A/N: I luuuurve my reviewers! -hugs everyone-
Notes:
Kay: Thank you sooooo much for all those characters. I lurve you and Ryu! -hugs- Just kidding I'm odd but I'm not that odd. In a platonic way. And plus note to everyone: all characters are excepted, even when the story ENDS. Because there is going to be a sequel fic. So as many characters as I can get I appreciate.
Let us see...team stats have pretty much stayed unchanged, with a couple of new members for a new team--
Team Kaleo:
1. Chi Koen Koe
2. Kurai Momoko
3. Kage Kancho
4. Hotaru Ikuhara
5. (up for grabs...)
And yeah that's pretty much it right now.
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The crowd murmured and whispered rumors as they watched Itsuki assist Kay into the ring. The Yaminate and Kay both walked toward the middle of the ring, then faced each other for the fight that would be one not to miss.
"Begin!" Koto shouted the OK.
"I'm not going easy on you, Kay," Itsuki answered before she had a chance to say anything. She spit at him, her saliva landing on his shoe. He chuckled, his six independent hands grabbing her from behind.
"Let go of me!" she yelped, kicking at the air to no avail. Itsuki glided up to her, his face calm and his eyes laughing.
"Well well," he mused, tilting her chin up to look him in the eye. "Look how far the only daughter of the first spirit detective has fallen."
"S-Shut up!" she snarled, a stutter entering her voice. So Itsuki knew who her parents were. The Yaminate giggled like a small child, drunken with power over her.
"You're angry," he stated, "you want to kill me. Oh, Kay don't glare-- it's not becoming of you."
Kay wet her lips, reaching back to see if she could possibly pull out Aoi, Akuma, or Yuki-- three of the six different personalities living in her head.
'It's not becoming of you,' Akuma and Yuki mimicked, laughing hysterically, but refusing to come out. Kay was on her own for this one.
Laizi looked at Kay sympathetically. 'I don't believe I'd be much help in a fight like this,' she said. Laizi was the most gentle of her personalities and couldn't win a fight if she died trying.
Aoi, her worst personality, said nothing.
Kay made sure they all knew she was pissed off at them before reconnecting with reality and rejoining Itsuki, who mocked her relentlessly.
"You baka," Itsuki whispered, "How could you let your guard down? Hm? How could you let me in so easily, when I know that the different demon lines in you have taught you differently?" he brushed his fingers through her hair, an action that made Kay's skin crawl. He continued to play with her long, beautiful blue hair as his six arms squeezed oxygen from her lungs.
She choked, feeling the blood starting to come rushing up her throat. She spit out as much blood as she could in a spray of red in Itsuki's face.
The surprised Yaminate fell back, his arms loosening their hold on Kay for only a split second. But that was all the time she needed for her to slam her heel into Itsuki's abdomen, striking the same place where Remei had struck her friend Ryu. He clutched at his stomach-- but was still able to stand without much difficulty.
Kay was beginning to be frustrated. Yaminate's didn't lose to anyone-- she'd never met a single one that had. Ever. In a hundred years she had not met anyone who had fought with a Yaminate and came back in one piece.
I'll be the first, then, she thought, setting her mind. Nothing would make her lose this fight.
As soon as Itsuki was back on his feet she launched an attack; sending bright blue spirit energy flying toward him in a jump kick from her heel. The Yaminate was hit again, but didn't stay down. Seconds after being down, he would stand back up.
Kay repeated this tactic three times, sending rapid fire rolling dangerously at Itsuki. This time he blocked it with his free arms, completely absorbing the energy.
"The fight's heating up!" Koto yelled, the glow of anguish between fighters comforting her. "Things are getting pretty intense here!"
"She's being foolish," the Masked Fighter said suddenly. "She's wasting her energy."
"What do you mean?" asked Alianore, looking over to her captain. Mar-lo answered with his own questioning look at the anonymous fighter.
"She's concentrating on how to hit him, when she should be concentrating on breaking the bond between them. As long as she holds onto her ties with Itsuki, she will never be able to defeat him." he answered them.
Alianore looked at the screen to get a closer look as Kay took a blow to the mouth. "So she's basically losing."
The Masked Fighter nodded grimly. "I'm afraid so."
"Is there any chance of Kay-chan winning?" asked Botan worriedly.
"Of course there is," said Ryu from the corner, nursing her wounds. "But it's slight."
"She might lose," said Mar-lo, his ever happy face turning to a frown. "Or even worse-- she might die."
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The King watched from up in his own private room the fight between Itsuki and Kay. He looked down from a box, the clear screen blocking out the nuisance noises of the crowd. An earpiece sat on his ear as Koto relayed the fight to him, some of Kay and Itsuki's conversation floating in and out.
The King, having dealt with Itsuki before, knew him to be a very difficult and complex man. When Sensui had died, Itsuki had taken him away; so what business did he have in returning? Did he have unfinished matters to take care of?
Highly unlikely, the King thought. Nothing was ever that simple. If Itsuki had returned, then there was a good reason behind it.
This Kay put up a tough fight. She was strong, he'd give her that: but her thick head was preventing her from thinking the situation through. If she would focus instead of going on blind anger, she could have won with ease.
"Doesn't she remind you of someone?" asked Hiei from the back of the box.
For a long while the King sat and said nothing. Then he replied, "I don't make a habit of reliving the past. What's done is done, what's past is past."
Hiei snorted and walked up to stand beside the chair where the King had set his royal butt.
"How long have you been standing there?" the King asked him after another awkward silence. Hiei looked down at the King in scorn; if he hadn't sensed his presence, then he didn't deserve to know. Some King he had turned out to be.
"Do you know who he is?" Hiei shifted the subject, nodding toward the Masked Fighter.
The King's eyes shifted to him. "No, I do not. At first I believed it might be Genkai again; but that was unlikely and impossible. No, no, I do not."
Hiei smirked. "Then I'm one step ahead of you, Detective,"
The King nodded. "You can have your moment."
Hiei's face soured, and he left the box in the blink of an eye. The King turned back to the fight, Kay even more injured than before. Her long sleeve was missing one sleeve, and her face had taken quite a beating. Itsuki was taunting her, playing with her.
The King steeled his gaze as he watched Kay get kicked while she was down: Itsuki was going to win at this rate.
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Kay winced as Itsuki gave her another bone-jarring kick to the ribs. She stumbled, not yet ready to go down.
"Are you stupid?" Itsuki asked in disbelief. "Why don't you strike back?"
"She's biding her time," the Masked Fighter muttered to his curious teammates. "So she does know what she's doing."
Itsuki struck her cheekbone out of frustration. It wasn't like him to lose his calm.
"My mother took you in," Kay said, struggling to keep her vision from going black. Red dots danced brilliantly before her eyes. "She fed you. She housed you. To think that this is the creature my mother took pity on."
Itsuki was getting angry, his cool shield dropping fast.
"She was like your mother--" Kat finished, gritting her teeth, "--because she was your mother!" with this shocking statement revealed, she shoved Itsuki out of the ring, dazed.
"One!" Koto began. "Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven!"
Itsuki ran back for the ring. "Eight! Nine!"
He jumped up-- but never made it before ten.
Kay fired another spirit energy blast, knocking him back out of the ring for the remaining last number.
"Ten! Kay is the winner!" Koto held up the fatigued Kay's hand.
"Yay for me," she muttered, limping back to her teammates.
"You did it!" Mar-lo and Alianore congratulated her as she got back. She collapsed next to Ryu, and looked over at her friend.
"Hi," said Kay. Ryu snorted.
"Excellent work, Kay-san," approved the Masked Fighter. Kay smiled, too tired to say anything.
Ryu grumbled, but handed Kay a Band-Aid. "Here. That's all you get."
Kay looked down at the gaping wounds on her ribs, and the huge gashes on her face. She took the Band-Aid and wrapper it around her index finger. It was a start.
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A/N: Ha! That was a fun, yet tiresome chapter to write. I didn't really know how to get Kay to win! Plus I had to go and look up the fact that Itsuki was a Yaminate. I kept thinking it was Yanagawa for some reason. -shrug-
Well...I have a question to ask of all the people who sent me characters and to any I may get in the future: would anyone object to me adding a little fling of romance between the OC's? I know it's a lot to ask-- and it wouldn't be a lot, just enough to put some comedy in here. Nothing serious.
I think that's it.
-S-chan