Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Gates ❯ Chapter 6: Final Exams and the Beginning of Understanding ( Chapter 7 )

CHAP 6

Training for the Urameshi Team progressed rapidly for almost four weeks of solid practice with the opal-eyed Servent of Gaia, and soon, they had become proficiant in the element of Fire... at least the flame and heat part, but the idea of light manipulation was proving a little difficult for them, since it was an abstract kind of concept.
However, since changing the colour of things, and creating little lights wasn't entirely necessary, Karyuu recomended that they train in that area on their own if it held any intrest, and shifed their training to more practical applications.
Slowly, she began teaching the others how to use their new-found knowledge to attack their enemies... represented by man-sized boulders Karyuu had found several miles away and had transported closer to the Temple for the precise perpouse of practice after changing them into some sort of rock they'd never seen before... One that was nearly impossible to destroy by fire... at least not any that normal Humans could weild just yet, which of course was the whole point of that day's excersise.
'Karyuu says that when we can melt those, we're done, with the Fire Element...' Kuwabara thought to himself, looking at the strange, almost crystal-like black stone that stood before him, and ran a calloused hand over the shiny rock. 'To me, it kinda' looks like glass... but she said it's a kinda' rock... maybe it's like that 'quartz' stuff from geography class, only harder...'
"Are you ready, Kuwabara?"
He blinked and turned to look at the smaller woman and then smiled and nodded.
"Yah, sure, Karyuu..." The tall warrior moved to join the others some distance away from the four stones, taking his place several feet away on Yusuke's right.
"Okay... let'er rip."
The four team-mates each raised their right hand, palm open and fingers spread, focusing all of their conciousness and control toward their respective targets, gathering the energy required in their attempt to melt the dark stones that stood before them, each concious of the other drawing on that same kind of energy.
And then, they released it, one after another, aiming as much heat as they could at the dark, man-sized boulders that Karyuu had provided for them, surprised when a dull red began to shine within the depths of each one that grew larger and brighter with each passing second.
"Carefull, now," Karyuu's voice cautioned within the depths of their minds, carrying over the dim roaring sound that always seemed to accompany them when they used any amount of Heat Energy. "Spread out the heat, or you might make the stones explode from the inside... And beleive me, that stings... Remember what happened to the marshmellows."
Yusuke chuckeled absently, his face a mask of concentraition as he obediantly widened the feild of heat he was generating, the entire stone beginning to glow that strange dull red colour.
"That was such a waste of good food..."
She smiled and shook her head.
He was right, in a way, she had over-estimated their control abilities at the time, and so they had demolished the marshmellows into little clouds of sugary-ash in a dissapointingly short time, though now, they had mannaged to exceed her expectations, the amount of control they had mannaged to gain being much more drastic than it had been in the fourteen days prior to the marshmellows.
Her attention returned as the four boulders beginning to glow the same red as Yusuke's target, growing brighter and brighter as seconds passed.
"This is hard... Damn... how hot do we gotta' make these things?" Yusuke asked, sweat beginning to break out on his sunkissed skin, brown eyes narrowing at his target as the glow slowly brightened to a deep, cherry-red, the shere amount of heat being directed at it making the already scorched earth darken and smoke a little, a smell the four young men had become very accustomed to over the last few weeks.
"Very hot," Karyuu replied with a slight smile. "And it's supposed to be hard... look at it as your final exam in the School of Fire..."
"Sounds like a rock-band name or something..."
Hiei rolled his eyes skyward, though refrained from comment, keeping the bulk of his attention locked on the stone in front of him, his entire body tingeling with the energy he was gathering from his surroundings and channeling into the smooth black stone he had been assighned to.
Personaly, this excersise was a little foolish to him, testing his new abilities on a more... mobile target seeming a more logical choice.
But in the almost six weeks of knowing the strange elfin woman who had been instructing them all in that particular feild, he knew that even suggesting that would result in a deeply disaproving frown.
She didn't approve of killing anything, plant, insect, animal, Ningen or Demon for any reason unless it was absoultely necessary, and target practice didn't necessarily require an organic target, and therefore, she would never agree to it, even if he used some evil, soul-sucking apparition as a moving target.
Like the others, he was gradually adding the heat energy he was gathering to the already glowing stone that had been provided, increasing the temperature so greatly that even he, a fire-demon, would be very uncomfortable, perhaps even harmed if he were to get too close to it.
'I wonder if they can in fact be melted...' he thought absently, as seemingly impossible ammounts of raw, seething energy did little to harm the dark stone he was supposed to be melting into a liquid state, a suspicious part of his mind suspecting that the elfin woman had set this up to prove some sort of point.
His silent questioning was answered, however, when Kuwabara suddenly laughed, the energy he was gathering wavering slightly as his control was momentarily weakened by the sudden distraction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the orange-haired Human grinning, apparently very proud of himself, and under further inspection, Hiei descovered why.
The stone the great Oaf had been practicing on was very slowly beginning to wilt and colapse in on itself like a mass of some semi-solid gelatenous material, small bursts of flame suddenly flickering from breaches made in the melting stone.
"Good job, Kuwabara," Karyuu said, her smile brightening, opaline eyes focused on the wavering mass of molten rock that the tall warrior was gradually reducing it to. "Don't loose your concentration now..."
He giggled, grinning broadly, looking decidedly smug as he was quickly able to reduce it to a molten pool of boiling liquid that bubbled and steamed, pale yellow flames flickering once in a while on the surface as impurities in the rock were burned away.
"Okay, okay! That's enough!" The elfin woman cried, laughing as he withdrew the energy and lowered his broad hand, fists resting on his hips as he puffed out his chest, casting a triumphant grin in the direction of his team-mates, who watched him out of the corner of their eyes with verying degrees of irritation, their own stones not yet glowing the blinding white that his had reached before being reduced to a puddle of molten rock.
"Ha, ha! I did it!" He crowed, beaming at the smiling woman as she looked up at him. "I'm the greatest..."
Not wanting to put a damper on his pride, Karyuu let that pass and simply patted him on the arm in a congradulatory way.
"Good job, Big-Guy," she said with a nod, moving away as he followed her, distancing themselves from the other four as they continued to struggle with their stones. "You graduate."
He folded his arms across his broad chest and tilted his chin upward a little, looking smug.
"Of course! I am the Great Kazuma Kuwabara!"
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"The 'Great Kazuma'?" She asked incrediously before she could stop herself.
He blinked at her once, and before he could reply, Karyuu's ears caught the none-too subtle sound of Hiei giving a disdainfull snort.
"Baka..."
"Shut-up, Shorty!" Kuwabara snapped irritably. "It's my old nickname from school. Before I graduated, I was the king over there... Nobody messed with the Great Kazuma Kuwabara, Number One Punk of Sariashiki Junior High!"
Yusuke laughed at that, and turned his head to look at him, though Karyuu noticed, slightly impressed, that the Spirit Detective was also managing to keep the steady flow of heat energy into his own stone, not destracted enough to loose focus as he involved himself in the converstation.
'So much natural control... Now if only I can get him to be paitent with everything I try to teach him, we might actually have a chance at this...'
"That's only because you messed with everyone first before they could get to you, Carrot-top!" The young man called, mirth shining in his dark eyes. "And I was the Number One Punk of Sariashiki Junior High, get over it!"
The tall warrior glared at him.
"In your dreams, Urameshi!"
Karyuu rolled her eyes skyward in exasperation, her momentary admiration of the two Humans drowned by their posturing.
"Don't worry," Kurama's voice said reassuringly within her mind, blocking the fighting Humans out of the conversation, (who were too busy fighting with one another to notice, anyway). "They'll stop fighting fairly soon. These particular descrepencies don't tend to last very long..."
"What I can't figure out is why either one of them is proud of being called a 'Punk'... normally I associate that with a looser..."
"Then you're on the right track," Hiei said blandly, ruby eyes flickering to her breifly before he returned his gaze to the now brightly glowing mass of stone in front of him. "At least in the Baka's case. Urameshi simply has a great deal of trouble concentrating on anything for more than a few minutes... A child's sence of priority, but better than that of the Baka..."
"Why are you always calling him that?" Karyuu asked suddenly, honestly confused.
Kuwabara was far from being the brightest star in the sky, but he was just as far from being a giggleing moron that sat in the corner drooling for the better part of a day...
She watched as a slight smirk touched the usually expressionless face of the fire-demon and he increased the heat he was pouring into the stone a little, more out of boredom than anything else, despite the fact that even he was beginning to sweat under the strain and heat generated by his efforts and that of the others.
"Because it's true."
She sighed and shook her head, blinking as Yusuke suddenly laughed.
Turning, she realized that the Spirit Detective had also mannaged to reduce his target to nothing more than a pool of liquid stone... that was resting in a small hole approximately four feet deep.
"Yusuke..." Her tone was tired and he grinned sheepishly at her, putting a hand to the back of his head.
"Heh, heh... Guess I got destracted..."
"Mmm... yes, I'd say so," the elfin woman said with a slight smile. "But you pass, I guess."
"Don't be nice to him, Karyuu," Kuwabara said with a grin. "Make him do it again!"
"Shaddup, Kuwabara."
*****
Less than twelve minutes later, Kurama and Hiei also suceeded in reducing their respective stones into pools of liquid stone, and Karyuu congradulated them each in turn with equal enthusiasm.
"That's excelent," she said as the four young men gathered to look at her, the stone having cooled with surprising speed, forming into hardened plates resembeling polished black glass. "You here-by graduate the school of Elemental Fire..."
The four shared a smile that faltered and failed as she returned her attention to the disks of stone and without making any kind of outward jesture, a tremendous amount of heat energy gathered around her and with a quick burst, the glass-like stone liquidated before their eyes in a matter of only a few sconds, before she proceeded to remould them, combining her skills with the Earth Element to form them back into their previous forms, and with a breif, but powerfull burst of chill air, they solidified once again, seemingly untouched by the efforts of the four young men.
There was a moment of stunned silence and then they let a collective groan as she turned to smile at them almost apologeticaly.
"I take it that little display was your way of telling us that we need to practice on our own?" Kurama asked with a slightly pained expression, his breathing a little rapid and his pale face flushed from his exertion, having been the last of the group to sucessfully melt his target.
"Something like that," she murmured. "At any rate, that's it for today... I have to admit I'm very impressed with the progress you guys have made. Even for a Servent of Gaia, it would take twice as long to gain a mastery of this Element."
"Hn. Somehow I fail to see the magnificence of our acheivements thus-far," Hiei said dryly. "From what you just showed us, we have quite a bit to improve on if we hope to make even a slight degree of affectiveness in battle..."
"True enough, but we have time," she reached out and touched his arm, which she quickly withdrew when he aimed a less than friendly look at her hand. "Don't worry... If you four can keep up this pace, you'll be ready when the time comes."
She turned away and Kurama frowned slightly as he saw the breif look of something like ruefull pain in her eyes that vanished in the blink of an eye as she moved toward the stone and trailed a finger along the smooth, glass-like surface.
"Anyway," she continued after a moment. "You guys can keep practicing if you want, or take the time off until tomorrow... I'll stick around if you need me."
Yusuke cocked his head to the side, noticing that the tone of her voice had changed just a little, but why, he didn't know.
Girls were kinda' weird that way... sometimes, if he asked, they'd get angry and start yelling, even if he didn't do anything wrong... and worse, sometimes they cried, and he wasn't ready to deal with that... So, not knowing what to say or do about it, he chose to leave it alone until she said something...
"Well... I've got enough energy for another round," he said as she turned to face them again.
"Me too," Kuwabara said.
Hiei made no comment, but took his place on Yusuke's left, and glanced over his shoulder at Kurama, who had made no move to begin training again.
The Kitsune saw the inquizitive look and gave his friends a ruefull smile.
"Not me," he said, moving to a large boulder and sitting down with a quiet grunt. "I need a moment to regain my breath..."
Karyuu nodded and turned her opaline eyes to the three and motioned for them to continue with a wave of her hand.
"Go ahead. I'll fix them up for another round when your ready," she said as she came to stand a few feet from where Kurama sat, leaning her hip against the stone, arms folded across her chest as she watched them raise their hands to begin again, watching for a moment before she turned to meet Kurama's gaze when she felt his eyes on her.
He smiled a little and then shifted to scootch over beside her, a motion that seemed to surprise her, though she covered it well.
"So... in all honestly, how well are we doing?" He asked quietly, regarding her with his emerald eyes.
She shrugged and leaned back a little.
"Very well... truthfully, I'm blown out of my socks..." The Kitsune scoffed and she smiled. "No, really... I'm impressed. It took me a year or two to master the Fire Element to the degree that you four have mannaged to reach in just over a month..."
"Yes, but you're naturally at odds with this Element," he reminded her and she shrugged.
"True, but still, you, being alighned to Earth don't have a particularily easy time of it either, but you've deffinitely done it faster than I did."
Kurama smiled a little and glanced at his three team-mates.
In truth, he wasn't as tired he pretended to be, choosing to take the time to speak to the elfin woman while the others practiced.
"You shouldn't pay too much attention to Hiei," he said within the silence of her mind as he pretended to brush dust and grime off of his pants, carefully blocking the fire-demon and the others. "He dosen't like to be touched, and frankly, having you introduced into our little group has him on edge... He dosen't trust people easily, and you make him uneasy. Just give him time to get used to you, and he'll relax a little..."
Karyuu blinked at him, surprised that the Kitsune had taken the time to try and explain his reclusive friend's behaviour... and was trying to make her feel better...
It was a new kind of experiance, and she couldn't help but laugh quietly, a sound that made Hiei turned his head slightly in their direction before returning his attention back to his target which was beginning to glow that distinctive cherry-red.
Kurama cocked his head to the side, smiling a little, but obviously confused as to what he had said to make her laugh.
"What did I say?" He asked in his quiet voice.
"Nothing..."
He nodded a little, not quite convinced, but decided to let it pass as she directed her opaline eyes back toward the other three members of their team.
The red-haired demon was suspicious that this woman had lead a very isolated life, and despite her mask of outward self-confidence, she was, he suspected, in truth, rather nervous and slightly awkward in social situations that didn't deal with business... something that explained why she always looked as if she were expecting her gestures towards friendship to be met with something like disdain or hostility... A thought heightened with the fact that she always sat appart from them when they were eating or resting between bouts of training or removed herself completely when they were at the Temple.
At first, he had thought her behaviour was due to a desire to be left to her own devices, much the same as Hiei was enclined to do, but over the last month, and more recently, the flash of ruefull pain in her eyes at the said fire-demon's withdrawl from her touch, he had realized that it was a sign of shyness rather than personal preference that kept her away from he and the other members of their team.
"May I ask you a question?" He asked after a moment.
She nodded.
"Shoot."
"You seem to know virtually everything about us, and yet we know very little about you," he said within her mind, shifting into a more comfortable possition on the rock beside her, elbows resting on his thighs as he folded his hands, pretending to have his attention focused on the progress of the others. "I'll admit it makes me a little nervous, and I'm wondering how you mannaged to come by the information..."
Opaline eyes turned to look at him ans she smiled.
"I don't know everything about you or anyone else in this group," she replied. "I know more than a complete stranger would, but far from everything... I know that Hiei's Jagan Eye is unnatural; I know Kuwabara's father left when he was little and his mother died when he was only twelve or so; I know that Yusuke was struck and killed by a car and brought back to life, to serve as a Spirit Detective for Koenma, and I know that you were once the best and most feared theif in the Realms... In short, the majority of your life before Yusuke caught you for stealing the Shadow Sword, the Orb of Baast and the Forlorn Hope is pretty much a mystery as far as details are concerned..."
Emerald eyes blinked at her in surprise and she grinned at him.
"Yes, I know about that... But things that happened before then, like what happened to make you so desperate that you jumped into a Human woman's body and took the form of a Human child, acting as her son, is something I don't know," he opened his mouth as if to try and defend himself, but she shook her head, still smiling. "And frankly, it's none of my business. You don't have to tell me if you don't want me to... it's private, and I understand that. I only know about your exploits after you... reformed yourself, so to speak... I know about the Four Saint Beasts, the Dark Tournament and how you risked your life to help Yusuke and the others to smite the evils of the world... Other than that, I don't know much."
"Historical, not personal, correct?"
She smiled at him, and he found what little skepticism he felt dicipating almost immediately.
"Exactly. Gaia gave me the very basic knowledge of each of you, leaving the rest for me to find out through hear-say and personal experiance... Just like a normal person," the elfin woman said, returning her gaze to their practicing team-mates just as Yusuke beat Kuwabra's old reccord, melting his target to a puddle of molten rock. "Are you going to give that another try?"
Kurama hesitated, wanting to speak more with the strange elfin woman and then decided against it.
There would be time later to find out more... possibly even tonight if all went well, and so he nodded and slipped off of the boulder to come to stand beside Kuwabara who was hurridly forcing more heat into his glowing target, attempting to catch up to Yusuke.
"Certainly..."
"Hey, Karyuu? Can you put this one back?" The brown-eyed Spirit Detective asked with a grin. "I broke mine already..."
"Can do," she said and with barely a glance, it reshaped itself back into it's origional form and cooled, the small obilisk standing perfectly unharmed before him.
"Thanks!"
She smiled and gave him a little wave before he returned to practicing.
'She wields so much power with so little effort...' Kurama thought silently, returning his attention to his own target, hand extended as he began to draw on the energy required, absently noticing that Hiei's target had also liquidated, only to be reshaped once again, ready for his next attempt before Karyuu was asked. 'Is it possible that all of us are now capiable of wielding such power, and if so, what extent do those powers reach? How much is she really capiable of, and most importantly, if she veiws her own tallents, impressive as they are, as innadequate, then what sort of strength does our enemy possess?'
Four days later, Kurama would have his answer...

** Author's Note ** Yay! Sombody reveiwed!

Big thanks to Morro and Kitkatt!

Morro - Thanks for the support... lay off the sugar though, okay? I don't want one of my readers hurting themselves on a sugar-high... happened to a friend once, and she had to go to the hospital for stitches after she brained herself on a celing fan while jumping on the bed... >_<

Kitkatt - Thanks a lot for your reveiw!
1). About the 'Mary-Sue' fears about Karyuu: Don't worry, I hate mary-sues too, and I'm trying not to turn her into one as best I can. I swear on all that is good and holy that she won't turn into a cutesy girl-next-door type, or the combat boot, men-hating ass-kicker either.
Granted, there has to be some butt-kicking and deflating of egoes early on, because I'm hoping that you guys will see her more as a kind of teacher-figure helping along the most excelent characters of Yu Yu Hakusho, rather than taking over, (kind of a more involved, and less-wrinkely Genkai), but for the perpouses of the story, she has to become a main character, though Yusuke and the others will stay the main stars of the story. Karyuu is there more as a supporter than as a primary figure (at least I hope I can do that...).

2). Kuwabara: I love the Big-Guy too, so I wanted to make he and the others as accurate as I could... Kuwabara's the 'comedy releif' character of the show, but that dosen't mean he can't be cool at the same time!

3). Kuwabara's telepathy: I thought about how he could talk to Yukina in that episode, but I figured that since he didn't have the Pinky-string-of-love attatched to Yusuke and the others, his telepathic abilities wouldn't be quite as strong, and he'd need a bit of training to help him out... that's what I was thinking, anyway...

4). Don't worry about being blunt, that's what I asked for! And your spelling and that kind of thing are great, so don't worry about that either! I took 4 years trying to learn Spanish, and I still can't remember a damn thing, so kudos to you for actually learning a whole new language!

Much thankies to everyone who read, and extra pudding for Morro and Kitkatt who reveiwed!