originated just in time to hear the telltale creak of a bow pulled taut. At the next nearly inaudible twang of a bow string, I was ready.

I spotted the assailant high up in the branches overhead, and he had a buddy in a neighboring tree that was readying his own arrow. I wasn't good enough to catch arrows out of midair (yet), so I did the next best thing and threw up a hand with foxfire flaring to ward off the danger heading our way.

I have no idea how it actually happened, but a flimsy barrier snapped up to protect my teammate. It was a shitty barrier but it worked just long enough to repel the next three arrows. They caught fire as they harmlessly bounced off and dropped to the forest floor.

I turned to snatch Kiapo from his spot behind me and leapt up into the treetops to gain a better vantage as well as cover and concealment amongst the random scattering of budding branches.

Gatai and the other two of my squad mates immediately went on the offensive once I'd taken over guarding our injured tag-along. The group that had thought to ambush us were surprised by the quick defensive response and were overcome with minimal effort. I was a little unimpressed. Their three against our five, even with the advantage of surprise, wasn't the best odds. What the heck could inspire a tiny team of troublemakers to engage in violence like that?

One survived the counterattack to be sent back for questioning once we reached the next checkpoint. No new clues. The prisoner couldn't be forced to talk, but also didn't seem to have a completely functioning brain. The squad was pretty sure they hadn't bonked him too hard, and plus he was a youkai. Healing from injuries should be no big deal. Even Kiapo was recovered from his arrow to the shoulder within the next day and finished out the patrol with us. Things weren't adding up.

Regardless of us catching one of the raiders, the khan was very displeased that a trusted and valuable member of his command had behaved in such a reckless manner resulting in an unnecessary injury.

He decided the best rectification for such a slip would be more thorough training exercises for anyone not currently on patrol. Kiapo was not very popular for the next few months.

fishing

Angara flicked her rod and the hooked bait quietly slipped into the water a short distance away. We both watched as it sunk and then drifted toward us, catching the attention of a few hungry fish. I rubbed the tips of two fingers against my thumb, focusing on the largest of the fish. Right before it nibbled at the bait, my finger flicked toward it. A small flaming projectile shot forward, zipping through the shallow water in a line of bubbles and burned a hole straight through the fish. It broke the surface of the water after a moment, the edges of the burn sizzling audibly. The other fish had made a hasty retreat. Angara glared at me.

"What? I need the practice, too."

Scowling, she set down her fishing pole and crossed her arms. "You have plenty of opportunity to practice with Gatai. You're just showing off." I shrugged. I still enjoyed being a bit of a nuisance, especially when it was an easy opportunity for harmless fun. Her eyes narrowed right before her hand flashed out to snag my wrist. She fished around in my magic until she caught hold of my vaguely-there barrier and pulled it out of me.

This small child was so unnerving sometimes, not only how unnatural it felt when her magic twisted mine outside of my control, but also how much more familiar she was with my energies.

A flickering blue barrier bubbled around us, its default setting to provide protection around the user. Her entire body twitched as she forced her control over the placement and size, and I watched in fascination as she nudged it away from us, out over the water, to just envelop the dead fish bobbing away with the current.

She made a fist in front of her and I could sense her strain as she solidified the surface tension and then lifted the bubble from the water. It rose like a floating glass bowl, sloshing its contents as it moved. She dragged it through the air toward us, and just as it was nearly close enough for me to reach out and snatch the fish, she dropped the entire freezing wet contents in my lap.

"What?" She laughed as I blinked at her in surprise. "I need the practice, too."