Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Gates ❯ Dreams and Elemental Stones ( Chapter 4 )

CHAP 3

Kuwabara awoke and sat up sharply in his bed, hastily wiping tears from his eyes.
Karyuu had told them they couldn't begin their training until the next day because of some sort of errand she had to run before-hand, so the men should get some rest. Yukina, who had become the unofficial custodian of the Temple while Yusuke was away, had offered her the use of any room she'd like Temple. Karyuu had accepted the offer thankfully, but as far as Kuwabara knew, she hadn't even been into the room that she had chosen, having left almost immediately.
Of course Hiei had attempted to follow her, but he had returned less than twenty minutes later, a dark scowl on his face. Apparently Karyuu had caught him following her, and had taken very effective steps to loose him, seemingly vanishing into thin air.
So, after several hours of waiting, the four went to their separate rooms, (Yusuke had assigned each of them a room, but no one was allowed in or near Genkai's old room, it having become a sort of memorial to his old Master).

But none of this was on his mind as he slipped out of bed quietly so not to wake Yusuke, who slept in the room next to his, and walked over to the window.
He had that dream again.
It had been the same over the last few months, the most vivid of which had come to him just before Karyuu had entered their lives. It had been about a woman, who was singing somewhere in the dark, like the way it was in the woods at night when there was no moon. He didn't understand, or even recognise the language she was singing in, but the tone of her gentle voice, and the emotion that coursed through every note clearly told him that what ever she was singing about, was very sad, and very close to her heart. The sorrow in her voice was enough to bring tears to the tall man's eyes and he often woke in the morning to find his cheeks and pillow wet with tears, or, like tonight, he awoke with tears still flowing unchecked. The woman had been a mystery to him, familiar, and yet a stranger, or so he had thought. But now a strange suspicion touched the edges of his sleepy mind.
'She was beautiful... not as beautiful as my dear Yukina, of course, but pretty close...' His eyes narrowed as his thought back on his dream and the fuzzy image of the woman returned.
Her face had been hidden by the shadows, but still she seemed eerily familiar, as though he knew her, not well, but if her face were revealed, he was sure he would recognise her.
"Who are you?" Kuwabara asked softly into the night. "Do you need my help? Are you trying to tell me something? Why do I keep dreaming about you, and why're you so sad?"
Then he saw something in the shadows move. He blinked and squinted into the dark, straining to see who it was. And then, shifting into what little light there was, the figure was revealed. Karyuu stood in the small garden outside his window, dressed once again in the strange clothes he had first seen her in. He wondered briefly where she had gotten the strange clothing, let alone another set... Then, as if his musing had caught her attention, she looked up sharply, her eyes going unerringly to where he stood at the window.
"Kuwabara? What are you doing up at this hour?" She asked in a whisper that carried surprisingly well to him across the still court-yard. "Go back to sleep, you'll need your rest for what we have to do tomorrow."
He jumped as Karyuu's soft words caught him by surprise. The way she spoke to him... it was like she had known him for a really long time, like Urameshi did. It occurred to him that it was strange for a woman to be so familiar with people she didn't know. Another factor occurred to him very suddenly as she waited in the dark for him to answer, her outline barely visible to his eyes. He hadn't thought that she would be able to see him in the dark.
'What we have to do tomorrow?' He wondered, a frown creasing his brow.
"Hey, what do we -"
But before he was able to ask what it was that they had to do, she disappeared into the shadows again as if she had never been there, her Spirit Energy virtually undetectable. Kuwabara sighed and took one last look out the window before heading back to his own bed. There would be time for questions in the morning he guessed.
*****

Two rooms down, Hiei awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in the futon bed he had been sleeping in.
He had been dreaming again.
The dream had seemed familiar in the way that all dreams did, though it seemed that this dream had come from another source, as if he was watching the dreams of another, despite the fact that he would have sensed an intrusion, or if he had ventured outside of his own mind , even in his sleep. He scowled. He disliked sleeping indoors, but Kurama had managed to talk him into it when the fox-demon spotted thunderclouds on the horizon. His friend knew that rain was harmless to the fire-demon, but he had argued that although there was no risk of catching a cold, or some other Human illness, it would be far more comfortable to sleep in a warm, dry place for a change. Hiei had still resisted, until Yukina joined the fox-demon in insisting that he stay the night. As always, Hiei found it impossible to go against his sister's wishes and after only a few more minutes of resistance for the sake of appearance, he had relented, and taken a room on the opposite side of Urameshi's. He listened intently, his demonic senses alert for the cause of his abrupt awakening. The energies of the others were normal, and Yukina was sleeping peacefully in her room (Urameshi's woman, Keiko had gone home earlier in the day). He waited silently, and then, just as he was beginning to relax, he felt the faint flutter of the woman, Karyuu's energy; she had returned and was standing somewhere in the garden that lay in the grounds outside his window. He swiftly got to his feet and went silently to the window, cautiously peering around the edge of the window and into the shadowed garden. Karyuu stood there, wearing clothing identical to what she had worn when she had first met them, and had worn when they had gone to speak to Koenma. He watched as she walked soundlessly toward the room Yukina had offered her, when she stopped suddenly and turned to look at one of the windows she had been passing. Hiei heard a familiar, rough voice whisper through the air.
He frowned.
That baka Kuwabara was talking to himself again. He didn't, however, seem to see Karyuu standing in the shadows listening to his night-time ramblings. The expression on her face was difficult to read, not because of the gloom that shadowed the garden, his demonic sight was more than sufficient even in this light. It was the expression itself. Surprise, seemed the most prevalent emotion, but it seemed to be directed at the whatever Kuwabara was whispering to himself, rather than the fact that she had found him awake at this hour. Hiei watched as her expression became a strange mixture of sadness and mirthless amusement, Hiei's frown deepened and suddenly his team-mate's words caught his attention.
"…Who are you?... Do you need my help?... Are you trying to tell me something?... Why do I keep dreaming about you... and why're you so sad?…"
Kuwabara's voice drifted off, that strange question piquing Hiei's curiosity further. What was he talking about? Had they dreamt of the same thing? There was a short pause, and then Karyuu bowed her head for a second, and Hiei felt a jolt of recognition so strong that he nearly let out a soft gasp. The image she presented to him was like something from the realm of dreams. Her face was partially obscured by the dark shadows of the garden, and she stood near a small Sakura tree that grew near the far wall…
'The dream! She was in the dream! How is that possible? Is she feeding us these dreams as some tactic to gain our trust or pity?' Hiei wondered, his natural suspicions rising to the surface again. 'And if not, why do I dream about her? Is Kuwabara sharing that dream, and if he is, have the others been affected too?'
His silent speculations were cut short as he saw Karyuu shift slightly in the dark, allowing her form to be exposed in the light of the stars, and revealing her presence to Kuwabara who had been looking out into the garden as he mumbled to himself. She stood there for a moment, before moving forward again, as if on her way to her room, but then she paused suddenly and looked up, directly at the open window here Kuwabara stood. She spoke to Kuwabara in a whisper that carried unnaturally well through the still night air, and did so in a way that made it look as if she had not known the orange-haired baka had been watching her.
"Kuwabara? What are you doing up at this hour? Go back to sleep, you'll need your rest for what we have to do tomorrow..."
With that, she slipped back into the shadows and continued on her way. It was very cleverly done, denoting a very quick and moreover adaptable mind. He suspected that Kurama's own cleverness might finally be matched by this strange woman.
Hiei sighed softly in irritation as he hear Kuwabara's voice ask in a slightly louder whisper, "Hey, what do we-"
But she was gone, having passed through the garden and around the building to where her room lay. The Human sighed, and Hiei was amused to hear him obediently going back to bed, just as she had told him to. Hiei, however, dressed, and slipping out the window, he sprang lightly onto the roof high above him and quickly made his way toward the room where his sister slept, his sheathed sword in hand. 'This woman may be who she says she is,' he thought as he landed on the roof just above Yukina's door. 'And her reasons for being here may be legitimate, but until I find out the reason for these dreams, I'm not letting her out of my sight.'
*****

However, Hiei's vigilant watch over his sleeping sister and his friends proved uneventful, and it wasn't until a the very faintest hint of light began to show on the eastern horizon, did he see, hear or sense Karyuu move from her room. It had occurred to him that his situation was slightly ironic, in that the one night when he had finally agreed to spend a night out of the elements, he had been forced to give it up and ended up weathering the light summer showers anyway. When the object of his watch did emerge, she was dressed in her Ningen clothes, and moved silently to the outer wall of the Temple, leaping lightly upward to land on the thick stone. She walked along the edge, before sitting near the Sakura tree she had been standing under the night before, her back to the rest of the Temple grounds, eyes facing East. Hiei watched her for a while and then swiftly leapt forward, landing beside her.
She didn't look at him, instead she sat with a soft smile on her lips, her eyes closed, head tilted slightly to the side, as if listening to something he couldn't hear.
"Good morning Hiei," she said in her quiet voice. "Did you have a good sleep on the roof?"
He blinked and stared hard at her. He had forcibly kept his energy down so low that it was undetectable, even to someone with extremely acute senses, for the entire night, not once allowing it to rise even a fraction. He had even taken the precaution of siting downwind from her room, remembering how she had briefly mentioned his scent being similar to his sister's.
"How did you…?"
"The wind told me," she said calmly, opening one eye to look at him before closing it again. "You were up there almost all night, weren't you?"
"Hn." Hiei was feeling rather disgruntled.
It seemed that no matter what he did, this woman was able to tell exactly where he was.
His attempt to follow her the day before had come to an abrupt halt when her Spirit Energy suddenly disappeared. Even his Jagan Eye had lost any sign of her, and he had discovered, after searching in a more traditional fashion, that her scent had disappeared entirely from any tree or leaf in any direction. Even when he retraced the path they had taken, he could find no trace of her, as if she had never been there at all, let alone recently. This had forced the ill-tempered fire-demon to return to his waiting fellows empty handed, which far from improved his normally foul mood.
They sat in silence for some time before Karyuu opened her eyes, seconds before the sun peeked through the tree-tops and bathed them both in the first rays of the morning light. The orange light enveloped them both and Hiei felt an odd stirring in his chest as he glanced over at her and saw that she did not turn her eyes away from the bright light of the rising sun, something even he was forced to do eventually. She smiled as the birds chirped at one another, and closing her eyes once again, she tilted her head back, allowing her face to be fully touched by the life-giving rays of the sun, her shining hair catching the light, seeming to become laced and interwoven with orange fire as her hair was stirred by the first morning breeze. Karyuu smiled and opened her eyes again, and sitting up, she got easily to her feet and stretched.
"I suppose it's time to get the others up," she said with a refreshed-sounding sigh.
"I'll do it." Hiei said shortly, blinking down to the garden and around the building before she could respond.
She watched him go and then shrugged. Training these four would be difficult, enjoyable, maybe for the most part, but very difficult. Each of them had such strong personalities, such strong preferences and habits that they would have to break or abandon entirely before the end, that Karyuu was sure that she and they, had a long and difficult road ahead of them.
'Take Hiei for example,' she thought silently as she jumped down from the wall, landing soundlessly beside the Sakura tree, her booted feet not making a single mark in the grass as she moved toward the kitchen, where the four men would most certainly be headed. 'He's extremely suspicious, analytical and distrusting of anyone he's unfamiliar with. He keeps himself aloof from even his closest friends to some extent, and he hides from his sister, who seems to be looking for him…' She heard Yusuke snort as Hiei woke him, and random pieces of conversation reached her sensitive ears.
Most of it was complaining about waking up so early, or incoherent grumbles that come from a sudden, and probably rude awakening if Hiei's usual gentility applied to the way he had gone about waking his friends.
Karyuu snickered as she crossed the grass and slipped inside the Temple leaving the grumbling Spirit Detectives to drag themselves out of bed.
*****

Ten minutes later, Kuwabara, Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei entered the small room adjacent to the kitchen that they had used as a dining room in the past, and stood around, Yusuke and Kuwabara glaring out at the bright morning sunshine as if it were offensive in some way. Kurama seemed fine, however and looked as if he had been awake for several hours, his emerald green eyes regarding his Human friends with quiet amusement. In the kitchen, Karyuu could be heard moving around, the clank of a spoon on glass and the strong aromatic smell of tea, mingled with some delicious food they didn't recognise wafted out to them. These smells, enticing in their nature, told them quite plainly that she was making some form of breakfast for her students on their first day of training.
'At least she's planning to feed us,' Yusuke thought with a slightly less sour expression as he turned his attention toward the kitchen.
Then, as if she had heard his silent demand for food, Karyuu appeared with two large trays balanced on her small arms, each of which were adorned with a steaming pot of tea, five cups, plates, forks, knives and a pair of chopsticks for each of them. There was also a plate with five plump looking doughnuts on it, a small bowl of black cherries, and three large covered dishes that steamed slightly as she moved quickly to a low table in the middle of the room and set them down.
Almost convulsively, Yusuke and Kuwabara leapt forward and sat down around the table on cushions, snatching up a set of chopsticks each, nearly drooling over the covered plates.
Kurama also followed them, at a more reserved pace, and sat down, unable to keep from eyeing the steaming dishes that Karyuu set side by side on the table.
"Breakfast, is served, my friends," she said with a slight flourish. "Dig in."
"This smells delicious, Karyuu," Kurama complemented her.
She smiled slightly as she set the other dishes, cutlery and teapot on the table with efficiency.
"Yes, well, don't expect something like this every morning," she said as she poured them each a steaming cup of tea. "This is sort of a special occasion, since this is our first day of training... it's also an advanced apology. I have the feeling that the four of you are going to hate me by the time your training's done."
Yusuke, who had popped a cherry into his mouth, cocked his head to the side and regarded her with a slightly suspicious expression, the stem protruding from his mouth revolving in a wide circle as he chewed on the cherry.
"Why?"
Karyuu sat down beside Kurama and took a sip of her tea.
"You'll see."
Yusuke looked as if he was about to demand an answer from her, before his attention was diverted by Kuwabara lifting up the lid of one of the steaming dishes, the larger man unable to restrain himself any longer. The lid was removed to reveal a plate of sliced banana-like fruit that had evidently been fried in oil until the edges were crispy.
"What's this?" Kuwabara asked, picking up one of the slices with his chopsticks, and examining it closely.
"Plantain. It's kind of like a banana, but not as sweet," Karyuu replied, evidently enjoying their responses to the strange breakfast she had prepared. "It grows a lot in warmer countries in this Realm... Go on, try it."
He regarded the strange food for a moment, before biting a small piece out of it experimentally, his expression comically thoughtful as he chewed.
Yusuke looked at him expectantly.
"Well?" he demanded.
Kuwabara grinned and stuffed the remainder of the fruit into his mouth.
"'s great!" He mumbled around his mouthful.
Yusuke smiled and snatched a slice of plantain for himself, and gave Karyuu a grin identical to that of his friend, and then opened the next platter with new-found enthusiasm. This plate held small, baby-finger sized sausages that seemed to be seasoned lightly with some herb Yusuke was unfamiliar with.
He picked on up experimentally, and after giving it a sniff, bit a piece off and chewed maybe twice before cramming the rest of it into his mouth. Kurama lifted the lid away from the remaining plate and was noticeably pleased to discover that it was heaped high with slices of a bread-like food that seemed to have been soaked in egg and fried. They also smelled of apples and cinnamon.
"What are these?" He asked curiously as he skewered one of them with a fork and deposited it onto his plate, before Yusuke and Kuwabara snatched them away.
"I know what this is!" Kuwabara exclaimed, one cheek bulging with half-chewed food. "My sister tried to make it once, but they turned out wrong, and tasted really bad. These, are great, though!"
Karyuu smiled a little and sipped at her tea again, slightly embarrassed by the praise.
"C'mon, Hiei!" Yusuke called, as he dumped a sizeable serving of plantain onto his plate. "Kuwabara's gonna' eat it all!"
Kuwabara, who had been busily stuffing his mouth with alternating pieces of French Toast and sausages looked up, cheeks bulging, a look of mild outrage on his face.
"Don' 'alk Urameshi!"
Hiei, who had not moved from his place near the door glared at him in irritation. He cast a look at the food and sniffed disdainfully before turning his head away to look out the open door.
"I don't eat Ningen food."
"Aww, come on Hiei…"
"Pass."
Kurama gave the fire-demon a slightly reproachful look (which he firmly ignored). Shaking his head, he turned his attention to Karyuu who was absently eating one of the untouched doughnuts as she watched with mild fascination as the two Humans across form her stuffed seemingly impossible amounts of food into their mouths at heart-burn speed.
"I'm sorry about them," he murmured quietly, feeling the need to apologise for his friend's generally rude behaviour.
She chuckled quietly and turned her multicoloured gaze to meet his emerald ones.
"Don't worry about it. I grew up with three older brothers myself. Believe me, I'm used to this kind of thing."
Despite this, she couldn't help wincing slightly as Yusuke let out a thunderous belch, only to be rewarded with a solid punch on the top of the head by his large friend, who declared rather piously with his face still crammed full of food that it was 'Rude to belch in front of girls'...
Even Hiei, who had been watching the feeding frenzy with distaste, had to comment on that.
"And I suppose showing us the half-chewed contents of your mouth is better ettiquit?"
Kuwabara just glared at him, and would have stuck his tongue out at him, if his mouth hadn't been full of food.
"Wha' abou' ou?" Yusuke demanded as he swallowed a mouthful of sausage, pointing his chopsticks at his ill-tempered team-mate. "You haven't even tried it, and you turned it down."
"And what if it's poisoned?" He asked coldly. "You two idiots started eating before she did, how do you know there isn't something wrong with the food you're cramming down your throats?"
Kurama had choked slightly on the tea he had been drinking and cast a disapproving glare at him.
"That was uncalled for, Hiei," the fox-demon said in his quiet voice.
Hiei glared at him, before turning his gaze on Karyuu who met his gaze for a moment before returning her attention to Kurama.
"It's alright, Kurama," she said quietly. "He's just angry about the dream."
There was a pause, and even Yusuke and Kuwabara stopped ravaging the food to listen.
"What dream?" Kurama asked, a slight note of cautiousness in his voice.
"You four have been dreaming about me for a few months now. Kuwabara at least dreamt of me last night, he didn't know who I was..."
Kuwabara looked at her in surprise.
"How did you know... you heard me?"
She nodded.
"I didn't mean to, but I heard you talking to yourself when I arrived late last night, just before you spotted me in the garden."
Yusuke cast a sly look at his friend.
"Why were you dreaming about Karyuu, Kuwabara? I thought you were after Yukina…"
The larger man's face turned an ugly shade of red.
"Damn, it Urameshi! That's not what she's talk'n about!"
Karyuu watched the exchange with slight amusement, noting the larger man's indignation at his friend's suggestion that he had been unfaithful in his dreams. Apparently his honour code extended beyond the simple defence of a damsel in distress.
"You dreamt too, Yusuke," Karyuu said quietly. "Of a woman, singing in the dark…"
Yusuke's face went a little pale, and he stared at her, setting his chopsticks on his plate, his appetite suddenly halted in mid-chew.
"How…?"
"You seem to know a great deal about what we were dreaming," Kurama said, looking hard at her, effectively confessing that he too had dreamt of her.
She looked slightly guilty at that.
"After I realised that Kuwabara had been dreaming... I sort of took a peek into your minds while you were asleep, and well…"
Hiei scoffed.
"Impossible. I would have sensed your intrusion. My Jagan - "
"Is very powerful, but there are ways around even your Jagan Eye, Hiei," Karyuu said, taking a sip of her tea, her multicoloured eyes regarding him calmly over the edge of her cup. "Which brings me to the first lesson."
The four stared at her. In the early-morning sunshine, amongst the pleasant fumes of delicious food, they had almost completely forgotten why they were up so early.
"The dream... was an accident. None of you were supposed to be able to hear that, but I underestimated how sensitive you guys were. Originally it was... well, it wasn't meant for anyone to see, but when Gaia sent me out to search for the four of you, she sort of bonded me to all of you and - "
Hiei and Kurama both let out a startled "Huh?"
Although only the demons in their team had reacted, all four were familiar with the term 'bonding', which meant in most demon cultures, to be mated with someone for life, which of course, was the source of their alarm.
Karyuu looked at the two with curiously for half a beat, before flushing a delicate pink, waving her hand quickly in the air in front of her as if trying to banish the thought from their minds.
"Nononono! Not like that," she said quickly, the blush still in place, though she giggled quietly. "More of a... what's the word?... alliance... although it's a little more complicated than that," she sighed and brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face as she fought to find the words necessary to explain something that couldn't really be expressed in words. "Essentially, this bond is Gaia's way of including me into your group. You four bonded with one another through your friendship and through the Orb, so She has allowed for me to do the same with each of you."
Relaxing noticeably, both Hiei and Kurama's minds turned toward the dreams they had been... afflicted with.
"That still doesn't explain the dreams, though," Kurama reminded her. Apparently, the Kitsune was still ready to allow her to explain herself despite her invasion into his mind last night.
"Well, it seems that because you four have suffered through so much together, that your emotions are easily sensed by each other, and so you can ignore them to the point of not even being consciously aware, unless something profound happens to get your attention. I on the other hand have known you for a total of two days (not including this morning), and spikes in my emotional energy are hitting you harder than they should…" She paused, a slight frown touching her face as she looked down at the cup of tea in her hands. "I'm really very sorry. If it makes you feel any better, it surprised the hell out of me when I learned that I'd been effecting you so intensely."
There was a deep silence as the four men mulled this over.
"What were you signing about?" Kuwabara asked suddenly. "Why were you so sad?"
Yusuke's brown eyes flickered up at Karyuu, from where he had been toying with one chopstick on his plate. Her face was calm, with that slight frown still on her face, though behind her eyes, Yusuke saw a deep-seated pain flickering like some faint flame of memory in the strange woman's mind.
"I... It was a song for... for someone I used to know…" She said quietly, not looking up at them. "They're gone now."
Kurama could tell instantly that she was holding something back, but it was obvious that she was keeping it back because of the pain it caused her, and not because of some secret she wished to hide from them. They had been made to share in her pain by accident, and he was sure that if Karyuu had been given a choice, she would not have told them anything at all.
Kuwabara's face fell.
"Oh... sorry... I didn't know."
She looked up and the pain that had lurked behind her eyes had disappeared.
"No problem. Anyway, I didn't mean to throw that at you. It isn't your problem, I'm just sorry I've bothered you with it. But now that you know what it is, we can start working on your first lesson, since the theory runs along the same lines..."
*****
They finished breakfast, and after Karyuu assured Kuwabara that she had saved some of the food for Yukina when she woke up, moved outside into a small clearing in the woods near the long flight of stairs that lead up to the Temple. Karyuu had asked the four men to form a half circle around a large, flat boulder that lay on the edge of the clearing, and she stood in front of them, with her back to the stone.
"The first thing to start with, I suppose should be tuning your awareness of each other and the mental connection you share," she said in a business-like tone that seemed strange after hearing her casual speech earlier in the morning. "This will probably be very easy for you two to master," she said looking at Kurama and Hiei. "Because of your natural psychic abilities. But Yusuke and Kuwabara might need some more time. But after we've gotten that settled, training you will be easier, since we won't have to speak the slow way."
*****
By capitalising on their natural abilities, Kurama and Hiei had effectively mastered the new form of telepathic communication in approximately two hours time, and were able to speak to one another, as well as with Karyuu fluently, just as she had predicted. Yusuke, however was only able to send his thoughts to his friends and his new instructor, but seemed to be having a great deal of difficulty in receiving them, hearing only a faint murmur in the back of his mind. Kuwabara's problem was the exact opposite; he was able to hear them perfectly, but he had difficulty sending his thoughts to anyone else, only succeeding in giving them a garbled sentence at the best of times.
"You've got to focus, guys," Karyuu said patiently after the fourth hour of practice began to wear away. "You keep loosing it half-way through."
Yusuke swore to himself.
"Swear at me up here," Karyuu sent silently, touching her forehead with one finger.
Yusuke didn't hear her, but her motion expressed what she wanted clearly.
"I can't do it!" He sent angrily, his fists closing in frustration. "All I can hear is a rushing sound, but no voices."
"Try again, Yusuke," Karyuu sent, repeating her motion with her hand so that he understood. "This is important, can you hear me now?"
Yusuke's expression turned into a scowl of concentration, as he listened mentally with all his might.
"He's never going to get this," Hiei said silently to Kurama. "And wasting time on Kuwabara as well is twice as bad."
The red-haired fox-demon sighed mentally.
"I disagree. The both have good psychic ability, it's just that they haven't learned to use them at all, and learning a new method like this one is obviously proving more than a little difficult…"
"I still don't understand why were wasting time with this," Hiei grumbled, glaring at Kuwabara as his face screwed up with the effort of sending his thoughts to Karyuu who waited patiently.
"Because, my impatient friend," Karyuu's voice said suddenly within his mind. "Doing it the way you normally do leaves it open to be heard by anyone with the skills and abilities you have. Doing it this way allows us to speak in absolute secrecy even amongst the five of us, unless you do what you just did, and left yourself open for one of us to pick up... the old rules still apply you know."
Hiei scowled, and Kurama had to look away to keep his friend from seeing the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The fire-demon seemed about to cast her a nasty reply, to cover his sloppy mistake, but was cut off as a thunderous yell tore through the silence of their minds.
"CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"
It was Kuwabara's voice. Karyuu and the two demons had winced visibly, but Yusuke laughed suddenly.
"I heard it!" he cried aloud, throwing an exuberant punch in the air. "I heard it, Kuwabara!"
Karyuu stared at the two of them, as they both grinned at each other, apparently proud of their progress. She said nothing, and turned to look at Kurama and Hiei, who were grinning themselves, but for an entirely different reason.
"Welcome to the team." Hiei said simply, a smug smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Karyuu stared at him for a moment, her expression still stunned, before returning her attention to Yusuke and Kuwabara who stood looking at her expectantly as if she should be impressed with their lack of control. Essentially, they had just demonstrated how two people, one deaf, the other mute would have reacted to one another if their handicaps were suddenly removed; the mute would scream, and the deaf would hear him. She shook her head and smiled ruefully.
"That was great, guys," she said with a forced enthusiasm that almost reduced the two demons to fits of laughter. "But I think we need to work a little on your volume control, Kuwabara, and Yusuke, we have to turn up your awareness. With a little more practice, you should have it figured out."
The cheerful optimism in her voice was the last straw, and Kurama and Hiei began to laugh silently, shaking with surpressed mirth.
Luckily, the two Humans were too pleased with themselves to notice, and after a brief lunch to celebrate their breakthrough, their training continued on without interruption. Unfortunately, 'a little more practice' turned out to be another three hours worth of work for the two Humans, and Kurama and Hiei had moved away to practice sparring with one another to pass the time constructively. Kuwabara and Yusuke were both beginning to loose their temper as the day wore on, but Karyuu still managed to keep their minds focused on their training with the patience of a good teacher.
Kurama saw this out of the corner of his eye as he and Hiei stopped to take a break from their rapid exchange.
'She makes a good instructo,' he thought silently, running a hand through his thick hair. 'She handles them very well, I know from training Kuwabara for the Dark Tournament that he is a difficult student to teach, and even Yusuke is responding to her, when no other teacher could make him do that after so short a time. Not even Genkai.'
Kurama was aware that progress was being made, he could hear the faint rushing whisper that Karyuu had told them was a sign that someone he was connected to was speaking to another of their group using Karyuu's new technique without bothering to block them out of it. Experimentally, he attempted to listen to what they were saying, and was mildly amused to find that Kuwabara was reciting a nursery rhyme, and Yusuke was repeating what he heard to Karyuu. He listened as they completed the exercise with complete success, and reverted to verbal speech almost automatically as Karyuu praised them for their progress.
Satisfied by their proficiency in the new form of communication, Karyuu turned to Kurama and Hiei, motioning for them to join her where she stood with the two Humans.
"Now that we've mastered the art of communication, we can move on to the hard stuff," she said, moving to the flat boulder that lay on the edge of the clearing. She reached into an inside pocket of her jacket and withdrew four cloth bags each large enough to hold an adult-sized fist. She set each of them on the boulder and emptied them one by one onto the flat surface of the boulder, and they were surprised to see that they each contained five polished stones, each a different colour and about the size of a child's marble. She arranged each of the Stones the same way, and then bent and traced a wide circle into the grass with her finger that glowed faintly, before she stepped away, leaving them with a clear view of the boulder.
"These are Elemental Stones," Karyuu said quietly, her expression serious. "These will allow you to draw on the Powers of Gaia, after you absorb them. The purpose of my being here is to teach you how to use the power they'll give you."
"How do we do that?" Kuwabara asked, eyeing the Stones uneasily. "Absorb them, I mean... we don't have to swallow them, or anything do we?"
Karyuu heard Hiei sigh and mutter something that sounded very much like 'Baka Ningen…'
She ignored him, however and turned to face the orange-haired young man.
"No, nothing like that. It's more along the lines of absorbing their energy... Look at them as physical representations of raw energy, rather than a handfull of magical rocks."
He nodded slowly, not entirely clear on what she meant by 'absorbing their energy', but he supposed he was willing to do whatever it took to save the world... again...
"Normally, you wouldn't be allowed to do this, but because of the power-up each of you got from the Power Orb, your bodies will be able to handle the... pressure, so to speak. You step into the bonding circle there," she said pointing to the glowing circle she had drawn in the grass. "And they'll come to you. It doesn't hurt to absorb them, and they can't hurt you afterwards, because they become a part of you. Each of the Stones represents an element: Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Spirit. Each of these also represent each of us, and the element that you represent the most, will be your strength... the easiest of the five Orders for you to learn," she paused and looked at Hiei, who regarded her coldly. "You can go first, if you don't mind, Hiei."
He glared at her, and then defiantly stepped forward into the circle without hesitation.
Honestly, he didn't know why he was co-operating at all, but something told him that despite whatever misconceptions he might have about the Servant's presence, this seemed right and necessary in a way he couldn't explain in words... a crittical step in insuring Yukina's safety, and the safety of his friends.
A bright light encased the fire-demon, and a set of the Stones glowed brightly for a moment, and rising off of the boulder they began to circle around him, speeding up until they were only blurs of colour. They closed in on him as he remained completely motionless, his ruby eyes darting left and right, in an attempt to follow the spinning Stones as they drew steadily closer. And then, very suddenly, they stopped, arranging themselves equally spaced , with the pale yellow Stone directly in front of him. It glowed briefly, and then pressed itself into his chest, seeming to melt on contact, while the others pressed into each of his shoulders, and knees. The fire-demon shuddered slightly, as if he had just had a drop of cold water slide down his back, but seemed to be completely unharmed.
"Air," Karyuu said with an oddly satisfactory tone. "No surprise there. Kurama, if you would…"
The fox-demon stepped up to the edge of the circle as Hiei moved away, and paused before stepping inside.
"May I ask a question?"
"Shoot."
Kurama glanced at Hiei, who was looking down at his hands, a slightly contemplative frown on his face.
"Why Air? Hiei is a fire-demon, after all…"
"Hiei's mother was an ice-apparition, and his father was a fire-demon. Fire plus Water makes steam, steam is a gas, and so apparently, Air is Hiei's strongest element."
"So that's why you spend all your time up a tree," Yusuke said grinning at the fire-demon, who scowled at him.
Kuwabara seemed surprised at this information, but chose to keep it to himself, for fear of looking foolish.
'I didn't know Hiei's mom was an ice-apparition... Maybe that's why I see him staring at Yukina sometimes...'
Satisfied with Karyuu's answer, Kurama stepped deftly into the circle and the Stones began to circle him, just as they had done to Hiei. Eventually a dark green Stone came to float in front of the red-haired young man, and pressed itself in to the centre of his chest as the others distributed themselves throughout the rest of his body.
"Earth, obviously," Karyuu said quietly, more to herself than anyone else.
Kurama seemed unsurprised by the Stone's decisions, but when he stepped out of the circle to stand beside Hiei, he unconsciously mimicked is friend's contemplative inspection of his hands.
"Kuwabara, you're next."
The tall Human, stepped forward and set himself rather stiffly in the circle Karyuu had drawn in the grass, his fists balled at his sides. He seemed determined not to flinch as the Stones began their circling dance once again. He was released from the circle after having a bright red Stone pressed into the centre of his broad chest, looking strangely stunned, his expression slightly befuddled.
"Fire."
"I suppose that tells us what Yusuke's element is," Kurama said in his quiet voice. "There are only two choices left..."
"Well, I guess I'm the last one," Yusuke said with a shrug, and stepped in to the circle. "C'mon little, Stone, I'm waiting for ya'…"
But as the Stones rose up into the air, and began circling the brash young man, something changed. All of the Stones began to glow at once, instead of in order of their strength and when they came to a halt before him, not one Stone was chosen, but all five in the same formation that Karyuu had arranged them in on the boulder.

Fire

(red)
Earth Spirit Air

(green) (white) (yellow)

Water
(blue)

Yusuke's eyes widened, and he looked at Karyuu, who, much to his dismay, seemed just as surprised as he was.
"What the…"
Hiei's ruby eyes flickered from the surprised expressions on Yusuke's face to the one on Karyuu's, uncertain as to whether or not he should take steps to rescue his friend, or remain where he was.
"Aren't you going to do something about that?"
Karyuu shook her head, not looking away from the wide-eyed young man.
"I don't have any say in the matter," she said in an almost awed voice. "The Stones are linked directly to Gaia... She controls them, not me. Besides, they can't hurt him... At least I don't think they can..."
As she spoke, the stones began to move forward, and unlike the others, they pressed themselves into his chest at once, instead of dividing themselves throughout his body. Yusuke gave a sort of shuddering gasp, and as the glowing circle faded, he slumped to his knees, supporting his weight with one shaking hand, while the other pressed against the spot where the Stones had melted into his skin, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. Kuwabara moved forward quickly, and knelt beside his friend, unsure whether or not to touch him.
"What just happened, Karyuu?" Kurama asked, his emerald eyes concerned as he looked at Yusuke.
"He... he absorbed all of them... all of them as his primary elements…" She said quietly, as if she couldn't understand how it had happened. "Spirit is still his strongest, but... somehow he's managed to absorb all of them equally," she turned to look at the fox-demon. "No one has ever been allowed to do that, not even the Elders of my brethren…"
"It looks as if Urameshi has done it again," Hiei said dryly as the brown-eyed Spirit Detective pushed himself upright and sat back, one hand still pressed against his chest.
Yusuke looked up at her, his eyes wide.
"That felt kinda' weird…"
"You alright, man?" Kuwabara asked, his face still concerned.
"Yah... yah I'm fine…"
Karyuu moved to the boulder, and leapt up onto its flat surface before plopping down, legs crossed and looked hard at Yusuke, who, like the others was watching her questioningly. After a long moment, she folded her arms over her chest and heaved a sigh.
"I think Hiei's right, Yusuke," she said finally. "You've done it again. By all accounts, you should be dead. Not even the Power Orb could contain all five elements equally, and here you went and did it without trying... it just isn't natural."
Kuwabara clapped Yusuke on the back, laughing lightly.
"Hear that, punk? You've gone and broken the galactic rules again!"
Yusuke just gave his friend a sheepish grin.
"So what does this mean?" Kurama asked, still looking at Karyuu as she stared at Yusuke, as if trying to determine what was allowing the Human to absorb ridiculous amounts of energy. "Will Yusuke's training suffer because of this?"
Karyuu blinked once, and turned to look at him.
"No... if anything it should make it easier... I just don't know if I have enough time to teach him everything he needs to know... Hell, I don't know if I know enough to teach him everything he needs to know!" she shrugged and as Yusuke got to his feet, she slid off of the boulder and looked up at him and the others, her expression pleased, despite her surprise. "Well, I think I've had enough surprises for one day. Who's hungry?"