Last chapter, I noticed a plot hole: Gyna leaves to fill up the teapot with water, even though she is a water demon. She did this because she is still tired from using her powers, so she didn't want to use them again. Also, when Haru says: Chick is a very discriminatory title. Call them wenches," is the exact thing my sister said to me one time. I was talking about some girls at school, and I call girls chicks (even though I am female) and my sister said, "Chick is a very discriminatory title. Call them wenches." I thought it was hilarious. Okay, anywho, onto the disclaimers!
I do not own Fruits Basket, Yuyu Hakusho, or um, anything else that is licensed. I own Gyna, her friends and family, and Neko-Koorime owns Sumiko Takashi.
Cursed Blessing
Chapter 7
With Gyna studying, and Hiei sitting in an emo silence, the kitchen was very quiet, with just the occasional rustle of cloth, of the sound of a page turning. Then came a clunk on the door, startling both demons.
"Hiei-" Gyna didn't get to finish her sentence, for as soon as he has heard the noise, Hiei was gone. Gyna's stomach was still tightened in knots as she heard footsteps on the floor. It was her father but… there were two more pairs of footsteps wit him. She closed her eyes, letting her sense spread out. She felt her fathers' demonic energy, but there were two humans with him. Gyna's first thought was fear.
Oh please no, please no, I'll be good, I'll stay out of everybody's way, just please let it not be them, oh please.
It seemed that whatever deity Gyna was praying to wasn't listening.
Her father walked in. Gyna stared as two people she never thought she'd see again walked into the kitchen. The woman standing right behind her father, Samuel, was thin, blonde, and tight-lipped. Her name was Vivian. The girl behind the two was Gyna's age. Also blonde, a bit on the heavy side, preppy, with her lips in a permanent pout. Her clothes revealed a wide expanse of fatty stomach. Gyna's immediate thought? That is not something I need to see so soon after eating.
Gyna sprang up, almost knocking the chair over. She glared in shock, anger, and astonishment.
"What are they doing here?"
"Did you not teach the bumpkin manners?" Vivian asked, as if she were much better bred than Gyna.
Samuel shrugged. "It was her mother."
Fury rose in Gyna. Whenever that woman was around. Her father would act as if she and her mother were mistakes. The anger grew until it consumed. She bit her lip until it bled to keep from screaming at him. How he could be sober and be with this woman was a mystery to Gyna.
"What are you doing here?" she hissed, wiping the blood from her cheek. For once she didn't check to see if Hiei was listening.
Surprisingly, Vivian answered. "Well, Jackie and I were out, and Samuel was out, and we ran into each other, and Samuel promised to not be a drunk anymore, and we got together again.
When Gyna's mother had died, Samuel had become an alcoholic. He'd gone through a six-month period of soberness, married Vivian, who already had Jackie. Then, he started drinking again and Vivian left. Apparently her stepmother was back.
"Now, my dear," said Vivian in a sickly sweet voice. Gyna's jaw clenched. She hated it when people called her 'dear.' "Let's not have a repeat of last time, okay honey? No more of your… unusualness, alright?"
Gyna glared, long nails biting gouges in her palms. Blood dripped onto the floor. The water and ice in her and Hiei's glasses began to shake. The water left over in the sink, and the few drops on the floor began to shake too. The rain suddenly pounded harder on the roof, smashing into the windows. The panes of glass began to rattle from the force of the water hitting them.
"Do you mean this unusualness?" she hissed icily. Her hair suddenly turned all silver.
"Gyna, calm down!" yelled Samuel over the loud rain. Slowly, the water stopped shaking, and the rain eased up considerably. "That's better. Now, they'll be moving in, of course, so you'll have to share your bathroom with Jackie." Samuel suddenly noticed that there were two plates of food on the table. His eyes narrowed. "Who was here?"
"My friend brought me homework, and I invited him in for lunch."
"Him?"
"Yes, him."
"Why did he have to bring you homework?"
"Would you stop giving me the third degree? He brought me homework because I stayed home from school today."
Vivian spoke up. "Gyna, skipping school is bad for you."
"I didn't skip. This morning I didn't feel good, and I was really tired, so I stayed home."
"You didn't feel good so you made him lunch?" spat Samuel, incredulous.
"I felt better after I slept all day."
"You keep changing your story," said Vivian.
Gyna grabbed her book and began to walk up to her room. "This good-cop, bad-cop routine? Very entertaining. Needs a bit of work though. There seems to be an unwelcome third party in the house."
"Gyna! Come back here and apologize for being rude!" yelled Samuel, but Gyna was halfway up the stairs.
"You're all bakas," she said, then he heard her door close.
"What does baka mean?" asked Vivian.
"It means fool," said Samuel, using the nicer meaning of the word. He was certain she had not meant that meaning.
Gyna sat on her bed, fists clenched, body tense. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. The breaths just succeeded in making her even angrier. She needed to fly. Gyna hadn't flown in a long time, but this rainstorm was the perfect time.
Swiftly, Gyna changed into form-fitting black jeans, and a white tank top, with ragged holes cut in the back. It was easier to have the holes cut earlier so her wings didn't have to burst through skin and cloth. She opened her window, and wet wind rushed into her room. She had one foot out the window, when the door opened, and in walked Vivian. Gyna glared.
"What do you want?"
"Let's get one thing clear, Gyna. As your stepmother, you must obey me. No more rebelliousness. No trouble. No displays of how much of a freak you are."
Gyna's eyes hardened. "I am not a freak. I could kill you if I had the whim. Do not expect me to just submit to you." With that, Gyna turned back to the window and jumped out of it, arms spread wide. Vivian ran to the window just in time to see Gyna soar into the sky, red-black dragon wings spread from her back. Crimson blood ran down her back where the wings had burst through the skin. Eventually, if Gyna used her wings often enough, they could come out without making her bleed. Vivian glared and slammed the window shut before stalking out of the room.
Gyna soared into the sky, the rain soaking her. She twisted and dipped, letting the incessant pounding of the rain calm her. It ran through her, as if she were made of wind. Anybody else caught in the rain would have felt that the icy, pounding drops were annoying, but not Gyna. To her, each drop had a life, a story. Gyna let her sense be overcome by the water.
She climbed. Higher and higher she flew, until the air was pure. She climbed higher still, until she could barely breath. She then pointed towards the ground, folded her wings close to her body, and plummeted.
Hiei had been following her, and he now stood at the top of a two hundred foot tree, watching the girl fall. She had her eyes closed, and Hiei thought she'd passed out. When she was about a hundred feet above him, he jumped, ready to catch her. A few feet before he got to her, her eyes opened and she gasped, wings already spreading. She couldn't stop them, and she slammed full force into Hiei. They fell, Gyna struggling for control against the wind currents who, a few seconds before, had been her friends, but now seemed intent on killing her and Hiei.
Down for a hundred feet, until Gyna finally grabbed a branch about halfway down the tree, and grabbed Hiei's hand with her other hand. The impact nearly wrenched her arms out of their sockets, and Gyna gritted her teeth. Her wings had gotten caught in the branches, leaving them stranded.
"Well… this is fun." Gyna closed her eyes, and her wings eased back into her back.
With a snap the branch Gyna had been hanging onto broke, Hiei and Gyna fell to the ground, neither able to recover in time to stop it. Gyna's fall was cushioned by the fire demon, however.
Her skin was cool, but not cold, as he'd expected it to be. She was soaked, but didn't seem to mind. Hiei had to force a blush down as he realized that she was wearing white, and she was soaked.
Gyna stood up, soaked clothes clinging to her body like a second skin. She turned around and offered Hiei a hand, pushing wet silver hair back from her face. He ignored the hand and stood up. Gyna rolled her eyes, and turned towards her house, which happened to be right in front of them.
"Remember Hiei, come in tonight, or else you'll get sick and die." Gyna opened the door to her and house, and with a jaunty little wave behind her, walked inside and closed the door. Hiei jumped up into his usual tree, and settled down for a few hours of miserable cold until he could go inside.
Gyna closed the door behind her, and walked into the house.
"Gyna! Where have you been?" snapped her father from the living room where he'd been watching TV.
"Oh, you know, what I do in my spare time. Robbing, killing, cow tipping, you know, all that fun stuff." Samuel mouthed several words, but couldn't seem to come up with a response. Especially to that last one.
Genius Gyna. Pure genius, she thought to herself, walking into the kitchen to find Jackie eating her pocky. Of course, as any person knows, that is a serious sin that must be punished for.
"What are you doing?" Jackie glanced up at her, then continued eating. "That's my pocky."
"I don't see your name on it." Gyna grabbed the empty box from the table and turned it towards her. 'Gyna' was written clearly in permanent marker. Jackie shrugged. "Oh well. You have to learn to share you know. All thought I guess they don't teach sharing to freaks in preschool."
That was it. Gyna had had it. "Listen, you fat slut, and listen well, if all that fat hasn't clogged your ears." Jackie opened her mouth, but Gyna cut her off. "This is my house, and as far as I am concerned, you and your mother are unwelcome guests. Personally, I couldn't care less what you do, as long as you leave my stuff alone, and stay out of my way!" Unfortunately, she had said this just as Vivian and Samuel had walked in.
Rage spread across Samuel's face as Jackie burst into tears. "Gyna, you're grounded!"
"From what, all the parties I get invited to? All the social gatherings I go to?"
"Yes!"
"Do you have any idea what kind of screwed up misconception you have of my life?" Gyna turned and stalked out of the room up to her bedroom. When she got there, she locked her door, opened her window, and gestured for Hiei to come in. He did so, shivering violently. Gyna got towels for him. After he'd dried himself off a bit, she finished the job with a wave of her hand, then thrust a blanket at him. All of this was done without talking.
He sat against the wall, sword leaning against on shoulder, blanket covering his shivering frame. He felt like a pervert as he watched Gyna walk around her room. She was still wearing her wet clothes. He could see through the tank top, and he jeans were so tight on her they looked sewn on. Gyna paced, letting her anger run out of her into the floor. She reached down and touched the hem of her shirt, then remember Hiei was in her room.
"I'm going to take a shower," she said, then left the room, shutting it behind her. Hiei took a deep calming breath and let it out slowly. This girl was different. She was fundamentally different. Twenty minutes later, she came back, wet hair dripping, wearing a towel. She grabbed some clothes and changed in her walk in closet. Coming out, she had on a long sleeved white shirt with a short-sleeved black shirt under it, and pajama pants.
She sat down, facing Hiei, trying to breathe calmly. Hiei saw it was an effort to stop pacing, she was that angry.
"Keeping your anger locked inside of you is not a good idea." Gyna took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
"What am I supposed to do then Hiei?"
"Train."
"Train?"
"Yes. Until you exhaust yourself."
Gyna looked to the side, looking uncomfortable. "Hiei, I can hold my own in a fist fight with humans… but I don't know how to use any weapons, especially a sword." Hiei raised an eyebrow, and Gyna looked down.
"Why did you mention a sword?"
Instead of answering, Gyna stood up and walked to her closet. Hiei followed her, and saw that inside of it was a small alter for her mother. On a stand on a wooden box, sat two katanas. Samurai katanas, one short, one long. Hiei was very impressed. His sword was forged by demons, and he knew that katanas like these cost thousands, if not millions of dollars in the human world. Without even unsheathing the swords, he could tell they were in perfect condition. Gyna sensed his unspoken question.
"They were my mothers. My father was going to get rid of them, but I begged him not to. Eventually, he let me keep them, but he refused to let me learn how to use them."
"Do you want to learn?" Gyna turned her head so fact her neck cracked. She was staring up at him in astonishment.
"Can you teach me?"
Hiei nodded, then turned and went back to his spot on the floor. "Change into something flexible, take your katanas, then we will leave. Gyna nodded. When she came out of the closet, she was wearing the black t-shirt, and slightly more stable black pants then her pajama pants. The binding on the swords was a dark red instead of the usual dark blue. She held the swords firmly but gently, and Hiei knew in that moment that these swords were her treasure, and she would guard them with her life. Hiei stood up, opened the window, and stepped out of it. Gyna followed him. The rain had eased up till it was a light drizzle. Hiei turned his back to her.
"Get on."
Gyna was confused. "What?"
"Get on." It clicked. Gyna shook her head violently.
"Uh-uh. Nope. No way."
Hiei looked over his shoulder at her. "On. Now. If you do not, it will take you a long time to walk to that training ground." Gyna sighed, resigned, and climbed onto his hot back, gripping her swords tightly. Hiei wound his hands under her legs, keeping her on his back. Gyna wrapped her arms tightly around his neck after securing her swords to make sure they wouldn't fall off.
Without warning, Hiei took off. Gyna, who had never moved at this speed before, had her eyes closed tight, arms almost choking Hiei. About thirty seconds later, Hiei stopped, and Gyna fell off, nearly dropping her swords. When she had regained hr sense of balance, and assured herself that she was not still moving. When she had, she stood up and looked around her. They were in a large clearing, surrounded by dense trees. She raised an eyebrow at him. He ignored it.
"So… do we just hang out?"
"We are going to train."
"Ah."
Okay, wow, for me, that was up quick. Review! Reviews make me happy!
Next time: Training! With Hiei!
