This chapter was Beta read by akasoeki.


Chapter Seven: Genkai's Tests-Part Five

The situation was pretty dire.

The demon Rando had crippled Kuwabara, who lay broken on the ground in front of me. Yusuke was tough and had a habit of clinging on til the end, but he'd been pretty tired even before this fight started. He stood between the bystanders and Rando, panting with exhaustion. Genkai was determined to let events play out as they would and Botan just stood on the sidelines, occasionally shouting in fear or encouragement. I knew I didn't have a chance in hell at fighting off Rando. Offensive spells were at a higher level than what I was capable of controlling. I'd learned the barrier trick in defiance of that, but something told me it would take more than tricks to fight off the terrifying demon before us.

I could heal Kuwabara- if not fully, then at least as much as possible- but that would leave me weak and unable to defend myself. I could do the same for Yusuke, but that would also make me vulnerable AND a target, as I'm sure Rando wouldn't be pleased. If Yusuke fell, though, there would be nothing stopping Rando from ripping out my throat and pissing on my corpse. With all the easy routes leading to sudden death, I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Linked as I was with Kuwabara, I decided to deal with him first. With my hand resting on his chest gently, I mentally pushed the sense of pain down until it went from "all encompassing firestorm" to "bonfire" levels, which were much more tolerable by comparison. After that I pulled a barrier into existence around us, this one was stronger than my previous two, corporeal and quite visible to even the untrained eye.

With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and entered fugue state. It switched my view of the barrier until I could see the equations and spinning theory that created it from the mass chaos of symbols, numbers, and intentions that made up my power like grains of sand on a beach. Fortunately, what I needed to modify was relatively simple. I'd already tried it on myself, but since I wasn't the target, it required a bit more thought.

To do what you're thinking you need to draw a symbol on him, Takara's voice cut into my thought process. I didn't have anything to draw with. No ink, no anything, so that didn't really help.

Use your blood, came Byakko's quiet suggestion. He was still sitting right by Kuwabara's head, purring softly.

That would work. We were going to start on blood as a spell component soon, but I didn't think you were going to need such high level spells so early in your training...Takara's voice sounded apologetic in my mind.

I didn't remember the pocket knife until after I bit down hard on my lip. The skin was softer and more delicate there, cutting easily and allowing blood to well up around my teeth without much force.

Now smear a dot on his body, connect the spell to the magic in your blood. The intent is important, and keep a tight hold on it, Takara advised. It'll be stronger than you expect, but if you let go, you could kill him or yourself by accident.

I took a few deep breaths to steel myself against whatever was about to happen. With a slow movement, I touched my fingertip to my bloody lip. The spell was eager to attach itself to the blood and already I could feel it tugging at my core, but I slammed down on it with my will and wiped the blood drop right onto the side of Kuwabara's neck. When it actually flared to life around me, I felt an intense jerk in my being, but held fast, growling in my effort to keep it from going awry. Everything held together nicely and I could feel the link I'd created between Kuwabara and the barrier I cast.

The mechanics of the spell are pretty interesting to me. You've got to set up a perimeter so that any damage done to the barrier doesn't transfer over, collecting instead in the ambient energy, much like the enhancement technique that I had used in my fight with Daisuke. From there, I can tweak it so that the energy is stripped of it's impurities and altered into a healing spell. Because the spell is self contained, it restores health much slower than if I were to just do it myself. It's basically using free energy from the air and I only have to expend what the barrier and link spell costs, which was much less by comparison to what I would need to expend in order to heal Kuwabara's crushed limbs. The kid was gonna be passed out for quite a while, but I'd do my best to restore the use of his limbs as long as Rando didn't kill us before we left the hill.

With that done I turned my attention to the two fighters. Rando was taller in his true form than Shorin was. He had bright red hair and pale off-white skin with dark purple scars and spider veins. There were ultramarine blue markings on his face that vaguely looked like a spider. He wasn't wearing a shirt and stood with his arms crossed over his heavily muscled frame, cocky stance and cruel amused eyes on display.

"Urameshi..." Kuwabara moaned from the ground. "Are you ready to fight...cause I'm ready as soon as you are..."

"Huh, even when losing consciousness, that boy has a one track mind," said Genkai.

Stay with him in the barrier, Byakko. It was worded like an order, but it was more of a request as I freely stepped through the glowing energy field. My own healing link dropped, I felt much more focused as I stood beside the other two women.

"Neat trick, that spell you used. Where did you learn it?" Genkai asked without taking her eyes from the boy and the demon staring each other down.

"The barrier and linking spell I learned from Takara, the spell book. When you explained the special atmospheric conditions of this land I realized I could chain the barrier spell to grow as it collects energy and then absorb the spell back like I normally do, only with more energy; thus gaining back energy my body collects and energy the barrier collects." My eyes flickered over to Genkai, "I would just heal him, but since Rando plans to kill us all, I feel like I must play by a different set of rules than I normally would."

"Hnn," the old woman smirked. "And those would be?"

"No offense, but I wasn't here to learn your technique in the first place. If Yusuke wins he's more than welcome to them..."

"I feel there's a "but" hanging on that statement," Genkai prodded. "Would it have to do with if Rando wins?"

"I'm not going to die so that your power can live on in the strongest moron that happened to make it here. I will resurrect the three fighters on this field in order to protect myself." My senses flared outward until I found Amaru's unconscious form laying thirty feet behind us in the grass.

"That would be quite a feat, girl." Genkai's appraising eyes strayed from Yusuke and his valiant fight, only to press down on me. "How about a deal..." the weight of her gaze returned to the two men facing off on the battleground. "Do not interfere in Yusuke's battle. If he wins I will see what I can do about your curse, but I'd also like to know more about that spell book of yours..."

If Yusuke didn't survive, there was a pretty high chance that neither would Genkai or myself. I could accept her deal, if the boy lost I'd do whatever I had to in order to survive. Until then, I would wait.

"Deal."


"This is always the hardest part..." Rando's voice was soft and calculating as he started walking forward. My attention snapped up to his advancing body and I realized I needed to get ready for the second part of my plan. "Choosing what technique to use first." Yusuke had fallen to his knees by the time Rando was standing in front of him. The boy was just clearly exhausted.

"KICK HIS BUTT YUSUKE!" My yell was loud enough now that they weren't fighting and the demon was just drawing near to him like a circling shark. It wasn't until after I yelled that I realized I'd forgotten the honorific. Well, I suppose if it pisses him off he'll just have to survive this little ordeal and yell at me to my face. I could do no more for him than offer my support before getting to my own tasks.

"I'll be back..." I murmured to Genkai, who nodded, her eyes not straying from the scene before her.

I heightened my senses with a partial fugue state to keep from falling into the marsh water and headed back to Amaru's forgotten form. The ninja was still out cold from his fight with Yusuke. His own strength kept the blasts from killing him, but he was very weak, in a lot of pain, and unable to heal himself. There were lines of tension and agony carved into his sleeping face and I could smell singed skin and the coppery tang of blood as I knelt down beside him.

Unconscious, he was unable to block the mental probing as my prismatic spirit energy focused on him. Ignoring his energy signal, I adjusted my focus to read the extent of the damage his body had taken. The feedback made me cringe. It was much worse than I'd thought. There were dozens of twisted shrapnel bits buried in various sections of muscle tissue from his shoulders down to just above his belly button. Luckily, they had missed his organs. And lucky still was the fact that he was on a mountain with two healers because mundane medicine would not have been able to easily restore full function to the affected areas.

Exposed as we were on the battlefield, I had to risk moving him back to the barrier. With two fighters as powerful as Rando and Yusuke, I didn't want to chance being hit by a stray attack.

Amaru was just a bit taller than me, but his well trained body was much heavier with muscle. Carrying him wasn't an option because I couldn't spare the focus or energy on an enhancement spell when I was going to have to do so much healing right afterwards. I'd have to force consciousness on him and help him walk back. It wasn't going to be pretty, the pain was going to be intense, but it had to be better than bleeding out on the ground while a demon ruthlessly mauled the rest of us.

With a sigh, I moved my hand over to press against his forehead. As long as I was touching him I could suppress the pain enough to keep him from just automatically passing back out, but that meant I had to bear it as was going to suck. A lot.

The blues and whites of the prismatic coloring sparkled brighter and began to join together in a current that vibrated and hummed where our skin was connected. I felt a sharp tearing sensation spread like fire over my chest and down my ribs. It did hurt a lot, but it was still far more bearable than the pain Kuwabara had suffered through. In comparison, it wasn't that bad.

Amaru grunted softly. The lines of pain on his face intensified for a moment, then relaxed. "Nnrrrr," he opened his eyes and looked up at me in confusion and then agitation, "What are you doing to me?"

"Its not safe here. The demon has gone crazy and I'm moving you into the barrier I made so I can heal you," my head tilted in the direction of the battle and his eyes flickered that way.

Once he caught sight of Rando flinging Yusuke around like a yo-yo, his eyes widened. "Oh..." his eyes locked on my face again, "Why are you helping me? You friend almost died fighting me..."

"Look, don't ask stupid questions right now. Wait 'til after we're safe behind the barrier," my tone was firm and I started pulling him up. We both winced at the same pain.

He accepted my help without further comment and we very slowly made our way back to the barrier. Once there, I had to adjust my grip on him and lay my palm on the barrier. I could get through easy, but I had to "tell" it to let Amaru in with me. With that done, I pulled him through and had him lay down on the other side of Kuwabara.

I'd had to let go of him while I moved to sit down and get comfortable for the arduous task of removing each bit of metal. I thought the pain would overcome him for a minute, but he just grit his teeth and shut his eyes in an impressive scowl. I grabbed his hand, the thrum of energy that lessened his pain started buzzing between our joined flesh. His eyes snapped opened and locked on me again, "How are you doing that? It is you, right?"

"Its a link spell, this one splits your pain between the both of us. I needed you conscious," I was starting to understand why all the great wizards were mysterious and never explained anything. It was getting quite repetitive to explain these basic concepts to outsiders. I flicked my energy against him so I could decide where to start, but now that he was awake, he subconsciously blocked my efforts as his gaze seemed to take in the barrier, Kuwabara, and the surrounding area. "Can you not fight me, please. It'll take more energy if I have to force my way in and I'd rather save that for, you know, the healing part..."

He looked at me confused, puzzling out my words, but then it seemed to click behind his eyes. He took in a deep breath that made him wince and let it out slowly. I felt the static energy dissipate and nudged my energy through him again. I worked with one hand, the other was locked tightly in Amaru's grip as he coped with the pain.

Each piece of metal had to be pulled out slowly. Shallow and sluggishly seeping cuts I left for were quite deep and required immediate attention after the jagged metal barb was pulled out. Blood would well up and pour out of him very quickly and I had to use raw energy to cauterize the wound, which was painful, but accurate. It required most of my focus as I didn't want to nick anything important.

I only had a few pieces left when I felt Kuwabara's soul leave his body. I stopped what I was doing and focused on the other boy. His heart was still beating and his lungs were still breathing, but his soul shot up into the air and then zoomed passed Genkai and Botan. There was nothing I could do about that, I just hoped the boy was okay and then went back to work.

I had just pulled out the next piece when a mass of spirit energy threatened to block out my senses and I had to pause entirely until I could focus properly again. The strange energy was human, but a bit of an anomaly and I vaguely recognized it as Yusuke's, only far more unrestrained. Both Amaru and I watched as chunks of (mutant?) fish and bog water seemed to rain down from the sky. Rando did not look pleased.

Kuwabara's soul shot through the barrier and back into his body again. After focusing on him for a few moments to make sure all was well with him, he murmured, "All he needed was a good insult..." Even in his sleep, the boy was one of the most spiritually aware people I'd ever met.

Yusuke wasn't anywhere in sight and Rando was pointing his finger out at the water, waiting for the boy to resurface. There was lethal red energy pooled at the tip of his pale digit. I pulled my attention away and refocused on Amaru's wounds, working a little quicker. I'd just pulled out the last shard when Yusuke's voice echoed over the field.

"Funny thing about swamps!" Yusuke's yelled, "They're just always connected to another one!" He'd made a running leap from one of the marsh shallows behind Rando. By the end of his statement his finger had blue energy pulled into it, like Rando's only more...passionate.

The two shot off their attacks at the same time. Rando's demonic red energy hit Yusuke's blue and it crackled where the opposing energy met. The human boy didn't seem to hold back anything and it was his blue energy that ended up punching a pathway through Rando's attack.

"Do you still think I'm a fool for not taking him out of the fight?" Genkai chuckled, her snark aimed at Botan, as if she'd planned it all along.

I cast my senses out and felt the demonic aura growing stronger and more volatile beneath the surface of the murky water. As the liquid started to boil I focused on Amaru once more. I used the same linking spell on him that I'd used to attach the barrier and it's excess energy into his form. I'd just attached everything and felt down the lines of energy to make sure he was healing properly when the water seemed to explode upwards again.

It evaporated into steam, leaving one highly pissed off demon at the bottom. His red aura was thicker, brighter, and far more ruthless than it had been minutes before when he'd been in a more...playful mood. "You have caused me pain," his voice was low, copper gaze intense, "I do not like that."

"What a fucking hypocrite," my low growl was in English and Amaru's eyes locked on my mouth, knit in confusion. Takara shushed me, but my blood was boiling. This sadist had just spent the last part of his day defining new levels of pain for his last two opponents, but someone gives him a little owie that doesn't even leave a mark and suddenly its serious business?

I couldn't watch as he ruthlessly pummeled Yusuke's non-responsive form. The boy took the beating and laid stunned on the ground where the red headed demon threw him. "Wow, this boy's attack was really something," he started when he had dropped Yusuke to the ground. "I barely have the energy to destroy him."

"Even though I can't move right now, I'm very dangerous," Yusuke warned. I was quickly becoming attached to the cocky brat's quips. I sincerely hoped he made it through this ordeal, but Rando's admission of weakness brought a bit of lightness to my heart.

"Amaru-san, I'm going to restore your energy now. If Yusuke dies, you have to promise me to ruthlessly attack that demon until he's dead. Is this acceptable to you?" My hand was still resting in his as he looked up at my face again.

He thought it over for a few seconds and then smirked, "Sounds like a job, though I suppose I do owe you for the healing..."

"Only interfere if Yusuke-san loses. Kuwabara-san will be up as well. I only have enough energy to restore you guys for..." my consciousness flickered to Takara for a moment, her answer was quick, "Ten minutes. Then, you'll still be healed but your energy will go back to it's current levels and your mind will need a rest." When Amaru nodded in understanding, I squeezed his hand before letting go and getting comfortable for traveling deeper into fugue. Just before my focus turned inward I felt Byakko crawl into my lap and make himself comfortable there, rumbling his little purr against my thigh.


The atmosphere was intense. Rando was talking to Yusuke again, but the younger boy wasn't responding anymore. Genkai watched with seemingly impartial eyes. Botan stood next to her, tense and worried, as she tried to send positive mental vibes to the spirit detective she'd grown so fond of. Sarai's barrier had steadily gotten stronger and brighter even as it siphoned some of it's energy off to the two wounded occupants inside.

Yusuke just laid there as Rando started chanting the same incantation that had made Kuwabara's body so tiny and fragile. It seemed Yusuke didn't have the energy to move and Rando didn't have the energy to properly kill him. He'd just finished the last syllable of his incantation when the most unexpected thing happened.

The blue energy color of Sarai's barrier flared and collapsed from within as it was overtaken by a burst of prismatic energy. It swirled wide around them and licked soothing but tingling trails of energy against Botan and Genkai's backs. Everyone seemed to turn and look at the shocking color spray, but it only lasted for a few seconds before pulling back down and revealing the standing, alert, and conscious forms of a fully healed Amaru and Kuwabara. Sarai was on the ground, legs crossed and head bowed like someone meditating. It was hard to focus on her form, as the prismatic light seemed to be focused there and glowed hot and bright with multi colored sparks of energy cycloning around her like a whirlwind.

"Now that is worth my time..." Genkai murmured.

Before anyone had a chance to do anything, the situation took yet another unexpected turn. Rando started shrinking. He screamed as his form grew smaller, diminishing until he was no bigger than Yusuke's hand.

"How did this happen?!" he screamed.

Amaru walked forward with Genkai and Botan. Kuwabara had been looking down at his arms in amazement, but he strolled forward just behind the others to peer at the tiny menace that had caused him so much pain.

"You're the slave of your own technique," Genkai began to admonish him for not having the foundation and practice to know the limitations and principles of his stolen powers.

Yusuke stood and walked over to the little creep, letting gravity do all the work as he elbow dropped the miniaturized demon. "And that, boys and girls," he murmured, "Is my super elbow drop." He was completely exhausted. "How is it you're up and walking around, Kuwabara?"

"Sarai-san's pretty lights did everything. I feel invigorated!" He pumped his fist.

"It won't last," Amaru intoned. "She said we had about ten minutes before going back to being just as exhausted as before. We were just an insurance policy in case you didn't pull through." His eyes were drawn back to the girl who was deep in a trance.

When Botan finished congratulating Yusuke she looked over as well. "That must be one strange curse..."

Genkai's voice was thoughtful as she spoke, "That's not the curse. That's just who she is. It just so happens that her kind are cursed. I'm surprised she made it to her age without activating it..."

"If we're done here, I'm going to carry her back to the temple before we both pass out. You'll have those two as dead weight as it is..." Amaru's eyes flickered to Genkai.

"Fine," she groused.

As Amaru picked the girl up, a thought, her thought, flickered over his senses and he turned back towards the older woman for a moment, "She says you should check over Kuwabara again. She's never healed such an extensive wound and wants to make sure he keeps full function of his arms."

As Genkai nodded and headed over to the redhead, the ninja disappeared in a flash. He pushed himself to make it back to the temple before they both passed out. He made it in record time.

With a gentle movement, he sat Sarai on the ground and rested her head on the temple wall. He was beside her at a respectful distance, but couldn't help but feel his gaze return back to the riot of color that dazzled his senses.

Eventually, the color flickered around her and died out. He watched as she seemed to return to herself only to be pulled into unconsciousness by extreme exhaustion. A few seconds later, he saw darkness gathering at the corners of his own vision and let himself doze off naturally.


A/N: When I was initially writing this chapter, I finished this one and the two before it in the same night. When my fiance read everything the next day he liked everything, but this chapter and based on his advice I started from scratch and went a new direction. It was pretty awesome, there's an important character element that shows up in this chapter that will be discussed next chapter. Teaser Time: It involves Amaru.

Also: I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who left comments and followed so far!


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