Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Battle Lord Chronicles: Of Truths and Lies ❯ Of Fights and More Fights ( Chapter 36 )

A/N: Back again! And we finally get to Kristy's fight in this chapter (grins) The fight gave me a bit of trouble, but I think that I'm glad with how it turned out. Well, without further ado, please read, review, and enjoy! Ja ne!

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any related names or items. Kiara is owned by Yusuke'sSister.

 

Claimer: I do own the plot line, the title, the Kuro Tournament, Kristy, Jason, Jessica, Chris, Bashere, Rhurac, and anything else related to them.

 

"Talking"

'Thinking'

'Telepathy'

 

Thanks to my beta reader, Anna Jaganshi.

 

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Of Truth & Lies

 

Chapter 36

Of Fights and More Fights

 

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Crap, I couldn't help but think as I worriedly bit my lip. Kiara was the one out of all of them whom knew who my team really was. What was she going to do?

 

With a frown on his face, Jin took a step forward. "I'll fight her," he said, glancing at Jason and I. "You still have fights that you need to take care of."

 

Jason nodded mutely as he followed Jin's gaze over to where Yusuke and Hiei were standing, waiting for their turns to fight. Then, without another word to us, the read haired wind youkai moved forward into the middle of the arena. Things were really getting serious now that there were only a couple of fights left in the finals and the Reikai Tentai and us were tied.

 

As Jin and Kiara stood before each other, I could see the serious, contemplative look that was plastered over the hanyou's face. I couldn't really tell what she was thinking, and, honestly, I wasn't sure that I wanted to know. Before my thoughts could go much further though, the announcer called out the start of the match.

 

Immediately, Jin gathered up some of his wind, preparing to fight, but it was then that Kiara did the unexpected.

 

"I forfeit."

 

Instantly, my jaw dropped open in shock. Even Jin looked surprised, and not the least bit relieved. Of all the things that Kiara could have done, this was not one of the things that I'd have expected, even with her earlier talk of the team forfeiting.

 

Apparently, Yusuke shared similar sentiments. He started waving his arms around wildly and yelling, though I couldn't make out exactly what he was saying from this distance. Kiara, however, didn't even bother to look at him. Her eyes downcast, she began to trudge toward the doors of the infirmary. Jin walked alongside her in a respectful silence, understanding the difficult choice that she had made.

 

Meanwhile, the crowds had erupted into angry whispers. They couldn't understand what was going on; though the first match had been pretty good, it had ended by forfeit, the second match had been a bit of a dud, and now the third match didn't even involve any fighting! Considering as there'd probably been barely any forfeits in the tournament so far, to have this happen during the finals was probably very annoying, not to mention confusing.

 

As Kiara and Jin left the field, Yusuke was left fuming and confused. I ignored his reaction--however amusing it may be--in favor of turning toward my brother. I didn't get further than opening my mouth though, when Jason spoke.

 

"Yusuke is the captain," he said. "I'll take him."

 

I nodded in reply; that was what I had expected. I turned back to look at the Reikai Tentai and suddenly paled. Only Yusuke and Hiei were left. And if Jason was going to be fighting Yusuke...

 

...I was going to have to fight Hiei.

 

It was, of course, at that moment that Hiei began to step forward. I bit back a groan, attempting to shove my worries away, and took a single step forward.

 

I hesitated then, but only for a moment. Why did I really care so much about fighting Hiei? Once I beat him--and I would beat him--he wouldn't be killed or anything. I would just have to be careful about not hurting him too badly.

 

Taking a breath and then letting it out, I proceeded forward, my eyes locked on Hiei. It seemed to take hours for me to reach him. Each step that I took seemed to reverberate through the stadium. I could hear my breaths echoing in my mind. I knew this was all really just my mind hyping me up for the fight, but that didn't change the way that I currently perceived things.

 

Finally, after the eternity that it took to cross the arena, I stopped before Hiei. He was expressionless as usual, but if you looked really closely, you could see the smirk twitching at the corner of his lips and the anticipation glinting in his eyes--I could tell that he was looking forward to this fight. It's kind of funny though; even just a few months ago I wouldn't have noticed those sorts of things.

 

I was woken sharply from my reverie by the yell of the announcer. Even as "shihajimeru" echoed through the stadium, both Hiei and I shifted into battle stances, our hands gripping our katana. For a moment neither of us moved. We were both waiting for something--what exactly, I wasn't sure.

 

Finally, in a flurry of movement, we both moved forward. Our blades slid smoothly out from their sheathes and then met with a clang. Quickly, I twirled around, my blade making a screeching sound as it drug against Hiei's, and struck on his other side. Hiei was quick though, and he immediately twisted downwards, deflecting my blade away and thus blocking my attack. Without even pausing, Hiei continued the motion that his katana was already in, bringing it back toward me in a wide sweeping motion.

 

I didn't have time to block the strike--not at the speed that it was moving. I wouldn't be able to bring my sword up in time. Instead, I moved backwards just in time to see Hiei's katana swipe by, missing my face by mere inches. As a few hairs from my bangs floated slowly to the ground, I momentarily thanked Kami that my hair was still back in a braid and thus out of my way. I stumbled back a couple more steps, re-catching my balance, and then lunged into the fight.

 

As Hiei and I fought I quickly found that the crimson eyed youkai was fast. Very fast. Faster than anything that I'd ever seen before. Granted, Ty had actually probably been faster, but the neko youkai had been playing around with me when we fought, so I'd never gotten to see his true speed.

 

I was lucky in that I could just barely keep up with Hiei. He was fast, yes, but I was too and I was able to block almost all of his attacks. A frown on my face, I continued to keep up with him as much as I could.

 

As we fought, the world seemed to narrow down to just the two of us. The sounds of the crowd around us disappeared, as did the harsh morning light. Instead, all I could hear was the clang of steel on steel as our blades met, the shuffle of the dirt beneath our feet as we moved around, and the sound of our deep, quick breaths as we fought. All I could see was the two of us, fighting like we'd never fought before.

 

Strike. Block. Block lower. Twist to the side. Slash from above. Duck beneath his blade. Slip under his guard. Block to the side. Quickly slice upward.

 

Sword fighting really was like a dance, I offhandedly realized. And it wasn't just because of your quick footsteps as you moved around. No, rather, it was because of the way each motion flowed from one to the next. A slash became a block, and then a block became a second attack, from a different angle. This repeated, again and again, until you didn't even think about what you were doing. You just did it.

 

In a way, it was almost like poetry.

 

After a couple more minutes I let out a sigh. At the rate things were going, I was going to tire out long before Hiei would, which really wasn't good. And so, with a flick of my wrist and a pulse of my youki, my katana was wreathed in flames.

 

To my surprise however, Hiei didn't even blink at the sudden change in my sword. In fact, he smirked! Then, with a flick of his own wrist, his katana too was covered in flames. I felt my eyes widen marginally and then narrow. So Hiei was a fire youkai too? Interesting...

 

With a flash of steel, mine and Hiei's blades clashed once more. This time though the stakes had raised a bit.

 

As we fought, I concentrated on my hands. Then, just as Hiei pulled away from his last strike, I suddenly shot one hand out toward him.

 

Instantly, shadows stretched outward from my hand in the form of a tangible, black writhing mass. They stretched out in the air and then quickly snapped forward, wrapping around Hiei's wrist. Hiei immediately attempted to pull away, of course, but there was now a thick, unbreakable rope of shadows in between us. I grasped tightly onto my end of the rope, smiling as the shadows began to twist their way up Hiei's arm.

 

Hiei had a look of shock plastered across his face as he stared at the shadows. For a moment I thought that it was because he hadn't known that I could use shadows, but considering as he was one of the Reikai Tentai, I highly doubted that that was the case. And besides, I thought that I might have used them in front of him once before. No, I believed that he was surprised because he'd never seen tangible shadows before. Even Jason had been shocked when I'd first shown a talent for using them, even though I couldn't control them to a very large extent.

 

Hiei's expression of shock only increased as I suddenly yanked on the rope of shadows, causing him to stumble forward slightly. I made to slash at him, but, after regaining his balance, Hiei quickly blocked my attack with a single arm, just as I'd expected.

 

I continued on with the plan that had formulated in my mind just minutes before by suddenly jerking my shadow rope upward and towards me. This motion used Hiei's stance against him--he was leaning forward slightly--and pulled his feet out from underneath.

 

This time however it was Hiei's turn to shock me. As he fell forward he turned sharply, causing me to fly over him and toward the ground.

 

I cursed myself--and gravity--as I fell. I had no choice but to let go of my shadows or I would find myself pierced on the end of Hiei's katana. Making my choice not to be a shish kabob, I let my shadows go and they quickly dissipated into thin air. I then twisted my body so that I landed on the balls of my feet on the other side of Hiei.

 

As soon as we straightened ourselves Hiei and I quickly moved away from each other. We circled warily for a moment, before leaping at each other once more. This time however, I slowly began to mix in both fire and shadow attacks into our fight. Hiei was caught off guard at first, but quickly adjusted.

 

It was my turn to be surprised however when, just a moment later, I suddenly found a blast of white hot flames headed for my face. At the last moment I managed to bat the flames away with my own ball of flames. Unfortunately, this also had the effect of causing a large explosion when the flames met, sending both Hiei and I flying backwards.

 

As I picked myself up off the ground, I couldn't help but grin widely at Hiei. So he was an accomplished fire youkai too, eh? Well that just made things infinitely more interesting. As if sensing my thoughts, Hiei returned my grin. His, however, was more of a barring of teeth than anything else. Come to think of it, I'd never really seen Hiei smile before. Smirk, yes, but not smile.

 

I was abruptly torn out of my musing as Hiei dashed forward once more, one fist flaming while the other held his katana out toward me. In response I brought my own blade up in defense. When Hiei finally reached me I blocked his sword with a loud screeching clang that echoed throughout the stadium and ducked under his punch at the same time. It flew over my head with barely even an inch to spare. I then moved to sweep his feet out from under him, but he leapt away before I could. Hiei and I circled each other for another moment before leaping at each other once more, quickly becoming mere blurs.

 

The two of us continued to fight fiercely, seemingly stalemated. He may have been the more experienced swordfighter, but what I lacked in experience I more than made up for with my other abilities. And since we also were about equal in speed, that put on at least a more even ground than I'd been on with Ty.

 

Finally, after several more minutes Hiei pulled away from me, a frown on his face. He seemed to be torn in indecision for a moment, before finally sighing in resignation. I watched him warily; unsure of what he was going to do.

 

Imagine my surprise when Hiei suddenly began to pull of the bandages around his right arm. I was only partially surprised at this since Hiei never takes off those bandages, but was more surprised at the fact that he was doing so now. What. The. Heck.

 

My surprised increased exponentially when then bandage dropped to the ground, revealing a tattoo of a black dragon wound all around his arm. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. I'd never have thought that Hiei would have a tattoo; that seemed to be more of something that Yusuke would do. At the same time however, my eyes narrowed. There had to be something more to this...

 

My suspicions were proven to be correct when the tattoo almost seemed to come alive. It lifted off Hiei's arm and seemed to form itself into a real live dragon with a dark aura hanging around it.

 

I took a step backwards, my mouth hanging open as I stared at the enormous black dragon growling down at me. "Holy shit!"

Seeing my shock, Hiei grinned viciously. I had no time to focus on him however as at that moment the dragon suddenly lunged at me, sweeping down from above. Using every ounce of my speed I dodged to the side, creating some fire as I did so. My fire had little effect however, as the dragon simply opened its maw and spewed out a breath of black flames which quickly overwhelmed my own. The dragon had been successful however and I'd managed to get away from the dragon without a scratch...Well, at least for the time being.

 

Seeing that I was gone, the dragon quickly swept around toward my direction. This time it used its tail to abruptly lash out at me. Surprised, I was unable to completely dodge away in time--especially considering its surprising quickness--and was caught on the side. I hissed in pain as the black dragon's tail retracted, my arm coming up to hold the bleeding gash.

 

When the dragon moved to strike again I darted away. At the same time I lifted one arm in a jerky motion up towards the dragon. Following my motion shadows from beneath were the dragon stood rose upward and wrapped around the dragon's neck, pulling him downward. The dragon roared in fury and brought his claws up to his neck to tear at whatever was holding him down, but his claws just went straight through the shadows and into his own neck instead.

 

The dragon screamed once more, though this time in pain, and suddenly seemed to be shrinking back in on itself. Before I knew it the black dragon had wrapped back around Hiei's arms, becoming a motionless tattoo once more.

 

As soon as the dragon was gone, Hiei staggered backwards a couple of steps. An expression of pain and exhaustion was clear on his face for a moment before he managed to right himself. Once he had he glared angrily at me. I couldn't help but let a small smirk come over my face.

 

'Ha! Take that!' I thought gleefully.

 

My smirk quickly fell however. Hiei may be exhausted now, but I was as well and Hiei was still stronger than me. Though I didn't like it, I knew that only a psychic attack could help me now.

 

I took a deep breath, preparing myself for this. Then I quickly reached out towards Hiei's mind, preparing to enter--

 

--Only to slam into a metaphysical brick wall.

 

I gasped aloud in surprise as my eyes flew open and I stumbled back a couple of steps. I looked up to stare at Hiei in shock and found that he was now the one smirking at me in triumph.

 

I was in a slight state of shock. What the heck. This had never happened before! Not even Mr. Rawl's shields had been able to block me and due to Mr. Rawl's training I should have been able to slip around anyone's walls anyway! My eyes narrowed as I stared at Hiei. He knew something. I could tell by the amused look in his eyes that he did. The only question was what. What was stopping my psychic abilities?

 

As Hiei readied his katana for another attack, I let out another deep sigh. I had no choice now. If I wanted to have even the slightest chance at winning this fight, I was going to have to us it. My last resort.

 

Astral projection.

 

I breathed out once more and then, just as Hiei began to run at me, pulled entirely out of my own mind. As my body crumpled to the ground, Hiei's steps faltered. After a moment he finally slowed to a stop, staring at my motionless figure.

 

Meanwhile, I began to head towards Hiei. As soon as I reached him I dove into his mind. Fortunately, this time I met no resistance at all and soon found myself standing within a long, dark hallway. The temperature was quite warm, but, being a fire youkai myself, it had no effect on me.

 

I made my way to Hiei's youkai room in record time. As I reached out for the door's handle however, I suddenly froze. My instincts were screaming at me, telling me to leave, to not open the door. For perhaps the first time ever I pushed the feeling away, purposefully ignoring my instincts, and turned the handle and stepped into the room.

 

As soon as I was inside I felt as though I'd suddenly gone blind. The room was completely pitch black to the point that even with my advanced eyesight I couldn't see my hand an inch from my face. Cautiously I began to inch my way forwards, my hand held out before me. The door to Hiei's conscious room should be straight across the way, so if I just moved in a straight line--

 

Abruptly a cold wind brushed by me, causing goose bumps to break out all across my skin. I paused in my step for a moment, my hand lowering slightly in my confusion. Wind? How could there be wind here?

 

I froze completely as I suddenly felt an icy cold hand on the back of my neck, sending chills down my spine. Panic set into my mind and all thoughts left me as a deep male voice laughed lowly in my ear. I could feel his breath tickling my ear.

 

"Well, what do we have here?" he asked, dark amusement clear in his voice.

 

My eyes widened. That was not Hiei's voice.