Chapter 8

The next three weeks of difficult training put Hiei into a cursing frenzy. He kept damning her to hell over and over again, and she always just smiled at him. But it wasn't a true smile. It wasn't the real warm one she had shown him when they were back in the room. This was a weak and painful smile, and it hurt him to look at it, even though he didn't know why.

"Why in the hell are we doing this?" he snapped at her. He had to carry her, as she read a large binder of lyrics, as he ran as fast as he could for at least half an hour, if not more, around the training area.

"Rule number 3, Hiei. If you want to control him, you must be physically strong enough to handle the power surging from Kei. Faster!" she barked, as she went back to reading and lip syncing. Hiei growled, but followed as she ordered.

Next, he had to be able to meditate on fire coals as well as needles. "Don't tell me that this is another one of your rules." She smiled at him, and jumped off her own burning embers.

"Yes, actually," she said, her eyes showing a little bit of her coldness, "Rule Number 4. You must be emotionally able to hold the power."

"What does sticking needles in my ass have to do with emotional power?" Yuumei looked as if she was about to slap him hard across the face, but she thought better of it. She sighed, and launched a powerful sieve at least 100 feet away square into the center of the tree trunk. She did it all with her eyes closed. Hiei could not have done that 40 feet away with his eyes open.

"You must be able to hold the pain in the back of your mind. Training to do that strengthens your mind, which helps you be able to speak to your dragon without the power causing your brain to explode, and I mean that quite literally, Hiei." He had shut up after that. She told him all ten rules of Dragons during those three weeks. One was meditating to create and share power, Two was to release the dragon, giving it time to breathe properly and to gain missing strength, Three was to, of course, train the body to become physically strong enough to hold the power of a dragon, Four was to become emotionally strong enough, Five was for your dragon to be both physically and emotionally to handle the stress of being used for battle, Six was to not push your dragon, and it will not push back, as Hiei had so demonstrated his first day of training. He was still sore from that blast. She had skipped seven for some reason, and Hiei didn't bother her about that. He was too busy sitting on embers or running with her on his back to think about that. Eight was to listen to the dragon. If Kei had sensed something, and believed something was wrong, it was Hiei's job to listen and trust the dragon's word. She also kept nine a secret, and Hiei, once again, neglected to mention it. Ten, she said, was the most important rule: to not overuse the dragon's power. Using the power more than you should would kill the dragon.

Yuumei quizzed him periodically on the rules, and he occasionally got them wrong, and he would have to do something that had to go with the rule he had missed.

"Damn you!" he yelled as he felt the burning embers and needles poke at his backside. Yuumei laughed as she watched him try to find a position where it didn't hurt as bad. "Bitch! Hell bringer! Prophet! How long do I have to do this?!" he yelled. The smile dropped instantly on her face, and then she left, saying the one thing he did not want to hear.

"All night, Hiei," she said, walking back into the house, and locking the door behind her. Hiei sighed and tried to concentrate on what he had to do. Bitch! Hell bringer! Prophet! Bitch! Hell bringer! Prophet! Bitch! Hell bringer! Prophet! H continued to scream in his mind until the sun began to rise. When she opened the door, he was inside, eating more of that meat, and then in bed.