Author's note: To all of You who have reviewed my story thus far, thank you! If it weren't for you I would not keep writing. I really appreciate it and I would hug and kiss you all if I could. I hope you continue to enjoy the story. So this chapter has changed a LOT from the original version of this story that was up in the past. (I also put in a nice little twist at the end ^_^) if you have ANY questions at all about this story and anything in general feel free to ask, I would love to answer you. Also any suggestions would be greatly welcome, I kind of suck at writing. Oh yeah, I got a review saying something about a weird spelling error, please let me know what it was so I can correct it, I usually don't notice them unless my spell check shows them, I don't proofread. If I proofread I would end up changing the whole thing, it's a fact, lol. Anyway, if I take to long to update, feel free to review or email constantly telling me to get my ass to work because you won't make me mad, you'll just make me actually do it.

I tried to make Sesshomaru more like himself than I did in the last one and thus far I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it. He isn't in this chapter as much but it makes more sense to me this way.

Chapter 8

Kira stood motionless before the demon. She wasn't sure if she should scream or run or do both, but Kiba's warm smile made her think that maybe it wasn't so dangerous to be stuck here. Sesshomaru had ordered him to train her; surely he wouldn't let her die, would he?

"So, Kiyoshi is it?"

Kira just nodded, still too frightened to speak.

"Well, let's see, where to start." He turned to look back at his students who were now standing behind him staring at Kira oddly. A couple of them looked hungry, she shivered. "Go, find something better to do than gawk." He turned back to Kira, "As for you, come with me; you seem to be too much of a distraction for my soldiers." He smiled again and Kira wondered at the strange glint in his eye.

He led her to the back of the room and through a doorway. She followed him down a hall, ducking out of the way as other demons came from the other direction. He finally stopped and opened a door, motioning for her to go inside. She peeked in. It was pitch black; she couldn't see a single thing in there.

For a moment she wondered if this Kiba was really as kind and carefree as he looked or if he was planning to finish what Kaiba had started before. But one look at his smile and she just couldn't help but obey. She held her head high, took a deep breath, and walked through the door.

She stood in the darkness for only a second. She cringed and covered her eyes with her arm as Kiba opened three windows on the other side of the room, allowing the bright morning sun to enter. When she could see again, she let her eyes wander over the rest of the room. It was fairly small, only about twelve feet in both directions and had the same tatami mats lining the floor as in the larger room. Other than a small shrine at one end surrounded in incense burners, the room was bare.

"Come, come," Kiba was waving her over to the center of the room. When she got there he stepped back from her, crossing his arms as he did so. She stood straight and looked toward the shrine, knowing that he was evaluating her. He circled her slowly studying every inch of her stiff body. "Relax, there you go." He raised both of her arms and had her flex so he could see what sort of musculature she had. Every now and then he broke the silence with "mm"'s and "ah, yes"'s.

After what seemed like forever to Kira, he finally stopped in front of her and smiled. "Well, I think I can work with this, no problem. First, we talk. Sit, sit." They both sat cross legged on the floor looking at each other. "So first things first, you are human yes?" she nodded, "Very well, and I assume you are about 17 or 18?" She nodded again. "Hrmm, I prefer to get my students when they are very young, best when they are 4 or 5 years old. But I can teach you, it's just more of a challenge. Luckily for me you seem fit for a human. I would venture to guess from your structure that you are a climber?" She thought back to all those times she had climbed trees to escape her step-father's friends. She nodded again. "I thought so. I'm going to go through the same basic training exercises with you that I do with the others, but not quite the same. I don't have to teach you to use various powers since you're human but there are things I do need to teach you that I wouldn't have to teach a demon. We'll start out with the same techniques; meditation, flexibility exercises and basic martial arts. Then we'll move on to higher mental facilities and higher levels of martial arts. Eventually we'll get to weapons training and other random but useful skills."

She nodded curtly, wondering just how difficult these exercises he put her through were going to be. She thought of her encounter with Kaiba and cold determination took control of her body, she would be the best student Kiba ever had, demon or human.

"Meditation first then. Meditation is actually a fairly difficult thing to learn so don't be disappointed when your mind wanders the first few times ok?" Kiba watched as she followed his instructions, "Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Now breathe deeply, with your abdomen not your chest. There you are, count your breathing slowly in your head. Start with six seconds per inhale then six more per exhale. Over time you will take this number up to eight, then ten, and steadily increase increments by two until we get to your limit. Good job, you're doing surprisingly well at this so far. After a week or so of this sort of meditation we will try moving on to more elaborate methods. For now let's keep at this for an hour or so." With that he went silent.

Kira tried to keep her focus on her breathing, and shortly discovered just how difficult this could be. She had once heard that the adult mind was distracted from its focus an average of ever 7 seconds but she had never quite understood until now. A slight breeze came in through the window and she realized she lost focus by noticing it, a moment after that she heard a shout far in the distance and couldn't help being aggravated by the distraction. After 15 minutes or so she managed tog et in the hang of it and could ignore some of the distractions.

"Alright," Kira's eyes shot open to stare at Kiba, had she fallen asleep? "That was an hour. I told you it was difficult the first few times didn't I?" Kiba chuckled. I want you to do this exercise for an hour before you go to sleep every night as well. It won't be long until you can do this easily enough, and it will help you sleep better. After years of this you can even replace sleep with meditation if you need to, it's very handy sometimes." He stood and stretched out his arms and legs. Kira got up stiffly and stretched her own muscles, she felt as though she had been sleeping in that position or hours, it was quite uncomfortable.

"Ok, now we do some flexibility exercises. I know you are stiff from sitting there and you don't want to do this but you are going to anyway." He gave her a look that said he was daring her to protest. She just puffed out her chest and mock saluted him in sarcasm. He raised and eyebrow and it occurred only then to her that he might not know what the salute was. But he got the idea. "We are going to be using a technique called yoga. It's much easier than demon methods, we use it on the children, and so I figure it's best to start that way with you. Just do what I do." Kira smiled, she knew what yoga was, she had never personally tried it but at least she knew what it was and that it was something that humans were capable of.

He put his feet together slowly raised his arms from the side and put his hands together above his head. "Make sure you breathe in and out the way I do and make sure it's the same as meditation, with your abdomen, not your chest." She nodded and followed his motions well enough. He proceeded to lean to one side and held his position. Kira found that even this simple position actually put a lot of strain on muscles she didn't realize were there. She was just starting to wonder how long she'd have to hold the position when he straightened up, then leaned to the other side. She followed suit and was soon pleased when the exercise was over. He congratulated her on success with that position and then moved right into another pose more difficult than the last. He went through five more poses before ending with her holding one foot in the air with her hand behind her, thigh level to the ground and toe pointing up and her other hand stretched out in front of her, arm level to the ground. He then proceeded to show her the proper warm up exercises when preparing for martial arts and then ended the lesson with directions and demonstrations, and a few failed and completed attempts on her part, of how to perform a proper kick and punch of various methods. By the end of it all she was sweating and felt she really REALLY needed a bath. Kiba on the other hand was not fazed by the entire thing and went to continue training with the other students after telling her to come back every morning at the same time and waving goodbye.

She slowly picked her way back across the grounds and to her room. She grabbed an apple from the kitchen on the way for a late lunch. While gathering a change of clothes and her bathing supplies a knock came at the door. When she answered she found Rin standing outside with a grin. "What are you doing Miss Kiyoshi? Sesshomaru-sama said you were training with Kiba chan and I wasn't allowed to interrupt. Oh, are you going to bathe? That's a good thing 'cause you kinda stink." The girl held her nose closed dramatically and waved the air clear in front of her. Kira rolled her eyes and continued with what she was doing. Rin followed her around the room and continued to follow on her heels as she crossed the grounds to the bath house, where she nodded to the guards and went in. It was only then that she noticed Rin carrying a basket. Rin noticed her staring at it and smiled up at the older woman.

"I'm going to bathe with you Kiyoshi san!" Kira smiled at the utter cuteness of the little girl as she danced around her singing the sentence over and over again. Rin insisted on washing the older girl's back for her and playing a few swimming games during the bath, such as dropping a small metal ball in the water and taking turns diving for it. Because of these distractions the bath ended up taking much longer than Kira had planned. She got out and found that her fingers and toes were pruney.

They went to the garden and walked hand in hand as Kira studied the various flowers and vines and Rin hummed as she skipped. Every now and then Rin would stop and name one of the plants, claiming she had recently learned it in one of her morning lessons. She would chatter about the things she liked learning about and the things she didn't and how much the old vulture demon who taught her made her shiver. "She's a grumpy old bat she is, but Sesshomaru sama says I have to study with her and Jaken sama says so too. Jaken sama is grumpy too but he's fun to play with and he can be nice when he wants to be." Kira just smiled warmly and listened quietly to the little girl.

"Rin san, Kiyoshi sama, Sesshomaru requests that you come to dinner shortly." A servant had shown up and bowed her head as she related the message.

"Ok, we'll be there!" Rin answered because Kira was still fascinated by the choice of honorific used by the servant. Sama? When had she started being known as sama? "Come on Kiyoshi san! Let's go before we're late." Rin was pulling Kira's hand, trying to drag her toward the castle.

The next few weeks played out about the same way everyday. Kira woke just at sun rise and ate breakfast in silence with Sesshomaru. She would then meet with Kiba in the dojo and proceed with her training. Every now and then Sesshomaru found the time to come and oversee her training. He never revealed what he thought of her growing abilities. He only pointed out things she needed to work on and asked Kiba questions. After training she would spend some time with Rin, listening as she talked about her studies or picking wildflowers in the fields outside of the compound. They would be sent for at suppertime and she would accompany Sesshomaru afterwards to the bathhouse and then she would assist with the least delicate of the mass amounts of paperwork the demon lord apparently had to deal with. She would meditate and do some quick exercises before bed and slept like a log every night.

"She's doing quite well actually," Kiba said to Sesshomaru on one of the occasions that he visited the dojo. "I'm actually planning to take her to the equipment room and test her out with a few different things in the next couple of days." She had already begun training with bows and found that she had a bit of a knack for them. He also had begun to have her use a staff while doing some of the martial arts. She wondered what other weapons he would be training her with.

"Very well," Sesshomaru turned his attention to Kira. "Kiyoshi, I will be needing you directly after training today in my office." And with that, he was gone.

Kira didn't have time to wonder why he would need her before Kiba called to her. "Come on Kiyoshi, time to go see what else you have an affinity for. You know you actually learn pretty fast," he kept talking and smiling as he led her down the familiar hallway. "Maybe it's because I'm used to teaching demons or something, perhaps humans learn faster, I dunno. Either way, you're not half bad. Before long I doubt you won't be able to take on half, or more, of the demons in this dojo. I wonder what sort of weapon will suit you though, I know that bows suit you quite well actually." Kira was looking into the various rooms that they passed as they walked. Sometimes she would find demons praying to various shrines, meditating, or sparring in private lessons. Some were humanoid, while others were in their true forms, she wondered vaguely what form Kiba or Sesshomaru took when they transformed. "Here we are." Kiba has stopped and opened a door to the left. She followed him through and realized that she was in the armory. She had never been here but it was fairly obvious due to the large shelves and racks full of weapons of various degrees of deadly.

"Ok," Kiba walked over to a shelf, not paying much attention to Kira as she walked to another and eyed its contents. She glanced at him as he dug through piles of old rusted weapons that obviously weren't in use anymore. "No these won't do, I thought I told Shimi to have these melted down…" He mumbled to himself as he went on digging in another pile. Kira turned back to the shelf in front of her and examined the hunks of wood and metal. From what she could tell, most of these were flails and clubs of some sort. She walked slowly around the room examining the other shelves. She passed by swords of varying sizes and shapes and hammers and chains. Her eyes widened as she looked at a hammer easily three times her size. She couldn't imagine what sort of beast was able to handle that monstrosity.

"Ok, come here." Kiba called her to the center of the room and handed her a sword. The blade was wide and flimsy but looked very sharp, the handle didn't fit right in her hand. She expected him to tell her to do something with it but it was out of her hand almost as soon as it was in. "No I think not." He handed her a different sword, this one more comfortable and familiar. It was a gladius, she recognized it from tv shows about gladiators. "Try swinging that about a little." Kira did as told and soon decided she didn't like the short blade of the weapon very much. "The weight of it seems all wrong for your body, hold on. Let me to try some other things." Kiba kept handing different swords to her and having her move with them. He didn't seem to find anything he liked a lot though because he kept taking them away and putting new ones in her hand. A few he let her swing around for a few minutes before shaking his head and mumbling as he handed her the next. He moved on to trying a couple different clubs and mallets but to Kira's great pleasure he didn't seem to like those with her NEARLY as much as the swords. She waited patiently as he replaced the weapons on the shelves and gathered new ones from elsewhere.

"I've never had so much trouble placing the perfect weapon into someone's hands before," he said as he plopped down in a cross legged position on the floor. They had exhausted every weapon he had brought to her and still hadn't found one that pleased them both. "This will take some thought. Tomorrow we will train with the katana and a couple other things and I will try to think of what it is that I've not tried yet. Right now you had best be getting along, Sesshomaru sama isn't going to be pleased if you are late." He waved goodbye to her and sat pondering with his fingers pressed to the pale skin of his forehead. She giggled at the childish pose he had taken on and bowed as she left.

When she got to Sesshomaru's office she found him swamped in paperwork. He waved her in and she sat behind the low table that had been brought in weeks prior, and placed perpendicular and to the left of the demon lord's own desk. He pointed at a pile of papers, "Those need to be sorted." Kira set to work immediately. The one advantage she saw in helping with so much paperwork was that her written Japanese was improving dramatically. She was now able to quickly scan over the papers and organize them into piles of what they were. She wondered at the increase in paperwork lately. Sesshomaru seemed to be reading a lot of letters lately and more and more other demon lords were appearing. They all stayed in the same wing as that bastard Kaiba and with her busy schedule she hadn't really noticed the influx until recently when a few of them started to take dinner with them.

Sesshomaru called for supper to be brought to them when they were still only half through when the meal was due. He didn't need the meal but Kiyoshi's stomach growled and he had to remember that humans had needs that demons did not. He was reading over letters from foreign lords informing him of when they were set to arrive and what special preparations were necessary for their arrival. This meeting of demon lords had only taken place once before in his lifetime and he was only a pup then. A thousand years ago the various demons of the world thought it was a good idea to have a meeting every two hundred years and for it to serve as a way for them to keep peace between them. They would discuss all of their needs and politics, and hopefully come to certain agreements to keep war from happening. This time it was Sesshomaru's turn to host and all it was doing for him was giving him a headache and making him increasingly irritable. It probably wouldn't have been so horrible if it weren't for certain lords needing special arrangements, some needed cooled or heated rooms depending on their usual climates and nature, and still some others required water or special rooms. A few of the surrounding lords had come early with promises of assisting the demon lord. The four lords in Japan were all expected to help with funding this gathering and so they were all present, Sesshomaru being the most powerful of the local lords was responsible for housing the occasion. If he had to deal with Lord Kaiba much longer he was going to snap. As a law, no demon could attack anyone during these meetings or all the others would immediately kill the offending demon, so he wasn't too worried about that but fights were always probable when you got this many demons together. He scanned the next letter and that was it, his temper snapped.

Kira jumped and looked up to see papers flying from Sesshomaru's desk. He was growling and his eyes were turning that blood red they had when he had dealt with Kaiba. What on earth caused this? She jumped up and before she knew it she was wrapping her arms around Sesshomaru like he was a frightened child. She cooed to him and ran her hand through his hair trying to calm him down. Some part of her recognized that this was possibly the stupidest thing she had ever done and that she would die for it, but she knew that if she ran he would have killed her without thinking. If you run from a dog it will chase you. She caught herself in that thought, why am I equalizing him with a dog? She shrugged off the thought and continued to stroke Sesshomaru's hair. The shaking was subduing and he was breathing easier. When she finally felt it was safe she pulled away and put her face directly in front of his, holding the sides of his face between her hands. She stared him directly in the eye for a moment, registering in the back of her mind the look of complete shock that was not hidden in his features. When she felt he was calm enough she released him and walked around his desk to retrieve the papers he had flung about the room. She glanced down at the one that seemed to have offended him so badly. One line caught her eye above all the rest.

"What of your younger brother, Lord Sesshomaru? He will be present will he not?"

Author's note: So how did you like it? I plan to put Sesshomaru's reaction in the next chapter, I didn't this time because it just seemed so natural to leave it off at the line from the letter when I got to it. I may even take suggestions to how he should react. (hint hint)Anyway, love you guys, please review whether you have before or not, I love multiple reviews.