Chapter 7

Chasing Revenge Part 1

About an hour before the sun came up, Jin woke up the others and told them to get packing for the ship to the tournament was leaving in three days so everyone tried to hurry and prepare for the second Dark Tournament.

"Do you guys think we'll see some familiar people there?" Kuwbara asked as they waited outside for Touya, Jin and Loreena.

"Who knows, but I doubt it since those new demons appeared," Yusuke shrugged as he relaxed against the oak tree behind the dojo. "But who cares? We'll kick their ass just like last time!"

"Obviously you don't think of the other options," Hiei said to Yusuke.

"What do you mean other options; you're not making sense here!"

"What I mean is that anyone we fought before could've been brought back to kill us! Don't be so naïve detective, you should know better!"

"Whatever Hiei, I'll think what I want!"

"Enough, both of you, now isn't the time!" Kurama hissed, and all was silent. Hiei just shrugged and jumped up into a tree, Yusuke just yawned and stretched out under the tree.

"Yu really want t' leave now Loreena?" Jin asked the Night Maiden as he entered his room, Loreena looked to him but didn't say anything.

"I kno' 's hard fer yu, but yu gotta be strong," he said, now beside her and looking at her with determination in his eyes. "Yu must ferget bout th' past, hidin' ferever won' help yu a' all."

Loreena gave a silent sigh and looked up at him with confused eyes, then looked down again, wishing she could speak again.

But she nodded and pulled her hood over her eyes and smiled at her friend, glad he was around to support her. He took her hand and they left the room to join the others who were waiting.

When the two reached the oak tree behind the dojo, they saw Touya and the others waiting for them…then they took off into the forest to the Black Cross Fortress.

Night came and they were a quarter ways out of the woods, and they set up camp for the night, hoping nothing would distract their mission to reach the boat at the fortress.

After everyone ate, they set up sleeping bags that Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama had provided, but they all were too anxious to sleep, thoughts of the new enemy and the tournament prevented them for sleeping.

After a few hours past, a howling wind and rain storm had picked up and they all had to move to a cave half a mile from there their camp was, hoping they could keep moving within a few hours.

"So much for a night outdoors," Yusuke complained as he tried to sleep, but the rain and wind kept everyone awake.

"How much further until we reach the fortress?" Kurama asked Touya, and the ice demon stared at him for a while, and then spoke quietly.

"It will take us another day and a half or two until we reach the fortress, but I don't know for sure. Loreena is the only one who knows the way there," Touya told the fox demon, noticing everyone wanted to get out of the haunted forest.

"How is she anyway, is she okay from last night?" Kuwabara asked, and Jin nodded, Loreena's back to them as she watched the storm outside.

"She's okay jus' a wee bit shocked is all," Jin explained, but suddenly stood up and looked outside.

"What is it Jin?" Touya asked suspiciously.

"I see somethin' comin' t'wards us."

"Get down everyone now, we can't anyone see us."

Everyone crawled to the back of the cave and lay still, watching a group of dark figures come into view. They were soldiers from the fortress! Since they couldn't hear what was going on, Kurama slowly crawled closer to the front of the cave to listen to the soldier's conversation.

"Are you sure you saw them come this way?"

"Of course you idiot! I've been following them all day, there's no way I could've lost track of them or that wanted slave girl!"

"Fine, take half the group and stay here while the rest of us shall surround the area to prevent any escape!"

"MOVE OUT!"

"YES, LORD JACKNIFE!"

Kurama crawled back to the end of the cave and told the others the situation, he saw Loreena tense up with anger when he mentioned Jacknife's name.

Loreena's claws extended and everyone felt the cave get cold with the Night Maiden's spirit energy, but Jin put his hand on hers and shook his head but she ignored him and crawled closer to the rainy scene outside.

Jacknife looked around carefully as he wandered in the forest by the cave, listening intently for Loreena to come out and fight him or try to kill him, so he decided to make things for interesting.

"Slave of the Night Maidens, I want to show you something that would be worth your attention!" he called out to the quiet forest, reaching his hand into the pack strapped to his side.

He heard nothing, but somehow knew she was watching and listening and he pulled them out, three bloody decapitated heads.

"Here they are you lowlife slave, the three heads of your family that we killed just before you escaped…" He paused for a moment and looked around, smirking as he felt her energy pulse everywhere, knowing she was listening.

"After you left slave, they told me in my dreams to take them with me while I searched for you, orders from my brother DarkEyes. It seems that they aren't happy with your disappearance, even though you wished them dead."

Loreena was shocked as she listened to his words, he was lying! She had loved her family and never wanted them dead, but she just crept closer until she was outside in the pouring evening rain.

While she heard his laughter and words of revenge and killing, she jumped into the trees and looked for the soldiers that looked around for her.

It took her a few minutes before she found the large group of the thickly armored soldiers surrounding the area where Jacknife stood. But she smirked as she made her energy pulse invisible and got to work.

She extended her claws till as far as they could go and grabbed the standing soldier under the tree she was in, and sank her claws into the soldier's throat, only the faint sound of squirting blood could be heard in the roaring thunderstorm.

So she used her assassin skills she had learned from secretly watching the four master's train during the day while her race were sleeping in agony. She watched them train and learned the moves they made from when she first arrived at the fortress shortly after she had turned fifty.

(Remember…that's like four years old in this story!)

She slit their throats and ripped their armor to pieces with catlike grace and the silence of a highly skilled assassin until nothing stood in her way of getting revenge on one of the hellish masters of the Black Cross Fortress.

But Jacknife was quicker as he threw a small dagger in her direction; barely missing her right eye, then she jumped out from the trees and ran towards Jacknife, who had dropped the heads of her family.

While she and the demon master fought, Jin and the others had surrounded the area and watched in shock of how she had perfected and blocked every move that the ice youkai had put on her, even Jacknife was shocked himself.

'How could she know all the moves that my brothers and I have perfected? The forest was fully surrounded and secure!' he thought but his mind froze with the realization of what she had used to get close to them while they trained.

'No…she couldn't have…its impossible…'

He was caught off guard as Loreena lunged at him with her claws and slashed his left eye, causing him to scream in pain as he covered his now leaking eye.

Jin and everyone else could only watch in shock of what happened next…

Loreena's body had become embraced by the dark power of the ultimate attack she had used against Ryshio and everything went pitch black.

Jacknife slowly looked up to see everything pitch black, and a cold shiver sliced through his body as he felt a dark energy more intense then he ever felt before.

But he smirked as he realized what she was doing and simply waved his hand in front of Loreena's floating figure and everything around them was visible again.

"I should've known you would use that attack, but how stupid of you," he whispered with a cold laugh as he stood up and walked towards her, not caring anymore about his bleeding eye. "We knew about that power ever since you unleashed it when you were younger, and we can control it now matter how strong you are."

Loreena snarled silently and charged at him again with abnormal demon speed and slashed her claws across his abdomen, causing his ice colored blood to spill all over her black kimono.

"Very impressive slave…but let me show you what I can do," Jacknife whispered as he removed his ninja mask and opened the eye that the dagger had destroyed earlier to reveal a sick looking destroyed blue eye.

(REMEMBER IN THE BEGINNING WHEN LOREENA THREW A DAGGER AT RATHAN AND JACKNIFE BEFORE SHE FELL DOWN THE CLIFF? YEP, IT HIT JACKNIFE IN HIS LEFT EYE.)

His damaged eye started to glow and his energy started pulsing around everyone so hard no could hardly breathe since Jacknife's energy was poisonous to most demons.

"Blizzard of Purgatory," he whispered and everything went dark while the temperature severely dropped to below zero, then without warning, a huge blizzard of ice spikes sharpened to perfection flew straight for the defenseless Loreena.

"LOREENA!" Yusuke yelled over the storm.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Kurama shouted at the frozen Night Maiden.

But it was too late, the fury of spikes was already within range where escape was no longer an option, Loreena just stood there in frozen terror as the spikes hurled at her…then plunged into her entire body in less than three seconds.

TO BE CONTINUED…